The Great Faith Debate

[NBVegita]

I think you're confusing theory and belief again. You can make a theory from the smallest amount of evidence. The next step is testing the theory. The very fact that you're testing the theory means that you don't believe it until you get the results of the test.

 

People do theorize about god based on evidence of "miracles", events occuring with impossibly scientific bounds.

 

And sever, a belief in a theory with little evidence is still a belief.

 

And inversly I would say that the fact that your testing your theory means that you believe it to be true.

 

If ben franklin didn't believe it was possible "capture" electricity, then he wouldn't have tried it.

 

You don't throw thousands to millions into a project you don't think is true.

 

On a simplistic level, if you theorize that you can jump 8 feet. You've never jumped 8 feet, but you have jumped 6.5 feet. So being you've been working out, you theorize that with stronger legs you can jump a longer distance. So, now that you've theorized that you can jump 8 feet, you come to a cliff exactly 8 feet wide. You will not attempt to jump the cliff unless you BELIEVE that you can jump 8 feet.

 

Now in some instances it is possible to understand a theory and not believe it to be true. Yet as a whole, if you have a theory, you have a greater measure of belief in the fact that it is true, than that it is false. Because if you truly believed the theory you created to be more false than true, you would hypothesize a theory that you did believe was more true than false.

[SeVeR]

Belief in a possibility is not the same as faith, which is belief in a certainty.

[Memory]

I find it far more interesting that you would believe me to be an atheist rather than an agnostic for the sake of calling me a hypocrite. It says alot about you. Believing what one wants to believe is a common characteristic among Christians.

Where did I call you a hypocrite? You said that if I was right you would be a hypocrite.

 

 

What i'm saying applies to most religions and most Gods.

Most, ahh, interesting.

 

In the words of the Greek philosopher Xenophanes: "No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even know they had done so"

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

 

I then gave you a definition of immaterial which, is "something that does not physically exist". It seems to fit...

Many things seem.

 

Nice of you to say. How?

I have already said.

 

Actually, no.

 

God, by Christian definitions, is timeless and knows the future. He created a world where certain people would "find the Lord" and go to heaven, whereas others were destined for eternity in !@#$%^&*. Thus, we never were created equal. Its best to choose at this point, either God is not omnipotent and doesn't know the future, or all men were not created equal.

I would like to quote you now, if I may. You said it earlier in this post I am now replying to.

I know what i believe, and you can either trust me or not. ... For the sake of this discussion, trust me; for the sake of your ego, don't.

Are we playing the hypocrites game here? Each accusing the other of our own crimes? I imagine it is quite a spectacle for the others.

 

 

It was an example of how doubt can pervade every !@#$%^&*umption. The example doesn't reserve any special treatment for the idea of omnipotence. Please explain the paradox of which you speak.

If you do not understand the concept of omnipotence and the paradox which it must create, who am I to tell you? You are well read, you will find it somewhere.

 

Exactly, but you don't have to desire it do you. It's possible to find reasons to doubt anything. Desiring to doubt something may help you doubt it, but ultimately desire has no place in logic.

What has that to do with anything?

 

Actually that thing about the earth being believed to be flat is a common misconception, most peoples, including Europeans, have known it was round for a long time.

 

you're arguing against his metaphor, not his point.

I'm correcting a misconception, nothing more. I agree with his point.

[SeVeR]

A post that long, with no debateable points whatsoever, is really not worth my time. Seriously, read over your last post, you're not contributing to this discussion at all.

[NBVegita]

Belief in a possibility is not the same as faith, which is belief in a certainty.

 

Here I disagree.

 

I don't believe all faith is in a certainty. I believe ultimately faith is a strong belief in a possibility that you believe to be strongly true.

 

I think only in the extremes is faith a certainty.

[Memory]

A post that long, with no debateable points whatsoever, is really not worth my time. Seriously, read over your last post, you're not contributing to this discussion at all.

I had exactly as many points of debate as you did.

[Memory]

Instead of just saying we suffer the same number of points, perhaps I should clarify why I have said what I said.

 

I find it far more interesting that you would believe me to be an atheist rather than an agnostic for the sake of calling me a hypocrite. It says alot about you. Believing what one wants to believe is a common characteristic among Christians.

Where did I call you a hypocrite? You said that if I was right you would be a hypocrite.

Here I was answering a rather random accusation made by you. Apparently you have nothing to back it up, that's called libel.

 

What i'm saying applies to most religions and most Gods.

Most, ahh, interesting.

Consider this disbelief in what you said. Normally this would mean you should either back it up, or expand. In this case expand.

In the words of the Greek philosopher Xenophanes: "No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even know they had done so"

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

Random quote for random quote, we each quoted dead people, I quoted someone with whom I share a common training, and through that opinion on the issue. As I said there is Truth, a constant, and there is truth, something subjective.

I then gave you a definition of immaterial which, is "something that does not physically exist". It seems to fit...

Many things seem.

You are making no point here, you are arguing as a pedant. I stand by my word choice, and what word I chose is immaterial to the discussion at hand.

Nice of you to say. How?

I have already said.

We are going around in circles here. You say one thing, I say another, you repeat yourself, I repeat myself. There is no point to rewriting it. Just go back and read what I already replied with, I'll assume you've done that, read what you've already written and we can skip the actual writing process and get to the same place.

Actually, no.

 

God, by Christian definitions, is timeless and knows the future. He created a world where certain people would "find the Lord" and go to heaven, whereas others were destined for eternity in !@#$%^&*. Thus, we never were created equal. Its best to choose at this point, either God is not omnipotent and doesn't know the future, or all men were not created equal.

I would like to quote you now, if I may. You said it earlier in this post I am now replying to.

I know what i believe, and you can either trust me or not. ... For the sake of this discussion, trust me; for the sake of your ego, don't.

Are we playing the hypocrites game here? Each accusing the other of our own crimes? I imagine it is quite a spectacle for the others.

This isn't a point? You argue I am telling you what you believe, but you go around and tell me what I believe, or are you trying to tell me I am not what I say I am? Are you calling me a liar?

 

It was an example of how doubt can pervade every !@#$%^&*umption. The example doesn't reserve any special treatment for the idea of omnipotence. Please explain the paradox of which you speak.

If you do not understand the concept of omnipotence and the paradox which it must create, who am I to tell you? You are well read, you will find it somewhere.

I am not here to make your arguments for you. I made reference to the paradox in reference to your own post that made the !@#$%^&*umption that omnipotence must be wrong. If that was not what drove that argument, what was?

 

Exactly, but you don't have to desire it do you. It's possible to find reasons to doubt anything. Desiring to doubt something may help you doubt it, but ultimately desire has no place in logic.

What has that to do with anything?

I do believe this is a point. What the !@#$%^&* does that have to do with anything?

[SeVeR]

I'd hoped you'd get the drift that i simply don't want to debate with you. In my opinion you are not here to defend your views, and i'm not sure you even have any views yet. You seem more concerned with starting petty arguments. Nevertheless, you're not very good at what you're here to do.

 

Here I was answering a rather random accusation made by you. Apparently you have nothing to back it up, that's called libel.

!@#$%^&* for tat. You'd originally said "you'd rather be called an agnostic because you fear to be called a hypocrite". Apparently you have nothing to back this accusation up, that's also called libel. I guess i have plenty to "back up" calling you a hypocrite.

 

What i'm saying applies to most religions and most Gods.

Most, ahh, interesting.

 

Consider this disbelief in what you said. Normally this would mean you should either back it up, or expand. In this case expand.

On this "point" i had said something, you had replied with a question, which i answered, then your reply was "Most, ahh, interesting". How the !@#$%^&* am i supposed to gather that you wanted me to expand on my original point? Ya know, in a debate, if you want me to expand on my point, then give a reason why; present some contrary evidence or a different point of view. Don't just say three word answers that mean nothing other than mild curiousity with a hint of sarcasm and then act as if the impetus was on me to expand on something from three posts ago. Nothing about your reply implies that!

 

Random quote for random quote, we each quoted dead people, I quoted someone with whom I share a common training, and through that opinion on the issue. As I said there is Truth, a constant, and there is truth, something subjective.

Glad we agree.

 

You are making no point here, you are arguing as a pedant. I stand by my word choice, and what word I chose is immaterial to the discussion at hand.

I'm glad we had this discussion. It seems you are very concerned with how you appear to others on this forum. With comments like: "Are we playing the hypocrites game here? Each accusing the other of our own crimes? I imagine it is quite a spectacle for the others." you really do tell me too much.

 

 

Just go back and read what I already replied with, I'll assume you've done that, read what you've already written and we can skip the actual writing process and get to the same place.

You: "I understand exactly what you are saying, and you are wrong."

Me: "Nice of you to say. How?"

 

Believe it or not, the impetus is on you to explain why you think i'm wrong now.

 

I've gone back and read the previous posts, and you haven't explained why i'm wrong. How about you go back and rejoin the discussion where we left off?

 

This isn't a point? You argue I am telling you what you believe, but you go around and tell me what I believe, or are you trying to tell me I am not what I say I am? Are you calling me a liar?

Who cares? As i said earlier, your only input in this discussion is to start irrelevant arguments.

 

I am not here to make your arguments for you.

More true than you know; and impeccable timing.

 

I made reference to the paradox in reference to your own post that made the !@#$%^&*umption that omnipotence must be wrong. If that was not what drove that argument, what was?

And i have already told you, and am now having to tell you again, that i was not making any reference to a paradox, and that omnipotence was a completely arbitrary example of how doubt is prevalent in Christian !@#$%^&*umption. This is what i originally said:

 

There is no amount of evidence that can produce absolute faith. However, there are near-certainties that we accept without too much quibbling. If God were to appear to me at my death and assign me to an after-life then i would accept him. However, he may just be an advanced being with limited power, who has managed to harness the passage of the (as of yet) undiscovered human soul. Christianity may be true in every !@#$%^&*umption apart from God being omnipotent; indeed if "God" told the Bible-writers such lies, what reason would they have not to trust him. So, as i said earlier, there is ALWAYS a reason to doubt.

 

Isn't it obvious that omnipotence was just an example of how it is possible to doubt anything? So once again, you've ignored the line of discussion and gone off on a tangent to create a completely irrelevant argument. Well done?

 

What the !@#$%^&* does that have to do with anything?

If you can't figure it out, then you must have a very short... Memory

 

[SeVeR]

NBV:

Here I disagree.

 

I don't believe all faith is in a certainty. I believe ultimately faith is a strong belief in a possibility that you believe to be strongly true.

 

I think only in the extremes is faith a certainty.

I could agree with that. Thus a strong belief in something you strongly believe to be true, where the evidence does not warrant such a belief, is something i'd call `stupid'.

[Memory]

An apology Sever, I agree that line of thought went off on a random tangent and I shoulder some blame for it. Kudos to you for bringing an end to it. I was obstinate partially because I had a few very stressful days in a row and wanted to blow off steam.

 

However on the issue of calling you a hypocrite, I most certainly did not. You said you !@#$%^&*ociated atheism with hypocracy, not me. I said I thought your position was atheistic prior to this. My comment on getting to the crux of the matter was to say you had an emotional reason for choosing the label you did.

 

As well, you have said that I should be posting to defend my own beliefs, why have you been granted immunity in this?

 

Of all your comments, however; the one that really made me think the most was " Glad we agree," despite the jingoistic at!@#$%^&*ude I may have started off with, I think we may have more in common belief wise than either of us may think, for truth is at the core of everything.

[SeVeR]

Lets clear this up. I am not an atheist because to deny the existence of God would be to have faith in something. This is the centre of my entire philosophy. There is no emotional reason, at least none that matters beyond what i have just said. It's not the crux of the matter, you were wrong, and i am more than a little offended that you would say imply i'm such a shallow individual as to be agnostic due to a "fear of being called a hypocrite".

 

I've been defending my views, right up until the last post when i had to defend myself, something that shouldn't be on a political forum.

 

When you say subjective truths, do you mean things that people believe to be true? I wouldn't call those truths at all, rather beliefs. I see things in terms of absolute truths and known truths. Absolute truths are necessary for existence, and as you say, are "at the core of everything". Known truths are the absolute truths that we as observant beings have stumbled upon by chance. We can never know if any human being has ever possessed a known truth, but one can certainly believe it's likely. No human being can ever claim to know a truth, but for practical purposes it's not usual to separate extreme likelihood from truth: e.g. It's true that the sun will rise tomorrow - even if the probability is only 99.99999999% or something close to 100%.

Edited December 8, 2007 by SeVeR

[Memory]

Lets clear this up. I am not an atheist because to deny the existence of God would be to have faith in something. This is the centre of my entire philosophy. There is no emotional reason, at least none that matters beyond what i have just said. It's not the crux of the matter, you were wrong, and i am more than a little offended that you would say imply i'm such a shallow individual as to be agnostic due to a "fear of being called a hypocrite".

I am beginning to see that you are not an atheist quite well, although I don't quite believe Agnostic is quite the right description... Perhaps nontheist would be better? You simply dislike all belief systems, I can't fault you for this. It mirrors my own political views quite well. I do apologize that my statement was misunderstood.

 

I've been defending my views, right up until the last post when i had to defend myself, something that shouldn't be on a political forum.

I did not mean for anything to be taken personally.

 

When you say subjective truths, do you mean things that people believe to be true? I wouldn't call those truths at all, rather beliefs. I see things in terms of absolute truths and known truths. Absolute truths are necessary for existence, and as you say, are "at the core of everything". Known truths are the absolute truths that we as observant beings have stumbled upon by chance. We can never know if any human being has ever possessed a known truth, but one can certainly believe it's likely. No human being can ever claim to know a truth, but for practical purposes it's not usual to separate extreme likelihood from truth: e.g. It's true that the sun will rise tomorrow - even if the probability is only 99.99999999% or something close to 100%.

 

An interesting question.

 

Following is a link to a picture which I think illustrates my point quite well. I am only linking to it because it is a rather famous picture of someone being shot. The picture itself is not graphic, but I don't want to offend anyones sensibilities.

 

http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs024/images/canon/06.jpg

 

A photograph can not lie. Whatever it displays is the truth. Certainly photos can be edited, but this is a modern invention and since this is only an example we're going to pretend they can't be. The above linked photo is unedited, aside from maybe a little bit of cropping.

 

If you look at the photo you can not deny the truth. A man, obviously a prisoner (hands behind his back) in a war zone is being shot. That happened, that is the truth. The man holding the gun is committing a war crime, he is violating the Geneva conventions. Is that the whole truth?

 

No.

 

The photo gives us an aspect of the truth as it existed the very second the shutter was snapped, but it is only one aspect. What if the picture had been taken a few seconds before, and if you could hear what was going on? Perhaps you would hear the prisoner mocking his captors, telling them how they were all going to die, how as a middle ranking member of the VC he knew of plots and plans that would end with civilian casualties on a large scale.

 

The photographer, Eddie Adams, said the photo, which played a major role in turning American opinion against the Vietnam War. After Loan, the man with the gun, died Adams referred to him as a hero. Saying the photo had been misrepresented.

 

 

My point is that I certainly believe in an absolute truth, but it is impossible to see it. We can only see bits and pieces of it, with limited information we can misinterpret the big picture, even though what we started with was the truth. If the truth was easily visible we would have no need for courts to sort through all the aspects and attempt to piece together something absolute.

[SeVeR]

Well i don't know if God exists or not, and would therefore be an agnostic. Non-theist would include agnostic (aswell as atheist and ignostic). I also stray into the ignostic camp, as the concept of God is so ultimately far-fetched as to render the search for any evidence completely meaningless. How can you disprove the existence of a being that is immaterial (existing anywhere and everywhere in space and time), omnipotent and omniscient? The definition of God epitomises the unknown. It's the "God of the gaps" as Dawkins would say, although he is naive enough to believe there is evidence against the existence of God. I am an agnostic with an ignostic compulsion to be completely 50/50 on the matter. This might be why i'm so irreligious, because i'm a hard-line advocate of uncertainty where uncertainty is due.

 

Whether or not the photo was taken is an absolute truth. Yet this truth is not known to us. It could be a forgery, an edit (as you say), or our entire concept of reality could be wrong (dream-state or a false reality). However unlikely (and irrelevent in real world situations) the probability that this photo is real and depicts an actual event that took place is NOT 100%.

 

It's significantly less than the probability that you and I will die at some point in our lives. We may find a way to stop the aging process, or to place our minds into machines, or to freeze someone in stasis indefinately. You may never die for as long as the universe exists. The probability that you will die at some point is however even closer to 100% than the photo, but still not 100%.

 

There are even more far-fetched scenarios such as are you sitting at your computer reading this post, or does 1+1=2.

 

Even if the reason to doubt the truth is so incredibly unlikely, it is worth acknowledging that nothing is 100% certain, and we can never "know" a truth. There are no known truths, and although we may stumble upon a truth, we would not know we had done so. I think this statement is the closest i've come to "stumbling upon a truth".

 

The interpretations of what was happening in the photo (did the man deserve to die?) are determined by the evidence available, as you seem to realise. The ac!@#$%^&*ulation of evidence makes the prospect of knowing a truth more likely (but never certain). Thus an analysis of the photo would go a long way to !@#$%^&*uring us that the photo is a true representation of actual events. And the statements from witnesses would help determine the reasons for the murder.

[ThunderJam]

Bump.

 

A while back a lot of you were saying stuff like "well what the new testament says isnt an accurate telling of the life of jesus" or arguing why the new testament cant be reliable or whatnot.

 

I'd like to open those skeptical questions back up, cuz i've been reading some interesting literature and think I could debate the questions a little better now.

 

What do you guys think are the points against the gospel? Why is it unbelievable? etc

Edited January 1, 2008 by ThunderJam

[SeVeR]

Where did you do your research?

 

How many of the gospels were written during the life of Jesus?

How many edits were made throughout history by people like Constantine and St Paul.

Are there any references to Jesus outside the Bible?

Do you accept that Josephus's account is faked with sentences implanted into the text?

[ThunderJam]

Well none were written during his life. Generally people put that in the 70's-90's AD (Mark being the first, and John last). Now consider this, The book of acts includes the telling of Paul being put in jail by Romans, but does not include Paul's death. This is likely because the book was finished before Paul's death, which was I believe somewhere in 60-63 AD. Acts is the follow up to Luke (Luke wrote acts) so the gospel of Luke had to have come before Acts. And Mark is dated prior to Luke because Luke re-uses some of Mark's material (as does Matthew). Given that the secular scholars say 70-90's, a 20 year range, The gospel of Luke and Mark could have been written as early as say 5 years before that date of 60-63 when Paul died. Jesus died in either 30 or 33 AD, so now we are talking about somewhere around a 30 year difference.

 

While still not in his life time, thirty years, in ancient do!@#$%^&*ent standards, is nothing. The earliest bio's of Alexander the Great were written several hundred years after his death, but they have been deemed factually correct. So for several hundred years, no legendary information about him had grown so widespread as to be included in one of the bio's, so why should Jesus' do!@#$%^&*entation have been tainted with exagerations and legends in 30 years? Or even with the pervious scholars dating, in a difference of 40-60 years?

 

As to edits, Paul at least was almost a no-brainer for edits. As i said earlier his death was in the 60's. The gospels were only written several years before his death, and John possibly after his death. Considering he was spending time in prison and traveling abroad before his daeth, I doubt he was editing the gospels.

 

---

Ok so the authenticity is a whole 'nother discussion. While there are no originals of the new testament still in survial, their are more early copies of the gospel than nearly any other work ever (There are several THOUSAND original Greek manuscripts each containing chunks of the gospels). Copies in existence now are from within a couple generations of the originals. This seems like a lot of time, but again by the standards of ancient do!@#$%^&*ents, often times there are no copies until a few centuries later (Tacitus, a roman historian wrote a history of rome in 116 AD, and no copies of it were made until the 9th century, and this is considered an authoritative historical text). Many of these copies come from vastly different geographical areas. For copies to have existed thousands of miles away, and be near identical, it shows that they both were coming from eventualyl the same "ancestor copy." These first do!@#$%^&*ents, tho we have had translations since then, hold up when compared to the current translations. Sometimes on translation makes a bad judgement on a wording, and it often gets corrected in the next translation. I pointed out an example or two of this in the Islamic wife beating topic.

 

In addition the culture back then was primarily oral. Most everything was passed from mouth to mouth. In story telling, apparently it was normal for the story teller to be able to tell only certain parts of the story, and leave out other parts, but there were certain accepted facts that must have always been told. If the community observed these parts being left out of a story, they would correct the story teller. It's actual shown by scientific data that stories could vary up to 40%, while retaining the same key points. The variation though was not fiction, was just leaving some parts out, and only mentioning certain parts of the story. In a time of merely 30 years (or 70) it would have been hard for legendary embellishments to spring up about Jesus, when for example Alexanders reputation was intact for a few hundred years. Considering the thousands of greek manuscripts are !@#$%^&* near identical to each other and from different sections of the world (egypt to rome, etc) it shows they were based on a same ancestor, and that ancestor didn't have much of a chance to be embellished.

 

Also consider that like, Budhist scriptures were not put in writing until the time frame of Christianity, even though Buddha lived in the sixth century BC. We have scriptures of Muhamed in the Koran, but his bio was not written until 130 years after he lived.

 

---

References to jesus outside the bible. You alreayd said josephus, which I'll talk about in a min. Theres also's references by the roman historian Tacitus, whose account acknoledges that Jesus was crucified by the romans, by pontius pilate, under the rule of emperor Tiberius. Pliny the Younger also speaks of christians (related to Pliny the Elder, a well known historian). A historian named Thallus wrote about an eclipse that put the middle east into complete darkness at noon near the time of Jesus death. There are also passaged in the jewish Talmud that attribute feats of magic to Jesus. Although they are passages against Jesus, they do testify that he was performing miracles during his life. Edwin M. Yamauchi (phD) has said that even without any christian writings we would know that jesus was a jewish teacher, many people believed that he prformed healing and exorcisms, some people believed he was the messiah, he was rejected by the jewish leaders, he was crucified under pilate, his followers who belived he came back to life spread so that there were mul!@#$%^&*udes of them in Rome by 64AD, and that peopl in a far range of areas worhiped him as God.

 

---

Yes i acnowledge Josephus' text has info added into it, likely by Christian authors. However not every mention of Jesus in the text is thought to be an addition. Parts that flat out say "He was the Christ" contradict other times Josephus refers to him as merely someone that SOME people CONSIDERED to be the christ. So obviously "he was the christ" was an addition. However even once scholars identified what they believe to be additions, it still says that He won over many jews and greeks. Pilate had him crucified, he was a wise man, that a group of followers did not give up their affection for him after his death, etc. If you like I will post the passage and show what phrases are by general consensus considered the additions.

 

---

 

Now this doesnt point to saying christianity must be true, but there is plenty of evidence that proves its not bullcrap either.

[SeVeR]

Alexander the Great affected the lives of millions, he had statues made of him, and the accounts of his life and military exploits would have been so vast that it would have been easy to write his bio.

 

Jesus has no surviving proof of his existence, and no other ancient accounts of his life. Writing about him 40-60 years after his death must rely on stories passed down through at least one generation. Probably none of the authors had a first hand account of Jesus' life, yet they write about him in such a way, giving detailed descriptions of his exploits. Where did they get these stories? From Christians telling far-out tales around camp-fires? I'm not sure i trust what you've said about story-tellers not exagerating. Even so, many people would have believed he was the son of God without Jesus ever saying he was. So the story-tellers could have been accurate in their beliefs, but still wrong about Jesus. For someone who probably had a large following, it is entirely believable to think many of those followers believed him to be devine.

 

There is also plenty of evidence to suggest the later two/three gospels plagiarised the first.

 

That reminds me, what of the other gospels? From what i've heard they don't describe Jesus as devine at all. The four gospels in the Bible were selected from a great many others.

 

I do believe Jesus existed, i don't believe he was devine. The religions of the Middle East today tend to agree (Islam, Judaism).

 

There are problems with Tacitus' account: Tacitus calls Pontius Pilot a "procurator" instead of a "prefect" (Tacitus' father was a procurator and he clearly knew the difference). This is the same mistake made in Josephus' work, and the works may have been editted in the same way by the same person. Also Tacitus calls the followers "Christians" when it is unlikely that they had yet chosen this name, also suggesting later edits. It can certainly be called into question, although i believe it is probably correct for the most part. However, Tacitus does not describe "Christus" as devine.

 

passages that refer to Christians existing around that time are not in dispute.

 

From what i've read, only one paragraph in Josephus' work concerns Jesus, and it's likely that the whole paragraph was added in. Although i'd like to see what you have.

[all_shall_perish]

Although I'm currently doing research on the origins of books like the bible, I'm not well versed by any means. From my basic understanding, it appears that no credible historians from the time period even mentioned Jesus in their writings. Meanwhile, these historians were taking time to do!@#$%^&*ent what would seem like less significant events in comparison.

 

My biggest issue with the bible is the fact that it appears none of the many authors have any credibility outside of Christianity or the bible itself.

[ThunderJam]

Alexander the Great affected the lives of millions, he had statues made of him, and the accounts of his life and military exploits would have been so vast that it would have been easy to write his bio.

Uhm this seems to be favoring me. Because he was that important, all the more reason to write the account of his life quickly. But it took a few hundred years. Why then is 30-70 years unnaceptable in Jesus case?

 

Jesus has no surviving proof of his existence, and no other ancient accounts of his life. Writing about him 40-60 years after his death must rely on stories passed down through at least one generation. Probably none of the authors had a first hand account of Jesus' life, yet they write about him in such a way, giving detailed descriptions of his exploits. Where did they get these stories? From Christians telling far-out tales around camp-fires? I'm not sure i trust what you've said about story-tellers not exagerating. Even so, many people would have believed he was the son of God without Jesus ever saying he was. So the story-tellers could have been accurate in their beliefs, but still wrong about Jesus. For someone who probably had a large following, it is entirely believable to think many of those followers believed him to be devine.

No real life exposure to Christ's life? Mathew was one of the twelve disciples, also known as Levi. Mark is the Peter's account of the of the gospel, written by Mark, and Peter was one of the disciples and furthermore one of the inner three disciples that Jesus closely trusted. The authorship of John is slightly questioned, because some people beleive it was written by an early church member referred to as John the Elder, but the common consesus is that it was authored by John the apostle, again who would have had an eyewitness account. If you say they couldn't have been alive, remember I said Acts (written by luke had to have been written by 62 AD) was after several of the gospels. I conservatively said the gospels could have been written in the 5 years before that, but what's to say it wasnt 10? 15? Yes story tellers could exxagerate, but research has shown that due to the nature of their culture these variances would be almost always suppressed right then and there because someone would correct them. You could probly spend a lifetime researching this oral aspect of their culture, so I'm just repeating the words of others.

 

There is also plenty of evidence to suggest the later two/three gospels plagiarised the first.

Because yes some verses are !@#$%^&* near identical to each other. This can be accounted for again by the oral nature of their culture. If certain parts of a story must always be told, and Matthew was the story first written and circulate, it could be logical for the other two authors to include word for word some of the same parts of Matthew's telling, while then mentioning thigns that Matthew didn't, and not addressing some of the things that Matthew did. Supposedly the variation in any given story over X amount of time (i cant remember the stat) was like between 20-40%, which is the same variation found within the gospels. Again, the first account of Alexander's life was been deemed factually correct after 300-400 years of word-of-mouth accounts. I'm not saying this means that the case for christs story is 100% perfect, but it !@#$%^&* well means that it is plausible, if not highly probable.

Edited January 2, 2008 by ThunderJam

[SeVeR]

You're pinning alot of your hopes on the accuracy of story-tellers and word-of-mouth.

 

The majority view is the "Gospel of Matthew" was not written by the disciple Matthew (wiki). The date of A.D. helps to confirm this. It very likely was not a first-hand account. To get a minority view, which is favourably Christian, i would guess you did your research with a Christian source?

 

Luke, also around A.D., makes it unlikely that he was a witness to Jesus.

 

Few people trust the gospel of John as being a reliable account of the life of Jesus, and it's dated around 90-100 A.D.

 

Mark's gospel, 65-70 A.D., from which Matthew and Luke plagiarised, appears to be the only original account. You'd still have a hard time convincing anyone it was a first-hand account. It was written in Rome by a friend of a disciple of Jesus, and even then, it was common practice in the ancient world to enhance the importance of written works by attributing them to famous people. Mark may not have been the author at all. There are even theories to suggest the author was re-writing the work of Homer.

 

300 years means little in Alexanders case, it would at least be as accurate as the gospels. However, the gospels go very deep into the things that Jesus said and did. That kind of detail is hard to corroborate, and without reading Alexander's biography, any comparison would be futile at this stage.

[Bak]

thunderjam, what sort of evidence would be necessary to convince you to become an atheist?

[J.x.]

For what it's worth, I'm a Discordian.

 

j.x.

[BabaGurGur]

Well, Im Muslim, I was born in Iraq in the Northern City of Kirkuk, and before you think anything, I do not like terrorists, Also, my parents are really religious but im not really, I do pray from time to time but I don't go to the Mosque everyday.

Really, In Islam, we belieive in Moses, Isa (Jesus) and alot of other Prophets but we beleive that Mohammed was God's last messenger to Earth.

And, any Muslim who blows him self up, killing civilians is not a Muslim, the people who attacked America on 9/11 are not Muslim, they attacked America for no reason, there was no Jihad during 9/11, so, don't hate Muslim people for the act of cowards who attacked America on that day, I know this has been said ALOT but Islam is a Religion of Peace, I couldn't list how because my knowledge of Islam isn't huge and I havnt read the Qur'an (I have, like pages only) enough to fully explain how Jihad, and Praying and the rules of Islam go along.

 

But I have a question directed at the Atheists, why say no? I mean, why say there is no God? We will all die sooner or later and atleast if you had chosen a religion you could have had a lighter punishment or even gone to heaven, so i mean, why, Why must you say there is no God, pick a religion and stick with it, dont be ZOMG RELIGOUS but attend the Temple/Church/Mosque w/e you go to once in a while, and who knows, you might have randomly picked the right religion.

 

-Baba

[all_shall_perish]

Although I don't classify myself as an atheist, I'll address your question from the atheist's standpoint which is just as fair an argument from my point of view.

 

you might have randomly picked the right religion.

 

The argument of choosing a religion "to be better safe than sorry" was addressed by Blaise Pascal who essentially said that if your belief in god ends up being right then you have an infinite gain whereas if you didn't believe in god and god turned out to exist, then you'd have an infinite loss. See Pascal's Wager for a clearer explanation. So by Pascal's logic, it's better to believe in god and be wrong than it is to not believe in god and be wrong.

 

My main problem with that notion is that you're believing in something purely out of fear which makes those gods out to be rather tyrannical if you ask me.

Also, if the god(s) you believe in is omnipotent and all knowing and what not then you'd think he/she/it would be able to call your bluff for simply playing the "better safe than sorry" card.

 

There is a very very very very remote chance that you've somehow managed to believe in a god that actually exists and have done all the things necessary to avoid an eternal !@#$%^&*ation. But you must recognize that there is the exact same probability that your belief may be upsetting a god you didn't think existed which will probably land you in eternal !@#$%^&*ation too.

 

This is sort of a spinoff of the atheist wager http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/atheistswager.html which points out some flaws in the !@#$%^&*umptions Pascal made in his wager.

Edited February 3, 2008 by all_shall_perish

[SeVeR]

God may respect those who take the logical standpoint based on the evidence he has provided. Afterall, if God built the universe then we are respecting his creation by investigating it and discovering it's truths. Science has allowed us to see much of the universe, so why not approach the question of God's existence in the same logical way? Simply, if God wanted us to know he exists then he would give us proof of his existence. If he wanted us to have "faith" then why would he create a vast universe for us to investigate in ways where faith is not a requirement. Thus I am an agnostic, and if there is a God, then i expect he will respect my decision above those who had faith.

 

If anyone comes to believe in God out of a fear of !@#$%^&*, then they are cowards, and any God that rewards them for that decision is not a God worth my time.