Sojourner553

I would prefer you "memorize" the arguments/proofs -- instead of merely the source.

That is I need to see the proofs AND the reasoning. There is a lot of bad analysis out there. That's not to say yours is; let's say one has to be careful because there is so many poorly reasoned sources out there.

Take as one example: There is a site somewhere that tries to argue Jesus did not really mean that it was more likely for a rich man to go through an eye of a needle than to go to heaven. The author is obviously very creative with the responses, but doesn't bother to look at every weak angle of his argument to try and answer these. (no, these he ignores.)


Do you remember any of the proofs? Actually I have found that challenges by others to me -- on what I originally thought was "obvious" -- has spurred me to do some of my best research/analysis...

So take this as a friendly challenge in that favorable light!

Sojourner

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Kosh

Common Sense and Logic can become passe?

Butters

Paine's point is as valid today, as when it was written.
You show me a book. I't around 2000years old. You don't know who wrote it. It discribes events that the author could'nt have wittnessed himself. It discribes a Virgin, giving birth to God. I don't know who this woman is. I don't know where her story came from. I don't know if she ever existed.
Stories from nowhere.
Not only do I have a right not to believe it, I have every reason not to. If I accept it as true, by the same logic (suspense of logic?) I would have to accept every other myth I hear.
The time, culture, or situation it was written in is irrelevent. I CANNOT KNOW this story is true. I do know however that there are hundreds of similar stories, since none show evidence of anything that could not be thought of or known by man, I must disbelieve them all.

Sojourner553

Isn’t claiming that Jesus’ concept was not in the NORMAL course, an extraordinary claim?

Would you not say that “intelligent” people should know what and why they believe. Seems to me you are the one making assumptions here, if you don’t mind me pointing this out…

But this is vague and therefore an interpretation. For example, it could also be a poetic way of describing a natural birth. Aren’t most babies made (either natural or supernatural means?) – And doesn't Paul uses flesh to distinguish it from a spiritual origin?

Have you even looked at the evidence of this?

Why do you celebrate Christmas and worship on Sunday. Can you find my any scriptural authority for this???? It is no coincidence even this comes from the Mystery Religions – in this case Mithra.


Please stay with the facts please.

I generally try to stay courteous too. I have found there is no correlation with religion OR non-religion with manners. That is I have conversed with courteous theists AND nontheists – and also NON-courteous theists and nontheists.

(You’d think there’d be some easy correlation for us??? Smile)



Sojourner

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

David Conklin

You want me to memorize all 33 pages!!! Good Lord man our brains aren't that big! Not that good on the recall either!

The source is readily obtainable through interlibrary loan--that's how I got mine.

David Conklin

One of my profs said the same thing!

David Conklin

Is there any evidence he was not?

David Conklin

Common sense and logic in Paine's day would say, and did, that man could never fly nor go faster than a fast horse. Common sense and logic depend on the factual base from which you are operating. As we learn more we find that much of what they thought they knew to be true to be utter nonsense.

David Conklin

1) I didn't make the claim.

2) It is foolish to impose a demand from our era on an earlier one. We can only work with the information they had and how they presented it based on their culture, not ours--that's cultural imperialism.

David Conklin

I am. I read the professional/scholarly literature by the scholars in the field so I know what they do say and what they do not say.

For instance, (I just remembered where I had one!):

From James D. G. Dunn, "Jesus Tradition in Paul," Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (E. J. Brill, 1994): 155-178.

On page 177 Dunn starts to answer the question he raised at the beginning of his study.

"Why was Jesus not cited explicitly as authority for the exhortations which drew on the Jesus tradition?" The answer is that to force, as it were, the web of allusion and echo into the open may strengthen the explicit authority of a particular exhortation*, but it also weakens the bonding effect of the web of shared discourse. In communities of shared discourse allusions can be all the more effective because they trigger off wider associations and communal memories whose emotive resonance gives added motivation to the looked for response."

*[the footnote here notes that in "the two most cited case (1 Cor 7:10-11; 9:14-15) Paul quotes a word from the Lord in order to _qualify_ it!"] emphasis in the original

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: David Conklin ]</p>