This is off that train of thought but historically, we pretty much know that Jesus tried to bring monotheism to society and therefore the world and therefore is a significant figure. If you study Judaism, much of what he did including baptism follows Judaism. Baptism in the river is very similar to Jewish ritual cleansing called the Mikvah. It is not to wash away sins though. It is to purify ones self. It's more of a sanctification ritual. It has to be done a free flowing body of water like that. The last supper was in fact a Passover Seder, etc. So if you want to go really far with it, you can say Jesus was one of the more significant Jews of all time if nothing else. I mean if you really want to take the ball and run all the way with it but not go to Christianity.

Again, evidence is only as relevant or convincing as one allows it to be. It is still nevertheless a choice to see the bible as being false.

Perhaps. Therefore your evidence is not convincing.

It is not enough. Even to the people who think they discovered something that "may" be the temple or castle of King David, they don't know for sure.

Even they are not convinced, so why should I be convinced? Also, too many scholars and historians disagree with them. With so much controversy, I cannot be convinced unless it is something I really want to believe.

I only want the truth. That is why I want evidence. I weigh the evidence on both sides. Your evidence is not enough to outweigh the lack of evidence. If King David was so important there would be an unquestionable amount of outside evidence. There is not.

Jeanie the only absolute bottom line without a doubt fact in life is if you drop something, it will fall. That is the ONLY absolute fact that could not possibly be wrong. If I am mistaken here, please share another absolute fact that could not be false.

Absolute fact.

If you give a hungry man food.

He will eat.

and if you drop something in micro gravity it will 'float'...



Micro gravity is a part of our experience (as humans) so your fact becomes revelant only were it relates to the past-before-spaceflight.

None of that even applies to the meaning of "proof" or the value of "evidence" in this case.

Understand that I seek evidence that will convince ME. (Not you.) (You are already convinced.)

Hence if your so-called "evidence" is weak -in my opinion- and compared to what I already know, then you are correct --- It will not be accepted as proof by me.

When you present evidence TO ME, it is up TO ME to evaluate it and decide if it is valid or convincing enough to withstand my own personal scrutiny.

Yes, I am the judge of the evidence you present to me.

You might, however, find some babe in the woods, who might accept your evidence and believe you, but in my case, it is not enough and it is not conclusive.

Hahaha It's kind of like the big bang theory thread for me..well played Jeannie, well played

Let me just say this;

If you feel that you need to "choose" to believe it, then you really don't.

No, its nothing similar to why you don't believe the big bang theory. You know very little about the big bang theory. You choose to believe that the Lord made everything in six days simply because the Bible said so, or your mamma told you. You believe purely on faith, or the information was programmed into your brain and you just can't get it out.

So true. I couldn't believe the Bible if I wanted to, and to pretend to believe in something would be hypocritical.

The only possible way I could believe the Bible is if I made up my own meanings and descriptions for phrases and words so that they meant something that made sense to me.

Like when I read "The Lord said this or that.." I would rationalize that the word "say" does not really mean say when it concerns "The Lord" it must mean something else.

Or that the world being created in six days is possible because a day in The Lord's universe is not the same as a day in our universe. One day could be a billion years long.

Exactly.

In fact, for me, the only way to make sense of the Biblical story is to recognize that the Old Testament is nothing more than Zeus-like fables with a bit more jealousy and male-chauvinism added. Jesus was probably a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva, and the New Testament is nothing more than gross exaggerations based on superstitions and/or purposeful religious propaganda to try to hold Jesus up as a demigod.

The idea of demigods was quite popular back in those days. There are a whole lot of myths about men having been born of virgin women that had been impregnated by a God. That's not even an original idea. It was the basis of many myths in the Mediterranean region.

Why would the "real creator" of the universe chose to create a demigod born of a virgin AFTER mankind had already been making up these kinds of myths and legends for centuries?

For me that's a dead give-a-way that these rumors of Jesus being born of a virgin woman is precisely a man-made story.

That's the kind of fables people made up back in those ancient times. It's not even an original idea. The Greeks had lots of demigods. And then there was Apollo who was also the "Son of God", the God in this case being Zeus. However, Apollo was a true God himself. His mother was a Goddess, not a mortal human woman. So Apollo wasn't a demigod, he was simply the "Son of God".

But there were a lot of demigods in ancient myths. So that's a common theme that men have always imagined. To think that a real creator would then step in and do precisely what mankind had been fabricating in myths, is IMHO, unbelievable.

No, its nothing similar to why you don't believe the big bang theory. You know very little about the big bang theory. You choose to believe that the Lord made everything in six days simply because the Bible said so, or your mamma told you. You believe purely on faith, or the information was programmed into your brain and you just can't get it out.





I know nothing about it? hahaha I know more about it then most people who believe it. You shouldn't be so quick to judge.

The bible is clearly not a documentation of historically accurate
facts but it is hardly Zeuo-like fables. Whereas there certainly was
an ancient Israel and Hebrews and Hasmoneans and Philistines and
Christians and Romans and Egyptian all really existed.

In contrast, there never was any Mt. Olympus or Titans or multitude
of minor Greek gods, godesses and demigods.

Your excoriation of the bible is over the top. It is merely some
mixed philosophical writings and historical dramatization at the
dawn of recorded history. There are certainly many archaeological
discoveries which support various historical aspects of the biblical
narratives.

Hyperbolic comparisons degrade your arguments and appear to be an
overly dismissive attitude reflecting an inherent anti-biblical bias.

I'm pretty sure you agree that the great majority of people view the
bible as metaphorical and try to take from it what good lessons are
found therein regarding human nature and the concepts of God and
ethics. It is just silly to trash talk the bible.



Bible study is all about biblical interpretation ans scholars of
the Abrahamic religions universally recognize that the value of the
bible lies in it's interpretation not in taking it literally.



Now I know you find little in it very reassuring personally and that
you do not find many of the descriptions of God in the bible to be
satisfying and that the actions of God as described in the bible to
be disturbing but that is your own rather literal interpretation and
many others view it differently and largely without negative
connotation.

For example, when the bible talks about the destruction of Sodom and
Gemorrah and Lot's wife - you seem to view it as a description of
retribution and mass murder but others simply view it as a
discussion about how unethical and immoral behavior will lead people
to personal ruin. A philosophical parable written in the style of
those living a couple millenia ago. There is no real purpose to then
try to denigrate this allegorical action of God. Just put it into
context.

What is being said here is that according to their view of God,
unethical and immoral behavior will not be rewarded in the long
term but will result in utter personal ruin. Anyone who has seen
the results of alcoholism, drug use, VD, gambling, stealing or
murder might well find themselves agreeing that eventually unethical
behavior does in fact result in the destruction of a community
and personal ruin.



Many people find this early text very interesting and full of
meaning in light of long standing benign and intellectual
understanding of this book used in the founding of the Abrahamic
religions and find it odd that you seem to wish to attack it and
compare it to fairy tales when that is clearly not a decent
comparison.

It is never to late to repent!





People may have a vision of you throwing the baby Moses out with
the bathwater.

all quite true. we all accept evidence individually. the evidence i accept is that evidence which can be subjected to the srtict scrutiny of the scientific method. no other "evidence" will do.

precisely and there's no evidence that i see as relevant or convincing in the bible.

Everything we believe or know, is something we have chosen to believe or know. No matter how many times someone tells you 2 plus 2 is 4, you will only believe it once you allow yourself to believe it. Unless you are a very gullible person who just believes everything you may hear.

You post just goes to show how utterly silly you truly are.

2 plus 2 is 4, is a result of mathematical formalism. If you understand the formalism you can see precisely why 2+2=4. There is nothing to "believe" in that case. It's simply a matter of understanding the formalism.

Based on the opinions and views that you express it certainly appears to me that you truly don't understand anything. All you do is decide whether or not to believe things on faith.

If you actually understood things you'd know the difference between belief and knowledge.

Comparing a faith-based belief in ancient religious fables with a formal system of mathematical logic proves the point.

You missed the point entirely. The 2 plus 2 was merely an example. Ok, let's go a little further then that then. It is taken on faith there is no gravity or limited gravity in space. The only one's that would know this for absolute fact and not on faith is from being in space themselves. It is taken on faith that the world rotates around the sun, you have absolutely no way to know this for absolute fact. The sun may rotate around the Earth for all you know. The Earth is round is taken on faith. You have again absolutely no way to know this without someone telling you eg., taken on faith of it being true. I could go on and on if you wish. You live on more faith then what you believe you do.

Yes.
Really.



Again, I'd bet he chose his words because it makes for a catchier phrase. Alliteration is effective.

I personally don't accept your statement here. It's my understanding that there are much historical evidence to support many of the Greek Myths. It's really no different from the Hebrew stories at all.

For example, I just watched a history course on ancient Greek civilization, and they told about an real historical battle where the God Poseidon caused a great storm to come up and sea destroying at entire navy in a particular batter. That historical account of the navy being destroyed in a storm at see appears to be quite true. Whether any God named Poseidon had anything to do with it is an entirely different matter.

But these are precisely the very same kinds of things that the Hebrews did. They took perfectly normal natural events from their history and inserted superstitious beliefs into them about their God intervening.

You're kidding yourself if you are under the belief that there is no historical evidence associated with Greek myths. There most certainly is. Every culture has a tendency to write their mythologies around actual events. Some historians even believe that the demigod Hercules was an actual historical person. Of course they don't believe that he was a demigod. But they do believe that there was an actual person that sparked these myths.

It really no different from Jesus. Even if we had iron-clad proof that some guy named Jesus renounced the moral teachings of the Torah, called the Pharisees hypocrites, and was crucified for his views, that still wouldn't mean that the rumors that he was a demigod then must be true.

Just because superstitious rumors are written about an actual person doesn't automatically give those superstitions merit.

I would totally expect the ancient Hebrews to write stories about their actual history. Who else's history would they write about?

So historical "evidence" for actual events is not impressive when it comes to trying to support the supernatural claims about gods.

If that were the case, then we'd have to take Poseidon into consideration as well as many other Greek Gods and Goddesses. There are many Greek historical events that are associated with interventions by various Gods, Goddesses, or demigods.

So I totally reject your claim that there is no "historical evidence" for Greek mythology. There most certainly is.

The fact of the matter is that historical associations with superstitious interventions by gods simply aren't impressive.

There is absolutely NO historical evidence for any of the supernatural claims made by any of the stories in the Bible.

That kind of evidence could never exist anyway. How could you know whether a storm at sea was a natural event, or whether it was truly caused by the God Poseidon?

The very same kind of things applies to all the supernatural claims made in the bible.

The Bible has absolutely no more credibility than ancient Greek Mythology. That idea itself is a Christian myth.