In Treatment of Faith, the Media Miss the Message

Ghostbuster,

if u still see this board, u can email me on c_mat@hotmail.com and then we can chat.

talk to you later.
c_mat

Thats cool. Hey, how did you break your addiction to these boards? I need to stop too (even though I've only been here maybe a month) but everytime I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in!

I wish I could get your email address somehow or vice verse. I don't know how that is possible on here though.

later.

Yeah, events like that take place pretty often in India. I myself have participated on several occasions.

c_mat

I heard him speak in front of a small group of people a few weeks ago here in the US. He brought a video with him showing a few large outdoor services he spoke at in India. Those events really looked quite remarkable.

God Bless
GB

Hey Ghostbuster,

Glad you had a good time at Easter. I haven't heard of Bishop Komanapalli myself, but I noticed (via Google) that he has a pretty vibrant ministry in Hyderabad, a southern Indian state...

c_mat

C_Mat,

Whew! Thanks buddy! I was just getting ready to post something elsewhere and I came back here to check to see what I would have to call myself.

I had a great Easter. I hope you had a wonderful Easter too! Hey, have you ever heard of a man in India named Bishop Komanapalli?

Just curious.

Hey Ghostbuster,

There's no way I'm going to let you change your name to gasburster because of me!

Have a Happy Easter (Resurrection Day!) everyone. It has been great talking to all of you!

c_mat

Dear Anonymous -

I can't keep all of you anonymi straight.

You're not going to score points by calling thinkers like Dennett and Dawkins "pop-thinkers," any more than other posters can dismiss atheistic arguments as being "old and tired...same old stuff," and the other variations of such pejorative posturing. It's a bit disenegnuous to limit the attacks on pop thinkers to scientists when you have the likes of Joel Osteen and others preaching a pop-Xianity that is growing in popularity.

In the case of anybody making the "same old arguments," it doesn't matter the age of an argument if it is still valid. Bertrand Russell's tea pot comes to mind. On the other hand, Pascal's Wager has always had a glaring hole through the middle of it (ie: it only works if god accepts that a non-believer is allowed to lie his way into heaven), so it's just as invalid now as it was when first proposed.

You are correct in saying that religious faith predates science and philosophy. It also predates the world's great *organized* religions by tens of thousands of years. Where were the Biblical god and Jesus 30,000 years ago? Did man not have a soul at that point that needed tending, or did Yahweh use the other gods that the Bible mentions to do his work for him back then?

As far as not questioning the value of the sun: that last I looked the sun isn't a religious object, it's a ball of gases. The belief that the sun is a ball of gases is valid. The belief that the sun is a god (a belief held by many religions) is invalid. There's no value in believing the sun is a god; there is value in treating it for what it is. What's your point?

Re: using the word "fact": I use the word in the scientific sense, a sense that does NOT carry the weight of absolutism of religious "facts," which are based (strangely enough) on myths, legends and traditions, ie: facts that are only begrudgingly open to discussion, even more rarely open to question, and never, ever open to revision.

I always find it interesting that people who use science and the products of science every minute of their lives feel compelled to equate the strengths and truths of science with the subjective "truths" of religion. You may be interested in what Daniel Dennett says about this dichotomy on pg 370-72 (paperback vers) of his book, "Breaking the Spell":

"Thus was science born out of religion and civilization's other projects, a very recent cultural phenomenon but one that transformed the planet like nothing else in the last 65-million years...science, and the technology it spawns, has been explosively practical, an amplifier of human powers in almost every imaginable dimension, making us stronger, faster, able to see farther in both space and time, healthier, more secure, more knowledgeable about just about everything, including our own origins - but that dosn't mean it can answers all questions or serve all needs.

"Science doesn't have the monopoly on truth, and some of its critics have argued that it doesn't even live up to its advertisements as a reliable source of objective knowledge...(however) I have yet to meet a postmodern science critic who is afraid to fly in an airplane because he doesn't trust the calculations of the thousands of aeronautical engineers and physicists who have demonstarted and exploited the principles of flight...every church trusts arithmetic to keep track accurately of the receipts in the collection plate...

"Scientists are not infallible, nor are they, as a rule, more virtuous than laypeople, but they do submit to a remarkable discipline that keeps them honest in spite of themselves, imposing elaborate systems of self-restraint and review, and to a remarkable degree depersonalizing their individual contributions. So, although it is true that there have been eminent scientists who were racists, or sexists or drug addicts or just plain crazy, their contributions almost always stand or fall independently of these personal failings, thanks to the filters, checks, and balances that weed out unreliable work."

Not bad for a "pop thinker."

Mr. Mark responds to Enrique as follows:

"You are wrong in suggesting that all of our anti-theistic arguments boil down to games and physiology. Is well-documented history a physiologic thing? How about scientific experimentation and the predictability of employing the scientific method? A change in my brain's chemistry wouldn't change the facts on the ground. If you're implying that a sick brain would fail - deliberately or otherwise - to interpret obvious evidence correctly, then you've provided a neat condemnation of religious faith that even I wouldn't suggest."

Mr. Mark does not seem to recognize that if his premises were correct, so called ´natural laws´, that is, the laws of physics and chemistry, must also be made of protons, neutrons and electrons. If not, what are they made of? Of nothing?

As Enrique suggests, ´meaning' itself must be made of something if one were to accept the premises of modern science, which Mr. Mark seems to have accepted religiously.

Protons, neutrons and electrons however can be manipulated. Thus, what I understand is an implication of what Enrique is saying is that if Mr. Mark's premise were correct, these so called laws could also be manipulated, as can everything else. Yet if that is the case, then there would be no objective truth, as Enrique has argued. That would mean that Mr. Mark's own arguments are not objectively true, if one were to accept his premsies.

Mr. Mark uses the term 'fact' as if it referred to some sort of inmutable entity. Howeever, in the world described by physics and chemistry, to which Mr. Mark pledges absolute allegiance, there are no such immutable entities. The notion of ´Inmutable' 'facts', if one were to believe that quantum physics has adequately explain existence (which I do not), is a fantasy.

It seems to me that Mr. Mark has read some pop-thinkers such as Dennett or Dawkins, and traded his faith, and the sacred mystery of Christ's redemptive love, in for them. Hopefully he will recognize his mistake, yet possibly he won't. The flawed arguments Dennett and Dawkins make were made far more eloquently decades ago, and debunked.

I suggest to Mr. Mark that he get himself a copy of an out of print title A.N. Whitehead's "The Function of Reason". It is not easy reading but he should be able to follow the gist of his arguments.

Whitehead was a british-american philosopher who taught at Harvard. His proposals (after said book) explain aspects of physics that Einstein or quantum mechanics don't do adequately. He is now being studied very seriously by physicists to help unravel the contradictions that end up finding their way to fundamentalist materialist arguments such are being promoted here as in the world today.

The sun is the oldest entity in this solar system and yet illumines us every day. No one questions its value because it is not modern.

Religious faith was there before philosophy and science.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it...

"He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

"John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,who is at the Father's side, has made him known."

From John 1.

Mr. Mark
I really appreciate your reply, and did not feel personally attacked because we differ in our beliefs, that's refreshing to me because I half expected it. I do understand what you are saying, that your reality of salvation was every bit as valid as the reality of my salvation because in your mind we have both been decieved. (correct me if i understood that wrong). I guess that I understand your point, but I can't relate.

You want me to keep an open mind, and trust me this topic has definitely forced me into some deep thinking, I have actually studied different religions and some of their similarities to my faith as well as their vast differences, and you're right, I've found them lacking validity. I guess that's what I have in common w/ a Muslim or an Budhist or an atheist or someone else of another religion - we all think that our beliefs are the Truth. In other words, I truly do try to keep an open mind in terms that I know that when it comes to faith/religion/beliefs, there are others who feel every bit as strongly as I do but don't share my same view. Like I said before, I'm not ignorant or naive enough to believe that my words alone are going to change yours or anyone else's mind anymore than you are going to change mine.

So I try to keep an open mind, but in all honesty, it's my heart that rules. I am not a super intelligent woman, I am not interested in deeply studying different religions looking for truth, looking for "proof". I believe in God, not because my parents brainwashed me into it, I believe in God because of what He has done in my life, what he's done in my heart. That's real to me. I don't know how to answer someone who asks me how old our planet is, whether it be billions of years old or thousands, I don't know how to get involved in a discussion pertaining to evolution, but I do know without a doubt that God exists because I see it every morning when I see the sun rise over our mountains, or I watch how the seasons change today just like they did last year, how everything in our universe works together, I know when I see how He has taken my heart and changed it. I can't help but believe.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions.

Jmac wrote:

"Mr. Mark I just have to question the validity of your salvation, of the fact that you were ever "born again"...I am simply one human being who loves the Lord w/ all her heart, questioning another human being who claims to have known Him at one time, only to turn away from him at the age of 40. I truly don't get it, how you could know God, on a personal and true level, and then not only turn your back on Him, but deny His very existence?"

Hi, JMac.

Thanks for the question. It's an important question for many believers. It certainly was for me when I was believer, especially when one had the stick of the so-called "sin against the Holy Spirit" hanging over their heads, ie: the belief that the one unforgivable sin is to have known Jesus and accepted his promise of salvation and then to later reject him.

The short answer to your question is that the facts on the ground that I have described in other posts led me to the conclusion that my faith in Jesus and my belief that I had a personal relationship with him was, in fact, a delusional construct of my all-too-human mind. That delusion was fostered in me almost at birth, for my parents were Xians. My parents provided me with a similar delusion of Santa Claus, and I believed in him just as fervantly as I believed in Jesus, at least until I reached the age where one is supposed to have matured to the point where believing in Santa becomes an embarrassment.

Unlike Santa (who everyone grows out of believing in by the time they're 10 or so), our religious magic people have strictures against disbelieving them, what I like to call the "fig" principle of religion, ie: the lethal combination of fear, ignorance and guilt. Fear gets you into the religion (Oh no, I'm going to hell, what do I do?), ignorance keeps you going (that is, the ignorance that comes with not exploring options outside of your own faith, options that your religion actively and passively encourages you to avoid investigating because they're Satan's work...or worse) and the guilt associated with ever denying your belief in your religion's gods and promises (ie: the sin against the holy spirit) that keeps you from leaving.

You have a hard time imagining "the validity" of my salvation for the simple reason that you believe that Jesus is real, he was the son of god, and the salvation he offers is a tangible thing. From my perspective, Jesus didn't exist, there is no god, and the salvation promised is a nice myth. Seen from your perspective, my salvation wasn't valid because I have given up on a very real thing. Seen from my perspective, my salvation was just as valid as your salvation because both you and I are/were engaged in a delusion.

I know that it's difficult as a practicing Xian to even imagine a scenario where belief in Jesus is put on the same level as belief in Santa. It may give you a better perspective to imagine for a moment that your faith was Islam, and that your inerrant holy book is the Qu'ran, that the god you worship is Allah. Right now, you're saying to yourself, "but those gods aren't real, they're easy to reject compared to the *truth and reality* of Jesus." Such a position proves only one thing: you are a card-carrying atheist when it comes to all other religions, for you don't believe in any god outside of the Biblical god. The only difference between you and me is that I take one step more than you do, rejecting the reality of your god with the same surety that you reject all other gods except your one god.

I am sure that you believe all other religions are based upon lies and delusions, even if there are a few good moral precepts thrown in along the way. The Muslims feel the same way about your beliefs. Seen from an *objective* perspective, both of your claims carry the same level of validity...and the same level of delusion. You believe that all other religions are delusional, but you resist extending that belief to encompass your own religion.

I don't expect you to get where I'm coming from or to even contemplate the scenarios I've suggested above. Xianity often calls for people to "open their hearts." I'd ask you to "open your mind," and I mean, REALLY open your mind to the possibility that your belief is not based on reality, but on a convenient and pleasant construct of your mind.

Thanks for the chat.

Jmac & Ghostbuster,

I get what you're saying and agree, but to continually say the same thing in a different way just to appease or defend against those who refuse to even acknowledge you have a point is pointless. "There are none so blind as those who will not see..."

I've stayed out of the other debates and this one in particular partly because of their "addictive" nature :-) but mainly because C_Mat is doing such a sterling job... I just cannot take the absolute close-mindedness of those who, when confronted with the abject truth, still refuse to see it. It truly is a work of the Holy Spirit to convict the lives, minds and hearts of those who are in need of a Saviour i.e.: Jesus Christ.

I too would like to see C_Mat return to these postings as I have been encouraging and cheering him on from my side of the computer screen! But I understand your frustration (I have been frustrated right there with you!) I am also happy to call you "brother", and if all you accomplished in your intelligent debate is that someone out there who is truly questioning and searching for Truth will be affected by your postings, then you did in fact accomplish something wonderful.

I agree with Enrique's comment about "throwing pearls". I was tempted to respond with this a couple of days ago but didn't. The interesting thing is how well Mr. Mark knows scripture because Enrique didn't use the whole vers, he simply said "Why throw pearls at them". He didn't finish the scripture and call anyone "swine". So Mr. Mark obviously knows scripture from when he was a Christian. But this also boggles my mind.

I am not a biblical scholar in terms of any kind of formal education, and I think that I fall very short when compared to someone like C_Mat, but I do love the Word, it is life to me. So Mr. Mark I just have to question the validity of your salvation, of the fact that you were ever "born again". Now I need you to realize one thing, I am not trying to pull you into another debate that turns into a heated argument, I don't have the fortitude to do that! What I have learned in regards to debating/arguing about my faith is that I really need to examine my motives (I think that Ghostbuster alluded to this earlier). Am I arguing for the sake of just proving that I'm right and you're wrong, am I arguing just to hear myself spout my opinion, or do I have a genuine concern for the fate of another human being? I pray that the last is my intention. This isn't a matter of opinion, like whether or not country or pop or jazz is what you should listen to on the radio, or whether or not living in the country or the city is the best kind of life (these are also arguments I've been involved in!). Those are all a matter of personal preference, no one is right and no one is wrong. But when it comes to whether or not God exists and Jesus died on a cross for us, that's a matter of life or death. Whether I win this argument or not could lead to another week of debate! I am not ignorant enough to believe that you can convince someone of something because of a lot of pretty words, or heated arguments. We can plant the seeds, but God alone is able to save, so no matter how good of a debater a Christian may be the only way the argument is truly "won" is if the Holy Spirit draws a person to believe the Truth.

That being said, I don't want to argue; I am simply one human being who loves the Lord w/ all her heart, questioning another human being who claims to have known Him at one time, only to turn away from him at the age of 40. I truly don't get it, how you could know God, on a personal and true level, and then not only turn your back on Him, but deny His very existence.

I admit that I have never known a time when I didn't know the Lord, and I live in an area where more people believe in Him than don't. My experience w/ unbelievers who are so openly disdainful of my faith is limited, although not non-existent (I do have friends who do not believe in God/Jesus and we have had many lively "debates"!). What I don't understand is how you could have believed in the same God that I believe in, had a personal experience/relationship w/ Him and now decide that you have more "proof" that He doesn't exist than confirmation that He does. I've tried to put myself in your shoes and try to understand what it would be like to just throw in the towell and decide that God isn't there, that it's all been a nice fantasy that I've lived for 35 years, but it's just not true. I've tried to imagine what it would be like to live my life without God in it, and I can't even begin to try. This is why I question whether or not your belief was genuine, or if what you experienced was a "false conversion"; because if it was real, I don't believe that there is any way that you could have turned away from a God who loves you so much.

These are just things that I'm wondering, please don't take offense because like I said I am not trying to draw you into an argument or tell you that your experience was false, just questioning your understanding of what it really means to know and follow Jesus, to give your life to Him as you say you did at one time.

Praying that this comes across non-confrontational.
JMac

Yes, Ghostbuster - and I'm counting on the fact that people reading through this, whether or not they agree with my points of view, will still see that I'm a "serious person."

Phantom, C_Mat, Enrique: I understand your frustrations, but at the same time I think you guys are losing sight of the bigger picture. This is the Washington Post not a small post-it board nobody reads buried somewhere in cyberspace. You are not just engaging these 3 or 4 people. We really have no idea how many “ghosts” may be currently following this dialogue or who may stumble upon it someday. If I remember correctly, C_Mat said that one of the main reasons he was engaging Mr. Mark was for those who are not able to defend the faith for those who do no have the ability to do so themselves.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying we ought to go back and forth with the same closed-minded people about the same points forever. Maybe you’ve heard the saying, winners never quit, and quitters never win, but those who never quit and never win, are idiots. At the same time though, we shouldn’t all just throw in the towel on this board or any board where we will leave a void. If everyone does that the “Christian perspective” will be defined by our adversaries, well intended but ignorant Christians who need some help, or radicals who claim Christ but make us all look ridiculous.

Just think it over.

Aside – C_Mat, if you read this post please respond. I really don’t want to change my name.

C-Mat,

If I may, allow me to commend you on your incredible ability to proclaim and defend the Gospel in all it's aspects and facets. You are truly well-versed, intelligent and while we may never meet I am proud to call you a fellow brother in Christ.

The people on this blog you have been debating with (Mr. Mark et al.) don't have any new theories or bases for their arguments. The problem is, when you present them with evidence and truth, they denigrate it as "this or that" yet hold their own drivel to be truth. I saw another person who posted here a few weeks ago saying "it is like farting in a thunder storm"-you'll never be heard and they will never agree with you. I share your frustration and expereinced a smiliar level; that's why I stopped posting. This is my second one for a number of months now. I too am a Biblical academic but to waste your energy on this forum is a shame.

We know the truth brother, and we'd love to share it. Divert your energy to preaching the Gospel to those who want to hear; if you're not doing that already, which I assume you are. This post of mine may attract comment, but I doubt I'll be back to check on it...

God bless you brother, and may you truly experience His richest blessings on your life and the lives of your family.

Enrique -

Well, the throwing pearls at swine comment wasn't really necessary.

It's not really my fault or E Fav's or Ba'al's if you don't understand the basis of our arguments or our responses to your questions. You keep asking us to prove that the moon isn't made of green cheese. When we provide an answer, you posit that we've haven't provided an answer as to whether the moon is made of yellow cheese...and on it goes.

The answer you don't like to hear is the basic answer that we all provide: ie: that the moon isn't made of cheese. We have all reached a point in our lives where we don't believe in gods of any stripe, not the ones imagined by the religions of which you are a devout atheist yourself (Islam, for example), nor for the religion that you embrace as the one true faith.

If YOU were honest with yourself, you would admit that we have, indeed, applied the same premise to our arguments as we do to the religionists arguments. In fact, we have all arrived at our arguments by applying the same set of standards to religious and non-religious endeavors. It's religion's weakness that it can't stand the rigorous heat of the objective kitchen, not the weakness of the cooks.

You are wrong in suggesting that all of our anti-theistic arguments boil down to games and physiology. Is well-documented history a physiologic thing? How about scientific experimentation and the predictability of employing the scientific method? A change in my brain's chemistry wouldn't change the facts on the ground. If you're implying that a sick brain would fail - deliberately or otherwise - to interpret obvious evidence correctly, then you've provided a neat condemnation of religious faith that even I wouldn't suggest.

No, you are wrong in trying to define what you call "our basic premise." That is a strawman, created by you to preserve your own view of the world and to shelter it from examination by those who ask for more than fairy tales as a basis for viewing the world. Both you and our new friend c-mat don't offer "evidence," but religious bromides. You're saying it is evidence doesn't make it so, anymore than presents on Xmas morning is evidence that Santa exists. The reason that E Fav, I and others constantly invoke the Santa analogy is because it is uniquely apt in describing the foundational system of most religions.

Reagrding c-mat: you do a disservice driving him away from the site. I noticed that very few Xians rose to his defense in this thread (you were one who did). He seemed genuinely interested in entering a dialogue. It's a sad commentary that a Gaurdian of the Grail like yourself can give him his marching orders...and then have him follow them. I'd think you'd want to keep a few like minds around to support you in your postings.

As far as being serious: I can't speak for E Fav and the others, but I'm dead serious about my positions and what I post here. My views aren't made up of whole cloth. They are the sum of my years of searching, reading and learning. Maybe you can't fathom that for me, the writings and thoughts of men like Dennett and Dawkins put to shame the "wisdom" of the holy books you worship, and they're not even claiming to be demi-gods, let alone inerrant, omniscient gods.

I give you credit and appreciate that you haven't taken the route of the Xian poster Canyon Shearer who resorts to calling both atheists and Xians alike "idiots" if they don't agree with his narrow and vicious view of the world. I guess we should be happy that in your eyes, we're simply swine. At least swine have their feet to the ground and provide nourishment to people on occasion.

Gotta go.

If only it were that easy to walk away from an addiction...

I'll change my name to "gasbuster" for a week if C_Mat doesn't post something, somewhere on these boards by noon on Saturday.

Any other wagers?

Enrique,

thanks for your comments and observations. I really appreciate them. I'm just back from a class and am really tired. However your last sentence is extremely important. Thank you very much. I see that we are just going around in circles, and I see the truth of your observations. Thank you.

E-favorite, thanks again for getting back to me. You are wrong. Ravi, one of the foremost Christian philosophers of the day made only the point about evil, injustice, love and forgiveness converging on the cross. Sorry for that misunderstanding. The rest is all from the book of Romans...6th book in our New Testaments. Read it carefully with a dictionary and first century Judaism in mind. What I did was simply spell out Romans in 21st century English. Substitute injustice instead of sin (which I did because most people don't understand what sin is today) and you have the thesis of the Book of Romans.

Mr. Mark, I think Enrique is right. You do not attempt to answer the question at hand or contrary evidence in a scientific, methodical or logical way. Instead your method of defense is always to suggest that Jesus is a fairy tale or Santa Claus. You contradict yourself again and again.

Therefore, I have decided to quit. May God Bless you all. I have thoroughly enjoyed this discourse.

Ghostbuster, Enrique and others, I commend you on your faith and I encourage you to keep standing strong for the Lord in whom you have believed.

Thanks.

C MAT -- Mr. Mark and E Favorite are not serious people. They are playing games.

Consider that their basic premise is that anything that cannot be explained physiologically is magic.

C mat, the logical consequence of their premise is that if you change something physiologically, it is no longer what it was. Accordingly, their 'arguments', from a logical point of view, are suicidal.

If one were to accept their premise, then it would follow that a physiological change in their brain would change how either of them see everything. In their world, the only objective truth is one that can be explained by physiological laws. That is their basic premise, their religion, and it is beyond question, as far as they are concerned, or so it seems.

Mr, Mark and E Favorite, if they were honest, would apply said premise to their own arguments , but they don't. If they did, it would follow, that if we were able to change their brains phsyiologically, they would see everything differently; their very 'arguments' would change. Change it again, and they would see things yet another way. There is no objective truth in their 'logic'. For them, meaning itself is only a manifestation of physiology, an epiphenomenon.

Indeed, they have avoided my challenge to their premises by consistently alleging they don't understand what I've explained in previous posts. In an earlier forum, Ba Al, another commentator, also failed to respond out when asked to clarify his premises. They cop out once you call them on their premise. It's not that they don't understand it; it's that they can't afford to admit that they do, for they would be finished, and they know it.

Understand that if their premises deny the possibility of objective meaning (except of course, of their own premise) ,it also denies the possibility of God a priori. Why then even discuss Jesus or the gospels further with them?

Why throw pearls at them?

C-mat - Honestly, reading through your long post, what struck me most was how simple it would be if you didn't have to go to such lengths to justify Christ's sacrifice. And you explanation I'm pretty sure is nowhere in the bible - it's what this Christian TV preacher said.

You didn't try to justify the murder or cannibalism. Fine - I'm not asking you to address this. I am saying that to me it’s simpler and more sensible to reject the story as a first century construct than it is to try to explain it as worthy of belief and veneration in the 21st century.

Mr Mark – I share your sense of joy. I also feel a re-awakening and understanding and renewed interest in the world around me.

c-mat -

Thanks for the response. It would appear that we're now able to converse, rather than to shout at each other.

Re: your question about "real Xianity" and your further elaboration.

At some point, we enter into the realm of Xian hucksterism, the same type of hucksterism that feeds the diet, exercise and self-help industries.

The basic message is simple: "you've got BIG problems. You've tried to solve them, but you've been unsuccessful because you've never been told the TRUTH about how to lose weight/have a porn star body/find salvation. It's important to know that this ISN'T YOUR FAULT! It's the fault of all of those hucksters who lied to you to enrich themselves at your expense. But, FEAR NOT! I am here to finally tell you the REAL TRUTH and to give you a SIMPLE WAY to lose weight/look like a porn star/find salvation."

Strange how we can easily see such hucksterism when it is presented in a TV ad, or even in a religion/sect that we consider to be heretical or evil. Yet the moat is firmly set in our own eye when it comes to seeing the same hucksterism in our preferred version of religious belief.

Re: was Jesus a creation of Jewish mythology or of Roman/Greek/pagan mythology?

There's really no contradiction here as it isn't an either/or question.

The answer that unites all of these sources as possible origins for the myth of Jesus is humanity's early development of archetypes (villains, saviors, gods & demi-gods), a development that happened long before the Abrahamic faiths were developed. As the Abrahamic faiths all point to a common ancestor, so do all religions (even non-Abrahamic) point to a common ancestry - ie: the development in the human mind of a belief in the supernatural - that goes back tens of thousands of years.

I don't think that anyone can pinpoint where the Jesus myth originated, ie: as an imitation of Roman or Greek gods/historical personages or as an outgrowth of Jewish mythology. But one can with some confidence say that the "attractive attributes" of the savior-god Jesus are the same attributes that are present (to varying degrees of emphasis) in the archetypes of the sun gods, redeemer gods and the messiah gods of other religions. So, while you are correct in saying that "both can't be true" (ie: did Jesus emerge from Jewish or Roman mythology), it can be true that he is just another version of a well-established pre-historic archetype. In the end, it all depends on where you choose to draw the historic line.

One may well posit that Jesus is a better amalgam of the various attributes that defined these other gods, but that in and of itself doesn't make him any more real than history's also-rans, does it?

Re: the question: did you ever REALLY give your life over to Christ?

My answer would be a resounding, "Yes." The problem is this - Jesus is no more real than Santa Claus. Giving your life over to imaginary beings is - in the end - a construct of one's own mind, not a reality based event that involves a supernatural being's interactions with a sentient being.

We cannot prove that god does or does not exist, but we know as a fact that self delusion is a reality of the human psyche, a delusion that we engage in every day on every level ("I'm sure my wife isn't cheating on me...I just know I aced that exam, even though I'm really nervous about my grade on it...the Second Coming of Jesus WILL happen within my lifetime.").

Think of the sports fan who roots for his team. If his team loses, is it because, "you just didn't root HARD enough!", or was it because...all teams occasionally lose? How about little Susie, who's determined to see Santa comes down the chimney this year? She stays up until 6am, when her mom finally comes to take her to bed, and to wipe her flowing tears because Santa didn't come...only to have her shattered worldview restored at 7am when even-littler Billy comes bounding into her room to tell Susie that, Yes, Santa did come after all! Mom said he came at exactly 6:05!

Did Santa not come because Susie's faith in him was lacking the power to keep her up for another 5 minutes? Was her faith in him restored even though he failed to make that personal appearance that was so important to her less than an hour before? The answers are most likely "No" to the first question and "Yes" to the second. What's important is that the answers to those two questions have nothing to do with Susie's faith or lack of faith in Santa...and even less to do with the existence of a real Santa.

Faith is not a reality based proposition, and while some may find that to be its greatest strength, I can only agree with such a view to the extent that faith is now the world's most overrated commodity, what Dennett and others call the "belief in belief." (Distinguishing between "belief in belief" and "belief in god" is one of the themes tackled in Dennett's "Breaking the Spell," a book I just finished and recommended earlier in this thread.)

Nice chatting. Gotta go. Dinner time.

Ghostbuster:

I wanted to say thanks in both the above posts! I think your points are very well taken and I agree with you. It is scary to think that someone else could misuse our names. I wish they did have login names then. You also made some very interesting points when you talked about God's love earlier.

You were defending a Witch? Just joking! One of my friends is a witch-turned Christian and thank goodness for the loving Christians who led her to faith in Christ. We all need Jesus. We all need forgiveness. We all need love!

Thanks, c_mat

Dear Mr. Mark,

Thank you very much for responding. i really appreciate it. i did not mean at all that you should have to answer to me or anyone else, but thanks for telling us your story. We really appreciate it.

I think you bring up several important issues for our consideration and hopefully also for many pastors and priests. Since we no longer live in Christendom, we cannot afford to ignore non-Christian faiths, the early church, and pre-Christian times. As you are probably very keenly aware, there is an extreme dearth of biblical knowledge in our times. Most Christians are biblically illiterate. It is sad that you should have had to come across some of these questions when you were 40, even though you were born-again, as you claim at 18.

In my case, and I am sure in Africa and Asia, we are exposed to non-Christian philosophies from our very births. We see Hindus worshipping Christ, and so many different imageries, that dealing with some of these questions is an early-on issue.

I can fully understand the situation that you are describing between you and your family. That is hard, and I hope that you would be able to have a better time, despite your differences.

the 3rd issue which I thank you for bringing up is an important and interesting issue. I have come across these questions several times, and have on occasion even had to consider them with respect to other religions in India. I am not an expert on Mithraism but have heard all of the above claims and once listened to the Acharya woman on TV. Some of these claims have floated around under different names in India as well. Of course some of them can be easily explained away. Many of them are theories, similar to the Jesus went to Egypt and Kashmir kind of things. While I have no problems with where my faith stands on this issue, here's a site that I found that may help. Beware, you might have to do your own further research.http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html

I want you to note that some Hindus in India have tried to draw similar parallels between Krishna and Jesus. Anyways...

The next issue you mention is that Jesus preached to the Jews while Paul took Christianity to the Gentiles. Here I contend with you! The gospels record Jesus on several occasions ministering and preaching to the Gentiles. He heals their sick, raises their dead, and speaks of them sharing in the Kingdom! In Mt, Mark, and Acts He commands the disciples to go into All the World and preach the gospel, to preach it to all creatures, and to preach in Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. It is true that the early Jewish Christians were hesitant because of their Kosher laws. But the first Gentile converts recorded in Scripture were not made by Paul, but by Philip and Peter. Philip preaches to an Ethiopian and Peter preaches to Cornelius and his family. While Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, Peter and James were the leaders of the first church, and at the council at Jerusalem they put their stamp of support on Paul's ministry. If Peter and James had not done that, Paul's ministry would have suffered enormously. Isaiah and Jeremiah clearly talk about how Jesus would be a light to the Nations and Kings would come to Him. And God's promise to Abraham in Genesis records, that through your Seed, I will bless all nations.

Just a question. Earlier you contend that the Jews made up the story of Jesus. Now you say that it was the parallels between Mithraism (a pagan religion) and Christianity that shook your faith. Both cannot be true. So I am confused.

I think the final issue you raise is the most important one. I really did not mean by that question, Mr. Mark, as to which denomination you belonged. I am sorry if it appeared that way to you. I think all the denominations adequately have Christians and support Christianity. What I meant was whether you yourself had really given your life to Christ and to His message, which was "Deny yourself, take up your Cross and Follow Me"; "Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates it will save it" "Whoever follows Me must hate (love less) his mother, brother, father, sister...and even his own life" "Must leave everything and follow Me" "seeks the Father's will"...basically the 4 Gospels. While we don't hear any of this preached nowadays, this was truly Jesus' message and not the "accept Him in your heart and you will be Born-Again". Accept what? What he did on the cross for you, His death and Resurrection, His Holy Spirit, who will then enable you to live His message. This does not mean God is asking me to go right now and be a missionary in Iraq (it may very well be ...one of my wife's friends just died there recently ministering, and another is helping Iraqis and teaching young kids), but it does mean my life is one of humble submission to Him, to do whatever it is that He wills. Its hard, very hard, but only with the help of the Holy Spirit can I do it.
This then is true Christianity, to be baptized with Him into His death and resurrection. While it is a positional reality at baptism, the rest is a journey. Many early Christians gave their lives up for this journey.

OK thanks and God Bless.

E-Favorite,

Thank you for your post. I really enjoyed it. I think you bring about a very very important question, probably the most fundamental question of all. I can see where you're coming from, and to be honest with you, I had to confront with similar issues as well. I'm sure anyone who has really thought about, which at some point a Christian would have (hopefully), might have had the same problem.

Its funny, last night I happened to listen to Ravi Zacharias. I don't usually happen to watch too much of Christian TV, but he caught my attention. He was asking the 4 fundamental questions that people normally have are the nature of evil, the nature of justice, the nature of love and the nature of forgiveness. I had missed most of us his talk, except the end where he said all the above converge in only 1 single event in history, and that is the Cross, and its like a profound feeling of understanding just settled in. Started me thinking!

You know, if I commit adultery with my wife (this is hypothetical), someone is very badly hurt in the bargain. My wife is the immediate person who is hurt, my kids may get affected as well, and eventually down the bargain it may adversely affect me as well the person with whom I had an affair. If I get a divorce, things may badly escalate, and the level of hurt increases much more. In the middle of all this, hatred may build up, perhaps resentment might, anger, jealousy, gossip, doubting, etc, etc. The level of hurt may not just affect us who are directly involved, but it may spread to our family members, our church, our community.... Add to this that since so many events and people are involved, that someone may take it upon themselves to exact revenge (happened very often in ancient communities). the form of revenge may involve rape, murder, insult, and the list can go on. The level of hurt or injustice increases exponentially now. What is one to do about the level of injustice? If there is a legal system set up, somebody may be punished for the rape, or the theft, or the murder or in some communities even the adultery itself. But there's a lot of little injustices left in the middle that may never be taken care of or resolved this side of eternity.

It then brings about a very big problem. If God is truly who He says He is, that is pure, holy, and just, then He's got to do something about this injustice. Because someone has to Pay! If I commit adultery, my wife and kids pay. If I murder, the victim and the family pay. If I steal or am greedy, the poor or hungry may pay. In Hinduism, you have whole life cycles where you pay, in Islam all the injustice that happened is Inshallah, or the will of God. In Buddhism, there is no concept of payment. But if God is truly just, then who pays.

OK God decided according to Christianity, that since no man is exempt from causing evil or injustice, then every man should PAY! The only problem is that the cumulative injustice/evil/sin over our lifetimes is so high, that the severity of the punishment might know no ends. The other problem is God loves us too much, and knows that in reality we'll never be able to pay. He knows that if we really knew Him, we would not want to be part of the injustice at all! But God is JUST! Therefore there was only one solution! God said, He would pay! However the payment could not be easy, because just because He was God, He could not say the victims were all forgiven, that would not be fair to those who had been murdered or raped or treated unfairly.

For the punishment to be severe, God had to become a man. If you think thats easy or not severe, consider the thought of me becoming an ant and living as an ant, thinking as an ant for 33 years. Just not allowing the thought of me as a man to dominate me as an ant at all under any conditions. In fact, when all the other ants would come to make me their scapegoat, and my father man had all the power in the world to crush the other ants, to just submit to His will and let them destroy me.

God didn't just have to become a man, He had to have no evil or commit injustice himself in order to rescue those bound by injustice. So while the other ants goaded him on, tried to get him involved in their lifestyle of injustice, He had to resist it to the end, perhaps to the point of blood, to be a true deliverer. Of course this meant, the other ants hated him, because He was the complete opposite of who they were. Finally as the other ants completely destroyed him, his silent death, yet victory because he did not become what the other ants wanted him to become, would be the sacrificial offering that would match all the cumulative injustice of the world. For He would be the perfect, spotless, innocent Lamb, that would become the sin offering for the rest of us. His offering would be more perfect than a good man who may have sacrificed his life for his country, because He would be the only one who had resisted injustice without even a drop of it in him until the very end.

God's wrath upon His own Son would allow Him to unleash His love and mercy on the victims of injustice (which includes us all). Because His Son paid the price, God would be able to show mercy to both the victim and the aggressor. The price was enormous, you see, because from now on the Son would always be in a human body, resurrected because He defeated evil and the suffering and mortality that come with it, and in Heaven as the God-Man. The suffering was also enormous, because God who is One just like the atoms of our Body, who loved His Son so dearly, for that one brief moment in time, had to turn His back entirely on His Son and allow Him to become the sin offering! No miracles would come there, as people taunted Him, no deliverances as they beat Him up, no move from the Father, so much that He would cry "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"

God now offers the price of His payment to all mankind. To those who believe and are humbly willing to accept it, their sins are forgiven. To those who refuse to accept the payment, there is only one option left : to pay it themselves.

Therefore Like Ravi said, Evil, Injustice, Love and Forgiveness converge at only one time: On the Cross, where God simultaneously deals with all 4.

The One who accepts the payment, agrees to from now on pursue the path of Jesus of Nazareth, the path of love and forgiveness, given a new heart by the Holy Spirit, hating his own life, but loving others, so that the Love of God may be manifested to as many people as possible.

While God is just, He will not go back on His own justice. Obviously those who have never heard of this good news of Jesus, may also participate in God's forgiveness. For the benefits of Jesus' atonement are to be applied to all mankind before and after Jesus' death (In God's eyes, the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, 1 Peter). But the requirement for them then and now would be the same, to seek this God that has been revealed to them through Nature and confirmed in the inward reality of their conscience. We do not know how God will judge these, but Scripture is very clear, those with the Law will be judged by the Law, and those without it, by the Law of conscience. However, to all those who have heard, only two options remain: accept the Payment or reject it!

God loves you my brother and all of us.

C_Mat – forum boards are indeed addictive. I don’t know of a nicotine patch, but if I find one, I’ll let you and Mr. Mark know. I initially got hooked on these darn things a few years ago by defending a witch against a bunch of over-zealous and downright ruthless “Christians”. To this day I’m still friends with her, but I’ve yet to chat at length with anyone who shares my belief system, go figure.

Anyways, here are a couple of practical tips that I try to keep in mind when posting on topics related to my faith. Maybe you will find a couple of these useful.

1) Offer grace

2) 2 Tim. 2:23, Matt. 5:43-47, and the golden rule

3) It is good to question your own motivation when posting on a forum board. Why am I here? Is it to gain insight, teach others about your faith, encourage others, defend the faith, practice debate skills, add to a discussion – or – am I primarily motivated to feed my ego by proving myself superior to someone with a different view point. Am I pointing to Christ, or standing between them and Christ?

4) Keep in mind that when speaking, “as a Christian from a Christian perspective” one is held to a different set of standards than one who has not made that claim. It only makes rational sense. For example, lets say you all are having a discussion about nanotechnology. I enter the conversation touting myself as “a scientist with extensive experience in the field”. I list some of my credentials and post a couple links to various peer reviews that sound legitimate. But a few posts later, I ask you if a buckeyball is made out of cheese. Obviously, I have lost credibility, even if I am in reality a world renowned scientist.

4a) Credibility and consistency is even more important on this particular board because there is no log-in/password. Anybody can be C_Mat. If your witness continues to be effective, you will stop by these boards one day and see “C_Mat” the troll using your name to contradict everything you’ve said. It is a matter of time.

One final unrelated point. I think it is reasonable to be suspicious on an individual basis of a person who claims to have been a former Christian yet changes to. We both know that for many people what they had growing up was religion, not a relationship. I don’t think that is always the case though. Earlier in this thread I think you mentioned a book by Lee Strobel. Have you read Stobel’s interview in “A Case for Faith” with the late agnostic Charles Templeton? It is an interesting read. Templeton used to lead crusades with Billy Graham, but he began to have serious doubts about his faith. He eventually became an agnostic writing a book called, "A Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith".

Regards

C-mat wrote:

"what if you were never ever exposed to real Christianity at all?"

Sorry I missed that point in my last post.

Let me respond by saying that I was brought up Lutheran and became born-again at age 18. Being a performing musician, I spent years singing in churches of just about every denomination: Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, United Church of Christ, Christian Scientist, German Lutheran, Swedenborgian, Universalist...probably just about every denomination in the western church (not to mention years of singing the Jewish high holidays in temples in and around Manhattan).

I'm going to assume that each and every one of those Xian denominations extolled a version of "real" Christianity. In fact, the real similarities far outweighed the doctrinal differences.

Let me ask you: what denomination(s) do you believe extol "real Xianity?"

c-mat wrote:

"However, I would still like to put forth something here and ask you to consider this honest question (to yourself and not to us): Considering Jesus' calls to follow Him and discipleship in the gospels we have, do you honestly and truly think that you were a true Christian? That question is for you for pondering, not for us."

Yes, I consider that I was "true Xian" during that time. But like most Xians (at least those in America), I had no knowledge of any religions outside of Brand X American Xianity. It's easy to believe in the god of the NT when that's all you've ever been exposed to, and exposed to it from about age 3 forward. Hell, I went to a Lutheran church - when the nuns from the Catholic church at the end of the block walked by on a Sunday morning stroll, I thought they were witches and ran screaming to my Sunday school teacher!

The turning point for me came when I realized that the lifestory of Jesus reflected the lifestory of many pagan gods - Mithras, Apollo et al. When the "exclusivity" of Jesus being born of a virgin and resurrected from the dead lost that exclusivity, I realized that the Jesus story was just the newest version of an oft-repeated tale of the gods that man had invented for himself over the milleniae. Importantly to me, such knowledge gave me an appreciation of the power of myth in the human existence. Recognizing the myth as myth (rather than as an exclusive reality) was a big step in my development...and it led me to put away childish things, if you will. What's amazing is that I didn't stumble on this historical perspective until I was almost 40 years old, and I would vouchsafe that there are many Xians in the world who are never confronted with such information in the course of their lifetimes.

So, yes, I definitely feel that I was a true Xian, but a Xian due to a lack of information, not a surplus of information.

My question to Xians is whether or not they have done any research into these past deities, and if so, what do they make of all the similarities between Jesus and other ancient deities? Do they aver - as did early church leaders - that gods such as Mithras were fabrications of the devil, created by the devil in advance of Jesus' advent to confuse the Jews and early Xians when Jesus finally made his appearance? Or do they devolve such information into an historic haze, conveniently allowing themselves to claim historical information overload - and to dismiss such history as irrelevant to their claims of Jesus being the one true god? Or, do they take such info, fully digest it and come out on the other side with a compelling and factual argument for their claims of Jesus' exclusivity and godhood, an argument that will withstand the rigors of indepth examination and bias-free scrutiny? As Jack Webb used to say on the old Dragnet TV series, "just the facts, ma'am."

Let me say that my journey from Xian to atheist has only been painful in the sense of a certain degree of alienation from my immediate family, about 3/4s of whom are devout Xians. Beyond that, it's been an absolute joy. The freedom I feel at this point in my life I something I never experienced during my faith years. Home and family are a big part of that, of course, but it's also the freedom to delve into the fullness of life, and to take up causes that I would have never imagined to have held an interest for me (example: I am a big, vocal supporter of gay rights, even though there isn't a openly gay person in my immediate or extended family that I know of. It's an equality issue for me...and an issue I was on the other side of during my Xian days).

Finally, to answer your question about Jesus calling people to discipleship and to spreading his teachings: my belief is that Jesus was preaching to the Jews (ie: those with whom god had made a covenant), not the gentiles. It is Paul who decided that Xianity would be extended to the gentiles. The "world" that Jesus spoke of was the Jewish world. The brilliance of Paul was that he realized that the future of Xianity as a growth industry was pretty bleak if it was limited to the Jews, so he opened up "a new market segment," so to speak. It's worked brilliantly...but was it what Jesus intended?

Thanks for the discourse. Maybe we'll continue the same on this board for a bit.

C-Mat – I see the depth of your faith, but it’s not for me. I never felt that strongly, and when I started to actually think about religion, it simply didn’t make any sense that a father would have his son killed to forgive the sins of others. What kind of father would do that? He could have just forgiven our sins, or taken away the whole concept of sin. Besides, the sacrificed son was not dead long – just 3 days – then he supposedly rose from the dead and is now living bodily in heaven for eternity. Not that much of a sacrifice when you consider what others have been through. It’s a wacky story that I’m sure I’d never believe if I heard it the first time as an adult.

Then, on top of everything else, we observe this sacrifice via symbolic cannibalism – eating his body and drinking his blood. (Catholic children were taught it is the real body and blood, changed by the priest via “transubstantiation”).

Then there are so many people in the world (unlike me, Mr Mark, etc.) who never hear about this supposedly loving God, who is aching to forgive and welcome us into heaven. Those poor innocent, ignorant souls go to hell, according to Christian beliefs – so I can’t get excited about this God who wants to know us.

When I started to question and did my own research – everything started to make sense. Like many people, I had a child’s view of religion. No more. There is a wealth of information available – new scholarship based on 20th century findings, post reformation scholarship that’s been around a while, but that you’ll never hear about in Church - or in the mainstream media.

You’re right, this forum can be addictive. I’m hoping the some of the postings here can be a shortcut for people wanting an adult perspective on religion.

Dear Mr. Mark,

Thank you very much for getting back to me. I really appreciate that. I was actually worried that I might have really offended you, without meaning to, and was really praying and hoping that that may not be so.

You make many good points in the above post. I think I am getting ADDICTED to this blog. What is the cure? You also mentioned several times about the other On Faith Panelists. Since this was my first time, I didn't realize that you could somehow be a member here or something. Will have to do some digging there.

Oh my brother, yes, I have lost arguments several times. And the truth is, I really don't care. To be honest with you, what I was worried about, was that someone else's faith could be weakened without an adequate response (especially for instance if you challenged Paul didn't write 6 letters in the NT, etc), which is why I was getting frustrated. I mean I don't mind someone saying that I don't believe in miracles, therefore I cannot believe in His resurrection. I think that's an honest and valid question. But I was having trouble with you keeping on saying that Jesus did not exist, despite the evidence you didn't want to consider.

That said, I think the blogs are a good place to discuss the faith, and we certainly should ask our questions and make our points, but I think with a certain degree of humility. We do not know the answer to everything, and like you yourself said, we are not all scholars. In those cases, we could say that certain scholars speculate that this...etc, etc (provide a reference if we can, not all of us can), but there is no general consensus on the issue. I think that that is fair and balanced, and a true debate. Otherwise its just you preaching to me and me to you, and there is no real discussion or debate. Plus, we should keep in mind, that with our statements, we could affect the lives of someone or the other who may be reading these blogs.

I like your last point, and I do consider what it is that may have made you question the faith that you thought you believed in. I do believe from your statements and experience that you went through a valid phase where you were convinced that all that you were believing was humbug or not true. I do not deny that and I would be foolish to do so. I also admit that this experience may have been highly troubling and painful for you, and I am sorry for that. However, I would still like to put forth something here and ask you to consider this honest question (to yourself and not to us): Considering Jesus' calls to follow Him and discipleship in the gospels we have, do you honestly and truly think that you were a true Christian? That question is for you for pondering, not for us. The only reason that I am asking, is that what if you were never ever exposed to real Christianity at all. What if we make this proposition, that everything Jesus said in the 4 gospels was really true? In that context, esp Lk 9 and Mk 10, do you really think you were a true Christian? If you still think so, I think every argument you have made above is extremely valid.

I really appreciate this discourse.

"I think it's hard to have an open mind, when told up front that if you don't believe certain things, a supposedly loving God will cause you to suffer forever in hellfire and damnation."

That is a courageous statement to make. I can see how this line of rationalization would immediately put one in a defensive position. Posed that way, the whole thing sounds like nonsense to me too. A loving God sending one to eternal damnation just because one isn't 100%compliant...

I think the key to developing an open mind in your case is to address the points you made individually.

The first and most difficult step is to settle on the definition of God's love. How does God (not man) define love? Some research and even you own self introspection may help you find the answer. You may want to seriously ask yourself and God these questions: What is my own personal definition of love? How do I treat someone I love? Can love be mandated? Is love a free choice?

Then you simply answer the question, is God, by His own definition of love, a loving God or not?

And finally, will this "loving" God cause people to suffer eternally, or do we have a choice to accept his love and be with Him, or reject his sacrifice and live separate from Him?

Personally, I think that all too often, threats made by Christians of eternal damnation border on mind control. Do this, don't do that or you'll get it someday, you know? Where is the love there? I heard a joker one time announce that those who regularly skipped evening services were in danger of hellfire, more ridiculous was the fact that the few people I noticed between my nearly silent laughter said "amen" or nodded their heads. Despite some very encouraging signs, too many Christians still play silly games like this. No wonder so many people withdraw and sometimes become bitter or think we're all idiots.

I hope this all makes sense. If not, I guess it will give some people easy pickings which is fine by me. It is 1AM and I'm nodding off here.

Regards

Dear c-mat:

Sorry to have yanked your chain so badly. I've put you in a very foul mood. That wasn't my intention. My intention was to engage in a dialogue similar to dialogues I've had with others on this blog.

Your responses have been pretty good...at least if one ignores your screaming that I am a Bible- and Xian-hating person whose abandonment of his former "shallow" beliefs have led him on a life crusade to destroy Xianity single-handedly.

That's a pretty tall order for one person, and to be honest with you, I'm not up to the job, so don't worry about it.

You and I share one thing - the frustration felt when people talk past each other. I've had excellent conversations in the past with Xians at On Faith (even lost my share of arguments) and I'm sure that you will with atheists as well...if you can hang in there and give things a chance. Personally, I've learned to walk away from the keyboard for 30 minutes or so before posting a response of any length at this blog. It keeps the frustration in check, allows one to formulate a cogent response...and more often than not leads one to NOT respond at all...but that's me.

I admit that I never met Jesus or Paul, but I assumed that none of the bloggers here had either. 90% of the posts here are about Jesus. If meeting him personally is a prerequisite for holding an opinion about him, I guess this blog's days are numbered.

As far as being a Biblical scholar or an expert - that applies to the columnists here, not we lowly blog posters, and their scholarship has led them to beliefs than run the gamut of religious thought. I've never said I was an expert in the Bible. I'm somewhere between non-conversant and better-than-moderately informed. My posts draw upon the work of scholars in the field whose opinions - obviously - don't hold any favor with you. I wasn't under the impression that personally holding a credential in Biblical scholarship was a prerequisite for posting on this blog, and I don't think that's what you're implying, are you?

You might consider - CONSIDER - that a person like myself who was a Xian for decades and moved away from the faith did so for reasons that are just as real and compelling as the reasons that led you to embrace the faith.

BTW - I'm currently reading Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell." If you haven't read it, I recommend it (not that my opinion matters to you).

Gotta go.

Dear E Favorite,

Thanks for responding to that comment. I really appreciate it and I thank you once again for keeping me in check.

I think you ask a very important question and on this one, I am completely on your side. I don't think you need to fear in order to ask any questions about God, even if you do not believe in Him. In fact, the love of God is so very great, that hell is really the final final resort. I think the Christian community in general has done a great disservice to Christians and the non-Christian world. Really the reason hell is such a last resort is because God loves us so much, that throughout our lives He is wooing us to accept His love for us. In the midst of all our failures and misunderstandings, He is still patient and while we give up on Him, He never gives up on us. In fact His love for us is so great and His desire to keep us out of hell is so strong, that He gave up His One and Only Son, who was the dearest possession of the Father. God, who hates sin, allowed His Pure, spotless Son to become a Sin offering for us, and had to turn His face away from His Only Son. Through His Son's sacrificial offering, our relationship with the Father is restored and we are now able to enter the presence of this Holy God and fellowship with Him in the Name of His Son.

What is hell? The true Christian meaning of hell is Eternal Separation from God. Thats why its not really God who puts us there, but we who choose it eventually, when we have refused every invitation we have had to accept God's great love. We say God we don't you, and thus we choose eternal separation from Him. God does not cause us to suffer, but we suffer because we know through our own choice, we have eternally separated ourselves from Him. Yet God's love is so great that till our dying day, He patiently waits for those who would accept Him.

Therefore I agree with you. Have no fear. If you have questions, ask Him. If you disbelieve, seek. God is open to an honest and contrite heart. He said, "Seek Me and you will find Me". May you and all those who seek Him find Him even as He has promised.

Thanks again and God Bless.

C-Mat - thanks for responding. YOu say, "I am only frustrated because here we sit assuming we know all about Jesus and Paul as if we had met them yesterday and put a lot of junk on sites like this that most people can't refute because they have never considered it with an open mind."

I expect that people with opposing points of view about Jesus and Paul feel much the same way.

I think it's hard to have an open mind, when told up front that if you don't believe certain things, a supposedly loving God will cause you to suffer forever in hellfire and damnation.

If people can get past that fear, then I think it's possible to look at the facts objectively.

E FAVORITE:

I don't understand how you can say: Enrique - you lost me with the "Rock" comment."

There must be some natural law that explains what you are experiencing.

Surely you will be able to point out which one it is, and enlighten all of us.

Dear Ghostbuster,

Thank you very much again for that friendly warning. I completely agree with you and E-Favorite (about this). Like I said before it is my first time on blogs like this and I guess I was getting carried away. I apologize to everyone, Mr. Mark included for that. I was just really concerned that there may be others reading these posts who may be silent participators, and for whose sake I should have responded. But I should have more faith in the Holy Spirit who is able to keep until the very end those who have believed in Jesus.

Thanks everyone for allowing me to participate in this discussion. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I pray that each and every one of you would be thoroughly blessed in all that you do.

C_Mat,

I'm glad you paid attention to E_Favorite's post. Though I think I understand your frustration, I also "assumed" (there is that word again) that you may have been getting a little carried away my friend. Keep in mind, there is no "On Faith" Trophy awarded if you win an arguement, especially if it costs you the war.

Regards

E-favorite:

Thanks for keeping me in check. Jesus Himself was angry at the money lenders who had turned His father's house into a den of thieves, and Paul was angry at the Judaizers as mentioned above who had reduced faith in Christ to being circumcised.

I am only frustrated because here we sit assuming we know all about Jesus and Paul as if we had met them yesterday and put a lot of junk on sites like this that most people can't refute because they have never considered it with an open mind. At least our modern scholars who attempt to intellectually understand Jesus or Paul do it in peer-reviewed journals where their comments will be checked and a reference follows every statement.

However I am not personally angry or upset with anyone. I assumed that perhaps a false understanding of Christ is due to false understanding or misinformation somewhere down the line, and therefore have been painstakingly trying to participate in this conversation, but when you are challenged with something and the other side is determined to not give you a listening ear, no matter what you say, then it is no longer a conversation, but exactly what Christian fundamentalists are accused of - preaching. In this situation, it is very frustrating and my frustration is seen on the page.

But exactly my point, you saw my frustration as personal anger, while after I wrote the last post, I went back to analyzing cells responsible in allergic diseases. Similarly, we read our own emotions into other people's writings or comments in the 21st century alone. How much more unfair to do this to 1st century people, who lived in a different culture, a different time, a different place and a different understanding of spiritual things!

I fully accept your criticism though E-favorite and apologize for my frustration!

Enrique - you lost me with the "Rock" comment.

C-Mat - you seem angry and vindictive. I don't think Jesus would approve.

W Edwards - intereted in hearing your further thoughts about General Pace's brave comments.

Mr. Mark,

Its only logical that since there is someone like you who questions the existence of Jesus, there should be someone else who questions the authorship of some of the Pauline letters. Both of you have the same problem. Without ever having really met Paul or Jesus yourself, you have already decided how Paul or Jesus should behave under different circumstances based on what they have written. Unfortunately, in my own experience, the entire spectrum of who I am or what my life could be, I don't think has ever been fully expressed on paper, despite the printing press, daily journals, emails, letters to the editor and scholarly (biological) materials that I have continuously been involved in the writing of.

The early church had a very high moral standard in terms of letter writing, and usually frowned with great deal on the use of pseudonyms, because guess what that would be: Lying. Which is why the bulk of Gnostic gospels and documents that came about in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries were not even looked at. The letters of Paul were all written in the first 30 yrs after Jesus' death and resurrection, with 1 Corinthians being the earliest. If that is the only letter of Paul you had, you would still know what he believed - in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, read 1 Corinthians 15. Another quote is already above.

Martin Luther and Calvin were not the first to raise doubts about Hebrews. Origen and Eusebius had already talked about it, and both came to the same conclusion - Paul was definitely behind the main thought of the letter, even if others may have assisted him in the actual writing! Its fine, I am not going to break my head over that assistant could be Apollos or someone else. But the early church was very aware of this letter. Also don't forget Luther and Calvin were biased, and were ready to reject the canonicity of even James and Esther, because it didn't fit their particular world view.

Same as what you are doing. Only I understand Luther or Calvin's motivation. They were devout hard-core Christians. You are bent on destroying the Christian faith (As if you could anyways!)! Complete opposite!

So again, obviously the problem that all of you guys is not really Jesus or Paul, but the implication of what they preached and taught. Jesus alone is the Mediator between God and man - the Christ that the Jews were waiting for, and the FULL expression of the Invisible God!

Rest, you can sit here and try to construct whether Paul could have written Ephesians, because it seems more polished and not as crass as Galatians and ponder over Hebrews because of the priestly system, and all your reconstruction would just be grasping for the wind, since you do not take at face value what Paul said in the first place and everything else is a figment of your imagination!

Mr. Mark,

I am getting tired of your ill-informed and one-sided attacks on the Christian faith. I had hoped we could stop this nonsense and still do. You are not a scholar, you don't understand the Bible and most of your comments above show what a pathetic understanding you have of first century times.

Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews according to his won claim, but are you forgetting most of the NT letters were not written to Jews, but to Gentiles, who did not understand Hebrew. Are you forgetting that Hebrew was not the common language of the day, but Greek was? Did you know that the Bible that even Jesus used, including his disciples was the Septuagint?

Your pathetic knowledge of the Bible is seen on several occasions. You say Paul was a team player in Acts and not in the other epistles! According to your own understanding....In Acts, he was already converting Gentiles, resulting in a massive Jerusalem council and opposition from several Jewish Christians, in Galatians, he was seeking the right hand of fellowship of Peter and James.

It is obvious you have a very one-sided view about everything, and that is YOUR OWN VIEW, and why should we listen to you. By your own admission you are NOT a Christian, you are NOT a scholar, you point us to web sites that are NOT JOURNALS, and have NO references, and you keep attacking the Christian faith, WITHOUT moderation and WITHOUT the other side.

Your pathetic knowledge of the Bible is also seen in your being surprised that as a Christian I am not supposed to judge. First of all, to be fair to you, it is possible that I may have unfairly judged you, BECAUSE I do not know you personally and what you have gone through, and IF SO, please forgive me for that.

But I am assuming you are using Matthew 7 for your justification of "Judge not, lest ye be judged", which again reveals your ignorance, for in the VERY SAME PASSAGE, Jesus proceeds to judge false prophets, and teaches his disciples to do that: recognize good trees and bad trees.

Later on in Matthew 23 Jesus vociferously rebukes the Pharisees and teached the disciples to beware of them, thus judging them. Later in the NT, Paul judges Peter (like you mentioned above), Peter judges Ananias and Sapphira, Peter, Paul, James, Jude and John, all judge the false Gnostic prophets. Paul even goes so far as to say that some OT circumcisers pretending to be Christians should go ahead and not just emasculate themselves, but all the way! And John clearly warns against antichrists who were amongst us : They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us (1 John 2:19).

Surprise? I believe not! Because you are not reading Scripture in the right context and deliberately misusing and misquoting people from Scripture to serve your own nefarious purposes of maligning the Christian faith.

I do not have a right to judge you as a person and God and you forgive me for that brother if I did so, but I have every right to judge your opinion of the Christian faith. Because in the guise of HAVING been a Christian, you attempt to TEAR it down! And thats what I said, your Christianity was shallow, if it only involved an in-depth exploration of Christianity (which so far seems to be lacking), listen to Bach or Beethoven and going to church every Sunday. THAT is NOT Christianity according to Jesus' own teaching and the Apostolic teachings. Jesus said "Deny yourself, take up your Cross and follow Me!!" Every single time, that is the only way. That was the only mark of ALL the apostles....that is the Only Way for us as true Christians (the Narrow path, not the Broad). Jesus' Jewish teaching was not the confused mental illness of the Greek Gnostics who thought salvation came from "Knowledge" and so far removed from Jewish thought!

There are many other things that you said above, for instance Mt 27:52, science, etc, etc, that I would have liked to have addressed, but I see no point. One word of caution, just because you have NOT experienced something does NOT mean something may NOT be true. Many people in tribal places have not seen a plane, does not mean it does NOT exist.

I HAVE seen demon-possessed people in India my friend. I have even been involved in their freedom. I have seen a Body fly so high into the air horizontally, that no scientist would ever believe unless he saw them. And not just I, we have those things on tape, because these things are common in India and have happened several times during Church services. I HAVE seen a deaf and dumb girl SPEAK after prayer. Just because YOU have NOT experienced something, does not mean its NOT true. Such kinds of things happen all over the world, but Jesus said that "even if SOMEBODY from the DEAD were to RISE again and speak, people would not believe it!" Since YOU have already decided whats real and whats not, living in the 21st century United States of America, not much can be said. Unfortunately your knowledge is fixed, because its only your OWN, and what you have decided to believe. For me its NOT a problem, to believe in a God who can perform Miracles, because despite being a scientist, I have been a FIRST-HAND witness of them. In fact, science does NOT contradict miracles at all, because Science only deals with nature and natural events, when it steps into the supernatural, its already stepping into the Unknown. Like Galileo said, our business is to find out what happens here and NOW, not concern ourselves with what we know CANNOT be EMPIRICALLY tested! You CANNOT put God in a box, and perform experiments on Him. I cannot even put YOU, because you have FREE WILL, and even though I force you in, you MAY NOT COOPERATE!

Here are some other interesting books for People to read:

1. What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible by Ben Witherington III

2. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham
3. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels by Craig A. Evans
4.The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities by Darrell L. Bock
5.Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Have We Missed the Truth about Christianity? by N. T. Wright
6. The Challenge of Jesus - N.T. Wright
7. Simply Christian - N.T. Wright
8. The Paul Quest: The Renewed Search for the Jew of Tarsus by Ben, III Witherington
9. Matthew: Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary by Ben Witherington III
10. The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth by Ben, III Witherington
11. The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations by Michael W. Holmes
12. Death of the Messiah, Volume 2 by Raymond E. Brown

Ghostbuster, thanks for the comments. I completely agree with you.

Mr. Mark, I don't know if you made a mistake, but you actually said that the Scriptural and Gnostic gospels were historic in your response to Ghostbuster! see what I mean, you want to have it both ways - important for culture etc sometimes, while your very own statements above show that its irrelevant every other time. Oh, by the way, what a nice thing about Bach. Shows that you know everything about him too and his great love for the Bible and his own acknowledgements of where his inspiration came from !

Oh lastly, thanks for telling me what you meant about the X. I was aware of it. However we don't speak Greek anymore, but English and different people have different understandings of the word. But at least I know where you're coming from there.

thanks for the discourse.

Mr. Mark --´Logic' functions on the basis of premises, and your premises are being questioned. That is probably why you don't understand my argument.

I will attempt to illustrate (for your sake) the fallacies in your premises.

Consider that you ask a friend for a favor, for example, to go to an enemy's house and ask him some questions regarding a conflict between you and your enemy. You also ask him to testify in court on your behalf. Are you suggesting your request for such a favor is exclusively explainable by physiological laws?

Your friend visits your enemy. He discovers that he agrees ethically with him on some matters and yet strongly disagrees on others. He is conflicted on whether to testify on your behalf or not. Are you suggesting that your friend's ethics, and his inner conflict, are all exclusively explainable by physiological laws?

I'll stop here so you can focus on this issue and not on peripherals.

Mr. Mark: Thanks for the clarification. One can't help but "assume" sometimes. That said, I do not intend to put words into your mouth even when paying you a complement.

c-mat wrote:

"Perhaps it would interest you to know that Paul was one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable man of his days. How many people do you know who can speak and write 13 languages fluently for starters?"

You raise an interesting point.

Apparently, one of those 13 languages wasn't Hebrew.

Acts 22:3 says that Paul studied under the Pharisaic grandee ("I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day."), yet he clearly had difficulty with the Hebrew language: all his scriptural references are taken from the Greek translation of Jewish scripture, the Septuagint. That doesn't in and of itself prove that Paul didn't understand Hebrew, but it does lead one to wonder why a Jewish zealot trained as a rabbi would not use the Hebrew OT as his source for scripture as there are numerous mistranslations of the Hebrew present in the Septuagint.

Let's also remember that even though most scholars put Paul's writings before the writings of the Gospels and that they aver that Paul was a contemporary of Jesus, the *earliest EXTANT* copies we have of Paul's writings are COPIES dating from the third century.

It's also interesting that the Bible portrays two very distinct Pauls: the team player of Acts who is guided by the church elders and "sent" her and "taken" there, and the bombastic maverick of Paul's epistles who goes where he pleases and argues with and denigrates those same elders.

There's also the question of which of Paul's epistles are genuine and which are fakes. The authorship of Hebrews was questioned by both Martin Luther and John Calvin, and today most scholars agree it wasn't written by Paul. IIRC, the authorship of at least 6 of Paul's epistles are questioned these days.

One could spend as much time studying Paul as Jesus. Here's some interesting sources to check:

Hermann Detering, The Falsified Paul, Early Christianity in the Twilight (Journal of Higher Criticism, 2003)
A. N. Wilson, Paul, The Mind of the Apostle (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1997)
John Ziesler, Pauline Christianity (Oxford, 1990)
J. Murphy-O'Connor, Paul, A Critical Life (Clarendon, 1996)
J. Murphy-O'Connor, Paul, His Story (Oxford, 2005)
Daniel T. Unterbrink, New Testament Lies (iUniverse, 2006)
Jay Raskin, The Evolution of Christs and Christianities (Xlibris, 2006)
Edward Stourton, In the Footsteps of Saint Paul (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004)

Ghostbuster writes:

"I must say though, I assume Mr. Mark would be consistent in labeling both the Gnostic as well as all scriptural works in the bible equally irrelevant."

When have I ever said that the Bible or the Gnostic works are irrelevant? A-historic, fantasy filled, unscientific and illogical, yes. But irrelevant? Don't think so.

If nothing else, the Bible is relevant in that it provided JS Bach with textual material upon which to set his glorious music, though truth be told, he probably could have done just as well setting a phone book to music.

I don't believe in the policies of the Bush administration, but that doesn't make them irrelevant, especially if you're a person on the receiving end of their gun-barrel diplomacy.

C_Mat,

Your list of figures barely scratches the surface. A few of those people seem to be pretty popular these days. You can't PAY someone to say that Mary Magdalene or Thomas or Judas didn't exist due to the routinely recycled Gnostic gospels and legends. Even those "gospels" tell of a historical Jesus, though not the Jesus of the bible. It's comical really.

In fact, if the next question on this board was "which are more reliable, the Gnostic gospels or the canon of scripture" 100 different people would fall all over themselves to be the first to "prove" the Acts of Peter, and Acts of Thomas, Apocalypse of Adam, the Gospel of Matthias, Gospel of Philip... were indeed more historical, legitimate and practical as compared to any books in bible, which was of course written, edited and retranslated to fit early church doctrine instead of vice versa.

I must say though, I assume Mr. Mark would be consistent in labeling both the Gnostic as well as all scriptural works in the bible equally irrelevant.

-regards

OH JESUS PLEEZE ! DEAR READERS FORGET ABOUT ALL THIS JESUS/GOD BS SHE JUST DOESNT EXIST!
its a big scam run by mostly moneygrabbing homophobic preachers, get a life ,be responsible for your self have no fear its all a big rip-off!! REMEMBER RELIGION IS THE PROBLEM AND NOT THE ANSWER!
as for chucki boi colson there is a opening for a clown at the circus now!

c-mat:

Well, I tried. What you see as inconsistencies in my arguments I see as different aspects supporting the same argument.

I'm surprised that you chose to judge my Xian faith in your post. Certainly, as a believer in Jesus you know that you have no right to make such a judgement.

As far as my using the common abbreviation of "X" to signify "Christ" - such shorthand goes back to the early Greeks who used their letter "X" or "chi" to signify Christ. It has even shown up in their graffiti. The early church especially liked the fact that the X turned on its side portrayed the cross. I'm sure you know this from your study of Xian history, so I'm surprised that you take me to task for using this time-honored shorthand, especially in this internet age. AFAIK, using shorthand is A-OK. :)

I hope you're not one of those ignorant-of-church-history types who goes nuts when they see Xmas used instead of Christmas.

Enrique:

I'm not understanding your argument. You wrote:

"No, we don’t agree, unless you agree that science as we know it today did not exist when the world was first proposed as spherical. Pliny and Aristotle were primarily philosophers and it is from philosophy that science began to be carved out. Furthermore, Columbus was hardly a scientist and yet he was the first (or one of the first?) to test it."

You seem to be reinforcing my statements that science moves forward and refines (and corrects!) its findings, as opposed to religion which defends the indefensible *in spite of* the evidence.

Of course, science as we now know it didn't exist when the Bible was written. We also know that Copernicus overturned the science of the cosmos as imagined by Aristotle and that Galileo reinforced Copernicus and put to rest Artisotle's philosophical abstractions. Science as we know it *today* didn't exist before Darwin.

You neglect to mention the important role the pre-dark ages church played in the development of science. Why?

The bigger question is this: if god is eternal and omnisicent, why isn't the Bible peppered with examples of things that have been proven by science, rather than the opposite? If the wisdom of the Bible was truly timeless and all-knowing, then we should be seeing an *increase* in the mysteries of faith, rather than seeing the "science" of the Bible dismantled day after day, it's god relegated to smaller and smaller gaps still left to be explained by human endeavor. Science has answered many questions, but it has inspired myriad new questions and new fields of study and exploration. That's the opposite reality of religion which clings to last week's news like a starving dog to a bone.

Enrique wrote:

"if a human being feels tremendous love for another, this leads him or her to behave in ways unpredictable by physical and chemical laws."

But people in love "behave in ways" that are quite predictable and very well-defined by the psychological sciences, our human behavior is the result of chemical reactions within our brains, and our brain is, indeed, a part of the physical world. There's really no need to insert a god into the equation, including a non-denominational non-Abrahamic god of love.

Whether you wish to believe it or not, there is nothing in the natural world that requires assistance from the supernatural to formulate a logical and testable explanation.

Enrique wrote:

"You later dismiss scripture’s rendering of the events after the crucifixion as logically incomprehensible: “the logically incomprehensible verses that hundreds of people rose from the dead when Jesus was crucified.”

Do you believe that dead people rose from their graves upon Jesus' resurrection? Matthew 27: 52-3 says "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

Do you believe in angels, devils, spirits, seven degrees of heaven, ghosts and the other "realities" of the Bible? Is it logical to assume that human beings arose from the dead, walked around Jerusalem and even stopped in at what then passed for the local Starbucks to chat up the locals? Can one *objectively* believe such things, or does a subjective view of reality enter into the picture to allow for such beliefs? Such events certainly defy the logic of the entirety of human existence, yet they are pedestrian occurances in the fantasy world of the Bible.

If you do believe that zombies roamed Jerusalem, have you never asked yourself what happened to those dead who arose? Never asked yourself how many hours/days/years/centuries they continued to live after coming back from the dead? Never wondered why such an earth-shattering event is never mentioned anywhere but in Matthew's Gospel (not in the other gospels or the Roman histories)? Could it be that the story is a myth?

I can understand a religionist asserting the "only by faith" argument to explain their belief in such things. It's when they aver that such fantasies are/were realities that I ask them for objective proof. As it has been well said in the past, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The Bible is quite heavy on extraordinary claims...and quite unremarkable in providing evidence to support such claims.

Thanks for the discourse.

The empire struck back. Well, we shouldn’t expect less: fundamentalist anti-christian reductionist views often clash with reason and may provide opportunities for clarification and edification on all sides.

E FAVORITE: You assure us: “…I think that whatever doesn’t fit the laws of nature is magic.”

Nature no doubt has laws that operate in limited contexts. You and I are composed of atoms just as stars, rocks, plants and animals also are. All of these respond to certain observed laws within certain contexts. Temperature, as we all know,, triggers changes in all of these. No one is arguing against that.

Yet the physiological ‘laws’ of nature explain something but not everything. For example, I don’t see rocks posting comments here. I don’t see them trying to accomplish a purpose like we see in humans. Purpose is something we only observe in living organisms, particularly humans. What law of nature governs this, or is it magic?

MR. MARK:

Esentially your arguments are not that much different than E-Favorite’s. Thus what I just expressed to him is also proposed to you.

You attempt to reinforce his arguments further however. For example, referring to the once upon a time notion of a flat world, you state: “I think we can all agree that it was science that disabused us of that notion, not religion.

No, we don’t agree, unless you agree that science as we know it today did not exist when the world was first proposed as spherical. Pliny and Aristotle were primarily philosophers and it is from philosophy that science began to be carved out. Furthermore, Columbus was hardly a scientist and yet he was the first (or one of the first?) to test it.

Then you reject the possibility that there could be an objective basis to Christian faith: “Of course, these are not objectively provable assertions, they are subjective beliefs. In fact, they are beliefs that can be sustained only through a wilful suspension of disbelief. “

No doubt that if (on planet earth) we heat water to 100 C it evaporates. Yet, if a human being feels tremendous love for another, this leads him or her to behave in ways unpredictable by physical and chemical laws. Do you argue that love is an exclusively subjective experience, a delusion, because it is not subject exclusively to physiological laws?

You later dismiss scripture’s rendering of the events after the crucifixion as logically incomprehensible: “the logically incomprehensible verses that hundreds of people rose from the dead when Jesus was crucified.”

Please clarify what you mean by ´logic´. Are 1 + 1 equal to 2?

Mr. Mark,

I just wanted to say that nothing in the above post is personal. I am sorry if it may sound that way. I just wanted to say that its hard to discuss stuff with you because you're not being honest and not being consistent. So I want to stop. But its not fair that you claim that as victory and continue attacking the Christian faith, especially for the sake of those who might be less capable of defending themselves. With this, I think we should agree to stop in all fairness and let others make their own judgements, because I really have to get to work tomorrow!

c_mat

Mr. Mark,

You seem to be a guy who does not stick to what you say. Thats why no one can have a decent conversation with you. I think that seems to be obvious to quite a few other people. You start with Matthew not speaking Greek, but yet being a Tax Collector in the first century Roman Empire, where Greek was the common language of the people. Try asking Alberto Gonzales whether he speaks English in additon to Spanish.

Whatever questions you can't answer you dodge around and keep saying the same thing that Jesus did not exist while you refute all other evidence for Jesus' existence. Others who support you on this site have also said you're pretty brave to go that far, because most intelligent people the world has known have never questioned the existence of Jesus, yet you are like a gramaphone that goes on and on saying the "Holocaust" never happened.

One time you say Jesus did not exist and another time you say, a non-divine Jesus could have existed. You are not sure what you believe, so one time you are arguing about the existence of Jesus and the other time for His not being God. You can't seem to make up your mind, since most Christians on this site have been pretty articulate about what they believe.

In my analogy above, you say that people 500 years later and much later than that think that the "gods" who wrote on cyberspace know everything since they mentioned real people like Bill Clinton and suicide bombers, and therefore you indirectly concede that the documents of the first century mention real people like Jesus.

You are not willing to listen to the scholarship of prominent people in the NT field some of whom mentioned above who went to distinguished universities, got their Ph.D.s and are leading scholars of their times, and yet you complain about no scholars supporting the Christian position. Its obvious you think you are a great scholar yourself, since no other scholarship matters to you.

You have answered none of the questions I asked you above, which is that if you can categorically prove that Jesus did not exist and did not rise again, I will give up the Christian faith. Please don't argue from your stupid reasoning like I said above, but show me actual data....which is why people like me, scientists, find theologians very amusing, because they get paid so much just to keep talking, while we are constantly dealing with reality - one of those is that Jesus existed, make whatever you want of the Christian faith.

You also have yet to prove to me that Peter, Paul, James, John, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Philip, Thomas, James the brother of Jesus, Joanna, John the Baptist, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, the Talmud and later Rabbinic teachings, Josephus, Clement, Polycarp, Titus, Timothy, Simon of Cyrene, Stephen, Aquila and Priscilla, Andrew, all the martyrs from AD 30- AD 70 alone, all did not exist, or all colluded in a massive conspiracy to make up the person of Jesus and his death and resurrection. Note some of these include Jews, Africans, Ethiopians, Romans, people who had no interest in the Jewish people, forget about knowing anything to do with the OT scriptures.

All your arguments are beginning to sound so shallow, and then you pick on St. Paul. Without even understanding what he meant in the culture of his day and in the context of 1 Corinthians, you declare him intellectually inferior. Perhaps it would interest you to know that Paul was one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable man of his days. How many people do you know who can speak and write 13 languages fluently for starters? (Oh I know what you're going to do, your next few posts are going to be debating about Paul, because you can't stick to a topic). Even modern historians have had no qualms saying that the Bible and especially the letters of Paul have been the most influential books of all times!

Paul was talking about CHRIST CRUCIFIED. Earlier, you denied that Paul spoke about a corporeal Jesus! Now you say he is weak. Does it interest you he is actually speaking about the foolishness and weakness of God. You consider Christ to be foolish and weak. But that is what he says is the POWER of God. No one's intelligence is being destroyed. but people think its foolish that a God should die a shameful death on a cross, yet to Paul and us Christians that is the power of God!

Wow, it seems you have such a huge problem with Christianity that you can never really say the whole word. Why is it always Xtian. its hard to believe that you were once Born Again as you say. many people claim to have been Christian. But when you actually look at it, they were never Christian at all. A Christian is one who in baptism commits to follow Christ and HIs teaching, from that day forward his entire life. Since you already gave up that, you cannot have been a Christian, because you NEVER kept your commitment to be His disciple. From what you said above, it does not even seem you were sincere in keeping that commitment, because you dabbled in other religions and the non-existence of God soon after. So stop pretending that you were ever a Christian, by Birth yes, you have a right to say so, but by choice, you sound shallow. It would be different if you served Christ in Africa, gave up everything you had to follow him, and then claimed to be a Christian. Going to church for 40 years hardly makes one a Christian, just like picking up stuff from Google and throwing it out on these pages does not make you a theologian or scholar.

Finally, why are you on this page like someone else asked before? This was about discussing the media's attitude towards Christians and yet you take center stage lampooning the Christian faith. You're not letting anyone discuss Colson, but you.
in fairness to them, I was obliged to respond to your inconsistent posts about the problems with Christianity.

So long brother. "Seek and you shall find" (Matthew Ch. 6).

E Fav -

Good thoughts on Gen Pace's comments.

At one time it was considered brave to stand in the doorway of a schoolhouse to deny access to black students.

Sometimes, the brave thing to do is to do the opposite of what received wisdom considers brave.

W Edwards, you say "He [General Pace] was asked a simple question and answered it, bravely I think."

What if he said he thought Blacks were immoral -- that he was just raised to think that? Would that have been a brave thing to say.

What if he said he thought women who joined the military were just there for the sex - that's what his mother had told him?

What if he said his priest had doubts about the abilities of Jews in combat, because they didn't pray to Jesus? Would that have been a brave thing for him to say?

Enrique wrote:

"I wonder what you believed in during those 40 years. I suspect that your apostasy is driven by a focus on some element(s) of you experience of belief and the dismissal of another. I suspect that the dismissed ‘other’ is still there, but that you are epistemologically blocked, not least of all, by the arrogant ontological statements that the scientific community not infrequently makes, and the adulteration of the Christian faith by power hungry individuals and institutions."

You may well wonder, but your suppositions are well off the Mr Mark mark.

I have recounted by Xian life elsewhere on this blog. I was raised Lutheran, became born-again at age 18 and deserted the faith in my early 40s.

Contrary to many other people's experiences with religion, I had an absolutely great time during those years. This was reinforced throughout my life with my close connection to and performance of music (mostly classical). Believe me, when you're a believer sitting in the middle of a choir singing Bach's St Matthew Passion, it's a powerful experience that reinforces your faith, even if that reinforcement is entirely a construct of your mind.

Today, I look at my past religious life and say, ignorance is bliss, but it ain't the truth.

No, my disenchantment with the idea of god (and that's what god is - an idea) was very gradual. It stemmed from exploring Xianity in depth, historically as well as spiritually. Those explorations led to reading material that sat outside of the Xian echo chamber. It led to studying philosophies outside of those religious. One thing led to another, and by the time I reached my early 40s, the onion of religion had been rather unravelled.

To put it in words that you might understand, the healthy exercise of my god-given intellect disproved to me the concept of god. Once that veil was lifted, a lot fell into place for me, including an interest in things philosophical and scientific that I never engaged in my Xian days. It is stupendously freeing and intellectually stimulating to approach philosophy and science from the view that "this is worthwhile," as opposed to the relgionist's too-often view that "this is destructive/a lie/an educated guess/the work of the devil."

No, Enrique, there's no holdover for me on the religious front. There is no dismissed "other" waiting in the back of my mind, biding its time until it can reassert itself and prove the errors of my ways. No sir. You may as well posit that my adult disbelief in Santa Claus is only a temporary condition that will be turned 180º as soon as I see the truth in the subjective belief for his existence.

My eye-opening journey away from Xianity had nothing to do with institutional or political adulteration of the Xian fiath. It had *everything* to do with embracing truths that are quite obvious to those who truly look...truths that stand in direct contradiction to the magic-based "realities" of religion.

Best to you.

Enrique:

Thanks for the response.

I don't want to come off as being dismissive, but what you have basically said in your thoughtful response is this: history, logic and science are the norms with which we as humans determine what is real - except in the case of religion, for which we carve out special conditions that place religion outside of the realm of objective critical examination.

You make a few statements about what Xians believe: that faith is an objective reality, that Jesus existed and was god, etc. Of course, these are not objectively provable assertions, they are subjective beliefs. In fact, they are beliefs that can be sustained only through a willful suspension of disbelief.

Your words betray a faith in the absolutism of religious dogma (as opposed to what you call the "limited context" of science), yet there is little if any absolutism of dogma among the myriad sects of Xianity in the world today. You may be able to posit that the many sects of today's church believe as a catholic absolute that Jesus was god incarnate, but that certainly wasn't the case in the early church where, for example, the Gnostics took a very different view of who and what Jesus was and wasn't.

You also mention that at one point in history it was "logical" to assume that the world was flat. I think we can all agree that it was science that disabused us of that notion, not religion. Science continues to refine our view of the world and to expand our knowledge set. Religion does not...quite the opposite - or maybe I missed the day that the Xians got together to revise the scientifically inaccurate verses in the Bible that posit a flat Earth...or the historically inaccurate and archaeologically disproven verses that aver that the Hebrews were held as slaves in Egypt and that the Exodus actually took place...or the logically incomprehensible verses that hundreds of people rose from the dead when Jesus was crucified and wandered the streets of Jerusalem as zombies (BTW - I wonder whatever happened to those zombies after a day or two? The Bible doesn't say if they went back to their homes and jobs and lived an even longer life or if they headed off on a much-needed vacation...).

W Edwards writes:

"I hear and see things every day that are 'opposed to' what I believe."

So do I...and it all comes from the religionists and the politicians (many of who are self-identified religionists).

c-mat writes:
"Mr. Mark,

"We're not talking about God's existence here, but about Jesus'. So since now you're debating about whether God existed, does that mean you've conceded that Jesus did?! No one ever said that the gospels or other first century documents were written by the "gods"."

Ye gads! You need to develop the ability to discuss more than one concept at a time. I'd hate to have a discussion with you about music...we could talk about Country but not Western.

1. If we're talking about Jesus' existence, then most Xians I know would say we were talking about god's existence. I have in no way conceded that Jesus existed. However, there is at least a possibility that a non-divine man Jesus existed as I believe objectively that men do exist. I cannot believe objectively that gods exist. Or have you now conceded that Jesus was a man but not god incarnate?

2. You miss my point about the gods writing the blogs. However, to say that no one ever said the gospels were written by god is a half truth, for the church holds that the Bible is the inspired word of god, even if men wrote down that word. God is the author, correct? When the US Army issues a policy, it is an Army policy. It is not the policy of the specific troop who was charged with writing up the policy or the troop who did the proofreading or the editor who oversaw the process. It is an Army-authored policy.

In like fashion, the Bible is considered to be written or at least inspired by god.

In closing - why do you Xians resort to quoting scriptures that attack the human intellect when you're engaged in what is an intellectual debate? It's a childish tactic whose only aim is to debase the intellect and to bring all argument, evidence and discourse down to the lowest common denominator of "he said/she said," ie: opinion.

Quoting the artificially unified field theory that is the self-reinforcing closed loop of the Bible is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty, for you are holding up subjective belief as counter to objective truth.

Who cares what St Paul thought about "the wise?" Reading the verses you quoted, I see a man who is intimidated by his intellectual superiors, a man whose only answer when objecively challenged is, "a higher power told ME that I'm right and you're wrong (and going to HELL!!), so narny-narny nah-nah-nah."

Gotta go.

Enrique, you say: “you believe that whatever does not fit your conceptual categories is magic.”

No, I think that whatever doesn’t fit the laws of nature is magic. If I let go of a book I was holding and it gravitated up to the ceiling, instead of down to the floor, that would be magic. If a woman got pregnant and went through labor and was still a virgin, that would be magic. If a person lifts up off the earth without aid of rockets and goes up into the stratosphere to live forever, that is magic.

I don’t really expect you to accept my reasoning, but hopefully others reading this will. And maybe someday, when God lets you down (doesn’t answer your prayers, for example), instead of making up another elaborate excuse for why it was not “his will” you’ll think back to this conversation and reassess your belief in magic.

Does any one know the "Names" of the M/O/T/H/E/R/S/ OF BOTH "ABRAHAM" & "NOAH"?

No-Body=On=Earth-Knows!

Moses (The Novelist) in his many FREUDIAN SLIPPS OF GENUINE PROPHECY's messed up.

Jesus & his ex mass murdering John et al, did not penn that neither.

Mohammad ey al, did not Pen those most important & Critical names for MUMATES to know.

Do you know your Mothers Name? I Know My Mothers Maiden name to!

Note: What this "Slip" is one of the rare. but many other poofs, that Moses is not a G-d nor a Prophet & Jesus & Mohammad.
tory?

Does anyone know what the Pre-Apocalyptic "DRUNKEN NOAH STORY or the "HAGAR REJECTION" Story is really about? The "COSMIC PEN TEN COMMANDMENT" Story? The "JACOB ULTIMATE SWINDALL" Story and many many more slips, that run through out all those INFIXUS BOOKS.

How about the "SARA PROSTITUTION" storys. Or the Mohammad "YATHRUB MURDERS" Story?

And other Motherless & Fatherless Storys, Especially "First Man" & "First Woman" ?

There was a time when I really thought that exposure to the Bible story was really just for kids reading and for their innoscent imaginations.

And it was not for mature adult audiences (readers & Listners) to read about "TERRORISM, PROSTITUTION, KILLING, SEX GUILTs, Wars, Lies, Stealing, Competition, World domonence and insults to Intelligent Humates on Space-Ship Earth & Beyond.! Ya Ya. :=)'

Now I realize that the the Bible teaching is dangerous to kids. Hell. Harry Potter is more real and safer

Ya Ya. Ta Ta, & Ka Ka via bla bla,

A.P.R.I.L. F.O.O.L.S! :=).

Mr. Mark,

We're not talking about God's existence here, but about Jesus'. So since now you're debating about whether God existed, does that mean you've conceded that Jesus did?! No one ever said that the gospels or other first century documents were written by the "gods".

Hey Ghostbuster,
Thanks! I do not want to get too personal, because I don't think it may be appropriate for the site, but yes, I was born into a nominally Christian family. Also, since 3% (unofficial is even higher) of 1 billion people is not a small number, Christianity is almost looked upon as an accepted religion in India now. For instance many Hindus consider Christ as one of their gods. However in many segments it is still looked upon as a Western religion, probably because of British rule. However, India has had its own brand of prominent Christians like Pandita Ramabai and Mother Teresa. Also some Indian Christian denominations trace their roots all the way back to the Apostle Thomas. But overall I can't comment too much because different parts of India are extremely diverse.

JMAC, thanks for the support and all you others too.

Kadie, I completely agree with you. Yours are the best comments on this whole page. May the Holy Spirit, who has so powerfully spoken through you, touch all of our hearts and bring us closer to Jesus! Its not by might, nor by power but by His Spirit! in the end, knowledge and all man's wisdom will cease, but only love, faith and hope will remain.

For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate" Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach CHRIST CRUCIFIED: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, CHRIST the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. (Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 1: 18-25)

Phaedrus, Who made the dent on your wall? Why?

C_Mat,
Thanks for the information. I do indeed hear of these types of stories coming from India on occasion but I wanted to get your perspective since you actually there. Those anti-conversion bills sound like easy prey for the "thought police" to me. Were you born into a Christian family or did you convert from another religion.

Also, you mentioned Christianity being percieved as the "white man's religion". Is this because English missionaries to India in earlier centuries tried not only to share the gospel but also tried in some cases to "westernize" Indian culture while sharing this gospel?

Regards

Mr Mark:

I am one of the atheists you mention who do not spend much time or effort on Christ's existence, for exactly the reason you cite; if there is no god, then jesus was just another jewish teacher, if he existed, which seems somwehat probable.

Nonetheless, I have to tell you that I am impressed with your willingness to engage in the kind of "discussion" that has taken place here, and to carry the ball so well while doing it. You are almost guaranteed to end up with a headache and a matching dent in your wall by the end, though. I have one of my own, I do admit. I look at it sometimes when I feel compelled to respond to the kinds of arguments advanced here.

So, I have to say, good on-ya mate.

On Faith: Christians have it pretty good here in America, despite what seems like a recent sea change in popular opinion toward Christianity. But the 'separation of Church and State' clause still references freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. I just don't know where you might go to live if you wanted to be completely and utterly free from any and all influences of religion - any religion. And honestly, I don't see how a cross on a rooftop or a Bible in a hotel room can 'hurt' anyone. If you truly don't belief they mean anything, why would you be offended by them? Any more than an Egyptian Ankh or a statue of Bhuda, would 'hurt' me as a Christian. If such symbols did 'hurt' me in some way, I should take it as a sign that I have unexamined and unresolved issues somewhere. Whatever happened to politely ignoring things/symbols/conversations (that aren't actual crimes) which we don't agree with? Wouldn't that be the mature thing to do? The General's comments should have been seen as being his own personal beliefs. (Perhaps he should have politely declined answering the question) Why should anyone see his remarks as impuning their own homosexuality or other sexual preference, if they are secure in their own preferences? They are just personal beliefs, which everyone has, don't they? Now, if it were shown that he in any way went on a vendetta against the gays or lesbians in the performance of his job, that would be wrong. He was asked a simple question and answered it, bravely I think.

As a Christian, I hear and see things every day that are 'opposed to' what I believe. Yet to go out and hire lawyers to come to my rescue would be utterly absurd. One on-going aspect of the life of faith has to do with maintaining an inner confidence and trust in the face of perceived adversities. The life of faith is often described as being one lived at odds with the world, with popular society and its' ways held at arms length. Not that people are held at arms length, but that the system of beliefs contrary to my Christian faith are examined with a critical eye. A Christian should clearly understand the ways of evil, since he is required to understand his own heart. Which is why the true Christian has come to depend on the work of Christ on the Cross to deal with the evil in his own heart, and is why he is also hesitant to judge others only on the basis of outward appearances.

Maybe it is inevitable that reporters would behave like predators, but it is a shame that politeness and grace seem to be vanishing from our society.

MR MARK: I will attempt to address 4 statements you have made: 1- “These are avenues of investigation that were never presented to me in my 40+ years as a church-going believer”; 2- “The Jesus story reaffirms the power of myth in the human condition, but one doesn't really see the connection between Jesus myth and pagan myth unless one studies other religions”; 3- “I discount the Bible as a source because it isn't true to history, logic or science. It is a collection of fables and myths.” 4- “I would say that one can assert to a statistical certainty that Jesus didn't exist and that god doesn't exist either.”

Mr. Mark, I suggest that you consider if the difficulty you have with the Christian faith is of an epistemological and not a religious nature.

The fact that that the Christian faith operates through human cognitive functions and structures does not mean that it is ontologically false. Christians are Homo sapiens; we experience hunger, thirst, pain and imagination like anybody else. Individually we may be as ‘reasonable’ or ‘unreasonable’ as anybody else. As popular authors such as Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell have argued, there appear to be commonly experienced archetypal images and notions that historically surface across cultures and religions. From an anthropological perspective, one cannot deny that this is a psychological and cultural phenomenon. The Christian faith is experienced by human beings and they will probably behave cognitively somewhat consistently with how human beings often have done.

Yet, we Christians believe, that our faith is not only subjectively real, but also objectively so; that it not only employs mythical structures but that it is the result of some perception of a historical human being that existed in space and time and claimed to be the same thing as God.

Does that mean that his historicity needs to be proven for our faith to be valid, for it to be considered anything else other than another manifestation of the mythical in human experience? No. Either Jesus Christ was or was not a historical human organism. If he was, as we believe, then he is, at least in that respect, distinct from merely mythical figures. We may not be able to prove anything with absolute historical certainty and yet that does not affect tha fact one iota; only the difficulty in believing it by someone who does not experience faith.

Either he was one with God as he claimed or he wasn’t. If he was, then the central elements of the Christian faith are valid. If this is the case, then asserting as you do that “to a statistical certainty that Jesus didn't exist and that god doesn't exist either” is false and meaningless. Statistical validity cannot be applied with absolute certainty to singular data. Statistical truth says nothing about singular data, only about aggregates of data in a specified context. In other words you may be as statistically certain as wou want about anything about Jesus and yet be absolutely wrong.

´History’ ‘Logic’ and ‘Science’ can provide criteria for understanding within limited, not absolute contexts: by what we can perceive, cognate, measure. Logic, or what is most reasonable, is only valid within a prefigured context. Yet, here we are addressing what is most ontologically broad and fundamental; the meeting of human and God in Jesus Christ. History, logic, science may illumine or darken our grasp of this, but cannot, by its very methods judge it in any absolute sense. It once appèared to be very logical that the world was flat and that the earth was the center of the solar system.

I wonder what you believed in during those 40 years. I suspect that your apostasy is driven by a focus on some element(s) of you experience of belief and the dismissal of another. I suspect that the dismissed ‘other’ is still there, but that you are epistemologically blocked, not least of all, by the arrogant ontological statements that the scientific community not infrequently makes, and the adulteration of the Christian faith by power hungry individuals and institutions.

E FAVORITE:

You question: "However, if one person believes women who give birth are not virgins and that no one can rise from the dead after three days, then ascend into heaven, then I think it’s fair to say that the person who believes otherwise, believes in magic."

If you could not question you could hardly be sincere. Indeed, Jesus questioned the fundamental interpretation of faith in his time. Yet, you go one step beyond: you believe that whatever does not fit your conceptual categories is magic. Thus you are obligated to explain your conceptual categoriesm, and their basis, if one is to accept your challenge to our faith seriously.

JUAN:

You protest: “Frankly, I'm sick of the whole thing...its enough to make me renounce my Christian faith and become a Wiccan or Hindu. After all, what's the difference? …The New Testament is nothing more than the fallible writings and wishful thinking of humans…”.

I do not believe you are a Christian, but only someone posturing as such to discredit Christians.

ANONYMOUS:

I read up on Edgardo Mortara. If what I read is true, it is indeed disturbing, and I need to consider it more, before responding. All I can say for now is that what happened is not inconsistent, regrettably, with the way Christians and other religions and political entities have sought to impose beliefs.

Kadie,

Keep up the good work...presenting the only positive (despite human unbelief or misuse)answers, knowledge and hope for mankind thru scripture.

Any godless society, whether it be the USSR last century or barbaric societies in the middle ages, and even way back to the Amalekites, all show the outcome of human reasoning without God. God, faith and religion, and the promises from God, are integral parts of how and why our nation was founded and the blessings unmeasured and uncomparable we have been the recipients of. Sadly, as we see the godless gaining stature, voice and influence, we see our nation dismantling before us.

Thankfully, we know what the outcome of the story will be.

I've never done this before, but after reading several of these comments, I just can't help but add "my 2 cents worth"! First of all, Kadie, you are absolutesly correct when you say that coming to Christ and believing in Him is not about religion or theology, its about faith, it's also about a relationship, and "E favorite", it is absolutely not about indoctrination, or if it is, isn't that what your beliefs are about also? I know that for me, my faith, my beliefs, my relationship has less to do with what others have told me or tried to push on me and so much more to do with what Christ has personally done in my life, it's of the heart and not of the head. That's why all of the arguing is so pointless! I applaud you C_Mat and how you are able to defend your faith. You don't argue as MR.Mark does, you are not rude or insulting, you are simply living 1 Peter 3 which says "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciosly against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of thier slander." You can argue the case for Christ until you are blue in the face, but in the end it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who do not believe that will succeed in accomplishing the seemingly impossible. Keep up the cause, defending your faith and Christ who has obviously worked amazing things in your life. In closing I just want to say "Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts and end to all arguments." Hebrews 6:16

Dear Kadie -

Quoting the NT as "proof" that Jesus existed is no proof at all.

If you're open minded, you might start examining your assertion that Jesus was born of a virgin. Do even a bit of research and you'll find out that the OT passage from which the virgin birth dogma arises is a mistranslation of the Hebrew which states that "the young woman" will give birth, not a "virgin."

I also find it disgusting that you buy into the barbaric idea of a blood sacrifice.

I don't believe in prayer, but as long as you're "praying for me," I'll return the favor and hold out hope that you come to your senses some day and reject the fantasy of your non-sensical religious beliefs. That may sound harsh, but think about it - when you say you're praying for me to a god that I know doesn't exist, you are saying exactly the same thing about my beliefs as I just said about yours. I do not take your statement that you are praying for me as being well intentioned as much as I take it as your disrespect for my beliefs.

At least my hope that you come to your senses doesn't carry the verdict of eternal damnation if you don't change your mind as does your "religion of love."

c_mat wrote:

"I wonder what your real name is. I'm not going to tell you mine of course. But 2 thousand years from now many people are going to be wondering whether we actually wrote the above posts, because we used the pseudonyms Mr. Mark and c_mat. Perhaps everyone is going to think we did this for the sake of propaganda. No one will be able to deny though that we did reference suicide bombers, Bill Clinton, some scholars, etc etc. From the way our discussions took place, if this is all that survived 2000 years later, most scholars would safely assume that at least some of these people existed or we would be foolish to bring them up."

Not the best attempt at an analogy, but let's look at your premise a different way, shall we?

Let's say there's an apocolyptic event that sends man back to the stone age and that 2000 years from now, people discover these online discussions. Some people - not having a clue as to how humans could write in cyberspace - would assert that these discussions took place among the gods. They'd point out that there was no written documentation, that these discussions happened outside of the natural world, that they maybe took place in heaven. They'd point out that actual historic people were mentioned, and that this added veracity to their story about the gods, for who else would know so much about so many real people from around the world but the gods?

500 years later, the scientists start to question the premise that gods wrote these things. They do research and rediscover the internet, computers, ISPs, intrenet addresses, the Washington Post, blogs, screen names, etc. They find that there was a way to trace an anonymous screen name back to a specific computer in a specific location. More reserach, and they discover that there were miracuolous instruments invented by men, not gods, to allow people to communicate with each other. They excavate the ruins of Cupertino and find whole buildings filled with paper records that show how computers, the internet and blogs were developed over the course of decades by men, not gods.

Faced with such evidence, what do we know will be the reaction of the future religionists who asserted for centuries that these discussions were between the gods, not men? I think we know the answer.

Hey Ghostbuster

I just happened to log on and saw your post. Thanks for the question, but I have to run soon, so I'll be quick.

First of all, I should point out that India is a very secular country and tries its best to adhere to the spirit of democracy by law. Culturally, India is also very religious and extremely diverse. While 15% of India is Muslim and approx 3% Christian, thats still a large no. of the total population (1 billion).

Most of the country lives together in harmony, tolerant of each others cultures and religions. In the past decade though certain extremist groups have come up that have been using violence to persecute other religious groups. Also, most people don't mind your religion, but if someone from one religion usually converts to another, this is looked upon very seriously and with contempt. While there is no legal persecution, the unofficial one follows.

I know several of my friends who were kicked out from their families, abandoned by their friends and never talked to or helped again. This is a big thing in India, because unlike in the US, a person's whole lifestyle and career is viewed by their stature in the community and their social interactions. In the cities you might be able to get away with it. But in the villages you would really end up being an outcast. This has happened to several people I know. Others that I know were threatened with death on several occasions.

In the past decade alone, there have been numerous attacks on Christian churches, pastors and priests. Some have been killed. You may have heard of the famous 1996 murders, where Australian missionary Staines and his kids were burnt alive in their car. I personally know of people who were tortured (one by their own family), the other attacked viciously. Most educated Indians like to think these are isolated events and consider themselves very tolerant. therefore the news media does not report it. Many times the media are not even aware, because persecuted people do not seek official help, for fear of being further harassed, ostracized, punished or killed. If you google though, you'll perhaps come across more incidents.

I do not want to comment about other religions. Hindu-Muslim riots of course take place very often , but most of this is driven by political agenda, although more recently the riots have been religious in nature, concerning the birth place of Lord Rama in Ayodhya.

Without being too specific, and one can try to guess, certain communities are more retaliatory than others when it comes to conversion, with complete ostracization and even death if necessary. I know of at least one person who was severely physically abused over and over again so that he would give up his Christian faith.

Despite this, conversions frequently happen in India and many people visit temples, mosques and churches simultaenously. Usually people don't mind this, but if you convert you are seen as changing your whole way of life, especially when it comes to Christianity, because you're taking the white man's western religion.

Finally, there are at least 2 Indian states which have passed an anti-conversion bill, that is if someone tries to forcefully convert another person, they will be either fined or imprisoned. Of course, forcefully can be interpreted any way you want.

OK, hope that helped. I have to run.
c_mat

Oh come now C_Matt don't leave just yet.

I wanted to ask you a bit more about what happens to those who convert to Christianity where you live in India. You said that those who convert are threatened with complete isolation from their communities, family, and even death. Have you seen these threats acted upon? I suppose the government can't force a family not to throw out and abandone one of their own family members but, are there laws on the books (enforced laws) that forbid the type of religious persecution you spoke about in your society? Also, is there persecution of those who choose other belief -or-non belief systems (Islam, Buddism, Aetheism...)? I am assuming the most prevelant belief system in the area of the country you live in is Hinduism, correct?

Sorry for all the questions.

Chuck Colson whines about Christians feeling as if they are persecuted. The whole "persecution" myth is being touted by a bunch of Christian extremists as a way to gain political power and force everybody to acede to their demands for prayer in the schools, Christian symbols everywhere, and official government support for Evangelical Christians as a state religion. Nobody in this country is persecuting Christians! Frankly, I'm sick of the whole thing...its enough to make me renounce my Christian faith and become a Wiccan or Hindu. After all, what's the difference? The assertion that the Bible is the literal word of God is one example of how fanatical the Evangelical Christians are. The New Testament is nothing more than the fallible writings and wishful thinking of humans, not actual words delivered by angels from heaven.

Mr Mark -- As you're finding out, people don't necessarily listen to reason - especially if it collides with everything they thought they knew - not to mention cherished beliefs of an everlasting life. They are not seeking new knowledge - they are defending their faith -- something Christians are taught to do.

It's still worth speaking up, though, I think. At some point, some people will look back at these conversations and see them differently. And I like to think that there's educational value for the people who are not posting, but following the conversations.

Kadie, you say "coming to Christ and believing in Him is not about religion or theology, its about faith."

It's also, I'm afraid, about indoctrination - believing everything you've been told about Jesus - assuming everything in the Bible is true and is the only truth; deciding not to question.

It's about excluding anyone who has not heard about Jesus or who does not accept him as you do.

Mr. Mark,

i just wanted to say that i am not a Biblical scholar by any means, but i am a Christian. I dont understand alot of what you where saying but i do understand and believe with all my heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He was born of a virgin and that He lived a sinless live on this earth! i believe He performed many miracles and gave us many signs to prove that He is the Son of God! I believe that He gave his life freely for you and me and He rose again from the dead! He offers that gift of eternal life to us freely and all we have to do to recieve it is accept that he is the Son of God, Believe that He died as payment for our sins and rose again, and confess our sins to Him! now let me explain why He died. ( all scripture is taken from New International Version)-

REASON WE NEED FORGIVENESS AND SALVATION-

ROMANS 3:23
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Man kind on its own is sinful and doomed to an eternity in hell.

PAYMENT REQUIRED FOR OUR SIN AND LAWLESSNESS-

ROMANS 6:23
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord."

There had to be a blood sacrifice for that sin and lawlessness. our gift for that sacrifce is salvation and eternal life.

THE WAY TO ETERNAL LIFE AND SALVATION-

JOHN 3:3
" In reply, Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

THE WAY TO THE FATHER-

JOHN 14:6
"Jesus answered, "i am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

BELIEVING AND BECOMING SAVED-

ROMANS 10:9-11
"That if you confess with your mouth, "JESUS IS LORD" and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. as the scripture says, "anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame."

ONE DEATH OR SACRIFICE FOR ALL-

2 CORINTHIANS 5:15
"And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselvesbut for Him who died for them and was raised again."

THE INVITATION FOR ALL MAN KIND-

REVELATIONS 3:20
" Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

So you see mr. mark, Jesus did exist, He does love us, He died for us, He wants us to come to Him and make Him Lord of our lives and Savior of our souls! i know you say you are glad to be out from under religions "hold", but coming to Christ and believing in Him is not about religion or theology, its about faith.

thank you for your time and know that i am praying for you!!

livin in His love and mercies,
kadie

Fernando, you say: "The fact that you don't believe what I believe does not mean that what I believe is magic."

That's a fair statement, in many cases, for instance, If one person believes the Pirates are the best team and another believe the Mets are, they have different opinions, but one of them is not magic (wishful thinking, maybe). If one person believes 2+2=5 and another thinks 2+2=4, one is right and one is wrong, but it doesn’t mean the person who is wrong believes in magic. However, if one person believes women who give birth are not virgins and that no one can rise from the dead after three days, then ascend into heaven, then I think it’s fair to say that the person who believes otherwise, believes in magic.

One more point:

I wonder what your real name is. I'm not going to tell you mine of course. But 2 thousand years from now many people are going to be wondering whether we actually wrote the above posts, because we used the pseudonyms Mr. Mark and c_mat. Perhaps everyone is going to think we did this for the sake of propaganda. No one will be able to deny though that we did reference suicide bombers, Bill Clinton, some scholars, etc etc. From the way our discussions took place, if this is all that survived 2000 years later, most scholars would safely assume that at least some of these people existed or we would be foolish to bring them up.

Well, there's hundreds more such documents with such kind of discussions talking about a man named Jesus from the first 2 centuries alone. Read the Bible alone for starters!

Good luck, bro! I wonder if they'll ever know. At least the people who lived then were pretty sure that Matthew had written his gospel, because they knew it and him, and it was circulated and he says it too!

Mr. Mark,

I don't think I am going to continue this discussion any longer. Its obvious you are not interested in any of the discussion. Plus I did not make most of the points above. They seem to be just most of your own embellishments to the truth.

By the way, I was threatened for my own faith in Christ. So I don't have to answer to you on that. I seriously know quite a few other people who were threatened with complete isolation from their communities, family, and even death and they are still Christian or suffered for their faith. If you lived in India where I come from and converted to Christianity, perhaps you might know what I am talking about.

Yes, I would go to my death for Jesus. Thats a small thing compared to constantly being misunderstood and ridiculed by people like you. Because death is not the end in Jesus. Its life. (And there are thousands of Christians dying today in many parts of the world - yes, your media does not tell you about this - in China, In Africa, in India, in Pakistan, in Indonesia).

The Muslim suicide bombers are not dying for an Allah they don't see. they are dying for a Palestine or Iraq or dominance of the Muslim religion. they have nothing to lose. They are dying for something tangible. Not an abstract thing or a figment of someone's imagination. The early Christians were dying despite losing everything in the bargain! Their families, their very way of life, their culture, their Jewish temple and sacrificial system, everything! You won't even sacrifice this post if you found out Christianity was true, would you?

Regarding the scholars, I told you this was my first time on On Faith. But why should I quote On Faith Scholars? Is this Washington Post Blog site the final decider on what is truth? Haven't we had enough scholars in the last 2000 years alone? Go check your public library. Even over there you won't find them all.

You keep attacking Christian scholars. Its obvious you want to accept only one brand of scholarship and yet you call that evidence! May I point out to you there are many non-Christian scholars too who would readily refute what you have just said!

Some very prominent NT scholars who are not ashamed of their Christian faith:

N.T. Wright,
Ben Witherington
Richard Hays
Gordon Fee
Raymond Brown
James Dunn
Craig Blomberg
John Stott
Peter Kreeft
Darrell Bock
Karl Baath
Bruce Metzger
Sir Wiliam Ramsay

OK the list could go on and on. These are just a handful of contemporary scholars. Open any ordinary Study Bible and you'll find a hundred more. Forget about the hundreds of others from the last 2 centuries alone. I know what you are going to do. You are going to put up another list of your own.

But why do all these 21st century scholars matter anyways? None of them is arguing that Jesus did not exist or rise again. Neither they nor you can ever prove it. Really, the onus is on you, prove that Jesus didn't rise and I will give up my Christian faith. And please don't try to prove it with inconsistencies from the Bible or your fables and myths about Jesus' journey to China or Tibet or Kashmir or Egypt. You guys talk about scholarship and then come up with the most amazing fables yourselves. Just like Ahmenidajad that the Holocaust didn't exist, or like Professor Duesberg of California who says HIV doesn't cause AIDS..

And one more time you say let me see one Roman doscument...its really going to sound so hollow...go check Justin Martyr or Ireneus or Augustine of Hippo...or if it suits you better go read the gospel of Thomas or Judas or Mary Magdalene....just don't come up with your patronizing nonsense that "scholars" say "Jesus didn't exist or was not crucified".
All the evidence is there, you just are not interested in looking. Really, the burden is yours! Prove that Jesus didn't exist or rise again! If you can't shut up, because its you guys coming up with the same old theories again, not us!

OK brother, this is enough. I know you are not interested in honestly finding the truth. So thats it. Let me say again, the God who created this universe and Jesus Christ His only Begotten Son, Love you immensely.

God Bless.

c-mat wqrites:

"Mr. MARK, I just noticed that you said on your other posts that Jesus may well have existed. So why all this deception and trying to goad us around? You can't pick both sides. If you concede that Jesus existed based on some sources, then you also have to concede on the same grounds that He was a carpenter, or was in Nazareth, or that people believed He performed miracles, and that He was crucified. You can't say He existed to placate others and then reject the overwhelming evidence for the rest. (You don't have to believe in miracles to know that the people of His time believed He performed them)."

You suffer from a black and white mindset, an all-too-common trait of those who rely on the cheap absolutism of religion as their life guide.

As one who respects the tenets of the scientific method, one must always allow for the possibility that one is wrong, even if the percentages for being wrong are extremely narrow. One can't prove a negative - one can't prove absolutely that god doesn't exist and one can't prove to an absolute certainty that Jesus didn't exist. However (and it's a big old MF-ing "however') the chances that god/Jesus exist(ed) are incredibly slim based on the evidence. I would say that one can assert to a statistical certainty that Jesus didn't exist and that god doesn't exist either.

I am absolutely NOT conceding that Jesus existed based on any "sources." I discount the Bible as a source because it isn't true to history, logic or science. It is a collection of fables and myths. Based on the avalable non-Biblical sources, it's clear to me that Jesus didn't exist, but there's always a slim, miniscule chance that something could emerge at some point that would change my opinion. For instance, if an ancient Roman document came to light that documented the crucifixion of THE Jesus under the auspices of Pilate, that would be pretty compelling evidence that one couldn't dismiss out of hand. But even with that, I would need to weigh such evidence against the inconsistencies in the Biblical account.

And, of course, the existence of Jesus is a separate question from whether or not he was a god incarnate. Most atheists don't bother arguing about the non-existence of Jesus because their non-belief in a god makes moot a discussion of Jesus' divinity. Jesus' non-existence isn't the central atheistic issue. God's non-existence is.

You make an enormous presumption when you say that IF one concedes that there is a .00001% chance that Jesus might have existed, then one MUST accept all of the Biblical "evidence" of his life as being an absolute truth. That's like saying that if one accepted as fact that Saddam Hussein had WMDs at one point in history, that all of the lies that Buhsco told us about attacking Iraq in 2003 must also be truths. One fact doesn't confirm an entire fabrication of a narrative...and at least in the case of SH, we have a fact available (ie: that he did possess WMD at one point). We don't have any such fact that would confirm that Jesus existed.

BTW - the "overwhelming evidence" is NOT for the existence of Jesus. Quite the opposite. You are making false statements when you aver that there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for Julius Ceasar. In fact, we have a complete lifeline for Caesar from his birth to his death, complete with dates and places, not to mention multiple sources that confirm these things. There's also the physical evidence - coinage, monuments, etc, not to mention Caesar's own writings. Just because you say something is true doesn't make it so.

You really need to do some research outside of the echo chamber of fundy Xian "scholarship."

You also take Ba'al to task for naming "only" three Biblical scholars who post on this blog who don't agree with your assertion that the disciple Matthew was the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Exactly how many On Faith authors would Baal need to cite for you to accept his point? I might also point out that whereas Baal NAMED 3 specific authors, you don't have the courtesy to do even that. You reply with a meaningless question, Ie: "Do you know how many there are world over who do not subscribe to the same view, and completely disagree with Pagels?"

OK, I'll bite: no, I don't know how many Biblical scholars there are the world over who subscribe to your view that the disciple Matthew was the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Maybe you can enlighten me? In the spirit of playing fair, I'd ask that you limit your specific examples to authors who regularly post at On Faith, just as Baal has done in his original response. If you come up with less than 3 On Faith columnists who agree with you that the disciple Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew, I'll consider that you've lost the argument.

I'm waiting.

Further BTW - Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" is hardly an "excellent" book, unless you consider "simplistic" and "easily refuted" to be synonyms for excellent. I've read the book. Have you? You may wish to read Scott Bidstrup's "excellent" dismantling of Strobel's diminutive opus here: http://www.bidstrup.com/apologetics.htm

Further, further BTW - you also resurrect the old canard about how many people have converted to Xianity/died for Xianity, as if that adds a shred of substance to the myths of Xianity. Do you not realize that this is a zero net game? Populations throughout history were - when conquered - forced to give up their "pagan" gods and to accept the pagan gods of their conquerers. The big boost in this respect for Xianity came with Constantine. He only did what others before him had done.

As far as people dying for Jesus, I'd posit that many more people are going to their deaths for Allah these days than Jesus. If you want to talk about unshakeable faith, then you need to talk about Muslim suicide bombers. I see a lot more of them going willingly to their deaths *specifically* for their faith than I see American armchair Xians sacrificing their lives for their faith.

Let me turn that around and ask you a question: if you are unwilling to go to your death for the fictions of the Da Vinci Code, then why on earth are you prepared to go to your death for the fictions of the Bible, or the fictions (traditions) of your particular Xian sect?

Or maybe the real question is: would you go to your death to defend Jesus, or is that all posturing on your part? If you and your family were threatened with imminent death and the only way you could save them would be to renounce Jesus and convert to Islam (a mirror situation faced by many ancient populations who were forced to convert to Xianity or else, ie: on pain of death) would you go to your deaths "for Jesus," or would you convert to Islam? Try to be honest.

Thanks for the discourse.

Ghostbuster, Mark Eaton and Fernando, thanks for your support.

Mr. MARK, I just noticed that you said on your other posts that Jesus may well have existed. So why all this deception and trying to goad us around? You can't pick both sides. If you concede that Jesus existed based on some sources, then you also have to concede on the same grounds that He was a carpenter, or was in Nazareth, or that people believed He performed miracles, and that He was crucified. You can't say He existed to placate others and then reject the overwhelming evidence for the rest. (You don't have to believe in miracles to know that the people of His time believed He performed them).

An excellent book on the subject is the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, where he questions various scholars on all of the above questions. It is not too scholarly so most of us can read it, but it does have some sections which may be hard to read.
Oh and please don't tell me that he questions only some scholars. So what? Are they not scholars? Why must only the works of scholars who support the Christian faith be questioned as opposed to those who don't? Actually there's more on the first side, if you want to achieve statistical significance I guess (just kidding!), but on this topic the vast majority on both sides would agree, that He lived, died and that early Christians believed He rose again.

Happy Easter! (I know Easter is a pagan tradition, but what it symbolizes, the Resurrection is NOT!)

It was hard to resist getting back after I saw the last few posts! Baal, you mention the majority of scholars (on this forum) and then you mention only 3, that too Elaine Pagels included. Do you know how many there are world over who do not subscribe to the same view, and completely disagree with Pagels?

Anyways, scholars may discuss and debate whatever they want to in the 21st century. Does that mean Jesus didn't exist, or Napoleon or Ceaser? It would actually interest you to know that we have far less evidence for Ceaser or the works of Plato and Socrates and yet we take it for all granted. Why such a big problem with Jesus? Because of his claims? E-Favorite, you discount what people from diverse backgrounds in the first 3 centuries have written, you discount all the martyrdom and you say scholars look for evidence. What evidence I ask you? What evidence do you have for Plato, but his works? Are you telling me historians don't get their evidence from written works? My goodness, you guys know nothing about how evidence is obtained, do you?

By the way, historians can prove that there was a census by Augustus Caeser, archeaologists have FOUND the city of Nazareth, many astronomers do talk about a major celestial event around 6 BC. Of course there's much more. So stop giving us all that old arcane stuff that skeptics have been throwing around for most of the 20th century. I know of no sane scholar who denies that Jesus existed, was a preacher, people believed He performed miracles, was crucified and people attest to that He was resurrected. Of course there are the likes of Ahmadenijad, who believe there was no Holocaust.

In the scientific profession, we often argue about the nature, origin, structure, function of various elements, cells, etc. Sometimes there's hundreds of juournals filled with articles with one scientist denouncing the other, but yet no one makes one foolish mistake: say lets throw out the cell itself. This is what scholars do. they argue, debate, put out a new theory or hypothesis. It doesn't mean any of its true. A common example, scientists are still divided over whether light is a particle or wave. Does not mean though that we don't have light or it does not emit heat and energy. All the scholars debating makes no difference on whether light exists, its properties and its benefits or ill effects.

You mention that mainline clergy and scholars from Protestant and Catholic denominations know all these things? Know what? We've all been taught this. I was taught there were more than 50 gospels in Catechism class in Mumbai, India when I was 10 years old! It only reveals your ignorance. Has the Catholic church or any of the major mailine denominations ever backed out on any of these though? Only a few liberal churches here and there, and a few liberal denominations. They don't care about Jesus anyways. Why the heck are they still keeping their positions? Would you listen to proof about evolution from Stephen Jay Gould or an engineering student? Do you want heart surgery on you performed by a cardiac surgeon or by the famous allergist next door? Do you want to hear about Christianity from someone who passionately believes it and has studied it or from people who want to suppress it. The truth is already out there. Find the real truth. Go back to the Bible, the real scholars who wrote the NT and study them with all that you know now.

Let me leave you all with one final question. The Da Vinci Code is a very popular book of our times. It has one of the most fantastic stories ever told (albeit its old), and it has caught on very rapidly with our popular culture and our media all over the Western world. Many people in our society actually believe the claims of Dan Brown and also believe the story. Let me ask you ONE question and only ONE: how many people do you know who are going to start dying and giving up their lives for the authenticity and truth of the story in there? I bet you, even Dan Brown won't.

Yet thousands of Christians gave their blood (horrible tortures mind you) until their dying breath crying Jesus is true, He is Lord, He is risen indeed. They didn't just believe, they knew you see. Many Christians are dying even today all over the world for the same Jesus. Many people today are dying for America, they are dying for Iraq, they are dying to save people with AIDS. Why are they dying? You see, someone will give their life only for what they know is true. America is real, Iraq is real, AIDS is real.

And yet you say, ten thousands of Jews, Romans, Greeks, Cyprians, Arabs, Persians, Africans, Asians gave the last drop of their blood for a Jesus who did not live, did not die and did not rise?

God Bless you guys.

Fernando

It is easy to explain. Do a Google search for the name Edgardo Mortara. You may understand why some of us are fed up by the injustices that can be perpetrated by people who believe they have the Absolute Truth.

C_Mat

The answer to your question about scholars who would disagree with your quaint view of the authorship of the gospels -- this would include most of the New Testament scholars who post on this forum. Off the top of my head I am pretty sure that Professors Crossan, Fredericksen, and Pagels would immediately point it out (Crossan has written a bunch of books on this subject, they are very interesting, I recommend them to you). I think it is also safe to say that there are no panelists in this forum who think that Jesus married Mary of Magdala. (I don't like to speak for other people, but I feel safe on this one!).

Also, there is a substantial majority of scholars who believe that the passages in Josephus are later interpolations (but that view is not universal). Tacitus was writing quite a bit after the supposed time of Christ. His comments can be taken to mean something that we already know, that at the time he was writing some people were followers of a holy man named Jesus.

There are no, zero, nada, zippo, contemporary attestations of Jesus that have been found to date. I would be delighted if there were, maybe something will be found some day. It would satisfy my curiousity greatly because I tend towards the idea that he probably did exist. However, none of the stories in the New Testament are uniquely told about Jesus. Most of them are rehashes of old hero stories about falling gods and demigods who have miraculous virgin births, die and come back to life. I would love to know what he really said and did. As things stand now, it's a fog.

You may be interested in a new book that has just been published in response to Sam Harris. It is entitled "Letter to a Christian Nation: Counter Point" by RC Metcalf. It is available through Amazon and B&N or through the author's website at http://thinkagain.us. Please let others know about this important work!

E Fav -

Thanks for your last post. I agree with everything you say.

I have stated in other On Faith posts that a Jesus could well have existed and that the "saviour" aspect of the story could have been grafted on to this real person, even if the supernatural aspects are pure hooey.

Most atheists I know don't bother arguing whether or not Jesus existed. After all, if you don't believe in god, then it doesn''t matter if Jesus existed because he wasn't god if he did exist. The basic premise that there is no god makes moot a discussion of Jesus as god, so why bother with the Jesus as man argument?

I, on the other hand, think the "did Jesus exist?" argument to be fascinating. The parallels to the Jesus story to that of older pagan gods is instructive and an example of man's need to create supernatural beings for himself - and to modify those beings to his (man's) present situation. The Jesus story reaffirms the power of myth in the human condition, but one doesn't really see the connection between Jesus myth and pagan myth unless one studies other religions, the politics of Biblical times and actual historical (ie: non-Biblical) sources. These are avenues of investigation that were never presented to me in my 40+ years as a church-going believer, and I doubt very much if today's churches encourage their members to study them either.

Gotta go.

If Christ were just a delusion (or many different delusions) why such passion invested in destroying it (them)? What exactly is it about the delusion(s), as they understand it (them) that bothers non-believers? Would some non-believer care to explain?

Join a good moderated blog for some high level discussion on religion, philosophy and ethics!

Maureen
http://lookinginthedistance.blogspot.com

TOM, I see. This is about Colson, not about faith or Christ. So to get at Colson, one must attack Christ. I am far from being a Republican but I don´t buy it. If it's about Colson and Watergate just point to that (as you ostensibly have), and leave Christ out.

Yet you don´t leave Christ out, for you add: "I truly believe you believe all of the magic you cite [...raised the dead....etc.]. I do not."

The fact that you don't believe what I believe does not mean that what I believe is magic. I suggest you return to Watergate or else it would ony be fair to address magic and the Big Bang. Perhaps you have accepted someone else's fixation, not against magic (for you are probably not willing to examine the Big Bang) but mysteriously against Christ?

You wonder: "I did not follow the "In God We Trust" fixation".

Not my fixation and if it were I assure you I would have extremely little to show for it. Printing "In God We Trust" on a dollar bill is one more idolatrous act of a world-system that demands everything be sacrificed at its altar, or else. It uses God, Christ, whatever as a cover and identifies God with itself, rather than the other way around. You probably would agree with me on that, but maybe not.

Hello C-MAT and Mr Mark – to assist in this discussion, I’m reposting, almost verbatim, something I wrote on another thread about what I’ve learned about Jesus. In a nutshell, I think there COULD have been a Jesus, but there no way now to prove it. Please read on ---

Regarding Jesus – my feeling is that the jury is out on Jesus and will stay out. The trail is old and cold. Scholars and church leaders have been looking for centuries and haven’t found much. The evidence is nothing like what we think of as conclusive or convincing by modern 21 century standards (or even the 19th century). There are no existing records (birth, death) no contemporaneous mention outside the Bible, no archeological evidence (no first century city of Nazareth, no tomb). Maybe there was a rabbi named Jesus, who preached in first century Palestine, but we can’t really know. What we CAN know (if we accept scientific truths and consider ancient myths) is that this guy, Jesus, if he existed, was not born of a virgin under a special star, did not rise from the dead or ascend to heaven. Those things just don’t happen (unless you believe in miracles, of course). Also, we know that these supernatural characteristics were not original to Jesus. There are precedents – other, more ancient Pagan Gods – Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus who were supposedly born of a virgin, or died on a cross, or rose from the death. Many scholars, including Albert Schweitzer, feel the attributes of these earlier Gods were superimposed on the Jesus character to make him a God worthy of worship in the eyes of 1st and s2n century pagans.

Many respected scholars think there probably was a “preacher Jesus” who was executed, but do not comment on his supernatural aspects. They will note that many people in those days thought he was the Son of God, but not that Jesus himself thought he was the Son of God. The scriptures, of course, were not written during his ministry, but there are reliable 2nd and 3rd century Roman records of Christians being percecuted for their beliefs. Of course, scholars don’t agree on everything – I’m giving you my overall assessment. But remember, they are scholars, not clergy – they are studying history, not proselytizing or preaching the word of God. Scholars develop theories and make analyses based on the evidence at hand. They do not draw conclusions based on church dogma or doctrine or popular explanations for why Jesus is likely to be real (e.g., “so much was written” “so many people believed.”

I knew nothing about all this until the last couple of years, when I became curious, after realizing everything I knew about Jesus and most of what I know about religion, I had learned in Sunday School, many years ago. The information is readily available in public libraries, bookstores and on the internet – of course you have to be discerning, because there’s all kinds of stuff out there. It’s quite surprising – shocking, especially that this could be known to scholars and clergy (mainline Protestant and Catholic) but not be passed on to the general public.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Mr. Mark and C_MAT for letting us all follow that engaging discussion.

Fernando,

If I respond [too much] to your remarks, I'll be guilty of what I complained of above - everyone moving away from the Colson theme so he/she can peddle his/her favorite brand of magic. I truly believe you believe all of the magic you cite [...raised the dead....etc.]. I do not. Your certainty is nothing but a belief, different beliefs held with equal certainty by people who were accidentally born in other places and other times. I did not follow the "In God We Trust" fixation you seem to have but I am confident it is held with equal certainty and sincerity -which adds not one ounce of credibility to it.

I'll forgive myself and ask you to forgive me for being seduced into this theological tennis. Let's get back to Colson who should repent from his Watergate sins by crawling into some remote, hidden cave where he should stay quiet. I think he likes the limelight too much for that.

Tom

to Mark Eaton:

You wrote,"Rarely do I find someone who knows how to prove the authenticity of scripture and the existance of Jesus"

Keep looking, he hasn't proven it, he's made some very interesting assertions, and that's to be applauded, but he hasn't PROVEN anything.

Thom -You write: "What we need is MORE disrespect for religion itself, not less."

Let's not confuse 'religion' with idolatry, which may be present in religious as well as non-religious people. Idolatry is what inspired "In God We Trust" in the dollar bill; what has killed 750 thousand in Iraq; what threatens the fabric of life in the planet as never before, specially for the most economically vulnerable.

Jesus Christ who threw money changers out of the temple in Jerusalem, who proclaimed to bring us life and in abundance, who raised the dead, and is Himself alive in God's Glory, is not what inspired either the dollar bill, or Iraq, or a nation governed by the miltary industrial complex.

Let us make certain we make that distinction, and address the real culprit, the necrophillic idols of gravely sinful men and women posing as the living Christ, who is the source of love and life.

Thank you C_MAT for stating things so well. Rarely do I find someone who knows how to prove the authenticity of scripture and the existance of Jesus. I have stated before nearly everything you have stated without avail. We simply cannot pursuade anyone on the merits and facts alone. Only the Holy Spirit can pursuade. But keep up the good work. Defend the faith. 1 Pet 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have.

Ok Mr. Mark,

This is my last and final post. I know where you're getting all your information from now at least. I kind of regret saying "Ph.D. thesis" in my last post. This one does not even deserve an A or B grade. This is not new evidence, its old and extremely outdated for that.

Its like saying "Bill Clinton did not exist, because the only evidence we have is CNN, etc and some books written by Harvard professors. How can we trust the media?" thats the same as saying, "Jesus didn't exist, because only the gospels and NT, (and don't forget, scores of documents in the first few centuries) talk about Him".

Of course, wish everyone in those first few centuries had access to the printing press like we have today. then you would have millions of documents, since millions of deaths does not seem to be enough...Of course even Bill Clinton was a president these days, try someone who had hung on a cross in remote Somalia. Thats how remote Jerusalem was in the eyes of the Roman world. It was a pain in the neck to them...forget about Jews fighting over a Messiah.

Despite all the stuff on the website, the writer makes unavoidably proves that the OT did prophesy about Jesus. Great! At least, we got that beyond us! The rest of course is rubbish. In order to prove that, you would have to prove that the 12 apostles didn't exist, Paul didn't exist or convert, ten thousands of early Jews and Christians didn't exist, or that they all collaborated in this huge conspiracy, at the cost of their lives, to prove this Jesus figure. Well thats the problem. The cost of their lives. Almost all of those first Christians were martyred, and horribly. Nero used them as burning torches to light his streets with. Some were fed to lions, others crucified. Wow, all this for a made up figure of history! Why would any of the SAME God-Fearing Jews, who the writer says took parts of the Old Testament they believed in to make up Jesus, give up their faith, give up their families, give up their homes, give up the Temple, give up the sacrificial system, incorporate what to them would be blasphemy and paganism, God becoming a man, be willing to be completely ostracized from their homes and community and in the end give up their lives???

Anyone can take a number of different documents about someone and weave whatever story they wanted about anyone in the world. One does not need facts there, just a creative imagination! But who would give his life for such a person? Granted, one fool may, but thousands over several years, and many centuries.

The truth is right there. Pilate asked Jesus: "What is truth?" You know the answer Mr. Mark. Jesus says, "that He who seeks will find the truth" and in John 8:31 "the truth will set him free!"

c_mat

"Take the case of General Peter Pace, who commented in a wide-ranging interview that certain acts are immoral, including adultery and homosexual sex. A torrent of outraged coverage followed. He was asked about his personal conviction and spoke plainly about something which, for many Americans, is a matter of orthodoxy. For those of us who believe the Bible, any sex outside of marriage is sinful and thus immoral. So for stating his deepest religious convictions, his integrity is impugned. This is grossly unfair."

WHAT IS GROSSLY UNFAIR AND IMMORAL IS THAT GENERAL peter SAYING WHAT HE DID ABOUT APPROX.65000 GAY AND LESBIAN SOLDIERS (SOLDIERS THAT ARE NOT ALLOWED TO RESPOND DUE TO OUR "DONT ASK DONT KILL POLICY} HE DENEGRATED 65000 OF OUR FIGHTING MAN AND WOMAN!!
TIME FOR THIS DUDE TO RESIGN NOW!!!

Greg -

Check out this link. It gives an interesting and extensive answer to your last post:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm#7

The author does a better job than I ever could. The questions you ask (with Biblical citations) are good questions that cannot be answered through a soundbite.

Please check out the link...I just don't have time to answer in depth right now.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Colson's criticism of the media has degenerated into yet another tiresome game of theological tennis. Would you guys take your arcane arguments into some other forum, please. The bottom line is that the reported magic of Christianity [a masculine god impregnating a girl who remained a virgin (I try not to think about the mechanics), raising people from the dead, etc.] must be based on faith since no act, not a single one, has ever been witness by enough disinterested observors to be accepted as a miracle. [If you can produce one now, Randi, the Magician, willl pay you one million dollars.] "No miracles" includes the latest and ludicrous report of the French nun now claiming she was healed by the last Pope. So... true believing Christians, just accept that it's ALL on faith

Regarding the General, he should peddle his PESONAL beliefs about morality somewhere else. As a General, he should make public pronouncements about military matters, not religious. If he wants to bash gays, let him drop the General title and offer his opinion about morality on the street somewhere. He reminds me of physicians who write letters to the editor about their unhappiness with the neighborhood traffic or sewage system probems and then sign off with their MD as if the MD credential gives them some expertise in the area of their complaint.

Mr. Colson seems to believe that religion [especially his] should be immune from criticism as if religion not only is obviously TRUE but also does good. If you think that net social good is a product of religion, take a look at Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation. Take a look at Iraq: this civil war is not ethnic; it is a religious war. What we need is MORE disrespect for religion itself, not less. RESPECTING all the while, of course, the right of free citizens to believe anything they want..... Tom

CHUCKIBOI YOU ARE PROOF THAT NOT ONLY CLOWNS WORK AT THE CIRCUS!!

What is GROSSLY UNFAIR, Mr. Coleson, is a PUBLIC SERVANT injecting religion into HIS DUTIES.

We in the public want, have won, and live under a constitution that guarantees THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

It is people like you Mr. coleson who are sinning by encouraging the blurring of that all important line between the US government, NEO-CON radicals, Geroge Orwell's thought police, and freedom.

Ok Mr. Mark,

Thanks for the urls. I'll certainly check them out. I really have to get back to "work" now. I don't usually blog, but just happened to come across these this afternoon, and thought that the posts were interesting enough to comment.

Of course, I've heard people calling all those documents forgeries. Its a very convenient way of getting around the truth. But what about the rest? What about the mass conversions? What about the hundreds of documents from the first few centuries? What about the fact that thousands of God-fearing Jews became Christian at the risk of blasphemy, judgement and ostracization from their community. Of course, one could go on and on...

OK, on the one hand you challenge that Jesus didn't exist, on the other, you tell me that His life was based on prevailing Jewish mythology. Which is true? Give me the facts, Mr. Mark, not somebody's Ph.D. thesis from the 20th century on reasons for not believing in Jesus. Let me ask you the question, "Do you really not believe in Jesus because of the lack of evidence? Or is it because you're having trouble with His claims?" Don't worry, thats where many of us had the trouble too.
And you already have the answer to that problem too. Its in your own heart.

OK I can't go on like this. I'll check the URL's and if its worth commenting on, I will. But if you're saying that Jews invented Jesus, that would be the stupidest thing to do, at the stupidest time in history, that would eventually lead to their own destruction as a people and exodus from Palestine (not something good, I wish that had not happened, but thats how mad the Romans had got). Their Jesus would have been a warrior, a King, one who would deliver them, not someone shamefully crucified on a Roman cross. Of course not some guy who claimed to rise again. How much more easier for the Rabbis to say "Jesus didn't exist". Instead, they said, "Jesus didn't rise".

OK take care, c_mat

Brambelton wrote:

"MR.MARK,

"Let me preface by stating that I appreciate your posts and also find them to be quite interesting. However, your debating style needs a lot of work."

Thanks for the comment.

My debating style has become less gracious the more time I spend on this blog. It comes from seeing the same arguments rolled out over and over again by the religionists. You're right - if I want to blog here, I should take the time to answer these same questions over and over again. As an old boss once told me, "unless you're ready to explain the same things to the same people every day of the week, you're in the wrong business."

That's why I'm spending less and less time here. The posts I've made in the past on the subject were quite extensive and cordial... and had little effect on the faithful. My head hurts...maybe because it keeps hitting the "whatever...it's faith" wall.

I don't have time to answer every point made by the numerous posters who answer a single post from my end. Who does? Sometimes, I'll get to it in a later post. Right now, I'm forced to answer the bigger questions as succinctly as possible.

OR, I could just give up posting at On Faith - a victim of shrinking free time to provide extensive answers...and a sense that no amount of debate will move the religionists off their set positions.

I covered a lot of this ground in the "did Jesus exist" thread from December. Maybe you can read the lively debate from those days...good arguments from both sides. I learned a few things and enjoyed the give-n-take.

Sorry if I'm not up to the full-engaged debating style these days.

Mr. Mark writes:

"There are no historical claims for a corporeal Jesus, none whatsoever. All claims for his being a real person come from the Gospels which were written after Paul's epistles. Paul is strangely silent on the details of Jesus' life, most likely because Paul didn't preach or believe in a corporeal Jesus."

I can't really address your comments about extra-biblical evidence for a corporeal Christ. I know some would point to Josephus (Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3), but Paul speaks often of Jesus as a human being.

Romans 1:3-4 (NIV)
"...regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord."

-Can a non-corporeal being have a "human nature?" How can a spirit be resurrected? Can you kill a spirit?

1 Corinthians 2:2 (NIV)
"For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."

-Can you crucify a spirit? Seems it would be hard to nail him down.

1 Thessalonians 4:14 (NIV)
"We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him."

-Most scholars believe 1 Thessalonians to be Paul's first writing. Again, can a non-corporeal being die and come back to life?

1 Timothy 2:5 (NIV)
"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,"

-Can not seem to get much more corporeal than "the man Christ, Jesus."

2 Timothy 2:8 (NIV)
"Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel,"

-Can a spirit be a descendant of a person? Thus, can a spirit be born of a person?

The best argument I've heard for Paul's silence on the life of Jesus is that he preached fairly recently after the life and death of Jesus. This meant that he did not have to recount the life story of Jesus because many had seen, heard, and witnessed Jesus. It's only later that people decided to record his life when the first had witnesses started dying. That's when the Gospel's are written.

Also, I think your attack on Christian tradition is a little uncalled for. Sure, the celebration of Christmas has changed. Even I (a Christian) believe Jesus was not born on December 25th, but that Christmas was based on the Winter Solstice so the Western Church would appeal more to the pagan religions celebrations of the day. However, the tradition of Christmas as a celebration of the birth of Christ is the same as it was at it's inception. What about the tradition of the Eucharist? While not all churches practice it exactly the same, the focus on the body, blood, and sacrifice of Jesus has endured. Tradition connects me as a believer to the past. Thus, I believe there to be some historical merit in traditions.

Dear c-mat:

Reagrding your post above: you are rolling out the same, tired, suspect if not disproven independent sources for Jesus existence.

You must know that Josephus' references to Jesus are 4th-century forgeries. You must know that the one reference Tacitus makes to Jesus is also a fraud: he mentions the "Xian sect," yet there was no Xian sect when Tacitus lived. Xians were a sect of Judaism at that time. The name "Christians" was not operative at the time.

There are many scholars who have done good work on these sources. Here's a link that covers most of the ancient historians (as well as what you call "several Roman documents") who are said to have mentioned Jesus but who, in fact, never mentioned Jesus, unless you consider later-century forgeries to be authentic (Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonis et al):
http://tinyurl.com/prdgl .

As far as Jesus being a creation of Jewish mythology, here's a rather extensive and interesting piece on just that subject:
http://tinyurl.com/34amgh . You also mention Paul's writings where he supposedly speaks of a corporeal Jesus. The essay that you'll find at the url embedded in this paragraph handily disproves your premise, if you care to read it.

You're a biologist. Examine the evidence provided in the links above. Then get back to me and tell me what you think.

Manuscript Question:

Oops, I forgot to answer the question about the earliest manuscripts.

OK, I am not an expert on this, but the earliest complete copies of manuscripts that WE have are from 325 AD (these include Codex Vaticanus, etc). OK we're talking about preservation of these manuscripts in ancient times, here allright. The earliest non-complete copy that we have is from 200 AD: the Chester Beatty Papyri. This contains most of the NT, but not all.

Then we have several individual manuscripts containing quotes from books of the NT all the way from 66 AD. this is only 30 years of Christ.

And we also have "literally" numerous documents from the early church fathers, right from the 1st century, that contain quotes from almost every book of the NT, that are the same as if you would find them in today's Bible.

Of course after 325 AD, there are thousands of manuscripts that are mostly the same, with minor variations in grammar, etc here and there.

NT scholars use all of the above to date NT manuscripts.

Again, I am not an expert here. But there are plenty of excellent resources available (Christian and non-Christian) that talk about the dating of these copies. This is one thing that scholars from all sides of the spectrum certainly agree upon.

Take care, c_mat

Sample Confersations fron Professor ARRAYO's Page:
In The RAW.

c_mat:
Dear John Connore:

In response to your comments:

"Trust me the person who cures aids or cancer etc. won't be a superstitous follower"

................"

Of course, he is only one example of many prominent scientists who believe/believed in the supernatural.

Praise God for them!

************************>>>>>>

C_MAT et al:

If folks like, Dr. Francis S. Collins et al turn to Pre-Apocalptic worship via any of those "INFIXUS BOOKS" can be good, According to FAITH-EXCHANGING.

Example: IF Dr. Francis S. Collins et al, BELEIVE THAT G-d (Yawah or whatever name) REALLY created the EARTH (W/ Solar System, includes Grandma Sun et al) in S.I.X. D.A.Y., not "Light Years"

THEN: Dr. Francis S. Collins et al, Are like those who do smart things for ManKind but have NO COMMON SENCE.

SO, in terms of "IQ" a/k/a INTELLIGENCE, the lacking or by NOT having HEURISTICS, as an Insight & Pattern Recognition brain process, then lack of Heuristics is same as saying, Having NO Common Sence!

See What I See? Ya Ya :=)'

Posted March 30, 2007 3:03 PM

Posted March 30, 2007 3:48 PM

First, let's stop being naive and throwing out absurd statements like "90% of the U.S. population is Christian". I don't care if 50 million surveys all said the same thing . . . it's not true. If each of the individuals surveyed were asked increasingly deeper questions about their faith, we would certainly see that number fall - dramatically.

MR.MARK,

Let me preface by stating that I appreciate your posts and also find them to be quite interesting. However, your debating style needs a lot of work. Case in point - You challenged C_MAT about when Matthew's writings took place and whether or not he spoke Greek. C_MAT responded in kind, offering a lengthy and provocative narrative against your position. Your reply? You move on to a completely new topic to discuss the merits of whether or not Christ ever really existed! You might be bad but I guess you're consistent.

Finally, if you're free from the shackles of religion and it means nothing to you - why are you here? Why would you spend your precious time on a message board discussing things you don't believe exist? Actually, I already know the answer ;)

Dear Mr. Mark,

I truly appreciate your response, but you are wrong on several counts. I am sure that is not your own fault and this is really a misunderstanding of much of the Christian faith that the media readily espouses.

First of all, you mentioned the real problem. Its not hard to find things out in the online age. Unfortunately much of what we can learn in this age, comes from the media and hopefully from many sincere people as well, may be like you and me, but not from people who are real authorities on the subject through serious study (on either side, for or against).

With that said, of course Jesus in "corporeal" form is mentioned outside the Bible. This includes, Josephus , the first century Jewish historian, and several Roman documents, prominent among whom is Tacitus. You yourself alluded to the numerous documents circulating in the first four centuries about Jesus. While the church does not accept the canonicity (that is "inspired" therefore Scripture) of many of these, the very fact that these talk about the Jewish carpenter Jesus, is evidence that He existed. These documents actually run into the Hundreds (not kidding, literally; many more than Thomas and Judas). Of course then there's the mass surprise conversions of thousands of Jews and Romans to Christianity, both amazing, one because the Jews thought Jesus was a blasphemer and false prophet, and the other because Jesus died as crucified criminal, the complete opposite of Roman culture, followed by fishermen and prostitutes. Let me add, this was before Constantine, and despite horrendous persecutions by the Roman Emperors. Finally, numerous mentions of Jesus and his ability to perform miracles, that He was a false prophet and magician in Rabbinical writings following the first century. While these deny Jesus' claims, they certainly do not deny that He existed.

Of course Paul talks about the "corporeal" Jesus. Read Colossians Ch.2. He says that in Jesus, the Godhead dwells completely, or Philippians Ch. 2, or Galatians or 1st Timothy.

A second misunderstanding is what Christians mean by "tradition". What they mean by tradition is not what my father did and what my grandfather did, or what was legend in Iceland. Tradition in Christianity is rock solid evidence based on personal experience and many witnesses, handed down to successive Christians. It is the entire body of events, and documentation (teaching of early church fathers, for example) that can be traced from the first apostles. Many portions of what Christians call "tradition" were not just handed down, but were severely tested by various groups before they became part of the Body of tradition. An example of this is the formation of the canon. While many Christians debated for several years in the decades after Christ about which books were truly Scripture, only those books that could have been TRULY traced to the apostles (including the Twelve, Paul, and James the brother of Jesus)were finally recognized as true Scripture. The Church didn't say that these books are Scripture, it said, these books, we can say with full confidence, came from the hands of the apostles. The Church didn't invent the Canon, it RECOGNIZED it. As early as 150 AD, the Muratorian canon was already in place that recognized most of the 27 books that we have today in the NT.

Finally the question about Jesus's life. Again, you are wrong, when you say that His lifestyle reflected Jewish mythology. But of course His claims are exclusive. He claims to be the "Messiah" and the "Son of Man", the one whom the Jews knew was the promised seed of Eve who would come to rescue God's people and restore the Kingdom of God. He claimed He was/is the "Son of God", and that He is the Only way to the Father. He claimed that He is the "light of the world", the "Resurrection and the Life" and that He alone has the authority to give all men life. His sacrificial death on the Cross was God's judgement on our sins, but His mercy on us sinners. By becoming the Messiah that God had appointed for us, He took our humanity and our suffering and showed us the way to reconciliation with the Father. Of course, words cannot describe it, but when you have encountered Him yourself, you will know.

Like C.S. Lewis said here in "Mere Christianity":
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Thanks for talking to me Mr. Mark.

God Bless.

c_mat

"There are no historical claims for a corporeal Jesus, none whatsoever. All claims for his being a real person come from the Gospels which were written after Paul's epistles. Paul is strangely silent on the details of Jesus' life, most likely because Paul didn't preach or believe in a corporeal Jesus."

This is a perfect example of the media's effect on Christianity. If this is what you think is true, then you would be denying the majority, and perhaps even vast majority of NT scholarship. Even people who don't believe in the canonical gospels as being true date them before 100AD. There are plenty of claims from Christian sources and non-Christian that a real human Jesus lived and died. Josephus, Tacitus, and others mention Jesus outside the New Testament. Paul has a lot to say about Jesus' physical death and physical resurrection. Read 1 Corinthians 15 for starters.

Explain where the early church came from?

Colson writes:

"I’m convinced most of the difficulties arise from the media’s ignorance about Christian belief.

"Take the case of General Peter Pace, who commented in a wide-ranging interview that certain acts are immoral, including adultery and homosexual sex. A torrent of outraged coverage followed. He was asked about his personal conviction and spoke plainly about something which, for many Americans, is a matter of orthodoxy. For those of us who believe the Bible, any sex outside of marriage is sinful and thus immoral. So for stating his deepest religious convictions, his integrity is impugned. This is grossly unfair."

How does this follow? The media reported accurately (because it was on tape and played back) EXACTLY what he said.

No one said he didn't believe what he said.

People disagreed with his statements, not as a matter of faith, but because (i) he was casting aspersions on others and many believe that it is not his place to do that (I agree there is reasonable disagreement on this point) and (ii) what he said was incompatible with his official position, where the military has a don't ask, don't tell policy, and allows gays to serve (and be wounded or killed) but here we have a General condemning them.

I think General Pace had every right to express his views and has the right to believe what he believes, but that doesn't mean he escapes criticism or that the media is biased in reporting on that criticism. The proper response for him to have made is that he was expressing his personal religious beliefs.

End of story ... except, of course, being a General and dealing with a policy issue for the military, should he have made the comment at all?

You tell us Mr. Colson, what do you think?

Right on Mr. Mark.

And to add to the whole "walk on water" thing........back in the day when it was written, the term walking on water leaned more towards walking near the water, so if Jesus did exist, he most likely only walked near the water, or at the edge.

Bring back Zeus, he kicks butt!

c-mat writes:

"We (Christians) have strong textual, historical and traditional evidence going back to the 1st century for many of the claims surrounding NT authorship."

Surely you will admit that Xian "tradition" is worthless as evidence. The Da Vinci Code premise that you rightfully deride is based on a particular Xian "tradition." There are other Xian traditions (ie: myths) that people cling to, like Peter being crucified upside down. There's no evidence for these things, just tradition. Americans believe in a "traditional family Xmas" that dates back less than 100 years, but most Americans don't know that the stuffy early American church was quite against the celebration of Xmas. Tradition is not much more than the last bad idea that someone came up with.

There are no historical claims for a corporeal Jesus, none whatsoever. All claims for his being a real person come from the Gospels which were written after Paul's epistles. Paul is strangely silent on the details of Jesus' life, most likely because Paul didn't preach or believe in a corporeal Jesus. Philo - who lived from 20BCE to 50CE and wrote about the conflict between Jews and Pontius Pilate in Judea - never mentions Jesus.

As far as "textual" evidence - multiple copies of fiction are still fiction, are they not? There are no "original" books extant from the Bible, and many of the copies we do have date from as late as the 4th century. What 1st century textual sources are you referring to, because I know of none?

No, there's no evidence for Jesus and even Paul outside of the evidence presented in the Bible.

But I'm sure that you know all of this. Maybe you're surprised to read that I do know a bit about the history of Biblical sources. It's not like it's hard to find these things out in the online age.

And what, exactly, are the "exclusive" claims of Xianity? Every facet of Jesus' life mirrors the lives of pagan gods that preceeded him, not to mention his lifestory reflecting the beliefs of the Jewish mythology that prevailed at the time. Honestly, there's nothing exclusive about it.

"God loves you Mr. Mark and God Bless."

That means less than nothing to non-believers, especially those of us who have broken free of the shackles of religion. You may as well say Santa or Zeus loves me.

Yes Jakob, Jesus did walk on the water and He also rose from the dead.

Much that has been written above also confirms His words that "the world will hate you because it hated me first." When you spew your vitriol against Christians and our Faith, you make us stronger in ways that you can never know.

May God bless you.

Mr. Mark,

Not only are your comments highly inaccurate, but they also reflect your own ignorance and your pre-held bias against Biblical Christianity. Having studied the science of Biblical criticism and the historical-critical approach to the Bible for several years now, I don't think I or other Christians need advice from you in order to ask important questions about our faith.

Most scholars don't put Matthew in the AD 70-130 AD category. Only those who believe that the original 3 synoptic gospels might have come from a common source "Q", because they do not want to admit that Mathew, Peter (traditionally thought to have been whom Mark got his version from) and Luke might have been describing similar events.

Of course Matthew was a JEWISH tax collector. Do you think we are foolish? So was Peter, and Mark and John. Your own comments reveal your ignorance. Have you heard of the Hellenistic Jews? I'm sure you must be aware that by the time of the 1st century, most of the known world was speaking Greek, thanks to Alexander the Great. The very Bible that Jesus and His disciples used was a Greek Bible, the Septuagint. Matthew was not only conversant in Greek but wrote it well. You are right though. Any student of the Bible can tell that Matthew, Mark's or Peter's Greek is nothing compared to the highly polished Greek of Luke and Paul. Plus Matthew and Mark make a number of references to Jewish practices that only the Jews would have fully understood: example, the "Kingdom of Heaven".

I am not making the above comments to ridicule or put down anyone, or because I was upset at what you said. Its only sad that many of us get our biblical knowledge that we have today from the news media and the Internet. Thats why I put up the comment about "Mary Magdalene". You are right. Most scholars thoroughly debunk the theory, but yet the news media and Dan Brown make it highly popular.

We (Christians) have strong textual, historical and traditional evidence going back to the 1st century for many of the claims surrounding NT authorship. In fact the NT is the only book, that literally has thousands of manuscripts supporting the different versions right from the first 2 centuries. The oldest copies of some of the other books that we accept without reservation come much later, from the 9th and 10th centuries.

I will not admit to being a biblical scholar (despite having professionally studied a bit), but my own profession of being a biological scientist has taught me to test, discern and question everything I come across, and from my own studies, experience and interactions, I am quite satisfied with the exclusive claims of Christianity.

God loves you Mr. Mark and God Bless.

Mr Mark --One does not need to be a historian, or a theologian, or an intellectual, or even literate to experience the revelation of Christ.

That said, historical opinions are quite a different matter. They should consider expert testimony from all sides. Yours seems quite one sided when you state, for example:

"Matthew was written in Greek, not Hebrew. The disciple Matthew was a Jewish tax collector. The chances of him being conversant in Greek would be unlikely. Much of Matthew is copied from Mark, the first Gospel written."

However, reknowned jesuit biblical scholar Joseph Fytzmyer SJ argues otherwise:

"Greek, of course, was in widespread use in the Roman empire at this time. Even the Romans spoke Greek, as inscriptions in Rome and elsewhere attest. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that GREEK WAS ALSO IN COMMON USE AMONG THE JEWS OF PALESTINE. The Hellenization of Palestine began even before the fourth-century B.C. conquest by Alexander the Great. Hellenistic culture among the Jews of Palestine spread more quickly after Alexander's conquest, especially when the country was ruled by the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes (second century B.C.), and later under certain Jewish Hasmonean and Herodian kings" (p.59)."

http://www.ntgreek.org/answers/nt_written_in_greek.htm

c_matwrote:
"To Mr. Mark and Baal,

"Which scholars are you referring to by the way?"

Do your own research. You'll find the majority of scholars date the writing of Matthew from 70-130CE. Xian fundy apologists try to move the date to 50CE, but they're the minority.

Matthew was written in Greek, not Hebrew. The disciple Matthew was a Jewish tax collector. The chances of him being conversant in Greek would be unlikely. Much of Matthew is copied from Mark, the first Gospel written.

Here's a link to the American Catholics where Matthew's authorship is discussed: http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/SFS/an0196.asp

Beyond that, do your own reserach.

"The same ones who say that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene?"

In fact, no. What a stupid statement.

It's amazing how little the "faithful" know about the history of their faith.

To Mr. Mark and Baal,

Which scholars are you referring to by the way? The same ones who say that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene?

chuck, you're fired

So the media isn't christian? Ah, the conspiracy about the secular media.

90% of the country claims to be Christian, but somehow this tiny minority has a stranglehold on the media. Umm...sure, whatever.

If that's so true then what is the problem? If 90% of you are not being represented in the media it shouldn't be hard at all to change that. Start up some christian radio stations and tv shows and other media outlets. If the 90% is looking for that in the current pile of secular media, then the christian media will do great and make tons of money and reach a huge audience.

But the truth is that many of you christians can't stand christian tv, christian music, etc. Who do you think is buying all this pornography that's being sold everyday? It's not just atheists. Who do you think is watching all thei sinful tv full of violence and sex? It's not just atheists. Who do you think is buying all these drugs, committing all these crimes, acting selfish, and in general doing all the bad things that you christians rail against? It's not just us atheists.

That's what I meant by my comment, christians are picked on by other christians.

And it's pretty hard to sell me the argument that the media is secular, when I constantly see people in the media at award shows always thanking god and talking about god in their life. People talk about god all the time in the media. I can only think of a handful of people who will openly call themselves atheists on national tv.

Secular people don't run the media. The truth is that christianity is boring, and you all love to watch/listen to/and read about all the bad and lusty things in the media. The seven deadly sins are some of the funnest things a person can do.

tomh wrote "Steve B, the gospel of Matthew is believed by most scholars to be written by ... Matthew (!), the guy who worked with Jesus for 3-4 years"

Let me chime pile on with Mr. Mark and say that very few scholars believe that.

Colson writes:

"In fairness, it should be noted that the media often gives very positive coverage when they understand what we’re doing. All the major news magazines have given very positive stories about the Christian faith in the last couple years..."

Do you have any sense of how self serving that statement is, Mr Colson?

Is it not possible for the media to give you positive coverage when they have no idea what you're doing? Is it possible for them to give you negative coverage when they totally undersatnd what you're doing?

Are there no negative stories to be told about the Xian faith?

tomh wrote:
"Steve B, the gospel of Matthew is believed by most scholars to be written by ... Matthew (!), the guy who worked with Jesus for 3-4 years."

The above statement is quite incorrect.

Steve B, the gospel of Matthew is believed by most scholars to be written by ... Matthew (!), the guy who worked with Jesus for 3-4 years.

sure, Joe, this is possible, but of course most media don't REALLY consider themselves Christian, in the sense that it affects their lives.

I think it may be more accurate to say that those whose faith (regardless of which particular faith) deeply affects their life, behavior and beliefs often feel misunderstood (maybe not persecuted) by a media which is overwhelmingly secular. Which of course is why, as Mr. Colson wrote, that in scripted drama and comedy over 90% of references/portrayals to religion are negative.

I always find it interesting that a group (Christians) who claims 90% membership of the population of this country can still find ways to make themselves out to be persecuted in any way.

Chuck, if christians are not well represented in the media, could it be possible that other christians are the ones representing them in a bad light?

You quote a study by the Parents Television Council "Over half (50.8%) of all entertainment television’s depictions of laity were negative". Statistically, shouldn't this be right... assuming there is some "average" way of depicting people, shouldn't 1/2 be more positive than average and 1/2 be more negative?

Or are you implying that all the "laity" should be viewed in a positive light, and any negative portrayal is wrong? I personally question at what point you consider a depiction negative rather than neutral or positive.

I'm interested, Chuck - do you think that *the Bible* could have been written by "fallible human beings who often get things right and sometimes don’t"? Or that the Church hierarchy who make modern rulings and interpretations are in any way fallible, and could be wrong?

Or is the Book the direct unquestionable word of God, despite the hard evidence of mistranslations, transliterations, misunderstood metaphor and selective inclusion?

>>"For example, the media’s recent portrayal of the Judas Gospel as fact, when the Church for centuries has ruled it as heresy, rankles true believers."

I agree with you on one point, (and how shocked I am to even be typing those words...) The media exists to sell papers and tv shows, and they'll go for the lazy and sensationalist option every time. If they mislead and present the Judas Gospel as accepted by Christianity, then they're irresponsible.

However, the Judas gospel IS 'fact', because it's a text written by someone who never met Jesus, just like the four canon Gospels (this one just happens to be Gnostic). Most of the Nag Hammadi library is equally "true". What you mean is it's not one of the contradictory few chosen by your version of Christianity, with all the other texts dismissed as "Heresy" (ah, the Gnostics and the early Church...)

Mind you, if you think the media go after Christians without bothering to find out what their real beliefs and values are, try being Wiccan in most States in the US. It wouldn't matter that your religion sees human life and nature as sacred and contains a strong ethic of self-responsibility, the papers just see a chance to shout about pointy black hats. They'll always go for the cheap shot, which is why I'm not surprised by the typical presentation of religion on entertainment programmes. Shock value sells better than mundanity.

Colson writes: "On balance, we need to remember that the press by its very character tends to be cynical and skeptical. It has to be."

Indeed it does. For example, there were once people like Chuck Colson in positions of political power who taught the world that skepticism is essential for the press to defend our freedoms.