[Carrion]

Originally Posted by Trespass

Thats the whole point. If there was definitive proof that God exists, then we lose freedom of choice. If there is no chance God exists, than we lose hope.

But I'm sure you'll claim this is a illogical and doesn't prove anything. It doesn't. It doesn't have too. Thats the point.

Given all the proof in the world, you stil have the choice to not believe in something. Also, who is we? I certainly don't hope there is a God, much like I don't hope there is aliens. Why should hope get in the way of truth?

[The Dark Wolf]

Originally Posted by urklvt

I never found God in religion, but when I found him there was no religion in him to be found.

That's awesome, Urkleveditation. Sums up how I feel perfectly.

[JJ Rodriguez]

If the god of the Christians exists, he's one cruel motherfucker. Think about this, he creates man, so he must be a master of psychology. Even if everything isn't pre-ordained, which having an all knowing god would suggest, he should be able to guess pretty accurately what kind of person we're going to be. So he lets us NOT follow him, only to condemn us to eternal torment when we die? Sounds pretty illogical to me.

[progmetaldan]

I'm a born-again Christian and try to live out my faith daily.

Originally Posted by Metal Ken

Yeah, but from what i recall reading, there's no tax, census, etc. records of it. There's also no records of pontius pilot setting free criminals and no records of herod having soldiers go around and smash babies. There's historians alive at the time and soon after, and none of them make any mention of a jesus, and the one who does, josephus, has a weak account at best. But then again, he was born roughly 4 years after jesus' assumed death date. I always thought it odd that we have accurate records of generally historically insignificant people like the historian josephus and this big huge world turning event of jesus, the only evidence we have is that maybe some dude may have had the name.

Obviously you don't rate the Bible as a historical account either, even though the New Testament accounts of Jesus life and teachings were written by eyewitnesses...

Originally Posted by biggness

I am a Christian.

"Religion tries to change you from the outside in while Christianity changes you from the inside out." - Jerry Chaddick

What I find cool though, is that despite such large differences in everybodies beliefs, we can still go into a Music Discussion and have so much in common... Music is such a universal language...

[Metal Ken]

Originally Posted by progmetaldan

Obviously you don't rate the Bible as a historical account either, even though the New Testament accounts of Jesus life and teachings were written by eyewitnesses...

First point: Most biblical scholars agree the gospels were written well after the death of jesus, sometime in the late first century. And like i said before, there's no other historical record of the things that coincide with the birth of jesus. No Herod smashing babies, no pontius pilot setting free prisoners every year. Also, what did jesus do between the ages of 12 and 29? And even if it were written eyewitnesses, where are their credentials? Who's to say that they weren't fooled with magic tricks? We live in a day and age where magicians walk through glass and get run over by steamrollers and survive.

Second, Old Testament is somehow more historically accurate? There's no way guy could build a boat that would hold two of every known animal ever. Thats impossible even today, even considering the biggest ships available. How would store food for all of them for a month? How would you make a boat out of wood that would hold both that food and those animals without collapsing in on itself? There isnt enough water to cover the whole earth up to the highest mountain. If there were, the air would become too dense to breathe. If the only family left was Noah's, we're all inbred. Good evening Cousin dan.

Now, if you say that story is figurative, Then that must mean the bible is figurative. If it isnt, where do we draw the line? One man's figurative is another man's literal? If we acknowledge the old testament as 'figurative', then there's no original sin, and in that case, no need for jesus. Lastly, we could take the old testament as erroneous. which would mean the bible is not infallible, and the work of man.

If you're religious and whatnot, thats all cool. But, i just cant take the bible at face value.

[JBroll]

Originally Posted by progmetaldan

Obviously you don't rate the Bible as a historical account either, even though the New Testament accounts of Jesus life and teachings were written by eyewitnesses...

People claim that, but the absence of second sources to many things and some narrations that are simply nonsense leaves anyone who studies it and has not assumed it to be true to the conclusion that it's nonsense.

'Oh, but they're so close to each other!' Yeah? Two rip another off, and the fourth just makes everything more flowery and throws in some more that can't be verified elsewhere. For starter's, Luke's text is dated wrong, Herod's infanticide (depicted in Matthew 2) is not believed to have actually happened, the genealogies are completely off (no, they're not tracking mothers, as I've often heard argued - and even if they did, one is several generations shorter than the other, which completely deflates any real chance of them lining up), no other record of Jesus, who'd have been a pretty important guy, exists... basically, there's just no way to reconcile this one piece of mythology with countless other works.

You've got cross-checked historical records from narratives to tax records, and you have this mess that was written decades after the fact (more like eyewitness accounts of eyewitness accounts, in all fairness), with more than a little plagiarism to share, extreme separation from every source that can already be claimed authentic, and the rigorous standards brought about by compiling the book via committee.

Gonna have to drop the Bible if we want to hold our sources to any standards at all.

Also, the fact that the portion of the Josephus text on Jesus, the only thing coming close to being evidence of Jesus' existence, is by any level of critical thinking a clear fraud (different tone and style than the rest of the work, surprisingly not appearing until the time of a certain father of the Christian church who claimed that it was all right to lie for his god...) weakens the assumptions further. The best we can do with someone who is claimed to be one of the most important people that ever lived is to sloppily forge something and shove it in a respectable historian's work and pretend that nobody will ever notice the difference larger than ebonics and the Queen's English in writing style, date it to a more recent period, and be left with no choice but to throw it out entirely?

You believe it's historical because you believe that it is true. You believe it's true because you believe it's true. Circular logic works because circular logic works because circular logic works because... ?

Look, it has no sources, no backup, no support from legitimate texts that weren't written by the same group that wrote the current text, glaring contradictions with itself and every *credible* source we have... only Christians who already assume its accuracy use it as a source of any kind, and they tend to get laughed at.

Jeff

[Shawn]

I was raised Catholic. I haven't been to church in years though.

[progmetaldan]

Ultimately any view on this topic is going to be biased by your belief or lack of belief in God, your view on how the universe was created, and whether or not you believe the bible to have been directly inspired by God and therefore to be entirely accurate in its account, from the creation of life in Genesis, through the history of Israel as a nation throughout the Old Testament, through to the life of Jesus and his message in the New Testament, through to the prophesies of the End Times in Revelation. I will try to explain the Christian perspective on some of these issues you raise, but without faith in God obviously its gonna seem silly...

@Ken:

First point: Most biblical scholars agree the gospels were written well after the death of jesus, sometime in the late first century. And like i said before, there's no other historical record of the things that coincide with the birth of jesus. No Herod smashing babies, no pontius pilot setting free prisoners every year. Also, what did jesus do between the ages of 12 and 29? And even if it were written eyewitnesses, where are their credentials? Who's to say that they weren't fooled with magic tricks? We live in a day and age where magicians walk through glass and get run over by steamrollers and survive.

Luke was a Doctor and this is evident in the way that his account is very straight-foward and to the point, John was the cousin of Jesus, and grew up with him, and was later one of the 12 who spent their whole adult lives with him, as was Mark, and Matthew was a Tax-collector... And magicians can't be pronounced clinically dead for 3 days and then come back to life, or control the weather to calm a raging storm... But obviously if you don't believe Jesus was the Son of God, then these could only be discounted as tricks...

Second, Old Testament is somehow more historically accurate? There's no way guy could build a boat that would hold two of every known animal ever. Thats impossible even today, even considering the biggest ships available. How would store food for all of them for a month? How would you make a boat out of wood that would hold both that food and those animals without collapsing in on itself? There isnt enough water to cover the whole earth up to the highest mountain. If there were, the air would become too dense to breathe. If the only family left was Noah's, we're all inbred. Good evening Cousin dan.

Obviously this comes back to how you believe the earth was created, but providing you believe in the bibles account of creation in Genesis, the Ark would definately have been quite adequate... I would ask that you read this article, as it explains the point I'm trying to make much better than I could...

How did all the animals fit on Noah's Ark?

The size and dimensions of the ark have also been recently discovered by ship-builders to be infact the perfect dimensions for a superiorly stable floating ship, and how they could have known that on such a large scale without some kind of divine inspiration is unlikely...

Now, if you say that story is figurative, Then that must mean the bible is figurative. If it isnt, where do we draw the line? One man's figurative is another man's literal? If we acknowledge the old testament as 'figurative', then there's no original sin, and in that case, no need for jesus. Lastly, we could take the old testament as erroneous. which would mean the bible is not infallible, and the work of man.

I definately do not believe it to be figurative, as you're absolutely correct there, that would undermine the entire scriptures, people who suggest it is are just looking for a cheap cop-out imo... I absolutely believe it was a literal event, and again, the fact that most cultures from all around the world seem to have a similar account of some sort of variation on 'Noah's Flood', suggests that we did all descend from the same family who was saved... G'day cousin Ken... And if you're concerned about that being inbreeding, that wasn't a problem until the laws established in Moses time (quite a while afterwards), and anyway, obviously the same thing had to have happened with Adam & Eve's children to populate the earth before the flood... Because the Human genome was much more pure due to less opportunity to mutate, it wouldn't have been an issue with deformities etc either until much later, when it was made illegal...

If you're religious and whatnot, thats all cool. But, i just cant take the bible at face value.

And that's your decision, I'm by no means trying to shove it down your throat, but I do believe in at least presenting why I do believe in it...


@Jeff:

You believe it's historical because you believe that it is true. You believe it's true because you believe it's true. Circular logic works because circular logic works because circular logic works because... ?

Look, it has no sources, no backup, no support from legitimate texts that weren't written by the same group that wrote the current text, glaring contradictions with itself and every *credible* source we have... only Christians who already assume its accuracy use it as a source of any kind, and they tend to get laughed at.

I'd be interested to know where you're getting your facts about it having wrong dates, contradictions etc. from, its cool if you believe that, but in a way its no different you're having 'faith' in those saying it didn't happen (seeing as that you weren't there yourself), and it goes the other way also, a lot of people don't believe its historical, because they don't (or don't want to) believe that its true etc.

Sorry for the long post...

[zimbloth]

Who would win in a fight: Lemmy or God?

* zimbloth awaits the answer

[progmetaldan]

Probably depends on who you ask... :P