Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify any moral claim

Posted by jibbed123 on Thursday October 23, 2025 @08:14AM
from the show-hn dept.

I heard the host on some radio phone in say "but religion can be used to justify anything", so I made this little site to test that out. You can enter any serious (or not serious) claim and see how cherry picking from the Bible can support or oppose your claim

( 9 comments | on HN )

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by Panzerschrek on Thursday October 23, 2025 @09:18AM (#45681469)

Tried to justify that tabs are better than spaces but found no result.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by jibbed123 on Thursday October 23, 2025 @10:08AM (#45681984)

Because that's a given

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by Panzerschrek on Thursday October 23, 2025 @09:21AM (#45681503)

How does it work? Do you use some sort of LLM-powered search?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by jibbed123 on Thursday October 23, 2025 @09:26AM (#45681562)

Correct. This is gpt4o-mini

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by harrisreynolds on Thursday October 23, 2025 @09:53AM (#45681845)

I entered the topic of "going to war" and it did not return anything, but throughout history people have used the Bible as justification for going to war. And yet killing people is generally bad. Lots of nuances here but it seems like the system should have come up with something.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by harrisreynolds on Thursday October 23, 2025 @09:56AM (#45681864)

I tried again and got this:

https://biblebothways.com/claim/war-can-be-considered-accept...

So I guess the first submission was some kind of glitch.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by jibbed123 on Thursday October 23, 2025 @10:08AM (#45681989)

Yes I assume glitch! It should absolutely weigh in on war

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by beardyw on Thursday October 23, 2025 @11:47AM (#45683233)

I tried the self referential "the bible is the word of god" and got the positive: 2 Timothy "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"

Ironically when the bible was compiled 300 years later a lot of scripture was considered to be heretical and was omitted. Further irony is that Timothy 2 in particular only just made the cut!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Bible Both Ways – See how the Bible can justify ... by r-johnv on Saturday October 25, 2025 @12:29PM (#45705098)

Love the idea

I found though that yielding just one response per side seemed pretty weak, especially when it's not always picking the best arguments for each side. (And not returning enough of the passage to fully show the argument)

It doesn't sound thorough but rather just like it's picking the first vaguely similar set of lines that it could find.

I wonder if subtle tweaks to your prompts could make it significantly more convincing?

[ Parent | on HN ]