David Conklin

Logic assumes that you know all of the relevant premises. The ancient Greeks used logic to prove that there is no change. They were wrong because they missed one relevant assumption.

In today's world man cannot do time travel. In the future who knows? Scientists of today have figured that it is theoretically possible.

David Conklin

God fertilized Mary's egg without sexual intercourse--that's called parthenogenesis.

David Conklin

Or, more likely he didn't have to mention it because the other two Gospel accounts already had.

Sojourner553

Hi David:

I found this jewel burried in your post. Excellent point, David!

I think it only applies to the MAJORITY of the Greek stories of virgins. That is, there were a large number of Greek stories of virgin births (usually with sexual relations -- to emphasis your point). However,this is not always trueL note the Alexander the Great myth.

Also note there were other non-Greek myths floating around where the virgins did not appear to have a sexual relation. I bolded this part in the references below.

Oh -- and you have seen the quote where early Christians noted the similarities, yes? I am including that one too, in case your author references overlooked that one.

================================================

There were many other role models within the Greco-Roman pagan
literature of women being impregnated by gods: Zeus reportedly fathered the
Greek heroes Hercules and Perseus. The god Aesclepius had fathered Aratus
of Sicyon, while in the disguise of a serpent. Real, historical figures were
also purported to have been fathered by the gods. Alexander the Great was
said to have been fathered by Zeus. Pythagorus, Plato, and even the first emperor Augustus were believed to have been fathered by Apollo, the
Sun God.

The terms "son of God", "savior", "gospel", and "magi" were not unique
to the early Christians, but instead were common terms that can be found
throughout Greco-Roman literature, as can be seen in the following examples:

-- On a marble pedestal from Pergamum, was carved the following words:
"The Emperor Caesar, son of God, god Augustus.


-- When the eastern ruler Tiradates came to pay homage to Nero, he
"brought magi with him". Approaching Nero, "He knelt upon the
ground, and with arms crossed called him master and did obeisance."

-- The Emperor Augustus was described as being sent to this world
as a "savior"

"Whereas the Providence which has guided our whole existence ... has
brought our life to the peak of perfection in giving to us Augustus Caesar,
who it filled with virtue for the welfare of mankind, and who, being sent
to us and to our descendants as a savior, has put an end to war and has
set all things in order; ... and whereas, finally that the birthday of the
God (ie Caesar Augustus) has been for the whole world the beginning of the
gospel concerning him, (therefore let all reckon a new era beginning
from the date of his birth)." (IBID)

-- Again according to the historian Seutonius, "a public portent
warned the Roman people some months before Augustus' birth that
Nature was making ready to provide them with a king; and this
caused the Senate such consternation that they issued a decree
which forbade the rearing of any male child for a whole year." (Ibid)
An " astrologer, hearing at what hour the child had been
delivered, cried out, 'The ruler of the world is now born."
(Seutonius, THE DEIFIED AUGUSTUS, 94 trans. JC Rolfe (London
Heinemann, 1914)

-- According to Plutarch, Alexander the Great's mother dreamed that
she conceived when a thunderbolt struck her womb.

-- Also, according to Plutarch: "The fact of the intercourse of a male
god with mortal women is conceded by all."
==============================================

Now for the non-Greek references:



"Nor were the Greeks/Romans, the only culture to have myths on virgin births--
Egyptian Pharaohs were believed to have had supernatural origins, centuries
before Jesus was born. The story was told that Attis was born of the virgin
Myrrha. The Buddha, according to a later (but still pre-Christian) tradition,
was said to have entered (in the sacred form of a white elephant) into the
virgin mother Maya. Ramakrishna was conceived by his mother Chandramani,
while embracing the god Shiva in a visionary trance. Lao-tzu was conceived
by a 81-year old virgin, after a ball of light was sent by the gods to settle
on her lips--She bore her son out of her armpit under a plum tree. The list goes on and on.

Interestingly, some early Christians appear to have noticed these parallels, and therefore rejected the Virgin Birth stories of Jesus, because they sounded too similar to some Greek myths--such as the the myth of Danae, who was impregnated by Zeus. (Note: Danae was the mother of the hero Perseus, who eventually become a Greek god):

The Christian father Justin Martyr wrote in his DIALOGUE WITH THE JEW TRYPHO how pagans accused Christians of taking the story of the virgin birth from Danae. Justin responded,

"Why are we Christians alone of men hated for Christ's name, when we do
but related of him stories similar to what the Greeks relate of Hermes
and Perseus?...What we teach, we learned from Christ and the prophets
who preceded him, and it is a true lore and more ancient than that of
all other writers that ever existed; but we claim acceptance, not because
our stories are identical with those of others, but because they are true."

Justin goes on to say that Satan had created mischief in causing these
similarities:

"When I am told that Perseus was born of a virgin, I realize that here
again is a case in which the serpent and deceiver has imitated our religion."

Justin noted that some of his fellow Christians believed Jesus was NOT
born of a Virgin:

"It is quite true that some people of our kind acknowledge him to be
Christ, but at the same time declare him to have been a man of men. I,
however, cannot agree with them, and will not do so, even if the majority
[of Christians] insist on this opinion."


===============================================


(you might find the rest of the article interesting as well)

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/BIRTH.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/BIRTH.TXT</a>
Sojourner

[ December 08, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Sojourner553

Sorry, David:

(1) Your sources were either wrong (or of the genre: Everyone who doesn't believe EXACTLY as I do is an atheist)

else

(2) You remember wrong.

Today, Unitarians are the biggest denomination of deists.

It is true though that most congegrations allow atheists to participate. Still most of their liturgy speaks of the existance of a God who made the world.

Judaism -- if you take out all the OT rules and special history -- is basically a belief in one god -- or deism -- as well.


Sojourner

NOGO

You know not that of which you speak.

Logical truth ...
IF
A is greater than B
and B is greater than C
THEN
A must be greater than C

This is, was and will always be true.
This is logic.

What you refer to as logic is anybody's guess.

NOGO

parthenogenesis (pär´the-no-jèn´î-sîs) noun

A form of reproduction in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new individual, occurring commonly among insects and certain other arthropods.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

David Conklin

Hmmm, well the Greeks used to believe:

Premise A: What is, is.
Premise B: What is not, is not.
Conclusion: Therefore, there is no change.

In class I showed the prof how by adding one additional premise (it had to do with time) the conclusion would be the exact opposite. He gave me an A for the course on the spot.

BTW, here's a list of the logic books in my personal library:

1) Handbook of Logic by Joseph Gerard Brennan (Harper & Row, 1961)
2) Intro. to Logic by Andrew H. Bachhuber (A Jesuit) Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1957)
3) Readingsin Logic by Copi and Gould (1964)
4) Elementary Modern logic by Brown and Stuermann (1965)
5) Intro. to Logic by Copi (1978)
6) Better Reasoning: Techniques for Handling Arguments, Evidence and Abstraction by Wright (1982)

NOGO

John was perhaps aware of the other Gospels but we have no evidence of this.

You seemed to totally miss my point so here it is again. John writes that John the Baptist identified Jesus as the Son of God when he saw the Spirit of God descend upon him.

So the author of John believed that Jesus was the Son of God because the Spirit of God was in him. GJohn's Jesus confirms this himself when he says that what he says and does are not his but God's who abides in him. This miles away from his genetic origin.

To put it simply, John had an alternate theory.

David Conklin

The source was a historian of that time-frame.

Same word ('deist'), different "animal".