Dear David,

You speak about "indoctrination," of children.
You sound like Richard Dawkins.

I don't agree with that concept. Children grow
up into adults with minds of their own and
make their own decisions as adults.
Each of us goes through transitions and
transformations in life. I'm no pundit. I have only
my own life experiences to go on. We all have obstacles
to overcome in life, but I doubt very much that unless
we are feeble-minded - that we accept wholeheartedly
in its entirety everything that our
parents, teachers, or religious leaders tell us. I don't
know any complacent congregants. The people I know -
question everything. Many turned away from organised
religion (my husband is one - he was raised by the
Christian Brothers). However, many have also come back -
because like me they found that life without a conscious
awareness of God was difficult.

I feel that organised religious institutions are in for a
huge transformation, for the simple reason that people
have become genuinely religious in spite of them.

Dear AJ Philips,

Thank You for sharing your thougts. As I've written in
the past I don't have the answers to the big questions
in life. I'm still on my own road to discovery.
But everything is relative; everything has its story; and
everyone has obstacles to overcome. They are our greatest
teachers.

Just wanting to be on page 21 on the 21/12/2012

Phew it didn't happen, or I'm early...

And another M Xmyth to the atheiths. :)

David,

<<The reason for the controversy on this part of history is that the evidence for the existence of the NT Jesus is very scant. If the NT Jesus existed, the highest probability is that he was ineffectual as being an ‘anybody’ when alive. If the purported miracles and wonders were real and had actually happened, contemporary historians would have recorded them. They did not. There is not one iota of credible ex-biblical evidence suggesting that the NT Jesus was divine.>>

These are your assertions that seem to be based on your presuppositions. You provided not one example to support your claim.

<<He was not known in his time because he was just one of the run of the mill 'messiahs'. Dime a dozen would be an adequate expression.>>

This is no more than David's assertion. Do you think that I'm going to be persuaded by that lack of evidence by you?

<<Holy books cannot be trusted to be truthful or otherwise all holy books would have to be accepted>>.

So says David.

<<Arguments for divinity or miraculous happenings based on the bible are as good as arguments base on the Koran or other holy books. They are not accepted by professional non-partisan historians.>>

Again, so says David.

You have as much chance of persuading me of your arguments as a Toyota salesman telling me of the benefits of a Ford car.

Lexi,

I am not a practising member of any faith, atheism included (Poirot's criticisms are relevant). However I was quite taken by Caroline Jones' description of her spirituality and the support and solace her faith has been to her. Maybe it is of interest to you too, see here,

http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s809804.htm

Live and let live is a good motto. As a community volunteer I am continually bumping into volunteers from local church congregations. Many do much more than I do. I have never heard of any trying to convert anyone and none expect thanks. What people believe in doesn't matter where they care for others and show it through their attitude and behaviour. I frequently witness the worth of faith and prayer to the faithful among the people we help.

I repeat that I see no call for crass insults directed at the beliefs of fellow Australians. Focusing on one of their significant days of of observance to provoke them is childish and grubby.

The Christians have come out of it well, as have the members of other religions who could have responded but didn't. They have all turned the other cheek. They did not respond in kind. Good for them!

Merry Christmas.

sononfgloin,

I do have a name, please use it if you wish to converse with me.

You may but I have no wish to authenticate or not the existence of the New Testament Jesus. It is unimportant. The total absence of evidence for divinity is the main game here as I explained in my last post and which I will not repeat. If he existed as a ‘nobody’ with no ex-biblical miracles reported, it goes against the divinity claim. Obviously!

You should really do you own history reading because noticeably you haven’t a clue about Josephus and the ‘Antiquities of the Jews’. I have two quite-old copies.

Josephus was not alive at the time of Jesus and wrote ‘Antiquities’ half a dozen decades later. He worked on hearsay.

The passage to which you refer is known as, ‘The Testimonium Flavianum and the consensus of history by credible scholars is that parts or all of it are an interpolation by fourth century Eusebius of Caesarea with him being the first person to actually report the passage. Eusebius lived at the time of Constantine and has a reputation amongst scholars as being a forger. This is backed up by an early church father,Origen, who was trying to win over converts to Christianity in the second or third century CE. Origen could have had a very convincing story to tell if he merely showed the to-be converts the passage as is. He never did even though it is reported he may have known of it. If he did know of it, therefore it must have been in a form then that was not convincing enough.

But as I say, I am not going to argue about it. Leave it to the scholars.

Let me help you with the burden of proof that has been done to death on this forum and everywhere else. If you are stating there is a creator-god, prove it. I'm waiting. And let me save you some trouble. If that could be proved, there would be one god and one religion and everyone would be convinced.

David

David,

<<Josephus was not alive at the time of Jesus and wrote ‘Antiquities’ half a dozen decades later. He worked on hearsay.

The passage to which you refer is known as, ‘The Testimonium Flavianum and the consensus of history by credible scholars is that parts or all of it are an interpolation by fourth century Eusebius of Caesarea with him being the first person to actually report the passage. Eusebius lived at the time of Constantine and has a reputation amongst scholars as being a forger. This is backed up by an early church father,Origen, who was trying to win over converts to Christianity in the second or third century CE. Origen could have had a very convincing story to tell if he merely showed the to-be converts the passage as is. He never did even though it is reported he may have known of it. If he did know of it, therefore it must have been in a form then that was not convincing enough.>>

You have a bad habit of telling us information about various figures from church history and then do not give your sources. You have done that in this citation regarding Josephus, Eusebius and Origen. But you provide not one piece of documentation. What you say could be true, but when you don't document it, I'm left to believe that it is out of the mind of your presuppositions.

By the way, most historians that I read, live AFTER the events which they document. This is so with Josephus. I have his 'Complete Works' (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregal Publications 1960)

However, there are historians who were alive at the time of Jesus who have recorded some of the historical events in the life of Jesus, but you won't believe them. They are called the Gospels of the New Testament. Craig Blomberg has written, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press 1987), but you don't seem to be open to listen to the historical criteria used by Blomberg to support the historical reliability of any document, including the four New Testament Gospels.