Science vs. the Religion of Sexuality

[The_Doc_Man]

AB, those people need cranial episotomies to help them give birth to new ideas... ideas too big for the brain they have.

 

[Isaac]

Perfect description of the reactionary attitudes of the religious when their bigoty is challenged.

How are religious people Redundant, and how do they need to justify their existence within their own movement?
I'm confused

 

[Isaac]

Pretty much how any religion works.

Actually, yeah - that IS how a lot of religions work!
Spot-on

 

[Isaac]

The Bible does NOT tell us about God. It tells us about the beliefs of people who believed in God. In other words, 2nd-hand information. Which is now why I take the Bible as a good source of old societal information, but its mysticism and miracles are merely misinterpretation of reality.

That would be much more believable if it weren't the case that 10's of 1000's of people witnessed Jesus' life and miracles, with a number of them writing it down, and hundreds of thousands of them quickly believing in Him despite just about the instant harshest persecution known inflicted, and without the incentives that have generally been the "driver" of other religions' starting, such as world domination, political influence, ethnic revenge, promises of sexual gratification in the afterlife, etc.

Of course you choose to see those "writings" as "religious", and thus, discard them.

I don't think this makes sense.

If PersonA writes something down, and nobody gathers around it in what you consider a spirit of religiosity, you study it as History.
If PersonB writes something down, and people gather around it in what you consider a spirit of religiosity, (mostly because you decided beforehand that what they wrote down can't possibly be true), you consider it Religious Writings, and not Historical.

Your choice to taint the credibility of the one because a lot of people believed it and started living differently because of it has no basis in anything related to credibility. If anything, it's exactly the opposite: People gathered around it and believed it, starting the most amazing world movement in history - precisely because it HAD the credibility of signs and wonders.

I think if a person looks at it in that objective light, having never heard the word "religion" or "religious writings" before, it enables you to see it for exactly what it was - documentation and evidence of something amazing, so amazing that people believed it who had seen it, and hence the movement started.

If Aliens land in New Mexico tomorrow, and the relatively few people there document what happened in the way they know how, and then after a while there are millions of believers, and finally billions of believers, you can arrive at that scene 1900 years later and claim "That's nonsense. It's not corroborated by Historical writings, those are just Religious writings". But your claim is based on your own decision to label them "religious writings" because of their Content and Effects on people--which is circular, and has no real impact on the veracity of what was documented/witnessed/written.

That's just the beginning of the evidence of the truth of Christianity, but it's a place to start.

 

[Isaac]

Regardless, I think my choice of post title says it all:

If you think Religion is a set of people denying facts to make themselves feel better, help them understand and cope with the world they live in, and control others...........Then it is undeniable that modern beliefs in Sexuality have DEFINITELY become a religion! Complete with irrational, science-defying dogma, harsh treatment of dissidents, the [not] coincidence of a feel-good doctrine, massive proselytizing, an eagerness to force it on unwilling people, and exclusivity!

If you saw that definition from anyone else, on a website containing a viewpoint you agreed with, most secularists would tend to agree a fair amount right away. "Yes, that pretty much sums up what I think about religion"

Yet the exact same thing describes a lot of the current sexuality of ultra-progressives. Why not see it for what it is?

 

[Isaac]

The people who can no longer define what a woman is and believe biological men can get pregnant, truly think the world is ending any minute now because of global warming all while kneeling at the altar of wokeness, they somehow have ALL the answers

Exactly - this is why my choice of post title.

The sex-crazed policy makers and think tanks have failed to notice when their "it's all science and love" crossed over into "it doesn't even align with reality any more, but you better agree with it anyway".

Nice sounding ideas bolstered by a little science turned, after a while, into irrational Dogma. Which calls into question the whole thing, and the people who promote it!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

That would be much more believable if it weren't the case that 10's of 1000's of people witnessed Jesus' life and miracles, with a number of them writing it down

It doesn't matter how many witnessed anything. It matters how many of them documented it. And it matters even more how many secular writers documented it since THEY had no skin in the game. The problem with believing the Bible's story of Jesus starts with the decree for that census that caused Joseph to bring a very pregnant Mary on a long journey that led through Bethlehem. But we know which kings were in power at the time and none of them was recorded as having ordered such a census. A lot of people supposedly attended the Sermons on the Mount - but the meticulous, one might say OCD, Romans didn't note the multitudes crossing borders in sufficient numbers to count as "multitudes." People point to Josephus as a documenter, but he lived a generation and a half AFTER the time of Jesus and all of his recorded witnesses were second-hand. He was never in the right place to see for himself anything that Jesus did. Even Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea named in the Bible, has no secular history of a trial of Yeshua bar Yoseph (which would have been the Aramaic name of Jesus) - though there are records of other trials when he presided.

When the secular writers of the time are silent then what is left is the single source called the Bible - but rules of evidence for historical documents require some type of outside corroboration. Otherwise you have a circular reference or an unsupported reference.

 

[Pat Hartman]

It matters how many of them documented it

How many people documented the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD?
How many people documented what went on in Wolf's Lair?

Does it matter that Pliny the younger was Roman and not much more than a child or that everyone in the Wolf's Lair was a Nazi and therefore biased?

The people who documented the miracles of Jesus were secular until they weren't or were more likely Jews. Also remember that not many people of the time were literate.

Do you believe that 2,000 years from now, people reading all biased, negative stories about Trump will believe he was the evil orange man or the saviour of our Republic.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Physical evidence of what happened in 79 AD remains available. Physical evidence remains for Wolf's Lair. I don't care whether the documenters of Jesus were any particular religion. The question is whether they documented it.

A problem with the Bible that contains the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (four such witnesses) is that it was cherry-picked by the Council of Nicea, so there were no dissenting voices. In essence, the books were laundered.

Among other books of the Apocrypha, the books of Esdras were removed because they made it clear that when someone says "I'll pray for you" that the prayer plus a few drachma MIGHT get a cup of tea and a pastry. (Per Esdras, only your own prayers have any value. You face God alone and answer for your actions alone.) Intercessory prayers have no meaning.

 

[NauticalGent]

is that it was cherry-picked by the Council of Nicea, so there were no dissenting voices. In essence, the books were laundered.

An inconvenient truth that believers are either unaware of or choose to marginalize. I am married to a devout Christian and I respect her beliefs and I value her contentness (and my sereneness) so I do not voice such things...

 

[NauticalGent]

Physical evidence remains for Wolf's Lair.

New one on me...I had to GDB...learn something new everyday

 

[Isaac]

It doesn't matter how many witnessed anything. It matters how many of them documented it. And it matters even more how many secular writers documented it since THEY had no skin in the game. The problem with believing the Bible's story of Jesus starts with the decree for that census that caused Joseph to bring a very pregnant Mary on a long journey that led through Bethlehem. But we know which kings were in power at the tme and none of them was recorded as having ordered such a census. A lot of people supposedly attended the Sermons on the Mount - but the meticulous, one might say OCD, Romans didn't note the multitudes crossing borders in sufficient numbers to count as "multitudes." People point to Josephus as a documenter, but he lived a generation and a half AFTER the time of Jesus and all of his recorded witnesses were second-hand. He was never in the right place to see for himself anything that Jesus did. Even Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea named in the Bible, has no secular history of a trial of Yeshua bar Yoseph (which would have been the Aramaic name of Jesus) - though there are records of other trials when he presided.

When the secular writers of the time are silent then what is left is the single source called the Bible - but rules of evidence for historical documents require some type of outside corroboration. Otherwise you have a circular reference or an unsupported reference.

Pliny the Younger, Josephus and Tacitus, all secular historians of the first and second centuries AD, wrote about Jesus Christ.
They also wrote about their fierce persecution / executions of Christians, who because of them or their parents actually having seen divine acts of Jesus, knew for certain he was God, and thus were well known for being almost always incorrigible in their determination not to deny Christ.

Sounds like quite the stretch to me, imagining that all of that was some kind of elaborate conspiracy to trick you...

It's also a bit circular:

- Why don't you believe these writings?
- Because they're written by religious people
- What makes them religious people?
- Because they wrote that thing!!

Keep in mind most scientists WERE religious until very recently, and you probably don't struggle with that...

 

[Isaac]

An inconvenient truth that believers are either unaware of or choose to marginalize. I am married to a devout Christian and I respect her beliefs and I value her contentness (and my sereneness) so I do not voice such things...

That's like objecting to the DSM-5 because it was curated by psychiatric experts who agreed.

I'd say it's a supporting truth.

The Council picked the books that supported the gospel that was preached. The books that were dropped were deviating from it, hence, they were dropped.

Makes perfect sense to me!

 

[Isaac]

It doesn't matter how many witnessed anything

What??!

I'm going to refrain from saying what I really think about that statement. Especially from a scientist who probably knows enough about history to know that not all of the history of mankind was during a time period when everyone could make videos and type documents.
Much of mankind's history has to be accepted as having been documented in large part by verbal traditions.

 

[Isaac]

I don't care whether the documenters of Jesus were any particular religion. The question is whether they documented it.

That's strange, in past posts you've said the reason you don't trust it is that the writers were religious.
What changed? Other than we started talking about documentation?

 

[Pat Hartman]

There are believers in this world and there are questioners. The Democrats believe everything CNN and their political leaders tell them. I spent 12 years in religious education classes (Catholic). They always concentrated on the New Testament and discouraged me from reading the Old Testament. Being a questioner, I didn't really understand that until I had read enough history to learn about many of the bad things done in the name of Religion with Christianity and Islam being the primary villains. The dogma of Rome disturbs me. Popes are not infallible. The current one is an actual joke. Some of the earlier ones were more like criminals. The fact that the hierarchy of the church covers for the bad seeds really disturbs me. The hypocrisy of the clergy disturbs me. But they haven't completely destroyed my belief in the God of the Jews and Christ his messenger.

If you read the Bible as if it were verbatim history, there will be lots of areas of conflict. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, we see multiple versions of the same events. I haven't seen any consensus regarding why the deviations exist or why they were allowed to remain over the centuries. Surely others noticed them in the past and yet they were never reconciled. As archeology progresses, we see more discoveries that connect real archeological sites with bible stories. So, there is a good body of evidence that much of the Bible is actual history. Other parts offer us a better way of living. We see the good and the bad of people through history. Some of the early books such as Genesis are stories from ancient oral histories that try to explain the world in a way that people of the time could understand. At times during history, people have taken these stories as reality, in which case the earth is 4,000 years old but as science progresses, we see that some of these stories can't possibly be true unless science is false. So, if you believe the earth came into being more than 4,000 years ago, does that make the Bible a lie? I don't think so.

 

[Isaac]

I definitely feel that Roman Catholicism, although providing a structure which aligns with many major elements of Christianity, has gone astray in a number of ways, and do not defend it, per se. Popes are definitely not infallible, and the dogma of Rome disturbs me too. I think Protestantism is not new, but has resurfaced throughout history in waves, thank God. The Bible makes it clear enough to me that since the resurrection of Jesus, anyone can have a personal relationship with Him and be redeemed through belief and surrender, although when it comes to things like good works and sanctification, I tend to "read the Bible for myself", and fall somewhere between the two, there are just too many verses about "actions" being important for me to go all the way with the full-scale grace-only Protestant emphasis that are to be found in some places, and too much about simple belief being a basis for forgiveness to be anywhere remotely close to Catholics in daily practice.
Although interestingly, close family members have been in the C.Church and a couple of them had what seemed to be one of the best relationships with God I have ever seen a person have. Then again, they took it personally; many don't.

For me the differing versions of events is a big nothing-burger. If multiple people witness events, everyone tells it a bit differently.
If the early Christian church had remotely considered that to be suspicious, and wanted to fool everyone, they would never have included them all!

If you listen to 1000 witnesses recounting of a crime, you get 1000 stories with some amount of similarities.

Christianity is the most enduring, effective force with evidence of families and people being redeemed, improved, joy-filled and hope-filled that the world has ever seen, nothing comes close.

Human nature is evil; people will use anything, including Christian umbrella organizations, for all kinds of evil, but this says nothing about the veracity of the faith, just the dirt of the human heart.

When I was younger, I felt science might call into question the Bible. As the years went by, I notice that "science" changed its mind every few years, which is natural, as it's a process of understanding what we misunderstood yesterday. Time after time after scientists had said "this does it - the Bible has to be false because of ___", then new ways of understanding the situation would emerge. After a while I decided I had seen enough. The Bible is true, and some parts may be storytelling and contextual and lore, but the only part I need to be certain of is the part I am certain of.

There is a guy in Texas, a scientist, who maintains a museum where you can see evidence for yourself that contradicts many of the things evolutionists have promoted about the age and sequence of earth layers. He has been persecuted infinitely, but he persists, and the evidence is there, although I'm not sure for how much longer.

I don't know about how the world is going to end with a lot of certainty as it pertains to the way I understand the world around me.
One thing I think MIGHT be relevant is, I am waiting for the Catholic Church to embrace unnatural sexual relations as "good", there is some evidence to suggest that when that happens, the end is near.

I'm often reminded of the Bible saying in the last days, men will call evil, "good" and good "evil". We can interpret that many ways, but when I read stories about parents in the USA who reported sexually explicit material being taught to little children and those parents being reported TO the police (rather than calling the police to report the obscene material, which we all would have done just a few years ago), it definitely makes me think of this concept.

I often ask God to give me whatever understanding I need to live life well, there are a lot of unanswered questions, but I remind myself that having unanswered questions is not an excuse for me to refuse to surrender to God...it's just evidence that there is a God, and I am not Him! It's evident that all of this didn't come from nowhere, so Whoever created me, I think I'll err on the side of caution and submit to Him!

I liked your post Pat. I think I agree with every statement made. Yes there are unanswered questions. There is also a lot of evidence that a personal relationship with the God of the New Testament provides a positive transformation a bit unlike anything else. There are 10's of 1000's of people per year coming to know God. There is a small trickle that leave the faith, I'm not sure what the nature of their personal relationship was with God before they left.

"God has put enough into the world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing. But He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone.”

 

[The_Doc_Man]

It doesn't matter how many witnessed anything.

I don't care whether the documenters of Jesus were any particular religion. The question is whether they documented it.

You split the statements, then objected to them. They should be taken together. Let's try it this way. I don't care how many folks saw anything 2000 years ago. If they didn't leave behind some kind of trace, then anything we have is hearsay evidence. Have you ever played the game "Telephone" where after about five or six "relays" of a message, it has become nearly unrecognizable? The ones who actually WROTE something at the time, however, offer contemporaneous evidence that is of considerable value. The ones who saw something but recorded nothing might as well have not been there... and in fact we could never know if they were or weren't.

Pliny the Younger, Josephus and Tacitus, all secular historians of the first and second centuries AD, wrote about Jesus Christ.

Again, they were in different areas and different generations. Pliny the Younger in the year 112 AD had to deal with trials of Christians and wrote about them. He wrote about the eruption of Vesuvius that had occurred 25 years ago (in his lifetime), so a previous question about how we knew about Vesuvius is "because a contemporary wrote about it." We know that Christians were placed on trial. But to say that Christ was real because someone else THOUGHT he was real? That's a bigger step.

Tacitus, in his Annals, references the Emperor Nero and how he was noted for persecuting Christians. In that context, he mentioned Christ. But he was never close to the Holy Land. There has been a scholarly debate on whether Tacitus actually wrote the Annals, having to do with style issues.

Josephus was closer in time and place, but his works are in dispute by many scholars. Historian Louis H Feldman has cast doubt on his Antiquities, which is the source of the Judean references.

 

[Galaxiom]

That would be much more believable if it weren't the case that 10's of 1000's of people witnessed Jesus' life and miracles, with a number of them writing it down

There are no contemporary historical accounts of Jesus existing. The record starts with records of the belief of Christians written by Flavius Josephus in 78 AD. There are stories of thousandth witnessing the miracles but not credible accounts.

The "miracles" are all the more reason to reject the stories as fiction. The New Testament was a story written long after in Greek. Not a contemporary historical account.

Even if we consider the canonical gospels it is notable that they do not concur with each other. Only John apparently felt it worth mentioning the miracles.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Pliny the Younger wrote a first hand account of the eruption. His uncle took his fleet to Pompeii but couldn't land and so landed 8 miles away but he died on the beach trying to escape.