Jesus did not rise from the dead -- My debate opening statement.

[Minimalist]

From J. P. Jenkins "The Lost History of Christianity."

In the 1220s, Solomon of Basra responded wearily to the painful literalism with which many lesser thinkers read biblical metaphors:

The things which certain stupid men invent, who indulge their fancy, and give bodily form to the punishment of sinners and the reward of the just and righteous, and say that there is at the resurrection a reckoning and a pair of scales, the Church does not receive; but each one of us carries his light and his fire within him, and his heaviness and his lightness is found in his own nature. Just as stone and iron naturally possess the property of falling to the earth, and as the air naturally ascends upward on account of its rarity and its lightness; so also in the resurrection, he that is heavy and lying in sins, his sins will bring him down; and he that is free from the rust of sin, his purity will make him rise in the scale.34
 

To paraphrase Solomon, the Bible is a complex text that makes rich use of metaphor and other literary devices, so that we hear of the gates of hell, the fires of hell, or of souls being weighed in the balance. But only an idiot understands these images in the sense of real, literal gates, scales, or fires instead of thinking spiritually how sins shaped one’s destiny.

Solomon of Basra was a Nestorian xtian bishop and he never had the misfortune of meeting Dripshit.... but he nailed him to a tee!

[The Grand Nudger]

My 2cents...the misfortune was in requiring some pedigree, when this whole christianity shit got started.......that they felt compelled to take an older myth from an ignorant time and affix it to what was, essentially, a popularizing tale for hellenic stoicism (obviously tailored to the peculiar audience which received it).

The effect of that, today and in the past, is that we've got totally -not- batshit crazy dumbasses™ focusing on the preamble to the detriment of the message. The overarching "don't be a dick" narrative turns into the very reason that evangelical wastes of space engage in the asshattery they've become so well known for.

Meanwhile, stoicism without all the christ and yahweh mumbo jumbo is alive and well and not at all implicated in any of that bullshit - just as an example that it could have gone another way and didn;t -have- to result in what it did...the only difference between the two being the shit thumpers pound out all day erryday....and that, to me, suggests which part of the narrative is the problem.

[Pat Mustard]

I seriously hope you didn't post that link for my benefit. Lol.

For that matter, I hope you didn't post it for Drich's sake -- unless you are prepared to go down the exegetical rabbit hole with him for the next 40 pages.

I gave at the fucking office.

Christian Biblical literalism has been falsified; it is time for that portion of the human race that had embraced that fantasy, either through birth, the result of marriage or intellectual laziness and other shortcomings to move on.

Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen gave a very good explanation of why biblical literalists are still around, basically stating that once one accepts the scientific worldview and everything it has discovered you have to remove so much from the bible that the whole thing falls apart. They gave fundies credit on that aspect of their religion (alone) the realisation that more modernist versions of christianity (such as catholicism or anglicanism) fail to grasp; that accepting reality to any extent makes being christian a joke.

[Tonus]

Oh my, you haven't had the benefit of Drich's views on Genesis, have you? 

Short version: Earth/cosmos older than 10,000 years . . . evolution not necessarily disputed . . . "monkey-man" pre-Garden-of-Eden, followed by literal Adam and Eve (true, spirit-endowed humans) . . . etc.

It's a magnificent mess and a fine example of what happens when people really take the Bible to be true and then needlessly contort themselves to make it "fit" with what science has found. On this issue, Drich seems to be a church of one. In any case, I've never come across anyone with a similar take on the question.

AronRa just completed a series of videos critiquing one of David C. Pack's videos, and in one of them Pack explains that between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 there is a 13.5 billion year gap where the universe and Earth take shape, are inhabited by people and eventually invaded by demons and is turned into a scorched and barren world that god then begins to prepare for a second shot at populating it with humans.

I suppose it's a natural extension of the constant interpretation and re-interpretation of the Bible that Christians have been doing for centuries as humanity gains more and more knowledge about the world. Perhaps we should have expected that they would find a way to shoehorn the age of the universe into scripture.

[Cyberman]

Yeah, I've been watching them. Poor Pack's pwnage is painfully palpable.

[robvalue]

I've heard it said that Christianity seems far more willing to bend than Islam. In my experience, this seems to be true. This allows it to integrate much better into secular societies.

[Jehanne]

Christian Biblical literalism has been falsified; it is time for that portion of the human race that had embraced that fantasy, either through birth, the result of marriage or intellectual laziness and other shortcomings to move on.

Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen gave a very good explanation of why biblical literalists are still around, basically stating that once one accepts the scientific worldview and everything it has discovered you have to remove so much from the bible that the whole thing falls apart. They gave fundies credit on that aspect of their religion (alone) the realisation that more modernist versions of christianity (such as catholicism or anglicanism) fail to grasp; that accepting reality to any extent makes being christian a joke.

What a wonderful synopsis!  Sums up my journey from a traditional Christian worldview directly to atheism.  There comes a point when a "critical mass" is lost and the whole thing collapses; the so-called modernistic view of religion just never appealed to me, and I still find it to be hollow and superficial.  It's like a bridge that is missing its main deck.

[Drich]

Oh, really!  Are you truly serious?!!!  Are you saying that if some early Church Father (say, Irenaeus) had referenced a passage from Josephus that mentioned Jesus but was not among the known surviving works of Josephus that scholars are in possession of today, you would not cite that as evidence for the historical Jesus?

No retardus.. I said nothing of the sort. I am point out Josephus would be a minor is not completely insignificant source, MEANING his literary works would not have needed to cataloged and accounted for. Why? Because it is plausible that someone like Irenaaus of Gaul was old enough to be a member of a church who contained member old enough to witness or experience Christ or the apsotles themselves. therefore Josephus' tertiary account would have little hold or meaning when you/he had access to a actual first hand witness wouldn't you say?

Drich, your "scholarship" (if it can be called that) is beyond poor.  Just curious, do you believe that the Earth and/or Cosmos are less than 10,000 years old?  If so, I have nothing further to say to you; your beliefs are equivalent to someone who believes that the South won the Civil War.

what a narrow world view you have. It's one or the other huh? Can't reason or fathom anything past what you've been taught?

Let me tell you what I believe. I believe there is no time line set in the bible from the last Day of Creation, to the expulsion of Adam and Eve form the garden. I also believe while the Garden was built on the third day I was built and acted like a preserve of the future (Meaning it was a complete picture of what the world was like 6000 years ago, even if the rest of the world had to "yet evolve.")

This simply means no matter how old you douche bags claim the earth is... God's Creation Account when properly read (mean do not add an artificial time line into what was written) can assimilate whatever science has to say about the age of this earth. It also answers the questions of where did the city come from Cain fled to? who did Adam and Eve's Children marry.

We can go much deeper if you like.

P.S.  The early Church fathers referenced and quoted a number of authors and/or writings outside of the New Testament, which was not even formed until the mid-4th century, over 300 years after the death of Jesus.

So???

Or was that supposed to be some 'new revelation' that was supposed to shock me?

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Drich, your "scholarship" (if it can be called that) is beyond poor.  Just curious, do you believe that the Earth and/or Cosmos are less than 10,000 years old?  If so, I have nothing further to say to you; your beliefs are equivalent to someone who believes that the South won the Civil War.

Oh my, you haven't had the benefit of Drich's views on Genesis, have you? 

Short version: Earth/cosmos older than 10,000 years . . . evolution not necessarily disputed . . . "monkey-man" pre-Garden-of-Eden, followed by literal Adam and Eve (true, spirit-endowed humans) . . . etc.

It's a magnificent mess and a fine example of what happens when people really take the Bible to be true and then needlessly contort themselves to make it "fit" with what science has found. On this issue, Drich seems to be a church of one. In any case, I've never come across anyone with a similar take on the question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

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Oh my, you haven't had the benefit of Drich's views on Genesis, have you? 

Short version: Earth/cosmos older than 10,000 years . . . evolution not necessarily disputed . . . "monkey-man" pre-Garden-of-Eden, followed by literal Adam and Eve (true, spirit-endowed humans) . . . etc.

It's a magnificent mess and a fine example of what happens when people really take the Bible to be true and then needlessly contort themselves to make it "fit" with what science has found. On this issue, Drich seems to be a church of one. In any case, I've never come across anyone with a similar take on the question.

Our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, did not descend from 2 individuals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

The bible never claims that it does. It simply makes a point in saying we are sons of Adam.

Again in my narrative I point out the Genesis 1,2,3,4 are central garden narratives. Meaning if you were sat in the middle of the garden and told to record this is what you would see. It does not mean life outside the garden worked the same way. In fact we know it didn't as God told Adam and Eve of all the struggles they would face outside the garden.

Again the garden was a perserve, meaning it was kept apart from the rest of the natural world. Natural world meaning evolved world. a world where man/you descendants share a line with monkeys. We are told in the garden When God created Adam and Eve he breathed a living soul into them. That is the difference between those in the garden and those who 'evolved' outside the garden.

So then how does everyone have a soul?

Hmmm..


Only if there was a great bottle neck in human history when just about everyone dies, expect those with souls...

Do you see? Not everyone is descendant from two people, but at the same time are all share a soul/can be called sons of Adam.

[Crossless2.0]

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Oh my, you haven't had the benefit of Drich's views on Genesis, have you? 

Short version: Earth/cosmos older than 10,000 years . . . evolution not necessarily disputed . . . "monkey-man" pre-Garden-of-Eden, followed by literal Adam and Eve (true, spirit-endowed humans) . . . etc.

It's a magnificent mess and a fine example of what happens when people really take the Bible to be true and then needlessly contort themselves to make it "fit" with what science has found. On this issue, Drich seems to be a church of one. In any case, I've never come across anyone with a similar take on the question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

A swing and a miss!

I'm not arguing that you're wrong because you are a minority of one. Rather, I'm suggesting that you are a minority of one because you are batshit crazy.

[Drich]

Right, but you're a human being, a monkey man -without- a soul.  Drich and his are another type of animal, apparently.  The soulified ones are the ones descended from a dirtman and a ribgirl, not you and I.  Still trying to figure out how god managed not to kill us all off in that little rainstorm he engineered.  I don't recall any of our species being on the cargo manifest of the SS Jehovah.  



(by the by, for all the shit you -could- give drich on the subject, the notion that the human beings in the garden were not the same as the rest of the fuckers outside the garden is absolutely biblical and foundational to the created and chosen race schtick being peddled by it's authors)

Sorry Kermit...

But we all have souls... the last Souless son of a monkey man died begging to be let into the ark.

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I seriously hope you didn't post that link for my benefit. Lol.

For that matter, I hope you didn't post it for Drich's sake -- unless you are prepared to go down the exegetical rabbit hole with him for the next 40 pages.

I gave at the fucking office.

Christian Biblical literalism has been falsified; it is time for that portion of the human race that had embraced that fantasy, either through birth, the result of marriage or intellectual laziness and other shortcomings to move on.

Perhaps by small minded people who do not wish to contiplate a greater truth... That being the creation account as recorded in scripture can and does encompass any scientific theory and can still ring completely true.

All on need do is eliminate the time line the church/religion has false put on the end of creation and the fall of Man. Once you allow the bible to simply read as written, then the planet/galaxy universe can be as old as you little mind needs it to be.

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Oh my, you haven't had the benefit of Drich's views on Genesis, have you? 

Short version: Earth/cosmos older than 10,000 years . . . evolution not necessarily disputed . . . "monkey-man" pre-Garden-of-Eden, followed by literal Adam and Eve (true, spirit-endowed humans) . . . etc.

It's a magnificent mess and a fine example of what happens when people really take the Bible to be true and then needlessly contort themselves to make it "fit" with what science has found. On this issue, Drich seems to be a church of one. In any case, I've never come across anyone with a similar take on the question.

AronRa just completed a series of videos critiquing one of David C. Pack's videos, and in one of them Pack explains that between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 there is a 13.5 billion year gap where the universe and Earth take shape, are inhabited by people and eventually invaded by demons and is turned into a scorched and barren world that god then begins to prepare for a second shot at populating it with humans.

I suppose it's a natural extension of the constant interpretation and re-interpretation of the Bible that Christians have been doing for centuries as humanity gains more and more knowledge about the world.  Perhaps we should have expected that they would find a way to shoehorn the age of the universe into scripture.

actually this is called 'gap theory.' It is a very old theory dating back to the 1800s. The problem with this theory is one has to ADD to the creation account, to make it work.

While I move the 'gap' from the completion of the garden of the 3rd day and the fall of man which many believe to be on the 8th day. I simply state the fall of man could have happened on the 8th day, but it could have happens a 100 billion years after the creation of the garden as well!! This means if the world was left to evolve outside the garden on it's own time, we can also account for the city on Nod, and the people the descendants of Adam married without going into incest.

Simply put there is no time line.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

A swing and a miss!

I'm not arguing that you're wrong because you are a minority of one. Rather, I'm suggesting that you are a minority of one because you are batshit crazy.

So... Removing an artificial time recorded in religion not found in the bible and the statement God completely the world in the garden to reflect what it would look like outside at the time of the fall/explution due to natural evolution makes me crazy??

Why?