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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jun 15, 2017 - 10:53am PT
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Fat Dad.....you think about what Jesus would want you to do and that is fine. My point is simply that as high a percentage of people with no belief in God will also show good behavior in regards to their fellow humans. Good, even altruistic, behavior is not predicated in a belief in God,
Yes, some people will say that their good behavior stems from folllowing the tenants of their religion. Some people will also do heinous acts because of their beliefs, however perverted, in a particular religion...the Crusades come to mind.
Civilization could not exist without people behaving properly in regards to their neighbors. Flourishing civilizations existed before any belief in a personal, monotheistic God, and flourishing civilizations exist today with people who are, for the most part, secular.
And as to the condemnation that my remarks are based on my own beliefs and nothing else....look in a mirror. Your comments are based on your beliefs and nothing else...as they should be.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jun 15, 2017 - 11:26am PT
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Fat Dad.....you think about what Jesus would want you to do and that is fine. My point is simply that as high a percentage of people with no belief in God will also show good behavior in regards to their fellow humans. Good, even altruistic, behavior is not predicated in a belief in God, Jim, I totally agree with you on this point. I think even Mark Twain made a similar comment a long time ago. Dante did as well when he included his nobel infidels, people of high esteem but born before Christ, in The Divine Comedy. I don't wish that everyone be Christian or any other faith. I find lots of so-called Christians just that. I mostly wish that people choose to be good people and do good works. I care not a whit whether they do so as part of their faith or not.
And as to your last comment, you are right. I just find that sometimes that threads like this involve people commenting on what I, as a person of faith, believe or do not believe. I will choose my words better in the future.
And Bob, thanks for the link. However, that is one opinion (by a guy marketing his book). I know you're a smart guy and know that there are competing opinions on that issue. Different people choose to be convinced by different evidence.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 15, 2017 - 11:31am PT
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"And Bob, thanks for the link. However, that is one opinion (by a guy marketing his book). I know you're a smart guy and know that there are competing opinions on that issue. Different people choose to be convinced by different evidence."
The burden of proof isn't on me, as I said before...prove it. :-)
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 15, 2017 - 11:55am PT
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Fat Dad.....you think about what Jesus would want you to do and that is fine. My point is simply that as high a percentage of people with no belief in God will also show good behavior in regards to their fellow humans. Good, even altruistic, behavior is not predicated in a belief in God,
This may very well be true but what religion does is to refine moral behavior and raise it to a level that often ignores evolutionary mechanics for the sake of morality itself and the pursuit of a virtue that might otherwise go unrealized.
As if praying (aka Talking into the wind) does a fuking thing...
Such nonsense!!!...
Well it sure as hell helps the person doing the praying and isn't that nice?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 15, 2017 - 12:03pm PT
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The big question, the real question, is whether Jesus was the divine figure that Christians believe him to be.
The same can be said, for Zeus, Jupiter, Santa Claus, and Tinker Bell.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 15, 2017 - 12:19pm PT
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The same can be said, for Zeus, Jupiter, Santa Claus, and Tinker Bell.
Zeus and Jupiter are essentially the same figure and the Hellenistic gods were, again, anthropomorphic deities that represented psychological states and worked very well for the Greeks and Romans. That anger you feel, well that's Mars or Ares at work, that flush of intellectual insight you experience, well that's Athena born of the mind of God lending you reason. The gift of beauty is the mix of corporeal matter and divinity ( read mind) that Aphrodite represents. I don't see how anybody can think there is no truth to be found in these deities, no help.
5 to go.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 15, 2017 - 01:04pm PT
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My point exactly...
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Jun 15, 2017 - 01:20pm PT
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Jim, agreed on ethics and altruism not requiring religion. I love the ethics that Jesus taught in the New Testament (if you believe Jesus was an historical figure) and they form much of the basis for my personal ethic. Interestingly, practicing Christian ethics doesn't require believing anything beyond Jesus being a sharp rabbi.
“Kindness is invincible.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jun 15, 2017 - 02:52pm PT
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Zeus and Jupiter are essentially the same figure and the Hellenistic gods were, again, anthropomorphic deities that represented psychological states and worked very well for the Greeks and Romans. That anger you feel, well that's Mars or Ares at work, that flush of intellectual insight you experience, well that's Athena born of the mind of God lending you reason. The gift of beauty is the mix of corporeal matter and divinity ( read mind) that Aphrodite represents. I don't see how anybody can think there is no truth to be found in these deities, no help. This is actually an interesting issue. My initial response, without thinking about it, would be that these were just mythological deities without any claim to humanity. But then I remembered my mythology and that many of the deities assumed human form, visited the earth, had sex, beat up people, etc. I could say that Jesus was a man, whereas the gods only assumed their form while remaining gods. However, then you get interesting issues like the Trinity, where Jesus is, in addition to being human, the Son of God, God and the Holy Spirit. I think that belief denies me a quick rebuttal to the Greek gods thing.
This is an interesting thread. Though it's easy for the faithful to feel like they have to defend their positions, I don't mind. I welcome doubt and questions about my faith because it gives me the opportunity to be introspective about it. Most of the time my life is too busy to stop and contemplate what I believe.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 15, 2017 - 02:59pm PT
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Mythology now, but in Greece and Rome back in their days those gods were considered just as real and divine as jesus is considered by christians today. What on earth would make a christian believe their god is any more valid than those gods?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 15, 2017 - 03:21pm PT
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If a god is that which creates, subsumes, unites, and guides the workings of all things, then science has risen to the position.
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 15, 2017 - 03:22pm PT
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Modern science has failed that .....
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 15, 2017 - 03:39pm PT
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"If a god is that which creates, subsumes, unites, and guides the workings of all things, then science has risen to the position."
It is a work in progress, unlike Werner who has all the answers.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Jun 15, 2017 - 07:23pm PT
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Evidence of Jesus actually existing is sparse,
I am suspect because I doubt the existence of a Son Of GOD!!!
virgin birth, walked on water, resurrected from death but died for your sins, but came back alive (I guess your sins are not excused because he didn't die), but disappeared after coming back alive, because we can't find any Jesus still alive from 2000 years ago even though he came back from the dead,
where is he??
But did the man responsible for the world's largest religion actually exist?
Historians, theologians and secular scholars are agreed on one thing: he probably did. But beyond that basic statement - that a man called Jesus did once walk the Earth - they are divided.
To what extent his life has been exaggerated, mythologised and bent will almost always be impossible to prove.
This in-depth literature review by Alternet's Valerie Tarico outlines five reasons scholars give that he did not exist:
•There is no first century secular evidence that he existed - all sources are either Christian or Jewish
•The earliest New Testament writings are vague on details of his life - they become more fleshed out in later texts
•The eyewitness accounts in the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are all second hand Bingo, no first hand accounts
•The gospels make contradictions about his life
•Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the 'real Jesus' contradict each other
https://www.indy100.com/article/did-jesus-exist-7489786
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Jun 15, 2017 - 09:00pm PT
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Dr. F,
I don't believe that a failure to reference Jesus outside of Christian or Jewish texts means that those texts are biased. You could make the same argument that secular sources were alos biased against Christians. The Romans, for examples, hated and persecuted Christians. Why would they chronical some one who would have been regarded as a political criminal. Having said that, the Roman historian Tacitus does make reference to the leader of the Christians, Christus, who was crucified under the reign of Tiberius. The Jewish historian, Josephus, who wrote in Greek who later took the name Flavius after his Roman patron, also mentioned a Jesus, who is called Messiah, who was executed.
With respect to the Gospels, as I mentioned, they were written about 50-60 years after Jesus' death, so yes, no eyewitness accounts. The Gospels do vary in the details they share, particularly John's, but they share different details more than contradict one another. Having said that, that does not mean that both are incorrect, only that the details in one may be apocryphal.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 15, 2017 - 09:11pm PT
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Craig,
Is there anything that you rely upon that has come to you by a second account? Have you talked to or listened to those who have had the direct experiences of all the many beliefs that you hold to be credible / true?
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 15, 2017 - 09:18pm PT
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I'm glad Jesus Christ consciousness is still here and never left.
Much better than the Boob D'A and Fried mundane tag team to nowhere ......
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jun 16, 2017 - 03:37am PT
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Threads like this are a bit like Republicans commenting on global warming. You have a group of individuals disinclined or in denial of the subject matter who have done no research on the subject and yet feel inclined to feign knowledge of the subject. Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion on the matter of religion. It is, after all, an intensely personal thing. I don't tell people what they should believe so, conversely, I dislike people telling me what I supposedly think or feel or know about the subject.
I wouldn't be so concerned about what they believe if they didn't act upon those beliefs. But they tend to do things like want to replace the teaching of evolution in schools with some crap like intelligent design or elect politicians hostile to gay rights or make abortion illegal.
And even with that, delusion is still a bad thing.
If society has convinced somebody that they are, and should be, a second class citizen and that's all right and proper ....
Do you just shrug and say they are entitled to their belief?
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 16, 2017 - 05:04am PT
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I'm glad Jesus Christ consciousness is still here and never left.
Much better than the Boob D'A and Fried mundane tag team to nowhere ......
Yes and you are a shining example of that Jesus Christ consciousness with your constant name calling and verbal attacks on people who don't buy into your bullsh#t.
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