Does science make belief in God obsolete?

no problem Jesus...just stay online, some nice friendly dudes who are trained in your sort of thing want to trace where you are.
 
Quote from stu:

sorry Captain but
"The opinion of your mail carrier is as valid as that of Einstein."
is not at all an Obvious fit into the category of common sense.
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You don't know my mail carrier.:D Your point is well taken, but neither my mail carrier, or Einstein have an argument that can't be picked apart by those with an agenda.
 
Quote from stu:

no problem Jesus...just stay online, some nice friendly dudes who are trained in your sort of thing want to trace where you are.
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Really? Special forces? Israeli, perhaps? I knew it! It's an algorithm, isn't it? I knew it! A truth-seeking spider bot! Fear not! I have hidden the truth safely where it will never be found...right here at ET! :D
 
Quote from CaptainObvious:

You don't know my mail carrier.:D Your point is well taken, but neither my mail carrier, or Einstein have an argument that can't be picked apart by those with an agenda.
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Beg to differ
Captain Sir
Einstein does.
:)
 
Quote from I am...:

Really? Special forces? Israeli, perhaps? I knew it! It's an algorithm, isn't it? I knew it! A truth-seeking spider bot! Fear not! I have hidden the truth safely where it will never be found...right here at ET! :D
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When one looks, it's just some camouflaging with bullshit than hiding anything. Bit obsolete nowadays.

Still , have a good day
:)
 
Quote from vhehn:

actually it was probably more like this:

Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html
We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously.

If the people of that time were so gullible or credulous or superstitious, then we have to be very cautious when assessing the reliability of witnesses of Jesus. As Thomas Jefferson believed when he composed his own version of the gospels, Jesus may have been an entirely different person than the Gospels tell us, since the supernatural and other facts about him, even some of his parables or moral sayings, could easily have been added or exaggerated by unreliable witnesses or storytellers.
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I am not sure how we got from Einstein to Jesus, but I agree with you.

There is the Jesus of faith, and there is the historical Jesus.

With the Jesus of faith you either accept him or you don't based on (blind) faith alone. Can an unbounded God by definition convert Himself to a man and now become bounded in a body? Can an unchangeable God by definition be born and then die?
This was a later invention from the Romans I believe as they became absorbed into Christianity. They made Jesus into a god.
To the early Christian Jews he was just Messiah.

With the historical Jesus there is almost no evidence that such a man existed. Christianity started with Paul.

Paul was a Jewish heretic, and he made a business out of religion. Many Romans were fed up with having 30,000 gods, and their decadent lifestyle in general so this light version of Judaism appealed to them. Circumcision was not necessary for them to convert to this light version of Judaism which became Christianity. Most adult males would not want to undergo circumcision to begin with because it isn't an exactly a pleasant procedure for an adult, but the Romans in addition worshipped their bodies and they considered circumcision a bodily disfigurement.

Ok, let's bring this back to the twentieth century. Do you know Vhehn that Einstein was religious?

"Einstein always said that he was a deeply religious man, and his religion informed his science. He rejected the conventional image of God as a personal being, concerned about our individual lives, judging us when we die, intervening in the laws he himself had created to cause miracles, answer prayers and so on. Einstein did not believe in a soul separate from the body, nor in an afterlife of any kind."

"But he was certainly a pantheist. He did regard the ordered cosmos with the same kind of feeling that believers have for their God. To some extent this was a simple awe at the impenetrable mystery of sheer being. Einstein also had an urge to lose individuality and to experience the universe as a whole."

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." [Telegram of 1929, in Hoffman and Dukas]

(see http://members.aol.com/heraklit1/einstein.htm)

Pantheism is an interesting philosophy or religion for some, but what I would like to know is on what basis a pantheist or Einstein in this case can categorically state that God does not concern Himself with the fates and actions of human beings or can not break the laws of nature that He created.

Did God tell Einstein this? Was he a prophet?

I am not a brain scientist, but I have heard it said that one human brain is more complex than the entire inorganic universe so if God interacts with the inorganic universe than logically he should interact with man as well because he is certainly as complex as the inorgarnic universe that Einstein adored.
 
On one hand you claim an understanding of the early (pre roman church) and on the other you claim there is almost no record of the historical Jesus. And that Christianity as we know it began with Paul.

Could you cite your sources because frankly that does not seem possible.

How do you know the early Christians did not think Jesus was devine?

How do you know that the Jews were not expecting a mesiah who was devine.

Have you read the old testament? Daniel? Isiah? (the passage as it existed prior to the advent of christianity)?

It just seems so odd that you know so much about the pre- roman chruch yet your information seems to discount so much of the limited surviving information we do have.


Regarding the cite vhehn gave -- if your read the link to the rebuttal case. You might heavily discounts vhehn's cite.

Vhehns guy pretty much admits his entire thesis must be at best conjecture.
 
Quote from BernardRichards:



With the historical Jesus there is almost no evidence that such a man existed.

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That depends on what is called "evidence." There is little evidence for > 99.99% of those who ever lived.Projecting current requirements for evidence back then has no basis.

There is sufficient evidence from Roman and Jewish sources and Christian writings that he existed is, and is without doubt to credible historians.

The number of currently existing fragments and pieces of early new testament copies dwarfs the evidence of anyone who ever lived up until recently. And they were almost completely about Jesus.

Anyone denying the impact of the life of Christ on the immediate time and the time thereafter has rocks in their head.

Impact is the most important evidence. And no historical figure even comes close.

Without the existence of Jesus, Paul would never be recorded. Calling him the reason of Christ having historical traction is an insane postulation.
 
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