When were the Gospels Written? The External and Internal Evidence.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Oh great, it's the venerable, "My authority can beat up your authority" argument.

Tell me something, Nishant, why should we care?

Why should you care? I would have thought that would be obvious, because the Gospel can give you Eternal Happiness, which nothing else can. Thus, the question of whether it is the Gospel Truth or not is of the greatest importance. Tell me it is false all you wish if you want, yet don't tell me, whether it is true or not, it is not important - for that is manifestly not true. If the Gospel is false, it is a wicked deception; if the Gospel true, it is of the Greatest Importance, and can lead to the Highest Happiness, and that forever and ever.

God Bless,
Xavier.

But ‘happiness’ is a conditional state. One cannot be happy without knowledge of what it feels like to be unhappy. Thus, if you go to Heaven, you won’t be happy unless you have knowledge of your earthly unhappiness.

Consequently, in order to be maximally happy, you would have to be at least partly unhappy. The only way out is for God to make all the saved souls mindless, zoned-out zomboids.

Boru

[Angrboda]

Why should you care? I would have thought that would be obvious, because the Gospel can give you Eternal Happiness, which nothing else can. Thus, the question of whether it is the Gospel Truth or not is of the greatest importance. Tell me it is false all you wish if you want, yet don't tell me, whether it is true or not, it is not important - for that is manifestly not true. If the Gospel is false, it is a wicked deception; if the Gospel true, it is of the Greatest Importance, and can lead to the Highest Happiness, and that forever and ever.

God Bless,
Xavier.

But ‘happiness’ is a conditional state. One cannot be happy without knowledge of what it feels like to be unhappy. Thus, if you go to Heaven, you won’t be happy unless you have knowledge of your earthly unhappiness.

Consequently, in order to be maximally happy, you would have to be at least partly unhappy. The only way out is for God to make all the saved souls mindless, zoned-out zomboids.

Boru

Without the chance of failure, success is meaningless. Laozi taught that there is truth because there is falsity, ugliness because there is beauty, up because there is down. If he is correct, then there can be no happiness if there is no unhappiness. If that's true, then an eternity with only happiness is not possible. Even an eternity with very little unhappiness would not work as the less unhappiness, the less meaningful the happiness. I think that "happiness" itself is not what people value in life, but rather meaningfulness, so what the Christian god offers me is a trinket of so little value that Nishant's claim of it being important is false.

So, given that, Nishant, can you show that Laozi was wrong, that we can have happiness without unhappiness?

This raises an additional question, being that of Buddhist truths. According to Buddha, attaching to craving happiness creates suffering. The cure, supposedly, is to learn not to be affected by the ups and downs by not being attached to happiness. According to that theory, desiring eternal happiness actually makes you more unhappy and degrades your experience, rather than the reverse. Like Laozi, he seems to posit a world in which eternal bliss is not possible. What do you know that he doesn't, Nishant?

[no one]

Nishy, using the word thought as if it ever had one, is pure comedy gold.

[Angrboda]

I'm not sure how wise it is to listen to someone who disregards the wisdom that one in the hand is worth two in the bush.

[no one]

2 is a big number. It is scary to count that high.

[Nishant Xavier]

But ‘happiness’ is a conditional state. One cannot be happy without knowledge of what it feels like to be unhappy. Thus, if you go to Heaven, you won’t be happy unless you have knowledge of your earthly unhappiness.

Hmm, interesting. If true, that might be why God allowed earthly unhappiness in the first place; so that, in light of any unhappiness/sorrows we've known here below, we may find Complete and Perfect Happiness in Eternal Life. And sure, if you want to say some memory of unhappiness here will remain, ok, I have no issue with that, maybe it will, I don't know; but only in such a way that, comparing said unhappiness here with their happiness there, the Saints of God may experience Perfect Happiness. God loves His Children and, like any Good Father, wants them ultimately to be Perfectly Happy; yet He also knows that, along with many of His Blessings etc, some trials and tribulations are also part of life here below, until they go to Heaven.

@Angrboda: Buddha was a Good Man, and I agree with him on this point. What he was saying, I believe, is that material desires don't lead to ultimate happiness, and thus should be rejected on the Path to Enlightenment from Above. Thus, he handed down precepts like the Five Precepts: "1. Refrain from taking life
2. Refrain from taking what is not given
3. Refrain from the misuse of the senses
4. Refrain from wrong speech
5. Refrain from intoxicants that cloud the mind"

Other Christians may disagree with me, I don't know, but imho, as Christians accepted and accommodated the teaching of the Ancient Greek Philosophers, where it was in accordance in Truth, and because they were Good Men, so also can we accept the teaching other Good Men, like Siddharta Gautama, or the Buddha, a Philosopher/Religious/Spiritual Teacher in Ancient India. Some Catholic Theologians believe in what is called Perennial Philosophy, which means there are elements of Truth in every non-Christian Religion too, hidden there by God as a Preparation for the Gospel. Have you heard of the Concept of Nirvana in Buddhism, which is like that of Mokhsa in Hinduism, and Heaven in Judaism/Christianity?

I believe Buddha was speaking of material, esp. sinful desires, like adultery, gluttony etc, not saying there is no Ultimate Happiness/Nirvana.

Btw, do you Atheists apply the same "Laozi's Principle: "Without the chance of failure, success is meaningless. Laozi taught that there is truth because there is falsity, ugliness because there is beauty, up because there is down." in your Philosophical Discourses about God and the Problem of Evil, when you're speaking about the problem of evil in this life? Lol, Laozi's Principle (which I'm just hearing of) is actually a Good Response to that, as is the Two World Theodicy I'm speaking of. Yes, what you've explained to me about Laozi's Principle is without doubt true in this life imfo; yet, in Heaven, as Brian's statement above also seems to imply, it seems to me that nothing more is needed than the memory that both success/failure were possible in this life, to be glad of the Final Success of having attained Heavenly Joy in Paradise. When we get a dream job, marry a dream spouse, have children, go on vacations etc, are we happy or are we not happy? Each of these things could have happened or not happened earlier, but when they did happen, they made us very happy indeed.

Thoughts?
God Bless,
Xavier.

[Angrboda]

The funny thing is that we're supposed to trust in the life wisdom of a bunch of goat herders who would have thought that a lifetime supply of crack cocaine was just the best thing.

[The Valkyrie]

Since the gospel of Mark has been shown to have at least three different authors, I'll still give the silly book a miss.

Just seeing this. Shown by whom, Valykrie? The Early Church knew very well who Saint Mark was, he was a companion of Saint Peter, whom Saint Peter mentions in First Epistle, as his (spiritual) son: "She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark." (1 Pet 5:13). He is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, again closely linked with St. Peter, to whose house the Apostle went after being released from Prison: "When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying." (Acts 12:12)

The Early Church gives the date for the Gospel of Saint Mark as around 45 A.D., so around 12 years after the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ under Pontius Pilate. Saint Peter was giving Sermons to the Early Christians about Christ's Life and Saint Mark wrote them down. That's how the Gospel of Mark came about. The discovery of the 7Q5 Papyrus, which pre-dates 50 A.D. and contains parts of the Gospel of Mark, confirms this early date.

God Bless,
Xavier.

P.S. @ so-called "no one": pathetic on your part. reframe your question without cussing and blasphemy, and I'll address it. We'll skip the ad hominem for now since some of you Militant Atheists can hardly live without it.

Experts.

Those experts who have identified several different, distict, writing styles.

Let's not even get into events that never happened:

Exodus.
Noah's Flood.
The dead rising in Jerusalem...

Oh yeah, bible quotes prove one thing: the someone wrote the bible.

.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

OP is obviously controlled by Santa. Otherwise he wouldn't be so relentless at making enemies for his faith.

[Fake Messiah]

The Early Church knew very well who Saint Mark was, he was a companion of Saint Peter, whom Saint Peter mentions in First Epistle,

1 Peter was not written by Peter.

And yeah, Christians later named gospels to the characters in them.