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Author | Topic: Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
ringo writes: Belief is based on experience. If we *knew* that no magic, supernatural, or otherwise unexplained solution to any of our problems ever happened, we would conclude that no God or gods exist. (nor leprechauns nor 7 foot rabbits.) Well, we do dismiss talking snakes because we know that snakes don't talk. So we know that the authors do make things up. Why would we not question other stories that the same authors tell?We also dismiss resurrections because we know resurrections don't happen. But...If we had experienced answers to prayers, miracles such as recovery from "incurable" cancer, lost things being found and/or restored to us, we could decide to chalk it up to chance or we could decide that belief was something that was based on experience...our own unique experience. Granted the product of God is a product promising a better life. You read the label and see all of the complications and side effects. Believers see only the promise. Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
But you do understand. You work at Safeway, don't you? You see those tabloids with SHOCKING! stories about bat-babies, etc., don't you? You don't accept them without evidence, do you? What I don't understand, however, is the default position that states nothing ever happens unless evidence is produced. It's only the one example of your pet religion where you insist on parking your brain at the door.
Phat writes:
Santa Claus occupies much of human belief and practice. Christians are constantly complaining that he occupies too much of our belief and practice. And he wasn't all myth to begin with but most people today don't know anything but the myth.
Even if the whole story was a myth, the very fact that it still occupies so much of human belief and practice is itself curious...if in fact it was all a myth to begin with. Phat writes:
I started with the assumption that God exists, just like you did. I remind you of that once a week or so. I concluded that your God most likely doesn't exist.
You and I never agree because you start with the assumption of no God where I start with the assumption that God exists. Phat writes:
My argument is that your God isn't helping us. That's what the evidence shows. Granted your entire argument that there is no God to help us...And our geese will blot out the sun.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Belief is sometimes based on misinterpretation of experience. Often it is based on nothing.
Belief is based on experience. Phat writes:
Non sequitur. If we *knew* that no magic, supernatural, or otherwise unexplained solution to any of our problems ever happened, we would conclude that no God or gods exist. If we had no evidence of magical events, all we could conclude is that there are no entities using magic. We could not conclude that there are no entities capable of using magic. By analogy, if there are no nuclear attacks, we can not conclude that no nuclear weapons exist. We can only conclude that none are being used.
Phat writes:
There are no unique experiences. Every experience that you have, somebody else has had. You attach your experiences of prayer, miracles, etc. to your religion. Somebody else attaches the same experiences to a different religion, or to something sensible. ...our own unique experience.And our geese will blot out the sun.
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
ringo writes: There are several reasons for this. It's only the one example of your pet religion where you insist on parking your brain at the door.1) I believe that there is something (Someone) who is greater than anything my brain will ever do. Why did I adopt the "pet" in the first place? Because it provided comfort, security, and reassurance. You gave the pet up for adoption because it tore up your shoes, soiled the indoor carpet, and gave you no comfort nor security. What's more, you could never find it. It was an inviable pet to you... In some ways, if you were a believer today, your God would actually be more evolved than the God of most believers. Your God would be shrewd enough to allow humans to learn from life without Him and would allow us to encourage and help each other without leaning on Him. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Because it followed you home.
Why did I adopt the "pet" in the first place? Phat writes:
You're the one who gives it comfort, security and reassurance.
Because it provided comfort, security, and reassurance. Phat writes:
Do you see how little sense you're making? It is an invisible pet, yes, but the effects are invisible too. You gave the pet up for adoption because it tore up your shoes, soiled the indoor carpet, and gave you no comfort nor security. What's more, you could never find it. It was an inviable pet to you...And our geese will blot out the sun.
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
My point is that you concluded that God was not real because you had no subjective evidence. Many believers have had answered prayers, newfound friendships, improved self-esteem, and a new feeling of hope. (not hype, mind you! )
You may argue that no God nor religion was necessary as a cause of such events.
Because it followed you home. I said the prayer. I asked it to become real to me. You may have done the same thing yet awaited evidence of confimation rather than trusting the pet existed. Believers dont wait for evidence. As you have said before, if there was evidence there would be no belief. Perhaps a new church should be started. The Temple Of Evidential Support. It would have no God, no Altar, and No Pastor. People would just gather there and bring spare change. Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Faith writes: I once added up the converts described in the Gospels and the Book of Acts and arrived at a minimum of 30,000 JEWISH believers before the gospel went out the Gentiles. Three thousand Jews alone were converted by the disciples assembled in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit fell on them so that figure of 1000 you found is bogus. Then Paul and the other apostles always preached first in the synagogues all over the Hellenized world of the time, and made their first converts there. It was some time before the Jews stopped listening to them and they began to concentrate on the Gentiles more exclusively. Empty claims unaccompanied by evidence require no rebuttal. Accounts of Paul preaching in synagogues come from Acts, not from Paul's epistles. Luke never met Paul, let alone accompanied him anywhere. The large amount of fiction in the Bible is why predictions based upon it, like raptures, fail. --Percy
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
There's no such thing as subjective evidence.
My point is that you concluded that God was not real because you had no subjective evidence. Phat writes:
I've seen more supposed "miracles", "answered" prayers, speaking in tongues, etc. than most people. The difference is that I know they are not evidence of anything supernatural.
Many believers have had answered prayers, newfound friendships, improved self-esteem, and a new feeling of hope. Phat writes:
You said the prayer because that's what you were told to do. That's the tradition you grew up in.
I said the prayer. Phat writes:
I can keep repeating it if you insist: I had the same experience that you did. I did trust that the pet existed. I did not wait for any kind of confirmation. You may have done the same thing yet awaited evidence of confimation rather than trusting the pet existed. The difference is that I grew out of it.And our geese will blot out the sun.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Hyroglyphx writes: Jesus wasn't a real person. I'm kind of surprised that you take this position. I think Yeshua was almost certainly an actual figure who knew the Mishna and Torah quite well and did whatever he could to manufacture ways to fulfill the messianic prophecies. That's the Bible story, yes.
There are enough extra-biblical sources to assume that he was a real person even if ultimately just another failed messiah. Tacitus, Pliny, Lucian, Josephus (although much of it likely altered by Christians after-the-fact), the Babylonian Talmud, etc are all reputable sources. Mentioning Christ in passing years later as the one Christians followed is hardly good evidence he was real. With all the disruption and difficulties that Jesus caused for the Romans, with all the miracles and the sermons to thousands, there's still nary a mention of any of it by historians, only that there was a sect of Christians who followed Christ.
I think more often than not, lore almost always begins with a measure of truth before it grows. That's quite a semantic confusion, "more often than not" followed by "almost always." If you want to believe something like, "Since this is lore it very likely has a measure of truth," go ahead, make your decisions about what parts are true and what parts made up. I'll continue with, "If it's got sufficient evidence then I'll provisionally accept it." --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Phat writes: Percy writes: Paul's epistles predate the gospels, and the differences indicate a period of mythmaking. So some say. Others say different. Of course others say different. What's important isn't that some have a different opinion, but what they can bring to the party to support their opinion. Looking at this quote you provided:
Patheos writes: But it is most likely that Jewish-Christian communities had already created solid oral tradition about Jesus, which surely included much reminiscing by Jesus’ selected apostles, prior to 50 CE. If so, that means content in the synoptic gospels originated prior to similar content in Paul’s letters. This way of looking at this NT written evidence, therefore, disregards the mode of communication—whether by written form or oral form—and only regards the origin of the communication itself. This is just a statement of opinion. There's no evidence offered, not of oral traditions, not of Jesus, not of apostles, not of synoptic gospels preceding Paul's epistles. This is from Bible Study Tools:
quote: Of course I don't agree with this, but it at least places Paul's epistles before the gospels. My own view of the gospel order is roughly something like this (my dates are rough approximations, not gospel):
Perhaps we should study and consider any science in the study of mythmaking. To me, if an event involves death, hardship, and persecution, myths won't simply spring up about how Jesus..or Santa Claus...or Osama Bin Laden...heroically saved the people and martyred themselves by leaving on a winged chariot or sleigh. That's an unsupported opinion. I don't understand what it is with this thread that makes people keep offering their opinions as if that settled anything. First you say we should study mythmaking, then you offer a completely unsupported opinion about mythmaking. This makes no sense.
Now I would tend to agree with you that there most certainly was and is mythmaking from those farther removed from the action. Myths arise about things whether they're based on real past events or not.
Every Sunday we can turn the channel and see many preachers further elaborating on what Jesus actually meant. No one was taking notes while Jesus spoke. None of the gospel writers or Paul were eyewitnesses to anything Jesus said, that is, if he even existed and actually said anything. They are not elaborating on or interpreting any of Jesus' actual words, who was speaking ancient Aramaic anyway and not Greek.
Tangle has a good point in that everything ever written is limited to the books and that oral tradition involves a poetic license. And fabrication and confabulation. Look at all the religious shenanigans that take place today. You think it was any different 2000 years ago?
GDR argues that because of the close proximity to the action, the Disciples were not prone to mythmaking nor poetic license...they simply retold what they had experienced. Independent of how the apostles' accounts were communicated to the gospel authors, or even if they ever were actually communicated to the gospel authors, or even if the apostles were real, what evidence has GDR presented that they weren't disposed toward "mythmaking nor poetic license"?
Later on, Paul was himself a victim of some persecution, and also told it as he experienced it, in my opinion. We have the evidence of Paul's letters that he was real. We have no evidence of anything he said about Jesus or his exploits.
Of course, the original question was whether Jesus actually existed as a person. The original question was whether Christian religious beliefs could serve as a basis for making predictions of things like raptures and so forth. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Fix badly expressed 3rd to last para.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Phat writes: This gets back to my suggestion that we should study the science(if any) of legends and mythmaking and compare it to first-person accounts of major events. For a modern example, those who were in the compound when Osama Bin Laden was captured would likely have different stories concerning the actual events of that day than would Muslims and Osama supporters in far cities of Pakistan and the Muslim world. There would be myths developing around the man, for sure...but the point being that those close to the action...the actual fight...who knew the man himself...would have different narratives. Not that they couldn't or wouldn't be inclined to make something up at times...but that is our challenge...separating the myths from the news itself. Now imagine that they waited 40 years before writing the accounts of the Osama bin Laden murder.
Reported by men. Not necessarily made up, unless you dismiss the actual event to begin with. Oh really? Matthew 14:25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. Nothing unusual going on there, just reporting the news. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Phat writes: Granted your entire argument that there is no God to help us... And your argument is that God *is* helping us? How do you see God helping you? You seem a prime example of someone definitely not receiving any help. This is yet another example of evidence against religious beliefs only making people double down on those beliefs. Everything in your life says, "There is no God," yet every year your belief in God deepens. Faith does the same thing - her rapture predictions fail, yet this makes her believe even more. Imagine if scientists worked this way. "The experiment not only failed to confirm the hypothesis, it showed the hypothesis to be likely false. This only strengthens our belief that the hypothesis will eventually be shown correct." You'd think them nuts, right? Why shouldn't the same logic apply to the reasoning displayed by the religious? --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Phat writes: Belief is based on experience. If we *knew* that no magic, supernatural, or otherwise unexplained solution to any of our problems ever happened, we would conclude that no God or gods exist. (nor leprechauns nor 7 foot rabbits.) Experiences (which is how data is gathered) are real, all religions cannot be true, so religious belief cannot be based upon experience. There is nothing in your experience or anyone else's indicating magic or the supernatural is real.
But... If we had experienced answers to prayers, miracles such as recovery from "incurable" cancer, lost things being found and/or restored to us, we could decide to chalk it up to chance or we could decide that belief was something that was based on experience...our own unique experience. No prayers have been answered or miracles experienced, and the unexplained is just the unexplained.
Granted the product of God is a product promising a better life. You read the label and see all of the complications and side effects. Believers see only the promise. This I can agree with, but now you're saying something different. Before you said that belief was based on experience, now you're saying belief is based on what is hoped might happen. --Percy
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Tangle writes: And yet it actually says that the Son of Man coming to the people Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come
quote:But in any case that didn't happen either! It doesn't matter which way you spin it, it didn't happen! [We'd know] Once again you're reading this with a 21st century understanding. Jesus was addressing 1st century Jews. Essentially He is saying that when you see the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple that it will be God's judgement on Israel, and that they will then see and understand the enthronement of Jesus, (again Daniel 7) and the establishment of the Kingdom. It is Jesus coming to the Father, (the Ancient of Days), not coming to Earth. I would add that it being about God's judgement does not mean that God punished by intent, but it is as a result of what naturally happens when we try to defeat evil with more evil. Jesus continually talked about not going down the road of violent revolution but about defeating evil with the weapon of love. It is about turning hearts away from evil.
Tangel writes:
I've said before. All religion is man made. In the case of Christianity it is based on the belief that there is one creator god that is a god of love and that He resurrected Jesus, who embodied His nature perfectly or to put it another way carried God's spiritual DNA. Then we factor in the Bible and how to understand that and so yes, there probably aren't 2 Christians anywhere, (who have put in any time to actually study the whole thing), that will agree on everything.
You, like all others believe what you prefer, it has no effect on the words written, all it does is demonstrate why there are 38,000 formal variants of what Christians believe and billions of individual ones. Because just like the original words, you're all making it up. Tangle writes: Heresy! Jesus wasn't a prophet! You're kidding right? Jesus has no supernatural knowledge, 'he just a very naughty boy'. Oh come on. So he was lying when he said all that stuff, making all those future predictions? I didn't say He wasn't a prophet. I am saying that He foretold the future in the same way that you or I might tell the future. As a prophet you might say that there will be no Brexit deal and that thousands of jobs will be lost in your country. You would be simply assessing the situation from what you know. Jesus was doing that in forecasting the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple. A prophet is essentially one who puts into words the will and nature of God and then using that wisdom project the likelihood of what that will mean in the future. The future is open and unknowable with certainty, but Jesus could, and we can, forecast future events based on what we do know in the present.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Percy writes: Barring confirmation bias, I will agree except to say that a whole helluva lot is unexplainable! To question is fine, but to doubt causes a great degree of cognitive dissonance. I'm not sure I would even want to switch clubs. There is nothing in your experience or anyone else's indicating magic or the supernatural is real. Moreover, I'm not even sure which club I am in anymore! Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
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