History won't assume supernatural events and causes. That's left to religion.And opinions about the historicity of the gospels and the evolution of Christian beliefs are not "history" even if you might think that those opinions are what actually happened.
Humans can't fly, it's a fact. Whether any gods exist is not factual. I was told a God exists, and I questioned it as a kid. As I got older and able to reason I found the claims of a God existing baseless, and absurd. Then I studied why so many will adopt weird and untrue ideas and it is how the human brain evolved. Notice you are appealing to emotions in your claims, not facts. You're like many people who believed in the religious lore they were told, and now as an adult you still won't question it.I have met people who say that the only reason that people cannot fly is that they have been told that since they were little.
Many people have been told that God is not real and any historical evidence of God is rubbish and the only reason people believe it is because they have been told since little.
That's the advantage for those who use the rules of logic. The logical default is to not believe in ideas that lack evidence. Notice you admit you can't prove a suvernatural exists, so we throw it out.Neither of us can prove our view on the supernatural or offer verifiable evidence. We believe our views on faith.
Why shouldn't they, you admit it can't be shown to be true. They are being honest. If you want to believe in your myth then all you have is your religion. Hisory won't help you. Science won't help you. Reason won't help you. You are stuck with faith and Christian lore.I don't want to be wrong, true.
History scholars are meant to be neutral about the supernatural but in fact they reject it in their historical work, true.
There's nothing to believe, a supernatural isn't apparent in reality. It's you who believe it does exist, and not for rational reasons. That's your burden alone.You can believe that if you want to.
There is no basis to assume any supernatural exists. It is ethical to not assume religions are correct in their claims. You sound bitter that scholarship follows ethics, and isn't a tool for Christianity. That's Christianity's problem that it has absurd concepts that can't be shown to be true. You still have your faith, which is not reliable.The enlightenment did not expose the Bible as more prose than history. That is just opinion about all supernatural events in historical writings. That is just what scholarship does, reject the supernatural. Some people then think that since scholarship cannot tell us that the supernatural in historical documents is real, that means that it is not real.
Even historians, who are meant to be neutral about religions and the supernatural etc end up assuming that the supernatural elements are not true and end up in circular arguments about for example, when the gospels must have been written and by whom.
Following facts and data works, is reliable, and verifiable. Faith is unreliable, and thinkers know to avoid it if they seek truth.If people say that the only way to find real truth is through empiricism, physical evidence, then they end up saying that the only way to find the truth about things that by definition, leave no physical evidence, is through physical evidence. This of course is no more than faith in your empirical dogma.
Of course what you aren't saying is that it's a different definition of religious faith.You have faith in your empirical dogma even when it comes to things that there cannot be physical evidence for.
This is a terrible argument. First you're mixing two different definitions. Second, if we are using faith and we are wrong (in your opinion) then you admit faith is worthless. So you only sabotage your own use of faith.Then of course you deny that and just repeat that there must be physical evidence or it is not real. You deny that you use faith.
I don't mind admitting that I use faith when it comes to my beliefs about stuff where there cannot be physical evidence.
Of course mundane faith is what any human can be said to use, like having faith that other drivers will follow traffic laws and not crash into us. Religious faith is something else, it's the accepting of irrational ideas for the sake of identity and meaning, usually in religious belief.
Odd criticism when you aren't aware that you are conflating two different definitions. You clerly illustrate that you aren't a critical thinker yourself. Self-sabotage, or serious mistake because you aren't a critical thinker?Critical thinkers cannot recognise when they use faith or not.
There may have been a person the myth was based on. We really don't have many records to demonstrate what happened.So now you seem to be saying that Jesus may have existed and so you don't believe the story of Jesus is not true.
Really? Where? What is she up to today? Did she get fired by Christians?As for Ashera, the Bible tells us about her and why she became involved in the religion of Israel.
Yes, I seek truth, and I trust historians who seek truth. I'm wary of anyone with a religious agenda, like you. You're seeking validation for your religious beliefs, not truth.If you want to believe the scholarly version, that Israelites were really Canaanites and that Yahweh was originally part of Canaanite religion, that is up to you.
Amazing how these cultural ideas spread around the Middle East as people travelled and civilizations grew and evolved.The oldest mention of Yahweh however is in an Egyptian temple (Soleb Inscription) and talks of a wondering group of nomads (nomads of Yahweh) to the north of Egypt around 1400 BC.