What would it take to make you happy, TODAY?

[cia]

M-O-N-E-Y. To pay my bills off and let me and my family go about living, not sweating it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ancient historians are renowned as liars, yet most of them don't have folk being raised from the dead or walking on water.

Renowned as liars? Hardly so. Just because they wrote a long time ago does not make them liars.

If one is to accept that Caesar lived, one should also accept Christ.

Believing in the literal truth of the Gospels is a continuous suicide of reason.

Do you believe that the world in which you touch, see and feel is how the world really is?

Aristotle has arguments for his positions. He doesn't ask you to take anything on trust other than what is plainly evident to every person

Including the fact that rocks fall because they have a desire to be closer to other rocks?

Yes, Aristotle doesn't ask you to suspend belief, but he was very wrong for that precise reason.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Renowned as liars? Hardly so. Just because they wrote a long time ago does not make them liars.

Rot. They are renowned because it comes out of their own mouths:


" There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation."

St. Jerome, Epistle. lII, 8; page 93.


"I will only mention the Apostle Paul. ... He, then, if anyone, ought to be calumniated; we should speak thus to him:

‘The proofs which you have used against the Jews and against other heretics bear a different meaning in their own contexts to that which they bear in your Epistles.
We see passages taken captive by your pen and pressed into service to win you a victory, which in volumes from which they are taken have no controversial bearing at all ... the line so often adopted by strong men in controversy – of justifying the means by the result.' "

St. Jerome, Epistle to Pammachus, xlviii, 13; N&PNF. vi, 72-73


Bishop Eusebius:

the 32nd Chapter of his 12th 'Book of Evangelical Preparation' is entitled:

"How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived."

Eusebius again:

"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity."

'Ecclesiastical History', Vol. 8, chapter 2.

St. John Chrysostom:

"Do you see the advantage of deceit? ...

For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind ...

And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."

'Treatise On The Priesthood', Book 1.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Agathon
[q]Ancient historians are renowned as liars, yet most of them don't have folk being raised from the dead or walking on water.

What are you trying to achieve with that statement? I've gone back and read it several times, and I've no idea where you're coming from.

[Provost Harrison]

I tell you what would really make my day - to find out the inevitable death of Margaret Thatcher has finally arrived

[Agathon]

Renowned as liars? Hardly so. Just because they wrote a long time ago does not make them liars.

Bias in ancient historical writers is the first fact you learn when you study them. Herodotus talks all sorts of crap. Yet very few of them come up with the miraculous garbage of the Bible.

Sure, it's likely Jesus lived - just another insane Jewish carpenter. Nothing to see there.

If one is to accept that Caesar lived, one should also accept Christ.

Yes, but when Caesar was stabbed, he didn't supposedly rise from the dead.

[Ted Striker]

Zombie Thatcher!!!! OMG RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!

[Ben Kenobi]

molly:

" There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation."

If you read on, Jerome argues why the congregation ought to be educated, so that they do not waver to the right or to the left.

Education is not the enemy of Christians, rather it is a steadfast ally.

‘The proofs which you have used against the Jews and against other heretics bear a different meaning in their own contexts to that which they bear in your Epistles.
We see passages taken captive by your pen and pressed into service to win you a victory, which in volumes from which they are taken have no controversial bearing at all ... the line so often adopted by strong men in controversy – of justifying the means by the result.'

He's challenging the arguments made by Apostle Paul, but suprisingly, not his account of Christ appearing to him on the Damascus road.

The issue here, is not whether Paul is right in everything he said, rather, it is the historical truth of his testimony.

In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind

Resourcefulness is a virtue, provided it is balanced by compassion.

Look at it this way, does not Christ tell us to be as wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves?

"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity

Do we really want to hear about what Paul ate for breakfast every day in his journal? All historians do this, and the Christian Gospels are no different. Each writer writes for an audience, and each Gospel is different from the others as a result.

BTW, I disagree with Chrystostem, that it is necessary to decieve people to draw them into Christ. I think a straightforward presentation can often be more effective than the cleverest homily.

Paul even goes into this in his Gospel, that he is to preach Christ crucified, and not his own wisdom, so that he might not hinder the message of Christ.

[Krill]

I'd be happy i some one told me what the hell the word "Germanic", in the context that a persons thinking is germanic.

Please help me!!

[asleepathewheel]

my guess is that it wasn't so much directed at your thinking, but that it fits into familiar patterns of certain parties.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Zombie Thatcher!!!! OMG RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!

Zombie Teddy Roosevelt will slay the evil devil she-man beast....

[Ben Kenobi]

Nay, Zombie Reagan PWNS all.

[Ben Kenobi]

Bias in ancient historical writers is the first fact you learn when you study them.

No, bias is the first fact you learn about history period. The ancients are not that different from the moderns in that regard. The only difference between us and them can be summed up in the other three tests for reliability.

First there is the distance from the event. The ancient historians writing on the history of the Roman empire write anywhere from 50 to a hundred, or even several hundred years after the event. It would be like us writing an account of the British empire under Queen Victoria now.

Second, there is the amount of manuscripts that we have, as in what is the earliest copy that we have of these historical documents. We are very fortunate to have any copies whatsoever, within a thousand years of the original with respect to ancient history.

Third, you have the corroboration with other evidence. Often, because of the ages, we won't have any other writers talking about an event in Roman history, even one as seminal as Caesar crossing the Rubicon.

Gaging the Gospels, they are superior in all three accounts to all the histories of Herodotus, or any of the Roman historians.

They are superior even to Plato, and any of the ancient Greeks. We have earlier copies; back to about 200 AD, rather than 1 thousand years after the original, we have corroboration, in not one, but 3 accounts, written by different authors at different times, even if we discount John's Gospel, and limit ourselves to the synoptics, and finally, we have the Gospel authors writing within 25 years after the death of Christ, which is well within the lifetime of those who witnessed the event. If the Gospels falsely recorded the event, surely the living eyewitnesses would condemn their record.

Sure, it's likely Jesus lived - just another insane Jewish carpenter. Nothing to see there.

That must be the case when Christ tells us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us. What could be more insane than that?

Yes, but when Caesar was stabbed, he didn't supposedly rise from the dead.

Did not the heavens shake?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Azazel
That's not how you spell it.

Oi foreigner, it's my native tongue and I'll spell it exactly as I please

[Sava]

c-o-n-d-o-l-e-n-c-e-s