ercatli

G'day Chaucer. I don't think there is anywhere that I recount my own story. Should there be?

But the story is simple. My family were not believers. My mum and dad never went to church, though they sent us kids to Sunday School, as many people did in those days. But it was pretty mild and there was no reinforcement at home, so it didn't make much of an impression on me. In my middle teens I started to attend a church youth group, and by the time of my first or second year at Uni, I had decided I believed in Jesus. But I wasn't really happy just to believe, so I started reading, initially books like Mere Christianity and others by CS Lewis, Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison, The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable? by FF Bruce, etc, to decide what was reasonable to believe. In my Engineering degree, we were required to do some "humanities" to make us nerdish engineers more rounded people () and so I did two years of Philosophy, including one of logic (with the motivation of ensuring my beliefs were as well based as possible). My parents and one of my brothers subsequently believed also, and one brother prior to me. One brother remains an unbeliever.

In my mid to late 20s, through a somewhat strange sequence of events, I did a theology degree (actually a Bachelor of Divinity) which gave me a lot more background in a lot of this stuff (e.g. I focused a little on John's Gospel and Philosophical Theology), though I never did anything more with it (like become a minister or anything, I mean). And I maintained my interest in philosophy, historical Jesus, cosmology, etc, right through life, and when I retired 4 years ago I started doing a lot more reading.

I have been an active believer all my life since I converted. I think living and doing is more important than discussing and arguing, so I am only sporadic in my involvement in forums like this one.

So here I am and that's my story. I can't imagine it is all that interesting, but thanks for the enquiry. Best wishes.

ercatli

I said I'd quit "this abortive discussion", and I will. But I wanted you to know your post made me laugh I think more than anything else has on any forum I've been on.

I can only say in response that:

1. It looks like I may have got away with my famous impression of "a good, decent, mature, level-headed, responsible Christian"! Do you want see my Charlie Chaplin next?

2. The only interest I have in zombies is avoiding becoming one by spending too long at this keyboard. But if I succumb, I promise I'll find you and we can discuss life and death!

3. Yeah, I was worried about the missionary aspects. I think the best way out of it is to send the good Mormon boys around to see you.

Best wishes. If there were more posts like your last and less like your previous, then I might have stayed longer. Which, I know, is an incentive to really piss me off!

Best wishes.

aa5874

You do not have any metaphysical or historical facts with respect to your God and his son.

You are just a believer that maybe doing some missionary work for God on the internet.

Instead of supplying historical facts about your God and his son, you just supplied a list of writers and opinions of which the majority may simply be believers in your God and Jesus.

You cannot and have not ascertain any historical facts about:

1. The conception of Jesus through the Holy Ghost and the Virgin.

2. The temptation of Jesus by the Devil on the pinnacle of the Temple.

3. The miracles where Jesus healed incurable diseases.

4. The walking on water by Jesus.

5. The transfiguration of Jesus.

6. The trial of Jesus.

7. The crucifixion of Jesus.

8. The burial of Jesus.

9. The resurrection of Jesus.

10. The ascension of Jesus.

You have NO historical facts or sources of antiquity external of the very sources under scrutiny, the very sources under investigation, the very sources that appear to be incredible and full of errors or fiction.

The NT as it stands is an uncorroborated source under investigation.

The belief in your God and Son Jesus, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, does not require any logic at all or historical facts, just pure simply belief.


But, you cannot demonstrate that what you believe is true even though you understand that what you believe is not known to have happened to anyone else.

No-one is obligated to demonstrate, without any credible evidence or historical facts, that your one off bizarre events did not happen.

You are the one who is OBLIGATED to show that your one-off bizarre-events did occur, especially when you may be encouraging people to believe in the same one-off-bizarre events.

It is just absurd to make outrageous claims and then ask other people to demonstrate that your baseless outrageous claims did not happen.

You must first tell us on what basis, on what historical facts, you made your outrageous claim.

Surely you are putting aside all reason and logic to maintain your belief in your God and your Jesus under the pretense that you have historical facts when there is not even any historical facts anywhere about your Jesus except for forgeries in Josephus.

Larkin31

Doug, I actually thought that you made a great point here, and this really got me wondering: just what kind (style) of documents do we have? WHY are they written this way? In what manner of style were other documents of the first two centuries AD written?

Can you refer me to anyone who has written about this?

bacht

I was thinking of the epistles, which are still usually dated earlier than the gospels.

bacht

But all we have are speculations until new evidence appears. Maybe it's a little easier to piece together some sort of church history after bar-Kochba but not before afaics.

To me the gospels are clearly mythological, but whether there was some human story behind them can't be answered with any certainty. It's all "maybes" and "could have beens" because we don't really know do we?

bacht

Do we really know this?

Could be. Whether the visions preceded the midrash or vice versa doesn't alter the mythical nature of the situation.

aa5874

The extant Pauline Epistles cannot be dated to the 1st century as of now. They can only be considered to be early while others have considered them to be late or after the Jesus stories.

show_no_mercy

There are a metric shit-ton of "christs" in the LXX.

aa5874

So, you now see that those who claim that there is a very strong probability of a specific individual behind the Jesus story really don't know what they are saying.

They really have nothing but maybes and could have beens, just hot air and are simply wasting everybody's time.

You have surely identified the problem.

We are dealing with people who are trying to convince us that maybes and could have beens is equivalent to a "strong probability".

I will not be wasting my time with people who know what the extant evidence shows yet try to use their imagination to invent the history of another Jesus not found anywhere in antiquity.

Even if Achilles did really exist, how in the world could it be possible to re-construct the specific individual behind Achilles?

All we know is that both Achilles and Jesus were presented with mythological characteristics and events and internally confirmed to be the offspring of Gods, or the Ghost of One.