We may never be able to answer these questions, either
because our world is only a small part of reality, or because,
though our world is the whole of reality, we could never know
that to be true, or because of our own limitations. But, as I
have tried to show, we may come to see more clearly what the
possible answers are. Some of the fog that shrouds these
questions may then disappear.

Woody wrote:Good, smitty. I hope you're learning a lot over people bickering about semantics and defining what the prefix "a-" means.

Tangent: something interesting that I learned just this week and I'm sure you'll all be all, yeah duh woddy who didn't know that? is that the original gospels were written in Greek, a language that none of the Apostles were believed to have been able to write or speak.

"Greek, of course, was in widespread use in the Roman empire at this time. Even the Romans spoke Greek, as inscriptions in Rome and elsewhere attest. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that THAT GREEK WAS ALSO IN COMMON USE AMONG THE JEWS OF PALESTINE. The Hellenization of Palestine began even before the fourth-century B.C. conquest by Alexander the Great. Hellenistic culture among the Jews of Palestine spread more quickly after Alexander's conquest, especially when the country was ruled by the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes (second century B.C.), and later under certain Jewish Hasmonean and Herodian kings" (p.59).

http://www.ntgreek.org/ans

Houshphandzadeh wrote:but isn't John the only original apostle who wrote one anyway?

Luke was a Greek doctor, I thought

TenuredVulture wrote:To me, the most amazing thing about religious faith is this: Thomas confronts the risen Christ, and yet insists on seeing the wounds before he believes that Christ has risen. I mean, it's Jesus, he's got a track record, Thomas has been following him around the Holy Land, the scriptures said this would happen, and Thomas refuses to believe his eyes.

Flash forward some two thousand years, and millions of people believe this on far less evidence than was available to Thomas.

TenuredVulture wrote:Also, most of you aren't really using the term logic appropriately. There are plenty of quite sound logical arguments for theism. It all depends on the initial premises.

smitty wrote:

Didn't I? wrote:My answer to this question would change drastically if the Flyers can come back and win the cup.

Ewww. I don't think God is a sports fan.

Didn't I? wrote:

smitty wrote:

Didn't I? wrote:My answer to this question would change drastically if the Flyers can come back and win the cup.

Ewww. I don't think God is a sports fan.

Well then please explain the Flyers record when Kate Smith sang God Bless America.

smitty wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:but isn't John the only original apostle who wrote one anyway?

Luke was a Greek doctor, I thought

I'm not sure if any of the original apostles wrote any of the books of the gospel. After Jesus' ascension, his followers thought he was going to return pretty soon. After 50 or 60 years, some of them decided maybe it was time to write some of this stuff down. That's my understanding anyways.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:I think there's also a discovered tomb inscription "James, brother of Jesus" or something like that. Again, it could be a matter of the linguistics or terminology at that time. To me, whether Jesus had a biological brother or not doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

In the November 2002 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, André Lemaire of the Sorbonne University in Paris published the report that an ossuary bearing the inscription Ya'aqov bar Yosef akhui Yeshua' ("James son of Joseph brother of Jesus") had been identified belonging to a collector, who quickly turned out to be Oded Golan. If authentic, the inscription (while not mentioning Jesus' and James' mother) would have been the first archaeological evidence that Jesus existed aside from the manuscript tradition. The ossuary was exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, late that year. But on June 18, 2003, the Israeli Antiquities Authority published a report concluding, based on an analysis of the patina, that the inscription is a modern forgery. Specifically, it appeared that the inscription had been added recently and made to look old by addition of a chalk solution.
On December 29, 2004, Golan was indicted in an Israeli court along with three other men — Robert Deutsch, an inscriptions expert who teaches at Haifa University; collector Shlomo Cohen; and antiquities dealer Faiz al-Amaleh. They were accused of being part of a forgery ring that had been operating for more than 20 years. Golan denied the charges against him. According to the BBC, "when the police took Oded Golan into custody and searched his apartment they discovered a workshop with a range of tools, materials, and half finished 'antiquities'. This was evidence for an fraud of a scale far greater than they had suspected.

phatj wrote:but to me, belief in the absence of evidence (how I define "faith")

Trent Steele wrote:I believe in clutch hitting

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

phatj wrote:but to me, belief in the absence of evidence (how I define "faith")

Kinda the definition of "belief" as well. With undisputable evidence, you don't believe something, you know it.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:There is evidence (for lack of a better term), but non-conclusive (like some think the shroud of Turin is fer realz, others don't, etc.).