Do you really think you are helping anyone?

[waitasec]

My argument was about SCHOLAR's ACCEPTED METHOD of validating ancient document. Not your accepted method.

my question is, how does one validate oral tradition, not ancient documents?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No - what I said (and this is an exact quote) was:

US tax dollars do not support any state or federally sponsored religious programs.

Yes - and my point is that tax credits - i.e. dollars - are used to subsidize and encourage donations to religious groups.

Wait - what are you saying here? Are you saying that only those who pay in taxes should reap the benefits of public services? Do you really want to go there?

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that religious groups, like many other groups, receive valuable government services at less than their actual cost. IOW, religious groups, like many other groups, are subsidized by the government.

There are all sorts of tax incentives and deals cut in order to attract businesses and investors to certain areas. And let's talk about tax write offs for just a moment. As a banker, I see prosperous businesses and business owners who underreport their earnings or who play the tax write off game and pay far less than they should. And then - what of all the families who actually pay no taxes and THEN get a tax REFUND on top of it? Who's paying for their share of these public services?

All the people who pay more taxes than the cost of the services they consume. We're subsidizing them, just like we subsidize churches.

But to back up for a minute, you do realize that to argue that churches are justified in receiving government subsidies, you have to concede your original point that churches aren't subsidized by the government at all, right?

Federal tax exmptions do not apply to other Federal taxes such as employment taxes. Additionally, a tax-exempt organization must pay federal tax on income that is unrelated to their exempt purpose.

Furthermore - most fire departments, police departments, water/sewage services, etc are paid for via property and sales taxes. Laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but being a non profit entity doesn't mean you're automatically exempt from paying property and sales tax - many jurisdictions don't offer this tax break at all.

But many government services aren't paid for by these means. For instance, the FAA does just as much to ensure that pastors are safe when they fly on church business as they do to ensure that a businessperson is, and just as much to ensure that planes don't fall out of the sky onto churches as they do to ensure that they don't fall onto the houses of taxpayers. The FAA isn't supported by property, sales, or payroll taxes.

The employees and owners of non profits pay taxes - shouldn't their property be protected?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you talking "protected" in terms of physical protection (e.g. fire protection) or are you talking about property rights?

Maybe it doesn't matter, because either way, it's irrelevant. Companies have owners and employees, all of whom pay taxes themselves, but normally, the corporation is taxed as well. The underlying philosophy in the tax laws of your country and mine is that the tax paid by the individual only represents the "share" of that individual, not the share of organizations he or she might have a relationship with.

And as a small quibble, AFAIK, no person "owns" a normal non-profit or a church. IIRC, all the charities and non-profits I've ever been involved with have been set up as corporations without share capital... IOW, they have no owners. Usually many stakeholders and interested parties, but no actual owners.

Finally - there are all SORTS of non profit organizations which are not affiliated with religious organizations which don't pay some federal taxes.

Yes, of course. And because of this, they're subsidized... as are religious organizations.

I've never said that no other organizations are subsidized by the government; all I've been saying is that you were wrong when you claimed that religious organizations aren't. The question of whether this subsidy is appropriate is a completely separate matter to this simple factual question: yes, churches do benefit financially from the government.

They aren't PAID to take care of foster children and adoption services. These entities are given some vouchers or funds to directly pay for SOME of the costs. There's a big difference between paying someone to take care of children - and paying for food, clothing and shelter for children.

No, they really do get paid to take care of foster children and adoption services.

For instance (just because it made the blogosphere recently), take Catholic Charities of Rockford, Illinois: until it recently announced that it would no longer perform state-funded services because this would mean that it, as an agent of the government, would be required to follow the government's rules about placing children with same-sex couples, it received full funding (approx. $7.5 million per year) for these programs.

The state government of Illinois, just like the governments in many places, uses religious organizations as contractors: they provide outsourced government services and get paid for providing them, just like any governmental contractor.

From my point of view, it's a secular culture in which the large majority of people are theists - and in which the majority religion is Christianity.

The majority of people who hold religious beliefs (also a majority) in the US are Christians. It's not a matter of "overpowering" others - it's simply a matter of there simply BEING more people who espouse Christian beliefs than any other group of religious, or non religious people.

No, it's not just a matter of numbers. There's almost the same percentage of Christians in Canada as there are in the US, but religion doesn't pervade public life in the way it does in your country. There's something else going on; the effects we see in the US aren't just the inevitable effect of having lots of Christians. Many places have lots of Christians, but not the overt public religiosity of the United States.

Where would you draw the line, however? Would you abolish Christmas as a bank/post office/public school/trash collector/you name it holiday? Why would it be right for those who wish to observe Christmas with their families (the vast majority of Americans - Christian and otherwise) to have to give that up for the sake of political correctness?

Why would secularism necessarily imply that we can't get Christmas off? As the religious right is fond of pointing out, it's been made into a secular holiday anyhow.

However, I do see a certain appeal in another approach: no holidays at all. Mandate that everyone get an extra 11 vacation days (or whatever the current allocation of statutory holidays is for you folks) that people can use however they want. If one person wants to use a vacation day to spend it worshipping in church on a holiday, fine. If another wants to spend his day lounging on a beach, fine, too. Nobody would have to give anything up.

 

[Thief]

The basic topic seems lost.

How about.....
I lay down to breath my last breath....and the angels appear.
They ask a question and my response fairs, well.
They allow me to follow.

But then they ask another question...'did you tell anyone else'?

They turn about and then, come looking for you.

If I have said so, during my life here in this world....
and then those sayings stand well before the angels....
would it not have been a good thing to have said so...to you?

And if I know better things...and never speak of them...
won't the angels frown during my last hour?
Will they not show disapproval...that I refrain fair warning to you?

When my hour arrives, my 'speech' will make all the difference...what happens to me.
The same is true for you.

Whose word are you going to recite?
And when you do...the angels will ask if you told anyone else.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The basic topic seems lost.

How about.....
I lay down to breath my last breath....and the angels appear.
They ask a question and my response fairs, well.
They allow me to follow.

But then they ask another question...'did you tell anyone else'?

They turn about and then, come looking for you.

If I have said so, during my life here in this world....
and then those sayings stand well before the angels....
would it not have been a good thing to have said so...to you?

And if I know better things...and never speak of them...
won't the angels frown during my last hour?
Will they not show disapproval...that I refrain fair warning to you?

When my hour arrives, my 'speech' will make all the difference...what happens to me.
The same is true for you.

Whose word are you going to recite?
And when you do...the angels will ask if you told anyone else.

What would be wrong with this reply: "No. I would not have presumed to speak for God"?

If God needs his word spread, then he's more than capable of doing it himself. Conversely, the fact that such a capable God hasn't spread his word wider and deeper than he has says to me that he probably doesn't consider the matter very important.

In a universe with a sovereign, all-powerful God, there's no way for my actions to condemn someone to Hell against God's will.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

I find it most interesting how you are going to such great lengths to prove my point.
I am rather disappointed.
I honestly expected you to last much longer before resorting to out right lies.

Oh well.

o.k. I'll bite, what lies are you speaking of? You're also not as disappointed as I am with you. I expected you to disagree with me but not to throw around baseless accusations like you are now.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Your complete lack of willingness to put any effort into learning someone's position speaks more volumes than anything. The answer to your question has been given, you're just too unmotivated to the research. We're talking about 1960 year old documents..hehehe...that's for Mestimia.. relatively speaking this is maybe the shortest game of telephone that has ever been played when it comes to recording an ancient event

Is a decades-long "game of telephone" reliable to begin with?

Would it become more reliable by transmitting the story of it for 2000 years?

Edit: how do you come to your dates for the Gospel authorship, anyhow?

 

[Thief]

What would be wrong with this reply: "No. I would not have presumed to speak for God"?

If God needs his word spread, then he's more than capable of doing it himself. Conversely, the fact that such a capable God hasn't spread his word wider and deeper than he has says to me that he probably doesn't consider the matter very important.

In a universe with a sovereign, all-powerful God, there's no way for my actions to condemn someone to Hell against God's will.

It's a bit more simple than that.
Look around you.
There are 6billion+ people on this planet.
Why so many copies?...the failure of each copy pending.

I consider it obvious....
We are here to learn what we can...and then back to God we go.
Why be here at all?
Your linear existence produces a unique perspective.
You're different.

To ensure the effect...you are subject to the situation you are born into.
You deal with what you were dealt...then you die.

As you stand before the angels....it is They who will allow your continuance... or deny it.
Judgment.

I've written some posting about such things.
Many responses make denial.
But I see no circumvention.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

Is a decades-long "game of telephone" reliable to begin with?

Would it become more reliable by transmitting the story of it for 2000 years?

Edit: how do you come to your dates for the Gospel authorship, anyhow?

Scholarship's dating of the text's left behind is how where the dates come from. Like I said, If we're looking at just the evidence history has left behind the conditions people are putting on the Gospels to prove thier veracity are conditions that are unrealistic for ANY ancient document.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Scholarship's dating of the text's left behind is how where the dates come from.

So... your dates are something like this?

65-80 Gospel of Mark
80-100 Gospel of Matthew
80-130 Gospel of Luke
90-120 Gospel of John

Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers

AFAIK, these are the generally accepted date ranges for these books. However, I've heard Biblical scholars argue for other dates... for instance, one argument I've heard made is that the Gospel of Mark was a response to Marcionism, but this would place its authorship around 140-150 at the earliest.

In any case, even with the more commonly accepted date ranges, I don't think your claim is really true. We do have other historical documents where our first surviving copies are dated much closer to the events they describe.

Like I said, If we're looking at just the evidence history has left behind the conditions people are putting on the Gospels to prove thier veracity are conditions that are unrealistic for ANY ancient document.

Well, yeah.

But you're making demands of the Gospels that we don't normally make of other ancient docments. In historical terms, I'd say that what you're calling "validation" isn't anything like a hard-and-fast declaration that the document is definitely true; instead, it's a tentative acceptance that for the most part, the document is substantially - not wholly - correct, but this conclusion is ready to be abandoned in the face of new evidence that contradicts it.

With any other document, historians would probably strip out the mythic elements and recognize that the source might hold some bias before "validating" what remains. When a historian reads, say, the tomb inscription of an Egyptian pharoah that talks about him valiantly conquering his enemies with his divine power as a living God, he or she would probably interpret that to mean something like "wars happened during his reign, and the Egyptians were generally successful."

Is that the sort of "validation" you're asking for for the Bible? If so, then maybe we can talk. I'm open to the idea (though I'm not completely sold on it) that at the root of the Gospel story, there was a real, live man who wandered Judea preaching, built up a following, and then was executed. If that's all you want from me, then it's probably doable.

But I don't know of any written account that could ever be a proper foundation for the conclusion that God came to Earth in human form, performed miracles, and then ascended into Heaven.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

Let me publish a retraction:

The earlies surving copies of the NT are within a couple generations of the death of JC. This contrasts with often 10 centuries passing between an event happening and it's earliest surving copies found.

The dating of when the original stories were written down still stands

edit: Give me a few minutes to create a bullet point sheet summing up everything

 

[Thief]

Let me publish a retraction:

The earlies surving copies of the NT are within a couple generations of the death of JC. This contrasts with often 10 centuries passing between an event happening and it's earliest surving copies found.

The dating of when the original stories were written down still stands

edit: Give me a few minutes to create a bullet point sheet summing up everything

Do you really think you're helping anyone?

 

[Draka]

Your complete lack of willingness to put any effort into learning someone's position speaks more volumes than anything. The answer to your question has been given, you're just too unmotivated to the research. We're talking about 1960 year old documents..hehehe...that's for Mestimia.. relatively speaking this is maybe the shortest game of telephone that has ever been played when it comes to recording an ancient event

My question had nothing to do with your position. It was a simple question pertaining to you. It has nothing to do with my willingness for anything and turning your inability or flat-out refusal to answer a simple question back onto me only proves that you know you can't answer the question without weakening your very own argument.

Again, the question was:

How accurate do you think a telling of your life, and quotes you supposedly said, would be if they were written by people who didn't even know you, only maybe heard of you from oral stories told to them, 50 or 60 years after you died?

Are you even going to attempt to answer the question at all or just continue to dodge it completely?

 

[-Peacemaker-]

Bullet points of my argument:

Authorship of Gospels: Matthew the tax collector and disciple of Jesus written 70's
John Mark the companion of Peter written 80's
Luke the doctor of Paul written 80s
John the apostle written 90s

Of pastoral letter: 40s and 50s
early church creed found in 1 Corinthians: dated to within 2 years of death of Jesus

argument used against NT: It was written by people who didn't witness life of Jesus

rebuttal: All the authors were either saw it themselves, or were in a position to know eyewitnesses. All were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.

argument against NT: legendary material would've crept in between the time event occured and the time of recording

rebuttal: We can't appreciate the value of faithful transmission of stories in an oral culture. Rabbis would commit the entire OT to memory

more evidence: names attributed to the authors aren't the "big" names other than John. Most writings of legend were attributed to people with flashier names like Mary or Peter.

more evidence: Papias in The Antiquities and The Talmud both speak about Jesus to varying extents with the Talmud even attributing miracles to him, only it attributes those miracles to Satan.

Argument against NT: no existing copies are left

rebuttal: we have existing copies from a couple generations of the event. This is in stark contrast to many other ancient documents in which sometimes 10 centuries will pass.

more evidence: we have around 24000 ancient copies of the NT in existence. Contrast that to the Illiad which has about 650 ancient copies existing

Argument against NT: prophecies that Jesus fulfilled could've easily by reading OT and acting out what the Messiah was prophesied to do

Rebuttle: There were 48 prophecies in the OT predicting him that he fulfilled. Jesus could control things like whether he rode a donkey into Jerusalem but he couldn't control many others. Forinstance, Jesus couldn't contol the town he was born in (Bethlehem) nor how much his betraying would be paid to stab him in the back.(30 pieces of silver).

 

[Draka]

o.k. I'll bite, what lies are you speaking of?

How about this one:

. The answer to your question has been given,

You never answered my question at all. To say you did is a lie.

 

[waitasec]

Are you even going to attempt to answer the question at all or just continue to dodge it completely?

he would if he could but he can't so he'll lie...

 

[-Peacemaker-]

How about this one:



You never answered my question at all. To say you did is a lie.

Relax, I didn't understand it to be a personal question about my opinion. I thought we were still talking about scholarship. You'll see that I've published a retraction. I also pointed out that the bulletpoint I just made contains an early church creed dated to with 2 years of the death of Jesus. When you consider the printing press wasn't around then and oral transmission of stories was the best way they had to communicate I can accept that it won't get any better than that.The game of telephone is about hearing something once, very quickly, then passing it on. The people of ancient times drilled the message in before they passed it on. My answer is I can live with that. I wish they had a type writer and copy machine so they could ensure a more faithful transmission but I get that this is as good as it's going to get with an ancient document.

 

[Draka]

Relax, I didn't understand it to be a personal question about my opinion. I thought we were still talking about scholarship. You'll see that I've published a retraction. I also pointed out that the bulletpoint I just made contains an early church creed dated to with 2 years of the death of Jesus. When you consider the printing press wasn't around then and oral transmission of stories was the best way they had to communicate I can accept that it won't get any better than that.The game of telephone is about hearing something once, very quickly, then passing it on. The people of ancient times drilled the message in before they passed it on. My answer is I can live with that. I wish they had a type writer and copy machine so they could ensure a more faithful transmission but I get that this is as good as it's going to get with an ancient document.

Ok, wait, am I suppose to decipher the answer from that? If so, then I get that the answer to my questions is:

Not very accurate, but oh well, it's the best you're going to get and that's ok.

Is that about the jist of your answer?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Bullet points of my argument:

Authorship of Gospels: Matthew the tax collector and disciple of Jesus written 70's
John Mark the companion of Peter written 80's
Luke the doctor of Paul written 80s
John the apostle written 90s

So you're going with dates at the early end of the generally accepted ranges? Why?

Of pastoral letter: 40s and 50s
early church creed found in 1 Corinthians: dated to within 2 years of death of Jesus

argument used against NT: It was written by people who didn't witness life of Jesus

rebuttal: All the authors were either saw it themselves, or were in a position to know eyewitnesses. All were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.

I heard an interesting argument the other day: that in 1 Corinthians 15 (which I assume is the creed you're talking about), when the author talks about Christ rising from the dead "according to the Scriptures", he's not trying to say "Christ rose from the dead, which was prophesized by the Scriptures"; instead, he's trying to say something more like "our esoteric interpretation of the Scriptures tells us that Christ rose from the dead". IOW, he's talking about something derived from an almost Midrashic process looking for hidden meaning in Jewish texts, not something derived from eyewitness accounts.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: how do you know it comes from an eyewitness account at all?

argument against NT: legendary material would've crept in between the time event occured and the time of recording

rebuttal: We can't appreciate the value of faithful transmission of stories in an oral culture. Rabbis would commit the entire OT to memory

But legendary material did creep in. We see this in the texts themselves.

Remember what you agreed to about dating: the order is Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, right? The later the Gospel, the more mythic the elements that are present. For instance, in Mark (the original Mark, not the tacked-on longer ending, which was a later addition), the story ends with an empty tomb and everyone confused and worried. Matthew and Luke build upon this and add miracle stories, and by the time we get to John, we've got all sorts of miracles and apparitions that weren't ever in the older story.

more evidence: names attributed to the authors aren't the "big" names other than John. Most writings of legend were attributed to people with flashier names like Mary or Peter.

... or Thomas, or Judas, or Mary Magdalene. There were plenty of other Gospels floating around, and they weren't all credited to the "big names".

more evidence: Papias in The Antiquities and The Talmud both speak about Jesus to varying extents with the Talmud even attributing miracles to him, only it attributes those miracles to Satan.

You mentioned this earlier, and I asked you to provide a specific citation; you didn't do that, did you?

Argument against NT: no existing copies are left

rebuttal: we have existing copies from a couple generations of the event. This is in stark contrast to many other ancient documents in which sometimes 10 centuries will pass.

more evidence: we have around 24000 ancient copies of the NT in existence. Contrast that to the Illiad which has about 650 ancient copies existing

This is a question of transmission, not of the original events themselves. If we start out with a lie and faithfully transmit it for thousands of years, it doesn't become true, does it?

Also, those other documents are treated with doubt. Nobody takes the Iliad as (pun only slightly intended) "gospel truth" - they take it with a grain of salt. Serious historians might give consideration to the broad strokes of it, such as the fact that the Trojan War occurred, but they don't take the Iliad as proof of the literal existence of Achilles as a historical figure, and they certainly don't take it at face value when it says that arrows couldn't pierce his skin because his mother, the nymph Thetis, dipped him in the mythic River Styx.

Argument against NT: prophecies that Jesus fulfilled could've easily by reading OT and acting out what the Messiah was prophesied to do

Rebuttle: There were 48 prophecies in the OT predicting him that he fulfilled. Jesus could control things like whether he rode a donkey into Jerusalem but he couldn't control many others. Forinstance, Jesus couldn't contol the town he was born in (Bethlehem) nor how much his betraying would be paid to stab him in the back.(30 pieces of silver).

But all of this was certainly within the control of the authors of the texts.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

Ok, wait, am I suppose to decipher the answer from that? If so, then I get that the answer to my questions is:

Not very accurate, but oh well, it's the best you're going to get and that's ok.

Is that about the jist of your answer?

How about this: That the most important points about the story of Jesus would be retained and that perhaps a few of the details may have been lost

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Relax, I didn't understand it to be a personal question about my opinion. I thought we were still talking about scholarship. You'll see that I've published a retraction. I also pointed out that the bulletpoint I just made contains an early church creed dated to with 2 years of the death of Jesus.

When do you date the death of Jesus?

Earlychristianwritings.com gives 50 - 60 as the date range for 1 Corinthians. Are you saying that the creed within it is dated to a different time than the rest of the letter?

If so, then what do you think this implies about the authorship of the letter?