Shila

--> @Shila

My assumption is proof. I assumed that my assumptions are always right. I assumed that my words are proof. This means I am always right.

Best.Korea,

I have already declared myself a God. But I forgot to mention that I am the one who wrote the Bible.

Just like your "glorious" leader.

Just as a small tip for the future, if someone says "X is good because Y completely unrelated thing is bad" there are better ways of arguing against X than by arguing in favor of Y

(In this context the X was dictatorship and the Y was circumcision, but the same is true no matter what X and Y are).

--> @Shila

Moses did!!

there are older books that make different claims

anyone can make that claim

but nobody can support that claim

--> @Shila

I also assume that my assumptions are always right. So I treat every assumption of mine as a fact.

Yes, Bible is my word. I agree.

-->@Castin

I imagine it's hard to feel betrayed by someone you never really believed in.

MISS TRADESECRET, whose gender went from a “MAN TO A WOMAN,” and then to “OTHER,” then went to her being 53 years old, then 12 years old, then changed to being 14 years old, Debate Runaway on Jesus' true MO,  Bible denier of Jesus being God in the OT, the runaway to what division of Christianity she follows, the pseudo-christian that has committed the Unpardonable Sin, the number 1 Bible ignorant fool regarding the Noah's Ark narrative, SHE SAYS THAT OFFSPRING THAT CURSE THEIR PARENTS SHOULD BE KILLED, states there is FICTION within the scriptures, and is guilty of Revelation 22:18-19, 2 Timothy 4:3, and 1 Timothy 2:12. She obviously had ungodly Gender Reassignment Surgery, Satanic Bible Rewriter, she goes against Jesus in not helping the poor, teaches Christianity at Universities in a “blind leading the blind” scenario, and is a False Prophet, says that Jesus is rational when He commits abortions and makes His creation eat their children, and that Jesus is rational when He allows innocent babies to be smashed upon the rocks, will not debate me on the Trinity Doctrine or the Virgin Birth, has a myriad of EXCUSES not to answer your questions, and she is "AN ADMITTED SEXUAL DEVIANT!"

YOUR EVER SO WEAK AND WANTING POSTS TO ME IN RELATION TO MY REVEALING POST #189 IN SHOWING YOU TO BE THE CONTINUED BIBLE FOOL: 

"Excellent another post devoted to how wonderful I am. Oh I have missed you brother." (#196) 

"I am not entirely sure why you tagged me in your congratulaterly letter to Stephen.  I suppose there was a reason - but I couldn't find it. 

Have a nice day"  (#197)

Yes, dear Miss Tradesecret, you are slowly learning that Jesus' true words and I OWN YOUR BIBLE INEPTNESS!  Good girl!  The membership notices that you do not want to add your insidious opinions to the equally Bible stupid Shila's ungodly thread. Again, you are learning the fact that if you did, I and other members would once again address your complete Bible ignorance!  Again, good girl!  Therefore, Jesus and I are so proud for you to understand your ever so low standing within this forum!  LOL!

NEXT PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN WOMAN LIKE MISS TRADESECRET IN ACCEPTING THAT CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THIS ESTEEMED FORUM OWNS THEM WILL BE ...?

--> @Shila

I could have done so, but I decided not to. Why? I always assume I am right.

--> @Shila

Moses could claim the moral standard came from God and not conceived of some unknowable "objective" moral-standard.

anyone can make that claim

but nobody can support that claim

MISS TRADESECRET, whose gender went from a “MAN TO A WOMAN,” and then to “OTHER,” then went to her being 53 years old, then 12 years old, then changed to being 14 years old, Debate Runaway on Jesus' true MO,  Bible denier of Jesus being God in the OT, the runaway to what division of Christianity she follows, the pseudo-christian that has committed the Unpardonable Sin, the number 1 Bible ignorant fool regarding the Noah's Ark narrative, SHE SAYS THAT OFFSPRING THAT CURSE THEIR PARENTS SHOULD BE KILLED, states there is FICTION within the scriptures, and is guilty of Revelation 22:18-19, 2 Timothy 4:3, and 1 Timothy 2:12. She obviously had ungodly Gender Reassignment Surgery, Satanic Bible Rewriter, she goes against Jesus in not helping the poor, teaches Christianity at Universities in a “blind leading the blind” scenario, and is a False Prophet, says that Jesus is rational when He commits abortions and makes His creation eat their children, and that Jesus is rational when He allows innocent babies to be smashed upon the rocks, will not debate me on the Trinity Doctrine or the Virgin Birth, has a myriad of EXCUSES not to answer your questions, and she is "AN ADMITTED SEXUAL DEVIANT!"

Miss Tradesecret, It is truly sad to see once again in how you kick Jesus in the balls and slap Him in the face, whereas you as a woman, shown herewith as a female gender: https://www.imagebam.com/view/MEFOUDD, ARE NOT TO POST within this esteemed Religion Forum to exercise the authority over the superior Christian man, but to just STFU to begin with, period!

"Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor." (1 Timothy 2:11-14)

You continue to piss upon the Bible as Jesus watches you, Hebrews 4:13, as if you can go directly against His doctrine and get away with it! NOT!  We biblically understand that you as a women will NOT be going to heaven in the first place, but to continue in going directly against Jesus' inspired words will not bode well when you will be taking a one way "E-ticket ride to Hell upon your demise!"

“My friends, don’t be afraid of people. They can kill you, but after that, there is nothing else they can do. God is the one you must fear. Not only can he take your life, but he can throw you into hell. God is certainly the one you should fear!” (Luke 12:4-5)

--> @Tradesecret

 I would think from their position that they want to see people live in accordance with their teachings not for salvation but for something else. I say that because in their teaching - they believe everyone gets saved. 

K_Michael: Not exactly. Mormons believe in three degrees of glory; the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Kingdoms. Only those who "receive the ordinances of salvation, keep the commandments, and repent of [their] sins." can enter into the highest Kingdom with God (there are also 3 degrees of Glory within the Celestial Kingdom, but I'm not going into it). Those who live righteously but are not members of the church can enter as high as the Terrestrial Kingdom, which iirc is describing as being like the garden of Eden, but they cannot enter the presence of God. Those who live unrighteously go to the Telestial Kingdom.

There is also those who join Satan in the Outer Darkness. These "sons of perdition" are those who reject Christ and His Atonement.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/kingdoms-of-glory?lang=eng

--> @Shila

the concept of moral-impulse defined as merely a reflection of personal-preference makes much more sense than trying to conceive of some unknowable "objective" moral-standard

--> @Shila

morality does not make sense unless it is objective.

please explain

--> @Double_R

Nothing about that topic has anything to do with appeal to emotion fallacies.

Subjectivity is influenced by that.

--> @Shila

And you just sank to the depths of stupidity and jibing.

Which diminishes the credibility that I once openly supported.

--> @Avery

And I differentiate between base instinct and acquired behaviour.

And sexual attraction at base level is a separate issue to physical attraction at a socio-conceptual level

The stag fucks every doe irrespective of looks, and without the need for overthink.

And indiscriminate sex is more relative to the human condition than it is to most other species.

Indiscriminate sex is the outcome of overthink rather than the outcome of base physiology.

That is to say that humans have developed the practice of copulating when it not necessary to do so.

Recreational sex as it were.

-> @TWS1405

CRITIQUE = RESPECT

name-calling is not a critique

--> @Shila

You really like to gatling-gun your posts all over the place, man. Have you ever heard the expression "the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing"?

We know the Romans crucified Jesus then went on to destroy the Holy temple and city in 70AD.

Yep.

So why did the Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 embrace Christianity and make it the official religion of the Roman Empire to later become a universal religion.

Constantine didn't make it the state religion of Rome. That was Theodosius, about 80 years later. Constantine merely made Christianity a licit religion.

Simple answer. The Gospels. Once the Gospels were written and the apostles spread the teachings of Jesus to a wider audience. The full story of Jesus was revealed and embraced by the Gentiles.

Jesus was fully in control of his  ascension into modernity.

So you seem to think that a religion's success is proof of its veracity. Or another way to put it, "popularity = truth."

Should the Jews then feel betrayed by Jesus?

I imagine it's hard to feel betrayed by someone you never really believed in.

-> @Stephen

Christians don’t rely heavily on Josephus. They have the Bible.

But they do. 

The works of Josephus are usually amongst the first place that Christians will point to as 'evidence' for the existence of an historical Jesus outside of the New Testament.  

You did it yourself, here>>>  The case for the Historical Jesus (debateart.com)

Shila wrote: The first non-Christian writer to talk about Jesus was the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (born Yosef ben Matityahu),who lived around AD 47-100. He referred to Christ in his history of Judaism “Jewish Antiquities” from AD 93. In the book, Jesus comes up twice – once in a curious passage about Jesus’s supposed brother Jamesand in another paragraph that has since been questioned in its authenticity.

You would hardly expect anything else though would you?  Christians rely upon the bible - but since some people without a clue or an education suggest the bible is not a valid source to rely upon will only accept other sources - the go to case is going to be Josephus.  There are a few others but too many - since there are not too many sources for anything back then for anybody.    You would have to be a fool not to think that Christians wouldn't rely upon Josephus.

--> @Tradesecret

 You would have to be a fool not to think that Christians wouldn't rely upon Josephus. 

I do not disagree. What's your point. 

You would hardly expect anything else though would you? 

It appears to be only you that is casting doubt on the reliability and veracity of even Josephus existing!

Tradsecret wrote: ...we obviously have no eyewitness accounts that he is a real historical figure.  He's probably a legend someone dreamed up. ......Since he apparently is the main source for many ancient legends,  we can probably dismiss most of his work as made up. #1

--> @RationalMadman

The only one you got properly correct in a one sentence summary was Islam.

No right or wrong answers.  I have asked if people can articulate what they think is the essence of each religion and worldview.  I provided some which I thought might provide some answers. My answers were simply for the most part google answers.  

--> @Tarik

Which isn’t a departure from subjectivity if you read the damn thread.

The only time it was discussed at all is when you asserted that the two were necessarily tied to which I ignored it because it's a nonsense assertion and not what we're talking about.

In case you forgot (which you clearly have) this conversation is about what objectivity and subjectivity are, which we had to get into because of the original conversation that morality does not make sense unless it is objective. Nothing about that topic has anything to do with appeal to emotion fallacies.

--> @Shila

the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

the power of acting without the constraint of [CAUSALITY] necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion [FREE FROM ALL INFLUENCE].

The ultra rich run the government. They don't have to pay taxes, they help collect them.

--> @Shila

Yep, we have reached an agreement.

Oh look, a protege of Bill Cosby…

https://people.com/crime/superfly-actor-kaalan-walker-sentenced-to-50-years-to-life-in-prison/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab

--> @K_Michael

my point stands.

You mean your question? Well in that case I guess it’s because I agree with it and I’m not satisfied with just feelings alone, I want them validated and God does that.

--> @Shila

This probably deserves its own thread called Who Wrote the Gospels? or Are the Gospels Eyewitness Accounts? But, anyway:

• We don't have any original manuscripts of the Gospels, obviously. The earliest manuscripts we have, the ones dating from before 200 CE, are fragments -- they don't start at the beginning and they don't contain an end, so we can't tell if they had titles. The complete manuscripts we have date from a later period that is not of much use in determining if the Gospels originally had titles. So the fact that all our (complete) manuscripts have titles does not really tell us much.
  
• Even in these later manuscripts, the way the Gospel titles are phrased changes from manuscript to manuscript -- i.e., "The Gospel According to Saint Mark" vs "The Holy Gospel According to Mark" and so on. More suspicious, where the titles are located changes from manuscript to manuscript -- some titles are at the beginning of the book, some are at the end. This indicates that the titles are scribal ornamentation and were not in the original manuscripts, or else we would expect the titles to always be in the same place and always worded the same way (if they were copied faithfully).
  
• Note how Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, quotes from the Gospels at length but refers to them collectively and anonymously, indicating he wrote before they had been widely attributed to specific men. This is a key piece of data pointing to the original anonymity of the Gospels. Scholars believe they began to be attributed to their now-traditional authors in the second century (and remember, our complete, titled manuscripts date to after that).
  
• For me one of the biggest indicators is just that all of the Gospels are written anonymously in the third person, none of them in the first person, as you would expect of men telling firsthand accounts -- and Matthew, who was supposed to be a disciple of Jesus, feels the need to copy vast swaths of his material from Mark, who never met Jesus. Apostles should feel no need to copy from anyone.
  

I'm a little disappointed that you didn't mention Papias, but I supposed that would bore people even more than our current debate.

Okay, let me take a stab at it.

Judaism: Sticking to one's own ethnicity and being loyal to it, ensuring the Jewish people excel.

Hinduism: This was a colonised amalgamation of Shaivism, Vaishnavism and pagan outliers, the underlying message is to celebrate the chaos and journey that we are on and do good if you can.

Daoism/Taoism: Aim for balance, be the one to flow as life naturally leads, leaving drops of good when expedient and not the one to constantly force too much benevolence or too much malice.

Christianity: Embrace all people and give, use guilt and the approval of others as the mechanics of the moral compass.

Islam: Discipline, fear and undying loyalty to Allah and fellow Muslims but unlike Judaism, aim to spread it far and wide to other ethnicities, do not stay insular.

Most Japanese-originating Religions, especially Shinto: Actions define us, not words or emotions.

Buddhism: Discipline and minimalism above all else, shut up and give to your community or end up reborn instead of in Nirvana.

Sikhism: Be natural and respectful of nature to the extreme, be hairy as you can get away with, ready to slay the beasts that may seek to impose against nature.

Wicca and most neopagan religions: Today the sun is out, let us dance, today the moon is out, that is okay we will sacrifice a goat and have an orgy, preferably a lesbian one.

Thanks for reading.

--> @Shila

These scrolls contained, among other writings, every book in the Old Testament (except Esther). 

• And multiple copies of most books but as I said, just crumbled fragments of the majority of these.
  

Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the earliest copy of the complete Old Testament was from A.D. 900. 

• Since nothing like a complete Old Testament was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls it is still true that "the earliest copy of the complete Old Testament [is] from A.D. 900."
  

Scholars compared this copy with the Dead Sea Scrolls (produced around 1,000 years earlier) and found that the Old Testament had been handed down accurately through the centuries.

• Remarkably accurate over a thousand years, yes.  For example, one of the most perfectly preserved passages is the 166 words of Isiah 53, in which there are only 17 differences over 1000 years.
  

“ … the historical books of the Old Testament are as accurate historical documents as any that we have from antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek histories. These Biblical records can be and are used as are other ancient documents in archaeological work.”

• I think everybody believe this to be true even before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.  Let's note that "as accurate historical documents from antiquity as any"  is profoundly low standard of accuracy by modern standards.
  

not only does archaeology confirm that the Bible is historically accurate, but 

• Well, some of the Bible is historically accurate, some of the Bible is pretty obvious bullshit.  The Dead Sea Scrolls do not establish that Jonah lived for three days inside a whale, for example.
  

professional archaeologists actually use the Bible as a guide in their work.

• definitely true
  

The great Jewish archaeologist Nelson Glueck, who is known to be one of the top three archaeologists in history, has stated the following: "No archaeological discovery has ever contradicted a single, properly understood Biblical statement."

• Not surprising since archaeology is only going to uncover the presence of large public buildings but not say, burning bushes or unicorns.  
  
• But the absence of some archeological discoveries can be said to be dispositive- no sign of  global flooding in the last 10,000 years or Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat, for example.
  

--> @Stephen

The consensus among historical scholars is that Jesus of Nazareth did exist as a historical person. I have no trouble believing that.

Me neither.

For me the difficulty lies in what can be confidently known about him. Did he really think he was the son of God, or was that a belief that developed after his death? Was he really betrayed by Judas? What exactly did Jesus teach -- how much of what we know as "Christ's teachings" were really his teachings? To what degree did he actually anticipate his death? And so on.

All fair questions that I would be more that interested to have answered by the devout Christians.  But I won't be holding my breath, Castin

I imagine devout Christians will just point to the Bible's answers to these questions.

--> @Shila

Once you accept Jesus  indeed existed as a historical person.  The specifics of Jesus’s life and teachings are found in the Biblical Jesus. All your questions are answered in the Bible.

“The first question we have to answer is How do we know what we know about Jesus? How is it possible for twenty-first-century people to know with any reasonable certainty what he did and said in the first century? Obviously, none of us was there when Jesus walked the earth. So how do we gain access to him as a historical person?

For many people, the answer to this question is simple: open up your Bible and read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; they tell us what Jesus did and said. Indeed, for almost nineteen centuries, most Christians—and virtually everyone else, for that matter—believed that the Gospels of Matthew and John were written by eyewitnesses and disciples of Jesus and that the Gospels of Mark and Luke were written by companions of the apostles Peter and Paul.”

Sounds like Bart Ehrman. At least, it reminds me of something else I read from him:

"Most people who are not conversant with biblical scholarship probably think that knowing about the historical Jesus is a relatively simple matter. We have four Gospels in the New Testament. To know what Jesus said and did, we should read the Gospels. So what's the problem?" -- Jesus Interrupted, p. 143

Ehrman goes on to explain what, in fact, the problem is:

"The problem is in part that the Gospels are full of discrepancies and were written decades after Jesus' ministry and death by authors who had not themselves witnessed any of the events of Jesus' life. 

... They were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after Jesus' death by people who did not know him, did not see anything he did or hear anything that he taught, people who spoke a different language and lived in a different country from him. The accounts they produced are not disinterested; they are narratives produced by Christians who actually believed in Jesus, and therefore were not immune from slanting the stories in light of their biases. They are not completely free of collaboration, since Mark was used as a source for Matthew and Luke. And rather than being fully consistent with one another, they are widely inconsistent, with discrepancies filling their pages, both contradictions in details and divergent large-scale understandings of who Jesus was.

How can sources like this be used to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus? It's not easy, but there are ways."

-->

@Shila

you have thoroughly and completely misread my intention

making a statement of fact is not a complaint

--> @Shila

you have thoroughly and completely misread my intention

--> @Double_R

I've always found the free will conversation pointless. If we have it then it's settled, we can all move on. If we don't have it then not only does that change nothing, but it means that what we're actually talking about is something that no human being has ever experienced so we have no basis to point to it because we have no recognition of what we're even pointing to.

this topic is fundamental

because it is the core of nearly all human suffering

if you deny causality, then free-will doesn't make any sense, because without causality, your actions don't necessarily lead to specific consequences

if you embrace causality, then free-will doesn't make any sense, because with causality, your actions are caused by previous events

and if you mix the two, sometimes causality and sometimes not causality, then you can never be sure which events are caused and which are uncaused

if you decide a specific event is uncaused, then free-will cannot apply, because you cannot cause (with your free-will) an uncaused event

if you decide a specific event is caused, then free-will cannot apply, because you cannot (with your free-will) cause all of the contributing causes that lead to any caused event

sure, people "experience" free-will, but only in the way they "experience" "god's love"

you can "feel" it, but that doesn't mean it is anything more than a mere emotion

-> @Shila

But here you are complaining you don't find a lot of people debating 1 + 1 = 2.

i'm simply mentioning it as an example

this does not even remotely qualify as "complaining"

-> @zedvictor4

Slavery might or not be better for the slave.

If a slave wants to be a slave, then a slave is not a slave because the capacity to which one is a slave is dictated by a slave, which contradicts the concept of being a slave. So when you state, "better," "better" for whom?

--> @Castin

The consensus among historical scholars is that Jesus of Nazareth did exist as a historical person. I have no trouble believing that. For me the difficulty lies in what can be confidently known about him. Did he really think he was the son of God, or was that a belief that developed after his death? Was he really betrayed by Judas? What exactly did Jesus teach -- how much of what we know as "Christ's teachings" were really his teachings? To what degree did he actually anticipate his death? And so on.

--> @Shila

But here you are complaining you don't find a lot of people debating 1 + 1 = 2.

please be slightly more specific

you don't find a lot of people debating 1 + 1 = 2

--> @Shila

Are you implying objecting matters like morality are less debated?

you don't find a lot of people debating 1 + 1 = 2

--> @Lemming @Shila

Soon the "holocaust" will be a forgettable page of human history.

So, to what degree did the "holocaust" change social thinking?

-> @Tarik

Are you asserting that morality could be debated? Because if it could then that would make it objective by nature

People debate subjective topics all the time. I'm sorry if you don't understand how this works.

Well, the history of the world is pretty short if you are going to hold it to that high standard.  The only contemporary writing that confirms the existence of Alexander the Great is a little chunk of clay written in ancient Babylonian- we couldn't even translate it until pretty recently.  I don't think there's any datable manuscript that contemporaneously confirms the existence of  Jesus or Socrates or Buddha or Mohammed, King Solomon,  Homer, Pythagoras, Sun-Tzu, Confucius,  Moses, Hannibal, etc

--> @oromagi

The fact that 4th century Christians were relying heavily on Josephus for a picture of 1st century Jewish life certainly suggests that the 4th century considered Josephus an authentically first century source.

As you say, "Christians rely heavily on Josephus" and particularly the few lines that Josephus affords their god man Jesus and understandably so. Clutching at straws is all they have when it comes to proving the exitance of their all singing all dancing god.  

The saying goes –history is written by the victors. But when we read Josephus, it is clear he writes with some sadness and regret of the defeat of his nation and its people, but this may well be down to the balancing act he was preforming between any loyalty he may felt he owed to Rome and the Jews whom in their eyes was turn coat and traitor. This of course could well serve for a more accurate history; he was a Pharisee general (if he is to be believed).  

But if we are talking about discarding and dismissing the works of Josephus in its entirety then the same can be said for all ancient works including the bible. 

The consensus among historical scholars is that Jesus of Nazareth did exist as a historical person. I have no trouble believing that. For me the difficulty lies in what can be confidently known about him. Did he really think he was the son of God, or was that a belief that developed after his death? Was he really betrayed by Judas? What exactly did Jesus teach -- how much of what we know as "Christ's teachings" were really his teachings? To what degree did he actually anticipate his death? And so on.

-->

@Shila

My apologies.

#85

To Sidewalker you said: More so, those that stand to gain advantage from perpetuating the myth.

Yep, as I stated Jesus/Joshua/Yeshua is/was a character recorded in historical narratives and we know roughly where he was said to have lived, there's no denying that.

And that's about all one can say for certain.

And yep 1632, that's the point I try to get across. All is made up after the event.