Those who do not want to believe the Bible is the Word of God will stop at nothing to try and disprove the Bible (even making fools of themselves claiming that there are “contradictions” in the Bible and then using lame arguments based on vaguely similar passages that “seem” to contradict each other). Here is the latest “argument” for a contradiction in the Bible. Was Jesus contradicting Moses when He did not command the woman caught in adultery to be stoned? Let’s take a look at the Word of God and see what we can determine.
1) Moses‘ scenario says the following . . .
10 ‘If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10)
I want you to notice a few things here.
- They are caught.
- Both are to be put to death.
- There is to be no partiality.
2) Jesus‘ scenario says the following . . .
2 Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women ; what then do You say ?” 6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. 7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. 10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”] (John 8 )
I want you to notice a few things here.
- People came to Jesus to learn.
- He was ready to teach those who came to learn.
- The religious leaders came to Him too.
- They were not interested in learning.
- They just wanted to trap Him.
- The brought a woman whom they claim they “caught” in the act of adultery.
- They only brought to woman to be tried and punished.
- They did not bring the man.
- They were not seeking justice.
- They were not trying to learn anything.
- They were trying to trick Jesus and make Him look bad (like the atheists and their “contradictions” in the Bible).
- Jesus taught them a lesson even though they did not come to learn one.
- In order to uphold the Law of Moses, both participants were to be tried and put to death.
- If Jesus would have condemned her to death He would have broken the Law of Moses
- There is no contradiction here.
- Jesus actually works according to the Law of Moses by not breaking it.
- When He asked, “he who is without sin” they all left because they were all sinning in this specific situation by showing partiality and not bringing the man to be tried as well.
- Jesus took the Law of Moses one step further (He perfected It) by forgiving the woman (something that the Law could not do because It could only condemn).
As you can see, there is no contradiction here. The atheists, like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, are left with a lesson learned and should walk away with their “tales between their legs” in shame and defeat. What would be better though, instead of like the religious leaders who were proud and arrogant, the atheists should humble themselves and come to this Jesus who was able to forgive the adulteress woman. He can forgive them as well if they will humble themselves like she did. What about you, are you like the atheists and religious leaders? Do you walk away full of pride and arrogance or do you bow your knee to Jesus Christ? Know this, if you do not do it now by choice, one day you will do it by force but it will be too late for you then. Why not do it now by choice and avoid the wrath to come?
Related articles
- Free To Live For Jesus (truthinscripture.com)
- The Sermon on the Mount (Part 2) (erikbrewer.wordpress.com)
- Jesus Pardons an Adulteress (godswordforwomen.wordpress.com)
- Will everyone who calls on the name of the Lord be saved? (erikbrewer.wordpress.com)
- Adultery and Affairs of the Heart. (lettersfromdeidre.com)
- God says honor parents, Jesus says hate them (so says an atheist)) (erikbrewer.wordpress.com)
- Did Jesus baptize or not? (erikbrewer.wordpress.com)
- Has anyone ever seen God and what does that mean? (erikbrewer.wordpress.com)
Interesting fact: the passage of the woman caught in adultery was added many decades later by later authors – all biblical scholars agree on this. It was never in the original biblical text.
Actually, what Christians don’t realize is that Jesus STILL violated the Mosaic Law. You are correct about one thing, stoning ONLY the woman would have violated the Law. However, Jesus STILL violated the Law by NOT demanding that BOTH the man and woman be stoned. Jesus may have out-smarted the Jewish priests who were trying to trap him, but Jesus STILL gave an incorrect answer to their question. In order to uphold the Law, Jesus should’ve demanded that BOTH man AND woman be stoned. Jesus violated the Law by NOT stoning both the man and woman guilty of the “crime”, he let them both “off the hook”. If you delete my comment again, you are only proving that I’m correct and that Jesus DID not keep the Law perfectly.
Alrighty, then – how’s this for a new understanding re the woman caught in adultery? This trap was similar to the paying taxes one: if He said to set her free, He’d be breaking the Mosaic Law, but if He said to stone her, He’d be breaking the Roman law which didn’t allow Jews to execute people for religious reasons, at least. So, instead, He exemplifies a higher law: “Judge not, that you be not judged. . . . Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matt. 7:1, 4-5). Jesus challenges them to see that they have no business judging the adultress for something that apparently everyone of them was guilty of. He doesn’t teach them to disobey the law; He teaches them to be merciful, which is a higher law!! =)
@ JDD…
You said earlier “Roman Law didn’t allow Jews to execute people for religious reasons”. …why do you think Jesus was crucified by the Jews? It was for religious reasons (blasphemy was the main reason). So, are you saying that Pontius Pilate knowingly broke Roman Law by allowing the Jews to crucify Jesus for blasphemy? I highly doubt Pilate would put his career (and possibly his own life) on the line so the Jews could crucify one man, so something doesn’t add up in the Bible. Yes, Jesus was trying to be merciful to the woman and show the hypocracy of the Priests… but unfortunately for Jesus, he violated the Mosaic Law. He should’ved demanded that both man & woman be stoned.
@Dan,
Jews did not have authority to execute people. They had to go to Pilate for authority. In short, yes, Pilate did order Jesus crucified to satisfy the religious leaders of the region. This was a highly volatile area that was well-known for rebellions against Rome. It was for political expediency that Jesus was crucified by Pilate. Pilate had already offended the natives of Judea several times before and had associations with plotters against the Caesar. The Jews had written to Caesar before, complaining about Pilate. Had Pilate not given in to the Jews’ demands, he may well have been removed as governor if the Jews spoke out against him again. So yes, Pilate ordered Jesus crucified at the request of the religious leaders. It was in Pilate’s best interests to do so.
We have already established that Jesus did not break the Law of Moses. That Law required both participants to be put to death. They were trumped up charges. I guess you have a short memory
In short, breaking the law is EXACTLY the type of thing that the scribes and Pharisees were hoping Jesus would suggest (John 8:6a); it stands to reason, therefore, that their response would have made it perfectly obvious if He had!!
Sorry, Dan! I was in a rush and posted my addendum before I saw the responses; you guys are fast!! I believe dlegr250 explained it to you; the Jews couldn’t execute here – but, of course, the Romans could.
What about people who break the law, should they just be forgiven and let go so we can say we have shown them mercy? And when they break the law again and other people become their victims, do we just keep letting them go so that we can say we are merciful?
LOVE is the fulfillment of the law-Jesus did not ‘break’ the law by not condemning her–he showed her mercy….Roman 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Ah, but He did condemn her sin and told her to go and sin no more. I guess you missed that part or maybe it is not in YOUR version of the Bible.
Jesus’ act of mercy was commendable and admirable… but it still doesn’t hide the fact that he violated the Mosaic Law by not stoning both man & woman, which was what the Law mandates. What about the man who was stoned to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath in Numbers 15:36? Why didn’t Jesus (or God) step in and save that man from being stoned to death? God (or Jesus) was apparently unconcerned about the sinfulness of those who accused and stoned the guilty man. Why didn’t God mandate in the Old Law that only the “sinless” have the right to stone and punish people? Jesus still violated that law on adultery, whether you want to admit it or not. Most Christians are too emotionally invested in their belief to admit there are contractions in the Bible. Just like the phrase “love is blind” …a person who is “in love” will over-look the flaws in the person they love, but those flaws will be visible to an unbiased outsider. The same goes for Christians, they are too emotionally invested in their belief to recognized or admit there are problems with their religion, which are easily seen by objective outsiders.
Now you are bouncing all over the place trying to tie bits and pieces of the Bible together to prove your non-point.
First of all, the men who brought the woman to Jesus claim to have “caught her in the act of adultery”. As the old saying goes, “it takes 2 to tango”. Where was the man if they caught them in the act of adultery? They were either lying about catching them in the act of adultery or they deliberately let the man go (could have been one of their own). They were not seeking justice or the letter of the Law. They were trying to trap Jesus. They started walking away one by one because they were caught in their own tangled web of deceit and had nothing to say. Jesus forgave the woman (because the whole thing was a set up) and He told her to go and sin no more.
In the Old Testament, the people had to stone the guilty as a lesson, because each one holding a stone had to admit, “that could be me, I just have not been caught yet”. It was a good lesson to curb sin and sinful desires. Plus, all that is in the O.T. is a shadow of the things in the N.T. Sin does not just physically harm us, worse, it destroys us spiritually. In the O.T. the physical sin was punished so that the person would not destroy himself spiritually and then spread out his sin to influence others as well.
There are no contradictions on the Bible. If you have found one then please point it out. Make sure you study the passage in context also keeping in mind the historical and cultural context of the passage as well as the Biblical context as a whole.
True faith is not blind faith. If that is what you think faith is then you just show how much you do not know about the Bible.
First of all, let me point out that NOBODY should be stoned to DEATH for committing adultery, that is completely barbaric and inhumane to begin with. And the definition of faith is belief in something without proof, it is believing in something because you WANT it to be true (wishful thinking). Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the substance of things HOPED for, the evidence of things NOT SEEN.” Evidence-based faith is not TRUE faith at all, the Bible even says “blessed are those who haven’t seen and STILL believe.” So blind faith really is true faith, and is something the Bible says is virtuous.
Now back to my main point. When the priests brought the adulterous woman to Jesus to trap Him, Jesus SHOULD’VE asked where the guilty man was also, and demanded that the man be stoned as well. But Jesus didn’t, and by not demanding that the man be stoned (along with the woman), he violated the Mosaic Law, which mandates that BOTH people be stoned. If Jesus said to stone only the woman, yes, that would’ve also been the wrong answer, you are correct on that point. But Jesus still gave an incorrect answer to the priest’s question even though he out-smarted them. So my point is that Jesus did not keep the Mosaic Law perfectly by not demanding that the guilty man be brought to justice. Jesus only scolded the woman by telling her not to sin anymore, whereas the guilty man got off the hook completely.
Do you believe that infecting others with AIDS is humane? What about passing around STD’s? What about killing an innocent baby in the womb? Are those not barbaric practices? What about human trafficking? What about sex slaves? These are all modern sins that the modern age has on its hands.
No one will be stoned to death in the New Testament period (from then until now). The punishment now is spiritual (although STD’s are also a form of punishment upon those who practice sexual immorality, see Romans 1)
Do you know Koine Greek? That is the original language of the New Testament. The Koine Greek word for faith is pistis. It means to be completely persuaded of something (not blindly) based on proof and experience with the thing. You see it, understand it, accept it, and apply it. Faith means having the knowledge and understanding of God through His Word and living accordingly. There is nothing blind about Biblical faith. We have not physically seen God but we do have His promises and the experience of His work on this earth. We are totally convinced that He is who He claims to be and does what He says He will do. Again, there is nothing blind about it. That is just your convenient definition so that you can write off what you do not understand. Have you read and studied the Bible from cover to cover? Have you put into practice what is written in the Bible? Or, do you just pick and choose portions that you think will help your argument and own personal belief system?
So in your opinion, Jesus should have overlooked the sins and deception of the priests and gone after a person who may or may not have been guilty. They claimed to have caught her in the act of adultery but did not have proof (the other participant). So law should over look the blatantly guilty and focus on a case with lack of evidence and blatant lies? What kind of law system have you been studying, African dictatorships?
Jesus kept every aspect of the Mosaic Law, He fulfilled it all.
Those modern day problems you mentioned (such as various diseases, sex slaves, or human trafficking) have been around since ancient times, they are nothing new… and yes those are all bad things too, but those are irrelevent to our discussion. You can choose to define faith however you want to fit your argument… you’re doing exactly what you are accusing me of, however I gave a brief dictionary definition of faith and a Biblical definition of faith. The fact that you believe in a god you cannot sense with your 5 senses or scientific instruments, and the fact that you believe in some ancient book simply because it claims to be true are examples of blind faith… you believe it because you WANT it to be true (“the substance of things hoped for”). This is just wishful thinking, and that doesn’t make a belief true.
But back to Jesus. Yes, the priests were not genuinly interested in true justice, but that doesn’t discount the fact that the woman still broke a commandment punishable by death. Imagine 2 thieves getting caught for stealing, but only 1 of them was arrested and brought to trial, wouldn’t you ask the cops where the other thief was too? Anyways, there is no indication that the priests completely made the whole thing up about her adultery. If Jesus thought they were completely lying about the whole thing, he would’ve condemned the priests for bearing false witness (breaking a commanment), but he didn’t. Jesus also told the woman to “sin no more”, which probably means she actually did commit adultery. The fact that Jesus did not demand that guilty man me brought to justice means he did not keep the Law perfectly. This story’s purpose as 2 meanings, 1) to point out the hypcrisy of the priests, and 2) to demonstrate mercy. Unfortunately for Jesus, he broke the Mosaic Law when doing these 2 things.
Also, one more thing I forgot to mention from before. Even if you WERE right, and the priests actually did fabricate the story of the woman’s adultery, that would be bearing false witness… and Jesus did not have the priests stoned for breaking one of the ten commandments (lying), therefore he STILL violated the Mosaic Law (since he did not have the preists stoned for bearing false witness). So either way you look at, whether the priests were lying or not, Jesus still violated the Law in one way or another… for either not having the lying preists stoned, or for not stoning BOTH people committing adultery. At least one of those sins (lying or adultery) were commandments that were broken in the story, and Jesus did not demand anyone (man, woman, or priests) to be stoned for any of those violations.
Bearing false witness was not punishable by death. See Deut. 19:15-21. You once again prove that you do not know the Bible and are not really seeking answers.
You have just shown that YOU do not know the Bible or the O.T. Law. Have you actually read Deuteronomy 19:15-21??? Apparently not. If you did, you would notice that verses 18-19 says “…if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you.” The priests tried to have the woman stoned for adultery, if the priests were actually lying, the Law says to “do to him as he thought to have done to his brother” …and if the priests lied to have the woman stoned… the priest’s punishment would be to get stoned themselves. So yes, the punishment for lying can be death depending on the circumstances.
You’re just trying to draw attention away from the fact that Jesus did not have anybody punished for their sins, whether it was adultery by both the man & woman, or bearing false witness by the priests. And since Jesus did not demand any of these people be punished for their sins, Jesus did NOT keep the Mosaic Law perfectly.
Dan, I am afraid that you are missing the major point of the John 8 passage. Jesus never disagreed with the scribes and the pharisees about the sinfulness of the crime of which the woman was accused, nor did he negate the penalty for such sin. He couldn’t. That is not why Jesus came. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus states very clearly: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” As Jewish leaders walk away in John 8:9, we see only Jesus remaining. This reveals the truth about this passage and about Jesus. He is not just a gentle Savior. He is also the God-man, who alone has the authority to punish sin. When he allows the woman to leave, he does not condemn her. However, he did eventually put her sin to death. Her sin, my sin, Erik’s sin, and your sin were borne upon the cross in the body of Jesus Christ, who drank the cup that brimmed full of the wrath of God toward sinners. He did so that our sins may be punished appropriately, but that His beloved creation might be spared. Dan, if you would put aside your logic and your argumentation, you would see the same God-Man in all His glory, ready and most willing to forgive you of your sins and redeem you for His purpose. Please do not reject His love in favor of philosophies and pursuits that will always leave you unfulfilled.
Nicely said
I agree – it’s actually a pretty good reply. Especially the start of the penultimate sentence: “Dan, if you would put aside your logic and your argumentation, you would see the same God-Man in all His glory, ready and most willing to forgive you of your sins and redeem you for His purpose.” [emphasis is mine]
In other words, the only way to see Jesus and God is to abandon logic and its accompanying rationality, and believe in fairy stories.
Well said.
The argument of the article uses logic so I do not understand your saying that there is no logic. No one asks you to set aside your logic. You need logic if you want to understand the truth of the Bible.
Point excellently missed, Erik. I guess you didn’t see the text I was referring to (even though I quoted it in my reply).
Erik, it’s impossible to use logic to prove the truth of your religion or to “understand the truth of the Bible”. Anything that relies on the existence of one or more all-powerful and non-accountable supernatural agents, as Christianity does (along with all other god-based belief systems) must fall outside of any logical explanations and proofs, because part of the deal is that there’s a super supreme being who can bend logic (and natural laws) in any way that he, she, or it desires.
You may be able to “prove” things according to what you already believe, but that’s relying on the pre-supposition of the existence of your god to make it work. In other words, you must believe that he exists before you can prove that he exists.
Erik: For NOT-”lame arguments based on vaguely similar passages that ‘seem’ to contradict each other” that actually help us to build our faith on a more reasonable foundation, please see http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/openhse/inerrant.html.
Len: Please check out http://www.reasonablefaith.org for logical arguments for the existence of God.
I think you’ll find some stimulating arguments in these works!
This blog was about whether or not Jesus kept the Mosaic Law perfectly. I have proven that Jesus did not keep the Law perfectly because either 1.) he did not demand the adulterous woman AND man be punished for adultery, or 2.) he did not demand the lying priests punished for bearing false witness against the woman. Jesus did either one or the other, there is no escaping it. It’s funny how Christians will try to use logic when they believe it helps their argument, but then when logic goes against their argument, they quickly abandon logic to embrace incoherence. They are only lying to themselves and being delusional by not accepting the fact they have been refuted on this blog.
Dan, you have not proven anything. As stated before, the punishment for lying is not the death penalty. Also, according to the Law of Moses, the elders of the city were to hear the trial and pronounce judgment upon the guilty. These are the people who are trying to trap Jesus by bringing the woman they supposedly caught in the act of adultery. Jesus was not a scribe nor a Pharisee so it was not his job to carry out judgment upon the people. Jesus kept the Law of Moses perfectly, even when people were trying to falsely accuse Him as you are doing. Now, like then, He wins the argument. And like the scribes and Pharisees of that day, you cannot accept defeat.
The elders and the priests asked for Jesus’s opinion on the adulterous woman. And yes, the penalty for bearing false witness CAN be death depending on the circumstances. Have you read Deuteronomy 19:15-21? Notice that verses 18-19 says “…if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you.” The priests tried to have the woman stoned for adultery, if the priests were actually lying, the Law says to “do to him as he thought to have done to his brother” …and if the priests lied to have the woman stoned… the priest’s punishment would be to get stoned themselves. If Jesus thought they were lying, he should’ve demanded that they be stoned but he didn’t, so that’s a Law that was broken possibly. And the woman’s supposed adultery, Jesus still answered the preists’ question incorrectly, he should’ve demanded that both people caught in adultery be stoned, so those 2 people who committed adultery didn’t get the punishment that the Law required, so that Law was left broken.
Again, Jesus is not an elder of the city, to whom would He appeal, the scribes and Pharisees’ colleagues? According to the Law of Moses Jesus was not the One to examine the situation as a judge and pronounce judgment and punishment. He was to take them to the elders of the city (the colleagues of those same scribes and Pharisees who all wanted to try and trap Jesus so that they could either discredit Him or put Him to death). They failed.
Well, if Jesus trully was God in human flesh, Jesus would have the authority to carry out judgement and punishment to either the the lying priests or the adulterous couple. After all, if Jesus is God, and the Law of Moses originally came from God, then the authority of the preists & scribes wouldn’t matter to Jesus. Jesus himself (if he is God) would be qualified to carry out judgement and punishment for the priest’s sin or the adulterous couple’s sin. However Jesus (being God) did not carry out one of those mandated punishments for the priest’s or the couple’s sins. Therefore Jesus did not keep the Mosaic Law perfectly, even though it was a Law he himself originally created and handed down to Moses, with the mandated punishments for each sin. You’re basically undermining Jesus’ divine status by saying there is nothing he can do, since the preists are at the top of the authoritative ladder in Mosaic Law.
And now the mental gymnastics begin. I see you cannot stick to the subject of what is written in the Bible (the Law of Moses). I see you are changing the situation to fit your argument instead of your argument to the situation. You are doing exactly what the scribes and Pharisees were doing, but there is nothing new under the sun so we cannot be too surprised.
Plus, the Mosaic Law is just a shadow of the real thing to come. Jesus is the real so He fulfills the Mosaic Law. Plus He has the power to forgive. The Law just condemns because it is the shadow. Jesus carries out the Law and takes it one step further, forgiveness.
One difference between you and the scribes and Pharisees is that they accepted defeat, even though they continued to seek new ways to try and trip us Jesus.
You’re the one who asked me a question that was off the subject (“who would Jesus appeal to?”) so I answered your off-subject question. And my answer is that Jesus wouldn’t need to appeal to anyone if he’s the god who created those laws in the first one. Your entire argument about the priests lying takes the story out of context, because there is no indication in the story that Jesus thought they fabricated the story. Jesus even told the woman to “sin no more” …which means the priests probably weren’t lying about her adultery.
The purpose of the story is to demonstrate mercry and to show that only sinless people (nobody) are qualified to “cast the first stone”. Unfortunately for jesus, even though is intentions were admirable, his answer to the priest’s question did not uphold the Mosaic Law, because Jesus did not demand that the adulterous couple be stoned for their sin, which was what the Law required (a law he supposedly created in the first place, and handed down to moses). Jesus should’ve said something like: “What does the Law of Moses say? It says to stone both man and woman, so find the guilty man also, and have them both stoned.” …that’s how Jesus should’ve answered the priest’s question, in order to uphold the Law. Your argument takes the story out of context, there is no indication Jesus thought the priests were lying about her adultery. I could just as easily accuse you of not willing to admit defeat when you’re wrong.
Just one question for you:
Why the arrogant accusers left one after another, if they knew they were right?
If there are no accusers, there is no trial and no condemnation.
You think you have perfect understanding, perfect logic, perfect knowledge, therefore Jesus must be wrong. You’ll never understand the Bible with this attitude.
@Dan,
This is a lengthy reply to some of your points, as I feel it necessary to adequately address some of the important issues you’ve raised.
First, I do wish to apologize for some of the comments on this post. Some fellow Christians have been very zealous in defending their beliefs and in answering you, yet they have not invested enough time properly studying the issue or topic at hand and thus their answers are not as satisfactory as they could be. Also, some have been rather caustic and derogatory, which is not the example a Christian should set. But Christians are people just like anyone else — becoming a Christian doesn’t make us perfect or sinless, and we will be the first to admit that. Some have also made very good points that simply need a touch of refinement. But attacking an individual’s character does not address the issues you’ve raised, and I wish to keep the discussion as civil as possible and address the issues.
ISSUE OF FAITH/REASON/LOGIC
You’ve raised several good points and the first one I would like to address is the relationship of logic, reason, and faith. Some have said that with your logic and reasoning you’ll never understand the Bible. I think those comments have an element of truth, but they were worded poorly. You describe faith as “blind faith”, the type that says I walk outside and believe the sky is green when really it’s blue, because I “choose to believe” the sky is green without any evidence whatsoever except my decision to believe it. This type of faith is an ignorant faith. The Bible never tells us to use this kind of faith. The passage you presented, Hebrews 11:1-2, reads “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” (NIV) What does this mean?
Well, faith is described as a confidence in a hope, and the assurance of things not yet realized. How does one have confidence in hope? If I have an olympic runner who’s trained hard and I know to be very fast and skilled, do I “know” that this individual will win gold? No. Yet I have “hope” that they will win because I know their training regiment, I know their test times compared to others, and I know them as an individual. I believe and have confidence that they will win. That is “confidence in hope”. It is believing that something will come to fruition based upon previous knowledge. To further establish that this passage does not support “blind faith”, how can you have assurance of things not realized? Doesn’t “assurance” seem a bit at odds with “blind faith”? Verse 2 says this is what the ancients did, and later verses in this chapter point out individuals such as Abraham. What did Abraham do? If we read the account in Genesis, Abraham was basically a secular person living a normal, happy life, then God comes to Him in some fashion and tells Abraham to leave and go to some strange land. Did Abraham have “blind faith” that God spoke to Him? No. The passage seems to indicate Abraham had no qualms about being talked to by God. Abraham didn’t take by “faith” that God had spoken to him, Abraham took by faith the promises God gave him because those promises had yet to be realized. Here we have God performing some act (speaking to Abraham) claiming that God will fulfill some future event. Abraham, accepting that God spoke to him, obeyed and acted upon what he knew. So faith is based upon what we already know about God, not foolish blindness.
Now before one continues to attack Christians and their method of faith, we have to realize we do the same thing every day. It feels good to attack Christians and claim they believe in “blind faith” and don’t accept the science of modern man or other such half-truths. Yet we are all guilty of the same faith a Christian employs on a daily basis. When you get up in the morning, do you expect your car to start and work properly to get you to work? Why do you believe that? Is it scientific proof that cars always start 100% of the time? No, because there have been people who get up sometimes and their cars didn’t start properly. So when you have “confidence” that your car will start without having 100% veracity, what is that? It’s faith. It’s expecting something to happen because of what has already happened in the past. It is reasonable to expect the car to start because it’s started every morning for the past 10 years. In the same way, the faith of a Christian is reasonable because it’s based upon what God has already done. God send His Son, Jesus Christ, in the form of a man, to die for our sins in our place. If God is willing to sacrifice His Son in such a cruel fashion for acts that Jesus did not commit, is it not also possible that God will actually fulfill the other promises He made to us? When Christ came down to earth, He didn’t claim He was God and never support it, expecting “blind faith”. What did Christ do? He performed miracles to verify His authenticity. He granted His apostles the ability to do miracles for a time so they could verify their ministries. Christ never expected “blind faith”. The OT and NT both expect people to believe in what they haven’t seen based upon what they have seen.
You raise the point of the sermon on the mount and “blessed are those who believe without seeing me” (John 20:29, ESV). Again, it’s not “blind faith”. People could hear the accounts of Christ and the miracles He performed. They could study the accounts for themselves and come to rational conclusions. And an individual is not being fair or honest when they take one statement of anyone and claim this is the entirety of their beliefs or saying to the neglect of other sayings. You must interpret Christ’s words in light of everything He said and the entirety of Scripture. If I were at liberty to take any one phrase or sentence from anyone, I could make anyone say anything I wished. Yet we have the entirety of the Bible to aid in our understanding, not just this one passage. Christ performed miracles to validate Himself, which is at odds with “blind faith”. The faith Christ was expecting was one based upon careful study, research, and knowledge. And this idea of faith is not foreign to anyone. We take by faith that our cars start, just as we take by faith that our spouses are being faithful to us. Have we followed our spouses 100% of the time for years to verify they are being faithful? No. So how do we know they are actually faithful? Well, we call it “trust” in this situation, but it’s the same principle as a Christian’s faith. I trust a spouse because they have proven to be trustworthy in the past and I believe I know them very well. Hence, I have “confidence” that they will continue to be faithful because of what I already know about them. It’s faith because I can’t 100% prove it without any exceptions, and it’s faith because, even though my spouse has been faithful up to today, I can’t prove that they will be faithful tomorrow. It’s trust, which is faith. So a reasonable faith is not foreign to any normal human being. Let us not make a logical fallacy by claiming Christians are the only people who use faith when nearly every human being employs it on a daily basis.
CHRIST AND THE ADULTERESS WOMAN
Now, switching gears a little bit to the primary topic of the story at hand, I feel it is wise to provide a little background to the OT law situation. Dan, you seem to have studied this topic somewhat in-depth or have searched for answers in some fashion. Your responses demonstrate a decent knowledge of the subjects and I commend you for not merely speaking out of ignorance. While I wish I didn’t need to say this, I wish that some of my fellow Christians had done a little more research before they hastily spoke and misrepresented themselves and their beliefs. We are not perfect people.
The OT law was divided into 3 main categories: the ceremonial/sacrificial law, the moral law, and the legal law. The book of Hebrews makes it clear that the sacrificial laws were fulfilled in Christ, the Perfect Sacrifice, Who covered our sins once and for all. Hence, the sacrificial/ceremonial laws are done away with. So we are left with the moral and legal laws. The moral law could be summed up by the 10 Commandments, although that is more like the reader’s digest version of the moral law, but it is fair to say that the 10 Commandments represent the moral law. This moral law was never done away with and was given in the OT and confirmed in the NT. Hence, the moral law is still binding on all people at all times, including today. Mankind will be judged someday by how well we have kept God’s moral law. The 3rd type of law is the legal law, which was given to Israel as a theocratic nation. Israel was an independent nation at the time and God was their Ruler, speaking through Moses and Aaron to the people. This law was binding upon Israel as a nation during their time as a theocracy and into their monarchy. The legal law covers much, but the law at hand deal with the Israelites removing sin from among themselves (stoning adulterers). Why have this practice? Well, when people remove their own sin they are (hopefully) less apt to commit the sin themselves, as they see the visible effects of the sin at the punishment phase. It is a deterrent for their own sinful desires. Also, if the nation is taking care of their own sin issues, God usually does not need to step in and do something about it. I don’t know about you, but I fear a holy and righteous God coming to judge me for my actions, because I know I have sinned and rebelled against that God. So Israel was to keep itself as clean as possible, yet there were legal requirements for them to provide faithful witnesses and a legal setting to accuse people of their crimes. If these legal requirements are not met, the Israelites did not have the right to carry out judgment against anyone.
With a little background presented, let’s dive into this topic a little deeper. Christ did not come to punish all people for their sins. That was not His intention in coming to earth. Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets, which refers to the entirety of the OT, which boils down to this: “man must be perfect in order to please God”. The OT was about paving the way for Christ to come to earth. The OT law was a teacher that showed man how sinful and hopeless we are. If we could keep 10 simple Commandments, we would be capable of “earning” our way to heaven. Yet no man can keep those 10 simple laws. That’s the purpose of the law — to show man that we are incapable of achieving righteousness and holiness on our own, hence we need someone to step in and provide it for us. Christ came to earth to take our punishment so that we could have Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. It’s a legal sense where justice has been met because the punishment has been metered, but an innocent man has willingly taken the punishment out of love for the accused. That’s what Christ did. The law merely showed us that we required a perfect Person, Christ, to take our punishment. Hence, God’s justice was satisfied because the penalty was realized, and God’s mercy is satisfied, because Christ took our punishment instead of us.
So why did Christ not demand that the man be found and both executed? Well, let’s step back for a moment…why stop at this one individual act? Why didn’t Christ go around demanding all sinners be punished for their crimes? Why didn’t Christ start killing the priests and scribes for leading the people astray? Why didn’t Christ punish all sinners? He was God incarnate, yet Christ did not come here to punish sin at this time. Christ came here to die for our sins and to provide an example to others. Metering out judgment for people’s sins was not His intended purpose at the time. However, the Bible’s very clear that Christ will come again, when He WILL meter out righteous judgment against all mankind. No man’s sin will ever go unpunished, outside of those who accept Christ as Savior, repent of their sins, and submit themselves to God. But Christ did not come down to earth to walk around judging people. He had a specific purpose with come to earth.
The key to understanding Christ’s actions is clarified later in the NT (remember, we must see Scripture in its entirety, not focusing on one passage or phrase to the neglect of all others). Why did Christ not execute those who committed these sins or demand they be found and punished properly? Well, the answer is provided in Hebrews 8:13 “When He said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.” Christ was here to establish a new covenant with His people. Before Christ, “His people” specifically referred to the Jewish people and those foreign acolytes who switched to Judaism. But the mystery of the Gospel is that Christ opened up salvation to ALL people, not just the Jews. Christ was visibly and audibly demonstrating to them that He has come to fulfill and complete the old covenant. And now that it is complete, it is no longer necessarily binding. The OT legal laws had been fulfilled. Israel as a nation was no longer the sole proprietor of God’s love or laws. God had opened up salvation to all people, as demonstrated by the account of Peter and his vision of “unclean animals” when the Roman centurion came to Peter asking how to be saved.
So the sacrificial laws were done away with by Christ and the legal laws were done away with by Christ. Israel had served the purpose of birthing the Messiah and carrying the truths of the OT Scripture down through the passage of time, even if they did it in a wrong fashion. God will still carry out His promises to Abraham and the Israel nation, but this part of their task was accomplished and hence they no longer needed the legal system of laws. The 3rd law, the moral, was restated throughout the NT and clarified some, hence the moral law is still binding on all mankind.
Christ did not follow the Mosaic law because Christ had fulfilled the Mosaic law and it no longer held sway over God’s people. Christ was the living fulfillment and He was visibly demonstrating to the people this truth. How did Christ fulfill the OT law? The OT law demanded perfection from its followers. No one could perform that perfection until Christ.
CONCLUSION
Christ did not seek the execution of the adulterers because that old covenant system was fulfilled by Him and hence was no longer binding. Christ didn’t follow the Mosaic law because the Mosaic law was no longer the law. There is no need to explain away Christ’s actions; it would be like someone claiming that I have broken one of the laws of the Articles of Confederation of the United States and must be punished because of my crime. Well, that law system was done away with by the establishment of a new one, namely the Constitution of the United States. I have no obligation to the Articles of Confederation. I am only responsible for the laws as set forth by the Constitution (and those laws that inherit their authority from the Constitution, such as state, federal, etc…).
Dan, I hope this has provided some clarity or some minor insight into what Christ was doing and what His purpose was. I trust you are sincerely seeking truth and not merely here to argue with people. I get the sense that you are intelligent by your answers and have done more research than some of the Christians on this post. That is unfortunate, and I wish it were not so.
However, I do have to ask something that is puzzling me. If you do not accept the Bible and believe it is false (my understanding from your positions), why are you wasting your time talking to us foolish Christians? If there is no God, then the alternative is that mankind is a freak accident of nature resulted over a vast period of time and random mutations. Someday (unless we discover near-light travel) we will all die. All those who know us will die. All humanity will die as the sun burns out and we will join the cold drift of space. No human will ever be remembered. Everything we accomplish is a waste because it will never last and will never be remembered. So why are you wasting your time debating theological topics with a bunch of crazy Christians?
I can only theorize as to why you spend time discussing these issues with Christians. But I hope you are desirous of knowing truth. I believe the Bible is truth. I believe God created mankind in a perfect state, that man rebelled against God and was cursed, that God provided justice and mercy by sending Jesus Christ to die in our place, and I believe that mankind may restore his fellowship with God by accepting Christ as our sacrifice, turning away from our sinful life, and submitting ourselves to God. I believe that living a life devoted to God does come at a high cost, but I believe this physical life is temporary and will someday be destroyed but my soul will live forever in a new place. The costs I pay in this life are no comparison to the benefits of the next. And I confirm my submission to Christ by following the teachings of the Bible and loving fellow Christians and non-Christians by word and deed, waiting for Christ to return and fulfill the next stage of His plan.
In a brief nutshell, the above statements summarize the main tenets of Christianity. I have studied them and I find them to be something I should reasonably place my faith in. I have seen through history what God has done and I look forward to what He will do.
Without wishing to waste my entire Saturday reading this deeper, and maybe even thinking about a response (I have better things to do with my time
, just one thought:
For me, two reasons:
1) I think it’s wrong that people who believe in fairy stories indoctrinate their children before those children have developed the critical thinking skills needed to evaluate and challenge what their person-in-authority (ie, parent or priest) tells them. Until that time, kids should not be force fed religion. And please don’t say you’re not force feeding them – the kids don’t have the ability to say they’re not interested. Just like they believe in Santa until they grow a little older.
2) I think it’s wrong that believers use their story book as the basis for making laws that discriminate against, and subjugate, part of society.
While 2) is the bigger problem for the whole of society, if we can properly fix 1), then 2) will eventually take care of itself.
@Len,
I appreciate your taking some time to discuss this issue. However, I’m puzzled by something that you said. You used the word “wrong”. What does the word “wrong” mean in this context? From your comment I assume you do not believe the Bible is true or that a God exists. Thus the other option is that man is nothing more than a freak accident of nature resulted from some unknown cause that initially sparked initial matter and then resulted in planets and eventually the first life form in less-complex organisms that mutated into us over a vast period of time and random chance.
So if you and I are nothing more than rocks with electricity flowing through us to animate us, what is morality? At what point does a rock establish the idea that something is “wrong” or “right”? We say it’s wrong to hit another human, but why do we not say it’s wrong to hit a rock? Are we both not simply made of atoms joined by molecular bonds and nothing more?
Because if man is nothing more than a rock, the idea of a “consciousness” is absurd. To accept a consciousness is to imply that there’s something more to man than simply atoms and nature. If man is purely a result of natural causes, then man is nothing more than a highly-complex computer program. We simply carry out the instructions provided to us by nature.
It seems illogical for a rock to even think about morality. If we throw out a God or a Being that provided us a definition for morality, then mankind is left to define his own morality. But that’s really not a workable solution for a few reasons. First, who’s definition of morality should we follow? The simple majority? By what basis is a simple majority right in anything? So if the majority of people defined it good to force-feed our kids religion would you then be ok with it? The other reason is that everyone seems to recognize that there are some absolutes in life, even if they draw their lines at different points. You demonstrated that by using the word “wrong”. You think it is good for society if we stop this “wrong” action of subjugating children and people to fairy tails. But the majority of Americans still claim to believe in a God in one fashion or another, so you can’t believe in a simple majority defining truth, otherwise you wouldn’t have a problem with religion as it’s still winning the majority vote.
So by what basis do you use the word “wrong”? It is a meaningless word in a world that does not have a God, a Law-Giver. “Wrong” is nothing more than your opinion on this issue, and opinions and personal preferences are not binding upon anyone except you. So how can you tell me that I’m “wrong” or that religion is “wrong” by not subjecting myself to your personal opinion on the issue?
On a second note, it’s difficult to talk about religion as a whole as fairy tails or fantasy. For instance, when Luke the doctor writes “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar–when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene” is he spitting out fantasy? Were these men not rulers at this time? Is Luke making up names? History and archaeology seem to side with Luke on this issue. It’s too difficult to talk about all religion as a whole. You would need to provide more specific examples in order to discuss whether religion is fantasy or not. Your claim needs some sort of support to back it up.
I have a basis for morality: that God the Law-Giver created man and is thus able to command mankind how to live because God, in essence, “owns” us has His creation. Thus I can use the words “good” and “wrong” because God has defined them for me. I’m just not sure how you can use them authoritatively without some sound basis.
I would welcome your thoughts on this issue, as it’s one of the main reasons I accepted Christianity. I have no basis for morality outside of a God, and yet I know that there “wrong” things to do. I cannot rationally satisfy the basis for morality apart from a God.
Based on #1, you must be against teaching evolution in the public schools
@Erik: No. I’m not against teaching things that can be (and have been) proven to happen in the real world. That’s how we learn.
Wow. So much stupid, so many strawmen – and so little time.
Anyway, here goes:
“What does the word “wrong” mean in this context?” Wrong means wrong (that was a tough one). Perhaps you’d prefer not correct, unsuitable, undesirable, amiss, unjust, dishonest, or immoral. Why are you looking for a different definition? What is so hard to understand?
“What is morality?” Morality is what society defines it to be, tempered with what honest people think is best for society as a whole. We should all be that honest. But it’s always good to see believers trying to justify the “morality” that their god displays in the bible. Have fun with that.
People are the same as rocks. Umm, no. It’s not worth spending even another second on that rubbish. You really should try to start thinking before you write
“So if the majority of people defined it good to force-feed our kids religion would you then be ok with it?” No. Force-anything is bad. Why is that hard to understand? You should better ask why anyone would want to force-feed their kids anything. Why not teach the kids to think critically for themselves and then let them decide for themselves what is of value? It’s probably fair to say that all of us who don’t believe in any gods would be happy with that. If the kids find evidence of any god they want to believe in, then fine – they can believe all they want. (And maybe they could let the rest of the world know about that evidence, because there’s been none so far.)
“But the majority of Americans still claim to believe in a God in one fashion or another, so you can’t believe in a simple majority defining truth, otherwise you wouldn’t have a problem with religion as it’s still winning the majority vote.” Just because people have been led to believe in a fairy tale, doesn’t make it true. A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it. The truth is still the truth, even if no-one believes it. [I forget who said that, but it's a valid statement.] As I mentioned, if we stop people indoctrinating their kids, then those kids will not just slip into believing in “a God” – they’ll actually think about it for themselves and decide for themselves.
“[Wrong] is a meaningless word in a world that does not have a God, a Law-Giver.” No. Wrong is wrong to anyone who thinks for themselves. But people who try to shirk their responsibility in society and try to hide behind the concept of someone-out-there-who-takes-away-my-responsibility (=god) are harming that society. They are making themselves pawns for whatever the (in this case) religion tells them to do. You don’t need god to be good.
“On a second note, it’s difficult to talk about religion as a whole as fairy tails or fantasy.” No it’s not. Thriller writers often link their heroes to historic events to make the story seem more real. That doesn’t mean it’s really real. Should we believe that Indiana Jones could have punched Hitler on the nose? Or that he found the arc of the covenant and it was hidden in a government storehouse (albeit one that was later – probably – destroyed by a nuclear explosion)? Did you believe that? Outside of the bible (or derived writings) there are no records of anything Jesus did. There are some (questionable) cases where someone wrote that he’d heard of people who followed someone called Christ – but that just shows that those people may have existed, not that Christ did. There are no records of, say, someone writing that he’d personally seen Jesus perform a miracle. Did someone record seeing for themselves that Jesus walked on water? No. That he raised people from the dead? No. Not outside the bible. Just because a writer mentions some historically verifiable point in his story doesn’t mean that the rest of what he wrote is trustworthy.
“I have a basis for morality: that God the Law-Giver created man and is thus able to command mankind how to live because God, in essence, “owns” us has His creation.” If you’ve read the bible and read the horrible things that god told his people to do (eg, to other peoples), and the horrible things he did (or allowed to happen) to – for example – Job, then you’d not say that god was your basis for morality.
I have a basis for morality that’s outside of god. It’s what I have learned from living in society. Basically, I try to follow the golden rule: treat other people as you’d wish them to treat you. That idea was around long before Jesus. It is (judging by the bible, anyway) a higher standard than god lives up to.
@Len,
If “wrong” means “wrong”, then who has defined what was wrong? You claim “Morality is what society defines it to be, tempered with what honest people think is best for society as a whole.” You say morality is defined by society, yet the majority of society claims to believe in a deity. According to your own statements, you would accept that it is moral to teach religion because the majority of society believes it. Yet you add the clarification “tempered with what honest people think…” Who are these honest people? You?
You have provided no answer to the question and have stated 2 logically contradicting statements: that society defines morality and yet religion (being in the majority of society) should not be taught (ie, force-fed).
You state that it’s rubbish to compare humans to rocks. Why? If you and I are the result of a large explosion of hydrogen where supernovas occurred and combined the hydrogen into other elements over time and then cooled down into a planet and then the first organisms simply occurred by a random combination of elements, you are a worthless combination of atoms as am I. We have no more meaning other than a rock. You are made of atoms. A rock is made of atoms. If there is no God, then that’s where it all ends. There is no rational basis for holding humans as more important than a rock. Yet we do, and you believe we should. Why? What is your basis for living in such a way? Simply stating you’re right and I’m wrong does nothing to address the issue. Why are humans different than rocks? We’re just more complex machines, but other than that we’re nothing special.
You say that just because people believe in something doesn’t make it true. I fully agree with that. And I agree that we don’t need God to be good, just as you stated. However, how do we know what “good” is apart from God defining it for us? You seem to state that society defines that by defining morality. So if society defines it as good to force-food kids religion, is that ok? You already answered this and you said no. Which is it? We can’t have it both ways.
The 4 Gospels claim to be historical, eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ actions. What rational reason do you have for not accepting them as historical? Simply stating they are fantasy and can’t be accepted is not proof or evidence. You cannot make a statement without backing it up. Have you actually read any of the Gospels and tried to verify any of their historical references? Have you found historical errors in the Gospels that invalidate them as historically trustworthy documents?
You have thrown out the eyewitness accounts of Christ (the Gospels) and then claim there are no eyewitness accounts. Yet you provide no rational basis for throwing them out. The issue is not that there are no eyewitness accounts, but that you do not accept these eyewitness accounts.
You stated that just having a few verifiable facts doesn’t make the rest true. Agreed. But who are you to decide which points are historical and true or not? Were you present at these events? Have you researched the documents and established conclusively that they are incorrect in some of their claims?
Were you present during the Revolutionary War? Were you involved in the fighting? Do you know anyone who was involved in the fighting? How do we know it actually took place? How do you know that a bunch of conspirators didn’t get together and fabricate it all? The authors at the time were all biased authors writing about themselves and their friends. How can we trust anything they did or say as true?
Is your issue that the Bible claims things you do not not accept as possible, and thus you discredit these claims a priori?
If a secular author had written that he saw Jesus walk on water would you believe that secular author? Would you then trust that Jesus is God, that the supernatural exists, and that the Bible is true?
What evidence would you find acceptable to accept that the Gospels are historical documents and that what they record is true?
@dlegr250: Busy with this – I’ll get back to you …
“Wrong” is what society defines it to be. It generally means actions that (eventually) harm that society. People who perform such actions are generally punished by that society.
I don’t think I’ve said that anywhere. That’s why I wrote that “Morality is what society defines it to be, tempered with what honest people think is best for society as a whole.” Honest people are interested in having the truth taught in that society – as long as you understand the difference between what religious people tend to call “the truth” (ie, their religion – regardless of any lack of actual truth) and something that’s actually true. I think it’s important to teach things that are true. If anyone ever finds any evidence for the existence of any god, then teach it. If anyone ever finds any evidence that a god exists and actually interacts with people, then teach that too. Until such time as any evidence is found, teach kids that there’s no evidence for any god, and no evidence of any god–human interaction. Teach what’s true. There’s no contradiction in what I wrote.
Am I an honest person? I believe so. I try to be honest and truthful in all my dealings. And I get annoyed when I see religious people still repeating lies when they’ve been told (often again and again) that what they say is incorrect. That is dishonesty.
Society defines “good”, but that doesn’t mean that everything that happens in that society is good. When honest people in a society see practices that harm the society, they work to correct them. Force-feeding religion to young children who have no means to evaluate its truth is one such bad practice. Teach the kids critical thinking skills first, then teach them about all religions (and atheism
) and let the kids make informed, rational decisions for themselves, based on honest, straightforward knowledge. If your religion is all it’s cracked up to be, then it’ll have no problem with that.
I base my decision to not accept them as historical on the work done by real scholars – most of whom place the earliest gospel as having been written more than 30 years after the events it reports (that’s from memory – I should probably look it up, but you can too
). And as any policeman will tell you, eyewitness accounts are among the least reliable because the eyewitnesses can make too many mistakes, can be influenced by too many unrelated things, and can be persuaded afterwards that things happened differently. Furthermore, I’d have expected that contemporary writings from around the time of the events would also mention some of the more unusual things reported (eg, walking on water and raising the dead). But no – not a word. Some of the more mundane things reported in the gospels may be true or may have happened (eg, people going places, a war, a census, etc) . The same can be said of some of the things in “The Lord of the Rings” or the Harry Potter books. That doesn’t make them true either.
You ask whether I was present at the events mentioned in the gospels so that I can be justified in disregarding them. No, I wasn’t – but were you there so that you can verify them? The burden of proof is on you, not on me.
If there were any real evidence of the truth of the bible, then I’d be interested to see it. But that would mean – at the very least – corroboration from an unbiased outside observer. So tell me, in light of the lack of that unbiased outside observer’s report, why do you believe that the bible is true?
@ Len…
You made some good points in mentioning that some of the more unusual events in the Bible (such as Jesus’ miracles) have no historical proof whatsoever. Some more examples would be the sky going dark and the earthquake that happened immediately after Jesus died, or the dead people rising from the ground and wandering around the city… why is it that NO contemporary historian recorded THOSE unusual events??? Did the historians alive during that time think those unusual events were not worth mentioning??? It’s also worth mentioning that all of the extra-Biblical “historical” writings about Jesus (such as Josephus) were written well after Christ’s lifetime and none of them were actual eye-witnesses to Jesus or his miracles. Historians such as Josephus (who was Jewish) only briefly mentions Christ, just a few lines, and thats it.. and those are suspected to be interpolations. If Jesus was the most important man in human history, why didn’t Josephus give Jesus just a few more lines in his writings? And Josephus never met Christ, he got his information from second-hand sources at best. If Jesus was known far and wide throughout the land as a legitimate miracle worker, why didn’t that catch the attention of historians that were alive at the same time??? Jesus should’ve been bigger than Elvis, but nothing is mentioned about Jesus by historians during the lifetime of Christ, not even the unusual events such as the sky going dark, or the dead walking the streets, or the massive earthquake after Christ’s death. There is also no physical evidence that Jesus existed either… no works of carpentry or dwelling place or self-written manuscripts. And a lot of the so called “evidences” for Christ were found out to be fraudulent later (like the shroud of Turin, or this wooden box that said “James brother of Christ”)
@Len,
You have a great misunderstanding of what Christ is talking about. The Law refers to the first 5 OT books, called the Pentateuch. It was acceptable to say “the Law” and any Jew would know what you’re talking about. Christ was thus saying “unless the world blows up, the OT writings are not going away until they are fulfilled”. The phrase “until heaven and earth pass away” is in the same sentence as “until everything is accomplished”. Christ is not saying the Law will endure to the end of history, He’s saying the Law will endure until it is fulfilled. Christ said He would fulfill the entirety of the Law.
What was the purpose of the Law? The Law was a system that demonstrated to the Jews that they could never be perfect enough to please God. The Law demonstrates that man cannot be perfect, thus we require Someone Who is perfect. Christ was God incarnate and perfect. He lived the perfect life no other human could and was thus a viable sacrifice for mankind. Christ did fulfill the OT law: by living a perfect life and being a sacrifice for mankind. Thus, the Law has now been fulfilled in Christ and is no longer binding on anyone (Heb 8:13).
This was a more complex answer. The simpler answer is the Law was given specifically to the nation of Israel. I’m not a Jew. The OT laws are not binding upon me in any sense. So, yes, Christians are perfectly valid in saying they don’t have to follow the OT law systems.
Added to this, what does “fulfill” mean and “abolish”? Imagine that you owe an incredibly large amount of money to a debt-collector and you can never pay it yourself. No matter how hard you work or try, you can’t even pay off the interest. Your situation is hopeless. That’s the sense mankind is in. Now Christ comes along and says “hey, I’m not going to cancel your debt, but I’m going to pay it for you”. So when Christ pays your inescapable monetary debt, it would be absurd for you to say oh man, I still owe the debtor! I hope he doesn’t come around today, I better hide from him!” The debt was paid in Christ. Christ ended the OT covenant that God operated under and established a new covenant. In the OT God kept man at bay, as demonstrated by the curtain in the temple being torn at Christ’s death. Man is now allowed, in essence, to approach God in the allegorical sense.
Finally, Paul had Christ’s full authority when Paul wrote Scripture. Christ and Paul are not at odds with each other.
@Len,
So you do think there are absolute morals that should be taught in a society irregardless of what that society believes? I asked if you thought it ok to teach religion because it’s the majority belief. You said no, because majority rule must also be tempered by honest men seeking truth. So if majority rule doesn’t dictate what is right/wrong for that society, what does? If morality is not an absolute, how can you use the word “honest”? Why should they be honest in the first place? You have moral men operating in a subjective fashion to define what is moral for the society. However, how do these moral men know in the first place what is moral? If a group of “honest” men tell me how I should live to operate effectively in society, it’s nothing more than if “I” had told them how to live to operate effectively. It has no binding power. The only rational reason I have to following their morality is that it “MAY” furthers my personal goal of survival.
So as soon as I find it advantageous to kill off all other male members of my group and thus increase my chances of carrying on my genes will all the remaining females, I should? There is an assumption here that morality is nothing more than a government or laws that dictate behavior. However, this is descriptive, not predictive. It’s looking at a working society, noticing the rules they operate under, and thus concluding these rules were established to run the society effectively because the society is running effectively. But if these rules were established to run society effectively, would there not be 1 way of doing it that is the best for all different groups? And why don’t these various groups recognize that 1 way and all use it to continue their societies?
My apologies, my post about OT law and Matt 5:18 was in reply to Dan, not Len.
@Len (and @Dan),
With regards to the historical evidence…
First, I think it’s impossible to find such a thing as an unbiased writer about anything, especially religion. If you believe Christianity, you are labeled a biased individual and thus you cannot be trusted. However, if you don’t believe Christianity, you must believe in something other than Christianity, and that belief system biases you against Christianity. Thus, no person can ever really write about anything because everyone is biased. I don’t agree with that, and I doubt either of you would as well.
I posit that it is indeed possible for someone to write truth even if they have a “bias” about their topic. If this were not true, we could trust no historical document because every writer has a purpose or bias about their writing because they have a mind that thinks and comes to conclusions.
Thus we cannot discredit the Gospel writers simply because they were Christians. That’s like saying “anyone who believes something can’t be trusted when they talk about it.” The writing should stand apart from the bias of the authors who wrote them. I read evolutionary writings and accept some of the truths presented because they are true independent of the writer’s bias. If I were applying the same standard you’re applying to the Gospels, I would claim that I needed a non-evolutionist to corroborate the claims these men are making if it’s not something I can directly experiment and verify myself. Why would a non-evolutionist write to support evolution? In the same way, why would a non-Christian write to support Christianity? I think that purpose is adequately verified by this very post that we’re discussing. We each bring various ideas to the table and none of us can claim we are unbiased individuals. Because our very first posts demonstrated our views about the topic in question.
As far as non-Christian sources, have either of you looked at the works of Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius? These men made some early, non-Christian references to Christianity and touched on some basic elements of what the Christians did. Did they provide a 200+ page exposition on Christianity with documented citations about who saw Christ rise from the dead, etc? No. It would have been totally unrealistic to expect them to do that.
But what can we see from their writings? Within 100 years of Christ’s death, there were a large number of Christians who had spread throughout the Roman empire. They were large enough to stand as an independent body of people such that even the Roman emperors made decrees about Christians. Nero blamed the Fire on them. If Christ is fake, didn’t exist, how do you explain a very large number of people claiming to follow this individual? I think the only rational explanation is that some individual calling Himself Jesus Christ actually existed and there were a large (and growing) number of followers claiming strange doctrines. If Christ didn’t exist, how will we account for the start of Christianity and the Christian church today? I think the view that requires the least amount of faith is that there was an individual named Jesus Christ Who started it. Now that does not verify that Christ was God or that Christ performed miracles. But it does establish that it is very likely that Christ existed as that’s the simplest explanation for what we do know.
@dlegr250:
You appear to be trying to make me say that morality is either absolute or relative – as if it’s all one or the other. But it’s not that easy. I see some aspects as absolute and some as relative. All together they make the full set of “morality” that exists for a particular society.
I believe that there are some moral values which are immutable, such as (but not necessarily limited to) no murder and no rape. Basically things related to some violation of personal autonomy (obviously there are others). I also believe that a society should pursue honesty because wilfully teaching lies or misrepresenting what’s true can also be seen as an assault on personal autonomy: It’s trying to dishonestly gain some form of advantage or control over people by means of a lie. I’d expect to see them in every society that isn’t self-destructuve.
Beyond those few items, I don’t believe that morality is absolute. It evolves in a society based on what’s best for that society. So every society will have a full set of “morality” which differs from that of another society, but they will share some elements. In many cases, the full set of morality will be pretty close from society to society, because it’s beneficial for society. But still there will be differences – there is not necessarily “1 way of doing it that is the best for all different groups”, as you put it.
The rest of your argument pretty much builds on your attempted strawman, so I’ll not bother with it
@Len (with regards to the morality issue),
You are correct that the rest of my argument flowed from the beginning, so there is no need to address it.
As you stated, you do believe there are some moral absolutes and some things that are subjective. I would, in principle, agree with you on that point. The point of contention between us would most likely be which specific points are absolute vs relative, but we don’t need to discuss those as they flow from a broader subject, namely, where did the absolutes that we do agree upon come from?
The line of reasoning that was presented to me when I examined this topic was this:
(1) All laws require a law giver
(2) There is an absolute moral law
(3) Thus there is an absolute moral law giver
I think the basic premise (all laws require a law giver) is valid. Laws that describe how I should behave don’t pop out of no where. Someone established them somewhere. I have laws for my nation, laws for organizations I join, etc… These various groups have established laws at some point that are binding upon me because of my being a part of them.
I further believe it is rational to believe that there is an absolute moral law to some degree, which you stated as well. If we can find even one absolute moral law, the logic still stands because that one absolute moral law fits into the logical argument. So even if we disagree on various issues, the two you stated (murder and rape) are two issues I would also agree with you upon as being immutable.
The conclusion would be that if laws require givers, and there is even just one absolute moral law (to any degree), then there must have been an absolute moral law giver. I believe that God is the absolute moral law giver. It’s the explanation I personally find the most satisfactory.
What do you think about the argument I presented? If you find any logical faults with it, I would welcome your thoughts.
@dlegr250
Not really. You could believe in no gods and no religion
I don’t discredit the gospel writers just because they colluded and had an agenda, nor just because the gospels were written well after the events described and not by the people who are said to have written them (although those are pretty serious shortcomings). But the lack of contemporary corroboration is a big issue. If Jesus did all those things (eg, walking on water, raising the dead) or those miracles happened (eg, as Dan mentioned, the sun stood still, the earthquake, zombies strolling around down town), then why were they not reported by other people writing at that time? Were they considered so commonplace that they didn’t warrant mentioning? If that’s the case, then why do christians consider it so special that they supposedly occurred for, or were done by, Jesus? They were common occurrences. No – the most likely explanation is that they didn’t actually happen. They were fabrications dreamt up years later by people trying to start a religion. People who didn’t expect us to compare what they wrote to what other people also wrote at the time. It worked – the religion took off. But now it’s being called to task for being what it really is: a fairy story.
This has nothing to do with getting a “non-evolutionist” to write a paper supporting evolution. It’s about people at the time who were anyway writing about stuff that was happening, with all of them apparently missing all of the miracles surrounding Jesus. Fishy, to say the least.
You mention “Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius”. It’s been a while, but from what I remember they wrote things that can pretty much be summed up as “I heard someone mention that there’s a group of people way over there who follow someone called Christ”. That doesn’t confirm Jesus’ existence. It confirms that the writer heard someone say there’s a group of people who follow someone called Christ. Just because 100 years later there’s loads of believers spread all over the place doesn’t mean the story is true. Any more than the large number of people who – on official government census forms – state that their religion is Jedi Knight means that Star Wars is true.
Some person called Jesus may have existed, although the actual historical evidence is very slim to non-existent, depending on who you listen to. Or the Jesus you want to know may be an amalgam of several itinerant preachers from that area at around that time. Either way, there’s no evidence of him being the son of god – just as there’s still no evidence for any god actually existing.
And yet you still believe in Jesus and you believe the bible is true Why and why?
@Len (about historical Gospels),
First, I do not think you have demonstrated that the Gospels were not written by the authors they claim, you have not demonstrated that they colluded and had an agenda unless that agenda was for them to live lives of persecution and later execution for their beliefs, also the Gospels (as you or Dan did note) were written within a 30 year period of the events. If you are going to be consistent, then you also must discredit Alexander the Great as much as you discredit Christ. The earliest accounts of Alexander we have are from Arrian nearly 400 years after Alexander’s death. Compare 400 years and 1 main text to 30 years and 4 texts that have been carefully copied through history. Added to that the Christian fathers who wrote and referenced the Bible for centuries. You could throw away the Bible right now and almost recreate the entire NT from the writings of the church fathers alone. Can you find me another group of documents that even comes close to that from ancient history? The claims you have made may indeed be valid, but they have not been substantiated and thus are subject to scrutiny.
And did the individuals claiming to be Jedi Knights also die brutal deaths instead of renouncing their belief? Do they give their time and money to their belief system? Do they operate and run their lives by their religious beliefs? I don’t honestly think that’s a valid comparison at all. Also, the Jedi Knights don’t have any historical basis for their belief system. Christianity has a large amount of historical evidence to support the Bible and the Gospels. We can disagree and debate theological or miraculous events, but when the Bible and Gospels recount specific names and places and customs, those aren’t really up for debate. It’s a matter of fact. To compare Star Wars to Christianity is just absurd. I get the point you were trying to make, I just think it has no resemblance to the issue at hand.
Another point to consider is that this is really an argument from silence: the claim is that since we don’t have any documents today, they must never have been written. That’s an argument from silence and is not valid. At the most we can rationally claim that it is unlikely that such events would have occurred and not have been passed down to us. However, they were passed down in Biblical accounts, but you have discredited those accounts. So if you will discredit the Gospel accounts because they are biased or made-up, let me provide extra-Biblical accounts.
CORNELIUS TACITUS (55 – 120 A.D.), Roman historian
“Christus, the founder of the [Christian] name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius. But the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, by through the city of Rome also.” Annals XV, 44
Takeaway: Christ existed, founded the Christian religion, was put to death by Pilate, Christianity originated in Judea and spread to Rome.
GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS (69 – 130 A.D.), Roman historian
“As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.” Life of Claudius 25.4
Takeaway: Christianity was commonly viewed as a sect of Judaism by the Roman empire; normally Rome would remove the religious institutions of conquered people, but the Jews were allowed to maintain their religious beliefs and structure; Christianity, since it was viewed as a part of Judaism, was allowed to continue; here again we see that the Jews (Christians) were in Rome and the Christ (Chrestus) was the leader of their beliefs.
JULIUS AFRICANUS CITING THALLUS (~ 52 A.D.), historian
“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness. The rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time… Phlegon
records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth-manifestly that one
of which we speak. Chronography XVIII, 47
Takeaway: the issue of the darkness and other unnatural events surrounding Christ’s death had extra-Biblical records in some fashion
PLINY THE YOUNGER (63 – 113 A.D), Roman official
“I asked them directly if they were Christians…those who persisted, I ordered away… Those who denied they were or ever had been Christians…worshiped both your image and the images of the gods and cursed Christ. They used to gather on a stated day before dawn and sing to Christ as if he were a god… All the more I believed it necessary to find out what was the truth from two servant maids, which were called deaconesses, by means of torture. Nothing more did I find than a disgusting, fanatical superstition. Therefore I stopped the examination,
and hastened to consult you…on account of the number of people endangered. For many of all ages, all classes, and both sexes already are brought into danger…” Pliny’s letter to Emperor Trajan
Takeaway: Christians existed, worshiped Christ as God, gathered regularly for worship, and a large number preferred death over recanting their beliefs
ORIGEN CITING CELSUS’ LOST WORK (~ 178 A.D.), Greek, strongly against Christianity
“Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain [magical] powers… He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god… It was by means of sorcery that He was able to accomplish the wonders which He performed… Let us believe that these cures, or the resurrection, or the feeding of a multitude with a few loaves… These are nothing more than the tricks of jugglers… It is by the names of certain demons, and by the use of
incantations, that the Christians appear to be possessed of [miraculous] power…”
“Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her living by the work of her hands. His mother had been turned out by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being convicted of adultery [with a Roman soldier named Panthera]. Being thus driven away by her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard.”
“Jesus gathered around him ten or eleven persons of notorious character… tax-collectors, sailors, and fishermen… [He was] deserted and delivered up by those who had been his associates, who had him for their teacher, and who believed he was the savior and son of the greatest God… Those who were his associates while alive, who listened to his voice, and enjoyed his instructions as their teacher, on seeing him subjected to punishment and death, neither died with nor for him… but denied that they were even his disciples, lest they die along with Him.”
“One who was a God could neither flee nor be led away a prisoner… What great deeds did Jesus perform as God? Did he put his enemies to shame or bring to an end what was designed against him? No calamity happened even to him who condemned him… Why does he not give some manifestation of his divinity, and free himself from this reproach, and take vengeance upon those who insult both him and his Father?”
“If any one predicted to us that the Son of God was to visit mankind, he was one of our prophets, and the prophet of our God? John, who baptized Jesus, was a Jew.”
“Jesus accordingly exhibited after His death only the appearance of wounds received on the cross, and was not in reality so wounded as He is described to have been.”
Takeaway: Celsus was vehemently anti-Christian. Yet, if there was no Christ, what was he against?
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA (120 – ~180 A.D.), Greek writer
“The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day- the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that
account… It was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers from the moment they are converted and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws…” The Death of Peregrinus 11-13
MARA BAR-SERAPION (Post 70 A.D)
“What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: The Athenians died of hunger. The Samians were overwhelmed by the sea. The Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete
dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good. He lived on in the teachings of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good. He lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good. He lived on in the teaching which He had given.”
Takeaway: Jesus was mocked as the King of the Jews, was executed, and ~40 years later the Jewish nation was virtually annihilated by Rome
FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS (37 – 100 A.D.), Jewish historian
“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 among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that 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 tribes of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.” Antiquities XVIII, 3:2
Takeaway: this passage is contested, but if one investigates the evidence I do believe it is proper to recognize that Josephus mentioned Christ in some fashion, although specific details may be subject to later alteration. But again, if Christ never existed, why was there a controversy?
THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD (Jewish compilation)
“On the eve of the Passover Yeshu (Jesus) [Some texts: Yeshu/Jesus the Nazarene] was hanged [crucified]. Forty days before the execution, a herald went forth and cried, ‘He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.’ But since nothing was brought forward in his favor he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.”
CLEMENT OF ROME (? – 98? A.D.), Christian bishop of Rome
“The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is from God, and the
Apostles are from Christ. Both therefore came of the will of God in the appointed order. Having therefore received a charge, and being fully
assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed in the word of God will full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went
forth with the glad tidings that the kingdom of God should come. So preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed their first fruits,
when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe.” Corinthians 42
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH (? – ~100 A.D), Christian, bishop of Antioch
Jesus Christ who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under
Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven and on earth and those under the earth. Who moreover was truly
raised from the dead, His father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will so raise us also who believe in Him.” Trallians
“He is truly of the race of David according to the flesh but Son of God by the Divine will and powered, truly born of a virgin and baptized by
John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him, truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch…
That He might set up an ensign unto all ages through His resurrection.” Smyrneans, 1
“Be ye fully persuaded concerning the birth and the passion and the resurrection, which took place in the time of the governorship of Pontius
Pilate. For these things were truly and certainly done by Jesus Christ our hope.” Magnesians XI
QUADRATUS OF ATHENS (126 A.D.), Christian, Athenian bishop
“The deeds of our Savior were always before you, for they were true miracles. Those that were healed, those that were raised from the dead,
who were seen, not only when healed and when raised, but were always present. They remained living a long time, not only while our Lord
was on earth, but likewise when he had left the earth. So that some of them have also lived to our own times.” Eusebius IV III, 2
ARISTIDES THE ATHENIAN (126 A.D.)
When the Son of God was pleased to come upon the earth, they received him with wanton violence and betrayed him into the hands of Pilate
the Roman governor. Paying no respect to his good deeds and the countless miracles he performed among them, they demanded a sentence
of death by the cross… Now the Christians trace their origin from the Lord Jesus Christ… The Son of the most high God who came down from
heaven, being born of a pure [Hebrew] virgin, for the salvation of men… And he was crucified, being pierced with nails by the Jews. And after
three days He came to life again and ascended into heaven. His twelve apostles, after his ascension into heaven, went forth into the provinces
of the whole world proclaiming the true doctrine… They who still observe the righteousness enjoined by their preaching are called Christians.”
Apology XIV-XV
JUSTIN MARTYR (~100 – 165 A.D.), Christian
“There is a village in Judea, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ was born, as you can see from the tax registers under
Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judea… He was born of a virgin as a man, and was named Jesus, and was crucified, and died, and rose
again, and ascended into heaven… After He was crucified, all His acquaintances denied Him. But once He had risen from the dead and
appeared to them and explained the prophecies which foretold all these things and ascended into heaven, the apostles believed. They received
the power given to them by Jesus and went into the world preaching the Gospel.” First Apology, 34, 46, 50
“At the time of His birth, Magi from Arabia came and worshipped Him, coming first to Herod, who was then sovereign in your land… When they
crucified Him, driving in the nails, they pierced His hands and feet. Those who crucified Him parted His garments among themselves, each
casting lots… But you did not repent after you learned that He rose from the dead. Instead, you sent men into to the world to proclaim that a
godless heresy had sprung from Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom was crucified and that His disciples stole His body from the tomb in order to
deceive men by claiming He had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.” Dialogue with Trypho, 77 97, 107-8
HEGESIPPUS (110 A.D. – 180 A.D.), Christian
“This man [James] was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ… The Corinthian church continued in the true doctrine
until Primus became bishop. I mixed with them on my voyage to Rome and spent several days with the Corinthians, during which we were
refreshed with the true doctrine. On arrival at Rome I pieced together the succession down to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus,
Anicetus being succeeded by Soter and he by Eleutherus. In ever line of bishops and in every city things accord with the preaching of the Law,
the Prophets, and the Lord.” The History of the Church
CONCLUSION
If you’re read to this point, I want to make a few closing remarks. In light of the fairly large number of extra-Biblical accounts that make reference to Christ or Christianity, do you think it is at least logical to acknowledge that, as far as we know, there was a Jewish guy named Jesus who lived a long time ago, who make some radical claims, was executed by Pilate, Jesus’ followers spread their beliefs around and many were executed, Jesus’ followers thought of him as a “God” and that Christianity grew into a large movement because of this.
I cannot logically or honestly say that Jesus Christ did not exist or that we know nothing about him. I just can’t. The evidence that he existed is rather striking. Now whether Jesus was God incarnate and performed miracles is another story. But to say that Jesus is a fictional character…that’s just rather illogical given what we know, isn’t it?
@dlegr250
You mention three points:
The absolute moral law (or as I called them, the immutable moral values) doesn’t have to be “given” by anyone or anything. It can simply be the result of all people (all societies) coming independently to the same conclusion about certain things: that murder and rape (to use my examples) are wrong. It’s quite selfish and self-serving (from both a personal and a societal viewpoint) so it fits in well with human nature. Our desire for self-preservation makes it pretty much a de facto absolute moral law simply because we all agree that it is. There’s no outside agency at work as law-giver making it absolute, there’s just people realising that it’s best for them as individuals and as societies.
As their initial premise, your three points above already contain the belief that there is an outside agency who can make absolute laws. They’re explicitly phrased to lead to the conclusion they’re aiming for. In other words, it’s already believing in god so you can then prove logically that he must exist. But while logic may appear to prove his existence (if you don’t think about it too much), I think it should be clear that applying good logic to faulty initial premises leads to faulty conclusions.
You mention that laws don’t just pop out of nowhere. You’re right – they are put together by people for the common good of their society. Notice that I said “by people”. People decide what the laws are, not an outside agency. People “give us” the laws of our countries and of our clubs. That’s all. And the laws’ main goals are to promote the wellbeing of the group to which they apply, so they’ll obviously include the parts that everyone agrees on (although not that many clubs actually have explicit rules which say that murder and rape is wrong – those are already covered by the laws of the country they’re in
).
You’ve explained why you believe there’s a god: because you believe there must be an absolute law-giver. I hope I’ve shown that there’s no need for such a being – people simply all agree on things which are in their best interests.
@Len (about morality),
If I am to be intellectually honest, I have to say I acknowledge your arguments are very strong. Thus, at the moment I have to acknowledge that you present a solid line of reasoning that demonstrates it is highly possible that moral laws (ie, people “should” do such and such) can be established apart from a deity or Supreme Lawgiver, as the standard reasoning goes.
I do say possibility because I will have to further investigate the reasoning and think it through. I’m not fully convinced of it yet, but I am currently leaning towards that possibility. It is an issue I will have to return to after I’ve looked into it a bit more.
This is exactly why I enjoy discussing these ideas with other people: it provides me an opportunity to examine my beliefs and see if they hold up under scrutiny. I still hold to absolute morality needing an absolute Lawgiver to be binding upon man, but let me think on it further to determine if that is a valid claim for me to make.
@ dlegr250…
If the Old Law no longer applied to people, then why does Christ say: “Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” …If the Old Law no longer applied people, Jesus wouldn’t have said that. The phrase “until heaven and earth pass away” literally means the end of the world, otherwise Jesus would have phrased it differently and said something like: “until I fulfill the law, not one iota, not one dot will by no means pass until I fulfill the law”… but he doesn’t he says, “until all is accomplished” …meaning human history. The Bible can be very subjective to interpretation, that means human error is inevitable. That is why there are thousands of sects of Christianity. So why would God reveal his will to the world through a holy book that is so subjective to interpretation, making it very easy to misinterpret his book?
Also, you said the purpose of the Old Law was to show that the Jews could never be “good enough”, thus needing a savior. Is there any Biblical foundation to that statement? Where in the Bible does it say God’s intent was to make an example out of the Jews by giving them a Law He knew they wouldn’t be able to keep? As far as I know it doesnt. The reason for the existence of Israel and the Law was because Abraham was obedient to God, and God rewarded Abraham with a nation. God originally created Israel to be a “shining light” to the rest of the world, not to set them up for failure by giving them a Law he originally knew they wouldn’t be able to keep. If what you’re saying is true, then God lied to Abraham about why He created Israel in the first place… that it wasn’t to reward Abraham’s obedience, but to create a nation He knew would fail. So according to your reasoning, God either lied to Abraham about why he was creating Israel, or Jesus was a false prophet. The Bible doesn’t say God created the Law to show people that you can never be “good enough” ….that is just a Christian interpretation that doesn’t have Biblical foundation as far as I know (correct me if Im wrong by showing me the verses).
The exact same moral laws would not evolve to be exactly the same in every part of the world, the probability is astronomical. The fact that the same moral laws apply in every country on this earth is evidence that a Lawgiver did hand them down to mankind. If it were based on evolution, there would be different moral laws in different parts of the world. For example, murder is condemned in every country. One may say, “what about societies that practiced human sacrifices?” Good question, a religious ritual is looked at quite differently than murdering a person on the street for no apparent reason. Even societies that practiced human sacrifice still condemned murder and punished it. It is a moral law that was given to all men. You cannot have the exact same moral laws in every society all over the world and not have a Law giver, the evolutionary process would cause variation everywhere, but there is not.
@Erik,
I agree with you but I think I may be able to respond to the points you raised. The issue is how one views morality and actions.
A professional snow-skier knows that if he crouches down and removes as much wind resistance as possible, that he maximizes his speed. This is due to the laws of physics that dictate less resistance increases his speed. Now if we have skiers in America, Europe, and Asia, and they all discover that crouching makes them faster, do we have to conclude that a super skier somewhere taught each of them to crouch to increase their speed? Not necessarily. Just as Newton and another German discovered mathematical laws about Calculus around the same time independent of each other.
The argument I think Len and Dan are making is that there are general principles for a society that allow it to operate best (ie, reduce wind resistance and increase speed). If morality is just laws that govern how humans interact with each other, then I have to admit I do not need to appeal to God to establish morality, because these laws can be discovered apart from God, just like the laws of math were discovered by various people at various times.
Society realizes that murder would be very much like a skier standing up — it increases wind drag, thus slowing the skier down. In the same way, allowing murder to go rampant slows down a society and may even threaten my individual safety. Thus, for the reason of self-preservation and procreation (the only “good” according to evolutionary theory) I and other humans join together, establish, and follow morality to “reduce our wind resistance” so to speak.
I am not convinced that it has been fully demonstrated that morality can have a logical basis apart from God yet. However, I do concede the above line of reasoning seems sound at first glance. The basis for morality (ie, don’t murder) is self-preservation. Humans realized they survived longer when everyone joined together and watched each others backs. It’s not altruism, per se, it’s really selfish: I watch them so they watch me so I keep myself safe. But selfishness and procreation are the key principles of evolutionary theory. That’s why I find it a very fascinating argument. Not conclusive, but challenging.
Those moral codes would not be the same at every place at the same time (some snow skiers might catch on faster than others). These moral codes have been there from the beginning. There is not evolutionary process. It was given to all by the same Lawgiver.
Discovery does not equal invention. Those principles can be there without people knowing about them. When men discover them, they have not invented the laws, they just found what was there. Just like a gold miner does not invent the gold, he just discovers the gold that is already there.
@dlegr250 (about historical Gospels),
The agenda of the gospel writers (whoever they were) was to promote their religion, long after the main character (if he ever existed as described) had disappeared from the scene. And long after people had started to make up great stories of how they knew him, what he’d said, what he’d done, etc. That could all be included into the lore of Jesus and added to the mystery of the son of god. Think about the daft stories people put out now about famous people – and now there’s the chance for those people to rebut any allegations. But back then, and certainly after the person is dead – no chance. People could write anything they wanted and no-one could challenge it. There’s no reason to believe that things were any different then to how they are now. Many such embellishments would have been harmless, but none-the–less untrue.
I must admit I know nothing about Alexander the Great, except perhaps that loads of people don’t worship him and try to force others to live by what they think are his rules.
As for throwing away the bible and re-creating it from other writings, I’m not surprised there’s loads of text written by believers (I used to write copiously when I was a believer). And they’ve had 2,000 years to do it.
You think that the bible is true because it recounts specific names and places that happen to be real? Or because it describes some things that actually happened? No.
We have writings from contemporaries of the time, just none (none) that mention Jesus. You want to use the fact that the bible describes some things that are real as proof that all the other things it describes are also real. That doesn’t work. Any more than it works for Harry Potter Or “The Lord of the Rings” (as I mentioned before).
Most of the passages you cite are from way after Jesus was supposed to have lived and died (thanks for adding the dates – for not making me have to look them all up
). So not exactly eye-witnesses. The Babylonian Talmud is saying that someone died because no-one would stand up for him. They pretty much all say there was a guy called Jesus who lived and died. Some of them (christians) say he did miracles or was the son of god. The majority are recounting someone else’s story or were written by christian bishops. Not that they’d be biased or anything 
. The passage from Josephus has been pretty much accepted as being fake (ie, inserted by a believer long after the piece was written by Josephus).
And you keep asking: if Christ wasn’t real, why all the fuss? Well, I’d guess it’s because people were then, as now, taking a fairy story and making it out to be real. That’s bound to annoy people who actually like true things.
Regarding your conclusion: there may indeed have been someone called Jesus. Or there may have been several people who have been amalgamated into a single character, the way it sometimes happens when filming a book (because you don’t always have the time in the duration of a film to include all the characters, so you mash a few of them together to progress the story). The (by then) long dead person was then made the subject of many stories. Some may have been true, many (I’d guess) not – after all, they were trying to get the religion going, so they wanted to make him look good. And who was going to stop them? Jesus wasn’t around. People who actually knew him weren’t around by then either. As long as they were keeping mainly within the lines, they had free-reign to make Jesus into whatever they wanted.
@Len (about historical Gospels),
I have to challenge several of your points. Several of the extra-Biblical accounts were written well within the time of Jesus’ life and eyewitnesses were indeed alive. The Apostle Paul cites such individuals and tells his audience to go talk to the living witnesses who saw these very things. Are you saying that if I write a book on the Vietnam war and I interview the war veterans, that they are unacceptable as witnesses and we can’t trust what they’re saying and what they saw? And that was around 50 years ago, so even less believable than the Gospel accounts.
I agree the apostles and writers had an agenda. But is that nothing more than a purpose for writing? Is it rational to assume that they made up a bunch of stuff that makes them look like dimwitted idiots, has them abandoning and forsaking Christ, has them fighting among themselves, and then when they get called to task on it all, almost all of the original apostles and many of their followers were executed in brutal fashions? In essence, you’re telling me it’s perfectly reasonable for these men to make up a story they know to be true, to get no benefit from it themselves, to live their lives dedicated to what they claimed, and then continue to hold up this fake lie that they made up when they die? I cannot accept that as reasonable. They were absolutely convinced that what they believed was true. That doesn’t make their claims true, but they indeed believed they were true. That’s the only rational conclusion one can come to. Just like Muslim extremists blowing themselves up today. Their beliefs may be false, but they really believe that they are true. Again, belief does not equal true, but it’s ridiculous to say the apostles were making up stories and then died for them. There is a huge difference between dying for something you’re convinced is true and dying for something you know is false. The apostles knew the difference.
And within 30 years of the events isn’t “long after” Christ was deceased…these men were living and spreading the beliefs of Christ during this time. There were a minimum of hundreds of believers at the time of Christ’s execution, most likely thousands. If the apostles just waited a little time to make up a story, why didn’t any of the other hundreds/thousands of followers stand up to them? You’re asking me to believe a conspiracy theory involving hundreds of people without any substantiated evidence, merely conjecture about what may have happened. You’re telling me that the entire Christian movement got together and made up a bunch of stories about Jesus. Again, I find it unbelievable that hundreds of individuals (probably thousands) got together and presented a unanimous make believe story. It actually requires less faith on my part to believe that Jesus existed and they were all recording what they saw.
The extra-Biblical authors present (sometimes very accurately) the beliefs the Christians practiced. There simply isn’t time for the original teachings of Christ to be thrown away without any evidence and new ones re-invented and then used to brainwash all the current believers (many of whom were eyewitnesses to some critical events) and then present this new belief to the world at large. Don’t you think the secular writers would have said something like “hey, Christians, I thought your Jesus guy taught something different, why are you now changing the story?” You don’t find that. What do we find? We find the earliest extra-Biblical authors describing Christian practices fairly accurately.
You said we don’t have contemporaries of the time…so are you saying you can’t accept an ancient document that was dated within 30 years of the event? Are you saying that because they weren’t dated around the year ~30-33 AD when Jesus lived, that they can’t be trusted? Again, if we are fair and apply that standard equally to all ancients, we conclude that Alexander the great never existed, and most likely many other historical figures never existed as well. You wanted extra-Biblical sources. They were provided. Now you say they aren’t early enough, even though they are closer to the facts than any writings about Alexander (and probably many other historical figures).
And an eyewitness is one who was witnessing the events with his own eyes. Just because the event was not written down until later does not mean they were not eyewitnesses.
I don’t think you’re basis for not believing the Bible is based upon evidence, historical veracity, or fact. It seems you reject a priori that the Gospels could be true. Thus, any attempt to demonstrating them as accurate or trustworthy is rejected.
Could it be that you do not accept the Bible as valid because of the presence of miracles? If the Bible had all of the same content but didn’t include miracles, would you have any issue with it? For instance, the doctor Luke was extremely accurate in his historical accounts of Luke and Acts. He wasn’t even an eyewitness but claimed to have interviewed those who were and studied the data himself.
You acknowledge that Christ probably existed, but that we can’t know much more than that because we can’t trust the sources or they are too late. What if the accounts had said that Jesus was a great military leader who had conquered the world and established the Christian religion by force? Would you still have a problem with accepting the Gospel accounts as valid? Would you still say the authors of the Gospels were biased and thus untrustworthy, and that Jesus probably didn’t conquer the world because there were no unbiased sources verifying this?
It seems to me that you reject any claims for miracles, not necessarily claims for historicity. If you were being equal and fair in the employment of you standard, you would believe that most of ancient history is unknowable.
You’re more willing to believe a grand conspiracy where men kill themselves for something they truly know is false. That these men were also able to fool hundreds/thousands of other believers and remake Jesus into someone He was not. That they also somehow convinced all the extra-Biblical writers that their version of Jesus was the right one. And that this lie has almost spread throughout 2,000+ years of history. That takes a lot of faith for me to believe. I find it takes less faith to believe a God exists, thus miracles are possible, thus there’s no reason to throw the Gospels away. They should be treated just as any other ancient historical document. And if we employed that standard, they clearly stand out among all other ancient documents as trustworthy and accurate.
Dr. Luke, an educated Greek, researched the entire situation (including the existing documents of the day) and wrote his Gospel (he was a well educated man who knew how to do accurate research). His Gospel is a synoptic Gospel and backs up the writings of Matthew and Mark. So, this was not a “blind” agenda ignoring the facts. He researched the facts and came to the logical conclusions.
@ dlegr250…
You said: “I have to challenge several of your points. Several of the extra-Biblical accounts were written well within the time of Jesus’ life and eyewitnesses were indeed alive. The Apostle Paul cites such individuals and tells his audience to go talk to the living witnesses who saw these very things.” ….who wrote those extra-Biblical accounts WITHIN the lifetime of Jesus?? You said Paul cites such individuals but you did not give any names of historians or anything. Below I have 2 lists, the first list is of historians that do mention a Christ figure, but most if not all did NOT live within the lifetime of Christ. The second list is of historians that actually did live within Christ’s lifetime, but they mention nothing about him!
1.) LIST OF HISTORIANS THAT SUPPOSEDLY MENTIONS CHRIST:
The Jewish historian Josephus briefly mentions Jesus in “Antiquities Of The Jews” …but that was written around 93-94 AD… a good 60 years after Christ’s alleged lifetime. But this is suspected to be a forgery. Josephus wrote of every important event during the first 70 years AD, Josephus writings were interpolated, and forgeries which mention Jesus were added on. This short forgery was labeled by Bishop Warburton as “a rank forgery and a very stupid one too…” It is mentioned in the Church History, that this was the word of the very dishonest bishop Eusebius. The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that the forged passages were not known to Origen and earlier church writers.
Tacticus mentions Jesus in “Annals” but that was 116 AD. It is also suspected to have interpolations & forgeries though.
Pliny the younger mentions Christ, but that is also suspected of having interpolations & forgeries.
The Babylonian Talmud in a few cases includes possible references to Jesus using the terms “Yeshu,” “Yeshu ha-Notzri,” “ben Satda,” and “ben Pandera”. Some of these references probably date back to the Tannaitic period (70–200 AD).
The earlier passage in Claudius (by Stuetonius), may include a reference to Jesus, but is subject to debate among scholars. In Claudius 25 Suetonius refers to the expulsion of Jews by Claudius and states: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome”. The reference in Claudius 25 involves the agitations in the Jewish community which led to the expulsion of some Jews from Rome by Claudius, and is likely the same event mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (18:2). Most historians date this expulsion to around AD 49-50. Suetonius refers to the leader of the leader of the Christians as “Chrestus”. However, Suetonius is confused in the passage and assumes that Chrestus was alive at the time of the disturbance and was agitating the Jews in Rome. The confusion of Suetonius weakens the historical value of his reference as a whole, and there is no overall scholarly agreement about its value as a reference to Jesus.
Thallus mentions Jesus around 52 AD. Some people believe that Thallus details the crucifixion of Jesus, but he explains that the darkness that fell over the land at the time of Jesus’ death was not a miracle as reported in the Canonical gospels, but merely an eclipse. However, this is impossible as only a lunar eclipse can occur at Passover, and lunar eclipses are not visible at mid day (the 6th hour as reported in the gospels) due to the moon being directly opposite the sun, and therefore below the horizon. An eclipse can therefore not be used to establish a pre-Markan origin for the story spoken of in the Gospel of Mark as some people claim.
2.) LIST OF HISTORIANS THAT DID LIVE WITHIN JESUS’S LIFETIME, BUT MENTION NOTHING ABOUT CHRIST:
Philo lived within the lifetime of Christ, and wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time Jesus was said to have existed. Philo was living in or near Jerusalem when Jesus’ miraculous birth and Herod’s massacre supposedly occurred (which is never mentioned in ANY extra-biblical source by the way). He was there when Jesus supposedly made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there for the supposed crucifixion and all the world shattering events that followed — earthquakes, the sun becoming dark at noon, the graves opening and the dead and long dead saints roaming about the place… supposedly seen by many, also when Jesus. himself rose from the dead and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven, but Philo saw nothing, heard nothing, wrote nothing about any of these events.
Justus Tiberius was a native of Galilee, he wrote a history covering the period of Jesus’ reputed existence. This work was destroyed, but Photius a Christian scholar and critic of the 9th century who was acquainted with it says that Justus made not a mention of Jesus or his works.
The other historians that were alive at the time of Christ’s lifetime were: Arrian, Lucius Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) Dion Pruseus, Pliny the Elder, Pater Calus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Theon of Smyran, Martial, Phlegon, Persius, Pompon Mela, Plutarch, Quintus Curtius, Lucian, Apollonius, Pausanias, Valerius Flaccus, Quintilian, Forus Lucius, Lucanus, Phaedrus, Epictetus, Damis, Silius Italicus, Alulus Geuius, Statius, Ptolemy, Columella, Diochry Sostom, Hermogones, Lysias, Valerius Maxiimus, Cornelius, Titus Livius, Cluvius Rufus, Publius Petronius (the Roman consul) who lived in Jerusalem. All these heard nothing, not a word was written about Jesus. These historians wrote about early religions but never mentioned Jesus or the spectacular events that the church said accompanied Jesus’ life. Jesus was supposedly known far & wide throughout the land as a great miracle worker and doer of good works, like I said before he should’ve been bigger than Elvis, and for none of those historians to mention Christ is mind-blowing. So who were those extra-Biblical historians/people that lived DURING Christ’s life that mention Jesus? Who was Paul referring to?
@Dan (about historical Gospels),
That’s some great stuff you provided. Honestly, I really appreciate the information you’ve given with the sources and analysis. Some may wonder why I could be excited about someone citing support against my most personal beliefs, but if my beliefs are worth holding they should stand the test of truth. I have to say I’m excited to sift through the material you’ve provided and see what I find. You provided a lot, so it will take me a decent amount of time to do the research if I’m to be fair and unbiased about it (as much as I can be). If you find further info, please add it as well. I want to have as many resources as possible as I look into this further.
Again, thanks for the wealth of info; I’m really looking forward to going through it all and see what I find.
@Erik (on moral codes)
).
You seem to think that evolution means that the societies all developed in parallel, at different places, at more or less the same time, without any common history – and yet they all found the same rules. That’s patently not the case. We all stem from the first evolved “people” (and it’s irrelevant whether we’re talking about homo sapiens or earlier). As the first “people” evolved, they started to build social groups (we’re social beings, after all). It would become pretty clear to that social group pretty early on that not murdering each other is a good idea. That idea would then be carried with the various groups that eventually split off from the main group to form new social groups (and eventually, new societies) elsewhere. We see the same kind of behaviour in the social groups that (social) wild animals form: they look after other members of their group and they don’t kill other members of their group (but maybe they do kill members of other groups – just like people
The full moral codes of the societies then developed over time, but they have a basis of commonality in that the societies would all want to survive. And they all realised that some basic rules – the same basic rules – were good for them. That’s reasonable because not having those rules would mean that murder and rape (my two examples) would lead to the downfall of those societies. Maybe some societies did develop without those basic rules. They are no longer around.
You try to liken absolute moral laws to something tangible, like gold. Something that someone put somewhere to be discovered. But they are not. They only have validity in the society that embraces them. You can’t pick up a sack full of absolute moral laws at the supermarket. They do not have to lie around waiting to be discovered by a society. The principles are identified by a society as being beneficial to that society, so the society adopts them. In other words, the society doesn’t have to find them, it works them out for itself.
You’re starting off from the unfounded assumption that an absolute law-giver exists, then you’re using that assumption to conclude that an absolute law-giver exists. That doesn’t work. And even then, your main argument boils down to “I don’t understand how it works, therefore god”.
Ah, but just as variation of species occurred through natural selection (so evolution claims), so would variation in the morals of the people groups. They would not develop exactly the same. So one or the other is the case, either they (humans) did evolve (like you seem to believe) which would go against the idea of a lawgiver or they were created (people) and then given the moral laws to disperse to the 4 corners of the earth (I know the earth is round, it is just an expression, like in the Bible
)
They are no longer around. (maybe like the vast evidence of the fossil record, oh wait, all those intermediate species that led to other species somehow just did not fossilize). This excuse is used quite often among the naturalists, just in different forms.
Moral laws are like the natural laws, even if man does not know about them, they are still there and they still function. The thing about moral laws is that even if a man has not been taught the moral laws, he knows about them in his conscience. We do not have to discover the moral laws, they are built in us. We discover that they should be applied (or lived by) like the law of gravity.
@ Erik…
Variation of moral codes do vary tremendously from culture to culture… yet all successful societies do have a few moral codes in common as well, such as not permitting large-scale murder, theft, rape, etc because without those few basic rules a society couldn’t survive. If everyone was committing murder, nothing would ever be accomplished and a society wouldn’t survive. Yes, there can be vast differences in morality from culture to culture, but yet each society can (independently) come to the same conclusions about which ones are necessary for survival. Some of the moral codes that can vary from culture to culture would be diety laws, sexual activity (such as polygamy vs. monogomy), divorce laws, laws on how to dress, moral laws on gender roles and how to discipline children, and moral laws on how to treat animals are just a few examples. Even the Bible changes its own stance on many issues, such as divorce or polygamy vs monogomy.
Even if there is a supreme law-giver, how do you know YOUR specific God is the law-giver? There are thousands of religions and thousands of possible gods to choose from, and Judeo-Christianity is not the oldest religion out there. So how do you know YOUR god is the real Law-giver above all the other thousands of Gods? The odds of yours being the real one are very low.
@Dan,
Just a quick note on your recent comment. The Bible did not change its stance on morality over time. First, much of the OT was given to Israel as a nation under the Abraham Covenant. That covenant was fulfilled with Christ and done away with as Heb 8:13 clearly specifies: “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he [Christ] has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.” Furthermore, the majority of OT laws were only binding upon Israel as a nation and were never given to Christians. There are no Christians in the OT. Christianity was a fulfillment of the OT system. So there are indeed some laws given in the OT that are no longer followed in the NT, just as citizens in the USA don’t follow the Articles of Confederation anymore because that was superseded by the Constitution.
The moral laws were not changed, although the punishments metered out as a nation were. Israel was commanded to stone adulters (the main post topic). However, in the NT, Christ superseded that punishment and told the NT church to remove sinners from the church body, but Christ removed the command to stone adulters. Christ clearly stated that adultery was still wrong, thus the moral code has not changed. The punishment has changed because God now deals with man through the age of grace instead of the OT covenant of the law. The OT law condemned man, but Christ redeemed man.
With regards to polygamy, that was never sanctioned. Many men did it but they were clearly in violation of God’s commands. In both the OT and NT God stated His purpose was 1 man and 1 woman for life. Anything contrary to that was man deciding to disobey God. And look at the result of polygamy: Abraham’s sons and wives fought, even to this day; David’s children of various women killed each other and almost took the kingdom away from David; Solomon turned away from God and God didn’t take the kingdom from Solomon only because God honored Solomon’s father David. In the NT polygamy is also clearly defined as wrong, and the churches are told to remove such practices from among themselves.
With regards to divorce, God only permitted divorce in cases of infidelity as specified in Deut 24:1-4. Jewish rabbis through time eventually interpreted the passage to mean men could divorce wives for something as trivial as burning food. Christ later addressed this very issue when He clarified what the Deut passage actually said. The Jewish religious leaders had forsaken the intent of the law and twisted it to their own end. Divorce apart from infidelity was not in God’s plan in either the OT or NT. Just because people did it does not mean God condoned it. Many individuals who are held up as examples in the Bible were polygamists, harlots, murderers, etc. It demonstrates that even though we may sin greatly against God, we can never out sin God’s forgiveness if we repent and turn to God. No man/woman is perfect.
I do think there is a misconception between a moral law and specific rules that clarify how that moral law is to be practiced in that community. It’s like cultural greetings. In the US, hundreds of years ago folks may have tipped their hats and said “good day” as a greeting. Today we can nod and say “hey, how you doing?” Various other cultures bow heads, shake hands, etc… The principle is that all have some sort of greeting, even though they execute that greeting differently. Morality is the principle of greeting. Particular cultures carry out that greeting in different formats, just as various cultural laws uphold the moral law.
@ dlegr250….
There are many verses throughout the Bible (most in the O.T., but some in the N.T.) that indicate that the Mosaic Law is binding FOREVERr. Here are some examples:
-Genesis 17:19
“And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for AN EVERLASTING COVENENT, and with his seed after him.”
-Exodus 12:14, 17, 24
“And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD THROUGHOUT YOUR GENERATIONS; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance FOREVER. … And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance FOREVER. … And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons FOREVER.”
-Leviticus 23:14,21,31
“It shall be a statute FOREVER throughout your generations.”
-Deuteronomy 11:1
“Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, ALWAYS.”
-1 Chronicles 16:15
“Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations … an EVERLASTING covenant.”
-Psalm 119:160
“Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth FOREVER.”
-Ecclesiastes 12:13
“Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this IS THE WHOLE DUTE OF MAN.”
-Malachi 4:4
“Remember ye the law of Moses.”
-Matthew 5:18-19
“Till HEAVEN AND EARTH PASS, one jot or tittle shall nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”
Luke 16:17
“It is easier for HEAVEN AND EARTH TO PASS, than one tittle of the law to fail.”
….Jesus himself clearly says that heaven AND earth must pass away before the Old Law is no longer valid (that is what “all is fulfilled” means in the context of the passage). Yes, other parts of the New Testament do say the Mosaic Law is no longer binding, so was God misleading Abraham in the Old Testament about the Old Covenant lasting forever? Or was Jesus a false prophet? If the Old Covenant was just meant to be temporary, why did God tell Abraham, Moses, and the Jews that his Covenant with them was binding forever? Was God lying the whole time? Also, nowhere in the Bible does it say that the purpose of the Old Law was to show that people need a savior… that is just a Christian interpretation that has no Biblical foundation. God rewarded Abraham’s obedience with a nation of his descendents, that is why the Old Covenant existed to begin with… it wasn’t to “make an example” out of a group of people. But even if your interpretion of the Old Law is correct, the age of Grace did not begin until AFTER Jesus’ death and resurrection. From a Christian perspective, the Law was not fulfilled until AFTER Christ’s death & ressurrection (because Christ’s death represented the perfect sacrifice to “fulfill” the Old Law). The woman’s adultery occured BEFORE Christ’s “fulfillment” on the cross, so it was not during the “Age of Grace”. She (and Jesus) were still under the Mosaic Law because Jesus did not yet die, so Jesus was still obligated to obey the Mosaic Law until his fulfillment (death) on the cross. So the Mosaic Law was still in effect during the time of the woman’s adultery, even from a Christian perspective. So yes, Jesus gave an incorrect answer to the Priest’s question regarding the woman’s adultery. Jesus should’ve demanded that both people be stoned, because the age of Grace was not in effect until after Jesus’ sacrifice.
In the Old Testament Law, a man can simply divorce his wife with a letter if she displeases him… that was a law handed down to Moses from God. Jesus says he allowed divorce because the Jews were “hard hearted” …which is a horrible excuse for allowing a marriage law to go un-enforced in the O.T. As far as polygamy goes, God seemed to have absolutely no problem with it in the Old Testament. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there are no verses in the O.T. indicating polygamy (by itself) was against God’s command. Perhaps polygamy may have caused drama and problems within a family, but nowhere in the O.T. does it say having multiple wives was a sin, otherwise all the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc) were going against one of God’s basic laws… again, if there is an O.T. verse that says otherwise, let me know.
@Dan,
You provided a list of verses supporting an eternal covenant as well as a discussion about the issues of polygamy, divorce, and what Jesus should have done with the adulterous woman. I will address these in the following order:
(1) Jesus and the adulterous woman
(2) Polygamy in the OT/NT
(3) Divorce in the OT/NT
(4) Covenants in the OT and list of supported verses
I will limit it to 1 comment per main topic, to keep them separate and shorter.
However, before I get into those 4 topics, I have to make a few redactions to some of my previous statements in other comments. I do not spend as much time studying the OT as I do the NT, thus I’m not as well versed in the intricacies of the OT. I have made several statements that are true in principle but are wrong in some of the specifics. I have not looked up every comment and corrected it, but I would like to address one of the major alterations as my understanding of the OT has deepened with further research.
REDACTIONS
(1) Christ fulfilling Law with His life instead of at His death. You do make a good argument about Christ’s death being the fulfillment of a perfect life that atoned for all of man’s sins forever. Since the Law necessitated a perfect person, it would seem incongruous that Christ could have fulfilled that requirement until the end of His life, as it is possible He could have sinned until His very death. Thus it is still true that Christ fulfilled the Law, but the specific point of completion would be at His death. Therefore the Law was still in effect during Christ’s life, and an argument can actually be made that the Law actually existed until 70 AD, something I will address in section 4 on the covenants.
1a JESUS AND ADULTEROUS WOMAN
First, let’s have the passage in question:
3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:3-11)
If we study the OT passages about adultery and the OT legal laws regarding witnesses, we find that Jesus actually followed the Law properly by not doing anything. Christ was, in effect, following the Law to the letter in this situation. Let’s examine a few passages of interest in the OT.
“If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10)
Here we have the OT Law regarding adultery and the appropriate action to be taken. These Laws in Leviticus were given to Moses at Mt Sinai with Israel encamped beneath.
After the Israelites receive the first of the Law from God via Moses, they continue on in their conquest of Canaan, where we find that they refused to obey God and were left wondering for 40 years. This is mostly recounted in the book of Numbers.
During the 40th year of their wandering, the book of Deuteronomy is written. The purpose of Deuteronomy is to reiterate the laws to this new generation, with a few additions as well. The first 5 books of the OT comprise the Torah, which is commonly referred to as the Law. However, it was common vernacular for a person to reference the OT by “law”, “prophets”, or the combined “law and prophets”. Any one of those could reference the entire sum of the OT.
But if we just look at the verse above we miss out on a lot of the Law. The section in Leviticus consists of a list of acts and then punishments. However, all cases and punishments were governed by a legal process and all capital punishments required a minimum of 2 witnesses.
“Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.” (Numbers 35:30)
“On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.” (Deut 17:6)
“One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” (Deut 19:15)
Furthermore, if the witnesses were found to be liars or false, whatever punishment they were seeking against the unjustly accused would befall them:
“16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, 17 the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, 19 then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you.” (Deut 19:16-19)
So what do we have? We have the entirety of the Law requiring 2 witnesses come forth and present the case against the accused. Those witnesses were the only ones who could make the accusation. They would also have to punish the man caught with the woman. One may say “well, Jesus should have called for the witnesses!” Well, He did. The Law required the witnesses to raise the accusation. If those witnesses were not willing to come forth, it was not Jesus’ duty or obligation at all to call for them. Jesus asked where were the witnesses, and they were not to be found. The OT Law system actually made it very difficult to execute people. In order to understand that you have to read the entirety of the Law, not just particular pieces of it. In fact, some even hold that the death penalty was actually able to be escaped in every case except murder. Hence the reason there were judges to decide if an applicable punishment should be metered out or not.
On a side-note, it’s interesting to conjecture what Christ wrote in the dirt. This is purely my opinion without any solid basis, but I believe Christ first wrote out the legal requirements for a case such as this. When the religious leaders persisted, I actually believe Christ wrote out the name of men who had slept with this woman, including some of those religious leaders present, as well as names of other women they may have had as consorts. I believe that fits with the event, but it is pure conjecture as the Scriptures do not tell us exactly what Christ wrote.
1b CONCLUSION
Jesus actually followed the Law to the letter by asking for two witnesses to present themselves to raise the accusation against the woman. Since they did not, there was no proper accusation that could be raised against the woman, and thus she could not be executed. The religious leaders were interested in a “lynching” and Christ was actually interested in following the legal system of the Law. Thus, Christ followed the Law exactly in this situation and did no wrong.
@Dan,
This post deals with issue #2:
(1) Jesus and the adulterous woman
(2) Polygamy in the OT/NT
(3) Divorce in the OT/NT
(4) Covenants in the OT and list of supported verses
2a POLYGAMY IN THE OT/NT
Is there an OT verse that reads “thou shalt not have more than 1 concurrent wife (spouse)”? No, there isn’t. This issue is one that even many well-known Christian leaders have debated over time. Several early church fathers believed polygamy was permissible in select situations but not preferable, and only if the custom of the land permitted it. Others believed it was always wrong. Who are we to accept? Well, we return to the Bible as the basis for authority and seek the answers there.
An argument from silence (no direct command against it) is not very strong. There are a number of acts recorded in the OT that were never directly condemned. The purpose was not to provide a listing of condemned acts, but to record what transpired. This argument could be applied to a large number of issues: drugs, polygamy, slavery, etc… So what does the Bible say about topics like this, specifically polygamy, which are not absolutely, directly addressed?
Were people allowed to sin the OT? Yes, just like they are in the NT. Did God annihilate people for sin? On specific occasions, yes, but most times God did not punish sinful acts right away. No man is perfect, thus no man can ever not deserve punishment from God at some point.
While polygamy was permitted (not immediately punished) it was never God’s intention for mankind from the very beginning. Allowing someone to do something is not the same as condoning it. For instance, to use a well-known example, think of the child and the hot burner. The parent keeps telling the child not to touch the burner, but the child persists in his interest. Eventually the parent permits the child to touch the burner and get burned so their curiosity is satisfied and they learn next time maybe they should listen. While not a strict analogy to polygamy, it demonstrates that permitting something is not the same as condoning it. In the parable of wheat and tares, Christ states that evil is allowed to continue but that it will eventually be punished. Is Christ condoning evil because it isn’t punished immediately? No, Christ’s view of evil is very clear from Scripture.
As Genesis accounts, God created man and woman from the very beginning and they were bound together as one flesh. Mark 10:5-9 deals directly with the issue of divorce, but also deals with polygamy in principle because if you didn’t have a proper grounds for divorce, God considered you still married. Thus you would be a polygamist by God’s standard if you divorced for wrong reasons. Christ says God set things up a certain way from the beginning, and that’s how God intended it to be. That would carry over to polygamy as well. God designed marriage to be a sacred joining of 2 people into 1 that lasted forever in this physical life, barring infidelity, death of a spouse, or the special situation of a non-believing spouse who wants a divorce in the NT.
So what does the OT have to say about polygamy? Well, there is not an absolute “thou shalt not…” but there are indeed verses that address this issue:
14 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” 15 be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. (Deut 17:14-17)
The 2nd to last sentence is of particular note. Kings are not to take many wives because they may lead him astray. This is actually the case that happened with Solomon. Now if someone wishes, they could argue this means “many” wives but a “few” is acceptable. Thus, this passage isn’t condemning polygamy per se, just an over-abundance of polygamy. I do think that’s stretching it a bit. Especially since Christ cites the example God setup with 1 man and 1 woman as God’s preferred plan for marriage.
We also see verses citing the singular when referencing spouses (Eccl 9:9; Prov 5:18; 18:22; 19:14; 31:10-29; Ps 128:3). We see no advocating of polygamy in Scripture, either in OT or NT. We do see there were some very negative results of polygamy in the OT. Polygamy is very clearly condemned in the NT (Christians were told to be a “one-woman man”).
So the question is really “did God permit polygamy in the OT and then switch His view in the NT?”
The NT condemns it, and Christ in the NT cites the creation of man as His support for monogamy. Polygamy created great pain for most of those who practiced it in the OT. Add to this the reality that a family is very difficult in a polygamist setting.
2b CONCLUSION
I would have to conclude that the Bible condemns polygamy. It was never God’s intention, is often found with great pain in the OT, and clearly condemned in the NT. That does not mean polygamy did not happen. It was actually regulated to some extent in some of the OT laws. I don’t see why this should be viewed as condoning polygamy. Many evils were regulated to some extent in the OT. Would it be nice to see a clear-cut condemnation of polygamy in the OT? Yes, but it is not necessary. The weight of evidence stands against it.
This is actually a reference to the Abrahamic covenant. It is not the same as the Law. The Law was given 400 years later through Moses. The Abrahamic covenant was fulfilled in the New Covenant. These are one and the same and yes, they are eternal, everlasting covenants. The Law was given to keep the people on track until the Abrahamic Covenant was fulfilled in Christ. The “seed” refered to in Genesis is Jesus Christ. Paul’s epistle to the Galatian church explains all of this.
This is why you have to have a complete understanding of the Bible, mot just copied and pasted verses to make up your own theology. You have to go to the Scriptures with an open mind, ready to discover what is there instead of imposing your own opinions and beliefs.
If you would like to learn more about the subject of Covenant, then I would recommend this source.
As to the Law (Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the other references that deal with the aspects of the Law being eternal), the Law is a shadow of the good things to come in Christ. As you see in Galatians, the Law points people to Christ. Once the real thing comes, the shadow is no longer needed. The eternal things in the Law are fulfilled in Christ who is eternal.
@Erik,
You beat me to those great points! If one is going to cite various verses from scattered texts in the OT, each of those verses needs to be put in context of the specific covenant it deals with.
@Dan,
I’m researching a more detailed reply, but a very simple answer is this: the promises God made with Israel were two-way covenants. He did His part if they did theirs. In fact, when Moses was getting the two tablets of testimony from God, the Israelites had already broken the covenant. They didn’t even last 40 days…God intended it to be an eternal covenant, but it was binding upon Israel fulfilling their obligations as well. It’s a contract: both parties can break the contract and nullify their respective obligation. What we do see is that God promises to uphold His side of SOME of the covenants in spite of Israel’s failures. But you cannot lump everything written in the OT as a single covenant. There are multiple covenants; some were binding only upon Israel as long as they followed God. I’ll have a detailed address to the various verses you listed, but Erik got there first and pointed out the main issue.
@Dan (regarding historical Gospels),
I have done some further research on the great points you brought up in one of your other posts, specifically regarding the amount of extra-Biblical evidence that references Christ. I wanted to get back with you with my findings.
Just to reiterate a few things, we do indeed find some references to Christ outside of the canonical Gospels. I have looked at each of these listed sources and the scholarly work done on them, and I am fully convinced that each of these sources does indeed reference the Christ of Christianity and it seems the majority of scholars concur:
Thallos (~55 CE; via Julius Africanus via Georgius Syncellus)
Pliny the Younger (~112 CE)
Suetonius (~120 CE)
Tacitus (~116 CE)
Mara bar Serapion (sometime after ~73 CE)
Lucian of Samosata (~165 CE)
Celsus (~175 CE)
Josephus (~90s CE)
Rabbinic Tradition (various)
Plus a large number of Christian authors outside the canonical Scriptures, although they would be considered “bias” by most seeking to discredit a historical Jesus.
What we find in these extra-Biblical accounts is that Jesus was a Jew who lived in Judea, established a following, was executed by Pontius Pilate under Emperor Tiberius, and His followers spread across the Roman Empire and worshipped Jesus as a God. Those things are corroborated in the canonical Gospels as well. This does not prove the claims of the Gospels, it merely shows that all the evidence we have points to Jesus indeed being a historical figure who founded Christianity.
The issue at hand is: “if Jesus was so famous and performed miracles, why didn’t more contemporary writers talk Christ?”
This actually has a very simple multi-part answer:
(1) The Romans were not concerned with Jesus, whom they executed. They were concerned with Christianity, and only when Christianity became prevalent enough to threaten Rome. Even then the Roman writers discussed Christianity as a religion, hardly ever touching on Jesus or the “historical Jesus”. Those were moot points for the practical Romans. They just needed to know about this “superstitious” belief system called Christianity that was invading their entire empire.
(2) We have very little of the writings of contemporary authors of the time. Much more was probably written that we simply don’t have. That’s not to say that they wrote about Christ, we don’t know. But by the same token, we can’t claim that they didn’t write about Christ either. Very few works from historians contemporary with Christ exist today. Additionally, the closer a work was to Christ’s actual life, the less it would have included about Him. It’s not like they sat down at their computer, wrote up a blog, and published it all within 2 hours. In fact, the majority of historical works of these authors were citing previous historical works. This is demonstrated by Josephus, who in the introduction to his “Jewish War” had to explain why he was writing about events that had not been recorded before.
(3) The Romans only focused on Christianity when it became a threat. There had been several different attempts at “messiahs” returning from the region of Judea in the 1st century. Until Christianity became a political or social issue to Romans they would have no need to really address it. And this did not happen until later in the 1st century and into the 2nd century, where we start seeing an influx in writings about Christianity (but little about Christ because Christ was a moot point for most; the issue was the religion, not the founder).
(4) Romans had little interest in “superstitions” and hardly ever wrote histories about them. For instance, Tacitus writes about Judaism and Druidism where he recounts practices and beliefs, but he never dives into the history of either, even though he had access to extensive Jewish history, seeing as Rome had fought the Jews on multiple occasions.
(5) If even the Gospels did not show up until 20-30 years after Christ’s death, why would we expect contemporary pagan Romans to write about Christ?
(6) Christ’s ministry took place in a rebellious region of the Roman Empire and Christ’s ministry focused on the Jews and lasted only 3 years. That’s not enough time for Christ to become famous, to spread across the Roman Empire, and have historians come and research Christ before Christ was executed as a criminal by the Romans next to two common thieves. Why would the historians need to document another failed “messiah” attempt from the rebellious Jews?
(7) Why would the Romans write about a superstitious belief that came out of Judaism? For many decades Christianity was thought of as just a sect of Judaism. If they didn’t talk about Judaism, why Christianity?
HEROD’S MASSACRE OF INFANT CHILDREN
On a side note, I also want to address this issue. The claim is that such a tragedy as cited in the Gospels as the murder of all children under 2 years old would surely have been recorded. Well, Bethlehem is accounted as having maybe 500-600 people living in it. So if Herod did kill all male children under 2, how many would that be? 10? 20? Not that many, when you think about it.
Furthermore, this Herod is also the same one who murdered his uncle, his children (as well as 300 of their followers), his wife, and other major tragedies. So why would historians need to write about the killing of a few children in a small town? I am not surprised that this event was not documented. Again, we don’t have thousands of historians writing myriads of blogs. We have pen/paper and parchments/papers/scrolls that don’t last all that long in the elements. The murder of the infants is perfectly within Herod’s character according to his other deeds. Plus we’re talking about a time where, when Rome conquered, they would sometimes take their enemies and crucify them along the road for miles. Josephus accounts, during the Jerusalem siege, that in one day up to 500 were crucified. Given this culture, I see no reason why the Romans would even care to talk about the killing of a few children in a far-away rebellious province.
CONCLUSION
All things considered, I find it very rational to accept that Jesus was indeed a historical figure that can be established apart from the Gospels. If we want to know more about the specifics of Christ, we have to look at the Gospels, which were written for that very purpose.
I am not at all surprised that there are not more mentions of Christ for the several reasons I listed above. Even if some historians lived or passed through Judea I am not surprised they did not mention Christ. And they may have, but we have so little from that time period that we can’t say one way or the other.
@Erik,
You can’t draw such parallels between evolution of species (which is mainly based on survival) and “evolution” of societal “laws”. Evolution isn’t really the word to use when discussing societies, because it brings the expectation of some incorrect similaraities to evolution of species (and within a species). The development of a society’s rules is a different process, based on mutual understanding and agreement between the members of the society. And as Dan pointed out, there are significant differences between different societies around the world. That pretty much immediately disproves your idea that all people have inbuilt absolute laws from an absolute law-giver.
My point that societies which don’t develop to protect their members against murder and rape are no longer around, is that those societies either died out or changed to include those basic rules. It’s rather ridiculous to try and invent an equivalence to actual evolution and fossils. I guess it shows that you’re getting desperate, so you throw up any daft idea in the hopes that it clouds the discussion, and hides your argument’s lack of substance
Once again, you’re starting from an unsupported assumption that a god exists. And furthermore that it’s your god.
I asked you in an earlier post why you believe in your god. I don’t remember seeing your answer, but I’d like to know. And please don’t say that it’s because the bible says so, because then I’ll just ask why you believe in the bible. And please don’t then say that it’s because the bible says it’s the word of god. I’m trying to break through the circular reasoning and “proof” that is usually given to answer such questions, to get to the real reason why you believe what you believe.
@Len,
Isn’t it merely an argument from silence to assume that any society that allows mass murder/rape/theft isn’t around anymore? You just claim they aren’t around because they allowed these things. I don’t see any evidence to support that theory. It’s just conjecture. Because many societies that have gone away actually did have laws against those things, so it’s not like cultures that have them last forever. Thus, the converse isn’t necessarily true either, that societies that don’t have them are doomed to fail. It’s a hypothetical.
With regards to why the God of the Bible (and by virtue why the Bible) it’s not a one-shot answer. Different people have different objections to be addressed. Some people have an issue with evil in the world and thus do not believe in God. Others believe in evolution and thus do not believe they need a God. Others believe in other religious systems and thus do not accept the Christian God. So you cannot expect a simple answer to a very complex question.
If you are truly interested, I would love to share with you why I believe God exists and that the Bible is true. I cannot address the entirety of why in a single post, but I will start with the very beginning. I believe Christianity is the best explanation for everything that is, and I believe it requires the least amount of faith to accept. I posit that there is almost no subject or topic that mankind fully understands. We don’t understand the galaxies, we don’t understand the body, we don’t even know what’s in our own oceans. Thus, we have only limited knowledge about any given topic. Faith fills in the gap to that lack of knowledge. I believe everything requires some faith. For instance, when a scientific study comes out, you take it by faith until you have actually verified the experiments yourself, something which many people don’t do. I take by faith that China exists because I’ve never actually been there. Yes, I can have some knowledge about it, but have I empirically verified it? No, I haven’t. I trust the word of many other people who say they have been there and that it does indeed exist. It is very highly probable that China exists given the evidences for it. However, it’s not a certainty for me yet. Thus we are in pursuit of the worldview that requires the least amount of faith as being the most probable. Everyone employs faith on an almost daily basis to some extent.
Can I prove 100% that God exists? No, that’s absurd. Because as limited humans we simply don’t possess the knowledge to establish absolute proofs of God or God’s non-existence, for that matter. So for any party to claim that have proven that God does or does not exist is actually false; they are really making a probability statement, not an absolute. The question is, which one makes a better case, which one has a higher probability of being true, and is it reasonable to accept either of the scenarios?
Let’s throw the Bible aside for a moment. As far as we are concerned, the Bible is considered a suspect book that we are not sure we can trust yet. We haven’t validated or verified it, thus it’s suspect. Let’s start at square 1: can we even know anything?
So what is truth? Simply put, truth is telling something “the way it is”. Any truth claim is actually exclusive, narrow, and absolute. By definition, a truth claim thus denies its opposite. Truth is discovered, not invented. Truth also transcends gender, culture, society, etc… If you add 2 + 2 in Canada, you will get the same answer if you add 2 + 2 in Germany.
The concept of relativity that seems appealing to many is really a self-defeating argument. I’ve heard some say “that’s true for you but not for me”. Well, try that one out next time the IRS knocks on your door. Or when you check your bank account one day and find it empty. We do have absolutes that we live by. Indeed, we couldn’t live if we didn’t have these absolutes.
To claim that truth does not exist is absurd…is the statement “there is no absolute truth” a true statement?
What do you think? Do you agree that there are absolute truths in some fashion in this existence? Do you expect your bank account to have the money you put into it? Do you expect to be treated as if there are absolute truths in this world?
In which country does “do not murder” not apply? What about “do not steal”? What about do not sleep with another man’s wife? In which country is lying the preferred standard for daily business? Oops, I guess these are universal truths that have existed since the time that the Lawgiver gave them.
As to why I believe in God, it is the only logical conclusion to be drawn when studying history, biology, and the Bible.
I have mentioned earlier the 3 proofs of why I know God exists
1) the nation of Israel
2) fulfilled prophesy written hundreds of years before it was fulfilled
3) my changed life (I was born again)
These are 3 tangible things that cannot be refuted.
@dlegr250
An argument from silence? No more than you saying that just because there are currently no records of Jesus from the then contemporary writers doesn’t mean they didn’t write about him. And anyway, I originally said “Maybe some societies did develop without those basic rules. They are no longer around. [added emphasis]“. So yes, a specifically hypothetical example. That was the whole idea, to illustrate my point.
Regarding why the god of the bible: Actually, I do expect a simple answer, but believers are never able to give me one. Why do you believe?
I see no problem explaining what you call evil, I see no problem accepting evolution, and I certainly don’t follow any other religious system. None of these (and pretty much all other “objections” that believers have or think that non-believers have) are any problem whatsoever when you don’t start from the point of already believing in a god.
My simple reason for not believing in the bible is that there’s no evidence that it’s true, other than what men say – and they get their ideas from the bible itself = circular reasoning. Even with the writings you mention in your response to Dan, I don’t think there’s anything that says (for example) “Dear diary, I was in the pub at lunchtime and Fred came in. He used to be as blind as a bat – has been since birth – but now he can see perfectly. He says some guy called Jesus healed him. It’s a miracle!” I agree that the absence of such writing is no proof that such a miracle didn’t happen, but you’d expect it to be quite exceptional (kinda sorta like a miracle), so fairly newsworthy – at least diaryworthy by someone at the time. But OK, absence is not conclusive proof (but still a bit iffy that there’s nothing at all). Perhaps someone called Jesus could have existed, but there’s no evidence that he was actually the son of god or that he did miracles.
Believing in god because you (or humans in general) don’t understand how stuff works is silly. I don’t understand how it works, therefore god. And specifically, my flavour of god, not yours. The god of the gaps is getting smaller and smaller as we discover how things work. Is that the kind of god you want to worship – one that we repeatedly shrink and disprove as science progresses?
It takes much less faith (actually, none) to not believe in fairy stories, but to observe and accept that there’s no evidence of a mega-parent in the sky who takes responsibility for everything, so it’s all going to be OK. Such a belief is abdicating your personal responsibility to live as you should – you don’t need externally imposed laws to live a good life, you just need to follow what has developed in the society where you live. For your example: Does China exist? Well, there’s a perfectly good way to find out for sure – go there. Does god exist? There’s no way to find out for sure, because he doesn’t show up in the real world. But that doesn’t mean that we should make up stuff and pretend he does exist without any evidence.
Your attempt to deflect the issue by delving into philosophy won’t work. But I do like the way you say that truth is discovered not invented. That pretty much kills Erik’s argument that god invented the moral laws. 2+2 is always 4. That’s true – no atheist will argue with that. But when you talk about “universal truth”, you get close to trying to imply that someone must have made that universal truth. There’s no evidence that that is the case. Ceiling cat may exist, but there’s no evidence that it does, nor that it interacts with us here on this planet. If you have evidence, then please let us know.
@ Len
I gave you 3 clearly provable points to why I believe in God and why any rational person who has looked at the evidence with an open mind would also come to the same conclusion.
@Len,
You ask why I believe in God and Christianity and say it should be a simple answer. Well, no, most things worth knowing are worth spending some time learning. If you simply want an itemized listing of why I believe, though, here it is. This is a fairly-detailed accounting of why I believe in Christianity. Now that I have provided my basis for belief, what is yours?
What worldview do you operate under? How do you explain how the universe came to be? How do you decide what to do with your life day-in and day-out? What purpose does your life have?
ORIGINAL MATTER
Either the universe has always been, it came out of nothing, or it was created by something outside the universe. Out of nothing makes no sense; without an outside force acting upon it, matter can’t create itself if it doesn’t even exist in the first place. So that’s an illogical position.
The 2nd argument is that the universe has always existed. This can’t get around our current understanding of entropy in the universe. Many theories have been pulled out of thin air to explain how matter can exist continuously, but they’ve never been substantiated. It’s mere grasping at straws.
There is another excellent argument for why I can’t accept the universe as eternal: crossing an infinite amount of time. If the universe had no beginning and is thus infinite, and we are at an end of days (today), how did we cross an infinite number of days to get to today?
Furthermore, the universe has been observed to be expanding outwards. Wind the clock back, and it comes to a single point in time/space. We commonly call this the Big Bang.
The laws of thermodynamics also point to this. The 1st law says there’s a constant amount of energy in the universe. The 2nd law states that the amount of usable energy is decreasing. So if you have a finite resource over an infinite time period, what do you have? Nothing. It would have burned out an infinite time ago. Thus, we are faced with a finite universe that started at some point in time.
Add to this cosmic background radiation, which is an aftereffect of the Big Bang event explosion. It was predicted in 1948 and finally confirmed in 1965 by Nobel Prize winners Penzias and Wilson. It’s everywhere in the universe, and points to a great explosion event. And Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity refers to the inter-dependence of time, space, and matter (ie, can’t have one without others).
Thus, I find it very rational to first believe that the universe indeed had a beginning, and that the only rational explanation for that beginning was something external to the universe creating it. By definition, this also establishes a rational basis for believing in the “supernatural”, as the natural world is defined by the universe. If a force outside of the universe must create the universe, it is beyond the universe and thus “supernatural”.
Now many cite the argument “who made God?” or “if God exists forever, can’t the universe exist forever?” The Law of Causality only states that things that came to be necessitate a cause. God exists forever, and thus does not fall under the Law of Causality. Furthermore, the Law of Causality (and all science) is an observation of the physical universe. If God is indeed outside the universe, the law wouldn’t apply to Him.
And it is indeed “logically” possible that the universe could exist forever. That’s one of the possibilities I list above. However, when we bring it down to some real science, we find that it does not seem “actually” possible for the universe to exist forever.
DESIGN
What created the universe? I believe it was an intelligent force, not a natural force. Why? Because I can clearly see that design in the universe. I’ve done a lot of software before. I write programs that carry out instructions. If someone were to come up to me and tell me that he found this amazing program that just popped up out of nowhere that did amazing things like allow bank transactions to occur between existing banking industries, I would not believe him. Why? Because intelligence doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere. We’ve never observed that. It makes no sense. Yet I’m supposed to look at the universe and my own body and assume that it just happens over time?
Either the universe was designed or it was random. I’ve never observed random acts to create intelligent data. It’s the old “monkeys at the typewriter” argument. It’s never been done. But the monkey argument does indeed have an infinitely small chance such that it’s virtually 0 in mathematical terms of happening. However, what “monkeys” are operating on organisms to change them over time? What mechanism keeps each and every minute mutation at each stage so that they eventually build up to something useful? If DNA didn’t exist initially, how did the RNA tell it how to assemble properly? I see purpose and design in the universe. Thus, I see a Designer. I have yet to come across a satisfactory naturalistic explanation that can actually be demonstrated to exist beyond someone’s imagination.
Very strange theories have been posited to explain the mathematical chances related to the design we see in this universe. A common one is the multiverse theory that claims many universes exist, thus increasing the chances that random chance will create a functional universe. In fact, I think it was Hawkings who stated there were possibly more universes than there are atoms in our known universe (I would have to research the citation, but the principle he stated is true). However, this multiverse theory has some serious flaws, the chiefest of which: it has 0 evidence to support it and is a metaphysical concoction not rooted in any science. Furthermore, an infinite number of anything in reality is unfeasible. Seems to me that believing in something with no evidence especially when it is contrary to the evidence we do have is called faith.
It’s like the story of Johnny. He was home one day and saw a note that read “take out the trash – MOM”. Well, Johnny remembered his biology class and recalled that life itself is the result of mindless, natural laws. So why couldn’t this message be the same thing? Maybe some natural force created this message and not his mom. So Johnny decides to skip the trash and go to the beach, where he sees his high school crush Mary holding hands with another guy Bob. As Johnny walks behind them, he sees in the sand a hand-written note that says “Mary loves Bob”. Not to be discouraged, Johnny again remembers that everything is a result of natural, random laws and concludes that this is just another work of natural forces. Let’s just ignore that Mary and Bob are walking away hand-in-hand and that there’s a hand-written note saying “Mary loves Bob” in the sand where they just were. That’s irrelevant. We seem to think that there’s intelligence and designers behind that intelligence EVERYWHERE except when it comes to God…why must we deny that a God designed the very basic essentials of life when we claim designers for everything else?
You rip open the DNA inside an amoeba nucleus and you find enough information for 30 volumes of an encyclopedia. The entire amoeba has enough info for 1,000 such encyclopedias. We use the letters ATGC to represent the 4 base pairs of DNA. When they combine into a specific pattern they represent the code of life. This is the information we find in the encyclopedias. It’s not random, it’s very specific. And as recently discovered, science doesn’t think any part of the DNA is “junk” or left-over. It has a purpose: some DNA is for structures, others are control switches that control how those organs or structures work.
Whenever we see nature, it breaks stuff down. So the argument “give it more time” just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Give it more time and we have worse entropy, not creation. Give it all the time in the world and the laws won’t start magically changing.
I look at the evidence and conclude (very rationally, I think) that someone designed the information we have and thus the creator of the universe is not a benign force, but an intelligent being.
MORALITY
This is one we’ve discussed at some length. You’ve adequately demonstrated that a society may have a logical basis for morality, in that it allows groups to thrive and prosper and societies that don’t have such moral rules don’t last.
So let’s make it personal. Why should I not kill you? (for the sake of argument, I’m not actually making any threats here).
I’m serious. Your argument is that groups bind together and establish rules that regulate how their group should work, and that outsiders are dangerous to that group. I’m a Christian. That’s the group that supersedes all my other groups. It’s the beliefs I hold closest to me and have the most impact. You, by definition, are a threat to my group. And also by your own definition, you are outside my group and thus my group laws don’t apply to you. So there is no moral reason why I shouldn’t kill you, and I do have an intrinsic self-preservation interest in killing you: namely, removing a threat to my group. Thus, by your arguments, there is no absolute reason why I shouldn’t kill you.
All you’ve done is taken the argument from “why shouldn’t a person kill another person” to “why shouldn’t a society kill another society?” If the buck stops at a group/society, then there is no moral wrong with the USA firing up all its nukes and annihilating the rest of the world. Yes, some may fight back and send their own nukes. But the second we find a way to remove the other societies and survive, we should. Why not? What possible reason is there to not do so? If morality is a society thing, and societies make their own morals, then there is nothing morally wrong with Hitler. Hitler was merely following his group rules when trying to commit genocide. The Muslim terrorists performed no wrong when they flew those planes into the WTC on 9/11. It was only wrong for Americans, but it wouldn’t be wrong for any other society because they have a different set of morals.
Do you see how absurd it is to claim there are no absolute morals and that they are only a result of societies? Morality is a prescription of how man “should” behave, not a description of what man does. With a moral system that you described, military personnel are very evil for sacrificing their lives for the “group” if they themselves do not have children to carry on their genes. Because the only evil natural evolution can ascribe to is self-preservation so that DNA can be carried on via procreation. That’s it. Claiming man should bind together so that they can accomplish great things is just absurd. Get real. We are rocks with electricity flowing through us. Why do we need to accomplish anything? You’re trying to ascribe a purpose to mankind. But natural evolution claims there is no purpose: we’re freak accidents of nature. Thus we are all going to die someday, everyone we know will die, and the universe will die out and we and all that we know will cease to exist.
That’s a sucky future, if you ask me. See, if you’re right and there is no God, then it doesn’t matter. Cause we’re all going to go join the great nothingness. There’s nothing sacred about man. We will eventually all die out. So if you’re right it doesn’t matter what we do in this life. However, if I’m right and there is a God, we have a lot we will be held accountable for. So just on a purely probability scale, it’s rather foolish to bet against a God because you have nothing to gain if you’re right but a lot to lose.
MIRACLES (OR, WHICH GOD?)
Ok, so up to this point we see that something external to the universe created it, that this external thing has a mind because design/morality are the results of intelligence. I will reference this being as the Designer for now. So if this Designer exists and created our universe, isn’t it logically possible that the Designer could also interact in our universe and alter/manipulate/supersede or merely employ laws we simply don’t understand yet? This is what most religious refer to as a “theistic god”. A being with supreme power, intelligence, and personality.
Is this Designer infinite? As far as we can tell, yes. He has no limits with regard to space/time/matter/energy (all products of a physical universe which the Designer supersedes). The Designer has the ability to create this universe. The Designer lacks nothing and is thus infinite.
So if we know these things about this Designer, what can we conclude? Well, we can conclude that only monotheistic religions are valid because those are the only religions that make the cut up to this point. There are monotheistic religions, polytheistic religions, and new age (a “force” vs a Being). The new age we discount because we’ve already established a force cannot make choices, and a force cannot establish intelligence because that requires choices. Thus any attempt at defining god as nature doesn’t work…added to this the argument that if god is nature, how did it come to be? We addressed that issue early on.
So what about polytheism? Well, this is actually illogical. If the Designer is infinite, how can there be multiples? If there are multiples, then we have a way of distinguishing between them, which means they are different and thus not all infinite. So there can only be one infinite Being.
So that leaves us with Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. Each of these belief systems make exclusive claims that negate the other. They cannot all be true because they contradict each other in the vast majority of teachings. So since these are the only logical conclusions so far with which to understand the Designer, which one is valid?
I assert it is reasonable to believe the Designer has communicated to man in some fashion. The Designer has already communicated to us by creating us and establishing some natural law upon our spiritual hearts that ascribe how we ought to behave. Why doesn’t this Designer appear to each one of us in person to demonstrate His existence to us? Well, that’s where human free will comes into play. We believe in the free will of man to make choices. If the Designer pops into existence, do you really have the ability to choose to love the Designer? Isn’t that sort of short-circuiting your abilities to choose? Do we want the Designer to compel us to accept something that we don’t want to accept?
In order to not force man to make a choice, I believe it is reasonable to use written language as an appropriate means of communication between man and the Designer. It is able to be copied and passed on through all generations, and it is there for man to accept or deny as he wills.
So which of the big 3 monotheistic religions has the right book? I posit that the only real legitimate means of verifying the Designer’s book is with events that can only be explained by the Designer. Miracles are the Designer’s “seal”. Miracles allow the Designer to verify His message and confirm which system is correct.
It is not improbable or unlikely at all that miracles can happen. If the Designer exists (what we’ve discussed up to this point) miracles are perfectly acceptable. And science does not disprove miracles, because science is merely the observation of the natural world. By definition science can’t deal with the supernatural or miracles because science can’t observe them. Thus science is not at odds with miracles.
But aren’t the laws of nature immutable? No. Creation itself was a violation of natural laws, namely something coming into being when before there was nothing. Natural laws don’t CAUSE things, they are a description of what we see. Is it possible that scientific and natural laws are wrong? Yes. As our understanding deepens, we may alter some of our laws. But some of them are so well-established that if we altered them we would in essence disregard all science up to this point (namely the 3 laws of thermodynamics).
Now some still cling to David Hume’s argument against miracles. But Hume defeats himself. Hume claims that the evidence for the regular is always greater than the evidence for the rare. However, how many times have you been born? Only once, I imagine. How many times did the universe come into existence? How many times was life started? How many times did history occur? All of those are one-time or rare events. Even if Hume were true, he merely shows that miracles need more belief than a regular event, not that they cannot happen. Hume is telling people that even if they saw a dead guy rise from the dead, they shouldn’t actually believe it happened, because the evidence for regular events is always greater than rare events, and the wise man always goes with the greater evidence. A little silly, isn’t it? Why not go where the evidence leads instead?
So both the Bible and Koran employ miracles to demonstrate a message from the Designer. Nnow that we’re entering into the “religious” realm, let’s call our Designer God for simplicity, as that’s what all the major possible religions call Him.
Many people say that the Bible has tons of miracles and today we see none. Well, let’s clear up that fallacy right now. The BIble has around 250 miraculous events (give or take a few) and these are actually spread over a very small period of time: Moses, Elisha/Elijah, and Jesus and the apostles. Now you spread that across the entire Bible history time period, and miracles were also a very rare event in Bible times. So it’s not like miracles happened a lot in Bible times and don’t happen now. They were and still are rare events that were employed at specific times to validate a message from God. Today we simply don’t have a need for miracles as God has told us all we need.
NEW TESTAMENT IS RELIABLE
So we see God exists, and that He employs miracles to confirm His messages to man. So if we can find support for one of these miracles we can confirm which religious belief system is correct. I’m jumping to the NT because I find it to be the most credible place to find a confirmed miracle. If we can establish that God has granted divine support of one system, we can discredit the other systems as opposed to the system God supports.
To start out with a little perspective, we have 9-10 non-Christian references to the Emperor Tiberius within 150 years of Christ’s death. In that same time period, we have 10-11 references to Christ by non-Christian sources. Depends how you count them, but the fact is that Christ is mentioned about as many times as the Roman emperor who ruled during Christ’s time. Bring in Christian references, and Christ wins hands-down (nearly 42-43 references to Christ). I’ve also addressed the historical sources in other comments on this post. Thus, I will not rehash what I’ve already stated. If one wants to believe that Jesus never existed, I will not try to stop them from believing what they want.
What do the non-Christian writers tell us about Christ and Christianity? That Jesus lived in Judea, was a Jew, taught some interesting doctrines and gathered a following, was crucified under Pontius Pilate when Tiberius was emperor, Christ’s followers worshipped Christ as a god and died for that belief, and Christianity spread across the Roman Empire. That’s very similar to what the Gospels state.
So the question is two-fold: do we have accurate copies of what the Gospels said, and did the Gospels speak truth in the first place?
I will not spend time establishing the copies of the NT as reliable. That has been adequately established by much scholarship. No doctrinal issue has ever been at stake by the portions in contest, and the majority of errors come from spelling or easily-recognized errors. I fully believe the Gospel accounts we have today is, in essence, the writings that the original authors penned. I say in essence because we have a translation and you cannot translate literally from one language to another. If you want to know more about this topic, there’s a plethora of books on it. One you may want to read is “From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man”. I assume one accepts that the copies we have today are, for all intents and purposes, the same information the Gospel writers wrote. The evidence is out there, it’s just a lot of information to get through that provides little benefit to the topic at hand.
So if we have these copies so what? How do we know that they aren’t full of lies? How do we know the Gospels are trustworthy? We’re not establishing inerrancy for the Scriptures, merely establishing whether the main story of the Gospels is really fact or fiction.
So what criteria will we apply to determine if the Gospels are telling us the truth? Let’s examine some historical tests and see if the Gospels measure up:
(1) how early is the testimony?
(2) are there eyewitness testimonies?
(3) is the testimony from multiple, independent sources?
(4) are the eyewitness trustworthy?
(5) is there corroborating evidence from archaeology or other authors?
(6) what do the enemies say?
(7) does the testimony contain elements of realism (embarrassing/negative)?
Now I must address the common attack that the Gospel writers are biased and can’t be trusted. In summary, there’s no such thing as an unbiased person with regards to religion, because religions claim absolute truths that are true for all people, thus everyone has a stake. Atheists, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc… They all are making claims that hold true for everyone. If atheism is true and there is no God, it’s not only true for the atheist; it’s true for me as well. And if Christianity is true, vice versa.
Furthermore, yes, the Gospel writers were biased. But WHY were they biased? Why did they give up their normal lives to follow Christ and receive persecution, torture, and brutal deaths? They gained nothing humanly speaking by following Christ. They actually had every reason to deny the resurrection of Christ. They lost a lot in this world by following Christ. So the important question is not “how can we verify the writings of these biased writers” but really “why were these writers biased in the first place?”
Most of the apostles were Jews. Why would they benefit from turning to Christianity? They had a devout religious system that held Jews as God’s chosen people and held other people in disdain. Why would the apostles invent a story that resulted in a sucky life for them and allowed non-Jews to be elevated to the chosen people of God as well?
Furthermore, simply claiming someone is biased doesn’t mean they can’t be telling the truth. So if a guy walks into my house and shoots me, is the testimony of 9 family members not valid in court because they are “biased” against the guy? No, it’s the reason they are biased which is important, namely they were eyewitnesses to the event and are thus “biased” because they know what they saw.
So let’s examine the NT writings in a brief overview.
IS THE NT EARLY?
The entire NT was written before 100 CE. How do we know? The church fathers had quoted 25/27 of the books, and some of the quoted books were 3rd John which would come after 2nd John (one of the books not quoted). Adding to this, the fathers quoting them were in various regions of the world, and it takes time to write/copy documents for them to disperse. So 100 CE is the end-date for the NT. The accepted dates for most are around the 70s CE, and there are strong arguments for placing several books considerably earlier. Why before this date? Because none of the writings mention the huge destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, a prophecy Christ Himself made. This was essentially the destruction of the Jewish nation and a fulfilled prophecy by Christ. Why would these devout former Jews not mention it? Some say this is an argument from silence. It’s not, actually, because the NT writings do indeed reference Jerusalem and talk about it as if it is still standing. It would be like someone writing a history of the World Trade Centers but having no mention of the attacks on 9/11. That seems pretty strange. I think it very reasonable to assume that such a book was written before the events of 9/11.
Now let’s take it even further. We have Luke writing in the book of the Acts of the Apostles a very meticulous chronicle of his time with the apostle Paul. Luke was an insanely accurate historian, recounting about every mundane detail you could think of, including the depth of water when their ship crashed into the island of Malta. So don’t you think that Luke would have recorded the death of the main subject of his book of Acts, namely Paul’s death? Or if Jesus’ brother James had been executed? Luke records the death of lesser-known Christians such as Stephen and James the brother of John. It seems odd he would not record the deaths of more well-known Christians such as Paul or James the brother of Jesus. No, instead Acts ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome. The church fathers write that Paul was executed by Nero, and Nero’s reign ended in 68 CE. Josephus accounts that James the brother of Jesus was executed in 62 CE. It is therefore extremely likely and probable that the book of Acts was written before 62 CE. And the book of Acts is Luke’s 2nd work. Luke’s 1st work was the Gospel according to Luke. The Gospel of Luke is thus very realistically dated around 60 CE. Now the majority of scholars state that Mark was the earliest Gospel, and the others used some resources from Mark for their works. So Mark was probably written sometime in the mid 50s CE.
Add to this Paul’s first letter to Corinth is dated around 55 CE and is really not contested by any major scholar. And in that letter we have Paul addressing issues such as the Lord’s Supper, and then most importantly, talking about Christ’s death and resurrection in I Cor 15:3-8. Why is this important? Because most scholars believe this passage was the citing of an early creed that was established within 18 months to 8 years of Christ’s death. Why is this important? Because there isn’t room for inserting myth or legend when you’re talking about years. Those things happen over centuries of time.
So there is credible evidence to date several parts of the NT within 10-15 years of Christ’s death, the vast majority of it within 40 years, and all of it within 70 years. And keep in mind that 70 years is the absolute latest a dating could be allowed. I find the evidence very compelling that the majority of NT books of interest were written within 30 years of Christ’s death.
So the NT writings are indeed early. Yet some claim they aren’t early enough and can’t be trusted. That’s really just stretching it. People routinely write about events that happened 30-50 years ago and we still accept the eyewitness accounts. Events that make deep emotional impacts upon us are remembered fairly easily. Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated or the events of 9/11? Furthermore, legends can begin to crowd out facts with a few years when there are still eyewitnesses around.
But why weren’t they even earlier? Well, the NT culture was mostly illiterate. They had a tradition of oral accounts, not writing. Add to this that as Christianity spread, the writers finally saw a need to put things down on paper to spread testimony around the world.
But we have within 150 years of the events nearly 43 authors referencing Christ compared to the Emperor Tiberius’ 10. Nine of the 43 were eyewitnesses or contemporaries of the events who wrote 27 documents, and most of those 27 documents either cite or reference the resurrection of Christ. If people claim there should have been more I think they are merely refusing to accept the facts that have been presented.
ARE THERE EYEWITNESS TESTIMONIES?
All throughout the NT documents there are claims of witnessing the events. And then Luke also comes along and details things down to what particular name certain rulers were labeled at a certain time. The details Luke recounts come from a first-hand eyewitness. There are at least 84 verifiable historical facts and minute details recorded in the book of Acts. Yet that book also records 35 accounts of miracles performed by Paul or other apostles. If he was so accurate in little details, why would he blatantly lie about the miracles? To claim he was lying is really only based in anti-supernaturalism, which we’ve already discussed. If the supernatural exists, miracles are possible, thus Luke could indeed have been recording factual events. In short, the testimonies verify with detail that they were eyewitnesses. One couldn’t come up with that level of detail otherwise.
IS THE TESTIMONY FROM MULTIPLE, INDEPENDENT SOURCES?
The Gospels contain divergent details. They are not all the same; they each have something different to provide. Since the earliest times the Gospels have been attributed to the namesake authors. We have 2 eyewitnesses (Matthew and John), 1 disciple (Mark), and 1 doctor/historian (Luke).
ARE THE EYEWITNESSES TRUSTWORTHY?
They went and died for these beliefs. If they weren’t true, then these guys were really not the smartest bunch out there. Also, why did the non-Christian writers establish a similar story to what the Gospels account? Third, the Gospel writers extensively used real and historic names that their opponents could have easily refuted. To assert that the Gospels are a grand conspiracy is only real in fictional books. That would require various authors spread across the known world in a 20-50 year time period to get everything “just right”. Seems easier to accept they just wrote what they saw, isn’t it?
IS THERE CORROBORATING EVIDENCE FROM ARCHAEOLOGY OR OTHER AUTHORS?
Again, Luke has nearly 84 distinct details that can be researched in his Acts. The Gospels have nearly 30 historically-verified names cited that can be independently verified apart from the Gospels. Some of the elements of their story are verified by non-Christian sources as well.
WHAT DO THE ENEMIES SAY?
The Jews established a grave-theft story. They couldn’t outright deny Christ’ resurrection because they didn’t have a body to show. The body went somewhere. And the Jewish leaders claimed the apostles took it. So these apostles took a body and then they all died brutal deaths confessing that the body rose from the dead when they knew they had actually stolen the body? Then we have 500 other witnesses cited as seeing Christ post-resurrection? It’s asking a lot to believe these guys all willingly killed themselves for something they KNEW TO BE FALSE.
DOES THE TESTIMONY CONTAIN ELEMENTS OF REALISM (embarrassing)?
Most definitely. The apostles represent themselves as fools quite often. They record difficult or hard to understand sayings of Jesus. They record their decisions to forsake Christ and abandon Him when He needed someone most. They record the condescending names given to Christ by His opponents. If these guys made something up, they could have done a much better job than what they created. To this day some of Jesus’ sayings cause controversy among Christians.
DID CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD?
This is the critical question that the Gospels address. What do we know so far? Jesus was crucified by Roman authorities. He was placed in a tomb with a guard. The disciples claim they forsook Christ and were depressed. Jesus tomb was found empty 3 days later. The disciples claim they had experiences with the risen Christ and then proclaimed it around the world, refusing to deny it even when faced with death. From the very beginning of Christianity we have the resurrection being presented as a historical event. So how do we explain these events? In light of the evidence, I believe Christ actually rose from the dead. In order to invalidate that belief one needs to establish a plausible alternative based upon evidence, not mere denial of the resurrection.
WAS JESUS GOD?
In light that God put HIs stamp of approval on Christ by resurrecting Him from the dead, and the testimony of the Gospel writers, I hold that Christ was telling the truth when He claimed to be God and performed miracles as recorded in the Gospels. There’s lots to say here about this topic, but I’ve already written a miniature book. If any particular topic needs more attention, I will address that in more detail as needed. But since I trust the historical veracity of the Gospels and their claim that Christ was God and verified this by rising from the dead, I accept that Jesus was indeed God and that whatever Jesus says is true.
Jesus said the OT should be accepted as the Word of God. Being God, I accept what Jesus said. Thus what the OT and NT contain are verified by Jesus, Who was verified by God.
CONCLUSION
That’s a fairly-long version of why I’m a Christian. And there are several supports and numerous details left out simply for space’ sake. I find my belief in God to rational and based upon the facts as best I can see them. To deny these beliefs I must have something with which to replace them. One cannot deny something without claiming another thing to be true. Else how does one know that the first item is false to begin with? If one is an atheist, he needs to demonstrate why. He can still be an atheist without any reason, but if he has no reason I posit that his view takes more faith than mine, because mine is based upon reason and evidence.
Thus, I hold that Christianity is the belief system that requires the least amount of faith because it has the most evidence and support of any worldview system. I hold Christianity to be true beyond any reasonable doubt.
Well said
This is an interesting thread – we should all get together over a beer – that would save having to keep searching for the right Reply button
Anyway …
@Erik (regarding proofs of god),
Aarrrggghhh – messed up by markup. This one should be better…
This is an interesting thread – we should all get together over a beer – that would save having to keep searching for the right Reply button
Anyway …
@Erik (regarding proofs of god),
You pretty much prove my hypothetical point – if such societies existed (remember, I said “maybe”), then they no longer exist. But there’s still no need for an absolute law-giver.
I agree that you can study history and biology and come to learn some very interesting things about the world. But as soon as you start to include stories from the bible, you let go of reality.
Let’s look at your proofs:
1) Israel. A nation that has an artificial country, given to it after the second world war. If Israel is proof that the christian god exists, then I’d say that Iran, Iraq, and several other countries could be taken as proof that he doesn’t. Scratch one.
2) Fulfilled prophecy: I’m not sure which prophecy you mean, but if it’s anything like all the others in the bible, then it is because of:
* Deliberate lies by the “prophet” to “prove” whatever he wants.
* Accidental lies due to bad understanding (or bad memory) of what’s actually written.
* Taking earlier writings out of context.
Scratch two.
3) Your changed life. Personal experience is way too subjective and much too easily influenced by other factors to be taken as proof of anything. I’m glad you were able to change your life around, but it’s unfortunate that you were gullible enough to buy into the religions propaganda that you’re worthless and unable to do anything on your own. You deserve credit for what you’ve done. You may think that you personally – and people in general – have no strength, but I don’t think we’re so limited. Humans are stronger than that. Your turn-around is not evidence for any god, but may be evidence for the power of self-suggestion. Scratch three.
Do you have any real evidence?
@ Len
And again you want to change the goal posts (since there are no cultures that do not practice “do not murder” they must have gone out of existence). It is the lame “our examples did not fossilize” when evolutionists speak of the fossil record. They do not exists because they never have. These truths are universal, given to all men by the Law-giver. That is the only way to account for the fact that every nation, tribe, and tongue follows these rules and have followed them from the beginning.
Israel existed and occupied the land long before WWII. You really should work on your history.
Iraq and Iran do not have promises that they will exist as long as God does. Israel does have that promise. Many, many nations have tried to destroy them over the centuries but all have failed. The Israelites still exist, just as God promised. When they stop existing then God will also. The Romans tried to mix them into the nations and cause them to disappear (like many other people groups all throughout history). They failed. They actually disappeared while Israel remains. Proof one still stands.
Obviously you have not studied the prophecies of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Have you? Please be honest. If you have not then you really do not have much ground to stand on in this argument. Arguing as a novice leads you to some pretty absurd conclusions. There are over 300 Old Testament prophesies about the first advent of the Messiah. Jesus fulfilled all of them, some of which He had no control over, like his gender, who His parents would be, where He would be born, His nationality, the time in history He would be born ect. He also could not choose the method of dying while even that was prophesied in the Old Testament. Again, if you want to have this part of the discussion then you need to be informed, not just regurgitating some talking points. Point number 2 still stands.
I have personal witnesses who have seen the change in me. It is not me telling others about it. They come to me and tell me that they have seen it. I know about it because I have experienced it. I did not change my life. I had tried that before and failed over and over. When I came to Christ, that is when the transformation took place. I was born again, changed spiritually from the inside out. Trust in yourself was the lie that got mankind to fall into sin. In fact that is the original sin, not eating the fruit. Look at the passage in Genesis 3. The tempter says, “you will be like God” or in other words, “you no longer need Him to tell you how to live” (even though He created you and knows what is best for you), “you can do it yourself”. Because of that mentality, the world is in the mess that it is in today. Have you ever worked with addicts? I have and they all say the same thing, “I want to stop but I cannot do it myself”. This is the central focus of the Gospel, “you cannot do it on your own, because of that mentality you are in the situation that you are in”. The Good News (Gospel) is that God can help if you will humble yourself and come to Him, admitting that you cannot do it on your own. I pray that you come to understand that.
Point number 3 still stands so once again, I have given 3 proofs that you have yet to dispute logically. I had a teacher in highschool who used to say; “don’t give me them cornbread answers”. In other words, think through the argument instead of spitting out the generic talking points.
@dlegr250 – wow, what a lot of chat. It’ll take a while to get through that.
@Len,
You asked I provided
let it never be said I was one for quick explanations.
@Erik,
History notwithstanding and forgetting the bible as proof that the bible is true and that its god exists, then we have your personal change. Well done. I’m not denying or even questioning that it happened, just saying that you could take most of the credit for it. You don’t have to attribute it to any god. You did the work – maybe you felt stronger because you had something to believe it – some people need something to believe in. But still, well done to you for your hard work.
While your starting point is that there is a law-giver, in spite of that not being proven, you’ll always be stuck with your fairy stories and any discussion will come back to unproven and unsound conclusions.
I really wish you would actually read what I write. I mentioned that I tried by my own strength and failed time and time again. I changed when I gave my life (submitted my life) to Jesus Christ making Him Lord (Master). I then received the ability to say NO to temptation and sin.
@Erik,
And as for fossils, the missing bits may exist, we just haven’t found them yet. Just as atheists can’t prove the non-existence of god, neither can you prove the non-existence of the missing fossils. That’s an inconclusive argument. But even if those fossils don’t exist, if you understood how fossils came about, then you wouldn’t be so dismissive of a (for now) possibly incomplete record.
@Len,
Not to jump into the middle of a conversation, but I saw this update and wanted to give a few comments.
You stated that even if we don’t have the fossils yet, that doesn’t mean we won’t find them, and you compare that to the Christian’s claim that atheists can’t disprove God. I don’t think that’s a valid comparison. Chiefly, the fossil record is limited to this planet we call earth. It’s a finite number of places to check. Given enough time, we should be able to state conclusively whether the fossil records are there or not because we can eventually dig everywhere and dig deep enough to discover if fossils do indeed exist. However, God claims to be an infinite being that exists in a spiritual realm apart from the physical. If you’re going to prove God doesn’t exist, one would have to be everywhere in the known universe at the same time to verify God isn’t “hiding” somewhere. But then you’d also have to check out the spiritual realm as well, something we can’t necessarily do. The debate is whether the spiritual realm exists or not, and I think there are very strong arguments from our own universe pointing to that (I addressed those issues in the book-like post I wrote the other day).
The differences are that God is a being who can move around, whereas those fossils aren’t going anywhere. I understand the intent of your argument, and I agree with it to a point, but there will come a point where we can look at the fossil records and say conclusively that there is or is not evidence for evolution. So far the fossil record has given virtually zero support of evolution. That may change, and I’m very open to that possibility. But with each passing year, each “new discovery” that turns out to be Chinese people attaching pieces with glue or discovering the hip bone and the leg bone miles apart, the case for evolution being supported by the fossil records gets smaller and smaller. The more we dig, the less it’s supported. Again, this doesn’t mean there aren’t fossils, just that we haven’t found an abundance of them as dictated by evolution yet.
Furthermore, fossils have never been my main issue with evolution. They’ve always been an interesting topic, but my main issue with evolution is that no verified experiment has ever been run that applies random mutations to one organism and turns it into another functional organism over time. This is simply an empirical science argument, it has absolutely nothing to do with my Christian beliefs. In fact, everything I say below has nothing to do with my Christianity; it just has to do with science.
I have seen no scientific verification that the key thesis of evolution is true. We haven’t observed mutations being helpful; pretty much every mutation has been harmful (destruction of genetic material, not building it up). No one has put forth a credible theory as to why each genetic change at each micro-mutation is kept so that they can build upon each other. We’ve never established where the key ingredients of life came from (ie, what was the original “atmosphere” like?). Currently under man’s guidance and brilliance we can’t even turn monkey blood into human blood. We can’t explain how the intermediary species could exist. In short, the main thesis of evolution (random mutations over time altering organisms) has never been observed, is not repeatable, is not measurable, and the support evidence is shrinking the more we learn (ie, fossil record and intelligence theories). I’m not sure how it’s credible to present evolution as a scientific theory. As far as I’m concerned, when we have no evidence for something that we haven’t even observed, that’s called faith. I’m accused of having faith in God. And I admit that. I believe I have a certain amount of knowledge about God and I fill in the rest with faith. But evolutionists keep telling me that it’s a matter of theistic faith vs scientific fact. And I’m just not sure where they get that, because evolution, at the moment, is a faith system. It’s not a science.
Now we may find support for evolution in the future at which time it will jump out of the faith category into the evidence category. I’m open to that. But armed with the knowledge I have right now, a God is winning by an extremely large majority as the most rational explanation for matter, life, and all that is.
@dlegr250,
Sorry this is so long, but …
To address your first question first – what is my basis for belief?: I don’t believe in any god because there’s no credible, cogent evidence that any god exists. However, just because there’s no such evidence doesn’t mean that a god cannot or does not exist somewhere (even though it apparently doesn’t have any impact on, or interaction with, the real world). So just to be clear, I don’t believe there is no god, I just don’t believe there is one. However, as there is no evidence for any god’s interaction with the real world, I would expect the chances of any god actually existing to approach zero.
I don’t know how the universe came to be. While I’m generally curious about things, I’m happy to accept that there are things I don’t know yet, and things that I’ll never know. But I’m also quite interested to read that scientists are getting closer to understanding the origins of the universe. And occasionally one of them passes on a story that I am able to understand, which explains a little more of what happened. But just because I don’t understand it – and “science” (if I may use the term like that) doesn’t understand it (yet), that’s no reason to believe in any god. As I mentioned before, the god of the gaps is a diminishing deity.
Your trichotomy for the universe’s existence (“Either the universe has always been, it came out of nothing, or it was created by something outside the universe.”) is a bit misleading. As I already mentioned, I don’t know how the universe came to be (and incidentally, neither do you), but certainly two of your arguments are rather iffy. By definition, the universe is everything. So “something outside the universe” is, by definition, impossible. You also state that the universe cannot have existed forever – but later in your chat you’re quite happy to state that “God exists forever, and thus does not fall under the Law of Causality.” You happily make exceptions for god, but hold certain rules to apply to everything else. You do this because you believe god is special. In other words, you already believe in god and you try to use that belief to prove god. That won’t work.
As for the universe having a starting point – yes, that seems to be the current understanding. The universe as we know it had a starting point. We don’t know what existed “before then”. Time as we know it started at the big bang (at or around, anyway). The concept of “before the big bang” may not be something that we can really understand. But again, it’s no evidence for ceiling cat.
You try to make a pitch for a rational argument for the supernatural, and for god existing outside of the universe. But by definition the supernatural is outside of nature, thus outside of reality. In other words, you’ve produced a rational argument to show that god is outside of reality – ie, is not real. Well done. I hadn’t even thought of that.
And trying to make your belief seem like “real science” still doesn’t make your belief true. You can use as many logical arguments as you like to “prove” something, but if those arguments are acting upon false initial premises, then the conclusion – however “logical’ – is unsound. Prove your initial premise (ie, that your specific god exists), then we can talk about whether your conclusions can be considered correct.
You try to use what’s around us to show some sort of design at work, that something intelligently designed everything. I guess you can’t have looked around very much or thought about it much. Just look at human beings – created in god’s image? I know that Erik would say that all diseases are due to man turning from god, but I hope you’re thinking more than that. The design of the human body is reasonably awful. The appendix and the tailbone are just two examples of places the designer should have done better or are no longer used. But also (as the joke says) what intelligent designer would put a waste-disposal pipeline through the middle of a natural recreational area? Yay – go god
Why do you sometimes see a pattern in the world around you? Because things evolved. Why are there left-over bits in the body? Because we evolved. Why are our bodies not “designed” to provide the maximum joy and pleasure? Because they evolved – and that’s for survival, not for fun. You say you write software – great. I’ve been writing, debugging, and supporting software for over 40 years (I started back in the early 70s, when computers filled whole rooms and did less than your mobile phone does now). So what? The way you describe what you seem to think is evolution shows that you really don’t know what it is. Look it up on non-christian websites – the christian websites tend to promote their own strawman version of evolution, which they then like to break down. As you’re doing. As for observing evolution of species, look here for a simple case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species. And before you try to argue micro/macro evolution (which are terms made up by people to deny reality), also look here: http://i.imgur.com/oAnfA.jpg
You’re right – nothing in the world will lead to creation or deviation from natural laws
Luckily evolution works. And your attempt to use the 2nd law of thermodynamics seems to forget the energy that’s continually being added to the system.
You mention the story of Johnny and the note from Mom or the writing in the sand. Well, if as christians want us to believe, the christian god is so keen to have a relationship with us, and as we can find quite straightforward explanations for most things in nature (eg, evolution) without resorting to “ceiling cat did it”, why doesn’t god give us a real sign that only he could make? Writing in the sand? Why doesn’t he say hallo by writing in the sky? In a way that’s understandable to everyone regardless of race, place, culture, or language? Pretty easy for the god who created the universe.
Once again, your conclusion that someone designed everything is based on your unproven first premise (ie, your god exists) , and so is unsound.
Why should you not kill me? Why should I not kill you? Seriously? Because we’re both part of a larger society. We may live in different countries and believe (or not believe) different things, but we have chosen to live according to some standards. Asking why the US shouldn’t nuke everyone else, or why what Hitler did wasn’t OK, or why 9/11 was a problem, displays a naivete that – unfortunately – is often found in believers’ understanding of morality. Especially the morality of non–believers (or different-believers). You have probably been taught that people who believe differently to you (or who don’t believe at all) have no morals because they have no basis in (your) god for any morals. I think I showed quite clearly in my earlier post that you don’t need god for morals. Morals develop within a society to protect that society. Agreements exist with other societies to protect each other. We don’t enter into agreements with all other societies because the views of some of them differ so wildly from ours. That’s OK as long as we stay away from each other’s turf. Most of those societies are ostracised by the rest of us. But even those societies have discovered for themselves that some form of the basic rules is necessary – even if it’s only fully applied to one part of that society (eg, to the men). But they disagree with pretty much everything else. Again, no absolute law-giver is needed.
You say that ‘Morality is a prescription of how man “should” behave, not a description of what man does.’ which negates your point about Hitler and 9/11 anyway.
Evolution isn’t concerned with each individual’s survival – I’m sorry if I gave that impression (I guess I should know by now that believers usually don’t know anything about evolution, other than the strawman that’s burned from time to time in their church). Evolution is mostly concerned with the continuation of life, which usually equates to the survival of a species (that’s not a definition, just a result). So a soldier sacrificing himself for his comrades could be good for the species, but has nothing to do with evolution. And anyway, war like that is not a natural situation anyway, so it’s not a good illustration. Better would be to not go to war in the first place if you’re not actually fighting for your own survival.
You say “You’re trying to ascribe a purpose to mankind.” – no I’m not, you are. You are saying that we exist because god wants us to worship him, he’s made a plan to get us to heaven, he’s made a list and he’s checking it twice. You desperately want there to be a purpose to life, so you invent a god and trust that he’ll make it all OK. That doesn’t make it so. Pascal’s wager (believe just in case there’s a god) is pretty daft too. If your god can’t see that you only followed his path just in case he existed, then he’s not worth any worship.
No, that has certainly not been shown. The rest of the post is pure conjecture, extrapolated fairy tales, woo, metaphysics masquerading as science, and wishful thinking masquerading as reality. You continue based on your flawed conclusions, leading you nowhere.
You appear unused to having your opinions questioned, but while you continue to make unfounded assumptions and build your arguments upon them, your conclusions will continue to be unsound.
You seem to think that because the bible mentions some real people and some real places, that it’s true and correct about everything else. Well, we all saw at the opening ceremony of the Olympics (on the TV) that the Queen of England (yes, it really was her) joined James Bond (she actually said “Good evening, mister Bond” when he walked in) and parachuted from a helicopter. But just because it really was the Queen that we saw in the opening sequences, and she really does exist, and the Olympics really did take place in and around London, and someone parachuted from the helicopter, it doesn’t mean that the parachutists really were the Queen (who exists) and James Bond (who doesn’t). Regardless of what we all saw on the opening night. Similarly, just because the bible mentions some real stuff (people, places, and events), doesn’t mean it’s all real. It was put together specifically to promote a religion. Be more critical
You mention 500 people together all seeing Jesus after the resurrection – wasn’t that when they all failed to recognise him until someone said (or maybe he said, I forget) “that’s Jesus”? Then everyone sort of said “Oh yeah.”. But they didn’t recognise him until then. There was an article in the paper last week about a guy (in Mexico I think) who turned up at his own funeral. His family had identified the body of (as it turns out) someone who worked at the same place and looked a bit like the guy – but it wasn’t him. Mistaken identity happens – often to many people. And the heartfelt desire to have your hero resurrected can be “realised” when someone claims they are him (someone you didn’t actually recognise until it was suggested to you) or that they saw him alive again, trust me. Did the witnesses all see him from close by or were they at a gathering and someone said “Jesus is back” and the believers wanted it so much that they just accepted it? The believers who died for their beliefs really believed that Jesus had risen. I don’t question that. But that doesn’t mean they were correct, that he actually had risen. It would only take one or two shady individuals to fix up things to look for all intents and purposes like Jesus was alive again – they knew they were trying to start a religion, after all. Stage magicians make their living by fooling large crowds into believing an illusion. It’s their job. One or two well placed people is all it needs. Probably not any of the 12 apostles, because – as you say – they died for their beliefs, so I guess that they really believed too.
While you already accept that the christian view is correct, you will always conclude that the bible is true. It would be pretty daft to not reach that “conclusion”, seeing as you start out from there anyway.
And for your info, you don’t need to replace your beliefs with anything else. You could just examine the evidence without the christian starting point and realise there’s no good evidence for god in general and christianity in particular. And drop the shackles of your belief system. But that doesn’t mean you have to embark on a life of killing and raping people and barbecuing babies. No – you live by the rules of the society you’re in; they will generally be in line with how you already lived anyway.
PS A big thank you to Erik for allowing us to hold this long discussion on his blog
Oops – my last comment is awaiting moderation, Probably because I put two links in it and the system only allows one per posting. We’ll have to wait for Erik to free it up.
@dlegr250,
You’ll see a couple of the links in my post that’s awaiting moderation regarding observed evolution and micro versus macro evolution (and it’s to your credit that you didn’t try to bring up that red herring).
The fossil record, being what it is, may never give us a conclusive proof of all stages of evolution, because not everything that lived and died turned into a fossil. So the best we can hope for is that we get a pointer in the right direction. I don’t really understand why you say there’s been no evidence from the fossil record. You cite a case of a hoax, but people who accept evolution are just as much put out by that stupidity as christians (or creationists) are. It benefits no-one to make up stuff. And scientists work harder than anyone to expose such fakes. That’s what science does. Any scientist who actually demonstrated that evolution didn’t work or even that god existed, would be mega-famous. None have.
Anyway, I believe it was Erik who brought up fossils, probably to try and steer the discussion into a did/didn’t fight – I tried to address it very lightly and then keep clear.
As for comparing disproving god to disproving evolution based on the fossil record, that was indeed not a very good analogy
I guess I was tired after answering your previous megaposting 
But still you’re attributing to an unknown being (your god) characteristics that are definitely not proven. You’re basically making it up as you go along to make your god seem super-duper big and powerful. Step away from the belief starting point and you may make some good points.
To me, evolution (as has been observed in nature) is the best explanation for what we see in reality. It works with what we have in the real world – it doesn’t need an invisible being who is only described in a book that’s nothing more than a marketing brochure (albeit a very long one
).
@Len,
“Any scientist who actually demonstrated that evolution didn’t work or even that god existed, would be mega-famous”
You may have mispoke, but that’s not a fair statement. Evolution is not assumed true. Evolution has to be PROVED true. Thus, evolution is in the realm of a faith, just as God is. The question is which one has superior evidence on hand and thus requires less faith.
I agree, evolution is not assumed true. It has been shown to occur. Check out wikidepia for “ring species”. That was one of the links in the post that’s still awaiting Erik’s OK.
@Len,
I’ve looked at the Wikipedia article on ring species and was wondering if you could explain them a little bit? I’m not sure I fully understand it. Could you help explain how it supports evolution and what exactly the claim is? I just wasn’t certain and wanted to make sure I properly understood the concepts.
@ dlegr250…
Here are a couple of links to check out about ring species… perhaps these websites might explain it a little better, plus they give some examples….
http://darwiniana.org/rings.htm
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/irwin.html
For me personally, evolution doesn’t prove or disprove the existance of some kind of creator existing. I’m an agnostic, I personally don’t know if a creator exists or not. I actually do hope a supernatural entity does exist and that there is something after this life. The idea of something existing after this life is a very comforting idea, and I can see why so many people cling to the idea. However, there is no way for me to know with certainty how this universe came to be or what happens after we die, so I remain agnostic. I do think it’s possible that some kind of creator may have started the universe and left life to evolove on its own. I think the evidence for evolution is strong enough to the point where I can conclude that life evolved from a common ancestor, and not believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.
To me, I believe one of the strongest peices of evidences is in the geologic column containing the fossil record. We are lucky to have any fossils at all, of all th animals that have ever existed, very few of them actually fossilize. From a young-earth creationist’s point of view, the geologic column was laid down layer by layer during Noah’s flood in a very short period of time (within a year) and all the animals were trapped inside fossilized. If the flood story were true, we should expect to see a mish-mash in which the fossils are organized in the geologic column. The animals should be in no particular order because they were swept away by the flood and massive mud slides. The only kind of order we might expect to see would be larger heavier animals at the bottom because gravity would cause them to sink faster in the mud… and smaller lighter creatures would be toward the top of the column. We should also expect to see evidence of humans, human artifacts, and human settlements at the bottom of the geologic column. If the flood story were true, we should expect to see humans and other modern animals mixed in the same layers as prehistoric animals, and in no particular order throughout the entire column.
However, what we do observe in the geologic column is quite the opposite of what we should expect if the flood story were true. Even if you don’t accept radiometric dating as accurate, and even if you don’t accept the ages of the rock layers, different layers yield different species of fossils. The fossils are incredibly ordered throughout the geologic column. You will never find humans in the same rock layer as dinosaurs, you will never find any modern mammals in the same rock layers as dinosaurs or any other ancient animals. The majority of dinosuars were actually pretty small and mobile, why didn’t AT LEAST one small dinosaur make it to the same rock layers as modern mammals such as elephants, buffalo, or monkeys?? To prove my point that the geologic column is very ordered, scientists discovered the transitional species “Tiktaalik” in the devonian rock layers to be a missing link between fish and amphibians. This transitional form shared both fish and amphibian traits (look it up if you’re curious). What’s interesting is that the scientists knew exactly WHERE to look in the geologic column to find that missing link… it was very predictable because the scientists knew the geologic column was ordered in a way that is favorable to evolution. You will also notice in the geologic column that marine mammals are NEVER below marine reptiles in the column, because marine reptiles evolved before marine mammals. Again, you don’t have to accpet the age of the rock layers, the fact that the geologic column is so ordered is incredible evidence for life evolving over time, it is essentially a giant time capsul. Now, of course we don’t have EVERY transitional form that has ever existed, we don’t have a play-by-play recording of every animal evolving. There are a number of transitional forms that have been discoverd, the evolution of whales, horses, and humans is very well documented. In human evolution, you can see our lower jaws gradually become smaller, and our brain cavity slowly become larger and larger over time, and our brow bone becomes smaller and less pronounced. In fact, some people even still physically resemble primates to a certain degree in the face (not to be mean or anything, but everyone knows its true). In fact, all living creatures are transitional forms, there is no “end product”, life is continuelly changing. Some of the more obvious animals would be seals and sea lions, or manitees and other dugongs. They actually have small vestigial fingernails on their flippers. Ostriches, penguins, and other flightless birds would be examples too.
@Erik,
)…
Sorry – forgot to mention (pity there’s no edit function here, like there is on Think Atheist
Have I studied the bible? Yes. But that was more than 35 years ago. And it was almost 40 years ago that I last preached from it. Wow – time flies when you’re having fun
So I agree that I’m a bit rusty and I don’t have the time to dig too deeply any more
So you are not well versed enough in prophesy to be able to argue credibly. That is all I wanted you to admit. Thank you. In that case, the point about fulfilled prophesy still stands. I notice that you throw out a cornbread answer (cliche) to avoid discussing the facts. Are you not a “Thinking Atheist”? If you are then do justice to the name my friend.
@Erik (prophesy),
Good try at deflection. It’s not like a pilot’s licence – it doesn’t need continual refreshing. The errors and inaccuracies, mistakes and misquotes that were in the bible (including the prophecies) 40 years ago are still there. The biggest difference is that now, anyone with a browser can look them up easily. I guess that’s progress :–) Plus of course that the apologetics industry has had 40 more years to bend and twist what the bible actually says to try and explain them away. But that didn’t work then (and earlier, of course) and it doesn’t work now.
Ha ha – yes: I’m not qualified to comment on the bible because I stopped trying to make sense of the nonsense in it 40 years ago
Have a good weekend
@Len,
You made a statement that the Bible has errors and inaccuracies, mistakes and misquotes. Can you provide examples of each of these to back up your claim? And then can you demonstrate how each example you cite supports your view?
No he cannot. I have already asked that question. It will be a list of easily disprovable fallacies.
It is something far greater than a pilot’s license. The wisdom of the Bible has no bottom to it. It is literally a bottomless source of information that you could not master completely in multiple lifetimes. I am not trying to deflect anything. I am trying to show you you ignorance (sorry to have to use that word) on the subject, hopefully so that you will better inform yourself for future arguments.
Do you mean men’s opinions about what the Bible says? Because you can find 100 different men with 100 different opinions and they all can be completely wrong in their arguments. Be willing to do the work yourself. Put in the time, effort, and energy and you arrive at the correct conclusions and be amazed at what you discover. I find this same problem in many churches. People are lazy and they want someone else to figure out the Bible and explain it to them. They usually pay someone like a pastor or priest to do that.
Another personal question, you say that time is flying by and you are correct. What legacy are you building during your lifetime that will speak of you once your time has flown by? I ask myself this question and really reflect on it quite often. It really helps me see what I am doing with this precious gift called time that we have all been given.
You also have a nice weekend.
@dlegr250 (ring species),
Here’s a shot at explaining it in real layman’s terms (without even referencing the article – this is my way of explaining it ;–)).
Firstly, some understanding about terms:
Species is a group of organisms that can intrabreed (ie, members of the group can breed with other members of the same group to produce living offspring). Members of a species may be able to interbreed with members of another species (if their genetic makeup is close enough) – eg, lions and tigers.
Evolution means the change in the gene pool over time within a particular group of organisms (a species). It does not mean that a dog gives birth to kittens
We start with a species that lives somewhere, let’s call it A. Where they live isn’t really important for this illustration. In the case mentioned in the Wikipedia article it was birds. A group of members from A find a different nice place to live, so that group moves there. They may still have some contact with the guys back home, but they are mostly self-contained – ie, they intrabreed (mate within their group). After a while (perhaps a long time – ie, many generations), due to evolution, the genetic makeup of the new group starts to deviate very slightly from the original group A. This is because the groups live separately from each other and have very little genetic mingling to produce new generations with a “bit of both” genetic makeups. Eventually we have a new group, B. They are genetically separate from A, but still close enough that they can successfully interbreed with (ie, mate with members of) A.
After a few (or maybe many) generations, a group of members from B now find a new nice place to live, so that group moves there. They still have contact with B, maybe even a little with A (but probably less, as they’re even further away), but essentially the new group is self-contained – they mate within their group. Over time, evolution, …, you get a slightly different genetic makeup in the new group, C. They are still close enough to B to interbreed and they may still be close enough to A to interbreed.
This pattern repeats itself several more times. Each breakaway group can still mate with the group they came from, but as they form a new self-contained group, and mate almost entirely within that group, their genetic makeup starts to deviate from their own original group. Over time, as new groups emerge that are based on the previous breakaway group, those new groups will have less and less chance of being able interbreed (ie, mate with members of) A.
Obviously, this doesn’t happen overnight. We’re talking about many, many, many generations.
Eventually, in the case mentioned in Wikipedia, a distant descendent group (let’s call them L – assuming that the breakaway-and-establish-a-new-colony process has taken place 11 times – it may need more in real life, this is just to illustrate the concept) finds a nice new place to live that happens to be close to where the original colony, A, lives. But they have deviated genetically so far from the direction that A has gone (because they’ve been evolving independently) that the two colonies A and L are unable to interbreed. A can breed with B, B with C, C with D, etc – and K can breed with L. But L and A doesn’t work.
Group L has become a new species (ie, a group that can’t interbreed with the original). It may very well be that L is not the first new species in the ring (eg, maybe G couldn’t interbreed with A), just the first where it’s noticed. And it’s called ring species because they’ve grown and evolved in a way that leads back to the original group – ie, it’s a ring
And it looks like Erik has OK’d my post from yesterday
Thanks Erik.
@Len (ring species),
Thanks for the explanation. I think the issue rides upon how one defines evolution. I don’t want to get into macro/micro as I do agree with you that that’s a big rabbit trail. But the concept is that variation does not equate to new kinds of life. So if we define evolution as just some changes in the genetic code I fully agree with that. However, the key is HOW is the genetic code changed. I will use the term “Darwinian Evolution” to refer to the theory that life is the result of random processes that took the building blocks and formed them into the first genetic information and then mutations over time altered and created new genetic code, thus resulting in various organisms, and that further mutations over time permitted the variety of species we see today, like a tree with many branches. Modern Darwinian Evolution pictures our variety as a tree instead of a single chain, such that not every organism that lives is directly linked to every other.
I do think it’s important to keep the Darwinian Evolution theory separate from the term “evolution” as you’re using with regards to ring species, because they are not the same thing. You cannot claim ring species = variation = genetic change = evolution = thus evolution is true. Again, the main thesis of Darwinian Evolution seeks to explain how genetic information is created, not simply changed. Variation occurs all the time and no intelligent person can deny that (ie, humans have blue/green/violet/brown eyes, some are short/tall/fat/skinny, etc…). However, variation has never been able to explain the creation of genetic material, and in fact is the complete opposite.
With regards to ring species, the speciation occurs with the loss of genetic possibilities. It doesn’t matter if mutations are involved in the speciation process or if it occurs naturally (which it does), both reduce available genetic possibilities by suppressing or even eliminating some genetic information and allow previously-suppressed genetic information to be expressed. New genetic information is not created; some of it is actually lost.
With ring species, there comes a point (the ends) where the speciation process stops, because the potential for genetic variation has stopped. An analogy would be that I have a 2-story house. Each day, you take 1 brick away from my house and my house has to re-adjust the remaining bricks to keep out the cold. Over the course of time, you can get some very different shapes. However, over time, you’re also losing bricks (genetic information) and there will come a point where you really can’t take anymore bricks without defeating the entire purpose of the house (ie, keeping the cold out).
Speciation is an example of genetic loss, not genetic creation. The basis of Darwinian Evolution is that less-complex organisms evolve into more complex organisms via random mutations that occur over time, which necessitates the creation of genetic information. If we are losing genetic information in speciation (ring species) then we are actually at the complete opposite of creating new genetic information. I find that ring species are actually support against Darwinian Evolution.
Darwinian Evolution claims that my 2-story house can eventually be “mutated” into a 60-floor skyscraper (less complex organism into more complex). However, if you take a brick away each day from my house, I feel confident claiming you will never be able to build a skyscraper from my house.
So we must define the terms we use. I fully accept natural selection, speciation, and variation as true and readily observed phenomena. However, none of these can account for the creation of genetic material, which is the crux of Darwinian Evolution.
It would be like a person claiming they are a Christian and yet don’t believe that Jesus Christ was God or that miracles exist, but only believes that Jesus was a good person and taught us to be moral and nice to people. With that definition, many people would call themselves Christians. But are they really Christians according to the Bible? No. Because the fundamental tenet of Christianity is that Christ IS God and thus able to redeem man from our sins by His sacrifice on the cross.
In the same vein, claiming speciation is the same as Darwinian Evolution is not valid. Darwinian Evolution is not supported by ring species. In fact, ring species are actually a great discredit to Darwinian Evolution. Because if you start with 100 and start subtracting, you eventually arrive at 0. There’s never a point where during this subtraction process you magically start increasing and somehow get beyond 100.
@dlegr250,
(That’s a joke, by the way. At least, I hope it is.)
I’d be interested to see where you get the idea that evolution always means loss of genetic material. The only times I’ve ever seen anything like that has been on creationist websites. And they’re afraid of evolution, so I’m not surprised they try to bend the definition to introduce differences that aren’t really there (like the micro/macro rubbish). And I hope you’re not suggesting that people with different eye colour have different amounts of genetic material
Mutations to the genetic material will, over time lead to changes in the species. Mutations can mean either more genetic material or less genetic material, or the same amount but changed in some way. Assuming we’re only talking about mutations that can be passed on to future generations (ie, they are heritable), it’s safe to say that some mutations will be harmful, some neutral, and some beneficial (in the sense that they better promote feeding or breeding). Harmful mutations will not last long. Neutral mutations may have no benefit, but may tag along in the genetic material as noise. In the future they may become useful if they assist or enable another mutation to be beneficial, but that’s obviously a very long shot. Mutations that are beneficial will help the recipient (and its descendants) survive better and pass on its genes. They may well become the standard for a new species.
In the case of ring species, yes there is a limitation in how far you can go. But that’s because the available gene pool is not infinite, so after a while you will have gone through all the workable variations that allow you to still remain within shouting distance (but no longer mating distance) of the original species. If you go further (eg, millions and millions and millions of years rather than just a few thousand generations), then who knows what you will end up with – provided you don’t artificially limit what you’re defining is allowed to happen, by saying it can only reduce.
@Len,
I’m not defining evolution as always losing genetic material, I’m merely pointing out that in ring species the variation is accomplished by loss of genetic information. Creation of new genetic information is not the same as adding a new ATGC base pair. Mutations have done that, but they almost always produce no effect. It has not been demonstrated via experimentation that this mechanism can account for the creation of genetic information such that random mutations over time can “build” one less complex organism into another.
An analogy is a book, or a Shakespearean sonnet, to use a classical example. Merely throwing letters around (ie, adding genetic information) is meaningless. It must be situated in a particular order to create meaningful words and then those words must also be arranged in a particular order to create meaningful sentences. The “monkey’s at typewriters” thought argument has never been established. I submit that a certain level of complexity does necessitate an intelligence behind it.
I think there is some confusion when I talk about genetic information. I’m not saying that variation implies there will be fewer chromosomes passed on. With regards to the ring species variation example, it is the alleles (specific genes that code for specific attributes) that are manipulated. Altering the alleles (by selective breeding) alters genetic information. Breeding has been doing this for centuries. Dogs, for example, have been bred such that the traits of previous generations have been lost and will not be expressed. It is a deterioration of genetic variation that creates variety in a species. Undomesticated wolves didn’t build genetic code and transform into the variety of dogs we have today: the genetic information and traits selected for always existed in the wolves’ genetic code. It was selected for over time such that some traits (alleles, which are expressed genetic information) were suppressed and lost. Thus certain dogs that were bred for over time have less genetic potential to express various attributes. I call this a loss of genetic information.
In the sonnet example, it would be like taking a random word like “thou” and turning it into “fiaj”. There has been a net loss of genetic information because the new word now has no meaning. Is the total content lost? No, but the information is lost.
With regards to mutations, the overwhelming majority have been neutral and harmful. Have there been some beneficial? Probably. However, the probability is absurd to claim that mutations over time account for less complex organisms evolving into more complex. To get a series of mutations that potentially build up into a more complex organism is mathematically improbable.
In a nutshell, the claim is that if a bunch of monkeys sit down and pound at keyboards long enough, one of them will produce a Shakespearean sonnet. Would you agree that this is a proper analogy to mutations? Random forces are acting on the keyboard (the monkeys don’t know English, and don’t know Shakespeare) over time (they keep pounding and pounding without fail) and mutations are the instrument (each “iteration” of an attempt).
Now math can be brought into the discussion and we could probably find a mathematical probability that we both agree upon (after some level of disagreement, I’m sure). But let me just short-circuit that and tell you what I think at the moment.
Is it “mathematically possible” that the monkeys could produce a functioning sonnet? Yes. There are only 26 letters in the English language, adding the (?!,.) symbols and spaces you have 31 possibilities at each stage (give or take a few characters I may not have listed). The sonnet is a finite length. Thus, one of the possibilities for the attempts by the monkeys is the real sonnet by Shakespeare. So it is indeed mathematically possible, but practically impossible. No one in their right mind would ever bet on those odds. No one has verified that this is possible. Yet Darwinian Evolution says “here we are, thus it happened” without having verified it. That’s what my problem is.
Darwinian Evolution is an assumption, a plausible story, that has not been verified. Ring species do not support random mutations over time creating new organisms by creating new genetic information. Breeders have been doing this for a long time, and they have yet to produce cats from dogs. Variation occurs, no question. But the variation has a finite limit. Your claim is that given enough time, that variation will eventually account for dogs creating cats (so to speak). I’m merely asking where is the experiment that demonstrates this?
Your assumption seems to be that beneficial mutations occur and are passed on and thus over time many beneficial mutations build up into new organisms. That sounds really good until you dive into it and see how unrealistic that is. I’m claiming that is an unsubstantiated claim without verification. I am also claiming that breeding variation into a species such that later generations can’t breed with earlier ones does not demonstrate the creation of new genetic material. Thus, ring species cannot account for Darwinian Evolution.
Len, do you think it’s probable that beneficial mutations over time build up to account for new organisms? Do you believe that new genetic material is created by these beneficial mutations?
@dlegr250,
), but I just wanted to respond to some of your points.
I’ll not be able to reply for a while (contrary to what some people in my immediate vicinity believe, I sometimes have a life offline
You keep trying to limit the discussion to “Darwinian Evolution”, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and saw some interesting stuff
The tactic seems quite similar to what was repeatedly attempted in the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (whether or not you intended it 
).
From Wikipedia: “The term is a curious throwback, because in modern biology almost no one relies solely on Darwin’s original ideas… Yet the choice of terminology isn’t random: Ben Stein wants you to stop thinking of evolution as an actual science supported by verifiable facts and logical arguments and to start thinking of it as a dogmatic, atheistic ideology akin to Marxism.”
I also read this: “While the term has remained in use amongst scientific authors when referring to modern evolutionary theory, it has increasingly been argued that it is an inappropriate term for modern evolutionary theory. For example, Darwin was unfamiliar with the work of Gregor Mendel, and as a result had only a vague and inaccurate understanding of heredity. He naturally had no inkling of yet more recent developments and, like Mendel himself, knew nothing of genetic drift for example.”
So while you try to keep us focussed solely on Darwin’s ideas, that focus keeps us away from what has been discovered since.
I would rather trust what I can read on the web and on Wikipedia about evolution (eg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution). As well as describing what science observes and what it accepts about evolution (ie, the theory behind the observations and why the theory can be extrapolated), it includes the following: “Mutations can involve large sections of a chromosome becoming duplicated (usually by genetic recombination), which can introduce extra copies of a gene into a genome. Extra copies of genes are a major source of the raw material needed for new genes to evolve.”
Regarding your example of the monkeys writing a Shakespearean sonnet, yes it’s a long shot. But given enough monkeys and enough time, it’s not impossible – even you admit that. Thinking of all the cells in all the organisms in all the millions of years since life first began, it becomes increasingly less implausible. Of course, they weren’t all trying to write Shakespeare
As for dog breeds, they are hardly a good example of what nature can do – they have been bred for specific characteristics, regardless of whether those characteristics would be in line with what nature would have achieved. But I’m surprised to see you say “Breeders have been doing this for a long time, and they have yet to produce cats from dogs.” I hope you were joking, because otherwise it rather shows that you’re not looking at things entirely honestly. No, breeders have not produced cats from dogs. Maybe in a million years, but don’t hold your breath.
As for your last two questions: (do you think it’s probable that beneficial mutations over time build up to account for new organisms? Do you believe that new genetic material is created by these beneficial mutations?): It won’t happen every time, obviously, but based on the info I can find on the web – and what I read (reasonably nicely summarised) on Wikipedia (see the quote I gave, above) – I think that it’s definitely possible, without any “designer” being involved – intelligent (or otherwise) .
@Len,
It doesn’t matter to me what term we call it. I refer to it as Darwinian Evolution not because it’s limited by Darwin, but because Darwin was the first to heavily popularize and theorize about how it may have happened. Call it whatever you want and we’ll agree on a term and definition to use.
The process is random mutations in the passed-on genetic material of an organism create new genetic material that eventually enables less-complex organisms such as bacteria to build themselves into more complex organisms such as humans. Whatever term you want to define that as, I’m probably fine with.
So instead of wasting time defining terms, why do you believe this process exists? Have we observed less complex organisms transform into more complex organisms via random mutations over time? If we have, what citation do you have for it to validate it?
I do believe I’m being very honest. I’ve spent a good deal of time studying evolution and I even acknowledge the mathematical possibility. However, a mathematical possibility is not the same thing as saying it can ever happen. There’s a lot of unknowns that have to be overcome in order to claim this process has and does occur.
I’m also not clinging to any religious belief system in opposition to evolution (or whatever term we employ to describe the above process). I’m simply asking the scientific community to establish the process as observable, repeatable, and measurable. I’m asking the scientists who support this idea to provide some real science to verify it. Ring species do not validate this process; in fact, they point to a loss of genetic variation as a result of speciation.
You stated you believe it is possible for this process to occur without any God/Designer being involved. Fair enough, if you want to believe that. If you are truly convinced that’s where the truth and best explanation are for the evidence we have, I can’t tell you that you’re wrong. People believe and are convinced by different things.
But why do you believe it? Has it been empirically demonstrated to you? Have you seen the transformation for yourself from a lesser organism to a more complex organism? Have you verified that the scientists are not lying to you or deceiving you?
When I defend my Christian beliefs I have to establish the possibility that God exists, I have to establish the historical plausibility and then veracity of the Gospels and surrounding non-Christian texts, I have to establish that if a God exists that it is most likely the God of the Bible, and I also have to address modern cultural and ethical issues. I’ve researched and have rational answers for each of these points. A select minority I do have to take on word of mouth with regards to ancient documents. But many of the philosophical and logical arguments for God are easily performed by any person.
So I’ve carefully researched my belief system. I feel logically safe in my belief system. Yet you tell me that you believe your system because people have told you it’s true.
So why do you believe your system is the best explanation beyond accepting the words of some men who say it’s true?
dlegr250 great explanation… I am a Catholic, but I thought Dan brought up good points that were not shown to be wrong by anyone else… it was not until you explained that Christ did not follow the Mosaic law because Christ had fulfilled the Mosaic law and it no longer held sway over God’s people did I understand.
I know this is off topic and I also know you probably won’t agree with me on this issue, but because I am impressed with your ability to explain, I am posting a letter to the editor I wrote after my priests sermon on abortion where he went on to tell us who not to vote for, and if inclined I would love to hear your take on the issue.
“For some reason, the Catholic Church has determined the separation of church and state only matters when they are protecting their rights and can be ignored at their discretion.
First, let me say I am normally a proud practicing Catholic, although there have been times, like the church’s cover-up of pedophile activity by some priest and their choice to ignore the victimization of the children affected, that did embarrass and sicken me, and today was another such time.
Today at Mass, I listened as the priest used the skills that could only be compared to a super-pack political advertisement, twisting together facts and fiction to come up with something more false than true.
Somehow today’s sermon turned the fact that I am a pro-choice Catholic into meaning I am pro-abortion – The words pro-choice were never used, but the word pro-abortion was used many times. Before I go into why this is an outright twisting of facts, let me ask one question: How many people do you know who would say they are pro-abortion? That would mean they support abortion of life in all cases of pregnancy. Let’s examine what “Pro” means. The definition reads: “An advantage of something or an argument in favor of a course of action: ‘The pros and cons of joint ownership.’” Who in their right mind would state that they favor abortion over life?
I asked the priest on the way out of church when did pro-choice turn into pro-abortion, and he said, “That is what it means, that they advocate abortion.” How sad and how twisted is that thinking?
So for the benefit of the priests across this nation who are preaching these half-truth, super-pack-style sermons, let this pro-choice Catholic educate you on what I really believe: First, I am against women getting an abortion. I feel that every woman should seek and receive the counseling of her family, community, church or professional counseling before going through with any abortion. I am for any alternative to abortion, including adopting out an unwanted child as being the best option, but as an American Catholic, I do not feel the government should pass a law that takes this decision out of the hands of the women, and any such law would be unconstitutional.
There is a big difference between what is morally right and the rights given to us under our constitution, and the church has every right and, yes, even the responsibility to preach against abortions to their parishioners, but they do not have the right to inject themselves into the political process and join the ranks of super packs on both sides that misrepresent facts with twisted logic.
The priests would better serve this cause by providing spiritual guidance to the young women struggling with this decision. It would be better if they counseled them on the other choices and helped them spiritually and, if needed, financially toward carrying the baby full term and help them with adopting the child out to a loving family.
How many young women do not seek your counseling because they are scared to talk to a priest? They think you look at them as possible murderers and lack the compassion to look at their side and help them through their struggle.
Let me spell it out one more time in closing: I am a Catholic, I am pro-choice and I am against abortions, so please get your facts straight and take yourselves out of the political process. If it’s too late and you helped turn this election against the very party that supports some of the groups you support, like immigrant children, the poor whom the other side classify as self-proclaimed victims who feel entitled… if you help turn this election their way, I hope you can live with the outcome when the abortion issue does not change anyway!
I have to say one thing: The American Catholic Church over the last decade has certainly helped me deepen my faith by forcing me to question it due to their actions or inaction’s and has allowed me to become closer to my God than my church because of its hypocrisies.”
@Mike Considine,
Mike I appreciate your kind words and I’m glad that my post helped clarify some things for you.
I take your request for my thoughts very seriously and I want to make sure I adequately answer your post with proper diligence and understanding and without mispeaking. To that end, please allow me a few days to look over your post, do any necessary research, and then I’ll respond to the best of my abilities.
Thanks again, and I look forward to discussing these issues with you.
Thank you dlegr250, one thing I left out was my suspicions that the Catholic Bishops decided this year after 39 years of Roe v. Wade to tell us who not to vote for based on the abortion issue, more because of their battle with Obama over Obamacare contraceptive issue. I don’t know if your Catholic or not, but the teaching of our Magisterium say I should not question the church on issues like this, and I find myself question my religion because of the actions of some. I see it made up of just men with all mans weaknesses but the Magisterium says I basically should blindly follow.
Mike, keep thinking it through. Blind faith in anything is bad for you – your own cognitive dissonance is banging on the door to make you stop and think. Think carefully (and honestly) and draw your own conclusions.
I would first like to say this is lengthy and a bit off-topic for the post at hand. If the admin do not want the topic taken off-hand, please let me know and I will not seek to move off-topic anymore.
@Mike,
Your editorial has raised several issues and I will address each of them in part. As is my tendency, this is a long post. However, I feel it is warranted that I tell you where I’m coming from so you understand my perspective and that I take the time to properly develop my thoughts and reasoning. I feel it would be a disservice for me to make claims without having properly backed them up. I trust that my providing further clarification of my views will aid you in understanding my perspective on your editorial. On a personal note, I would simply define myself as a Christian who seeks to follow the Bible. I currently attend a non-denominational church and thus I am not a Catholic.
1 QUESTIONING MAGISTERIUM, “EX CATHEDRA”, AND HUMAN INFALLIBILITY
I do not desire to offend your beliefs or insult the Catholic church. They have done many good things but, as you’ve pointed out already, they are simply men. They make mistakes like all men. The Bible never claims to grant immunity to sin to anyone. Even the apostles sinned.
1a PAUL SINNED
The apostle Paul sinned as he stated in Romans 7:19 “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” The Bible also teaches that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9), which I understand to say that mankind is wicked and we are capable of fooling ourselves.
1b PETER SINNED
I think it is fairly clear from Scripture that the apostle Peter was also a sinner, which is important as he is the patriarch of popes for the Catholic church. He forsook Christ during the “faux pas” legal hearings and lied about being a follower of Christ (Matt 26:69-75). Later, the apostle Paul had to confront Peter (Cephas) because Peter had caved into the pressure of the Jewish Christians:
Galatians 2:11-14
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. 13 And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
The full story is found surrounding this passage in Galatians, but the issue at hand is that Peter, years after Christ’s ascension and well into the Church Age, was still capable of sinning. He was not infallible. Granted, he was not speaking “ex cathedra”, per se, but I see no mention of such divinely-inspired speech in Scripture.
1c VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY OF POPE
The following is my understanding of the teachings of the Catholic church, so if I am in error or am stating incorrect information, please correct me. I do not desire to have an improper understanding of these issues.
Vatican I, session IV, ch 4, section 9:
“Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God our savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.”
My understanding of this section is that the Pope, when he speaks as the leader of the Catholic church regarding issues of morality or faith, is infallible in what he says. I do not see any clear support for this in Scripture. I see the Scriptures teaching faithful men to lead other men, but the examples of Scripture itself tell us that all of these men were sinners and never were any of them granted “immunity” to sin when they spoke for Christianity as a whole. I cannot agree with this theology. I do not find the support for it in Scripture and thus I must reject it until I can be shown from Scripture where this belief is supported.
The apostle Paul, under inspiration of God, said in Galatians 1:8 “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” From my understanding, Paul himself would strongly disagree with the Catholic church claiming that the pope can add to or alter the teachings that are already in Scripture.
1d CONCLUSION
Thus, I cannot agree that one should simply accept what they are told by Magisteriums without some basis for that trust. I see nowhere in Scripture where I am commanded absolute obedience to anyone except Christ and the clear teachings of the Bible. But I do see Paul claiming, in essence, that Scripture is complete and anyone (even an angel) saying anything else is wrong.
2 ISSUE OF ABORTION
At first glance, the issue of abortion seems simple to many Christians: the Bible says murder is wrong, Christians believe abortion is murder, and thus they claim “case closed” and condemn all abortion. I do agree with this conclusion, but the issue does require a bit more understanding to fully appreciate the “why” behind it. So in summary, murder is wrong because God said so. The next section of this post is dedicated to opening up that statement with further understanding.
2a WHY IS MURDER WRONG?
I think this needs some clarification. Why is murder wrong? Why are humans sacred in that sense? Is murder wrong because it affects the physical body of a person? I don’t think so, and here’s why.
What defines humanity? Is it the fact that we have 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, and particular internal organs? No, it is not. Is a child born without arms or legs still a human? Is a military member who gets his leg blown off no longer a human? I think everyone would agree that humanity is not defined simply by the physical characteristics of who we are. Thus, damaging the physical body of a person is not the reason murder is so highly condemned by God. To further this idea, think about someone who has died. Their body is now a lifeless corpse. Is it possible to “murder” that corpse? No, of course not. The person is gone already, that corpse is now nothing but atoms. If I shoot the corpse in the head, have I committed murder? No. I may have been disrespectful to that corpse and the relatives of the deceased individual, but I have not committed murder and should not be punished accordingly.
So the essence of humanity is not caught up in the physical body that we occupy. The 10 Commandments decree that murder is wrong. But why? Well, Genesis 9:6 clarifies when it says “”Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” Murder is such an affront to God because there is something special about man, namely we are made in God’s image. But as we’ve already somewhat discussed, this can’t refer to our physical form. God is a spirit Who does not have a physical form. God does not have 2 arms or 2 legs or a corporeal body. So in what regard are we made in God’s image? I think Genesis 1-2 has the answer (I understand Genesis 1 and 2 to be about the same events; chapter 1 is a summary and chapter 2 contains more details about the same event).
Genesis 1-2 records that God merely created the animals and it was good. But when it came to man, it was different. Genesis recounts that God formed man out of the dirt. So we now have a physical body without any soul/spirit/mind. What did God then do? God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Gen 2:7). The sanctity of man is that God gave us something special that the animals don’t have: we have some spiritual element that no other part of creation has. For sake of simplicity, I will call this element a spirit or soul: I will use these 2 terms interchangeably. I know there is a debate between whether man is comprised of merely a physical body and a spirit (dichotomous) or a body, mind, and spirit (trichotomous) but for the issue at hand I will assume just a physical and spiritual element.
Thus, murder is not wrong simply because we abuse or harm the physical body, but because we have offended the image of God. God created some binding between a spirit and body that we simply do not understand. I directly confess I do not understand how it works; I leave that in God’s very capable hands. But I understand that there is a binding of the soul and body. The body could be viewed as an outward manifestation of the soul. Thus, when we destroy the body we have, in effect, assaulted the soul, which is made in the image of God.
So what does it mean “image of God”? Again, I confess my ignorance. I know it means we have an eternal spirit, but beyond that I do not know. We can conjecture that it refers to our personalities or emotions (I think those are excellent ideas), but the Bible doesn’t really clarify this for us. Suffice to say, humans are physical and spiritual, and when we murder someone we have indirectly attacked the soul, which, by consequence, is an attack on God’s intimate character. This is why God has such harsh punishments for murder: we have, in essence, attacked God by attacking His image. And God will not stand for His creation rebelling against Him in that fashion.
2b WHEN ARE THE BODY AND SOUL BOUND TOGETHER?
So if we understand murder to be wrong because we have offended the soul (which is made in the image of God), the question that now must be addressed is “when does the soul bind with the body?” Because, as we’ve already discovered, when a person is dead their lifeless body no longer is considered sacred. The argument for abortion would be that the unborn child may not have a soul yet, and thus it is not “murder” but is merely the woman deciding what to do with her own body (pro-choice).
So when is the body joined with the soul? I don’t know. I wish I had a better answer, but that really is the only answer I can 100% support. The Bible never tells us when the body and soul are joined. Is it when the male sperm and female egg join together and form a zygote? Is it at some later time during the pregnancy? Is it when the baby comes out of the womb? I firmly support that since we do not know 100% when the soul is bound with the body, the only rational and moral conclusion we can come to is that the soul is bound to the body at inception when the male sperm and female egg unite. That is my personal opinion on the matter, and I think it’s the only viewpoint a Biblical Christian can maintain. Since we aren’t given a direct answer, we must assume the safest position possible. Let me explain why.
If I kill a 5-year-old baby, have I committed murder? Yes. If I kill a 1-year-old baby, have I committed murder? Yes. Now if I kill a baby that just came out of the mother’s womb and is a screaming tirade of humanity, have I committed murder? Yes. Now if I go back 1 minute where the baby is still within the mother’s womb and kill the baby, have I committed murder? Yes. Now if I go back a week and kill the baby, have I committed murder? Yes. I think you can see where I’m going with this. At what point can we arbitrarily say that the child is no longer a being endowed with a soul from God and it is thus ok to “stop” the process of growth and separate the soul from the body?
Thus, I believe that any form of abortion is killing the baby and should be classified as murder. That would include something like a morning-after pill that destroys any zygotes that may have formed. This is my personal opinion on the issue because the Bible does not provide 100% clarification on the issue.
2c DOES A WOMAN NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO HER BODY?
The argument for abortion is never couched in the spiritual sense of when do the baby cells receive God’s protection as made in His image by binding the soul and body. If it were, we must conclude that no abortion is ever right and any abortion is murder and is a direct affront to God. No, the argument is couched in the terms of a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body.
The key issue is not whether a woman has a right to do what she wants with her body, but when does life start? Because, simply put, a child inside her womb is not part of her body. It’s a separate life that is fed through the woman’s body. That child has its own heart, its own blood, its own organs, its own 2 hands, its own 2 legs. So if we say that the child is part of the woman’s body, we are saying that the woman has 4 arms, 4 legs, etc., which is absurd. We know women only have 2 legs and 2 arms. That is why I think it is morally unacceptable to define a baby as part of the mother’s body. It simply isn’t. That baby is a life separate and distinct from the mother, but dependent upon the mother for food and warmth. It is just like a child born with mental difficulties that cannot provide for itself and requires his mother to feed and clothe him. The only difference is this child is outside the womb instead of inside, and the nutrients come from external sources instead of directly from the mother.
2d CONCLUSION
A woman’s right to do what she wants with her body does not extend to the child within her womb. That’s not part of her body, it’s just inside of her body. Again, the child has its own distinct organs, and unless we define a woman as having 4 arms/legs, we cannot rationally define that child as part of the mother. The child also has rights and it is wrong for the mother to infringe upon that child’s rights.
3 ISSUE OF SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
If you agree with the reasoning I’ve presented so far, we see that no man can claim divine absolute authority. We’ve seen that murder is wrong because it is an affront on the image of God through the soul. And we’ve seen that life (for all moral purposes) begins at the inception/zygote state. So how do we take these ideas and use them to address your concerns about the Catholic church and the apparent politicization taking place within the Catholic church?
3a FOUNDING FATHER’S WRITINGS
First, what does separation of church and state mean? Well, we don’t have to go far; we can read the Constitution and then we can read the Founding Fathers when they wrote about this issue and what they thought about it for further clarification.
1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America
“no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
A little background information is required to clarify these statements. In the preceding times in America, religion ruled supreme. It is an absurd statement to say that America was not founded by deeply religious people for strong religious conviction. It is also absurd to claim that our Founding Fathers were deists or were not religious.
Now I am making these claims and I am not providing adequate support for them in this post. To adequately support these ideas would take a very long article in itself. Thus, I will make these statements, noting that I have not properly verified them to potential readers. If one wants to know what the Founding Fathers thought, read their writings. Read the letters they wrote to each other. Read what they said in their speeches and words. They were not all Christians. However, the large majority were deeply religious men.
The basic takeaway is that religion was a requirement for anything in the pre-revolution American colonies. Any political position required church authority and membership. Our Founding Fathers wanted to stop this practice for several good reasons. Madison’s defense is one of the best reasons why religion and government should not strictly be joined. It may seem strange that I, as a Christian, do not support the joining of religion and government. But let me defend my beliefs by letting James Madison state them for me.
Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance” was addressed to the Virginia legislature when they were discussing a bill that would establish government taxes to fund Christian institutions. I have provided some of the more salient quotes from his article, but you may read the entirety of his writing online to verify I’m not misquoting or misrepresenting Madison’s view. Keep in mind it was James Madison who presented and wrote the Amendments to the Constitution, including the 1st Amendment which I cited above. Originally, I believe Madison was against any such Amendments, saying they were not necessary. However, others desired assurances of protection, and thus the Amendments were written.
Quotes from Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance” (1785)
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy.”
“…the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits.”
What did Madison believe? He believed that by separating church and state, he was, in effect, preserving strong religion. In Madison’s eyes, keeping them separate was in the best interests of religion. He believed that if they were joined, government would then be able to define religion and have authority over it, and Madison was deeply against that.
You can read many other Founding Fathers as well; most of their writings have been preserved and many are free as ebooks online or as stand-alone articles. Overall, they did not want government controlling religion and they did not want religion controlling government, because they feared their clergy becoming politicized and watering down their religious institutions.
Mike, taking this back into perspective with your current issues with the Catholic church acting like a political instrument, I would say just look at what our Founding Fathers wrote about organized religion acting in a political fashion and their fears about that. Now, the Bible teaches that Christians have a moral obligation to teach truth and stand for it, even if the government tells us otherwise. The Bible records in Acts 5 that the apostles claimed they will obey God rather than the government when the government is in contradiction to God’s direct commands.
3b PRACTICAL CONCLUSION FOR MODERN ISSUE
So should religious institutions tell us who to vote for and use religious authority to strong-arm church-members through fear or claims of divine authority? I do not think so. Hopefully the above content helps clarify my views as to why that is an erroneous thought process.
Should religious institutions teach truth and clarify it for their church-members? Absolutely, as you stated.
Do we, as religious individuals, have the right to stand against things we disagree with? Absolutely. But I agree this is best done as individuals or as organizations separate from a church, per se. If many Catholics decided to form a political organization to stand for their religious beliefs, I see nothing wrong with that. That is a separate entity from a church. The church should be focused on the spiritual issues of its members. Granted, those issues often translate into modern political issues, but I firmly believe the church can remain faithful to the teachings of Scripture without invading the government space and vice versa.
With regards to the timing of the sermons your priest has been giving, it could be in reference to the ObamaCare as you state. It could also be that it’s just close to election time, and thus they are more inclined to deal with applicable topics. You would be more of an authority on that particular issue than I would be.
In my opinion, I think if the church teaches the truths of Scripture, there would be no need for them to give out ultimatums for voting choices in life. It’s like raising children. If we tell our children what to do all the time, they will never grow up and be adults. We must teach them truth and then let them make their own decisions. It’s the only way they will actually grow up.
Mike, I strongly encourage you to continue reading the Bible and seek to understand what It says. The Bible describes how the early churches were set up and established mostly in the Book of Acts. Also, read Paul’s epistles to Timothy and Titus. There, Paul establish criteria for choosing church leaders and leading churches.
I do not think any rational person would have any problem with you studying these on your own. The Catholic church claims authority from Scripture. If Scripture supports their ideas, then they are correct. If Scripture does not support their ideas, then they are incorrect. We cannot accept men as our final arbiter of what we should believe. The Scriptures never tell us to accept men: Paul himself stated that if he or even angels came back and said something contrary to Scripture, he would be wrong. Scripture must always be our basis of authority, not man. All men have sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory. Why should we place our faith in fallen creatures like ourselves?
I know some of my thoughts may be harsh. I do not seek to insult or put down your beliefs or that of the Catholic church. But I must stand for truth as best I understand it. To the best of my abilities, I believe the information I have presented is accurate. But I am a fallen human just like anyone else. If I am wrong anywhere, please do not hesitate to point it out. I hope this helps you in your pursuit of truth.
You mention several things that the bible says – why do you believe the bible to be true? Why do you believe it to be the word of god?
Please don’t say “because the bible says it is”. We don’t need circular reasoning
Where does morality come from? Why be good if there is no God or Gods to hold us responsible for our actions in life?? That is a common question that religious people ask non-believers and there is a good answer. And the answer is: morality does have a practical logical purpose in society. Morality is mankind’s ability to cooperate together altruistically to achieve a common goal or purpose. It is a system that keeps the overall peace in a society so we can achieve great things. Societies that permit large-scale theft, rape, and murder tend to naturally die out on their own because those dangerous behaviors are self-destructive to a society. Lets take an ant mound as an example; ants are very altruistic social creatures, they cooperate together in large numbers to acheive a common goal (survival, reproduction, food gathering, defense, etc.). If those ants killed eachother and stole from eachother on a large scale, the ants would achieve nothing, they would get nowhere. Mankind works in a similar fashion, morality is our ability to work together toward a common goal. Of course those goals will vary from society to society.
Now I’ve heard the Christian excuse: “You don’t have to teach a baby to steal, you don’t have to teach him to lie… he will do that on his own, that is proof of a sinful nature.” ….no it’s not, the reason a baby will do all those “bad” things is because they do not yet know the consequences of those actions. Eventually, as the child grows older, the child will learn that doing those “bad” things will be self-destructive to his own life; for example people may not trust him or want to be around him because he does those things. We are social animals just like wolves, chimps, and other mammals. Humans have a tribal/pack mentality just like other animals; we tend to be loving and generous towards those who are in our “pack” (such as family, friends, fellow citizens, & people of the same faith) but we are more hostile, untrusting, and judgemental toward those who are outside our “pack”. We as humans, view oustiders as supsicious, possibly dangerous, and maybe even less intelligent because they do not think like members of our group/tribe. This primative tribal mentality comes in many “flavors” such as: countries, religious groups, political groups, racial groups, ethnic groups, gangs, mobs, family groups, friend groups, any kind of social group can be a tribal mentality. This is evidence that we are no different from the other animals, we are just more intelligent.
History has shown us that there is no universal standard of morality. What was wrong a thousand years ago may no be wrong today, and vice-versa. Slavery, racism, and oppression of women were never an issue a couple hundred years ago, now those things are viewed as morally wrong. Your moral values will reflect the society you were brought up in. What is wrong in one society may not be wrong in another society, and moral standards change over time as well… this is not something we would expect if there was one supreme lawgiver. If there was one supreme lawgiver, morality would not change very much over time and not be so different from place to place… but the opposite is true.
@Dan,
I first have to say you provide some excellent points supported by valid reasoning. Although I doubt either of us will fully convince the other of our respective views, I welcome discussing these issues with individuals such as yourself, because I walk away having learned more than I knew before.
I have a few questions and observations I would like to present to make sure I fully understand your argument. I first want to reiterate your view in my own words so that I can verify I’m not taking your reasoning and adding my own understanding to it but truly understand your arguments apart from my interpretations.
YOUR POST IN MY WORDS (to verify I understand it properly)
In essence, mankind joins together at some level because we are social creatures. In order for any group to thrive (or even survive) there must be some guidelines or rules for that group to operate within. Morality, in this sense, is a set of agreed-upon rules for each group. This group may be a family, a tribe, a nation, or any group that binds itself together in a semi-cohesive format. These goals vary from group to group. Therefore, morality is logical because it is in an individual’s self-interest and furthermore in the interest of his group.
Would this be a valid summary of your argument? It just helps me to understand if I really got what you were saying. If I am incorrect in my understanding, please correct me and show me where I made an error.
QUESTIONS
I do want to address one particular thought you raised at the end of your post with regards to history and morality. I think there is a distinction between the Moral Law that I espouse and how mankind actually behaves.
At first it seems valid to claim that, since standards and codes of conduct have changed over time, that morality is thus subjective. However, the Moral Law is a description of how man “ought” to behave, not how man “does” behave. To truly examine this we cannot simply look at how people “act” but how they “react”. For instance, you mentioned slavery as not being an issue before but now is. Well, let us take a Roman senator, make him a slave, and see what he thinks about it. I highly doubt he would be ok with it. It would indeed be an issue to him then, just as it is now. Just because man “has” done something doesn’t mean he “should” do something. Laws are broken quite often: that does not mean the law don’t exist, merely that people are law-breakers.
It would be similar to saying that the laws of physics were different hundreds of years ago because people thought that their various deities controlled the rain and crops. Because these people thought and operated a certain way, did the laws of physics change with time? No. The laws were still there and operating just the same as they are now. What changed? Man’s understanding of the laws as he discovered them.
I do not think it’s fair to say that the Moral Law that describes how we “should” behave is subjective merely because people have behaved differently throughout time. It only demonstrates that people are capable of breaking the Moral Law.
In similar fashion, this also touches upon the idea that all mankind must behave the same way in order for there to be a Law-Giver. Again, the issue is not that all people must behave the same way, but the thesis is that there is a Moral Law that all people recognize in some fashion.
For instance, there are various ways to arrive at an answer in mathematics, but at the end of the day, there is only 1 right answer. I can add 2 + 2 and arrive at 4. I can take 2 x 2 and arrive at 4. I can take 12 / 3 and arrive at 4. But what’s the common point? The answer for all of them is 4. Are we justified in saying that there are not absolute mathematical laws because there are various means of solving a problem?
So I think there is a misunderstanding between describing how people do act and understanding a Moral Law that defines how they should act.
I would welcome your thoughts on this point. I suspect you have some interesting insights I have not thought of.
Nicely put.
This was in response to Dan (http://erikbrewer.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/did-jesus-contradict-the-bible-by-not-stoning-the-woman-caught-in-adultery/#comment-3007)
@ dlegr250…
You bring up an interesting point by saying: “the Moral Law is a description of how man “ought” to behave, not how man “does” behave… …we cannot simply look at how people “act” but how they “react”” …and you gave an example of your point by saying: “let us take a Roman senator, make him a slave, and see what he thinks about it. I highly doubt he would be ok with it. It would indeed be an issue to him then, just as it is now.” What you are describing (the action/reaction) is essentially the “golden rule”, treat others the way you would have them treat you. I would agree that this is a very good moral code, probably the best so far in my own opinion. However, even the golden rule doesn’t apply to every moral dilema, especially when religious moral beliefs become involved, therefore morality can still be subjective from society to society, and between historical time frames.
From a secular perspective, the golden rule is very practical because it can apply to anyone no matter your age, social status, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. From a secular perspective the golden rule can apply to almost any moral situation as well. From a Christian perspective, the golden rule doesn’t apply to every moral situation…. such as premarital sex, gay sex/marriage, polygamy, group sex… these are all things a Christian will view as “wrong”… however from a secular standpoint, these actions are viewed as permissable because all people involved are giving consent. Now, sexual assault is wrong because the golden rule CAN apply (one person is not giving consent). So when it comes to the morality of safe, consentual sex… it becomes morally subjective from person to person, and changes throughout history, so your “action/reaction” reasoning doesn’t really apply very much. Another area where morality could become subjective is when it comes to clothing attire or dietary laws. Even the Bible changes its moral stance on these issues, in the Old Testament people could not wear clothing of mixed fabrics and they had strict dietary laws (most of which were not really necessary). In the New Testament, those laws are irrelevant. Even now days, some people (such as muslims) may consider it immoral for a woman to wear a bikini, but here in America it is accepted by society as a whole, again the golden rule (“action/reaction”) doesn’t apply because nobody is really being harmed directly.
Morality can become subjective when dealing with animals too. I’m sure you and I would both agree that torturing animals is wrong (after all, niether of us would want to be tortured), but what about eating animals? Does your “action/reaction” reasoning apply here? Personally, I enjoy chicken and steak, but obviously I wouldn’t want to be eaten myself. This is another issue where it becomes morally subjective, some people view eating animals as wrong, thus becoming vegan… yet other people view eating animals as permissable. So as you can see, there are moral dilemas where your “action/reaction” reasoning cannot really apply. What if you had to steal food from a grocery store in order to feed your hungry family? Again this can become subjective because you are not stealing out of greed or malice, but for survival. You and other sympathetic people may view it as permissible, but the store owner may not. Your “action/reaction” reasoning can apply to many if not most moral dilemas, but you cannot say it applies to every concievable situation, thus morality can still remain subjective from society to society, and from time period to time period. As far as the golden rule is concerned, that was around before Christianity and even Judaism, so there is no way to know if your god was the Lawgiver to hand out that moral code to humanity, or if it was some other possible deity.
@Dan,
Again, some interesting points. I don’t have time to properly address all of them as deeply as I would like right now, but I will address them with simpler answers for now.
With regards to the chronological aspect of “when” a Lawgiver gave these laws, Christianity claims that the Moral Law was around from the beginning. A conscience is what many commonly call it. In the book of Romans chapter 1, the Bible addresses this very topic. Assuming a creationist worldview, this chapter teaches that God basically implanted a moral code upon men, such that they know what is true, even if they suppress it. The claim of the Bible is that God created mankind in His image (ie, we have a soul whereas animals do not) thus we have a sense of right/wrong that animals do not.
With regards to the OT and NT having a change of morality, that’s a much larger issue I addressed in my first post on this article. In summary, God dealt with mankind through a set of promises. Those promises were fulfilled when Christ came to earth and paid man’s penalty for sin. Thus, the OT system was fulfilled. One way to think of it is as a monetary debt that you cannot pay. Try as you might, you will never get yourself out of that debt. In essence that’s how man was during the OT times. The laws God gave served several purposes: some were moral laws to govern man’s actions, others were civil laws for government, and others were particular laws given to Israel to make them stand out from other nations so that they understood they were a different people from the surrounding nations. When Christ came and died for mankind, He paid our debt, so to speak. Thus, the switch from the OT to the NT system was not arbitrary. God’s justice and mercy have been fulfilled and mankind now deals with God in a different fashion than before. Just like a person in debt. If you owe a great amount of money to someone, typically we avoid those people and stay away from them.
But now that the debt has been paid, we have free access to God and are no longer under the OT system. God’s moral system has not changed, although the punishment metered out has changed. With regards to laws such as the combined fabrics, they were to keep Israel separate as much as possible from the other nations. It was a visible way to stand apart. Just like a Marine wears his dress blues proudly and stands out among others. The clothing rules were not “moral” per se. However, violating them was direct rebellion against God’s specific commands, thus it would be considered “immoral” or “evil” to violate them. Those laws were fulfilled and done away with when Christ came and paid our debt. Thus, according to the Bible, the only binding laws on people today were the laws/principles Christ reiterated in the NT, which we would call the moral laws.
“As far as the golden rule is concerned, that was around before Christianity and even Judaism, so there is no way to know if your god was the Lawgiver to hand out that moral code to humanity, or if it was some other possible deity.”
There are references to “laws” in the Bible before the 10 Commandments were written in stone on Mount Sinai. It is written about Abraham that he kept the Lord’s laws, for example. The Hebrews in the desert, after they left Egypt, were forbidden to gather manna in the Sabbath (also before the 10 commandments were written on Sinai).
The moral law was given to Adam and Eve, the 10 Commandments are the expression of a higher universal moral law.
” morality does have a practical logical purpose in society. Morality is mankind’s ability to cooperate together altruistically to achieve a common goal or purpose.”
Circular thinking: “Morality is… altruism”. You try to define something (“morality”) using terms that you should define (“altruism”). Altruism is a component of morality.
Then your definition of “morality” is wrong. If you “cooperate” with an interest it means you are moral? No.
Seems to me that in all the known history there were (and still are) people who choose not to “cooperate” and commit crimes. On what basis do you condemn those people, if morals are so subjective? If it’s subjective, then it can be changed. And if it can be changed, then there is no absolute right or wrong, no morality.
What and why would stop someone to kill or rape another one? Just the “cooperation” reason?
Also, why do you argue about anything, if you believe things are so subjective?
@ Mens Sana…
Humans cooperating together to achieve goals that are benificial to society as a whole is what altruism is. Morality is the system that tries to keep the overall peace in a society by trying to prevent people from engaging in destructive/dangerous behavior. You forgot to mention that part. Humans being able to cooperate together successfully like this (to achieve goals that are beneficial to everyone) is the result of morality being implemented, to what degree morality is implemented may vary. So what I said was not incorrect. Most if not all people want to live peaceful meaningful lives, how we achieve peace and meaningfulness will vary. Like i said earlier with my ant mound analogy, if people are killing, stealing, and raping on a large enough scale, society would get nowhere and we would achieve very little. Societies that permit those self-destructive behaviors naturally die out in the long run.
The reason people don’t kill, steal, and rape is because there are consequences for those actions, such as jail or prison… victims may even take the law into their own hands and kill the murder, thief, or rapist. Most people take into consideration the consequences of their actions because they themselves want to maintain self-preservation… thats what prevents (most) people from doing those “bad” things, its for self-preservation. But obviously you can never get EVERYONE to “play by the rules”.
Morality is subjective from society to society and from time to time, history proves that whether you like it or not. Different societies have had differnt methods of dealing out (what they consider) morality. Although most successful societies in history have outlawed murder, theft, and rape… its not like those are the ONLY moral situations concievable. Moral stances on many things have changed over history and differ between societies. Even the Bible changes its moral stance on many issues, such as polygamy and divorce, granted Jesus did say that he allowed divorce in OT times because of the Jew’s “hard heartedness” …which is a horrible excuse for allowing a marriage law (divorce) to go unenforced in the Old Testament. Polygamy is considered wrong by Christians, yet God allowed it in the O.T., and he even blessed some people with a 1,000 wives, so he didn’t seem to have a problem with polygamy at all backt then. So you see, even the Bible changes its moral stance on certain issues. The Old Testament Law says “an eye for an eye” …yet Jesus changes that by saying “do not repay evil with evil” …another example of the your god changing his moral stance.
“Humans cooperating together to achieve goals that are benificial to society as a whole is what altruism is.”
Yes, but based on that organized crime was founded (Mafia, Yakuza etc). Because people are not interested in the benefits of the whole world. They are more interested in their own immediate gains.
“Most if not all people want to live peaceful meaningful lives, how we achieve peace and meaningfulness will vary.”
Obviously not. That’s why there are so many crimes and conflicts.There are far more people who cheat and lie, than people who tell the truth, even when they lose something from telling the truth.
“The reason people don’t kill, steal, and rape is because there are consequences for those actions, such as jail or prison… victims may even take the law into their own hands and kill the murder, thief, or rapist.”
True, some people are like that, but you can be good because there is an objective standard which define right and wrong. If morality is subjective you don’t have any objective reason to punish rape, theft etc etc.
“Like i said earlier with my ant mound analogy, if people are killing, stealing, and raping on a large enough scale, society would get nowhere and we would achieve very little.”
And where does a society which thinks that morality is subjective, that humans appeared by a random accident from nothing and that there is no purpose of this life get? Why should they refrain raping, stealing, killing etc if the end is the same for all (death) and nobody is objectively making you accountable for what you did?
“Societies that permit those self-destructive behaviors naturally die out in the long run”
So what? They die anyway at some point. Why should they be interested in such a long term goal? Look around, society self destructs because of money, entertainment and lust.
“Morality is subjective from society to society and from time to time, history proves that whether you like it or not.”
It is subjective only because humans are subjective. That’s why we need a ‘supernatural’ objective standard.
“which is a horrible excuse for allowing a marriage law (divorce) to go unenforced in the Old Testament”
You are really funny… By which standard do you judge this as “horrible”?? You just said that morality is subjective.
“Polygamy is considered wrong by Christians, yet God allowed it in the O.T., and he even blessed some people with a 1,000 wives, so he didn’t seem to have a problem with polygamy at all backt then. So you see, even the Bible changes its moral stance on certain issues.”
I only see that… you don’t see
Where did you find that “God allowed polygamy”?? The stories of the life of people who knew God are presented so that we can learn from them, from the good things they did as well from their mistakes. If you read the whole story you can see the bad consequences of polygamy, in the case of Abraham and Solomon, for example.
God educates His people progressively, using justice along with mercy and lots of patience, so that we can learn and be changed. It’s not “changing stance” at all.
@ dlegr250…
Christians always say they are free from the O.T. Law, but don’t forget Christ says in Matt. 5:18 “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
Have heaven and earth disappeared?? Of course not! Thats what the phrase “everything is accomplished” means… it means human history (heaven and earth). “Everything is accomplished” means heaven and earth passing away, which obviously hasn’t happened yet. The phrase “everything is accomplished” does not refer to Jesus dying on the cross, it means “heaven and earth passing away”. Jesus did not divorce himself or Christians from the Old Law. The full version says: “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5,17-20).
Heaven and earth have not passed away obviously, so the O.T. Law is still in effect according to Jesus. Jesus said he came to fulfill the Law, NOT to abolish it… which means, even though he’s fulfilling it, you’re still NOT free from it. Jesus is just providing the example for people to follow. Jesus even says that those who relax the least of these commandments AND teaches others to do so will be considered “least” in the Kingdom of God. So if you’re disregarding even the LEAST of the O.T. Laws, according to Jesus, you will be considered least in the Kingdom of God. Christians have an incorrect interpretation of the O.T. Law, and how it relates to Jesus. Paul is the one who comes along and says Christians are free from the Law, the opposite of what Christ says (that the Law is in effect until heaven and earth pass away).
@ Dan,
I think that you need to study the definition and meaning of the word fulfill used by Jesus Christ when speaking of fulfilling the Old Testament. The word does not mean keep as in hold to the Law of the Old Testament (which He did). The word actually means make complete, finish, add what is lacking. The Law of the Old Testament was just a shadow of Christ. It was a good tutor leading people to the person of Jesus Christ. A tutor during those days was a slave who was in charge of delivering the child of his master to the proper teacher. He had one goal, to make sure the student found his way to his proper teacher. The purpose of the Law is complete when you meet the person of Christ (He even said that when He said, I have come to fulfill (add what is missing) the Law).
The Word of God will not pass away and all that is written in It will come to pass before heaven and earth pass away. You are misrepresenting the text terribly.
I think you both need to precise which “law” you are referring to, because you’re messing the “ceremonial law” (which was a system of symbols, the “shadow of Christ”, Christ fulfilled it with His real sacrifice making it unnecessary after that) with the “moral law” – which was written in stone and it is still valid. From the context you can figure which “law” Paul is referring to in his epistles.
Thanks Mens Sana,
I agree, the moral laws of the Law, the 10 commandments, are still valid. No one said that they were not. And yes, Jesus did fulfill the moral laws of the Law when He walked on the earth. Both were accomplished in His first advent.
Thanks for sharing all of your ideas. Although it’s long, it helps a lot. Are all of you experts?
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