Dear Theists, Your Real Problem is You Own Lack of Faith.

Maragon
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Dear Theists, Your Real Problem is You Own Lack of Faith.

Creationists(IDers) have no faith in their god.

Your religion teaches you that faith is a virtue, and we should not question, nor ask for proof from the almighty because we should just believe what the bible tells us on faith alone. If this principle is true, then it doesn't matter what any kind of scientists, textbook, television documentary, atheist tells you; you have FAITH in your god.

The definition of faith is a 'belief that is not based on proof'. This very definition asserts that you shouldn't need to go looking anywhere beyond the bible for your god. You should be CONFIDENT in your lord, you should feel CONFIDENT in your faith.

Creationists HATE faith. You have no faith in your god; you count on numbers, facts, figures, arguments to bolster your views. Of course it's mostly selective evidence, fudged figures, mined quotes, misleading or outdated numbers, because the TRUTH of evolution is so plain to anyone with a little education; it takes alot to even make it look kind of erroneous. This all reflects upon how weak or non-existent your faith is. If you TRULY had faith(it's a virtue), you wouldn't need any of these things.

You hope and wait in vain for the theory of evolution to be 'disproved'. You believe that if this happens, it automatically proves that the bible is true; which is a logically fallacy in and of itself(If not 'a' then automatically 'b&#39Eye-wink. EVEN if the theory of evolution COULD be proved to be false, this STILL does not mean that your genesis account is the correct one, there is STILL no evidence for that. But that's OKAY. Because if you have faith in your god, you don't care about the theory of evolution. You don't need to debate it, to attempt to disprove science, to argue about it.

When you start asserting the idea that 'if evolution is wrong then the bible is correct', you have truly lost your faith in your holy book. This implies the notion that Genesis is correct ONLY because evolution is wrong. And it follows still that technically, the bible could be wrong. If something can be proven RIGHT, then it can also be proven WRONG.

If you truly had faith in your god, and believe that the bible is right regardless of evolution, then what are you doing here?
You're here to grasp at straws, to attempt to find arguments that can bolster your wavering faith. You perceive evolution as a threat to your religion(and rightly so), but this is only because you cannot force an otherwise rational mind to simply believe something because some book told you. YOU WANT PROOF. And that's okay, that's good, that's analytical thinking, that's skepticism, and that's the first step down the road to atheism.


sugarfree
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LOL. I sense you are trying

LOL. I sense you are trying to get a rise out of us theists.

Maragon wrote:
Your religion teaches you that faith is a virtue, and we should not question, nor ask for proof from the almighty because we should just believe what the bible tells us on faith alone.
I disagree with your interpretation of faith. Here is a quote I have taped on my computer. It is worth contemplating. "Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation" D. Elton Trueblood.
Maragon wrote:
If this principle is true, then it doesn't matter what any kind of scientists, textbook, television documentary, atheist tells you; you have FAITH in your god.
No, we trust our God "without reservation". I trust my God more than any human on this earth and often take what people say with a grain of salt, for no human can see the whole picture. Only God can.
Maragon wrote:
Creationists HATE faith. You have no faith in your god; you count on numbers, facts, figures, arguments to bolster your views. Of course it's mostly selective evidence, fudged figures, mined quotes, misleading or outdated numbers, because the TRUTH of evolution is so plain to anyone with a little education; it takes alot to even make it look kind of erroneous.
So, how did DNA evolve from random chemicals? Is any current scientist able to explain this and recreate it in a lab? So, shall I place my faith in your words, or shall I place it in my God?
Maragon wrote:
This all reflects upon how weak or non-existent your faith is. If you TRULY had faith(it's a virtue), you wouldn't need any of these things.

You hope and wait in vain for the theory of evolution to be 'disproved'.
Well, no, not really. I happen to believe that God's creation has the capability to evolve. Now, at what point his creation began, I cannot say. I do not need this proof to trust my God. He will provide the answers in due time.
Maragon wrote:
Because if you have faith in your god, you don't care about the theory of evolution. You don't need to debate it, to attempt to disprove science, to argue about it.
Well actually, there is evidence of evolution every flu season. I am a Christian, but I do not discount evolution. I know that God knows how this world came about, and that our understanding of it is limited.
Maragon wrote:
You're here to grasp at straws, to attempt to find arguments that can bolster your wavering faith.
I think I am here for the same reason you are. I believe you are blinded by lies and I would like, maybe, to reveal a little truth to you.
Maragon wrote:
You perceive evolution as a threat to your religion(and rightly so), but this is only because you cannot force an otherwise rational mind to simply believe something because some book told you.
I do not, personally. Why do you automatically assume that we are all scared? When you know and have a relationship with God, life does not cease to become fascinating, it does not make you desire to stop all studies of this world and bury your head in the Bible and the Bible only. The fact that you would even think this seems silly to me. It's just that, now, when I don't have all the answers, I don't freak out about it because I know that life is a process and everything will be revealed when the time is right...


zarathustra
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sugarfree wrote:

sugarfree wrote:
No, we trust our God "without reservation". I trust my God more than any human on this earth...

And yet any human on this earth demonstrates more evidence for his or her existence than god.

sugarfree wrote:
... and often take what people say with a grain of salt, for no human can see the whole picture. Only God can.

The god you currently worship was introduced to you by a human or humans. Should you not take with a grain of salt what they told you, and what the preacher tells you every sunday?

sugarfree wrote:
So, how did DNA evolve from random chemicals? Is any current scientist able to explain this and recreate it in a lab? So, shall I place my faith in your words, or shall I place it in my God?

We don't yet fully know how DNA developed, although your mention of "random chemicals" is innaccurate. That is not to say we will never know. Things which were previously attributed to god for lack of explanation, have now been found to have completely natural explanations (lightning, plague, epilepsy etc.).

sugarfree wrote:
Well, no, not really. I happen to believe that God's creation has the capability to evolve. Now, at what point his creation began, I cannot say. I do not need this proof to trust my God. He will provide the answers in due time.

You accept the evidence that the influenza virus evolves. Do you likewise accept the evidence that humans evolved with chimpanzees from a common primate ancestor?

sugarfree wrote:
I think I am here for the same reason you are. I believe you are blinded by lies and I would like, maybe, to reveal a little truth to you.

In the first thread you started, I challenged you on the historical evidence for jesus. After one response, you dodged the question, never to return to it, impugning my character in the process.  You subsequently resorted to a series of fallacious arguments based on emotion or selective reasoning.  If you were at all concerned about "the truth", you would not have retreated from that discussion. Feel free to do so now.

 

There are no theists on operating tables.

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Maragon
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zarathustra, thanks for

zarathustra, thanks for replying to her.

I've seen my fellow atheists get into lengthy, illogical, circular discussions with Sugar, and I'm loathe to do it myself. Smiling 


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sugarfree wrote: LOL. I

sugarfree wrote:
LOL. I sense you are trying to get a rise out of us theists.

You do this with almost every post.

sugarfree wrote:
I disagree with your interpretation of faith. Here is a quote I have taped on my computer. It is worth contemplating. "Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation" D. Elton Trueblood.

....and among other irrational leaps.

sugarfree wrote:
So, how did DNA evolve from random chemicals? Is any current scientist able to explain this and recreate it in a lab? So, shall I place my faith in your words, or shall I place it in my God?

How about only in evidence. Instead of making the leap to "god", how about holding judgement until we know exactly?

sugarfree wrote:
Well, no, not really. I happen to believe that God's creation has the capability to evolve. Now, at what point his creation began, I cannot say. I do not need this proof to trust my God. He will provide the answers in due time.

14.5 billion years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes, 17 seconds.... tick, tock, tick, tock. The clock has been ticking for an awfully long time, he is woefully procrastinating.

sugarfree wrote:
Well actually, there is evidence of evolution every flu season.

Glad you accept what is irrefutable.

sugarfree wrote:
I think I am here for the same reason you are. I believe you are blinded by lies and I would like, maybe, to reveal a little truth to you.

See Zarathrusta's reponse to this.

sugarfree wrote:
It's just that, now, when I don't have all the answers, I don't freak out about it because I know that life is a process and everything will be revealed when the time is right...

14.5 billion years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes, 17 seconds.... tick, tock, tick, tock. The clock has been ticking for an awfully long time, he is woefully procrastinating.


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sugarfree wrote: Maragon

sugarfree wrote:
Maragon wrote:
Creationists HATE faith. You have no faith in your god; you count on numbers, facts, figures, arguments to bolster your views. Of course it's mostly selective evidence, fudged figures, mined quotes, misleading or outdated numbers, because the TRUTH of evolution is so plain to anyone with a little education; it takes alot to even make it look kind of erroneous.
So, how did DNA evolve from random chemicals? Is any current scientist able to explain this and recreate it in a lab? So, shall I place my faith in your words, or shall I place it in my God?

The fact that science isn't complete doesn't make it less close the truth than your cover-all theory, God. In fact it makes it stronger, science actually looks for answers, religion claims to answer them but does not look for them first. First of all, the universe is massive, made up mostly of empty space, secondly most of the bodies within space are not capable of producing life. It is an extremely rare occurence for there to be life at all. But in all corners of the universe there are extremely complicated chemical processes going on, life is just one such chemical reaction. Now, understandably very little is known about how life began but we can make an educated guess, just like evolution which takes place in small stages over a long period of time, the chemical reactions leading to DNA and life etc took place over a long period of time in this small dot in the galaxy that just happened to provide the correct conditions for such a chemical reaction to take place. If the right conditions was numbered scenario 22,385,621 (random number), and the total number of scenarios possible was 100,000,000 and there were 400,000,000 possible places that any of them could happen chances are there would probably be four places where scenario 22,385,621 happens. Now of course these numbers are totally made up but it demonstrates that pretty much anything within the laws of physics can happen. There is a slim probability of the scenario happening but in a universe so big and expansive it could happen - and it so happened that it happened on our amazing little rock, and it would have to have happened here for us to be having this conversation.


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[ zarathustra wrote: The god

[

zarathustra wrote:
The god you currently worship was introduced to you by a human or humans. Should you not take with a grain of salt what they told you, and what the preacher tells you every sunday?
It’s an internal sense of knowing. Yes, I know that is hogwash to you. But, person after person can tell you about God, but until there is an internal transformation/acknowledgement of him, He will remain a mystery.
zarathustra wrote:
We don't yet fully know how DNA developed, although your mention of "random chemicals" is innaccurate. That is not to say we will never know. Things which were previously attributed to god for lack of explanation, have now been found to have completely natural explanations (lightning, plague, epilepsy etc.).
You said it yourself, we do not know how DNA, which is extremely ordered, was created out of chaos. I’m not going to lie to you and say I have this same sense of knowing that DNA was created in such and such a way. I simply do not know, nor am I going to claim to. But I do know God, and tho I know that does not make sense to you and defies your reason, I can not (and will not) deny this truth which is branded in me.
zarathustra wrote:
Do you likewise accept the evidence that humans evolved with chimpanzees from a common primate ancestor?
I think it is possible but not proven in the way the flu virus is.
zarathustra wrote:
In the first thread you started, I challenged you on the historical evidence for jesus
I am educated. I know that history, statistics, facts can all be skewed according to one’s bias. I am confident in the historical Jesus, based on what I have read or studied. You and I have simply drawn different conclusions based on the presented facts. I, however, am not one to remember data, dates, and such so I can't sit here and reiterate everything I learned to lead me to that conclusion. I simply do not have that type of memory, which some others here are blessed with.
zarathustra wrote:
After one response, you dodged the question, never to return to it, impugning my character in the process. You subsequently resorted to a series of fallacious arguments based on emotion or selective reasoning.
This again?
zarathustra wrote:
If you were at all concerned about "the truth", you would not have retreated from that discussion. Feel free to do so now.

 

Zarathustra, you are not my keeper. I will conduct myself in these forums as I see fit.


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Jacob Cordingley

Jacob Cordingley wrote:

The fact that science isn't complete doesn't make it less close the truth than your cover-all theory, God. In fact it makes it stronger, science actually looks for answers, religion claims to answer them but does not look for them first. First of all, the universe is massive, made up mostly of empty space, secondly most of the bodies within space are not capable of producing life. It is an extremely rare occurence for there to be life at all. But in all corners of the universe there are extremely complicated chemical processes going on, life is just one such chemical reaction. Now, understandably very little is known about how life began but we can make an educated guess, just like evolution which takes place in small stages over a long period of time, the chemical reactions leading to DNA and life etc took place over a long period of time in this small dot in the galaxy that just happened to provide the correct conditions for such a chemical reaction to take place. If the right conditions was numbered scenario 22,385,621 (random number), and the total number of scenarios possible was 100,000,000 and there were 400,000,000 possible places that any of them could happen chances are there would probably be four places where scenario 22,385,621 happens. Now of course these numbers are totally made up but it demonstrates that pretty much anything within the laws of physics can happen. There is a slim probability of the scenario happening but in a universe so big and expansive it could happen - and it so happened that it happened on our amazing little rock, and it would have to have happened here for us to be having this conversation.

 

Nothing you say here discounts or disproves the existance of God. There is room in this universe for God and science. God is the author of science. So, I can study it just like you and come up with the same answers. The difference is, what you call random, I call intentional.

[MOD EDIT - fixed quotes] 


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sugarfree wrote: I disagree

sugarfree wrote:
I disagree with your interpretation of faith. Here is a quote I have taped on my computer. It is worth contemplating. "Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation" D. Elton Trueblood.

Hi. That's a fair interpretation of what faith is but there must be more to it than that. You say that faith is trusting in God, but before you can trust in God you need to believe that God exists. So if faith is as your quote says then faith is for when you already know that God exists.

Does this mean that your belief in God doesn't rely on faith and relies purely on reason and evidence?


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Quote: I disagree with your

Quote:
I disagree with your interpretation of faith. Here is a quote I have taped on my computer. It is worth contemplating. "Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation" D. Elton Trueblood.
It is precisely this that I find disturbing. "Trust without reservation" is simply a different way of saying "certainty." Given what god is supposd to be, it has to be one of those things one should NOT be certain about.


zarathustra
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sugarfree

sugarfree wrote:
[
zarathustra wrote:
The god you currently worship was introduced to you by a human or humans. Should you not take with a grain of salt what they told you, and what the preacher tells you every sunday?
It’s an internal sense of knowing. Yes, I know that is hogwash to you.

And yet you keep blurting it, presumably because you have nothing else to go on. I could just as easily say that the nonexistence of god comes from "an internal sense of knowing". But since I know that is "hogwash" to anyone with a functioning intellect, I refrain from doing so.

sugarfree wrote:
zarathustra wrote:
We don't yet fully know how DNA developed, although your mention of "random chemicals" is innaccurate. That is not to say we will never know.
You said it yourself, we do not know how DNA, which is extremely ordered, was created out of chaos.

I said we don't know "yet". I also said there are things which once we didn't know, which now we do.

sugarfree wrote:
I’m not going to lie to you and say I have this same sense of knowing that DNA was created in such and such a way. I simply do not know, nor am I going to claim to.

Good for you. But you are implying that since we don't currently know, therefore god must exist. Bad for you.

sugarfree wrote:

But I do know God, and tho I know that does not make sense to you and defies your reason, ...

You're going to waste time and say it anyway.

sugarfree wrote:

... I can not (and will not) deny this truth ...

You can and you will. Because it's not the truth.

sugarfree wrote:

... which is branded in me.

"Branded"? Are we on the jesus Ranch?

sugarfree wrote:
I am educated.

I have never implied that you weren't.

sugarfree wrote:

I know that history, statistics, facts can all be skewed according to one’s bias.

Indeed they can. Which explains why so many people still believe in jesus, when history, statistics and facts show no evidence for such.

sugarfree wrote:
I am confident in the historical Jesus, based on what I have read or studied. You and I have simply drawn different conclusions based on the presented facts.

I'd be very interested to know what you have "read or studied". Recall that your initial provision of data for the historical jesus was based on a "quick google search" -- and shown to be insufficient.

sugarfree wrote:
I, however, am not one to remember data, dates, and such so I can't sit here and reiterate everything I learned to lead me to that conclusion. I simply do not have that type of memory, which some others here are blessed with.

It's okay to consult your notes when making a post. I for one won't mind. Data and dates are far more convincing than emotional appeals.

sugarfree wrote:
zarathustra wrote:
If you were at all concerned about "the truth", you would not have retreated from that discussion. Feel free to do so now.
Zarathustra, you are not my keeper. I will conduct myself in these forums as I see fit.

Snap, snap, snap!

Well go ahead and conduct yourself, grrl. Just realize - whenever you use jesus in your arguments without having addressed something as basic as the lack of historical evidence for jesus, you are essentially, how should I say, building your house on sand.

There are no theists on operating tables.

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sugarfree
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Strafio wrote: sugarfree

Strafio wrote:
sugarfree wrote:
I disagree with your interpretation of faith. Here is a quote I have taped on my computer. It is worth contemplating. "Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation" D. Elton Trueblood.

Hi. That's a fair interpretation of what faith is but there must be more to it than that. You say that faith is trusting in God, but before you can trust in God you need to believe that God exists. So if faith is as your quote says then faith is for when you already know that God exists.

Does this mean that your belief in God doesn't rely on faith and relies purely on reason and evidence?
Yes, I understand, you have a term for this, logically fallacy or something... But, you must first choose to believe in Him, after which, God makes it known to you that you made the right choice. And the more you get to know him, the more you come to realize that you can indeed trust him without reservation. If you choose not to believe in him, then nothing about him (or about the people who believe in him) will make sense to you. Sorry. I know you all find this an unacceptable answer, but I did not make up the rules. I am just telling you what I have experienced to be true in my own life, and what other believers have experienced as well.


sugarfree
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zarathustra wrote: Yes, I

zarathustra wrote:
Yes, I know that is hogwash to you. And yet you keep blurting it, presumably because you have nothing else to go on. I could just as easily say that the nonexistence of god comes from "an internal sense of knowing". But since I know that is "hogwash" to anyone with a functioning intellect, I refrain from doing so.
Yes, I have only my own experience to go on.
zarathustra wrote:
Good for you. But you are implying that since we don't currently know, therefore god must exist. Bad for you.
Not really. God exists regardless of what I know or do not know.
zarathustra wrote:
I'd be very interested to know what you have "read or studied". Recall that your initial provision of data for the historical jesus was based on a "quick google search" -- and shown to be insufficient.
I have nothing to prove to you. I recognize you all hate preaching so I am being careful not to say things which you would determine as such. So, if you would do me the same honor and stop trying to push your atheism to me, I would appreciate it. I am simply not convinced by your arguments regarding Jesus’s supposed non-existance, particularly as I know your bias. You can keep bringing it up, but I’m still not going to trust your interpretation of history, given your bias.
zarathustra wrote:
If you were at all concerned about "the truth", you would not have retreated from that discussion. Feel free to do so now.
I retreat at times simply because it is not worth it to me to keep arguing. I can accept when you are not going to accept my arguments. Why beat a dead horse.
zarathustra wrote:
Well go ahead and conduct yourself, grrl. Just realize - whenever you use jesus in your arguments without having addressed something as basic as the lack of historical evidence for jesus, you are essentially, how should I say, building your house on sand.

I’m fine with that. I recognize that you don’t agree with 99% of what I say and that’s okay with me. I've given up thinking you will ever agree.


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sugarfree wrote: Yes, I

sugarfree wrote:
Yes, I understand, you have a term for this, logically fallacy or something...

It's ok. I wasn't accusing you of a logical fallacy because you weren't trying to make a 'logical' argument. I'm just probing into what you believe and why you believe it.

Quote:
But, you must first choose to believe in Him, after which, God makes it known to you that you made the right choice. And the more you get to know him, the more you come to realize that you can indeed trust him without reservation.

How does he make himself known to you?
Does it just feel 'right'?
Perhaps it would be accurate to say that your belief in God is a combination of faith (trust) in your pastor and in your own intuition?
(This isn't a criticism yet, just probing still. Smile)


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By that logic you have to

By that logic you have to believe in Zeus before he makes himself known to you. Or believe that Elvis really is still alive. Or that there really are aliens abducting people.

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sugarfree wrote: Yes, I

sugarfree wrote:
Yes, I understand, you have a term for this, logically fallacy or something... But, you must first choose to believe in Him, after which, God makes it known to you that you made the right choice. And the more you get to know him, the more you come to realize that you can indeed trust him without reservation. If you choose not to believe in him, then nothing about him (or about the people who believe in him) will make sense to you. Sorry. I know you all find this an unacceptable answer, but I did not make up the rules. I am just telling you what I have experienced to be true in my own life, and what other believers have experienced as well.

Are you aware that people can delude themselves into believing almost anything if they want to bad enough? Doesn't it strike you as a dangerous practice to decide in advance what you want to believe, then discover your belief in it after the fact? Do you decide, ahead of time, that the car you are going to see is perfect for you and reasonably priced, and then ignore all evidence to the contrary when you actually get to the lot? Why have you applied this method to the question of God, but do not apply it when you are forming beliefs about other things? 

Also, you claim that God has somehow verified your choice to believe in him. If so, this would count as evidence and a rational basis for belief. What have you felt/seen/heard that has convinced you that God is real? 

Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
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zarathustra
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sugarfree wrote: Yes, I

sugarfree wrote:
Yes, I have only my own experience to go on.

Since noone else can go on your experience, it is useless to argue from your experience.

sugarfree wrote:

zarathustra wrote:
Good for you. But you are implying that since we don't currently know, therefore god must exist. Bad for you.
Not really. God exists regardless of what I know or do not know.

Then it is uselss to argue for god's existence based on what we (currently) do not know, as you were just doing.

sugarfree wrote:
I have nothing to prove to you. I recognize you all hate preaching so I am being careful not to say things which you would determine as such. So, if you would do me the same honor and stop trying to push your atheism to me, I would appreciate it. I am simply not convinced by your arguments regarding Jesus’s supposed non-existance, particularly as I know your bias. You can keep bringing it up, but I’m still not going to trust your interpretation of history, given your bias.

Sugar, read this next sentence very slowly: There is no historical evidence for the person of jesus. The only thing that anyone can cite is the bible, which has been shown not to be credible. Not a single document or artifact from the first 3 decades of the 1st century corroborates the story of jesus. You cannot accuse me of misinterpretation, because there is no data to misinterpret. If there is data, please provide it (and do me the "honor" of using something more substantive than google).

sugarfree wrote:
I retreat at times simply because it is not worth it to me to keep arguing. I can accept when you are not going to accept my arguments. Why beat a dead horse.

Why worship a dead god.

Here's where you're wrong: If you have something credible to present, I will accept your arguments. If I'm wrong, educate me. But when your arguments consist of google searches and calling me angry, how am I to accept that?

sugarfree wrote:
... you must first choose to believe in Him, after which, God makes it known to you that you made the right choice. And the more you get to know him, the more you come to realize that you can indeed trust him without reservation.

The same argument can be made for any other god out there. You must first choose to believe in Allah/Buddha/blah, and then Allah/Buddha/blah makes it known to you that you made the right choice.

sugarfree wrote:

If you choose not to believe in him, then nothing about him (or about the people who believe in him) will make sense to you. Sorry. I know you all find this an unacceptable answer, but I did not make up the rules.

You did. You made the rule that this only applies to jesus, and not any other god.

sugarfree wrote:
I am just telling you what I have experienced to be true in my own life, and what other believers have experienced as well.

Yet the majority of the world's population attests to an experience different from yours and "other believers". How do you demonstrate what makes your experience so special, without relying on the experience itself?

 

There are no theists on operating tables.

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Jacob Cordingley
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sugarfree wrote:

 

sugarfree wrote:

Jacob Cordingley wrote:

The fact that science isn't complete doesn't make it less close the truth than your cover-all theory, God. In fact it makes it stronger, science actually looks for answers, religion claims to answer them but does not look for them first. First of all, the universe is massive, made up mostly of empty space, secondly most of the bodies within space are not capable of producing life. It is an extremely rare occurence for there to be life at all. But in all corners of the universe there are extremely complicated chemical processes going on, life is just one such chemical reaction. Now, understandably very little is known about how life began but we can make an educated guess, just like evolution which takes place in small stages over a long period of time, the chemical reactions leading to DNA and life etc took place over a long period of time in this small dot in the galaxy that just happened to provide the correct conditions for such a chemical reaction to take place. If the right conditions was numbered scenario 22,385,621 (random number), and the total number of scenarios possible was 100,000,000 and there were 400,000,000 possible places that any of them could happen chances are there would probably be four places where scenario 22,385,621 happens. Now of course these numbers are totally made up but it demonstrates that pretty much anything within the laws of physics can happen. There is a slim probability of the scenario happening but in a universe so big and expansive it could happen - and it so happened that it happened on our amazing little rock, and it would have to have happened here for us to be having this conversation.

Nothing you say here discounts or disproves the existance of God. There is room in this universe for God and science. God is the author of science. So, I can study it just like you and come up with the same answers. The difference is, what you call random, I call intentional.

I don't absolutely have faith in that it's random, I just don't know that it is intentional. It's just not very likely that it is intentional. Plus, you're explanation here seems to me more deist than theist. How does that account for Jesus Christ and all the mythology that goes with believing in God for most people?

[MOD EDIT - hopefully fixed quotes]


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Strafio wrote: sugarfree

Strafio wrote:
sugarfree wrote:
Yes, I understand, you have a term for this, logically fallacy or something...

It's ok. I wasn't accusing you of a logical fallacy because you weren't trying to make a 'logical' argument. I'm just probing into what you believe and why you believe it.

Quote:
But, you must first choose to believe in Him, after which, God makes it known to you that you made the right choice. And the more you get to know him, the more you come to realize that you can indeed trust him without reservation.

How does he make himself known to you?
Does it just feel 'right'?
Perhaps it would be accurate to say that your belief in God is a combination of faith (trust) in your pastor and in your own intuition?
(This isn't a criticism yet, just probing still. Smile)
Well, no, not everything feels right. Some of the things Jesus said are pretty hard to swallow. Would I rather not believe in a hell? Yes. Would I rather believe that we all go to heaven and "it's all good" in the end? Certainly. But the more I have lived and experienced, the Christian viewpoint, the way Christ described it, makes more sense...the world and all that goes on within it makes more sense to me from Christs perspective than it did without. Yes, there are things that I don't like, or that I wish could be another way, but I have come to the conclusion that, like it or not, I simply do not get to decide. I did not make the rules. As far as how he makes himself known to me...when I live life according to his teaching I see the positive results that he promise would come if I followed him. These positive results are not monetary (with the exception that...since my husband and I have started to tithe...we continue to be blessed. His work situation has fallen into place as tho it were designed especially for him), they are emotional and spiritual.


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Tilberian wrote: Doesn't it

Tilberian wrote:
Doesn't it strike you as a dangerous practice to decide in advance what you want to believe, then discover your belief in it after the fact?
I would consider it dangerous if God did not provide the follow-up. However, he does.
Tilberian wrote:
Do you decide, ahead of time, that the car you are going to see is perfect for you and reasonably priced, and then ignore all evidence to the contrary when you actually get to the lot? Why have you applied this method to the question of God, but do not apply it when you are forming beliefs about other things?
I do not think you can approach God the same way you approach buying a car. God is not visible the way a car is visible.
Tilberian wrote:
Also, you claim that God has somehow verified your choice to believe in him. If so, this would count as evidence and a rational basis for belief.
God makes his proof known thru the spirit, which as we've already determined here, is difficult to measure using traditional scientific methods.
Tilberian wrote:
What have you felt/seen/heard that has convinced you that God is real? 
I touched on this a little in a post I just wrote. When I call on him, he calms my spirit. Meditating on his word helps me put my life back into perspective when it has gotten all out of whack. He answers some of my seemingly insignificant prayers. His word helps me make better sense of this world.


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You arre not very

You are not very theologically educated, aren't you, Maragon.

Christians (the only kind of theists that profess "faith" in abundance) do not have "faith in God existing." If you have faith in X's existance, that is called a belief (not superstition, a belief.)

However, saying "I have faith in X" is an entirely different proposition. As that the "existing" portion of the argument is missing makes this not a claim that X exists, but tha tX will do something.

In the case of Christianity, that act that God will do is justify His followers from their own sin.

Your entire argument relies on a confusion of terms between "faith" and "belief." Because you don't really understand either, you lump them both into the same pot and call them the same thing.

"I believe in God" =/= "I have faith in God."

Quit attacking positions you do not understand. You do not have the ability to make, much less have actually made, an attack and have only proven your own ignorance by confusing ideas.

"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron

Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.


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I understand that religion

I understand that religion can make you happy. I was religious once myself as a fair few people here were, so quite a few of us understand it. But you can be just as happy being atheist and not have to worry about falsities cloggin valuable brain space. Y'know muslims feel exactly the same way as you do about their religion as do the carge cults of the South Pacific.


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Sir Valiant for Truth

Sir Valiant for Truth wrote:

You are not very theologically educated, aren't you, Maragon.

Christians (the only kind of theists that profess "faith" in abundance) do not have "faith in God existing." If you have faith in X's existance, that is called a belief (not superstition, a belief.)

However, saying "I have faith in X" is an entirely different proposition. As that the "existing" portion of the argument is missing makes this not a claim that X exists, but tha tX will do something.

In the case of Christianity, that act that God will do is justify His followers from their own sin.

Your entire argument relies on a confusion of terms between "faith" and "belief." Because you don't really understand either, you lump them both into the same pot and call them the same thing.

"I believe in God" =/= "I have faith in God."

Quit attacking positions you do not understand. You do not have the ability to make, much less have actually made, an attack and have only proven your own ignorance by confusing ideas.

Changing the definition of words does not improve your argument nor does it make it true.  Also, as there are too many positions of faith to number, please do not assume Maragon is not well versed in  theology.  Attacking individual character is considered a logical fallacy by ad hominem. 

Faith/Belief is as individual as the person claiming it, therefore, it is just as ridiculous. 


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Sir Valiant for Truth

Sir Valiant for Truth wrote:

You are not very theologically educated, aren't you, Maragon.

Christians (the only kind of theists that profess "faith" in abundance) do not have "faith in God existing." If you have faith in X's existance, that is called a belief (not superstition, a belief.)

However, saying "I have faith in X" is an entirely different proposition. As that the "existing" portion of the argument is missing makes this not a claim that X exists, but tha tX will do something.

In the case of Christianity, that act that God will do is justify His followers from their own sin.

Your entire argument relies on a confusion of terms between "faith" and "belief." Because you don't really understand either, you lump them both into the same pot and call them the same thing.

"I believe in God" =/= "I have faith in God."

Quit attacking positions you do not understand. You do not have the ability to make, much less have actually made, an attack and have only proven your own ignorance by confusing ideas.

I do not equate faith with belief. I have empirical belief that you are a Christian. I base that on the evidence I have gathered from what I have read in your posts. Faith is a different kind of belief, a belief without evidence.

Your point: "I believe that X exists" does not stick. If X = another person living in the physical world around you then you have empirical belief, it is based on the evidence that you have gathered through your senses or by verifyable means. If X = A supernatural being living outside of the physical domain then you have faith based belief, it is based on nothing, or your upbringing or through mental illness or through bad memes. Of course, faith often is a stronger willed form of belief, I might have empirical belief that you are Christian but I'm willing to accept that if evidence arose that you were lying and were actually a Buddhist then my belief would change. However those with faith based belief very often will not accept that their beliefs are wrong because it would destroy beliefs which they want to hold on to, hence why many people in America refuse to believe in evolution.

In contrast the strongest kind of belief in terms of a viable epistemology is empirical belief. If evidence presented itself that the world was in fact flat then my view would change, and I would be one step closer to the truth. However if I had faith based belief that the world was round then I would refuse to accept that the world was flat and I would be a step back from the truth. Of course all evidence suggests that the world is in fact round and so I'm inclined to believe it isn't flat. Of course 400/500 years ago, the opposite epistemological problem came about.


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Sir Valiant for Truth

Sir Valiant for Truth wrote:

You are not very theologically educated, aren't you, Maragon.

 

Aw, an ad hominem attack to start off with? Well that makes me take your point seriously, doesn't it?

Perhaps you're only making that assumption because you don't like the ideas I've come up with.

And you sir, do you have a degree in theology? 

Quote:
Christians (the only kind of theists that profess "faith" in abundance) do not have "faith in God existing." If you have faith in X's existance, that is called a belief (not superstition, a belief.)

No, if you have faith in something existing, you have faith that it exists.  It's CALLED having faith. Get your weasel words outta here.

You cannot change the definition of 'faith' to suit your ideologies. 

Quote:
However, saying "I have faith in X" is an entirely different proposition. As that the "existing" portion of the argument is missing makes this not a claim that X exists, but tha tX will do something.

Oh, so this means that you have proof of 'X' existing? Do share it.

You'd HAVE to have empirical proof to make this kind of absolute statement. 

Quote:
In the case of Christianity, that act that God will do is justify His followers from their own sin.

 In order to believe that god will DO something, you have to have FAITH that he exists first.

Quote:
Your entire argument relies on a confusion of terms between "faith" and "belief." Because you don't really understand either, you lump them both into the same pot and call them the same thing.

 

FAIL.

Faith: 1.belief that is not based on proof

 

Belief:

1.something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
2.confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.

 

Quote:
"I believe in God" =/= "I have faith in God."

Quit attacking positions you do not understand. You do not have the ability to make, much less have actually made, an attack and have only proven your own ignorance by confusing ideas.

 

OKay, so what you're saying here is that the DICTIONARY is wrong, and you're correct?

I'm sorry, but you can't just arbitrarily re-define terms when they don't suit your purposes.

 

And apparently I understand your backwards, idiotic, egocentric posistion better than you do seeing as I actually UNDERSTAND WHAT THE DEFINITION OF THE WORDS I USE is. 

You're trying to debate semantics just because you HATE the fact that you have no proof for your invisible skygod.

I'm sorry that your FAITH IN GOD is so weak that you feel the need to re-define words. 


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zarathustra wrote: There

zarathustra wrote:

There is no historical evidence for the person of jesus.

Actually that is not true. There is evidence of His "person", just not His "Deity"...

  • Tacitus
  • Suetonius
  • Pliny
  • Lucian
  • Numenius
  • Philo
  • Josephus
  • Parchment number 321 from cave 4 in Qumrân (4 Q 321)


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Quote: Actually that is

Quote:
Actually that is not true. There is evidence of His "person", just not His "Deity"...

Someone's been trusting what they hear in church a little too much...

From Todangst's Blog (with Rook as coauthor)...

- Todangst (with Rook Hawkins)

"[T]here is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed." - Dan Barker

It may surprise Christians to learn that there are no contemporary historical documents for 'Jesus, the Christ'. (The writings of Paul are not comptemporary accounts: they do not appear until 15 years after the purported time of Jesus and they include a concession that Paul never actually met Jesus. The Gospels come much later (as evidenced by the fact that Paul never cites them) and there is good reason that all four of the surviving, accepted Gospels are based on Mark, which in turn is likely to be midrash, not historical documentation: (See: http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_gospels_are_midrash)).

While some apologists attempt to wave this problem away by claiming that "Jesus"would not have been a noteworthy figure, this apologetic tactic contradicts what the Gospels say about Jesus.

Even the relatively sober account of Jesus found in the first gospel, The Gospel of 'Mark', gives an account of Jesus as someone who garnered quite a bit of attention. Consider for example, Mark 2:1-12, where the crowd coming to see Jesus is so great, that a paralytic has to be lowered through the roof of a building Jesus is in, in order for Jesus to see him. Elsewhere Mark tells us that the crowds that Jesus drew were so overflowing that he has to lecture from a boat on the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus travels from Bethany to Jerusalem, throngs of people line the roads to welcome him. Mark also tells us of how Jesus performed miracles before thousands: on two different occasions Jesus feeds thousands through miracles (see for example, Mark 8:1).

In short, 'Mark' gives us a 'Jesus' who is bigger than the Beatles, and I believe the Beatles analogy is a good one: we even have a nice parallel between the story of Jesus' lecture from a ship at Galilee, and the Beatles famous 'rooftop' audition, where they were forced to play an impromptu concert on a rooftop, lest the crowds that would rush to see them cause a riot. In both cases, the crowds had reached, hysterical, historically noteworthy, proportions. Yet, John E. Remsberg, in 'The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence' (The Truth Seeker Company, NY, no date, pp. 24-25) makes the curious observation that no one from this era wrote a single word about the Jesus Hysteria. Remsberg notes: "(While) Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library, (no where)... in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged brief passages in the works of a Jewish author (Josephus), and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ."

There are Christians today who hold that Remsberg has 'been refuted' because many on his list either were not contemporaries, or were 'not the sort who would have been interested in Jesus'. They tell us, straight faced, that writers who were mainly interested in drama, or reporting war stories, wouldn't have bothered to write down anything about a throng drawing, miracle working, godman striding the earth.

Leaving aside this bit of insanity, it is a red herring to respond to this problem by saying "Remsberg has been refuted", for not matter how many problems one may be able to point out concerning his famous list, no matter how many people one removes fromt the list, there remain people on his list who should have noticed, and their silence is glaring.

Let's take a look at the more notable names on his list, just to get an idea, again, of how glaring this silence is... We can call this list:

"They Would Have Noticed"

Philo (~20 BCE - ~40 CE) was a Hellenized Jew who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. He visited the Temple in Jerusalem, and corresponded with family there. He wrote a great many books on religion and philosophy which survive to this day, and mentioned many of his contemporaries. His main theological contribution was the development of the Logos, the "Word" that opens the Gospel of John. Yet Philo not once mentions Jesus, anybody who could be mistaken for Jesus, or any of the events of the New Testament. His last writings come from 40 CE, only a few years after the end of Pontius Pilate's reign, when he was part of an embassy sent by the Alexandrian Jews to the Roman Emperor Caligula.

Philo wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre (which also has no independent corroboration) supposedly occurred. He was personally very interested in the concept of ressurection. He was there when Christ supposedly would have made his triumphal entry in Jerusalem. He was there when the Crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead would have taken place--when Christ himself supposedly would have rose from the dead. Yet, none of these events are ever mentioned by him.

It simply makes no sense that Philo would not have recorded something about the Markian conceptualization of Jesus.

Pliny the Elder (~23 CE - 79 CE) wrote a Natural History that mentions hundreds of people, major and minor; he even writes about the Essenes in Natural History, section V, 15 . Yet nowhere in his works is any mention of the Jesus phenomena described in Mark.

Pliny also provides us with a direct refutation of the Gospel claims of earthquakes and eclipses. Pliny collected data on all manner of natural and astronomical phenomena, even those which were legendary - which he himself did not necessarily regard as factual, yet he records no prodigies associated with the beliefs of Christians, such as an earthquake or darkening of the skies at a crucifixion, or any star of Bethlehem.

After Philo and Pliny the Elder one of the most damning omission would be in the works of Josephus.

Josephus (37-100 AD) . Theists may be surprised to see this name on the list, and the inclusion is debatable, but read on.

Josephus was not a contemporary and could not have been a first hand eyewitness of "Jesus", however, as a Jewish historian who focused on Jewish history and religion, he would have been greatly interested in the appearance of the Jewish Messiah. Josephus wrote The Antiquities of the Jews, See his works here: http://reluctant-messenger.com/josephus.htm This is a work that focused on Jewish history from "Adam" to Josephus' time. Yet, while Josephus devotes a good deal of time and space to John the Baptist and other historical figures mentioned in the Gospels (He gives a detailed account of Pontius Pilate in The Jewish Wars, http://www.inu.net/skeptic/gospels.html) he does not appear to have actually written anything at all concerning the life of Jesus the Christ! This is 'damning' considering that we would expect that the appearance of the Jewish Messiah ought to have dominated a work dedicated to Jewish history.

Furthermore, Josephus was interested both in the concept of ressurection, as well as in the histories of various Jewish sects which a real Jesus would have either 1) been a member of or 2) have had substantial discourse with. How could a man with these experiences, and with these interests, not have dedicated volumes to "Jesus" if there were any reason to believe such a messiah existed?

"When I was sixteen years old, I decided to get experience with the various sects that are among us. These are three: as we have said many times, the first, that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Saduccees, the third, that of the Essenes. For I thought that in this way I would choose best, if I carefully examined them all. Therefore, submitting myself to strict training, I passed through the three groups."
(Life, 1.2, 10-11)

Now we have a man with a keen historical interest in Judaism, combing this interest with a wealth of first hand experience concerning the very groups Jesus would have been numbered amongst, who doesn't mention a word about Jesus!

For this very reason, the claim that Josephus never mentions a Jesus the Christ was a concern for early Christians. Therefore, it is no surprise that a later interpolation of a reference to Jesus the Christ appears in the Antiquities. The infamous "Testimonium Flavium" appears to have been inserted into the Antiquities about the time of the 4th century. A key proof for this comes from the fact that while early Christians cited Josephus, none of them ever cited the Testimonium, even in situations where they were striving to provide historical proof for Jesus:

* Justin Martyr (circa C.E. 100-165) never once quoted the passage -- even in the face of charges that Christians had "invented some sort of Christ for themselves" and that they had accepted "a futile rumor" (Dialogue with Trypho 8; circa C.E. 135).
* Origen (circa C.E. 185-254), who in his own writings relies extensively upon the works of Josephus, does not mention this passage or any other passage in Josephus that mentions Christ. Not even when he is in dialogue against Celsus' accusations!
* Jerome (circa C.E. 347-420) cites Josephus 90 times, but never once cites the Testimonium.

Logic itself tells us that had Josephus written the Testimonium, he would have written more than 3 lines concerning the existence of the Jewish Messiah in a book dedicated to Jewish History! Remsberg writes:

"Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly fourty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines."

-- The Christ, by John E. Remsburg, reprinted by Prometheus Books, New York, 1994, pages 171-3.

Logic also provides us with yet another powerful clue as to the falsity of the Testimonium: Josephus lived and died a Jew, never converting to Christianity. Even a Christian apologist, normally at home with warping logic well past its breaking point, ought to find it difficult to reconcile the claim that Josephus had evidence of Jesus as the Messiah with the fact that he never converted to Christianity. How could Josephus have good evidence for the existence of a messiah, and yet, at the same time, die a Jew?

There's really only one way to salvage the Testimonium: to use Jeffery J. Lowder's argument that the Testimonium was radically altered by christians, and that the original Josephus passage was a reference to a purely human Jesus who, while worthy of a brief note, did not merit more than a few lines of text, let along consideration as the Jewish Messiah. This would explain why christians did not cite it until it was radically altered: because it was an actual refutation of the gospel claim of Jesus, the Christ.

Lowder writes:

"There are many scholars who believe the original text contained an authentic reference to Jesus but was later embellished by Christian copyists. I have italicized the sections widely regarded as interpolations":

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.

Lowder continues:

"If the original passage contained only the non-italicized text, then it becomes quite easy to explain why the passage was not widely quoted during early Christian history. In its "pure" form, the passage would have only proved that (a purely human) Jesus existed, not that he performed miracles, rose from the dead, etc."

Lowder states that this may explain why no early christian cited the Testimonium: because it did nothing to support the existence of Jesus as Jesus the Christ. In fact, I hold it may well be damaging to the claim. It therefore seems that the two most plausible explanations for the Testimonium: that it is either entirely or partially a fraud, lead to a serious problem for the christian.

If the Testimonium is a complete fiction, it leaves the christian without any historical corroboration from Josephus.

If it is a tampered document, it indicates that Josephus did not consider this Jesus to be anything more than a revered teacher, and that this clearly embarrassed early christians to the point that they 1) ignored the passage for centuries and 2) later saw fit to deceptively alter the passage.

It should also be noted that some argue that Antiquities section 20.9 makes an indirect reference to Jesus. This claim is examined here: http://www.atheistnetwork.com/viewtopic.php?p=38864&sid=eae887916e8679c9cd9fd7af5fc065e5#38864
and also here: http://www.inu.net/skeptic/gospels.html There is good reason to believe that the reference to a "Jesus' here is actually a reference to Jesus, son of Damneus that has been tampered with by later christians, and not an actual refernece to 'Jesus, son of Joseph'. And again, the same point remains: the idea that a historian would mention the Messiah in passing while discussing an issue of minor relevance (and not elsewhere) staggers reason itself.

Plutarch (ca. 46 - 127), again, was not a contemporary, he wrote about the same time as Josephus, about contemporary Roman figures, oracles, prophesies, and moral, religious, and spiritual issues. A figure such as Jesus, whom the Gospels portray as interacting with Roman figures, making prophecies, and giving sermons on novel religious and spiritual issues to throngs of people, would have been of great interest to him. Yet we cannot find even a word about "Jesus" from Plutarch.

Seneca the Younger (ca. 4 BC–AD 65) philosopher and statesman, who wrote both philosophical works and papers on morality. He lived during the purported time of Jesus, in the general area of Jesus, and would have had contact with Roman authorities who in turn would have had contacts with Jesus. Yet, he does not take note of any of the miraculous events reported in the gospels.

Justus of Tiberius ( ? - 95 ?) Remsberg states that "Justus was a native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He was a contemporary and rival of Josephus. He wrote a history of Jewish people Kings (who the gospels state Jesus had interactions with) covering the time of Christ's reputed existence. This work perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the 9th century, was acquainted with it and said, "
'I have read the chronology of Justus of Tiberias ... and being under the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth. He makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did." (– Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, Bibliotheca, Code 33)."

Dio Chrysostom (c. 40–c. 120) was a Greek orator, writer, philosopher and historian of the Roman Empire in the first century. Eighty of his Discourses remain in existence. While Chrysostom was not a contemporary of Jesus' purported time (He was a contemporary of Plutarch, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger) he was both a historian and a person with great interest in moral matters. His philosophy has been considered a moral parallel to that of Paul of Tarsus and indicates that the early Greek Christians drew upon the Cynic and Stoic philosophies when developing their Christian faith. So we again have an early writer who certainly would have had interest in Jesus as Mark or any of the other Gospels, present him.

Epictetus (55-130) Again, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus was not born until sometime after the purported time of Jesus, however, his silence remains noteworthy. A translator of Epictetus, Elizabeth Carter, was baffled that he was not a Christian. “There are so many of the sentiments and expressions of Christianity in it, that one should be strongly tempted to think that Epictetus was acquainted with the New Testament,..” [p. xxii] Well, he was not and never even so much as mentions Christians in passing. He lived in Rome and as a slave to Epaphroditus, a senior member of Nero’s government would have known of the fire and the Christian sacrifice in the aftermath. However, all he has to say about Nero is his persecution of some good men who refused to attend his performances.

They all should have noticed. It appears that none did.

All that is left is to sum things up. The historian Edward Gibbons writes:

"But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe" (Rome, Vol. I, pp. 588-590).

Could the most amazing event ever go unnoticed? Only the intellectual dishonest can answer with a "yes".

Addendum:

Let's now consider a person who 'does' 'notice' Jesus:

St. Paul of Tsarus. (10-67)

As Franc Tremblay writes: "Such a deafening silence on the existence of any other historical figures would be extremely suspicious. In the case of an earth-shaking messiah who raised the dead and fed the multitudes, clearly we should find masses of testimonies and evidence, but we find none. It is clearly an argument for the non-existence of Jesus. But the clinching evidence is that even Christian leaders considered Jesus purely as a mythical figure and did not know anything about his life":

"In the first half century of Christian correspondence, including letters attributed to Paul and other epistles under names like Peter, James and John, the Gospel story cannot be found. When these writers speak of their divine Christ, echoes of Jesus of Nazareth are virtually inaudible, including details of a life and ministry, the circumstances of his death, the attribution of any teachings to him. God himself is often identified as the source of Christian ethics. No one speaks of miracles performed by Jesus, his apocalyptic predictions, his views on any of the great issues of the time. The very fact that he preached in person is never mentioned, his appointment of apostles or his directive to carry the message to the nations of the world is never appealed to. No one looks back to Jesus’ life and ministry as the genesis of the Christian movement, or as the pivot point of salvation history."

- The Jesus Puzzle, by Earl Doherty (Journal of Higher Criticism, Fall 1997)

We may add that Paul himself didn't know about the virgin birth. He never mentions it, and In Romans 1:1-3, he claims that Jesus was the son of Joseph, who was established as a descendant of David.

***********************

For those who wish to respond:

If you are a christian, looking to respond, unless you have entirely new points to raise, please save yourself some time and just post "Number 1" or "Number 2 or "Number 3"

1) No one would have noticed, because "Jesus" was a minor figure.

- This response simply ignores my essay.

2) "The people I listed wouldn't care about writing about a god striding the earth in earthly form, attracting throngs of people and working miracles... because they prefered to focus on other things... like philosophy."

Sure...and people dealing with philosophy -- the meaning of life, matters of the true nature of existence, would not be interested in um... god, because... um.. that has nothing to do with the meaning of life...

3) "Remsberg was refuted a long time ago."

This essay corrects the flaws in his argument. While many have pointed out flaws in Remsberg's original list, his main point still stands: it's ridiculous to claim that a historian or a philosopher wouldn't be interested in mentioning that he saw a god man working miracles.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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zarathustra
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Hambydammit wrote: Quote:

Hambydammit wrote:

Quote:
Actually that is not true. There is evidence of His "person", just not His "Deity"...

Someone's been trusting what they hear in church a little too much...

I think the Josephus-Tacitus argument for historicity has been proffered enough times now that it deserves to be ensconced as its own fallacy.   Something incoming theists should be mindful of alongside the Wager and the Scotsman.

There are no theists on operating tables.

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Hambydammit

Hambydammit wrote:

 

Someone's been trusting what they hear in church a little too much...

From Todangst's Blog (with Rook as coauthor)...

- Todangst (with Rook Hawkins)

Someone's been trusting what they read in weblogs a little too much...

The word "contemporary" was never used in the statement I quoted!

Very well built straw man I must admit!  Wink

Was there a reason that you specifically ignored Parchment number 321 from cave 4 in Qumrân (4 Q 321)??? Secular science science has not ignored it! Once you agree with secular science, you agree with the census, which verifies the birth of Jesus Christ.