Cypress is attacking me by proxy. It has nothing to do with you.
At What Point?
- Thread starter domer76
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Cypress is attacking me by proxy. It has nothing to do with you.
I like little linguistic factoids like that.
Hey, if you HONESTLY would like to understand why I am an atheist I would be glad to tell you.
Stop mischaracterizing it.
Funny.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Duh. Those were picked in the 4th century. It doesn't mean there weren't other books.
Of course, Perry, you have to know more than anyone else. It's what I find interesting about you; your insecurities.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
I'm honestly interested, Perry. Please tell me why you are an atheist.
Good point, there wasn't a canon until centuries after the apostles and early Christians.
None of the Papal bulls, writings of the church fathers, or ecumenical councils are "canonical" either. But they carry equal weight with Catholics. It's only Protestants who consider biblical text the one and only authority.
If Jesus had just died on the cross and been entombed or buried, that would have been the end of that. His death would have proved he wasn't the Messiah. His followers would have dispersed and nothing more would have been heard of him.
If Paul and Mark had fabricated the resurrection account, it's curious thee still living witnesses to Jesus' ministry didn't protest.
The fact that Jesus' brother James became the leader of the Christian movement in Jerusalem after the crucifixion suggests to me something unusual happened to rally the apostles after the crucifixion. I look for sensible and rational explanations, and for me both miracles and coordinated conspiracies are problematic
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Also note that fact that most of the met grisly deaths. Who would do that for a fiction?
I was a believer for 30+ years. As I grew older I realized that much of my faith seemed to lack that "sense" of actual connection or presence of God. This seemed quite important. I will admit that on those instances when it would have been good to have a sense of God's presence, I couldn't find them. But that really wasn't why I left the faith. In fact I was a susbscriber to the adage that "God answers all prayers but sometimes the answer is 'no'", so it didn't really cause me that much concern. But still that utter lack of connection was troubling.
I read a LOT about the history of the church and how the faith came to be. And so often it started to seem that it really was a human construct. I dedicated a block of time to actually read the bible from cover to cover to see if there was something I was missing. I saw more evidence of man's hand in the making of the "faith". The stories read like so many stories made up throughout history. "God" was little more than a manifestly human invention; complete with human emotions and failings. Just like us. The NT was a good place to wind up but it was like one of those sequels where they hired all new writing staff and they just wholesale made up the new version of the old superhero. One that fully comported with a more "modern" society for the time. Incorporating new philosophies the OT authors didn't know about. Incorporating new "minds" that presumably God himself failed to note when inspiring the authors of the OT. It looked too much like human stories for human needs.
After a while I began to realize I was twisiting myself up trying to find something that wasn't there. Things started to make much more sense if you realize there isn't some personal god somewhere.
But that's not the God you and Cypress are talking about. That God is much easier to dispense with from my perspective. The mere "existence of the universe" is insufficient evidence for me that there is an intelligence that created the universe as I have no way to test for it. In fact it is almost perfectly unfalsifiable. A concept I feel no problem in jettisoning. It is a meaningless placeholder that carries no information, no explanatory power for anything and is unfalsifiable.
I have no problem with you and Cypress claiming "agnositicism" about this. My point has always been and remains that "agnosticism" is seldom if every adhered to consistently. It is always reserved for one concept: God. But why? Any unevidenced claim should be open to the agnostic position. Yet it isn't. Countless examples have been proffered and everyone is "special pleaded" away.
I simply wanted to verify that yes, indeed, many agnostics don't actually seem to apply their agnosticism consistently but reserve it for one thing. A thing which I have zero problem with simply failing to believe in.
The people who burned alive with David Koresh in Waco also met grisly deaths. Was David Koresh Jesus returned?
Actually if you were honest you'd see I'm the ONLY one on here who explicitly states time and again I am without perfect knowledge. Hence my position which ironically you seem to hate precisely because it is honest about it's limitations.
Strange.
This was, indeed, a severe issue for the early Church. There was no conception of the Messiah that fit with Jesus' ministry and certainly the ending made it even more difficult.
I am curious, though. You put so much focus on the Jerusalem Church (despite the fact that somehow Paul disagreed with them AND WON despite not having ever met Jesus himself)...do you think Jesus was a scam artist? If he woke up in the tomb thinking he'd come back from the dead and then talking to his Disciples I'm curious what happened to him then? If he just wandered off it would kind of make Jesus to be a con man. If he remained around preaching you'd think his Disciples would note that.
But they claimed he vanished in front of them or ascended to heaven.
So do you think he actually "disappeared" while sitting talking to his disciples or do you think he somehow rose up into the sky at some point and they mistakenly assumed he'd gone to Heaven?
It seems the real problem with your exegesis is trying to explain away the ascension and what happened AFTER the resurrection.
CLEARLY in this case my "position" is a very quick and easy way to explain it all: it didn't happen. I'm curious how your rubric salvages the story here.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
It's claims such as yours which keeps me interested in you, Perry. The layer of egotism over insincere claims with a hard ball of insecurities at the core are truly fascinating.
Your inability to carry on a conversation without taking pot shots at the other person is not a feature of your personality you should be proud of.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Yes, they did, Perry. So did those at the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Are you trying to equate David with Jesus, Perry?
You asked why someone would endure suffering and die for a "fiction".
Personally I assume it wasn't a fiction for them, just as the martyrs of the Christian faith also believed in what they died for. But it doesn't mean that thing was necessarily REAL.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
No.
But I am not really going to drag this thread where you always take threads. So feel free to engage with the topic. Assuming you are capble.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Yes, I did, Perry. Why did you dodge the question? Because you know you were wrong but aren't man enough to admit it?
Nor necessarily false. Again, the ripple theory and the Rain metaphor.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Where do I take threads, Perry? I was talking about the Apostle James then you went into a snoot. Why the snoot, Perry? Because you were embarrassed that James had a gospel?