How to tell a real freethinker

[Esquilax]

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).

Well, all that is fine. My issue is that one can't take the fact that certain mundane claims were- possibly- true, and expand that out to "every religious claim including miraculous or divine ones are honest reporting." It's entirely possible for all the normal stuff to be true without saying anything about Jesus' divinity, and that's the only claim that matters.

Nobody is justified in following a religion purporting to be based around these divine claims because the non-divine ones might be true.

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.

My independent judgement is that all religions are a crock. I am an atheist, after all.

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.

I was only talking about accepting the possibility. Not leaping to the conclusion that it's all necessarily false, just that the possibility exists that it could all be wrong. It's the first step to freeing yourself; accepting the idea that the book isn't some inviolable correct thing regardless of its mistakes.

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?

No, I just think that Jefferson was wrong on this count. Am I not allowed to make judgement calls about a person's individual positions?

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."

http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Persecuti...0062104527

Also, suffering doesn't denote truth. People can suffer for misplaced beliefs, you know. Nazis suffer some pretty heavy persecution today, that doesn't give their claims or beliefs any kind of accuracy.

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.

So, first of all, trying to connect evolution and the big bang kind of betrays your ignorance about this subject. Second of all, the answer is "we don't know, but we're looking." Not knowing doesn't justify one to just stick god in there and call it a day, you know.

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.

That "at the moment," is a bit of a hint; once again, when we don't know, that is the answer, it doesn't follow that it must be god. It follows that we must keep searching.

Also, what "evolutionary conundrums" are you talking about? Just because you don't know doesn't mean there isn't a currently available answer. Mayhap you can be educated.