Yes, you are right that a lot of Christians do not hold that the Bible is inerrant, or that is infallible. I am one of them. The Bible, as I stated earlier here, is a critical holy book in Christianity. That is so despite its errors. Is the Bible God's special revelation? No, it is a human book (collection of books). After all, if God had wanted believers to consider the Bible as inerrant or as infallible, God would have ensured the reliability of the biblical text. Its manifold errors and inconsistencies suggest otherwise.
If God has created all of creation, then God also created reason. God also created faith, btw. Why then disparage reason? It is a special gift. As the noted atheist Bertrand Russell pointed out, "Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed." As for the "specific instructions" given by "the experts in the Bible," who made them experts, and what if some experts--like me--don't agree? That approach sounds rather authoritative to me.
Okay, I should have said more, but I didn't think anyone on this thread really knew about Christians! Yes, to clarify, most layman Christians that I know believe in inerrancy, so I really misstated that. However, seminary-educated individuals is a completely different matter. As far as I know, you can't go to seminary w/o getting teaching on inerrancy, infallibility and the difference. Infallibility is generally the idea that the Bible has a few errors in it, but none of them are pertinent to issues of faith and practice. In other words, you may find that the number of men in an army in the chronicles and in kings don't match, but it really doesn't matter because God saw to it that the Bible was accurate in areas where it needed to be accurate. A half-way position on this is that the original text was inerrant but our translations and a few minor modifications by scribes have made it not completely inerrant. So leadership of Christianity in American is certainly not all fundamental and inerrant even among some evangelicals. Maybe I should have gone into more detail, but I didn't think it was worth it on a board that, from what I can tell, is composed entirely of anti-Christians and fundamental Christians. Btw, it's highly arguable that Bob Jones and Oral Roberts are the most prominent Christian institutions of learning in the US! Fuller actually was one of the early leaders in opening up the inerrancy debate. Below is a link and a quote if you're interested. http://www.americanpresbyterianchurch.org/fuller_seminary.htm The next defection of neutralism at Fuller concerned the biblical doctrine of inerrancy. Dr. Ockenga, in his "re" statement, had said that there needed to be "the restatement of Christian theology in accordance with the need of the time..." I doubt if he ever dreamed that the first doctrine to be restated would be the most essential of all, the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. The original statement of faith of Fuller Theological Seminary which was worked out by the faculty and adopted by the faculty and the Board of Trustees, read as follows: The books which form the canon of the Old and New Testaments as originally given are plenarily inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part. A fundamentalist could subscribe to that. The words "free from all error in the whole and in the part," state the truth of inerrancy This was 1949. In 1972, alter 23 years of internal combat, the words "...free from all error in the whole and in the part" were removed from the doctrinal statement. Between these years there were faculty members who signed the statement tongue-in-cheek and faculty members who openly warred against inerrancy. Daniel Fuller, son of the founder, led the battle against inerrancy. Because of the scholar-worship of new evangelicalism, he had been trained in Princeton Seminary and later in Switzerland under Karl Barth. Barth's neo-orthodox view of scripture triumphed over the historic view. Again, new evangelicalism was demonstrated to be much closer to apostasy than to fundamentalism. A Clause of Calamity What does it mean in practical results when a theological seminary eliminates a clause in its doctrinal statement? Let me quote from page 246 of Marsden's Reforming Fundamentalism, as he summarizes the results of a Fuller alumni survey: Three fourths of the students coming to Fuller in its earliest days, graduating classes of 1950 to 1952, came with a solid belief in inerrancy. At the time they left Fuller about 60 percent of them still remained firm in this view, while almost all of the rest held something like a limited inerrancy view. By the 1960s, on the other hand, limited inerrancy was the overwhelmingly dominant, though not undisputed, view. Less than half the students entering Fuller held to strict inerrancy and only about one-fourth left with the view intact. Later on page 268 he says: Predictably, commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture continued to drop, so that by 1982 only about 15 percent of students held that view. Neutralism produced very real and very tragic results. Dr. Harold Lindsell, who resigned from the Fuller faculty speaks prophetically in his book, Battle for the Bible on pages 120, 121: Down the road, whether it takes five or fifty years, any institution that departs from belief in an inerrant Scripture will likewise depart from other fundamentals of the faith and at last cease to be evangelical in the historic meaning of that term.
It depends on the error(s). There is nowhere in Scripture where any of the authors claim inerrancy. So you are putting a requirement on the Scripture that even the scriptures do not make.
So is "IAm" according to this definition. He believes in Jesus. (In fact, he believes he is Jesus.) He believes in God. He probably believes more in the Bible than you do. Anybody can call themselves anything and redefinite words according to whim. But what good is it? If you're a New Age, gnostic Christian like him, why not just admit it? And if you're a skeptic, why not just admit it? And if you're a deist or pantheist, why not just admit it? Why identify with Jesus Christ? In what way are you His follower?
I am not disparaging relativistic reason. It has its place, but its place is not in the evaluation of personal beliefs of others. My guess is that you are another failed theist with a chip on his shoulder, but even so, that's your life to lead...not for me to say you are wrong in those beliefs for your own life. As for the "specific instructions" given by "the experts in the Bible," who made them experts, and what if some experts--like me--don't agree? Bertrand Russell another atheist who thought the practice of faith was beneath his reason. Most atheists are either followers of, or practitioners of placing their own mind as authoritative over the personal faith of others. Russell was another failed theist, and he had a following. So? Russell was entitled to his personal beliefs, why not? He had a flock, so? ...and what if some experts--like me--don't agree? So you are a self proclaimed expert... As long as you don't use a political process to force others to bend to your beliefs, I don't care. You can claim to be the the Pope of the Church of Reason, who cares? Good luck with your flock... However, I have found that those who are pushing their own personal beliefs onto others in this area, who have some need to make the personal beliefs of other wrong, suffer from a hidden and blinding and deep seated insecurity and doubt in their own personal beliefs.
... Noah's Ark was supposedly around 500 feet long. There have been over 500 species of dinosaurs alone that have been located. Plus all of the other animals, how did they all get into the ark? (Answer--there WAS no ark) Did he and others literally live HUNDREDS of years? Methuselah supposedly lived 969. Did he and other humans live to be 900 years? (Answer--Of course not.) According to Genesis 1, plants were created before the sun. Is this scientifically possible, since plants through photosynthesis derive life from the sun? (Answer--No. Bible's wrong again). Are bats birds? (Answer--Of course not. They're mammals. But Leviticus says they're birds. Gee, I wonder who's right there?) The Bible speaks literally of dragons, unicorns, and flying serpents. They must exist, right? (Answer--Of course not, despite what creationist/fed prisoner Kent Hovind says). I have about a hundred more errors on the top of my head (remember, I studied the Bible as a student at an evangelical university), but football is on. The Bible is not inerrant. It is a perfectly human book, filled with the errors that often appeared in a pre-scientific age. If you want to walk around ignorant, fine by me. You like to do a lot of chest-thumping, don't you? I understand what you're saying, but these are very poor examples. With a little research you can come up with a much stronger case. I have sync on ignore, but couldn't help notice some of his words in your post. he is continuing to cut and paste "examples" as if he thought of them himself. Most of the above examples are standard fare in websites about "how to bash the bible for people who haven't a clue how to do it on their own". He didn't think up most of this stuff himself. The man continues to lie... Funny, a man who claims to have gone to an evangelical university mostly spent his time looking for errors? That is a pretty desparate way to spend your life. That is like a mathematician who goes to Princeton, but doesn't believe in calculus, plane geometry, or trigonometry. from what I saw of him, it is mostly windbag stuff...
when the person misrepresents himself, doesn't grasp what others are saying, lies through his teeth, hears only what he has to say, has little clue about the issue, and it becomes a hideous waste of time responding to him, then yes, I guess so...