Russ,

There's logic and reason in the Bible. That's not what I'm saying. I'll state it differently (hopefully more clear): you really can't use the Bible as the end-all and be-all authority in a discussion based in reason and logic. That does not mean the Bible does not contain logic and reason. See the difference?

To say that we should or should not do something based upon what some book or other proposed authority says is a logical fallacy, specifically the "appeal to authority" fallacy. There's no way to prove its claims; it's not verifiable. Once you appeal to authority, we have entered the realm of "beliefs" or opinions, which are of limited use in logic. I'm not saying beliefs are "bad" -- just inappropriate in this context.

Otherwise, we could go back and forth deferring to our authorities all night (if I had any), which is not very productive (and not very logical). <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I think the fact that people use the Bible to prove that God both wants us to eat meat and not eat meat is a pretty clear example of the futility of using the Bible as an authority -- it's totally up to human interpretation and cannot be verified logically. (please note that's not a slander, just a fact). That also does not mean what is written in the bible is not "true", just that it cannot be verified.

If it (or anything else for that matter) cannot be verified, then we have discarded reason and logic as the foundation of our discussion, which I simply don't have any interest in.