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StrawberryJam
Guest
Soul can just mean a person in common speach. It does not always indicate any supernatural properties.
That poor soul missed her train and will have to wait seven more hours for the next to come.
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That poor soul missed her train and will have to wait seven more hours for the next to come.
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James924
Guest
If I remember correctly, the bulk of roman accounts of Jesus come from a Roman Historian of the time named Flavius Josephus who verifies Jesus’ existance. He verifies that he was having quite an effect on the people. If I remember it went something like this: “And he was much loved by the people” but thats just my memory. His works are publicly available and he verifies that Jesus was at odds with the Jewish authorities and was executed by the local roman garrison, if I remember correctly. A big factor here is that Josephus was a Jew, ethnically. Which means he would have had every reason in the world NOT to verify these things about Jesus, and he did anyway.
But the most important testamony is the explosion of Christianity within decades of Christ’s death and resurrection. Historical Fact: Christianity spread like wildfire! This fact alone certainly doesn’t “prove” the accounts of the gospels to be true, but they certainly add weight to them. Suddenly there were Christians all over the empire who strongly believed these things.
The unprecedented spread of Christianity gives great credit to the trustworthiness of the Gospels if only because its so unlikely. Nearly everything about becoming a Christian prior to 325 AD was BAD, from a secular or pagan point of view. THere were hundreds of pagan religions that said, “pray and offer things to this god and he’ll give you good stuff.” Also, you could freely worship these pagan gods in public all you want.
Then there was Christianity…it said you had to deny yourself, sacrifice, fast, take care of others before yourself, not do fun things like get drunk and have sex with prostitutes and watch people kill eachother in the arena. Oh, and by the way, if for some reason you want to join this religion that offers no fun in this life, you’ll get persecuted…by everyone. You’ll be stoned by Jews, eaten by lions, and burned or crucified by the Roman Authorities. So basically Jews and Pagans have EVERY reaon NOT to become Chrisitan and NO temporal reason to become Christian…and yet within just a few decades it was EVERYWHERE.
Again, does this prove Christianity to be true? No. But it is astounding and must be taken into account in any discussion about the historicity of the Gospels because of the weight it adds to the argument.
For example, lets say the claim is that a man rose from the dead in Omaha. My duty stattion is Offutt, right down the road, and I can assure you, these Nebraskan’s are visciously defensive of their “Huskers.” Now lets say the claim is that this man preached that the Nebraska Cornhuskers were a terrible football team and should not be rooted for. The claim is also that this man rose from the dead and presented himself to 500 people right there in the old market district and continued to preach this message after his resurrection.
Unlikely? Very. And as such, we would expect that, save for a few gullable cool-aid drinking fanatics, most people wouldn’t believe the claim. Especially if it wasn’t true.
For two reasons:
- Its an unlikely claim.
- It is not in the best interest of these Husker fans to add credibility to the anti-husker preaching.
Again, not proof, but very astounding nonetheless.
The best accounts we have are the gospels themselves. The Gospels were all almost certainly written before 70 a.d. because none of them mention the destruction of the Temple (and Christians who wanted to convince people of the truth of Jesus Christ would have included the Temple destruction as it was foretold by Jesus.)
Also, the the lack of PERFECT harmony between the four gospels adds to its credibility. If it were entirely fabricated, the fabricaters would make sure to be consistant. But if four people were looking back on their memory of how things occured and writing their own account from their own point of view years later, there will be slight variations between them. The primary points will be consistant, and there might not even be any sylogistic contrdictions, but ask any journalist or police investigator, there will be variations to a degree similar to that which is found in the Gospels.
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James924
Guest
I’m sorry to say I concur with the atheist on this one. Jossy, I understand its easy to get frustrated on these forums, but please don’t make us sound like firey southern baptists. You’ve just given the atheists on this forum a convincing ad hominum argument.
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AtheistEnvoy
Guest
we value our lives :nunchuk: (i just like that emote, it has no signifigance)
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James924
Guest
Is that supposed to mean you’re afraid of muslim backlashes? But didn’t the all knowing Rosie O’Donell say that “radical islam is just as dangerous as radical christianity!!”
Edit: That was an attempt at humor, of course. Naturally I don’t believe all atheists and agnostics ascribe to the wisdom of Rosie.
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elts1956
Guest
Obviously she can’t disprove the existence of a god or higher power. That is a bit of the point I am trying to make. How can ANY mere mortal PROVE the existence, or non existence of God, especially to individuals who don’t have a believer’s faith. I don’t believe Faith, in a religious sense, (belief in God), or the levels of Faith can be proven by anyone to anyone else, believer, or non believer. We can perhaps see faith in action, (good works, helping the poor) but seeing will not prove, or disprove an individual’s faith, no matter how loudly they claim it. I have had friends who claim they no longer believe in God, but could sink me and several others right into the ground as far as caring for others is concerned. (This is morality, no?) I think you yourself have faith. Faith that the sun will rise tomorrow, that eventually dusk will come, faith that if you earn enough money you will have a place to lay your head at night. And although this kind of faith is self centered, it is still a faith in something. Where did this kind of faith originate for you? In repetition and seeing? But what happens when one of these hopes/faiths fail? How long can we have faith only in ourselves and science, before we lose hope and faith? So perhaps hope and faith are synonimous, or at least very much interwoven into one another?
Without faith there is no hope, without hope, there is no faith.
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AtheistEnvoy
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hah my post was also an attempt at humor, it seemed as if this thread could use some light-hearted humor at the expense of a religion none of us hold
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aileron
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I’m not excusing the behavior, but can you think of any reasons why?
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elts1956
Guest
I didn’t exactly choose to be Catholic. In a way, it chose me. I am glad it did. I have been Catholic since about two weeks after my birth in 1938. Long, long time ago. I can’t say I have been a perfect person. I am even less a perfect Catholic. What my Catholic Faith has helped me to form is a very active conscience and a pattern to follow in my life. You might say having been exposed to Catholic teaching and dogma for over 70 years, I have been brain washed. I’ll just beat you to your saying that.
Usually that is what many non Catholics, or atheists will say. But our will is still free, free to make mistakes and I have made many, free to disbelieve and I have disbelieved many, many times. But my belief always challenged my disbelief. I knew too much about the Catholic Faith to ever leave it completely. Eventually my certainty that this Faith is the one for me reached clarity through the readings of the Early Church Fathers. Also reading of the History of the church which can be traced from the time of Christ, historically, to the present day set my path back to the Church. No other religion can do or prove this. I pray for a more perfect Faith every day. When I don’t believe, I feel lost. And yes, there are many times, I am lost. But when I am feeling low, I turn to God to fill me, or help me through the low times. That doesn’t mean I just sit back and expect God to do everything at His end. The more active I am in my Faith, the stronger it gets, the stronger I become.Without faith there is no hope, without hope, there is no faith.
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elts1956
Guest
Please be assured that who said these things to you and to Anna was writing without thought. But I would ask you not to accuse ALL of us as being guilty of having said what was said. I would certainly have said something to the poster and administrator if I had seen the comments.
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James924
Guest
I would only extend the attempt at humor towards the Radical Extremist sects of Islam. Most muslims are not militant extremists, of course, and I’d never attempt humor at the expense of the muslim religion in general.hah my post was also an attempt at humor, it seemed as if this thread could use some light-hearted humor at the expense of a religion none of us hold
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aileron
Guest
I would say you’ve been brain molded not brainwashed. When you’re started out very young, there’s nothing much to wash out of one’s brain.
At the time people start exposing their kids to dogma, they could equally be convinced that carnivorous elephants live in the woods of North America or a jolly magical elf delivers toys with flying reindeer.
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James924
Guest
If you teach a kid things from when he’s young he might also grow up believing silly things like 2+2=4 and that electrons carry a negative charge and can be annihilated by stellar nucleosynthesis.
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josie_L
Guest
Yes, bigotry due to a lack of knowledge and wisdom.
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josie_L
Guest
You said you came from a devout catholic family, how did you “debrainwash”?
Parents of teenagers would be shocked to know this, by the way, as they can attest to the fact that all their brainwashing was for naught.
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elts1956
Guest
In spite of your disrespect for my faith, I have been helped immensely by what I believe. I only wish I were more worthy of it and understood it more deeply. Yes, it is true that young children are very impressionable and the impact of what they are taught to believe runs deep. I definitely wish more of our youth today were brain molded to have faith in God instead of believing in the lies of relativism, liberalism and materialism. Our society has gone down hill morally since the early sixties and so far nothing is stopping it. When a society does not believe in absolutes how can there be any law, or justice, to depend on in that society? Now we have only man made laws to depend on and the integrity of the lawmakers. Those can be changed in a heartbeat whether we want them to or not. What is left, if there is no core of belief in a nation, or individuals? Ruin and corruption is what we are getting and they will keep abrading the texture of our society until an event big enough to negatively effect all of us happens. Then perhaps people will acknowledge there is “something” that is bigger than ALL of US.
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aileron
Guest
Most of us live in Western nations where Muslims are a small minority of the population, and the overwhelming majority of them are law abiding. There is no threat of the tyranny of the majority from Muslims in these nations. History has shown us what life is like for non-Christians when Christians have controlled governments, and it’s not something we like to repeat to see if things would be better the second time around.
Most Muslims, particularly in the nations from which extremists are recruited, do not speak English. It wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense going to a forum where we don’t know the language.
Also, we are in a better position to help people right where we live stop being so hawkish. The number of innocents killed as an inevitable or intentional byproduct of war is horrendous - much worse by far than anything terrorism has caused. Yet every time our leaders start fabricating reasons for war, it never fails that some people tell us God wants us to stay at peace and some people tell us God wants us to go to war. It is the latter group that I worry about.
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aileron
Guest
Please do not equate disagreeing with disrespecting. Non-believers should not be expected to treat creeds and dogmas with kid gloves, nor should we mock people because they believe them. I have respect for you and the good works that the RCC and more generally the Christian faith promote, and I dislike some aspects of the RCC and Christianity as well.
Yes, what a utopia we enjoyed when faith in God was nearly universal in Western societies – slavery, genocides, killing of innocents on a massive scale, attempts to completely destroy indigenous peoples’ art, music, and culture, the list goes on. I’m not going to argue that faith in God caused these things, but faith in God certainly didn’t stop any of them either.
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aileron
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I never really accepted it from the start. Most everything in the central doctrines didn’t make sense to me, so I went to the parish priests I liked most for frequent one on one sessions to help me understand. I liked talking to them, except the monsignor who was a rather mean spirited fellow. It didn’t take me too long to figure out that they didn’t have the answers, in fact, they were forthright in admitting as much. I was 10-11 at the time and I remember being stupefied that trained priests couldn’t answer what seemed like very obvious kid-level questions. It took me a little while longer to figure out that for whatever reason most people just never ask these questions, or by the time they do their beliefs have become solidified.
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aileron
Guest
You could be right. Here are some other possibilities:
Many non-believers had painful or humiliating experiences with religious groups. I know people who because of their doubts or questions as kids were publicly shamed, beaten, disowned, and even had exorcisms performed on them.
They fear the tyranny of the majority. Non-believers are a minority group, and one of the very few remaining where it is not only accepted but fashionable to try to dehumanize and denigrate.
Many Christians show precious little respect for how non-believers and even people of other faith choose to teach their kids. I wouldn’t dream of teaching someone else’s kids all the reasons I reject their parents’ religion. Yet all too many Christians have no problem whatsoever telling children of non-believers or other faiths all the reasons why Christianity is the one true religion or why they are going to hell if they don’t do things their way.
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