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ThinkingSapien
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That almost sounds like it still supports the above mentioned inculturation. Something that is documented is written down or preserved in some other material fashion, right?
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Bahman
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Hearsay is hearsay. What is its value? It does have little value unless one can recognize the truth behind it and either replicate the experience or understand the message behind it. We live different lives and experience different things. Our journey toward eternity is unique and each person has the responsibility toward the community as far he/she could achieve. I believe on this statement :“For every man there is a purpose”. We are noble and have the potential to produce noble things/ideas in our field of expertise. Our understanding of absolute truth will be never anomaly free as otherwise our journey toward eternity would be complete!
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Linux
Guest
Why would that be any different for somebody approaching Christianity. All you are really saying is that Krishna (like Christianity) was psychologically fulfilling for some and not for others. The bottom line is a lot of people approach religion from a position of what it can do for their minds as opposed to whether its teachings are reasonable or evident. And that’s precisely why people end up in cults. Christianity can be fulfilling for some regardless of whether it happens to be true or not in objective reality.
Isn’t this just another way of saying i like the way that teaching makes me feel about God?
Or perhaps they exaggerate reality. I can see how one might concoct a religion as a means to control and manipulate, because in the end most of us want the world to be more than a meaningless sea of Atoms. Merely saying there is a God is always less powerful than saying there is a God who shares our suffering and loves us. We attach our selves to what we would like to be true or what we feel we can relate to; that’s why some people spend their whole lives studying Ufo sightings and abductions. Thus whether there is a God or not i think it is reasonable to be on guard and suspicious about any talk of things out of the ordinary regardless of how they make us feel because there is a huge potential for deception precisely because we are emotional beings.
To be absolutely honest with you i am suspicious of all religions regardless of the hope that any of them be true.
So ultimately the reason you would not believe in UFO abduction is because it is not relevant to your psychological needs. But you would believe in Christianity because of how it makes you feel as a person, it reveals things about you. But that can be said and has been said of other religions.
I admit the bible does at times have an ominous feel to it as such that it makes you feel like its true. But individuals in other religions express the same sentiment.
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mikekle
Guest
I think a more important question would be, Why are all these people being abducted by these so called aliens, and then brought back? Does the bible make any mention of events such as this? I am assuming they are demonic in nature, but since they tend to happen quite frequently all over the world, then that tells me the demons are up to something and have some kind of agenda.
I have heard this is another attempt of Satan to corrupt the human ‘seed’ by introducing demonic dna altering the human dna, as to prevent the second coming of Christ.
I have heard this is another attempt of Satan to corrupt the human ‘seed’ by introducing demonic dna altering the human dna, as to prevent the second coming of Christ.
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Linux
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If they are real I think some of them are just curious like scientists and our probably geneticists involved in cross breeding different organisms (assuming abduction accounts are accurate and true). But that is not to say they couldn’t also be material manifestations of fallen angels. I just think its a bit paranoid to assume that every negative thing that occurs is the devils doing. They may just be ordinary creatures from other worlds that are studying us and documenting all the creatures that exist on planets like earth. Which is something human-beings would probably do if they had the technology to travel to new worlds. They are just mapping the universe. There is also the possibility that they may not even be entirely biological in nature, but rather they are highly advanced artificial bio-robots that are on a mission to recreate a fallen alien race that was wiped out. That would explain their lack of empathy in regards to abduction. Who knows?
Its interesting that many abductees recall being told that human-beings are destroying the Earth.
In any case its ridiculous to think that the second coming could be stopped by DNA manipulation. Why not wipe out the human race and be done with it.
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wanstronian
Guest
Firstly, a disclaimer: I don’t believe in alien abduction.
That said, the difference lies in the fact that the existence of aliens is eminently plausible, as long as one doesn’t hold to a worldview that God made an unimaginably large universe just for a few billion humans who will never get to visit more than the tiniest fraction of it.
Why is the existence of aliens plausible? Well, for a start, we have evidence of life forms that are capable of space travel - us. It’s not a huge leap to hypothesise with some confidence that there are likely, among all the trillions of planets that we know exist, that at least a few are capable of supporting life, and that such life may easily be thousands of years in advance of us. In the context of the age of the universe, a few thousand years is negligible.
That said, the chances of aliens having visited our planet is also negligible (unless there’s an aspect of physics that we haven’t yet encountered) due to the vast distances involved. And the likelihood that their behaviour would revolve around abduction is slim at best.
On the other hand, the events described in the bible, despite the ill-informed opinions of other contributors to this post, have no plausible support. Furthermore, many of them are impossible, so by definition they cannot be plausible. For example, we have seen zero cases of resurrection, or of walking on water, or of turning water into wine with a wave of the hand. There is no known way that these things can happen, so it’s overwhelmingly likely that they simply can’t, and are mere fabrications. No evidence for miracles exists. Nobody can describe a plausible means by which God can be outside of time and space (or whatever) and still interact with our world, which is what is claimed in the bible (to be clear, I mean that the interaction with our world is claimed in the bible; God’s alleged location is a more recent device designed to put him outside the boundaries of discovery and testability.)
So on the one hand, a hypothesis which does not in any way contradict the well-established scientific model of our universe, and on the other, a deity who was all over the place a few thousand years ago performing miracles and generally breaking the laws of physics at whim, but who mysteriously hasn’t been heard from in all the time that the human race has had access to devices which could incontrovertibly record his existence.
So an analogy might be: Why believe in the Beast of Bodmin, but not in unicorns? The answer is simple. Beasts exist that match the description given by those who claim to have seen the former; no evidence evidence supporting the existence of the latter has ever been put forward. One is a plausible but unlikely conspiracy theory, the other is a mere fairy tale.
That said, the difference lies in the fact that the existence of aliens is eminently plausible, as long as one doesn’t hold to a worldview that God made an unimaginably large universe just for a few billion humans who will never get to visit more than the tiniest fraction of it.
Why is the existence of aliens plausible? Well, for a start, we have evidence of life forms that are capable of space travel - us. It’s not a huge leap to hypothesise with some confidence that there are likely, among all the trillions of planets that we know exist, that at least a few are capable of supporting life, and that such life may easily be thousands of years in advance of us. In the context of the age of the universe, a few thousand years is negligible.
That said, the chances of aliens having visited our planet is also negligible (unless there’s an aspect of physics that we haven’t yet encountered) due to the vast distances involved. And the likelihood that their behaviour would revolve around abduction is slim at best.
On the other hand, the events described in the bible, despite the ill-informed opinions of other contributors to this post, have no plausible support. Furthermore, many of them are impossible, so by definition they cannot be plausible. For example, we have seen zero cases of resurrection, or of walking on water, or of turning water into wine with a wave of the hand. There is no known way that these things can happen, so it’s overwhelmingly likely that they simply can’t, and are mere fabrications. No evidence for miracles exists. Nobody can describe a plausible means by which God can be outside of time and space (or whatever) and still interact with our world, which is what is claimed in the bible (to be clear, I mean that the interaction with our world is claimed in the bible; God’s alleged location is a more recent device designed to put him outside the boundaries of discovery and testability.)
So on the one hand, a hypothesis which does not in any way contradict the well-established scientific model of our universe, and on the other, a deity who was all over the place a few thousand years ago performing miracles and generally breaking the laws of physics at whim, but who mysteriously hasn’t been heard from in all the time that the human race has had access to devices which could incontrovertibly record his existence.
So an analogy might be: Why believe in the Beast of Bodmin, but not in unicorns? The answer is simple. Beasts exist that match the description given by those who claim to have seen the former; no evidence evidence supporting the existence of the latter has ever been put forward. One is a plausible but unlikely conspiracy theory, the other is a mere fairy tale.
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prodigalson2011
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One significant difference between the events described in the Bible and UFO abductions is that the former are the carefully preserved cultural heritage of a very meticulous people while the latter are hallucinations caused by sleep paralysis (I can vouch for that, as I have had the experience.) 
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BettyBoop416
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This seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. I’d be interested in hearing Deacon Jeff’s reply to this question.
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Peter_Plato
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The problem, for me, with thinking of anything as “implausible” is that I “as I” exist. That is the most implausible of all possible events. Next to that, anything is a distinct possibility and the only motive I can see for dismissing any other particular possibility as “implausible” a priori is because of implications that “I” might find disagreeable.
Next to coming into existence as a human being from genetic material that replicated and evolved over billions of years and being conceived in the womb of another human being, I don’t find “resurrection, walking on water, or turning water into wine with a wave of the hand” that frightfully implausible. It is a question of perspective and I prefer not to place that much stock in a perspective as limited as my own to be the absolute determiner of what might be possible, just because I, personally, have not witnessed it. I, personally, have not attained even an inkling of what it takes to bring or keep the universe in existence, so I am eminently under-qualified to make determinations concerning things I know nothing about,
When I have a more complete grasp on how the universe came to be I might be better qualified to rule on whether or not God is required to explain exponentially more implausible events such as an entire universe (matter, space, energy and time) popping to existence where none of these existed before and my own subjective existence in that universe.
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cornbread_r2
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I did address your point about the housewife by stating that someone doesn’t have to be a member of a culture in order to be a credible witness to a certain event. In other words, while a prosecutor would probably not call the average suburbanite to the stand to testify as an expert witness on the culture of the Arian Brotherhood, for instance, she could confidently call such a person to the stand to testify as to whether or not a member of that culture had committed a crime in the presence of the witness.
The stories of many of the martyrs were, in fact, disputed and rejected later by Catholic scholars such as ecclesiastical historian Caesar Baronius in the 16th century. See this article in the on-line Catholic Encyclopedia for more detailed information as to the fates of many of the so-called Acts of the Martyrs once they were subjected to examination by a less credulous audience and modern historical-critical methods. I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure that neither Cardinal Baronius nor the Catholic Encyclopedia were pursuing an anti-Christian agenda.
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Peter_Plato
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You are pushing this point a little harder than is warranted. Your use of the word “many” gives the impression that a large number of the stories of martyrdom were discredited or proven false, when you have not provided any credible number to demonstrate that it was in fact “many.” Nor is a lack of factual corroboration the same as discrediting evidence. That extant evidence is lacking to corroborate traditional accounts concerning the martyrdom of certain individuals does not stand as evidence that they were not martyred.
Neither have you provided any facts to show that it was the martyrdom accounts of the Apostles that were discounted by Baronius or the Catholic Encyclopedia. You seem to be attempting to argue that the fact some martyrdom stories have been found to lack supporting evidence means that all martyrdom accounts are suspect, or even untrue.
Clearly, neither Baronius nor the Catholic Encyclopedia would accept such an inference. The Catholic Encyclopedia article, while tenuous about the impact of what is an open inquiry into which accounts may have suspect pedigree makes the following observation:
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cornbread_r2
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I give you the story of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 virgin martyrs for a starter.
I’ll leave it to you to look into the Catholic Encyclopedia articles concerning the stories of the 12 Apostles’ post-Gospel lives to determine how much is claimed even by Catholic sources to be known for certain about them and their deaths.
Should I ever attempt to argue that all stories of martyrs are untrue it will be unmistakable.
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cornbread_r2
Guest
The reason I linked to those sources, of course, was to refute the assertion of another poster that stories of the martyrs were not disputed until recently.
As regards to numbers, I give you the story of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 virgin martyrs for a starter.
I’ll leave it to you to look into the Catholic Encyclopedia articles concerning the stories of the 12 Apostles’ post-Gospel lives to determine how much is claimed even by Catholic sources to be known for certain about them and their deaths.
Should I ever attempt to argue that all stories of martyrs are untrue it will be unmistakable.
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cornbread_r2
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Peter_Plato
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Not much of a starter since the 11 000 number seems an implausible one and was suspect to begin with. However, that St. Ursula and some other young women (perhaps 11) were martyred does appear quite probable given that the inscription of Clematius is beyond doubt.
Given that the martyrdoms of all the Apostles except John were consistently reported by the local church communities where the events occurred, were recorded by many of the early Church Fathers and the fact that there exists no contradictory evidence from any source, Christian or pagan, to dispute the accounts, there is no reason to think the accounts are not true, only that the evidence is not as “rich” as some skeptics demand it should be. Each martyrdom occurrence was also quite plausible given the circumstances surrounding the event.
Meaning, I take it, that you have a predilection to do so should the opportunity arise. We must, therefore, not expect a fair-minded assessment, then?
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cornbread_r2
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Meaning: Stop twisting my posts into caricatures.
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Peter_Plato
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They are so malleable they just seem to end up that way - kind of like the long skinny balloons that turn into little puppies with a few deft twists.
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Peter_Plato
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I am not clear that either the New Testament accounts or UFO abduction stories are hearsay.
The overriding premise of the New Testament is that the resurrection and miracles of Jesus are extraordinary evidence to demonstrate that his extraordinary claims to be God become man and the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel were true. The resurrection and miracles are the evidence to prove the claims.
The Gospels and other writings in the New Testament are eye witness accounts or (in the case of Mark writing for Peter) eye witness accounts transcribed by “secretaries” entrusted by the original eye witnesses to get their stories in writing. This would be no different from a police officer (a trusted individual) recording the accounts of witnesses to build a case. The account is not hearsay merely because it was recorded by another individual and not the witness him/herself. The account is still considered first hand evidence from the witness and not hearsay, even though the words were set down on paper by someone other than the witness. It is still the account of the witness. The Gospels and writings of the New Testament are to be understood as the authentic accounts of first hand witnesses, which is a major criterion for why they were included in the corpus of the NT to begin with.
Alien abduction accounts are, typically, first hand narratives told by the person who purportedly underwent the experience. This is not hearsay. That does not mean the account is necessarily true because the competency of the witness may be in question. However, if an abduction account were to be provided by a reputable physicist who could relate a consistently cogent story with corroborating evidence, then there would be prima facie reasons for taking the account seriously.
It is not clear to me that either of these are, in fact, examples of hearsay evidence and so the premise of this thread seems to skew discussion towards requiring posters to defend what is an indefensible position, i.e., that hearsay evidence is an inherently valid form of evidence.
For the sake of clarity, a better question would be whether the reliability of the eye witness accounts recorded in the Gospels is en par with the accounts of alien abductees. I am not clear why such a comparison would even be suggested since the reliability of these two types of accounts would be determined in radically different ways.
For a comprehensive analysis of this issue I recommend Cold Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace (website here), who assesses the validity of Christianity as if it were a cold case investigated by detectives treating the worth of an extant body of evidence. Mr. Wallace is a retired cold case homicide detective who understands clearly how a case can be validly constructed from “cold” evidence.
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cornbread_r2
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Besides certain church traditions, what evidence is there that shows that the Gospels were written by eye-witnesses or their operatives?
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jediknight
Guest
Why is it easier for parts of society to believe in aliens from outer space than in God and Christ and the Church .
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