Do you think that God actually exists?

[stephen sawall]

This reminds me of what came first Eddies tone fingers or the egg. I am agnostic- that does not mean I think god is dead as a father once tried to tell me. It means I do not know. I belive most people are this if they are honest with them selfs. "hail satan" By the way I pray all the time for others not myself and do belive it can't hurt.

 

[timbo]

I'm just glad that when the stars did collide that they gave me an incredibly HUGE penis, yet a tiny brain.

 

[hairychris444]

So are you saying we cant understand all that God does or has done or done?

Yes.

Or are you claiming we cant know the truth that He is real...

Yes.

and how he wants us to live?

No. We can know this and we don't need him to know it. It is self-evident. Heh. Well, it *should* be.

Assuming he, she, it, they, or whatever actually do exist

Illogical, unfortunately!

'Self evident' means nothing in this sense. Different things to different people. And, making an assumption on the unknowable is also a little off.

FWIW how do you know 'some' of something that is admittedly 'unknowable'? How do you know that you know the right bits??!

 

[vultures]

I believe in God and everything the bible says. Everything that's ever happened in my life is because of God, everything I've been given or taken from me is because of him and majority of it was for greater good, and I'm more than thankful for it. I'm not ashamed to say that I love God and believe in him deeply. What I don't understand is if you're too narrow minded to see any signs or to open a simple book and read, then why do you need to talk down to people who do believe?

 

[hairychris444]

Well I've just enough time well them tubes warm up to post this...

In the end there can only be one truth, but in the mean time, people will believe what they wanna believe and that's OK.

I appreciate your post on this "Yeah but then you'd have to ignore the writings of Tacitus, Thallus, Suetonius, Lucian, Celsus, Pliny the Younger, Jewish writings like the Talmud Sanhedrin etc."

Dang if I can't find one O my fav references, "The History of the Jews." One of the pleasures of gettin' old, you can't find anything when ya need it...

Rock on,
Rob

Obviously the references in all the works you've mentioned here (I've read translations Tacitus, Suetonius, Lucian, Pliny and Josephus from that list) are in relation to the followers, not historical references to JC himself. You'll find that by around 60AD 'Christians' were making a nuisance of themselves in Roman terms - monotheistic 'cultists', refuse to acknowledge Roman laws and festivals, etc... These are terms that Rome would see as political - challenge to their authority - not just religious.

I'm sure that you agree that it's quite helpful to see the context behind the Bible. There are a few glaring anomolies, an obvious one being the use of crucifixion as a punishment. I *think* that the Jewish court could condemn for blasphemy, and this would mean stoning. Crucifixion, on the other hand, is specifically a Roman punishment for treason or rebellion, eg crimes against Rome.

What I find amusing about the NT is that we see the Jewish judges pressing the Romans to punish JC. This smells of diversion - the Romans, if they were to crucify someone, would be doing so out of their own self interest and making a very specific statement by doing so. Crucifixion is an ugly way to go - it takes several days usually, and the coupde grace of leg breaking is to put the crucifixee out of their misery through suffocation rather then exposure. I suppose I could go on, including wondering why JC lasted so little time up there, but I'll leave it!!

Now... Who was the target of John and his evangelising ilk? Yup, Romans. Jesus was not preaching to gentiles, he was preaching (assuming he existed, etc...) to the tribes alone. How does John rig things... How does he sell a traitor to Rome, who preached to Jews exclusively, to Romans? Oh yeah, that's it - blame the Jews for his death and whitewash the Roman angle. It seems to have worked!

 

[amiller]

'And yet, here we are, thousands of years after the birth of Christ, still talking about him...believers and non-believers alike...funny how his name manages to stay with us after all this time.

"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

And you have the same amount of people still talking about Hamlet, Atilla the hun,Leif ericson, any Greek mythology, Icabod crane, Ebanezer Scrooge or any other figure that was written in any form of literature.

and yes, I fully know what your intention was but methinks you missed the mark a bit

Luke Skywalker.


Also, sure the Jews wrote about Jesus, as they did mnay figures in history. They emphatically deny he was any savior. If I were pro-Christian, I'd hardly bring the Jews into the debate. They were right there, and have no self-preservation or confict of interest issues.

Sorry, I don't get your reference to the Jews. I never mentioned them here and I did not bring them into the debate.

 

[ejecta]

So are you saying we cant understand all that God does or has done or done?

Yes.

Or are you claiming we cant know the truth that He is real...

Yes.

and how he wants us to live?

No. We can know this and we don't need him to know it. It is self-evident. Heh. Well, it *should* be.

Assuming he, she, it, they, or whatever actually do exist

Im only left to assume you think there is no such thing a absolute truth and since truth cant be known it must be relative. I cant even begin to tell you how much of a logical fallacy that is.

 

[ejecta]

Obviously the references in all the works you've mentioned here (I've read translations Tacitus, Suetonius, Lucian, Pliny and Josephus from that list) are in relation to the followers, not historical references to JC himself. You'll find that by around 60AD 'Christians' were making a nuisance of themselves in Roman terms - monotheistic 'cultists', refuse to acknowledge Roman laws and festivals, etc... These are terms that Rome would see as political - challenge to their authority - not just religious.

I'm sure that you agree that it's quite helpful to see the context behind the Bible. There are a few glaring anomolies, an obvious one being the use of crucifixion as a punishment. I *think* that the Jewish court could condemn for blasphemy, and this would mean stoning. Crucifixion, on the other hand, is specifically a Roman punishment for treason or rebellion, eg crimes against Rome.

What I find amusing about the NT is that we see the Jewish judges pressing the Romans to punish JC. This smells of diversion - the Romans, if they were to crucify someone, would be doing so out of their own self interest and making a very specific statement by doing so. Crucifixion is an ugly way to go - it takes several days usually, and the coupde grace of leg breaking is to put the crucifixee out of their misery through suffocation rather then exposure. I suppose I could go on, including wondering why JC lasted so little time up there, but I'll leave it!!

Now... Who was the target of John and his evangelising ilk? Yup, Romans. Jesus was not preaching to gentiles, he was preaching (assuming he existed, etc...) to the tribes alone. How does John rig things... How does he sell a traitor to Rome, who preached to Jews exclusively, to Romans? Oh yeah, that's it - blame the Jews for his death and whitewash the Roman angle. It seems to have worked!

Thanks for input. Could you please point me to the same amount of writings or at least a quarter that date from the same time period of the gospels that speak of a cult following a fictional man called Jesus? Surely there are writings that speak of some Jews and gentiles following a peson who never existed. If this was such a great problem for the Romans and Jews that these "cultists" were following someone who never existed and causing such havoc by not following Roman law or blaspheming the Jewish God then someone would have written about Jesus be fictional. I can find evidence that Jews and gentiles alike didnt believe that Jesus was who he claimed he was but I cant find where there is evidence they were following a fictional character. I mean with all the evidence of Christians be lion food for Roman sport surely there has to be wrtings of how stupid these people were for following someone who never existed.

 

[hairychris444]

Oh rats... wrote an essay but bloody lost it. OK... I'll try to recap.

I don't care whether Jesus existed or not. For most parts of the argument it doesn't actually matter one way or another. The important thing is that people believe that he did. It is the belief itself, not the literal truth thereof, that is important.

If the Romans started having to deal with a sect/cult/etc of people who claim that they were acting on the wishes of, or in memory of, an obscure or legendary prophet from the recent past, then that is how they would have been treated. Whether this prophet actually existed or not doesn't matter. Believers say they believe and act as such; authorities will react accordingly.

You have to remember that the major mover in early Christianity, John the Evangelist, never actually met JC. His 'conversion' was a number of years later through visions. I can think of good reasons why starting a cult, essentially, in the name of a dead or rumoured prophet is a better idea then doing so in your own name. For a start, if you get whacked the cult will not die with you... Would people be willing to die for a story? Well, if they had no way of finding the truth and the message fitted, then yes. It was a lot more brutal world, then, and the Jews at least had a number of extreme sects. 60AD and thereabouts was a rough time for the Roman empire, so what's one more millenial cult?

We look at Biblical history in a slightly different way because how we view the world has changed. Science and reason has overtaken superstition when it comes to running most of our lives. Taken this way, if Jesus never existed, or was a normal bloke who's name got hijacked somewhere along the line is a major problem. Reason will tell us, then, that if the main character of the NT was fictional what else can we rely on in those books? We can ask those questions because of the centuries long fight between reason and religion.

Truth is a real problem. And horribly subjective. The Inquisition, Holocaust, Cultural Revolution, and all sorts of other atrocities have been perpetuated in the name of some sort of 'truth'. Are these truths objectively correct? As far as the people who subjectively believe in them it makes no difference at all.



EDIT: My position? I don't know whether he existed or not. If he did, his mum was certainly not a virgin and he didn't do any miraculous stuff. I'm a firm believer in the regularity of nature, and although there's loads of unexplained stuff around trying to explain the unknown by invoking the unknowable is absolute nonsense! If JC did exist, he was Homo Sapiens Sapiens like the rest of us...

 

[ejecta]

Oh rats... wrote an essay but bloody lost it. OK... I'll try to recap.

I don't care whether Jesus existed or not. For most parts of the argument it doesn't actually matter one way or another. The important thing is that people believe that he did. It is the belief itself, not the literal truth thereof, that is important.

Umm....... the truth of whether he existed or not is of the utmost importance because it gives some ground work to belief. Just to pass that off as not important makes no logical sense at all when you are dealing with people who claim eye witness accounts in the gospels.

 

[ejecta]

You have to remember that the major mover in early Christianity, John the Evangelist, never actually met JC. His 'conversion' was a number of years later through visions. I can think of good reasons why starting a cult, essentially, in the name of a dead or rumoured prophet is a better idea then doing so in your own name.

Sorry I dont agree and not sure where you get this... first there are two John's in the New Testament, first John the Baptist who was an eye witness, was alive before Jesus's birth, and wrote writtings that appear in the NT that calim such. Also there was a John an apostle who also wrote several books in the NT that calmed to have seen and followed Jesus, both were and calim to be eye witnesses. Neither was by any means THE "main mover" of Christianty. There were several main movers besides them like Peter who was the first person to set up a church in the name of Christ along the other apostles who went out amongstthe Jews to tell people about Jesus. Next was Paul who went on to be a major leader to the gentiles. Paul was the one who who persecuted early Chriatians and claimed to see Jesus in a vision so if you dont believe in visions I can understand your distrust of Paul's account but not either John.

 

[ejecta]

Truth is a real problem. And horribly subjective. The Inquisition, Holocaust, Cultural Revolution, and all sorts of other atrocities have been perpetuated in the name of some sort of 'truth'. Are these truths objectively correct? As far as the people who subjectively believe in them it makes no difference at all.

One you cant make an claim that "truth is subjective" because your a claiming a absolute truth with that assertion. Thats a logical falacy.

For example morality of the Holucost being wrong that you call into question above is based on the truth that torture and mass genocide is wrong and the question of the truth of morality being relative is directly linked to its source. If truth is relative then morality can be relative. “Relative Truth” means that truth is subject to the holder of truth.

A great test for relative or subjective truth is the “Gravity Test”. To administer this test one climbs to a high tower such as the Eiffel Tower. If the holder of subjective truth, believes he/she can fly, and since truth is subject to our beliefs then the person should be able to fly. Once the person jumps away from the tower the test begins. They will fly or fall. If they fly without aid then subjective truth is true if they fall and connect with the ground then objective truth is true. Those on the ground will witnesses “Correspondece”. If the person flies then subjective truth will correspond to reality (The flight being real). If the person falls objective truth will correspond to reality. (Gravity being real)

 

[Xabiche]

So are you saying we cant understand all that God does or has done or done?

Yes.

Or are you claiming we cant know the truth that He is real...

Yes.

and how he wants us to live?

No. We can know this and we don't need him to know it. It is self-evident. Heh. Well, it *should* be.

Assuming he, she, it, they, or whatever actually do exist

Im only left to assume you think there is no such thing a absolute truth and since truth cant be known it must be relative. I cant even begin to tell you how much of a logical fallacy that is.

So YOU say.

Heh.

I believe in absolute truths, but I believe that as a man I can only know truths relative men. Not God(s). I also believe that what I believe to be an absolute truth may, in fact, not be. All you can do is take in information then form a conclusion and then live by it. I'm just saying that you must always be ready to face the fact that you may be wrong. That's not an easy thing to do.

I just typed this sentence. That is an absolute truth. Kind of hard to imagine anybody or anything could convince me that it isn't, but, hey... you never know Maybe I just *think* that I did. Heh.

I believe that nobody has the right to kill me or force me to kill other people. That is an absolute truth. I believe it so strongly that I'd kill in defense of it. But, I also know that I *could* be wrong. I seriously doubt it so I'll act on it accordingly.

Where does that truth (and others) come from? For some people it comes from a God or, more specifically through men who claim to speak the word of that God. For others, they come from observation of interactions with other people, or maybe just by instinct or whatever you want to call it. Just because I can't explain it doesn't automatically imply there's a God behind it. And just because a lot of people do believe it doesn't mean it is true, either. I'd *like* to believe it but I can't honestly say that it is true, and don't believe that any man can do so.

So, I'll leave you with that. I'm not really interested in going in circles any longer. Hell, I may be wrong and you may be right

 

[ejecta]

So YOU say.

Heh.

I believe in absolute truths, but I believe that as a man I can only know truths relative men. Not God(s). I also believe that what I believe to be an absolute truth may, in fact, not be. All you can do is take in information then form a conclusion and then live by it. I'm just saying that you must always be ready to face the fact that you may be wrong. That's not an easy thing to do.

I just typed this sentence. That is an absolute truth. Kind of hard to imagine anybody or anything could convince me that it isn't, but, hey... you never know Maybe I just *think* that I did. Heh.

I believe that nobody has the right to kill me or force me to kill other people. That is an absolute truth. I believe it so strongly that I'd kill in defense of it. But, I also know that I *could* be wrong. I seriously doubt it so I'll act on it accordingly.

Where does that truth (and others) come from? For some people it comes from a God or, more specifically through men who claim to speak the word of that God. For others, they come from observation of interactions with other people, or maybe just by instinct or whatever you want to call it. Just because I can't explain it doesn't automatically imply there's a God behind it. And just because a lot of people do believe it doesn't mean it is true, either. I'd *like* to believe it but I can't honestly say that it is true, and don't believe that any man can do so.

So, I'll leave you with that. I'm not really interested in going in circles any longer. Hell, I may be wrong and you may be right

Again thanks for taking the time to repond and addressing what I wrote. I see where you are coming from and agree an several levels but cant go with we cant know if something is true or not or the truth of where morality came from. Check out my post above this one.

 

[Gainfreak]

So YOU say.

Heh.

I believe in absolute truths, but I believe that as a man I can only know truths relative men. Not God(s). I also believe that what I believe to be an absolute truth may, in fact, not be. All you can do is take in information then form a conclusion and then live by it. I'm just saying that you must always be ready to face the fact that you may be wrong. That's not an easy thing to do.


Where does that truth (and others) come from? For some people it comes from a God or, more specifically through men who claim to speak the word of that God. For others, they come from observation of interactions with other people, or maybe just by instinct or whatever you want to call it. Just because I can't explain it doesn't automatically imply there's a God behind it. And just because a lot of people do believe it doesn't mean it is true, either. I'd *like* to believe it but I can't honestly say that it is true, and don't believe that any man can do so.

So, I'll leave you with that. I'm not really interested in going in circles any longer. Hell, I may be wrong and you may be right

Much better then I could have ever written and this was pretty much my point all along.
~R~

 

[hairychris444]

You have to remember that the major mover in early Christianity, John the Evangelist, never actually met JC. His 'conversion' was a number of years later through visions. I can think of good reasons why starting a cult, essentially, in the name of a dead or rumoured prophet is a better idea then doing so in your own name.

Sorry I dont agree and not sure where you get this... first there are two John's in the New Testament, first John the Baptist who was an eye witness, was alive before Jesus's birth, and wrote writtings that appear in the NT. There was a John an apostle who also wrote several books in the NT, both were eye witnesses. Second neither was by any means the "main mover" of Christianty. There were several main movers being Peter and the other apostles to teh Jews and Paul who went on to be a major leader to the gentiles. Paul was the one who who persecuated early Chriatians and claimed to see him in a vision and never if you dont belive in visions saw him while he was here on earth.

It was Paul, sorry, I stand rather embarrased and corrected. I'm rubbish with names...



However I was pretty sure PAUL never met JC.

And, whether you admit it or not, the major 'mover' has to be this bloke. Quite simply he was a Roman citizen who preached to gentiles and this is where modern Christianity came from.

I'll certainly stand by any earlier comments I made regarding massaging the story. The passage in 1 Corinthians ("And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.") is basically an admission of becoming all things to all men to make converts...

 

[hairychris444]

Oh rats... wrote an essay but bloody lost it. OK... I'll try to recap.

I don't care whether Jesus existed or not. For most parts of the argument it doesn't actually matter one way or another. The important thing is that people believe that he did. It is the belief itself, not the literal truth thereof, that is important.

Umm....... the truth of whether he existed or not is of the utmost importance because it gives some ground work to belief. Just to pass that off as not important makes no logical sense at all when you are dealing with people who claim eye witness accounts in the gospels.

They could have been lying. Or exaggerating. Or simply mistaken. We all do it - the old fisherman's story of the one that got away is a prime example, as is the extreme difficulty we have in judging numbers in crowds unless we're well practised!

My doubts in the whole matter, however, are in no way affected as to whether he existed or not. What he physically did IF he existed, yes, and what he is SUPPOSED to ave done in either case, then yes to that too. Unfortunately I have a feeling that you'll never empirically, 100%, prove it one way or the other because of the lack of unbiased records.

Do you believe in the Greek pantheon of gods? If not, why not? There were heros, and the Trojan War was a real event (as far as anyone can tell), and loads of Greeks were convinced of the truth of matters!

I'll tell you... because of the passage of time and the supplanting of that specific system with another. I don't see any fundamental difference in someone worshipping Zeus and honouring Odysseus to that of someone worshipping God and honouring Jesus. Where have all the miracles gone? I mean the *really* impressive ones. I see something spectacular then I'm sold, you know what I mean?

 

[hairychris444]

Truth is a real problem. And horribly subjective. The Inquisition, Holocaust, Cultural Revolution, and all sorts of other atrocities have been perpetuated in the name of some sort of 'truth'. Are these truths objectively correct? As far as the people who subjectively believe in them it makes no difference at all.

One you cant make an claim that "truth is subjective" because your a claiming a absolute truth with that assertion. Thats a logical falacy.

For example morality of the Holucost being wrong that you call into question above is based on the truth that torture and mass genocide is wrong and the question of the truth of morality being relative is directly linked to its source. If truth is relative then morality can be relative. “Relative Truth” means that truth is subject to the holder of truth.

A great test for relative or subjective truth is the “Gravity Test”. To administer this test one climbs to a high tower such as the Eiffel Tower. If the holder of subjective truth, believes he/she can fly, and since truth is subject to our beliefs then the person should be able to fly. Once the person jumps away from the tower the test begins. They will fly or fall. If they fly without aid then subjective truth is true if they fall and connect with the ground then objective truth is true. Those on the ground will witnesses “Correspondece”. If the person flies then subjective truth will correspond to reality (The flight being real). If the person falls objective truth will correspond to reality. (Gravity being real)

I don't think you got me.

Say I'm a Nazi, and I believe that Jews are evil and their destruction, however unpleasant, is for the greater good of humanity as a whole. That is the truth as far as I see it, and is what I meant by subjective. The fact that Jews are no more or no less then human beings like the rest of us (a more objective view) does nothing to change my truth from my Nazi perspective. Complex moral decisions are open to interpretation, hence 'subjective' truth becomes important.

Claiming 2 + 2 = 5 as a 5 is truth (or being able to float like you mentioned above) will involve one of two things: either your truth is proved painfully wrong by means of a simple empirical test, or that you have redifined the parameters of your language and understanding to include the new definiton of truth (bad maths or plummeting uncontrollably) in your view of a more objective physical reality.

Facts, on the whole, aren't dangerous. Beliefs, and believing how to use or interpret the facts, are. That was my point!

EDIT: Another statement of intent... I don't believe in absolutes, unless they are within easily defined and agreed boundaries: eg black is not white, that's a truth because we all understand what 'black', 'white', 'not' and 'is' means. There are too many '...'s in morality to paint it quite like this. That's not saying I'm immoral (I'm a big fan of the Golden Rule), but just that the application of absolutes are a dangerous oversimplification in many cases.

 

[Gainfreak]

Oh rats... wrote an essay but bloody lost it. OK... I'll try to recap.

I don't care whether Jesus existed or not. For most parts of the argument it doesn't actually matter one way or another. The important thing is that people believe that he did. It is the belief itself, not the literal truth thereof, that is important.

Umm....... the truth of whether he existed or not is of the utmost importance because it gives some ground work to belief. Just to pass that off as not important makes no logical sense at all when you are dealing with people who claim eye witness accounts in the gospels.

They could have been lying. Or exaggerating. Or simply mistaken. We all do it - the old fisherman's story of the one that got away is a prime example, as is the extreme difficulty we have in judging numbers in crowds unless we're well practised!

My doubts in the whole matter, however, are in no way affected as to whether he existed or not. What he physically did IF he existed, yes, and what he is SUPPOSED to ave done in either case, then yes to that too. Unfortunately I have a feeling that you'll never empirically, 100%, prove it one way or the other because of the lack of unbiased records.

Do you believe in the Greek pantheon of gods? If not, why not? There were heros, and the Trojan War was a real event (as far as anyone can tell), and loads of Greeks were convinced of the truth of matters!

I'll tell you... because of the passage of time and the supplanting of that specific system with another. I don't see any fundamental difference in someone worshipping Zeus and honouring Odysseus to that of someone worshipping God and honouring Jesus. Where have all the miracles gone? I mean the *really* impressive ones. I see something spectacular then I'm sold, you know what I mean?

Id like to make something very clear. I have many friends who are highly religious and I respect them and there views to death. I don't want them to read some of my statement and get the wrong Idea as I am only tryiing to get people to think. I also come from a highly religious family BTW. With that said, as a thinking man in this day and age, I cannot for the life of me see how believing in Zeus or any polytheistic Gods is any different then believing in one God. There is absolutely no proof on both accounts that any Gods exist. What you believe or not is another thing entirely but everything that has been written is just that... Written words that have been altered throughout time and unless anyone has witnessed a modern day miracle and can show without a reason of doubt empirical proof, this thread will go on for days.

 

[hairychris444]

Id like to make something very clear. I have many friends who are highly religious and I respect them and there views to death. I don't want them to read some of my statement and get the wrong Idea as I am only tryiing to get people to think. I also come from a highly religious family BTW. With that said, as a thinking man in this day and age, I cannot for the life of me see how believing in Zeus or any polytheistic Gods is any different then believing in one God. There is absolutely no proof on both accounts that any Gods exist. What you believe or not is another thing entirely but everything that has been written is just that... Written words that have been altered throughout time and unless anyone has witnessed a modern day miracle and can show without a reason of doubt empirical proof, this thread will go on for days.

I come across as a bit abrasive sometimes (and, well, millitant. Oops! I need to apologise in advance for my posts but FWIW I don't troll. Well, not deliberately anyway!) but I certainly agree with your sentiments here....!