Freaking out about what we really can "know" here...

[outhouse]

Credible to whom?

Science and academia.

If many have believed as a result of the evidence they have received and experienced then obviously they have found the evidence sufficiently credible.

So hallucinations and faith, rhetoric and mythology and dead luck are considered credible evidence?

Have you even heard of mass hallucination?


Name one single miracle ever recorded that is credible.

 

[ether-ore]

Unsubstantiated rhetoric.
There has never been anything we can call a witness with any credibility. Not one credible witness every wrote about it. So far its only self proclaimed experiences written in rhetorical prose and factual mythology.

For one prophet to be substantiated (or my term... "corroborated") would require another prophet. And that is what has happened. When you say unsubstantiated, I take it that you are referring to academicians as being authoritative. Such men are merely providing their own interpretation of what is said and that carries no more weight than anyone else who has never spoken to God. They are programming their minds according to secular standards and their credentials are about as good as any other computer. Garbage in... garbage out.

No. Not at all, you have a position of faith. Gods of any kind do not exist scientifically because there is nothing outside mythology to observe.[/QUOTE]
All that sentence says is what I said most atheists mean when they say... if I can't see it, then it doesn't exist.

 

[ether-ore]

Have you even heard of mass hallucination?

If you really believe that all the beliefs of Christendom for the last two thousand years are the result of an ongoing, consecutive and never ending hallucination from one generation to the next and that there is no rational thought that has ever entered into it for that two thousand years, then certainly there is nowhere to go from here.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If you really believe that all the beliefs of Christendom for the last two thousand years are the result of an ongoing, consecutive and never ending hallucination from one generation to the next and that there is no rational thought that has ever entered into it for that two thousand years, then certainly there is nowhere to go from here.

How often does something happen in Christianity where the only explanations are mass hallucination and God?

I mean, what sort of "mass hallucination" is needed to hear a story from a book and believe it? Even if an outside observer thinks that the believers made an error in judgement by accepting the story as true, we're still talking about mundane, everyday effects.

 

[outhouse]

If you really believe that all the beliefs of Christendom for the last two thousand years are the result of an ongoing, consecutive and never ending hallucination from one generation to the next and that there is no rational thought that has ever entered into it for that two thousand years, then certainly there is nowhere to go from here.

I'm sorry you do not understand the credible path of history that led to the religion.

It was not about miracles, It is sad that you think your religion is based on miracles.

Jesus was martyred after his death, and Hellenist found the martyrdom and mythology and theology that surrounded these events as important enough to document what the heard when the need came up.


Have you ever wondered why not one person even cared to write a single word about Jesus while he was alive ?

He was just a traveling teacher who took over Johns movement when John died. John was famous, not Jesus. But John was not martyred in front of half a million people at Passover the way Jesus was.

 

[outhouse]

Garbage in... garbage out.

Oh you do understand apologetic rhetoric.

For one prophet to be substantiated (or my term... "corroborated") would require another prophet.

False. prophets are just often self proclaimed people who talked about god.

academicians as being authoritative.

Absolutely they are. If you refuse academia then you admit to being a fundamentalist and a person following fanaticism.

many things are fact, you cannot refuse fact because it goes against a book YOU have no clue of how it was written.

. Such men are merely providing their own interpretation of what is said and that carries no more weight than anyone else who has never spoken to God.

Gods don't exist scientifically outside mythology.

So when someone say they talked to god, we can chalk that up as personal perception which is worthless evidence that carries no credibility what so ever.


Take into account the bible is chocked full of rhetorical mythology, and many events are factually not historically reliable.

 

[outhouse]

... if I can't see it, then it doesn't exist.

False.

There is factual evidence men created deities at will.

We see exactly how man defined your god at will by combining two gods into one, AFTER plagiarizing Canaanite mythology.

Open your mind to what is known without dispute, it is a mistake to close your mind to academia.

Academia and atheism are not the same thing.

Science and atheism are not the same thing.

Cultural anthropology is not atheism

Biblical scholars is not atheism.

 

[Thanda]

Science and academia.



So hallucinations and faith, rhetoric and mythology and dead luck are considered credible evidence?

Have you even heard of mass hallucination?


Name one single miracle ever recorded that is credible.

Jesus walking on water, Moses parting the Red Sea, I could go on. Basically every miracle recorded in the Bible is sufficiently credible to me and many others.

You keep appealing to science. What does science say about turning water into wine? Does science say it is impossible? Does science say it is impossible to make blind men see or deaf men hear?

What exactly do you understand about science that makes you think miracles are not credible?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

However, what if there is actually an invisible imp pounding on people’s brains causing their depression, and the imps happen to be put to sleep by serotonin and other such drugs? Many will laugh, but the sad fact is there is no way to address this. All we can ever do is make claims based on statistics and the assumption that humans are seeing the whole picture.

I don't think it's funny (although, it is funny to think of an imp pounding away at someone's brain - it sounds like a good Dethklok song). I've long held the perspective that of course things such as seeing a ghost, an out of body experience, or other "super" natural phenomena will be visible as brain activity, because everything we take in only "exists" to us because of the brain activity that interprets that various stimuli it receives.
I have also long wondered what sort of perspective do we have? I first pondered this while watching my pet snake at the time, and wondering how does an animal who lives in a cage (or aquarium, in this case), interpret the outside world? What does it think of people going in and out, disappearing into these unknowable rooms and halls, some of them reappearing, but always having a very limited perspective on the world, only able to know so much, and never being able to move beyond the cage. And then I began to wonder, what if our physical bodies are our own "cages" that keep us to a very limited perspective? What if things like aliens, ghosts, angels, and demons are entities who are "appearing and disappearing" from/to rooms and halls that are unknown and unknowable to us?
As for miracles, I will likely never label something as a miracle, and while I doubt them, I am forced to admit that I simply do not know enough to judge most cases. And even in some instances that seem like a miracle, and where a scientific reason can be given, it seems a "miracle" may only be in the eye of the beholder.

 

[outhouse]

Jesus walking on water, Moses parting the Red Sea, I could go on

Moses never existed and factually has no historicity as existing outside mythology.

NO eyewitnesses to said Jesus mythology. It has no historicity as ever happening.

Basically every miracle recorded in the Bible is sufficiently credible to me and many others.

That is called faith Thanda, not credible history. YOU want to believe, but you refuse to study the topic and actually learn what the truth is.

Are you afraid of the truth, or just would rather poke fingers in your ear and go "I don't hear you"




If you had the education I suggest, it build value in the text, literal interpretation ruin the beauty because that is not the context it was written in.

 

[outhouse]

What does science say about turning water into wine?

It says ancient men wrote mythology using rhetorical prose as they were not witness to any event recorded.

Does science say it is impossible?

It says ancient men wrote mythology using rhetorical prose as they were not witness to any event recorded.

Does science say it is impossible to make blind men see or deaf men hear?

It says ancient men wrote mythology using rhetorical prose as they were not witness to any event recorded.

 

[ether-ore]

I'm sorry you do not understand the credible path of history that led to the religion.
It was not about miracles, It is sad that you think your religion is based on miracles.

Where did you get the idea that my faith is based on miracles? I have never witnessed what I would call a miracle and my faith would not be based on that if I had. It is based on the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was martyred after his death, and Hellenist found the martyrdom and mythology and theology that surrounded these events as important enough to document what the heard when the need came up. Have you ever wondered why not one person even cared to write a single word about Jesus while he was alive? He was just a traveling teacher who took over Johns movement when John died. John was famous, not Jesus. But John was not martyred in front of half a million people at Passover the way Jesus was.

I believe (contrary to what academia wishes assert) that there were some who were witnesses to the events of Christ's life. If there were instances where the writer happened not to be the witness, then at the very least I believe that the writer interviewed those who were. That the apostles wrote their records after the fact has no bearing on the truthfulness of the story. That Christ took over John's movement is a wretched misrepresentation of the facts. John himself declared that Christ coming after him would be preferred before him. Meaning that John's mission was to prepare the way for Christ. In every instance, John deferred to Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah and gave his witness to that effect when Christ came to him to be baptized. John the Baptist may not have been martyred in front of a lot of people, but he was nonetheless martyred for proclaiming against sin. Such proclamations were part of John's mission; to call people to repentance; telling them to be baptized for the remission of sins.

 

[outhouse]

Most every word you write is biased apologetic rhetoric.

(contrary to what academia wishes assert)

You do not get to ague this, academia and the scholars who study this do. Not people with no historical education.

that there were some who were witnesses to the events of Christ's life.

There was not.

. That the apostles wrote their records after the fact has no bearing on the truthfulness of the story.

No apostle wrote anything

That Christ took over John's movement is a wretched misrepresentation of the facts

False, John died and Jesus took it over by our best accounts.

John himself declared

John write nothing, so he himself never declared anything AS HE was dead before jesus was famous.

Meaning that John's mission was to prepare the way for Christ

That is the apologetic story as written. The NT factually is not a history book.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You do not get to ague this, academia and the scholars who study this do. Not people with no historical education.

With the way you copy/pasted a reply (or maybe you did type each line of the reply out), I can't help but point out your double negatives. And for upholding academia the way you do, I feel I have to point out that in some places you have terrible grammar.

 

[outhouse]

I feel I have to point out that in some places you have terrible grammar.

Yes but I freely admit my grammar is terrible. I'm focused, not well rounded

(or maybe you did type each line of the reply out),

Yes.

 

[ether-ore]

Most every word you write is biased apologetic rhetoric
You do not get to ague this, academia and the scholars who study this do. Not people with no historical education.

.
Since there is almost no historical record of these events other than what is recorded in scripture, what scholars are studying is their own opinion and rhetoric

There was not.

.
The scriptures indicate otherwise.

No apostle wrote anything

.
Peter wrote, James wrote... Paul wrote. These were apostles. It does not matter to me if they had scribes working for them, the words were theirs.

False, John died and Jesus took it over by our best accounts.

.
Yes, he did. So how is that proof of anything. Scholarly assertions concerning Christ taking over from John come from a secular point of view which denies God.

John write nothing, so he himself never declared anything AS HE was dead before jesus was famous.

.
Whether or not John wrote anything is not relevant. I have no reason to doubt the story concerning him. I believe the Bible to be a faithful record (scholars desiring to cast doubt on it notwithstanding). You may ask what motive would scholars have for denying the divinity of Jesus Christ. The answer is in a mirror.

That is the apologetic story as written. The NT factually is not a history book.

The scriptures (all of them) are meant to convey the gospel of the atonement of Jesus Christ. The desire which some have (their scholarly attainments notwithstanding) to denigrate the message of the gospel for the praise of those who wish to silence that message, will not succeed.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

If many have believed as a result of the evidence they have received and experienced then obviously they have found the evidence sufficiently credible.

The question then becomes: does this speak to the quality of the evidence or the ignorance of the judge?

 

[outhouse]

what scholars are studying is their own opinion and rhetoric

That's Is factually true and false and you have no clue about what or who a scholar is to do any criticizing here.

You cannot argue from lack of knowledge on their position.

 

[outhouse]

The scriptures (all of them) are meant to convey the gospel of the atonement of Jesus Christ. The desire which some have (their scholarly attainments notwithstanding) to denigrate the message of the gospel for the praise of those who wish to silence that message, will not succeed.

You have no clue of what your even talking about.

Scholars are not addressing the theology in place. They are only the people responsible for understanding the past.

It builds value to the gospel to understand the truth, it does not take away from it.


YOU personally don't even understand the context of the bible, which means you end up with a limited understanding of what is being communicated through literature.

 

[outhouse]

Peter wrote,

False

James wrote

False

Paul wrote

Yes but he is a self proclaimed apostle who never net or heard a word the man said