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RE: Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels
March 12, 2014 at 8:52 pm
(March 12, 2014 at 3:45 pm)ronedee Wrote: You are looking at it from a human perspective.
That's kinda my point. We cannot "look at it" from any other perspective. And if we place god's perspective out of reach, then we are at a stalemate. Until such time as I agree that he is there, you can simply tell me I am not focusing properly while guaranteeing me that I'm sooo close.
Quote:In the face of everything I've learned about God and my Faith.... I've failed at times. But, God hasn't abandoned me. Ever! Just like He hasn't abandoned you either Tonus. I see your heart! Keep searching brother. I'll pray that He reveals Himself in a good way to you. If there is even a glimmer of hope in you to find God.... try to at least be open. Just for a time. Peace
I think that if there is a god and he is proving this difficult to locate, yet he is intensely concerned with my welfare, then at some point he'll tap me on the shoulder and we'll have a chat. When Jesus was admonishing the pharisees for their slavish attention to the law, he told them that god wanted "mercy, not sacrifices." Which means that god is more interested in the sort of person we become, and not in whether or not we can train ourselves to slavishly follow rules like rats in a maze.
If that is the case, then he will feel a sense of obligation towards people like me, who served him devoutly and lived the life he commanded me to live and then sought him out only to come up empty. That's cruel. If he's not cruel, he'll be straight with me when the time comes to settle up. If he is cruel, then at least I got to play some Diablo III and enjoy the occasional wank before things all went to shit.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
Most if not all of the questions you have asked here have been answered by men and women who are experts in their related fields pertinent to the questions you are asking.
I have a wonderful book entitled: Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan.
He has, in my opinion, done the most research into the difficult passages found in the OT.
(March 12, 2014 at 4:11 pm)truthBtold Wrote: Finally a fight? But what ever u do... dont grab the junk... or u will loose ur hand..
No fight. Just trying to help is all.
Actually Gary Habermas is "the expert" on nothing. He has a degree in History from a second rate school. He has NO degree in Biblical Studies, or ancient Near Eastern literature, or culture. He's a fraud, practicing in an area he has NO expertise. He's a complete idiot. No mainstream scholar does anything but laugh at the fool. I went to an "On Guard" conference, and asked him a question, and he got pissed off, and said "I don't know". He's a COMPLETE joke, as is William L. Craig. If those two are any indication of the rest on your list, you're in big trouble. Actually THE expert on the resurrection is Dr. BB Scott, at the Tulsa seminary, who wrote "The Trouble with Resurrection".
(Gary Habermas ... OMF'nG). Hahahaha
Next you'll be telling us to read Lee Bullshit Stroebel.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell
Most if not all of the questions you have asked here have been answered by men and women who are experts in their related fields pertinent to the questions you are asking.
I have a wonderful book entitled: Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan.
He has, in my opinion, done the most research into the difficult passages found in the OT.
No fight. Just trying to help is all.
Actually Gary Habermas is "the expert" on nothing. He's a complete idiot. No mainstream scholar does anything but laugh at the fool. I went to an "On Guard" conference, and asked him a question, and he got pissed off, and said "I don't know". He's a COMPLETE joke, as is William L. Craig. If those two are any indication of the rest on your list, you're in big trouble. Actually THE expert on the resurrection is Dr. BB Scott, at the Tulsa seminary, who wrote "The Trouble with Resurrection".
(Gary Habermas ... OMF'nG). Hahahaha
Next you'll be telling us to read Lee Bullshit Stroebel.
Funny anecdote... I had lunch with my pastor and Gary Habermas (they were school buddies) when I was about 14. He told me he was impressed by my inquisitiveness and that I could really make a difference for the Lord someday.
I guess to some degree he was correct--just not to the effect that he envisioned.
And I've also read Paul Copan's book. It's typical Christian propaganda, full of distortions, equivocation, and frighteningly heinous conclusions (God was doing Canaanite children a favor by slaughtering them!).
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
RE: Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels
March 12, 2014 at 11:19 pm
(March 12, 2014 at 11:10 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:
(March 12, 2014 at 11:02 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote: Actually Gary Habermas is "the expert" on nothing. He's a complete idiot. No mainstream scholar does anything but laugh at the fool. I went to an "On Guard" conference, and asked him a question, and he got pissed off, and said "I don't know". He's a COMPLETE joke, as is William L. Craig. If those two are any indication of the rest on your list, you're in big trouble. Actually THE expert on the resurrection is Dr. BB Scott, at the Tulsa seminary, who wrote "The Trouble with Resurrection".
(Gary Habermas ... OMF'nG). Hahahaha
Next you'll be telling us to read Lee Bullshit Stroebel.
Funny anecdote... I had lunch with my paster and Gary Habermas (they were school buddies) when I was about 14. He told me he was impressed by my inquisitiveness and that I could really make a difference for the Lord someday.
I guess to some degree he was correct--just not to the effect that he envisioned.
One of the best books I ever read was the famous Jewish Torah scholar, and philosopher Martin Buber's "Good and Evil", (which is hilarious as Catholics push his "I and Thou" ... if they only knew what was in his other books). He didn't even intend to do so, but ... in Part ii of "Good and Evil" he completely destroys any notion that "salvation", "Original Sin", or the tradition of the "fall" makes any sense in the context of ancient Hebrew culture, and writings. Christianity (or rather Paul of Tarsus) made it all up.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell
RE: Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels
March 13, 2014 at 12:00 am
(March 11, 2014 at 1:45 pm)Jacob(smooth) Wrote:
As Requested
Ok, here's my problem. This is what clinched it for me.
Red is not purple.
Matthew says that the soldiers “put a scarlet robe” on Jesus (27:27-28), Mark says that “they clothed Him with purple ” (15:16-17), and John states that the soldiers put “a purple robe” on Him (19:1-2)
I've heard any number of takes on this and none of them are convincing.
Matthew could have been colourblind. Fine, but that means the human limitations of the authors have to be allowed for. Which means someone else might have written something wrong because of perspective.
It could be that one has to COMBINE the gospels to get to the truth. In which case we have a bible which all together leaves us a robe 2/3rds of the way between purple and red. Which is a different colour which is NOT RED AND NOT PURPLE. Read any one gospel and its wrong.
Or we could go down the route that it was a FADED red robe which was starting to look purple. In which case it wasn't red any more.
Some people have it that the romans used the same word for red AND purple. Bully for them. We don't. Red is not purple. Purple is not red.
I've read (ha) a few other explanations but fundamentally it boils down very simply. Red and purple are different. Thus if it was one thing, it was not the other thing. And if it was a THIRD thing (purply red or reddish purple) then it was NEITHER red nor purple.
That's it. Red is not purple.
Jacob when I was in kindergarten, we were out of Blue paint - and I asked the teacher "how do you mix blue paint?" She said "you can't mix it from other colours, it's a primary colour". I believed this lie until I was in the 10th or 11th grade. You in fact make blue by mixing equal parts cyan and magenta. You make Red by mixing equal parts magenta and yellow. And you make Green by mixing equal parts cyan and yellow.
So the teacher should have said to me "I don't know how to make blue paint", instead of making the wrong assumption that it couldn't be done or the assumption that it is somehow a "primary colour".
There is evidence that the Romans of the era called certain purple shades "red". But ultimately, the colour is in the eye of the witness. No object in the universe truly possess a colour property, I suspect you may actually know this.
Jesus stands trial before dawn - when it's still dark. We, like all mammals, can't see colour at night since our rods are active and not our cones. Or more precisely, depending on the lighting conditions we can perceive some colour but can't discern it very well. In these conditions a BLUE robe could be easily mistaken to be Red, let alone a Purple Robe.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50.-LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea.-LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
RE: Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels
March 13, 2014 at 12:10 am
(March 13, 2014 at 12:00 am)Aractus Wrote:
(March 11, 2014 at 1:45 pm)Jacob(smooth) Wrote:
As Requested
Ok, here's my problem. This is what clinched it for me.
Red is not purple.
Matthew says that the soldiers “put a scarlet robe” on Jesus (27:27-28), Mark says that “they clothed Him with purple ” (15:16-17), and John states that the soldiers put “a purple robe” on Him (19:1-2)
I've heard any number of takes on this and none of them are convincing.
Matthew could have been colourblind. Fine, but that means the human limitations of the authors have to be allowed for. Which means someone else might have written something wrong because of perspective.
It could be that one has to COMBINE the gospels to get to the truth. In which case we have a bible which all together leaves us a robe 2/3rds of the way between purple and red. Which is a different colour which is NOT RED AND NOT PURPLE. Read any one gospel and its wrong.
Or we could go down the route that it was a FADED red robe which was starting to look purple. In which case it wasn't red any more.
Some people have it that the romans used the same word for red AND purple. Bully for them. We don't. Red is not purple. Purple is not red.
I've read (ha) a few other explanations but fundamentally it boils down very simply. Red and purple are different. Thus if it was one thing, it was not the other thing. And if it was a THIRD thing (purply red or reddish purple) then it was NEITHER red nor purple.
That's it. Red is not purple.
Jacob when I was in kindergarten, we were out of Blue paint - and I asked the teacher "how do you mix blue paint?" She said "you can't mix it from other colours, it's a primary colour". I believed this lie until I was in the 10th or 11th grade. You in fact make blue by mixing equal parts cyan and magenta. You make Red by mixing equal parts magenta and yellow. And you make Green by mixing equal parts cyan and yellow.
So the teacher should have said to me "I don't know how to make blue paint", instead of making the wrong assumption that it couldn't be done or the assumption that it is somehow a "primary colour".
There is evidence that the Romans of the era called certain purple shades "red". But ultimately, the colour is in the eye of the witness. No object in the universe truly possess a colour property, I suspect you may actually know this.
Jesus stands trial before dawn - when it's still dark. We, like all mammals, can't see colour at night since our rods are active and not our cones. Or more precisely, depending on the lighting conditions we can perceive some colour but can't discern it very well. In these conditions a BLUE robe could be easily mistaken to be Red, let alone a Purple Robe.
You defend God's divine intervention in writing and preserving a perfect text... by appealing to man's fallibility.
Huh?
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
RE: Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels
March 13, 2014 at 12:40 am
I'm late to this thread.
Has anybody brought up the second robe theory?
I know. It's just a lame ad hoc way of 'splainin' away an obvious contradiction. But that's the way bible contradictions are handled from what I've seen. The bible doesn't say there was only one robe does it?
One red, one purple, simple.
What I want to know is why the all knowing, all powerful God of the universe didn't leave a DVD or a selfie in with those Essene scrolls. That'd be strong evidence. Does He have something to hide?
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?
RE: Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels
March 13, 2014 at 2:48 am
(March 13, 2014 at 1:00 am)Minimalist Wrote: Funny how 'god' is limited to the technology of the time, isn't?
Actually, Jesus left a wax cylinder recording of the sermon on the mount, appropriate for play in a late 19th century phonograph. Unfortunately, it melted before Edison invented the device to play it on, so nobody ever realized what it was.
That's MISTER Godless Vegetarian Tree Hugging Hippie Liberal to you.
