God is Imaginary
Options
Replies
-
@Brunner26_2, If you refer to my orginal comment I simply pointed out that according to the authority of scripture, all of us has to make a choice, which is an unavoidable one, and which, again according to scripture has eternal consequences. Every one of us has to answer the same question which Pilate asked the multitude, "what shall I do with this man" The man in question being God incarnate.0
-
@treetop57 The existence of different denominations is a fact which can not be denied. The fact of differing interpretations on doctrine does not take away from the total agreement among all bible based believers that "all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God" and that there are none righteous. While there is liberty of interpretation on peripheral issues of doctrine there is unanimity on the fundamental issue "that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life"0
-
If, when you die, you are faced with a God that is NOT the Christian God you think you know, what will you do? Will you admit that you were wrong in life or will you hold tight to a faith in something you know doesn't exist? A lot of Christians like to say that one day we will all face God and will have to atone for our sins and lack of faith. What if that faith is in a false God? Will you fall to your knees before Zeus or the Giant Rat God or whatever it is and denounce Christianity as a false religion?
I would like to believe that I will embrace the truth, whatever that turns out to be. If I find out I was wrong, I will discover I was wrong. If I find myself confronted with a God who is worthy of praise, I will praise. If not, I will do otherwise. It is hard to difficult to respond to your question, however. For Christians, our faith in God is somewhat like our faith in a spouse that we deeply love and are committed to. If you ask, “What if you find out that your husband/wife is a phony deceiver,” etc.? Well, I would be profoundly sad and disappointed, perhaps even shattered to the core of my being. The one who loves deeply, though, does not allow this to undermine his/her faith in the one they love. The Christian loves God with a deep confidence that defines our being. Thinking of denying this or finding out it is false does not weaken my faith. In fact, when I read your paragraph, I could only think of how beautiful, compelling and convincing Christianity is in comparison to the religious ideas you presented.
I've been married 20 years this month. I love my husband totally and completely. I trust him totally and completely. But if I were to find out that while he was overseas he had an affair and now has a few kids in a few different countries I'd be shattered, heartbroken, then admit that he's not the man I thought he was and go in search of a real man. I wouldn't cling to a love that wasn't mutual and a trust that wasn't deserved in a marriage that wasn't even close to what I thought it was. Same with the afterlife. I guess I can laugh at people like Robert who spout off that "everyone will have to face the truth" because he's only willing to accept 1 truth. If faced with something different I'll admit I was wrong. He'll be the one denying the real God to His face and facing the fate he thinks everyone who denies his God will face. I'm the one who has my bases covered because I'm at least willing to admit that I just might maybe be wrong.0 -
There is so much unanimity of belief that Christians have been excommunicating each other, declaring each other heretics, and burning each other at the stake since at least 325 AD.0
-
No, I don't believe in either of them. But the whole burning in eternal flames thing is in Mark. Also, didn't Jesus speak of it in Acts?
Hell is mentioned in the Bible alongside God’s invitation to salvation and happiness. Hell is the radical contrast to what God offers to us. Hell is the end result of those who stubbornly choose a path of despair and hate. It is described as a place of fire, darkness, weeping, etc., because those are terrible things in human experience. Unending despair at the realization that we have rejected God’s love and may never find it again is the greatest loss imaginable. The real point, though, is that now is the time to find salvation and hope.
I don't mean to be rude, but I keep questioning your understanding of the bible and Christianity when you have degrees in religion and philosophy. Surely you have been educated on hyperbole, poetry, parables, stories, etc of the bible. I don't know if you're just playing devil's advocate or if you really don't understand all this.
Sorry, I was not at keyboard until now. I have read and studied the Bible (multiple versions), the Gnostic scriptures, the Apocrypha (my favorite is the Gospel of St. Thomas), The Qu'ran, Mahabharata and Ramayana, and various other Eastern Religious texts. My studies included what the authors of each text where trying to say, the history of the texts as well as the historical context that it was written, and the impact of each text. Coupled with this, we also read many other early works (Odyssey, Gilgamesh, etc) to ensure a well rounded education and appreciation for the era and roots of our civilization.
Your readings of the Bible are one-sided, biased and Apologetic (Presuppositional to be more precise) in nature. You seek out answers that will justify your view rather than letting the text speak for itself. It is to the point that your views are not even accepted by the experts within your own church (and the Catholic Church is not known for quickly adjusting to new information).
The points that I have been making with the respect to morals in animals show that once humans gained a level self-consciousness that allowed examination and reflection of their surroundings, behaviors and thoughts, they attempted to explain it and that explanation became religion. After this, religion evolved alongside society and was used to justify rulers, conquering and slaughter. It was also used to justify and enforce laws that were used to maintain order and control. You can see this today in the Middle East and Africa.0 -
Look at the world as a whole and in the grand scheme of things. Debt is temporary, the prison situation is a social issue that is currently being debated, education (which one could argue began getting messed up when people kept trying to blur the line between church and state) is a combination of economics and social issues still being debated, families is an economic issue unless you are talking about same sex marriage (which then goes back to church and state).
In the grand scheme of things, we are in a much better place than we have been in the past. Racism is diminishing, society is becoming more tolerant. In other parts of the world, society is improving as secular education improves. Nations with no Christian influence - such as India, Indonesia, Singapore and China - are rising up and an able bodied middle class is forming. Are things perfect? far from it, but this is evolution. It takes a while.
Calling myself a primate is not reductionist but rather fact. A hippo's closest living relatives are whale's and dolphins. Does that subtract from their capabilities.
Your comments are filled with so many problems that time simply doesn’t allow me to address them all. (I won’t feel bad, though, since most of my past points simply pass by without much or any comment.) Your final line, for instance, about being a “primate” is just dishonest. You said several times that we are “bald monkeys.” In common English, we use “monkey” as a reference to a species under the broader genus of “primate.” In any case, you have to know you were implying a reduction of human beings from a “higher” status when you made our specific difference from monkeys our relative baldness rather than something like “wisdom” or “freedom.”
Your comments about education “began getting messed up when people kept trying to blur the line between church and state” is sheer nonsense. Education flourished within Christianity. The great modern university began in Europe as institutions of the Church. Same sex marriage is not a church/state issue, either. Your notion that the world just keeps getting better in the grand scheme of things might work well as long as you don’t look at specifics. Those who believe in climate change and global warming might beg to differ, not to mention those who compare the erosion of families, rise of psychological and emotional issues, violent crimes, development of weapons of mass destruction, etc., etc. If you use growing “tolerance” as your standard of growth, maybe you are right. Tolerance can turn into a lack of conviction, however, and that makes people lazy and unprincipled, something that seems to making many people in Europe very interested in radical forms of Islam.
As I said before, the monkeys line was a crass joke taken from Joe Rogan but we are evolved primates with substantially (well some of you, I'm Irish) less hair than other primates. The full quote by Joe Rogan is, "Whenever you feel that things are getting too serious, just remember that we are all bald monkeys flying through space on an organic spaceship." I guess it is reductionist but it was humorous. I have the utmost respect and awe for what humans have accomplished but it does not belay the fact that we are primates.
Again, things are improving when seen in the grand scheme of things. You see global warming (which I do as well) but I see rivers in Pennsylvania that used to burn and be lifeless now support a thriving flying fishing community. I agree with you that education did flourish under Christianity but the nature of the Christian community changed and now I am seeing schools teach that dinosaurs lived alongside humans but were killed in Noah's flood. While divorce rates are higher, this is partially due to divorce now being allowed. My mother and father grew up in a Catholic coal mining town where it was common for men in their parents' generation to leave work and go to the bar and then come home (after the kids were asleep) and proceed to beat their wife. It was quite common. Now this domestic battery is out in the open AND the women can now divorce these husbands rather than be trapped in violent and loveless marriages because the Church denied them. Which is a better home situation? How do you say same sex marriage is not a church and state issue? All arguments against marriage equality are biblical (Christianity was also a major part of the third KKK btw). Violent crimes - Steve Pinker came out with a book based on his study a couple of years ago where he found that humans are substantially safer now than they ever have been in the history of mankind. Also, violent crime is down in the US. A recent study had violent crime dropping by 75% in DC and 80% in New York City over the past two decades. Emotional and Psychological issues have risen, for the most part, due to them being report, researched and treated. There is less of a stigma attached to these issues so people are more likely to get treatment. I do not deny that there are some problematic rises in certain ailments/developments but these will be researched and treated. There was a rise in the Gay Flu around 1980 and now researchers the world over are making leaps and bounds in research. Other ailments, such as Parkinsons, are also close to being cured via stem cells (not in America, though because the Christian community has lobbied against such research). There have been two nuclear weapons fired off in a combat situation since their inception. They are a threat but people see them as such and are policing them. Unfortunately, that genie is not going back into the bottle any time soon. Best way is to try to find world peace. Speaking of world peace, the key to it is tolerance. I find it odd that you connect tolerance with a push to Radical Islam. Radical Islam, in its core, is about control and fundamentalist thought. It comes from a school of Islam called Wahhabi that is centered and supported in Saudi Arabia. The Saud family uses its strict teachings to maintain control of the populace and Bin Laden was well versed in it. He used to call Chechnya, which formerly was a nationalist conflict, his greatest triumph. Radical Islam gains traction with the disaffected, not the unprincipled. It could actually be said that Radical Islam (like all radical movements) is due to a complete lack of tolerance of other people's views.0 -
If, when you die, you are faced with a God that is NOT the Christian God you think you know, what will you do? Will you admit that you were wrong in life or will you hold tight to a faith in something you know doesn't exist? A lot of Christians like to say that one day we will all face God and will have to atone for our sins and lack of faith. What if that faith is in a false God? Will you fall to your knees before Zeus or the Giant Rat God or whatever it is and denounce Christianity as a false religion?
I would like to believe that I will embrace the truth, whatever that turns out to be. If I find out I was wrong, I will discover I was wrong. If I find myself confronted with a God who is worthy of praise, I will praise. If not, I will do otherwise. It is hard to difficult to respond to your question, however. For Christians, our faith in God is somewhat like our faith in a spouse that we deeply love and are committed to. If you ask, “What if you find out that your husband/wife is a phony deceiver,” etc.? Well, I would be profoundly sad and disappointed, perhaps even shattered to the core of my being. The one who loves deeply, though, does not allow this to undermine his/her faith in the one they love. The Christian loves God with a deep confidence that defines our being. Thinking of denying this or finding out it is false does not weaken my faith. In fact, when I read your paragraph, I could only think of how beautiful, compelling and convincing Christianity is in comparison to the religious ideas you presented.
I've been married 20 years this month. I love my husband totally and completely. I trust him totally and completely. But if I were to find out that while he was overseas he had an affair and now has a few kids in a few different countries I'd be shattered, heartbroken, then admit that he's not the man I thought he was and go in search of a real man. I wouldn't cling to a love that wasn't mutual and a trust that wasn't deserved in a marriage that wasn't even close to what I thought it was. Same with the afterlife. I guess I can laugh at people like Robert who spout off that "everyone will have to face the truth" because he's only willing to accept 1 truth. If faced with something different I'll admit I was wrong. He'll be the one denying the real God to His face and facing the fate he thinks everyone who denies his God will face. I'm the one who has my bases covered because I'm at least willing to admit that I just might maybe be wrong.
Bahet, the case here is more like you found out that your husband never existed. Kind of a metaphysical Catfish situation.0 -
Bahet, the case here is more like you found out that your husband never existed. Kind of a metaphysical Catfish situation.
Perfect explanation. We've been "Catfished" all these years.0 -
doorki-Your response shows you are either not reading carefully or you don’t care to represent what I am saying accurately. For instance, your comments on the Catholic Church ignore my reference from the Catholic Encyclopedia, a widely-respected Catholic source, that gave the dates for Mark as between AD 50 and 67. Your insistence on a pasted set of annotations from a study Bible and treating them as if they are infallibly set forth by the United States Bishops (who, by the way, have no infallibility on their own, according to Catholic theology) shows you are trying to force me into a mode of thinking that will serve your presuppositions or purposes rather than truly seek understanding. You didn’t touch my argument from Luke’s book of Acts, for instance.
Second, perhaps your reading a wide range of religious sources has diluted your ability to understand any one of them in any depth. At least I haven’t seen evidence that you have a good grasp of the Christian or Jewish Scriptures in any of what you have written to me.
What text did I not let speak for itself? I think you are frustrated because I don’t grant your surface interpretations of Scripture. If you mean “speak for itself” that I should ignore literary devices, modes of speech in the ancient Near East, or legitimate philosophical and theological considerations, then you are acting like a fundamentalist. You haven’t shown why any interpretation I’ve offered is wrong. I honestly don’t think you know the Scriptures well enough to engage in a serious discussion of interpretation.
On morality, you’ve given me no objective reason to condemn murder and slaughter. Your writing suggests some “moral high ground” from which you condemn prior generations or past eras (throwing in some anti-religious jabs along the way) but your atheism undermines any objective moral “good.” If a virus kills every human on the earth, is that “evil” in a moral sense? I don’t think so. If a human being chooses to blow the world up with a nuclear weapon, is that objectively, morally evil? In your view, the human who blows up the world is just another product of a blind, natural process that has no moral meaning or any purpose at all. You may not like someone blowing up the world and it may not be “good” for our herd but, well, the herd doesn’t have any objectively good meaning or purpose anyway. We are all just inexplicable particles moving about, going nowhere but destruction. You simply can’t overcome this problem with your position. . Atheists often borrow presuppositions or positions from theists in their attempt to retain some semblance of objective morality but, once you scratch the surface, it all boils down to evolutionary impulses, emotivism, subjectivism, relativism, or some of other ethical theory that reduces to one person’s opinion versus another and a rejection of any objective moral good. You have no basis upon which to show that one person’s opinion on morality is better or worse than another except some “fact” of evolution which, of course, leaves you without an answer to the “is-ought” fallacy of any moral theory not ultimately grounded in a supreme, personal standard or moral goodness.0 -
Bahet, the case here is more like you found out that your husband never existed. Kind of a metaphysical Catfish situation.
This was Bahet's "what if". She is the one who asked what I would do if I realized that God isn't the Christian God I've already known. She didn't ask what I would do if I realized there was no God.Perfect explanation. We've been "Catfished" all these years.0 -
doorki-Your response shows you are either not reading carefully or you don’t care to represent what I am saying accurately. For instance, your comments on the Catholic Church ignore my reference from the Catholic Encyclopedia, a widely-respected Catholic source, that gave the dates for Mark as between AD 50 and 67. Your insistence on a pasted set of annotations from a study Bible and treating them as if they are infallibly set forth by the United States Bishops (who, by the way, have no infallibility on their own, according to Catholic theology) shows you are trying to force me into a mode of thinking that will serve your presuppositions or purposes rather than truly seek understanding. You didn’t touch my argument from Luke’s book of Acts, for instance.
The Catholic Encyclopedia also makes no references to the Vatican State since it was written before its creation and celebrates the fact that it has never been revised. The website you actually linked can only exist because it is in the public domain due to its age. A good historical reference but it ignores newer discovery and theories.
I never claimed that the US Bishops and CCD, who translated the NAB (which is not a study bible) were infallible BUT I do contend that, since they have access to newer information than the Catholic Encylopedia, they numbers have a much better chance of being accurate. I would also contend that since the US Bishops are part of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, they have a vested interest in presenting what the church sees as proper information.
I did touch your arguments about Acts by countering with Josephus, an argument put forth by multiple scholars including Townshend, Carrier, Mason, and Eisenman, was invalid without any further statement in defense. Not really sure how that means that I am trying to "force you into a mode of thinking."
If anything, reading a diverse amount of scriptures and religious texts allows you to understand the overall phenomena of Religion. Just because I do not share your confined and indoctrinated view of scripture does not mean that I do not understand them. I am free to read them as I see them rather than within the confines of certain dogma. The scriptures are complex and full of imagery and without reading and giving credence to other texts that were not chosen to be in the Bible allows you to see what version of Christianity the compilers wanted to put forth. The Bible is not only a religious text, but also an advertisement piece that is used to convert people to the Christian point of view. When the Bible was canonized, there was not even agreement within the Christian community about the nature of Jesus. Some held that he was a man who was 'adopted' by god while others argued that he was god. If he was god, was he a physical manifestation? Or was he just a phantom? All of these discussions were occurring during this period. What you see today as the Bible is the winner of that discussion.Second, perhaps your reading a wide range of religious sources has diluted your ability to understand any one of them in any depth. At least I haven’t seen evidence that you have a good grasp of the Christian or Jewish Scriptures in any of what you have written to me.
What text did I not let speak for itself? I think you are frustrated because I don’t grant your surface interpretations of Scripture. If you mean “speak for itself” that I should ignore literary devices, modes of speech in the ancient Near East, or legitimate philosophical and theological considerations, then you are acting like a fundamentalist. You haven’t shown why any interpretation I’ve offered is wrong. I honestly don’t think you know the Scriptures well enough to engage in a serious discussion of interpretation.
On morality, you’ve given me no objective reason to condemn murder and slaughter. Your writing suggests some “moral high ground” from which you condemn prior generations or past eras (throwing in some anti-religious jabs along the way) but your atheism undermines any objective moral “good.” If a virus kills every human on the earth, is that “evil” in a moral sense? I don’t think so. If a human being chooses to blow the world up with a nuclear weapon, is that objectively, morally evil? In your view, the human who blows up the world is just another product of a blind, natural process that has no moral meaning or any purpose at all. You may not like someone blowing up the world and it may not be “good” for our herd but, well, the herd doesn’t have any objectively good meaning or purpose anyway. We are all just inexplicable particles moving about, going nowhere but destruction. You simply can’t overcome this problem with your position. . Atheists often borrow presuppositions or positions from theists in their attempt to retain some semblance of objective morality but, once you scratch the surface, it all boils down to evolutionary impulses, emotivism, subjectivism, relativism, or some of other ethical theory that reduces to one person’s opinion versus another and a rejection of any objective moral good. You have no basis upon which to show that one person’s opinion on morality is better or worse than another except some “fact” of evolution which, of course, leaves you without an answer to the “is-ought” fallacy of any moral theory not ultimately grounded in a supreme, personal standard or moral goodness.
Why are you so afraid of morality not having a higher meaning? If the history of the Catholic Church doctrine alone, let alone civilization as a whole, doesn't show you the fluid nature of morality, then there is nothing that can be said to you to bring you into reality.We are all just inexplicable particles moving about, going nowhere but destruction. You simply can’t overcome this problem with your position.
How is this a problem that needs to be overcome?
Btw, I never said that I was an atheist. I am agnostic at best but I definitely do not agree with the Judeo-Christian view of God. I think that, if there is a creator, this creator is absentee at best and a masochist at worst.
Edit to respond to the whole "moral high ground" statement. Learning from and reflecting on the past does not indicate a moral high ground. It shows the evolution of morality in our society. I also noticed that you did not refute any of my data showing that things are improving. Also, there were some little factual jabs in there but you will notice that they are all factual.0 -
Faith or conviction in the existance of a higer being or god - the only acceptable form of schizophrenia?0
-
Faith or conviction in the existance of a higer being or god - the only acceptable form of schizophrenia?
What a wonderful contribution to this mature, respectful debate. You've just convinced me there is no God! :noway:0 -
Well, if I'd known that's all it took...Faith or conviction in the existance of a higer being or god - the only acceptable form of schizophrenia?
What a wonderful contribution to this mature, respectful debate. You've just convinced me there is no God! :noway:0 -
Well, if I'd known that's all it took...
0 -
doorki- regarding your last comments:
I used the Catholic Encyclopedia because it is a source you can easily access. There are countless other articles and scholarly sources that support the position I was arguing. You dismiss them, of course, because, in a circular fashion, you accuse me of only using sources that agree with me (which would seem sort of obvious anyway). I know of no “new” evidence that would change the argument of the Catholic Encyclopedia. What new data exists today that was not available when that encyclopedia was written that would decide this issue? You certainly haven’t presented it.
The US Bishops would direct anyone questioning these matters to the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, a source that does not specify a date of writing for the Gospels.
Simply referring to scholars who put forth an argument doesn’t mean that argument is valid or that you understand it. I saw nothing in what you wrote that explains the ending of Luke’s book of Acts or the conspicuous absence of important information about Peter and Paul.
Your comments about having a diverse background in various scriptures does not make you skilled in interpreting the Scriptures. (By the way, none of this means I haven’t read the same sources. I’ve read the entire Quran twice, the Upanishads and some other Hindu and Buddhist sources, a fair amount of the Jewish Talmud, some Mishnah, and intertestamental documents, etc. I’ve read the Gilgamesh Epic, various Canaanite/Babylonian/Egyptian sources, especially because of their relevance to getting a sense of the genres that might have affected the Old Testament. I’ve read most of the Gnostic writings, all of those discovered among the Nag Hammadi documents, etc.) Again, I’ve seen nothing that suggests that you have a background that supports the conclusions you are insisting on. The various failed attempts to organize the biblical data regarding Christ do not mean there is not a good solution to those questions. The Christological controversies of the early centuries were part of an important process in accurately understanding the biblical data regarding Christ.
Concerning God, I have a much more optimistic view of things. It seems to me that your error is assuming God’s causal relationship to this world is identical to your own.
None of your claims about “things improving” were persuasive and therefore I focused elsewhere. I mentioned a number of things to which you did not reply, as I recall. The whole conversation seems like a non-starter, though, since you can’t give me an objective definition of objective goodness and therefore any judgment that things are getting “better” is purely relative and therefore we can simply insist on different definitions and no progress is made.
On morality, you don’t seem to get my point. Do you understand my charge that you cannot overcome the “is-ought” fallacy? Do you deny that?0 -
For instance, your comments on the Catholic Church ignore my reference from the Catholic Encyclopedia, a widely-respected Catholic source, that gave the dates for Mark as between AD 50 and 67.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is 100 years old. It's an outdated source for this sort of question.Your insistence on a pasted set of annotations from a study Bible and treating them as if they are infallibly set forth by the United States Bishops (who, by the way, have no infallibility on their own, according to Catholic theology) shows you are trying to force me into a mode of thinking that will serve your presuppositions or purposes rather than truly seek understanding.
I for one have never claimed that the interpretative aids in the New American Bible, commissioned by the American Catholic Bishops and posted on their website, are infallible teachings of the Church or part of the Deposit of Faith requiring your assent of faith. They are however a product of the teaching office of the various bishops. You are free to choose to ignore that particular exercise of the bishops' teaching office. I have never said otherwise.0 -
We cross posted.I know of no “new” evidence that would change the argument of the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Obviously the new evidence is whatever made the editors of the New American Bible cite the later range of dates in the Introductions to Mark and Matthew. You have studied this question in enough depth to know what that evidence is. You are of course free to choose to reject the new evidence.0 -
doorki- regarding your last comments:
I used the Catholic Encyclopedia because it is a source you can easily access. There are countless other articles and scholarly sources that support the position I was arguing. You dismiss them, of course, because, in a circular fashion, you accuse me of only using sources that agree with me (which would seem sort of obvious anyway). I know of no “new” evidence that would change the argument of the Catholic Encyclopedia. What new data exists today that was not available when that encyclopedia was written that would decide this issue? You certainly haven’t presented it.
The US Bishops would direct anyone questioning these matters to the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, a source that does not specify a date of writing for the Gospels.
Simply referring to scholars who put forth an argument doesn’t mean that argument is valid or that you understand it. I saw nothing in what you wrote that explains the ending of Luke’s book of Acts or the conspicuous absence of important information about Peter and Paul.
Your comments about having a diverse background in various scriptures does not make you skilled in interpreting the Scriptures. (By the way, none of this means I haven’t read the same sources. I’ve read the entire Quran twice, the Upanishads and some other Hindu and Buddhist sources, a fair amount of the Jewish Talmud, some Mishnah, and intertestamental documents, etc. I’ve read the Gilgamesh Epic, various Canaanite/Babylonian/Egyptian sources, especially because of their relevance to getting a sense of the genres that might have affected the Old Testament. I’ve read most of the Gnostic writings, all of those discovered among the Nag Hammadi documents, etc.) Again, I’ve seen nothing that suggests that you have a background that supports the conclusions you are insisting on. The various failed attempts to organize the biblical data regarding Christ do not mean there is not a good solution to those questions. The Christological controversies of the early centuries were part of an important process in accurately understanding the biblical data regarding Christ.
Concerning God, I have a much more optimistic view of things. It seems to me that your error is assuming God’s causal relationship to this world is identical to your own.
None of your claims about “things improving” were persuasive and therefore I focused elsewhere. I mentioned a number of things to which you did not reply, as I recall. The whole conversation seems like a non-starter, though, since you can’t give me an objective definition of objective goodness and therefore any judgment that things are getting “better” is purely relative and therefore we can simply insist on different definitions and no progress is made.
On morality, you don’t seem to get my point. Do you understand my charge that you cannot overcome the “is-ought” fallacy? Do you deny that?
I will be back with more but I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Acts.
Who was Acts written for?
Why was it written?
Would it be a good idea to alienate people you are trying to sway by pointing out that your hero was put to death as an enemy of their state?0 -
Further, virtually everyone argues that Mark’s Gospel was a primary source used by Luke. Luke’s Gospel is part one of a two-volume work. The second volume is the Acts of the Apostles (see the intros to both books). The book of Acts concludes with events around AD 60-62 and we are left with an unfinished story (Paul is under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial). Acts speaks of the Temple but nowhere alludes to its destruction. Peter and Paul are primary characters in the book but their martyrdom (what a fitting conclusion that would have been to this book that highlights their witness to the Christian faith), that would take place within five years of the events described in the book, is nowhere mentioned or even alluded to. This, to my mind, is powerful internal evidence that Luke wrote his books before the destruction of the Temple (AD 70) and before the martyrdom of Peter and Paul (ca. AD 65). Many contemporary scholars don’t like this argument but I’ve never seen a good response to it. The reasons for dating the Gospel later are based primarily on hypothetical reconstructions of the first century that make countless logical leaps and are also driven by a bias against an early date for these books (in large measure based on the supposed impossibility of predictive prophecy). If this logic is sound (and I think it fits best with all the data), Mark’s Gospel (since it was used by Luke) must be earlier than AD 65, probably 60-64 or so.
The best Catholic scholarship comes to a different conclusion:Concerning the date of Acts, see the Introduction to the Gospel according to Luke. http://old.usccb.org/nab/bible/acts/intro.htm
And:Among the likely sources for the composition of this gospel (Luke 1:3) were the Gospel of Mark, a written collection of sayings of Jesus known also to the author of the Gospel of Matthew (Q; see Introduction to Matthew), and other special traditions that were used by Luke alone among the gospel writers. Some hold that Luke used Mark only as a complementary source for rounding out the material he took from other traditions. Because of its dependence on the Gospel of Mark and because details in Luke's Gospel (Luke 13:35a; 19:43-44; 21:20; 23:28-31) imply that the author was acquainted with the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Gospel of Luke is dated by most scholars after that date; many propose A.D. 80-90 as the time of composition. http://old.usccb.org/nab/bible/luke/intro.htm0
