How to tell a real freethinker

[radorth]

My point was never that "it doesn't matter even if it's true." My point is that "Jesus was a good person," is a very different claim to "Jesus was literally god." "Jesus was a good person," is a fairly mundane claim, and though still debatable, is one that can be resolved without saying a thing about the truth of the christian religion or the gospel accounts of Jesus. It says essentially nothing, because fictional characters can still be good people within the context of their fictional world.

Now, I figured that you were trying to assert that Jesus was the son of god, but if you're just trying to say that he was a nice guy,

I don't get it. You seem to be assuming a great deal about what I am saying. You have created a false dichotomy, i.e it's either he was a nice guy or divine. But I am saying, answer Durant's logic for taking the Gospels at face value, including what he believes is the honest reporting of the resurrection. (There he suggests they were merely mistaken. Jesus only swooned, a huge stretch IMO but possible I guess).

Funnily enough, I've never been able to ascertain which of the thousands of christian denominations really follows the teachings of the bible. I mean, they all claim to with utter conviction, but they can't all be right, now can they? And strangely, each of them believes that all the others aren't doing it quite right either, so...

Which has nothing to do with your making an independent judgement, which you strangely and suddenly find too hard. I once thought that's what you guys were all about. I found out otherwise.

Well, if you're making room to allow for the fact that some of the gospels might be incorrect, why not just go whole hog and make room for the possibility that all of it is? And if all of it could be incorrect, why follow it as a religion?

Because to do that I would have to commit a primary logical fallacy which is "False in one part, therefore false in all." Like I said, juries don't do that either. It's not an acceptable way to arrive at truth.

Similarly, I'd strenuously object to this talk of "sublime and benevolent" morality, given that the bible features some of the most immoral stuff I've ever read, made so because it passes it all off as divine command.

Those are Jefferson's words, and he added "...code of morals ever recorded." So shall we assume you do not consider him a free-thinker and that you have a superior intellect?

And I'm rather puzzled by your inability to grasp the motives of the gospel writers: given that there are plenty of religions you don't follow, it seems you're very capable of ascribing motivations to people who've developed false religions, why not extend those to the gospel authors? It's essentially the same stuff.

Not at all the same, I realized when I first started looking at all the religions, as an atheist. The early Christians suffered enormous, bloody and painful persecutions because of their certainty, their inability to disbelieve, based not only on the Gospel record but their personal experience of what Jesus promised, the testimony of the apostles, such as spiritual gifts and "rivers of living water" Jesus said would "flow from his innermost being."

Well, okay, let me amend that: lying or mistaken. And I figure the burden of proving that has already been fulfilled, given just how much of the bible has been revealed to be false by science, or to be immoral by simple logic. For a book purporting to be inspired by a constantly correct creator deity, it certainly has a lot of mistakes in it.

Science has it's own problems with explaining origins, which problems only grow in number and are hypocritical anyway. "What evolutionary or other force created the big bang?" they don't bother to ask or answer. They suggest theories which can NEVER be proven, like string theory. (Not that it's wrong, just that it can't be proven) The only theory that explains all evolutionary conundrums and all problems with origins at the moment is God assisted evolution, which Augustine seems to have postulated in the 5th century.