Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Not-a-Doctor Derrick Thomas Theissen, hadn’t written about me in several weeks, so I thought, Has Thiessen seen the light? Has he moved on to other blogs besides this one and Meerkat Musings? Has he figured out how to write his own content instead of dishonestly ripping off mine? Sadly, my thoughts were too good to be true. On Saturday, Thiessen wrote a missive titled The Bible IS What It Claims to Be; a response to my post, Dear Evangelical, Just Because You Quote the Bible Doesn’t Make Your Comment True. Of course, Thiessen does not mention who wrote the post he is responding to or where it is located.
Here’s an excerpt from Thiessen’s post:
The Bible is what it claims to be. If it wasn’t, the world would be lost and no one would have any hope. Anarchy would be the rule of law and the survival of the fittest would influence just about every action possible. There would be no morals, no laws and everyone would do what is right in their own eyes.
When people dismiss the Bible, they do this even though the Bible is what it claims to be, They consider themselves greater than God and think they can do things better than him. So far, they have all failed.
The crime rate is a prime example of their failure. Their best solution, so far, has been to take action that lets a few liberals, progressives, and democrats gain control over everyone else. They dictate to the people what words can be said, what actions can be done, and they need to be stopped before it is too late.
Unbelievers have nothing to offer anyone, yet they feel superior to everyone through their condemnation of the Bible and their claims that it is not what it claims to be.
Thiessen quotes what I said about what Evangelicals generally believe about the Bible:
- The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God
- The Bible is THE book above all other books
- Every word in the Bible is true
- The Bible is NEVER wrong
- Doubting the Bible’s truthfulness is sin
- The words attributed to Jesus in the gospels were actually spoken by him
- The Bible presents a blueprint, manual, guideline for living
Thiessen replied:
Some atheists call these characteristics presuppositions but that is an erroneous labeling. Christians believe these things about the Bible because they are true. The Bible is never wrong and it is the only blueprint, manual etc., for living and so on.
Later in his post, Thiessen quotes me again: Most Evangelicals fail to question or challenge the presuppositions their proof-texts are based upon. To this, he replied:
This is a common complaint made by unbelievers. They think that Christians only do proof-texting when quoting the Bible. They do not understand that some verses are stand-alone passages that deal with a given situation perfectly.
Then they will call the Christian’s beliefs pre-suppositions ignoring the fact that the Christian has already questioned and studied the different passages of the Bible and know that they are true. Just because the unbeliever does not accept the truthfulness of the Bible does NOT make it untrue.
Evidently, Thiessen doesn’t know the definition of the word “presupposition.” Dictionary.com defines the word this way: “something that is assumed in advance or taken for granted.”
All of us have presuppositions. We couldn’t function in life without them, However, when Evangelicals want to challenge my atheism or convince me of the truthfulness of Christianity, then I am going to demand they, at the very least, acknowledge the presuppositions in their worldview.
For the sake of this discussion, presuppositions are things that are believed by default; without evidence (or sufficient evidence). The goal for all of us should be to believe as many true things as possible. We should strive to have as few presuppositions as possible.
Most Evangelicals have a borrowed faith; one given to them by their parents, family, and tribe. As they get older, Evangelicals will learn more and more about their “chosen” system of belief, but rarely will they challenge the presuppositions that are essential to their faith. And when they do? Typically, they stop being Evangelicals or they find ways to suppress the cognitive dissonance that comes when their core beliefs are challenged. In other words, they faith-it, facts be damned.
Thiessen attacks Dr. Bart Ehrman in his post, suggesting that Ehrman is a liar and fraud. Of course, Thiessen makes no attempt to actually respond to Ehrman. No need, right? In Thiessen’s mind, he only needs to regurgitate his presuppositions. End of discussion.
What are those presuppositions?
- The Evangelical God exists, and he is as the Protestant Christian Bible describes him
- The Evangelical God is a triune being who created the universe in six twenty-four-hour days, 6,025 years ago
- The Protestant Christian Bible was written by God and every word is inerrant and infallible
- When the Bible speaks to matters of history and science it is absolutely true
Presuppositions, by default, are claims without evidence. Either you believe them or you don’t. Thiessen believes these presuppositions, I don’t. All I see are unsupported claims. The only evidence Thiessen can provide for his presuppositions is the only evidence any Evangelical can give: the Bible says. What Thiessen and his fellow Evangelicals refuse to understand is that quoting a proof text is a claim, not evidence. If you want me to believe in the existence of the Evangelical God, you are going to have to provide actual evidence for your claim. Ditto for God creating everything and the Bible being some sort of inerrant, infallible book written by him.
If Thiessen wants me to accept his claims, I expect him to do more than quote the Not-So-Good book. The Bible is a fallible, errant collection of ancient religious books written mainly by unknown authors. While there are certainly truth claims in the Bible, the bulk of its words requires faith to believe. Faith is what people turn to when they lack facts and evidence. There was a time when faith was enough for me, but no longer. If Thiessen wants me to believe his claims, he is going to have to come up with more than Bible verses.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Tee has not the slightest idea as to academic rigour, making it yet more obvious as to his mendacity in use of the title ‘Dr’. One could challenge him to point out any way in which, in reality, the bible has made the least positive difference to the world, as opposed to the untold harm and suffering it las wreaked. No? Thought not.
In any event, however, simply claiming that something is true doesn’t make it so. There are countless thousands, probably millions, of books that make all sorts of claims about the world. Things like diet, or best exercises, or how to improve wellbeing, or whether the moon landings were faked. Not one of these books is accepted at face value (other than by cranks), because that’s not how it works. One may read reviews of claims by other users or by scientific journals, or personal experiment, or whatever, but not one such book can be regarded as making valid claims until those claims have been tested. Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species contains more common sense and science in one paragraph than the bible contains in its entirety, and of course it sets its stall carefully with observations and hypotheses, but until the science of evolution was properly studied and his hypotheses evaluated (then expanded and modified), there was no way of knowing that his claims were true (though it is such a well documented book that it was very compelling from the point at which it was published). The bible is a jumble of ancient texts, based on superstition and folklore, some of which is now turned into very poetic prose, but it tells us nothing that assists in our understanding of the world.
so, dear derrick simply blithers what any cultist would claim e.g. “my magic book is true” and also claims his nonsense can be taken out of context, directly contradicting the usual christian whine “but think of the context”.
what nitwits.
Hey Doc T, The Bible can only be what it claims to be once it is renamed “The Goatherder’s Guide to the Galaxy” (Don’t Panic!). (This gets me thinking maybe the first humans were Douglas Adams and Douglas Eves?)
Wowee, those are a lot of statements without any evidence to back up the claims. The older I become and the more people I meet, the more I find that earning a PhD does not mean that someone necessarily learned the rigors of the scientific process. Nor does it mean that person has great critical thinking skills. I know some people with PhDs who are totally useless. I presume that they had a mentor who guided them in the steps that needed to be completed for degree conferred, but damn….. if Mr Tee has a PhD, I would place him in that category.
Christians who believe in so many claims without any evidence would be a lot .ore truthful if they admitted that they have no evidence and just really want to believe because “faith”. There’s enough research available on a variety of relevant topics here, including Bible scholarship, studies on correlations of religiosity and lawful and/or altruistic and/or “moral” behavior, archaeology, history, anthropology, etc., that one could really explore in a methodological way. But no, it’s easier for some people to go with “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” instead of putting in the work.
@OBSTACLECHICK a PhD in theology (which is what I assume the fully communed with the almighty Dr. T is touting when he calls himself doc) is a bit like being a coach on a fantasy football league. He’s only a legend in his own mind (and maybe a few of His followers).
If he has a PhD, it is likely from an unaccredited Bible college or correspondence school. He provides no evidence for his doctorate, and stubbornly refuses to say where he got the degree or what the subject of his thesis was. He told me “God knows, and that’s all that matters.” It is obvious, at least to me, that he is hiding something or worried about ridicule or negative response if he says where he “earned” his degree.
Lots of Christian diploma mills offer doctorates without doing a meaningful thesis. “Dr.” Ken Ham has one such degree. At one “college,” a doctorate was $1,000 and a 10,000 word “thesis.” 10,000 words? I write more than that in 7-10 days.
Bruce, I am familiar with the honorary doctorate situation among fundamentalist Christians – the founder of the fundamentalist Christian school I attended was given an honorary doctorate from his alma mater Bob Jones University. We students were required to call him Dr. B after that, and I remember having conversations with fellow students regarding whether Dr B deserved to be called Doctor. The discussion became a barometer among students regarding their piety – the more pious students agreed that God conferred the honor on Dr B, while the rest of us argued that he didn’t actually complete the coursework necessary to achieve the title (you can guess which side of the argument I supported).
Troy, I like your analogy of being a coach of a fantasy sports league!
Dr T never actually engages with intelligent thought, merely regurgitating the same argle-bargle. He’s pretty much full of sounds and fury, signifying nothing.
BJW- Derek, the Doctor of Theology
Creeps in his petty pace from claim to claim
Of the final authority of his Bible
All of his lies have guided fools
The way to fuzzy thought. Out, out, fake PhD!
(Sorrry, Bill!)
Why the Bible, ahead of any other holy text? I’m pretty sure the Torah and Quran make similar claims about their inerrancy, so what makes the Bible correct and those not?
At the very least, many ancient religious texts claim to be authoritative (or followers of a particular sect believe they are). As you rightly point out, inerrancy is a claim; a presupposition believed by faith.
Believing the Bible is inerrant requires people to ignore, dismiss, or explain away mountains of evidence that suggests otherwise. That’s why I encourage inerrantists read one or more of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books. His books are a mortal wound to inerrancy. That’s why when Thiessen says he has read Ehrman’s books, I don’t believe him. He may have read reviews or responses to Ehrman’s books from likeminded Evangelical writers, but not the books themselves.
Anyone who says a translation is inerrant is either ignorant or dishonest. And as far as “inerrant in the originals” is concerned, the originals do not exist, so that is a faith claim, and not one based on evidence and facts.
Regardless of the “facts,” and what Evangelical pastors actually believe privately, the people in the pews believe the Bible is inerrant; the very words of God. End of discussion. 😢😢