Atheism Vs. Christianity. Is there really nothing to lose?

[ThinkerMan]

Here is that 'message of the cross" found in 1 Cor. 1:18. :-?

Er, Quath, the first book of the Bible is Genesis, the second is Exodus followed by Leviticus.

Funny!

Back to the NT, though, just to clarify the "first book" of the NT, I think he means Mark, the first gospel written.

Based on a third-hand account of Eusebius in the fourth century, Mark knew Peter (though specifically never met Jesus) not Paul.

Nevertheless, I agree wholeheartedly with my non-believing friend, in that Matthew and Luke draw tremendously too much from Mark to be original works by eyewitnesses, and John is much to late (and different) to be an eyewitness as well.

Also, given that Paul never met Jesus, and knew almost nothing of his life, deeds and teachings, it seems apparent to me that the claims and deeds of the gospels were developed and created well after Paul did his work.

IMHO, of course.

 

[Free]

Thinkerman,

Nevertheless, I agree wholeheartedly with my non-believing friend, in that Matthew and Luke draw tremendously too much from Mark to be original works by eyewitnesses, and John is much to late (and different) to be an eyewitness as well.

I enjoy this argument that the Christian can never win: if there is "too much" that is similar between two (or more) Gospels, one was based on the other and is therefore not an eyewitness account; if there is "too little" in common between two (or more) Gospels, they don't say the same thing, so at least one is obviously not an eyewitness account.

It doesn't matter if Matthew and Luke draw from Mark, it shows that they agreed that what was written was correct and then supplemented it with their own material. Remember, the vast majority of eyewitnesses were still alive when these books were written.

Just because John wrote later in his life means that he wasn't an eyewitness? Have you ever believed anything your grandfather tells (told) you? That argument doesn't fly at all.

Also, given that Paul never met Jesus, and knew almost nothing of his life, deeds and teachings, it seems apparent to me that the claims and deeds of the gospels were developed and created well after Paul did his work.

On the contrary, Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Also, it is much more likely that he would have been familiar with Jesus' life, deeds, and teachings than not, especially since he referred to himself in the following way:

Philippians 3:4-6, "4 although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

More than likely Paul would have been quite familiar with who Jesus was.

 

[ThinkerMan]

Well...this is turning into a bit of apologetics...but nevertheless...

I enjoy this argument that the Christian can never win: if there is "too much" that is similar between two (or more) Gospels, one was based on the other and is therefore not an eyewitness account; if there is "too little" in common between two (or more) Gospels, they don't say the same thing, so at least one is obviously not an eyewitness account.

Valid point.

However it is not that cut and dry. Luke and Matthew seem to draw specifically from two sources (Mark and Q). They do not reveal any additional stories, personal stories beyond these two. Of the synoptics, none claim to be first hand, nor relate any first hand stories. Seems to me, if I saw God rise from the dead, I'd have some things to say about it. The epistles of Peter utilize such a viewpoint (though I don't believe Peter wrote them, of course).

If Matthew and Luke were eyewitnesses, they were bad ones.

Regardless, it is clear that Matthew and Luke are heavily dependent on these two sources, and offer very little that is new. I agree that the three, with some contradictions, generally agree.

It is with John that they are the most divergent.

Remember, the vast majority of eyewitnesses were still alive when these books were written.

Depends when you think they were written. Most scholars place their composition after 70 CE, with Matthew and Luke probably in the 80's.

This is 50 years after Jesus supposedly dies, and Jerusalem has been leveled.

That doesn't even take into account the contemporary historians of the time who note nothing.

Just because John wrote later in his life means that he wasn't an eyewitness? Have you ever believed anything your grandfather tells (told) you? That argument doesn't fly at all.

I'm sorry, but I simply believe the Gospel of John is, well, weird. It is highly contradictory with the synoptics (again, I'm sure we'll differ).

It is possible he wrote, yes. I simply don't find it convincing. Since around the same time a bunch of allegedly apostolic writings were around. That was the "in" thing about that time.

On the contrary, Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Also, it is much more likely that he would have been familiar with Jesus' life, deeds, and teachings than not, especially since he referred to himself in the following way:

Jesus could not have told him much, considering he had to go to Ananias who supposedly filled him with the holy spirit.

In all of Paul's writings, nothing of the virgin birth, feeding the multitudes, the lessons of the beatitudes, raising of the dead, etc. Some pretty powerful stuff, one would think, since as you claim there were eyewitnesses all over the map.

He is a self-proclaimed apostle who claims visions from God....scary.

That doesn't even take into effect the idea of Paul's mission. Did Jesus mess up when he choose his 12 (well, I guess he did with Judas)? He's got 12 eyewitnesses, surely one of the them could have been charged with preaching to the Gentiles. Given the story of the Pentecost, it seems these guys would have been able to preach anywhere they want.

Jesus said the 12 would be seated with him in heaven (he included Judas, interestingly). No room for Paul there as an apostle.

More than likely Paul would have been quite familiar with who Jesus was.

"more than likely" is not good enough, unfortunately. He seems to know almost nothing, except that he dies and alledgedly was risen.

And I know this fires up a lot of people, but it is quite clear that Paul and the apostles did not get along.

The confrontations with Peter and James, as well as the epistle of James (which I don't think was written by him either) demonstrates to me that these guys weren't chums, and that this nascent religion was being formulated through theological disagreement....and Paul's faction won with the downfall of Jerusalem.

......

I am only articulating these viewpoints because Brutus asked and to address Free's questions....not to get a rise out of anybody or "deconvert".

I'm simply stating my reasons....

 

[Blazin Bones]

ThinkerMan, I bet you've already read these books, but I'll mention them anyway. Lee Strobel has a series of books called the case for Chirst, Faith, Creation, and Creator. Four books all starting with the words case for. Historicity can often be a cause of doubt. You and I both know that there are somethings we as Humans will not understand about God, All I can do is encourage you to not give up in you quest to find God. He's there, sometimes he's just harder to find. God's Blessings to all, Brutus.

I read the Case for Christ and found it problematic. Ater reading that book and looking up stuff, I went from thinking Jesus was historical to thinking he was completely made up.

However, on the off chance Jesus was a real person, it means nothing. Look at how many people saw Elvis arise from the dead and haunt burger joints or appear in crowds. Look at how many people say that Allah helped them cure an illness. There are many people that believe that have met the Greek gods. So I have serious doubts to trust people when it comes to reporting urban legends.

If Jesus was suppose to be evidence, God really messed up. The first book of the Bible is based on Paul's friend. Paul never saw Jesus and neither did his friend. The next 2 books are based on this so they must also have never seen Jesus. You have to wait 60 years for John to report seeing Jesus (and it seems to make more sense that this book was not written by John of the Bible.) So The most important event of human history according to Christianity, and it is almost lost and only remembered by a few people.

It just makes no sense.

Quath

All I can say to you Quath is that you did not read the book Objectively. It gives several topics each one that refutes another one of the bogus claims made by people out to disprove the Bible.

 

[SyntaxVorlon]

What do you mean by Objectively? If you mean taking what it says at face value as fact then you're going to run into trouble corroborating it with reality. The ONLY way to do this is to finagle your way through scripture and parts of objective research to create some sort of apologetic fusion. But that is a bit of a copout in and of itself.

 

[Blazin Bones]

Strobel wrote this book while he was still an atheist, He was convinced. it's clear evidence, you just won't except it.

 

[SyntaxVorlon]

Strobel wrote this book while he was still an atheist, He was convinced. it's clear evidence, you just won't except it.

Atheists typically don't make cases for deity worship. Besides I didn't see him at the meetings:

 

[Quath]

Strobel wrote this book while he was still an atheist, He was convinced. it's clear evidence, you just won't except it.

That would be like me pointing to a deconverted preacher and saying that proves God does not exist.

The historical evidence for Jesus is greatly lacking. Now I know your beliefs hinge on Jesus being real, but all I can say is I looked at the evidence and thought it weighted more towards his nonexistance.

Here is my rough idea of what may have happened. Many stories of Horus travelled up and down the Nile. There were stories of him being baptised, having 12 apostles. Dieing and going to hell and 3 days leter being resurrected. His mother was a virgin in some stories.

So I think the Gnostic Christians collected these stories and started their religion. They figured that the real version of these stories would eventually appear and grant them a heaven on Earth. They combined the religions around them into a belief system.

So I think Paul knew of them and started to learn of their secrets. He thought they were talking about a real person so he filled in the gaps and started converting people to his version of Christianity. Eventually Paul had enough followers that they wiped out the Gnostics and their version of Christianity is what history remembers.

Now this is just a possibility it happened this way. But it appears more likely than if Jesus had lived. There are just too many contradictions with history for the Bible to be always true.

Quath

 

[Blazin Bones]

Give me the contradictions.

 

[Quath]

I will just give some of the the historical problems of the Bible, not the self contradictory or scientific problems.

1. No Egyptian record of having Israelites slaves. No record of a Pharoah drowning. No record of plagues. It seems that if the Israelites were slaves, it was not by the Egyptians. Maybe another city with Egyptian people in it. There are no gaps in Egyptian histroy far enough back. If you go too far back, then you run into contradictions with dates from the OT.

2. No evidence of a mass exodus. For about 1 to 2 million people and livestock in the desert, there should be a lot of evidence from it. There should be enormous amounts of stuff left behind. So far none of it can be found. We can track movements of hunter gatherers in small tribes, so millions of people on the move should be very easy. There is way too much to go into but a very comphrehensive article can be found at http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch2.html. He tries to find possible routes for the exodus and they all fail.

(I just found a website that summarizes up the rest I was going to post, so I will just quote them instead to save me some time. http://members.aol.com/bbu84/biblicalstupidity/why.htm):

3. The book of Esther purports to tell how a young Jewish girl named Esther was chosen by the Persian King Xerxes I to be queen after the king had divorced Queen Vashti. Although historians know a great deal about Xerxes I, there is no record that he had a Jewish queen named Esther or that he was married to Vashti.

4. Additionally, the book of Esther insists that the Persian empire was divided into one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, but historians tell us that there was no such division of the empire. Also contrary to what the book of Esther says, historians state that Xerxes I did not order Jews in his territories to attack his Persian subjects.

5. The book of Daniel contains an account of certain events that supposedly transpired during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. In the fifth chapter of the book, we are told that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded on the throne by his son Belshazzar. However, historians tell us that Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar and was never king.

6. The book of Daniel also states that one "Darius the Mede" captured Babylon in the sixth century B.C.E. In contrast, historians inform us that it was actually Cyrus of Persia who took Babylon.

7. Turning to the New Testament, the second chapter of the book of Luke states that, shortly before the birth of Jesus, the emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman world. Luke states that every person had to travel to the town of his ancestors in order for the census to be taken. He points to the census as the reason that Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Jesus is said to have been born.

In the book entitled Gospel Fictions, Randal Helms states that no such census was ever taken in the history of the Roman Empire. He also says that it is ridiculous to think that the practical Romans would require millions of people to travel enormous distances to towns of long-deceased ancestors merely to sign a tax form. Moreover, in Asimov's Guide to the Bible, Isaac Asimov states that the Romans certainly would arrange no such census.

8. Matthew 27:45 states that while Jesus was on the cross, there fell over the whole land a darkness which lasted from midday until three in the afternoon. Andrew White states that although Roman observers such as Seneca and Pliny carefully described much less striking occurrences of the same sort in more remote regions, they failed to note any such darkness occurring even in Judea.

9. Concerning the issue of the alleged historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts, Robert Ingersoll wondered why it was that the first century Jewish historian Josephus, "the best historian the Hebrews produced, said nothing about the life or death of Christ; nothing about the massacre of the infants by Herod; not one word about the wonderful star that visited the sky at the birth of Christ; nothing about the darkness that fell upon the world for several hours in the midst of day; and failed entirely to mention that hundreds of graves were opened, and that multitudes of Jews arose from the dead, and visited the Holy City?" Ingersoll also asked: "Is it not wonderful that no historian ever mentioned any of these prodigies?"

So what makes sense is that a lot of these stories were made long after the fact. The writers tried to make it match with history as best as they could, but they did not have all the facts and made mistakes. There are so many cross overs that it is hard to tell a legend from history.

For example from http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch03.htm: After only a hundred years, Sargon's empire became a memory, but Sargon remained as a legend. It was said that Sargon's mother had abandoned him in a cradle of reeds, that she had placed the cradle on one of Mesopotamia's great rivers and that Sargon had been found and adopted by Sumerians -- a story similar to one which would emerge centuries later about a man called Moses.

Quath

 

[ThinkerMan]

Strobel wrote this book while he was still an atheist, He was convinced. it's clear evidence, you just won't except it.

No he wasn't. In first few pages of the book, he specifically states he went back and wrote the book after his conversion.

 

[Blazin Bones]

Woops. He did the reseach before his conversion, not in fact write the book. You're right Thinkman.