[Misc] Christians seem to be really good people

[Jolly Red Giant]

Oh - and by the way - on the comment posted in the title of the thread - most of the 'devout' Christians I know were and are paedophiles, misogynists, and all around scumbags who exploit anyone they could/can for a quick buck - and growing up in Ireland I knew/know a lot of them.

 

[kuzushi]

So according to "John", he had to see it with his own eyes, he would not take the word of 10 others he knew well, and were there, but you are certain, without knowing who really wrote the Gospels.

Yes.
I know that Mark was a disciple of Peter, and Luke was a disciple of Paul, very close to Jesus.
Some scholars say that Matthew and John were written by disciples of Jesus.
We also know that Paul, who also appears in the book of Acts, written by Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke, wrote a number of books of the New Testament.
Then there's Jesus's half brother, James, who according to tradition wrote the book of James, and the letters of Peter.

The guy in this video goes into quite a bit of depth as to why he concludes that the gospel of Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew.

How Do We Know Matthew Was the Author of the Gospel of Matthew? - Jonathan Morrow

We have good reason to believe that Matthew is the author of this Gospel. Here are 3 Reasons Why the Apostle Matthew Wrote the Gospel of Mathew.

www.jonathanmorrow.org

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

I'm not going to go through this whole thread to see if anybody else has already mentioned it, but has anybody read Dominon by Tom Holland?
I happened to start reading it a couple of days ago, there's a really interesting section in the first couple of chapters about the origin of the single Jewish God in previous Canaanite religions, and the references left in the old testament to the existence of other gods.

 

[kuzushi]

You know that Jesus didn't have holes in his hands, right?

There is a specific point right at the base of the hand where the nail would have gone through, not the palm, and apparently the shroud of Turin got this right, which is one of the things that endorses its validity, since most medieval art showed the nails as being in the palms.

How was the Turin Shroud Man crucified? - PubMed

As the literature is not exhaustive with reference to the way the Turin Shroud (TS) Man was crucified, and it is not easy to draw significant information from only a "photograph" of a man on a linen sheet, this study tries to add some detail on this issue based on both image processing of high...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Do we really need new medical information about the Turin Shroud? - PubMed

Image processing of the Turin Shroud (TS) shows that the Man represented in it has undergone an under glenoidal dislocation of the humerus on the right side and lowering of the shoulder, and has a flattened hand and enophthalmos; conditions that have not been described before, despite several...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I also note that the scholar you keep referencing, must believe that these testemonies are false. He thinks the most likely answer is that the disciples had a group hallucination, but what you've just posted would mean they needed to have repeated group hallucinations.

Yes, that's true.
The New Testament says that Jesus remained with the disciples over a period of 40 days.

 

[Blues Guitarist]

Yes.
I know that Mark was a disciple of Peter, and Luke was a disciple of Paul, very close to Jesus.
Some scholars say that Matthew and John were written by disciples of Jesus.
We also know that Paul, who also appears in the book of Acts, written by Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke, wrote a number of books of the New Testament.
Then there's Jesus's half brother, James, who according to tradition wrote the book of James, and the letters of Peter.

The guy in this video goes into quite a bit of depth as to why he concludes that the gospel of Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew.

How Do We Know Matthew Was the Author of the Gospel of Matthew? - Jonathan Morrow

We have good reason to believe that Matthew is the author of this Gospel. Here are 3 Reasons Why the Apostle Matthew Wrote the Gospel of Mathew.

www.jonathanmorrow.org

Please provide evidence of these claims, how do you "know"?

About the only thing we know for sure is that half of the books claimed to be written by Paul are forgeries.

No-one thinks that Matthew wrote the gospel of Matthew - that was a random suggestion by church fathers hundreds of years after the event.

The only thing you can say about the New Testament books with any confidence is that most of them are written by anonymous authors, or are forgeries.

 

[Triggaaar]

There is a specific point right at the base of the hand where the nail would have gone through, not the palm, and apparently the shroud of Turin got this right, which is one of the things that endorses its validity, since most medieval art showed the nails as being in the palms.

It seems a bit of a shame then that the bible gets it wrong.

Yes, that's true.
The New Testament says that Jesus remained with the disciples over a period of 40 days.

Given that, and that your scholar thinks it could have been a group hallucination, he must be quite convinced that the accounts of Jesus remaining with them for 40 days are false.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Yes.
I know that Mark was a disciple of Peter, and Luke was a disciple of Paul, very close to Jesus.
Some scholars say that Matthew and John were written by disciples of Jesus.
We also know that Paul, who also appears in the book of Acts, written by Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke, wrote a number of books of the New Testament.
Then there's Jesus's half brother, James, who according to tradition wrote the book of James, and the letters of Peter.

The guy in this video goes into quite a bit of depth as to why he concludes that the gospel of Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew.

How Do We Know Matthew Was the Author of the Gospel of Matthew? - Jonathan Morrow

We have good reason to believe that Matthew is the author of this Gospel. Here are 3 Reasons Why the Apostle Matthew Wrote the Gospel of Mathew.

www.jonathanmorrow.org

We are supposed to take note of a Mormon preacher and a fundamentalist author - you do see the difficulty with this - don't you.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This thread is going well, vis-a-vis, Christians, top of the cults.

No doubt, with what about what this bloke says, and he studied relative things at the university of Witwatersrand, the silliness will be resurrected shortly.

 

[Sepulveda]

Wow seems like you guys are actually trying to discuss the sex of angels (as we say over here.) My contribution is that Catholicism got so inbued in our culture that it took the place of previous Roman or pagan festivities (only changing the names) and the saints simply took the place of the minor deities of old.

Plus, we have blasphemies. And I don't mean the American kind, where saying "god damn" is for some reason a blasphemy (you're simply saying "may God damm you/me/it", it's not blasphemous come on.) No, I mean throwing insults and swearwords towards God, Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Those are basically the highest tier of Italian swears, while things like "f***", "shit" etc are not as serious and offensive to nearby listeners. The funny thing is that some regions like Veneto and Tuscany have adopted blasphemies so fully into their dialects that you can hear an old man sprinkle "the Madonna's a whore" into a discussion in dialect before going to church - sometimes out of habit and sense of cultural duty/community, sometimes out of true beliefs.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Given that, and that your scholar thinks it could have been a group hallucination, he must be quite convinced that the accounts of Jesus remaining with them for 40 days are false.

I think it was probably more of a case of 'we're f*cked - what do we do now? - I know - let's rob the body and tell everyone he rose from the dead - they'll believe us and we will be able to keep our religious sect afloat'

 

[Guinness Boy]

Oh - and by the way - on the comment posted in the title of the thread - most of the 'devout' Christians I know were and are paedophiles, misogynists, and all around scumbags who exploit anyone they could/can for a quick buck - and growing up in Ireland I knew/know a lot of them.

You won’t get a response from @kuzushi on that observation. His brain washers didn’t prepare that response for him.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

I am rather loathe to get involved in this thread - but this post caught my eye.

The idea that God might have dabbled in creating life elsewhere in the Universe but 'he may have done a few things that wouldn't have worked here, such as creatures that would be lethal to everyone, or that breathed some different kind of gas or something' - kinda goes against the whole God is all knowing and all seeing and can do no wrong idea promoted by devout Christians. Surely if he wanted to dabble with creating life on another planet he would be capable of ensuring that said life would survive, grow and flourish - he is after all a supreme being.

But - lets look at this a little further - let's look at some of his so-called dabbling on this planet - where he created a parasitic worm called Onchocerca volvulus which burrows into the eyes of children causing intolerable itching, and in the most serious cases permanent blindness, to tens of thousands every year. What kind of a 'loving' God would create such a parasitic organism that would cause so much pain to children ?

We hear the mantra 'God works in mysterious ways' - which really is code for 'if this being really exists he must be a psycopath' for inflicting such pain on children without any remorse.

A few comments on Jesus -

Did he exist - possibly - most biblical scholars believe that a historical figure who could be characterised as Jesus probably existed, or at the very least, is an amalgam of a number of religious characters from Palestine (a society barely out of the Bronze Age at the time). It is likely that Jesus led a breakaway sect from a religious movement led by John the Baptist - and that the religious sect that he founded was an apocalyptic sect who believed in the end of the world within their lifetimes. The New Testament, at best, was written at least 100 years after the death of Jesus (who may or may not have been crucified - it was a common form of execution in Roman controlled Palestine). Furthermore - the New Testament is not a single book - it is a varied collection of different writings by different authors who may or may not have been writing to support a specific political or religious agenda at the time.

The Bible itself is a highly selective collection of writings that has been edited over time to fit with particular political demands. Ultimately four out of dozens of written gospels were selected in the early Christian church for political reasons during the various schisms that occurred within Christianity at the time (it should also be noted that Paul is the actual founder of the Christian religion - not Jesus). Indeed the Bible of most Christian faiths today, the King James Bible is a highly selective document, riddled with errors of translation of the original texts and was developed, again for political reasons, at the time of the Reformation as the monarchies of Europe were attempting to secure their dominance over the Church in Rome, which was the most powerful political entity in the medieval world of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

And - yes - Christians were persecuted before Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe - however, Christian sects were also a dab hand at persecuting others when they were in positions of influence - it was a two way street. Once Christianity became the established religion in the Roman Empire, the Christian Church drove pogrom after pogrom against 'non-believers'.

The problem with those who have 'faith' in a deity is that they then believe that they know what this deity is telling them is the 'truth' and they attempt to impose it on everyone in society. For example - in 1973 (with the assistance of the Americans) Augusto Pinochet organised a military coup in Chile overthrowing a democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, murdered tens of thousands of Chileans and brutalised the country for nearly 20 years. Pinochet said he was 'saving Chile for God' - what he was really doing was protecting the power and wealth of the Chilean elites from a left-wing government. This is just one example of dictators using religion as the backbone of their despotic regimes.

I have no problem with anyone who wants to believe in a deity and wants to practice a religion - indeed I will defend with all my might the right of an individual to practice their religion.

I do have a problem when those who profess a belief in a deity and interpret the 'truth' from such a deity, attempt to impose their beliefs on the rest of society. Then I will do my utmost to oppose this attempt to control society as a whole and the people who live in that society. We have a resurgence of the far-right around the world over the past 15 years or so. What is a political reaction to efforts to liberalise society (and not to liberalise it to any radical degree) is couched in religious rhetoric. It is an attempt to drive society back to a dominant white, patriarchal, (and misogynist) society where anyone who deviates from this perceived norm is demonised. From the Trumpers in America, to the supporters of Bolsonaro in Brazil, to the far-right in Ireland, Poland and Hungary - their attempts to attack the LGBTQ+ community, to whip up xenophobia and racism, and ultimately to protect the interests of capitalism, is played out through a veneer of religious fundamentalism - old-fashioned Catholic social doctrine from the 1930s in places like Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Brazil - and the vestiges seventeenth century puritanism in places like America, Hungary, Germany and other countries (and Islamic fundamentalism in places like Afghanistan, Syria and the countries of Northern Africa). Religious dogmatism has even gone so far as to equate criticism of the Zionist policies of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism.

So - by all means - believe what you want to believe - practice whatever religious beliefs you want to practice - but keep them out of the public sphere and don't attempt to impose your beliefs on others in your society.

I wish I could write like you, exactly my thoughts, and what I was trying to get across, it will fall on deaf ears though to one poster.
or you might get a reply with a video, proving nothing.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Wow seems like you guys are actually trying to discuss the sex of angels (as we say over here.) My contribution is that Catholicism got so inbued in our culture that it took the place of previous Roman or pagan festivities (only changing the names) and the saints simply took the place of the minor deities of old.

Happened everywhere - many of the Irish saints are old pagan Celtic deities. One of the more ironic is St Bridget (called after the Celtic goddess of Imbolc - spring - named Brigit) who was likely a Celtic druid who converted to Christianity and while she was alive 'could make pregnancies disappear'. The most prominent female saint in the Irish Church was an abortionist.

 

[Baldseagull]

Yes.
I know that Mark was a disciple of Peter, and Luke was a disciple of Paul, very close to Jesus.
Some scholars say that Matthew and John were written by disciples of Jesus.
We also know that Paul, who also appears in the book of Acts, written by Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke, wrote a number of books of the New Testament.
Then there's Jesus's half brother, James, who according to tradition wrote the book of James, and the letters of Peter.

The guy in this video goes into quite a bit of depth as to why he concludes that the gospel of Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew.

How Do We Know Matthew Was the Author of the Gospel of Matthew? - Jonathan Morrow

We have good reason to believe that Matthew is the author of this Gospel. Here are 3 Reasons Why the Apostle Matthew Wrote the Gospel of Mathew.

www.jonathanmorrow.org

Previously, you have said that these tales were handed on orally, and written down later, so not written by Matthew.
If it is written by Mathew, why does he say "they" instead of "we" when referring to the disciples, and "him" and not "me" when referring to Matthew?
Chinese whispers of Matthew at best. And why just these 4 and not the other Gospels?

 

[Triggaaar]

I think it was probably more of a case of 'we're f*cked - what do we do now? - I know - let's rob the body and tell everyone he rose from the dead - they'll believe us and we will be able to keep our religious sect afloat'

That sounds about right.

 

[kuzushi]

Here's the bit where Paul talks about the resurrection

Bible Gateway passage: 1 Corinthians 15 - New International Version - UK

The resurrection of Christ - Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what...

www.biblegateway.com

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

You won’t get a response from @kuzushi on that observation. His brain washers didn’t prepare that response for him.

I originally come from a small town in the west of Ireland of about 1400 people - four people from that town were convicted paedophiles - one a priest, one a Christian Brother and two were primary school principals who could be seen every day of the week at evening mass kneeling at the front row of the church.

Men who were well-known wife-beaters went to church every day -

My aunt, who was also a devout Catholic, owned a shop and would add extra over the prices marked on goods onto the shopping bill of every customer (there were no till receipts at the time - and she made her shop assistants do the same thing). Her shop assistants used to have a note book to add up the price of the groceries and she would check every single tot from the notebook every evening and if the assistant overcharged a customer she would smile, but if they undercharged she would take it out of their wages. Her nieces and nephews (including me) were treated as child slave labour - her own son was never asked to work in the shop. Eventually I got fed up with it and got my own back by regularly stealing cigarettes from the shop and selling them to my friends - I deserved the wage.

 

[kuzushi]

Previously, you have said that these tales were handed on orally, and written down later, so not written by Matthew.
If it is written by Mathew, why does he say "they" instead of "we" when referring to the disciples, and "him" and not "me" when referring to Matthew?
Chinese whispers of Matthew at best. And why just these 4 and not the other Gospels?

Jesus had such an impact that many people began to write their own gospels. I suppose the fact that so many people were writing gospels backs up the fact that Jesus must have been a real person. It's already unlikely that a book like the New Testament would be written about someone who never existed, but to have loads of other people writing about him as well stretches credulity even further. The church leaders obviously wanted to make sure the most correct ones went into the canon.

Biblical canon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Here's the bit where Paul talks about the resurrection

You do know that Paul was born in Turkey and never met Jesus (who may or may not have existed) - by the way - Paul is an actual historical figure - the most likely founder of Christianity who took over a religious sect (one of many that existed in that part of the world at that time) and controlled it. His family were prominent Pharisees and he was clearly looking to branch out and control his own religious movement. A driven man with his own agenda - and probably a sociopath.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Here's the bit where Paul talks about the resurrection

Bible Gateway passage: 1 Corinthians 15 - New International Version - UK

The resurrection of Christ - Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what...

www.biblegateway.com