Church History In Plain Language (4th edition)

But it doesn't work. You can influence what people will do ...

Yeah, as a matter of fact it does work. You can condition a human to respond to specific stimuli with specific actions just like Pavlov's dog without any voluntary buy-in by the victim. Far beyond mere influence.

Brainwashing-and-reindoctriantion (pdf)

Brainwashing in Custody Cases: The Parental Alienation Syndrome (pdf)

How Brainwashing Works

The kind of control that can be exercised by brainwashing goes far beyond mere influence.

My point with Phat was that the mind does change itself as a response to the stimuli that it receives, which is what you are saying.

From your Message 36

quote:

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External stimuli can influence the transformation but only the mind itself can "control" the transformation.

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This is only part true for the most common forms of persuasion employed in polite society: advertising, education etc. This is not at all true for the kinds of intense dominating techniques used by jesus camp, cultists and reich-wing demagogues.

Do the search, Google Scholar. The human brain, its processes and results, are quite manipulable from concerted outside control. Not just influence but control of the thought processes themselves. The constant barrage of specific stimuli will cause new synaptic connections to form and strengthen to the exclusion of others that have already formed and will now atrophy from disuse.

That is how the brain functions. And in cases of intense brainwashing it is not voluntary and leaves the victim no control over its effects. In the jesus camp video the children are not being influenced. Their minds are being rewired for control of their religious thought.

But this is a side tangent I'm sorry I got you into. In the context of your conversation with Phat you are right.

Message 27

quote:

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We are ALL "being transformed" - some for the better, some for the worse. The fact is that there is NO correlation between "transformation" and Christianity.

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There is no hidden supernatural force that can be shown to be transforming human minds into good little Christian Soldiers. As usual with religionists seeking validation any supposed influence by some universal sky daddy to bring the beauty of Christianity to a deserving individual by screwing with the wiring in their brain is nothing more than another in a long line of mystical articles of faith denied by reality.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Do you honestly think and believe that an atheist/humanist could even understand the Bible?

Yes, of course! And far better than most believers ever could. Because a believer would just repeat the fairy tales he had been raised on instead of digging into the actual history and investigating the external sources that the Bible had drawn on (eg, the Babylonian creation and flood myths, the Code of Hammurabi). Instead of seeking information and the truth, he would have a vested interest in supporting his fairy tales, just as creationists and Trump lemmings do.

For example, whom would you trust to give you a factual history of the founding of Mormonism? A non-Mormon scholar? Or a believing Mormon who would insist on the literal truth of the golden plates and Joseph Smith's ability to translate them through mystical means?

And whom would you trust to give you a factual account of the founding and operation of Scientology? An outsider who has investigated them for decades?
Or a true believer who has gotten clear and been given access to the briefcase with the central myth (which is complete and utter bullshit craziness)?

Of course, an atheist examining the Bible could be trying to disprove it. But even then an atheist would do so using actual facts, so even if you do not accept the disproof you will still benefit from learning actual facts. In contrast, reading a believer's apologetics based on fairy tales would still leave you starved of actual facts.

I could care less what Asimov's credentials are...he is speaking on a subject with which he has no familiarity.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. If you actually study a subject, then you will have familiarity with that subject regardless of whether you believe in it or not. And indeed, as a non-believer you should have far more familiarity with the subject because you would have studied all aspects of the subject, including both its strengths and weaknesses, whereas a believer would only study the strengths and ignore the weaknesses (even to the point of denying that the weaknesses even exist).

This also gets us into the differing goals of religious education and secular education. As I have often quoted from the California science education guidelines, the goal of education is that the student understand the subject matter and not to compel belief. In sharp contrast, the goal of religious education is indoctrination in which the student is compelled to believe (and "balanced treatment" creationist educational materials have been found to end every lesson compelling the student to make a life choice right then and there between an "unnamed Creator" and "atheistic evolution"). In my own online experience with creationists, when I have urged that they study evolution in order to learn what it really is and says, they have rejected that idea absolutely because "that would require me to believe in evolution".

Also, a believer's familiarity with the Bible is through his own religious education which is characterized by reading individual verses or small groups of verses and interpreting them out of context. In contrast, a non-believer would be far more likely to read entire chapters and books of the Bible such that when he reads those same verses he would be reading and interpreting them in context. Indeed, entire denominations of Christianity depend on out-of-context interpreting (and misinterpreting) of single verses.

He does not have the Holy Spirit nor do you.

What is that supposed to have to do with anything? How is that supposed to affect an honest scholarly work?

Of course, in your fairy tales the Holy Spirit is supposed to guide you to what the Bible actually says. Haven't you ever found it odd that millions of believers have been guided by the same Holy Spirit in learning what the same Bible actually says and they all come up with different results? If that magic trick by the Holy Spirit actually worked, then there should be only one single Christian church instead of the immense splintering of Christianity into a near-infinite number of churches all disagreeing vehemently with each other. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Facts are facts. Follow the facts. Spooky claims are no substitute for following the facts.

I've mentioned this one before, but it seems appropriate since Isaac Asimov's upbringing was Jewish. The 2011 movie, Mein Bester Feind ("My Best Enemy"), has as its MacGuffin an unknown sketch of Moses by Michelangelo owned by a Jewish art dealer. When his gentile best friend (later to join the SS) asked why Moses is depicted with horns, the art dealer explains that it was due to a Christian mistranslation adding, "Christians have no idea how to read the Bible." How true, how very true.

Lets recap for a moment. Correct me if I'm wronly representing what you say or have said.

You once were religious and, like me, claim that you at one time believed in God,Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You allegedly were transformed through logic, reason, reality and evidence based thinking.
Evidently you began to believe in something stronger than the Creator of all seen and unseen...or am I wrong? Do you have any belief in such a Deity at all these days?

My point with Phat was that the mind does change itself as a response to the stimuli that it receives, which is what you are saying.

The mind will feed on whatever zeitgeist(spirit of the age) that it is fed with. The Holy Spirit is preferable to the spirit of the age, which is chock full of information yet lacking in truth or love.

And the mind does not need an external entity like a holy spook to change it.

The mind will only transform through a transformative higher power.
There are basically only two. The Holy Spirit
The fake spirit of the new age. Take your pick and choose wisely.

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"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
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“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).

quote:

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Christianity's roots go back into Jewish history long before the birth of Jesus Christ. It was Jesus of Nazareth, however, who attacked established Judaism and brought a renewal movement into history's light early in the first century. After his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, a Roman official, Jesus teachings spread throughout the Mediterranean area. An apostle named Paul was especially influential. He stressed God's gift of salvation for all men and thus led in Christianity's emergence from Palestinian Judaism to a position as a universal religion.

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As jar has also stated, the author says that "Jesus was a Jew. He came from a Jewish family; he studied the Jewish scriptures; he observed the Jewish religion. Any serious study of his life makes this so clear that many people have asked if Jesus ever intended to create that company of followers that we call the church." The author delves into this question in depth.

phat,addressing jar in response to plugging Asimovs Book writes: Do you honestly think and believe that an atheist/humanist could even understand the Bible?

dwise1 writes: Yes, of course! And far better than most believers ever could. Because a believer would just repeat the fairy tales he had been raised on instead of digging into the actual history and investigating the external sources that the Bible had drawn on (eg, the Babylonian creation and flood myths, the Code of Hammurabi). Instead of seeking information and the truth, he would have a vested interest in supporting his fairy tales, just as creationists and Trump lemmings do.

Upon listening to this history, I found what appears to be a reputable author/historian and a well researched book. Christian History has many characters after the original Apostles passed on, and while much of the mythos was built from them, I fail to see the connections to the Babylonian myths which of you speak except through the idea of obvious inference. I do not believe that the accounts from the Apostles and original authors wer made up in any way and I feel that this assertion is somewhat misleading and false. I can deduce that there would be some who wished to discredit the stories in the Bible and could see criticism coming from that direction, however. Granted I will admit to some bias and do not approach this subject without some degree of presumption. I believe that Jesus existeed and that He did have quite an influence within tyhe local areas in which He grew up in. I also know that He had many detractors and many outright enemies though I see no logical reason why this would be so apart from the fact that His message was disrupting a lot of peoples livelihood. I will take this Book Nook topic and go over what the author discusses and we can discuss the honesty, scholarship, and facts as we discuss each section. The sections (which contain several Chapters each) are labeled as follows:

The Age of Jesus and the Apostles 6BC-AD 70

The Age of Catholic Christianity 70-312

The Age of the Christian Roman Empire 312-590

The Christian Middle Ages 590-1517

The Age of the Reformation 1517-1648
Lets discuss these first. To begin with, I do not see the Bible as a fairy tale. I do, however, see the many disagreements as to the proper theology and interpretation of the book and its central character throughout church history. These first 5 sections represent 1650 years of church history. The US is nearly 245 years old, barely 1/6 of that total. Feel free to ask me what I learned about each of these eras thus far. I'm still reading.

Edited by Phat, : refined focus

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"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
***
“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).

Phat writes: Evidently you began to believe in something stronger than the Creator of all seen and unseen...

No, it wasn't a matter of substituting one "something" for another. It was removing a worthless something, taking out the trash.

Phat writes: Do you have any belief in such a Deity at all these days?

No. But that isn't the same as believing one doesn't exist. It's the belief that doesn't exist.

Phat writes: The Holy Spirit is preferable to the spirit of the age, which is chock full of information yet lacking in truth or love.

Fundamentalist Christianity is much more lacking in truth and love.

Phat writes: The mind will only transform through a transformative higher power.

Nonsense. There is no "higher power". By their fruits ye shall know the people who think there is.