Then your understanding is flawed, hellalt. Yes, my description was simplistic, but I was just boiling it down to the essence. It's a barter system. The market sets the value of the IOU for a given service or product based on what people are willing to promise for it. But the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a near-sighted point of view. Plenty of people with little or nothing to their name have come up with an idea and turned it into a personal fortune. Take Bill Gates: He turned intellect and chutzpah into a thriving business and is now the wealthiest man in the U.S. He wasn't rich at the start, but now he is.

@ Trentonp sure

I'd suggest that we start with evidence that Jesus Christ, himself, existed. I have encountered a few who doubt this and it seems as good a spot of origin as any. I think that we'd both agree if he didn't exist then he couldn't have been resurrected?

My evidence for Christ's existence is as follows:

Biblical sources: The entire New Testament, especially the four Gospels. THey are important in that they reveal as much about Jesus Christ as we have about other ancient figures such as Alexander the Great. No written works by either figure are existent, but we do have testimony by those who knew them. I understand that the New Testament sources will be seen as biased by most. Christ was not only mentioned in the New Testament though.


Extra-Biblical sources:

Flavius Josephus (Jewish historian born 37AD)
"Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.

"He was (the) Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Antiquities, XVIII, III).

This is a contested work because of the reference to Jesus as the Christ, and that he was resurrected. It does stand as an extra-Biblical mention of Christ's existence by a non-Christian within the generation after he was crucified. Josephus was not a witness to the fact, but had access to eye-witnesses.

Senator Cornelius Tacitus (112 A.D.) mentions Jesus Christ’s existence in his work and confirms the existence of Christians in Rome within a century of Christ’s death in his work "Annals".

Julius Africanus (writing about 221A.D.) quotes an earlier source (Thallus writing at around 52AD) that tries to explain away the darkness that came after Jesus was crucified:

"Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away the darkness as an eclipse of the sun--unreasonably, as it seems to me."

Basically, we have as much information from various sources as we have on any ancient figure. I think there is no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus Christ. We have sources mentioning him as early as 30 years after his death

That's only because one of the rules is that there is an exception for every rule.
For every Bill Gates there are a thousand persons that were smarter or more talented but died without a penny in their hands.
Capitalism secures that if you are born the child of a millionaire, you will become a millionaire too.

Btw Draugnar aren't you a little old to still have illusions about the American dream?

@Draug: yeah, and currency definitely facilitates the helping of other people in a 'fair' way (ie one which people feel like they will get back what they put in - a fancy IOU which you trust other people will redeem - so a fancy 'Someone Owes You' - of course limiting inflation/deflation is really important of this currency thing doesn't give you back what you put in... )

"That would be a rather naive approach to Capitalism.
My sad experience of it says that capital goes to capital, meaning that the rich get richer and the poor poorer."

Yeah well humans tend to behave in strange way which makes economics on of the most complex and misunderstood fields of human understanding. I don't think i can simply be summed up as 'capital goes to capital'. But even without capital you can get a flow of money by offering to do something valuable for someone else... (the inflation or accumulation of capital doesn't seem useful in my simplest of systems, but in practice investment ideas can mean they grow and change the world, and liberating the value locking in your home - a capital asset - can allow you to change the scale of your operations... theoretically capitalism is a really good system for (while limited inflation) enhancing the production power of a society, and thus benifit it's members... in theory)

@hellalt

Resorting to ad-hominem tactics against the Almighty, an individual of your education? tsk-tsk

I think there is only one possibility I would be able to believe in God.
I would definitively believe in God if I was born in an Islamic country.
Religion means revolutionary politics to them.
That would probably motivate me enough to believe in the milk and honey fairy tale.

Still a note of derision for those who disagree. Certainly your choice on belief in God. Yet being outright insulting proves nothing about the validity of your own beliefs, eh? Are there no deeper convictions other than the notion that the works of such people as St. Thomas Aquinas have been given no more thought than the author of Little Red Riding Hood? Fairy Tales and religion are two very different things.

**rather it seems you have a note of derision for those who disagree (milk and honey fairy tale). and it's certainly your choice as to what to believe. You need have no reason for it at all.** I posted too swiftly, sorry for the ambiguity.

@ Draugnar-"things are happening and you just haven't noticed them. Your balls are being stretched while your wanger gets less "funtional". your hair is slowly dying to either turn grey or fall out and, while you may not have noticed it yet, your hearing and eyesight are failing, your skin is wrinkling, and you memory is fading. Eventually, you heart will beat it's last beat and your lungs draw their last breath. Then you will realize that the higher power has "struck your ass with lightening" in a proverbial way."
HAHAHAHAHA, it may not be true but it's still funny! The irony is that all of us will die, and when we do die we won't realize a fucking thing. and do you know why? the answer is that we will be dead, and when you are dead, it's lights out, good bye, that' all she wrote. sorry you spend your entire life living by an illusion, of course your bet is the safest because once dead, you will lack the consciousness to realize that you have been lied to and hence you won't have any emotion over the matter. way to take the safe road, get some balls. I'd much rather live in Hell if there is a God than pussy out like everyone else...

@ Parallelopiped, your recap of my ideas was spot on btw. thanks for clearing that up for everyone, and sorry to all believers on that last comment, it was a bit too harsh maybe

I agree with Hellalt, btw. Religion can be very similar to fairy tales in many aspects. It's not very revolutionary as far as story-telling goes. It is so near-sighted and myopic as to follow the simple, almost pithy beginning middle end flow of most stories. Not everything has to begin or end, you know. It's all a matter of interpretation, and I think religious people make too many assumptions, ergo their interpretations of assumptious are almost laughable, but I digress...

@ottovanbis - "I'd much rather live in Hell if there is a God than pussy out like everyone else..."

I'd much rather live in Heaven - if there is a God, than live without hope for a future beyond this mortal coil.

I'd much rather live my life here on earth rather than worrying about an afterlife which does not exist.

But that's the beauty of it. I don't worry at all. Instead I enjoy my life - work life, home life, social life - and know in my heart that when the day comes I have nothing to fear. Either I will just be no more or I will be in paradise. Non-believers of at least *some* faith (true ahtiests) will always wonder what if - what if they are wrong in the end, what will become of them.

Not me. I know exactly what will become of me. Blackness. Death. The End. On dying I will cease to be conscious. That's it. Game over.

So, no doubts at all? Must be nice to be that certain...

Well, basically I am sufficiently certain that there is no afterlife, because the idea is so absurd, that it's not worth worrying about. If I was going to worry about something as ridiculously unlikely as eternal life, I would also have to devote time to worrying about what would happen if it turned out everything in The Matrix films was true, for example. Do you spend a lot of time worrying about that?

there are a hundred million thing i could worry about, but whether i'm wrong about there being no afterlife doesn't figure into it.

I'm not uncertain, but in the case of me being wrong, if perchance there is an omniscient benevolant god then i doubt i would be sent to hell for living the best life i can; because you (christ and his followers) claimed benevolant in the attributes you attribute God with.

There are much better thing for me to spend my limited worry thinking about. - is it odd that both of us seem to think there is no downside to our own beliefs?

and yeah, as Jamie said Matrix, and if you woke up from the matrix would you then have to worry about whether the world you woke up to was real?

Actually, I often wonder if I'm the only thing that is real. Everything I perceive, I perceive through my 5 primary senses. As Zhuangzhi once said: "Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."

@ Draugnar: That's a very poetic quote. I really like it.

However, in practical terms you can be pretty sure that you are not the only thing that is real. I know you're a bit of a deviant, but would your imagination really be so twisted as to come up with people like me, Sicarus, rlumley and The_Master_Whatever?

maybe it's just you and a God who is creating all this other stuff to entertain you.... now that would be hubris if ever i smelt it.

I think if God exists, but has nothing better to do than attempt to amuse Draugnar, he's not really worth worshipping.

But, maybe God calls himself "I Am" because I am actually God and I am amusing myself by pretending to be finite and limited in vision and capabilities.

Hmmmm how very Zen. Ah well, not my philosophy so I'm back to my earlier points. So does anyone dispute that Christ existed given the evidence that I cited?

......and Hey otto! You're back! So what is your take on the Resurrection? While I'm warming up to the evidence in support of it, I'd like to hear your argument against it. Anyone else is welcome to chime in for that matter.

As to the possibility of an afterlife, I'd echo Draugnar. I'm not particularly worried about it. I see three possibilities and have prepared for all three to the best of my ability.

A) It is just as Christ promised it to be, and his blood is sufficient to gain me access.
B) It doesn't exist and I'll not have any knowldge of missing out on anything (the only thing I'd miss is the opportunity to go out an sin throguthout my life, but that's not really all it's cracked up to be anyway. No big loss there)
C) Some other religion is right and I'm destined to start all over again, or endure their afterlife (Well, there are no guarentees, I place my faith in where it seems most reasonable to place it and hope that an omnipotent God would understand my attempts to do right within my limited context).

Beyond that no worries.

As to the implied assertion that living in the hope of an afterlife somehow causes CHristians (and others) to hold back and not live life to the fullest. Do we really want to go there? Tons of anecdotes of people who have lived fully and been Christian? There are happy and fullfilled people on both sides of the fence I'm sure.

@ottovanbis - "I'd much rather live in Hell if there is a God than pussy out like everyone else..."

I'm actually wondering how many broken bones on the playground are a result of a very similar line of reasoning.

I don't believe in a soul, therefore I find resurrection hard to wrap my mind around. As interesting as it is, just as the God idea, I do not believe in it. @ Crazy Anglican: Obviously I'm willing to break some bones to take the hard route here. No guts no glory. I guess I'm not a 100% atheist. I'm an agnostic that is about 99.99999% sure there is no God. And I'm Irish, so my luck with those odds make me feel comfortable that I will not have to suffer the wrath of such a wonderful God in the pits of Hell. I'm sure Christians are happier on average. Belief is necessary for survival, surprised that's not taught in Biology, maybe in Psyche though, don't know. Anyone care to comment on this.