Your Religion or Spirituality

There's plenty of evidence that L. Ron Hubbard existed too.

Doesn't mean he's God or scientology is real.

 

There is plenty of evidence that Scientology leads to terrible movies being made...<cough> Battlefield Earth <cough>

Now if L Ron can come down from his asteroid belt and start strolling around NYC, then I could see the analogy....

 

Ah but here's the rub, Padre...

There's proof that Jesus the MAN existed. There's absolutely NO proof that he came down from heaven or that he was the son of God now, is there?

When it all boils down Jesus very well could have been the L. Ron Hubbard of his time, convincing primitive people that he was a God. I'm not saying he WAS, but you can't deny the possibility.

 

Well there was that whole Resurrection thing Pagan, if L Ron can do that, and stroll around NYC then the analogy holds true, well, except for the really bad films..

I mean come on, John Travolta looked absurd.

 

There is proof that he was resurrected? Is there any proof tha someone just didn't save him from the cross?

 

You mean that whole resurrection thing that no one has proof of?

C'mon bro...

Wouldn't know how bad that movie was either, never had any desire to see it.

Or how about this one....primitive people, coma, wake up three days later? They didn't exactly embalm back then.

Once again, not saying it happened that way, but it IS feasible that it did, isn't it? I mean, we're talking people who - as I've said before - if you walked up to them with a bic lighter they'd think you were God.

 

Oh please, and here is the divergence, no matter the evidence, the intellectual equivalent of "lalalallalalalalal" will occur, so decide for yourselves.

 

That my friend is why we have zombies

 

pansy

 

C'mon Padre...you of all people I wouldn't expect to bail. There's no "lalalalalala" here, just a question.

Where's the proof of him rising from the dead? Anything I've ever read about it was supposed "eyewitnesses", and then the story wasn't written down for centuries.

Is it not possible that people back then were duped into believing he was the savior?

 

Oh, I am not bailing..

For me, the only logical conclusion that i can draw from the deaths of the Apostles and other nameless Christians, is that "something" happened in 33 AD, something profound enough to make them willing to act against even basic self interest or even survival, when Nero was making torches of the "Chreestus" in the garden, I have a hard time believing that just average joes would be willing to endure that fate for what they knew to be a lie.

That would be like saying "The Dolphins colors are Black, and I'm willing to set afire to prove it". Of course I "know" that the colors are Coral and White, so why would I be willing to die in the mouth of a lion for that lie?

Now I do find credence in the idea that the early church was a hodge podge of different sects and with different leadership (Apollos is a fascinating Historical figure BTW) and that some sort of amalgam occured 2,000 years ago.


However, even at the barest minimum, something happened after the Crucifixion, of that there can be little doubt, and it also would follow if such was a fraud, the Sanhedrion and the Roman's would have as their best interests to quash it fast by producing the body, it alos stands to reason, if the Apostles stole the body, after the first horrible deaths they would have STFU about it and go back to fishing or tax collecting.

Yet they did not.

 

why would that stand to reason?

 

We have been down this path before Dupree, I'll not waste the effort yet again, draw your own conclusions.

 

How many people would it take to get Jesus down from the cross?

That is a lie worth dying for.

 

Why would they have known it to be a lie? After all, they didn't witness his resurrection. In fact, there's no description of his resurrection at all. When the women come to the tomb, it's empty. That's about it. Now, apparently the Apostles believed that they saw Jesus after he vanished from the tomb, but that's hardly conclusive evidence for his resurrection. It could be that they merely hallucinated (mass hallucinations are not at all uncommon after a traumatic event like watching your friend whom you believe to be the son of God die in pain on the cross), it could be that he wasn't dead in the first place.

As for their willingsness to endure pain and/or death for their belief - that isn't particularly uncommon either. The guys from 9/11 apparently believed enough to highjack airplanes and fly them into a building. They acted against basic self interest or even survival, too. And it didn't take some profound event. All it took was religion.

Now, I'm not arguing that Jesus wasn't resurrected. I'm an agnostic. I don't know and to me it doesn't matter really. I don't consider it particularly likely (the most rational explanation to me is that the whole episode is a metaphor like most episodes in the Bible are), but I'm certainly not going to tell you that you're an idiot for believing in it. Believe away. That's the whole point of faith: You don't have to be able to proof it. It wouldn't be faith if you could.

 

That is what I was saying. Medical science wasn't exactly booming back then. It very well could have been that he lapsed into a coma on the cross, was mistaken for dead and buried, and in a few days regained consciousness and left the tomb.

Back then, what else could they think but that he rose from the dead?

Again, not saying that this IS what happened, but one has to be open to the possibility. The apostles may have died for what they believed in, but what exactly did they believe in? That's where it gets tricky.

Very well spoken. I've also been saying this for years in here now...well....at the other place.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with Christians and their faith if they kept it as such. However, when they insist that it's "truth" and then ridicule or demean others of differing beliefs and tell them that they're doomed to hell...that's when people start pushing back.

 

I've read most of the posts here and some are very interesting. I don't argue my faith as I've said before. There's no need in it. I CHOOSE to believe the Bible is God's inspired Word. I believe Jesus died for our sins and rose again and will return again. My walk with the Lord is personal and very meaningful to me. I do not push my faith on any one, but I do love to talk about it with people that are truly interested in what I feel. The greatest thing about freedom, is the freedom to worship as you choose, or not, whichever the case may be. My beliefs sustain me day to day.
I, for one, would rather believe and follow the Lord and do His will, than to face the alternative of not believing in Him.
So, even if it should all turn out to be just stories etc., I still choose to walk in faith.

 

A mass illusion all involving the same vision? Peter went to the tomb as well as John, it was quite empty, if a body had been produced by the Authorities, that would have been the end of the narrative.

And here is a key fact, those hijackers were dying for what they were told, not what they had personally seen, they had no first hand knowledge of anything that the Koran claimed, however the Apostles did have first hand knowledge (as did some 500 other folks according to Paul in Corinthinians).

The same apostles BTW who hauled balls out of the Garden of Gethsamine, they knew if they were arrested with Jesus, they would suffer the same fate, yet 40 days later they were being whipped at the Temple for repeating what they had witnessed.

And later killed off one by one, even men like Stephen were stoned fairly quickly, as was James killed.

Indeed...but the core of Christianity doesn't revolve around allegory or metaphor.

 

I gotta go with Celt on this one...a few years back when I had a Phins fan site, I contacted media sources, i.e. herald, the sun, etc and what Celtkin quoted above was exactly what they told me...t

 

Ditto here..thanks Deb...t

 

People where willing to withstand that sort of treatment for socialism in latin america. People where willing to withstand it because of disagreement against communism in russia, jews withstood it during nazi germany. (I guess that means jews are right?)

That is no proof of anything.

 

Matthew 26:53 - "Do you not think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more that twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?"



Matthew 26:39 - "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."



John 10:18 - "No man takes it (his life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father".

 

Because they believed that Communism would make their societies better, not because of the appearance of a man they knew to be dead.

INOW, they suffered for a goal, not for a fantastical truth.

 

Again, you are basing your accounts on a book written 100 years after the fact, and put together by a church close to 150 years after the fact. The accounts on the bible cannot be treated as fact just as much as the accounts in the Q'ran,, the accounts in the bhagavad ghita and other accounts can't be treated as fact. Everyone that is of those faiths treat them as fact, but I am pretty sure if you where presented to the idea that Muhammad went up to heaven, you would not accept that as truth and would ask for stronger proof than a book that was written by his followers.

 

well you can argue that communism is a fantastical truth...at least i could.

 

Yes. Again, that's not particularly unusual. There's been numerous verfied accounts of mass hallucinations involving the same vision.

And here's the catch: You are operating under the assumption that these accounts are true based on the narration of people who didn't witness it firsthand but renarrated stories that were orally past on for generations. One game of chinese whisper should give you some clue about the reliability of such narrations. Again, I'm not saying that it wasn't the way it's told, but the tale itself hardly counts as proof.

I beg to differ. You can analyze literally each and every part of the Bible as a literary text. If you do, it's full of metaphors. If you take it literally, there's quite a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense. Again, that shouldn't stop you from believing as faith has little to do with making sense all the time but there's a very solid scientific basis for treating the Bible as a metaphoric text.

 

39 member's of the Heaven's Gate cult died because they believed that space ship was behind the comet.

Bro, your own argument used against you. You just said they walked into the tomb and saw it was empty. That is knowledge of an empty tomb, not knowledge of anyone rising from the dead.

NO ONE witnessed this, yet these people were willing to die for what they were told.

And as for the 500 that Paul spoke about....all due respect bro, but how do we know that Paul wasn't full of **** and exaggerating? And even if he wasn't, you just said that all they saw was an empty tomb.

Were the 500 camped outside the tomb like people waiting in line for Grateful Dead tickets? I don't get how 500 people had "first hand knowledge" of something they didn't see.

 

Once again, a bad analogy, if the Heaven's Gate cultist were to be compared to the apostles, applewhite would have be run over by a train, thrown into a masoleum, then knocked on their front door three days later with the Mothership in tow.

Besides, they had change in their pockets for vending machines on the spacecraft, my goodness, you cannot get a vending machine on Earth to take a Canadian Qtr, how are US qtrs supposed to work on an alien space craft vending machines?

So when Jesus showed up, after having been killed, one would suppose nothing happened in that tomb? If he was still dead (and not just mostly dead) he should have been happily rotting away, yet...nothing...at the barest minimum something happened in there, and that is where "faith" meets "fact" what that something is, is up to each person to decide for themselves, whatever it was, apparently it was amazing enough to led those men to die pretty horrid deaths retelling their accounts.

 

again, that doesn't mean he just didn't wake up from a coma and walked out. Something that wasn't a super rare occurance back in the day.

Hell in the middle ages they used to put bells in the grave so people could ring them if it turns out they were buried alive.

 

The epistles circulated throughout the Roman Empire, and the oldest NT biblical fragment, John Ryland's papyrus is dated from 20 years or less after John, and the fragment is holographic to the account found in John in today's Bible, there was no variation.

 

Over several episodes?

Not so, not only does Ryland's papyrus date to the period, but the contemporus writings of the Apostles companions such as Polycarp survive today, as does further works such as the Didache.

And Historical writers of the day also mention very early examples of Christians long before there was a condified Bible, with names such as Chreestus, as does the Jewish Historian who mentions the death of James.

Any of which are not central to the fact of the resurrection.

 

How is it a bad analogy? You said no one dies for something that isn't true. I'm pointing out that people DO.

You're deflecting rather well bro, but I know you know that the similarities are there, whether you admit them in this forum or not.

So you counter your own argument here. You said there were many people with first hand knowledge, and now we're talking about "faith meets fact".

This argument smacks of D7's famous, "Well, you can't prove God DOESN'T exist, so he must!" argument.

What you're saying is that because no one actually saw Jesus come out of the tomb, it must be that he rose from the dead and not the (much more plausible) chance that he was in a coma for 3 days.

And again, these were people who would have thought tupperware was the work of the devil. Not much of a stretch to think they believed something that wasn't entirely what it seemed.

 

Yes but these are his followers, there are numerous accounts of contemporaries of muhammad's rising to the heavens (in jerusalem no less).... that same bible has an account of virgin mary going up to heaven in full body without having died, If I am going to have to take religious myth as historical account, then I walk a horribly slippery slope.

The truth is, even religious scholars, that are christian debate the resurrection as a literal interpretation.

I don't know if Jesus resurrected. But I can assure you that a book written by Jesus' followers is not one that is going to convince me that it is true. Books written by L. Ron Hubbard's followers say that the guy could move things without touching them, we all agree that is ridiculous, why arae we to believe the other guys are more worthy of attention.

The Bible in of itself is no proof of anything. And that is where you get this wrong, the bible as it is surrounded by documents of the era can give you a better idea of how the era worked, and who was around. But it is not sole proof. Unless you are a believer, and if you are a believer then the word fact needs to be eliminated from the discussion.

 

Nope, you misread my posts, what I said was there is a huge difference between dying for what one has been told, and dying for what has seen, if it was an obvious lie, why go thorugh it? The early church was penniless, yet they persisted.

Applewhite on the other hand, was psychopath who happily drank the Koolaid along with his followers for something they could not have possibly witnessed.

Naah, it's just a very old argument, both sides have their positions fairly well established.

That would be for "us" today to decide Pagan, some can see the facts and say "Christ really is the way the truth and life" others will look at them and dismiss them, that is life and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Pagan..tsk tsk tsk, we both know that is a take off on the Scientific Method's inability to prove or disprove the Existnce of God.

Is that what you think happened? The swoon theory is easily refuteable by modern forensics, a Roman whipping, severe beating, dehydration, stabbing and a Crucifixion, then wrapped up in 80 pds of spice to keep the stench down then entombed for 3 days...

Yep, massive pyramids, the Hellenization of the region, and written language advanced craft skills and art, yep these folks were right out of "10,000 yrs BC"...


Even more interesting, the apostles could have been illiterate as well as it says in Acts 2..

 

Did I say that they weren't advanced for their time?

What do their skills in architecture and civilization have to do with their superstition?

Be honest, if I pulled up to these people in a supercharged top fuel dragster, would they understand what it was, or run screaming from the "dragon" in their midst?

Absolutely hilarious. It's difficult to believe that he survived all he went though and only was in a coma, but not difficult at all to believe he rose from the dead.

 

Pagan...they (some) would think it Apollos's Chariot....

Besides, time travel is impossible, time is a measure and light is a particle...so says Brother Celtkin....

 

Damn....better sell that Delorean then. I was almost finished with my flux capacitor too.

 

Still livin' the dream eh Pagan....

I need to check out for awhile, I've got hand out pamphlets at the High School...

Later.

 

Aw man...proselytizing??? Tsk tsk bro...high schools are no place to attempt to add to the Collective!