-DM-

I didn't. Click on "user cp" at the top left of the page and then adjust your "time offset" under "edit options."

-Don-

P.S. Please complete your registration by responding to the e-mail that was automatically sent to your registered e-mail address.

-DM-

I'm beginning to think that you are playing games with me and with others here for whom you have provided "feedback" considering that you have posted a dozen feedback items since yesterday, and given that you ask questions which, I'm sure, you would not want to have to answer yourself.

In any case, I'm not interested in spending the next two weeks, or so, writing out all of the criteria which I think would pertain to a perfect text. But one thing that I will say is that a perfect text would not look like the biblical text, given its obvious imperfections in its history and its cosmology, and given its many inconsistencies.

I haven't indicated surprise at imperfection, thus I see no reason why you would ask such a question.

I have not claimed that there was any perfect thing, therefore your challenge is as silly as it would be were I to ask you to name a god more powerful and more intelligent than YHVH.

Yes, I would find it initially inexplicable to the point that it might be convincing evidence that a perfect god had inspired that book.

To "disqualify" a book because it is not perfect means only that it did not come from a perfect and omnipotent being, in spite of the claims of those who would convince us otherwise, if they could.

There is no way, on the basis of what you have said here, that anyone could distinguish this book from any other for which the same claim was made, namely that it had been inspired by "God." Thus, the fact is that you do NOT know what a perfect book would look like.

Silly as that is, it would be more convincing than is the Bible in its present state.

Had you grown up in Iran, it would likely be quite a different story. Chances are, you would take the Qur'an on faith as the word of "God."

In any case, faith is an unreliable road to truth. There are no bounds on what can be believed on the basis of faith.

And finally, when a Christian (or other believer) bases his "argument" on faith, there is no point, so far as I am concerned, in continuing the discussion. Therefore, I am going to move this thread to the General Religious Discussions forum in order to facilitate open discussion in case anyone there is interested in continuing the discussion with you.

(You will need to complete your registration by responding to the e-mail that was automatically sent to your registered e-mail address if you want to take part in the discussion there.)

I'll happily let you have the last word.

-Don-

Rational BAC

Wow-----what a thread.

Didn't read it all====sorry about that.

Just going to throw in one thing. -------The one thing that is very puzzling is that the Christians of the time-------those of "that generation" and most definitely those of the generation after "that generation" died off------seemed to not have a problem with it.

I would expect that Christianity would have completely disappeared or at least remained a very minor cult. --------as soon as this most obvious "fraud" (to our minds) became evident----if it was as obviously fraudulent to them as it seems to be to some of us.

Obviously it was not interpreted as a fraud to the people back then-------which would tend to indicate that those people had a much less dogmatic, restrictive and overly literal interpretation of it-----than atheists of today do.

I have brought this up before ---and the best response I get is "well we all know that they were all just a bunch of dumb, illiterate and very gullible ding-a-lings back then and nowhere near as smart as you or I"

Sorry that won't wash. Just a cop out. And an obvious one.


Christianity did not go into a cataclismic decline after this most obvious "fraud" was realized as should be expected. On the contrary it expanded and expanded.

Why?

-DM-

Some pertinent quotes from my reading (quite a few years ago).

--

"It is well known that the first Christians lived in almost daily anticipation of the Second Advent and the End of the World; ... Christ made it plain that it was expected in the immediate future." [p. 207, Alan Watts, Myth and Ritual in Christianity.]

"The most significant, undenied and ... undeniable fact of Paul's letters, and also of the synoptic gospels, is that the early Christians expected the Lord to return soon, very soon." [p. 80, Rudolf Augstein, Jesus, Son of Man.]

"The saying of Christ about the generation which should not die out before his return clearly fixes this even at no very distant date." [p. 22, Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus.]

--

"Already in Paul's time the problem [of a delayed Parousia] was pressing, and he ... set out to work in 2 Thessalonians to discover all possible and impossible reasons why the Second Coming should be [indefinitely] delayed." [p. 22, Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus.]

"2 Peter ... undertakes to restore the confidence of Christendom once [and] for all with the sophism of the thousand years which are in the sight of God as one day, ignoring the fact that in the promise the reckoning was by man's years, not by God's." [Ibid.]

"Jesus, the herald of the end, became [instead] the instigator of the perpetual sacrament." [p. 48, Adolf Holl, Jesus in Bad Company.]

--

Christianity nevertheless flourished. Why?

How Did Christianity Really Begin?, Howard Teeple.

The Christ, Charles Guignebert.

One point to keep in mind is the boost that Christianity got when it was made the official religion of the Roman Empire.

-Don-

ashe

Well, you see.. people were not very smart back then...

oh right. sorry.

Anyway, how obvious a fraud can it be if people are still not understanding it 2000 years later? Yet it is still a fraud.

Sci_Fidelity

I don't understand how people find the time to put together posts such as some in this thread-

Sci_Fidelity

Then please explain the rise of Islam including the fact that it is growing faster than Christianity.

MortalWombat

Why didn't the Jehovah's Witness religion go into a cataclysmic decline when the Second Coming didn't occur in 1878? Or again in 1914? After both events failed to occur, they were rationalized by the true believers in one way or another.

Biff the unclean

RBAC why, when you can see that the bible repeats the claim of a 1st Century 2nd coming over a dozen times do you remain a Christian? Why do you claim that it means something that it clearly doesn't say?
If you are willing to twist around and lie about whats in the bible why would you expect early Xians to be any more honest?

OAG

If by "playing games" you mean that I think arguing with skeptics is just fun then you are right. You are, however, wrong about the questions. I only ask those about which I am curious about the answer with the exception of the occasional rhetorical one only designed to make you think.

So you've already said...repeatedly.

I ask because your major issue with the Bible seems to be that it is imperfect. Since there is nothing perfect in this world, it would seem that using such criteria one could dismiss anything and everything.

It also seems a completely irrational expectation that ANYTHING, including the Bible should appear perfect in this world. I was merely testing your sanity on that point.

You have contended that the Bible is imperfect and should therby be ignored. That leaves only the possibility for it to be perfect in order for you to accept it. You never mentioned any acceptable proximity to perfection.

I'll bet you would find some imperfection in it. Since you have nothing perfect to compare it to you wouldn't know it was perfect even if it was.

That is the same argument skeptics use to demonstrate that imperfect humans could not have come from a perfect God. A child can debunk that one.

I have not made claims that the Bible is perfect. It is not. It could not possibly be, in our imperfect universe. It doesn't need to be.

I doubt it.

Possibly. There is little point in speculating what might be if what has been had been otherwise.

We take everything on faith Don. Some things just have more reliable or more compelling evidence than others.

We take scientific findings as factual based on our faith in the ability of scientists to discover things. How many times have they been wrong? Does that mean it is silly to have faith that they may yet be right about some things? Do we dismiss the scientific method because it provided false truths on occasion? No we don't. It ain't perfect but we work with it the best we can.

As I said, everything is a matter of faith to some degree. You have a problem with Christian faith. So what? I have a problem with faith in spontaneous genesis. I don't go around acting as if there is no point in talking with people who believe in that. I imagine YOU find it a reasonable belief since you are so certain that we were not created by God. However, there is zero evidence for spontaneous genesis. It is simply the only other option from design and people faithfully cling to it. People are people Don, no matter what they believe or call themselves.

Well Don I'm sensing a sort of, "I'm going to take my ball and go home. Just play by yourself," attitude from you. I'm sorry to find that you wish to be that way. I was pleased to find a forum with some new skeptics and had hoped for some new challenges and instead I get the same big baby syndrome that makes most of the skeptics at my other forum boring. How disappointing.