Discovering God

razeontherock · May 29, 2012

LoAmmi said:
Praying to a man would have been cut off right away though. It would have been viewed as desecrating the Temple. So, they certainly were not doing a performance piece there that included Jesus being HaShem.

No one prays to Jesus in the Gospel, so this is pretty well not an issue.

xDenax · May 29, 2012

roseglass6370 said:
Why would members of the early church dedicate themselves - to the point of death - for a lie?

I can't figure out why people still use this as some sort of proof of something given that we know people blow themselves up for reasons we find to be absolutely ridiculous.

razeontherock · May 29, 2012

xDenax said:
I can't figure out why people still use this as some sort of proof of something given that we know people blow themselves up for reasons we find to be absolutely ridiculous.

The suicide bombers are not eyewitnesses to the claims their beliefs are founded on. If they were, and knew them to be false, do you think they would go through with it?

That is exactly the position the Apostles were in.

smaneck · May 29, 2012

razeontherock said:
The suicide bombers are not eyewitnesses to the claims their beliefs are founded on. If they were, and knew them to be false, do you think they would go through with it?

That is exactly the position the Apostles were in.

You assume that suicide bombers are plowing themselves up to prove the truth of Islam. Their motives are political more than religious and in the case of Palestinians they most definitely were eyewitnesses to the things they are reacting against.

I'm watching the Hatfields and McCoys right now. What a parable of the Middle East!

razeontherock · May 29, 2012

smaneck said:
You assume that suicide bombers are plowing themselves up to prove the truth of Islam. Their motives are political more than religious and in the case of Palestinians they most definitely were eyewitnesses to the things they are reacting against.

No, actually we have no Tradition of anyone being martyred "to prove the truth of" anything. That rather misses the point ...

Neither can you divorce Muslim extremists from their religious faith. They didn't simply intentionally die for a cause; they did so in expectation of a reward for doing so, and in the absence of anything else comparably as good.

The only way you'd get an apples to apples comparison here, is if the suicide bombers KNEW, for a fact, that there was no truth whatsoever to any afterlife claims, and decided to go through with it anyway not merely for the immediate cause, but to remain faithful to their religious purpose. A scenario that just makes no sense!

If the Gospel were false, the original Apostles would KNOW it, and would back down, rather than go through with it. It's a pretty simple scenario.

LoAmmi · May 29, 2012

razeontherock said:
If the Gospel were false, the original Apostles would KNOW it, and would back down, rather than go through with it. It's a pretty simple scenario.

Would they know it? Would they back down?

Do you have any idea how many times people rise around a charismatic leader who promises certain things, and then those things fail or the person dies, those people convince themselves that it is still right? It is called cognitive dissidence. To be honest, it is why I think we only have a picture of a FEW of Jesus' direct followers building the Church. I fully believe that many of them stopped when he died, but the few that pushed on were able to catch fire among the gentiles and it swept across them.

razeontherock · May 29, 2012

LoAmmi said:
To be honest, it is why I think we only have a picture of a FEW of Jesus' direct followers building the Church. I fully believe that many of them stopped when he died

Except that's not the picture we have, at all.

LoAmmi · May 29, 2012

razeontherock said:
Except that's not the picture we have, at all.

I only know of solid evidence for Paul and Peter. I haven't seen much that would confirm that the others did things outside of what amounts to legend.

razeontherock · May 29, 2012

Doubting Thomas evangelized in India, as a loner. He's the only one to do that. (I'm not really up on this sort of thing)

LoAmmi · May 29, 2012

razeontherock said:
Doubting Thomas evangelized in India, as a loner. He's the only one to do that. (I'm not really up on this sort of thing)

How is this known?

razeontherock · May 29, 2012

LoAmmi said:
How is this known?

The same way Abraham's Blessing is known.

LoAmmi · May 30, 2012

razeontherock said:
The same way Abraham's Blessing is known.

I really wish there was a smile that was drumming fingers on a table. That is my reaction to this kind of post.

razeontherock · May 30, 2012

As if you were waiting for something? What could you possibly be waiting for?

"I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner [stone], a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste." (Isaiah 28:16)

We have the same foundation

smaneck · May 30, 2012

LoAmmi said:
I only know of solid evidence for Paul and Peter. I haven't seen much that would confirm that the others did things outside of what amounts to legend.

James, the brother of Christ, headed the church in Jerusalem, but of course that church dies with the destruction of Second Temple. As Ray indicated Thomas is credited with founding the church in India, which may well be a legend, but it is legend kept alive by St. Thomas Christians (Nestorian) today. And as I've indicated earlier, the leadership of the Nestorian church appears to have largely Jewish, judging by their names. Acts of the Apostles records Philip as having converted the first gentile to Christianity, a black Eunuch.

smaneck · May 30, 2012

LoAmmi said:
How is this known?

Well this is the legend of the Christians of Saint Thomas who live in Kerala and we know they were of Jewish background, but most of the details for this come from the Acts of Thomas, an early third century work.

LoAmmi · May 30, 2012

smaneck said:
James, the brother of Christ, headed the church in Jerusalem, but of course that church dies with the destruction of Second Temple. As Ray indicated Thomas is credited with founding the church in India, which may well be a legend, but it is legend kept alive by St. Thomas Christians (Nestorian) today. And as I've indicated earlier, the leadership of the Nestorian church appears to have largely Jewish, judging by their names. Acts of the Apostles records Philip as having converted the first gentile to Christianity, a black Eunuch.

They also could have taken Jewish names upon conversion, could they not? Converts to Judaism take on Hebrew names, it may have been practiced in that area. They could be Jewish or they may not, that still does not prove that the original Apostles died for their faith.

Ray mentioned Judas which I don't think gets to count. If he killed himself for betraying a friend, there are more reasons than "Jesus' message was real" for that death.

I still see very little evidence to show me that those original men died for their faith. Even the end fate of Peter and Paul is legend more than fact.

Now, don't get me wrong. It is fine for those legends to exist. The death of Rabbi Akiva is a lot of legend, since there are multiple stories. I just don't think it proves that I should believe.

smaneck · May 30, 2012

LoAmmi said:
They also could have taken Jewish names upon conversion, could they not?

They could have but to my knowledge there is no evidence of that. As you know the evidence in the NT tends to go the opposite direction having Jewish converts take on Greek names such as Saul becoming Paul. Now you and I both know that this never happened. A Hellenized Jew like Paul would have had his Greek name all along. But the NT record does seem to indicate that by this time there was an aversion to Hebrew names. Take the example of the two Judas listed as apostles. The one who betrays Jesus retains his Hebrew name while the other one gets called by his Hellenized equivalent, namely Jude.

Converts to Judaism take on Hebrew names, it may have been practiced in that area. They could be Jewish or they may not, that still does not prove that the original Apostles died for their faith.

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