Creationists think Evolutionists think like Creationists.

I'll try and remember that.

I'd say it would be a good idea to start a thread on it because I have never found where NT Wright presents any historical evidence.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

C'mon jar. You didn't have time to read the link. He is an historian and he has written what he considers, (as do I) historical evidence.Why don't you comment on what he's written?

Start a thread on it and I will be glad to join in.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I don't see any evidence given whatsoever at that link. I see a great deal of evidence that early Christians believed that Jesus was resurrected, or at least were saying that he was.And there's absolutely no evidence at that link for an actual historical Jesus. If Jesus never lived, he can hardly be said to have lived again.So far you're just confirming my impression that there's absolutely no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus or the resurrection.

You are a breath of fresh air to us non-believers. Most fundamentalists would say you are a sell-out and sacreligious for stating that the Earth and the Universe is older than 6000 years old. I think Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggart, Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch, Oral Roberts and others of their ilk merit their own category called religious raging lunatics, chronic liars and swindlers. They should not even be mentioned in the same sentance as intellectuals such as C.S. Lewis. I am not that familiar with Timothy Keller and N T Wright, though I have heard there names before. Great book. Not sure if you have seen it, but the movie Shadowlands is a biographical movie depicting his life right before meeting Joy Greshem to after their marriage and then her death. Very touching movie. It has been a while since I have seen it but your mentioning "The Problem of Pain" reminded me of it.I have read through most of his books both non-fictional and fictional including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Peralandra, and The Hideous Planet) and of course the Chronicles of Narnia. I am happy for you. Just be patient with us who are not able to overcome our justified skeptism for all religion, including Christianity. Hmm, this makes no sense if God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenovelent. If he knew all this from the start why would he create humans in the first place, knowing that the vast majority of them are doomed to spending eternity being tormented in hell? Hearsay even from a 2000 year old religious book does not constitute as emperical evidence. Why do you believe the Bible over any other religious book? Or what if a stranger came up to you and told you he died, went to heaven and then came back to life would you believe him? Why or why not? I am, of course, open to discussing this in another thread if you wish. As do most other rational and open minded human beings. Love a human contrived word describing a state of mind subject to emotion and the human intellect while interacting with other humans. So actually you can be provided many different evidences that your wife loves you i.e. she listens to you, she cares for you, she sometimes puts your needs and desires above her own, etc and vice versa. This is debatable and would require an entire other thread to discuss, which I am also open to. It is only evidence that Jesus existed either as the real person described in the Bible, as a real person but not deity, as a montage of religious/historical inter-and extra-biblical figures or as a totally fabricated and fictional Biblical figure with no historical basis. Again this would have to be discussed in another thread. Why? I think you are mixing up theism with deism. Christianity and most organized religions are a subset of theism. Again, whatever floats your boat. However, I suspect you are on this board to help convince some of us non-believers that Christianity is true and accurately depicts reality. To do so, you need to provide rational and logical reasons and emperical evidence why you think this is so. If you cannot than it is mere groundless assumptions and blind belief.Thank you again for your honesty and your ability to rationally discuss these issues. I look forward to our future philosophical, scientific and religious discussions.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Maybe so, but I would contend that they would represent a relatively small minority of the world's Christians and that they are in denial of the teachings of people from Augustine to Lewis as well as with today's major theologians. I have seen the movie Shadowlands. In some ways his life boardered on the tragic. His mother died while he was young and he had a distant father, and that was for starters. Then of course the tragedy of his losing Joy.I have read and own all of those books you have mentioned. Before I started this thread I had started re-reading "The Abolition of Man" and was about 1/2 way through but due to this discussion I have started, as I mentioned, on "The Problem of Pain". Actually that's pretty easy. I'd rather have a discussion where there are areas of disagreement. I'm not going to learn much in a discussion where there is total agreement. John Polkinghorne talks about God creating a world of becoming. He contends that God in the creation of a world of free will doesn't know exactly how the future is going to look but continues to work with us in time. A reading of the OT shows several instances where this is the case. I have been persuaded by his arguments for this position.Also I don't believe that the majority of people will wind up in Hell. Those that wind up in Hell will be those who choose it. You mentioned reading "The Great Divorce". I think that is a great allegory of how that all works. Another good example is "The Last Battle" where the dwarfs' mantra is that "the dwarfs are for the dwarfs". As a result, there they are in this beautiful new creation and they are all huddled together and aren't able to perceive the beautiful world around them. I agree that it isn't empirical evidence in that it can't be scientifically tested, but it is evidence as much as any other historical text. I don't necessarily disbelieve all other religious texts. I read the first 1/3 or so the "Book of Buddha" in a Japanese hotel room and found it fascinating. What amazed me was how close the teachings of the first Buddha were to the teachings of Jesus. It left me with the sense that he could well have been a true prophet of God.However I sincerely believe that the Bible is written with an inspiration that other holy books lack. As I mentioned earlier Christianity makes sense of the world for me in a way that no other world view does. I agree that is a completely subjective view and in the end it does require a leap of faith. At this point in my life I don't see it as a large leap, but a leap nonetheless.I agree that the idea of the resurrection is something that we don't see every day, but of course I'm only talking about it happening once so far in human history. Even sceptical scholars that I have read agree that the early disciples believed that Jesus had been resurrected, and I believe that they weren't mistaken.Nothing momentous, but there have been occasions in my life that things have occurred that seemed to be of God. I am as well except that there are only so many hours in the day and it can suck up a lot of time. In addition every time I get in these discussions it turns into a debate over the nuances of one word or another, which I find frustrating and time wasting. I love discussing these things, but I'm less keen on a debate just for the sake of the debate. My understanding is that rational means coming to a conclusion by means of reasoning. I'm just saying that when the complexity and fine tuning of our universe is considered it is more reasonable to assume that there is an external intelligence than to assume the lack of one. Once again, that is my subjective view. I believe that you have to be a theist in order to be a deist. Theism just means that you believe in a creator god, which would include the god of deism which is a god that creates and then intervenes no further. Frankly I joined this board to learn about science in general and physics specifically. Sometimes I look at these religious threads and I just can't resist. Usually I wind up regretting it as Christians are in a minority here and it seems that there are also a fairly large group that are interested at having a go at the irrational beliefs of people like me. There are some brilliant minds on this formum and I have learned a lot although there is also a lot that goes over my head. As do I, as I enjoy a discussion more than I do a debate. Thanks for that.God bless

Fair enough in the sense that there is nothing but the material written men from the early church that can be used as evidence.For Jesus to be a complete frabrication would take a complex effort by a large number of people. Also when the majority of the books of the NT were written there were still many people around who would have been alive at the time of the resurrection. These people would have been able to refute what was written, and yet Christianity kept spreading rapidly.

The oldest of that material nonetheless dates to eight decades after the time Jesus supposedly lived. 80 years! Nobody who wrote those materials could have possibly been an eye-witness to those events, if they even occurred.Isn't that strange? That the revolutionary ministry of an incredibly influential and charismatic Jewish minister, amidst one of the world's greatest and most widespread bureaucracy, went completely unrecorded? That the bureaucracy executed him, via a means reserved for those the Romans wished to make a public spectacle of, and it made no impression at all on anyone who lived and wrote at the time?Sorry. This isn't a topic for the evolution section, we've careened widely off-topic. But can you understand my skepticism, at least, and how I need more than what N.T. Wright provides, which is nothing at all? But that's true of any mythical figure. Yet, mythical figures have been fabricated. Indeed you must believe that all the other religions have fabricated their messiahs; otherwise, why would you not be a Buddhist, or a Muslim? Alive, and had been at Joseph of Aramethea's tomb? Alive to remember it 80 years later? Almost nobody lived that long in the ancient world. Remember, this is the year 33 AD we're supposedly talking about. Average adult life expectancy was approximately 50 years, assuming you survived infancy. When Jesus supposedly rose from the dead, he appeared to at least one but no more than four people (the Gospels are contradictory on this point.)By the time the legend of Jesus was being leveraged to create a new religion, there would have been nobody in a position to contradict the Mark account.

If you know anyone who thinks they are the actual famous/historical Napoleon have you suggested psychiatric treatment to them?

No, but I would if I did. Why do you ask?I suppose I could just give them a history book, a postcard of Napoleon's tomb, a portrait of Napoleon, and a mirror.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Any interest in bringing this not a new thread.The only evidence you have is biblical. If you have any contemporary, extra-biblical evidence it would rock the world. I am really curious to see if you definition is the same as other christians. In other words faith and belief.My concern with discussing this is that you will fall back to the classic apologist mode of demanding evidence that there is no evidence. That debate gets very old very qucikly.

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Facts don\'t lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

This is very apropos for this thread I think.Why don't you show us how and where Wright is presenting historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. I don't see it.

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Facts don\'t lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I have no doubt that both Buddha and Muhammad existed. I consider that Buddha was likely a prophet.I accept that the fundamental truth of Christianity on faith and reason.

There is no historical evidence for Buddha either, also Confucius is now being rethought as a legendary figure too.

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Facts don\'t lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts