Just quickly:

Thank you to Oliver & AJ Phillips for your kind supportive words.

To Dan S de M

Your comment: "Maybe you have a sneaking suspicion that there is something more real and substantial behind the nonsense (theology)."

No. I don't. I am a wannabe anthropologist, would love to have the luxury of returning to Uni to study; humans are just so darn amazing.

Nice try. And I agree with Davidf that your take on the OT & NT is very literal. No matter how cleverly you dress your responses, you still don't comprehend the basics of evolution, let alone physics. These theories are considered proven, not only from evidence, but because they work; modern medicine, agriculture or space flight and the internet, to name a few, they are the result of our understanding of biological evolution and physics in action.

Dear Severin and david f.,

Yes. It is hard to accept scripture as literal because of the re-writes (david f). They all cannot differ and be literally try at the same time. There may have been a need for a re-write of the OT, as an implication of the Julian calendar on OT Jubilees.

Dear Dan,

The Bible is almost certainly a collection of selected works. There seem to a political motive to use religion as unifier and punisher of *dissidents.

H.G. Wells notes:

"A very important thing for us to note is the role played by the emperor in the fixation of Chistianity. Not only was the council of Nicaea assembled by Constantine the Great, but all the great councils, the two at Constnatinope (381 and 553), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), wre called together by imperical power."

Not all gospels leading into this period would have accepted Jesus as divine. Those that didn't were dropped. Also, there was some accommodation of Mithras and Serapis.

Jesus, "the Son of Man", in contrast, seems to have tried to establish the Kingdom of Heaven (as based the limited source of the Scriptures), not the Holy Roman Church/Empire.

*Of pagans whom remained loyal to their old beliefs.

from/aj's link..<<a historian/today..who writes about the life of George Washington..can not serve/as an eyewitness,..but he can provide citations to documents/which give personal or eyewitness accounts.>>

well golly=gee/gosh...aj...guess what
the books/of the new testiment...provide...lol

as much as i hate/links..so bulky and biased..

[where the person quoting...'it'..cannot/even..point
SPECIFICLY...at certain points..within..it]..is so typical..in debaits/destractions..such as this..

[where they..CANT EVEN/..BE BOTHERD..explaining..thier..miss-belief's]..
thus referance..a bulky link/..
that/they most-likely..never have read/..EITHER

but read on...quote..<<Most of the other/claimed gospel writings..were burned,..destroyed,..or lost."..[Romer]>>

no doudt some/rewrites might have also re-written..
or deleted him/or mention of him.. from the...'other'/records...
such is the lengths..some who hate/fear..jesus/love..will stoop to

but/read on..<<none/of the original..gospel-manuscripts..exist;..we only have/copies of copies.>>how pathetic...its not like we have the origonals..of many of the famed non/biblical-texts..either..

the list of lost works is extensive/be they religious..or whatever[how much of shakespeare..is in his hand?]

then they have the gall./..to quote biblical scolars..as their source...lol...<<The consensus/of many biblical-historians..put the dating..of the earliest Gospel,>>[one sixth/of the way.through the ramble..and still NUTHIN..!]

<<No apostle/would have announced..his own sainthood..before the Church's establishment..of sainthood>>>yes it also wernt written in english...

how pathetic..this point-scoring destraction...!
bnut press-on...<<But/one...need not/refer to scholars..>>>lol..<<to determine/the lack of evidence/for authorship.>>>the proof is the use of saints...lol...how despirit..the faithless are...!

<<As an experiment,/imagine the Gospels/without their titles..See if you can find out/from the texts who wrote them;..try to find their names.>>>what...THIS IS YOUR EVI-dense...im over this redirection of yours...just cause you THINK..you were decieved...is no excuse..not to TRY to explain...your CHOSEN..disbelief

the question was/if i recall..WHY DID YOU>>!
....turn from belief...into athiest...i think you were born one..only trying to gain some cred..by claiming you HAD creed...

i see no evidence..of either YOUR/reason..for ridiculing..your CLAIMED/FORMER...lol..belief

nor proof of the faulsifyables...
of evolution...OUT OF GENUS...!

this seems a fact-free zone
of spin/spinning beliefs..not fact

i for one have..BETTER_STUFF/TO BE READING..
THAN THE DRIVEL...AT YOUR LINK..!

Dear david f,

Sorry, I know practically nothing about ancient mathematics or the Pythagoras’ philosophy, who would be one - in my mind - who could consider at all the “existence” of the largest number. I did not even know that Apolonius and Archimedes thought of numbers larger than 10^8 (http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Counting.htm).

Hi Oliver,

Sorry, now I understand. You mean you might change your mind about the Sagan maxim. (those who have not made up their minds in this respect, for whatever reasons, are usually called agnostics). This has nothing to do with infallibility but with

(a) how sure you are about your opinion, or
(b) how secure you are in holding your faith or “unfaith” (rejection of this or that or all faiths).

The first is a “philosophical position” for which one indeed always should keep an open mind, amend it, broaden it, reformulate it, reinterpret its practical implications and in extreme cases also change/abandon it. It involves only the rational part of our mind. On this level you can be an agnostic.

The other involves the whole person, is a state of mind, and a change on this level means conversion or loss of faith with many psychological implications. On this level, I think, you cannot “sit on the fence”, be an agnostic, permanently (you can “have doubts” which is not a stable state of mind).

Well, at least that is how I see it

AJ Philips,

>> that was more to do with how you interpret (the Bible) than why you think it’s reliable<<
It depends on what you call reliable. Very few people think the Bible is reliable as a science, or even history, textbook, although in order to be comprehensible to our ancestors it had to touch on things that today we consider as belonging to books on science or history.

It certainly turned out to be “reliable” as an inspiration and source of ideas that (together with ancient Greece) kept, and enabled to further evolve, our Western civilisation. Seen as enabler of science and contemporary technology, this civilisation is/was unique.

>> I’ve explained why it’s rational to lose one’s faith in this process<<

And I perceived it as a mixture of rational argument, emotions and wishfull thinking (trying to rationalise your loss of faith). If I tried to give you arguments that convince me to reject Sagan’s belief, you would probably perceive it as a similar mixture. The question is about one’s basic human orientation, with its emotional, rational, and moral dimensions that cannot be that easily communicated across such fundamentally different orientations.

>>you did imply that it would be theological hair-splitting<<
The text you quoted calls “theological hair-splitting” the distinction between beliefs that God

(a) is without cause and without purpose, or
(b) is its own cause and purpose, or
(c) it does not make sense to ask for His cause or purpose. (ctd)

(ctd)
The rest of your post repeats your (mis)understanding of the Christian position. Saying it goes against reason is an affront to legions of Christian - indirectly also religious Jewish and Muslim - thinkers, philosophers, scientists etc. I agree that until recently many Christians similarly asked - and some still do - atheists to accept that not believing in God went against reason.

A more modest (and honest) position would be to find out WHY and HOW they profess things that you see as going against reason (which is not the same thing as not sharing their philosophical and religious beliefs). There are books and books written by various Christians, including those philosophically and/or scientifically qualified, explaining and defending their position. You cannot expect me to do this convincingly for you on this OLO, even if I thought I could.

Most of what I can do here is to defend my claim that unbelief in Sagan’s maxim (which, I repeat, does not imply acceptance of the tenets of this or that religious belief system) does not contradict what science has so far established about reality that Sagan claims is the only one.