Choosing a faith

By their fruits ye shall know them. If they don't pracice faith, they don't have faith. If they don't trust God to take care of them, without retirement plans, they have no faith in Him. That's what Jesus said. And that's what His real followers did. The disciples didn't follow Him in limousines. You can't make Him "more" than the character in the book by doing less. No He does not.He sets the standard by which we are saved. If there was no standard, there would be no reason for judgement.

Witness statements are damn near worthless when they're brand new. And they deteriorate with age. You mean you wish they were preserved remarkably well. In fact, the "importance" of the story has no bearing on how well it is preserved. We know very well that eyewitness accounts of a murder are no more reliable than messages in a game of Telephone. One step in a game of Telephone may be accurate. But the fact that you're talking about "copies of original manuscripts" shoots you in the foot. There are no original manuscripts - and we have no reason to think that the copies of copies are accurate copies.

You misquoted me. I said, " The God of the Bible is most likely closer to reality than the God that YOU made up - but it still isn't very close to reality." Message 109 It doesn't make any difference how well you can read the Bible if you disregard what it says in favor of what you wish it said. You clearly DO have an axe to grind. Why else would you embrace the Bible when it says something you like and reject it when it says something you don't like? What makes you think the mythicists have an axe to grind? Again, you are NOT agreeing. You're still circling back to your misconception that Satan is the bad guy. So he's after the pretenders like you, to make you stop pretending and accept the truth.

I suggest that there is a big difference between what we actually worship and the idea of worship as part of a religious function. I'd say that worship is defined by the goals we set in life, It might be money or power, but it might being as best you can being the person that you believe a deity wants you to be. Let's say you read a book about any historical figure. Obviously it is someone we have never met nor have we met any individual that personally met them. The book likely gives an account of what they did and possibly about what they believed and maybe even taught. This account may or may not be accurate but we make up our minds as to what we believe about it. Sure we can look for supporting material and it may be strong or weak, but that isn't may point. Forming a conclusion from what we read is not circular. It would be circular if we take that verse in 2nd Timothy and the use it to validate the Bible as being literally true but I'm not doing that.Actually, the Biblical accounts are the foundation of what I believe, but also, I very much relate top this statement by CS Lewis.

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"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.”

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I realize that this doesn't make sense to hardly anyone else here, but it speaks to me. I realize that I have to deal with suffering but on the other hand I have the understanding of the degree of empathy that others have for those who suffer. I have also have the sense of divine when I see a new parent holding their new born in their arms with absolute adoration or when I see someone risk or give their lives in defence of another. Sure, if you keep asking the same question you will get the same answer. It seems that you want evidence that both of us know doesn't exist.

Well I can't imagine that the present day Jews see it that way as the Roman occupation is long over. However the 1st century Jews did see the end of the age being about the end of Roman occupation. Jesus did not fulfil the the messianic role that the majority of 1st century Jews envisioned. He di not raise an army to drive out the Romans. Using passages like the suffering servant i Isaiah Jesus as messiah was very different that the messiah that they had hoped for.I agree, that as always Christians will contend that Christ will return in their life times, and they quite likely have and will make up excuses. However, I contend that Jesus didn't focus on the world as it will be, but on the world here and now.

Yes, but not to be confused with the NT book of Hebrews. It was simply that the Gospel of Matthew was written primarily for the Hebrews. To a degree I have to agree with that. However, I also contend that Jesus understood it the way I stated. The disciples could not get it through their head that Jesus was going to somehow rid them of the Romans. He didn't have an army but these miracles kept happening so they would have concluded that Yahweh was behind Jesus and so He would come and defeat the enemy the way they envisioned. After the resurrection they started to think more deeply what it was that Jesus taught and we've been doing that for 2000 years.Interestingly enough even after the resurrection we can see that the disciples still thought that Jesus had returned to eject the Romans from the area as we can see in Acts 1. It took them a while to figure it all out, which they did reflecting on it all.

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Well I can't imagine that the present day Jews see it that way as the Roman occupation is long over. However the 1st century Jews did see the end of the age being about the end of Roman occupation.

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Which is just an interpretation popular at the time, not the originally intended meaning, nor one with any special claim to be “the” meaning.

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Jesus did not fulfil the the messianic role that the majority of 1st century Jews envisioned. He di not raise an army to drive out the Romans. Using passages like the suffering servant i Isaiah Jesus as messiah was very different that the messiah that they had hoped for

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Which ones did he fulfil? The “suffering servant” in Isaiah hardly qualifies.

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I agree, that as always Christians will contend that Christ will return in their life times, and they quite likely have and will make up excuses. However, I contend that Jesus didn't focus on the world as it will be, but on the world here and now

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Which is rather at odds with predictive prophecy.

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Yes, but not to be confused with the NT book of Hebrews.

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Indeed, the Gospel of the Hebrews is not in the NT at all. By the way, how did you convince yoursek& it was the “real” Matthew? Just because Jerome said so?

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It was simply that the Gospel of Matthew was written primarily for the Hebrews.

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Are you talking about the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews - which you call the “real” Matthew here? Or are you just making an irrelevant comment about the canonical Matthew?

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To a degree I have to agree with that. However, I also contend that Jesus understood it the way I stated

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On what basis do you contend that Jesus agreed with your thinking?

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The disciples could not get it through their head that Jesus was going to somehow rid them of the Romans. He didn't have an army but these miracles kept happening so they would have concluded that Yahweh was behind Jesus and so He would come and defeat the enemy the way they envisioned.

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As we’ve seen from Daniel and Zechariah the expectation was that God would give victory to the Jews, not an army. But God did not, even though Jesus reportedly stoked such ideas by alluding to Daniel.

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After the resurrection they started to think more deeply what it was that Jesus taught and we've been doing that for 2000 years.
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Or distorted it based on their wants and needs, and the wants and needs of their successors. The growing hostility to the Jews and the desire to fit in with Rome were no doubt major factors. The attempts to blame the Jews rather than the Romans for Jesus’ death include rather obvious distortions of this sort.

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Interestingly enough even after the resurrection we can see that the disciples still thought that Jesus had returned to eject the Romans from the area as we can see in Acts 1. It took them a while to figure it all out, which they did reflecting on it all

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I note that you do not mention that Jesus implies that he will do just that. He talks about when it will happen, rather than offering any correction on what will happen.

You are inconsistent in mentioning "the truth.".
You don't acknowledge the Bible as truth apart from human mythos and then say that anyone who challenges it is making up their own story. Why is the original storyline any better? After all if Jesus and His Father were made up to begin with how are the original stories any. better than modern interpretation?

Not at all. Did you think I was referring to absolute truth? I was referring to verifiable truth. Truth that is supported by evidence. (Incidentaly, the word "verify" comes from the Latin verus, which means "true". If it ain't verifiable, it ain't true.) Because it isn't. And you're a fine one to pretend to hold up the Bible as truth when you reject so much of what it says. But i don't say that. You can certainly challenge the parts that are blatantly NOT true, like the Flood and the Resurrection. You can use EVIDENCE to challenge them. But YOU challenge the (supposed) word of Jesus and you have no evidence whatsoever that He didn't say them. Your only reason for challenging His instructions is that you don't like them. And that's especially egregious, since you pretend to believe in Jesus. It's obvious that the "Jesus" you believe in is entirely made up to suit you. We have evidence for it. The only evidence we have for Jesus is the original story. We're not talking about "modern interpretation". We're talking about your self-serving made-up-out-of-thin-air story that happens to have a character named Jesus in it. Since you're denying everything we know about the original Jesu, why do you even call your version "Jesus"? And why don't you ever answer that question?

Nor to argue it using evidence, either, apparently, and your determined efforts at finding ways to make lack of evidence seem like evidence have come to seem increasingly unprincipled.I know I've said this several times already in this thread, but this approach is bound to increase frustrations. It is simple human nature to begin employing "slapping up side of the head" style responses to someone working so hard to just not get it. Your need to believe is so strong it has overcome your reason, and it drives the people you're discussing with crazy after a while.We know you want to believe these things. We get it. But your beliefs come from within, not from evidence. Your refusal to face this fact head on, indeed your insistence on flip-flopping back and forth between "I have evidence" and "I don't have evidence," just feels dishonest and disrespectful.--Percy

Hi PercyI have said several times is all have for evidence is what is written in the Bible, what others have said about what is written in the Bible and my own subjective conclusions about the physical world and our interaction with it.I have nothing beyond what I have already said about my rationale as to why I believe what I do. I know that's not enough for you or anyone else, but it is all I've got.So, if you don't want me to keep saying the same thing then don't keep asking the same questions.

We both know that there is no convincing evidence. It is just like any historical account. All we have is what is written and then we come to our own conclusions about the veracity of the account, by looking at other written material etc. The article was not about Biblical scholars. Here is a quote where it is about "scholars of antiquity".

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Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure

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I have read a number of non-Christian authors such as Dawkins, Hitchens, Sagan etc.AbE Out of curiosity have ever read books by John Polkinghorne or N T Wright?

That is quite likely true, however as I said earlier they did have short hand which could have possibly been used. Also of course it could have been written and kept with Jesus dictating it to Matthew after giving the sermon, or also quite possibly a compilation of more than one sermon. I'm not sure what you are referring to here. One point though I'm sceptical about prophesies of future events. I contend that they are at least usually predictions of a non-supernatural nature and I include Jesus in that.

But you're convinced anyway. Weird.But that apart, given that the story is that it was all done to save mankind, why isn't it convincing? What we know about what is written is that it's mythology writ large. You come to your conclusion from prior belief, not, as you admit, on convincing evidence. The vast majority of 'scholars' accept Jesus as a historical figure. But then the vast majority (approaching 100%) are Christian. Also the vast majority of them are not historians, they're theologians. Of course Christians absolutely HAVE to believe that Jesus was real. If they didn't they could not be Christians.When real, modern, objective, historians look at the actual evidence, we get a different story.For the record, atheists couldn't care either way - it really doesn't matter to us whether he was real or not, what matters is whether he did the things he's said to have done. The fact that you can't even provide convincing evidence that he even existed at all, tells us most of what we need to know. None of those are historians. Get your evolutionary biology from Dawkins, get your polemics from Hitchins, but please, get your history from historians.
​ Polkinghorne is an excellent physicist and mathematician. His opinion about the historicity or otherwise of Jesus is as useless as Dawkins, Hitchins, and Segan's.I haven't read Wright books, but I have read a lot of what he's written. To me, he's just another theologian parsing a Christian interpretation of ancient mythology in a way that suits his beliefs. How could it be possible for an ordained priest and ex-bishop, to be objective? His views on homosexuality should be a clue to how he sees his religion.