Look at the birds of the air ... your heavenly Father feeds them.

This is some kind of homily, totally disconnected from reality, that, don't worry, everybody will get plenty to eat.

No. There are millions of human beings starving to death right now and billions already dead of starvation. Inform me why this scripture isn't totally irrelevant to what is happening and has always happened on earth.

Which of the Genesis creation stories is the real one? Of course neither.

Here' one potential conversation:

True Believer: We have solved the great mystery of the cosmos and the origin of man.
Cosmologist: Wow.
True Believer: Yup. It's the talking snake in the garden story. One of the 10,000 gods turned out to be real.
Cosmologist: Oh.

One can just imagine Steven Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Albert Einstein, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Charles Darwin closing up shop and thanking the faithful zealot for the great gift of understanding.

GTFOOH. Be serious about what religion offers and what it doesn't.

Since you seem far more interested in babbling than in engaging in a conversation, I will not waste my time (or your time) responding to you. Almost everything you say is a caricature of true Christianity.

Have a blessed day.

Thank you for sharing your deep insights on a portion of a verse from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Amazing what one can conclude when analyzing a mere portion of a verse completely devoid of context.

Have a blessed day.

Dishonest ad hominem when you have no other outs ... not very philosophical. I agree: discussion over.

I will attempt to engage you, for the possible edification of others.

Here goes:

There is only ONE creation "story". Genesis Ch. 1 is a general account of the six days of creation, while Genesis Ch. 2 is a more detailed account of the sixth day of creation. If you had actually read those chapters you would know this. Might help if you read a text before critiquing it.

The story of the serpent in The Garden of Eden has nothing to do with either "the mystery of the cosmos" or "the origin of man.". If you had a really read the text, you would know that. But since you apparently have not read the text, you babble.


Those outstanding scholars, being scholarly after all, would certainly read the relevant text before dismissing it. You would do well to follow their example.

If you read the relevant passages (Matthew 5:1 - 7:29) in context, you'll discover that Jesus isn't saying that no one will ever starve. The essence of the sermon is that our primary focus in this life ought to be on God's Kingdom, and our obedience to Him. An over-emphasis on worldly concerns can distract us from heavenly things.

Thought of something too late to edit the original post:

To their credit, each of those great scholars actually did read Genesis before dismissing the Biblical creation story.

I thought Lagtight wasn't replying to me any more, then he practically beats me in the pot with constant replies. I fully realize that religions can create a spin and a context for killing, extermination of babies, mass murder, rape, slavery, false promises, magic, a jealous god, no telling what else ... but it really isn't incumbent on thinking beings to buy it.

Where are the writings of Jesus? Was he literate? I repeat, you cannot rely on the Bible to prove Jesus was real any more than you can rely on the Harry Potter books to prove Lord Valdemort is real. Philosophers know this fully, but THEY HAVE TO DISREGARD IT. They have nothing else. God lived on earth and didn't bother to write anything? Really? Was it because he didn't know how to write while being all-knowing? Maybe because he thought it wasn't a good idea to leave a written record straight from the horse's mouth for perpetuity?

I'll believe Lagtight is for real when I see the epistemological defense of Christianity, that is, of the superstitious, magic "you just gotta believe" religion that he promised.

Note the attitude: completely dismissive and judgmental towards me when what the religion demands is that he be just the opposite. This is not even an accusation that anybody in particular is being hypocritical, it's that the entire religion is this way. The standards of the religion do not even cross anyone's mind in how they are behaving. Thus my point: the role that religion plays in human consciousness is something completely different than supposed. I used to make a distinction between sincerity and insincerity in the religious, but I don't any more. I've seen too much of this. It never occurred to Lagtight to be respectful, humane, let alone Christian toward me. THE PURPORTED ROLE OF RELIGION WITHIN CONSCIOUSNESS IS FALSE. The real thing is: I'm better than you because I believe this superstitious, miraculous, unverifiable, magical, supernatural stuff.

My "attitude" toward you is based on your caricature of Christian doctrine. In your multitude of posts, you parade your ignorance of Christian beliefs.

If/when you respond to my specific critiques of your posts (#29, #31, #32, #33) I will modify my attitude when it is evident that you are making a serious attempt at meaningful engagement. A sign of bad-faith arguing is when one straw-mans the position being addressed.

If the mods think I am being uncharitable to you, I will apo!ogize to you.

Looking forward to you engaging my responses.

Have a blessed day.

I don't know why the bolded is so commonly used as an argument against the existence of Jesus. I'm not sure the Bible is proof of the existence of Jesus, but it does provide evidence for his existence. Similarly, Plato's dialogues provide evidence of the existence of Socrates.

It is circular to argue that the Bible is inerrant because the Bible says it is inerrant. But historians who treat the New Testament as a historical document (rather than a theological text) still have to explain what and why the authors said what they did. The existence of a prophetic-type figure who inspired disciples to form their own Jewish cult around him after he was killed is a likely explanation that we've seen happen many times in religion (Joseph Smith is a recent American example of this dynamic). The idea that he is completely fictious seems much less likely to me - why do all that stuff then?

Meh. FellaGaga-52's view of Christians is a bit of a caricature, but I don't think mocking people's ignorance is a appropriate response or typically leads to good conversations. You can't realistically expect most people to have a nuanced understanding of worldviews different from their own, or that they view as immoral.

It provides the same evidence for the actuality of it that the King Arthur tales do for the actuality of the Knights of the Round Table.

Thank you for your thoughts, as always, OP.

I am typically charitable with people who are ignorant, but NOT with people who flaunt their ignorance as High Truth, and then double-down when their WILLFUL ignorance is called out.

I will happily and eagerly engage anyone who wishes to engage in good faith.

The only people who can be serious about the core issues in these debates are the ones that aren't married to 2000 year old superstitions as literal truth. I mean that's just a little bit of a handicap. Let's say the subject of debate is astronomy and I'm committed to circa 500 BC dogma. My entire approach then is tainted and, by necessity, becomes disingenuous and employs diversion in defense of the dogma.

But I'm just rambling and making caricatures, says the ad hominem that has to avoid the key issues.

There are people who are actually serious about whether something like the quantum field (houses all possibility, contains all knowledge, amplifies all things into existence thereby creating them) is a candidate for god. Run that by an ancient supersitionalist, and they are forced to dismiss it, or say "Jesus created the quantum field and just forgot to say anything about it" (of course he knew all about it along with all the equations, lol).

Stop. It matters what the nature of reality is, at least to some.

I'll agree that religious people who believe the universe was created 6000 years ago will struggle to be serious about the study of astronomy. However, it is a caricature of religious people to suppose they all believe this.
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You also keep emphasizing the age of religious ideas. Why is this a problem? Classical philosophers still have a direct impact on the political, moral, and existential ideas of modern people. Would you condemn this as well?

Spoken as someone who has no sense of an actual historical/literary analysis.

What King Arthur tales? Were they written only 40 years after his supposed death?

The problem isn't that an idea is old, it when it is old and inflexible and dogmatic and superstitious and held on irrational grounds and impervious to updates in knowledge.

As in origin myths that most all religions have and maintain upon penalty for non-belief.

Religions - thousands of them - play a dramatic role in the history and evolution of mankind. But when we take their origin myths from an age of virtually zero knowledge and understanding of science, and hold them as literal and true even today and often in the face of all knowledge, then we have an anti reality stance.

I've never spent any time in my life until the last few months debating anyone's religion ... not my bag. But in researching literature on current theories of the nature of reality, lobbing the talking snake ORIGIN MYTH into the mix is not a serious thing, is an insult to all investigation.

I don't swallow the science party line either. Big Bang to be retracted soon I've been hypothesizing for a while, and now it is happening. The natural explanations are so fascinating that, again, some dogma from total ignorance is a massive insult. And that's my main problem with it, notwithstanding the self-deluding role that religion often plays in consciousness. If that's not true, where are all the gods coming from and why thousands of sects within the one Bible religion?

And the near total dearth of chronicling from outside the religion WHILE HE WAS ALIVE and supposedly revolutionizing the culture ... what about that?? That legends started several decades later and were packaged into yet another new religion and sold, by magic believing zealots, is hardly realistic about how a miracle worker threatening to overturn the Roman Empire's rule would be chronicled, it seems. If 10,000 gods were made up by man, then another one is proposed, what kind of odds can be assigned to whether or not this one is real and actual???

You're assuming that our only options are Jesus was God or he didn't exist, which leaves out the option that Jesus did exist, but wasn't a god. In that case, it seems quite reasonable that a religious zealot that wandered around a middling province of the Roman Empire preaching for a couple years might not have been that significant a figure that people other than his followers would have written about him.

I also noticed that you dropped your King Arthur argument. Oh well.

You've probably never spent any time in your life studying anyone else's religion, or growing in your knowledge about their religions. And yet, you feel as though you are some sort of authority about what "they" believe and how "they" see the world.

Undoubtedly, you're immune to this form of self-delusion. Because there's absolutely no way that you would buy into ignorance instead of researching information for yourself...

Nope, didn't drop the Arthurian Legend argument. It's right there in my last post in all caps: WHILE HE WAS ALIVE. Legends have sprung up around many things, real and not real. You seem to be impressed that some zealots wrote about him decades later. I can't imagine why.

I've already said that a very short time in a comparative religion class really open ones' eyes to the designing of religions. Some good books I recommend: "Jesus the Man," "The Jesus Puzzle," "The Third Jesus."


Did Jesus know the quantum formulas which are the real underpinning fabric of the universe ?? Did he create it? This is partially what sets me off about ridiculous religious dogma. Yes, Jesus did that, yes Jesus did that, yes Jesus did that. Praise his magic.

Why does the Bible not say anything like updating the solar system's organization, that leprosy is an infectious disease and you need some antibiotics, that the quantum apparatus is there and functioning ... and a billion other things. Obviously because they didn't know.

The presupp stuff is so invalid and bogus. One can presupp for any god, any magic, any belief.

Making crap up about posters you have no clue about doesn't generally work out. And it isn't honest. And therefore the place that the religion occupies in consciousness just isn't real life stuff. It's a legend and kind of a self/world fiction.