can you be a "moral" person...

[Euler]

Lets take a closer look at these "1st hand" testimonies:

Here are the generally accepted dates for the writing of the synoptic gospels -

Matthew - 70-110 CE
Mark - 60-70 CE
Luke - 60-90 CE
John - 80-95 CE

So, clearly, the pivotal books of the New Testament were written decades at best after the supposed events they describe.

But its worse than that. The average lifespan of someone living in the Palestine in the first century was about 25 years of age! Even if we remove the effect of a very high infant mortality rate, the average is still less than 40.

So, there is a very high chance that these books were written 2 generations or more after the events they claim to represent!

But, it gets worse. The earliest documentary evidence we have of these writings don't appear until the 2nd century, and these are only fragments! And, as already mentioned, the complete works were not decided until the 4th century.

But it gets worse. We know that the early Christian movement that formed in the first couple centuries was markedly different in its beliefs from that which was later formalized. The early Christian leaders, in many cases, did not even believe in the divinity of Jesus. That being the case, and because we don't have the earliest manuscripts, who is to know what 'editing' took place with those stories during that time?

This crappy 'evidence' would be laughed out of any court. It wouldn't even make it to the front steps of the courthouse!

 

[Euler]

Madaz,

You begin to understand the monumental ignorance which drives some people's view when you read staggering comments like this -

the bible is the most accurate historical book of all times. No other historical writing was written so close to the actual events and no other matches it in the volume of what was and is available.

Don't know about you, but that just leaves me lost for words.

 

[bhsmte]

Lets take a closer look at these "1st hand" testimonies:

Here are the generally accepted dates for the writing of the synoptic gospels -

Matthew - 70-110 CE
Mark - 60-70 CE
Luke - 60-90 CE
John - 80-95 CE

So, clearly, the pivotal books of the New Testament were written decades at best after the supposed events they describe.

But its worse than that. The average lifespan of someone living in the Palestine in the first century was about 25 years of age! Even if we remove the effect of a very high infant mortality rate, the average is still less than 40.

So, there is a very high chance that these books were written 2 generations or more after the events they claim to represent!

But, it gets worse. The earliest documentary evidence we have of these writings don't appear until the 2nd century, and these are only fragments! And, as already mentioned, the complete works were not decided until the 4th century.

But it gets worse. We know that the early Christian movement that formed in the first couple centuries was markedly different in its beliefs from that which was later formalized. The early Christian leaders, in many cases, did not even believe in the divinity of Jesus. That being the case, and because we don't have the earliest manuscripts, who is to know what 'editing' took place with those stories during that time?

This crappy 'evidence' would be laughed out of any court. It wouldn't even make it to the front steps of the courthouse!

All facts which many Christians simply don't want to hear and they hold their fingers in their ears.

If it wasn't for the fact that the vast majority of NT scholars and historians are devout Christians, who try to minimize or explain away these facts, the above would be much more common knowledge.

 

[madaz]

Madaz,

You begin to understand the monumental ignorance which drives some people's view when you read staggering comments like this -



Don't know about you, but that just leaves me lost for words.

Which reminds me of a quote from Hitch.

"Gullibility and credulity are considered undesirable qualities in every department of human life – except religion."

 

[madaz]

All facts which many Christians simply don't want to hear and they hold their fingers in their ears.

If it wasn't for the fact that the vast majority of NT scholars and historians are devout Christians, who try to minimize or explain away these facts, the above would be much more common knowledge.

Absolutely, and when Christianity eventually declines to the second most popular religion, facts like those will become more common knowledge in my opinion.

 

[Ken-1122]

But like I said that wasn't really the point. Whether it is hard to tell how it was made or not or whether it was natural or unnatural it still looks like it is designed. The most important thing is that we can only deal with what we have and know. At the moment to me we live in a universe that looks designed and everything around us has some design. It doesn't look like it would come from nothing and a process that built something from a non designed method.

And how would a Universe look like if it came from a non designed method?

Perhaps they would. But you said it, it looks like someone painted a mural on the moths wings. So it speaks about a process of intelligent creator like an artist and not some chance random process.

I’ll bet you’d say the same thing about a coral reef! Now wouldn’t you.

Yes this is whats suppose to happen. Many say that science is like this unbiased entity that rolls along and cannot get involved in personal beliefs and only seeks the truth. That is true if you just take science itself as a mechanism to look at things. But when you add humans with their potential for personal views and beliefs and biases this can get distorted. They say that there is a very high percentage of bias in even peer reviewed papers. Scientists are not immune to gathering together and forming a religious type belief about some of the stuff they promote. If you listen to some of the ways some scientists talk about what is basically unproven hypothesis you would thing it was a fact.

Because science is made up of humans; there is also the motivation to be the one who proves everyone else wrong. Let’s take evolution for example. Currently evolution is the best explanation scientists have explaining species change.

Let’s say you were a scientist, and you had information that could prove evolution wrong! You would be world famous and rich beyond belief if you published your findings. Now if you had such information; would you sit on it and march in lockstep with the other scientist not even sticking out of the crowd? Or would you publish your findings and be the one to turn the scientific community on it’s head, and become world famous as the person who changed how the scientific community explains change? I will bet you would go the fame and fortune route.

K

 

[madaz]

How do you know this.

Neither the believers, the Romans, the Jews or the non believers noticed Jesus throughout his entire lifetime. Not a single contemporary account. The silence just screams steve.

There is intimate information included that reeks of a personal knowledge. It is spoken in the 1st person and studies have shown that the manner in which it is written can only come from someone who was there or knew the inside information of someone who was there.

Exactly what one would expect from one of mans greatest conspiracies.

But all those small changes would be caught out by the other documents that surfaced that spoke about the same events.

If you put your skeptical glasses on you will catch some of them out for yourself.

The author of some of the books also taught and passed that info verbally onto others and they also wrote "mentaries on this which matched what was written. It all lines up and is collaborated.

Have you ever considered the reverse? that later authors matched their stories to the earlier authors? That would seem more likely than memorizing thousands of words conveyed verbally.

 

[Strathos]

I don't see any ideas as so sacrosanct that they can't be examined and questioned dispassionately.

That isn't about "attacking" anything. Socrates wasn't "attacking" anyone when he questioned the views of his fellow Athenians. They did put him to death because they felt attacked. I see that as the real problem, and a serious one.


eudaimonia,

Mark

So calling theists ignorant superstitious fools who believe in fairy tales is being "dispassionate"?

Correct, perception being the key word here. Unfortunately theists perceive they are being personally attacked when their doctrine is challenged. This is a grave problem that is detrimental to progress as well as making it difficult for honest discourse.

Religion and it's "sacred cows" are not excempt from scrutiny and/or challenges.

And such challenges are not personal attacks on its followers.

Except when you directly make them so... like most internet atheists do.

I understand the concept, I just dimiss the concept as utter nonsense.

A creationist would likely tell you the same thing regarding evolution. Let's just say I believe that you understand it as well as I believe that said hypothetical creationist understands evolution.

I can guarantee you that each and every one of the people taking those "actions" would attest that their faith was directing them. That you consider them 'incorrect' is nothing more than a personal opinion (incidentally, you think that Joshua was 'incorrect' in supposedly following his god's word to the letter?).

People can claim religious motivation for anything they do. It's an excuse, not a cause.

In other words, you mistrust their faith as a basis for justifying their actions.

Just like me.

What actions am I taking due to my faith that you believe are unjustified?

 

[Euler]

So calling theists ignorant superstitious fools who believe in fairy tales is being "dispassionate"?



Except when you directly make them so... like most internet atheists do.



A creationist would likely tell you the same thing regarding evolution. Let's just say I believe that you understand it as well as I believe that said hypothetical creationist understands evolution.



People can claim religious motivation for anything they do. It's an excuse, not a cause.



What actions am I taking due to my faith that you believe are unjustified?

I don't know. I'm unaware of all your actions? That list I gave you wasn't necessarily meant to include yourself. They were examples of people acting on their faith wherein I challenged your claim that those faith-based actions were the "opposite of sin". Have you lost track?

And, again, was Joshua "incorrect" when he followed the supposed word of his god to the letter?

 

[madaz]

Except when you directly make them so... like most internet atheists do.

Granted, maybe it's because these "internet atheists" are simply reacting to theists with insecurities and thin skin.

 

[Eudaimonist]

So calling theists ignorant superstitious fools who believe in fairy tales is being "dispassionate"?

Quite possibly. It may be uncivil, but not necessarily something said in hot blood.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[stevevw]

stevew, there is absolutely no 1st hand testimony in the NT. Not a single author lived during Jesus time.

Of course there are witnesses, there are thousands of witnesses.

Small alterations over hundreds of years could easily supercede any mighty elaborate effort over a short period of time. Such small individual changes will go unnoticed or challenged.

99% of the original scripts are exactly as they were when written.

It is the biggest conspiracy in human history, and the challenges to it are numerous.

You havnt shown one bit of evidence.

 

[stevevw]

If Christ is accepted by most scholars and there was this man who has had such a big impact on our history then surely something would have been captured about his life. Or are you saying everything was completely made up.

By the way writings about Julius Caesar were done 800 years after he was around yet these writing are excepted. Witnesses for the Holocaust were up to 50 years after the events but they were accepted by the war trials. The people remembered like it was yesterday. It seems when it comes to Jesus people suddenly change all the criteria and make it 10 times as strict. It seems there maybe a bit of bias because some are letting their atheism get in the way.
Almost all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_reliability_of_the_Gospels

 

[Euler]

I wonder how many people would be surprised to find that most Koranic scholars confirm the historicity of the Koran!

So, it must be a completely accurate document, right?

Or, should we be just a tad skeptical about the fact that the vast majority of Koranic scholars are Muslims!?

Do we think there's something just a little suspicious about people studying the claims made in a document, when they already believe those claims before they start their study!?

 

[stevevw]

"d. In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote, "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees".[15] Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church's imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more".[16] Robert M. Price (an atheist who denies Jesus' existence) agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars.[17] James D. G. Dunn calls the theories of Jesus' non-existence "a thoroughly dead thesis".[18] Michael Grant (a classicist) writes, "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary".[19] Robert E. Van Voorst states that biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of non-existence of Jesus as effectively refuted.[20]"
Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There's more argumentation at:
Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If we are basing the evidence on an argument from silence that Jesus was not mentioned a lot in non biblical records then I'm afraid we would have to discount many famous people and events of that time as well. Yet they are all accepted in our history and dont have anywhere near as much if not any evidence like that for Jesus.

Apart from a few examples, and most of these during specific events such as the Athenian-Spartan conflict, the Second Punic War, or the upheavals during the fall of the Roman Republic, we do not have sources from the time on people in Classical history. We have almost nothing written from the time about dozens of Roman Emperors who ruled one of the largest and most literate societies pre-enlightenment Europe. We only hear of great generals, such as Scipio, decades after the event. Perhaps we might suggest that he didn’t exist too?

[FONT=&quot]Look at the Jewish historian Josephus’ works. He lists many Jewish leaders who were equal to Jesus in fame. Who else records them? No one, just Josephus[/FONT][FONT=&quot].[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]
One interesting exercise to show how ancient fame vis-a-vis ancient literary records works is to compare Jesus with Cato the Younger. Cato was probably the most famous person by the time of Christ. We even have two classical authors saying they are fed up having with having stories of his live being constantly recollected by everyone. Now how many biographies of his life now exist? One, by Plutarch who wrote it over a hundred years later! This is a very good indicator of that this argument from silence needs to be put to bed, not given the oxygen of media attention- especially by free-thinkers(!!).

The fact that Jesus is talked about by a dozen pagan references within a hundred years is remarkable.

Early Reviews of Richard Carrier’s On The Historicity of Jesus Christ

 

[bhsmte]

Of course there are witnesses, there are thousands of witnesses.

99% of the original scripts are exactly as they were when written.

You havnt shown one bit of evidence.

How can you be sure the text is 99% of the originals, if the originals not only do not exist, but we only have copies starting over a century after when the gospels were actually penned? It is impossible to know what impact passing on how oral tradition changed the stories, for decades before the gospels were penned and then another century of potential changes before we even have any copies.

Who are these thousands of eye witnesses?

 

[seashale76]

Can you be a "moral" person without a religious base for that morality? If so, what do you base your measure of "right or wrong" on?

How do you judge others for being "immoral"...say a serial killer who actually "gets off to killing people" (is missing the part of his psyche that allows him to feel shame or guilt) ....if he doesn't think what he is doing is wrong, is it really immoral if we allows individuals to define personal moral standards?

Blind post:
Yes, one can be moral without being religious.

Morality is learned behavior. Studies have shown that moral development is gained via how one is raised and empathy (in particular) certainly can be learned. So- I think that moral development is a nurture issue. Generally people learn about morality/ethics and how they should act in various situations from their families, their religions, and society (laws).

If I had to guess, I would say this view of no morality without God occurs because people confuse conscience with morality and often attribute conscience as being directly God-given or influenced.

I think the answer to that lies in what you think helps to form conscience to begin with. I personally believe that conscience certainly has an intuitive aspect inherent in people that helps us come to judgments on how to act. It is pure nature and most people are born with a conscience (yet I think that there are some people whose conscience is turned off or ignored for whatever reason- parts of their brain don't function like everyone else- and there have also been studies done on this). One's conscience helps him/her to form snap judgments as to how he/she should act in any given situation. When people act against their conscience they will generally experience feelings of guilt/remorse and when they act in accordance with their conscience they will generally feel good about their actions.

Conscience drives morality. Morality doesn't drive conscience but I believe that one's morality can override conscience. For example, I think that one can have a perfectly working conscience and poor moral development. However- since moral development depends on a combination of what is learned and reasoned/rationalized- if one is lacking then they can override their conscience. The mentally ill can sometimes have a disconnect in their ability to reason through moral/ethical concerns. I don't mean that it controls or determines behavior but rather the conscience will give someone an intuitive snap judgment/reflex that they don't have to act on. Conscience isn't something that we have to think about at all.

When you asked if serial killers are immoral- then yes- they technically would be. They lack adequate moral development, after all.

 

[seven2014]

Can you be a "moral" person without a religious base for that morality? If so, what do you base your measure of "right or wrong" on?

Yes, you can be moral without religion. I go by the adage: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

I also go by innate sense of right and wrong. I don't need religion to tell me that it's wrong to rob you, or to see you hurt and not try and help you.

How do you judge others for being "immoral"...say a serial killer who actually "gets off to killing people" (is missing the part of his psyche that allows him to feel shame or guilt) ....if he doesn't think what he is doing is wrong, is it really immoral if we allows individuals to define personal moral standards?

Morality is subjective, but since this person has some kind of mental defect, you can't really blame him. But that not to say that I would want him to live, no, put him to death. The mistake that is often made (I read a book) is the these people are not intelligent.

And in my mind, I wouldn't understand any excuse for their crime against me or my family. If a person waited until night to commit a crime, he must have the sense to know that what he/she is doing is frowned upon.

 

[Conscious Z]

I call what you serve "god," or rather your own god, because it is. Everyone worships something. Everyone has a master unless, you are your own master.

Couple this with staunch personal morals, and considering other people (and their gods) as virtual, or not substantive enough to entertain (based on your ego,) and you are defying your superego. That last bit is important; it is more than having convictions and defending them. That is what I meant by you are your own god. Clearly you are not a god, but your conscious reasoning leaves room for only you as the arbiter of your life. Not that you can't learn more - as I said, not all gods are omnipotent, omnipresent or omniscient. But, you do put yourself above others, and their gods by claiming to know more than them. Or, at the least dismissing gods as non-existent craziness, or evil, and claiming to know better than said gods on how to be better. It isn't semantics; most people including believe defy there superego without even knowing it. All it takes is your rational mind to convince you of grandiosity. Believers deify their superego by forming God in their own human image. This isn't anything new. And, I'm not insulting you. It is what it is - literally.

This sounds like a bunch of hogwash thrown around by the local holy man. Of course every person must decide for himself or herself what is true, and due to the very nature of selecting from among a group of mutually exclusive claims, thinks that that he or she has chosen is superior to the other options. That doesn't mean that one worships himself or considers himself a god.

Obviously missing from this discussion has been the possibility of non-cognitivism, or the idea that moral claims are not propositions but are instead expressions with no truth values, similar to saying "Yum!" when tasting of delicious food. Non-cognitivism solves most of the disagreement present in this thread. Most humans have deep evolutionary biases toward actions that are relatively peaceful, which is why we feel strongly opposed to killing innocent people. We have a deep aversion to such behavior, sort of like a much stronger version of "Yuck!" That such "Yuck!" cannot be defended in the same way that 2+2=4 can be defended does not weaken the "Yuck!" effect such killing has on us. We will do everything in our power to prevent it because we have evolved that way over millions of years.

 

[madaz]

Of course there are witnesses, there are thousands of witnesses.

Can you identify just one of these numerous witnesses for me?

99% of the original scripts are exactly as they were when written.

Baloney steve, by the 3rd century CE the original scripture was well and truly altered. It hasn't changed much since then.

You havnt shown one bit of evidence.

Um.. The lack of evidence is the evidence.