Riverwind

Is it? I certainly don't think so. To my knowledge it has always been religious.

You and Sauron put a lot of faith in the "laws of physics". As an engineer, I don't see things as quite the solid foundation that you do. Besides, you say that the laws don't care about religion and that is true enough, but what created these so called laws? Why do they exist? What caused them? You don't know. You merely have faith in them. I feel that people who talk like you and Sauron have never really examined these things in the kind of detail that great philosophical thinkers have done.

Experience has also shown that secular bias undermines objectivity, or is it simply that human fallibility and prejudices undermine objectivity. I think the latter.

"Serious people"...hmpf... Some "serious people" need much more introspection and honest about their own faith before they can call themselves such.

Riverwind

Excellent point, and I think one that must be answered.

Do secularists have any business being at the "table"?

Again, Peter used to understand these points. I prefer to believe he is on one of his kicks of testing people and their assumptions and conclusions as he is wont to do. Or he has become the very militant atheist slime that he once abhorred. Surely not.

youngalexander

PK, I have found this a most stimulating thread.
Indeed, a most telling argument. It must be, for I have used it once or twice myself.

Let us consider the MJ/HJ debate. Anyone who has followed the numerous bouts on this forum will note the following:

Unbelievers are distributed amongst both MJ & HJ.
Believers are exclusively HJ. Indeed, I cannot recall a single MJ advocate from the theists.:huh:

We have current statistics Did Jesus Exist? which show that the No Jesus vote is > 30%.

If, as has been claimed here, the theists were as equally open to unbiased argument, then with a certainty, their numbers would also register at least 30% for the proposition. I say at least, for if it is claimed that they may be misrepresented in the data as a minority, then it can only increase the fraction of those theists who ought to hold a MJ position.

Lest any amongst you object that Christians holding MJ views is a non sequitur then my argument wins by default.

Riverwind

I don't see this as "unkind". I just don't often buy into Sauron's comments, so I don't respond.

I am not "using" quantum mechanics. You say that quantum mechanics has led to greater accuracy, something I won't and can't deny. My concern is about the unpredictability of it. We don't understand it or the properties and laws behind it. My point is that we thought we understood our "laws of physics" and then along comes quantum mechanics and throws a wrench into the works. Sure it helps, but what is it? Do we really understand it? It seems contrary to what we've known or experienced in the world before it's discovery.

We use Einstein's theory of relativity, but are we sure that the equation is correct? Why does the equation work?

There are a lot of things in life that we take purely on faith. Many people will simply accept these new theories and never examine whether or not our faith in their accuracy is warranted.

Riverwind

This is not as baffling as it may seem, for just as one cannot find an Mythical Jesus (MJ) among believers, one cannot find a Messianic Jesus (MJ) among non-believers. :huh:



If non-believers are as unbiased as they claim, then where are those who can accept the possibility of miracles and the possibility that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God?

Febble

Me too.

Yes, I object. I've only started to explore the MJ theory (on this forum) but if I were to find it convincing (not yet) I'd seriously wonder whether it was right to continue to call myself a Christian.

I don't think your argument wins at all. You have no evidence for the direction of causality - i.e. whether Christians are Christians because they are convinced by the HJ evidence or whether they are convinced by the HJ evidence because they are Christians.

And to be honest, if anyone is interested in deconverting me, I suggest that the HJers have more chance. Finding out that Jesus was real but not good would be more devastating to my Christian faith than finding out that Jesus was good but not real.

Febble

Actually, is this true? There are surely many non-Christian theists in the world who would accept the possibility that Jesus was mythical?

Anyway, FWIW, if I were to find myself convinced by the MJ proponents, I might cease to identify as a Christian, but would see no compelling reason to cease to identify as a theist. And in any case, I am already convinced that a great many aspects of the Christian story are likely to be mythical in some sense. John's gospel is full of myth, which is one of the reasons I like it.

youngalexander

This is rather what I suspected that you meant. In the first place QM is not unpredictable, it is highly predictable, but in a probabilistic manner. We do understand the 'laws of physics', but not in the deterministic way that seems intuitive in everyday life.

very small scale - QM
meso scale, everyday life, history - Newtonian
large/very fast - Relativity

QM & R must be reconciled, but we do not know how as yet. This does not effect meso scale history.

No, not the same thing. I accept western medicine because I know that it is based upon scientific principles. I go to the doc, he takes my blood pressure 156/95 and says, "take these pills each morning or you could be in strife". I take them. I say to him, "GW is real so we best set about mitigation" & he does (I'm a meteorologist). This is not faith, it is recognised expertise in our fields. Different thing entirely.

Jack the Bodiless

This is all very bizarre.

I think Peter has been pretty clear about the sort of Christian he's objecting to: those with a dogmatic faith in the "truth" of the Bible (i.e. inerrantists). Yet here I keep seeing Christians who I thought were "liberals" self-identifying with this group and imagining that Peter wants THEM excluded...

As for those who claim to "know" that God exists: on several occasions in the past, I've tried asking such people to repeat God's exact words to you in which he decreed that the Bible was to be taken literally. None have replied so far, which leads me to conclude that they generally DON'T have divine assurance of Biblical inerrancy. This is still an unwarranted "leap of faith", even for those who think they "know" that God is real.

gurugeorge

It's an absurd point. As if Christianity weren't something that has affected us all, historically and in the present!

Any thinking human being, whatever their intellectual biases and preferences, is perfectly justified in having an interest in the origins of this sect that (for better or worse) has had such a powerful influence on world affairs.

In particular, the question whether it is based on hoax or error of some kind or other, is a deeply important question for any rational human being.