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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 02/15/2005 : 17:14:30 [Permalink]
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The Christian version? Sure, I'll go along with that.
But what if the Christian version is merely incorrect, and 'God' is something that flits mindlessly about the universe creating planets and life on whimsy, never to return except in legend? Or never bothered to creat anything, just sits around watching evolution cobble together stuff.
Paint it with a broad enouth brush and the possibility, again, however faint, arrives. After all, the universe is vast and more than passing strange.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 20:24:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
But what if the Christian version is merely incorrect, and 'God' is something that flits mindlessly about the universe creating planets and life on whimsy, never to return except in legend? Or never bothered to creat anything, just sits around watching evolution cobble together stuff.
By this thinking, then any possible speculation of universal origins, especially those unsupported by evidence, could be true.
I don't buy it.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2005 : 03:03:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
Starman, you just about wore me ought with that one! I had just slogged through much of F.J. a few months ago, and you make me review the literature again! (Just kidding, research is good,, ignorance bad.
After review, it seems to me that there is no compelling evidence disallowing either of the passages in question. Put that together with Josephus' long passage on John the Baptist, his minute discussions of Pilate, and the often overlooked point that absolutely nothing in any of his books refutes anything in the New Testament, and I still hold Flavius Josephus to be a good-to-excellent backup of the New Testament accounts.
Hi jimrobb!
That is a long passage on John the Baptist and two small references to a guy who was busy curing lepers, raising the dead, performing other miracles and finally returning from his death.
The rather interesting events during his execution (3 hour darkness, the dead walking around) is not mentioned either.
The gospels were probably written 40-150 years after the events they describe, so of course they get many details right. The problem is, so does many fictive books as well.
If the story of Jesus on earth is fictive or exaggerated much of the fictive parts will be set in reality.
I hope you don't mean that you find no compelling evidence that any of the passages have been tampered with. Kirby (The link does not work now, but is cached by google.) lists 12 arguments that the testimonium is spurious and 5 arguments that the later passage is the same, together with counter arguments.
He accept the second passage as authentic though, and that Josephus believed in Jesus as an historic figure
I find the Antiquities 18.3.3. reference as it stands downright silly. Believing that a man of the jewish faith suddenly would praise an executed heretic is naive at best. (Origen claims that F.J was not a christian.)
What you are at most left with is one tarnished passage that might have contained a reference to a historical Jesus and one passage that mentions a man claimed to be a "brother" of a Jesus called Christ. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2005 : 03:39:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
But what if the Christian version is merely incorrect, and 'God' is something that flits mindlessly about the universe creating planets and life on whimsy, never to return except in legend? Or never bothered to creat anything, just sits around watching evolution cobble together stuff.
By this thinking, then any possible speculation of universal origins, especially those unsupported by evidence, could be true.
I don't buy it.
Who said anything about universal orgines other than the big Bang?
All I'm doing is admitting the minute possibility of Something.
And I don't give a rat's ass if you buy it or not -- I ain't the preacher.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2005 : 10:50:09 [Permalink]
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quote:
Who said anything about universal orgines other than the big Bang?
All I'm doing is admitting the minute possibility of Something.
And I don't give a rat's ass if you buy it or not -- I ain't the preacher.
1. God would be a universal origin other than the big bang.
2. If you admit the possibility of god, and other unfalsifiable claims, then you must admit the possibility of the invisible and intangible pink unicorn in my garage.
3. I'm not tryin to start an argument. I'm just trying to see if there is really a compelling reason and a sound argument that would lead to the conclusion that an unfalsifaible claim must have some possibility of being true!
Honestly, the idea that somehow an unfalsifiable claim must have some possibility of being true is new to me. And I have to disagree with the idea.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2005 : 13:36:41 [Permalink]
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It's silly, but why not?
Of course the odds against it are vastly greater than those of some form of, for lack of better word, power, as yet unknown, existing in the universe. I think that the odds against that are are impossibly stiff too, but without evidence one way or another, I'll not entirely dismiss it out of hand.
Now, if I find you out in your garage working up a sweat with an invisable shovel.....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2005 : 20:23:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Starman
Believing that a man of the jewish faith suddenly would praise an executed heretic is naive at best. (Origen claims that F.J was not a christian.)
Josephus makes many surprising statements. He seems to like John the Baptist too. And as a non-Christian, the accounts of Jesus' miracles would probably not have impressed him overmuch (otherwise he would have converted). Anyway, hard to know what a nonbeliever does believe from this point in time.
But you've inspired me again, my friend, to think deeply. I have gone back to the texts and come up with something new and original for you. Please check out my blog, Skeptics Club, to read my nifty new post on Paul's letter to the Galatians being the first and most authenticated gospel account. Really. |
Jim Robb  |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2005 : 21:06:41 [Permalink]
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Paul did not think of Jesus' resurrection in physical terms. Paul described a "vision" of Christ which was strictly spiritual in nature.quote:
Nowhere in the accounts given in Acts are we actually told that Paul saw the risen Jesus. All he saw was a blinding light and a voice which his companions either did not hear or understand. The experience of Paul was nowhere near the tangible Jesus of the resurrected Jesus in the gospels.
But...quote:
The precedent of the Pauline epistle strongly suggests that the appearances witnessed original followers of Jesus amount to nothing more than the type described by Paul, i.e. visions. We have absolutely no reason to believe that Paul understood Jesus' appearances to the apostles as anything different from his own experience. [2] This view finds another adherent in the ex-nun turned author, Karen Armstrong:
"It is interesting to note that Paul makes no distinction between his own vision of Jesus and those apparitions to Peter and the others. Where the gospels show Jesus as physically and inconvertibly present to the apostles, able to eat drink and be touched, Paul, who was writing much earlier, shows the events as entirely similar to his own violent vision, which he compares to an abnormal childbirth. The apparitions to Peter and James and the rest were probably visions like Paul's on the road to Damascus, rather than physical manifestations of the risen Lord. Paul does not suggest that they were any different." [3]
If, as we have seen is very likely, the actual resurrection appearances of Jesus were nothing more than hallucinatory visions brought on by psychological factors, it becomes clear why there were skeptics among the original followers of Jesus as to stories and claims of seeing the risen Christ.
So, either "Paul is revealing that Peter, James, and all of Jesus' close followers are pathological liars," or maybe he isn't speaking in literal, physical terms about the risen christ and neither were they. Be mindful of constructing false dilemmas.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/16/2005 23:18:33 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2005 : 21:41:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
It's silly, but why not? Of course the odds against it are vastly greater than those of some form of, for lack of better word, power, as yet unknown, existing in the universe.
Really? I think the odds are dead even, which is why IPUs make such an apt analogy for god. I mean, isn't that sort of the point?
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/16/2005 22:00:58 |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 01:01:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
But you've inspired me again, my friend, to think deeply. I have gone back to the texts and come up with something new and original for you. Please check out my blog, Skeptics Club, to read my nifty new post on Paul's letter to the Galatians being the first and most authenticated gospel account. Really.
Thank you!
I will do that!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 02:27:36 [Permalink]
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Ok. I read your blog. Aren't blogs great? They allow anyone to post whatever garbage they want for the world to see!
This sentence, from your blog, pretty much says it all.
quote:
Evidence for human evolution is still spotty
Do you really believe that? Or do you just say it to bolster your own nonsensical version of christian apologetics?
The rest of the post this was taken from is also so riddled with factually wrong statements that it was painfull to read.
The bible "seems" to say that the earth was created in 6 days? There is no "seems" about it man. That's exactly what it says.
Time doesn't operate for a divine being? Wow. Pulled THAT one right out of your ass, didn't you? You make the leap that some "divine being" actually exixts, then you just plunge on down into making up rules for it to follow. Sweeet! You know, you could make up just about anything you wanted to and blame/credit it to your "divine being". How cool is that? You'd never have to take responsibility for thinking for yourself ever again!
Here's some advice. Take the word "skeptic" off your site. Rename it what it really should be, "Apologetics Club".
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 05:45:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by H. Humbert
quote:
Originally posted by filthy
It's silly, but why not? Of course the odds against it are vastly greater than those of some form of, for lack of better word, power, as yet unknown, existing in the universe.
Really? I think the odds are dead even, which is why IPUs make such an apt analogy for god. I mean, isn't that sort of the point?
I'd think not because we know that the IPU in question is a fabrication, unless of course we find Dude in his garage mucking out with the afore-mentioned, invisible shovel. On the other hand, we don't know what's out there in the cosmos.
At the same time, the anology is quite good because the various gods & all are fabrications of their worshipers, past and present.
Make sense?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 05:50:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dudequote:
Evidence for human evolution is still spotty
Do you really believe that?
I would say that this depend on what you want to evidence of.
If you want evidence that man evolved from a common man-chimp ancestor, there is enough evidence to show this within any reasonable doubt.
If you want to know how, were, when and from what ancestors we evolved from, we could use more evidence. |
"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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jimrobb
New Member
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 08:03:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by the ever-cheerful Dude
Time doesn't operate for a divine being? Wow. Pulled THAT one right out of your ass, didn't you?
Dude, please relax, you'll live longer. If I'm wrong the foundations of time won't crumble. Speaking of time, I have to stand by my statement. If a divine being is capable of creating a cosmos and starting up the space-time continuum, I gotta figure he's above and apart from that continuum. Anything less and he's a demi-god, not worthy of much consideration by busy people.
And Dude, one thing. No, I may not be a skeptic in the sense that you're a skeptic. But there is more than one kind of skeptic, just as there is more than one kind of Christian.
quote:
Originally posted by Starman
I would say that this depend on what you want to evidence of.
Exactly. I'm not a fundamentalist, and I carry no brief for six-day creation, as my blog makes plain. But neither am I certain of how life on earth happened to evolve. The picture continues to move, as we discover more all the time.
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Jim Robb |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9696 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 09:13:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by jimrobb
Exactly. I'm not a fundamentalist, and I carry no brief for six-day creation, as my blog makes plain. But neither am I certain of how life on earth happened to evolve. The picture continues to move, as we discover more all the time.
I think you forgot something. It should read:
"the picture continously moves away from the Genesis account, as we discover more all the time." |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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