BrickBlog

Nice post. I believe we are seeing the negative side of democracy now -- where the rabble pull the enlightened down to their level simply because they can. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I see an easy cure -- America's culture of ignorance feeds back into itself through so many different channels; it's even become a perverse symbol of pride for some.

As MarylandHorn99 on Hornfans.com, I read many of your omniscience vs. free will arguments, and have now posted my own very abbreviated version on my livejournal. If you have the time, I'd very much appreciate it if you stopped by and told me what you thought.
 

Maryland,

Thanks for the comments and insights. I completely agree that pure democracy can be a dangerous endeavor. However, there isn't a very promising alternative. Give power to the people, and the nation falls prey to the tyranny of the majority. Take power away from the people, and the nation falls prey to the tyranny of a few.

I'm anxious to check out your live journal in the near future. Although with final exams fast approaching, pretty much everything outside of Constitutional Law, Patent Law and the Law of Copyrights is beyond the scope of my current thoughts. :)
 

Brick:
May I ask a couple of questions...I am honestly curious.
1)How long have you not believed in God? Whole life or as you have grown older?
2) Why do you think faith in God as it motivates man is a truly bad thing? I can see why you and others are disgusted by Bush's policies and the way he (well not so much him, but his team) insinuates that God is on his side but not on the side of his opponents, etc etc.

I disagree that a belief in God and giving Him authority in your life translates into being irrational. "Putting on the spirit", or living by God's principles, means to many people (Republican and Democrat alike) of good faith to be driven by love, kindness, and mercy towards others. Anyway you don;t need a Sunday School lesson and sorry if it comes across that way.

Thanks,
Tim
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

Tim,

Thanks for the comments. Here are your answers:

(1) As a child, I believed in the God of American Catholicism. However, certain things always troubled me about the dogma and I never saw the big deal about Jesus. In many ways, my personal beliefs haven't changed that much. I am no atheist - I readily acknowledge that there are limits to human observation, and that it is always possible that some supreme intelligence exists beyond the bounds of our comprehension. However, I also recognize that certain conceptions of God are either logically impossible or entirely superfluous insertions into ontological models. As a result, I don't believe specifically in any of the Gods of organized religion. Also, my reading of the history of Christianity suggests that Jesus was either a myth or a real man who leant his name, and nothing more, to the central hero of the Gospels.

(2) I don't believe that "faith in God" as a motivation is "a truly bad thing." Rather, I believe that blind faith in the words of other men has the potential for fostering tyranny. Religious folks should not fool themselves. When the subscribe to a religious doctrine, they do not follow the words of God. Rather, their faith centers on the words of other mortals, and other mortals are motivated by more than concern and love for their fellow man.

I will be the first to admit that many (but not all) of the moral edicts of modern American Christianity are beneficial to society. Morality at its best provides guidelines for individual behavior that will result in an optimal society. However, the behaviors that result in societal success vary with several parameters. While binding morality to the notion of an omnipotent, infallible and unchanging God has the advantage of ensuring obedience in the absence of direct supervision, it comes saddled with the deleterious effect of stalling moral progression. The temporal rigidity of religious morality prevents real-time optimization of moral systems to optimize behavior in a changing environment. Thus, while a particular religious moral system may have proven itself near-optimal at some time in the past, religious moral absolutism prevents society from adjusting its moral code to account for modern concerns.

Anyway, hope that answers your questions. I look forward to reading your comments when I finally get around to composing the religious section of my treatise...or ANY part of my treatise, for that matter. :)
 

Maryland,

I was very impressed with your livejournal. Thanks for the link - I enjoyed it so much, that I have placed a link to it in my sidebar.
 

Brick,

I appreciate the openness and honesty of your statement. It may surprise you to hear that we share a good deal of similarity in our religious backgrounds. I too was brought up in the Catholic tradition. In fact I attended church every Sunday, memorized catechism, prayers and rituals. I was an alter boy and from a long line of Catholics. Despite this heritage I found myself devoid of true faith. I was an Agnostic, or in other words I didnt know what I believed about God or if there truly was one. I believed the Bible to be a book of good teachings and fairy tales.

I wanted to believe but simply didnt have faith. How could I believe in a God that I had never seen. Did Jesus really ever exist? If he did and if God did I also knew I didnt want to go to hell..that is if it really did exist. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
I remembered a passage from the Bible I had heard previously which said "If you seek after Me you will find Me, if you seek after Me with all your heart".

I thought, "Humm...if he really is God, then He wouldnt break His promise would He?" So I became opened minded to seek after Him. One day I found myself walking by a concert at my high school auditorium at night and heard some music which sounded cool. I went in with my friends and sat down. After the music a guy ran up and grabbed the mic, asking us to listen for 5 minutes. I did and as this man talked he related that God came as a man in the person of Christ and that his mission was to die to pay for my sin and the sin of the world. That only a perfect one without sin could serve as the sacrifice and pay for my sin, but that I, of my own free will, had to accept that payment made on my behalf. He said some other things but I couldnt tell you what because for the first time in my life I truly knew that God was real, even if only with the smallest measures of faith. I went home that night and prayed to accept Christ and to yield my life to Him. Afterwards I began to read the Bible and for the first time in my life it wasnt foolishness to me. It was as though I was given glasses to see what it was really saying and my faith began to grow and my life change. The emptiness melted away.

My thoughts on Jesus after studying the historical evidence, is that his existance is a historical fact. There is more historical evidence for his existence than for anyone of his time by far. He made many claims while he was here, the boldest of which is his claim that he and the father were one and that he was the "I AM". He claimed to be the Messiah and to be God incarnate in man. He claimed "I am the way the truth and the life and that no one comes to the father but through me". He said his sacrifice was the only means for atonement.

So if he existed, then it begs the answer of a question..."Was he a liar, a lunatic or was he truly lord?" In other words, he either was a liar(and made up his claims knowing they were false), he was a lunatic (he made these claims which he sincerely believed to be true but he was just delusional) or he was who he said he was..Lord.

I would encourage others to study his life and the historical evidences and also his teachings and how he has effected not only his followers but all of time. Was he a liar(were his actions on earth those of a liar), was he lunatic? If not then his claims must be true. You be the judge but judge well:)

-peace.
 

notorious,

Thanks for the comments. If I ever get around to it (and I hope the Christmas holiday will give me a chance), I will be addressing the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth in my blog-treatise. I hope you drop by to read and comment on it.
 

Are you going to comment on Anthony Flew's change of heart with regard to intelligent design?
 

Are you going to comment on Anthony Flew's change of heart with regard to intelligent design?

Battleship Texas
 

BT,

Thanks for the head's up about Flew's change of heart. I've been somewhat buried in law school outlines. If I have some time this weekend, I'll probably write up something about Flew's newfound love affair with intelligent design theory. But, for the moment, my only comment is this: at age 81, even very bright men start to go senile. ;)

By the way, I'm happy to see you're still dropping by. For a Christian that has disagreed with pretty much everything I've written on the internet over the past few years, you sure have an open mind to reading / commenting on my opinions. Kudos.
 

Notorious1 says: "There is more historical evidence for [Jesus'] existence than for anyone of his time by far."

I'm sorry, but this isn't close to the truth. You either haven't studied the virtually nonexistent historical evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus or somehow misunderstood the information you studied or you are intentionally mistating the truth.

Clear, indisputable evidence can be found to support the existences of Augustus, Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, King Herod, and many, many other lesser known men of those times. There is nothing approaching that kind of evidence to support the existence of the historical Jesus.

Signed,

The too-lazy-to-register poster known as "Go"
 

Go,

#1 - you need to register a blogspot account. The reason is not that I take issue with your posting pseudo-anonymously (as if registering under an assumed on-line username would be any less anonymous...). Rather, the real issue is that your occasional comments on this blog are insufficient representations of the contributions you have to give. You were one of my all-time favorite Hornfans posters, and a Go blog would be to the benefit of all.

#2 - I have to play a little Devil's Advocate here. You and I are in complete agreement on the issue of the historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth. However, I believe that notorious1 must have included the Gospels in his survey of the historical evidence. Aside from the Gospels, there is basically one highly-controversial "contemporary" reference (Josephus). If one considers the Gospels as historical evidence, then there are seemingly four contemporary biographies of the man Jesus. Of course, anyone who views the Gospels as historical evidence must answer a great many questions about their validity as historical works. In my view, and the view of most scholars in the field, the Gospels are not historically accurate nor were they intended to be read as biographies. Of course, my view extends even further and takes into account the evolution of Christianity from paganism, where the Gospels are merely a written embodiment of the pagan myth of a savior-godman named Jesus Christ.
 

Brick: Based on your musings about this subject on hornfans, I'll go out on a (very short) limb and venture that I believe the case made for the existence of a historical Jesus is stronger than you believe it to be -- but whether some evidence for the existence of an actual Jesus is credible is not the point of notorious' reply that I disputed.

The specific point of anonymous' post that I addressed is his claim that no other historical figure's existence of that era -- not Augustus or Tiberius or Pilate -- is better evidenced than is that of Jesus. That claim is provably false.

About the other thing... I see no pressing need to clutter the blogosphere further with a GoBlog. Indeed, given your blog and The Raving Atheist blog such a blog would be entirely superfluous.

Go
 

Go -

Let me give some quick thoughts on this issue.

The proof of the existence of Jesus Christ as a true historical figure can be found in both Christian and secular sources alike, the sum total of which is greater than any person of his time at least in respect to written evidences and documentations. These include both friendly Christian sources and sometimes hostile secular sources. Brick is correct in his assumption that my earlier claim included the writings of the Bible as evidences. When these are factored in all othe figures pale in comparison. The Christian sources include the New Testament writings which are a series of writings by different authors, as well as numerous early church leaders. The degree of reliability of these documents is a subject of debate, however they have not been prooven to be unreliable and portions atleast are prooven quite historically reliable. There are also other Christian writings and evidences from early church leaders which dont independantly confirm evidence so they arguably are not considered reliable by many as indisputable evidences.

Since some secularists dont easily accept the writings of the New Testament or the numerous writings of the early Christian leaders as independant sources, I think it would be worth simply listing some of the secular evidences for the historicity of Jesus. Even the enemies of Christianity claimed that Jesus lived and performed miracles. Early Jewish documents such as the Mishnah and Josephus do so. Also first century Gentile historians like Thallus, Serapion, and Tacitus all testified that the one called Christ lived in Palestine and died under Pontius Pilate. I do not wish to get into massive debates over each of these historical writings (and I am unqualified to do so) though even some of the strongest opponents of Christianity conclude that there is ample evidence here of his historical existence. Some of these sources including the writings of Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Phlegon, Suetonius - Roman Historian, Thallus (wrote about the crucifixion of Jesus), Justin Martyr, Mara Bar-Serapion, Lucian, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, Thallus, and Phlegon all documenting the historicity of Jesus. Early Jewish (non-christian) sources are also found, including The Talmud (contains 6 historical evidences of Jesus), and the writings of the early Jewish historian Flavius Josephus who provides perhaps the strongest independent confirmation of the person of Jesus. It is worth noting that some of these writings were hostile to Christianity, but still documented the historical fact of Jesus.

There is no physical body evidence for Jesus...and according to Christian faith and teachings there wont be as he is reported to have risen from the dead. Tradition tells us he was rejected by the governing and religious powers of his time and judged a criminal further leading to the loss of physical evidences that could have been preserved. Many of the characters of his time, whose existence were mentioned in Biblical and other writings and were debated as not having existed (such as Pontius Pilate whose existence was disputed by many until his grave was found in the early 1960's) have also been shown to have been alive and real. The debate over the divinity of Christ may never end, but historical evidence is supportive of showing that Jesus was a dominant figure during his lifetime, can be proved historically to have lived and was a major concern to both Jerusalem and Rome. When the same degree of scrutiny and standards of proof are applied to the existence of Jesus as are of other persons of his time one can see that there is enormous written evidence supportive of the historicity of the man Jesus.

He has changed time forever whether one believes his claims or not. I will never be the same because He lives.

Brick, I will be back in a couple of days and will check back when I can:)
 

notorious,

NOW we're getting somewhere. I almost feel like I'm back on the Quack's board, debating with DrunkHorn and mop. Ah... the good old days.

I'm not going to say too much about this issue right now, for two reasons: (1) I'm still busy studying for finals and (2) I plan to address this issue in detail in my blog treatise thingy. But, I did want to add a few notes.

First of all, the gospels are not the earliest books in the New Testament. Paul's epistles, which are notably lacking in details of (or even allusions to) the events of Jesus' life. Paul, the author of the earliest writings of the NT and Jesus' most ardent advocate, is strangely disinterested in the history of his Lord and Savior's time on Earth. See http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/partone.htm

Second, Biblical scholars are nearly unanimous in the opinion that the gospels are not factually-accurate biographies of Jesus of Nazareth. The gospels conflict regarding many relevant facts, and the story evolves from one account to the next. In fact, if one were to believe all the gospels as fact, one would be forced to presume that Jesus was born in AD 6, but before 4 BC and that the direct lineage separating Jesus and David was both 28 generations long and 43 generations long. See Freke and Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries or The Holy Bible. The other holy texts that might be considered sources for Jesus' existence are equally in conflict, especially when one includes the texts, such as the Gospel of Thomas, found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

Third, of all the ancient historical texts that refer to Jesus, there is only one that could be considered a "contemporary source," the writings of Flavius Josephus. However, there are two comments to be made about Josephus. First, the two references to Jesus in his work are highly controversial, as they differ significantly from Josephus' style. There is no original manuscript still available, and most scholars believe that Josephus' reference to Jesus is at least partially a later Christian insertion or embellishment. Second, Josephus gives very short shrift to Jesus Christ in his history, considering the amount of text he devoted to other minor holy men of the day. Of course, it is much simpler to insert a blurb than a chapter... See http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html

Fourth, the Jesus story parallels those of other godmen revered by religions contemporary to the birth of Christianity, and fits nicely within the evolution of world religion from its most humble beginnings. Most of the Jesus story and the symbolism of early Christianity has its roots in pagan religion (which basically means, every other religion besides Christianity and Judaism). There is no unique element to the Jesus story. In the parlance of patent law, one might say that the Jesus story is an obvious combination of prior art.

That's all I have for now, other than to say that in the past few years I have obtained a newfound appreciation for just how ridiculous man's religiosity is. People are willing to believe in and do very bizarre things. Just watch a Joel Osteen broadcast, and you'll see what I mean. That man is able, through the power of people's beliefs in an invisible superman and his resurrectable son, to make an entire auditorium full of grown adults stand up, close their eyes, hold a book of fairy tales in one hand and recite aloud a ridiculous pledge indicating their blind adherence to the fantasy embodied in the text they hold in their hands. It's simply bizarre, and rather frightening (especially because the evangelicals are working almost hand-in-hand with the War Party, so that the lines separating God and country have significantly blurred).
 

Dammit, I hate that I can't edit comments. I'm the King of this blog, and I can't even edit my own comments. What the hell is that about?

Anyway, I meant to add that Paul's epistles were the earliest writings in the NT.
 

I have seen these arguments before and the counters, and the counter-counters and so on and so forth.

What Christianity comes down to is truly taking a step of faith. It is realizing that we really dont know everything and that even what we think we know may be based on faulty logic and misinformation because we only have part of the story and facts. It is when a person has acheived all and has all and still looks into the mirror and wonders..Is there more out there? Is there really an after life and if so could there be a heaven and hell? How did I really get here? Why do some that have faith and I dont? Why do I feel empty and unfulfilled at times even when in the worlds eyes I may have it all?

The truth is I can never convince you or anyone else beyond doubt that there is a God and a savior. This comes down to faith and some recieve it easily while others struggle. I struggled mightily with issues of faith, and until someone told me the words of God, that God loved me so much that He gave his only son that if I believed in Him I would not perish but have eternal life. To as many as received him he gives the right to become children of God. When I did this my life began to change from the inside out...a fact I can not deny. You see I know there is a God by the witness He has given me and gives me in my life. Me, "notorious1", in my sin and rebellion fell at his feet like a dead man in His presence.

Some ask the question...How does one obtain faith? Does it come by proving facts or seeing evidences? No.
Faith comes by hearing and getting into the word of God. I received Christ through the smallest measures of faith but thank God it wasnt my strong faith but rather my tiny faith in an all-powerful God. This all sounds like FOOLISHNESS to some one who isnt a believer but thats ok. Just take a little time and seek if you like for "He who seeks me will find me if he seeks after me with all his heart". A good place to start would be the gospel of John.

Brick, a book I think you would find very interesting is called "The Heavenly Man" by Hattaway
http://www.heavenlyman.com. I was given this book by two friends who went to Medical school with me. They live in China and are personally aquainted and work with the subject in this book. I think it shows a perspective not seen much in western society and one that is desperately needed.