A WHOPPING 46% Of Americans Believe In Creationism According To New Gallup Poll

Wibbs

bluewolf wrote: »

good luck to you going off to prove that bourne wasnt intended as non fiction and that yer man never existed

Well if people who actually knew Bourne in life existed and either wrote this down or passed on said knowledge of existence and both the existence of Bourne and any followers he had were noted by external sources, you would have to conclude that the man Bourne existed. This would not mean he was a superduper secret agent of course, but like I say you would have to conclude he existed, certainly by comparison to many ancient and not so ancient figures in history he's more tied down on that front. IMHO the non existence of a figure like Jesus is kinda on a hiding to nothing. Ditto for Muhammed, even though the sources for his life are entirely internal to Muslim sources and later ones at that.

Wibbs

Ciaran0 wrote: »

I actually do agree with philologos on this one point. I really doubt the bible was intended to be written as fiction. Given that people back then would have actually believed in such fairy nonsense it's perfectly feasible that the authors of the bible genuinely believed it to be fact. That doesn't make it fact though.

Indeed so. It was a very different mindset at play.

nozzferrahhtoo

Wibbs wrote: »

Krishna was killed by a hunter with an arrow while meditating under a great tree. No thieves around. Krishna decent sod that he was forgave and comforted the hunter before he died.

I was not specifically talking about Krishna but good example! As with all myths even that is not universally agreed. Jacolliot for example says he was shot with multiple arrows while praying at a river or somewhere of that sort. Citing from memory here but he also claims the Bagaveda-Gita as his source. The body was then suspended from a tree after the murder which has some parallels with the act of crucifixion. Another one I remember reading actually had him nailed to the tree BY the arrow.

The point however is not to find where the stories are exactly the same. I would never expect that nor is that what I am claiming. The point is that a lot of the ideas behind the stories of Jesus were already around at the time and we can see how they would be inspired by them or take version of them.

Sexless conception was very common for example. The mother of Attis being impregnated by a fallen almond I think it was. Dionysus was linked to turning things into wine, being a wine god. I think he was also named "King of Kings", "Redeemer" and "Savior" at some point which sounds familiar.

The point I am making is not to suggest all these stories are _the same_ whether you go back to Horus, or Attis, or Krishna, or Buddha or even Zoroaster. One would be hard pushed to do that as clearly there are numerous differences.

The point however is that clearly much of the myth is far from original and this is to be expected as stories get changed in their telling, and re-telling, and plagiarism and adaption. Nailing one to a tree after shooting him with an arrow and nailing another one to a cross and then stabbing him with a spear.... are clearly different stories.... the twelve signs of the Zodiac being translated into 12 disciples.... also clearly very different but not _all that much_ and 1000 years is enough time for a Chinese Whispers effect to change the stories a bit, even without assuming people modified it deliberately to make it a bit different and hide plagarisms of the actual stories if not the themes.

The point in other words is that with so many preachers around and many myths too, and very little in the way of fact checking or resources such as we are used to today... we should not be surprised that often one myth is actually the amalgamation of already existing myths retold in the writers own way... and the rest of the stories are actually likely sources from a number of different people and their lives and events mixed together. So while we can probably expect a "Jesus" to exist, we can also expect some of the things we know about him to actually be about someone else but assigned to him.

nozzferrahhtoo

Ciaran0 wrote: »

I actually do agree with philologos on this one point. I really doubt the bible was intended to be written as fiction. Given that people back then would have actually believed in such fairy nonsense it's perfectly feasible that the authors of the bible genuinely believed it to be fact.

Or... it is also equally plausible... that they knew it was fiction but wrote it with the intention of it being TAKEN as fact. There is a subtle difference Philologos would like us to miss between something Fiction being intentionally written as fiction and fiction that was intentionally written to be believed.

ScumLord

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Or... it is also equally plausible... that they knew it was fiction but wrote it with the intention of it being TAKEN as fact.

I'd say parts are based on truth but long after the fact he's supporters added divinity with the good intentions of trying to spread he's word more effectively. It's hard to imagine how these people would have thought, without science it's easy to believe just about anything.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Well if people who actually knew Bourne in life existed and either wrote this down or passed on said knowledge of existence and both the existence of Bourne and any followers he had were noted by external sources, you would have to conclude that the man Bourne existed. This would not mean he was a superduper secret agent of course, but like I say you would have to conclude he existed, certainly by comparison to many ancient and not so ancient figures in history he's more tied down on that front. IMHO the non existence of a figure like Jesus is kinda on a hiding to nothing. Ditto for Muhammed, even though the sources for his life are entirely internal to Muslim sources and later ones at that.

I'm not trying to say he never existed, he might well have, and even more so as some amalgamation of a bunch of local preachers at the time
what I was trying to say, very lazily, was not about existence but existing exactly as described - so, the superduper secret agent part

philologos

Ciaran0 wrote: »

I actually do agree with philologos on this one point. I really doubt the bible was intended to be written as fiction. Given that people back then would have actually believed in such fairy nonsense it's perfectly feasible that the authors of the bible genuinely believed it to be fact. That doesn't make it fact though. To say the events described in the bible are fact requires proof, because frankly, it's all a bit ridiculous...

Thank you. My post was in response to the claim that the Bible was written as fiction. There's clear evidence to show that it wasn't. If people want to claim that the Bible is written as fiction I have the right to ask for what reason one has for saying that. To date I've seen nothing other than baseless assumption.

It wasn't an argument for the Bible being true but some of the 7 reasons touch on that.

I do think there are a number of reasons why the Bible us likely to be true. Some are covered in the 7 and I've covered others elsewhere.

I guess a good place to start would be to ask why you think Christianity is ridiculous?

Wibbs

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I was not specifically talking about Krishna but good example! As with all myths even that is not universally agreed.

It is if you're reading the texts involved.

Jacolliot for example says he was shot with multiple arrows while praying at a river or somewhere of that sort. Citing from memory here but he also claims the Bagaveda-Gita as his source. The body was then suspended from a tree after the murder which has some parallels with the act of crucifixion. Another one I remember reading actually had him nailed to the tree BY the arrow.

Jacolliot was famously wacky and used unsourced and well dodgy translations to fit his equally wacky theories. The actual main texts say simply that Krishna was killed when he was mistaken for a deer by a hunter called Jara and shot by an arrow in his foot. No mention is made of being impaled to the tree by said arrow and no mention of being hung from any tree afterwards. What happens afterwards in the texts is that he goes to a nearby temple and ascends and his body is cremated. One more cultural story has an impalement and the tree bursts forth with flowers and fruit because of his divine powah and all that stuff, but even that's one helluva stretch away from crucifixion and mentions nada about two thieves or any of that. Neither does he get reborn three days later. Stuff that Jacolliot makes claims for(among other things).

The point however is not to find where the stories are exactly the same. I would never expect that nor is that what I am claiming. The point is that a lot of the ideas behind the stories of Jesus were already around at the time and we can see how they would be inspired by them or take version of them.

Only in the most vaguest of ways. To the degree that they can for the most part be dismissed as a connection beyond very very basic archetypes that would come with religious leaders. Indeed one could argue that the Jesus story breaks a lot of the previous archetypes. For a start the majority of man gods come from high born backgrounds, only becoming more humble through realisation of the inequities of the world. The Buddha being a good example.

Sexless conception was very common for example. The mother of Attis being impregnated by a fallen almond I think it was.

She ate the fruit of an almond tree that flowed with the blood(call Alan Titchmarsh quick!!:eek::D) of some minor god or other. Though she was no virgin. On the Mary as virgin part, of the four Gospels only Luke and Matthew mention it. Paul makes no comment on this either, which you would think he would given how important it became later. IIRC he just notes her as a pious Jewish woman. Mark and john - the former the earliest gospel - ignore this part of his life entirely. I can certainly go along with the notion that the archetypal sexless generation meme was applied later, but the earliest texts don't have it. Just as for Catholics Mary is a very important figure in Christianity(probably because the Roman/Greek world cried out for a female deity otherwise missing in Judaism), but is mentioned remarkably little in the texts of any of the Gospels. So such memes when present came later and were applied to the original texts, but those texts are still there. Aside/ Krishna's ma wasn't a virgin either, nor was Dionysus'. Though those looking to push the connections often claim they were.

Dionysus was linked to turning things into wine, being a wine god.

True.

I think he was also named "King of Kings", "Redeemer" and "Savior" at some point which sounds familiar.

Untrue. More of the Christ conspiracy stuff and latterly Zeitgeist. He was known as the "liberator" but in the let's get pissed up way. He didn't die and get resurrected, well not in sniffing distance of the Jesus story. He was killed by Titans as a toddler and reborn out of Zeus' leg IIRC.

The point I am making is not to suggest all these stories are _the same_ whether you go back to Horus, or Attis, or Krishna, or Buddha or even Zoroaster. One would be hard pushed to do that as clearly there are numerous differences.

Huge differences more like. Not just to Jesus either BTW, just as many diffs with each other.

The point however is that clearly much of the myth is far from original and this is to be expected as stories get changed in their telling, and re-telling, and plagiarism and adaption. Nailing one to a tree after shooting him with an arrow and nailing another one to a cross and then stabbing him with a spear.... are clearly different stories.... the twelve signs of the Zodiac being translated into 12 disciples.... also clearly very different but not _all that much_ and 1000 years is enough time for a Chinese Whispers effect to change the stories a bit, even without assuming people modified it deliberately to make it a bit different and hide plagarisms of the actual stories if not the themes.

They are serious stretches to find links. The 12 disciples is far more to do with the 12 tribes of Israel as a symbol. The zodiacal connection if any goes waaaaaay back and it's connected to the 12 tribes not the disciples. The nailed to a tree part is highly dubious a connection as I've outlined.

So while we can probably expect a "Jesus" to exist, we can also expect some of the things we know about him to actually be about someone else but assigned to him.

Oh certainly. That said I suspect that outside of the stuff added to meld the tales into the Greco-Roman world, the voice that comes through is of a fairly consistent one of a year zero Jewish preacher with some novel add ons. I'd be applying occam on this one, IE that the cult became popular initially because you did have a charismatic figure at it's centre and it's more that, rather than add ons or copying other religions. The flim flam came later.

the story with krishna was that one day a brahmin or maharishi or one of them lads showed up and ordered him to coat himself in something or other
which he dutifully did, head to toe... but because he was standing, he didn't do his soles
then he was told he'd be impervious from harm everywhere he'd covered

so, one day, he got shot in the sole of the foot which was his weak spot

it's quite similar to the story of achilles, being dipped in the river everywhere except the heel, impervious to harm, then finally someone gets him in the heel and he dies

i can't remember the stuff in the Gita about his death as my main memory of that was action action dharma dharma go to war go to war...

nozzferrahhtoo

Wibbs wrote: »

They are serious stretches to find links. The 12 disciples is far more to do with the 12 tribes of Israel as a symbol.

Exactly the point I am making. The stories are not the same, but the themes and ideas in them all are. If you feel I should link it to the tribes and not the Zodiac so be it, but my point remains the same.

This is all my point is. We are talking about a story about a man that is 2000 years old when there was no media to confirm those stories. It was all word of mouth, much of it might not be about the person claimed as people probably heard a story they liked and changed the name to their own preacher of choice.

Similarly as stories get changed in the telling people are likely to introduce themes, ideas and even whole story lines from things they have heard before. If you are writing such stories yourself you would do well to pay heed to ideas, themes, stories and myths that were successful in the past. Certainly much of Hollywood and Sitcom writing almost wholly relies on such tactics Memetically it makes sense too. The adaptions to stories that were successful in the past will be used against in later stories to aid their reproductive success.

The point, in short, is that when looking at such a book as the Bible we should be to find that many of the stories are not accurate, are mixed up from other sources and other people, and are heavily influenced by stories that "worked" before in peoples minds.

Ghost Buster

philologos wrote: »

Thank you. My post was in response to the claim that the Bible was written as fiction. There's clear evidence to show that it wasn't. If people want to claim that the Bible is written as fiction I have the right to ask for what reason one has for saying that. To date I've seen nothing other than baseless assumption.

It wasn't an argument for the Bible being true but some of the 7 reasons touch on that.

I do think there are a number of reasons why the Bible us likely to be true. Some are covered in the 7 and I've covered others elsewhere.

I guess a good place to start would be to ask why you think Christianity is ridiculous?

Because rising from the dead, changing of water into wine yadda yadda yadda are biologically and physically impossible and the only recorded instances of their having happened are in manuscripts from a time when a digital watch would have blown the minds of those recording such events.
Dedicating ones life to a semi mythical man from these stories is...ridiculous...

Pushtrak

philologos wrote: »

I guess a good place to start would be to ask why you think Christianity is ridiculous?

What is ridiculous is how much it has had to adapt to reality, and how much of its texts are outdated. Even the 10 commandments, for instance in the case of the sabbath.

There is also the fact that anyone who doesn't follow the religion going to hell. So, given that 1/3 of the planet are christian, 2/3 would then be going to hell according to that theology. When you consider how long we have been as homo sapeins sapiens being around for say, 100,000 - 150,000 years and the genetic similarity to precursors. Did they have a soul? Or is it homo sapiens? Homo sapiens sapiens?

The planet has had a pretty bad track record for species on the planet. Pretty severe extinction events.

Things that have to be explained as metaphor when the reasoning behind such is nothing more than trying to mesh 2000 year old superstition in to a modern understanding of reality. Noah's flood, for instance surely wasn't written as a metaphor. And only the deluded could claim such an event took place in fact. And that is just one instance.

It is an interesting fact, too that the interventions of god have failed to occur in times when, say better record keeping was common practice. In short, answers aren't really to be found in the bible. Just questions that can not be answered satisfactorily. At least by my estimation.

nozzferrahhtoo

philologos wrote: »

My point was that there is no evidence to suggest that the Bible was written as fiction.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Oh goodie. Will you be presenting any of it or is this your usual "I'm saying there is evidence but not giving any of it" trick?

philologos wrote: »

My post was in response to the claim that the Bible was written as fiction. There's clear evidence to show that it wasn't.

Oh goodie, will you presenting any.... oh wait we did this already. I forgot. Your whole tactic is to just keep repeating over and over that there is evidence without actually presenting any.

philologos wrote: »

If people want to claim that the Bible is written as fiction I have the right to ask for what reason one has for saying that. To date I've seen nothing other than baseless assumption.

The assumption is yours because the burden of proof is yours. If you want to establish the bible is real and true then the onus is on you to do so. Not us to prove it is not.

You keep pretending to have done a philosophy course and yet you can not even correctly ascertain where the burden of proof lies in discourse. Either you did not do the course you claim you did, you were remarkably poor at it, or it was a remarkably poor course.

Duggys Housemate

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh certainly. That said I suspect that outside of the stuff added to meld the tales into the Greco-Roman world, the voice that comes through is of a fairly consistent one of a year zero Jewish preacher with some novel add ons. I'd be applying occam on this one, IE that the cult became popular initially because you did have a charismatic figure at it's centre and it's more that, rather than add ons or copying other religions. The flim flam came later.

I think you are pouring pearls to swine here Wibbs. Jesus certainly existed, and probably his life followed most of the Synpotic bibles which accord with what we know of the era - the trial of Jesus is run exactly how we expect. Simply put, if someone were to make up someone based on Roman, Greek, Persian or other mystery religions myths why make him a Jew? Why have any life story, or detailed description of a trial - a trial held by two men known to exist and be in power at the time, when you can get away with sayings, like Buddha? Thats a massive amount of research for someone half a century later, based in Rome, making up mystery religions for shlts and giggles. And why would you do this?

As for somebody else coming along and changing the words of a simple peasant to make a a universal religion, we know who he was. Paul. And as for the influence of Greek and Roman Philosophy, thats all over Christianity from the beginning, and nobody disputes that- that is from John, and Paul but not Jesus. Logos, person, substance all greek philosophy. Mithras had nothing to do with it.

meanwhile the internet idiots are all about Mithras, a God of war, with no influence on Christianity at all. They continually miss out judaism, but I suppose if you think the man never existed, you can ignore the jewish part, even the Roman part. Maybe he was an alien.

Wibbs

Pushtrak wrote: »

When you consider how long we have been as homo sapeins sapiens being around for say, 100,000 - 150,000 years and the genetic similarity to precursors. Did they have a soul? Or is it homo sapiens? Homo sapiens sapiens?

I posed that very question in religion class back in my schooldays. Got thrown into the corridor for my trouble. One of the other head teachers a priest, was walking the corridor and asked me to explain myself. I did and he cracked up laughing(he had a degree in biology it turned out), so we went to the teachers lounge for a cup of tea and a continuation of the debate.

Things that have to be explained as metaphor when the reasoning behind such is nothing more than trying to mesh 2000 year old superstition in to a modern understanding of reality. Noah's flood, for instance surely wasn't written as a metaphor. And only the deluded could claim such an event took place in fact. And that is just one instance.

There is a third option of course P. Such an event did take place locally and in a minor manner and was jazzed and metaphored up later. Local bloke builds boat in case of loacalised flooding, enough to save his family and some breeding livestock. Others laugh and don't bother as "ah sure the flooding is never that bad(as folks are wont to do). Extreme weather event kicks off and large area is flooded, but this boyo and his family are saved. Easy to jazz that up in the retalling Given how many early settlements were built on floodplains it's likely. Or... it's a worldwide "race memory" of the worldwide and severe floods that followed the ending of the last ice age where huge areas were inundated. The flooding of the black sea(7Kya IIRC) could be another "ground zero" for the legend. Worldwide it's rare to find a culture that doesn't have a flood myth and their own Noah, so it's an interesting one in what it may tell us of an event or series of events in the distant past.

It is an interesting fact, too that the interventions of god have failed to occur in times when, say better record keeping was common practice. In short, answers aren't really to be found in the bible. Just questions that can not be answered satisfactorily. At least by my estimation.

Well your religious when questioned on this point usually point to the idea that maybe they happen all the time, but we don't see them. But yea just a tad "convenient" alright.

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

Hell the vatican has it's own observatory that is plugged into the rest of the scientific community, whereas go back a bit and Galileo was under house arrest.

and that priest in CERN making the anti-matter that was stolen by the Illuminati

Capt'n Midnight

Biggins wrote: »

I have already given previous example but here is a few more - of which there is thousands on the internet alone to VERIFY that the Vatican was indeed HOSTILE to Darwin.

Church of England didn't take too kindly either. Don't forget that Origin of the Species was published just 7 years after the famine and 30 years after Catholic emancipation.

Muslims are big into creation too.


re the 46%
10% of americans have married because of a certain web site
and 3% of americans have been abducted by UFO's


statistics and facts have to be taken in context

AdventRises

Ahh .. yes. A pro-atheist thread :rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight

Nuttzz wrote: »

There is no way that man is created by intelligent design, after all what intelligence would put hair around your a*sehole?

more realistically stuff like optic nerves on the inside of the eye, in an octopus the nerves are behind the retina, they don't have blind spots.

hernias occur because we aren't designed to walk upright, just don't have enough connective tissue to hold everything together

lots of spinal and foot problems

claws would be more useful than fingernails

an ability to eat grass - like some baboons - would be handy at times

an ability to eat lots of stuff that monkeys can eat would also be handy


And why isn't chocolate that toxic to us ?

appendix acts like a handy backup of intestinal flora , but why does it have to be so dangerous



If we are designed how come some of us are lactose intolerant ?


If evolution doesn't occur then why are elephants loosing their tusks ?

sandmanporto

American's are brainwashed. but I do know for a fact there is something after death. as they say be a bastard in life be a bastard in death!

sandmanporto

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

more realistically stuff like optic nerves on the inside of the eye, in an octopus the nerves are behind the retina, they don't have blind spots.

hernias occur because we aren't designed to walk upright, just don't have enough connective tissue to hold everything together

lots of spinal and foot problems

claws would be more useful than fingernails

an ability to eat grass - like some baboons - would be handy at times

an ability to eat lots of stuff that monkeys can eat would also be handy


And why isn't chocolate that toxic to us ?

appendix acts like a handy backup of intestinal flora , but why does it have to be so dangerous



If we are designed how come some of us are lactose intolerant ?


If evolution doesn't occur then why are elephants loosing their tusks ?

Put it to you this way: If man can believe what he sees with his own eyes how can he prove or disprove the existence of his own eyes?
If you can prove that what you see the world through really exists I will give you a medal..

Capt'n Midnight

sandmanporto wrote: »

Put it to you this way: If man can believe what he sees with his own eyes how can he prove or disprove the existence of his own eyes?
If you can prove that what you see the world through really exists I will give you a medal..

Cogito ergo sum.

Wibbs

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

hernias occur because we aren't designed to walk upright, just don't have enough connective tissue to hold everything together

Four legged animals get hernias too.

lots of spinal and foot problems

Mostly down to lifestyle not "design" though.

claws would be more useful than fingernails

No they would be counterproductive as they would make tool manipulation more difficult.

an ability to eat grass - like some baboons - would be handy at times

Maybe, but that would require a longer gut, which in turn would require a bigger belly.

an ability to eat lots of stuff that monkeys can eat would also be handy

We're about the most omnivorous primate on the planet with the widest dietary adaptations out there.

And why isn't chocolate that toxic to us ?

No idea, but that's a good thing.

appendix acts like a handy backup of intestinal flora , but why does it have to be so dangerous

For the vast majority it's pretty benign.

If we are designed how come some of us are lactose intolerant ?

Down to the dietary adaptations mentioned earlier. Pretty much all "cavemen" would have been lactose and gluten and alcohol intolerant, but as we spread out and encountered novel foods and proteins we adapted accordingly. Those with such intolerances today are kinda like throwbacks to an earlier version of us.

All in all evolution has "designed" us pretty well.

squod

AdventRises wrote: »

Ahh .. yes. A pro-atheist thread :rolleyes:

Pro Satanist TBF

Ghost Buster

squod wrote: »

Pro Satanist TBF

I would wager that people who lack a belief in gods also lack a belief in devils.