All Comments (30)

The "findings" of Jesus's "remains" are not proof of his actual existence. However, if the findings WERE the actual remains of Christ, I think it would/should drastically change/end Christianity due to the fact that Christianity is based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ into heaven.

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m791k

Virgin births are knnown in science as parthenogenesis.

Komodo dragons -- The largest lizards in the world are capable of "virgin births".

The link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6196225.stm
.................................

Human virgin births:

"You may think that there's been only one virgin birth in the past 2000 years.

"But an investigation in the 1950s by a journalist and a team of doctors led them to believe the claim of a young German woman that she didn't lose her virginity until she married - 2 years after her daughter was born.
The story ran in The Sunday Pictorial for five weeks and doubled the paper's circulation. And for the serious scientific reader, details of the virgin conception - or parthenogenesis as it's known - were reported in The Lancet."

The link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2001_34_fri_03.shtml

My Dear Anonymous

My brother William wrote was is widely acknowledged to be the greatest book ever written about religion (with the possible exception of the Bible)
so though I appreciate your warning about common sense, my family background affords me the broadest possible acquaintance with human's possible relations with "God" and gods.
(Did you realize, for instance, that the Christian God is not the only one humans worship in this world?)

William was also an exemplary philosopher. With all due respect, you are no William.

I do not believe in Virgin Births in Marys or in sharkes, nor do I believe in Aliens, Zeus, Thor, or YHWH.

I do reckon that I have a level of spirituality and spiritual sensibility and sensitivity that is at least the equal of your own.

And if you ever advance to the level of reading aptitude where you are able to understand my novels, you will see that I am profoundly more aware of the dangers of relying on mere common sense than you appear to be.

My apologies for my gender assumptions. My friend Edith would castigate me severely if she know of my error in this regard.

Henry James,

Please understand that the mistake you have made is quite common and I made it most of my own life. It's called common sense. Indeed, for practical purposes, it's quite handy, but not as a method to cast judgement on what may be ultimately true about our existence, for our beliefs about that determine how we live, our fate, humanity's fate. In any case in anything of importance one needs to question the fundamental presuppositions on which one's own case rests. That is hard for any of us to do on ourselves. I believe that at least some would agree that the question of who we are and who God is as fundamental as it gets for a human being.

Regarding virgin births, yes, they have been reported and in humans too. Recently the BBC reported a case of some animal giving virgin birth
(perhaps it was a shark).

Oh, by the way, I am not Sir, not even of anglo-saxon roots.

BTW Sir Anonymous,
are you the same anonymous who is over on Rev Palau's discussion?

(sorry for the "plenty of humans" typo)

That's fine, Sir Anonymous.

The rest of us mortals will continue to buy 5 oranges for $1.69 at the grocery store without getting arrested while you and the Jesuits figure out how to dance on the head of a pin.

Down here in the real world we have seen millions of groups of 5 oranges, bought them, and even eaten them.

No one has ever witnessed a Virgin Birth or a Resurrection in a verifiable way. I once claimed to my mother, when my girlfriend got pregnant at 16 (oops, i forgot, "16" is too problematic for you), that it was a Virgin Birth, but somehow she didn't believe me.

Plenty of humans

Simon Timothy,

Thank you for introducing me to this writing by Simon Greenleaf, one of the founders of, and a professor at, my legal alma mater.

I have perused this document which appears marvelously strange to modern legal eyes. It is a pure apology for the truth of what is written in the gospels, without any analysis thereof.

Rather than examining the truth of the gospels as something to be proven, Professor Greenleaf assumes their truth and attacks the arguments that might be made against that assumption. That's not how things are done in court.

Professor Greenleaf died in 1853. He was a convinced Christian to start with. He does not really examine the gospels from an evidentiary point of view.

In particular he never mentions the fact that the gospels' accounts of the resurrection are hearsay, indeed they are hearsay piled upon hearsay, and their testimony was never subjected to any cross examination. The gospels would not be admitted in any court today to prove anything.

Professor Greenleaf lived in another, far distant era. If his writing, which you cited, were submitted today as a third-year law school paper, I'm afraid that poor Simon Greenleaf would never graduate.

Henry James humbly yet defiantly responds:

"As far as the concept of quantity, I feel silly having to explain this to you. Did you go to grade school? Entities in the world exist in quantities. 5 oranges..."

No, I am quite evidently not as schooled as you, and I thank God for it.

What is self evident to you Mr. James is not to me. I have never seen 5 oranges and I am certain you have not either.

There is no such thing as an orange of which there are 2 exactly alike, let alone 5.

Your self evident reality is merely a reduction of reality into 'groups' of entities that are different, uniquely distinct, as if they were not. Doing so you misrepresent reality.

Yet you present to the world these presuppositions as if they were self evident and beyond question.

Your 'logic' operates in a similar manner with respect to the other questions I raised. Why should anyone then take your presumed 'truths' as self evident when it comes to the trinitarian God?

Simon T

You illustrate the tactic of religion and other big lies.

If you repeat something often enought, some people start to believe it.

"I read it in a book"
Someone told me it was true.
What's the matter - don't I have any faith in a fantastic unbelievable story for which there is not, nor could ever be, any reliable evidence.

Mr.Norrie Hoyt! Resurrection is not a story. It is neither a philosophy nor a religious dogma. It is TRUTH. If anybody is intrested and can take some pains to do some real research or search can find out that JESUS CHRIST rose from the dead for real. Dr. Greenleaf, the Royal Professor of Law at Harvard University, was one of the greatest legal minds that ever lived. He wrote the famous legal volume entitled, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, considered by many the greatest legal volume ever written. Dr. Simon Greenleaf believed the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a hoax. And he determined, once and for all, to expose the "myth" of the Resurrection. After thoroughly examining the evidence for the resurrection — Dr. Greenleaf came to the exact opposite conclusion! He wrote a book entitled, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. In which he emphatically stated:

"it was IMPOSSIBLE that the apostles could have persisted in affirming the truths they had narrated, had not JESUS CHRIST ACTUALLY RISEN FROM THE DEAD, . . ."
(Simon Greenleaf, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice, p.29).

Mr.Norrie Hoyt! (comment 15) Resurrection is not a story. It is neither a philosophy nor a religious dogma. It is TRUTH. If anybody is intrested and can take some pains to do some real research or search can find out that JESUS CHRIST rose from the dead for real. Dr. Greenleaf, the Royal Professor of Law at Harvard University, was one of the greatest legal minds that ever lived. He wrote the famous legal volume entitled, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, considered by many the greatest legal volume ever written. Dr. Simon Greenleaf believed the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a hoax. And he determined, once and for all, to expose the "myth" of the Resurrection. After thoroughly examining the evidence for the resurrection — Dr. Greenleaf came to the exact opposite conclusion! He wrote a book entitled, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. In which he emphatically stated:

"it was IMPOSSIBLE that the apostles could have persisted in affirming the truths they had narrated, had not JESUS CHRIST ACTUALLY RISEN FROM THE DEAD, . . ."
(Simon Greenleaf, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice, p.29).

Mr.Norrie Hoyt! (comment 14) Resurrection is not a story. It is neither a philosophy nor a religious dogma. It is TRUTH. If anybody is intrested and can take some pains to do some real research or search can find out that JESUS CHRIST rose from the dead for real. Dr. Greenleaf, the Royal Professor of Law at Harvard University, was one of the greatest legal minds that ever lived. He wrote the famous legal volume entitled, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, considered by many the greatest legal volume ever written. Dr. Simon Greenleaf believed the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a hoax. And he determined, once and for all, to expose the "myth" of the Resurrection. After thoroughly examining the evidence for the resurrection — Dr. Greenleaf came to the exact opposite conclusion! He wrote a book entitled, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. In which he emphatically stated:

"it was IMPOSSIBLE that the apostles could have persisted in affirming the truths they had narrated, had not JESUS CHRIST ACTUALLY RISEN FROM THE DEAD, . . ."
(Simon Greenleaf, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice, p.29).

Anonymous

Now I really understand why you don't own up to writing the posts under your non-name.

"The Trinity IS a unity", you say.
So are Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, and Scrooge McDuck.

The fact that a group of people can imagine an entity does not make it real.
Surely you are not so dense as not to realize this.
Fine for you to believe it if you want.
I believe in Daffy, Donald and Scrooge.

As far as the concept of quantity, I feel silly having to explain this to you. Did you go to grade school?
Entities in the world exist in quantities.
5 oranges.
16 men on a dead man's chest.
Philophers of mathematics naturaly formed theories of quantity AFTER observing these physical phenomena.

Why does light exhibit a wave=particle duality? Why does gravity exist? Because it does (not because God or Daffy Duck made it that way).

All this, and your other quibbles, are so self evident that i shall not waste my time going further.

Read a book.

Henry James humbly responds:
"Have you not noticed that thousands of experiments have established light's wave-partical duality."

Established yes. Explain it, no.

"Have you not noticed that numbers have observable relations with physical phenomena..."

Can you explain that relation please.

"I think you eluded most of us with your "words evolving out of non thinking gases. The only interpretation I can imagine is impolite."

Should anyone be surprised that all you can imagine would be impolite to express? Please explain, if you can, how it is that we can think if everything originated with gases.

....

Mavaddat rambles:

"No one can think of a way (method) that we can use to resolve the question of whether God is a trinity or a unity or both."

The trinity IS a unity.

"In contrast there are ways of resolving all the supposed "nonsenses" that you allude to."

Really? Enlighten us.

"The reason why the trinity of God is nonsense proper is that it literally has no sense, nothing for us to talk about because it refers to nothing of sense data."

Please. You mean that if it is not detectable by your 5 senses it cannot exist?

........

Phaedrus compares: "The nature of the trinity is like a Zen koan without any of the beauty of Zen itself."

How do you know?

Mr James & Mav:

Thanks for making those points. The nature of the trinity is like a Zen koan without any of the beauty of Zen itself.

Meaningless indeed. Jefferson and Adams felt likewise.

Anonymous, let's not kid ourselves here:

No one can think of a way (method) that we can use to resolve the question of whether God is a trinity or a unity or both. In contrast there are ways of resolving all the supposed "nonsenses" that you allude to. The reason why the trinity of God is nonsense proper is that it literally has no sense, nothing for us to talk about because it refers to nothing of sense data.

Anonymous
Now I see why you don't dare to put your real name on either your books or your posts.

Have you not noticed that thousands of experiments have established light's wave-partical duality.
I.e. it is observable?

Have you not noticed that numbers have observable relations with physical phenomena, and that the problem of quantity is a philosophical problem that derives from observable phenomena?

I think you eluded most of us with your "words evolving out of non thinking gases. The only interpretation I can imagine is impolite.

Religious phenomena are amenable to academic study from a literary and social psychological point of view.

But when treated as Theology, their provenance is dubious. You may not agree with Jefferson, but he was a much greater intellect than you are, and perhaps even greater than I.

Henry James boasts: "But the idea that there is a "theological science" to the thought experiment of whether God is a single being or a trinity seems a bunch of nonsense to this great intelligence."

How about entities that can be either particles or waves but not both at the same time?

How about arithmetic and the notion of quantity?

How about words and meanings that somehow evolved out of explosive non thinking gases?

Should we not study this nonsense either?

I'm with Jefferson on the Theologians

Calling Theology an Academic Discipline is akin to doing the same with Astrology.

The Bible is properly studied in Humanities courses, where the patently inhuman behavior of the Old Testament God can be objectively explicated.

But the idea that there is a "theological science" to the thought experiment of whether God is a single being or a trinity seems a bunch of nonsense to this great intelligence.

Jefferson was, first and foremost, a man of science and a person who valued humanity's constant quest for knowledge of the natural world. He despised theologians, refusing to allow them a place on the faculty at the University of Virginia. He intimated that theologians feared the advance of science as witches fear the coming of dawn. Were Jefferson alive today, there can be little doubt that he would be agnostic at least, and more likely an atheist. Bones or no bones.

As the panelists have shown, the answer is that if Jesus' bones were found (or some other discovery that cuts to the very heart of Chrisitianity), there would be multiple reactions:

among conservatives/literalists, many would renounce their faith, some would flavor their faith toward liberal Xianity, others would claim the discovery is in error

among liberals, life would go on as normal. To them Christianty is a religion like Hinduism, more dependent on teachings that history.

among other religions, atheists, and agnostics, nothing would change, but some would not resist saying I told you so.

Dr. Niebuhr, to the extent I can follow the logic of his argument, is somehow reducing the experience of the presence of Jesus to mere subjectivity. That is false, for the presence is experienced in the sacramental Jesus.

To argue that the discovery of Jesus' bones would be meaningless is like suggesting that the institution of the eucharist (according to 3 gospels and Paul) is a myth, and that the presence of Jesus in a consecrated host is an entirely subjective phenomenon. That however, contradicts experience, for like many catholics, I specifically experience his presence in the physical, visible to all, eucharistic host. I do not regularly experience it outside the sacrament as in this sacrament.

As a novelist, I like Dr Niebuhr's approach.

Jesus is our friend,
in the same sense as
Holden Caulfield is our friend, and
Anna Karenina is our friend,
and Captain Ahab is our friend.

The "facts" of Jesus's "life" are no more verifiable than are the "facts" of Anna Karenina's life.

"I have a friend in Jesus" is having an Imaginary Friend who has a highly developed fictional history.

I am happy that gives Dr Niebuhr comfort.

Some of my novels have some characters you might like to become friends with as well.

Jefferson was a cultural christian and philosophical deist in a pre-Darwin time. Post Darwin most deists became agnostic-atheists.

The greater the room for manuever the better the hoax. Now the word "living" is questionable. U.S. taxpayers paid lawyers $500/hr to argue the true meaning of the word "is" so a big long word like "living" must be beyond comprehension and therefore usable to ease one's way around the facts.

Ancient philosophers struggled with words like the word living. The decided that there were bodiless and therefore invisible creatures, gods no less that were alive. The dividing line was set by them at the ability to move by self, no help from other living "automovers." The wind was probably the firts god catalogued because it's so obvious, no body, invisible and capable of blowing down tall trees, pushing sail boats across the water etc.

Ignorance is a horrible thing but not as bad as accepting lies as truths. Learning lies and believing them is negative education, makes the student more ignorant than those who learn nothing at all.

I agree, Dr. Niebuhr, but then why not simply dispense with the resurrection story?