For my Christians Friends

[DerekD]

originally posted by DerekD

Geez man, I mean really. Seriously. Tell me WHY you don't acknowledge Vishnu's existence? Or Zeus's? Or Tiki's? Or Elegua?

Lets' see, because you concluded them to be non-existent? That would make your POV concerning those gods the antithesis to their associated theism now wouldn't it?

Originally posted by TraderZones

You show me evidence, I will research it. Otherwise, you continue barking down a path of your own creation. Theist = believes in the existence of God. I do. Therefore i am not an atheist. You are stretching the definition and making it something it is not. I am amazed you keep pushing this.

I rest my case. You're a convoluted ass.

That's exactly what an atheist asks for - evidence of the existence of any asserted god. Without it, they conclude that each of the asserted gods do not exist. You concluded in the same manner as an atheist that the other gods do not exist but somehow conclude that the god you believe in does? How? Apparently it's not something you can share or submit to peer review.

 

[smilingsynic]

Quote from Yannis:

I disagree, this is not at all correct. The four Gospels agree on all significant points, while still being four independent accounts, four different perspectives -- two of them individual and the other two composite perspectives. Any little differences (like was it the day before Passover that the Last Supper happened, or the distinction of "three days" vs "third day") can be easily explained if you consider that the two languages involved (Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek) had a very different way to account for time, etc etc. A great number of religious scholars have analyzed these texts over the past two millenia and agreed on this.

Guess you never heard of this challenge made by Dan Barker, formerly a Christian singer and now atheist:

"In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened.

Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture--it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be set apart in parentheses. The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted."

He's had many try to do it, but no one has succeeded.

Let's see if YOU can do it.

 

[stu]

Quote from saico:

The Bible was written by men (more than 40), over a timeframe of several thousand years. In the end, that whole puzzle results into one completely perfect picture. That can only be done by a higher power, which is our God, who inspired these authors. As long as you guys are trying to explain the bible by human sense you will completely fail.That can't be done, just forget it! Open your hearts and give Jesus Christ a chance to come into your life and you will experience the truth of His word. Think about it, you guys can't do anything, that makes God love you any less, He is just waiting for you.

You set yourself up to completely fail. That really is a nonsensical thing to do.
You gave an explanation of the Bible 'by human sense'.
Then you say trying to explain the Bible by human sense will completely fail.

In the Bible there is a parable about a miserable sob with 3 servants, to whom each he gives money. Two of them double their money and their Lord is pleased.
But one servant buries his, because he knows his Lord is a nasty hard son of a bitch and the servant is shit scared of what he might do if he loses it. With no chance to use the money to make more, the servant had the common decency to hand back to his Lord the original cash. The unforgiving bastard who is his Lord hands it over to the servant who made most and adds insult to injury by sending the frugal servant off to hell and a gnashing of teeth.

Correspond that money with human sense and you may get a better picture. That 'higher power' God you are imagining, would surely kick your sorry butt for burying and wasting that human sense It gave you, as you clearly do.

Quote from saico:

Think about it

You really should.

What sort of supposed 'higher power' world inspire authors to write down so much inconsistency, contradiction, incongruity and absurd mistakes in the form of preposterous story telling anyway?

Why not try to think about it without the God and the Jesus. That way next time you may not "completely fail".

 

[Yannis]

Quote from smilingsynic:

Guess you never heard of this challenge made by Dan Barker, formerly a Christian singer and now atheist:

"In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened.

Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture--it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be set apart in parentheses. The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted."

He's had many try to do it, but no one has succeeded.

Let's see if YOU can do it.

I had never heard of this Barker character, but I understand the question and am perfectly certain that there's nothing there. In your previous post you had mentioned the days up the Resurrection, but now I see that you are talking about the period between the Resurrection and the Ascension.

No problem, I reread the passages once again and the combined story makes perfect sense to me and to most other students of the Gospels.

Don't forget that these are four individual accounts of very complex events, as four different people recorded them - and only two of those four evangelists were present. The other two accounts you mentioned depend on those four. Also, this period of time was very scary and confusing for the participants, as they witnessed tremendous shifts of their human consciousness while repeated miracles and extraordinary visits and conversations were taking place left and right.

He (Barker) is talking like a typical atheist who is trying to discredit one type of account (experiential within a supernatural milieu) with the help of a concept that was unknown to those writers (exact numbering and chronological listing.) As I mentioned before, the Hebrew/Aramaic languages differed a lot from the Greek language of the time that the Gospels were written in in their treatment of time. When a writer says something like "after that" they most often mean "also." If you take that under consideration, then the stories flow much more easily and together, provided, of course, that you also realize that the time granularity of these four accounts is different. For example, one says "go to Galilee" and the other one describes a few events that happened in between, before the actual trip to Galilee took place, and so on.

In Orthodox tradition we treat the Bible as a set of real events talked about and documented in a mixture of "real" and "symbolic" language. I remember an atheist fellow in College who challenged me with Jesus' words "I am the door" claiming that the Bible makes no sense. Well, in his tiny little world of doubt and confusion maybe it doesn't, but I understand fully well what Jesus meant.

So, friend, open your mind and your heart and reread the segments you listed in your post above. See if you can see them as real, human attempts to describe the same series of events as well as those writers could.

 

[TraderZones]

Quote from DerekD:



That's exactly what an atheist asks for - evidence of the existence of any asserted god.

Because he is too lazy to do his own research.

Without it, they conclude that each of the asserted gods do not exist.

NO. (for about the 4th or 5th time) They conclude that there is no god, usually because they think that a god must perform to their mortal, simplistic, blind, misguided set of rules, as if they are some kind of umpire. They have no evidence that God does not exist and cannot find any, so they demand it of theists. But most of them are superior to you.

Find me one atheist who has individually concluded that each God does not exist, of the thousands and thousands of existing and historical deities.

You concluded in the same manner as an atheist that the other gods do not exist but somehow conclude that the god you believe in does? How? Apparently it's not something you can share or submit to peer review.

I gave you my condition. You demand explanation from me, then I demanded an explanation from you. My request target was much lower than yours.

I rest my case. You're a convoluted ass.

You confuse continuously expounding your own definition, quite incorrectly, with intelligence.

I rest my case. You are feckless. And now on ignore. It is like talking to a pat of butter.

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from TraderZones:

...It is like talking to a pat of butter.

Says the ever slippery Mr. Margarine.

 

[Turok]

Rcan/TZ:
>I rest my case. You are feckless. And now on
>ignore. It is like talking to a pat of butter.

Of course ... until you come back with yet another screen name and start all over putting people on ignore. LOL

JB

PS: TZs earlier incarnation gradually put everyone on ignore till he had no one to argue with -- had to come back as TZ to save face.

 

[Yannis]

One way to see this endless discussion, religion vs science, is to think of it as the imaginary debate between a cat and a piranha. The cat says, I'm the strongest one; the piranha, from his water bowl, responds that he is the strongest of the two, and if the cat wants to find out why doesn't she jump in the water for a miniute or two? Of course the cat answers, "no, You come up here and I'll show you, you can't even breathe, stupid!"

The theologian and the scientist have different "religious" beliefs: one trusts faith, intuition, scripture, spiritual understanding and feeling; the other one touts logic, objective evidence and the like. They are both "religious" in that they trust their point of view, but they also know that they cannot prove, or convince someone else of, their validity outside their own declaration of what is right and wrong. In their narrow definition, theology and science do not occupy the same space and they are both right or valid - or wrong and invalid. True theologians and true scientists don't disagree - one field governs how to make things that are practical and the other how we should believe and act in this world and beyond. A real scientist is very religious and a real theologian very logical too.

Of course, to go back to the little scenario above, the human owner knows that these two don't have to fight, only to learn how to get along. A smart cat wouldn't pick a fight with a smart piranha, and vice versa; what sense does that make? There's a clear framework that reconciles their limited perspectives - if they only had his vantage point and knowledge. So, he looks at them both with compassionate understanding.

 

[smilingsynic]

Quote from Yannis:

I had never heard of this Barker character, but I understand the question and am perfectly certain that there's nothing there. In your previous post you had mentioned the days up the Resurrection, but now I see that you are talking about the period between the Resurrection and the Ascension.

No problem, I reread the passages once again and the combined story makes perfect sense to me and to most other students of the Gospels.

Don't forget that these are four individual accounts of very complex events, as four different people recorded them - and only two of those four evangelists were present. The other two accounts you mentioned depend on those four. Also, this period of time was very scary and confusing for the participants, as they witnessed tremendous shifts of their human consciousness while repeated miracles and extraordinary visits and conversations were taking place left and right.

He (Barker) is talking like a typical atheist who is trying to discredit one type of account (experiential within a supernatural milieu) with the help of a concept that was unknown to those writers (exact numbering and chronological listing.) As I mentioned before, the Hebrew/Aramaic languages differed a lot from the Greek language of the time that the Gospels were written in in their treatment of time. When a writer says something like "after that" they most often mean "also." If you take that under consideration, then the stories flow much more easily and together, provided, of course, that you also realize that the time granularity of these four accounts is different. For example, one says "go to Galilee" and the other one describes a few events that happened in between, before the actual trip to Galilee took place, and so on.

In Orthodox tradition we treat the Bible as a set of real events talked about and documented in a mixture of "real" and "symbolic" language. I remember an atheist fellow in College who challenged me with Jesus' words "I am the door" claiming that the Bible makes no sense. Well, in his tiny little world of doubt and confusion maybe it doesn't, but I understand fully well what Jesus meant.

So, friend, open your mind and your heart and reread the segments you listed in your post above. See if you can see them as real, human attempts to describe the same series of events as well as those writers could.

If there is "nothing" there, then take up the challenge. You cannot be "perfectly certain" unless you do. Anyone can just talk about it--go ahead and do it.

 

[Yannis]

Quote from smilingsynic:

If there is "nothing" there, then take up the challenge. You cannot be "perfectly certain" unless you do. Anyone can just talk about it--go ahead and do it.

I said I did it, the accounts are perfectly fine and in agreement with each other. Stop scratching at the Himalayas, stop taking spoonfuls of water out of the ocean, you are wasting your time.