Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,806 Year: 3,063/9,624 Month: 908/1,588 Week: 91/223 Day: 2/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts
AdminJar
Inactive Member


Message 301 of 305 (204981)
05-04-2005 2:07 PM


Holding open for a short rejoinder by Faith.
Please, everyone else, let Faith get a last word in if she wishes and then I'm putting this puppy to bed. Don't hunt nohow.

New Members should start HERE to get an understanding of what makes great posts.
Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:
General discussion of moderation procedures
Thread Reopen Requests
Considerations of topic promotions from the "Proposed New Topics" forum
Other useful links:
Forum Guidelines, Style Guides for EvC and Assistance w/ Forum Formatting

arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 302 of 305 (204997)
05-04-2005 3:34 PM
Reply to: Message 295 by Faith
05-04-2005 11:47 AM


Re: Goldilocks
Well, but that's how I read it, and that's how it is taken by all the people I trust and admire, and that's how it has been taken throughout history. You've simply made it impossible to recognize the truth with all that studying you do about it.
and you don't think it's a problem that this notion of truth disappears when you look closer? that's like the "squint your eyes a little, and you'll see it" proof of intelligent design.
What is it that makes it possible to distinguish the history of Moses from Goldilocks? Basic intelligence would go a long way. Common sense. The ability to read.
yes, i agree.
Or maybe it's just one of those things where the ordinary human mind is SO fallen it can't cope with such obvious stuff, in which case we must rely on God's help. If you can't recognize the stuff of reality when you read it, God help you indeed.
but you've failed to demonstrate what factors should be recognized as reality. what makes moses different?
Again, C.S. Lewis did a great job of discussing how the Bible is so far from anything like myth it takes a special kind of blindness to have such an idea
ok, well we'll discuss a book by c.s. lewis's good friend then, the lord of the rings. the lord of the rings, like the bible is inordinately long, told from multiples perspectives, and (arguably) like the bible has a coherent overriding theme of a coming messiah. magical things happen, just like in the bible. so tell me, what makes the lord of the rings a work of fiction, and the bible a work of fact, other than the fact that we know tolkien wrote lotr?

אָרַח

This message is a reply to:
 Message 295 by Faith, posted 05-04-2005 11:47 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 303 by Faith, posted 05-04-2005 8:21 PM arachnophilia has not replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 303 of 305 (205051)
05-04-2005 8:21 PM
Reply to: Message 302 by arachnophilia
05-04-2005 3:34 PM


Re: Goldilocks
Well, but that's how I read it, and that's how it is taken by all the people I trust and admire, and that's how it has been taken throughout history. You've simply made it impossible to recognize the truth with all that studying you do about it.
quote:
and you don't think it's a problem that this notion of truth disappears when you look closer? that's like the "squint your eyes a little, and you'll see it" proof of intelligent design.
Disappears? It gets clearer and stronger. Take off the blinders of the "scholarship" you are so addicted to. It isn't the truth. It's a big fat bunch of worldly fleshly hoohah.
What is it that makes it possible to distinguish the history of Moses from Goldilocks? Basic intelligence would go a long way. Common sense. The ability to read.
quote:
yes, i agree.
So you CAN tell the difference? Then YOU spell out the difference.
Or maybe it's just one of those things where the ordinary human mind is SO fallen it can't cope with such obvious stuff, in which case we must rely on God's help. If you can't recognize the stuff of reality when you read it, God help you indeed.
quote:
but you've failed to demonstrate what factors should be recognized as reality. what makes moses different?
What makes Attila the Hun different? Genghis Khan? Not true anyway, as I've suggested quite a few factors in passing. Here's another list: Witnesses, numbers of witnesses, credibility of witnesses, respectability of witnesses, also number and character of people who have found it credible and understood it to be true history -- character witnesses you could say.
Also the *feel of reality*. Do I really have to spell that out? You really think somebody could INVENT Moses, or any of the books of the Bible or Jesus Christ? See, if you really really think that, you are beyond ANYTHING I could say to try to dissuade you from your folly. Far more likely to be effective that I just keep calling people who think they think such things idiots and stooges than actually try to explain something so mindnumbingly OBVIOUS. In other words, you CAN'T really really think such a thing, you are just under some weird spell that KEEPS you from thinking.
Again, C.S. Lewis did a great job of discussing how the Bible is so far from anything like myth it takes a special kind of blindness to have such an idea
quote:
ok, well we'll discuss a book by c.s. lewis's good friend then, the lord of the rings. the lord of the rings, like the bible is inordinately long, told from multiples perspectives, and (arguably) like the bible has a coherent overriding theme of a coming messiah. magical things happen, just like in the bible. so tell me, what makes the lord of the rings a work of fiction, and the bible a work of fact, other than the fact that we know tolkien wrote lotr?
Don't be a complete dolt. Again if you really can't tell the difference, far better you begin to take in the information that you ARE a dolt, even a blithering idiot than that I try to meet such a ridiculous requirement as to try to lay out the differences beyond what I have already done. SOMETHING has to zap you out of such mind-rotting stupidity as is mistaken here for intelligence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 302 by arachnophilia, posted 05-04-2005 3:34 PM arachnophilia has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 305 by AdminJar, posted 05-04-2005 8:24 PM Faith has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 304 of 305 (205052)
05-04-2005 8:22 PM


A few facts about Islam...
Hmmm, this thread is still open. Well, in that case I'll just go back to a topic mentioned near the beginning of this thread that was never properly addressed because the pablum offered by Faith about the wonderful contributions of Christianity to civilization was answered only by the pablum offered by CheckMate.
One of Faith's evidences for the validity of Christianity was that it made modern science possible. My own view is that the correlation between religion and scientific advancement has never been established, but the evidence for Faith's view goes against her.
Within a couple hundred years after Christianity become the official religion of the Roman Empire, Rome fell and Europe entered the Dark Ages, from which it didn't emerge for a thousand years. Meanwhile, the Islamic Empire was prospering. Beginning around the 8th century A.D. Islamic intellectuals began formalizing the study of the natural world. They began by translating the works of the ancient Greeks into Arabic (these works were later made available to Europeans) and continued from there. The invention of paper was brought out of Asia and rapidly spread through the Islamic world. At a time when a European monastary would be fortunate to have 10 or 20 books, there were streets of booksellers in Islamic cities. Our decimal number system, eventually adopted by Europe and the rest of the world, was developed in the Islamic world, as was algebra.
It probably can't be reliably established why the now benighted Islamic world has settled into scientific, social and economic decadence, but my view is that it has a lot to do with fundamentalism. Most Moslems will tell you that Islam is a religion of peace, and I'm sure this is true for the version of Islam they're following. But too much of the Islamic world has been taken over by a narrow fundamentalism that because they feel threatened by the outside world shutters itself and embraces violence and hatred.
I believe religious fundamentalism is dangerous in any form. Only our tradition of religious pluralism here in the states prevents the Christian fundamentalists from limiting religious freedom so they can promote their own brand of Christianity. Like the Islamic fundamentalists, they shutter themselves away creating their own colleges and even their own science. And that is why Faith's claim about Christianity's contributions to the Renaissance is so ironic, since if her funamentalist version of Christianity were to gain control of science we would again enter a Dark Ages with scientic views set by religious fiat instead of study and research.
--Percy

AdminJar
Inactive Member


Message 305 of 305 (205053)
05-04-2005 8:24 PM
Reply to: Message 303 by Faith
05-04-2005 8:21 PM


Okay FAITH
You got in yet another opportunity to flaunt the guidlelines here.
Once agin you are calling folk names.
This thread is gone.

New Members should start HERE to get an understanding of what makes great posts.
Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:
General discussion of moderation procedures
Thread Reopen Requests
Considerations of topic promotions from the "Proposed New Topics" forum
Other useful links:
Forum Guidelines, Style Guides for EvC and Assistance w/ Forum Formatting

This message is a reply to:
 Message 303 by Faith, posted 05-04-2005 8:21 PM Faith has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024