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@Algebe I appreciate some of your line of thought, but I will just make a few additional remarks regarding your comments.
I think your point that people don't "have it cracked" is true -- religion, political ideals, economical systems, etc all included. I think the concept that the Bible or any other book, for that matter, is an owners manual to reality and life is a fallacy. We still have to make our own choices the best we can. Additionally, I think it is a fallacy to think that Christians, specifically, don't seek with their mind. My reading of the New Testament indicates the opposite of that. St. Paul never taught blind faith.
From your point of view: Who says we need to live in "reasonable harmony with each other"? Why is violence wrong? Is it because it disrupts harmony? Why are children and family precious? Is it because that's how we propagate our species? Who cares if we propagate our species? We are just bones and chemicals hurdling through a hostile universe that wants to kill us. So what if I don't want to live in harmony? That would be my opinion and no other opinion is greater than any other. If someone thinks their opinion is better than mine, that would just be arrogance.
I would certainly agree that the "Golden Rule" was around way before Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. And that does bring us to conscience. Where does this conscience come from? Hardwired by natural selection and random mutation? Or is it programmed into us? Truth is, neither of us could defend either theory. We can agree that we have it, but in your view its still only an opinion that can be overpowered or dismissed.
On your problem of Jesus: I would agree that there are lot of interpretations of his message and some of them are wrong without questions. We can determine which of those are wrong by intellectual inquiry. That, however, does not negate the very good historical record of his teachings and life that can be found in the four Gospels. To really discount the teachings of Jesus, you would first have to prove the unreliability of the historical record. I think that would be very challenging in light of the "embarrassment of riches" we have in terms of manuscript evidence.
I would think that you have a false understanding of God from the Christian perspective. This God, as I understand it is not anthropomorphic in the least, but a prime mover. This God exist outside of time and space, is a personal being who is omnipotent, etc. He exhibits great power that is at least enough to create the universe. If he has the power to create the universe, then he could have the power to listen to prayers and enter time and space. This doesn't sound much like a fairy of any sort to me. It would also seem to me that reality demands the existence of this God in contrast to your understanding.
You have no way of doing that. I suggest what you have is a method to confirm what you like and discard what you do not like.
@Nyarlathotep Intellectual inquiry is not that difficult. The scientific method itself is intellectual inquiry. While, I'm not suggesting the scientific method can be used in this instance, I am suggesting the even finite creatures like ourselves can establish methods of arriving at truth. Without going too much into epistemology, we have the basic intellectual tools of logic and reasoning.
Which are useless for determining which version of a supernatural story is accurate. Using only logic and reasoning which version of the Cinderella fairy tale is the truth: Her carriage is constructed out of a magically transformed pumpkin or watermelon?
@Nyarlathotep You've set up a false dichotomy. I thought we where discussing interpretations of the Bible by Christians. Indeed, logic and reasoning can be used as part of a method to determine the best interpretation. Again, without going much into epistemology and exegesis, that would remain true.
We would have to set some additional criteria to determine if the truth claims within the Bible are true or not. Again, we can do that by using logic and reason as a method. I'd be happy to outline a method to discovering if the Bible is true or not. One of the basic things we have to do is determine if there is a God or not. If there is no God, then the claims about God in Bible could not be true. If there is a God, then the claims about God in the Bible can be true. Then we would have to do more work on the other truth claims. Then at that point we can start work on the interpretations, etc.
@miricacleman12
"St. Paul never taught blind faith"
What is the difference between blind faith and faith? The Pauline letters sure do talk a lot about faith.
@an_order_of_mag I think "blind faith" is a belief held by a person that has no reason. Generally speaking, "faith" would be the opposite of that -- I belief held on evidence and rationality.
"belief held on evidence and rationality"
That's an oxymoron. If there's evidence, why do you need faith? Didn't Jesus criticize Thomas for wanting to see physical evidence of the crucifixion when the other disciples took it on faith?
@Algebe It is not an oxymoron. Would it be an oxymoron to believe that a plane can take you from Atlanta to Los Angeles. You can't prove it, but you can determine based on evidence whether you should believe it.
Jesus did indeed give Thomas evidence that he hung on the cross.
We don't live our lives based on proof. We live our lives based on evidence.
VS
Notice how when you want to accept an idea you demand evidence; telling us proof is impossible (I agree up to this point). But when you don't want to accept an idea you demand the same proof you just told us is impossible. Remember when I said:
It seems we are getting a peek at that method.
@Nyarlathotep I think you are correct. I probably didn't express myself well enough in the second statement. I should have said:
"You would first have to provide enough evidence to make it improbable that the historical record is unreliable."
Thanks for pointing that out. I typically use the various forms of "proof" in the mathematical sense. In that case, I did not.
@miracleman12
"Would it be an oxymoron to believe that a plane can take you from Atlanta to Los Angeles. You can't prove it"
I could prove it by taking a plane ride from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Judging from my last experience of flying domestic in the US (14 hours from LA to Las Vegas), I certainly wouldn't take it on faith.
But it most definitely is an oxymoron to define faith as "belief held on evidence and rationality". Faith requires the acceptance of something without evidence. That's why the the Xtians put such a high value on it.
Interesting. So there is no such thing as blind faith? What's would a belief that someone has that has evidence be?
@Miracleman12
"What's would a belief that someone has that has evidence be?"
Do you mean a belief that another person has evidence of something, or a belief that I myself have evidence?
The latter really doesn't make sense. Either I have evidence or I don't. No belief is involved. The former would depend on the quality of the evidence, whether or not it had been peer-revised and was available for checking, and to a lesser extent on the reputation of the person making the claim. For example, I'd be more inclined to take a claim in "Nature" on face value than one in "National Inquirer." Again it's not really a matter of belief.
No religious belief or event can be substantiated objectively. There's no evidence other than subjective experience and hearsay. And the fact that someone claimed to have had a religious experience would automatically negate their reputation for credibility as far as I'm concerned.
@Miracleman12
“I think it is a fallacy to think that Christians, specifically, don't seek with their mind.”
No. They seek the truth with part of their mind, to a greater or lesser degree. They arbitrarily assign some part of reality to a deity and retreat from thinking about it.
"We are just bones and chemicals hurdling through a hostile universe that wants to kill us. So what if I don't want to live in harmony? That would be my opinion and no other opinion is greater than any other."
This sounds like a reiteration of Skeptical Christian’s assertion that religion/god is the only thing that prevents us from running amok. So I’ll ask you the same question I asked him. Isn’t there anything your own character that prevents you from choosing the path of conflict over the path of harmony?
Where did your "prime mover" come from? What is its purpose? What evidence is there that it's ever answered one single prayer? You say that it's not anthropomorphic, so is it something that you've conceived yourself independently of the Judeo-Christian tradition? Jehovah-Jesus is certainly a personal (and therefore finite) being. Please explain why "reality demands the existence of this God". Your description of it sounds like another "god of the gaps" concept to me.
I'm not sure what you mean by "manuscript evidence". There's nothing from Jesus' supposed lifetime, and certainly nothing written down by the man himself. What do you consider to be the nearest manuscript to Jesus in terms of time and geography?
@Algebe Very nice. I think you have some very good comments and questions. I'll do my best to explain my understanding.
"They arbitrarily assign some part of reality to a deity and retreat from thinking about it. "
I'm sure there are plenty of Christian, Hindus, etc that do exactly that. The very thing you talk about is a variation on the argument from ignorance fallacy called the "God of the Gaps" fallacy. I don't think following Jesus of Nazareth requires this intellectual fallacy. I'm not saying a guy like Ken Ham isn't guilty of such. I'm saying it's not a prerequisite.
"...religion/god is the only thing that prevents us from running amok."
I agree with you. Religion isn't the only thing that keeps us from running amok. As we have agreed, we have our conscience. The difference between you and I is that I believe that there are at least some objective morals that exists and can be shown to us by our conscience. My point is that if there is only matter and energy any morality whether it comes from conscience, society, etc is subjective. Nietzsche and Sartre did a much better exposition on this concept than I can.
On Prayer
I wouldn't even begin to attempt to show that God answers prayers. My point is that if he has the properties that I explained, there is no good reason that he couldn't -- not that he should or does.
On the Prime Mover
If we can show that the Prime Mover is the cause of the universe, it would be a logical fallacy to say that we have to explain the Prime Mover to make it true that he caused the universe. It is logically coherent to only say that the Prime Mover caused the universe. I don't have to explain the Prime Mover to make it true. What would happen if we had to explain the Prime Mover is that we put ourselves into an infinite regress. If the Prime Mover has a cause and that cause has a cause and that cause has cause, etc, then we never get to right now. At some point there has to be a beginning.
Without getting too much into theology and attempting to explain the trinitarian concept of God, I'd say that the Judeo-Christian concept of God is the one that best explains reality -- as in this notion of a Prime Mover. If God has the attributes that I explained earlier as the prime mover of the universe, then it is perfectly reasonable that he could enter time and space in human form and walk the Galilee. That's not to say just because he could he did. I would certainly have to present a better argument for that. I'm saying that the fundamental state and nature of God is not anthropomorphic -- more like a disembodied mind.
"Personal" in the sense that I used it is not an indicator of a finite being, but in the sense of having a mind which allows decision making. In this case the decision was to create the universe.
"Your description of it sounds like another "god of the gaps" concept to me."
"God of the Gaps" would be the act of inserting "god" in the place of evidence which is not what I am implying. I think there is plenty of evidence that the universe began to exist. I think there is plenty of evidence that if something begins to exist there has to be a cause. The question is: What is the cause? With a little deductive reasoning and appealing to the science we have, I think, we arrive at God. Additionally, I think we can deduce with other arguments and come up with the same answer. For example, the question of objective morality that we have been discussing. I think that if there is objective morality then we can deduce there must be a God. Having said that, both you and I would agree that this moral argument couldn't appeal to science. I'm just using it as an example of deduction. "God of the Gaps" would be more like: We don't understand it, so God did it.
On Manuscript Evidence
I would not disagree with you that Jesus of Nazareth never wrote anything down. As I suggested, it comes down to the reliability of the Gospels. I would agree that if the Gospels aren't reliable, then they have to be thrown out. From a historical perspective, I think we can be more sure of the Gospels and Jesus of Nazareth than most anything else that happened in the ancient past. Review this: We only know about Socrates because Aristotle wrote about him. The Iliad and the Odyssey were probably composed in the 8th century BCE our earliest manuscript comes in about the 3rd century BCE. About 1000 ancient copies of these two poem exist which is far more than any other ancient document except for the Bible. We literally have almost 6000 ancient copies of the New Testament in Greek alone. Importantly, we have a manuscript fragment from Mark’s Gospel that dates to the first century. Historically, I think we can know what was written in the Gospels and the New Testament in general to about 98%.
Additionally, I think the internal consistency of the documents themselves coupled with archeological evidence and other historical documents such as Josephus, Tacitus, etc. make it very probable that the New Testament in reliable. I think there are fewer things that happened in the ancient past that we can be more sure of from a historical perspective. I think the only presupposition that you have to have in addition is if there is a God or not.
One final note: I do appreciate your rigorous questions and comments.
Miracleman12:
On manuscripts:
The Iliad and Odyssey are both works of fiction that arose out of an oral poetry tradition. We attribute them to a poet called Homer, but we can never be sure. Maybe they were written by another poet of the same name. It doesn't matter because they are just stories. There are no powerful religious cults based on them. The New Testament is in a different category. The story, or people's interpretation of it, has had a profound and often bloody impact on the world for two millennia. It's supposed truth has been enforced by the power of the sword and the stake.
Yet the gospels, even by most optimistic estimates, were not written until decades after Jesus' death. Let's consider a modern parallel. John Kennedy was killed in November 1963. The event was filmed. There were thousands of witnesses, and the crime was investigated by the most advanced law enforcement agencies in the world. There are thousands and thousands of documents about it. Yet still we don't know exactly what happened. That was just over 50 years ago, about the same time lag as between the death of Jesus and the writing of the gospels. Now what if every document about JFK's assassination had been written by advocates of the same conspiracy cult, and with each new telling they introduced new events without providing additional evidence, other than to say that they truly believe it because they heard it from someone who knew someone who was in Dallas that day?
@Algebe I think you have some good observations. And you are right Homer's writings and the Bible are in two different categories. My purpose was merely to illustrate the "embarrassment of riches" we have of the Bible itself and not to say their purpose is the same.
I do think the Gospels existed as oral tradition before being written down. Writing things down wasn't as common in ancient times as it is now. Besides, eye witnesses were still alive. I think it has been shown that oral tradition can well preserve information. I think the telling points are the internal consistency, the archeological evidence, and the non-Biblical cross references such as Josephus and Tacitus, etc.
I wouldn't even begin to try decompile the comparison of the JFK assignation with the story of Jesus of Nazareth in this space, but your point is well taken.
"eye witnesses were still alive"
How accurately can you describe an event that you witnessed 30-40-50 years ago? Who was at your 10th birthday party? Your 12th? What presents did you get? Human memory is notoriously unreliable and malleable.
When I hear people talking about the reliability of the gospels, I'm always reminded of the lines sung by Judas' in "Jesus Christ Superstar."
"Now why'd you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you'd come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication"
@Algebe I think it's pretty good. We have 4 Gospels that agree with one another. We have archeological evidence that corroborates those Gospels. We have hostile evidence that is independent of the Gospels. Etc.
I think it is more likely than not. If you don't think so, that's your choice. My suggestion is to follow/believe what you think best represent reality.
The gospels are known to contradict each other.
Archaeological evidence that corroborates the existence of a setting is not evidence for a supernatural tale told in the setting. For example the existence of New York City is not evidence that Spider-man is real, even though Spider-man stories typically take place in New York City.
There are no known contemporary sources for the character Jesus, no matter how much the Christians try to tell you otherwise.
@Nyarlathotep You got me.
If you have a specific argument about contradictions, I'd be happy to see what I can come up with to best of my understanding.
In regard to your second point: It seems to me that you are intellectually isolated. There are very few scholars of history at the Ph D level that think Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist and the Gospels don't at least have some germ of truth. Even, a jewel of atheism, Bart Ehrman, wouldn't agree with your assessment.
Your third point: So everyone was brainwashed after the Crucifixion? I think your reading of historical documents is invalid and irrational.
To have a legitimate discussion about history, we would both have to agree that history is real and can be accessed through ancient documents.
Ah but this is the rub. The question is which Jesus?Jesus 1If you asked me if I thought someone with the name Joshua lived in the holy land in 30 CE +/- 50 years, who was a religious adventurer who met a sticky end; that is totally believable. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if more than one person met that criteria.Jesus 2If however you told me a guy named Jesus lived in the holy land in 30 CE, who raised the dead, preformed all kinds of crazy miracles, was the son of god (but was also somehow god!), who sacrificed them-self to themselves to forgive all of us because someone swiped an apple 4000 years before, then took it all back 3 day later, who literally caused a walking dead incident in Jerusalem (which no one ever wrote about!) . No I don't think that Jesus existed.The sad part is, like I said before: there isn't a single contemporary source for either of those Jesuses!
@miracleman12
"4 Gospels that agree with one another"
I can get past this one in reference t Joseph's (husband of Mary) father.
Mathew 1:16 "and Jacob begat Joseph"
Luke 3:23-24 "Joseph, the [son] of Eli,"
So which one is Joseph's father, Eli or Jacob?
@an_order_of_mag I wouldn't begin to pretend that I could answer your question in a satisfactory way. I do believe there is plenty of scholarship on this subject that you can seek out. I will say that Mathew and Luke had different audiences (Jewish and Gentile) and a different purpose and probably used a different method to drive their point across. I would recommend that you seek out the scholarship on the subject if you think its really a problem.
Oh! A wiggle worm!
You, mm12, asserted that the gospels of yours were in all agreement. Then, an obvious contradiction is pointed out. Your response? You tell order of mag to ask someone else about it because you can't even pretend to be able to do so. Do you understand how this debate room stuff works? You make an assertion, you back it up.
@CyberLN
1. I asserted internal consistency
2. The genealogy is not an obvious contradiction. It is well known that they are from two different perspectives. And even if they did contradict it does very little to refute internal consistency.
I think I have backed up my assertions pretty well. I'm not hear to teach people how to read literature, analyze history, understand logic, how to add and subtract.
"I'm not hear to teach people how to read literature, analyze history, understand logic, how to add and subtract."
And you're certainly not "hear" to teach us how to spell.
Notice how his claim of internal consistency is a tautology. If contradictions don't undermine the claim of consistency; nothing ever will.
If you want to force the issue which is obvious from the scholarship that I mentioned: Joseph was properly the son of Jacob, and only the son-in-law of Eli
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