Abu~BTW, since Jesus of Nazareth is the only founder of a religion who claimed to be God and historically rose from the dead, recorded by eye-witnesses, who died horrible deaths at the hands of mistaken pagans, His followers have built Western civilization and will continue to offer the decaying West the opportunity to renew itself.
Again, this is not history, it is belief. It is the result of the Church historicizing an ancient myth I quote from another post: " *******, you, like many religionists, use “know” and “believe” interchangeably. Can you please tell us what, in your mind, makes the difference, if any? I mean, for me, I know from experience that using the laws of math yields predictable and invariable results. I believe from experience I might be going on a date next Saturday. I believe I might have fun. So, applied to religion, what for you is the difference between knowing and believing? I guess we might as well add “assuming” in there, and ask if you completely and thoroughly understand how we come by our beliefs, and why.
If you have thoroughly considered those differences, how then do you apply the definitions of “knowing,” “believing,” and “assuming” to such ideas as allness, truth, translation, meaning, witnessing, collections, cultural distinctions, grammar as world view, history, interpretation, process, uniqueness, abstraction, degrees, communication, etc, etc. Have you treated of these factors in religion class? In your considerations of the Bible and the dubious history of the Church? In understanding yourself as a thinker using limited data based on limited (name removed by moderator)ut from limited sources?
But especially, if you believe that all men are the children of God, minimally at least in that they are “results” of God’s creation, then what, pray, is the role of belief in all of history, now, and looking forward even unto the stars? And are you then asking that I ought hinge all on some scraps of paper that are secondary sources and greatly resemble, reproduce, even, in both testaments, stories that are thousands of years older from other cultures?
Is there not even the vaguest possibility that there might be more going on than you in your particular acquisition of a version of a story far more ancient than Jesus might “believe?” I believe that in lieu of anything better, religion is good and works for many. But given the parameters of belief, that there is a deeper Truth whose possibility at least ought to acknowledged.
All men and women seem to exist in a common world, allegedly made by the God you worship as part of an astonishing display of possibility seen as the Cosmos. I’m thinking that there may be far more going on than what some small group of believers, (“belief” being an adult and legitimizing word for “lets pretend”) have fed me as a tradition unfounded on principles necessary for even looking at oneself as a human existing in a milieu of wonder. I also believe, as you do, that there is One Truth. Is it limited to, to me, the comparative poverty of Catholicism? Not in my book. But if that limitation is sufficient for you, have at it."
