Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Sithdarth]

What I can say however is that what I did accurately do in my previous post was essentially disprove that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were "unreliable representations of Jesus' true teachings." You can say that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John may not convey the full story and of course you'd be right. You can say that critical elements may be missing because other gospels or accounts of Jesus' life were dismissed -- sins of "omission," if you will -- and since my specialty area in my religious studies hasn't centered around the gnostics I personally cannot disprove your point.

Which was precisely my point.

And new non-canon material -- the gospel of Judas being a most recent example -- is being uncovered all the time. Again, the church can't cover it up. The evidence of the non-canon material is there for all eyes to see, which would seem to me to discredit any argument that Christianity is terribly threatened by it. The worst case scenairo that can be argued is that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John paint a picture for the majority of christian believers that may be incomplete. But Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are certainly more than enough to define my faith and I've never felt shortchanged by not having twenty other gospels to read.

Which again was the point. You can point to the bible and say this is something akin to original Christianity and it has good points. What you can't do is point to it and say that this is exactly what Jesus taught because so little of the material was used.

[Gorefiend]

Ok, really quickly...

Most scholars agree that the Bible, especially the New Testament, is NOT the same today as it was when originally written. The Old Testament was a bunch of Jewish writings and tales written largely after Exodus took place and put together by Ezra. The New Testament was shoddily copied by unprofessional scribes* hundreds of times, for about 200 or 300 years before it was put into any sort of standard issue, and the English versions of the Bible are based on just a handful of later Greek manuscripts, including a forged one, compiled by Erasmus. This is fact. Things were added in, and those additions were perpetuated because the copyists often times didn't realize they were additions, or preferred them to the original text. A virtually undisputed example: the woman taken by adultery. Another; the Johannine Comma, the little bit of text which confirms the Trinity. The earliest manuscripts we have are from hundreds of years after the fact, so it is practically impossible for us to try to find the original letters of Paul, or the original Gospels, and translate them. So, even if the original texts were inspired by God, what we have now is watered down translation based on half-assed research and a handful of bad texts, which in turn are bad copies of bad copies of bad copies, hundreds of times over. Sorry SS, but the truth is you aren't really reading God's word. You aren't even reading Paul's word. You're reading English translators with their mistakes, prejudices and opinions+Erasmus (and one forged text)+1200 years' worth of priests and monks with their mistakes, prejudices and opinions+300 years' worth of professional Christian scribes and their mistakes, prejudices and opinions+200 years' worth of unprofessional scribes with their mistakes, prejudices and opinions+Paul. It doesn't necessarily mean they aren't words to live by. Just, words you gotta keep in perspective every now and then.

For more information on the subject, I recommend Bart D. Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus.

*Many professional scribes were not really literate, only able to write their name, and that hardly. Imagine how unprofessional scribes must've worked. Besides, frankly the language then wasn't favorable for scribes; many letters and words looked and sounded the same (many scribes worked in scriptoriums where one copy was read aloud and many scribes copied as much as they could), and there were no spaces. How would you interpret "LastnightatdinnerIsawabundanceonthetable?" Fortune, or paranormal phenomenon? Many also resorted to abbreviation, which later on might've been interpreted as part of the original text. To better illustrate my point, try writing a novel that is being dictated to you, with no spaces, by hand, and then get one or two friends to do the same and see how much both versions resemble each other.

[Roy_D_Mylote]

I'm of the--possibly stupid--opinion that if the true message of Jesus/God, the true method of salvation, etc., was screwed up by scribes or whatever, then God (if he were really benevolent) would accept into Heaven those who followed the tenants believed to lead to salvation.

In short, if you think you're saved, and God's message was screwed up, and you were doing what the screwed up message told you, then God would let you into Heaven. To do otherwise would be unfair.

[Bob The Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Roy_D_Mylote

I'm of the--possibly stupid--opinion that if the true message of Jesus/God, the true method of salvation, etc., was screwed up by scribes or whatever, then God (if he were really benevolent) would accept into Heaven those who followed the tenants believed to lead to salvation.

In short, if you think you're saved, and God's message was screwed up, and you were doing what the screwed up message told you, then God would let you into Heaven. To do otherwise would be unfair.

That's actually a widely accepted opinion. It goes back to one of my posts from a while ago. The verse goes something like "those who have not known the law will not be judged by it." The only question I have about that though is what if you know it's been twisted and still follow it? Does it become your task to find the truth?

[Roy_D_Mylote]

Insomuch as it's possible to find the truth, I suppose. Of course, it would be nigh impossible for a layman to uncover the truth for himself; he has neither the funds nor the ability to get the documents needed, and doesn't have the knowledge to properly read them even if he did.

Also aren't most of the original documents...destroyed? So it's fairly impossible.

[Sithdarth]

Well one can make the argument that it is possible for one to discover the truth on ones own. Pretty much every religionesque system of belief maintains that living a proper life always leaves a measurable effect on a person physiologically, physically, and spiritually. Namely a person living a good life always feels good and is never unbalanced in anyway. Further, they are always healthy and "pure". Finally they feel a closeness of affinity of their patron whatever that can come close to if not achieve full communion or even outright ascension to a higher plane of being.

This all plays into a theory I have about how to objectively define a moral code but that's neither here nor there.

[ZAKtheGeek]

I'm of the--possibly stupid--opinion that if the true message of Jesus/God, the true method of salvation, etc., was screwed up by scribes or whatever, then God (if he were really benevolent) would accept into Heaven those who followed the tenants believed to lead to salvation.

So you're saying God pretty much just wants blind faith, regardless of what the faith is actually put into?

In short, if you think you're saved, and God's message was screwed up, and you were doing what the screwed up message told you, then God would let you into Heaven. To do otherwise would be unfair.

Personally, I think the whole concept of being judged by some guy for decisions made by my mind which that very same guy designed is inherently unfair, but that's just me.

[Roy_D_Mylote]

Originally Posted by ZAKtheGeek

So you're saying God pretty much just wants blind faith, regardless of what the faith is actually put into?

I don't know what God wants. I'm not God.

Personally, I think the whole concept of being judged by some guy for decisions made by my mind which that very same guy designed is inherently unfair, but that's just me.

You control your mind and the decisions it makes, not God. Free will, it's awesome.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Gorefiend

Sorry SS, but the truth is you aren't really reading God's word. You aren't even reading Paul's word.

Strange that you'd apologize to me here. I didn't know I was the only Christian present. And for that matter, your observation doesn't require an apology. I've heard it all before, and believed it all before. I was a diehard atheist only three years ago. I've been a born-again believer for only two and a half years.

I suppose the fundamental issue at stake here is more a matter of faith. I believe the Bible because I've felt God's presence in my life and come to some rudimentary understanding of who He is based on my readings of the scripture. And anyone who chooses to believe in God subsequently has what atheists would deem the "perfect avoidance counterargument" in that, if I presume that God does exist and that the tenets of the Christian faith are true, then believing that God does exist gives the natural argument of "an omnipotent being is perfectly capable of course-correcting the documentation of his Word to ensure its total accuracy." Atheists would decry that logic as intellectually unsound and incohesive, and there's really not much I can say in response to that; my faith is on a deeper "soul" level than the logic with which my "brain" seems to function.

One specific argument to counter your point that I am capable of throwing back into the mix is this; while you can argue that many of the details or certain word usage in the accepted translations of the New Testament are acceptable, that papyrus I mentioned that was dated back to 125 AD contains cohesive ancient Greek of John 18 -- inarguably (at least in my opinion) one of the most important segments of the gospel incorporating the core elements of Christianity.

So you can say "well these petty details of Christianity are inaccurate" but earlier samples we have available that can be dated back pretty closely to the original writings contain core elements including Jesus' claim to be the son of God, Pontius Pilate's finding of Jesus to be a man without sin, Pilate's subsequent discovery that Jesus was in fact a King (but not a King of "this world," as Jesus stipulates in John 18 and as has been recorded in papyrus predating significant revisions by the early church) and that Jesus died and (at least claimed to) be resurrected on the third day. So yes, you can take the well-known example of the addition of the adultery sequence and Jesus' "let he without sin cast the first stone" argument and say it may not be accurate. But my faith in Christ isn't based on the details of his gospel, it's based on his overall message.

I don't care just how many people Jesus healed or whether a specific analogy He uses in Mark or Luke regarding grains of salt or branches and trees is entirely accurate. I do care about the fact that Jesus is the son of God and that his death redeemed my sins. And while you can debate that the constant revision work and transcribing of the gospels may have changed certain details in the scripture, it's a much harder argument to posit that the core elements of Christianity as a faith itself were false constructs. After all, why would so many of the original disciples and apostles like Paul condemn themselves to death to support a fabrication?

All I'm saying is this. If I'm Paul sitting on death row in Rome because of my Christian faith and Jesus never was resurrected or he never claimed to be the son of God and I have even the slightest suspicion that everything I've been told was a lie, I'm confessing everything. And the Romans were hoping their high-profile executions would do exactly that; force prominent early members of the church to concede that the gospels they were promoting were based on lies. It's what the Romans wanted to hear, and if they could have disproved Christ they would have been thrilled to have their empire's greatest writers and historians publicize the hell out of it, but it seems they never actually heard it.

[Sithdarth]

I don't care just how many people Jesus healed or whether a specific analogy He uses in Mark or Luke regarding grains of salt or branches and trees is entirely accurate. I do care about the fact that Jesus is the son of God and that his death redeemed my sins. And while you can debate that the constant revision work and transcribing of the gospels may have changed certain details in the scripture, it's a much harder argument to posit that the core elements of Christianity as a faith itself were false constructs. After all, why would so many of the original disciples and apostles like Paul condemn themselves to death to support a fabrication?

All I'm saying is this. If I'm Paul sitting on death row in Rome because of my Christian faith and Jesus never was resurrected or he never claimed to be the son of God and I have even the slightest suspicion that everything I've been told was a lie, I'm confessing everything.

I think you are still misunderstanding at the very least the point I was making. In that while some basic things did survive, like the resurrection, its highly improbably that his actual teachings in an non fundamentally way made it. Like I remember hearing something awhile back about a gospel that mentioned Jesus taught that one did not need a temple/church or a spiritual leader to find god and have faith. Which actually makes sense in regards as to his relationship with the Rabbis. The modern Church however is bigger and even more bloated than the Rabbis of Jesus' time.

Further, we don't even have a name for the 12th apostle. You know the people that were supposed to have been sent out to spread his teachings. That seems like a really important fact to be missing. Additionally, why don't we have any writings from the apostles. At the very least they should have recognized how important what they were teaching really was and the importance of recording it as many times as possible and from as many viewpoints as possible.

Which brings me to the next point. Why don't we have a gospel of Jesus? I mean the man had the best and most complete and unbiased view of what he was teaching. We all know eyewitness accounts are colored by the people that recount them and key changes can be made from one person to the next. I can't see how he wouldn't realizes this and the importance of having a direct account from him. Plus that whole free will thing, should it exist, throws a big monkey wrench in any plans God might have for making people write down the stories right.