A christian question

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You misunderstand. I am not advocating for political power for just Christians. I mean that Christians have a duty to be involved in politics same as anyone else. Nowhere in my post did I claim a theocracy, so I'm not sure where you got that from. The example you used is an excellent description of the original intent of the Founding Fathers and not what so many judges have made it out to be. What I meant was that you cannot seperate one's morals from one's personal and public life, both need to be governed by them.

Maybe I did misunderstand, then. It seemed that you were questioning whether separation of church and state was a good idea, and theocracy is the natural result of that.



Yes, but when you're acting in a public capacity, your first responsibility should be to uphold the law and not put your personal beliefs above it. Our political system is based on the rule of law, and "submission to government" requires respecting that even when you don't agree with it.

Jeremy

True. However, when the national law differs from God's moral laws, we have a duty to show this.

And I have no problem with politicians who make their feelings clear, as long as they uphold the existing laws. As an atheist, it makes me feel a little ucomfortable knowing that a highly religious person is pulling the strings (just as it would probably make many Christians uncomfortable to have an atheist in office), but as long as he can separate his civic duty from his religious duty, the system works pretty well.

Jeremy

Just curious, why are you an atheist? I am genuinely curious as to this reasoning. You can PM me your response if you want.

I'm happy to talk about it. My thinking is simply that I see no reason to take the idea of a god or gods seriously.

Think about all the gods you don't believe in: Zeus, Ra, Odin, Shiva, and so on. There are literally thousands of them. Why don't you believe they exist? The odds are good that your reasons for not believing in them are pretty much the same as my reasons for not believing in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

At this point I know you'll probably be tempted to mention Biblical prophecies and miracles and testimonials from thousands of people, but pretty much all religions have all of those -- even Scientology. Most of the things used to support Christianity don't really carry much weight unless you already believe to begin with.

Jeremy

Ahh, but do those other gods have the type of historical evidence that the Biblical God has? Can they lay claim to the sort of uniqueness that Jesus has?

Last edited by Grievous on 13 Dec 2005, 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Like I said, the historical evidence isn't very convincing unless you already believe. Naturally you feel otherwise, but unless you have something to tell me that no other apologist of the last thousand years has thought of, I'm afraid I've heard everything you're going to say dozens of times. The arguments which attempt to elevate Christianity above other religions are simply not compelling. The fact that there remains widespread disagreement about which (or whether) god(s) exist is proof of that.

Jeremy

Why are they not compelling? And may I suggest that the evidence is neutral, and it is what we do with this evidence that leads us either away or to God?

Last edited by Grievous on 13 Dec 2005, 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The fact that they're not compelling is obvious, for the reason I said: Christianity remains a minority religion. If the evidence were incontrovertible, there would be no need for further debate.

As for the question of why they're not compelling, that's an attempt to shift the burden of proof. It's your job to explain why I should accept your claim, not my job to explain why I should not.

I'd like to repeat, though, that I've honestly heard everything you have to say many, many times before, and I'm afraid it's just not convincing to me. I also know from long experience that nothing I have to say is going to be convincing to you. For that reason, I'd like to avoid a discussion of the details of Christian apologetics, since I think it would represent a waste of both our time.

Jeremy

Last edited by toddjh on 13 Dec 2005, 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Okay.

That sums up entirely what this confersation means

Are you saying that the conversation is okay or what?

Apologeics can be tricky and for this reason I've changed tactics recently. I agree that Jesus is unique and that there is considerably more evidence to back him up (it is certainly not incontrovertable, but it is compelling) and that many are too quick to brush this off. I focus not proving that Christianity is true, as that is impossible, but instead on proving that it is not unreasonable to believe it (both literally and pragmatically).

As for other religions and gods, I really don't view it in the manner that toddjh does at all. The ubiquity of other religious beliefs is actually evidence for, not against, the existence of a higher power. Anthropological research has indicated that among the most remote and "primitive" societies today, belief in a god of some sort is pretty universal.

Obviously, if you believe in a religion, you are to view it as the "true" faith or the one closest to the truth. However, to accept a religion that you see as holding the most truth does not imply regarding the other or previous religions as completely incorrect, misguided, or irrelevant. The other equally opposite error is to assume that they are all equally true. Religions, by nature, make objective truth claims, even though they are not resolvable (i.e. God exist or doesn't, Jesus rose form the dead or didn't).

So instead, I like to learn what I can about these other religions and mythologies and see what bits of truth they hold, what glimpses of God they offered in the past, and how they are similar to and different from my faith. So far, it still holds up pretty damn well.

So why do I think Christianity is a minority? Well, I'm not bothered by the fact that it is, since there are strong faith traditions in the East, but I think it was Catholic Philosopher Peter Kreeft who said that the truth of Christianity is not an obvious one like 2+2=4, but more like E=mc2. You can presumably lead people to truth, but not all will see or understand it.

The problem is that the evidence is unlikely to convince anybody who doesn't already believe. I don't have a problem with the possibility that the Jesus story was indeed based on a real person: there is some reason to believe there was a person named Yeshua ben Yosef, a reformist rabbi who had some rather original ideas about the role of religion in society and who may or may not have been crucified by the Romans after being framed by the religious orthodoxy. I personally consider the crucifixion unlikely, because there are no records of anyone with his description being crucified, and the Biblical accounts of the crucifixion don't really make sense -- for example, the story goes that two thieves were crucified alongside Jesus, but the Romans didn't execute thieves by crucifixion.

I can see the historical Jesus as an admirable person; in fact, I view him much like Gandhi. But I see no reason to believe the supernatural elements of the story are anything other than flights of fancy. It seems more reasonable to me that, after his death, his reputation and possible martyrdom led to a cult of personality among his former followers, who started attaching supernatural qualities to his memory in order to associate him with the divine. We see this fairly often in history; one recent example (though much less persuasive, of course) was David Koresh.



I think a better explanation is that religion provides, or provided, an important social function, so societies with a relatively high level of religious belief outperformed societies without it and tended to dominate the landscape. It could also be that we're simply wired to believe. The discovery of a so-called "God module" -- a section of the brain which, when stimulated, creates feelings of religious awe -- lends some weight to this hypothesis.

Both of these possibilities offer clear, simple explanations for the ubiquity of religion, and do so without the huge ontological baggage of invoking a supernatural being. I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that the prevalence of religion is any kind of evidence of a supreme creator, especially when so many different religions contradict each other so wildly regarding the nature of that creator.

Jeremy

Actually, the word "criminals"(Luke 23:32-43) would be more appropriate since their crime did merit crucifixion. They are also referred to as "robbers"(Mark 15:27) which was a much more serious crime than mere theft. The theory that Jesus' followers constructed a cult of personality around Him after His death is a common theory, but one that does not end up holding weight under examination. The Old Testament Messianic Prophecies are found to be uniquely fulfilled in Jesus. The probablility that all of these prophecies were the result of an accidental convergence on an ordinary man is ruled out by probability. The precision of these prophecies (and the fact that they are from hundreds of years before Christ was born) is stunning, especially in light of the fact that they are so precise. Also the evidence that Christ was crucified is that there are many references in the Gospel of Luke especially, which has been shown to be extraordinarily accurate from a historical perspective. There are aslo many extra-biblical accounts written by other writers at the time that corroborate the crucifixion and the darkness at occured when Jesus was crucified. Physical description is still unknown, but there are several well attestted historical account verifying that Jesus Christ existed, that he was crucified, and the accounts for His resurrection are similarly well supported.