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Member (Idle past 4984 days) Posts: 276 From: Frodsham, Chester Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The evolution of an atheist. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bikerman Member (Idle past 4984 days) Posts: 276 From: Frodsham, Chester Joined: |
quote:Err..so if we assume you are right, and the Christians were so minor and insignificant, who exactly were the multitude described in the gospels? Eg John tell us quote:William Barclay tells us, in the 'commentary on John' quote:Doesn't sound minor to me....sounds like the sort of reception a King or conquering hero might receive, and certainly a noteworthy event... but no notes...from ANY source... Edited by Bikerman, : No reason given. Edited by Bikerman, : No reason given.
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Bikerman Member (Idle past 4984 days) Posts: 276 From: Frodsham, Chester Joined: |
quote:There is no faith required. We know what is takes for atoms to form from physics. Chemistry describes how atoms combine to give complex molecules. Experiments show how those molecules form the precursors to RNA. The only 'leap of faith' is to suppose that the precursors to RNA actually combined to form RNA. Not a huge leap by any means, and far less so than presuming some complex intelligence, origin unknown and un-askable, did it all.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Bikerman writes: Err..so if we assume you are right, and the Christians were so minor and insignificant, who exactly were the multitude described in the gospels? Eg John tell us I don't know where Barclay got his figures from but this is what is what Time says about the population at the time.
quote: Also, according to the gospel accounts it appears that the resurrected Jesus was only seen by the women at the tomb on the Sunday and then in a private room by the apostles during the passover period. All other times were after the passover period. The period when there were crowds greeting him were all before the crucifixion, and who knows how many people it takes to make up a crowd anyway.
Bikerman writes: Doesn't sound minor to me....sounds like the sort of reception a King or conquering hero might receive, and certainly a noteworthy event...but no notes...from ANY source... They were greeting Him as the hoped for messiah who would hopefully lead them against the Romans. That is what a messiah was supposed to do. These crowds were there all before the crucifixion. Once Jesus was crucified it was obvious to all that He wasn't the messiah so there was nothing more to take note of, let alone report.. He had been put to death like all the other hopefuls. There weren't crowds hanging around the cross expecting anything but His permanent demise. Afterwards Jesus appears to have only met with His disciples, other for the one case where he met with 500. I recently read the book Macabees and the whole account was of one war after another. That's the sort of thing they wrote about. Some guy who was crucified and who preached a mesage of peace, love and co-operation was not newsworthy even if there were stories around that he had been resurrected.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Frankly, I can see no reasonable explanation for the Christian church to grow out of that era if Jesus wasn't resurrected. His ministry was a mere 3 years before he was executed by the Romans. He preached an unpopular message and his followers were almost exclusively lower class and illiterate. Yet somehow out of that has come Christianity. It's true that the Jews weren't evangelistic with their beliefs except among fellow Jews, but there were the religions of the Greeks and Romans that were, in the sense that they had the support of those in power and were even in a position to impose their religion on others. That's where the power was. The Roman Empire was a positive hotbed of alternative religions. For starters, the Romans as a matter of policy did not impose their pantheon on their subject peoples, so there were plenty of religions to choose from. In addition, the Romans and Greeks themselves converted to other religions. They would adopt the Syrian rites, for example, or they would Judaize --- these latter were the so-called "god-fearers", who would give us the name "Timothy". The centurion Cornelius in Acts 10 is an example of such a man, as presumably was St Timothy prior to his conversion to Christianity. Then there were the "mystery religions" such as Orphism and Mithraism. And then there were the various religions that grew out of Greek philosophy --- Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, and Epicureanism. In common with Christianity, they had something to offer the individual worshiper, personally, that was lacking in the state religion. What was different about Christianity was that it succeeded in becoming the state religion, a position from which it successfully suppressed the alternatives. As you put it: "They had the support of those in power and were even in a position to impose their religion on others. That's where the power was." We can only speculate on what would have happened had Christianity been allowed to stand or fall on its own merits.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Dr Adequate writes: What was different about Christianity was that it succeeded in becoming the state religion, a position from which it successfully suppressed the alternatives. As you put it: "They had the support of those in power and were even in a position to impose their religion on others. That's where the power was." But that didn't become the case for 350 years. It was nearly 300 years before it was even legalized by Rome. It started out from a very rag tag group of individuals with the exception of Paul. It has to be sustained through all that time and through a great deal of persecution as well. And once again, people were interested in wealth and power and that was not the Christian message. (Certainly over the years the church has perverted that message and used the Christian faith to further national or personal ambition, but that is far from the message that we get from Jesus, or Paul for that matter. ) In spite of all that it did eventually become established broadly throughout the Roman Empire and even beyond. I know I'm sounding like a broken record but look at it this way. Put yourself in the shoes of a Roman citizen. Someone comes and tells you that you should convert to this religion based on the life of a man who was a Jew from Judea. This man was crucified but his followers say he showed up bodily again a couple of days later but in a bodily form that was somehow different. He was a god that washed his disciples feet and said that serving others is something to aspire to. Does that sound like something that would sell? I don't think so but just the same it did. There were all the other religions that you named that had a message that offered strength, power and wealth in a culture that thrived on those things. Once again it makes sense to me that things went the way they did for 2 reasons. First the resurrection of Jesus was an actual historic event and that the church was blessed by God. Everybody is entitled to my opinion.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Bikerman writes: There is no faith required. We know what is takes for atoms to form from physics. Chemistry describes how atoms combine to give complex molecules. Experiments show how those molecules form the precursors to RNA. The only 'leap of faith' is to suppose that the precursors to RNA actually combined to form RNA. Not a huge leap by any means, and far less so than presuming some complex intelligence, origin unknown and un-askable, did it all. For someone like myself that has no scientific background I am in awe of the minds of those who have worked out how these things and others have come about. The thing is though, although we may know how, we don't know why atoms or molecules formed. Either it is by random chance or by a designer. Neither can be proved so choosing either option requires a leap of faith.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The thing is though, although we may know how, we don't know why atoms or molecules formed. Nucleosynthesis and chemistry, respectively.
Either it is by random chance or by a designer. Ah, the good ol' religious false dichotomy.
Chance doesn't come into it. --- Incidentally, why do religious folks always say "random chance" as though there was some other, non-random, kind of chance?
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Dr Adequate writes: Ah, the good ol' religious false dichotomy. Chance doesn't come into it.
OK. If not chance then what is it? I keep hearing that evolution happens by natural selection and random chance. I believe that evolution happened by natural selection and design. Why is that a false dichotomy? It's one or the other.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
OK. If not chance then what is it? I keep hearing that evolution happens by natural selection and random chance. But you have, I wager, never heard anyone say anything remotely like that about the formation of atoms. Evolution is one thing. Nucleosynthesis is another. They are different things.
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Woodsy Member (Idle past 3402 days) Posts: 301 From: Burlington, Canada Joined: |
For someone like myself that has no scientific background I am in awe of the minds of those who have worked out how these things and others have come about. The thing is though, although we may know how, we don't know why atoms or molecules formed. Either it is by random chance or by a designer. Neither can be proved so choosing either option requires a leap of faith. Ah, the ever-present false dichotomy of the religious mind! What makes you think that the question of why atoms etc formed is even a legitimate question? It presupposes the action of an intelligence. If these things formed simply due to the properties of the universe (as seems to actually be the case), the why question is either meaningless or equivalent to the how question. In any case, you have left out the "we don't know just now" option.
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bluescat48 Member (Idle past 4218 days) Posts: 2347 From: United States Joined: |
OK. If not chance then what is it? I keep hearing that evolution happens by natural selection and random chance. I believe that evolution happened by natural selection and design. Why is that a false dichotomy? It's one or the other. You brought out the point yourself when yo say "I believe." The evolutionist accepts natural selection & random chance, they do not believe this. the difference is one of falsifiability. The reason it is a false dichotomy is that you are saying either it is A or it is B with no other alternatives, ie: if you can't prove it is A then it must be B. There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002 Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969 Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008
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John 10:10 Member (Idle past 3024 days) Posts: 766 From: Mt Juliet / TN / USA Joined: |
In another section of this forum, I shared this with a person who once believed in the truths of the Bible, but has fallen away. This may be helpful to those who struggled with your faith in a God "who was," or if there is a God at all.
quote:
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Bikerman Member (Idle past 4984 days) Posts: 276 From: Frodsham, Chester Joined: |
quote:It was still a very significant event - thousands of people worshipping the new messiah; the officials of Judaism clearly extremely worried by the new phenomenon. Yet not a word about it in any contemporary record. quote:LOL...nice try, slip the important figure in at the end and hope nobody notices. 500 people see a dead man alive, yet not a word about it anywhere. Let's look at those appearances: 1/12 The appearance of Jesus to Marry Magdalene. Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:9-11, John 20:11-18 2/12 The appearance of Jesus to the other women. Matthew 28:1 3/12 The appearance of Jesus to Cleophas and another on the road to Emmaus. Mark 16:12-13, Luke 24:13-32, John 24:33-35, 1 Corinthians 15:5 4/12 The news of the appearance of Jesus to Simon Peter. Luke 24:33-35, 1 Corinthians 15:5 5/12 The appearance to the astonished disciples (Thomas absent) with a commission Mark. 16:14, Luke 24:36-43, 1 Corinthians 15:5 6/12 The appearance of Jesus to the disciples the next Sunday night. John 20:26-31 7/12 The appearance of Jesus to seven disciples besides the Sea of Galilee. John 21:1-25 8/12 Jesus appears to the eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee. Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:15-18 9/12 Jesus appears to about 500 hundred people on a mountain in Galilee. 1 Corinthians 15:6 10/1 Jesus appears to James his brother 1 Corinthians 15:7, Galatians 1:9 11/12 Jesus appears to the disciples with another commission. Luke 24:44-49 & Acts 1:3-8 He is appearing constantly hither and thither and the idea that the apostles could hush this up is a non-starter - the whole point is to publicise it, hence the appearance to the 500. It is clearly a yarn and I'm astonished that you think it holds any water... Edited by Bikerman, : sp.
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Bikerman Member (Idle past 4984 days) Posts: 276 From: Frodsham, Chester Joined: |
Nobody intelligent calls evolution 'random' - only ignorant people and creationists (if you believe the two are distinct). The only random part is the mutation of the gene(s).
I have already demonstrated in another thread how a process with a random element can produce highly ordered and highly complex outcomes, using just a couple of simple rules. In fact I showed that such a system could produce an infinitely complex pattern - a fractal called Sierpinski's triangle. Producing different species from a similar set of simple rules and including 1 random element is no big thing - the only part which is still unknown to any extent is the starting point - abiogenesis (which creationists wilfully conflate with evolution even though the two are distinct. Evolution kicks in when abiogenesis has done its work). There are many proposed mechanisms for that first 'life' to appear. Good candidates (IMHO) are the clay hypothesis; the panspermia hypothesis; the deep sea volcanic vent hypothesis and the old 'soup' hypothesis (Miller et al). Any of these could account for abiogenesis - the trick is narrowing down the evidence and working out which is the most likely. Proposing some sky-fairy is not an answer, simply a cop-out. Edited by Bikerman, : No reason given. Edited by Bikerman, : sp.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1495 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I still think that there must have been a 'Christos' to account for the presence of the Christians. Must there have been a Santa to account for the cherished belief of children? And, of course, there may have been a jolly fat man who loved to give toys to children. But if we're talking about an individual who didn't live at the North Pole, didn't make toys with a workshop full of elves, doesn't fly all around the world with a sleigh on Christmas night to pop down chimneys, aren't we not talking about Santa Claus? I mean, words mean things. I don't see how we can say that "Jesus Christ was real" if what was real was a man who wasn't named Jesus Christ, didn't perform miracles, wasn't king of the Jews, wasn't crucified by Rome, and didn't rise from the dead. It's possible to have vampires who drink blood but aren't killed by stakes and sunlight ("Twilight") and vampires who don't drink blood but are immortal and live off others ("Lifeforce") but if you have "vampires" who don't drink blood, don't live forever, and aren't killed by sunlight, aren't they just goths?
How would you go about creating a religion based on the life of an individual, if that individual never existed? I'd say he lived somewhere else where you couldn't get the records for, and tell everyone he was victimized by the same bad guys we all hated already, and create a life story that told people what they wanted to hear. And most importantly I'd have this guy say what a bad person you were if you needed evidence to believe instead of "faith", and that if this whole thing sounded like nonsense it was you who were the idiot, not me. Or in other words:
quote: quote: quote: Wouldn't people, confronted by such an attempt now, point out that their Dad had fought at such and such and no Kilroy was there? That just means they didn't see him, or that Kilroy was somewhere else, or even that "The Great Lord Kilroy walked amongst them, and was yet unseen." After all where did all this shit come from, eh, smart guy?
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