Atheism, Theism, Science & Philosophy

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Ok Love, I'm not going through this entire thread, but I gather that most of questions are from atheists. This is what concerns me about your perception of Christianity:

I think I had an extremely simplistic view of Christianity when I was an atheist. I thought what most atheists think, such as refuting the idea that Christ died for our sins and denying the historicity of the resurrection. After studying the history of Christian theology, I now know that these core ideas, in popular denominations such as Catholicism, are simply theological interpretations of the significance of the life and death of Jesus. I do not believe that his crucifixion signifies a redemptive sacrifice for our sins; this is a ridiculous concept to me. I am also a skeptic concerning the historicity of the resurrection. However, I firmly believe that Jesus' consciousness was divine and that his life was vastly more important than his death; just consider how profound an impact his life has had on civilisation as a whole. I also believe that The Bible is not particularly important.

Tell me - why should I, an Anglican, not think of you as a heretic?

Because you would first have to identify the heresy as a minimum. The definition of heresy and you as an Anglican would require the Anglican dogma to which the heresy is contrary to. It would also help to refer this to the long history of Anglican heresy trials assuming there have ever been any.

Why don't we work our way through the obvious then.

If Christ's crucifixion doesn't represent a redemptive sacrifice - then what was its purpose, and furthermore, what is its significance to a Christian?

Upon what basis do you assume it has any significance at all? ALL the theological interpretations I have come across say it is only the death. The cross is just production values. Death in bed of old age satisfies the theology. Even if one wants pain and suffering bone cancer would beat an abbreviated crucifixion of hours instead of days. Actual death from suffocation instead of an unexplained quick death in three hours hardly qualifies as suffering a crucifixion at all.

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You dismiss the Bible almost as if there is clear evidence of either intentional tampering or as if those who wrote it were unconcerned with getting the details right and more concerned with pushing their own agendas.

One most reasonably dismisses the bible because the authors are unknown and therefore of unknown character and integrity. They have not more credibility than any random person on the street who also goes unnamed and is of unknown character. Except for GLuke there is no suggestion as to why they were written. Thus there is no reason to assume there was ever any intent to include truthful content in any of the excluded or included books.

If this was the case then it's difficult to accept that 27 separate Greek books in addition to 49 Hebrew books were accepted as canon.

As there is NO RECORD of why any of the books were included and mention of a reason for excluding only one of the 46 gospels that is not even an argument.

And don't think for a moment that the OT canon was any different to what the Palestinian Jews used in the first century - because it isn't.

We are also even back to your claim of 24 Hebrew bible books against Josephus saying there are only 22 holy books among the Judeans. Obviously there was a two book difference and of course we have no knowledge of the remaining 22 being the same in both cases.

To claim otherwise is an absurdity since there is no evidence to back up the position, and all the evidence that we have points to the Jewish scriptures being the same 49 books (22 scrolls) that we have today.

Only if one tries to claim 22 (down from your original 24) scrolls equals 49 books by magical handwaving (gesture magic) does that statement even approach making a lick of sense.

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These are all very good points. I am presently of the opinion that human beings are ultimately limited in terms of being able to comprehend extremely counter intuitive ideas. For example, even quantum physicists / theoretical physicists have trouble coming to terms with concepts such as "wave/particle duality" or even Everett's "many worlds interpretation" of quantum theory. As Dawkins has quoted Richard Feynman on a number of occasions: "if you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory". Although this will be seen as a "cowardly cop out" by some members, I truly believe that there are some things that are completely beyond our comprehension; call it intellectual humility. I think God is one of those areas that is completely beyond our grasp. Just like the idea that nothing existed before the emergence of time; it is beyond our intellectual grasp. What I sense, however, is that the "panentheistic transcendent consciousness" is the source of life, morality and love et cetera.

Physics is an invention of humanity, as is mathematics. Anything invented by humans can be understood by humans, and quantum mechanics is no different.[/quote]

While rulers and inches are a human invention describing distance, distance is not a human invention. Neither is what physics describes a human invention. What physics describes DOES happen. The manner in which physics expresses it has no merit beyond making correct predictions. Same for math. The same for chemistry and biology and the rest of the sciences.

It is almost embarrassingly easy to understand, the difficulty it has is in the fact that it (GASP) represents an invented model of the substructure of the universe, so obviously you cannot actually explain everything in the universe by it.

No one has ever claimed physics will ever lead to a complete view. In this context it is mere juxtaposed to the believers as being better than total ignorance of the universe. Dare I say even god-like ignorance when looking at the ignorance Yahweh expresses?

The notion that "if you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory" is nonsense, QM is far, far, far, far easier to understand than General Relativity

As you understand neither how would you know? For the record I read Einstein's little red book on GR back in high school. He proved his claim he could explain what he was doing to a child.

- because for the most part QM mimics what we see at the scale of classic mechanics, for the most part it follows the standard Newtonian model. There is nothing special, nothing "beyond comprehension" about a mathematical model invented by humans, nothing whatsoever.

As for the universe itself, that's a-whole-nother matter.

It is better to remain silent and thought a fool ...