Infallibility

I believe that the overall message given by The Bible is inerrant but the actual scriptures in my KJV, well I don't think they are. I would be willing to accept your reading of John 5:31 and John 8:14, although with it I can see Mr Occam sporting a rather splendid beard :-) were there not other problems. In the town where the clean shaven Mr Occam lives, through liberal use of his razor, I would say that on balance a simpler explanation would be that the word "not" had somehow been added to John 5:31 through an error, if this were my only cause for concern I would not be concerned, but there are other passages that worry me.

If there is an explanation for some of them then I would like to know, as this would help me along my path to believing that The Bible is without errors. (Or is it only the first Greek language canon (or whatever language it was) that is infallible?)

For example:

2 Samuel 24:1

Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.

and

1 Chronicles 21:1

Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

Now are these two different censi (! is that a word?) that The Bible is referring to here? I'm sure that there is some explanation for this but when added to the John saga from the last post and others that are bugging me, well, I hear the scraping noise of a razor. Thinking about it, one possible explanation is that nothing happens without God's incitation. Therefore, when Satan incited David, it was really God doing it. But then you get into all sorts of problems, because then any bad thing that happens in the world, currently where we would say that Satan caused it, we now have to say, "well, really God caused it". To actively cause something is very different from merely allowing that something.

To deliberately misquote Einstein, "If the facts don't fit the theology, change the facts" (he used "theory" not "theology") - are theologians guilty of this at all? If the theology says "Bible = inerrant" then one can be sure that if anything suggests that The Bible is otherwise must be wrong. I would like to make it clear that my personal belief is that the message is inerrant but we've messed up the details.

After that ghastly Einstein quote, he did redeem himself with "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong". Theologians cannot be so honest, which I think is a pity.

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Ah the double standards! So is the lovely Mrs. B guilty of not treating others (you) as she would wish to be treated? Or, is she treating her past boyfriend in a way that she would like to be treated by him? (A hug?)

Every cloud has a silver lining, at least this gives you the opportunity to talk about how this made you feel, with her, if you wish to do so that is. True love can sometimes be rather possessive and jealous, I think that this reaction is entirely within our human nature. This particular reaction is something that the buddhist strives to avoid, by avoiding making an attachment (here they would probably say "avoid making an attachment to the idea that your wife cannot hug past boyfriends") I'm not sure what the best thing to do is - but if you treat her in the same way that you would like to be treated then you cannot go wrong (so that means don't go getting your own back! As if you would :-)

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The problem with your analysis of "Treat others as you wish to be treated" is that you aren't analysing it directly. You are analysing:

"Treat others in a way that you could accept being treated by them"

This is very different. "Could accept" is different from "wish". Oddly, these two are different in a similar fashion to God allowing something to happen and God causing something to happen (see above).

If you actually actively wish someone to be rude to you (regardless of any response back to them from yourself) then you fall into my definition of a masochist.

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Yes, Fathers Day Eve is from The Simpsons !