Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

One person reported by another person to have seen him ascend, with no detail, just the flat statement. Not very convincing, certainly not convincing compared with a whole group of disciples watching Jesus ascend, plus circumstantial details to give it more credibility such as the presence of the men in white robes and their comments.

I just wanted to add one more thing in addition to what I said earlier. Just as accounts of witnesses to a car accident differ they all agree that an accident happened, and the point is that their statements only exist because an accident happened.If the resurrection hadn't happened there wouldn't be any accounts to differ.London is a great place around Christmas time. I remember standing looking down Oxford Street one time, at all the activity and crowds, and just getting the sense of everyone is "I". In a very real way we all have our own little universe. Merry Christmas

Hi Straggler
I decided today to read Josephus again as it has been a long time since I read his material. The whole book is long and tedious so along with the whole book I bought Josephus — The Essential Works.In the introduction I came across this.

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Another fault in Josephus (besides his biases) is one he shares with most of the ancient historians: a propensity to exaggerate, particularly with numbers. Casualty lists after some of the battles are so impossibly high that even to note such overstatements would clutter too many pages in the text. The reader must also discount such hyperboles as, for example, the claim that so much blood was shed in Jerusalem during its conquest that streams of gore extinguished fires there. Exaggeration, however, was so common a conceit among most of the ancient sources that if a Herodotus could claim Xeres invaded Greece with a total force of 5,283,220, Josephus may have felt it unwise to provide accurate figures if such inflation was common fare at the time.

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I think that we should accept the authors claim that ancient historians had a propensity to exaggerate and to have their biases. As is also pointed out in the introduction, biases need not connote falsehood.I suggest that in our reading of the Scriptures that we do allow for human bias and exaggerations that were normal for ancient historians. In addition when we read the scriptures with have to look for confirmation, by the fact that it is recorded by more than one author, and for its consistency with the whole narrative.The details of the ascension account in Act2 are only recorded that one time and are not repeated either in the gospels or the Epistles. The account that Jesus was bodily resurrected is in all the Gospels and Epistles.

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.

That is your conclusion based on your life and understanding of things. It is also inconsistent with my own life, but I am prepared to accept that the God who is responsible for life, is capable of doing things that are outside of what we call the natural laws, and doing it through the one who was anointed to perfectly image His nature. You severely twisted the point. I did not suggest that John is more trustworthy that Luke. I only quoted John in reference to my point. Sure, but that doesn’t make them wrong. Ya, but it seems the disciples never seemed to get it until some time after the resurrection. As I said, they didn’t get it. A Kingdom message meant to them Israel in their lifetimes. That’s more than a tad bizarre. Just what good thing did they have going for them? They had no visible means of support and their leader was put to death for the cause. Yes. .with your understanding of reality. The fact that we exist is a miracle. Who are you to say as someone who believes that there is a God can say conclusively that God couldn’t temporarily change the way things normally happen. The point was that it is more likely to have variations in the accounts years later than if it is only hours later. In both cases though the main event still was the point of it all. Those 2 things are totally unconnected. Well what does science know then? We can study evolution but what process kicked it off and so on back to the BB, and then you need a process to start that as well. I haven’t claimed absolute knowledge. It is belief and faith in that belief. I’m afraid your point here has gone over my head. I agree that it isn’t about the sword, and that it is about a spiritual rebirth that changes heart to hearts that find joy in love and peace.

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

and you know that how? I’d suggest that there are all sorts of truths neither of us have experienced. My purpose isn’t to prove their trustworthiness, but just to say that they are claiming that the accounts are trustworthy and not fabricated. We the decide ourselves whether they got it wrong, fabricated the accounts or made it all up. For me the historical context amongst other things convinces me of the fundamental correctness of the accounts. Obviously you disagree. I’d say that there are a lot more than hints and in addition it is consistent of what we know of the culture, particularly as told by Josephus. Absolutely Jesus did not make princely promises. Just the opposite in fact as you say. The disciples, because of their understanding of what they hoped for from a messiah, asked for positions of honour and were rebuked for it. Jesus’ talk was for a Kingdom on this Earth but not one with geographic boundaries, including Israel. It was for the whole world and made up of those who followed His message of love, peace, forgiveness and mercy. I Have never claimed that Jesus made OT prophesies, nor do I believe that. I do believe that Jesus read and understood OT prophesies and worked out how they applied to His specific vocation. A simple one is the prophesy of riding a donkey into Jerusalem from Jeremiah . Jesus felt called to make a messianic claim so He arranged for a donkey. But none of that makes any sense. They had hoped that Jesus, in whatever manner, was going to lead them against their enemies. The enemy had just crucified Him. They had lost, and the hopes were dashed. Even if they believed He was coming back, you really have to take a leap of faith to think that they could sell a crucified messiah based on that claim. The only thing that makes sense is that Jesus really had returned and now they had reason to carry on, however, with a mission that was quite different than what they had imagined. Says you. I’d suggest again that the fact that you and I exist, regardless of how it was done, is a miracle. Sentient life with a sense of morality from non-dimensional mindless particles sure sounds like a miracle to me. Healing a leper is pretty small potatoes. You make claims about what I believe that I have never claimed. Frankly I would think that there have been other miracles other than Christian miracles. God is God of all. He isn’t my god in the way that you seem to mean it. I have a belief that God is loving, forgiving and just, and is represented by what we see in the life of Jesus. A few years back I read much of the book of Buddha. The Buddha who live about 700 years before Jesus had essentially the same message that we get from following Jesus. Yes, I think that He was inspired by with that message. Mahatma Ghandi was, I believe, inspired with the same message. Most religions worship a deity. It isn’t a question of which deity that we worship but about the attributes of our deity. If we are worshipping a deity who is again, loving, kind, merciful, forgiving etc then it doesn’t matter what we call that deity.
However, Christianity is different because the resurrection affirms Jesus’ life and message by the deity. You can’t prove a miracle. Stuff happens for better or for worse. The Gospels are evidence that Jesus was resurrected. We can read the accounts and accept or reject them. There is no knockdown scientific proof either way. A miracle is something that is one time and cannot be reproduced so science can only say that it cannot happen in the laws of nature as we understand them. Science has given us an understanding of the process of evolution. What is the process that got evolution started. If science ultimately is able to explain that process then what is the process that got that started. It keeps going back to the BB and then we ask what is the process that kicked that off, and then the process that brought that into existence and so on and so on.. Actually I’m more inclined to think that isn’t the case although I can’t rule it out either. Jesus was performing all of these miracles and I’m more inclined to think that they believed that somehow, as He had this miraculous capability from God that He would use that capability to overcome the enemy. Jesus message that they didn’t really understand until later was that the enemy wasn’t the Romans but the evil that the Romans represented. The weapon against evil is love. Paul goes into the details of the weapons of love in Ephesians 6.

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10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

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Jesus came from the peasant class and from an outpost in Jewish society. His followers were mostly from the peasant class. They don’t chronicle stories about peasants normally. Jesus’ political impact was well after His death. If you look at the times there is real no reason to expect there to be accounts of Jesus until Christianity had spread many decades later beyond what we have. Josephus who wasn’t born until 3 years after Jesus’ death mentions Him but not much more than that. It was a movement that grew from the lower classes and didn’t have a political impact in the history of the area until much later. The major event in the 1st century from a the view point of the Jews was the 66-70 AD war and Christianity didn’t really play any part of that. You can call it picking and choosing if you like but I am simply using Jesus as the lens in the way that I understand what is of God and what isn’t while acknowledging that there are grey areas.

This is an interesting discussion that you and GDR have going. It is becoming ever increasingly evident to me that those who are not inclined to believe the stories or the basic beliefs are, like you, at best Deists awaiting further evidence. The main difference between you and the believers is that you seemingly have never felt a need to believe or to seek God. (Or am I wrong? I seem to remember you stating your belief in a post about 2 weeks ago...let me see if i can find it) Indeed. Perhaps this is what upsets me about placing all of my trust in the future of humans without the beliefs. Our human nature is repeatedly unreliable as a secure future. Critics would point out that its all we have...thus (I need to)have positive outlooks on us all surviving. I find a joy and comfort when I pray, however. I really sense that I am getting closer to understanding myself through my belief. What scares me is that I may be treating my belief in God little differently than I was treating the possibility of winning the lottery...back when I was addicted. I like discussing these philosophies at EvC because it is one of the few places that such discussions take place---with people whom I have gotten to "know" online.Another fear that I have is that God may exist and be personal to all of us yet won't favor me the way that my expectations have been forged throughout my life. Suffering scares me...I doubt that I would be a good witness for Christ if I ended up with a poor hand in life...whether it was my fault or not.GDR is the best of the EvC Christians at representing reasons to trust Jesus. ICANT is the best at explaining scripture...despite objections from ringo and tangle...but he lacks the saavy of experiencing a secular world of logic, reason, and reality apart from faith in the KJV...in my tentative opinion. Faith knows her apologetics yet is a poor poster child for having a renewed mind and changed life through communion with the Holy Spirit. jar was too literal...and so is ringo. They read the plain text and attempt to convince mainstream Christianity that they are collectively reading and interpreting the text wrong. You are similar. The evidence is everything to you...but perhaps evidence for God is of a different variety than testing things that we can measure and observe.As for me, my jury is still out as to my effectiveness at doing anything well.I think I had stronger (though untested) faith when I first came to EvC from church and was more naive.To be honest, though---and don't ask me why because I can't explain it---I feel closer to God now than I did then, but I'm not always too happy or joyous about His tough love reshaping my expectations for my life.

It isn't about a literal interpretation; it's about a literal reading. You can't hope to understand the story of the three bears if you read it as one bear.

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

the problem (for me, if I were you) is that you treat it as a literal reading of fiction. God is more than fiction to me. Granted you argue that we make up the story to suit us...I cant argue with that criticism...but I can't justify reading a message and internalizing it as literal if it is coming from 3 bears.It would be like worshiping superman and either pretending as if he talked to me or worse...trying to put on a cape and fly out the door, spare change in hand, to save the planet from selfishness. It gets back to what I said to Percy about what differentiates the need to believe(internalized) in some of us from the need for evidence and good works that you make for yourselves in the rest of y'all. Anyway...Merry Christmas, ringo! May the library be festive and good cheer abound in your small town.

That's what I mean. You don't miss God in your life. You don't miss whatever it is that I would miss were I to think as you do.I could never view the stories and interpretation of literary legends the way that you view them. Perhaps you could never view them as I view them either...or GDR.But its all another online ongoing debate. All presents aside...(pun intended ) Merry Christmas to you and yours, Percy. May the Spirit of the season live in us all!

I would never even consider that zombies or vampires could be real. I would, however, be biased towards miracles. As for me, you can tell Mr.Trump that I prefer bridges to walls, be they actual, virtual, or metaphorical. I guess so, if you put it like that. had I never had my "Born Again" experience, I would be inclined to doubt. As is, I question but have drawn a line at doubt. Its why I argue. I can't doubt. In that regard, I'm similar to Faith...except I at least entertain questions. She wont even go that far.(Merry Christmas to you too, Faith...if you are reading this. May your aches and pains go away...at least for Christmas and prayerfully forever. )

Hi Percy. Merry Christmas.I don’t have time to respond on a point by point basis so I’m just going to respond in a more general sense.It is difficult to have a discussion as you categorically reject the possibility of miracles which includes the resurrection of course. The resurrection was a one time event 2000 years ago so there is of course no proof. As evidence we have the NT. There is however no other physical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. I believe that the resurrection of Jesus is historical where you categorically reject the possibility of it being historical and go so far as to ridicule the possibility. This kinda leaves us no middle ground to start a discussion.Anyway, just a couple of points.First off the disciples believed that a messiah, however it was done, was to establish Israel to be the number one power in the area. He was to defeat the enemy and rebuild the Temple. They saw Jesus performing miracles and failed to grasp His fundamental message of defeating the evil embodied by the Romans by loving them and turning the other cheek etc.Jesus was leading a kingdom message but it wasn’t just for Israel it was for the world. Jesus often referred to Himself as Son of Man’ which is an obvious reference to Daniel 7:14 where the Son of Man is given dominion over a kingdom of all people, nations and men of every language might serve Him in an eternal kingdom. The Gospels constantly talk about the Kingdom of God as do the epistles. It is clearly a kingdom for the here and now but extending beyond time. Jesus even told us to pray for the Kingdom to come on Earth as in Heaven.You ask for my proof that the Fairy tales I believe are true. We both know I don’t have proof. You either believe the Gospels that the resurrection is historical or you don’t.I don’t claim that other religions or other forms of Christianity for that matter are all wrong. I think that God is God of all regardless of what name we put to it. Again, what the main thing that differentiates Christianity from other religions is the resurrection. No resurrection and you are essentially left with secular humanism or possibly Judaism or some form of Buddhism.Again, have a very merry New England Christmas