I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[chatpilot]

JP answer me this.What makes Christianity so different to previous religious movements in existence at the time of its inception?My view is simply that man created gods out of a lack of understanding of the world they lived in and where they themselves came from.By simply studying comparative religion you will see that Christianity is nothing more than a conglomeration of plagiarized myths prevalent in those days and prior to those times.The only reason I believe that Christianity has endured so long and has prospered so well is that it was accepted by the Roman government and fully backed by the system.They were the law and they imposed their beliefs on everyone under threat of death for blasphemy or just being against them.

[Jon Paul]

JP answer me this.What makes Christianity so different to previous religious movements in existence at the time of its inception?My view is simply that man created gods out of a lack of understanding of the world they lived in and where they themselves came from.By simply studying comparative religion you will see that Christianity is nothing more than a conglomeration of plagiarized myths prevalent in those days and prior to those times.The only reason I believe that Christianity has endured so long and has prospered so well is that it was accepted by the Roman government and fully backed by the system.They were the law and they imposed their beliefs on everyone under threat of death for blasphemy or just being against them.

You are not really asking a question, but shoving an extremely pessimistic view of the historical place, origins -and theological significance- of Christianity down my throat. What is so different, I will tell you, is the Christ. As to the rest, I am not interested in your crackpot Marxist theories about history, nor your genetic and straw man fallacy about myths and Christianitys relation to them.

[Kyuuketsuki]

In which case the multiverse also never came into existence in a temporal sense (time being a an attribute of our universe)

Well, whether a thing is temporal or not isn't the sole criteria for pure actuality (since that's what you errorneously assume). Angels are not held by Christian metaphysics to be temporal in the sense of the universe, either, but they are not God for that reason.

Of course what's really noticeable ...

All this psychobabble about pure actuality and all that is just a dodge to stop you having to make any sense ... all it is is post modernist claptrap!

Right. I have already told you denying the reality and difference between actuality and potentiality is not going to work. It's not in accord with modern physics nor with any basic intuition about reality. And those terms are certainly not post-modernist, they have been used in a 2500 long philosophical tradition and their use survives to this day in modern physics and metaphysics.

... is that YOU DID NOT ANSWER MY POST AT ALL!

What fucking good are you?

Kyu

[chatpilot]

Well JP I hate to rain on your parade but Christ is a mythological personage invented by man basing themselves on previous saviour myths.Whether you believe it or not it's not my problem.Regarding marxism the only marxist are the catholic church who were too busy killing everyone who did not agree with their bullshit mythological Christ and their fairy tales.How many people did your church burn at the stake?How many did they torture in the inquisition to impose by force their religious views?If anyone was a marxist it was the Catholic church.

[Jon Paul]

Of course what's really noticeable ...

... is that YOU DID NOT ANSWER MY POST AT ALL!

What fucking good are you?

Kyu

I answered your post sincerely, from my point of view. Maybe I missed something? I just read your post again, I can't see it. But I do apologise if my answer did something to offend you.

---

Well JP I hate to rain on your parade but Christ is a mythological personage invented by man basing themselves on previous saviour myths.

I have already pointed to the evidence for his historical existence and the dual special pleading involved in denying his hostorical existence. Let me point out that it's unnecessary to deny the existence of Jesus, to reject his teachings or reject Christianity.

Whether you believe it or not it's not my problem.Regarding marxism the only marxist are the catholic church who were too busy killing everyone who did not agree with their bullshit mythological Christ and their fairy tales.How many people did your church burn at the stake?How many did they torture in the inquisition to impose by force their religious views?If anyone was a marxist it was the Catholic church.

Fantastic. Another highly pathically driven statement about history. I am not going to start giving you my (more realistic) perspective on history, because I don't think this point of view deserves a serious treatment, and the pathos behind it would make it meaningless, anyway.

[Eilonnwy]

[quote='Jon Paul' pid='26775' dateline='1250551114']

I have already pointed to the evidence for his historical existence and the dual special pleading involved in denying his hostorical existence. Let me point out that it's unnecessary to deny the existence of Jesus, to reject his teachings or reject Christianity.

Can you provide contemporary evidence?

[Jon Paul]

[quote='Jon Paul' pid='26775' dateline='1250551114']

I have already pointed to the evidence for his historical existence and the dual special pleading involved in denying his hostorical existence. Let me point out that it's unnecessary to deny the existence of Jesus, to reject his teachings or reject Christianity.

Can you provide contemporary evidence?

I can provide evidence whose source is contemporary, yes. Can I provide a document which is carbon-14 dated from 10 A.D. attesting to Jesus existence? No. Can I provide a document from 10 B.C. attesting to many other historical personages from the same time? No. It's irrelevant and special pleading to use that as an excuse to deny Jesus existence in specific, while not denying historical validty of many other ancient evidences generally taken to be valid by historians and scholars. Per historical method, we can know the existence of many historical persona without having, if there was contemporary record, the original contemporary document or souce material that exists itself, but by having sources which are a) containing earlier sources information which is either contemporary or close to, b) generally speaking by the source material written by persons who lived contemporarily with the person in question.

[FaithAffirmed]

Here's mah question, do you believe in the bible as completely literal or symbolic?

[Eilonnwy]

I can provide evidence whose source is contemporary, yes. Can I provide a document which is carbon-14 dated from 10 A.D. attesting to Jesus existence? No. Can I provide a document from 10 B.C. attesting to many other historical personages from the same time? No. It's irrelevant and special pleading to use that as an excuse to deny Jesus existence in specific, while not denying historical validty of many other ancient evidences generally taken to be valid by historians and scholars. Per historical method, we can know the existence of many historical persona without having, if there was contemporary record, the original contemporary document or souce material that exists itself, but by having sources which are a) containing earlier sources information which is either contemporary or close to, b) generally speaking by the source material written by persons who lived contemporarily with the person in question.

So in short, no. However, Nice fancy hand-waving there.

By the way, there is contemporary evidence for other historical figures at the time, like Caeser and Herod. We can conclusively know for a fact that they exist. Yet we cannot have contemporary evidence for someone who was supposedly known to have performed miracles and raise people from the dead? Absolutely none of his supposed apostles wrote anything down? No historian bothered to mention a man who was executed for being the king of the Jews? I know it was 2 thousand years ago, but historians did exist at the time, why do we have absolutely no account of Jesus until 40 years after he is claimed to have died?

[chatpilot]

As in all things Christian Jesus never existed it is all based on faith in ancient script and fairy tales.None of the words of Christ in the bible are truly his and none of those close to him ever wrote anything about him.Jesus himself never wrote a single word in the New Testament.Conveniently they were all illiterate and could not read or write it includes the so called 500 who saw him get caught up in a cloud when he ascended to heaven.Apparently the historians of the day were not interested in a man who was raising people from the dead and healing the sick in masses.JP all of the evidence you provide is circumstantial evidence and would not hold up in a court of law.Your so called evidence requires faith in the improbable and the impossible.Ancient documents retelling fairy tales is not evidence of any kind the Greeks had alot of those documents to prove that their gods existed based on their myths as evidenced in Greek mythology.

Now why do you deny your churches history?It is a bloody history and it is recorded and factual there is no covering it up.But maybe your version is more up to date and truer because the church fathers have an answer to that too.Covering up the crimes that your church has committed in the name of the Lord is a tall order.