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Eye witness testimonies don't make for overly convincing arguments either. Especially when they refer to events that allegedly took place two millennia ago.
Lots of people have claimed to have seen alien spaceships, ghosts, Loch Ness Monster, etc, etc, and that doesn't make them real.
500 at the same time? They became martyrs because of this? People who see those various types of things get lots of revenue and publicity, apostles who claim to have seen the risen Christ get flogged and put to shame and stoned for blasphemy, hardly an incentive.
Originally Posted by Pete Harcoff
Btw, you didn't answer my earlier question as to whether you believe in Shiva, Zeus, Odin, Ra, Quetzalcoatl, and/or Apocatequil.
These are mostly personifications of God as created things, which is idolatry, which God forbids, He is not accurately portrayed as a statue or an animal, there is still God, I believe in Him. He's not religion confined, what makes Christianity is that I also believe in the Son He sent, Jesus Christ.
__________________ Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts. -- Steven Wright
500 at the same time? They became martyrs because of this? People who see those various types of things get lots of revenue and publicity, apostles who claim to have seen the risen Christ get flogged and put to shame and stoned for blasphemy, hardly an incentive.
These are mostly personifications of God as created things, which is idolatry, which God forbids, He is not accurately portrayed as a statue or an animal, there is still God, I believe in Him. He's not religion confined, what makes Christianity is that I also believe in the Son He sent, Jesus Christ.
Here's the thing about eye witness accounts. They're highly unreliable. When it comes to courtroom evidence, all attorney's will tell you they would rather have DNA than an eye witness testimony.
Are you familiar with the "basketball gorilla study? It is a visual cognition study in which Daniel Simons at the U. of Illinois, has subjects watch a video in which a basketall is passed around. He instructs the subjects to count the number of passes they make with the basketball. After about thirty seconds into the exercise, a person in a gorilla suit walks out and into the middle of those passing the basketball around. Only about fifty percent of the test subjects noticed the gorilla as it walked through!
Add to this that the four gospels were each written 30-60 years after the death of Jesus, and you're bound to have discrepencies (which there are). We don't even know who the actual authors were of the four gospels.
And to answer your question about martydom, yes, people do die for unworthy causes everyday.
Jim Jones: >900
9/11
suicide bombers in Gaza
suicide bombers in London
suicide bombers in Pakistan
Hale Bopp
... you get the idea.
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And to answer your question about martydom, yes, people do die for unworthy causes everyday.
Jim Jones: >900
9/11
suicide bombers in Gaza
suicide bombers in London
suicide bombers in Pakistan
Hale Bopp
... you get the idea.
Which one of these died a martyr --- knowing it was a lie?
Do you know it was 500? Were people taking attendance? Doing accurate head counts? Heck, look at reporting on crowds of events today (i.e. tea bagger protests). You get numbers all over the map.
This is also the problem given that many of the gospels were written long after they occured. Ever play the telephone game? What might have been an event witnessed by half-a-dozen people (assuming it actually occurred) could easily morph to 500 or more within a few tellings.
They became martyrs because of this? People who see those various types of things get lots of revenue and publicity, apostles who claim to have seen the risen Christ get flogged and put to shame and stoned for blasphemy, hardly an incentive.
Lots of people stand up for things they believe in. Regardless, this is all well after the fact and the exact details can get very muddied by history.
These are mostly personifications of God as created things, which is idolatry, which God forbids, He is not accurately portrayed as a statue or an animal, there is still God, I believe in Him. He's not religion confined, what makes Christianity is that I also believe in the Son He sent, Jesus Christ.
So the answer is no, you don't. Like I said earlier, you have more in common with atheists than I think you realize.
__________________ Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life. - Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution
Here's the thing about eye witness accounts. They're highly unreliable. When it comes to courtroom evidence, all attorney's will tell you they would rather have DNA than an eye witness testimony.
Test the Turin Shroud?
Originally Posted by LifeToTheFullest!
Are you familiar with the "basketball gorilla study? It is a visual cognition study in which Daniel Simons at the U. of Illinois, has subjects watch a video in which a basketall is passed around. He instructs the subjects to count the number of passes they make with the basketball. After about thirty seconds into the exercise, a person in a gorilla suit walks out and into the middle of those passing the basketball around. Only about fifty percent of the test subjects noticed the gorilla as it walked through!
That's because they were asked to count the number of passes being made, so they were concentrating hard on something else. How does this relate to more than 500 disciples in a room and Jesus walking in?
Originally Posted by LifeToTheFullest!
Add to this that the four gospels were each written 30-60 years after the death of Jesus, and you're bound to have discrepencies (which there are).
Discrepancies can in fact add validity to an account, as someone in GA once explained to me. If it were carbon-copy the same a jury would be suspicious.
Originally Posted by LifeToTheFullest!
We don't even know who the actual authors were of the four gospels.
And to answer your question about martydom, yes, people do die for unworthy causes everyday.
Jim Jones: >900
That was suicide, like Hitler's bunker, not martyrdom.
Originally Posted by LifeToTheFullest!
9/11
suicide bombers in Gaza
suicide bombers in London
suicide bombers in Pakistan
They are more seeking glory, and are agressively dying, not passively, like a berserker warrior or a kamikaze pilot, it's essentially an atrocity, not a martyrdom, whatever label they slap upon it, it's done out of hate, not love. And the young civilian ones in war zones are mostly doing it because their families, who are in poverty, are paid money by the insurgents, and they have no other prospects.
Originally Posted by LifeToTheFullest!
Hale Bopp
The ... comet?
Originally Posted by LifeToTheFullest!
Who wrote Matthew? When was the author murdered? How was he murdered? Where was he murdered?
Do you know it was 500? Were people taking attendance? Doing accurate head counts? Heck, look at reporting on crowds of events today (i.e. tea bagger protests). You get numbers all over the map.
It just says "more than 500 of the brothers at the same time" 1 Corinthians 15:6.
Originally Posted by Pete Harcoff
This is also the problem given that many of the gospels were written long after they occured. Ever play the telephone game? What might have been an event witnessed by half-a-dozen people (assuming it actually occurred) could easily morph to 500 or more within a few tellings.
The gospel preached by all the apostles was described as this:
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born." 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
Originally Posted by Pete Harcoff
Lots of people stand up for things they believe in. Regardless, this is all well after the fact and the exact details can get very muddied by history.
Ah, it is not so easy to dismiss the gospels, if you really want to know if they're historically accurate take the gospel of Luke - called 'the historical gospel' - as many have done, and try to disprove it.
Originally Posted by Pete Harcoff
So the answer is no, you don't. Like I said earlier, you have more in common with atheists than I think you realize.
Yes, I know the quote, just I can't compare the God to the ones dividing Him up into many small pieces. But there is still a universal God who's the same in many religions.
__________________ Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts. -- Steven Wright
Not sure what you mean by "Test the Turin Shroud," but it was debunked quite a while ago.
The gospels are titled "The Gospel According To Matthew, Luke, Mark and John" for a reason. This is because they are generally attributed to these men, but nowhere in the gospels is it ever written that actually authored them. There are no existing autographs of M,M,L&J. They were originally written 30-60 years after the death of Jesus, and no one knows who the original authors were.
Sorry, differing accounts do not in any way add credence to an eyewitness account. Differences are allowed for perspective only, not for actual facts. For example: Eye witness one says, "I saw the man running up the street wearing a green shirt." Eye witness two says, " I saw the man running down the street wearing a red shirt."
Pespective with respect to where the observer was at the time of the event. Fact with respect to actual color of shirt. See the difference?
Wasn't it the Heaven's Gate cult that thought the Hale Bopp was the mother ship or something? Meh.
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