Blind faith

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sniffy said:
I am reading the bible. I have a rough idea why he done what he did, doesn't change the fact he could have been deluded by a mental illness.

Bit of a silly comparsion you've made there about remembering a metally ill person from 200 years ago. He managed to convince a lot of people about his beliefs. So? That also doesn't change the fact he could have been mentally ill.

If I wrote more beautiful poetry than Shakespeare but I was mad as a tree, would I not be remembered? Of course I would.

how many mentally ill people manage to persuade more than a handfull of people what they are saying is right? NONE! 2000 years ago why woudl that be any different, if anything back then, mentaly ill people would have been shunned from society even more so than they are today!

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The reason, the sole purpose of him coming to earth, was to die for everyones sins. He died for our sins so we could be forgiven.
 
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jezsoup said:
how many mentally ill people manage to persuade more than a handfull of people what they are saying is right? NONE! 2000 years ago why woudl that be any different, if anything back then, mentaly ill people would have been shunned from society even more so than they are today!

You're kidding, right? hmm..Hitler comes to mind...so do the thousands of cult leaders out there and terrorists like Osama
 
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gurusan said:
You're kidding, right? hmm..Hitler comes to mind...so do the thousands of cult leaders out there and terrorists like Osama

Mentally ill? Idiots with crack pot ideas which the majoity of the people rumbled in a relatively short time, nne are still followed hundreds of years later by masses of people.
 
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jezsoup said:
Mentally ill? Idiots with crack pot ideas which the majoity of the people rumbled in a relatively short time, nne are still followed hundreds of years later by masses of people.

There are many cults with thousands of followers. 2000 years ago the world was a much smaller place and a cult like one of these could have DRAMATIC influence on the whole course of history.
 
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Sleepy said:
So you don't have any evidence to back up your claim of contempory evidence. Why am I not surprised by this turn of events.

Quoting individual snippets from the NT as if they were independant from each other in the validity of their source documentation is dishonest.

The fact that the gospels tell roughly similar stories is not indicitive of proof, merely that they were selected cos of their similarities. Though even though the evidence is pretty conclusive that the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark as the foundation of their work, merely adding to that gospel, material that conveyed the message that they wanted to tell.

Then there is the fact that even though they originate from the same source, they differ wildly in certain important details, such as last words, who found the empty tomb, who else saw the risen christ etc.

Its interesting that Pauls letters which predate the gospels and were written at a time when JC contempories still lived do not refer to a physical resurrection but to a spiritual one and he does not use Judas as an example of a betrayor in his lectures even when to do so would seem a natural inclusion, if of course at that time Judas was thought of as the betrayor and this isn't a later invention, btw how did Judas die?

Your bible theology shows that you've probably done a 'bit of googling to substantiate a weak argument. In 1 Peter, Paul writes about the physical resurrection of Christ. Paul would not ultimately have known what Jesus' goal throughout his life would be. Paul also mentions the resurection appearances in 1 Corinthians.

If there is no evidence that the Bible is real or that Jesus rose from the dead, how can their be evidence which shows the writers of the NT used Mark as the basis for their findings? You've used the two source approach as an argument. Didn't see that classic coming! :rolleyes: ;)

The NT documents have been proved to be 99.5% textually pure, no other written documentation pre or post the NT can claim an accuracy level anywhere near this.

Another thing that amuses me is this. There is no contradictory historical information concerning Jesus' resurrection. Whilst this doesn't prove anything, when the gospels were written, people contemporary to the described events (Jews, Romans, etc.) could have easily written something refuting or correcting the resurrection account. No such writings exist.

Also the fact that the empty tomb was found by woman (in Patriachal Jewish Society the testimony of women was regarded as higher than religious leaders) although not allowed in a court.

Paul also banks on the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15:6, when he mentions Jesus' appearance to the 500, "most of whom are still living." Since the eyewitnesses were still alive, it would have been foolish for him to make such a bold and easily disproved claim without confidence in its accuracy.

Finally, the accounts do not ommit important details more small details and its worth noting its only ommission not contradiction. An example of such:-

Matthew 28:1 lists Mary Magdalene as the first to see the resurrected Christ, whereas Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:5, lists Peter as the first witness to the resurrection. This apparent contradiction is easily reconciled when the purpose of Paul's account is properly understood. In this particular letter, he is defending the resurrection from an official and legal standpoint, and so gives an official list of witnesses (women would not be included in this particular cultural setting, since their testimony was not allowed in court). It makes sense, then, that he would mention Peter as the first official witness to the resurrection.



I could go on.
 
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Homeslice said:
In 1 Peter, Paul writes about the physical resurrection of Christ.
Shame that Paul didn't write 1 Peter.
Paul would not ultimately have known what Jesus' goal throughout his life would be.
WTF
Paul also mentions the resurection appearances in 1 Corinthians.
No he doesn't, he mentions those that claimed to have witnessed something but doesn't actually detail what they witnessed.
If there is no evidence that the Bible is real or that Jesus rose from the dead, how can their be evidence which shows the writers of the NT used Mark as the basis for their findings? You've used the two source approach as an argument. Didn't see that classic coming! :rolleyes: ;)
Textual analysis reveals the fact of Matthew and Luke relying on Mark. Its not exactly controversial, its why the three are known as the synoptic gospels. And its a classic cos of the strong evidence for its truth. BTW Just cos something is based upon a flaw does not invalidate any criticisms of how it came to be.
The NT documents have been proved to be 99.5% textually pure, no other written documentation pre or post the NT can claim an accuracy level anywhere near this.
Rubbish, and also irrelevent.
Another thing that amuses me is this. There is no contradictory historical information concerning Jesus' resurrection. Whilst this doesn't prove anything, when the gospels were written, people contemporary to the described events (Jews, Romans, etc.) could have easily written something refuting or correcting the resurrection account. No such writings exist.
err it proves that many of the events in the NT didn't happen otherwise there would be evidence in the works of writers whose words have survived. So no vast crowds Mk15:8, no eclipse Mk 15:33, no zombies Matt 27:15 not even a mention of JC by any writers living in Jerusalem at that time, either in works that have survived to the present or by mentions in later works.

Also you assume that there would have been a need for the authorities to put out anti JC propoganda at that time. But for many years xianity was simply the nazarene cult, one of many jewish cults that existed in 1st C Palestine. After the time Paul turned it into a gentile religion and it grew to a significant size it was many decades later and then anti JC writings do appear. But they too are not contempory.
Paul also banks on the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15:6, when he mentions Jesus' appearance to the 500, "most of whom are still living." Since the eyewitnesses were still alive, it would have been foolish for him to make such a bold and easily disproved claim without confidence in its accuracy.
I've allready said that Paul does not detail what was seen merely that many saw something. This isn't a description of a physical resurrection, they saw something but exaclty what is not detailed. You are also applying modern standards and expectations to Paul, its very unlikely that poor people living in Palestine, and holding to a minor cult would hear about the details of a letter written to people living in Greece.

As to what this group experienced, well ignorent peseants have got to be the most gullible and suggestable audience going.
Finally, the accounts do not ommit important details more small details and its worth noting its only ommission not contradiction.
There are many many differences, such as final words, first witnesses (I think Pauls mysogeny is a more realistic reason why he would have ignored female witnesses, ignoring the role of the women in treating the corpse, something that a man wouldn't do), the order of witnesses etc These are not trivial differences
 
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Homeslice said:
My argument is that if you research the crucifiction and the resurrection and the documents and facts surrounding it (other than the bible) you may be surprised at what you dig up.

Care to post any links or ISBN numbers that contain these apparently well documented and overwhelming factual proofs of the miraculous rise from the dead? Or is it a load of bullflop as I thought?
 
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Joe42 said:
Heres the definition of faith:

Atheism is the belief that the world was not created by a supreme being, because there is hardly any evidence that suggests that it was and because there is a staggering amount of evidence to suggest that it wasn't. There's no faith involved.

I have no faith in anything, because faith is a ridiculous thing. Why would anyone believe in anything which has no evidence to support it?
So where's your evidence that there are no deities/supreme beings in existence? As Carl Sagan once said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Atheism is a faith. Sorry.
 
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Sleepy said:
Shame that Paul didn't write 1 Peter.
, Opps, my bad, I meant to write Peter, not Paul. Meh!

Thats right, Paul was for a large part of his life anti JC, did you not know this?

Rubbish, and also irrelevent
No its not and anyone who can 'rubbish' such a claim needs a dam good reason as to why no historical accounts are as textually pure as the Gospels.

Also you assume that there would have been a need for the authorities to put out anti JC propoganda at that time
No I don't. The simple answer for all of this would have been for the Authorities to produce a body which would have silenced all the weirdos of the day who claimed to have seen Jesus. They couldn't. Why not? They couldn't well say the body was stolen as we've been down that part and its been disprooved countless times over.

The writing of Paul and the Gospels are all dated to within at least 15 years of the crucifixtion, some even 7 years.

Why would 12 men, scared, doubting, fearing death suddenly get together and go "Oh alright then, lets crack this religion thing and start up Christianity"? - Something pretty extraordinary must have happened within days / weeks of the crucifixtion for this to occur. Surely when this extraordinary man (JC) died, the teachings of such a religion would have stopped had it not been for the resurrection. The 'movement' would have died with him condisering the 12 had trouble understanding the teachings of JC whilst he was alive.

These are not trivial differences
But they are NOT contradictions. I have four newspapers sat here on my desk talking about last nights riots at old Trafford. Shock horror, all of them have at least one difference.

Its true to note that the "benefit of the doubt should be delegated to the document itself, not arrogated by the citric to himself".

Pauls lack of a physical resurrection is no bother. The Gospels each detail a physical approach by Jesus to his disciples. Oh but wait, maybe this was a group hallucination ;). I suppose also when Thomas touched the wounds of Jesus that this was also indeed some spiritual guise, but Paul never implies a spiritual resurrection. He uses the word 'egeiro' which means 'to awaken'.

Matthew, Luke and John state that Jesus appeared physically.

Matt. 28:9 says "they clasped his feet." Luke 24:39 says "Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have them." John 20:27 says "Put your fingers here; see my hands." These same gospels also describe raising as 'egeiro', which is the same term Paul used.

Matt. 28:6-7 says "He is not here, he has risen (egeiro) just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. He has risen (egeiro) from the dead." Luke 24:6 says "He is not here, he has risen (egeiro)!" And John 21:14 says "...he was raised (egeiro) from the dead." The point is clear, the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke saw no contradiction in affirming that Jesus was alive bodily and physically with the word egeiro as used by Paul.

In Mark's record of the empty tomb a source is used which originated before AD 37. Scholars know this because the high priest is referred to without using his name. Caiphas (the high priest during Christ's death) must have therefore still been the high priest when this story began circulating since there was no need to mention his name in order to distinguish him from the next high priest. Caiphas' term ended in AD37, so that is the last possible date for the source's origination. The evidence for the empty tomb is so near to the events themselves that it is hard to argue that legend could sweep in and replace the hard core historical facts.

Can we tango some more? I'm enjoying this greatly :D ;)
 
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Joe42 said:
No he doesn't. Faith is the belief in something regardless of a lack of evidence.
He has, as do all other atheists, an almost infinite quantity of high quality reproducible evidence which suggests that a supreme being does not exist. All he does is compare this to the complete lack of evidence for the existence of a supreme being. He doesn't preach, he doesn't ask you to believe in anything, he simply presents the evidence that is there and asks you the question 'why do you believe in this when there's so much evidence against it?'.

You haven't read the god delusion then, or many of his essays. Dawkins dooes preach. And also what evidence do you have for the non-existance of a supreme being. Are you putting your faith in the idea that the absence of evidence is the same thing as evidence of absence?

There's no faith in science, and there's no faith in atheism. Everything scientists and atheists believe and do is based entirely on logic, reasoning and evidence.
There's no 'third way'. Either you have evidence for the existence of something, or you don't.

Do you have any idea how many fundamental assumptions for science are unproveable, or how you have to take certain logical ideas to be true (again without evidence) in order for your stance to make sense. You're actually making a faith based assertion about logical positivism in your statement above. (the 'there is no third way') idea. For that to hold any water, you have to have faith that your method would definitely reveal evidence should it exist, and that your absence of evidence is therefore evidence of absence. Given the limits of the scientific process, and that science was not designed to provide such evidence, that's a leap of faith right there.

The only logical or rational belief is actually agnosticism, not atheism. It's the old unopenable box analogy. If you can't open the box, you can't say what, if anything, is inside it. To say "I've seen no evidence of anything inside it, therefore it's empty" is just as illogical as saying "it contains this". The only stance with any basis in logic is that we don't know what's in the box.
 
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Dolph wins. :cool:

Joe42: It might be worth investing time to discover we have moved forward a bit more from Aristotelean logic. Something can be true or false, but it can also be a maybe. ;)
 
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Van_Dammesque said:
Atheism is a faith, the same way bald is a hair colour.

Are you saying that atheism of the type Joe42 appears to be expressing doesn't fulfill all the criteria for faith, or indeed to be a virus of the mind?

The strong belief in the unproven, the absolute unshakeable conviction in the assumptions that allow him to reach that belief, the insistance that his stance is rational and makes sense and is correct, even when it's not actually supported by any evidence he's been able to present?

Sounds very much like a faith to me.
 
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Dolph said:
Are you saying that atheism of the type Joe42 appears to be expressing doesn't fulfill all the criteria for faith, or indeed to be a virus of the mind?

The strong belief in the unproven, the absolute unshakeable conviction in the assumptions that allow him to reach that belief, the insistance that his stance is rational and makes sense and is correct, even when it's not actually supported by any evidence he's been able to present?

Sounds very much like a faith to me.

Maybe he believes that the proposition of god has to be proven first before even an agnostic approach can be taken since the proposition of a god is quite a claim.

Maybe the logical position is atheism since the proposition of god is initially a manmade construction. The universe shows not one piece of evidence (looking as far away as galaxy clusters) of any god and so our perception of the natural universe around us has been consitisent, not to mention other gods that have been proved false in the meantime.

I beleive it is fruitless for a debate if the the propositioned god is not defined, since the believers can simply move the goalposts at any given time within the debate.

Do we have a virus of the mind if we are athiestistic about the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster, etc...?
 
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Van_Dammesque said:
Maybe he believes that the proposition of god has to be proven first before even an agnostic approach can be taken since the proposition of a god is quite a claim.

But a very very old one, rather than one you can easily trace the history of. That makes it different from your usual examples of the tooth fairy, FSM etc which have a known provenance and history. Remember that Atheism isn't simply about disproving one god (for example the christian one) and claiming you've done the same to all.

Maybe the logical position is atheism since the proposition of god is initially a manmade construction. The universe shows not one piece of evidence (looking as far away as galaxy clusters) of any god and so our perception of the natural universe around us has been consitisent, not to mention other gods that have been proved false in the meantime.

What proof do you have that it's entirely a manmade construction though? And you again seem to be confusing scientific theories (ie the simplest way something could have happened) with fact (what actually happened) if you take the idea that the evidence shows no evidence of God. What science actually shows is that, based on our models, god was not a requirement for something to have happened, which is different from saying god had no part in what happened, unless of course, you have faith that the simplest model is the factually correct one (something science doesn't actually claim).

I beleive it is fruitless for a debate if the the propositioned god is not defined, since the believers can simply move the goalposts at any given time within the debate.

In order to research it scientifically, you'd have to both define it and ensure that you could measure it, however, if you get the definition wrong, how can you know your evidence gathering techniques are appropriate?

Do we have a virus of the mind if we are athiestistic about the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster, etc...?

See above, comparing an idea with known history vs an idea without (god(s) are far more than christianity, and have been around much, much longer) isn't a valid or useful comparison.

As for the Virus of the mind, Dawkins certainly appears to, given his own list of symptoms, Joe42 would too ;)
 
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Homeslice said:
, Opps, my bad, I meant to write Peter, not Paul. Meh!
Not that the Peter of the NT wrote 1 Peter either, its dated 40 - 80 odd years later and written by an educated man in greek. Not the usual description of an uneducated illiterate fisherman.
hats right, Paul was for a large part of his life anti JC, did you not know this?
Yes, I didn't get your point in your post above.
No its not and anyone who can 'rubbish' such a claim needs a dam good reason as to why no historical accounts are as textually pure as the Gospels.
Cos for a start the claim itself is wrong, the 99.5% claim is relative to what? 4th century manuscripts. Which is hardly surprising given the power the church has had between then and now. But what about earlier manuscripts than that? Missing ressurection narrative from Mark alone would torpedo the 99.5% figure.

Implicit in this claim is that copyiest accuracy implies reliability. Which is unproven and at face value is unlikely to be true. And if its true for the bible then it must also hold for other documents that calim infalability through accurate transcription such as the quran. So if the bible is gods word cos of your claim then so is the quran, and that is a mutually exclusive proposition.
No I don't. The simple answer for all of this would have been for the Authorities to produce a body which would have silenced all the weirdos of the day who claimed to have seen Jesus. They couldn't. Why not? They couldn't well say the body was stolen as we've been down that part and its been disprooved countless times over.
Your position is simply wrong, you cannot argue that cos something didn't happen that this implies that your position is thus proven. I've allready demonstrated that there was no need for the authorities to mount a counter to claims of JC resurrection cos the nazarene cult was insignificant. It is not mentioned in writings detailing other jewish cults operating in Palestine during that period, it was too small to matter. And with its leader dead it would be decades before it had enough support to come to the attention of the authorities. And lets be honest its not as if producing any body would have been difficult, and given that CSI Rome was not a popular entertainment back then. Proving that one decaying body was not that of JC would have been impossible.

The writing of Paul and the Gospels are all dated to within at least 15 years of the crucifixtion, some even 7 years.
Another claim that you fail to produce evidence for. Here's an excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia, those well know pagens
Catholic Encyclopedia said:
Source

It seems much more reasonable, however, to believe that Irenæus was mistaken than that all the other authorities are in error, and hence the external evidence would show that Mark wrote before Peter's death (A.D. 64 or 67).

From internal evidence we can conclude that the Gospel was written before A.D. 70, for there is no allusion to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, such as might naturally be expected in view of the prediction in xiii, 2, if that event had already taken place. On the other hand, if xvi, 20: "But they going forth preached everywhere", be from St. Mark's pen, the Gospel cannot well have been written before the close of the first Apostolic journey of St. Paul (A.D. 49 or 50), for it is seen from Acts, xiv, 26; xv, 3, that only then had the conversion of the Gentiles begun on any large scale. Of course it is possible that previous to this the Apostles had preached far and wide among the dispersed Jews, but, on the whole, it seems more probable that the last verse of the Gospel, occurring in a work intended for European readers, cannot have been written before St. Paul's arrival in Europe (A.D. 50-51). Taking the external and internal evidence together, we may conclude that the date of the Gospel probably lies somewhere between A.D. 50 and 67.
Now I can produce many other similar passages written by xian scholars, none of whom date the gospels to earlier than AD50 and some to as late as AD120. The earliest physical evidence is a scrap of John (p52) dating to ~125AD (100 -150AD)

Homeslice said:
But they are NOT contradictions. I have four newspapers sat here on my desk talking about last nights riots at old Trafford. Shock horror, all of them have at least one difference.
I don't know what dictionary you use but having different versions of the last words of the most important person in a religion, spoken in front of many witnesses is in my book a contradiction, and a big one at that too. and I also maintain that the other instances I mentioed are also contradictions that arose partly as each gopsel was written to response to the ever increasing mythology that was arising around the events in the tomb and parlty due to differences in source materials available to the writers.

In Mark's record of the empty tomb a source is used which originated before AD 37. Scholars know this because the high priest is referred to without using his name. Caiphas (the high priest during Christ's death) must have therefore still been the high priest when this story began circulating since there was no need to mention his name in order to distinguish him from the next high priest. Caiphas' term ended in AD37, so that is the last possible date for the source's origination. The evidence for the empty tomb is so near to the events themselves that it is hard to argue that legend could sweep in and replace the hard core historical facts.
Dubious logic at best, dating a document by whether someone mentioned within is refered to by title and not name is not exactly a strong argument. I could simply argue that Mark thought that only reffering to this person by title made his point better than using a name that would still need a title to explain to those not living in Jerusalem who and what Caiaphas was.

As to the idea that 7 years is to short a time for myth to replace fact, we only have to look to modern times to see that people can fabricate elaborate myths regarding the most obvious events within very short periods of time. JFK and 9/11 are two very interesting examples that show that people can produce twisted stories about very well witnessed and documented events. So back in a world with no media and an illiterate population, it would be even easier for myth to replace fact.
 
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Dolph said:
But a very very old one, rather than one you can easily trace the history of. That makes it different from your usual examples of the tooth fairy, FSM etc which have a known provenance and history. Remember that Atheism isn't simply about disproving one god (for example the christian one) and claiming you've done the same to all.
Once you understand the reason why I dismiss other gods you will know why I dismiss yours.


What proof do you have that it's entirely a manmade construction though? And you again seem to be confusing scientific theories (ie the simplest way something could have happened) with fact (what actually happened) if you take the idea that the evidence shows no evidence of God. What science actually shows is that, based on our models, god was not a requirement for something to have happened, which is different from saying god had no part in what happened, unless of course, you have faith that the simplest model is the factually correct one (something science doesn't actually claim).
It is man-made since the dawn of time, sun gods, soil gods etc, etc....
Psychology and neuro-science are leading the way to show that religion is an artifact from our monkey-see-monkey-do instincts. Read Sam Harris's book End of Faith (it is too long of a subject to talk about!)

In order to research it scientifically, you'd have to both define it and ensure that you could measure it, however, if you get the definition wrong, how can you know your evidence gathering techniques are appropriate?

See above, comparing an idea with known history vs an idea without (god(s) are far more than christianity, and have been around much, much longer) isn't a valid or useful comparison.

As for the Virus of the mind, Dawkins certainly appears to, given his own list of symptoms, Joe42 would too ;)

I was merely reffering not only to science but any other method and technique that uses proof or reality, no method has shown the evidence of a god or the need to explain one, I could quite rightly claim it was small banana people that made the universe, no-one would beleive that, no one would be accused of having "faith" for not beleiving in the banana men, so why a protective bubble around religion?
Blind faith is irrational, agnostiscm depends on the concept being plausible, the plausibility of a god is also irrational (I would like to hear a sound logic/rational argument to prove that the idea of a god, which is outside of physical reality, is rational.)

As far as the inappropriate method, that is irrelevent becasue no-one has come forward to say "I am god, test me!". If a diety existed he can interact with "our reality" (whatever that means), if that is so then the diety should influence our reality and hence could be subjected to our tests. If a diety is not defined then any experiment I come up with could be countered with "ahh but my theoretical diety can be exempt from that test!".
 
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