Best religious criticism books according to redditors
We found 922 Reddit comments discussing the best religious criticism books. We ranked the 344 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 922 Reddit comments discussing the best religious criticism books. We ranked the 344 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Dan Barker has written a book that deals with your topic.
God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction
The apocalyptic prophet model first came into vogue with Albert Schweitzer's seminal Quest for the Historical Jesus in 1906. It has become the majority view in modern critical scholarship (though not a universal one). basically it's the view that Jesus is best understood as a prophet who was predicting an imminent and radical intervention of God into the natural world. Jesus framed this intervention as a coming "kingdom" and believed (according to this theory) that basically God was going to come and smite the enemies of Israel, restore the Davidic monarchy and initiate the Messianic age. He thought this was literally going to happen within his own generation, so basically (to put it bluntly), the theory is that he was a failed apocalyptic prophet,
Some major scholars who defend this view include Bart Ehrman (Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium) E. P. Sanders (The Historical Figure of Jesus, JP Meiers' massive Marginal Jew series, Dale Allison (Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet), and Paula Fredriksen (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity. There are many others.
There are some who propose other views, though, like the Zealot theory already mentioned, and the "Sapiential Kingdom" (basically Jesus as a wisdom teacher and social transformer) proposed by Crossan and Funk.
Unfortunately, there are some... that said, they're nowhere near as prevalent as they are in the GOP, and they're pretty clearly a "different" kind of insane.
Example: Maryland rep Frank M. Conaway Jr.
Ancient Egyptian carvings. The Book of Revelations. Canned chicken. These are some of the topics that Del. Frank M. Conaway Jr. has discussed in more than 50 rambling videos that he has uploaded to YouTube in recent weeks. "Am I living in a box? The cross. The Rubik's Cube," Conaway says in a video titled "talking horse." "Am I living in a hologram? Holographic universe."
He's also the author of the best selling book "Baptist Gnostic Christian Eubonic Kundalinion Spiritual Ki Do Hermeneutic Metaphysics: The Word: Hermeneutics"
http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Kundalinion-Spiritual-Hermeneutic-Metaphysics/dp/0595206786
No, this isn't a joke.
Here are two of my favorite Bible quotes:
> And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them. (Jeremiah 19:9)
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> Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. (1 Samuel 15:3)
(Here's an entire book of similar atrocities compiled by Dan Barker of FFRF, and here's Barker's summary of the ten worst Old Testament verses.)
I can't imagine why anyone would worship such a monster.
Beyond that, no god that mandated worship--as the god of the Bible does repeatedly--could ever be worthy of it. A relationship of worshiper/worshipee is an inherently unhealthy one (on both sides). What kind of petty, insecure, arrogant god would require the beings it created to worship it?
I'd go even farther and say that any "god" that even accepted worship would*n't be worthy of it. A worthwhile god might seek and accept understanding (to the limits of our abilities), mutual respect, affection (if we're getting anthropomorphic), and so on. But worship? Never.
tldr; There are millions of us that feel the same way. I hope you don't forsake Christ in name in response to those around you who are forsaking Christ in deed.
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I'm writing this during a break at work. Since I have to make it quick, I'll be recommending a lot of books. There is really too much here anyway to do justice to all of the questions you've put up, so even if I were to give a real, detailed response, I would probably have to resort to suggesting books anyway.
> 1.) I don't think that all of the Bible can be taken literally. I strongly believe in the sciences, so I think that Genesis was written either metaphorically or simply just to provide an explanation for creation. Are there others here that believe that or something similar? How do others respond to your beliefs?
There are many, many, many others who believe similarly. And not just recent people responding to evolution, there has long been a tradition of taking Genesis metaphorically. For a good group of scholars and prominent Christians that take a stand for a reading of Genesis that respects the way that science currently understands origins, see the Biologos Forum.
For a good book that shows the error of inerrancy, how it stunts your growth as a Christian and a moral agent, and how inerrancy limits either human free will or God's sovereignty see Thom Stark's excellent new book The Human Faces of God.
> 2.) Why does it seem that Christianity is such a hateful religion? I am very disappointed in many Christians because they spew hatred towards other instead of spreading love. I think that the energy that is going into the hatred that many spew could be used for good. Why aren't we putting these resources towards helping others? This would help bring people in instead of deter them away.
Again, millions of us feel the same way. It makes me sick as well. However, I don't think the answer is forsaking Christ in name in response to others forsaking Christ in deed.
There are many strands of the Christian faith that have strongly opposed violence of any sort. Look into the Anabaptists, the Mennonites. Podcasts from Trinity Mennonite are pretty good.
For a good book about Jesus and nonviolence see Jesus and Nonviolence by Walter Wink.
> 3.) How can people be against gay rights still? This is clearly religious issue and not an issue of morality. If you choose to follow the parts of the Bible that are against homosexuality, then why do you not feel the need to follow many of the other ridiculous laws that are in the Old Testament?
I'd like to stress that, again, there are millions of us that feel the same way. And many, many of those who still believe it's a sin think that we have no place emphasizing that in a world where LGBT teenagers are killing themselves from the humiliation. There are many, many of us that think that whether their lifestyle is "sinful" or not the only thing we should show them is love.
For more about interpreting the Bible in light of today's social issues, see Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William J. Webb and Sex and the Single Savior by Dale B. Martin.
> Do you believe that the government has the right to say who can and cannot get married? Why can't this just be left up to each individual church?
I'm actually strongly in favor of civil unions for everyone. I wholeheartedly agree that I don't want the government defining marriage... and the only way for the government not to define marriage is for the government to take its hands off marriage altogether; whatever the sexual orientation of those getting married.
> 4.) This was a question that I was asked in my other post that I was unable to answer.
Yes, the penal satisfaction view of atonement has its shortcomings. It's not a completely bankrupt idea, but it takes a lot of nuance to convey it in a way that isn't altogether abhorrent and senseless.
The first Christians believed something similar to what we call today "Christus Victor" atonement.
For a picture of the varied atonement theories available for understanding what Jesus did on the cross, see A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. For a list of ways to understand atonement in a contemporary context, see Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross by Mark D. Baker. For more on a view of God that is consistent with the love of God as revealed in Jesus, see Rob Bell's Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person that ever lived.
> 5.) I asked this in the other post, so I feel that I should ask it here. How many of you do or will teach your children about other religions? Will you present them as options or will you completely write them off?
I'd be wholeheartedly open to exposing them to other religions. And I'd want to do it in a way that does them justice. Most Christian "worldviews" books frustrate me due to the way they portray other's religions. In the long run if you don't accurately portray the rest of the world and you try to shelter your children from it, they'll simply feel betrayed when they grow up and finally learn what's out there.
I believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I actually believe this. Why wouldn't I try to raise my children as Christians?
But again, I wouldn't want to misrepresent the other religions and I certainly wouldn't want to shelter my children from them. For a book that I feel shows the good from many of the world's most prominent religions, see Huston Smith's The World's Religions.
Link to Amazon.
I can't say that I'm familiar with the writings about Romulus, Asclepius, or Hercules; however, the Gospels seem (at least in their final form) to be written and redacted by people who were trying to portray a somewhat historically accurate picture of Jesus of Nazareth. Whether they are wholly or in part actually historically accurate is a totally different question, which I won't delve into here. The genre of the Gospels is sometimes referred to as a subset of Greco-Roman Biography or of Ancient Biography or simply of ancient Lives (βίοι, bioi; vitae) writings.^1
Ancient Biography^2 | Gospels^2
---|---
In ancient biographies, the subject’s name is listed at the very beginning of the text or immediately following the prologue. | All four Gospels mention the name of their subject (Jesus) in or directly after the prologue (though they lack a formal title signaling that they are ancient biographies).
Authors of ancient biographies could present the subject’s words either chronologically or topically. They could also highlight one time period of the subject’s life over and above others (e.g., a particular battle, time in office, death, etc.).| The Gospels aren't too concerned with the chronology of Jesus' life/teaching. Each of the Gospels devotes a considerable amount of attention to Jesus’ death, which aligns with ancient biographers’ tendency to devote more attention to the events or attributes that they believed best portrayed their subject.
Authors of ancient biographies maintained a singular focus on the subject (unlike ancient historiographers, who could offer treatments of several key characters). The individual focused on in the biography was the subject of the verb more than any other character. | Jesus is the subject of the verb in the Gospels far more often than any other individual.
Ancient biographies were typically written in narrative form and typically ranged from 5,000–25,000 words. | The Gospels were written in narrative form and fall within the 5,000–25,000 word count common to ancient biographies.
Ancient biographies were often framed by the birth and death of the individual (although some could start at adulthood) and then filled out with various stories, speeches, or actions from the life of the subject. | Two of the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) open with the narration of Jesus’ birth, while the other two begin in His adult ministry.
Authors of ancient biographies predominantly highlighted specific character traits of their subjects through the inclusion of a subject’s words and deeds, rather than direct analysis or commentary. | The bulk of the narrative is composed of miracle stories, discourses on various topics, sayings, and parables that contribute to the author’s portrayal of Jesus.
Authors of ancient biographies often used a wide variety of both oral and written sources and had greater freedom than historiographers in deciding which information to include or exclude. | The Gospel writers seem to have used a variety of sources in composing their Gospels.
The authors of ancient biographies deployed a range of styles in their writing—from formal to more popular literature—and wrote in both serious and light tones. | The Gospels have a serious tone, and the writers predominantly used a simplistic or popular writing style.
Most ancient biographies cast their subject in a positive light. In some cases the portrayals seem too positive, which makes the characterization seem contrived or stereotypical. | The writers of the four Gospels cast Jesus in a positive light and exhibit the same intentions or purposes for writing as other authors of ancient biographies.
If I understand the Greco-Roman Biography genre correctly, they were normally intended by their authors to be historically factual, but often integrated with ideology (or in the case of the Gospels, theology). The important thing to note is that they didn't pen history or biography in the same way moderns do. They took certain liberties in their telling of the story of someone's life. We wouldn't always see that as a responsible way to do history, but they didn't have the same concept of historiography as us moderns. Furthermore, I'd like to quote at length from Brant Pitre^3 regarding Jesus quotes and gospel/historical Jesus research:
> First, with reference in particular to the sayings of Jesus, it is important to be precise about what I mean when I speak about the "historicity" or "historical plausibility."
> On the one hand, there are some readers of the Gospels who come to them looking for the ipsissima verb Jesu (the "exact words of Jesus"). As contemporary scholarship rightly insists, rarely, if ever, is it possible for us to reconstruct the exact words of Jesus.^4 Indeed, as even a cursory comparison of the sayings of Jesus in a Gospel synopsis shows, on many occasions, the evangelists themselves do not seem bent on giving us anything like the exact words of Jesus.^5 ... On the other hand, it is much more popular in the scholarly realm to come to the Gospels seeking the ipsissima vox Jesu, an expression sometimes used to refer to "the basic message of Jesus" or "the 'kind of thing' he usually or typically said."^6 Although at first glance this may seem like a more helpful formulation, upon further reflection, there are several problems with it. For one thing, "the exact voice of Jesus" (ipsissima vox Jesu) reflects the peculiarly modern preoccupation with exactitude (ipse), and hence smacks both of historical positivism and philosophical foundationalism. Moreover, the emphasis on the exact "voice" (vox) of Jesus is precisely the wrong emphasis. The image of a "voice" lends itself to a focus on how someone sounds (form), rather than what someone says (content), for a "voice" can be completely without substance or meaning... However, for historical research, a case can be made that it is not so much the form of Jesus' teaching that is most important, but the content or substance... Once again, even a quick glance at any Synopsis of the Gospels should show us that a representation of the exact forms of Jesus' sayings does not seem to have been a primary goal of the evangelists.^7 ...
> In this study, I will be pursuing what I would like to refer to as the substantia verb Jesu—i.e., the substance of the words of Jesus. In other words, I am interested in what he said and did and what it might have meant in a first-century Jewish context. Hence, whenever I conclude that a particular saying or action is historical or historically plausible, I am not saying that Jesus said exactly these words (ipsissima verba), nor am I just saying the text "sounds exactly like Jesus" (ipsissima vox). Instead, I am claiming that the basic substance or content of the teaching or action can be reasonably concluded as having originated with him.^8 That is what I mean by historical — no more, and no less.^9
[Edit: I'd like to say that /u/Nadarama and /u/o_kosmos have great points against what I've presented here. I wish I had time to give each the response it deserves, but right now I don't, so I apologize. What I will say is this: the view I've presented is one popular theory among scholars, but is not without its problems. If I understand correctly, its something of a majority view, but I'm open to being corrected on that. Its certainly no "scholarly consensus," if such a thing can be found.]
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Nagarjuna is one of the most amazing philosophers that I've ever encountered. I cannot recommend Jay Garfield's translation of/commentary on The Mulamadhyamakakarika enough.
The problem is, a lot of the books that Christians here are recommending are very different in both style and direction than the kinds of books that you're talking about with Dawkins and Hitchens. Which, to be frank, ought to be expected. Detailed philosophical argumentation just isn't something most Christians are worried about or interested in since, once establishing faith, theology and discipleship are far more interesting intellectual pursuits to believers.
In any case, here are a variety of more serious academic responses to the kinds of books you've been reading:
Reasonable Faith By William Lane Craig
Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga
Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga
Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running on Empty? by Alister Mcgrath
Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith by Francis S Collins
God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway? by John C Lennox
Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target by John C Lennox
Edit: And don't forget that you don't have to buy any of these books to read them! For serious. Library card + inter-library loan system via internet is the way to win.
> hard from an intellectual point of view
I'm sorry, I had to snicker when I read this. There is no other organization that has more intellectual underpinnings than the Catholic Church.
If you are having problems reconciling Scripture (exegetically or hermeneutically), you need to start reading academic books, such as those by Brown, Meier, Gonzalez, and Martos, just to name a few.
Helpful for me was Thomism and modern Thomists such as Feser.
> We're not altogether sure Jesus was historical...
Are you a mythicist? Who are the "We" you are referring to?
Furthermore, the most scholarly treatment of the historical Jesus that is available to date is written by John P. Meier and is entitled: A Marginal Jew.
What you have done here, essentially, is dehistoricize Jesus by making him out to be the timeless preacher of agreeable aphorisms. While Jesus certainly conveyed a message of love and solidarity, to reduce the teaching of the historical Jesus to this alone is to (1) divorce him from the Second-Temple Jewish context, rife with eschatological expectation, in which he lived and which you acknowledge in your first paragraph; and thereby to (2) deprive his message of its depth and historical resonance.
Most New Testament historians will agree that the concept most central to Jesus' preaching was the arrival of the 'kingdom of God,' which, if N. T. Wright is correct in his series Christian Origins and the Question of God, was associated with the fulfillment of Jewish eschatological expectation. You propose that "if you and the people in your community lived in fear of things like being killed for gathering firewood on the Sabbath or being forced to marry your rapist... a traveling young rabbi by the name of Jesus is anything but ordinary," and while I find nothing objectionable in this proposition, I think you have forgotten the larger crisis for which the Jews desired a resolution. Yes, individual persons might have desired redress from particularly burdensome provisions of the Mosaic Law; but the Jewish people, in the Second-Temple period, collectively longed for an end to exile consisting in the return of YHWH to Israel in the establishment of the 'kingdom of God' and the inauguration of a new creation.
The Jews, in the centuries prior to the life of Jesus of Nazareth, had faced a series of existential crises: the Northern Kingdom had fallen, which led to the subsequent dispersal of ten(?) of the original twelve Israelite tribes in a diaspora; the Babylonians had taken Israel captive, destroying the Temple in which God's shekinah, his presence, was thought to dwell; and Israel itself had fallen subject to foreign domination, having been conquered variously by regional superpowers and eventually by the Romans. What the Jews were expecting in the late Second-Temple period was the reversal of all of these misfortunes, a reversal that had been prophesied by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, among others. They were anticipating the overthrow of their pagan subjugators, the ingathering of the exiled members of their nation, the absolution of their sins, the extension of blessing to the Gentiles, and, finally, the return of YHWH to Israel in the capacity of a ruling king, and they were anticipating that these things would transpire through the agency of a messianic figure.
Jesus' message must be situated within this context. Yes, he preached peace, love, forgiveness, and compassion, but he preached those things with the explicit intention of inaugurating the kingdom of God. You mention that Jesus made a point of welcoming those of the "the poor, weak, marginalized, and female class"; I want to ask, to what greater purpose?
If you notice, Jesus' miracles are performed as restorative actions among communities who were previously thought ritually unclean and thus excluded from 'Israel.' Lepers are unclean and thus excluded from Israel; he heals them. The woman who discharged blood was ritually unclean (even more, by physically touching her it was thought that one would be ritually defiled oneself); yet when she touches Jesus, Jesus does not become impure but rather she becomes whole. The blind, who again are not incorporated as full members of the community on account of their disability, are healed. Yes, Jesus is healing these people (1) because healing is itself objectively good and (2) because he wants to express a special solidarity with marginalized persons by affirming their dignity. But he is also doing something beyond that: he is re-incorporating into Israel people who previously were, to some degree or other, excluded from it. He is making Israel complete, ingathering the excluded, even conferring blessing to people not traditionally considered part of 'Israel' (by, say, healing Samaritans and Gentiles), and so is fulfilling Jewish eschatological expectations.
It is also generally acknowledged among New Testament scholars that Jesus stood, in some way or other, against the 'Temple establishment' and even pronounced threats against the Second Temple itself (to which the shekinah of YHWH was thought not to have returned following the Babylonian exile). In some sense, Jesus' opposition to the Temple establishment can be interpreted as an act of resistance to calcified authority, as taking a stand against legalism for legalism's sake; but it is more comprehensively, again, to be interpreted as the fulfillment of eschatological expectation. Jesus is quoted as claiming to be the Temple himself (see John 2:19); the point is that he believes the presence, the shekinah, of God to be returning to Israel in and through his person, for which reason the physical Second Temple and its governing authorities are no longer relevant.
So again, we see that Jesus does admirable take moral stances, but he does so precisely because he believes himself to be the person who is effecting the arrival of the kingdom of God—to be, in other words, the Messiah. His moral teachings, his parables, his call to practice mercy and forgiveness are all inseparable from this notion of inaugurating the kingdom of God. Jesus instructs his disciples to forgive others not only because forgiveness is good in itself but because the forgiveness of sins is characteristic of the utopian kingdom of God and in conformity with eschatological prophecy. He reaches out to the marginalized not only because marginalizing people is wrong but also because the coming of the kingdom is prophesied as the time at which Israel is again made complete, in which all its members are restored to it. To ignore this is to fail to see how "Jesus was a Jew preaching Judaism to other Jews."
Finally, to the notion of resurrection: in the Second-Temple period, members of the Pharasaic movement had come to believe that, in the eschaton, those who belonged to faithful Israel would be physically resurrected. This was theologically justified with appeal to God's love of his covenant people: if God truly loved faithful Israel, he would not simply let its members perish, but would restore them to bodily life. Within the scriptural context, death is understood as a destructive, aberrant force that mars God's good creation, and thus the kingdom of God, if it is to be the realization of all of God's intentions for Israel and the creation, is to be characterized by an overthrow of death. The point of Jesus' resurrection is that he is inaugurating the eschaton, that he is reversing the corruption of death in creation and thus fulfilling, again, eschatological expectation (notwithstanding the fact that the resurrection was not expected to occur to one person in advance of everyone else; the Pharisees believed, and their rabbinic successors today believe, that the resurrection will be a general resurrection of all of faithful Israel at once). It is all about the kingdom of God, the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel, and the realization of God's purposes for creation.
>So to me, Jesus the man is just as worthy of following as Christ of faith.
>You're essentially saying that if Jesus was not resurrected then there's no point in trying anymore.
Morally good action would still be desirable, and Jesus' moral teachings would still possess independent truth-value, had he not been the Messiah. However, had Jesus had not been resurrected and his messianic claims not been vindicated through that event, it would have meant that he had failed in the essential task which he had set out to complete: he did not inaugurate the kingdom of God, and so is not to be recognized as Messiah. Perhaps it would be worth taking his moral advice, but it would not be worth placing one's faith in him as the person in whom God's promises to Israel and purposes for creation are realized. Contrary to your claim, then, taking the death-defying supernatural capabilities away from Jesus does, in fact, lessen his credibility.
For more information on the above-discussed subjects, I recommend N. T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God and his The Resurrection of the Son of God.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for people with a Western Post-Enlightenment worldview to simply interpret what Pre-Modern Hellenistic Jews were writing, especially if unaware of the context.
I was supplying interpretations from biblical scholars and showing that there are multiple ways that people understand Jesus' divinity. I wasn't making any value statements that they are better or even exclusive of one another. These are just the ways that people read the text.
Edit: If you want to read some biblical scholars and their interpretations of what Jesus meant by claiming divinity.
[N.T. Wright- Jesus and the Victory of God] (http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Christian-Origins-Question-Volume/dp/0800626826)
[Marcus Borg- Jesus: A New Vision] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Vision-Spirit-Culture-Discipleship/dp/0060608145)
[Richard Bauckham- Jesus and the God of Israel] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-God-Israel-Testaments-Christology/dp/0802845592)
[John Dominic Crossan- Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Revolutionary-John-Dominic-Crossan/dp/006180035X)
[Reza Aslan- Zealot] (http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480) Edit 2: Apparently his credentials are in some dispute and this particular book is pretty "pop theology" but I found this [post] (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/08/two-scholars-respond-to-the-actual-content-of-reza-aslans-take-on-jesus/) by a theologian I respect that gives some insight into the whole thing.
[Thomas J.J. Altizer- Contemporary Jesus] (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1876258.Contemporary_Jesus)
What you're talking about mainly sounds like Marcionism, but that is less of a denomination and more of a really old Christian heresy.
If you're having trouble reconciling God as portrayed by the Hebrew Bible with God as portrayed in Jesus in the New Testament I'd recommend you take a look at the book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the God of the Old Testament. It isn't a particularly difficult or long read and can really help illuminate some of the grodier passages in the Hebrew Bible.
Only $16 too! I should really get one for... eh, maybe not.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Stories-Bible-Paul-Farrell/dp/1578849225
Well, it was from their view as a "professional hunter" in africa. See, they'd take these rich white guys to places to hunt these dangerous things. Then when the noob makes a bad shot and wounds the animal, it's the Pro hunter's responsibility to track down that wounded animal and finish it. Leopards were known for NOT charging when wounded. They hid and ambushed them. 80 lbs of unnaturally strong leopard jumping on you from 4 feet. Patient, angry, hiding. Stood my hairs up. You should give em a read!
Here I'll link a couple
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Long-Grass-Hunters-Adventures/dp/0312186134
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377466847&sr=1-4
Everything by Hemingway is awesome. Capstick was a helluva writer, but there's some saying he wasn't a really good hunter.
Yes, it's loaded, but it's fair, considering that many mainstream Christian apologists explicitly do act as genocide apologists. William Lane Craig, for example, says that the Israelites did the children of their enemies no harm because they were instantly transported to heaven, and that we should feel more sorry for the soldiers who had to go through the trauma of committing genocide.
>So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalizing effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.
Paul Copan does much of the same in his book Is God a Moral Monster. See Thom Stark's review of that book, entitled Is God a Moral Compromiser, for more details.
God's Word Alone by Matthew Barrett
Scripture Alone by James White
Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible by Joel Beeke, Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, Ray Lanning, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Derek W. H. Thomas, and James White
Correct Link
There are some more pages viewable on the Amazon listing.
Edit: Wrong URL, thanks for the correct one SomethingWonderful.
Link for the lazies.
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemmingway is fifteen dollars on amazon, though you could probably find it for cheaper. It'll likely be a great indicator of whether you want to continue with the project or not. I started there and let me tell you what, there is a reason that man is known as the master of the short story.
New Evidence that Demands a Verdict
More Than a Carpenter
Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels On my to read list.
Faith on Trial: An Attorney Analyzes the Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus
The Case for Christ
The Case for Faith
The Case for a Creator
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus On my to read list.
The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ On my to read list.
Besides the apologetics books, you can watch John Lennox on YouTube. He is a very well-spoken and kind (doesn't attack the other debater) debater. Very well thought out responses. The Dawkins vs Lennox debate was awesome! Ditto Gary Habermas as well.
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition is one of my favorite books.
Been to his house in Ketchum and his place in Key West. Would love to stroll his haunts in Cuba and Paris.
And as manly as he was, he was in pain most of the time from injuries and wounds collected from war and travel. Stoic and fierce. A literary and personal idol.
I am another Christian who has read it. I know many others who have read it and have come to be more understanding of the atheistic viewpoint. I would also recommend it. :-)
I would also recommend for basic understanding of the Christian viewpoint:
Oral cultures function differently from chirographic ones. Richard Bauckham has the dirty on that. As for 'memory' leaks, Jewish rabbinic tradition has long been known for it's exacting standards of memorization (my favourite modern example are the Shass Pollack). It would be unusual for that not to continue on into Christianity with the influx of Jewish believers.
Answers!
>How do you reconcile the problem of evil?
Plantinga's free will defense (which most philosophers consider solving the problem of evil): http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/#H4
>What are your thoughts on the atheist argument of there being hundreds of gods, and that we only believe in one less than you?
It's not a very good argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5F-73eMSyA
>What about Yahweh specifically entices you to put faith in that one god out of the many other individual gods and pantheons to choose from?
Well, it's the person of Jesus that entices me. We see the heart of God most clearly in the person of Jesus Christ.
Please understand how broad this question you're asking is. There's not a very good way for me to go about answering it because, am I supposed to go line by line and say, YHWH vs. Allah. YHWH vs Krishna. YHWH vs __. You get the idea. Besides, there's already pretty good book about that, that was written by a man who was raised in Hindu India: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Among-Other-Gods-Christian/dp/0849943272/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320956328&sr=8-1
> What is your opinion of the theory of evolution?
Evolution is fine. I'd imagine the people you met are fundamentalists, who don't understand that certain passages were written not as historical truth, but as mythic (which isn't to say false) allegory.
In other words, evolution is understood as a biological mechanism. God is the agent which started all natural mechanisms.
> A friend's father once told me, "I believe in God because it comforts me and because I want to believe that there is something more to this world. I can't back it up with evidence, and I probably can't convince you to believe, but it's good enough for me and that's all that matters." To this day, it is the most perfect explanation of personal beliefs that I have ever heard. He relies on faith and faith alone to keep his beliefs, and I have an immense amount of respect for that. Do you agree with him, or do you try to use physical evidence to back up your faith?
I disagree. Faith should have evidence; specifically evidence of things unseen. Jesus explicitly said his followers would be able to do works greater than he. I think that, in the west, Christians have settled for too long for a form of faith that lacks power.
As far as physical evidence is concerned, it's a funny question. On one hand, I don't think physical evidence is a good criteria for judging the truth of something. The positivists made that mistake in the 30's and then were debunked. On the other hand, if a blind man you knew was blind was healed before your very eyes, you wouldn't be able to deny the reality.
Those are my two cents slapped together in 5 minutes. Enjoy.
Wow! That portion of the article reeks of an atheist agenda and is totally false. God's character has not changed. It is the same throughout the bible, from Genesis to Revelation. While it is true God allowed His people to be enslaved, it was not that He necessarily caused it. In each case, the Israelites turned from Him and began worshiping false gods and idols. God merely took His hand off them and let things happen. He ceased protecting them to show them what happens when they reject Him. But this God loved His people. When they relied on Him, He didn't let them down. They defeated armies greater than they. Their crops and livestock grew in abundance. Sickness and illness were minimal. It reads like He caused it only because He knew what would happen when He removed His protection. God's strength comes from man's weakness.
I recommend to pick up, "Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God" https://www.amazon.com/God-Moral-Monster-Making-Testament-ebook/dp/B004EPYPY4
It was written to challenge many of the beliefs of modern atheist, but it does a good job of demonstrating the consistency of God's character.
In terms of the New Testament, this brings the good news of God's grace and extends the offer to His people to all nations. Jesus showed us who God is - a loving and nurturing God. He knows we cannot keep His commandments without His help, so He came as a man, kept the commandment so that we all can be seen as righteous in Him. Jesus is our intercessory with the Godhead just as Abraham was for Sodom and Moses was for the Israelites at Sinai. Remember passages such as (paraphrasing) 'he who puts his hand on the plough and looks back is not fit to inherit the kingdom of heaven' and 'if you love me, you'll keep my commandments'. Jesus provides ample warnings that judgement will be harsh, just as it always has been.
Jesus also said that without the Holy Spirit, the mysteries of God remain hidden. When you believe in Jesus and that He was raised from the dead, the scales are lifted from your eyes and your ears will hear. The writer of "Beyond Good and Evil" as well as Peterson is reading in the blind. They may be smart, but remember, God takes delight in confounding the wise with the foolishness of the cross.
Plantinga wrote 3 books related to this subject. He wrote "Warrant: The Current Debate" to give an overview of the field of philosophy on what needs to be added to true beliefs to yield knowledge. Then he wrote "Warrant and Proper Function" to give his own take. Finally he wrote "Warranted Christian Belief" which basically applies his epistemology to Christian belief. So the guy has done a ton of work in epistemology and also applying epistemology to Christianity.
Links to Books:
https://www.amazon.com/Warrant-Current-Debate-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195078624
https://www.amazon.com/Warrant-Proper-Function-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195078640/ref=pd_sim_14_1/164-8766607-7794903?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=H9CQMRJ1GDZG8WF2EHQ8
https://www.amazon.com/Warranted-Christian-Belief-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195131932/ref=pd_sim_14_2/164-8766607-7794903?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=H9CQMRJ1GDZG8WF2EHQ8
The reviews of his book on Amazon are hilarious.
Edit: I spent a couple minutes reading the Amazon "Look inside!" preview.
These books are not worth the ISBN numbers they were assigned.
Try this. Paul reworked the Shema so that Jesus received a place of mention beside the Father. Also note how Paul sometimes treats them as interchangeable.
For non-biblical sources, N. T. Wright has put out a couple books on the subject: Jesus and the Victor of God is perhaps the most relevant, but his recent monster of a book Paul and the Faithfulness of God dedicates a portion of the book to Monotheism in Paul's thought. If you're into academic stuff you could give PatFoG a try, as it goes over historical research in the time as well. It's 1700 pages though.
From a post I made awhile back:
If you want to go for a scholastic/western positive apologetics approach check out: The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.
If you want to go for a scholastic/western negative apologetics approach check out Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds. This is the work that actually re-kindled serious philosophical debate on the existence of God in Anglophone philosophical circles according to Quinten Smith (a notable atheist philosopher btw). From there you could also check out Alvin Plantinga's warrant trilogy in order: Warrant: The Current Debate, Warrant and Proper Function, and Warranted Christian Belief.
Personally I'm skeptical of the scholastic/western approach in general and I favor the Eastern/Mystical approach. I think the scholastic/western approach cannot escape radical skepticism, and I mean this in terms of secular and religious. If one takes seriously the scholastic/western approach in general, whether one is atheist or theist, radical skepticism follows. This video from a radical skeptic that goes by the user name Carneades.org does a good job of demonstrating this: Arguments of the Indirect Skeptic
The Orthodox approach has always been mystical rather than scholastic all the way from the beginnings of Christianity. From Jesus, to the apostles, to the church fathers, to right now we still have the original apostolic faith in the Orthodox Church. Check out this short documentary to learn more: Holy Orthodoxy: The Ancient Church of Acts in the 21st Century.
Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky explains the Eastern/Mystical approach: "To properly understand the Orthodox approach to the Fathers, one must first of all understand the mystical characteristic of Orthodox theology and the tradition of the apophatic approach to an understanding-if "understanding" is indeed the proper word-of what the hidden God in Trinity reveals to us. This needs to be combined with the insight that what is incomprehensible to our reason inspires us to rise above every attempt at philosophical limitation and to reach for an experience beyond the limits of the intellect. The experience of God is a transcendence born from union with the divine-henosis (oneness with God) being the ultimate goal of existence. This makes the requirement of true knowledge (gnosis) the abandoning of all hope of the conventional subject-object approach to discovery. It requires setting aside the dead ends of Scholasticism, nominalism, and the limits set by such Kantian paradigms as noumena/phenomena. One must return to, or better yet, find in one's heart (or nous, the soul's eye) union with the Holy Trinity, which has never been lost in the Orthodox Church."
Source: Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky, (2004). Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. p. 178. Zondervan, Grand Rapids
Marx said this in some of the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto:
> The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.... Freeman and slave...in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another...
Marx's whole philosophy is that (economic) power disparity is the reason we have constant turmoil. If you get rid of the economic differences, you get rid of the turmoil. It's pure naturalist materialism, and is founded completely outside God, since Marx thought "religion is...the opium of the people."
So, to regard racial divisions as purely class power struggles (Marxism) is to deny the fundamental issues of man's value as an image bearer of God, deeply flawed by sin and sinful desires. Instead of saying "we can fix this mess by creating Heaven on earth", we should teach the gospel.
Edit to add:
Alvin Plantinga quoted Marx, then summarized pretty well this way:
> Marx suggests that religion arises from [a] perverted world consciousness -- perverted from a correct, or right, or natural condition. Religion involves cognitive dysfunction, a disorder or perversion...a lack of mental and emotional health. The believer is therefore in an etymological sense insane. [Warranted Christian Belief, p141]
This isn't a theory but my own collection of several independent sources. Books I would recommend include The Orthodox Corruption of Sciprture and various gnostic texts available online.
> Baptist Gnostic Christian Eubonic Kundalinion Spiritual Ki Do Hermeneutic Metaphysics: The Word: Hermeneutics
From the amazon listing:
"My reseach of the Holy Bible through Rev. S. Green's Baptist Temple incorporated with the martial arts style of Death Ki Do under Grand Master L. R. Butcher came in union to form the sub style of Spiritual Ki Do. In entering the internal styles of the martial arts and pondering the available life experiences lead me to a new term which I relate to the philosophical term "Spiritual Shock" as a form of awareness effect of raising the Brazen Serpent upon the pole of the spine using the Gnostic cypher key in relation to the book of the Apocalypse."
http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Kundalinion-Spiritual-Hermeneutic-Metaphysics/dp/0595206786
Hello,
This book is a robust examination of the Christian faith, looking not only at doctrine but the evidence for the truth claims of scripture.
https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Investigates/dp/1434704696
I greatly respect your attitude towards your husbands faith. The fact that you're here asking this speaks volumes.
edit: bonus recommdations
https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Carpenter-Josh-McDowell/dp/1414326270/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
https://www.amazon.com/New-Evidence-That-Demands-Verdict/dp/0785242198/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Not sure what sorts of perspectives you're looking for, but NT Wright is a top notch academic writing from a somewhat conservative Anglican perspective, and has written a ton on these two guys:
Jesus and the Victory of God
The Resurrection of the Son of God
Paul and the Faithfulness of God
And if ~3200 pages isn't quite enough to scare you out of attempting the project, you should also read the first volume in this series, The New Testament and the People of God.
Sure. That's very understandable. First I'd first like to say that God no longer acts through a nation-state as he did in Old Testament times. He chose Israel as a special people and used them in various ways from the repeated commandments to welcome the foreigner in their land (since they were once foreigners in Egypt) to the divine judgment I just described. But they were imperfect stewards and often faced the natural consequences of their poor diplomacy, decision-making, spirituality and morality.
You will see, looking at the Old Testament that Israel itself was not free from God's punishment. The Jewish prophets themselves called it judgment when they were faced with calamity.
That is no longer the case which puts some serious holes in any Hitlerian claim to divine command to commit genocide. It is wrong when we claim American exceptionalism and it is wrong when anyone does it-- God has no state on earth. Repeatedly Jesus declared to a Jewish people longing for the state of Israel to be independent again "The Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world".
Secondly, there's a Straight-Dope article which explores Hitler's religion and it's not so clear-cut he was even a theist. It's likely Hitler was just a sociopath and found religion useful.
It's also a bit of a "by their fruits you will know them" type thing. Were the Jewish people any more sinister or evil than any other? Probably not. Were the Amalekites? Well, it's hard to tell. But it's not as if one Amalekite did something which ticked God off and he said "That's it. Nuke 'em!"
Nope, even foreseeing that things would become intolerable, God promised to let the Amelekites live as Genesis 15:16 tells of God saying to Abraham: "In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit." Paul, much later, in Romans 9 says:
> "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?"
>(Romans 9:22-24 ESV)
There's a bit of patience exhibited there toward a wicked people. The Jewish people on the other hand were NOT markedly wicked and killed by the command of a man whom invoked God's name, didn't really live as a follower of God, clearly had an economic-end in mind and lamented that many of Jesus' core teachings were "weak".
The message of the New Testament is that God is dealing out his judgment directly now (and his mercy-- I do NOT mean to under-emphasize that... it's easy to do when you're blabbering a response to someone's question about judgment).
In Romans 2 Paul reminds us not to think we're so important and judge others because that day of judgment--not when Christians will judge others but when Christ will judge everyone (including Christians) will come:
> Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
>(Romans 2:1-5 ESV)
Ultimately though, my view is based on a belief in Christ and the reliability of the New Testament. Believing the NT is reliable, and seeing how Jesus regarded the Old Testament as accurate and God-breathed-- I also accept it.
Richard Bauckman, professor of New Testament Studies at the Unversity of St. Andrews, makes the case for the Gospels as eye-witness testimony in "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses".
C.S. Lewis, literary critic primarily (many people just think of him as a Christian philosopher or essayist of sorts) said of the Gospels:
>“I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage — though it may no doubt contain errors — pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative.”
>(Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism, Christian Reflections)
There is something unique about these Gospels....
I mean, Mark 15:21, when talking about Jesus cruxifiction, mentions this:
"The Crucifixion of Jesus
21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross."
Who the HECK is Rufus?! He's COMPLETELY irrelevant to the stories. Well, okay, he's not irrelevant but why do we need to know who he is or who his Dad is especially!
In epics, myths and other ancient literature you didn't really mention irrelevant details for the sake of "realism".
Romans 16:13 also mentions Rufus (although this is a letter so it is less suspicious): "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well."
I believe that these odd details were included in the Gospels of saying: "He was there, go ask them-- they're still alive!" There were eyewitnesses. And so that adds to the credibility of the NT for me, which if I accept as true I also accept the Amalekites were really wicked, God exists and is powerful and wise and that Moses was a legit prophet and not a tyrant (probably psychopath) like Hitler.
Jesus did not seem to have the same problem many have today. He preached his message of love and believed in that Old Testament God. I think it's because he had a clear idea of the separation of God and man's responsibilities in judgment. And it is BECAUSE God has the power that we are free to live and love one another. It is because he died that we can truly live. The seeming paradoxes really only work with the God-man of Jesus.
But I've spoken too much. I can't promise to have clarified everything but maybe it gave you a little idea of where I am coming from.
Thank you for asking in such a kind way. I've been asked a similar question in much more... threatening ways.
edit: Wrote "New Testament" instead of "Old Testament"-- fixed it.
The post was 14 hours old and had no comment so I just tried to help. I don’t believe my comment is out of line because (1.) the mods haven’t deleted it and (2.) it has a scholarly context and (3.) notes/codices were used in the transmission process (both pre-literal-oral and literary traditions.)
I’ve tried twice to post all the citations I have but I keep getting the error “this is too long (max 10,000)”.
So briefly, including the links in my first reply, here’s some more:
Richard Bauckham: “Such notebooks would not be a wholly new factor in the process of transmission through memorization …” and remarks that they were used only in the transmission process, both oral and literary (written) traditions. (Richard Bauckham – Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Eerdmans, 2006. (Richard Bauckham is Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlow Professor at the University of St Andrews, Scotland; A Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh)
In Did Some Disciples Take Notes During Jesus’ Ministry? by James M. Arlandson (teaches World Religions, Humanities, Introduction to Philosophy, and Introduction to Ethics at various colleges. His Ph.D. is in Comparative Literature (ancient Greek literature, religious studies, and critical theory) he cites:
1.) Edgar J. Goodspeed writes that it would have been strange if Matthew the tax collector had not written down some of Jesus’ teachings. (Edgar J. Goodspeed. Matthew: Apostle and Evangelist. John C. Winston, 1959.)
2.) Saul Lieberman (Jewish scholar, expert in Talmudic literature) “Now the Jewish disciples of Jesus, in accordance with the general rabbinic practice, wrote the sayings which their master pronounced not in a form of a book to be published, but as notes in their . . . codices [plural of codex or early book], in their note-books (or in private small rolls). He writes notes and notebooks or codices (early forms of the book) for note-taking of the oral law were acceptable. (Saul Lieberman. Hellenism in Jewish Palestine. The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962.)
(3) E. Earle Ellis, “It is more plausible [than just oral teaching] to suppose that at least some written paradigms of the Lord’s pronouncements would be left with those who received his message of the kingdom” (p. 245). (E. Earle Ellis. “New Directions in Form Criticism.” In Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity: New Testament Essays. Mohr, 1978. Pp. 237-53.)
(4) Werner Kelber, “The concept of a predominantly oral phase is not meant to dispense with the existence of notes and textual aids altogether. The Q tradition, other saying collections, anthologies of short stories, parables, miracles, and the like could well have existed in written form” (p. 23). (Werner Kelber. The Oral and the Written Gospel. Fortress, 1983.)
(5) Harry Y. Gamble, Christianity grew out of Judaism, and the earlier religion valued literacy and the Book. The earliest followers of Jesus were Jews, and his followers preached to their fellow Jews. So those “who sought to persuade fellow Jews to their faith necessarily developed scriptural arguments, and there is every reason to suppose that the primitive church turned immediately to the study and interpretation of scripture and began to adduce those texts” . . . (p. 23). Eventually, their skills made it into the written synoptic Gospels that we have now. (Harry Y. Gamble. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. Yale, 1995.)
(6) James M. Robinson (one of the foremost scholars on the hypothetical Q source and the Gnostic texts in the Nag Hammadi collection) says that the pre-Synoptic traditions were not entirely oral: “The history of the synoptic tradition is no longer dependent only on the forms of oral transmission, but now has a series of written texts bridging much of the gulf back from the canonical [Biblical] gospels to Jesus” (p. 61). (James M. Robinson. “A Written Greek Sayings Cluster Older than Q: A Vestige.” Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999) 61-67.)
(7) Samuel Byrskog says that oral and written traditions were important for the earliest followers of Jesus. Spoken or written traditions are not mutually exclusive. “Oral and written transmission are not mutually exclusive alternatives and do not follow the logic of first oral and then written.” (pp. 139-40) (Samuel Byrskog. Story as History – History as Story: the Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. Brill, 2000.)
(8) Graham N. Stanton says the oral and written traditions were not like oil and water. They could exist side by side; orally transmitted traditions could be written down by the recipients – and written traditions could be memorized and passed on orally. (p. 189) (Graham N. Stanton. Jesus and Gospel. Cambridge, 2004.)
(9) Richard Bauckham, fter describing the notebooks that the rabbis used, he expands the cultural context to the ancient world. It seems more probable than not that early Christians used them” (p. 288). (Richard Bauckham. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Eerdmans, 2006.)
>I'm looking for a Christian minded book, but preferably one that doesn't just talk about God through Christian legalistic eyes quoting solely scripture, but books that include science and philosophy as well. Or a book that compares religions thoroughly.
I'd recommend this:
Jesus Among Other Gods, Ravi Zacharias
I'd highly recommend John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One, Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God, and Pete Enns' The Evolution of Adam. It seems like you're using an extremely literal reading of Genesis, and it might help to look at the text in the context of its time and culture.
Regarding the Old Testament, here's a good book on the subject.
So it's all just a metaphor? Hard to buy that.
There are a couple of books on Amazon that address this topic, however. One is called Is God a Moral Monster? and the other is titled God Behaving Badly.
I haven't read it, but I've only heard great things about How to Read the Bible for All it's Worth, for Gorden Fee and Doug Stuart.
Also, The Last Word, by NT Wright is excellent. It's not necessarily a book strictly about interpreting the bible, but more of a theology of the bible, so to speak. Reading Wright's work has given me a lot more appreciation for what the bible is, which helps a lot with interpreting it.
Are there any particular issues you're interested in, or any books you'd specifically like guidance with? I've got a final suggestion, that deals with making sense of some of the commandments in the old testament. It's called Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, by William Webb. It's an excellent approach to the old testament that reads it in light of the New Testament and is able to make sense of the hard commandments without pretending that they don't exist.
The title for this is a bit misleading; the whole Bible is a collection of written folklore. My (very sadly deceased) old professor wrote a book with tons of examples of this called Holy Writ as Oral Lit. Gilgamesh, being folklore as well, has some parallels to the Bible; think of it as the difference between humans evolving from an ancestor in common with apes as opposed to from apes.
And a nitpick with the article: Gilgamesh is actually a legend. Myths are explanations for how the world and certain things in it came to be, while legends are narratives about an occurrence. For instance, Genesis would be a myth, but Noah's Ark would be a legend. Another common misconception is that either phrase gives a qualification of veracity; neither is synonymous in a scholarly sense with "lie" or "untruth."
I can't remember specifically, but I believe the flood actually appears in several other legends of the time. Since the area was the "cradle of civilization," it's not terribly surprising the story got around to other cultures.
</annoying pedantry>
Link to the book for the lazy.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Stories-Bible-Paul-Farrell/dp/1578849225
Not exactly the Berenstein bears, but somewhat close in concept
I suggest you take a look at these two AMAs from this past year:
Notable comment from the thread with further resources:
>My biggest recommendations would be:
> [The Language of God*](http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-God-Scientist-Presents/dp/1416542744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1400689255&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=The+language+of+God), by Francis Collins (the founder of BioLogos; a great treatise about how science and faith can work together)
Work your way through Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakaarika. It's truly astounding. Shantideva's Ninth Chapter also.
The heart of it is that the cart is simply made of non-cart elements (chair, roof, floor, wheels, etc.), which themselves are made of non-themself things (spokes, hub, rim, etc.) all of which is subject to decay. This "cart" is just a mental object with no real essence.
Now do your own body. Your own self. Your name. All the things you're running from, chasing after. Hope/fear, gain/loss, pleasure/pain, fame/shame... All based on a non-person worrying about non-things.
Then, catch the next time someone needs something of you. Do you like them, and want to help, or not and feel put out? The thing you attach as "them" is empty, as is any perceived burden on your part. You can then take refuge, and simply help without hope of reward or fear of failure.
Does that make it a bit less abstract?
If you want what is probably the most influential book in Mahayana literature that would be Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Now the book I just linked includes Nagarjuna's original text with no commentary in the first section, and the second section has Garfield's commentary of the text line by line. Now in your post you said you wanted depth, and this book is definitely a heavy read. You can of course try to read Nagarjuna's text without the commentary, but if you're like me you will find yourself jumping to the commentary.
If you are being persecuted because you believe in God, then that is unacceptable. I don't know enough about your, or your friends', situation to make a judgement. I'm inclined to trust people, but the claim that someone was fired from an Academic institution for their beliefs is a very serious charge.
I generally don't go to people like Stephen Meyer. When I want to investigate reasons for and against faith I tend to open these books.
Arguing about Gods
Logic and Theism
The Miracle of Theism
Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology
Existence of God
Warranted Christian Belief
>If you aren't arguing for the sake of arguing you could simply concede on it since while I can give references, you can not.
What? Specifically, I was laughing at you for claiming the Trinity had been named before Tertullian. I figured this must be a wikipedia thing and I was right, lol. Theophilus did not use the Trinity to refer to God; you're just arguing to argue and your "source" is a wiki. Pick up a book or two
>I demonstrate it within a century (withing 50 years by some accounts) and now you retreat
No, you didn't demonstrate this. At all. Not even close.
No goalpost has been moved, the concept of the Trinity did not exist in Jesus' time, and it wasn't considered orthodox until hundreds of years after Jesus' death. These are demonstrable facts regardless of the proto-orthodox theologians you dredge up.
>It shows itself in the baptismal formula in Matthew which is arguably the lowest Christology of the 4 gospels
lol, congratulations, you've just displayed your ignorance; the correct answer is "Mark". This is a no-brainer, you'd learn this in your first year in seminary school. Now I feel a little bad for picking on you.
Besides, any student would know the end of Matthew is a later [addition]. Just like the end of Mark, people liked to add things.
>Your argument is worthless and void of all but hand-waving which is a frequent hallmark of those who derive their arguments from the Watchtower.
Dude, what is it with this weird fascination with the watchtower. That would be like me saying you were getting your information from the Qu'ran. I told you, I'm an atheist and what I'm talking about is based on scholarly consensus.
You don't even know enough to be in this discussion, so as I said I feel kinda bad. I made the assumption that you knew the context of what I was saying but had chosen to disagree with it. Now I know you simply aren't following at all.
Here's a decent book to get your started. It's got great sections on higher criticism and touches on some Christology, so it might get you pointed in the right direction:
http://www.amazon.com/Marginal-Jew-Rethinking-Historical-Problem/dp/0385264259
John P. Meier is a Catholic scholar, btw...
The "Look Inside" his first book is jaw-dropping. Check out the table of contents and the "editorial method"...
For reference, here is the Hemingway book on top: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323
I own it & would recommend it.
Hey there, thanks for posting your questions - they are questions many Christians struggle with, and they are questions many have found satisfactory answers to, I hope you do too ! You may get many answers to your questions, some of them contradictory. It's worth remembering that each of us is at a different part of our journey with God and those different answers are more reflective of our own human understanding rather than any issue with God.
Here's some answers from me for you.
Hope thats helped a little ! Blessings !
The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Way-Mlamadhyamakakrik/dp/0195093364
It will take a while to understand the book but the rewards are worth it imo. I'm just starting to read up on it myself.
If you want to research Buddhist views on the mind, I suggest you start with the Mahayana Sutras like Lankavatara Sutra and Shurangama Sutra. If you want to get really technical, then I recommend you read Mulamadhyamakakarika, although Jay L. Garfield's translation is much better imo.
That's just the tip of the iceberg of course. And the Suttas you find in the Pali canon in my experience 100% confirm the same exact view, but they are more circuitous and more subtle about it, so they are not as good for educating a person about the nature of one's own mind.
It's joke easy to spend 10 years studying Buddhist primary sources and not finish studying more than a tiny fraction of them. And understanding the nature of one's own mind is essential prior to meditation.
No, we can't. Even Bart Ehrman, who passionately believes there was a Jesus, admits that. The earliest surviving documents are from the fourth century. What the originals may have said we can not know. Read "Misquoting Jesus or The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture
>I came away with the idea that his version of Christianity was simply one of the losing sides
I didn't realize that you would find that explantion fulfilling.
>I have to ask though, how do we know that the current version hasn't been severely edited as well?
For starters, Marcion threw out all of Matthew, Mark and John. We still have those in today's NT. So right off the bat any editing the orthodoxy did was not going to be as severe as what Marcion did. On the other hand, some scholars, such as Bart Ehrman, do argue that the NT we have has been purposely edited for ideological reasons.
I have read most of Bart Ehrman's books, which are very good. I missed this one but I think it probably includes what you're looking for:
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament
He also wrote a book called Lost Christianities, which is about early splinter groups. That's a fascinating book too.
http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Corruption-Scripture-Christological-Controversies/dp/0199739781
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512
This is what I found on my Dad's desk
He quickly hid it, like a teenage boy ditching a porno mag, but I knew it was because of me...
I just wish he would also look at it objectively, not just from a Christian echo chamber novel.
>Name me fucking one.
I said I would, and I am:
Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running on Empty?
Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins
Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
Nonsense of a High Order:: The Confused World of Modern Atheism
The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions
Against Atheism: Why Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris Are Fundamentally Wrong
The Atheist Delusion
Furthermore though, Christian rehtoric is often explicitly anti-atheist in its messaging without having to be specifically about that. They attiribute morality to themselves and imply that atheists are necessarily immoral or that their values are the only true way to think. If you want proof of this, you need look no further than how much prejudice there still is against atheists in the U.S. statistically.
There's a book called The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions written by an agnostic Jew. It's not an apologetic work though, just trying to give people of faith some space.
It's great to look into the Early church fathers! My recommendations though is to stick to the early early church fathers. Cathodox will often quote "fathers" from later in history after several traditions have already been developed and accepted. Also to remember that even the fathers are but men and can err, which is why when fathers disagree with each other (and they do) we must turn to scripture.
As for book recommendations on Sola scriptura, i haven't yet read them but there is Scripture Alone, Sola Scriptura and Disputations on Holy Scripture
Its truly pathetic that an "editorial" like this, which is nothing more or less than christian evangelism, is allowed on Fox News.
> I was mad at my father for beating my mother. I was angry at a man who worked on our farm and sexually abused me from ages 6 to 13. All of this led to me to really despise God, religion and anything to do with the church.
I question whether this is even true. Who "hates God" because they're being abused (unless you were actually being abused by a priest?) Who "hates God" if they are (as he claims he was) an agnostic? It just suspiciously sounds like he's recapitulating (and personalizing) the claim that atheists aren't atheists, they're just people who insincerely deny the existence of god and actually "hate" god. This is a great start, for a "scholar" to even lie (or be lying to himself) about his own origin story.
> The historical evidence really indicated that Jesus died, was buried, and rose on the third day.
Yeah... Pretty sure he's referring to the bible itself. He's being so stingy in this sources! So we have to just take his word for it? Why not unveil (just a little of) this tsunami-like evidence?!
His book is on Amazon, and the reviews (all 5-star) are predictably amusing:
https://www.amazon.com/New-Evidence-That-Demands-Verdict/dp/0785242198
I'm always amazed how baldly christians phrase their own dilemma:
> According to the Apostle Paul, if Christ did not rise from the dead, then Christianity is false, and Christians are to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17). But if Jesus did rise, then Christianity is true.
christians have a very difficult time convincing me that jesus was ever taken off the cross. the point of the execution by crucifix wasn't just the torture unto death, it was leaving the corpse on the crucifix to decay and to desecrate the corpse. it's perplexing that this historical fact isn't widely known.
I suggest picking up the book New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. Good arguments for the Bible and the resurrection.
Ok cool, I was genuinely asking since verses in Leviticus (like you posted) have differing contexts, audiences, time periods and all sorts of things compared to other passages on the topic of homosexuality or homosexual acts (of which there aren't many) say in Romans.
There are a couple things I'd say about this passage by way of giving some context which I think changes it.
1 - These are laws written to the people of Israel at a specific time in history. It is clear that God goes to great lengths to keep them distinct from the peoples around them as they are transmission point for the bulk of his revealed will so far. Their writings, history, and civic systems would form the foundation upon which God would point towards Christ 1300-1400 years after these books were written. There are a lot of things God forbids that are obvious in keeping the culture separate like intermarriage or certain political alliances. Others are more cultural like tattoos, certain foods, etc. It is my firm belief that this passage is speaking of all manner of things common in neighboring cultures who worshipped Moloch and similar deities. These cultures were pretty bad and God went to great lengths to keep Israel seperate from them. If you'd like to read more about Israel's relation to its neighbors through the Old Testament narrative I recommend "The Old Testament Against Its Environment by G. Ernest Wright. https://www.amazon.com/Testament-Against-Environment-Biblical-Theology/dp/B002EBGKTS/
2 - Despite point #1, many of the things are this list are part of God's moral will for our lives. Several things on the list go against how the God has made us according to the bible and thus are both wrong (IE a transgression worthy of punishment in an eternal sense) and harmful (IE something that will not satisfy or make one happy in the long run or hurts/defrauds others, sometimes both). I think it is the consensus of biblical text that the intention of our creator was for sexuality to exist on a man/woman spectrum. Some disagree with this but I think most biblical scholars would agree that the above passage most especially in its punishments for certain acts, is for a certain place and time and not an ongoing command of any type. It is important to not just do what the bible says but also emphasize what the bible emphasizes. Such a command to enforce any kind of morality regardless of the rightness of it is really foreign the bible. God is the enforcer, we aren't really called to do such a thing. We may disagree on what's God's moral will is for our lives (or whether there is a God or that his moral will is knowable), but I think the context here paints it in a much different light than "God says it's cool to hit gays with a rock". If you'd like to read further on the topic of understanding God's actions in the Old Testament, I recommend "Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God" by Paul Copan. https://www.amazon.com/God-Moral-Monster-Making-Testament/dp/0801072751/
3 - The other important context here is God's redemptive plan for humanity. Why is it so important to keep this people group a certain way over time? What could be so important that you have these books full of civic and moral hoops to jump through with harsh consequences for non-compliance? The answer is that humanity has a problem, born seperated from God by the wrong things that we do, we are under the sentence of death and unable to deal with the punishment for our actions by a just God or the alienation between us and Him due to our sin. As I said everything about ancient Israel prepares for an points directly to Jesus, God's son who came to Earth as a human and died sinless to take the punishment onto himself. Having accepted this sacrifice we can not only escape the eternal consequences of our sin but also end the alienation between us and God and have a relationship with him. This is the moment where all of humanity, every person who has or will ever live on Earth, went from having the sentence of death hanging over them to the potential to live forever and have an eternal purpose. If you'd like to read more about this I recommend Romans Chapter 1:18-2:16,3:9-8:39.
The whole book is good but I've tried to exclude some sections as you are not, I assume, a first century jew living in Rome. I'd also recommend reading it in a more modern translation. It looks like what you posted is from the King James probably? That bible was really great in 1611 but since then modern archaelogy was invented and our greater access to older texts and evolution of better historically grounded textual scholarship means that many many versions are better. I personally like the New American Standard Bible which tries to be more of a "word for word" translation of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic in the text. It can sound a bit like Yoda so if you'd like a "Thought for Thought" translation the New Internation Version, New Living Translation, and English Standard Bible are all fine.
This might be more reply than you're looking for but at least we can agree that Twitter is perhaps not the best place for something so complex. :D Also sorry for a hastily written reply, I didn't think I'd be discussing Leviticus today.
What? I didn't. I have no idea what you're referring to. =\
Wow. It's not showing on the thread anymore...that's really weird. Never seen that before. The whole thing still shows up in my comment history though. I'll re-paste it below:
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Sure. I mostly mean being deliberately inclusive on non-core tenets and practices, while never compromising on the biblical core. We want to avoid ever comprising the faith, while also being willing to change whatever God wants us to change, in the vein of Paul's explanation in [1 Corinthians 9:19-23]. /u/versebot
I mean we ask two questions as a basis for life: "Where is it written in scripture?" and "How is your walk?" This puts focus on knowing Christ as upheld by scripture and embodying him in our lives as the center of everything else.
I mean we ask "Where are the absolute worst hurts in the world?" and concentrate missional focus there deliberately (which, humanly speaking, can be very hard to do).
I'll do my best to give some more specific examples below.
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Regarding core-vs-secondary: For example, we explicitly affirm both infant baptism (followed later by confirmation) AND baby-dedication (followed later by personal-commitment baptism). We believe baptism as a practice is intended to unite believers into one body, rather than dividing them by the means of practicing it. This allows all believers to follow their consciences in the matter and respects the biblical argument one can make for each practice.
Another is that we believe in the full ordination of women (as a "trajectory" that be traced in the NT) and in the need to genuinely embrace LGBTQ people with love over everything else -- while affirming the centrality of scripture on all matters including sexuality (e.g. rejecting the allegedly "unstoppable slippery slope" that Piper and others say inevitably results in churches kowtowing to sexual liberalism . . . which we nevertheless are not doing). A good depiction of how we approach this matter is embodied in this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Slaves-Women-Homosexuals-Exploring-Hermeneutics/dp/0830815619
Also, in sharing about the ECC before, I've run across the following commentary (from a Methodist's point of view) on our evangelistic mission:
http://www.confessingumc.org/could-we-learn-from-the-evangelical-covenant-church/
We've made it a conspicuous mission to conduct racial reconciliation and to seek multiracial/multiculturalism as a denomination in any ways we can. Any ways that people are divided from each other creates a gaping wound that the church can step in to heal in Christ, and we believe it is impossible to fully honor this without engaging in racial reconciliation.
In reaching out to anyone in poverty, we focus as local churches on the poor in our own neighborhood/city while also asking the global question, "Who are the absolute poorest people on the planet?" and concentrating denominational funding there deliberately.
We've also put a huge focus on combating slavery and sex trafficking over the last two decades, believing that this is one of the basest ways human beings are routinely desecrated around the world.
More or less, I've looked around at various Christian denominations with heartache over so many things that people refuse to change (that just aren't central) -- and also grieved at so many ways that multiple denominations have utterly compromised to accommodate the "demands of the world." I've felt such relief and gratitude to have a clear conscience in supporting the Evangelical Covenant church's stance and mission.
We're fairly small numerically speaking, and we have a lot to learn from our brothers and sisters in every denomination. Will/do leaders in the ECC ultimately require rebuke and correction? Almost certainly. But I feel relieved by (rather than ashamed of) the ECC on an ongoing basis. Are we somehow "superior"? Of course not. We're as humanly broken as the rest of the global church. But that hasn't stopped us from following Jesus in the special ways he's called us to do.
We're kind of "post-Lutheran" in our Swedish roots, but that's an easier thing to simply look up.
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If there's anything I shared here that concerns you as mods, feel free to confront me about it. I will not be offended -- and neither will I make pretenses to falsely seek approval.
This reader has a beautiful breadth of authors; from Chladenius to Gadamer/Habermas/Apel. I'd def. read some smaller/older/romantic figures such as Chladenius, Schlermacher, and Dilthey.
From Heidegger, I'd somewhat avoid Being and Time, maybe look into Hermeneutics of Facticity instead. I'd also suggest looking into Husserl's influence on language and how that developed into a hermeneutics (Such as Hermeneutics and Reflection: Heidegger and Husserl on the Concept of Phenomenology).
I'd also consider going through Ricouer's Hermeneutics or On Interpretation. Recently Kearney is a major figure, his On Stories is phenomenal (as /u/MegistaGene suggests).
Personally, I'd also throw in some more recent 'applied/topical hermeneutics'. Books by either Kearney or Brian Treanor are brilliant.
Along side the other suggestions, as well, I'd definitely look into a bit of Philo, Augustine, or that crowd. They provide a fantastic background for the field's development (Grodin's Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics is a fantastic secondary source for this kind of stuff).
Looking through the bibliography of the SEP page might give you more ideas! I hope the directed studies goes well!
I got kind of lazy with the links, but anyways here is my collection of Christianity related books, links etc.
Listening:
Books:
Links
Read it, fun story. I really like the part where in Atra-Hasis it states that the flood was a river flood. Then to Gilgamesh it evolves to the Sea was flooded. Then Noah, the next in the chain, it's a Worldwide flood that covered even up to the mountains.
Genesis 7:17-20
River flooded, to Sea flooded, to World flooded. Essentially what we have here is oral tradition from generation to generation, and each generation embellishing on the previous one to make it sound bigger and better. Sort of like the game of Telephone one plays as a kid.
A really good book on these kind of situations is by Alan Dundes - Holy Writ as Oral Lit.
Jesus Among Other Gods
and
Problem of Pain
are two that come to my mind. I think both are great reads for non-believers who were raised Christian or have a solid understanding of Christianity.
Have you thought about reading any christian theology books? I find reading opposing perspectives and ideas helps to strengthen my own. If I can make a few recommendations...
The Reason for God - Timothy Keller
Jesus Among Other Gods - Ravi Zacharias
The End of Reason - Zacharias
Christian Apologetics - Norman Geisler
Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis
I would highly recommend everyone read Wayne Grudem's "Christian Beliefs". It's an abbreviated version of "Systematic Theology". Very short but concise overview of basic christian beliefs.
I can only recommend christian material as I haven't read a lot of other religious text. Christianity is the most relevant religion where I live, so understanding has been helpful in conversing with the religious folks around me.
There are a ton. To name just a few:
Dan Barker wrote a book titled God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction that lists entire chapters of god either doing or commanding ludicrous things. Not really a good book for reading, but a great book for reference.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-Adam-Doesnt-Origins/dp/158743315X
Seriously, do it. It's one of the best resources I know of for almost all of your questions.
Yes, this is a hard problem for evangelicals, but denying the problem is clearly not the way forward.
You might like the Christianity Today cover story on the issue from last year, the shorter NPR article, a book on the topic and a website that (at least used to be) dedicated to working on the problem.
I don't know if this will help, but you might want to check out the book Why I Believed by Kenneth Daniels, himself a former missionary: http://www.amazon.com/Why-Believed-Reflections-Former-Missionary-ebook/dp/B003UNLMRY/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr= . He tells his story there and you might get some insights from it.
Also, you might check out http://clergyproject.org/ to see if you can talk to someone there who has been in a similar situation
I recommend Jesus and the Eyewitnesses
See also a recent book called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses that argues mostly for the second thing.. that the gospels are based on eyewitness accounts.
Fortunately, Bart Ehrman isn't the only source or final say of bible scholarship.
> showing him so frequently before bringing him back fully in season 11 may have hampered the impact of his return.
Not if it was with flashbacks that are pertinent to that season's plot.
>It's implied humans at that time were evil, so they had to start from scratch.
Weird that's exactly the defence bible god used and it amounts to I don't like you SMITE!!!
>God in this show is a neglectful asshole.
Yes but is he outright malicious? Is he Bible god?
>...I'm just going to... not... answer that.
I'm not psychotic I just mean if they keep having us assume things happened the way they did in the bible, Weeelllll......
https://www.amazon.ca/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322
This looks like it'll be a fun read: http://www.amazon.com/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322/ref=zg_bsnr_12764_6
Try this Illustrated Stories from the Bible.
There's a book for that.
I highly recommend this book which highlights all the crazy shit in the bible
Kenneth Daniels was involved in the ministry (as a Bible translator) when he deconverted. His book, Why I Believed, describes his experience and how he ultimatly pulled away from the ministry. I think it might be a helpful read in your situation. I felt like I really benifited from reading it. He has even posted it free online.
When I was in the process of losing my faith, I would go through cycles where I would be sure that Christianity was wrong, and then wonder if maybe it wasn't, etc. So there were definitely periods where I wondered if I might have been mistaken to think I knew more than the community that raised me.
But the more I read, the more I reflected, and probably most importantly the more I talked to other Christians about my doubts, the more convinced I became that God as I understood him did not exist.
This book closely mirrors my story. It doesn't go into very great depth on many specific issues, but it introduces a wide variety of ideas, it provides a lot of references for further reading, and it's the best book I've read at helping you get inside the mind of someone who lost the struggle with doubt. In my experience most Christians have a very hard time understanding how someone can leave the faith in an intellectually honest way, so that's always the book I recommend they read if they want to know.
To specifically answer your question from the present, no I do not doubt that the Christian God I was taught about as a child does not exist. It's entirely likely that there are major things out there that I/we do not understand yet, but there remain no doubts that Yahweh might be one of them.
> For the OT bit, I think I understand what you're saying, but it's hard for me to accept that genocide was once holy for the Israelites but now deeply immoral for everyone else, if that makes sense. I guess it makes me wonder if it might become required again, and how we would know it was?
There was a specific reason (several actually) for the genocides that God ordered: for one, Israel's conquest served as God's judgment on the Canaanites (just like the Flood was judgment on the pre-Flood world or how the Assyrians was judgment on Israel). There was also a matter of God wanting the Canaanites out of the land so that Israel could better maintain its unique identity as God's people.
Now that we are in the New Covenant, instead of God using physical things, He is using a greater amount of spiritual and internal reality in his people. So instead of a physical nation of people being God's judgment against wickedness, He is more likely to use internal judgments (like what we see in Romans where God just gives up people their own sin as a form of judgment), as well as the Second Coming of Christ and the threat of hell as the ultimate judgment against wickedness. God gave us everything in the Old Testament, even the things we don't understand, as historic pictures and symbols of our lives in Christ now.
Simply put, the stuff we see in the Old Testament has seen their fulfillment in Christ in some way or another. Because God is no longer working through the unique cultural and tribal identity of Israel, He no longer needs to especially keep that national identity from being absorbed into the surrounding cultures. So the Canaan conquests are a picture of sanctification: the Christian may not be obeying God in killing Canaanites to purge the Promise Land, but he does obey God and kill the sin still present in his life.
There's no cause to "fear" that God will order any genocides from us, simply because He's moved from the point in redemptive history where those were needed for his purposes. I wouldn't call it "holy" but more pragmatic - God was using the tools from the culture he had at hand. If it had occurred in modern times, God may have used something more economically crippling for example. I'm not sure.
One good resource for examining the stuff in the Old Testament is Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan.
I suppose before I get into rambling any more, one of the things about being a Christian is trusting God even when things look odd, strange or counter-intuitive. It's easiest (or at least most natural) to apply this to when our lives don't work out how we envision, or when we have to deal with how evil interacts with us. But for the Christian, our faith (our confidence and trust in God) is probably most important when God doesn't seem to act like he "ought" too. But God has given us a huge record of His dealings with people, his faithfulness, love and mercy, as well as telling us about his justice, his holiness and his right and proper anger against wickedness - all the while He reflects that these are aspects of his goodness and love. We shouldn't feel "betrayed" when God acts in a way that feels like a gut-punch to our sensibilities. It's proper to ask questions and learn, but we've got to be careful not to judge the Judge of the Earth with our limited perspective.
> One of the key differences that I mentioned earlier, between Buddhism and Science, is that a scientist's "no mind" isn't actually no mind; it's the distinction between relative and absolute truths
It's kind of interesting, but another saying in Madhyamaka thought is that the only absolute truth is that the only truths are relative truths. Or that the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths. Gulp down the emetic. :) You might enjoy investigating that school. My impression is that you're pretty bright, and it's all about transformation that starts by turning the thinking mind against itself, in a way. This book is a good introduction, with commentary in the second half that's much easier to parse than the original text.
Chiming in for a sec, we used this book in my Buddhist Metaphysics class which focused a lot on Nagarjuna. This is his greatest work and it also includes some good commentary for clarification, since you'll probably need it, the first time around anyway :)
I don't know how valuable that would be without more context. The Diamond Sutra would probably give a little better base if you're interested in Prajnaparamita text. The Heart Sutra is sort of an abbreviation of the teachings. The Diamond Sutra says a little bit more, but it's probably very different from what you've been discussing and would still probably hard to appreciate coming just from a western philosophical context and without a meditation practice.
The Mulamadhyamakakarika, specifically this version with a very good commentary by a professor of philosophy seems to me like it'd be a better fit for your sub given what you've been studying. It's about using thought to see through thought, but with a framework and especially with a commentary that would probably be better suited to someone coming from Western philosophy, provided you can catch yourself if you start dismissing arguments because they challenge things that seem self-evident. It's more analytic, but it argues against the tools of analysis in a way, so it can be tricky.
There's a neat article that talks a little bit about it here. I'd be interested in hearing what your group thinks about it if you ever cover it. Please let me know if your sub ever decides to look at it.
If you really want to get into the roots of Buddhism, 2 books I highly recommend are The fundamental wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna and Guide to a Bodhisattva way of life by Shantideva. both were written many hundreds of years ago and were influential in the developments of the Mahayana (india, china, japan, korea, etc) school of buddhism,
haha! yeah that would be pretty funny. youre right though, according to Mahayana (and Buddhism generally, though they focus less on "Sunyata" compared to Mahayana), reifying things, the self and other, as inherently existent, independent, unchanging, etc is the fundamental primary delusion that leads us to appropriate things mainly either through acquiring pleasure and avoiding pain.
a great read on Sunyata, or emptiness, is THE FUNDAMENTAL WISDOM OF THE MIDDLE WAY by Nagarjuna, translated by Jay L. Garfield: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Way-M%C5%ABlamadhyamakak%C4%81rik%C4%81/dp/0195093364
For the MMK, Jay Garfield's The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way is quite well-regarded, albeit somewhat academic in style. I've also heard good things about Siderits' work.
The thought that it's hard to conceptualize a ground for moral facts, whether natural or non-natural, is certainly something that motivates Mackie's argument from queerness. He does object to Hare's non-cognitivism, because he thinks that moral statements are meant to invoke moral properties, and fail to do so. Moral realists are also cognitivists, as are other error theorists like mackie. Most of these people, nevertheless, find it hard to conceptualize a grounding for moral facts. Indeed, this is a main reason naturalism is thought not to be very compelling, that it's much harder to conceive of a natural ground for moral facts than a non-natural one. Sharon Street, and as you pointed out, Ronald Dworkin make this point.
Parfit is not an anti-realist, he is a deflationist. He thinks there are moral facts, they are just non-metaphysical facts (like mathematical facts are).
>It's flagrantly circular to say rationality is determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. So at most you could say that morality is determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. But then you've done nothing to answer the big metaethical questions concerning rationality (in this normatively-loaded sense of the term): e.g. are judgments of rationality a matter of practical attitude, or do they make reference to some sort of ontology, and if so, what is the nature of this ontology?
Rationality is not determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. Morality is determined by whatever a maximally rational being desires. This helps to explain the normative force of morality, because it helps us understand why it's rational to behave morally (if a being endorses your action who is perfectly rational, there seems to be very good reason to do it).
>Certainly not if it merely relocates all the big metaethical questions from one normative domain to another (equally problematic) normative domain.
Although normative properties generally are still weird, they are a lot less weird than moral properties. (It is a lot more difficult to see why something is rational to believe than it is to see why it is moral to do). Nevertheless, no moral theory is obligated to provide an account of all normativity (that's the job of a theory of normativity). If that were the case many arguments for moral realism wouldn't work (like Terrence Cuneo's comparison argument).
>I've read Firth and Brandt and Michael Smith, and I consider myself pretty well-informed about ideal observer theory, but I've never encountered "the algorithm analogy".
That's because I invented it when I responded to your post. It seems like it would be a good thing to use in an undergraduate class to make ideal observer theory compelling, but then again, I'm not a teacher.
>Where exactly do people in the literature compare the epistemic merits of moral intuitions with inferential claims about God's psychology? Are you saying that all inferential claims are ipso facto epistemically superior to all intuitions?
Well for starters there's a trivial argument that DCT offers a more reliable basis for morality than ethical intuitionism, namely that it's compatible with ethical intuitionism. So you could back up your intuitions with other stuff, whereas the person who is solely an ethical intuitionism has got nothing to back up their intuitions with.
Nevertheless, I did probably speak too soon in saying it's a general belief that claims about god's psychology are more defensible than claims stemming from intuition about morality. More accurately, most people seem to believe that in light of the objections to ethical intuitionism from cognitive science, claims about God's psychology are prima facie more reliable than intuitionist claims about morality.
The problem of divine hiddenness, for example, implies we know enough about God's character to have a sensible idea of how hidden he would be:
http://philpapers.org/rec/TRIGSA
A lot of religious knowledge also stems from authority, which is typically understood to be more reliable than intuition:
http://philpapers.org/rec/BENBOA-4
On reformed epistemology, knowledge of God is properly basic, which puts it on the level of belief in free will, which seems to be more well-founded than faulty intuitions:
https://www.amazon.com/Warranted-Christian-Belief-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0195131932
But all in all, when you look at the language religious epistemologists and scholars of religion use, it certainly seems to be a language in which knowledge of God's character is presumed more reliable than an epistemology which looks like it fails. Of course, none of this amounts to an argument that knowledge of God's psychology is more reliable than moral intuition in general, and such would make for a very interesting paper, so thanks for the idea!
Plantinga is an old-school academic philosopher, so the best way to get familiar with his ideas is his published works (Amazon links below):
Plantinga is also on the editorial board of Faith and Philosophy, the journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, and he's contributed several articles over the years. There are even more published articles written by his students and colleagues about his ideas.
>I believe that Christianity is rationally defensible, that religious experiences are valid, and that belief in God enjoys proper basicality--as Alvin Plantinga has defended
I think Plantinga, Alston and Wolterstorff's reformed epistemology is one of the most convincing defenses of rational belief that has hence been devised.
Warranted Christian Belief is an extraordinarily good read. There is an updated, condensed version also: Knowledge and Christian Belief.
He is the MASTER, I mean it, of the short story. I would say his short stories are much better than his novels. I'm about halfway through his entire short story collection right now ([The Finca Vigia Edition] (http://www.amazon.ca/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323)) and I love it so much. With his short, simple, to the point language it's quite obvious he would do his best work in a shorter format, in my opinion. I have only read two of his books, those being "The Sun Also Rises" and "The Old Man and the Sea", both were phenomenal and I feel like his terse prose brought the novel and especially the short story to new heights.
My friend picked up some stuff of mine from his PO Box across the border. Managed to get a pair of Killshots since they don't ship to Canada/can't get in-store shipping here. Also got two books as well.
"An Exorcist Tells His Story" - Fr. Gabriele Amorth
"The Complete Short Stories" - Hemingway
Since I have no idea what kind of books you like I made a short little list of books I generally recommend to people for any reason. All linked to amazon so look for a review or synopsis there.
Let the Great World Spin
The Great War for Civilization
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
Oil!
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
Theodore Rex
Lincoln:A Novel
Get some absinthe and crack open a copy of Hemingway's short stories.
Really good book on the subject.
Not a Church Father, but when I was a new believer this book really helped me. It's big, but it really digs deep into the historic evidence for the faith.
Reading back, I do not interpret my comments as you've narrated. Can you show an explicit example that shows why you do?
A second reading does not show me that I'm not telling you why I think that way. I guess I'll just try to be more explicit.
Here's how I think. I'm a person who, in their natural state, isn't very reasonable and isn't very logical, like every other human being on the planet (whether they want to admit it or not). I don't think I or anyone else has the cognizance to look at a set of beliefs as broad as Christianity or any other religion and say that it makes completely unfalsifiable claims, especially when there's things like this and this and this and this. I'm not going to go into those books individually and say why I think they're right or wrong. I'm just going to say they offer big boy arguments, believe in something falsifiable, and make arguments towards it. Saying that Descartes or C.S. Lewis had unfalsfiable beliefs is plainly and undeniably false, and worse, is unfair to the fact that they support these arguments with carefully planned logic.
Saying Fred Phelps or the average Bible Belt fundamentalist has unfalsifiable beliefs isn't. So saying the whole kitten kaboodle is unfalsifiable is a sweeping generalization of a broad range of beliefs under the term "religion."
It's just not fair to the people who wrestle with their beliefs and really try to give solid reasons for believing. It puts them in the same category as buck-tooth fundamentalists.
If you want this conversation to continue, I'm going to ask you apologize for attacking my character over something as inconsequential as an internet discussion, and I'm going to further ask you not to do shit like that again. I don't know what kind of filter makes you think any of those statements are "insulting" unless you think it's an insult for someone to say your thinking isn't fair/logical. So far the first and only insults and attacks on character have been made by you. Unless you consider "I guess you don't hear a whole lot of profound statements" a pretty big insult. I agree that it was nasty & mean to say and I've apologized to the person affected.
Yikes, I mixed up the books! Case for Christ is a great book but the one I was thinking about was this one
http://www.amazon.com/New-Evidence-That-Demands-Verdict/dp/0785242198
Thanks for pointing out my error, this book is the one I was thinking of. I got the author's name mixed up too. Anyways, this book is very unbiased, just laid out information and evidence meant to let the reader decide based on the info in the book.
Add these to your reading list:
Specifically on morality:
There also exist multimedia available online related to the above that you can hunt down for yourself.
(As a Catholic naturally I disagree with whatever goes against Catholic teaching in the above works; nevertheless there is much that is good in all of these. Furthermore even though some items are specifically Catholic, much in them would be useful to you.)
> Why would it? I don't have a problem with it.
Because the credibility of the bible is based on two assumptions:
2)Josh McDowell confirms that early Christians put such a high regard on what they wrote about Jesus so we can conclude that there aren't any errors.
That's it. That is why the the new testament has no credibility. If you don't have a problem with that, you should.
I hate people who post 90 minute videos on youtube, but today I'm going to be that guy! If you're serious about wrestling through this issue, I recommend that you check out this video by a guy named Paul Copan. I don't endorse everything he says everywhere, but this is a helpful resource to start thinking this issue through. You can grab it here, too, if you're a reader.
Part 1 of 2
Wrote a really long reply and had to break it up. Sorry :/
>First off... I'm sorry I came off so upset before.
And I will be more careful going forward on reddit with my posts so as not to offend :) I could have taken more time with the post in question to strip away the implications that I thought you had moral similarities to those groups.
>Morals are personal feelings of what is right or wrong.
This is true in that it describes that individuals hold morals themselves but they can also have absolute truth values depending on whether or not objective morality is a 'thing'. "Murdering humans is wrong" has a truth value of 'T' or 'true' if the Christian God exists. Just like "The holocaust was good" has a truth value of 'F' or 'false' if the Christian God exists. Both of these moral statements have a NULL truth value in a world where morality ebbs and flows with human opinion. The Christian God isn't necessarily the only possible grounds for objective morality but I think he is the most likely, thus me being Christian and not of some other religion.
>I do believe that morals change based on when/where you live. This doesn't bother me.
Maybe you're right and this doesn't bother you, but it bothers me. And I would say 99% of the world at least LIVES as though morals were absolute. I'm sure it would bother you had lived as a Jew in 1930s/40s Europe and been thrown in a concentration camp with your family. There would be little comfort to take in reminding yourself the Nazi morality is 'different' than yours but not objectively 'wrong'. A world where the bodies can be stacked in concentration camps and where child-rape happens and where chemical weapons can be released on villages AND where none of this is objectively 'wrong', is a troubling reality.
>I have no problem and do not judge based on the Christian ideals. I understand it's not wrong in Christian society or they wouldn't be doing it.
In your post, you mention that you are passionate about gay rights. In your morality, I'm assuming that you believe that homosexuals should be allowed to marry and that this is good. Following from this, I'm assuming you believe that religious efforts to keep marriage between heterosexual partners only, to be wrong. Also you say you have no issue with the fact that morality is subjective from one group of individuals to the other. Basically, that morals do not have absolute truth values one way or another since there is no objective standard. From this you can see that allowing homosexuals to marry is neither right nor wrong. You can campaign for their right to marry if you want, that's your choice, but it is not 'right' to do so, anymore than it is 'wrong'.
>Interpretations of the bible have changed drastically over the years.
I'm not arguing that followers of God are always moral in an objective sense. It is pretty obvious from history that this is not the case. What I'm saying is that God's changelessness provides truth values to morality. Jews and Christians may believe their actions are moral but the real truth value of that moral action is determined by God. So if you see a Christian or Jew who acts immorally, that is not proof that objective morality does not exist. It is merely proof that that individual person does not act morally 100% of the time.
>Even if you attempt to take the Bible at face value it's still difficult to understand fully.
Amen. But the worthwhile things are never easy. Jews and Christians believe we are called to 'study' God's word, not to skim it or to read once and put down. There's a lot of depth and nuance to it, along with contextual and historical factors that need to be taken into account. It's true that different interpretations arise, but most are in full agreement about the fundamental teachings of scripture, the most important being who Christ was (God incarnate, come to earth) and what he did for us (freed us from slavery to sin, immorality, and death).
I'm sure, if you've read part or all of the Bible before that many of the Old Testament sections offended your sense of morality. Old Testament morality is not an easy subject and can often be a class or two of its own in a seminary or religion program. There are few key things to keep in mind when reading the Old Testament
If God himself does something you perceive to be immoral, remember to analyze the passage based on the unique circumstances surrounding moral decisions of an omniscient and omnipotent being. Also remember that death in the physical temporal world is one thing, and eternity after judgement at the end of the world is another.
For a much better exposition of Old Testament ethics (while still being at the popular level) I highly recommend the following book by Paul Copan who is a Biblical ethicist: Is God a Moral Monster?
>And yet if they removed every written record of this objective morality and killed off every person with a memory of it... what?
As a Christian, I have faith that God has a vested interest in preventing this reality from happening. But let's say that it did. In that case, the existence of the Bible shows me that God desires humans to be aware of his plans and intentions so he would speak to humanity again as he did in the Bible. Perhaps the stories would be different and the books would be different, but the same moral and loving God would shine through all the same. If God is real, then his ultimate plans for the universe cannot be thwarted by ours.
>Would everyone go to hell?
I think the Bible is clear that, at final judgement, God will not hold anyone accountable for what they didn't know. If a little girl is raped by her Bible-thumping religious father, was she actually shown the real Jesus? No. God would expect her to be angry at religion and would provide a way for her that is fair. The Bible is crystal that God is completely just and aware of every secret thought and deed. We don't have to worry about him being fair.
There's a book on the subject: Is God A Moral Monster?
>the claims of christianity are quite extraordinary, and thereby requires extraordinary evidence or argumentation; I am sure that if any of these people had come up with a truly extraordinary argument I would have heard about it. I must conclude they have not.
My earlier point, when I mentioned both classical and contemporary philosophers/theologians, was to show you that christendom had already produced rigorous and rational reasons for the intellectual viability of the christian faith. From the fact that you haven't heard about these writings it does not necessarily follow that they are not compelling or true, or further, that they do not exist. Therefore, your deduction is invalid on this point.
>This in contrast with my limited experience with theology...I have examined the ideas and found them to be extremely wanting in terms of logic and evidence.
You seem to vacillate on whether you are actually familiar with christian thought. You seem to say that you have limited experience with it, and then claim that you find their defences to be illogical and wanting. Seeing as how you also claimed that you hadn't come across 'extraordinary' (i'll construe this as compelling) arguments for christianity, I can safely assume you aren't familiar with rigorous christian thought. This also means that the pool of information from which you deduce your conclusions is insuficient. I'll provide some links to some material to further your knowledge of the christian faith.
>Any open-minded child can see it, and it takes an adult mind to come up with the kind of contortions that pass for a defense of those ideas.
When it comes to questions that are religious or philosophical in nature, the answers are hardly simple. Any subject matter becomes increasingly sophisticated the more you develop it, and the same is with religion and philosophy. To expect otherwise is unfair at the least, and irrational at worst.
Per your request of your wishing me to delineate the founding principles of christianity, I will admit that I neither have the talent or the time to do them justice in this kind of setting. It should suffice that I affirm the nicean creed. As per your list, this should get you started:
God 1 and 2,
the Trinity,
Omniscience 1 and 2.
I'll construe your question of God and regret to the question on whether God can change. If that's fair, then these links may help.
Your question on how the OT and NT harmonize may come because you see the seemingly moral infractions that God causes in the OT versus the seemingly squishy and loving God in the NT. If this is the case, then maybe these links will help some.
For your question on the atonement, this may help.
The wikipedia article on original sin is pretty good, so read that for more info.
Your question on why the theist God is more plausible than other gods that humanity has come up with should become self-evident if you go through the material I have linked here.
>My basic argument will be this: it is possible to waste many words on these topics, but no essay can compete with the idea that it is simply made-up nonsense in terms of parsimony and consistency. Therefore, for anyone who values reason, that should be the default position.
Your position here is one that I find most unhelpful in this exchange. Unless you provide reasons or material on why christianity is "simply made-up nonsense", then your saying that "no essay (which I'll interpret as argumentation) can compete with [your] idea" actually boils down to circular argumentation. You really come across as saying that christianity is silly because it's obviously silly. That kind of assertion (not deduction) doesn't hold water; you have to provide reasons for why that should be the case. If you say that Occam's Razor is an intrinsic defeater for christianity, then you have to show me just how it defeats it. If you say christianity is illogical, then you have to show me how. Once you tell me how you came to those conclusion, I can understand where you're coming from and we can share/learn from one another.
I've given you stuff that I went through when learning about my faith so I've linked it to you. You may find it frustrating that I sent you material for you to go through yourself instead of my just typing it out. I did this because I don't think you've exposed yourself to enough material on christianity to substantiate the claims you make here. If you're going to hold your views, that's cool, but if you want to make huge claims like christianity is "baloney" or "illogical," then you have to be familiar with what you're going up against. Until you familiarize yourself with the material, I doubt our exchange would be useful; at least not until you are more forthcoming in telling me what you believe, why you believe it, and (for the purposes of this conversation) why you think (in detail) that christianity is baloney and illogical.
(I'm not Mjdillaha.)
I've recently enjoyed reading Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan. It doesn't go over the the tabernacle dimensions, but it does talk quite a bit about the context and interpretation of the Old Testament laws. Although today we look back on ancient Near East laws today and find them all unsuitable for our time, the Mosaic law was actually in many cases a major improvement over contemporary laws in surrounding cultures, even with respect to the treatment of women and slaves (two topics that people love to bring up when talking about the "injustice" of the Old Testament God).
Copan's book is a quick read, and every chapter has a reading list if you want to dive deeper into any of the topics.
i find that studying buddhism helps in this area. specifically, this book https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Way-lamadhyamakak/dp/0195093364
this will allow you to not fall into the trap of equating conditions with an object or an object with conditions, which is based in our innate misunderstanding of reality.
Beyond the obvious choices, Watts' The Book, Ram Dass' Be Here Now, Huxley's Doors of Perception, Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience, and of course Fear and Loathing (all of these should be on the list without question; they’re classics), here are a some others from a few different perspectives:
From a Secular Contemporary Perspective
Godel Escher Bach by Douglass Hofstadter -- This is a classic for anyone, but man is it food for psychedelic thought. It's a giant book, but even just reading the dialogues in between chapters is worth it.
The Mind’s Eye edited by Douglass Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett – This is an anthology with a bunch of great essays and short fictional works on the self.
From an Eastern Religious Perspective
The Tao is Silent by Raymond Smullyan -- This is a very fun and amusing exploration of Taoist thought from one of the best living logicians (he's 94 and still writing logic books!).
Religion and Nothingness by Keiji Nishitani – This one is a bit dense, but it is full of some of the most exciting philosophical and theological thought I’ve ever come across. Nishitani, an Eastern Buddhist brings together thought from Buddhist thinkers, Christian mystics, and the existentialists like Neitzsche and Heidegger to try to bridge some of the philosophical gaps between the east and the west.
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna (and Garfield's translation/commentary is very good as well) -- This is the classic work from Nagarjuna, who lived around the turn of the millennium and is arguably the most important Buddhist thinker after the Buddha himself.
From a Western Religious Perspective
I and Thou by Martin Buber – Buber wouldn’t approve of this book being on this list, but it’s a profound book, and there’s not much quite like it. Buber is a mystical Jewish Philosopher who argues, in beautiful and poetic prose, that we get glimpses of the Divine from interpersonal moments with others which transcend what he calls “I-it” experience.
The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila – this is an old book (from the 1500s) and it is very steeped in Christian language, so it might not be everyone’s favorite, but it is perhaps the seminal work of medieval Christian mysticism.
From an Existentialist Perspective
Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre – Not for the light of heart, this existential novel talks about existential nausea a strange perception of the absurdity of existence.
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus – a classic essay that discusses the struggle one faces in a world inherently devoid of meaning.
----
I’ll add more if I think of anything else that needs to be thrown in there!
If you're interested in an eastern philosophy perspective but have a western cultural background there's no one better than Alan Watts to start with. He's an expert at translating difficult concepts into a frame of reference that's far more digestible.
I'd start here with The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Alternatively you can listen to many of his talks on YouTube for free. I highly recommend this as his character is half the joy of his work. Here's a relevant talk that covers some of the same material as The Book, just in less depth obviously.
If you enjoy his work, then you can move on to more difficult material. I'm a huge fan of Nagarjuna and his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, or "The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way". It's an incredible work but you can't just start there or you won't have the necessary conceptual vocabulary.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Mulamadhyamakakarika/dp/0195093364
As far as I know it's definitely buddhist
Death is nothing like an endless void since death/nothingness isn't real at all. Another perspective from Wittgenstein:
> Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.
Beyond death there are many other existential facts and uncertainties you could despair over. For example, you could fear the opposite of death, eternal life: not being able to die. You could become anxious over literally anything if you are creative enough and find a way to perceive it as a threat. Then to think your way out of the fear and see how it could be based on a misperception, you have to get even more creative! Academic philosophers, who handle these kinds of thoughts at the distance of the intellect, are very good at this. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, often held up as the most important philosophical work of the 20th century, could go a long way toward curing you of your existential anxieties.
Fortunately or unfortunately, uncertainty lies beneath everything. You can't consciously ground yourself in that uncertainty; it would be like drowning in an endless ocean with nothing to hold onto. The Buddhist solution is to relinquish attachments (to the world, to self/ego - everything): to learn to float and stop grasping after permanence and substance, and to embrace emptiness (which is held as the essential nature of existence).
Without non-attachment, ignorance, evasion or denial, I think the only way to "get over" it was described by Kierkegaard, the originator of existentialism (who IMO has not been surpassed and who Wittgenstein declared the most profound author of the 19th century). He explores it from a Christian perspective in The Sickness Unto Death, and his remedy is faith:
> The formula that describes the state of the self when despair is completely rooted out is this: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be oneself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.
the mulamadhyamakakarika is going to be pretty tough sledding for someone who has no background in buddhist philosophy. better to read a commentary on it before tackling it directly. try garfield's excellent treatment as it's the standard for teaching nagarjuna's "fundamental wisdom of the middle way".
> just read the wiki on the "Mūlamadhyamakakārikā", which seems pretty enlightening; though am a hardcore philosophical-theorist
I just looked over the wiki page and it seems pretty esoteric. The MMK is pretty hard-nosed philosophy when you get down to it. If that approach interests you, you might like Buddhism as Philosophy as a short, more down-to-earth overview of this, along with a bunch more topics from the tradition. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way seems to be recommended a lot around here if you're at all interested in diving into a translation/commentary.
> Thank you for your thoughtful replies.
Sure thing.
>How is the knowledge of what a person is intrinsic? Also, how do you know that you, yourself, are a person, from an epistemic standpoint?
It's just the general definition for what you are. You know that experience and you know how it manifests externally. That is how you can define what a person is.
>How would you assert that you are the specific creature that was made in God's image?
Because the Bible doesn't say creature, it says man, a specific creature.
>Not trying to poke at things, but wouldn't an even simpler explanation be that they are "soulless" (can't think of a decent word at the moment), but still appear to have a mind? Similar to AI.
Not at all. How is it simpler that they would be different? That you are the only person with a "soul" despite everyone being created by God? Wouldn't that just be special pleading?
Remember the simplest explanation is not "the simplest to implement", it's not about whats simplest to make happen when you already know intrinsically consciousness can happen. Rather the simplest explanation is the one that makes the fewest assumptions.
Assuming everyone who looks and acts like you has a mind, which you know you have, is one assumption.
Assuming everyone who looks and acts like you, does not in fact has a mind is one assumption. This also assumes you're now the only one with a mind. So that's two. Then you assume that for other's its a facsimile or AI. That's three. etc.
>I agree with that, but the problem is what humanity is. How do you know you are the creature that God was referring to?
As above, the Bible does not use "creature" it uses "man", as in "mankind".
>So then what is the point of believing them over not?
They're necessary for understanding the external world.
Before we were grounding all belief. To do that we grounded fundamental beliefs in ourselves, which makes sense as we are the ones that hold belief.
Now we've jumped to a scope beyond ourselves. These are the beliefs that are foundational to understanding the external world, but not necessarily foundational to ourselves or all belief in general.
>Are there any books in particular or online summaries that would relate to this certain aspect of PBBs?
I read Plantinga's book "Warranted Christian Belief" awhile back and I believe that starts to dig at those topics. This goes into some depth but it is written in more accessible language.
A more formal treatment by him would be his paper "On proper basicality" but it's an academic philosophy paper so it might be hard to digest. There's also "Is belief in god properly basic?", another paper of his but I can't find a link that isn't behind a paywall.
You can check out this list of some of his work. He addresses many of the questions you've been asking. Reformed epistemology is as good a place as any to jump into this.
William Lane Craig also talks about it occasionally, but I don't think he's written something specifically in regards to it.
Doctrine of the Knowledge of God by John Frame
Loving to Know:Covenant Epistemology by Esther Meek
Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga
New username here. It's been a while since was in the literature on these issues, but I got my degree in Phil & Religion under a guy whose adviser was Plantinga and I heard Plantinga give a conference presentation on what became his Warrented Christian Belief. The school I went to was a heart of Pressup Apologetics, since Gordon Clark, who in addition to Van Til, was a founder of the movement, although Val Til was taught more. So I did papers on Van Til and his successor John Frame, but did read some books by Clark on other subjects.
>Upvote for a thoughtful and detailed answer. I suppose I still can't come to see past what I perceive is circularity.
The best critique I know of Plantinga's "proper basicality" is by Tyler Wonder and you can hear him talk about it in pretty good detail over at Common Sense Atheism. He did his PhD on this so he's worth paying attention to, even if I can't say that his argument goes through.
>I can't accept Plantinga's response to the Great Pumpkin objection, because he never offers criteria for proper basicality (other than the vague idea that it occurs only in the "right circumstances").
Well, as far I understand, providing a strict criteria would reintroduce the very problems that make Classical Foundationalism self-defeating by ruling itself out. That's why grounding beliefs by way of Virtue Epistemology helps retain the foundationalist structure. And VE doesn't permit just any belief, but it must grant that our cognitive faculties are generally reliable, which is also self-defeating if denied. And I think cognitive science can support this, yet Plantinga's reasoning goes back to Thomas Reid's "Common Sense Realism" (which was in response to Hume).
>If I am understanding him correctly, Plantinga essentially says that a properly basic belief requires some grounds for belief, but to me, this sounds awfully similar to a demand for evidence.
It's not evidential because, "properly basic" beliefs are known directly without appeal to inferences (memory-based beliefs, for example, are direct, not built on anything but memory). They just aren't indubitable.
>Sure, perhaps a properly basic belief needn't be an a priori belief (esp. in weak foundationalism), but Plantinga, to my knowledge, has not provided any means of distinguishing between one thing or another.
This is where Virtue Epistemology and a Reidian-based rendering of cognitive faculties comes in.
It might be best to just jump into the literature itself. Like both articles on VE stated, there are different camps, though they're not always mutually exclusive. And Wiki mentioned Alvin Plantinga. He's quasi-VE, but written very directly on the subject you're interested in. He has a paper called "Justification and Theism" that predates his trilogy on warrant, the last one titled Warranted Christian Belief. In fact, I have an abridged chapter of that book; Plantinga presented it as a paper at a conference years ago. I also have, from that same conference, a paper "Proper Epistemic Function and the Intellectual Virtues" by Jay Wood and Robert C. Roberts, who are referenced in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on VE. There's also a paper on Proper Function in science. I don't mind scanning these papers and emailing or uploading them.
I also think that you would benefit from subjecting Foundationalism (which includes both Empiricism and Rationalism) to much more critical scrutiny, and for reasons unrelated to "supernatural" questions. The foundations are illusory. Richard Rorty, who was thoroughly atheist himself, had some of the harshest criticisms of Foundationalism.
Also , if you're interested in a more well rounded perspective on my point of view from someone more educated than myself, I'd check out : this
I really like this trilogy of books about Jesus for the history
and I like this trilogy about him theologically
There's a lot of that going around
http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Delusion-Scientific-Pretensions/dp/0465019374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1371528897&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+devil%27s+delusion
Thanks again for your reply! I'm glad we've been able to talk about this sincerely for so long.
You seem to have misunderstood me again, and the attrition will soon cause me to quit. I can't keep repeating myself, I don't have the time: I am not appealing to God as an explanation of that which can otherwise be explained. I do not make unfounded assumptions. Since explanations are what we are after, there could be such a thing as "naturalism-of-the-gaps". Here's one of the defeaters for naturalism if you're interested.
> I'm only making this argument because you seem to think other peoples' conclusion has any weight.
Not what I said.
> spontaneous generation
that was a dead end. Doesn't mean the only alternative is God, of course. For all we know transpermia could be possible. I think Flew's rationale was that because it is impossible here, and in light of just how impossible it could be for life to arise from inanimate matter, it seems there's no way it could have happened elsewhere. It seemed to him a more complicated assumption than God's existence.
> I don't know how you can claim this world is so good to humanity that it MUST have been created for us. That's not to say that all the horrible things out there somehow undo the good things but I don't see how all these good things you see undo the bad.
I didn't say that either.
> Additionally, I have my own hypothesis that loving and appreciating nature has lead to discovery, mental health, and invention and therefore is an evolutionary advantage.
The notion that a designer deigned it lead to science because we presumed the universe is intelligible and that science could even be done.
> Us humans are slaves to our emotions but some of us like you and me are lucky enough to be capable of focusing on the good, but it's important to admit that not everyone feels this way.
Be there a realm of good, varying apprehension of that realm does none to the existence of that realm anymore than carrying apprehension of the natural world decides whether it is there or not.
> If you've ever known someone with chronic depression you'd agree that some people just can't focus on the good.
I have chronic depression, I know plenty. I'm glad there is such a thing as evil and sadness and pain, for if they did not exist then good would be meaningless. If life were pure prosperity, what would prosperity even be? All the pain in my life has made the good sweeter, the darkness made the light brighter.
> In this sense alone, being a positive and appreciative person can be beneficial for the survival of both individuals and our society collectively.
As I said, I'm aware there is this thing called science. However, regarding the argument, I don't care what else we learn about the natural world. Evolution by natural selection? Awesome! I'm so glad and amazed that there exists something that could lead to this.
> If you want to bring up the opinion philosophers and the masses of humanity as proof of anything I will have to bring up scientists.
Which ones, Sir Isaac Newton or the Nobel prize winner from two sessions ago--both Christian? Does a scientist speaking outside of his field of expertise provide meaningful ethos? If it does I don't think it helps your side. Einstein and Michiow Kaku are pantheists--far more than you have considered. So the most accomplished scientists can believe in the supernatural.
Now I was giving Christian philosophers as my example because, unlike scientists, they invest their skills and research into issues such as the validity of Christian belief. Meanwhile, scientists may be intelligent but are preoccupied with and trained for studies that are irrelevant to the validity of Christianity. Outside of being a scientist, scientists are normal people. i.e. Harvard--of all places-- has a majority of academic who in the very least believe in a "higher power".
> Scientists are, by a vast majority, atheist.
Most believe in something supernatural, but it's not always a god. I explained how the misconception of what evidence would imply God's existence, in tandem with the emergence of the classical atheists, has caused secularization at large in academia today. Let's not forget that for the expression of this "higher power" the Christian God was the outlet for most. We wouldn't have colleges today, had the Christians not founded them.
Since you are an agnostic atheist I think you'll find this book, written by a likeminded author, enlightening.
I don't remember appealing to God with a cosmological argument but that seems to be your assumption. I think you misunderstand. I empathize with Einstein and Dr. Kaku (one of the leading advocates of string theory today) on this point: it did not have to be this way, there are an infinite number of ways existence could have been--for it to be this seems it has been chosen. I just disagree with them that because God cannot be found within this creation he is not personal.
> and assert some veritable wizard in the sky as the answer. I don't mean that as an insult, it's just an apt parallel to what you're positing as a reasonable conclusion, whether you admit it or not.
He is not "in the sky", He created the heavens and the earth--all of it. People believe in God for very different reasons than they do a wizard, unicorn, or whatever because He is an explanation for natural phenomena--in some cases the best explanation, whether we like it or not. Anyway, here's an essay you might like. And another
I replied to my previous reply, in case you didn't notice.
You speak like you understand all the complexities of this world, but you don't, because if you did, you would understand that all of the complexities of this world eventually lead to a clear distinction between good and evil found in the Bible. You can call my ideas BS, I can call your's BS, but I'm sure you study of the Bible has been limited at best - most likely from a wide range of sources with wide ranges of pagan influenced doctrines. I can understand how you would want to quickly dismiss Christianity because of the hypocrisy found in many of its members, but the sin present in the world today doesn't disprove the truth that it all ultimately points to. Here's a great place to start learning: http://www.ligonier.org/
Cross species evolution is a hoax. I used to be convinced of it until I really delved into each science and realized it was all based on faith, and the people in control of scientific journalism hold to it like a religion. It has never been proven. A great book to read is this: https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Delusion-Atheism-Scientific-Pretensions/dp/0465019374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1523138554&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=devils+delusion
Who are you voting for instead that will be better?
Also, reminder that Frank Conaway Jr. is literally crazy.
Definitely read his short stories. I've got this compilation, and I love it.
His short stories are the best place to start. There's a bunch of collections, some better than others, but the Finca Vigia Edition is definitive collection: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Short-Stories-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684843323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1334338570&amp;sr=1-1
It contains the best of his early stuff, plus a few stories that came after his first collection and a few unpublished in his lifetime.
I can really recommend two collections;
Furthermore, if you want to add a little style to your bookshelf, buy one of these. they are basically all great reads!
We have pretty similar tastes.
I'd start by suggesting a few more of Orwell's - Down and Out, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Homage to Catalonia.
Hemingway - There is another thread about him today, but I say go with the short stories to start. This collection is superb.
I got into Russian lit right around the time I finished all the books you mentioned. Crime and Punishment or some of Dostoevsky's many short stories could be a gateway into a whole new literature for you.
Some contemporary authors that are excellent - Margaret Atwood (start with The Handmaid's Tale), Salman Rushdie (writes incredibly vibrant and creative prose), Don Lee (I loved both books I've read from this newish author), Joyce Carol Oates (prolific and profound), Alan Lightman, Umberto Eco, Junot Diaz.
Great non-fiction - Read the rest of Jared Diamond's stuff, it's all great. The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Tuchmann, a classic of how bad decisions led to downfalls in civilization. A Sideways Look at Time, a mildly rambly polemic on the politics of time in modern culture. The Closing of the Western Mind, a survey on how Christianity came to dominate the west. Power Faith and Fantasy about America's history of mucking about in the middle east. A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, who write beautifully about the natural world, and is also a solid poetess (if you're into that). And I'm sure someone is going to mention Bryson. He's good too.
Norman Geisler's From God to Us (a smaller version of his General Introduction to the Bible) as well as James White's Scripture Alone would be a good start.
My mum loves her Kindle :-) I don't read enough to justify one, even though my inner geek wants one lol
Paper Back
Kindle
If you buy the paperback, might be better to buy it here as then all the money will go the the author's apologetic ministry. It's a little cheaper too, not sure after postage though.
These are four books and a lecture series that would certainly be good at getting you started, all of them are academic rigor level, so not something that you'll be able to flip through at the bus stop. They take a bit of time to digest.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Evidence-That-Demands-Verdict/dp/0785242198
https://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Companion-Natural-Theology/dp/1444350854
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Foundations-Christian-Worldview-Moreland/dp/0830851879/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=6HXK5P412QMRNR2XB37B
https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Hiddenness-Essays-Daniel-Howard-Snyder/dp/0521006104
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Scholar-Reason-Philosophy-Religion/dp/B001JHT8DI
If she wanted to have a honest discussion with you, I'd imagine that she would give you a more serious book. Something like "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell(link, if you want to read it sometime: http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Demands-Questions-Challenging-Christians/dp/0785242198/ref=pd_sim_b_1 ), or something of that nature. Of course, it could be that she really isn't that interested in having a honest discussion with you :/. Then again, she may have never actually read anything of that level herself.
The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict: Evidence I & II Fully Updated in One Volume To Answer The Questions Challenging Christians in the 21st Century. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785242198/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Cil5AbQWFBXQ5
I certainly can answer. The burden of proof is not on me. The evidence is overwhelming. Explain how you dismissed all the evidence.
You have to have a good understanding of what "evidence" means.
Think of a courtroom. The prosecution provides evidence as well as the defense. Then it's up to the jury to decide whether a reasonable person would conclude that the evidence, for or against, is reliable.
It's the same way with the Bible. I can give you tons of evidence regarding the Scriptures, external consistency, internal consistency, textual reliability, etc. This evidence you will either believe, or not believe. But based on the way you asked the question, my assumption is that you will not believe ANY evidence I provide for you.
Another factor is the fact that God doesn't deal in "factual evidence" so much as He deals in "faith". Faith is the currency that God honors. Now that doesn't imply that we are to have "blind faith". God provides plenty of foundations for that faith. But if we are willfully blind, then there's nothing He, or anyone, can do to provide "proof".
For example: I could show you a rock formation which looks amazingly like it had been placed there through a cataclysmic flood (proof of the flood of Noah's day). Others will see that same formation, and conclude it must have been put there through millions of years by erosion.
Or I can show you the structure of a human eye. On one hand, one can see beautiful, and practical design as well as complex optical machinery. Someone else will see the same thing, and conclude it must have come about through millions of years of "selective processes" resulting in a complex organ.
And so on.
The point is, there is no amount of evidence I could provide you which will convince you that the Bible is reliable. If you want a good reference, read "Evidence That Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell. He provides proofs (with sources) on why the Bible can be trusted, even in the small things.
Do I believe that God was there? Yes, by definition, God is eternal, and He was there when it happened.
What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza
Life After Death: The Evidence by Dinesh D'Souza
The New Evidence That Demand a Verdict by Josh McDowell
Ok ... evidence from my side ...
> we have so many copies of the New Testament that there is no doubt about what they say on any Christian doctrine. We have so many copies, not to mention all the quotes and paraphrases from the church fathers, that we know all the meaning of the Bible. However, many copies have textual copyist errors, and we are about 97% certain of each word of the New Testament. On one hand, this is a very high percentage. On the other hand, it could be higher. Perhaps a lesson to learn is that God was extremely concerned with preserving 100% of the meaning of the New Testament, but not as concerned with the individual words.
-- http://inerrancy.org/ntmss.htm
Other places to read:
Edit: formatting
Edit 2: add a book
http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Demands-Questions-Challenging-Christians/dp/0785242198/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1372892515&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Evidence+That+Demands+A+Verdict
Read this book!
And if after reading it you still don't believe...
Then return to this thread and comment
Here are two excellent books that rationally approach the historical evidence as to whether Jesus Christ existed...
The Case for Christ
The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict
Good comments. I have only this in return. The Judaic nationalism was pervasive, even beyond Palestinian borders. How each self-identified sect interacted with "gentiles" varied, but the degree of retention of religious and national identity was well maintained. That maintenance varied in idea but not really to the degree that you ever came out the other side doing anything other than concentrating your exclusivity. I think the evidence for this is quite strong. Jewish nationals were quite persecuted, even in Alexandria (see the Book of Wisdom e.g.) which is sometimes held out as the embodiment of Greco-Roman inclusion and was home to Philo). In the end the Jews were "put down" so to speak.
Actually, the volume by Wright prior to the one mentioned above (here ) is cover to cover about how Jesus was constantly only condemning nationalism.
Edit: and the volume after is about Paul taking up the same dispute.
From the comments I've read here so far, I think people don't yet understand the problem before coming up with a solution.
Justifying God killing someone isn't a problem, it's just that some don't like the answer. God kills everybody, some through fire and brimstone and others through cancer. Death is a part of (our current) life. The problem isn't how we justify God in these actions, the problem is why does God command humans to commit these actions in the OT? How can God tell us to love our neighbors one day then go to war the next?
There are two solutions that I know of:
Covenant theology points out that the Jews were part of a direct covenant with God where they could serve as his direct agents. In return for their devotion, they got special privilege over other nations. But they still had to be moral towards each other and towards any foreigners who followed God's ways. (There's actually a great deal of Jewish commentaries on this stuff, which I'm not familiar with, but you may want to pop into /r/judaism and ask them about it). Jesus however established a new covenant in which there is "no longer greek or jew, man or woman, slave or free." This covenant with all mankind means that we don't have the right to just harm anybody; the prerogative to give and take life away remains solely with God.
The progressive revelation interpretation basically says that early Jewish views about God were not correct, that they originally conceived of Yahweh as a war god who supported them in their battles and only later through the prophets and Christ did we learn more about the true nature of God.
There's a book on this stuff, by the way, Is God a Moral Monster. There are also some links in the FAQ about OT violence.
>Exhibit A: The Flood
>Exhibit B: The Amalekites
>Satan makes good points.
I would primarily direct you to this book Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan as it uses respected scholarly information to help explain the appearance of a wicked Old Testament God.
As for the flood, supposing that God is real and authoritative, doesn't he have the responsibility to be just? Sin requires punishment, so God as the righteous judge enacts that punishment when he deems fit. Every instance of judgment (including the flood) is preceded by many attempts by God to get people turn back from evil and trust in him.
>Inasmuch as "you have the 'free will' to prostrate yourself before God (the architect of exhibits A and B above) or be punished" goes, I suppose.
Hell is commonly described as punishment but it is simply God giving us exactly what we want, total separation from him.
Read Paul Copan's Is God a Moral Monster? for more info on all these Old Testament laws and traditions. Context is key! Can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/Is-God-Moral-Monster-Testament/dp/0801072751/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1372794710&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=is+god+a+moral+monster
Ok that was longer than a few moments, but here we go!
Well, for one thing, we have to understand that there is a vast cultural rift between 2012 America/Canada/Europe/whatever and the 1500ish BC Middle East.
Some of Old Testament regulations regarding slavery, marriage, etc. may seem harsh to us, but compared to the brutal cultural norms of that era, they were actually quite liberating. For the Bible to say that women, children, slaves, and foreigners had any rights at all was a revolutionary idea.
Still, the Old Testament commandments were not necessarily intended to illustrate God's vision of a perfect society.
Rather, they were intended to restrict evil as much as was reasonably possible within a somewhat barbaric culture (though they might say the same of our culture in many ways!), and ultimately to show them that their own attempt to perfectly follow every part of the law was hopeless- that as lawbreakers they needed a righteousness that went beyond mere behavior modification. That's where Jesus comes in.
Here is a link multiple links to a talk by Dr. John Dickson (PhD in Ancient History) that touches on a lot of your concerns (specifically violence in the Old Testament):
Part 1 http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/justthinking.aspx?archive=1&amp;pid=2531
Part 2 http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/justthinking.aspx?archive=1&amp;pid=2532
Part 3 http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/justthinking.aspx?archive=1&amp;pid=2533
Part 4 http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/justthinking.aspx?archive=1&amp;pid=2534
And here is a gigantic unorganized pile of some other somewhat relevant links. I can't absolutely vouch for everything, but they should be generally helpful.
http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2011/11/30/what-about-genocide-in-the-old-testament/
http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2009/08/did-god-condone-slavery.html
http://www.thevillagechurch.net/the-village-blog/what-are-christians-to-do-with-old-testament-law/
http://carm.org/why-do-christians-not-obey-old-testaments-commands-to-kill-homosexuals
http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/stone-woman-not-being-virgin
http://carm.org/slavery
http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/you-may-buy-slaves
http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2011/02/02/was-the-mosaic-law-meant-to-be-permanent/
http://carm.org/why-do-christians-not-obey-old-testaments-commands-to-kill-homosexuals
http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2010/08/13/does-god-condone-slavery-in-the-old-testament-part-1/
http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/stone-rebellious-son
http://carm.org/questions/about-bible
http://carm.org/questions/skeptics-ask
http://carm.org/god-of-old-testament-a-monster
http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy
http://carm.org/introduction-bible-difficulties-and-bible-contradictions
Also, here are a couple of books you might be interested in. I have not personally read them, but I've heard good things.
http://www.amazon.com/God-Behaving-Badly-Testament-Sexist/dp/0830838260/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801072751?tag=apture-20
I hope that helps! Thanks for your honest and respectful questions. :)
>You cannot separate the old and new testament as the word of God. If you believe one, you believe the other, and one is so full of death, destruction, anger, hate, and just plain vile stories that it simply cannot be divinely inspired.
I agree with you in that they are the exact same God. The God of the new testament and the God of the old testament, so if you believe in one, you believe in the other because they are one in the same. I'm not going to try to explain it, because it's such a broad topic, and I don't feel I have a good enough command of the english language to get my point across, but I can believe the actions of God in the old testament can be fairly easily rectified. This book helped to reconcile my beliefs when I needed answers about the very same topic. And after a quick google search, I found this a youtube video of a radio interview with Paul Copan, the author of that book.
As far as being good without God, from a worldy view, this is definitely possible, but not so much from a Christian view. There is nothing good in me. On my own, I am capable of no good need. I am human, I am corrupt, and evil by nature. God is the only thing in me that is good, and every time I complete a good action, it is solely because of Him. In a secular sense, you can be good without God, because even though you may not believe in God, you still live in His world. There is still an ultimate moral standard, that everyone agrees upon, yet has no natural explanation. You can most certainly have more 'goodness' than a christian from the perspective of completing more 'good' acts.
I don't believe God stacked the evidence against Himself when he created the universe. There is just as much scientific evidence for biblical creation, as there is for a natural creation. In fact, it's the exact same evidence! The evidence that atheists use to proclaim the nonexistence of God, is used by Theists to proclaim His existence! The same evidence is just interpreted differently by two different groups of people. The problem is, everyone has a world view, so it's impossible to look at the evidence and be completely neutral. If you begin examining the evidence believing one thing, you will most likely draw a conclusion similar to your prior beliefs. A world view is like a colored lens. If you wore green glasses everywhere, you might suspect everything is green. Not because it is, but because the glasses make it seem so. So really the proof in whether or not there is a God, comes down to determining which world view is correct. Fortunately, all world views separate from Christianity conflict themselves somewhere, thus proving they can't be the 'correct' view. Most of them lead to the conclusion that we shouldn't be able to know anything about the universe that we live in, or that day to day actions of anyone without God, are completely unexplainable. This is because Christianity is the only world view that can accurately account for the preconditions of intelligibility, or the conditions that must exist before we can know anything. Atheists cannot account for these conditions, and have to actually rely on the Bible, before they can argue against it. I'm not going to give a super thorough explanation here, but I would suggest looking into Presuppositional apologetics, and the preconditions of intelligibility.
Joseph and his contemporaries were well aware of the similarities to Masonry. Most of them, as I understand it, are related to a few gestures and symbolic matters. The meaning is not at all the same, and the theology involved is (of course) totally different, partly because Masons don't have a theology. We have a bunch of stuff on this here:
The question of "influence" is a difficult one to answer. What do we make of the affinities? Are they direct borrowings? Did Joseph use them as convenient symbols that were ready at hand with which his audience of Saints was already comfortable and familiar (if so, this seems a strange way to commit fraud--using symbols that Joseph had encouraged them to become familiar with, since he strongly encouraged involvement in the Masonic Lodge prior to teaching the full endowment).
Others have seen them as parallel matters--things revealed to Joseph that also had affinities to ancient practices and Masonic ones. Others see a combination effect. I don't think that it really matters--any symbol can be repurposed; they are all the time.
Anyway, I'm not an expert, but see here:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_Freemasonry
People had complaints against Joseph. Some no doubt thought they were legitimate. Others seem to have been naked examples of simple harassment. I don't think you need an "either/or" answer to this. Some people doubtless thought they had a legitimate claim against Joseph, but were also stirred up by Satan. Some acts were clearly diabolic (regardless of whether you believe in Satan). Some may have been completely legit.
There's the Joseph Smith Papers project that handles legal matters--we'll know more as these all get published. But, this is how law works--people with grievances bring suit, the suit takes place, and you see what happens. Joseph was almost always found innocent--which should tell us something. Despite the hostility against him, he generally prevailed in court. Is he the sole exception to "innocent until proven guilty"?
But, I think a definitive answer to this question will probably need to await more data--they're reportedly finding lots more legal documents involving Joseph than we've known about--and he comes out ahead in (almost?) all. For some info by someone involved in the matter, see:
Joseph I. Bentley, "Legal Trials of the Prophet: Joseph Smith's Life in Court" (2006 FAIR Conference presentation) FAIR link (Key source)
See here too:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Legal_issues
See here:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Nauvoo_Expositor
The Expositor itself did not bring about Joseph's death. It could not have--it was a civil, not criminal matter, so at worst he would be liable for a monetary fine, which he repeatedly said he and the city council were willing to pay if they were found guilty. He was released on bail to await the arrival of the "circuit rider" judge. That should have been the end of it, until the judge arrived later.
Joseph ended up in Carthage Jail because a justice of the peace (who was also a minister, and the leader of the Carthage Greys militia) then immediately gave a writ for Joseph's arrest for treason against Illinois. (Joseph had, under the legal powers given him, called out the Nauvoo Legion to defend Nauvoo against possible attack--they attacked no one, but this was said to be treason. After Joseph's death, the Saints were again driven by armed force out of Nauvoo, proving that such things did happen repeatedly--it already had in Missouri.)
This treason charge allowed him to jail Joseph, and then lead the men who murdered him (the Carthage Greys were the ones, remember, who stormed Carthage Jail--200 men or so against 4 prisoners armed with pepperbox pistol and a cane).
So, the Expositor provided the initial pretext and furor, but it isn't the whole story. Once again, there are complexities to any historical tale. Joseph knew that going to Carthage to answer again for the Expositor (which he had done twice already, once before a Mormon and once before a non-LDS judge, and been found not-guilty both times) was going to be trouble.
And, Joseph and the city council's actions with the Expositor were legal under the law of the day. Critics don't usually tell you that. :-)
Here are some more open ended questions that I don't really expect a straight answer to. Just worries/concerns that I come across while reading scriptures.
I think the scriptures give us people as they are, generally, not people as we would like them to be. If they are historical, then this must be the case. The Book of Mormon never glorifies war.
The Old Testament is a bit of a different case--but, we don't believe it inerrant, and clearly a lot of editing has gone on with the OT. So much of the 'praise' of war may well be later editors inserting their own gloss on it. A non-LDS author treats these OT matters in great detail here:
http://www.amazon.com/Is-God-Moral-Monster-Testament/dp/0801072751/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344139877&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=god+a+moral+monster
But, I like what C.S. Lewis said about such matters:
The two things one must not do are (a) to believe on the strength of Scripture or on any other evidence that God is in any way evil (In Him is no darkness at all) (b) to wipe off the slate any passage which seems to show that He is. Behind the shocking passage be sure there lurks some great truth which you don't understand. If one ever does come to understand it, one sees that it is good and just and gracious in ways we never dreamed of. Till then it must just be left on one side . . . Would not a revelation which contained nothing that you and I did not understand, be for that very reason rather suspect? To a child it would seem a contradiction to say both that his parents made him and God made him, yet we see how both can be true. [Letters of C.S. Lewis, edited by W.H. Lewis, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966), letter of 8 August 1953, 253.]
Since LDS don't believe in perfect scriptures (esp. the Bible, and ESP. the OT, I would say) we would say the same thing in even stronger terms.
At FAIR, we even do joke questions. You see, the Wiki Knows All:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Nephi%27s_killing_of_Laban/Blood_loss_from_decapitation
I'd recommend that you take time to investigate a few resources. These objections have been addressed, and there are very good reasons to believe that the God of the Bible is indeed moral.
I take issue with your concept that God created Hell. Although this sounds like semantics, I think it is important to note that God didn't create Hell, but rather, he created the opportunity for people to go to Hell by creating free creatures. Read Jerry Walls's article about Hell in this book. Also, I would recommend reading C. S. Lewis's chapter about Hell in The Problem of Pain and The Great Divorce to understand the nature of Hell.
As for the alleged evils of God in the Old Testament, I recommend Paul Copan's Is God a Moral Monster?
Lastly, the statement "I find it hard to believe your God is morally good" is one of the most ironic statements I have ever read. Morality needs God to exist. Without a higher being, how can there be a higher standard? Read the first part of C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity for a look at the Moral Argument for God's existence.
I have been struggling with the same exact things...My eyes were opened by this article about Pauls perception of the Old Testament God. This is also a very common struggle amongst many Christians.
http://sojo.net/magazine/2012/01/way-peace-and-grace
Also, a really good recent book is out called "Is God a Moral Monster" by Paul Copan.
http://www.amazon.com/Is-God-Moral-Monster-Testament/dp/0801072751
Both of these are definitely worth reading.
There is scientific evidence that what I am saying is true. It's Historical in nature (and History is a science right?)
Christianity has been the seedbed for every Scientific revolution, Isaac Newton, Mendel, Copernicus, Bacon, Kepler, all believed in the Christian God and therefore found justification for their scientific pursuits in that belief.
Also, the kind of free Government we enjoy in western Nations was born after the Reformation under the watchful eyes of the Baptists, Anabaptists and the Puritans.
The ethic behind these movements was completely Christian, and religious freedom could only have been born under Christianity.
If you want to talk about the Old Testament and its laws, a simple way of seeing it is that Jesus fulfilled the law's demands as our the federal head of God's people. He purchased his children and redeemed them and so the Mosaic law now stands as a testimony to God's graceful forgiveness.
There's a whole lot written on the subject. If you like you can read this book to clarify some things for you. You can get a paperback or kindle version.
What sorts of things specifically are you interested in? I'm just throwing out most of the stuff that isn't C.S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga or Francis Collins.
He quotes this guy Lamin Sanneh, and his book Whose religion is Christianity. Now I look at it, that looks really interesting.
For The Glory of God, By Rodney Stark
Jesus and The Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham
'Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights'
Um, I was expecting for the chapters where he talks about the historical basis of the Gospels to be full of sources, but his only sources seems to be Jesus and the Eyewitnesses and The Resurrection of The Son of God, by N.T. Wright. This book is turning out to be more disappointing than I thought was possible. I was actually going to investigate some of his historical conclusions a bit more.
Here are a few of the resources that have helped me:
https://biologos.org/
https://www.amazon.com/Creation-Evolution-Do-Have-Choose/dp/0857215787
https://www.amazon.com/Gunning-God-Atheists-Missing-Target/dp/0745953220/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=gunning+for+god&amp;qid=1555348576&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Undertaker-Has-Science-Buried/dp/0745953719/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=gunning+for+god&amp;qid=1555348605&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-2
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802831621
Also, I've visited a lot of different churches and have plenty of friends that are Christians. Seeing that Christians are so very different from JW's- many are well educated, intelligent, thinking people- with a faith that is extremely different from the JW belief system. They have this passion, sincerity and relationship with God that is the opposite of the legalistic JW cult.
You're exactly right - the ban itself is basically sanctioning killing the entire population, even animals, in order to cleanse it for the Hebrews.
Except that's not part of Christian theology; that is defined by the New Testament since in several places, it explicitly states that parts of the Old Testament are being fulfilled and therefore replaced.
The other major difference - last I checked, the Jewish ban hadn't been used since... well, they conquered Canaan those thousands of years ago. Crusades aren't even justified by the New Testament.
There's also a key difference that most people miss when discussing Christian and Islamic theology - hermeneutrics. There's a great book on this calle "Slaves, Women & Homosexuals" that anyone wanting to get a deeper dive on theology than you'll get on most places on the internet should read. Its focused on Christian theology, of course, but the logic and way of thinking presented can just as easily be applied to the Quran.
Its a way of thinking founded on two axioms:
The first one is easy enough to understand, but the second takes a bit of thinking. Take slavery, for example. Slaves during that time in Judea and the Roman Empire were common and there really weren't any laws against beaten them, etc. (Now, some you wanted to keep happy, such as those who were teachers, etc). However, in the New Testament, there's a pretty shocking verse for that period: "And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."
It has to be different than the norm... otherwise why the hell say that? The book goes on using this example, but basically it caught people of that era that even slaves deserved to be respected, etc. So its progressive in this thought and therefore it makes sense that, if the revelations were being made during the 1960's USA, it'd probably be for the abolition of slavery. After all, "there is no favoritism with him" means that God doesn't see master and slave, just two people.
If you have time, its a great read. Very scholarly, but a great read nonetheless.
Here is the mobile version of your link
Holy Writ as Oral Lit: the bible as folklore if your mother believes the bible is the direct word of god this might be a good book to start her on. It's a short study of biblical contradictions with an emphasis on considering it as folklore and not holy writ. It's a super quick read and may just plant some seeds of doubt without being heavy-handed.
God: The Most Unpleasant Character in all Fiction.
I was literally dry heaving while reading it.
http://www.amazon.com/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322
Dawkins said he was trying to be humorous when he said that (aburdist, exaggerating for effect or something like that a la Jonathan Swift's "A Modest proposal") but people thought he was being serious since this is a pretty straighforward and accurate description. In fact, there's so much to talk about they wrote a book.
jmsr
I would start with the classic Some mistakes of Moses, by Robert Ingersoll.
There is a short book called Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God, by Armin Navabi, that is also a nice read.
One that I recently finished reading and enjoyed very much is The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism, by Aron Ra. The book is not exactly about atheism; it's Aron's rebuttal to many creationist arguments, but Aron is a widely known atheist activist, and the book is very enjoyable.
I usually listen to The Thinking Atheist podcast, from Seth Andrews (a podcast I highly recommend, by the way). There are some book he suggested in his podcast that I haven't read yet, but which I included in my to-read list:
Because god has absolute knowledge and power and does nothing to help any situation except aggravate it for drama purposes. Sam and Dean don't have power or foreknowledge and are just trying to clean up the world god left behind and they don't know what apocalypse will be caused by their actions. God does and he's literally been toying with them since day 1.
He helped in season5 just to serve the story and again 1 order from god and the archangels would have stopped fighting and Sam and Adam wouldn't have wound up in the cage.
God can help and not totally abandon his creation without interfering free will and by your logic he interfreared with Lucifer and Amara's free will by caging them and he's inconsistent that way.
>They say he can see future outcomes but he did not see Sam shooting him. The same he did not see Sam and Dean releasing Amara.
He saw both of those and did nothing about them because its all a game to him and for the shooting him, he's got some plan with that as well. I'm thinking he knew they would fight him on Jack and he knew this would be the final season so he wanted them to fight him and made himself the final villain on purpose. That's a good story but it still makes him an asshole for toying and manipulating everyone since the beginning.
God helping doesn't violate free will I mean he could even have just helped the individual fights more by leaving more hands of god lying around. Sam and Dean need help to beat anything Angel or higher.
Well yes, if a human had the cure to everything they would also be evil for not using it. I don't hate god but in the FICTIONAL world where he exists but does nothing he is evil. I mean in Supernatural he exists and is responsible for everything including angels and demons and is manipulating everything. So yes I hate the fictional character as a fan of the TV show. I do not blame some being for all the bad in real life or thank anyone other then myself and the rest of humanity responsible for the good. That's religious people that do for god and the devil respectively. Neither one exists but if they did then god would be the worst monster and supernatural is portraying him accurately to how he was in the bible. Where you and I differ is that I understand that this makes him the villain and am not making excuses for him. The character of god is the worst character in all of fiction (https://www.amazon.ca/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction/dp/1454918322)
In our world we are alone and have to fix everything ourselves, but it also means that we weren't evil's or tainted since Eden and that ridiculousness. Unlike supernatural we don't have monsters demons or angels trying to kill us And there's also no worry of fire and brimstone for being anything less then perfect. Nothing created and abandoned us and the good and bad are just nature and that's certainty preferable to the fictional god's master plan. With the Supernatural world in play though god is responsible for everything and has a responsibility to fix it because he's the one who broke it in the first place.
An entire book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/God-Most-Unpleasant-Character-Fiction-Dan-Barker/1454918322
never heard of something like this being compiled before. but, may be u can give this a try:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1454918322/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
This book summarizes horrible stories in OT with some level of indexing. it might help.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Stories-Bible-Paul-Farrell/dp/1578849225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324890584&amp;sr=8-1
If this were the textbook then it might not be such a bad thing.
Ilustrated Stories from the Bible is a book a recently bought that highlights some of the more "controversial" stories in the bible. It was an enjoyable read.
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1578849225/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8
Highly recommend!
Many theologians would disagree. I haven't read this yet, but I definitely will
https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Adam-Bible-Doesnt-Origins/dp/158743315X
Maybe Adam did not exist after all because that's too literal. https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Adam-Bible-Doesnt-Origins/dp/158743315X
And Noah and his boat? Well, that's scientifically also impossible, so we must scratch it and reproduce our own flood account through science. Since the Bible cannot be trusted to mean what it means, we must employ science to unlock to us the real truth.
What about Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection? Surely science proved that this was impossible, so we must rework Jesus's story to make it scientifically plausible.
The book Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary might help.
The author has a gentle but honest approach.
I recommend Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary. It documents the process of someone who was way more Christian than I ever was coming to grips with his increasing doubts. I like it because it is very sympathetic to the believer's position, I felt like he 'got me'. While I like Dawkins and the other suggestions, they are writing from another planet.
My other under-suggested favorite is Atheism And The Case Against Christ.
> And yet the Bible describes God condoning and even commanding immoral behavior.
By whose standard?
> That's not justice. You condemn someone for their actions, not their circumstance of birth.
We are born with a sinful corrupt nature. We are condemned for our sinful actions. Sin requires a penalty. That penalty is death.
> You claim God didn't condone slavery but you are completely incorrect. (That is, if you believe the Bible is directly inspired by God and isn't flawed in any way.) There are more verses in the Bible condoning slavery than there are condemning homosexuality.
The point I was trying to make was that God did not approve of or command that slavery be practiced. That was the work of fallen man. However, God laid the groundwork for reversing the practice of slavery through regulation and changing the hearts of man. However, slavery still continues due to rebellious man, not God.
Perhaps this link could help explain my position better.
> There are more verses in the Bible condoning slavery than there are condemning homosexuality.
Thats debatable.... There are verses that do condemn slavery. There’s not one that affirms the practice of homosexual lifestyles.
> So you don't believe atheists are going to hell?
Yes. But they are not specifically going to Hell for not believing in Christ. Even the demons believe in and acknowledge Christ. Rather they are going to Hell as a penalty for sin in breaking Gods law. Their not believing in and following Christ is simply their choice in foolishly rejecting the only means of redemption for the penalty of their sins.
This may sound like semantics, but the confusion lies in your original statement: "A loving God would never commit someone to an eternity of torture just for not believing in Him”. And indeed, the statement is only half-wrong. So I will give you credit there.
Originally, we were condemned to Hell for disobeying and rejecting God. We were inherently separated from God due to our sinful nature. Because God is a holy and just God, He cannot accept or be in the presence of sin. And due to our sinful natures, it is in our nature to reject and rebel against God. This is what condemns us from the start.
But Christ went to the cross as payment for our sins. He came, lived a sinless and perfect life - for the purpose of making the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Our sins were imputed on the perfectly innocent and sinless Christ, so that His righteousness could be imputed upon us.
He does not commit us to eternal damnation for not believing in Christ per se, but rather for rejecting Him and instead leading a life of unrepentant sin.
> There are so many it would be impossible to list here. But there is a website that lists a lot of them that, if you don't mind, I'll use to save myself some time. I realize it's extremely biased however the scriptures quoted are accurate.
"Extremely biased" is an understatement. Just a cursory glance at it betrays the authors lack of experience in understanding and contextualizing the Scriptures. He/she tends to take verses out of historical and scriptural context in order to create for him/herself a false sense of abundant low-hanging fruit in which to work with, oftentimes going to utterly ridiculous heights to do so. This to me betrays an agenda based on hatred and pride, rather than seeking to find genuine truth.
But I will also agree that there are some events told in the Bible that can be difficult to rationalize or accept. To say otherwise would be foolish. One good book amongst many (not the best, not the worst) would be Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God. It is inexpensive and worth a look.
> I appreciate that you acknowledged it. I'm not taking any offense. However, these are topics I've thought long and hard about and researched endlessly already.
For instance?
>I've yet to come across any explanation that makes sense and allows for God to be a morally good being, except not taking the Bible literally.
Morally good, based on what (or whose) standard?
> I've spent thousands upon thousands of hours doing that already. I'm not ignorant of Christianity, in fact, I used to be a Christian. I'm also not an anti-theist and have expressed my desire to believe in God again.
I can appreciate that. In fact, I can readily state that I was probably in your same boat, in what feels like not so long ago. However, ‘head knowledge’ will only take you so far. But one must also search their heart for signs of self-centered pride and ego. If there is one thing I have learned is, the Bible is very offensive to man in the sense that it teaches doctrines and wisdom that very much go against mans nature and desires. And to me, overcoming that was the toughest hurdle. But in doing so, it opened up new perspectives for me to explore.
I can’t answer 'There are so many it would be impossible to list here’ kinds of objections. But if you wish to discuss specific points civilly, either here or through PM, I would be more than glad to entertain that. Otherwise, good luck in your pursuits!
I am also posting this as an apologetic resource for you to use.
Why Christianity?
https://youtu.be/nWY-6xBA0Pk
Why suffering?
https://youtu.be/v6Gl4ao8IzA?t=9m6s
Evolution? Genesis?
Part 1
https://youtu.be/qMU1soRrtJk?t=26
Part 2
https://youtu.be/HZrxogY9Pnc?t=26
Part 3:
https://youtu.be/G7HQzhi8UPM?t=26
Part 4:
https://youtu.be/_3R0bh9LtSc?t=26
Part 5:
https://youtu.be/KJ3IgGYf29k?t=26
Part 6:
https://youtu.be/KCxWhKe1AMg?t=26
Part 7:
https://youtu.be/AyQY5Z3GeG4?t=26
Part 8:
https://youtu.be/eOwA9L0IY3I?t=26
Did Jesus exist?
https://youtu.be/A6uWSoxG_Fs
Jesus claimed to be God?
https://youtu.be/gT2TN6kA5kY
Trinity?
https://youtu.be/LoTSqXY5uhc
The good news?
https://youtu.be/HSNayo631a0
Homosexuality?
• A sin to exist?
https://youtu.be/COIThVReiIo
• A call to love?
https://youtu.be/nPYRXop7aPA?t=9s
Hell?
https://youtu.be/dz2EaQMBS3Y
All You Want to Know About Hell: Three Christian Views of God's Final Solution to the Problem of Sin
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EQE3FJE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_.o7HCb3HS6NG3
Never heard of Jesus?
Part 1
https://youtu.be/RvyzODL4B9U
Part 2
https://youtu.be/ufROkQF8rvg
Where did God come from?
https://youtu.be/RVzeojdXbpQ?t=9s
You might also enjoy these reads below,
Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQFWQHD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_QfzpCbWNBDNS2
The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LUJDNE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_QizpCbDR7WP0G
Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MYP99J3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_UoApCbAY8N4YN
Jesus Among Secular Gods: The Countercultural Claims of Christ
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F1UD66I/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_u6wsCbDS1XXHR
Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EPYPY4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3WypCbW728FHK
Have you done any online research into these verses? It might be worthwhile to seek out a theologian's view before making any snap judgements. Often we do not see the cultural context, nor do we understand the language. An excellent example of this is the laws on "slavery", which some use to claim the Bible endorses slavery as it was in the antebellum south. This is false, because what is called slavery in the OT is entirely different than what happened in more modern times. This is an excellent explanation if you are interested: http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html
A book I am reading through now that may be useful to you:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EPYPY4/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
As for Lev. 26, it came true later on when the Israelites began to worship Canaanite gods, which involved child sacrifice. God then withdrew his protection and Israel was under siege from the Babylonians. The Israelites ate their own children rather than ask God for forgiveness and turn from their false gods.
Which is precisely the point. There is no "good evidence" that the alleged Jesus of Nazerth existed at all. The entire Jesus story does, however, rather neatly fit the patterns in folklore reserved for every hero warrior god throughout every major civilisation—many of which predate middle-eastern literacy by thousands of years.
The "good evidence" Christianity continually asserts as its authority on which to speak, is—without exception—internal apologetics which presumes scriptural teaching to be authentic and correct—when in reality biblical scholars have long since given up trying to differentiate between genuine texts, such a St. Paul's letters to the Corinthians and the deliberate misinformation spread by early Christianity's main opposition—i.e., the Pagan Hoards whose traditions and rites were hijacked and commandeered by Christianity itself.
http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Writ-Oral-Lit-Folklore/dp/0847691985
If the rising from the dead of a composite character from folklore is the tenuous link between Yahweh's existence and everything attributed to him being true or false, you can at least see why so many of us choose to come down on the side of science and rationalism?
I would encourage you to read Ravi Zacharias' book "Jesus among other Gods" - it lays out the case from the Christian perspective why Christianity is more viable than Islam or any other religion.
Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary. It's quite seriously one of the most humble and honestly written approaches to de-conversion that I've ever read.
You will find lots of good resources on creation.com which will answer your questions. Although your parents may be unaware of the answers, they do indeed exist, for those willing to find them.
Also, Josh McDowell's book, 'The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict' could be worth a read if you can find a copy. Here is one link: https://www.amazon.com/New-Evidence-That-Demands-Verdict/dp/0785242198
Shalom.
For me it comes down to the cumulative case for Christianity. I can imagine you must feel very hapy, joyful and open-minded. I would recommend a couple books to you:
2)http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1381803860&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=mere+christianity
I think when you are done, that you will see that even with all of the legitimate questions and curiosities that Christianity has, it still is the most logical worldview out there. Also, I would encourage you to find churches outside of the Catholic church as the Catholic church keeps people in bondage. Try and find a solid baptist church. There is no perfect church, but we can find the perfection of love and holiness in Christ.
Also, check out: http://answersforatheists.com/. This addresses many of the common questions and objections to Christianity from a very logical point of view.
> You are making a huge assumption that the Bible is god's guide.
I am answering from within the parameters you gave me. You asked originally about JW's interpretation of Christianity. I think I am granted such assumption in the light of this fact.
> What about all those people who fervently believe the Koran or Old Testament (only) or the Upanishads or the Veda or any other holy book to be god's guide to man?
God will judge them, not me. My task is to spread His good news to them. If He deem them worthy of salvation, then they are worthy of salvation.
> Do you not pause and question what makes your holy book so special, what makes your holy book the true word of god? If other people believe in other holy books with as much you zeal as you do in yours, how can you tell your not falling into the same false belief as they are? How do you know you are following the true word of god and not some impostor?
I suggest Plantinga's book Warranted Christian Belief or C.S.Lewis' Mere Christianity.
My argument for it is fairly simple. The God worshipped by the Christians is the same God that was already being worshipped when Ur was the most important city in the world. The other gods came and went, but He remained.
> If you are truly following the word of god (bible) and Hindus aren't (in general), shouldn't you feel god more?
No, why should I?
> Shouldn't god give you some indication you are on the right path as oppose to how you would feel if you were Hindu?
O, but He does! Truth will set you free, and that is your signal.
> That is like giving your children a test and then rewarding everyone who answered the questions equally regardless if they got it right, and then punishing those who got it wrong (punishment depending on your belief on heaven/hell can simply be having it somehow worse off in the afterlife then another person).
The destiny of mankind is to stay on Earth. No one will be 'worse off' than anyone else.
> How are any of your children supposed to know what the right answers (any 'lifestyle/faith' that gets you the best possible afterlife) are if you give everyone equal encouragement throughout the learning process and test?
There is no best possible afterlife. There is a simple hope of eternal life here on Earth.
> If Hindus can/will obtain the same level of afterlife as members of your faith, then again I ask, why are you spreading your faith?
Why do you tell your friends when something good happens to you?
To answer your question:
>where you have loads of biblical texts that are pretty much identical to what we have today
Actually some were. Others aren't. Here's a quote from the DSS wiki page.
>While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.[121]
Also, there is clear evidence of manuscript corruption in the New Testament. Bart Ehrman's Orthodox Corruption of Scripture goes into it in detail.
The guy's a nutbar (seriously, take a gander at this), but Broken Windows polices like Stop-and-Frisk do work. I guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I've already presented evidence in this thread. But here are 2 things you can look at -
Short read: http://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-metaxas-science-increasingly-makes-the-case-for-god-1419544568 Long read: http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Christian-Origins-Question-Volume/dp/0800626826
> It's all bronze - age myths copied from other bronze - age
The New Testament was written well after the Bronze Age. It is mid-antiquity.
> a frankly terrible plotline about a deity who's worse than Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler combined
Read Is God a Moral Monster?. While I can't endorse all of the hermeneutics employed by the author, I can definitely say two things:
(1) It's difficult to blame God for using violence when violence is sometimes just. In fact, pacifism is evil because it's completely unjust.
(2) Most of the Old Testament is poetry and therefore has very little violence.
> I'm not going to accept anything you can tell me about it until you prove to me that the entire document is literally true and faithfully depicts events. Which you can't.
No historian accepts the admissibility of documentation under that criterion. I can show you that much of the Bible is corroborated by external sources and is reliable history, but I can't prove every. single. statement by means of external sources, especially given that much of the Bible concerns Israeli politics, which doesn't have much interest among other nations that would have survived for 3000+ years.
Actually, I think God's interactions with humans have been progressively redemptive. He also has progressively revealed more over the story of scripture.
If one permits a premise that God is just and does what is right, then if he exercises punishment before people die naturally from old age, he is just giving what is deserved, and not withholding an account until after the end of a normal lifespan.
If talking about "innocent" people, I'd say that some people actually gained a better community by joining Israel. Others did not. Some I'm sure we're treated poorly. At the fault of their masters. Slavery in America isn't the same as slavery of ancient Mideast.
But, overall, I do believe that there really is a progressive, redemptive movement by God throughout scripture.
I really appreciated the argumentation in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Slaves-Women-Homosexuals-Exploring-Hermeneutics/dp/0830815619
I'm currently reading a book that argues for Evolution, while still giving respect to Evangelicals, and keeping scriptural integrity. It's called The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say About Human Origins by Peter Enns. It's well written, and easy to read even for an freshman armchair-theologian such as myself.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Adam-The-Doesnt-Origins/dp/158743315X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1333438037&amp;sr=8-1
counter points here
Scripture Alone by James White is a book that discusses this specific idea (called sola scriptura)