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Opinion vs what the vast majority of biblical scholars say...snip....
90 AD would be many decades after Jesus' supposed death.
Which is what I said.
And as I understand it, it was Constantine's collection of biblical "scholars" about 300 years later who attributed the authorship of which fragments of parchment to whom.
And nearly 2,000 years later, there's still a few people - mostly in the southern US - who think those "scholars" of 1700 years ago could decide who was channeling god and who wasn't.
I'm gonna differ from some of the others here in that it doesn't console me much to think that a good 84% of the world is delusional, even if they keep it to themselves.
If you believe something is true, you should have a reason
If you have a reason, you should be able to defend it reasonably well.
In light of new evidence, you should reform your hypothesis.
I find it very difficult to simply ignore blatant offenders of these points. It's immoral and dishonest.
Well if they "keep it to themselves" then it is, presumably, not blatant in most cases.
I also prefer to think of it as "illusional" rather than "delusional". Even though "illusional" is not a word ;-)
I think it SHOULD be a word though because it more accurately reflects that no one is totally without illusions. I'm not. You're not. It is great that you and I have shed some particularly troublesome and common illusions, but we dare not think that just because we've done that, we're beyond deception and above the fray.
I'm not even sure it's possible to be totally illusion free. Certainly it's possible to be free of all that you are aware is illusory ... but you can't free yourself from what you aren't even aware of, either.
I certainly agree that your list quoted above is one good way to guard against illusory / misleading thinking (and, of course, outright delusion).
90 AD would be many decades after Jesus' supposed death.
Which is what I said.
And as I understand it, it was Constantine's collection of biblical "scholars" about 300 years later who attributed the authorship of which fragments of parchment to whom.
And nearly 2,000 years later, there's still a few people - mostly in the southern US - who think those "scholars" of 1700 years ago could decide who was channeling god and who wasn't.
You can't make this stuff up, folks.
Sadly....
Bolded: you suppose Jesus did not die until later than 30AD?
As to fragments: "Almost all Biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the First Century. If Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30., then that means the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned--people who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the First Century that contest the New Testament texts.
Furthermore, another important aspect of this discussion is the fact that we have a fragment of the Gospel of John that dates back to around 29 years from the original writing (John Rylands Papyri A.D. 125). This is extremely close to the original writing date. This is simply unheard of in any other ancient writing, and it demonstrates that the Gospel of John is a First Century document".
Bolded: you suppose Jesus did not die until later than 30AD?
As to fragments: "Almost all Biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the First Century. If Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30., then that means the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned--people who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the First Century that contest the New Testament texts.
Furthermore, another important aspect of this discussion is the fact that we have a fragment of the Gospel of John that dates back to around 29 years from the original writing (John Rylands Papyri A.D. 125). This is extremely close to the original writing date. This is simply unheard of in any other ancient writing, and it demonstrates that the Gospel of John is a First Century document".
Bolded: you suppose Jesus did not die until later than 30AD?
As to fragments: "Almost all Biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the First Century. If Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30., then that means the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned--people who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the First Century that contest the New Testament texts.
No one is contesting the dating of the NT manuscripts as being first century.
You are overlooking a number of things however. First off the gospels were penned a couple of generations after the events of Jesus' ministry, and given the life expectancy of people in that era that is plenty of time for MOST of the adult eyewitnesses to have died or become doddering oldsters. For those who remained, this was a very different society than ours with very different public discourse, no libraries, no media, and almost no literacy. It is not like Jesus' next door neighbor would be likely to encounter a copy of the Gospel of John in his lifetime or would know how to read it, so that he COULD challenge it. Or that anyone would listen to an illiterate commoner over a published author.
Secondly you are overlooking the vast difference in how Jesus was depicted by Paul several decades before the canonical gospels were penned, and what he chose to appeal to for authority and legitimacy of his claims -- not to Peter and other living eyewitnesses, but to a private, heavenly vision. Paul's sketchy depiction of Jesus as an almost non-corporeal being looks to have been substantially fleshed out by the gospels, showing that the Jesus legend (and Christian orthodoxy) was evolving during those decades.
I don't think I believe that. I see into the hearts of many atheists, and I see the exact opposite. I see so many atheists, actually living like Christ; and doing it better than many Christians are. This is NOT a hate on Christians post. I am one. It's just what I see.
This is what I honestly what I think about Christianity:
I don't believe in the Bible. I don't believe in the God represented on the printed page.
IF there is a God and IF that God is truly loving, forgiving, and truly the source of goodness, then he is not going to kick me into a pit of fire where I will be tortured forever because I am simply incapable of believing.
Incapable is the operative word. My lack of belief is not some act of rebellion. I'm not stomping around like some ticked off teenager refusing to clean my room. My brain is simply incapable of believing in Christianity (or any other religion) based on the evidence (or lack thereof) at hand. There are literally hundreds if not close to a thousand different reasons why I cannot believe and my position on this is VERY well thought out.
I could sit here all day wanting to believe, but my desire, even if that desire were present, doesn't change the fact that logic, evidence, science, and reality all tell me that the Christian religion is bunk.
That does NOT mean that there is no God.
And as I said ... if there IS a God, I am not afraid of being punished for being an atheist, for a truly good, just, fair, and FORGIVING God will not punt me into a lake of fire for simply being who I am. I do my very best to live a good life, to be a decent, caring, moral person. I do not always succeed, and where I have failed, I have always made amends, asked for forgiveness, and never walked away from my failings until that failure was fixed. If there is a God, I don't believe that God needs worship and praise like some petty egotist, a god you'd expect from the ancient past. I believe that a REAL God would be above such nonsense.
Would YOU feel comfortable if people worshiped and praised YOU? I believe that a truly good God would be equally uncomfortable and even disgusted by such displays of platitudes. He would be too humble for that. After all, did Jesus walk around in elaborate clothes and a jeweled crown? Did he demand that people bow and kneel at his feet whenever he walked into a room? Think about it.
This idea of "worship me or burn in hell" was something added later to threaten people to keep butts in the pews. In fact, the Bible, in fact, Christianity itself, is filled with nonsense that doesn't have anything to do with God ... everything from suicide being a sin to the evils of contraception.
In addition, one major reason why many atheists ARE atheists is because the God of the Bible is wholly immoral. The atrocious things God has done in the Old Testament are inexcusable, worse than all of the dictators and supreme leaders of the world combined. No Hitler, no Stalin, no Pol Pot can hold a candle to the horrible, blood soaked atrocities committed by God. And yet we are asked to believe that this very same God is the very source of love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and justice.
Well, that's simply not possible. And ... if what many Christians say is true and that God is God and therefore he can do what he wants, that means that God can lie to us, cheat us, and deceive us, as well. It means all of his promises of Heaven, a beauteous afterlife, seeing our loved ones again ... all of it, all of your expectations, might be one big lie.
IF there is a God, it is not the God most people worship. It is a God much more noble, regal, and truly good. It is a God that does not seek worship and praise, a God that would never DEMAND love and threaten to torture those who refuse to bow at his feet -- even those like we atheists who simply cannot even if we wanted to.
IF there is a God, then I believe that those who worship gods from the pages of a religion are all looking in the wrong direction; they are worshiping characters from ancient myths and stories and I feel that is easy to prove. Unfortunately, religion is so embedded into our various cultures, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu, among others, that it is nigh impossible to convince anyone of that proof.
I continue, most every day, to post at least once, my rather fervent opinions on why I think religion, especially fundamentalist religion, has harmed our society in so many ways, but I know, with a rather sad heart, to be quite honest, that many of my words either preach to the choir or fall on very deaf ears.
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