Now at the same time, because something is inconsistent with man's ideas, does not mean that it is ill-fitting to the world. Christianity explains why things are the way they are. Many ideas that men have about the same issues are ludicrous, don't make sense, or have no connection with anything physically measurable or know historical fact.
Our vision of the world comes from man's ideas. And at its root, the examples I gave show that religion is what people do when left to their own devices - if such a case was possible. Do you agree with the fundamentalist who talks about the universe appearing in 7 days? Religions are only the sum of its believers.
The primary wrong that needs to be admitted is our need for God in our lives, and how our efforts to be our own God have failed. If we wrong other people, we should admit that wrong as well because we don’t have to be concerned with saving face.
No, cynical as it is, people only admit the wrongs that are convenient. The point I am making is that there is an alternative explanation for all the strangeness of religion, deriving from their long and drawn out histories and evolving nature through history, and the fact that while you talk about christianity as going counter to human ideas, the fact that there are christians indicates that in some way, christianity is very much an idea that people, currently, can find favourable.
How is polygamy unfavorable? Chimps do it all of the time. But to make it more poignant, perhaps I should have picked a more culturally relevant topic like wealth. The Bible says that striving to be rich is worthless, and is against God’s desire for us to care about the needs of others. This certainly contrasts with the view of mainstream America.
People aren't chimps, are they? People live in a situation where the stability of a long term relationship is evolutionarily favourable for survival, such as child rearing. The same can be seen in similar relationships, such as those of birds.
Rich, sure, it is an ideal. But does anyone actually follow it? The vatican hoards artwork. Churches have tax exemption. And consider the environment where christianity emerged - the early christians were a persecuted cult, the underclass of civilisation, a situation where wealth sharing is directly favourable. Christ gets a favourable reception, because he is pleading for power and wealth redistribution and equality before a final judge, as Marx would do centuries later. And like Marx, it was corrupted for a while by the realities of the world, and now, with that happily cloaked by time, we can recover it and wipe away all that ugly blood and death. The point being, again, there is an alternative reason that history and evidence bears out.
I don’t think Marxism has anything to do with my earlier comment, can you elucidate? Weren’t the Marxist supposed to take control of the means of production through revolt? How does this compare with God rescuing us from a predicament we can do nothing about ourselves?
You misunderstand Marx, then. Marx did not base himself on the need for revolt. Marx prophetised that the future of society lies in a communist state, where ownership is based on need, and production based on capabilities. Marx spoke of a (now apparently mythical) society where all are equal, classes are erased, and greed and want and individual peculiarities are taken out of the equation. By simply being human, and being part of society, you get what you want. Which is, in many ways, a repeat of socialist christianity.
It is arrogant for someone to proclaim to be God, unless it is true. What I was trying to point out is that for example: the writings of Hinduism are revelations men have had about God. Buddha wrote about being enlightened but did not claim to be God. The Enuma Elish claims to describe how the world was created, but not to be from God. The list goes on.
Buddha said that we are all part of God, or the ultimate reality. Furthermore, the gospels were written by men, not gods. And I still don't see what any of this means.
Immediately after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to approximately 2000 people. They had all been really upset because the person they hoped would liberate them from Rome had died. But now he was back, and they went crazy. They began telling everyone they had seen Jesus alive. Now Pilate and the Pharisees were already upset by the following this guy had who claimed he was a king. Wouldn’t it then make sense to go to the tomb, pull out the body of Jesus, and show it to the people who had seen him alive just 3 days before, and some of whom had lived with him for 3 years? Of course they knew what he looked like! It was the big news of the day.
Says who? The gospels were all written at least 200 years after the event. The gospels themselves are contradictory in this account. Matthew has the convenient anecdote of guards being told to tell the governor that the corpse was stolen. The romans, also conveniently, had no account of this big news.
The writings that we have from the apostles don’t indicate they are crazy – they are very beautifully written, logical, and consistent.
Who said the suicide bombers and so on were insane? Can you prove it? Very, very normal people believed in things that made them kill and die. Palestine is not a hotbed of mental illness, but a place where people believe in terrible things. Hitler was a beautiful speaker. The serpent is subtle indeed.
Where do you get your evidence about the date of compilation of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Archaelogists and linguists have agreed on their production in the 175-200 B.C. range. Where is your source to say otherwise?
http://www.gnosis.org/library/dss/dss.htm
The dead sea scrolls consisted of a variety of material, some before and some after. The gospels in which you talk of the fulfillment of the prophecy were written long after, with good access to the original predictions. Can you point out these specific and detailed predictions?
Roman tetrarchs and Jewish historians record his death at the hands of Pilate, the Egyptians record the census, Jewish documents reveal when the construction of the temple began, and the list continues. How would any group of writers be able to accomplish this grand scheme to fool us 2000 years later, and moreover, why would the care?
What roman records of Jesus? Are there any that are truly credible?
http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/rfset17.htm
As far as a Roman record of the crucifixion, there is no evidence that there was any such thing. Some would like to claim that Tacitus' reference to Jesus as a man crucified by Pilate indicates such a record, but Tacitus' information could as easily have come from Christian hearsay of the time (around 115 CE). A scholar such as Norman Perrin (The New Testament, An Introduction, p.405) admits that his information probably came from police interrogation of Christians.
Later in the 2nd century, there appeared several gross forgeries on the subject, including letters or reports from Pilate to the emperor Tiberius, in which Pilate describes Jesus' career and crucifixion and acknowledges the validity of Christian faith, including the resurrection. (See Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol.VIII, p. 459f.) No one today, and certainly not a scholar of Crossan's caliber, takes these naïve inventions as authentic.
I have an interesting counter-question for the forum. What evidence can you show for God not existing?
I never said God does not exist. I would say that there is no reason, and no usefulness is believing that God does, and on the balance of probability, any specific god almost certainly does not exist because we can use as counter-evidence the infinitude of 'evidence' for an infinitude of other gods. That belief in gods are usually counter productive. It is a common strawman to ask an atheist to disprove God's existence, because atheists do not believe in god's non-existence.
