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C'mon Asheville. Back in those days, they did not have the checks and balances we have today. Hey, you could write a thing called the Bible, come up with all kinds of wild stories and the folks in, say, Papua New Guinea would have no idea how to verify whether they were true or false.
Wouldn't it be funny if we could go a week on the forum without someone asking this exact question?
even better... wouldn't it be something if any of us heathens actually fell for the OP's less-than-subtle fear tactic and accepted their ridiculous religion because of it? That would be even more amazing and unlikely than the bible turning out to be word-for-word true!
Well, it's kind of like telemarketing isn't it? if only 0.00153% buy into the Great Lie, they will have made their spiritual salary for the night. As for those who would actually buy into this fear-based ministry, they deserve it. They will all be in the same lifeboat when it sinks.
Blub blub....aaaanndddd...it's......gone!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplight
I would want to ask God why he provided early Christians with supposed miracles so they would believe, while not giving me the same proof. I'd also want to ask why he never gave me an answer or guidance of any kind when I was a Christian and begged him to fill my heart the way all my Christian friends were claiming he did. Why did he leave me out and then expect me to believe any of it? Why was he so utterly silent with me when he supposedly communicates frequently with so many others?
Very valid point, Lamplight. My feelings exactly! When He knew I was seriously considering leaving the Church at age ≈20 (Which, of course, with no good response from anyone or from God, I eventually did, after considering all the options and so-called "evidence". None given, ever.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by KCfromNC
Finding out most of the world's population is going to be tortured for all eternity - not my idea of entertainment. I'm not sure what exact disorder you need to have for that to be funny, but I'm guessing it's related to killing puppies and kittens as a child.
Yes, it seems the fundamentalist Christians are missing some of the more basic rationality genes. Perhaps I'm right, and we evolved to be very different species.
After all, some animals scratch with their hind legs, and others do it with their minds....
Depends on which brand of the Christian God turned out to be real. There are so many different contradictory ways to get in to heaven that I'd need more detail to answer.
Another valid point. Which version, exactly, Mr5150, are you referring to? After all, surely you're not, for an instant, going to claim there's only one god, one version of mythology and one supernatural reality are you? Really? And of course, it'd be your version, right? Wow! Now THAT'S delusional! Wow!
Quote:
Originally Posted by LookinForMayberry
I am not either of your targeted group, but I still wonder: What are you going to do? It is not within God's Plan that we judge one another, nor that we antagonize non-believers. Are you demonstrating Christ's love with your post?
Tend not to others, you have enough work of your own.
Now that's assumptive, isn't it? Hardly to the OP either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
Oh, I'd have enormous fun hiding behind god's throne and giggling as Christians like Campbell and Allen came forward with huge expectant grins on their faces and watching their jaws drop as god said to them...'Depart from me for I never knew you'.
Just picture it for a moment...I bet it makes you smile.
Made me yowl with laughter actually! Reps. (I'll also bet that god, being bored with this endless parade of simpering acolytes, would welcome some good honest pranking fun. You betcha!! )
I'm also betting he's actually got a latent sense of humor in there somewhere, but it'll take us not-so-heart-attack serious atheists to get it out of him ,and then maybe he'll become a convert!
Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
It made me smile. I wish I could find a skit I wrote wherein the atheists up before God had to admit that they had been wrong and they now believed.
"Ok, under the 'last shall be first' clause, you can go straight in...hang on you Christians, not so fast. First you have to be tested in the fire as per Paul to see whether what you built is true..."
As to the OP, it is a sterile question as asking me what if it turned out that the world was flat and the sun actually went around the earth.' It is so clear the god of the Bible is not believable that it ain't gonna happen.
Phunny to be sure!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nikk
God, the bible and the "stuff" found therein are true. And it is not funny! God is going to destroy those evil people.
I'z shakin' in my "evil" boots! (actually, I've done nothing to be ashamed of, having probably done more to please a mythical God than most of you blithering Christian acolytes who sit at your computers and call us down.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
As you are making the claim that the Bible is true then I'm assuming that YOU are the only person to have found such verifiable evidence. Well I and I'm sure just about everyone alive is just gagging to see it. So 'go ahead punk...make my day'.
The bible is true on the things that can be verified; like physical locations, city locations, historical events like battles. It is true to titles it gives like "man of the island" in Lukes account. Every historical piece of information that has been tested has been proven correct.
Oh really. How vastly and blatantly WRONG! Not worthy of even a half-corrective effort. Come ON NIKKO. COME ON!!! You really think we're that stupid? Or just that gullible?
So, on the basis of the overwelming evidence to what is correct, we can trust it on what we cannot test.
Acheologist use the bible as a guide book to the ancient civilizations if this is not proof enough to its historical/archeological value I don't know what is!
Only a few, BTW. And yet, when they get there, they mostly find ZIPPO, or highly contradictory evidence. so they found an old collapsed house that was mentinboed in the bible. That does not confirm God was there. Only that the author was. You don't see the difference, do you? Well OK... I see how you think. (BTW, where IS that durned ARK?)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr5150
It is Funny how *everyone* has dodged the question.
Not surprising.
And some of you don't really understand Pascal's wager if you think my OP is a repackaged version thereof.
"Dodged"? What's wrong with this next one? Or all the others with humor instilled? (What's wrong with humor, especially when the subject Q is based on a fantasy?)
As for Pascal's Stupid Wager, perhaps it's you who needs to rethink?? The alternatives provided, involving 6-armed elephants, is more than equally plausible, frankly. Or that Satan will be at the "Meet and Greet" cocktail party.
Or most likely... a big fat....
NADA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asheville Native
I'd ask him "what's with all the millions you have murderer, but I see you have done a very thorough job of teaching your follower that murder, hatred, intolerance and atrocities to defend you name is expected."
BINGO answer No. 3. Another perfectly good response!
I do think that perhaps Mr51560 was hoping for a serious answer like:
"I'd fall down on my knees and beg for His Holy forgiveness for my transgressions and sins and lack of blind, gullible, feverish belief in the absence of any signs from you,ever, God. Why was I such a doubter, God? Please, oh please, let me in and then let me go and apologize to the Christian posters I harassed on C-D all those years! Ohh Pleeeeze?"
Like that, Mr51510?
Welllllll... I'll tell you what, son. T'ain't gonna happen from too many of us "damned" atheists here, absent some better supporting evidence. And soon too. I'm gettin' old!And I don't scare so easy now. Especially by fairy tales.
I would ask god why he was such a cruel despot and why he needed people to worship him so bad that he invented them? Is he that insecure? Just likes being cruel? Or just enjoys the ants worshipping at his feet while he stomps on them? And if he is omnipotent and all-powerful why would he need silly little earthlings doing this in order to make him happy?
Bad childhood? Bullied in elementary school? Parental uninvolvement? Then I would gently explain that these things can be resolved with a good shrink, no need to dessimate whole sections of the population in a snit. Really. No need.
Yes they were, by Irenaeus in the second century. The Gospels were anonymous. They were given names by Irenaeus to lend the 'authority'.
Quote:
I have multiple accounts from the early fathers and secular writters that the book of Matthew was written by Matthew for example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nikk
Here are a couple:
"Matthew composed the sayings in the Hebrew language and everyone interpreted as he was able." Papias (60-130)
"Now Matthew brought forth among the Hebrews a written gospel in their language, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and founding the church." Irenaeus (130-200)
"Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a tax collector, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew [or Aramaic] language." Origen (185-254)
So all your "sources" are the fathers of the early Church? Very convincing!!!
Quote:
"For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence" Eusebius
Eusebius??? You mean THIS Eusebius?....
"That it will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a remedy for the benefit of those who require such a mode of treatment"
--Eusebius. (The title for chapter 32 of the twelfth book of Evangelical Preparation)
What scholars say of Eusebius....
The great religious historian, Eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history he carefully omitted whatever tended to discredit the church, and that he piously magnified all that conduced to her glory”
--Robert Green Ingersoll. "The Ghosts". (1877).
"The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion. Such an acknowledgment will naturally excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly violated one of the fundamental laws of history has not paid a very strict regard to the observance of the other; and the suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of Eusebius, which was less tinctured with credulity, and more practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his contemporaries."
--Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0214.03 - broken link), vol. 3 (1776).
"In a book where Eusebius is proving that the pagans got all their good ideas from the Jews, he lists as one of those good ideas Plato's argument that lying, indeed telling completely false tales, for the benefit of the state is good and even necessary. Eusebius then notes quite casually how the Hebrews did this, telling lies about their God, and he even compares such lies with medicine, a healthy and even necessary thing. Someone who can accept this as a 'good idea' worth both taking credit for and following is not the sort of person to be trusted."
--Richard Carrier, Footnote 6 from "The Formation of the New testament Canon"
You bods are quite right that the synoptics are based on a common original. That I tend to think of as 'proto - Matthew', mainly because one of the church fathers, I think Irenaeus (sorry, Jerome) claimed to have seen an Aramaic Matthew in Caesarea. If so, it would have differed somewhat from the present gospels in losing the nativity, Much of Luke's additions, Sinking Simon, the 'Keys of heaven' which is in no other gospel and is pretty much contradicted later on when Jesus says he is 'satan' and later, again that all the apostles had the power to loose or bind in heaven and earth (Matth.18.18).
But Jerome wouldn't been alarmed by it as it contained much of Christian thought. The Sermon on the mount but just as a thomas - like collection of sayings. Quarrels with the pharisees and healings and the trips across the Sea of Galilee, the two transfigurations, the arrest, trial and crucifixion, but not a resurrection.
Nope, not a resurrection, I think. Only what Mark has. An empty tomb and a young man saying that Jesus had got up and gone to Galilee as he predicted.
Good enough to satisfy a Christian, but Matthew and Luke of course had to add extra (and seriously conflicting) accounts including Judas getting his chips and desserts, just as they felt compelled to add 'proof' that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and pretty much showing (to anyone doffing the rose - coloured spectacles of faith) that he wasn't.
Of course, John is another element as his story (though using an evidently similar basis) is not based on 'Proto - Matthew' and it shows up even more additions and contradictions.
However, Paul. He never knew Jesus in the flesh. Initially hostile to The Nazorenes (as the Sadducee quizling sanhedrin was, and THEY were not as pro - Roman as Paul) Paul converted. Why? I don't buy Luke's tall story and I haven't come across anything in Paul to support it.
Paul himself says that it was connected with Damascus and his time in the desert or wilderness. I am not going to spout my 'pet theory' that he went to the zealot Nazorene community at Qumran and came back 'converted'...ah..I just did, didn't I? as I know there is precious little to support that idea.
But I refer to his escaping Damascus when Aretas sent his governor to occupy it and Paul, going to Antioch. finally met the apostles there. While there, he ascended into the Third Heaven (II Cor. 12. 2-3) and had a chat with Jesus who told him just what he wanted to hear - that his fellow Gentiles could share in the promise of Abraham, not through the Jewish Law, which could not save from sin and death, but purely by 'Faith' in Jesus as the risen Messiah.
And one didn't need to eat kosher food or have one's dick mutilated to do it. Paul doesn't say that is what Jesus told him of course, but that is the message he taught from then on and it was further refined and developed as he went on. Which shows that it was out of his own head - which is where he met his Jesus - in - heaven, of course (1).
This visionary meeting with Jesus - not some encounter on the Damascus road - was what he referred to by knowing Jesus as well as the 'super apostles' who had merely known Jesus in the flesh and who knew darn well he'd never advocated bringing Gentiles into the 'Kingdom of God'.
So proto - Matthew came about with the original Jesus story: Disciple of the Baptist, successor as Pretender Messiah, recruiting drive and recognition at Bethsaida (my word I'm revealing my pet theory). Procession (disguised as a Sukkhot Hoshanah procession) and takeover of the temple, arrest and Roman execution and burial on the mount of olives and, if the tomb was empty it wasn't because he'd risen in a god - given, new, incorruptible body with new incorruptible holes still in it.
So there I am and that's in accordance (apart from my pet theory) with the evidence, which I'd say can only be denied by ignoring what's actually in the NT and preferring the reading of later Christian gloss.
(1) I may say that this visionary Jesus is the one he refers to in his references to appearing first to Simon, then others and finally to himself. This tells us that the risen Jesus was first in Simon's own head. None of the others saw him and James last of all, even though James was leader of the Nazorenes - as successor to Jesus - during that time. It may also explain why Luke (Paul's biographer) inserts - alone of the four gospels - that 'Jesus appeared to Simon' (Luke 24.34) while astonishingly not actually describing this remarkable event.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 08-05-2010 at 06:37 AM..
You bods are quite right that the synoptics are based on a common original. That I tend to think of as 'proto - Matthew', mainly because one of the church fathers, I think Irenaeus (sorry, Jerome) claimed to have seen an Aramaic Matthew in Caesarea. If so, it would have differed somewhat from the present gospels in losing the nativity, Much of Luke's additions, Sinking Simon, the 'Keys of heaven' which is in no other gospel and is pretty much contradicted later on when Jesus says he is 'satan' and later, again that all the apostles had the power to loose or bind in heaven and earth (Matth.18.18).
But Jerome wouldn't been alarmed by it as it contained much of Christian thought. The Sermon on the mount but just as a thomas - like collection of sayings. Quarrels with the pharisees and healings and the trips across the Sea of Galilee, the two transfigurations, the arrest, trial and crucifixion, but not a resurrection.
Nope, not a resurrection, I think. Only what Mark has. An empty tomb and a young man saying that Jesus had got up and gone to Galilee as he predicted.
Good enough to satisfy a Christian, but Matthew and Luke of course had to add extra (and seriously conflicting) accounts including Judas getting his chips and desserts, just as they felt compelled to add 'proof' that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and pretty much showing (to anyone doffing the rose - coloured spectacles of faith) that he wasn't.
Of course, John is another element as his story (though using an evidently similar basis) is not based on 'Proto - Matthew' and it shows up even more additions and contradictions.
However, Paul. He never knew Jesus in the flesh. Initially hostile to The Nazorenes (as the Sadducee quizling sanhedrin was, and THEY were not as pro - Roman as Paul) Paul converted. Why? I don't buy Luke's tall story and I haven't come across anything in Paul to support it.
Paul himself says that it was connected with Damascus and his time in the desert or wilderness. I am not going to spout my 'pet theory' that he went to the zealot Nazorene community at Qumran and came back 'converted'...ah..I just did, didn't I? as I know there is precious little to support that idea.
But I refer to his escaping Damascus when Aretas sent his governor to occupy it and Paul, going to Antioch. finally met the apostles there. While there, he ascended into the Third Heaven (II Cor. 12. 2-3) and had a chat with Jesus who told him just what he wanted to hear - that his fellow Gentiles could share in the promise of Abraham, not through the Jewish Law, which could not save from sin and death, but purely by 'Faith' in Jesus as the risen Messiah.
And one didn't need to eat kosher food or have one's dick mutilated to do it. Paul doesn't say that is what Jesus told him of course, but that is the message he taught from then on and it was further refined and developed as he went on. Which shows that it was out of his own head - which is where he met his Jesus - in - heaven, of course (1).
This visionary meeting with Jesus - not some encounter on the Damascus road - was what he referred to by knowing Jesus as well as the 'super apostles' who had merely known Jesus in the flesh and who knew darn well he'd never advocated bringing Gentiles into the 'Kingdom of God'.
So proto - Matthew came about with the original Jesus story: Disciple of the Baptist, successor as Pretender Messiah, recruiting drive and recognition at Bethsaida (my word I'm revealing my pet theory). Procession (disguised as a Sukkhot Hoshanah procession) and takeover of the temple, arrest and Roman execution and burial on the mount of olives and, if the tomb was empty it wasn't because he'd risen in a god - given, new, incorruptible body with new incorruptible holes still in it.
So there I am and that's in accordance (apart from my pet theory) with the evidence, which I'd say can only be denied by ignoring what's actually in the NT and preferring the reading of later Christian gloss.
(1) I may say that this visionary Jesus is the one he refers to in his references to appearing first to Simon, then others and finally to himself. This tells us that the risen Jesus was first in Simon's own head. None of the others saw him and James last of all, even though James was leader of the Nazorenes - as successor to Jesus - during that time. It may also explain why Luke (Paul's biographer) inserts - alone of the four gospels - that 'Jesus appeared to Simon' (Luke 24.34) while astonishingly not actually describing this remarkable event.
That was a very concise and well thought out synopsis...and probably closer to the truth of the matter than most realize.
Whun it though? I learn so much from the objective and credible biblical scholars here! (Well, the rational objective ones anyways. The others? They will post whatever "clipped snippet" suits their particular bent of the moment.)
And as for the truth in such matters? Well... who said Christians were truthful? What author made THAT claim?
purposes
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
You gotta be kidding, right? Even my kids could read Matthew and Mark and see that they are almost identical word for word with some key differences by the latter (Matthew) to correct Mark or to add his own little incredulous accounts that bend reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asheville Native
Plagiarism
Quote:
Originally Posted by boogieman
Plagarism in the bible , no way!
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
C'mon Asheville. Back in those days, they did not have the checks and balances we have today. Hey, you could write a thing called the Bible, come up with all kinds of wild stories and the folks in, say, Papua New Guinea would have no idea how to verify whether they were true or false.
This actually stuns me; that the so-called inerrant books of the bible we were supposed to just believe without question, could have been or were plagiarized and handed down, so to speak. Really, my usual sarcasm set aside for a moment, I AM truly surprised. Any other little surprises I ought to know about as regards the bible's authenticity?
Hang on: I should probably sit down huh?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
Yes they were, by Irenaeus in the second century. The Gospels were anonymous. They were given names by Irenaeus to lend the 'authority'.
So all your "sources" are the fathers of the early Church? Very convincing!!!
Eusebius??? You mean THIS Eusebius?....
"That it will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a remedy for the benefit of those who require such a mode of treatment"
--Eusebius. (The title for chapter 32 of the twelfth book of Evangelical Preparation)
What scholars say of Eusebius....
(snipped for brevity, but then follows an intriguing and extensive list that puts Eusebius in the bright light of reality and truth.... It's interesting that NIKK and no doubt others just buy into it. Of course they do. It suits their solitary, unbending purpose, and to heck with what really happened.)...
That's some 'fine' source you have there Nikk.
So. We're to unquestioningly believe a heavily modified, plagiarized and hand-me-down, totally revisionist and multiple-translated biblical account as "PROOF" of the timeless accuracy of the bible, and thus, to the OP's question (remember that?) we should be very much afraid that we may be wrong?
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