RE: I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!
August 18, 2009 at 5:35 pm
(This post was last modified: August 18, 2009 at 5:56 pm by Jon Paul.)
(August 18, 2009 at 5:24 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: So anyone who claims to have a historical religious figure, then you must accept them as truth?No. That is emphatically not what I said.
I said very specifically that the historical existence of a person who has some important place in a religion, doesn't need to be disputed, to dispute the truth of the position of that person or religion. As I said, just because I don't dispute the historical existence of persons important to other religions, that doesn't mean I accept them as gods or accept their religious claims, nor does it necessitate it.
(August 18, 2009 at 5:24 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: And also, calling a statement pessimistic doesn't mean Adrian's point was any less valid. His statement was very much valid, as it what I've been talking about all along.It was not valid. It was taking the most pessimistic viewpoint as to the Gospel dating and proclaiming victory. The first versions of the first Gospel was written down possibly as close, to the contrary, as within 15 years of Jesus death, meaning in the time of his contemporaries. Of course, that is only possible so long as one doesn't presuppose that the prediction of the fall of the Jerusalem was not just either a coincidental (and somewhat vague) prediction and therefore naturally possible, from the naturalistic standpoint, OR a priori exclude the Christian viewpoint of the possibility of such a prediction. Both options are perfectly possible, rather than taking it to mean that the first Gospel was written down later than all other facts indicate. In this case, it depends on what is mandated by philosophical presuppositions brought in ready-form to the material.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton