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jlf1961 -> RE: Festivus for the rest of us (12/13/2013 9:28:43 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GotSteel
quote:
ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
No caricature intended, GotSteel. If I'm in error on your opinion of the contents of the Bible etc., I'll welcome an improved view.
1. You've claimed I "refuse to consider". This is bull, I spent roughly half my life as a Christian and my deconversion didn't happen on a whim. It took years of thought and everything from a fasting in the dessert vision quest to attending a zen buddhist monastery in Kyoto. Come on man, we've been talking about this for years, how could you possibly claim a lack of considering on my part?
2. Being in the Bible doesn't automatically make something false, my position is that being in the Bible doesn't automatically make something true either.
That everything in there be evaluated and should stand or fail on it's own merritts without relying on an appeal to authority or the brainwashing of presuppositionalism.
*Shrug* shouldn't be that complicated or hard to understand, I'm just talking about critical thinking.
I often wondered about your statements about the Christian faith Steel, now with what you have written, I understand it a little better, and I agree with you about the bible not necessarily being the absolute truth, or an absolute lie.
I am a Christian, actually a catholic, and I do not believe the bible as the absolute word of god, but then my reasoning is different from yours. The first five (?) books of the old testament are called the books of Moses, and God dictated them to Moses.
Now, first, Moses is human and humans have a nasty habit of changing things to suit their ideas. So I doubt that Moses wrote down every word that god told him to.
As for the New Testament, none of the gospels were written during the time of Christ and none are first hand accounts. They are the written word of stories told after the fact by people who had them passed down to them by people who were not actually witnesses to the teachings and miracles of Jesus. Again, human interference with the word to suit humans.
For example, the Pharisees did not have the authority to put Jesus to death, no matter what he had done. Roman governors did not preside over the trials of a religious nature for the locals.
The bible side steps that little problem, and not well, by stating the Pharisees took Jesus to Pilate to have him tried by a roman. This still painted the Jews as the instigators of the crucifixion of Jesus.
However, Pilate would have become involved if Jesus was preaching anything that could be considered subversive to Roman rule of the holy land. The fact that his followers declared him the king of the Jews, the Messiah, and he referred to himself as the son of God. Everyone of those statements would bring him to the attention of Pilate, as a revolutionary or worse.
Thus it is my opinion, shared with some historians, that Pharisees were not even remotely involved in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. It was the Romans from the word go.
Why the change in the story? If the Christians put the blame on the Jews and not the Romans, the new religion stood a better chance of being accepted by a larger number of people. Not to mention that shortly after the death of Jesus, the Jews rose in rebellion against the Romans and were soundly beaten and exiled from the holy land.
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