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codyj 25-Sep-06, 14:22 |
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alexwilson 25-Sep-06, 14:22 |
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biblical errors? "Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you." Leviticus 11:21-23 Just for the record, insects have six feet and arachnids have eight. You'd think the ancient Israelites might have picked up on this little detail, what with eating locusts and beetles and all. Bats identified as "birds"? "And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, and the vulture, and the kite after his kind; Every raven after his kind; and the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, and the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, and the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat." Leviticus 11:13-19 An almost identical passage occurs in Deuteronomy 14:11-18. The bat is of course a flying mammal, not a bird. Rabbits claimed to chew their cud? "And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you." Leviticus 11:6 To chew the cud means to eat grasses, swallow, then regurgitate later for further chewing. Rabbits simply do not do this. |
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alexwilson 25-Sep-06, 15:15 |
My kids used to think spiders were insects, since they were clearly "bugs" |
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leo_london 25-Sep-06, 16:19 |
Jeff.. The passage does say " inspiration of God "..therefore the fallabilities of those who were so " inspired " must be taken into account. If I was defending those who claim the bible to be the inspired word of God, which I'm not, I would be inclined towards the neo-orthodox doctrine of inspiration which is summarized by saying that the Bible is " the word of God " but not " the words of God ". It is only when each individual reads the the texts that the word of God becomes clear to that person, at that particular time. Ignoring the errors and anomalies, the bible inspired and continues to inspire. It has changed the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Divinely inspired or not it remains the most important book ( or books ) ever written. |
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leo i suppose he was being ironic and, stupid american that i am, i missed it : ) |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 10:45 |
Leo There is no proof that Jesus Christ, as described in the Bible, existed. None. << Cant let you get away with that one. Robin Hood is purely legend, there may have been a 13th century outlaw with a similar name, it then became a generic name for outlaws in folklore for many years. There is evidence for the existence of Jesus ( the man )... for example, the bare fact of the trial and death of Jesus of Nazareth , but few of its details, is demonstrable from Christian, Jewish and Roman evidence. The letters of Paul, written within 20 years of Christ's execution also attest to his ministry..he would have been unlikely to have got away with a total fabrication within peoples living memory ? >> In the words of an ex-nun who is very dear to me, "This should keep you busy for a while, see you in a few years." www.holysmoke.org" target="_blank">-> www.holysmoke.org www.truthbeknown.com" target="_blank">-> www.truthbeknown.com (scroll down) mama.indstate.edu" target="_blank">-> mama.indstate.edu www.jesuspuzzle.com" target="_blank">-> www.jesuspuzzle.com www.robotwisdom.com" target="_blank">-> www.robotwisdom.com - from a much more historical perspective, rather than from an evangelistic one - contains maps and links web2.airmail.net" target="_blank">-> web2.airmail.net www.wsu.edu:8000" target="_blank">-> www.wsu.edu:8000 ourworld.compuserve.com" target="_blank">-> ourworld.compuserve.com |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 13:48 |
Jeff |
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kem |
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codyj 26-Sep-06, 14:14 |
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Proof! gameknot.com" target="_blank">-> gameknot.com Anyhow, sorry to interrupt! But you must know I am not going to read all those links and references.... Carry on! Oh, and codyj, good for you, man! Study the christian writings! Don't read Kem's links until later, they will only confuse you. Unless you like the confusion and uncertainty, then by all means open your eyes. |
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leo_london 26-Sep-06, 16:25 |
Kem.. You must admit, most just repeat themselves, so there is little to be gained wading through them all. They all set out to discredit the three basic independent sources of " proof " that we have for the existence of Jesus. You know perfectly well that I could post a list of links written by learned scholars giving the opposite view..then you could come back with another set of links..and so on. I think there is enough ( but no more ) evidence to indicate that a man named Jesus Christ ( or Christus, whatever ) was executed by the Romans. How much of the rest is myth, I just dont know. However, in fairness, it is worth asking how much solid, contemporary proof exists for other events and persons from 2000 years ago ?..note I said " contemporary ", in other words eye witness accounts or very near. |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 17:04 |
pawnt That sums up my position on spirituality quite succinctly. There are advantages to closing your eyes and just feeling your way through these things. It feels great. The disadvantage, however, is that you can easily lead yourself off of a cliff. Once I saw it, I couldn't take peace in the darkness anymore. |
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leo_london 26-Sep-06, 17:07 |
Combine secondhand reports of Jesus (both non-Christian and Christian) with the eyewitness accounts ( admittedly, not from original source ) recorded in the Gospels, and you will find that Jesus compares extremely favorably with other people in history whose historicity is not doubted...much of " accepted " ancient history is based on fewer sources which were recorded much later than the events occured. |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 17:26 |
codyj (and anyone else who might be interested...) That doesn't mean I'm going to pull my punches, though. I'm not malicious, but I am extremely tenacious. I will expect answers to questions that I ask, and you should know that many of those questions will not be easy. I will call you out on it if you dodge them. If this is the first time you've engaged in a serious debate on the existence of God and the validity of a particular approach to God, you should also be aware that this has proven to be a painful process for people who have done this with me in the past. I'm gentle (unless taunted), but I don't let things slide. If you don't think this sounds like something you will enjoy, you may want to lurk instead. Fair warning. In return, I promise to entertain the possibility that I might be wrong, and invite you to demonstrate the flaws in my logic. Let the games begin! (Around post 100... now that's a *real* thread, the way we do them back home.) |
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leo_london 26-Sep-06, 17:38 |
It is a debate after all, if we were in a bar or having a discussion over dinner, I would not expect you to just push a few written pieces in front of me and say...read those ! Having said that, I enjoy the odd link that backs up the opinion you have already given. |
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God exists! |
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codyj 26-Sep-06, 18:26 |
To: Kem CODYJ |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 22:01 |
Leo You stated earlier that you could not accept the comparison between Robin Hood and Jesus, because one of the two was simply a legend based upon a figure who may not have even existed. I maintain (and I hope, have demonstrated to your satisfaction) that Jesus Christ was the stuff of legends based upon a figure who may not have even existed. We have only the vaguest of records of the man from the actual time in which he lived (see also, en.wikipedia.org" target="_blank">-> en.wikipedia.org ). The Gospels were compiled at least 60-90 years after his death, and the authorship of parts of the New Testement is certainly under question if not conclusively proven to be false (Paul did not write all of the letters attributed to him, more on that further down). We have many, many reasons to doubt the authenticity of the synoptic records as "historical" documents. en.wikipedia.org" target="_blank">-> en.wikipedia.org . If you'd prefer that we discuss those in detail instead of having me link the wikipedia article on them, I'm game for that, too. Dear Tacitus may mention that a man called Christus was put to death by Pontious Pilate for getting the masses all riled up, but this does not in any way demonstrate that all of the stories surrounding him (Yeshua, not Tacitus) are true. There are no records of the dead rising from the grave or walking among men outside of the Gospels. (I'm thinking Roman soldiers would have written home about that sort of thing.) There are no records of the sun going dark from noon until three, or of stars not following their accustomed patterns at the time of his birth. (The Romans certainly would have mentioned these occurances.) Heck, his birthday wasn't even "established" until four centuries after his death. There is not a single book in the Bible that has not been extensively rewritten and edited by multiple hands. Paul himself may have been only a pen name for Marcion. "Paul" quotes from the Greek OT, even though he was claiming an education from the Pharisees (Hebrew, not Greek). The epistles, written only (only! I have a hard time remembering what I had for lunch last week, much less what I was doing and saying twenty years ago) one generation after the death of Christ, do not support the Christ story. In some cases, they flatly contradict the teachings in the Gospel. Additionally, some of the quotes that Paul cites in them come from versions of the OT that were not published until after his death. Neat trick, that. To regard the books of the Bible as anything other than a set of stories meant to give identity to a minority culture, which provides some insights into possible historical conditions in the history of Judea-- but more insight into the cultural history of the region-- is to take a very liberal approach to what one considers an acceptable source for research. If anybody wants to challenge this, I'll be happy to provide more than a few reasons why this is very much the consensus of the experts who have devoted their lives to studying the notion of Biblical historocity and accuracy. <mode=shameless plug>As an aside, I should mention that the credits for much of my Biblical knowledge go to a most remarkable woman who spent her entire life from the cradle up into her fifth decade as a missionary. In her fifties, she had the strength to not only question her faith, but to go searching for answers at the source. When she started applying her extremely analytical mind to the actual books she was selling, she found that she could only continue in her faith by lying to herself about what she had found... which is why I say that these discussions do not come without some pain for open-minded Christians, particularly if they are literalists, as she was. Her story is hardly unique, although she, as an individual, surely is. Since she's a fantastic author who has taken the time to write up many of her experiences so that others might learn (and, hopefully, heal) from them, and I'm borrowing shamelessly from her hard work and research, I might as well give her a plug by linking to her book here (the preview-- definitely worth reading-- comes first. If you want to buy it, just follow the second link.) www.lulu.com" target="_blank">-> www.lulu.com www.lulu.com" target="_blank">-> www.lulu.com </plug> In light of all of the above, do you still wish to defend your assertion that our "knowledge" of Christ is any more accurate than our knowledge of the Green Man, Lord of the Forest, symbol of the rebelliousness and the power of youth, Robyne Hude? |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 22:20 |
Leo You could, but it probably won't help. Seriously. I don't expect everyone to follow every link that I post. Truly, I don't even expect everyone to read every word that I type, much less follow the links. I try for brevity, but some topics demand that I flesh them out in order for me to be satisfied with what I've written before I stamp my approval on it... and then there's also the fact that I just enjoy writing for the sake of letting language flow the way it's meant to. If others enjoy following my rambling, that's great. Win-win. Otherwise? Just skim. I'll let you know if you missed something important in your response, trust me. The links are mainly there for the lurkers, some of whom may reject what I am saying if they do not see it heavily supported. I'd rather provide the fuel for further study to those people than leave them with the impression that all of this is unsupported opinoin. I'd also rather provide an example of what I mean when I demand evidence in support of an extraordinary claim. If you don't want lots of links, the answer to that is simple... don't ever challenge anything that I say. <grin> As far as the dinner table conversations go... that's hard on the internet. I try to fill in the places where the laughter and the anecdotes should be by mixing up my tone and my delivery, but it's a fundamentally different form of communication. Does it help to let you know that I don't take any of this too seriously, and spar only because I enjoy doing something that I do well? I won't say that I'm unattached to the underlying issues that I debate, because that would be an outright lie. I will say that regardless of the passion that I throw into these fireside chats over a keyboard and an ocean, I harbor no resentment for the other perspective, assuming that there is no mockery or arrogant dismissal coming from that other perspective. Even then, I don't harbor resentment-- I simply respond in kind by ripping that person a new orifice with which they might choose to poop. That's fun, too, assuming you're not the person who has irked me. It's all about exploring, and I just happen to be a very meticulous cartographer. If you're into detailed maps, cool. If not, hopefully I keep it light enough that skimming is fun, too. |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 22:35 |
pawnt << I am taking up the solipsist argument, and I invite you to attack my stance, and try to disprove the reality that you are only a figment of my imagination. >> Two words: postmodernist nitwittery. I'd like you to imagine that the two of us are in a room together, and between us is a single chair, made out of a nice solid wood-- lightweight, but well built. Since you maintain that we are all the stuff of dreams and exist only in our minds, I'm certain you would have no trouble at all with me picking up that chair and smacking you over the head with it. Since this is only a thought experiment, the pain you would experience would only be a figment of your imagination. If we repeated that experiment in real life, I suspect the doctor working on your stitches might consider your hypothesis a bit out of step with reality. I've read Kant. His idea of a priori constructs is all well and good, and useful as an exercise for the brain-- but sometimes the motorcycle cruising down the highway really is just a motorcycle cruising down the highway. The guy on top of it isn't just a projection of a mind, he's flesh and bone. If he were all in his head, or if the bike were all in his head, neither of them would be moving at all. |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 23:11 |
Leo I'm perplexed by this, Leo. You're a sharp guy. Surely you must realize that historians don't come up with their thesis work on antiquity out of thin air, no? They rely on a variety of different criteria to demonstrate the authenticity of any given source material to place it in context with other documents from that timeframe which have proven to be consistent with archeological records and known events that took place in that timeframe. They look for mention of the clothing and the customs. They look for references to currency and prices for goods, and compare all of these things with other documents from that era. They look at the language, and compare that with the language used by other people in that region in that time. They look for references to political cabals and intrigues, and compare and contrast what they find there with what they find elsewhere. Even if a source has been determined to be authentic, this doesn't mean that the information contained in that source is accurate. It simply means that it's an accurate reflection of what one person who was living in that time period thought. Get enough primary sources, and you have a good idea about what the general timeline and activities of a prominent figure in history would have been like. Someone like, say, Sappho (~630 B.C.) or Anaximander (540 B.C.) gained notoriety through their works, and people like that tend to have an impact on the people around them. You get lots of primary sources about them, and occasionally they write a book or two that is deemed important enough to pass down through the generations. When internal inconsistencies in a source material are found, it's a giant red flag. It means, at the very least, that you cannot trust the person (and/or people) responsible for what you are reading. I'm sure you'll agree that this is an important point, given the fact that we are talking about concepts like salvation and damnation here. Many, many people assume that these sources are infallible and authoritative (<tongue in cheek>I wonder why?), when they are actually highly suspect. There is no reason why we should not examine the books of the Bible using the the same standards we use to determine the authenticity of other historical documents, and frankly, the books of the Bible have some serious issues with them. If you'd like more details on those issues, just ask away. |
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kementari 26-Sep-06, 23:24 |
codyj Everyone has to start somewhere. I wasn't an expert when I started researching this two years ago either. I've simply managed to retain a great deal of what I've learned second hand from some exraordinarily patient experts... which doesn't make me an expert in my own right, it only makes me a good teacher. I encourage you to become an expert and prove me wrong, as any good teacher would. Still, if you're going through a very stressful time in your life, I might recommend shelving this debate for another time. If you're halfway as serious about your religion as I was about mine when I started talking with skeptics who challenged me, I can darned well guarantee that this isn't going to be easy for you. Fun, quite possibly-- especially if you enjoy learning and challenging yourself... but it's the sort of fun that might make Sunday mornings a bit awkward for you. |
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Nitwittery! Nevertheless, I can appreciate the argument you present. Pain hurts, no matter if it really happens or if I just dream it up. I was stabbed in a dream once. I died. It hurt. But yes, knitwittery is a good description of the argument I was presenting. I'm intrigued by your ideas of christianity. Certainly you have thought a great deal about it. And I see that you have chosen atheism as the message you wish to send to other people. It's funny, I just became atheist about a month or two ago. But I still believe in God so it's ok. I like to have a huge flaw right in the middle of my system of reasoning, just to make fun of myself a bit. |
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OK Anyhow, I love to hear a person like Kem telling the truth about the Bible. Far too many people seem to be afraid to consider reality from a present perspective, so that we see large numbers of individuals forced to accept the hegemony of a view so ingrained in our psyche that rational thought becomes difficult, to say the least. Which isn't to say I am trying to invalidate the experience of the Biblical authors. I truly believe in individual experience, and if someone experienced a truth, wrote it down to share, and it ended up in the bible, I'm not going to disregard it just because it has the name bible...I'm certainly going to read it and try to understand the level of experience which led to its creation. Just as I would with any account of any experience. So I do recognize this state of so called enlightenment which is spoken of by many different people under many different names and belief systems. And I do not disregard any account of it, nor do I accept uncritically any single explanation of it. In a way, much of the religious system has become pornographic. I hope not to offend here, because I speak of the pornography of selling something sacred for money, be it sex or love or God. You may defend your own faith rightly, but do not deny you haven't seen the men on television preaching their madness and asking for money. Well, I'm just ranting off topic by now, but it all seems to make sense to me. |
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good spliff..... |
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kementari 27-Sep-06, 06:06 |
for the record... |
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kementari 27-Sep-06, 06:09 |
pawnt I have to give credit where credit is due. I stole that description fair and square from a friend of mine back in the Circus named Cosmo. The chair argument, on the other hand, is all mine. |
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kementari 27-Sep-06, 06:47 |
<mode = off-topic>The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and if Robert Jordan lives to finish that series, I may reconsider my position on End Times mythology. I got bored after book five, and vowed not to finish it even if he does complete it after book eight. To be fair, book one kicked some serious heinie.</mode> |
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jaymar 27-Sep-06, 07:38 |
I found.. My understanding is that the people who refute the existence of JC as a historical figure are in the minority. Although that in itself means nothing. However I have no great interest either way as the most important thing for me is that if he did exist then it was as a man and nothing more. If he didn't, well the Christian religion has done pretty well in that case. I'm not sure why atheists should be so concerned about disproving his existence for the above reason. I'm one and its no great shakes to me. www.bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm |
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