On Hell and Forgiveness

[polymath257]

On the contrary, the books of the NT were *not* written by eye-witnesses. Except for some writings attributed to Paul (but not all of them!), we have little knowledge of who actually wrote the texts. They were certainly not written by the attributed authors. So, no, they did not have personal knowledge. They were reporting what others said.

Wait, what? Peter, James and John were certainly eyewitnesses and authors of books of the NT. Luke wrote Luke and Acts by speaking to eyewitnesses. So...there's that. No one thinks that the apostle with the name actually took up the pen. It was understood that the other three gospels were the accounts from three different groups surrounding the apostles and undertaken by three editors ALL WITHIN the lives of eyewitnesses --including any rebuttal witnesses. Further, there is no reason to suspect the content of the gospels because the content was already believed decades earlier in the churches as well as referred to in ALL the epistles.  So, over a period of 50 years, at least nine authors wrote 27 books containing no less than 55 major doctrines and 180 doctrinal concepts centered on one figure – Jesus Christ. Even further--there are no coherent alternate theory that explains the books AS WELL AS the churches across the Roman Empire that believed that Jesus rose from the dead PRIOR TO 50AD. 

So, it would seem that your "the NT were *not* written by eye-witnesses" is not only an assertion, it is plain false.

Unfortunately, the actual evidence doesn't support your traditional views. Except for some of the wiritings attributed to Paul, there is no reason to think *any* of the apostles had *anything* to do with the gospels attributed to them. In fact, most scholarship specifically denies that possibility.

Let's ask the question: what does it mean to 'exist'? Give me an answer to *that* and we can then define the 'universe' and only then deal with your question.

Exist: have objective reality or being.

Sorry, that only pushes the definition off to the concept of 'reality', which is ultimately equivalent. How do you avoid circular definitions here?

Also, 'objective' requires observation, which limits us to the scientific realm.

How exactly does science say that contingent magical beings are impossible? What, precisely, is the role of contingency here?

Because science is in the business of explaining things by way of physical laws and processes--yet you need the universe to have produced 'magic' which then goes on to violate the laws of the universe that created it. You cannot logically hold together a theory that magical creatures exist as part of this universe. As such, belief in such creatures is delusional.   

My position is that any talk about contingency is a red-herring. It isn't something science actually *ever* deals with.

Wow. Science as it's core requires the concept of contingency. That's what cause and effect are.

Find *one*modern science text that even mentions the philosophical idea of contingency. That is simply no longer a concept that is relevant for modern science. It is founded on a false and silly metaphysics that has been thoroughly discredited.

Also, while the notions of cause and effect are mostly operative for the macroscopic wolrd, they fail at the subatomic level and below. Causality as classically understood is simply not a part of modern science.

And my knowledge of the first 500 years of the Bible is decent (but certainly not perfect).  I stand by what I said until you can give specific reasons to think otherwise.

Really? You are not even referring to it correctly. I think you mean Church History.

No, I mean the history of how the Bible was written, collected, voted upon, and why it is what we now see. The church history is different and an interesting study of how a religion grows in its initial stages from a local cult to a belief dictated by an emperor.

---

No, you don't get it. The *evidence* for evolution comes from testable hypotheses and observations. The evidence for neither deities nor garden gnomes is testable. THAT is partly why they are both delusional.

Ok, so you are saying that we cannot just insert "gnomes" in, and call it delusional.

Perhaps just the things claimed of evolution, which are not testable and repeatable.  Those which are arrived at through inductive logic.  We can insert "garden gnomes" there, and call them delusional.  This would allow for the evolution, that pretty much no one disagrees with, while still calling the rest delusional.   Would this work for you?

Inductive logic is inherently risky. That is why science (including biology) requires testability of its theories (including evolution). Any part that cannot (even in theory) be tested cannot be held as verified. At *best* such ideas should be eliminated. At worst, they should be acknowledged as useful fictions for building our models.