Choosing a faith

I can reply to the first point The second part of this post will be answered here in this topic, Choosing a faith.(sorry...im running late for an appointment. Will respond more thoroughly later... )

You are again providing the same rebutted answer. Things aren't true until someone proves them false. Witnesses don't exist until someone proves they don't. Evidence doesn't work that way. You still have no evidence of witnesses. That they existed is just something you've chosen to believe in the absence of evidence. Bauckham? The Anglican scholar? And he's got objective evidence of eyewitnesses that would persuade anyone regardless of their religious background or lack thereof? Bring it on, by all means. Are you daft? How can you keep thinking this anti-argument helps your case? Every writer of propaganda intends their writings to be believed. That is self-evident. It's not conjecture. I'm just repeating what is clear from Paul's epistles, which figure prominently in the Bible, relating his efforts at founding churches in the Jewish diaspora. What would have happened without Paul is conjecture. The only person engaged in conjecture here is you. There's nothing particularly bold about reminding you what your Bible tells you. When it comes to founding churches it's all about Paul. Peter didn't even agree that Jews and Christians should share food together, and sharing food was a fundamental teaching of Jesus. It's like Peter had never met Paul's version of Jesus. If you mean the very first Christian congregations then it was all Paul except for the one in Jerusalem led by Peter. Christian congregations then spawned other congregations, as has always been the case with all religions. Where in the Bible does it describe this? I'm just trying to hold you to what your book actually says. Just like always you're picking and choosing which portions of the Bible to believe true. Of course there is. This isn't the place for such a discussion, but if you truly want to know about the evolutionary origins of empathy then just start a thread.As I said already elsewhere, even if science had no explanation for the evolutionary origin of empathy, all you're doing is playing the game of "science can't explain this now." The big problem with this approach is that what science can't explain is a continually shrinking playing field. Use of this argument by religion has a long history of continual retreat to the outer limits of current scientific knowledge. I'd still like to see you back up your claim that you can argue the existence of God using the worst qualities of our world.--Percy

It's not a question of what I would agree to as historical evidence. If you want to claim historical evidence for your religious beliefs then you have to produce historical evidence, which would be cross-correlative independent contemporary accounts and/or archeological evidence. You haven't done that yet, and you're unlikely to, because nobody's done it yet. If you embed yourself in the Christian apologist echo chamber long enough it all begins to seem real. The claim that Jesus was a historically real person can only be supported with historical evidence, but all you're offering is religious apologetics. Tacitus was writing more than 80 years after the supposed time of Jesus. He's not writing contemporaneously, so from a historical perspective he can only draw upon cross-correlatrive independent contemporary accounts and/or archeological evidence. Does he have anything like that? He does not.Your quoted passage is missing crucial information. What historical evidence are "Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd" looking at that leads them to conclude that it is "firmly established" that Tacitus confirmed the crucifixion of Jesus? How exactly do you imagine that Tacitus would achieve this from the early 2nd century AD?How does the fact of Christians living in Rome in 60 AD and being distinct from Jews amount to evidence that Jesus existed? Those Christians had no more evidence of the existence of Jesus than you do today. If Jesus was real then the most amazing miracle worker in world history escaped mention in all contemporaneous reports.I don't understand why you're not getting this. You can't present religious apologetics as history.--Percy

Neither Eddy nor Boyd are historians. They are fundamentalist Christians that are attempting to turn theology into history.

Expression isn't your problem. It's your lack of evidence. I agree with Stile on this, but I'd add that the reality considerations should be weighted. If the "reality side" includes "squeezes toothpaste from wrong end", "can't cook" and "terrible driver" then a 50-50 split or somewhere in that neighborhood seems fine. But if it includes "living in mother's basement" and "dealing drugs" and "done time", then the "feeling right side" better take a big step back.In general I agree with Stile that personal feelings should have greater weight in relationships and religion than in science and history, and the point we're making to you is that you're letting your personal feelings get the upper hand in an area where objectivity is required, namely history.
​ Subjective conclusions aren't worth a whit if your goal is to know something true about the world. When subjectivity plays a role then each person arrives at their own conclusions, and then you have no idea whether you've arrived at a conclusion that is true about the world.In your case you've reached a conclusion that you're happy with, and being happy is a good thing. Why can't you just be satisfied with that? Why do you feel it necessary that there be evidence for what you believe. Is the saving grace of Jesus Christ any less just because no evidence of his reality exists today?What you believe about God is a personal thing that is true for you. You'll never arrive at conclusions about God that are true for everyone, but that's what you're seeking. You actually believe there's objective evidence out there that supports what you believe religiously. That is just so wrong.There are many ways to show the fallacy in your thinking. One is to point out that every religion has adherents like you who believe there's objective evidence out there for what they believe. They employ all the same tactics you do in an effort to show that their religious beliefs are the true ones, but it's all just religious apologetics. You think a believer in the supernatural can be more objective than someone with the discipline to stick to the facts? Really? You're misstating this. The reality is that an atheist has seen no evidence or history of a "cosmic intelligence" and lets the absence of evidence guide his thinking. And atheists are just like you in accepting the possibility of historical evidence. But when someone like yourself says that such evidence exists but presents religious apologetics and says, "Here's your evidence," anyone capable of assessing evidence (not just atheists) would quite correctly point out that all you've presented is religious apologetics.We understand it feels very real to you, but the past is full of quite brilliant people who believed real things that were very much not real. Percival Lowell firmly believed there were canals on Mars. Arthur Conan Doyle firmly believed in ghosts and fairies and and so forth. But despite all the believers and all that's been written on the subjects, there's no more evidence for ghosts or Martian canals than there is for Jesus.--Percy

The Romans were the brutal occupiers. Why would Jesus be referring to anyone else? His reference to Daniel is to make the point that violent revolution was going to have serious consequences. OK, but divine intervention was simply about establishing a Kingdom without Earthly boundaries. It was about a Kingdom within physical kingdoms marked by those who follow Christ's message of peace and love. It is in the connection that Jesus makes in the Olivet Discourse connecting the destruction of the Temple as being the confirmation of Daniel 7. The Jews talked about "the end of the age" which was a reference to their political situation. The Maccabean rebellion was the end of the Seleucid age.The point is though that simply it was about Jesus predicting the fall of the Temple, and Jerusalem for that matter, and used references for the Hebrew Scriptures to make His point.

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The Romans were the brutal occupiers. Why would Jesus be referring to anyone else? His reference to Daniel is to make the point that violent revolution was going to have serious consequences.

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Because you have the point of it wrong - and the reference to Daniel with it’s support for revolt is part of that. The point is not just that bad things are coming but that God will intervene to set 3verything to rights - including, in my view, the destruction and replacement of the Temple and the Temple priesthood.

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OK, but divine intervention was simply about establishing a Kingdom without Earthly boundaries. It was about a Kingdom within physical kingdoms marked by those who follow Christ's message of peace and love.

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That’s how you interpret it. That doesn’t mean that is what it meant - and Daniel is a really odd choice if you are right.

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It is in the connection that Jesus makes in the Olivet Discourse connecting the destruction of the Temple as being the confirmation of Daniel 7.

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The fact that you assume a connection without adequate reason is hardly sufficient. I will point out, however, that although Daniel does not feature the destruction of the Temple - but it does include its purification and reconsecration. Which fits rather nicely with my interpretation (especially with the hostility to Herod).

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The Jews talked about "the end of the age" which was a reference to their political situation. The Maccabean rebellion was the end of the Seleucid age.

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Oh, no it is more than that.Daniel 12:1-2

If you're referring to Mark 13, Matthew 24 and Luke21, I did a search and the string of letters "Roman" doesn't appear even once in any of these passages. You must think you see some kind of indirect reference. Can you describe it for us?Jesus also says that "this generation shall not pass away before all these things have happened," and even if we generously define a generation as 35 years then he was wrong. Some of that generation would still be alive when the Temple was destroyed, but Jesus described many other things happening while the current generation still lived, such as that his gospel message would reach the entire world. The reality is that it didn't reach the New World until 1500 years later, and I think that generation was all pretty dead by thenA response should keep the focus on history, no religious apologetics, which at heart is just making up explanations for differences between what the Bible says and the real world, and even for differences between what the Bible says in one place versus another.Don't like a particular explanation? Just find another apologist.--Percy

This is all just silly apologetics. We know that there were dozens of apocalyptic jewish cults in 1st century Jerusalem predicting the end times because of previous prophecies. Even Paul thought it would be in his lifetime. Nothing to do with Romans.1 Thessalonians 4:15–17
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.We keep quoting Matthew but of course it's also in Mark. The actual words The Arrival of the Son of Man
24 “But in those days, after that tribulation,
‘the sun will be darkened
and the moon will not give its light,
25 and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.’f
26 And then they will see the Son of Man arriving in the clouds with great power and glory.
27 And then he will send out the angels, and will gather theg elect together from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven. The Parable of the Fig Tree
28 “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: Whenever its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.
29 So also you, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the door.
30 Truly I say to you that this generation will never pass away until all these things take place!
31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.Couldn't be clearer.

after all, the book was written, edited, and redacted by us. Either we are listening to inner wisdom or we are plotting on behalf of fake wisdom. No Ph about it!

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If you're referring to Mark 13, Matthew 24 and Luke21, I did a search and the string of letters "Roman" doesn't appear even once in any of these passages. You must think you see some kind of indirect reference. Can you describe it for us?

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I have been asking him for that for some time. There isn’t. The best he managed to do was assert that it was because the Romans did destroy the Temple. And yet he denies that it was either a supernatural prophecy or written after the event, so that makes no sense either.

We can make progress on questions that are amenable to the approach of "gather data, analyze, present, peer-review, replicate." When you have no data, which is consistently your situation, then it isn't possible to draw real-world conclusions.What you wish for doesn't exist. You wish that questions lacking evidence could still be answered. They can't. It is still true that Christian scholars are heavily biased when it comes to judging the evidence for Christianity. Even if all the members of the Jesus Seminar tripled their output (not likely since Crossan is 88 and Borg and Funk (the founder) are dead) it would still be dwarfed by the production of the Christian scholarly consensus. The Jesus Seminar hasn't been active in nearly 20 years, and while it spawned a couple successor groups, they are so insignificant they don't even have Wikipedia entries.Even relativity, a spherical Earth and heliocentrism have dissenters, so of course there are dissenters from mainstream Christian thought, but they're a minute minority. What Tangle and I have both been saying is that the vast majority of Christian scholarship, which forms the bulk and bulwark of Christian scholarly consensus, is conducted by believers. Even the members of the Jesus Seminar were believers. They believed that Jesus existed, that he actually said many of the things attributed to him in the Bible, and that he was the true founder of the Christian church. Their most significant difference with the mainstream is in preferring a less eschatological Jesus. Members of the defunct Jesus Seminar? Does it somehow still exist in Canada? If there are any in the CoE then you're no doubt correct that it's a decreasing number because by now they're mostly in their decrepitude or dead. Being biased doesn't mean you're in error. Even lacking all evidence doesn't mean you're in error. It only means that you have no factual basis for what you believe. The combination of bias and lack of evidence also means that no critical thinkers would accept your conclusions. History is never "proven." It is only supported by evidence, and the more evidence the more likely the conclusions are correct. The evidence for Caesar? Massive. The evidence for Jesus and anything that is claimed to have happened during his ministry? Completely absent. There's as much evidence for Jesus as for elves and goblins. Aw, come on, enumerate your non-evidence again. It'll be fun! Wait. What? What about the Romans? You said there were Romans.--Percy

I really like snarky Percy.

That's a POTM sentence right there! In my opinion, the best thing you have said regarding belief. It caused me to pause, think, pray, and meditate. Then repeat.

You keep saying this but have yet to defend it. What is it about plague, cancer, earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, floods, wars, turning someone into a pillar of salt, raining death and destruction down upon Sodom and Gomorrah, pandemics, guns, parasites, injurious and/or fatal accidents, birth defects, blindness, deafness, slavery, poverty, famine, retardation, cystic fibrosis, Down's syndrome, myasthenia gravis, Hodgkin's disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, muscular dystrophy and so on that says love to you? The last time you tried to answer this was woeful. Though no such choice exists, you claimed we had a choice concerning these things and that that meant God is love. Do you have an actual answer yet? Those who argue that the resurrection couldn't have happened because such things are physically impossible have a pretty strong argument. What is N T Wright's argument, or Polkinghorne's for that matter? I haven't read Wright but I have read Polkinghorne and I found his writings a bunch of twaddle.Have you read Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell or any of the books by Sam Harris like The End of Faith.--Percy