@Yakoska - more people knew about Elvis when he was alive than knew about Jesus when Jesus was alive - thus you expect more people to see him after. Also there a many Elvish impersonators who i'm sure would be happy to be mistaken for the king...

Well, obviously, since all 'knowledge' of whether Jesus existed or not, is in doubt these days, what you say is true. It would be fascinating to come back in 2000 years (assuming the planet is still here) and see if Elvis is remembered/become the province of myth/forgotten completely.

@ orathaic: perhaps you should read my statements again. In his letter to the Corinthians Paul writes about more than 500 witnesses on different occasions - people who have seen Jesus after His ressurection. You know what witness means do you? 'Napoleon is crowned emperor, it is true, I was there and I saw it'. 'John and Mary have been married, it's true, I was there and I saw it'. The people of the first century had the means to investigate if the Gospel Paul told them was true. If Christianity was a scam it could have been proven from the first very moment.

Perhaps because we live in a less honor based culture, we have trouble understanding this. The first followers of Christ could TESTIFY that they had seen Him. They put their honor on the line for something the Greeks called foolishness and that angered the Jews. Paul says it himself: he came to testify of a crucified saviour. That's madness, utter madness. And still, it worked...

@ Yakosa

That's curious phrase "in doubt". What knowledge, in particular do you say is "in doubt"?

about Jesus' existence that is.

As for Elvis, I'd assume that, if anyone cares, there is ample written and recorded (both in sound and video) evidence that it shouldn't be that much of a problem.

I'll have to admit ignorance of what Paul wrote in his letter, but does he name people? or is Paul's the only honor in question? Also it seems like a specious argument to say we live in a less honor based culture, when we have laws, national and ethical, that govern the majority of us, while in that time they, apparently, needed to be told not to steal, murder, etc.

For the record, I am a spiritualist, in that I believe there is more than what we can see, hear, feel, smell, taste, etc. But I don't believe in religions, they are just man's attempt to understand the incomprehensible (to us). And I believe in humankind in general, though I would never assume perfection in any member of the species.

@ Yakosa

Paul's letter, and indeed the entire New Testament, are not the only evidence of Christ's existence. There are extant writings (and quotes) by non-Christians that mention him some within twenty years of his death and ressurection. That's actually pretty impressive, how many other executed leaders of small bands in a Roman backwater state can you say the same for?

From the same time period that is.

Will feeble, old fashioned 'video' and 'audio' be available in 2000 years? That's what I mean about whether Elvis will be remembered. Most of the people in the world haven't even seen a Charlie Chaplin film, and that's not even that old. What happens if the few repositories of music and TV burn down? Get corrupted by a virus, etc.

Personally I accept that there was likely a historical figure named Jesus. Whether he was connected to a spiritual supreme being, or not, remains very much in doubt. I also don't discount the possibility that Jesus is an amalgamation, like Betty Crocker, of great men. Or even entirely fictitious.

I also believe in the phenomena where you take 20 people, whisper a message in one ear, and each passes it along, and it comes out completely differently at the end. Thus, after so many retellings, I find it difficult to accept anything in English as gospel.

That's what she said!!!!!

@Crazy, regarding Evlis: i'd assume if said written and recorded evidence was lost, nobody would have any other reason to remember Evlis, the 'king' he may have been in his time, and he lives on still in his music, but the ideas he represented were less unique, and are in my humble opinion less likely to be remembered in 2,000 year (than, say, jesus still being remembered in another 2,000 years)

@Ursa: you bring up a good point, but I'm not sure what the specifics of those testemants from ~500 people were, but i do find it moer likely they were convinced because they wanted to believe.

I do remember the story of Jesus at a party showing people the holes in his hands and the wound in his side; but it is possible to fake even that much. Because of my preconviced notions of how the Universe works I believe it is more likely that Jesus either didn't die (and was seen by 500 people his wounds having had time to heal a certain amount) or one of his followers took his place for certain staged events.

Your very useful point about honour is countered only by the fact that some people want to believe, some want to believe elvis is still alive - perhaps because it makes their lives more exciting - now-a-days we consider them crazy and would consider claims of a resurrected man crazy because we are more skeptical of claims about the supernatural.

In a world, 2,000 years ago, of many supersitious beliefs it would not have been 'crazy' to believe that Jesus was divine and had been resurrected - but as i've admitted that i'm coming to this conclusion from my belief that natural phenomina must explain the historical evidence there is really nothing you can say to convince me (and i assume the same is true of me trying to convince you otherwise)


Can we at least agree that Jesus's message of how we 'should' behave toward each other is valuable - whether he was the son of God or just an inspired guy?

@Crazy: i'm sure there are a lot of writings about other Roman backwater rebel leaders, but historians are unlikely to spend much time researching or detailing them - and people like us are unlikely to care.

That there are surviving original Roman historical documents is valuable - the power of the writing being superior to the of passing on oral traditions does not entirely overcome the difficulty of translating ancient - now nolonger spoken languages. However I imagine Latin is considerably easier to translate correctly given the amount of it and the amount of time spent studying it - thus pretty much guarenteeing the Jesus of Nazareth actually existed; but his existance, even the precise nature of hat existance isn't as important in my mind as the messaeg he tried to spread.

And we are clearly spending more time argueing about whether he existed or not than acually thinking about the message he was preaching.

God is as real as Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. In other words God is a 'handy tool' for getting Children to do what their parents tell them :-)

Question One: We've used the Rosetta Stone to decipher hieroglyphic, I've updated my Lp's and 8-tracks to CD. I think we have a chance of knowing about ELvis.

Question Two: As to him being an amagamation or entirely fictitious. I'd look at the Extra-Biblical Proof of his existence, and ask yourself why it's important to deny that he existed at all. I mean are you denying other historical figures for whose existence we have far sketchier evidence?

Here's a link (if you'd like to look at it) of some Extra-Biblical evidence for Christ's existence. One even has a non-Christian Roman trying to explain away the darkness and earthquake that happened at his crucifixion (this a quote from an earlier writer Thallus from within twenty years of the happening). If nothing else that shows that his crucifxion was an accepted fact among the Romans (the people who crucified him in the first place). As to the nature of Christ and his relitonship with God. That is largely a personal question for you.

Question 3: I believe in that phenomenon too. That is precisely why the Jews and Christians wrote things down. THe Dead Sea Scrolls put that one to rest. The oldest manuscripts that were in existence before finding the Dead Sea Scrolls were 1000 years newer than the scrolls themselves. When the Scrolls were studied they researchers found that the stories in them were 94% accurate over the span of 1000 years. They also found that the changes had to do largely with spellings.

That post being for the three questions that Yakosa posted.

@ orathaic

I agree with you that his existence is pretty much assured. I also agree that his message is of great importance. I think I'd asserted that earlier. We did get bogged down in the argument that he was a fictional character. It always seems to surface no matter how feeble it is. Oddly enough that argument itself is a myth that grows stronger with the retelling. Probably because it's so easy to assert it and leave without going into detail as to the evidence to the contrary. Also because lots of Christians are not aware of the extra-Biblical evidence.

I do think that Christ's nature is important though. As it is central to my faith.

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Top_ten_arguments_for_the_existence_of_God

Does superman98 even care about this thread anymore? I mean, the last four posts he's made all were "that's what she said." Seriously?

Regarding the topic at hand. I do believe in God and all of that, but my beliefs aren't based on some writings that were found long ago or anything like that. Anything can be written down and taken as truth in some way or another. Here's the crazy thing: we can't know whether or not God exists or Jesus existed. Hence the word faith.

I have faith that there is a God, though I do not believe many of the stories in the bible. The Earth being made in six days? Hardly. It just seems inconceivable that the Earth could form from nothing (mind you I could be wrong).

However, faith also works the other way. Atheists have faith that God doesn't exist. There really isn't a way to prove one way or the other.

While these arguments are lots of fun to read about, each person can choose to believe what they want, atheist or not, or one of the many religions out there (of which most have a similar starting point). I'm not saying that Christianity is the right religion, but it's my religion.

"I do think that Christ's nature is important though. As it is central to my faith."

I do believe people can follow the teaching of Jesus of Nazereth, (and a number of other great social revolutionaries) without sharing your faith. And while i appreciate that this thread is about the existance of God, I feel the spreading of the message of Jesus could be attempted without claiming that he was the son of God - you can claim that aswell, but i think most everyone actually already knows you believe Jesus was the Christ.

Answer one: A chance isn't certainty, hence why I'd like to come back in 2000 to see. That's my point. Not that he Will fade away, or Won't. That I don't know, and I'd like to.

Answer two: What link? I even stipulated that I personally think its more likely that he did than not. I just don't rule out other possibilities. And it's no more important to me to argue this, than any other, in my opinion, theoretical argument, say whether intelligent life exists anywhere else in the universe.

Question 3: I'd like to see a source on that 94% accurate comment.

Sorry Yakosa,

forgot to enter that link

http://www.westarkchurchofchrist.org/library/extrabiblical.htm

THe 94% accurate comment was out of Newsweek at the time of the research. As to citing it, I'll have to look in another of the threads where we discussed this. May take a minute or two.

And, just for the sake of interesting discussions, are not all the gospels, and writings of the time included? such as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene (which of course, I looked up after reading the DaVinci Code... a enjoyable piece of fiction) when its pretty likely, if Jesus existed, that she knew him pretty well.

@ Yakosa (here it is, I just copied the whole post as there were other sources as well)

Here is a quote from Time Magazine 1989 referencing the Dead Sea Scrolls:

"The scrolls have also affected Bible translations read by millions of Jews and Christians. The caves contained portions of all the books of the Old Testament except Esther, including a remarkably complete copy of Isaiah that is 1000 year older than any other survivng manuscript. besides clearing up anomalied in several verses, the scrolls have demonstrated the remarkable accuracy with which Jewish scribes preserved the Bible"

Further

"A comparison was made of the Old Testament, as transcribed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the transcription written in 900 A.D. [the second oldest manuscript]. This study revealed that the transcription in 900 A.D. was 96% consistent with with the Dead Sea Scrolls transcription, the remaining 4% being mainly mistakes in spelling." (McDowell, pg. 5).

compare this to a 1400 year old prayer in English that begins thusly:

"Fadir Uhre tu eart on heofonum, Si thi name gehaelgod...." which is commonly recited this way today "Our Father in heaven, holy is your name...."

The case for corruption of the Old Testament is far from easy to prove. In fact the evidence shows quite the opposite. It is remarkably well preserved.


I'm not sure what your actual argument was in the last post. Could you rephrase it please?

@Crazy: i'm so glad you didn't claim that the translator of the King James bible was inspired by God. :-)

I think the other arguement is that you should also take into account the writings of those people who were followers of Jesus but not accepted as Church cannon for the new testament in the 4th century.

That does fall into the New Testament and the process of Canonization, which is a different argument entirely. The Christians were undergoing a three hundred year period of persecution at the time that they were solidifying themselves as a group. Unlike in Judea, the early Christians were cut off from one another. They had works and letters, but could not share them readily.

The process of canonization, while it sounds like a conspiratorial power grab (especially in the Dan Brown books) was a way to say these books have authority as scripture and these do not. You had books like the Gospel of Nicodemus which was entirely about the night of Jesus' trial. The problem, the author wasn't there & couldn't know about it. So, it's not Scripture, but does have a message about Jesus' divinity, and it's relatively easy to get a hold of a copy. Most of the books that went through the process are still available today. The Gospel of Mary, as Yakosa suggested, is still in existence among many others.

Well, gotta go grade papers, now. Ya'll have fun.

yo if god doesnt interfere on a day to day bases then why the hell would he lower himself to knock some bitch up that he created.

superman, i don't know what to think about "reality".
hardily i could have a position about reality of "god".
but i think there must be a very big miracle so that christian god can exist in any reality level