Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Rhiannon on June 05, 2015, 09:59:41 AM
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This is from Evensong from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer:
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us: But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders; Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults, Restore thou them that are penitent, According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord: And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.
Is this true? Is there no health in us? Are we all miserable offenders?
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Rhi, with all the "interpretation" in the world I really don't see how you can get around the fact that this is precisely what Christianity insists is the case.
It's a miserable, rather sordid affair, all of it.
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This is from Evensong from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer:
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us: But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders; Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults, Restore thou them that are penitent, According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord: And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.
Is this true? Is there no health in us? Are we all miserable offenders?
Of course it isn't true! It just another ploy to break down the confidence of the weak-minded.
Every human being is a mixture of good and bad, in varying degrees. It's perfectly natural for it to be so, since that is how evolution works.
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Sounds like another example to that on the 'searching for God' thread. Health or wellbeing only comes from being in tune with the Will of God. 'Devices and desires of our own hearts' is another way of describing self will.
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... and self-will, autonomy, is a real no-no for gods. Just ask Prometheus.
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It sounds rather Calvinist, but I don't know the history of this stuff. There is similar stuff in the 39 Articles, 'we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the grace of God by Christ preventing us,' (Article X).
Logically, this seems to mean the same, that you cannot originate any good, isn't that Calvinist? It also suggests that non-Christians cannot do good?
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Yes, but we don't talk about that.
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It also suggests that non-Christians cannot do good?
Please tell me there aren't really any people who believe such obvious rubbish?
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It also suggests that non-Christians cannot do good?
Please tell me there aren't really any people who believe such obvious rubbish?
Every human being is inherently good because they came into existence through the creative power of God. But there is a battle going on between good and evil. Evil has the power to hide God from us, but Jesus has the power to save us from evil.
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Every human being is inherently good because they came into existence through the creative power of God. But there is a battle going on between good and evil. Evil has the power to hide God from us, but Jesus has the power to save us from evil.
So we are born good, but if evil hides "God" from us, then we will do no good.
Can't you see how daft that statement is, Alan?
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Good is good, no matter who does it IMO, no matter what their personal beliefs are.
I dislike the sort of Christianity that thinks the rest of the world doesn't know what good is, or that it has no value because the person doing it doesn't accept Jesus.
It devalues what "good" is, IMO.
Every good thing that makes the world a better place than it was before, deserves recognition.
Rose, I don't recognise these Christian "types" that are rolled out, not in a life-time of mixing amongst the Christian community. There are obviously a few characters who fit the bill, but most are just ordinary individuals, getting on with their lives, and who happen to be Christian.
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Incidentally, it's not Calvinist, but Arminian - so-called prevenient grace, meaning preceding (as does 'preventing'). Presumably, our free will is damaged and cannot choose good (or God). Or, grace is preceded by no merits (cannot be earned).
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... and self-will, autonomy, is a real no-no for gods. Just ask Prometheus.
Not sure about Prometheus' situation, but as far as the Christian God is concerned, he wants us to choose to have a relationship with him, not be forced into it by circumstances of nature. That is perhaps the main difference between said deity and any other.
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It sounds rather Calvinist, but I don't know the history of this stuff. There is similar stuff in the 39 Articles, 'we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the grace of God by Christ preventing us,' (Article X).
Logically, this seems to mean the same, that you cannot originate any good, isn't that Calvinist? It also suggests that non-Christians cannot do good?
'we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the grace of God by Christ preventing us' In terms of modern English this makes no sense, so what did it actually mean in the 16th century when it was first put together. By the way, according to Wikipedia, "First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the Church of England as it related to Calvinist doctrine and Roman Catholic practice."
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It sounds rather Calvinist, but I don't know the history of this stuff. There is similar stuff in the 39 Articles, 'we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the grace of God by Christ preventing us,' (Article X).
Logically, this seems to mean the same, that you cannot originate any good, isn't that Calvinist? It also suggests that non-Christians cannot do good?
'we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the grace of God by Christ preventing us' In terms of modern English this makes no sense, so what did it actually mean in the 16th century when it was first put together. By the way, according to Wikipedia, "First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the Church of England as it related to Calvinist doctrine and Roman Catholic practice."
Preventing here means preceding, often termed prevenient grace. In other words, we cannot choose, as our will is so corrupted, unless divine grace comes to our aid. As said above, not Calvinist, found in Wesley.
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There is something similar to these ideas in Buddhism, and some Buddhists draw links with Augustine, and his idea of bondage. However, in Buddhism, we are not in thrall to sin, but human constructs, such as self and other. And we don't receive divine grace, but a trans-ego dimension. And some Zen teachers argue that we don't receive this by our own efforts, but in fact, when those cease, and we let go. Interesting parallels.
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... and self-will, autonomy, is a real no-no for gods. Just ask Prometheus.
Not sure about Prometheus' situation, but as far as the Christian God is concerned, he wants us to choose to have a relationship with him, not be forced into it by circumstances of nature. That is perhaps the main difference between said deity and any other.
Oh come on, there is a threat that if you don't join the deity's club you will be chucked into hell, some choice, if any of that nonsense was factual!
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... and self-will, autonomy, is a real no-no for gods. Just ask Prometheus.
Not sure about Prometheus' situation, but as far as the Christian God is concerned, he wants us to choose to have a relationship with him, not be forced into it by circumstances of nature. That is perhaps the main difference between said deity and any other.
Oh come on, there is a threat that if you don't join the deity's club you will be chucked into hell, some choice, if any of that nonsense was factual!
I think one chucks themselves into hell in the final dodge from God.
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... and self-will, autonomy, is a real no-no for gods. Just ask Prometheus.
Not sure about Prometheus' situation, but as far as the Christian God is concerned, he wants us to choose to have a relationship with him, not be forced into it by circumstances of nature. That is perhaps the main difference between said deity and any other.
Oh come on, there is a threat that if you don't join the deity's club you will be chucked into hell, some choice, if any of that nonsense was factual!
I think one chucks themselves into hell in the final dodge from God.
Can this callous monster be the same Jesus, meek and mild, who loves us all! Of course, Hitler loved dogs so who knows.
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This is from Evensong from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer:
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us: But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders; Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults, Restore thou them that are penitent, According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord: And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.
Is this true? Is there no health in us? Are we all miserable offenders?
It is about spiritual health....
And it is a prayer of confession...
You said you were once a person of faith.
Were you never confirmed or taken Holy Communion?
To be honest I am not sure if you are deliberately ignoring the truths taught or you never were part of the church at all.
The basics are knowing the reason for the prayer above and what it means to be in communion with God.
What faith did you belong to, as no one genuinely who was anglican cannot know the answer to that question. :o
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BASH and others...
Romans 3:23King James Version (KJV)
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
No believer would have really asked the obvious if they had been a believer and knew their bible...
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You said you were once a person of faith.
Were you never confirmed or taken Holy Communion?
To be honest I am not sure if you are deliberately ignoring the truths taught or you never were part of the church at all.
Ah yes, the old, old ploy - deny that somebody was ever a Christian in the first place rather than concede that people can be Christians and then can give it all up.
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You said you were once a person of faith.
Were you never confirmed or taken Holy Communion?
To be honest I am not sure if you are deliberately ignoring the truths taught or you never were part of the church at all.
Ah yes, the old, old ploy - deny that somebody was ever a Christian in the first place rather than concede that people can be Christians and then can give it all up.
Say what you will... the fact is a Christian or a member of a Christian church would not need to ask such a question they would know.
Just as we know 'the old ploy' bit by the atheist said without ANY foundation and lacking even understanding is a last resort to try and have a dig when you know we are showing it up for what it is... NOT GENUINE.
Because the truth does not alter. Anyone who was a true member of the Church whether a true believer or not would not need to ask that....
As for you... let's face it, your glory seeking days as an atheist are truly over as your last response shows....
No one needed to be a TRUE CHRISTIAN to know the answer to that...
The part you MISSED/ DELIBERATELY OMITTED....
It is about spiritual health....
And it is a prayer of confession...
You said you were once a person of faith.
A prayer of confession... Spiritual health....you are scraping the bottom of the barrell because no one needed to be a true believer to know the answer. Hence, I said she said she was once a person of faith...
Asked:Were you never confirmed or taken Holy Communion?
To be honest I am not sure if you are deliberately ignoring the truths taught or you never were part of the church at all.
You see nothing to do with true Christian but a fact that this was about TRUTHS TAUGHT to all and so even not true Christians would know it...
Your slip is showing...
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Bit of history: baptised as a baby, confirmed as an adult, Communicant within the CofE for ten years. Studied with the diocesan bishop, took monthly day retreats, took a foundation degree in theology with a Methodist college attached to Oxford Brookes. Served on the PCC and deanery synod. Had articles on prayer and spirituality published in Christian media. Served as parish visitor. Went forward for selection to the priesthood but withdrew when I discovered I was pregnant. Founded and ran inter-denominational services for under-fives and their parents and carers.
Then - poof - all gone.
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You said you were once a person of faith.
Were you never confirmed or taken Holy Communion?
To be honest I am not sure if you are deliberately ignoring the truths taught or you never were part of the church at all.
Ah yes, the old, old ploy - deny that somebody was ever a Christian in the first place rather than concede that people can be Christians and then can give it all up.
Say what you will... the fact is a Christian or a member of a Christian church would not need to ask such a question they would know.
Just as we know 'the old ploy' bit by the atheist said without ANY foundation and lacking even understanding is a last resort to try and have a dig when you know we are showing it up for what it is... NOT GENUINE.
Because the truth does not alter. Anyone who was a true member of the Church whether a true believer or not would not need to ask that....
As for you... let's face it, your glory seeking days as an atheist are truly over as your last response shows....
No one needed to be a TRUE CHRISTIAN to know the answer to that...
The part you MISSED/ DELIBERATELY OMITTED....
It is about spiritual health....
And it is a prayer of confession...
You said you were once a person of faith.
A prayer of confession... Spiritual health....you are scraping the bottom of the barrell because no one needed to be a true believer to know the answer. Hence, I said she said she was once a person of faith...
Asked:Were you never confirmed or taken Holy Communion?
To be honest I am not sure if you are deliberately ignoring the truths taught or you never were part of the church at all.
You see nothing to do with true Christian but a fact that this was about TRUTHS TAUGHT to all and so even not true Christians would know it...
Your slip is showing...
;D
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So much of any set of beliefs are dependent on finding them consistent with the rest of our beliefs and internally consistent, that I think people underestimate that what might be thought as 'understandable' in context becomes meaningless outside it.
When Rhiannon writes that one day all of that was gone for her, it means as all of it looses the meaning, it becomes internally inconsistent and the differences with other parts of your experience become crystal clear. To one who still believes though it will seem as if that person has suffered a sudden lack of light, rather than seeing things more clearly as it will seem to that person.
Note I am not commenting on who is 'right' here but picking up on the echo in this thread from Shaker's post on Searching for God about almost visceral rejection of claims of some 'philosophies'
There is an element of the dwarfs at the end of the Last Battle complaining about how dreadful is when every else sees richness; the problem is that each side sees the other as the dwarfs.
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It's very difficult if you are a believer and you hear about loss of faith. Because your own faith brings joy and consolation, you want that for others. It's unsettling to think that God isn't big enough to hang onto one of his children. So they must be to blame. I used to take an Alan Burns line - be patient, keep asking, God will come eventually. Others prefer the 'no true Christian to start with' argument.
Neither acknowledges the pain, so kudos to Alan/Alien/Black Dwarf for the sympathy he's shown me without offering either blame or glib answers.
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Bit of history: baptised as a baby, confirmed as an adult, Communicant within the CofE for ten years. Studied with the diocesan bishop, took monthly day retreats, took a foundation degree in theology with a Methodist college attached to Oxford Brookes. Served on the PCC and deanery synod. Had articles on prayer and spirituality published in Christian media. Served as parish visitor. Went forward for selection to the priesthood but withdrew when I discovered I was pregnant. Founded and ran inter-denominational services for under-fives and their parents and carers.
Then - poof - all gone.
Yes, fine, but I still don't think you were really a Christian.
[/sarcasm]
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Bit of history: baptised as a baby, confirmed as an adult, Communicant within the CofE for ten years. Studied with the diocesan bishop, took monthly day retreats, took a foundation degree in theology with a Methodist college attached to Oxford Brookes. Served on the PCC and deanery synod. Had articles on prayer and spirituality published in Christian media. Served as parish visitor. Went forward for selection to the priesthood but withdrew when I discovered I was pregnant. Founded and ran inter-denominational services for under-fives and their parents and carers.
Then - poof - all gone.
Yes, fine, but I still don't think you were really a Christian.
[/sarcasm]
I believed in universal salvation, so obviously not.
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So much of any set of beliefs are dependent on finding them consistent with the rest of our beliefs and internally consistent, that I think people underestimate that what might be thought as 'understandable' in context becomes meaningless outside it.
Yes, that's it - that resonates very strongly with me.
I think - I like to think - that the beliefs I hold about the world are cut from the same cloth and are a unified whole where said beliefs are both internally consistent and consistent with each other, whereas - it seems to me, as I hinted yesterday in the 'Searching for God' thread - I would imagine (I can only imagine as I've never been a believer) that to be a theist of any kind is to have a foot in two very different camps. But as I say, not having entertained such beliefs that's the only way I can picture it, and may be wrong.
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I believed in universal salvation, so obviously not.
They always say that kind people believe in a kind God.
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I think that there will be internal consistency for many theists in how they view the world, though my take is the more reasoned the approach the less it seems to work. The old saw 'God works in mysterious ways' probably works better than any set of rationalizations. That said I think the same applies for most atheists in that I think you have to accept that given the inability to derive an ought from an is, that man also works in mysterious ways.
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One of the things I think is missed by a lot of atheists in their evaluation of the logic and consistency of many theist positions is that it depends on whether you find the question 'why' as regards existence as meaningful. Not inky, does it seem to me, that many theists find it meaningful but almost the base of any other question.
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One of the things I think is missed by a lot of atheists in their evaluation of the logic and consistency of many theist positions is that it depends on whether you find the question 'why' as regards existence as meaningful. Not inky, does it seem to me, that many theists find it meaningful but almost the base of any other question.
There's always an answer to the 'why' question, but the atheist's answer is a proximate answer (because my parents created me; evolution by natural selection etc.) and the theist believes their answer to be an ultimate, discussion-ending, no-further-questions-necessary answer.
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I think that's an answer to 'how' rather than 'why'. The why is purposive to the theist.
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One of the things I think is missed by a lot of atheists in their evaluation of the logic and consistency of many theist positions is that it depends on whether you find the question 'why' as regards existence as meaningful. Not inky, does it seem to me, that many theists find it meaningful but almost the base of any other question.
There's always an answer to the 'why' question, but the atheist's answer is a proximate answer (because my parents created me; evolution by natural selection etc.) and the theist believes their answer to be an ultimate, discussion-ending, no-further-questions-necessary answer.
Depends on the theist.
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Bit of history: baptised as a baby, confirmed as an adult, Communicant within the CofE for ten years. Studied with the diocesan bishop, took monthly day retreats, took a foundation degree in theology with a Methodist college attached to Oxford Brookes. Served on the PCC and deanery synod. Had articles on prayer and spirituality published in Christian media. Served as parish visitor. Went forward for selection to the priesthood but withdrew when I discovered I was pregnant. Founded and ran inter-denominational services for under-fives and their parents and carers.
Then - poof - all gone.
Ditto, baptised as a baby, confirmed and became a chorister.
Was Served on the PCC and deanery synod. Also an official of the Bishop.
Went to the Monthly one day meetings as well as the annual meeting with the Bishop.
The vicars son and I, along with another friend use to visit some of the older members in our community... In the mid seventies our vicar was probably the first or one of the first to set up the interdenominational meetings of the churches within our area of different religions. Organising a Church Creche for children 5 and under allowing the parents to attend the services on Sundays... We met up for prayer meetings, shared church services and even holidays...
But that has NOTHING to do with belief and knowing God.
In the betweens I had a relationship with God from Childhood. He had always guided my life. Religion is a word but faith and knowing God is an experience which comes through believing Christ to be saviour and son of God.
I still have my first official invitation to the very first meeting I was invited to attend with the Bishop.
A keep sake but of times gone by. Christ is for everyday.
Our lives are not made up of positions but in the body of Christ it is about living our life and it being of service to others in Christ.
We are not special just in the place where God needs us...
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You are right, Sass, in that position does not equate relationship. But first you'd have to question why someone was taking those positions - in my case it was because of my relationship with God and a desire to serve him. Like you I'd felt that since childhood, which is why it was so strange when it ended - and ended very abruptly. I was happily a mum of two, feeding my younger daughter in my nursing chair when I realised God just wasn't there. Because I'd also had animist experiences as a child, and these didn't change, this is what I now go with.
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Bit of history: baptised as a baby, confirmed as an adult, Communicant within the CofE for ten years. Studied with the diocesan bishop, took monthly day retreats, took a foundation degree in theology with a Methodist college attached to Oxford Brookes. Served on the PCC and deanery synod. Had articles on prayer and spirituality published in Christian media. Served as parish visitor. Went forward for selection to the priesthood but withdrew when I discovered I was pregnant. Founded and ran inter-denominational services for under-fives and their parents and carers.
Then - poof - all gone.
Never give up hope.
I once knew a young priest who felt that he had lost his faith and decided to give up his priesthood. He was touring through France with a friend in a sports car when they noticed a sign for Taize. The priest had heard about this place, and out of curiosity he had a look inside the Church of Reconcilliation. Inside the church he felt God's real presence for the first time in his life, and he broke down in tears. God lead him to start a retreat centre in Skipton for teenagers, and he can relate an amazing series of events which enabled him to set up this centre with all the resources he needed. He was then able to help many young people feel God's presence for the first time in their lives - it was a very special place where God's presence was really tangible.
(Apologies if I have repeated this story - I may have related it on another thread some time ago)
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God lead him to start a retreat centre in Skipton for teenagers, and he can relate an amazing series of events
Hmmmmm, I bet he can ;)
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Never give up hope.
I once knew a young priest who felt that he had lost his faith and decided to give up his priesthood. He was touring through France with a friend in a sports car when they noticed a sign for Taize. The priest had heard about this place, and out of curiosity he had a look inside the Church of Reconcilliation. Inside the church he felt God's real presence for the first time in his life, and he broke down in tears. God lead him to start a retreat centre in Skipton for teenagers, and he can relate an amazing series of events which enabled him to set up this centre with all the resources he needed. He was then able to help many young people feel God's presence for the first time in their lives - it was a very special place where God's presence was really tangible.
The delusion that it was all the work of "God" was the natural outcome of his previous indoctrination ... but all the resources for him to start the retreat centre came from people, not "God".
I assume you are now going to tell us that the people were inspired to give help by "God".
There's no way to get you people to see reason! :)
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Never give up hope.
I once knew a young priest who felt that he had lost his faith and decided to give up his priesthood. He was touring through France with a friend in a sports car when they noticed a sign for Taize. The priest had heard about this place, and out of curiosity he had a look inside the Church of Reconcilliation. Inside the church he felt God's real presence for the first time in his life, and he broke down in tears. God lead him to start a retreat centre in Skipton for teenagers, and he can relate an amazing series of events which enabled him to set up this centre with all the resources he needed. He was then able to help many young people feel God's presence for the first time in their lives - it was a very special place where God's presence was really tangible.
The delusion that it was all the work of "God" was the natural outcome of his previous indoctrination ... but all the resources for him to start the retreat centre came from people, not "God".
I assume you are now going to tell us that the people were inspired to give help by "God".
There's no way to get you people to see reason! :)
Just when you think they can't get much more daft than this, then guess what happens?
ippy
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Just when you think they can't get much more daft than this, then guess what happens?
ippy
They do! Do I get a prize for the right answer? ::)
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Rhiannon,
I think that phrase (there is no health in us) needs to be understood. We can be physically healthy, and yet, any sin cuts us off from God, and good deeds cannot bring us back to him. By analogy, if you take someone's life you can never give it back to them. So yes, in the sense that we are cut off from God, there is no health in us. Fortunately God still loves us and has made it possible to restore that relationship.
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Rhiannon,
I think that phrase (there is no health in us) needs to be understood. We can be physically healthy, and yet, any sin cuts us off from God, and good deeds cannot bring us back to him. By analogy, if you take someone's life you can never give it back to them. So yes, in the sense that we are cut off from God, there is no health in us. Fortunately God still loves us and has made it possible to restore that relationship.
What's the point of having this belief if you can make up whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along, can't say that's very impressive or credible in addition to that it doesn't project a good impression of your rational and you're supposed to be one of the well educated posters on this forum, so much for being well educated.
There is a shorter version of the above but I thought I would try polite.
ippy
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Rhiannon,
I think that phrase (there is no health in us) needs to be understood. We can be physically healthy, and yet, any sin cuts us off from God, and good deeds cannot bring us back to him. By analogy, if you take someone's life you can never give it back to them. So yes, in the sense that we are cut off from God, there is no health in us. Fortunately God still loves us and has made it possible to restore that relationship.
What's the point of having this belief if you can make up whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along, can't say that's very impressive or credible in addition to that it doesn't project a good impression of your rational and you're supposed to be one of the well educated posters on this forum, so much for being well educated.
There is a shorter version of the above but I thought I would try polite.
ippy
A more relevant post might be to query why on earth you bother to take part in discussions when you ignore proper explanations. Do you accept wigginhall's explanation about God's grace "preventing us"? If so, why his explanation and not Spud's? The Reformers spoke about humanity being "totally depraved". By that they did not mean that everyone was/is as bad as we can possibly get, but that sin affects every part of our life. Are you OK with that explanation or would that be another example of "whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along"?
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How do you know it's a "proper explanation"?
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Rhiannon,
I think that phrase (there is no health in us) needs to be understood. We can be physically healthy, and yet, any sin cuts us off from God, and good deeds cannot bring us back to him. By analogy, if you take someone's life you can never give it back to them. So yes, in the sense that we are cut off from God, there is no health in us. Fortunately God still loves us and has made it possible to restore that relationship.
What's the point of having this belief if you can make up whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along, can't say that's very impressive or credible in addition to that it doesn't project a good impression of your rational and you're supposed to be one of the well educated posters on this forum, so much for being well educated.
There is a shorter version of the above but I thought I would try polite.
ippy
A more relevant post might be to query why on earth you bother to take part in discussions when you ignore proper explanations. Do you accept wigginhall's explanation about God's grace "preventing us"? If so, why his explanation and not Spud's? The Reformers spoke about humanity being "totally depraved". By that they did not mean that everyone was/is as bad as we can possibly get, but that sin affects every part of our life. Are you OK with that explanation or would that be another example of "whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along"?
Why do you keep prattling on about things that have no established factual element to their superstitious magical and mythical content, why not debate when you can.
Your posts might be more relevant when you establish some facts.
ippy
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How do you know it's a "proper explanation"?
1) Because I am an Anglican and we sometimes use funny language to mean stuff people can say better in normal English. The English language has changed quite a bit since the time the BCP was written, so that doesn't help. See wigginhall's "prevention" point earlier. It is one good reason for not using the BCP much (apart from a new monthly service we have just introduced at to which 40 people unexpectedly came).
2) I understand the theology behind the BCP fairly well.
How do you know it is not a proper explanation, but rather a case of making up "whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along"?
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1) Because I am an Anglican and we sometimes use funny language to mean stuff people can say better in normal English. The English language has changed quite a bit since the time the BCP was written, so that doesn't help. See wigginhall's "prevention" point earlier. It is one good reason for not using the BCP much (apart from a new monthly service we have just introduced at to which 40 people unexpectedly came).
That's nice, but doesn't actually explain how you can know that it was the proper explanation, that's to say, what methodology you're using in order to ascertain that this explanation and not some other is the proper one.
How do you know it is not a proper explanation, but rather a case of making up "whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along"?
I'm sure even you realise that this is just an attempt to shift the burden of proof by an appeal to ignorance/the negative proof fallacy.
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1) Because I am an Anglican and we sometimes use funny language to mean stuff people can say better in normal English. The English language has changed quite a bit since the time the BCP was written, so that doesn't help. See wigginhall's "prevention" point earlier. It is one good reason for not using the BCP much (apart from a new monthly service we have just introduced at to which 40 people unexpectedly came).
That's nice, but doesn't actually explain how you can know that it was the proper explanation, that's to say, what methodology you're using in order to ascertain that this explanation and not some other is the proper one.
You misunderstand. I was asked how I can know it was the proper explanation, not how can I explain it to ippy.
How do you know it is not a proper explanation, but rather a case of making up "whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along"?
I'm sure even you realise that this is just an attempt to shift the burden of proof by an appeal to ignorance/the negative proof fallacy.
Nope. ippy made a claim that Spud's explanation was that Spud had "made up whatever interpretation suited him as he went along". Let's be clear about this. ippy was claiming Spud's explanation was made up to suit him. ippy was the one who was now making the claim. If ippy had just said something like, "Spud, I don't see any justification for what you are claiming that would be another matter, but he didn't so it wasn't.
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You misunderstand. I was asked how I can know it was the proper explanation ...
That's right. Still waiting.
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You misunderstand. I was asked how I can know it was the proper explanation ...
That's right. Still waiting.
Read the text in its context, read the Thirty-Nine Articles and read up on the history of the Church of England in that period.
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Will that establish a methodology by which I will be able to discern that Spud's "explanation" is the proper one?
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Will that establish a methodology by which I will be able to discern that Spud's "explanation" is the proper one?
Yes. Let me know how you get on.
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Will it really? How does that methodology determine its validity just from a reading of the aforementioned texts?
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Will it really? How does that methodology determine its validity just from a reading of the aforementioned texts?
You will get to see the context and the theology of the church at that time.
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I'd grasped as much already. I still don't see how "knowing the context" leads to one's being able to determine a methodology which would demonstrate Spud's explanation to be the proper one.
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I'd grasped as much already. I still don't see how "knowing the context" leads to one's being able to determine a methodology which would demonstrate Spud's explanation to be the proper one.
That would probably be because you haven't read up on the theology of the Church of England at that time. If you had and had understood it, you wouldn't be asking such questions (if genuine). I've already explained about the "total depravity" concept.
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It seems to me that it's rather more to do with the fact that I'm asking a question you can't answer but don't want to admit as much. Saying that I don't know a specific point about a particularly obscure bit of theology is (1) not only a fine example of the Courtier's Reply (q.v.) but (2) merely kicks the self-same question back another step. What does this theology provide as a means of validating its own alleged accuracy?
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Rhiannon,
I think that phrase (there is no health in us) needs to be understood. We can be physically healthy, and yet, any sin cuts us off from God, and good deeds cannot bring us back to him. By analogy, if you take someone's life you can never give it back to them. So yes, in the sense that we are cut off from God, there is no health in us. Fortunately God still loves us and has made it possible to restore that relationship.
What's the point of having this belief if you can make up whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along, can't say that's very impressive or credible in addition to that it doesn't project a good impression of your rational and you're supposed to be one of the well educated posters on this forum, so much for being well educated.
There is a shorter version of the above but I thought I would try polite.
ippy
A more relevant post might be to query why on earth you bother to take part in discussions when you ignore proper explanations. Do you accept wigginhall's explanation about God's grace "preventing us"? If so, why his explanation and not Spud's? The Reformers spoke about humanity being "totally depraved". By that they did not mean that everyo
I've just had another look at this post: again why do you discuss your religious beliefs as though they are a part of reality when no such thing has been established unless it's something like the Sherlock Holms Society debating, at least they know they are on a fictional subject, unless of course someone can prove otherwise, which is as unlikely as your chosen subject of debate.
Unless we hear some world shattering news on all of the media outlets something like "Evidence of God Found at Last", why do you and others like you keep letting yourselves be taken in?
I can't think of any reason why I would want to discuss something that is so unlikely to exist? But have to admit it is fascinating to me how normally sensible people get sucked into this so obviously man made nonsense.
ippy
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It seems to me that it's rather more to do with the fact that I'm asking a question you can't answer but don't want to admit as much. Saying that I don't know a specific point about a particularly obscure bit of theology is (1) not only a fine example of the Courtier's Reply (q.v.) but (2) merely kicks the self-same question back another step. What does this theology provide as a means of validating its own alleged accuracy?
Nope, this incorrect. I have explained that the BCP, where this phrase comes from, is from a particular era when the C of E held a particular doctrine (more clearly than it tends to now). A quick look at "total depravity" in Wikipedia includes stuff like, 'The term "total depravity", as understood in colloquial English, obscures the theological issues involved. Reformed and Lutheran theologians have never considered humans to be absent of goodness or unable to do good outwardly as a result of the fall. People retain the imago Dei, though it has been distorted.' The C of E has always had its various wings, e.g. thoroughly Reformed and Catholic. The wing which sees sin having the greatest hold over human beings is (and always has been) the Reformed wing, yet, as Wikipedia points out the bit I have put in bold.
Such information is also available from other sources.
Oh, and it is not a "particularly obscure bit of theology". It is central.
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Rhiannon,
I think that phrase (there is no health in us) needs to be understood. We can be physically healthy, and yet, any sin cuts us off from God, and good deeds cannot bring us back to him. By analogy, if you take someone's life you can never give it back to them. So yes, in the sense that we are cut off from God, there is no health in us. Fortunately God still loves us and has made it possible to restore that relationship.
What's the point of having this belief if you can make up whatever interpretation that suits you as you go along, can't say that's very impressive or credible in addition to that it doesn't project a good impression of your rational and you're supposed to be one of the well educated posters on this forum, so much for being well educated.
There is a shorter version of the above but I thought I would try polite.
ippy
A more relevant post might be to query why on earth you bother to take part in discussions when you ignore proper explanations. Do you accept wigginhall's explanation about God's grace "preventing us"? If so, why his explanation and not Spud's? The Reformers spoke about humanity being "totally depraved". By that they did not mean that everyo... (snipped by ippy).
I've just had another look at this post: again why do you discuss your religious beliefs as though they are a part of reality when no such thing has been established unless it's something like the Sherlock Holms Society debating, at least they know they are on a fictional subject, unless of course someone can prove otherwise, which is as unlikely as your chosen subject of debate.
Unless we hear some world shattering news on all of the media outlets something like "Evidence of God Found at Last", why do you and others like you keep letting yourselves be taken in?
I can't think of any reason why I would want to discuss something that is so unlikely to exist? But have to admit it is fascinating to me how normally sensible people get sucked into this so obviously man made nonsense.
ippy
Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
Thanks Shaker it's difficult to get through sometimes, well more often than not.
ippy
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Spot on!
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Spot on!
So what?
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Alien, you might be convincing yourself with your POV, but not others who don 't see it your way.
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
I have answered you Alien.
ippy
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Alien, you might be convincing yourself with your POV, but not others who don 't see it your way.
So what?
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
There are certainly some, such as establishing whether there was a historical Jesus at all, and ascertaining what he may reasonably supposed to have said and did if such as figure did exist (this is quite different from the point ippy appeared to be making, claiming an exact parallel between Jesus and Harry Potter - for as far as I'm aware, no one is arguing that Harry Potter ever existed).
Now a lot of Christians may insist that the historical existence of Jesus can in no way be separated from his supposed divinity, or his having performed miracles, or there being a spiritual dimension to life at all. I don't see why that has to be.
Conversely, atheists like ippy seem to accept the same view of the matter as some Christians - namely that the historical Jesus cannot be separated from supernatural claims he made or are made about him - which of course they do not believe in. I find such an approach inherently boring and repetitive, just as I find the former fantastical and totally unbelievable.
There is also the question of whether some of Jesus moral teaching has any true relevance for the present day, and that also can quite easily be separated from supernatural claims.
In other words - a plague on both your houses! :)
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
I have answered you Alien.
ippy
No, you have not. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God? Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church split? Presumably not. Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why Arminians have a different understanding of predestination to Calvinists? If not, why do I have to prove the existence of God to answer the OP? Does not the OP assume, for the sake of the OP, that God exists?
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No, you have not. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God? Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church split? Presumably not. Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why Arminians have a different understanding of predestination to Calvinists? If not, why do I have to prove the existence of God to answer the OP? Does not the OP assume, for the sake of the OP, that God exists?
And there I am entirely with you, Alan. The point you are making seems so obvious that you shouldn't need to be making it, but apparently it doesn't seem to get through.
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Dicky - yes, the inseparability of the human and divine in Jesus is insisted on by both some Christians and some mythicists. They both argue that there could not have been a purely human figure Jesus, the first because he was intrinsically divine, the second, because he intrinsically could not exist. I remember mythicists saying, how could a man walk on water, therefore no Jesus. They don't seem able to separate history from myth, yet ancient history is full of myth and legend.
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No, you have not. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God? Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church split? Presumably not. Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why Arminians have a different understanding of predestination to Calvinists? If not, why do I have to prove the existence of God to answer the OP? Does not the OP assume, for the sake of the OP, that God exists?
And there I am entirely with you, Alan. The point you are making seems so obvious that you shouldn't need to be making it, but apparently it doesn't seem to get through.
The OP could have been posted on the faith-sharing board, I suppose. Rhiannon is a Pagan, but at least there we don't have to prove God exists every time we post something. I think the ethos of that board would allow Rhiannon to post her question there, so perhaps next time...
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Dicky - yes, the inseparability of the human and divine in Jesus is insisted on by both some Christians and some mythicists. They both argue that there could not have been a purely human figure Jesus, the first because he was intrinsically divine, the second, because he intrinsically could not exist. I remember mythicists saying, how could a man walk on water, therefore no Jesus. They don't seem able to separate history from myth, yet ancient history is full of myth and legend.
Thank heavens - or something! for your clear thinking, wiggi.
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No, you have not. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God? Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church split? Presumably not. Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why Arminians have a different understanding of predestination to Calvinists? If not, why do I have to prove the existence of God to answer the OP? Does not the OP assume, for the sake of the OP, that God exists?
And there I am entirely with you, Alan. The point you are making seems so obvious that you shouldn't need to be making it, but apparently it doesn't seem to get through.
The OP could have been posted on the faith-sharing board, I suppose. Rhiannon is a Pagan, but at least there we don't have to prove God exists every time we post something. I think the ethos of that board would allow Rhiannon to post her question there, so perhaps next time...
Fight the good fight, Alan. However much we differ in outlook, you can be sure that when you make a perfectly valid point (if I see it) I will try to support you*.
You may have noticed also that Rhiannon, despite her taking leave of Christianity, is by no means a completely hostile critic, and will often try to find something positive to say about her former faith, especially when some particularly thoughtless denigration is being delivered.
*The idea of biblical inerrancy is still a pile of pants, though - and always will be. That's a prophecy for you :)
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No, you have not. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God? Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church split? Presumably not. Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why Arminians have a different understanding of predestination to Calvinists? If not, why do I have to prove the existence of God to answer the OP? Does not the OP assume, for the sake of the OP, that God exists?
And there I am entirely with you, Alan. The point you are making seems so obvious that you shouldn't need to be making it, but apparently it doesn't seem to get through.
The OP could have been posted on the faith-sharing board, I suppose. Rhiannon is a Pagan, but at least there we don't have to prove God exists every time we post something. I think the ethos of that board would allow Rhiannon to post her question there, so perhaps next time...
Fight the good fight, Alan. However much we differ in outlook, you can be sure that when you make a perfectly valid point (if I see it) I will try to support you*.
You may have noticed also that Rhiannon, despite her taking leave of Christianity, is by no means a completely hostile critic, and will often try to find something positive to say about her former faith, especially when some particularly thoughtless denigration is being delivered.
*The idea of biblical inerrancy is still a pile of pants, though - and always will be. That's a prophecy for you :)
:):)
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You are right, Sass, in that position does not equate relationship. But first you'd have to question why someone was taking those positions - in my case it was because of my relationship with God and a desire to serve him. Like you I'd felt that since childhood, which is why it was so strange when it ended - and ended very abruptly. I was happily a mum of two, feeding my younger daughter in my nursing chair when I realised God just wasn't there. Because I'd also had animist experiences as a child, and these didn't change, this is what I now go with.
My family and I, have been through an awful lot of heartache and sad time.
But if I am honest those times do not erase God and do not make God any less real.
I cannot deny God because life gives us hard blows...
I could live my life as if not a believer but how could it be sincere.
As the psalm says:
King James Bible
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Living for self, does not make God any less real.
Deuteronomy 31:8King James Version (KJV)
8 And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.
When you know that God is real what else compares or can be obtained by comparison to him?
If I tried to live my life without God or in denial of God, it would be worth nothing for in my heart I know I would be living a lie. One way Satan tries to make us give up is the feeling we have failed God. But the truth sustains that God never fails us. When we are unfaithful he will always be faithful. How can you walk away from such a God?
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Bit of history: baptised as a baby, confirmed as an adult, Communicant within the CofE for ten years. Studied with the diocesan bishop, took monthly day retreats, took a foundation degree in theology with a Methodist college attached to Oxford Brookes. Served on the PCC and deanery synod. Had articles on prayer and spirituality published in Christian media. Served as parish visitor. Went forward for selection to the priesthood but withdrew when I discovered I was pregnant. Founded and ran inter-denominational services for under-fives and their parents and carers.
Then - poof - all gone.
Never give up hope.
I once knew a young priest who felt that he had lost his faith and decided to give up his priesthood. He was touring through France with a friend in a sports car when they noticed a sign for Taize. The priest had heard about this place, and out of curiosity he had a look inside the Church of Reconcilliation. Inside the church he felt God's real presence for the first time in his life, and he broke down in tears. God lead him to start a retreat centre in Skipton for teenagers, and he can relate an amazing series of events which enabled him to set up this centre with all the resources he needed. He was then able to help many young people feel God's presence for the first time in their lives - it was a very special place where God's presence was really tangible.
(Apologies if I have repeated this story - I may have related it on another thread some time ago)
Do you know any vicars by the name of Eric Greenhalgh, now deceased?
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You are right, Sass, in that position does not equate relationship. But first you'd have to question why someone was taking those positions - in my case it was because of my relationship with God and a desire to serve him. Like you I'd felt that since childhood, which is why it was so strange when it ended - and ended very abruptly. I was happily a mum of two, feeding my younger daughter in my nursing chair when I realised God just wasn't there. Because I'd also had animist experiences as a child, and these didn't change, this is what I now go with.
My family and I, have been through an awful lot of heartache and sad time.
But if I am honest those times do not erase God and do not make God any less real.
I cannot deny God because life gives us hard blows...
I could live my life as if not a believer but how could it be sincere.
As the psalm says:
King James Bible
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Living for self, does not make God any less real.
Deuteronomy 31:8King James Version (KJV)
8 And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.
When you know that God is real what else compares or can be obtained by comparison to him?
If I tried to live my life without God or in denial of God, it would be worth nothing for in my heart I know I would be living a lie. One way Satan tries to make us give up is the feeling we have failed God. But the truth sustains that God never fails us. When we are unfaithful he will always be faithful. How can you walk away from such a God?
But Sass, I wasn't in a bad place when I lost God's presence - I was in a very good one. Later when the bad stuff started to happen, I asked God, please come back, please make yourself known to me again, please get me through this.
And there was nothing. So eventually - after two years of soul searching and heartache - I decided that living a lie meant living as though there was anything left to carry on believing in.
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But Sass, I wasn't in a bad place when I lost God's presence - I was in a very good one. Later when the bad stuff started to happen, I asked God, please come back, please make yourself known to me again, please get me through this.
And there was nothing. So eventually - after two years of soul searching and heartache - I decided that living a lie meant living as though there was anything left to carry on believing in.
But you weren't chosen, Rhi ... Sass was. Just your bad luck. :(
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
There are certainly some, such as establishing whether there was a historical Jesus at all, and ascertaining what he may reasonably supposed to have said and did if such as figure did exist (this is quite different from the point ippy appeared to be making, claiming an exact parallel between Jesus and Harry Potter - for as far as I'm aware, no one is arguing that Harry Potter ever existed).
Now a lot of Christians may insist that the historical existence of Jesus can in no way be separated from his supposed divinity, or his having performed miracles, or there being a spiritual dimension to life at all. I don't see why that has to be.
Conversely, atheists like ippy seem to accept the same view of the matter as some Christians - namely that the historical Jesus cannot be separated from supernatural claims he made or are made about him - which of course they do not believe in. I find such an approach inherently boring and repetitive, just as I find the former fantastical and totally unbelievable.
There is also the question of whether some of Jesus moral teaching has any true relevance for the present day, and that also can quite easily be separated from supernatural claims.
In other words - a plague on both your houses! :)
Well what do you expect religion is nonsense until some way of confirming its veracity is found, which is unlikely, the mystical magic supernatural can be ruled out.
I live a reaasonably moral and ethical life like most people do the only difference between non-religios people and the religious is that we behave decently without the imaginary carrot and stick.
ippy
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
I have answered you Alien.
ippy
No, you have not. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God? Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church split? Presumably not. Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why Arminians have a different understanding of predestination to Calvinists? If not, why do I have to prove the existence of God to answer the OP? Does not the OP assume, for the sake of the OP, that God exists?
All based on one kind of god belief or another, no one has been able to establish whether the god thing at the root of all you're referring to exsists or not; what is the point having any kind of dispute, fall out or argument unless there is some kind of confirmation about this god thing you keep referring to is an actual part of reality, in the unlikely event you were able nail this god idea as a going concern, well there might well be some point to further discussion, without the said confirmation, why bother?
ippy
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
There are certainly some, such as establishing whether there was a historical Jesus at all, and ascertaining what he may reasonably supposed to have said and did if such as figure did exist (this is quite different from the point ippy appeared to be making, claiming an exact parallel between Jesus and Harry Potter - for as far as I'm aware, no one is arguing that Harry Potter ever existed).
Now a lot of Christians may insist that the historical existence of Jesus can in no way be separated from his supposed divinity, or his having performed miracles, or there being a spiritual dimension to life at all. I don't see why that has to be.
Conversely, atheists like ippy seem to accept the same view of the matter as some Christians - namely that the historical Jesus cannot be separated from supernatural claims he made or are made about him - which of course they do not believe in. I find such an approach inherently boring and repetitive, just as I find the former fantastical and totally unbelievable.
There is also the question of whether some of Jesus moral teaching has any true relevance for the present day, and that also can quite easily be separated from supernatural claims.
In other words - a plague on both your houses! :)
Well what do you expect religion is nonsense until some way of confirming its veracity is found, which is unlikely, the mystical magic supernatural can be ruled out.
I live a reaasonably moral and ethical life like most people do the only difference between non-religios people and the religious is that we behave decently without the imaginary carrot and stick.
ippy
Reasonably!! Well that leaves the mind boggling!
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Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the point of the OP was to discuss whether "there is no health in us" (as meant by the authors of the BCP) rather than prove the existence of God. Perhaps Rhiannon would comment.
I don't see how the latter can be separated from the former given that the text in question in the OP is a Christian text (the word 'health' in this particular context is a specifically Christian one which is not going to be recognised by the average GP, for example), and Christians are I'm told given to believing in God for some reason.
So which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
A bit like if you or anyone else might like to discuss the inns and outs of the Harry Potter books as though they are stories of real events that actually happened.
If it was the Harry Potter books that were asserted as actual events, you might expect to see some white coated figures hovering about in the background; had you proved the Harry Potter books, to be stories about actual events that had really happened the white coated figures wouldn't have any other choice than to quietly back away.
I think that illustrates how a lot of atheists might see what it is you're saying Ailen.
ippy
Please answer my question. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God?
There are certainly some, such as establishing whether there was a historical Jesus at all, and ascertaining what he may reasonably supposed to have said and did if such as figure did exist (this is quite different from the point ippy appeared to be making, claiming an exact parallel between Jesus and Harry Potter - for as far as I'm aware, no one is arguing that Harry Potter ever existed).
Now a lot of Christians may insist that the historical existence of Jesus can in no way be separated from his supposed divinity, or his having performed miracles, or there being a spiritual dimension to life at all. I don't see why that has to be.
Conversely, atheists like ippy seem to accept the same view of the matter as some Christians - namely that the historical Jesus cannot be separated from supernatural claims he made or are made about him - which of course they do not believe in. I find such an approach inherently boring and repetitive, just as I find the former fantastical and totally unbelievable.
There is also the question of whether some of Jesus moral teaching has any true relevance for the present day, and that also can quite easily be separated from supernatural claims.
In other words - a plague on both your houses! :)
Well what do you expect religion is nonsense until some way of confirming its veracity is found, which is unlikely, the mystical magic supernatural can be ruled out.
I live a reaasonably moral and ethical life like most people do the only difference between non-religios people and the religious is that we behave decently without the imaginary carrot and stick.
ippy
Reasonably!! Well that leaves the mind boggling!
Is that the best you can come up with BA.
ippy
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"Is that the best you can come up with BA.
ippy"
No, but it leaves so much to the imagination! If you really want me to have a go, then I'd be happy to oblige.
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"Is that the best you can come up with BA.
ippy"
No, but it leaves so much to the imagination! If you really want me to have a go, then I'd be happy to oblige.
Most people would concede that although reasonable can be stretched from here to forever, most people would understand where it is reasonable to use this term reasonably.
ippy
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"Is that the best you can come up with BA.
ippy"
No, but it leaves so much to the imagination! If you really want me to have a go, then I'd be happy to oblige.
Most people would concede that although reasonable can be stretched from here to forever, most people would understand where it is reasonable to use this term reasonably.
ippy
It's reasonable to ask what you mean by reasonable, and whether it is, in fact, reasonable.
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"Is that the best you can come up with BA.
ippy"
No, but it leaves so much to the imagination! If you really want me to have a go, then I'd be happy to oblige.
Most people would concede that although reasonable can be stretched from here to forever, most people would understand where it is reasonable to use this term reasonably.
ippy
It's reasonable to ask what you mean by reasonable, and whether it is, in fact, reasonable.
"reasonable can be stretched from here to forever", most reasonable people would be able to understand enough as in this case due to its context, it is loose but near enough without having to write a treatise; I will not be writing a treatise about my use the word reasonable, at any time.
ippy
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You are right, Sass, in that position does not equate relationship. But first you'd have to question why someone was taking those positions - in my case it was because of my relationship with God and a desire to serve him. Like you I'd felt that since childhood, which is why it was so strange when it ended - and ended very abruptly. I was happily a mum of two, feeding my younger daughter in my nursing chair when I realised God just wasn't there. Because I'd also had animist experiences as a child, and these didn't change, this is what I now go with.
My family and I, have been through an awful lot of heartache and sad time.
But if I am honest those times do not erase God and do not make God any less real.
I cannot deny God because life gives us hard blows...
I could live my life as if not a believer but how could it be sincere.
As the psalm says:
King James Bible
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Living for self, does not make God any less real.
Deuteronomy 31:8King James Version (KJV)
8 And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.
When you know that God is real what else compares or can be obtained by comparison to him?
If I tried to live my life without God or in denial of God, it would be worth nothing for in my heart I know I would be living a lie. One way Satan tries to make us give up is the feeling we have failed God. But the truth sustains that God never fails us. When we are unfaithful he will always be faithful. How can you walk away from such a God?
But Sass, I wasn't in a bad place when I lost God's presence - I was in a very good one.
So what would be a bad place? Surely any place you lose Gods presence is a bad place to be...
Later when the bad stuff started to happen, I asked God, please come back, please make yourself known to me again, please get me through this.
I am sure Job is an example of how bad things can get and how God is still there listening even when Job felt he wasn't.
Because God never went away how can you ask him to come back.
If you felt separated from God then you moved... He never went away. Maybe the faith you needed was not really mature enough then to realise. But God never went away... You needed to just accept his presence and seek through his word.
And there was nothing. So eventually - after two years of soul searching and heartache - I decided that living a lie meant living as though there was anything left to carry on believing in.
The truth appears to be you did not know God or his word.
Your search should always be from a position of faith.
Abraham believed what God had said and God accounted that unto him as righteousness...
Had you sought God in faith then you would have realised he was there and found him.... :(
-
But Sass, I wasn't in a bad place when I lost God's presence - I was in a very good one. Later when the bad stuff started to happen, I asked God, please come back, please make yourself known to me again, please get me through this.
And there was nothing. So eventually - after two years of soul searching and heartache - I decided that living a lie meant living as though there was anything left to carry on believing in.
But you weren't chosen, Rhi ... Sass was. Just your bad luck. :(
Matthew 22:14King James Version (KJV)
14 For many are called, but few are chosen.
Leonard,
So where do you think you get your misdirected reasoning from.
How hard did it get for you before you walked away?
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Matthew 22:14King James Version (KJV)
14 For many are called, but few are chosen.
Why is that then? Is there so little room in heaven that "God" has to whittle us down?
Leonard,
So where do you think you get your misdirected reasoning from.
My ability to reason derives from evolution, as does your lack of it. Luck of the draw, Sass.
How hard did it get for you before you walked away?
Very hard, which is why I prayed for help ... but answer can there none.
-
You are right, Sass, in that position does not equate relationship. But first you'd have to question why someone was taking those positions - in my case it was because of my relationship with God and a desire to serve him. Like you I'd felt that since childhood, which is why it was so strange when it ended - and ended very abruptly. I was happily a mum of two, feeding my younger daughter in my nursing chair when I realised God just wasn't there. Because I'd also had animist experiences as a child, and these didn't change, this is what I now go with.
My family and I, have been through an awful lot of heartache and sad time.
But if I am honest those times do not erase God and do not make God any less real.
I cannot deny God because life gives us hard blows...
I could live my life as if not a believer but how could it be sincere.
As the psalm says:
King James Bible
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Living for self, does not make God any less real.
Deuteronomy 31:8King James Version (KJV)
8 And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.
When you know that God is real what else compares or can be obtained by comparison to him?
If I tried to live my life without God or in denial of God, it would be worth nothing for in my heart I know I would be living a lie. One way Satan tries to make us give up is the feeling we have failed God. But the truth sustains that God never fails us. When we are unfaithful he will always be faithful. How can you walk away from such a God?
But Sass, I wasn't in a bad place when I lost God's presence - I was in a very good one.
So what would be a bad place? Surely any place you lose Gods presence is a bad place to be...
Later when the bad stuff started to happen, I asked God, please come back, please make yourself known to me again, please get me through this.
I am sure Job is an example of how bad things can get and how God is still there listening even when Job felt he wasn't.
Because God never went away how can you ask him to come back.
If you felt separated from God then you moved... He never went away. Maybe the faith you needed was not really mature enough then to realise. But God never went away... You needed to just accept his presence and seek through his word.
And there was nothing. So eventually - after two years of soul searching and heartache - I decided that living a lie meant living as though there was anything left to carry on believing in.
The truth appears to be you did not know God or his word.
Your search should always be from a position of faith.
Abraham believed what God had said and God accounted that unto him as righteousness...
Had you sought God in faith then you would have realised he was there and found him.... :(
And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
-
You are right, Sass, in that position does not equate relationship. But first you'd have to question why someone was taking those positions - in my case it was because of my relationship with God and a desire to serve him. Like you I'd felt that since childhood, which is why it was so strange when it ended - and ended very abruptly. I was happily a mum of two, feeding my younger daughter in my nursing chair when I realised God just wasn't there. Because I'd also had animist experiences as a child, and these didn't change, this is what I now go with.
My family and I, have been through an awful lot of heartache and sad time.
But if I am honest those times do not erase God and do not make God any less real.
I cannot deny God because life gives us hard blows...
I could live my life as if not a believer but how could it be sincere.
As the psalm says:
King James Bible
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Living for self, does not make God any less real.
Deuteronomy 31:8King James Version (KJV)
8 And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.
When you know that God is real what else compares or can be obtained by comparison to him?
If I tried to live my life without God or in denial of God, it would be worth nothing for in my heart I know I would be living a lie. One way Satan tries to make us give up is the feeling we have failed God. But the truth sustains that God never fails us. When we are unfaithful he will always be faithful. How can you walk away from such a God?
But Sass, I wasn't in a bad place when I lost God's presence - I was in a very good one.
So what would be a bad place? Surely any place you lose Gods presence is a bad place to be...
Later when the bad stuff started to happen, I asked God, please come back, please make yourself known to me again, please get me through this.
I am sure Job is an example of how bad things can get and how God is still there listening even when Job felt he wasn't.
Because God never went away how can you ask him to come back.
If you felt separated from God then you moved... He never went away. Maybe the faith you needed was not really mature enough then to realise. But God never went away... You needed to just accept his presence and seek through his word.
And there was nothing. So eventually - after two years of soul searching and heartache - I decided that living a lie meant living as though there was anything left to carry on believing in.
The truth appears to be you did not know God or his word.
Your search should always be from a position of faith.
Abraham believed what God had said and God accounted that unto him as righteousness...
Had you sought God in faith then you would have realised he was there and found him.... :(
And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Do you realise how depressing it is to read your perpetual gloom and derision? Call it a day, and get back to the painting.
-
]No, you have not. Which questions about Christianity would not need us to first prove the existence of God? Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church split? Presumably not. Do I have to prove the existence of God to explain why Arminians have a different understanding of predestination to Calvinists? If not, why do I have to prove the existence of God to answer the OP? Does not the OP assume, for the sake of the OP, that God exists?
All based on one kind of god belief or another, no one has been able to establish whether the god thing at the root of all you're referring to exsists or not; what is the point having any kind of dispute, fall out or argument unless there is some kind of confirmation about this god thing you keep referring to is an actual part of reality, in the unlikely event you were able nail this god idea as a going concern, well there might well be some point to further discussion, without the said confirmation, why bother?
ippy
You miss the point yet again. Alan refers to the Great Schism - the split between the Catholic and the Orthodox church - in his post. Now, I freely admit that the cause of this great division in Christendom was based on the most laughably pedantic mystic mumbo-jumbo, as well as the more immediate socio-religious consequences of whether the Roman Pontiff had ultimate authority. It does not matter whether all this pother had any roots in ultimate religious truth or not. But the Great Schism remains an event of immense significance in European history and religion, whose repercussions had reverberations down the ages.
For historians, such phenomena remain a rich source for discussion, and most of them do not spend their time arguing about whether the mystic imponderables involved are ultimately true or not. They observe that such things have occurred, and attempt to unravel their implications.
You seem to wish to completely dissociate yourself from European history, and believe that we could all make a new world if only everything could be reduced to "Belief in God is bollocks - next question".
Belief in God may indeed may be a load of bollocks, but in matters of history, religion and politics, nothing is ever quite that simplistic.
-
Matthew 22:14King James Version (KJV)
14 For many are called, but few are chosen.
Why is that then? Is there so little room in heaven that "God" has to whittle us down?
Why do you ask such a question? The OT shows the Jews were chosen and the NT shows the Gentiles were called. But all equal in Christ... I guess your definition by way of thought is incorrect.
Leonard,
So where do you think you get your misdirected reasoning from.
My ability to reason derives from evolution, as does your lack of it. Luck of the draw, Sass.
Again your reasoning misleading you. The things of God are now known but you cannot fathom the simplest thing out. I suppose when so lost your insulting is your last resort because you cannot really make any comment about what was being said, could you?
Do you really think that showed any prowess when it comes to defending your power of reasoning in this matter? Shame on you, Leonard... :(
How hard did it get for you before you walked away?
Very hard, which is why I prayed for help ... but answer can there none.
WHAT answers did you want?
-
And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
-
We just go round in circles, Sass. We both think we are right, and there is no way of proving that either of us is. :)
-
And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
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Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
Nor do you or anybody else. The Bible contains fact and fiction and nobody, but NOBODY knows which is which in every verse.
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Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
Nor do you or anybody else. The Bible contains fact and fiction and nobody, but NOBODY knows which is which in every verse.
That sounds like a ''Jamesrelisation''.
What do you mean by it? How can you tell your statement is true?
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Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
Nor do you or anybody else. The Bible contains fact and fiction and nobody, but NOBODY knows which is which in every verse.
That sounds like a ''Jamesrelisation''.
What do you mean by it? How can you tell your statement is true?
Elementary, my dear. Tell me somebody who knows (rather than thinks he knows) exactly which verses are true and which aren't.
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If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
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If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
Because there are contradictions in it, and Science has proven Genesis the story to be wrong.
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If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
Easily, in my opinion there is a lot more fiction than fact!
-
If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
Because there are contradictions in it, and Science has proven Genesis the story to be wrong.
Really?
-
If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
Easily, in my opinion there is a lot more fiction than fact!
It's your opinion because it is your opinion?
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If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
Easily, in my opinion there is a lot more fiction than fact!
It's your opinion because it is your opinion?
Yes it is my opinion. As there is not the slightest bit of evidence to back up the less than credible stories, the surmise that they are most likely fiction, or at best highly exaggerated, has to be the default position, unless evidence to back them up is discovered.
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If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
Because there are contradictions in it, and Science has proven Genesis the story to be wrong.
Really?
Yes, really! You can come out with all the contra arguments you like, but the universe wasn't created in seven days, each with its morning and evening.
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If you don't know which verses are fact or fiction, how can you then state that the Bible contains fact and fiction.?
Because there are contradictions in it, and Science has proven Genesis the story to be wrong.
Really?
Yes, really! You can come out with all the contra arguments you like, but the universe wasn't created in seven days, each with its morning and evening.
Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
-
Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
[/quote]
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
-
Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
-
Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
Yes he did!
-
Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
Yes he did!
No, he did not.
Have you never taken part in any discussions on Genesis on this board or the BBC boards, Floo?
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Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
Yes he did!
No, he did not.
Have you never taken part in any discussions on Genesis on this board or the BBC boards, Floo?
She might be able to bring a few hundred to mind... :)
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Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
Yes he did!
No, he did not.
Have you never taken part in any discussions on Genesis on this board or the BBC boards, Floo?
Plenty I suppose, I really don't remember as they aren't exactly memorable!
-
Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
Yes he did!
No, he did not.
Have you never taken part in any discussions on Genesis on this board or the BBC boards, Floo?
Plenty I suppose, I really don't remember as they aren't exactly memorable!
But you are aware that many Christians (who see themselves are holding to the inerrancy and authority of the Scriptures), from at least as far back as Origen, have understood the early chapters of Genesis to include symbolism?
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Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
Yes he did!
No, he did not.
Have you never taken part in any discussions on Genesis on this board or the BBC boards, Floo?
Plenty I suppose, I really don't remember as they aren't exactly memorable!
But you are aware that many Christians (who see themselves are holding to the inerrancy and authority of the Scriptures), from at least as far back as Origen, have understood the early chapters of Genesis to include symbolism?
I am aware that many, probably most Christians aren't Biblical literalists. I am also aware that some Biblical literalists will play the allegory/symbolism card when it suits!
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Yes, I know the universe was not created in seven days (or even six). And?
You asked for something the Bible says which was proved wrong. I gave you something.
No, you didn't.
Yes he did!
No, he did not.
Have you never taken part in any discussions on Genesis on this board or the BBC boards, Floo?
Plenty I suppose, I really don't remember as they aren't exactly memorable!
But you are aware that many Christians (who see themselves are holding to the inerrancy and authority of the Scriptures), from at least as far back as Origen, have understood the early chapters of Genesis to include symbolism?
But I'm afraid Leonard's post below still holds true:
Leonard wrote:
Nor do you or anybody else. The Bible contains fact and fiction and nobody, but NOBODY knows which is which in every verse.
The fact that Origen's approach involved a multi-layered approach to the scriptures, often involving several levels of symbolism*, and the fact that this in turn reflects a long-established rabbinic approach to scripture, does not in itself tell us definitively that that is how the original writer of Genesis 1 intended the original text to be interpreted. We simply cannot know - neither you nor I nor anybody were there looking over the scribe's shoulder and holding daily conversations with him as to what he meant.
You know there is a field of scholarship that refers to this writer as the Priestly Author, who is also thought to have written most of Leviticus. This author shows an intensely pedantic approach to times and dates and every other bloody thing concerning Jewish life - so there exists the strong possibility that when he said "Days", he meant days, not vast periods of time.
However, as I said - we can't possibly know for sure. What we do know is that the religious troglodytes out there who think the world and life on it was created in six days are totally wrong.
*This 'symbolic' approach of course can go on endlessly, and is very useful if you take an inerrant view of scripture, and you have to explain away certain passages which appear to have a 'scientific' feel to them. When the findings of science eventually do away with any possibility that such scriptures could have any literal sense to them - just say "It's all symbolic" - and hey presto! the authority of scripture is rescued yet again.
Better to admit that perhaps this is what those ancient peoples thought then, and that in these respects they were wrong. That is not to say there are not other things to be learned still from ancient scripture.
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...
But I'm afraid Leonard's post below still holds true:
Leonard wrote:
Nor do you or anybody else. The Bible contains fact and fiction and nobody, but NOBODY knows which is which in every verse.
And so what. I don't know how to understand every verse in the bible and neither do you or Len (I know you wouldn't claim it either). Does that mean you and I have no idea of what it teaches? Are we to say that Genesis 1 does not teach that God created the universe, inc. the heavens and the earth, that he created man in his own image and so on?
The fact that Origen's approach involved a multi-layered approach to the scriptures, often involving several levels of symbolism*, and the fact that this in turn reflects a long-established rabbinic approach to scripture, does not in itself tell us definitively that that is how the original writer of Genesis 1 intended the original text to be interpreted. We simply cannot know - neither you nor I nor anybody were there looking over the scribes shoulder and holding daily conversations with him as to what he meant.
You know there is a field of scholarship that refers to this writer as the Priestly Author, who is also thought to have written most of Leviticus. This author shows an intensely pedantic approach to times and dates and every other bloody thing concerning Jewish life - so there exists the strong possibility that when he said "Days", he meant days, not vast periods of time.
However, as I said - we can't possibly know for sure. What we do know is that the religious troglodytes out there who think the world and life on it was created in six days are totally wrong.
So, to use your term, "we can't possibly know for sure" so that means Len has not proved Genesis 1 to be wrong. To be able to prove that he would need to be able to show that it should be taken entirely literally, as if it were a scientific text.
*This 'symbolic' approach of course can go on endlessly, and is very useful if you take an inerrant view of scripture, and you have to explain away certain passages which appear to have a 'scientific' feel to them.
Which ones would those be, please?When the findings of science eventually do away with any possibility that such scriptures could have any literal sense to them - just say "It's all symbolic" - and hey presto! the authority of scripture is rescued yet again.
Well, I don't claim that the Scriptures teach any science. Neither did people like Calvin, who wrote in his commentary on Genesis 1, "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere..."
Better to admit that perhaps this is what those ancient peoples thought then, and that in these respects they were wrong. That is not to say there are not other things to be learned still from ancient scripture.
So we are to say they were wrong when "we can't possibly know for sure". That would not be a logical thing to do, surely.
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...
But I'm afraid Leonard's post below still holds true:
Leonard wrote:
Nor do you or anybody else. The Bible contains fact and fiction and nobody, but NOBODY knows which is which in every verse.
And so what. I don't know how to understand every verse in the bible and neither do you or Len (I know you wouldn't claim it either). Does that mean you and I have no idea of what it teaches? Are we to say that Genesis 1 does not teach that God created the universe, inc. the heavens and the earth, that he created man in his own image and so on?
The fact that Origen's approach involved a multi-layered approach to the scriptures, often involving several levels of symbolism*, and the fact that this in turn reflects a long-established rabbinic approach to scripture, does not in itself tell us definitively that that is how the original writer of Genesis 1 intended the original text to be interpreted. We simply cannot know - neither you nor I nor anybody were there looking over the scribes shoulder and holding daily conversations with him as to what he meant.
You know there is a field of scholarship that refers to this writer as the Priestly Author, who is also thought to have written most of Leviticus. This author shows an intensely pedantic approach to times and dates and every other bloody thing concerning Jewish life - so there exists the strong possibility that when he said "Days", he meant days, not vast periods of time.
However, as I said - we can't possibly know for sure. What we do know is that the religious troglodytes out there who think the world and life on it was created in six days are totally wrong.
So, to use your term, "we can't possibly know for sure" so that means Len has not proved Genesis 1 to be wrong. To be able to prove that he would need to be able to show that it should be taken entirely literally, as if it were a scientific text.
*This 'symbolic' approach of course can go on endlessly, and is very useful if you take an inerrant view of scripture, and you have to explain away certain passages which appear to have a 'scientific' feel to them.
Which ones would those be, please?
Joshua making the sun stand still, Isaiah referring to "the circle (not sphere) of the earth" - that sort of thing.
When the findings of science eventually do away with any possibility that such scriptures could have any literal sense to them - just say "It's all symbolic" - and hey presto! the authority of scripture is rescued yet again.
Well, I don't claim that the Scriptures teach any science. Neither did people like Calvin, who wrote in his commentary on Genesis 1, "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere..."
I'm very glad to hear it, and so long as Christians stick with the interpretation of Genesis simply expressing the idea that God is the source of everything, I've nothing to gripe about. Nonetheless, you yourself have been known to go to extreme lengths to explain what the nature of the Flood may have been. Now this may not be taking the view that Bible actually teaches any science, but your approach certainly takes in modern views of geology and knowledge of the material world to demonstrate that the traditional literal approach is not true. And this is still to rescue some truth from scripture, rather than saying "I'm afraid this did not happen". It's just a funny old story, trying to make the point that if you do bad things, you'll get it in the neck - and in this respect, the writer of Job (for instance) was much more realistic and sophisticated, since he knew that this simple moral equation was not true.
Better to admit that perhaps this is what those ancient peoples thought then, and that in these respects they were wrong. That is not to say there are not other things to be learned still from ancient scripture.
So we are to say they were wrong when "we can't possibly know for sure". That would not be a logical thing to do, surely.
It depends whether one considers there's anything worthwhile to be learned from these ancient texts, or whether one just treats them as worn-out old stories. I'm not one to reject the lot of them, as you probably know. Job and Ecclesiastes are much more worthy of reflection. And occasionally, one gets some strange little nuggets of psychological insight, like the story of the rape of Tamar.....
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...
*This 'symbolic' approach of course can go on endlessly, and is very useful if you take an inerrant view of scripture, and you have to explain away certain passages which appear to have a 'scientific' feel to them.
Which ones would those be, please?
Joshua making the sun stand still,
We could have an interesting discussion on this one...Isaiah referring to "the circle (not sphere) of the earth" - that sort of thing.
Why do you think Isaiah is teaching that the Earth is circular here?
When the findings of science eventually do away with any possibility that such scriptures could have any literal sense to them - just say "It's all symbolic" - and hey presto! the authority of scripture is rescued yet again.
Well, I don't claim that the Scriptures teach any science. Neither did people like Calvin, who wrote in his commentary on Genesis 1, "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere..."
I'm very glad to hear it, and so long as Christians stick with the interpretation of Genesis simply expressing the idea that God is the source of everything, I've nothing to gripe about. Nonetheless, you yourself have been known to go to extreme lengths to explain what the nature of the Flood may have been.
But my claim on those threads has been that Scripture does not necessarily teach that the Flood was planet-wide. I have argued from Scripture itself, pointing out how the various Hebrew and Greek words are used in Scripture and, on occasion, elsewhere. I have speculated (yes, speculated) what the actual extent might have been, but if you look at my posts I have been boringly consistent in calling it "not planet-wide". I've not even called it "non-global". Now this may not be taking the view that Bible actually teaches any science, but your approach certainly takes in modern views of geology and knowledge of the material world to demonstrate that the traditional literal approach is not true.
Oh, yes, I agree with that. On the Flood, it could be taken either way, i.e. planet-wide or not planet-wide, but as I say I have argued from Scripture about the use of the words like eretz and adamah. Bunging in the science as well should surely make it flipping obvious that it was not planet-wide and that it is wrong to insist from Scripture when Scripture itself is ambiguous on its physical extent and the science, honestly looked at, shows it definitely was not planet-wide. If we don't een look at the science, no biblical Christian should insist the Flood was planet-wide when Scripture does not clearly teach it so. My opinion is that a good number of Christians try to insist it was planet-wide because they would otherwise lose "evidence" against an old Earth.And this is still to rescue some truth from scripture, rather than saying "I'm afraid this did not happen". It's just a funny old story, trying to make the point that if you do bad things, you'll get it in the neck - and in this respect, the writer of Job (for instance) was much more realistic and sophisticated, since he knew that this simple moral equation was not true.
But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Are there? How have you made that comparison? Which specific items are you comparing?
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
They would say not, just that the physical action has been replaced by spiritual stuff, as that is easier to fake than the physical action because it can now be checked out where as people making it up, in those times, generations later couldn't be checked out in those days.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
They would say not, just that the physical action has been replaced by spiritual stuff, as that is easier to fake than the physical action because it can now be checked out where as people making it up, in those times, generations later couldn't be checked out in those days.
It is just another confirmation of my view on the OT representation of God.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
They would say not, just that the physical action has been replaced by spiritual stuff, as that is easier to fake than the physical action because it can now be checked out where as people making it up, in those times, generations later couldn't be checked out in those days.
Sorry, I don't understand your point here. Would you please put it in words that I, a man from Norfolk, can understand. Ta.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
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The fact that Origen's approach involved a multi-layered approach to the scriptures, often involving several levels of symbolism*, and the fact that this in turn reflects a long-established rabbinic approach to scripture, does not in itself tell us definitively that that is how the original writer of Genesis 1 intended the original text to be interpreted. We simply cannot know - neither you nor I nor anybody were there looking over the scribe's shoulder and holding daily conversations with him as to what he meant.
Hm, I haven't read about Origen's approach, but because there are two other references to the six day creation (in Exodus 20:10 and 31:17) I would say the author of Exodus probably intended a literal interpretation of Genesis 1.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
As if there hadn't been enough wholesale slaughter of creatures, human and animal, if the flood myth had any veracity! ::)
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
They would say not, just that the physical action has been replaced by spiritual stuff, as that is easier to fake than the physical action because it can now be checked out where as people making it up, in those times, generations later couldn't be checked out in those days.
Sorry, I don't understand your point here. Would you please put it in words that I, a man from Norfolk, can understand. Ta.
I thought you went to Cambridge? Didn't they teach you English and intellectual understanding there? It's not hard to understand what I'm saying.
Also, didn't they teach you manners either about replying to peoples' posts such as mine on my thread, "What Is God Made From?", post 482
As for my post above it is obvious. Usually these destructions were either natural events which were remembered and passed down through the generations and used, falsely, to show God's actions and judgements or they were simply made up to bolster the leaders' beliefs and to instil fear and awe etc. into the believers; and to brag to other tribes and faiths about how mighty their God was. Basically it was a PR stunt done consciously or unconsciously.
Now, the question I'm asking myself right now is will I get a cogent and intelligent response from Alien...?
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
Why didn't It use a specific virus that would kill off mankind but give Noah and his family an antidote? Your God doesn't sound to bright or imaginative; very heavy handed!!!
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
They would say not, just that the physical action has been replaced by spiritual stuff, as that is easier to fake than the physical action because it can now be checked out where as people making it up, in those times, generations later couldn't be checked out in those days.
Sorry, I don't understand your point here. Would you please put it in words that I, a man from Norfolk, can understand. Ta.
I thought you went to Cambridge?
Yes, thanks.Didn't they teach you English
No, I gave that up after my GCE English Language Grade 1 to continue to study Chemistry, Physics and Maths (with some German for fun) to A and S level then on to Cambridge for my BA in Natural Sciences. Is that what you mean? and intellectual understanding there?
Teach me "intellectual understanding"? As in "recognise when a sentence is badly written?It's not hard to understand what I'm saying.
Perhaps you don't understand what you yourself wrote?
Also, didn't they teach you manners either about replying to peoples' posts such as mine on my thread, "What Is God Made From?", post 482
What about it? I have had a busy week and am trying to catch up. That post is a long one and I have restricted myself to short posts while I've been busy. I'll get to your post 482.
As for my post above it is obvious. Usually these destructions were either natural events which were remembered and passed down through the generations and used, falsely, to show God's actions and judgements or they were simply made up to bolster the leaders' beliefs and to instil fear and awe etc. into the believers; and to brag to other tribes and faiths about how mighty their God was. Basically it was a PR stunt done consciously or unconsciously.
So that is the conclusion you have come to. What is your evidence for this?
Hint - you might be better to say that you see insufficient reason for assigning them to the agency of a God.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
Why not?
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Ever heard of the concept of overkill?
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Ever heard of the concept of overkill?
How does your dismay at a mass extinction event square with your puzzlement as to why God might be interested in something as cosmically insignificant as life on Earth?
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Ever heard of the concept of overkill?
How does your dismay at a mass extinction event square with your puzzlement as to why God might be interested in something as cosmically insignificant as life on Earth?
That's a very good atheistic hypothetical question, Vlad. Well done. Why indeed.
(For the purposes of this post I'm assuming you know what a hypothetical question is).
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Ever heard of the concept of overkill?
Yes.
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Ever heard of the concept of overkill?
Yes.
Well, that is what "God" did with the flood. :)
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Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
So that no-one would escape.
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Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
So that no-one would escape.
Unless they also had a boat!
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Unless they also had a boat!
You win this time!
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Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
So that no-one would escape.
And you think that the deity is good? ::)
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
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Ever heard of the concept of overkill?
Yes.
So there is the answer to your question "Why not?"
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
The people who claim less than credible things to be true and factual, as you appear to do, when one can decipher your wordy not very intelligible posts, are the ones who have to provide the proof!
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
The people who claim incredible things to be true and factual, as you appear to do, when one can decipher your wordy not very intelligible posts, are the ones who have to provide the proof!
Incredible in whose eyes?
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
The people who claim incredible things to be true and factual, as you appear to do, when one can decipher your wordy not very intelligible posts, are the ones who have to provide the proof!
Incredible in whose eyes?
Isn't the incredible bit the point? If the gospel told about Jesus feeding the 5 with 12 loaves and two fish, or walking on a piece of particularly bumpy ground, or rising from his bed, there really wouldn't be much to notice
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
The people who claim incredible things to be true and factual, as you appear to do, when one can decipher your wordy not very intelligible posts, are the ones who have to provide the proof!
Incredible in whose eyes?
Isn't the incredible bit the point? If the gospel told about Jesus feeding the 5 with 12 loaves and two fish, or walking on a piece of particularly bumpy ground, or rising from his bed, there really wouldn't be much to notice
Agreed. So what?
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
The people who claim incredible things to be true and factual, as you appear to do, when one can decipher your wordy not very intelligible posts, are the ones who have to provide the proof!
Incredible in whose eyes?
Isn't the incredible bit the point? If the gospel told about Jesus feeding the 5 with 12 loaves and two fish, or walking on a piece of particularly bumpy ground, or rising from his bed, there really wouldn't be much to notice
Agreed. So what?
So therefore, incredible in 'whose eyes'?, as you asked makes no sense. If Floo says the statements are incredible which it is in her opinion,and you want to challenge that opinion as you did with the 'in whose eyes', then accepting that the very point of the myths are that they are incredible, defeats the initial challenge and makes it meaningless
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
The people who claim incredible things to be true and factual, as you appear to do, when one can decipher your wordy not very intelligible posts, are the ones who have to provide the proof!
Incredible in whose eyes?
Isn't the incredible bit the point? If the gospel told about Jesus feeding the 5 with 12 loaves and two fish, or walking on a piece of particularly bumpy ground, or rising from his bed, there really wouldn't be much to notice
Agreed. So what?
So therefore, incredoble in 'whose eyes'?, as you asked makes no sense. if Floo says the studio's incredible which it is in her opinion,and you want to challenge that opinion as you did with the 'in whose eyes', then accepting that the very point of the myths histone incredoble, defeats the initial challenge and makes it meaningless
What's that in English/Scottish?
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Predictive text mangling corrected
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...
So therefore, incredible in 'whose eyes'?, as you asked makes no sense. If Floo says the statements are incredible which it is in her opinion,and you want to challenge that opinion as you did with the 'in whose eyes', then accepting that the very point of the myths are that they are incredible, defeats the initial challenge and makes it meaningless
I'm still not sure I understand your point. What significance should I or anyone else attach to Floo's statement that they are incredible to her? There are various reasons why she might find them incredible, e.g.
1) She might be a good judge of what is possible and what is not and they are in fact not possible.
2) She might be a poor judge of what is possible and what is not and they are in fact possible.
That plenty of people think God's exists and that the things described in the bible are true means they are credible, at least by some people. Therefore, they are not incredible per se.
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The point of miracles is that they are incredible - you have already accepted that. Saying 'incredible to whom' is therefore meaningless. You have already accepted that what floo finds incredible, you think is incredible.
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Yes, Alan seems to be abolishing the actual meaning of 'miracle'.
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The point of miracles is that they are incredible - you have already accepted that. Saying 'incredible to whom' is therefore meaningless. You have already accepted that what floo finds incredible, you think is incredible.
No, I have not accepted that. According to the OED, incredible means:
1) Impossible to believe:
2) Difficult to believe; extraordinary:
Clearly miracles are not impossible to believe, because some people do believe they happen/have happened. Since some people believe in them they are thus not impossible to believe, unless, Floo means she finds it impossible for her to believe, in which case, so what? That was why I asked "in whose eyes" Floo thinks they are incredible.
As for the second OED meaning, again, "difficult to believe" is very subjective. Some people find it difficult to believe that animals have evolved, etc., yet neither you nor I would claim that biological evolution is in this sense "incredible".
My basic point is that Floo is saying that she doesn't believe certain things because she can't believe certain things. Again, so what?
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Yes, Alan seems to be abolishing the actual meaning of 'miracle'.
Nope. Please read what I wrote. Where have I "abolished the actual meaning of miracle"?
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So when I asked 'isn' t the incredible bit the point?' and in reply 155 you agreed, what were you saying? If miracles are not incredible, then surely they are not miracles, just unusual
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Oh and by the way, I would be interested in something that was impossible to believe by anyone?
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So when I asked 'isn' t the incredible bit the point?' and in reply 155 you agreed, what were you saying? If miracles are not incredible, then surely they are not miracles, just unusual
Yes, sorry. That was a bad reply by me back there. Sorry for mucking you around.
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Oh and by the way, I would be interested in something that was impossible to believe by anyone?
Agreed :), but that is part of my point. Floo's replies (on this point) don't actually contribute anything to the discussion (though in other areas she does).
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Incredible is hyperbole. Who doesn't use it when describing something we find amazing etc? To start taking it as being used literally is to take the piss.
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
You are OK on this, Floo. You have been saying "less than credible" rather than "incredible", but please answer. "Less than credible" in whose eyes? Yours? If so, then, to be blunt, so what? If you mean "less than credible" in other people's eyes as well, again, so what? Why is it less than credible in their eyes?
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Oh and by the way, I would be interested in something that was impossible to believe by anyone?
Agreed :), but that is part of my point. Floo's replies (on this point) don't actually contribute anything to the discussion (though in other areas she does).
But that then means you have quoted a definition and used it which you think is unusable and meaningless to challenge Floo
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Yes, Alan seems to be abolishing the actual meaning of 'miracle'.
Nope. Please read what I wrote. Where have I "abolished the actual meaning of miracle"?
Well, you said that they are not incredible per se. I'm not sure what the 'per se' means there. Miracles per se are not incredible? I don't understand that.
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
You are OK on this, Floo. You have been saying "less than credible" rather than "incredible", but please answer. "Less than credible" in whose eyes? Yours? If so, then, to be blunt, so what? If you mean "less than credible" in other people's eyes as well, again, so what? Why is it less than credible in their eyes?
This makes the challenge even worse, since this means that if anyone believes anything, anyone who says it is not credibie, just has to accept that for someone somewhere it is. This means if I find someone who finds it credibie that Jesus is a voodoo doll that was vomited up by a mole, you will just have to nod and say 'if someone believes it, then it is credibie'
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The weird thing is that Alan seems to be proposing utter relativism. Thus, someone may find something credible, so then - what? I don't see where this is going, except that (again) there seem to be no constraints left, since probably lots of mad things are believed by somebody, the obvious example being abduction by aliens.
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Oh and by the way, I would be interested in something that was impossible to believe by anyone?
Agreed :), but that is part of my point. Floo's replies (on this point) don't actually contribute anything to the discussion (though in other areas she does).
But that then means you have quoted a definition and used it which you think is unusable and meaningless to challenge Floo
No. If Floo had said it was "less than credible in my eyes", it would have been clearer what she meant. At that point I would have asked, "So what?"
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Yes, Alan seems to be abolishing the actual meaning of 'miracle'.
Nope. Please read what I wrote. Where have I "abolished the actual meaning of miracle"?
Well, you said that they are not incredible per se. I'm not sure what the 'per se' means there. Miracles per se are not incredible? I don't understand that.
Fair enough. However, some of the confusion here may be due to my poor reply to #155.
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
You are OK on this, Floo. You have been saying "less than credible" rather than "incredible", but please answer. "Less than credible" in whose eyes? Yours? If so, then, to be blunt, so what? If you mean "less than credible" in other people's eyes as well, again, so what? Why is it less than credible in their eyes?
This makes the challenge even worse, since this means that if anyone believes anything, anyone who says it is not credibie, just has to accept that for someone somewhere it is. This means if I find someone who finds it credibie that Jesus is a voodoo doll that was vomited up by a mole, you will just have to nod and say 'if someone believes it, then it is credibie'
It would be good if you got your predator taxis sorted out.
As I have mentioned above, if Floo had said, "It is less than credible in my (Floo's) eyes" it would have been a statement worth responding to.
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The weird thing is that Alan seems to be proposing utter relativism. Thus, someone may find something credible, so then - what? I don't see where this is going, except that (again) there seem to be no constraints left, since probably lots of mad things are believed by somebody, the obvious example being abduction by aliens.
Deep sigh.
My point is that Floo's claim that something is "less than credible" is a pretty pointless statement on its own. "Less than credible" in whose opinion?
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If I'm following along correctly - I'm in haste as the cat is just about to go to the vet - you seem, Alan, to be defending here a thoroughgoing subjectivism, which is interesting from someone who has tried to defend an objective morality :)
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
You are OK on this, Floo. You have been saying "less than credible" rather than "incredible", but please answer. "Less than credible" in whose eyes? Yours? If so, then, to be blunt, so what? If you mean "less than credible" in other people's eyes as well, again, so what? Why is it less than credible in their eyes?
This makes the challenge even worse, since this means that if anyone believes anything, anyone who says it is not credibie, just has to accept that for someone somewhere it is. This means if I find someone who finds it credibie that Jesus is a voodoo doll that was vomited up by a mole, you will just have to nod and say 'if someone believes it, then it is credibie'
It would be good if you got your predator taxis sorted out.
As I have mentioned above, if Floo had said, "It is less than credible in my (Floo's) eyes" it would have been a statement worth responding to.
And since you have not phrased your post ' it would have been a statement worth responding to in my eyes', you would be doing the same thing you are complaining about.
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If I'm following along correctly - I'm in haste as the cat is just about to go to the vet - you seem, Alan, to be defending here a thoroughgoing subjectivism, which is interesting from someone who has tried to defend an objective morality :)
Nope. Credibility is very subjective. What you find credible, I may not and vice versa. One of Floo's mantra's is about stuff being "less than credible". In what way? In whose opinion? That is all I have asked.
As for any link to objective morality, that is one hell of a leap. Have you thought of taking up the long jump?
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
You are OK on this, Floo. You have been saying "less than credible" rather than "incredible", but please answer. "Less than credible" in whose eyes? Yours? If so, then, to be blunt, so what? If you mean "less than credible" in other people's eyes as well, again, so what? Why is it less than credible in their eyes?
This makes the challenge even worse, since this means that if anyone believes anything, anyone who says it is not credibie, just has to accept that for someone somewhere it is. This means if I find someone who finds it credibie that Jesus is a voodoo doll that was vomited up by a mole, you will just have to nod and say 'if someone believes it, then it is credibie'
It would be good if you got your predator taxis sorted out.
As I have mentioned above, if Floo had said, "It is less than credible in my (Floo's) eyes" it would have been a statement worth responding to.
And since you have not phrased your post ' it would have been a statement worth responding to in my eyes', you would be doing the same thing you are complaining about.
Nope. I have explained my position throughout.
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Nope. Credibility is very subjective. What you find credible, I may not and vice versa. One of Floo's mantra's is about stuff being "less than credible". In what way? In whose opinion? That is all I have asked.
Excellent so far.
As for any link to objective morality, that is one hell of a leap. Have you thought of taking up the long jump?
No, never, although I was fairly good at it when I was at school.
I've often thought of why you, who have wasted so many electrons on defending objective morality, are still unable to simply and clearly - as far as such things ever can be clear, I mean - make your case and prove your argument.
I know why, but I don't think that you do.
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
You are OK on this, Floo. You have been saying "less than credible" rather than "incredible", but please answer. "Less than credible" in whose eyes? Yours? If so, then, to be blunt, so what? If you mean "less than credible" in other people's eyes as well, again, so what? Why is it less than credible in their eyes?
This makes the challenge even worse, since this means that if anyone believes anything, anyone who says it is not credibie, just has to accept that for someone somewhere it is. This means if I find someone who finds it credibie that Jesus is a voodoo doll that was vomited up by a mole, you will just have to nod and say 'if someone believes it, then it is credibie'
It would be good if you got your predator taxis sorted out.
As I have mentioned above, if Floo had said, "It is less than credible in my (Floo's) eyes" it would have been a statement worth responding to.
And since you have not phrased your post ' it would have been a statement worth responding to in my eyes', you would be doing the same thing you are complaining about.
Nope. I have explained my position throughout.
Nope, in my eyes, you have not, and in my eyes, you are being a hypocrite
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I meant 'less than credible', rather than 'incredible', sorry about that.
You are OK on this, Floo. You have been saying "less than credible" rather than "incredible", but please answer. "Less than credible" in whose eyes? Yours? If so, then, to be blunt, so what? If you mean "less than credible" in other people's eyes as well, again, so what? Why is it less than credible in their eyes?
This makes the challenge even worse, since this means that if anyone believes anything, anyone who says it is not credibie, just has to accept that for someone somewhere it is. This means if I find someone who finds it credibie that Jesus is a voodoo doll that was vomited up by a mole, you will just have to nod and say 'if someone believes it, then it is credibie'
It would be good if you got your predator taxis sorted out.
As I have mentioned above, if Floo had said, "It is less than credible in my (Floo's) eyes" it would have been a statement worth responding to.
And since you have not phrased your post ' it would have been a statement worth responding to in my eyes', you would be doing the same thing you are complaining about.
Nope. I have explained my position throughout.
Nope, in my eyes, you have not, and in my eyes, you are being a hypocrite
Let me to try to clarify any misunderstanding then.
Floo said that certain Christian claims are "less than credible". I have pointed out that "credible" means, "Able to be believed; convincing" according the OED. I have pointed out that whether a claim is able to be believed or is convincing depends on the person looking at it as well as the claim itself. The reason I have brought this up is because Floo seemed to be basing her requirements for evidence or other reasons to accept those claims on the claims being "less than credible", which seems circular to me. It may be that certain evidence or other reasons to accept those claims is indeed required, but it is not just because they are "less than credible" in Floo's eyes.
I hope that clears things up.
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Alien,
They would say not, just that the physical action has been replaced by "But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
spiritual stuff, as that is easier to fake than the physical action because it can now be checked out where as people making it up, in those times, generations later couldn't be checked out in those days.
Sorry, I don't understand your point here. Would you please put it in words that I, a man from Norfolk, can understand. Ta.
I thought you went to Cambridge?
Yes, thanks.Didn't they teach you English
No, I gave that up after my GCE English Language Grade 1 to continue to study Chemistry, Physics and Maths (with some German for fun) to A and S level then on to Cambridge for my BA in Natural Sciences. Is that what you mean? and intellectual understanding there?
Teach me "intellectual understanding"? As in "recognise when a sentence is badly written?It's not hard to understand what I'm saying.
Perhaps you don't understand what you yourself wrote?
Also, didn't they teach you manners either about replying to peoples' posts such as mine on my thread, "What Is God Made From?", post 482
What about it? I have had a busy week and am trying to catch up. That post is a long one and I have restricted myself to short posts while I've been busy. I'll get to your post 482.
As for my post above it is obvious. Usually these destructions were either natural events which were remembered and passed down through the generations and used, falsely, to show God's actions and judgements or they were simply made up to bolster the leaders' beliefs and to instil fear and awe etc. into the believers; and to brag to other tribes and faiths about how mighty their God was. Basically it was a PR stunt done consciously or unconsciously.
So that is the conclusion you have come to. What is your evidence for this?
Hint - you might be better to say that you see insufficient reason for assigning them to the agency of a God.
Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
Why not?
Isn't your God intelligent and efficient. Why be heavy handed when you can produce the same effect and judgement by being more moderate and temperate and not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
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Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
So that no-one would escape.
Its judgement was on the people not the animals and plants nor on devastating the fertile soils, which a flood would do.
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Its judgement was on the people not the animals and plants nor on devastating the fertile soils, which a flood would do.
Quite! "God" could just have created a disease to kill off all the humans, and made Noah and family immune to it. He clearly didn't think of that.
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Its judgement was on the people not the animals and plants nor on devastating the fertile soils, which a flood would do.
Quite! "God" could just have created a disease to kill off all the humans, and made Noah and family immune to it. He clearly didn't think of that.
Start a thread on the Flood: we haven't had one for a few days!
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Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
Maybe, but the whole of civilisation has not gone bad. Maybe that is why. I'm not sure.
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
You are free to believe that if you so wish. If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
Why not?
Isn't your God intelligent and efficient. Why be heavy handed when you can produce the same effect and judgement by being more moderate and temperate and not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Animals die.
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It also suggests that non-Christians cannot do good?
Please tell me there aren't really any people who believe such obvious rubbish?
I doubt that any thinking Christians believe that Len.
Remember being told that the guidelines are there to stop us going too far and, to put it in the vernacular, so we don't get too up ourselves :D.
(May I just say, off topic, I love Shaker's avatar!)
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If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
No, not good evidence at all - and you don't even have to be a philosophical naturalist to think so.
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If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
No, not good evidence at all - and you don't even have to be a philosophical naturalist to think so.
Oh dear is Alan trying to sneak in some idea of non methodologically naturalistic evidence by shoehorning a bit of random incredulity to a made up assertion and avoiding any of the work of establishing a method , that one he has been asked for for years and hundreds of times but never provides? That would be awfully desperate of him
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Hm ::)
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If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
So the story goes.
How have you excluded the possibility that this is no more than an ancient myth, and how have you confirmed aspects of the story (for instance, that there was an Ark build by Noah et al) as being historical facts?
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Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
Maybe, but the whole of civilisation has not gone bad. Maybe that is why. I'm not sure.
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
You are free to believe that if you so wish. If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
That's pure speculation, a what if. My post was in reference to human nature (making shit up etc.) and the fact that it was men who wrote of what they claimed God did or judged on. Nowhere do we have God communicating with us, today, directly. It is all from third parties, and that being, men doing what men do, writing and creating narratives.
Sadly, we do have accounts of people claiming things like the end of the world by a given date and surprise, surprise we're still here!!! I'll believe it when I see it.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
Why not?
Isn't your God intelligent and efficient. Why be heavy handed when you can produce the same effect and judgement by being more moderate and temperate and not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Animals die.
Animal's live!!! What's your point?
Or, if they die what is the point of them?
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If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
So the story goes.
How have you excluded the possibility that this is no more than an ancient myth, and how have you confirmed aspects of the story (for instance, that there was an Ark build by Noah et al) as being historical facts?
I can't totally exclude it. Have you totally excluded the possibility that it actually happened?
Be that as it may, that does not affect the veracity (or not) of my statement above.
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Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
Maybe, but the whole of civilisation has not gone bad. Maybe that is why. I'm not sure.
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
You are free to believe that if you so wish. If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
That's pure speculation, a what if. My post was in reference to human nature (making shit up etc.) and the fact that it was men who wrote of what they claimed God did or judged on. Nowhere do we have God communicating with us, today, directly. It is all from third parties, and that being, men doing what men do, writing and creating narratives.
Sadly, we do have accounts of people claiming things like the end of the world by a given date and surprise, surprise we're still here!!! I'll believe it when I see it.
You're 2000 years too late, mate. 2000 years ago God did communicate directly. You could even have sat down and have a cuppa with him if you were in Israel.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
Why not?
Isn't your God intelligent and efficient. Why be heavy handed when you can produce the same effect and judgement by being more moderate and temperate and not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Animals die.
Animal's live!!! What's your point?
Or, if they die what is the point of them?
My point is that you seemed to claiming that there was a problem with God letting animals in a certain area of the planet live for less time than they would normally have done.
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Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
Maybe, but the whole of civilisation has not gone bad. Maybe that is why. I'm not sure.
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
You are free to believe that if you so wish. If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
That's pure speculation, a what if. My post was in reference to human nature (making shit up etc.) and the fact that it was men who wrote of what they claimed God did or judged on. Nowhere do we have God communicating with us, today, directly. It is all from third parties, and that being, men doing what men do, writing and creating narratives.
Sadly, we do have accounts of people claiming things like the end of the world by a given date and surprise, surprise we're still here!!! I'll believe it when I see it.
You're 2000 years too late, mate. 2000 years ago God did communicate directly. You could even have sat down and have a cuppa with him if you were in Israel.
Take more water with it! ;D
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Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
Maybe, but the whole of civilisation has not gone bad. Maybe that is why. I'm not sure.
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
You are free to believe that if you so wish. If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
That's pure speculation, a what if. My post was in reference to human nature (making shit up etc.) and the fact that it was men who wrote of what they claimed God did or judged on. Nowhere do we have God communicating with us, today, directly. It is all from third parties, and that being, men doing what men do, writing and creating narratives.
Sadly, we do have accounts of people claiming things like the end of the world by a given date and surprise, surprise we're still here!!! I'll believe it when I see it.
You're 2000 years too late, mate. 2000 years ago God did communicate directly. You could even have sat down and have a cuppa with him if you were in Israel.
Pure speculation, mate. You don't know this and have no proof that it was so.
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He used to drink tea with A of C Robert Runcie, if anyone remembers.
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Alien,
"But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?
Because of Noah's sacrifice (Genesis 8:20-22) God said he would never again destroy all life by a flood. Interesting, huh.
Why was God so crass as to use a flood? Why kill off all the animals as they hadn't sinned? Why devastate the land?
Why not?
Isn't your God intelligent and efficient. Why be heavy handed when you can produce the same effect and judgement by being more moderate and temperate and not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Animals die.
Animal's live!!! What's your point?
Or, if they die what is the point of them?
My point is that you seemed to claiming that there was a problem with God letting animals in a certain area of the planet live for less time than they would normally have done.
My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
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Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
Maybe, but the whole of civilisation has not gone bad. Maybe that is why. I'm not sure.
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
You are free to believe that if you so wish. If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
That's pure speculation, a what if. My post was in reference to human nature (making shit up etc.) and the fact that it was men who wrote of what they claimed God did or judged on. Nowhere do we have God communicating with us, today, directly. It is all from third parties, and that being, men doing what men do, writing and creating narratives.
Sadly, we do have accounts of people claiming things like the end of the world by a given date and surprise, surprise we're still here!!! I'll believe it when I see it.
You're 2000 years too late, mate. 2000 years ago God did communicate directly. You could even have sat down and have a cuppa with him if you were in Israel.
Pure speculation, mate. You don't know this and have no proof that it was so.
There is good evidence which, I would suggest, would lead anyone openly and honestly looking at it to come to the conclusion that God did become man 2000 years ago. I hope you get there at some point.
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...
My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
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Why have so many people openly and honestly looked at the "evidence" and concluded (in the vernacular) that it's a crock?
Or are you going to claim that they simply didn't look openly and honestly?
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Why have so many people openly and honestly looked at the "evidence" and concluded (in the vernacular) that it's a crock?
Or are you going to claim that they simply didn't look openly and honestly?
That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient. Don't be shy in putting your view across.
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That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient.
Because you are credulous, with poor critical thinking skills, led by an emotional desire to believe what you wish to be the case.
Don't be shy in putting your view across.
I'm not normally.
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That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient.
Because you are credulous, with poor critical thinking skills, led by an emotional desire to believe what you wish to be the case.
Don't be shy in putting your view across.
I'm not normally.
Why must you constantly demean people, Shaker?
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Alan asked me a question (he stipulated "Don't be shy in putting your views across," as though I ever am) and I answered it, clearly and concisely. I am not responsible for your opinion that that answer is demeaning.
I find credulity, gullibility and superstition in grown adults demeaning. If you hold that pointing this out is itself demeaning, that's your problem. I'd sooner work towards grown adults not being credulous clots rather than pussyfoot around them.
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Alan asked me a question (he stipulated "Don't be shy in putting your views across," as though I ever am) and I answered it, clearly and concisely. I am not responsible for your opinion that that answer is demeaning.
I find credulity, gullibility and superstition in grown adults demeaning. If you hold that pointing this out is itself demeaning, that's your problem. I'd sooner work towards grown adults not being credulous clots rather than pussyfoot around them.
If someone holds a belief, and you disagree, then they are demeaning themselves? You demean someone by impugning their intelligence, and that is just nasty. Einstein you ain't!
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If someone holds a belief, and you disagree, then they are demeaning themselves?
Frequently - not because of my disagreement, because some beliefs demean the people who hold them. Ugly, pernicious, noxious beliefs such as racism and homophobia; ill-thought-out, gullibly accepted, rarely (if ever) questioned and tested beliefs that stand in contravention of all human experience such as theism.
You demean someone by impugning their intelligence, and that is just nasty.
No, because frequently religious belief has little or even nothing at all to do with intelligence per se. Some extremely intelligent people (intelligent otherwise, I mean) have been and are religious believers; as I see it this is because their religious beliefs have nothing to do with their intelligence - they simply allow them to bypass their critical faculties, thus escaping the same sort of hard, sceptical analytical thought that they would bring to bear on anything (or everything) else, usually for emotional reasons. What else explains the uncommon phenomenon of the religious scientist? As someone (Swift, it may have been ... I'm not sure) said, you can't reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into in the first place.
Einstein you ain't!
I don't claim to be ... but then, one thing I share with the good Professor (or wee Albert as Gonners like to call him) is that belief in a personal god is childish ;)
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If someone holds a belief, and you disagree, then they are demeaning themselves?
Frequently.
You demean someone by impugning their intelligence, and that is just nasty.
No, because frequently religious belief has little or even nothing at all to do with intelligence per se. Some extremely intelligent people (intelligent otherwise, I mean) have been and are religious believers; as I see it this is because their religious beliefs have nothing to do with their intelligence - they simply allow them to bypass their critical faculties, thus escaping the same sort of hard, sceptical analytical thought that they would bring to bear on anything (or everything) else, usually for emotional reasons. What else explains the uncommon phenomenon of the religious scientist? As someone (Swift, it may have been ... I'm not sure) said, you can't reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into in the first place.
Einstein you ain't!
I don't claim to be ... but then, one thing I share with the good Professor is that belief in a personal god is childish ;)
It is not only unpleasant to cast aspersions on a person's intelligence, it is also demeaning to the person who makes th allegation - and of course, it never occurred to you the light it casts you in:
demeaning:
causing someone to lose their dignity and the respect of others.
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It is not only unpleasant to cast aspersions on a person's intelligence
I addressed this in the second paragraph of my previous post, which you clearly didn't read (or understand) despite having quoted it.
it is also demeaning to the person who makes th allegation
No, it isn't.
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It is not only unpleasant to cast aspersions on a person's intelligence
I addressed this in the second paragraph of my previous post, which you clearly didn't read (or understand) despite having quoted it.
it is also demeaning to the person who makes th allegation
No, it isn't.
It demeans you, like it or not.
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No it doesn't. It's just a feeble tu quoque because you can't gainsay it in any other way.
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No, because frequently religious belief has little or even nothing at all to do with intelligence per se. Some extremely intelligent people (intelligent otherwise, I mean) have been and are religious believers; as I see it this is because their religious beliefs have nothing to do with their intelligence - they simply allow them to bypass their critical faculties, thus escaping the same sort of hard, sceptical analytical thought that they would bring to bear on anything (or everything) else, usually for emotional reasons. What else explains the uncommon phenomenon of the religious scientist? As someone (Swift, it may have been ... I'm not sure) said, you can't reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into in the first place.
A typical Shaker shit outturn.
Look
No, because frequently Atheism has little or even nothing at all to do with intelligence per se. Some extremely intelligent people (intelligent otherwise, I mean) have been and are atheists; as I see it this is because their atheism has nothing to do with their intelligence - they simply allow them to bypass their critical faculties, thus retreating into the same sort of hard, sceptical anal thought that they would bring to bear on anything (or everything) else, usually for emotional reasons. What else explains the phenomenon of the atheist who confuses science with atheism? As someone (Swift, it may have been ... I'm not sure) said, you can't reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into in the first place.
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No it doesn't. It's just a feeble tu quoque because you can't gainsay it in any other way.
Don't like the truth, eh?
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No it doesn't. It's just a feeble tu quoque because you can't gainsay it in any other way.
Don't like the truth, eh?
Yes. Prefer it every time.
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No it doesn't. It's just a feeble tu quoque because you can't gainsay it in any other way.
Don't like the truth, eh?
Yes. Prefer it every time.
Good. then you have to accept that you do, indeed, demean yourself by your denigration of others' intelligence: because that is the truth.
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No it doesn't. It's just a feeble tu quoque because you can't gainsay it in any other way.
Don't like the truth, eh?
Yes. Prefer it every time.
Good. then you have to accept that you do, indeed, demean yourself by your denigration of others'intelligence: because that is the truth.
No; because just like Alan Burns's beliefs about God, it's just an opinion.
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No it doesn't. It's just a feeble tu quoque because you can't gainsay it in any other way.
Don't like the truth, eh?
Yes. Prefer it every time.
Good. then you have to accept that you do, indeed, demean yourself by your denigration of others'intelligence: because that is the truth.
No; because just like Alan Burns's beliefs about God, it's just an opinion.
Your opinion denigrates AB's intelligence. Okay? It is only an opinion, but that doesn't make it any less reprehensible.
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Your opinion denigrates AB's intelligence.
No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard.
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Your opinion denigrates AB's intelligence.
No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard.
There you go again. :D
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Your opinion denigrates AB's intelligence.
No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard.
Sadly that is true. But to give Alan his due he doesn't lose it every time he is challenged, unlike another 'Christian' whose lack of intellectual acuity is obvious every time they post. They seem totally unaware how vile they can be, even though they accuse of others of being so!
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Your opinion denigrates AB's intelligence.
No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard.
Sadly that is true. But to give Alan his due he doesn't lose it every time he is challenged, unlike another 'Christian' whose lack of intellectual acuity is obvious every time they post. They seem totally unaware how vile they can be, even though they accuse of others of being so!
Have the courage to say who you mean, or are you as cowardly in being honest and straightforward as you are silly in your religious views?
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But to give Alan his due he doesn't lose it every time he is challenged
No - most of the time he completely ignores any such challenges.
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But to give Alan his due he doesn't lose it every time he is challenged
No - most of the time he completely ignores any such challenges.
He certainly ignores your frequent and unpleasant personal attacks - he has better control and decent manners than you could dream of.
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What personal attacks are these?
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What personal attacks are these?
For crying out loud, man!! We went over this a day or two ago - is your memory finally going? I refer to your frequent derogatory references to his intelligence, or lack of it; which, apart from the viciousness of it, is a joke, because your are no Einstein, are you!
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I don't recall making any references to his intelligence, derogatory or otherwise. Like a goodly number of others I certainly do point out, regularly, where he employs fallacious thinking or merely offers bald assertion instead of argument. Doubtless to you this constitutes an 'attack.'
As for Einstein, your memory can't be up to much if you've already forgotten that you wheeled out this tripe last night and I responded to it then.
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I don't recall making any references to his intelligence, derogatory or otherwise. Like a goodly number of others I certainly do point out, regularly, where he employs fallacious thinking or merely offers bald assertion instead of argument. Doubtless to you this constitutes an 'attack.'
As for Einstein, your memory can't be up to much if you've already forgotten that you wheeled out this tripe last night and I responded to it then.
You know full-well that you cast aspersions on AB's intelligence, as you do with others. I though you did possess some modicum of ethical posting; but it appears I was wrong: you not only make these jibes, but you haven't the moral fortitude to admit it when challenged.
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Since you asserted it, it's up to you to prove it.
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Your opinion denigrates AB's intelligence.
No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard.
The most recent example is on this thread a few posts back: M 226: "No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard."
So, you are lying.
There are plenty of examples, if you care to peruse your own posts, instead of trying to squirm out of it by putting the onus on others to check your turgid offerings.
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AB might lack intellectual acuity, but he is genius level compared with another poster who frequently questions the intelligence of us wicked heathen! ;D ;D ;D
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AB might lack intellectual acuity, but he is genius level compared with another poster who frequently questions the intelligence of us wicked heathen! ;D ;D ;D
imo, you should say who you mean, imo. Otherwise, imo, you could be just making it up, imo.
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Your opinion denigrates AB's intelligence.
No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard.
The most recent example is on this thread a few posts back: M 226: "No. Alan needs no help in denigrating his own intelligence from me or from anyone else. He does a sterling job of that practically every time he puts fingers to keyboard."
So, you are lying.
Er, that's me saying that nobody else needs to insult Alan's intelligence when he insults his own (and that of others, come to that).
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That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient.
Because you are credulous, with poor critical thinking skills, led by an emotional desire to believe what you wish to be the case.
Excellent.
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Someone said this : ""But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them."
So, has He stopped judging, because there are far worse things going on now?"
Maybe, but the whole of civilisation has not gone bad. Maybe that is why. I'm not sure.
I basically said that as it can't be faked like that today, because we know much more about natural phenomena, and such events of this nature aren't used as signs of God's judgement anymore - except by the loonies. But in those days such misguidances about God's judgement were used because they didn't know any better.
Today, God's judgement has been whisked into the metaphysical of the spiritual arena because it is safe from man's scientific and reasoning powers and as such can't be disproved and meddled with.
You are free to believe that if you so wish. If we look at the Flood though, Genesis claims that, in some way, God spoke to Noah beforehand. If someone claimed today beforehand that God has told them to do something outlandish, they did it and they were the only survivor of the disaster that person claimed God had told them about beforehand, that would be pretty good evidence that God really had spoken to them, I would have thought. It would get me thinking at least (except that I would not have survived).
Unless you are a philosophical naturalist of course, in which case you will have rejected any such evidence out of hand.
That's pure speculation, a what if. My post was in reference to human nature (making shit up etc.) and the fact that it was men who wrote of what they claimed God did or judged on. Nowhere do we have God communicating with us, today, directly. It is all from third parties, and that being, men doing what men do, writing and creating narratives.
Sadly, we do have accounts of people claiming things like the end of the world by a given date and surprise, surprise we're still here!!! I'll believe it when I see it.
You're 2000 years too late, mate. 2000 years ago God did communicate directly. You could even have sat down and have a cuppa with him if you were in Israel.
Pure speculation, mate. You don't know this and have no proof that it was so.
There is good evidence which, I would suggest, would lead anyone openly and honestly looking at it to come to the conclusion that God did become man 2000 years ago. I hope you get there at some point.
Evidence isn't fact!!!
And there is no historical document good enough for someone to sanely guide their whole life style on it as gospel truth.
The facts are that people wrote this stuff. The speculation is why they did it? From our point in history we can never truly know why this was and so the speculation goes categorical unanswered.
You're whole Christian faith is based on guesswork all bolstered up by your prejudices to want to believe.
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My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
A total flood like that would destroy the fertility of the soil. It would take months if not years for it to be put right. All the plants and trees would be destroyed and of course there would be very few eatable animals about, though he couldn't touch those as they had been saved to repopulate the Earth. What did the carnivores survive on after they were let loose?
"When we've had floods around here people survive."
Oh I see, Noah would have gone down to the local supermarket to get his provisions?
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My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
A total flood like that would destroy the fertility of the soil. It would take months if not years for it to be put right. All the plants and trees would be destroyed and of course there would be very few eatable animals about, though he couldn't touch those as they had been saved to repopulate the Earth. What did the carnivores survive on after they were let loose?
Oh I see, Noah would have gone down to the local supermarket to get his provisions?
Of course! ;D
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Why have so many people openly and honestly looked at the "evidence" and concluded (in the vernacular) that it's a crock?
Or are you going to claim that they simply didn't look openly and honestly?
That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient. Don't be shy in putting your view across.
Weren't you a Christian as a child in Wales? I.e. an ingrained bias that acted as a presumption before you even started in Cambridge.
Did the Aberfan disaster shake your faith at the time? Iirc you said your parents couldn't square this with a loving God? Perhaps an unconscious desire to justify going back to the pre-Aberfan days drives you to see truths that aren't really there to serve those desires and emotional needs?
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Weren't you a Christian as a child in Wales? I.e. an ingrained bias that acted as a presumption before you even started in Cambridge.
Did the Aberfan disaster shake your faith at the time? Iirc you said your parents couldn't square this with a loving God? Perhaps an unconscious desire to justify going back to the pre-Aberfan days drives you to see truths that aren't really there to serve those desires and emotional needs?
Makes sense.
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Evidence isn't fact!!!
Agreed, but it is possible to have good enough evidence about things to come to a decision on something, e.g. whether to get on a plane to go on holiday.
And there is no historical document good enough for someone to sanely guide their whole life style on it as gospel truth.
That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
The facts are that people wrote this stuff. The speculation is why they did it? From our point in history we can never truly know why this was and so the speculation goes categorical unanswered.
That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
You're whole Christian faith is based on guesswork all bolstered up by your prejudices to want to believe.
That's your assertion. I disagree with you. Why should I think it is my prejudices and not yours?
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My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
A total flood like that would destroy the fertility of the soil. It would take months if not years for it to be put right. All the plants and trees would be destroyed and of course there would be very few eatable animals about, though he couldn't touch those as they had been saved to repopulate the Earth. What did the carnivores survive on after they were let loose?
May I point out to you that I do not believe that the bible speaks of a flood which covered the entire planet, so if I am correct, your point above may not be relevant.
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Why have so many people openly and honestly looked at the "evidence" and concluded (in the vernacular) that it's a crock?
Or are you going to claim that they simply didn't look openly and honestly?
That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient. Don't be shy in putting your view across.
Weren't you a Christian as a child in Wales?
Wash your mouth out! I'm from Norfolk!I.e. an ingrained bias that acted as a presumption before you even started in Cambridge.
Nope. I went to Sunday School and church till I was about 9. I did get confirmed at about 14, but the only thing I can remember of that, apart from going to communion in the school chapel just the once after than, was that the vicar chappie asked us at the end if we had any outstanding questions and I told him I didn't get this Adam and Eve thing. He never replied.
Did the Aberfan disaster shake your faith at the time?
I can't remember anything of what I thought at that time. Iirc you said your parents couldn't square this with a loving God? Perhaps an unconscious desire to justify going back to the pre-Aberfan days drives you to see truths that aren't really there to serve those desires and emotional needs?
<chuckle/>Which Christmas cracker did you get that one from?
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Weren't you a Christian as a child in Wales? I.e. an ingrained bias that acted as a presumption before you even started in Cambridge.
Did the Aberfan disaster shake your faith at the time? Iirc you said your parents couldn't square this with a loving God? Perhaps an unconscious desire to justify going back to the pre-Aberfan days drives you to see truths that aren't really there to serve those desires and emotional needs?
Makes sense.
Are you serious?
I'm going to have to keep this post. I keep some of the "nutty as a fruit cake" ones.
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Evidence isn't fact!!!
1) Agreed, but it is possible to have good enough evidence about things to come to a decision on something, e.g. whether to get on a plane to go on holiday.
And there is no historical document good enough for someone to sanely guide their whole life style on it as gospel truth.
2) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
The facts are that people wrote this stuff. The speculation is why they did it? From our point in history we can never truly know why this was and so the speculation goes categorical unanswered.
3) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
You're whole Christian faith is based on guesswork all bolstered up by your prejudices to want to believe.
4) That's your assertion. I disagree with you. Why should I think it is my prejudices and not yours?
1) Your example is not comparable, and you are playing your games again by doing this. You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned. Your evidence can't be investigated personally, it has solidified in history and is inaccessible.
2) That is not an assertion it is fact. Your tactics here are similar to those I hear politicians use and is disingenuous. I thought Christians were suppose to not be duplicitous...people should guide their lives based on personal experience of their lives not some rule book from the past.
3) Again, this is not an assertion but logical reasoning, and bloody obvious!!!
4) It is at least guesswork i.e. speculation, for what else do you have? You can't examine the events personally, unless you have a time machine, and therefore, you can never know what actually happened. And as there is more than one explanation that can account for these manuscripts that puts doubts throughout the documentation. Which means your faith rests on speculation and doubt.
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My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
A total flood like that would destroy the fertility of the soil. It would take months if not years for it to be put right. All the plants and trees would be destroyed and of course there would be very few eatable animals about, though he couldn't touch those as they had been saved to repopulate the Earth. What did the carnivores survive on after they were let loose?
May I point out to you that I do not believe that the bible speaks of a flood which covered the entire planet, so if I am correct, your point above may not be relevant.
Oh, I am surprised. I thought the purpose of the flood was to remove the whole of mankind (sinners) except Noah and his family?
In fact what you say doesn't square with what Gen 6 says.
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Why have so many people openly and honestly looked at the "evidence" and concluded (in the vernacular) that it's a crock?
Or are you going to claim that they simply didn't look openly and honestly?
That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient. Don't be shy in putting your view across.
Weren't you a Christian as a child in Wales?
Wash your mouth out! I'm from Norfolk!
I got this Welsh thing from a thread where you described living there and living near Aberfan during the disaster era. That was the Christmas cracker, the one made by you. Are you saying you never lived in Wales?
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Why have so many people openly and honestly looked at the "evidence" and concluded (in the vernacular) that it's a crock?
Or are you going to claim that they simply didn't look openly and honestly?
That's a possibility. Why do you think I have looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that it is sufficient. Don't be shy in putting your view across.
Weren't you a Christian as a child in Wales?
Wash your mouth out! I'm from Norfolk!
I got this Welsh thing from a thread where you described living there and living near Aberfan during the disaster era. That was the Christmas cracker, the one made by you. Are you saying you never lived in Wales?
Nope, I've never lived in Wales. I think you've just remembered it a bit awry. The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
The other things were not quite so significant - the vicar only giving out half a wafer to each person at communion and a disagreement about the sidesmen's rota!
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
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Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him
Right ::)
I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
I'd be very interested to know.
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Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him
Right ::)
I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
I'd be very interested to know.
So am I now you have asked about it. :)
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
No doubt your dad's migraine was only psychosomatic. All he needed was to be loved again; accepted by the fold, and feel part of the social tribe once more. No God-power required just some good old social loving. So times referred to as the placebo effect.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
No doubt your dad's migraine was only psychosomatic. All he needed was to be loved again; accepted by the fold, and feel part of the social tribe once more. No God-power required just some good old social loving. So times referred to as the placebo effect.
So many experts on here; especially impressive to hear from the psychology experts. The fact is, you're talking out of your proverbial! You know nothing of the man in question, or his condition, and your comment is both worthless and presumptuous.
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Oh, and Alan. There's my 242, 243, 245, and.... 251, 252, 253 (one of which you've just answered). Bold one is more pressing....well, according to my notes.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
A pity the flipping deity comes through for some, but not others! >:(
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So many experts on here; especially impressive to hear from the psychology experts. The fact is, you're talking out of your proverbial! You know nothing of the man in question, or his condition, and your comment is both worthless and presumptuous.
No, and that's because while only Alan has knowledge of Alan's dad, at least some here will have had direct, personal and extremely unpleasant experience of migraine. Me for one. Mine simply stopped spontaneously never to return, as they are apt to do in fact, so talk of prayer with regard to the migraines suffered by Alan's dad was as usual simply a fifth wheel.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
A pity the flipping deity comes through for some, but not others! >:(
"Flipping?" Tut, tut, language! :D
Actually, if He doesn't. there is probably a reason! Wonder what!
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I can think of several. How about you?
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I can think of several. How about you?
I can think of one good one.
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Me too. You show me yours and I'll show you mine.
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Me too. You show me yours and I'll show you mine.
Nah, not whilst people are watching!
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
No doubt your dad's migraine was only psychosomatic. All he needed was to be loved again; accepted by the fold, and feel part of the social tribe once more. No God-power required just some good old social loving. So times referred to as the placebo effect.
Excellent. You've spoken to my dad then. He was feeling unloved. I know why he had those migraines and it was not being unloved. Cut the crap psychoanalysis.
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Oh, and Alan. There's my 242, 243, 245, and.... 251, 252, 253 (one of which you've just answered). Bold one is more pressing....well, according to my notes.
Eh? 247 was my reply to your 242, my 248 your 243, my 249 your 245. Would you please check to see which, if any, I still owe you a reply on.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
A pity the flipping deity comes through for some, but not others! >:(
Thank you for being pleased my dad stopped having crippling migraines.
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I can think of several. How about you?
I can too all the worst words in the world could be attributed to it, as its depiction is so evil!
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Thank you for being pleased my dad stopped having crippling migraines.
No idea about Floo but I know I am. If your dad's migraines were anything like mine then crippling is really the only fitting term. I had the lot - excruciating photosensitivity, aura, fortification patterns, E. coli-esque vomiting, the works.
Still, horrific as all this was for far too many years, they evaporated spontaneously as they do for many, many sufferers including your dad; and your earlier comment, implying that there was not just a correlation between the local vicar praying for your dad but causation, does raise pertinent questions even for this former sufferer as to why, if petitionary prayer works, God saw fit to cure your dad's migraines but leaves mass hunger, poverty, want, sickness, indeed woe and mischance of all kinds, resolutely and persistently untouched.
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Thank you for being pleased my dad stopped having crippling migraines.
No idea about Floo but I know I am. If your dad's migraines were anything like mine then crippling is really the only fitting term. I had the lot - excruciating photosensitivity, aura, fortification patterns, E. coli-esque vomiting, the works.
Still, horrific as all this was for far too many years, they evaporated spontaneously as they do for many, many sufferers including your dad; and your earlier comment, implying that there was not just a correlation between the local vicar praying for your dad but causation, does raise pertinent questions even for this former sufferer as to why, if petitionary prayer works, God saw fit to cure your dad's migraines but leaves mass hunger, poverty, want, sickness, indeed woe and mischance of all kinds, resolutely and persistently untouched.
Actually, I agree. There was correlation, but that does not thereby mean causation. I'm just stating why my mum and dad went back to church. I was not impressed by Jack Knave's amateur psychology, particularly when I know what the cause was.
Glad yours stopped too.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
A pity the flipping deity comes through for some, but not others! >:(
Thank you for being pleased my dad stopped having crippling migraines.
Of course I am pleased your father's migraines were cured, by whatever means. However, I would want to beat the crap out of the deity if it had cured your father, yet failed to cure others in desperate need, especially children, what sort of evil games would it be playing?
I had a very painful frozen shoulder years ago, when living at our former property with its 'miracle' field. As the medics weren't managing to sort out my shoulder, someone suggested I sort a 'cure' from the field. I thought it a silly idea, but gave it a go for the hell of it. Within 5 minutes my shoulder felt easier, and by the next day it was totally cured, I have not had a problem with it since. I am firmly of the opinion my body's own healing mechanism kicked in in response to the pleasant vibes coming from my field, nothing 'supernatural'!
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
A pity the flipping deity comes through for some, but not others! >:(
Thank you for being pleased my dad stopped having crippling migraines.
Of course I am pleased your father's migraines were cured, by whatever means. However, I would want to beat the crap out of the deity if it had cured your father, yet failed to cure others in desperate need, especially children, what sort of evil games would it be playing?
I had a very painful frozen shoulder years ago, when living at our former property with its 'miracle' field. As the medics weren't managing to sort out my shoulder, someone suggested I sort a 'cure' from the field. I thought it a silly idea, but gave it a go for the hell of it. Within 5 minutes my shoulder felt easier, and by the next day it was totally cured, I have not had a problem with it since. I am firmly of the opinion my body's own healing mechanism kicked in in response to the pleasant vibes coming from my field, nothing 'supernatural'!
Oh Floo!
God obviously lives in that field! Why on earth did you sell up! The people of Lourdes have made an absolute fortune thinking God lived there, when all the time he was living in your field!
You would think he'd do better if he lived in Iraq or Syria, so that he might do some decent curing instead of concentrating on headaches and arm aches though.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
A pity the flipping deity comes through for some, but not others! >:(
Thank you for being pleased my dad stopped having crippling migraines.
Of course I am pleased your father's migraines were cured, by whatever means. However, I would want to beat the crap out of the deity if it had cured your father, yet failed to cure others in desperate need, especially children, what sort of evil games would it be playing?
I had a very painful frozen shoulder years ago, when living at our former property with its 'miracle' field. As the medics weren't managing to sort out my shoulder, someone suggested I sort a 'cure' from the field. I thought it a silly idea, but gave it a go for the hell of it. Within 5 minutes my shoulder felt easier, and by the next day it was totally cured, I have not had a problem with it since. I am firmly of the opinion my body's own healing mechanism kicked in in response to the pleasant vibes coming from my field, nothing 'supernatural'!
Fits in rather well with what I mentioned in the 'Evidence' thread in the general boards. Regardless of what happens, some people will continue to hold the same views....and will be unable to change their perspective. They are programmed that way.
What a waste of a wonderful experience! It could have given you such a push in the right direction for learning new things.
In spite of these experiences, I suppose you will persist in sneering at ideas of the 'Biofield' and healing techniques. Sad...but each to their own! ::)
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In spite of these experiences, I suppose you will persist in sneering at ideas of the 'Biofield' and healing techniques. Sad...but each to their own! ::)
I think we should all be open to learning what works, and trying to find out why it works.
In this case it seems that physical properties in the field brought about the cure in some way, either by directly affecting Floo's shoulder, or spurring he own body's defences to work the cure.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
A pity the flipping deity comes through for some, but not others! >:(
Thank you for being pleased my dad stopped having crippling migraines.
Of course I am pleased your father's migraines were cured, by whatever means. However, I would want to beat the crap out of the deity if it had cured your father, yet failed to cure others in desperate need, especially children, what sort of evil games would it be playing?
I had a very painful frozen shoulder years ago, when living at our former property with its 'miracle' field. As the medics weren't managing to sort out my shoulder, someone suggested I sort a 'cure' from the field. I thought it a silly idea, but gave it a go for the hell of it. Within 5 minutes my shoulder felt easier, and by the next day it was totally cured, I have not had a problem with it since. I am firmly of the opinion my body's own healing mechanism kicked in in response to the pleasant vibes coming from my field, nothing 'supernatural'!
Oh Floo!
God obviously lives in that field! Why on earth did you sell up! The people of Lourdes have made an absolute fortune thinking God lived there, when all the time he was living in your field!
You would think he'd do better if he lived in Iraq or Syria, so that he might do some decent curing instead of concentrating on headaches and arm aches though.
Our field was like a mini Lourdes for a time, we had visitors from all over the UK, Ireland and even some from America. However, my husband and I would never have dreamed of making money out of the field, regarding that as immoral, especially as we are sceptics where religion and the supernatural are concerned. We put a notice up saying people were welcome to stand at the field gate and take in the vibes, as long as they didn't disturb the neighbours.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
No doubt your dad's migraine was only psychosomatic. All he needed was to be loved again; accepted by the fold, and feel part of the social tribe once more. No God-power required just some good old social loving. So times referred to as the placebo effect.
Excellent. You've spoken to my dad then. He was feeling unloved. I know why he had those migraines and it was not being unloved. Cut the crap psychoanalysis.
Crap, Alan, crap? On what evidence do you base that on? Have you studied the subject and read the books? By the way psychoanalysis is Freud I'm Jungian based, that's totally different.
If you know why he was having the migraines then it wasn't God who cured him, especially as God doesn't exist, so my surmise was pretty much on the money!!!
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Oh, and Alan. There's my 242, 243, 245, and.... 251, 252, 253 (one of which you've just answered). Bold one is more pressing....well, according to my notes.
Eh? 247 was my reply to your 242, my 248 your 243, my 249 your 245. Would you please check to see which, if any, I still owe you a reply on.
251, 252 which is about the flood (if this gets going I could start a thread; that'll be novel) and 253 for you to confirm that you never lived in Wales.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
No doubt your dad's migraine was only psychosomatic. All he needed was to be loved again; accepted by the fold, and feel part of the social tribe once more. No God-power required just some good old social loving. So times referred to as the placebo effect.
Excellent. You've spoken to my dad then. He was feeling unloved. I know why he had those migraines and it was not being unloved. Cut the crap psychoanalysis.
Crap, Alan, crap? On what evidence do you base that on?
Why he had the migraines? If so, my dad has told me over the last few months and no, I'm not discussing it over the internet.Have you studied the subject and read the books?
No, but my dad has told me over the last few months, etc. By the way psychoanalysis is Freud I'm Jungian based, that's totally different.
Happy to let you pick the term.
If you know why he was having the migraines then it wasn't God who cured him,
Why? especially as God doesn't exist, so my surmise was pretty much on the money!!!
Excellent. Atheist decides God can't have done a miracle as God doesn't exist therefore it can't be a miracle.
As it is I would not rule out at least some psychosomatic stuff here. I was just asked why my mum and dad started going back to church and no, the reason his migraines stopped was not because "all he needed was to be loved again".
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Oh, and Alan. There's my 242, 243, 245, and.... 251, 252, 253 (one of which you've just answered). Bold one is more pressing....well, according to my notes.
Eh? 247 was my reply to your 242, my 248 your 243, my 249 your 245. Would you please check to see which, if any, I still owe you a reply on.
251, 252 which is about the flood (if this gets going I could start a thread; that'll be novel) and 253 for you to confirm that you never lived in Wales.
253 was answered in 254. I'll answer 251 and 252 as I don't think I've answered them.
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The Aberfan disaster was one of the things which put my mum and dad off church/Christianity for about 15 years. They struggled to see how a loving God could allow that.
As well they might. At the end of that fifteen year period did they return to church/Christianity, and if so, how did they square that particular circle?
Yes, they came back with a bit of a bang, partly because Dad's migraines stopped when our local vicar prayed for him (and something to do with me becoming a Christian too). I'm not sure how they see that problem now. I can't ask Mum as she is in heaven. I'll try to remember to ask Dad next Tuesday or Wednesday when I see him.
No doubt your dad's migraine was only psychosomatic. All he needed was to be loved again; accepted by the fold, and feel part of the social tribe once more. No God-power required just some good old social loving. So times referred to as the placebo effect.
Excellent. You've spoken to my dad then. He was feeling unloved. I know why he had those migraines and it was not being unloved. Cut the crap psychoanalysis.
Crap, Alan, crap? On what evidence do you base that on?
Why he had the migraines? If so, my dad has told me over the last few months and no, I'm not discussing it over the internet.Have you studied the subject and read the books?
No, but my dad has told me over the last few months, etc. By the way psychoanalysis is Freud I'm Jungian based, that's totally different.
Happy to let you pick the term.
If you know why he was having the migraines then it wasn't God who cured him,
Why? especially as God doesn't exist, so my surmise was pretty much on the money!!!
Excellent. Atheist decides God can't have done a miracle as God doesn't exist therefore it can't be a miracle.
As it is I would not rule out at least some psychosomatic stuff here. I was just asked why my mum and dad started going back to church and no, the reason his migraines stopped was not because "all he needed was to be loved again".
My post was about you being an expert ::) on psychoanalysis, and as such being able to make the judgement that what I had said was crap.
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Evidence isn't fact!!!
1) Agreed, but it is possible to have good enough evidence about things to come to a decision on something, e.g. whether to get on a plane to go on holiday.
And there is no historical document good enough for someone to sanely guide their whole life style on it as gospel truth.
2) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
The facts are that people wrote this stuff. The speculation is why they did it? From our point in history we can never truly know why this was and so the speculation goes categorical unanswered.
3) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
You're whole Christian faith is based on guesswork all bolstered up by your prejudices to want to believe.
4) That's your assertion. I disagree with you. Why should I think it is my prejudices and not yours?
1) Your example is not comparable, and you are playing your games again by doing this.
That is incorrect. I am point out, yet again, that we make decisions all the time on incomplete evidence and some of those decisions could be life-changing/life-ending. The clamour from some people here for irrefutable evidence is not what happens in the real world. You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned.
So you are saying that unless someone can be interviewed it cannot be deemed "good evidence"? Really? Your evidence can't be investigated personally, it has solidified in history and is inaccessible.
Like whether there was a Battle of Waterloo in 1815 then. How would you "investigate that personally"?
2) That is not an assertion it is fact.
So you assert. Come on, js. It is your opinion. You are remarkably ahistoric. Where does history start for you (looking backwards). When you were 10 when you could start interviewing people. You are not applying the same criteria for the NT as you are for other historic questions and that is not the right way to do it.Your tactics here are similar to those I hear politicians use and is disingenuous. I thought Christians were suppose to not be duplicitous...people should guide their lives based on personal experience of their lives not some rule book from the past.
A personal attack not worth arguing against. I'm happy to have a serious discussion if you want to, but there is no need to get personal.[quote
3) Again, this is not an assertion but logical reasoning, and bloody obvious!!![/quote]In which case you can demonstrate it. Have you noticed how often it is that when people say something is obvious they will not defend their stance? Show me I am wrong here.
4) It is at least guesswork i.e. speculation, for what else do you have? You can't examine the events personally, unless you have a time machine, and therefore, you can never know what actually happened. And as there is more than one explanation that can account for these manuscripts that puts doubts throughout the documentation. Which means your faith rests on speculation and doubt.
I'll be happy to answer this when you stop applying double standards between the NT and everything else in history.
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Evidence isn't fact!!!
1) Agreed, but it is possible to have good enough evidence about things to come to a decision on something, e.g. whether to get on a plane to go on holiday.
And there is no historical document good enough for someone to sanely guide their whole life style on it as gospel truth.
2) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
The facts are that people wrote this stuff. The speculation is why they did it? From our point in history we can never truly know why this was and so the speculation goes categorical unanswered.
3) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
You're whole Christian faith is based on guesswork all bolstered up by your prejudices to want to believe.
4) That's your assertion. I disagree with you. Why should I think it is my prejudices and not yours?
1) Your example is not comparable, and you are playing your games again by doing this.
That is incorrect. I am point out, yet again, that we make decisions all the time on incomplete evidence and some of those decisions could be life-changing/life-ending. The clamour from some people here for irrefutable evidence is not what happens in the real world. You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned.
So you are saying that unless someone can be interviewed it cannot be deemed "good evidence"? Really? Your evidence can't be investigated personally, it has solidified in history and is inaccessible.
Like whether there was a Battle of Waterloo in 1815 then. How would you "investigate that personally"?
2) That is not an assertion it is fact.
So you assert. Come on, js. It is your opinion. You are remarkably ahistoric. Where does history start for you (looking backwards). When you were 10 when you could start interviewing people. You are not applying the same criteria for the NT as you are for other historic questions and that is not the right way to do it.Your tactics here are similar to those I hear politicians use and is disingenuous. I thought Christians were suppose to not be duplicitous...people should guide their lives based on personal experience of their lives not some rule book from the past.
A personal attack not worth arguing against. I'm happy to have a serious discussion if you want to, but there is no need to get personal.[quote
3) Again, this is not an assertion but logical reasoning, and bloody obvious!!!
In which case you can demonstrate it. Have you noticed how often it is that when people say something is obvious they will not defend their stance? Show me I am wrong here.
4) It is at least guesswork i.e. speculation, for what else do you have? You can't examine the events personally, unless you have a time machine, and therefore, you can never know what actually happened. And as there is more than one explanation that can account for these manuscripts that puts doubts throughout the documentation. Which means your faith rests on speculation and doubt.
I'll be happy to answer this when you stop applying double standards between the NT and everything else in history.
A fair point, that.
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My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
A total flood like that would destroy the fertility of the soil. It would take months if not years for it to be put right. All the plants and trees would be destroyed and of course there would be very few eatable animals about, though he couldn't touch those as they had been saved to repopulate the Earth. What did the carnivores survive on after they were let loose?
May I point out to you that I do not believe that the bible speaks of a flood which covered the entire planet, so if I am correct, your point above may not be relevant.
Oh, I am surprised.
You should not be. I have argued thus for years on several "Noah's Flood" threads. Did you really not know that was my stance? I thought the purpose of the flood was to remove the whole of mankind (sinners) except Noah and his family?
In fact what you say doesn't square with what Gen 6 says.
Have a search for some of the previous threads on the Flood. Here's one at http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10057.0 and here's the one it refers to and which would be more useful for you to look at to see my stance http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10056.0
Oh, look, jakswan took part in it, so why the "Oh, I am surprised" in this post I am replying to?
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...
Evidence isn't fact!!!
1) Agreed, but it is possible to have good enough evidence about things to come to a decision on something, e.g. whether to get on a plane to go on holiday.
And there is no historical document good enough for someone to sanely guide their whole life style on it as gospel truth.
2) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
The facts are that people wrote this stuff. The speculation is why they did it? From our point in history we can never truly know why this was and so the speculation goes categorical unanswered.
3) That's your assertion. I disagree with you.
You're whole Christian faith is based on guesswork all bolstered up by your prejudices to want to believe.
4) That's your assertion. I disagree with you. Why should I think it is my prejudices and not yours?
1) Your example is not comparable, and you are playing your games again by doing this.
That is incorrect. I am point out, yet again, that we make decisions all the time on incomplete evidence and some of those decisions could be life-changing/life-ending. The clamour from some people here for irrefutable evidence is not what happens in the real world. You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned.
So you are saying that unless someone can be interviewed it cannot be deemed "good evidence"? Really? Your evidence can't be investigated personally, it has solidified in history and is inaccessible.
Like whether there was a Battle of Waterloo in 1815 then. How would you "investigate that personally"?
2) That is not an assertion it is fact.
So you assert. Come on, js. It is your opinion. You are remarkably ahistoric. Where does history start for you (looking backwards). When you were 10 when you could start interviewing people. You are not applying the same criteria for the NT as you are for other historic questions and that is not the right way to do it.Your tactics here are similar to those I hear politicians use and is disingenuous. I thought Christians were suppose to not be duplicitous...people should guide their lives based on personal experience of their lives not some rule book from the past.
A personal attack not worth arguing against. I'm happy to have a serious discussion if you want to, but there is no need to get personal.[quote
3) Again, this is not an assertion but logical reasoning, and bloody obvious!!!
In which case you can demonstrate it. Have you noticed how often it is that when people say something is obvious they will not defend their stance? Show me I am wrong here.
4) It is at least guesswork i.e. speculation, for what else do you have? You can't examine the events personally, unless you have a time machine, and therefore, you can never know what actually happened. And as there is more than one explanation that can account for these manuscripts that puts doubts throughout the documentation. Which means your faith rests on speculation and doubt.
I'll be happy to answer this when you stop applying double standards between the NT and everything else in history.
A fair point, that.
Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
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...
Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
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Please explain.
Alan, surely you can see that the probability of something having happened which does not defy natural laws is greater than something which does?
For example, the probability of the moon being hit by an enormous asteroid and breaking into pieces is far greater than it just breaking up for no scientific reason, and that is simply because we have observed such things as the former.
The same principle applies to the supernatural events recounted in the Bible.
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...
Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
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Please explain.
Alan, surely you can see that the probability of something having happened which does not defy natural laws is greater than something which does?
For example, the probability of the moon being hit by an enormous asteroid and breaking into pieces is far greater than it just breaking up for no scientific reason, and that is simply because we have observed such things as the former.
The same principle applies to the supernatural events recounted in the Bible.
No doubt Alan will ignore that logical answer! ::)
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
But as it's written in a book, Len, Alan says we should believe it.
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
But as it's written in a book, Len, Alan says we should believe it.
Harold being killed by an arrow in the eye is supposedly depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. I fact, it is not at all clear that it is indeed Harold being shot. My point is, in historical events going back that far, and further, whether written or otherwise depticted, it is always open to some doubt, but it does not mean it didn't, or couldn't have, happened.
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
But as it's written in a book, Len, Alan says we should believe it.
Harold being killed by an arrow in the eye is supposedly depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. I fact, it is not at all clear that it is indeed Harold being shot. My point is, in historical events going back that far, and further, whether written or otherwise depticted, it is always open to some doubt, but it does not mean it didn't, or couldn't have, happened.
You are perfectly right, BA, Harold may or may not have been killed; he may or may not have escaped and someone else may have had that arrow in his eye, who knows?
Historical events are always open to doubt but if one account said that Harold's body had been found, an arrow in his brain and a spear had been thrust into his side ... he was then buried on the battlefield ... and a couple of weeks later he was seen by 500 people talking and eating ...
Well I doubt if many of us would think that particular account could be overly relied upon! Unless you think otherwise?
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You are perfectly right, BA, Harold may or may not have been killed; he may or may not have escaped and someone else may have had that arrow in his eye, who knows?
Historical events are always open to doubt but if one account said that Harold's body had been found, an arrow in his brain and a spear had been thrust into his side ... he was then buried on the battlefield ... and a couple of weeks later he was seen by 500 people talking and eating ...
Well I doubt if many of us would think that particular account could be overly relied upon! Unless you think otherwise?
Splendidly argued, JJ. But you won't convince him, he's ensnared by his belief.
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You are perfectly right, BA, Harold may or may not have been killed; he may or may not have escaped and someone else may have had that arrow in his eye, who knows?
Historical events are always open to doubt but if one account said that Harold's body had been found, an arrow in his brain and a spear had been thrust into his side ... he was then buried on the battlefield ... and a couple of weeks later he was seen by 500 people talking and eating ...
Well I doubt if many of us would think that particular account could be overly relied upon! Unless you think otherwise?
Splendidly argued, JJ. But you won't convince him, he's ensnared by his belief.
Yes, tis sad, Len.
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
But as it's written in a book, Len, Alan says we should believe it.
Harold being killed by an arrow in the eye is supposedly depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. I fact, it is not at all clear that it is indeed Harold being shot. My point is, in historical events going back that far, and further, whether written or otherwise depticted, it is always open to some doubt, but it does not mean it didn't, or couldn't have, happened.
You are perfectly right, BA, Harold may or may not have been killed; he may or may not have escaped and someone else may have had that arrow in his eye, who knows?
Historical events are always open to doubt but if one account said that Harold's body had been found, an arrow in his brain and a spear had been thrust into his side ... he was then buried on the battlefield ... and a couple of weeks later he was seen by 500 people talking and eating ...
Well I doubt if many of us would think that particular account could be overly relied upon! Unless you think otherwise?
You cannot compare the case of Harold with that of Jesus: that is a spurious comparison. My point is that you cannot be totally sure of claims made in ancient texts, but by the same token, it is the act of an idiot to dismiss something attested to by so many. I assume you, and the sainted Leonard, aren't idiots...?
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
But as it's written in a book, Len, Alan says we should believe it.
Harold being killed by an arrow in the eye is supposedly depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. I fact, it is not at all clear that it is indeed Harold being shot. My point is, in historical events going back that far, and further, whether written or otherwise depticted, it is always open to some doubt, but it does not mean it didn't, or couldn't have, happened.
You are perfectly right, BA, Harold may or may not have been killed; he may or may not have escaped and someone else may have had that arrow in his eye, who knows?
Historical events are always open to doubt but if one account said that Harold's body had been found, an arrow in his brain and a spear had been thrust into his side ... he was then buried on the battlefield ... and a couple of weeks later he was seen by 500 people talking and eating ...
Well I doubt if many of us would think that particular account could be overly relied upon! Unless you think otherwise?
You cannot compare the case of Harold with that of Jesus: that is a spurious comparison. My point is that you cannot be totally sure of claims made in ancient texts, but by the same token, it is the act of an idiot to dismiss something attested to by so many. I assume you, and the sainted Leonard, aren't idiots...?
No we're not.
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You cannot compare the case of Harold with that of Jesus
Why not? This is already beginning to smell very much like special pleading.
that is a spurious comparison.
Instead of merely asserting that it's a supposedly spurious comparison and expecting us to accept this at face value, explain why you think it's a spurious comparison.
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See what I mean! A complete waste of time and effort, but a good read for the rest of us.
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Whether the arrow in the eye incident attributed to King Harold was 100% factual we don't know for sure, but it is credible, where are most of the things attributed to Jesus aren't.
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Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
"...about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history?"
But I don't. Why don't you help me here by keeping to what we have agreed instead of endlessly backtracking as if it was never mentioned.
You base the whole of your intrinsic and fundamental lifestyle and attitude on your faith and the NT documents. Your whole approach to life is fashioned by this milieu. What else in history do you do that for? You don't!
I have explained (and you even did a post asking other atheists if they thought the same) that I treat history for my amusement, as just some academic curiosity (I can not personally verify its content) and that I do not base anything fundamental in my life and approach on anything in history. How I conduct my life is based on my personal experiences and on the information I have acquired through my years using my intellect, rationality and intuition to assess these and come to some kind of judgement on various matters. These judgement are the best I've got and I know that they are not perfect or complete but that they will have to do. It is true that I consider what some people from history have said but this is always brought into the colouration of my knowledge, intuition and personal experiences, but it has no direct significance for my life. I therefore treat all history the same.
As I do not believe in God or heaven and all that the fact that my judgements and lifestyle may not be up to some idealistic standard does not bother me which is why I can take this take-it-or-leave-it attitude to some claims in history. A similar thing may apply to late political thinking such as ideas of Marx and so on. Everything is brought under the lens of my own knowledge and experience - what else do I have?
The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
And how do you judge the importance of an historical event? And how do you assess what needs to be done with that importance, how to respond to it? Do you not make all your judgements on what you personally know, what your life has given you in your very short time on this planet? And because of this short period your personal knowledge about life is substantially lacking, as it is for all of us, and yet from this deficient well you are suppose to come to up with an all embracing answer on the meaning of life from some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago! Pulling a rabbit out of that proverbial hat. You must be one hell of a ubermensch to achieve all that without err.
And this comes to my other ace up my sleeve - if this is the best your God can do in conveying Its most superordinate message to mankind, is to leave us very limited creatures, trapped in the confines of time, with this protean historical puzzle then your God is a joke at best and sadistic at worst.
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My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
A total flood like that would destroy the fertility of the soil. It would take months if not years for it to be put right. All the plants and trees would be destroyed and of course there would be very few eatable animals about, though he couldn't touch those as they had been saved to repopulate the Earth. What did the carnivores survive on after they were let loose?
May I point out to you that I do not believe that the bible speaks of a flood which covered the entire planet, so if I am correct, your point above may not be relevant.
Oh, I am surprised.
You should not be. I have argued thus for years on several "Noah's Flood" threads. Did you really not know that was my stance? I thought the purpose of the flood was to remove the whole of mankind (sinners) except Noah and his family?
In fact what you say doesn't square with what Gen 6 says.
Have a search for some of the previous threads on the Flood. Here's one at http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10057.0 and here's the one it refers to and which would be more useful for you to look at to see my stance http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10056.0
Oh, look, jakswan took part in it, so why the "Oh, I am surprised" in this post I am replying to?
Well regardless what the words mean as you explain in the post link above, Gen 6:17 says "...to destroy all life under the heavens, every life that has the breath of life in it."
Unless you can fiddle the words 'heaven', 'all' and 'every' it would seem to me to mean globally.
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
But as it's written in a book, Len, Alan says we should believe it.
Harold being killed by an arrow in the eye is supposedly depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. I fact, it is not at all clear that it is indeed Harold being shot. My point is, in historical events going back that far, and further, whether written or otherwise depticted, it is always open to some doubt, but it does not mean it didn't, or couldn't have, happened.
You are perfectly right, BA, Harold may or may not have been killed; he may or may not have escaped and someone else may have had that arrow in his eye, who knows?
Historical events are always open to doubt but if one account said that Harold's body had been found, an arrow in his brain and a spear had been thrust into his side ... he was then buried on the battlefield ... and a couple of weeks later he was seen by 500 people talking and eating ...
Well I doubt if many of us would think that particular account could be overly relied upon! Unless you think otherwise?
You cannot compare the case of Harold with that of Jesus: that is a spurious comparison. My point is that you cannot be totally sure of claims made in ancient texts, but by the same token, it is the act of an idiot to dismiss something attested to by so many. I assume you, and the sainted Leonard, aren't idiots...?
No we're not.
You failed to appreciate my sarcasm; just as you fail to appreciate most that goes on in the forum. Back to your crayoning, old bean, and we grown-ups can get on with it in peace.
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And you know all that for a fact do you? GET REAL , Sass! ::)
Of course, I know all that for a fact... but tell me why you question it when you have no idea as to what is fact and isn't when it comes to the bible?
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
Well give us the proof...
The people who claim less than credible things to be true and factual, as you appear to do, when one can decipher your wordy not very intelligible posts, are the ones who have to provide the proof!
WRONG! You made a claim:-
The less than credible is unlikely to be factual where that book is concerned!
That is your claim so you have to provide the evidence.
Provide the 'less than credible' from the book and show that it is unlikely to be factual..
Otherwise you have absolutely no reason given the evidence including your own daughters beliefs that they are not true...
Does your daughter who is a vicar claim to know God and believe in Jesus Christ? Has your daughter always been honest and does she live as if Christ is the Son of God? Well how much more evidence do you need that Christ is the Son of God and that he rose from the dead and has revealed himself to your daughter?
You see... If my son was honest, a vicar and lived as he professed I would have no problem if an atheist in believing something has to be real about it...
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As I have told you and others MANY times, I will NEVER discuss my daughter's thoughts on the topic of religion.
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
But as it's written in a book, Len, Alan says we should believe it.
Harold being killed by an arrow in the eye is supposedly depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. I fact, it is not at all clear that it is indeed Harold being shot. My point is, in historical events going back that far, and further, whether written or otherwise depticted, it is always open to some doubt, but it does not mean it didn't, or couldn't have, happened.
You are perfectly right, BA, Harold may or may not have been killed; he may or may not have escaped and someone else may have had that arrow in his eye, who knows?
Historical events are always open to doubt but if one account said that Harold's body had been found, an arrow in his brain and a spear had been thrust into his side ... he was then buried on the battlefield ... and a couple of weeks later he was seen by 500 people talking and eating ...
Well I doubt if many of us would think that particular account could be overly relied upon! Unless you think otherwise?
You cannot compare the case of Harold with that of Jesus: that is a spurious comparison. My point is that you cannot be totally sure of claims made in ancient texts, but by the same token, it is the act of an idiot to dismiss something attested to by so many. I assume you, and the sainted Leonard, aren't idiots...?
No we're not.
You failed to appreciate my sarcasm; just as you fail to appreciate most that goes on in the forum. Back to your crayoning, old bean, and we grown-ups can get on with it in peace.
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!! Got any others?
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You failed to appreciate my sarcasm; just as you fail to appreciate most that goes on in the forum. Back to your crayoning, old bean, and we grown-ups can get on with it in peace.
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!! Got any others?
Sadly, he ain't joking! He really thinks he's one of the grown-ups here. The reality is that his juvenile jokes and beliefs show just the reverse. :(
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You failed to appreciate my sarcasm; just as you fail to appreciate most that goes on in the forum. Back to your crayoning, old bean, and we grown-ups can get on with it in peace.
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!! Got any others?
Sadly, he ain't joking! He really thinks he's one of the grown-ups here. The reality is that his juvenile jokes and beliefs show just the reverse. :(
If he keeps on, Len, he's gong to be sitting on the naughty step for a good long time!
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You failed to appreciate my sarcasm; just as you fail to appreciate most that goes on in the forum. Back to your crayoning, old bean, and we grown-ups can get on with it in peace.
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!! Got any others?
Sadly, he ain't joking! He really thinks he's one of the grown-ups here. The reality is that his juvenile jokes and beliefs show just the reverse. :(
No sense of humour: no debating skill: no imagination: no appreciation of anyone else's position: blind atheism!! Poor fella.
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You failed to appreciate my sarcasm; just as you fail to appreciate most that goes on in the forum. Back to your crayoning, old bean, and we grown-ups can get on with it in peace.
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!! Got any others?
Sadly, he ain't joking! He really thinks he's one of the grown-ups here. The reality is that his juvenile jokes and beliefs show just the reverse. :(
Some people like you, dear Leonard, are gifted with many more marbles than others! ;D ;D
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You failed to appreciate my sarcasm; just as you fail to appreciate most that goes on in the forum. Back to your crayoning, old bean, and we grown-ups can get on with it in peace.
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!! Got any others?
Sadly, he ain't joking! He really thinks he's one of the grown-ups here. The reality is that his juvenile jokes and beliefs show just the reverse. :(
Some people like you, dear Leonard, are gifted with many more marbles than others! ;D ;D
:-* :-* :-* :-*
Flattery makes my day! ;)
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I NEVER flatter people, I only say what I believe to be true. :)
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Please explain.
Alan, surely you can see that the probability of something having happened which does not defy natural laws is greater than something which does?
For example, the probability of the moon being hit by an enormous asteroid and breaking into pieces is far greater than it just breaking up for no scientific reason, and that is simply because we have observed such things as the former.
The same principle applies to the supernatural events recounted in the Bible.
When determining whether something happened we need to look both at the probability of that thing happening on the basic background information and also on the probability of the evidence being in place if that event did not happen. I've gone into this more on the "Low probability that God raised someone from the dead". JeremyP has confirmed that the equation is correct, though, unsurprisingly, we disagree on the actual figures which should be assigned to the various bits.
So, no, your statements are not correct.
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Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
You might find it helpful to understand what I actually claim. I do not believe "that Jesus came back from the dead" just because it is written in a book.
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So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
If that is part of the Islamic belief, it is dafter than Christianity.
No, it isn't part of Islamic belief.
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...
Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
"...about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history?"
But I don't. Why don't you help me here by keeping to what we have agreed instead of endlessly backtracking as if it was never mentioned.
But you do. You say we can't believe something because it happened so long ago and so on, but you accept that other things happened long ago. Why do you accept all those and not the NT accounts?
You base the whole of your intrinsic and fundamental lifestyle and attitude on your faith and the NT documents. Your whole approach to life is fashioned by this milieu. What else in history do you do that for?
I have explained (and you even did a post asking other atheists if they thought the same) that I treat history for my amusement,
Nowhere have I spoken of "amusement". as just some academic curiosity (I can not personally verify its content) and that I do not base anything fundamental in my life and approach on anything in history. How I conduct my life is based on my personal experiences and on the information I have acquired through my years using my intellect, rationality and intuition to assess these and come to some kind of judgement on various matters. These judgement are the best I've got and I know that they are not perfect or complete but that they will have to do. It is true that I consider what some people from history have said but this is always brought into the colouration of my knowledge, intuition and personal experiences, but it has no direct significance for my life. I therefore treat all history the same.
I do not expect that you have to frequently ask yourself if the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada and the Crusades happened. However, please answer me this simple question. Did they happen or not? Yes or no?
As I do not believe in God or heaven and all that the fact that my judgements and lifestyle may not be up to some idealistic standard does not bother me which is why I can take this take-it-or-leave-it attitude to some claims in history. A similar thing may apply to late political thinking such as ideas of Marx and so on. Everything is brought under the lens of my own knowledge and experience - what else do I have?
That's fine, but it is not a good excuse for avoiding the evidence of Jesus' death and resurrection. As you seem to suggest whether the Battle of Hastings actually took place will not make much difference to your day today. We can be quite blasé about such stuff, but we do accept it happened. It does not affect how we determine whether or not happened. It does affect how we respond to it. Jesus made claims about himself and about your need to respond to him. If we Christians are wrong and physical death is indeed the end then fair enough. However, if we are right and Jesus was who the NT claims he was and is and if he did indeed make those claims, be prepared to answer his questions.
The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
And how do you judge the importance of an historical event? And how do you assess what needs to be done with that importance, how to respond to it? Do you not make all your judgements on what you personally know, what your life has given you in your very short time on this planet? And because of this short period your personal knowledge about life is substantially lacking, as it is for all of us, and yet from this deficient well you are suppose to come to up with an all embracing answer on the meaning of life from some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago! Pulling a rabbit out of that proverbial hat. You must be one hell of a ubermensch to achieve all that without err.
"Some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago?" The state of the manuscripts is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether we know what was written and whether it is making a valid claim for our attention and response.
And this comes to my other ace up my sleeve - if this is the best your God can do in conveying Its most superordinate message to mankind, is to leave us very limited creatures, trapped in the confines of time, with this protean historical puzzle then your God is a joke at best and sadistic at worst.
If you find yourself having to give an account of your life to God, you can bring this up with him. It might be helpful to make some notes now.
You do not need to justify yourself to me nor me to you. You and I have come to different conclusions. Time will tell which, if either, of us is correct.
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My overall point is about being efficient and methodical. If a specific virus had wiped out all the sinners then the process would have been a lot cleaner and less messier (the flood would have churned up the fertile land and afterwards would have left tonnes of rotting vegetation leaving one hell of a smell). Noah wouldn't have had to build that ark but just watch the plague wipe out those sinners. He would have had good ground to start planting some crops and would have fruit etc. to eat. What did he survive on, food, whilst he waited for the rotting mess to disappear?
I don't know what he lived on during that time. I would presume he would have planted stuff and eaten that when it ripened just like before. When we've had floods around here people survive. Why do you think there would be a particular problem?
A total flood like that would destroy the fertility of the soil. It would take months if not years for it to be put right. All the plants and trees would be destroyed and of course there would be very few eatable animals about, though he couldn't touch those as they had been saved to repopulate the Earth. What did the carnivores survive on after they were let loose?
May I point out to you that I do not believe that the bible speaks of a flood which covered the entire planet, so if I am correct, your point above may not be relevant.
Oh, I am surprised.
You should not be. I have argued thus for years on several "Noah's Flood" threads. Did you really not know that was my stance? I thought the purpose of the flood was to remove the whole of mankind (sinners) except Noah and his family?
In fact what you say doesn't square with what Gen 6 says.
Have a search for some of the previous threads on the Flood. Here's one at http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10057.0 and here's the one it refers to and which would be more useful for you to look at to see my stance http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10056.0
Oh, look, jakswan took part in it, so why the "Oh, I am surprised" in this post I am replying to?
Well regardless what the words mean as you explain in the post link above, Gen 6:17 says "...to destroy all life under the heavens, every life that has the breath of life in it."
Unless you can fiddle the words 'heaven', 'all' and 'every' it would seem to me to mean globally.
I have no need to fiddle anything. I've put my arguments forward on that thread and elsewhere.
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As I have told you and others MANY times, I will NEVER discuss my daughter's thoughts on the topic of religion.
Whether you discuss it or not... (as you did in the past)
It still means everything you believe and think about Christianity has to apply to your daughter... It also goes to show what you really think about applying and having faith in what they share with you?
No double standards for Christians or Atheists...
We are all in the same boat...
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Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
You might find it helpful to understand what I actually claim. I do not believe "that Jesus came back from the dead" just because it is written in a book.
If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
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If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
Unless he is speaking about a personal experience, which is notoriously unreliable.
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Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
So if we accept that Harold was killed by being shot in the eye by an arrow, we must logically accept that Jesus came back from the dead, because both are written in books? Presumably we must also accept that Mohammed flew on a magic carpet then!
If not, Alan, please explain?
You might find it helpful to understand what I actually claim. I do not believe "that Jesus came back from the dead" just because it is written in a book.
If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
But it is not just because it is in a book that I believe it. You seemed to be implying that I was saying it's just because it is in a book that I should believe it. That is what is implied by your stuff about Harold.
Actually I think you will find that it is claimed he was hit in the eye, but that did not kill him...
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If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
Unless he is speaking about a personal experience, which is notoriously unreliable.
See #324.
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If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
Unless he is speaking about a personal experience, which is notoriously unreliable.
See #324.
The fact is, Alan, that everybody who believes in the Christian god does so either because of what they have heard or read, or because of some personal "experience" that they consider was caused by him.
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If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
Unless he is speaking about a personal experience, which is notoriously unreliable.
See #324.
The fact is, Alan, that everybody who believes in the Christian god does so either because of what they have heard or read, or because of some personal "experience" that they consider was caused by him.
And who are you to gainsay that?
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If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
Unless he is speaking about a personal experience, which is notoriously unreliable.
See #324.
The fact is, Alan, that everybody who believes in the Christian god does so either because of what they have heard or read, or because of some personal "experience" that they consider was caused by him.
Er, yes. What other route would you suggest there should be?
However, read #291. That was where he was making an ambiguous claim.
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If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
Unless he is speaking about a personal experience, which is notoriously unreliable.
See #324.
The fact is, Alan, that everybody who believes in the Christian god does so either because of what they have heard or read, or because of some personal "experience" that they consider was caused by him.
Er, yes. What other route would you suggest there should be?
There isn't any other, which is what I was pointing out ... to emphasize the weakness of religious beliefs.
However, read #291. That was where he was making an ambiguous claim.
I wasn't referring to that.
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If you didn't get it from a book, those who have taught you took it from a book - the Bible ... Simply because it isn't told in anything other than in the Bible!
Unless he is speaking about a personal experience, which is notoriously unreliable.
See #324.
The fact is, Alan, that everybody who believes in the Christian god does so either because of what they have heard or read, or because of some personal "experience" that they consider was caused by him.
Er, yes. What other route would you suggest there should be?
There isn't any other, which is what I was pointing out ... to emphasize the weakness of religious beliefs.
However, read #291. That was where he was making an ambiguous claim.
I wasn't referring to that.
So what sort of evidence should there be then, Len?
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So what sort of evidence should there be then, Len?
If "God" wants to convince us he exists, he could do it by showing the love he is credited with and eradicating, at a stroke, all the sickness and suffering that plagues us.
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Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
"...about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history?"
But I don't. Why don't you help me here by keeping to what we have agreed instead of endlessly backtracking as if it was never mentioned.
1)But you do. You say we can't believe something because it happened so long ago and so on, but you accept that other things happened long ago. Why do you accept all those and not the NT accounts?
You base the whole of your intrinsic and fundamental lifestyle and attitude on your faith and the NT documents. Your whole approach to life is fashioned by this milieu. What else in history do you do that for?
I have explained (and you even did a post asking other atheists if they thought the same) that I treat history for my amusement,
2) Nowhere have I spoken of "amusement". as just some academic curiosity (I can not personally verify its content) and that I do not base anything fundamental in my life and approach on anything in history. How I conduct my life is based on my personal experiences and on the information I have acquired through my years using my intellect, rationality and intuition to assess these and come to some kind of judgement on various matters. These judgement are the best I've got and I know that they are not perfect or complete but that they will have to do. It is true that I consider what some people from history have said but this is always brought into the colouration of my knowledge, intuition and personal experiences, but it has no direct significance for my life. I therefore treat all history the same.
3) I do not expect that you have to frequently ask yourself if the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada and the Crusades happened. However, please answer me this simple question. Did they happen or not? Yes or no?
As I do not believe in God or heaven and all that the fact that my judgements and lifestyle may not be up to some idealistic standard does not bother me which is why I can take this take-it-or-leave-it attitude to some claims in history. A similar thing may apply to late political thinking such as ideas of Marx and so on. Everything is brought under the lens of my own knowledge and experience - what else do I have?
4) That's fine, but it is not a good excuse for avoiding the evidence of Jesus' death and resurrection. As you seem to suggest whether the Battle of Hastings actually took place will not make much difference to your day today. We can be quite blasé about such stuff, but we do accept it happened. It does not affect how we determine whether or not happened. It does affect how we respond to it. Jesus made claims about himself and about your need to respond to him. If we Christians are wrong and physical death is indeed the end then fair enough. However, if we are right and Jesus was who the NT claims he was and is and if he did indeed make those claims, be prepared to answer his questions.
The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
And how do you judge the importance of an historical event? And how do you assess what needs to be done with that importance, how to respond to it? Do you not make all your judgements on what you personally know, what your life has given you in your very short time on this planet? And because of this short period your personal knowledge about life is substantially lacking, as it is for all of us, and yet from this deficient well you are suppose to come to up with an all embracing answer on the meaning of life from some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago! Pulling a rabbit out of that proverbial hat. You must be one hell of a ubermensch to achieve all that without err.
5) "Some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago?" The state of the manuscripts is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether we know what was written and whether it is making a valid claim for our attention and response.
And this comes to my other ace up my sleeve - if this is the best your God can do in conveying Its most superordinate message to mankind, is to leave us very limited creatures, trapped in the confines of time, with this protean historical puzzle then your God is a joke at best and sadistic at worst.
If you find yourself having to give an account of your life to God, you can bring this up with him. It might be helpful to make some notes now.
You do not need to justify yourself to me nor me to you. You and I have come to different conclusions. Time will tell which, if either, of us is correct.
1) I am sceptical about them all, and equally so! Is that clear?
2) You asked in a post, to other atheists either on here or on my thread What's God Made Of?, if they thought the same a I did as not finding history a good guide to life and other things I've said as you can't know what actually happened. That is why history is just for my amusement.
3) Who really cares? I am quiet blasé about it. They have no consequence on my life today. I read history for my amusement only.
Your whole premise is that if one finds something in history that is significant one should act upon it but I'm saying by definition of what history is you can't apply such a criterion as history is an unreliable source for factual information and only a fool would do this. This is my argument against your position. History is not fact it is speculation and the further you go back the more so - keeping in mind today we have things like film, recording etc. which help us more with recent history, but even so some details elude us.
4) But the thing is history is just speculation. It is too vague, especially 2000 years ago, to make a clear judgement on it or to think it should be responded to as you claim. My claim is that you have made an err in thinking it is good enough to make a life changing response to it.
What are these questions that JC will ask?
5) What I find ironic is that you are finding it hard to understand what I'm saying to you yet I converse in your mother tongue but you claim to have a clear idea what some people wrote 2000 years ago in a foreign discontinued language with copying error and what not. See my point?
Nothing in history can make "a valid claim for our attention and response" because by definition it will be deficient and flawed before it ever reaches us.
St. Augustine wrote a paper called the 'Literal Meaning of Genesis'. What he meant by 'literal' and what we mean today by 'literal' is totally different. The meaning of words change. With the Gen 6 post we have going on this thread you had troubles/task of explaining the meaning of the word for mountain/hill in the link. We all know what these are for we have seen them but still it was not too clear what the Hebrew(?) meant. If you are having to deal with words referring to material things how much greater difficulty will you have with words referring to ideas and concept from history? How much fuzzier will your understanding be in regards to what they are trying to say and express? So how many words are there from the NT documents that you have misconstrued? The fact is you have no way of knowing. See point?
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...
Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
"...about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history?"
But I don't. Why don't you help me here by keeping to what we have agreed instead of endlessly backtracking as if it was never mentioned.
1)But you do. You say we can't believe something because it happened so long ago and so on, but you accept that other things happened long ago. Why do you accept all those and not the NT accounts?
You base the whole of your intrinsic and fundamental lifestyle and attitude on your faith and the NT documents. Your whole approach to life is fashioned by this milieu. What else in history do you do that for?
I have explained (and you even did a post asking other atheists if they thought the same) that I treat history for my amusement,
2) Nowhere have I spoken of "amusement". as just some academic curiosity (I can not personally verify its content) and that I do not base anything fundamental in my life and approach on anything in history. How I conduct my life is based on my personal experiences and on the information I have acquired through my years using my intellect, rationality and intuition to assess these and come to some kind of judgement on various matters. These judgement are the best I've got and I know that they are not perfect or complete but that they will have to do. It is true that I consider what some people from history have said but this is always brought into the colouration of my knowledge, intuition and personal experiences, but it has no direct significance for my life. I therefore treat all history the same.
3) I do not expect that you have to frequently ask yourself if the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada and the Crusades happened. However, please answer me this simple question. Did they happen or not? Yes or no?
As I do not believe in God or heaven and all that the fact that my judgements and lifestyle may not be up to some idealistic standard does not bother me which is why I can take this take-it-or-leave-it attitude to some claims in history. A similar thing may apply to late political thinking such as ideas of Marx and so on. Everything is brought under the lens of my own knowledge and experience - what else do I have?
4) That's fine, but it is not a good excuse for avoiding the evidence of Jesus' death and resurrection. As you seem to suggest whether the Battle of Hastings actually took place will not make much difference to your day today. We can be quite blasé about such stuff, but we do accept it happened. It does not affect how we determine whether or not happened. It does affect how we respond to it. Jesus made claims about himself and about your need to respond to him. If we Christians are wrong and physical death is indeed the end then fair enough. However, if we are right and Jesus was who the NT claims he was and is and if he did indeed make those claims, be prepared to answer his questions.
The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
And how do you judge the importance of an historical event? And how do you assess what needs to be done with that importance, how to respond to it? Do you not make all your judgements on what you personally know, what your life has given you in your very short time on this planet? And because of this short period your personal knowledge about life is substantially lacking, as it is for all of us, and yet from this deficient well you are suppose to come to up with an all embracing answer on the meaning of life from some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago! Pulling a rabbit out of that proverbial hat. You must be one hell of a ubermensch to achieve all that without err.
5) "Some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago?" The state of the manuscripts is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether we know what was written and whether it is making a valid claim for our attention and response.
And this comes to my other ace up my sleeve - if this is the best your God can do in conveying Its most superordinate message to mankind, is to leave us very limited creatures, trapped in the confines of time, with this protean historical puzzle then your God is a joke at best and sadistic at worst.
If you find yourself having to give an account of your life to God, you can bring this up with him. It might be helpful to make some notes now.
You do not need to justify yourself to me nor me to you. You and I have come to different conclusions. Time will tell which, if either, of us is correct.
1) I am sceptical about them all, and equally so! Is that clear?
2) You asked in a post, to other atheists either on here or on my thread What's God Made Of?, if they thought the same a I did as not finding history a good guide to life and other things I've said as you can't know what actually happened. That is why history is just for my amusement.
3) Who really cares? I am quiet blasé about it. They have no consequence on my life today. I read history for my amusement only.
Your whole premise is that if one finds something in history that is significant one should act upon it but I'm saying by definition of what history is you can't apply such a criterion as history is an unreliable source for factual information and only a fool would do this. This is my argument against your position. History is not fact it is speculation and the further you go back the more so - keeping in mind today we have things like film, recording etc. which help us more with recent history, but even so some details elude us.
4) But the thing is history is just speculation. It is too vague, especially 2000 years ago, to make a clear judgement on it or to think it should be responded to as you claim. My claim is that you have made an err in thinking it is good enough to make a life changing response to it.
What are these questions that JC will ask?
5) What I find ironic is that you are finding it hard to understand what I'm saying to you yet I converse in your mother tongue but you claim to have a clear idea what some people wrote 2000 years ago in a foreign discontinued language with copying error and what not. See my point?
Nothing in history can make "a valid claim for our attention and response" because by definition it will be deficient and flawed before it ever reaches us.
St. Augustine wrote a paper called the 'Literal Meaning of Genesis'. What he meant by 'literal' and what we mean today by 'literal' is totally different. The meaning of words change. With the Gen 6 post we have going on this thread you had troubles/task of explaining the meaning of the word for mountain/hill in the link. We all know what these are for we have seen them but still it was not too clear what the Hebrew(?) meant. If you are having to deal with words referring to material things how much greater difficulty will you have with words referring to ideas and concept from history? How much fuzzier will your understanding be in regards to what they are trying to say and express? So how many words are there from the NT documents that you have misconstrued? The fact is you have no way of knowing. See point?
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
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So what sort of evidence should there be then, Len?
If "God" wants to convince us he exists, he could do it by showing the love he is credited with
He has by giving us life in the first place and by sending Jesus to die for our sins and eradicating, at a stroke, all the sickness and suffering that plagues us.
Why?
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1) I am sceptical about them all, and equally so! Is that clear?
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
2) You asked in a post, to other atheists either on here or on my thread What's God Made Of?, if they thought the same a I did as not finding history a good guide to life and other things I've said as you can't know what actually happened. That is why history is just for my amusement.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
3) Who really cares? I am quiet blasé about it. They have no consequence on my life today. I read history for my amusement only.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
Your whole premise is that if one finds something in history that is significant one should act upon it but I'm saying by definition of what history is you can't apply such a criterion as history is an unreliable source for factual information and only a fool would do this. This is my argument against your position. History is not fact it is speculation and the further you go back the more so - keeping in mind today we have things like film, recording etc. which help us more with recent history, but even so some details elude us.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
4) But the thing is history is just speculation.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of this too. It is too vague, especially 2000 years ago, to make a clear judgement on it or to think it should be responded to as you claim. My claim is that you have made an err in thinking it is good enough to make a life changing response to it.
OK. We disagree on this point quite fundamentally.
What are these questions that JC will ask?
I would think it would be along the lines of, "Why did you view my life, death for your sins and my resurrection as something just for amusement? Why did you not respond in the way you needed to?
5) What I find ironic is that you are finding it hard to understand what I'm saying to you yet I converse in your mother tongue but you claim to have a clear idea what some people wrote 2000 years ago in a foreign discontinued language with copying error and what not. See my point?
I see your point, but it is not valid. There is an absolutely huge body of Greek literature from hundreds of years before Christ through his time and right up to the present day. There are plenty of people who understand what ancient Greek texts mean, including in the dialect used in the NT. Greek is not a discontinued language. As for copying errors, let me quote the popular skeptic scholar Bart Ehrman from an appendix in Misquoting Jesus on p252 of the American version:
Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament."
So, remind me why you think we have lost enough of the NT to not know its essential claims, in particular the essential claims of Jesus and why you read such stuff only for amusement.
Nothing in history can make "a valid claim for our attention and response" because by definition it will be deficient and flawed before it ever reaches us.
St. Augustine wrote a paper called the 'Literal Meaning of Genesis'. What he meant by 'literal' and what we mean today by 'literal' is totally different. The meaning of words change. With the Gen 6 post we have going on this thread you had troubles/task of explaining the meaning of the word for mountain/hill in the link.
Did I? Please tell me which post I had this trouble on. We all know what these are for we have seen them but still it was not too clear what the Hebrew(?) meant.
Why the question mark after the word "Hebrew"? Are you saying that you are confident there is a fundamental problem here with the original language even though you are not sure what that original language was?If you are having to deal with words referring to material things how much greater difficulty will you have with words referring to ideas and concept from history? How much fuzzier will your understanding be in regards to what they are trying to say and express? So how many words are there from the NT documents that you have misconstrued? The fact is you have no way of knowing. See point?
I see the point you are making, but it is fundamentally flawed.
Is there anyone else on this thread who sees history, all history, as "just speculation" (point 4 above)?
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Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
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...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
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Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
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...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Oh, I see ... special pleading.
Okay.
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Really? ::)
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
This is were you always make your mistake.
No people or groups saw him placed there.
No people ate with him after the event.
He did not rise from the dead.
You quote the book as if it was fact. It's just words in a book.
This is just special pleading, as you do not give other books the same credence.
None of it actually happened. There are ZERO witnesses.
-
Why do people believe in something which is just not credible, and for which there is absolutely no verifiable evidence? ::)
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Oh, I see ... special pleading.
Okay.
Before we look at what I claim is true, do you accept that what you said I said is different from what I have actually said?
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Oh, I see ... special pleading.
Okay.
Before we look at what I claim is true, do you accept that what you said I said is different from what I have actually said?
I have already apologised for that, Alan.
So you think that all the overwhelming evidence of a great number of people seeing JC talking and eating after he had been killed (I suppose you can verify that statement, can you, other than being in the same book as the crucifixion itself?)
In any other context, you agree we wouldn't believe any other book that told us that had happened with someone else? In other words, this, you plead, is a special case?
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Oh, I see ... special pleading.
Okay.
Before we look at what I claim is true, do you accept that what you said I said is different from what I have actually said?
I have already apologised for that, Alan.
In #339? My turn to apologise then since when you wrote, "I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead." I thought you were taking the mick since you again didn't quote me correctly.
So you think that all the overwhelming evidence of a great number of people seeing JC talking and eating after he had been killed (I suppose you can verify that statement, can you, other than being in the same book as the crucifixion itself?)[/quotes]Books plural written by different people using, apparently, different sources.
I see the number and variety of occasions where people thought they saw and sometimes ate with Jesus as being much more important than the shear number of people involved. A large number of people on one occasion would only need one thing to be set up (if it was a fiddle) or one misconception of what was going on, perhaps like this sun thingy in 1917 or whenever. With it being about a dozen separate occasions in different places across Israel to individuals and to groups there would seem to be much less chance of it being a fiddle or people getting it wrong for some other reason.
In any other context, you agree we wouldn't believe any other book that told us that had happened with someone else? In other words, this, you plead, is a special case?
See above where I have explained again that you have not quite understood what I have been claiming.
-
...
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him
Or in other words, I gave up trying to respond to Alien some time back and have since resorted merely to ad hominems and misquotes. - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I have never written that. Why have you misquoted me?
Alan, you obviously can't keep up with what you say. That's no surprise!
Don't be silly. I know that I have never written "that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" to you or anyone else. You have misquoted me. When other people here do that (or I do that to them), we apologise for misquoting. I think I know what you think I said, but just have a look at what you wrote. You should be able to see easily where you have misquoted me.
I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead.
Thank you.
Nope.
So the best explanation for an empty tomb is that the occupant has risen from the dead?
You're worst than a twisty turny thing, Alien!
Sigh.
The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Oh, I see ... special pleading.
Okay.
Before we look at what I claim is true, do you accept that what you said I said is different from what I have actually said?
I have already apologised for that, Alan.
In #339? My turn to apologise then since when you wrote, "I apologise most sincerely, Alan, as you have now indicated that there is a far more reasonable explanation for an empty tomb than the occupant has risen from the dead." I thought you were taking the mick since you again didn't quote me correctly.
So you think that all the overwhelming evidence of a great number of people seeing JC talking and eating after he had been killed (I suppose you can verify that statement, can you, other than being in the same book as the crucifixion itself?)[/quotes]Books plural written by different people using, apparently, different sources.
I see the number and variety of occasions where people thought they saw and sometimes ate with Jesus as being much more important than the shear number of people involved. A large number of people on one occasion would only need one thing to be set up (if it was a fiddle) or one misconception of what was going on, perhaps like this sun thingy in 1917 or whenever. With it being about a dozen separate occasions in different places across Israel to individuals and to groups there would seem to be much less chance of it being a fiddle or people getting it wrong for some other reason.
In any other context, you agree we wouldn't believe any other book that told us that had happened with someone else? In other words, this, you plead, is a special case?
See above where I have explained again that you have not quite understood what I have been claiming.
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
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...
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
So why did you misquote me earlier then?
-
...
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
So why did you misquote me earlier then?
I didn't say I was quoting you, Alan, I was describing your position as I understood it back in the old BBC forum days, and you have repeated it today.
I knew then what you were claiming, just as I do now. Your position hasn't changed and nor has mine.
-
...
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
So why did you misquote me earlier then?
I didn't say I was quoting you, Alan, I was describing your position as I understood it back in the old BBC forum days, and you have repeated it today.
I knew then what you were claiming, just as I do now. Your position hasn't changed and nor has mine.
So why did you incorrectly describe my position from the old BBC forum days and my position today?
-
...
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
So why did you misquote me earlier then?
I didn't say I was quoting you, Alan, I was describing your position as I understood it back in the old BBC forum days, and you have repeated it today.
I knew then what you were claiming, just as I do now. Your position hasn't changed and nor has mine.
So why did you incorrectly describe my position from the old BBC forum days and my position today?
I didn't.
-
...
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
So why did you misquote me earlier then?
I didn't say I was quoting you, Alan, I was describing your position as I understood it back in the old BBC forum days, and you have repeated it today.
I knew then what you were claiming, just as I do now. Your position hasn't changed and nor has mine.
So why did you incorrectly describe my position from the old BBC forum days and my position today?
I didn't.
Yes you did. You wrote, "- ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" That is a misrepresentation of my position and I have explained again what my position is.
What is going on here, please? Do you really not understand the difference between what you wrote there and my position? My position is:
"The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead."
-
"The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead."
Since we know that people don't come back to life once they are truly dead, that is not "the best explanation".
And since we are well aware of the fact that rumours, gods and false beliefs arise from human sources, THAT is by far "the best explanation".
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...
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
So why did you misquote me earlier then?
I didn't say I was quoting you, Alan, I was describing your position as I understood it back in the old BBC forum days, and you have repeated it today.
I knew then what you were claiming, just as I do now. Your position hasn't changed and nor has mine.
So why did you incorrectly describe my position from the old BBC forum days and my position today?
I didn't.
Yes you did. You wrote, "- ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" That is a misrepresentation of my position and I have explained again what my position is.
What is going on here, please? Do you really not understand the difference between what you wrote there and my position? My position is:
"The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead."
I am quite aware of your position, Alien, you believe the above because it was written in your book, but you wouldn't believe the exact same circumstances if it had been written in any other book, I have understood this for many years now and have never said anything different!
Now I suppose we will have the usual "What book?" "When have I said that?" and all the usual twists and turns and squirms we get in every thread you post on. As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
True to a point, but he fails to grasp some simple points (or claims to) and is clearly biased to believe the book.
His ability to reason is severely impaired when he just quotes stuff from the bible as fact. You know the old schtick it is likely that Jesus rose from the dead cos people wrote that they ate with him.
I mean, really!
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
Maybe.
He is an intelligent guy, Len, and it just irks me that he denies the bleeding obvious.
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
And who the heck are you to decide who is a Christian, and who isn't? You know nothing of what people are like off this forum: your comment is a mixture of arrogance and ignorance!
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
And who the heck are you to decide who is a Christian, and who isn't? You know nothing of what people are like off this forum: your comment is a mixture of arrogance and ignorance!
I for one never question who is a christian. If you say you are a christian that's good enough for me.
I have seen other christians question whether other qualify as christians. TW springs to mind.
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
And who the heck are you to decide who is a Christian, and who isn't? You know nothing of what people are like off this forum: your comment is a mixture of arrogance and ignorance!
I for one never question who is a christian. If you say you are a christian that's good enough for me.
I have seen other christians question whether other qualify as christians. TW springs to mind.
Some posters seem to think that anyone who is Christian must behave like a saint or something. This is a debating forum, not a boxing ring, and you take the rough and tumble, and , in my book, it's not at all serious: fun and games!! 8)
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
And who the heck are you to decide who is a Christian, and who isn't? You know nothing of what people are like off this forum: your comment is a mixture of arrogance and ignorance!
I for one never question who is a christian. If you say you are a christian that's good enough for me.
I have seen other christians question whether other qualify as christians. TW springs to mind.
Some posters seem to think that anyone who is Christian must behave like a saint or something. This is a debating forum, not a boxing ring, and you take the rough and tumble, and , in my book, it's not at all serious: fun and games!! 8)
If someone say they are a christian, that is good enough for me.
I do not care, but I have seen other christians care.
-
True to a point, but he fails to grasp some simple points (or claims to) and is clearly biased to believe the book.
His ability to reason is severely impaired when he just quotes stuff from the bible as fact. You know the old schtick it is likely that Jesus rose from the dead cos people wrote that they ate with him.
I mean, really!
I agree, BR, but at least his posting style shows more thought than that of Sass, BA, TW, etc.
-
True to a point, but he fails to grasp some simple points (or claims to) and is clearly biased to believe the book.
His ability to reason is severely impaired when he just quotes stuff from the bible as fact. You know the old schtick it is likely that Jesus rose from the dead cos people wrote that they ate with him.
I mean, really!
I agree, BR, but at least his posting style shows more thought than that of Sass, BA, TW, etc.
"... but at least his posting style shows more thought than that of Sass, BA, TW, Leonard, etc." :)
-
As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
Maybe.
He is an intelligent guy, Len, and it just irks me that he denies the bleeding obvious.
Quite, but like so many others, his desire for his belief to be true is too strong for logical thinking to override it.
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...
I think we all know what you are claiming, Alan!
So why did you misquote me earlier then?
I didn't say I was quoting you, Alan, I was describing your position as I understood it back in the old BBC forum days, and you have repeated it today.
I knew then what you were claiming, just as I do now. Your position hasn't changed and nor has mine.
So why did you incorrectly describe my position from the old BBC forum days and my position today?
I didn't.
Yes you did. You wrote, "- ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!" That is a misrepresentation of my position and I have explained again what my position is.
What is going on here, please? Do you really not understand the difference between what you wrote there and my position? My position is:
"The best explanation for the empty tomb where Jesus' dead body had been laid and for the dozen or so times that people (individuals and groups) believed they had seen and sometimes eaten with him and for the start of the Christian church is that Jesus had been raised from the dead."
I am quite aware of your position, Alien, you believe the above because it was written in your book, but you wouldn't believe the exact same circumstances if it had been written in any other book, I have understood this for many years now and have never said anything different!
Now I suppose we will have the usual "What book?" "When have I said that?" and all the usual twists and turns and squirms we get in every thread you post on. As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
I'm more than happy to try to defend the position I hold, but you do not seem to have understood my position and have consistently misrepresented it on this thread. Do you really not understand the difference between what you said I said and what I actually said (and say)? Until you understood my position properly, there is no point in me trying to defend it towards you since you, apparently, don't understand it in the first place (or are being a tad mischievous).
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As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
Big platonic hug for Leonard.
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As I said to another poster last week, I learnt long ago that debating with you is a complete waste of time and I wonder why I am bothering now!
Possibly because Alien usually indulges in sensible, thought out posts, and doesn't usually insult people or print long passages of the Bible, like some other "Christians".
True to a point, but he fails to grasp some simple points (or claims to) and is clearly biased to believe the book.
His ability to reason is severely impaired when he just quotes stuff from the bible as fact. You know the old schtick it is likely that Jesus rose from the dead cos people wrote that they ate with him.
I mean, really!
That is not quite as bad as jjohnjil's inaccuracy, but it is, shall we say, an incomplete representation of my position.
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Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
"...about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history?"
But I don't. Why don't you help me here by keeping to what we have agreed instead of endlessly backtracking as if it was never mentioned.
1)But you do. You say we can't believe something because it happened so long ago and so on, but you accept that other things happened long ago. Why do you accept all those and not the NT accounts?
You base the whole of your intrinsic and fundamental lifestyle and attitude on your faith and the NT documents. Your whole approach to life is fashioned by this milieu. What else in history do you do that for?
I have explained (and you even did a post asking other atheists if they thought the same) that I treat history for my amusement,
2) Nowhere have I spoken of "amusement". as just some academic curiosity (I can not personally verify its content) and that I do not base anything fundamental in my life and approach on anything in history. How I conduct my life is based on my personal experiences and on the information I have acquired through my years using my intellect, rationality and intuition to assess these and come to some kind of judgement on various matters. These judgement are the best I've got and I know that they are not perfect or complete but that they will have to do. It is true that I consider what some people from history have said but this is always brought into the colouration of my knowledge, intuition and personal experiences, but it has no direct significance for my life. I therefore treat all history the same.
3) I do not expect that you have to frequently ask yourself if the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada and the Crusades happened. However, please answer me this simple question. Did they happen or not? Yes or no?
As I do not believe in God or heaven and all that the fact that my judgements and lifestyle may not be up to some idealistic standard does not bother me which is why I can take this take-it-or-leave-it attitude to some claims in history. A similar thing may apply to late political thinking such as ideas of Marx and so on. Everything is brought under the lens of my own knowledge and experience - what else do I have?
4) That's fine, but it is not a good excuse for avoiding the evidence of Jesus' death and resurrection. As you seem to suggest whether the Battle of Hastings actually took place will not make much difference to your day today. We can be quite blasé about such stuff, but we do accept it happened. It does not affect how we determine whether or not happened. It does affect how we respond to it. Jesus made claims about himself and about your need to respond to him. If we Christians are wrong and physical death is indeed the end then fair enough. However, if we are right and Jesus was who the NT claims he was and is and if he did indeed make those claims, be prepared to answer his questions.
The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
And how do you judge the importance of an historical event? And how do you assess what needs to be done with that importance, how to respond to it? Do you not make all your judgements on what you personally know, what your life has given you in your very short time on this planet? And because of this short period your personal knowledge about life is substantially lacking, as it is for all of us, and yet from this deficient well you are suppose to come to up with an all embracing answer on the meaning of life from some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago! Pulling a rabbit out of that proverbial hat. You must be one hell of a ubermensch to achieve all that without err.
5) "Some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago?" The state of the manuscripts is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether we know what was written and whether it is making a valid claim for our attention and response.
And this comes to my other ace up my sleeve - if this is the best your God can do in conveying Its most superordinate message to mankind, is to leave us very limited creatures, trapped in the confines of time, with this protean historical puzzle then your God is a joke at best and sadistic at worst.
If you find yourself having to give an account of your life to God, you can bring this up with him. It might be helpful to make some notes now.
You do not need to justify yourself to me nor me to you. You and I have come to different conclusions. Time will tell which, if either, of us is correct.
1) I am sceptical about them all, and equally so! Is that clear?
2) You asked in a post, to other atheists either on here or on my thread What's God Made Of?, if they thought the same a I did as not finding history a good guide to life and other things I've said as you can't know what actually happened. That is why history is just for my amusement.
3) Who really cares? I am quiet blasé about it. They have no consequence on my life today. I read history for my amusement only.
Your whole premise is that if one finds something in history that is significant one should act upon it but I'm saying by definition of what history is you can't apply such a criterion as history is an unreliable source for factual information and only a fool would do this. This is my argument against your position. History is not fact it is speculation and the further you go back the more so - keeping in mind today we have things like film, recording etc. which help us more with recent history, but even so some details elude us.
4) But the thing is history is just speculation. It is too vague, especially 2000 years ago, to make a clear judgement on it or to think it should be responded to as you claim. My claim is that you have made an err in thinking it is good enough to make a life changing response to it.
What are these questions that JC will ask?
5) What I find ironic is that you are finding it hard to understand what I'm saying to you yet I converse in your mother tongue but you claim to have a clear idea what some people wrote 2000 years ago in a foreign discontinued language with copying error and what not. See my point?
Nothing in history can make "a valid claim for our attention and response" because by definition it will be deficient and flawed before it ever reaches us.
St. Augustine wrote a paper called the 'Literal Meaning of Genesis'. What he meant by 'literal' and what we mean today by 'literal' is totally different. The meaning of words change. With the Gen 6 post we have going on this thread you had troubles/task of explaining the meaning of the word for mountain/hill in the link. We all know what these are for we have seen them but still it was not too clear what the Hebrew(?) meant. If you are having to deal with words referring to material things how much greater difficulty will you have with words referring to ideas and concept from history? How much fuzzier will your understanding be in regards to what they are trying to say and express? So how many words are there from the NT documents that you have misconstrued? The fact is you have no way of knowing. See point?
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I reckon the trickster Jesus used a doppelganger who was mentally retarded (blokes with beards and long hair all look the same anyway) and when he was before the high priests and pilot he was drugged so he was docile and didn't say much. The rest follows on from there....
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...
Except it is Alien who applies double standards in the way he treats various things as many keep complaining about to him. This claim of his on me here is a double standard, to deflect from the fact of his lack of an answer, and he tends to resort to these tactics when he feels cornered - if he has an answer let him give it. I have not applied any double standards as my treatment of all history is the same, as he well knows.
Help me here then. Why do you write stuff like, "You also do not have good evidence - you can't follow it up by interviewing the people concerned" about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history? I genuinely do not understand why you seem to require different levels of evidence in determining whether something happened. Note that to say that the NT accounts are more important is actually irrelevant (if you were going to say that). If you can't assign a high probability of something happening in the NT because you can't interview the people involved, you can't assign a high probability to the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada, the Crusades and so. The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
Please explain.
"...about the NT accounts yet ignore that for the rest of history?"
But I don't. Why don't you help me here by keeping to what we have agreed instead of endlessly backtracking as if it was never mentioned.
1)But you do. You say we can't believe something because it happened so long ago and so on, but you accept that other things happened long ago. Why do you accept all those and not the NT accounts?
You base the whole of your intrinsic and fundamental lifestyle and attitude on your faith and the NT documents. Your whole approach to life is fashioned by this milieu. What else in history do you do that for?
I have explained (and you even did a post asking other atheists if they thought the same) that I treat history for my amusement,
2) Nowhere have I spoken of "amusement". as just some academic curiosity (I can not personally verify its content) and that I do not base anything fundamental in my life and approach on anything in history. How I conduct my life is based on my personal experiences and on the information I have acquired through my years using my intellect, rationality and intuition to assess these and come to some kind of judgement on various matters. These judgement are the best I've got and I know that they are not perfect or complete but that they will have to do. It is true that I consider what some people from history have said but this is always brought into the colouration of my knowledge, intuition and personal experiences, but it has no direct significance for my life. I therefore treat all history the same.
3) I do not expect that you have to frequently ask yourself if the Battle of Hastings, the fall of Rome, the Spanish Armada and the Crusades happened. However, please answer me this simple question. Did they happen or not? Yes or no?
As I do not believe in God or heaven and all that the fact that my judgements and lifestyle may not be up to some idealistic standard does not bother me which is why I can take this take-it-or-leave-it attitude to some claims in history. A similar thing may apply to late political thinking such as ideas of Marx and so on. Everything is brought under the lens of my own knowledge and experience - what else do I have?
4) That's fine, but it is not a good excuse for avoiding the evidence of Jesus' death and resurrection. As you seem to suggest whether the Battle of Hastings actually took place will not make much difference to your day today. We can be quite blasé about such stuff, but we do accept it happened. It does not affect how we determine whether or not happened. It does affect how we respond to it. Jesus made claims about himself and about your need to respond to him. If we Christians are wrong and physical death is indeed the end then fair enough. However, if we are right and Jesus was who the NT claims he was and is and if he did indeed make those claims, be prepared to answer his questions.
The importance of the event is important if we need to act as a result of those events, but it does not affect the probability of their having happened.
And how do you judge the importance of an historical event? And how do you assess what needs to be done with that importance, how to respond to it? Do you not make all your judgements on what you personally know, what your life has given you in your very short time on this planet? And because of this short period your personal knowledge about life is substantially lacking, as it is for all of us, and yet from this deficient well you are suppose to come to up with an all embracing answer on the meaning of life from some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago! Pulling a rabbit out of that proverbial hat. You must be one hell of a ubermensch to achieve all that without err.
5) "Some tatty manuscripts written 2000 years ago?" The state of the manuscripts is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether we know what was written and whether it is making a valid claim for our attention and response.
And this comes to my other ace up my sleeve - if this is the best your God can do in conveying Its most superordinate message to mankind, is to leave us very limited creatures, trapped in the confines of time, with this protean historical puzzle then your God is a joke at best and sadistic at worst.
If you find yourself having to give an account of your life to God, you can bring this up with him. It might be helpful to make some notes now.
You do not need to justify yourself to me nor me to you. You and I have come to different conclusions. Time will tell which, if either, of us is correct.
1) I am sceptical about them all, and equally so! Is that clear?
2) You asked in a post, to other atheists either on here or on my thread What's God Made Of?, if they thought the same a I did as not finding history a good guide to life and other things I've said as you can't know what actually happened. That is why history is just for my amusement.
3) Who really cares? I am quiet blasé about it. They have no consequence on my life today. I read history for my amusement only.
Your whole premise is that if one finds something in history that is significant one should act upon it but I'm saying by definition of what history is you can't apply such a criterion as history is an unreliable source for factual information and only a fool would do this. This is my argument against your position. History is not fact it is speculation and the further you go back the more so - keeping in mind today we have things like film, recording etc. which help us more with recent history, but even so some details elude us.
4) But the thing is history is just speculation. It is too vague, especially 2000 years ago, to make a clear judgement on it or to think it should be responded to as you claim. My claim is that you have made an err in thinking it is good enough to make a life changing response to it.
What are these questions that JC will ask?
5) What I find ironic is that you are finding it hard to understand what I'm saying to you yet I converse in your mother tongue but you claim to have a clear idea what some people wrote 2000 years ago in a foreign discontinued language with copying error and what not. See my point?
Nothing in history can make "a valid claim for our attention and response" because by definition it will be deficient and flawed before it ever reaches us.
St. Augustine wrote a paper called the 'Literal Meaning of Genesis'. What he meant by 'literal' and what we mean today by 'literal' is totally different. The meaning of words change. With the Gen 6 post we have going on this thread you had troubles/task of explaining the meaning of the word for mountain/hill in the link. We all know what these are for we have seen them but still it was not too clear what the Hebrew(?) meant. If you are having to deal with words referring to material things how much greater difficulty will you have with words referring to ideas and concept from history? How much fuzzier will your understanding be in regards to what they are trying to say and express? So how many words are there from the NT documents that you have misconstrued? The fact is you have no way of knowing. See point?
Don't be too hard on the Alien, Jack, Alan has wrapped his whole life around these flimsy ideas being true. He'll slip and slide and laa laa until you give up.
I learnt long ago to forget trying to have a reasoned exchange with him - ever since he told me that the only reasonable explanation for an empty tomb was that the occupant had been resurrected!
I reckon the trickster Jesus used a doppelganger who was mentally retarded (blokes with beards and long hair all look the same anyway) and when he was before the high priests and pilot he was drugged so he was docile and didn't say much. The rest follows on from there....
Perhaps He used that "pilot" to help Him fly away, to fool everyone! :D
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JK,
I reckon the trickster Jesus used a doppelganger who was mentally retarded (blokes with beards and long hair all look the same anyway) and when he was before the high priests and pilot he was drugged so he was docile and didn't say much. The rest follows on from there....
Maybe Jesus used the "pilot" to fly away and fool everyone? :D
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OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of it.
OK, got your point. I'll make a note of this too.
If only you would!!! The thing is we'll be arguing this point again, I'll be saying you agreed to this and you'll be saying I never, where?, show me the post. Not only are you being disingenuous you are lying to yourself! How do you square that with your Christian faith? How do you look yourself in the eye in the mirror and consider yourself a good honest disciple of your God? What kind of testimony is that to those you want to come to your faith? "Come all ye liars and follow me!"
It is too vague, especially 2000 years ago, to make a clear judgement on it or to think it should be responded to as you claim. My claim is that you have made an err in thinking it is good enough to make a life changing response to it.
OK. We disagree on this point quite fundamentally.
This is not a matter of personal opinion it is a point of logic and rational argument which is independent of ones own viewpoint. You aren't answering me with counter-arguments here because you have non and you know in your heart of hearts your position is flawed and doesn't hold 'water'. The whole basis on which your faith position is based is deficient. The fact is you do not know what happened in the past , no one does, it is sheer speculation, and yet you have taken wholesale an iffy spiritual disposition from 2000 years ago and applied it to your life as if it had genuine validity when it clearly, logically and rationally, does not and is highly suspect and flawed.
What are these questions that JC will ask?
I would think it would be along the lines of, "Why did you view my life, death for your sins and my resurrection as something just for amusement? Why did you not respond in the way you needed to?
I did respond in the appropriate way as explained above. Would he really need to ask? All he has to do is read these threads. He can read can't he, or is he illiterate?
5) What I find ironic is that you are finding it hard to understand what I'm saying to you yet I converse in your mother tongue but you claim to have a clear idea what some people wrote 2000 years ago in a foreign discontinued language with copying error and what not. See my point?
I see your point, but it is not valid. There is an absolutely huge body of Greek literature from hundreds of years before Christ through his time and right up to the present day. There are plenty of people who understand what ancient Greek texts mean, including in the dialect used in the NT. Greek is not a discontinued language. As for copying errors, let me quote the popular skeptic scholar Bart Ehrman from an appendix in Misquoting Jesus on p252 of the American version:
Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament."
So, remind me why you think we have lost enough of the NT to not know its essential claims, in particular the essential claims of Jesus and why you read such stuff only for amusement.
You've pasted that blokes quotes before. The point I'm making, as I've said above, is not a matter of personal opinion as all people involved in this kind of discussions are just speculating to some degree or other but one of logic and rationale. Regardless of how 'huge' the stuff we have or how well we understand an old language, in the end we just can't be sure 100% and we definitely can't take an idea wholesale from the past and live our fundamental lives and principles by it. That is just insane!
Nothing in history can make "a valid claim for our attention and response" because by definition it will be deficient and flawed before it ever reaches us.
St. Augustine wrote a paper called the 'Literal Meaning of Genesis'. What he meant by 'literal' and what we mean today by 'literal' is totally different. The meaning of words change. With the Gen 6 post we have going on this thread you had troubles/task of explaining the meaning of the word for mountain/hill in the link.
Did I? Please tell me which post I had this trouble on.
There you go playing up again with, "which post?" when you know which post! The link to an old post of yours you gave me on the posts where I questioned your non-global flood idea and so on. There you pointed out that a Hebrew? word could be taken to mean mountain or hill by us 21thC duds. This is totally disingenuous to imply that we can read with 100% accuracy old languages, and know precisely what words mean even those conveying ideas, concepts and beliefs.
We all know what these are for we have seen them but still it was not too clear what the Hebrew(?) meant.
Why the question mark after the word "Hebrew"? Are you saying that you are confident there is a fundamental problem here with the original language even though you are not sure what that original language was?
The language type is not the issue it is the fact that we can't know for sure with any old language, that 100% knowledge of it is not possible. Even talking to the people we know, vis-à-vis, we still can't get a pure 100% translation of their thoughts; what's on their minds, so why do you consider 2000 year old written scripts would somehow be easy for us today? If language was clear writing legal documents could be done by any old idiot. But the fact it's not explains the endless arguments in law courts.
If you are having to deal with words referring to material things how much greater difficulty will you have with words referring to ideas and concept from history? How much fuzzier will your understanding be in regards to what they are trying to say and express? So how many words are there from the NT documents that you have misconstrued? The fact is you have no way of knowing. See point?
I see the point you are making, but it is fundamentally flawed.
An assertion and statement like that is not an argument and explains nothing with regards to the point and argument you seem to imply you have.