There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[ElishaElijah]

My comment has nothing to do with whether there are spiritual truths, but whether you and your claims are credible. With your approach, even if I believed that spiritual things were real, I would have no reason to believe that you had any idea what you are talking about.

The question was do you know the difference between faith and presumption and by your comments the answer is no you don’t and that’s a big problem for skeptics because if you don’t understand the basic spiritual truth of what is or is not faith you will continue to stumble around in the dark as you’re doing now.

 

[ppp]

The question was do you know the difference between faith and presumption and by your comments the answer is no you don’t and that’s a big problem for skeptics because if you don’t understand the basic spiritual truth of what is or is not faith you will continue to stumble around in the dark as you’re doing now.

Before your opinion on what I understand can matter, you first have to establish that your opinion matters; that you are even capable of knowing the things you claim to know. Until you can do that, you are no different from any random human on the internet claiming that he is Napoleon, Emperor of all France.

 

[joelr]

You certainly come off as angry. It seems you’re angry because you’re not getting what you want, so you keep spewing the bs and repeating yourself over and over in hopes it will get you what you want. It won’t.

This is just one big strawman and literally has nothing to do with the discussion at all. It's your claim that you talk to magic deities. I asked for evidence. Were you expecting people to be all "wow, you are so spiritual and God must be real!"?
Again, if a deity told you something beyond your intelligence maybe it's beyond everyones intelligence and you can give us some information that is beyond all out intelligence?
What I wanted was evidence OR for you to confirm that you are not actually speaking to anything except your subconscious mind in which case you would probably act exactly like this.

BTW, you are the angry person as evidenced by your string of ad-hom -(Your comments are mostly angry BS. They are close-minded and extremely self-righteous. Your words show signs of know-it-all-ism, which is really words of foolish-ism.)

If you don’t understand spirituality and know what I’ve been telling you, then too bad.

Spirituality is an undefined nebulous word. The best definition I have heard is it being about living the best life one can and from the highest ideals and virtues.
Praying to invisible deities to get to an afterlife and thinking you have the one correct version is the worst possible definition I've heard. Living through virtues for the sake of good would be a good definition. Doing the right thing because you are being watched by a King in the Sky who judges the amount of "sin-force" you have accumulated is not a good definition either.

If I did ask you to ask some questions for me and you responded by saying you don’t ask those types of questions, I would be respectful, say OK, and leave you alone. I wouldn’t spout out lectures, have a tantrum, and demand you comply with my request.

The only tantrum seems to be right here in your words. I asked for evidence. You then upped the claims and said you get things "beyond your intelligence". So I then asked about this new claim. So actually, you DID spout out more, not lectures but more anecdotal evidence.
Arguing about the argument is clear evidence that someone is upset. This isn't my line of questioning? So that leaves you.

Then why do you continue to demand that I communicate with a deity for you?

You continued to enter anecdotal evidence in a debate forum and you're having trouble figuring out why I would use a debate tactic?

I am not trying to get anywhere!

Good because you are going nowhere.

Bull.

You say "bull" to the idea that there is open mindedness here. Please explain how one would respond with an open mind to such claims without sacrificing critical and rational thinking?

I

told you I don’t ask those types of questions. How many times must I tell you? This is the last time, regardless.

Now it's just weird? The post you are responding to did not have these requests? I said if one makes claims then expect to be asked for evidence and somehow you are still 2 posts behind?

I never mentioned the word gullible. I don’t have to provide anything for you. All responses are voluntary, no matter what forum you’re on. I gave you the only explanations and answers about “evidence” that you’re going to get from me. Continuing your demands is not going to change that.

Uh, that's what I said it "seems" like you are confusing open-mindedness with gullible? Instead of nit-picking why don't you say something that would actually move things forward and explain what do you mean by open mindedness????????????
This is ANOTHER strawman?? You are responding to my response to your angry post? We are past that. It's clear you cannot provide any evidence to your claims. I'm not surprised. Can you move forward? Can you mount any type of evidence for any of this? Or were you just going to make claims and get upset when called out?

Are mortality rates supposed to be different? No. Everyone will die of something. Faith and prayer won’t change that.

So you are saying that prayer has no impact on death or rates of recovery from illness? Statistics do bear that out. If you don't believe that praying can have any effect on the outcome of illness then I would agree.
However you said that I "should be aware that others get answers" in prayer. So that answer can never be a healing?

So, just because we all die, that means God never answers a prayer? That’s complete BS, not to mention a cop-out. Just because someone fails get what they asked for or demanded from God, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t exist or doesn’t answer prayers. That is a spoiled brat concept.

Sorry, another strawman.
It has nothing to do with the fact everyone dies. I believe there is an assumption in religious circles that praying can sometimes alter the outcome of a serious illness. Obviously everyone will die but the assumption is that a deity can give a person a 2nd chance, push things in their favor, things of that nature.
Statistics would show if this was the case. A stage 3 specific type of cancer will have say a 40% mortality rate in a specific population. If we look at enough cases we will see 40% do indeed pass away. If a deity was helping a certain group of people out from this population then those statistics would be impossible to track in Christians or Muslims or whomever the deity was answering prayers for. 40% would not pass away the number would be lower due to answered prayer.
That doesn't happen.
Also large prayer studies have actually been done. They showed prayer was not effective as far as any type of healing or recovery.

Would you rather that I LIE to you, instead of telling you the TRUTH? It seems that you would rather believe in psychics or anyone who would tell you what you want to hear. I won’t give into your demands, therefore you think my experiences can’t be real. You are so quick to judge and make irrational conclusions.

I don't believe in psychics. I didn't demand, I asked for evidence. If I said I communicate with Thor but I cannot answer questions from you to prove it's real would you be "irrational" to either ask for evidence or claim you don't believe me? No. Why you want a special pass for your God I don't know. There is nothing irrational about what I've said.

A level? Another one of your interpretations. You make everything so complicated and it’s really very simple.

Again, instead of giving some kind of answer you are just attacking my words. This is misdirection and other techniques that I won't say. So you are saying it's "so simple" that some people get actual communication from a deity yet others who have devoted their entire lives and careers like Pastors, Cardinals and the Pope never speak of such communication?

Yes it's simple. When we pray to a deity, any deity, our minds give us the feeling that we are speaking to someone and that someone is listening. Any feelings generated we take as answers. This is not uncommon and found in Islam and Hinduism. Ex-Christians also speak of it commonly.

To you they are. You can keep your judgments, they are of no value to me.

I am assessing the evidence as presented. What is or isn't of value to you is not important. It's an open debate forum, different people will take it all in different ways. I don't even understand why you are commenting on this. I also don't understand why you have presented no further argument and are just going in circles? You haven't answered any points I raised?

 

[Sundance]

That's what I meant, if you are not arguing theism it isn't something atheists are going to try to argue against. I don't believe in any pantheism because if it's the cosmos I'll just call it the cosmos, I don't see the need to say that it is God and it doesn't need to be a consciousness entity to be a force of creation. But there isn't any argument against things like deism or pantheism. The idea of a soul that goes to an afterlife (Greek Hellenism) has a lack of evidence so I would argue against that but that is something different.

You still don’t understand. Pantheism is a type of theism, like monotheism and polytheism. Absolutely! Yet, it’s impossible to criticize using standard atheist arguments, because of the fact that they simply don’t apply. This is the point I’m making. That you don’t feel any sense of awe and majesty, worship or reverence towards the Cosmos is about all you can say truthfully. But of course, this is a conceptual thing. Many individuals (myself among them) feel that sense. You cannot say, unlike with the conception of a transcendent, supernatural Creator, that the Universe does not have independent reality. It would be pure nonsense.

 

[joelr]

This shows how little you understand what happened when Jesus rose, yes He was glorified after He rose from the dead and His earthly body did not see corruption, according to the Scriptures.
““Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not

I would say you’re on quicksand my friend

First I have given many lines of evidence that Christianity is simple a Jewish version of the Greek/Persian savior demigod cults. The historical consensus is that the gospels are myth and there is no actual evidence outside of stories. Same for Islam, Mormonism, and any modern cult.

Here you are on about a resurrection in a human body? That is not what Paul said. He even said one would be a "fool" to think to understand the resurrected body.

BTW, Acts is considered a sea narrative taken from Homer and a few other sources. The peer-reviewed work by Richard Purvoe has been accepted into the field and is now standard belief.

But anyway Jesus was raised in a spiritual body -

First Corinthians 15:44

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.

40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.




Although it is implied in the preface of the book of Acts that it is supposed to be some kind of historical account, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Acts has been thoroughly discredited as nothing more than a work of apologetic historical fiction, and the scholarship of Richard Pervo conclusively demonstrates this to be the case. Regarding any historical sources that Luke may have used for Acts, the only one that has been confirmed with any probability was that of Josephus (a person who never wrote about Jesus Christ nor Christianity, yet was likely used by Luke for background material), and although there may have been more historical sources than Josephus, we simply don’t have any evidence preserved from those other possible historians to make a case one way or the other. All of the other sources that we can discern within Acts are literary sources, not historical ones. Included in these literary sources is what may possibly have been a (now-lost) hagiographical fabrication, and basically a rewrite of the Elijah-Elisha narrative in some of the Old Testament (OT) texts of Kings, although placing Paul and Jesus in the main roles instead, which obviously would have been a literary source of historical fiction (not any kind of historical account).

The scholar Thomas Brodie has argued that this evident reworking of the Kings narrative starts in Luke’s Gospel and continues on until Acts chapter 15, thus indicating that Luke either integrated this literary creation into his story or he used an underlying source text, such as some previous Gospel that not only covered the acts of Jesus but also the acts of the apostles. So it appears that Luke either used this source text or his own literary idea and then inserted more stories into it, effectively expanding the whole story into two books, while also utilizing some material from Mark and Matthew during the process (and potentially other now-lost Gospels) and some material from the epistles of Paul. In any case, the unnamed source text mentioned thus far is a hypothetical one that can only be inferred to have existed from the evidence of what’s written in Acts. Luckily, the remaining literary sources that scholars can discern Luke used are indeed sources we actually have and thus can directly compare to and analyze.

As an example, the scholar Dennis MacDonald has shown that Luke also reworked fictional tales written by Homer, replacing the characters and some of the outcomes as needed to suit his literary purposes. MacDonald informs us in his The Shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul (New Testament Studies, 45, pp. 88-107) that:

“The shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul share nautical images and vocabulary, the appearance of a goddess or angel assuring safety, the riding of planks, the arrival of the hero on an island among hospitable strangers, the mistaking of the hero as a god, and the sending of him on his way [in a new ship].“
Paul actually tells us himself that he was shipwrecked three times, and that at least one time he spent a day and night adrift (2 Cor. 11.25). It’s possible that Luke was inspired by this detail given by Paul and used it to invent a story that expanded on it, while borrowing other ideas and details from famous shipwreck narratives including those found in Jonah, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. In fact, Acts rewrites Homer a number of other times. Paul’s resurrection of the fallen Eutychus was based on the fallen Elpenor. The visions of Cornelius and Peter were constructed from a similar narrative that was written about Agamemnon. Paul’s farewell at Miletus was made from Hector’s farewell to Andromache. The lottery of Matthias we hear about was built off of the lottery of Ajax. Even Peter’s escape from prison was lifted from Priam’s escape from Achilles. There are other literary sources besides Homer that the author of Acts used as well. For example, the prison breaks in Acts share several themes with the famously miraculous prison breaks found in the Bacchae of Euripedes such as the miraculous unlocking of chains and being able to escape due to an earthquake (compare Acts 12.6-7 and 16.26 to Bacchae pp. 440-49, 585-94).

However, the source that Acts seems to employ more than any other is the Septuagint. While MacDonald has shown that the overall structure of the Peter and Cornelius story is based on writings from Homer, the scholar Randel Helms has shown that other elements were in fact borrowed from the book of Ezekiel in the OT, thus merging both story models into a single one. For example, both Peter and Ezekiel see the heavens open up (Acts 10.11; Ezek. 1.1), both of them are commanded to eat something in their vision (Acts 10.13; Ezek. 2.9), both respond to God twice by saying “By no means, Lord!” using the exact same Greek phrase (Acts 10.14, 11.8; Ezek. 4.14, 20.49), both are asked to eat unclean food, and finally both protest saying that they have never eaten anything unclean before (Acts 10.14; Ezek. 4.14). Clearly, the author of Acts isn’t recording anything from historical memory, but rather is assembling a fictional story using literary structures and motifs that don’t have much if anything to do with what happened to Peter or Paul. The author appears to be inventing this “history” in order to convince his readers of how the previously-required Torah-observance was abandoned in early Christianity, and to convince his readers that this abandonment of Torah-observance was even approved by Peter all along, and confirmed to be approved of through divine revelation. Yet, we know this to be a lie because Paul even tells us himself (in Gal. 2) that he was for a long time the only advocate for a Torah-free version of Christianity, and it was merely tolerated by Torah observers like Peter (and often contentiously so). Similarly, in Acts 15.7-11, we can see that it is basically just Paul’s speech from Gal. 2.14-21

 

[joelr]

@joelr
This is the way Jesus said to pray, it’s an outline of prayer. Do you realize when asking God specifically to do something that sometimes the answer is no or wait? You seem to equate God like a Genie or something.

This has nothing to do with any post. Someone claimed they could receive intelligence from god beyond their abilities. SO I asked for evidence. I do not care bout the apologetics - "God won't be tested, God says no sometimes", if one wants to lean on those apologetics then great. But I will still ask for evidence when claims are made. Do you think your God answers prayer ever? If so, that is a genie.

I was Christian. You can dress it up all you like - "I have a relationship with God", "I speak my feelings to God", but if you feel you are getting supernatural help at times then that is no different than a genie.

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:9-15‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The consensus is that Matthew is a creative reinterpretation of Mark. So Matthew made that up or sourced an old tradition. I do not care about Greek/Jewish legends from 2000 years ago. Demonstrate any of this is real.
I can claim Islam is real and endlessly quote from the Quran. But this would show I have no real argument, cannot back up my false beliefs and have never even thought to question things people told me were true.

Completely agree with @Firelight and the comments to you, usually I rebuke that spirit that comes across in your comments in the name of Jesus.[/QUOTE]

You can rebuke it to Jesus, Thor, Gandolf or Harry Potter. But meanwhile do you have any evidence or any type of proof your claims are real? Did you think you were on an evangelize forum?

 

[joelr]

This is absolutely the case, the events are of unknown authorship, the claims are hearsay, the earliest accounts are decades after the fact, and there isn't a shred of objective or independent evidence to support it.

Worst of all these are about the most extraordinary claims one can imagine.

Right now the people presenting this evidence seem to have no interest in any type of actual discussion about this. They just want to repeat tired apologetics and evangelize?

 

[joelr]

Anyone can write a book or come up with their own ideas, but the scriptures say...

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
John 4:24

And...

...In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Well she's a professor of the original Hebrew and it also says he has man parts.
Genesis is considered a mythical narrative by the historicity field. The myths are re-workings of Mesopotamian creation myths.

John is much later. The NT is basically all Persian and Greek mythology. One of the Hellenistic traits picked up by the Hebrews was souls, heaven, national God upgraded to supreme God and the spirit form was more prevelant.
But there is no doubt that early OT had a different view of Yahweh. I mean, it's your religion? I don't understand the point of this post?
You think because John says God is spirit that negates all of the Hebrew supposedly given to Moses, Abraham and so on?
He also made actual appearances?


https://www.amazon.com/God-Anatomy-Francesca-Stavrakopoulou/dp/0525520457
An astonishing and revelatory history that re-presents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers—with a distinctly male body, and with superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous.

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.

Here is a portrait—arrived at through the author's close examination of and research into the Bible—of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe—and every part of the body in between—this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before.

 

[joelr]

You still don’t understand. Pantheism is a type of theism, like monotheism and polytheism. Absolutely! Yet, it’s impossible to criticize using standard atheist arguments, because of the fact that they simply don’t apply. This is the point I’m making. That you don’t feel any sense of awe and majesty, worship or reverence towards the Cosmos is about all you can say truthfully. But of course, this is a conceptual thing. Many individuals (myself among them) feel that sense. You cannot say, unlike with the conception of a transcendent, supernatural Creator, that the Universe does not have independent reality. It would be pure nonsense.

Hindu pantheism is deistic. I have a sense of awe towards the cosmos. I don't think it's any type of deity. I don't feel human senses are a marker of truth when it comes to such matters. But I see nature and probabilities at work but I don't see why that would be a deity?

 

[joelr]

The only reasons I see presented by skeptics are the Bible is too old, eye witness accounts can be unreliable, although we see the accounts in the Bible, we aren’t accepting that or any other historian or scholar of the time that disagrees with the skeptic view.

Now you are just lying. There are no skeptics here, there are people presenting evidence. Otherwise you are just as skeptical because you don't believe in Islam or any other supernatural claim. But that isn't really skepticism. You are purposely misusing the word skeptic, you don't expect others to suddenly believe every revelation throughout history? You are likely fine with people not running to Islam or all other religions because someone made a claim. This weird version of "skepticism" involves people accepting your wild unlikely claims but still understanding all the others are non-sense. This is special pleading.

The Bible is all re-worked mythology, always from older cultures. The stories are written as fiction, parables, allegory and even baptism, eucharist, the Word becoming Flesh are all Greek religious inventions. You haven't debunked any of that. You haven't shown any type of historical evidence. Even Christian scholarship which has determined Genesis is definitely a myth and Mark is the source gospel for at least Matthew and Luke you don't seem to understand.

Then when someone testifies who is alive today
that Jesus is Alive and He intervened in their life, gave them His Spirit, Eternal Life and victorious living and power over the lust of the flesh, the ability and desire to live a holy life and you have justifications how this isn’t so.
So have I answered yours and the other skeptics on this thread adequately? Yes, and my opinion is no answer will do until my Lord and King returns, then then it will be great bu a hollow victory because it would be too late for the skeptic.

Uh, no, you have not touched on any of the issues with Bible historicity. You just ignored them. Christian schholars who show Mark as the source form M/L are not "skeptics"?? They show their argument? Everything said can be demonstrated. Following evidence is not "
skeptical", it's critical thinking.

You have also not answered to the clear fact that Islam and Hindu converts have had life changing experiences. Radical life changing experiences. So has Scientology. Shall we examine more?

This proves that one can be transformed by something that is NOT REAL. Denial and special pleading are not making any argument.

 

[joelr]

Saying I have no facts when I have presented facts…there is evidence for 1 God and Creator, the Kingdom of God,

You presented a mythical creation narrative. There are 100's
By your logic then Islam must be true as well. In fact ALL RELIGIONS must be true. So Christians must have screwed up the message, luckily the angel Gabrielle gave the updates to Muhammad. If you don't listen it's an "awful doom"


Creation from chaos[edit]
Main article: Chaos (cosmogony)

• Enûma Eliš (Babylonian creation myth)
• Greek cosmogonical myth
• Jamshid
• Korean creation narratives
• Kumulipo
• Leviathan (Book of Job 38–41 creation myth)
• Mandé creation myth
• Pangu
• Raven in Creation
• Serer creation myth
• Sumerian creation myth
• Tungusic creation myth
• Unkulunkulu
• Väinämöinen
• Viracocha

Earth diver[edit]
Main article: Earth-diver

• Ainu creation myth
• Cherokee creation myth
• Iroquois creation myth
• Väinämöinen
• Yoruba creation myth
• Ob-Ugric creation myth

Emergence[edit]
Main article: Emergence

• Hopi creation myth
• Maya creation of the world myth
• Diné Bahaneʼ (Navajo)
• Zuni creation myth

Ex nihilo (out of nothing)[edit]
Main article: Ex nihilo

• Debate between sheep and grain
• Barton cylinder
• Ancient Egyptian creation myths
• Genesis creation myth (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
• Kabezya-Mpungu
• Māori myths
• Mbombo
• Ngai
• Popol Vuh

World parent[edit]
Main article: World parent

• Coatlicue
• Enûma Eliš
• Greek cosmogonical myth
• Heliopolis creation myth
• Hiranyagarbha creation myth
• Kumulipo
• Rangi and Papa
• Völuspá

Divine twins[edit]
Main article: Divine twins

• Proto-Indo-European creation myths

Regional[edit]
Africa[edit]

• Ancient Egyptian creation myths
• Fon creation myth
• Kaang creation story (Bushmen)
• Kintu myth (Bugandan)
• Mandé creation myth
• Mbombo (Kuba, Bakuba or Bushongo/Boshongo)
• Ngai (Kamba, Kikuyu and Maasai )
• Serer creation myth (cosmogony of the Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania)
• Unkulunkulu (Zulu)
• Yoruba creation

Americas[edit]
Mesoamerica[edit]

• Coatlicue (Aztec)
• Maya creation of the world myth
• Popol Vuh (Quiché Mayan)

Mid North America[edit]

• Anishinaabeg creation stories
• Cherokee creation myth
• Choctaw creation myth
• Creek creation myth
• Hopi creation myth
• Kuterastan (Plains Apache)
• Diné Bahaneʼ (Navajo)
• Raven in Creation (Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian)
• Zuni creation myth

South America[edit]

• Legend of Trentren Vilu and Caicai Vilu (Chilean)
• Viracocha (Incan)
• Xolas (Chilean)

Asia[edit]
Central Asia[edit]

• Ergenekon
• Mongolian creation myth
• Tungusic creation myth

East Asia[edit]

• Ainu creation myth (Japan)
• Au Co (Vietnamese)
• Chinese creation myth
• Japanese creation myth
• Korean creation narratives
• Nüwa (Chinese)
• Pangu (Chinese)

 

[joelr]

Well, I have both, hope in this life and eternal life in the next. This is a guarantee for me because God has given me His Spirit as a guarantee. This is not an empty faith but living hope, promises for this life and the next, a relationship with my Creator.
These things skeptics misstate, lack understanding and are confused by, but the truth remains skeptics have no hope for the afterlife and not sure if you have any hope for this life especially if you’re trusting in yourself. Big trouble there.

Yes and Area 51 is holding aliens. Anyone is free to believe any myth. You seem to just want to evengelize rathyer than have an actual debate?
Anyway, eternal life isn't found in the OT (weird huh?) heaven is only for God. The Greeks started the myth about having souls that need salvation and getting to heaven where they originated at. During the Greek occupation THEN the Hebrews started writing it into their theology. Wow, what a coincidence! Sanders wrote about this among others.



BEFORE CHRISTIANITY,
During the period of the Second Temple (c. 515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire.[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]

Heaven - Wikipedia

 

[joelr]

I do not believe God intends to be used. More likely He will use you. The answer is simple. You are not really as much in control of your life as you think. So it is helpful to have someone who is more powerful who can move mountains for you.

Can you get God to move a mountain on a specific date and time?

 

[joelr]

It had been witnessed by many and their accounts had been documented carefully. It is foolish to reject eye witness accounts without proof the the witnesses were unreliable. No such proof exists.

The resurrection exists in Mark. A fictional narrative where the writer admits the main character teaches in parables, showing the story is a parable, uses literary devices only used in fiction, no sources or explanations for unusual events (like in histories), copies Kings, Psalms verbatim, Pauls letters, and the main character scores 18 out of 22 on the rank Ragalin mythotype scale. As high as King Arthur. Savior demigods who rose in 3 days was a popular myth before Jesus and all the changes from Judaism to Christianity are from Hellenism.

There are no historian eyewitness accounts of Jesus, just Christians who follow the gospels. One historian who investigated then called them harmless superstition.
The gospels are anonymous, non-eyewitness and Matthew and Luke are sourced from Mark according to Christian scholarship.

So it's just Mark. A myth. Which was NOT documented carefully because the earliest fragment we have of it is from late 2nd century.

The actual 2nd century was at least 50% Gnostic and radically different from the current canon. The first canon - Marcionite is unknown. 1/2 of the Epistles and 38 of the Gospelks are consider forgeries compared to the canon which is likely also just made up.
So what you say is wildly innaccurate.

2nd century
These various interpretations were called heresies by the leaders of the proto-orthodox church, but many were very popular and had large followings. Part of the unifying trend in proto-orthodoxy was an increasingly harsh anti-Judaism and rejection of Judaizers. Some of the major movements were:

• Gnosticism – second to fourth centuries – reliance on revealed knowledge from an unknowable God, a distinct divinity from the Demiurge who created and oversees the material world. The Gnostics claimed to have received secret teachings (gnosis) from Jesus via other apostles which were not publicly known, or in the case of Valentinius from Paul the Apostle. Gnosticism is predicated on the existence of such hidden knowledge, but brief references to private teachings of Jesus have also survived in the canonic scripture (Mark 4:11) as did warning by the Christ that there would be false prophets or false teachers. Irenaeus' opponents also claimed that the wellsprings of divine inspiration were not dried up, which is the doctrine of continuing revelation.[citation needed]
• Marcionism – second century – the God of Jesus was a different God from the God of the Old Testament.
• Montanism – second century – a pentecostal movement initiated by Montanus and his female disciples, featuring prophetic continuing revelations from the Holy Spirit.
• Adoptionism – second century – Jesus was not born the Son of God, but was adopted at his baptism, resurrection or ascension.
• Docetism – second to third century – Jesus was pure spirit and his physical form an illusion.
• Sabellianism – third century – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three modes of the one God and not the three separate persons of the Trinity.
• Arianism – third to fourth century – Jesus, while not merely mortal, was not eternally divine and was of some lesser status than God the Father.[note 1]

In the middle of the second century, the Christian communities of Rome, for example, were divided between followers of Marcion, Montanism, and the gnostic teachings of Valentinus.

 

[ElishaElijah]

First I have given many lines of evidence that Christianity is simple a Jewish version of the Greek/Persian savior demigod cults. The historical consensus is that the gospels are myth and there is no actual evidence outside of stories. Same for Islam, Mormonism, and any modern cult.

Here you are on about a resurrection in a human body? That is not what Paul said. He even said one would be a "fool" to think to understand the resurrected body.

BTW, Acts is considered a sea narrative taken from Homer and a few other sources. The peer-reviewed work by Richard Purvoe has been accepted into the field and is now standard belief.

But anyway Jesus was raised in a spiritual body -

First Corinthians 15:44

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.

40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.




Although it is implied in the preface of the book of Acts that it is supposed to be some kind of historical account, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Acts has been thoroughly discredited as nothing more than a work of apologetic historical fiction, and the scholarship of Richard Pervo conclusively demonstrates this to be the case. Regarding any historical sources that Luke may have used for Acts, the only one that has been confirmed with any probability was that of Josephus (a person who never wrote about Jesus Christ nor Christianity, yet was likely used by Luke for background material), and although there may have been more historical sources than Josephus, we simply don’t have any evidence preserved from those other possible historians to make a case one way or the other. All of the other sources that we can discern within Acts are literary sources, not historical ones. Included in these literary sources is what may possibly have been a (now-lost) hagiographical fabrication, and basically a rewrite of the Elijah-Elisha narrative in some of the Old Testament (OT) texts of Kings, although placing Paul and Jesus in the main roles instead, which obviously would have been a literary source of historical fiction (not any kind of historical account).

The scholar Thomas Brodie has argued that this evident reworking of the Kings narrative starts in Luke’s Gospel and continues on until Acts chapter 15, thus indicating that Luke either integrated this literary creation into his story or he used an underlying source text, such as some previous Gospel that not only covered the acts of Jesus but also the acts of the apostles. So it appears that Luke either used this source text or his own literary idea and then inserted more stories into it, effectively expanding the whole story into two books, while also utilizing some material from Mark and Matthew during the process (and potentially other now-lost Gospels) and some material from the epistles of Paul. In any case, the unnamed source text mentioned thus far is a hypothetical one that can only be inferred to have existed from the evidence of what’s written in Acts. Luckily, the remaining literary sources that scholars can discern Luke used are indeed sources we actually have and thus can directly compare to and analyze.

As an example, the scholar Dennis MacDonald has shown that Luke also reworked fictional tales written by Homer, replacing the characters and some of the outcomes as needed to suit his literary purposes. MacDonald informs us in his The Shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul (New Testament Studies, 45, pp. 88-107) that:

“The shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul share nautical images and vocabulary, the appearance of a goddess or angel assuring safety, the riding of planks, the arrival of the hero on an island among hospitable strangers, the mistaking of the hero as a god, and the sending of him on his way [in a new ship].“
Paul actually tells us himself that he was shipwrecked three times, and that at least one time he spent a day and night adrift (2 Cor. 11.25). It’s possible that Luke was inspired by this detail given by Paul and used it to invent a story that expanded on it, while borrowing other ideas and details from famous shipwreck narratives including those found in Jonah, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. In fact, Acts rewrites Homer a number of other times. Paul’s resurrection of the fallen Eutychus was based on the fallen Elpenor. The visions of Cornelius and Peter were constructed from a similar narrative that was written about Agamemnon. Paul’s farewell at Miletus was made from Hector’s farewell to Andromache. The lottery of Matthias we hear about was built off of the lottery of Ajax. Even Peter’s escape from prison was lifted from Priam’s escape from Achilles. There are other literary sources besides Homer that the author of Acts used as well. For example, the prison breaks in Acts share several themes with the famously miraculous prison breaks found in the Bacchae of Euripedes such as the miraculous unlocking of chains and being able to escape due to an earthquake (compare Acts 12.6-7 and 16.26 to Bacchae pp. 440-49, 585-94).

However, the source that Acts seems to employ more than any other is the Septuagint. While MacDonald has shown that the overall structure of the Peter and Cornelius story is based on writings from Homer, the scholar Randel Helms has shown that other elements were in fact borrowed from the book of Ezekiel in the OT, thus merging both story models into a single one. For example, both Peter and Ezekiel see the heavens open up (Acts 10.11; Ezek. 1.1), both of them are commanded to eat something in their vision (Acts 10.13; Ezek. 2.9), both respond to God twice by saying “By no means, Lord!” using the exact same Greek phrase (Acts 10.14, 11.8; Ezek. 4.14, 20.49), both are asked to eat unclean food, and finally both protest saying that they have never eaten anything unclean before (Acts 10.14; Ezek. 4.14). Clearly, the author of Acts isn’t recording anything from historical memory, but rather is assembling a fictional story using literary structures and motifs that don’t have much if anything to do with what happened to Peter or Paul. The author appears to be inventing this “history” in order to convince his readers of how the previously-required Torah-observance was abandoned in early Christianity, and to convince his readers that this abandonment of Torah-observance was even approved by Peter all along, and confirmed to be approved of through divine revelation. Yet, we know this to be a lie because Paul even tells us himself (in Gal. 2) that he was for a long time the only advocate for a Torah-free version of Christianity, and it was merely tolerated by Torah observers like Peter (and often contentiously so). Similarly, in Acts 15.7-11, we can see that it is basically just Paul’s speech from Gal. 2.14-21

Thanks for your responses: Here is what your name means:
Meaning, origin and history of the name Joel

By the way, saying this is now widely accepted is probably correct because the way is wide that leads to destruction, many will travel that road.
But to conclude you are following the truth is another matter altogether, the other biblical scholars hold to the traditional view which will shows the Bible is the true account and the other works just counterfeits just like Satan loves to do to deceive people.
And that’s all your views are…from other people, with no experience or thoughts of your own.
A List Of Conservative And Liberal Bible Scholars
When Were The Gospels Written?
Were The Four Gospels Written Anonymously?

 

[Sheldon]

Yes, I do think that Elisha was making the valid point that a sect is not a church. So there is, in fact, no straw man.

I never claimed a sect was a church, which is why the comparison was a straw man. I'm not sure how he was defining church either, but there certainly is more than one. Roman Catholic, church of England etc etc etc. However to be clear I said sects not churches, that was the straw man comparison.

 

[Sheldon]

Thanks for your responses: Here is what your name means:
Meaning, origin and history of the name Joel

By the way, saying this is now widely accepted is probably correct because the way is wide that leads to destruction, many will travel that road.
But to conclude you are following the truth is another matter altogether, the other biblical scholars hold to the traditional view which will shows the Bible is the true account and the other works just counterfeits just like Satan loves to do to deceive people.
And that’s all your views are…from other people, with no experience or thoughts of your own.
A List Of Conservative And Liberal Bible Scholars
When Were The Gospels Written?
Were The Four Gospels Written Anonymously?

Biblical scholars and scholarly historians are not the same thing, though of course they need not be mutually exclusive. However it is an historical fact that the names assigned the gospels, Mathew Mark Luke and John, did not appear until the 2nd century, the earliest writings of those gospels were anonymous. Biblical scholars can and do also hold subjective beliefs, but you are I'm afraid conflating the latter with historical facts, when beliefs can and are held on nothing but faith, whereas historical facts are subject to much higher criteria and methods of validation. The gospel names were assigned at the first council of Nicaea, but are made up.

Your links are the subjective opinions of a Christian apologist, it's in the title at the top of the page, he offering subjective beliefs. You are simply Googling what you want to believe, it's up to you of course, but meaningless in a debate. As this religious apologists beliefs are not objective evidence for the claims he makes, and do not change the fact that earliest writings of the gospels were unauthored or anonymous, and the very earliest written account is decades after the events they purport to describe. The authors speculation they reflect contemporary documents is just his subjective belief, and he can offer no historical evidence to support this. You will find innumerable blogs on the internet from religious apologists making this type of claim. The fact that the earliest written accounts of the gospels were unauthored is not a subjective opinion, no credible historian disputes this.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Biblical scholars and scholarly historians are not the same thing, though of course they need not be mutually exclusive. However it is an historical fact that the names assigned the gospels, Mathew Mark Luke and John, did not appear until the 2nd century, the earliest writings of those gospels were anonymous. Biblical scholars can and do also hold subjective beliefs, but you are I'm afraid conflating the latter with historical facts, when beliefs can and are held on nothing but faith, whereas historical facts are subject to much higher criteria and methods of validation. The gospel names were assigned at the first council of Nicaea, but are made up.

Your links are the subjective opinions of a Christian apologist, it's in the title at the top of the page, he offering subjective beliefs. You are simply Googling what you want to believe, it's up to you of course, but meaningless in a debate. As this religious apologists beliefs are not objective evidence for the claims he makes, and do not change the fact that earliest writings of the gospels were unauthored or anonymous, and the very earliest written account is decades after the events they purport to describe. The authors speculation they reflect contemporary documents is just his subjective belief, and he can offer no historical evidence to support this. You will find innumerable blogs on the internet from religious apologists making this type of claim. The fact that the earliest written accounts of the gospels were unauthored is not a subjective opinion, no credible historian disputes this.

Were The Four Gospels Written Anonymously?
Well you can review the evidence yourself

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The question was do you know the difference between faith and presumption and by your comments the answer is no you don’t and that’s a big problem for skeptics because if you don’t understand the basic spiritual truth of what is or is not faith you will continue to stumble around in the dark as you’re doing now.

I find that it is the faith-based thinker who loses sight of what faith actually is, as he tends to see it as a virtue and a path to truth. It is neither. It is merely the willingness to believe as true that which ha not been demonstrated to be correct. Where's the virtue there? What could be a less meaningful and less examined belief than one acquired that way. And why faith, which can't possibly be a path to truth if all ideas including wrong ideas can be believed by faith?

There are several words spelled and pronounced faith. Religious-type faith is nothing more or less than belief without sufficient evidentiary support as defined by the laws of critical analysis. Can you demonstrate that your belief is correct? If yes, it is not religious-type faith. It is justified belief, which is also called faith, as in the justified faith that one's car will start based in previous experience with it reliably starting, but that is a different word. Religious-type faith is unjustified belief, and has no place in the strict empiricist's mental map of reality, which comprises only demonstrably true ideas about what reality contains and how it works.

your comment shows you can’t grasp simple spiritual truth 101.

I generally find that people talking about spiritual truth have nothing to offer that can be called knowledge, meaning that it is they who don't grasp what spirituality is (or truth), and don't realize that the "truth" in a spiritual experience is like the "truth" in a euphoric or esthetic experience, which is not truth at all as I define it, but rather, a pleasant and affirming psychological experience.

I already know that you cannot produce a single truth not arrived at empirically, so I won't ask you to. And remember, it don't consider it truth or knowledge if it cannot be demonstrated to be correct, meaning to accurately predict outcomes. Pronouncements that don't affect reality are not truth. The following summarizes my position well:

"Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process. The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.

"We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.

"All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue.

"If this is not how your epistemology works - how you define truth - then we can't have a discussion, and I literally don't care what you think, since it has no effect on anything. If God is real and Christianity true, then what tangible manifestation can I produce through that belief in accordance with my actions? If there aren't any to speak of, then there is no truth to the idea that God exists. You need to do better than mere words"​

What people call spiritual truths don't meet that definition of truth. That which does is empirical truth.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Anyone can write a book or come up with their own ideas, but the scriptures say... God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:24 And...In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Are you aware that you are writing to skeptics who don't consider those scriptures authoritative or of divine origin, and view those words as something anybody could write and put in a book just as you describe? I realize that you don't think that, but shouldn't your comments to skeptics reflect an understanding of what they believe? You seem to be unaware that skeptics would see the scriptures you cited and think about them exactly what you are criticizing other books of being - ordinary words that any of us could write.

We see this from the people claiming that messengers of God are evidence of a divine source for their words and this a god, then they present words that anybody could have written as their evidence. They don't seem to understand how their holy words are received by others, either.

If you don’t understand spirituality and know what I’ve been telling you, then too bad.

I've yet to meet the theist with a good understanding of authentic spirituality (see post above this one). Hint: it doesn't involve spirits.

In fact, such beliefs as in gods and angels distract one from authentic spirituality, which is a sense of connection with the cosmos associated with a sense of mystery, awe, and gratitude. Being taught that the universe is made of base matter fit to be destroyed in a fiery apocalypse and replaced by something better, if he is told that his existence here is meaningless except as a staging room for something else, and his own body a carnal cesspool to be escaped from as well is the opposite of spiritual. Being taught that one is a member of a sinful race that needs to beg for forgiveness for being born human, and whose own mind and reasoning faculty is an enemy to be suppressed, is about as antithetical to authentic spirituality as is possible to be, having redirected one's attentions, respect, and loyalty from his world to an imagined afterlife and deity, living life as if in a bus stop waiting to be carried off to something better.

Is this what you believe, or something like it? If so, you probably shouldn't be discussing spirituality at all, much less as an authority schooling others. Just about any unbeliever with a decent science education and an interest in the cosmos can explain the authentic spiritual experience. It's what he feels when he gazes at a distant star with an understanding of how far that drop of light has traveled to inform him of that star's unfathomable distance and power, and that he is made of the stuff forged in its fires. Sends a frisson down the spine, doesn't it? The creationist who has avoided understanding his world all of his life and who has been taught that not of that impresses God, who will destroy it all, simply cannot participate

it’s impossible to criticize using standard atheist arguments, because of the fact that they simply don’t apply. This is the point I’m making. That you don’t feel any sense of awe and majesty, worship or reverence towards the Cosmos is about all you can say truthfully.

Is this how you view all atheists, or just the one you're posting to? If the former, see above.

And there are no standard atheist arguments. Nothing claimed to be true is beyond the scope of critical analysis. Empiricism and critical thinking always apply in matters of what is true.