Well for starters, those other Gospels were written much later than the Gospels of the New Testament. This gives more time for legend to creep in. In fact, in one of the later Gospels, I think Jesus' cross flies out of the tomb and talks. And the early church had a good idea of which letters were actually written by apostles, and which were forgeries if I'm not mistaken. Also, I saw in another post of yours that you said there were two questions to be answered. 1) If a historical person named Jesus existed and 2) if the miraculous claims are true. I have mainly been arguing for point number one. You can completely reject all the miraculous claims of Jesus, and still extract information about a man named Jesus. The extra biblical claims as well as the Gospels attest that there almost certainly was someone in the first century named Jesus. I believe He is also said to have been crucified in an extra biblical document. And if you look at the New Testament not as inspired, but as historical documents, then there are other facts about His life that you can extract from the texts. And these other facts lead me to believe that Jesus was who He said He was. Now I can understand how someone might not accept all His miraculous claims, but to deny that there was a man named Jesus in the first century who had followers and was crucified doesn't make sense to me. But I guess to each his own.
All that matters now is that Braco DOES exist! <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="853" height="510" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eT-M4finpLo?hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="853" height="510" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_HiwyIqWENo?hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I was trying to say that God values your free will, as in He values the fact that you have free will. Yes He gave it to you, and He doesn't want to circumvent it IMO. As for the rest of your post, I think an email conversation would be much better suited for this topic, as this is not a theology board and the topic is in no way relevant to the discussion. But I would love to talk about it with you, so if you would send me your email (as I don't use the board much for posting I don't really know if there is a PM system or what, but if there is through that). Or if I figure out how I'll send you mine and we can continue the conversation there. Thanks!
Not always. Some autopsies are conducted just relying on external examinations and in some cases the next of kin is notified before starting an internal examination.
From my understanding though none of the Gospels were written at the time that Jesus was alive or during his crucifixtion. The accepted Canon also includes miraculous events so I am not sure why a miracle of Jesus' cross flying and talking is necessarily more likely than multiplying the loaves and fishes. You are basically taking the Bishops at their word that they objectively determined the Canon when I don't see that much evidence that would rule out other reasons such as politics for why the Canon was chosen. And I am largely talking about the first question also. That is why I asked Rhester if actual historical knowledge of the existence of Jesus would lesson the power of his personal story which he said it wasn't. That is a question of faith and when I speak of the miraculous here I am not just speaking of individual miracles per se but the central idea of Christianity that Jesus is the Redeemer who sacrificed himself and was resurrected. For what its worth I think it is very likely that a religious leader called Jesus existed during the First Century in Judea and was executed the Romans and / or Herod. What I disagree with you about though is what seems to me almost a blind acceptance that the Bishops got it right in regard to the Gospels and those are literally a factual account of Jesus' life and death.
What I was trying to convey by saying that the Gospels of the New Testament are reliable is that you can gleam what you said you believe about a man named Jesus in the first century. However my acceptance is not blind. The New Testament Gospels at least claim to be based on eyewitness reports of His life. They are older than any of the other supposed gospels that are around, which means they are closer to when He actually lived. However, I do not use this to say that this is irrefutable evidence for the Gospels being authentic about every aspect of Jesus's life (although I believe they are authentic). One of the main reasons I accept the Gospels as accurately portraying Jesus is the historicity of His resurrection account. A case can be made that from independent sources we can derive that:1) Jesus was crucified 2)He was buried in a tomb and 3) That His disciples at least believed that He was raised. You don't have to accept any miraculous claims to accept these statements, but I believe that the evidence best shows that they are miraculous, and that Jesus is who He says He is. This is kind of a quick summation of the argument, but I guess for the short space it will have to do. Once again this is treating the Gospels as just normal historical documents. No miraculous claims in them need to be assumed true.
So one day I came home from bowling it was about 4:30 in the morning. Everyone in my house was still woke, out of 9 people no one was sleep at 4:30 in the morning. As soon as I stepped in the house I headed right upstairs to my room to go to sleep , but something told me to stay downstairs and get on the computer. So I got on the computer and 10 minutes later the upstairs was on fire. If I would have went upstairs I would most likely not be alive today. Might sound funny to some people but I think it was Jesus who told me to not go upstairs. So yea I think Jesus really did exist.
some of the later "gospels" are clearly plays...written in the form of a play. the Gospel of Peter is among those and has the flying/talking cross (the cross itself comes out of the tomb to tell people Jesus isn't in there -- there's no account like this anywhere else and it's clearly written for dramatic effect. the very idea that the cross, itself, would have been in the tomb with him is a bit strange, but fine for dramatic license if that's the intent. point being, i don't think anyone took that part of the gospel of peter to be "gospel truth."). there were all sorts of early passion plays that different churches used to tell the story of the resurrection. in addition to that, i understand it was written later and was not nearly as widely circulated as some of the others.
So if you die tomorrow in some freak accident your position as it stands today would be Jesus wants you to die then?
This is as much evidence of self-delusion as anything else. Does a child's curbed behavior to get Santa's approval every Christmas prove the existence of a suited fat man flying around in his sleigh? The adherence to myths and stories isn't evidence of anything. Every civilization has its creation/god myths and they've all believed in them as much as you believe in yours.
Would you believe just as much if there was no afterlife or an afterlife without preconditions? The problem I have with the afterlife is that we're given free will to be judged on the principle of faith in the world He created that operates with logical rules and conditions. So to say that we're to obey under an ambivalent rule book where He isn't universally seen or heard by all, and the conditions for not following is being kept alive for all eternity (as in beyond the beginning and end of the known universe) under a state of punishment and torture during our brief and short 0-100 year lifespans doesn't seem just or generous. Furthermore, those high stakes justifies corruptions in social structures like some religions where works and following authorities who claim to know the right works to get in. We are created to want and suffer for things we need and things we don't need. Enjoy life, but not too much because it's temporary. Desire God's untangible love, and resist the urges He gave us but also appreciate it as a His gift of our life. In this grand confusion, has His word really benefited everyone across the world...2,000+ years of the known truth? We can thank science for the progress that has benefited 20% of the world's population, but is it science's fault the rest of the world haven't progressed as much? A book I'm currently reading says that even if a person were to make 4,000 dollars a month, he would be a hundred times richer than what an average person in the world makes. We as a country have a lot to be grateful for, but we're also the wealthy man in Biblical parables. I know I won't be the first guy to give away all of my wealth to the truly needy in places thousands of miles away from me. But to what extent does His words affect you? 5,000 miles? 1,000 miles? 10 miles? Your neighbor? Does a poor man starving out of his mind care about the verses in the Bible, and will he be punished for it? Or does the fact that we know this will be what makes our punishment even more severe?
Are you attributing the ability to help our own species to god? You know that countless animals have been documented to do the exact same thing, correct?) The same percentage of religious folks, and atheists would save a child from a burning building. Religion has no leverage in that regard, in my opinion.
I am asking why, given that there is no afterlife on atheism, would we evolve with the trait to want to save a complete stranger if it meant that we could die. I would like to see this documentation about the animal thing, but in reality the animal thing has nothing to do with the argument. And you are misunderstanding my argument. I never said that you have to believe in God to want to save a child from a burning building. I implied that if God doesn't exist and there is no afterlife, it is absolutely stupid to try to save a child from a burning building. This child is more of a hindrance to society, as they still have to depend on a parent while an adult (yourself) could conceivably help out society at the present moment. And, given that this life is all there is, what sense does it make to throw your life away for someone else's, especially if you don't even know that other person. Given atheism, making the most out of this life is the most important thing IMO because nothing else really matters. For the record, I am not questioning evolution as I more or less agree with the theory. And I know that there are plenty of people that don't believe in God that are amazingly great people, and that belief in God does not correspond to how good of a life you live. However, without God to base objective morality in, I believe that, while the life of a believer or an unbeliever may have subjective goodness, it cannot be objectively good.
So you are basically saying that the God of the Bible is unfair? What about the poor people and the people that have never heard of Him? And that the modern idea of hell is unfair? And then I think you are asking how Jesus's words will affect my life and the wealth that I have been blessed with by being born in America. Well, while I believe faith is required for Salvation, I would absolutely love it if a form of universalism was true. I would love to see everyone saved in the end, and I think you can make a somewhat biblical case for this idea, although I don't hold to it because I don't think the case is very strong for it. However, I do not agree with the modern idea of hell. I don't think people are going to a literal lake of fire where God is burning them for all eternity. The doctrine of hell is very ambiguous in the Bible IMO, and most of the things calling it fire seem to be metaphorical IMO. If anything, I lean towards the idea that hell is how people who have not been born again react to God's love. But I do not consider myself a Christian fundamentalist, and I believe that people put forth far too much as truth from the Bible when really it is either their interpretation or something that was developed extra-biblically. However, I currently believe that without faith in Jesus, you cannot be made alive to God, and you cannot experience what the Bible calls heaven, not because of a punishment, but because you are not alive. Also, I am not so sure that people only have this life to decide, as I believe the Bible says that people will not be disappointed with heaven, or something to that effect. But I am unsure on this point, so I will not push it. I believe that God wants everyone to come to a knowledge of the truth, that the only people who will end up in hell are the people who truly want nothing to do with God. But that is just my belief. As for how Jesus's words affect me personally with regards to other people. Well, as my life is not over yet, I cannot tell you. I don't know where He will lead me or what He will have me do, but if it involves giving most of my wealth away then so be it. I trust that He will take me where He wants to go.
If we were to base morality on religious books, we would have some interesting views on gender power, slavery and homosexuality. Morality is constantly changing, despite god, despite religion, and the impacts that the two have on our sociological norms. I am very perturbed at your views on Atheism in regards to benefit of saving a stranger. I would recommend "The Selfish Gene" as a book that would many of the questions you listed above in great detail. Survival of the fittest doesn't necessarily mean the survival of the biggest, baddest dude on the block. We evolved as a social species, and social behaviors conferred adaptive benefits that were passed on and refined. The moral compass we all operate from is one of enlightened self-interest, which you need in order to live in large groups. It's best described as "that which is harmful to yourself, do not do others." There are genetic benefits to helping others as well. In the animal world, if you help some one out, chances are they are your offspring, and they carry the "friendly" gene. Genes that promote seemingly altruistic behavior can be self-perpetuating. Everything else is derived from these basic instincts. "Human cooperation is an evolutionary puzzle. Unlike other creatures, people frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, with people they will never meet again, and when reputation gains are small or absent. These patterns of cooperation cannot be explained by the nepotistic motives associated with the evolutionary theory of kin selection and the selfish motives associated with signalling theory or the theory of reciprocal altruism. Here we show experimentally that the altruistic punishment of defectors is a key motive for the explanation of cooperation. Altruistic punishment means that individuals punish, although the punishment is costly for them and yields no material gain. We show that cooperation flourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out. The evidence indicates that negative emotions towards defectors are the proximate mechanism behind altruistic punishment. These results suggest that future study of the evolution of human cooperation should include a strong focus on explaining altruistic punishment." In essence, sociological norms dictate much of what we do and perceive as good and bad. I would like to point out that more often than not, an individual going out of their way to help others that are injured or need help, is not all that common. The Bystander Effect <object width="480" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tGaJrgi_SpE?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tGaJrgi_SpE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="390"></embed></object> "Morals are the faith-based equivalent of ethics. This means that they are institutionalized through the agent of a supernatural agency and codified by religious literature. Ethics are the lodestones by which humane human beings comport themselves. They existed long before there was an idea like 'morality' or a word for 'ethics' and they are so deeply ingrained in us that to explain it is difficult. See the works of Desmond Morris for ethology of higher primates (chimps, gorillas, humans). The ideas of right and wrong can also be translated as altruistic impulse and selfish impulse. If we do this - and it is often true that good is selfless while evil is greedy - then we can see evidence of so-called 'morality' among many social creatures... even ants have 'rules' of interaction, although they are at best a mass-intellect (why do I have a feeling that when the ants take over I'm going to pay for that statement?). Survival of the fittest does not mean strongest or fastest, it means best adapted or adaptable. As tool-users we haven't done much physical evolution, though we are still adjusting to bipedal locomotion in small ways, the big stuff is done for now. The evolution of ethical behaviour came from the desire of a social animal to create a strong co-operative group, which in itself made us better able to survive as a species because, well, there were more hands to help. Simple. Selfish tribe-members could cost lives. Selfless tribe members helped everyone survive another day. This leads to the idea of memes - memes are like genes, they can be passed from generation to generation and across cultures, but they are IDEAS. Ethics are memes, as are morals and just about anything you consider normal in your life." <object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dxdgCxK4VUA?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dxdgCxK4VUA?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="390"></embed></object> "Darwinism doesn't forecast, doesn't suggest that we should be all wise and do what is actually going to be best for our selfish genes. Instead it says, it builds into our brains, rules of thumb, which worked in our ancestral past."
Yes if I die tomorrow I would believe Jesus is calling me home. When we were put on this earth we wasn't meant to stay.
You have misunderstood my argument once again. You are talking about moral epistemology, which is how we know what is moral and what is not. I am talking about moral ontology, which is where morals come from. Without some sort of transcendent cause, we have nothing to actually base morality on. Even if everyone disagrees on what is moral, (which they don't ex.. no one would ever argue that it is better to rape a small child than to show them love. That is no one in their right mind) this still doesn't show that morality is subjective. I am arguing that without a transcendent cause, ie God, there is nothing to base morality on, so it is subjective. If morality is subjective, then there is nothing actually wrong with the act of rape or molestation or murder. There would be just differences in opinion. Society may say that these acts are wrong, and we may evolve thinking that these acts are wrong, but that doesn't mean they actually are. There is no reason that I should not murder someone for example, if I want to and if I can get away with it. So the quote is saying that what explains why people act altruistically is because of the negative emotions they might get from other people towards them if they don't? Doesn't this just assume that the first people who witnessed someone not acting altruistically would have these negative emotions towards the defectors in the first place. Why, before anyone had these evolved altruism genes, would anyone see not risking your own life to save someone else's as negative. The total species count doesn't take a hit if it was just one person. The author of the quote seems to be assuming that altruism is a good thing outside of us evolving it to be good, which makes no sense given atheism. If I am misunderstanding then please forgive me and explain what he was trying to say. Thanks. Also you are saying that morality is socio-relativistic it seems. This sort of thinking is flawed as well IMO. I think most would agree that torturing people slowly until they die, just to get an advance in knowledge is not a good thing. Yet the nazis practiced this on Jews. In a hypothetical situation, if the nazis won and the Jews were either exterminated completely, or kept around as lab rats of sorts, and the culture grew to accept this, would the nazis be doing a good thing in doing this since society dictates what's good and bad. I think most would say no. I believe your video actually supports my position, as the only person in that video who acted altruistically and risked his life was the one who died. And everyone seemed to think that just letting him lay there and die was the wrong thing to do.(apparently except for the people who walked by him) The people who walked by the dying man would not have risked their lives to help him, so I don't see how this video supports your position at all. And if you have any relevant statistics to back up your claim, and not just one video that isn't even focusing on the problem at hand (at least not intentionally) then that would be great. Again, this gives me no reason why I ought to do something. Even if this were how morality came about, saying this is what morality is does not imply an ought. As in there is no reason why I ought to follow my instincts. Ya it may be good for the species, but if I can find a way to gain enough power to enslave the majority of a country, thereby ensuring the species survival, while at the same time giving me everything I could hope for in life, including a close group of friends which share my power and allow me to satisfy my social instincts, then why shouldn't I do it? On atheism there is nothing actually wrong with this. The enslaved people may think it is wrong, but who really cares as long as you are the one in charge. This life is all there is and the in charge person would be making the most of it. Yet I have a feeling that there is not one person who would say that this is a morally indifferent act. Most would say that that would be a wrong thing to do. For the record, I do not believe in moral relativism, but I believe in moral objectivity. I think the only way to ground objective morals is by having some transcendent cause. This is impossible given naturalistic atheism, since the only stuff that is real is physical. As morality is abstract, it cannot have an objective foundation.
