that was pretty funny... I agree....my life would be more convenient without it but once you get it, it's hard to shake. -I wasn't saying that proves there is a God. I was saying that it is evidence that the characters in the Bible are not fictional. People that dismiss Chrisitianity as a superstition based on myths are incorrect. Chrisitianity is based on historical figures that walked the earth. It is just as reasonable to believe Paul is the author of his work as to believe Plato wrote his. You can disbelieve the miracles all you want but the setting was historical. It actually took place, that's my point. I believe in Jesus for a number of reasons but that's not really the point right now. -You guys keep saying that doesn't prove God. Tell me what you would accept as proof of the existence of God, I'm interested to know.
I'm no longer a "paying" member of College Republicans. The Presidential election actually put me off of them. They refused to admit that Bush had any faults. To them, anything that anybody high up from the right wing does - is the right thing. I don't like anybody that refuses to look at things with an open mind. Half of those people don't know what the hell they are talking about, they are just republicans because their parents were. At a college democrats vs college republicans thing they had last semester, in the argument over the public owning guns - a republican actually yelled out, "WE DON'T WANT NONE OF THEM YANKEES COMMIN DOWN AND TAKING AWAY OUR GUNS!" or something along those lines. There is a good argument for the public having guns, but yelling that the yankees are going to come down and take them isn't one of them. As long as I have to pick a side, I'll pick Republicans. I still hate how aligned it is with religion though and they are becoming worse & worse for business. They are still better than Democrats, but they are moving away from the small government ideal they used to have. College Republicans isn't set up to allow me to sway anybody, which is understandable. It's a club for the right wing, they don't want to be anywhere else on any issues. They did offer me to run for an office position, but I politely refused. I still debate whether I want to get into politics for a living or not. I think I could change alot of things for the better, I'm just not sure that my views are easily accepted by the mass of people.
flabengal, for non-believers there will never be proof that God exists. That's why they are non-believers.
I'd have to agree with you but don't you think it's pretty disingenuous of them to ask others to produce proof that the non-believers are not prepared to accept anyway? It's hard to accept their claim to be reasonable, rational people if they act that way. Why do they even ask for proof if they don't have any clue as to what kind of proof they would accept? Anyway, I guess I'll wait for Red.
You guys are tough. -Try this one.....how about if Jesus appeared to you in a vision.....how about that, would that be enough for you? -Or maybe if he told you something that was going to happen in the future and it happened? Would that be enough? -Or maybe if some guy was raised from the dead, right in front of your eyes. Would that be enough? -Or maybe if it didn't happen to you personally, what if it happened to someone you trust, like a brother, friend, mother or whoever. Would you believe them? I doubt it, you'd probably try and convince yourself it was all a hallucination, a hoax or something you ate. You wouldn't even believe your own eyes would you? And you think I'm the one that is brainwashed, huh? Anyway, here's something I found about the evolution part that was being discussed earlier.
OK by me. 1-I have heard of an archaeological artifact that has the word Pontius Pilate on it. To my knowledge is has not yet been authenticated. The recent discovery of a chest that supposedly belonged to Jesus' brother has been exposed as a forgery. 2-Yes there are new testament characters that are independently confirmed. Names of Roman Emperors, the apostle Paul perhaps. I do not question this. It was Jesus of which you stated there was "more evidence". 3-I do not question that the Romans occupied Palestine, this is an established fact. Now you're backing off of your original statement that convincing evidence exists for an historical Jesus, but I would like to hear your "circumstantial" evidence. In any case I don't dismiss early christian writing as biased. It's just not contemporary with Jesus. Bible scholars agree that the gospels were written several centuries after the time in question. There are independent writing from this time that mention Jesus, but they are based on the gospels. What I'm saying is that there is no contemporary text (Christian, Jewish, Roman, or otherwise) still existing that mentions Jesus. I do not maintain Jesus did not exist, only that is cannot be proved historically or achaeologically. I do not maintain that Christianity is a hoax, only that the entire Judeo-Christian saga is a compendium of many millenia of oral tradition, writing, translating, rewriting, and editing. The ethic that it preaches is important to western civilization as well as to the several faiths based upon it. What I maintain is that one can believe and practice the Judeo-Christian ethic by logic in my case, or by faith in yours. It is not necessary for the Bible to be literally true for this to be. There is much creation mythology at play here, much has been borrowed from other sources, errors exist, parables are mistaken for truth, and much has been mistranslated or "spun" by centuries of editors with an agenda. Jesus may be a real man or he may be fictional. Most likely he is a composite. Some of the Dead Seas scroll seem to indicate that John the Baptist and Jesus may have been one and the same. In any case, for a believer, His reality is not important if one has faith in the message. Christianity is not a hoax, at its heart it is a moral ethic. The physical existence of Jesus and whether or not he was a God does not alter its utility. In any moral ethic practised by advanced civilizations, a time comes where the chants, drums, rattles and shamen have to be abandoned in favor of the message. Abraham sacrificed goats and was prepared make a human sacrifice to worship his God. Have you sacrificed any goats lately? Has your failure to sacrifice goats made you unfavored to your God? I doubt it. It's just that you have advanced beyond these things, mon ami. Like all natural systems, religion evolves too. :yelwink2: I am patient and interested. Take your time. In fact it might be better to start a new thread when you have it. This one is getting a lot of sub-threads.
Here's the deal, none of us can know positively beyond any doubt that there is a god or not. I choose faith, and guess where Frogleg's going when he croaks? assuming a good life..etc. Martin has no faith. Guess where he's going? Why risk eternal damnation, losing eternity in paradise, because of some stupid reasoning based on nothing, because we all know jack ****. String Theory's suggest theres as many as 21 dimensions out there = we will never comprehend the nature of this universe, because we will always be 4 dimensioal gumbies.
that is a strange question. most people TODAY would end up in a mental institution or on medication if they claimed to see Jesus in a vision. How do we know that this is Jesus telling us this? What if a homeless man told you and it happened? Do we automatically assume he was Jesus in Human form? This happens everyday in hospitals with the advancement of modern science and medicine. I guess you can argue Jesus or God had something to do with it. No...again, they would most likely end up getting evaluated by a shrink. for the record...I believe in God, I just see the holes in the ideaology. Until I get total proof I will continue to see and find merits in both sides of the arguement.
man, I have beaten this thread to death...... that is my point really. He could appear to someone and they would try and dismiss it. This is really getting ridiculous. What in the hell do people expect, for Jesus to come back and patiently sit in a lab and do miracles for the scientists? I hate to say it but go tell your boss that the last email you got from him, well, it could've been a fake, written by someone else. He's going to need to type it up while your watching. Or tell your parents, you know they acted as if they were your parents and raised you, etc. but, we're going to need DNA testing just to make sure. Or wait for your kids to come and tell you that although you told them to bring out the garbage earlier, they're not sure it wasn't a hallucination so they are going to have to record it on video.....I mean grow up, that's not the way the world works. My dad told me about Billy Cannon's run against Ole Miss. If I hadn't seen the video should I dismiss that? All I can say is I hope there is a doctor on this forum somewhere who can reply to this because I'd have to say that is a wildly inaccurate assertion. I'd like to know the length of time someone has been dead and brought back to life. I'd bet it's not more than a few minutes. Half an hour, tops. Certainly not a day or so like the claim Jesus raised that one boy in the Bible. Any med-students able to answer this? Anyway, the requirements of proof are getting absurdly high here, I see how OJ got off.....
