Sir Wilshire
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I am content with this notion about "God". I have no qualms saying that it doesn't matter whether God exists or doesn't exist. Denis Diderot said it pretty concisely. "It is important to distinguish hemlock from parsley, but not whether God exists or doesn't exist"
It's not necessarily 'wanting' to live forever without God... it's having it in your heart that you are living without God or without knowing God, and that it doesn't make a difference to you who your God is, and that you are content with this stance regarding God. If you woke up tomorrow and did something and forgot all about the fact that you don't know who God is (Jesus Christ) and went about your business, you would be just as content.
I thinking raising a man from the dead with an immortal body to vindicate his claims made before death that he would die and rise, and that he is God counts as "telling" people.
Why do you think Jesus didn't rise from the dead?
And I can say someone choosing or not choosing to follow Christ affects their eternities and others (and I don't mean just going to heaven or hell). If that's the reality, then it's really short-sighted to ignore the issue of Jesus' Lordship.Because if you don't know the difference between hemlock and parsley, you'll die. Hemlock is toxic if you don't properly distinguish the kind that is poisonous from what are allegedly edible ones. And parsley and hemlock look relatively similar to a layperson, so it's dangerous if you don't know the difference.
This is a really long sentence so I'm having trouble following your train of thought. Could you break it up into points?But with God there appears to be no verifiable or falsifiable standard for effects of disbelief or belief having any general effect upon people that would have a direct causation from an actual God existing as opposed to simply people's perspectives changing and thus attesting to the immense powers of the mind.
Christianity isn't primarily about becoming moral. It's about discipleship. I always find it funny when people think the real Christian position is to say that nonbelievers need Jesus to behave morally.Ethical behavior is not determined primarily by whether you believe or disbelieve in God and the status of your ethical behavior's foundation seems less important than your choice to behave ethically for whatever reason it may be.
If Jesus rose from the dead, did all his miracles, and said the things he did, I find this argument to be failing.Another argument that works relatively well is that even if there are gods or a God, it does not appear that they genuinely care or even if they do care, are unable by the extent of their power, to interact with the universe. Or they very well may take a non interventionist position purposefully. In any of these cases, it doesn't matter whether one believes or disbelieves in God, because it wouldn't affect your well being for better or worse in either case.
False. Got support for this proposition from experts in ancient history?Ok, where to start...?
In ancient times, or even medieval or early modern, events require more evidence than they do today to be verified, because it is a hell of a lot easier to gather evidence today.
False. The NT contains several different books/letters attesting to it written by different people at different times for different purposes. You can't collate them and say they're one source. Not that the NT books are the only line of evidence. There social science case can be made for it just based on the social values of the Roman empire and what Christians claimed (the argument doesn't presume their claims are historically true).The resurrection of Jesus only has one source;
Got expert opinion that a record of a historical event is only reliable if it's written down right when it happens? The events were written about or recorded in "oral history" 3 to 35 years after they happened. That's really quick for ancient history. Know how quickly reports of Alexandria the Great's conquests were written down?The Bible, which was written well after the event.
False. Tacticus and Josephus wrote about him. The Christ Myth theory is also a very fringe theory.The facts of the matter is that there is no extra-biblical evidence of Jesus himself,
And a lot of people did write about it. Although it shouldn't be anything close to what is expected today considering 10% at most were literate and people valued oral communication over written.Literature was booming in the 1st century and an event as big as a resurrection surely would have produced more people writing about it, rather than someone many years later.
False. Got support for this proposition from experts in ancient history?
This sums my position up perfectly (if I understand it correctly). It's not that I am avoiding god purposely, it is that I can't find a reason to believe in him (or any other god, for that matter).
I already pointed out how it wasn't one source. You are ignoring facts. Once again he did exist.So, what? You're telling me that having one book written 2000 years ago making extraordinary claims about someone who may or may not have existed
-SourceGreco-Roman historian Michael Grant, who certainly has no theological axe to grind, indicates that there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for a large number of famous pagan personages - yet no one would dare to argue their non-existence.
Meier [Meie.MarJ, 23] notes that what we know about Alexander the Great could fit on only a few sheets of paper; yet no one doubts that Alexander existed.
Charlesworth has written that "Jesus did exist; and we know more about him than about almost any Palestinian Jew before 70 C.E." [Chars.JesJud, 168-9]
Sanders [Sand.HistF, xiv] echoes Grant, saying that "We know a lot about Jesus, vastly more than about John the Baptist, Theudas, Judas the Galilean, or any of the other figures whose names we have from approximately the same date and place."
On the Crucifixion, Harvey writes: "It would be no exaggeration to say that this event is better attested, and supported by a more impressive array of evidence, than any other event of comparable importance of which we have knowledge from the ancient world." [Harv.JesC, 11]
Dunn [Dunn.EvJ, 29] provides an anecdote similar to the one above regarding Shakespeare. Referring to Wells' thesis, he writes:
The alternative thesis is that within thirty years there had evolved such a coherent and consistent complex of traditions about a non-existent figure such as we have in the sources of the Gospels is just too implausible. It involves too many complex and speculative hypotheses, in contrast to the much simpler explanation that there was a Jesus who said and did more or less what the first three Gospels attribute to him. The fact of Christianity's beginnings and the character of its earliest tradition is such that we could only deny the existence of Jesus by hypothesizing the existence of some other figure who was a sufficient cause of Christianity's beginnings - another figure who on careful reflection would probably come out very like Jesus!
Finally, here are these words from a hardened skeptic and an Emeritus Professor of History, the late Morton Smith [Hoff.JesH, 47-8] . Of Wells' work, this historian and skeptic of orthodox Christianity wrote:
"I don't think the arguments in (Wells') book deserve detailed refutation."
"...he argues mainly from silence."
"...many (of his arguments) are incorrect, far too many to discuss in this space."
"(Wells) presents us with a piece of private mythology that I find incredible beyond anything in the Gospels."
doing stuff like turning water into wine, walking on water and rising from the dead (something which many people before Jesus claimed to do) is enough evidence?
The gospels and other reports of the resurrection came from people who around Jesus for his whole 3 years of ministry.If you believe a single book written by people who primarily weren't at the events is sufficient evidence for these claims, I cannot imagine what you should be believing in.
For this to be a point in your favor, you will have to show that those things and reports on Jesus can be discounted using the historical method consistently.There have been countless of old and contemporary claims of sightings of the Loch Ness Monster; there have been writings, drawings, photographs and even videos of a mysterious creature lurching in Loch Ness, yet that STILL isn't a scientific fact.
Asserting a pithy saying by Carl Sagan does nothing to show that as legitimate means of evaluation. To quote James Patrick HoldingThe phrase "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is completely true,
-SourceFor some critics, it is considered a sufficient argument against the Resurrection to say, “No amount of evidence for it could ever be enough, because a resurrection would be an extraordinary event requiring extraordinary evidence, and we don’t have that.” It should be noted that this argument alludes to the dictum of astronomer and spokesman for humanism Carl Sagan; it does not come from any handbook or rule of evidence (as might be found in the legal profession), and is in essence little more than a restatement of arguments originally formulated by the 18th –century philosopher David Hume, who made experience – his own experience, in the main – the baseline by which whether an event was “extraordinary” was to be judged.
The fact that you think these are "similar" claims to Christian claims shows you don't know how to use the historical method.and if you don't believe it, then are you believing in the Loch Ness Monster? Are you believing in Bigfoot? Are you believing that there are people out there who can bend spoons just by looking at it? If you aren't, I suggest you take a look and weigh up the evidence for those claims, and the evidence for Jesus' miracles and decide which are more likely to be correct.
You need to do some responding with your criteria for something being historical. And answer the question about Alexander the Great.I won't respond to your other points because mainly cap up everything here, unless you specifically want me to address a certain point.
Once again, why is your criteria is the one to go with? How many historical scholars use it? You also didn't address Tacitus.Btw, Josephus was born probably seven years after Jesus' crucifiction. I hardly see his writings as a reliable source. This is simply someone born today to write accounts of September 11 in 20 years time.
I can live or die with hope for my children or my immediate family (even though I'm not married yet and don't have kids) and even if I die without either of these, I can still hope for humanity's future and that I have left something of significance for people to remember me, just as anyone else probably would.
Anyone characterizing doubt as a bad thing seems to forget that it's doubt that usually brings many people to God, but just as many away from God and closer to humanity anyway. The only difference is a state of mind in particular relation to "God" as a concept. But people can treat each other decently whether they believe in one God, multiple gods, or no God or gods at all.
While I have nothing against the Atheist Worldview or Belief as it is.
It has been my personal experience on this forum that as a whole, they are abrasive, rude, egotistical, argumentative people that feel an urge not only to be right, but to prove everyone else wrong.
They come across as if their belief offers them no solstice, no contentment, and thus they quest to try and validate their little view of things, mainly in a very ignoble avenues and become increasingly hostile to any that disagree with them.
So, in general I hold them in pity and contempt: I pity them, because obviously they have chosen to believe something that offers them no tranquility, and I hold them in contempt because they have the audacity to come and try and take away my tranquility and then ask me to entertain a belief that obviously makes them bitter and resentful.
I am sure there are decent ones, I suppose there might be a few on this forum, but, as a whole, I have been less then flatted with them, and more then not, have little to no patience with them.
God Bless
While I have nothing against the Atheist Worldview or Belief as it is.
It has been my personal experience on this forum that as a whole, they are abrasive, rude, egotistical, argumentative people that feel an urge not only to be right, but to prove everyone else wrong.
They come across as if their belief offers them no solstice, no contentment, and thus they quest to try and validate their little view of things, mainly in a very ignoble avenues and become increasingly hostile to any that disagree with them.
So, in general I hold them in pity and contempt: I pity them, because obviously they have chosen to believe something that offers them no tranquility, and I hold them in contempt because they have the audacity to come and try and take away my tranquility and then ask me to entertain a belief that obviously makes them bitter and resentful.
I am sure there are decent ones, I suppose there might be a few on this forum, but, as a whole, I have been less then flatted with them, and more then not, have little to no patience with them.
God Bless
To suggest or even potentially conflate being an atheist with being a selfish or egotistical person is hardly fair and honestly is only reflective of a bit of unjustified discrimination against people that you generalize by the behavior of some people that identify as that same group. Atheism is atheism, egotism and egocentrism are their own areas, basically separate from atheism, related only by accident.
That existential anxiety is common to everyone, so honestly, it doesn't seem exactly a criticism of my position to say that my perspective might change in some sense, without focusing so much on my atheism and humanism which you seem to view as not presenting any sufficient answers to our existence and purpose.
Again, this is an existential and necessarily subjective inquiry and problem. This is not to advance relativism necessarily, but only to reflect that even if there is a God, perhaps it doesn't have everyone believe exactly the same, but in behaving similarly, they still are able to genuinely confront their existential difficulties in a way that is not likened to the sickness unto death, to reference Kierkegaard. I could contend that I find a sense of belonging and location even in BUddhism, which I imagine you would find befuddling. But this reflects my point that people approach this difficulty of our existential anxiety in varied ways, and just because I find contentment in a Dharmic faith and you in an Abrahamic one is no reason for us to focus on our differences so much as concentrating on what we share in common, even if we disagree on the method of that conclusion.
Being happy in our natural state of ignorance is all well and fine, but persisting in self willed ignorance, not willing to challenge your own deeply held beliefs, seems a problematic thing to find happiness in.
Experience is only part of defending the rationality and reasonableness of one's worldview. Just because we may never see eye to eye about this experience of what you call God and understand in one sense and I see no generally well defined understanding of, doesn't mean we cannot agree in principle about other things, based either on logic or experience.
Your God appears quite feckless and impotent if it only gives people one chance, especially considering there are examples in the bible of people getting a second chance, including Paul of Tarsus, the prodigal son, and Saul in the OT for a few examples.
The notion that God only gives me one chance seems counter to God apparently valuing the free will I possess as its creation and only saying I have one chance and then all the freewill I have will be to no avail, because God's power is that limited by your perspective.
In my perspective, I'm already devoid of absolute and perfect love, and I am content with that.
Any love that will be sufficient or adequate is something I am fine with, since it only reflects what the world is, transient and unsatisfactory as we continue to be attached to it. The progression happens with practice to excellent love, but never absolutely perfect and complete.
Just because there are bad apples in an orchard is no reason to throw out the whole harvest, to coin a possibly new expression.
Patience is a practice, it's not something you just automatically have. In order to develop patience with me and other atheists, you have to engage us, right?
For example I know people who have been healed and know of a great number of people who have been healed quickly as they were prayed for of illnesses that placebo couldn't heal. I would like to point out that though I consider myself Christian I try to be skeptical of these kinds of things, but some healings which are fast/instant and are not just the relief of pain or speeding up of recovery in the case of placebo, seem to be quite convincing.
I already pointed out how it wasn't one source. You are ignoring facts. Once again he did exist.
To prove this, you'll have to show me documents that were meant be taken as historical their authors. Not that I necessarily have a problem with others doing miracles. They have to follow it up with a relevant religious message too.
The gospels and other reports of the resurrection came from people who around Jesus for his whole 3 years of ministry.
For this to be a point in your favor, you will have to show that those things and reports on Jesus can be discounted using the historical method consistently.
Asserting a pithy saying by Carl Sagan does nothing to show that as legitimate means of evaluation. To quote James Patrick Holding
The fact that you think these are "similar" claims to Christian claims shows you don't know how to use the historical method.
You need to do some responding with your criteria for something being historical. And answer the question about Alexander the Great.
If you believe a single book written by people who primarily weren't at the events is sufficient evidence for these claims
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