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300 OT prophecies fulfilled by Jesus the man-god. The problem is that it's the Bible that gives the prophecies and the Bible that says they were fulfilled!
The NT authors knew the OT prophecies for a messiah and wrote the NT in such a way as to make it appear that those prophecies had been fulfilled. Easy!
There was a nather interesting discussion on Christianity about the three days in the tomb. prophecy. It is clearly down to matthew again taking a prophecy about 3 days in in the whale or great fish and asserting that Jesus fulfilled it by being three days in the tomb.
It was perfectly amazing to see how how the apologists wriggled like severed worms to try to make last thing Friday, Sabbath and Sunday morning into three days. Even using the Jewish reckoning 'evening to evening' doesn't help. Even if you Had Jesus not rising until the same time that the tomb was opened, that is still only the last hour or so of Friday, all the Saturday Sabbath ans half Sunday (evening to Dawn) which is only a Metaphorical 3 days.
From early times people believed that the earth was flat and the center of creation, too. That the heavens revolve around us and if you got too close to the edge of the earth you would fall off was common accepted knowledge. They believed this because to the uneducated mind these things seemed obvious. And yet as our level knowledge has grown we have discovered that what seems obvious often actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual truth. There was a time when the existence of a supernatural Being seemed to be the only reasonable solution for existence. We can now see scientifically however that everything that occurs does so for entirely natural reasons. The problem of course is that some people prefer to remain ensconced in ancient superstitious ignorance. Those are the people most likely to have their faces eaten off by declaring their reliance on religious faith rather then medical science. One way to look at it, is that this natural selection at work. You do have to feel sorry for the children who die because their parents were ignorant gullible fools however.
That people believed the earth was flat is a myth created because of the war between religion and science. It is often associated with Christopher Columbus as being the scientific explorer who went out to prove the Catholic Church wrong in their regard of the earth being flat. Columbus succeeds in proving the earth was not flat, thus science trumps over religion. It is a myth atheist use in the same fashion today.
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If God put laws into place, and God is omnipotent, then how could we possibly break His laws?
How do we break the law of gravity? Laws are put into place for our benefit, it does not mean we cannot break them.
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There are natural laws in effect, this is true. And these laws CANNOT be broken. Except that of course we in a sense break the law of gravity constantly by flying. We have learned, through the acquisition of knowledge, what is and is not possible.
You mean of course we are learning.
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Gravity works as it does because mass attracts mass.
For reasons that make sense at the level of quantum mechanics. But gravity is also the weakest of the known forces. We overcome gravity every time we lift something. So, people jump off of high cliffs regularly, and do it for sport using parachutes and ultralight gliders. What this represents is a demonstration of what knowledge, understanding the laws of physics (nature), can accomplish. Remaining in the grip of ancient superstitious ignorance DOES NOT accomplish these sorts of advancements.
I agree, but why do you limit advances in knowledge to only to the sciences? As a Christian I am always looking for advance (if I can use that word) knowledge of God and his ways. We are told to seek, ask and knock, the problem is most of Christianity hold to the view that a book written 2000+ years ago holds all the knowledge of God we need. This causes stagnation of growth in much the same why as if the scientific world stopped exploring evolution after Darwin wrote on evolution of the species.
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Bacteria is the oldest form of true life known. It's billions of years old. Bacteria is in fact responsible for most of the free oxygen in our atmosphere. We couldn't survive without bacteria. And over those billions of years bacteria has evolved and diversified into billions of different strains. You are suggesting that this particular strain of flesh eating bacteria was in fact created by humans. On the one hand that could be a possibility. But on the other hand you just made it up. Billions of strains of bacteria exist naturally and are constantly evolving. Nature works at a slower pace than humans, but nature has a huge head start.
However you cannot discount mans evolvement in the cause of flesh eating disease or any other disease. If a surgeon does not wash his hands before fixing a cut would that not cause a bacteria infection? If one eats spoiled meat would that not cause a bacteria infection? How do we know that the flesh eating disease was not because of something man did to either themselves or to another as in the case of the surgeon.
In 1871, a Confederate army surgeon named Joseph Jones first described the disease during the Civil War. By 1918, the cause of the disease was identified as a bacterial infection. It was named "necrotizing fasciitis" in 1952, from necrosis, which means death of a portion of tissue, and*fascia, which refers to the fibrous tissues that enclose and connect the muscles.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, cases of NF occurred only sporadically and usually remained restricted to military hospitals during wartime, although some civilian population outbreaks have also occurred. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, worldwide, rates of NF increased from the mid-1980s to early 1990s. Increases in the rate and severity of NF are associated with increases in the prevalence of toxin-producing strains of*S. pyogenes*(M-1 and M-3 serotypes). In 1999, approximately 600 cases of NF were reported in the United States, according to the CDC.
Pasted from <http://www.jyi.org/issue/when-bacteria-go-bad-the-case-of-necrotizing-fasciitis/>
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Scientific investigation is simply interested in discovering how things work. What humans do with the knowledge is all on humans.
You can't really believe that. Scientist created biological weapons for the express purpose of warfare. I guess you could say they just wanted to see how well they could kill people.
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Balance out the fact that the very same book justify's hacking to death helpless women and children and babies with swords, and I would suggest that we need to start all over again with a better book.
Was it to be taken literally or via mythos.
Example: I am told to kill my enemies. Now I could go out and literally kill my enemy or I could make my enemy my friend therefore in effect killing my enemy.
That people believed the earth was flat is a myth created because of the war between religion and science. It is often associated with Christopher Columbus as being the scientific explorer who went out to prove the Catholic Church wrong in their regard of the earth being flat. Columbus succeeds in proving the earth was not flat, thus science trumps over religion. It is a myth atheist use in the same fashion today.
How do we break the law of gravity? Laws are put into place for our benefit, it does not mean we cannot break them.
You mean of course we are learning.
I agree, but why do you limit advances in knowledge to only to the sciences? As a Christian I am always looking for advance (if I can use that word) knowledge of God and his ways. We are told to seek, ask and knock, the problem is most of Christianity hold to the view that a book written 2000+ years ago holds all the knowledge of God we need. This causes stagnation of growth in much the same why as if the scientific world stopped exploring evolution after Darwin wrote on evolution of the species.
However you cannot discount mans evolvement in the cause of flesh eating disease or any other disease. If a surgeon does not wash his hands before fixing a cut would that not cause a bacteria infection? If one eats spoiled meat would that not cause a bacteria infection? How do we know that the flesh eating disease was not because of something man did to either themselves or to another as in the case of the surgeon.
In 1871, a Confederate army surgeon named Joseph Jones first described the disease during the Civil War. By 1918, the cause of the disease was identified as a bacterial infection. It was named "necrotizing fasciitis" in 1952, from necrosis, which means death of a portion of tissue, and*fascia, which refers to the fibrous tissues that enclose and connect the muscles.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, cases of NF occurred only sporadically and usually remained restricted to military hospitals during wartime, although some civilian population outbreaks have also occurred. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, worldwide, rates of NF increased from the mid-1980s to early 1990s. Increases in the rate and severity of NF are associated with increases in the prevalence of toxin-producing strains of*S. pyogenes*(M-1 and M-3 serotypes). In 1999, approximately 600 cases of NF were reported in the United States, according to the CDC.
Pasted from <http://www.jyi.org/issue/when-bacteria-go-bad-the-case-of-necrotizing-fasciitis/>
You can't really believe that. Scientist created biological weapons for the express purpose of warfare. I guess you could say they just wanted to see how well they could kill people.
Was it to be taken literally or via mythos.
Example: I am told to kill my enemies. Now I could go out and literally kill my enemy or I could make my enemy my friend therefore in effect killing my enemy.
It might help if you could explain your criterion for which parts to take literally and which to consider myth or allegory. I believe this is essential so that we can understand what you believe and why.
It might help if you could explain your criterion for which parts to take literally and which to consider myth or allegory. I believe this is essential so that we can understand what you believe and why.
I can explain it for you.
Homosexuality is a sin = literal. Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor. = allegory....
...or to put it another way.
Anything that you like and want to follow = literal.
Anything you don't like and don't want to follow = allegory.
Yes. The two donkeys is down to Matthew misreading the OT scripture and not understanding it. It is the same with the "Virgin birth" prophecy. They are all down to Matthew not understanding his Hebrew.
The Egypt prophecy is a particularly interesting one. The OT relevance is to the Exodus of course and to relate it to Jesus being taken to Egypt is a bit of a stretch. But one could say that this may have been a mistake of Matthew's, but the story could still be true.
It takes a comparison of all the parts of the story, compared to Luke's contradictory nativity and the tacit denial of any Nativity by Mark or John. The whole point of the flight to Egypt is just to get Jesus out of Judea and then we get the extremely shoddy plot of a divine summons back "All clear - you can come home now"-ah sorry, his son is on the throne, so you'd better go to Galilee where another Herodian is ruling. The whole story being arranged to get Jesus out of Bethlehem of Judea into Nazareth of Galilee.
Of course excuses can be thought up - There was a huge Jewish presence in Egypt so why wouldn't Joseph go there? Antipas wasn't deposed until after Jesus' time, so he wasn't as 'Bad' as Archelaus. But there was no way to know that at the time of Joseph's supposed return.
The massacre of inocents is excused as being too minor an atrocity for history to notice, but the point is that none of the other gospel writers notice it either - or anything that Matthew says. Matthew also Finds another prophecy about that 'Rachel weeping for her children' which is (and it is rather amusing that an atheist has to point this out) a metaphor relating to the obliteration of the two northern tribes by Assyria.
And the whole thing is contradicted by Luke, anyway.
What absolutely astounds me--I mean really astonishes me--is that you can show Christians these clearly trumped-up "prophecies" in black and white--I mean point to the Bible and say, "See! It's not about Jesus, it's about Israel. It says so right there!" and they will just continue to insist, "No! No! It's about Jesus. I don't care what the rest of the verse says about Israel. That part is about Jesus!" How do you deal with a mentality like that? When I was a Christian I at least was willing to look at the other side and say, "Okay, let's see what they have to offer" and then when I saw the evidence against a Jesus of Nazareth was overwhelming I was willing to give it all up on the basis of the evidence. But some of these Christians!! Nothing, I mean NOTHING will persuade them the Bible is wrong, no matter how obvious the errors and misrepresentations are.
This is exactly why theologians invented the concept of "double prophecy"--"It's about Israel, yes, but it's a double prophecy; it's also about Jesus". They've even gone to "triple" prophecies in some cases to try to stretch these things far enough to reach Jesus when it hasn't got the slightest thing to do with a person, much less Jesus.
This is why the Harry Potter example I raised is so apropo. Picture the Harry Potter books being written back in 50 CE. 100 years later when JK Rowling and the Harry Potter disciples are all dead someone starts preaching that HP was a real wizard who could perform all these magic tricks and raised from the dead and we should worship him and then he will confer eternal life on us. Four hundred years later a dictator passes a law saying everyone will worship Harry Potter under pain of death. So we all convert to Harry Potterism. 2000 years later Potterism is the most prevalent religion in the world and we have churches like the First Assembly Church of Harry Potter. I see no difference between Harry Potterism and Christianity. It's the EXACT same concept.
Keep working at this one old prune, you have a potential another post of the decade here..
Ah! My dear old fart...you're up at last. Not before time I might add. I am back refreshed after my sojourn in my beloved Wales and full of fight for the cause! How goes the battle my dear old sausage?
I agree that Paul was talking of a spiritual resurrection for Jesus (which is simply the messianic spirit going back to heaven) which is what the disciples taught him, as distinct from the solid body resurrection that would happen at the last days.
We agree, amazing isn't it.
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However you want to use the term "mythos". If Paul thought it was a real event "Mythos" to me isn't the right term. "Mythos" means to me something that didn't happen but is a metaphor, symbolic story or parable of something considered to be true.
A mythos is used to explain a spiritual application. Many people ( to many, Christians and atheist alike) read the bible with nothing other then as it being literal. The example I gave earlier about killing ones enemies should suffice to show the difference. The barbaric ignorance everyone is found of throwing around come in when people take what is spiritual as literal, thus they think God actually commanded the killing of ones enemy. In other words people who hold to a literal understanding ( be they Christians or atheist) still retain barbaric ignorance.
Paul states
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which*vail*is done away in Christ.
In that scripture you should be able to see the barbaric ignorance that is still present today when reading the OT and that vail is only taken away in Christ.
That is why we are told to take every thought captive to Christ; and if it does not line up with the view Christ has of the Father (the view of Love) then it is not to be understood literally, but spiritually.
We are given a standard by which we are to test these things out, *1 Cor 13 and Galatians 5:13-26 as Mystic has so often pointed out and people refuse to use or understand. They would rather retain their the barbaric literal understanding then to even contemplate the thought that much of the scripture is written in Mythos or has a spiritual application if the word mythos is to hard for people to grasp.
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Now if you take the resurrection stories as "Mythos", then we are disagreeing only on the rather speculative claims of spirits and cosmic consciousnesses.
Your understanding of mythos differs from mine, try spiritual application instead, might be less confusing.
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My word we are coming down to a very metaphorical god indeed. More the best impulses (why not the worst?) that reasoning humans can come up with. And for me I wouldn't worry too much about the motivation of people doing the good out of a feeling of self worth. It's better for me than peddling religious twaddle because it makes them feel justified.
Again try spiritual instead as you are using your own definition of mythos instead of mine. Word definitely can be confusing.
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Again - you can hardly blame me for talking about the god everyone seems to be peddling. If you have a different concept, explain it and we'll discuss that one. Increasingly it seems to be little more that the reason we can reason.
That is exactly why I have said in the past atheist have a fundamental mind set, it is all you have ever heard so I can't blame you for having one. It is also the reason I and a few others here are having such a hard time speaking on the things we believe, because not only do we have to deal with the points you guys bring out we have to keep correcting you as to what we believe. It is like fighting to battles at once.
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'So to speak' rather covers up that some animals are a lot more widely social that you would like to admit. Right now I would say that few (if any) have the ability to see outside the Tribe to the to the need for species co -operation, but even with our reasoning and complex society, it's taken us long enough to get there. And I don't see any help from the divisive them -and-us god of either Testament (whether as purported history oir Mythos).
And that is because you have the fundamental mind set.
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But if you say by 'God' you just mean the best thinking and impulses humans can have, you can use the term. I prefer not to, and I certainly see no reason to see it as some existing entity outside of the human mind.
No I do not mean just that, however the best thinking and impulse humans have comes from God.
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Carry on not existing and having all the evidence seeming to point that way will do fine. We'll do the rest.
Ok so what evidence do you have that there is no God? All I have seen so far is people saying there cannot be a God because of this or because of that.
It might help if you could explain your criterion for which parts to take literally and which to consider myth or allegory. I believe this is essential so that we can understand what you believe and why.
Aj in my post to trans I covered it in part, here
A mythos is used to explain a spiritual application. Many people ( to many, Christians and atheist alike) read the bible with nothing other then as it being literal. The example I gave earlier about killing ones enemies should suffice to show the difference. The barbaric ignorance everyone is found of throwing around come in when people take what is spiritual as literal, thus they think God actually commanded the killing of ones enemy. In other words people who hold to a literal understanding ( be they Christians or atheist) still retain barbaric ignorance.
Paul states
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which*vail*is done away in Christ.
In that scripture you should be able to see the barbaric ignorance that is still present today when reading the OT and that vail is only taken away in Christ.
That is why we are told to take every thought captive to Christ; and if it does not line up with the view Christ has of the Father (the view of Love) then it is not to be understood literally, but spiritually.
We are given a standard by which we are to test these things out, *1 Cor 13 and Galatians 5:13-26 as Mystic has so often pointed out and people refuse to use or understand. They would rather retain their the barbaric literal understanding then to even contemplate the thought that much of the scripture is written in Mythos or has a spiritual application if the word mythos is to hard for people to grasp.
However I also believe that the sciences can help with understanding what is literal and what is mythos.
One of the problems (the biggest one imo) we face today is fundamentalism. Fundamentalist of any kind whether religious or atheist state things that I can easily see as coming right out of the mouth of Hitler.
The Christian fundamentalist say things like you are going to be eternally tormented in fire if you don't believe exactly like we do. The atheist fundamental state things like religion is that cause of all the evils in the world and we must destroy region at all costs.
Do you really see any difference in statements like the above?
Now from what I gather most atheist will also state they are humanists. But do statements like the above sound like something good for all of mankind?
Dawkens open the God delusion with the song by Lenin, basically stating imagine there was no God.
Ok go ahead and imagine that scenario and the impact that would have on much of humanity.
It would take away there hope of the hereafter, take away all the comfort they get from the belief they will see their lost loved ones again etc. Can you also imagine the depression that would set in? can you also imagine the suicide rate that could easily follow the depression?
How is any of that a humanistic view?
Is not a humanistic view suppose to be for all humankind?
Fundamentalism at it core is nothing more then demanding everyone believe like they do or by hell and high water watch out.
For myself the more humanistic view is that which S.J Gould brings out concerning Non-Overlapping Magisteria. If you have read Gould you will know what I am talking about.
For myself I see no reason the sciences and religions cannot co exist in a peaceful fashion.
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