Gothic_J

mass quality education will kill it.

Lonely_Road_Of_Faith

Yeah, but what sort of "quality" education?

As I said before I'm a Christian,,,but I disagree with a lot of "Fundamentalist" doctrines in particular,,,let the fundies keep up with illogical and anti-scientific beliefs like creationism (which cannot seem to be argued for without a logical fallacy or 3) and eventually people will start to realize that, yes, some parts of the Bible weren't meant to be taken literally. What really bothers me though, is the tendency of some Christians to cite the Bible as the sole authority on this, that, or the other thing when discussing issues with somebody who may have no knowledge of the Bible,,,it just annoys me, as those people tend to alienate a lot of non-christians. I've said it before and I'll say it again, one cannot win someone else over to their point of view with falsehoods or deception or illogic, because reality WILL catch up eventually.

I just wish more people understood that fact.

I think eventually Christianity will adapt, as will all the other "main" world religions, simply because there WILL be some that follow any given religion who will recognize that they need to fight for change.

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andy_d

While that may be true, it wasn't actually Christianity (or any other religion) that caused that change. Let's stick to what's relevant, please.

Postcard73

How about if the mummified body of Jesus was found in the catacombs beneath the Vatican, a la Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction? I personally doubt that any historical Jesus actually existed, but if he did and his body were found, then it would prove that he never ascended into heaven. I'm not sure how much of an effect this would have, but it's worth mentioning...

Lonely_Road_Of_Faith

And how would anybody know for sure if it was even Jesus?

I'm quite sure nobody has Jesus's genetic material on file.

Even if that were the case, lots of people would just ignore the evidence.

LROF

Wyrdsmyth

That's an intriguing question. To answer it, I think we need to look at how other religions have died or been eclipsed. Often they either transformed into something different, or were overrun by a new belief.

Religions like Judeo-Christianity, Islam and Buddhism have been enormously popular and durable. They seem to have more psychological appeal than their predecessors. Religions like this seem to press a lot of the right "psychological buttons," somehow. And they have shown they can have cross-cultural appeal and implant themselves and flourish in alien cultures. They have enormous marketing power and psychological safeguards. For example, Christianity has the popular doctrine that you are punished not for being bad, but for doubting the faith. That is a psychological safeguard that keeps many people from even doubting or questioning, or exploring other possibilities.

I think widespread education could eventually kill off Christianity and all religion, or reduce it to the fringes. We are making headway, but are far from that point just yet. The real question is: "What can kill off a belief in such things as the supernatural, ghosts, gods, astrology, leprechauns... etc." List the whole gamut of stuff believe because they've been brainwashed, indoctrinated, or threatened into believing, or simply believe out of ignorance. What can kill beliefs in invisible, intelligent forces that are affecting humanity -- but are entirely undetectable and unverifiable by skeptics? Well, pointing that out to everyone, for one thing. An open society, where nothing is above being questioned or doubted, spells the death of superstition.

crocodile deathroll

An asteriod impact.

Godless Wonder

Well, maybe these people. have his DNA, or at least maybe they want it real bad.

Just for the sake of argument, suppose they found the actual, real (corporeal?) corpse of Jesus (nevermind those tons of cannibalized jebus wafers), yet there was no proof, and further, from DNA obtained from the corpse, supposed they did clone it. (I heard they were looking for surrogate mothers... no requirement to be a virgin even.)

So, would a cloned Jesus, (presuming that it is in fact the historical Jesus) be supernatural, or just a regular human, who happened to have the same DNA as supernatural-Jesus? Sort of like Jesus identical-but-non-supernatural twin?

And supposing he's non-supernatural. Will that convince anyone of anything wrt Christianity? I can't imagine how it would.

crocodile deathroll

If you read the laws of physics as the dogma for your religion, then it is the one religion that would not be destroyed by an asteroid impact.

CDR

Lonely_Road_Of_Faith

LOL I remember hearing something or other about some group wanting to clone Jesus, in fact it was on a Christian message board that I found it. Somebody was trying to say that the "antichrist" would be a clone of Jesus.

Here's a what I had to say...

Hi,
Actually, I don't think the "cloning" of Jesus is biblical. The idea that it could be done is a little to the left of ridiculous. Even if they somehow HAD Jesus's genetic material (Which is very, very doubtful) it'd be 2000 years old. DNA and RNA strands decay, given that much time. Even if the cloning WAS successful,,,they would have somebody who looked like Jesus, maybe even sounded like him,,,but he certainly wouldn't be Jesus. Even in science fiction (lol) cloning does not confer the personality or anything more then the basic mental attributes of the individual who's being cloned.

For example, in a Star Trek episode, some Klingon priests cloned Kahless (the Klingon god-figure) but all they ended up with was a normal klingon who looked like him, talked like him, and maybe even knew some of the same stuff. The people who disbelieved him most were themselves Klingons (one asked a question he couldn't answer and Lt.Worf beat him in a duel.) Thus, it was proven that Kahless was a clone, and not the real thing, because the real one would've known the answers and won the fight.

That's science fiction, but I suspect in Real Life if somebody tried something similar, the same sort of thing would happen. There's lots of questions only Jesus could answer, and lots of things only Jesus could do. The clone WOULDN'T be able to heal the sick or raise the dead. The clone WOULDN'T know answers like "What were the names of the two theives Jesus was crucified with" and the real Jesus would.

Somebody commented on relics,,,as far as I know, there's no relics that can be authentically ascribed to Jesus (Perhaps because he rose from the dead, i.e no body left to get relics from)
Seriously though, most of the 'relics' found in Catholic churches for example have nothing to do with Jesus. Rather they're the relics of various saints.

Ah well, maybe they'll clone St. Patrick by mistake, and the world will have the luck of the Irish, for as long as Mr. Clone is around,,,

hehehe.

Like I said, the very idea is crazy.

~~~
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Said I, Here am I, send me. ~Isaiah 6:8

Diligentia et Accuratio (Diligence and Accuracy)~ Motto of the 379th Bomb Wing, Strategic Air Command, USAF