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07-13-2003, 06:36 AM | #131 | ||
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When it comes to choosing to align myself with a particular monotheistic faith tradition, with a particular version of a monotheistic story, etc. ... that is not a necessary consequence of being a theist. It then comes down to, yep, I'm going to say it again, because xians have no way of getting around it, a personal assessment of the credibility of the particular doctrines of that tradition. (And I'm sure, that is conditioned by a variety of factors, social, psychological and others.) Basically, I don't think that your original question is one that xians necessarily ignore, but one which doesn't have an answer that is objective, in the sense that it can't be externally, universally vailidated. But in a lot of contexts and situation, sometimes humans have to work with subjective perceptions and make decisions based on limited information. A xian may be able to tell you something about why he or she decided to 'go with' that particular worldview, but heck, I can't understand why most other xians are xians. Quote:
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07-14-2003, 11:06 AM | #132 | |
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07-14-2003, 11:34 AM | #133 | ||||||||||
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As you fired off no fewer than 19 seperate questions, I'm obviously not inclined to answer each in depth. Here's a few one off responses. If there are any questions you are especially interested you might start a thread in B,C & H on just those. Quote:
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08-02-2003, 11:28 AM | #134 |
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lunatic, liar, Lord .... or legend?
CX, sorry for the late response, I've been busy. You answered my questionaire and so I suppose you'd align yourself to some degree with the Jesus-myth group? Many here do just that. Resultantly, I've been given leads by others to consult Joseph Campbell, Acharya S, G.A. Wells, Earl Doherty and crew. I went over to jesuspuzzle and viewed Doherty's "Challenging the Verdict", the first chapter. Conversely, I've read Strobel's "The Case for Christ" and I wanted to see more of Doherty's "Challenging the Verdict," but it was, comparitively, an expensive book (increase supply? increase demand?). Failing the time and money, I read at length the analysis of others who bought and read "Challenging the Verdict." Overwhelmingly, I found the following snippet of the most recent review at Amazon.com to be the quintessential verdict on the "Verdict":
"...It gets tedious very quickly to read the author's "challenges" without knowing how the scholars would answer him. It's like putting a witness on a witness stand, gagging his mouth, then grilling him with misleading questions and saying, "Aha! See! I'm obviously right because he has no answer." Give me a break! These scholars would roast him. Check out the author's bio; his credentials pale in comparison to the doctorates earned by those he cynically seeks to discredit..." I have to admit, when I read the first chapter of "Challenging the Verdict," quickly grasping the premise, my mind flew to the Simpsons episode where Homer is accused of sexual harassment and takes his case to "Rock Bottom," who's production crew "creatively edits" Homer's statements of fact into a confession of guilt and even a (comical) aggravated assault on the the "Rock Bottom" interviewer. Intrigued by the typical layman review of "Challenging the Verdict" I looked for the apologist response and already found informed dissention with promises of more to come. In fact, I wanted to give you and others here an opportunity to respond to these extended book reviews/analysis here, here and this general critique of Jesus-mythology, if you are so inclined. There are other critiques but I judged these as accessible to anyone. So, I was discouraged, hoping to find the skeptic's "best shot" at adding "legend" to C.S. Lewis' famous trilemma of Jesus Christ as either lunatic, liar or Lord. I'm sure Lewis would be mildly flattered to know there has been such a need and subsequent effort to add "legend" to the conundrum he worded so artfully. Thus, I hope to solicit what you really consider the true "best shot" from this recent movement to add "legend" to the list, since Earl is evidently not it. Regards, BGic |
08-04-2003, 12:13 AM | #135 |
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Billy Graham is cool, you are aware that there is a significant difference between "legend based on fact" and plain old "legend," yes?
While there certainly were poeple named "Jesus" in the region and it's certainly possible (even plausible) that one of those named "Jesus" was a Rabbi who may have been crucified for seditionist acts against the occupying force in the region (beside murder, the primary reason Romans used such a method of capital punishment), these "facts" do not then corroborate the claims of divinity ascribed to this possible Rabbi. Do you understand the distinction? Abbie Hoffman factually existed (i.e., he was non-fictional), yet if I were to form a cult of Abbie and write stories about how Abbie was so righteous in his opposition to evil forces that he once walked on water to escape the Feds; or that while hiding out to avoid prosecution from the evil Federal overlords, he turned water into wine and stones into brisket sandwhiches to feed those who harbored him; or that one time he was actually totally surrounded by the Feds and in front of a hundred witnesses (myself included) levitated ten feet into the air and dissappeared in a puff of marijuana smoke; and that I concluded in my writings that these miracles prove his supernatural divinity, and then others in the cult I formed later wrote their own "attestations" (based primarily upon my own writings) of these events, also concluding that Abbie was the Messiah, would all of that make Abbie Hoffman the man, Abbie the Christ? Would an analysis of the "Historical Abbie" then be about the claims of divinity (as written by members of the cult of Abbie) or the actual man? |
08-04-2003, 10:57 AM | #136 | ||||
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Jesus and His failed coup d'état?
Koyaanisqatsi,
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If, in response, you claim "appeal to authority" is a bad argument, then you are missing my point. Quote:
Hint: Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's. Quote:
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On an aside, I've had multiple appeals from others to present a case for the Resurrection of Christ, a topic somewhat correlated to the issue above. I'll try to remember to let you know when I post to BC&H since you may be inclined to get yourself involved. If I forget to notify you, just check back at BC&H the next few days for a running thread on the Resurrection. Regards, BGic |
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08-04-2003, 02:58 PM | #137 |
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BGiC, and all, please continue this in BC&H- if you'd like to have some of this moved to that forum, let me know what posts you would like me to move. Jobar.
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08-04-2003, 03:02 PM | #138 |
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But of course
Certainly Jobar, as intended I will--and as suggested by you. You are also welcome to join, your opinion is always well received.
Regards, BGic |
08-05-2003, 09:10 AM | #139 | |
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Re: lunatic, liar, Lord .... or legend?
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That being said your "legend" idea is a misrepresentation of my position. It is not a question of whether the Jesus stories in the NT are legendary or not. Rather what is overlooked by Lewis and others who use some variation of the trilemma as an apologetic tool is the basis and quantity of evidence for our picture of Jesus. This is totally independent of the hypothesis that Jesus is entirely mythical a la Doherty et al. (Which arguments, incidentally, I don't find especially convincing). Ultimately there are virtually no details about the HJ's life and ministry outside the gospels. The Pauline and Catholic epistles concern themselves with confessional, doctrinal and church heirarchy issues and say little or nothing about the life of Jesus. Extra-biblical sources, authentic or not, say even less. Consequently, the only sources we have on which to base our conclusions about Jesus pursuant to the Lord, Liar Lunatic trilemma come from the 4 canonical gospels at least vis-a-vis the orthodox picture of Jesus; there are numerous noncanonical gospels with different depictions. So then what do we have in the gospels. We have four anonymous documents given their authorial attributions no earlier than the 2nd century by orthdox ante-nicene fathers who were combating competing traditions. Of those the 3 synoptic gospels are literarily interdependent and give multiple lines of evidence as not being eyewitness accounts. But rather a developing body of theological tractate one built upon another with specific theological aims. Compounding this difficulty is the current state of the manuscript evidence for the NT as a whole. If you search on manuscript evidence here you can find any number of past discussions on this topic, but in a nutshell we have no complete copy of any gospel until the 4th century after the adoption of the orthodox Xian church as the religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine. Furthermore there are no fewer than 6 or 7 books of the NT (mostly the catholic letters some of the pastorals) which have no attestation whatever before Codex Sinaiticus Now then do I think any of this disproves Xianity? No. Is it the basis for my nonbelief in god? No. But it does lead any reasonable person to conclude that reconstructing the historical Jesus in absence of a particular confessional stance predisposing one to a particular image of Jesus is extremely difficult and must be extremely tentative. Therein is the chief flaw in Lewis' apologetic trilemma. It overlooks this entire state of affairs completely and is in fact predicated entirely on the false belief that we have a complete and historically accurate and unassailable picture of the historical Jesus to begin with. |
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08-05-2003, 09:22 AM | #140 |
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Hey EoG Mods
Could one of you fine lads move the series of posts between BGiC and myself regarding C.S. Lewis' Lord,Liar or Lunatic trilemma over to B,C&H. I don't want to clutter up your forum with off topic discussion
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