Texaggie7nine said:

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"with firsthand knowledge" is speculation.

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No, it's not "speculation". It's written. You can argue that the written history is false, but it's not "speculation" on my part.

It's certainly questionable. And in my opinion the traditional Christian narrative is not convincing.

FriscoKid said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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"with firsthand knowledge" is speculation.

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No, it's not "speculation". It's written. You can argue that the written history is false, but it's not "speculation" on my part.

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Written by who? Prove who wrote it.

This is all assumption of what you have been told to believe.

Texaggie7nine said:

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FriscoKid said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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"with firsthand knowledge" is speculation.

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No, it's not "speculation". It's written. You can argue that the written history is false, but it's not "speculation" on my part.

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Written by who? Prove who wrote it.

This is all assumption of what you have been told to believe.

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Best evidence is that it was written by the apostles.

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Prove who wrote it.

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Again, you go back to something that can't be proven. In the same way that you can't prove that your car will start when you turn the key. You are looking for an impossibility. But, you believe all kinds of things to be real in your everyday life. You take a volume of evidence and assign a "realness" to it.

I'm not "assuming". I'm using reasoning based on the evidence. You could reason something else based on the same evidence. I think that my car will start when I leave for lunch. Why? Because it has started in the past. I can't prove for a FACT that it will start.

kurt vonnegut said:

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It's still not contradictory. The belief is that you either love God, or you choose yourself above

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By giving someone additional information about a choice and its consequences, you better allow that person to freely choose something (and its consequences). 70% of the world denies your God exist. The 30% that believe in the Christian God argue over His nature, the path to salvation, what salvation even means, damn near everything. No one alive knows what Heaven is like or what Hell is like.

I don't think we have enough information to freely make an educated choice. If you think we do have enough information, what is the argument the idea that any additional information God gives us only serves to better allow up to make an informed choice. I see no reason for God not to fully reveal himself, Heaven, and Hell to us in a manner we would clearly understand for this purpose.

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Natural and Specific revelation....

Natural Revelation = creation.
Specific Revelation = bible

It's easy for some non-believers to look at the world and come to the conclusion that there might be something that created this.

If there is a creator then who?

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I'm not "assuming". I'm using reasoning based on the evidence. You could reason something else based on the same evidence. I think that my car will start when I leave for lunch. Why? Because it has started in the past. I can't prove for a FACT that it will start.

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Is 'because it started yesterday' better or worse evidence than 'because someone 2000 years ago wrote it in a book"? If the former is stronger evidence, then why doesn't God give us stronger evidence?

I think we have proven timing isn't all that important. 7nine thought someone who stated very clearly that he saw his father's leg miraculously healed from being broken wasn't trustworthy. While he originally used that person's origins as an excuse to not believe him, he followed it up with saying he wouldn't trust his doctor or favorite life coach if they said that they saw such a miracle. What's healing a broken leg versus seeing the dead rise again?

FriscoKid said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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It's still not contradictory. The belief is that you either love God, or you choose yourself above

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By giving someone additional information about a choice and its consequences, you better allow that person to freely choose something (and its consequences). 70% of the world denies your God exist. The 30% that believe in the Christian God argue over His nature, the path to salvation, what salvation even means, damn near everything. No one alive knows what Heaven is like or what Hell is like.

I don't think we have enough information to freely make an educated choice. If you think we do have enough information, what is the argument the idea that any additional information God gives us only serves to better allow up to make an informed choice. I see no reason for God not to fully reveal himself, Heaven, and Hell to us in a manner we would clearly understand for this purpose.

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Natural and Specific revelation....

Natural Revelation = creation.
Specific Revelation = bible

It's easy for some non-believers to look at the world and come to the conclusion that there might be something that created this.

If there is a creator then who?

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Kronos

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Natural and Specific revelation....

Natural Revelation = creation.
Specific Revelation = bible

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How clear do you think the meaning and intention of those revelations are? Not to sound like a broken record, but the vast majority of people today and throughout history do not agree with you and the likelihood of them agreeing or disagreeing with you is phenomenally well predicted by the family values and geography in which they are born and raised. Doesn't it seem like how you (and all of us) view these 'revelations' are purely accidental?

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It's easy for some non-believers to look at the world and come to the conclusion that there might be something that created this.

If there is a creator then who?

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Hell if I know. When he/she hops down from the clouds to shake my hand and walk me through it all, I'll tell you. Until then, I'll just sit here and listen to thousands of accounts of God from different religions with a confused look on my face.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Quote:

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It's still not contradictory. The belief is that you either love God, or you choose yourself above

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By giving someone additional information about a choice and its consequences, you better allow that person to freely choose something (and its consequences). 70% of the world denies your God exist. The 30% that believe in the Christian God argue over His nature, the path to salvation, what salvation even means, damn near everything. No one alive knows what Heaven is like or what Hell is like.

I don't think we have enough information to freely make an educated choice. If you think we do have enough information, what is the argument the idea that any additional information God gives us only serves to better allow up to make an informed choice. I see no reason for God not to fully reveal himself, Heaven, and Hell to us in a manner we would clearly understand for this purpose.

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Christians, Muslims, and Jews make up 59% of the world's population. We're all believing in the same God. About 10% of the rest of the more regional religions believe in a single supreme deity (or at least one deity that is higher than the rest of the lower deities). And the number of people who believe anything seems pretty irrelevant to any discussion about what specific groups believe. There are thousands of people in 2019 in first-world America that deny that the earth is round. Their denials and $3.00 will buy you a cup of coffee.

As for the second, Christians and Muslims (again, the first half of the Koran) believe that God DID fully reveal himself in the historical person of Jesus.

Tango_Mike said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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It's still not contradictory. The belief is that you either love God, or you choose yourself above

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By giving someone additional information about a choice and its consequences, you better allow that person to freely choose something (and its consequences). 70% of the world denies your God exist. The 30% that believe in the Christian God argue over His nature, the path to salvation, what salvation even means, damn near everything. No one alive knows what Heaven is like or what Hell is like.

I don't think we have enough information to freely make an educated choice. If you think we do have enough information, what is the argument the idea that any additional information God gives us only serves to better allow up to make an informed choice. I see no reason for God not to fully reveal himself, Heaven, and Hell to us in a manner we would clearly understand for this purpose.

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Christians, Muslims, and Jews make up 59% of the world's population. We're all believing in the same God. About 10% of the rest of the more regional religions believe in a single supreme deity (or at least one deity that is higher than the rest of the lower deities). And the number of people who believe anything seems pretty irrelevant to any discussion about what specific groups believe. There are thousands of people in 2019 in first-world America that deny that the earth is round. Their denials and $3.00 will buy you a cup of coffee.

As for the second, Christians and Muslims (again, the first half of the Koran) believe that God DID fully reveal himself in the historical person of Jesus.

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Is the specific nature and doctrine of the God irrelevant as long as you believe in 'a' God? If not, what point is there to identifying all of the other people that believe in different Gods or versions of your God?

It is relevant because the Christian God is only believed in by less than 1/3 of people and that who believes is almost entirely decided upon geographically. If God intends for us to know him, I don't know that he's doing a good job.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Quote:

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Natural and Specific revelation....

Natural Revelation = creation.
Specific Revelation = bible

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How clear do you think the meaning and intention of those revelations are? Not to sound like a broken record, but the vast majority of people today and throughout history do not agree with you and the likelihood of them agreeing or disagreeing with you is phenomenally well predicted by the family values and geography in which they are born and raised. Doesn't it seem like how you (and all of us) view these 'revelations' are purely accidental?

Quote:

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It's easy for some non-believers to look at the world and come to the conclusion that there might be something that created this.

If there is a creator then who?

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Hell if I know. When he/she hops down from the clouds to shake my hand and walk me through it all, I'll tell you. Until then, I'll just sit here and listen to thousands of accounts of God from different religions with a confused look on my face.

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The overwhelming fast majority of people in the world believe in some kind of god/creator. I think that natural revelation is pretty clear in that regard.

Tango_Mike said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Quote:

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It's still not contradictory. The belief is that you either love God, or you choose yourself above

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By giving someone additional information about a choice and its consequences, you better allow that person to freely choose something (and its consequences). 70% of the world denies your God exist. The 30% that believe in the Christian God argue over His nature, the path to salvation, what salvation even means, damn near everything. No one alive knows what Heaven is like or what Hell is like.

I don't think we have enough information to freely make an educated choice. If you think we do have enough information, what is the argument the idea that any additional information God gives us only serves to better allow up to make an informed choice. I see no reason for God not to fully reveal himself, Heaven, and Hell to us in a manner we would clearly understand for this purpose.

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Christians, Muslims, and Jews make up 59% of the world's population. We're all believing in the same God. About 10% of the rest of the more regional religions believe in a single supreme deity (or at least one deity that is higher than the rest of the lower deities). And the number of people who believe anything seems pretty irrelevant to any discussion about what specific groups believe. There are thousands of people in 2019 in first-world America that deny that the earth is round. Their denials and $3.00 will buy you a cup of coffee.

As for the second, Christians and Muslims (again, the first half of the Koran) believe that God DID fully reveal himself in the historical person of Jesus.

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so, you believe in Allah, as written in the Koran?

schmendeler said:

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Tango_Mike said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Quote:

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It's still not contradictory. The belief is that you either love God, or you choose yourself above

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By giving someone additional information about a choice and its consequences, you better allow that person to freely choose something (and its consequences). 70% of the world denies your God exist. The 30% that believe in the Christian God argue over His nature, the path to salvation, what salvation even means, damn near everything. No one alive knows what Heaven is like or what Hell is like.

I don't think we have enough information to freely make an educated choice. If you think we do have enough information, what is the argument the idea that any additional information God gives us only serves to better allow up to make an informed choice. I see no reason for God not to fully reveal himself, Heaven, and Hell to us in a manner we would clearly understand for this purpose.

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Christians, Muslims, and Jews make up 59% of the world's population. We're all believing in the same God. About 10% of the rest of the more regional religions believe in a single supreme deity (or at least one deity that is higher than the rest of the lower deities). And the number of people who believe anything seems pretty irrelevant to any discussion about what specific groups believe. There are thousands of people in 2019 in first-world America that deny that the earth is round. Their denials and $3.00 will buy you a cup of coffee.

As for the second, Christians and Muslims (again, the first half of the Koran) believe that God DID fully reveal himself in the historical person of Jesus.

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so, you believe in Allah, as written in the Koran?

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Well, Allah is Arabic for "The God" (with spoken emphasis on "The"), and Mohammed (early Mohammed before he started talking about killing people) taught that it was the God of Abraham... who is the God of the Judaism... who is the God of Christianity. Early Mohammed taught that Jesus was the Messiah and the Incarnation...

Where and when it written that the author has firsthand knowledge?

The context leading up to the disciples' question in Mt 24:3 is, I think, quite clearly a discussion about the destruction of Jerusalem. I don't know how one could read the last half of ch 23 and the first two verses of ch 24 and conclude otherwise.

So what was their question? To avoid an anachronistic reading of their question, you have to look at it in the context of what they expected out of the Messiah. In Mk 8, Jesus starts to explain how He must suffer and die, and Peter rebukes Him, not understanding that this was His purpose. He concludes that discussion in Mk 9:1 by saying that "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power." Sounds like familiar timing to our passage in Mt. 24. In Mk 10, two of the disciples approach Jesus and ask to sit on either side of Him in his kingdom, again showing that they did not understand the nature of what Christ came to do or what His kingdom was to be like. If you read the Jesus's final address to His disciples prior to the garden scene in John 13-17, you see that even near the end of His life they didn't understand that He was leaving them. This is especially evident in ch 16. Given all that, does it make sense that they would be asking him about a second coming? They thought He was there to setup His kingdom and rule over it. They thought that the physical nation of Israel and it's fate rested in His hands.

Here's the question: "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" He had just been foretelling the events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. They thought He was there to save Israel, the nation. Their question wasn't about the second coming. They wanted to know when He was going to swoop in and save Israel. When are these things going to happen? How will we know that you are about to deliver us? How will we know this age punctuated by Jerusalem's destruction is ending? They did not think the whole world was ending. They thought the world they knew was ending.

Much of the language in Mt 24 is very similar to apocalyptic and destructive prophecies in the Old Testament. Compare Mt 24:21 with Daniel 12:1. Daniel 12 is talking about events that were to follow the military conquest described in Daniel 11. However, it is obviously, much like our passage also foreshadowing the end of all time. It is not uncommon for these types of prophecies to have both an earthly prediction, and a spiritual one. Mt 24 is no different. Compare Mt 24:30-31 with Daniel 7:13-14 and you will see almost the exact same thing has been said before in regards to kingdom prophecies. Compare Mt. 24:31 with Zec 2:6. Read some of the prophecies in Isaiah promising punishment to Israel, and you will see similar language.

Much like the other questions asked with a poor understanding regarding the nature of His kingdom, Jesus answers them, but not in a way they likely understood accurately. This should be no surprise. We see them repeatedly not understand His answers regarding these subjects. The gospels multiple times show them asking each other, "What is He talking about?" They would ask a question regarding their understanding of an anticipated physical kingdom, and He would give an answer that applied to a spiritual kingdom. I believe that is what is going on here. He will save Israel, but not the nation they know. He will save spiritual Israel, the one talked about in Rom 9 by Paul. It will be a spiritual kingdom, not a physical one.

I think most people agree that Christ is at least foreshadowing the final coming here as well. I lean that way, but I do not think that was the primary thrust of what He was saying. As in Daniel 12, the foreshadowed even does not happen at the same time as the primary event. His commentary on timing was in regards to the destruction of Israel and coming of His kingdom.

Finally, why would the author of Matthew include this, given your interpretation is correct, if it was written near the end of the first century? Obviously, Jesus was wrong, for Jerusalem had been destroyed 20+ years prior, and most alive at the time He would have made the prediction would be dead. Would the author not hide that fact if that was what he took it to mean?

I fully admit I maybe wrong here, and I have not said this is a simple passage. Your assertion that it is a simple matter of fact passage regarding the final appearance of Jesus and the end of all creation is ludicrous. I get that people have often understood it that way, but that doesn't mean it's simple, obvious, or uncontested.

+1

FriscoKid said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Quote:

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Natural and Specific revelation....

Natural Revelation = creation.
Specific Revelation = bible

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How clear do you think the meaning and intention of those revelations are? Not to sound like a broken record, but the vast majority of people today and throughout history do not agree with you and the likelihood of them agreeing or disagreeing with you is phenomenally well predicted by the family values and geography in which they are born and raised. Doesn't it seem like how you (and all of us) view these 'revelations' are purely accidental?

Quote:

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It's easy for some non-believers to look at the world and come to the conclusion that there might be something that created this.

If there is a creator then who?

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Hell if I know. When he/she hops down from the clouds to shake my hand and walk me through it all, I'll tell you. Until then, I'll just sit here and listen to thousands of accounts of God from different religions with a confused look on my face.

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The overwhelming fast majority of people in the world believe in some kind of god/creator. I think that natural revelation is pretty clear in that regard.

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Sure. And the overwhelming vast majority of people in the world believe what they were raised to believe.

Its such an unconvincing argument to me. The proposition here is that a God that is so complicated and powerful that we cannot ever come close to understanding did something so miraculous and mindblowing that we'll never come close to comprehending how it was done. Add in the fact that God is apparently exists outside of time and causation. This is straight up ridiculous when you consider that we only have human intelligence with which to evaluate this proposition.

If there exists some type of creator God that fits this mold, its well beyond my comprehension. Maybe you are way smarter than me. Or maybe you aren't willing to accept the discouraging possibility that human logic just isn't powerful enough to deduce truth from something so far beyond our abilities to comprehend.

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Sure. And the overwhelming vast majority of people in the world believe what they were raised to believe.

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As an aside, it always cracks me up when atheists say this. Every human society ever is characterized by religious beliefs. It is a fundamental part of human nature and the default setting. People must be taught to be atheists. But for some reason atheists like to believe that religious people are brainwashed and not the other way around.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Sure. And the overwhelming vast majority of people in the world believe what they were raised to believe.

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As an aside, it always cracks me up when atheists say this. Every human society ever is characterized by religious beliefs. It is a fundamental part of human nature and the default setting. People must be taught to be atheists. But for some reason atheists like to believe that religious people are brainwashed and not the other way around.

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maybe animism is the truth?

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I think that my car will start when I leave for lunch. Why? Because it has started in the past. I can't prove for a FACT that it will start.

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Ok, so we know how cars work. We know that your car has worked in the past for a fact. We know that the laws of nature have been proven over and over again and within those laws of nature it is very possible that cars can start. There is so much evidence to back up the idea that your car will start tomorrow.

The difference in me and you (and me 15 years ago) is that you give the benefit fo the doubt to documentation you have been told is written by apostles because you already believe the miracle happened. It's not very difficult to get from there to buying into everything written in the bible to be historically true. The Gospels being historically true in your mind isn't the thing that converted you to being a believer.

If you are going to approach a historical claim properly, you have to start from a neutral point of view. You should be fully knowledgeable of the laws of nature. The claim that Jesus died, was actually dead for 3 days, then returned from the dead would be a violation of those laws. Such a wild claim should require extraordinary evidence in order to convince you of it, if you are starting from an objective standpoint.

So let's look at the claims objectively. We have documents that all we know factually about is some version of them existed as early as 50AD. We have no objective proof of who wrote them. We do know that what we call Mark is the earliest document, and we know the other Gospels copy a lot of stuff from Mark. Not like 2 separate people describing events from their point of view, but actual straight up copying.

So what factual proof do we have that people saw a resurrected Jesus? We would have to grant a lot of benefit of the doubt to anonymous people 2000 years ago in order to accept this as "good evidence".

When you ask "why would someone die for something they know didn't happened", you are mischaracterizing what we know for a fact. If they died for their belief in Christianity, that in no way proves that they saw something supernatural.

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When you ask "why would someone die for something they know didn't happened", you are mischaracterizing what we know for a fact. If they died for their belief in Christianity, that in no way proves that they saw something supernatural.

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You are right. There is no way to know for sure that they saw him. You have to take a leap of faith yourself though and assume that not a single person saw him.

I guess I look at it differently though. We have external evidence that they died for this faith. Paul told people to go verify for themselves that people witnessed the resurrected Jesus. I suppose they could have made it up. But, for what purpose? So they could suffer the same fate as Jesus? That doesn't make sense. They didn't get the whole afterlife thing until after the resurrection according to what's written in the gospel. They thought that the new kingdom was now. Why did they behave the way that they did after the death of Jesus?

There isn't a good explanation on what happened to Jesus' body. You would need a good reason for why the Roman soldiers deserted their post and allowed someone to take the body. The Romans and Jews didn't want this at all.

Maybe, but arguing the merits of different belief systems with an atheist is like arguing brisket recipes with a vegan

You are right. There is no way to know for sure that they saw him. You have to take a leap of faith yourself though and assume that not a single person saw him.

I guess I look at it differently though. We have external evidence that they died for this faith. Paul told people to go verify for themselves that people witnessed the resurrected Jesus. I suppose they could have made it up. But, for what purpose? So they could suffer the same fate as Jesus? That doesn't make sense. They didn't get the whole afterlife thing until after the resurrection according to what's written in the gospel. They thought that the new kingdom was now. Why did they behave the way that they did after the death of Jesus?

There isn't a good explanation on what happened to Jesus' body. You would need a good reason for why the Roman soldiers deserted their post and allowed someone to take the body. The Romans and Jews didn't want this at all.

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Paul told people to go verify for themselves that people witnessed the resurrected Jesus.

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Again, easy thing to say 30+ years after the fact in that time. Good luck finding them.

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I suppose they could have made it up. But, for what purpose? So they could suffer the same fate as Jesus?

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If they believed Jesus was resurrected even though they didn't see him personally, or they were fooled into thinking they saw him, they would still think they were going to heaven and saving souls.

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Why did they behave the way that they did after the death of Jesus?

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If they believed that rejecting their faith was a bad thing, it makes sense that they would not do that.

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There isn't a good explanation on what happened to Jesus' body. You would need a good reason for why the Roman soldiers deserted their post and allowed someone to take the body. The Romans and Jews didn't want this at all.

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Name a historical source not biblical or Pauline that states Jesus was buried in a tomb in the first place.

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Name a historical source not biblical or Pauline that states Jesus was buried in a tomb in the first place.

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Seriously? Where do you think Jews were buried if not in tombs?

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Sure. And the overwhelming vast majority of people in the world believe what they were raised to believe.

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As an aside, it always cracks me up when atheists say this. Every human society ever is characterized by religious beliefs. It is a fundamental part of human nature and the default setting. People must be taught to be atheists. But for some reason atheists like to believe that religious people are brainwashed and not the other way around.

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Human societies have been characterized by widely varying and mutually exclusive religions which come and go and whose 'success' depends fully on the political and geopolitical success of its members.

I think maybe superstition is the default position.

FriscoKid said:

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Name a historical source not biblical or Pauline that states Jesus was buried in a tomb in the first place.

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Seriously? Where do you think Jews were buried if not in tombs?

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Family burial plot as was also done back then, or left to rot on the cross as many were.

FriscoKid said:

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Name a historical source not biblical or Pauline that states Jesus was buried in a tomb in the first place.

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Seriously? Where do you think Jews were buried if not in tombs?

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I've read it was common practice to bury the crucified in pits.

Aggrad08 said:

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FriscoKid said:

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Name a historical source not biblical or Pauline that states Jesus was buried in a tomb in the first place.

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Seriously? Where do you think Jews were buried if not in tombs?

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I've read it was common practice to bury the crucified in pits.

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You didn't read it from a good source then.

Edit: Oh, you said crucified. Yeah that might be. Don't you think people would have quickly pointed out the claim of the tomb being completely false then?

Don't you think it odd then that Christianity has abided given that it is essentially antithetical to geopolitical and worldly success?

Give me a source that people were left to rot on crosses.

https://mercaba.org/FICHAS/upsa/crucifixion.htm

Wait, some guy writing 2000 years post-facto and citing no ancient sources is good now? I'm confused.