Hey Athiests: How About Some Objectivity?

J

jmpet

Valued Senior Member
The rules of this forum state to attack the post, not the poster. I apply this logic to the Bible.

As is believed by Catholics, Jesus was the fufillment of prediction in the Old Testament. Just read the first few chapters of Matthew if you disagree.

My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did- something few can fake, even with 21st century pharmacology, with AD30 pharmaceuticals at hand.

Can we look past his miracles and other miracles for a moment and concentrate on The Word instead?

Can we edit out the miracles and walk away with knowledge?

Turns out we can.

How many athiests reject philosophy?
 
Some of the knowledge there is kind of good. Some of it is kind of crap. Al religious literature is like that.
I want to keep the right to read with a critical mind and disagree when I think I should disagree. People inside that specific religion don't tend to do that. For them, what is written there is absolute divinely inspired truth and to disagree with it gets you looked down on from all your peers at church and stuff.
 
jmpet said:
My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did- something few can fake, even with 21st century pharmacology, with AD30 pharmaceuticals at hand.
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What reason do we have to believe any of the events happened at all?

Greek myth is full of large groups of people being healed or turned into animals or to stone. Should we believe them?

jmpet said:
Can we look past his miracles and other miracles for a moment and concentrate on The Word instead?
Click to expand...
We should always discount the claims of miracles from any literary source where we don't know the authors, who weren't eye witnesses and where we cannot verify any of the events.

jmpet said:
Can we edit out the miracles and walk away with knowledge?

Turns out we can.

How many athiests reject philosophy?
Click to expand...
None of what Jesus says, in terms of just his words, is convincing in regards to a god existing. Jesus says the law of the old testament won't be changed 'a jot or tittle' but he goes on to violate a few himself, plus the rules of the OT are some of the most immoral nonsense in all of literary history. Do you stone your unruly child at the edge of town? I doubt it.
 
jmpet said:
The rules of this forum state to attack the post, not the poster. I apply this logic to the Bible.

As is believed by Catholics, Jesus was the fufillment of prediction in the Old Testament. Just read the first few chapters of Matthew if you disagree.

My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did- something few can fake, even with 21st century pharmacology, with AD30 pharmaceuticals at hand.

Can we look past his miracles and other miracles for a moment and concentrate on The Word instead?

Can we edit out the miracles and walk away with knowledge?

Turns out we can.

How many athiests reject philosophy?
Click to expand...

Do atheists even reject the purely philosophical message of Jesus? Of course they reject his divinity, and of course the message of Jesus is debated (some seem clear that Jesus was a pacifist, other's say he was not...some think he would have embraced capitalism, others see him as pro-communist), but the core tenets of the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, for example, are not often rejected by anyone, atheist or not, save on the grounds that they are perhaps only an ideal (not well grounded in human psychology or economics) or only a partially coherent philosophy.

Still, few atheists I have ever met would dispute "Love thy neighbor as thyself," would be great is everyone would live by that rule.

On the other hand, if I told you a story about a man born to a virgin, who healed the sick and lame, gathered his many disciples, cast out demons, returned the dead to life, died and was resurrected, traveled as far as India seeking wisdom and had ESP enough to see the death of Roman Emperor from a thousand miles away...you probably would think most of that stuff were simply made up stories. You'd think that even though the historical record demonstrating the historicity of the man (in this case, Apollonius of Tyana) was on far firmer ground than that of Jesus. It's completely understandable that you'd think that, even (I do too).
 
jmpet said:
The rules of this forum state to attack the post, not the poster. I apply this logic to the Bible.

As is believed by Catholics, Jesus was the fufillment of prediction in the Old Testament. Just read the first few chapters of Matthew if you disagree.

My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did- something few can fake, even with 21st century pharmacology, with AD30 pharmaceuticals at hand.

Can we look past his miracles and other miracles for a moment and concentrate on The Word instead?

Can we edit out the miracles and walk away with knowledge?

Turns out we can.

How many athiests reject philosophy?
Click to expand...

This is implying that his "miracles" were true. But here's a question: What seems more likely? That the laws of physics and of the universe were suspended for one man or that the claims of biblical miracles are false?

Furthermore, even the basic "philosophy" of what Jesus said has some major flaws and lacks common morality in many areas.

"Servants, be obedient to those who according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ; not in the way of service only when eyes are on you, as men pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that whatever good thing each one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is bound or free. You masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him." (Ephesians 6:5-9, WEB)

"Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them." (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

"The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. "But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given." (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

This is just his take on slavery.

Lastly, I can't for the life of me find any reason whatsoever to believe that a) God exists or that b) he had a son which was born of a virgin. The entire ressurection and it's meaning (Christian meaning) seems too far fetched. Why would God need to sacrifice himself to himself to appease himself for a condition which he himself created (evil, the concept of sin etc)???

The "philosophy" of the Bible is flawed, end of story.
 
Varda said:
Some of the knowledge there is kind of good. Some of it is kind of crap. Al religious literature is like that.
I want to keep the right to read with a critical mind and disagree when I think I should disagree. People inside that specific religion don't tend to do that. For them, what is written there is absolute divinely inspired truth and to disagree with it gets you looked down on from all your peers at church and stuff.
Click to expand...

Reserving the right to disagree with stuff you think should be disagreed with, is absolutely no different to accepting everything as divinely inspired.
The idea of your mind being a critical observer cannot be verified.

jan.
 
AlphaNumeric,

What reason do we have to believe any of the events happened at all?
Click to expand...

Because it's recorded in the bible.
What reason do you have not to believe it?

Greek myth is full of large groups of people being healed or turned into animals or to stone. Should we believe them?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Find me a Greek scripture and let's take it from there. :p


We should always discount the claims of miracles from any literary source where we don't know the authors, who weren't eye witnesses and where we cannot verify any of the events.
Click to expand...


That's not very smart. It means you are ignoring something that cruicial to humanity. Truth is not truth because it is somehow verified. Truth is truth.


None of what Jesus says, in terms of just his words, is convincing in regards to a god existing. Jesus says the law of the old testament won't be changed 'a jot or tittle' but he goes on to violate a few himself, plus the rules of the OT are some of the most immoral nonsense in all of literary history. Do you stone your unruly child at the edge of town? I doubt it.
Click to expand...


Religion is given according to time, place, and circumstance.
For such laws to be passed, the people must have sunk to a real low.
Aside from the events you talk of, there were alot of things happening at that time which arose from the the line of Adam, and his wife Eve.

jan.
 
Jan Ardena said:
Reserving the right to disagree with stuff you think should be disagreed with, is absolutely no different to accepting everything as divinely inspired.
The idea of your mind being a critical observer cannot be verified.

jan.
Click to expand...

It does not have to be verified, because my opinion matters only to myself.
 
jmpet said:
As is believed by Catholics, Jesus was the fufillment of prediction in the Old Testament. Just read the first few chapters of Matthew if you disagree.
Click to expand...

I don't think that anyone disputes that the Catholics believe that. So do most Protestants. The early Christians seem to have believed it very strongly.

I don't believe it though. I don't believe that the old testament writers could truly forsee the future. Nor do I think that Jesus really conforms to what the old testament writers were thinking about at the time they wrote. (That's a big reason why most Jews didn't accept him as the messiah.) The idea that Jesus was the fulfillment of old testament prophecy required some rather dramatic reinterpretation of the meaning of old testament tradition that started to drive Christianity's eventual separation from Judaism.

My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did- something few can fake, even with 21st century pharmacology, with AD30 pharmaceuticals at hand.
Click to expand...

There are many ancient pagan accounts of similar things. The shine of Aesklepios at Epiduros was world famous for the many miraculous healings that supposedly occurred there.

Can we look past his miracles and other miracles for a moment and concentrate on The Word instead?

Can we edit out the miracles and walk away with knowledge?

Turns out we can.

How many athiests reject philosophy?
Click to expand...

Jesus seems to have been a man of his time and place, deeply and devoutly enmeshed in the messianic Judaism that excited so many of his fellows at the time. I'm not sure how much of his thinking would remain intact if we tried to snip everything free of its historical context.

But sure, there have been many attempts to recast Jesus as a more Greek-style wandering teacher of moral wisdom. There's a whole Christian modernist literature on that. Many people have tried to cut away what they believe are the accretions of subsequent legend, hoping to reveal the actual man and his true message.

Unfortunately, these "historical Jesuses" often seem to reflect the views of modern writers more than they do the ancient man of 2000 years ago.
 
Although some interesting messages are attributed to Jesus, I do not agree that on the whole his philosophy, even divorced from the supernatural, was worthy of emulation. There is nothing valuable about loving everyone as yourself, even your enemies. I hate my enemies and want them to die. I will not turn the other cheek unless I want to be a perpetual victim. I do not believe that people should not save or think of tomorrow, that is an absurd notion.
 
Jan Ardena said:
Because it's recorded in the bible.
What reason do you have not to believe it?
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Because despite there being plenty of historians from that time and supposedly loads of eye witnesses no contemporary account outside of the bible exists for many of the events.

When Jesus was killed the bible says the dead, the ****ing DEAD, got out of their graves and walked into town. You'd think someone would have written about a 'zombie invasion' happening, wouldn't you? You'd think word would get back to Roman the dead had risen.

Weird how no one mentioned it, even people like Josephus only mentioned Jesus in passing and it was years later. If I'd see the dead rise I'd have told everyone.

Jan Ardena said:
Find me a Greek scripture and let's take it from there. :p
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Never read The Iliad or The Odyssey? I can't be blamed for your narrow reading scope.

Jan Ardena said:
That's not very smart. It means you are ignoring something that cruicial to humanity. Truth is not truth because it is somehow verified. Truth is truth.
Click to expand...
But there's plenty of people who lie or make up stories. Isn't there something about 'false prophets' in the bible? How do I tell whether a story I hear is from a 'true prophet' or a fake one? I want evidence. No evidence then I am disinclined to believe tales of magic. You don't believe the holy books of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, ancient Greeks & Romans, etc, do you? They all have magic in them. Should we be accepting them? If I used the same level of evidence needed to accept the bible then I'd be accepting all of those and given they are contradictory of one another they can't all be right. Therefore that standard of evidence is too low. Your standard of evidence is too low.

Jan Ardena said:
Religion is given according to time, place, and circumstance.
For such laws to be passed, the people must have sunk to a real low.
Aside from the events you talk of, there were alot of things happening at that time which arose from the the line of Adam, and his wife Eve.
Click to expand...
Jesus said not a jot or tittle of the law will be changed, so clearly god meant those laws to apply after Jesus.

I'll ask you again, do you stone unruly children at the edge of town? If not, why not? Says to in the bible. You follow the 10 commandments, right? What about the other 603 of the 613? Do you eat shellfish? Do you work on the Sabbath? Do you mix fabrics in your clothes? We're talking about stuff punishable by death. In fact should someone try to lead you away from your faith, including your husband/wife, your hands at to be the first on them. Since I'm trying to convince your believing the bible's claims of miracles is not evidence or reason based you should, according to your holy book, kill me. I hope you don't plan to but you should ask yourself why you don't plan to. You hopefully think its an over the top immoral action. You've got your own set of morals and you just pick and choose from 'the big book of multiple choice' to justify as much as possible to yourself. You don't need god, if only you could see outside your bubble.
 
Jesus was the fufillment of prediction in the Old Testament. Just read the first few chapters of Matthew if you disagree.
Click to expand...

While we're on the subject of disagreeing, the majority of the people there at the time disagreed - indeed they were aware he was not the messiah, (hence why the jews - yes, those who followed the OT, called for his death).

My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did
Click to expand...

Begging the question.

Can we look past his miracles and other miracles for a moment and concentrate on The Word instead?
Click to expand...

Apologies, what "word"?

Regards,

-----

www.snakeystew.com
 
AlphaNumeric said:
Jesus said not a jot or tittle of the law will be changed, so clearly god meant those laws to apply after Jesus.

I'll ask you again, do you stone unruly children at the edge of town? If not, why not? Says to in the bible.
Click to expand...

There's definitely a lot of crazy stuff in the Bible if you take it even half literally... But what's wrong with getting unruly children stoned at the edge of town? They probably won't get into trouble 'cuz the cops are mostly patrolling the town's interior, and hey... maybe it'll mellow those unruly kids out just a little bit, it's better than leaving them to their own devices where they'll probably just turn to crystal meth.

Edit: Heck we do get unruly children stoned all the time, we prescribe them Ritalin ;)
 
jmpet said:
The rules of this forum state to attack the post, not the poster. I apply this logic to the Bible.

As is believed by Catholics, Jesus was the fufillment of prediction in the Old Testament. Just read the first few chapters of Matthew if you disagree.

My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did- something few can fake, even with 21st century pharmacology, with AD30 pharmaceuticals at hand.

Can we look past his miracles and other miracles for a moment and concentrate on The Word instead?

Can we edit out the miracles and walk away with knowledge?

Turns out we can.

How many athiests reject philosophy?
Click to expand...

Good point. So lets start where you suggest. we shall discard the magic and focus on the word. I am assuming when you raise the meaning and label it "The Word" it must mean something. and to mean something it must be the whole truth. So lets start there:

According to Matt 1:1 it reads that Jesus Chris, the son of David... first of, I understand 'son of' means here "ancestor" but that genealogy is via Joseph Matt 1:16 - Well here is an obvious point - Isn't it a claim of christians that Jesus is of virgin birth by Mary and that he is the son God. So how is David involved in this?

Lets continue along this path of looking at the word and not the magic.

In Matt 1:18 it claims that from David to Jesus was 28 generations. But in Luke 3:23-31 I count 43 generations. So if the Word is to be believed - can you tell me which is true? Shouldn't it both? Please reconcile.

If we can reconcile this we can move on to the next otherwise, the very foundation of his existence described within the bible appears false.

Just me...
NA
 
Pandaemoni said:
Do atheists even reject the purely philosophical message of Jesus? . . . . Still, few atheists I have ever met would dispute "Love thy neighbor as thyself," would be great is everyone would live by that rule.
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I'm an atheist and I love Jesus. I know that he may very well not have been a real person, but that's not a problem because I also love Frodo, Winnie the Pooh and the Fraggles. He is an abstraction and a role model--although he was a little weak in economics.

If more Christians would actually live the way they say Jesus told them to live, I would have a lot less objection to Christianity and would not even argue with them over the reality of their legends.

My criticism of Jesus is that he was a failure, and my criticism of his followers is that they made him a failure. They have spent the last 2000 years rising up every two or three generations and slaughtering each other, and the rest of us, in his name. That's really not what he told them to do. I know that, why can't they figure it out?

As Jung pointed out, "the wars among the Christian nations have been the bloodiest in human history." He overlooked Genghis Khan, but that doesn't make a very big difference. Jesus failed.
 
jmpet said:
The rules of this forum state to attack the post, not the poster. I apply this logic to the Bible.

As is believed by Catholics, Jesus was the fufillment of prediction in the Old Testament. Just read the first few chapters of Matthew if you disagree.
Click to expand...

Sure that was Jesus? Not some other Messiah? There have been plenty who claim to have been a Messiah besides Jesus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants

My biggest obstacle to Jesus The Son is the vast amount of healings He did- something few can fake, even with 21st century pharmacology, with AD30 pharmaceuticals at hand.
Click to expand...

Yeah, faith healing, so real, so true, so oh, FAKE:

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=USKHH9MQ

How many athiests reject philosophy?
Click to expand...

Ha, when theists start deciding they have philosophised the one and only answer, they have killed their own philosophy!
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
I'm an atheist and I love Jesus. I know that he may very well not have been a real person, but that's not a problem because I also love Frodo, Winnie the Pooh and the Fraggles. He is an abstraction and a role model--although he was a little weak in economics.

If more Christians would actually live the way they say Jesus told them to live, I would have a lot less objection to Christianity and would not even argue with them over the reality of their legends.

My criticism of Jesus is that he was a failure, and my criticism of his followers is that they made him a failure. They have spent the last 2000 years rising up every two or three generations and slaughtering each other, and the rest of us, in his name. That's really not what he told them to do. I know that, why can't they figure it out?

As Jung pointed out, "the wars among the Christian nations have been the bloodiest in human history." He overlooked Genghis Khan, but that doesn't make a very big difference. Jesus failed.
Click to expand...

jesus never had anything good to say about religion or the religious. what makes you associate these behaviors with him? because of what some people say? what about what jesus says? he says to those people, in response to their "but...but...", "depart from me. i never knew you". surely man can't thwart god. don't be silly.
 
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