[icespeed]

okay, bob. here's how i see it.

God created the world. how he did this, i dunno, could be big bang, could be quantum, whatever, the methods aren't the important bits. why do i think God created the world? cos the probability of a universe randomly coming into existence is just amazingly amazingly infinitesimally small. it's easier to belive it was created.

if God created the world, he also created us. therefore he owns us, or at least rules over us- like a potter and his pot.

if God rules over us, and we disobey him and reject him, then we are in the wrong. and we do disobey and reject him. all those people who say people have a 'spark of goodness' or are 'inherently good' are deluded- just look at our society, what we do to our fellow human beings.

if we are in the wrong, we deserve to be punished. which we are. through death, and suffering, and separation from God. (who gave us life, don't forget). And when i say death i mean forever.

JC, who was God, came down to earth as a man, died in our place, was raised to life (as documented by the gospels).

so what? we can either have faith that JC did so, or we can continue as we are.

edit: oh yeah, i forgot the most important bit. since JC died for us and was raised again, that means we don't have to die the eternal death, we can live after our physical death. that's what having faith in JC will do for us.

[icespeed]

Originally posted by Clive
I'd like to cite Elvis as reason why the ressurection story is bull****.....

yeah, but the evidence is inconsistent. the gospels aren't.

[Bobboau]

P&T overdid that metaphore,

the books of the bible were put together by a commity of bishops becose the roman emperor constantine wanted a cannon (not the gun type) he ordered a bunch of bibles and the chirstian hierarchy didn't want to tell him a few days later that his extreemly expensive books (remember long time ago, books == supar dupar(these were misspelled on purpose) expencive) were worth all of TP becase they changed the cannon, shortly thereafter the cannon was used to persicude other _christian_ sects that had _other acounts_ of the life and times of Jesus, why, becase they wern't part of the cannon and that was herricy against the state (of rome), look up the gospel of thomas for one such example.

and as I was saying as good as stoned.

[icespeed]

they put the canon together partially by the holy spirit (which of course you won't accept as valid) and partially because they held together. and were reliable.

i've read the gospel of thomas. its a collection of mystic, gnomic, what's the word? sayings attributed to jesus apparently handed down to the disciple thomas secretly. the gospel of thomas was written some several hundred years AD, which means the disciple thomas probably didn't write it, meaning the author lied about who he was, which means it's probably not all that reliable anyway. there's no historical verification of the sayings.

with the canon gospels, remember that they were written by entirely different people- a jewish tax collector, a greek doctor, a follower of the apostle peter, and an apostle. these are people from completely different walks of life, it's not like they just randomly got together and concocted this story around some guy they knew and then wrote it down.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by icespeed
many religious writings (i'm not gonna say all since i'm no expert) are prophecies, metaphysical sort of writings.

the new testament, with the exception of the revelation of john (which still sort of counts) is a collection of biographies and epistles. These would have been circulated throughout the roman world where the early christian churches were established.

the gospels- the biographies- recorded the life of JC. if anything in there were wrong, there would have been some sort of written record of an alternative history. as far as i know there's the jewish oral tradition that JC was stolen from the tomb and the roman guards were bribed to remain silent- both of which being extremely unlikely. anyone know of any other 'proof's?

the gospels were _historical_ documents, not random writings of some prophet. apparently there's far less proof for the existence of julius caesar than there was for JC. and if they prove the existence of JC, then you can't just ignore the the half of each gospel documenting his resurrection.

That is... among the thinnest arguments I've heard in a long time. OK - first off, what's unlikely about the body being stolen and the guards being bribed, when compared to the guy coming back to life?

Second of all, using the book to corroborate the book is not proof. That should be obvious.

Third of all, history is written by the winners. As Bob said, much of what you take as the truth is simply what the church decided was the truth when the roman empire converted to christianity. Moreover, Jesus Christ had very little impact during his life - even the bible itself says that. There's no alternative points of view because at the time nobody literate really cared enough, beyond chalking up that they'd crucified the guy.

Fourthly, where did you hear there's less evidence for the existence of Julius Caeser than there is for Jesus Christ? The romans were compulsive records keepers - there's a crapload of written and artistic accounts of his existence. Moreover, we're not arguing the existence of Jesus here - that's corroborated historical fact.

Finally, all you've really said was that the New Testament represents a whole bunch of biographies. There're life stories in other religions and mythologies as well - Thor for example had a crapload of stories about his life and times. Arjuna, Perseus, Herakles - all well documented lives, many probably based on real figures - I doubt you believe in them, so what makes christian writings any more true?

[Bobboau]

no they all wrote about the founder of there religous sect, useing the stories they were told as a guide, the cannon gospels were writen a good while AD too you know, they wern't writen by the people they were atributed to.

argue with BW he's awake enough to compose a sentence...

[icespeed]

bw: maybe i should have explained a bit more, only i was lazy.

1. firstly these are roman guards we're talking about, they're the mostly highly trained bunch of soldiers around, they're not open to corruption cos if they were and got found out they'd get really severely punished, we're talking flogging and death, not docking their wages. secondly the people who would have stolen the body- disciples and followers- were racked with grief, their leader had just been crucified which is the execution of criminals, it's not like any of them would have been together enough to steal his body. thirdly the people who would have stolen the body- disciples and followers- wouldn't have done so, seeing as this is their spiritual _leader_, stealing his body's going to amount to desecration, especially since he had been given a nice burial by joseph of arimathea already, been shown the proper respects, etc etc.

2. the book is a collection of documents written by many different authors, corroboration is perfectly legitimate.

3. alternative points of view would have been given by the jewish elders, who had no interest in seeing the rise of Christianity, and who were literate.

4. okay. granted.

5. well documented? by whom? where? i'm genuinely interested. point me.

bob:

the canonical gospels were written within a century after JC's birth, i'm not an expert so i couldn't give you details, but basically they dated the documents and the epistles and made all these complicated references. when i say 'they' i'm talking about archaeologists, scholars, qualified people who know what they're doing.

[Col. Fishguts]

Originally posted by icespeed
God created the world. how he did this, i dunno, could be big bang, could be quantum, whatever, the methods aren't the important bits. why do i think God created the world? cos the probability of a universe randomly coming into existence is just amazingly amazingly infinitesimally small. it's easier to belive it was created.
..........

That's why I regard God as the creator of the universe as a bit a of a "cheap explanation" (no pun intended). It's easier to believe that a supernatural being created the universe with all it's wonders in a way that it all works nicely.
But I think the idea of an universe that spontaneoulsy created itself (and is ruled by the laws of physic...and yet didn't collapse within femtoseconds, but allowed the forming of complex structures), is far more fantastic.
But then we come to the question "What was the cause for the bigbang ?" And there even the die-hard-scientist has to use his imagination and can only believe in certain theories.
And that's why I think the phrase: "What you call God, I call wonder." is pretty clever.

EDIT: Damn you fast typing people who write a whole bunch of other stuff, while I was typing my answer It's early in the morning here...so have some mercy.

[icespeed]

look at God as another theory for the creation of the universe, just as full of wonder as the other ones. after all, he didn't have to do it.

[Black Wolf]

1. Mmm... iffy. The roman soldiers were disciplined, but not in the way that you think of modern discipline. They were trained to fight, to hold their position on the battlefield, and to obey their superiors, but they weren't expected to do much more than that. I'm sure you accept that roman soldiers from the same bunch whipped Jesus on his way up to Golgotha, placed the thorns on his head and gambled for his clothes and possessions? As for motive, I don't see it as outside the realm of possibility for someone to have stolen the body purely so as to create the myth of someone rising from the dead. That's gotta be a powerful motivation right there - proving your prophet (because there were lots of other prophets around at the time, with disciples, followers and miracles of their own) was the true voice/son of God.

2. Not when they all have a vested interested in producing the same ultimate package. Tat's like saying the because the X wing books in SW had multiple authors, they prove each other. You need independent corroboration before you can claim proof.

3. You just said they did provide an alternative point of view... the stolen corpse and the bribed soldiers.

5. Off the top of my head (and the second chapter in my mythology book ), I know that Arjuna is especially well represented in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita. The others are more spread out, over lots of littler myths and stories, mainly because they were handed down through Oral tradition. Herakles for example (in a nutshell)

-is born
-strangles snakes placed in his crib by hera
-gets married, has kids
-wife and kids killed, again by Hera
-goes nutso
-calms down a bit
-undertakes his twelve tasks
-becomes a god
-enters Olympus.

[icespeed]

you know what? i don't even know why i'm doing this. as i said, those who have faith find proof; those who don't, don't. anyway.

1. it'd be embarrassing for the roman empire- or at least that bit of it in judaea- to admit that their soldiers failed, or were bribed. that's the option if JC's body was stolen. i think we've gone about as far as we can on this point, it's basically whichever opinion we think's more plausible and obviously i think mine is. and you think yours is.

2. ancient historians often have a lot less to work with, yet they manage to establish what happened with the agreement of most of the academic community. it's because it's all tied up with religion that JC's resurrection is a matter of such debate.
again let me say that these were people from completely different classes and societies, even though they might have a vested interest in getting this version of the story out there, their social differences would have resulted in contradictions and different interpretations of JC's life. but there isn't.

3. oh yeah, i did.but you said there were no alternatives.

5. if you can accept oral tradition, then isn't written tradition far more reliable? anyway i'll go have a look at some point.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by icespeed
again let me say that these were people from completely different classes and societies, even though they might have a vested interest in getting this version of the story out there, their social differences would have resulted in contradictions and different interpretations of JC's life. but there isn't.
 

And that doesn't surprise you?

Put it this way - what additional proof do you have that Jesus was god/the son of god than you have that Santa Clause puts the presents under the tree every Christmas?

Your parents told you so? Check.
Society reinforces it? Check
It's in books? Check

If some future culture dug up our Santa mythology, how would it be different to biblical stuff?

[icespeed]

well, i can see two conclusions you might draw from that. firstly, as you're saying, there's a huge conspiracy. secondly, as i'm saying, it's the truth.

as for the santa claus thing, sitting up at night on Christmas eve and not seeing him pretty much does it for me. unfortunately there's no equivalent quick and easy proof for JC as the son of God.

the funny thing is, Santa Claus- saint nicholas- was a nice guy who went around giving poor kids gifts during midwinter cos he felt sorry for them. isn't that an interesting piece of random trivia. santa claus can be traced right back to this historical personage whereas JC can be traced right back to... JC.

i was just looking at a brief summary of the mahabharata, and it occurred to me that Christianity is very plausible if you accept the basic premise of God as a loving creator of the world. Christianity's almost boring, as a religion. we're created, we're sinners, God takes our punishment, ho-hum. whereas the mahabharata is very large in scope and also very fantastical in content.

[Clive]

I'd like to point out that the Catholic Church burned a ton of books about Jesus that didn't conform to what they'd been preaching for hundreds of years.

Some managed to survive though. Like the one telling of a young Jesus who used his divine power to blind another kid who was pissing him off.

And before you go getting all fundie on me, where's your version of Jesus 1-31?

[icespeed]

yeah, i've read that one too. it's quite funny, at least i thought so.

the only thing the canonical gospels (i'm gonna start referring to the other ones as apocrypha) say about JC's early years is his birth story, him getting lost at the temple of jerusalem at the age of twelve and him growing up and looked upon with favour by both God and man. i could give you a reference for that if you want.

books that don't make sense or are irrelevent, you ignore. that's logic. the apocrypha don't make sense or are irrelevent. and yes, i have actually read them, or some of them. (of course there are hundreds of scraps that could be counted 'apocrypha'.)

[Clive]

books that don't make sense or are irrelevent, you ignore. that's logic.

No, that's biggotry.

Ignoring facts that don't conform to what you believe, simply because it would mean admitting you were wrong.

[icespeed]

look, if someone came up to me with irrecontrivertible proof that God does not exist, or that JC did not resurrect, then I'd give up Christianity. as it is, no one's actually done that yet.

it's like the difference between ignoring a paper published about some experiment with unclear aim, doubtful methodology, flawed analysis and calculations, but very very definite conclusion, and ignoring a paper which is about an experiment with definitive temporal cause-and-effect demonstrated, with all variables and confounders factored in, with a conservative conclusion. which would you believe?

anyway i don't like being labelled a bigot, even if it was by implication, just because i happen to believe in a religion which says all the other religions aren't right. you're being intolerant by saying what i believe isn't valid.

[Clive]

Yes, but I'm not claiming the moral high-ground.

And basically, going by that last statement, you shouldn't believe in religion.

There's absolutely no proof of the existence of God other than the scribblings of some drunken Jews.

And, as anyone with half a brain knows, you can't disprove a negative. It's like if I say "the sky is actually flourescent pink, but you all just see it wrong" I can't be proved wrong. I am wrong, but you can't prove I am.

[icespeed]

what has morality to do with it? the whole point of Christianity is that none of us has the moral high ground except God, who, being God, can do whatever he likes.

sorry, what, i lost you there.

there's absolutely no proof of your existence except some random words on the net. which itself may very well not exist.

well, looks like there won't be any proof for God's non-existence. oh well, ain't that too bad.

[Clive]

So you're basing the core beliefs of your entire life on the principle of "You can't prove I'm wrong"?

Well, if you're happy living under such a negative, specious and generally whimsical belief, then you go girl.....