The bible

Cypress said:
I tend to feel like I am somewhere ranging between Spinoza's God and agnosticism, but still like the ritual, aesthetic, and tradition of the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, and try to attend occasionally.

Considering the digital, ephemeral nature of the world today, I appreciate feeling part of something ancient, historic, and transcendent.
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I'm a full-on atheist these days but I agree with you on the concept of ritual and rites. I think those are important to people. When I travel in Europe I beeline it for every Medieval Cathedral I can find. I love the majesty (even if I realize that money could have been put to better use for the people of the times) and I love the history. It is a great testament to "belief" to see what people built and the art they created based on their beliefs (at least in part).

And the history is always utterly fascinating.
 
Frank Apisa said:
Interesting post.

I also spent most of my life as a "Christian"...a Catholic. I also "suffered" from scrupulosity...to the point where I was going to confession every day. (There still was confession in Catholicism back in the day. My confessor finally demanded that I stop coming to confession every day.) As an adult in the Air Force, I learned to serve the Latin rite Mass...and served Mass for the Catholic chaplain each day. I actually served Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican...and served as an acolyte in a High Mass to the Catholic primate of England, a Cardinal whose name escapes me at the moment.

At some point I realized I was kidding myself. I recognized my "faith" as little more than indoctrination...occasioned by having been born a Catholic. After a great deal of thought, I decided to acknowledge my agnosticism. (The notion of using "atheist" as a descriptor never seemed more appropriate to me than using the label "Catholic" or "Christian" or "theist.")

I think we can agree that there are people who "believe" there is at least one GOD. I am not one of those people. I do not "believe" there is at least one GOD.

I think we can also agree that there are people who "believe" there are no gods. I am not one of those people either. I do not "believe" there are no gods.
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Scrupulosity was what kind of killed faith for me. Which is kind of a shame since I know it is largely a function of brain chemistry. But presumably if there is a God He made me this way and as such I can only be what I am.

Ultimately the scrupulosity was in the process of destroying me. When God's love is nothing more than fear of failure then it's not what we are told faith should be. God should be a sense of presence and love. Even in times of strife there should be comfort. And for those people who STILL have faith and if it brings them comfort and joy then it is doing exactly what it should do and they should have their faith and never lose it.

But for those who question it should also be known that there are many who share the feelings.
 
Perry Phimosis said:
I'm a full-on atheist these days but I agree with you on the concept of ritual and rites. I think those are important to people. When I travel in Europe I beeline it for every Medieval Cathedral I can find. I love the majesty (even if I realize that money could have been put to better use for the people of the times) and I love the history. It is a great testament to "belief" to see what people built and the art they created based on their beliefs (at least in part).

And the history is always utterly fascinating.
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Love the beauty, architecture, stained glass of the old Catholic cathedrals.

I cannot say I am a fan of the Protestant service. I don't like sitting in a pew, have some guy preach at me, and maybe even have to listen to some crappy Christian rock musicians.

I am drawn to the ritual and aesthetic of the Eastern liturgy where there is no direct preaching and the only music one hears are the Gregorian style Byzantine choral chants
 
Perry Phimosis said:
Scrupulosity was what kind of killed faith for me. Which is kind of a shame since I know it is largely a function of brain chemistry. But presumably if there is a God He made me this way and as such I can only be what I am.

Ultimately the scrupulosity was in the process of destroying me. When God's love is nothing more than fear of failure then it's not what we are told faith should be. God should be a sense of presence and love. Even in times of strife there should be comfort. And for those people who STILL have faith and if it brings them comfort and joy then it is doing exactly what it should do and they should have their faith and never lose it.

But for those who question it should also be known that there are many who share the feelings.
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The scrupulosity for me was one of the most onerous burdens I've ever had to bear. I was a young man...and my hormones were surging. Between lust for the ladies and lust for my fist, I considered myself to be evil incarnate. I had convinced myself that lust was the most evil of sins. Essentially, I was making the usual nature of young, male adulthood into a misery.

And...this is important...I was terrified. The thought of dying while in sin was like swimming in the ocean with an anvil tied to my neck. Not only was I assuming (guessing) the existence of a GOD...but I was also assuming/guessing about the nature of the GOD...specifically that the GOD would punish me with eternal damnation if I died while in sin.

Scared the shit out of me.

My divorce from that brand of theism was a relief...a RELIEF!
 
Cypress said:
Love the beauty, architecture, stained glass of the old Catholic cathedrals.

I cannot say I am a fan of the Protestant service. I don't like sitting in a pew, have some guy preach at me, and maybe even have to listen to some crappy Christian rock musicians.

I am drawn to the ritual and aesthetic of the Eastern liturgy where there is no direct preaching and the only music one hears are the Gregorian style Byzantine choral chants
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I still visit cathedrals in every large city I visit...and despite my departure from the Church, I still enjoy watching the ceremony and majesty of religious rituals...primarily Catholic or Church of England kind of things.
 
Cypress said:
The only reason the names Mark Mathew Luke and John got attached to the gospels is because Saint Irenaeus made the claim they were the authors in the late Second century.
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a statement made in ignorance.....Irenaeus was not the first to make the statement......he studied under Polycarp who heard teaching from John in person....
Irenaeus also writes (in a letter to a friend, Florinus) of hearing Polycarp (d. 155) recount his interaction with - John and with the others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what were the things concerning the Lord which he had heard from them, and of which he took notes not on paper but in my heart (Hist. Eccl. 5.20.6–7; 4.14.3–5).
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https://www.grin.com/document/503108

on the other hand, YOUR authority is a guy who went to an ivy league school and denies the existence of God....gosh, who should we choose to believe......1) talked to John.......2) went to school in the 20th Century......

How did peasants from the Aramaic-speaking backwater province of Galilee manage articulate and compose sophisticated literary and philosophical thoughts in highly educated classical Attic Greek?
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I previously told you to read this paper......it covers that easily....read it now....
https://www.grin.com/document/503108
 
PostmodernProphet said:
a statement made in ignorance.....Irenaeus was not the first to make the statement......he studied under Polycarp who heard teaching from John in person....

https://www.grin.com/document/503108

on the other hand, YOUR authority is a guy who went to an ivy league school and denies the existence of God....gosh, who should we choose to believe......1) talked to John.......2) went to school in the 20th Century......



I previously told you to read this paper......it covers that easily....read it now....
https://www.grin.com/document/503108
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Try improving your reading comprehension.

I never said the apostle John never existed, and I never claimed that Polycarp was not a disciple of John.

I have actually had a course on the letters of the apostolic fathers, and I do not recall that Polycarp stated in his one surviving extant letter, The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, that he personally knew that John the Apostle was the author of the Gospel of John.


My sources in this thread have been reputable PhD level religious scholars trained at America's best divinity schools at Yale, Harvard, Princeton.

I am not going to click on a link called "grin.com".

I am not going to read some obscure baptist Minister's blog.

I am not going to watch a podcast from some televangelist pastor.


The only sources I will accept from you are PhD level religious scholars who trained at America's best seminaries and divinity schools.
 
Cypress said:
Try improving your reading comprehension.

I never said the apostle John never existed, and I never claimed that Polycarp was not a disciple of John.

I have actually had a course on the letters of the apostolic fathers, and I do not recall that Polycarp stated in his one surviving extant letter, The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, that he personally knew that John the Apostle was the author of the Gospel of John.
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From what I read Polycarp doesn't even refer to the Gospels by the names of the nominal authors. Neither did Irenaeus.

My sources in this thread have been reputable PhD level religious scholars trained at America's best divinity schools at Yale, Harvard, Princeton.
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It doesn't matter to a hard-line Fundamentalist. In fact MORE KNOWLEDGE is considered bad in those circles. Try debating against a Creationist who loves Dr. Dino despite his fake PhD from Patriot University. They will assume people with ACTUAL GEOLOGY DEGREES are in error and the tax cheat convicted felon, Dr. Dino, is right.

It's positively surreal.


The only sources I will accept from you are PhD level religious scholars who trained at America's best seminaries and divinity schools.
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PhD level scholars would write in a way that renders it unreadable to PMP. PMP doesn't appear to have much education. MAYBE a high school diploma, more likely a GED. Scary that he thinks he can foist off that howler of a "masters degree in theology".
 
PostmodernProphet said:
and what would your opinion be of a person who claimed to be an expert on Asian history who claimed no one ever really believed there were Chinese dynasties?....
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We have vast written and archeological evidence of the historicity of the ancient Chinese dynasties from the Han back to the Zhou and Shang dynasties. The older Xia dynasty is currently thought to be legendary.

We don't have any concrete evidence of who are the authors of the Gospel of Mark or The Iliad, other than oral tradition asserting it was a companion of Peter and an ancient Greek bard named Homer, respectively.
 
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Cypress said:
We have vast written and archeological evidence of the historicity of the ancient Chinese dynasties from the Han back to the Zhou dynasty. The older Xia dynasty is currently thought to be legendary.

We don't have any concrete evidence of who are the authors of the Gospel of Mark or The Iliad, other than oral tradition asserting it was a companion of Peter and an ancient Greek bard named Homer, respectively.
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This is always an interesting conversation. The "historicity" of various characters in history. The key difference is: Let's assume Homer was a complete fabrication. Let's assume no one named Homer ever had anything to do with the Iliad. The Iliad would still be a valuable piece of literature. If Jesus never existed or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all completely different people who wrote the stories up decades and decades after the events it would still be fine if people were focused on the MESSAGE and not the PEOPLE. But that's not necessarily allowed with regards to Christ.

Christ HAS to exist if Christianity has any value whatsoever in terms of its soteriology. He IS the way and the light and the only way to God. One HAS to believe in him and accept his sacrifice on their behalf. It's a simple soteriology but it DOES require the absolute truth of Christ's existence.

As for the nominal authors that's just silliness. There's nothing necessary to the faith that requires these particular people to have been the authors. Nothing. So the fact that a "Christian" like PMP would come on here and witness AGAINST GOD with their actions while supposedly DEFENDING THE BIBLE is beyond me.
 
Perry Phimosis said:
This is always an interesting conversation. The "historicity" of various characters in history. The key difference is: Let's assume Homer was a complete fabrication. Let's assume no one named Homer ever had anything to do with the Iliad. The Iliad would still be a valuable piece of literature. If Jesus never existed or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all completely different people who wrote the stories up decades and decades after the events it would still be fine if people were focused on the MESSAGE and not the PEitsOPLE. But that's not necessarily allowed with regards to Christ.

Christ HAS to exist if Christianity has any value whatsoever in terms of its soteriology. He IS the way and the light and the only way to God. One HAS to believe in him and accept his sacrifice on their behalf. It's a simple soteriology but it DOES require the absolute truth of Christ's existence.

As for the nominal authors that's just silliness. There's nothing necessary to the faith that requires these particular people to have been the authors. Nothing. So the fact that a "Christian" like PMP would come on here and witness AGAINST GOD with their actions while supposedly DEFENDING THE BIBLE is beyond me.
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It's possible a Greek bard named Homer was an epic genius who singlehandedly composed the Iliad and the Odyssey.

It's possible a companion of the apostle Peter named Mark the Evangelist wrote a Gospel based on what he heard Peter preach.

It's fun to speculate.

But I agree with you that the actual authorship is less important than the contribution these texts made to the literary and spiritual evolution of western civilization.

I think people can decide for themselves how to experience Jesus. The Unitarians don't accept the concept of the Trinity and consider Jesus to just be a human prophet
 
Cypress said:
Try improving your reading comprehension.

I never said the apostle John never existed, and I never claimed that Polycarp was not a disciple of John.
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improve your own.....no one said you did......you said no one had done it before Irenaeus did.....I said it was a lie....and then I proved it....
I have actually had a course on the letters of the apostolic fathers, and I do not recall that Polycarp stated in his one surviving extant letter, The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, that he personally knew that John the Apostle was the author of the Gospel of John.
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your memory is not my problem.....my source is in the link you refuse to read because you're afraid you'll be tainted by fact......deal with it.....

My sources in this thread have been reputable PhD level religious scholars trained at America's best divinity schools at Yale, Harvard, Princeton.
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no atheist is reputable.....sorry...


I am not going to click on a link called "grin.com".
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your loss.....

I am not going to read some obscure baptist Minister's blog.

I am not going to watch a podcast from some televangelist pastor.
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the source isn't, be that as it may I realize you only read atheist and agnostic sources.......your problem not mine.....

thanks for the debate.....it was fun until you surrendered.......at least everyone else now realizes the truth......
 
Cypress said:
We have vast written and archeological evidence of the historicity of the ancient Chinese dynasties from the Han back to the Zhou and Shang dynasties. The older Xia dynasty is currently thought to be legendary.

We don't have any concrete evidence of who are the authors of the Gospel of Mark or The Iliad, other than oral tradition asserting it was a companion of Peter and an ancient Greek bard named Homer, respectively.
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if you refuse to read my links there is nothing more to discuss.......you chose to believe shit some atheist made up in the 20th Century.....I chose to believe first hand commentary from the 1st..........we can never agree.......
 
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