Radorth

You are totally misrepresenting the Christian position. Almost nobody here takes the creation story as anything but an allegorical revelation. Nobody says the big bang theory precludes a God that I know of. The Catholic church formally accepts evolutionary theory as viable. There are plenty of honest Christians who think evolution is a fact, and that God only began the process, engineered the gene-pool, etc. Only one Christian here tried to defend the flood story seriously, that I saw, and she took a predictable beating. I asserted you could make a viable (short voyage worthy)wooden boat that big based on my engineering knowledge, but I denied the flood story. Most "intellectual" Christians simply believe evolution cannot fully account for the design of nature and suffers from a debilitating lack of hard evidence, but rather depends on many assertions. Which change almost yearly. I suggest many of them are more interested in the whole story than you.

Your post just indicates to me that Occam was a lot more intelligent and fair than you are.

You won "Strawman Poster of the Year" award in February.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

Maybe he is misrepresenting the NEW Christian position,but he certainly nailed the ORIGINAL position you guys had before having to make yet another adjustment to Gods history.

What was that you were saying about Jesus mythers torturing the scriptures to say what they need?

Hold on a sec while I get my mirror out.

Asha'man

According to The Jewish Encyclopedia, the Sanhedrin were stripped of their authority to inflict capital punishment in the year 40. This is after the supposed crucifiction, but long before the protest in John 18:31 was written. Perhaps the author of John didn't remember his history after half a century?

I think the trial story was clearly changed twice. Once to shift the blame to the Romans, and once to shift it back to the Jews.

Asha'man

You must live in a scary world, then, if you think that trial sequence is sane.

In Mark 14:63-64 and Matthew 26:57-66, the Sanhedrin clearly find Jesus guilty of blasphemy, and “rend their garments” according to the Talmudic interpretation of 2 Kings 18:37. So, after finding him guilty, the law required him to be stoned to death and the corpse hung on a tree (Leviticus 24 and then Deuteronomy 21:22-23).

As I just mentioned to Tercel, the Sanhedrin still had this power until the Romans took it away from them in the year 40. So what does the Sanhedrin do? The unthinkable: they abandon their own authority, admit their impotence, and turn to the hated Pilot for justice.

Now, Pilot rules and finds Jesus completely innocent in Luke 23:2-16. At this point, he has no legal option other than to release Jesus. So, what does this fearsome representative of Roman might do? Terrified of the Sanhedrin’s awesome power, he apparently invents (on the spot) a custom of releasing a convicted criminal according to mob rule. However, he gives the mob a choice between a criminal and an innocent man! And then the thousands who triumphantly celebrated Jesus’ arrival just a few days earlier turn on him and demand that an innocent man is brutally killed by their common oppressor, the Romans.

Yea, that sure seems predictable to me. :banghead:

Asha'man

Actually, you have already lost.

Your theory can't explain the facts, so it has been falsified.

I know one theory that explains many of the facts, but is incomplete. The JMs have another theory that explains many of the facts, but is also incomplete. When one of us completes our theory, you will still have lost.

Because either theory says that Christianity is based on a fraud, a myth, and a lie, and your beliefs will have turned into mush.

Radorth

I disagree, but who cares? I gave you another by a skeptic which makes yours look like a fairy tale and which neither tortures the scriptures, accuses ten people of lying and colluding, requires far fewer gratuitous or cynical assumptions, explains the extraordinary details, and easily survives Occam. Yours is another Pandora's box in comparison.

I guess you didn't get it. Thank the Lord.

Rad

Radorth

You are being unfair as usual. In those days Fenton, nobody knew any different. Everything was a guess as you well know. I never doubted there was some kind of evolutionary changes happening, before or after I was a Christian. So my story has never changed.

Rad

Dr Rick

...not if there was an omnipotent Christian god around; The Christian god would know different, and he wouldn't have to guess. If there had been some caring ober-being hangin', he wouldn't have let the story get so foul.

Rick

Rhea

He never claimed to be the "Education God"...

Ockhamite

Fiach...Starboy...It's little wonder you have no respect for Occam, you're not grasping the concept.


Read it again...I haven't unwittingly made your point....we're not on the same page. I've shown you why the flippant 'God-did-it' or the 'Stork brought me' do not qualify as simple, parsimonious theories. The underlying presumptions are complex, without support, complicated beyond belief. In dire need of a razor to hack away at this crap. Alternatively the 'miracle of birth' is no miracle at all, no natural laws are broken, no unfathomable forces at work here, no supernatural entity is required. Interrelated natural processes following verifiable, understandable laws that ultimately in no way fail Occam

Can we keep this thread on the OP.