| Player1x3 said: This will be my last post to this discussion. I feel (actually rather I know) we wont chnage our opinnions on the mater, and ita quite tiring to answer to posts long as these. |
It took me years to come to my position and I assume it took you years too so it would be unlikely that either of us would change their point of view so much that we would both agree, especially given that we are talking about things that we cannot experiment upon. I find such discussions useful in that if you only discuss such matters with people you agree with then you don't get exposed to other ideas that while you might disagree with them still might have merit to them.
| And I have to got to vacation in 2 weeks. By th way, which country do you perfer? Greece or Italy? |
I have never been to either so I can't recommend either but both should be fine choices as both are rich in sun and history. I hope you enjoy your holiday.
| By ''feeling'' God you know for yourself he is there. I dont expect you to understand or accept this for the reasons I mentioned before, so I'll just leave it here |
We agree that there is a real physical feeling but we disagree as to it proving the reality of the supposed cause of said feeling. It is not surprising as if one believed such feelings had a supernatural cause then they would be believers and if they are not believers they will attribute such feelings to natural causes.
| The view that faith underlies all rationality holds that rationality is dependent on faith for its coherence. Under this view, there is no way to comprehensively prove that we are actually seeing what we appear to be seeing, that what we remember actually happened, or that the laws of logic and mathematics are actually real. Instead, all beliefs depend for their coherence on faith in our senses, memory, and reason, because the foundations of rationalism cannot be proven by evidence or reason. Rationally, you can not prove anything you see is real, but you can prove that you yourself are real, and rationalist belief would be that you can believe that the world is consistent until something demonstrates inconsistency. This differs from faith based belief where you believe that your world view is consistent no matter what inconsistencies the world has with your beliefs.For more info, read about this here |
The Omphalos hypothesis/last thursdayism is old hat (I mentioned it in other posts in this thread) and it is true that we cannnot know if our senses give us a correct representation of the world or not (see simulated reality).
You are incorrect in that you need to take your senses on faith. You only need to take the correctness of your senses as an initial hypothesis and go from there. If you gather evidence that your senses are deceiving you in one respect then you can disregard those cases of sensory perception (for example, optical illusions); that is we can do what you said "you can believe that the world is consistent until something demonstrates inconsistency". However if one wishes to do as you do and deny everything their senses tell them then you can create as many self-consistent worlds as you wish but you cannot know anything about whether you are right or not as you would need to have senses in order to test those theories.
In other word your approach doesn't elevate faith to the same status as sensory knowledge but denies yourself the only tool you have to test your theories on the world.
If you accept your senses as a tool but are ready to discard their input in whole or in part if evidence indicates that you should then you can not only create self-consistents theories of the world but also test them.
If you really believe that our senses give us an incorrect representation of the world and that we should start by disregarding them then I challenge you to live by that belief and not to eat or drink as it is your sense of hunger that tells you you need to eat and your sense of fullness after eating that tells you that eating removes hunger and your senses of taste and smell that tell you it is enjoyable. If you deny them then you have no reason to eat or drink at all. If not then you acknowledge by default that there is some value on what they tell us and thus can be used as an initial basis on which to build.
BTW, we already know that our senses give us an inaccurate perception of the world as they tell us that the chair we seat in is solid even though our scientific understanding of it tells us that most of an atom's volume is composed of emptiness.
|
What I have faith in is 1.)God exists 2.)Teaching an morals of Christ |
I don't know either way on the first part.
The second part I disagree as you might know if you read my posts to DelioPT. This means that for me, even if he exists, then he still is not worthy of worship.
| For the first thing, the faith can lead me to feel his presence and thus know he is present and exist. |
Which is circular logic: 'I know because I believe because I know because I believe...'
|
For the second, we have full historical evidence that teachings of Chirst occured using both biblical and non biblical evidence. Here are non biblical evidence fo the existance of Jesus Christ of Nazareth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrRQqYGf4O0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqlFkGaDV_M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qUcXXbde4w&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qUcXXbde4w&feature=related http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus |
Let's recap:
You: "And Jesus really did exist, its a historical proven fact."
Me: "As far as I know the only eyewitness accounts are found in the bible which cannot be used as a source of its own historicity and there is no Roman record of his crucifixion. While it doesn't disprove his existence it certainly mean that it is not historically proven."
You: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus"
Me: "And where do they cite extra-biblical sources of either eyewitness accounts or records of jesus? Using the bible's claim that there was a man called Jesus as proof that there was a man called Jesus is like using the Wizard of Oz to prove that Kansas or Dorothy existed; it might be true or not but it provides no proof."
You (paraphrased): give the same list but in video form instead of textual form.
How does changing the medium of the list improve your argumentation?
I know that there are a number of historians of the first and second century that believed Jesus existed. I agree that it mean that it is most probable he existed. I disagree that it is historical evidence that he did exist because unless they were eyewitness themselves (unlikely as most were born after he died and of the few that were alive then we have only fragments) or unless they reported the accounts of eyewitnesses.
If you witness a crime you are an eyewitness and can testify about it. If you tell me about it and I am convinced of the accuracy of your claims then I cannot testify because all I would say would be hearsay, no matter how reliable I might be.
Saying Jesus existed and the proof is those guys believed he did and they should be trusted is a logical fallacy (argument from authority).
If you want to accept these historians as proof then you must also accept them as proof, among other things, that Saturn existed as a historical figure (Thallus as reported by Tertullian), that Zeus and Cronus (and by extension the Titans) existed as historical figures (Thallus again, this time reported by Theophilus Bishop of Antioch) and that Jesus's father was a roman soldier (Celsus, talking about Pentera as if he existed).
If you think that they are not evidence of the existence of these beings then they cannot be evidence of the existence of Jesus in and of themselves either.
I actually watched the video a second time because near the end the guy said abut the accounts: "claiming to be in some cases eyewitness accounts of the historical happenings of the events of this man's life" and thought there were some that I missed but even with rewatching I did not find any. I suppose the quote refers to books in the new testament as if there were non-biblical eyewitness accounts it would be much better evidence than hearsay and he would thus have put it front and center.
The best evidence is of course records as eyewitnesses can be unreliable (ask any cop) but AFAIK we also have not yet found any records of the census near his birth nor of his crucifixion
A few more thing about the video:
- It says that it is only possible due to the long period of time since Jesus's death and that there would have been a lot more evidence of the hist jesus at this time than what has been preserved until today.
I totally agree, over 2000 years a lot of evidence would have been erased that would have been available to those historians. This makes it more likely that they are right but is not evidence itself. Your claim that I am challenging is that we have such evidence today; to the best of my knowledge we don't. This includes the possibility that some of the earliest historians could have interviewed such eyewitnesses (maybe even the apostles like the video says about flavius josephus). If they have done so and if they had included such eyewitness accounts in their writing then such accounts would be evidence as they would not be hearsay from these historians but an account by those eyewitnesses.
- It mentions that we had no extra-biblical evidence of the Hittites prior to the 19th century and thus a lack of evidence is not a disproof.
I totally agree and I am not claiming that there will never be any evidence of a historical Jesus, only that as of today there is none that I am aware of. If you had brought such evidence (eyewitnesses/roman records of his birth/trial...) then I would change my opinion on the availability of such evidence but so far you have only presented hearsay. Similarly, if there was to be a new archeological find of Jesus's trial then my opinion would change too (pending some testing to make sure it is not a fake of course).
- By the same standard there is no historical evidence that Socrates existed.
I totally agree. Similarly to Jesus we only have eyewitness accounts from his followers so we cannot prove that he existed either. Note that in both cases (Jesus and Socrates) I am not claiming the negative claim (that they didn't exist), just disputing the positive claim (that we have evidence that they did exist).
If you do know of any extrabiblical eyewitness accounts or records of Jesus's life I would be genuinely interested as while it doesn't theologically matter to me whether a man named Jesus was actually born in Bethleem* I find it intellectually interesting.
* even if he didn't exists somebody existed who created his teachings
| Weather or not, the deity of Christ was real, matters little to me. |
As a matter of moral I agree as if his system is moral then it is worthy of being followed regardless of whether he existed and was a deity, whether he only existed as a man or didn't exist at all.
| So going by that, you also agree that atheis is irrational and that, your disbeleifs is irrational too? |
I do think that atheism is irrational as you cannot disprove the existence of god. However, as I am not an atheist* me thinking atheism is irrational is not enough to make me think that my belief is too; though I am open to the possibility as while I reasoned my way to my current system of belief it is quite possible that some irrationality crept in (I'm only human).
* My position is that whether god (any single one or collection of them) exists or not is an intellectually interesting question but totally irrelevant to my religious stance as for me the question of whether a god is moral or not is more important than whether he exists or not. I actually lost my belief in the morality of the christian god (and thus ceased calling myself a christian) before I lost my belief in him. I do think that there are part of christianity that are good moral precept and worthy of being followed though.
| The true faith is actually quite simple and its this 2 simple rules : 1) Beleive in God, 2.)be a good person This goes for ALL people and followers no matter what religion |
You forgot 3) That god exists.
If god does not exists then no matter how much you believe and no matter how good a person you are then even if your faith is true then it still is a true faith in false things. And how do you know 3)? Through faith... and thus the circular logic is completed. You know because you believe and your faith is true and your faith is true because you believe that god exists.
| For you to got to heave you need to have ''true faith'' in God (see above). Please understand, that true faith isnt neccessarly a true religion. In my opinnion, there is no such thing as true religion, only true religious teachings. Todays religions consist mostly and divide themselfes only by SYMBOLS AND CULTURES, but they all bear same message. |
see above.
| So to go back to your question, atheists will find exactly what they excpect in afterlife: absolutely nothing, because thats what they believed in. So, they will be correct in thier knwoledge trough faith, but not on universial level, as people who had correct faith shall findGod in afterlife |
Atheists believe that there will be no self whatsoever once dead so if they are right then they cannot even find absolutely nothing because there will be no self for them to find it. If there is a self for them to find absolutely nothing then there is a life after death (even if it consists of an eternal consciousness of nothingness) and thus they were wrong.
| They had it coming? Who had it coming? That works both ways actually. Christians had it coming for burning atheists on stick or atheists had it coming for constantly disrespecting the beleif of majority and insulting God which wasnt tolerated in the slightest back than. |
You were claiming the latter. I am claiming that it is no excuse.
| But I was talking about atheists today, and how they spend more time insulting religious and religious people (Christianity, over any other, they seem to have some bias towarss Islam and Budhism) instead of actually,you know, not spending anyie thinking about it, as they dont believe in any of it. |
A lot of it is selection bias as they are more likely to be coming from a christian background or at least from a country with strong christian roots. I also have problems with some of the moral teachings of Islam that I have head of but as I was not born in a Muslim family the bulk of my theological thinking was done with the bible and not the koran so I am not in as good a position to criticise it as Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Ibn Warraq.
| Are we talking about Cristopher Hitchens?I looked it up and it looks like he really is alive, but not for long from the looks of things |
Yup, if he is wrong he is likely to soon know.
|
But isnt that just an assumption? Not an historical fact?I am not saying that you are wrong, you could be right, but there realy is little to no proof of that |
Yes it is, which is why I retracted it earlier. I was just pointing out that you also were leaning in that type of thinking.
| But we cant argue that they were atheist that were affraid to go out, because its an insufficient asumption. Atheism was a social tabu back than, but it was legal and lot of things that werent accepted in socitey still made their presence know back than |
See right above.
| I accept ALL christian morals |
Even the doctrine of the original sin? for me it is completely immoral as it the same as punishing somebody's children for the acts of the parents (and the grandchildren...).
| The problem is, that lots of spiritual claims from a religon came of symbolics from pagan religion and the culture from which it was born. |
Which reminds me that I still have to read The Golden Bough:
"The book scandalized the British public upon its first publication, because it included the Christian story of Jesus in its comparative study, thus inviting an agnostic reading of the Lamb of God as a relic of a pagan religion. Frazer removed his analysis of theCrucifixion to a speculative appendix for the third edition, and it was entirely missing from the single-volume abridged edition."
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Me: Underlined: yeah, I kinda noticed over the last few posts You: Probably, but not neccessarly. Was Galileo considerd as an atheist back than? |
. A few centuries ago you would probably have been labelled an atheist.No, he was not tried for atheism but heresy. Hobbes was accused of atheism even though he was a christian because he believed that there was no incorporeal substance and that god was corporeal. So I guess it would mostly depend on the century whether you would have been seen as a heretic or an atheist.
| Exactly, in my opinnion it doesnt. It only holds more value because it connects people with God and teaches them about him.The thing about Bible is, you have to read it and STUDY it REALLY CAREFUL to undestand it. Its truley an amazing book.If th other book that teaches same values and morals as Bible than yes, its just as good and amazing |
I do not agree with all the moral teachings of the new testament so i will have to disagree on that.
| Well, there were quite the few people of the church that abused its main purpose. |
I was more thinking of people, like me, who see the old testament as a way for a ruling class to impose its laws on the rest of the population by claiming divine authority and the gospels as an (imperfect) attempt to reform those odious teachings. As opposed to a book about revealing god and bringing humanity closer to him as generally viewed by jews and christians. That's why I would have changed the all to almost as not all who studied the bible came to the same comclusion as to its purpose.
| Why would Jesus Christ hurt another person by throwing rocks at him? Dont you know who he was? Besides, he was making a point, not givng an order. He meant that no one is sinless and no one should judge anyone. |
Remember that it started with me claiming that the new testament contradicted the teachings of the old testament, you countering that it was because they teached different domains, me pointing out that sometimes they taught in the same domain in contradictory way, like the old testament teaching to stone people for various things (and thus resist evil) while Jesus taught not to resist evil. You then pointed out the story of the woman taken in adultery.
I took it that you meant that Jesus was not contradicting the old testament in this case as he offered the possibility of stoning her and thus pointed out that him not doing it even though he met the standard he laid means that he still contradicted the old testament. If that is not what you meant then how was bringing that story up showing that he did not contradict the old testament?
In other words, I am not saying that he personally had any reason to cast that stone but the fact that he didn't is a direct contradiction to the old testament, which was my initial point.
| Well, thats a fetish, and the true macoshits enjoys pain and pain is no fetish. Pain harms a person and it can not be considerd normal nor good. And people that enjoy spanking, enjoy it because of what represents on the outside, they dont enjoy the pain that creates. |
Pain doesn't harm a person, it is a warning signal that a person is either harmed or about to be. That some people associate it with pleasure is not the norm but it is not inherantly harmful either and the art of sadomasochism in sex is to inflict enough pain to give pleasure while not inflicting so much that it harms the person. I would agree that masochism pushed to an extreme where people get harmed is bad but most things taken to the extreme are bad.
As for spanking, pain is part of the reason it is pleasant, but only because the pleasure of the sensation once the pain is over is higher than the pain. Same things with masochists.
| (I DONT SPEAK from expereince) |
Lol. I wouldn't judge you if you were.
| Jesus Christ sacrificed himself to show people the rigtheous ways of life and let people to heaven and remove the burden Adam has put on mankind by tasting the apple from the tree of knowledge (from the Bible) Christianity teaches us, that in order for us to be in Heaven with God, we must be free of sin, and since all humans are under sin by nature, the only reason/cause/we get to heaven is because Jesus Christ died for our sins. Of course, one needs to be a good person of free soul to even be able to live in Heaven, I hope you know what I mean/you understand what I ean |
Yes, but you claimed that the belief in his godhood part was not necessary. I agree that being good is also necessary (but not enough) and so is his sacrifice but we disagree on the third requirement which is belief in him as saviour. According to you (if I understand your position correctly) Jesus's sacrifice + being good are enough. According to Mark 16:16 it is not and you also need belief in Jesus.
| It was their choice to believe in what they want. Its not immoral if you choose that way yourself. I do not know weather or not God shows them the way in afterlife, but I beleive he doesnt. While my knowledge on christian theism is decent (not my words, so I was told) it is way far from perfect. So i am not able to answer that with more detail. |
I talked about it in more depth in my discussion with DelioPT but basically, if heaven and hell are about rewarding/punishing morality/immorality then the only requirement should be the morality of a person, not their belief which has more to do with the culture they were raised in than with any morality. I just do not see it as moral to punish people for having the wrong parents.
| You have to undestand that back when that was written, slavery was still considerd normal. I believe what Jesus meant is that slaves should respect thier masters. And I dont beleive that goes not only for slave-master relations but for all kind of authority relations. After all, jesus teaches us that all men are equal. |
My view is that while I would expect the new testament to hold moral views similar to those held in the days it was written if it was written by non-divinely inspired men, I hold that if it was written by a moral god then we should expect its morality to be higher than the morality of the time it was written in and such it should decry slavery as immoral. That it doesn't indicates that it either was not written under divine influence or that it was but that the divinity influencing the writing is not a moral divinity and thus not worthy of worship.
| You had no soul before God decided to grant you a gift of life - thats an theistic view. You had no life before you were born, you had no karma, you had no choice nor free will. Afterlife is much different that ''beforelife''(is that even a word?). You did not exist before you were born, but you existed before you died and thus your life can effect your afterlife. |
The point is even if my "soul" is destroyed at my death (which you find terrifying) then I do not find that terrifying. Nor do I find the prospect of going to the hell the catholics believe in terrifying.
| God condamns blasphemy as well as all bad and evil acts, there is nothing wrong about that. Altough the death part was taken from pagan religions i assume, as said so in Documentary Hypothesis (the thoery on authorship of Thora). Judism is solely based on correct laws and behaviour and it its main focus, while Christianity focuses on correct and othodox faith and that the morals Jesus Christ and God himself |
What?? There is nothing wrong with putting people to death for practicing free speech? Like hell there isn't, I guess you agree with the fatwah against Salman Rushdie then. The death part is specifically refered to as coming from god (the LORD said) so If it really came from paganism then it is just another indication that the bible is not divinely inspired but the work of man.
| Again, I dont reckal that I said beleive in his teachings only will get you to Heaven, |
No you are right, you claimed that believing in him was not necessary but you did not claim that his teachings were enough. Sorry I misspoke. But still, it doesn't change that Mark 16:16 lists belief as necessary, which was the point.
| in fact Christianity teaches us that NO ONE is too good for heaven no matter how much of a good person he is.Of course a bad person has no chance of getting into heaven at allBaptism is important in Christianity becaue it marks a new born peron as a christian. But that wasnt said by Jesus Christ, was it? You have to understand that jesus Christ, unlike his followers DIDNT want to start a new church nor religion. he simply wanted to show the people righteous path and right orals. His followers that founded a whole new church and religion and as such, needed to adopt or creat some of the rituals and customs from pagan religions, (such and cross, which orgin from egyptian pagan religions I believe), when you look at things, Jesus Christ had nothing to do with cross (except being crucified on it, just like thousands of peole before him) and yet that symbol is the primary one for his religion |
For the part about Jesus not wanting to build a church see Matthew 16:18: "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church".
| Oh, I think you'll find that interpretetation of Christianity is much more mainstream that you think :) |
| And I am glad we can end this, as I am going to vacation in 2 weeks, either Greece or italy, both have rich history of christianity btw :) |
And a rich history in paganism too. I hope you enjoy your holiday.
And to finish on a lighter note:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cizYB7RTVg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX-Aldx-LM0&feature=related
"I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"
