My Beliefs- GDR

Just one other thought on this. Paul was a Pharisee and that was still a large part of what he was. The Pharisees carried on the belief that the by faithfully following the laws they could purge the nation of its sins and God would see them returned to their homeland and God, (or his representative) would be King. In the meantime they would be exiled in sin.The Gospel message is that through Jesus God had established His Kingdom with Jesus the Christ as King. The entire nation, and with the renewed covenant the entire world had been forgiven and brought out of exile, as Jesus died for the sins of the world, and with it defeated the power of death.When men did, what men often do and put Jesus to death as he threatened their beliefs and position, God redeemed that sin and brought Jesus through death into a new resurrected bodily life in advance of the resurrection of all creation at the end of time.

Yes, and this point is wrong since they have had both military support and political power. That's not my point and you're just grasping. Our stories of supernatural beings and metaphysical worlds have evolved over time - nothing in these stories indicates an "understanding" of anything. If anything it's actually more of a misunderstanding of the natural world. And you know god spoke to them how? How do you know that to be true? I don't know what this means. I asked how can you be sure the stories of Jesus are true and accurately depicted in the Bible.Your answer is "I'm conviced they are" - Ok, how are you convinced?- Oni

Evidence of what exactly? It's just a bunch of stories, mostly inaccurate about even the history of that time. So what can it possibly be evidence of? Evidence of what? Frankly you're starting to not make sense. You've not presented any evidence. I hope you don't think you have. The Bible is not evidence of god, it is evidence that someone/people wrote a book. That is all. And as I have shown you in this thread, the Bible stories are not unique and have their origin in Greek and Egyptian mythology. Impossible, since none of you have ever seen or heard from god. You are all coming up with your own concepts of god which is the equivalent of throwing paint on a canvas repeatedly and saying you're getting closer to painting the Mona Lisa. What this proves is that each of you has chosen a different point of view that other people have come up with to put your faith into. God has nothing to do with this personal choice that you and Faith have made. I guess you can say that, if it makes sense to you. What it tells me is that social primates like living in groups where the members want to be treated as they would treat others and have created certain rules to assure this. It all boils down to the origin of these stories and if they are actually depicting an accurate history. That is all science and evidence can get you closer to understanding. NOT the nature of god.What you need to figure out is if these authors were being honest, and are these stories original stories or just a revised version of mythology.Why do you believe that they are true, accurate, and original stories about a real person named Jesus? Is my question to you.In the other post you said "I'm convinced". Cool. Then tell me how you're convinced.- Oni

It seems that I'm more of a believer than you are, then. I certainly don't need the resurrection to find value in the New Testament. Once again, there is a vast difference between a historical event such as the Battle of Hastings, with multiple lines of evidence, including physical evidence, and the hearsay stories in the Bible which rest on nothing but belief. If something cannot be confirmed, tested, etc. it isn't "factually correct". It may happen to coincide with the facts; it may eventually be confirmed to be a fact but until it is confirmed it isn't really a fact. I have a book that purports to be the real biography of James Bond. There is no indication whatsoever that it's fiction. Is that any reason to believe that James Bond is real? Is there any reason why somebody couldn't base their understanding of life on it? I didn't ask you what you think the essense of Genesis is. This is what I asked you:

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The essence of Robinson Crusoe isn't that the character Robinson Crusoe actually existed. Why does the essence of the gospel have to be that Jesus existed? Why can't the essence of Genesis be that the world is 6000 years old?

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I'm asking why you cherry-pick one fictional acount to believe and reject the others. Easy. Go to a cemetery and wait three days after a funeral. You can verify statistically the worldwide rate of resurrection the same way you can verify the worldwide population of fairies. So you have eyewitnesses in the New Testament who agree that they thought Jesus was dead and then they thought they saw him alive. The problem with eyewitnesses is that they tell you what they thought they saw, not what actually happened.

Just what political or military support did early Christians get in the first hundred years after the resurrection? Whether or not God exists our idea of the nature of God has evolved over time. I’m not saying that this in any way proves the existence of God, but I am saying that on the assumption that God does exist it is consistent with the belief that God does connect with us in some way through our hearts, minds and imaginations. I don’t know, but as I just said that if we start with the assumption that God exists then what I said seems consistent with human history. We have gone from gods battling it out in the heavens to a God that is loving and just. I covered all that in the OP.

Of course it is evidence. Various writers have written their accounts of what they purport to be historical events. We can come to our own conclusions about the accuracy of those accounts. Actually the accounts are very consistent with the history of that time from a geo-political point of view. You and I exist and we have an intelligence etc. There is some reason that we exist whether it is by natural or other causes. It is evidence that something happened that resulted in us existing. We can ignore the question or we can do our best to answer it. Of course the Bible is evidence. It isn’t conclusive but the authors had a point that they were trying to make and we can accept or reject all or part of the writing. The fact that other cultures have similar stories IMHO only supports my contention of how our understanding of God is evolving. I’ll requote from the OP what the non-theistic materialist Robert Wright writes.

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I guess materialist is a not-very-misleading term for me. In fact, in this book I talk about the history of religion, and its future from a materialist standpoint. I think the origin and development of religion can be explained by reference to concrete, observable things in human nature, political and economic factors, technological change, and so on.
But I don’t think a materialist account of religion’s origin, history, and future — like the one I’m giving here — precludes the validity of a religious worldview. In fact, I contend that the history of religion presented in this book, materialist though it is, actually affirms the validity of a religious worldview, not a traditionally religious worldview, but a worldview that is in some meaningful sense religious.
It sounds paradoxical. On the one hand, I think gods arose as illusions, and that the subsequent history of the idea of god is, in some sense, the evolution of an illusion. On the other hand: (1) the story of this evolution itself points to the existence of something you can meaningfully call divinity; and (2) the illusion, in the course of evolving, has gotten streamlined in a way that moved it closer to plausibility. In both of these senses, the illusion has gotten less and less illusionary.

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I agree that there is no empirical evidence that confirms the existence of God, just as there is no empirical evidence that there is no god or gods. As to whether or not that we have actually heard from God is open to question as well. If our conscience gives us pause, is it God speaking to us? I don’t know but from our perspective we have no way of knowing if the thoughts from what we call our conscience are being externally influenced. How do you know whether or not God had anything to do with our personal choice? That is your opinion. As far as Faith and I holding different views on the nature of God, I find that completely consistent with a god who gives us freedom of thought and belief. I agree with the first part, but if the stories are accurate then we can learn about the nature of God. The stories are written in such a way that I think it is reasonable to believe that they were being honest in what they wrote. The question in my view is whether or not they got it right. There are some contradictions particularly around timing and locality of events so we know it isn’t 100% accurate, but in my view that only adds to their credibility concerning the primary points they were making. If this was all being fabricated there would have been collusion in the making sure the accounts were all in agreement. As I mentioned in my last post I did go through this in the OP, but I’ll try going a little further.I’ll start of by quoting C S Lewis.

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I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

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I know that you will discount this but at some level it speaks to me. I could simply say that it is faith but then that is very weak answer IMHO. I started out from my agnostic position pretty tentatively, and frankly I was largely influenced by Lewis’ Mere Christianity. In a lot of ways I was influenced by Lewis’ intellect as much as his arguments which was enough to get me started going to church and learning more. As the years progressed Christianity became more and more part of my life and now that quote from C S Lewis that I just used became more meaningful for me.I realize that it is very difficult for someone like yourself to give any credibility to the fact that my Christian beliefs just make so much sense of the world that I experience, but the fact is in my opinion they do. Also I do believe that I have been guided by something outside myself in this life. I talked about this in Message 9.I have read literally hundreds of books from Dawkins to Lewis to NT Wright to fundamentalists. I have gone through the Qur’an and the Book of Buddha. I am simply searching for truth and I believe that I have found it while recognizing that I have no doubt that some things I believe are not accurate. I am influenced by those who write about science whether they are secular or not with the understanding that I can only grasp the most basic of concepts. I do however view science as a sort of theological endeavour as we strive to understand the world that we have been given.I’m not sure I can do any better.

Welcome to the fold Brother. The difference is though that without the resurrection the words of Jesus are no more authoritative than Buddha or Mahatma Gandhi. Actually if the resurrection didn't happen I would give more credence to Gandhi as he is more current. While let’s compare it with the accounts of the life of Judas Maccabeus. He lived close to 200 years before Jesus. We have historical accounts of his life that we can reject or accept. Actually the accounts of his life seem somewhat suspect as they the accounts make him out to be heroic. The accounts of Jesus having Him sweating blood in fear and have the disciples consistently misunderstanding the message and even deserting Him at the end. Of course that isn’t true. Just because we don’t know something to be factual doesn’t mean that it isn’t. It is a fact that the world was round before anybody ever figured it out. The NT is written by various authors who obviously intended it as non-fiction. Certainly authors of fiction don’t start out by saying they are writing fiction; it is understood.The disciples, Paul and others obviously based their world view and understanding of life from the life of Jesus and their understanding of how Jesus was related to the Hebrew Scriptures. I believe that they were right in that and so I essentially come to the same conclusions. I believe that the accounts should be read in light of how the author intended while keeping in mind the cultural context. The whole point of the resurrection account is that it was unique. As I've said before when you have witnesses to an accident they will disagree on details but they will all agree that an accident happened.

What terrible slander of the Apostle Paul who was THE preacher against the doctrines of the Pharisees, against their insistence on the Law as necessary to salvation. Scripture strongly disagrees with you about Paul.

Here's the deal, there was no Chrisitian "church" the first one hundred years. You said the church before. The first church was the RCC that DID have political and military support from the government. After that the "word" was spread with the sword.However, within those first one hundred years there was no real rise of Christianity, just a lot of confusion and fighting. You're switching words a lot. First with the "church" issue, now here. You first said our understanding of god before. To that statement, I say again, you don't understand the nature of god more now than anyone in the past. Let's make that clear since that was your first position.But fine, now you want to use the word "idea". Well here still, no it hasn't evolved. The stories are different but it's still the same idea - an invisible entity created everything and in some cases speaks to humans. This is as meaningless as saying all of that about unicorns. As much as you think you did, you didn't.So I'll ask again, how are you convinced the stories of Jesus are true and accurately depicted in the Bible?- Oni

Like I said, it is evidence that some people wrote some stories. But then again, that is what a book is. Evidence please... Reproduction happened. All the way back to single cell organisms. That is the history of biological life. What else do you think happened? Since no one is using any actual evidence, just simply writing stories, and not even original ones, nothing about the understanding of a god has evolved. You know as much now about god as anyone that has ever lived. Which is to say you know nothing other than what books with imaginative writers has yeilded. That's not the way it works. You can't just imagine a concept then ask me to disprove it. That is dishonest. If I imagine a pink unicorn how shitty of me would it be to then turn to you and ask you to disprove it? No, because first you need to prove there is a god. Otherwise, why is it not the pink unicorn speaking to you? Or some other purely imagined thing?You must prove your premise first before you start to assign it abilities and attributes, like being able to speak to us. How do you know it's not the pink unicorn?The reason I know is because there is no evidence for god. Therefore anything you want to say god did or does is a moot point. You haven't shown how the premise is true. We can't move forward beyond that point until someone does. In what way? How is it reasonable to think they were being honest when their stories resemble and mimic the same stories in Greek and Egyptian mythology?There is no historical accounts at the time from a separate source of Jesus, his death, or the Romans punishing him. We have no real evidence for there being a person named Jesus outside of the Bible and the four Gospels, which, didn't actually become a collective book until 150 years after his supposed death. Original authors are dead, and what's left who really knows what was true or made up.Then you look at Egyptian mythology and you see the same stories of death and being brought back to life and of the "Son of God" - all used by the Bible in their stories. This is all suspect.How one can put faith on that is beyond me. I agree it is.- Oni

Did you even read what I said in that relatively short post? I explained how Paul adapted his beliefs as a Pharisee to conform to what Jesus taught, and it is very Scriptural.Read Isaiah 41 as one example. In that Chapter Isaiah talks of how God will raise up Israel and subdue its enemies. Paul says that it isn't just Israel that is being raised up but it is for the world.

So would I. The message is more important than the messenger. The disciples misunderstood the message because they put too much emphasis on the messenger. If they had internalized the message properly, deserting the messenger would have been irrelevant. You're taking the disciples' desertion as a sign of authenticity when you should be taking it as a sign that the messenger isn't the theme of the story. But knowledge isn't knowledge until we know it. Until we know something is "factually correct", it isn't. It is hypothetical and may be correct or not. That isn't obvious at all. As I already mentioned, with reference to The Last Temptation of Christ, Paul's actions work equally well whether Jesus existed or not. But you don't know their intentions. You asked how resurrection is verifiable and I told you. If you're just going to dismiss verification, you might as well dismiss it for evolution too. They agree that it looked like an accident. The gospel writers agreed that it looked like Jesus was dead and then later it looked like he was alive. Eyewitnesses are unreliable not only because they disagree on details but also because they jump to conclusions. And people living in a similar cultural context are likely to jump to similar conclusions.

This is from this wiki site

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The early church originated in Roman Judea in the first century AD, founded on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth who is believed by Christians to be the Son of God and Christ the Messiah. It is usually thought of as beginning with Jesus' Apostles. According to scripture Jesus commanded them to spread his teachings to all the world.

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Compare the western understanding of God to the ancient Romans. Our understanding of the nature of God has evolved. I can't prove it isn't just a result of societal influences but if God does exist our understanding of His nature has changed. I've answered that but obviously not to your satisfaction.

Sure but it is obvious IMHO that the stories are meant to be believed and that the authors themselves believed the stories. Obviously I can't prove that as I can't with any ancient historical account. You don't accept that so we are at an impasse. It was obvious throughout the Gospels that much of what Jesus taught was in the context of the Roman occupation. Much of his message was the idea that those who live by the sword die by the sword which would be aimed at the revolutionaries. He reached out to tax collectors who were collaborators with the Romans. He dealt with the issue of the divisions with the Samaritans. Those are some examples off the top of my head. Sure but so what. The question remains as to whether or not this all came about from non-intelligent or intelligent origins. I agree that I can't prove it but I do believe it. How I am to prove the accuracy of historical accounts written nearly 2000 years ago?For that matter the whole idea of a God that gives us the free will to aspire to a life based on the golden rule without thought of reward requires that there is no proof. It is faith. Ancient mythologies used the term resurrection but it meant something quite different than what the authors of the Gospels wrote. As you point out there are 4 accounts of the resurrection and then you also have Paul who was a contemporary of the disciples and other followers of Jesus.In terms of who really knows I have to say nobody knows in the empirical sense. There are millions who believe the stories are essentially accurate.At the time the term "Son of God" was used by early followers as a repudiation of Rome.This is from this wiki site

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Throughout history, emperors have assumed titles that amount to being "a son of god", "a son of a god" or "son of Heaven".[1] Roman Emperor Augustus referred to his relation to the deified adoptive father, Julius Caesar as "son of a god" via the term divi filius which was later also used by Domitian and is distinct from the use of Son of God in the New Testament

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The early Christians were essentially saying that Jesus is King and Caesar isn't.The term Son of God in the Jewish tradition was essentially a messianic term but the early Christians fairly quickly started using it as a term to denote the deity of Christ.

That is not true. Wherever the gospel went, churches were formed, usually in people's houses. The Church is the body of believers, where they meet is incidental. Jesus addressed seven churches in the first chapters of the Book of Revelation, all of them in Asia Minor, Revelation considered by conservative scholars to have been written around 90 AD. There were more than seven churches in Asia Minor at the time, and many hundreds spread elsewhere in the Middle East and Mediterranean area. Where are you getting this idea? What confusion? What fighting?There was a rapid spread of Christianity in that period and in fact the first few hundred years, despite the persecutions of believers by both the Jews and the Roman pagans. That is RCC propaganda and it's not the truth. There were hundreds, even thousands of churches in the first few hundred years that had nothing to do with Rome, and some of those churches continued down the centuries refusing to have anything to do with Rome. There were also regional Bishops, the Bishop of Rome being only one of half a dozen or so. The RCC as such did not get going at least until Constantine in the fourth century, which then did have political and military support as you say, though even that didn't really get going until hundreds of years later. But many put the beginning of the RCC as such later, in 606 AD when the papacy was officially established. But again, although Rome tried to bring all the churches under its wing, many refused. Sometimes, not always.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.