Confessions of a former Christian fundamentalist.

[Jehanne]

Incomplete does not mean completely useless. It has very practical applications as a science. But even with being incomplete it is not a bronze age comic book, and no it does not justify "anything goes by default". And it still does not justify one god claim over another. On top of Hawking saying "A God is not required".

Don't feed religion with talk like this. They'll twist the word "incomplete" as "AH HA SO YOU DON'T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS.....Therefore my deity did it!"

Don't take that as a demand, just advise because we also have to deal with it when they put stupid definitions on words like "Law" and "theory". Just saying.

Even if Many-Worlds Interpretation turns out to be true, Jesus still would not be the God of the whole cosmos.

QM presumes that the Conservation Laws of Nature (energy, momentum, angular momentum, etc.) are all true, which means that miracles, per QM, are physical impossibilities.  So one can hardly appeal to a physical theory in an attempt to "justify" something that is not just "very, very improbable", but impossible.  This is just special pleading at its worst.

[Reforged]

 For awhile, I complied, being led by my weiner; however, the multimedia era in which we live caught up with me (not to mention my college education) and overcame my desire to date feminine, skirt-wearing fundamentalist Christian women.  In the end, I had no choice but to conclude that Biblical fundamentalism was pure bullshit; my abandonment of theism would come later on.

WOO! I want a second chapter. I demand you date a punk chick.

[Whateverist]

Ah, quantum mechanics . . .  the last refuge of woo peddlers who don't remotely understand the topic and the math that girds it.

What you're saying sounds more like woo than any appeal to QM I'm making.

You're brainwashed. Seriously.

I'm sure it gives you a great deal of comfort to think that.

[Delicate]

So while I admire your attempt I think your account is quite weak due to the issues raised.

While I think one might be rational in not believing, if we concede there is no a priori impossibility of miracles established, believing in the resurrection given God's existence seems not terribly problematic one the anti miracle bias if dealt with.

One could make the same claim regarding the so-called Miracle of Calanda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda

With this supposed "miracle", we have "people, places, and things," and with respect to the latter category, documentation.  And, yet, few, if any, Christian evangelicals are believers.  Belief in Jesus' bodily resurrection is predicated upon a whole host of assumptions (historical reliability of the Gospels & Epistles, their unembellished transmission down through the centuries, etc.)  With such a "standard", one might as well believe the 1500 or so individuals who've claimed to have been abducted by aliens, psychic readers, or those who've claimed to have had direct experiences with the so-called paranormal.  If we can say anything about the so-called "resurrection" of Jesus, it is that it is not unique.  Now, ask yourself, do you believe in this:

The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:52-53)

So, not only did Jesus supposedly rise from the dead, others did as well!  We are talking not about one resurrection here but "many", and yet, no one, other than the "believers" noticed any of this.  Life went on in the Roman Empire as before, and the reaction of the Empire was not terribly significant, was it?  (In fact, there was no reaction of the Roman authorities.)  Of course, many of those 1st-century Christians believed that the World was flat, and that was the World in which they lived in.  Only later on, as more intellectually-minded individuals began to embrace Christianity, did the idea of a spherical Earth enter into Christian theology and doctrine.

Why would evangelicals reject that miracle account? I don't see why that must be the case. I haven't investigated it, but I don't know that it's false either.

Likewise with the assumptions undergirding Jesus' bodily resurrection. What exactly is the problem with these assumptions? You haven't shown that they are problematic.

As for Matthew 27, that is one of the more challenging passages of the account. But it's not challenging for the reasons you've mentioned. There is no evidence for your claim that nobody but believers noticed the body.

The assumption that if a Roman soldier saw it they would automatically make it part of secular historical canon is absurd: historical writings were very difficult to perform at that point in time, and not all monumental, even miraculous events of the time were recorded. I think you need to put a finer point on your objection here. Are you saying the Bible ought to confirm it?

As it is, it's not obvious what the problem is for the religious believer.

[Brian37]

One could make the same claim regarding the so-called Miracle of Calanda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda

With this supposed "miracle", we have "people, places, and things," and with respect to the latter category, documentation.  And, yet, few, if any, Christian evangelicals are believers.  Belief in Jesus' bodily resurrection is predicated upon a whole host of assumptions (historical reliability of the Gospels & Epistles, their unembellished transmission down through the centuries, etc.)  With such a "standard", one might as well believe the 1500 or so individuals who've claimed to have been abducted by aliens, psychic readers, or those who've claimed to have had direct experiences with the so-called paranormal.  If we can say anything about the so-called "resurrection" of Jesus, it is that it is not unique.  Now, ask yourself, do you believe in this:

So, not only did Jesus supposedly rise from the dead, others did as well!  We are talking not about one resurrection here but "many", and yet, no one, other than the "believers" noticed any of this.  Life went on in the Roman Empire as before, and the reaction of the Empire was not terribly significant, was it?  (In fact, there was no reaction of the Roman authorities.)  Of course, many of those 1st-century Christians believed that the World was flat, and that was the World in which they lived in.  Only later on, as more intellectually-minded individuals began to embrace Christianity, did the idea of a spherical Earth enter into Christian theology and doctrine.

Why would evangelicals reject that miracle account? I don't see why that must be the case. I haven't investigated it, but I don't know that it's false either.

Likewise with the assumptions undergirding Jesus' bodily resurrection. What exactly is the problem with these assumptions? You haven't shown that they are problematic.

As for Matthew 27, that is one of the more challenging passages of the account. But it's not challenging for the reasons you've mentioned. There is no evidence for your claim that nobody but believers noticed the body.

The assumption that if a Roman soldier saw it they would automatically make it part of secular historical canon is absurd: historical writings were very difficult to perform at that point in time, and not all monumental, even miraculous events of the time were recorded. I think you need to put a finer point on your objection here. Are you saying the Bible ought to confirm it?

As it is, it's not obvious what the problem is for the religious believer.

None of that book was written during the alleged claimed time of the Jesus character's existence. The NT was written way after the fact. The entire bible itself took over 1,000 years and 40 authors with books left out.

I find it absurd that believers will claim their deity to be all powerful, blinks all this with a poof, into existence, but cant or wont poof one book into existence? And on top of that writes competing versions humans fight over. 

I would not hire such an inept being to run a bicycle factory. The bikes would end up with squid for spokes and the workers would murder each other over the competing assembly manuals. 

QM will not defend Christianity, or Islam, or Jewish or Hindu, or any deity claim. It s not a science used to prop up old books by any name. The god of the gaps argument does not work for any religion.

If QM= "Anything goes because you cant disprove it" then if the Jesus character had been beheaded instead of nailed to a cross, QM could have him magically regrow his head. Funny how we never see humans come back from a decapitation.

[Jehanne]

 For awhile, I complied, being led by my weiner; however, the multimedia era in which we live caught up with me (not to mention my college education) and overcame my desire to date feminine, skirt-wearing fundamentalist Christian women.  In the end, I had no choice but to conclude that Biblical fundamentalism was pure bullshit; my abandonment of theism would come later on.

WOO! I want a second chapter. I demand you date a punk chick.

Sorry; this was over two decades ago.  Eventually, I did get married.  Point of this thread is that Christian fundamentalism uses cult-like tactics to recruit and retain individuals.  Like all other religions, it is just a meme.  The ground game has, however, changed since the late 80s, when I was involved in it.  While a lot of Christian fundamentalists don't care (say, about evolutionary science or higher Biblical criticism), making such knowledge available online to the masses will at least keep the "religious right" from becoming a majority ever again.  Hopefully, they can be driven to near-extinction, if not complete extinction over time.

---

Why would evangelicals reject that miracle account? I don't see why that must be the case. I haven't investigated it, but I don't know that it's false either.

Likewise with the assumptions undergirding Jesus' bodily resurrection. What exactly is the problem with these assumptions? You haven't shown that they are problematic.

As for Matthew 27, that is one of the more challenging passages of the account. But it's not challenging for the reasons you've mentioned. There is no evidence for your claim that nobody but believers noticed the body.

The assumption that if a Roman soldier saw it they would automatically make it part of secular historical canon is absurd: historical writings were very difficult to perform at that point in time, and not all monumental, even miraculous events of the time were recorded. I think you need to put a finer point on your objection here. Are you saying the Bible ought to confirm it?

As it is, it's not obvious what the problem is for the religious believer.

There were a lot of so-called "miracle workers" in first century Judea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honi_ha-M'agel

The Romans wrote Jesus off just like they did all the other loons of their day.

[Delicate]

Why would evangelicals reject that miracle account? I don't see why that must be the case. I haven't investigated it, but I don't know that it's false either.

Likewise with the assumptions undergirding Jesus' bodily resurrection. What exactly is the problem with these assumptions? You haven't shown that they are problematic.

As for Matthew 27, that is one of the more challenging passages of the account. But it's not challenging for the reasons you've mentioned. There is no evidence for your claim that nobody but believers noticed the body.

The assumption that if a Roman soldier saw it they would automatically make it part of secular historical canon is absurd: historical writings were very difficult to perform at that point in time, and not all monumental, even miraculous events of the time were recorded. I think you need to put a finer point on your objection here. Are you saying the Bible ought to confirm it?

As it is, it's not obvious what the problem is for the religious believer.

None of that book was written during the alleged claimed time of the Jesus character's existence. The NT was written way after the fact. The entire bible itself took over 1,000 years and 40 authors with books left out.

I find it absurd that believers will claim their deity to be all powerful, blinks all this with a poof, into existence, but cant or wont poof one book into existence? And on top of that writes competing versions humans fight over. 

I would not hire such an inept being to run a bicycle factory. The bikes would end up with squid for spokes and the workers would murder each other over the competing assembly manuals. 

QM will not defend Christianity, or Islam, or Jewish or Hindu, or any deity claim. It s not a science used to prop up old books by any name. The god of the gaps argument does not work for any religion.

If QM= "Anything goes because you cant disprove it" then if the Jesus character had been beheaded instead of nailed to a cross, QM could have him magically regrow his head. Funny how we never see humans come back from a decapitation.

This is one of the most thought provoking challenges I've seen to theism on this board.

It's almost like you're out of place here

But before I respond to your points, I want some clarity on what exactly you are arguing for. Are you arguing merely that you don't find the Biblical.account reliable, or that nobody in their right mind can find it reliable?