|
|
|
Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
 Posted - 01/05/2003 : 23:16:53 [Permalink]
|
Like most Atheists it was studing the bible that caused me to realise it was a work of fiction. You, however, seem to be content with making it up as you go along. So long as you get to claim that the book agrees with you, you don't care what the hell it says.
God stikes two people dead for telling a lie...yeah right, that happens a lot. If God pulled crap like that the streets would be littered with the bodies of Christian Apoligists. |
-------
I learned something ... I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. I guess they don't like strangers going up to their door and annoying them.
-Bruce Clark
There's No Toilet Paper...on the Road Less Traveled |
 |
|
|
Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 00:00:26 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Be careful though, if you read too much of that Bible it may mess up your current theology.
quote:
Like most Atheists it was studing the bible that caused me to realise it was a work of fiction.
Man Slater, you are so right. That's how I came to realize the absurdity of the belief that the Bible is a divine benefaction. I was a Jesus freak/suburban wannabe Rastafarian in the '70's. I really got into prophesy, and studied doggedly.
Well, it didn't take long for me to realize that each Biblical prophesy could be explained through 20/20 hindsight, was too vague to be of any real meaning, or more often, was just plain wrong. This realization prompted me to question the historic accuracy, and the general inerrancy of this book. Once I began to read with an open, but skeptical mind, I could no longer place any faith in this book.
For the next ten years, I searched for meaning to life. I looked into everything from Eastern religions and mysticism to the Western New Age fads. I found that I could make up a religion that was grounded more in the factual world, than any faith that I studied.
Then, finally, after years of searching, I found a copy of the Skeptical Enquirer. It took a little while longer, but I discovered that I didn't need the supernatural to be a happy and moral person. |
"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
|
|
|
|
Fireballn
Skeptic Friend
Canada
179 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 00:49:03 [Permalink]
|
It seems to me that people that have a psychological void in their life seek out what their subconcsious is in need of. For instance: a person is lonely or is in need of acceptance. (They might not even know this on a concsious level). They are drawn to resources that fill these voids. Churches do this very well they give hope to the hopeless.
If a person craves personal respect and personal admiration, the scientific community is the place that might draw him/her. This community is very good at issuing this.
What a person needs a person will find.
I know everybody is different but people fill needs, it is 98% of what people do. |
If i were the supreme being, I wouldn't have messed around with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers 8 o'clock day one!
-Time Bandits- |
|
|
|
Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 02:16:47 [Permalink]
|
Fireballn, I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Are you telling us that followers join a church and leaders join the scientific community?
As much as that might appeal to my sense of pride, I am not sure if that's true.
ps. This is straying off topic. Please only respond to this post if I have inaccurately represented your position. |
|
|
|
Doomar
SFN Regular
USA
714 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 13:46:41 [Permalink]
|
Tim said:
Well, it didn't take long for me to realize that each Biblical prophesy could be explained through 20/20 hindsight, was too vague to be of any real meaning, or more often, was just plain wrong. This realization prompted me to question the historic accuracy, and the general inerrancy of this book. Once I began to read with an open, but skeptical mind, I could no longer place any faith in this book.
Guess you missed the prophecies about Christ's coming. When he was born at least 7 old testament prophecies were fulfilled.
Just the odds of Christ being born in that particular town Micah 5:2 are astounding to calculate. And what about his death as foretold in Isaiah 53:3-12. The chances of all these particular sufferings, dying with other transgressors, buried in a rich man's grave, wow. The odds of these events occurring by chance in the way they were predicted are unfathomable. So, I'm suggesting your studies were flawed.
I heard an illustration to help one understand the improbability of just one of the prophecies of Christ's birth coming true exactly as stated without divine intervention. Consider marking a single silver dollar among billions, and then layering the entire state of Texas with these coins over a foot deep. Then at random you walked through this vast pile of coins and reach down at random and pick out the coin you marked. Get the picture? |
Mark 10:27 (NKJV) 27But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”
www.pastorsb.com.htm |
| Edited by - Doomar on 01/06/2003 13:53:46 |
|
|
|
Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
|
|
Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 17:51:45 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Doomar
Guess you missed the prophecies about Christ's coming.
Guess you never considered these "fulfilled" prophesies were written in after the fact by Church writers who believed it was ok to lie for Christ. Quite poorly in many cases. |
|
|
|
Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 17:52:20 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Boron10
This is a thread about Acts. Please discuss Biblical Prophecies in its own thread.
Oops, sorry!  |
|
|
|
darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 19:10:29 [Permalink]
|
slater: quote:
The Committees were called "Ecumenical Councils." The one I am referring to was the Council of Nicaea. You never did
answer why the version they picked was the true one.
The Council you are referring to had nothing to do accepting the NT it had to do with the Arian controversy.Both sides appealed to the already extant NT documents for support of their views.The Arians had Constatine and Eusebius of Caesarea on their side at first.That latter changed but the controversy raged on for many years.After Constatine died 337AD his son Constantius took up the Arian side untill he died in 361AD.During the whole time neither side questioned the authoirty of the NT documents you claim they invented at that time.  |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
|
|
|
Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 19:45:02 [Permalink]
|
| I see, so all the Gnostic books are still part of the NT then? |
-------
I learned something ... I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. I guess they don't like strangers going up to their door and annoying them.
-Bruce Clark
There's No Toilet Paper...on the Road Less Traveled |
|
|
|
darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 20:35:02 [Permalink]
|
| Only you Slater could come to the conclusion that "all the Gnostic books are part of the NT then?" from what I wrote.Why don't stick the facts instead of chasing red hearrings? |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
|
|
|
darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2003 : 20:48:36 [Permalink]
|
Now as far as all of the alleged contradictons you've claimed for the resurrection accounts in the NT allow me to demonstrate from a work you claim is historical(The Life of Apollonius)how Classical Scholars put into practice Aristostle's dictum of giving the ancient text the benefit of the doubtworks at clearing up a glairing error:(this is on DJRE pt.5 p.11) quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the Life of Apollonius 5.21, Philostratus describes a visit of
the sage and his disciple Damis to the island of Rhodes in the
winter of 68/69.
With a favorable wind Apollonius made the
passage and held the following Rhodes. As he approached the statue of the
Colossus, [his disciple] Damis asked him, if he
thought anything could be greater than that; and he
replied, 'Yes, a man who loves wisdom in a sound
and innocent spirit.' (LoA 5.21)
This story cannot be true. The giant statue of the sun god had
collapsed in 227/226 BCE, and it is impossible that Apollonius
of Tyana has ever seen this wonder of the ancient world [note
1]. The explanation of Philostratus' mistake must be that he has
confused two Apollonii; when he visited Rhodes, he heard a
bon mot of an Apollonius, and unaware of the chronological
implausibility, he assumed that the speaker must have been the
Tyanean Apollonius. (The man who was responsible for the
saying may have been the poet Apollonius of Rhodes, who was
staying at the island when the Colossus collapsed.)http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/apollonius02.html
Note that the writer doesn't jump to the conclusion that Philostratus is lying because of his historical blunderbut attempts to give a rational account of how Philo made the mistake. |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
| Edited by - darwin alogos on 01/07/2003 09:16:57 |
|
|
|
Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2003 : 09:25:55 [Permalink]
|
DA, could you please add a note to your posts when you edit them to let everyone know exactly what was changed?
[edited to add: Not really necessary when editing right after the initial post, but when you've been away for hours, then come back and edit a post, it would be nice to note what the changes were. See, it's easy!] |
| Edited by - Tokyodreamer on 01/07/2003 09:27:19 |
|
|
|
Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 01/07/2003 : 12:52:05 [Permalink]
|
DA, either the Gnostic bibles are still part of the NT as they were when they were written or they no longer are. Since they no longer are they must have been edited out. Tell me, Fool, on what bases were they edited out?
Any problems with early texts on Apollonius mean that they aren't the inerrant word of God. But then, nobody is claiming that they are.
Contradictions in the Bible show that it is on exactly the same supernatural ground as the life of Apollonious. It is not the word of any god.
As for historicity that is a completely different subject. Apollonius left evidence behind. Jesus didn't leave a trace--a sure indication that he was only a character in a novel.
The Bible deals with the magic Jesus, he has always been a myth. When we talk about an historic Jesus we are talking about a completely human non-supernatural individual. It is the same as when we talk about an historic King Arthur we are talking about a Celtic warlord and not the magical Arthur of Le Morte D'Arthur. He would have been an ordinary person who had the older stories of Welsh gods attached to his history by legend. If one version has three knights finding the holy grail in Asia and another has only one knight finding it in the hall of the Fisher king that has no bearing on Arthur the warlord of history.
So the fact that all the stories of the ressurection contradict each other has no bearing on an historic Jesus who would have stayed dead, as is the customary fashion with actual people. Historic Jesus would have been an ordinary person who had the older stories of the Hellenistic gods attached to his history by legend.
This ordinary person is who we have no ordinary records of.
|
-------
I learned something ... I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. I guess they don't like strangers going up to their door and annoying them.
-Bruce Clark
There's No Toilet Paper...on the Road Less Traveled |
|
|
|
Infamous
Skeptic Friend
85 Posts |
Posted - 01/08/2003 : 11:33:47 [Permalink]
|
Actually there is a passage somewhere in the Bible that tells why the Gnostic books were rejected. It's because they contradicted the existing Christian beliefs at that time.
Also, I've heard several explanations for the apparent contradiction between Luke's and Matthew's accounts of the death of Judas:
1. Judas attempted to hang himself in a tree, but fell ("fell headlong") out of the tree and went splat on the ground ("burst asunder") before he could do so.
2. Judas attempted to hang himself, but the rope broke and he fell and went splat.
3. Judas hung himself successfully, but the force of the drop severed his neck and the rest of his body went splat. |
|
|
 |
|
Topic Locked
