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God is not dead
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I came close to saying I wasn't going to bother with this thread anymore but I'll give it one more shot. Please try to understand...
Ok, I promise to try and understand.
I totally agree.Ok, a few broad points to explain where you went wrong here:
1 - "Singularity of nothingness" is not a collection of words that means anything. This is not a thing.2 - All of your tea metaphors are completely useless unless you are defining tea as "All that exists, has existed or will exist". We're talking about ALL THINGS, not one small thing.
I disagree. You are assuming that the universe is all that ever existed and all that ever will exist. That is not the case. The universe had its beginning in the Big Bang. But what caused the big bang? You say that it doesn’t need a causer and therefore has no cause and therefore you contend that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. All I’m saying is, is that that takes more faith than believing that God did it. Ok imagine of you can absolutory nothing, not a thing, nada and from this comes everything. That’s rabbit out of the hat stuff. But the Judaic/Christian view contends that yes it came from nothing but not by nothing, rather it came because before there was anything God was there to create it. You cannot get anything from nothing especially everything. If everything came from nothing then that is a miracle. To us the universe incorporates everything but if it came from nothing then how? How can everything come from nothing?3 - All your questions about how and why the universe popped into existence from apparently no where are valid...we don't have an answer. Super powerful intelligent entity beyond space and time is not something you have evidence for.
The famous English atheist astronomer turned agnostic Sir Fred Hoyle stated the following: “Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”4 -God is a member of the set of "something" in terms of the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Not only that, but he's an amazingly complex and baffling thing to simply be there always. That's far more puzzling than matter and energy popping into existence for no apparent reason.
If God does exist and He did create everything that we call “the universe” then that means that He existed before the universe was created and therefore cannot be part of this universe he created. Surely you concede this point even though you don’t actually believe He exists?1 - Atheists such as myself are not saying that we know for sure it wasn't God. I'm not in the habit of inventing answers about stuff from before time. I'm saying: We have no evidence as to what caused the big bang. Therefore any answer to the question of what caused it is made up. All of the following are baseless assumptions that a sane person should reject pending further investigation: It was an unknown super particle, God did it, it was an explosion from a previous big bang's collapse, Santa sneezed.
I have to cite Sir Fred Hoyle again on this point. He at least conceded that an intellect beyond anything man can aspire to meddled with physics, “it must have” he would say. He came to this conclusion by empirical study of the facts as he knew them. I thought that is what science was? Conclusions based on research of what can be studied. If we don’t listen to the conclusions of the likes of Hoyle then who do we listen to?2 - Yes I poo poo the extra-universal God theory as its a contradition in terms and you have no evidence. Evidence please.
God by your own definition is an “amazingly complex and baffling thing” or as I would put it “a Super Intellect”. Surely what Hoyle concluded to be a super intellect can only be attributed to a being beyond human comprehension. There might not be particles with “Made by God” stamped on them, but evidence like what Hoyle concluded about, is strong enough to at least leave the open that I might have been God, God being defined in the terms described above.Please read a dictionary. Universe does not mean "matter and energy that came from the big bang". It means "all that is, was and will be". This is important for when we ask the question "Why is there something rather than nothing"? God is something.
The universe is not all that ever was and ever will be if it had a beginning. And the most accepted theory in science today with regards to how the universe came into being is the Big Bang theory. And the Big Bang theory postulates a beginning from nothing, so again my question is: “How can everything come from nothing?” I do get your point that God is something. But if He is “something” then that means He exists. And if He exists then that means He created the universe. And if He created the universe then that means He was around before the universe was created, because in order for One to create a universe One must actually exist before endeavoring to do so. Again you don’t have to believe in God to concede this point.Please read a dictionary. I was asking for evidence, the insane ramblings of ancient Israelites do not constitute evidence from the dawn of existence.
Nor was it presented as such, but it does show you that they were onto something when in their scriptures God placed Himself outside and separate from the creation. Clever move for such long time ago. All the other pagan creation myths have God inside the creation, rearranging things that were already there. Not so with the Hebrews. “In the beginning God created” the word created in this verse is ‘Bara’ which means to create from nothing at all and is only used with God as its subject. There are other words in the Hebrew that translate “create” but they refer to a type of creating that needs something there to create from. Not ‘Bara’ though. So all those centuries ago the Hebrews were saying that from nothing God created everything and now science is telling us that the most plausible explanation of how the universe came into being is from nothing. Funny that.I can't believe I just had to say that to another human being.
I’m sure you’ll get over it.Its baseless assumption. One baseless assumption among a hundred billion other baseless assumptions. I'm saying we do not know the answer yet, whereas you're plucking one you like out of the air and insisting its true because you think its plausible.
Well no not really, I’m telling you what I believe to be true and then I’m telling that I have good reason to believe it based on discoveries made in science. That is not a baseless assumption. You say you don’t know how the universe came into being but you poo poo me for saying that I believe God did it. I’m not telling you to believe what I believe, I’m just showing you that I have good reasons to believe what I actually believe.1 - The universe is "everything".
No it’s not unless you conclude that nothing made everything. How can nothing make everything?2 - Any hypothetical cause is "something".
Yes. But if nothing is the cause then how can nothing be something?3 - "Something" is a part of "everything".
Something is but not “nothing”. Nothing is not part of everything because nothing is well “nothing”. You could say that nothing simply isn’t.You must understand that the question "What caused the big bang?" is subtly different to the question "Why is there something other than nothing"?
I agree but what is your point?You're still making a gigantic assumption. I've explained the reason for why its a very poor assumption but I'll try again. God help me, I'll try again. With a hypothetical:
Lets say there's no God for now. Lets take a look at 100,000 versions of the universe. In all but, lets say, three versions it implodes or flies apart due to parameters unlike our own. By chance those three get life. That life looks around and goes "God must have fined tuned the universe to suit our existence as its far too unlikely!"
Please tell me you understand?
I understand your point of view perfectly. It is you who can’t see mine. But anyway let us assume that there is not God. And that your analogy is accurate. Then what? People made God up? Of course I agree 100%. That is exactly what happened if we take all your preconditions as true.Ok, this is how it went:
1 - Over a couple of centuries science works out that life appears to have emerged without inteligent direction due to natural selection.
2 - Some guy comes up with ID and says "Lets see if we can find something that would definately need to have been designed rather than developed via natural selection".
3 - The afformentioned guy and his colleagues either fail utterly or lie.
4 - Afformentioned guy's rich powerful Christian friends spend millions spreading those lies because it supports their beliefs.
Thats the entire ID movement right there, no embellishment.
Point 1 is strongly supported but not proven. Science has shown that some things in nature do not appear to need a designer, but that is not proving that they do not actually have a designer. And if what we can take from the cosmological discoveries has any foundation, that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics in such a way as to enable carbon based life to exist, then it is still an open debate IMO.Its....its a metaphor... You have to understand that, right? This is a cruel joke you're playing on your old pal Zillah, right?
Me? Never
We call the killing of a child immoral because we're programmed to feel that way by evolution. I don't understand why you're having such difficulty with this concept. Is it confusing because the reaction is such a strong one? How is it fundamentally any different to other very strong reactions such as the sexual arousal we feel with a mate or the rising fury of when someone threatens those we love?
Why call it immoral though? What’s so immoral about it? From an evolutionary point of view I would call it socially non-advantageous for the culprit and detrimental to the health of the herd mentality, but not immoral. Immoral has that whole right and wrong thing going on with it. How does one define right and wrong without a God or a higher standard in which to aspire to? To what do we measure the rightness and wrongness of something to if no objective values exist? All you are saying to me is that you believe they do exist and you express it because you find the killing of children morally reprehensible as do I.The "Made by God" thing has nothing to do with it. There are a billion billion things we can assert exist for which there is no evidence. We'd go uselessly insane if we didn't reject them until we get evidence. You do this in every case that I do it except your Abrahamic God. The fact that you find this one baseless assumption quite appealing does not change my standards for evidence.
I don’t though. Just because I don’t hide the fact that I believe in God and that I believe He created all things is not the same as me squashing reality into that frame of reference as you suppose. I have given here and over in the Christianity forum the reason why I believe it many times. Some reasons that I believe are personally experience reasons, reasons that only I can benefit from which I never hold out as proof anyway. Some are biblical and some historical and some as discussed here scientific. I have plenty of reason to believe in God and have no reasons to not believe in Him. I don’t expect anyone else to adopt my reasons as reason why they should believe in Him. What I don’t like is being poo poo’d for it for no good reason. My faith might be laughable to some but I don’t care. Doesn’t bother me, give me good reasons to stop believing and I will.1 - There is no evidence that there was a cause to the big bang.
2 - There is no evidence that, should such a cause exist, it was God.
3 - Thats the only logical position.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In any case, if the universe had a beginning then it logically follows that it had a beginner. This is the main reason Fred Hoyle remained atheistically agnostic. He just could not believe in a beginner which is why he refused to accept the Big Bang theory but everyday science is showing us more and more evidence that the universe had a beginning and is not eternal in the past and is not in steady sate or whatever else state. It had a beginning and therefore a beginner and as an already believer in ‘God did it’ for other reasons, this just strengthens that, I am not bending reality to fit my beliefs here.This has nothing to do with our discussion really but I'll bite: It is not rational to conclude that a man you never met broke the laws of physics based entirely upon the testimony of unknown individuals, which was in turn recorded by unknown individuals, from a time where superstition was endemic.
Way too big a subject to go into here and maybe I should not have brought it up the last time. All I will say is that based on what you have just stated I conclude that you know very little about the subject matter. I’ll wager that you haven’t spent five hours of your life studying the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, which if true gives a basis to believe in His other claims. No point in saying you don’t believe it happened because the laws of physics prohibit it. He claimed to be God not just a mortal man who is only governed by natural laws. And if God exists as we have discussed at length here then a resurrection from the dead should be no big deal to Him (to us yes) but not to Him. If God can create the universe from nothing and provide the subatomic stratum from which to permit carbon based life then a resurrection should be no big deal. But I digress on this point.Where do you think society would be today if everyone applied your absurdly sloppy standards? You think you can put a space station in orbit using maths that an unknown individual with no education insists if valid? Why do you think they're doing things like spending billions on particle accelerators? Its because getting answers is really really hard. It takes discipline and scepticism, not child-like trust and naive assumptions.
Yeah but was the €6Billion it cost to fund the LHC project only taken from atheists tax Euro’s or gullible religious fools as well? That makes it theirs too doesn’t it? Hey look, I’m all for Large Haydon Particle Accelerators. Bring it on, I want to know more too. If there is something that they can uncover that proves there is no God then let’s have it.Where did I say the issue was entirely concluded? I said God is on the run. He is. People used to think lightning was caused by Gods. People used to think the sun was God. The moon, animals...virtually everything in existence has been thought to be divine by someone somewhere. Now, science has driven him out of all of those things by explaining what they are. God exists only in the places we don't understand. You've had to resort to putting him at the dawn of time, one of the last places we cannot yet see with the ever illuminating eye of science.
The Judaic/Christian God was never believed to be anything other than a being which transcended space and time. He has always been believed in by Christians to have created everything but never part of what was created. He was never believed to be lightening or the sun and so forth by Jews or Christians. What you are implying is only applicable to the many pagans religions of the world not the Abrahamic ones.Er, so? Yes, your beliefs were originally conceived by ancient peoples who knew less about the universe than the average modern ten year old, whats your point?
They never claimed they knew anything about the universe except to say that God created it from nothing. The Bible is not a scientific journal nor was it designed as such. It just declares things from the perspective of a particular people at particular times in history and in historical and poetic terms. And if their concept of God is only a concept among other concepts to be considered, then that God does not exists, but if what they say about that God intruding into their history is true then we are dealing with a being that is beyond space and time and human comprehension. I don't expect you to be fascinated by this but I am.0 -
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NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Certainly, in our universe, you can't create something from nothing. However, that doesn't really apply to the creation of the universe, of which we know absolutely nothing about.
Absolutely nothing? We now know it had a beginning. That's huge. Do you know how long science believed that the universe just always was? Eternal in the past? For centuries. It is only recently that it was discovered to have had a beginning and the more science is finding out the more it is strengthening this view. So if it had a beginning then either the universe came about from nothing and by nothing or it was brought into being by another transcendent reality not part of our universe's reality.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »You shouldn't apply the rules and logic of the universe itself to prove or disprove different theories regarding to the creation of that universe.
This has already happened. Einstein came on the scene.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »If God can exist before time in contradiction to the laws of our universe, why can't some other cause?
Well assuming God can then how could anything else cause it unless God also caused that. "Well then what caused God?" you might say. Well nothing caused God. Only what begins to exists needs a cause. If God does exist then He never began to exist. He is eternal, not the universe, and if He is eternal in the future then He is also eternal in the past and therefore has no cause.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Hoyle, as you describe him, is an agnostic. He hasn't concluded that God exists - his own personal experience tells him that it is a possibility. And that's probably true for most atheists - I don't know that God doesn't exist, and I recognise that there is a possibility that he does exist. However, for me - and plenty of Hoyle's peers, it must be said - it is a very, very minute possibility.
If matter is all that there is then how can matter make matter? Matter when broken down into its fundamental elements is a made thing. Elementary particles which make up atoms, atoms which make up molecules and so on up the chain to a rock or a tree or a human being. What made the subatomic particles though? Nothing? Something made them. You don't believe that can be a transcendent consciousness well then fine. I do. Am I right? I think so. Why not? You might ask the same of me regarding what you believe. I would say "maybe you're right." When you get down to the bare bones of the matter we are left with randomness that defies comprehension and yet this primordial randomness has in it the capacity to organize itself into complex carbon based life forms. A mindless, purposeless universe would not do that and if it has done that and we are but the byproducts of that process then what we are talking about here is just more mindlessness. It's not debating and seeking after truth, its mindless garbage with no meaning to it even though we might believe it has.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »I'm pretty sure that the opening verses of the old testament stick God inside creation (what with there being time and everything) moving things about, screwing in lightbulbs and so on.
"In the beginning God created..." That puts God before the beginning and the creation "In" the beginning...NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Lets hear them!
Thought I gave some already? But just to recap. The constants that are present in the early miniscule moments of the big bang have life permitting parameters so finely tuned that for all of them to have been caused by nothing and to have come about from nothing are in the degrees of magnitude so unlikely to happen by chance that for mathematicians to even attempt to calculate it would be ridiculous. That is why there are many seasoned physicist and scientists trying to push science to a new paradigm shift in how science views things. Interesting article here about this very thing. I feel it is only a matter of time before science itself changes in order to deal with the many problems it faces today. It has done it before, I'm sure it will handle the change, nay it will be the better by far for that change.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »No athiest will claim otherwise. Just because we don't have any evidence as to the cause of the creation of the universe, it doesn't mean there wasn't a cause. Of course, it doesn't mean that there was a cause either, and it certainly doesn't mean that that cause was God.
I agree, the absence of any evidence doesn't mean any of those things.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »Well, that's just it. There is no evidence. If the resurrection of Jesus had a basis firmer than anecdotes retold, rewritten and retranslated over a period of 2,000 years, everyone and his mother would be queuing up for mass on a Sunday.
I doubt it very much. I contend that even if God did peep out through the clouds and announce in thunderous tones that He does in fact exist then you will still have those who will contend that it was super mass hallucination due to mass airborne drug inducement by super aliens or something.NekkidBibleMan wrote: »There is no clear-cut, verifiable evidence. And because there's no evidence - of any of Jesus' miracles - it's a very big leap to take everything at face value and build your life around it.
I agree. But we do not need to believe in any of Jesus' miracles in order to settle the big one, the resurrection. If that one happened then that gives basis for believing the others also happened. And that big one can you can be convinced of by careful study of the facts, that the resurrection issue assumes to be true. This has been discussed ad-infinitum in the Christianity forum so I suggest check here for one of the full discussion on it to see why there are those who have a basis for believing it. It is not just blind faith which says “the Bibles says so it must be true” so that's good enough for me. It is an historical account of an historical person that can be scrutinize and cross referenced and concluded about. There have been many over the years like Frank Morrison who have gone out with the specific intention of disproving it by exposing themselves to the facts as there presented to us in the accepted literature and have come back convinced that there is no other explanation that can adequately explain the assumed facts except the resurrection itself. Sherlock’s "Trial of the witnesses", Morrison's "Who moved the stone", Professor Greenleaf's -Trial of the Evangelists", C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" are all great reads when it comes to this subject. I contend that you cannot have a proper informed opinion on any subject until you have done a bit of research into it. Same with this subject. If you can read any or all of the books I've cited and still not be convinced then that is fine, at least you took the time to look, most people who deny the resurrection have never spent two hours of their life researching or reading anything about it to have an proper informed opinion on it. They contend that ressurections can't happen so therefore they didn't happen so the reason people believe it did must be wrong because it can't happen and therefore didn't happen and on they go. At least read a few books on the subject that people have put years of their life into compiling on the subject and get an informed opinion on it.
Wick and Z, I will reply to your other posts tomorrow if I get a min. Going to bed now. Wrecked
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Soul Winner wrote: »I agree. But we do not need to believe in any of Jesus' miracles in order to settle the big one, the resurrection. If that one happened then that gives basis for believing the others also happened. And that big one can you can be convinced of by careful study of the facts, that the resurrection issue assumes to be true. This has been discussed ad-infinitum in the Christianity forum so I suggest check here for one of the full discussion on it to see why there are those who have a basis for believing it. It is not just blind faith which says “the Bibles says so it must be true” so that's good enough for me. It is an historical account of an historical person that can be scrutinize and cross referenced and concluded about. There have been many over the years like Frank Morrison who have gone out with the specific intention of disproving it by exposing themselves to the facts as there presented to us in the accepted literature and have come back convinced that there is no other explanation that can adequately explain the assumed facts except the resurrection itself. Sherlock’s "Trial of the witnesses", Morrison's "Who moved the stone", Professor Greenleaf's -Trial of the Evangelists", C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" are all great reads when it comes to this subject. I contend that you cannot have a proper informed opinion on any subject until you have done a bit of research into it. Same with this subject. If you can read any or all of the books I've cited and still not be convinced then that is fine, at least you took the time to look, most people who deny the resurrection have never spent two hours of their life researching or reading anything about it to have an proper informed opinion on it. They contend that ressurections can't happen so therefore they didn't happen so the reason people believe it did must be wrong because it can't happen and therefore didn't happen and on they go. At least read a few books on the subject that people have put years of their life into compiling on the subject and get an informed opinion on it.
Wick and Z, I will reply to your other posts tomorrow if I get a min. Going to bed now. Wrecked
Okay so say we establish that the resurrection has occurred, that is a human body that was dead clinically, and then three days later the same human being is alive. Pretty awesome but my question is what does it prove? What does it say to you that its not saying to me? If of course its actually what happened and even if it did crazy unimaginable things happen in the universe everyday, why do you hold this thing in such high regard?0 -
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CerebralCortex wrote: »Okay so say we establish that the resurrection has occurred, that is a human body that was dead clinically, and then three days later the same human being is alive. Pretty awesome but my question is what does it prove? What does it say to you that its not saying to me? If of course its actually what happened and even if it did crazy unimaginable things happen in the universe everyday, why do you hold this thing in such high regard?
An excellent question and one which I hope I can answer as articulately as possible. Right so let us assume that this is an actually fact of history and that what the reporters give in their accounts about Jesus resurrection is actually true. Then that means that it is highly unlikely that they would make up the other stuff that it is claimed Jesus said and did. Why? Because for one these reporters have seen the risen Christ with their own eyes and would be careful to report the events of His earthly ministry as accurately as possible, and that includes the things He said and did.
Now it’s not that somebody rose from the dead even in the supernatural way that the Gospels declare Jesus rose, but it is the fact that it is Jesus who rose that is the amazing thing. Think about it for a second with an open mind. It is the One who made all the other outrageous claims about Himself for which He was accused as a blasphemer by the Jewish leaders and rightly so if He actually wasn’t who He claimed to be, who actually rose. The Jews were right to adjudge Him as a blasphemer if He was not who He claimed Himself to be. His family were right to try to take Him away because they believed He was beside Himself in madness. People today are right to think that Christianity is a “Looney Bin” religion if Christ did not rise from the dead as a fact of History, even the apostle Paul said that “If Christ be not risen then our faith is vain and that we are false witnesses of God” if in fact God did not raise up the Christ as the Church has proclaimed for two millennia. Jesus Himself is a looney if God did not actually raise Him from the dead because He at least believed the things He claimed about Himself even if nobody else did, or if He didn’t really believe them and knew them to be false then that makes Him crook which is worse.
So we have what C.S Lewis calls the starling alternate. A man whom you must accept for what He Himself claims to be or you must conclude that He was either a nutcase or a malefactor. You cannot put Him on the same shelf with other respected founders of religion like Buddha, Confucius or Mohamed because they at least never made such claims about themselves. For instance you will never hear Mohammad saying that He is the bread of life that came down from God out of heaven or that he was the water of life and that if anyone drinks from me will have eternal life. Confucius never said ”Before Abraham was I was” or that “I beheld Satan cast from heaven like lightening” which happened long before even Abraham lived. Buddha never said that his death meant anything, in fact He is on record as saying that he means nothing, that all he can do is leave you the way that he followed, which was what eight fold path which brought you to a trance like state that broke the chain of Tanya which is what holds all mankind in bondage and you can live out this life having been changed by this middle road which will eventual lead you to Nirvana his definition of eternal life and you become one with ultimate reality at death and so on. He offered that experience, he never offered himself as the way. Only Jesus and all the nutty religious fruit cakes say the things that Jesus said and yet Jesus is respected along with all these other respect founders of religion as being merely a good and wise teacher but not supernatural. Well he cannot be both good and wise without also being supernatural. “Well why not?” You may ask. Well if He was good but not supernatural then he couldn’t be wise because to also be wise He must know that the claims He makes are not true. Or he could be wise and not supernatural but not good because He knows that what He claims is not true and is lying about them to make others think impossible things about Him for some crazy egotistical reasons so He would not be good. He can’t be both good and wise and not be also supernatural, He is either all three or one of the others, He can’t be both without also being who He claimed to be.
So how can you resolve the issue? That is what the resurrection does. If you can research that issue and from that research conclude that there is no other explanation for the facts that pertain to this story that explain the facts of this story better than that than He actually rose. Then that will give you a basis for believing all the other claims. If the one who went around making these ridiculous claims about Himself including the claim that He would die and three days later will come out of the tomb and this actually happened then I don’t know about you but that gives what He said prior to His death and resurrection real validity. That means He actually is who He claimed to be and that the Jewish leaders were wrong about Him. And that what He said regarding future events will also come to pass.
Here is a sample of some of the claims Jesus made about Himself:
“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 16:13-18
He never denies what Peter said, in fact He praises Peter for knowing it.
”The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.” John 4:25-26
This does not prove that He was in fact the Messiah but He at least thought He was. You don’t get this in other respected founders of religion. Sure they claim weird stuff but not about themselves. If what Jesus said to this woman is not true then Jesus was either deluded or a liar. No middle ground. If you said something like that to me I would think you were nuts, but if you die under the same circumstances as Jesus did and come forth from the grave as it is reported He did then I will take a second look at what you said to me about being the Messiah. If that’s true then that gives a basis for believing the rest..
"Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee." John 9:35-37
"But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death." Matthew 26:63-66
The fact that the priest tore his clothes is proof enough that they perceive what Jesus was saying was blasphemy. As a side bar, this ruling was illegal. It was held at night for one which in their own law was not legal, and at a time that they called “High Sabbath”. It was an illegal gathering and ruling because not all the members of the Sanhedrin were present which was required under their own law so to pronounce death in such circumstances without a proper trial which was highly illegal. This is shown in stark clarity by what the priest says. What need we of anymore witnesses. Well they did need more witnesses. A full Sanhedrin was required and that is why they held it at night, because they knew that if all the members were present that they could not have gotten Him convicted on these grounds. It wasn’t incumbent on Jesus to say anything but they presented that He speak and on these words they condemned Him. Totally illegal and they knew it.
Anyway we have these stories because they were first preached by the disciples. If their account can be found to false for whatever reason then we can dismiss the account but I fail to see how it can be. I’ll leave Professor Simon Greenleaf with the last word on this. Sorry about all the religion in the atheist forum but I was asked the question
Prof Simon Greenleaf – The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by The Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice, read more here
“And first, as to their honesty. Here they are entitled to the benefit of the general course of human experience, that men ordinarily speak the truth, when they have no prevailing motive or inducement to the contrary. This presumption, to which we have before alluded, is applied in courts of justice, even to witnesses whose integrity is not wholly free from suspicion; much more is it applicable to the evangelists, whose testimony went against all their worldly interests
The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teaching of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propogate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution
The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually rose from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem amom men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.
Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for this fabrication.”0 -
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Soul Winner wrote: »Well yeah. What basis does one have to say that what Jesus said was false?
Second hand information from 2000 years ago and if even true aren't astounding enough to prove anything except that he was a very powerful being.Soul Winner wrote: »You cannot believe what He says but that does not prove what He says to be false. At some point you must settle for something that you will believe in and inexorably you will found those beliefs based on something that you have read or heard and live your life accordingly. That is why the resurrection is so important. If you can believe that that happened then that is a good basis to believe the other things, and yes that becomes a leap of faith but then that does happen no matter you decide you want to base you life on.
Not sure how to answer that but... ...personally how I chose to lead my life involves me trying(struggling
) to be dynamic changing myself instead of trying to change the world which is what so many major religions try to do. Admitting to myself that there is nothing certain. 0 -
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