Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

The subject is your cherry-picking of the text. I'm telling you the same thing as Tangle.

That's part of the apologetic plot twist, though. Supposedly, Paul mentioned the idea that the Jews rejected their Messiah but that it was Gods plan in order to allow the rest of the people an opportunity to accept Him. What possible political motive would Paul have in this? People always strive to pick the best and tastiest cherries. The truth is in the pudding. Go comment on Stiles newest topic, by the way. It is an interesting read.

"Twist" is the word. That's a pretty convoluted "plan". Oh, come on. People have all kinds of motivations. Ian Fleming couldn't possibly have had any conceivable motivation to just make up James Bond, could he? So James Bond must be real. Remember why the cherries are tasty. The tree markets them to spread its seeds.

Which gets back to one of our central arguments which you have determined to be irrelevant---the motives of the authors. Ian Fleming knew from the beginning that his story would be fictional. I would argue that the authors of the Biblical books had no similar knowledge. As far as can be discerned, they very much believed that what they were writing was factual...as they understood it.

Do you think they believed in talking snakes?As far as I understand it, the concepts of "factual news" and "objective evidence" are pretty modern. I would suggest that that anybody who could read and write two thousand years ago made little distinction between reality and fiction.

Your argument is like something out of Alice in Wonderland. "Words mean what I say they mean". You mean language like "sky darkened", stars falling from the sky" and "the moon will not give off it's light" is supposed to be taken literally. Look at verse 20 then.

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But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on the Sabbath

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You're saying that they have to take flight from the end of the world. You have just decided what it means and don't want to be confused with facts.

The majority of Jews didn't accept Jesus as the messiah then, and they still don't. What has that got to do with what is meant in Matthew 24?

There is very rarely a MAJORITY of any group that receives Jesus as the messiah. But there were tends of thousands in the early church and googling how many there are today I got: Not a majority, but probably more than you thought.

It's the opposite of course, I'm saying that the words mean what they say. Not a self-serving evasion or re-interpretation but simply quoting what the words say, all I'm doing is copying and pasting the words. Absolutely, it's the bloody end of times! The Son of Man is returning This is Jesus describing the end of times. It's absolute bollox, but it's as plain as day. It's not dissmissable as hyperbole or flowery language - it's supposed to be a real event. And it hasn't happened yet. I really, really don't want to get into interpreting this crap - that's your job, but if I have to put my own meaning on this...Jesus was in the Temple, he tells his disciples that the Temple will be destroyed - not one brick etc. They ask when. He waffles on about bad times and false prophets and finally gets to the point and tells them it'll be 'When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel' ie the destruction of the Temple. So better get the hell out of Judea because it's going to be pretty shitty.THEN 'Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken etc etc 'So immediately after the Temple falls comes the return of yer man with his angels and trumpets etc. And ...So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.'So wars and desoltation, persecution, false prophets get out of town, head to the hills. When the Temple falls, the return of the king, the end of days, all within the lives of the people listening to him. Simple reading of what is said and what is written.

What has Matthew 24 got to do with what we're talking about?

Jesus wasn't a real person. Whoever wrote Mark is putting words in his mouth at a time when the destruction of the Temple lay in the past. Mark wasn't writing in Jerusalem and wouldn't know how complete the destruction. It's pretty obviously a reference to what Jews actually did ("head for the hills") after the destruction of Jerusalem. Yours is just one interpretation of a confusion of information gathered from conflicting sources, but more importantly, this is not a counter to, "How handy to have a martyr, especially one who defeated death, rose to heaven to sit by God." Whatever your goals, whether worldly or heavenly, if your leader is dead then claiming he defeated death and was carried bodily up to heaven to sit at the right hand of God is just making the best of a bad situation.But even more importantly, these events never happened. All the different interpreters of these Jesus stories are just arguing over fiction. Why do you think this helps your case? Obviously the idea of a resurrected Jesus resonated powerfully, something the earliest church leaders could not have failed to notice, so what better way to power as the heads of a new religious movement? Sounds like a pretty common way that new religious movements form, observed regularly today. They sacrifice material things, they isolate themselves from their former culture, and they emphasize threats from the outside. There is every motivation. Who knows how much of the Bible is accurate and how much myth? If the Bible stories about Christianity's origins are true, and if new converts needed very firm evidence, then in, say, 100 AD, what was that evidence? Even in 34 AD, the year after Jesus supposedly died on the cross, what was that evidence? Paul is the founder of Christianity. He had his beliefs, but there's nothing to indicate they formed from evidence, nothing to indicate he observed anything recounted in the gospels, nothing to indicate he was close to any of the apostles, and Acts tells us that Paul and Peter disagreed.--Percy

What makes you think that? It's certainly a novel idea...one that I can't find support for elsewhere.

I know. It’s been a while since we crossed swords, I’ve been absent a good while, and I apologise for my forthrightness in our first interactions since returning.I can see that you are dealing on multiple fronts and I know that can be time consuming and overwhelming so I won’t add to your woes here. I’ve said what I think.Glad to see you still here at EvC.

What are your sources of evidence for this? I've heard both sides...neither conclusive. Of course, I'm biased towards the apologetic side...but I remain unconvinced that counter-arguments have much weight behind them.What convinces you? Again, what convinced you? Was Jesus A Real Person? This article summarizes the arguments, but what I noted (being biased, of course) was this paragraph:

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The following description, surmised from the Gospels, would be affirmed by most history scholars, Borg told LiveScience:

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Jesus was born sometime just before 4 B.C. and grew up in Nazareth, a small village in Galilee, as part of the peasant class. Jesus' father was a carpenter and he became one, too, meaning that they had likely lost their agricultural land at some point. Jesus was raised Jewish and he remained deeply Jewish all of his life; he never intended to create a new religion. Rather, he saw himself as acting within Judaism.

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He left Nazareth as an adult and met the prophet John, who baptized him. During his baptism, Jesus likely experienced some sort of divine vision. Shortly afterwards, he began his public preaching with the message that the world could be transformed into a "Kingdom of God." He became a noted teacher and prophet, as well as a healer: More healing stories are told about Jesus than about any other figure in the Jewish tradition.

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He was executed by Roman imperial authority, and his followers experienced him after his death. It is clear, Borg said, that they had visions of Jesus as they had known him during his historical life. Only after his death did they declare Jesus to be "lord" or "the son of God."

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It seems to me that your basic argument(and bias) is that absence of evidence correlates to evidence of absence. Like Ringo, you conclude absence due solely to lack of evidence. Human persuasion means nothing. Which I suppose is technically the best way to approach an issue...but frustrating in a debate. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

You're asking for evidence that something *doesn't* exist? How would that work exactly? For example, what is your evidence that leprechauns don't exist?I believe Jesus never existed because of the lack of any evidence that he ever existed. I believe the origin stories of Christianity are false because all religions are false. There is really very little difference between us - I believe all religions are false, and you believe all religions but one are false. I don't see how you there could be evidence that Jesus never existed. While there isn't any evidence that Jesus never existed, there *are* counterarguments. The main one is that he completely escapes historical mention despite (according to the Bible) being a tremendous disruption while committing miracles left and right. Lack of evidence. This is just the Bible story. Actually I'm saying that the absence of evidence puts Jesus in the same category as all other fictional characters. I think we're both doing the opposite. We're refusing, because of lack of evidence, to conclude his story real. Is persuasion about factual matters that have no evidence really persuasion? Or is it special pleading? The real debate in this thread is about how the failure of religion to pan out in the real world has no influence on faith. Even believers for whom religion is toxic remain addicted.--Percy