Stephen Hawkings believes in God?

[yankee_doodle]

In all honesty, I think it’s yours that is falling apart, and as we see of anti-Semitism, it ran deeper than in the Catholic presence. And for future reference, instead of drawing what seems to be strawmen to some, provide references to these Catholic saints whom were anti-Semitic, unless John Chrysostom is the only one.

Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria both advocated violence against Jews, while other writers (such as St. Augustine) didn’t recommend violence (Augustine felt they should be left alive to suffer as a perpetual reminder of their murder of Christ).

John Chrysostom:
According to Laqueur, it was argued that in the 4th century, the general discourse was brutal and aggressive and that at the time when the Christian church was fighting for survival and recognition, mercy and forgiveness were not in demand.

Walter Laqueur. The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times To The Present Day. (Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0195304292), p48

This does not argue the way around the fact of anti-Semitism, but it does give context.
As for the identifying armbands, why don’t you also argue about how it’s anti-Muslim how Muslims were also to be identified by dress? I personally don’t know the political reasons of the time, but it certainly wasn’t just against the Jewish.

so now you’re apologizing for Christian Jew hating? BTW Jews were always a tiny minority within Hellenic and Roman society (outside of Palestine). They never constituted a credible threat to Christianity as you infer.

I’ll give you some examples of Catholic antisemitism if you don’t believe me:

“All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty, especially the farmers, working class people and the very poor. Then, as now, Jews have to be reminded intermittently that they were enjoying rights in any country since they left Palestine and the Arabian desert, and subsequently their ethical and moral doctrines as well as their deeds rightly deserve to be exposed to criticism in whatever country they happen to live.” [16] (see Pope Clement VIII and Judaism, 1536-1605)

"as the laws say, the Jews by reason of their fault are sentenced to perpetual servitude and thus the lords of the lands in which they dwell may take things from them as though they were their own (St. Thomas Aquinas).

Chrysostom held Jews responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus and deicide (killing God, see “Jewish deicide” for the subject) and added that they continued to rejoice in Jesus’s death.[10] He compared the synagogue to a pagan temple, representing it as the source of all vices and heresies.[8]

He described it as a place worse than a brothel and a drinking shop; it was a den of scoundrels, the repair of wild beasts, a temple of demons, the refuge of brigands and debauchees, and the cavern of devils, a criminal assembly of the assassins of Christ.[11] Palladius, Chrysostom’s contemporary biographer, also recorded his claim that among the Jews the priesthood may be purchased and sold for money.[8] Finally, he declared that he - in accordance with the sentiments of the saints - hated both the synagogue and the Jews.[12], saying that demons dwell in the synagogue and also in the souls of the Jews, and describing them as growing fit for slaughter.

The Nazi’s used Chrysostom’s words to inspire antisemitism among German Christians (as well as Martin Luther’s antisemitic comments).

Should I continue?

My apologies, I meant the statistics about the Deist decline, the Wikipedia article didn’t have references or citations at all in the specific section.

If that were true, why is there still a good portion?

livescience.com/strangenews/050811_scientists_god.html

Even if it’s still somewhat small, it’s still there.
And also if this logic were true, why – Antony Flew – for example, decided to change from Atheism to Deism? They were at this ‘logic’, why then refuse it?

apology accepted (why you mentioned your one example is beyond me, you should have stopped at the apology ). Surely you don’t think I made a universal statement about deists do you?

Even if you think they’re absurd, why can’t they qualify as corrupt prophecies?

God Bless.

Chris.

because the idea of corrupt prophecies is absurd, especially considering the fact that we have all the evidence we need to arrive at a sensible & logical explanation.

 

[CGDouglas]

yankee_doodle:

and again I state there were various “inquisitions” (not just Spanish)

And in summary, JMJCoder was correct in stating that the Spanish was just that, Spanish.

yankee_doodle:

although I never tossed mud on the churches face for the Spanish inquisition, it was a horrible event and it was inspired by Christian religious zealotry. Don’t get me wrong, it was fighting against what they viewed as a heretical Islamic religion, and I won’t try and take sides or figure out who was better than the other.

The bottom line is you keep tossing the Spanish inquisition red herring in this discussion. There was a Roman Inquisition, and there was also a Spanish inquisition. How many times do I need to repeat myself?

And how many times do I have to repeat myself? Roman and Spanish were on different markers, one from the Church, one from a Secular Government. The only red herring is on your part when you seem to assume that all secular states within Europe went hand in hand with the Church, even when feuds were evident.

yankee_doodle:

This is semantics of the worse sort. Your acting as an apologist for murder and torture? What sort of person does this?

You seem to be an advocate of twisting words, my quotation is proving the role of secular involvement, not an apologist for murder and torture.

yankee_doodle:

One post ago you were a practicing historian, now your a university student? Are you both, or is there any new twists to the story I should know?

I’ll admit error, due to the role in University we must be like practicing historians, so I see the two somewhat similar.

Yankee_Doodle:

If you had simply done a quick fact check, you would have seen what I was eluding to:

Following the publication of Tyndale’s New Testament, Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic and demanded his arrest.

Tyndale went into hiding, possibly for a time in Hamburg, and carried on working. He revised his New Testament and began translating the Old Testament and writing various treatises. In 1530, he wrote The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII’s divorce on the grounds that it was unscriptural and was a plot by Cardinal Wolsey to get Henry entangled in the papal courts. This resulted in the king’s wrath being directed at him: he asked the emperor Charles V to have Tyndale apprehended and returned to England.

Uh-huh? And the King decided to act five years after Wolsey’s death, why? Henry VIII most likely arrested Wolsey on Wolsey’s failure to achieve annulment. And also if you notice, that statement [citation needed]. So I again state, sources?

yankee_doodle:

Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria both advocated violence against Jews, while other writers (such as St. Augustine) didn’t recommend violence (Augustine felt they should be left alive to suffer as a perpetual reminder of their murder of Christ).

I won’t deny the early anti-Semitism, but is this the hatred of the Jews as a race or as Judaism itself? Anti-Semitism or Anti-Judaism? Remember, there were Christian Jews. And the Apostles were Jewish, Christ was Jewish, it makes no-sense to hate Jews based on race, that’s why I wonder if it’s anti-Judaism. I could be wrong.

yankee_doodle:

because the idea of corrupt prophecies is absurd, especially considering the fact that we have all the evidence we need to arrive at a sensible & logical explanation.

We have two views, that it’s either copyist, or corrupt prophecies, even if corrupt prophecies seem absurd, it doesn’t stop it from possibly being factual.

 

[Dokimas]

Hi,

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this thread. If not, please move it to where it should go. Thank you

I either heard or read somewhere that Stephen Hawkings now believes that God created the universe. Can anyone help me with this? I have a 31 yr son who has decided that God doesn’t exist and believes heavily in science. I’m trying to possibly get him to see that even the scientists believe in God. He dismisses anybody that I bring up to try to convince him as saying that they are all wrong. I’m lost as to what to do now. He keeps saying he is “open minded” but dismisses everything I show him without really looking at it or studying it to see if it could be true. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html​

Make sure you scroll down far enough. Worth the few minutes of reading.

 

[JJ59]

you’re apologetics website isn’t the “scholarly community.” Frankly I’ve never heard of the “copy-cat” theory (although I’ve seen references to the Jesus myth theory, I personally do think it’s likely Jesus existed and probably was some sort of religious sage in early first century Palestine).

I merely pointed out the parallels, and the absurd arguments used by apologists like Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus (who asserted these myths, created and widely known centuries before Jesus Christ ever lived, were diabolical imitations of Christianity).

I’m not wedded to any particular theory (I’m neither a professional Christian or atheist apologist). What I believe is what’s obvious on its face. Some guy named Jesus may have lived, had followers, a cult formed that quickly spread out of Palestine into the Hellenic world, where earlier pagan myths became intertwined with the narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry, over the course of decades it formed into something like the Christianity we know today, it became widely popular, and it was eventually adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire (which is really what guaranteed its place in history, and why we’re quibbling about absurd myths like god-men who rose from the dead, talking snakes, and guys who can turn rivers into blood – right now).

The problem with your belief is it requires you to either propose something that’s statistically improbable (that is – there was no relation between these nearly identical myths, both coincidentally from the same society), or buy into Justin Martyr’s & Irenaeus’ theory (which logically reduce to the absurd).

Moreover, there’s the obvious. Virtually every miracle ever asserted has been eventually debunked. There has never been a verifiable manifestation of divine power in recorded history. There’s no evidence any of these alleged events ever happened, besides the reports of our primitive ancestors (who were superstitious and had virtually no understanding of the physical world as we do today).

We know when lightening strikes it wasn’t Thor or Zeus tossing a lightening bolt our way, because we understand meteorology. We know when it rains it wasn’t because we did a dance or slaughtered a goat, because we know the conditions in our atmosphere that cause rain (and we can even predict it with decent accuracy). Try and imagine the reaction of our ancient ancestors when they witnessed an eclipse or survived a catastrophe like an earthquake?

They tried to make sense of a universe they didn’t understand, and they did it through mythology (and Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. are all part of that mythology … they’re what’s left of it).

I wasn’t saying that the website was the “scholarly community”, I was pointing out that the scholarly community does not believe that Jesus came from parts of different religions. The theory is promoted mostly by people who aren’t scholars and who don’t cite sources.

Um no I’m not buying into the supposed responses by te Early Church Fathers. If you had actually taken the time to look at the articles, you would see that the paralells do not exist, and at the very best they are extraordinarily contrived, the defenders of the theory using Christian language to discribe something totally different.

If you could show me some examples of aspects of Jesus’ life being copied from other religions, that would be great. Now, however, you’re using a blanket statement that “earlier pagan myths became intertwined with the narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry”.

God bless,

 

[yankee_doodle]

I wasn’t saying that the website was the “scholarly community”, I was pointing out that the scholarly community does not believe that Jesus came from parts of different religions. The theory is promoted mostly by people who aren’t scholars and who don’t cite sources.

first of all comparative mythology speaks of “mythic universals.” No one can say with absolute certainty what happened, we can only talk in terms of practical likelihood.

Here’s an example:

*Aspects of the Gospel stories of Jesus have parallels with life-death-rebirth gods in the widespread mystery religions prevalent in the Hellenistic culture amongst which Christianity is assumed to be born. Closely related to this are mythemes of sacral kingship and “theophagy”, the eating of the body of a fertility god, traced by Walter Burkert to a neolithic fertility rite surrounding a god who needs to die and rise again in order to feed the community, sublimated in the Christian eucharist.

Several prominent early Christians, like Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, actually acknowledged the existence of many parallels, complaining that the earlier religions had copied Christian religion and practices, predicted in Hebrew sacred texts, before Jesus was even born, as some form of diabolically inspired pre-cognitive mockery.*

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology

Just this small excerpt cites a renown professor and author, William Burket (and the scholarly community does not reject comparative mythology, which I assume you’re associating with the Jesus myth theory. Comparative mythology is not the same as the Jesus myth theory).

Um no I’m not buying into the supposed responses by te Early Church Fathers. If you had actually taken the time to look at the articles, you would see that the paralells do not exist, and at the very best they are extraordinarily contrived, the defenders of the theory using Christian language to discribe something totally different.

OK, well let’s see if you’re right?

Here’s the entire dialog by Justin Martyr, entitled “Origin of Heathen mythology”

ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.liv.html

Happy reading.

If you could show me some examples of aspects of Jesus’ life being copied from other religions, that would be great. Now, however, you’re using a blanket statement that “earlier pagan myths became intertwined with the narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry”.

God bless,

Sure:

A life-death-rebirth deity, also known as a “dying-and-rising” or “resurrection” deity, is a god who is born, suffers death (or an eclipse or other death-like experience), passes a phase in the underworld among the dead, and is subsequently reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense. Male examples include Osiris, Tammuz, Jesus, Zalmoxis, Baldr, Dionysus, and Odin. Female deities who passed into the kingdom of death and returned include Inanna (also known as Ishtar, whose cult dates to 4000 BCE) and Persephone (the central figure of the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose cult may date to 1700 BCE as the unnamed goddess worshiped in Crete).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity

*The gentile cultures, religions and mythologies during the time of Christian beginnings around the first century CE were filled with stories of divine incarnation. For example in the Greek myth, Perseus was born of the virgin Danae. Danae was conceived by the God Zeus who took the form of a shower of gold. [6] In another Greek myth Dionysius was born of the virgin Semele. Semele was impregnated by Zeus with a bolt of lightning . . .

The popular culture also ascribed to many famous men miraculous, divine and, sometimes, even virgin birth. [8] Thus the emperor Augustus, the reigning sovereign during the time of Jesus, was reputedly miraculously begotten when a snake descended upon his mother in the temple of Apollo. [9] So too, Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, was born of a vestal virgin. [10]*

geocities.com/paulntobin/virgin.html?20094#6

There’s numerous other parallels, for instance concerning the old testament:

In many cases, the flood leaves only one survivor or group of survivors. For example, both the Hebrew Bible and the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh tell of a global flood that wiped out humanity and of a man who saved the Earth’s species by taking them aboard a boat.

**The Epic of Gilgamesh is one the earliest known works of literary writings. Scholars believe it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems. It is within the broader grouping of Mesopotamian mythology (from today’s Iraq, where the Hebrew biblical narrative begins).

 

[yankee_doodle]

leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html​

Make sure you scroll down far enough. Worth the few minutes of reading.

*What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989] *

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics. [Stephen Hawking, Black Holes & Baby Universes]

Stephen Hawking is not a theist, one more time, he is agnostic.

 

[JJ59]

yankee_doodle, I started a new thread called “Jesus and Comparative Mythology” to continue the interesting discussion we were having.

God bless,

 

[yankee_doodle]

We have two views, that it’s either copyist, or corrupt prophecies, even if corrupt prophecies seem absurd, it doesn’t stop it from possibly being factual.

Sure factual things can be absurd, but what makes something a fact is the level of proof that exists – and how that proof conforms with practical reality. In other words fact hinges on the evidence, or is something that actually exists. It’s objective, not subjective, and religious myth clearly does not fall within the category of objective fact.

While no one can say with absolute certainty that religion is false, we can accurately say it’s both not-factual and constitutes an unreasonable belief

Even you admit Justin Martyr’s answer to those who believed Christianity borrowed some themes from earlier mythology may have very well been absurd. If we can assume Justin Martyr was an intelligent man (which I do), then we can fairly assume if those parallels were loose (and really couldn’t be fairly described as parallels at all) Martyr would have been quick to point that out. We can discern something from the fact that he didn’t use what would have been the most logical rebuttal against such charges. That argument was not available to him (and the only rational reason why that would be true is if those parallels are real and valid). Therefore, this is evidence (albeit not absolute) that comparative mythology is a valid method by which to examine the history and roots of religiosity.

BTW it wasn’t only Martyr and Irenaeus, there were others who dealt with these objections (such as Origen). Martyr and Irenaeus seem to be the most popular examples (probably because they gave the most detailed response to those objections that we’ve been able to find).

The thing is we can’t assert anything with an absolute degree of certainty. Human beings can only view things in practical terms. If someone tells me leprechauns exist, I can’t be absolutely certain that leprechauns never existed anywhere at anytime in the entire universe. I can and do, however, say that leprechauns do not exist using the same criteria I use when I say god does not exist, because I view things in practical terms (that’s actually useful).

The fact is if you demand absolute proof for anything, you will always be sorely disappointed. However, only the religious demand this standard of proof. Under any other circumstances there is an objective criteria by which we determine fact from fantasy (that we must use since none of us have exhaustive knowledge).

There are also things we can know, through this objective criteria, even though we can’t see them. We know it takes Pluto 248 years to orbit the sun, but we haven’t been able to observe Pluto for that long (in fact Pluto was first observed less than 100 years ago). However, by knowing the laws of physics, and doing the math, we can know Pluto’s rate of orbit. But this isn’t the same as religious faith, which is a faith without a reasonable basis.

 

[Dokimas]

*What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989] *

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics. [Stephen Hawking, Black Holes & Baby Universes]

Stephen Hawking is not a theist, one more time, he is agnostic.

What you have shown is that you are a person of faith; in fact, you have much more faith than I do.​

I never said Stephen is a theist. I gave a link. His wife appears not only to be a theist but a Christian. Also looks like Stephen is somewhat of a miracle. He has outlived the life expectancy of those with his same discease.

 

[Dokimas]

*What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989] *

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics. [Stephen Hawking, Black Holes & Baby Universes]

Stephen Hawking is not a theist, one more time, he is agnostic.

You have not shown where matter and energy came from; you have not shown the the laws of physics happened all by themselves.

 

[yankee_doodle]

What you have shown is that you are a person of faith; in fact, you have much more faith than I do.​

I never said Stephen is a theist. I gave a link. His wife appears not only to be a theist but a Christian. Also looks like Stephen is somewhat of a miracle. He has outlived the life expectancy of those with his same discease.

A typical, yet unreasonable argument. I’m not the one defining a god and saying he exists, you are. Does it take more faith to disbelieve the claims about big foot than it does to believe them?

If asked do you believe in a god and answer yes you’re a theist, if you answer anything else you’re an atheist. As for myself, I simply don’t believe any of the claims that posit the existence of a god have met their burden of proof.

The fact is faith is defined as a belief in something, not a disbelief. Atheism isn’t a religion, it’s merely a rejection of religious claims. If someone asked me what happened or what existed before the big bang, my simple response would be I don’t know because science hasn’t answered that question yet. However, if someone were to say it was the god described by the Christian bible who both existed before the big bang and orchestrated the event, I would say I don’t believe you, because not only have you failed to meet your burden of proof, but all the empirical evidence that does exist tells me Christianity (and all other world religions) is an unreasonable belief.

 

[yankee_doodle]

You have not shown where matter and energy came from; you have not shown the the laws of physics happened all by themselves.

I don’t need to show you where matter or energy came from, that’s fallacious reasoning (and an argument from incredulity). Oh btw I was quoting Stephen Hawkings (those were not my words).

 

[simplynoone]

Question to the OP: does God’s existence rest on the acknowledgment of your son?

 

[josie_L]

Hi,

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this thread. If not, please move it to where it should go. Thank you

I either heard or read somewhere that Stephen Hawkings now believes that God created the universe. Can anyone help me with this? I have a 31 yr son who has decided that God doesn’t exist and believes heavily in science. I’m trying to possibly get him to see that even the scientists believe in God. He dismisses anybody that I bring up to try to convince him as saying that they are all wrong. I’m lost as to what to do now. He keeps saying he is “open minded” but dismisses everything I show him without really looking at it or studying it to see if it could be true. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

PMo, maybe you can show some of Stephen Hawking’s writings concerning the origins of the Universe (by the way he’s working with the Vatican along with other famous scientists to build bridges between science and faith), it is really compelling stuff as it definitely leaves room for an eternal creator. Here’s just an excerpt of one of his lectures (you can read the rest in the link I provided):

“The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn’t have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. However, the contracting phase, will not have the opposite arrow of time, to the expanding phase. So we will keep on getting older, and we won’t return to our youth. Because time is not going to go backwards, I think I better stop now.”

hawking.org.uk/index.php/lectures/62

p.s. Pray for him and while you’re at it read up on your faith and all other pertinent issues so you can refute his arguments.

 

[Dokimas]

A typical, yet unreasonable argument. I’m not the one defining a god and saying he exists, you are. Does it take more faith to disbelieve the claims about big foot than it does to believe them?

If asked do you believe in a god and answer yes you’re a theist, if you answer anything else you’re an atheist. As for myself, I simply don’t believe any of the claims that posit the existence of a god have met their burden of proof.

The fact is faith is defined as a belief in something, not a disbelief. Atheism isn’t a religion, it’s merely a rejection of religious claims. If someone asked me what happened or what existed before the big bang, my simple response would be I don’t know because science hasn’t answered that question yet. However, if someone were to say it was the god described by the Christian bible who both existed before the big bang and orchestrated the event, I would say I don’t believe you, because not only have you failed to meet your burden of proof, but all the empirical evidence that does exist tells me Christianity (and all other world religions) is an unreasonable belief.

Now, now, now. You can’t get away with this so easily. You don’t know how the physics of the universe came into being. You posit that it just happened. That is a belief on your part. You have no proof to believe so. You are a person of faith in the existence of physical laws without a law giver. You can’t believe in God who was always there so that means you have to trust and have faith in the idea matter and energy is eternal or you’d have to have faith that matter and energy came out of nothing. Don’t continue to deceive yourself — you ARE a person of faith.​

For you to say ‘science hasn’t … yet’ implies you have faith that one day science will answer the unanswered. Again you prove yourself to be a person of faith. There’s no way you can wiggle out ot that fact.​

It’s far more logical to believe in a Creator God than in material evolution and the idea the laws of physics were there all by themselves creating a situation the earth is perfect for life. It takes more faith to believe this solar system just occurred perfectly so the earth could be a perfect as it is.

 

[Dokimas]

I don’t need to show you where matter or energy came from, that’s fallacious reasoning (and an argument from incredulity). Oh btw I was quoting Stephen Hawkings (those were not my words).

Of course you don’t have to nor can you. All you have is faith in what you believe. Still boiling down to the fact you are a person of faith. Now make the logical step and put faith in Jesus.

 

[josie_L]

first of all comparative mythology speaks of “mythic universals.” No one can say with absolute certainty what happened, we can only talk in terms of practical likelihood.

Here’s an example:

*Aspects of the Gospel stories of Jesus have parallels with life-death-rebirth gods in the widespread mystery religions prevalent in the Hellenistic culture amongst which Christianity is assumed to be born. Closely related to this are mythemes of sacral kingship and “theophagy”, the eating of the body of a fertility god, traced by Walter Burkert to a neolithic fertility rite surrounding a god who needs to die and rise again in order to feed the community, sublimated in the Christian eucharist.

Several prominent early Christians, like Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, actually acknowledged the existence of many parallels, complaining that the earlier religions had copied Christian religion and practices, predicted in Hebrew sacred texts, before Jesus was even born, as some form of diabolically inspired pre-cognitive mockery.*

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology

Just this small excerpt cites a renown professor and author, William Burket (and the scholarly community does not reject comparative mythology, which I assume you’re associating with the Jesus myth theory. Comparative mythology is not the same as the Jesus myth theory).

OK, well let’s see if you’re right?

Here’s the entire dialog by Justin Martyr, entitled “Origin of Heathen mythology”

ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.liv.html

Happy reading.

Sure:

A life-death-rebirth deity, also known as a “dying-and-rising” or “resurrection” deity, is a god who is born, suffers death (or an eclipse or other death-like experience), passes a phase in the underworld among the dead, and is subsequently reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense. Male examples include Osiris, Tammuz, Jesus, Zalmoxis, Baldr, Dionysus, and Odin. Female deities who passed into the kingdom of death and returned include Inanna (also known as Ishtar, whose cult dates to 4000 BCE) and Persephone (the central figure of the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose cult may date to 1700 BCE as the unnamed goddess worshiped in Crete).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity

*The gentile cultures, religions and mythologies during the time of Christian beginnings around the first century CE were filled with stories of divine incarnation. For example in the Greek myth, Perseus was born of the virgin Danae. Danae was conceived by the God Zeus who took the form of a shower of gold. [6] In another Greek myth Dionysius was born of the virgin Semele. Semele was impregnated by Zeus with a bolt of lightning . . .

The popular culture also ascribed to many famous men miraculous, divine and, sometimes, even virgin birth. [8] Thus the emperor Augustus, the reigning sovereign during the time of Jesus, was reputedly miraculously begotten when a snake descended upon his mother in the temple of Apollo. [9] So too, Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, was born of a vestal virgin. [10]*

geocities.com/paulntobin/virgin.html?20094#6

There’s numerous other parallels, for instance concerning the old testament:

In many cases, the flood leaves only one survivor or group of survivors. For example, both the Hebrew Bible and the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh tell of a global flood that wiped out humanity and of a man who saved the Earth’s species by taking them aboard a boat.

**The Epic of Gilgamesh is one the earliest known works of literary writings. Scholars believe it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems. It is within the broader grouping of Mesopotamian mythology (from today’s Iraq, where the Hebrew biblical narrative begins).

I’ll leap over all the B.S. and ask this simple question, would St. Justin MARTYR be willing to die for something he believed was plagiarized?

p.s Furthermore, so what if the flood story happens to be accounted for in other religions and/or societies before the Jews apparently wrote it down, if this event happened, then it’s obvious that many people would write about it, and since the Jews were writing an account of (salvation) history from the beginning of time (as inspired by God), then the flood being a real event would find itself in the Hebrew scriptures or what we call the OT.

 

[yankee_doodle]

Now, now, now. You can’t get away with this so easily. You don’t know how the physics of the universe came into being. You posit that it just happened. That is a belief on your part. You have no proof to believe so. You are a person of faith in the existence of physical laws without a law giver.

Well, there’s plenty of theories on how the universes came into existence (three main competing models, and one model – although intuitively far fetched, the math works very well & Fermi Laboratory is looking for evidence as we speak, well maybe not today, but tomorrow they’ll be back at it).

You can’t believe in God who was always there so that means you have to trust and have faith in the idea matter and energy is eternal or you’d have to have faith that matter and energy came out of nothing.

Not true, since even acknowledging the logic of metaphysical arguments like every event has a preceding cause, doesn’t necessitate believing the first cause is god.

Don’t continue to deceive yourself — you ARE a person of faith.

whatever you say buddy

For you to say ‘science hasn’t … yet’ implies you have faith that one day science will answer the unanswered. Again you prove yourself to be a person of faith. There’s no way you can wiggle out ot that fact.

the only thing being proven here is you’re not a man with training in formal logic (or who even bothers opening his dictionary)

It’s far more logical to believe in a Creator God than in material evolution

now you’re putting your foot in your mouth. We’ve proven the viability of evolutionary theory. If you would like to have a debate on this issue, by all means start a thread & I’ll be glad to entertain you.

and the idea the laws of physics were there all by themselves creating a situation the earth is perfect for life. It takes more faith to believe this solar system just occurred perfectly so the earth could be a perfect as it is.

it doesn’t take faith to believe these things to be true, a good physics course will do just fine

 

[josie_L]

I don’t need to show you where matter or energy came from, that’s fallacious reasoning (and an argument from incredulity). Oh btw I was quoting Stephen Hawkings (those were not my words).

Yes, but that quote from Stephen Hawkings was said more than a decade ago, he has since written more on the topic, in fact, I quoted him (on something he stated in one of his lectures more recently) on the origins of the Universe here on this thread. Please read all of the article in question in the provided link.

 

[yankee_doodle]

Yes, but that quote from Stephen Hawkings was said more than a decade ago, he has since written more on the topic, in fact, I quoted him (on something he stated in one of his lectures more recently) on the origins of the Universe here on this thread. Please read all of the article in question in the provided link.

He’s still agnostic as far as I can tell (he hasn’t changed his views – besides maybe becoming more ardently agnostic). Here’s him speaking for himself:

youtube.com/watch?v=dS1mdbDmE8g