Research on Belief in God

[djpbaltimore]

True. Brontosaurus was probably doomed. But what about those cute little Velociraptors?

Due to the fact that humans evolving from primates is frowned upon by creationists, do they also deny that certain dinosaurs evolved into avian species?

 

[ScienceIsCool]

My understanding is that the real problem is not evolution but abiogenesis. Evolution occurs and even in the lab, various experiments such as with yeast show that by controlling the environment you can indeed evolve new species. That's not really the problem. The problem is when you extrapolate backwards. Modern humans evolved from our ancestors who evolved from primitive humans who evolved from primates and so on. Keep extrapolating backwards. Keep going. Single-celled animals and...

Uh oh. At a certain point you can not "de-evolve" any further and you need a creation moment for life. Now either this abiogenesis occurred due to natural phenomenon resulting from the way the universe works and the materials at hand, or you need a creator. This gets messy because although we have not (yet) replicated abiogenesis in the lab, the bible doesn't say much about adam and eve the first self-replicating proteins. The whole creation myth begins to break down and you either need to rationalize the book of Genesis with this concept of early life or you need to form a cognitive dissonance and deny the whole she-bang. Start looking for flaws in evolution itself.

It is almost impossible to rationalize the book of Genesis with what we know of the world. It's even worse once you realize the book is essentially a re-write of ancient Sumerian creation myths. Look up Enki and Ninhursag. Lots in there about creating the world in nine days, a "babel" moment when languages are confused, a flood destroying mankind complete with an ark filled with animals. The whole enchilada. Except that it isn't monotheistic and predates the bible by at least 500 years.

John Swanson

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

When I read that article, I was also struck by the dinosaur passage. It made me curious how they are integrated into the creation story despite not being mentioned in the bible. Were they alleged to be killed in the flood?

At the heart of any scientific measurement is uncertainty. Some are more precise than others. I didn't really buy the authors critiques as anything other than picking at a few details to assuage an audience that only has a rudimentary understanding of science. I think the better argument would be just to admit the earth is old because God created it to look that way to foster human imagination and investigation etc. Too much evidence discredits the young earth theory IMO.

Well, they wouldn't have fit on the ark, would they?

You've been watching to many movies.
The majority of dinosaurs weren't as big as the ones you'll see in Jurassic Park.

 

[Jspear]

Re: God and Religion

12 or 20 of us could cite overwhelming evidence that the earth is round (or at least a mostly spherical shaped object) but Jspear would argue it at every turn and insist that we were wrong and he was right because ..........that's what HE believes.

Well mate science has categorically proven that the earth is a mostly spherical shaped object, so that's what I believe.

 

[Jspear]

Re: God and Religion

Regarding the link you produced, though, I will comment more specifically on this:

Red blood cells and hemoglobin have been found in some (unfossilized!) dinosaur bone. But these could not last more than a few thousand years—certainly not the 65 Ma since the last dinosaurs lived, according to evolutionists.[28]

This has been pretty much debunked. What the researchers found may have had a similar appearance to red blood cells, but there is no evidence that they were in fact cells. There also was no hemoglobin protein found in this bone.There apparently was heme, a small molecule that is associated with the hemoglobin protein and carries oxygen. This finding is not evidence for a young age of the fossils, though, as porphyrins, the class of molecules heme belongs to, are known to be quite stable. Another porphyrin, chlorophyll, for example, has in fact been found in sediments that have been dated to millions of years old.

The first part seems vague. So they knew enough to say it wasn't red blood cells but couldn't determine what it was? Porphyrins are known to be stable? How stable? Has it been proven that they can last for millions of years? What method of dating was used to date that sediment? Was it one of the methods that has been shown to be unreliable?

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

When I read that article, I was also struck by the dinosaur passage. It made me curious how they are integrated into the creation story despite not being mentioned in the bible. Were they alleged to be killed in the flood?

At the heart of any scientific measurement is uncertainty. Some are more precise than others. I didn't really buy the authors critiques as anything other than picking at a few details to assuage an audience that only has a rudimentary understanding of science. I think the better argument would be just to admit the earth is old because God created it to look that way to foster human imagination and investigation etc. Too much evidence discredits the young earth theory IMO.

Well, they wouldn't have fit on the ark, would they?

You've been watching to many movies.
The majority of dinosaurs weren't as big as the ones you'll see in Jurassic Park.

What happened to all the Pleiosaurs? You know, the big ones that lived in the water? Did they get flooded out? And what did all the carnivore animals on the ark eat? A single pair of lions will eat 20 kg of meat a day. After 40 days, you'll be about a metric tonne short of animals just due to the lions. OMG! Is that what happened to the unicorns!?

John Swanson

 

[Tank Engine]

Re: God and Religion

If you look at the natural world in the same manner with which you look at everything else, then you would conclude that there was some sort of creator. You wouldn't come to the conclusion that the God of the Bible exists - you would simply understand that the earth like everything else had to have been designed and created.

To come to the conclusion that Darwin did, you would have to start off with the assumption that there was no god. Darwin himself says he gave up Christianity when he turned 40 (1849) - The Origins of Species was published in 59.

Darwin's journey towards publishing The Origin of Species was a very long journey. He started developing his ideas way before publishing them on the Beagle, certainly a long time before he renounced christianity.

It's understandable that so many people believe in a god. The universe is a marvel. The fact that the universe is so finely tuned for life is often used as an argument for the existence of god. If the universal constants were just minimally different, we would not be here. Like all arguments for or against the existence of god it has its shortcomings (Is the universe finely tuned, or are we finely tuned to the universe? We can only observe one universe, so how can say that such a set of constants is unlikely, they might have to take those values?).

The scientific process has been instrumental in bringing us technological wonders that could only have been dreamed of by the da Vincis of the world. A lot of what we know now (quantum theory, light as a wave and particle) seems counterintuitive. I don't believe that science will ever tell us everything about this universe or make us happy, but the process is worth it, to understand that bit more. I just get a huge cognitive dissonance when Ken Ham says, "Were you there? You're assuming that the laws of nature do not change". But "Was he there? He is assuming that the laws of nature do change?" and then talking about discovering the laws of nature
However, for the laws of nature to have been different, then e.g. continental drift must have been hugely greater than today, not to talk about the base rate of radiation being at catastrophic levels.
At least he admits that his worldview is based on the bible, but if you're arguing that Darwin had an agenda, then Ham certainly has one.
Anyway, here's a link to Ham vs Nye, maybe you know this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI

OK, I'm talking from my view point. I know that the scientific process is flawed, because we're involved in it. But as Mercx Index says, the system is robust. Mistakes are made in research. Reviewers don't see mistakes sometimes. On occasion, reviewers don't see the value of research. However, in the first case, if a paper is noticed then someone will fairly quickly see the mistake. In the second case, if an article is worthwile it will get published somewhere else and eventually make an impact. There is so much research out there now, that there will be lots of mistakes and dead ends that people can cherry pick and denounce. However, the process advances and without it, e.g. we wouldn't have got to the moon. It's all a bit like natural selection If it doesn't prove to be useful/have predictive value, it dies out.

I'm not an expert in this area so I don't understand all of it. Would you mind critiquing this article when you have time? It's kinda long.... http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

I will do. But I'm going be away for a few days.

 

[Echoes]

Re: Re:

Well, the thing is, my rational beliefs, my moral beliefs and my religious beliefs (and even more actually) are all closely connected in my worldview. So entering into the political arena leaving my religion completely behind wouldn't really be possible for me. I don't see the difference between somebody who has, say, a humanistic ideology and a naturalist worldview, bringing his moral beliefs based on his ideology and worldview into the political arena and a christian bringing his moral beliefs based on his ideology and worldview, which are closely intertwined with his religion.

You see, Marty, when an anti-theist states that we should distinguish politics from religion, that's nothing scary because the distinction between the Temporal and the Spiritual is in the Gospel: "Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, Give God what belongs to God".

Of course, anti-theists in their usual dishonesty would claim that such quotes, you can interpret it the way you want because they are too uncultivated. The context of the quote makes it clear. You remember that it was a Pharisee showing Jesus a coin and asking whether we should pay tax to the Emperor or not. And as Pier Paolo Pasolini argued, it was perfectly consistent with Jesus' whole discourse.

However first, we considered it a distinction between the Temporal & the Spiritual but not a separation (the nuance is crucial of course) because ultimately the Spiritual Power should get the upper hand. Ultimately a good moral should mediate all our political and economic relationships. Otherwise it's the law of the strongest. But it does not determine it. That means that when a leader starts a war against another nation, it's not because God commanded it but it's a quest for energy and riches.

In that sense, Christianity revolutionised the world. As Fustel de Coulange showed in "The Ancient City" (a chapter I translated here), the previous civilizations were all based on superstition, in terms of politics or in terms of science (knowledge of the world): the Roman civilization, the Greek one, the Jewish one, the Persian one, etc. For the Greek, if there was a bad crop, an offering to Demeter would solve the problem.

Christianism swept all that away and with the distinction between the Temporal & the Spiritual, religion strictly becomes a set of moral values. So is the horrible Islam, since Islam was born out of Christianism. Islam even encourages knowledge/science. The two religions are clearly universalist (beyond nations!), unlike a certain poster on here claims (I won't even name him because it would be doing him too much honour). That's why a modern-day admitted and assumed Fascist like Gabriele Adinolfi despised Christianism as "internationalist like all religions". So the distinction between religion and all material/temporal fields is the genius of Christianism.

Now we have to define what politics really is. Clearly politics should strictly deal with temporal and material matters: public order and the distribution of wealth (economy). They represent the interest of the city/nation abroad and the interest of the people on the inside. But that's it! Is marriage political? Well, it's debatable. We might argue that reproduction also regards the state but to me, marriage is essentially spiritual. So is education (which is linked). So normally, it should rather not regards the political representatives but does regards religion.

This leads us to a theme that I love, how many times in history atheistic statesmen, violated the distinction between the Temporal & the Spiritual? Actually it happened MUCH more often than otherwise. So atheists should rather shut up about this.

I'll just take one example. Emperor Nabulione Buonaparte signed up the Concordat with the weak pope Pius VII in 1801. Buonaparte was not religious at all: "All religions have been made by men", said this selfish, egomaniac, blood-thirsty, pretentious Corsican parvenu (sorry but it feels good, sometimes!! ).

So let's for example take organic article IX of the Concordat: "The bishops shall make a new circumscription of the parishes of their dioceses, which shall have effect only after the consent of the Government." Mind your own business !!!

 

[ray j willings]

Why didn't god with his special powers just put all the people and animals that he wanted to save on higher ground. Its easy for god to make a big hill or mountain , he created everything. Easier still why didn't he just kill all the things he wanted to kill and not make such a big drama out of it all. God with all his powers could have sent Noah and the animals into space or put them on the moon . That would have made a far better story.
God does seem to like a drama that can be told throughout the years.
Only mindless people without a thought for logic or common sense would believe that nonsense.

 

[Tank Engine]

Re: God and Religion

Yes the authors did know what had been written before them but that doesn't discredit them at all. Jeremiah predicted the fall of Jerusalem and it happened. He (and other prophets) predicted the restoration of Israel. There are prophecies concerning the birth of Jesus, His death, resurrection; all these things came to be. There are hundreds of OT prophecies that have found their fulfillment in the NT; that gives the Bible amazing credibility. The cannon of scripture was understood and recognized by believers before the council of Nicaea. The manuscript evidence we have for the Bible is greater than any other book in antiquity. The books themselves were written from around 40-96 AD. They were written very closely to the events they described. There is no proof of a conspiracy amongst the writers trying to change the story or add on to what actually happened. The gospel narratives give some different details yes but that doesn't show contradiction. That simply shows they were showing and telling different aspects of Jesus life. John even said that he couldn't even begin to write about all that Jesus had done, it was to vast. Sorry, I don't quite know what you mean when you say the ancestral tree from Adam to David is stretched.

With regard to the genealogy of Christ, I got that slightly wrong, but there's more to the story. If you look at Matthew's geneology of Christ, there are 14 generations from Adam to David, 14 from David to the exile and 14 from then until Christ. It's not that the tree from Adam to David is stretched, but the geneology from David to the exile is shrunk. According to Matthew 1:8-9, there are two generations between Joram and Joatham, but according to 1 Chronicles 3:11-12, there are five (the names are sometimes spelled differently, but the gap in Matthew's version should be clear).

Matthew's genealogy goes from Adam to Joseph through Solomon, while Luke's genealogy (also Adam to Joseph) goes through another of David's sons, Nathan (Luke 3:31). Since these are both purely male lines, there is a contradiction.

As for the prophecies in the bible, obviously I'm more sceptic for 3 reasons

a) "prophecies" made post fact e.g. Daniel: based on it's appearance in Jewish scriptures (unquoted at the beginning of the 2nd Century BC, but known around the middle of that century), it seems likely that it was written after the events that it purports to prophesy.

b) self-fulfilling prophecy: e.g. Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. To show that Christ is the messiah he should fulfill predictions (or the gospel writers should show that he does) and this is pretty low hanging fruit in terms of fulfilling predictions. I guess Christ's genealogy could fit into this category, so you've got two genealogies showing that he is the son of David. Predicting the fall of Jerusalem is not quite self-fulfilling prophecy, but in the political climate of the time, it was more likely than not.

c) Publication bias: since the canon was decided on in the Christian era, the writings of the prophets that got it clearly wrong would be filtered out and would not enter the canon. What was left would look pretty good.

I woudn't talk about a conspiracy to change the gospel stories, although there are a couple of clear late additions to the gospels, the end of Mark and the story of the woman tried for adultery in John 8 ("let him that is without sin cast the first sin", a beautiful story, but only appeared in manuscripts around 400AD). I'd interpret it more in terms of justifying that Christ was the messiah and secondly developing a theology. Hence, Mark, the first gospel, is the least embellished (no nativity story and pretty stark relation of the crucifixion). Matthew and Luke give their (different) genealogies to justify Christ being the Son of David and have radically different nativity stories (Matthew's story of the flight to and return from Egypt - relating Christ to Moses, Luke telling of Christ's birth in Bethlehem - (as fulfilling prophecy) and childhood in Nazareth. They have more developed crucifixion stories. John is much more theologically developed and of the gospels is the most adamant about the physical nature of Christ's resurrection (the doubting Thomas story). Going into the 2nd century, aprocryphal gospels e.g. Thomas, Peter were rejected for their gnostic theology and overembellishment (a talking cross), respectively.

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Tank Engine, according to Luke 3 who was the son of Salmon?

 

[Jspear]

Re: God and Religion

With regard to the genealogy of Christ, I got that slightly wrong, but there's more to the story. If you look at Matthew's geneology of Christ, there are 14 generations from Adam to David, 14 from David to the exile and 14 from then until Christ. It's not that the tree from Adam to David is stretched, but the geneology from David to the exile is shrunk. According to Matthew 1:8-9, there are two generations between Joram and Joatham, but according to 1 Chronicles 3:11-12, there are five (the names are sometimes spelled differently, but the gap in Matthew's version should be clear).

Matthew's genealogy goes from Adam to Joseph through Solomon, while Luke's genealogy (also Adam to Joseph) goes through another of David's sons, Nathan (Luke 3:31). Since these are both purely male lines, there is a contradiction.

Luke is following Mary's genealogy.

As for the prophecies in the bible, obviously I'm more sceptic for 3 reasons

a) "prophecies" made post fact e.g. Daniel: based on it's appearance in Jewish scriptures (unquoted at the beginning of the 2nd Century BC, but known around the middle of that century), it seems likely that it was written after the events that it purports to prophesy.

b) self-fulfilling prophecy: e.g. Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. To show that Christ is the messiah he should fulfill predictions (or the gospel writers should show that he does) and this is pretty low hanging fruit in terms of fulfilling predictions. I guess Christ's genealogy could fit into this category, so you've got two genealogies showing that he is the son of David. Predicting the fall of Jerusalem is not quite self-fulfilling prophecy, but in the political climate of the time, it was more likely than not.

c) Publication bias: since the canon was decided on in the Christian era, the writings of the prophets that got it clearly wrong would be filtered out and would not enter the canon. What was left would look pretty good.

I woudn't talk about a conspiracy to change the gospel stories, although there are a couple of clear late additions to the gospels, the end of Mark and the story of the woman tried for adultery in John 8 ("let him that is without sin cast the first sin", a beautiful story, but only appeared in manuscripts around 400AD). I'd interpret it more in terms of justifying that Christ was the messiah and secondly developing a theology. Hence, Mark, the first gospel, is the least embellished (no nativity story and pretty stark relation of the crucifixion). Matthew and Luke give their (different) genealogies to justify Christ being the Son of David and have radically different nativity stories (Matthew's story of the flight to and return from Egypt - relating Christ to Moses, Luke telling of Christ's birth in Bethlehem - (as fulfilling prophecy) and childhood in Nazareth. They have more developed crucifixion stories. John is much more theologically developed and of the gospels is the most adamant about the physical nature of Christ's resurrection (the doubting Thomas story). Going into the 2nd century, aprocryphal gospels e.g. Thomas, Peter were rejected for their gnostic theology and overembellishment (a talking cross), respectively.

a.) Daniel wasn't written after the fact. He also predicted the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans. No scholar believes Daniel was written after ad 70.

b.) But you have to deal with the very specific nature of some of the prophecies. For instance Jeremiah prophesied that after 70 years the Israelites would be liberated from the Babylonians. It happened as predicted.

c.) Let's pretend for a moment that they filtered out the prophets that were wrong: 1st off a prophet that told lies was dismissed as a false prophet. A prophet was judged by whether or not what he said came to past or not. The fact that there false prophets doesn't negate what the true prophets did and said. The gospel writers didn't have a crooked agenda (slowing adding different characteristics to Jesus.) They purposefully were bringing out different aspects of Jesus person and nature (his humanity, divinity, ect.) The gospels harmonize each other. Of course they share different stories or go into more or less depth than each other. There would be no point in having 4 gospels if they all said the same thing.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: God and Religion

With regard to the genealogy of Christ, I got that slightly wrong, but there's more to the story. If you look at Matthew's geneology of Christ, there are 14 generations from Adam to David, 14 from David to the exile and 14 from then until Christ. It's not that the tree from Adam to David is stretched, but the geneology from David to the exile is shrunk. According to Matthew 1:8-9, there are two generations between Joram and Joatham, but according to 1 Chronicles 3:11-12, there are five (the names are sometimes spelled differently, but the gap in Matthew's version should be clear).

Matthew's genealogy goes from Adam to Joseph through Solomon, while Luke's genealogy (also Adam to Joseph) goes through another of David's sons, Nathan (Luke 3:31). Since these are both purely male lines, there is a contradiction.

Luke is following Mary's genealogy.

As for the prophecies in the bible, obviously I'm more sceptic for 3 reasons

a) "prophecies" made post fact e.g. Daniel: based on it's appearance in Jewish scriptures (unquoted at the beginning of the 2nd Century BC, but known around the middle of that century), it seems likely that it was written after the events that it purports to prophesy.

b) self-fulfilling prophecy: e.g. Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. To show that Christ is the messiah he should fulfill predictions (or the gospel writers should show that he does) and this is pretty low hanging fruit in terms of fulfilling predictions. I guess Christ's genealogy could fit into this category, so you've got two genealogies showing that he is the son of David. Predicting the fall of Jerusalem is not quite self-fulfilling prophecy, but in the political climate of the time, it was more likely than not.

c) Publication bias: since the canon was decided on in the Christian era, the writings of the prophets that got it clearly wrong would be filtered out and would not enter the canon. What was left would look pretty good.

I woudn't talk about a conspiracy to change the gospel stories, although there are a couple of clear late additions to the gospels, the end of Mark and the story of the woman tried for adultery in John 8 ("let him that is without sin cast the first sin", a beautiful story, but only appeared in manuscripts around 400AD). I'd interpret it more in terms of justifying that Christ was the messiah and secondly developing a theology. Hence, Mark, the first gospel, is the least embellished (no nativity story and pretty stark relation of the crucifixion). Matthew and Luke give their (different) genealogies to justify Christ being the Son of David and have radically different nativity stories (Matthew's story of the flight to and return from Egypt - relating Christ to Moses, Luke telling of Christ's birth in Bethlehem - (as fulfilling prophecy) and childhood in Nazareth. They have more developed crucifixion stories. John is much more theologically developed and of the gospels is the most adamant about the physical nature of Christ's resurrection (the doubting Thomas story). Going into the 2nd century, aprocryphal gospels e.g. Thomas, Peter were rejected for their gnostic theology and overembellishment (a talking cross), respectively.

a.) Daniel wasn't written after the fact. He also predicted the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans. No scholar believes Daniel was written after ad 70.

b.) But you have to deal with the very specific nature of some of the prophecies. For instance Jeremiah prophesied that after 70 years the Israelites would be liberated from the Babylonians. It happened as predicted.

c.) Let's pretend for a moment that they filtered out the prophets that were wrong: 1st off a prophet that told lies was dismissed as a false prophet. A prophet was judged by whether or not what he said came to past or not. The fact that there false prophets doesn't negate what the true prophets did and said. The gospel writers didn't have a crooked agenda (slowing adding different characteristics to Jesus.) They purposefully were bringing out different aspects of Jesus person and nature (his humanity, divinity, ect.) The gospels harmonize each other. Of course they share different stories or go into more or less depth than each other. There would be no point in having 4 gospels if they all said the same thing.

I am not a biblical scholar, but I have never spoken with a Pastor who didn't readily admit there are irreconcilable contradictions in the canonical gospels (and others). There are those listed above and many more. I won't bother getting into the innumerable differences in accounts as anyone interested can do the research themselves. To state that these differences are simply different views is partly true and partly false. They are different accounts, which is fine. But they are also incompatible in many, many instances. It's not wrong to say they harmonize with one another, but to imply that this means they are all exactly true fails any logical examination, and I'm fairly sure that's what you're implying.

This is one of the many places where literalism fails. One simply must literally ignore or make up facts to reconcile all the contradictions and proven falsehoods to accept the bible as literal, and as such, a thinking, rational person must reject such theology on hard examination.

The first canonical gospels were written 70+ years after the fact (a conservative date by most scholarly accounts) and are borne stories handed down orally for literally generations when you consider lifespan in those times. Others were written much later. Generations of oral history folks. They can't be exactly accurate or even close. So don't hang on too tightly to every word.

I don't hope to convince any literalists by stating these facts, but readers of this discussion should have the counter-point to what I consider an apologist and wishful theology as you've written it here. There can be no literal truth to the word and the exact events when it is clear that facts conflict in the word itself. This leaves on to reject literalism and accept the gospels for what they are, a declaration of belief, a telling and re-telling of the story of Christ by believers. They are not videos of the events in question, they are stories borne of oral tradition and a history of similar stories from eons before.

Accept the word on faith. Trying to prove it all happened as stated misses the point of faith and the point of the word entirely. In my view.

 

[Jspear]

Re: God and Religion

The first canonical gospels were written 70+ years after the fact (a conservative date by most scholarly accounts) and are borne stories handed down orally for literally generations when you consider lifespan in those times. Others were written much later. Generations of oral history folks. They can't be exactly accurate or even close. So don't hang on too tightly to every word.

Keep in mind though; the gospels were written by Matthew and John, both contemporaries of Jesus, and Mark and Luke, both contemporaries of the apostles. These stories were transcribed by these men. Its not like some anonymous individuals decided to write down some stories they remembered the apostles telling.

 

[hrotha]

Re: God and Religion

The first canonical gospels were written 70+ years after the fact (a conservative date by most scholarly accounts) and are borne stories handed down orally for literally generations when you consider lifespan in those times. Others were written much later. Generations of oral history folks. They can't be exactly accurate or even close. So don't hang on too tightly to every word.

Keep in mind though; the gospels were written by Matthew and John, both contemporaries of Jesus, and Mark and Luke, both contemporaries of the apostles. These stories were transcribed by these men. Its not like some anonymous individuals decided to write down some stories they remembered the apostles telling.

We've been over this before. There's zero reason to believe the apostle Matthew wrote the gospel traditionally attributed to him, and not a particularly good reason to attribute the other one to John the apostle.

The four gospels are, in fact, anonymous. Literally, some anonymous individuals decided to write down some stories they remembered the apostles (or more likely, the local Christian communities) telling.

 

[Christian]

Re: God and Religion

Hello,

For my research I have been reading a book recently about Christianity and women. It is some very interesting stuff. One of the founding principles of Christianity is a depreciation towards sex and towards the flesh, which then translated into a depreciation of the female sex. But while many people may believe that Christianity is only oppressive towards women, that is not exactly true. In its origin, it was emancipatory for women in a way, that it let women choose their own social role: marriage/motherhood or viriginity. Also, by adopting the concept of marriage and declaring it saint, Christianity was a force of protection for women in its early days.

The negative part is that, by letting women choose between motherhood and virginity, Christianity limited women to those two roles, using that as an excuse to exclude them from any other role in society. All founding fathers of the church agree that men and women are equal before god, but then they all find some reason or other to justify that women should be subordinate to men in society. The discourse is often one of physical and mental fragility, which justifies "protective" lawmaking for women, effectively infantalizing them and robbing them of basic civil rights. This has carried on well into the 20th century.

The basic Christian image of the woman is a dialectic one: Mary/Eve equals Good/Evil. As I said before Christianity sanctifies motherhood OR virginity, thus the Virgin Mary is the ultimate role model for women, for she is both at the same time.

 

[Bustedknuckle]

Re:

Tank Engine, according to Luke 3 who was the son of Salmon?

Answer a question for this uneducated luddite..Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel..who were the son(s) wives?

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re: Re:

Tank Engine, according to Luke 3 who was the son of Salmon?

Answer a question for this uneducated luddite..Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel..who were the son(s) wives?

I don't know.

 

[Jspear]

Re: God and Religion

The first canonical gospels were written 70+ years after the fact (a conservative date by most scholarly accounts) and are borne stories handed down orally for literally generations when you consider lifespan in those times. Others were written much later. Generations of oral history folks. They can't be exactly accurate or even close. So don't hang on too tightly to every word.

Keep in mind though; the gospels were written by Matthew and John, both contemporaries of Jesus, and Mark and Luke, both contemporaries of the apostles. These stories were transcribed by these men. Its not like some anonymous individuals decided to write down some stories they remembered the apostles telling.

We've been over this before. There's zero reason to believe the apostle Matthew wrote the gospel traditionally attributed to him, and not a particularly good reason to attribute the other one to John the apostle.

The four gospels are, in fact, anonymous. Literally, some anonymous individuals decided to write down some stories they remembered the apostles (or more likely, the local Christian communities) telling.

Read the introduction to Luke and then read the introduction to Acts. You will quickly be able to see who wrote Luke. Read the book of John and then read 1, 2nd, and 3rd John. We know for a fact that 1, 2nd, and 3rd John were written by John. It quickly becomes evident that he also wrote the book of John. The early church understood the books of Matthew and Mark to have been written by theses men. It wasn't some wild guess on their part.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Re: God and Religion

We've been over this before. There's zero reason to believe the apostle Matthew wrote the gospel traditionally attributed to him, and not a particularly good reason to attribute the other one to John the apostle.

The four gospels are, in fact, anonymous. Literally, some anonymous individuals decided to write down some stories they remembered the apostles (or more likely, the local Christian communities) telling.

I think you dismiss the traditional authorship claims much to easily. Just because it's called a 'tradition' doesn't mean we can just forget the fact that everybody in ancient times agreed it was written by Matthew. Of course they might've been mistaken, or the book might have been attributed to Matthew to give it more authority or whatever, but it's hardly difficult to imagine people might've actually just accurately preserved the information of whoever was the author of that book.

A dating of 70 or so is perfectly consistent with the authorship of Matthew. Furthermore in the histories of Eusebius (which to my knowledge are considered fairly trustworthy), we find a citation from Papias, a church father from the early 2nd century, who actually says that Matthew wrote a book with a bunch of sayings of Jesus. And you know, in Matthew we find most of the material in the gospel of Mark - so it's generally assumed Matthew (and Luke as well) had access to the gospel of Mark - and the material that is added to the Markan material consistent of mostly, you've guessed it, a bunch of sayings of Jesus. (Most of this material we also find in Luke, so it's commonly thought Luke and Matthew share a common source besides Mark, so who knows, maybe Matthew authored the common source of Luke and Matthew and somebody else combined Mark and these sayings into a Gospel.)

You know, I'm perfectly aware that this isn't a kind of super hard beyond all doubt proof Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew, but from my knowledge of the relevant historical evidence, there isn't anything that would contradict Matthew's authorship and there is some evidence pointing towards the authorship of Matthew and thus it seems to me to be quite reasonable to assume that Matthew actually wrote the Gospel of Matthew, or at least that he's responsible for the sayings that are prominently featured in the Gospel of Matthew.

 

[Bustedknuckle]

Re: Re:

Tank Engine, according to Luke 3 who was the son of Salmon?

Answer a question for this uneducated luddite..Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel..who were the son(s) wives?

I don't know.

But Adam and Eve..2 sons...where did everybody else come from? Did the son's have kids with Eve??

 

[ray j willings]

Re: Re:

Tank Engine, according to Luke 3 who was the son of Salmon?

Answer a question for this uneducated luddite..Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel..who were the son(s) wives?

I don't know.

But Adam and Eve..2 sons...where did everybody else come from? Did the son's have kids with Eve??

Why didn't god make a lot of people at the same time who are not related.? Why did he make animals and plants that can kill man/woman and other animals.?
Why did he make people uneducated?
why didn't he make people from the beginning nice?
Why did he make so much nasty illness?
Why didn't he just give every one a nice house and a nice environment to live in from the get go?
How did he make that snake talk?
How did that bush sing?
Why does he let people suffer so much yet lets Boris Johnson run London?
How comes only 12 country's are not at war, Why does god seem to like war?
how comes he lets people worship other gods ?
How comes he lets the weather kill thousands of people?
Why did he make the Universe and time and space so big?
why did he wait so long to make earth?
why did he make the devil?
where is heaven?
where is hell.
How come jesus said heaven will come to earth but it didn't . He lied

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re: Re:

Tank Engine, according to Luke 3 who was the son of Salmon?

Answer a question for this uneducated luddite..Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel..who were the son(s) wives?

I don't know.

But Adam and Eve..2 sons...where did everybody else come from? Did the son's have kids with Eve??

I do not know who Cain's wife was, but she was not Eve.
Abel is not said to have had a wife.
Adam and Eve had many children including Seth.

I cannot say more than what the Bible says, I was not there, I am not a witness to anything. It would be speculation for me to guess and it would have no basis.

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re: Re:

Why didn't god make a lot of people at the same time who are not related.? I don't know
Why did he make animals and plants that can kill man/woman and other animals.?I don't know
Why did he make people uneducated?I don't know
why didn't he make people from the beginning nice?He did
Why did he make so much nasty illness? Sin
Why didn't he just give every one a nice house and a nice environment to live in from the get go?He did
How did he make that snake talk? I don't know
How did that bush sing? I am not sure what you are refering too sorry
Why does he let people suffer so much yet lets Boris Johnson run London?Free will
How comes only 12 country's are not at war, Why does god seem to like war?Free will
how comes he lets people worship other gods ?Free will
How comes he lets the weather kill thousands of people?Death is punishment for sin
Why did he make the Universe and time and space so big?I don't know but perhaps it does not seem so big to him
why did he wait so long to make earth? He didn't
why did he make the devil? He didn't
where is heaven? I don't know
where is hell? Under the ground
How come jesus said heaven will come to earth but it didn't . He liedJust because something has not happened does not mean it will not happen. He didn't lie

 

[frenchfry]

Re: Re:

I do not know who Cain's wife was, but she was not Eve.
Abel is not said to have had a wife.
Adam and Eve had many children including Seth.

Would make a great sitcom.