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Actually, you could just as easily argue that "fear of death" is just as much a motive for unbelief as it is for faith. Religion usually offers an afterlife, but it tends to restrict that afterlife to faithful, obedient followers. (I am speaking primarily of generic religion, of course, not the Christian doctrine of sola gratia).

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I think another interesting fact should be brought up. Jesus was not a unique figure. There were numerous other men who claimed to be the messiah, and they all had devoted followers. The difference is, that when those other self-proclaimed messiahs died or were executed, their followers disbanded, and whatever religious movement the originator had tried to create ceased. The desciples of Jesus did not forget, and 2000 or so years later, Christianity is still here. I just think it's interesting that Jesus was the only messianic figure whose movement didn't die with him.

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That brings up an interesting point: If the Christian faith as a whole is so concerned with truth, as you say, then why does the Vatican feel it necessary to keep secret the other documentation written by people who had seen Jesus in his time? It would just be more evidence to further support your case. But the sheer fact that there's so much left out that the Christian Church refuses to acknowledge or let the public know about is highly suspicious to me.



Well, historically, I would say that the Roman Empire embracing Christianity had a lot to do with it. I mean, what if they had chosen to embrace some other man from the same time period who claimed to be the Messiah, had lots of followers, and was executed? Would the Western World be so deep into the religion based around Bob-ekial the Christ or something instead? (Sorry for the corny name.)

Also, I'm no historian, but I think I heard once (PLEASE someone verify this for me if you can) that many of the other people claiming to be the Messiah at the time of Jesus were less...cordial, shall we say, than Mr. Of Nazereth was. Perhaps Jesus' kind nature led him to be so well remembered (like Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). From what I could tell, Jesus seemed like a really cool dude. I think he had a lot of good things to say--I just don't agree with the whole Messiah thing. And I still wonder what he did between the ages of 12 and 30...

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

it's not strictly true that Jesus is the only "messiah" whose following didn't die with him. Shabbatai Tzvi had a HUGE following for his messianism in the late Fifteenth Century, and apparently there's still around 25,000 followers.

more recently, the late Lubavicher Rebbe was largely regarded as the messiah by his followers, and when he died in 1994 a good number of them refused to believe it. he's expected to return by some.

and those are only two. Jesus was the most successful "messiah," but he's not the only one whose following outlived him.

Well, as well as claiming to be a messianic figure, Jesus also had the habit of claiming to be God Himself, something you don't see too too many other guys doing. Just a thought.

Edit: 50 posts? That deserves an eek eek dance.

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well, that's because all the other claimants to messiah-hood knew that according to Judaism the very idea that anyone could be God Himself is not only preposterous but blasphemous. it's just that Christianity gained a following amongst the Pagans of the Roman Empire, for whom demigods fit right in to their theological framework.

Well, yes and no. It was, and probably still is considered blasphemy in Judaism to consider oneself God or His equal. I mean, this was one of the leading reasons that Jesus was crucified in the first place, because the Pharisees didn't like him doing that, so the rest is history.
Now, gaining a following from the Pagans because of their existing theological paradigm? Maybe for some, and later in its growth, but certainly not immediately. Christianity grew in huge numbers relatively quickly, starting at the Pentacost right after Jesus's accent, when "about three thousand were added to their number that day." (Acts 2, 41b) An important thing to note here is that these were all devout Jews from all over the Roman empire, and as these new believers went back to their homes they helped to spread the message very rapidly, which was also aided by the work of Paul and the other dicsiples, who established many of the first churches outside of Jerusalem.
Also, if my memory serves me right (correct me if I'm wrong) Christianity was not the official (and arguably to some, requiered) religion of Rome until the time of Emperor Constantine, in AD 312, and as such it faced varying levels of persecution until then.

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But don't you agree that it is impossible to have a discussion on the nature of God if you can't aggree on the existance of God? It seems to me that you must agree on the existance before you can discuss the nature of God.

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A few things here, Pianoman: there's a reason I'm Lutheran and not Roman Catholic. That reason is that, by the end of the medieval period, the Roman Church had become corrupted and was in desperate need of reformation. And into this barren wasteland stepped a man: a man with a plastic rectangle--I mean, 95 THESES!

Second, I am not aware of any secret documents of others who did follow Jesus. True, there are some apocryphal writings whose authenticity cannot be verified, but that's precisely why they are considered apocryphal and not canonical: without verification of authenticity, the early Church was reluctant to accept them into the canon. As part of the aforementioned corruption of the medieval church, the distinction between apocryphal and canonical writings dissipated.

Third, if there are any other documents from that are perported to be from that time period that have not already been categorized as canonical or apocryphal (and in this category, I include all the sub-categories, like pseudopigryphal, etc.), I would be suspicious of them. As it is, while there is plenty of manuscript and secondary evidence for the canonical writings of Scripture, those earliest manuscripts are very scarce and extremely fragile. It would be extremely unlikely, for example, for the Vatican to have something like a letter from Mary Magdalene or from Joseph of Aramathea UNLESS such writings were collected and copied by the Church. But if they were copied, then they would have been distributed, thus making them extremely difficult to keep hidden.


But this isn't what happened. I don't believe that it was merely random that Jesus was the one who became the Messiah of the Christian Church. If anything, there must have been something to set him apart from all the other people claiming to be Israel's liberator.

It is true that there were other "so-called" messiahs running around at the time. But why do you think it is that no one remembers any of them? Because their movements rose and fell with the winds. Why is it that, even after Jesus died, his followers remained loyal to him, and continued to proclaim him the living Lord? Maybe because they had good reason to believe he was indeed risen.


Not when the existence and the nature of God are so intimately intertwined. Or, to put it this way, not when part of the reason we believe in God is that he has revealed himself in certain ways, in certain times, and in certain places. To debate the existence of God without reference to his nature would be like debating the existence of gorillas without reference to an actual specimen. It reminds me of that story about the monks debating about how many teeth a horse has. One monk argued from Plato, another from Aristotle, and yet another from Ptolemey, etc. Finally, one monk says, "Why don't we just go out to the barn and count one of the horse's teeth?"


Blasphemous if and only if the person making such a claim is not in fact God Incarnate. If indeed Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, then it is not blasphemous for him to say so. As for who actually followed Jesus initially, you might want to check your history again. For the first twenty years of its existence, the Church was almost exclusively Jewish. It wasn't until about 50AD that Gentiles began to become Christians, and that mostly at the prompting of Jewish disciples like Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Philip, etc.

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I don't think that these examples work... in the last case, there was no argument as to whether there was a horse, or whether the horse had teeth, but how many teeth a horse has... in the first example, to argue the existance of gorillas, and only referencing one specimin would be foolish. One would make their case for the existance of gorillas by showing every piece of evidence that any type of gorilla exists. There are many beliefs that point to God. Although he is called different things by different people, that doesn't mean that a Muslim calling to Allah is speaking to thin air, but that he is speaking to God, just not fully informed (somewhat misinformed) of his exact nature. By limiting your argument to a specific example of God (whether it is the actual and most complete understanding of God), you make an argument supporting the existance of God weaker because you have limited yourself.

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This sounds very familiar.

OLD POST'D!
(Ooh, I double-posted in that thread twice. My bad.)

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i think this had more to do with Paul than with Jesus; Paul was the one who started really pushing for Pagan converts, since Jews stopped becoming Christians, by and large, shortly after Jesus died. Paul was also the one who lifted the requirements for being a Christian -- until Paul, a Christian still had to be an observant Jew, keeping the Sabbath, being circumcized, etc. it was only after Paul took over the reins that Christianity became a distinct religion from Judaism, rather than merely the heretical cult it had been before.




no, it's blasphemous because the idea that any person could also be God is absolutely impossible from a Jewish perspective. so that any Jew knows, if someone comes up to you and tells you that he's God, he's lying. the most basic principle of Judaism is that God is unique, non-physical, and absolutely indivisible. you just can't get from Judaism to Christianity without Pagan influence between them.

From your own perspective, perhaps. On the other hand, if someone were to tell me he was God, then do some pretty amazing things (like heal on the Sabbath, turn wather in to wine, feed 5000 people with only two small fish and five breads, resurrect a man who had been dead for four days, etc.), then I might just be inclined to believe him. I doubt seriously that the true God would allow someone to perform such miraculous things claiming to be him unless it were true.

As for pagan influence, keep in mind that one of the most influential early Christians was a man named Saul of Tarsus, a man so zealous for the Jewish faith, he actually travelled around and tortured Jewish Christians (at that time, there were no Gentile Christians). After seeing the risen Christ himself, he became one of his most faithful followers, being renamed Paul. Now, considering how zealous this man was for his own Jewish faith at the time, it is highly unlikely that he would accept anything pagan at all. And this man wrote half of the New Testament.


You might want to go back and review your history. On Pentecost (about 50 days after the Passover), there were over 3000 new Jewish Christians. In fact, in the decade or so following Jesus' resurrection, there was a thriving church in Jerusalem that met in temple every First Day. And this was despite the temple authorities trying to have them arrested on numerous occasions. The church in Jerusalem continued to thrive even after Paul and the others began taking the message to the Gentiles. Furthermore, there appears to have been a large community of Jewish Christians in Rome around the time of St. Paul's travels, a community that did not result from his evangelistic efforts, but was already there.

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that speaks more to your own credulousness than anything else. miracles are fun, but they don't prove anything. check out Deuteronomy 13.



it's not unlikely that Paul was working to create a rift between the beliefs and practices of the Jews and the Christians, in order to cause them to move apart so as to make Christianity so alienating to Jews that they would stop becoming Christians. he was a double agent.

I am a Christian because of 2 reasons.
1)If I am not a Christian, God will d*m* me.
2)2/3 of the bible is prophecy, and have of it has come true, unlike prophocies from other religions.

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Yep...definately that "loving God" you hear Christians preach about so much. One of the main things that just doesn't sit right with me is how I've heard that the Christian God is supposed to be all benevolent and unchanging...yet he at one point (i.e. Old Testament) was very wrathful and (according to books like Leviticus) condoned slavery and beating children. I'm sorry, but I just don't see how I could believe in a God that was so just plain mean, especially when he's supposed to be 100% benevolent and unchanging in his state.

Oh, and what are all these prophecies that have come true? And what about all the prophecies Jews and Jewish Christians made back in Biblical days that didn't come true? You never hear about those, because they obviously don't put that in with the "good stuff."

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

What if it turns out the Muslims are right and the Christians are wrong? Then God will still damn you. Your position here isn't exactly a solid one.



People from other religions will claim the same thing about theirs, no doubt.

- Kef

Which is speaking of false gods, and does not seem to address whether or not the true God can take human form. It would seem to me that, if Jesus were a charlitan or a fake, then the miracles he performed would be of the type that almost anyy charlitan or fake could do. But dying and rising from the dead?


Oooookaaaaay. You might want to read what St. Paul actually wrote, especially those passages in which he is trying to help unite Jewish and Gentile Christians.

And then there's the issue of what the Father himself has to say on the subject (I can't believe I kept forgetting to include this, considering last Sunday was Transfiguration). That is, the voice from the cloud that said, "This is my beloved son. Listen to him." And Elijah and Moses bearing witness as well (Mark 9:2-9). The same voice that spoke at his Baptism in the Jordan (Mark 1:11).

So, you see, it's not just what Jesus said about himself, and not just what he did to prove it. It is also what the Father said about him as well.

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The Gods of Ancient Greece and Egypt seem to have gone down the pan, and people strongly believed in them. Who's to say that the same won't happen to the Religions of today?

Okay, here are my beliefs, I pasted them from somewhere else because I went waaay off topic there!

I like to think of it this way:

Religion: Christianity and Islam, for example, are each based on one guy saying that he heard the voice of God, and then he started talking about these rules that God had given him.

Evolution...ism: Based on a bunch of guys with mega technology and years of research, tons of hard work and then proving religion wrong.

Most Religious people I know seem to base their beliefs on the fact that the Universe needs a creator, and that it can't have always existed, and therefore always deny the 'big bang theory'. However, they seem to be quite happy to believe that God has always existed without a creator.

I believe that Religion was something made up years ago to help keep a community in order. I believe that at some point it got out of hand, and most of the world began to have religions.

In my opinion, Religion does more bad than good. Threatening people to be Christians by saying 'If you don't believe in God, you go to Hell!', missionaries going over to tribal communities and telling them about God, so that on top of fighting starvation and extreme weather with poor technology, they can worry about going to Hell on top of it all.

Did anyone see that thing on TV where missionaries refused to give this tribal guy any food because he rejected God (or didn't understand what they were telling him) and then getting them all to destroy their bamboo houses so that they had materials for building churches? Although, I suppose not al missionaries do things like that, I suppose they do good as well, but I still see it as 'brainwashing'.

If you look back into the olden days, when dinosaurs and the English ruled the Earth, all wars were started by Religion. The good Pope sent his troops over here to England to kill anyone who wasn't Catholic. We can't forget the Medieval version of 'spreading the good word of God'; crusades! Going over to countries which disagreed with your Religion and slaying them all! There is civil war in Iraq right now, simply because two Religions disagree with each other.

As for these Bible 'prophecies'... I really can't see how they make any sense. Some say that the Bible predicted 9/11, but I'm sure that the Bible doesn't say 'On September 11th, 2001 (I think it was 2001), two buildings will be destroyed by non-believers!'. It says something like 'In thy year of darkness, a great evil shall rise!', which could mean anything really. And according to some 'conspiracy theories', a lot of the untrue prophecies were removed from the Bible when it was translated from Latin to English.

Christians believe that Jesus is coming back. In my opinion, if Jesus was coming back, he's probably already back, locked up in a mental institution for saying that he's the son of God.

Anyway, sorry, that was my little rant, I'll stop there. You could probably guess that I believe in Evolution over Religion. And unless this 'God' shouts in a big, booming voice from the sky 'I AM GOD, WORSHIP ME', I'm prepared to continue denying his existence (existAnce?). Sorry if I offended anyone, but I'm entitled to my opinion.

Screw it, I believe that Queen created the Universe. After all, they are the 'Princes of the Universe', 'Born to be Kings!'.

All right, I haven't been in this discussion much, but I kind of want to make my stance known. Say you were in a deathly situation, like Hurricane Katrina or something. You're about to die, or you're in incredible danger. And, you're an atheist. What hope do you have? What can you believe in?

Now, put a religious man in that situation, and he's obviously going to pray, meditate, do whatever. When you believe in God, Allah, or whatever, you're giving yourself hope. Something to believe in. Something you belive keeps you safe. Like a security blanket.

I'm not the most religious guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd rather believe in God and have hope in seemingly hopeless situations than believe I'm all alone.

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I disagree that people necessarily need the belief in a higher power to feel comfort in such a situation. Why couldn't I take solace in that, for example, life goes on whether I survive or not? Or to put it another way, there's always hope for humanity. Why can't I feel good about that?

- Kef

Oh, really? Can you cite me something to verify this?

But I will say this: if it is true, then those folks really need to reconsider how best they might demonstrate God's love. This is not something I would imagine Jesus would approve of, not the man who fed thousands of people with only two fish and five cakes of bread.

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I'm sure both Plastique and Didymus are right on that one: some missionaries are jerks, but that doesn't mean that they're actually practicing the religion they claim to be following.

I think there are some fallacies in Plastique's argument, though. Sure, a lot of trouble was started in the name of religion, but in many cases, how do we know that religion wasn't just a false justification for whatever they were going to do anyway? In other words, instead of religion being the cause of a war, it could be an innocent bystander. Sure, religion is the cause of some real problems... like the fighting between Israelis and Muslims in Palestine/Israel. But I don't think it can take the blame for all cases.

Also, just because people abuse religion doesn't mean religion itself is to blame. If I kill somebody in the name of God, it is not God who should take the blame, it's me. Just because I claimed God wanted something doesn't mean he actually did. Likewise, people refusing to feed somebody who doesn't believe in God should not reflect badly on God. It should, however, reflect very badly on those people.

In conclusion: attack religion on its own merits, not its followers' demerits.

- Kef

There's nothing to say to Plastique I haven't already said, so in the interest of not repeating myself endlessly (since some people never seem to read replies to a topic anyway), I just PMed him some facts and links to my previous posts.

That said:



I find it interesting you keep saying all this and yet you've not once made a remark about my thread demonstrating how one's beliefs do not necessarily contradict science, and how interpretations of religious texts can converge with scientific observations.

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I think I didn't see the thread. I don't browse this forum very often, and often I access the threads I'm in through e-mail notifications, so I don't notice new threads.

EDIT: reply'd!

- Kef

Thank you, Kef. I appreciate your speaking up. It shows a certain level of maturity.

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Incidentally, Didymus, I have yet to reply to your point about the same events being witnessed by several people who wrote the Bible. This is a very tricky point, and I don't want to just take what I already believe and use that to dismiss the point. So I have to research that matter a bit, and do so carefully, before I form a real opinion on that matter.

As an initial, tentative counterargument, though, my intuition tells me that several witnesses to a miracle is not a phenomenon unique to Christianity. I don't have any specific examples in mind and that will also require research, but it's what my gut tells me.

- Kef

Shakers aren't allowed to have children - all new shakers are converts.

Sorry to play the devil's advocate.

I agree with a whole bunch of stuff you said. I'm not quite sure where my theological beliefs lie. I'm just sort of waiting for them to unfold for themselves (hopefully I'll take no part in it!)

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You're right. It's almost the only religion like it, though, and I'd be very surprised if less than 90% of shaker converts were Christian (at least nominally) to begin with.



Fine with me

- Kef