Religion IS crazy!

[Value Collector]

You do realise that "decades after" is an absurdly short timeframe for writing down events .

The fact that they were written in the lifetime of eye-witnesses is extraordinary. There was no time for myth to spring up.

Decades not long enough for myth to spring up???? Try researching the cargo cults, whole religions are now based on the US airdrops from WW2, islanders build radio towers from wood and radio's from coco nuts to try and summon the air drop gods, and they worship a figure called John Frum as their god who said he will return.

Pav, If you go down to any local pub you will hear stories recounted by eye witnesses of events of things that happened only weeks before, and the stories will bear little resemblance to the actual events.

I personally witnessed a sequence of events that happened in 2002, that has become some what of a legendary story that continues to be passed around the army and I can tell you that every year this story seems to grow further from the truth, It barely resembles the actual events any more. So 70 - 130 years is more than enough time for word of mouth stories to evolve, Have you ever played Chinese whispers.

 

[SirRumpole]

, But it in no way is that evidence of the Mythical story that built over the decades and later made it way into the bible.

I never said it was, as the article I linked to pointed out.

 

[Value Collector]

Cargo cults sprang up throughout the islands after the US forces left after WW2.

 

[SirRumpole]

Cargo cults sprang up throughout the islands after the US forces left after WW2.

I don't think your analogy is particularly apt.

The US air force has demonstrably greater technology than the native islanders, and so the islanders had good reason to belief the USAF were 'Gods' and so they worshipped the 'iron birds'.

If Jesus was 'just an ordinary bloke', what reason would the people around the area have to treat him as anything special ?

Now, if he actually performed miracles...

I'm not promoting one way or the other with respect to Jesus' activities, but when I see a hole in an argument then I need to point it out.

 

[Value Collector]

Well this one is easy.

The reason I believe in Christ as reliable is because he rose from the dead. Mohammad did not. This is what separates Christ from everyone else. This is the whole basis behind why He should be believed in relation to the purpose of life, death, afterlife etc.

Can you see how circular that is,

1, you believe the bible because jesus rose from the dead

2, you know jesus rose from the dead because it says it in the bible.

the Quran says Muhammad flew to paradise and back on a flying horse, Doesn't that prove to you he was gods prophet. And the Muslims even claim there is a horse hoof print on the dome of a mosque, How did that get there if the Quran isn't true???

The Muslims have the same evidence as you, yet you reject their stories, So you should beable to see why we atheists reject both of your stories as equal glimpses of the untrue.

The historicity of the resurrection separates it from other supernatural claims which are not verifiable with the same historical evidence.

The historical evidence comes from the bible, Which is like using Harry potter books to prove Harry potter.

The simple fact is that the apostles were cowardly and on the run and then after the resurrection they go to their deaths for what they knew 100% to be truth or lie. People will die for what they think is truth (but might be wrong), but not for what they know 100% is a lie. Their deaths are recorded outside the Bible.

There is no evidence for that either, How ever religious people die for their beliefs all the time. Do you accept suicide bombers as evidence of Allah and the Quran.

written by eye-witnesses and close associates

Can you please stop claiming the Bible was written by eye witnesses

 

[Value Collector]

I don't think your analogy is particularly apt.

The US air force has demonstrably greater technology than the native islanders, and so the islanders had good reason to belief the USAF were 'Gods' and so they worshipped the 'iron birds'.

If Jesus was 'just an ordinary bloke', what reason would the people around the area have to treat him as anything special ?

Now, if he actually performed miracles...

I'm not promoting one way or the other with respect to Jesus' activities, but when I see a hole in an argument then I need to point it out.

Look at the number of Gurus in India that have huge followings with nothing more than cheap magic tricks or fake pychic readings, Advanced Technology is just one way to impress the gullible, Any magician can turn water into wine.

But as I said, it may all just be stories that got exaggerated over time that turned an interesting new age jewish rabi into a son of a god that did miracles.

 

[bunyip]

The reason I believe in Christ as reliable is because he rose from the dead.

You don’t know that – you only think you know it because it’s written in the bible.
It’s entirely possible that, fearing an uprising over the murder of a high profile man, the Romans simply removed the body under cover of darkness and discarded it in some remote desert location, where it was torn apart by wild animals.

Or it’s possible that this bloke Jesus was just an ordinary man who was pretty good at making out he had some special knowledge, some special calling from God, some special God-given powers, and as a result many gullible people flocked to him, thinking he was their saviour and their pathway to God and eternity in paradise.
These sort of people keep springing up to this day – religious gurus who through their ability as spruikers and con artists quickly get a following from a bunch of gullible people, and so a religious sect is born and the sect leader is credited with mystical powers of which he has none.

 

[Value Collector]

More examples of cheap magic tricks used to fool the gullible religious followers.

We should always be sceptical, and require evidence. Eye witness account and holy texts are not evidence.

 

[bunyip]

If Jesus was 'just an ordinary bloke', what reason would the people around the area have to treat him as anything special ?

The same reason that people today have for supporting cult leaders who claim to have supernatural powers. There will always be gullible people who are searching for greater meaning instead of just being content to live their lives like ordinary people.
To the gullible, religious cults and cult leaders are just what they’ve been looking for. Or at least that’s what they think initially, but sooner or later they usually become disillusioned and realize they were duped. Just as I and an increasing number of people realize that we were duped by Christianity.

 

[SirRumpole]

More examples of cheap magic tricks used to fool the gullible religious followers.

We should always be sceptical, and require evidence. Eye witness account and holy texts are not evidence.

Realistically, what evidence do you expect from 2,000 years ago ? Photographs ?

The Romans were hardly likely to give much time to writing about an enemy of the state, and probably the reason the apostles waited so long to do it was that they were afraid of suffering the same fate as Jesus and wanted to let the situation calm down.

So, eye witness accounts and writings are all there is to go by. They are not enough for you and me, but then no one is forcing us to take them seriously.

 

[Value Collector]

Realistically, what evidence do you expect from 2,000 years ago ? Photographs ?

.

For the man or the God? Because I don't really need to see evidence for an ordinary man exisiting 2000 years ago, But uf you really want to convince me that a specific man existed at a certain time in history, then I would need to see the following.

1, Contemporary artworks - eg Sculptures or paintings that were mad of him during his life. ( not 500 years after his death)

2, documents written by the person.

3, Some sort of artefacts from the persons life that link them to a time that link a person to a time.

4, Eye witness accounts that are written by the eye witness at the time or atleast around the time. (not a biblical account by unknown author that says people saw something and was written 70 -130 years later)

5, documents written about the person during there life, from outside sources, even unfriendly sources

none of this exists for Jesus, no artwork, documents, artifacts etc etc were made during his life, that seems weird to me.

But proving the man is only half of it, you then have to prove the god exists, which is what I care more about, and a god should find it easy to prove itself.

 

[Value Collector]

So, eye witness accounts and writings are all there is to go by.

None of the texts are written by eye witnesses, so we really need to stop calling the bible eye witness accounts.

Even if they were eye witness accounts, no more weight can be given to them than you would an eye witness account of some one saying an Indian guru levitated in front of them or they were abducted by aliens.

If Jesus was 'just an ordinary bloke', what reason would the people around the area have to treat him as anything special ?

The Indian Gurus are just normal blokes, they have a followers who believe they have supernatural powers, same with the Dali lama and the Pope, they put there dresses on one leg at a time too. The gullible follow people, do you think that the fact the people follow the Dali Lama proves the supernatural claims about him?

 

[SirRumpole]

none of this exists for Jesus, no artwork, documents, artifacts etc etc were made during his life, that seems weird to me.

I think your demands ignore the politics of the time, ie Roman domination and the fact that the Jews were second class citizens, and that the Jews themselves gave Jesus to the Romans

Tacitus was a member of the Roman consular nobility committed to the senatorial ideals of the Roman republic. He detested both Christians and Jews.

Tacitus wrote of the fire that consumed much of Rome in 64 C.E. during the reign of Nero and the chaos which followed the fire. Then Tacitus reported that Nero fixed blame for the disaster on Christians:

"Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, and the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. "

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/nonchristianaccounts.html

 

[Value Collector]

I think your demands ignore the politics of the time, ie Roman domination and the fact that the Jews were second class citizens, and that the Jews themselves gave Jesus to the Romans

the way you are thinking up justification to fill the holes reminds me of somebody trying to will the logical gaps in their favourite sci fi film ;-)

So you don't think it weird that not a single of those items exist, even as I said something from his enemies?

It's weird that you think the romans are more powerful than a god? This is the god that held the mouths of the lions shut to protect a Christian, destroyed whole cities, sent plagues against the Egyptians etc etc but he can't allow any evidence to survive.

But as I said, it depends what your trying to prove, If it is just that a guy called jesus existed and he got some followers, forget it I will give that to you, I don't really care about proving the man. But If you say he was a god, We need a lot more evidence.

 

[SirRumpole]

But If you say he was a god, We need a lot more evidence.

Well that's fair enough, and, playing the devil's advocate again ( because I enjoy it) I'll ask pavillion why God decided to send his son in the guise of a man to set the human race straight instead of coming himself ?

Surely that would be more efficient and save a lot of death ?

 

[bunyip]

Realistically, what evidence do you expect from 2,000 years ago ? Photographs ?

The Romans were hardly likely to give much time to writing about an enemy of the state, and probably the reason the apostles waited so long to do it was that they were afraid of suffering the same fate as Jesus and wanted to let the situation calm down.

So, eye witness accounts and writings are all there is to go by. They are not enough for you and me, but then no one is forcing us to take them seriously.

You can imagine how much the 'eye witness accounts' got stretched and varied over time, just like any modern day eye witness accounts.
Ask half a dozen people today to describe an extraordinary event that they all witnessed, and chances are there will be considerable variation in what they tell you. Ask them again 20 or 30 years later, and the variation between their stories will widen even further.

When I was a kid there was snow in a Queensland town that sits almost on the Tropic of Capricorn. Forty years later the snowfall in that town (depending on who you ask) was anywhere between a light dusting that melted as soon as it fell, to heavy snow a foot deep that you could have skied on. It all depends on who’s telling the story!

True, nobody is forcing us to take seriously the accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus, nor do we have to take seriously any of the other claims about God or Jesus or religion generally.
But many people do take them seriously with no more 'proof' than what's written in stone age texts, so seriously in fact that they fight wars over it, hate and condemn people who don't share their belief, and tell them they're wicked and selfish and they're destined for punishment by burning for eternity in hellfire.

 

[bellenuit]

Well that's fair enough, and, playing the devil's advocate again ( because I enjoy it) I'll ask pavillion why God decided to send his son in the guise of a man to set the human race straight instead of coming himself ?

Surely that would be more efficient and save a lot of death ?

Probably worth adding that if the intention of sending His son to die was to redeem us from our sins and to give us the opportunity to enter the Kingdom of Heaven by believing in Him, why only do it through events happening in an obscure corner of the earth inhabited by mainly illiterate peasants. Weren't those living in other parts of the world not important to Him; those living in Asia, Africa and the Americas, not to mention our own Aboriginies. Weren't they worth saving? It is only in the last 200 years that His so called message has reached large parts of the world, so all those living in those areas prior to that have had no opportunity to be saved and enter Heaven.

Since He had the power to convey his message to everyone, no matter where they lived and no matter what stage their culture and level of communications were at in a manner that would be unambiguously clear, it certainly was totally inept to do it as it was supposedly done. Hardly the work of a deity.

 

[bunyip]

The reason I believe in Christ as reliable is because he rose from the dead.

Rose from the dead? And where exactly did he rise to – some place called Heaven?
This Heaven place has been talked about for thousands of years and yet neither you nor anyone else has the faintest idea of where it is, what it’s like, or if it even exists. Think about that for a minute.....millions of people the world over think they’re going to the same place when they die, yet they don’t have any evidence that the place even exists!
I find it midly amusing that people from all walks of life, from ordinary every day people to Mafia thugs, from deranged Muslim terrorists to pedophile Catholic priests, all think they’re going to Heaven after they die, and they’re all going to live in perfect peace and harmony! And yet their only ‘evidence’ of the existence of this place is what’s written in ancient texts by stone age people with primitive minds.

At least when rumors started circulating about the existence of ‘a great south land’, it wasn’t too long before ships set sail to find this land – hence the discovery of Australia by an English sea captain called James Cook. But no such journey of discovery has been undertaken to find Heaven – the rather naïve attitude of many people is ‘I know there’s a Heaven and I know I’m going there, because the Bible tells me so!
I can’t think of a better example of naivety and simple-mindedness.

 

[SirRumpole]

This Heaven place has been talked about for thousands of years and yet neither you nor anyone else has the faintest idea of where it is, what it’s like, or if it even exists. Think about that for a minute.....millions of people the world over think they’re going to the same place when they die, yet they don’t have any evidence that the place even exists!

String theory brings up the possibility of other dimensions that we cannot yet see. If we can't see them then we have no idea what may exist there.

Could it be a "Heaven" ? Who knows, but certainly it's a mystery why we can only see three spatial dimensions if more actually exist.

 

[burglar]

... Hardly the work of a deity.

Hardly the work of a deity