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Originally Posted by Ilene Wright
Yeah this is all new to me so like I said before, I think I believe in a God/Creator that is love and light but that's as far as it goes.
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Why do you need to believe that?
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Originally Posted by LindavG
Yes, this is a stereotype of atheism that is really not justified. Many theists argue that atheism is cold, devoid of meaning, not in awe of nature, no morals, etc.
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I don't see how. Perhaps because people confuse religiosity with spirituality. I'm an atheist and I suppose if I was an astronomer or astrophysicist, I might find spirituality in the universe, but I'm not a physicist and find it in the woods and seas instead.
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Originally Posted by LindavG
To be honest, before I really studied atheism I used to believe this too.
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I've never studied "atheism" and don't see how you could. I merely embarked on a quest for the truth, which required extensive research, reading and investigating. None of the reading I did involved reading what other atheists wrote. All of it was ancient texts and biblical criticism from peer-reviewed professional journals.
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Originally Posted by LindavG
There is no basis at all to claim that atheists are any less moral than theists, looking at predominantly atheist societies in Western Europe there is a lower crime rate, less drug use, less teen pregnancies, etc. than in the much more religious USA.
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That's for sure.
One of the reasons I reject god-things is because I am morally superior to any god that has been proffered for worship thus far.
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Originally Posted by KingDavid8
Personally, the main thing that keeps me from moving from Christianity to Agnosticism is that I find the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus to be too compelling. Either it happened, the earliest Christians knowingly lied, or they falsely believed it to be true. Each is, in a way, an extraordinary claim, considering that the earliest Christians were, by all evidence, telling people about this stuff pretty quickly and the Gospels were written in the same century as the events, by people no more than one or two removed from actual witnesses, if not witnesses themselves. But of the three ideas, the only one that has a lick of evidence for it is the first, that it happened. If it had just been one or two people claiming Jesus was resurrected, then I could perhaps buy that they were lying or mistaken. But there were clearly a lot of people, very close to the events, that believed it so strongly that they were willing to face persecution for their beliefs. I have yet to hear a compelling argument for the idea that they were lying or mistaken. And even if I heard a compelling argument, I'd still like to see some evidence for that argument. All I know is that the argument I buy is not only compelling, but all of the available evidence favors it.
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Early Christianity was a liberation theology. You with your leprosy or gimp leg or as a slave working in the fields or your really horrid lot in life could believe and then your horrid lot in life would be replaced by something beautiful and you get to walk with Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven.
That's a very powerful theology, so sure, they'd be willing to suffer persecution since the end justifies the means.
In the same way, many view Islam as a liberation theology. You wouldn't, but someone, say someone in Africa who had their arms hacked off by a machete would easily buy into it. Why do you think Sunni Muslims (but not Shi'a Muslims) are willing to strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up?
You would never buy into that, but then you live in the materialistic Western World, right? Your world view would have a lot to do with your acceptance of a religion.
There were no forced mass conversions to Islam in the Balkans. The Romanians didn't convert, and neither did the Serbs, or Greeks, or Croats or Slovenes or Bulgarians, but the Bosnians did.
Why? Why was there a mass conversion to Islam by the Bosnians only, and nowhere else?
The Catholic Church did a really poor job of teaching the tenets, and so Catholicism never really took hold and Eastern Orthodoxy was punishable by death under Catholic rule, so when the Bogomils come rolling through the area, the Bosnians saw Bogomilism as a liberation theology, but then the Bogomils were wiped out by the Catholics, and then the Ottomans came through, and the Bosnians saw that as a liberation theology, and then you had political, economic and social stability under Ottoman rule so it stuck.
That's why the Bosnians converted
en masse, but no one else did (except for one group in Albania). You had political, economic and social stability in Romania, Bulgaria, the Banat, the Voivodina, Serbia, Croatia and elsewhere.
In Albania, you had two distinct cultures, one in the lowland plains and the other up in the mountains, and one culture converted
en masse to Islam and the other did not, for nearly the same reasons the Bosnians converted.
Anyway, liberation theology has a very powerful effect where certain political, economic and social conditions exist.
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Originally Posted by Ilene Wright
What I was trying to say is that I was trying to still follow the Bible, since I thought that was what I was supposed to do, and that UR is indeed completely biblical in the sense that the belief can be backed up with scripture.
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Why do you need to follow the Bible?
Aren't you human? Don't you have a brain? Why can't you use logic and reason? You know in your heart what is right, and what is wrong, and you can see through the consequences of any action you might take to its resulting end, and you know if that end will cause harm to you or others, whether that harm is physical, emotional or both.
And if such actions would cause harm to you or others, then you don't do them. You don't need a Bible or religion to tell you that.
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Originally Posted by KingDavid8
I see no problem with questioning it, but I'd say the Jesus story stands up to questioning better than, say, Noah's Ark does. The Jesus story was written by people quite close to the events, certainly within the same century, who clearly believed it really happened, and I've seen no evidence suggesting it didn't happen. Noah's Ark was written centuries after it supposedly happened by people many generations removed from the supposed event, and I think it's quite likely that it was intended by its author to be a parable. And we have strong evidence that a flood of the level the story describes did not happen at that time in history.
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That's superficial.
I have a unique perspective, mostly because of my experience as a detective sergeant and private investigator.
I see a system of power, controlled by the Pharisees with influence from the Sadducees. I see marginalized groups, like the Essene Sect who are marginalized because their views and beliefs are different.
I see a hoax perpetrated. A plan by the Essene Sect to usurp and wrest control of power from the Pharisees and Sadducees. An hero will be "sacrificed" and come back to life, and people will abandon the Pharisees and Sadducees to join the Essene Sect.
Jesus and Judas were members of the Essene Sect, that's why Jesus was able to "prophesize" his own "death" because he knew the plan.
Jesus goes to the Temple, over-turns the tables of the money-changers and then goes to the garden and waits to be arrested. Judas, is supposed to turn in Jesus. That was part of the plan. Crucifixion is not a death sentence. We know that from reading texts and actual documents of the period. Dozens of people were crucified more than once for crimes committed, and a handful crucified more than two times. We also know you could be sentenced to crucifixion from sunrise to midday, midday to sunset, sunrise to sunset, sunrise to sunrise and so on.
We know that opium grows abundantly in the region and that it was used as a medicine for 7,000 years prior to the birth of Jesus. We know that opium depresses the central nervous system, and slows respiration and heart-rate.
We also know that opium is an alkaloid, and that alkaloids are bitter and that Jesus was given "bitter water" on a sponge while on the cross. I would suggest to you that was opium, and that it made it appear that he was dead, when in fact he was not.
We know they make it a point to let everyone know they did not break his legs. We also know Nightshade grows abundantly in the region, and that the roots of the Nightshade plant were used as a medicine for 7,000 years before the birth of Jesus.
Today we call the concoction made from the roots of the Nightshade plant "atropine." The military uses atropine injectors to combat the effects of nerve agents, because they depress the central nervous system. Atropine is a stimulant.
I would suggest Jesus taken away and given "atropine" to counter the effects of the opium he was given, and then rest for a few days to regain his strength.
And then what does he do? According Luke and Mark he is wandering around Jerusalem in disguise, wearing a kayiefh so that he cannot be recognized and he's spying and eavesdropping on people's conversations. When he discovers they are allies, ie "followers" he reveals himself to them.
He was trying to learn if the "revolution" was a success. It wasn't. It was a failure, so Jesus flees to Damascus where he allegedly "blinds" Saul of Tarsus who has uncovered the hoax and is hot on the trail to hunt the still living not dead Jesus down.
A lot of blatant contradictions in the gospels. One says Jesus and Mary Magdalene embraced, but John quite clearly contradicts that by saying that as Mary went to hug Jesus, he said "Do not touch me for I have not yet ascended."
Jesus doesn't want Mary to touch him because she'll figure out he isn't really dead, and then too, I suspect he was trying to protect her from harm.
Fundamentalists and evangelicals make a big deal about the "post-resurrection appearances" by Jesus. There's a "Bible Book of Lists" that claims he made around 37 such appearances.
But the critical reader will see through that propaganda.
5 of those alleged appearances are before his disciples. So it isn't 37 it's 33. And then 3 were before Mary Magdalene, so it isn't 33 it's 31 and so on and so on until you realize that it is one event described by four people which makes it one event not four separate events, and then four people retelling and event that already took place and so on, until you add it up and find that he only makes about 11 or 12 such appearances.
And before whom does he appear? No one of any consequence. Appearing before your followers is like preaching to the choir.
Why doesn't Jesus appear before Pilate? Or appear before the Pharisees? Or the Sadducees? Or why doesn't he appear before the Elders at the Temple? Or before
Legio VI Ferrata or Legio X Fretensis (the 6th Roman Legion and 10th Roman Legion on duty in the area at the time)?
Because he
can't: he's not dead.
If Jesus appears before Pilate, Pilate will kill him for real this time. If Jesus appears before the Pharisees or Sadducees, one of their guards will run him through with a spear or sword and kill him for real.
He can't appear at the Temple for the same reason: the mob would drag him out and kill him for real.
And of course he can't appear before the Legions.
Jesus can't stay in the area, because he's not really dead and if someone discovers him, he will be dead for real, and so he flees, heading through Damascus, probably on his way to India.
That's more plausible than the contradicting stories in the gospels.
Ever seen a dead body? I have. Lots. Dead people don't bleed. I find a body in a swimming pool and there's a gun-shot wound to the head. Obviously the person committed suicide and the body fell into the pool, right?
Wrong.
Someone drowned the person and then shot them in the head to make it look like a suicide. How do I know? Because dead people don't bleed.
That would be my first clue that something was amiss.
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Originally Posted by oberon_1
Is that all you have learned from the Bible? Or you skipped school that day?!
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I learned not to laugh at or make sport of bald men, because god will send a group of bears to maul and eat me.
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