Why the fall had to occur

originally posted by: Woodcarver

Satan sounds like the hero in those stories.

Your champion of rebellion against God just wants to drag you down with him.

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Let us consider an illustration. Imagine that a teacher is telling his students how to solve a difficult problem. A clever but rebellious student claims that the teacher’s way of solving the problem is wrong. Implying that the teacher is not capable, this rebel insists that he knows a much better way to solve the problem. Some students think that he is right, and they also become rebellious. What should the teacher do? If he throws the rebels out of the class, what will be the effect on the other students? Will they not believe that their fellow student and those who joined him are right? All the other students in the class might lose respect for the teacher, thinking that he is afraid of being proved wrong. But suppose that the teacher allows the rebel to show the class how he would solve the problem.

Jehovah has done something similar to what the teacher does. Remember that the rebels in Eden were not the only ones involved. Millions of angels were watching. (Job 38:7; Daniel 7:10) How Jehovah handled the rebellion would greatly affect all those angels and eventually all intelligent creation. So, what has Jehovah done? He has allowed Satan to show how he would rule mankind. God has also allowed humans to govern themselves under Satan’s guidance.

The teacher in our illustration knows that the rebel and the students on his side are wrong. But he also knows that allowing them the opportunity to try to prove their point will benefit the whole class. When the rebels fail, all honest students will see that the teacher is the only one qualified to lead the class. They will understand why the teacher thereafter removes any rebels from the class. Similarly, Jehovah knows that all honesthearted humans and angels will benefit from seeing that Satan and his fellow rebels have failed and that humans cannot govern themselves. Like Jeremiah of old, they will learn this vital truth: “I well know, O Jehovah, that man’s way does not belong to him. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”—Jeremiah 10:23.

WHY SO LONG?

Why, though, has Jehovah allowed suffering to go on for so long? And why does he not prevent bad things from happening? Well, consider two things that the teacher in our illustration would not do. First, he would not stop the rebel student from presenting his case. Second, the teacher would not help the rebel to make his case. Similarly, consider two things that Jehovah has determined not to do. First, he has not stopped Satan and those who side with him from trying to prove that they are right. Allowing time to pass has thus been necessary. In the thousands of years of human history, mankind has been able to try every form of self-rule, or human government. Mankind has made some advances in science and other fields, but injustice, poverty, crime, and war have grown ever worse. Human rule has now been shown to be a failure.

Second, Jehovah has not helped Satan to rule this world. If God were to prevent horrible crimes, for instance, would he not, in effect, be supporting the case of the rebels? Would God not be making people think that perhaps humans can govern themselves without disastrous results? If Jehovah were to act in that way, he would become party to a lie. However, “it is impossible for God to lie.”—Hebrews 6:18.

What, though, about all the harm that has been done during the long rebellion against God? We do well to remember that Jehovah is almighty. Therefore, he can and will undo the effects of mankind’s suffering.
...
Some might wonder, ‘Could all this suffering have been prevented if God had created Adam and Eve in such a way that they could not rebel?’ To answer that question, you need to remember a precious gift that Jehovah has given you.

HOW WILL YOU USE THE GIFT FROM GOD?
...
How may we use the gift of free will in the best possible way, and why should we want to do so?
...

originally posted by: chr0naut

This does not mean that God made evil or committed evil.

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer
I disagree.

I recommend being careful to trust one's own perception of what is good or evil in their eyes or opinion over God's sense of justice. Especially when one argues that good and evil are relative or subjective just like truth anyway (that is, as that argument is extended by those favoring agnosticism, not that it's factual/absolute/correct, without error/true that truth is relative). It becomes especially tricky when there are those doing the following routine (and have passed on the behaviour from generation to generation):

Isaiah 5:20,21

20 Woe to those who say that good is bad and bad is good,

Those who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness,

Those who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

21 Woe to those wise in their own eyes

And discreet in their own sight!

“What Is Truth?”

THAT question was cynically posed to Jesus by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. He was not interested in an answer, and Jesus did not give him one. Perhaps Pilate viewed truth as too elusive to grasp.—John 18:38.

This disdainful attitude toward truth is shared by many today, including religious leaders, educators, and politicians. They hold that truth—especially moral and spiritual truth—is not absolute but relative and ever changing. This, of course, implies that people can determine for themselves what is right and what is wrong. (Isaiah 5:20, 21) It also allows people to reject as out-of-date the values and moral standards held by past generations.

The statement that prompted Pilate’s question is worth noting. Jesus had said: “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.” (John 18:37) Truth to Jesus was no vague, incomprehensible concept. He promised his disciples: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”—John 8:32.

Where can such truth be found? On one occasion, Jesus said in prayer to God: “Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) The Bible, written under divine inspiration, reveals truth that provides both reliable guidance and a sure hope for the future—everlasting life.—2 Timothy 3:15-17.

Pilate indifferently rejected the opportunity to learn such truth. What about you? ...

Why So Much Suffering? (Teach Us)

10. How did Satan challenge Jehovah?

10 In the garden of Eden, the Devil misled Adam and Eve. Satan accused God of being a bad Ruler. He claimed that God was keeping something good from Adam and Eve. Satan wanted them to believe that he would be a better ruler than Jehovah and that they did not need God.—Genesis 3:2-5; see Endnote 27.

11. What question do we need to answer?

11 Adam and Eve disobeyed Jehovah and rebelled against him. They thought that they had the right to decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong. How could Jehovah prove that the rebels were wrong and that he knows what is best for us?

...Why has Jehovah allowed Satan to be the ruler of this world and humans to govern themselves?
...
13 Satan challenged Jehovah in front of millions of angels. (Job 38:7; Daniel 7:10) So Jehovah gave Satan time to prove whether his accusation was true. He also gave humans time to set up their own governments under Satan’s guidance to show whether they could be successful without God’s help.

14. What has time proved?

14 For thousands of years, humans have tried to rule themselves, but they have failed. Satan has been proved a liar. Humans do need God’s help. The prophet Jeremiah was right when he said: “I well know, O Jehovah, that man’s way does not belong to him. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”—Jeremiah 10:23.

I'd focus on figuring out whether or not God exists in the first place anyway before slandering, dismissing, resisting, painting or thinking of* him as tyrannical or starting a debate on what is good or evil or what God is responsible for or not; that is, if the truth of the matter matters to a person (*: convincing yourself or others of...'if he even exists in the first place, then....etc.', negative stuff or excuses to dismiss, disobey, resist and/or rebel against God and thinking one has the right to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong):

Song 110 God's Wondrous Works (in context)

a reply to: Woodcarver

Im not even sure what you are talking about.

In this thread as well as another thread you said that the biblical commandment to love God and love your neighbor came from the code of Hammurabi . I said I didn't think it did and asked you to quote the code to show your prof which you did not . You have a few options at this point .

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Woodcarver

Im not even sure what you are talking about.

In this thread as well as another thread you said that the biblical commandment to love God and love your neighbor came from the code of Hammurabi . I said I didn't think it did and asked you to quote the code to show your prof which you did not . You have a few options at this point .

Have you read the code of hammurabi?

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

Since the universe is incredibly varied and complex, and seems to follow rules, it may have been constructed. If it were constructed, there must be a constructor as one possibility for the existence of the universe.

Science tells us that the structured order of all matter must degrade over time. Science does not explain why the whole universe isn't all in the simplest lowest energy state, despite the fact that we can see that all things flow towards such entropy. The best science can do is to propose a beginning of simplicity (and therefore high entropy) and that over time this developed variation and difference to the extreme levels observed now. That process is anti-entropic and does not fit with known science.

The idea of an anti-entropic direction of the early universe integrates very well with the idea of a constructor of the universe who has hyper-intelligent attributes. They rationally reinforce each other as paradigms. There is rationality and reasonableness in such a paradigm.

To suggest that a pre-state of nothingness, expanded and condensed into the known universe, driven by random forces, is the unreasonable and unreasoned conclusion. We know from observation and testing that the process of change of states of matter and energy do not go in that direction - ever. That is why the laws of Thermodynamics are called laws, rather than postulates.

unreasonable.

There is an open question on entropy and the early universe but if you want to talk of "unreasonableness" and scientific ideas and scientific thinking than it's silly to hijack the entropic question and use it to back up a faith based idea that one of the many messianic, savior demigod mythologies is actually true.

The point is that the 'scientific' ideas of origin actually are not 'reasonable' because they self-contradict.

The universe cannot expand faster than the speed of light because anything with mass cannot exceed the speed of light. Just as a reversal of the direction of entropy at the beginning of the universe is unsupported by any theory or observation, but is the key paradigm of Big Bang cosmology.

The scientific approach - scholarship on the historicity of the bible - puts Jesus as a man (not a supernatural demigod) and the only people who disagree are biased by being actual Christians.

The New Testament is full of miracles. It is not the account of a natural man. Also, non-Christian accounts of the time (such as those by Josephus and Tacitus) mention Jesus as a miracle worker. Even the (much later) Babylonian Talmud describes Jesus in this way, even though it is quite 'anti-Christianity'.

To ignore vast swathes of an account because it doesn't fit your paradigm is neither scientific, nor academically valid. These so called 'scientific' reinterpretations are not related to scientific method at all. They are no more than marketing by a particular ideology, using abuzz word that they obviously don't even understand.

Similarly, Jesus was not a "demigod", but was the human form of the one, and the only, true God. And, if the recorded observations (even from sources other than Christian) are correct, the life and works of Jesus are not mythological.

The evidence does not support that particular faith based ideology as being literal.

You can claim faith but using entropy to provide evidence for any mythology, be it Zeus or Judaism, doesn't make sense.

If the recorded observations are taken literally, then the Christian beliefs that come from them are entirely rational.

To disregard the observational data and make up some alternate theory that goes against that data, and based upon nothing but conjecture, is neither rational, nor scientific.

You, several times, have described things as mythological that are strongly evidenced otherwise.

originally posted by: Woodcarver

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Woodcarver

Im not even sure what you are talking about.

In this thread as well as another thread you said that the biblical commandment to love God and love your neighbor came from the code of Hammurabi . I said I didn't think it did and asked you to quote the code to show your prof which you did not . You have a few options at this point .

Have you read the code of hammurabi?

The Code of Hammurabi contains no edict to love any God (Hammurabi obviously was a pantheist), nor does it mention loving your neighbor. The following link has been supplied so that you may verify this, if you want:

The Code of Hammurabi Translated by L. W. King - Yale Law School - Lillian Goldman Law Library

originally posted by: chr0naut

The idea of an anti-entropic direction of the early universe integrates very well with the idea of a constructor of the universe who has hyper-intelligent attributes. They rationally reinforce each other as paradigms. There is rationality and reasonableness in such a paradigm.

To suggest that a pre-state of nothingness, expanded and condensed into the known universe, driven by random forces, is the unreasonable and unreasoned conclusion

It is still an open question, why would we expect science to know everything? Proposing that since we can't figure it out means it's proof of a creator is using the "god in the gap" solution at best.

You said it yourself.... "known science", so obviously something not yet known might come along that explains the early state of the universe.

The science of universe creation will likely feature all kinds of new ideas, rules, conditions, it's really not reasonable to use this knowledge gap as a reason to believe in a creator. On top of that it speaks nothing to what the creator is actually like. It could be a race of hyper-intelligent A.I. type beings.

But jumping from deism to theism which is known to be mythology is nonsense. This creator is exactly as likely to be the Christian God as it is to be Zeus. The field of biblical historicity is overwhelmingly in favor of Jesus being just a Rabbi. The latest and most comprehensive work by Dr Carrier supports the theory of Jesus being only mythology.

originally posted by: chr0naut
The point is that the 'scientific' ideas of origin actually are not 'reasonable' because they self-contradict.

The universe cannot expand faster than the speed of light because anything with mass cannot exceed the speed of light. Just as a reversal of the direction of entropy at the beginning of the universe is unsupported by any theory or observation, but is the key paradigm of Big Bang cosmology.

Right but in inflation space-time can expand faster than light. It would take you 3 minutes of investigation to find this out so you may have some confirmation bias going on here.

originally posted by: chr0naut
The New Testament is full of miracles. It is not the account of a natural man. Also, non-Christian accounts of the time (such as those by Josephus and Tacitus) mention Jesus as a miracle worker. Even the (much later) Babylonian Talmud describes Jesus in this way, even though it is quite 'anti-Christianity'.

Nope, not even close. All accounts outside of the gospels have been proven to be forgery or may simply be going on what was said in the gospels or what was said by believing Christians.

As to Josephus:

"The problems with this famous passage are many. First of all, it is noticeably out of context with the surrounding material. Second, it evidently did not appear in the early copies of Josephus's works, nor in the second-century version quoted by Church father Origen, who would certainly have mentioned it if it had been there. The TF does not appear in any known works until the beginning of the fourth century and is first quoted by Bishop Eusebius, the enthusiastic advocate of what he apparently called "holy lying" for the greater glory of the Church, known to have been responsible for many interpolations, revisions and blatant forgeries.

Moreover, Josephus was a Jew and would hardly have referred to Jesus's ministry as "the truth" or "wonderful things"; nor would he have called Jesus "the Christ." Neither could he have mentioned "the tribe of Christians," for there were no Christians in his day. Christianity did not get off the ground until the second century."


Tacitus only mentioned "christos" once and it's been shown to be a forgery by Braccoilini.

originally posted by: chr0naut
To ignore vast swathes of an account because it doesn't fit your paradigm is neither scientific, nor academically valid. These so called 'scientific' reinterpretations are not related to scientific method at all. They are no more than marketing by a particular ideology, using abuzz word that they obviously don't even understand.

No what's "scientific" is allowing PHD scholars to complete their works and see what they have to say. This is something you are obviously not doing.
The overwhelming majority (everyone except Christian scholars) who are PHD historians and specialize on biblical historicity consider Jesus to have been a man and not a supernatural deity.

The current leading PHD scholar, Richard Carrier, who has completed an 8 year project on the historicity of Jesus actually supports the mythicist theory (Jesus never existed at all). The entire field has not accepted his thesis yet because it will take a while for his books to be peer-reviewed. It's a long exhausting process and it takes time. This is what people mainly learn when going from master to PHD in history - methods to verify and check sources as accurate.

So I can't say it's "proven" that Jesus was purely a myth but again, the historicity field, besides Christians, believe the Bible as allegorical storytelling and no supernatural aspects are real. It's viewed that Jesus was just a teacher or Rabbi.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Similarly, Jesus was not a "demigod", but was the human form of the one, and the only, true God. And, if the recorded observations (even from sources other than Christian) are correct, the life and works of Jesus are not mythological.

That is what a demi-god is - sky father (Yaweh) mixed with often virgin-birth (pathogenesis)Earth mother.
The sin redeemer, conquer death, forgive personal sins, undergo a passion, followers baptize into, die and resurrect in 3 days demigod happened many times before Jesus. As that mythology spread throughout the middle East the Jews eventually invented their own.
There are no outside corroborations of the gospels. Literary science shows the gospels to be highly mythological, this is a known fact.

originally posted by: chr0naut
To disregard the observational data and make up some alternate theory that goes against that data, and based upon nothing but conjecture, is neither rational, nor scientific.

You, several times, have described things as mythological that are strongly evidenced otherwise.

It's weird that you are using "science" to rationalize beliefs in a supernatural being. I've come to this knowledge by reading and listening to PHD historians in the bible historicity field, this is what they say. These are not my ideas?

All of the Christ mythology happened previously in earlier religions. The gospels start with Mark and each one re-tells the story with added flare and supernatural aspects. Analysis of writing styles, historical mistakes being copied by gospel writers from earlier gospels, obvious parables, there is absolutely zero belief in scholarship of any supernatural being in any religion or mythology.

It's one thing to have faith but to hijack scientific thinking and pretend like believing in mythology is justified is absurd. To call scholarship "conjecture" because it doesn't believe mythology to be real is ignorant.

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

It is still an open question, why would we expect science to know everything? Proposing that since we can't figure it out means it's proof of a creator is using the "god in the gap" solution at best.

I never attempted to fill any gaps with God. God and scientific reasoning are compatible. God must exist entirely across all of Creation, not stuffed as filler in a few gaps. It is the attempts to fill the gaps with unphysical and unnatural pseudo-scientific explanations that is invalid. True science doesn't crayon in a picture to fill the gaps.

You said it yourself.... "known science", so obviously something not yet known might come along that explains the early state of the universe.

It might, or it might not.

At this point of time and with our current knowledge,we don't know. An assumption that a discovery will be made, is preemptive. Supporting an argument with vague possibilities is not reasonable.

The science of universe creation will likely feature all kinds of new ideas, rules, conditions, it's really not reasonable to use this knowledge gap as a reason to believe in a creator. On top of that it speaks nothing to what the creator is actually like. It could be a race of hyper-intelligent A.I. type beings.

It is also not reasonable to fill the knowledge gaps with pseudo-scientific babble and expect reasoning people to not call you out on it.

A Creator could have all sorts of configurations and attributes, probably most being beyond our understanding.

In that case, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that revelatory works could give us a better grasp of such concepts, than fantastic and unsupported rumination?

originally posted by: chr0naut

I never attempted to fill any gaps with God. God and scientific reasoning are compatible. God must exist entirely across all of Creation, not stuffed as filler in a few gaps. It is the attempts to fill the gaps with unphysical and unnatural pseudo-scientific explanations that is invalid. True science doesn't crayon in a picture to fill the gaps.

You are attempting to fill a gap, the issue of low entropy is a gap in scientific knowledge. Eventually it's likely that a cosmological model will emerge that accounts for the big bang and it's low entropy state. It might explain why universes are created and answer all questions about big bang cosmology.
Then what? You would no longer be able to use that issue as proof of a god.

Scientific reasoning is simple, you make a model and find ways to test your theory. If one insists on combining the scientific method with god then this can be done. My first experiment is that I'm calling to God to speak with me, using sounds and in english. The same way that religious text would have one believe humans spoke with gods. Although Paul actually claimed only to know of Jesus through scripture and hallucination (revelation).

This experiment has not worked for anyone where we can prove the results as valid.

Which brings me to experiment #2, verify the source material. The history field says Jesus was not a god.
Move over to archeology:
www.pbs.org...

"William Dever, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years and authored almost as many books on the subject."

"We want to make the Bible history. Many people think it has to be history or nothing. But there is no word for history in the Hebrew Bible. In other words, what did the biblical writers think they were doing? Writing objective history? No. That's a modern discipline. They were telling stories. They wanted you to know what these purported events mean.
The Bible is didactic literature; it wants to teach, not just to describe. We try to make the Bible something it is not, and that's doing an injustice to the biblical writers. "

Again, from historicity scholars like Dr Carrier we can see Christianity formed through religious syncretism, the blending of messiah savior cults with Judaism.

So that's it? That's what science is and there is no scientific angle where a god fits in.

I can't see how you can call a cosmological theory/hypothesis "unphysical and unnatural pseudo-scientific explanations " but then suggest a god wouldn't be the same thing.

No scientists are saying their big bang ideas are 100% the absolute truth, not even close. So to then say a god MUST be real is the exact opposite of a scientific statement. Scientists don't even say that about most science??
A scientific way to view god would be at best to say it's only a possibility. To say otherwise is just fear, dogma or superstition pretending to be science.

originally posted by: chr0naut

It might, or it might not.

At this point of time and with our current knowledge,we don't know. An assumption that a discovery will be made, is preemptive. Supporting an argument with vague possibilities is not reasonable.

We may never know. But considering the history of science it's reasonable to say that even if we never figure it out there is likely a natural explanation to the big bang.
Or maybe something created the universe? That is a possibility. Now to say it was this or that human-created god is the biggest stretch ever. It doesn't have to be a god at all, just god-like to us. A race of beings that could create a universe could just as easily be the creators.
The being or beings that may have created the universe are exactly as likely to be Zeus or Odin as the Abrahamic god.
Christianity has no edge in terms of being more true than any other mythology about universal gods, the scientific method teaches us that very clearly.

originally posted by: chr0naut

It is also not reasonable to fill the knowledge gaps with pseudo-scientific babble and expect reasoning people to not call you out on it.

A Creator could have all sorts of configurations and attributes, probably most being beyond our understanding.

In that case, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that revelatory works could give us a better grasp of such concepts, than fantastic and unsupported rumination?

No because the rumination is based on quantum physics and cosmology and you know damn well at how well the standard model describes the workings of the universe. Combined with this new tool we have called observation!
We have particle accelerators and telescopes.

A creator might be beyond our understanding but guess what....so far, the universe IS UNDERSTANDABLE. We keep finding simple elegant solutions to huge mysteries. This will probably keep happening.

In contrast to mythological parables? That have never ever shown any insight into any science at all?
Jesus told his followers that there was no need for hand washing ,a perfect passage for "god" to pass along some little bit of knowledge about science (germs) that would help humanity immensely.

He didn't know about germs. Or anything related to physics or math or any biological or Earth science.
Most of the dramas including Adam and Eve, Satan and an earlier angel Jesus who was died and reborn took place in the firmament or the lower heavens which was believed to be in between the moon and Earth.
That's your cosmology?
Look at how scientifically illiterate the church was before science? After all that you still think there would be any science in scripture? Something that couldn't even tell you about atoms or planets?

Every religion has revelatory works, it's material that ancient (and modern people, in Mormonism and Cargo cults) make up. Of course it's not reasonable to use make believe fiction as source material for science?? Would you use cargo cult revelations? No. If one isn't a Christian it's the same thing, there is no scientific value in any scripture.

Fringe theories in physics are always sketchy and no one says they are laws. The only people who says they are laws are religious people when they are trying to say the theory of god is a better solution. Science doesn't ever say they are laws. They are just ideas based on previous science that are awaiting further confirmation or to be thrown out. Science will happily throw any bad idea out, any idea.
So to put god in scientific terms would be to first be prepared to follow the scientific evidence for it which doesn't exist. It's really only an issue of faith not science.

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

You are attempting to fill a gap, the issue of low entropy is a gap in scientific knowledge. Eventually it's likely that a cosmological model will emerge that accounts for the big bang and it's low entropy state. It might explain why universes are created and answer all questions about big bang cosmology. Then what? You would no longer be able to use that issue as proof of a god.

That the proposed entropic direction of the early universe defies all known science is a fairly decent 'gap'. But if science were to discover an answer a mechanism explanatory of the existence of the universe, it still wouldn't disprove creation by God, who may have chosen that particular method for doing so. This is the weakness of the argument of those who might also just as reasonably propose that Henry Ford never existed based upon their understanding of the pneumatic tyre.

Scientific reasoning is simple, you make a model and find ways to test your theory. If one insists on combining the scientific method with god then this can be done. My first experiment is that I'm calling to God to speak with me, using sounds and in english. The same way that religious text would have one believe humans spoke with gods. Although Paul actually claimed only to know of Jesus through scripture and hallucination (revelation).

This experiment has not worked for anyone where we can prove the results as valid.

Has it? A vast majority Christians across the planet have made and still make such claims, and have done so for 2,000 years. But, if we exclude all those who have had personal revelation of God, then no-one has had a personal revelation of God.

Which brings me to experiment #2, verify the source material. The history field says Jesus was not a god.
Move over to archeology:
www.pbs.org...

"William Dever, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years and authored almost as many books on the subject."

"We want to make the Bible history. Many people think it has to be history or nothing. But there is no word for history in the Hebrew Bible. In other words, what did the biblical writers think they were doing? Writing objective history? No. That's a modern discipline. They were telling stories. They wanted you to know what these purported events mean.
The Bible is didactic literature; it wants to teach, not just to describe. We try to make the Bible something it is not, and that's doing an injustice to the biblical writers. "

While William Dever may have a knowledge of the Archaeological field, his discovery of Asherah in early Judaistic religious practice comes as no surprise to anyone who has actually read the Bible, which recounts at length details of those who abandoned YHWH and worshiped other gods, mentioned by name, such as Dagon, Asherah, Tammuz, the Baals, Astarte and the Babylonian pantheon.

Again, from historicity scholars like Dr Carrier we can see Christianity formed through religious syncretism, the blending of messiah savior cults with Judaism.

Within 30 years, the Christian faith spread to the ends of the Roman Empire, even under official opposition. Before printing, that was a very rapid start to a world movement, especially if there was no initiator.

For every purported scholar who proposes that Jesus was a myth (and based upon what evidence?) we both know that there are 100 far more qualified scholars who support Jesus' historicity.

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

... snip ...

Or maybe something created the universe? That is a possibility. Now to say it was this or that human-created god is the biggest stretch ever.

The 'God' everyone is talking about created humans, not the other way around. No wonder you have such issues, you have somehow gotten basic concepts entirely backwards.

It doesn't have to be a god at all, just god-like to us. A race of beings that could create a universe could just as easily be the creators.
The being or beings that may have created the universe are exactly as likely to be Zeus or Odin as the Abrahamic god.

No, a pantheon of gods must rationally be subservient to each other and to the 'realm of the gods'. They can be manipulated by the control of the realm in which they exist, or by other gods. As such, they cannot exist outside of their realm, which begs the question, how did this realm start? As an explanation of origins, it is ultimately another fail (like scientific cosmologies).

A monotheistic atemporal, omniscient and all-powerful God, such as the Abrahamic conception, has no start, so that resolves the necessity for a realm or diminution of authority and power by appeal to a higher power.

As a paradigm, it is clearly immensely superior to pantheism (or to the creator god called 'randomness').

Christianity has no edge in terms of being more true than any other mythology about universal gods, the scientific method teaches us that very clearly.

The scientific method tells us that?

Nope.

The scientific method is entirely naturalistic and tells us nothing about anything supernatural. You are digging a deeper philosophical hole here and don't seem to realize it.

No because the rumination is based on quantum physics and cosmology and you know damn well at how well the standard model describes the workings of the universe. Combined with this new tool we have called observation!
We have particle accelerators and telescopes.

... and iPhones and digital watches (shiny, so shiny)!

A creator might be beyond our understanding but guess what....so far, the universe IS UNDERSTANDABLE. We keep finding simple elegant solutions to huge mysteries. This will probably keep happening.

So you think the human brain is unlimited? At some stage, the concepts will be too big, too many and too complex to fit our mental capacity. That is not a probable, but is definite. Therefore the universe is likely to be be fully understandable, just not by human minds.

In contrast to mythological parables? That have never ever shown any insight into any science at all?
Jesus told his followers that there was no need for hand washing, a perfect passage for "god" to pass along some little bit of knowledge about science (germs) that would help humanity immensely.

Jesus told the Pharisees and legalists (not His followers) that He did not need to wash His hands. He went on to explain to the Pharisees that their compliance to 'washing the outside', didn't cleanse them 'inside' and that they were dirty 'inside'. His focus wasn't on germs but on a more pertinent (to the listeners and vicariously to the readers) subject upon which their lives and future definitely depended (context is kind of important, even in science).

He didn't know about germs. Or anything related to physics or math or any biological or Earth science.

Oh, based upon what? Surely an emphatic statement should be evident somehow?

Most of the dramas including Adam and Eve, Satan and an earlier angel Jesus who was died and reborn took place in the firmament or the lower heavens which was believed to be in between the moon and Earth.
That's your cosmology?

No. That sounds like some sort of vague Jehovah's Witnesses misinterpretation, I am a Christian.

Look at how scientifically illiterate the church was before science? After all that you still think there would be any science in scripture? Something that couldn't even tell you about atoms or planets?

Science was substantially birthed by religious people. There were almost no atheists among early scientists. Atheism has contributed NOTHING to science.

But aside from that, there are references to the planets in scripture. The earliest descriptions of the Earth describe it as round and balanced in place in a void (not too bad for late bronze age shepherds).

There are also some poetic descriptions where God shows Job the limits of Job's understanding and includes the gravitational binding of the constellations of Orion and the Pleiades (which are unique in that their stars are close enough to affect each other gravitationally) and describes megafauna (like dinosaurs) both in the sea and on land, and the existence of deep ocean springs, and the hydrological cycle, and the near absence of maternal instinct in Ostriches, and that the mating urge in many wild animals is periodic.

There are also indications that the Hebrews knew the value of Pi to four decimal places, well before than the Egyptians figured it out.

Every religion has revelatory works, it's material that ancient (and modern people, in Mormonism and Cargo cults) make up. Of course it's not reasonable to use make believe fiction as source material for science?? Would you use cargo cult revelations? No. If one isn't a Christian it's the same thing, there is no scientific value in any scripture.

Fringe theories in physics are always sketchy and no one says they are laws. The only people who says they are laws are religious people when they are trying to say the theory of god is a better solution. Science doesn't ever say they are laws. They are just ideas based on previous science that are awaiting further confirmation or to be thrown out. Science will happily throw any bad idea out, any idea.

So the "4 Laws of Thermodynamics" were codified (and named such) by religions?

Keep digging, perhaps the philosophical thought space is spherical and you will come out on the other side of the globe?

So to put god in scientific terms would be to first be prepared to follow the scientific evidence for it which doesn't exist. It's really only an issue of faith not science.

As everything evidences an origin, all scientific evidence, therefore, suggests a Creator!

Since science cannot explain even the origins of existence with certainty, how could anyone say that science's (eminently disposable) postulates are either evidenced or true?

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

...snip...

So to put god in scientific terms would be to first be prepared to follow the scientific evidence for it which doesn't exist.

... snip ...

Surely science is evidence based and can come to no conclusion about a hypothesis or theory in an absence of evidence.

Please explain how scientific method can proceed to support the hypothesis that 'there is no God', if there were, as you suggested, an absence of evidence?

originally posted by: chr0naut

That the proposed entropic direction of the early universe defies all known science is a fairly decent 'gap'. But if science were to discover an answer a mechanism explanatory of the existence of the universe, it still wouldn't disprove creation by God, who may have chosen that particular method for doing so. This is the weakness of the argument of those who might also just as reasonably propose that Henry Ford never existed based upon their understanding of the pneumatic tyre.

It doesn't disprove or prove a creator, it's just a gap in scientific knowledge. But as a proof of a god it doesn't work.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Has it? A vast majority Christians across the planet have made and still make such claims, and have done so for 2,000 years. But, if we exclude all those who have had personal revelation of God, then no-one has had a personal revelation of God.

You definitely can't use personal revelations because they happen in all religions. Even the cargo cults started out with revelations then later added "John From" as a savior deity after military men visited the islands.

While people in each individual religion pass on claims that the religion is indeed valid and literal this is not what people who study history or archeology say. Using beliefs of Christians as any kind of suggestion that Christianity is true is just a fallacy.
A Mormom would say the same thing about Mormonism, including the revelations from J. Smith who was visited by an angel.
Revelations is just a fancy word for hallucination, pretending or made up tales.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Within 30 years, the Christian faith spread to the ends of the Roman Empire, even under official opposition. Before printing, that was a very rapid start to a world movement, especially if there was no initiator.

The growth rate of early Christianity has the exact same growth rate of Mormonism. Also this still has no bearing on the idea that supernatural mythology is actually true. In those days everyone assumed there was some correct form of supernatural thinking. It was their science. But still we know there is no outside corroboration of the life of Jesus.

No writers of the days reported a blackening of the sun, earthquakes, a zombie apocalypse or any other new testament happenings.

originally posted by: chr0naut
For every purported scholar who proposes that Jesus was a myth (and based upon what evidence?) we both know that there are 100 far more qualified scholars who support Jesus' historicity.

Right now scholarship supports Jesus as a man. Not as a supernatural being. They support historicity for a Jewish Rabbi with no supernatural power.

The evidence for the mythicist theory is vast and based on what was stolen from earlier mythology, writing analysis of the gospels in terms of identifying allegory and parables, historical mistakes that were accidentally transferred between the 4 gospels, lack of mention of Jesus in historical writings outside the gospels and much much more.
Also Paul never mentions an earthly Jesus or any of his works or ministry. Paul was likely referencing a Jesus already in Jewish angelology who died and was resurrected in the lower heavens. Paul only references scripture and revelation as his source. He knows nothing of any of the earthly life of Jesus.

All that happened later as fan fiction (4 gospels), although there were originally over 40 gospels.

Richard Carrier has compiled all the evidence for the mythicist theory in a 700+ page book which has to be peer reviewed before becoming accepted into scholarship. It will take time. He is involved in dozens of debates on youtube and many of his lectures are also free on youtube.

originally posted by: chr0naut
The 'God' everyone is talking about created humans, not the other way around. No wonder you have such issues, you have somehow gotten basic concepts entirely backwards.

By "issues" you mean I listen to what historians and archeologists have to say? You are trying to come off as science-minded yet when I take a scientific position you say I have "issues"?

So again, by "issues" you mean one who isn't ignoring scholarship and adopting a fundamentalist point of view on supernatural deities? That's ass-backward?

ALL gods are created by humans because all mythology is created by humans. End of story. Every concept of "god" is hypothetical fiction based on thoughts, ruminations and meditations of ancient (and modern) human beings.
That's all there is.

Maybe some type of higher being or beings created the universe, sure. Those beings are NOT what's in human mythology. Just think of Zeus, you know Zeus is in no way related to the possible creator of the universe.
There you go, it's the same with the Christian god. Personal belief systems don't make a mythology true.

originally posted by: chr0naut
No, a pantheon of gods must rationally be subservient to each other and to the 'realm of the gods'. They can be manipulated by the control of the realm in which they exist, or by other gods. As such, they cannot exist outside of their realm, which begs the question, how did this realm start? As an explanation of origins, it is ultimately another fail (like scientific cosmologies).

A monotheistic atemporal, omniscient and all-powerful God, such as the Abrahamic conception, has no start, so that resolves the necessity for a realm or diminution of authority and power by appeal to a higher power.

No there is a scientific cosmology that does not require a temporal beginning, the Hawking-Hartle big bang.
Or we might just not be ready to solve that problem yet?
The Hindu Brahman is also a transcendent and beyond time ultimate reality god.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Christianity has no edge in terms of being more true than any other mythology about universal gods, the scientific method teaches us that very clearly.
The scientific method tells us that?

Yup. PDH scholars who follow the scientific method have shown there is no cause to believe in supernatural happenings written about in the bible. Hence the current belief in the historicity field -Jesus was a man.

originally posted by: chr0naut
The scientific method is entirely naturalistic and tells us nothing about anything supernatural. You are digging a deeper philosophical hole here and don't seem to realize it.

Do you know that thing where we know that other gods like the Egyptain, Greek and Persian gospels are just myth?
That same method is how we know the Christain works are also mythology.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Most of the dramas including Adam and Eve, Satan and an earlier angel Jesus who was died and reborn took place in the firmament or the lower heavens which was believed to be in between the moon and Earth.
That's your cosmology?

No. That sounds like some sort of vague Jehovah's Witnesses misinterpretation, I am a Christian.

No, I can show you a video of a leading bible historicity scholar explaining it this way.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Science was substantially birthed by religious people. There were almost no atheists among early scientists. Atheism has contributed NOTHING to science.
There are also indications that the Hebrews knew the value of Pi to four decimal places, well before than the Egyptians figured it out.

Of course science was started by religious people, everyone was religious back then. They didn't have SCIENCE to explain that they were silly superstitious people!?
But zero science came from any religion. The Greeks did not create mathematics and philosophy with the help from religion. Newton did not learn his physics from his religious beliefs. Nor did any physicist since.

The Hebrews has a bunch of silly metaphysics going on and then they started having interactions with the Persians who they noticed had an even cooler metaphysics (Zorastrianism). They had a place to go after you die and a special demigod who battles this bad guy called satan. By defeating Satan you can raise from the dead and also gain forgiveness of sins of all the followers. Eventually we get a Jewish version of that messiah cult. If that isn't the most basic common sense obvious example of mythological syncretism ever then there is an absence of critical thinking that I could never get past, no matter what I say.

originally posted by: chr0naut
So the "4 Laws of Thermodynamics" were codified (and named such) by religions?

Keep digging, perhaps the philosophical thought space is spherical and you will come out on the other side of the globe?

That's exactly what I mean, before you congratulate yourself too much here, if some laws comes by that disproves the Thermodynamics laws then guess what.....science will change!

Christianity has all ready been shown to be false. Everyone impartial to the religion is convinced, the supernatural stories are added mythology. Only Christians are struggling to find ways to make these myths as historical truths.
Christian myths are Zoroastrianism myths.
And please do not consult Wiki for a half assed description. I can provide a link to an actual PHD historian explaining the links between Zoroastrianism and all of the savior gods that emerged from it's influence. Pre-Christian gospels.

originally posted by: chr0naut
As everything evidences an origin, all scientific evidence, therefore, suggests a Creator!
Since science cannot explain even the origins of existence with certainty, how could anyone say that science's (eminently disposable) postulates are either evidenced or true?

Well you're jumping around here from middle eastern mythology to a vague creator of the universe concept.
Again, just because a creator god is possible that does not mean it's Odin. And yes, the 4 gospels have been shown to be as equally as mythological as the Norse mythology. Scholarship does NOT disagree with this.
Since you are science minded, I would think you would accept this?

So because science "cannot explain even the origins of existence with certainty" does that mean that the 1000+ creation mythos of all of the worlds religions should be brought to mind?
Should we think on how Brahman created reality. Or should we consult the gospels of Hercules?

I'm going to say no. Christianity holds no special place on that list. Archeology and historicity (and common sense) have shown clearly where there writings come from so that's out.

So the origins of existence have not been solved by science. We do know that science has solved some mysteries but it's not there yet. I can't see how that would relate to wanting to pretend mythology is real?

originally posted by: chr0naut

So to put god in scientific terms would be to first be prepared to follow the scientific evidence for it which doesn't exist.

... snip ...


Surely science is evidence based and can come to no conclusion about a hypothesis or theory in an absence of evidence.

Please explain how scientific method can proceed to support the hypothesis that 'there is no God', if there were, as you suggested, an absence of evidence?

Well again this is where your jumping around gets confusing. Sometimes it's the creator of the universe, which hasn't been ruled out, - deism.
But religious people sometimes like to make the leap that since deism is possible so is their personal theism.
Which it isn't.
Just switch mythologies to any other - because the universe may have been created is that reason to believe in (insert any other religion, Buddhism, Romulus (another savior deity), Mormonism, Hinduism, Thor)

The scientific answer would be no. Our historical and literary sciences have shown all religions to be mythology.
So in the sense of believing in a particular theism and allowing the scientific method to determine the results, the answer is no, there is no god in this sense.

Then one can get into the idea that a personal god would sometimes answer prayers which would skew mortality rates for people in a certain religion. Doesn't happen. If a certain illness claims 20% of it's victims then 20% will die.
So mortality prayers are not answered. Other types of prayer studies have also shown negative results.
As do all studies on supernatural influence or senses.
However this topic isn't really a good line of discussion, even for the subject. But some science has been done so...

A deity or deities is a possibility. Or something we can't even conceive, I believe earlier you tried to make a factual statement that your god would fit into, well it could be something you cannot even make a statement about, period.

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

It doesn't disprove or prove a creator, it's just a gap in scientific knowledge. But as a proof of a god it doesn't work.

It wasn't and isn't a proof of God, but it is most definitely a failure of science to disprove God.

originally posted by: chr0naut

You definitely can't use personal revelations because they happen in all religions. Even the cargo cults started out with revelations then later added "John From" as a savior deity after military men visited the islands.

While people in each individual religion pass on claims that the religion is indeed valid and literal this is not what people who study history or archeology say. Using beliefs of Christians as any kind of suggestion that Christianity is true is just a fallacy.
A Mormom would say the same thing about Mormonism, including the revelations from J. Smith who was visited by an angel.
Revelations is just a fancy word for hallucination, pretending or made up tales.

Please explain how hundreds of people all 'hallucinate' the same thing, and where every witness ascribes a specific and identical religious meaning to it (which has happened several times in the past)?

originally posted by: chr0naut

Within 30 years, the Christian faith spread to the ends of the Roman Empire, even under official opposition. Before printing, that was a very rapid start to a world movement, especially if there was no initiator.

The growth rate of early Christianity has the exact same growth rate of Mormonism.

Mormonism grew from 6 members in 1829 to 663,652 in 1929, a growth of 663,646 in 100 years.

Christianity grew from about 120 members (at Pentecost) to approximately 1,000,000 members by AD 100, a growth of approximately 999,880 in 100 years.

Christianity grew 150% faster than Mormonism in the first 100 years.

Also this still has no bearing on the idea that supernatural mythology is actually true. In those days everyone assumed there was some correct form of supernatural thinking. It was their science. But still we know there is no outside corroboration of the life of Jesus.

It is voluminous.

No writers of the days reported a blackening of the sun, earthquakes, a zombie apocalypse or any other new testament happenings.

Thallus (1st century), in his third volume of 'Histories', wrote about it and ascribed it to a solar eclipse and simultaneous earthquake. Sextus Julius Africanus (third century) commented that Thallus must be wrong as it had attributes (like its duration and darkness) which did not match eclipses.

Also, Phlegon, a Greek historian, wrote in about AD 137: "In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (i.e., AD 33) there was ‘the greatest eclipse of the sun’ and that ‘it became night in the sixth hour of the day [i.e., noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea."

But pretty much everything recorded in the Gospels (like names, places and historical events) are authenticated by historical third party sources.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Right now scholarship supports Jesus as a man. Not as a supernatural being. They support historicity for a Jewish Rabbi with no supernatural power.

That is untrue and contrasts with:

The evidence for the mythicist theory is vast

So there is no evidence but the evidence is vast?

and based on what was stolen from earlier mythology, writing analysis of the gospels in terms of identifying allegory and parables, historical mistakes that were accidentally transferred between the 4 gospels, lack of mention of Jesus in historical writings outside the gospels and much much more.

You are taking the word of very few (among literally tens of thousands of scholars who disagree with them) and who are likely just trying to get book sales by making outrageous claims. Admittedly, the scholars are likely to be Christians but perhaps that is because of the compelling and undeniable nature of the Gospels.

Also Paul never mentions an earthly Jesus or any of his works or ministry. Paul was likely referencing a Jesus already in Jewish angelology who died and was resurrected in the lower heavens. Paul only references scripture and revelation as his source. He knows nothing of any of the earthly life of Jesus.

Paul talks of Jesus as a man, with "flesh" and "blood" and who "came into this world" and "walked among us" and "was God". Nothing to do with angelology.

No-one doubts the historicity of the disciples and they attested to living and walking around with Jesus for at least 3 years. Most of them went to their deaths for proclaiming the physical reality, death and resurrection of Jesus. So, how likely is it that Jesus was a fiction?

...also, John (the Apostle) said (in 1 John 2:22): "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son."

John, James and Peter ordained Paul as 'Apostle to the Gentiles' they did this after much discussion and consideration of God saying to Annanias, about Paul, ... "This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel." (Acts9:15).

All that happened later as fan fiction (4 gospels), although there were originally over 40 gospels.

Please list them. I only know of the definite existence of the 4 Canonical Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas. All other purported Gospels were post 2nd Century and therefore unauthentic.

Richard Carrier has compiled all the evidence for the mythicist theory in a 700+ page book which has to be peer reviewed before becoming accepted into scholarship. It will take time. He is involved in dozens of debates on youtube and many of his lectures are also free on youtube.

Richard Carrier has said he is an atheist and opposes orthodox Christian beliefs.

His work uses Bayesian mathematics to determine the likelihood of the historicity of Jesus. Carrier has concluded that the likelihood that Jesus existed is between 1/3 and 1/12000, depending upon 'estimates' used for computation.

Mathematically, that is so incredibly fuzzy as to call into question why one would ever publish something with such a wide margin? It is obvious to any peer reviewer that he has injected prejudice into his 'estimate' inputs and therefore his 'results' are skewed.

Perhaps if the error margins were smaller, he could get favorably peer reviewed and some academics might actually support his conclusions.

If you check out Carrier's Wikipedia entry, it clearly states in the fourth paragraph, "Nearly all contemporary scholars of ancient history and most biblical scholars have maintained that a historical Jesus did indeed exist".

So, your statements about the majority of scholars agreeing that Jesus was unhistorical are false. The opposite is true.

... which kind of supports what the Apostle John's says in 1 John 2:22, doesn't it?

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

By "issues" you mean I listen to what historians and archeologists have to say? You are trying to come off as science-minded yet when I take a scientific position you say I have "issues"?

How can you take a "scientific position", you say you have no evidence? Science is evidential!

So again, by "issues" you mean one who isn't ignoring scholarship and adopting a fundamentalist point of view on supernatural deities? That's ass-backward?

ALL gods are created by humans because all mythology is created by humans. End of story. Every concept of "god" is hypothetical fiction based on thoughts, ruminations and meditations of ancient (and modern) human beings.
That's all there is.

Maybe some type of higher being or beings created the universe, sure. Those beings are NOT what's in human mythology. Just think of Zeus, you know Zeus is in no way related to the possible creator of the universe.
There you go, it's the same with the Christian god. Personal belief systems don't make a mythology true.

originally posted by: chr0naut

No there is a scientific cosmology that does not require a temporal beginning, the Hawking-Hartle big bang.

If something is atemporal, it is by definition unchanging. If it changes, then there is a temporal 'distance' between the two states, i.e; it is temporal.

A Big Bang Cosmology cannot occur if time does not exist because it is an extreme change of state. There is a 'before' state and an 'after' state = temporality. Similarly, quantum fluctuation requires space (distance) to exist. The Casimir experiment shows that.

The Hawking-Hartle Big Bang is demonstrably myth, right there at the start.

Then there is the issue of quantum fluctuation birthing matter or energy.

If a virtual particle pair is prevented from annihilating, then it becomes 'real'. However, to prevent vparticles from annihilation requires large forces (like near the event horizon of a Black Hole). It requires a lot of 'stuff' to make a little 'stuff' that way.

Since there's no stuff in a empty universe, there's no stuff from quantum fluctuation.

The next issue is superposition, the Casimir experiment shows us a pressure from vparticles only because physical matter excludes the creation of superpositional vparticles (by Pauli exclusion, actually). A singularity is a superposition of all matter and energy. It cannot arise from quantum fluctuation.

There's three mythic components, one after the other, and I could go on if posts (and comprehension) weren't limited.

You are calling something that has no foundation in science or physics 'scientific' because some theoretician said it and you accepted it without evaluation, not because it is.

A hypothesis, without hard direct evidence and especially with only other hypotheses to support it, is a myth.

The Hindu Brahman is also a transcendent and beyond time ultimate reality god.

Except Brahman is so 'transcendent' that it cannot be induced to follow any sort of rational logic.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Yup. PDH scholars who follow the scientific method have shown there is no cause to believe in supernatural happenings written about in the bible. Hence the current belief in the historicity field -Jesus was a man.

I think you mean 'Ph.D' and scientific method assumes there is no supernatural at all. Too bad that supernatural things are evidenced and that incompleteness (mathematics) tells us that there must always be a supernatural beyond the formal axiomatic system of science.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Do you know that thing where we know that other gods like the Egyptain, Greek and Persian gospels are just myth? That same method is how we know the Christain works are also mythology.

... and I think you mean 'Christian works', too.

originally posted by: chr0naut

No, I can show you a video of a leading bible historicity scholar explaining it this way.

Not a 'leading Bible historicity' scholar and you can't make up some alternate idea and then blame someone else because you find your idea irrational.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Of course science was started by religious people, everyone was religious back then.

Apparently 84% of the world population has faith even today.

They didn't have SCIENCE to explain that they were silly superstitious people!?

But zero science came from any religion.

It came from religious people (of many religions), though.

The Greeks did not create mathematics and philosophy with the help from religion

The Arabs created our number system. Mathematics existed before Greece discovered fishing!

Newton did not learn his physics from his religious beliefs. Nor did any physicist since.

Did you learn anything about physics from clog-dancing?

The Hebrews has a bunch of silly metaphysics going on and then they started having interactions with the Persians who they noticed had an even cooler metaphysics (Zorastrianism). They had a place to go after you die and a special demigod who battles this bad guy called satan. By defeating Satan you can raise from the dead and also gain forgiveness of sins of all the followers. Eventually we get a Jewish version of that messiah cult. If that isn't the most basic common sense obvious example of mythological syncretism ever then there is an absence of critical thinking that I could never get past, no matter what I say.

Ah ha! If you won't think critically, that probably explains your opinions!

originally posted by: joelr

originally posted by: chr0naut

So to put god in scientific terms would be to first be prepared to follow the scientific evidence for it which doesn't exist.

... snip ...


Surely science is evidence based and can come to no conclusion about a hypothesis or theory in an absence of evidence.

Please explain how scientific method can proceed to support the hypothesis that 'there is no God', if there were, as you suggested, an absence of evidence?

Well again this is where your jumping around gets confusing. Sometimes it's the creator of the universe, which hasn't been ruled out, - deism.
But religious people sometimes like to make the leap that since deism is possible so is their personal theism.
Which it isn't.
Just switch mythologies to any other - because the universe may have been created is that reason to believe in (insert any other religion, Buddhism, Romulus (another savior deity), Mormonism, Hinduism, Thor)

I see what you did there!

You took an argument that stands in either case, and suggested that it wasn't just as applicable for deism as for theism.

Then, you based your very next argument upon doing he same type of switcheroo you accused me of, only with added derp!

Debating with you is unfair, isn't it?

The scientific answer would be no. Our historical and literary sciences have shown all religions to be mythology.

No they haven't.



Quite the opposite (as referenced previously on Mr Carrier's Wikipedia page).

So in the sense of believing in a particular theism and allowing the scientific method to determine the results, the answer is no, there is no god in this sense.

But that does not rationally follow.

No matter how much scientific method we apply, it does not logically follow that God does not exist.

It is a question beyond the reach of scientific method.

Let us do a thought experiment: The premise is that yellow African elephants do not exist. How much mass would I require to prove that yellow African elephants do not exist? Of course, you'd probably look at me weird because no amount of mass could conceivably tell me that yellow African elephants don't exist. Mass is simply the wrong tool for the job.

Of course, you could paint an African elephant yellow and that could prove the antithesis.

So, perhaps, probing the existence of God with a physical sensor is not effective (but one could possibly test for God's existence through prayer).

In analogy, no amount of cleaning the windscreen will make a car go when it has run out of petrol. Cleaning the windscreen will not fill the tank. It is an inappropriate solution.

The same with making determinations about the supernatural using scientific method. It doesn't wash.

Then one can get into the idea that a personal god would sometimes answer prayers which would skew mortality rates for people in a certain religion. Doesn't happen. If a certain illness claims 20% of it's victims then 20% will die.
So mortality prayers are not answered. Other types of prayer studies have also shown negative results.
As do all studies on supernatural influence or senses.

Wikipedia: "Some studies on subjective well-being and personal effects of prayer have shown positive effects on the individual who prays".

However this topic isn't really a good line of discussion, even for the subject. But some science has been done so...

A deity or deities is a possibility. Or something we can't even conceive, I believe earlier you tried to make a factual statement that your god would fit into, well it could be something you cannot even make a statement about, period.

Yes,but I am in a better position to evaluate that, than someone antagonistic to God.

a reply to: joelr

Also, I must confess that the truth is that the Hawking-Hartle Big Bang cosmology only tells us the evolution of the early universe after the Big Bang singularity.

It really has no explicatory power to penetrate into the singularity, or before, and is very much grounded in conventional - post singularity - physics.

It does take some of its unstated basic assumptions based upon entirely hypothetical cases, but it is at least mathematically rigorous where it can be.

I only referred the Hawking-Hartle cosmology in response to your bringing the subject up, proposing it (erroneously) as a cosmology that does not require a temporal beginning.

originally posted by: chr0naut
It wasn't and isn't a proof of God, but it is most definitely a failure of science to disprove God.

It's not a failure any more than it is a failure to disprove unicorns. It's a non-issue.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Please explain how hundreds of people all 'hallucinate' the same thing, and where every witness ascribes a specific and identical religious meaning to it (which has happened several times in the past)?

It's only Paul that starts Christianity through his "revelations". The author of the gospel Mark is unknown and not sourced. The remaining gospels are re-writes of Mark according to scholarship.
Are you actually suggesting that the 10,000's of supernatural events recorded into history are all actually real?
Of course not and Christian folklore is no different. Again, the historicity field confirms this, Jesus was a MAN.

Even modern supernatural happenings are sometimes backed by hundreds of people, this means nothing. Are the cargo cults real because they have 100's of witnesses?

originally posted by: chr0naut
Christianity grew 150% faster than Mormonism in the first 100 years.

This sounds like you have been searching Christian apologist sites. According to Richard Carrier PHD historian in biblical era religions, Mormonism and Christianity have an exact growth rate over a 30 year period.
I'm sure I can source this fact.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Thallus (1st century), in his third volume of 'Histories', wrote about it and ascribed it to a solar eclipse and simultaneous earthquake. Sextus Julius Africanus (third century) commented that Thallus must be wrong as it had attributes (like its duration and darkness) which did not match eclipses.
But pretty much everything recorded in the Gospels (like names, places and historical events) are authenticated by historical third party sources.

Not one gospel event has even come close to being verified through outside sources. That is a complete fiction:


"In the final analysis there is no evidence that the biblical character called "Jesus Christ" ever existed. As Nicholas Carter concludes in The Christ Myth: "No sculptures, no drawings, no markings in stone, nothing written in his own hand; and no letters, no commentaries, indeed no authentic documents written by his Jewish and Gentile contemporaries, Justice of Tiberius, Philo, Josephus, Seneca, Petronius Arbiter, Pliny the Elder, et al., to lend credence to his historicity."

www.truthbeknown.com...

originally posted by: chr0naut
That is untrue and contrasts with:

The evidence for the mythicist theory is vast


So there is no evidence but the evidence is vast?

Scholarship considers Jesus to be a man, there is no dispute with this statement.

Now, the evidence for the mythicist theory IS even more vast, Richard Carrier has a 700 page book, completely sourced and backed by his PHD that the evidence for the mythicist theory is the most likely theory.
His book just hasn't been accepted by the field yet. I keep saying this but you're pretending not to get it.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Paul talks of Jesus as a man, with "flesh" and "blood" and who "came into this world" and "walked among us" and "was God". Nothing to do with angelology.

No-one doubts the historicity of the disciples and they attested to living and walking around with Jesus for at least 3 years. Most of them went to their deaths for proclaiming the physical reality, death and resurrection of Jesus. So, how likely is it that Jesus was a fiction?

John, James and Peter ordained Paul as 'Apostle to the Gentiles' they did this after much discussion and consideration of God saying to Annanias, about Paul, ... "This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel." (Acts9:15).

Right that is my bad, I should have mentioned Acts is considered a forgery by scholars. Even some fundamental Christian scholars admit this in debates with Carrier.
I can source this but you might consider trying to educate yourself rather than just reading apologetics?

But of course people doubt the historicity of the disciples!? The field considers it to be MADE UP FAN FICTION.
All of the supernatural events are considered fiction, how many times can I tell this obvious truth?

Also, we don't even know WHO WROTE THE GOSPELS! So of course there is doubt!

originally posted by: chr0naut

Please list them. I only know of the definite existence of the 4 Canonical Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas. All other purported Gospels were post 2nd Century and therefore unauthentic.

Yes the 4 gospels are fan fiction. 3 were copied from Mark. Carrier explains this using writing analysis, copies of historical mistakes, obvious parables and so on. The gospels were not even written by said authors.

Carrier debunks the idea of a "Q" gospel and demonstrates how the gospels were each copied from Mark.

Paul only claims to know Jesus from revelations and scripture and he knows of no earthly Jesus or his ministry.

originally posted by: chr0naut

Richard Carrier has said he is an atheist and opposes orthodox Christian beliefs.
His work uses Bayesian mathematics to determine the likelihood of the historicity of Jesus. Carrier has concluded that the likelihood that Jesus existed is between
Mathematically, that is so incredibly fuzzy

I'm not talking about his work with Bayes therom AT ALL. I'm only referencing his work on historicity and text from that time period. I don't care about that Bayesian stuff at all.
Carrier is an atheist and opposes orthodox Christian beliefs simply because he read the bible and came to this conclusion. He had zero bias going in to the study.

originally posted by: chr0naut
If you check out Carrier's Wikipedia entry, it clearly states in the fourth paragraph, "Nearly all contemporary scholars of ancient history and most biblical scholars have maintained that a historical Jesus did indeed exist".

Sigh, I've been saying to you all along that the field considers Jesus to have been a man. You're using this fact when it helps you but forgetting about the fact that the supernatural aspects are also considered fiction?

Carrier explains that because of political reasons it will take time for the mythicist theory to be accepted into the field.
But the evidence is still better than the evidence for historicity.
All you have to do is listen to a few of the debates and you will see that the historicity arguments do not stand up to the mythicist arguments.
Another tactic fundamentalists are using is to attack Carrier on a personal level. I don't care about his personal life, his work stands as the best study on historicity, period. The previous Jesus study was done in 1926, it's a political hotbed of a subject to mess with hence the reason for the slow progress.