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I approve of where this thread went.
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@RationalMadman
The favor was to Jairus but the one he used his power to cure was the girl.
Don't get me wrong, I am totally open to the idea that he was gay. I feel scripture does not give us any indication on that count one way or the other, but it's certainly possible.
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He raises Jairus's daughter and exorcises the Gentile woman's daughter.
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@Timid8967
A nontrinitarian can believe in the divinity of Jesus without necessarily believing he is one with, or equal with, God the Father. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses would be modern examples. Alternatively, a Christian could venerate and follow the teachings of Jesus without thinking he is divine at all, like the ancient Ebionites. Unitarians would be a modern example -- some of them, anyway.And I would argue that to be a follower of a certain ideological figure, you do not necessarily need to believe in them as a deity, but you do need to do more than just "like" them -- you need to devote yourself to their teachings and take them as a life model.Which parts do you have to devote yourself to? All of it - or just the parts that you identify with?if not all, then why don't you just admit it is an eclectic religion and not label it christianity?And the overwhelming majority of christians in the world - according to the WCC would not accept either the JWs or LDS as anything but cults - pseudo in nature.
I'm so glad you asked me that, because I have a pre-written Supreme Christian Checklist of Parts You Have to Devote Yourself To, To Be Christian, which is the absolute authority across the world because I, Castin the Great (Peace Be Unto Me), have declared it to be so, and only the Christians who devote themselves to my Supreme Checklist are the really real Christians. So sayeth Castin the Great.
Hmm, my browser red underlined "pre-written" as a misspelled word and suggested "pee-written" as one of the corrections.
Possibly a commentary on the theological value of my Supreme Checklist. Harsh but fair.
The point is, I am not the arbiter of what it means to be a follower of Christ.
And disagreements over what it does mean to be a follower of Christ appear to go back to the time of Peter, James, and Paul in the Apostolic Age. In my own experience, Christians have always devoted themselves more to the parts of the Bible they identify with, and de-emphasized parts of the Bible they do not identify with. I don't know a Christian who consistently follows "all of it."
I have a Christian acquaintance who divorced her first husband because of irreconcilable differences rather than infidelity. Jesus, it appears, does not approve of this, and according to him she is committing adultery on her first husband with her second husband. Yet she worships Christ and is a pillar of her church. Is she not a Christian because she doesn't follow "all of it"? No one in the Protestant world seems to question her Christianity, and I suspect you wouldn't either, even though Jesus's disapproval of divorce is spelled out far more explicitly in the Bible than the doctrine of the Trinity.
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@EtrnlVw
Were you once a Christian or were raised in a Christian household? or are you just interested in religious theology? unlike a lot of folks you have a very solid grasp of theology, it's kind of unique to you. Is Christianity the only religious theology that interests you? have you ever been curious or have studied any other religious knowledge?
I was raised by an agnostic and former Christian, in a very Christian area, where I went to church and was often, and still am, encouraged to convert. I have a definite interest in theology, and it certainly is not limited to Christianity, though like most westerners I have read the Bible more than any other religious text.
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@Timid8967
A nontrinitarian can believe in the divinity of Jesus without necessarily believing he is one with, or equal with, God the Father. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses would be modern examples. Alternatively, a Christian could venerate and follow the teachings of Jesus without thinking he is divine at all, like the ancient Ebionites. Unitarians would be a modern example -- some of them, anyway.
And I would argue that to be a follower of a certain ideological figure, you do not necessarily need to believe in them as a deity, but you do need to do more than just "like" them -- you need to devote yourself to their teachings and take them as a life model.
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Are we the most sexually sensual species? I would've guessed bonobos. I don't know, I'm not a biologist.
From Wikipedia:
... while the weight of a young adolescent female bonobo "is maybe half" that of a human teenager, she has a clitoris that is "three times bigger than the human equivalent, and visible enough to waggle unmistakably as she walks".
Fun fact: None of you can ever unread this.
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@PGA2.0
You ignore the biblical accounts. Why is that?
Oh, I don't ignore them. I just think they're pseudepigraphal. Which is the consensus among historical scholarship.
The Gospels are written in highly proficient Greek. It's very unlikely that Jesus's immediate followers, being lower-class Jews from rural Galilee, could read or write well in even their own language, much less be so fluently literate in another.
It's estimated that fewer than 3% of Jews in Roman Palestine could read and write well enough to compose texts like this, and the ones who could would've all been urban elites, with the wealth and leisure to afford the education. Scholars think the Gospel authors most likely came from urban areas outside Palestine.
And of course, there's the fact that all of the Gospels are written anonymously, and none of them are written in the first person.
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@Barney
- P1: If someone is key to a mythology, they are a mythological figure.
- P2: Jesus Christ key to Christian mythology.
- C1: Therefore, Jesus Christ is a mythological figure.
So you would say L. Ron Hubbard was a mythological figure, for instance?
Eh, I don't know. Could make it sound like you're saying L. Ron Hubbard was never a real person.
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@PGA2.0
Someone can be the key to some mythology and not be a mythological figure. The gnostics built a myth around Jesus, yet the biblical text warned against this and claimed eyewitness testimony of His historicity. The OT points to such a historical figure who the NT writers identify as Jesus. You, Ragnar, want to brush off these testimonies and fuel the myth. Simon Greenleaf, who wrote a treatise on eyewitness testimony that is well respected and its basis is still in use today, saw these eyewitnesses as credible. The eyewitnesses are reasonable to believe. The gnostics were not eyewitnesses but claimed some hidden knowledge. Their credibility is in great question.
There is no eyewitness testimony of Jesus Christ that I am aware of, sadly. I wish there was.
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@Timid8967
So the strawman definition of God is the one you yourself used in the OP. Why use what you consider to be a strawman?
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@Greyparrot
Oh, Grey. I told you not to keep picking your own mushrooms.
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@Timid8967
What definition of God are you referring to as the "strawman one"? Omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent? That one?
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@Timid8967
Which means that atheists and non-theists like myself need to try and find a better definition of god to dispute, rather than pushing the same old strawman argument, which I have also argued belittles the atheist position.
What better definition of God would you propose atheists use?
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@FLRW
Eh. Even if we did have "eyewitness accounts" of the resurrection -- if we knew the Gospels of Matthew and John were really written by Matthew and John, say -- I still wouldn't be convinced. It takes more than ancient eyewitness testimony to overpower my skepticism that a man can rise from the dead.
I don't think Josephus ever claimed Jesus resurrected, anyway. That part of the Testimonium Flavianum screams "Christian interpolation."
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@Timid8967
It is an intriguing thought though - why would David have been thinking about Roman Crosses - when the Romans were not in power then - and the crucifix had not been invented.
Why does Psalm 22 make you think the author was thinking about crosses? Just because it says "they pierced my hands and my feet"?
This part of the passage in particular is pretty murky, translation-wise. Apparently, if you translate it literally from Hebrew into English, it comes out like:
- "Like a lion my hands and feet."
This doesn't make much sense as-is, so it's been translated various ways:
- Early Rabbinical paraphrases were something like, "They bite my hands and feet like a lion."
- The Septuagint translated it as, "They dug my hands and my feet."
- The JPS Tanakh has it as, "Like a lion they are at my hands and feet."
- And the NRSV, the version most biblical scholars use, translates it, for some reason, as "My hands and my feet have shriveled." While leaving the footnote: "Textually obscure; Meaning of Heb uncertain."
So, taking this and the entire verse into account, I'm just getting the image of a man being encircled by attackers who assault his hands and feet "like a lion" as they menace him.
This definitely doesn't put me in mind of crosses or crucifixion.
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@Greyparrot
HB doesn't understand there are consequences for acting on bad intel like Bush did.
HB merely argued the correct course of action was to investigate if the intel was, in fact, good or bad, and to take precautions in the meantime.
I certainly did not see HB arguing that Trump ought to have gone to war over the intel he had at the time.
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@lady3keys
"Intimidating," pfft. This from the person who apparently reads quantum mechanics and astrophysics books in her spare time.
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@lady3keys
He is an agnostic atheist, like moi. Props for even knowing the name.
Fundie Christians don't like him because he says the mythical Jesus they worship is not the historical Jesus.
Militant atheists don't like him because he says there was a historical Jesus.
He pisses people off on both sides, basically -- much like I'm doing right now, probably.
As for Jesus being God, here is another Ehrman quote from Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth:
- "Apart from fundamentalists and very conservative evangelicals, scholars are unified in thinking that the view that Jesus was God was a later development within Christian circles. Fundamentalists disagree, of course, because for them Jesus really is God, and since he is God, he must have known he was God, and he must have told his followers, and so they knew from the beginning that he was God. This view is rooted in the fundamentalist doctrine of the inerrancy of scripture, where everything that Jesus is said to have said, for example in the Gospel of John, is historically accurate and beyond question. But that is not the view of critical scholarship."
Not only does Ehrman not think Jesus was God -- he says Jesus's earliest followers didn't think so, either.
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No historian will say for certain Jesus ever existed because Tacitus is still not a strong enough source to say it's 100 percent true.
- "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees." -- Bart Ehrman, source: Forged: Writing in the Name of God
You speak as if Tacitus is historians' only source on Jesus. He is far from it. He is not even considered a main source. The value of his account is supplementary.
there are no Roman documents to collaborate this "facts".
There are no Roman documents about anything from first century Palestine.
Lack of Roman documents on Jesus should only be really significant if they kept a wealth of records on such things, yet none exist for Jesus. Instead, there are no surviving Roman records from the place and period whatsoever. This means their silence on Jesus is unremarkable and insignificant.
- "In that connection, I should reiterate that it is a complete 'myth' (in the mythicist sense) that Romans kept detailed records of everything and that as a result we are inordinately well informed about the world of Roman Palestine and should expect then to hear about Jesus if he really lived. If Romans kept such records, where are they? We certainly don't have any." -- Bart Ehrman, source: Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
There are not even first century Roman documents on Pontius Pilate, the highest status figure of Jesus's place and time.
- "Think of everything we do not know about the reign of Pontius Pilate as governor of Judea. ... It would be easy to argue that he was the single most important figure for Roman Palestine for the entire length of his rule. And what records from that decade do we have from his reign -- what Roman records of his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, his scandals, his interviews, his judicial proceedings? We have none. Nothing at all."
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@rosends
Maybe so. And maybe faith is that we worship him anyway because we attribute all of existence to him even without understanding his nature.If one were more definite and more definitive in one's faith, we would not be witness to so many words of incertitude.
#MoreCertainThanThou
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@rosends
But that judgment of "an enormous amount of suffering in the world is destructive suffering. It creates senseless death and pain that never yields any constructive result" is an expression of our human assessment.
It certainly is. But if God is so beyond our human understanding that we cannot make a negative assessment of him, then it is equally true that we cannot make a positive assessment of him either. We cannot say he is good or evil, just or unjust. We are simply not smart enough to say he's a good guy or a bad guy. Why then worship a question mark about whom nothing can be definitively known?
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@fauxlaw
Do you think Calvinism is a cop-out?
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@rosends
Judaism does not call God "omnibenevolent" without a large asterisk -- that we can't always know the larger plan within which God's behavior is benevolent. The infant can't understand why the shot administered by the doctor was actually a "good" thing. The infant only feels the pain and thinks the doctor is evil. God is a parent, and sometimes a parent spanks a child. God is a boss who makes demands and punishes a lack of obedience. His roles are complex and multi-faceted so we don't reduce things to a single dimension and then measure God against what WE think that role should entail.
This seems to assume that all suffering is constructive suffering. Yet an enormous amount of suffering in the world is destructive suffering. It creates senseless death and pain that never yields any constructive result.
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@rosends
The question is why God allowed this to happen. The answer is"wow, this exposes the contradiction within Christianity, guess God is a hoax".Just so I understand, your sense of this as a contradiction is because you presuppose the label of "omnibenevolent" as a descriptor of God, right?
Omnibenevolence is very commonly presupposed in the notion of God, at least in the Christian world I live in. I am curious -- do you define God this way, personally?
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Tacitus attests that Christ was put to death by Pontius Pilate under the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Had Tacitus spoken of these worshippers' idol in god-like terms, I would certainly think they probably worshipped a mythical figure. Instead Tacitus spoke of their idol as a mere human who was executed by human rulers. This must weigh my interpretation.
Much written history is like this -- indirect witnesses such as Tacitus writing decades after the events or persons they discuss. But it is striking that all of the sources on Jesus -- the Gospel sources, the apocrypha, Paul's letters, Josephus's writings, Tacitus's account -- agree that he at least lived. Since it is unlikely that all of these people would independently fabricate the existence of the same man, the most likely explanation is that he existed.
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@Timid8967
What is the evidence that Jesus ever existed?
Virtually all scholars agree that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure for the simple reason that multiple independent textual sources attest to his existence, including people who had no reason to make him up, like Tacitus and Josephus.
And if textual evidence is not enough to declare a figure historical, then we must stop talking about, say, Socrates or Pythagoras as if they really existed. We would be shocked at how many figures we would wipe from the face of history if we required archaeological evidence of an ancient person to declare their historicity. Most individuals passed without leaving any trace in the archaeological record -- certainly most first century Judean peasants did.
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@Mandrakel
I see people never grow tired of the Atheist/Theist Historical Blamethrowing game."No ur ideology killed more people.""No UR ideology killed more people."However one should not ignore the facts and the facts do show a disproportionately higher rate of death and suffering due to religious conflict, i.e. religious zealots at each others thrats trying to prove who has the best imaginary friend.
I would say the dangerous component is dogma, not religion, and dogma can come in both religious and non-religious varieties. Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism -- all examples of non-religious dogma.
Dogma has its roots in human nature. Arrogant conviction in the supremacy of our own beliefs, inability to coexist with alternate worldviews, the need for control, tribalism, the thirst to destroy the enemy groupthink. These are human tendencies we should take collective responsibility for as a species, rather than blaming them on theism or atheism so we can dismiss them from "our team's" conscience.
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I see people never grow tired of the Atheist/Theist Historical Blamethrowing game.
"No ur ideology killed more people."
"No UR ideology killed more people."
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@Nevets
Chrestus indeed meant "the good" or "the worthy," and Christus meant "messiah" or "anointed one." Obviously, Christus was Jesus's proper epithet in Latin.
Some people believe Suetonius was referring to Jesus as Chrestus, but simply misspelled "Christus" or even misheard the name spoken and transcribed the mishearing. They point to how common such misspellings or alternate spellings were back then.
Others think Suetonius was referring to a separate person entirely -- a Jew named Chrestus who started some riots. They point to the fact that Jesus ought to have been dead for somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty years when these "disturbances" in Rome took place.
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@Nevets
"Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."
Although this reference to "Chrestus" does come from a biography of Emperor Claudius, and Claudius may have reigned from 41 to 54 CE, the text itself was written by Suetonius in 115 CE, so Suetonius is our source here and 115 CE is our date. Pliny the Younger's reference to Christ actually predates Suetonius's by a few years, having been written in 112 CE. Josephus's writings on Jesus predate them both, with his Antiquities of the Jews dating to 93-94 CE. And of course, the Pauline epistles predate all three.
So my question is. Do you agree that the Pauline epistles are the first historically reliable mention of Jesus Christ? Do you believe that Claudius was referring to Jesus Christ? And is it not reasonable to conclude that a historical mention of Jesus Christ within approximately 17 years of his death points to Jesus Christ being an actual historical figure at the very least? Even if we doubt his divinity and the miraculous claims attributed to him, there is evidence to suggest he was at the very least historical, and there probably was indeed a man named Jesus Christ with a mother probably named Mary?
I consider Paul our earliest source.
And it is certainly my belief that Jesus was a historical figure.
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@Mandrakel
Job's questions were critical like that, and God didn't seem too happy, no. But Habbakuk's questions were also critical, and God simply answered, without any how-dare-you's. 🤷♀️
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@Stephen
Well obviously those are not my beliefs. I just do my best to represent some Christian views since I don't see a lot of Christians directly answering your questions.
My personal belief is that Jesus died because he became a threat to the authorities of Palestine and Judea. His crucifixion threw his followers and his movement into ideological crisis -- the messiah was never supposed to die. They had to turn his death into something meaningful, or everything they believed in was dead. So they created a narrative where it was a miraculous sacrifice that was planned all along by God.
Since his outcry was kept in Aramaic in Mark and Matthew -- "Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?" -- and since it depicts a very human Jesus who does not sound at all god-like, I am inclined to believe Jesus may have actually said this on the cross in a moment of genuine doubt and abandonment. It's very sad.
Look, if the bible is to be believed at all on any level, then lives had already been saved , he had already, according to the bible, resurrected and saved "dead " people. He had also already been "forgiving" people all over the place, too. The story is a nonsense that falls flat simply because Jesus' own actions prove it to be nonsense.
He had been forgiving individuals, but not everyone. His death on the cross was supposed to be for everyone, or so Christians believe.
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@Mandrakel
Any true beliver in God does not need to ask any questions to God and also God did state in the Bible to ask no questions.Why would you want to question God anyway?
Without questions, there is no learning, no pursuit of wisdom, no spiritual journey, no philosophy, no growth, no development of the self, and frankly, no fun.
Also, the Bible does not completely condemn questioning God. Habbakuk openly questions God and receives answer. Psalm 10 questions God. Jesus's disciples often ask him questions, seeking wisdom. James 1:5 says: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him."
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@Deb-8-a-bull
Just had myself two hot cross buns.With Triple butter.MmmmmmmmmmmmmmGot me to thinking,Jesus didn't die on the cross to forgive our sins.He did it so we can allllllllllllll enjoy Hot cross buns.So ummmmm yeah.Praise the Lord.Well that is seriously the only thing that I can see we humans have gained from that.
You are a philosopher and a scholar, Deb.
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@Stephen
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). Amazing isn't it. Jesus asks god to forgive his mockers and persecutors. Why? Why didn't Jesus himself forgive them as he had been forgiving others including those that hung by his side!?
Jesus seems to be at his most human on the cross, and at his most separate from God -- hence his crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (I find this the most compelling line and moment in the Bible and I could go on about it at length, but I mustn't digress.) Some Christians interpret God as having to turn away from Jesus in this moment, because Jesus had taken on the sins of humanity on the cross -- meaning Jesus would not have had his forgive-y powers because he was disconnected from God.
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Tim Ryan announced that two Capitol officers have been put on suspension - apparently Selfie Cop and the cop who put on a MAGA hat and started leading rioters around.
His briefing on C-SPAN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?507893-1/officers-suspended-attack-capitol-representative-ryan
Heh, gotta love that first woman who speaks up. "I still feel completely in the dark, and I'm surprised that you are one of the only people doing these public briefings. Why are we not hearing from the interim Capitol police chief?"
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@ethang5
Lulz. Some drama has too high a price.
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@3RU7AL
I thought the entire function of a "free press" was to EXPOSE government incompetence.
Yeah never mind, I haven't slept in 36 hours and misunderstood you.
I've seen your clip multiple times on Twitter and once on TikTok but indeed on no major news outlets that I recall. On the news I have mostly seen:
- Selfie Cop
- "Barricade Moving" Cops
- Hand Wave "Follow Me Everybody!" Cop
I have however heard them mention your vid several times on CNN. I have no idea why I haven't seen them show it yet. Could be a legal issue, could be they showed it and I missed it, could be it isn't dramatic enough to make the newsreel.
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@3RU7AL
Excellent reporting.I'm just wondering why it's not "front-page-news".I'm just wondering why nobody ("official") is showing this 57 second long clip.
Because they just have no motive to further advertise video evidence of their mismanagement. Either their guys were working with the mob or their guys were so unprepared for the mob they had to resort to letting it in some places to redirect it from others. That shit is embarrassing. We spend more on defense than any other nation in the fucking world.
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"As for disturbing videos we've all seen that seem to show some officers letting rioters behind barricades & taking selfies with them: I can assure you these videos are being thoroughly investigated & there will be consequences for any deviations from proper training & protocols." - Tim Ryan (Chairman of the Appropriations Committee over the Capitol Police)
That's pretty much all we've gotten so far, that I'm aware of. They know it looks fishy as hell. They've already confiscated texts and emails from all the Capitol police at the riot.
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@n8nrgmi
do you think trump will go through tweet withdrawal now that he's banned from twitter?
"Gollum has lost his precious." - Senator Mazie Hirono, January 8, 2021
do you think the lovers and haters will go through trump withdrawal when they can't see his every thought at every second of the day? and withdrawal when he finally ceases to be president? what will happen when the antagonist of our story isn't there any more?
I think Trump makes people feel more alive, whether they love or hate him, and that energy will be gone - or at least will begin to die down. And I am just fine with that.
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I am in total shock.
Up at 1 AM waiting for DeKalb county to come in, still not believing it would be enough to put Ossoff and Warnock ahead like other Dems were swearing it would be.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, goddamn. I don't believe it.
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Same as my position on any religion or spirituality or belief in the supernatural. I don't believe in it personally, but if you do and you're not harming anyone with your beliefs, I'm pretty tolerant.
I happen to think palm reading and Tarot cards and ouija boards are all pretty fun.
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@lady3keys
Yep, just saw McConnell's tweet saying he signed. I wonder what made him change his mind?
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@Greyparrot
Now you're just asking to get fact-checked.
How do you fact check me not knowing anyone who trusts global corporations? Find out where I live and interrogate everyone I know?
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@3RU7AL
I don't know anyone who trusts global corporations.Are you telling me you don't know anyone who thinks "the vaccine" (which isn't technically a vaccine) is 100% safe?
Nope. I know people who think it's maybe 98% safe, tops. Honestly, what is 100% safe in medicine? Or in, like, physical reality?
And trust of the vaccine =/= trust of global corporations. It's more like confidence in the U.S. vaccine safety system - that is, confidence in the FDA, CDC, ACIP, doctors, regulations, and other numerous safety checkers along the way who have all signed off on the vaccine.
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Who thinks nothing will be achieved by midnight Monday and there will be a government shutdown? Takin' bets, y'all.
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@fauxlaw
The next four years will be, if anything, entertaining. All I need say is, "Joe did it again," and y'all will know what I'm taking about.In reply to a question to Joe Biden posed by Peter Doocy, Joe replied 'You're a one-horse pony."Will one of you more familiar with Joe's euphemisms please tell me how many horses ponies are supposed to have, since Joe's reply was clearly an insult? While you're at it, tell me what face a lying pony soldier should have. And, tell me why Joe is fixated on horses, because his commentary certainly compares to what comes from their backends. Is it that they're hairy?
Obviously he is referring to monogamous ponies in interracial equine relationships.
Where the pony says things like "You're the only horse for me, darling. I'm a one-horse pony."
Obviously.
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