posted
The subject is not a question because an individual named Jesus was certainly an occupant of the tomb they uncovered. Of course the real question is, "Is this THE Jesus?"
I was surprised nobody posted a topic on this, but then again maybe you were all like me and just did not care initially. I ended up watching the documentary last night as I couldn't find anything else on TV and History channel is one of my fall backs.
1: Do you think it that archaeologists have indeed found the bones of THE Jesus and some of his family members? How good are the cases from the film supporters and its critics IYO?
2: What beliefs of Christianity, if any, make the finding of Jesus bones a possibility/impossibility?
3: Do you think real estate prices at the tomb site will go up as a result of this film
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My own responses;
1: I do not think archaeologists have found the bones of the Jesus of the New Testament. I believe they have found the tombs of another family with people with similar or identical names as some of the family of Jesus. I believe the names are common enough that it's possible for them to have been realistically found in another tomb. I think the rationale used to link all the names to the family of Jesus in the New Testament is strained and questionable. They use the Bible in some instances as historical justification, and then in the same breath use apocryphal writings that directly contradict the Biblical accounts. I do not think you can use the Bible as a history book if you are giving it that treatment, how can you possible accurately outline which passages are to be trusted and which are not?
2: According to my beliefs in Christianity it is not possible for the bones of Jesus to exist. Jesus rising from the dead was not simply a miracle of life returning to a dead body, were that the case, resurrection would predate Jesus by centuries, the bones of Samuel bringing the dead back to life being a good example. Jesus himself is reported to have brought 3 seperate people back to life, the later being dead longer then Jesus was before being brought back to life. (those last 6 words are almost an alliteration!)
Resurrection is, corruption becoming incorruption" or 1Corinthians 15:50-54 (specifically verse 53-54)
Resurrected beings take upon themselves bodies that are perfect in every way or "incorruptible." They are not prone to sickness, dysfunction, or even physical death. Jesus, if we are to believe the biblical account conquered death, which makes death down the road impossible. To temporarily stave off death is NOT the same thing as conquering it. I am of the opinion that if the bones of Jesus were positively identified and confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt to be authentic, I would have to seriously reconsider my belief in Christianity. There is a small chance that an acceptable explanation could be posed for the bones existence, but I doubt it. The bones of Jesus existing contradict too many things that Jesus himself said.
3: The more credibility these bones get, the more real estate prices in that area will go up, of this I am certain.
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quote:1: Do they think it that archaeologists have indeed found the bones of Jesus and some of his family members? How good are the cases from the film supporters and its critics IYO?
2: What beliefs of Christianity, if any, make the finding of Jesus bones a possibility/impossibility?
3: Do you think real estate prices at the tomb site will go up as a result of this film
1) I think it's close to an impossibility, and think it's irresponsible of the people who even advanced the possibility to discuss it without making the extremely silly nature of their speculations obvious.
2) Depends on the sect.
3) I don't think they'll budge. The people who could afford this sort of location are smart enough to do the research, so the only movement you might see is someone wanting to set up a fake shrine to fleece stupid tourists.
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That blog alone generated an absurd number of replies, some of them interesting. I think someone on there broke it down to being 1/600 odds of a tomb with those names existing. However, after watching the show, I learned that's a safe number, and I don't really like the way they arrived at it on the show. I mean, they admitted that our conception of common names for that time period is based heavily on the names we find on tombs, and not everyone was buried in a tomb. If those are correct, and if the claim that there are about 1,000 known tombs from that era is also true, it's surprising we haven't already stumbled across a tomb like this.
Anyway:
1. I doubt that it would matter one way or the other. Much like global warming, the divinity of Christ is just one of those things people will be arguing over until it's too late to make a difference anyway.
2. Sure, it depends on the sect, but most sects have the resurrection as a pretty key event. I mean, Christianity is named after Christ, and most sects regard Christ pretty highly. Maybe Easter would go away as a Christian holiday? Although finding the body of Christ doesn't exactly disprove the resurrection, it would probably change what the word resurrection means.
Of course, finding the bones of Christ supports the idea that Christ was indeed human.
3. Yeah, I guess I don't know how much that land is worth already, but I thought that pretty much everything in that area was already teeming with enough religious significance to make it priceless.
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quote: Speaking in New York, the Oscar-winning Titanic director said statistical tests and DNA analysis backed this view.
I haven't read anything past the initial news report, so this may have been addressed. What good would a DNA analysis be? Do we have DNA of Christ's descendants I don't know about we could use to verify the tomb DNA is indeed THE Jesus?
posted
The DNA evidence was/will be used to show who was related to whom inside the tomb. The DNA can show that the man named Jesua is not related to the woman buried next to him named Mary. Since they are buried so close together, in a manner that is common for man and wife, we can guess they are married. The DNA can also show that the man named Jesua is the son of the older woman in the tomb named Mary. It can also show that the children are the offspring of the younger Mary (presumably married to Jesua) in the tomb.
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posted
i watched the special last night also because i wanted to see what all the publicity was all about. when they did the DNA testing on the "jesus" and "mary magdelene" boxes i was asking why they didnt do it with the other "mary" box. they excused themselves in the special after the docudrama just like i thought they would "the other boxes appeared to have been vacuumed out". exactly what i figured they might say. it was interesting and i really doubt it will go much farther than it has. just my humble opinion.
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quote:I think someone on there broke it down to being 1/600 odds of a tomb with those names existing.
My father says these odds were calculated incorrectly. To start with, there's a 4! missing. 24/600 is rather less than 1/600 . . . and there are other calculation sloppinesses as well, but I don't remember what they are offhand.
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posted
Rivka: One of the folks (woman) in the documentary was named Rivka and for a second I did a double take, then I realized you live in California not Israel.
posted
I must say, I wish this had been found by a real scientist and not a sensation monger with an obvious axe to grind. Not that it would convince any fanatics either way, but it might shake loose some doubters. This? Meh. Right up there with the Da Vinci Code; any real information is going to disappear in the media noise.
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posted
1. I know alot has been said about the commonness of the names. But I thought it was interesting how they broke down each name and pointed out its uniqueness. For example, "Jose" has not been found on any other ossuary but it recorded in the Bible. Or, the Mary ossuary doesn't say "Mary" it says the Latinized "Maria." Of the thousands of ossuaries found, only eight others use Latinized names. Or, the Greek and Aramaic reading of "Mariameme e Mara" to mean "Mary, known as Master."
It seems like too much to be a coincidence.
2. The only problem that I see for the religion is the claim for "bodily ascension" and I've heard different opinions from Christians. I don't think this tomb disproves the Resurrection. It seems perfectly fine to me that Jesus' spirit ascended and his body was left behind.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Rivka: One of the folks (woman) in the documentary was named Rivka and for a second I did a double take, then I realized you live in California not Israel.
Foolish me
Rivka is Hebrew for Rebecca, and is anything but an unusual name in Hebrew.
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posted
1 No I do not believe that. You can go to any cemetary in Mexico and find family plots that contain the names Jose, Maria and Jesus as well. Does that mean Jesus is buried in Mexico somewhere?
2. The concept I always had of Jesus' ascension was that his whole body rose into the heavens. But none of us was there, and we're counting on the descriptions of somewhat non-learned people from 2000 years ago. It is possible His spirit only rose to the Heavens and his physical body was left behind, which they buried and kept secret so as to keep grave robbers and others from desecrating. Either way, it would not change my belief in Jesus being the son of God and conquerring death.
3. Don't care.
That was the biggest waste of time last night. I am so glad they had that discussion show after to let the REAL scientists and archaeologists point out how absurd and bad the reasoning and science in that 'docu-drama' was. People who do not know and/or understand science shouldn't try to use it to prove their claims. And this Jackhole who made that program should be ashamed of that ridiculous production. It's one thing to report about finding this tomb, it's quite another to go from reporting facts to speculating that Jesus had a son with Mary Magdelin and rewrite scripture to fit those claims. The fact that that 'journalist' couldn't give a good reason why he did the dramatizations, other than "everyone else does it" says a lot about that guy. What an idiot.
As far as DNA evidence goes, you cannot prove that the persons in the Jesus and Mary ossuaries were married, only that they were not related. And using the techniques they showed on tv, those methods are highly dubious. How many people handled and contaminated that stuff? Even the slightest fingerprint touches will destroy the validity of any dna testing. We're talking open crypts filled with dirt and dust and who knows what other dead organic matter. Furthermore, as was reported last night, the other ossuaries that were found were relatively clean and good DNA cannot be taken from those crypts, which is why they didn't try testing those ossuaries to try to prove the dna relationships. The other tests they did, with the petina, were also shakey validity-wise. Once again, that's what happens when a film maker that doesn't understand science twists so-called facts in order to 'prove' his hypothesis.
Finally, even if they go through and prove it is the crypt of Jesus' family, who says it's his bones in the crypt? Do we have Jesus DNA to prove this? Nooo. All we can do is speculate.
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quote:But none of us was there, and we're counting on the descriptions of somewhat non-learned people from 2000 years ago. It is possible His spirit only rose to the Heavens and his physical body was left behind, which they buried and kept secret so as to keep grave robbers and others from desecrating. Either way, it would not change my belief in Jesus being the son of God and conquerring death.
I must say I find it amazing how you can appeal to "non-learned people 2000 years ago" on the subject of how something rose into heaven, but refuse to apply it on whether it happened.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Rivka: One of the folks (woman) in the documentary was named Rivka and for a second I did a double take, then I realized you live in California not Israel.
Foolish me
Rivka is Hebrew for Rebecca, and is anything but an unusual name in Hebrew.
Oh I was not saying one of the ostuaries had the bones of a Rivka. One of the scientists was named Rivka.
Or did you think I thought Rivka was an unusual name? I had never really thought about the name though I have seen Rivka's posts in hatrack many times, it was not until the documentary that I considered that it was probably a common Hebrew name.
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quote:Originally posted by Shanna: It seems perfectly fine to me that Jesus' spirit ascended and his body was left behind.
It may seem perfectly fine to you, but the meaning of the resurrection in the *VAST* majority of, if not all, Christian Denominations throughout history is something entirely different. It is, in fact, the main point of opposition between Christianity and Gnosticism-- Body can be good as well as bad and spirit can be bad as well as good... more Spiritual != "better" and more physical != "worse".
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"And this Jackhole who made that program should be ashamed of that ridiculous production ... What an idiot."
As a scientist, he would be an idiot. Luckily, he's not paid to be a scientist. He is paid to deliver viewers to the advertisers that run ads during his programme. From what I can tell, he's sure getting a lot of free press, certainly a lot more than if he reported, "Hey I found these boxes, it could be anyone, cool huh?" If anyone has a link to the number of viewers that he has delivered, then that would really prove whether he's an idiot or not.
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quote:The documentary asserts that tests on samples from two of the coffins show Jesus and Mary Magdalene were likely to have been buried in them and were a couple.
That is such a preposterous claim. What test would show that these people were a couple? What DNA test could be use to identify Jesus or Mary Magdalene? Its not like we have another sample of their DNA to compare it to or even samples of any verifiable relatives to compare it to.
I am reminded of the case from a few years back where someone claimed to have found a tombstone belonging to James the brother of Jesus. It later proved to be a forgery.
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quote:That is such a preposterous claim. What test would show that these people were a couple?
You could perhaps see if any of the other people buried there were children of both of them.
quote:What DNA test could be use to identify Jesus or Mary Magdalene? Its not like we have another sample of their DNA to compare it to or even samples of any verifiable relatives to compare it to.
Trivial: Find the Holy Grail and check against the blood in it.
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posted
Was the Holy Grail supposed to have Jesus's blood in it? I thought it was just whatever cup he used during the Passover meal the night before he died.
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quote:That is such a preposterous claim. What test would show that these people were a couple?
You could perhaps see if any of the other people buried there were children of both of them.
Given that they are only able to obtain fragments of DNA from 2000 year old bones, I think it's highly improbably that they could accurately determine parents. I've seen a fair bit of work done with mitochondrial DNA on ancient bone samples but that would only verify maternal lineage and would be identical for sisters, mothers, grandmothers,maternal cousins etc.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Rivka: One of the folks (woman) in the documentary was named Rivka and for a second I did a double take, then I realized you live in California not Israel.
Foolish me
Rivka is Hebrew for Rebecca, and is anything but an unusual name in Hebrew.
Oh I was not saying one of the ostuaries had the bones of a Rivka. One of the scientists was named Rivka.
Or did you think I thought Rivka was an unusual name? I had never really thought about the name though I have seen Rivka's posts in hatrack many times, it was not until the documentary that I considered that it was probably a common Hebrew name.
VERY common. My high school class of about 25 had 4 Rivkas -- and two others who had Rivka as a middle name.
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quote:I am reminded of the case from a few years back where someone claimed to have found a tombstone belonging to James the brother of Jesus. It later proved to be a forgery.
This is actually discussed in the show and on the Discovery website. I believe they said that the IAA concluded that it is only a partial forgery (it is an first century relic and likely said "James son of Joseph" with the "brother of Jesus" added in modern times.) Its still valuable and if you saw the program they had further theories regarding its relationship to the tomb of the Holy Family.
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quote:I am reminded of the case from a few years back where someone claimed to have found a tombstone belonging to James the brother of Jesus. It later proved to be a forgery.
This is actually discussed in the show and on the Discovery website. I believe they said that the IAA concluded that it is only a partial forgery (it is an first century relic and likely said "James son of Joseph" with the "brother of Jesus" added in modern times.) Its still valuable and if you saw the program they had further theories regarding its relationship to the tomb of the Holy Family.
Which further increases my scepticism.
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quote:That is such a preposterous claim. What test would show that these people were a couple?
You could perhaps see if any of the other people buried there were children of both of them.
Given that they are only able to obtain fragments of DNA from 2000 year old bones, I think it's highly improbably that they could accurately determine parents. I've seen a fair bit of work done with mitochondrial DNA on ancient bone samples but that would only verify maternal lineage and would be identical for sisters, mothers, grandmothers,maternal cousins etc.
It's a test that could be done in principle; neither of us has sufficient information to say whether it could be done on these particular bones or not.
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quote:It's a test that could be done in principle; neither of us has sufficient information to say whether it could be done on these particular bones or not.
The mitochondrial DNA could in principle be done with existing technology. I doubt that paternal lineage could be established from ancient bones with existing technology. I have found no evidence that sufficient DNA has ever been recovered from any ancient bones to establish paternal lineage. If you know of such a case, point me to it.
Further more, this was a family ossuary which contains bones from several family members. It would be a stretch to even verify which bones corresponded with a given name inscribed on the ossuary.
Edit: In looking at various sites on the web, I have found that the bones were contained in separate ossuaries, so my original assertion is wrong.
[ March 05, 2007, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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"And this Jackhole who made that program should be ashamed of that ridiculous production ... What an idiot."
As a scientist, he would be an idiot. Luckily, he's not paid to be a scientist. He is paid to deliver viewers to the advertisers that run ads during his programme. From what I can tell, he's sure getting a lot of free press, certainly a lot more than if he reported, "Hey I found these boxes, it could be anyone, cool huh?" If anyone has a link to the number of viewers that he has delivered, then that would really prove whether he's an idiot or not.
The producers of American Idol deliver viewers for the advertisers. I don't want them creating "documentaries" about the supposed "tomb of Jesus" either. And I share the same opinion about them as I do the Tomb of Jesus jackhole. At least the American Idol idiots don't try to pass their drivel off by selectively quoting so-called experts and attempting to twist science to prove their point.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I must say I find it amazing how you can appeal to "non-learned people 2000 years ago" on the subject of how something rose into heaven, but refuse to apply it on whether it happened.
Because there is no question on whether or not it happened. And frankly, I don't care how it happened either.
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quote:Because there is no question on whether or not it happened.
I beg to differ. I, for one, do not believe it happened at all. Therefore there is a question of whether or not it happened.
Perhaps you were simply saying there is no question in your mind that it happened. But then, I suspect that was his point.
Not that I am interested in arguing King of Men's point. I, frankly, do not care who believes it happened and who doesn't, and I have no interest in trying to convince anyone that my belief is more correct than theirs. But I just wanted to point out that the statement that "there is no question on whether or not it happened" is patently incorrect.
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posted
A person can believe that a certain event occured at all because they have faith, and yet still leave themselves plenty of room to question details of the event that are irrelevant to that faith. I think that is what is going on here.
In much the same way, many people believe that God created the Earth, and believe in the book of Genesis, and yet are perfectly capable of accepting the theory of evolution, because their faith rests in the very limited statement, "God created the earth with such-and-such purpose," and consider the details to be flexible.
And some other people invest faith in every word of the Genesis account, and cannot accept evolution under any circumstances.
If you accept the validity of faith at all, then both of these approaches can make sense, and are internally consistent.
And naturally, if you reject faith, then both approaches would seem equally wrong.
But there is no reason to hold one up as being less legitimate than the other.
quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: But I just wanted to point out that the statement that "there is no question on whether or not it happened" is patently incorrect.
No, actually it's true, and couldn't be more correct. I need no evidence, it is my faith. I chose to leave off the "to me" part because I'm far from the only one that believes it is the patently correct AND true. Either of you may choose to disagree, that's up to you. I'm not going to argue it, it's not something open to debate for me.
The point I was attempting to make is, even if they COULD prove they've found Jesus' bones, it would make no impact on me about my beliefs in Christianity. There is certainly no explanation offered in the Bible as to HOW Jesus rose to the Heavens, and frankly I don't care if they saw his spirit rise or his physical body. If you watched the post show last night, several of the faith experts they had on repeated this same thing. Faith is something you cannot prove or disprove, argue for or against. It's a choice. I choose to believe in the ressurection of Jesus Christ and his ascension into Heaven. No matter how many half empty burial tombs they find with the name of Jesus, no matter how many half hearted, misguided, twisted attempts people make to apply science to the claims in order to 'prove' that.
Fact is, there is no way to prove this man's claims that the tomb was Jesus' tomb, that the Mary in there was Mary Magdeline, that they were married, that Jesus' brother and father and mother were also in the tomb, that Jesus and Mary had a son who was also buried in the tomb, etc etc. Like the faith expert on the conversation show said last night, each one of those assertions depend on an if, and each of those ifs are huge assumptions. When you start adding that all up, everything crumbles.
And this man that made the film, he wants to be considered a journalist. Yet he made a film filled with assumptions, edited evidence and expert opinions, dramatizations that push his claims, in a tabloid style production. That's not journalism, that's fiction film making and no more true than that piece of drivel called The Davinci Code. It's all speculation that he's trying to pass off as fact and proven evidence. And as the one archaeologist put it, it's equivalent to archaeoporn.
And the reason I'm so opposed and offended by the film and his work is that the average person watching that show will not understand how bad his work is, how shakey his science is, how much twisting the film does when presenting the 'evidence'. People will accept it because it's flashy, has nice convincing pieces of dramatizations to further his claims, and it appeals to people on a common level. Most people aren't going to think critically about that show, and just accept the things he has presented. Which is frankly, exactly the way mass media usually twists science and miss reports these things.
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quote:Originally posted by stihl1: No, actually it's true, and couldn't be more correct. I need no evidence, it is my faith. I chose to leave off the "to me" part because I'm far from the only one that believes it is the patently correct AND true. Either of you may choose to disagree, that's up to you. I'm not going to argue it, it's not something open to debate for me.
The point I was attempting to make is, even if they COULD prove they've found Jesus' bones, it would make no impact on me about my beliefs in Christianity. There is certainly no explanation offered in the Bible as to HOW Jesus rose to the Heavens, and frankly I don't care if they saw his spirit rise or his physical body. If you watched the post show last night, several of the faith experts they had on repeated this same thing. Faith is something you cannot prove or disprove, argue for or against. It's a choice ...
I might note that the current estimated number of people who believe your particular interpretation is definitely less than the majority link , given that not all Muslims believe in your interpretation (and not all Christians as evidenced by this thread for that matter). You should really have added "to me" to make your post understandable by the majority of people.
The more important thing is that this whole "science and faith are completely separate" stuff is both a complete cop-out and wrong.
The easier way for you to see it is that it should be obvious that faith in parts of the Bible could easily be proven. If we had astronomical evidence that the universe was 6000 years old, if we constructed phylogenetic trees that only showed 6000 years of mutations, or if we found the archaeological remains of Noah's Ark, if we found a ancient sample of a man's DNA who somehow had no father, or in the extreme case if we had a time machine that went back in time and took pictures of a dude ascending to heaven. The fact that we have no evidence is just more indicative of the fact that there probably is no evidence rather than that the Bible cannot be proven. However, it is entirely true that many events and views of the Bible "could" easily rest on scientific evidence.
The converse is less easy to accept, but it is also clear that faith in the Bible could be disproven. In fact, it has been time and time again. At one time the vast majority of people who believed in the Bible also believed in the verses that showed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, clearly this is not the case. The only difficulty is that faith in the Bible is fluid, people who have "faith" that the Bible is a totally true historical account can retreat to the "faith" that it is a historical account with a few allegorical passages as the first gets disproven.
What you should really say is that "your particular interpretation is a matter of faith and cannot be proven or disproven *yet*". The *yet* part is also critical since there is a huge difference between what cannot be proven now and what cannot be proven ever.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Not that it would convince any fanatics either way, but it might shake loose some doubters.
God, KoM, you have this way of making us doubters hold on tighter. You suck at this whole atheistic gospel-spreading shtick.
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posted
Did anyone else laugh at the ending of the article? The part about home prices dropping because of the neighborhood's potential new neighbors? Ahhh, British humor.
quote:No, actually it's true, and couldn't be more correct. I need no evidence, it is my faith. I chose to leave off the "to me" part because I'm far from the only one that believes it is the patently correct AND true. Either of you may choose to disagree, that's up to you. I'm not going to argue it, it's not something open to debate for me.
It's fine that it's not open to debate for you, and as long as you word it that way I have no objections to make. But that's not what you said originally, and your original statement was incorrect. A tremendous number of people doubt that it happened, or even flatly deny that it could have happened at all. That "to me" or "for me" bit is not a trivial quibble; it actually changes the entire meaning of your statement.
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quote:And the reason I'm so opposed and offended by the film and his work is that the average person watching that show will not understand how bad his work is, how shakey his science is, how much twisting the film does when presenting the 'evidence'. People will accept it because it's flashy, has nice convincing pieces of dramatizations to further his claims, and it appeals to people on a common level. Most people aren't going to think critically about that show, and just accept the things he has presented. Which is frankly, exactly the way mass media usually twists science and miss reports these things.
I'm not sure this is how most people will respond to the piece. I would think that anyone that has 'faith,' yet lacks the critical thinking skills necessary to truly analyze the presented evidence, would simply think "That's not true" and move on without second thought. That's kinda what 'faith' is, right?
I don't think this documentary will have the simple minded Christians running in droves to their spiritual advisor with shaken religious convictions. It might reafirm what some people already believe, but I doubt it would change anyone's mind.
Anyone read Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins? Extreme spoilers ahead if you're concerned about that kind of thing. So the main characters come into possesion of something that would, in their opinion, completely disprove Christianity, namely the 2000 year old mummified body of Christ. After much debate about what to do with the body, they decide that they can't just announce it to the world. Nobody would believe them. Even if they had perfect scienctific evidence that supported their claim beyond a shadow of a doubt, nobody would believe them. People would call it a hoax or a lie and forget it fifteen minutes later. This situation is obviously not the same, as the evidence doesn't appear to be there to back up the hypopthesis, but it seems to me that if it were, it wouldn't make that much of an impact on the world. Most people would just refuse to believe it.
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posted
I do not accept that you can "choose to believe" in something. (To head Dag off at the pass, I'm speaking of claims of fact.) Either you have evidence that it's true, or it's just old wives' tales. I absolutely do not grant religious belief a free ride on this; show me the evidence, show yourself the evidence, or sit down and be quiet. To believe without evidence is the action of a child, who so badly wants Santa Claus to come that he'll swallow flying reindeer; adults demand reasons to believe. To do otherwise is to stunt yourself, to deliberately become less than human; as well to give up completely and become a heroin addict. At least you'd keep the economy moving.
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quote:Originally posted by anti_maven: I imagine that after rigourous DNA testing, it will prove that all the bones in the tomb are related to Dan Brown.
Unless Opus Dei get there first...
[eeek, on a tangent we saw the DaVinci Code last week on video. What a pile of old whassname.]
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I do not accept that you can "choose to believe" in something. (To head Dag off at the pass, I'm speaking of claims of fact.) Either you have evidence that it's true, or it's just old wives' tales. I absolutely do not grant religious belief a free ride on this; show me the evidence, show yourself the evidence, or sit down and be quiet. To believe without evidence is the action of a child, who so badly wants Santa Claus to come that he'll swallow flying reindeer; adults demand reasons to believe. To do otherwise is to stunt yourself, to deliberately become less than human; as well to give up completely and become a heroin addict. At least you'd keep the economy moving.
Oh, I dunno. I choose to believe things all the time. Like last night: I chose to believe that my girlfriend was, in fact, not mad at me for something ridiculously inconsiquential. Choosing to belive this to be true, contrary to what all evidence was pointing too, saved us both from a long and painful fight. I found it a very human choice.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I do not accept that you can "choose to believe" in something. (To head Dag off at the pass, I'm speaking of claims of fact.) Either you have evidence that it's true, or it's just old wives' tales. I absolutely do not grant religious belief a free ride on this; show me the evidence, show yourself the evidence, or sit down and be quiet. To believe without evidence is the action of a child, who so badly wants Santa Claus to come that he'll swallow flying reindeer; adults demand reasons to believe. To do otherwise is to stunt yourself, to deliberately become less than human; as well to give up completely and become a heroin addict. At least you'd keep the economy moving.
Of course you don't, and that's why people like you don't understand. Faith requires no evidence, or proving or disproving. I need no reason to believe, just that I do believe is more than good enough. And I will certainly NOT sit down and be quiet. And I frankly take offense to your comment aobut becoming less than human. In fact it's very much human to believe and have faith, it's very much adult to do so.
What this man is claiming does not bother me. Why he is claiming, and the fact that it's crap science from start to finish does bother me. Nor does it bother me that some people might see it and question their faith. What does bother me is people will see it and think that's how science works without critically examining it.
Posts: 1042 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote: I need no reason to believe, just that I do believe is more than good enough.
Splendid. So you agree, then, that I need no reason to believe that you are a subhuman unworthy of legal protection, and that I can force you to harvest my cotton? Off you go to the fields, slave.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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