Intention of the gospel writers
Offline I would to know what the intentions of the writers of the gospels and epistles were if this stuff wasnt real than why is it written the way it is.
I dont beileve its true but i cant imagine how people could make this stuff up. Are the books we have know the way they were always written and why are they written the way they are like when jesus does miracles and the priests say he is a devil. Obviously it didnt happen so what was the stories purpose.
Also is the story of lazarus a complete fabrication it has to be people dont come back from the dead so who made it up and when.
Im also suspcious of pauls vision that has to be a fabrication to because if he hated christians then why would he have a visoin of jesus obvioulsy he didnt know what he looked like was paul really making this all up with some self serving purpose in mind.
This stuff really frustrates me because i want to know how these stuff can be made up it doesnt happen today anymore.
Ive also read The Evolutionof god and find it really interested but hard to follow.
Basically I want to know what it looked like say when someone was writting the book of exodus for example how could someone write this if it didnt happen and what was the intention.
Also i realize my writing struture is horrible.
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So, yes, we understand perfectly. I hope your hands are all washed nice and clean.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
That is why the Bible is replete with murders and killings under the commands of god ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Now who is ignoring points, lol. If I only responded to every other thing you said, you'd shit a brick. It doesn't bother me so much though, because I know you don't have any answers.
As for this issue, who cares what they do? We're talking about motivation. They are motivated by their religion to voluntarily die. You are trying to say that your religion is true because your religious heroes voluntarily died for their beliefs.
I'm just pointing out this is not a good criteria for a belief being true, because lots of people die for things you consider to be untrue.
I never said the apostles necessarily believed they were lying. People convince themselves of crazy shit every day, often to the point of fanatical belief. That doesn't mean they are right.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
The fact that someone believes passionately in something has no intrinsic bearing on whether it is actually true or not.
All that matters to an individual is the strength and nature of his beliefs, not whether they happen to be objectively true.
The fact that someone may be prepared to kill themselves (and others) motivated at least in part by their world-view, does not, of itself, make that world-view invalid.
Lee, there is this system called 'logic' you may care to look into some time - you appear to have little understanding of it. It is intended to allow us to avoid making ridiculous conclusions, and erroneous justifications.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
OK, but if that be the case, then we also have many accounts of Gandalf the White going walkies after Gandalf the Gray was a confirmed deader. Of course we all know that that is just in fiction. However, it brings up an interesting problem.
If, for some reason, our culture does not survive even in reliable records a couple dozen centuries from now, how are those future archaeologists supposed to know that the LotR stories are stories?
What? They are going to find a movie poster? Yes, right next to the poster from Oliver Stone's JFK and conclude that since they do have as much on him as we today have on Julius Ceasar, that he was murdered by a bunch of homosexuals.
See, you need multiple sources, preferably from widely separated places. You don't offer that so it would be irresponsible to make as serious a set of conclusions as you ask from poorly sourced material.
You are going to have to do better than that. Let us work with the idea that nobody takes snarfwidgets seriously. So no, nobody is going to die for them. However, that is a strawman. Plenty of people die for beliefs that are of a nature as to conflict with the beliefs that others are dying for.
Thus the question is not, “do they believe as we do?” but rather “can we know our beliefs to be true and their beliefs untrue?”
For that, you are still going to need considerably better sourcing. At a minimum, you are going to need better sourcing than those of your opponent who is doing the dying from his side. Let's start with proof of what you are saying that is clearly external to the bible. What you got for us?
=
I find it a little odd that you've fallen for the idea that there was no culture from which the bible sprang - you seem to be implying the ideas espoused in the bible just popped into being from nowhere. All the concepts in the bible are old. Creation. Retribution. Morality. Rebirth. Blood sacrifice. There's nothing new there at all.
Their sources were surely Sumeria, Babylon, the Hittites, Egypt - all of which were the superpowers of the ancient world at one time or another. If there was anything special about Palestine it was that it was a landbridge through which armies and traders moved carrying new ideas from the main centres of power, ideas that were incorporated into the existing native doctrines to give them added weight.
As far as the OT is concerned, the creation and flood stories are mesopotamian. Jahweh is the Philistine god of war, who was merged into the head god of the Philistine parthenon to create one god. You can feel the schizophrenia of the bible god in the texts. Meanwhile, Beelzebub was the philistine fertility god.
It's fair to say that Judaism is a sect of an earlier dominant Philistine religion that existed in palestine at one time and that early jews and philistines were different denominations of the same people. Genetic testing shows lebanese, syrians, jordanians, palestinians and israelis are a single semitic people.
Even the death of jesus was a re-run of the ancient hero with a thousand faces. There are plenty of jesus templates in far more ancient religions. And the liberalism that comes through in some of the teachings of jesus sounds modern because the empire of Rome was 'modern'. The great writers of the time were concerned with all the issues we fret over - morality, civil rights, social conscience.
If you disagree, read some Cicero, Seneca and stoics like Marcus Aurelius. The observations of these men are fresh, human and immediate and they make the maunderings of jesus look like the contrivances that they are.
Importantly, the literary historical method you're fretting over can't be used to prove that the master of the universe came to earth for tea and scones in the year dot. It can prove nothing supernatural. Those guys had the same interaction with the lord of hosts we have. Absolutely none at all. Believing there's a god because these guys thought so is an appeal to dubious and unsupported authority.
And bear in mind, the NT was first written in Greek, with hints of a latin origin in places. There's no indication it was written in aramaic, the language of Judea. The NT was written in a foreign country in a foreign language by nobody knows who. You have to ask yourself why that is so.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
The New Testament is a reliable historical document. Give me evidence that it's not. Comparing Jesus to Spider-Man is ridiculous so I'm not wasting my time with your comment.
There were people at the cross who saw Jesus die. These aren't stories they are historical accounts of what occurred.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20
This point. Who knows what happened at calvary, who knows if calvary really happened at all. The fact the NT is an old doctrine does not make it real. Outside the gospels, whose sources are oblique, we have no supporting evidence of any of the events at golgotha, despite the fact there were fully 50 historians active at the time.
Lee, my mother makes better patchwork quilts than this.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
It's proof none the less. So let me ask you what would the motivation be for people to come up with this kind of elaborate hoax? What would they gain out of it?
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20
Says who ?
Assuming what you say is true, which is not verified or proven at all, how does seeing a man die on a cross prove him to be a Messiah ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
You have no evidence that it's a historical document other then the claims it makes about itself. You want evidence that it isn't? Lets see... how about how there is no supporting evidence from outside sources to back up it's baseless claims. You take the NT as a historical document and Muslims use the Quran as a historical document. It doesn't change the fact that you're both wrong!
And the only reason you think the Jesus/Spider-Man comparison is ridiculous is because you were told that one was fiction and one was fact. Sorry, but they both have the same amount of outside corroborating evidence to support the idea that either actually existed!
And your evidence for this is? The book making the claims... yeah I thought so. Do you even know what the word evidence means? HINT: It's not a synonym for baseless claim!
You really don't understand that when you're writing fiction, you can make the characters do anything you want them to, right? You have still offered no evidence that the Bible is a historical document, or even anything BUT fiction.
And the great circle of creationist "logic" continues spinning!
"This may shock you, but not everything in the bible is true." The only true statement ever to be uttered by Jean Chauvinism, sociopathic emotional terrorist.
"A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished." Mikhail Bakunin
"The means in which you take,
dictate the ends in which you find yourself."
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme leadership derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
No Gods, No Masters!
I like how you conveniently applied the word Christian to the Crusaders. They weren't true Christians. A true Christian would never kill anyone who wouldn't convert. That would be counter-productive since the bible actually tells one to love their neighbor and is actually a book about life and redemption not death.
Would you be willing to go all over the Middle East as a Christian missionary? Now remember, there is a very good chance you will lose your life. I will only accept a yes or no answer and if yes tell me why.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20
OK, basic exercise in logic:
=
Considering the fact that there are over 3,000 sects that all claim to be TRUE Christians and all the other branches to be incorrect, how are we supposed to determine what a TRUE Christian is ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
No, it's not proof, unless you don't understand the definition of proof. What you are describing are claims, in that they have no supporting evidence outside of the one book making them.
One possible reason is that they were crazy and believed it. Crazy people will do lots of things, and one of their favorite past times is to try and prove to other people that they are not crazy. Another possibility is that they, believing it or not, were trying to start a new hierarchical power structure that would outlive them and achieve their vision of a "proper society" where people like them would be the ones calling the shots.
Just because they might have believed that a man can be born of a virgin doesn't make it any less impossible. Or for that matter, a man coming back to life after he had started to stink (from the opinion of people who rarely if ever bathed!) or a conscious mind existing outside of a skull! All those things are impossible and crazy, but they made those claims. So those are historical? Sorry, but someone would have to be an idiot to think those things could actually happen with the knowledge we now have of reality.
So they were either stupid and believed them or they knew they were bullshit and were activly trying to use the stories to control people emotionally. Or, as is most probable, a mixture of both.
The Bible is no more historical then any of the other creation myths created before or after, you just happen to believe one and not the others.
"This may shock you, but not everything in the bible is true." The only true statement ever to be uttered by Jean Chauvinism, sociopathic emotional terrorist.
"A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished." Mikhail Bakunin
"The means in which you take,
dictate the ends in which you find yourself."
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme leadership derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
No Gods, No Masters!
1. Ah, the "no true Christian" fallacy. It's a variant of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy and lets you define a "true Christian" as pretty much whatever you want.
2. Since the Bible is full of stories of killing and genocide as well as being a book "about life and redemption" are you admitting that the Bible is self-contradicting? Or are you simply cherry-picking?
3. Honestly, except for a few extremist nutballs, a Christian missionary would be pretty safe in an Islamic country. Christians are considered by Muslims to be "People of the Book" and they would be tolerated as worshipers of the God of Abraham. Unless you're preaching style was "You're gonna burn in hell, you freaking towelhead!" you should be OK. Someone like me who simply says "I don't see that there is any evidence to prove the existence of a God" would be at a much greater risk.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Hi OP
I find it a little odd that you've fallen for the idea that there was no culture from which the bible sprang - you seem to be implying the ideas espoused in the bible just popped into being from nowhere. All the concepts in the bible are old. Creation. Retribution. Morality. Rebirth. Blood sacrifice. There's nothing new there at all.
Their sources were surely Sumeria, Babylon, the Hittites, Egypt - all of which were the superpowers of the ancient world at one time or another. If there was anything special about Palestine it was that it was a landbridge through which armies and traders moved carrying new ideas from the main centres of power, ideas that were incorporated into the existing native doctrines to give them added weight.
As far as the OT is concerned, the creation and flood stories are mesopotamian. Jahweh is the Philistine god of war, who was merged into the head god of the Philistine parthenon to create one god. You can feel the schizophrenia of the bible god in the texts. Meanwhile, Beelzebub was the philistine fertility god.
It's fair to say that Judaism is a sect of an earlier dominant Philistine religion that existed in palestine at one time and that early jews and philistines were different denominations of the same people. Genetic testing shows lebanese, syrians, jordanians, palestinians and israelis are a single semitic people.
Even the death of jesus was a re-run of the ancient hero with a thousand faces. There are plenty of jesus templates in far more ancient religions. And the liberalism that comes through in some of the teachings of jesus sounds modern because the empire of Rome was 'modern'. The great writers of the time were concerned with all the issues we fret over - morality, civil rights, social conscience.
If you disagree, read some Cicero, Seneca and stoics like Marcus Aurelius. The observations of these men are fresh, human and immediate and they make the maunderings of jesus look like the contrivances that they are.
Importantly, the literary historical method you're fretting over can't be used to prove that the master of the universe came to earth for tea and scones in the year dot. It can prove nothing supernatural. Those guys had the same interaction with the lord of hosts we have. Absolutely none at all. Believing there's a god because these guys thought so is an appeal to dubious and unsupported authority.
And bear in mind, the NT was first written in Greek, with hints of a latin origin in places. There's no indication it was written in aramaic, the language of Judea. The NT was written in a foreign country in a foreign language by nobody knows who. You have to ask yourself why that is so.
What was the point of forgiveness in the old testament talked about in psalms and proverbs and other parts if there was no hell and there wasnt to my knowledge of the torah you just died. What were they being forgiven for. Basically what would happen if they didnt get forgiveness.
ymalmsteen887
Please check out this thread to better assist with the quotes function :
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/the_rational_response_squad_radio_show/general_conversation_introductions_and_humor/7011
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Ummm... riiiiight... No True Scotsman(TM) defense.
Well, you're not a True Christian(TM) as you are breaking this passage:
"Believers must not commune with unbelievers. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, light with darkness, believers with infidels?" 2 Corinthians 6:14-15
You're communing with us! OH NOES!1!!!11!!!eleven!!
Hey, why are you not trading in slaves? Jesus says you should, as long as they owe you money and can't pay up!
"But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made." Matthew 18:25
Or maybe this one, where Jesus says to kill people who don't do exactly as their parents wish.
"For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'" Matthew 15:4
Hey let's get some killing in here, like you said Jesus would NEVER do!
"You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead." Revelation 2:20-2
That was Jesus talking about killing people, which you said he never did. Were you lying or just wrong?
True Christians(TM) have helped perpetrate genocide (the First Nations people of the Western Hemisphere and the Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs during WWII among many others) and horrible wars where rape and torture were used as weapons. You can't just say they were not "real believers" just because you don't like what they did.
Now back to the crux of this whole debate: Where is your outside evidence to support the bible or do you just believe it based on it's own self serving, baseless claims?
"This may shock you, but not everything in the bible is true." The only true statement ever to be uttered by Jean Chauvinism, sociopathic emotional terrorist.
"A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished." Mikhail Bakunin
"The means in which you take,
dictate the ends in which you find yourself."
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme leadership derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
No Gods, No Masters!
While the torah does not mention hell or threats of an eternal type of punishment, the torah is filled with cruel punishment and death for those who are perceived to be disobedient to their tyrant god.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Does anyone else notice that Revalations has a completley different writing style than the gospels.
Shouldnt that be a clue to people that its man made.
Once upon a time men lived in caves with other men. Some men stopped breathing and did not move any longer. The cause seeking creatures that men are assumed that what experienced left their bodies. They buried them with flowers, food and their favorite rocks. The word spirit, Ruach in ancient Hebrew, neuma in ancient Greek philosophers mean breath or wind, Beu from which we get BE and Isa from which we get IS in Indo-European. Some Greeks believe air was the absolute spirit, some thought it was fire from which air cooled. There were gods or spirits in everything...animism. The Semitic people believed in multiple gods. Then one tribe...Hebrews... said my god Yahweh is the greatest and your gods stink...this is henotheism( I worship only one of the gods ). Oh yeh said the other tribes ...our god is better than your god. Oh yea said the Hebrews...only our God is real...yours are only the idols that represent them... wow monotheism. A similar thing was happening in Greek philosophy in which the other gods wer but attributes of a supreme god. In India the gods wer realized as only symbols ofthe psychological state of consciousness with your consciousness being the obnly God and everything as illusions of the One... panpsychism...pantheism. Buddha said, god, no god, no notgod doesn't matter follow the way of the four fold path ( Buddhism is an atheisitc practice in its origins.)
Hebrews got captured by the Persians ( Zorastrianism )who believed in an evil god and a good god who fight each other... heaven and a hell of punishment. They believed in a resurrection and angels. Hebrews come back to Palestine with a lot of people believing the Persian stuff ( they became Pharisees ). The conservative Jews were Saducees and did not believe in an angels, resurrection or heaven and hell. A group of fanatics went into the desert and practised baptism daily to wash away there unkosherness. (Essenes)They believed that an anointed ( specially appointed dude ) Aramaic: Messiah ( oh yea the Jews had forgotten how to speak Hebrew by then ). would come as a King and another Messiah would come as a Priest... Greek culture effected a lot of their beliefs. John the Baptist came and preached a baptism to wash away sins. Jesus apparently was a follower of his and was baptised in the Gospel of Mark for his sins. The spirit can down into him . The authors of Matthew and Luke did not like this so they added (created ) two contradicting virgin myth stories. Jesus was teaching Greek type beliefs and got in trouble with the Jewish authorities. They got the local Roman authorities to kill him. Some people the great great great great grandparents of the people who now see Elvis say they saw his ghost. Some liked to tell ghost stories. The author of the gospel of John equated this Jesus as the Stoic idea of Logos... the rational principle of the universe. They made a fan club and then there were people who did not agree on things. They made new fan clubs. Two hundred years later they were concerned that they had created two gods, jesus and yahweh... Someone shout don't forget about the Holy Spirit. So they made the spirit a person to. They worked out 5 or 6 harmonies called Trinity. Then the emperor of Rome said hey this is a big fan club. Let me control it. He made them come up with uniformed rules and they became the Catholic ( the whole world ) Church. And we lived happily ever after.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
Written by themselves?
Where?
How do you know that Paul didn't make it all up?
Then that proves that what you hope is true, could be entirely false.
You're not risking your life, here. You just hope it's true.
Let's not get any more hyperbolic, shall we?
Is it?
How do you know, if you were not there?
I don't know that it's not, anymore than you do.
But, I wouldn't be stupid enough to take ancient folklore as anything more than ancient folklore.
Especially, since other ancient folklore is incompatible with the folklore you are describing.
And there are just as many claims that do not support this.
IOW, the jury is still out.
If you could prove that it was true, you'd become a hero to all christians and catholics.
You're obviously no 'hero'.
Because you have no proof of what you assume, which leads you to make the false assertions that you do.
Seeing as they are not universally accepted as fact, they are merely 'accounts' of what may, or may not have happened.
Since you were not there, you do not have any personal knowledge of what may, or may not have heard.
No matter how that might make you feel.
We're more interested in facts that we are in your hope, and your 'feelings' that these accounts are factual.
You're reluctant to acknowledge this, and this is why we understand that you only 'assume' that you've not been mislead, by bogus accounts.
We're not as willing to make those kinds of assumptions.
Because they're not really relevant to our lives, and we don't 'hope' they are true, as you do.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
redneF,
I do believe that Lee thinks that the Gospels were written by the apostles and that they trotted of to their notepads to write down all the stuff that happened in the life of Jesus about a week after his death.
I mean, never mind the fact that the Gospels were written in Greek and the direct followers of Jesus barely spoke Aramaic and Hebrew.
But whatever keeps his fantasy going.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Revelation was written by the end of the 1st beginning of the 2nd centurey by someone who could not write well. The original Greek is full of hanging nominatives and grammatical problems. The gospels have completely different writing styles in their original language. Revelation fits in to a genre of apocalyptic common at that time.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
The gospels are not historical accounts...non of the writers were witnesses ( the names matthew , Mark, Luke and John were not atrributed to the gospels until the second century ). Matthew and Luke rework the gospel mark and add a group of sayings found in a now defunct source called Q. Matthew and Luke change various things from mark to fit their theological agenda. The author of the gospel of John completely reworks mark and reflects a much later non-historical theology effected by Greek philosophy. What is supposedly historical??????????????? I had 4 years of Koine Greek, translated the New Testament from its original language and did point by point inspection of the propositions in them. Compare the gospels and the contradictions reflect redaction ( editing of sources ) for purposes to defend one form of Christianity from another.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
Fanboy, and groupie accounts are the most unreliable sources of facts.
That's why we have all sorts of Elvis sightings, even with the 'body'.
Imagine if the body of Elvis had disappeared?...
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Shifting the burden of proof? You can't list any archeological discoveries that establish the NT as a historical document so you want me to do it for you? No thanks.
Though, if I were to do so, I could casually mention that the town of Nazareth likely didn't exist during the time of Jesus.
Actually, with the standards that you are using for historicity, comparing Jesus to Spider-Man is more spot on than you care to admit.
There were people at the cross who saw Jesus die - and NONE of them wrote about it. They left it to the Greek converts of Paul 40-110 years later.
You'd think if this Jesus guy was so important he would have been written about by people who were around when he was alive.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
It's proof in the same way that all fiction is proof of the characters in it. Someone wrote of them so they exist.
Can you connect them to history in any way?
Why did Paul come up with the cult of Christianity? Self-aggrandizement mostly. He wanted to be a prophet and the only way he could do it was to form a religion.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Doesnt genesis seem weird that after adam and eve they already know how to cultivate crops and cook and that there are already towns and other people.
What is the natural explanation for this and what were the writers thinking if they didnt explain where the other people come from the same thing happens after the flood as well.
Also can somebody explain to me why 2 people cant reproduce to make 6 billion people to this day I know its genetic diversity but what does that mean.
Again, I don't think there are natural explanations for the musings of superstitious fables.
Supposedly, The Egyptian Goddess Isis searched the entire world for the dead body of her husband Osiris. When she found him, she carefully put him back together and had to fashion his phallus from magical means in order to give birth to Horus.
What is the natural explanation for that ?
I know that it seems like I keep referring to other ancient cultures, but I am repeatedly trying to demonstrate the absurdities of all ancient myths and why the attempt to understand the reasoning behind the primitive minds that gave birth to them is futile.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
ok say what about my question about genetic diversity.
What I don't get about the gospel writers is that they say things like:
One must have faith to please God.
One is saved through faith.
It is more blessed to not see and believe, than to see and believe.
So does this mean that the eyewitnesses to God's miracles in bible are unsaved? Then didn't need faith because they saw the actual miracles, the bible writers are all in hell now and only they people that believe because they bible tells them so are saved? Did they just assume people are idiots when they decided to gloss over this?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
What I don't get about the
Submitted by EXC on February 9, 2011 - 8:01pm.What I don't get about the gospel writers is that they say things like:
One must have faith to please God.
One is saved through faith.
It is more blessed to not see and believe, than to see and believe.
So does this mean that the eyewitnesses to God's miracles in bible are unsaved? Then didn't need faith because they saw the actual miracles, the bible writers are all in hell now and only they people that believe because they bible tells them so are saved? Did they just assume people are idiots when they decided to gloss over this?
Well said.
In other words:
"Bend over my son, pay no mind to what you see and believe, this is the goodness, this is divine, and this won't hurt a bit, my son..."
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Lol.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Let's look at Cheetahs for an example. Cheetahs almost went extinct and scientists believe it happened near the end of the last Ice Age.
This article is very technical for those interested in Cheetah genetics - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC46261/
This article is easier to understand - http://www.sciencesays.net/2008/12/cheetah-genetic-bottleneck/
What allows a species to adapt to changing environments is the diversity of their genome. Let's say all mosquitoes had the same genome. Then we could invent one pesticide and be rid of mosquitoes for ever. But all mosquitoes are not the same. And so enough will survive being sprayed with that pesticide that they are able to reproduce - and have offspring that are a little more resistant than the ones who died. And the next batch are a little more resistant than that. And so on. Very minute differences can add up to big evolutionary "wins" where the only survivors are the mosquitoes that are completely unaffected by a particular pesticide.
So for species like the Cheetahs, they have no diversity - any change in their environment that prevents one of them from having offspring will prevent all of them from having offspring - and then no more Cheetahs.
Which is why - in part - the story of Noah's ark is BS. There is no way that one or 100 pairs of parents of each species would have enough genetic diversity to produce the genomes scientists have analyzed in the last few years in a mere 4000-6000 years. Yes, diversity can increase if the population has optimal conditions for reproduction for a few million years. The approximately 12,000 years since the last ice age is not enough time for the Cheetahs to increase their genetic diversity enough to survive.
And I ain't holding my breath for a miracle.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
OK, I am getting the impression that your original question was not answered (at least enough for you). We have been working the sideline that we got drawn into.
So here is what I have on the matter.
The epistles seem to have been written, based on internal evidence, a couple of decades after the crucifixion (if that ever even happened). The gospels probably were not written until a hundred or so years later.
Hence, the gospels seem to say a good deal more about matters than the epistles do.
Really, the epistles do not seem to say much, if anything, about a real dude who lives a half a lifetime before. Rather, they seem to be about some general timeless dude who may have been who knows what as far as physical status.
A couple of centuries later, some gospel stories seem to have come about. Where they came from, nobody knows. However, analysis of the actual texts suggests that they seem to have been based on at least two and possibly four sources.
Matthew and Luke seem to have almost all of Mark inside them but they also both seem to have a second document as a source. That document is known as Q. Then there are the other bits that would not have been in either Mark or Q.
Still, they are not original documents. The sources are not original documents.
We know that George Washington was real. We also know that many of the stories about him can't possibly be real. He did not throw a coin over a mighty river. Yet the story exists.
=
@Lee
As several people have noted, you seem to think that the gospel accounts are eyewitness accounts, yet according to Christian theologians, they aren't, not even close. This isn't a case of 'the big bad atheist' smacking down your claims, according to Christian scholars, the gospels are not eyewitness accounts, they are not consistent with each other, they show evidence of redaction/editing, they show evidence of being based off each other and off of earlier non-extant sources. Again, none of these claims are atheist assertions, rather they are things I learned in a theology course taught by a Christian theologian at a christian institution.
Are you willing to change your stance on the point of eyewitness accounts, or will you not submit to evidence?
There are none so blind as will not see. There are none so deaf as they that believe. There are none so lame... and so forth
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
First off it is all BS.
Second it is consistent. It doesn't say they will go to hell because they saw, it just says they are not as blessed. It will be like they will not have as many stars in their crown. I settle for a few less stars in my crown to see some glory shit. I ain't proud. But we know it is just made up because the authors of the bible know nobody saw anything or they saw a mirage, after all they did live in the desert. People see ghost, people make up stories. And we love it. I love all the sci-fi movies, I love books that tell great stories. Just some people buy into. We got modern incidents of this, the mormon, the adventist, scientology. They all built up myths in modern times and people quickly believed it and were willing to die for it. Mormons were persecuted and some killed for their faith. According to Lee2216 they qualify as THE TRUTH.
My trouble is that Ezekiel and Jesus both say things like this "If other people besides you people had heard these words or seen these miracles they would have been saved". Jesus in particular condemns Capernum and says if the miracles he had performed in that town had been performed in Sodom and Gehmorrah those towns would still exist, meaning they would be saved. So, the authors of the bible show that God deliberately wastes his time on people that refuse to be saved and he lets other people who would be willing go to hell. We are talking Sodom here. There was only one "righteous" guy there who slept with his daughters after the town was destroyed. This god is so wacky. He needs some serious therapy. And the same for those who follow him. How can they be any clearer-headed than the vile god they worship?
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Page 1 of this thread is aligned, but page 2 has a problem. I guess word wrap has been disable.
Thank you.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
So assuming that none of them wrote about it means it didn't happen right? How do you know the witnesses at the cross knew how to write? Your assuming they knew how to write. I'd like to know where you got your dates from? The gospels were written before A.D. 70.
I guess your conveniently forgetting the gospels of Matthew and John. The gospels were written by eyewitnesses or under the direction of eyewitnesses.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20
Not necessarily but it does cast doubt on the event when the only people writing about an event had no contact with these eyewitnesses. There were also people who wrote histories for a living who were actually around during those events if they occurred. You'd think the death of a God would have been something they'd notice. Somehow, they didn't.
Your dates are wrong. From wikipedia:
I know that John AT Robinson likes to date them before the fall of Jerusalem but facts and textual criticism don't bear that out.
Now Paul's epistles aka the source material for the Gospels were written before the fall of Jerusalem. The book of Acts came much later.
Written by or under the direction of eyewitnesses? In a language that none of the eyewitnesses spoke or understood? The Gospels were written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Lee, the possible event of some messiahs death the bible claims happened isn't proven wrong by there not being any contemporary accounts existing, but it does show that there is no evidence for the event happening, therefore no good reason to believe it. Before humans found the mountains of evidence for biological evolution happening, there was no reason to have a positive belief for biological evolution, even though it has and is happening. Something may or may not be happening, but without evidence there is no reason to have an opinion or position on it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Wow... what a leap of faith! All the evidence points to you being wrong, on both your time line of the bible's creation and your opinion on who authored it, but according to you your book of fiction is totally different then everybody else's books of fiction! Keep telling yourself that the bible is an eyewitness account, but it doesn't change the fact that you're wrong and making claims of this kind just make you look ignorant of historical reality.
"This may shock you, but not everything in the bible is true." The only true statement ever to be uttered by Jean Chauvinism, sociopathic emotional terrorist.
"A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished." Mikhail Bakunin
"The means in which you take,
dictate the ends in which you find yourself."
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme leadership derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
No Gods, No Masters!
THE GOSPELS were not attributed to anyone until the second century. They are cut and paste agendas that are certainly not from eyewitnesses. Simply compare their contradictions.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
No.
But, look up 'fundamental attribution error', and 'self serving bias', to begin to understand why it is completely natural for some people to be grossly mislead.
It just means that it's highly probable that nothing that is written that long after the fact is at all accurate, or given the extremely superstitious nature of man, at the time, that these could merely have been folklore, or even worse, strictly designed to benefit an agenda.
Ancient man was 'historically' known to be easily mislead into false beliefs. This is a fact.
There can be no denying of this, as we have been scientifically debunking the endless string of myths that the churches had not only propagated and supported, but defended as fact, and would put to death those who tried to undermine the church's position.
Those facts are extremely well documented, by the people themselves, and other contemporaries.
I'm unaware of any supposed eyewitness accounts that were recorded at the supposed time of a supposed crucifiction, of a supposed character, supposed to have been born of a supposed virgin mother, by a supposed immaculate conception, supposedly named Jesus, who was the supposed son of a supposed god, over supposedly 2 thousand years ago, that are supposedly true.
That's an awful lot of speculation.
Wouldn't you admit?
If no, you would be being completely irrational, to do so.
A fool.
Pot meet kettle.
Conveniently forgetting?
Don't be absurd.
Can you say that with a straight face?
I guess you're hoping no one picks up on the fact that you are conveniently forgetting the overwhelming amount of speculations you are basing your bias and opinions on.
You won't admit it, but you're merely hoping that what you've read is correct.
We understand that.
How do you know any of this for certain?
Because it's impossible to know, as it was over 2000 yrs ago.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Ancient man? I'm pretty sure one of those words isn't needed.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Nice strawman.
Ooohh. Two strawmen in a row. You're on a roll. Keep it up.
Aww, man. You should have committed another strawman. Then, you would have had three strawmen in one post. Hey, third times' the charm, right? But now, you only have two strawmen and one instance of question begging.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I cant stand it when people say that jesus was trying to show religion was a bad thing.
Can someone explain to me why christians think this it obvisouly has to do with him disagreeing with the scribes and pharisees.
Like not keeping the sabbath and not stoning that person.
What is a more rational explanation then there cherry picking.
It seems like he was more insterested in a cult.