Religous debates and questions [2]

Thats semantics. The belief in Christ as Messiah does not rely on people being fooled by an unknown medical quirk. It rests solely on the certain belief that he was resurrected from death, proving his claim and indicating to his believers that they too will be reborn. Its fundamental to a belief in Christianity- without it there is no Christian religion.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Thats semantics.

Yep. And without clear definitions, the scientific method is powerless to test. 

A lot to respond to and only a minute to do so. I will try to explain more later. Thank you all for your comments.

First, thank you petty for checking out the website. Not sure what you saw that made you think you need to pay someone. The podcasts are free. There are sermon series that you can purchase if you would like to own them though.

David, I believe the original translation of the Bible is inerrant. We do not have a copy of that, but we have copies that are very close. As with all things that men do, we invariably screw things up, which accounts for some mistakes. For the most part, archaeological discoveries have mostly verified much of the bible text as being accurate as passed down. For modern translations I like the NIV, but am not very fond of the recent release, as it has changed to gender neutral.

Halfy, I will get back to your questions later.

Thanks again everyone. This is more fun so far than I thought it would be.

If I had a time machine and I could choose only one moment of time to visit, I would choose the Sermon on the Mount, I wouldnt understand a word they said, and Jesus himself would probably be a shock, not being the beaustiful blonde angelic faced Robert Powell of my imagination, but a small dark swarthy Jew, probably malnourished as well. But nonetheless He would be the one person in history I would most like to witness in the flesh.

Hillbilly wrote:
Thanks again everyone.  This is more fun so far than I thought it would be.

That's what we like to hear!  

Not sure what you saw that made you think you need to pay someone. The podcasts are free. There are sermon series that you can purchase if you would like to own them though.- Hillbilly

In that case I shall have a listen to the sermons. I just saw a 'buy' button next to each sermon and my natural sporran protecting instincts kicked in and I fled.  

I do hope he is not a Holy Wullie (but as a Scots preacher I am sure he will be acutely concious of that view of preachers)

just this once for what is supposed to be a one time occurrence.- Halfwise

If memory serves there at least three resurrections in the Bible, including famously Lazarus.

I listened to the lecture on Lessons from the Dungeon relating to the lessons for life to be gleaned from the Joseph section when he is interpreting dreams.

As a preacher he is very much in the reformation school of Scottish religion- the Scottish Enlightment was pretty much started by the Church who thought that education in every village was essential so that everyone could read the Bible and people could come to God directly and make their own interpretations (you can see why the Catholic Church didn't like them!).
Another facet of their thinking was that it was not enough to just say God says so, you had to be able to explain it in a manner which also worked to the rationale and which was practical.

This Begg chap seems very much in that latter school particularly. He is keen to relate the message to the practical.
And this is a fine thing to do with the Bible in my view- its why I think we should not throw the baby out with the bath water where Christianity is concerned- its an excellent moral guide written early on in humanities struggle to move from wandering tribal systems to how to live together in big settlements without killing each other- and much of that morality serves us well still in the modern equivalents of those environments.
Where I did have a problem is that his 'proofs' are a circular argument- his evidence for the truth of the Bible is to give you examples from the Bible of things that remain true in everyday life today.
But that is no more a truth from God than Shakespeare's Brief candle speech is- both still are true and will probably always be true of humans, but it doesn't make it intrinsically divine.

Ahhh!! I just had an epic response written and clicked back one page to see if I missed anything, and the whole damn thing is gone! God, why would you do this to me?!

To hell with it, I'm with you guys.

 I hate it when that happens to a post.

OK, I will try again, here is some of it.

Thank you very much petty for taking the time to listen to one of his sermons. Your point about the arguments being cyclical is exactly why I tread lightly when talking to non-believers. If I see the Bible as accurate and you see it as a bunch of nice stories, then we are not working on the same foundation.

To the question posed by halfwise, did my belief that the bible is the inerrant word of God lead me to say that Christianity appeals to my intellect? It is actually the other way around for me. I believe that it is impossible for many writers spanning thousands of years to write and prophesy as accurate as the biblical writers do for it not to be the inspired word of God. Tolkien created an entire universe, one man with entire control over the whole thing, and he still had mistakes (Glorfindel, the Celeborn conundrum). Books that influenced me include More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, and C.S. Lewis. After I determined that the Bible had to be the inerrant work of God, I had to decide what to do about the claims of Jesus.

I had more, but I'm too pissed to remember. Oh, David H., the accounts in the four gospels that seem to be at odds are resolvable, it would be fun to get in to them sometime.

Good night.

Glad you could restore some of it. Yep, you have to open another window to check back a page.  I learned that the hard way myself.

I'm afraid you may be opening the floodgates by claiming accuracy of prophesy. Petty is well studied in the logical construction of the Bible, and may keep your hands full. That said, I think the books you cited will certainly be thought provoking. The fact that you feel led intellectually to the inerrancy of the bible indicates you are one who examines your beliefs and discussion is possible; if you started with the inerrancy of the bible as a matter of principle the conversation would effectively be over. I'm looking forward to it!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:just this once for what is supposed to be a one time occurrence.- Halfwise

If memory serves there at least three resurrections in the Bible,  including famously Lazarus.

Four, actually. But three of those were resuscitations, not true resurrections.  

I'm not sure I would categorize myself as a non-believer,so much as a not-convinced by the evidence for, and pretty damned convinced by the evidence against.

I wouldn't like to call the Bible merely nice stories, they are hugely important for lots of reasons not least their historical value into giving us insight into our shared history.
Its a fascinating collection of documents and worth preserving for many reasons outside of any religious considerations.
It also still has value as a general guide in many areas and from stimulating debate and thought on notion of equality and individual rights versus responsibility.
There is no doubt the underpinning of Christian teaching have helped in shaping western society, even secular ones for good and ill.
It has lots of value, but as proof of a God or taken as a definitive account of the universe I do not find it in itself very convincing.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the gospels. Somewhere on here, I will see if I can find it to save you hunting if you are interested, I did a series of pieces on my take on Jesus story.
It will give you an insight to how I view it, and if Im lucky make you a bit crabbit at all the points where you will disagree with me!  

Found it!- second last post form the bottom of the page is where it starts-

http://www.hobbitmovieforum.com/t274p150-religous-debates-and-questions


Four, actually.- Halfy

Are you counting Lazarus twice?  

This conversation struck me as interesting. It lead my mind first to creationism, then to Richard Dawkins and then I stumbled over this:



Which struck me as a completely fascinating view of a very enlightened deeply religious man.
(I know it's terribly long, but as I said also entierly fascinating.)

I am about half way through your posts petty. I am just getting into some of the stuff I disagree with, but nothing has made me angry yet (you should know that it is very difficult to get me crabbit). You have done a good job with everything I have read so far, your knowledge of the intertestament period is evident.

Off to work, so it will take some time for me to read the rest and formulate a counter-attack. A response that will be so devastating in truth that armies of new believers will be marching to the mainland, baptizing and healing on the way. O.K, maybe just a response that will generate more discussion.

This calls for a sound track!

I do love your sense of humor, Hillbilly!  Honestly if more people arguing the case for religion had the ability to poke fun at themselves I think there would be more converts.  So many are so deathly serious that they could only attract followers who look down on having any enjoyment in their lives.

But I think there will be less to disagree with in the New Testament than in the Old, which is the main fount of disbelief among those who take a rational approach as we are doing here.  I think the NT is a good starting point for discussion as there will be more common ground before venturing into the land of crabbit that is the OT.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
Four, actually.- Halfy

Are you counting Lazarus twice?  

Actually, more than four!  

“And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”
~ Matthew 27:52-53

So Zombie invasions are nothing new, apparently. (I can't take credit for this joke.)

But the ones most commonly counted are:

• Raising of the son of the widow of Nain, Luke 7:11-17
• Daughter of Jairus, Luke 8:40-56
• Lazarus, John 11:1-46
• Jesus himself - need I quote?

Edit: but the first three were demonstrations, mere essays in the craft, as it were.

Amarië wrote:This calls for a sound track!

Funny, as that soprano was coming down the escalator I was thinking "she needs a tenor..."

Spoiler:

Bluebottle wrote:This conversation struck me as interesting. It lead my mind first to creationism, then to Richard Dawkins and then I stumbled over this:



Which struck me as a completely fascinating view of a very enlightened deeply religious man.
(I know it's terribly long, but as I said also entierly fascinating.)

Absolutely beautiful find, BB! I thought I was only going to listen to a few minutes then maybe come back to it, but couldn't tear myself away. The measure of the man is that the usually combative Dawkins is treating him with such respect and listening rather than talking.

I especially love his point that the history of the religious tradition is miniscule compared to Man's tenure on earth, so there is plenty of time for the various religious traditions to shake things out and eventually become unified. Strikingly original thought.

I've been listening to the Dawkins/Cardinal discourse in pieces. Right now I've gotten to the point where this leading catholic figure (former head of the Vatican observatory) not only rejects the God-of-the-gaps (which would necessitate religion to continuously retreat before scientific process), but even rejects the idea of a God as a designer who tuned the universe so we could exist - calling it preposterous! He says God sustains, has no need to design.

He prefers a superflous god, one that depends completely on relationships not reason. In this view, science will never challenge god.

I'm totally in love with the intellectual integrity and subtlety of this guy!  

Miracles fits into the relationship view of God: just a way of communication. It steps outside science, doesn't contradict it. He also doesn't believe in most of the recorded miracles because they aren't important enough for this kind of intervention.

Okay, gotta go.

I haven't watched the interview, but the Catholic Church has been down with the theory of evolution for decades.

At a computer for just a bit and then it's back to work. Thank you for your patience petty, it will take a while for me to read through the rest of the posts. I need to work, as my tax dollars go directly to the department of defense, which of course keeps everyone else free.

As a side note, could we please come up with a term to refer to all of you non-yanks. I prefer something slightly derogatory (wouldn't want you chaps thinking you are on equal ground with the red white and blue), but any term will do for now.

Well it's back to work. Remember, todays taxable income is tomorrows drone, and those civilians aren't going to bomb themselves.

what about Limeys, or Euro-trash? thats pretty derogatory.

I use just plan "Euros" occasionally, but I don't know if that's considered derogatory, which is why I don't use it much (only when I'm feeling feisty ).