My big problem with Christianity

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger




Okay. Do you accept the doctrine that the bible is divinely inspired but reject Papal Infallability? Why (or why not)?

Of course not, don't be silly! The bible is just as fallible as anything else. It's not too bad, I really like John. But a lot of it is bunk.

I am reminded of a quote from Audobon by this question: "When the book and the bird disagree, believe the bird."

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by monkspider
Luckily, I can say with 100% certainity that the above is true.

I would be very interested to see some substantiation of that claim. I don't believe it is possible.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


There are several problems with Jesus's "crucifixion."

Yeah, timing for one.

When was Jesus crucified?


He was crucified at the third hour.

Mk.15:25

"And it was the third hour, and they crucified him."

He was crucified sometime after the sixth hour.

Jn.19:14-16
"And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified."

from the Sceptics'/Skeptics' Annotated Bible.

Yes, I can just see someone like Eric Idle in 'The Life of Brian', going:

'King of the Jews crucifixion at the third hour....sorry, can't fit you in, we've got a double booking with a stoning and a beheading. Three hours later suit you?
Lovely. Oh, and it's b.y.o. cross. Ciao!'

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Thus, they reject the entire notion of the resurrection, and that Christ is the Son of God.

And here's the point....Muslims reject the idea of Jesus being the son of God, because to Muslims God is the one and only god, which is where traditional christian thinking falls apart from a purism point of view.

Historical analysis has proven with reasonable certainty that Jesus did in fact exist. However his elevation into a prophet and the son of god was conspired well after the fact and was politically motivated.

The dead sea scrolls show Jesus in quite a different light. There is great support for the notion that the man they refer to is Jesus, and that he was a member of the Essenes, a relatively minor political sect during a time where political activism was rampant.

And this is why christian scholars tried to prevent the publication and interpretation of the scrolls, because they would undermine the whole foundation of the christian faith.

[Kuciwalker]

Well, personally I like this quote:

"Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all?" - Sister Miriam Godwinson, "But for the Grace of God"



Despite the fact that it's from SMAC, it brings up an interesting point: if God is omnipotent, he essentially defines reality. Now let's see what this would mean if, say, I had this power (just to remove religious dogma from this):

First, I could easily get rid of the suffering of every human being ever to live. I see how that would be a good thing. Well, wouldn't I be doing a good thing to make sure no baby had ever been stillborn or aborted, and instead lived happy, blissful lives? Seems so. You know what, how about I give all of those potential people, who could have been conceived but weren't? I'll stick them in too. Actually, I'll start adding even MORE people, and giving them good lives too. Even better! I think to make the maximum possible goodness, I'll create an INFINITE number of people, all with happy lives. And I'll give them free will, sure, but I'll create each and every one of them with enough "conscience" so that they never actually decide to "sin". Yay!

Bo-ring. What's the point?

Now, obviously, if I created a world like we had now, I'd be "evil". I mean, how can anyone but I be responsible for plagues and natural disasters - I created the world such that they would occur. Have I not "sinned" more than anyone, caused more pain and suffering than every human combined? All as some petty spite for them eating an apple from a tree? If the police did something like that, I'm sure most people here would definately call it abuse. It's like selling drugs on the street in order to catch drug users.

Obviously, our sense of "morals" could not in the least apply to an omnipotent being, because the ultimate result of that is utter pointlessness. Frankly, I'd rather live in a world with conflict than one without. It would be frighteningly dull without it. Just like when you play Risk - the objective is to conquer the world, but you don't keep playing afterwards, do you?

[cinch]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
If you make that argument, then you need to find a credible way to explain the following phenomenons.

1. Why did the Christian church grow? Why would all the people follow a religion of a man who was simply out of his mind? WIthout the resurrection, there is no reason to believe that christ is the Son of God.

2. Why would the disciples want to rescue Christ from the cross? If they believed that he was the promised Messiah, they would expect God to intervene on his behalf. If they intervened, then Christ would not be the Messiah, but simply a man.

3. How do you explain Paul, and the acceptance of Paul by the Christians?

1. It had an appealing message: forgiveness and all that. It could be taken in by both the peasants, looking for hope in the form of salvation and Heaven; and also the ruling classes who could use it to passify the population and justify wars (like most religions). As for the resurrection: I'm just saying it might not have happened, not that nobody believed it did. They were misled.


2. We don't know that they knew he was going to come back to life. Heck, according to The Bible, Thomas didn't even believe Christ came back to life until he touched his wounds! Who knows how much they knew/believed?

They devoted their lives to this man; I'm willing to believe that they would do all they could to save him. "If they intervened, then Christ would not be the Messiah, but simply a man." That's not necessarily true. You can believe someone to have supernatural powers, and still want to help them when they're in trouble.

OR maybe the apostles wanted to let him die, but Nicodaemus and Joey of Arimathea went up and took him down, for they knew less of his 'plans'. Plenty o' options here.

3. Paul was an able, slick trickster who co-opted Christ's message for his own needs. That's all one really needs to know about him.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Thriller


I would be very interested to see some substantiation of that claim. I don't believe it is possible.

No prob my man. Everything is possible. Just look within yourself.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by cinch
3. Paul was an able, slick trickster who co-opted Christ's message for his own needs. That's all one really needs to know about him.

Exactly.....Paul was a politician. He was in fact the most effective politician the world has seen, because his "spin" has lasted for 2000 years so far.

Tell me - in a land rules by cruel invaders who terrorise and intimidate the people, who wouldn't be looking for an all-powerful, all-saintly saviour?

Right place, right time, supremely clever promoter. And all the subsequent "keepers of the secret" (read: Popes) were smart enough to keep the deception going. End of story!

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by monkspider


No prob my man. Everything is possible. Just look within yourself.

Ummm.....I can't decide whether you're pulling my leg, or whether you honestly believe that your response acutally has some meaning.

If the latter, then to those readers of this thread who actually use their brain to think, nothing more needs to be said.

Monkspider, I await a meaningful response, if you are up to the task.

[Jaguar]

Here's the greatest paradox of Christianity-

God tells Abraham not to sacrifice his son, but then God does it himself.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
Here's the greatest paradox of Christianity-

God tells Abraham not to sacrifice his son, but then God does it himself.

Not such a big deal there. I think the idea was that god was testing Abraham, yada yada yada.

How about this one: God's representative on earth is the Pope, who is therefore infallible. I guess that includes all the 5 year old popes throughout the middle-ages, the popes who murdered their predecessors to gain power, and the homosexual paedophilic popes who couldn't help themselves? Not to mention the fact that at various times throughout history there have been multiple popes at the same time claiming to be the god's representative.

Hmmm, maybe that's why Henry VIII decided to get rid of catholicism. Oh no I forgot....that was for a much holier reason....he wanted to get divorced!

[Mr. Harley]

UR, I find myself in the odd position of being on neither side. There is a large mixture of issues mixed up in the pot here, let me try to answer a couple that I struggled with many years ago, and still have not yet fully come to terms yet.

First of all, for the people saying how can God let bad things happen, that ones easy and has been dealt with by theologians and philosphers many time before. Free will. It's not free wil if man does not have the choice to commit evil. Simple enough.

Deism versus Theism is much thornier. Deism explains a lot, I personally called it "the whole ball of wax" theory before I read about and learned the agreed on terminology. The whole ball of wax, as in God created the world, and then gave it to mankind and said, it's yours to do with what you please (maybe he said "it's yours to f*** up," but I don't believe in a malevolent deity).

The problem with Deism is that, and rightly so, many Christians consider it heretical based on portions of the Bible, and argue for a Theistic God, one who intervenes. I personally have some emotional issues with that, those of you who have caught some of my posts in recent months would know that a sister of mine had a pretty horrific accident. Talking Theism is nice, but the whole Job idea wears just a little bit thin. Or as one poster earlier noted, how about HIV. Deistically it makes sense. Theistically, there have been all kinds of arguments, the most common one is that we cannot understand God's plan. To which I wonder what the children in the burn unit of Shriners in Boston think about that (I use that as an example for just plain lousy luck, versus actions due to the evil of other humans - see free will above).

Papal infallibility is a relatively new phenomena, dating from the 1800's. I'd have to get my books out, I haven't looked over it in twenty years. It's frankly rather silly, and nobody but the Catholics subscribe to it, so that also gets red herring status, it's a confusor for everybody who's Christian but not Catholic. There's also a name for the heresy that challenges Paul's inclusion in the new testament, I cannot remember the name.

Lastly, and those of you who have read this can skip to the next post, there is a confusion here between morals and ethics. Morals, based on sacred texts, are neither provable nor universal. The are germane to those who believe in those sacred texts. They overlap with each other, and with ethics, because there are certain PRINCIPLES necessary for a society to function. Even basic ones, like murder, become much more complicated that we think of today. Look at the tradition at Weregild, or blood money.

Ethics attempts to be universal, be creating a self-consistant system based on precepts that themselves are self-consistant. You could argue for the ethics of a social darwinist, but you will find the vast majority who would argue for that would say "That's different" when the bigger dog eats them. Self-consistant systems of ethics are typically based on the golden rule or some variation on it, though there can be very genuine arguments over the primacy of the individual versus the primacy of society. That's why Asian democracies are very different that those in the west.

Ethics would say Gays have the right to be married, because granting someone the ability to take away that right, based on their religious beliefs, means that they will have the right to impose their religious beliefs on any unbeliever. Please note that is different than requiring any certified OB-GYN residential program to include training in abotions, that is the same in the opposite direction. The problem is that ethics are much harder than morals, because you have to work both backwards and fowards, examing not just behaviors but the precepts for self-consistancy. It also requires a brutal level of self-honesty to work. Morality is much simpler, just do what the sacred texts say.

[Ben Kenobi]

Wow! This thread sure took off.

Always good form to start with the mods.

Ming:

as good as your proof

Got any eyewitnesses corroborating your version?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Got any eyewitnesses corroborating your version?

Are there any eyewitness of Christ's revival (not the fact he lived after, but the revival itself)

[Shi Huangdi]

"Papal infallibility is a relatively new phenomena, dating from the 1800's. I'd have to get my books out, I haven't looked over it in twenty years."

The Church has always believed that it through it's entire magisterium has infallibility. Vatican I clarified that Pope can through extraordinary magisterium on rare occasions speak ex cathedra.