Is God... PG Version

[Dre89]

Thank you. Seriously, what if the pope goes up and issues an official message along the lines of "Gravity is not F=m1m2/r1; AIDS is spread by devils instead of viruses; and lastly god says to slaughter your first-born son." What if? After all, he is infallable..

The Church has never claimed the Pope is totally infallible.

The Church admits Popes have been subject to corruption. The Church never said the Pope, or any officeis of the Church are infallible in their personal actiosn. What the Pope is infallbile in, however, is his alteration of the Faith and Morals doctrine, which hasn't been altered in 2000 years.

 

[jaswa]

BPC, this then goes back into the Bible historicity discussion.

EDIT: re pt.5, I meant the common folk couldn't read Scripture for themselves.

That's great Andre, again I'd like some justification of the papal system.

Not changing? lolpurgatory.

And again, not really where this thread was meant to be going...

 

[Dre89]

Firstly, don't say "lolanything" it makes you look like a nerd who bats off to eight hours of porn a day.

Secondly, I don't recall purgatory being Faith and Morals doctine.

My job here isn't to defend Catholicism. The point is, if Catholicism is false, there's no way Protestantism could be legitimate, seeing as the Cath assembled the Bible, and the Nt would not have even been written if it wasn't for the Church. Again, Jesus' lack of personal writing suggests that Scripture is not the sole authority (nevermind that's an interpretation derived from the Scripture itself, which is circular), and/or he entrusted that job to an immediate institution that he established.

 

[jaswa]

Gosh, what is faith doctrine if not about salvation theology...

Anyways what I say keeps getting ignored, not going to discuss this further in this medium.

 

[Dre89]

What am I ignoring?

 

[Nicholas1024]

Hmm... Nope. It has not only been written, it has been rewritten and translated. Remember the classic "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"? Turns out, it was meant to imply poisoner (my dad claims specifically of wells; which makes sense-poison the well of a village in the ****ing desert and whoops, no more village in a week or so). And that's just one such serious mistranslation that cost thousands of lives (I'm probably off by a few orders of magnitude here...).

Furthermore, how the hell do you know that the bible wasn't rewritten? A few choice passages here and there reconstrued to put christ in a better light over the centuries? Just because a book is written doesn't mean it's always going to be the same book-look at the 150th anniversary version of "The Origin of Species", complete with a 50-page bull**** rant on eugenics and godlessness by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron!

BPC, if you want to go there, you'd better have some seriously good evidence of the Bible being altered over the years. When we've got fragments dating back to the second century and a full copy as soon as third (or forth? can't quite remember) century, not to mention loads of copies in multiple languages all over the world that all agree with one another, you've got no grounds to make that claim. By historical standards, that's not just good, that's spectacular.


Dre, would you equate 17th century Germany with Nazi germany, or 18th century America with today's USA? Of course not, because countries and organizations change over time. Similarly, you can't equate the church that compiled the Bible with the medieval catholic church (which is what the reformation rebelled against). Simply compare the doctrine of the Bible, with that that was being put forth in the middle ages. The inquisition, the crusades, purgatory, indulgences. A whole TON of stuff with absolutely no grounding in the Bible, is pretty solid proof that the catholic church had grown corrupt over the years.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

BPC, if you want to go there, you'd better have some seriously good evidence of the Bible being altered over the years. When we've got fragments dating back to the second century and a full copy as soon as third (or forth? can't quite remember) century, not to mention loads of copies in multiple languages all over the world that all agree with one another, you've got no grounds to make that claim. By historical standards, that's not just good, that's spectacular.

All I have is stuff like this. King James Bible is still very popular today, and it's infamously riddled with lousy translations.

Think about it for a moment. At the very least, you have translations from Latin to a different language. That's probably doable; latin is a well-known language. But to get at the old Testament from its oldest known sources, you have to deal with old Arameic languages. And good luck understanding that ****. You know the issues they have with translating the Qur'an, right? From its modern Arabic? Just out of curiosity. So yes, you have ancient sources, but that's no guarantee that you're reading or interpreting them correctly; nor is it a guarantee that the majority of bible-readers aren't getting their information from a book that didn't, or better yet hardly even tried.

Dre, would you equate 17th century Germany with Nazi germany, or 18th century America with today's USA?

I would equate modern Germany to Nazi Germany if they were still using Mein Kampf as a central part of their philosophy and a major policy-forming instrument...

 

[Dre89]

BPC, if you want to go there, you'd better have some seriously good evidence of the Bible being altered over the years. When we've got fragments dating back to the second century and a full copy as soon as third (or forth? can't quite remember) century, not to mention loads of copies in multiple languages all over the world that all agree with one another, you've got no grounds to make that claim. By historical standards, that's not just good, that's spectacular.


Dre, would you equate 17th century Germany with Nazi germany, or 18th century America with today's USA? Of course not, because countries and organizations change over time. Similarly, you can't equate the church that compiled the Bible with the medieval catholic church (which is what the reformation rebelled against). Simply compare the doctrine of the Bible, with that that was being put forth in the middle ages. The inquisition, the crusades, purgatory, indulgences. A whole TON of stuff with absolutely no grounding in the Bible, is pretty solid proof that the catholic church had grown corrupt over the years.

If your analogy is valid, then that invalidates Protestantism as well.

You keep treating Scripture as an authority independent from the Church. The Church assembled the Scripture and wrote the New Testtament, that's why it was written so long after the events, because the Church decided it needed to spread the message to places where there were language barriers.

The belief that the Bible is the word of God was itself a teahcing taught by the Church. Had the Church not existed, not only would we not have this compilation of Scripture, but we wouldn't be claiming it is the word of God. In fact, you were only supposed to be reading Scripture unfer the belief that the Church that endorsed it was blessed by the Holy Spirit.

Also, the points you and Jaswa are making contribute nothing to this debate You ignore my questions about why Jesus did not write anything down himself if Scripture is the sole authority, and instead focus on attacking Catholcism. I'm not here to defend Catholicism, I'm just trying to show why Protestantism is illegitimate. You guys have ignored my questions.

The things is, you two already assume that the Bible is the word of God, and then assume that given the fallibilty of institutions, a Scripture-exclusive interpretation fits best. Your argument works if you immediately assume it is the word of God, but the point is it is only assumed to be so because of the Catholic Tradition.

So again, epxlain to me- If Scripture is the sole authority, why did Jesus not write anything down? As Prots, you deny that Jesus established an immediate institution to spread his message, so if scripture is so important, who was he counting on to write it down if he himself wasn't going to do it?

In fact, if he didn't establish an immediate tradition, then what was his plan for preserving the message of God? He didn't write anything down, )accoridng to you) he didn't establish an immediate tradition to preserve the message, so how was the message to be preserved? It's only because of the Catholic Tradition that the message was even preserved at all.

On top of all that, you say that the people who wrote, preserved, and claimed Scripture to be the word of God are faulty and corrupted, so how on Earth could that Scripture be the word of God? Without assuming blind belief, how could you logically conclude that is the word of God? If you can logically conclude that a faulty tradition can preserve the word of God, then discard that Tradition, then you need to retract every single argument you make against Islam, or any other religion, because by your logic anything faulty about them doesn't invalidate them as the word of God.

 

[Ganonsburg]

If your analogy is valid, then that invalidates Protestantism as well.

Protestantism is founded on what the Bible teaches. Some Protestant groups add to that, but the key idea is to take what the Bible says as truth. Considering that we have manuscripts to check whether the Bible has changed recently, whereas the Catholic Church does not (and where it does, we can see that there have been changes made over the years), it's not really valid to say Protestantism is invalidated by the same analogy that the CC is invalidated by.

You keep treating Scripture as an authority independent from the Church. The Church assembled the Scripture and wrote the New Testtament, that's why it was written so long after the events, because the Church decided it needed to spread the message to places where there were language barriers.

The belief that the Bible is the word of God was itself a teahcing taught by the Church. Had the Church not existed, not only would we not have this compilation of Scripture, but we wouldn't be claiming it is the word of God. In fact, you were only supposed to be reading Scripture unfer the belief that the Church that endorsed it was blessed by the Holy Spirit.

No, the thought that the Bible is God's Word is not tradition, it comes from the Bible. And the Bible was not written by the Catholic Church (the CC simply compiled the Bible--anyone could have done that, with or without tradition). Explanation.

The people who wrote it were people who lived during Jesus' time and observed/met him, or followed his call. They were not the Catholic Church. On the whole, tradition and the Catholic Church is completely irrelevant to the Bible. Also, before we get into Peter being the rock on which Catholicism was founded :It doesn't quite work like that. As the article explains, even if Peter is the rock that the church was founded on, there is nothing in the Bible mentioning that Peter had supremacy over the others, and the Bible actually explicitly states that Jesus is the cornerstone of the church, and no one else. Only Catholic Tradition says otherwise.

So, to summarize this last paragraph: The Catholic Church claims that it gets its holy power from Jesus, and uses the Bible as evidence. They also claim they wrote the Bible and are its authors. However, the Bible does not mention anything about the Catholic Church, nor giving the CC its power, AND was not written by anyone in the CC (or, if you claim that the disciples and apostles were part of the CC because they started the churches: none of them ever claimed to have an authority over other men, nor did they start the traditions held by the CC). So the CC's claims are unsupported by the very book they claim to have written to support them.

The things is, you two already assume that the Bible is the word of God, and then assume that given the fallibilty of institutions, a Scripture-exclusive interpretation fits best. Your argument works if you immediately assume it is the word of God, but the point is it is only assumed to be so because of the Catholic Tradition.

See above.

Sorry I can't get to the other points right now, but I have classes soon and I also need to take a nap. I'll try to address the points you have, as well as the ones you claim are going unanswered.

 

[jaswa]

Yep told him all that before (and something different about the rock), but he keeps stating that we discredit tradition etc. and that the tradition IS the catholic church because that's what he was originally told, learned at uni doing his philosophy degree (which he think philosophy is omnipotent) and has personal ties to.

Please answer all these points.

1. The Bible isn't "rulebooks and tips 101 to being a good christian person", it's what Jesus and his core followers were teaching.
2. Because it is written, we know it hasn't deviated - whereas we have no way of knowing if 'tradition' has remained constant.
3. Noone is denying that the Gospel was orally spread originally, just because Rome was the political power at the time doesn't mean it is that of the Christian religion.
4. The pope's position is not justified.
5. The reason for the protestant reformation was this: Hey we've translated God's word which has been taught for the last 1500 years into English - oh look we can actually read it for ourselves and not listen to priests say what they want since the Bible was in Latin. What the hell, Jesus was saying these things and now the priests have been telling us all this other stuff, what's going on :O
6. Also don't forget we're talking about the God of the universe who created everything - I'm pretty sure God had planned for others to write it down and didn't need Jesus to waste his time here writing since he was going around doing miracles and preaching etc.

 

[GwJ]

Ganonsburg, weren't the authors of the bible like 40 or 50 years after Christ?

 

[Nicholas1024]

@GWJumpman
As a matter of fact yes, but that's a news flash by comparison to the centuries-long gaps we're dealing with elsewhere.

 

[Dre89]

Protestantism is founded on what the Bible teaches. Some Protestant groups add to that, but the key idea is to take what the Bible says as truth. Considering that we have manuscripts to check whether the Bible has changed recently, whereas the Catholic Church does not (and where it does, we can see that there have been changes made over the years), it's not really valid to say Protestantism is invalidated by the same analogy that the CC is invalidated by.

This argument ignores everything I've said. The only reason it was believed to be the word of God was because of the Church. Your argument only works if you blindly assume it is the word of God, it forgets it was only taking to be thew ord of God because of this Tradition.

No, the thought that the Bible is God's Word is not tradition, it comes from the Bible. And the Bible was not written by the Catholic Church (the CC simply compiled the Bible--anyone could have done that, with or without tradition). Explanation.

You just shot yourself in the foot. Saying the argument that the Bible is the word of God comes from the Bible is circular, it's a logical fallacy.

The people who wrote it were people who lived during Jesus' time and observed/met him, or followed his call. They were not the Catholic Church. On the whole, tradition and the Catholic Church is completely irrelevant to the Bible. Also, before we get into Peter being the rock on which Catholicism was founded :It doesn't quite work like that. As the article explains, even if Peter is the rock that the church was founded on, there is nothing in the Bible mentioning that Peter had supremacy over the others, and the Bible actually explicitly states that Jesus is the cornerstone of the church, and no one else. Only Catholic Tradition says otherwise.

No, many texts were written 30 years plus. Factor in that the life expectancy was only about 30 back then, most eye witnesses probably weren't alive when these accounts were written, considering many of them were writtewell over 30 years afters the events. Also, we know that many texts had implied symbolic meaning, for example characters had names that meant something that they did in the passage (eg. a messenger would have a name that would mean "the messenger"), so no, these aren't directly from eye-witnesses.

Even then, the CC is what made the world believe it is the word of God. People later on who didn't like certain aspects of the CC just decided to criticise it, making Scripture-exclusive interpretations (which there are no groundings for), forgetting that the Bible wasn't made for a Scripture-exclusive interpretation.

So, to summarize this last paragraph: The Catholic Church claims that it gets its holy power from Jesus, and uses the Bible as evidence. They also claim they wrote the Bible and are its authors. However, the Bible does not mention anything about the Catholic Church, nor giving the CC its power, AND was not written by anyone in the CC (or, if you claim that the disciples and apostles were part of the CC because they started the churches: none of them ever claimed to have an authority over other men, nor did they start the traditions held by the CC). So the CC's claims are unsupported by the very book they claim to have written to support them.

Of course the Bible wouldn't mention its NT Scripture was written by the Church, because you were only supposed to be reading it if you believed the Church was blessed by the Holy Spirit. That's like demanding that an author mention that he is in fact the author in his own story; you'd only be reading the story because you know who wrote it.

Saying "the Bible doesn't mention X" is applying Protestant standards to Catholicism. It's fallacious, because you're assuming that the Bible is the sole authority, therefore when something is not mentioned in the Bible, you claim it's illegitimate, completely forgetting that Scripture only interpretations was never the intention of the people who wrote the Bible.

Secondly, that only attacks Catholicism, which as I said before, I'm not here to defend. That argument does nothing to free Proetstantism from the problems I've mentioned.

Jaswa- Why are you saying I think Phil is omnipotent? How is that related to this debate? Now you're resorting to ad hominems, which is poor debating.

So let me understand your logic- Jesus thinks Scripture is the sole authority, yet he himself doesn't write any of it. Naturally, you'd think then he'd entrust the writing to an immediate institution, which is infallible, but no he doesn't do that. However, by massive coincidence, a faulty and corrupt institution happens to do this writing, and depsite their corruption, the Scripture is still legitimate, nevermind they are the sole reason for the belief that the Scripture had any relation to God whatsoever. Not only that, but the accounts are written several years after the lifetimes of the witnesses, and have poetic attributes.

Why would Jesus be so unorganised, and let a faulty organisation preserve the Scripture?

Also, you're argument "well God is omnipotent so..." is commiting the same fallacy I've been saying you guys have committed this whole time- beleiving it is the word of God before choosing a denomination. It's fallacious to believe it is tehw ord of God and then choose a denomination, because the denominations have different reasons for believing it is the word of God. It's only rational if you have a rational reason for believing it is the word of God.

Still, no one has answered the Islam question. If a faulty tradition can write and assemble the word of God, then what arguments do you have against Islam? Because saying it's faulty does nothing to invalidate it.

 

[Dre89]

@GWJumpman
As a matter of fact yes, but that's a news flash by comparison to the centuries-long gaps we're dealing with elsewhere.

What you conveniently ignore is that these other things aren't claiming the supernatural. They also aren't poetic in nature; the characters don't have names that resemble their roles in the story. That's a different kettle of fish altogether.

 

[Nicholas1024]

What you conveniently ignore is that these other things aren't claiming the supernatural. They also aren't poetic in nature; the characters don't have names that resemble their roles in the story. That's a different kettle of fish altogether.

Perhaps they don't claim the supernatural, but you can't really demand more historical evidence for the gospel. When what you've got is miles better than any comparable text, it just doesn't make sense to demand more evidence (at least more of that type of evidence.)

Anyway, I'm not really aware of many characters in the Bible having names resembling their roles. I do know of a couple (Peter and Abraham for example), but those two were actually given those names by God. (Peter was originally Simon, and Abraham was originally Abram.) Do you know of more?

Regarding tradition versus scripture, here's my challenge to you.

Given all the historical evidence I've gone over a LOT, I think it's safe to agree that scripture as we have it today represents tradition 30 years after Jesus's death. (Some gospels were written a bit later, but I think some of Paul's letters were before that, so that's a fair enough compromise.)

Even worst case scenario (let's say the church decided to burn a bunch of books and made a power play in the compiling of the Bible), it would at least represent tradition about 300 years after Jesus's death.

My question to you is this:

What kind of historical evidence do we have that the tradition 30 years (or even 300 years) after Jesus's death was the same tradition being taught in the middle ages?

 

[ballin4life]

Perhaps they don't claim the supernatural, but you can't really demand more historical evidence for the gospel. When what you've got is miles better than any comparable text, it just doesn't make sense to demand more evidence (at least more of that type of evidence.)

Bayes Theorem.

If the prior probability of something happening is low, then you need much more evidence to be convinced that it actually happened.

For example, I can tell you that I just snapped my fingers. You will be more likely to believe me, because the prior probability of snapping my fingers is relatively high (it's an obviously possible act).

If on the other hand I tell you that I just breathed fire and flew around this room, you will need much more evidence to believe me. This is because the prior probability of those events occurring is much lower (these acts don't seem possible).

 

[Dre89]

Perhaps they don't claim the supernatural, but you can't really demand more historical evidence for the gospel. When what you've got is miles better than any comparable text, it just doesn't make sense to demand more evidence (at least more of that type of evidence.)

Actually, you can. For example, the supernatural claims in the gospels are quite contextual of the time. Many people claimed hallucinations of dead bodies, and many people were believed. There is no evidence suggesting that Jesus physically rose from the dead, there were claims of sightings of the body, but in that age claims images of dead bodies were common, they never believed the physical body left its resting place, nor is that referred to anywhere.

The historical claim is also invalidated by the fact that passages have implied poetic meaning, such as a character's name relating to their role in the story, severak stories being based off cultural practices/tradition of the time, and certain aspects of the stories conveniently suiting the intention of the writer.

In fact the number one contemporary biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman, rejects that there historical evidence of the ressurrection, and he began his investigation as a believing Catholic, and lost belief (in at least that there is historical evidence of the ressurrection) based on his findings. He has learned all the necessary languages, such as Greek, Aramaic etc. and has read every source pertaining to Christianity in the first 500 years following the death of Jesus.

Anyway, I'm not really aware of many characters in the Bible having names resembling their roles. I do know of a couple (Peter and Abraham for example), but those two were actually given those names by God. (Peter was originally Simon, and Abraham was originally Abram.) Do you know of more?

Barabarus means "son of God", and the whole story with him being chosen over Jesus remembles a Jewish tradition where they would choose between two goats, the one set free would be evil, and the blood of the one sacrificed would save the people or something like that.

I know of another example where some guy is a messenger, and his name means "to tell".

There are plenty more examples in the Bible. The stories do not mention God giving these people thier names.

Also, the nature of Lazarus changes from gospel to gospel. In the earliest gospel (is that Luke?) he is purely mentioned as a character in a fictional parable. Later on in John, he is mentioned as a historical figure who was at many significant events in Jesus' life, despite the fact it is never mentioned in the other gospels that Lazarus attended those events.

There are plenty of things like that.

Regarding tradition versus scripture, here's my challenge to you.

Given all the historical evidence I've gone over a LOT, I think it's safe to agree that scripture as we have it today represents tradition 30 years after Jesus's death. (Some gospels were written a bit later, but I think some of Paul's letters were before that, so that's a fair enough compromise.)

Even worst case scenario (let's say the church decided to burn a bunch of books and made a power play in the compiling of the Bible), it would at least represent tradition about 300 years after Jesus's death.

My question to you is this:

What kind of historical evidence do we have that the tradition 30 years (or even 300 years) after Jesus's death was the same tradition being taught in the middle ages?

I'm glad you asked.

We have historical evidence from 106 AD that Rome was considered the authority, and that it was a heresy not to believe the eucharist physically became the body of Christ.

Secondly, once again you guys attack Catholicism instead of my point, that is that even if Catholicism is illegitimate, then Protestantism is too. It's as if all you Protestants have been taught is to attack Catholicism, rather than positively validate your beliefs independantly of Catholicism.

 

[Nicholas1024]

Perhaps they don't claim the supernatural, but you can't really demand more historical evidence for the gospel. When what you've got is miles better than any comparable text, it just doesn't make sense to demand more evidence (at least more of that type of evidence.)

Actually, you can. For example, the supernatural claims in the gospels are quite contextual of the time. Many people claimed hallucinations of dead bodies, and many people were believed. There is no evidence suggesting that Jesus physically rose from the dead, there were claims of sightings of the body, but in that age claims images of dead bodies were common, they never believed the physical body left its resting place, nor is that referred to anywhere.

I'm sorry, but the gospels claim that the tomb was indeed empty.

Matthew 28:5-6
The angel [at Jesus's tomb] said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, he has risen, just as he said." Come and see the place where he lay.

Also, Matthew 28:11-15 claims that the chief priests bribed the guards at Jesus's tomb to say the disciples stole His body. Now, keep in mind that this was written 30-some years after the events, so it's likely countering claims the Jews made.

If Jesus's body was still in the tomb, the conversation would have gone something like this.
Disciples: Jesus has risen!
Jews: You're crazy, his body is still in the tomb!

However, if the body was indeed missing, it probably would have looked more like this:
Disciples: Jesus has risen!
Jews: You stole his body out from the tomb while the guards were sleeping!
Disciples: No, the Pharisees bribed the guards to keep them silent.

The historical claim is also invalidated by the fact that passages have implied poetic meaning, such as a character's name relating to their role in the story, severak stories being based off cultural practices/tradition of the time, and certain aspects of the stories conveniently suiting the intention of the writer.

The stories might be geared towards the point the writer is trying to make, but does that invalidate anything?

Let's say you were to write a book on Lincoln the lawyer. For this book, you'd have to leave out childhood stories like him running across town to return a customer's change, and wouldn't really touch on his involvement in the civil war, but you'd write a chapter or more on the Gettysburg address. The stories you'd include would definitely suit the portrayal you're trying to make, but that wouldn't make them any less true.

In fact the number one contemporary biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman, rejects that there historical evidence of the ressurrection, and he began his investigation as a believing Catholic, and lost belief (in at least that there is historical evidence of the ressurrection) based on his findings. He has learned all the necessary languages, such as Greek, Aramaic etc. and has read every source pertaining to Christianity in the first 500 years following the death of Jesus.

I could give you examples of Christians whose faith has been strengthened by historical studies, or even atheists who have become Christians by these studies, so it goes both ways.

Barabarus means "son of God", and the whole story with him being chosen over Jesus remembles a Jewish tradition where they would choose between two goats, the one set free would be evil, and the blood of the one sacrificed would save the people or something like that.

I think you've got misinformation, I've never heard of that. Can you give me an Old Testament reference of such a law? Also, according to my NIV Bible, Barabbas means "son of Abba", or "son of father" (although the online dictionary mentions that abba was sometimes used to describe God, it likely refers to earthly fathers as well).

I know of another example where some guy is a messenger, and his name means "to tell".

There are plenty more examples in the Bible. The stories do not mention God giving these people thier names.

Actually, God is involved in the naming of quite a few people in the Bible. (Adam of course, Samson, John the Baptist, the previously mentioned Abraham and Peter, and that's only off the top of my head.) Without knowing the examples you have in mind I can't say for sure whether God was involved in the naming or if it was a coincidence though.

Also, the nature of Lazarus changes from gospel to gospel. In the earliest gospel (is that Luke?) he is purely mentioned as a character in a fictional parable. Later on in John, he is mentioned as a historical figure who was at many significant events in Jesus' life, despite the fact it is never mentioned in the other gospels that Lazarus attended those events.

Obviously they're two different people. I'm not sure why Jesus chose to give the name Lazarus to the character in the parable (interestingly, according to my NIV translation it's the only actual named character in a parable.)

Also, John has a rather unique portrayal on Jesus's life compared to the other gospels, and touches on entirely different themes. (Mark focuses on his miracles and impact, Matthew on his sermons, Luke on his parables, but John on his identity as the Son of God.)

I'm glad you asked.

We have historical evidence from 106 AD that Rome was considered the authority, and that it was a heresy not to believe the eucharist physically became the body of Christ.

Hold it right there. It wasn't until Constantine that Christianity was actually an official religion of the Roman empire, and before Constantine it was persecuted.

The two main persecutions were late 1st century under Nero, and the reigns of the two emperors before Constantine, but there was also plenty of local persecution going around in between then. You are not telling me that in between those two periods that it was heresy NOT to be a Christian. That just doesn't make sense.

Secondly, once again you guys attack Catholicism instead of my point, that is that even if Catholicism is illegitimate, then Protestantism is too.

Actually, the main point I'm trying to make is that Protestantism relies on the early church, which is not equal to the Catholic church. And some of that does include attacking the catholic church to show where it deviates from Jesus's teachings.

It's as if all you Protestants have been taught is to attack Catholicism, rather than positively validate your beliefs independantly of Catholicism.

I do try to positively validate my beliefs without referring to the catholic church (see about 90% of the new testament thread and the intelligent design thread), but there are some issues (like the crusades and such, which people love to bring up to attack Christianity on moral grounds) that directly involve the catholic church and just have to be addressed.

 

[Dre89]

The stories might be geared towards the point the writer is trying to make, but does that invalidate anything?

Let's say you were to write a book on Lincoln the lawyer. For this book, you'd have to leave out childhood stories like him running across town to return a customer's change, and wouldn't really touch on his involvement in the civil war, but you'd write a chapter or more on the Gettysburg address. The stories you'd include would definitely suit the portrayal you're trying to make, but that wouldn't make them any less true.

But symbolic names and themes suggest that story is not supposed to function as an objective historical account, but rather as a story with a message.

Again, this is already assuming that we have reason to believe that the Bible is a credible historical source, but at this point in the inquiry we don't. When we see that the accounts are poetic in nature, with implied meanings, they do not look like objective, credible historical, accounts.

I could give you examples of Christians whose faith has been strengthened by historical studies, or even atheists who have become Christians by these studies, so it goes both ways.

I think you've got misinformation, I've never heard of that. Can you give me an Old Testament reference of such a law? Also, according to my NIV Bible, Barabbas means "son of Abba", or "son of father" (although the online dictionary mentions that abba was sometimes used to describe God, it likely refers to earthly fathers as w

Of course it isn't mentioned in the OT, because the account was written based off that Jewish custom. The other reason why it isn't mentioned in the account is because the account falsely portrays the choice between the two people as a Roman custom (as the Romans let them choose between the two), when such customs never took place, the entire account is modelled off a Jewish custom. They couldn't say it was a jewish custom, it would invalidate the story because you would have the Romans practicing a human version of a Jewish custom, making the story immediately look dodgy.

Actually, God is involved in the naming of quite a few people in the Bible. (Adam of course, Samson, John the Baptist, the previously mentioned Abraham and Peter, and that's only off the top of my head.) Without knowing the examples you have in mind I can't say for sure whether God was involved in the naming or if it was a coincidence though.

Sorry I meant son of the father.

Obviously they're two different people. I'm not sure why Jesus chose to give the name Lazarus to the character in the parable (interestingly, according to my NIV translation it's the only actual named character in a parable.)

Also, John has a rather unique portrayal on Jesus's life compared to the other gospels, and touches on entirely different themes. (Mark focuses on his miracles and impact, Matthew on his sermons, Luke on his parables, but John on his identity as the Son of God.)

I'm sorry, but how is it obvious that they're two different people? It's only obvious if you're already assuming that the Bible is the word of God, at which point that becomes the best explanation, but we're not assuming that.

In fact, it's even more likely it is the same person due to the fact that the Bible renames people for symbolism. So if they were two different people, to be consistent with the rest of Scripture, it would have made sense to give them different names, seeing as name-alternation is a common practice in the Scripture.

Also, your discussion of what each gospel focused on is a deviation, because these events that John claims Lazarus is present at are present in all the gospels.

Hold it right there. It wasn't until Constantine that Christianity was actually an official religion of the Roman empire, and before Constantine it was persecuted.

The two main persecutions were late 1st century under Nero, and the reigns of the two emperors before Constantine, but there was also plenty of local persecution going around in between then. You are not telling me that in between those two periods that it was heresy NOT to be a Christian. That just doesn't make sense.

I might have got it confused there. I know there is evidence of the Church considering Rome as the authority before the Bible, but maybe it wasn't in 106. But I know for sure there is historical evidence of the Church's stance on the eucharist being that you must believe Christ phsyically becomes the bread.

Actually, the main point I'm trying to make is that Protestantism relies on the early church, which is not equal to the Catholic church. And some of that does include attacking the catholic church to show where it deviates from Jesus's teachings.


I do try to positively validate my beliefs without referring to the catholic church (see about 90% of the new testament thread and the intelligent design thread), but there are some issues (like the crusades and such, which people love to bring up to attack Christianity on moral grounds) that directly involve the catholic church and just have to be addressed.

But it seems you're only argument for the fact that the Early Church was not Cath seems to be that the CC is different to Scripture, or that its Tradition has changed, and you make reference to how Scripture is superior because it isn't subject to change.

Firstly, Scripture is subject to change. I know of a Protestant Bible which manipulates translations to suit its goals. For example, there was a sentence that went along the lines of "bla bla bla is achieved by faith", and they changed it to "by faith alone".

Secondly, Scripture has been altered in that 1. St. Irinaeus (a Cath) who assembled the Bible, left out certain texts. 2. Protestants omit something like 12 books from the Bible. That's not treating the Bible as the word of God, that's picking and choosing. Especially given the fact that many books are omitted for specific purposes. For example, certain Protestant Churches that wanted to allow divorce omit the book of James, which condones divorce. Or Baptists, who believe only adults should be baptised, omit books where entire families, children included, are baptised.

There is seriously no valid justification for a Scripture-exclusive interpretation which says the Bible is the word of God, when you have to omit certain books. Are you omitting certain chapters of the word of God?

This is why Protestantism could never be legitimate. It's simply a protest against Catholicism. It believes the Bibles is the word of God because of Catholicism, then picks and chooses what it likes about Catholicism, yet still thinks it can be the word of God, despite the fact it came from a supposedly flawed tradition.

There is simply no way by the Protestant account that the Bible could not only be from a divine source, but the only thing from a divine source, when in fact it's source on Earth was corrupt, and you need to omit certain books from it. How do you know which books are the word of God and which are not? I don't remember God blessing Prots with that kind of knowledge. It is completely arbitrary.

That is ontop of the fact that the belief in a Scripture-exclusive interpretation, comes from, ironically, a Scripture-excluive interpretation of Scripture. That's circular. You also have the problem that the Bible was not put together with a Scripture-exclusive interpretation in mind, and Jesus, who accoridng to you valued Scripture above anything else, did not write anything down, nor did he establish an immediate institution to write it down for him.

Can the athiests here see my point?

 

[Ganonsburg]

Okay, I'm back...temporarily. I wish I could be more active, but the research it takes to make a single post is so time consuming, and I barely even have time for SWF to begin with.

This argument ignores everything I've said. The only reason it was believed to be the word of God was because of the Church. Your argument only works if you blindly assume it is the word of God, it forgets it was only taking to be thew ord of God because of this Tradition.

You just shot yourself in the foot. Saying the argument that the Bible is the word of God comes from the Bible is circular, it's a logical fallacy.

My point was that the Bible says it, so the idea didn't come from tradition like you claim. Also, we can see that prophecies made in the OT are fulfilled in the NT, and that some of the prophecies in the NT have been fulfilled over the years. We also have outside sources to verify many of the events in scripture. So external evidence as well as internal has suggested it to be of supernatural influence at the very least.

No, many texts were written 30 years plus. Factor in that the life expectancy was only about 30 back then, most eye witnesses probably weren't alive when these accounts were written, considering many of them were writtewell over 30 years afters the events. Also, we know that many texts had implied symbolic meaning, for example characters had names that meant something that they did in the passage (eg. a messenger would have a name that would mean "the messenger"), so no, these aren't directly from eye-witnesses.

Life expectancy refers to the number of years of life left at a given age. Generally, the number that's always given is the one at birth. It doesn't refer to life span. Because of the number of infant deaths, the life expectancy of someone at birth is much lower than what their life span will be. After living through those first few years, the person's life expectancy may be much higher, with many people living into their seventies at least.Source.

So we would actually expect many of the eye witnesses to be alive around the second half of the century.

Of course the Bible wouldn't mention its NT Scripture was written by the Church, because you were only supposed to be reading it if you believed the Church was blessed by the Holy Spirit. That's like demanding that an author mention that he is in fact the author in his own story; you'd only be reading the story because you know who wrote it.

While it's not completely the same thing, when people write code, they often put a trademark or a signature on it to let people know that the code is theirs. You can use a code and completely miss out on who wrote it. The same applies to almost anything, a lot of the time in the form of copyright. And actually, authors do mention that they are the author, except they generally do so prior to telling their story or giving their info. But that's not even always the case.

As for the intended audience, you're starting off with the idea that it was the CC that wrote the Bible, compiled it, and was the sole manufacturer of it. But they only compiled it from the many manuscripts that had been copied by other people prior to the CC.

Saying "the Bible doesn't mention X" is applying Protestant standards to Catholicism. It's fallacious, because you're assuming that the Bible is the sole authority, therefore when something is not mentioned in the Bible, you claim it's illegitimate, completely forgetting that Scripture only interpretations was never the intention of the people who wrote the Bible.

But that was the intention. Jesus is quoted as repeatedly saying, "Have you not read...," and proceeds to quote scripture. He also condemns tradition (Matthew 15:2-3). There's a lot that the Bible says about tradition vs. scripture. More.

So let me understand your logic- Jesus thinks Scripture is the sole authority, yet he himself doesn't write any of it. Naturally, you'd think then he'd entrust the writing to an immediate institution, which is infallible, but no he doesn't do that. However, by massive coincidence, a faulty and corrupt institution happens to do this writing, and depsite their corruption, the Scripture is still legitimate, nevermind they are the sole reason for the belief that the Scripture had any relation to God whatsoever. Not only that, but the accounts are written several years after the lifetimes of the witnesses, and have poetic attributes.

Given that Jesus said he himself was/is the Son of God / God, it makes more sense that he didn't waste time writing down everything he said, rather, he used that time to spread his message and to set an example of what he expects from people. And since he said he was God, regardless of whether that's true or not, he would know/think that he would be able to insure that his message was preserved as it was intended to be read.

And as mentioned above, the accounts were written well within the lifetimes one would expect from people of that time.

Also, you're argument "well God is omnipotent so..." is commiting the same fallacy I've been saying you guys have committed this whole time- beleiving it is the word of God before choosing a denomination. It's fallacious to believe it is tehw ord of God and then choose a denomination, because the denominations have different reasons for believing it is the word of God. It's only rational if you have a rational reason for believing it is the word of God.

Given that the people writing the books did not belong to any denomination, and wrote it with no denominations in mind, it actually makes more sense to start out without a denomination and then find one that adheres the most to the Bible.

Still, no one has answered the Islam question. If a faulty tradition can write and assemble the word of God, then what arguments do you have against Islam? Because saying it's faulty does nothing to invalidate it.

A) The Quran is not as self-consistent as the Bible, despite being written by 1 man vs. ~40.
B) There are many pre-CC manuscripts that can be used to verify that the CC didn't mess it up.

As for the protestant Bible having 7 less books, that actually has nothing to do with the New Testament, and everything to do with the Jewish Canon vs. the Catholic Canon. Protestants go with the Jewish Canon, which has a lot to do with the number of manuscripts that support the Jewish Canon and the lack of manuscripts supporting the Apocrypha.

 

[Sieguest]

Well, I decided to at least show that I'm not dead. I'm not necessarily making any refutations (I've not the time for it right now, I'm typing a paper) but just pointing out some things that seemed like off-logic to me.

My point was that the Bible says it, so the idea didn't come from tradition like you claim. Also, we can see that prophecies made in the OT are fulfilled in the NT, and that some of the prophecies in the NT have been fulfilled over the years. We also have outside sources to verify many of the events in scripture. So external evidence as well as internal has suggested it to be of supernatural influence at the very least.

The statement I've highlighted in red kills your point. Simply by asking this question:

From where were the ideas that are highlighted in the Bible derived from?

No matter how you answer that question, you either get traced back to tradition or you commit the fallacy of circularity.

Life expectancy refers to the number of years of life left at a given age. Generally, the number that's always given is the one at birth. It doesn't refer to life span. Because of the number of infant deaths, the life expectancy of someone at birth is much lower than what their life span will be. After living through those first few years, the person's life expectancy may be much higher, with many people living into their seventies at least.Source.

So we would actually expect many of the eye witnesses to be alive around the second half of the century.

Would you happen to have a source that denotes the infant mortality rate of the area at that time? (I'll find it myself if I have time, if I do I'll edit this post later, but just in case you can find it before I get to it.)

But that was the intention. Jesus is quoted as repeatedly saying, "Have you not read...," and proceeds to quote scripture. He also condemns tradition (Matthew 15:2-3). There's a lot that the Bible says about tradition vs. scripture. More.

What failed to be mentioned here, is that Jesus condemned tradition that went contrary to the Bible, not the idea of tradition itself.

 

[Ganonsburg]

Well, I decided to at least show that I'm not dead. I'm not necessarily making any refutations (I've not the time for it right now, I'm typing a paper) but just pointing out some things that seemed like off-logic to me.

The statement I've highlighted in red kills your point. Simply by asking this question:

From where were the ideas that are highlighted in the Bible derived from?

No matter how you answer that question, you either get traced back to tradition or you commit the fallacy of circularity.

My point with the Bible saying it, which was written by non-CC authors, tells us that people prior to the CC believed the Bible to be the inspired word of God. Which I guess could be seen as a tradition, but then you have the other points. People would have judged Jesus against the prophecies in the OT, to see if he fulfilled them (as he claimed he did a few times). My first sentence wasn't meant to be a standalone point.

Would you happen to have a source that denotes the infant mortality rate of the area at that time? (I'll find it myself if I have time, if I do I'll edit this post later, but just in case you can find it before I get to it.)

Not on me, but I'll search around. I would think that it would be reasonable to assume the situation would be similar to the example on the wikipedia page, though.

What failed to be mentioned here, is that Jesus condemned tradition that went contrary to the Bible, not the idea of tradition itself.

True. I should have mentioned it, but since we're talking about traditions that DO go contrary to scripture, it's something of a redundant point.