What ever happened to good ol' science and philosophy?

No, it isn't. I don't think there's a word for deriving pleasure from one's own misfortune, though I think it may be a minor variant of masochism. ;)

@JulianLo What do you mean?

Hmm. I once ran into a monkey bars so hard that it knocked my two top teeth so hard that they had to be removed. Luckily they were baby teeth. ;-) "Why were you running?" "A girl was chasing me." *sigh*

Nigee, I'm glad you're listening. :-) And I'm glad you explained your terminology. I thought you were referring to people who were constantly bothering God with prayers, because I know someone who believes in God but doesn't think he wants to be bothered by people praying.

Mario, the collective who? Or--have you been assimilated? ;-)

Today's Bible reading is John Chapter 21, the last chapter of this book.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=21&v=1&t=NLT
I think the end of the chapter is pretty interesting:15 After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? [fn5] ”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”
“Then feed my lambs,” Jesus told him.
16 Jesus repeated the question: “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”
“Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said.
17 A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.
18 “I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others [fn6] will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. Then Jesus told him, “Follow me.”
20 Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved—the one who had leaned over to Jesus during supper and asked, “Lord, who will betray you?” 21 Peter asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?”
22 Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.” 23 So the rumor spread among the community of believers [fn7] that this disciple wouldn’t die. But that isn’t what Jesus said at all. He only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
24 This disciple is the one who testifies to these events and has recorded them here. And we know that his account of these things is accurate.
25 Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.

Collective humanity (at least the portion that's curious enough to discuss this sort of thing, since more than a few just blindly accept things).

Mario, thanks for the definition. So then taking your statements together, "collective humanity" won't accept the Bible writings as historical evidence, in spite of the fact that archaeology continues to confirm its accounts as more and more is learned about the past--but you are accusing others of "just blindly accept" ing things? I want to cut through the implications to understand just what you are saying.

I'm saying that collective humanity won't accept the Bible writings as historical evidence by themselves, given the juxtaposition of natural and supernatural events within (of course, there's an issue as to what exactly they're supposed to be evidence of, as I said earlier). In my previous post, I'm making the point that if the majority of humanity is not concerned with such things (since it's not exactly a minority of people who possess some degree of blind acceptance, which discourages discussion and reflects close-mindedness and/or a lack of education), at the very least, those of us curious enough to engage in discussion like this are. Does that make sense?

I think I understand you Mario but it seems a bit of a contradiction. I'm probably not getting it exactly. It seems to me that you're saying the bulk of humanity (collective humanity) will not accept the Holy Bible alone as historical evidence, and then you turn around to say that only a minority of humanity is concerned with such things (historical evidence?).

Oh okay. I think that I got it from your above post. You're saying that of the people who are curious about such things they collectively will not accept the Holy Bible as historical evidence, but those who do (accept the Holy Bible as historical evidence) are doing so blindly and without curiousity? Am I at least close?

"Oh okay. I think that I got it from your above post. You're saying that of the people who are curious about such things they collectively will not accept the Holy Bible as historical evidence, but those who do (accept the Holy Bible as historical evidence) are doing so blindly and without curiousity? Am I at least close?"

You're close. It's not that those with the aforementioned curiosity won't accept the Bible as historical evidence or that those who do lack the aforementioned curiosity, it's that there's a tendency for those with curiosity to reject the Bible as evidence and a tendency for those without to accept it (since those people in the latter category are less likely to analyze what they believe and their reasons for accepting the beliefs as truth).

Well at least your point of view is internally self-consistent. To paraphrase: "People who reject the Bible as evidence of anything, like me, are curious and open-minded, but people who accept the Bible are the ones who don't analyze what they believe, or why." As long as we're straight on that.

No, you misunderstand. I just said there was a tendency. I'm perfectly aware that there are those who accept the Bible and analyze their beliefs and the reasons behind them, just as there are those who don't accept the Bible and blindly accept other things, such as scientific theories. Personally, I'm willing to accept the Bible as far as natural events are concerned (given that has been evidence for such things), but I can't do so as far as supernatural events (or supernatural involvement in the carrying out of natural events) are concerned at this time.

@ Mario

I agree if I'm understanding your point that it goes both ways. There are people who blindly reject as well as those who blindly accept the Holy Bible as historical evidence. On both sides the blind outnumber those who have studied and come to their conclusions. I'm not really sure where we are going here.

@ Silvanus

Just a note in case you missed my post on the last page. If you could clarify the question that I had there it would help me to formulate a plan for research and response.

@Crazy

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. As for where we're going, I believe that this is just me clarifying what I said (how successful I am is up to you) on page 15.

Mario, you say that you do in fact accept the Bible as true for natural events. So what about historical events?

I think it is obvious why the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs ......... they never existed, it's just a group of scientists making up stuff to try and discredit lovable God-fearing folk.
Anyway if you've got God you don't need dinosaurs.....up yours Jurassic Park !!

Well, I didn't say that I did accept the Bible as true for natural events, only that I was willing to (which I guess might be saying that I do since there is physical evidence for certain events, even if whether they happened exactly as described is a matter of debate). As for historical events, it really depends on the event in question, as I don't know what you'd consider to be a "historical event" in regards to the Bible, but if I were to accept the Bible as evidence of a historical event, it'd be preferable if that event were also documented in an unrelated and separate source, since I think that the more corroboration an event has from a variety of different sources, the more likely it is that the event in question actually occurred.

@Nigee

Apparently, you've never been to the Creation Museum: http://creationmuseum.org/

@Gobblydygook

"Ok, but that was what the disciples said. There were no other witnesses. How do we know they speak the truth?"

That's a pretty easy one as I see it. Just look at what they had to gain and what they had to loose by lying.

Gain: A life in which a small number of people would think you were pretty swell. Give you a place to stay and make sure you had food when you came into town as they were able to do. You would be a leader of a very small band of refugees. No doubt that life would appeal to some.

Lose: You look forward to going to Hell for blaspemey and actively converting others Jews from Judaism. You are a fugitive with the largest and most powerful nation in the world eager to end your life in the most painful of ways. Your friends are one by one hunted down and publicly executed. All other things being equal it seems obvious that they believed what they were saying to be true, and they would be the ones who would know. So it comes down to which scenrio is the most likely:

1) So it comes down to they were all crazy and suffered from the same delusion (an assumption for which there is no evidence) in deed you have to ignore the only evidence available to come to that conclusion.

2) They did not exist at all. Jesus was mythical and by association so was anyone who had first hand knowledge of him. This leaves us with the problem of a small proselytizing quickly growing religion without a charismatic leader or any real leadership at all. Add to this that the Roman emperors and their empire took a more or less swift dislike to them and that they could not communicate very easily with one another in the period that would have had to have been the period that the myths were being developed to begin with. So some nameless group of people made this all up and went out with manic fury to impose their myths upon the world for some unknown reason (add to this the same reasons that the apostles wouldn't have had much reason to fake it, persecution, lack of worldly gain, threat of otherworldly punishment, etc. )

3) Whether you think it was supernatural or not, these guys saw something that changed their lives and they wen't out to tell everybody about it.

These are rough sketches done from what I know right now. The third seems the most compelling to me.

I was referring to the possibility that the disciples lied about seeing a resurrected Jesus in order to promote the idea that Jesus was God's son and Saviour.

Mario, I understand, but the Bible is a collection of sources that was written over thousands of years. It just doesn't seem very scientific or academic to say "Anything that gets put in that particular collection is not going to be considered as evidence at all unless there are sources from outside that collection as well." Happily, the archaeological evidence supports the Bible accounts, and the Dead Sea Scrolls support the fact that the books of the Old Testament are true to the original versions. Granted, that doesn't prove that the events listed are true, but it is certainly evidence that must be weighed.

It would be like someone saying "I don't believe anything the climatologists are saying unless it's supported by other sources. Once something starts talking about climate, it's automatically suspect." lol

But I'm glad that you do accept at least the natural events in the Bible that have been confirmed by science. That's a start.

Today's Bible reading is Luke Chapter 1
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Luk&c=1&v=1&t=NLT#1
in which John the Baptist is born and this is prophesied about him:
76 “And you, my little son,
will be called the prophet of the Most High,
because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
77 You will tell his people how to find salvation
through forgiveness of their sins.
78 Because of God’s tender mercy,
the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, [fn8]
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.”

God always seems to reveal himself to people who already support him, call me plain stoopid but from a marketing and PR view would it not make sense to reveal yourself to people who still need convincing, otherwise it's just like revealing to the converted.

Nigee, the marketing comment is an astute one, because it's so hard for us to believe that someone wants to give us something for nothing. Yet that's what God did.

Well, Nigee, Saul of Tarsus, while an enthusiastic follower of God, was very extremely to Christianity until Christ appeared to him.

I disagree. If God gave us something expecting nothing in return, there would be no commandment against worshipping other gods, all of creation would not have been killed for living a "sinful" lifestyle, Adam and Eve would not have been cast out for what amounts to essentially getting an education ("disobeying" him in doing so), etc. I don't think there is such a thing as altruism. Every act, whether it is committed by man or, just for the sake of argument, a god, is selfish. Those we refer to as altruistic are merely the least selfish of acts and are driven by a conscious desire to commit those acts.

*was very extremely = was very opposed. Sorry.

Ya' don't have to go back to Paul. C.S. Lewis was an atheist and so was Anne Rice. There are certainly converts to Christianity all the time. I'm not sure where you were going with that one Nigeebaby.

@ Gobbledygook

Yeah that's what I was addressing. At least that's what I thought I was addressing, I apparently wasn't being very clear. It's certainly possible that they were lying, but I don't think that's likely for the reasons I suggested.

1) They would have known they were lying,

2) They would have known they were trying to get Jews to abandon Judaism
through deceit and blasphemy. THey would not have been able to expect any
type of heavenly reward from the Messiah that they knew was false.

3) If they were trying to overthrow Rome in Judea that would have been shown to
be impossible before most of their lives were over.

4) They could not expect any type of earthly reward as they werent going to overthrow Rome and they could only expect persecution as they were hunted down one by one.

Still none of the apostles recanted to save themselves.