Thugpreacha

As a Christian, I believe that God is the source of all wisdom. The counter argument which is touted says that humans are their own source of wisdom. While my side asserts that all scripture was written by God through human authors, the other side will assert that the Bible is a piece of literature like every other book written.
Christians disagree even amongst themselves over many issues. The advantage that scholars have over religious sects is that scholars base their knowledge on verifiable facts. They take into account many diverse sources of wisdom. In defense of my belief, I will assert this fact: A Christian is not a Christian by means of education,indoctorination, or by way of any scholarly pursuit. A Christian is a Christian due to spiritual impartation. Look at the History of Western Civilization and compare it with the New Testament. To get back on topic, I put forth this question: What is the source of wisdom? I present my case for Christ. He died and rose again. Civilization changed from that time onward.
Look at the sources of wisdom in those days. First, we know that 95% of the population could not read the few books that were available. The Church still thrived! I assert that impartation of spiritual wisdom was what held the church together. Critics will say that "more wars were fought because of Christianity than despite it."
I will agree that humans have basic inborn flaws in character. We call this "original sin."
So who were the vessels of this spiritual impartation from the time of Jesus until Constantine? Who carried it forth until the year 1500 and the start of printed knowledge?
It most certainly was not the Popes and Cardinals.
It was the little people (monks,mainly) who had a love of this source of wisdom. They preserved the original scriptures. Taking into account how hard it was to write a book in those early days, the New Testament writers certainly had a passion for doing so! They did not write literary fables. They wrote with an inner voice...the very voice of God! People have tried to mock the Bible as an inerrent source of wisdom. One cannot "prove" God to someone who thinks Him un necessary.
The Catholics believe that scripture should only be interpreted through the Church. The Protestants believe that scripture interprets scripture. Both agree on the source of wisdom, however. Be it through the church that preserves the word, or through the word which gathers the church, the truth is absolute, loving, and personal. He cares for each one of us...scientist and skeptic, atheist, agnostic, and alcoholic.
An ancient collection of books written over a span of 1500 BC until 100 AD. Written by more than 40 kings, prophets,leaders, and followers of Jesus. Fascinating that, although so diverse the Bible is a unique testimony to literary unity and to presenting a case for the source of all wisdom.

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"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

Vicar Philip

So just because a book was revered and carried forward through history through great turmoil makes it "the source of all wisdom"? Would you agree that one of the reasons for said turmoil was the competition of other religions with equally passionate followers? What makes them wrong and whatever flavor of Christianity you believe in correct?

Biff the unclean

I've yet to have a Christian reply to this question, but I live in hope.

If God is the source of all wisdom and God is the author of the Bible why is the Bible so woefully ignorant of the world God says he made? For instance first page of the first book of the Bible has the second day of creation. God spends the entire day constructing the firmament, a solid dome of sky, and placing half the divided sea water and Heaven above it. In a later book it tells that the firmament is as hard as beaten brass. In yet another ladders are lowered from it. In the NT Jesus ascends bodily to it.

Why does God in all his wisdom not know that there isn't any firmament?

breathilizer

In order to have a counter-argument, you must first have an argument to begin with. "I believe in X" is not an argument.

Talk to Muslims who believe that the Koran is written by Allah. If you dismiss them, you must accept why we dismiss you. You can assert all you want, but when it comes down to backing up your assertions, you're pretty much at a HUGE loss. Your "evidences" are basically more ungrounded assertions, unreliable testimonials, biased research, and other various forms of hogwash.

Knowing this, you still keep your religion? Maybe you should look around you and realize that there a LOT of diffreent peopl stuck in a very similar situation as yourself, and none of you agree with one another. Meanwhile, science has brought poeple together in unison towards real knowledge and discovery so that we can better our lives without having to resort to false hopes.

You can say that again.

#1, You assert that the spiritual exists.

#2, You ignore that a Christian is a Christian due to clever marketing and mind-abusing families/friends.

Where did this come from?

"wisdom"

How about "knowledge?" Well, we have these things called "senses." Through them, we gather information fromt he world outside of our bodies. That information travels to what we call a "brain." This collects the data in what we call "memories." We "remember" information, events, people, places, equations, and much much more.

As far as wisdom goes, well, some people are MUCH better and processing all this information than others. Some would even argue that this is largely due to genetics. The people that are exceptionally good at this, we call "highly intelligent," or "wise." (Hence "wisdom")

First of all, you'll have to prove that he existed. Then, you'll have to prove that he came back. present a case for THAT, and we'll see if we can go anywhere from there.

So? Civilization is ALWAYS changing. It changed from the time that I got up this morning? Does that mean that my awakening was divinely inspired? We could easily say that civilization changed from the rise and fall of the Greek or the Egyptians. Why say "the time of Christ?" What big change happened then that was so different from any other event in history?

Plus, you can't even prove that it really changed all that much as you say it did. Civilization has never been perfect. It was as bad then as it was 1000 years prior, and as it was 1000 years afterward. We still had corrupt governments, poverty, plagues of illnesses, wars, lying, cheating, stealing, murder, etc. Jesus didn't change any of that. Has our quality of life gotten better since 0 A.D.? Of course. That is to be expected with better techologies, trial and error in leadership, and the development of better medicines. Did Jesus cure the common cold? Maybe then we'd have a reason to praise him. But as of right now, all I know is that he was some lunatic with a whore for a mother who ran around scamming people. The Romans got pissed off at him for starting trouble and put him to death. After a while, he developed a fan club. The leaders of the fan clubs continued on right where Jesus left off. "Healing" people, taking their money, preaching, and scamming them. But of course you'll disagree. You'llsay that the world "changed" because Jesus brought the light of good, right? Well I have some news for you. Jesus didn't invent good. Good (the subjective experience that people like) existed long before Jesus. Hell, charity even existed before Jesus. Jesus didn't do anything special. Maybe he was a good guy. Big Deal. So make him your role model. But don't make him out to be more than he was. He wasn't devine, and he didn't change the world.


First of all,where do you get 95%? I'm not saying that you're wrong, but when you say "we know that" I expect you to bring some real facts to the table, not something you just pulled out of a hat. For the record, I'd say that the number is about right.

The leaders could read. That's all that mattered. As long as they could spread the message, then there is nothing surprising about the "strength" of the church. What about Homer? He did basically the same thing. He told stories. Then people told his story, and the people that heard it then told it again. And so forth. Does that mean that this web of story-tellers and Homer's "fan club" was held together by "spiritual wisdom?" No. It simply means that the system works pretty well. By Jesus's time, the method had been around for thousand's of years. It was no secret that when you went to a small village and told uneducated people stories (an you have already admitted that part of being a Christian comes from dismissing education, so uneducated people are one step ahead of the game), they not only believe it, but they will tell other people. Given that there was such a social divide, most uneducated people hung out with mostly other uneducated people. So, among the repetitious story-telling, Christianity spread. Big frickin deal.

I call it "Origin... of the Species" Just like there are people with big noses and people with small noses, there are good people, and there are bad people. A LOT of a persons personality is in their genes. And since genes under mutations, one shouldn't be surprised to see that some people are meaner than others, and sometimes war breaks out because of it. But that isn't all that "bad" per say. What Christians call "evil" and "original sin," most rational and educated people simply call human nature. We lie and cheat because in some situations, those actions are survival skills. They are inherited traits that aren't common because of some devine "original sin." They are common because that is what our species is like. They are traits of our species. Even regular apes steal and whatnot. It's natural, not devine.

Okay, let's go with your monk idea. These people, although sometimes educated, were usually locked up in a small town with big-ass walls with very little communication from the outside world. They usually were NOT educated past the fairy-tale of the Bible. They hadn't heard of the Big Bang, or even heard of the Solar System or even evolution. They really thought that the Earth was created in 6 days. Everyone around them agreed, and they had no other means of explaining the universe. All of them up to a certain point had not heard of the Scientific method. In fact, no one had. It didn't exist. So to a lot of people, the Bible made sense. And that's all the Bible is. It is an explaination that came about BEFORE we figured out how to use the reliable, time-tested, undeniably fantastic scientific method.

Think about that. Take yourself out of your religion for a moment. Look at Earth as if it were a planet not your own. You are an alien looking down on the human civilization from a COMPLETELY objective viewpoint. You see tall buildings, cars, and people trying to cure AIDS, cancer, MS, etc. There are people getting better from illness, and people being entertained by movies with fun special effects. You know that the humans arrived at all of these things using the scientific method developed within the past hundreds of years. Now, again from a completely objective viewpoint, look at the Bible, and the Koran, and all the other holy books from all the other religions. What do you, as an alien, think of those books? Well, you know that none of them ever got science anywhere. You know that none of them cured diseases or built a computer. All you know is that a long time ago, these humans knew how to write books, but there was no way to reliably verify the truth value of what was written in them. There was no requirement to make a bibliography, or do research. It was easy for them to just write down whatever they wanted and pass it off as the truth. What do you, as a completely objective alien to our planet, think Christianity is? A religion based on the truth, or a religion based on a few lies, even if those lies were meant to do good?

"George Bush ate a monkey last night"

I wrote this because the voice of God told me to write it. If you believe in the Bible, you MUST (MUST!!!) believe that George Bush ate a monkey last night.

And you can not show someone that God is unnecessary when their brains have been thoroughly washed with clever marketing and mind-abusing parents.


Catholics rape little boys. If that's who you trust, seek help.

Preaching isn't allowed here at II. Take it elsewhere.

Intersting that: No.

Thugpreacha

It is not the "book" nor is it the "early church" nor is it the political agenda of the early Popes. It is the very essence of the reality of the Holy Spirit. If other religions were so right, they would also be in touch with this same Spirit by default. At the risk of being labled absolutist, arrogant, and wrong, I maintain that Christianity is right because Christ is Alive and because the Spirit exists. I cannot prove it, but He can. I cannot prove Him, but the very fact that many people have sensed His presence indicates an argument For the existance of this Spirit. Can any of you say that there is no such thing as a supernatural realm? Aside from the issue of no solid evidence in mainstream science, many many documentations of supernatural events are out there. Lets just say that for the sake of argument the evidence is thin at this time. For you, at least.

Vicar Philip

Oh man, where to start?Assertion.Assertions. Argumentum ad populem, argument from numbers.(bolding by me) Well, you see, that little ol' issue of "no solid evidence in mainstream science" is kind of the issue. If it weren't for that pesky little problem, we'd ALL be theists! I'm sorry, Thug, but I find your arguments entirely unconvincing. Thanks for your input, though.

Biggus

You do understand what evidence is, don't you?


It is the very essence of the reality of Winnie the Pooh. If other religions were so right, they would also be in touch with this same character by default. At the risk of being labled absolutist, arrogant, and wrong, I maintain that Poohism is right because the Pooh is Alive and because the Pooh exists. I cannot prove it, but He can. I cannot prove Him, but the very fact that many people have sensed His presence indicates an argument For the existance of Winnie the Pooh.

How is this any different from what you said?

And are you going to give Biff the answer that he has been looking for, regarding the firmament?

Spike~

Essence of the reality? What the hell is that? You really outta listen to yourself talk sometime.

Who says they're not? Just because different relgions 'worship' differently, doesn't mean that they're all not paying homage to the same God.

[removed]

Christ is dead, remember, the whole crusifiction thing? And how about you not going around stating your uneducated, illogical and unproven opinions as fact. [removed]

Just because Christianity's big, doesn't mean anything. There are a lot of stupid, gullible ppl in this world, and Christianity does have a good sales pitch. Believe or burn.

Pure, unproven, unsubstantiated speculation and opinion.

MysteryProf

Did you know that the "official Wisdom literature" of the Bible rather resembles the same sort of literature that was written in Egypt, which is said to have influenced Proverbs?

Hedshaker

Great post breathilizer. I really enjoyed that :notworthy :notworthy

Orbit