Hawkingfan

Look, you have already admitted that the bible is not evidence for god. So, isn't it therefore not evidence for the non-existence of other religious mythologies? You've admitted that your beliefs are "subjective perceptions", that you "intuitevely" feel there is only one god, and that your beliefs cannot be validated by anyone else.
But (on topic), what about *other's* beliefs that contradict your own? Please answer why you do not believe in other mythologies. If you do not feel Islam contradicts your beliefs, then can we use a different mythology?
What I'm getting at is that in other threads, atheists are preached to for not believing in the J/C God and that we are ignoring "evidence". And when similar claims and "evidence" about other, contrasting deities are brought up, they purposely ignore it. And their continued absense from this thread confirms that fact.

stretch

First, I'll apologize for my last post. That was uncalled for. Sorry.

The funny thing is that we agree on most things. There is little or no compelling objective evidence that suggests that the mythology that I've bought into is any more true than Islam or Zoroastrianism or Greek Mythology.

I don't think that atheists should subscribe to any myths in which they don't believe. If God exists, he hasn't done a very good job of (i) making that obvious; or of (ii) indicating his exact nature.

stretch

Hi Hawkingfan,

I read through the encarta.com main article on Islam (at least the free parts).

I think there are a couple of interesting things there.

One is that the Qu'ran was handed down for several centuries without 'vowels', leading to many possible vocalizations of the words therein and therefore to many possible 'versions' of many texts. Sometimes many but not all 'versions' are considered potentially valid by Muslim scholars/theologians. (Interesting, but maybe very much thread drift.)

The other thing that I noticed was a mention that Muslim theology teaches that non-believers are punished. It is not clear what is meant by non-believers in this context, since the article also states that Muslims believe that other 'peoples of the book' believe in a distorted picture of the same God/Allah in which they believe. I.e., from the article it didn't seem clear to me whether non-believers refers to those who don't believe in Allah/God or those who don't believe that Mohammed was a prophet of God/Allah, or something else ....

Anyway, it was an interesting read. Thanks

Philosoft

However, no matter how preternaturally accurate your particular text might be, it offers the same evidential weight for a remarkably prescient human as for the J-C God.

Okay, but I was asking whether you think the question of Christ's existence has been evidentially answered or the question of Christ's divinity.

I made it pretty clear that I was expressing an opinion. As I have good reason to believe that various theisms affect one's skepticisms in predictable ways, I don't think my opinion is unreasonable.

Cross Examiner

Mr. Philosoft:

No matter how supernaturally accurate? It matters! Those verses (e.g. Micah 5:2, Isaiah 7:14, Zechariah 9:9, Zechariah 11:12, Isaiah 53:7 etc.), and there's more than I cared to list for the present, each uniquely describing Jesus of Nazareth, without fail. 100%. Didn't you read that study about modern "psychics" being about 6% accurate (I can be 6% accurate)? Show me a parallel, for some other remarkably prescient human, anywhere else in history and I'll concede they do not make a case for Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ. Such prophetic verses clearly exceed "coincidental" fulfillment--he didn't "get lucky."

Yes, I believe Christ lived. Likewise, I believe Alexander the Great lived. Prima facie. Do I believe Christ was divine? Yes, I absolutely do (this is what you are asking, right?). I believe a careful examination leads one to believing Christ as either liar, lunatic or Lord. The evidence warrants no less a paradigm for the honest and thorough evaluator. I suppose you'll have some questions then?

I believe you do not intend to attack me personally

Benefit of the doubt for you my friend!

Respectfully,
BGiC

Amaranth

Anywhere else in history? Quit jumping the gun, little buddy - Your quotes have been established to have been written in an old book. They have not been established as history. As it stands, you have a book that predicts a few things will happen, then later in the book things somewhat resembling those predictions happen. Conan the Barbarian offers the same things, and isn't nearly as violent as your book.

False trichodemy - One could also come to the conclusion that jesus was a prophet, like many Muslims, or that Jesus didn't exist at all, like many people of non-xian religion. A favorite from my youth postulated that Jesus was a revelutionary. There are far more options than you present.

CX

"Trichodemy"? Heh. Do you mean "trilemma"?

CX

So too with biblical Hebrew. No vowels there either. Such is the source of some confusion in translations.

CX

This is probably more a discussion for B,C&H, but there are several problems with this claim.

1)You need to demonstrate that the verses listed above are in fact messianic in nature as originally intended by the author. That right there is extremely controversial. Most legitimate biblical scholars concede that AMt was mistaken in considering Is 7:14 in any way messianic.

2)Once you have established that those verses are in fact messianic (some of which have been debated for more than 2000 years) you need to demonstrate that the authors of the Gospel story of Jesus are not retrojecting him into the past after the fact.

Indeed. The first one being what evidence? Secondly on what basis (aside from parroting Lewis) do you restrict the possible alternatives to the 3 you mentioned? The most obvious alternative not mentioned in your list is that we have an incomplete and historically questionable picture of Jesus and are not really in a position to know for sure what he did or said, if he existed.

Hawkingfan

stretch,
I hope you're still around. I'll get back to some Islam/J-C differences, but I have been looking over your posts to try and get some kind of answer to my original questions.

It seems to me that you do not believe any other mythology is correct based on the "first cause" argument. Am I right in saying that? Are there any other reasons?

Also, I think you mentioned that you "intuitevely" believe in one infinite god because of the "first cause" argument as well. So that would be your reason for not believing in a group of gods like the Greeks.

Without getting into a side argument about the "first cause"--if without the "first cause" argument, could you honestly tell me that you would be an atheist or agnostic, or maybe even a polytheist?