redfox wrote:
> One of the most famous passages in the Bible is the passage found in
> Hebrews 11, which is used by many Christians, especially of the twenty
> first century variety to define the word "faith"
> The passage  which is generally taken out of its historical context reads
> in its most famous King James Bible version:
> "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
> not seen"
however one translates it, the suggestion is
that such 'faith' is not 'blind' but that this
'faith' is a belief in what we -do- know
and have experience with.
we cite Abraham as having believed God.
we do not suggest that Abraham simply believed
that such a thing as God existsed, but that
Abraham had a direct relationship with this
God and believed what God transmitted to him.
so, your statements about how 'some' ancient
people viewed the world and universe is entirely
irrelevant to this experience based 'faith' in God.
and any way, even aristarchus showed that the
world was round and even correctly calculated
the distnace from something like alexandria to athens.
that the hebrews believe the world was
flat is purely conjecture on your part.
redfox wrote:
> The passage later continues "Through faith we understand that the worlds
> were framed by the words of God, so that things that are seen were not
> made of things which do not appear"
and it makes perfect sense with what we
do know about the material universe.
that this material universe has a very
definite beginning and a beginning
from no visible source.
you will not be able to cite any accidental
triggering of this material universe from
no material source and so, the prospect of
a purposed event stands alone as valid.
in other words, modern 'cosmology' -must-
cite an 'unseen' source for all things seen.
redfox wrote:
> As a definition of faith the concepts here are quite obviously defective
> and belong to the lack of scientific knowledge of the world of two
> thousand years ago, a world in which many people still believed the world
> to be a flat disc around which the sun and indeed the entire Cosmos
> revolved.
this is one greek view of the 'cosmos' so, the only
'defect' here is in your attributing this to the bible.
or even implying a connection.
redfox wrote:
> The starry skies were seen as concentric layers with stars that
> were quite close to the earth and the Heaven of God a place somewhere on
> the outer fringe of those layers. All this was "spoken into existence" by
> a lonely God.
in the absence of any possible accidental
triggering mechanism that you can cite,
a purposed event springs as valid, that manner
whereby conscious interference patterns are brought
about which would ignite such a genesis is perfectly
warranted as similar in many ways to speech patterns.
> We now know that these concepts are incorrect.
according to your own statement, you know
-nothing- anbout the initiation of genesis
much less that vocal initiation is incorrect.
redfox wrote:
> We know that the universe
> is some ten billion years old, that it came into being through processes
> yet to be understood that may or may not have required the intervention of
> an omnipotent God,
what you may be certian of is that this material
universe has a very definite beginning and from
some source that you know nothing about.
that is, an immaterial source
for a material manifestation.
in the absence of any possible accidental
triggering that you will be able to cite,
a purposed event stands as valid.
redfox wrote:
> and we know that the complex life forms that we know
> today , including ourselves came into being through a process of evolution
> that took place itself over billions of years from a base of simpler life
> forms.
you knmow no such thing, this is
pure conjecture on your part.
even people who seriously believe in this do not
suggect that rodents became men in a billion years
but cite a much smaller time frame.
be that as it may, it's not the time
frame that is your major difficulty.
redfox wrote:
> Faith in the terms of Hebrews Chapter 11 and therefore in the form
> pressed on us by much of populist Christianity is simply wrong. It is
> dysfunctional as a measure of reality
you do not support this properly.
you jump from a statement about 'faith' in hebrews 11
to a mismanged description of the natural world
both past and present, and claim that you can then
conclde that your mismanaged statement invalidates
hebrews 11, which it clearly does not.
hebrews 11 makes 'faith' -experience- based
which we will say that it is.
you claim that because you can -invent- a story
of origins that has no God that you have invalidated
this experiential 'faith' which you clearly have not.
redfox wrote:
> Evolution, unlike religion does not address the question of the origin of
> life.
ok, so you will be admitting that life as you
are able to describe it has no clear random
happenstance solution for its appearance.
whether yu admit it or not, it does not
have such a random happenstance appearance.
redfox wrote:
> Evolution as a science analyses the processes whereby complex life
> forms evolved from simpler life forms.
show me a mechanism right now that attempts to describe how
biological molecules write themselves into existance,
and then continue altering their forms in response
to environmental stressors that have not yet happened.
> It does not seek to answer the
> question of the origin of life.
'it' would if it could.
redfox wrote:
> That is a matter it leaves to religion
> and to other sciences such as chemistry and Physics.
none of this detracts from the
hebrews 11 description of 'faith'
you are just hand waving.
-if- chemistry and physics had an explanation
for the arrival of life on earh in a random
happenstance manner,
'evolutionists' would cite that.
-you- do not, because there is no
clear citation to make.
how this lack of evidence on -your- part
should translate in to suome disruption of
the hebrews 11 statement about 'faith' is
not credibly maintained.
> One would hardly think so however with the rage directed against
> scientific thinking and most especially against the fact of evolution by
> modern "Christian" Fundamentalism, conservative traditionalism and
> Creationism masquerading in all three cases, without real justification,
> as mainstream Christianity.
if there be any 'rage' at all
it would be againts people holding up a clearly
preposturous claim as if it is the unquestionable reality.
-sceintists- should be at odds with this 'god-less myth'
simply because it is fatuous and unfounded.
> What is particularly sad is that that this
> rage echoes the rage of the sixteenth century papacy against the scientist
> Galileo and his fellow academics who had had the audacity to reveal their
> findings about the nature of the universe. The Catholic Church long ago
> apologised for this error and was long ago forgiven for it..
of note is that Galileo was not arguing against
the christian worldview but against the ptolemaic
greek earth centered universe.
iof you are in a blur as to understand
why and how greek 'science' was being
supported by a politico-church
structure that claimed to be christian,
you should at least look into the aspects of
the roman church that as merely an emperors
wand declaring the old roman empire to be
christian, for political expediancy and
not for religious purposes.
do we fault roman christians?
no, we fault the roman imperial structure that
makes non-christians to be -called- christan
by virtue of imperial edicts.
your contentions are still in shortfall.
> Faith is dependent on evidence.
exactly and that is what hebrews 11 states
and so, you -validate- hebrews 11.
hebrews 11 even -calls- this faith an evidence
and a substance and cites abraham as having
been faithful and if you look at genesis, abraham
was in direct communication with this God in whom
hebrews claims he had faith.
> We teach our children this when we tell
> them to be cautious about strangers,
> to be careful about crossing roads,
> to be careful near fire or near deep water. We tell them never to cross a
> road without first looking in both directions and we tell them to remain
> alert as they cross.. We tell them that the assurance that a stranger is
> a safe person is not sufficient evidence to place absolute trust in them,
> and we show them that fire can hurt and deep water can be dangerous. We
> teach them not just through a demand to be obedient to us, but by showing
> them the dangers and drawing their attention to examples.
that's nice, i'm glad for you.
how this invalidates hebrews 11
is known only to you.
> A similar failure for much of modern Christianity to properly define basic
> concepts comes with both the word "truth" and with the word "belief." A
> distortion has taken place in defining these terms and that distortion has
> serious consequences.
now, you're attacking more words.
ok, fine.
> For example the word "truth" is derived from the German word "Treu" which
> means loyalty. But the word truth has long since gained a far more
> important meaning. Something is only regarded as a truth if it can be
> evidenced in something more than just assertion. In other words claiming
> something is true does not magically make it true, evidence is required.
> Thus in science an assertion is regarded as a theory , a hypothesis or a
> thesis until such time as evidence is provided of its validity. Then and
> only then can it begin to be regarded as a truth or a fact, and even then
> contrary evidence will reduce its status.
let's say 'Truth' is the way things are,
and 'truth' is the way you see things,
sometimes Truth and truth are worlds apart.
none of ths discrepancy aboyut the nature
of 'Truth' does anything to invalidate
a christian viewpoint.
> Christianity has in recent years come to be far too much about an
> antiquated concept of "faith". Within its boundaries truth and belief
> have become matters of loyalty rather than of knowledge, reason ,
> understanding, common sense and rational thought.
you haven't shown that this 'faith' as stated in
hebrews 11 or even the christan concepts of faith
alone is unmodern, antiquated nor invalid.
you try and tie it to your beliefs about
the physical reality and its origins and
say that because -your- 'truth'
is different from some ancient beliefs
that this invalidates 'faith.
it is not an effective statement on your part.
> I was born In England into a Christian family in the immediate post war
> years. My parents faith survived the war but not without the recognition
> that blind faith and misplaced belief and loyalty had been the very
> sources of the nightmare they and their continent had experienced. More
> than sixty million dead, many millions exterminated in massacres and in
> extermination camps and even their own bombed out church had taught them
> that the psychic core of Nazism, loyalty based on emotion and prejudice,
> and on unevidenced claims was evil
well, maybe you should mention that many americans
and the like who fought agianst nazism were christian.
are you trying to show that chistianity
is equivalent to nazism?
consider the pharissee/saducee wars,
was it wrong for one type of jew
to kill another type of jew?
can you now say that phariseeism is anti-jew?
well, they sought the extermination
of a particular variant of jew,
but they themselves claim to be jews.
how does that work?
> Yet only sixty years after that war Christianity seems to be returning to
> that stance. The process of conversion has all too often become one of
> blind faith
and this is exactly what hebrews 11 is -not.
so, you invalidate your own thesis.
> in a personal realisation identified incorrectly as a
> spiritual experience emanating from outside the persons psyche followed by
> loyalty to a system of belief to which one pays loyalty on the basis of
> emotional feeling.
this is what you really mean to say,
not that hebrews 11 falsely describes faith
in a manner consistent with the christian ideals,
but that there is not God to have faith in,
and so, no matter what people describe as 'faith'
you claim that no such experience is possible
basd on -your- own personal lack of such an experience
and your intent to describe such experience as false.
-you- say;
"there is no God as outlined by christian ideals
and so, there can be no such thing as 'faith'
as described by those same christian ideals."
what you do not show is that no God as described
by christian ideals -can- exist and therefore,
your thesis should be taken as self evident.
you trick your own self more than you convince anyone else.
> Nazism was frighteningly similar in nature. Hitler
> was believed because he first created an emotional environment  often
> called "mass hysteria" Â and then took advantage of that suggestible
> state. To those of us with long memories the rants of cultist pastors
> look remarkably similar.
well, i see no hysteria here.
are you trying to incite hysteria?
why?
> The extremists of the Fundamentalist fold would have us believe that the
> earth was created in six days some six thousand years ago, that men
> coexisted with dinosaurs (in one American museum a model dinosaur is even
> displayed wearing a saddle) that the events of the first two books of the
> Bible were historical events, that the Bible in fact is inerrant in its
> historical claims and in fact contains the actual Words of God related by
> inspired writers
carefully considered, -you- have
no real reason to say otherwise.
your statements are scattershot
and you may wish to start a further delineation
by carefully defining exaclt what a 'day' represents.
i don't need to say that the earth is 6000 years old
and i don't suggest that the bible or genesis
makes such a demand anyway.
maily you are dealing in straw men of your own devising.
> Never to be questioned in their world view in particular are the
> statements made in the New Testament. The Gospels are to be regarded as
> the indisputable evidence of eye witnesses.
they describe themselves as eyewitness accounts.
your saying, 'no they aren't' is
insufficient to change this fact.
> The Book of Revelation is to
> be regarded as a prediction of the end of the world and Jesus is to be
> regarded as having died for the sins of us all as a sacrifice to appease
> the anger, not only of his own father but to another aspect , through
> Trinity doctrine, of his own self.
well, now you've drifted further into
your own little world of device.
this statement of yours is not clear.
it sounds like you have an anger
against that which you do not understand.
> The fact that large numbers of Christians do not adhere any longer to this
> belief system is never revealed to most congregations. How many
> Christians especially in the cultist groups realise that Christian
> scholars and even Bishops have stood out against this world view? Spong
> and Robinson are two obvious examples of such dissent
christians stand up and say that Jesus never lived?
if you say that a thousand times, it
still won't magicaly become the "Truth"
try harder.
> When I pick up my newspaper, whichever paper it may be, I often find
> myself confronted by a religious column. All too often I know that what
> is said in these columns is simply inaccurate. So I ask myself the
> question "If I, as a secular person were writing a "religious column" on
> the basis of my childhood and adolescence within the Christian Church and
> by knowledge and experience gained since, what truths would I seek to put
> before my readers.? What knowledge would I seek to bring to them that the
> church of my childhood concealed from me and that it continues to lie
> about?"
why don't you try and edit your own diatribes first.
> Here are some of the answers I come up with:
> That
>
> The very existence of Jesus of Nazareth is not evidenced in any convincing
> fashion outside of the New Testament. References to Jesus at all are
> almost completely non existent and also dubious.
well, the talmud suggests that such a person existed
albeit the talmud was written -after- the gospels
and probably written -by- roman philosophers to
placate a very small angry segment of
the jewish community.
> There is no convincing evidence that any of the Gospels were written by
> eyewitnesses to the events described within them. All of them are
> apparently constructed to convey theological ideas relevant to the time
> they were written and to the communities they were written in
the gospels claim to be eyewitness accounts.
all you have is 'no they aren't' as your main idea.
do you realize that there is no extant
copy of any work by plato or aristotle
and that the most ancient source on these
is well into the so-called christan era?
do you also suggest that no person named plato existed?
after all, we have no manuscript of this person's.
did Hillel exist?
we don't have any manuscript of his.
in fact, the talmud was compiled well after 200 a.d.
and has so -many- redactions and editions
that it is impossible to decipher
just what constitutes talmudic philosophy
inasmuch as outright contradictions exist
between several of the versions.
> The consensus of almost all respected scholars is that no Gospel was
> published before around 65AD., 30 years after Jesus¹s supposed execution
> and after Paul¹s letters.
and, the watergate informant known as 'deep throat'
was not publicized until nearly 35 years
after the actual events.
no, you have no point.
there is always some time between
compilation and publication.
that and the early christians were subject
to attack and harassment just for being christians.
> The Gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke are, like Mark, almost
> certainly falsely so attributed and draw from the writers of Mark¹s
> version. They do not consist of independent testimony.
this also supports that they are telling the same story.
> The Gospel of John is ideological and theological in nature. Any dialogue
> attributed to Jesus that only appears in John is almost certainly
> fictitious. It is highly unlikely it was written by the disciple John Â
> supposing him to have existed which is itself uncertain.
this sort of "reasoning" would tend to make the talmud
and the works of plato and aristotle fiction,
before they would make the gosples fiction.
you forget that the chistian ideal are -accompanied- -by-
an experiential relaltionsip with the
God who is so identified in its pages.
-you- have no such experience,
fine, speak for yourself.
but your lack of experience does -not-
translate to a positive statement by
you that no such events took place.
> Jesus if he lived was executed at the behest of the Romans. The claim
> that the Jewish authorities (the Sanhedrin) did not have the right to
> sentence him to death is entirely fictitious, The sentence that could
> have been imposed by the Sanhedrin for blasphemy was stoning to death.
> Jesus was supposedly executed in the manner dictated for a person found
> guilty of sedition against the Roman Occupation force. The Jews played no
> part in his sentencing and execution. The Gospels lie on this point,
> failing especially to point out that King Herod and the High Priest were
> appointed and supported by the Romans
you have no idea -what- the sanhedrin was able to do
inasmuch as the talmud was compiled -after- the
known dates for the gospels.
the sanhedrin was under roman occupation, this is true.
and the romans were not at all indiscriminate
about what they would allow the indigenous
populations to carry out, and capital
executions are just such events that
would require roman oversight.
> No complete Gospel text predates the Fourth Century. We do not know the
> original wording and content of the originals. The Christmas story
> including the claim as to Jesuses Virgin Birth especially seems to be a
> later addition to the original text
no text of the talmud predates the claims of the gospels
they all come -after- the gospels.
-and- the year '0' A.D. did not even exist
until about the 15 century A.D.
meaning that '0' A.D. was -invented- well
-after- the inception of the gospels.
tell me if you will, why this
should be considered important.
> No fragment of any Gospel exists that has been reasonably dated before
> around 135AD, the earliest being the Ryland fragment which contains
> fragments of a few verses of John. The dating remains contraversial in
> that the fragment appears to be part of a codex(book) supposedly dating
> from a time when scrolls would have been more normal. The Gospel are in
> fact not even quoted or acknowledged to exist in contemporary documents
> dated before the second half of the second century. The evidence to their
> being written in present form before 150 AD is almost completely absent
most of the talmud was written down in the late fifteenth century.
the talmud didn't even exist as literature during the time of Christ.
> The belief that Jesus died for our sins is part of a parcel of theology
> referred to as Atonement or substitution theology. It is refuted by many
> modern Christians and is no longer a fully accepted doctrine outside of
> Catholicism and evangelicaland Birn Again cults
Jesus' atoning death like that of the
passover and day of atonement is central
to christian ideals.
that you consider this to be defunct
in christian circles is far from the Truth.
capital T.
> A substantial body of scholarship attributes the majority of Christian
> theology and even the biographical details of Jesus¹s life and
> resurrection to the reformed former persecutor of the followers of Jesus,
> Paul of Tarsus.
show me.
> The true origins of the religion we may know as Christianity may well have
> been in the area known as Asia Minor (Turkey)
no, it set out in Jerusalem.
amd basically predates the Sinai covenant
inasmuch as Abraham Isaac and Jacob were
smeared with the annointing of YHWH.
> The religion of Paul and the Judaic religion followed by the earliest
> followers of Jesus may well have had very little in common. In particular
> the events of the Last supper including the Eucharist may well be
> inventions made to justify Pauls teachings and have no basis in truth.
well, you aren't supporting your statements on 'faith'
which seemed to be your intent.
now you are just rambling.
> A substantial body of scholarship sees Pauls claims of revelation to be
> pure invention at best and fraud at worst intended to justify his claim of
> apostleship.
and this scholarsip which takes place
2000 years after the fact should be considered
much more reliable than the statements made in
a comtemporary manner, according to you?
where we see Peter making mention
of Paul on very friendly terms.
2 Peter xx:xx.
Sylvanus was a steno.
> The Bible contains no predictions reasonably attributed to Jesus. The New
> Testament can be reasonably regarded as being deliberately written to
> create this false impression. There are no genuine predictions of future
> events
you'll have to specify what you mean here.
> ++++++++++++++++++++
> What does all this mean for the modern world even for your own suburb. I
> believe it means that it is time for religion to "get honest" Â to stop
> relying on unprovable assertions and threats that a soul unable to be
> obedient to the nonsensical command to "choose to believe" is condemned to
> eternal hellfire.
no, to those who have the experience with God thru Christ,
the very thing that you do not ruin, "faith"
is the provable attribute which we all walk after.
not a 'blind belief' in that which we do not know,
but a very real experience with the God who supports them.
> It is time we stopped scaring our children and instead sought to recover
> from our own religious trauma and from those who once spiritually abused
> our trust
be more specific.
> Remember the strangers we taught our children to be careful of and not to
> trust. We now know that levels of sexual abuse from church members and
> priests in the past were so high that much of the trust in them in the
> past was misplaced. But sexual abuse and physical abuse were not the only
> personal crimes committed, spiritual and educational abuse were even more
> common
one thing you can be sure of is that -you- believe that there are
things in this world which are -wrong- no matter who does them.
-you- do -not- say;
"well everything is ok it just depends on
the situation and who is doing them"
no, you say;
There are thingsin this world that
are -wrong- no matter who does them.
i agree with you here.
some things are -wrong-
and not just a matter of personal viewpoint.
> Fundamentalism, Creationism, traditionalism, and much of Born Again
> evangelism are remnants of misplaced trust. For Christianity to move
> forward  perhaps even to survive it needs to denounce more than just its
> occasional sexual abuses. What it needs is radical reform based on a
> willingness to honestly confront its own past and the dubious nature of
> its origins. It needs to recognise that the Bible is a collection of very
> human documents inspired only by ideas and not by some direct line to the
> Holy Spirit. It needs, quite simply, to respect its own demands for
> honesty and integrity and to recognise that applying even its own moral
> standards it frequently fails
christianity has seen worse foes than
you and will likely see them again.
in fact, your scattersot approach is so poor,
that it only goes to show you as a poor scholar
and so, why should anyone lend credence to the
offhand statements made by such a lax
individual as yourself?
> In conclusion to those who would say "Oh but Jesus said we must accept as
> a child if we are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and that is what I do" I
> would say "then listen to the words of my six year old son many years ago"
> One day he told me "Dad I know what the Bible is" Knowing how many have
> pondered these questions all their adult lives I was rather amused and
> said "Well go on , tell me"
> He replied with the very childhood simplicity we are told to exalt as an
> example to ourselves as the right attitude to the Scriptures and to God,
> "It¹s a book of laws with legends in it"
your child is parroting -your- sentiment.
nothing more.
you have tainted yur own child.
is this abusive?
or maybe in your mind you are simply handing
down the tradition inasmuch as it is obvious
that -you- have been -taught- to hate and
villify christians.
> How right in this instance both he thirteen years ago and Jesus two
> thousand years ago were. The child has spoken
your child is parrotting -you-.
still no 'childlike' statement.
> It is indeed "a book of laws with legends in it," ancient laws and ancient
> legends. It is nothing less and truly nothing more.
this is what -you- instilled in your child.
> That which you BELIEVE that is within it, and that which you REJECT will
> not decide how you spend eternity and the nature of the most important
> matters in life Â
> Matters of love and compassion of sharing and caring are not dependent on it.
unless and if the only Being who truly
knows what Love and sharing and caring -is-
is the God who does not live to
selfishly tend to God's own needs
-first-, and that this God may be drawn closer to
by some examination of these scriptures.
> For these you must search within yourself as a functioning and reasoning
> being. And having found them we need to learn to live and work together,
> whatever ancient or modern beliefs we ascribe to. All of us at times fall
> short of our responsibilities to each other. No religion cleanses us from
> the effects of our errors and no-one really has the right to forgive a man
> except his human victim.
so, you claim that mankind has errors which must be cleansed.
you don't say that mankind is ok just the way it is.
christians seem to suggest that God is the only
realiable Being who could execute such a cleaning
inasmuch as God is not sullied by any such uncleaness.
redfox wrote:
> Maybe we could start by at least recognising that..
i recognize plenty.
you don't really support much of what yoyu state,
you simply toss a lot of accusations around as if
your believing them make them self evident to everyone else.
