Continuation of Christianity debate.

[Kebis]

I think the reason Paul does not write about miracles is that to the people at the time, miracles were part what a lot of prophets could do. That's why in the four gospels many people think Jesus is Moses or Elijah or John the Baptist, because of the miracles. Moses parted the waters, Elijah called down fire from Heaven, and neither of them claimed to be God. Paul didn't bother trying to prove Jesus was a prophet, because he was saying Jesus was more than a prophet.

[got tonkaed]

I would agree with that contention to a point, because yes amongst the Jewish people there would have been perhaps less need to make a point of the miracles, however this seems to be a bit short of an assumption when you consider Paul's larger missionary context. Paul spends a great deal of time starting out new Christian churches in areas where there is either low or no Jewish presence at all...the formation of a gentile church, a theme discussed heavily in Pauline attributed books. For these people, i would probably not be as inclined to believe they knew as much about the Jewish prophets as Jews as a group did not have nearly as widespread of an influence in the Roman Empire. Its because of his large amount of time spent in the "gentile mission" without attribution of miracles to Jesus (other than the addition of the miracle of Resurrection...which is not accepted without a doubt as writing from Paul and not a later addition) along with the wealth of Gnostic and other writings which dont attribute divinity.

Im not saying that Jesus cant be followed without being divine, or even that a lack of miracle acknowledgement from Paul means Jesus was not divine, but i do find that its interesting about the lack of mention from the man who essentially is credited for making Christianity what it is.

[Backglass]

We can use Bible to prove itself the same way you use logic to prove itself.

Now he's trying to "prove logic"? That's like saying he is trying to "prove purple".

You reason away the ground under your feet, so you can say "I'm standing because of a god". We say gods don't exist and you reply with "prove the ground exists"...even though your standing on it.

[Kugelblitz22]

My point is: The fact that you believe circular logic is a fallacy is that you prove it logical, but you can't prove that logic is logical without logic, making logic a result of circular reasoning.

If you use circular reasoning, I get to use circular reasoning.

The way I'm using logic veers from the dictionary version, so forgive me. I don't think of logic as a construct created by people. Logic exists whether people are intelligent enough to comprehend it or not. It's not a closed loop. It's reality.
The way I view logic is it's not something I can "use". I can just choose to perceive it or I can close myself off from it.

I wasn't raised to believe things that quite frankly don't make any sense. So it's hard for me to see it any other way.

Why believe in one religion and not the others? They all offer the same amount of concrete evidence for their preposterous claims, which is of course none...

P.S. Some part of me knows that arguing about religion with strangers on the internet is probably the dumbest way I could spend my time. How do I keep getting sucked into these?

[johnjohn0701]

[quote="Caleb the Cruel"][quote="manicman"]Actually back before the printing press there were tons of copies of the bible that didn't correspond. And even assuming the present one is correct in the historical events how does that prevent them from making up crazy crap about the supernatural parts of it.
And if Jesus was the son of god why did he get killed in such a painful way? Couldn't he have avoided that with his god powers.[/quote]
Okay,
Jesus lived to die. It was the plan. Yes, He could have avoided it, but then the plan wouldn't have succeeded and nobody would be able to have their sins forgiven.

The way that you phrase your questions gives me the feeling that you've never read much of the Bible and therefore have no idea what you're really arguing against, but that's just how you're rubbing off on me.[/quote]

so when will Jesus be alive again, or shall i say, do his/her work again...arent the world given enough sins? by means of so many people die each day & we are here to discuss how we shall survive..social darwinism?

[nunz]

Nunz....though i agree with the majority of your posts contentions...i still believe there should be a bit of detached surprise for any NT reader who observes paul not use the argument of the many miracles of healing amongst others that Jesus is purported to have done....as especially given the social context it is likely that this type of argument would have been very persuasive to the house church setting that dominated much of the earliest moments of the developing Christian Church.

The letters we have are just a few of many letters Paul wrote. He refers to a lot of other writing and speaking engagements in his writings. He talked of Christs life, his miracles etc there. He makes allusions and references to how he used the old testament to prove Christ was all he said he was by linking Christs miracles and life to the old testament teachings on the messiah.

An excellent example would be the feeding of the 5 thousand. The messiah was to feed the multitudes. The Messiah was also to do miracles. When John sent disciples to ask if Jesus was the Messiah he told them to go to John and tell them, the dead are raised, the blind see, the sick are healed ....
These are all well known (to Jews of the time) OT signs of the messiah. Paul taught on these signs and taught how Christ fulfilled the signs of the messiah .. including probably these things.

To say Paul didn't use Christs miracles as part of his teachins is not provable directly from the NT one way or another but the writings of historians from the same period talk of a paul who preached Christ crucified and risen (his greatest miracle) and used his great knowledge of the OT to prove Christ was the messiah. The messiah had to do great miracles to be provable from the OT so therefore paul would have referenced Christs miracles in his teachings.

[heavycola]

You are still using the bible to confirm the bible.
Paul was a convert, he never even met jesus. In our age of mass media and digital storage, myths still spring up around people easily. Richard Gere and gerbils come to mind, for some reason. Or any cult leader - L Ron Hubbard, David Koresh, Jospeh Smith...

Is it not conceivable that myths similarly sprang up around jesus? None of the gospels were written until years after his death, and here was the alleged messiah being put to death like a common criminal - I know, says early christian A, it must have been part of the plan. Yes, says early christian B, and proceeds to make up stuff about blood atonement and a resurrection.

And you HAVE to agree that back then xianity would have come under the definition of a cult...

[nunz]

Actually back before the printing press there were tons of copies of the bible that didn't correspond. And even assuming the present one is correct in the historical events how does that prevent them from making up crazy crap about the supernatural parts of it.

One of the most compelling proofs is the veracity of the bible over time. This is shown in at least two ways I can think of off the cuff:

1 - When the bible talks abot stuff the scientists disagree on or cant prove it has been proven right many times and never scientifically disproved or proved wrong. Some classic examples are the bible talking about people and places (cities) in places the archaeologists say weren't there or hadn't found only to have them found there in later diggings.

2 - When the dead sea scrolls were found they were used as part of the comparison of texts over time. The dead sea scrolls were checked against many other (previously discovered) texts and an extremely high correlation was found. The parts which are in doubt are small (e.g. last verses in mark) and are marked as such in our modern bibles. They are also not things which contradict or embellish the bible and are not required to help support any particular teaching or doctrine.

[heavycola]

Actually back before the printing press there were tons of copies of the bible that didn't correspond. And even assuming the present one is correct in the historical events how does that prevent them from making up crazy crap about the supernatural parts of it.

One of the most compelling proofs is the veracity of the bible over time. This is shown in at least two ways I can think of off the cuff:

1 - When the bible talks abot stuff the scientists disagree on or cant prove it has been proven right many times and never scientifically disproved or proved wrong. Some classic examples are the bible talking about people and places (cities) in places the archaeologists say weren't there or hadn't found only to have them found there in later diggings.

Erm... genesis?

[nunz]

You are still using the bible to confirm the bible.
Paul was a convert, he never even met jesus. In our age of mass media and digital storage, myths still spring up around people easily. Richard Gere and gerbils come to mind, for some reason. Or any cult leader - L Ron Hubbard, David Koresh, Jospeh Smith...

Is it not conceivable that myths similarly sprang up around jesus? None of the gospels were written until years after his death, and here was the alleged messiah being put to death like a common criminal - I know, says early christian A, it must have been part of the plan. Yes, says early christian B, and proceeds to make up stuff about blood atonement and a resurrection.

And you HAVE to agree that back then xianity would have come under the definition of a cult...

True but ... the reason the bible is so trust worthy is that the same basic story and thread of belief were recorded and written down by different people in different places and different times, many of whom had no way to reference each others materials. The only way that happens is if the people recording things had reference to the same original source of material or people who had been at the event.

Besides which, as I have written previously, Mark, John and Peter are three examples of people who were there.

[nunz]

by the way nunz, I'm protestant. I don't think Christ went into hell, and didn't limbo just get revoked?

Hi All,

1 - I am not Catholic. No offense to them but I just happen to be saved as a protestant.

2 - I know the Pope revoked limbo but the Bible is full of references to the place beyond death but before heaven. Revelations, the souls underneath the throne crying how long., the story of Samuel raised from the grave by the witch of ??endor?? for King Saul, Jesus story of Lazarus and the beggar ....

As a protestant or a catholic you should believe in limbo or something similar. The apostles creed is believed by Anglican, Church of England (known as Episcipalians in USA), presbyterian, baptist, methodist, Salvation Army, AOG, and most pentecostal and charismatic churches (not to mention the catholic church). The creed states ...

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.
On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.


It is amplified further in Peter that he talked to the dead.


Therefore he did go to hell. However what that hell was, is a minor area of theology which provokes controversy way beyond it s weight but it is still a common Christian belief. There are many thoughts on it including limbo, purgatory, physical grave (sheol) , place beyond the grave for waiting for the judgement day, a burning literal firey hell ....

HTH,
Shane

[nunz]

Actually back before the printing press there were tons of copies of the bible that didn't correspond. And even assuming the present one is correct in the historical events how does that prevent them from making up crazy crap about the supernatural parts of it.

.....
1 - When the bible talks abot stuff the scientists disagree on or cant prove it has been proven right many times and never scientifically disproved or proved wrong. Some classic examples are the bible talking about people and places (cities) in places the archaeologists say weren't there or hadn't found only to have them found there in later diggings.

Erm... genesis?[/quote]

1 - Genesis has never been disproved.
2 - There is as much evidence for a creationist point of view as an evolutionary point of view (I'm not saying where I stand on that just yet by the way :0 )
3 - There is the whole issue of genre to take into account unless you think Christians should take the whole bible literally including the poetry, song of Solomon, revelations, book of Job etc :-b
4 - Genesis talks of Sodom and Gomorrah and other cities and has been proven correct many times in its description of the location of ancient cities.
5 - Even Job, (the oldest book in the bible) which may or may not be literal, depending on how you see it, called the World round and hanging in space centuries before Galileo, while the rest of the world thought it was flat, on the back of a turtle, or some other such nonsense.
6 - Genesis describes the creation of the world in the same order that scientists reckon it happened , right down to there being water before land and fish before land animals. Interesting hey?

[Guiscard]

OK I'll answer those points...

1) I'll disprove genesis now shall I: Genesis dates man world at 6000 years old. Yesterday, I went to an ancient history lecture about Assyria and my professor had just got back from an archeological survey of settlements from around 5800 BC (I think). There are thousands of cases of human skeletons, tools, buildings, settlements, defenses and evidence of agriculture from before this date.

2) I don't beliebve there is at all. The creationist viewpoint comes from a single book and the teachings of one religion, whereas the evolutionary viewpoint is compounded in thousands of books, studies, independant reviews etc. etc. However, this one will be argued well after my lifetime so I really doubt we'll solve it now.

3) If you are picking and choosing what you take literally (even you seem confused over Job), how can you be so certain about genesis? Why can't gensis just be symbolic, rather than literal.

4) No historian is going to tell you the OT is entirely fiction. It is a very very useful source. Thanks to a peculiarly literary tradition (compared to surrounding tribes), the Hebrews provided us with a useful theistic history of the area and the movements, geneologies, occupations and warfare of the tribes in the Levant. Many events (such as the captivity in Babylon) are well documented by other sources. Of course the Bible will give us usable evidence of cities and battles not shown elsewhere, just as some of the Assyrian and Babylonian sources (equally biased in favour of the King comissioning the authorship) tell us the location of cities not mentioned in any other source. The OT is, for the most part, a history. If you take away the constant reference to God and try and work around this bias, it is incredably useful. I don't really know what you refer to, though. No-one really claims the cities didn;t exist, and they are verified by Greek sources to be somewhere around the south end of the dead sea. We don't, however, have any archeological evidence whatsoever of the exact location. It is still entirely disputed. There are archeological claims, certainly, but no solid peer-reviewed conclusion whatsoever.

5) Actually, it is a widely held misconseption that everyone thought the world to be flat. Many cultures believed in a round world. The classical period generally helf the world to be round, both Pythagoras and Aristotle believed this... Eratosthenes measured the circumference in 240 BCE... It is actually most likely that the early parts of the Bible (a description of the Hebrews) takes their world view, influenced by Mesopatamian cultures, of a flat earth. This site is a good source if you want to read up on the Hebrew world view. It has the rejections of the arguments you are stating for a Biblical round world written better than I could. http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

6) Creation in gensis is also identical to the (pre-dating) Babylonian creation myth... the order is the same for them too so Baal must be a proven and real God... spooky!

[Skittles!]

Jesus will never come again because The Bible says that everyone must make a choice to believe in God or not.
New-born babies cannot make that choice because they have no knowledge of supernatural beings.
Toddlers cannot have that choice unless their parents are part of Islam or Christianity.

Therefore, Jesus will never come again.

[heavycola]

... nice post, to which I would add:

2 - There is as much evidence for a creationist point of view as an evolutionary point of view (I'm not saying where I stand on that just yet by the way :0 )

This is utterly misguided. The evidence for creationism is... the book of genesis. The evidence for evolution is enormous, scientific and non-partisan. Pre-darwin i miagine it was quite difficult to be an atheist, which makes you wonder about the resistance and accusations of blasphemy and heresy his ideas must have initially encountered even from other scientists. yet the theory of evolution by natural selection persists and grows stronger.

5 - Even Job, (the oldest book in the bible) which may or may not be literal, depending on how you see it, called the World round and hanging in space centuries before Galileo, while the rest of the world thought it was flat, on the back of a turtle, or some other such nonsense.
6 - Genesis describes the creation of the world in the same order that scientists reckon it happened , right down to there being water before land and fish before land animals. Interesting hey?

Job 38:12-13 - "take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it"
Job 11:9 "Its measure is longer than the earth"


Water before land? The earth was formed by the gravitaional attraction of cosmic debris, not water.

[got tonkaed]

Nunz while i agree with a lot of those ideas, at the same time we know that Paul did not necesarily write all of the books attributed to him in the NT, there are just enough stylistic differences that make it rather unlikely. So i think its less likely to believe that we can count on the fact that the writer assumed everything in the prior experiences with Paul was firmly ironed out. And i still stand by the contention even if everything you said was true, in a pre science era it would have been important to reinforce good points with miracle backup.

I think this is part of the reason that i agree with (heavycola i think) when he said it would have been difficult to be an Atheist, because of the compelling style argument that a non scientific world sees in Religion. Single source explanations as much more likely to suffice than they are now.

[nunz]

Nunz while i agree with a lot of those ideas, at the same time we know that Paul did not necessarily write all of the books attributed to him in the NT, there are just enough stylistic differences that make it rather unlikely. So i think its less likely to believe that we can count on the fact that the writer assumed everything in the prior experiences with Paul was firmly ironed out. And i still stand by the contention even if everything you said was true, in a pre science era it would have been important to reinforce good points with miracle backup.

I am not sure where the who wrote what book part comes in but it is peripheral to our discussion I think. You claim Paul lived in a pre-science era but it was actually quite the opposite in many ways. Paul lived in the post Greek era where Rome had taken over from the Greek empire as the dominant force. The Greeks gave us many great philosophers and scientists. Prior to that the Egyptians and Babylonians had performed feats of astronomy and architecture we cannot even begin to understand or possibly emulate with our modern technology.

In Paul's time there were even two major Jewish lines of thought .. the Pharisees who were the equivalent of the conservative religious people of today and the Sadducee's who didn't even believe in life after death. They also didn't really cotton on to miracles.

Jesus in his teachings himself refused to do miracles as 'if a person were to return from the dead people still would not believe. '

Paul performed miracles and cast out demons as evidence of his apostolic authority in Christ. He even references them in (Corinthians???) as part of hi defence against the so called super apostles who were preaching heresy and bagging him. However he said he would preach nothing but Christ crucified and risen.

The supernatural is very common even today in many non-western countries. Miracles are not just the domain of Christians, other religions and beliefs perform miracles (anybody care to see this can of worms i just opened?????? hehehehe ). Paul preached mainly on the life of Christ, teaching Jews from the OT how Christ is the messiah, correcting heresies and working through issues in the churches. In fact (another can of worms) Paul even told Timothy that the scriptures are able to lead you to salvation ... and the only scriptures they had were OT scriptures. Salvation could be found in the OT ( ... uh oh ... third can of worms opened .... )

****************************************
However - here is my defence to this topic ...

I cannot stress highly enough this following point. PAULS LETTERS ADDRESS SPECIFIC NEEDS in EXISTING CHURCHES. They are not evangelical letters, they are not evidences of proof or arguments for Christ, they are PASTORAL LETTERS teaching believers and churches how to live as Christians. They back up work Paul had done in person or via his disciples.

To say that the lack of Christ's miracles mentioned in them means anything about Paul's belief system is really faulty reasoning. If you read them you could also say Paul talks more about himself, churches and happenings than he does about Christ.

I really think this whole thread of discussion is based on people's ideas about the Pauline letters but those ideas are not based on fact but on here say, mis-understandings of the roles of the letters and (I'm not trying to be rude here) ignorance of the contents of those letters.

This argument is a non argument really as it is similar to arguing Macdonalds doesn't believe in cars as it doesn't mention them on the menu. I am sure Macdonalds know cars exist but the reason they don't mention them on the menu is that that is not the purpose or job of their menu. However if you were to look at other Macdonalds literature (e.g. standing Regulations and Policies documents) cars will be mentioned somewhere in conjunction with thier drive through policies

[nunz]

Jesus will never come again because The Bible says that everyone must make a choice to believe in God or not.
New-born babies cannot make that choice because they have no knowledge of supernatural beings.
Toddlers cannot have that choice unless their parents are part of Islam or Christianity.

Therefore, Jesus will never come again.

Errr .... what the? The Bible does not say that everyone must make a choice to believe in God or not.

I also disagree with your claim that only Moslem's and Christians kids get a choice to believe in God for many reasons but two simple ones are:
1 - You missed the Jews in your list of Religions who worship the 'One True God'. (this is not a troll to start another argument so wont be responding to any comments on the one true bit...)

2 - Who needs to be a Christian, Jew or Moslem to know and worship God? Anyone can worship God without being a ''Christian''. I know one Hindu girl with a faith in God big enough to get her welcomed into the kingdom (and no I am not a universalistic Christian ... Hinduism does not lead to salvation, quite the opposite in my belief - salvation is only through Christ).

Paul in Romans claims we are judged by the law or by our faith in christ and that we are all judged in different ways according to the light we have. There is much evidence in the bible too of non-christians making it to the kingdom. Abraham, Elijiah and Moses would be three notable names to start with.

As to your contention about babies haveing no knowledge of supernatural beings.. you are arguing against not just Christians but also just about every other religion and spiritual belief. Just coz babies are not sentient (capable of knowledge) like adults are, doesn't stop them seeing or communicating spiritually. This is similar to the way that their lungs work to provide them with oxygen yet they are not sentient of that fact. Spiritual life is not a sentient or knowledge thing.

Lastly .. and again I am not going trolling for bites here ... there has been a lot of theology over the years that babies are born sinful so would be damned if they died before they could be consecrated, baptised, christened or grow into adults. While I don't believe this, it is still a popular argument to refute your post.

[nunz]

... nice post, to which I would add:

2 - There is as much evidence for a creationist point of view as an evolutionary point of view (I'm not saying where I stand on that just yet by the way :0 )

This is utterly misguided. The evidence for creationism is... the book of genesis. The evidence for evolution is enormous, scientific and non-partisan. Pre-darwin i miagine it was quite difficult to be an atheist, which makes you wonder about the resistance and accusations of blasphemy and heresy his ideas must have initially encountered even from other scientists. yet the theory of evolution by natural selection persists and grows stronger.

1 - Creation is not limited to Genesis - as one of the other posts point out the Babylonians believed in creation and had a creation story. In fact if you go back far enough in any religion there is a creation story involving a single creator spirit (God), an initially created human pair (Adam and Eve) and a fall from Grace (cast out of Eden). That is not my opinion but a wee fact proven by a bunch of atheistic in the early 1900s or late 1800s who set out to prove that monotheism is the current pinnacle of the evolution in spiritual thinking. They interviewed many tribal people and other religious peoples about their beliefs to show that pantheists, poly theists and 'pagans' had no monotheistic belief structure yet and it was just the Arabs, Jews, westerners etc who had evolved far enough in the complexity of their thinking about spiritual things to believe in a one God.
Unfortunately for them what the research turned up was that the poly, pan and pagan theists all had a base core at the root of their beliefs, and a story about, a single creative spirit who humans had fallen away from and become alienated from.

Therefore there is more evidence for creation than evolution.

Also, in the same way that evidence for light travelling in straight lines can be refuted by proofs that light travels in waves, so much material proving one thing can also be interpreted differently to show another thing.

The "steady layering of dirt over time " allowing time scales to be established by non-theist archaeologists can just as validly be interpreted ( if you believe in a flood) to show that a different time scale. 10 feet of dirt over 10 thousand years or 7 feet of dirt over 40 days followed by three feet of dirt over four thousand years? Who is to say?

BTW - The flood story also appears in most religions and social groups if you dig down far enough. Even the chinese and indians have the flood story in their culture.

5 - Even Job, (the oldest book in the bible) which may or may not be literal, depending on how you see it, called the World round and hanging in space centuries before Galileo, while the rest of the world thought it was flat, on the back of a turtle, or some other such nonsense.
6 - Genesis describes the creation of the world in the same order that scientists reckon it happened , right down to there being water before land and fish before land animals. Interesting hey?

Job 38:12-13 - "take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it"
Job 11:9 "Its measure is longer than the earth"


Water before land? The earth was formed by the gravitaional attraction of cosmic debris, not water.

hmm .. Genesis .. The earth was formless and void and darkness was upon the face of the world ...
Then water parted from water to make sky and water below. (by the way the word water can also mean liquid). .. Then God created land


.... sounds like the event line set down by scientists too...
formless mass, cooled from liquid .. gasses thickened over head to make atmosphere .. molten vocanoes blew land up to harden into land.


The simialrities continue ...
Gensis .. god created swimming things both small and great and they filled the water ....then he created land animals and finally humans.

Scientists .. water creatures evolved and evtually crawled onto land to grow into more complex forms and finally came man .. the current pinnacle of evolution ...

Same order in genesis as laid down by science.

Those two quotes from job ... longer then the earth ... quite valid ... we measure things as being longer than we can see and even greater than the earth can contain. longer doesn't mean flat ....
Takes the edges .. ever seen an earthquake from above? The earth is grabbed and shaken like a person shaking out a blanket. Balls have edges. Job is talking as a person using common day language not as a pedant or a scientist with the future proof of the shape of the earth resting on his shoulders. I live on a plain. (defined as a flat shape in my dictionary) but I dont seriously believe the world is flat or canterbury is a flat shap on the face of the earth. ...

However when Job states the Earth is round and hangs in space ... that is a seriously different spin on things than most of the common religions and thinkings of the day believed. He said it hangs, he didn't say it sat on a turtle, an elephant or some other mythical thing.
Secondly he said it is round, not flat or square with edges you can drop off and over.

[got tonkaed]

I am not sure where the who wrote what book part comes in but it is peripheral to our discussion I think. You claim Paul lived in a pre-science era but it was actually quite the opposite in many ways. Paul lived in the post Greek era where Rome had taken over from the Greek empire as the dominant force. The Greeks gave us many great philosophers and scientists. Prior to that the Egyptians and Babylonians had performed feats of astronomy and architecture we cannot even begin to understand or possibly emulate with our modern technology.

Though i understand where you are coming from here, i wonder if this is not a bit of a weak line. Yes there were many impressive elements to the Greek and Roman culture, which includes the area of science, but i highly doubt you are really trying to make the contention that we do not live in a more scientific era now, than we did then. Even if you were, the original point that i was driving at their is related to a higher incidence of magical type behavior, to which references miracles would make for a more persuasive argument than they would probably make today, though they still do in some areas.

In Paul's time there were even two major Jewish lines of thought .. the Pharisees who were the equivalent of the conservative religious people of today and the Sadducee's who didn't even believe in life after death. They also didn't really cotton on to miracles.

This is true and i think that in addition to these groups there are a wealth of other sects (the ones who essentially did not make it) that did not necesarily believe in the divinity of Jesus. This is essentially part of the crux of the argument i would be trying to make in general, which is a response to a notion that Jesus cannot be anything other than divine, when there is evidence that this was not a consensus even as he was on the planet.

Jesus in his teachings himself refused to do miracles as 'if a person were to return from the dead people still would not believe. '

I would argue that when he does opt out of miracle healing it is because he believed his primary message was to continue spreading out the gospel to a wider audience, though i would assume we might be in agreement here. I perhaps directed our minor section of the discussion too much into the persuasiveness of miracles as proof.

Paul performed miracles and cast out demons as evidence of his apostolic authority in Christ. He even references them in (Corinthians???) as part of hi defence against the so called super apostles who were preaching heresy and bagging him. However he said he would preach nothing but Christ crucified and risen.

The supernatural is very common even today in many non-western countries. Miracles are not just the domain of Christians, other religions and beliefs perform miracles (anybody care to see this can of worms i just opened?????? hehehehe ). Paul preached mainly on the life of Christ, teaching Jews from the OT how Christ is the messiah, correcting heresies and working through issues in the churches. In fact (another can of worms) Paul even told Timothy that the scriptures are able to lead you to salvation ... and the only scriptures they had were OT scriptures. Salvation could be found in the OT ( ... uh oh ... third can of worms opened .... )

Perhaps another tangent to respond to.... In the field of Anthropology there is a great amount of discussion about the necesity to believe in some kind of greater healing power as a necesity to survive. To retreat to an earlier theme...the majority of diseases that we face today, eventually get better even if we dont go to the doctor. Many of the ailments that people faced in those days quite possibly would have gone away eventually as well. Now im not going to claim that no one had a diease that was threatening, but what about some kind of notion that the more suggestable an individual is, which it very likely many individuals who recieved miracle healing were/are, the more likely they are to be healed?

I agree many religions (western or not) use magic and i think its more likley related to the paragraph above for a more evolutionary reason than people might originally admit.

Another perhaps tangential contention, Paul...as an individual who knew very little about the actual life of Jesus is as you say the primary teacher about his life that we have in the NT. This seems to be a bit problematic as other than the conversion experience and the vision which leads him to start the gentile mission, i can think of very few times when he actually would have learned about Jesus life. Even when he is with the disciples it is probably less likely they had great discussions about Jesus life, more likely discussions about how to run the developing church. Although Paul certainly does teach a moral philosophy through his writings, and one can accept this outside of the problematic elements on a more base level of course...how qualified should be paul in matters of understanding Jesus? Another point which i dont think can be accepted out of hand.

On your third potential can of worms...the biggest issue i could see with pauls contention to timothy is, with the incredible level of memorization and comprehension from the Jewish groups at the time (though this is before rabbincal Judiasm so i may be overestimating it) if there was salvation to be found in the OT, why did/do the jewish still wait for a Messiah? What would be the need for salvation if it could be found in scriptures as is? Even more, Why send Jesus to fufill prophecy and eventually die before he probably would have had to if he was divine if there was already other avenues for salvation? Clearly there are many questions that could be pondered down that line, but thats more than a fair start there.

****************************************
However - here is my defence to this topic ...

I cannot stress highly enough this following point. PAULS LETTERS ADDRESS SPECIFIC NEEDS in EXISTING CHURCHES. They are not evangelical letters, they are not evidences of proof or arguments for Christ, they are PASTORAL LETTERS teaching believers and churches how to live as Christians. They back up work Paul had done in person or via his disciples.

On this point i accept that contention more than i suppose i refute it. Though id still think referencing miracles which could lift people up might help to recharge the fledgling and struggling congregations, i certainly wasnt Paul and we dont necesarily know very much about his earlier visits. Again the argument is probably too tangential to make much of a differnence in the bigger picture, but i still think it is rather surprising, given the amount of authority that Paul eventually becomes in order to help create what we know as Christianity.



(i agree with this and though i might say those things as well (though thats more understandable i think under the social context/circumstances) i think we probably would be moving in a different direction if we continue the discussion)

I really think this whole thread of discussion is based on people's ideas about the Pauline letters but those ideas are not based on fact but on here say, mis-understandings of the roles of the letters and (I'm not trying to be rude here) ignorance of the contents of those letters.

T
hough i dont know if i will be able to say it without trying to be prideful (because i dont want to be), i have read the NT a few times through and have read a few commentaries about Paul and the construction of the NT in general. I think we would agree probably on many issues about Paul and i agree with what you say about those letters being letters to already established churches. My contention that you have discussed really has two facets....first a question to those who would hold more hardline innerrant stances, which really attempts to try and help people realize that such hardline stances about who Jesus was and who Paul was are perhaps problematic. The second part, to the broader minded audience in general is merely a potential critique of Paul, couldnt he have used references of miracles to help fledgling churches (its more of a well i wonder if he couldnt have done anything differently there, rather than trying to disprove Paul).

However, i think theres a lot of things id be interested in hearing back from you on as is, even if you have pretty well put to rest on a few different levels the necesity of paul referencing miracles.

sorry i bothced the quotes before

[got tonkaed]

1 - Creation is not limited to Genesis - as one of the other posts point out the Babylonians believed in creation and had a creation story. In fact if you go back far enough in any religion there is a creation story involving a single creator spirit (God), an initially created human pair (Adam and Eve) and a fall from Grace (cast out of Eden). That is not my opinion but a wee fact proven by a bunch of atheistic in the early 1900s or late 1800s who set out to prove that monotheism is the current pinnacle of the evolution in spiritual thinking. They interviewed many tribal people and other religious peoples about their beliefs to show that pantheists, poly theists and 'pagans' had no monotheistic belief structure yet and it was just the Arabs, Jews, westerners etc who had evolved far enough in the complexity of their thinking about spiritual things to believe in a one God.
Unfortunately for them what the research turned up was that the poly, pan and pagan theists all had a base core at the root of their beliefs, and a story about, a single creative spirit who humans had fallen away from and become alienated from.

Therefore there is more evidence for creation than evolution.

Although i really dont disagree with your idea here, i dont think that the fact that there made be a variety of different religions having creation stories making any one of those stories any more true. I think we would both agree that religion is here to answer metaphysical questions, like how are we here. Religion took on a more historical answer to this question before we understood more things about how the world works and how it has come to be.

The "steady layering of dirt over time " allowing time scales to be established by non-theist archaeologists can just as validly be interpreted ( if you believe in a flood) to show that a different time scale. 10 feet of dirt over 10 thousand years or 7 feet of dirt over 40 days followed by three feet of dirt over four thousand years? Who is to say?

BTW - The flood story also appears in most religions and social groups if you dig down far enough. Even the chinese and indians have the flood story in their culture.

I think there is a simple social explanation for something like this. Especially in more Eastern histories, ruiling groups typically believed the leaders who came before them were in someway corrupt and that they were restoring a more proper path. A flood can symbolically be taken as a way to wash away the bad in order to pave the way for a better world. Allegorically who is to say this wasnt the intent of the flood that is mentioned in the bible?

hmm .. Genesis .. The earth was formless and void and darkness was upon the face of the world ...
Then water parted from water to make sky and water below. (by the way the word water can also mean liquid). .. Then God created land


.... sounds like the event line set down by scientists too...
formless mass, cooled from liquid .. gasses thickened over head to make atmosphere .. molten vocanoes blew land up to harden into land.


The simialrities continue ...
Gensis .. god created swimming things both small and great and they filled the water ....then he created land animals and finally humans.

Scientists .. water creatures evolved and evtually crawled onto land to grow into more complex forms and finally came man .. the current pinnacle of evolution ...

Same order in genesis as laid down by science.

Certainly i dont think many of the people who are worried about the people who are trying to push creation, are primarily concerned with the fact that Genesis was correct about some of the ordering. The problem for most is that many argue these things to be literally true, which science has seemingly done a lot to prove are not in fact literally true. Just because the biblical account has a similar order does not mean the entire creationist explanation and the many political type of assumptions that are derived off of it need to be accepted as well. Certainly other creation stories had a similar telling of their creation story that probably is on some type of similar line to the more commonly accepted scientific explanation, but we dont believe those explanations to be true any longer.

[nunz]

OK I'll answer those points...

1) I'll disprove genesis now shall I: Genesis dates man world at 6000 years old. Yesterday, I went to an ancient history lecture about Assyria and my professor had just got back from an archeological survey of settlements from around 5800 BC (I think). There are thousands of cases of human skeletons, tools, buildings, settlements, defenses and evidence of agriculture from before this date.

2) I don't beliebve there is at all. The creationist viewpoint comes from a single book and the teachings of one religion, whereas the evolutionary viewpoint is compounded in thousands of books, studies, independant reviews etc. etc. However, this one will be argued well after my lifetime so I really doubt we'll solve it now.

We need a threaded forum here

1 and 2 - See http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=273371#273371 I deal with that there.

3) If you are picking and choosing what you take literally (even you seem confused over Job), how can you be so certain about genesis? Why can't gensis just be symbolic, rather than literal.

I am not confused over Job. I know where I stand .. all I said was depending on your point of view .. allowing for the fact that different people see it differently depending on their level of knowledge, maturity, study and experience.

I believe that when you read the bible you have to use the brain God gave you and not be stupid about it. The bible is a series of books written by many different authors for different purposes (but all guided by the spirit of God) to make a cohesive whole.
Examples - Proverbs are not always to be taken literally - they are wisdom literature (otherwise most married men would be living on the corner of their roof to get away from their wife ) , Revelations is apocalyptic prophesy, the psalms are songs and poetry, Acts is history.
Genesis is a bit harder in the literary department a it is written after the fact from an oral tradition, uses many different literary devices to get the point across, changes its style at about chapter three, retells the same story twice in the first two chapters but with different levels of details and for different effect.
Added to that the fact you are reading work from an author(s) whose history, social structures, geography and political world view are different to ours means it is slightly more fraught in some ways. Job also falls into this category of difficulty.

What cant genesis be symbolic? - Two answers really.
1 - Parts of Genesis are very very very definitely historical .The genealogy's of the Jewish people can be traced without a break back to Abraham. So therefore if they are accurate to Abraham, why not Abraham's dad, or his dad, or Noah? and if Noah is accurate why not Noah's dad and his dad and so on back to Adam and Eve? Where do you draw the line? Should you draw the line? The genealogy's are not the only historically verifiable things in Genesis. It is the history of the Arabs and the Jews. It is also the history of Sodom, Gomorrah, Malchezidek, the Ark, the Egyptian famines ....
All these things are factual and even a-theist scientists say they happened and these people existed.
2 - It doesn't matter if the first three chapters of Genesis are symbolic or literal in a spiritual sense. Either way the message is the same. There is a God, we fell away from that God, we are stuck in sin and in deep need of restoration to that God.
Who cares if the snake is real or figurative ... the outcome of the story is the same.

The argument over taking Genesis literally or not is a side track ... the real question is, "Is there a creator God and if so what does that mean to me?"

Whether God allowed the earth to evolve over 7 time spans or made it in 7 literal days doesn't matter. The fact remains, there is a creation.

It is far more logical to believe in a creator who exists outside of time than it is to believe that something came out of nothing and then to take on faith the enormous impossibility of evolution by accident without a plan or guider.

People say Christians are a little screwy or crazy for believing in God. Man I reckon a-theist evolutionists are the ones with a screw loose coz saying something came from nothing and the massive impossibilities of evolution by mutation are way crazier to believe in. Evolution takes way more faith than creationism

5) Actually, it is a widely held misconseption that everyone thought the world to be flat. Many cultures believed in a round world. The classical period generally helf the world to be round, both Pythagoras and Aristotle believed this... Eratosthenes measured the circumference in 240 BCE... It is actually most likely that the early parts of the Bible (a description of the Hebrews) takes their world view, influenced by Mesopatamian cultures, of a flat earth. This site is a good source if you want to read up on the Hebrew world view. It has the rejections of the arguments you are stating for a Biblical round world written better than I could. http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

I never said the whole world thought the earth was flat. I just said at a time when many thought (and then the western world definitely thought ...) the Hebrews wrote a book which said the Earth was round and hung in space ...

Funnily enough the fact that the classical world you quote knowing the earth was round got lost by the west who thought it ended and you would fall off. knowledge gets lost so what ever the Mesopotamians thought or the early writer of Job wrote may been lost or changed in the Jewish society over time.
The other thing to note is that reference you quoted ignores basic textual criticism principles and literature genres in his / her arguments.

The other thing to note is Paul (classical era or very close to it) talks of multiple heavens (having been transported to the seventh heaven) . Therefore the 'vault or dome of the sky is only one of the heavens. This means that the Jews had some concept of heavens past the sky and therefore it opens the possibility they knew the earth 'hung in the heavens', as described in Job.

The other thing to note is that the Jews, while often influenced by their neighbours, still hung to very different views and beliefs. The Mesopotamians and Egypt ions were polytheistic and sacrificed to idols. The Jews didn't. The neighbouring view of the world was influenced by the view of the gods and their position in the cosmology. Therfore to say the Jews held the same world view is a flawed argument as their world view was markedly different to the nations around them.

6) Creation in gensis is also identical to the (pre-dating) Babylonian creation myth... the order is the same for them too so Baal must be a proven and real God... spooky!

Did you know God is also called Baal in the OT? He is also referenced by many other names. See my other post that I linked above.

All the pre-dating beliefs you mention mean is there is more likelihood for a common source of EXPERIENCE for their beliefs to grow on. This is an argument FOR creation not against creation. where many different groups have the same story it is more likely there is a kernel of truth in there somewhere

I believe all cultures have the creation story in their culture deep down as we all come from the same source. As an example, The Romans and Josephus all recorded Jesus the man. Does this mean the Bible is false? No it means that there is corroborative evidence for what the Bible says. The Mesopotamians fall into that category.

[nunz]

Hi GT. Am starting a couple of threads and breaking this discussion up.... my little brain is getting confused.

I disagree with .... The fact that there made be a variety of different religions having creation stories making any one of those stories any more true.

I see where we are talking at odds here.

It is acceptable to be a Christian and also believe that there are truths in other books and writings of other religions or cultures. However having said that there are many Christians who would happily crucify me or call me a heretic for saying that. But ... the majority of protestant and catholic study and thinking find what I have just said perfectly acceptable.

Case in point - the golden rule. Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists ... all believe you should do to others as you would have others do unto you. does that mean only Christians have that truth? No.

If you look at the Christian world view we believe that when Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of GOOD and evil her eyes were opened (and it doesn't matter if this was a literal or figurative story here). The fact remains all humans (in the Christian world view) therefore have in them the knowledge of GOOD as well as the knowledge of evil. Paul further says in Romans that the Earth and creation testify to God. The bible is not the only source of knowledge about the creator God.

King David wrote ,in Psalm 19 - The heavens declare the glory of God and the skys the work of his fingers. Day after day they pour forth speech night after night they display knowledge. There is no tounge, tribe or language where their voice is not heard for their voice goes out to the ends of the world and their message to the people.

The second half of the psalm immediately talks about the law of God. In Jewish poetry the two halves are linked. One amplifies and explains the other. therefore in David's mind the law and the evidence of creation both pointed equally to God and gave knowledge of Him.

It is therefore acceptable for a Christian to believe there is evidence for the God and knowledge of Him in all cultures regardless of if they have read the Bible or heard of Christ.

There is also documented evidence of this phenomenon of God testifying to Himself time after time in history. Missionaries often find Gods foot prints ahead of them when meeting new cultures. There was even an Aztec or Inca culture where they worshipped the Unknown God who was greater than the sun and all creation. They worshipped in ignorance that which we have been fortunate enough to have taught to us.

This is the reason I see the Mesopotamian writings as being evidence FOR God, and not against God and creation. the Jews were only chosen as examples to the rest of us. They were priests and prophets of the most high to bring a knowledge of Him to the world (either voluntarily in involuntarily).

Christians are just the grafted in children who get to display to the world what God wants us to know. This happens no matter whether we cooperate or not. In fact in the history of the Christian church we have more often been a hindrance to God and he has used us despite ourselves. Where we don't go voluntarily God places us whether we want to be there or not. (but that is another discussion altogether).

[nunz]

:

NUNZ: The "steady layering of dirt over time " allowing time scales to be established by non-theist archaeologists can just as validly be interpreted ( if you believe in a flood) to show that a different time scale. 10 feet of dirt over 10 thousand years or 7 feet of dirt over 40 days followed by three feet of dirt over four thousand years? Who is to say?

BTW - The flood story also appears in most religions and social groups if you dig down far enough. Even the chinese and indians have the flood story in their culture.

GT:
I think there is a simple social explanation for something like this. Especially in more Eastern histories, ruiling groups typically believed the leaders who came before them were in someway corrupt and that they were restoring a more proper path. A flood can symbolically be taken as a way to wash away the bad in order to pave the way for a better world. Allegorically who is to say this wasnt the intent of the flood that is mentioned in the bible?

Alternatively it is also equally valid to say there might have been a flood .... there is a lot of corroborative evidence in far too many different and widely spread cultures to write it off as just a cultural thing. The most plausible and simple explanation is the cultural and historical memory of the same event by many different peoples.

It is also very possible to interpret archaeological evidence to say there was a flood. The only difference between an archaeologist interpreting the evidence one way or another is their spiritual world view. If i look at a white piece of paper through rose coloured glasses and you look at it through yellow coloured glasses then I will claim it is rose coloured and you that it is yellow. It is only when we take of the glasses we see what is really there but as humans that is impossible to do as experience, belief and knowledge shape everything we see, do thing and feel.

All I can say is try looking at the same evidence through the eyes of faith, or even pretend to see it through the eyes of Christian belief and see if you can see something the same way we do. I've been on both sides of the fence but having been found by Christ have an experience I cannot deny and am willing to die for. That shapes my world view and my interpretation of things.

<tongue in cheek humour>However I guess i am in danger of feeling smug as I can claim great knowledge, having sat where you have sat and now having been enlightened, truely see things as they really are </tongue in cheek humour>

[nunz]

Certainly i dont think many of the people who are worried about the people who are trying to push creation, are primarily concerned with the fact that Genesis was correct about some of the ordering. The problem for most is that many argue these things to be literally true, which science has seemingly done a lot to prove are not in fact literally true. Just because the biblical account has a similar order does not mean the entire creationist explanation and the many political type of assumptions that are derived off of it need to be accepted as well. Certainly other creation stories had a similar telling of their creation story that probably is on some type of similar line to the more commonly accepted scientific explanation, but we dont believe those explanations to be true any longer.

That's where we will have to disagree then ... I am not sure science has disproved them being literally true. If you take God out of the equation then science has to be right but if you put him back in then a more literal view of creation is possible.

Whether Genesis 1-3 is literal or not (ie 7 days versus the 7 time periods Christian theories) there is more evidence for creation than evolution if you look at it in the light of cold hard facts (if there are such things).

What it all really comes down to is if a scientist is prepared to allow for the fact there might be a God. If they will not allow for that possibility then the data will always need to be skewed away from creation into an evolutionist bent to account for the scientists a-theist world view.


Christians have been rightly accused of being anti-science because we did things like persecute Galileo for offering evidence of other planets and a world view that the sun was the centre of our Solar system and not the earth (which by the way is not biblically provable but was a social convention turned into religious conviction).
However in the same way secular scientists can also be accused of twisting the facts to exclude God from the centre of their world view.