Posted on 12/04/2013 3:17:41 PM PST by servo1969
Really! I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption . The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do . For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from an certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.. Aldous Huxley, Confession of a Professed Atheist, Report: Perspective on the News, vol. 3 (June 1966), p. 19. From an article by Helming, An Interview with God.
Free will is for humans. Other living things have less flexibility in modes of interaction. Only humans seem to be able to trigger that is a sin! in humans. Humans can be pretty ruthless, poisoning weeds, killing varmits, industrializing cattle slaughter, and herding our fellow man into gas chambers. We classify some of those behaviors as sin when we wish to reduce their frequency in the population.
Tell that to Dr. William Provine, who was the leading spokesman for Darwinists until his death. here is what he had to say.
Of course, it is still possible to believe in both modern evolutionary biology and a purposive force, even the Judaeo-Christian God. One can suppose that God started the whole universe or works through the laws of nature (or both). There is no contradiction between this or similar views of God and natural selection. But this view of God is also worthless
. [Such a God] has nothing to do with human morals, answers no prayers, gives no life everlasting, in fact does nothing whatsoever that is detectable. In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and, indeed, all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism. My observation is that the great majority of modern evolutionary biologists now are atheists or something very close to that. Yet prominent atheistic or agnostic scientists publicly deny that there is any conflict between science and religion. Rather than simple intellectual dishonesty, this position is pragmatic. In the United States, elected members of Congress all proclaim to be religious. Many scientists believe that funding for science might suffer if the atheistic implications of modern science were widely understood.
William B. Provine, review of Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution, by Edward J. Larson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, 224 pp.), Academe, vol. 73 (January/February 1987), pp. 51-52 Provine was Professor of History of Biology, Cornell University Certainly dogs can love, yet I dont think we would assert that dogs are capable of sin. Accept that, and you have a counter example that showes CS Lewis was wrong, that potential for sin is necessary for love.
Dogs have instincts, but they do not make a "conscious decision" to love.
I would use the same criteria for Jesus that I would for Bigfoot.
I don’t think Bigfoot exists either. Lots of testimony, and descriptions, some eye witness testimony. Rather less in in the way of physical evidence.
Who would win, I wonder in an evidence showdown? Bigfoot or Jesus?
I submit that many dogs are conscious, and make conscious decisions. Not perhaps bull-dogs (when you come home they are happy because they have a new friend) but Brittany Spaniels who I have seen retrieve boomerangs, while solving differential equations of motion as they pursue them.
Here is a good start on determining history through archaology.
Name them. Gather their testimony. I will wait.
Nobody questioned their testimony.
Who would win, I wonder in an evidence showdown? Bigfoot or Jesus?
***An honest assessment of the basic history would generate a very definitive answer. But you aren’t honest about history, you’re irrational. So, regardless of who would win, you will lose.
C'mon, that's a rather easy question to answer.
Has anybody yet written a book about the life and times of Bigfoot?
In His book, Jesus is described in detail, his words are recorded, his actions reported.
And, historically, we know that numerous people and places listed in His book did, in fact, exist -- precisely as they were described. The history and geography are accurate.
Is there any undeniable physical evidence of His existence? Depends on what you make of certain relics -- such as the Shroud of Turin.
You may insist on regarding the Bible as "circumstantial evidence", but it is compelling circumstantial evidence, nonetheless.
I thought the Shroud of Turn was debunked when its Carbon-14 date of manufacture was put at about 1200CE, a classic time for pious frauds.
I suppose you can pin your hopes on the Veil of Veronica (putatively a cloth on which Jesus wiped his face and left a magical image).
Well, excuse me. I don't follow the "pious fraud" trade all that closely.
Nonetheless, I note you selected this one tangential observation for comment while avoiding the enormous body of evidence represented by the Holy Bible.
You asked what I took to be an honest question: Who would win, I wonder in an evidence showdown? Bigfoot or Jesus?
I offered an answer. Evidently, you don't like it.
Which is OK by me; I'm not looking for an ecclesiastical argument.
I thought the Shroud of Turn was debunked when its Carbon-14 date of manufacture was put medieval time, a classic time for pious frauds.
However the presence of the Turin Shroud in Lirey, France, is only undoubtedly attested in 1390 when Bishop Pierre d’Arcis wrote a memorandum to Antipope Clement VII, stating that the shroud was a forgery and that the artist had confessed.
I suppose you can pin your hopes on the Veil of Veronica (putatively a cloth on which Jesus wiped his face and left a magical image).Veronica is from the Latin Verrus and the word “Icon”.
I thought I had previously discussed the bible elsewhere in this thread, or at least recently.
Matthew and Luke seem to be unreliable (ie pious frauds) as they needed to use Mark as a reference, and then added stuff to it. John is a theological document, offering attestation to things to which the author had no chance to witness. I find the apostles letters interesting as a record of contemporary teaching, but not so much as a record of Jesus.
Which leaves us with Mark, written after the principles were safely dead, about the time of the fall of Jerusalem, as an attempt to separate Christianity from the Jews who were, you may recall, on the outs for rebellion. The Jews were forced to evacuate Jerusalem.
Writing it at that time makes its prophecy of things which take place before its writing a low risk effort.
OT prophecies I find unconvincing as people would go through the list of prophecies and then tailor their story (even if not modeling the actual events) to fulfill the putative prophecy.
He doesnt call! He doesnt write!
Jesus has already answered your joke. Proof is subjective, and evidence is objective. Neither I nor anyone else can convince another person of the veracity of the four Gospels, when that person has set his mind in concrete, and refuses to examine and accept solid evidence.
Simon Greenleaf, one of the principal founders of Harvard wrote the rules for what is acceptable evidence on which United States law is based.
Greenleaf's Treatise on the Law of Evidence, published in three volumes between 1842 and 1853, forms the basis for his study of the Gospels. Greenleaf came to the conclusion that the witnesses were reliable, and the resurrection of Jesus occurred. See his The Testimony of the Evangelists, Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice.
It is not so much that no one questioned their testimony, but that the questioning of their testimony (which is alluded to, not given) is not recorded by the religious authors, or their followers.
Hence the argument of the early church that you had to have faith, or be damned. They didn’t have enough evidence to convince skeptical inquiry, and so condemned any who would not accept it on faith.
I take it he doesn’t call, write, or send you emails either.
Neither I nor anyone else can convince another person of the veracity of the four Gospels, when that person has set his mind in concrete, and refuses to examine and accept solid evidence.
***Yup. Even Wikipedia treats the subject more fairly than what’s being postulated here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_Historicity_of_Jesus
In 1543 John Calvin, in his Treatise on Relics, wrote of the shroud, which was then at Nice (it was moved to Turin in 1578), “How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ’s death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet?” In an interpretation of the Gospel of John[20:67] Calvin concluded that strips of linen were used to cover the body (excluding the head) and a separate cloth to cover the head.[36] He then stated that “either St. John is a liar,” or else anyone who promotes such a shroud is “convicted of falsehood and deceit”
So per Calvin, since John and the Shroud disagree, you can assert that one of them is false, or both of them are false, but not that both are true.
I have been told that I shouldn’t trust Wikipedia, by committed Christians. So is it now a good source?
It is so hard to keep up with which lie I am to believe.
You are wrong! Over forty years ago I was a Christ hater. I threw items at Christians and spat on them. One of those believers later became a pastor, and wrote a sermon titled, "The Meanest Man I Ever Met." I spent several years as a member in the Green Berets during the Sixties, and so that should give you an idea of my state at that time. However, the believer's conduct in the face of being persecuted convinced me to examine the evidence. Jesus sent me emails, but I didn't recognize them earlier.
I never thought the evidence for the shroud rose to the level of proof.
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