Religion: The Deuce

[Ixtellor]

If a number of people had edited the document, I would have thought it would display signs of that in terms of both inconsistency of theme and terminology / style.

It does. The Testimony of Thomas is routinely left out. The testimony of Mary is routinly left out.
As far as style... thats the style of the times. Its like saying The Adventures of Huckleberry finn are true because the writing is consistant in theme and terminology of other writers during this period.

Or that dystopian literature is true, because they all have the same consistant style. (1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc)

Belief in the FSM is far more rational than, say, athiesm.

This is the SB forum, so go ahead and explain that for us.

"I'm right because I'm smarter than you" is a fallacy.

This doesn't rebut the fact that just because lots of people happen to believe in religion does NOT make it true. Which WAS your assertation or premise that I discredited.

Well, since you've conveniently defined miracles as impossibilities and decided that anything unexplainable must have a mundane cause, you've already shown that you will refuse to acknowledge any evidence of miracles, and will instead cling to your unproven, irrational belief that they simply cannot exist.

I didn't define miracles at all. But I see you choose not to present any "evidence" of miracles being performed, and rightly so. Because you know there will be a scientific explanation for everything you give.

I notice you also, didn't bother to refute my assertation that the Mother Teresa miracles was bogus wishfull thinking.

In fact it seems like you choose not to refute anything. I wonder why... ?

I presume its because you realize, but can't admit, you in fact have not one shread of evidence or 'proof' to back up a single claim regarding the validity of the Christian faith as anything more than humans telling fictional stories to explain phenomonon.

You can't say definitively the gospels were edited, I can't say definitively the gospels weren't edited.

We do know definitively that a group of men, hundreds of years after the death of Jesus made the decision about what to include in the bible and what to leave out.
We also know definitively that some men use religion to gain wealth and power.
We also know that the Christian religious is rife with corruption and personal agenda.

I don't think it is a stretch to assume that the Bible is an edited work based on these 3 premises. Factor in that we know for a fact they arbitrarily chose Dec. 25 as Jesus's birthday because it convienantly fit in with 'pagan' religions, and you start to see a lot of evidence for the premise the bible has been edited.


Ixtellor

[Heisenberg]

In fact it seems like you choose not to refute anything. I wonder why... ?

If you spent less time being cheeky and actually read what I wrote, you'd understand that I did not provide evidence because you have already dismissed it. But let's try a little exercise, shall we?

Me: Bernadette suffered the Stigmata.
Ix: That little girl is a fucking liar.

Me: Mother Teresa healed a tumor.
Ix: Those doctors are fucking liars.

A commission of doctors who examined the case said they had no explanation for the cure

I don't understand why I should endeavor to prove something to you that you will refuse to acknowledge as even possible.

[alexh123456789]

One doctor who treated Besra told CNN there was no scientific explanation for her recovery.
But the doctor who first diagnosed Besra, says the church should not push Besra's case because it was medication, not a miracle that cured her. "It is scientifically proven that the tumor that she had was linked to tuberculosis," he said. "And it responded to an anti-tubercular drug.

So one doctor(I'd be willing to bet that he's a christian) claims that there's no explanation, and the doctor who diagnosed her supplies the obvious explanation- her medicine did what it was supposed to do.

[MoghLiechty2]

[1]We do know definitively that a group of men, hundreds of years after the death of Jesus made the decision about what to include in the bible and what to leave out.
[2]We also know definitively that some men use religion to gain wealth and power.
[3]We also know that the Christian religious is rife with corruption and personal agenda.

[4]I don't think it is a stretch to assume that the Bible is an edited work based on these 3 premises. Factor in that we know for a fact they arbitrarily chose Dec. 25 as Jesus's birthday because it convienantly fit in with 'pagan' religions, and you start to see a lot of evidence for the premise the bible has been edited.

This logic is of starkly lower quality than the majority of your musings, and makes me think that the stubbornness to change beliefs that you're accusing Phill of is even more rampant in you.

[1] - We could've found the books of the NT thousands of years after they were written and come to the same Biblical canon. The fact that there was a decision made about what was to be included in the Bible means nothing. The question is whether this decision was based on scandal or truth, and you seem to have premptively rejected the possibility of the latter.

[2] - Some men use a lot of originally positive things to get wealth and power, the fact that this is also the case with Christianity is not surprising.

[3] - Again, not surprising. If your church is rife with corruption, you leave the church, not the religion.

[4] - Christmas's date and the Biblical canonization have... nothing... to do with each other, nor does the choosing of Christmas to coincide with pagan (false?) traditions pose any sort of a problem for Christianity.

[4] also doesn't remotely follow from [1], [2], or [3]. Basing this conclusion on those 3 premises is orders of magnitude more speculative than any logic of Phill's that you've bashed.

[Phill]

If you don't understand the situation enough to explain it to me, it's reasonable enough to assume you don't understand the situation enough to claim 'it's more complex than that'. If you can't handle a discussion on this issue without reverting to a "You're wrong but I don't know why" position, leave it to someone who can. I will happily take it up with them.

I'm not trying to dodge the issue. But I've never heard that particular criticism before. You didn't explain why sacrifices *have* to fit your definition of them. The atonement just has many facets to it, and yes - although I could say that Christ died as our substitutionary sacrifice, I didn't want to do your question a disservice by giving a trite answer.

Essentially I think sacrifice in the NT is a metaphor. It wasn't meant to be exactly the same as the OT sacrifices. The sacrificial imagery is meant to help us understand Jesus' death in terms of the substitution and forgiveness of the OT sacrificial system.

You provided evidence for the book of Isaiah. Look up the Book of Samuel and it's reflection in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Again, '95%' is a very, very misleading figure.

Look, I think this is fruitless. Show me a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls who believes that they invalidate the Old Testament scripture, or at least provide evidence that it was substantially changed. I haven't been able to find one. I have found plenty of articles and resources claiming that they do in fact support the Old Testament. I think the onus is on you here to provide support for your position, it seems that everyone I've read, although they may not be Christian, do not make the claim that the DSS is evidence of significant changes to the OT texts.

Yes, the book of Samuel differs from the Masoretic Text. But from what I can find (there's a lot of noise in Google about it) a lot of the problems seem to be bits missing and incomplete rather than actual significant changes in events and the like. And in fact the fragments from Qumran seem to agree with the Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT).

This supremely ignorant statement can only be a product of you not having any grasp on other major religions. The ones I mentioned all involve real history, real people, and real things - as real as you can get in the field, anyway. It is very disconcerting to see someone make that statement and not realize just how utterly wrong they are. I think it cuts down to the core misconception you are operating under. And, frankly, for someone who loves history, it's more than a little frustrating.

What I was getting at was more the type of things people were doing. In other words, Muhammed probably existed. But he basically dictated the Koran as received from an angel, or whatever it was. Buddha probably existed, but it's a similar thing. The entire significance of Christianity lies in its events, i.e. the death and resurrection of Jesus. I'm not trying to suggest that other religions aren't historical, and I'm sorry if that was unclear. (Or as Hillary Clinton might say, I "mis-spoke").

In other words, we have no evidence that what Muhammed and Buddha said is actually true, other than what they actually wrote down. Did they rise again from the dead? - again, whatever you think of the evidence, I think Christianity does at least present a stronger historical case than anything other religions have to offer.

Without knowing the context (religious and cultural), you won't be able to argue that point effectively. The word messiah itself didn't have the meaning which was ascribed to it latter.

By the time of Jesus, the Jewish people were expecting a Messiah. It's just they were expecting a king who would liberate them from the Romans, and not someone who was more concerned with forgiveness and the spiritual Kingdom of God!

You know how much of christianity was based on Paul of Tarsus' work, how it differed from the Jerusalem school and how he supposedly received the gospel, right ? I think Simon Magus deserves a mention for trying too (I would be interested in an alternate history novel in which simonians became an important part of the church, anyone knows of one ?). Early christianity was not a unified whole, various agendas and opinions competed.

Can you provide any articles or the like which go into this in a bit more detail? It seems that the apostolic witness was pretty unified from the beginning.

Have you tried examining some of the church fathers texts ? I would say that it hints at editing, especially clementine litterature.

Unfortunately the literature from the church fathers is not something I've had time to read much of There is an awful lot of it.

It does. The Testimony of Thomas is routinely left out. The testimony of Mary is routinly left out.

Those texts were never considered canonical. When the council of Nicea decided on Biblical canon, it wasn't a case of "hmmm, we have twenty different gospels here. We need to pick four. Which shall we choose?" As I understand it, they basically made canon the books which were already considered canon by the church. I think the gnostic gospels such as Thomas and Mary were written in the 3rd or 4th century and were never seen as canonical by... well, anyone really.

Anyway I think MoghLiechty2 has already done a good job on the gnostic gospels, I don't think there's much else to say about it.

Or that dystopian literature is true, because they all have the same consistant style. (1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc)

I'm sorry, I think you're fighting a straw man. I said that the consistency and style of the individual books of the NT suggests that it has not been edited.

[Ixtellor]

I'm sorry, I think you're fighting a straw man. I said that the consistency and style of the individual books of the NT suggests that it has not been edited.

Isn't that the point of editing? To make sure there is consistency, continuity, and style?

We could've found the books of the NT thousands of years after they were written and come to the same Biblical canon. The fact that there was a decision made about what was to be included in the Bible means nothing. The question is whether this decision was based on scandal or truth, and you seem to have premptively rejected the possibility of the latter.

Yes when people talk about humans resurrecting or curing blindness with their touch or razing cities to the ground by blowing horns... I tend to reject it as fantasy.

You do the exact same thing for every crazy thing you have ever heard, with the exception of the Bible. The fact that the OT and NT exist is because men wrote them down. If you watch some daytime TV, at some point you will see a Christian faith healer cure old women of blindness and arthritis. So the question is, did he really just heal a women of blindness or is it all bullshit to propagate the Christian faith?

Greek mythology is very consistant. The story of Beowolf is very consistant. Why do you reject both?

Christmas's date and the Biblical canonization have... nothing... to do with each other, nor does the choosing of Christmas to coincide with pagan (false?) traditions pose any sort of a problem for Christianity.

Well we have evidence that the Christian faith is willing to make up provable falsehoods based on their own writings, inorder to propagate their religion... Just like the guy who heals old ladies of blindness on cable TV.

Its exactly like Mormons who accept the fact that the religious translastions of their 'magic plates' could not be replicated by the 'prophet' of their religion.

Me: Bernadette suffered the Stigmata.
Ix: That little girl is a fucking liar.

Me: The god Zeus gave me a lighting scar.
Heisen: Your a fucking liar, Zeus doesn't exist.

Mohammad: I am the God's prophet.
Heisen: Your a fucking liar.

Catholic Chruch: The Indian girls healing was a miracle.
Her Doctor: No it was the medical prodedures I administered.
Heisen: Your a fucking liar Doctor.

I am baffled how Christians can't explain why they except any crazy ass thing their religion says while automatically dismissing every other religion on planet earth and the majority of its inhabitants who believe things different from them.

Question:Why are Christian miracles anymore valid than Buddist, Hindu, or Muslim miracles?

Ixtellor

[The Great Hippo]

In other words, we have no evidence that what Muhammed and Buddha said is actually true, other than what they actually wrote down. Did they rise again from the dead? - again, whatever you think of the evidence, I think Christianity does at least present a stronger historical case than anything other religions have to offer.

All right, that's it. In the immortal words of Michael Buffer, it's fucking go time.

First, Muhammad ibn 'Dance-Like-A-Butterfly-Sting-Like-a-Bee' Abdullah, who ascends to heaven on his horse - but let me guess, that's ridiculous so it doesn't count (we like our saviors like we like our coffee - bitter, murky, and capable of turning water to wine). The fact that he conquered a fucking city we actually know about probably doesn't count, either - nor does the fact that there is far more evidence that Muhammad existed rather than Jesus, eh? I mean, there are not really any non-Christian authors that say, "Oh, hey, I remember Jesus". There are non-Islamic authors that say, "Oh, hey, I remember Muhammad". Mostly because Muhammad's friends were busily setting some of those authors on fire, but hey, evidence is evidence, amirite?

But if we're going to go for sheer stubborn authenticity - texts that have resisted any and all changes during their descent down the centuries - the Bible's going to have to take a bow and make way for Hinduism's Rigveda, a 4000-plus year-old manuscript maintained by an equally ancient oral tradition that makes those memorization rotes pulled off by the early Jews look like mnemonic trickses designed to memorize your mother's telephone number (she says hi, btw).

Then again, hey - let's just address the historical viability of the Bible, eh? I'll even be nice and skip the whole controversial issue of the historicity of the Old Testament. No need to thank me; I'm cool like that.

Let's just address the historicity of the New Testament.

That order extended to the texts that Christians used in their worship. In about the year 180 CE, Irenaeus suggested that the proper number of gospels was four. He invoked a curious logic: there are four corners to the earth, there are four winds, there are four beasts of the apocalypse.

Historalicious!

[Bright Shadows]

PBS also said in the same article:
As Allen Callahan points out, it is easy to stereotype the arbitrary quality of the decision-making process: "a bunch of cigar smoking Christian big shots got together, and they decided who was going in and who was going out. It was a wrap, they closed up, and taken everything else was on the cutting room floor and the janitors took away what didn't get in the Canon."

But Callahan suggests that the choice of these four gospels reflects the preferences and practices of a growing majority of early Christian communities. There was a rough consensus about "literature that they want to read, that they want to hear over and over again. And other kinds of literature that they don't want to hear."

The canon imposed limits, but it also preserved a measure of diversity. As Helmut Koester has observed: "There is no claim that this canon represents four gospels that are all saying the same thing. It is rather an attempt to bring together as many Christian communities as possible into one major church."



It was a relevant process and a justifiable one to cut down on the canon a bit. Having more than 5 reference points for what went on was excessive, especially when a few of them were mostly consistent and fairly simple to read, not to mention what was wanted theologically. I'm not saying nothing could have been lost, but I would argue against anything important being lost insofar as the current canon was concerned.

[The Great Hippo]

It was a relevant process and a justifiable one to cut down on the canon a bit. Having more than 5 reference points for what went on was excessive, especially when a few of them were mostly consistent and fairly simple to read, not to mention what was wanted theologically. I'm not saying nothing could have been lost, but I would argue against anything important being lost insofar as the current canon was concerned.

There's nothing justifiable about going "Four cardinal directions, four gospels" and then actively suppressing contradictory accounts. And yeah, you're right, nothing important lost insofar as the four arbitrarily selected gospels are concerned. As far as all the other gospels are concerned--well, plenty lost.

And yes, using a rough estimate of what was popular at the time - what people wanted to hear versus what people didn't want to hear, as well as what would placate the most Christians - is an arbitrary distinction. You select religious texts based on their validity, not their popularity and political clout.

[Bright Shadows]

It was a relevant process and a justifiable one to cut down on the canon a bit. Having more than 5 reference points for what went on was excessive, especially when a few of them were mostly consistent and fairly simple to read, not to mention what was wanted theologically. I'm not saying nothing could have been lost, but I would argue against anything important being lost insofar as the current canon was concerned.

There's nothing justifiable about going "Four cardinal directions, four gospels" and then actively suppressing contradictory accounts. And yeah, you're right, nothing important lost insofar as the four arbitrarily selected gospels are concerned. As far as all the other gospels are concerned--well, plenty lost.

Did I say the number was chosen well? No. I said too many accounts weren't helping, and cutting back would not significantly affect the popular canon. I would think you read my quote from your article mentioning the lack of arbitrariness in the selection, yet you're following up by saying the process was arbitrary and not only so but cut out important issues, which simply does not follow.

EDIT: I would mention that "popular", in this case, is in terms of popular with people who would have contributed, those people being notable church figures who should have known what they were doing.

PBS again:
The canon imposed limits, but it also preserved a measure of diversity. As Helmut Koester has observed: "There is no claim that this canon represents four gospels that are all saying the same thing. It is rather an attempt to bring together as many Christian communities as possible into one major church."

The four gospels reflect diversity, yet they all share one key element: each tells the story of passion of Jesus, his suffering and his death. That story is intimately connected to the ritual that is the centerpiece of Christian worship, the celebration of the Eucharist, the Last Supper. Story and ritual are deeply connected. As Koester has observed, the ritual cannot live without the story. And, in the worship of the emerging church, the story was sustained and deepened by the ritual.

[JoshuaZ]

If a number of people had edited the document, I would have thought it would display signs of that in terms of both inconsistency of theme and terminology / style.

Well, which documents in the Bible do you want to focus on? The synoptic gospels show clear signs of being based on the same document. For example, the synoptic gospels all use many of the same parables and short phrases by Jesus which are not used in John. They all have similar but not quite identical stories about Jesus engaging in exorcisms. The extremely similar nature of those three gospels was acknowledged by Eusebius who was a Christian bishop in the third century.

One actually wouldn't necessarily expect to see inconsistency of themes and terminology if one had a good enough editor, but one would expect it if one had final editors who were conservative about their editing or were not good editors.

Signs of redaction are really most clear in the Old Testament texts. There are differences in theme and terminology as well as simply contradictions in the text. Moreover, the differences in style (such as what name is used for God) vary as the text's themes vary. Let's focus on the five books of Moses. One strand, the so called J strand uses the Tetragrammatron as the name of God. J more than any other strand has a highly anthropomorphic deity who is primarily concerned with the lives of people. Almost whenever you see serious depth of character in Genesis, it is in the J text. There are three other primary strands in the five books.

The E strand uses primarily the name "Elohim" for God and gives actual justification for switching to the Tetragrammatron when he does so. Like J, E tells stories. But E's stories are much more focused on stories of national/ethnic importance.

P uses the name "Elohim" by itself and portrays a remote, powerful deity. The P strand concerns itself with details of law, of sacrifices and of classification. P is fond of long lists.

The D source is essentially the entire book of Deuteronomy. D generally uses the Tetragrammatron followed by "our god" to describe the deity. D in both concerns (such as the details of the kingship) and language suggest much later writing than the others.

This is just a brief summary of the differences between the strands. There are many others as well. The Bible has been heavily edited throughout. In that regard, there's nothing particularly exceptional about the sections in question.

[The Great Hippo]

Did I say the number was chosen well?

Yes.

It was a relevant process and a justifiable one to cut down on the canon a bit. Having more than 5 reference points for what went on was excessive...

Why is five the magic number? Why are you agreeing with 'four' being the correct number of gospels?

EDIT: I would mention that "popular", in this case, is in terms of popular with people who would have contributed, those people being notable church figures who should have known what they were doing.

'Known what they're doing' in what exact sense? If we're discussing this purely from terms of the information supplied the article, the article states - in pretty unambiguous terms - that they were selected for two reasons. One:

It is rather an attempt to bring together as many Christian communities as possible into one major church.

Political viability and unification of divergent groups. Two:

But Callahan suggests that the choice of these four gospels reflects the preferences and practices of a growing majority of early Christian communities. There was a rough consensus about "literature that they want to read, that they want to hear over and over again. And other kinds of literature that they don't want to hear."

What the rough consensus was concerning the most popular gospels versus the least popular.

In terms far less polite than the article puts it: It was both a popularity contest and an attempt to appease multiple Christians with variant points of view.

Feel free to bring in information outside of this article, but the contents are pretty unambiguous.

[Bright Shadows]

For brevity and sanity, I'm skipping quoting you with the quote function. Look for your words in italics.

Why is five the magic number? Why are you agreeing with 'four' being the correct number of gospels?

5 is not a magic number, it's an arbitrary one that seemed like a reasonable upper bound. 4 is clearly fine for most of us, 3 might be okay, 2 is a bit more limited, 1 is just begging for trouble. >__> Yes, popularity is important, if it's popularity among church leaders.

'Known what they're doing' in what exact sense? If we're discussing this purely from terms of the information supplied the article, the article states - in pretty unambiguous terms - that they were selected for two reasons.
One: Political viability and unification of divergent groups.
Two: What the rough consensus was concerning the most popular gospels versus the least popular.

I'll bother to take it outside just your article, then...
https://wiki.creighton.edu/churchhistor ... p/Irenaeus
It mentions his criteria, although not so much the others' in the deciding party. Surely, though, he played a role...
In any case, they included apolistic succession and such, which isn't a bad start, right?

I'm short on time, more later possibly. Anyway, I find this very much an entertaining conversation and will be back tomorrow afternoon. Feel free to destroy me in the mean time.

[The Great Hippo]

5 is not a magic number, it's an arbitrary one that seemed like a reasonable upper bound. 4 is clearly fine for most of us, 3 might be okay, 2 is a bit more limited, 1 is just begging for trouble. >__> Yes, popularity is important, if it's popularity among church leaders.

The highlighted bits of text do not parse. Why does it seem like a reasonable upper bound? Why not all of them? Why not just one of them (then, at least, we would not have contradictory accounts of the same events)? This is an arbitrary number, picked for its aesthetic value; I see no reason to believe it would be superior or inferior to 'five', 'six', or 'three'.

In any case, they included apolistic succession and such, which isn't a bad start, right?

No, but it's still arbitrary - and a horrifying example of circular logic: "We should emphasize the gospels that emphasize that we are the ones who should be deciding which gospels to emphasize" - this is not the sort of shit I want to hear from someone determining the validity of religious texts.

Edit: If it seems like I'm on the warpath here that's only because I cannot stand this notion that Christianity is the most historically 'valid' religion. I have no beef with anyone who picks Christianity as their particular poison, but the moment someone makes the claim that Biblical history - Gospel history - is in any way superior to every other religion's history, then we are going to have to have Words^tm.

[MoghLiechty2]

Edit: If it seems like I'm on the warpath here that's only because I cannot stand this notion that Christianity is the most historically 'valid' religion. I have no beef with anyone who picks Christianity as their particular poison, but the moment someone makes the claim that Biblical history - Gospel history - is in any way superior to every other religion's history, then we are going to have to have Words^tm.

What, in your opinion, is the most historically valid religion? Meaning, which religion do you believe has the highest historical possibility of being true? For the purposes of this question, perhaps give a couple religions, one from a pool of "modest" religions (ones that inherently are more likely to be true due to the small number of claims it makes) and one from the immodest religions (make great amounts of truth claims, such as Christianity, Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, etc.)
___

If I may interject in the "number of gospels" discussion, I'd like to make a few points. I won't fully substantiate them, but if you feel the need to object to one that clearly isn't correct, go right ahead, and I will go more in depth.

1. I've already previously argued how early church fathers (the whole Clement thing) seemed to be able to distinguish between authentic and inauthentic texts. I think this, above all arguments, when fully explored, sheds the most historical light on whether the number of gospels is arbitrary or not, because in this sense we can individually judge whether the books that were eventually chosen for canon were actually authentic.

The annoyance you have is probably equalled in magnitude in me when I hear about this supposed wealth of books that were all of equal significance that missed being in the Biblical canon. I defy you to provide a very good example, and substantiate it well, rather than providing these overview links that make large conclusions based on what presumably must've been a substantial amount of research, but don't back it up.

2. I have a very good discussion (you will need to scroll down and begin reading with the bolded text directly preceding "Comment 16") of the importance of Irenaeus's view that there should be four gospels.

The PBS article is very disingenuous of the true nature of Irenaus's contribution the the number of gospels, both in the suggestion that the number four was arbitrary and the extent of Irenaeus's involvement in the actual choosing of this number. Further study will indicate that the four gospels that were chosen wasn't a perfect number for any reason other than that each of the individual four had immense credibility, circulation, and citation in the early church.

3. A consideration that would have immense effect on this discussion is the question of whether there was substantial "bickering" in the early church over doctrine, canonization, or specifically the number of gospels, or that there was prevalent and strong groups of "heretics" running rampant. If you use the same link and read "Comment 14," Mr Miller addresses some of the supposed heresies that are raised as examples of unorthodoxy of doctrine in the early church.

4. Yet another consideration would be if early church readers were biased in their interpretation of scriptures, possibly causing them to come different conclusions concerning orthodoxy of the various gospels. This is also addressed in the same link in "Comment 15." Mr. Miller argues for an unnaturally high correspondence between early churches in the form of books, literature, and other writings.
___

I haven't had a chance to fully inspect all of the stuff in that link or independently verify it, but since we're dropping links like mad, I thought I'd go ahead and provide it before this topic dies out...

One think I've noticed, Hippo, is that you like to trivialize genuine, legitimate controversies by stating what you percieve to be very obvious. Even if only 10% of genuine unbiased scholars (the conservative ones in this case, although it may not be 10% in this case) persuasively argue for a given position, the topic is still worthy of discussion, even if you think the current scholarly trend is in your favor, or whatever else causes you to think the debate has a clear winner. This happened back in the omniscience vs. determinism discussion, and it's happening now. If you think someone has provided poor argumentation, just expose it, and perhaps continue to provide smarter arguments rather than complain about what you falsely presume to be the best possible arguments for the opposition claim.

[Ixtellor]

I don't know why it didn't occur to me before...


But regarding the consistancy of the Canon.

1) The Vatican keeps a Secret Archive that people are not allowed to view. This doesn't prove anything, but we know that there are religious texts and documents that the Catholic chruch possesses that they don't want us to see. Could it be that some of them contridict the Canon or put doubt into some of its 'authenticity'?

2) The Catholic Church were RAMPANT book burners. They took painstaking efforts to burn any book, texts, or documents deemed heretical.

So after you remove from possibility all the ancient secret books and you burn everything else, the Canon would of course be consistant.

It would be like murdering and eradicating everyone with Indian (native American) blood, destroying all evidence of their existance, and then claming in future generations that they were just a myth and history is very consistant regarding that 'fact'.


Ixtellor

[oxoiron]

What, in your opinion, is the most historically valid religion? Meaning, which religion do you believe has the highest historical possibility of being true?

Any religion that doesn't posit supernatural phenomena. That probably narrows the list a bit.

To paraphrase Ixtellor: It's silly to unquestioningly accept stories of miracles as fact when they support your ideology and dismiss them as myth when they don't.

[MoghLiechty2]

1) The Vatican keeps a Secret Archive that people are not allowed to view. This doesn't prove anything, but we know that there are religious texts and documents that the Catholic chruch possesses that they don't want us to see. Could it be that some of them contridict the Canon or put doubt into some of its 'authenticity'?

I suppose it could have some weight on the question, but only if it were possible that the Catholic church has been able to find every single manuscript of every single text that they don't like, to lock them up. Because it seems like we have most of the circulated texts that went around before the formation of the Vatican heirarchy.

Anyway, I'd like to see a citation that makes this argument appear like it's not a conspiracy theory. Link me.

2) The Catholic Church were RAMPANT book burners. They took painstaking efforts to burn any book, texts, or documents deemed heretical.

The Catholic church doing anything doesn't have any weight on our discussion of first, second, third, or even fourth century canonization of the Bible. That is, if you're not exaggerating the extent of this book burning. But I would have no way of knowing until you cite an example of this.

Please, I would also appreciate any sort of response to my previous post. I think it provides some of the best arguments for my side to date, so It'd be great to hear your thoughts.

EDIT:

What, in your opinion, is the most historically valid religion? Meaning, which religion do you believe has the highest historical possibility of being true?

Any religion that doesn't posit supernatural phenomena. That probably narrows the list a bit.

So the answer to "what religion is the most historically possible" your answer is, "none of them?" Whatever, the question was for Hippo anyway.

To paraphrase Ixtellor: It's silly to unquestioningly accept stories of miracles as fact when they support your ideology and dismiss them as myth when they don't.

Or you could answer the very specific arguments I've made rather than make random accusations.

[The Great Hippo]

What, in your opinion, is the most historically valid religion? Meaning, which religion do you believe has the highest historical possibility of being true? For the purposes of this question, perhaps give a couple religions, one from a pool of "modest" religions (ones that inherently are more likely to be true due to the small number of claims it makes) and one from the immodest religions (make great amounts of truth claims, such as Christianity, Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, etc.)

I have no fucking clue. I'd have to thoroughly weigh each religion on the merits of its claims, its historicity - set up rules like 'does the canon text count, or do we include supplemental text like the Muslim hadiths', etc. How do I even define the believability of Jesus rising from the dead versus Muhammad ascending to Heaven on his horse? How are those events comparable in credibility? I don't even think this is possible. Or useful.

My objection isn't that there are religions that are 'above' Christianity along the hierarchy of historically valid religions - it's that there's a fucking hierarchy at all. That religions fit into some sort of jigsaw puzzle of 'more' and 'less' historically authentic, and that Christianity fits at the top - this is a very ignorant perspective, especially when professed by someone who started by saying they have not studied other religions very thoroughly.

The annoyance you have is probably equalled in magnitude in me when I hear about this supposed wealth of books that were all of equal significance that missed being in the Biblical canon. I defy you to provide a very good example, and substantiate it well, rather than providing these overview links that make large conclusions based on what presumably must've been a substantial amount of research, but don't back it up.

The problem here is the word 'significant'; to you, 'significant' may mean 'religiously or doctrinally important', to me, 'significant' might mean 'useful for historiographic purposes'. Their nonexistence (as a result of their active suppression) makes it harder for historians to validate the documents that do exist. It's like this for all historical documents - I'm just pointing out that the Bible faces the same problem of any historical document - passages were lost. For whatever reason. It's not important if the destroyed passages are irrelevant to you; they're relevant to historians.

3. A consideration that would have immense effect on this discussion is the question of whether there was substantial "bickering" in the early church over doctrine, canonization, or specifically the number of gospels, or that there was prevalent and strong groups of "heretics" running rampant. If you use the same link and read "Comment 14," Mr Miller addresses some of the supposed heresies that are raised as examples of unorthodoxy of doctrine in the early church.

I wanted to quote this because, while I'm more than willing to accept the premise that Irenaeus' proposition that 'four' is a good number because of its aesthetic virtues came after four had been decided on (it's a very plausible alternative I hadn't thought about), I like how the author of this article defines the group 'the early Church fathers' as those that did not disagree, thereby creating a situation where the early Church fathers did not disagree. Christians were bickering with other Christians all the time over doctrine, that's what's important. Going "these people we're defining as early Church fathers all agreed" is irrelevant because the early Church fathers are the ones who ultimately 'won'; what's important to us from a historical perspective are the losers, who we know precious little about.

One think I've noticed, Hippo, is that you like to trivialize genuine, legitimate controversies by stating what you percieve to be very obvious. Even if only 10% of genuine unbiased scholars (the conservative ones in this case, although it may not be 10% in this case) persuasively argue for a given position, the topic is still worthy of discussion, even if you think the current scholarly trend is in your favor, or whatever else causes you to think the debate has a clear winner. This happened back in the omniscience vs. determinism discussion, and it's happening now. If you think someone has provided poor argumentation, just expose it, and perhaps continue to provide smarter arguments rather than complain about what you falsely presume to be the best possible arguments for the opposition claim.

...right, exactly where have I been doing this again? Because this sounds like some sort of passive-aggressive "Hippo, you could do so much better!" BS. I've been citing sources, providing arguments, etc.

If your problem is with the idea that I am utterly dismissive towards the notion that Christian history is superior to other religions' history, then yeah - I'm going to be dismissive. Before you can even begin to make an assertion like that, you damn well better be familiar with the history of the world's religions - to a degree that I suspect none of us here are.

[Terebrant]

Without knowing the context (religious and cultural), you won't be able to argue that point effectively. The word messiah itself didn't have the meaning which was ascribed to it latter.

By the time of Jesus, the Jewish people were expecting a Messiah. It's just they were expecting a king who would liberate them from the Romans, and not someone who was more concerned with forgiveness and the spiritual Kingdom of God!

That's the common claim. But like the prophecies, this seems to be the early christians trying to get some legitimity.

Various sects (not the saducees) believed in a messiah but it is misleading to say that in this way because that messiah had no reason to be a redeemer. The previous uses of messiah indicate that it isn't used in this way and the religion's teleology had no place for one. Later, the early rabbinic teleology didn't have place for one either.

Claiming that they weren't expecting a messiah of that kind is true only because they didn't have reasons to expect one of that kind : the way in which the messiah descriptor is consistently used in the NT is a powerful memetic attack but not much more.

You know how much of christianity was based on Paul of Tarsus' work, how it differed from the Jerusalem school and how he supposedly received the gospel, right ? I think Simon Magus deserves a mention for trying too (I would be interested in an alternate history novel in which simonians became an important part of the church, anyone knows of one ?). Early christianity was not a unified whole, various agendas and opinions competed.

Can you provide any articles or the like which go into this in a bit more detail? It seems that the apostolic witness was pretty unified from the beginning.

I no longer have access to the library where I studied but I remember I learned much about it by reading an in-depth analysis of the epistle to the Galatians. I heard the cambridge companion to saint Paul touched the issue a little more than I would have expected.

[oxoiron]

To paraphrase Ixtellor: It's silly to unquestioningly accept stories of miracles as fact when they support your ideology and dismiss them as myth when they don't.

Or you could answer the very specific arguments I've made rather than make random accusations.

There are two problems here. One is that your 'very specific arguments' don't address the veracity of supernatural claims and the second is that what I wrote is not a random accusation (see below).

1) You claim to be a Christian.
2) Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead after performing numerous other miracles.
3) Christians are monotheists.
4) Monotheists don't believe any other religion's claims about their gods (including miraculous occurrences).
5) It follows that you accept the miracles related in Judeo-Christian mythology and reject the miracles in other mythologies (which is exactly what I accused you of doing).

I'll ask again. Why should I accept that stories of Judeo-Christian miracles are true and all others are false?

[MoghLiechty2]

I have no fucking clue. I'd have to thoroughly weigh each religion on the merits of its claims, its historicity - set up rules like 'does the canon text count, or do we include supplemental text like the Muslim hadiths', etc. How do I even define the believability of Jesus rising from the dead versus Muhammad ascending to Heaven on his horse? How are those events comparable in credibility? I don't even think this is possible. Or useful.

You're addressing the wrong type of historical evidence then. Of course its impossible to verify the claims of an individual miracle, but it's definitely rational to examine a group of miracles done by a single person or group of person, taking into consideration the possible affects on the witnesses and their testimonies...

If I may ask again, assume miracles are possible and that one exclusive religion is true. Which immodest religion, in your opinion, even if it's completely speculative, is the most likely (however unlikely) to be correct? If your answer is still, "I'd have to thouroughly weigh each religion on the merits of its claims... set up rules etc..." that's fine. But isn't that exactly the sort of discussion I'm trying to prove is vaild when investigating claims about Christianity??

The problem here is the word 'significant'; to you, 'significant' may mean 'religiously or doctrinally important', to me, 'significant' might mean 'useful for historiographic purposes'. Their nonexistence (as a result of their active suppression) makes it harder for historians to validate the documents that do exist. It's like this for all historical documents - I'm just pointing out that the Bible faces the same problem of any historical document - passages were lost. For whatever reason. It's not important if the destroyed passages are irrelevant to you; they're relevant to historians.

Actually, historically is exactly what I mean there, and it is exactly the sort of argument expressed in the link. The fact that I am a Christian, partially based on personal experience, partially based on study, should not detract from the fact that both I and you would like to see the truth in this matter... historically. I'd like to make this less of a back and forth argument (I mean, we'd still take sides) and more of an investigation, rather than making the assumption that the only thing I am interested in is Theology.

If Christianity is not historically viable, then I don't want to be a Christian. So please, keep giving me more and more arguments, and in my "opposition research" I may just find that the opposing arguments are weaker than yours. Of course, it would probably take a good full year of independent research for me to be even minimally satisfied that giving up my faith is the correct course of action, but feel free to provide the foundation.

I wanted to quote this because, while I'm more than willing to accept the premise that Irenaeus' proposition that 'four' is a good number because of its aesthetic virtues came after four had been decided on (it's a very plausible alternative I hadn't thought about), I like how the author of this article defines the group 'the early Church fathers' as those that did not disagree, thereby creating a situation where the early Church fathers did not disagree. Christians were bickering with other Christians all the time over doctrine, that's what's important. Going "these people we're defining as early Church fathers all agreed" is irrelevant because the early Church fathers are the ones who ultimately 'won'; what's important to us from a historical perspective are the losers, who we know precious little about.

That's not really the nature of Mr. Miller's argument. He actually attempts to base orthodoxy on the standard of how prevalent and reliable (based on how they cite reliable documents) the theologies were that were espoused by various factions, rather than how close to supposed orthodoxy they were. Of course there were losers, but it would be extremely speculative for you to say that the losers were a large and influential force without backing historical evidence.

...right, exactly where have I been doing this again? Because this sounds like some sort of passive-aggressive "Hippo, you could do so much better!" BS. I've been citing sources, providing arguments, etc.

If your problem is with the idea that I am utterly dismissive towards the notion that Christian history is superior to other religions' history, then yeah - I'm going to be dismissive. Before you can even begin to make an assertion like that, you damn well better be familiar with the history of the world's religions - to a degree that I suspect none of us here are.

I don't mean to say you're being non-persuasive, illogical, or a bad debater. But you also seem unwilling to accept at least the possibility that Christian history might be more valid than any other religion's history, or that miracles might have more than a marginal possibility of actually occuring. Also, some of the argumentative links you provide are all very similar in their 'over-arching-ness' to your own arguments. They say things that amount to, "That's just the way the early church was," and while it could be the case, it fails to provide any meaningful, full-scale discussion as to whether their specific claims are valid or if they stand up to the best counter-arguments. It'd also be great if these arguments provided a good overview of the best opposing claims, and at least a minimalist refutation of them. Of course, I might be a little guilty of the same sort of thing, so I won't press the personal issue further.

There are two problems here. One is that your 'very specific arguments' don't address the veracity of supernatural claims and the second is that what I wrote is not a random accusation (see below).

They aren't supposed to address the veracity of supernatural claims. That wasn't the discussion, so please stop assuming that I'm trying to convince you entirely of my argument in the course of a single post. We can get into the veracity of supernatural claims, why Christian ones should be trusted over other religions', etc... If you'd like. Also, to requote you:

It's silly to unquestioningly accept stories of miracles as fact when they support your ideology and dismiss them as myth when they don't.

First, you assume that I or my religion unquestionally accepts things. It's funny, if I said that about you, you'd probably be offended. Second, you assume that I or my religion only accepts facts that support my ideology. Please, provide a "fact" that I don't accept because it conflicts with my ideology. And it better be a fact.

...I'll ask again. Why should I accept that stories of Judeo-Christian miracles are true and all others are false?

Give me some time, I'll go there if you'd like.

[oxoiron]

First, you assume that I or my religion unquestionally accepts things.

If you don't unquestioningly accept the basic premise of your chosen religion (in the case of Christianity, the basic premise is that Jesus is the son of God and that He (Jesus) died for humanity's sins) then you aren't much of an adherent.

It's funny, if I said that about you, you'd probably be offended.

No, not really. I can't imagine anything you could say about me that would offend me.

Second, you assume that I or my religion only accepts facts that support my ideology. Please, provide a "fact" that I don't accept because it conflicts with my ideology. And it better be a fact.

Fact: There is no more evidence supporting the supernatural aspects of Christianity than those of other religions, yet you refuse to accept that their beliefs are as valid (or invalid) as yours. Accepting this fact would conflict with the monotheistic nature of Christianity. This leads back to my question.

Why should I accept that stories of Judeo-Christian miracles are true and all others are false?

Give me some time, I'll go there if you'd like.

Yes, I would like that.

EDIT: By the way, this is in no way personal. I'm honestly curious how someone can end up believing a set of stories which they would deride as utterly unbelievable if the names of the characters and cultures in which the stories take place were changed.

[Ixtellor]

If I may ask again, assume miracles are possible and that one exclusive religion is true.Which immodest religion, in your opinion, even if it's completely speculative, is the most likely (however unlikely) to be correct?

Assuming that mythological stories of fantastic beasts are possible, and that only one civilizations stories are true, which one in your opinion is the most (however unlikely) to be correct?

I am going to say Greek mythology. Its old, its in lots of books, its consistant. Of all the mythological stories I think Odysesus probably did trick a giant cyclops and escape his cave.

What about you? Are you leaning towards Chinese, Greek, or Egyption mythology?

The fact that I am a Christian, partially based on personal experience,

I think your grossly underestimating your cultural upbringing as a factor for you choosing Christianity.

Second, you assume that I or my religion only accepts facts that support my ideology

Wrong, he said he is assuming, correctly, that you only accept "stories of miracles as fact" from your religion and reject all others. Did Mohammad decend into heaven on a horse? Do really good Hindu mice get reincarnated as humans? Did Promethsus steal fire from the Gods and give it to man?

That is, if you're not exaggerating the extent of this book burning. But I would have no way of knowing until you cite an example of this.

Here is a link to the major eras and incidents of book burning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burning

You will note that the vast majority of them involve religions burning books they deem sinful, heretical, or of opposing viewpoints.

With soo much conquering and reconquering of historical religious lands and near constant attempts to destory one another, would it really be a stretch to assume that many books that might have given us an alternative view would have been burned in this 2000 year period of burning books?

Ixtellor

[MoghLiechty2]

Assuming that mythological stories of fantastic beasts are possible, and that only one civilizations stories are true, which one in your opinion is the most (however unlikely) to be correct?
I am going to say Greek mythology. Its old, its in lots of books, its consistant. Of all the mythological stories I think Odysesus probably did trick a giant cyclops and escape his cave.
What about you? Are you leaning towards Chinese, Greek, or Egyption mythology?

And... Ignored.

I think your grossly underestimating your cultural upbringing as a factor for you choosing Christianity.

How could that possibly make me any less likely to be correct about my beliefs? The fact that I grew up around Christians doesn't make them wrong, you have to refute the religion not the people. Saying this also makes you very ignorant of the millions of converts who didn't grow up in a Christian culture, a couple of whom I know personally here at university.

Here is a link to the major eras and incidents of book burning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burning

How about a link that doesn't make it seem like you're grasping at straws, that makes it seem like you take anything I say seriously, or even better, one that shows you're not just being coy and actually want to argue. I'm looking for a good discussion of the burning of Christian books in particular, with evidence that the books that were burned had a real ill effect on the early Christian church and the canon, or that specific books were burned that had equal or greater reliability than the books that are in the canon.
_____

If you don't unquestioningly accept the basic premise of your chosen religion (in the case of Christianity, the basic premise is that Jesus is the son of God and that He (Jesus) died for humanity's sins) then you aren't much of an adherent.

Where in Christian doctrine does it say that you have to not question what you hear, even if it's a central belief? (As Paul writes, "Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good." and "Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.") You can't pretend that the whole of Christian faith is a bunch of people afraid of the truth. Some of them actually arrived at the Christian position through an intense study, with much questioning. I do in fact accept the basic tenents of the faith, but I do not do so unquestioningly. (Otherwise, why would I be arguing here on these forums? Hint: It's not to convert you to Christianity.)

Why should I accept that stories of Judeo-Christian miracles are true and all others are false?

Give me some time, I'll go there if you'd like.

Yes, I would like that.

Alrighty then. I will attempt to put together a mildly convincing argument. In the meantime, do you have any specific theory on why the New Testament miracles ended up the way they did? Like, were they deliberately put there, were the witnesses mistaken, were they invented by early church leaders to give credibility to their position? Because each of these options require a different set of refutations.

EDIT: By the way, this is in no way personal. I'm honestly curious how someone can end up believing a set of stories which they would deride as utterly unbelievable if the names of the characters and cultures in which the stories take place were changed.

Much appreciated... I think? It gets tiresome arguing against 3 different people who all must think I'm either helplessly biased or a moron.

[oxoiron]

Where in Christian doctrine does it say that you have to not question what you hear, even if it's a central belief? (As Paul writes, "Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good." and "Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.") You can't pretend that the whole of Christian faith is a bunch of people afraid of the truth. Some of them actually arrived at the Christian position through an intense study, with much questioning. I do in fact accept the basic tenents of the faith, but I do not do so unquestioningly. (Otherwise, why would I be arguing here on these forums? Hint: It's not to convert you to Christianity.)

I don't think it says that anywhere, but if you still question Jesus' status as the son of God, then I submit you are not really a Christian. I'm not saying you believed it from the minute you heard it. I'm not saying you didn't think long and hard before accepting it a gospel (pun intended). I even believe you may have asked a lot of questions before becoming a Christian, but in the end you got there. I've never heard what I accept as a rational argument justifying that conclusion and I have heard a LOT of arguments. Now is your chance to dazzle me a brilliant one.

...do you have any specific theory on why the New Testament miracles ended up the way they did? Like, were they deliberately put there, were the witnesses mistaken, were they invented by early church leaders to give credibility to their position? Because each of these options require a different set of refutations.

I don't know the source of Christian mythology any more than I know the source of <insert other religion/civilization here> mythology. I could just as well ask you why Greek mythology ended up the way it did. Is it a collection of stories intended:

1) to explain the universe?
2) to entertain?
3) to teach moral lessons?
4) to relate factual events?
5) None/some/all of the above.

EDIT: By the way, this is in no way personal. I'm honestly curious how someone can end up believing a set of stories which they would deride as utterly unbelievable if the names of the characters and cultures in which the stories take place were changed.

Much appreciated... I think? It gets tiresome arguing against 3 different people who all must think I'm either helplessly biased or a moron.

My pleasure. Every now and then I like to get into a discussion in the Religion Thread^TM to see if somebody has a new justification for their beliefs. Until I hear something fresh from you, I will continue to think you hold irrational beliefs. While I think this, it doesn't necessarily mean I think you are helplessly biased (I would've used the word 'hopelessly', it seems to be a better fit) or a moron. I wouldn't be discussing this with you if that were the case.

[Syndar]

It seems curious to me that these Christianity debates inevitably come down to an issue of text. It is never the thoughts, ideas, morals and mission of Jesus that get questioned, but instead the validity of the canonical process. It's like: well damn, Jesus was a pretty decent bloke and is sort of untouchable, so lets skirt around the things that actually define Christian faith and talk about editing.

[DavidoDoom]

It seems curious to me that these Christianity debates inevitably come down to an issue of text. It is never the thoughts, ideas, morals and mission of Jesus that get questioned, but instead the validity of the canonical process. It's like: well damn, Jesus was a pretty decent bloke and is sort of untouchable, so lets skirt around the things that actually define Christian faith and talk about editing.

That is because we are arguing religion. Had we been arguing philosophy, those would be valid points. However, at the moment, the argument always comes up, "Is the bible canonical", because, as a religion, its truthfulness is always criticized, because of its nature in dealing with the supernatural. And because we are arguing the validity of religion, and the largest target is supernatural events, that naturally becomes a target of criticism. Because without the supernatural events, Jesus just becomes a man with a philosophy. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But just a man with a philosophy and morals, in my opinion, is not religion. Jesus's teachings and the like are Jesus's philosophy. The belief that he is the son of god is the religion. Both define Christianity, but the latter defines it as a religion.

[JoshuaZ]

It seems curious to me that these Christianity debates inevitably come down to an issue of text. It is never the thoughts, ideas, morals and mission of Jesus that get questioned, but instead the validity of the canonical process. It's like: well damn, Jesus was a pretty decent bloke and is sort of untouchable, so lets skirt around the things that actually define Christian faith and talk about editing.

Three issues with that:

First, to many Christians the teachings other than the morals matter. If for example one is a more or less standard evangelical, then one believes that if one does not accept Jesus as personal Lord and Savior then you will burn in hell for eternity. So how these texts were edited matter. If we can't trust the texts then theological claims are close to useless.

Second, we live in a society (at least here in the US) where it is taboo to say that Jesus was anything less than as you put it a "pretty decent bloke." Indeed, Jews seem to rush to always say something like "I think Jesus was a very good man, but not the Son of God" and Muslims rush to say "Yes, Jesus was not the Son of God but was a very important prophet." For the Muslims this makes more sense. The Jews however are doing this at least to some extent out of societal pressure. The only sense that Jesus is "untouchable" is in this sense. So people don't focus on the moral teachings and Jesus's actions. Let's for a few minutes evaluate the claim that Jesus was a pretty decent bloke. Let's take the text more or less as given.

Jesus destroys a tree in a fit of rage because it didn't have fruit out of season. Yeah. Decent bloke there.

Jesus declares that his followers should spend money on him and not the poor because there will still be poor after he is gone. Yeah decent bloke that.

Jesus isn't a decent bloke. He's at best an egotist. Some of his actions might make more sense if he was actually divine. But if he was just a man then he comes across as a bit of a jerk if the text is to be believed at all. Even as a divine entity he comes across as petty and vindictive. And this is how he is being portrayed by his followers.

And now let's look at some of these moral teachings. Jesus declares that anyone who loves family members more than they love him is useless and not worthy of Jesus's love. Yeah. That's a great moral teaching. It does help explain all those nice Christian families that throw kids out of the house and when they find out their gay. They are doing exactly what Jesus wants them to do.

I could give more examples but the point should be clear: Jesus is both an unpleasant person and a person whose moral teachings are at best problematic. Jesus isn't a decent bloke. Jesus is a jerk.

[alexh123456789]

How could that possibly make me any less likely to be correct about my beliefs? The fact that I grew up around Christians doesn't make them wrong, you have to refute the religion not the people. Saying this also makes you very ignorant of the millions of converts who didn't grow up in a Christian culture, a couple of whom I know personally here at university.

You say you reached your belief through rational inquiry and examination of the evidence, so does it not worry you that, if you had been born in say, Saudi Arabia, you would be very very unlikely to convert?

Does it seems to you like most of the world is irrational in not being christian? You (or maybe it was Phil) said that Christianity has a clear edge over the other religions in terms of evidence and truth, so why don't people see this? If more people were to realize that nothing is fundamentally different about Christianity, that it has just as much evidence for it as Scientology does, there would probably be more atheists.

[MoghLiechty2]

Due to the unbelievably low quality of the argumentation of the previous two posts, I'm only going to be responding to The Great Hippo or oxoiron from now on or until the topic changes, unless someone else has something exceedingly intelligent to say about the topic at hand, rather than 1 post manifestos of why Christianity is false. My apologies to these two authors, but there's really nothing I can do; I'm swamped.

I'll also be kind of busy the next couple of days with interviews, tests, a speech, (and my college in the Sweet 16!!) so excuse me until the weekend before I can read a long source in its entirety and provide my "historicity of Christian miracles" argument.

[Syndar]

Let's for a few minutes evaluate the claim that Jesus was a pretty decent bloke. Let's take the text more or less as given.

Jesus destroys a tree in a fit of rage because it didn't have fruit out of season. Yeah. Decent bloke there.

Jesus declares that his followers should spend money on him and not the poor because there will still be poor after he is gone. Yeah decent bloke that.

And now let's look at some of these moral teachings. Jesus declares that anyone who loves family members more than they love him is useless and not worthy of Jesus's love. Yeah. That's a great moral teaching. It does help explain all those nice Christian families that throw kids out of the house and when they find out their gay. They are doing exactly what Jesus wants them to do.

I could give more examples but the point should be clear: Jesus is both an unpleasant person and a person whose moral teachings are at best problematic. Jesus isn't a decent bloke. Jesus is a jerk.

I'll respond to you under the premise that Jesus is divine, since the folks writing those stories were using that premise, and so to speak of them without it takes the stories out of context. So, with the belief that Jesus is the divine sovreign God:

1. Jesus destroys a tree in a fit of rage because it didn't have fruit out of season. Ok, so how I've always taken this (the way I was taught, but also, thinking it through, the way it logically makes sense to me): Jesus is commenting on the unfaithfulness of the nation of Israel towards God - they produce fruit sometimes, but always fall away - hence the season metaphor. So in that context he is justifiably angry, since they are such wayward and rebellious people.

2. Jesus declares that his followers should spend money on him and not the poor because there will still be poor after he is gone. Well, the context in which he is speaking here is after a thief and a cheat berates a woman for lavishing an expensive fragrance on Jesus instead of selling it. It is an indictment of Judas' true motivation, and a reminder of his own upcoming death. When considered in context with the rest of Christ's teaching on the poor, this is more in line with his general stance than what you are implying.

3. Jesus declares that anyone who loves family members more than they love him is useless and not worthy of Jesus's love. Again, just my interpretation, but imo familial love is too narrow for God. In the Kingdom of God, everyone is considered a child of God, and so everyone is equally deserving of love - not just your immediate family, but everyone around you, your enemies, your ex, your boss, your rude neighbor. And since Jesus is the source of this love, he is, in fact, the most deserving of it. It is only a selfish statement if you consider Jesus just a man. As far as parents who throw their gay children out of the house, I believe the Jesus who hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors (who were seen as Roman collaborators and traitorous scum by the Jews of the time) and who told the parable of the Prodigal Son would be rather on the side of the gay child, rather than the domineering, loveless parent.

[Phill]

Does it seems to you like most of the world is irrational in not being christian? You (or maybe it was Phil) said that Christianity has a clear edge over the other religions in terms of evidence and truth, so why don't people see this? If more people were to realize that nothing is fundamentally different about Christianity, that it has just as much evidence for it as Scientology does, there would probably be more atheists.

In Islamic countries, apostates are in danger of being ostracised by their families or even killed. You couldn't really say it's a religion which is open to its adherents converting or even questioning their faith. Many people don't even hear about Christianity, i.e. in countries where the preaching of it is outlawed. Although Christianity usually fares best under these conditions. I hear that it's spreading like wildfire in Korea and other countries like that.

_______

So I've missed about a whole page of discussion, this is what happens when you have a day off! I think MoghLiechty2 has answered most things, I'll just pick off one or two to comment on.

First, Muhammad ibn 'Dance-Like-A-Butterfly-Sting-Like-a-Bee' Abdullah, who ascends to heaven on his horse - but let me guess, that's ridiculous so it doesn't count (we like our saviors like we like our coffee - bitter, murky, and capable of turning water to wine).

That link you gave seems to say that a lot of scholars believe Muhammed took a journey to Jerusalem. Some of them think it's heaven.

The fact that he conquered a fucking city we actually know about probably doesn't count, either - nor does the fact that there is far more evidence that Muhammad existed rather than Jesus, eh?

It counts, he existed. I'm not disputing that he existed. (Although of course, let us not forget that Islam is 600 years 'newer' than Christianity so you would expect more documentation from this time).

Then again, hey - let's just address the historical viability of the Bible, eh? I'll even be nice and skip the whole controversial issue of the historicity of the Old Testament. No need to thank me; I'm cool like that. Let's just address the historicity of the New Testament.

I think ML2 has already dealt with the gospel claims.

What I want to deal with is the issue of historicity: just because something is old doesn't mean it is true (the Rivgeda, for example). What I'm talking about is not age, I'm talking about the type: Christianity was about a guy who lived and died on this earth. He didn't write anything down, all of the gospels were written by other people (two or three of which were probably eye-witnesses / came directly from eye-witness testimony). The events of Jesus' life, i.e. his death and resurrection, were not just a miracle to prove what he said. They were an integral part of his teaching (as were the rest of his miracles, but that's another discussion). He knew that he 'must' die, that it was to accomplish something (i.e. Mark 10:45, 'a ransom for many ').

In other words, there was a very good reason for Jesus to die and rise again within the theological context of Christianity.

So what I'm saying is, not only does something have to be historical but it has to be supported logically, and I think on these two factors Christianity is better than any other religion I have yet seen. I am open to look at alternatives though, I'm not closing my mind or deliberately avoiding any alternatives.

Claiming that they weren't expecting a messiah of that kind is true only because they didn't have reasons to expect one of that kind : the way in which the messiah descriptor is consistently used in the NT is a powerful memetic attack but not much more.

Jesus did apply the Old Testament prophecies to himself, for example: he constantly called himself the "Son of Man" (see Daniel 7). He quoted the Psalms several times on the cross. The New Testament writers took Old Testament writings and applied them to Jesus. The four servant songs of Isaiah seem to apply to Jesus, particularly Isaiah 53, and Jesus did actually apply this to himself.

In short, although in Jewish theology there may not have been a concept of the Messiah, I don't think this means there shouldn't have been.

May I ask you a random question: are you a practicing Jew? I'm just curious as to what your background is

Well, which documents in the Bible do you want to focus on? The synoptic gospels show clear signs of being based on the same document. For example, the synoptic gospels all use many of the same parables and short phrases by Jesus which are not used in John. They all have similar but not quite identical stories about Jesus engaging in exorcisms. The extremely similar nature of those three gospels was acknowledged by Eusebius who was a Christian bishop in the third century.

The theory is that the synoptic gospels share a common source 'Q', Matthew and Luke then added to this information from their own sources. It seems to be fairly well established in Biblical scholarship.

This is just a brief summary of the differences between the strands. There are many others as well. The Bible has been heavily edited throughout. In that regard, there's nothing particularly exceptional about the sections in question.

I can't argue with you on the strands you mention But I will investigate. Where did you get your information from - is there a website, or article or something online I can reference?

With editing, I suppose the key question is, to what degree do the edits affect the historicity of what we read today. And how much does it actually matter!

[Ixtellor]

And... Ignored.

I did answer your question. I just used a parable, and I guess you didn't get it.

Which religion is the most likely to be true no matter how small that chance? None of them.

Harry Potter is just as likely to to use magic as Jesus was divine. I know this because they both have the exact, and I really really mean exact same amount of empirical evidence. They are both written about in books. (If you want to get all "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" in an infinite universe Harry Potter actually exists somewhere)

There is no more reason to believe that Jesus was divine than to believe the pharaohs of Egypt were.

The day someone has empirical evidence to support their divinity claims... that religion wins.

How could that possibly make me any less likely to be correct about my beliefs?

Platos alagory of the cave. You only see one view of things. Had you been brought up in a strict Islamic household and nation you would have an entirely different view. You might still convert to Christianity, but the chances would impossibly small.

Saying this also makes you very ignorant of the millions of converts who didn't grow up in a Christian culture

There are millions of converts to all the major religions. Perhaps you are familiar with african americans converting to Islam during the civil rights era and today? (You will argue it has nothing to do with culture.)

you have to refute the religion not the people

Wrong. Your the one making the claim. You have to prove your thesis.

All I am saying is that there is no logical reason to pick one religion over another. (With the obvious exception of social and cultural acceptance - a reason some people choose to attend church [See Politicians])

I am super happy to say " I don't know what happens after death, and I don't know if there is a god" What I do know is that there is no empirical evidence of a god and no difference in claims of divinity by any religion.

Also on book burning. I would love to make an argument that the Mayan religion was superior and correct, except the conquistidors burned all the books. So now we will never know if it was the one true religion.

do you have any specific theory on why the New Testament miracles ended up the way they did?

1) To explain events they had no explanation for. (See Lightning)
2) To gain power. (See Evangelicals. I can turn on my TV any day and see a Christian perform a miracle but healing a poor sick women with just his hand and then ask for money)
3) To divert attention away from their obvious shortcomings. (See "The Devil Made me do it defense")
4) They were on drugs, and thought they saw miracles. (See Hippies)
5) A twisted form of social darwinism. (See Prosperity Gospel)
6) They were totally and completely made up, with the expectation we would understand it was just a story to illustrate a point. (See "I lived inside a Big Fish")


Ixtellor

P.S. I notice that no one wanted to go back and discuss the Mother Teresa Miracle.

P.P.S. If the poor indian girl had been wearing a pendant of The Jonas Brothers instead of Mother Teresa, would they be eligable for Saint Hood?

[Terebrant]

Claiming that they weren't expecting a messiah of that kind is true only because they didn't have reasons to expect one of that kind : the way in which the messiah descriptor is consistently used in the NT is a powerful memetic attack but not much more.

Jesus did apply the Old Testament prophecies to himself

As did Simon bar Kokhba for instance, that is a good way to get some legitimity and is expected of any wannabe messiah. Also, finding a way to apply a prophecy to a person/thing the fact is hardly a valid way of thinking, you must look at how to apply it to various (ideally, every, but that's not feasible) persons/things and see if one fit much better than the others.

In short, although in Jewish theology there may not have been a concept of the Messiah, I don't think this means there shouldn't have been.

The problem is with that time's (and before) teleology rather than theology. If you know the conclusion you want to reach, you can interpret the sources to make room for a "Messiah" but that is problematic because it should have been a lot clearer in material closer to the revelation but looking at the first temple era's, it wasn't.

May I ask you a random question: are you a practicing Jew? I'm just curious as to what your background is

I was raised in a fundamentalist christian household from parents with jewish ancestry but when it comes to religion, I learned most by the library of a great-uncle who was a catholic abbot with pecular views. Since then, I did a lot of research to find answers but found all religions I studied to be lacking in some regard.

Currently, I believe that, basically, a religion is a constructed framework with philosophy, art and game elements for the spiritual experiences one experiences (probably due to biology) and tend toward discordianism but recognize that is probably influenced by my depression, in older times I used a form of buddism.

[JoshuaZ]

I'll respond to you under the premise that Jesus is divine, since the folks writing those stories were using that premise, and so to speak of them without it takes the stories out of context. So, with the belief that Jesus is the divine sovreign God:

Ok. But note that if one needs that premise then the "he was a decent bloke" becomes much harder to defend. (Moreover, I'm not actually sure that the original writers did believe he was divine although they clearly believed that he was the prophesized messiah)

1. Jesus destroys a tree in a fit of rage because it didn't have fruit out of season. Ok, so how I've always taken this (the way I was taught, but also, thinking it through, the way it logically makes sense to me): Jesus is commenting on the unfaithfulness of the nation of Israel towards God - they produce fruit sometimes, but always fall away - hence the season metaphor. So in that context he is justifiably angry, since they are such wayward and rebellious people.

This might make sense, but in the context of the story he isn't saying "this is like Israel" or giving any explicit hint about what is going on. He just curses the bush for doing exactly what it would do under the natural laws.

2. Jesus declares that his followers should spend money on him and not the poor because there will still be poor after he is gone. Well, the context in which he is speaking here is after a thief and a cheat berates a woman for lavishing an expensive fragrance on Jesus instead of selling it. It is an indictment of Judas' true motivation, and a reminder of his own upcoming death. When considered in context with the rest of Christ's teaching on the poor, this is more in line with his general stance than what you are implying.

If you think he was divine then this makes some minimal sense. But again, without the divine Jesus he doesn't come across as a decent fellow here. He comes across as a jerk.

3. Jesus declares that anyone who loves family members more than they love him is useless and not worthy of Jesus's love. Again, just my interpretation, but imo familial love is too narrow for God. In the Kingdom of God, everyone is considered a child of God, and so everyone is equally deserving of love - not just your immediate family, but everyone around you, your enemies, your ex, your boss, your rude neighbor. And since Jesus is the source of this love, he is, in fact, the most deserving of it. It is only a selfish statement if you consider Jesus just a man. As far as parents who throw their gay children out of the house, I believe the Jesus who hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors (who were seen as Roman collaborators and traitorous scum by the Jews of the time) and who told the parable of the Prodigal Son would be rather on the side of the gay child, rather than the domineering, loveless parent.

This doesn't fit the text. First, Jesus explicitly uses the term "hate". He wants people to hate their parents. And this statement is made in the same context that he wants to not bring peace but the sword. The simplest reading isn't that he wants people to love him as the source of love. The simplest reading is that he is doing the standard routine where when you start a cult you encourage people to minimize contact with family and friends who don't believe.

[Phill]

This might make sense, but in the context of the story he isn't saying "this is like Israel" or giving any explicit hint about what is going on. He just curses the bush for doing exactly what it would do under the natural laws.

Context is everything. In the Old Testament, figs are often used as a metaphor for Israel's state before God (for example, Jeremiah 8:13, Jeremiah 24, Hosea 9:7, 16...) and this action is symbolic of God's judgement on Israel (Isaiah 34:4, Joel 1:7-12...)

This doesn't fit the text. First, Jesus explicitly uses the term "hate". He wants people to hate their parents. And this statement is made in the same context that he wants to not bring peace but the sword. The simplest reading isn't that he wants people to love him as the source of love. The simplest reading is that he is doing the standard routine where when you start a cult you encourage people to minimize contact with family and friends who don't believe.

As I understand it, the relevant passage is in Matthew 10:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

The context here is giving up everything to follow Jesus, which some people did and do. It's not just family and friends, but I just think in this case Jesus is using the example of family and friends to illustrate what it means to follow him. You can find a parallel example in Mark 8:34-38 where Jesus doesn't mention family. Jesus affirms the commandment to honour your father and mother further on in Matthew 15 so I don't think this can be taken as an example that we are to separate from our families

As did Simon bar Kokhba for instance, that is a good way to get some legitimity and is expected of any wannabe messiah. Also, finding a way to apply a prophecy to a person/thing the fact is hardly a valid way of thinking, you must look at how to apply it to various (ideally, every, but that's not feasible) persons/things and see if one fit much better than the others.

And I believe that Jesus fits much better than the others

I believe in Christianity not as a negative (in that, I don't believe in Judaism etc) but because I do believe in Jesus.

[Terebrant]

When I reorganized my previous post, I erased a few sentences by error. The basic gist of them was that you can make a prophecy from almost any text by reading it in the present or using another trick, but that doesn't mean it was a prophecy in the beginning and that when you first look at a prophecy you can't suppose that it is fulfilled, you need to work with both hypothesis.

I believe in Christianity not as a negative (in that, I don't believe in Judaism etc) but because I do believe in Jesus.

I would have much to say against Judaism too, it's just that it wasn't the topic. When it comes down to beliefs, some are better supported but not in any significant way.

However, it seems that you have a set of belief that is reasonably harmful, so keep up the good work, just be mindful that "belief in Jesus" doesn't mean much as one can put many things in this character. I would also suggest trying the energoumene way of understanding Jesus if your brand of Christianity makes it possible : some of your previous posts contained false informations that comes not from believing in Jesus but in how you were teached or learned about Jesus. Arguing on the internet is good to feel reassured in a chosen faith but that feeling can come from inside too and doesn't depend on the lack of knowledge of someone else.

I do not will to correct every mistake so I hope I won't post here again.

[The Great Hippo]

If I may ask again, assume miracles are possible and that one exclusive religion is true. Which immodest religion, in your opinion, even if it's completely speculative, is the most likely (however unlikely) to be correct? If your answer is still, "I'd have to thouroughly weigh each religion on the merits of its claims... set up rules etc..." that's fine. But isn't that exactly the sort of discussion I'm trying to prove is vaild when investigating claims about Christianity??

Okay, I stepped away from the discussion for a long while so I could take off my "GRR" hat (it actually has 'grr' written on it in big angry text) and address this question in a way that's pertinent. Because it's an important question and I think you might have been right to point out that I haven't been addressing it.

You're asking me why it's bad to discuss which religion is most historically valid; my response is because the resulting conversation would be a subjective quagmire with absolutely no solid conclusions. It's a bum question. First off: What's 'historical validity'? The religion that is the oldest? The religion that's remained the most unchanged? The religion that reports the most corroborated historical data? And after that, there are many more questions, and each one we answer will bare the fingerprint of our bias.

When you ask me 'what religion is the most historically valid', my response is: "Whatever religion the historian you are asking belongs to". Because history is anecdotal - history is bull shit. And more to the point, it is self-reflective. It is not a good question because the answer will be whatever we want it to be. And in a culture where Christianity is the dominant mythos, we will want it to be Christian more often than not.

I mean, seriously? I could argue any of the major religions are more 'historically valid' than any of the others. I just have to shift the target.

If Christianity is not historically viable, then I don't want to be a Christian. So please, keep giving me more and more arguments, and in my "opposition research" I may just find that the opposing arguments are weaker than yours. Of course, it would probably take a good full year of independent research for me to be even minimally satisfied that giving up my faith is the correct course of action, but feel free to provide the foundation.

Christianity is not historically viable. No religion is. Or, more correctly, it's as viable as the historians want to make it out to be. Ultimately, the question you must ask any and all historians is this: What master do they serve?

All history has an agenda. All history is corrupt. All history is selective, biased, and ignorant. Because history is us - and we are all selective, biased, and ignorant. Do not come to the field of history expecting to find Absolute Truth^tm; all it will teach you is about human nature and ignorance (especially ignorance).

Also, I am not out to undermine your faith, here. Like I said: I have faith that Socrates existed. If I'm willing to make that leap, why get on your case for believing that a dude walked on water? I just get snippity when people try to hijack history for their own agenda and treat it like it reaffirms their particular brand of Crazy^tm.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program:

That link you gave seems to say that a lot of scholars believe Muhammed took a journey to Jerusalem. Some of them think it's heaven.

Right, so, out of curiosity, how many non-Christian scholars think that Jesus actually came back to life? Aka, this point is irrelevant.

It counts, he existed. I'm not disputing that he existed. (Although of course, let us not forget that Islam is 600 years 'newer' than Christianity so you would expect more documentation from this time).

Right. My point is: It's a hell of a lot harder to dispute that Muhammad existed than it is to dispute that Jesus existed. Does this make Islam more 'historically valid'? See the portion of this post addressed to MoghLiechty2 for my answer (if you're curious).

[duckshirt]

When you ask me 'what religion is the most historically valid', my response is: "Whatever religion the historian you are asking belongs to". Because history is anecdotal - history is bull shit. And more to the point, it is self-reflective. It is not a good question because the answer will be whatever we want it to be. And in a culture where Christianity is the dominant mythos, we will want it to be Christian more often than not.

I mean, seriously? I could argue any of the major religions are more 'historically valid' than any of the others. I just have to shift the target.

That's not true, history is not completely subjective. We can't know history with perfect accuracy, but we can certainly defend some historical facts over others (we all agree things like the Holocaust happened, right?). By your assumptions, nothing, religion or otherwise, is or ever can be historically valid.