NOGO

I am not impressed with early Christians giving up their lives for their faith.

First this thing is rather common place even today. Witness sept 11.

Throughout the dark ages the church burned and massacred countless people simply because they followed a variation of Christianity not accepted by the authorities. These poeple knew that if they were discovered they would be put to death but they continued anyway.

Let's take a look back in 400 AD - a day in the life of a believer.

We are in the year of our Lord, 400:
I rose up early this morning to go to church. As I approached the building, I saw there a great multitude of people unable to secure admission into the edifice. The huge iron doors were closed, and upon them was affixed a notice from the authorities, to the effect that all who worshiped in this church would, by the authority of the state, be known and treated hereafter as "infamous heretics," and be exposed to the extreme penalty of the law if they persisted in holding services there. But the party to which I belonged heeded not the prohibition, but beat against the doors furiously and effected an entrance into the church. The excitement ran high; men and, leaders shouted, gesticulated and came to blows. The Archbishop was urged to ascend his episcopal throne and officiate at the altar in spite of the formal interdiction against him. He consented. But he had not proceeded far when soldiers, with a wild rush, poured into the building and began to discharge arrows at the panic-stricken people. Instantly pandemonium was let loose. The officers commanding the soldiers demanded the head of the offending Archbishop. The worshipers made a attempt to resist; then blood was shed, the sight of which reeled people's heads, and in an instant, the sanctuary was turned into a house of murder. Taking advantage of the uproar, the Archbishop, assisted by his secretaries, escaped through a secret door behind the altar. On my way home from this terrible scene, I fell upon a procession of monks. They were carrying images and relies, and a banner upon which were inscribed these words: "The Virgin Mary, Mother of God." As they marched on, their number increased by new additions. But suddenly they encountered another band of monks, carrying a different banner, bearing the same words which were on the other party's banner, but instead of "The Virgin Mary, Mother of God," their banner read: "The Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ." The two processions clashed, and a bloody encounter followed; in an instant images, relies and banners were all in an indiscriminate heap. The troops were called out again, but Such was the zeal of the conflicting parties that not until the majority of them were disabled and exhausted, was tranquility restored.
Looking about me, I saw the spire of neighboring church. My curiosity prompted me to wend my steps thither. As soon as I entered, I was recognized as belonging to the forbidden sect, and in an instant a hundred fists rained down blows upon head. "He has polluted the sanctuary,' they cried. "He has committed sacrilege." "No quarter to the enemies of the true church," cried others, and it was a miracle that, beaten, bruised, my clothes torn from my back, I regained the street. A few seconds later, looking up the streets, I saw another troop of soldiers, rushing down toward this church at full speed. It seems that while I was being beaten in the main auditorium, in the baptistery of the church they were killing, in cold blood, the Archbishop, who was suspected of a predilection for the opposite party, and who had refused to retract or resign from his office. The next day I heard that one hundred and thirty-seven bodies were taken out of this building.
Seized with terror, I now began to run, but, alas, I had worse experiences in store for me. I was compelled to pass the principal square in the center of the city before I could reach a place of safety. When I reached this square, it had the appearance of a veritable battlefield. It was Sunday morning, and the partisans of rival bishops, differing in their interpretation of theological doctrines, were fighting each other like maddened, malignant creatures. One could hear, over the babel of discordant yells, scriptural phrases. The words, "The Son is equal to the Father," "The Father is greater than the Son," "He is begotten of the same substance as the Father," "He is of like substance, but not of the same substance," "You are a heretic," "You are an atheist," were invariably accompanied with blows, stabs and sword thrusts, until, as an eye-witness, I can take an oath that I saw the streets leading out of the square deluged with palpitating human blood. Suddenly the commander of the cavalry, Hermogenes, rode upon the scene of feud and bloodshed. He ordered the followers of the rival bishops to disperse, but instead of minding his authority, the zealots of both sides rushed upon his horse, tore the rider from the saddle and began to beat him with clubs and stones which they picked up from the street. He managed to escape into a house close by, but the religious rabble surrounded the house and set fire to it. Hermogenes appeared at the window, begging for his life. He was attacked again, an killed, and his mangled body dragged through the streets and rushed into a ditch.
The spectacle inflamed me, being a sectarian myself. I felt ashamed that I was not showing an equal zeal for my party I, too, longed to fight, to kill, to be killed for my religion. And, anon! the opportunity presented itself. I saw, looking up the street to my right, a group of my fellow-believers, who, like myself, shut out of their own church by the orthodox authorities, armed with whips loaded with lead and with clubs, were entering a house. I followed them. As we went in, we commanded the head of the family and his wife to appear. When they did, we asked them if it was true that in their prayers to Mary they had refrained from the use of the words, "The mother of God." They hesitated to give a direct answer, whereupon we used the club, and then, the scourge. Then they said they believed in and revered the blessed virgin, but would not, even if we killed them, say that she was the mother of God. This obstinacy exasperated us and we felt it to be our religious duty, for the honor of our, divine Queen, to perpetrate such cruelties upon them as would shock your gentle ears to hear. We held them over slowly burning fires, flung lime into their eyes, applied roasted eggs and hot irons to the sensitive parts of their bodies, and even gagged them to force the sacrament into their mouths. ... As we went from house to house, bent upon our mission, I remember an expression of one of the party who said to the poor woman who was begging for mercy: "What! shall I be guilty of defrauding the vengeance of God of its victims?" A sudden chill ran down my back. I felt my flesh creep. Like a drop of poison the thought embodied in those words perverted whatever of pity or humanity was left in me, and I felt that I was only helping to secure victims with which to feed the vengeance of God!
I was willing to be a monster for the glory of God!
The Christian sect to which I belonged was one of the oldest in Christendom. Our ancestors were called the Puritans of the fourth and fifth centuries. We believe that no one can be saved outside of our communion. When a Christian of another church joins us, we re-baptize him, for we do not believe in the validity of other baptisms. We are so particular that we deny our cemeteries to any other Christians than our own members. If we find that we have, by mistake, buried a member of another church in our cemetery, we dig up his bones, that he may not pollute the soil. When one of the churches of another denomination falls into our hands, we first fumigate the building, and with a sharp knife we scrape the wood off the altars upon which other Christian priests have offered prayers. We under no consideration, allow a brother Christian from another church to commune with us; if by stealth anyone does, we spare not his life. But we are persecuted just as severely as we persecute, ourselves.
As the sun was setting, fatigued with the holy Sabbath's religious duties, I started to go home. On my way back, I saw even wilder, bloodier scenes, between rival ecclesiastical factions, streets even redder with blood, if possible, yea, certain sections of the city seemed as if a storm of hail, or tongues of flame had swept over them. Churches were on fire, cowled monks attacking bishops' residences, rival prelates holding uproarious debates, which almost always terminated in bloodshed and, to cap the day of many vicissitudes, I saw a bear on exhibition which bad been given its freedom by the ruler, as a reward for his faithful services in devouring heretics. The Christian ruler kept two fierce bears by his own chamber, to which those who did not bold the orthodox faith were thrown in his presence while he listened with delight to their groans.
When I reached home, I was panting for breath. I had lived through another Sabbath day.

[ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

NOGO

This was not new even in 400 AD.

Here is a story from the Talmud. At least that is what a friend told me.

A man wanted to know if it was permissible to eat an egg that was layed on the sabbath. One said yes the other said no. The arguement turned to a quarrel and many neighbours joined in. They finally decide to take the issue to a rabbi (or equivalent at the time) The rabbi finally came down with a decision and sided with one group.
What followed was a blood bath.

With religion creating such zealotry can we really put much credence on any deduction derived from questioning the motives such people have for doing what they do?

Tercel

Madmax,
Oh, I agree: If you are simply talking in general about some unknown/unspecified deity.
However I’m talking here specifically about the Christian deity.

Far from true I think. I think metaphysical naturalism would have little problem with a disorderly universe, indeed I am inclined to think metaphysical naturalism would be more at home in such a universe.

Of course there is always some doubt to one degree or another. The extent and effect of that doubt is up to the individual to determine for themselves. However, I disagree with your assessment of the cumulative case. The only way an argument’s value can be zero is if it provides no evidence whatsoever. Even if the critiques cast “doubt” upon an argument, we may still consider that there is say a 10% chance that the argument does work and build this into the cumulative case.

I disagree. This is what I was complaining earlier that you did in your debate. The use of “in principle” serves only to define the supernatural out of existence. If you accept that sort of definition, you are merely presupposing naturalism which begs the question.

Of course. Our belief that it is a miracle is clearly going to be dependent on how unlikely we feel these two alternatives are.
This is where your use of “in principle” shows it’s true colours. By saying that these explanations are possible in principle (however extremely improbable) you would have us rule out a supernatural explanation no matter how much <strong>more likely</strong> the supernatural explanation was. That is absurd: <strong>The most likely explanation should always be accepted as most likely true.</strong> Anything else is presuppositionalism pure and simple. Why don’t you go join Theophilus and start a presuppositionalists club?

Theli and I seem to agree that a reasonable definition of metaphysical/ontological naturalism is:
“the thesis nothing can have any influence on events and conditions in space and time except other events and conditions in space and time. According to the ontological naturalist, there are no causal influences from things ‘outside’ space: either there are no such things, or they have nothing to do with us and our world.”

Since Supernaturalism is the opposition of Naturalism, it would seem to leave us with the definition that Supernaturalism is “the thesis that there exist things outside of space and time which can and do have causal influences on us and/or our world”.
That would certainly seem to me to sum up what I am thinking of when I say “supernaturalism”.

My statement was not meant so much to say that the Christians were persecuted specifically for the “beliefs” they held as opposed to anything else, but rather it was a reply to Theli who said:
"[The early Christian Martyrs] probably died for their god, which they believed in before Jesus crucifixion."
Clearly this cannot be the case because any such persecutors would equally persecute the Jews, hence my comment.

How far it is possible to distinguish persecution for beliefs from persecution for actions which are a result of those beliefs, I am not sure. I see them as pretty much one and the same.

Some examples of persecutions would include:

1. We have Paul's own testimony that he persecuted early Christians because of their faith in Jesus. That is, Paul is persecuting the FIRST generation of Christians.

2. We have Paul's own testimony that he was persecuted for his faith in Christ. This includes being scourged by Jewish Authorities on at least five separate occasions.

3. Acts. Acts records the martyrdom of Stephen for his high Christology and speaking against the temple. Acts also records that Peter and John were scourged because they would not renounce Christ. Acts also recounts Paul's persecution of the church at the bidding of the Jewish Authorities. Acts also records James’ death at the hands of Herod.

4. James the brother of Jesus was killed by Jewish Authorities. (See my earlier argument)

6. We apparently have good evidence that John the Disciple was persecuted for his faith. (But I’m not sure what it is exactly )

7. Both Paul and Peter were most likely killed by Nero for being Christians in his Roman persecution.

Hasn’t it been repeated enough that people are often happy to die for what they <strong>believe with all their heart</strong> to be true, but no one would die for something they <strong>knew to be a lie</strong>.

Peter (aka Simon), Andrew brother of Peter, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew (aka Levi), Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Patriot, Judas (aka Thaddaeus) son of James, Cleopas, Simon, Mary Magdalene, Joseph (aka Barsabbas aka Justus), Matthias, James the Brother of Jesus, and Paul. As well as some 500 others according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.

In other words, you agree that a conspiracy is an unlikely explanation.
However your alternative ‘more likely’ explanation seems to miss the point.
1) Either the disciples preached that Jesus had been resurrected and appeared to them or they didn’t.
2) If they did then they either were telling what they believed was the truth or they were lying.
3) If they were telling what they believed was the truth then they were either insane or telling the actual truth.

Are you arguing point 1? Your suggestion that legends may have grown up “over time” seems to suggest that you don’t think the disciples even preached the resurrection.
I’m not sure how such an explanation can be ‘more likely’. The “undisputed” letters of Paul the apostle would seem to provide more than sufficient testimony that the disciples taught the resurrection. Not to mention the rest of the NT and the early Church writers!

Tercel

NOGO

There is persecution and their is persecution.
Jews did at first persecute Christians for their beliefs because they were considered heretics. At least Paul tells us that.

Romans may have persecuted Christians because they were becoming a political force within the empire. One important thing must be kept in mind here. Religion is not like race. The romans knew that there were so many Jews and they can then assess their political weight. With Christians the problem was that their political weight grew.

We should compare this to say communism in the 20th century. The fear was that it would convert the whole world to their way of thinking.

Christians were persecuted for their ideology and not for their faith. Like communism their ideology was a direct threat to the people in power and anybody who did not share this ideology.

GunnerJ

Ah, Meatcrock! Returned from licking your wounds in the Crock Cave? (Or shall we call it "the fortress of Schola-tude?")?

It seems that the superhero of scholarly Christian research and the champion apologetic crusade againt II has run off from some battlefields before his victory was assured! For example, on the old <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000004&p=" target="_blank">Jesus Christ: Mythic Hero</a> thread, I posted an excellent example of a bodily ressurection on <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000004&p=3" target="_blank">this page</a>, and even threw in a gen-u-ine virgin conception. POW! Then, later on in the thread, I <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000004&p=6" target="_blank">replied</a> to your comparsion of JFK to the Mythic Hero profile, but sadly, recieved no reply. BAM! Then, on Koy's <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000134&p=" target="_blank">Psychosis of Theism</a> thread, both Koy and I <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000134&p=2" target="_blank">dignified</a>
(Edited to add: my mistake; the real action is on <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000134&p=3" target="_blank">this page</a> and <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000134&p=4" target="_blank">this page</a>.) your ramblings with a detailed response, but recieved no action in turn. Too bad. WHOMP!

Yup, the Cracked Crusader's work is never done. But not to worry, your awesome powers of "scholarship," quote-mining, and authority-whoring should be more than up to the task, right?

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: Rimstalker ]

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Rimstalker ]</p>

madmax2976

<strong> Okay that's fine. Its a rather easy task to define a deity or the characteristics of a deity, such that it fits whatever criteria you want it to.

<strong> But what you fail to provide is a any objective definition of what "disorderly" even means. No matter what the arrangment is, there will be an order to it of some kind. Saying it is "orderly" is just saying that we as humans see an order which we can work with and understand. Futhermore, what you "think" has no bearing on what naturalism would "be more at home" with - sorry.

Metaphysical naturalism is essentially dependant upon a universe that has an order whereby which we can perceive a regularity of events and causes - (i.e. it must appear at least largely "orderly" - to us). If this were not the case, we couldn't formulate any laws or theories or any reasonable hypotheses about how the world functions. The universe would be largely or entirely random thus nullifying naturalism's ability to explain anything.

What strikes me as humorous here is that theists typically attack naturalism based on their interpretation of determinism - the concept that the universe is so orderly that "free will" can't truly exist. Now you come along and attack naturalism based on the idea that the universe should be "disorderly" if naturalism were true. It seems to me that theists need to get together to iron out exactly how they should attack naturalism.

<strong> Please describe how this cumulative case works. If you have 10 arguments that each have a 10% chance of being correct are you saying this adds up to 100%? I sure hope not.

How do you arrive at the 10% chance in the first place? - what probability equation are you using to get that much? Don't forget, if there is a 10% chance it is true, there is a 90% chance it is NOT true. What you've got to do it would seem is demonstrate all of your arguments have a better than 50% chance of being true. Only then could a cumulative case hold any water.

I'm not a mathematician by any means, but I think you'll find this is completely impossible to do with these types of arguments as you simply cannot obtain the proper values to plug into any equation. We're not dealing with objective data here but rather with a lot of subjective interpretation based on ancient stories which we cannot verify.

<strong> Completely untrue. The use of "in principle" is simply common sense - it is absurd to mandate that naturalism must currently be able to explain all phenomena. Theists seem to want to illogically conclude that naturalism will never be able to explain X, because it can't currently explain X, which is ridiculous.

If theists wish to use naturalism's inability to currently explain certain mysteries to support the claim of supernatural entities or forces, then they will have to actually demonstrate that naturalism could never exlain them. If you cannot do so, mysteries, such as the existence of the universe or human consciousness, will never serve your case, except to allow for the possibility of the supernatural, which is hardly interesting.

Frankly Tercel, I wish we would all just drop these terms "natural" and "supernatural". At their core they are extremely hard to define. Furthermore I think they tend to cloud the issues. If you wish to claim that something exists, that I or others don?t currently don't see any good reason to think exists, then just present the evidence necessary to reach the conclusion that it does. We can drop all these labels for which we carry different conceptions and definitions, that may or may not be accurate, and that sidetrack us and confuse us, and we can get at the real issues - the positive evidence for any claims that are made. This way the "supernatural" is not disregarded as it is not even an issue any longer - the actual claim is the issue.

<strong> You should try to understand a point before attempting to attack it. The "in principle" qualifier prevents the absurdity that many theists want to expouse - namely that for any phenomena naturalism is CURRENTLY unable to explain, it should be assumed that it can NEVER explain it and that any supernatural hypothesis theists offer should be accepted as actually true. This is the absurdity that I see supernaturalists continually attempting to propose with their arguments, particularly those that involve mysteries.

I do not presuppose naturalism is true, I assume naturalism is true based on the fact that naturalism has been able to explain many things while supernaturalism has never demonstrated it can explain anything, and the fact that no one has ever demonstrated that naturalism could not ?ever- explain some phenomena. It is simply not good enough to just say that naturalism can't currently explain X, so naturalism must be false. This is what the "in principle" qualfier is meant to drive home.

Of course I am ready to drop the assumption of naturalism just as soon as supernaturalists ever actually demonstrate the existence of supernatural entities or forces. So far they have completely failed to do so.

As Andrew even admitted, neither of us can definitively prove our worldviews are correct, therefore it is reasonable to go with what is best supported by the evidence we have. In a nutshell - that's naturalism.

<strong> But what if we were able to explain this being or force such that we could understand how it operates and does whatever it does? Could it still be described as supernatural? If so, why would we? If not, then that would seem to be the crux of whether a thing is supernatural or not - our ability to possibly explain how an entity functions and operates.

I see nothing in naturalism that automatically excludes other universes or space/time continuums or that it would be impossible for us, or beings in those places, to contact other universes in some way. Our knowledge is far too limited to jump to such conclusions.

In order to be a complete worldview, naturalism must be able to account for the unusual, the fanatastic, the different and the new, so none of this should be surprising.

<strong> And your evidence that these people were given the chance to recant their beliefs and thus Paul would have stopped his persecution is??

Assuming you can support that, your evidence that no one ever recanted is??

Assuming you can support that, your evidence that you can say what they really knew or didn't know is??

<strong> And your evidence that these persecutor's really cared whether he recanted or not is?.?

And your evidence that you can know what Paul really did or did not know is??

<strong> And your evidence that the persecutors really cared whether they recanted or not is..? (I'm looking for more insight here than just that the writer of Acts believed that these people did care. That is hardly suprising.)

And your evidence you could know what any of these people really knew or didn't know is..?

<strong> Sorry - couldn't find it. But same questions anyway - How do you know what he really knew or didn't know in regards to his beliefs?

<strong> Then I can't count it for much, but in any case, same questions. How do you know what he really did or did not know?

<strong> Based on what? Church tradition? Actual evidence? Supposition?

<strong> I don't care how much your repeat it, I wan't you to actually support it. If your argument is that its highly unlikely, I'll can show you all kinds of examples of human behaviour that would seem unlikely or unpredictable.

What you need to show is that its more unlikely that someone would "die for a lie" than that someone was raised from the dead, because that's at the heart of your argument. I?m not sure how you'll do that.

I've got all kinds of examples of people enduring torture and death for what they believed was true. There are plenty of examples of people believing a thing is true even after it had been exposed, like Edwards, Roswell or Sai Babba.

You'll have to deal with all kinds of things like cognitive dissonance, hallucination, fanaticism, delusion, apathy on the part of the persecutor's, etc..

Before that of course, you'll have to support your claim that you can somehow know what those were supposedly persecuted really knew. That should be interesting indeed.

<strong> Wrong. These people supposedly saw Jesus after he was supposedly raised from the dead. Even according to the biblical texts, no one actually saw him rise from the dead.

Of course we don't have any real testimony we can point to from them - what we have are some anonymous author(s) telling us such and such, OR we have very late accounts which could easily have been based on an earlier tradition or writings. An anonymous "500" is useless as far as I'm concerned, and anonymous authors aren't worth much more, particularly since these accounts were written decades after the supposed events.

But regardless of all that, the real issue is whether mere assertions ("testimony") is enough to reason to believe fantastic claims such as people rising from the dead or performing miracles. I emphatically say NO they are not. That is a slippery slope on which every claim can become true.

<strong> Which is more likely? - a conspiracy which we do know happens from time to time, or a supernatural raising from the dead for which we have no evidence that such a thing can actually occur?

But I do love your false trilemma argument. Its cute.

Point #1: Either one is possible and with the evidence we have I see no way of definitely concluding either way. Paul's letters weren?t written until some 20 years after Christ supposedly died and it is not even conclusive that Paul believed in a physical resurrection at all. As for the "rest of the NT and the early Church writers", you'll have to be much more specific than that. Its way easy to argue from generalities. Your going to have to show that they weren't all just working from the same tradition and basing their so-called "testimony" upon that.

Point #2: Sounds reasonable either way. They wouldn't be the first people to lie for their faith. Of course discounting delusion, cognitive dissonance, halucination and simple religious fervor is not wise or warranted - we know such things occur.

Point #3: Is simply ridiculous. One does not have to be "insane" to propogate a falsehood. It doesn't even require malicious intent. With all the deities and supernatural beliefs of the time, it may have been completely acceptable for them to invent stories to support their faith, particulary if they thought it was worth it. We can't retroject our sense of fraud or lying back onto 1st century Palestine. Futhermore, there are numerous other possibilities as I have pointed out.

You got a lot of supporting to do for just who knew what and when and what the writers of each document actually based their stories on. Of course, we're not quite in the right forum for that, but oh well.

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>

Kenny

That a boy, Rim! You shure showed him. Why actually respond to Metacrock’s arguments when insults and oneupmanships are so much fun?

GunnerJ

Why respond to them at all when others have already destroyed them? And why, if his arguments are so good, should he have left so abruptly after their destruction rather than defending them? This is something he's done many times before, as my links demonstrate.

Why, more importantly, do you suppose you actually know why I replied as I did? Obviously, you're a bit out of the loop if you think this was simple "one-ups-manship." Perhaps you'd like to get in the game by reading my post at the bottom of <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000134&p=4" target="_blank">this page</a>.

Metacrock

Meta-&gt; It seems kind of self explainitory don't you think? He asks why modern christians don't raise form the dead. I say they do, I've met them. What's to not understand?

Metacrock

Hey congradulations! You are actually developing a wit!