Freethought & Rationalism Archive

bacht · 09-08-2008, 07:56 AM

Off-topic, but the OP did mention Heaven:

These ancient folks seemed to have lived in a supernatural-saturated world. Common beliefs for 1st C Jews: visions, miracles, heavenly voices, resurrection, day of judgment, eternal life, angels & demons etc

Question for believers: If early Christians were immersed in the supernatural, why should we use naturalistic explanations for their experiences? Why is it not plausible to ascribe their experiences of the Christ to non-natural causes ie. dreams, visions etc?

Elijah · 09-08-2008, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

By follow him I think he means sacrifice yourself as he did.

I think Jesus probably believed in a limited resurrection of the dead in the coming age where only the good would be brought back and was creating a line of martyrs with a promise that they would be remembered enough to be brought back if they sacrificed themselves as he did.

JW:
Again, the Objectives of this Thread are:

1) Identify "Mark's" instruction for Eternal Life.

2) Evaluate the Clarity of the instruction.

Is the instruction "follow me" clear at the Text level?

I was just trying to point out the “follow me” has to do with sacrificing yourself as he did. That’s what he considers the guaranteed ticket for eternal life.

As far as clarity of instruction I think many of the early Christians did suffer martyrdom (or as legend has it) so the clarity of instruction was there early on at least. Martyrdom is too hard to find nowadays so people just focus on morality. That and most people get introduced to Christianity as children by their parents who are trying to instill moral values not create a walking talking suicide so the morality meme takes over the ideology.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

These ancient folks seemed to have lived in a supernatural-saturated world. Common beliefs for 1st C Jews: visions, miracles, heavenly voices, resurrection, day of judgment, eternal life, angels & demons etc

Question for believers: If early Christians were immersed in the supernatural, why should we use naturalistic explanations for their experiences? Why is it not plausible to ascribe their experiences of the Christ to non-natural causes ie. dreams, visions etc?

I don’t think the early Christians were immersed in the supernatural, I think that’s a fallacy of modern readers and the uneducated. I think you should read everything as if it is coming from a rational mind until proven otherwise. If you think the writer had a nonsense world view then you are going to have a nonsense interpretation of his writings.

You can rationally understand spirits, angels and God as memes, forces of nature and the singularity that started all this respectively… or supernaturally as ghosts, guys with wings and an old man in the sky. It depends on if you want to understand what is going on or just tear the religion down. The skeptics around here HAVE to stick to a supernatural understanding of religion. Their whole belief system relies on it; it’s not even a consideration that the people writing this stuff weren’t retarded.

Elijah · 09-08-2008, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Well, whoever wrote this believed in a global deluge in the past, and a fiery judgment to come. How rational is this?

The water did raise up in the past when the continental ice shelf melted so it's a completely expected belief. And to expect a war to end all wars and war mongers is also a fairly rational belief in my mind.

Now belief in a literal resurrection of Jesus isn't rational but understood as an explanation of the conviction that was spreading out from Jesus because of his sacrifice.

Toto · 09-08-2008, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

....

I don’t think the early Christians were immersed in the supernatural, I think that’s a fallacy of modern readers and the uneducated. I think you should read everything as if it is coming from a rational mind until proven otherwise. If you think the writer had a nonsense world view then you are going to have a nonsense interpretation of his writings.

This is a rather outrageous statement. Belief in the supernatural was the norm in the first century, and Christians were not the outstanding rationalists. Do you have any support for this assertion?

Quote:

You can rationally understand spirits, angels and God as memes, forces of nature and the singularity that started all this respectively… or supernaturally as ghosts, guys with wings and an old man in the sky. It depends on if you want to understand what is going on or just tear the religion down. The skeptics around here HAVE to stick to a supernatural understanding of religion. Their whole belief system relies on it; it’s not even a consideration that the people writing this stuff weren’t retarded.

The people writing this stuff were not retarded, but they did not have our scientific method or our modern materialist world view. Christians throughout their history believed in the supernatural - devils, ghosts, angels. Probably a few intellectuals in the church hierarchy treated this as all metaphor, but they were not in control and had to keep their mouths shut. The Pope still endorses exorcisms, after all.

Elijah · 09-08-2008, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

This is a rather outrageous statement. Belief in the supernatural was the norm in the first century, and Christians were not the outstanding rationalists. Do you have any support for this assertion?

Man Toto is talking to me. Big big fan of yours. Wow my hands are shaking.:notworthy:

Belief in the supernatural was the norm for the uneducated common folks, but for the educated who were exposed to Greek philosophy it wasn’t.

I think my support would be that the Jews were influenced by Greek thought if they were that supernatural to begin with and Greek philosophy isn’t supernatural but metaphysical, more akin to quantum mechanics of today. Christianity understood from the point of view of Plato makes a lot more sense than the cartoon version.

Quote:

The people writing this stuff were not retarded, but they did not have our scientific method or our modern materialist world view. Christians throughout their history believed in the supernatural - devils, ghosts, angels. Probably a few intellectuals in the church hierarchy treated this as all metaphor, but they were not in control and had to keep their mouths shut. The Pope still endorses exorcisms, after all.

I didn’t know we were decidedly materialist these days. It’s not about metaphor but about forms and reification of ideas. The uneducated believe in that stuff, nothing specific to Christianity there.

Quote:

I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language. Werner Heisenberg

Christianity early on looks more like the Greek philosophy of Plato than the Greek religion of Zeus. After the message is given to the gentiles/Rome and people who had no education in philosophy or Judaism at all were taking turns at interpreting it Christ gets paganized/supernaturalized. But early on when it was Hellenized educated Jews it was a more metaphysical dualist understanding where Christ is a physical representation of spiritual forms like logos. Not supernatural spirits but the eternal non physical aspects of our universe.

Quote:

Corinthians 4:18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

I talked to Toto!!!

Amaleq13 · 09-08-2008, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

I don’t think the early Christians were immersed in the supernatural, I think that’s a fallacy of modern readers and the uneducated.

Setting aside the fact that the supernatural resurrection of Jesus is the central belief of Christianity, I think you need to read Paul and Acts again as well as reviewing the views of the opponents of early Christianity.

The former describes early Christians "immersed" in the supernatural while the latter openly condemns them for their superstitious foolishness.

Elijah · 09-08-2008, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Setting aside the fact that the supernatural resurrection of Jesus is the central belief of Christianity, I think you need to read Paul and Acts again as well as reviewing the views of the opponents of early Christianity.

The former describes early Christians "immersed" in the supernatural while the latter openly condemns them for their superstitious foolishness.

I like this quote from Augustine of Hippo.

Quote:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

Amaleq13 · 09-08-2008, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

I like this quote from Augustine of Hippo.

I don't understand how that relates to the early evidence of supernatural Christian beliefs from Paul, Acts, and opponents. :huh:

Elijah · 09-08-2008, 03:31 PM

The debate against idiot Christians and educated Christians has been ongoing for a while now was the point I was trying to make.

Roger Pearse · 09-09-2008, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

I like this quote from Augustine of Hippo.

Quote:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

Me too. It's from his literal commentary on Genesis, book 1, ch. 9 (?).

Listening to atheists complaining about Christian 'superstition' always sounds a little curious, when you consider that they don't in practise object at all to neo-pagans sitting in circles worshipping rocks!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

09-08-2008, 07:56 AM	#1
bacht Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 2,305	Did early Christians believe in the supernatural? split from No Shirt, No Shoes... Off-topic, but the OP did mention Heaven: These ancient folks seemed to have lived in a supernatural-saturated world. Common beliefs for 1st C Jews: visions, miracles, heavenly voices, resurrection, day of judgment, eternal life, angels & demons etc Question for believers: If early Christians were immersed in the supernatural, why should we use naturalistic explanations for their experiences? Why is it not plausible to ascribe their experiences of the Christ to non-natural causes ie. dreams, visions etc?

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09-08-2008, 03:31 PM	#9
Elijah Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: MidWest Posts: 1,894	The debate against idiot Christians and educated Christians has been ongoing for a while now was the point I was trying to make.

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