My point is that taking something on faith, when one is predisposed to want to believe, leaves one susceptible to being taken in and being taken. I'd surely prefer, if I were being followed in a dark alley late at night, that the person following me had just come out of church than had just come out of, say, a bar. But if I wanted a financial adviser, or advice, in fact, of any kind, I'd surely prefer--with all due respect--David Sklansky than you. For exactly this reason: you are content to accept on faith and he does the math.

this is not what spirituality is though, and if it's the only place you find yourself looking for it, you are so clueless you may as well not.

And this is true because you say so.
When we are dealing with Christianity, the supernatural claims are what matters, eternal life in heaven is what it is about for them.
You care more about meditation, good for you, but there is nothing unreasonable about debating Christians on the points that matter to them.

i would also rather consult david sklansky than myself on matters relating to maths, but you've lost me on why that has bearing on the preceding conversation

if i were a financial adviser i would surely practice that as is, without feeling the need to involve my spiritual leanings at all with the job. i do not consult my crystal ball to tell me what 17 x 56 + 109 x 6 is, i have a calculator for that.

if you dont see the point in hypotheticals that cant be true then thats your failing. a lot can be gained through thought experiments, even if the 'if' is nearly impossible.

lol discussing Uri Gellars legitimacy. Whats next?

What has uri gellar got to do with Jesus anyway? Uri gellar doesn't go around saying hes Gods son and has divine powers and definatly so because Joseph, his dad told him he his ***** mom wouldn't give herself up until he had a new nicer donkey so she must be a virgin like.

Mary: 'I never cheated on you with your best friend Joseph.... erm... God raped me?' Yh it was God!'

Joseph: 'Wow, omg tell everyone I bet he'll be able to bend spoons and things like that, let the word spread!!!'

And so we have the new testament.


Joking aside a long dead corpse coming back to life is impossible. Also So are Merlins deeds. And Hercules superhuman strength. And all the other fictional stories produced by imagination that exist throughout history and culture and emphasised to be more interesting and lasting and effective.

i actually made a post already wrt this point. what i was trying to convey was this: you can't seperate the two, and fwiw i believe one should come firmly before the other. that is, you cannot hope to grasp lofty wacked-out claims of eternal life and the like, if you haven't bothered getting to grips with the more human meat-and-bones of jesus christ's teachings.

it's not nearly impossible, that was precisely my point, it's 100% cut-and-dry and therefore invalid. i used to be way into my card magic, and in magician's circles it is taken for granted that uri geller uses conjuring techniques, there is simply no chance no way any of his stuff is legit.

you wouldn't bother discussing why elephants only have 3 legs, when clearly they have 4. it's a waste of time and energy.

even if i grant its 100% cut and dry, this still doesnt matter. we can think about scenarios that cant happen, and explore those possibilities. thats what this is about. and its a shame you cant wrap your head around this.

einsteins theory of relativity started with a thought experiment of pursuing a light beam while going the speed of light. something that is not even possible. but who cares? you can still ask the question "if..." and find out what happens.

well, some of us can.

Let's say for a second that this story is true, and so is every other miraculous claim made by your religion or by your book.

Why do you think it is that all of these miracles occurred before humans became advanced enough in areas of science that would have allowed them to document and verify?

Why does the amount of miracles you claim and attribute to your god go to zero once humans have the ability to document and verify with great accuracy?

That seems quite odd, doesn't it? Wouldn't you expect for there to be more miracles and more support for your supernatural claims as humans developed technology to document it?

What you are essentially arguing is that the miracle claims of a person who claims to be a living god, such as Sai Baba or Jesus, both of whom have millions of followers, become particularly compelling when set in the middle ages, a time when people didn't have the technology to verify or disprove most of the stories that they heard about, talked about, or wrote about.

Put some miracles in an ancient book that was, at the very least, edited by humans, cobbled together by humans, (if not written by humans) and the majority of the residents on this planet think it's legit to live their lives based on this.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

They did not have metal spoons in the Bronze Age, so they had to make up stories about water and wine, and floating axe heads.



http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...9920557391806#

"Why people are drawn to the irrational is something that has always puzzled me"

Do you really believe that you are healed?
Yes. Because God never lies.

He knew their names. And their afflictions.

Complete healing, in Jesus holy name.

She got her information from "Prayer Cards" filled out by the faithful before the show began.

Take a few steps to make the devil mad.

A little animal blood and a few chicken parts complete the illusion.

Warning. Theists should not look.

Spoiler:

You said it all comes down to faith and you believe because you believe. I say it all comes down to the math. If Uri Geller can do the supernatural, then the chance that Jesus could have done so goes up enormously. There's a disconnect between seeing that Geller is a fakir and that you take on faith that the claims about the resurrection are real. Especially since the supposed resurrection took place at a time when magic was believable.

Uri Geller was just an example. There are plenty of people today positing supernatural powers or witnessing the supernatural. We've discussed NDEs, mediums, remote viewing, etc. etc. etc. Plenty of people (even some scientists) believe they have demonstrated these to a high probability. In fact that podcast I linked in the NDE thread: Skeptiko focuses exclusively on these type of claims. And there is a forum devoted to those discussions which I've started posting on: http://forum.mind-energy.net/skeptiko-podcast/

Metrosexual Devilfish

Do we have an Arouet impersonator?

http://forum.mind-energy.net/21877-post10.html

You do know Arouet is Voltaire's real name right?

no that's me! you guys should come on over there! some REALLY interesting debate. I hooked on the podcast. Makes me want to scream sometimes but it does challenge you.

winner! I greatly admired him back in my university days and when it came to picking a username for who remembers the group I went with Arouet and have stuck with it.

No, I was not aware of that. I was always a little curious, just kinda figured it was a foreigner thing.

I was just checking out the site. I do find this subject to be interesting and at first glance their seems to be competent people on both sides. I don't know how much time I have for another forum, but if a particularly interesting thread pops up let us know. I am sure there are a lot of threads there that would make for good conversations over here as well.

The forum doesn't have anywhere near the traffic that 2+2 has so its much easier to catch up. The current debate is focussing on NDEs. Some the guys have done a tremendous amount of research into the area, I'm a little underqualified but having some fun. The host of the podcast, Alex, posts regularly too.

impossible only for humans; what makes God/Jesus appealing is that they have power beyond human comprehension, and are fully capable of what humans are not. Thus the trust and faith.

I'm glad we're finally talking about what really matters when it comes to religion. All of these evolution and cosmology arguments are so boring, let's get down to the meat of what people really believe!

Jib,

When you say, "given the Bible is historically accurate, it is reasonable to believe in the resurrection," I assume you mean that given the non-supernatural claims are correct, it is reasonable to believe in the resurrection. Otherwise you're stating a tautology and it's not interesting at all.

To get this started, I'd like to ask a simple question. How improbable are the existence of the stories in the Bible, given no supernatural activity? In other words, how unlikely is it that the Bible would end up how it is if Jesus did not rise from the dead? Obviously I'm not asking about the likeliness of the exact wording, just the general idea of the stories involved.

Sure there has been some typically progressive debate ITT, but tl;dr.

But in case nobody has come to the answer yet, the answer is no. According to one poll, 0% of people survive their own death.

Some facts about death.

Correct, given that the Gospels can be considered historically reliable, meaning were they written by the actual apostles, are our copies of an accurate representation of the originals, etc.

I am still a little confused on exactly what you are asking. Are you asking if you take out the supernatural how likely is it that the NT (which is really the only thing I want to focus on) is accurate in it's portrayal of the events described?

I still don't think they are historically reliable.