Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

Yes, I know, and don't think it isn't appreciated. It's taken time on my end, too. That's one definition, but that definition isn't a good fit for me because I don't know if any of those things are true. I don't know if God is uncaused or if He was the first to cause anything or if He created the universe. Those things aren't part of my beliefs, and I don't believe anything one way or the other about them. The only part that fits me is that I don't believe He interferes in the affairs of man, though I'm contradictory on this point because I also believe that he does. This doesn't make any sense, of course.The definition from dictionary.com doesn't fit well either:

1. belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation

I can't use this definition because I didn't, that I'm aware of, use the "evidence of reason and nature."I only call myself a deist because I believe in a deity. If you think I'm being misleading to call myself a deist then some other label would probably suit. Maybe just call me spiritual.In previous messages I've said my beliefs are without evidence. Having no evidence I know I cannot persuade anyone, and indeed would think it wrong to attempt convincing anyone of what has no evidence. My beliefs just spring from within. For me they just are. I cannot defend them. At one point I said (Message 1106), "I'm not defending my own spiritual beliefs because they're not defensible." No, that wouldn't be correct. I don't know if God is uncaused or if the universe had a first cause. This isn't something I believe, but if you're wondering whether I consider my beliefs rational then the answer is no, of course not. I didn't arrive at my beliefs through rational thought and study. They just happened. They just are. As I said in Message 1054, "My God gives purpose to the universe, a purpose unknown to us. Our role, if any, if we're not some side effect or unintended consequence, is miniscule." And in Message 1100 I said, "I don't know anything about this God, but the belief that springs forth within me unorigined and unevidenced is that he gives purpose to the universe, though I have no idea what that purpose might be or whether it involves us at all." How could I possibly know? As I touched on a couple times, we may have no role at all, in which case when the world ends our time on the stage will have signified nothing. Why must there be a reason? As far as I can tell my beliefs just happened. As a child attending Sunday School I wondered where the information in the Bible came from. In particular I wondered how anyone knew that in the beginning the Earth was without form and void, and I thought that maybe God just told people later. But I was never one to think about God much, and at some point I became aware that I believed what I believe now, but that was a long time ago. I didn't make a decision about it, it just happened, and as I said earlier, maybe I shouldn't call myself a deist if it causes confusion.Why do you think one needs a reason for what one believes? Why can't you just believe? It's much more freeing. And from where I sit that appears to be exactly what you're doing, but with the additional belief that you have evidence.In the message after yours, Message 1116, Tangle says, "If I was being nasty, I'd say that a deist is an atheist without the courage of their convictions. For all practical purposes there's no difference between a god that has no interest in us and no god at all." He right about the latter and wrong about the former. I wouldn't call my beliefs anything I have convictions about. They're only something I can examine and describe. But for all practical purposes there's no difference between lacking conviction and just really not knowing, so maybe he's right on both counts.Though I guess there is a rebuttal to his latter point about there being no difference between a god that has no interest in us and no god at all. For an analogy, from an ant's perspective there's a major difference between a person who takes no interest in the ant he steps on and no person at all.--Percy

There is probably some truth to that. There was a time when I believed that God created the Earth and life as described at the beginning of Genesis, but that belief faded away, probably slowly and subconsciously during high school.But I haven't eliminated everything I don't believe because I still believe things that I don't believe. That is, my beliefs are contradictory. For example, I don't believe in the supernatural, and yet I believe in a supernatural God. Well, here's where it gets conceited and self-centered. I believe God interferes for me but not for anyone else. He's *my* God, and no one else can have him. Perhaps my beliefs are fragments left over from when I was a selfish child. Agnostic deist doesn't work for me, but I don't mind if others want to call me that. At the risk of boring you, I'll respond autobiographically. Unitarianism is a big, big tent - it's kind of hard to have beliefs so radical that the Unitarians would reject you. When I attended Unitarian Sunday School it didn't feel like they were presenting what actually happened as much as ideas to consider. One year we went through the book Beginnings that described the origin stories of a number of different religions.I mostly attended only Sunday School as a youth. I only attended church services a few times. When I got old enough around age 12 to be thrown out of Sunday school and have to attend services I fought it so hard (it was so *boring*) that my parents soon gave up and we stopped going to church.But I did attend church services as an adult from time to time. I used to occasionally attend mass with my Catholic girlfriend, I would have been 18-19 at the time. She broke up with me, ironically just as "Bridget Loves Bernie" debuted on network television, and began dating the Jewish man she would eventually marry - they have two kids, one grandkid, and a fiance. We just exchanged Thanksgiving greetings via email.When we were engaged my wife and I began attending the Unitarian services of an amazing minister, the Reverend Dorothy Kimball, now retired, but we moved away. My wife is Lutheran and so we married in a Lutheran church and attended services there for maybe a year, but then the minister began installing what to my wife felt like Catholic practices that she didn't feel comfortable with (and me either, but I was already uncomfortable anyway and so the change didn't affect me as much), so we stopped attending.When the kids arrived we thought it important that they have a Christian religious education so that they were familiar with the dominant religion of our culture, and then they could make up their own minds when they were older. So when they were around 6 and 8 we began attending the services of the local Congregational Church while the kids attended Sunday School, but it didn't work out. We had never discussed religion or God at home, but the kids were highly resistant to what the Sunday School was teaching. They would complain afterwards saying things like, "How could such and such ever happen, that's stupid."So we told the kids they didn't have to go to Sunday School anymore but that Sunday mornings we would do Bible study at home. We began at the beginning, Genesis. That didn't go well. I don't remember the specifics, but they were very skeptical.So we skipped ahead to the gospels, beginning with Matthew but skipping past the begats. That didn't go well, either. We eventually gave up. My guess is that my son would say he's spiritual and that my daughter would say she's an atheist. I just texted them, we'll see what they say. Obviously, as you can imagine since I don't know what they believe, religion isn't a big topic of conversation in our family.My mother was raised Lutheran, but I think when she converted to Unitarianism she was pretty happy - it fit what she feels inside much better than Lutheranism. My father was ethnically Jewish (I mean really, really ethnically Jewish - my grandmother was the stereotypical Jewish grandmother), but not religiously. Unitarianism used to be a common compromise religion when Jews married non-Jews.My daughter has answered - she says she's "a pretty staunch agnostic/atheist."And now my son has answered, at much greater length. I don't actually understand all the answer, so here's what he said:

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Well, the short answer would be I believe that there are things in the universe that based on our current knowledge are inexplicable, and because of that I leave the possibility open by identifying as an agnostic (sort of). Do I believe there is some sort of benevolent entity watching our existence from a kingdom above the clouds? No.

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Thinking about all of this reminds me of the very last chapter of Max Stirner’s The Ego and His Own, where he discusses how the goals of Pre-Christian and Christian times are opposite, and that were the ideal to become real then it would no longer be ideal, and if the real were to become ideal then the ideal would exist but the real would not.

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He goes on about how this leads into the question of the existence of God, but I went and grabbed my copy so I could take a picture for you to read the final few paragraphs of the last chapter, I thought they were pretty great and I hope you think the same.

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[he sent am image, but here's that page from Google Books]: Last page of Max Sirner's "The Ego and His Own"

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Well, remember my beliefs are contradictory and don't make sense. I not only believe in a God of the universe, I also believe there couldn't possibly be any God. Gould used to describe religion and science as non-overlapping magisteria, so I'll just have to plead that that's what going on in my own head. I do not believe in a connection between morals and God. I just don't see it. I believe we have little to no role in any ultimate purpose, and that we cannot know what that purpose is.--Percy

Everything I said is correct. Myths increase in detail over time, and the NT follows this pattern, with the later gospels having far more detail about Jesus's life than the earlier epistles, and with the last Gospel of John playing fanciful riffs on the earlier ones. Obviously I was referring to extant Christian writings. The "eyewitness" accounts and so forth included walking on water, raising from the dead, turning water to wine, feeding thousands with a few baskets of food, etc. Completely unreliable. Nobody said anything about collusion. Why do you think John any more trustworthy than Luke? You're already picking and choosing. So am I, but what I pick and choose amounts to far less than you. Every book of the Bible was written with an agenda. Yes, a couple thousand years before you were even born they were already picking and choosing. Only after the last supper are there occasional hints, if one's mind is already so inclined, of the apostles believing anything like this. Most of the gospels carry the spiritual message. Exactly. Miracles, not armies. Princely positions? Is that eye of the needle stuff one of the parts you chose to leave behind? Ignoring all that kingdom in heaven stuff, I guess. Or they got together and said, "Okay, Jesus is gone, but we've got a good thing going here, so here's what we do..." So the story goes. Why do you take everything the gospels say as gospel? Oh, wait a minute, you don't. You're just choosing the parts you find necessary to weaving the narrative you like. Your so called histories include miracles. As is yours, but mine has the advantage of being tightly bound to the way we know things really happen. Right, as do you and I, except yours isn't reality based. That's my position, too, but once the different communities became aware of each other's gospels there was considerable leakage between them. They not only drew upon common sources, later they also drew upon each other. What was the word you used again? Conjecture, I think? A few minutes or hours afterward, sure. A few decades 3rd hand? No way. Christians today can't even keep themselves from getting swindled right and left by preachers or keep their children from being sexually abused. You think early Christians were a lot more savvy then? Please. *You* might believe that, but that isn't something science currently thinks it knows. Once you have decided that your belief will be anchored in reality then it should be informed by what can be shown true, not by books by CS Lewis or by ancient anonymous authors like the Bible. But you're not really an Anglican - that was just your starting point. At best you're a cafeteria Anglican. Have you also forgotten about Matthew 26:52:

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⁵²Put your sword back in its place, Jesus said to him, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. ⁵³Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

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No swords, therefore no armies. Just angels. A spiritual rebirth on Earth.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Your life is just like mine in that you have not experienced a single verifiable miracle. No one has. Ever. The question was rhetorical. First you cited Luke as if he were trustworthy when he's not, then you cited John as if he were any more trustworthy. Neither of their accounts is trustworthy. It doesn't matter how much you quote from their gospels, zilch plus zilch is still zilch. You quoted Luke and then you quoted John saying how trustworthy they were. They expressed themselves very nicely, at least in translation, but in essence they were saying, "Hey, trust me." Believing all the miracles is part of your picking and choosing, but there's no support for any of it, no matter how earnestly Luke and John declare their trustworthiness. It was you who implied there's something wrong with writing with an agenda, not me. In support of your claim that Peter was fabricated you declared that Peter had an agenda. You keep saying this, but there's no support for it. It's exactly as I just said. Both before the last supper and after the resurrection it's all a spiritual message. Only in between are there occasional hints, and hints only if your mind is so inclined, that the apostles expected Jesus to lead an army against the Romans. It makes a nice story that the apostles were these dunderheaded idiots who couldn't grasp the spiritual nature of Christ's mission despite everything he said and despite witnessing his miracles right and left, but it's just a story. Now you're just making stuff up. Jesus made no promises of "princely positions" for his followers, the opposite in fact. Jesus did not promise a kingdom on Earth or the restoration of Israel. You, like many Christians, are taking OT promises and pretending Jesus made them.I'm not raising issues with the NT stories because I don't believe them, although it is true that I don't. It's that I can read what they clearly say, and they don't say what you're claiming they say. What's bizarre is that you would say that. It is human nature to try to make the best of a bad situation. It's human nature to take advantage of the gullibility of others. "Oh, yeah, trust me, there were miracles all over the place, and he flew above crowds and ascended into the sky." The apostles found themselves at the top of a significant religious movement that had lost its leader. What better way to keep things going than to claim the leader had returned to life. In reply to habeas corpus demands they answered that he had ascended to heaven to be with his Father, but he'll be back, there'll be a second coming, any day now, just be patient. There's no such thing as miracles. True histories don't include miracles. Miracles is what you find in religious texts. You have to put the Bible in the context of all the religious texts of all the religions of the world throughout history, back through Assyria and Babylonia and ancient Egypt and whatever was before that. They all have their confabulous tales, all untrue. The Bible is no different. And also with *your* understanding of reality. Your mind is hooked on a religious belief and can't free itself. You think miracles are real, but only Christian miracles. Your reject Buddhist and Hindu and probably especially Norse and Roman and Greek and Babylonian and ancient Egyptian religious miracles. To you those were just credulous ancient peoples, not at all like the savvy, intelligent Christians of the first century. Existence is a miracle. Got it. Whose God is responsible for existence? Can I guess that your answer is your God? I couldn't make the grammar work for me on this one, but I think I get the idea. You don't have to trust what I say about God interfering in the universe. Just ask yourself where is the evidence of God changing just one thing one time from the way it would normally happen. There doesn't even have to be an event, and however a story begins, the more time that passes the more opportunity there is for changes, errors and additions to creep in. It's the mythology process. On the contrary, they are totally connected. You're portraying ancient Christians as far more intelligent and discerning than they are today, but people then were just like people now. You say, "The first Christians did their best to provide accurate accounts," when you don't even know if they were any good at producing accurate accounts, or even whether accurate accounts were important to them compared to promoting their new religion. It knows that that's something it doesn't know. Good questions. I think there is so much we don't know that scientists will never have to worry about running out of things to learn. But your statement that science knows that the answer requires "an infinite string of processes" is baldly wrong. The point is that it contradicts your claim that even after he was arrested the apostles thought Jesus had come to lead an army against the Romans, because Matthew 26:52 quotes Jesus after his arrest telling the apostles that it isn't about swords but angels.I see a number of problems with your position. One is that you give your trust to accounts that haven't earned it, indeed are confabulous. Another is that the accounts have a number of internal and external problems. Another is that there is no evidence Jesus ever existed, with the gospel stories relating such huge unrest that Jesus could not possibly have escaped the notice of history. Another is that the increasing detail of the Jesus stories over time is a central quality of mythology. Another is that you're picking and choosing which parts of inherently unreliable accounts you're going to retain.--Percy

I would suggest differently, that there are all sorts of fallacies no one has ever experienced, such as zombies, vampires and miracles. Of course not, that would be impossible. Your purpose was to characterize their claims of trustworthiness as trustworthy. I again offer you a fine bridge, a bit old but still in good shape and adjacent to prime real estate. Yes, I know. My bridge offer still stands. You can have full title for a pittance, trust me. Your religion can make up its own fictions, but of course all religions are made up. You believe the stories of other religions are made up, but what makes you think the inventions of your religion are special? Because it's your religion? Sure, and in a thousand years archeologists will dig up a copy of A Tale of Two Cities and deem it obvious history since there really were cities like London and Paris, and there really was a French Revolution. Obviously you're a believer of your religion who thinks he has evidence supporting its truth. What are these "a lot more than hints"? I suspect there's a lot less there than you think. And Josephus wrote almost nothing about Christians. You can fit it all on your hand, including the obvious later insertion. Right, that's what I just said, making all the more mysterious why you think the apostles thought he had made such promises. Jesus rebuking apostles in this way is the opposite of making princely promises, so again, where did these strange apostolic ideas come from? Chapter and verse? I never said that you did claim Jesus made OT prophecies. I said (and you quoted me saying it), that you're taking OT promises and pretending Jesus made them, or somehow gave the apostles the impression that that's what he was promising. That's an obvious post facto invention, one where one of the gospels misinterprets the prophecy and has Jesus riding both a donkey and a colt at the same time. You can't even do a straight reading of your own books. Their hopes were not dashed, because within a few days they were evangelizing more energetically than ever with a new message: Jesus is risen. Gee, was that really their sales pitch, a crucified messiah? Aren't you forgetting the resurrection? Really. There's only one possibility that makes sense to you, a resurrection. How come you likely don't believe I have a bridge to sell, but you believe in a resurrection? This is rebuttal to you? It isn't up to me to prove that your fairy tales are any more credible than the fairy tales of all the other religions and civilizations. It's up to you to provide evidence of your fairy tales. "Says you" is just throwing up your hands. You're getting very repetitive. Existence is a miracle again? You're not engaging in discussion and an examination of evidence - you're just declaring your beliefs. In a world where everything is a miracle, nothing is a miracle. So why all this focus on Christ? What about Mohammed and Buddha and Zeus and Odin and Ra? Boy, talk about cafeteria Anglican.So you accept some things of Buddha and Ghandi (not a god), for example, but not Zeus or Ra or Odin, right? So I understand you believe existence itself is a miracle, but which God is responsible for existence? Can I guess your answer is the God you just described and not any of the other gods? Everybody believes their religion is special. You're no different. I didn't say anything about proving miracles. I suggested you ask yourself where is the evidence? So if the gospel stories are evidence of Christ's resurrection, then the Norse stories are evidence of Odin, Thor and Loki. Science doesn't prove things. Where's your evidence that isn't just as non-existent as the "evidence" for all the other religions, both alive and dead. You're trying to define miracle as something that by its very nature science can't study. How convenient for you. Shouldn't science be able to say whether something can be explained by known physical laws? Yes, I already understood the argument. Science doesn't think a time linear sequence is the only possible explanation for why there is something instead of nothing.--Percy

Not awaiting evidence. Not seeking unicorns, either. If our senses can detect it, either directly or through instrumentation, then it is evidence. There aren't varieties of evidence.--Percy

Put another way, you find discussion difficult with those who don't already accept your claims. Or evidence. If the NT is evidence then so are the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Epic of Gigamesh.You've already been over this ground, the answer hasn't changed, yet you keep saying it without any empirical support. This is often true of things that didn't happen. I think it would be more fair to say that I've become more direct the more repetitive and preachy your arguments. You're not acting like you want a middle ground. It's more like you have preconditions for what others must first accept. And if they don't accept your preconditions, like that miracles are possible, then they're being unreasonable. Where are there any messianic claims in either OT or NT of reestablishing Israel and/or making it the most powerful nation in the region? Maybe they exist, but my skepticism of your claims keeps growing because requests for substantiation are generally met with...crickets. Liberate them from the Romans, sure, but rebuild the Temple? Before it was destroyed? Not likely. You're again repeating the story of the dunderheaded apostles, and again without substantiation. It couldn't possibly be the case that you believe repeating something enough times makes it true, so why are you doing this? Anyway, it's not the story of the gospels. You're going over old ground again, repeating a previous and already rebutted claim. The usage in Daniel and the NT differ. From the Son of man (Christianity):

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Son of man is an expression in the sayings of Jesus in Christian writings, including the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation. The meaning of the expression is controversial. Interpretation of the use of "the Son of man" in the New Testament has remained challenging and after 150 years of debate no consensus on the issue has emerged among scholars.

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I didn't ask for proof. I asked for evidence. If all you got is, "You either believe or you don't," then you got nothin'. Say what? If it's all the same God no matter what religion, then of what possible difference could a resurrection make?--Percy

I have nothing against Polkinghorne, but I do like accuracy. What physics awards are you referring to? And I don't think he supports anything you're saying about the gospels, or Collins, either.In general, the greater the scientist the less likely religious belief. But unlike Christianity the quantum world has been empirically established, intuitive or not. Who knows what Newton would have said, but at least he could examine the evidence for himself. Calling Jesus "somewhat particle like" while moving between dimensions sounds pretty strange, but if you've got empirical evidence then I'm believing.--Percy

I almost never watch videos - information flow is too slow and diffuse. I'd have to have an awfully good reason to watch a video. I don't mind watching short stuff, or when somebody can point to the important (small) portion of a video.Also, never heard of Craig Parsons.Clearly you are strongly driven to believe in the Christian God, but many are strongly driven to believe in all sorts of things, including the opposite of the Christian God. The mere fact of someone's belief is not some sort of argument or evidence that others should believe, too. Besides, it seems to me that your God makes you unhappy and treats you poorly, hardly an argument others will find convincing. It instead argues that your belief is irrational.My belief in God is equally irrational, but at least I know it. Plus, if he's intervened in my life at all then He's a hell of a nice guy, a far stronger argument for my God than for yours.--Percy

You keep using the word proof, and I keep nudging you away from it, instead encouraging use of the word evidence. When you say proof do you mean evidence? I'll make that assumption from here on out. The gospels aren't evidence. They're religious myths. When you Christians get it squared away with all the other religions which one's myths are actually true you let us know. How many times are you going to repeat the same argument and ignore the rebuttal? It's still a case of, "Meh on your crucifixion, we've got a resurrection." What evidence? I don't claim that it all didn't happen and that it's all impossible. I only claim that the impossible parts absolutely didn't happen. For you to say this means you haven't been listening. I have not been saying things like, "Jesus couldn't possibly have actually walked on water, so there has to be some other explanation for him appearing to have walked on water." I haven't been saying anything like that at all.What I've been saying is that it's all made up. Jesus isn't real. He never walked on water. He never fed five thousand with a few baskets of food. He never raised anyone from the dead. He never made the blind see. He was never crucified. He was never resurrected. It's all just stories and mythology that arose around the main character in Paul's invented religion. The reasons you cite for finding the discussion difficult have nothing to do with anything I've actually said. If you really believe that then why do you care so much that I've made up my mind differently from you. Or are you so desperate to discuss theology that you'll attempt it with someone who doesn't merely have a different slant on things but who rejects all the world's religions? What is nonsense is that you think the gospels (why do you keep capitalizing "gospels", by the way) and the rise of the early church are evidence. If the rise of the early Christian church is evidence then the early stages of any religion is evidence. All religions had their early stages, and all religions can't be true. It isn't evidence. That the evidence of all the world's religions is highly contradictory tells us that it is all the fabrication of man's imagination. Don't be such a rube. You have no evidence of miracles yet you accept them anyway, plus you reject the miracles of religions that go against your own religious beliefs, such as the revelations of Maroni to Joseph Smith.If anyone has evidence of miracles then it is a very well kept secret, and there is a tremendous amount of miraculous flim-flam surrounding religions what with all the faith healers and the like. Why do you believe people 2000 years ago were more astute than the highly gullible people of today? How does that make any sense? You're mischaracterizing Matthew 20:21. There is no "when" in Zebedee's wife's request. Jesus's kingdom is the kingdom of heaven, and she asks if her sons can sit by Jesus's side in his kingdom. You're repeating the same mistake. I think you're confusing Jewish and Christian concepts of messiahship. Jesus introduced the Christian version, a saver of souls. He was pretty clear about it, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men," and all that. That's about the only hint (and it's the merest of hints) of anything military in Jesus's ministry, including the apostles. Wow, you really do like discussing theology. It is enough for me that "after 150 years of debate no consensus on the issue has emerged among scholars." I'm not interested in getting into a debate on a subject that remains unsettled after 150 years. If for you it is settled then good for you. Hearsay, myths and stories of miracles are not evidence. You are the one who said, "You either believe or you don't." That is not what one says when one has evidence. When one has no evidence but evidence is required then one points to whatever is at hand and calls it evidence. You already said this in this post, and I already answered. This is still wrong for the reasons I gave above. This makes no sense. If it's all the same God no matter what religion, including religions where Jesus plays no role, then of what possible difference could a resurrection make?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Putting this in my own words, very intelligent people can be indoctrinated into religious ideas at a very young age that can last a lifetime. This is what I believe happened to me, whether I'm "very intelligent" or not. The ideas were placed in my brain at a young age, and they're still there. My religious beliefs sit in isolation from the rest of what I know because they're incompatible with the reality of observation and study.--Percy

Was creation real? Were Adam and Eve real? Was the snake real? Was the flood real? Was the parting of the Red Sea real?I don't know why religious believers bother raising these questions. There's no evidence to answer them, and for many no means of transmission of what happened. For example, if men were inspired by God to write but not told what to write then no man could know how creation occurred and it must be made up.For those who believe in God and believe that religion tells the story of God, the multiplicity of religions says that they cannot all be right. At most one is right. Most likely all are wrong. Figure out whether it's one or none. If it's one then let us know which one and why.--Percy

Then why did you keep saying proof where you meant evidence? Who says the gospels are non-fiction? A Tale of Two Cities is also evidence of some things, and it is fiction. Depends upon what part of the NT you're talking about. You know what parts I mean when I say the NT isn't evidence. It's just standard religious myth. All religious texts are bunk, including the Bible, but because the Bible is your baby you just can't see it. There's the cafeteria Anglican again. Most of what you believe has nothing to do with Anglicanism. You're an apologist, not for your own religion but for your flawed methods that have produced your unique concoction. You don't even have a "But my religion is the one, right and true religion" message, but instead a "What I've picked out of various religious texts is the one, right and true religion." On the contrary, it's exactly picking out what you like. This is almost nonsense and is certainly circular. You're using the life and message of Jesus to decide what is true in the NT about the life and message of Jesus. Please, don't be insulting. The evidence driven process I use bears no resemblance to what you're doing. Why didn't you just post the image: It's also true of people in general. I've felt it from inside all my life, and I think this is true of most people. It isn't something anyone has to teach, though hearing it succinctly expressed is helpful. Fundamental to all the law? You mean like these:

• You shall have no other Gods but me.
• You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
• You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
• You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.

You make overly broad claims a lot. The Golden Rule does not belong to religion - it's a human thing. Most people feel it from within, religious or not. You've lost the plot. It was you who failed to mention the resurrection, not me. You mentioned only the crucifixion, and I reminded you about the resurrection. It makes no sense for you to lecture me that the resurrection is a key component of the Jesus myth in response to my reminder to you that the resurrection is a key component of the Jesus myth. Gee, I guess he didn't see it coming. Paul was the theologian who crafted the Jesus story, probably based upon an existing myth invented by the followers of Peter. It's a discussion to both of us, but if you really believe that each of us makes up our own minds (which is what you had said that I was responding to - I quoted it) then why do you care so much that I've made up my own mind differently from you? Well, of course. As a rationalist I oppose irrationality wherever it shows itself. Naturally I have no objection to admitted irrationality (consistent with how I characterize my own religious beliefs), but I do object to irrationality masquerading as rationality. You think you're being rational because you're judging which parts of the Bible are true and which are not. You think you're capturing the wheat and letting the chaff blow away, but none of your choices are underpinned by actual evidence. They're underpinned by what you've decided to call evidence despite that it has no such quality, and you make special pleadings like, "The Jesus story of crucifixion and resurrection must be true because what else could possibly explain the behavior of the apostles?" My expression of perplexity at why you were continuing a discussion about the underpinning of religious belief where you say we all make up our own minds about religion was not any indication about my own feelings about whether the discussion should continue. I oppose irrationality, and obviously I still see a great deal of irrationality in your posts, so by what strange logic would you conclude I might want to end the discussion? "Subjective conclusions?" That's the first time I think I've seen you say that...let me check. Well, way back in Message 419 you did say that "subjective reasoning and intuition are a big part of our conclusions." If you understand that your conclusions are subjective, why are you arguing that they're underpinned by objective evidence? It is part of human nature. Of course principles like it or close to it are part of many human-contrived religions. If you think the people of 2000 years ago were as gullible as the people of today, why do you accept their judgments about miracles? Based upon what objective evidence? You aren't very explicit here. By "miracles that aren't recorded in the Bible" are you referring to miracles described in the scriptures of other religions? I'll await clarification before commenting. Of course it doesn't concern you. Confirmation bias directs your attention away from thinking about the impossibility of miracles and the likelihood of their fabrication and toward things that are more likely to confirm what you already believe. But you're firmly convinced of lots of things that make no sense and are completely unsupported by objective evidence. Why do you think telling me that you're firmly convinced about this would carry any weight? Again, why do you think Zebedee's wife's request isn't about the kingdom of heaven? This is just wishful thinking. The whole gospel (lowercase) message is God's kingdom in heaven. And Jesus had a different message. You're still confusing the Jewish and Christian concepts of messiahship. Jesus was ministering to Jews who had the Jewish concept, and he gave them the Christian concept. You're still trying to perpetuate this gospel misconstrual that Jesus's followers didn't understand his message until after his death. Chapter and verse. Where in the NT does Jesus say he (or anyone) would lead them against their enemies. Let me guess that you're again going to cite verses that clearly don't say what you claim they say. This is a more accurate statement of the message of the gospels than you've given so far, though it still has problems. Salvation is most certainly about saving souls, and salvation is a central theme of the gospels. It isn't a kingdom (lowercase) of all nations but a kingdom of God in heaven. The rest of what you say is fine. Imagine my surprise, since I've said the same thing many times only to have you dispute it, for example in Message 1000 where you said, "Here was Jesus back again and they still thought that now was the time He would 'restore the Kingdom to Israel'. This meant getting the Romans out and having a Jewish theocracy established presumably by military means but they may well have thought that Jesus had something else in mind. However it still would have meant getting rid of the Romans." Actual objective evidence yields no quarter about believing it. Only the unevidenced gives you the option of believing or not. Your added explanation adds nothing to your point, and merely standing by your quoted statement just reeks nolo contendere. Again, if all religions are actually about the same God, then of what possible difference could a resurrection (that is part of only one of the religions) make?--Percy

Well, come on then, follow up on what you believe. Go find the objective evidence of this intelligent root cause. Stop asking meaningless rhetorical questions like, "How else could all of creation have come about without an intelligent root cause?"--Percy

While Faith's rapture now receives only occasional mention (given her current non-participation I guess one could say she was raptured from this thread), it is on my mind in every post, for it is the poster child for how made up ideas, those without real world evidence, fail to make accurate predictions about the real world. Failed predictions help us judge which ideas to discard.In my mind this thread has always been about evidence, and since I'm still discussing what constitutes evidence with GDR it still feels like the same thread to me. But I can understand that those focused more specifically on Faith's predicted rapture might see the current discussion as having left the topic, in which case I have no problem with closing the thread. If GDR would like to continue the discussion he could proposed a new thread over at Proposed New Topics. He could include responses to the latest replies to him in the thread proposal.--Percy