Validation through Experience

[Mycernius]

Originally Posted by Hawkins

Huh?

And it seems to me that you choose to live in denial. Your further questions will not be answered, sorry about that. As it's said that you choose to go your way, and I'll go mine.

Anyone elses irony meter exploded? because this nutbar has just broken mine.

[Mycernius]

Originally Posted by Someday

I am a Christian. That post that you referred to was simply why I chose Christianity over the myriad systems of belief in the world.
On this thread, I am not saying that all religions are equal in my opinion. I am saying they all have truths, and they generally agree with one another in the wider philosophical picture, but they do not agree on how they get there. Different means for different cultures. But ultimately, in this world or the next, the way is through Christ.

No it isn't, not for two thirds of this planets population. It is what your religion believes and you follow that. It doesn't devalue anyone elses beliefs, as theirs don't, or rather shouldn't, devalue yours. The position is one of religious arrogance.

Ultimately I believe completely that Jesus alone among men taught the most complete form of Truth that we have now.

Exactly, it is what you believe, note believe.

I'm not a pluralist, I am a Christian. The fact that I focus on the similarities between my faith and other faiths does not mean I am going to follow Buddha, or Mohammed , or Krishna, or Joseph Smith, or Charles Taze Russell, or any other religious teacher.

I don't expect you to do anything different.

Reading the Vedas, or the I Ching, or Genesis, or the European Myths are all valuable to glean how ancient cultures made sense of God. As I said on another thread recently, even the Old Testament was a strong record of people misunderstanding God. More times than not, they got God completely wrong. Even Moses who had direct dealings with the Holy Spirit didn't get it. He was banned from the Promised Land because of it. It also records how many times the prophets received a message to deliver to someone and the prophets modified the message to their own liking. The content of the original message comes to pass, but the parts that the prophets modified do not. Sometimes prophets were eaten by lions for their disobedience, sometimes they were not. Some prophets intentionally lied, or fled instead. King Solomon, the wisest of all men, who was permitted to build the first Temple on the site of a threshing floor his father purchased got into big trouble with God.

They didn't get god "wrong". Only that your beliefs think that they got god/gods/goddesses wrong. 1800 years of christian arrogance say they had it wrong. There is no right or wrong. Your beliefs are wrong to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist etc. and they think they are right. There is no way to say I am right and they are wrong. It is just the arrogance of each religion to proclaim that they are the best. Like salesmen pushing a product, they want you to buy into their beliefs, and you did, christianity.

I believe that Jesus alone understood God, and the emptiness of His tomb is one strong indication of this.

What, just because someone nicked his body? Or maybe the other lost gospels and buried christian writtings that show that he didn't die on the cross. There is no strong indication of any of it. There isn't even a strong indication that a Jesus existed, but then again it is your belief and I expect you to back it up to the hilt with the biased teachings of Christianity. Objectivism is not really something anyone of any religion is good at when dealing with their own beliefs.

One of His messages was that those who were experts in holy scripture and thought they knew God didn't know a thing about God. That is why the Sanhedrin despised Him after all.
I believe in Jesus.

Blessings

And he did of course?

[friendly hardline atheist]

Thanks for the extensive reply Someday.

You're saying that you see truth in other faiths but you take Christianity over others. While I don't share the christian beliefs anymore, I do find 'I take christianity over others' easier to accept than when some christians says to me they so much respect other faiths, while roundly condemning these faiths when looked at even just in very broad outlines. Mycernius has just posted that he thinks that it is arrogant that anyone hold just his beliefs to be true and I agree. But at least saying 'I take jesus over others' doesn't add the hypocrisy I noticed in the mormons I ran into.

Peter

[Someday]

They didn't get god "wrong". Only that your beliefs think that they got god/gods/goddesses wrong.

I think perhaps you misread the paragraph you quoted above this statement. Are you saying the narrative of the Old Testament did not demonstrate that the prophets didn't always understand God? Are you saying the narrative does not tell us what Yahweh told them to say, and that they said something else instead? Are you saying that the prophets were shown by the narrative to have a perfect understanding of God? Your response is not clearly connected to what I actually wrote.

There isn't even a strong indication that a Jesus existed, but then again it is your belief and I expect you to back it up to the hilt with the biased teachings of Christianity. Objectivism is not really something anyone of any religion is good at when dealing with their own beliefs.

I can't think of any other person that wasn't an emperor who was mentioned more in various writings from this period than Jesus. By the standards you impose to prove someone's existence, even guys like Julius Caesar never existed. How many times is his name mentioned in documents of any kind that are written by people that actually met him?

Saying that Jesus never existed is based on a presuppositional antipathy toward Christianity. There is evidence of His existence. You reject it. Fine, but what is your basis for that rejection? What evidence do you have that all of these people that spoke of the man Jesus were not writing about an historical person? lost gospels that were written hundreds of years after the fact? The gnostic Gospels are predated by all canonical gospels. There are a vast amount of writings by the early Church fathers older than any Christian Gnostic writings. Can you give me a list of writings that quote these lost gospels? Anything?
You claim the objective high road, so what is the basis of your claim?

Blessings

[Someday]

Mycernius has just posted that he thinks that it is arrogant that anyone hold just his beliefs to be true and I agree.

Would you extend that same statement to cover atheism as well? Is believing with a conviction that there is no God arrogance?

Blessings

[friendly hardline atheist]

Hello Someday,

Originally Posted by Someday

Would you extend that same statement to cover atheism as well? Is believing with a conviction that there is no God arrogance?

Depending on definitions used, I may not be an atheist but agnostic. Formally, I don't rule out the existence of god 100%, I assume his existence to be as astronomically unlikely as the Egyptian gods, Flying Spaghetti Monster and celestial teapot, close to but not equal to zero. Most atheists who have given their atheism some thought would come to the same view. And leaving out such elaborate language about a small technicality, it becomes 'god doesn't exist' in everyday conversation.

An atheist who has carefully considered the above and still thinks he has the 100% certain proof that god doesn't exist, should produce it. He/she is overwhelmingly likely to fail to do so, and be shown to be an arrogant tosser for making a hollow claim while knowing better.

greets,
Peter