Quizzes & Puzzles3 mins ago
Why Should God Appear/exist At All?
217 Answers
I asked this in naomi's 'Atheist Authors' thread, below, in response to khandro's query.
He did what all good religionists do and ignored it, so thought I'd put it out here.
Religionists....WHY does your God exist?
He did what all good religionists do and ignored it, so thought I'd put it out here.
Religionists....WHY does your God exist?
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Closing para from the tektonics.org site (QS denotes the "quakes and saints" objection, as in "why weren't such remarkable things recorded by other gospel authors?")
"In conclusion: While critics may (and no doubt will) reject accounts like the QS on any number of grounds, the exclusion of the report from the other Gospels is not sufficient grounds for doing so.
-JPH
"
It is a good job such logic is not applied to other walks of life, like criminal trials or the proper operation of nuclear power plants.
The piece starts off by arguing that scrolls were expensive, space on them was limiting to an author; careful planning was required to get the tale to fit without rushing the ending to fit in a diminishing space; chosen narrative style and the message to be conveyed required editing of all waffle and unnecessary detail.
Okay, so three writers edited the quake and saints out to make way for something more important, so why *didn't* the fourth author also edit it out? It is one of those elements which I think was embellishment; meant to be portentious and meaningful to (as the article itself says) a particular target audience (the people who had both buried them and revered them as saints).
Oral traditions which had been tailored to suit a target audience, before being committed to (expensive, undersized) pieces of paper (we know he means papyrus or velum)? Sounds awfully like sales and marketing, to me.
"In conclusion: While critics may (and no doubt will) reject accounts like the QS on any number of grounds, the exclusion of the report from the other Gospels is not sufficient grounds for doing so.
-JPH
"
It is a good job such logic is not applied to other walks of life, like criminal trials or the proper operation of nuclear power plants.
The piece starts off by arguing that scrolls were expensive, space on them was limiting to an author; careful planning was required to get the tale to fit without rushing the ending to fit in a diminishing space; chosen narrative style and the message to be conveyed required editing of all waffle and unnecessary detail.
Okay, so three writers edited the quake and saints out to make way for something more important, so why *didn't* the fourth author also edit it out? It is one of those elements which I think was embellishment; meant to be portentious and meaningful to (as the article itself says) a particular target audience (the people who had both buried them and revered them as saints).
Oral traditions which had been tailored to suit a target audience, before being committed to (expensive, undersized) pieces of paper (we know he means papyrus or velum)? Sounds awfully like sales and marketing, to me.
grasscarp - "... I think that what really "gets their goat" is that anyone should post at all supporting religion in Religion & Spirituality thread."
All the theists I've ever met in my life (and I've met and work with a good number) seem genuinely insulted and/or incredulous when I question their particular belief. They are positively astonished that anyone holds an atheistic viewpoint and shocked that their religious beliefs are not taken at face value and simply accepted as a literal truth. Many of them live in a religious echo chamber. They discuss their beliefs only with others who they know share their views and inevitably they end up in a religious belief feed-back loop. On the odd occasion they forget themselves and air their views to a wider audience, they are often deeply shocked and 'offended' by what they find coming their way.
In short, I think you're projecting Grasscarp. You don't really like people questioning your beliefs and pointing out the cavernous flaws in the rationale of religious faith.
All the theists I've ever met in my life (and I've met and work with a good number) seem genuinely insulted and/or incredulous when I question their particular belief. They are positively astonished that anyone holds an atheistic viewpoint and shocked that their religious beliefs are not taken at face value and simply accepted as a literal truth. Many of them live in a religious echo chamber. They discuss their beliefs only with others who they know share their views and inevitably they end up in a religious belief feed-back loop. On the odd occasion they forget themselves and air their views to a wider audience, they are often deeply shocked and 'offended' by what they find coming their way.
In short, I think you're projecting Grasscarp. You don't really like people questioning your beliefs and pointing out the cavernous flaws in the rationale of religious faith.
Isn't there a middle ground though? People who live their life according to their beliefs or indeed lack of them- and never feel the need to rear up and challenge what others think.
I read here the other day that there was a lack of 'brains'posting any more - I wasn't sure how to take that, should I post or not?
My thoughts are ,live a good and true life and you won't go far wrong.
If you can go to bed with a clear conscience it has been a good day.
I read here the other day that there was a lack of 'brains'posting any more - I wasn't sure how to take that, should I post or not?
My thoughts are ,live a good and true life and you won't go far wrong.
If you can go to bed with a clear conscience it has been a good day.
I forgot to address the way that tektonics.org website was very forthright about the cost of papyrii, problems experienced by writers of that era and even the supposed rate of literacy at the time.
No sources given for these factoids so I guess we are expected to just take their word for it. (Familiar theme, there) :)
Only four oral histories of Jesus' life and times survived long enough to be written down and, of course, those "outside his social group" had no reason to record anything about him on such expensive media, notwithstanding that over 90% of people were illiterate anyway.
Scoffing aside, it does raise the interesting question of how the Jesus tale, shared among the working-class section of the population came to the attention of a "man of letters" - a high-class occupation and possibly stringently proscribed by the likes of the Roman occupiers as they were (i) needed by the Empire, for administrative purposes (ii) a security risk, since they could read military communications (iii) a potential danger to the Empire because they could read books and propogate ideas injurious to it.
A high class occupation makes paper not only easy to afford (relative to a labourer's daily pay, as that website tries to suggest) but their stock in trade: they should have had a good supply of it.
Unless recording local oral histories would have entailed nicking official stationery and doing the writing, unpaid, in their spare time? (By candlelight, too, if office hours were dawn to dusk).
The point about compounding costs, on subsequent copyists, due to extending the gospel onto a second scroll may convince some readers but, to me comes across as accusing them of cost-consciousness at a time when you would think that the word was so important that no expense would be spared in communicating it to the wider world.
Odd.
No sources given for these factoids so I guess we are expected to just take their word for it. (Familiar theme, there) :)
Only four oral histories of Jesus' life and times survived long enough to be written down and, of course, those "outside his social group" had no reason to record anything about him on such expensive media, notwithstanding that over 90% of people were illiterate anyway.
Scoffing aside, it does raise the interesting question of how the Jesus tale, shared among the working-class section of the population came to the attention of a "man of letters" - a high-class occupation and possibly stringently proscribed by the likes of the Roman occupiers as they were (i) needed by the Empire, for administrative purposes (ii) a security risk, since they could read military communications (iii) a potential danger to the Empire because they could read books and propogate ideas injurious to it.
A high class occupation makes paper not only easy to afford (relative to a labourer's daily pay, as that website tries to suggest) but their stock in trade: they should have had a good supply of it.
Unless recording local oral histories would have entailed nicking official stationery and doing the writing, unpaid, in their spare time? (By candlelight, too, if office hours were dawn to dusk).
The point about compounding costs, on subsequent copyists, due to extending the gospel onto a second scroll may convince some readers but, to me comes across as accusing them of cost-consciousness at a time when you would think that the word was so important that no expense would be spared in communicating it to the wider world.
Odd.
@Mamyalynne
You are quite welcome to continue to do that.
It's not as if you are, like some real-life Christians, trying to cure your own terminally-ill child through prayer and then standing by, watching them die, rather than letting medical science at least have a go at treating them.
Or interfere in politics (eg US Republican party policies).
Or *endeavour* to bring on the apocalypse, regardless of other people's will to continue living.
You are quite welcome to continue to do that.
It's not as if you are, like some real-life Christians, trying to cure your own terminally-ill child through prayer and then standing by, watching them die, rather than letting medical science at least have a go at treating them.
Or interfere in politics (eg US Republican party policies).
Or *endeavour* to bring on the apocalypse, regardless of other people's will to continue living.
Mamyalynne, //I read here the other day that there was a lack of 'brains'posting any more - I wasn't sure how to take that, should I post or not?//
If you’re referring to something I said, your concern is unwarranted - that is not what I said at all. I really do object to being misquoted so just for clarification I’ll repost my actual words....
//People get precious about religion and, sad to say, overly enthusiastic censorship by those with scant knowledge of the subject has lost this section too many ‘brains’ already.//
.... but perhaps you had someone else in mind, eh?
If you’re referring to something I said, your concern is unwarranted - that is not what I said at all. I really do object to being misquoted so just for clarification I’ll repost my actual words....
//People get precious about religion and, sad to say, overly enthusiastic censorship by those with scant knowledge of the subject has lost this section too many ‘brains’ already.//
.... but perhaps you had someone else in mind, eh?
Clanad, two prophecies? That’s a new one. Since you say that you //personally see this scenario as plausible// and // the overwhelming (at least to me) evidence supports my conclusions//, you clearly realise what you’ve done there. Jesus prophecy wasn’t fulfilled so you’ve fulfilled it for him – if only in your own mind.
By the way, you talk quite confidently about ‘historical evidence’. There is none.
By the way, you talk quite confidently about ‘historical evidence’. There is none.
I'm afraid I've lost the trail here, naomi… we were talking about two prophecies… Matthew 16: 27, 28 and Mark 14: 60-64, which are distinctly different. My response about the witnessed Transfiguration applied, obviously, only to Matthew's record. If I'm confused, please forgive the error.
There's quite a bit of historical evidence actually. For the sake of brevity, I'd point to Cornelius Tacitus':
"Cornelius Tacitus, born circa 52-55 C.E., became a senator in the Roman government under Emperor Vespasian. He was eventually promoted to governor of Asia. Writing in the year 116 C.E., in his Annals, he writes of the burning of Rome in 64 C.E. And how Caesar Nero had tried to stop the rumor that he (Nero) was behind the destruction.
He writes:
"Therefore, to scotch the rumor (that Nero had burned Rome) Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue...They [the Christians] were covered with wild beasts' skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man."[9]
This amazing document verifies that Jesus, or Christus, was a true historical figure, that he lived and was killed during the reign of Caesar Tiberius, that he was sentenced under Pontius Pilate and that by about 64 C.E., Christianity had spread rapidly throughout the Roman empire. Tacitus verifies that Christians were viciously tortured by Nero only 32 years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The historical validity of this letter by Tacitus is doubted by very few scholars. According to some scholars, Tacitus is:
"Universally considered the most reliable of historians, a man in whom sensibility and imagination, though lively, could never spoil a critical sense rare in his time and a great honesty in the examination of the documents." [Amoit, Francois; Brunot, Amedee; Danielou, Jeah; Daniel-Rops, Henri. The Sources for the Life of Christ. Translated by P.J. Herpburne-Scott. New York; Hawthorn Books, 1962, pg. 16.]
Apologies for my tardiness, but duty sometimes calls...
There's quite a bit of historical evidence actually. For the sake of brevity, I'd point to Cornelius Tacitus':
"Cornelius Tacitus, born circa 52-55 C.E., became a senator in the Roman government under Emperor Vespasian. He was eventually promoted to governor of Asia. Writing in the year 116 C.E., in his Annals, he writes of the burning of Rome in 64 C.E. And how Caesar Nero had tried to stop the rumor that he (Nero) was behind the destruction.
He writes:
"Therefore, to scotch the rumor (that Nero had burned Rome) Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue...They [the Christians] were covered with wild beasts' skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man."[9]
This amazing document verifies that Jesus, or Christus, was a true historical figure, that he lived and was killed during the reign of Caesar Tiberius, that he was sentenced under Pontius Pilate and that by about 64 C.E., Christianity had spread rapidly throughout the Roman empire. Tacitus verifies that Christians were viciously tortured by Nero only 32 years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The historical validity of this letter by Tacitus is doubted by very few scholars. According to some scholars, Tacitus is:
"Universally considered the most reliable of historians, a man in whom sensibility and imagination, though lively, could never spoil a critical sense rare in his time and a great honesty in the examination of the documents." [Amoit, Francois; Brunot, Amedee; Danielou, Jeah; Daniel-Rops, Henri. The Sources for the Life of Christ. Translated by P.J. Herpburne-Scott. New York; Hawthorn Books, 1962, pg. 16.]
Apologies for my tardiness, but duty sometimes calls...
Hypognosis, I haven't left you in the lurch… as with naomi, I've had to attend to other, pressing things… a Boeing 727 called my name and seduced me, yet again into calling for the "Before Start" check list…
Look, about a year or so again, in the midst of a discussion such as we're having, the question of historical credibility arose. I provided a brief mention of how ancient documents are evaluated, which I learned from an historian friend who teaches at a local University.
Additionally, I provided the story of Vercingoterix… which was rather too long, but captured my point… I'll not repeat the entire length (although appropriately descriptive) but it includes the apparent facts that Vercingoeterix was a very young Celtic warrior chieftain in central (what is today) France at about 56BC in the time of Julius Caesar's rise. Vercingoterix defeated Roman armies, but was eventually defeated by Caesar and led, almost literally by the nose, to Rome where he lived as a prisoner and shown off as a magnificent spoil of war until executed.
Fast forward centuries and we find Napolean commissioned a magnificent statute glorifying the young warrior and there's a beautifully done oil painting of the warrior surrendering to Julius.
My point? All of the references are found in only one document… Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War , of which there are but 10 copies, all copied by a long suffering Monk in about the year AD1000.
Of course all the copies are pretty error free when compared to one another, but there are no other sources against which to compare. Do we doubt that Vercingoterix existed? No… of course not. However, the extant evidence for Jesus and most of the historical aspects of His life, etc., are captured in over 24,000 documents, many extending back to with a few hundred years of the events.
In one case, the Rylands fragment; …"The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St. John's fragment and with an accession reference of Papyrus Rylands Greek 457, is a fragment from a papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with the Rylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library Manchester, UK. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38.[1] Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's Deansgate building." (Source Wikipedia).
So, which of the two references to historical document are more reliable, by any unbiased judgement? The only difference is subject matter… but as we all know, that makes all the difference insofar as acceptance is concerned.
Look, about a year or so again, in the midst of a discussion such as we're having, the question of historical credibility arose. I provided a brief mention of how ancient documents are evaluated, which I learned from an historian friend who teaches at a local University.
Additionally, I provided the story of Vercingoterix… which was rather too long, but captured my point… I'll not repeat the entire length (although appropriately descriptive) but it includes the apparent facts that Vercingoeterix was a very young Celtic warrior chieftain in central (what is today) France at about 56BC in the time of Julius Caesar's rise. Vercingoterix defeated Roman armies, but was eventually defeated by Caesar and led, almost literally by the nose, to Rome where he lived as a prisoner and shown off as a magnificent spoil of war until executed.
Fast forward centuries and we find Napolean commissioned a magnificent statute glorifying the young warrior and there's a beautifully done oil painting of the warrior surrendering to Julius.
My point? All of the references are found in only one document… Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War , of which there are but 10 copies, all copied by a long suffering Monk in about the year AD1000.
Of course all the copies are pretty error free when compared to one another, but there are no other sources against which to compare. Do we doubt that Vercingoterix existed? No… of course not. However, the extant evidence for Jesus and most of the historical aspects of His life, etc., are captured in over 24,000 documents, many extending back to with a few hundred years of the events.
In one case, the Rylands fragment; …"The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St. John's fragment and with an accession reference of Papyrus Rylands Greek 457, is a fragment from a papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with the Rylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library Manchester, UK. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38.[1] Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's Deansgate building." (Source Wikipedia).
So, which of the two references to historical document are more reliable, by any unbiased judgement? The only difference is subject matter… but as we all know, that makes all the difference insofar as acceptance is concerned.
@Clanad
//in over 24,000 documents, many extending back to with a few hundred years of the events. //
So, what to do when the Harry Potter fanficton count tops 24,000, a century or two from now?
Repeatedly, we've placed the stress on the need for contemporary sources. A political dissident is liquidated: one would expect at least a report to be sent back to Rome that the task had been completed. (Unless it was the sort of embarassment that a regional governor would likely cover up, in which case, how did it osmose into the Nero narrative, above?)
In terms of how historians like to work, if Vercingetorix is a single-source character then he can be regarded as semi-fictional, too. His torture and execution was witnessed by crowds but we have only Caesar's word for it that he was a tribal leader, a strong adversary, who he vanquished. That could be Caesar lying to big himself up (certain criteria had to be met for him to merit a triumph) and the victim could have been some random nobody, captured after a battle. Except that Caesar's troops and underlings could all have vouched for the story of the campaign and the prisoner's identity, albeit only verbally.
I don't know if Caesar's memoirs were copied and sold in quantity but, given his fate, it is a wonder any copy survived at all. In the same way that the fossil record is full of gaps, who knows how many gaps there are in the documentary record due to accidental fires or deliberate purges?
Monasteries used to house major libraries. What do you imagine might have happened to contemporary Roman records which even slightly contradicted the events in the gospels?
A dischordant source can be adequately confirmatory if, despite negative spin, records the fact of an event or person. But it is easier to destroy it so that only your own version of a story prevails (and allies' versions too, if they chime well).
//in over 24,000 documents, many extending back to with a few hundred years of the events. //
So, what to do when the Harry Potter fanficton count tops 24,000, a century or two from now?
Repeatedly, we've placed the stress on the need for contemporary sources. A political dissident is liquidated: one would expect at least a report to be sent back to Rome that the task had been completed. (Unless it was the sort of embarassment that a regional governor would likely cover up, in which case, how did it osmose into the Nero narrative, above?)
In terms of how historians like to work, if Vercingetorix is a single-source character then he can be regarded as semi-fictional, too. His torture and execution was witnessed by crowds but we have only Caesar's word for it that he was a tribal leader, a strong adversary, who he vanquished. That could be Caesar lying to big himself up (certain criteria had to be met for him to merit a triumph) and the victim could have been some random nobody, captured after a battle. Except that Caesar's troops and underlings could all have vouched for the story of the campaign and the prisoner's identity, albeit only verbally.
I don't know if Caesar's memoirs were copied and sold in quantity but, given his fate, it is a wonder any copy survived at all. In the same way that the fossil record is full of gaps, who knows how many gaps there are in the documentary record due to accidental fires or deliberate purges?
Monasteries used to house major libraries. What do you imagine might have happened to contemporary Roman records which even slightly contradicted the events in the gospels?
A dischordant source can be adequately confirmatory if, despite negative spin, records the fact of an event or person. But it is easier to destroy it so that only your own version of a story prevails (and allies' versions too, if they chime well).
Clanad, //I'm afraid I've lost the trail here, naomi… we were talking about two prophecies…//
YOU were talking about two prophecies – I see one failed prophecy. It seems to me that rather than losing the trail, you have never sincerely attempted to follow it. You believe what you want to believe. You cite Tacitus, who was born long after the event and could only have recorded hearsay. His works, like the gospels, are known to have been doctored and therefore cannot be considered a reliable source.
YOU were talking about two prophecies – I see one failed prophecy. It seems to me that rather than losing the trail, you have never sincerely attempted to follow it. You believe what you want to believe. You cite Tacitus, who was born long after the event and could only have recorded hearsay. His works, like the gospels, are known to have been doctored and therefore cannot be considered a reliable source.
Naomi, there were two properties I thought we were discussing (and was mystified because they were so dissimilar). The first is Matthew 16: 27, 28, you quoted on 08:05 Thu 01st Oct 2015, the second was my quote of Mark 14: 60-64 on on 11:13 Thu 01st Oct 2015, all of which I responded to in a segment to Vetuste, but included a response to you at 00:49, Fri, 02 Oct., but I was connecting the two, not you… so, I lost the trail.
Regardless, Tacitus is generally regarded as an excellent historian and I used the quote because the event he is describing in the quote is contemporaneous and he is an eyewitness and accurately describes a related event, in detail that occurred several years before. That's as good as history gets, in my opinion.
Hypognosis… you say "Repeatedly, we've placed the stress on the need for contemporary sources..", yet all historians when writing on historical events are not contemporaries with the sources… Very few are alive today that were during WW I, yet excellent histories of that era continue to emerge. The author used preexisting sources, often, themselves not contemporaneous.
Fact is, many respected historians (I'm repeating myself) consider the Gospels as well as most other Biblical sources to be equally excellent. The fact that you and Naomi as well as many other do not is OK by me, but at odds with other examiners of the writings, not just me.
Naomi in one of her posts said (I paraphrase) I (meaning me) don't know the truth, she doesn't know the truth, nobody knows the truth… but that can equally apply to other historical events which are accepted as being true… just as you've accepted the Vercingoterix history that has far, far fewer previous examples with which to compare than Biblical histories… (The possibility of supporting references to Julius' writing simply don't exist, to my knowledge.
I may be placing too much emphasis on this point, but it is important to other historians in there research as well...
Regardless, Tacitus is generally regarded as an excellent historian and I used the quote because the event he is describing in the quote is contemporaneous and he is an eyewitness and accurately describes a related event, in detail that occurred several years before. That's as good as history gets, in my opinion.
Hypognosis… you say "Repeatedly, we've placed the stress on the need for contemporary sources..", yet all historians when writing on historical events are not contemporaries with the sources… Very few are alive today that were during WW I, yet excellent histories of that era continue to emerge. The author used preexisting sources, often, themselves not contemporaneous.
Fact is, many respected historians (I'm repeating myself) consider the Gospels as well as most other Biblical sources to be equally excellent. The fact that you and Naomi as well as many other do not is OK by me, but at odds with other examiners of the writings, not just me.
Naomi in one of her posts said (I paraphrase) I (meaning me) don't know the truth, she doesn't know the truth, nobody knows the truth… but that can equally apply to other historical events which are accepted as being true… just as you've accepted the Vercingoterix history that has far, far fewer previous examples with which to compare than Biblical histories… (The possibility of supporting references to Julius' writing simply don't exist, to my knowledge.
I may be placing too much emphasis on this point, but it is important to other historians in there research as well...
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