Petergdi

If this is true, then why do you behave as you do towards politically liberal Christians?

Is it actually true? Is Christian orthodoxy really what is behind the legislation that you object to?

Or is it rather the case that conservative political forces (especially in the US) often dress themselves up as religious?

Peter.

Zenaphobe

The Republican party was hijacked by religious conservatives who were led to believe that they could not remain apolitical and serve the interests of their God.

Some of these conservatives believe in dominion theology which holds that Christians are to take dominion of every aspect of culture to hasten the Kingdom of God.

See the Coalition on Revival for an overview of their plan- http://65.175.91.69/Reformation_net/default.htm

Fighting fundamentalist Christianity is as important to defending American ideals of freedom.

The Constitution is not a dominionist value, only the Bible interpreted through Reformation doctrine is.

If you disagree you can start a thread so as not to derail this one.

Johnny Skeptic

How do I behave towards politically liberal Christians? If I know that a Christian is very politically liberal, I usually do not have debates with him. I am an agnostic. For your information, I have more very liberal theist friends than atheist and agnostic friends. I am friends with a family who attend a Unity church. The mother is the pastor, and the son is a college music major. I play keyboard, and I am a composer. I enjoy having the son come to my house for some musical enjoyment. The family are delightful people. I would not dream of trying to convince them to give up their religion. They know that I am an agnostic, but that does not bother them at all. They invited me to their Christmas Eve service last year. I attended, and enjoyed getting together with the congregation in a meeting hall after the concert.

It is true that in the U.S., the chief opponents of physician assisted suicide, homosexuality, allowing openly homosexual people to join the military, same-sex marriage, abortion, using government funds for stem cell research, and using marijuana for medical purposes are conservative Christians, and that the Bible has influenced a large percentage of those Christians. Pat Robertson and Dr. James Dobson are two of the most popular and influential Christians in the U.S. They have millions of followers. Surely Robertson and Dobson do not dress themselves up as religious. Numerous writings and lectures by them show that they are committed conservative Christians. The same goes for the late Jerry Falwell. And then there is the Roman Catholic church, which is an outspoken opponent of the issues that I mentioned (with the possible exception of using marijuana for medical purposes), and often on religious grounds.

Many conservative Christian websites criticize physician assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, and many other liberal issues on religious grounds.

Western European Christians are generally much more supportive of the issues that I mentioned than American Christians are. I believe that the reason for that is because there are much smaller percentages of inerrantists among Christians in Western Europe than there are in the U.S. In my opinion, skeptics in the U.S. should oppose inerrancy much more than they do. By "inerrancy," I mean the claim that God inspired and preserved the originals free of errors except for scribal and copyist errors.

A fair number of Western European countries allow openly homosexual people to join the military, including Britain, and so does Israel. In addition, it is well-known that homosexuals are much more accepted in Western Europe than they are in the U.S. Canadian Christians also accept homosexuals much more than American Christians do. You might know that same-sex marriage is legal in Canada. In the U.S., physician assisted suicide is only legal in Oregon in Washington, but in Europe, it is legal in Switzerland (for over 60 years), the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and is frequently tolerated under certain circumstances in some other Western European countries, an example being Sweden.

Regarding the court case "Lawrence versus Texas," 2003, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas, two gay men who lived in Texas were arrested for nothing more than having sex in the privacy a home. They were not causing a disturbance. A neighbor reported them under false pretenses, and they were arrested. The man sued the state of Texas. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the men. The dissenting justices were predictably Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas, all of whom are, or were in Rehnquist's case since he died, conservative Christians. The Court overturned anti-sodomy laws in Texas and 12 other states. The majority of the states are predictably Southern Bible Belt states. Utah and Idaho are two exceptions, and both states have large percentages of Mormons. Mormons are typically outspoken opponents of homosexuality.

Regarding the court case "Gonzales versus Oregon," 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Oregon, President Bush tried to overturn Oregon's physicial assisted suicide law. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Oregon. Every other court also ruled in favor of Oregon. The dissenting U.S. Supreme Court justices were predictably Scalia, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts. Roberts is a conservative Christian, and he was appointed by President Bush.

I believe that some conservative Christian federal judges have religious bias, but have convinced themselves that they don't.

Religious bias has obviously been a part of human history for thousands of years, and conservative Christians have certainly not been an exception. As an example, during the U.S. Civil War, Jefferson Davis, who was the head of the Southern Confederacy, defended slavery on biblical grounds. Who could blame him since the Bible does not clearly oppose slavery, nor the subjugation of women for that matter?

I oppose any group of any religion who try to force people to act in certain ways based partly, primarily, or solely upon religious texts without valid accompanying secular arguments. Conservative Christians frequently try to attack homosexuality on secular grounds, but they always embarrass themselves when they do.

Regarding the issue of the teaching of creationism in public schools, I believe that the majority of conservative Christians favor a balanced treatment where both evolution and creationism, or intelligent design if you wish, would be taught, but such was not the case when creationism used to enjoy exclusivity in public schools. Then, the majority of conservative Christians were content to usurp the rights of other groups of people.

Regarding the issues of colonization, slavery, and the subjugation of women, it is interesting that Christian opinions dramatically changed even though the Bible stayed the same. That is an example of secular, social evolution. Just like everyone else, what Christians believe is primarily determined by geography, family, race, ethnity, gender, age, and time period. All of those factors except for time period are discussed in the landmark book "One Nation Under God" by Kosmin and Lachman. The book is praised by Billy Graham and John Cardinal O'Conner, but I do not have any idea why since the book provides excellent evidence that backs up what I said. The authors do not attack religion, but their research can be credibly used to attack religion.

Is it your position that you would have been a Christian under all possible circumstances? If not, then will you admit that chance and circumstance determined what you believe?

If you wish, we can have some detailed discussions regarding these issues at the Church/State Separation forum.

May I ask which denomination, if any you belong to, and are you an inerrantist?

DancesWithCoffeeCups

Let's get this discussion back on topic, alright?

ercatli

G'day Tharn

I was preparing notes for my response when Moderator DancesWithCoffeeCups posted: "Let's get this discussion back on topic, alright?". I was a little surprised by this, and I don't know the rules here about staying on topic and following Moderators' directions, but I accept the advice. Accordingly, I will scrap most of my response on epistemology, limiting myself to a dot point summary of a few main points, and concentrate on the historical Jesus matters.

I'm sorry, but I feel that you insist too much, making confident claims of factuality for things that are not. My summary response:

• What I wrote about how I make decisions stands. I find it somewhat amazing that you can so confidently tell me, who you don't know, how I actually think and live. To me, these mistaken conclusions unfortunately harm your credibility.
• I use "proof" and "reasonable doubt" in a similar way to you - not "Absolute Certainty Dipped In Gold And Deep Fat Fried" proof!
• Most of your discussion of epistemology was unfortunately not relevant to what I believe. Your examples and arguments were of normal everyday events where "nomological induction" is valid, but your apparent assumption of naturalism is inappropriate to the question at hand (as I will discuss in a moment), and is an assumption you did not prove and which I do not accept. (I use the word naturalism as a quick summary of much of what you say about the validity and sufficiency of observation and induction to explain the universe and human existence.)

So that is all I will say off-topic. And now to the historical Jesus, where my response addresses what I see as assumptions, unclear argument and overstatement .....

The topic is the historical Jesus, and someone made the claim that "the" resurrection couldn't have happened because dead men don't ever rise. If the resurrection occurred, it was a "special" event, so considering it as different to other events is not "special pleading", but recognition of the unique claims being made.

Clarifying the argument by putting it in the form of a proposition, is helpful. Your arguments support the proposition, which I already accept, that normally, or naturally, dead men don't rise - but that is not what christians claim. The proposition you and others have to "prove", in this context, if you want to defend the original statement, is that God could not have raised Jesus from the dead (because that is what christians actually claim). That means you have to show that God doesn't exist, or that he couldn't or wouldn't or didn't do this particular action.

I'm sure someone will say it is up to me to argue for the truth of the resurrection, because "the burden of proof is on the claimant". But here the claimant is whoever made the original statement, which you and others defend. So in that case the burden of proof of that statement is on you. And any proof based on the assumption of naturalism is invalid for this particular case - naturalism has to first be shown to be true.

And please note, I am not pressing for "Absolute Certainty Dipped In Gold And Deep Fat Fried", just ordinary inductive proof of a statement presented as fact.

Two comments.

(1) The claim that God raised Jesus from the dead is both a historical one and a metaphysical one. History can take us so far, and then our metaphysics take over. So your claim to be using no metaphysics reveals your hidden assumptions (they are no more) that naturalism is true and that "nomological induction" is sufficient to answer the question of the resurrection. I think you have blurred the distinction between methodological naturalism with ontological naturalism. You won't catch small fish if your net is too coarse!

(2) But behind all you say you are doing metaphysics, you are just either unaware of it or hiding it. Your view that we can reduce things, even a discussion of God, or the resurrection, to a matter of observation and induction; statements like "'supernatural processes' cannot be relied upon to have ever resuscitated even a single corpse"; and your naturalistic assumptions; are all metaphysical statements that cannot be demonstrated by "nomological induction" alone.

So to conclude:

You have demonstrated it if we assume naturalism. But you have never demonstrated that naturalism is true.

That can be easily done. But I think it is true that you cannot do it because you have made hidden metaphysical assumptions regarding naturalism and appropriate method. Whether the reality of the resurrection can be argued is not yet established because we haven't yet discussed it. But what we have been discussing, whether it is provably impossible that God could have raised Jesus, can only be established if you make those hidden assumptions. Without them, the proof cannot stand. (And as I said, I am talking about inductive proof, not "Absolute Certainty Dipped In Gold And Deep Fat Fried" proof!)

Finally, you have been kind enough to offer me some advice (on several occasions), so I hope you will allow me the liberty to sum up by offering you some in return. And it is this. Your arguing would be improved if (1) you make your hidden assumptions clear and argue the case for them (that would make the argument clearer), (2) you state your arguments in the form of clear propositions (that would assist you to argue them and me to assess them) and (3) you avoid making apparently factual claims about matters that you clearly cannot know or have not demonstrated or have overstated (that would give you and your arguments greater credibility).

Best wishes.

Johnny Skeptic

I did in my post #438, but you refused to reply to it, and quite conveniently I might add.

aa5874

Please tell us how your metaphysics can take over and help determine fact from fiction?

What does your metaphysics tell us, after it takes over, about the conception of Jesus and the conception of Romulus or Achilles?

Your reasoning appears to be flawed. Your metaphysics cannot confirm that Jesus was resurrected or that he was even in a position to die or ever live.

Loomis

This section of the forum is about Biblical Criticism & History. Not about why you should change your beliefs. Why don’t you go start a tread over in Existence of God(s) where it belongs?

Loomis

Duh ...

Duh ...

Johnny Skeptic

If metaphysics is a rational way to try to find the truth, then one religion's metaphysics is as good as another.

If history can only take us so far, that is an excellent reason for people to be agnostics pending the possibility of future evidence.

Christian Bible scholars do not actually have a clue where the Gospel writers got their information from, and when. The earliest Gospel was the Gospel of Mark. It was written decades after the supposed facts. You assume that the author of Mark wrote about things that happened decades earlier, but you cannot provide reasonable proof that such was the case, and neither can Christian Bible scholars.

One of your most ridiculous claims was that the Gospel writers wrote independently. How can you be reasonably certain of that? Are you really going to claim that the authors of the Gospels did not know each other, and were not influenced by each other?