What will we replace religion with?

That statement is impossible to defend.

The Greek scholar Celsus:

[Jesus] invented his birth from a virgin . . . born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.​

Thomas Paine:

When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence​

How does one come to the conclusion that a person named Jesus Christ was known to have NOT lived in some house occupied by a couple named Mary and Joseph, who are said to belong to a cult called Nazarenes? I'm not sure if I follow you.

You mean there is legend which testifies to that, not any actual witnesses. Paine:

The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all Jerusalem at least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection; and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I; and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.​

I'll retract my statement about pot calling the kettle black, recognizing that you were distancing yourself from the lunatic extremists within Christianity.

No I won't. But I respect your intelligence in rejecting the barbarity and stupidity of such groups.

That's your call. Readers here understand you're a Christian simply because you say so. We regard truth as another thing.

Paine:

The Christian mythologists tell us that Christ died for the sins of the world, and that he came on Purpose to die. Would it not then have been the same if he had died of a fever or of the small pox, of old age, or of anything else?

The declaratory sentence which, they say, was passed upon Adam, in case he ate of the apple, was not, that thou shalt surely be crucified, but, thou shale surely die. The sentence was death, and not the manner of dying. Crucifixion, therefore, or any other particular manner of dying, made no part of the sentence that Adam was to suffer, and consequently, even upon their own tactic, it could make no part of the sentence that Christ was to suffer in the room of Adam. A fever would have done as well as a cross, if there was any occasion for either.

This sentence of death, which, they tell us, was thus passed upon Adam, must either have meant dying naturally, that is, ceasing to live, or have meant what these mythologists call damnation; and consequently, the act of dying on the part of Jesus Christ, must, according to their system, apply as a prevention to one or other of these two things happening to Adam and to us.

That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all die; and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die faster since the crucifixion than before: and with respect to the second explanation, (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind,) it is impertinently representing the Creator as coming off, or revoking the sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. That manufacturer of, quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear his name, has helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams; the one who sins in fact, and suffers by proxy; the other who sins by proxy, and suffers in fact. A religion thus interlarded with quibble, subterfuge, and pun, has a tendency to instruct its professors in the practice of these arts. They acquire the habit without being aware of the cause.​

I wondered the same thing when you brought it up. But you're right about one thing. Just as no one knows if he ever sported a beard, no one knows any of his identifying features, where he lived, etc., and there are no artifacts to indicate that any of the significant events in the story ever took place (other then a few actual historical figures like Herod the Great / Pontius Pilate, and events like the destruction of the Temple), even if we extricate all the smoke and mirrors of magic and claims of divinity.

I don't understand your cynicism. He would immediately recognize that we don't have to leave our helpless members to die on Mt Olympus. We have all kinds of safety nets, if only despite stubborn resistance from your estranged Anabaptist cousins. Besides there are a huge number of scholars and philosophers today that would far exceed anything he could have hoped for as far as the global enshrinement of his ideas. The world has certainly been a lot worse off than it is today.

According to your patriarch Origen, Celsus enumerated the ideas taken from Platonism and incorporated into Christian theology:

For he [Celsus] has quoted a considerable number of passages, chiefly from Plato, and has placed alongside of these such declarations of holy Scripture as are fitted to impress even the intelligent mind; subjoining the assertion that these things are stated much better among the Greeks (than in the Scriptures), and in a manner which is free from all exaggerations and promises on the part of God, or the Son of God.​

No one is suggesting that this matters. I was alluding the overriding themes taken from Plato.

You've also read about the Magi paying homage at the Nativity of Jesus. This is an indication that the legend needed to brace itself against Mithraism, by having the Persians seem to willingly bow to the Christian version of the story. How else would Mithra have migrated from Parthia to the catacombs of Rome, where there are still preserved chambers with banquet tables for celebrating the ritual banquet, which are the earliest relics resembling the Catholic mass? It was a syncretic fusion. This was not unprecedented either. If you recall the Persians liberated the Jews from captivity in Babylon. And there was considerable Persian presence in the Levant around the same time, so the homeland Jews would have encountered them as well.

As I recall, Mithraism in this incarnation, placing Mithra as the defender of good over evil, dining with his "12 followers" (orginally the 12 signs of the zodiac) on the eve of his crucifixion, was the lore along the same crossroads between Persia and Greece (Thrace/Anatolia) that had been tramped by both sides during the earlier Greco-Persian engagements. This had to affect Paul. His mother had been expatriated from Judaea by a Roman soldier who carried her off as his bride to Tarsus, which was on that ancient crossroads. In had been occupied by Persians, then Greeks, and now Romans. Imagine the fantastic stories Paul must have heard growing up as a child, from the soldier who may have been complicit in the Roman atrocities in Judaea, and the woman whose family must have perished from it, to the neighbors steeped in the native Mithraic traditions of their Persian antecedents, to include this heroic demigod who was celebrated through a sort of Greco-Roman feast. Somewhere in the middle of all of this was the genetic memory of Socrates and his sacrificial cup, his stoic suicide as a matter of principle, to somehow improve the fate of his fellow Greek citizens. After all it's understood that Paul did write in Greek, which required not only understanding the Greek lexicon, but the cultural context in which words acquire their meaning.

If you were from California or any of the vast regions held by the Spanish, and the Aztecs had defeated Cortez, and for some reason had gone on to expand their civilization into all the lands held by Spain, you would likely by advising me that Quetzalcoatl is the one true god.

If you had been born in some remote village among Sherpas of Tibet, odds are you would have never heard of Jesus Christ,

Indeed Catholics are a friend to just about every idea held sacred by atheists, except for their opposition of abortion and gay rights and the atheist's aversion to religious indoctrination.

 

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I guess you really think you showed me, eh? I appreciate the close attention you have been paying to my posts, but just because you have one Greek scholar and one very famous American forefather to quote, does not change the truth. The Gospels are more historically well documented than just about any other ancient manuscripts you care to name with hundreds of independent instances having been discovered. Then there are also non-Christian historians who mention Jesus in passing. Moreover, your man Celsus is clearly biased. "Some miraculous power"? So he admits Jesus could perform miracles, but he isn't impressed with his raising the dead or feeding five thousand with a few fish? And I thought you position was that Jesus did not exist. Celsus seems to think he does.Then there's his whole view of Mary and the family's homeless poverty - where does he get all this? What was his source? It's certainly not from the mainstream (the widely known four Gospels and the Letters of Paul). But hey, I'm content. Bastardry and homeless wandering to Egypt may not be much, but they do bespeak existence.
I have nothing but respect for Tom Paine, hence I respect his right to a minority opinion. If he doesn't believe in Jesus Christ and takes a very piss and vinegary view of the whole matter (again very biased), that was his prerogative in a nation that separates church and state - a nation he had done much to establish. Yet, where is he now? And not to be rude, but your whole Mithra and magi jag doesn't interest me. Christianity is not about the rituals and sacraments or who visited the manger. It is about redemption and the cross.
Then I was trying to explain to you that I am widely read (though maybe not as widely read as you) and I have sincerely considered all the other major faiths, so please do not assume I am a Christian because I grew up in a Christian country, and yet you accuse me of that a second time! I think it is you who are a slave to the influences around you with your parroting of what your TV tells you to think of the Catholic Church. Yes the Church has always, always, taken stands against abortion, homosexuality and atheism, and I must admit there has been some violence in the past, but in your lifetime, or even the past two centuries has the Church availed itself of such methods? In any case, when I say the Church is tolerant I was speaking as a member of that community and my experiences on the inside. You see, no matter what I may have done, a priest will give me absolution. So they may hammer it into our heads that adultery, for instance, is wrong, but if a member commits that sin, and then asks forgiveness from a priest, or even directly to God at any time or any place, faith assures us that we are forgiven. But, I don't expect you can appreciate that. Are we through here?

 

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Science and Religion are revolutions. What religion once explained will be replaced by scientific explanation: the most advanced theory in the world is looking to replace God with "artificial intelligence"; a belief that God is simply a machine. The earliest universe seems to correspond with that theory: it was dark etc. Should we develop "artificial intelligence" it would be "Godesque." However, as I stated in the opening to this post, what science explains will one day be replaced by Religion once again.

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Arne Saknussemm

So, if we find multiple copies of "Beyond the Looking Glass" we can say that the land of OZ is well documented? Right. None of the gospels were written by anyone who had ever met Jesus, if Jesus was even a real person. All of them are based on at least 50 years of "Telephone" where fish always get larger and snows deeper on the uphill path to and from school. Jesus' story was a tale from the Jewish uprising against the Romans, it is mostly myth and hearsay. None of the four Gospels tells the same story, in fact they often disagree or contradict each other. And why those four? There were dozens of Gospels that were not included in the Bible. Religious books were the popular fiction of the day. The whole basis of your religion is no better or worse than that of any other religion. The PHILOSOPHY of Jesus has merit, the RELIGIOUS MYTHS of Jesus do not.


Grumpy

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Just dedicate religion to something good.

 

Why replace religion with anything? It's outlived it's usefulness. There is no need for it, and plenty of reasons to abandon all religion.

What I mean is, just what does religion offer the world that can't be provided more efficiently without confusing the "issues at hand" by introducing and trying to justify a "god".? "Gods" are nothing more than constructs to unite "us" and divide "them".

 

Sure. It wouldn't take much time either. There are no end of lone prophets out there preaching revelations unique to them alone. What would probably take time is creating entire societies where people are just born into a situation where that particular vision is established and where most people just believe it by default. And what would take a great deal of time (it's yet to happen on Earth and probably never will) is the establishment of one universal faith for the entire planet. (Christianity's and Islam's rather totalitarian vision.)

 

I don't think that there's any dispute that gospels existed in antiquity, both the ones included in Christian bibles and others that for various reasons weren't included. The more interesting question concerns the historicity of the events that the gospels relate.

I will say that I have little doubt that somebody named Jesus did exist. I have little doubt that this Jesus was crucified. But not being a Christian, I don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And I most emphatically don't believe that he was God in human flesh. (Or whatever he's supposed to have been, the subsequent Christology seeking to make sense of what he was is almost incomprehensible.)

Which is evidence that the Christian sect that worshipped him existed in antiquity. I don't think that there's any dispute about that either.

He was writing against the Christians. Of course our knowledge of Celsus today is rather biased as well, because his writings weren't preserved by copyists in medieval times, so what knowledge we have today of Celsus' writings comes from Christian authors who wanted to refute him. So all of the direct quotations from Celsus that we have today were chosen by his Christian opponents and lack their original context.

In ancient times, people were far more willing to consider accounts of violations of the natural order than we are today. Stories of wonders and wonder-workers abounded. For example, people traveled from all over to lourdes-like healing shrines where gods like Aesklepios were thought to perform miracles. Places like that were ancient tourist attractions. Some people in ancient Rome (particularly the better-educated upper classes) were skeptical about that kind of stuff, sounding almost like moderns (Cicero for example), while others (often the people on the street) were far more credulous and accepting.

That means that we shouldn't think of how the ancient world received stories of Jesus' purported miracles in terms of our own ideas of miracles, post-scientific-revolution. It isn't like the ancients thought of themselves living in a clock-work universe of scientific law, where anomalies never happen, and if they do, they must be clear and obvious signs of divinity. In the ancient (and medieval) worlds, people believed that they were surrounded by wonders and anomalies all the time. Every town had its wondrous stories. So an ancient author would be more likely than a modern author to accept the possibility of a wondrous event, but more likely than a modern author to ask the next question: 'so what?'

 

The Odyssey is probably historically well-documented as well, referring to actual places and real cultures of that time. What is in question is its account of supernatural occurances. Same with the gospels. That's the reason some 60 other gospels of that time were rejected. Because they were pseudographic accounts of magical events. THAT's why we reject the gospels. Because people do not walk on seawater, or raise people from the dead, or float up into the sky. It's a criteria we apply across the board to all miraculous accounts. Why should we make an exception with the gospels?

 

The Bible was written by Jesus: that's why he's the hero.

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What if the emergence of artificial intelligence spawned a new religion? Imagine the invention of a quantum superartilect that could answer all our questions, make accurate predictions, and provide solutions to all of mankind's problems. The majority of the human race, lacking any knowledge of how such an intelligence was created, would easily see it as an incarnation of a god. This brings to mind the myths and legends of magical machines in ancient cultures and religions. The ark of the covenant. The Umim and the Thummin. The Vimana. Talos. The Golem.

God Is The Machine

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/holytech.html

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The respect of Humanity is what should replace any and all religions

If we don't do this , then we are seeing any other being as superior to us , which some are

The problem is though

We are not capable as seeing ourselves as being MORE important

Hence our psychology towards them is more important , then our society is based not on our thinking as Humans but on their thinking on how we should be

Hence we become slaves to this or that religion

To me for us to survive on this planet and the Universe we must think of ourselves first , and foremost

If we don't , we will forever be manipulated and formed by others , and never be formed by Humanity its self

river

 

LOL. A bowling league offers more sense of community than your religion. The only "community" your religion supports is the one in which a single denomination out of thousands out of hundreds of religions is the community, which is not really a community at all, but instead, a tribe with an "us vs. them" group mentality, who are bigoted and hateful towards others that don't meet their narrow minded criteria. They're not there to talk about community, but instead to worship and praise their god with fear, loathing and division.

 

The ancient animism / fetishism tendencies still seem to be lurking in modern populations. It just takes a new kind of "idol category" to rouse such anthropopathy from dormancy, and robots / computerized devices apparently fit the bill for that. Paraphrasing Sherry Turkle from her book Alone Together, reviewer Jonah Lehrer writes: "When it comes to the perception of other minds, we are extremely gullible, bestowing agency on even the most inanimate of objects." From this treatment of machines as feeling personhoods, it's just another step to returning to those old "glory days" of bowing and praying to artificial objects again (with at least some better justification for it now).

Lehrer: After children spend a few minutes playing with a Tamagotchi — a wildly popular “digital pet” — they begin to empathize with the “needs” and “feelings” of the plastic device. And it’s not just little kids: Turkle describes the behavior of Edna, an 82-year-old who is given a robotic doll called My Real Baby during a visit with her 2-year-old great-granddaughter. When Edna is asked if the doll is alive, she scoffs at the absurdity of the question. But then the doll starts to cry. Edna cradles the robot in her arms and gently caresses its face. “Oh, why are you crying?” she asks the robot. “Do you want to sit up?” When her great-granddaughter starts whining, Turkle reports, Edna ignores her. Link

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Spencer [...] with Tylor made fetishism a subdivision of animism. [...] Fritz Schultze, analysing the consciousness of savages, says that fetishism is a worship of material objects. He claims that the narrow circle of savages' ideas leads them to admire and exaggerate the value of very small and insignificant objects, to look upon these objects [...] as alive, sentient, and willing, to connect them with auspicious or inauspicious events and experiences, and finally to believe that such objects require religious veneration. In his view these four facts account for the worship of stocks and stones, bundles and bows, gores and stripes, which we call fetishism. But Schultze considers fetishism as a portion, not as the whole, of primitive religion. By the side of it he puts a worship of spirits, and these two forms run parallel for some distance, but afterwards meet and give rise to other forms of religion. He holds that man ceases to be a fetish-worshipper as soon as he learns to distinguish the spirit from the material object. [For Plato, distinguishing the idea / formula from the material phenomenon.] Link​

 

First, a minor point: Beyond the Looking Glass was written by Lewis Carroll, and if by 'Oz' you are referring to The Wizard of... that is by L. Frank Baum. But, I knew what you meant!

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As for the rest, many scholars estimate that the Gospels may have been written as few as twenty or thirty years after the Resurrection. The Gospel of Luke is a famous account in which the writer is indisputably sincere.

In many other historical documents that you likely do accept as authentic. For instance,The Annals of Rome written by the Roman historian, Tacitus (circa 116 A.D). We have but a single copy of his work copied down in 850 A.D. Most 'accepted' historical manuscripts have a similar pedigree. More well known histories may oftenboast more manuscripts. There are 650 copies of Homer's Iliad, but that is nothing compared to the Gospels: there are 5,000 Gospel manuscripts languages as diverse as Georgian and Ethiopian, and they match up to the most ancient Greek versions as well as today's NIV (New International Standard version).

It is true that the earliest written manuscripts of the Gospels are from about 200 A.D., but it is not as you suggest, a game of telephone that preserved the Gospels for those centuries. In the oral traditions of the Near East at the time, when scholars memorized something, they would repeat it constantly in the hearing of others who had already memorized the material and the learners were corrected until they had it down verbatim. Also it was the right of an audience to correct any narrator who slipped up. The audience may not have had the story memorized verbatim, but they knew an inaccuracy when they heard it, and were not shy to say so. So if you want to imagine it as a game of telephone, imagine that every third person in the line had to check with the very first person to make sure he was on track. Oh, it was no game.

 

Computers

 

Not really. I was just speaking my mind as I would any other poster I'm inclined to reply to.

Most religious people I engage here aren't very interested in literary criticism of the Bible, or issues like the need to link logos to Stoics and to introduce Philo's role in shaping the Jewish thinkers of the eary Christian era, that sort of thing. You seem to be more amenable this sort of discussion, even if it wrankles you. Religious members here (some of them) tend to troll, so there's very little outlet for me to express my views on the history of mythology, the history of the Christian religion, that sort of thing. Like a lot of the folks here, I've been jaded by the rise of fundamentalism. And I still have to pinch myself when I see people coming to . . . what was the term you used? To blight the science boards? Color me naive, but I hadn't heard that term, nor such a frank admission. I really set out to see if you would expand on that, but got sidetracked with the other juicy stuff you were dishing out.

It was actually one Catholic patriarch/scholar, Origen, citing a Greek scholar, Celsus. It was in answer to your belief that no one accused early Christianity of plagiarizing Plato in the early Christian era. It probably doesn't matter too much if he's only one voice making the accusation. The fact of the plagiarism-slash-syncretic fusion is self evident.

Paine is significant to me because he represents those people who threw off the yoke of myth and legend upon updating their world view in the post-Copernican, Newtonian world of the Enlightenment. I gave those cites because you seemed to think there were no early opponents to the ideas of the Resurrection and the Ascension, or that it was witnessed.

Truth is ultimately the dispute here. I'm calling truth the sum of human knowledge, based on all the preponderance of evidence. You are calling truth the stuff you've arrived at inside your head, almost devoid of the external evidence I'm referring to. Perhaps you can appreciate why that doesn't meet the criteria of truth by the generally adopted standards I'm applying.

On the contrary there is no corroborating evidence of any kind as you may think, other than a couple of cursory remarks in Josephus, which are embedded in some larger concern Josephus was having about the sex lives of various leaders, and the political intrigues as they vied for power. These are generally believed to be edits done by copyists, probably no earlier than the 2d c. There is nothing outside of this which authenticates the existence of an actual person named "Jesus".

You won't find any supporting documentation of the kind. All you will find at best are anecdotes from 100 yrs or more after the alleged life of Christ.

He's expressing contempt for Christianity because, he says, it's forced on young people by illiterate teachers. He says they are spreading anti-intellectural sentiment and undermining academic progress. Sound familiar?

It sounds like he's referring to magic in the sense of stage magic. Something Jesus picked up in Egypt.

To my knowledge there is no evidence that Celsus ever heard that version of the story. It's impossible to say when those legends first appeared. And no matter when they first appeared in text, it's unclear how many Christians ever heard the same version within that first 100 years or so. By the time Jerome comes along - about 150 years after Celsus, roughly, the decision is made to go around the world and collect all the different stories that exist, and then to decide what needs to be left in and what needs to be left out. From that fact alone we can assume that the congregations were not working from the same information. That gets you the Vulgate, which is the Catholic Bible of antiquity, which was the core document until the Reformation, and then the main change was to remove the books of the Apocrypha (Greek continuation of the Old Testament, containing events after the invasion of Alexander the Great up until the era of the New Testament).

When I say Jesus did not exist, I mean the legendary character did not exist, which is what Celsus is saying. Whether or not some other man--perhaps a rebel against Rome--was immortalized by legend of his heroism, fighting for Jewish independence . . . is immaterial, and it's impossible to say. The question I was addressing is that Jesus is not a historical person, which is a combination of two main facts: (1) the story is legendary, on its face, from a rhetorical analysis standpoint, and (2) there is no autograph by any person purporting to have witnessed any fact about a man named Jesus, which would establish that there was such a man who gave birth to the legend.

The question is, where do Christians get their source? And the answer is clear: oral tradition--legend.

There is no evidence that any of it was widely known or agreed to in the 2d c, until we plow through the oldest Christian writings. Remember: there is no Bible in this era. Codex Vaticanus doesn't appear until 200 years later. You might want to rethink your timeline for the creation of the documents you believe were done in the 1st century. And then see if you can figure out what people were actually talking about, other than the handful of Churches Paul corresponded with (whoever he was; we have only his word, nothing else to go by). We have no idea how much was spread by oral tradition alone, even after a few of them were committed to text. As far as we know the massive copying efforts came centuries later.

He makes it quite clear that he is a deist, which means he rejects Jesus as myth, and understands that God does not interfere in matters of the real world. His disputation of religion in The Age of Reasonis as much a discounting of the types of fallacies that religion imposes on the rational mind, which seems to be cast more as a defense of valid logic than an attack on the institutions of religion. Again, this speaks to the progress of the Enlightenment, when people were afforded access to plenty of scientific facts that undermine central doctrines like the the Creation Myth of Genesis.

That wasn't my point. We were talking about whether Jesus was a historical person. A man whose legend incorporates the features of other legends, such as the 12 followers of Mithra, or the Cup of martyrdom of Socrates, or the logos of Heraclitus, or of Aristotle, or Philo (the Jewish scholar) . . . and all the while burying the reality of what was taking place in Judaea, which was a genocide by the Romans (some entire villages were massacred; in Jerusalem they went door to door butchering entire families at random, and untold numbers were starved to death) . . . is a legend based on the fusion of myths and legends from neighboring cultures, which arose at the time swarms of Jewish people were fleeing Judaea for the safety of the hinterlands, encountering these other religions, such as the Persian Mithraism that preceded them, and this would be the time the legend of some war hero merges with the legend of some demigod of Persia. It's no wonder then, that they ended up having the magi appear -- that was my point. It places the Jesus story of this version, Mithra and Socrates rolled into one, and replacing the religious heritage of Judaism, which was in disarray under the scourge or Roman atrocities, riddled with infighting and made impotent by the destruction of the Temple -- it places this at their feet, a new religion, a new Savior, a new Covenant, a new story . . . it's all new. It's vaguely tied to their ancestral roots, but now they are on their own, at last able to build that Utopian world Plato might have even been proud of - esp. since they incorporated his teachings. But from their new homes in places like Alexandria and Tarsus.

The cross has nothing to do with religion. It's the form of execution for a rebel, posted up on the roads to the city to send a warning. What happened to that story? Where is the real history within this legend? That's what enquiring minds want to know. I thought Paine's analysis of the crucifixion was striking. It's a "quibble" on the words "death" and "Adam".

It wasn't an accusation, nor was it directed at you. Any person born anywhere is subjected to whatever indoctrination the local culture provides. It was you who claimed that the God of Judeo-Christian/Islamic tradition is superior to Quetzalcoatl or Loki. That's an incredibly ethnocentric claim. My intent was merely to point out that each culture validates itself according to its own standards, and devalues the outside claims. You're expressing the same thing; I was merely characterizing it as such.

If you mean I strive to be informed by the evidence made available to me through the work of experts and scholars, then yes, I agree. Otherwise I have no idea what you are referring to.

How does the collection and analysis of evidence compare with parroting?

You must have me mixed up with somebody else; that doesn't even apply to me. For most of my life I never laid eyes on a TV.

Is there something on TV that shapes public opinion about the Catholic Church? I have no idea where you came up with this idea about me, and I have no knowledge of the media programming you're referring to.

Of opposing abortion and gay issues? Yes. Of violence? No, I think I only touched on the genocide of the indigenous Americans under the color of the religious militancy of the Spanish Inquisition. You distanced yourself from it and I credited you for that.

That doesn't even sound like the voice of a Catholic. The doctrine is that you are only forgiven by God, and upon expression of remorse and/or making compensation, and there is no guarantee at all to the outcome as you seem to believe. I think just about all mental health experts agree that Confession, reinforcing expressions of remorse, and Penance are about as good as it gets to in the way of rehabilitating the criminal/sinner. Contrary to your assumptions about me I do recognize this as a kind of tolerance within the membership. The intolerance that remains without redress is the Church's position on public policy matters. If they ever just let go of these two issues -- that and indoctrinating young minds -- then I think they may someday become accepted by atheists as brothers-in-arms, since the rest of social issues they protect are also protected under secular humanism.

Oh I don't know. A lot of this was finished before it ever started, but we covered some interesting ground, I thought.

 

Wow! Very impressive Mr. Id. You truly are a gentleman and a scholar (Or a lady and a scholar, Ms. Id, and that's all right too). I'm pleased that you have so much respect for me and/or my views. Unlike you in my case, I really did think you were just trying to be a nuisance. My apologies. I understand now that you are also a sincere seeker of the truth. It's amazing that a non-believer would delve so deeply into the history, theology and philosophy of Christianity just to assure himself that it is wrong. Or am I mistaken in that assumption? And it's amazing that our investigations have lead us to such disparate conclusions. I have already admitted that you are more well read than I, but I feel I have read, and more importantly, experienced enough to have made up my mind on the issue of whether Jesus was exactly what He as portrayed in the Gospels claimed to be. Similarly I believe Paul's claims. You will say that these are all made up stories, but how provocative that a person we might now call The Chief Investigator for the Prosecution was literally stopped in his tracks, saw the light, and became the chief proponent of the cause he so diligently opposed. And for Paul the cross was everything. You, and Tom Paine, say it has nothing to do with religion, but it has everything to do with Christianity. The entire Old Testament was about sin, sacrifice and redemption, and its prophecies were fulfilled in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Need I quote John 3:16 here?

Well, I know you do not accept any of this, and that's your call. I can only urge you to re-examine the data, because there is a God in His Heaven and He does care about you. So much in fact that, well, there's John 3:16 again.

Returning to what I was saying a moment ago: perhaps your delving so deeply into the history, theology and philosophy bespeaks of a yearning for something, and that goes directly back to the OP's original query. He too seems to yearn.

Well, you know my answer: Nothing needs replacing. We have the real McCoy. Deal with it.

 

If you think religion needs to be replaced with something, then you're missing the point.