Scientists Confirm the Signs of God

How do you know God has no self doubts? Did he tell you that?

Or perhaps....

Timber has written some very telling posts here, most of the information I have also read in a younger day. It is my personal opinion that Jesus is a composite of people and notions of the time, not an actual person. He is only real in the sense that certain teachings ascribed to him have entered the consciousnes of so many in the times that followed. He has become a cult personality to some, a great teacher to others, and a bore to those who reject all that is associated with him. Many Christians profess to follow Jesus, but in fact adhere to the Old Testament for their moral beliefs. Certain of Jesus' supposed sayings are great and I have no trouble following the lessons, even as an atheist.
So long as people keep the fairy tale aspect of it out of the government, schools and science, and refrain from knocking on my door, I can tolerate Christianity.

Well, Timber has certainly been having his fun.

I was five years old when i first conceived a resentment against organized religion. It matters not to be whether or not anyone believes that--it is the truth. Over the following nine years, the question of the existence of a deity was not important to me, but being put upon by organized christianity was important to me, and i resisted it. By the time i enrolled in university at the age of seventeen, i had so thoroughly abandoned organized religion that it was no longer an issue for me. For a long time, i considered myself agnostic--knowing the Greek origin of the word, i adopted that viewpoint because i had no means of "perceiving" god, which is what the word means, "a" meaning without, and "gnosis" meaning perception or knowing. Eventually though, it occurred to me that atheist was a more accurate term, as i was without god, which is what that word means. Christians are hot to assert that atheist means someone who denies that there is a deity. Certainly, there are people just as superstitious and ignorant as the theist who espouse such a point of view. I a not one of them. I have no reason to assume that there is a deity, and have seen no valid proof that there is, so i remain "without god," i remain atheist. It is a definition from without, however, the concept is meaningless in my life.

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In the late 1960s, while i was at university, there was a popular book entitled The Passover Plot. The christians really got their knickers in a twist about that one, and made all manner of scurrilous, racist charges against the author on the basis that the author is a Jew. I don't know if the author is a Jew, and it is, of course, on a objective basis, irrelevant to the thesis of the work. I found it interesting, but not conclusive unless one were to do one's own research. I might never have done, but for the typical idiocy of a christian. There was among my fellow history majors, a bobble-thumper who ranted constantly against the book. The silly boy did a great service to the publisher by bringing it to the attention of many who might otherwise never have heard of it. For myself, i applied the historiographic methods i had been casually been learning since the late 1950s as an autodidact, and the formal instruction i was then receiving in historiography at university. In those days, as Timber has noted, one could not just go online and "google" a topic. One was obliged to go to the library, and do a search in the card catalogue, and then go pull the actual books off the shelf. It was in this manner that i first became aware of the controversy of possible interpolations in Tacitus and Flavius (known to the christians, usually, simply as Josephus). One of the first things which occurred to me was the clumsiness with which the concept of the "proof" in Tacitus is alleged from a textual point of view. The two great works of Tacitus are The Annals of Imperial Rome, covering the period from Iulius Caesar to Germanicus Augustus (commonly known as Nero), and therefore ending the narration circa 69 CE; and The History of Imperial Rome, which covers the period of the four emperors (from the death of Nero--and including thereafter, Otho, Galba and Vitellius) through the end of the Flavians, with the death of Domitian in 96 CE. While it is true that most of this work does not survive until the present day, what was significant to me was that there is no mention of "christians" in the portion of the work which has survived. Furthermore, most of the fifth book, which covers the Jewish revolt in Palestine, does survive, and includes a detailed account of the history, culture and religion of the Jews--and includes nary a mention of the christians, although then known to the Romans, to other Jews and to themselves as a branch of Judaism. (Tacitus wrote the Historia during the middle years of the reign of Trajan, publishing it about 105 CE.) So in fact, he wrote these two histories out of chronological order--he wrote the History before he wrote the Annals, although the Annals covers an earlier period in Roman history. That is something which throws up an historiographic red flag. If he does not mention christians and christianity in a work about the period in which that cult became known to the Roman world, why would he go to the trouble of subsequently writing in detail about it in a work covering an earlier period in which they were almost unknown outside Judea and Asia (Asia then being a province of the empire in western Anatolia). A feeble case is made by christian scholars to the effect that as Tacitus was the civilian governor of Asia at the time he wrote the Annals, he was by then aware of christians and christianity, and so included them in his work. But he was a careful historian, and the passage which the christians pounce upon deals with the great fire at Rome, in 64 CE. This was only just over 30 years after the death of the alleged Jesus, and at a time when the cult was not known in Rome (despite christian attempts to assert both that the term "christian" was used immediately after the death of the alleged Jesus, and that the cult was known at Rome within a few years of that event, there is no reliable historical evidence for such claims--the word christian only appears in writing for the first time at Antioch, in what is now Syria, in the beginning of the second century). Furthermore, the allegation of the persecution of christians by Nero is completely without historical foundation--it may have happened, but there is no record of it which exists outside of christian sources written literally centuries after the events were alleged to have occurred. By a wide and careful reading, i came to accept the conclusion of many thorough and careful historians that the Tacitus passage is christian interpolation (badly done), and at all events, it does not confirm that such an individual ever existed, but only that there was such a cult which alleged that such an individual existed. A pathetic basis for an historical claim. I went on to do the dull and time-consuming work with Pliny, Seutonius and all the other non-christian "sources" alleged by the christians, and the picture just looked bleaker and bleaker for the christian allegations of independent historical confirmation of the existence of "Jesus."

The final problem boils down to this--"Jesus" is a corruption of the Greek Jesu, which is itself a corruption of the Hebrew Yeshuah--what we corrupt into Joshua in English. If one were to have thrown a handful of stones into a crowd in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, the odds of having hit one or more "Joshuas" would have been quite high--it was a common name. The cult of Jesus, that frantic obsession with a fictional construct so popular among christians today, has only come into existence since the evangelical movements of the eighteenth century in England and the American colonies. Prior to fundamentalist and charismatic christian missionaries from the United States carrying the Jesus cult to other nations, it was unknown outside the United States. The historical figure, if any actually existed, upon which "Jesus" can be based may have been a Jew named Yeshuah, who was an Essene mystic, and who "taught" in Palestine in roughly the period referred to. (What can be distilled from the confusion and contradiction of the four "gospels" of the accepted canon is consonant with the individual mysticism of the Essenes.) He would, as a teacher, have been accorded the title of rabbi--Yeshuah the Rabbi. As Timber has pointed out, the full panoply of cult worship can rapidly grow up around any public figure, without the least reference to reality. Christianity is, more than anything else, the creation of Saul of Tarsus, and he leaned heavily on the attributes of the most popular cults in the Roman empire in his day--and especially on Mithraism, with its virgin birth myth, the blood sacrifice myth, the rituals of the symbolic, cannibalistic consumption of the "messiah." From an historical point of view, there is simply no good reason to trust Origen, Eusebius, Pamphilus or any of the other early christian "scholars" on the scripture which has been created the the canon of christianity, and no good reason to believe that anyone remotely like the popular, modern cult figure of Jesus ever existed. On a logical basis--i hear in my mind the laughing call of the loon across a northern lake . . .

No, snood, not at all; if there were a god on the order of the God central to the Abrahamic Mythopaeia, there could be no doubt of that god's existence. That is what I said, and what I meant. The problem with Christian faith is that it forces its adherents to accept that there be such a thing as the center of the universe, and that it - Christian faith - is the center of that universe. To me that plainly is the epitome of artificial construct.

Now, if there were a god or gods of some other sort, perhaps some other condition might pertain, but that is not what is at discussion.

The choice, to borrow your anology, is not as you perceive it to be. The choice is to assume one knows all there is to be known, or to face reality and come to grips with the twin facts that much is unknown and that some things may remain ever unknown, and in the face of the unknown, procede inquiringly into it, knowing only that one does not know where the juorney leads. "God", on the Abrahamic order, as presented in this and other discussions on these boards, is no answer, but rather is a denial of the question.


There may be a god or gods, there may not be. What is known is that humankind from time immemorial has evidenced a desire for there to be a god or gods, and humankind has devoted incredible effort to the end of imposing one or another god concept on itself, generally to the detriment of equally plausible - or implausible - competing god concepts. It is known that perhaps a third of this planet's population subscribe to some extent to the Judaeo-Christian god concept, and it is known that including those subscribing to the third leg of the Abrahamic god concept in the talley leaves still fully half the planet's population not subscribing to the Abrahamic god concept. What is known, examining for sake of this discussion only the Abrahamic god concept and ignoring the god concept of the other half of humanity, is that many of the subsets of the Abrahamic god concept hold themselves to be exclusively the repository of the true god concept, considering all other god concepts invalid. What is known is that within the largest subset of the Abrahamic god concept, the Judaeo-Christian tradition, there exists the widest variety of mutually exclusive god concepts, each asserting all the others flawed, despite their common derivation, similar traditions, and essentially parallel developments. What is known is that if there exist a number of competing, contradictory, mutually exclusive, wholly internally referential theories the likelihood of any being valid is iexceedingly - to the point of vanishingly - small.
What is known is that when the impossible is discarded and the improbable is discounted, what remains is the probable. What is known is that while nearly anything may be possible, that which is probable tends overwhelmingly to prove out. What is known is that apart from its own internally referenced claim to validity, nothing indicates any level of probabilty attends the Abrahamic god concept, let alone the god concept of any of its subsets, and the mere excistance of the myriad mutually exclusive god concepts within the Judaeo-Christian subset of the Abrahamic god concept render each and all equally improbable.

I remind you again, I do not say impossible, I say improbable. I do not presume, as do religionists, to have "The Answer"; my arrogance, though mighty, extends not nearly that far. I'm small indeed, at the center of nothing, and my grasp is tiny, but for all of that, I am compelled to continue reaching. I have no idea what I may find, but I have no fear of the search.

It is not a closed-ended god concept which has brought humankind from the forrest fringes and savannahs to the fringes of interstellar space, wresting discovery and knowledge from the stars themselves, but humankind's inate, insatiable curiosity. While some humans content themselves with superstition and mysticism, hiding from the unknown, denying it by means of fairytale alternatives, other press the development and achievement of the species, pressing into the unknown, acknowledging it, embracing it, exploring it. It is explorers, not settlers, that open frontiers. Where frontiersmen go, settlers follow, and from there frontiersman push outward. Thus always has it been for humankind, and there is no reason to expect anything other than that thus always will that be - so long as there is humankind. There are no borders on the frontier.

Settle where you like, if you like. Know, however, that others are not so readily satisfied, and know too humankind is where it is today thanks to their kind.

And just to close with a pre-emptive strike of a sort, even with the strife and misfortune rampant on the planet today, the lot of the planet's human inhabitants never has been better, overall, and continues, day-by-day, to improve. I for one have no nostalgia whatsoever for the days of hunter-gatherer society, priest-kings, rampant incurable disease, the absence of basic human rights, fear of things that go bump in the night, and no internet.

Timber:


A little bit of a bloated estimation of nonbelievers relative contributions, I'd say. Believers have positively contributed, as well.

Actually MA, your statement is contrary to the mind set of early Christians who kept scrutinizing their faith and were constantly examining the scriptures "to see if these things were so." (Acts 17:11)

Remember Paul's definition of faith includes the words "evident demonstration". (Hebrews 11:1)

With the same stroke that I declare that timber has missed the point by over intellectualizing, I fear you may miss the point by confusing faith with credulity.

Neo,

Perhaps it is contrary to the mindset of early Christians but it is not contrary to what God says in His Word.

No, I know what faith is. I know what credulity is. My point was SIMPLY this. If God were so little of a God that He would have to prove Himself to imperfect man, I don't think He'd be much of a God.

What is the point of God if He has to prove Himself to anyone or anything? He is God. Perfect. Holy. Complete. Etc. Man is imperfect, etc. IMO, demanding or asking God to prove Himself so one can or would believe is placing oneself above God.

I don't dispute for a moment that some "Believers" have made significant contributions to the advancement of the human condition, snood. Some "Believers" are not "Settlers"; some seek and obtain more knowledge and understanding than do many of their compatriots - they do not "Settle" for the staus-quo. It was Einstein, for instance, who said "God doesn't play dice with the universe". Actually, I have to agree wih Einstein there - God, if there is a god, doesn't play dice with the universe. Its more like 3-card monte.

Neo, what point have I missed? Is not the predicate for this discussion the assertion "Scientists Confirm the Signs of God"? To my perception, I have demonstrated and explained my contention that not only is such not the case, but that the condition entailed by that assertion is, at best, highly improbable.

Well, there was that whole unicorn thing there a while back - I s'pose that was sorta off point.

MA, God doesn't HAVE to prove himself. He continually provides proof because we are in need of it. " But the path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that is getting lighter and lighter until the day is firmly established." (Proverbs 4:18)

Timber, you have been on point in this particular discussion for the purpose of the original post; so I'm sorry to have digressed. But I feel you often fail to remember the scriptures were written to provide light for the least sophisticated. That doesn't mean that we should dumb ourselves down. But it should force us to articulate our observations and beliefs in such a way that our good friend Joe Sixpack may understand them as well as we do.

To do less may cost an invitation to the barbecue.

I have no idea how the quotes get mixed up please help. I thought it was the computer, but this is the second time it happened to me.

I'd seen the activity on this thread but unfortunately didn't venture in until now. Snood, Set, and Timber have treated me to a wonderful discussion. Thanks to each of you.

There are many points as I was reading along that I felt I wanted to comment on but this one resonates with me personally

Timber wrote:


I've said before that for me a spiritual journey is the constant search for truth and meaning, knowing one can never find "TRUTH". God is or isn't, Jesus was or wasn't, one can search and make life decisions on what one finds but to suppose one's personal truth has meaning for another is specious.

Our religion has been considered secular by some because it is noncreedal and nondogmatic, yet it is very spiritual. Our religious education program teaches the tenets of all the world's major, and not so major, religions. I am currently teaching the 8th grade class which, after 10 years of studying everyone else's religions asks our children to determine their own truth at this stage in their lives. Last week we asked the kids to put themselves along an imaginary line where I represented Jesus as secular humanist on one end, another teacher represented Jesus as prophet in the middle and a third teacher represented Jesus as Messiah on the other end. After the kids lined up where they perceived themselves along the faith line I noticed my daughter M was standing in the closet far to my left. I gave her 'the look' to imply I wasn't impressed with her actions. She said we had made the left end of the line with Jesus as man, she was in the closet to the far left because she isn't convinced there ever was a historical Jesus!

Point.

You've gotta watch where you put the "[ quote ]" and"[ /quote ] " commands; the part you wish to quote has to be prefixed by the opening command code "[ quote ]]", and the end of the passage you wish to quote has to be suffixed by the closing command code "[ /quote ]]". If working with embedded, or cascading quotes, be certain there is an opening command code prefix and a closing command suffix for the parent post and that each daughter post within the parent post has its own opening and closing command codes. Something like this:





Now, I'll get real tricky - see if you can figure out what's going on here:

Timber's last post is proof that he IS God. :wink:

Well, mebbe not God - I notice I mistyped a couple things there - insconsequential, I hope, but I see the errors.

Gal 3:26
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

Prov. 3:5
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thine own underatsnding.

Prov. 5:7
Hear me now therefore, O yea children, and depart not fromthe words of my mouth.

Prov. 5:24
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (when he is young).

Prov. 17:6
Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.

Prov. 20:11
Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure and ahether he be right.

Prov.22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Tim 11:15
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Point.

n_d_c,

I could bite and take you to task for your post but after telling those who are willing to participate in a discussion as adults how much I appreciate their efforts, I refuse to stoop to your level. As I said above,

timber landko
Wow, thankyou for the lesson.

Yer weccum ... any time. Just holler.

"Speaking of Moses staying 40 years in the desert made him into a picker.Don't think anyone can live in the desrt that long and not have to clean house occasionally. Seinfeld"