Is Fundamentalism a Religious Movement or a Psychological Disorder?

[Spartan]

You don't seem to understand the concept of "independent".

Back at you.

 

[Spartan]

Been there, done that. Every day I wish that fundamentalists would learn the fundamentals of science so that they could understand how they are calling their God a liar.

I just wish skeptics would realize that science has never proven that God and the supernatural do not and cannot exist.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” ― Former NASA Scientist Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

 

[Subduction Zone]

Couldn't prove that by the nonsense you put out. And by the way, I have a science degree. Do you?

“Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four, …are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John.”

“Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done.”

St. Augustine

LOL, please that is your sin. I am sorry that you have no clue as to the history of the Bible. Only the looniest of Christian "scholars" argue for Matthew as the first Gospel these days:

The Story Of The Storytellers - An Introduction To The Gospels | From Jesus To Christ | FRONTLINE | PBS

Marcan priority - Wikipedia

Was Mark the First Gospel Written?

There are countless others. Both Matthew and Luke copied (plagiarized Mark) it is pretty hard to copy a book that has not been written yet.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Back at you.

Please, childish lies will get you nowhere. Try to correct your errors.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I just wish skeptics would realize that science has never proven that God and the supernatural do not and cannot exist.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” ― Former NASA Scientist Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

Science has never tired to do that. Why do you think that is the case?

Now it can show that certain versions of God do not exist. For example if God cannot lie then there was no Flood, there were never only two people. Bible literalists are claiming that God lied, though they do not understand that they are doing that. An honest God cannot exist if that God supposedly flooded the Earth. One would need at least a middle school level of scientific literacy to understand why they are saying that God lied.

 

[Spartan]

Science has never tired to do that. Why do you think that is the case?

Now it can show that certain versions of God do not exist. For example if God cannot lie then there was no Flood, there were never only two people. Bible literalists are claiming that God lied, though they do not understand that they are doing that. An honest God cannot exist if that God supposedly flooded the Earth. One would need at least a middle school level of scientific literacy to understand why they are saying that God lied.

Go tell it to somebody who wants to feed your folly.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Go tell it to somebody who wants to feed your folly.

Now once again you are posting falsehoods. You clearly have no understanding of either the sciences or of the history of the Bible. All you have is a faith that ends up calling God a liar. Why would you do that?

 

[Spartan]

Now once again you are posting falsehoods. You clearly have no understanding of either the sciences or of the history of the Bible. All you have is a faith that ends up calling God a liar. Why would you do that?

You and I will never agree on anything. Please find another poster to debate with.

 

[Sand Dancer]

It may or may not have been first.

“Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four, …are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John.”

“Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done.”

St. Augustine

Hopefully you know that the order the Bible is in is not in date order of when they were written. Mark was written about AD 66–70, during Nero's persecution of the Christians in Rome, since it is mentioned. I think the idea of Matthew being first is a Jehovah's Witness rumor. I don't get how fundamentalists argument with the majority of Bible scholars in favor of a tiny minority of conservatively biased scholars.

 

[Sand Dancer]

I just wish skeptics would realize that science has never proven that God and the supernatural do not and cannot exist.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” ― Former NASA Scientist Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

You can't prove a negative. It's up to the ones promoting the positive argument that have the burden of proof. Lots of things can't be proven.

 

[sooda]

LOL, please that is your sin. I am sorry that you have no clue as to the history of the Bible. Only the looniest of Christian "scholars" argue for Matthew as the first Gospel these days:

The Story Of The Storytellers - An Introduction To The Gospels | From Jesus To Christ | FRONTLINE | PBS

Marcan priority - Wikipedia

Was Mark the First Gospel Written?

There are countless others. Both Matthew and Luke copied (plagiarized Mark) it is pretty hard to copy a book that has not been written yet.

The story of the storytellers is excellent. Thanks. I may watch it again. Many fundamentalists actually follow Scofield without even knowing they do.

 

[Spartan]

You can't prove a negative. It's up to the ones promoting the positive argument that have the burden of proof. Lots of things can't be proven.

Christ is resurrected. Multiple confirmations. Try falsifying that.

 

[Spartan]

Hopefully you know that the order the Bible is in is not in date order of when they were written. Mark was written about AD 66–70, during Nero's persecution of the Christians in Rome, since it is mentioned. I think the idea of Matthew being first is a Jehovah's Witness rumor. I don't get how fundamentalists argument with the majority of Bible scholars in favor of a tiny minority of conservatively biased scholars.

It's the liberal scholars who have their heads in their rear ends, just like everyday liberals today.

 

[blü 2]

That's another one of your fanciful theories, isn't it? Plus, you dredge up the fictitious, non-existent Q document?? LOL. That's par for the course. Now read and learn for a change.

The Q document may or may not be a failed hypothesis but the passages that Matthew and Luke have in common have an unexplained source.

As you know, the actual names of the four gospel writers are unknown, and not one of them claims to be an eyewitness. (An eyewitness account is told in his own words by a person who personally saw the event he describes (I was present at ... I saw .. I heard him say ... &c). A report of what other people have said is called hearsay.) We have no contemporary references to Jesus, and the earliest we encounter in history is Paul, writing in the 50s CE, so 20 years and more after the usual date attributed to the crucifixion, 30 CE. And of course Paul says out loud that he never met an historical Jesus; his Jesus pre-existed in heaven, and Paul's earthly biography of Jesus will fit in two lines. The next account is the first gospel, Mark, written about 75 CE, in effect the only biography, since the authors of Matthew (the 80s CE) , Luke (the same) and John (c. 100 CE) all use it as the spine of their own accounts. However, the result is not a single character viewed from five angles, but five distinct Jesuses. Mark's Jesus is the child of an ordinary Jewish couple who are unnamed, and who has arrived without annunciations or portents. There's nothing divine about him until at his baptism by JtB, God adopts him as his son in the manner that God adopted David as his son (Psalm 2:7 and elsewhere, and confirmed in Acts 13:33). He doesn't pre-exist in heaven, he isn't descended from David, and denies descent from David is necessary. He dies a thoroughly human death by crucifixion, defeated, sad and abandoned.

Perhaps the most important thing about the gospel of Mark is how its various episodes can be mapped onto the Tanakh, exactly as if the author were devising a story by moving his hero through situations which the author of Mark liked to think of as messianic prophecies. Of course the Tanakh nowhere mentions Jesus, nor does Jesus fit the role of a Jewish messiah, being neither a king nor a war leader, and in particular being unanointed by the priesthood.

The Jesuses of Matthew and Luke, by contrast, arrive by divine insemination, with bells and whistles, angelic foretellings, even Luke's virgin mother. A genetic son of God is of course a Greek, not a Hebrew, tradition. Their Jesuses didn't pre-exist in heaven, are descended from David by two incompatible genealogies which have in common being blatant fakes. Matthew's Jesus still feels abandoned on the cross, Luke's is more self-possessed. John's Jesus arrives on earth without details, and like Paul's Jesus, but not those of Mark, Matthew or Luke, pre-existed in heaven. At the crucifixion, he's not the victim, he's the MC. The Jesuses of each of the three vary from Mark and each other in adding various 'fulfillment of prophecy' tales, and subtracting others.

And so on.

One of the big ones is that Matthew and Peter and John most likely sat around campfires after Jesus' resurrection and recalled what Jesus said and did.

There are six accounts of the resurrection, those of Paul, the four gospels, and the one in Acts you mention. Each of the six is notable for being incompatible with the other five in major ways; and none is a contemporary account, an independent account, or an eyewitness account. It's a forensic trainwreck.

If you approached your bible as a set of historical documents and not as a story that must at all costs be spun into a single yarn, you'd have noticed all that for yourself. You would also have noticed why the idea that there was no historical Jesus at all can't be refuted by historical evidence. There's simply no clincher either way.

 

[sooda]

The Q document may or may not be a failed hypothesis but the passages that Matthew and Luke have in common have an unexplained source.

As you know, the actual names of the four gospel writers are unknown, and not one of them claims to be an eyewitness. (An eyewitness account is told in his own words by a person who personally saw the event he describes (I was present at ... I saw .. I heard him say ... &c). A report of what other people have said is called hearsay.) We have no contemporary references to Jesus, and the earliest we encounter in history is Paul, writing in the 50s CE, so 20 years and more after the usual date attributed to the crucifixion, 30 CE. And of course Paul says out loud that he never met an historical Jesus; his Jesus pre-existed in heaven, and Paul's earthly biography of Jesus will fit in two lines. The next account is the first gospel, Mark, written about 75 CE, in effect the only biography, since the authors of Matthew (the 80s CE) , Luke (the same) and John (c. 100 CE) all use it as the spine of their own accounts. However, the result is not a single character viewed from five angles, but five distinct Jesuses.

Mark's Jesus is the child of an ordinary Jewish couple who are unnamed, and who has arrived without annunciations or portents. There's nothing divine about him until at his baptism by JtB, God adopts him as his son in the manner that God adopted David as his son (Psalm 2:7 and elsewhere, and confirmed in Acts 13:33). He doesn't pre-exist in heaven, he isn't descended from David, and denies descent from David is necessary. He dies a thoroughly human death by crucifixion, defeated, sad and abandoned.

Perhaps the most important thing about the gospel of Mark is how its various episodes can be mapped onto the Tanakh, exactly as if the author were devising a story by moving his hero through situations which the author of Mark liked to think of as messianic prophecies. Of course the Tanakh nowhere mentions Jesus, nor does Jesus fit the role of a Jewish messiah, being neither a king nor a war leader, and in particular being unanointed by the priesthood.

The Jesuses of Matthew and Luke, by contrast, arrive by divine insemination, with bells and whistles, angelic foretellings, even Luke's virgin mother. A genetic son of God is of course a Greek, not a Hebrew, tradition. Their Jesuses didn't pre-exist in heaven, are descended from David by two incompatible genealogies which have in common being blatant fakes. Matthew's Jesus still feels abandoned on the cross, Luke's is more self-possessed. John's Jesus arrives on earth without details, and like Paul's Jesus, but not those of Mark, Matthew or Luke, pre-existed in heaven. At the crucifixion, he's not the victim, he's the MC. The Jesuses of each of the three vary from Mark and each other in adding various 'fulfillment of prophecy' tales, and subtracting others.

And so on.
There are six accounts of the resurrection, those of Paul, the four gospels, and the one in Acts you mention. Each of the six is notable for being incompatible with the other five in major ways; and none is a contemporary account, an independent account, or an eyewitness account. It's a forensic trainwreck.

If you approached your bible as a set of historical documents and not as a story that must at all costs be spun into a single yarn, you'd have noticed all that for yourself. You would also have noticed why the idea that there was no historical Jesus at all can't be refuted by historical evidence. There's simply no clincher either way.

Excellent post....

 

[Sand Dancer]

It's the liberal scholars who have their heads in their rear ends, just like everyday liberals today.

Jesus is my favorite liberal. Why make fun of the people who actually want to help the poor, sick and marginalized without using it as a guise to discriminate or proselytize?

 

[Sand Dancer]

Christ is resurrected. Multiple confirmations. Try falsifying that.

Dude, the claims all use the previous ones. You're not very good at this, but then again, the ignorant and uneducated are the ones that flock to conservative religion.

 

[Spartan]

The Q document may or may not be a failed hypothesis but the passages that Matthew and Luke have in common have an unexplained source.

Not unexplained. The Gospels provide the source:

John 14:26 (Jesus speaking) - "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

In addition, Matthew, Mark (for Peter) and John all saw and heard the same things, which explains any commonality.

There are six accounts of the resurrection, those of Paul, the four gospels, and the one in Acts you mention. Each of the six is notable for being incompatible with the other five in major ways; and none is a contemporary account, an independent account, or an eyewitness account. It's a forensic trainwreck.

Not so. Actually, all four Gospel writers and Paul and Luke (in Acts) do believe in the resurrection – they all confirmed it. It’s not the resurrection that’s in question in the Gospels, it’s events that have occurred AFTER the resurrection that skeptics question. In addition, those events are not contradictory, they’re complementary. If you put them on a timeline (How many angels were at the tomb? Answer: What time was it when the first one appeared, and then the second?), then most of the alleged contradictions disappear. Then there’s also what Cold Case Detective J. Warner Wallace calls “literary spotlighting.” One skeptic would argue that John’s Gospel only mentions Mary Magdalene at the tomb. That’s who John focused the “spotlight” on initially. But in reality, John was aware of the presence of other women at the tomb because later in the Gospel John wrote, “So she (Mary Magdalene) came running to the Simon and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and WE (“We”) don’t know where they have put him.’” – John 20:2

Finally, if skeptics were to really do some due diligence on the subject, they would have known about Simon Greenleaf’s “Harmony of the Resurrection Accounts,” which places the resurrection scriptures in chronological order. Specifics in the link below:

Greenleaf’s Harmony of the Resurrection Accounts

If you approached your bible as a set of historical documents and not as a story that must at all costs be spun into a single yarn, you'd have noticed all that for yourself. You would also have noticed why the idea that there was no historical Jesus at all can't be refuted by historical evidence. There's simply no clincher either way.

See above. Your claims above are unwarranted.

 

[Spartan]

Dude, the claims all use the previous ones. You're not very good at this, but then again, the ignorant and uneducated are the ones that flock to conservative religion.

That's your spin. Matthew, Mark (for Peter) and John all saw and heard the same things, which explains any commonality. Then there's John 14:26 (Jesus speaking): " "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

You really need a lot of help with your theology, Thirza. You apparently were unaware of what's noted above.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The Gospels are still independent, historical documents - written by different people at different times in different localities.

An independent source would be the Roman historian (I forget his name) who wrote of the emerging religion and their beliefs. Sorta like how the Tanakh is a primary text, the Talmud is an independent source of notes, interpretations, and so on. The Bible, and all contained and uncontained books related to it, are the primary texts of Christianity.