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the right religion

1robin

Christian/Baptist
It was a cult based on bodily sacrifice and the people who believe in it thought it was an honor to give up their lives and bodies to their deity. We don't know which ones are mythical heroes or real folks who walked around the region.
So your "better" explanation of the facts is to suggest that religions in general (in your opinion) are mythical. There is nothing mythical about what they stated. You must account for it with better reasons than that it was true (my claim) to even begin to make the claims you did (which were far too general and generic anyway).

Let me give you another one since you apparently did not understand the first.

The majority of NT scholars have a consensus concerning 4 main facts among many. They do so regardless of what side of Christian theology they are on. Many that are even hostile towards the faith, agree that:

1. Jesus appeared in 1st century Israel with a unprecedented sense of divine authority. It makes no difference here whether he was right or not.
2. He was killed on a cross by Roman authorities.
3. That his tomb was found empty.
4. That sympathetic, indifferent, and even hostile witnesses claimed to have experienced post mortem appearances of Christ.


I say that the best explanation for these facts is what he Gospels present.

Do you have a better one and why?

Some bizarre and generalized claims concerning your opinions of religion over all are not an answer.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Side note... Isn't this basically the gist of Evidence that demands a Verdict? I used to have a signed copy of that book lol
Never read it. They were a few of many historical facts that demands a verdict but I have no idea what that book contains.
 

Sees

Dragonslayer
So your "better" explanation of the facts is to suggest that religions in general (in your opinion) are mythical. There is nothing mythical about what they stated. You must account for it with better reasons than that it was true (my claim) to even begin to make the claims you did (which were far too general and generic anyway).

Let me give you another one since you apparently did not understand the first.

The majority of NT scholars have a consensus concerning 4 main facts among many. They do so regardless of what side of Christian theology they are on. Many that are even hostile towards the faith, agree that:

1. Jesus appeared in 1st century Israel with a unprecedented sense of divine authority. It makes no difference here whether he was right or not.
2. He was killed on a cross by Roman authorities.
3. That his tomb was found empty.
4. That sympathetic, indifferent, and even hostile witnesses claimed to have experienced post mortem appearances of Christ.


I say that the best explanation for these facts is what he Gospels present.

Do you have a better one and why?

Some bizarre and generalized claims concerning your opinions of religion over all are not an answer.

This is false on many levels...each of those four are individually, highly debatable. Most of my waking hours used to be spent on finding a way to prove what you presented... went the opposite way once I opened my mind and looked at it objectively.

Edit: I should add that it is extremely odd to continue saying even scholars who are hostile to the faith believe that the fundamental christian story is true. This would be like someone believing in the Qur'an's fundamental storyline and being hostile to Islam.
 
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metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
You need to read up on chess terminology. Check mate occurs when you place the king in check and no move exists for it that is not in check. You basically yelled "hey look over there" then threw the pieces across the room and yelled check mate.

If we find a book that has sophisticated writing in it that no one can decipher is it more rational to claim that it arose on it's own or that an unknown intelligent force created it. I need to know nothing about or understand anything about information to know it only comes from intelligence.

Lets go back to the claim.

1. A thing that begins to exist has a cause or an explanation for it's existence even if we do not understand the thing that exists.
2. A singularity began to exist.
3. Nature (including singularities) does not have a cause for it's existence within it.
4. Whatever caused a singularity we do not understand was created by something it did not contain.
5. Nature contains everything but things that are supernatural.
6. A supernatural force created the universe.

I did not say I know. I said my deductive argument (which has been around for over 3000 years) has no known flaw. A sound argument can still be wrong. It is possible my proposition is wrong. It is not possible my proposition is not valid and the best hypothesis by far for the facts.

Sorry, but the game is over, and you indeed did checkmate yourself because you claimed it is impossible to know what happened at the beginning of the BB, and they you turn around and claim Goddidit.

Sorry, but checkmate, old chap.
 

SkylarHunter

Active Member
You get to know how good a tree is by the quality of it's fruits, same with religion. Look at what kind of people you find in a religion and that will tell you something.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
This is false on many levels...each of those four are individually, highly debatable. Most of my waking hours used to be spent on finding a way to prove what you presented... went the opposite way once I opened my mind and looked at it objectively.
It has no known falsities on any level. More accurately what your saying it is not a proven certainty and it does not fit your narrative. For some reason you turning that true and rational state of affairs into falsehoods which you would not know even if they were. The people who know far more about it than either of us and are in many cases hostile to faith claim the evidence for those 4 historical claims is so strong a to make them as certain as history can. Many of Christianity's greatest and most influential scholars set out to do the opposite of what you did and were far more qualified to have done it (people like C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, Livingston, archeologists, historians, legal experts) gave it up as impossible and became what they set out to destroy. Historical claims are not resolved to certainties. They are resolved to probabilities. Those four historical claims among many others are as well evidenced as ancient historical claims can be.


The noted scholar, Professor Edwin Gordon Selwyn, says: "The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day in full continuity of body and soul - that fact seems as secure as historical evidence can make it."

Sir Edward Clarke,
"As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect. The Gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate."

Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said: "The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet."
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2


They are not highly debatable. They are about as certain as ancient history can make them. They are doubtable, however there are fringe groups that will doubt the earth is round, Egyptians built the pyramids, or the Muslims attacked the twin towers. You will find a few nuts that will debate anything, no matter how certain. It means nothing beyond the fact that some of us have biases so great we will reject reality if necessary.








Edit: I should add that it is extremely odd to continue saying even scholars who are hostile to the faith believe that the fundamental christian story is true. This would be like someone believing in the Qur'an's fundamental storyline and being hostile to Islam.
That is probably why I did not say it. The parts of the Bible they believe are true are simple historical narratives. Believing a guy lived and died is not exactly an agreement that he did so to free us from our sin. I believe many of the stories in the Quran, the Vedas, and bushido texts are historically accurate, but that is not convincing enough (especially combined with so many that are not accurate) for me to adopt the faith.

In summary:

1. The evidence for Christ's life, death, and appearances is as good or better than can be expected for any event of it's day. It is in fact much better than most and this is the conclusion of scholars even hostile to the fait it's self.
2. Historical claims are not resolved to certainties. They are resolved to likely hoods probabilities, and best fits.
3. You can believe in the historicity (wholly or partially) without it necessitating adoption of it's supernatural claims.


So for the third time you must provide a better explanation for those 4 historical claims that are pretty much the consensus among those who best should know.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Sorry, but the game is over, and you indeed did checkmate yourself because you claimed it is impossible to know what happened at the beginning of the BB, and they you turn around and claim Goddidit.

Sorry, but checkmate, old chap.
I am an 1600 rated chess player and my best friend is a master. You have not even threatened a pawn yet. Please post a statement where I said I know God did it. I said God is currently the best (and almost the only) candidate.

In just about every trial ever held the Jury does not know if the guy did it. They take all the information given (and it always leaves gaps where they have no idea what occurred) and make the best judgment they can. You, I, and everyone on earth constantly make decisions even when there are segments of the evidence chain that are unknowable. I do not care what happened in the microsecond that the singularity began. I do know there is no reason at all to think it had a natural cause. Secular cosmologists and physicists say the exact same thing. If I have no evidence or reason to think it could possibly have been a natural cause that results in the first 10^-47 second of it's existence there is no need of knowing what occurred in that microsecond to claim a supernatural explanation is by far the best. It is not a certainty but it is the best explanation that currently exists. If it is good enough for every courtroom, board room, and academic discipline in history it is more than good enough for faith.

So go pick up the chess pieces from wherever you threw them to. Put them back on the board and either survive or die by your game play, not your assertions.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
I said God is currently the best (and almost the only) candidate.

But here's what you posted in #3996: My God is about the most specific being ever described but that is not the point anyway. Vague, vast, specific, microscopic, omnimax, optimality do not matter. Whatever God is does not become any less real by discussing him.

So, you're really not being very forthright because you cannot go from saying that "God is currently the best candidate" and then post "My God is about the most specific being ever described...". With the first, you imply there's a maybe, but there's no maybe with the second.
 

User Inactive

Bid Farewell
Religion is just a path for simpletons to seek so called Good/right path.

But for the ones at the top, it's a lot more than that.

There is no right religion. There is one God. We have a different purpose here. We choose what suits our purpose.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
But here's what you posted in #3996: My God is about the most specific being ever described but that is not the point anyway. Vague, vast, specific, microscopic, omnimax, optimality do not matter. Whatever God is does not become any less real by discussing him.

So, you're really not being very forthright because you cannot go from saying that "God is currently the best candidate" and then post "My God is about the most specific being ever described...". With the first, you imply there's a maybe, but there's no maybe with the second.
What?

1. That comment was given in a completely different context.
2. God is a disembodied mind. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, personal and perfectly moral. How much more specific can a description get.
3. That description has nothing whatever to do with the first microsecond referred to as the singularity.


You mentioned two statements: God is currently the best candidate. My God is about the most specific being ever described.

You said the first implied a maybe which is correct. The first was about an explanation for the universes existence. You said the second implied the second implies a certainty, which is correct. There is a universal certainty concerning the general nature of the Christian God. Even if that God did not exist the concept is a certainty. What is true of the Christian concept of God is absolute concerning his character in nature even if the concept does not correspond to an actual being. There is no inconsistency because those two statements are about two very different claims. One about nature and essence, the other is about an explanation of an event.



I have no idea what your trying so hard to say.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Religion is just a path for simpletons to seek so called Good/right path.

But for the ones at the top, it's a lot more than that.

There is no right religion. There is one God. We have a different purpose here. We choose what suits our purpose.
Prove any statement above is actually correct. Failing that prove any of them have good evidence they are true. I even agree with one of them but they are so ambiguous and unfounded (as of yet) as to be meaningless.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
There is a universal certainty concerning the general nature of the Christian God. Even if that God did not exist the concept is a certainty.

You've gotta be kidding. No, on second thought, I know you aren't.

2. God is a disembodied mind. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, personal and perfectly moral. How much more specific can a description get.

And how is it possible that you could know this?
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
You've gotta be kidding. No, on second thought, I know you aren't.
What are you talking about. God's general characteristics (omniscience, timeless, omnipresent, omnipotent, personal, moral, etc...) are agreed to by a quorum of Christians.



And how is it possible that you could know this?
That question is precisely why I said what was true of a concept. I do not know the Christian God is omnipresent but it is certainly true of the concept. I go way out of my way to head off commonly confused misconceptions. Why does it never work?
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
So, you agree that one way or another, actions do count? After all, if they "asked Jesus to be his lord and savior" to begin with, that is an action.

My next point, therefore, why does that action count but not other actions, such as what we see being alluded to in Matthew 25? To me, it's a commitment to believe in what Jesus is teaching, which by and large is also found coming from the prophets, and not just believing about Jesus. Agree?

Of course I believe actions count but their importance is less than faith.

I believe most people think of actions as physical. Thoughts are not considered actions.

I believe a person is not a good and faithful servant unless that peson has made Jesus Lord. I believe this vese shows that: Mat 7:21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.


So actions may be good but not the will of God and therefore not acceptable.

I believe beliefs are not actions but they may foreshadow actions. So I believe it is helpful to have correct beliefs in order to be following the will of God. Say if God says go and marry a prostitute. If I believed God would never say that, then I would be likely to disobey. (Sometimes like Peter I will raise an objection as he did when told to eat unclean things.)


 
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