Gretta Vosper - Atheist Christian

[DB Roy]

It's good to know you find mythicism educational. But now you change tack to your real objections to what you consider to be all that is wrong with Christianity. You also launch into a general tirade against "religion." as being "crazy".

Now it may be that it's dawning on you that you haven't been doing too well with your mythicist and astrological 'theological' gobbledegook, so it's time for a change of subject. It's amusing then that your appeal is to "common sense."

You're right. My mythicist approach with you has been a dismal failure. Actually, everybody here trying to explain things to you have utterly failed but we also know perfectly well why that is, don't we? So, yes, I have changed my tactics with you. I'm going to hit you right where you live. I may continue to discuss mythology with Harry, he seems more likely to appreciate the similarities (which, in my opinion, do no harm to Christianity but actually highlights its complexities and makes it a far more fascinating study) but you? That's like playing a violin concerto to a stray mutt in an alleyway. So no more myths, I promise.

And what is this common sense argument but a dogmatic assertion that your atheistic worldview is true because you say miracles don't happen. Why, because your worldview tells you they can't?

No, Flann, because common sense says they can't. Think of the silliness of God saving three Jews from an oven in the OT but who doesn't lift a finger to save 6 million of them from the ovens of Hitler. Tell me how a star moves through the skies to guide people, Flann. Tell us all how this could possibly happen? It's not possible. A star is trillions of miles away and it just suddenly starts zipping around space to guide a bunch desert nomads to a kid in a manger? And even then it takes the light from that star YEARS to reach us so we couldn't see a star moving instantaneously even if it could possibly happen. Isn't it painfully clear to you that the people who wrote those stories had no idea what the stars really were? Does this sound like enlightened writing inspired by an all-knowing God. No, Flann, it doesn't.

Christianity is false because you know there is no God to do anything, while nothing can conjure a universe.

The universe wasn't conjured, Flann, that would be magic. The truth is, nobody knows precisely how the universe came to be. Empirically, we say the Big Bang, but many astrophysicists believe this to be woefully incomplete. It's not really the universe we need to be concerned with--we need to be concerned with time. Did God invent time? If he did, then you're saying that God pre-existed time. That makes no sense. How can God exist BEFORE there was time? "Before" implies a passage of time which couldn't have existed yet. So did God invent time? If you say yes then you have to admit it had to have happened in some completely incomprehensible way. Why bother with that when we can just say that the universe itself is incomprehensible at its root?

Now I don't dispute that many crimes have been committed in the name of Christianity,though it reaches some blind eyes and deaf ears to repeat that these are done in direct contradiction and disobedience to the plain teachings of Christ.

There's no god to care, Flann, or why doesn't he stop it? If morality comes from God (another impossibility in itself) then how can we term God as moral when he lets a church full of people beat two boys to death as recently happened? If you left a baby on your porch to go and kettle off the stove and I'm standing there with the kid and a swarm of Killer bees attack the child and I stand there watching and do nothing, would you consider me moral? Yet, if it happened when no one was there to stop it, why don't you blame God? Don't you believe in God? And don't you believe God is moral? And when his morality fails, don't you blame him if you truly believe in him? When those Catholic priests were boofing their altar boys in the butt, why didn't God put some brakes on that? It's bad for business, if nothing else. Because, Flann, there is no God. We are in a cold, impersonal and even, at times, seemingly hostile universe where we can be wiped out by an asteroid at any time. I'll promise you this much: If we are on a collision course with an asteroid large to destroy us, your God won't do shit to stop it. Pray all you want.

We've been told what terrible things the emperor Constantine did and you know of course that all Christians have always been just like the Borgias, the Inquisitors and lets not forget those devout followers of Christ,the Ku Klux Klan.

Yeah, and now we're going to bring up Stalin and Mao, aren't we? Well, be my guest.

Does religion do anybody any good you ask and confidently reply "No, not really." You grudgingly admit that soup kitchens provided by religious groups may do some good, but you don't really need religion to have them,you say.

That's right. The U.S. Marines have a toy drive every Christmas season but you don't have to be a marine to collect toys.

Just to bring some badly needed balance here, I'm providing a link to good done just in the one area of medicine, by those motivated by their religious beliefs.
http://www.cmf.org.uk/publications/cont ... cle&id=827

So Christians set up hospitals in Rome after Constantine. So what? They were in power and so it was their civic duty. Same with universities. If you're in power, you'd better build centers of learning. This kind of thing happened everywhere in the world long before Christianity. Medicine is science not religion, sorry. The modern medical profession takes a leaf from Ancient Greece not Christianity. That's why doctors take a Hippocratic Oath. The modern oath reads in part:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

Science not religion. Unless you like the original version:

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

Golly gee that sounds pagan!

I guess the world would be a much better place if everyone was a militant anti-theist like you. But,whisper it,didn't those anti-theists Lenin,Mao,and Pol Pot among others make the world a better place for everyone?

Boy, I didn't see THAT coming! This has been gone over so many times in this forum and you still trot it out like it hasn't been thoroughly dismantled already. These men you mention had a form of government called "Authoritarian" which Wiki descrigbes thus:

Authoritarianism is a form of government. Juan Linz, whose 1964 description of authoritarianism is influential,[1] characterised authoritarian regimes as political systems by four qualities: (1) "limited, not responsible, political pluralism"; that is, constraints on political institutions and groups (such as legislatures, political parties and interest groups), (2) a basis for legitimacy based on emotion, especially the identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems" such as underdevelopment or insurgency; (3) neither "intensive nor extensive political mobilization" and constraints on the mass public (such as repressive tactics against opponents and a prohibition of anti-regime activity) and (4) "formally ill-defined" executive power, often shifting or vague.

But they went even further by being totalitarian which means EVERYTHING was under the control of the leader. He shares no power with anyone. So they tend to divest their society of churches. But there is no atheistic element involved. There is, in fact, a religious one. Once again from Wiki:

Unlike their bland and generally unpopular authoritarian brethren, totalitarian dictators develop a charismatic 'mystique' and a mass-based, pseudo-democratic interdependence with their followers via the conscious manipulation of a prophetic image.

The leader simply IS the religion--he is the only game in town. He doesn't ban other religions because he's atheist regardless of what he says. He bans them because they are competition. If I'm the dictator, I don't want you bowing down to Jesus, I want you bowing down to me. I'm the messenger, I'm the prophet. Put all your faith in me. There is actually no place for atheism in such a system because then it can be used against me.

Now, you know all this already because it's been explained here a dozen times at least. But you're going to keep harping on it because it's all you have. Consequently, if you bring it up again, I will just cut and paste my response from this post.

[Interbane]

So I can provide you with numerous examples of remarkable answers to prayer.

I can provide some also. What's your point?

The argument from prophecy is an important one to which the mythicists resort to an absurd extreme to avoid.This includes historic events before Christ also known and recorded by historians, such as the fall of Babylon.

And without knowing the chain of custody of all relevant documents, you still manage to rule out every possible naturalistic explanation. You must be omniscient.

[Harry Marks]

what kind of dim-witted dullard would i have to be not to see the obvious mythological motif there.

The interesting question is usually whether the similarity is accidental or deliberately passed on, but there is a third possibility, which I believe was the thesis of Frazer, Jung and others: that the same forces shaping the choice of symbol in one system similarly shape the choice of symbol in another. A kind of "convergent evolution."

I would tend to think the third possible case is at work with prophesied baby kings protected from the jealous current king, but of course if some writer (there were very few of them even in the heyday of Hellenism) had heard the older stories, that would influence the available selections of stories to create or pass on.

The problem with concluding that the Cyrus story is based on Krishna and the Moses story on Cyrus is that kings really did kill off rivals on a regular basis. There is a somewhat similar story about the sons of David, with Absalom as the killer, and the usual assumption is that it is history, based partly on the level of detail. So each of the stories could have arisen independently, drawing from nothing more mythical than King Leonardo and Itchy Brother.

As a side observation, adaptations may be made to fit the situation, as the Moses story does to give some reason for him being in the royal house. So he is saved by the royalty, not just from the royalty. But to my mind, it could just as easily have been inspired by Noah's ark as by Cyrus.

It is possible that whole motif of Moses' lack of awareness of his people's situation is borrowed from the Buddha's story, but it could just be coincidence. After all, Saint Francis seems really to have had a similar experience and really to have renounced wealth because of it - it can't have been completely absent from the world's experience except for Buddha.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

theirs is mythology yours is history.

I do not claim all the stories in the Bible are history. That is, to some extent, Flann's view. But "mythicism", the view that there is no historical basis at all for the figure of Jesus, is a particular claim which must rest on its own merits. It does not get a free pass based on a generalized preference for mythical vs. historical explanations.

Nor does everything with a mythical component, such as the stories about Pythagoras, have to be explained in a single structure of "how mythology works" such as a nature-based system.

watch the vid and then tell me you dont see any parallels
the 8th, ring any bells.

No, I can't say it does. Is there some other remarkable eighth child? Or eighth something?

[youkrst]

The interesting question is usually whether the similarity is accidental or deliberately passed on, but there is a third possibility, which I believe was the thesis of Frazer, Jung and others: that the same forces shaping the choice of symbol in one system similarly shape the choice of symbol in another.

of course, this is elementary, Jesus, Krishna and the Buddha, three different symbols for the same archetype.

I would tend to think the third possible case is at work with prophesied baby kings protected from the jealous current king

absolutely, what other reading is there that makes writing the story sensible, the stories only make real sense when you parse them psychologically.

the kingdom is within after all.

the new man rises on the death of the old man naturally the first adam doesn't like it.

And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

mythical vs. historical explanations.

when i say mythical i simply mean metaphorical, myths are metaphors (Joe Campbell style)

k, Jesus casts demons into pigs after a little tete a tete

hmmm shall i go with mythical or historical..... k, i'm going with mythical

are you going with historical?

and a question

if someone completely rejects christianity does that mean they have missed out on the best life they could have?

in your opinion is there anything one gets as a christian that one can not get from somewhere else?

PS: a cigar is never just a cigar

[youkrst]

the view that there is no historical basis at all for the figure of Jesus

when i read the NT i think

anyone who want's to present this obvious mythology as history better have some damned good evidence or a damned uncritical audience?

what do i get

God didn't see fit to preserve the originals

of course if we had evidence we wouldn't need faith and so couldn't get saved so maybe God destroyed all the evidence so we could be saved.

oh what a beauty, i've never seen one as big as that before.

[Harry Marks]

the new man rises on the death of the old man naturally the first adam doesn't like it.

That works on several levels for the birth of a new kind of king, though what that might have to do with Cyrus is beyond me.

when i say mythical i simply mean metaphorical, myths are metaphors (Joe Campbell style)
k, Jesus casts demons into pigs after a little tete a tete
hmmm shall i go with mythical or historical..... k, i'm going with mythical
are you going with historical?

No, nor for walking on water, calming the storm or feeding the multitude. Sometimes a story is clearly there for the significance, and one strongly suspects it was made up to fit that significance. Other times it is harder to tell, and frankly I have no idea whether legions of demons in one person was considered a significant arrangement, or what it might have signified, in the first century. Mary Magdalene supposedly had seven at one point.

But that doesn't mean to me that anything seemingly difficult to explain in modern terms was obviously just symbolic. Case by case, for me.

if someone completely rejects christianity does that mean they have missed out on the best life they could have?

I doubt that it means it automatically. But for many, accepting Christianity would bring them to a more full life by connecting them to the marginalized and to a community of intention.

in your opinion is there anything one gets as a christian that one can not get from somewhere else?

I follow Jewish belief in considering the symbolic language of your upbringing to be, normally, the best one to explore in. Perhaps it would be a good idea to learn about some others as a way of putting one's own in perspective. And for some people, the upbringing was flawed or the need to "move out" so strong or the lack of personal fit so pronounced that they need to learn a different symbolic language.

I think that for any of them the idea of grace (like the idea of karma) is important for both personal progression and social structure. Karma, in its "you reap what you sow" version, is important for learning to take responsibility for your life. Grace is important for learning to transcend taking responsibility for your life.

[Harry Marks]

the view that there is no historical basis at all for the figure of Jesus

when i read the NT i think
anyone who want's to present this obvious mythology as history better have some damned good evidence or a damned uncritical audience?

You seem to think in terms of this false dichotomy. The issue is not whether all the stories about Jesus are literally true, but whether there was a human being in the generation before Saul of Tarsus who is the basis for the religion.
We don't generally believe that all the stories about Pythagoras are true, or Socrates, or Romulus and Remus. The question is, was there a Pythagoras (most historians would say yes), was there a Socrates (most historians would say yes), and was there a Romulus and Remus (not agreed on, apparently, especially the second one)?
Now, you may not be interested in that question, but you should show some alertness that it is considered interesting by a lot of other people.

of course if we had evidence we wouldn't need faith and so couldn't get saved so maybe God destroyed all the evidence so we could be saved.

I think that is working off a pretty shallow idea of what it means to declare that we are saved by faith, but then I understand that you didn't mean it seriously.

[Flann 5]

You're right. My mythicist approach with you has been a dismal failure. Actually, everybody here trying to explain things to you have utterly failed but we also know perfectly well why that is, don't we? So, yes, I have changed my tactics with you. I'm going to hit you right where you live. I may continue to discuss mythology with Harry, he seems more likely to appreciate the similarities (which, in my opinion, do no harm to Christianity but actually highlights its complexities and makes it a far more fascinating study) but you? That's like playing a violin concerto to a stray mutt in an alleyway. So no more myths, I promise.

So you know why your mythicist approach with me has been a dismal failure? And why everybody here trying to explain things to me have utterly failed.

It's so complex,deep and wonderful that it's like playing a violin to a stray mutt. I couldn't grasp how you can explain in astrological lingo how the 'celestial powers' crucified the sun in the sub lunar realm.
Go ahead and explain it D.B.

Yes this must be the hidden meaning of Paul when he distinguishes the transcendent God from the creation,sun,moon and all, in Romans one.

Or when Paul rubbishes pagan idols as being nothing at all and not comparable to the creator God. Psst! he's really talking about an ancient solar deity but don't tell those 'ignorant masses' who don't have the 'gnosis'.

I've heard a lot about motifs in pagan myth which are supposed to be borrowed by Christianity. Pagan mythology seems to be inseparably tied to nature cycles,with perhaps symbolic representation in the activities if not antics of these 'deities'.
So it's tied to death in Winter and vegetative rebirth in Spring and fertility.

There are dying and rising gods we are told and virgin births. And yet when examined how do they compare with the biblical account and it's message of the redemptive purpose of God?

You can say Krishna had a virgin birth while being the eight child of his 'virgin' Mom, or did she have eight virgin births?
And he was 'crucified' by an an arrow in the heel,but you don't think this and don't agree with 'everybody here' yourself on this bit.

And Mithra was 'virgin' born from a rock but it's just that I can't see how it's a virgin birth just like in the gospel.

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/dying-and-rising_god
http://www.johnpiippo.com/2007/07/nt-wr ... -myth.html

Tell me how a star moves through the skies to guide people, Flann. Tell us all how this could possibly happen? It's not possible. A star is trillions of miles away and it just suddenly starts zipping around space to guide a bunch desert nomads to a kid in a manger? And even then it takes the light from that star YEARS to reach us so we couldn't see a star moving instantaneously even if it could possibly happen.

There are a number of possible explanations for this though ultimately God can do what is miraculous,and I don't believe the pillar of fire in Exodus was a naturally produced phenomenon for example.
I don't think it even says in the account that the star moved.

Here are some suggestions: http://www.icr.org/home/resources/resou ... awthestar/

The universe wasn't conjured, Flann, that would be magic. The truth is, nobody knows precisely how the universe came to be. Empirically, we say the Big Bang, but many astrophysicists believe this to be woefully incomplete. It's not really the universe we need to be concerned with--we need to be concerned with time. Did God invent time? If he did, then you're saying that God pre-existed time. That makes no sense. How can God exist BEFORE there was time? "Before" implies a passage of time which couldn't have existed yet. So did God invent time? If you say yes then you have to admit it had to have happened in some completely incomprehensible way. Why bother with that when we can just say that the universe itself is incomprehensible at its root?

You either have a universe from nothing or something. If nothing, you can't get a universe. If something you have to explain where that came from and end up with infinite regress.

Since science proceeds on the assumption of every effect having a cause you must violate this and believe in an un- caused eternally existent material substance from which our universe came.

God is the eternally self existent first cause alternative.

If you postulate infinite regress from a previous source you can never reach the point for our universe coming to be, and bearing in mind also there is no empirical evidence for other supposed universes.

As far as God's relationship to time is concerned,Christian thinkers are not agreed and they tend to fall into two camps.

It is a difficult question and hard to get a handle on given the relative nature of time.

Here's how they attempt to answer it; http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcrai ... rnity.html

There's no god to care, Flann, or why doesn't he stop it? If morality comes from God (another impossibility in itself) then how can we term God as moral when he lets a church full of people beat two boys to death as recently happened? If you left a baby on your porch to go and kettle off the stove and I'm standing there with the kid and a swarm of Killer bees attack the child and I stand there watching and do nothing, would you consider me moral? Yet, if it happened when no one was there to stop it, why don't you blame God? Don't you believe in God? And don't you believe God is moral? And when his morality fails, don't you blame him if you truly believe in him?

Your tactic here is to throw out a volley of diverse criticisms,questions and problems in one post.The problem of evil and suffering is a big question which I'll respond to separately.
I would just say that how you get morality,consciousness and a moral conscience from a blind purposeless material process which is geared towards survival and the propagation of genes, is a question you need to answer.

You may think God should intervene to prevent evil but that's not what Christianity says. Paul said in his preaching that "God now calls all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness...." Acts 17:30
So there are God's commandments,the gospel and a future judgement. I don't say God never intervenes but if he did for every attempted evil act, he would be calling time and judgement on humanity now and denying freedom and moral responsibility to humans.

On atheism justice is fragmentary and elusive even now,and ultimately impossible.

Quote:
Just to bring some badly needed balance here, I'm providing a link to good done just in the one area of medicine, by those motivated by their religious beliefs.
http://www.cmf.org.uk/publications/cont ... cle&id=827




So Christians set up hospitals in Rome after Constantine. So what? They were in power and so it was their civic duty. Same with universities. If you're in power, you'd better build centers of learning. This kind of thing happened everywhere in the world long before Christianity. Medicine is science not religion, sorry. The modern medical profession takes a leaf from Ancient Greece not Christianity. That's why doctors take a Hippocratic Oath.

This is begrudgery, and anyone who reads the history will recognize that it included far more than a once off historic event. Atilla the Hun had civic duties too.
Medicine is science but to say their beliefs did not motivate them to care for others and develop medicines is mean spirited.

But they went even further by being totalitarian which means EVERYTHING was under the control of the leader. He shares no power with anyone. So they tend to divest their society of churches. But there is no atheistic element involved. There is, in fact, a religious one. Once again from Wiki:

Unlike their bland and generally unpopular authoritarian brethren, totalitarian dictators develop a charismatic 'mystique' and a mass-based, pseudo-democratic interdependence with their followers via the conscious manipulation of a prophetic image.

The leader simply IS the religion--he is the only game in town. He doesn't ban other religions because he's atheist regardless of what he says. He bans them because they are competition. If I'm the dictator, I don't want you bowing down to Jesus, I want you bowing down to me. I'm the messenger, I'm the prophet. Put all your faith in me. There is actually no place for atheism in such a system because then it can be used against me.

What you don't recognize is that it wasn't just a handful of Despots. There were thousands motivated by Marx and Lenin's ideas which were militantly atheistic and anti-theistic.

It wasn't an individual committing mass murder but many people fueled by a dogmatic atheism and visceral anti-theism.

If it was a religion these were their sacred beliefs. Copying and pasting won't change that. You want to extricate their militant atheism and anti-theism from their actions but that is patently not possible.

http://victimsofcommunism.org/the-war-on-religion

Of course the vast majority of atheists today are not like this,though there is a strain of anti-theism today not a million miles removed in sentiment.

[youkrst]

You seem to think in terms of this false dichotomy.

oh, i can see why you would have had to think that, my bad, i've been speaking sometimes in very broad terms.

The issue is not whether all the stories about Jesus are literally true, but whether there was a human being in the generation before Saul of Tarsus who is the basis for the religion.

as i and many others who find orthodoxy absurd have said many times

there were many Jesus' about and many others not called Jesus who could easily have been somehow incorporated or related in some way to the whole christian bag.

but i don't really have any interest in that compared to what really gets me riled up.

which is

people trying to tell me i need the blood of Jesus to cleanse me from all sin literally, that demons are fallen angels and all the other hogwash that descends when you try to take mythology as history.

then they tell me there is no significance to all the bits of the Bible that CLEARLY come from somewhere else and i am a crazy ass scum dog myther, apparently because i studied mythology hard and they seem to lack the wherewithal to get a clue.

to me christianity is an obvious mystery religion kind of affair, amongst many other things.

and seeing people insist it isn't when it clearly is frustrates me. (not that i or anyone should care) i like it.

as you say, let a hundred flowers bloom, call me a weedkiller

briars and thorns i do not need in the garden because sure as shit someone will make a crown out of them and the pointy bits will pain my brain as i try to drag this corpse to the far end of the street

but yeah it takes time

We don't generally believe that all the stories about Pythagoras are true, or Socrates, or Romulus and Remus. The question is, was there a Pythagoras (most historians would say yes), was there a Socrates (most historians would say yes), and was there a Romulus and Remus (not agreed on, apparently, especially the second one)?

to me this an almost boring subject, i'm a typical mythologist, history is a far second in catching my attention.

i dont care who said it, is it any good

i take the Hitchens approach

i couldnt care less if there was a historical socrates or not, i love the food for thought, thats why i'm here, to learn from the masters of myth, the masters of metaphor, whether it was historical socrates or plato just used that character as a mouth piece is less interesting to me than the ideas themselves.

if it turns out little bobby jenkins first formulated the expression "it takes one to know one" i wont care much, i'll still be fascinated by the various ways i can parse that idea.

when i read goldmund and narcissus i feel sorry for people who think it's a story about two guys called goldmund and narcissus.

likewise i feel sorry for people who embrace the letter being deaf to the spirit.

even if i knew a Jesus after the flesh i would not know him this way any longer and He himself would no doubt applaud and say "about time you got a clue"

have i been with you so long youkrst and you STILL don't know who i am?

when they knew who he was he disappeared (emmaus)

to me stubborn literalism is like a slap in the face. my service of love is to continue to point out that there is a metaphor afoot.

Now, you may not be interested in that question, but you should show some alertness that it is considered interesting by a lot of other people.

and you should show some alertness that i don't give a flying trapeze what other people find interesting unless i'm talking to them, that's what other people are for, to care for their own interests.

I think that is working off a pretty shallow idea of what it means to declare that we are saved by faith, but then I understand that you didn't mean it seriously.

i meant it deadly seriously

if we had evidence we wouldn't need faith and so what would these verses mean

blessed are they who have not seen but believed

or

your faith has made you whole

why the hell would i need faith if i had evidence!

i can't believe you didn't get that. (no matter i really like You and Flann so let's have at it)

i love listening to the bible geek (Robert M Price)

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/biblegeek.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvizAebHrpY

in that second link he formulates an idea that i think VERY OFTEN so i'll use his formulation as i am tired of my own.

"when we say a poet is 'inspired by the muse'" we don't any longer believe that the actual muses, these goddesses were whispering anything to 'em, right, but we are recognizing that theres this creativity in the subconscious that comes through..."

so i read the bible the same way and anyone who doesn't may as well not bother to try and tell me what it means because they will seem funny to me, hilarious

as if someone tried to tell me a stitch in time saves nine implies interference with the space time continuum.

WAKE UP PLANET EARTH the bible IS METAPHOR!!!! (amongst other things)

of course if one doesn't agree that's fine

but i will never tire of pointing out that almost the entire western world was so unbelievably thick that it took as history obvious religious metaphor

of course the BS machine knows how to push the right buttons so we can't take all the credit and many a deception is a two way contract.

there's an elephant in the room

YES WE WERE (and still are) THAT THICK!!!

i want us to admit it, but if we are too stiffnecked and refuse that's fine too, i'm quite happy to go to the grave laughing

pass the hemlock will ya Soccy

[DB Roy]

So you know why your mythicist approach with me has been a dismal failure? And why everybody here trying to explain things to me have utterly failed.

Because it allows you to deny deny deny. I can dumps myths in your lap all day and all you have to do is say, "I disagree." "That's not the same a Jesus" "Dr. Tard on tektonics says that's bullshit." So we're not going play that. We're going to talk about what appears in the NT and you're going to explain how it works which should be a piece of cake for you.

So, once again, from Matthew 2:

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you have found him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

Now, Flann, the nearest star to us, other than the sun, is over 4 light-years away. A light-year is about six trillion miles. So this star would be close to 30 trillion miles away. Since the star of Bethlehem was not this particular star then it had to be even further away. Now, Matthew says it was in east and moved ahead of the magi until in stopped over the place where the child was. So I want you to explain to me how this could possibly be a historical account. Tell me how a star tens of trillions of miles away moved through the heavens and then stopped. Because we know if it remained seemingly motionless over the infant then it was, in fact, in geosynchronous orbit. Moreover, how could it stop over the infant at that height? Something that far away appears to be in the same spot in the sky relative to all observers for hundreds of miles. If appeared above Jesus, it appeared above people for hundreds of miles around in exactly the same manner. No one could determine how it stopped only over the baby Jesus. For that to happen, this star would have to be much, much closer--so close it would vaporize us. How did this happened, Flann? Explain to me the astrophysical process involved. Explain how the light reached the observers virtually instantaneously when it takes over 4 years for the light of the star nearest to our sun to arrive. If that star burned out right now, we would not know for over 4 years.

It's so complex,deep and wonderful that it's like playing a violin to a stray mutt. I couldn't grasp how you can explain in astrological lingo how the 'celestial powers' crucified the sun in the sub lunar realm.
Go ahead and explain it D.B.

You just said you can't grasp it so we won't talk astrology. We'll talk astrophysics. Now explain the star of Bethlehem as a historical occurrence.

Yes this must be the hidden meaning of Paul when he distinguishes the transcendent God from the creation,sun,moon and all, in Romans one.

Well, then, if Paul said that it must be right. But back on the issue of the star of Bethlehem, would please explain the movements of this star in a manner than can allow us to conclude that it is historical?

Or when Paul rubbishes pagan idols as being nothing at all and not comparable to the creator God. Psst! he's really talking about an ancient solar deity but don't tell those 'ignorant masses' who don't have the 'gnosis'.

I've heard a lot about motifs in pagan myth which are supposed to be borrowed by Christianity. Pagan mythology seems to be inseparably tied to nature cycles,with perhaps symbolic representation in the activities if not antics of these 'deities'.
So it's tied to death in Winter and vegetative rebirth in Spring and fertility.

There are dying and rising gods we are told and virgin births. And yet when examined how do they compare with the biblical account and it's message of the redemptive purpose of God?

Then let's talk about the biblical account. Let's talk about the star of Bethlehem and it's movements in the heavens as described by Matthew. Flat out, I don't believe it. It is a gross error. Now prove me wrong.

You can say Krishna had a virgin birth while being the eight child of his 'virgin' Mom, or did she have eight virgin births?
And he was 'crucified' by an an arrow in the heel,but you don't think this and don't agree with 'everybody here' yourself on this bit.

Well, then I guess I was wrong about that. So, now, let's discuss the Jesus story itself without all that mythological claptrap. Let's discuss it on its own merits. Let's discuss the star of Bethlehem and the movements it alleged made in the heavens according to Matthew--which you say is a historical account. I'll believe you if you can demonstrate how a star can possibly move as described.

And Mithra was 'virgin' born from a rock but it's just that I can't see how it's a virgin birth just like in the gospel.

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/dying-and-rising_god
http://www.johnpiippo.com/2007/07/nt-wr ... -myth.html

Well, then, let's just forget about that then and talk about the star of Bethlehem for a moment.

Tell me how a star moves through the skies to guide people, Flann. Tell us all how this could possibly happen? It's not possible. A star is trillions of miles away and it just suddenly starts zipping around space to guide a bunch desert nomads to a kid in a manger? And even then it takes the light from that star YEARS to reach us so we couldn't see a star moving instantaneously even if it could possibly happen.

There are a number of possible explanations for this though ultimately God can do what is miraculous,and I don't believe the pillar of fire in Exodus was a naturally produced phenomenon for example.
I don't think it even says in the account that the star moved.[/quote]

Oh, yes it does. Matthew says it moved AND stopped. Now, Flann, you're going to make me believe you don't even know what's in this book you claim you believe so much and yet you're an expert on paganism. I quoted the text for you above. The star moved and stopped right over the baby Jesus. Just explain how this star did all this movement without crashing into a another star because to do what it did, it had to be traversing billions, if not, trillions of miles through space in a matter of seconds.

Here are some suggestions: http://www.icr.org/home/resources/resou ... awthestar/

Ah!!! The Institute for Creation Research! Good ol' ICR. Okay. Let's look at what ICR has to say. Ahh!! It's a supernova!!! What's funny is that the writer admits two things: there is no evidence of a supernova that period and the star account appears in Matthew. Luke's miraculous birth account has no star in it and don't you find that odd? How could he have missed it?? I'll excuse Mark since he didn't mention a birth at all. Maybe he thought it was all a load of shit.

And you have to LOVE this statement:

"Having created the stars, God is well able to set off an explosion in one of them whenever He chooses,"

Well, then, I guess that settles it!!

Except it doesn't. Once again, Matthew says it moved and stopped. How does a supernova move through the heavens and then stop?

Ugh!!! That's such a stickler!! So, Flann, there's your challenge. Explain NOT THE STAR but the MOVEMENTS of the star. You say this writing is historical, well, here's your chance to prove it. Failure is not an option.

You either have a universe from nothing or something. If nothing, you can't get a universe.

Okay, then, it wasn't from nothing. Big Bang doesn't discount that. It just says the universe started off as a singularity. That singularity could have an infinite past or time could be a loop so that it always happens. So much for that.

If something you have to explain where that came from and end up with infinite regress.

We already went over this, Flann, it's called the First Cause Argument. Maybe you should have read it before you posted this because that argument determines that god can't get you out of infinite regress. Why? Because the theist has to say that god is a necessary cause--he has to exist. The universe was a contingent cause--and being contingent, it came into existence at a certain time, a certain way but these aren't fixed. The universe could have existed in any number of ways or come at any other time or even not have come at all. So God creating the universe is not good enough. He had to have created it at a certain moment. He would have had to decide to do this before the actual creation. But before he can do that, there had to be conditions that existed prior to his deciding to create a universe. But before that, there had to be conditions for the conditions that caused God to decide to create the universe and so on and so forth. Infinite regression. Sorry.

Since science proceeds on the assumption of every effect having a cause you must violate this and believe in an un- caused eternally existent material substance from which our universe came.

Well, no. When the universe was a singularity, there were no laws of physics as we know them. I'll let Stephen Hawking explain:

At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them.

In other words, there is no causal connection between the present universe and what existed prior to the Big Bang. It didn't come from nothing, it came from something indefinable, unmeasurable. Time began at the Big Bang--no God required.

God is the eternally self existent first cause alternative.

No need for that. Time began at the Big Bang. If god existed before that, then god is undefined, unknowable and has no connection to this universe.

If you postulate infinite regress from a previous source you can never reach the point for our universe coming to be

Which is why your god hypothesis doesn't work as I've already demonstrated.

and bearing in mind also there is no empirical evidence for other supposed universes.

And bearing in mind there is no empirical evidence of god. We know one universe exists so it isn't a stretch to believe there could be more. But your god belief hasn't even left the dugout yet.

As far as God's relationship to time is concerned,Christian thinkers are not agreed and they tend to fall into two camps.

It is a difficult question and hard to get a handle on given the relative nature of time.

Here's how they attempt to answer it; http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcrai ... rnity.html

There is nothing hard about asking if God created time. Either he did or didn't. If he did, he must have existed before there was time and that is a contradiction--pretty easy really. If he existed before the Big Bang, he has no bearing on our universe. It's independent of him.