Why is Faith a Virtue?

very well. but your opinions do not change the truth.

My characterizations were focused on the politics of the United States and the Bush neo conservatives who are thus far refusing to sign the Kyoto accords. They are with the help of the political pulpits of such as Pat Robertson exploiting people's faith for political ends and they are getting wealthier as a result.At this time I am sketchng out a theory of faith that sees life in all its forms taking risks against the chance of the environment to annihilate it or fail to support it. I'm thinking that the function of organisms could be described as faith, or that life lives in faith.By the time we encounter civilization and writing we also encounter what Maurice Berman calls the Sacred Authority Complex which in his writings he often abbreviates as the SAC. Here religion and the priest class are used to encourage, enforce, or control a large population of people into a functional social conformity but civilization has its price which can be very high. With the developement of the SAC faith comes into service of the SAC and the rulers. Faith is now in the authority of the state and its high priests and is used to further obediance. Such was clearly the function of Judaism.Early Christianity was different, but note it wasn't until Constantine adopted Christianity as an instrument of the state that it came to dominate Europe and it did this by political control and oppression of all it's competitors.The original Christianity looked to the end of the state, the world actually. That didn't happen. It has survived as a typical Sacred Authority Complex.lfen

Do tell. But it is quite possible that my judgment is rather good and has in fact identified the truth.

There are lots of stories recounted in the books chosen for the Bible. Which same story are you referring to?And who killed Goliath?lfen

.This is such a bunch of nonsense. There were no doubt disadvantages to Constantine's making Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, especially later on when the church had completely abandoned its Biblical foundation and become a political power, but that was a gradual development and eventually the Reformation overcame most of its influence. And most of the tyranny exerted by the Roman church in its worst periods was against other, usually more genuine, Christians, not some other competing religion.But as far as spreading the gospel goes in the early centuries, all Constantine's Christianization of Rome did was put an end to the persecutions of the Christians, and gave them enough breathing space to go preach it.And what on earth do you think Europe was at that time anyway? A bunch of primitive heathen tribes in constant war with one another basically, with various tribal gods of their own but no organized culture let alone religion. Constantine's actual influence in Europe was limited to some skirmish or other with the Goths unless I am seriously misremembering, and the Goths in fact were the longest holdouts of all the European tribes in accepting Christianity, finally getting Christianized around the year 1000. I can look all this up if my memory is failing me here. The farther north, as a general rule, the longer the holdouts. But Ireland was Christianized as early as the 2nd century already, and was sending out its own evangelists that early.In other words what competitors and what control? The gospel was spread MOSTLY by evangelists in all those first thousand years. In a case or two kings who were convinced of the gospel made all their subjects Christian, but that wasn't the power of the Roman empire, that was the local kings. And there was no Roman empire in Europe after Constantine anyway. Europe just went back to being the dark continent it had always been, until gradually the church's influence spread and monasteries became centers of learning and very very slowly the whole miserable bunch of warring tribes got more or less civilized. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Mat 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Mat 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
Mat 7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Mat 7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Mat 7:20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

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David killed Goliath. You keep asking that and I assume you have some revisionist notion that he didn't but I haven't been following the topic. What, you want to put your revisionist notion against my historical belief? For what purpose? The same story is the one story that tracks from Genesis through Revelation. The revelation of God and His plan of redemption of the human race.

Well, you are correct that what we know as modern Europe was largely barbarian at that time.I should have said the Roman Empire. Italy is a part of Europe. Later the influence spread north as civilization moved into those areas and the Catholic Church initially played a very important political role in the European civilization that grew out of the Roman empire in Italy and it's now Christian state religion.lfen

Well, what about the passage in 2 Sam. 21:19?Brettler is giving careful reading to the Bible. Yes he contradicts the traditional glosses on the text by his exact reading. You can call that revisionist sure, and a good thing that someone is paying attention to the details.That the Bible is without contradiction is as much a folk tale as the story of the giant killing that was inserted into the narrative in Samuel by as a yet unknown hand. It's not history it's folk legend perhaps of the same sort as the story about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. A fiction that was composed to recommend always telling the truth in an age that didn't seem to have appreciation of irony.lfen

So in the Roman Empire Christianity was forced on the people and drowned out the old pagan relgions? Well, since the pagan religions through the power of the Caesars had been killing Christians for the previous 300 years, why not? In any case what force? After Constantine Christianity was allowed to grow and paganism got shoved aside. But pagans weren't thrown to the lions or made into living lamps to light Caesar's gardens as the Christians had been. After the fall of Rome there wasn't much civilization left in Italy TO spread through Europe because of the waves of barbarian invasions. What spread civilization was ONLY the church, which grew as it gathered believers, and in fact my impression is that civilization pretty much had to be invented from scratch in Europe, but grew out of the influence of the gospel more than any other influence. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh brother. The Bible has been gone over for 2000 years with a fine tooth comb by its followers, and every jot and tittle argued out thoroughly, but only some modern revisionist debunker "is paying attention to the details."

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2Sa 21:19 And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew [the brother of] Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear [was] like a weaver's beam.

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Matthew Henry writes, of the battles with the giants in general which is what this passage is about:

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II. The rest of the giants fell by the hand of David’s servants. 1. Saph was slain by Sibbechai, one of David’s worthies, v. 18; 1 Chr. 11:29. 2. Another, who was brother to Goliath, was slain by Elhanan, who is mentioned ch. 23:24. 3. Another, who was of very unusual bulk, who had more fingers and toes than other people (v. 20), and such an unparalleled insolence that, though he had seen the fall of other giants, yet he defied Israel, was slain by Jonathan the son of Shimea. Shimea had one son named Jonadab (2 Sa. 13:3), whom I should have taken for the same with this Jonathan, but that the former was noted for subtlety, the latter for bravery. These giants were probably the remains of the sons of Anak, who, though long feared, fell at last.

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The contradictions people find in the Bible are usually just the product of their unfamiliarity with Hebrew and the customs of the time. Family members are often identified by the name of one, and sons may really be grandsons or even great great great grandsons. You have to understand the culture and the context, which Christian theologians have studied in great detail. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Well if you came to believe in God and were told by someone "Here's the Bible - its his word" and you went off and read it and found that the person described (and talking) therein was the same as the person you had come to know then you would have good reason to trust other things that he said that you didn't know by personal revelation. Knowing something of a persons character is one way to crosscheck on whether what is being said fits with what is already established. (Hence the expression "out of character")

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Or, you are so desperate for confirmation of your desires for God to be real that you give a lot of weight to the "hits" you encounter in the bible and downplay or ignore the "misses".Subjective emotion is hardly a "cross check" of facts, Ian.It's confirmation bias at work here.

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Whilst people in those days weren't tecnological this is sometimes extrapolated to infer they were less intelligent than we are.

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I never said they were less intelligent.Quite a lot less sophisticated in certain areas, of course, but not less smart.What you seem to be forgetting is that the Bible was written in the Jewish scholarly style, which makes liberal use of symbolism, metaphor, and parable. It is a teaching tool, not a history or science text.

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A person dies and is laid in a tomb for a number of days in the heat. People then, as now, would pretty well know (and smell) what death is. Then the guy is called out from his tomb by a man named Jesus. Now either there was some fiendishly clever conspiracy going on which made people bury a man who was actually alive - or the man was raised from the dead.

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Its not the kind of thing you make mistakes about. But they could be lying of course. But lets suppose they were innocent of lying until proven guilty. And seeing as there is no empirical evidence, proof we do not have nor shall we ever (this side of the grave/2nd coming)

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Well, right.All you have is blind belief.

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66 books by different authors that support each other and further one story as they do is wonderful self-authentication.

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So any bunch of writings that I find from many different authors who all agree with each otehr as much as the Bible does you would consider self-authenticated?

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And I couldn't care less if all the historians in the world are wrong. I recognize the truthfulness of these writers.

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Sorry, I'll never meet your standards. Hopeless I guess.

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Apparently you are not interested in meeting any sort of worthwhile standard.Perhaps then you will stop claiming that the Bible is historically accurate if you refuse to subject the Bible to normal, common sense historical verification.

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There is secondhand eyewitness testimony, which is all any of the written testimony is.

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You mean, "hearsay"?LOL!