Kasper

Well, if I hear something I do not believe, I usually go check it out myself or do some additional research on the subject. Have you done any research concerning which parts of the Bible you do not believe? Also, do Muslims use their GOD given ability to reason and research? Or what about the ancient Aztecs?

kcdad

I don't believe anything BECAUSE I read it. I interpret and investigate everything I read, or hear.

(SARCASM)
No, I don't do research... I just pick and choose every third story in The Bible to believe. I find that to be the best way.
(SARCASM)

Since I try and avoid sweeping racist and ethnocentric statements like ALL Muslims and Aztecs do or don't do anything, I wouldn't know how to answer your question.

You probably will admit that our ability to rationalize the world today is a bit different than the ability of peoples living 5-10,000 years ago... just a little thing called the enlightenment changed quite a few peoples' way of thinking.

Minimalist

Yeah, I know that is the usual apologist attempt to try to get around the problem. Here's where it breaks down, though.

Your gospels claim that John was upset about the marriage of Herodias and Antipas. Herodias' husband, Phillip, only died in 33/34 AD which meant she wasn't a widow until then. Antipas, as a client king of Rome, needed the emperor's permission to marry and Josephus recounts how he duly sailed to Rome to get it. Then he had to sail back before they could hold the wedding.

So....it seems that getting towards the end of 35 fits the time frame. There is a secondary link involving the actions of Aretas IV of Nabatea who used the opportunity of his daughter's divorce from Antipas to attack Nabatea and Tiberus then directed his governor, Lucius Vitellius, to go after Aretas. Vitellius was consul in 34 and therefore not even eligble to be governor of Syria until 35. Somehow, that number 35 just keeps sneaking into the story.

Of course, if you utterly dismiss the nonsense about JtheB protesting the marriage (Josephus says nothing about it...it's strictly a gospel tale) then you can make a case for everything except the cause of the conflict between Galilee and Nabatea. Then, you could move things back to whenever you wish...but something tells me that you are not willing to dismiss the gospel tale. BTW, because John was then a citizen of the then-Roman prefecture of Judaea while Antipas was king of Galilee and Petraea the whole story would be like an American protesting the actions of a Canadian prime minister. It could happen but it seems odd.

aa5874

Utter nonsense.

Based on the NT, Isaiah 7.14 was the foundational prediction of Jesus. Jesus must have been a born of the Holy Ghost, must have been the offspring of the Holy Spirit of God to have been worshipped as the son of God.

It was imperative that Jesus was offspring of the Holy Ghost of God or else Jesus would have just been a mere man.

Jews and Christians do not worship mere men as Gods, that is why they refused to worship the Roman Emperors.

Total non-sense. The "virgin birth" was not used for any other person in the Bible.

In the Bible great special or differnt people were born through sexual union, sometimes barren or very old women.

All the prophets and kings in the Bible were born through sexual union. Isaiah 7.14 was only used for Jesus.

Moses, king David, Abraham, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Samuel, Noah, and all the multitude of great men in the Bible were all born through sexual union.

Kasper

Okay. Could you give me an example of something in the Bible that is important to Christianity that you do believe, and explain to me how you have investigated this subject?

I don't think you understood my point, so let me try again. You tell me that you use your GOD given ability to reason to figure out which parts of the Bible you do believe. But the pre-Colombian Aztecs used their GOD given ability to reason that they had to sacrifice people to please their gods. Christians in general use their GOD given reason to figure out that Jesus was a physical incarnation of / the son of God. Muslims use their GOD given ability to reason to figure out that Jesus was a human prophet without any divine connection to God. Muslims use their GOD given ability to reason to figure out that the Quran is the word of God and that Mohammed was his last Messenger.

My point is that you use your so called GOD given ability to reason to figure out stuff other people denounce using their own GOD given ability to reason.

No I won't admit that. We just have other tools to help us explain the world today. Our brain has the same cognitive abilities today as it had when we were hunter-gatherers.

That's true. But it didn't change their ability to think differently.

kcdad

Isaiah 7:14 is ALMAH... the feminine form of "Lad" or "young boy". It is not BETHULAH which means a chaste woman. Isaiah uses "bethulah" often but intentionally does not use it here.

This si nonsense and bad scholarship... Isaiah 7 is a prophesy (or explanation) for the dispersion of the Southern Kingdom.
Yeah... whatever. Moses... mere man. David... mere man... AND Messiah... Jesus... mere man. Gandhi... mere man. Copernicus, Plato, Einstein, Spinoza, Hume... mere men.

Jews didn't and don't worship Jesus... neither do Muslims, neither do I. The Lord your God is one and you shall love the Lord your God... and He alone shall you worship.

Not used for ANY person in the Bible, not any "other" person. It was used to explain many "heroes" in many other cultures. The Romans invented the "virgin birth" myth for Jesus.
Probably ALL of them, eh? (well, except for the creation myth of Adam (mankind) and Eve.
Isaiah 7 has NOTHING to do with Jesus.
Wow. What a surprise... sexual reproduction as early as that...

kcdad

Messiah. Understanding the meaning of this word... nothing to do with divinity or particular uniqueness... Saul David... many were "Messiahs".
Prophesy. Not about predicting the future. It is more like "if then" proposals...
Creation. The myth of the Genesis story has nothing to do with time, place or personalities... it is a "Mythic" pronouncement of Israel's place in the world.

How I have investigated... first you have to ask questions. Then you have to seek sources of information that might shed light on your queries. The you have to read and listen to people. You have to gather lots of information from many different sources about many different topics and then try to piece some wisdom together from all the different bits you have gathered. Comparing Hebrew myths to Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and others is a part of this process. Understanding the limitations of science, and language is another important piece of the puzzle.


I can not help or explain why anyone wold denounce anyone's wisdom... unless they lack it themselves. There is a distinct difference between wisdom and knowledge. Perhaps without an understanding of Astronomy, for example, someone might wisely suspect that the Earth is not the center of the universe, but they may be unable to grasp the mechanics by which the Earth turns on is axis (causing day and night) or revolves around the sun (causing seasons). Technology changes the way we think and view the world around us... if one thinks that knowledge is a static thing, well, I guess it is then... for them.


OK then.
OK. At least we know where we stand.

Just for fun, you might want to look into Jean Piaget's radical theories about cognitive development... it is pretty controversial stuff, but there are some who think he might be on to something. Another guy who does the same thing with moral development is Lawrence Kohlberg. Another guy, Sigmund Freud developed his theories about stages of development regarding personality and another guy, Gerhard Lenski built his theory about how societies go through stages of development... and there is another guy, Karl Marx who suggested that these stages are economic in nature... and then...

oh well.. you get my point. There are a lot of guys who think that maybe we are different today than we were 10,000 years ago.

aa5874

Such a statement is completely false. The fabricated conception of Jesus Christ was based on Isaiah 7.14 as probably found in the LXX.

Isaiah 7:14 -
Matthew 1.22-23 It should be completely obvious that the author of Matthew was looking at a passage where the word was "virgin" and not "woman".

Again, the author wanted his Jesus to be the offspring of the Holy Ghost of the God of the Jews, not just a man born through sexual union.

The virgin birth was the single most important aspect of the Jesus story, that is Mary was still a virgin up to the very day Jesus was born.

Based on the NT, Jesus could have only been the offspring of the God of the Jews.

Kasper

You typed alot of words there, but all of them are irrelevant to the question I asked you.

Ah okey. So you are the one having the TRUE GOD given ability to reason, while the Muslims and the ancient Aztecs simply just... denounced it or lacked it?
Again you failed to address the point of what I wrote, so let me be a bit more direct: Do you know if your worldview, that is, that Jesus was a divine and physical incarnation of God, is correct, and that the Muslims are wrong about Jesus being a 100% human prophet?

Maybe it's controversial and maybe it's not. One thing is clear though, it is highly irrelevant to our discussion. We were discussing cognitive abilities of people living 10.000 years ago and people alive today. This guy was studying cognitive abilities of children and how they develop it through adolescence and into adulthood.

This guy is also irrelevant.

So is he.

Oh yeah. I remember Karl Marx for his outstanding research on stone age humans' brains' cognitive capacities I have to put the "Irrelevant Stamp" on this guy aswell.

Maybe. But you haven't mentioned a single one yet.

(SARCASM)
Did you research the Bible the same way you researched these guys?
(SARCASM)

striderlives

I think it's clear that kcdad uses the same methodology that so many modern 'christians' use to overcome the logical problems of the bible that their Reason cannot deny - eisegesis.

They end up with a pick-and-choose version of what's really important to them (usually just "I know I'm Saved') that conveniently no longer depends on 98% of the bible being true or even rational.

Personally, I find this mental process more troubling than abject fundalmentalism as it leads otherwise reasonable people to justify their 'faith' - in total abnegation of the same 'GOD-given Reason' they wax poetic over.