What is the evidence that the church's teachings are backed by God?

[Peter_Plato]

Well Mr. Habermas has listed 12 historiacl facts at his site that are agreed upon and well all the facts are from the NT. Just curious have you read Josphesus, his auto and the war of the Jews, really read it.

Lets talk Paul who said he was brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, and yet he knows nothing about the life of Jesus, his birth etc.

The only thing I’m saying is the NT in not historical and can’t be backed up historically.

It is you who claims Paul knew nothing of the life of Jesus simply because he makes no direct statements about it in his writings. Paul was at the stoning of Stephen, so he obviously wasn’t oblivious to it. Now why Paul doesn’t make direct references is an important question. But not one from which we need to take away your implications. The New Testament is very well supported historically by artifacts and data from the time. You are simply wrong about that.

 

[Luvtosew]

It is you who claims Paul knew nothing of the life of Jesus simply because he makes no direct statements about it in his writings. Paul was at the stoning of Stephen, so he obviously wasn’t oblivious to it. Now why Paul doesn’t make direct references is an important question. But not one from which we need to take away your implications. The New Testament is very well supported historically by artifacts and data from the time. You are simply wrong about that.

Yes I’m aware of that, so.Why is that the first reference Paul made besides his vision on the road. Being a Pharishee like he said he was in Jerusalem one would think he would of seen Jesus about Jerusalem or had heard of him or seen him or his trial, I mean Paul must of at least went to the Jerusalem for the Passover. He would of been there at the time of Jesus’s crucifixation , no? Not a word about Mary either.

 

[JDaniel]

I was thinking the same recently, though, about the Koran; or the Book of Mormon.

Portofino:

Yeah, a lot of similarity between early Christians and Muslims and Mormons.

Even Scientology is a more recent example.

Actually, despite their self-proclaimed religiosity, they’re not. They’re really more into self-help.

The psychology of religious belief is a complex but fascinating study. Willingness to die for one’s faith is seemingly not exclusive to Christianity (cf. Islam) nor are extraordinary feats of belief that defy plausibility (cf. Mormonism).

Yep. Another striking similarity.

Assessments of motivation are necessarily uncertain, but certainly valid considerations.

Why?

Obviously, Jesus inspired a devoted group of disciples who believed so passionately in his mission, they were willing to die for it (not unique in history, but still saying a lot). Once Jesus was gone, it must have been challenging to convince others, who had never met him, of how extraordinary he had been.

Yes, Christianity was a tough grow.

Hyperbole was one possible way of getting their attention. Also, if Jesus did die on the cross, positing his divinity could have been a means of coping with that very devastating loss. How it could it end on the cross? How could God allow that? Maybe it didn’t; through his death, he saved the world. Maybe his death was his ultimate triumph. On a human level, this is how a grieving mother consoles herself for the loss of her son – my son died heroically.

Happens all the time.

I think Christianity may have succeeded in the Greco-Roman world for a few reasons:

*it evinced a greater level of abstraction than prevailing pagan beliefs; monotheism, like monism, is a step forward intellectually in the sense that it requires the ability to think abstractly and conceptually (God is invisible; God is One); Greek philosophers had this ability to think with a greater level of abstraction, as well, but did not have much of an impact on popular religion

So, these early half-morons were able to derive all of that?

*part of this greater level of abstraction that Christianity represented was its ethical principles, which – again-- were more abstract and conceptual in nature, taking religious thought from the outward realm of rites and practices to the inward one of abstract ethical ideas (philosophers such as Plato had done so, but did not infiltrate popular religion)

My estimation of our near-moronic precursors is growing minute by minute.

*the content of that ethic was startling and revolutionary, as well as powerful (love your enemies; turn the other cheek; many of the last will be first and the first will be last)

Perhaps those early people were not as moronic as I once thought?

*it promised eternal life (“immortality is the only goal worth striving for”–William Burroughs) and was a great source of consolation; on the other hand, it inspired a healthy fear of the possible consequences of non-belief

The two seem to go hand-in-hand.

*its earliest followers were passionately devoted to their faith and were willing to die for their beliefs, with a psychological makeup that baffled onlookers and defied expectations (loving their enemies; blessing those who cursed them; going to their deaths with great serenity, as if they know something others didn’t )

Do you think this hampered the growth of Christianity any?

*ironically, the very seeming absurdity of some of their claims claims baffled hearers; why would they claim such things, unless they were true? (though other religions, such as Joseph Smith’s Mormonism, drew ironic credibility from their seeming implausibility, as well)

The only problem I’ve seen with regard to Joseph Smith is that there are no relics to be found for any of its history, centers of population, or battles. God did a wonderful clean-up job for them, didn’t He? He left all kinds of Jewish and Christian trash all over the Middle East. (I’m going to have to have a talk with Him about that.)

God bless, Portofino
jd

 

[Cristiano]

Considering I wasn’t addressing anyone in particular, and thus wasn’t talking down, I wonder why my comment made you so uncomfortable? Especially because you then turn around and talk down to me

The probability calculus has two aspects: a mathematical one-which has been proven, and a philosophical one. Which philosophical interpretation you adopt determines what gets represented by the numbers you plug into the theorem and why you select the numerical value you do for the representing. They’re are a number of such interpretations that are consistent with the probability calculus. I’d recommend subjectivism (which is the reigning position in fields from science to philosophy) which was proven consistent by the Ramsey-De Finetti Theorem. There are a number of established methods for determining the metric (since like the 20’s). But, whether they adopt subjectivism or not, since historians engage in ascribing probabilities, they’re in Bayes’ jurisdiction. Often, this is often unfortunately completely unbeknownst to the historians. But, really, how can u assign probabilities without using probability theory? :-/

A lot of throwing around words but no concrete details yet. I rest my case.

 

[Perplexity]

A lot of throwing around words but no concrete details yet. I rest my case.

Ok, maybe I’m not understanding what you’re asking of me. Do you want me to explain how subjectivist Bayesianism works?

 

[JDaniel]

Not an arguement, Islam has been around a long time as well as the Jewish people. Now if you are just referring to the RCC its because the Bible was not in laymens hand until the 1600’s, so the RCC had complete authority and power over people and their beliefs, They had Rome to back them up and became very wealthy and when Rome fell they became even more powerful.

Luvtosew:

Yes, and all of those pre-1600 Christians were known for their lack of honesty and their propensity for doing the devil’s work. Hundreds and thousands of reprobates they were!

God bless,
jd

 

[Luvtosew]

Luvtosew:

Yes, and all of those pre-1600 Christians were known for their lack of honesty and their propensity for doing the devil’s work. Hundreds and thousands of reprobates they were!

God bless,
jd

Well when someone has no answer they get defensive, sorry must of hit a nerve with you…

you know but I get this all the time, pre 1600all there was was RC and EO, for fear of ones life, so excuse me, after over 50 years as a RC , yes I want a little more than tradition.

 

[Cristiano]

Ok, maybe I’m not understanding what you’re asking of me. Do you want me to explain how subjectivist Bayesianism works?

No, I am asking you to provide a practical (quantified) analysis based on your statements in this thread. The analysis should also clearly show the assumptions made. Initially you mention a correct approach; however, an approach is correct only when used and proved as successful otherwise is just generic speculation.
I am not questioning your knowledge or excitement about this idea at all. Probably (as in plain gut feeling and not Bayesan inference ) I am the first one to fall in love with your kind of arguments; however, I spend the best part of my professional life dealing with statistics and I hear a lot of suggested statistical/numeric approaches to address practical scenarios and usually a lot of the approaches that are exciting from an intellectual point of view are totally useless because it is not possible to apply them without unrealistic assumptions.
This is the equivalent of saying that a mathematical theorem shows that we can calculate something but then we discover that in our specific case we do not have an analytical solution and that we have to rely on a numerical solution based on conjectures and approximations that might not be valid in the region of interest.

 

[JDaniel]

Well when someone has no answer they get defensive, sorry must of hit a nerve with you…

Luvtoswe:

Nope, no nerve. I was just trying to be honest too.

God bless,
jd

 

[Luvtosew]

Luvtoswe:

Nope, no nerve. I was just trying to be honest too.

God bless,
jd

Well I’m sorry, don’t want to be argumentative, just trying to make sense out of some thngs that don’.

 

[JDaniel]

Well I’m sorry, don’t want to be argumentative, just trying to make sense out of some thngs that don’.

LTS:

Gotcha.

God bless,
jd

 

[Perplexity]

No, I am asking you to provide a practical (quantified) analysis based on your statements in this thread. The analysis should also clearly show the assumptions made. Initially you mention a correct approach; however, an approach is correct only when used and proved as successful otherwise is just generic speculation.
I am not questioning your knowledge or excitement about this idea at all. Probably (as in plain gut feeling and not Bayesan inference ) I am the first one to fall in love with your kind of arguments; however, I spend the best part of my professional life dealing with statistics and I hear a lot of suggested statistical/numeric approaches to address practical scenarios and usually a lot of the approaches that are exciting from an intellectual point of view are totally useless because it is not possible to apply them without unrealistic assumptions.
This is the equivalent of saying that a mathematical theorem shows that we can calculate something but then we discover that in our specific case we do not have an analytical solution and that we have to rely on a numerical solution based on conjectures and approximations that might not be valid in the region of interest.

Ah, right, right, that’s fair enough. Ok, I’ll perform a Bayesian analysis of a particular story from the Gospels, exposing what I’m representing with the numbers I choose, and why I choose the numbers I do. Might have to wait till tomorrow though! But, I’ll try to keep it clear, simple and rigorous.

 

[Cristiano]

Ah, right, right, that’s fair enough. Ok, I’ll perform a Bayesian analysis of a particular story from the Gospels, exposing what I’m representing with the numbers I choose, and why I choose the numbers I do. Might have to wait till tomorrow though! But, I’ll try to keep it clear, simple and rigorous.

Now you are getting the nerd in me all excited about this stuff. This is going to be good learning, thanks.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes I’m aware of that, so.Why is that the first reference Paul made besides his vision on the road. Being a Pharishee like he said he was in Jerusalem one would think he would of seen Jesus about Jerusalem or had heard of him or seen him or his trial, I mean Paul must of at least went to the Jerusalem for the Passover. He would of been there at the time of Jesus’s crucifixation , no? Not a word about Mary either.

Paul would likely have been a late teen or in his very early twenties when Jesus was crucified. As a Pharisee-in-training he would have fanatically listened to his teachers who likely dismissed Jesus outright and were very negative to his blasphemous (to them) teachings. Paul might have just seen Jesus as not worth knowing anything about because this Jesus was just an unthinkably sacrilegious character. He may have just been too busy with his studies (recall his description of himself as a fanatical Pharisee) to pay any attention to details of Jesus’ life. Think of present day teenagers who are so caught up in their own lives that they may not even know who the current mayor of the city or president is. His social awareness would likely have depended a great deal on the peer group that Paul was a part of.

On the other hand, Paul may have been truly shamed by his treatment of the early Christians as followers of Jesus that the fact he had viewed the man Jesus and his followers so negatively may have been such a painful thing to look back upon that he avoided it and instead chose to put all his thoughts into the resurrected, universal Christ that Paul was now an integral part of.

It may also be that the details of Jesus’ life were so well known in the Christian communities and not very relevant at all to the gentile converts that Paul just assumed they were known or not that important, depending upon his audience.

Recall that the letters of Paul had specific intent and audiences. They were written to local churches to address specific issues. There just may have been no reason for Paul to bring up details of Jesus’ life.

There may, of course, be other reasons, but surely your view that therefore Jesus did not exist is not the inevitable or even most plausible implication.

If Paul did not believe in the historical Jesus, what was his motive for his preaching and martyrdom, then? “Well,” Paul might say to himself, " I know Jesus did not exist, but I’ll tell everyone he rose from the dead and I’ll die for that belief because it makes me feel important. Even though it’s all a sham, I have worked out this awesomely intricate theology based on the Old Testament that will be the model of and inspiration for millions of Christians, because I am so brilliant that I can fool everyone into believing in someone that I conjured up in this capacious brain of mine. To begin with, I have to concoct a story of my conversion, even though I have a very bright future as a Pharisee, I will throw that all away on this lark of an idea of mine. Hmmm. Let’s see, a light and a voice from heaven…"

As compelling as that might sound, I am not convinced. :yawn:

 

[Portofino]

Why?

This “why?” pertained to my statement that questions of motivation are necessarily uncertain, but valid, nonetheless. Let me give one example, that favors the historical reliability of the Gospels – in-fighting and disagreements between the early Christians. The Acts of the Apostles chronicles disagreements between Peter and Paul, I believe. Paul’s letters are replete with reprimands and with calls for unity.

These are the kinds of details that are not likely to be made up; for what would the motivation be for airing quarrels and disagreements between the early Christians? What motivation would there have been to make these things up?

With the miracles, it is different. There would be the reasonable hazard of a motivation to exaggerate Jesus’ powers, as a way of convincing readers that “surely, this was the Son of God.” This is not to say that the miracle accounts are thereby disproven; but, rather, there is a hazard of motivation there (just as there is a hazard when a mother tells you, “I have the most wonderful, smartest, gifted, talented boy in the whole class”).

A similar hazard exists with reading the Old Testament backwards; in other words, finding things that had to happen for the Jews to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and making them fit. Thus, the genealogy of Matthew, tracing Jesus back to the house of David; or Jesus’ being born not in Nazareth, but Bethlehem (necessary to fulfill the prophecy).

Of course, there are two possibilities: Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and did fulfill the prophecy, because the prophecy was about him; or, this was written into the text, to attempt to convince a Jewish audience that had a hard time accepting that God’s Messiah would have been born in Nazareth, so far from Jerusalem (Galilee, as we know, was separated from Judea by Samaria! ). And we all know about those “godless” Samaritans

Thus, the motivation to have Jesus born in Bethlehem was clearly there, which doesn’t prove anything, per se, but does cast reasonable doubt on the authenticity of the narrative.

But I certainly don’t mean to call the early Christians “morons” or “half-morons.” Obviously, they were quite intelligent.

only problem I’ve seen with regard to Joseph Smith is that there are no relics to be found for any of its history, centers of population, or battles. God did a wonderful clean-up job for them, didn’t He?

And yet thousands of people believe, some of whom – no doubt-- are above average in intelligence. You would think that Mormonism would have been immediately discredited, in a generation. Why wasn’t it? Today, there are about 6.1 million adherents.

 

[Peter_Plato]

And yet thousands of people believe, some of whom – no doubt-- are above average in intelligence. You would think that Mormonism would have been immediately discredited, in a generation. Why wasn’t it? Today, there are about 6.1 million adherents.

It would seem to boil down to motive. Why do so many believe when the historical evidence is severely lacking and even implausible?

No historical artifacts or factual support has been found to contradict the Bible, and plenty of correlation to known data exists. With the Book of Mormon, other than what has been lifted from the KJV, the supporting evidence is non-existent.

 

[Luvtosew]

Paul would likely have been a late teen or in his very early twenties when Jesus was crucified. As a Pharisee-in-training he would have fanatically listened to his teachers who likely dismissed Jesus outright and were very negative to his blasphemous (to them) teachings. Paul might have just seen Jesus as not worth knowing anything about because this Jesus was just an unthinkably sacrilegious character. He may have just been too busy with his studies (recall his description of himself as a fanatical Pharisee) to pay any attention to details of Jesus’ life. Think of present day teenagers who are so caught up in their own lives that they may not even know who the current mayor of the city or president is. His social awareness would likely have depended a great deal on the peer group that Paul was a part of.

On the other hand, Paul may have been truly shamed by his treatment of the early Christians as followers of Jesus that the fact he had viewed the man Jesus and his followers so negatively may have been such a painful thing to look back upon that he avoided it and instead chose to put all his thoughts into the resurrected, universal Christ that Paul was now an integral part of.

It may also be that the details of Jesus’ life were so well known in the Christian communities and not very relevant at all to the gentile converts that Paul just assumed they were known or not that important, depending upon his audience.

Recall that the letters of Paul had specific intent and audiences. They were written to local churches to address specific issues. There just may have been no reason for Paul to bring up details of Jesus’ life.

There may, of course, be other reasons, but surely your view that therefore Jesus did not exist is not the inevitable or even most plausible implication.

If Paul did not believe in the historical Jesus, what was his motive for his preaching and martyrdom, then? “Well,” Paul might say to himself, " I know Jesus did not exist, but I’ll tell everyone he rose from the dead and I’ll die for that belief because it makes me feel important. Even though it’s all a sham, I have worked out this awesomely intricate theology based on the Old Testament that will be the model of and inspiration for millions of Christians, because I am so brilliant that I can fool everyone into believing in someone that I conjured up in this capacious brain of mine. To begin with, I have to concoct a story of my conversion, even though I have a very bright future as a Pharisee, I will throw that all away on this lark of an idea of mine. Hmmm. Let’s see, a light and a voice from heaven…"

As compelling as that might sound, I am not convinced. :yawn:

I’m questioning Paul not Jesus. I use to take the Bible literally but obviously I don’t anymore, we don’t know who the authors of the NT are, and we really dont know who Paul is , so I believe the information is passed on, second hand info, and yes in some cases, tampered with, but I believe in God and Jesus, I’m a Christian, but also a realist.

Pauls motive? what was Joseph Smith motive. Paul (the bible Paul) had a change on the road to Damacus, was it a change of mind? a rebirth? (due to his killing?) A vision he says. In some places when I read Paul its like he is trying to make it about him. He healed many, and converted many, suffered terribly, shipwrecked, sounds a lot like Josephus too(ever read his auto). I don’t think the Bible was wrote by fishermen, but highly skilled writers of the time, mainly Greek and men of philosophy. So I take the lessons of the Bible which I feel is our insruction manual for living, (except the killing parts) . Thats where I am , I dont pretend to even know as no one does, and no one will ever know without a doubt. So I take things on faith. There is a reason we have the Bible, but I’m glad I don’t see many one handed, one eyed people walking arround, although there are writings that there were some early Christians that made themself enuchs for the kingdom of God.

Well love God and your neighbor and do no harm is what it comes down to.So when the RCC says sacred tradition they mean it.

 

[Perplexity]

My post on Bayes’ isn’t even quite 2,000 words, but has too many characters for a post. So, I’m going to try and attach it here as a PDF (don’t have Word). Hope it works! (Hate breaking a post into several pieces )

 

[neophyte]

My post on Bayes’ isn’t even quite 2,000 words, but has too many characters for a post. So, I’m going to try and attach it here as a PDF (don’t have Word). Hope it works! (Hate breaking a post into several pieces )

I don’t know what your name in the RW is, but make sure you include a similar analysis of the odds against a person with your exact genetic code being born at the exact time and place you were, whose parents had the exact names and ages that yours did and who gave him the same name, who later joined the Catholic Answers Forums at the time you did (adopting the name “Perplexity”), who drives a vehicle of the exact make, model, year, color and current mileage as yours, and who has all of the same jobs that you have for the same amounts of time.

I imagine that the calculated odds are pretty slim… and yet the true chance that it actually happened is 100%, because in fact it did happen.

 

[Perplexity]

Here’s the final part.