Posts: 13901
Threads: 263
Joined: January 11, 2009
Reputation:
82
Remains of st john the baptist 'found'
August 3, 2010 at 12:58 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10849211
[Remains of St John the Baptist 'found'
3 August 2010 Last updated at 09:20 Help Bone fragments of St John the Baptist appear to have been found on Sveti Ivan Island near Bulgaria's southern Black Sea.
He is considered one of the most important figures in Christianity.
Further tests are still to be carried out on the fragments, which were discovered late last month]
How could they possibly know for sure?
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
Posts: 14932
Threads: 684
Joined: August 25, 2008
Reputation:
143
RE: Remains of st john the baptist 'found'
August 3, 2010 at 1:20 pm
They can't. Simple as that.
Posts: 4535
Threads: 175
Joined: August 10, 2009
Reputation:
43
RE: Remains of st john the baptist 'found'
August 3, 2010 at 4:44 pm
And from the BBC of all places...
.
Posts: 1211
Threads: 38
Joined: July 15, 2010
Reputation:
21
RE: Remains of st john the baptist 'found'
August 3, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Like I said on the Jesus thread about his existance. I can believe that a man who founded christianity named Jesus Christ was alive at the time and place, even if they found his remains, it'd be a monumental discovery because his life affected billions of lives over the millenia.
But as far as what this means to me as an atheist, I think if this were actually John the Baptist's remains, I think it's an important discovery. I don't think it means anything as far as religion in any actual religious sense. It doesn't proove anything in the bible or disprove anything we know about anything except that we know a man we know of actually exists whereas we weren't sure before.
And that is important because the man would be very important if he actually exists.
Posts: 2080
Threads: 52
Joined: April 11, 2010
Reputation:
47
RE: Remains of st john the baptist 'found'
August 3, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Agreed. If they were able to prove that the body is that of the actual 'John the Baptist' written about in various religious texts... it would be a very important discovery. It would lend a measure of validation to the historical truthiness of said texts so far as the people mentioned in them having been real people, rather than fictional characters. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove it.
Either way, it wouldn't serve as evidence to support any of the supernatural claims of Christianity, only as evidence that one or more of it's founders was a real person.
Posts: 2254
Threads: 85
Joined: January 24, 2010
Reputation:
29
RE: Remains of st john the baptist 'found'
August 3, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Or maybe the stories that the Hebrew Bible was bound in human flesh and inked in blood were all true?