Chili

Quite contrary John. It is foolish to have no faith and irrational to have faith in something you already know which proves that you don't really know the things you claim to know.

I make this distinction to isolate intuit knowledge wherein we have faith that is rationally unknown until the argument converts it into a rationally known truth. We are here, after all, not to snipe at each other (even if that includes an apology), but towards the discovery of truth via the argument.

Do you agree that that is what philosophy is all about? <deleted>

John A. Broussard

Being all-powerful and all-knowing, I would have no problems whatsoever in doing that.

Since I am not all-powerful and all-knowing, I can't answer your question.

But, since you believe in all-powerful and all-knowing god, please explain why that god allows untold misery and suffering, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, year-by-year, with earthquakes, famine, floods killing the most innocent of people.

See? If I were an all-powerful and all-knowing god, I'd find some way around all that horror. Wouldn't you?

(Incidentally, while this is an important discussion we're having, I think this part of the thread has digressed and should be moved to someplace more appropriate.)

Skeptical

That's a different question than what you claimed. You claimed it could _only_ be the result of the supernatural, which is clearly false. I personally don't think it shows any evidence of being inspired by something supernatural, but that doesn't mean its not _possible_. There's very little that isn't possible, but that is a far cry from what you claimed.

Saying its possible is saying very little, so I won't quibble. Saying its the _only_ explanation is just plain silly for the reasons I gave previously.

Not to nitpick, but I'm not very susceptible to arguments from authority. I give weight to an expert when they speak about areas in which they are expert and I am not, but just because someone is an expert doesn't necessarily mean they are right. So, having a couple of doctorates may be meaningful, but it might not be depending on what they are arguing. The arguments must stand on their own, regardless of the pedigree of the source.

That would be quite a feat, but ok, I'll play along.

They'd have to give a detailed argument about what was "unique" and why that is important. All reglious writings are unique in some way, or at least the ones that I have read are and I am fairly well versed in the major religions for a lay person.

If they make such a claim, they need a lot more than a degree to back them up. The only possible thing I can think of that would indicate supernatural origin for something would be an honest to goodness, clear, unequivocal prophecy. Even that wouldn't necessarily mean a supernatural source, it could for example be the work of advanced, time traveling aliens as a hypothesis. But it would mean something very interesting was going on.

As far as prophecies go, I've seen all the supposed prophecies in the HB, and none of them are clear enough or unequivocal enough to withstand scrutiny.

The closest thing that I've ever seen was the whole "bible code" business, which upon further review doesn't amount to much since you can come up with similar word matches in Moby Dick and probably any other book of sufficient length given the methodology. (I can provide a link to the finding of matches in Moby Dick if you want, its been done and I've got it saved somewhere)

I wouldn't say the person "knows nothing", I would say that if they are making a claim about the supernatural they better have something very solid to back it up. Someone can know a lot about religions, far more than I, but that doesn't mean they are a better BS detector.

Critical thinking skills are one thing that cannot be simply learned in a book, they have to be applied. Religions typically discourage critical thinking, so as a rule of thumb the more religious people are the worse they seem to be at determining false information and bad arguments. That's a generalization but it seems to be generally true in my experience.

So to the point, we have a near infinite number of natural explanations for phenomena and a multitude of experiences of natural events each and every day. The extreme weight of evidence is always going to be against any kind of supernatural explanation, so if someone is going to invoke it they better have extraordinarily good reasons for doing so.

Even if one posits a "supernatural" explanation, one would have to explain why a certain supernatural explanation (i..e the Christian God) is more likely than some other supernatural explanation (i.e. the evil Gnostic demiurge). Since almost by definition supernatural explanations are unknowable by natural means, it would be a tall feat to explain this without resulting to special pleading or a circular argument. (of which I have seen many)

Bottom line, regardless of pedigree, someone has to show the goods in their arguments, and not just make assertions unbacked by factual arguments for me to take them seriously.

That is what I would say.

Skeptical

They didn't have to set foot in the West, the West set its foot on them. Imperialism and cultural destruction has a long history in Africa, but that's for another thread.

Christianity's spread is due to Roman influence primarily. As far as I can tell it could be a historical accident of being in the right place at the right time.

The content is the most important, I was being a little facetious but my point was that people are taught to believe _before_ they even know what the content is based on arguments from authority and nothing more.

My opinion, and it is only my opinion, is that humans have a moral responsibility by virtue of being the only animal on the planet capable of not being ruled by their instincts to choose a path in life and not blindly follow a path predetermined by parents/society/culture. That's what I was referring to. If your interested, I find the views of Simone de Beauvoir particularly compelling, check out "The Ethics of Ambiguity".

Wasn't talking about God, I was talking about people who claim to speak to God or more accurately people who claim they have something written by someone who claimed to speak to God. From what I see, the approach usually is to feed the view to each generation the idea that what they are being told is the unquestionable truth and they should not seek to question or refute. Doubt is evil and questioning can lead to no good.

To abandon your judgement on a matter as personal as those subsumed under "religion" or "spirituality" to some ancient people for no reason other than that someone told you to is, to me, an abdication of the moral responsibiltiy to choose your path.

We've got a brain that allows choice, if we don't use it we deny our humanity.

ChristMyth

First let me address the OP. I answered yes, that I do believe that the idea of Jesus is based on some preacher who lived sometime either before or in the first century. IMO, it just seems more reasonable to say that a living, breathing man is at the core of the story instead of invented by his followers.

However, I do not think that the NT is a reliable source to find the HJ. The true teachings of Jesus, if they were written down at all, have been ground down and mixed with so much myth over the years before they were written that any attempt to salavage his sayings or life is worthless. I don't think we will ever know who he was or what he taught.

Now on to another subject. I have been trying to follow the arguments of both aChristian, who seems to have skipped town, and norma98026. I will have to agree with the others here and say that if you wish to keep your faith, it might be better if you re-examine your purpose for posting on these boards. I, too, once believed in the same things that you have stated and after lurking here for a year or two I came to see things in a new light. If, on the other hand, you wish to stay, may I make the suggestion that you visit the library and have fun reading. There are many articles that address some of your posts.

One more thing, I believe you said something about wanting to know "truth." IMO, you cannot have both "truth" based on evidence and "faith" which is not. To have one is to destroy the other, and a choice must be made as to which one is more important to you.

Of course, as Dennis Miller puts it, "That's just my opinion, I could be wrong."

ceinwyn

I also voted (mythological), so I'll elaborate on why.

There are too many other myths with the same idea within them; a semi-diety who came from above and died, then was reborn. These myths are found all over the world. IMO, the bible is an example of a collection of these myths that eventually syncretized and hardened to become christianity.

spin

Only three comments:

• When prophecies don't suggest a timeframe, how can they be tested for their truth value?
• When I tell you that George W. won't be the president in 2009, would you call that a prophecy? What about "When Cameria loses it's political hegemony, the world will celibrate"?
• Is my writing here "John Kennedy will be assassinated in Dallas" a prophecy?

spin

Craigart14

Actually, Spin, GW Bush will be president in 2009, but only for a couple of weeks, so you're not much of a prophet--though my Tarot cards tell me you're right on about the Kennedy thing. Don't worry; I cross-checked them against Nostradamus.

For Norma,

Is it true that if a prophet makes one false prophecy, he is not to be trusted? Jesus tells a crowd in one of the Gospels (I forget which) that "there are those standing among you who will not taste death" before the kingdom of God is established. Of course, all those people are dead now. Paul seems to think Jesus will return in his own lifetime, so I suspect he's interpreting Jesus' words the same way I am. Is Jesus, then, not to be trusted?

About believers coming from the Western world. Yes, we know where Christianity came from and we know that it has spread all over the world. I think the point that poster was making is that one's religion is determined mostly by one's place of birth. If you had been born in India, you would most likely be defending Hinduism. If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would be defending Islam. If you had been born in Salt Lake City, you would probably be defending Mormonism. I, on the other hand, would still be an atheist because study and critical thinking, not my birth into a family of Presbyterians, have led me to it.

As for the poll, I voted not enough evidence. I would have voted "irrelevant," but that wasn't one of the choices. If there was an HJ, he didn't perform the miracles with which he has been credited. Nobody did, because nobody could or can. So whether HJ existed or not, HJ son-of-god-miracle-worker did not. People of his day might have believed he did, but they belileved in magic. Remember, the Pharoah and his magicians weren't even surprised when Moses turned his staff into a snake, which would have shocked hell out of me. When the big P's magicians turned their staves into snakes, I would have been out of there, but the writer of Exodus doesn't even seem surprised. What can we learn from this? That the writer--and his audience--believed in magic. Over the centuries, the magic got better. Joshua using sound to knock down city walls, Elijah rising into the clouds, Jesus healing people with his touch, turning water into wine . . . . Not a very big jump from raising Lazarus to raising oneself, is it?

Wish I could turn water into wine. I have this lovely 1983 Perrier . . . .

Craig

Vorkosigan

Hmmm....had a moment, so I thought it would be fun to show Norma why this is nonsense. This tale wouldn't happen to come from well-known fraud Ron Wyatt, would it? Our hero Ron is certainly a busy man, with another view of the same wheel. Yep, it's Ron Wyatt.

Norma, Ron Wyatt is well known the world over for fraud and fakery, and numerous Christian websites warn the unwary about him. Here's one Christian website. Here some Creationists abuse Ron Wyatt for being a fraud -- definitely some good irony there! They write:

• First, a partial list of Ron Wyatt’s claimed discoveries and accomplishments:
  
  
  * Noah's Ark (the Durupinar site, for which he has been the prime promoter)
  * Stone sea anchors believed to be used by Noah to steer the vessel into the wind
  * Petrified timbers from the Ark that were used as memorials in an Armenian graveyard
  * Noah’s sacrifice area at the site
  * A large stone carving near the Ark picturing 8 people coming out of the side, with a rainbow above the boat, and inscriptions in Summerian, Hurrian, and Urartian identifying this formation as the Ark of Noah
  * Trainloads of petrified pre-flood wood that had no tree rings on the site
  * Corroded metal fittings, found in rows, delineating the "ribs of the ship," as indicated by metal detectors and especially a "molecular frequency generator"
  * A house that Noah built
  * Stones on this house containing inscriptions that recorded details about the Deluge
  * A pictograph of eight people leaving a large wave of water with a boat perched above it
  * Noah's grave
  * Mrs. Noah's grave (containing a fortune-her gold and jewelry)
  * The Ark of the Covenant (under the exact spot where Jesus was crucified)
  * The Menorah (a seven-branched candelabra), the Table of Shewbread, and the Golden Altar of Incense from the ancient Temple
  * Christ’s blood, scraped off of the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant
  * DNA analysis of the blood indicates that Christ was born of a virgin
  * The true site of Christ’s crucifixion and the stone socket in which the cross was placed
  * Verified the tomb of Christ was the actual tomb
  * Claimed Jesus’ tomb was sealed with a Roman iron spike, still visible
  * Moses' stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, held together with golden hinges
  * Solved the problem of the construction of the pyramids
  * Also the problems in Egyptian chronology
  * Discovered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
  * Discovered sulfur balls from the same
  * The true site of the Israelites' Red Sea crossing
  * A stone monument near the site erected by Solomon, inscribed with the ancient Hebrew script
  * Horse and human skeletons from Pharaoh's drowned army
  * Gold covered chariot wheels and chariot parts
  * The true Mount Sinai
  * The 12 altars built by Moses in Exodus 24
  * The actual rock Moses struck to release water at Kadesh
  * The site of Korah's earthquake where the ground swallowed up Korah and his followers
  * Knows how the Shroud of Turin was forged
  * Has cracked the code of the Copper Scroll
  * Claimed (on tape) that he can read any ancient inscription
  * Discovered the pillars of Solomon
  * The tomb of the Patriarchs, the cave of Machpelah
  * Moses was known in Egyptian history as Thutmosa III
  * Joseph was the builder of the first pyramid
  * Storage bins Joseph used during the drought in Egypt
  * Bones of giant pre-flood people
  * Ancient Canaanite burial pots at Ashkelon
  
  Wow! One man – working part time – on his vacations!! How is this possible?

Still more Christian discussion of Wyatt:

• Wyatt seemed to have adopted a swashbuckling "persona" not unlike that of the fictional archaeologist "Indiana Jones" from the movies, and his exploits have become almost legendary in some Christian circles. The news of his claims has been widespread, and many Christians have swallowed those claims whole. They are unaware that almost all of Wyatt's most flamboyant claims are highly controversial and hotly contested. It is the purpose of this material to give an overview of the claims and provide documentation on the challenges to those claims by credible investigators.

The reason that no one responded to this, norma, is that it is nonsense. Wyatt is a liar and a crook.

Vorkosigan

Ishmael

I am sorry if this has been posted before, I admit I didn't read the entire thread.
I voted historical figure simply because I think that Jospehus is reliable, but not in the redacted Christian version, in the original (words in caps are probably not in the original):
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man IF IT BE LAWFUL TO CALL HIM A MAN, for he was a doer of wonders, A TEACHER OF SUCH MEN AS RECEIVE THE TRUTH WITH PLEASURE. He drew many after him BOTH OF THE JEWS AND THE GENTILES. HE WAS THE CHRIST. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, FOR HE APPEARED TO THEM ALIVE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY, AS THE DIVINE PROPHETS HAD FORETOLD THESE AND THEN THOUSAND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT HIM, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64)."

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.