NZSkep

you see, my prophecy has become fulfilled. That conclusively proves me as the inerrant, inspired word of Zeus. so :Cheeky:

not sure what you are talking about, but zeus appeared to me in the form of a golden shower.

mata leao

uhh NZskep, people dont start to get cold feet (Anthony Flew etc) as they begin to face their own mortality and start worrying about hedging their bets with ...."Zeus".... that's part of the difference. That's why NZ skip isnt over argguing with the beleievers in Zeus on the Zeus message board!

Diogenes the Cynic

Anthony Flew's "conversion" was wildly exaggerated.

Chris Weimer

Sort of. It was the sort of trust that inferiors had towards their superiors, which gives us the adjective "faithful" - Latin fidelis. It had more of the connotations of loyal than trusting, however. This is why fidelity to your spouse doesn't mean that you trust him/her, but that you are loyal. So saying faith = trust is ultimately misleading.

Clarice O'C

Seems like Heb. 11:1 would be used by xians as another proof text on the definition of 'faith":

'And what is faith? Faith gives substance to our hopes, and makes us certain of realities we do not see.' NEB

'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.' RSV

Better versions?

And so it sounds like 'hope' comes first, e.g., 'I hope that Jesus is the one and only Son of God rather than the incarnation of Lord Krishna ... '. 'I like that and so I think I'll have faith in it (trust it's true and believe it) because I'm certain of it as reality even though it doesn't exist in the real world.'

This is why, ultimately, history cannot prove theology.

'Faith' is quite relevant to this thread.

No?

lpetrich

Don't make me laugh.

There is a lot of evidence that suggests that at least some parts of the Gospels are unhistorical. Where is that mountain from which Jesus Christ was shown "all the kingdoms of the world"?

And getting away from such farfetched things as that, neither Philo nor Josephus mentioned Herod's ordering the killing of those baby boys, even though Josephus portrayed Herod as paranoid and murderous. And compared to how Philo and Josephus portrayed Pontius Pilate, the Gospels make him seem like a wimp. And why didn't Philo or Josephus or anyone else record that mysterious three-hour darkness, those earthquakes, and those zombies taking walks from their tombs?

Why believe that Jesus Christ had cured some people with salivary therapy and Roman Emperor Vespasian didn't? Especially as two of our main sources on the earlier Roman emperors, Suetonius and Tacitus, describe Vespasian as having done so.

And why believe that Jesus Christ had raised someone from the dead and not Apollonius of Tyana?

Josephus describes several self-styled prophets in detail, like Theudas and "The Egyptian", but he says next to nothing about Jesus Christ -- if not nothing at all! This was despite the Gospels picturing JC as being a big celebrity. Simply check out Richard Carrier's classic Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels.

Clarice O'C

Hi, are you speaking of Lazarus here? I've wondered if the assertion of 'raised from the dead' is the same as resurrection (supernaturally speaking on both). Was not 'resurrection' common, theologically speaking? What was it?

Maybe a new thread or OK on this one?

post tenebras lux

Hi OFT, could you kindly explain what you mean by 'more motivated', as it's not quite clear to me and so I am unsure if I agree or disagree with you.
Apart from the gospels themselves you mean? What about that little disagreement over when Jesus was born? Was it pre 4BC or post 4AD?

Phew!! For a second I thought you were going to claim that I have faith (in something or other), but as you used 'belief' in your definition that gets me off the hook, as I have no beliefs.

Luxie - no beliefs in anything and no faiths either.

Orthodox_Freethinker

Please allow me to stop you here. If Satan is the author of deception, he is a master of illusion. Therefore, he could have created a vision of the kingdoms of the world for Jesus to see. The world isn't flat so there is no mountain in the world which would normally have such a view.
When this event is portrayed in films, the "kingdoms of the world" often appear as a vision in the clouds. I believe that you are guilty of a little too much "literalism".
Allow me to say again that there is no hard evidence against the historicity of the Gospels. I am able to say this after how much time I have researched teh skeptical arguments against their authenticity. www.jesusneverexisted.com is a personal favorite, especially since if this is how skeptics really think, then their minds are woefully lost.
It is strange that you would use Apollonius of Tyana as an example considering that the record we have of his supposed miracles was compiled long after the departure of Christ. For all we know, the legends of him were influenced by the life of Christ.

Peace.

lpetrich

("All the kingdoms of the world"...)
But why did the Devil need to take JC up some mountain if all the Devil did was create views of those kingdoms?

Hmmm.... as I'd posted earlier, consider the crucifixion events in Matthew, like that mysterious 3-hour midday darkness. Why didn't Philo report any of them? Josephus? Pliny the Elder?

Philo was about 50 years old at the time, and he had written about Pontius Pilate, so why not on the crucifixion events?

Pliny the Elder, was about 10 years old at the time, and likely living near Lake Como in Italy. If the darkness had stretched that far, he could have seen it, though me might not have attached much significance to it. But he could have asked his father and other elders about it later on in life. And he would have written about it in his Natural History; that work contains lots of things that are at least as preposterous as a mysterious daytime darkness.

Josephus was born at about the time when these events happened, but here also, he could have asked his father and other elders. Imagine:

Dad: Joe, something really strange happened when you were born.

Joe: What?

Dad: It happened when some false prophet was executed by the Romans.

Joe: False prophets are a dime a dozen. What's so special about this one?

Dad: When he was crucified, the sky went dark for three hours, the earth shook, rocks split, and corpses took walks from their tombs. Yes, I swear by His Holy Name that it is all true and that I saw it with my very own eyes.

Joe: I understand, Dad. Things like that simply don't happen every day. Do you know anyone else who remembers any of this?