I hope that there is a creator deity that put this universe together and will one day give us all the answers we’ve been spent our lives searching for. This doesn’t mean I “believe” this deity actually exists, nor do I rule out the possibility, I just “hope” that it does because I have a lot of questions.
Very similar to what I hope for, Dave. I’m curious how you’re using the word “believe” because everything else sounds very familiar to me. Are you using believe as “knowing” something is true? I wouldn’t say that I know, and in that case you tell you I “hope” it’s true. I guess I kind of use “hope”, “believe” and “faith” interchangeably. That’s probably not fair.
and what is believable about jesus, other than someone writing that he came to offer something you’d hope is true?
jesus came here to save all of mankind.
jesus came to save all of mankind who believe in him and does what he says.
jesus came to save all of mankind who believe in him and does what human authors say he says
human authors claim jesus came to save all of mankind who believe in him and does what human authors say he says
it is all, all of it, is just a bunch of claims, mixed in with conflicting statements, incorrect science and history… you hope…
but what if youre wrong and your hope is misplaced or worse, there is actually another vengeful and jealous god who is real, but different from the one made up by superstitious zealots?
what about the muslim’s hope of 70 virgins that help him get through the day?
what about the hope of all the other religious or non-religious people? you think their hope wont save them and that they should look to evidence and reason over hope… why dont you do the same?
Josh, I’ve been popping in and out of this thread but skimming at times. I have to tell you that your comment above(at 11:27), and the corresponding responses, moved me. Such honesty.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent the last three days working on a eulogy for a dear friend – a person in my congregation (and, although I am no longer a believer, she was), that I wanted to write to you. Maybe you can appreciate how difficult it was for me to write from my heart about her, but I was honoured to get the chance. She was a social worker, and touched many people. She had children and grandchildren, she was kind and gentle (characteristics I sense in you) and she made a valuable and positive contribution to the world by being the person of integrity she was.
The last lines of the eulogy say this, “We are not measured by our successes, but our significance. She lived a life that mattered. She loved and was loved by many”.
She will live on, Josh, just as you and I will – in memories. That’s as it should be, and it’s not so bad. 🙂
if we’re gonna hope, let’s hope for a heaven where no one will be left out. where the criminal will be reformed, the mentally ill will be repaired, and maybe even be in a place prepared by a loving creator who didnt make a rule that his own son had to die in order to save everyone from a hell he created for them.
I hope for wonderful land. i just doubt a place that perfect could ever exist. I guess maybe it’s more realistic to hope for plane ole heaven.
I suspect death will much be like my consciousness was before my birth. I dont look forward to it, but despite any hope I may have to avoid it, it’s coming. So the instead of thinking about it, let’s do, with all our doing here and now, helping who we can, loving who we can, and experiencing great things with great people. I hope that I live well – there is a good chance of that.
what about the hope of all the other religious or non-religious people? you think their hope wont save them and that they should look to evidence and reason over hope… why dont you do the same?
I don’t think that, william. I’m certain we’re all wrong on multiple accounts in what we “believe” and “hope” for, myself included. Why place my hope in Jesus instead of anything else? Because, of the world’s deities, Jesus represents the one God who is willing to come to earth, live among us, show us how to treat each other, reach into the lives of the broken and rejected to lift them up, etc. You’re right. That hope may be misplaced. But, it’s mine to decide where to place my hope. If God is actually “vengeful and jealous”, and I am mistaken, then I’ll be joining you at the party on the other end.
if we’re gonna hope, let’s hope for a heaven where no one will be left out. where the criminal will be reformed, the mentally ill will be repaired, and maybe even be in a place prepared by a loving creator who didnt make a rule that his own son had to die in order to save everyone from a hell he created for them.
Being offered hope/ the promise for an eternal life might not be so bad. In fact, as an option it does have a certain appeal.
The problem lies in the Terms and Conditions. Those pesky little paragraphs that get hand-waved away when you want to ask the salesman just one too many questions for comfort.
Such as – But I have been pretty good most of my life why does that murdering rapist SOB suddenly get a Free Pass?
Or …
So it isn’t actually a choice; if I dont believe in you I am destined to be tortured in a fiery hell for eternity. Just what sort of frakking choice is that
So …. the several hundred million in India, for example, who don’t believe in you – through no real fault of their own , specially the kids, yeah, as its all cultural and you are a god right but basedon your terms they are also going to this hell then right?
And …
It’s a religion of love you say, but you had to be sacrificed and suffered a brutal and horrific death to prove your point. Er … why? You could have just said something, surely?
Oh … hello? Jesus? Are you there? Ooops, maybe I am just talking to myself?
That probably depends on who you ask, william. I say I am. A lot of people would probably say I don’t believe the right things. I think Robert Capon, an Episcopal priest who died a few years ago, I think would say that I am. Here are a couple quotes from him:
“Christianity is not a religion, it is the announcement of the end of religion. Religion consists of all the things (believing, behaving, worshipping, sacrificing) the human race has ever thought it had to do to get right with God. About those things, Christianity has only two comments to make. The first is that none of them ever had the least chance of doing the trick: the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins (see the Epistle of Hebrews) and no effort of ours to keep the law of God can ever succeed (see the Epistle of Romans). The second is that everything religion tried (and failed) to do has been perfectly done, once and for all, by Jesus in his death and resurrection. For Christians, then, the entire religion shop has been closed, boarded up and forgotten. The church is not in the religion business. It never has been and it never will be, in spite of all the ecclesiastical turkeys through two thousand years who have acted as if religion was their stock in trade. The church, instead, is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. It is not here to bring the world the bad news that God will think kindly about us only after we have gone through certain creedal, liturgical, and ethical wickets; it is here to bring the world the Good News that ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.’ It is here, in short, for no religious purpose at all, only to announce the Gospel of FREE grace.” – Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus
“I want you to set aside the notion of the Christian religion, because it’s a contradiction in terms. You won’t learn anything positive about religion from Christianity, and if you look for Christianity in religion, you’ll never find it. To be sure, Christianity uses the forms of religion, and, to be dismally honest, too many of its adherents act as if it were a religion; but it isn’t one, and that’s that. The church is not in the religion business; it is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. And the gospel is the good news that all man’s fuss and feathers over his relationship with God is unnecessary because God, in the mystery of the Word who is Jesus, has gone and fixed it up Himself.” – Between Noon and Three
other than a belief in jesus, you seem to not believe in the rest of the bible at all…
if you reject the majority of what the bible says, even about jesus’ teaching on hell, etc, then why do you believe the bible in regard to select things about jesus?
this is one of the places I have a hard time following you and unkleE. it all seems to be too convenient. all the parts you dont like are either not true, or really means something other than what they say, and then the stuff you do like is true, whether it’s found in the bible or not…
why?
I still think you’re somewhere in the middle of your own deconversion. You see the bogus crap, but so far you’re still stuck in your indoctrination, so instead of rejecting the whole garbage can, you’re still trying to see if it all works out somehow, some way…
With enough thought, you’ll eventually leave the matrix. dont be afraid.
it all seems to be too convenient. all the parts you dont like are either not true, or really means something other than what they say, and then the stuff you do like is true, whether it’s found in the bible or not…
I think you’ll find a lot of people, today and throughout history, who teach grace alone when it comes to Jesus. It may be too convenient, but I’ll be comfortable that at least I’m not alone, and am in fairly decent company.
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
— Mark Twain —
Arch-
I don’t fear death in a naturalistic world in the sense that I realize I will not exist to be afraid or bothered by anything. My fear of death would manifest in realizing the possible pain and discomfort that will be faced, the good I could have done but didn’t, the bad I did and shouldn’t have, and the realization that this is the end and I can’t change any of it. My hope isn’t bound in a fear of death. It’s bound in, well, a hope that there is something better.
“…the good I could have done but didn’t, the bad I did and shouldn’t have….” – These are in the past, Josh, and can’t be changed, with or without a god. But equally with or without a god, you can begin in the morning to live the kind of life you wish you had always lived, and begin forgiving yourself for the things you could have done and didn’t. If we didn’t care about you Josh, we’d blow you off like we would unkleE.
These are in the past, Josh, and can’t be changed, with or without a god. But equally with or without a god, you can begin in the morning to live the kind of life you wish you had always lived, and begin forgiving yourself for the things you could have done and didn’t.
Agreed, Arch. And, thanks for caring 🙂
I’m away from my computer for the rest of the day.
Take care, All.
Nate is either not reading this thread or doesn’t want to give an opinion regarding Unk’s statements that we should follow the “majority scholarly opinion” on the Empty Tomb…but not on the historicity of the Pentateuch.
Too bad.
Nate seems to be the only person Unk listens to on this blog.
“Nate is either not reading this thread or doesn’t want to give an opinion regarding Unk’s statements” – Not entirely true, Gary – Nate is very busy and doesn’t really have time to keep abreast of everyone’s comments, though he does catch up periodically. I’m sure he’ll respond when he finds time, I’ve never known him to dodge any question, if he doesn’t want to give an opinion, he will clearly say so.
“I actually think that the “middle position” is the worst of all scenarios for a Christian to adopt.”
Hi Dave, I am interested in your comment here, because I see it quite differently.
Firstly, we should determine our beliefs by the evidence, and then consider how our faith (or our unfaith!) fits in later – not adopt what’s easiest. And when I do that, the middle position seems easily the most likely. Everyone says there is virtually no archaeology to confirm the stories, but that means there is virtually none to contradict them either. It might be true that 2 million people would leave some archaeological trace, but that number is clearly exaggerated, and I can’t see how a smaller nomadic group could be expected to leave much behind that anyone is likely to find. So the archaeologists have given up, but that means they can say little either way.
But then there are the historians, who examine the text we have, compare it with other ANE texts and history and draw what conclusions they can. Some would say that such texts as we have in the OT don’t arise out of nothing and generally have a historical core somewhere, others disagree, others trust the text.
It seems to me that trusting the text begs the question, while saying “absence of evidence is evidence of absence” is mistaken, when in fact (1) we wouldn’t expect evidence, and (2) they are ignoring the evidence of the text we have. So both extremes seem untenable to me on present knowledge, and that is what some scholars think – Enns says that is probably the majority of historians – though there are various positions within that “middle” from near scepticism to near belief. Even the “arch minimalist”, Finkelstein, has said that it is quite possible Moses was a historical character, but he thinks we can’t know anything about him.
So that is where my limited reading leaves me. I accept what you say about how a christian (or a Jew) may explain the extreme positions within their worldview, but I actually find the middle easier.
I observe that God tends to use natural laws most of the time. He started our universe at the big bang (I believe) but then lets it develop through the “fine-tuned” laws he created to get to where we are now. Those laws allowed life to start, not by special creation (I think) but by natural processes, and likewise humans appeared not by special creation, but by natural laws. I think there are good reasons why he did it this way, but whether I understand it or not, that’s how it has been.
So when he wants to reveal himself to humans, I think it is quite in keeping that he would again use more natural and “organic” means. My guess is that he started to show himself in subtle ways to peoples all over the world – there is evidence of this in the fact that there has never been as far as I know a culture without some god-belief, and even today psychologists tell us that children are pre-disposed to believe in God or hidden agency. One people responded better than others, or he just chose them anyway, and he began to reveal more. But he didn’t do it via special creation, but more naturally, via the myths and legends they already had. Over time, legend gave way to history. (You can see a few quotes here showing historical scholar CS Lewis saw things this way.)
The Exodus story is part way into this process, and it makes sense that it would be a mixture of history and legend. It all makes sense to me and it fits best with the historical evidence I believe. Of course I know you don’t believe what I believe, but I thought it worth showing how I see it differently than how you suggested. Thanks.
Hope, hope, hope, you all talk of hope and it is the one misfortune of our lot. It keeps a drowning guy holding onto a loose root thinking that maybe, just maybe they will be saved.
And I agree with my favourite philosopher when he writes
hope, the greatest of evils for it lengthens the ordeal of man
The Exodus story is part way into this process, and it makes sense that it would be a mixture of history and legend.
It makes sense to a person who’s religious beliefs are in (large?) part reliant on the story being truth. The problem though is that there is no history. And the evidence has shown this to be the case.
It is all myth. It is now merely a case of bringing this to the attention of the Believing Masses.
The Jews seem to be doing okay with it.
For the others? Christians and Muslims?
Well now …
Does one jettison it?
Unlikely.Well, not right now at any rate.
One can simply ignore it, of course and move toward a more inerrant point of view and throw one’s lot in with the Fundamentalists. But somehow the likes of Licona, Habermass and Craig have always come across as having an unsavory quality; that one might want to take them outside at the end of a very large pair of tongs. Yuck!
So, again, unikely. So what to do?
I should imagine, a fair amount of paradigm shifting has to take place – once more – to bang this square peg into the round hole that is, in this case – Christianity.
It can be achieved. But not without cost and a certain amount of lost credibility, and there is a chance that once that peg is banged in so tight all the wriggle room is gone.
.
The danger though still lurks, like the iceberg: what’s lurking just below the surface is potentially catastrophic. And remember the sharks are there too!
Tough call.
I certainly would not want to be a Christian or any sort of god believer now that this ship is entering such uncharted waters and I have a feeling any sort of appeal to a deity is going to fall on deaf ears.
If you are a Christian, Israel Finkelstein is most definitely not your friend.
Finding Truth 
Very similar to what I hope for, Dave. I’m curious how you’re using the word “believe” because everything else sounds very familiar to me. Are you using believe as “knowing” something is true? I wouldn’t say that I know, and in that case you tell you I “hope” it’s true. I guess I kind of use “hope”, “believe” and “faith” interchangeably. That’s probably not fair.
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*I’d tell you, not “you tell you”
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I believe it will rain tomorrow because of the meteorologist’s forecast, but I hope that it will not rain.
I think hope is tied to what we want to be true, and belief is something we have less control of and is based on what we actually think is true.
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and what is believable about jesus, other than someone writing that he came to offer something you’d hope is true?
jesus came here to save all of mankind.
jesus came to save all of mankind who believe in him and does what he says.
jesus came to save all of mankind who believe in him and does what human authors say he says
human authors claim jesus came to save all of mankind who believe in him and does what human authors say he says
it is all, all of it, is just a bunch of claims, mixed in with conflicting statements, incorrect science and history… you hope…
but what if youre wrong and your hope is misplaced or worse, there is actually another vengeful and jealous god who is real, but different from the one made up by superstitious zealots?
what about the muslim’s hope of 70 virgins that help him get through the day?
what about the hope of all the other religious or non-religious people? you think their hope wont save them and that they should look to evidence and reason over hope… why dont you do the same?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Josh, I’ve been popping in and out of this thread but skimming at times. I have to tell you that your comment above(at 11:27), and the corresponding responses, moved me. Such honesty.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent the last three days working on a eulogy for a dear friend – a person in my congregation (and, although I am no longer a believer, she was), that I wanted to write to you. Maybe you can appreciate how difficult it was for me to write from my heart about her, but I was honoured to get the chance. She was a social worker, and touched many people. She had children and grandchildren, she was kind and gentle (characteristics I sense in you) and she made a valuable and positive contribution to the world by being the person of integrity she was.
The last lines of the eulogy say this, “We are not measured by our successes, but our significance. She lived a life that mattered. She loved and was loved by many”.
She will live on, Josh, just as you and I will – in memories. That’s as it should be, and it’s not so bad. 🙂
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if we’re gonna hope, let’s hope for a heaven where no one will be left out. where the criminal will be reformed, the mentally ill will be repaired, and maybe even be in a place prepared by a loving creator who didnt make a rule that his own son had to die in order to save everyone from a hell he created for them.
I hope for wonderful land. i just doubt a place that perfect could ever exist. I guess maybe it’s more realistic to hope for plane ole heaven.
I suspect death will much be like my consciousness was before my birth. I dont look forward to it, but despite any hope I may have to avoid it, it’s coming. So the instead of thinking about it, let’s do, with all our doing here and now, helping who we can, loving who we can, and experiencing great things with great people. I hope that I live well – there is a good chance of that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t think that, william. I’m certain we’re all wrong on multiple accounts in what we “believe” and “hope” for, myself included. Why place my hope in Jesus instead of anything else? Because, of the world’s deities, Jesus represents the one God who is willing to come to earth, live among us, show us how to treat each other, reach into the lives of the broken and rejected to lift them up, etc. You’re right. That hope may be misplaced. But, it’s mine to decide where to place my hope. If God is actually “vengeful and jealous”, and I am mistaken, then I’ll be joining you at the party on the other end.
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I do. I hope for all those things.
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then are you even a christian, josh?
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@Josh
Being offered hope/ the promise for an eternal life might not be so bad. In fact, as an option it does have a certain appeal.
The problem lies in the Terms and Conditions. Those pesky little paragraphs that get hand-waved away when you want to ask the salesman just one too many questions for comfort.
Such as – But I have been pretty good most of my life why does that murdering rapist SOB suddenly get a Free Pass?
Or …
So it isn’t actually a choice; if I dont believe in you I am destined to be tortured in a fiery hell for eternity. Just what sort of frakking choice is that
So …. the several hundred million in India, for example, who don’t believe in you – through no real fault of their own , specially the kids, yeah, as its all cultural and you are a god right but basedon your terms they are also going to this hell then right?
And …
It’s a religion of love you say, but you had to be sacrificed and suffered a brutal and horrific death to prove your point. Er … why? You could have just said something, surely?
Oh … hello? Jesus? Are you there? Ooops, maybe I am just talking to myself?
Hmm…. I wonder?
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That probably depends on who you ask, william. I say I am. A lot of people would probably say I don’t believe the right things. I think Robert Capon, an Episcopal priest who died a few years ago, I think would say that I am. Here are a couple quotes from him:
“Christianity is not a religion, it is the announcement of the end of religion. Religion consists of all the things (believing, behaving, worshipping, sacrificing) the human race has ever thought it had to do to get right with God. About those things, Christianity has only two comments to make. The first is that none of them ever had the least chance of doing the trick: the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins (see the Epistle of Hebrews) and no effort of ours to keep the law of God can ever succeed (see the Epistle of Romans). The second is that everything religion tried (and failed) to do has been perfectly done, once and for all, by Jesus in his death and resurrection. For Christians, then, the entire religion shop has been closed, boarded up and forgotten. The church is not in the religion business. It never has been and it never will be, in spite of all the ecclesiastical turkeys through two thousand years who have acted as if religion was their stock in trade. The church, instead, is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. It is not here to bring the world the bad news that God will think kindly about us only after we have gone through certain creedal, liturgical, and ethical wickets; it is here to bring the world the Good News that ‘while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.’ It is here, in short, for no religious purpose at all, only to announce the Gospel of FREE grace.” – Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus
“I want you to set aside the notion of the Christian religion, because it’s a contradiction in terms. You won’t learn anything positive about religion from Christianity, and if you look for Christianity in religion, you’ll never find it. To be sure, Christianity uses the forms of religion, and, to be dismally honest, too many of its adherents act as if it were a religion; but it isn’t one, and that’s that. The church is not in the religion business; it is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. And the gospel is the good news that all man’s fuss and feathers over his relationship with God is unnecessary because God, in the mystery of the Word who is Jesus, has gone and fixed it up Himself.” – Between Noon and Three
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“Driving blindly. Not smart.”
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other than a belief in jesus, you seem to not believe in the rest of the bible at all…
if you reject the majority of what the bible says, even about jesus’ teaching on hell, etc, then why do you believe the bible in regard to select things about jesus?
this is one of the places I have a hard time following you and unkleE. it all seems to be too convenient. all the parts you dont like are either not true, or really means something other than what they say, and then the stuff you do like is true, whether it’s found in the bible or not…
why?
I still think you’re somewhere in the middle of your own deconversion. You see the bogus crap, but so far you’re still stuck in your indoctrination, so instead of rejecting the whole garbage can, you’re still trying to see if it all works out somehow, some way…
With enough thought, you’ll eventually leave the matrix. dont be afraid.
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it all seems to be too convenient. all the parts you dont like are either not true, or really means something other than what they say, and then the stuff you do like is true, whether it’s found in the bible or not…
I think you’ll find a lot of people, today and throughout history, who teach grace alone when it comes to Jesus. It may be too convenient, but I’ll be comfortable that at least I’m not alone, and am in fairly decent company.
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Arch-
I don’t fear death in a naturalistic world in the sense that I realize I will not exist to be afraid or bothered by anything. My fear of death would manifest in realizing the possible pain and discomfort that will be faced, the good I could have done but didn’t, the bad I did and shouldn’t have, and the realization that this is the end and I can’t change any of it. My hope isn’t bound in a fear of death. It’s bound in, well, a hope that there is something better.
LikeLike
“…the good I could have done but didn’t, the bad I did and shouldn’t have….” – These are in the past, Josh, and can’t be changed, with or without a god. But equally with or without a god, you can begin in the morning to live the kind of life you wish you had always lived, and begin forgiving yourself for the things you could have done and didn’t. If we didn’t care about you Josh, we’d blow you off like we would unkleE.
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… we’d blow you off like we would unkleE.
And, IMO, the biggest reason is because everyone sees you as genuine.
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Agreed, Arch. And, thanks for caring 🙂
I’m away from my computer for the rest of the day.
Take care, All.
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One last thing before I head out for the night:
Carmen – thank you for the response above. Very touching.
Nan – thank you, too 🙂
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Nate is either not reading this thread or doesn’t want to give an opinion regarding Unk’s statements that we should follow the “majority scholarly opinion” on the Empty Tomb…but not on the historicity of the Pentateuch.
Too bad.
Nate seems to be the only person Unk listens to on this blog.
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“Nate is either not reading this thread or doesn’t want to give an opinion regarding Unk’s statements” – Not entirely true, Gary – Nate is very busy and doesn’t really have time to keep abreast of everyone’s comments, though he does catch up periodically. I’m sure he’ll respond when he finds time, I’ve never known him to dodge any question, if he doesn’t want to give an opinion, he will clearly say so.
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“I actually think that the “middle position” is the worst of all scenarios for a Christian to adopt.”
Hi Dave, I am interested in your comment here, because I see it quite differently.
Firstly, we should determine our beliefs by the evidence, and then consider how our faith (or our unfaith!) fits in later – not adopt what’s easiest. And when I do that, the middle position seems easily the most likely. Everyone says there is virtually no archaeology to confirm the stories, but that means there is virtually none to contradict them either. It might be true that 2 million people would leave some archaeological trace, but that number is clearly exaggerated, and I can’t see how a smaller nomadic group could be expected to leave much behind that anyone is likely to find. So the archaeologists have given up, but that means they can say little either way.
But then there are the historians, who examine the text we have, compare it with other ANE texts and history and draw what conclusions they can. Some would say that such texts as we have in the OT don’t arise out of nothing and generally have a historical core somewhere, others disagree, others trust the text.
It seems to me that trusting the text begs the question, while saying “absence of evidence is evidence of absence” is mistaken, when in fact (1) we wouldn’t expect evidence, and (2) they are ignoring the evidence of the text we have. So both extremes seem untenable to me on present knowledge, and that is what some scholars think – Enns says that is probably the majority of historians – though there are various positions within that “middle” from near scepticism to near belief. Even the “arch minimalist”, Finkelstein, has said that it is quite possible Moses was a historical character, but he thinks we can’t know anything about him.
So that is where my limited reading leaves me. I accept what you say about how a christian (or a Jew) may explain the extreme positions within their worldview, but I actually find the middle easier.
I observe that God tends to use natural laws most of the time. He started our universe at the big bang (I believe) but then lets it develop through the “fine-tuned” laws he created to get to where we are now. Those laws allowed life to start, not by special creation (I think) but by natural processes, and likewise humans appeared not by special creation, but by natural laws. I think there are good reasons why he did it this way, but whether I understand it or not, that’s how it has been.
So when he wants to reveal himself to humans, I think it is quite in keeping that he would again use more natural and “organic” means. My guess is that he started to show himself in subtle ways to peoples all over the world – there is evidence of this in the fact that there has never been as far as I know a culture without some god-belief, and even today psychologists tell us that children are pre-disposed to believe in God or hidden agency. One people responded better than others, or he just chose them anyway, and he began to reveal more. But he didn’t do it via special creation, but more naturally, via the myths and legends they already had. Over time, legend gave way to history. (You can see a few quotes here showing historical scholar CS Lewis saw things this way.)
The Exodus story is part way into this process, and it makes sense that it would be a mixture of history and legend. It all makes sense to me and it fits best with the historical evidence I believe. Of course I know you don’t believe what I believe, but I thought it worth showing how I see it differently than how you suggested. Thanks.
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Hope, hope, hope, you all talk of hope and it is the one misfortune of our lot. It keeps a drowning guy holding onto a loose root thinking that maybe, just maybe they will be saved.
And I agree with my favourite philosopher when he writes
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@Unklee
It makes sense to a person who’s religious beliefs are in (large?) part reliant on the story being truth. The problem though is that there is no history. And the evidence has shown this to be the case.
It is all myth. It is now merely a case of bringing this to the attention of the Believing Masses.
The Jews seem to be doing okay with it.
For the others? Christians and Muslims?
Well now …
Does one jettison it?
Unlikely.Well, not right now at any rate.
One can simply ignore it, of course and move toward a more inerrant point of view and throw one’s lot in with the Fundamentalists. But somehow the likes of Licona, Habermass and Craig have always come across as having an unsavory quality; that one might want to take them outside at the end of a very large pair of tongs. Yuck!
So, again, unikely. So what to do?
I should imagine, a fair amount of paradigm shifting has to take place – once more – to bang this square peg into the round hole that is, in this case – Christianity.
It can be achieved. But not without cost and a certain amount of lost credibility, and there is a chance that once that peg is banged in so tight all the wriggle room is gone.
.
The danger though still lurks, like the iceberg: what’s lurking just below the surface is potentially catastrophic. And remember the sharks are there too!
Tough call.
I certainly would not want to be a Christian or any sort of god believer now that this ship is entering such uncharted waters and I have a feeling any sort of appeal to a deity is going to fall on deaf ears.
If you are a Christian, Israel Finkelstein is most definitely not your friend.
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