Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Forumers,

I recently had the pleasure of reading wordsmyths 'what it would take' post.

In it wordsmyth said that if some guy showed up today and performed miracles according to
these criteria:
1-context
2-repetition
3-results
4-publicity & documentation

that he would believe in God.


Here's the rub. What if this already happened 2000 years ago?

Now wordsmyth says he is looking for live video feeds and digital media...but it should come
as no suprise that people didn't have access to this technology back then. In fact, the
news media wasn't even invented yet.

He says he is looking for documentation...but there is no ancient text in mankinds history
that is more supported than the New Testament.

He says he is looking for publicity...yet no single event in the history of mankind has so
thoroughly affected the world. There are currently over 2 billion people who claim to
be Christians on the planet today. Heck, Jesus is even in your watch.

So here's my question:
What event would had to have happened 2000 years ago to convince you of God's presence?


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Bill Snedden

It's an interesting question, but given your question below:

How about this one: as Christian doctrine holds that those who were born, lived, and died before Christ either

A) were saved through their adherence to whatever covenant was in place at that time.
B) were saved when Christ descended to hell after his death and offered salvation to any therein who would accept.

and therefore the time of His coming in human history was essentially moot, why did would an omnipotent, omniscient being deliberately choose to send His most important message to a group of pre-modern people who lacked the ability and technology to record & preserve His message in order to ensure its most accurate transmission to all that followed, thus giving them the best possible chance to experience it?

Regards,

Bill Snedden

HallaK9

Hello SOMMS,

Can't think of anything that would convince me... Of course, God could think of something that would convince everybody, what with being omniscient and all that

Now if I were the top chief in these parts of cosmos, I'd make big nuisance of myself, say, every Christmas. That way there woudn't be any need for these kind of discussions.

Would you care to share these supportions with the rest of us?

Sadly, the universe has a nasty habit of ignoring people's opinions about how it should be organized And what about the other 4 billion?

Really? Where? If this is true, can I get a refund? Are there atheist watches for sale?

Sincerely yours,

Antti

[edited for more correcter English]

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: HallaK9 ]</p>

Panta Pei

"Heck, Jesus is even in your watch"

You may have something here SOMMS...my watch died on me three days ago and now it is working again

Of course, its a gaff, how could I resist?

HRG

Which should be no impediment for an omnipotent God.
I wonder what you mean by "supported". That an original text has been copied 1000 times does not increase its evidentiary value.

If "supported" includes "confirmed by independent sources", I could think of a lot of texts which are better supported: e.g. Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Civili ....
The assassination of Caesar and the death of Dzinghis Khan (which ended the Mongolian invasion of Central Europe) are certainly of equal weight, just to give two examples.
An event which left unambigous causal consequences today.

Note that a report which claims that someone else claimed to have seen something is not an unambigous causal consequence. The first 1000 decimal digits of pi in a document which is 2000 years old would be one, for instance; another one would be a configuration of stars at a distance of 2000 light years which 2000 years ago spelled the Torah (so that we would see them right now).

The criterion is easy: something we can unambigously observe today.

Regards,
HRG.

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: HRG ]</p>

not a theist

Then that would have been enough evidence to convince me if I was alive 2000 years ago.

Which diminishes it's value as evidence for us today since we have fewer way to verify that it actually happened.

Define supported. Yes, we have many copies of copies. That's not the question. The question is whether the documents that these copies were made from are reliable in their testimony.

Most of these people believe what they believe on hearsay evidence.

And here we get to the ridiculous part of the question.
Let me reverse this on you: What event would have had to happen 50,000 years ago to convince you of the lack of God's presence?
Does what I just asked sound absurd?
Of course it does and so does the question you just asked.
Why should there be any event 2000 years (or 10,000 or a million) years ago that could convince me of God's presence?
But I'll give you one: A 2000 year old videotape of the Resurrection. Surely if God can raise someone from the dead he can make a video of it. So what that technology wasn't that advanced. We're talking about the miraculous here.

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: not a theist ]</p>

Draygomb

Miracles are only evidence of Miracles. If you're going to get me to believe in god you're going to have to show me that the universe couldn't exist without one. And considering that I have a proof that shows that god can't exist I would say that would take a Miracle.

brighid

It’s too bad this omnipotent god of yours failed to miss China about 500 years prior to the birth of Jesus (or heck China at the SAME time)– they had the printing press and Jesus could have walked over to a local shop, hired someone to take down his message, word for word and he could even have preserved himself like a princess that was found (can’t remember her name) – perfectly preserved that is after being buried for many, many centuries!! Especially since there are so many texts in China (with first hand accounts by many witnesses) of men ascending to heaven and immortals! But I bet you don’t believe their stories!

Brighid

sidewinder

What do you mean that it is more supported than any other ancient text? You have to be more specific.In any case, it doesn't take a genius to see that the NT contains errors and contradictions. That fact alone negates it from being a collection of writings inspired by the god defined by Christianity.

It proves nothing. Truth is not determined by popular opinions or beliefs. Large numbers prove nothing. I could make the same claim about Islam, whose numbers are growing much faster than Christianity.

Ancient folks didn't need much evidence to believe in a God. Their view of the world and the universe was limited to their immediate surroundings and the sky above. They had nowhere near the scientific knowledge that we have now.

sbaii

I used to wonder why otherwise intelligent educated people believed in the Bible with all its contradictions and absurdities. It certainly is a remarkable exercise in pigeonholing one's ideas so that each idea can be contemplated divorced from the others. People believe in an all-loving god that also sends bears to tear children apart,or creates a place of eternal punishment. What sin could require an eternity of agony? They see god in everything good in their lives, but slough off the good in others' lives. The ones who do spend a lot of time thinking of metaphysical questions usually employ abstruse philosophical concepts which hardly befits a god who is supposed to be accessible to everyone.
I have come to the conclusion that people believe in god because they need to believe in god or more specifically a heaven. If heaven weren't a part of the picture, very few people would care if there were a god or not. Atheists are realists. We deal with the real world that we perceive through our senses. We question the powers that say "It is god's will that you have that disease, or that you are a peon, etc." The more we learn about space the farther god recedes into the cosmos except in the imaginations of those who must believe. I just wish believers would be honest and say that they are so fearful of their own mortality that they will believe any contradiction that will give them comfort. And then understand the concern nonbelievers have when we have the likes of Bush, Cheney et al heading our government.