Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

I guess when someone's as wrong as you, obfuscation is their only recourse. This isn't relevant. You claimed that both Luke and Peter claimed that Ananias had lied to the Holy Spirit. The reality is that only Luke claims that Peter said Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit. You have nothing from Peter about whether he ever said anything like that or not. You have only one person, Luke, asserting something, not two. What positive impression can be garnered of a church that murders its congregants for minor infractions. First, the story is made up. It's apocryphal, sending a message to early Christians of the importance of sharing the gifts of their life with the church community. No Ananias/Sapphira couple was ever struck dead by the Holy Spirit, and likely there was no such couple anyway.Second, nothing in Luke's account relates either Ananias or Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit. Ananias says nothing, while Sapphira lies to Peter. Gee, how Catholic of you. According to Wikipedia, "Roman Catholicism counts this fear as one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Proverbs 15:33, the fear of the Lord is described as the 'discipline' or 'instruction' of wisdom."So you're saying that the Holy Spirit not only took into account the supposed seriousness of Ananias and Saphhira's crime, but also that murdering them would have the "salutary effect" of increasing fear of God. Putting the two together (the crime and the need to increase fear of God) the Holy Spirit decided to murder them.My own wisdom is that people should avoid religious flimflam. There is no passage in the Bible where either Ananias or Sapphira lied to God. There's no passage where they ever said a single word to God. I hear the boogey man has first dibs on me.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Apparently all you have to offer is fallacies and bald, unsupported declarations. This is the "Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong" fallacy, plus I doubt "the whole history of Christianity" is of one mind on this point. Obviously the author of the New Testament book known as the Gospel According to Luke was a real person, but whether that author was Luke the Evangelist or even just someone named Luke has scarce evidential support. That Ananias and Sapphira were real people is just a bald, unsupported declaration. Had they appeared elsewhere in the New Testament, perhaps in a Pauline letter, it would have provided at least a bit of support, but as you note, they appear in that one place in Acts and nowhere else. This argues against them being real people. Right, exactly my point. That Peter is mentioned in many places, especially that he is mentioned by Paul himself for whom there is good evidence he was a real person, is fair evidence that Peter was a real person. Ananias and Sapphira have barely any mention at all, and that their story is apocryphal and obviously intended to send a message casts a great deal of doubt on their being real people. Concerning them all being real people, I'd place Peter somewhere between possibly and probably being real, and I'd place Ananias and Sapphira in the "not likely real" category. More bald, unsupported declaration. Actually it's the opinion of a realist against the opinion of a fabulist. If yours and the Church's opinion are on such solid ground, where is the evidence that convinced them of the truth of their opinion? That you call it opinion is telling, revealing you know there's no evidence. I don't know why you're continuing to have this problem with something so simple. Luke does not say they lied. Luke writes that Peter said Ananias lied, and he quotes Sapphira lying. Nowhere does he write anything along the lines of, "Ananias and Sapphira lied." He's telling a story. Yeah, pretty weird since Ananias didn't say a word. This is a weird thing for you to say. The whole point of the passage was that because the early Christians had agreed to share all they owned with one another, that they therefore did not have the right to dispose of their property (and the proceeds thereof) however they wanted. You pretty much do. Peter accuses Ananias of lying to the Holy Spirit when he uttered not a word. Later Peter accuses Sapphira of lying to the Holy Spirit when she only lied to Peter. The whole passage is pretty much of a mess. Actually, a reasonable reading of scripture would include understanding that religious people make up stories.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

The stupidity is all yours, madam. "Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong" is just a familiar (to most people) catchphrase, a sarcastic way of referring to the fallacy that when many people believe something then it must be true. It isn't meant to be taken literally. (Looking it up just now, it traces back to a 1927 song that was also sarcastic. The lyrics are available online if you're interested.) The formal name of the fallacy is Argumentum ad populum.So it wouldn't matter if the whole of all mankind throughout history believed that both Luke and Peter claimed that Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit, a simple reading of the Gospel According to Luke still says they're wrong. Plus there's still no meaningful evidence of authorship, or that Ananias and Sapphira were real people, or that they lied to the Holy Spirit, or that the passage is anything more than apocryphal and intended to strike fear and teach a lesson. So where you've been saying that inerrancy traces back to Christianity's beginnings, you really only mean the 1500's. That's still wrong, but at least you're 1500 years closer to being correct.--Percy

What is the point of repeating the same bald unsupported assertion you've made before. I already showed that Martin Luther didn't advocate inerrancy in Message 154 of the Bible Inerrancy stands against all objections thread:

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If you think Biblical inerrancy was a tenet of any significant sects of Christianity then tell us about them. Even Martin Luther argued that Bible passages must be tested to determine whether they were the true word of God, see, for example, Reformers Did Not Affirm Inerrancy.

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--Percy

It was a bald, unsupported assertion when you first said this, as I pointed out at the time, and it still is. What you actually offered at the time was excuses, incorrect guesses, and pigheadedness: the computer is slow, your eyes give out rapidly, Luther must have been talking about Apocrypha (he wasn't), you would only offer assertions, and you were sticking by the Chicago Statement.If you have an actual rebuttal that you'd like to offer about Martin Luther having argued that Bible passages must be tested to determine whether they were the word of God (as argued in, for example, Reformers Did Not Affirm Inerrancy) then go ahead. But if you still have nothing of substance to say then you shouldn't post. Unsupported affirmations are not evidence.--Percy

I'm sorry, I can't really reply to the other things you explain. I can't get past the idea that apostles murdering church members (or anyone) is merely "troublesome."--Percy

How about this? Ananias "gave up the ghost" and Sapphira "yielded up the ghost" in the KJV, so couldn't they be said to have done it to themselves once they realized what they had done?--Percy

I'm having trouble understanding this, too. GDR and Phat reject inerrancy, but they do believe the Bible captures the general outline of events. But once they begin filling in the blanks and reconciling the contradictions there's nothing to place any limits on their speculations. Faith's inerrancy claim (combined with the everpresent "we can't explain that yet") actually becomes the lesser nonsense.--Percy

As one of the people on "the other side," I'm saying something different. Like all other books the Bible was written by ordinary men. There is no such thing as being "inspired by God," whatever that means. This is the very simple and very obvious explanation for the Bible's many imperfect qualities, including that the person who created enormous turmoil in Roman occupied Judea around 30 AD somehow completely escaped the notice of history, just like Ivanhoe and Don Quixote. There's good reason for it: none of them existed. If by God you mean the Christian God, I assumed he was real just because there seemed no reason to question it. Raised a Unitarian, I never gave religion much thought - I think I stopped attending church around the time Sunday School class no long existed for my age group and I had to begin attending services, around age 12. Though my mind never consciously focused on religion, gradually through my teens I realized that the Christian God couldn't possibly exist and that the Bible must contain a great deal of fiction.I do believe in God, just not the Christian God. But what I believe is meaningless because I have no evidence. You and Faith have no evidence, either, you just haven't figured it out yet.--Percy

I assume Ringo was using the KJV translation, which is clearly saying the exact opposite. And especially when you add 21:26-27 to the quote it becomes even more obvious that it is contradicting the NIV Exodus 21:23 passage, because it talks of giving freedom to servants if in beating them you cause them to lose an eye or tooth:

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²³And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, ²⁴Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. ²⁶And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. ²⁷And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.

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But the KJV version goes on to describe examples more consistent with taking an eye for an eye and so on, such as Exodus 21:29:

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²⁹But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.

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In the KJV the whole passage is a mass of inconsistency that perhaps the NIV attempts to remedy.You next quote Jesus correcting what NIV says, but it actually endorses what KJV says, and it doesn't mention Jesus saying anything about what to do with the owner of the known rambunxious ox.In my mind this whole minute analysis is inappropriate because it gives far more attention to the analysis than was likely ever given to the composition. Exodus 21 is likely a collection of stuff gathered together in one chapter because it was related and not because there was ever any internal consistency.--Percy

While that Tacitus passage is likely authentic, if you ask how Tacitus came by his knowledge it cannot be but by learning what Christians believed. What direct evidence could he possibly have had? Tacitus's source could have been Matthew, since that's the only gospel that mentions Pilate's first name, or it could have come from interviewing Christians, or even just from what was popularly known at the time.Tacitus also gets Pontius Pilate's title wrong, calling him a procurator when he was actually a prefect, while Matthew calls him governor. Tacitus must have realized the title of governor was incorrect, but he wasn't sure of the correct title and chose the incorrect procurator.So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think Tacitus is independent evidence of Jesus's existence.--Percy

Probably true. The Christian movement may have begun with Jews, but the bulk of new Christians, particularly by the time the gospels were written, were probably not converted Jews. Thank goodness we know that no one back then ever lied or was mistaken or made things up, and that there were no mythmaking dynamics. They could only have been writing about actual historical events.In the ancient Middle East the missionary Paul created a network of Christian churches by co-opting the myth of a group led by Peter whose teachings included a Jewish savior who preached about a new kingdom. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD Christianity spread into the empty niche.--Percy

But our understanding might not be too bad. If "by the time the gospels were written" means sometime between 100 and 150 AD then I think most Christian converts were gentiles. See, for example, The failure of the Christian mission to the Jews:

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Throughout the first century the total number of Jews in the Christian movement probably never exceeded 1000 and by the end of the century the Christian church was largely Gentile.

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Why do you think this is something we know? But isn't there a great deal of non-Jewish material in the Gospels? Like for instance all the parts where Jesus introduces non-Jewish theology? I think I cover whether they lied or not or "got it wrong or not" where I say "lied or was mistaken or made things up." I don't think we disagree that which of those are in play in any given passage is a good question. How do you know you're right as you decide which is the case for each passage? However it happened, a new religious movement formed, something not unique to Christianity. All religions had their formative stages. For those invested in the new religion, how can you say there was "no motivation to keep the Jesus message going," particularly for those emerging as leaders. If Paul of Tarsus was a Jew, then it cannot be true that no Jew believed that the messiah would die on a cross. Maybe Paul was the origin of the Jesus story, maybe not. How would you know? Maybe it had some other Jewish or non-Jewish origin. Martyrs are kind of handy for incipient movements. And again, did the Jesus story originate with Paul, or with someone else, or perhaps was borrowed from some now forgotten religious community? Ask yourself how you know this, and then ask yourself how you're defining the quality of life, materially or spiritually?--Percy

That's pretty strong evidence against, isn't it? I'd say Faith's failures in this thread in predicting the rapture and declaring that lying to the Holy Spirit is a capital offense are pretty good evidences against her beliefs. (I'll declare something again to the Holy Spirit: that I've turned over all my worldly possessions to the church (of which this laptop is one, and obviously I still have it). Gee, I'm still here.) When working toward establishing what is likely true and what is not, skepticism is one very helpful tool for insuring an unbroken chain of evidence and rationale.--Percy

For things that are true, the more strict the requirements of evidence the more likely true that something is shown to be. "Brain disorder" might not be the right label, but aren't both gambling and religion built upon hope for a better tomorrow?--Percy