RE: Prove Christianity, not Theism in General
March 22, 2013 at 3:20 am
(This post was last modified: March 22, 2013 at 3:41 am by smax.)
(March 22, 2013 at 12:56 am)Lion IRC Wrote: You dont need a cosmological argument or a teleological argument to show that a gracious God so loves the World that He sent His only Son who gave Himself to bring us the Good News
that The Kingdom of God is closer than you think.
And that people who are sad, broken, afflicted, ashamed, depressed, confused by the sins of this world (greed, hatred, violence, injustice) can find salvation, forgiveness and hope if they want.
And His death and Resurrection shows us that God DOES love us and that death is not the end.
I find it sad that intelligent people (I count as you as one) actually get caught on the wrong side of this pre-supposition about god sacrificing his only son (or himself).
You are prepared to argue that there are elements of science and reality that point to intelligent design. No, that's an understatement. You are prepared to argue for extremely intelligent design.
And yet, at the same time, you buy into the idea that this god of such extreme intelligence, would create the human species only for the very purpose of suffering a terrible, torturous, and humiliating death for the sake of human redemption.
If you can step outside your background, affiliation and bias for just one second, and consider this from an objective standpoint, what you will find is nothing more than a major stroking of the human ego.
(March 22, 2013 at 2:06 am)radorth Wrote:(March 21, 2013 at 11:32 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I would like for once to see an actual argument that would attempt to prove specifically Christianity and not just basic theism.
As for the historicity of Jesus, Durant said it best:
"The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies -- for example, Hammurabi, David, Socrates -- would fade into legend. Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed -- the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man."
In a word, you can't make this stuff up. Inventors would have hidden probably a quarter of the NT.
In a word, you can make this stuff up. In fact, many cultures and civilizations did make this stuff up long before Jesus allegedly existed. The stories you see in the bible are merely plagiarisms of previous tales of other mythological characters and gods.
Here's a link:
Building Jesus through other gods