alt.education

"Joe Irvin" wrote:
>"Bob LeChevalier" wrote in message
>news:6tilr3ld2h0fu2j4fp72abtu2r7f9joc30@4ax.com...
>>>No, there is serious Bible scholarship.
>>
>> Only the sort of textual analysis that can be applied to any sort of
>> text to determine questions of date, style, authorship.
>>
>> As to "meaning", there is 'scholarship' that purports to be serious,
>> but which doesn't actually KNOW any more than you or I do, except
>> about what other putative scholars think.
>
>Well then you have to apply that same standard to Herodotus, written 488-428
>BC, the earliest copy AD 900 , time lapsed 1300 years, the number of copies
>8. Caesar's Galic War, written 58-50BC, earliest copy 900AD, time lapsed
>950 years, number of copies 9 or 10.

Of course. The difference is that each of those things has
corroborating evidence from other sources. The Gospels are utterly
lacking. Only within the last few decades have we even found
independent evidence that there was a person named Pontius Pilate.

>The New Testament, written AD40-100

Parts, but not the whole.

>earliest copy AD130

Earliest fragment perhaps.

>full manuscripts AD350, time lapsed 300 years, number of
>copies 5,000 Greek, 10,000 Latin, 9300 others. So we can take these other
>writtings as true

No we don't. That is the point. We require corroborating independent
evidence, of which there is plenty.
>>>You don't believe that Christianity has basic beliefs?
>>
>> That EVERY (without exception) Christian believes. No. Not even that
>> it has something vaguely to do with Jesus Christ.
>
>So Christians are just a bunch of rag tag blind folllowers

No. "Christian" is a label virtually without meaning, that might be
applied to people who follow nothing, but whose parents baptized them,
or it might be applied to "troo beleeevers"

>with no coherent belief/doctrine. The Nicene Creed and Westminster Creed are just blather
>like the NT ...

I didn;t say that. I just said that not every Christian accepts them.

>>>... The death of Jesus is not a basic Christian belief??
>>
>> Among those who believe that someone named Jesus existed, I am pretty
>> sure that most of them believe that He died (with or without the
>> capital letter). But then most non-Christians who believe that there
>> ever was such a person living also believe that he died.
>> Specifically, Islam believes that Jesus was a great prophet who lived
>> and died, but that he was no more than another in a long series of
>> prophets.
>
>I guess there are some people who believe the earth is flat also,

Apparently not, if you think that is relevant.

>> The problem is - you want the your beliefs to somehow be validated by
>> "what everybody believes", and your presumptions as to what they
>> believe is false. You can't even go by what they *say*, since many
>> people have learned that the best way not to be harangued about
>> religion, is to mouth the supposed majoritarian 'belief' as a
>> platitude.
>>
>> What makes this especially funny is that in another post you decried
>> morality-by-poll, and now you are invoking Christianity-by-poll as
>> some sort of standard.
>
>Not by a long shot ...where did I say Christianity by poll. I said from the
>beginning that Christians had some basic beliefs to be a Christian ... its
>you that are arguing against that.

I am pointing out that there are plenty of people labeled "Christians"
who don't believe any of those things, but they are still "Christians"


>I think Europe is just the opposite ... Europe less Christian and becoming
>moreso. They are living off what the Judeio/Christian traditions have built
>up. Even the Church of England will not defend its faith against sharia
>law, which covers not only religion, but all aspects of life.

Its faith is not attacked by sharia law. You are just clueless.

>> >> < thirty years of age only half as many believe in Jesus, the Son of
>> < God, as do their older countrymen.
>>
>> Now what was this about what "all" Christians believe?
>
>To be a Christian one has to have some basic beliefs, I stand by that

Unfortunately, you have no right to say that any of those Europeans
who says they are Christians but don't have those basic beliefs,
aren't really. Or rather you have the right to "say" it (free speech
and all), but it has utterly no meaning to anyone but you.

>I realize people can have different beliefs and call themselves Christians
>though. This doesn't make them Christians.

Unfortunately for you, other people get to decide what words mean too.
You may not like morality by poll, but word-definition by poll has
been reality since before there were dictionaries.

>> false as evidenced above. Maybe they have to, in order for YOU to
>> consider them a Christian. But face it: no one but you gives a damn
>> what you consider them to be.
>
>I'm not using my standard. See above about creeds.

Those creeds mean nothing to those who don't believe in them. The
word "Christian" means whatever people use it to mean, and a helluva
lot of them don't use it to mean "following the Nicene creed" or
whatever other standard you wish to concoct.

THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE STANDARDS!!!

>People can believe anything and call themselves anything.

Including "Christians".

>People like yourself are also free to believe them or anything they say.

Do you think they really care whether you or I believe them?

They don't.

>T J wasn't a true Christian ...

He said he was.

Are you arguing with TJ?

>>>> He did not face all the gray areas that existed then, and He didn't
>>>> face the ones we deal with today. Therefore, the standard is lacking.
>>>
>>>We don't know what He faced in the desert?
>>
>> Take away the question mark. We don't know anything about Him in the
>> desert. All we have is tales told decades after He died by people who
>> may never have heard Him say a word about what happened in the desert.
>
>Wrong, Matthew was a disciple of Jesus.

We don't know who wrote Matthew.

It isn't like there was only one person with that name. And we don't
really know if it was someone named Matthew that wrote it, or someone
who was repeating what he thinks someone named Matthew said.

>Matthew 'heard' of Him ... read Matthew 4.

I see no "I heard" in that chapter. Nor any "I saw".

> We know Jesus spent 40 days in the desert.

No we don't.

But the Essenes spent a lot longer than that in the desert and left
evidence (but not evidence of Jesus Christ)

>Matthew, Mark, and Luke jsut say that He was tempted in the desert, but not what the
>temptations were.

And since they weren't there, they could not really know that "He was
tempted in the desert"

>>>... He could have.
>>
>> He couldn't have. There are very few moral choices to be made while
>> alone in the desert.
>
>You have no idea what moral choices he had in the desert ... it is your
>opinion.

Did He have to choose whether his girl friend would have an abortion?
Did He have to decide which of 5 people to toss from a lifeboat which
would sink if everyone stayed on it?
Did He have to decide whether to continue a medical trial that might
save thousands of lives, even though someone appears to have just died
from the treatment?
He lived the very limited life of a Judean in 30AD. In the desert,
He would have been away from most other people, and therefore would
have faced NONE of the moral choices that people face when interacting
with other people.

>>>The standard is solid.
>>
>> Except that no one agrees as to what the standard is, so it isn't
>> really solid.
>
>We know enough about His nature and teachings ... solid.

We know nothing. Some of us have faith. But faith is what there is
when there is NO knowledge.

>>>He gave man the capacity to reason.
>>
>> Biology did that. People reasoned before Jesus Christ was born.
>
>Biology cannot give reason, it is a science.

If you want to play semantic games, then "electrobiochemical
processes". They occur naturally.

>>>> the answer to the question WWJD usually should be "We have no idea".
>>>
>>>I agree ... we couldn't possible know WWJD.
>>
>> Therefore, we have no real standard.
>
>Sure we do ... just because we cannot live up to it doesn't mean there isn't
>a standard.

You just admitted that we couldn't possibly *know* WWJD, not merely
that we couldn't live up to it.

If we do not know the standard, then it doesn't really exist.

>>>We do know his nature from the time he was on Earth.
>>
>> No we don't. We can at best believe that we know. Belief is not
>> reality.
>
>We can believe Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Caesar's Gallic War, Livy's
>Roman History

Anyone claiming to know the will of God on the basis of any of those
works?

>>>Man can reason ... Jesus didn't answer all lifes questions ... he gave man
>>>the ability to reason.
>>
>> We had the ability to reason before Jesus Christ.
>
>Jesus,God,Holy Spirit ... get it? ...

We had the ability to reason before Jesus Christ.

>>>> Jesus said nothing to that effect.
>>>
>>>You may want to read Romans 13
>>
>> That is what Paul said. Paul was not Jesus.
>
>Jesus/God/Holy Spirit ... "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
>teaching, rebuking correcting and training in righeousness." 2 Timothy 3:16

That is what Timothy said. Timothy is not Jesus. Nor did "Scripture"
at the time of Timothy refer to anything except the Jewish Old
Testament, and possibly some of the Writings

>As a Christian you have an obligation to believe the Scripture.

No I don't.

>> You are rationalizing that your standard of good and evil is THE
>> standard, or something approximating it. In this case, most of
>> humanity agrees with you, but you have rejected morality by poll.
>
>Not *MY* standard! Yes, I reject morality by poll. Morality by human
>solidarity/poll has nothing to anchor itself on ... what would be your
>argument against Pol Pot's evil? ... isn't his morality as good as any other
>mans?

To him perhaps. But he has been outvoted by all of humanity. Not
that he cares.

>> You cannot turn to the Bible, because that tome of virtue describes
>> how God commanded the Israelites to kill all of the natives when they
>> invaded the "promised land".
>
>They were also sinners ... you are putting yourself on Gods level deciding
>what He should/shouldn't do ... you are not God.

I never said I was. I just pointed out that the Bible provides plenty
of examples of what we consider to be *immorality* except for the
unprovable claim that "God told them to do it", a claim that we did
not accept from "Son of Sam".

> It also describes the Babylonian
>> Captivity of Judah and the Assyrian destruction of Israel as being
>> God's will.
>
>Which came to pass. God is the judge, as much as we think it
>correct/incorrect.

Yep, and therefore according to Him, it is moral to kill an entire
population, and take the remnants away into slavery. That is the
absolute moral standard that is actually set by God.

>> The Bible thus "teaches" that killing infidels and those who fail to
>> keep His commandments (which is all of us) can sometimes be God's
>> will. Thus we cannot *with absolute certainty* claim that the Bible
>> doesn't sanction what Hitler did.
>
>You cannot compare Hitler to God ... you cannot compare God.

Then we cannot relate God's morality to human morality. You cannot
compare anyone to Jesus Christ, since He was God.

You've made Jesus and God irrelevant, by putting them on a pedestal
apart from man. Your privilege, but it kinda shoots most any moral
argument you can make.

>> All we can do is rationalize.
>
>We can believe that God has supreme knowledge and is always in control.

We can also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

>I don't know why God does lots of things ... its just something I don't know.
>I don't know why God lets there be deadly hurricanes, tital waves that kills
>thousands.

Therefore you cannot know God's morality, and therefore it cannot
serve as a standard for man.

lojbab