Is God Falsifiable?

The concept of falsification is very important because without it there is no verification. The concept is really a matter of empirical science. Only matters that can be subjected to empirical proof can be verified or falsified. But atheists are always trying to apply the principle to God. They smugly argue that God cannot be verified or falsified to get across the point that there is no empirical evidence of God.Carl Popper argued that falsifiability is all we can have in the way of truth. God is not falsifiable because God is not given in sense data. Thus atheists arrogantly assume the irrationality of belief. Of course there are theories of which science discusses all the time that can't be falsified, such as string theory. Is it true that God cannot be falsified? Do we need to falsify God?

I suggest that we don't need direct falsification. As long as it is not the case that nothing could ever count against belief then we have what we need. Two conditions must be observed,however, which determine the importance of the problem:

(1) We are not conducting empirical research.

WE do not require the sort for falsifiability we need to mandate air bags in cars for example, because we are not doing empirical research. WE are dealing with personal beliefs and existential encounter. The purpose of falsification is going to be different that it would be if were conducting a field trial for a new drug, or discussing the mandating of air bags. The important thing here is to make sure the believer is not just living a private fantasy. There has to be a touchstone in the same social reality in which we all live. We do not need to disprove God in the way we would need to prove that some drug doesn't work or isn't safe.

(2) What counts against belief cannot be limited to a particular religious tradition.

I have seen atheists argue that if the Bible is wrong there can't be a god. When I told them that God can exist independently of the bible they were aghast. they would not believe "a Christian could say that." This has nothing to do with belief in the bible.It's just a matter of logic. Disproof of Biblical truth claims do not amount to disproof of God's existence.We can falsify the resurrection of Christ. It is not likely that we will, but theoretically we could find his tomb and find his body. Many truth claims of the Christian tradition can be falsified. But this does not amount to saying that God can be falsified.

The existence of God cannot be directly falsified but what can be is the co-determinate. The "co-determinate" or "God postulate" or "God consciousness" is the argument of Schleiermacher represented by his notion of the feeling of utter dependence.


Co-determinate: The co-determinate is like the Derridian trace, or like a fingerprint. It's the accompanying sign that is always found with the thing itself. In other words, like trailing the invisible man in the snow. You can't see the invisible man, but you can see his footprints, and wherever he is in the snow his prints will always follow.

We cannot produce direct observation of God, but we can find the "trace" or the co-determinate, the effects of God in the world.

The only question at that point is "How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine? But that should be answerer in the argument below. Here let us set out some general peramitors:

(1) The trace produced content with specifically religious affects

(2)The affects led one to a renewed sense of divine reality, are transformative of life goals and self actualization

(3) Cannot be accounted for by alterante causality or other means.

Argument:

(1) There is a pervading sense of unity in the life world

(2) The over all sense of unity produces a sense of the dependence of the whole upon a higher ontological level.

(3) The content of the experince is expressly sublime and evokes the sense of the numinous.

(4)The sense of the numinous is expressly religious and constitutes the co-determinate of the divine.

Analysis:

A.Religion not Reduceable to Knowledge or Ethics.

Frederich Schleiermacher, (1768-1834) in On Religion: Speeches to it's Cultured Disposers, and The Chrisitian Faith .sets forth the view that religion is not reduce able to knowledge or ethical systems. It is primarily a phenomenological apprehension of God consciousness through means of religious affections. Affections is a term not used much anymore, and it is easily confused with mere emotion. Sometimes Schleiermacher is understood as saying that "I become emotional when I pay and thus there must be an object of my emotional feelings." Though he does venture close to this position in one form of the argument, this is not exactly what he's saying.

In the earlier form of his argument he was saying that affections were indicative of a sense of God, but in the Christian Faith he argues that there is a greater sense of unity in the life world and a sense of the dependence of all things in the life world upon something higher.

What is this feeling of utter dependence? It is the sense of the unity in the life world and it's greater reliance upon a higher reality. It is not to be confused with the starry sky at night in the desert feeling, but is akin to it. I like to think about the feeling of being in my backyard late on a summer night, listening to the sounds of the freeway dying out and realizing a certain harmony in the lfie world and the sense that all of this exists because it stems form a higher thing. There is more to it than that but I don't have time to go into it. That's just a short hand for those of us to whom this is a new concept to get some sort of handle on it. Nor does "feeling" here mean "emotion" but it is connected to the religious affections. In the early version S. thought it was a correlate between the religious affections and God; God must be there because I can feel love for him when I pray to him. But that's not what it's saying in the better version.

B.Platonic background.

The basic assumptions Schleiermacher is making are Plaontic. He believes that the feeling of utter dependence is the backdrop, the pre-given, pre-cognitive notion behind the ontological argument. IN other words, what Anselm tried to capture in his logical argument is felt by everyone, if they were honest, in a pre-cognitive way. In other words, before one thinks about it, it is this "feeling" of utter dependence. After one thinks it out and makes it into a logical arguemnt it is the ontological argument.

C.Unity in the Life world.


"Life world," or Labeinswelt is a term used in German philosophy. It implies the world of one's culturally constructed life, the "world" we 'live in.' Life as we experience it on a daily basis. The unity one senses in the life world is intuative and unites the experiences and aspirations of the individual in a sense of integration and belonging in in the world. As Heidegger says "a being in the world." Schleiermacher is saying that there is a special intuitive sense that everyone can grasp of this whole, this unity, being bound up with a higher relatively, being dependent upon a higher unity. In other words, the "feeling" can be understood as an intuitive sense of "radical contingency" (int he sense of the above ontological arguments).

He goes on to say that the feeling is based upon the ontological principle as its theoretical background, but doesn't' depend on the argument because it proceeds the argument as the pre-given pre-theoretical pre-cognitive realization of what Anslem sat down and thought about and turned into a rational argument: why has the fools said in his heart 'there is no God?' Why a fool? Because in the heart we know God. To deny this is to deny the most basic realization about reality.

Now dont' think by any streach of the imagination that I think this proves the existence of God! No, no way. It is not "proof," it is freedom from the need to prove!

As Robert R. Williams puts it:

There is a "co-determinate to the Feeling of Utter dependence.

"It is the original pre-theoretical consciousness...Schleiermacher believes that theoretical cognition is founded upon pre-theoretical inter subjective cognition and its life world. The latter cannot be dismissed as non-cognitive for if the life world praxis is non-cognitive and invalid so is theoretical cognition..S...contends that belief in God is pre-theoretical, it is not the result of proofs and demonstration, but is conditioned solely by the modification of feeling of utter dependence. Belief in God is not acquired through intellectual acts of which the traditional proofs are examples, but rather from the thing itself, the object of religious experience..If as S...says God is given to feeling in an original way this means that the feeling of utter dependence is in some sense an apparition of divine being and reality. This is not meant as an appeal to revelation but rather as a naturalistic eidetic"] or a priori. The feeling of utter dependence is structured by a correlation with its whence." , Schleiermacher the Theologian, p 4.

The Co-determinate is the trace of God in the world, the effect of the divine upon those who experince the transformational power of God in their lives. This can be falsified by empirical study. If there were no profound effects changing lives this would count against the truth claims of belief. Since we do find such effects we know that power of God is real, ant thus we have a rational warrant to believe that ;God is real.

I've been mentioned by Greatness

there's this really amazing big popular blog called "Technoroti" and did a search on my name and found 12 articles on me. This is over time of course. The thing is they are reporting on what is said on other blogs. This is from Daily Drivel Dump""The which I guess I also a major blog or it would not be quoted by one.

I don't usually go around thinking "O here's a popular blog I bet they talk about me." But I had reason to think thy were talkinga bout hem. Here is one of those:

The Apologetics Forums

TKKClark = new member, Christian, good person
mrsbates = old member, Christian, same age as me, good person
Gwarlroge = me = burned out on religion, but hopefully not faith...(?)

All of the arguments have been stupid as usual from both sides.

The most interesting thing that's happened is with Metacrock (a decidedly non-fundamentalist, liberal Christian who likes to say the atheists are playing "childish mind games" or something): a n00b atheist somehow said that Meta's grandmother might have been a Nazi (the details are vague), and Meta went absolutely berserk (even saying that all atheists think Christians perpetrated the Holocaust): four threads that just hate on atheists, a new "fundie" stance on truth, and a load of especial vitriol for the weirdo n00b atheist.

His new motto: "MLK didn't try to have a rational discussion with the KKK."

And he now believes the apocalypse is coming.

Metacrock has snapped at last.

Lawl.

And apparently, Am--one of the few respectable Christians--is well on his way.

Well that's sort of what happened. They did not say my Grandmother was a nazi per se. they said all Christians are guilty of the holocaust. In effect they are saying that since my grandmother was a Christian. If hey new her they would say she was the sweetest kindest most lovoing old granny in the world. So it's absurd to think she could responsible for the holocaust. If that's true than babmi is responsible for the gulags.

I don't really believe in the end times now, but I wanted to make of a point. The thing is why don't they quote my rational posts about philosophy and stuff? I mean they chose not to quote the previous post here arout the co deterinate. they never say "metacrock has a good argument" they only say stuff like "metacrock got upset." Granted they have plenty of occasions to choose from but stil, come on.

One thing this proves to me is people do not care about what happened, about facts, they don't' want to know the details. they want the dirt.

Argument from Co-determinate

I often hear atheist complain about the lack of "empirical" evidence for God. Some take to a level of almost belligerent attitude. Of cruse what they don't seem to relate is that science works to provide empirical evidence because it only measures things that we can either detect with our senses or things related to those things. In other words, it's just doing the easy case.


Scientists spend a lot of time in conjecture over matters of which they can have no data at all, such as the origin of the universe, or what comes below subatomic on the scale of "too small to think about." The decision making paradigm used in theology is very different, and for a good reason; religion is more sophisticated and more important, more crucial, more fundamental, and a lot harder to phathom than science. Well maybe not all of those things, but I've constructed a decision making paradigm that will help us deal with the non empirical and the "beyond our understanding."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Decison Maknig Paraidgm."

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Co-determinate: The co-determinate is like the Derridian trace, or like a fingerprint. It's the accompanying sign that is always found with the thing itself. In other words, like trailing the invisible man in the snow. You can't see the invisable man, but you can see his footprints, and wherever he is in the snow his prints will always follow.

We cannot produce direct observation of God, but we can find the "trace" or the co-determinate, the effects of God in the world.

The only question at that point is "How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine? But that should be answerer in the argument below. Here let us set out some general perambulators:

(1) The trace produced content with speicificually religious affects

(2)The affects led one to a renewed sense of divine reality, are trans formative of life goals and self actualization

(3) Cannot be accounted for by alteante cuasality or other means.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Argument
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(1)There are real affects from Mytical experince.

(2)These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.

(3)Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explaintions we should assume that they are genuine.

(4)Since mystical experience is usually experience of something, the Holy, the sacred some sort of greater transcendent reality we should assume that the object is real since the affects or real, or that the affects are the result of some real higher reality.

(5)The true measure of the reality of the co-determinate is the transformational power of the affects.



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Analysis:
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Real Affects of Mystical Experience Imply Co-determinate


A. Study and Nature of Mystical Experiences

Mystical experience is only one aspect of religious experience, but I will focuses on it in this argument. Most other kinds of religious experience are difficult to study since they are more subjective and have less dramatic results. But mystical experience can actually be measured empirically in terms of its affects, and can be compared favorably to other forms of conscious states.


1) Primarily Religious

Trans personal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration (unpublished paper 1992 by Jayne Gackenback


http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

Quotes:

"The experience of pure consciousness is typically called "mystical". The essence of the mystical experience has been debated for years (Horne, 1982). It is often held that "mysticism is a manifestation of something which is at the root of all religions (p. 16; Happold, 1963)." The empirical assessment of the mystical experience in psychology has occurred to a limited extent."

2) Defining characteristics.

[Gackenback]


"In a recent review of the mystical experience Lukoff and Lu (1988) acknowledged that the "definition of a mystical experience ranges greatly (p. 163)." Maslow (1969) offered 35 definitions of "transcendence", a term often associated with mystical experiences and used by Alexander et al. to refer to the process of accessing PC."

Lukoff (1985) identified five common characteristics of mystical experiences which could be operationalized for assessment purposes. They are:

1. Ecstatic mood, which he identified as the most common feature;
2. Sense of newly gained knowledge, which includes a belief that the mysteries of life have been revealed;
3. Perceptual alterations, which range from "heightened sensations to auditory and visual hallucinations (p. 167)";
4. Delusions (if present) have themes related to mythology, which includes an incredible range diversity and range;
5. No conceptual disorganization, unlike psychotic persons those with mystical experiences do NOT suffer from disturbances in language and speech.
It can be seen from the explanation of PC earlier that this list of qualities overlaps in part those delineated by Alexander et al.



3)Studies use Empirical Instruments.

Many skeptics have argued that one cannot study mystical experince scientifically. But it has been done many times, in fact there are a lot of studies and even empirical scales for measurement.

(Ibid.)

Quote:


"Three empirical instruments have been developed to date. They are the Mysticism Scale by Hood (1975), a specific question by Greeley (1974) and the State of Consciousness Inventory by Alexander (1982; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987). Hood's (1975) scale was developed from conceptual categories identified by Stace (1960). Two primary factors emerged from the factor analysis of the 32 core statements. First is a general mysticism factor, which is defined as an experience of unity, temporal and spatial changes, inner subjectivity and ineffability. A second factor seems to be a measure of peoples tendency to view intense experiences within a religious framework. A much simpler definition was developed by Greeley (1974), "Have you ever felt as though you were very close to a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?" This was used by him in several national opinion surveys. In a systematic study of Greeley's question Thomas and Cooper (1980) concluded that responses to that question elicited experiences whose nature varied considerably. Using Stace's (1960) work they developed five criteria, including awesome emotions; feeling of oneness with God, nature or the universe; and a sense of the ineffable. They found that only 1% of their yes responses to Greeley's question were genuine mystical experiences. Thus Hood's scale seems to be the more widely used of these two broad measures of mysticism. It has received cross cultural validation" (Holm, 1982; Caird, 1988).



4) Incidence.

(Ibid.)

Quote:

"Several studies have looked at the incidence of mystical experiences. Greeley (1974) found 35% agreement to his question while Back and Bourque (1970) reported increases in frequency of these sorts of experiences from about 20% in 1962 to about 41% in 1967 to the question "Would you say that you have ever had a 'religious or mystical experience' that is, a moment of sudden religious awakening or insight?" Greeley (1987) reported a similar figure for 1973".

"The most researched inventory is the State of Consciousness Inventory (SCI; reviewed in Alexander, Boyer, and Alexander, 1987). The authors say "the SCI was designed for quantitative assessment of frequency of experiences of higher states of consciousness as defined in Vedic Psychology (p. 100)."

"In this case items were constructed from first person statements of practitioners of that meditative tradition, but items were also drawn from other authority literatures. Additional subscales were added to differentiate these experiences from normal waking experience, neurotic experience, and schizophrenic experience. Finally, a misleading item scale was added. These authors conceptualize the "mystical" experience as one which can momentarily occur in the process of the development of higher states of consciousness. For them the core state of consciousness is pure consciousness and from it develops these higher states of consciousness.


Whereas most researchers on mystical experiences study them as isolated or infrequent experiences with little if any theoretical "goal" for them, this group contextualizes them in a general model of development (Alexander et al., 1990) with their permanent establishment in an individual as a sign of the first higher state of consciousness. They point out that "during any developmental period, when awareness momentarily settles down to its least excited state, pure consciousness [mystical states] can be experienced (p. 310). " In terms of incidence they quote Maslow who felt that in the population at large less than one in 1,000 have frequent "peak" experiences so that the "full stabilization of a higher stage of consciousness appears to an event of all but historic significance (p. 310)."

"Virtually all of researchers using the SCI are very careful to distinguish the practice of meditation from the experience of pure consciousness, explaining that the former merely facilitates the latter. They also go to great pains to show that their multiple correlation's of health and well-being are strongest to the transcendent experience than to the entire practice of meditation (for psychophysiological review see Wallace, 1987; for individual difference review see Alexander et al., 1987;




B. Long-Term Positive Effects of Mystical Experience


Research Summary

From Council on Spiritual Practices Website

"States of Univtive Consciousness"



Also called Transcendent Experiences, Ego-Transcendence, Intense Religious Experience, Peak Experiences, Mystical Experiences, Cosmic Consciousness. Sources:

Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.

Noble, Kathleen D. (1987). ``Psychological Health and the Experience of Transcendence.'' The Counseling Psychologist, 15 (4), 601-614.
Lukoff, David & Francis G. Lu (1988). ``Transpersonal psychology research review: Topic: Mystical experiences.'' Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 20 (2), 161-184.

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.

Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)


Long-Term Effects

Wuthnow:


*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion

Short-Term Effects (usually people who did not previously know of these experiences)

*Experience temporarily disorienting, alarming, disruptive
*Likely changes in self and the world,
*space and time, emotional attitudes, cognitive styles, personalities, doubt sanity and reluctance to communicate, feel ordinary language is inadequate

*Some individuals report psychic capacities and visionary experience destabilizing relationships with family and friends Withdrawal, isolation, confusion, insecurity, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, panic, restlessness, grandiose religious delusions

Links to Maslow's Needs, Mental Health, and Peak Experiences When introducing entheogens to people, I find it's helpful to link them to other ideas people are familiar with. Here are three useful quotations. 1) Maslow - Beyond Self Actualization is Self Transcendence ``I should say that I consider Humanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a preparation for a still `higher' Fourth Psychology, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, selfactualization and the like.''

Abraham Maslow (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being, Second edition, -- pages iii-iv.


2) States of consciousness and mystical experiences
The ego has problems:
the ego is a problem.


``Within the Western model we recognize and define psychosis as a suboptimal state of consciousness that views reality in a distorted way and does not recognize that distortion. It is therefore important to note that from the mystical perspective our usual state fits all the criteria of psychosis, being suboptimal, having a distorted view of reality, yet not recognizing that distortion. Indeed from the ultimate mystical perspective, psychosis can be defined as being trapped in, or attached to, any one state of consciousness, each of which by itself is necessarily limited and only relatively real.'' -- page 665

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.


3) Therapeutic effects of peak experiences


``It is assumed that if, as is often said, one traumatic event can shape a life, one therapeutic event can reshape it. Psychedelic therapy has an analogue in Abraham Maslow's idea of the peak experience. The drug taker feels somehow allied to or merged with a higher power; he becomes convinced the self is part of a much larger pattern, and the sense of cleansing, release, and joy makes old woes seem trivial.'' -- page 132

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.



Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration. Unpublished paper by Jayne Gackenback, (1992)
http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm


"These states of being also result in behavioral and health changes. Ludwig (1985) found that 14% of people claiming spontaneous remission from alcoholism was due to mystical experiences while Richards (1978) found with cancer patients treated in a hallucinogenic drug-assisted therapy who reported mystical experiences improved significantly more on a measure of self-actualization than those who also had the drug but did not have a mystical experience. In terms of the Vedic Psychology group they report a wide range of positive behavioral results from the practice of meditation and as outlined above go to great pains to show that it is the transcendence aspect of that practice that is primarily responsible for the changes. Thus improved performance in many areas of society have been reported including education and business as well as personal health states (reviewed and summarized in Alexander et al., 1990). Specifically, the Vedic Psychology group have found that mystical experiences were associated with "refined sensory threshold and enhanced mind-body coordination (p. 115; Alexander et al., 1987)."



(4) Greater happiness


Religion and Happiness

by Michael E. Nielsen, PhD



Many people expect religion to bring them happiness. Does this actually seem to be the case? Are religious people happier than nonreligious people? And if so, why might this be?

Researchers have been intrigued by such questions. Most studies have simply asked people how happy they are, although studies also may use scales that try to measure happiness more subtly than that. In general, researchers who have a large sample of people in their study tend to limit their measurement of happiness to just one or two questions, and researchers who have fewer numbers of people use several items or scales to measure happiness.

What do they find? In a nutshell, they find that people who are involved in religion also report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not religious. For example, one study involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness


Argyle, M., and Hills, P. (2000). Religious experiences and their relations with happiness and personality. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 157-172.

Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Addendum on Hate Group Atheism

Uncle Mao: famous atheist humanitarian.


I put up two threads on the topic last night. I wasn't going to ask "Please someone deny this" because I thought if id did that they would just mouth it shut me up. So I goaded them hoping one would eventually say "O no this of course not what we think! Of course we don't want to kill Christians in camps." No one ever did. Not one of them ever denied. No Atheist on CARM last night denied hating Christians enough to kill them in camps.

No one said "of course its going too far." No one said I was just being silly or taking it too seriously. Of those who denied it some said "do you think I'm a hysterical hate group person?" But no one said "this is going too far." In other words, no one atheist ever disagreed with those who said "Christianity is responsible for all the evils of mankind."

In general the standard responses fell into three categories:

(1) well I hate to say it Christians have done a awful lot of bad things (then multiplicity of the same two examples would follow).

(2) Surely you don't think I'm the sort of person who would join the KKK?

(3) you are bad. you are insulting atheists and that makes you a bad person.

No 3 is by far the standard reaction. No one has bothered to contra my suggestion that the original group supporting Atheist Devil in his post actually hate Christians enough to kill them, nor has anyone come forward to say "it's going to far to try and blame all Christians for the holocaust."


happy students helped by Uncle Mao wish to thank him
for his atheistic generosity





As a matter of fact a great many have suggested that I am merely a whinnier. So not wanting your family to be killed in a camp is whining. One poster who sports a star of David under his name ventured to say that due to his heritage he is not apt to let Christians off the hook. Now what does this tell us? of course I'm not suggesting that most Jews will feel this way, but how atheist Jews? IF we play revenge and tit for tat what do you do you when you were victims of holocaust? you have a holocaust for your enemies right? I fully expected that guy to say "since my people were sent to camps I will be compassionate and not send your people." He did not say that. I chided him several times, "you expect Protestants to speak up against Hitler (and of course ignore sacrifice of those who did and say its irrelevant) but you wont speak up when others are the victims? He has so far said nothing.

How are they on blame the victim? the victim is a whinnier. What is their reaction today? Just in keeping with the natural progression of message boards, new posters come on and all they see is the stuff about how bad I am and they joint the throng in denouncing me and they don't even know the original issues brought up by Atheist devil. One guy was saying 'well I would let Christians be, why are you wanting to put them in camps?" But he didn't know the original statement that all Christians are guilty of the holocaust. The original issues are put aside and forgotten, and they are continuing to flaunt the topic of "It's Metacrock a nut and bad guy?"

I am profoundly disillusioned. I will not continue to deal with them. there is no point in trying to have a discussion with rabid hate mongers who want to kill you. I think our approach over all toward the new atheist fundie should be to ignore them, dismiss them as cranks and lunatics, continue to publish (and in fact excellorate) information about the devastating arguments for God's existence. but just don't acknowledge atheists at all. There's a reason why the Jews didn't try to engage Hitler in a reasonable discussion. There's a reason why Martin Luther King never tried to sit down with the KKK.


at last count, it's become a big joke to them. Now they are saying things like "I'm a traditionalists, I think we should use lions." So none of them denied it, they turn into a joke and it's just lost in the muddle. If there was a serious point. The only atheist to ever disagree with killing Christians is one old guy who I think is still basically a fundie and ultra right winger who had been in the military. He just spoke up a couple of minutes ago, but wasn't posting last night.

to this statment about lions two more add:

oin Date: Mar 2007
Location: Rockford, IL
Posts: 1,328
Reputation: 61
hatsoff 51-75 points

Absolutely. Actually, scrap the camps; lynch them all.


Of course in comparing Stalin as an atheist mass murderer I am told "O that's just communist, most atheists aren't communists." well most Christians aren't Nazis, but that doesn't matter. So it's just typical atheist guilt by association, and special pleading. They dismiss the crimes of the atheist mass murderer and compartmentalize it as a "a special kind of atheist" but all Christians are guilty of Hiterl's crimes (the fact that he was not a Christan is just irrelevant).

Christiantiy causes sids, aids, global warming,the holocuast and Halatosis

Uncle Joe Kindly atheist thinker.




On the CARM (Christian Apolgoetics and Research Ministry) message board, the one reserved for atheists so they can deride, degade and mock those who put up the message board I find this post by one "Atheist Devil."

this is in a post calledjChristians:Crimes Against Humanity

I came across the following paper, written by a Professor at Whitworth University in Spokane, WA -- a Presbyterian affiliated institution.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2007/2007-10.html

The paper examines the role of Christian institutions in three major genocide events of the 20th century:

1. The Holocaust
2. Rwanda
3. Bosnia

The record of Christian organizations and their people's involvement in some of the darkest events of modern times is quite simply, appalling. From tacit approval, to actual involvement in the killings, Christian organizations and their people have blood on their hands.

Some details of interest. I took particular note of the facts about Nazi Germany. How many times have we heard Hitler was not a Christian? Whether or not he was is really beside the point as his country was a Christian country:

Quote:
The Holocaust occurred throughout a Europe in which well over 90% of Europeans identified themselves as Christians. In Germany particularly, Christianity was pervasive and religious concerns prominent. More than 95% of Germans were baptized, tax-paying members of an established Christian church. It is no exaggeration to say that Germany was one of the most Christian nations in the world, if judged by the usual indices of church membership, church presses, theology students, etc.
Rwanda was the "most Christianized" country in Africa at the time of the 1994 genocide. 800,000 people killed over a 100 day period:

Quote:
At the time of the 1994 genocide, Rwanda was the most Christianized country in Africa, where at least 65% of the population were Roman Catholics and 15% were Protestants. Catholic and Protestant churches were multi-ethnic (including both Hutu and Tutsis). Moreover, much of this Christianity was of a strong evangelical, even charismatic, persuasion, fed by the East African Revival of the 1930s and a spontaneous “movement of the Holy Spirit” throughout many Roman Catholic churches in the 1970s.
It's not enough that the Christian organizations remained silent. The Church's people were active participants:

Quote:
[23] Sins of Commission. Perhaps most chilling are the sins of commission in which individual actors, laity and clergy of Christian institutions, actively participate in - even organize - the killings. While present in the Holocaust (clergy members were even found in the membership of the Einsatzgruppen killing units) and Bosnian genocide, these sins of commission are most extensively documented in Rwanda (see Waller: 67). It was in Rwanda that many of the worst massacres occurred in churches and mission compounds where Tutsis had sought refuge. It is very likely that more people were killed in church buildings than anywhere else in Rwanda (see Longman). From the beginning of the genocide, human rights groups charged that some church leaders from various denominations used their authority to encourage the massacres and join in the killing. Ian Linden also contends that there “. . . is absolutely no doubt that significant numbers of prominent Christians were involved in the killings, sometimes slaughtering their own church leaders” (50).
And more,

Quote:
Seventh-Day Adventist pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana was the first church leader to be brought to trail at the ICTR. In Feburary 2003, the ICTR found it proven beyond reasonable doubt that Ntakirutimana had transported armed Hutu killers to a church and hospital in the Kibuye region of western Rwanda, where they killed hundreds of Tutsi refugees who had been encouraged by Ntakirutimana to seek refuge there. At his trial, a British prosecutor stated: “Dressed in his customary suit and tie, Pastor Ktakirutimana watched as people where shot and beaten to death, encouraging the killers to ensure no one survived” (Reuters new report, 19 September 2001; accessed at cnn.com that day).
From the conclusions of the report:

Quote:
[43] In his analysis of the role of Christian churches in the Holocaust and in Rwanda, David Gushee argues “. . . that the presence of churches in a country guarantees nothing. The self-identification of people with the Christian faith guarantees nothing. All of the clerical garb and regalia, all of the structures of religious accountability, all of the Christian vocabulary and books, all of the schools and seminaries and parish houses and Bible studies, all of the religious titles and educational degrees - they guarantee nothing” (28).
For a supposed God-given morality, why does it not appear to be used? Why are faith-based groups responsible for some of the worst atrocities in history? Where is God in all this? Silent as usual, wringing his apparently powerless hands.

Of course the above pattern is not isolated to the 20th century. With little effort we see the same evidence over and over again throughout the centuries.

I believe Christians like to think they they are part of an ideology distinct from (and superior to) an ideology that can produce a 9/11 (tiny in comparison) or a Darfur. As the facts show, this is sadly not the case. From demolition of the pagans and heretics, to the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch burnings, and modern genocide, it's a sorry story of violence, oppression and hatred.

Not only is faith delusional. It is evil.

Not only is faith delusional it is EVIL!

Of course one might be tempted to give this guy the benifit of a doubt. O surely he doesn't mean all Christians. He does. He actually went on to defend the idea of blaming all Christians for the Holocaust. This is really the first time I've seen them actually blame Christianity for the holocausts. This is a attempt to create a climate of hate in which Christianity is steamed with the image of evil so that is is linked with Hitler and the KKK. This new ploy represents a real turning point for me.

I said this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
did you know that no atheists hid Jews form nazis. did you know that no atheist died to save Jews from Nazis. Christians did. yes, it was documented by te famous novelist Albert Camus, he was there. He saw it. Christans of the village Lo Chambo died to save Jews, but you just spit on their graves.

btw atheist Camus did not die, he lived to write about it because he bravely hid while others sacrificed themselves.
Is this an example of your massive intellect? Read the article. Make cogent comments for a change.

Atheist Devil responds:

Christians have much to atone for and yet, as you demonstrate, unwilling to acknowledge these Christian organizations' shameful past.

None of the above is remotely relevant.

So the fact that Christians tired to stop the Holocaust is not relevant, all Christians are to blame for it even, I suppose the one's who died fighting it? It's not relevant that the facts contradict his hatred? Notice that he never once tried to qualify his board brush with which he paints of Christianity with these allegations.


another Christian argues:

Originally Posted by Billi View Post
One can also list atheistic dictators... and reach the same conclusion that atheists are evil too? Even Buddhist Japanese invaded China and killed millions!!! So Buddhism or whatever religions the Japanese believe is also evil! Using the same technique, we can probably conclude a LOT of things to be evil.

Atheist Devil comes back:

Atheism is not a dogma, but the absence of one solitary belief, hence it is impossible for atheism to be responsible for anything.

Now theres a sound bit of reasoning for you. We don't have a positive belief, except for the one about saying Christians ar evil but other than that. so we can't can't be held responsible for the lies we spread of the hate we foment. Holy rationalization Batman. Holy lame excuse!

Let's ask ourselves why would anyone want to blame a whole belief system for th major evils of humanity then absolve themselves from the responsibility of ignoring history history's and spreading lies and hatred? If it was just a matter of critiquing institutions or historical figures that would be one thing. But to blame all Christians, faith itself for the most evil thing any human ever did, isn't that just going over the top a a bit? what could possibly motivate someone to spread this level of hate unless they were seeking to create a climate in which all Christians are seen as totally evil. What would someone like that stop at? If he's willing to say this what's his limit?

I think here we see the true colors of the new "atheist fundie." No this more than just a fundie. This is a true fanatic.

Atheist Devil goes on:

does he call me on the assumption that he means all Christians? NO here's what he says to that:

Not so with the "us vs. them" mindset of theists.

He is saying that all Christians are guilt of the Holocaust but we are the one's with the "them and us" mentality?

then he says:

Did you even read the article? Sourced from a Presbyterian University? Obviously Christian organizations were directly culpable in these atrocities.

somehow the fact that the author teaches at a Presbyterian school proves that Christianity is guilty?


What atheist organizations have ever been directly involved in atrocities?


well gee none I guess. I guess Pol pot and Mao and Stalin were just having pic nicks right? yes that's that they were doing out there in Siberia, they were having pc nics!


Happy Pick nickers at atheist shin dig in USSR


I am greatly saddened by this.It is a turning point. I have said in the past how atheists were shutting down discussion. NOW we see how really truer this is. It is totally pointless to try and discuss rationally with some one who thinks you are totally evil and who seeks your death. there's a reason why Martin Luther Kind did not sit down with the KKK. There's a reason why the Jews didn't try to hist sit down with Hitler. Anthropologists have recognized in the past that witch hunts stop when the hunters outreach their credibility by going after those who are clearly not guilty of the accusations. McCarthy began to be shunned when he tried to imply that Esienhauer was a community.

Atheists have shut down discussion. The extremists are tying to say that Christiantiy is as evil as Hitler. These people have made their choice in eternity, there's no point in trying to reach them. We need to get out of the process of trying to talk to them and let them make fools of themselves. But we need to keep track of what they are doing and expose their extremists lunacy to show how exaggerated they have become. But I will longer seek to reach them. From this point on I do not talk to athesits. they wnat to kill me.

The race between the Tortoise and the Atehist

I have an argument called "temporal beginning." Its' very simple. I establish that there is no change in a timeless void. I document with Paul Davies and A guy named Fraser who runs a time study institute.

The argument says No change in a timeless void. time has a beginning, so it must have begun from a state of timelessness. Otherwise why say it begins, it would just be more time. But if there is no change in a timeless void, then how could time begin? that's a change.



Argument from Temporal Beginning.



A. loigc of the argument.


1) Time has a begining.


2) There is no causality or sequential order beyond time.


3) Therefore, no change beyond time is possible.


4) The putative state of affairs beyond time is one of timelessness.
5) Therefore, time should never have come to be.


6) We know that time did come to be, therefore, it must have been created by something capable of writing and circumventing the rules.


7) Only God would be capable of writting and circumventing the rules of time and eternity, therefore, God must exit.

B Version of argument

We need a B version because beginning of time is assumed with singularity models of Big Bang, and those are out of fashion now (at least with atheists on Message boards): Advanced physics theory posits "beyond time" in which super symmetry theory is applied to grand unified theory, but "beyond" still posits a timeless state of nothingness in which nothing can happen and no change can take place.


B. Analysis.

God must exist in order to rewrite the rules or to circumvent the rules of temporality. Now some argue that from a timeless perspective the space/time bubble in which our universe exists would also be. That may be true, and the beginning and the end of our universe would always be as well. Causality, or source may be hierarchical as well as linear


C. Objections:

1) Time is an illusion.

Answer:
Some atheists have tried to answer this by using Relativity theory to argue that time is an illusion, its relative, get it? But Relativity doesn't say there is no time. It merely says that the observation of time is relative.

2) Some other freaky theory of time.

Answer: Some have tried to argue that t=0 (time has a beginning) is wrong. It could be t=>0. This is similar to xeno's paradox, in that it segments time into infinitesimals so that it gives the illusion of no time, no motion, or perhaps infinite time. But that "infinity" of time could be hiding in a Plank interval, so and that would not do anything to the basic hypothesis. From the Cosmological argument (no.II) I quote physicists saying that t=0 is still the best way to think about it. Three major sources document this. Julius Thomas Fraser in Time The Familiar Stranger (one of the major authorities on Time research), Paul Davies in God and The New Physics and in the Book Time's Arrow All agree that beyond time there is no motion, causality, or change. More documentation time begins with Big Bang:


How could anything come to be if there is change in a timeless void? that's a catch 22 that cannot be gotten around. It's iron clad, there has to be some outside agent who (or which) changes things.

Yes I am suggesting this must be God.

On CARM, that genius of philosophical Terpsichore Windmill of lies decides that my argument is Xeno's paradox. For some odd reason, he first argues that Xeno beats my argument. When I pointed out that Xeno is clearly known to be wrong, and that's just common knowledge and that he compounds the problem by arguing from analogy he says my argument is Like the paradox.

But clearly this is not so and his first argument against it shows that he originally thought the other way, that Xeno was a disproof of my argument.

Here's how it works.

Xeno says that if a tortoise raced a man and was given a head start of ten meters, he would win because every time the man made up the 10 meter gap, the turtle would have tranced another distance.

Without telling a long parable it works like this: say you want to walk to the other side of the room. That's 40 feet. But to get there you have to first go 20 feet, then do the remaining 40. But you can also cut each of the 20 in half and so how you have four sets of 10 feet to travel. You can keep doing this hundreds of times by measuring smaller and smaller distances, until finally you have thousands of miles to travel to go 40 feet. In this way Xeno "proves" that motion is impossible.

OF course the mistake is he's not really measuring the distance from one point to the other, he's measuring the distances between artificially chosen points and multiplying the number of measurements rather than the actual number of feet.

Here's how I know the atheist first thought Xeno supported his argument. He argued that there is no change from moment to moment. we don't sense change as time passes, so there's no reason why you can't have change in a timeless void because there's no change with time either.

I quickly shot this down with three answers:

(1) He is trying to gauge measurement by sensing change and that doesn't work. how can you possibly measure subatomic structures and partials the motion of subatomic partials just sensing the passage of time? So while movement and change are happening all the time it doesn't seem so. A brick wall seems motionless and changeless and yet it is changing as we watch it just sit there.

(2) hes' treating time like non time. He's not recognizing that the initial state is non temporal.

but clearly he's first trying to use Xeno to disprove my argument.

(3) he's arguing from analogy; he's trying to say that because he can draw a para ell between Xeno and my argument then that proves my argument is wrong.



After I shot him down this way he then says my argument is analogous to the paradox, so I'm wrong because Xeno is wrong. But clearly that doesn't fit because first tired to say Xeno's paradox disproves my argument by showing that change is not possible like Xeno showed motion is not possible.

IN pointing this out the genius concludes that I think space is getting smaller. why? because that's what me makes of the explanation of xeno's paradox. Not that you are measuring smaller spaces, but that I think space is actually getting smaller!

what did I do to deserve this? No matter how I shoot him down he keep insisting he's won, even though he changes the argument, because he just can't understand what's goin on. He actually thinks I"m saying space is getting smaller!

what can you do? these guys are just intent on hatting God it just does not matter how good your arguments or how logical or the facts, just doesn't matter. some how they will couture your words in such a way as to make you look stupid while they are being as dense as high viscosity motor oil.

Sten Olenwald
NASA Scientist

2003

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11839.html

No time "before" BB.

In the quantum world...the world that the universe inhabited when it was less than a second old...many things work very differently. One of these is that time itself does not mean quite the same thing as it does to us in the world- at-large. Although we have no complete theory of the relevant physics, there are many indications from the mathematics that yield sound experimental results, that time itself may have ceased to have much meaning near the Big Bang event. This means that there was no 'time' as we know this concept 'before' the Big Bang. That being the case, the question of what happened before the Big Bang is now a question without any possible physical answer. The evolution of the universe has always been a process of transformation from one state to the next as the universe has expanded. At some point in this process, looking back at the Big Bang, we enter a state so removed from any that we now know, than even the laws that govern it become totally obscure to science itself. In the quantum world, we see things 'appearing' out of nothing all the time. The universe may have done the same thing. What this means to us may never be fully understood.



"As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: What did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply: He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe. [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 8]

astronmy cafe

Odenwald, 2004

Was there really no time at all before the Big Bang?

As I have mentioned in a previous question, we do not know what the state of the universe was like at the Big Bang and beyond.

Our best guess at this time suggest that time and space as we know these concepts will become rather meaningless as the universe enters a purely quantum mechanical state of indeterminacy. Cosmologists such as Stephen Hawking suggest that the dimension of time is transformed via quantum fluctuations in the so-called "signature of the space/time metric", into a space-like coordinate so that instead of 3-space and 1-time dimension, space-time becomes a 4-dimensional space devoid of any time-like features. What this state is imagined to be is anyone's guess because as humans trained to think in terms of processes evolving in time, our next question would then be, What came before the Hawking space-like state? There is no possible answer to this question because there is no time in which the concept of 'before' can be said to have a meaning. The question itself becomes the wrong question to ask.
_____________________________________


Physical law opp orates in time


http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/qg_qc.html Cambridge Relativity and Quantum Gravity. 1996, University of Cambridge The physical laws that govern the universe prescribe how an initial state evolves with time. In classical physics, if the initial state of a system is specified exactly then the subsequent motion will be completely predictable.


Even assuming no beginning of Time, Susy Gut theory still postulates a "beyond time" as a putative state of affairs. This description confirms my argument since it describes a state in which no change can ever come to be. That leaves the scientific solution still seeking some higher set of coordinates upon which the universe must be contingent:



Sten Odenwald "Beyond the Big Bang."


Copyright (C) 1987, Kalmbach Publishing

"Theories like those of SUSY GUTS (Supersymetry Grand Unified Theory) and Superstrings seem to suggest that just a few moments after Creation, the laws of physics and the content of the world were in a highly symmetric state; one superforce and perhaps one kind of superparticle. The only thing breaking the perfect symmetry of this era was the definite direction and character of the dimension called Time. Before Creation, the primordial symmetry may have been so perfect that, as Vilenkin proposed, the dimensionality of space was itself undefined. To describe this state is a daunting challenge in semantics and mathematics because the mathematical act of specifying its dimensionality would have implied the selection of one possibility from all others and thereby breaking the perfect symmetry of this state. There were, presumably, no particles of matter or even photons of light then, because these particles were born from the vacuum fluctuations in the fabric of spacetime that attended the creation of the universe. In such a world, nothing happens because all 'happenings' take place within the reference frame of time and space. The presence of a single particle in this nothingness would have instantaneously broken the perfect symmetry of this era because there would then have been a favored point in space different from all others; the point occupied by the particle. This nothingness didn't evolve either, because evolution is a time-ordered process. The introduction of time as a favored coordinate would have broken the symmetry too. It would seem that the 'Trans-Creation' state is beyond conventional description because any words we may choose to describe it are inherently laced with the conceptual baggage of time and space. Heinz Pagels reflects on this 'earliest' stage by saying, "The nothingness 'before' the creation of the universe is the most complete void we can imagine. No space, time or matter existed. It is a world without place, without duration or eternity..."

3)How could God create beyond time?

Answer(s) William Lane Craig's answer is that God creates everything in one throw, so time is created at exactly the same time that God desires to create. That might be worked out as an answer, but it strikes me as still requiring a sequential order. My own personal answer is that I accept Bishop Berkley's notion that we are thoughts in the mind of God. Thus, while the naturalistic assumption is that there is a "beyond time" and this is conceived as a giant room filled with non-time (and the space/time bubble like a beach ball floating around in that room--or say a beach ball in the ocean of non-time) that is purely a naturalistic assumption. We have no idea what is beyond the BB. Thus, I posit the notion that physical reality is in the mind of God. God is like the Platonic forms in that he is in an abstract reality which has no physical locus, and thus is "everywhere and nowhere." So in that case there is no "beyond time" there is only the mind of God. That is a world of the mind, thus it does contain causality, but no temporal progress, it is controlled by the "thoughts" of God. Thus the problem of causality beyond time is solved, but this only works if one believes in God.

Anonymous Rebuttle

excavation at Nazareth


Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Jesus geneaology":

Joe: >>you have no documentation that most scholars think Luke's geneology was Jo's. that;s crasy when the names stck up with the Talmudic passage. so document your point please proving what schoalrs think.<<

I have lots of documentation.

you haven't listed any of it. Just showing one or two is not "most scholars."

You might notice what the Catholic Encyclopedia article you quote says about the Lk=Mary theory: “few commentators adhere to this view of St. Luke's genealogy.” The entire article is here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm

that source has been discredited. Didn't you see my series no the Tomb of Christ?

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on The Genealogy of Christ argues against your position here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06410a.htm

you just said that. that doesn't count as "most scholars" becasue it's three and one of them is listed twice.

The position you are advocating is rejected by Lukan commentators of all theological stripes.

do they have names? are we supposes to read your midn to know how you know this?

I’ll quote five authors of major works that argue against your position; there are many more. The first three are moderately conservative Catholic scholars; the last two are conservative evangelicals.

Raymond Brown, S.S.: >>There have been many attempts to solve this problem. The most simple and best –known is the attempt to treat them both as family records, with Matthew giving us Joseph’s record, and Luke giving us Mary’s. What influences this suggestion is the centrality of Joseph in Matthew’s infancy narrative, as compared with the spotlighting of Mary in Luke’s. Even at first glance, however, this solution cannot be taken seriously: a genealogy traced through the mother is not normal in Judaism, and Luke makes it clear that he is tracing descent through Joseph.

that's because of the adopting thing. JO was adopted into the line and it becomes his. This was the custom with families that didn't have a son.

Moreover, Luke’s genealogy traces Davidic descent and, despite later Christian speculation, we do not know that Mary was a Davidid<< (The Birth of the Messiah, 1977, 89).

that is begging the question. how can you argue against it ion the basis of "we don't' know?"

Luke Timothy Johnson: >>The two NT genealogies for Jesus are simply different and cannot be reconciled, not even by making Luke’s a line traced through Mary; Luke emphatically connects Jesus to David’s line through Joseph (1:27; 2:4). The question of historicity in this case is futile and even fatuous<< (The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina Commentary, 1991, 72).

Brown and Johnson are fine scholars but they are not OT. So they re not experts on Jewish famly law. I still think we have to Edersheim because he was trained as a rabbi.

Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J.: >>Another solution was to maintain that the Matthean genealogy was Joseph’s and the Lukan Mary’s; this has been suggested because of the prominence of Joseph in the Matthean infancy narrative and of Mary in the Lucan. The view was made popular by Annius of Viterbo (ca. AD 1490) and used in modern times by J. M. Heer. Though tradition has at times thought of Mary’s Davidic descent, there is no basis for this in the NT; and Luke has traced the genealogy of Jesus specifically through Joseph<< (The Gospel According to Luke, Anchor Bible Commentary, 1981, vol. I, 497).

again begs the question. no basis for Mary's non David decent either, and perhaps this the basis , this is in the NT. Just question begging. so far all three have done nothing but beg the question. As much as I admire ;Brown and Johnson, they aren't always right. besides this last quotes doesn't really take sides and it contradicts what came before, because it establishes a body of scholarship that sees it differently.

I. Howard Marshall: >>The theory of Annius of Viterbo (AD 1490) was that Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph and Luke that of Mary (cf. Hauck, 51-58). On this view, Eli (3:23) was really the father of Mary, and v.23 must be interpreted to mean either that Joseph was the son in law of Eli, or that Jesus was supposedly the son of Joseph but in reality the grandson of Eli (Geldenhuys, 151f.). Neither of these interpretations of the verse is at all plausible, and the theory does not fit with 1:27 where the Davidic descent of Joseph is stressed<< (The Gospel of Luke, New International Greek Testament Commentary, 1978, 158).

That one makes no sense at all. Look the reasnos he gives the only reasons are:

(1) not plausible (doesn't say why)

(2) doesn't fit Jo's Davidic decent?

that makes not sense at all because they go through different lines. It unfathomable why Mary can't be from Nathan and Jo from Solomon which is what the genealogies say. What's so implausible? They meet up a long tmie back. they would not even be 6th cousins.

Darrel Bock [from Excursus 5, The Genealogies of Matthew and Luke, in which he surveys six positions on the issue]:

>>1. Most [scholars] opt for a literary and theological approach to this material, regarding any attempt at harmonization as impossible. In this view, both writers relate Joseph to Jesus without any recourse to historical material other than the existing biblical materials from 1 Chronicles and Genesis…

this just says the two can't be one geneaology, we know that so what?

2. Another common approach is to argue that Matthew gives the genealogy through Joseph, while Luke gives the genealogy through Mary (Hendriksen 1978: 222-25; Godet 1875: 1.201). Dating back to Annius of Viterbo in 1490, the view argues that Joseph is not really in view in 3.23, where Luke says that Joseph was “supposed to be” (enomizeto) Jesus’ father. In addition, the absence of the particle tou before Joseph’s name is shows that he is not part of the genealogy. It is also argued that seeing Joseph in the genealogy puts Luke in a double contradiction in that he disagrees not only with Matthew, but also with himself, since he already made clear that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary (1:27). Finally, it is argued that rabbinic tradition know of the connection between Heli (also spelled Eli) and Mary. There are many problems with this approach. First, it is not at all clear that the rabbinic reference applies to Mary.

that is the weakest argument I've ever seen.Rather than a long critical examination he just says "not at all clear." you have to quote a major scholar for that?

In fact, most doubt that it does, because the Miriam referred to there is not called the mother of Jesus and thus could be any Miriam.

But of course the name Jesus was taken out of the Talmud so it couldn't say that (that is an historical fact too and its documented Herford, who you quote in the other comment as a true authority so you can't impeach him). she doesn't have to be called the mother of Jesus because he's not mentioned. Moreover, when it says most most who? Talmudic Scholars? IF they centered it why would they admit it?

Second, the absence of the article tou can be explained simply because Joseph starts the list.

yes, but it can be explained either way

Third, the virgin birth does not prevent legal paternity from passing through the father (Gordon 1977). Thus, no contradiction with the virgin birth exists.

That's irrelevant has nothing to do with it.

Fourth, the most natural way to read the Greek is as a genealogy for Joseph (Carson 1984, 64), given that Mary is not named at all here and the genitive tou at the front of the list is masculine. To clearly bring in Mary, Luke could have named her and/or changed the opening genitive to a feminine, similar to Matt. 1:16 and it use of hes which makes clear that the Matthean connection is only to Mary.

that argument ignores the one made by your guy before about they didn't use women in genealogies which explains why they don't say "Mary"

The remaining views all agree that Joseph’s line is addressed by both Luke and Matthew. They disagree on how this is done… <<(Luke, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, 1994, vol. I, 919-920).

Enjoy,

LO

none of them actually give a viable reason why we should accept that. nonce of them say "most scholars agree with this." That one did say most agree that the Talmudic passage isn't' about Mary but that's hardly surprising since they censored it in the first place to remove the onus of critiquing Jesus. Now it's understandable why they did, ti is a historical fact that they did. It's been documented by Lightfoot, Herford, McDowell and many others. It is not a sinister plot they did it to avoid pogroms. So it's understandable, but the fact remains they did do so.

You also overlook my alternate view about which I am just as serious; that Lukes genealogy is an emmendation and Mat's is Mary's line.

Over all you give no effective argument.

Jesus geneaology

I found a disucssion on this blog


Vridar

a rationalist’s musings on humanity, religion (especially Christianity) politics and society. Check the Categories to switch between Politics/Society and Religion/Humanity

so I answered it

The Jesus Genealogies: their different theological significances”

1. J.L. Hinman (Metacrock) Says:
September 26th, 2007 at 10:41 am

A late date and anti-Marcionite context for Luke-Acts not only has the power to explain why Luke may have rejected Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus, but even more directly why Luke’s genealogy of Jesus is so different from Matthew’s. (The common belief that Luke records Mary’s family line and Matthew Joseph’s is a simplistic rationalization that defies the textual evidence.)

when you say “defies textual evidence” you mean the veg comment about ‘thought to be the father” in Mat? that’s hardly textual evidence. the Luke genealogy is given as Mary’s in the Talmud. The claim there is that the independent investigation which has nothing to do with Luke produces the genealogy of “such a one’s” mother and it is a woman named Mary and the same father as the Luke genealogy.

Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus goes back to Abraham and is traced through Solomon. Luke’s bypasses Solomon and traces back to Adam and God himself.

all the more reason to think these are two different lines rather than an two attempts to construct the same line.

There’s another fact worth keeping in mind too. The writings apparently penned by Justin Martyr around the mid-second century c.e. insisted that Jesus had no genealogy and that this fact was one of the proofs of his divine origin.

If he was born of a woman he had to have one. why take Justin over the NT?

Justin also expressed his conviction that it was Mary who belonged to the blood-line of David, while the canonical gospels instead trace Joseph to David, and Mary is only brought in to the family tree by marriage.

Nope! so sorry you are quite wrong. You just said Luke’s bypasses Solomon but that doesn’t mean it bypasses David. it goes through David’s other son Nathan!

See my table of Justin’s knowledge of canonical and noncanonical gospels for references. (Most scholars nevertheless believe that Justin knew some form of our current gospels that he called “the memoirs of the apostles”.)

Luke’s genealogy

As in my last post, I’m playing with the model that our canonical Luke-Acts was the product of a second-century anti-Marcionite cause. Marcionism was a form of Christianity that some authors suggest was more widespread and dominant in the early second century than what we might call “proto-orthodox” Christianity. One of its beliefs was that Jesus came from a hitherto unknown or “Alien” God and not from the God who created this world. The God of this world, the creator of Adam and giver of the Ten Commandments at Sinai, was believed to be a capricious, often cruel and blind God who was unaware of his subordinate place to the higher unknown God.

Marcion was a proto Gnostic Or a full blown ghostic. He saw the God fo the Jews as the damuerge and he saw Jesus as the son of the true uber God who created the damuerge. (sorry about that spelling I don’t have Greek font).

If Luke as we know it was written as a response to Marcionism (Tyson and others) then we can readily understand why it traced the genealogy of Jesus back to the God of Genesis, the creator God of the Jewish scriptures. This genealogy was a rebuttal of the Marcionite doctrine that Jesus was sent by another God who was higher than this “biblical” God.

But why would Luke’s genealogy bypass Solomon, and most notably avoid any mention of the famous women in Matthew’s genealogy?

good question. it’s not an attempt to construct Jo’s genealogy but is a trace of Mary’s line.

One of Marcion’s beliefs was that the God of the Jewish scriptures was often an immoral God, capricious and inconsistent. Matthew’s genealogy highlighted the role of women tainted with racial or moral dubiousness. Solomon was the son of murder and adultery, and despite this he was honoured as the rightful heir to David by the creator God of this world.

Luke’s genealogy appears to be a response to this — in the context of taking up the challenge of Marcionism — and thus proclamation that Jesus line could not only be traced back to the Creator God of Genesis but also that it could be done so legitimately and honourably. The genealogy was a statement that the God of Jesus and this world was a righteous God and not as the Marcionites portrayed him.

Matthew’s genealogy

Matthew’s genealogy appears to have originated among Christians — perhaps adoptionists like Mark — who believed that Jesus was of human origin although he later became God (at the resurrection or at baptism) or temporarily possessed by the Spirit of Christ (until his death on the cross). There are indications of these positions in our current Pauline epistles (e.g. Romans 1:4) and the Gospel of Mark (e.g. Mark 1:11), and these were all well-known variations of Christian beliefs out of which the “orthodoxy” with which we are familiar eventually emerged.

If Jesus was understood to be the illegitimate son of Mary — an accusation not unknown in the gospels — then was this genealogy responding with, So what? She was nevertheless married into a line which was sustained by Bathsheba who adulterously conceived Solomon; by Ruth who was a gentile and who teamed up with Boaz through a the euphemistically labelled custom of “uncovering his feet” when he was asleep; by a Rahab, a gentile prostitute; and by Tamar, a daughter of Judah when she turned to prostitution.

I wish I could recall where I originally read this interpretation of Matthew’s genealogy — that it belongs to an early form of Christianity that believed Jesus at least started out as fully human and only later became Christ or possessed by the Spirit of God.

a second alternative is that Luke’s genealogy is an emendation, since it is not found in the two earliest copies of Luke. Matt’s could then be Mary’s genealogy. The throne of Israel could pass through a woman, Israel had a queen at one point. Why should we assume Mat's genealogy is just Jo's line? The crucial thing he's forgetting is the custom of the son in law. In a family with no son the wife's husband is adopted into the line in term of inheritance.




Skeptics and anti-missionaries often raise many difficulties in attempts to prove that Jesus could be the Messiah. Here are the major difficulties with which I will deal:


(1)Disparity in size of two lists.

(2) Two genealogies said to contradict.

(3) Matt's genealogy is not Jesus' bloodline.

(4) Curse on Line in Matt.

(5) If Luke's list is Mary's line, King can't come through female.

(6) Luke's list is useless anyway it goes through Nathan, and Messiah must come through Solomon.

The assumptions that I will deal with here here, and in answer to the first problem:

Matthew's list is Joe's bloodline while Luke's list is Mary's genealogy. These are not the same list. That is apparent since one goes through Nathan and one Through Solomon and all the names are different except for about three, it is clear they are not meant to be the same list. I will deal with the proof that one is Joe's list and the other Mary's latter.

Matt's line = Joesph's line

Luke's Line = Mary's line



Disparity in size of two lists



-------------------------

Matt's genealogy is taken in reverse order to presentation--since Luke's order is reversed to Matt, I've put them all in the order of going back in time form Jesus to David.


Jechoniah (Jahoachin) is in red in Matt's list to mark the beginning of exile

highlight Matt's list to see the missing names that he left out, names of the kings of Judah (and their one Queen).


Luke's Genealogy Matt's Genealogy
supposed son of Joseph Jo husband of Mary
Eli,
Matthat,
Levi,
Melchi,
Jannai,
Joseph,
Mattathias,
Amos,
Nahum,
Hesli,
Naggai,
Maath,
Mattathias,
Semein,
Josech,
Joda,
Joanan,
Rhesa,
*Zerubbabel,
*Shealtiel,
Neri,
Melchi,
Addi,
Cosam,
Elmadam,
Er,
Joshua,
Eliezer,
Jorim,
Matthat,
Levi,
Simeon,
Judah,
Joseph,
Jonam,
Eliakim,
Melea,
Menna,
Mattatha,
Nathan,
Jesus
Joseph the husband of Mary,
Matthan,
Eleazar,
Eliud.
Achim,
Zadok,
Azor.
Eliakim,
*Zerubbabel.
*Shealtiel,
*Jeconiah
Jehoiakim
Jehoahaz
Josiah.
Amon,
Manasseh,
Hezekiah.
Ahaz,
Jotham,
Amaziah
Joash
Uzziah (Azariah?)
Joram,
Jehoshaphat,
Asa.
Abijah,
Rehoboam,
Solomon
David

The thing is we notice something odd about Matthew's list (apart form the lack of names).It is basically a list of the king's of Judah. All the names form Rehaboum to Jahoachin are all king's of judah. That line was hereditary and it involved the one family line of Solomon. Obviously then a lot of the missing names are kings of Judah. The list abridged. This is not unknown. There abridged genealogies in the Old Testament:

Ken Palmer
visited on 5/24/06

lifeofChrist.com

Genealogical abridgment occurs not only in Matthew 1:1, but also in the Old Testament. Compare Ezra 7:3 with 1st Chronicles 6:7-10, and you can see how Ezra deliberately skipped six generations from Meriaoth to Azariah (son of Johanan).

Son could also be used to describe kinship without sonship. Although Zerubbabel was the nephew of Shealtiel (1st Chronicles 3:17-19), he was called the son of Shealtiel (Ezra 3:2, Nehemiah 12:1, Haggai 1:12). Jair is another example of this principle. He was a distant son-in-law of Manasseh (1 Chronicles 2:21-23 and 7:14-15). Yet, he was called the "son of Manasseh" (Numbers 32:41, Deuteronomy 3:14, 1st Kings 4:13).
The point to remember is that the word son can be applied to several types of relationships.

The reason Matthew breaks up his genealogy into groups of 14, 14,13 is probably for memorization. It makes memorizing easier.

when we stick in the names of the missing Kings of Judah the lists come up a bit more even. There is a difference in eight names with the missing Kings of Judah in there. No doubt there are other spaces for abrdigement.


Since most of my answers involve the idea that Luke = Mary and Matt = Jo let's tackle that one next. Are my reasons "totally arbitrary?" Of course not, and most Biblical Scholars agree with my reading,and in fact the great Rabbinical scholar Alfred Edersheim agreed with it.


Skeptics often argue that there's no reason to think that Luke's genealogy is Mary's and Matt's is Jo's. They must both be of Jo's line because Luke doesn't mention Mary but says Jesus was supposed the son of Jo."

Lists do not contradict: Luke = Jo, Matt = Mary



These are clearly two different lists. They are not contradictions of each other, they follow two different family lines. One is for Mary and one for Joseph.

A. Different lists.

(1) Vastly different numbers of names indicates differnt lists.

The first thing to notice is that Luke's version has twice as many people in it. The second thing is that they are all different. There aren't just one or two differences, they are all different, except Zerubabel and Shealtiel, who come 10 generations apart in the two lists, which probably indicates they are two different sets of Father and son which are over 100 years apart.

This is clelary not two attempts to make the same list, but two totally different lists.

(2) Matt gores through Solmon; Luke Through Nathan; different sons of David

Luke's line goes through Nathan, While Matt's line goes through Solomon. But only Solomon's line has the promise that is decedent would always be on the throne (presumably meaning he would be the Messiah). It cannot be that Luke was just ignorant. He's far too knowledgeable of Jewish customs and no doubt had Jews to furnish his research. So the idea that he's ust ignorant of the fact doesn't' wash. If he was trying to manufacture a line to boost Jesus Messianic credentials he would surely just make it go through Solomon. the fact that he does not suggests that he's not trying to construct the same list, but is in fact trying to make up Mary's line, because if it was through Mary it wouldn't count Messianically anyway. It would have to go through the Father to count as Messianic. We can get around that by the argument that Jospeh adopted Jesus, but why compound the problem by trying to go through Nathan?

(3) Matt is clearly trying to connect to Royal (legal) line to argue for Messiahship, Luke is demonstrating blood heritage to David.

Matt clearly identifies where Jahoacin and Shealtiel come in, and he himself says they are connected to the exile. In his list he says "After the deportation R8 to Babylon: Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel, Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation R7 to Babylon." " This is clealry marking the line as the line that extends from the last King of Judah, and that it is the line containing the Zerubabel who re-establishes the Messianch blessing on the line the lifts the curse of Johoachin. That would be crucial to establishing the line as having a right to the throne. Without that the author might as well just forget it. Luke has a Zerubabel and Shealteil in his line, but makes no attempt to identify them as the decendents of Jahoachin. In fact they dencend from differnt people, and their decendents are different: see above list.

Luke's list:

Josech,
Joda,
Joanan,
Rhesa,
*Zerubbabel,
*Shealtiel,
Neri,
Melchi,
Addi,
Cosam,


Matt's list:

Achim,
Zadok,
Azor.
Eliakim,
*Zerubbabel.
*Shealtiel,
*Jeconiah
Josiah.
Amon,
Manasseh,
Hezekiah.

clealry two seperate lines. If we put them in the chronological contexts the two couples would be about 100 years apart.

That is a pretty clear indication that Matt was trying to establish the connection to the throne and Luke was not! Thus they have different purposes in writting, so probably not working on the same list.

B. Matt = Joe; Luke = Mary.

Skeptics often gloat, and arrogantly entoning "it doesnt' say Mary does it?" They domgatically ingore the fact that Jews didn't put women in geneolgoies. Matt does, but only as a speical noteworthy members of the line. To set out the feamle's line would be ridiculous. In such a case the proper thing to do would be to use the husband as thel egal heir and trace it as though it were his line. This is especially the case if he was adopted as legal heir (son-in-law) by the father (in-law).

(1)Luke lists Jospeh not Mary because he was the legal heir to that line.

Complete Bible genealogy.com

Jesus was the natural son of Mary, who conceived by the Holy Ghost and therefore He becomes the Son of God (Luk 1:34-35). Considering the fact that by the Jewish tradition women are never listed in the genealogical links, it is acceptable that Luke lists Joseph instead of Mary (as he was the "father" of Jesus) and thus Luke names Joseph as son of Heli. Further, since Heli had no sons but only daughters, we can find a precedent of the same type of name substitution in Num 27:1-11 and Num 36:1-12.





(2) Language of the geneaologies

Matt mentions Jo is husband of Mary. This seems like a purposeful attempt to connect the geneaology to Jesus from Joseph as his adopted father. But Matt says specifically that Jospeh was begotton by Matthan; while Luke uses no such language. The terms Luke uses to describe the relationship between Jesus and Joseph is "Suppossedthe son of..." which certainly implies that there is no begatting between the two. Taken together these seem frank admittions, on Luke's part that he's not really dealing of Joseph's actutal blood line, and for Matt, that he is daling with Josephe's actually blood line.

Of course skeptics will ask "why doesn't it name Mary?" Jews tired to avoid using women in Geneaologies. If the woman was without a brother, the husband could be adopted as legal heir by father and thus it becomes his legal line. So if this was the cause Luke uses Joseph as the leagal heir to the line.

(3) Similarities in names between Mary's Parents in Luke and Mary's partens in latter traditions.

New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.

"Though few commentators adhere to this view of St. Luke's genealogy, the name of Mary's father, Heli, agrees with the name given to Our Lady's father in a tradition founded upon the report of the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal Gospel which dates from the end of the second century. According to this document the parents of Mary are Joachim and Anna. Now, the name Joachim is only a variation of Heli or Eliachim, substituting one Divine name (Yahweh) for the other (Eli, Elohim). The tradition as to the parents of Mary, found in the Gospel of James, is reproduced by St. John Damascene [24], St. Gregory of Nyssa [25], St. Germanus of Constantinople [26], pseudo-Epiphanius [27], pseudo-Hilarius [28], and St. Fulbert of Chartres [29]. Some of these writers add that the birth of Mary was obtained by the fervent prayers of Joachim and Anna in their advanced age. As Joachim belonged to the royal family of David, so Anna is supposed to have been a descendant of the priestly family of Aaron; thus Christ the Eternal King and Priest sprang from both a royal and priestly family" [30].

Talmud agrees with Protoevangelium on Mary's father:

Geneology of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Bible study manuels

"It is indirectly confirmed by Jewish tradition [that Luke's genealogy is of Mary's line]. Lightfoot {Horae Hebraicae on Luke iii. 28} cites from the Talmudic writers concerning the pains of hell, the statement that Mary the daughter of Heli was seen in the infernal regions, suffering horrid tortures. {Suspensam per glandulas mammarum," etc.} This statement illustrates, not only the bitter animosity of the Jews toward the Christian religion, but also the fact that, according to received Jewish tradition, Mary was the daughter of Heli; hence, that it is her genealogy which we find in Luke....

If Mary was the daughter of Heli, then Jesus was strictly a descendant of David, not only legally, through his reputed father, but actually, by direct personal descent, through His mother....

[Therefore] Mary, since she had no brothers [as evidenced in Jn 19:25-27] was an heiress; therefore her husband, according to Jewish law, was reckoned among her father's family, as his son. So that Joseph was the actual son of Jacob, and the legal son of Heli. In a word, Matthew sets forth Jesus' right to the theocratic crown; Luke, His natural pedigree. The latter employs Joseph's name, instead of Mary's, in accordance with the Israelite law that 'genealogies must be reckoned by fathers, not mothers."

(4)Luke is more connected to Mary than Matthew is.


*Luke uses words such as women and womb more times than the other Gospels (Helms p.65)

*Only Luke is interested in Mary's inner life (2:18, 34, 51)

*Luke gives us the famous lines rejoying in pregnancy--something most men woudln't think about doing.(1:42-46)

*ONly author to mention fetal quickening and mention it as a sympotom of the Holy Spirit coming into the womb 1:42)



As a phyiscian Luke was drwawn to the idea of a pregnant woman in Mary's condition and perdicatiment. it seems many scholrs find a connection and an interest that Luke had in Mary. Matthew focuses upon Joseph in the announcmenet of the child. But Luke focuses upon Mary, followers her to her cousins and puts the spot light on her.



(5)Use of definate article


Jews didn't like putting women in geneolgoies. If Jo was adopted into the line as it's legal heir, because the father was sonless, the it would be more common to use him as the heir rather than Mary, even though it was her actaul blood line. We can see the way the genealogy is written there is a clue that Joseph is only the legal heir. All the other names have definate article in front them but not Jo's name. So "the Heli," "the so and so" that would be litteral reading. Only Jo is missing this definate article, indicating there is something different.

Now one might argue that this tradition (Protoevangelium) takes it ques form Matthew. But why would they use the nick name instead of using the name givne in Matthew? That creates more confussion than it resolves. It would seem that the names have a connection, but are clearly from different traditions of use.

This quotation also gives us good reason to assume that Mary didn't have a brother. Because the alternative traidtion of the Protoevangelum and the chruch father's mentioned seem to hold to that view.

Knock Knock Knocking on Heaven's Door: Jesus and Boy Dylan

This discussion originated on a message board right after I saw the following movie.

On saturday night I watched the Martin Scorsese film No Direction HomeAmerican Master's documentary on PBS For some reason it made me think about what the Hippies thought of Jesus. Why? I didn't know at first, Dylan doesn't often make me think of Jesus. I realize now it was because they played a bit of the Woody Guthrie song z"Jesus Christ"

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
Hard working man and brave
He said to the rich, "Give your goods to the poor."
So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

I began to think, even though I was really a teen in the early 70s, I identified with the 60s. The 60s bled over into the early 70s and I was more aware than most children my age of hippies and protests and issues like Vietnam. I remember distinctly when I was in 6th grade telling my mother when she picked me up form School "we have to get home so I can see the news, I have to root for SDS today, find out how they did at the siege of Columbia."

and I did root for them too. I would chant "Hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today" along with the news, and my father, a die-hard LBJ fan would get upset (we are from Texas).

We hippies and 60s leftists liked Jesus. The modern atheists seem to hate him. We made him our own, you make him your enemy. modern atheists want to deny his existence, they try to minimize the value of his teachings, they want to make as though he was unremarkable, no reason why anyone should remember him,if he existed at all. But not us in the 60sl. The Hippies and the revolutionaries, even in our Marxist inspired fever made Jesus our own!

We did not deny his existed, we used him as an example to say "hey you are not living to the standards of the guy you claim to follow Mr and Mrs average bourgeois American. We said hey Jesus was a hippie like us. He had long hair. Even in our dope smoking, communist inspired LSD crazed revolutionary zeal many of us saw ourselves as the true Christians. Christians were leading the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. we didn't see Christianity as the enemy some object to hatred that we want to destroy.

We were the true Christians because we saw how the teachings of Jesus about love and acceptance and forgiveness and getting away form unjust unfair traditions that bind people could applied to our situation an and back up the social movement we were trying to take part in.

Why don't you guys make Jesus your own? Why can't you see the importance eof Jesus and his nature as revolutionary figure? You are always harping on how the OT is so bad, but Jesus took that repressive backward ideology and made it into a revelation that said use love and non violence to change the world.

It occurs to me that we had a social cement and you guys don't. We had the music, we had the causes, the war the civil rights, you guys don't have that. You have internet, individual stuff that brings you together as a loose collection of people with some overlapping interests but not a social cement to bind together a movement.

We wanted to change the world. You guys just wanted to blog about it.

I am not trying to put you down in saying hat. I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from.

The attitude of hippies and some kinds of revolutionary politicos I was talking about was really the beginning of the Jesus movement. I just think its' so odd that we took Jesus made him own and built a movement around him, and you guys reject him but you have no unifying cement to hold you together.

The fundies turn it into a question of literalism. He must have said and done all the tings recorded. and the discussion centers on that, did he really feed the crowd with the fishes and raise so an so form the dead and so on. For us none of that was important and I guess with my liberal thing I find myself drawing upon some of those early outlooks.

What really matters is what the resurrection tells us about what God will do in your life, not the literalism of the event in history. The attitude of understanding that the two major laws are about loving God and loving your neighbor is more important than knowing if Jesus really said that and where he was when he said it.

I wish you could catch the thrill of understanding Jesus as a revolutionary figure. If only he had had a guitar and harmonica.

I was astonished by the attitude of these atheists. They have no cultural sense of the greatness of Jesus at all. They don't like him. One of them had the audacity to say that Jesus had nothing original to say. He only only anticipated Kantian ethics by 1900 years. One of them responded, "O that wasn't original., other people said that he could have gotten that from Buddha or Confusions." Yes, if he wanted to go to India or China in the first century!

Jesus is the cultural icon of goodness, or the good man. IF we loose our respect for that we sick, deeply sick. These atheists aren't just skeptical they totally cynical. They just don't believe in anything. I mean by that not that that they have no ideas of the good, but that they don't believe anything can be good for them, they without hope.

Then I had to turn around and defend Bob Dylan! One guy thought Joni Mitchell was better than Dylan! He had the audacity to say Joni's rhymes were sophistcated and Dylan's weren't. Yea right:

flows and rows of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air
and featured canyons everywhere

OOO so terribly sophisticated.

Make that cynical and bad taste.


__________________

JESUS CHRIST
(Woody Guthrie)

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
Hard working man and brave
He said to the rich, "Give your goods to the poor."
So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand
His followers true and brave
One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot
Has laid Jesus Christ in his grave
He went to the sick, he went to the poor,
And he went to the hungry and the lame;
Said that the poor would one day win this world,
And so they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
He went to the preacher, he went to the sheriff,
Told them all the same;
Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the Poor,
But they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
When Jesus came to town, the working folks around,
Believed what he did say;
The bankers and the preachers they
nailed him on a cross,
And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
Poor working people, they follered him around,
Sung and shouted gay;
Cops and the soldiers, they nailed him in the air,
And they nailed Jesus Christ in his grave.
Well the people held their breath when
[ Lyrics provided by www.mp3lyrics.org ]
they heard about his death,
And everybody wondered why;
It was the landlord and the soldiers that he hired.
That nailed Jesus Christ in the sky.
When the love of the poor shall one day turn to hate.
When the patience of the workers gives away
"Would be better for you rich if
you never had been born"
So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.
This song was written in New York City
Of rich men, preachers and slaves
Yes, if Jesus was to preach like
he preached in Galillee,
They would lay Jesus Christ in his grave.
sung to Jesse James