resources-references, christianity, reliability, bibleI heard an interesting argument for Christian beliefs lately. It goes something like this:
The Bible was written by many people and is often updated over the years. Wikipedia uses a similar method, where many people collaborate which yields greater accuracy over time due to the improvements made. Therefore, the Bible, like Wikipedia, is an accurate source of evidence, although not perfect.
My response to this is based upon the fact that the Bible lacks the citations that Wikipedia has, but what is the best response.
The bible is not at all like Wikipedia:
Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited compilation of sourced knowledge. Their fundamental principles include:
Only well accepted knowledge that is not under dispute may enter into Wikipedia. At ‘worst’, so to speak, there will be mention of a dispute from a meta perspective.
Contrast the bible:
Further, the bible has been collaboratively edited by a select group. Wikipedia is edited by all and edits may stay based on their merit.
It’s updated over time? Really? Get back to us when the two differing stories of genesis are resolved and involve a few billion years of back story and quantum mechanics. Until then, the notion that it is updated over time is nothing but a fig leaf to cover the shame of its origins.
Meanwhile, a significant portion of the christian community would argue as is pointed out above that the bible is the unchanging, inerrant word of god. They believe that not one jot or tittle of it has been altered in any way from gods dictation to the levites. Of course they dont get into the whole nicene creed and the banned books, but whatever.
Wikipedia cites its sources. A flaming shrubbery would not be accepted as a source of irrefutable fact.
I thought that Christian belief was that Bible is a word of God. Wikipedia is clearly not.
How is this argument supporting Christian beliefs? It says only that “Bible is accurate and useful because more than one person worked on it over a long period of time”.
But what if those people were total lunatics? What if they joined forces not to make a useful book, but to enslave the mankind? Clearly, just having a team does not automatically yield good results.
Another approach perhaps is to ACCEPT the strange claim that the Bible is like Wikipedia, and then point out that Wikipedia is NOT considered a reliable source… as described at Wikipedia:
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problems_of_Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a collaboration effort, and is somewhat similar to the self-correction mechanism that the scientific method employs. It gets more informative and precise as time passes and new knowledge is added.
The Bible, according to a large majority of devout believers, is the word of God, 100% true, and unable to change, nor there is any reason to change it because God is never wrong. In Islam, that’s for sure the case. Less so in Christianity and Judaism, but nevertheless it is still the case.
The Bible was edited by many people? Scholars would say so, not the followers. And it wasn’t changed for way over a thousand years.
“Wikipedia, is an accurate source of evidence”…. lol, no it’s not.
I would certainly find a reputable source other than Wikipedia (to back it up) before using any information from that source. So the argument itself is unsustainable.
No one in my department is willing to rely on Wikipedia for research purposes.. maybe casual fact checking but that’s it.
In Wiki we move closer to the truth as we move through time. With the Bible we move further from the truth as we move through time.
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