I Believe in God

[Redzeppelin]

Moral judgments do not always require reason; in fact I would assert that in most cases, a person's moral code is instilled in him by parents, peers and other social influences, and he often accepts it without any reasoning involved.

OK - but this only works in terms of acting out a moral framework. You need reason to examine the validity of your moral choices and to create a moral teaching.

You treat "insanity" as a static thing which affects all people in the same way. Mental illness varies drastically in its severity and how it affects individuals. John Nash is schizophrenic; he is legally insane. However, his mind is "ordered" enough to have created some of the most brilliant economic theories of the 20th century.

Good example. Mathematics, however, involves nothing like morality with its emphasis on ought and should. Mathematics does not deal with discriminating between right and wrong. A disordered mind might well be predisposed in certain cases to deal better with numbers than a "normal" mind. But morality - IMO - is trickier because it deals with a much less ordered system - human nature.

If morality cannot come from an "unstable mind," as you put it, then insane people are not capable of any kind of moral judgment. In other words, you are effectively asserting that no mentally ill person who has ever lived has possessed any ideas of right and wrong. This is faulty reasoning for several reasons, but I think the main problem is that it assumes that every type of insanity affects a person's ability to tell right from wrong, and in fact that is not the case. A person may have delusions, but that doesn't mean he is incapable of viewing certain acts as "good" and certain acts as "bad."

I have not said that. I have indicated that moral teaching like Jesus' that has changed how people looked at the world, themselves and their behavior cannot come from a disordered mind. You've shifted the ground a bit here. I'm not talking about whether or not mentally deficient people can make moral decisions (because you just indicated above that moral decision-making can be done based upon inherited moral structures that don't require criticial thinking). There is a difference between making a moral decision based upon an instilled framework and being a moral teacher.

I'd like to know your definition of "crazy." As I mentioned before, John Nash was a schizophrenic, had delusions, saw people that did not exist, thought he talked to aliens and believed he was part of a mass government conspiracy. He is also one of the most brilliant mathematical thinkers of our time, a clear case of logic and reasoning arising from an "unstable mind."

Frankly, this strikes me as a red herring. This discussion isn't about the nature of insanity - it's about who Jesus was. Anybody who said the kinds of things Jesus said could not be seen as simply a moral teacher. He claimed to BE GOD. Either he's telling the truth, or he's crazy. What other options would you like to offer up for such behavior? He was joking?

There is no proof for this assertion.

OK - then ravel out the problem with the logic of the statement. Are you willing to suggest the opposite is true - that truth can come from disorder?

There are those who would say that a theistic worldview is a delusion. To those people you would not be able to differentiate between "what is" and "what you believe to be," and thus you would be incapable of moral judgment. How can you be so quick to dismiss somebody else's reality when there are those who would quickly dismiss your own? After all, is there anything "real" outside our perception of reality?

Reality exists because there are cause-effect chains that extend from us to other people. If I get drunk and run down your wife/husband/son/daughter I would assume that you would agree that our two "realities" had something in common.

But this is beginning to look like a long, drawn-out argument. Here is my challenge to you: prove that in every single instance of mental illness or schizophrenia, a person loses all reasoning to the point where he is completely incapable of telling right from wrong. Also, perhaps you could explain to me how the mathematical theories of the schizophrenic John Nash differ from the moral teachings of the "delusional" Jesus Christ? Or should we throw out all of Nash's ideas because he is a "lunatic" and is thus incapable of reasoning?

I need not prove anything regarding insanity. You're avoiding the central crux of the argument - which, stated yet again, is this: Jesus claimed to be God, and accepted worship as God. If he was not God, then he was either insane, or a devil, because no good Jewish boy in his right mind would do either of those things. To call him a good moral teacher and nothing else - in light of his claims - is absurd.

Oh, so you only speak for Christianity? There are plenty of countries where Christianity is the official religion, un-separated from the State. But, we both know that if you were born in, say, Saudi Arabia or Morocco, you would be a Muslim and your talk about gospel and saviours would be a little bit different. What does this tell you?

You're shifting the ground here too - kind of a tactical retreat as far as I'm concerned. Answer my question, please. Specifics, please about how Christianity "takes" your money against your will.

[Big Al]

I see a few of these branching off into sub-arguments which I will not pursue for the stake of staying on topic. The last paragraph sums up my argument.

Good example. Mathematics, however, involves nothing like morality with its emphasis on ought and should. Mathematics does not deal with discriminating between right and wrong. A disordered mind might well be predisposed in certain cases to deal better with numbers than a "normal" mind. But morality - IMO - is trickier because it deals with a much less ordered system - human nature.

If you are willing to admit that a disordered mind might be predisposed to be ordered, in fact brilliant, in certain aspects of its reasoning, then why not morality? Even if it is "trickier," is it impossible? I would contend that it is not; I would contend that understanding mathematics is a talent and that understanding human nature is a talent, and if one can be unaffected by insanity, so can the other.

Also, I think it is pertinent to note that in some cases, such as with certain kinds of autism, mental illness can affect a person's behavior in strange ways but leave their reasoning not only intact, but on a much higher level than that of others.

I have not said that. I have indicated that moral teaching like Jesus' that has changed how people looked at the world, themselves and their behavior cannot come from a disordered mind. You've shifted the ground a bit here. I'm not talking about whether or not mentally deficient people can make moral decisions (because you just indicated above that moral decision-making can be done based upon inherited moral structures that don't require criticial thinking). There is a difference between making a moral decision based upon an instilled framework and being a moral teacher.

If a person can possess a moral framework, even an instilled framework that he did not use reason to acquire, then he can also preach his moral framework to others. I see this quite a bit with people who have inherited racial prejudices from their parents and then assert them as truth to others. Besides that, to wander back on topic a bit, you never indicated that moral teachings cannot come from a disordered mind because you didn't provide any evidence for that claim -- you indicated that you don't believe that moral teachings can come from a disordered mind.

Frankly, this strikes me as a red herring. This discussion isn't about the nature of insanity - it's about who Jesus was. Anybody who said the kinds of things Jesus said could not be seen as simply a moral teacher. He claimed to BE GOD. Either he's telling the truth, or he's crazy. What other options would you like to offer up for such behavior? He was joking?

John Nash claimed that aliens spoke to him. He believed he was working for nonexistent government agents. Do you think that he is able to possess morals, and if so, should we reject them on the grounds of his insanity? Or are you merely suggesting that we should only disregard them if he preaches his morals to others?

OK - then ravel out the problem with the logic of the statement. Are you willing to suggest the opposite is true - that truth can come from disorder?

This is off topic, but it would really depend on your definition of "truth" and "order." At any rate, I think that the truth can be (and often is) revealed by accident.

I need not prove anything regarding insanity. You're avoiding the central crux of the argument - which, stated yet again, is this: Jesus claimed to be God, and accepted worship as God. If he was not God, then he was either insane, or a devil, because no good Jewish boy in his right mind would do either of those things. To call him a good moral teacher and nothing else - in light of his claims - is absurd.

I'm not avoiding the central crux of the argument: I'm embracing it. People who are mentally ill, people who have delusions and engage in erratic behavior may, and often do, have the ability to reason, even in the case of right vs. wrong. That is my argument: a person who is insane may, depending on the nature of his insanity, still possess the ability to reason. And if he can reason, then it can be assumed that he may have the ability to hold ideas about what is right and what is wrong. John Nash was crazy as a loon, but I accept the brilliance of his theories in the field of economics. Similarly, a non-divine Jesus Christ was also crazy as a loon, but I accept the brilliance of his moral teachings. If I can accept one, then why not the other? Because it is trickier?

I view a moral teacher as one who tries to instill morals in others, and a "good" moral teacher as one who preaches values with which I agree. I believe that a person with mental illness may possess the capacity to reason, even in areas concerning right and wrong. With the example of John Nash, you accepted that mentally ill people can, in certain cases, reason. In response to the post about "instilled moral values," you accepted that a person may have moral values which he did not acquire through reason, and thus even an insane person with a completely disordered mind may possess good moral values and may, as it is only a matter of opening his mouth and speaking, preach them to others. Therefore, having established that many crazy people can reason, that they can possess morals and that they can teach them to others, I see no reason to assume that a person who is mentally ill cannot be a moral teacher.

[blazeofglory]

God is over and above everything else in the world, above all attributes. It has little to do with Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and the like. God is above par, detached, disinterested and has little to do with worldly affairs. God is not a gender.

Of course God can take forms and shapes and reincarnate but God is not all of these attributes.

[Judas130]

Christ's ability as thinker comes second to his job as redeemer. He didn't come to establish a moral code - he came to save souls.

but he did establish moral codes, its what he preached, its the height of his work, it strongly influences the moral and ethical dogma that Churches use today. When Jesus claims to be the Son of God in front of the Jewish court he essentially signs his life away, but through his self sacrifice, his teachings are established, through martyrdom his lessons have lived on. If you are to tell me that Jesus died to cleanse us of original sin, something that happened in a fictional garden with a talking serpent, a child's story, then firstly, he died foolishly. secondly, if this original sin did exist, he did not speak of it directly, but the scripture writes afterward of how he redeemed us, while, physically, he was crucified for his heresy and that was that.

bear in mind the four gospels have been chosen in order to promote what the Church wished to see promoted, having possession of a great wealth of other script. The four gospels were written some time after the death of jesus, and the accounts have been passed down and distorted like Chinese whispers. miracles performed have been exaggerated due to limited understanding, 'Legion' could have merely been a man with epilepsy, the healing miracle probably only calmed the man out of his shock.

There is no physical proof for this redemption, no physical proof for why we should worship him. there is physical proof for why he should be respected as a teacher. but no more.

No - the atrocities of the Crusades are not justifiable.

I too agree with this, sorry, i meant to say that the people so grievously affected are justified in their anger and grief.

Who is to say that the water fountain didn't arrive in the village due to God's prompting? The Bible tells us that all good (including our good actions) comes from God. Without God working within our hearts, we can produce no good thing.

If you're following some argument from morality to prove a higher deity then maybe yes. Newman described God as our conscious, the guiding voice in our head. But too much discredits these priori fanciful claims. Your morality was taught to you from your mother's knee, or your society, your education, your law. to believe there is a little man invading our thoughts is, factually, rubbish.

I disagree with you, God gives us a choice, to follow him or not follow him. If i choose to do a 'good' thing, such as being charitable, helping the homeless, going to aid people in another country, yet i do it without ANYTHING to do with God, then it has nothing to do with him, unless he is invading my actions, and he determines what I shall do - which means humans were never given our free will after all. Morality is conditioned upon us, if I was be raised from a child thinking it is right to spit on the person from another culture next door every morning, then it is right for me. For example, I dont kill because the law that governs my country would jail me. and the shame it would bring me and my family, (as well as not letting the person live to his/her capacity, which is unnatural and i would never go against) - not because God or Jesus orders so.

Did you read the same gospels I did? In them, Jesus
a) accepted worship
b) claimed equality with God
c) performed miracles
d) rose from the dead

If you're not basing your argument on the gospels - the only authoritative record of Jesus' life here on earth - what are you basing it on?

rationality. it is physically impossible to rise again after death. To believe whole-heatedly with a book is like saying i believe Middle Earth to exist, or Narnia. I am not sure how far the Church corrupts it's text, and we shall never know, yet i shall not believe in fairy stories conjured by four well out of date accounts.

Jesus excepted worship, fair enough, i'm sure he was a devout jew, this doesnt make him God, in fact, who is he worshiping? himself?

Miracles, seeing as how shabby accounts are today, and how most are from ill-educated conclusions, like they would have been in his day, suggest to me the beliefs and culture of Jesus' time. Possession could have easily been but a disability. walking on water is hardly factual or believable, there could have been a high ground, or a boat he came across with, either way, my suggestions are as good as the account, because myself and the ones who penned the account never saw it.

Jesus cannot be seen as nothing more than a moral teacher or prophet - none of the other moral teachers/prophets of history or the Bible claimed what Christ claimed.

But teachers and philosophers afterwards have said amazing things. Kant caused a paradigm shift in contemporary thinking, does this make him more than a teacher? no. should i worship him for it?

what is the real difference between saying that I was God, or him saying it? why believe what the words in the bible say? if you said you were god, why not worship you?
can you prove it factually? hardly, are you going to rely on something abstract? like redemption for some unseen sin i did not commit? most likely.

[Tyler Self]

but he did establish moral codes, its what he preached, its the height of his work

I think Jesus would tell you that the height of his work was dying on the cross.

The four gospels were written some time after the death of jesus, and the accounts have been passed down and distorted like Chinese whispers.

my suggestions are as good as the account, because myself and the ones who penned the account never saw it.

Some time, perhaps (that is the earliest we have found them), but it is completely possible (and probable) that the gospels were written by who they are ascribed to. I made a defense of this last summer with quite a bit of text, so if you want I can fish for it somewhere for you.

There is no physical proof for this redemption, no physical proof for why we should worship him.

Too bad he isn't around for you to stick your finger in his side.

rationality. it is physically impossible to rise again after death. To believe whole-heatedly with a book is like saying i believe Middle Earth to exist, or Narnia.

First, it is not physically impossible with God (and this is what the Bible said happened). One merely has to admit the possibility of a God then that opens up this possibility. Second, neither C.S. Lewis nor Tolkein claimed the settings in their novels existed. It is not the same.

I think the writers of the gospels didn't care if you or anyone else thought they were crazy for believing a man walked on water, or rose from the dead, or ascended to heaven. They just didn't care. I wonder why...

[Redzeppelin]

but he did establish moral codes, its what he preached, its the height of his work, it strongly influences the moral and ethical dogma that Churches use today.

As Tyler said above, Christ's death on the cross was the "height of his work." The moral teachings were simply to reinforce the picture of God's character that Christ came to reveal to humanity.

When Jesus claims to be the Son of God in front of the Jewish court he essentially signs his life away, but through his self sacrifice, his teachings are established, through martyrdom his lessons have lived on. If you are to tell me that Jesus died to cleanse us of original sin, something that happened in a fictional garden with a talking serpent, a child's story, then firstly, he died foolishly. secondly, if this original sin did exist, he did not speak of it directly, but the scripture writes afterward of how he redeemed us, while, physically, he was crucified for his heresy and that was that.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it undercuts the very book within which we have Christ's moral teaching. You can't dismiss the parts you don't wish to believe as a "child's story" and then talk about the validity of Christ's moral teaching. Christ's moral teaching was secondary to his mission to redeem fallen humanity. It does not sound as if you've read everything Christ said - because he himself made it clear what his mission was - when he announced the beginning of his ministry:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed"
Luke 4:17-19

None of that is about moral teaching: it's about the good news of salvation, the freedom for all of us from the power of Satan's rule that Christ's sacrifice brought all of us.

bear in mind the four gospels have been chosen in order to promote what the Church wished to see promoted, having possession of a great wealth of other script. The four gospels were written some time after the death of jesus, and the accounts have been passed down and distorted like Chinese whispers. miracles performed have been exaggerated due to limited understanding, 'Legion' could have merely been a man with epilepsy, the healing miracle probably only calmed the man out of his shock.

And the source for these accusations? Frankly, I hear these things tossed about quite a bit - but I wonder how many people have actually done their research? This sounds like a conspiracy theory - you know, the kind you can't really prove? The church had very strict criteria for the books chosen for the canon. Don't dismiss its validity and then expect me to take seriously anything you say about Jesus because nothing about his words could be true either.

There is no physical proof for this redemption, no physical proof for why we should worship him. there is physical proof for why he should be respected as a teacher. but no more.

Physical proof? We have eyewitness accounts - and if you're going to dismiss them, you might as well much of what has been passed down to us as recorded history. If what it says about the resurrection of Jesus isn't true, then why weren't refutations published? Why did the accounts stand unchallenged?

There is no reason to respect anybody as a moral teacher who claims to be the Son of God and isn't really. Most normal people would call anybody who said that a madman.

If you're following some argument from morality to prove a higher deity then maybe yes. Newman described God as our conscious, the guiding voice in our head. But too much discredits these priori fanciful claims. Your morality was taught to you from your mother's knee, or your society, your education, your law. to believe there is a little man invading our thoughts is, factually, rubbish.

Spare me the condescending "little man" statements. They only reveal

a) that you know little of the Bible
b) you don't have common courtesy when talking to people about their beliefs.

I disagree with you, God gives us a choice, to follow him or not follow him. If i choose to do a 'good' thing, such as being charitable, helping the homeless, going to aid people in another country, yet i do it without ANYTHING to do with God, then it has nothing to do with him, unless he is invading my actions, and he determines what I shall do - which means humans were never given our free will after all. Morality is conditioned upon us, if I was be raised from a child thinking it is right to spit on the person from another culture next door every morning, then it is right for me. For example, I dont kill because the law that governs my country would jail me. and the shame it would bring me and my family, (as well as not letting the person live to his/her capacity, which is unnatural and i would never go against) - not because God or Jesus orders so.

God does not determine our actions. However, any good that we choose to do is due to His presence in our heart. On our own, we are incapable of choosing to do good because of our fallen, sinful human nature. You're free to believe that you are the source of your "goodness."

Christ did not set moral law, and God did not set moral law either. Moral law is that which is reflective of God's character. Sin is that which is contrary to God's character. Neither of them "orders" us to obey the moral law anymore than the warning on a pack of cigarettes orders us to be healthy. God tells us what we ought to do because He knows how we work and what will help us to live good lives.

rationality. it is physically impossible to rise again after death. To believe whole-heatedly with a book is like saying i believe Middle Earth to exist, or Narnia. I am not sure how far the Church corrupts it's text, and we shall never know, yet i shall not believe in fairy stories conjured by four well out of date accounts.

You're free to not believe. But your stubborn insistence on naturalism doesn't necessarily mean you're right. It means you have chosen a world view that exists only of material things. Just because we don't have access to the spiritual world doesn't mean it doesn't exist - it means we can't access it.

Your insistence on empirical truth is interesting, because it is doubtful that you approach the rest of reality with the same rigorous standards you apply to Christianity.

Jesus excepted worship, fair enough, i'm sure he was a devout jew, this doesnt make him God, in fact, who is he worshiping? himself?

But he claimed to BE God - devout Jewish boys didn't do that - they knew they'd get stoned for saying so. You conveniently skip around the fact that no sane Jew dared claim to be God as Jesus did.

Miracles, seeing as how shabby accounts are today, and how most are from ill-educated conclusions, like they would have been in his day, suggest to me the beliefs and culture of Jesus' time. Possession could have easily been but a disability. walking on water is hardly factual or believable, there could have been a high ground, or a boat he came across with, either way, my suggestions are as good as the account, because myself and the ones who penned the account never saw it.

No - your suggestions aren't as good for a few reasons:

1) your assumption that ancient cultures were ignorant is arrogant. They understood plenty about how the world worked and how certain "laws" worked. The miracles of Jesus weren't those that could be confused with natural occurences.


2) you weren't there - how can your opinion carry any more authority than eyewitnesses?

But teachers and philosophers afterwards have said amazing things. Kant caused a paradigm shift in contemporary thinking, does this make him more than a teacher? no. should i worship him for it?

Kant didn't claim to be God. Kant performed no miracles.

what is the real difference between saying that I was God, or him saying it? why believe what the words in the bible say? if you said you were god, why not worship you?

Because Jesus backed it up by performing miracles.

can you prove it factually? hardly, are you going to rely on something abstract? like redemption for some unseen sin i did not commit? most likely.

I'm not here to "prove" God to you and quite frankly, I'm not interested in doing so. God is not "provable" - and even if He chose to appear before you, unless your heart was ready to receive Him, you'd come up with some explanation - "I was hallucinating" or "Someone slipped LSD into my coffee." So, even if I had facts, they wouldn't do any good - you've already made up your mind as to what you will believe. But your idea of reality ultimately requires a great deal of faith because the basis of life in the universe is ultimately as unprovable as God Himself.

I think that's called irony.

[Judas130]

sigh, wrote out an argument and deleted the tab... hear we go again. lol

As Tyler said above, Christ's death on the cross was the "height of his work." The moral teachings were simply to reinforce the picture of God's character that Christ came to reveal to humanity.

Jesus responded to the hypocrisy of this religious authorities at the time. Being a devout Jew, and seeing how the people in the temple would bribe and gamble in a place of worship, how men of religion were greedy and cared for profit (something we still see today) outraged him, and he sought to lay down new, pure, moral codes that were more inline with his idea of the spiritual, than those the authorities he was in conflict with. These, when followed, show his work as achieving something. Jesus went against the traditional picture of the known God.
God in the Old Testament was vengeful, easily angered, and people feared him and did his bidding to save themselves the dark consequences, consequences which were taught from the church and bible during the middle ages - take a look at any number of depictions of Hell, read texts such as the Divine Comedy, to see how God would punish you for not adhering to God - Darwin left his religion for this reason, how his unbaptised, dead, child, would be tortured eternally in Hell - how can this be the doing of a loving, forgiving God?
Yet Jesus did not display these views, Jesus taught that God loves, forgives, so why push ideas contrary to this after his death? Jesus' fundamental principle was Agape, loving your neighbour as you would do yourself - 'love one another, as I have loved you'. Only now, in a liberal western society, can we see Jesus' moral arguments for what they are, and not for what the Church depicted during times such as the Middle Ages.

Jesus sought to redeem, and he did this not through his death, but through his arguments on earth which were direct responses to the corruption he saw. what redemption is there for me in another man's death? what can a dead man do for me? only his ideas, what he taught to people, what people listened to, can do something for me. The height of his work, in my opinion, was his teachings, before the famous 'coming in the clouds of heaven' line, which was the trigger for his demise within an absolutist state. The fact that he came to redeem, fact because he did wish to respond to what he saw as corruption within a faith he loved, is linked with his moral teachings. One is the method (teaching) to achieve the goal (redemption). The connotations to his death came about after.

The Messiah had to be a physical descendant of King David through the male line. Jesus had to be a physical descendant of David. So even if Joseph had legally adopted Jesus, Jesus would still not qualify as Messiah if he had been born of a virgin - seed /greek: sperma from the line of David was required. Jesus didnt exactly go down in blood and glory as was required of the Messiah, he didnt save his people through fighting and through conquest, but through his teachings, he twisted his own meaning from Messiah.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it undercuts the very book within which we have Christ's moral teaching. You can't dismiss the parts you don't wish to believe as a "child's story" and then talk about the validity of Christ's moral teaching.

My problem is with other parts of the Bible, and its many contradictions. If one parts says slavery is right, and another says slavery is wrong - which do I follow? Yet even within the NT, Matthew and Luke give two contradictory genealogies for Joseph (Matthew 1:2-17 and Luke 3:23-38)
Long after Matthew and Luke wrote the contradicting genealogies the church invented the doctrine of the virgin birth, now how can I believe Jesus' divine arrival on Earth if the accounts are a little too unstable in origin to place my heart in?
what of evangelicals, who, i would suspect, take every word in the bible as literal? How can they follow a contradiction?

And the source for these accusations? Frankly, I hear these things tossed about quite a bit - but I wonder how many people have actually done their research? This sounds like a conspiracy theory - you know, the kind you can't really prove? The church had very strict criteria for the books chosen for the canon. Don't dismiss its validity and then expect me to take seriously anything you say about Jesus because nothing about his words could be true either.

Take Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor. The laws and policies of the Empire and the doctrine of the Church became one with Constantine as he was the judicial interpreter of both law and policy. This 'interpretation' was accomplished by eliminating hundreds of books thought to be against "Church" doctrine and watering down what remained by blending Christian beliefs and practice with long established Roman sanctioned pagan worship. (Our Christmas, for example, was not the date of birth of Jesus - it is illogical to think of a Shepard, out in a winter night, in the desert, where temperatures are far too cold for grazing - the accounts suggest Jesus is born within a warmer month.)

yet of course the Church spend much effort into the selection of their canon, for how else could they demonstrate their ideologies on paper? why hide damaging texts if not only to show people a reality which they believe?

Physical proof? We have eyewitness accounts - and if you're going to dismiss them, you might as well much of what has been passed down to us as recorded history.

No, we have assumed accounts from third, fourth, fifth, etc hand sources, not 1st hand sources - who else saw an angel appear to Mary or Joseph if they did not write it down or tell somebody? If we are looking at the history of Genghis Khan, we have to assume a great deal, relying on little facts here and there. its the same with Jesus, because we cannot possibly know to the extent of detail shown in the bible, we know he existed, because of the impact of his teachings, which grew popular through his martyrdom

There is no reason to respect anybody as a moral teacher who claims to be the Son of God and isn't really. Most normal people would call anybody who said that a madman.

Somebody else has already demonstrated a valid argument in defense of this. Say he was mad, then I don't have to respect him for his moral arguments, okay fair enough, but yet I also don't need to see him as the son of God, because he isn't really, hes mad. Yet, why should I not respect his moral ideas? Like what has been previously mentioned, there are many cases whereby people are clinically insane, yet their thought processes concerning certain areas are magnificent! why not respect this? If Jesus was really mad, I'd still respect his ideas! His idea of turning weapons to plowshares, fore example is a beautiful one! But say he was smart, martyrdom gains much attention, and has done throughout time, whatever situation (there are such cases in the Holocaust, whereby a man sacrificed himself so that a child may live, etc) and Jesus had set his ideals in stone from the moment of his death, his disciples made sure to keep the ideals of Jesus intact in the sinews of men and women today, and it worked - so his teachings were his greatest achievement.

b) you don't have common courtesy when talking to people about their beliefs.

My apologies. I appear farrr, far too harsh and arrogant, I accept this, perhaps I am. I'm sorry for the offense. You listen to a BRILLIANT band, go you.

You're free to believe that you are the source of your "goodness."

well i don't, my 'goodness' is determined and conditioned by my society, my parents, the consequences of going against law, etc. To be able to live without oppression then I abide by the rules here in the UK, otherwise, I'd be acting like the natural animal in all of us...though probably to some higher/lower pleasure calculus like the one Mill devised for Utilitarianism.

Christ did not set moral law

Moses did, for Jesus and his people. Jesus reformed this, disagreeing with certain ideas such as the right to marry more than one, which Jesus did not respect. The right was given in context with a tribal, divided society, as 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' also worked well in. yet Jesus was liberal, used agape as fundamental to his teaching, he taught new moral code for a developing, more modern nation, and world.

your stubborn insistence on naturalism doesn't necessarily mean you're right. It means you have chosen a world view that exists only of material things. Just because we don't have access to the spiritual world doesn't mean it doesn't exist - it means we can't access it.

It sounds to me like you are taking the concept of a spirit world, applying logic, to reach a conclusion that is based entirely in an abstract universe. I exist here, what I am made of - atoms - will continue to exist here after my death. I do not live in the abstract, so what relevance is it? To think of the spiritual world in my mind, is the same as you might think of it in reality - we are both doing the same thing - we are thinking about the spiritual world. what we are NOT doing, is providing grounds for its existence.

Your insistence on empirical truth is interesting, because it is doubtful that you approach the rest of reality with the same rigorous standards you apply to Christianity.

I do not look at a waterfall and see it blessed with healing powers because a girl saw the virgin Mary there. I see it as an ordinary waterfall, with water, and the geographical processes which cut it into the rock it is made from, and continue to shape it through the water cycle and the carrying of sediment. So, my view is less interesting and suspicious when concerning reality...but it all exists! that's the beauty! that's our universal connection.

devout Jewish boys didn't do that - they knew they'd get stoned for saying so.

Jesus was crucified. He knew he would be.

They understood plenty about how the world worked and how certain "laws" worked.

Modern Bibles now in print have used the 'epileptic man' as opposed to the possessed man. If you read the account, you have a description of an illness resembling epilepsy. the way he tears himself from his bonds are like how the human body can excel its capabilities when under trauma - there is an account, i think over in the UK, of how a mother lifted a car to remove her baby which fell under the wheel, she severely damaged her spine and ankles for doing so, but its an example nonetheless. The biblical account suggests the writers concluding on something spiritual, as they can not justify it with learned physical logic. This results in the man being banished from the community - people fear possible threats from that which they do not understand.

you weren't there - how can your opinion carry any more authority than eyewitnesses?

Again, the sources were not reliable enough to be first hand accounts - NOBODY saw Jesus LEAVE his tomb. only a various minority saw an apparition of him, does this suggest there is a dead man walking? I don't think it credible enough, giving the length of time it took for that account to be passed down to the writer of the given gospel.

God is not "provable"


But your idea of reality ultimately requires a great deal of faith because the basis of life in the universe is ultimately as unprovable as God Himself.

I think that's called irony.

okay, give me a chance here. My idea is i suppose Deistic. My proof of God is formed from the basis that God is a symbol of existence. The thing we all share is God, we all exist, everything within the Virgin Womb of the Universe that exists is connected to one another through its existence. I justify this with the length of the life of an atom, which lasts longer than the calculated length of the universe's lifespan. Say the universe is 1010, then an atom is 10 25. Atoms are the building blocks of existence, what made you, has been, and will be, in innumerable amounts of things. when i die, i shall be buried, I shall return to the earth, and my atoms will pass on to the soil, the flower, the seed, another field, a tree, a fire, smoke, cloud, rain. etc. In this way, we are immortal (given that atoms shall last longer than the universe itself!) and this existence that binds us all is my God. you and I are both God. you alone are God. a book, a wisp of air, a mountain, anything and everything that exists physically, is my God - and Jesus, was no more a son of this God than you or me, or that mountain.

far fetched? meh, at least i'm trying to explain something on my own here...don't be too harsh, i like my idea

peace

[Tyler Self]

I don't have a lot of time so I will address what stuck out to me and leave the long post to Redzeppelin.

take a look at any number of depictions of Hell, read texts such as the Divine Comedy, to see how God would punish you for not adhering to God

Dante has no more say in what goes on in hell than I do.

Darwin left his religion for this reason, how his unbaptised, dead, child, would be tortured eternally in Hell - how can this be the doing of a loving, forgiving God?

It isn't. What you're thinking of is something that St. Augustine said was true hundreds of years later - and it isn't. One need only understand the concept of sin to know. In short, babies can't sin. Sin is willfull disobedience to God and babies can't willfully disobey God because they have no concept of right or wrong yet, nor can they act on it if they did.

what redemption is there for me in another man's death?

I would recommend reading Genesis (specifically about Abraham sacrificing Isaac) and then familiarizing yourself with the old Jewish sacrificial laws. It'll make more sense then.

People sacrificed to cover up sin. Nothing could cover it all because we sin all the time. It's impossible...without God. Humanity needed an infinite sacrifice...God himself...to atone for all sin.

The Messiah had to be a physical descendant of King David through the male line. Jesus had to be a physical descendant of David. So even if Joseph had legally adopted Jesus, Jesus would still not qualify as Messiah if he had been born of a virgin.

Don't know what you mean here...both Mary and Joseph were from the line of David.

Yet even within the NT, Matthew and Luke give two contradictory genealogies for Joseph (Matthew 1:2-17 and Luke 3:23-38)

This is a common misconception. Matthew gives the geneology of Joseph, Luke has the geneology of Mary. When Luke says "son of Heli" it means in the original greek "son-in-law." It was common in those days to call the son in law of a man his son. There is a culture barrier there that people don't see when they read.

This 'interpretation' was accomplished by eliminating hundreds of books thought to be against "Church" doctrine and watering down what remained by blending Christian beliefs and practice with long established Roman sanctioned pagan worship. (Our Christmas, for example, was not the date of birth of Jesus - it is illogical to think of a Shepard, out in a winter night, in the desert, where temperatures are far too cold for grazing - the accounts suggest Jesus is born within a warmer month.)

You're exactly right, and the Bible supports you. It says Jesus was born when shepherds let their flocks out at night, and this was in March/April/May. No one knows exactly when Jesus was born, so they put the day of celebration on a pagan day, because so many converted Christians back then were originally pagan. It made their transition easier.

giving the length of time it took for that account to be passed down to the writer of the given gospel.

Nice to see you read my last reply...

[Neo_Sephiroth]

Good grief...

[Redzeppelin]

Jesus went against the traditional picture of the known God.

Jesus did not come to show mankind the character of God. But he did not abjure the OT picture of God. The OT God is more about Justice; the NT God is about mercy - but both are characteristics of God. Check out the parable about the sheep and goats in Matthew and check out Revelation - God still holds us accountable for the lives we led. As a matter of fact, Jesus raised the ante in the Sermon on the Mount beyond the OT law. Whereas the OT law said "do not murder," Christ said even hating your brother was wrong; instead of simply "do not commit adultery" Jesus said even lusting was equal to the act - so the "kinder, gentler" Jesus that so many people like to place in opposition to the OT God actually expects MORE out of us in terms of behavior.

God in the Old Testament was vengeful, easily angered, and people feared him and did his bidding to save themselves the dark consequences, consequences which were taught from the church and bible during the middle ages - take a look at any number of depictions of Hell, read texts such as the Divine Comedy, to see how God would punish you for not adhering to God - Darwin left his religion for this reason, how his unbaptised, dead, child, would be tortured eternally in Hell - how can this be the doing of a loving, forgiving God?

But you conveniently leave out the parts of the OT where God expresses His love for his people - often using the metaphor of an abandoned lover (most explicitly demonstrated in the book of Hosea and in parts of Ezekiel) to express His pain at the abandonment and betrayal that the Hebrew people perpetually committed towards Him.

Dante was a genius, but his hell is not correct. The flames are metaphoric - not literal. Baptism is not required to get into heaven. God would not sentence unborn children to hell. Simply because some denominations teach certain things about God doesn't mean that that is an accurate reflection of who He is.

Yet Jesus did not display these views, Jesus taught that God loves, forgives, so why push ideas contrary to this after his death? Jesus' fundamental principle was Agape, loving your neighbour as you would do yourself - 'love one another, as I have loved you'. Only now, in a liberal western society, can we see Jesus' moral arguments for what they are, and not for what the Church depicted during times such as the Middle Ages.

Do you notice that you have to go back to the Middle Ages to make a dent in the church? That is the happy hunting grounds of most people who are hostile to religion. However, those times have passed - and the church no longer functions in that way.

Jesus did not contradict his Father in any way. He and God are ONE - he cannot contradict God. Jesus simply showed the loving, merciful side of God - who is complex enough to have a just and a merciful side.

Jesus sought to redeem, and he did this not through his death, but through his arguments on earth which were direct responses to the corruption he saw.

Completely wrong. Jesus' moral teaching was secondary to his role as atoning sacrifice for sinful humanity.

what redemption is there for me in another man's death? what can a dead man do for me? only his ideas, what he taught to people, what people listened to, can do something for me. The height of his work, in my opinion, was his teachings, before the famous 'coming in the clouds of heaven' line, which was the trigger for his demise within an absolutist state. The fact that he came to redeem, fact because he did wish to respond to what he saw as corruption within a faith he loved, is linked with his moral teachings. One is the method (teaching) to achieve the goal (redemption). The connotations to his death came about after.

There is no redemption if Jesus is a mere man; however, if that man is God - a sinless, perfect individual - then his death allows the price of sin to be paid in full for all humanity - a price that has been owed by all since the fall of Adam and Eve in Eden. The price of sin is death - disconnection from God - but Christ's sacrifice (sanctioned and planned by God) bridges the gap created by our sin and a perfect, holy God.

No matter how "moral" you may behave as a result of following Jesus' moral commands, only his death entitles you to freely accept the gift of eternal life with God. There is no way to earn your way into heaven because we are all stained by sin from birth - so acting "good" - while certainly nice - is immaterial to accepting God's freely given grace. Jesus made that quite clear more than once.

Jesus didnt exactly go down in blood and glory as was required of the Messiah, he didnt save his people through fighting and through conquest, but through his teachings, he twisted his own meaning from Messiah.

Did you read the gospels at all? The version of Messiah you're talking about was the Jewish idea - which is why his disciples were so confused by his death initially. He didn't fit what they THOUGHT he was supposed to be - but Jesus didn't come to set up a physical kingdom - he came to offer us the free gift of salvation. Jesus made it clear again and again what his mission was and that his disciples did not understand the true nature of his mission (most clearly evidenced by Peter's denial of Christ's need to sacrifice himself.

My problem is with other parts of the Bible, and its many contradictions. If one parts says slavery is right, and another says slavery is wrong - which do I follow? Yet even within the NT, Matthew and Luke give two contradictory genealogies for Joseph (Matthew 1:2-17 and Luke 3:23-38)

The two genealogies are identical between Abraham and David and then they separate after that. Matthew traces Christ's line through Soloman and Luke through Nathan. Matthew gives the descent through Joseph and Luke through Mary. Matthew's goal was to present Christ the King, while Luke's was to present Christ as the Son of Man. Do some research and you'll find no contradiction.

Long after Matthew and Luke wrote the contradicting genealogies the church invented the doctrine of the virgin birth, now how can I believe Jesus' divine arrival on Earth if the accounts are a little too unstable in origin to place my heart in?

what of evangelicals, who, i would suspect, take every word in the bible as literal? How can they follow a contradiction?

Addressed above.

Take Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor. The laws and policies of the Empire and the doctrine of the Church became one with Constantine as he was the judicial interpreter of both law and policy. This 'interpretation' was accomplished by eliminating hundreds of books thought to be against "Church" doctrine and watering down what remained by blending Christian beliefs and practice with long established Roman sanctioned pagan worship. (Our Christmas, for example, was not the date of birth of Jesus - it is illogical to think of a Shepard, out in a winter night, in the desert, where temperatures are far too cold for grazing - the accounts suggest Jesus is born within a warmer month.)

Fine. There are legitimate issues with the ancient church. So?

yet of course the Church spend much effort into the selection of their canon, for how else could they demonstrate their ideologies on paper? why hide damaging texts if not only to show people a reality which they believe?

Easily said - harder to prove. There were very strict criteria for inclusion into the canon. Read up on it and you'll see that the books selected had to meet certain standards to be included.

No, we have assumed accounts from third, fourth, fifth, etc hand sources, not 1st hand sources - who else saw an angel appear to Mary or Joseph if they did not write it down or tell somebody? If we are looking at the history of Genghis Khan, we have to assume a great deal, relying on little facts here and there. its the same with Jesus, because we cannot possibly know to the extent of detail shown in the bible, we know he existed, because of the impact of his teachings, which grew popular through his martyrdom

Only problematic if we assume the scriptures to NOT be divinely inspired. If God can create the universe by His spoken word, He can make sure that the accounts of his Son will be accurate as well.

Somebody else has already demonstrated a valid argument in defense of this. Say he was mad, then I don't have to respect him for his moral arguments, okay fair enough, but yet I also don't need to see him as the son of God, because he isn't really, hes mad. Yet, why should I not respect his moral ideas? Like what has been previously mentioned, there are many cases whereby people are clinically insane, yet their thought processes concerning certain areas are magnificent! why not respect this? If Jesus was really mad, I'd still respect his ideas! His idea of turning weapons to plowshares, fore example is a beautiful one! But say he was smart, martyrdom gains much attention, and has done throughout time, whatever situation (there are such cases in the Holocaust, whereby a man sacrificed himself so that a child may live, etc) and Jesus had set his ideals in stone from the moment of his death, his disciples made sure to keep the ideals of Jesus intact in the sinews of men and women today, and it worked - so his teachings were his greatest achievement.

Believe what you wish. Moral truth involves a mind that has the capability to discriminate between alternatives and evaluate them. An unbalanced mind could only arrive at "morality" by mistake, because morality is different than the "hard" science of mathematics (the Nash argument Big Al made). Insanity invalidates a moral teacher's credibility. I think its humorous how - in order to keep the teaching and reject the divinity, people are willing to argue that Jesus could have been insane but concocted a brilliant moral code. Perhaps the fact that the moral code works is that it comes from the mind of a man who was also God at the same time. There's always that option. Nobody would take the advice of a pastor or philosopher about moral behavior if s/he was known to be insane.

well i don't, my 'goodness' is determined and conditioned by my society, my parents, the consequences of going against law, etc. To be able to live without oppression then I abide by the rules here in the UK, otherwise, I'd be acting like the natural animal in all of us...though probably to some higher/lower pleasure calculus like the one Mill devised for Utilitarianism.

So you don't choose to be good? Your goodness is simply programmed? What?

Moses did, for Jesus and his people. Jesus reformed this, disagreeing with certain ideas such as the right to marry more than one, which Jesus did not respect. The right was given in context with a tribal, divided society, as 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' also worked well in. yet Jesus was liberal, used agape as fundamental to his teaching, he taught new moral code for a developing, more modern nation, and world.

Christ affirmed the moral law - the Jewish law of the time permitted divorce; Jesus flatly contradicted them and affirmed God's ideal that divorce was not OK.

It sounds to me like you are taking the concept of a spirit world, applying logic, to reach a conclusion that is based entirely in an abstract universe. I exist here, what I am made of - atoms - will continue to exist here after my death. I do not live in the abstract, so what relevance is it? To think of the spiritual world in my mind, is the same as you might think of it in reality - we are both doing the same thing - we are thinking about the spiritual world. what we are NOT doing, is providing grounds for its existence.

If there is only material reality, then how do you explain the existence of truth? How can truth exist in a universe that is ruled by forces that are beyond our control? Without the divine spark of reason in our minds, then our words are merely the consequence of bio-chemical, electrical activity in our brains - and truth cannot come out of such processes. Naturalism eats itself because it condemns us to strict determinism because we have no freedom in a universe made only of material things and natural forces.

I do not look at a waterfall and see it blessed with healing powers because a girl saw the virgin Mary there. I see it as an ordinary waterfall, with water, and the geographical processes which cut it into the rock it is made from, and continue to shape it through the water cycle and the carrying of sediment. So, my view is less interesting and suspicious when concerning reality...but it all exists! that's the beauty! that's our universal connection.

I won't argue about the waterfall thing.

Modern Bibles now in print have used the 'epileptic man' as opposed to the possessed man. If you read the account, you have a description of an illness resembling epilepsy. the way he tears himself from his bonds are like how the human body can excel its capabilities when under trauma - there is an account, i think over in the UK, of how a mother lifted a car to remove her baby which fell under the wheel, she severely damaged her spine and ankles for doing so, but its an example nonetheless. The biblical account suggests the writers concluding on something spiritual, as they can not justify it with learned physical logic. This results in the man being banished from the community - people fear possible threats from that which they do not understand.

Demons can cause physical afflictions. The problem is that the man goes back to town and those who see him are amazed because they knew something had changed - there's no such thing to be had if he was simply an epileptic. Once again, you speak as if ancient peoples were fully ignorant; I doubt that is true. Moderns like to assume that ancient people were fully ignorant while we are in the know because of science. That is a faulty position.

Again, the sources were not reliable enough to be first hand accounts - NOBODY saw Jesus LEAVE his tomb. only a various minority saw an apparition of him, does this suggest there is a dead man walking? I don't think it credible enough, giving the length of time it took for that account to be passed down to the writer of the given gospel.

But the NT indicates that over 500 people saw him alive. And, if such reports were false, why weren't they challenged by the critics of the time? Or is that another piece of the conspiracy theory puzzle?

And how much time was that that passed by the way?

10[/SIZE], then an atom is 10 25. Atoms are the building blocks of existence, what made you, has been, and will be, in innumerable amounts of things. when i die, i shall be buried, I shall return to the earth, and my atoms will pass on to the soil, the flower, the seed, another field, a tree, a fire, smoke, cloud, rain. etc. In this way, we are immortal (given that atoms shall last longer than the universe itself!) and this existence that binds us all is my God. you and I are both God. you alone are God. a book, a wisp of air, a mountain, anything and everything that exists physically, is my God - and Jesus, was no more a son of this God than you or me, or that mountain.

God can't be a "force." I am not God. God cannot be proven. While I appreciate the "cycle of life" recitation, it doesn't give me the same answers to the fundamental questions: how did we get here? why are we here? why is life so hard? is there more to my life than just existence?

[Judas130]

Dante has no more say in what goes on in hell than I do.

your right, but the Church accepted his comedy as the 'fifth gospel' they liked it so - it really worked with the ideas of the time, yet these ideas contradict Jesus' own. However, it's been argued that Dante was in fact describing what he would go through for a woman he loved...so I've used a bad example here.

Sin is willfull disobedience to God and babies can't willfully disobey God because they have no concept of right or wrong yet, nor can they act on it if they did.

But those who are unbaptised will not be allowed to Heaven. Plato, Aristotle, everyone and anyone who was not baptised a Christian would have been sentenced to hell, and hell does not just have one circle, according to various Christian belief - so i'd imagine your treatment in hell is consequential to what has, or hasnt, been done. Theres a different between murdering and not not repenting, and having to suffer for this, and what non-believers and the unbaptised have, which i think is an eternity of living without hope of seeing God again...i'm not big on Hell...and its going well off topic. I'm pondering here, not arguing...i dont really know.

People sacrificed to cover up sin. Nothing could cover it all because we sin all the time. It's impossible...without God. Humanity needed an infinite sacrifice...God himself...to atone for all sin.

This makes logical sense if looked at from a theistic angle, I understand this as a reason for believing Jesus as a redeemer of all sin. Does Jesus die for the sin that would be committed after his death? or for the sin before? or both?

Don't know what you mean here...both Mary and Joseph were from the line of David.

However, it would matter if Mary was a descendant or not, for it was believed all of the human was transferred by the man during intercourse, and not the woman. So the line is only legitimate through the man. If Joseph was a descendant it would also matter little, assuming Mary is a virgin, if Joseph was Jesus' biological father then of course, it would matter.

This is a common misconception. Matthew gives the geneology of Joseph, Luke has the geneology of Mary. When Luke says "son of Heli" it means in the original greek "son-in-law." It was common in those days to call the son in law of a man his son. There is a culture barrier there that people don't see when they read.

I'm going to take your word for this.

Nice to see you read my last reply...

I did, i just forgot to take into account what you said. I'd be interested to read your defense on the issue happily if you want to share it I didnt mean to make you feel ignored :/

[Judas130]

the church no longer functions in that way.

Because it has no longer got its foothold in modern politics. It's influence can still be felt of course, but it cannot perform to a modern world, its absolutist beliefs do not take into account the situation of each individual. Fletcher argues that Jesus was a relativist, looking at each person for who they were, and at their situation. The church does not, it has its laws set in stone and they cannot be broken.

Completely wrong. Jesus' moral teaching was secondary to his role as atoning sacrifice for sinful humanity.

As you are a theist, and I can see, or I am trying to, and understand exactly how such a son of God can do this, as TylerSelf alluded to, then that is what you believe. okay.

For me, it stops at the moral arguments, of which i respect and enjoy reading, he was a great orator, and his ideas were simple and easy to put into practice. I don't think we can push this any further.

a price that has been owed by all since the fall of Adam and Eve in Eden. The price of sin is death - disconnection from God - but Christ's sacrifice (sanctioned and planned by God) bridges the gap created by our sin and a perfect, holy God.

I was taught in a RC school, and it was stressed that Jesus died to cleanse us all from ORIGINAL SIN, that was, the sin initialized in the garden of Eden. After Jesus sacrifice we all are now born without original sin. However, what makes me think this is strange is then why must we be baptised? I also thought baptism was, spiritually, there to cleanse you of this sin. If they both work together to achieve the same goal then fair enough. I don't accept that Jesus died for SIN in general, for why do we still sin? if he saved us, how comes we are not saved? So I think it is Original Sin, the sin in the garden of Eden, that cursed mankind, that Jesus cleansed us of.

There is no way to earn your way into heaven because we are all stained by sin from birth - so acting "good" - while certainly nice - is immaterial to accepting God's freely given grace. Jesus made that quite clear more than once.

If Jesus died for the sin stained upon us from the garden of Eden, then we are not stained from birth any longer. Again, if there is no heaven for those that do not accept Jesus, as he is the only way to heaven, then what is there? surely a hell, so the unbaptised would fall into this dilemma.

The version of Messiah you're talking about was the Jewish idea - which is why his disciples were so confused by his death initially.

The Jewish Idea was the original idea. the Messiah was not what Christians see it meaning. The Messiah was not a physical son of God. It means 'anointed one' - referring to the process of anointing with oils, respective of their office, to priests and other members of authority within the Hebrew Bible. Daniel's prophecies display the messiah as a descendant of King David, but who will rebuild the nation of Israel, destroy the wicked, and ultimately judge the whole world. Islam follows this interpretation.

Yet, the Christian idea of Messiah uses a second concept of messiah, which has its roots within Judaism, yet came about after the term 'messiah' was used, and so is an interpretation. the Moshiach ben Yossef or Messiah, son of Joseph/Jacob = Israel. in Christian theology the two words 'Messiah' and 'Christ' are synonymous because the word is taken from the Greek root Khristos. In truth, the words do mean similar things, yet it is the interpretation that is different. Central to the Nicene Creed is that Christ was both fully human and fully God at the same time, suggesting how Jesus can die, yet, I suppose, fulfill his spiritual redemption. That is what makes you a christian, because he was the son, yet the father. I'm not saying Judaism is right and Christianity is wrong, i'm simply respecting how Messiah was originally used and developed as a word.

Fine. There are legitimate issues with the ancient church. So?

knowledge can equate to power, no knowledge can equate to ignorance. You take away the knowledge, you make the followers ignorant of the things that can disprove and potentially rock the foundations of the organisation. Destroying knowledge meant what was left was more reliable and trusted. essentially, this was better for Constantine and the ancient church.

Only problematic if we assume the scriptures to NOT be divinely inspired. If God can create the universe by His spoken word, He can make sure that the accounts of his Son will be accurate as well.

And so this comes down to whether you believe in the a higher deity. So yes, its problematic maybe for someone wishing to be convinced that there is a God. Its not problematic for the theist, who excepts what he is told and does not doubt.

Nobody would take the advice of a pastor or philosopher about moral behavior if s/he was known to be insane.

But say you didnt know about his visions and hallucinations occurring at home, and took in the moral teachings. Pastors don't teach, they read from books. there's no rationality needed as they didn't come to the conclusions themselves, i'm sure a hallucinating priest could still read out of a book.

So you don't choose to be good? Your goodness is simply programmed? What?

My upbringing has influenced my choices. If I get punched in the face, I'd love to punch back, but the words taught to me from young about not fighting are ingrained into my morality. so i turn the other cheek. There was a lot a saw myself doing without realising, without being autonomous of my religion, and I don't think I ever shall be completely free of it, but If someone strikes you in the cheek, strike him in the other and im breaking away from the program, but it might still FEEL bad, that i KNOW innately its wrong. It feels wrong, not because of God, because God himself can be angry, can kill people under floods, can be vengeful, but because I'm going against what i whole-heatedly excepted without question as a child. Many things about how I act are programmed, but through reasoning and doubt, you break free from it.

If there is only material reality, then how do you explain the existence of truth? How can truth exist in a universe that is ruled by forces that are beyond our control?

There is a very broad amount of differing definitions of truth. I'd rule out relative and absolute truth, because the two can are influenced by opinion. corresponding truth can exist in reality and quite easily without god. 1 + 1 = 2 is a truth. I know this because the machinations in my mind can work it out (in abstract though) and yet, if i can an object and say that it alone is '1' (using the numeral counting system) and another '1' in addition gives me '2'. remedial maths like this can be applied to physical bodies and the truth can be seen. "Truth is the equation of thing and intellect". If you see concept as true, and can prove it physically, then it is true. The mind is a function of the brain, the brain resides in the physical world. Truth exists in different forms sure, but truth certainly exists within correspondence theory, whereby the theory operates by practically taking a discovered truth, not a created truth, and accurately copying objective reality in thoughts, words and numbers.

And how much time was that that passed by the way?

Well, lets see. Gospel of Matthew was arranged some 70-100 years after these events happened, information can distort in one lifetime, in memory. Its generally agreed Mark was arranged at the fall of the second temple in 70. There's many strong reasons which suggest Luke as anywhere between 32 - 150 after the death of Jesus. John is agreed as 90-100, though some scholars argue as early as 64, or as late as 140. These documents were not written straight away, as the events happened.

God can't be a "force." I am not God. God cannot be proven.

Well, that is because you are a theist. Your God is an interactive deity who you can prayer to and share with. I dont even have a God, just using the word for the existence everything in the material world shares. Could easily be called 'mother nature' or 'shoe', anything I don't really mind. That, however, is my God, I respect it and love it, yet it is deistic.

While I appreciate the "cycle of life" recitation, it doesn't give me the same answers to the fundamental questions:

how did we get here?
why are we here?
why is life so hard?
is there more to my life than just existence?

1. there are many scientific THEORIES to this question. yet there are also many based on faith. You choose faith to explain what you don't understand, i've chosen some more mathematical which, still, can't be proven, but can be proven through example today, creating a 'mini-big bang' etc.

2. I'll take that as 'how did we get here'? as its the same as your fourth question otherwise. Again, just as many theories physically as there are in faith. before all of the evolution that took place factually, then evidence suggests that life on Earth originally existed about 3.7 billion years ago. There's four most likely scientific examples that try to justify themselves. 1. Plausible pre-biotic conditions result in the creation of the basic small molecules of life. This was demonstrated in the Miller-Urey experiment, and in the work of Sidney Fox.
2. Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers, the basic structure of a cell membrane.
3. Procedures for producing random RNA molecules can produce ribozymes, which are able to produce more of themselves under very specific conditions.
4. The panspermia hypothesis proposes that life originated elsewhere in the universe and was subsequently transferred to Earth perhaps via meteorites, comets or cosmic dust.

(wiki search 'Abiogenesis'): Amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", occur naturally, due to chemical reactions unrelated to life. In all living things, these amino acids are organized into proteins, and the construction of these proteins is mediated by nucleic acids. Thus the question of how life on Earth originated is a question of how the first nucleic acids arose.

3. life is hard due to the consequences of a range of factors. whether it be your finance, your relationships, your this or that, hardships can be explained physically in the case of medical ailments, or by looking at the settings in which the hardships take place. Life is hard because reality is tough, things live or die, things survive or fail to. Humans create more problems for themselves.

4. the meaning of life. well, look at animals, look at what we evolve from. we live in order to exist. we live to procreate and die, after we maintain our species we have fulfilled our existence. Some families of fish swim upstream to die after they have laid offspring, its interesting.

[Redzeppelin]

Because it has no longer got its foothold in modern politics. It's influence can still be felt of course, but it cannot perform to a modern world, its absolutist beliefs do not take into account the situation of each individual. Fletcher argues that Jesus was a relativist, looking at each person for who they were, and at their situation. The church does not, it has its laws set in stone and they cannot be broken.

The church has changed (for the most part) for the better. All institutions that function under human action will demonstrate flaws because human beings are flawed. The "black eyes" of the Christian church do not represent the entire span of its influence - much of which is positive and much of which is conveniently ignored by those who like to criticize her.

Jesus was not a relativist - at least in the modern sense of how we use the word. Jesus did not excuse sin in people simply due to harsh circumstances. He still called it what it was and directed people to stop doing it. Relativism says there is no such thing as sin.

For me, it stops at the moral arguments, of which i respect and enjoy reading, he was a great orator, and his ideas were simple and easy to put into practice. I don't think we can push this any further.

Leaving off Christ's redemptive mission makes his presence here on earth almost pointless. His moral teachings are good, but they cannot in-and-of-themselves make people better. Only God's presence working in our hearts can do that. And, without Christ's atoning sacrifice, God could not dwell in our unclean hearts.

I was taught in a RC school, and it was stressed that Jesus died to cleanse us all from ORIGINAL SIN, that was, the sin initialized in the garden of Eden. After Jesus sacrifice we all are now born without original sin.

Completely wrong. We are all born sinners because we carry within us the "DNA" of sin - it's passed along to each generation. Jesud died to save us from the consequences of being a sinner (death) - he did not "erase" sin but he took the consequences of it upon himself - he died in OUR place.

However, what makes me think this is strange is then why must we be baptised? I also thought baptism was, spiritually, there to cleanse you of this sin. If they both work together to achieve the same goal then fair enough. I don't accept that Jesus died for SIN in general, for why do we still sin? if he saved us, how comes we are not saved? So I think it is Original Sin, the sin in the garden of Eden, that cursed mankind, that Jesus cleansed us of.

Baptism isn't required. It is a public ceremony (like a marriage) where a believer makes a choice to follow God and participate in a symbolic ceremony. Baptism does not have the power to save anybody.

Jesus' death offered us Grace - it offered us forgiveness of our sins - but it didn't mean that we no longer sin. It is impossible to not sin here on this earth.

If Jesus died for the sin stained upon us from the garden of Eden, then we are not stained from birth any longer. Again, if there is no heaven for those that do not accept Jesus, as he is the only way to heaven, then what is there? surely a hell, so the unbaptised would fall into this dilemma.

Already covered the baptism thing. I understand the RC belief - and I believe that that belief is not biblical because it does not conform to the character of God as the Bible presents Him.

The Jewish Idea was the original idea. the Messiah was not what Christians see it meaning. The Messiah was not a physical son of God. It means 'anointed one' - referring to the process of anointing with oils, respective of their office, to priests and other members of authority within the Hebrew Bible. Daniel's prophecies display the messiah as a descendant of King David, but who will rebuild the nation of Israel, destroy the wicked, and ultimately judge the whole world. Islam follows this interpretation.

Yet, the Christian idea of Messiah uses a second concept of messiah, which has its roots within Judaism, yet came about after the term 'messiah' was used, and so is an interpretation. the Moshiach ben Yossef or Messiah, son of Joseph/Jacob = Israel. in Christian theology the two words 'Messiah' and 'Christ' are synonymous because the word is taken from the Greek root Khristos. In truth, the words do mean similar things, yet it is the interpretation that is different. Central to the Nicene Creed is that Christ was both fully human and fully God at the same time, suggesting how Jesus can die, yet, I suppose, fulfill his spiritual redemption. That is what makes you a christian, because he was the son, yet the father. I'm not saying Judaism is right and Christianity is wrong, i'm simply respecting how Messiah was originally used and developed as a word.

There is no "original" meaning and "secondary" - the Jews wrongly interpreted who Messiah was to be. Isaiah made it clear that the Son of Man would suffer - Christianity didn't "reinterpret" Messiah - they saw it for what Jesus said it would be. Jesus disciples - good Jewish men - believed in the idea of Messiah as reforming the world by destroying the Roman empire - Jesus contradicted their vision again and again.

knowledge can equate to power, no knowledge can equate to ignorance. You take away the knowledge, you make the followers ignorant of the things that can disprove and potentially rock the foundations of the organisation. Destroying knowledge meant what was left was more reliable and trusted. essentially, this was better for Constantine and the ancient church.

Incomplete knowledge can lead to complete ignorance.

And so this comes down to whether you believe in the a higher deity. So yes, its problematic maybe for someone wishing to be convinced that there is a God. Its not problematic for the theist, who excepts what he is told and does not doubt.

Human arguments convince NOBODY that God exists - people become God exists when they become aware of their need of him (through the action of the Holy Spirit's conviction on the heart) and accept Him into their lives. That's when he becomes real. You can't intellectually prove a being that exists beyond the 5 senses through which we apprehend reality. That's absurd.

But say you didnt know about his visions and hallucinations occurring at home, and took in the moral teachings. Pastors don't teach, they read from books. there's no rationality needed as they didn't come to the conclusions themselves, i'm sure a hallucinating priest could still read out of a book.

But people DID know because Jesus made his claims to God-hood in public places (often the synagogue) and more than once. I find this line of thinking fascinating - the idea of God is silly because it can't be empirically proven, but you're quite willing to accept the ravings of a madman as truth. Irony?

My upbringing has influenced my choices. If I get punched in the face, I'd love to punch back, but the words taught to me from young about not fighting are ingrained into my morality. so i turn the other cheek. There was a lot a saw myself doing without realising, without being autonomous of my religion, and I don't think I ever shall be completely free of it, but If someone strikes you in the cheek, strike him in the other and im breaking away from the program, but it might still FEEL bad, that i KNOW innately its wrong. It feels wrong, not because of God, because God himself can be angry, can kill people under floods, can be vengeful, but because I'm going against what i whole-heatedly excepted without question as a child. Many things about how I act are programmed, but through reasoning and doubt, you break free from it.

And what if the ground for those moral teachings is God's moral law - written on our hearts? That deep inside, we know these things are wrong and that we ought not do them (especially because we wouldn't like them done to us)? What if the reason humanity intuitively understands these moral truths is because God implanted them inside the human heart? You're treating God's morality as if it's an "external" thing - maybe it's not.

There is a very broad amount of differing definitions of truth. I'd rule out relative and absolute truth, because the two can are influenced by opinion. corresponding truth can exist in reality and quite easily without god. 1 + 1 = 2 is a truth. I know this because the machinations in my mind can work it out (in abstract though) and yet, if i can an object and say that it alone is '1' (using the numeral counting system) and another '1' in addition gives me '2'. remedial maths like this can be applied to physical bodies and the truth can be seen. "Truth is the equation of thing and intellect". If you see concept as true, and can prove it physically, then it is true. The mind is a function of the brain, the brain resides in the physical world. Truth exists in different forms sure, but truth certainly exists within correspondence theory, whereby the theory operates by practically taking a discovered truth, not a created truth, and accurately copying objective reality in thoughts, words and numbers.

All good, but we're not talking about math - we're talking about morality - and the two are very different things. The basis of truth is reality - and insanity is pretty much defined as a failure to accurately apprehend reality. The basis of truth must be what is real - and the insane mind - by virtue of its very definition - is not stable and can only come upon truth accidentally.

Well, lets see. Gospel of Matthew was arranged some 70-100 years after these events happened, information can distort in one lifetime, in memory. Its generally agreed Mark was arranged at the fall of the second temple in 70. There's many strong reasons which suggest Luke as anywhere between 32 - 150 after the death of Jesus. John is agreed as 90-100, though some scholars argue as early as 64, or as late as 140. These documents were not written straight away, as the events happened.

Matthew was a contemporary of Jesus - on of his disciples. He had first-hand knowledge. Both he and Luke's gospel were largely based upon Mark's - which was related to Mark by Peter (who definitley was a contemporary of Jesus). This does not eliminate the reality that all these men wrote under divine inspiration. Their accounts were written much later, but that invalidates them no more than any accounts of historical events - many of which are written years after the fact. If you're goig to ding the gospels for this tactic, you also need to through out much of what shows up in our history books.

Well, that is because you are a theist. Your God is an interactive deity who you can prayer to and share with. I dont even have a God, just using the word for the existence everything in the material world shares. Could easily be called 'mother nature' or 'shoe', anything I don't really mind. That, however, is my God, I respect it and love it, yet it is deistic.

Your attempt to make God into a shoe or mother nature essentially drains the word of its meaning by subjectifying it to the extreme - the old "if I think it's God it is." That's absurd - that's like me saying "If I see the sun as being purple, it is." You cannot "love" a shoe or mother nature like you can God because God is an entity that has the characteristics/qualities of a person - He feels emotions, experiences pain, etc. He desires to enter into a personal relationship with us.

1. there are many scientific THEORIES to this question. yet there are also many based on faith. You choose faith to explain what you don't understand, i've chosen some more mathematical which, still, can't be proven, but can be proven through example today, creating a 'mini-big bang' etc.

The theories as to how we got here - though they start with sound mathematics, eventually disappear into madness. Assuming that what is true of the minor event is true of the major is not sound logic and it is not necessarily empirically provable.

2. I'll take that as 'how did we get here'? as its the same as your fourth question otherwise. Again, just as many theories physically as there are in faith. before all of the evolution that took place factually, then evidence suggests that life on Earth originally existed about 3.7 billion years ago. There's four most likely scientific examples that try to justify themselves. 1. Plausible pre-biotic conditions result in the creation of the basic small molecules of life. This was demonstrated in the Miller-Urey experiment, and in the work of Sidney Fox.
2. Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers, the basic structure of a cell membrane.
3. Procedures for producing random RNA molecules can produce ribozymes, which are able to produce more of themselves under very specific conditions.
4. The panspermia hypothesis proposes that life originated elsewhere in the universe and was subsequently transferred to Earth perhaps via meteorites, comets or cosmic dust.

The "evidence suggests" is very telling, don't you think? "Suggesting" and "proving" are two different things, aren't they?

The Miller-Urey experiments have been discredited largely because
a) they contolled variables that would not have been controlled in the primeval earth
b) they did not actually produce "life"

Bio-chemistry's analysis of how DNA and amino acids combine suggest the staggering odds of 1 in 10 to the 13,313 power of the correct sequence of amino acids combining to form the first DNA strand. Those odds are so unbelievable, those numbers to astronomically large, that they approach almost being like God - don't you think?

3. life is hard due to the consequences of a range of factors. whether it be your finance, your relationships, your this or that, hardships can be explained physically in the case of medical ailments, or by looking at the settings in which the hardships take place. Life is hard because reality is tough, things live or die, things survive or fail to. Humans create more problems for themselves.

You're begging the question by saying "life is hard because reality is tough." Settings, and humanly created problems cannot account for all the struggles that life holds and how we deal with them.

4. the meaning of life. well, look at animals, look at what we evolve from. we live in order to exist. we live to procreate and die, after we maintain our species we have fulfilled our existence. Some families of fish swim upstream to die after they have laid offspring, its interesting.

No - evolution from animal to human-being is merely a supposition that is not in any way provable - which strikes me as highly ironic from an individual who demands "proof" of God's existence. You are quite willing to accept a hypothetical explanation of our origins because there seems to be some numbers that point to it, but in reality those all become a dead end.

[Tyler Self]

But those who are unbaptised will not be allowed to Heaven. Plato, Aristotle, everyone and anyone who was not baptised a Christian would have been sentenced to hell, and hell does not just have one circle, according to various Christian belief - so i'd imagine your treatment in hell is consequential to what has, or hasnt, been done. Theres a different between murdering and not not repenting, and having to suffer for this, and what non-believers and the unbaptised have, which i think is an eternity of living without hope of seeing God again...i'm not big on Hell...and its going well off topic. I'm pondering here, not arguing...i dont really know.

Before you said you didn't know, you were begging the question.

Does Jesus die for the sin that would be committed after his death? or for the sin before? or both?

An infinite sacrifice for infinite sin. That means all sin, past, present, future.

However, it would matter if Mary was a descendant or not, for it was believed all of the human was transferred by the man during intercourse, and not the woman. So the line is only legitimate through the man. If Joseph was a descendant it would also matter little, assuming Mary is a virgin, if Joseph was Jesus' biological father then of course, it would matter.

I think Redzeppelin had it covered pretty well, but I thought I would add in that the Jews also expected that the messiah would be a warrior who would destroy all their enemies. They had all these assumptions, and Christ being born of a man to be the line of David would also be an assumption.

I'm going to take your word for this.

I can read ancient greek well enough for you to trust that.

Here is that defense I wrote last summer, it is a snippet from a larger response but nonetheless:

-One can conclude that the same John who wrote the gospel in his name is the same John who wrote the book of Revelation. The author of Revelation indicates that he was in exile on the greek island of Patmos (punished for preaching the gospel). Historical records say that this John was in exile in 96 AD [17] and that "he wrote both a gospel and of an apocalypse" [18]. This would mean that John, during his travels with Jesus, was anywhere between the age of a teenager and a late teen, or about 13-19 years. Being exiled in 96 AD, would mean that his age would be anywhere from 77-83 when he wrote Revelation.

Although the gospels were in all probability spoken by the apostles before they (or someone) decided to write them down, claiming that it was many years afterward is a leap of logic. But given the ages, we see that it was entirely possible (and probable) the original apostles wrote the gospels, and were later copied.

We know the gospels were written some time after Jesus' death. But they say that the Holy Spirit would work to help the writers remember the events that have happened. [15]

*Also, we know that given the age expectancy back then, that the gospel writers probably lived long after Jesus. We can conclude that at the time of Jesus' ministry, all of the apostles except Peter were less than 20 years. We know this because of what Jesus says in Matthew 17:24-27. The verses are as follows:

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?"

"Yes, he does," he replied.
When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. "What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?"

"From others," Peter answered.

"Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him. 27"But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."

The coin Jesus describes was enough to pay the taxes for Jesus and Peter only, even though the other disciples were present. Men under 20 were not required to pay the roman taxes, which means that the apostles must have been under that age.

Here are the sources listed in that passage:

[15]John 14:26

[17]The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I pages 559-60 and The Lives of the Caesars (Domitian, XIII, 2)

[18]The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, page 240 and The Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, VI, xxv, 9, 10

[Judas130]

No - evolution from animal to human-being is merely a supposition that is not in any way provable

variation, reproduction, and selection. CHANGE. look outside your home! do some study! you cannot disagree with Darwin, there is proof! I scoff at the notion of Adam and Eve.

Through some of my arguments I've mainly stabbed out against the RC church. ''Incomplete knowledge can lead to complete ignorance'' I see the Church and its followers as possession an ignorance, not being shown a full story.

As you said, Jesus would not be important at all, his ideas useless if not for his death, his redemption. I don't believe he 'cured me', and truly only admire his teachings because, well basically, its simple for children to understand, simple to learn - pictures, stories etc.

Okay, then really, you've shot me down and then no, I do not have a God. I have a concept which I cannot interact with, fair enough. I won't call it God ever again. I'm only trying to attach some significance to a world where there is no God for me. Faith, personally, was when I was at the lowest of the low and had no place to turn to, the notion there was a being there who loved me and listened to me was a comfortable notion. It was only a notion however, and many humans need this comfort, and indulge their hearts and minds within it. ''people become(believe) God exists when they become aware of their need of him''.

I'm tired, and I've tried enough for someone of my age. Your an experienced teacher, and you have a wealth of background knowledge. I can't chuck empirical data at you, and you can't quote me things to change each others belief. I grew angry at your rejection of evolution, and this tells me i'm not fit for this argument. I've trailed off the point also. We argued about whether or not Jesus should be respected for his moral teachings, regardless if he is Son of God or not. You argue that Jesus is first and foremost the redeemer of mankind, and second a moral teacher. The theist view and the doubting agnostic...well its atheism, conflict over the fundamentals, and so the argument doesn't really get anywhere, and perhaps it wasn't a very strong argument when it was formed anyway.

I've had enough now. In terms of the argument, i'll conclude that the theist view must be respected when, and is crucial to, understanding Jesus. You've drained me.