Why I am not a Christian

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by bayraven
regarding the 70 years lapse (many believe it to be much less, falling well within John's life span), but suppose it was 70 years after the death of Christ, do you think that renders the observations specious? If so, is it also a concern that there are no extant copies of any NT books?

The answer to the last sentence, IMO, is a very clear "yes."

As for the former, my point is that there is no reliable evidence as to who wrote John or when. So one can rationally doubt the text of it is an accurate portrayal of the life of Jesus or of the things he may have really said, just as much as we can doubt the Romances of Alexander had much accuracy wrt to the reality of Alexander.

It is one of the consistent experiences of history that religious texts written for propaganda purposes, as the NT was, are notoriously prone to misinformation, exaggeration, and falsification.

[bayraven]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The answer to the last sentence, IMO, is a very clear "yes."

Then it is necessary to throw out nearly all ancient history as we know it.
Plato (Tetralogies) written around 350 BC, no longer extant, earliest copy is from 900 AD
Thucydides (Pelop. war) written 460-400 BC, non-extant, earliest copy 900 AD
Suetonius ( De Vita Caesarum) written 75-160 BC, non -extant, earliest copy 950 AD
Herodotus (best history book i've ever read) Written 480-425 BC, non-extant, earliest copy 900 AD
Aristotle wrote from 384 to 322 BC, non-extant, earliest copy from 1100 AD, a span of 1,400 years! I think it best not to discount what we have from these men just because we don't have a copy in their handwriting.

As for the former, my point is that there is no reliable evidence as to who wrote John or when. So one can rationally doubt the text of it is an accurate portrayal of the life of Jesus or of the things he may have really said,

What do we really know about John Mark who wrote the second gospel? This is where I get lost in your premise. If you were to say that you *believed* Matthew, Mark and Luke, but doubted John, I could see from your perspective a point of reference. But, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't accept the historicity of Jesus as savior from any source, so to say John's gospel is dubious because of a lack of proof that he was 'the beloved disciple' seems thin IMO.

just as much as we can doubt the Romances of Alexander had much accuracy wrt to the reality of Alexander.

Why stop there? Our best information on Alexander is from Plutarch, who lived 450 years after Alexander, wrote his famous work Parallel Lives around 100 AD and the oldest copy (not in his hand) is from around 950 AD.

It is one of the consistent experiences of history that religious texts written for propaganda purposes, as the NT was, are notoriously prone to misinformation, exaggeration, and falsification.

If I were to cite a 'Christian opinion' that the NT was free from the distortions you've mentioned above, you would give it no credence. What can you cite to back up the 'consistent experience' theory?

In truth, the INCREADIBLE consistency in the replication of the OT and NT in over 3000 and nearly 2000 years respectively, speaks to the care and reverence shown to NOT embellishing the original intent of these works. Qumran gave us a 2000 year old copy of Isaiah with nothing more than a few slight grammatical differences from the copy I have today.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Microbiologists like Behe still believe in evolution, just that IC is "proof" there was an intelligent force behind it.

[nitpick]

Michael Behe is a biochemist who's get a real doctorate, and so's Duane Gish of ICR (Institute for Creation Research).

Behe's Irreducible Complexity argument has been refuted huge numbers of times, some critics even pointed out that he did sloppy research.

[/nitpick]

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
UR... I'm not trying to answer your question because this is going off at a tangent but I would say that if God is infinite then he simply can't change basic physical constants and other things in this universe, because if God supposedly did interfere then if he is infinite he would surely have to change the universe with it's current dimensions as spatial according to him (and that means time). If he can only treat time as spatial then a change would work like the sum over histories, we simply couldn't know of Gods existence and God would be unable to communicate with us as conscious beings or the universe, since of course time is the basis for all communications, as well as consciousness.

[off on a tangent]
Suppose YHWH can only treat time as spatial, it doesn't mean we see it as the same way. Using a very simple example. Take a sheet of paper. suppose one axis is spatial and the other is temporal for some hypothetical beings, however we "gods" can see both as spatial. Now rip the sheet in two. Suddenly you cause a temporal rift for these beings.
[/off on a tangent]

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
Whaleboy pretty much answered it, actually. I'd like to add that, if God felt like changing the universe and laws of physics, He could do it so subtly and thoroughly that we'd never notice.

That's not the point. The point is measurements would be ultimately unreliable because they are subjected to arbitrary changes.

In fact, unnoticable changes are worse - that means something has been changed but we don't notice. That means our theories are all crap now but we can't fix them because we don't what was changed.

Originally posted by Elok
I wouldn't discard a theological idea for scientific reasons any more than I would discard a scientific theory for moral reasons. Darwinism raises some troubling ethical questions (like accidentally paves the way for Social Darwinism, however obscurely), but it's absurd to say that it must be false because of that.

You're confusing ethical issues with theological issues.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by bayraven
In truth, the INCREADIBLE consistency in the replication of the OT and NT in over 3000 and nearly 2000 years respectively, speaks to the care and reverence shown to NOT embellishing the original intent of these works.

That misses the point entirely.

NT was originally written as propaganda, thus, textual accuracy bears no relevance.

[bayraven]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


That misses the point entirely.

[does not]

The 'error of man' is just as likely to creep in as embellishment in the scriptorium as in the original recording of the account, leading me to believe that God's hand was guiding the entire production.
The term Propaganda suggests a willingness to corrupt info for the purpose of persuasion. You ascribe it to the NT, I give the same to it's refutations.

[/does not]

[bayraven]

by the way, what should we never forget?

Minimum Age (industry) Convention, ratified by Norway?

Canada's Prime Minister William King meets with German chancellor Adolf Hitler in Berlin?

AL beats NL 8-3 in 5th All Star Game ?

Chinese and Japanese troops engage at the Marco Polo Bridge, 10 miles from Peking ?

Wilson Jennings indicted for Meade murder ?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by bayraven
The 'error of man' is just as likely to creep in as embellishment in the scriptorium as in the original recording of the account, leading me to believe that God's hand was guiding the entire production.

It's not hard to make accurate copies when you have bored people who had nothing better to do than to check the manuscripts 10 times a day.

Originally posted by bayraven
The term Propaganda suggests a willingness to corrupt info for the purpose of persuasion. You ascribe it to the NT, I give the same to it's refutations.

Given that the fact that the NT was compiled in the forth century, and was accepted 397CE at the Third Council of Carthage by a bunch of people who definitely had an agenda, it seems that propaganda is quite accurate a term.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by bayraven
Chinese and Japanese troops engage at the Marco Polo Bridge, 10 miles from Peking ?

This - for me at least.

The Incident marked the "formal" invasion of China by IJA forces, if you don't count the earlier annexation of Manchuria.

[bayraven]

It's not hard to make accurate copies when you have bored people who had nothing better to do than to check the manuscripts 10 times a day.

Really ? bored people, squinting, working by candlelight, day after day after day after day ... errors occurred at a high rate in comparable copying processes. The NT was hand copied for 1600 years, you would expect terrible distortions. Coincidence, I guess

[Jon Miller]

so you don't really beleive archeology than?

because we have copies of most books from ~100 AD

and surprisingly enough, they are very similiar to what is sold today

JM

[bayraven]

we have copies of most of the books written from 100? cite that one please.
Then choose some that you believe to be most accurately replicated. I would like to compare the error rate.

[Jon Miller]

umm, it is fairly widely held in all scholarship (and I am not refering to creationist level scholarship here, I am refering to historical scholarship)

3 minutes on google turned up loads of information

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

I beleive that pre3rd century we mostly just have scraps (because of age) (so I was slightly wrong)

but those scraps are in agreement, and full books, which actaully look the same, date form ~4th century

but we do have clements leter, which is accurately pinned as pre100, and that quotes bits of the NT

Jon Miller