dwise1
Member Posts: 5952 Joined: 05-02-2006 Member Rating: 5.7
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Re: The Ever-Shifting Goalposts of Biblical Validity
However, there is a level of expectation for accepting the authenticity of the Bible that is not expected with that of Aristotle or any non-religious scripture. Does Aristotle demand that we obey his teachings and if not we will eternally tormented in hell? No. Even if the persona of Aristotle was deemed by scholars to be a mere fabrication would this affect anything? Absolutely not. No one's soul is at stake and nothing would change about how we would live our lives. Does Aristotle have to actually exist in order for this persona's teachings (whether originally written by Aristotle himself or not) to be valid? Absolutely not. It may well be fabricated though I highly doubt it based on accumulated, corroborating evidence. Either way it makes really no difference on how we live our lives. Does Jesus pass this test? Can his teachings still stand if never existed? Some teachings may i.e. the golden rule, etc but the entire concept of the Christianity faith i.e. damnation to hell, going to heaven, salvation from sin, etc. would be in shambles if he was not real much less divine. Somewhat what I was wanting to contribute earlier by citing Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, Part II, in which he distinguishes between writings which have inherent worth based on their content and not on their authorship, and those whose worth is derived solely from their authorship. If the latter were found to not have been written by the purported author, then it would be worthless. Paine wrote (my emphasis):
quote:
I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively challenges universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's Elements of Geometry; and the reason is, because it is a book of self-evident demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and of everything relating to time, place, and circumstance. The matters contained in that book would have the same authority they now have, had they been written by any other person, or had the work been anonymous, or had the author never been known; for the identical certainty of who was the author, makes no part of our belief of the matters contained in the book. But it is quite otherwise with respect to the books ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, etc.; those are books of testimony, and they testify of things naturally incredible; and therefore, the whole of our belief as to the authenticity of those books rests, in the first place, upon the certainty that they were written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel; secondly upon the credit we give to their testimony. We may believe the first, that is, we may believe the certainty of the authorship, and yet not the testimony; in the same manner that we may believe that a certain person gave evidence upon a case and yet not believe the evidence that he gave. But if it should be found that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part of the authority and authenticity of those books is gone at once; for there can be no such thing as forged or invented testimony; neither can there be anonymous testimony, more especially as to things naturally incredible, such as that of talking with God face to face, or that of the sun and moon standing still at the command of a man. The greatest part of the other ancient books are works of genius; of which kind are those ascribed to Homer, to Plato, to Aristotle, to Demosthenes, to Cicero, etc. Here, again, the author is not essential in the credit we give to any of those works, for, as works of genius, they would have the same merit they have now, were they anonymous. Nobody believes the Trojan story, as related by Homer, to be true- for it is the poet only that is admired, and the merit of the poet will remain, though the story be fabulous. But if we disbelieve the matters related by the Bible authors, (Moses for instance), as we disbelieve the things related by Homer, there remains nothing of Moses in our estimation, but an impostor. As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things probable and credible, and no farther; for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man and a blind man, in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. We must also believe the miracle cited by Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do not believe them; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to establish our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the Bible or elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief to natural and probable things; and therefore the advocates for the Bible have no claim to our belief of the Bible, because that we believe things stated in other ancient writings; since we believe the things stated in these writings no further than they are probable and credible, or because they are self-evident, like Euclid; or admire them because they are elegant, like Homer; or approve of them because they are sedate, like Plato or judicious, like Aristotle.
And here too, the worth of that paragraph lies not in the fact that it was written by Thomas Paine, the Father of the American Revolution, but rather because of the genius it contains.
Besides even if Julius Caesar and Aristotle were fictional what difference would it make on modern society? None. What if Jesus was fictional? You religion would collapse. Not quite, I'm afraid. On CompuServe back in the day (late 80's to early 90's) there was a curious denizen named Suds, a former mathematician who had to retire when he suffered a stroke, who would offer some rather bizaare arguments, most of them revolving around word-magick (ie, basically, that saying that Reality quite literally is only what we say it is). But there was one thing that he said that did make a lot of sense to me. grep'ing on the spur of the moment, I could only locate what I had written about it on a CS forum in early December 1995:
quote:
[Suds] said that it doesn't make any difference at all to society whether Christianity is actually true or not, but rather it only matters that society had believed it to be true. Christianity had a profound effect on Western civilization because Western society had believed Christianity to be true and so had acted and planned accordingly. Their actions over the centuries had nothing to do with objective reality, ie with whether Christianity was really true or not, but rather had everything to do with their perception of Christianity being true. The same holds true for all other societies and their belief systems. Yet again, we find that we act upon our perceptions, not upon what really is.
Regarding the effects on the history and development of western civilization, it doesn't matter whether the Christ had ever existed or not, nor whether any actual historical Jesus character had ever existed or not, nor whether anything at all about Christianity is true or not. All that mattered was that the people believed that it was true and that the Christ had actually existed. Similarly, even if Jesus were found to be fictional, that would not cause the collapse of the Christian religion. That is, as long as the believers do not realize that he's fictional. Once believers realize that he's fictional, then, yes, the religion will collapse, but not before. Which is why they must fight against that realization. Just at they feel they must fight against evolution, because they believe (quite falsely, as we know) that if evolution is true then their god doesn't exist. Where do I stand? As always, for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Even though they do not seem to be valued much anymore. Edited by dwise1, : had left a word out
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