Anyone who has frequented religious forums has probably seen a similar discussion. Such discussions show the fatal flaw in the teaching of Jesus: sincere Christians can’t agree on what he taught and what is true doctrine. — Art48
Jesus. The Bible. St. Paul. Take your pick. They all failed. — Art48
I expected this objection. The math of Quantum Mechanics works; it can describe phenomena within the accuracy equal to describing the distance from New York to San Francisco within the width of a human hair. Physicists argue about what the math means, not the math itself.Yeah, and you can see the same kind of discussions about quantum mechanics and what is the “true” interpretation, or is “realism”or “idealism” and which is the right metaphysical view, etc….. — Richard B
"the body of principles, dogmas, etc., in a religion or field of knowledge," from Old French doctrine (12c.) "teaching, doctrine" and directly from Latin doctrina "a teaching, body of teachings, learning," from doctor "teacher" — etymonline.com
Thought crime. :eyes:Rome did not much care what you believed so long as you observed obsequence to the Emperor. They worried about what you did, not what you thought. Christianity seems to have been the source of right-think. — Banno
Perhaps the most prevalent theme in the gospel preached by Jesus was the importance of HIS words. The words He spoke while He preached His gospel. Not the words of the Bible on the whole. Not the words of Paul. HIS words. — ThinkOfOne
It's kind of ironic because as far as we know there are no records of Yeshua ben Yosef words or whoever the first century figure was who may have inspired the legends. So how much should we care about this? — Tom Storm
From what I gather, the words attributed to Jesus from the beginning of His ministry through His crucifixion as documented across the four gospels: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are the only extant records. — ThinkOfOne
From what I gather, the words attributed to Jesus from the beginning of His ministry through His crucifixion as documented across the four gospels: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are the only extant records.
— ThinkOfOne
Much of the other stuff based on Mark, which is still decades after the supposed events. The gospels are anonymous documents which are copies of translations of copies of translations etc.
The first task here is to demonstrate that the Jesus story in the books comports with an actual life and words of a real person/god. Until anyone can do this, they are, it seems to me, just doing book reports. — Tom Storm
Interesting. Seems reasonable to place import on the quality of the underlying concepts conveyed. Evidently you place import on the quantity of records kept instead. — ThinkOfOne
Telling that you intentionally omitted the following from my previous post:
Interesting. Seems reasonable to place import on the quality of the underlying concepts conveyed. Evidently you place import on the quantity of records kept instead. — ThinkOfOne
Seems reasonable to place import on the quality of the underlying concepts conveyed. — ThinkOfOne
Besides, if Jesus/Bible/St. Paul didn't do any better than scientists then why should anyone believe they are teaching divine truth? — Art48
But the Roman Catholic Church is the “One, True Church©.” — Art48
In and of themselves, off what value are the underlying concepts conveyed by the journal entries in the novel? — ThinkOfOne
In and of themselves, off what value are the underlying concepts conveyed by the journal entries in the novel?
— ThinkOfOne
The key difference is we can readily demonstrate that Einstein actually lived, was a real person and we can demonstrate what he did. And we can readily compare the real person to the novel he inspired. So it's a very different situation. But I get what you are trying to say. — Tom Storm
Perhaps a thought experiment will help.
Let's say that Einstein passed away in obscurity, but prior to his passing Einstein had fully developed his thoughts and fully documented them in a journal. Let's say that an author came across this journal and wrote a fictitious account of a scientist and liberally interspersed the novel with quotes from Einstein's journal depicting them as entries from a journal kept by the fictitious scientist. The author then destroyed Einstein's journal after the novel was published. — ThinkOfOne
you once again intentionally omitted text — ThinkOfOne
↪ThinkOfOne Sorry, I didn't read it carefully enough.
you once again intentionally omitted text
— ThinkOfOne
You need to watch this sort of claim. You don't know what was omitted by intention or otherwise. I usually read this stuff quickly during breaks at work. — Tom Storm
So, in your hypothetical, the person is not a god or a miracle worker and not the founder of a religion. That's the first critical difference. Because if they were then there's a different kind of scrutiny involved. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. They are not equivalent examples. Also, even an obscure and almost totally hidden 20th century scientist can be identified fairly readily using records and research.
That said - if the journal has actual science documented in it that can be tested empirically and validated, then we can accept that part of the information. The testable part. The other information we would be unable to confirm. It might not matter if Einstein was fictional as the methods described could be confirmed.
But now you have another problem. Trying to fit your hypothetical into the Yeshua/Jesus story.
Where is the equivalent of a journal with actual words in it as source material for the gospels which are copies of translations of copies of translations, written decades after the events? Your thought experiment is predicated on a real and ordinary person who has left direct first hand source material via a written record of actual words said. And only one person involved in the process which took those words and recast them in fiction. Can you demonstrate that Yeshua kept a diary? Can you demonstrate that any notes were ever taken of Yeshua's itinerant preaching? Can you demonstrate that there is any connection at all between any words as they appear in the gospels and any words said by any actual person? — Tom Storm
Where is the equivalent of a journal with actual words in it as source material for the gospels which are copies of translations of copies of translations, written decades after the events? Your thought experiment is predicated on a real and ordinary person who has left direct first hand source material via a written record of actual words said. And only one person involved in the process which took those words and recast them in fiction. Can you demonstrate that Yeshua kept a diary? Can you demonstrate that any notes were ever taken of Yeshua's itinerant preaching? Can you demonstrate that there is any connection at all between any words as they appear in the gospels and any words said by any actual person? — Tom Storm
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