@Parallelopiped - nice one ;-)

@dexter morgan - I agree with your conclusions, however your premise seems, inadvertently, to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) that science is capable of answering the same questions that religion does.

From a scientific perspective I completely agree with everything you have said, but science really only deals with the physical realm. Try as we may we can't even begin to understand how the synapses in out brain lead to conscious thought and observation. There is something completely unique about each of our individual interactions with the world around us, and this "consciousness" raises many questions about itself to those who are conscious. Most of these revolve around purpose, and what happens to our being when our bodies pass away. These are questions that are built in to the human psyche and science simply isn't capable of dealing with them.

This is where religion came in, it filled a void created by those questions. Now you can easily reject religious questions as "pure speculation", and really you aren't wrong. But people who are religious (and I suppose I mean spiritual) feel a connection to their beliefs that isn't easily explained or reasoned. It simply is. Now you can choose to subscribe to this or not, but at the end of the day everybody has their own way to answer questions brought up by our existence and as of yet we haven't figured out a way of determining their correctness (and I suppose we never will).

People underestimate the agility of camels

agreed, they can be quite quick and messy too

llopiped, you have made a false duality of the issue, that is where your logic is flawed

"@Crazy Anglican, In some ways, the church is timeless... by design no doubt... it can talk about salvation and mercy and eternal life and love and faith and never go out of style (because those ideas never go out of style). It can use a story from 2000 years ago that can't be disproved (if one assumes miracles [temporary violations of physical laws] can happen) - and yet is outside enough of the everyday world (you don't see miracles everyday... or probably ever) that you are entering a sort of club... The fact that there are miracles in the story - even though they are less likely in a typical real sense than the general outline of the story - they (the miracles) become a support for the divinity of the story. Santa Claus wouldn't be quite as charming a story if it involved migrant workers instead of elves and involved heavy use of UPS rather a sleigh with magic reindeer that travel impossible speeds in a night. No, in such a story, the "impossible" parts are necessary parts... they "prove" the magic of the story - even though such reasoning is circular. Anyway, I digress... I concede your point (though perhaps not in the way you meant it). I can believe that Christianity is potentially eternal - it has an engaging story that promises much (particularly things that are promised like eternal life are not available elsewhere), a great and power and mysterious group you can join, rituals you can partake, etc. Seriously, I do see its charm... perhaps it is forever. Heck, Hinduism has been around far longer than Christianity... and its stories involve more unlikely events and characters and general bizarreness than Christianity does. Maybe my premise was all wrong. Maybe its just different for some people. For me, when I hear something that violates basic physics and my everyday experience, my skepticism kicks in... for some, maybe its in their nature that when presented with something like that their faith kicks in... " This is pretty much spot on. Of course you missed the fear motivation of religion as well, but that would give your argument a different hue entirely. Christianity stole many ideas from Buddhism although not enough (look at the story of the Buddha just once and tell me that Jesus and him aren't the same people except that the Buddha came WAY before). There are many points you could have made but decided to simply stick to what I have said on the basis of personal realities and that is where I shall leave you all. I love that fact that science is never arrogant enough to stop probing questions and I admire religious people who question the system. I do not hate theists, it's more of a love-hate thing

@KaptinKool, my thought is that both science and religion tackle hows and whys... but that religion overreaches and gives "answers" to questions where it really has no information to support such "answers" or it gives the pat answers of "God did it" or "because God loves us". Because I don't think these are quality answers, then yes, I dispute the thought that religion answers more questions than science... or somehow gets deeper than science. Indeed, since science actually bases its answers on real information rather than speculation and wishing really hard (prayer + "revelation") I suggest that science actually gives us more answers. ...but I make no claim that science will ever give us the ultimate answers anymore than I claim religion has or will. As you said, determining the correctness of answers we come up with for questions of our existence is probably beyond our reach. ...for the moment we settle on those answers which feel right or are reasonable in some sense for our individual reasons.

Yes, science only deals with the physical realm (if you include psychological and sociological phenomena in there as well, that is). Being that the physical realm is the only realm we have information on that seems only reasonable. You mention consciousness... who is to say that you cannot have consciousness within the physical realm? Why create an idea of a whole another realm when the simpler answer is that consciousness is part of the realm we live in? (Occam's Razor and all that). If we could show that there was an afterlife and souls I'd be all over the idea of another realm... as it is I only see this realm. ...so, therefore, I figure consciousness is apparently a natural part of it... and it is an emergent phenomena that comes from complexity, senses and awareness. So... in other words, I'm a believer in metaphysical naturalism... and thus my view is monistic and not dualistic. Indeed, I wonder if the Buddhists have it right when they suggest that everything is alive in some sense... being that I don't see a real bright dividing line between us and other animals... and between animals and other living things... and between simple living things and complex chemical reactions... It all seems to be a matter of degree.

@ottovanbis, yes, I avoided fear... though I think that that is central. People want purpose... most everything we do is with purpose, work for profit, status for power, courtship for reproductive success, etc. The fact that our elaborate dance... our building of our empire... abruptly ends at 70 years or 100 years old or whatever, with apparently no continuation is pretty hard to stomach - for anyone - myself included. There would be much less reason for religion if we were immortal beings. Religion tries to guilt, bargain, reflect and accept our way to immortality. We are a vehicle for our DNA to transmit itself into the future... the fact that we are conscious and yet mortal, while our DNA is effectively immortal but apparently unconscious is a cruel joke... except that jokes require someone to have written the joke, don't they? I guess an accident of evolution is more what I meant. I'll do my best to enjoy the ride... indeed, to me, "knowing" that I'm mortal (or living under that assumption) gives my life urgency and poignancy that I fear it might not otherwise... so, I guess, I'm motivated by fear as well (certainly). I want to treasure my life for what it is... and I believe that speculations resulting in comforting but unsupported answers are nothing but delusions that will get in the way of my enjoyment and fullest expression of life. ...but to each his own.

I agree with you on this, and I'm in the same boat, I refuse to have my reason diluted with such base emotional manipulations. That is not to say that emotion is bad, it is in fact human. I'm just in it for the ride as well, may yours be as bumpless and awesome as possible. Cheers!

Ugh fell asleep today and have way too much to respond to. Can't resist this one though.

@ otto (again with the pet project that Christ is Bhudda?) We've have been through this. I presented the evidence for a historical Jesus and you left it with another assertion and no evidence (I thought you were big on evidence btw). Care to give us any insight or are we just to take your word for it. As I recall we left the ball in your court last time too.

Anyway here we go again I’ll take the challenge and look at Bhudda:

Siddhartha Gautama http://buddhism.about.com/od/lifeofthebuddha/a/buddhalife.htm

Jesus of Nazareth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus

Let's take a look at them side by side:

Jesus Bhudda

Virgin Birth Yes No
Mom dies in child birth No Yes
father a king Yes/ and No* Yes
heals blind, sick, lame, etc. Yes ?
early life in palace No Yes
Father shelters from religion No Yes
Compassion for suffering Yes Yes
Undergoes religious tutelage No Yes
Carpenter Yes No
Baptised Yes No
Tempted Yes Yes (aren’t we all)
Crucified Yes No
Age at Death 33 80
Resurrected Yes No
Betrayed by a disciple Yes Yes and No**
Married No*** Yes
Kids 0*** 1
Prophesied to be either king/holy man Yes (sort of) Yes (explicit at birth)
Persecuted by governmental religious est. Yes No
Wise, holy men visit at birth ?3? 8

• *Earthly father for one heavenly father for the other, if we go with earthly fathers Jesus was the son of a carpenter.
• ** Bhudda was accidentally poisoned by a disciple; Jesus was intentionally betrayed by a disciple.
• *** Are we really going the Dan Brown route here?
Twenty randomly selected points from the respective stories:
Analysis
conclusively similar elements 3 (15%)
inconclusive elements 4 (20%)
unknown by me 1 (5%)
conclusively dissimilar elements 13 (60%)

That’s even giving you the Dan Brown suppositions that are decidedly not parts of the Christian narrative of Christ’s life. The supposition that Bhudda and Christ are the same is not convincing at all from what I can tell.

You're wrong on virgin birth for buddha. they both cured the blind lame and sick, there is no question mark for that. some of your points of comparison have nothing to do with theology and are used to pad your stats (the so called consclusively dissimilar elements) wise, holy men visit at birth really?? how bout the fact that they are simply both visited by holy men at their birth and that coming out of the womb they are both absolutely divine, buddha walks on lotus pebbles, jesus is just the perfect little baby that doesn't cry and talks at an early age (Cf Buddha). Carpenter? really? seems trivial to me for the most part. i'll give you baptism. You don't know Jesus didn't have children by the way... The Christian narrative of Christ's life is incredibly biased to make Jesus look like something special, say the son of god, which he most certainly was not. he was an ordinary human being. so was buddha, the difference is that the buddha was a loner and jesus was a stoner. there are many obvious parallels here, and you fail to avert my gaze from the obvious fact that Christ's story in terms of its divine elements are borrowed mostly from ancient Asian tradition. not good enough

@otto, cheers to you as well!
@Crazy Anglican, an amusing comparison (Buddha vs Jesus)... points for the effort. I remain neutral on the topic, though. I do understand that a number of biblical stories (e.g. Genesis, at least in part) are borrowed from older traditions but I'm not educated enough on the details to comment beyond that. The biggest revisionism associated with Jesus (that I know of) was fitting his life into Jewish prophecy... example: born in Bethlehem, but supposedly of Nazareth (because that is what the prophesy foretold... "supported" by a story of a census and tax that required a mass migration - contrary to any Roman or Jewish account of such censuses)

I am Robert and I come from my Mummy's belly

@Shafto - lol

@ otto

Again (must be my arrogance) but it seems you're long on opinion and short on citations to back them up.

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/558-is-the-virgin-birth-of-jesus-grounded-in-paganism

Virgin Birth (if you can call it that) was not similar in any way:

You're really suggesting that the same story that has Gautama emerging anywhere from his mother's armpit to merely her side is indication that the idea was borrowed? THe six tusked elephant entering her in a vision?

"You don't know Jesus didn't have children by the way... The Christian narrative of Christ's life is incredibly biased to make Jesus look like something special, say the son of god, which he most certainly was not. he was an ordinary human being. "

If we're talking about the two narratives and their fitting into two different World religions, then yes I do. It's the narratives that you suggested were borrowed. Clearly they aren't.

"and you fail to avert my gaze from the obvious fact that Christ's story in terms of its divine elements are borrowed mostly from ancient Asian tradition. not good enough "

So now it's the only the "divine elements" that were borrowed? You're retreating again?

Bhudda walks on Lotus petals and Jesus doesn't cry. That doesn't really sound that similar.


It still goes to about 70% inconclusive, misleading and outright dissimliar to about 30% similar.

When we look at it they're both compassionate, healers, had people visit them at their birth (not too much of a stretch as one of them actually was the son of a physical king).

Otherwise the crucifixion, resurrection (wouldn't that be a divine element borrowed from Bhudda?), Baptism, John the Baptist as a forshadowing of his preaching, John the Baptist jumping in his mother's womb at Mary's (and Christ's) proximity, the role of the Sanhedrin, betrayal, trial, scourging, (these aren't trivial events in the Life of Christ btw), the fact that Christ was always seen as a teacher and well learned while Bhudda was a student first. These are all elements that don't back up your notion at all. The list goes on, but I'm still offering you the opportunity to back up the assertion. What actual evidence do you have?

One further comment regarding similarities of Buddha and Jesus... seems to me that certain similarities are bound to occur and such similarities may have nothing to do with the Jesus story being a supposed copy... seems to me that certain themes (divinity, miracles, healing) could reasonably be expected in such a story... either in a fabricated story intended to create a myth... or in a real story of a real miracle person... either case, you would expect to see certain things claimed. This sort of similarity in story does not impress me by itself... any more than tales of honesty or strength or wisdom associated with George Washington or Abe Lincoln, etc. tells me anything. These were great men - of course they will: 1) be more likely to do great things, 2) be more likely to have great (but made up) things attributed to them. It would also be possible that one story could inspire made up aspects of the later story... but it seems you could have quite a few similarities independently arrived at.

There have been quitea few comments since I was last in, so I will start by addressing just one - namely the belief that Jesus is the Son of God. Ottovanbis - you stated that this is unreasonable from the outset. I would disagree with you on this. Two sections:

First, things that are objectively true in the present:
1. Two billion other people believe this right now.
2. For the past two thousand years, a large portion of humanity has believed this to be true as a result of the personal account of a number of eye witnesses.

Second, if you examine the lives of the apostles (and disciples) and what they experienced, it would frankly have been unreasonable for them to not believe that Christ was the Son of God. They witnessed Him perform a number of miracles, saw the power and truth of His teaching, and finally, saw him both die, and a few days later, saw Him again, only not dead. Now, if someone actually witnessed this, it would be unreasonable for them to conclude that Christ was a "normal" person. Rather, it is more likely that He was who He said he was, I am who am.

Now, it could easily be argued that all of this was concocted by a bunch of people to get themselves positions of power, but why on earth would anyone want to sign themselves up for a leadership position that almost assured them of an early and painful death if they did not actually believe that what they witnessed was true? I would argue that no one would do that, and as a result, Christianity both endured and grew.


Also, I will once again state that reason and empiricism are not the same thing, and to think so greatly limits your ability to reason. On the particular topic of Christ's divinity, I will first state that it is perfectly reasonable that there is a God and frankly the existence of God is a lot better explanation for existence than anything that has come out of science (another question - what made the big bang go bang or for that matter, how did all the matter get there in the first place?). From this, there is no reason why God could not have a Son that took on human flesh (in particular given the extremely strong evidence for Christ's existence). Also, as far as religion never growing and seeking additional truth, that is also patently false. Within the Catholic tradition in particular, there has always been a search for truth and attempts to use reason to better understand that truth (I would cite St. Thomas Aquinas as an example, though even the current papal encyclicals would attest to this).

Finally, you state that "The best one can do is to start with what can be observed and experimented." Can you acutally show this to be true? This is philosophical statement that presuposes an awful lot. For instance, I think David Hume would question whether or not you can really even believe what you observe. Since we know we can not truly observe anything (just that which it emits/reflects/etc.) so our own knowledge is limited in this capacity. Second, as an example, if I were to state that eugenics is wrong (a statement with which I assume you would agree), how can you prove that empirically? I would actually argue that if you took a purely Darwinian stance (which is what eugenics sprung from incidentally), then eugenics is good because it improves humanity by accelerating our evolution. However, as a society we firmly reject it, even though "empirically" it should produce good results. The reason we reject it is that we place an intrinsic value on human life that has nothing to do with observable evidence, but rather the Natural Law / Divine Law (which is not empirical).

@ dexter

Seems like you're losing your neutrality on the issue? Btw I'm not specifically ignoring your posts from earlier, it's just a failing of mine to debunk the "myths" proposed by the atheist's perspective. I love the irony; who said I'm not a skeptic? ;-)

@ otto

As for the healing the lame, blind, bringing the dead back to life? Here's an interesting article by a Bhuddist who sees some similarity between Jesus and Bhudda, but doesn't attest that Jesus was a copy as you seem to.

Quote from Indra Sen
http://www.buddhistdoor.com/journal/issue009-05features4.html

"However, unlike Jesus, the Buddha did not heal people directly. He did not bring people back to life, heal leprosy, give sight to the blind—the Buddha healed people through his teachings, especially teaching people the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. If followed correctly, the Eightfold Path allows one to achieve nirvana. The Buddha also stated that "Charity, knowledge and virtue are possessions that cannot be lost.”[3] Jesus healed and gave his teachings. The story of a woman with a lost son best exemplifies differences between Jesus and the Buddha. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus brought back to life a young girl. Once a crying woman came to the Buddha and asked him to bring her dead baby son back to life. The Buddha agreed to, but only if the women first brought back a mustard seed. The mustard seed had to come from a home that had not seen any death. The women searched long and hard, but what she found was people who had lost their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and friends. The young women then realized that life was impermanent, and that everyone must face suffering. Jesus probably would have agreed with this, as he said that those who are happy will one day feel sad, those who are well fed will one day feel hungry. But in many cases, Jesus used his god-given powers to undo the pain inflicted on many people."

Clearly Bhudda did not heal in the same way that Christ did. This seems to be another "divine element" that wasn't borrowed from Bhuddism. Your notion seems to be getting weaker, are you going to bring some evidence to the party?

nola2172 said: "as an example, if I were to state that eugenics is wrong (a statement with which I assume you would agree), how can you prove that empirically? I would actually argue that if you took a purely Darwinian stance (which is what eugenics sprung from incidentally), then eugenics is good because it improves humanity by accelerating our evolution. However, as a society we firmly reject it, even though "empirically" it should produce good results."

I responded to this in more depth somewhere (probably early in this thread) but here is the short of it: Eugenics is not natural selection... it is Intelligent Design, with humans (admittedly very flawed beings) as the designers. A very bad idea... and not true to natural selection. Eugenics sprung from a flawed idea of improving the gene pool... and any intentional cropping out of people based on some attribute would no doubt eliminate other attributes that are favorable. Unintended consequences, and all that. I gave as an example, the sickle cell gene... which gives advantage to its carriers (in tropical climates) by giving them significant resistance to malaria. ...and of course, there are ethical concerns... and atheists don't need a book to tell them that anti-social and murderous behavior is a bad thing for a society and is simply distasteful and ugly (no one does). Some values are pretty much universal - and are not specific to a religion or a culture. It's just sensible social, compassionate behavior. There are plenty of studies to show empirically the value of such things in a group.

@Crazy Anglican, I'm sorry... you've lost me.

@Crazy Anglican, oh - I think I get it. Yes - I'm still neutral as to the validity of otto's claim... I simply expounded on how similarities in the stories, should they exist, would not by themselves prove that the story was copied. Similarities can occur for other reasons. So, I guess I'm neutral on the claim - but skeptical due to the lack of proof presented.

Did you read the bhudistdoor essay? The entirety is pretty interesting.

Lack of proof on which side, I thought I'd at least fulfilled my part of the argument?

I guess where I'm going is if the two stories aren't really that similar than we can reasonably conclude that one wasn't a copy of the other. I'm assuming that otto at some point will retreat to word of mouth transferral and how unreliable it is, but using that reasoning "Beowulf" might just as well be a retelling of "Gilgamesh". It's entirely unlikely, but nonetheless theoretically possible even though there seems to be no real reason to believe it. (Heard that one before?)

@Otto - I assume by false duality you are attempting to argue against my premise that either God exists or he doesn't. I'd be interested in hearing your reasoning - presumably you have a third option. If you meant something else then I think you need to be clearer in your attempts to argue - as Crazy said you seem to be long on opinion and short on justification.

nola2172 said

"I will first state that it is perfectly reasonable that there is a God and frankly the existence of God is a lot better explanation for existence than anything that has come out of science (another question - what made the big bang go bang or for that matter, how did all the matter get there in the first place?)."

So who or what created God? Is there a good answer to this. Otherwise, you replace one entity of unknown origin (the Universe) with another (God).

@Otto "The Christian narrative of Christ's life is incredibly biased to make Jesus look like something special, say the son of god, which he most certainly was not"
Do you have any evidence to back up this bald assertion?

Pete U - You could argue that (as you have), but while matter and energy are bound by the constraints of matter and energy by things like physical laws, time, etc., it is not necessary that God is so bound. In other words, it is necessary that the universe had a beginning, and there has actually been scientific study of a repeated expansion/collapse that concluded that if this were to repeat, then over time the "energy" would more or less start to run out and the universe would eventually "end" (and if it could end, it must also have been able to start somehow).

It is not necessary, however, that God had a beginning because it is not necessary that He be bound by time or that his existence is of a material nature. Time is, for the most part, just another dimension that we move through without any real control (though if we speed ourselves up a lot, then time slows), but it is not necessary for God to be bound in this way if he is supernatural (in the literal sense, i.e. "above" or "outside" of nature).

Since the topic is at hand, I am also going to propose a different (and I believe correct) way of looking at God is not as a being, but as being itself, while we are all beings created by Him (and held in existence by Him). If you would like a far more thorough explanation on the nature of God than I am able to give, please go here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm

nola2172 so god is not a being, but being itself, that sounds like a definition game which treads very close to atheism. The universe exists - no argument there from me and I am an atheist. The universe is God - well if that's how you define God then I don't have an argument with that either, yet I am still an atheist. Where have I gone wrong?

Perhaps I should expand on my point. What properties does God have (according to your definition) that the universe lacks?

@nola - So you answer the question by the 'Aha, but God is special' argument. To support that, you would need some evidence...