Trailblazer
Veteran Member
They are? Do people believe that the stories of Harry Potter are true?
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There's Not An Iota Of Evidence The Apostles Existed
- Thread starter SeekingAllTruth
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- apostles
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Conversely, it is evidence if you really want it to be.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That's true, they are about belief, and beliefs cannot ever be proven to be true, but some of the religions have much more evidence to back up their beliefs than others, as I pointed out on this post some time ago.
Questions for knowledgeable Bahai / followers of Baha'u'llah
It's what it is no matter what we want.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
I am not sure anyone 'modified' the New Testament to any substantial level.
Sure, you get these rogues who created their own Gospels, and had their
'saints' and their own literature. There's a curse at the end of Revelations
which will deal with people.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
I am sure there is. What else can we expect from a jealous God?
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Absolutely. And if you marry someone the first vow you need to
make is that you will be true to that person.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
I do not have much problem with that if both parties sign the contract.
Ah, Jesus as the necessary intermediary. That's the Christian God as seen by the author of John ─ he (like Paul) has gnostic tendencies, where God is imagined as a spirit hugely remote and pure, who would never dream of dealing with the material world. Are there equivalent views anywhere in the synoptics? ─ I can't think of any.
Does it perplex you that the Jews and the Muslims have gone on addressing that God directly, apparently with an indistinguishable result?
Although the Christian God differs from the Jewish God in having abandoned the covenant of circumcision and of course being triune.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Not dreaming of interfering in the real world? Did not God say He would lay the temple to the ground
and drive the Jews into exile for a very long time? And did not 10-15 million Jews die in this exile?
And did not God say He would deliver the Jewish people their homeland again? Like, now?
I have no reason to believe that the supernatural, that magic, is real.
In this I'm supported by the datum that there has never been even one authenticated example of a supernatural event.
There isn't even a testable hypothesis as to what or how such an event could be.
So the field is yours to imagine as you please, dancing across sunny meadows with Superman and Green Lantern and Mickey Mouse and ...
Enjoy!
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
My bad. I should not have used the word, state. Here:
Some scholars allege that his main objective was to gain unanimous approval and submission to his authority from all classes, and therefore chose Christianity to conduct his political propaganda, believing that it was the most appropriate religion that could fit with the Imperial cult
Constantine the Great and Christianity - Wikipedia
One way or the other it was political. Constantine was not a believer.
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
Not only is that possible, but it's possible to name one that was dead set against Christianity and who had no good words to write about Jesus or his band of followers. He could even throw additional info about them not mentioned anywhere else, so that's easy to show.
He also named the man who he claimed was the true father of Jesus, as well as telling us that it was two tax officers (not one) on his closest twelve.
But trying to teach extremist mythers such simple facts is rather difficult because they are worse fanatics than fundamentalist Christians on my opinion.
Now... who am I talking about, or are you completely uneducated about historical Jesus?
Want to guess, or are you just plain unaware of whom I write?
...this is fun.
I throw the challenge out to you. Name one secular historians who mentions even one apostle. I doubt you will.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Jews would cry, "Next year in Jerusalem" as part of their Passover ritual.
Deep in the heart of frozen Russia, 1500 years after being driven out of 'Palestine'
by the Romans, this was the passion of people who had never seen so much as a
palm tree. These people weren't Russian, they were Jews, and they were Israelis.
But the idea of Zionism was ridiculed by the cognoscenti and know-alls.
And how could sophisticated, integrated, secular, urbanite Jews in places like
Germany and Poland consider those ancient superstitions about God and the
'people of the book.' And for these people, nationalists at heart, to leave Europe
and fight for a land that belonged to Arabs and Turks? Absurd.
Yes it happened.
And just as strange was people like Jacob saying there would be an Israel but
it would only last till the Messiah came? And how could this Messiah king be
killed and the temple of God destroyed?
Yeah, it's supernatural. I talk to people who mock the supernatural and say
these things. It makes me very uncomfortable. I ask them to read the history
of modern Israel and figure for themselves - were all these natural events?
So now we reach the truth of the matter.
You're mad at God.
You know that there isn't any mainstream media writings referencing the apostles in the first century. They were not looking to be popularized in the press. They were not seeking worship. Heaven forbid. They were on the move. Probably trying to avoid the authorities. But their job was completed. They did become the Lord's Witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth in the written words of their Gospels. God's power is made perfect in weakness. So His grace is sufficient to the believer.
I see that you're not an Atheist, but your note has the demeanor of the anger phase of the five stages of grief.
Did you know that I compare the Atheist with Elizabeth Kubler Ross's five stages of grief?
Five stages of grief.
Denial. The Atheist says in their heart that there is no God.
- denial.
- anger.
- bargaining.
- depression.
- acceptance.
Anger. If there is a God, I want to know why He lets little kids get leukemia.
Bargaining. Tell ya what, show us proof, and WE will be the deciders if God exists.
Depression. Quiet time, the Atheist goes on a break from posting.
Acceptance. When the Atheist reaches acceptance on a global scale, they will seek to kill God. Satan will gather them for that great battle in the valley that is symbolically called Megiddo. When the world is at war with God. Like it is right now.
I wouldn't worry about Christianity shrinking in America and Europe. There comes a time when God abandons a people, God gives them over to a reprobate mind.
There comes a time when everyone alive is either sealed or marked. This is the time when the night comes when no man can work. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.
It's just these guys are the wild card now, the elect infantry. Our brothers and our fellow servants:
You're arguing with a deist on the existence of the apostles, and use it as a chance to make your feelings about atheists known?
Sheesh. We're just innocent bystanders to this car crash, leave us out of it.
(Indeed, pick at the players in this thread a little more closely and I think you'll find an atheist amongst those defending the evidence of the apostles).
No need to capitalise the 'a' in 'atheist' either. Feel free to start a different thread on the purported 'five stages of grief' if you want a discussion with an atheist on it. I don't offend easily, so happy to kick it around if you like.
I throw the challenge out to you. Name one secular historians who mentions even one apostle. I doubt you will.
There are mentions of some in non-Biblical sources, but I'm unaware of any 'secular' mentions of them. Having said that, if we limited ourselves to 'secular' evidence only, we'd lose a LOT of information from our historical record...
Josephus also mentioned the apostle James, I believe.
From what I've read, it seems that there is serious questioning over whether James the Just is one of the 12 or not.
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
I trust secular sources because there is is supposed to be a standard of unbiasness--something not found in religious sources. Christians love to throw out "Luke was an excellent historian" which he was anything but.
"Luke was incapable of being accurate and was untrustworthy as a historian"
Luke the Physician and Other Studies in the History of Religion
By William Mitchell Ramsay pg 23
I read a lot of classical history, although not primary sources...I'm not that hardcore.
But suffice to say, anyone claiming ANYONE was an 'excellent historian' by modern standards is at best somewhat ignorant. There really are no 'excellent historians' once you go back far enough.
Secular material was often every bit as influenced by those in power as religious material was by belief.
I'm not suggesting all texts are equally untrustworthy, and I'm certainly not a Christian, so it's not like I'd view the Bible a some inerrant source. I am merely talking generally. I've studied a lot of military history, for example, and both army size and casualty numbers were commonly inflated. Not to mention unscientific discussion of the prowess of certain warriors or leaders.