Milton

What do you think Jesus came to do? Jesus is seen as the second Adam, a new beginning. Noah was also seen as a 'saviour', he preached a 'gospel', and was the one in charge of a new beginning.

You said that why not send the Messiah during the time of Adam or Noah, that is why I reminded you that they are the beginning of the new generation. Noah fulfilled a role similar to that of the messiah.

Howard

Because the "somewhat supernatural" is the most convoluted and IMprobable explanation of all. We have a vast body of natural explanations, for which there is a vast amount of well-defined and logically coherent evidence, but we haven't a single, demonstrable or verifiable case of a supernatural occurrence.

Why should we look for answers in a box that you can't even show exists, when we have one that's tried, true and chock full of possible answers?

Milton

Again, RBAC, I agree with you.

There certainly are other ways to explain why and how these things happened. But that does not deny the fact that there was a supernatural force putting all these events together.

Mageth

"The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already"

- Edward Abbey

Howard

Fact:
1) Knowledge or information based on real occurrences
2) Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed

That's just laughable. You assert as true a proposition that is the basis of most of the debates here; a proposition for which you can’t demonstrate a shred of credible evidence. If we accepted the claim of the supernatural we wouldn’t be having these discussions. You really should learn the difference between facts and opinions.

JB01

If you'll pardon the analogy, I tend to think of Judaism as a benign tumor that then metastasized into Christianity. That is, it underwent a memetic mutation that made it much more virulent, more capable of spreading to other cultures.

The nature of the mutation, of course, was the adoption of the belief (antithetical to Jewish teaching but commonplace in Christianity) that rewards and punishments are doled out on the basis of belief in the religion itself rather than on strict adherence to its prescribed behaviors. Or, in the classic Christian reformulation, "salvation" is by faith and not "works".

The corollary is that those who do not share the belief are "unsaved" -- something Christians believe and Jews do not -- and that therefore compassion dictates that the belief be spread to as many nonbelievers as possible. I think this in itself can account for much of the relative success of both Christianity and Islam in replicating themselves. It's certainly more plausible than appeals to the supernatural.

Milton

Everything is an opinion, it just happens that some opinions are more widely held or accepted than others.

Rational BAC

True enough.

Howard just posted a whole bunch of historical opinions. Based loosely on carefully interpreted, selected facts chosen specifically to support those opinions.

And he is derisive somehow of opinion.

Howard

Wrong. I am not derisive of opinions, reasonable ones anyway. I am derisive of people stating opinions as facts. They are different. Everthing is not opinion.

Amaranth

Gotta love this Milton guy. Reminds me of Magus, kind of.

and

Fact:

1. Knowledge or information based on real occurrences.

Opinion:

1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof.


One of these things is not like the other,
One of these things is not the same...


What else does Milton have to say?

OooOOoo....implied Argumentum ad Populum. Might want to look that term up before you make any actual claims using the sort of logic you imply there.

So Jesus wasn't up to the job of saving all the people drowned in the flood, eh?

What claim? Claim to sudden ascent? Now you're dealing with over 3,000 years for Christianity to get where it is. Not really all that impressive.

Or maybe you meant that the age of the two adds some credibility to their claims? If so, some more bad news: That's Argumentum ad antiquitatem, and it's not unique. Muslims can claim the same thing.

I think this is a sentiment we can all agree on

Many attacks - Like the Crusades. Oh, and let's not forget the hundreds of years of what amounts to ethnic cleansing in Europe, slaughtering people like the Prussians and the Celts, and selling their children to the Muslims as slaves. Or hey, what about the Inquisition - That was a serious attack on the church too.

Wait, switch that - Those were attacks by the church, not on it. My bad.

Enough for now. Keep 'em coming, Milt.

Amaranth