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Is Jesus's "this generation will certainly not pass" valid grounds for scepticism?

steenkh said:
My glass is still almost full, though I have been drinking from it all my life. But you are perhaps on your way to meet God at the bottom?
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My direction has been towards atheism / materialism for quite some time, but I never seem to arrive anywhere.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
A fictional character can get away with anything.
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it isn't clear to me that is an established fact - that Jesus was fictional.
Skeptical Greg said:
However, I don't view the Jesus character in the gospels as a liar or a lunatic, so I am at a loss as to how Lewis came up with those options.
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His point was to dismiss the idea that Jesus was a great, human, moral teacher. Clearly, he based his trilemma on the assumption that the NT wasn't just made up.

You think the whole thing was just made up?
 
I think it could be as close to made up as makes no odds. We're too far away to tell tbh. There's other figures of antiquity with little contemporary evidence but there's also other figures with Lots. And our guy is solidly in the 'scraps, if you squint' category.

All this buisness about "this generation" could be a misquote from decades of telephone, it could be close to what a real guy said, kept fresh through oral tradition, or it could be made up whole cloth anytime up til a little ways before the earliest written copies we have. Though it does make you wonder why the Christians didn't put it in with the apocrypha a couple centuries later when they were picking out which books to keep.
 
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Poem said:
My direction has been towards atheism / materialism for quite some time, but I never seem to arrive anywhere.
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Perhaps you are still emotionally attached to the old faith. I have a book written by a professed agnostic who knows all the arguments against gods, but just longs to have faith.
 
steenkh said:
Perhaps you are still emotionally attached to the old faith. I have a book written by a professed agnostic who knows all the arguments against gods, but just longs to have faith.
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Well, as touched on - I don't think I have ever been a true believer; I've always harboured some scepticism. Certainly there remains a longing, but I'm not going to believe in a lie.

The book sounds interesting.
 
Poem said:
Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), the famous theoretical physicist and pioneer of quantum mechanics, was a devout Christian.

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you".
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So?
Poem said:
it isn't clear to me that is an established fact - that Jesus was fictional.

His point was to dismiss the idea that Jesus was a great, human, moral teacher. Clearly, he based his trilemma on the assumption that the NT wasn't just made up.

You think the whole thing was just made up?
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There's a vast gap between a true and accurate historical account and "just made up". Like most mythology, it's possible that the stories that have been passed down to us over centuries may have roots in historical events. The Q Gospel I mentioned above may have been a collection of things that at least one person actually said.
 
acbytesla said:
Modern Christianity has been dragged kicking and screaming into a more humanistic worldview. So let's not pretend that this isn't a new phenomenon.
After all it was only 80 years ago Christians murdered millions of Jews while wearing belt buckles that said Gott Mit Uns. It was only 31 years ago that Catholic priests egged on their followers to commit mass genocide in Rwanda.
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Christians - really?
 
Poem said:
Christians - really?
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Yes, while the most ardent Nazis believed in their own version of the Norse gods, the vast majority of soldiers in the Wehrmacht and the SS were Christians.
Claiming that they couldn’t be real Christians doing what they did would be a “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
 
steenkh said:
Yes, while the most ardent Nazis believed in their own version of the Norse gods, the vast majority of soldiers in the Wehrmacht and the SS were Christians.
Claiming that they couldn’t be real Christians doing what they did would be a “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
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Without taking a moment to mull over what you say - I know you are/have got to be wrong.

Seriously?
 
steenkh said:
Yes, while the most ardent Nazis believed in their own version of the Norse gods, the vast majority of soldiers in the Wehrmacht and the SS were Christians.
Claiming that they couldn’t be real Christians doing what they did would be a “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
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Posted this before:

Mat. 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

I'm not following how this is a 'No true Scotsman' fallacy.
 
steenkh said:
Yes, while the most ardent Nazis believed in their own version of the Norse gods, the vast majority of soldiers in the Wehrmacht and the SS were Christians.
Claiming that they couldn’t be real Christians doing what they did would be a “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
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To uphold that they were indeed real Christians you would have to show that Christ gave them / would give them grounds to commit genocide as they did.
 
steenkh said:
Yes, while the most ardent Nazis believed in their own version of the Norse gods, the vast majority of soldiers in the Wehrmacht and the SS were Christians.
Claiming that they couldn’t be real Christians doing what they did would be a “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
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There was a very few of Hitler's inner circle who subscribed to an idiosyncratic version of the occult, but it was not widespread by any means.

Poem said:
Without taking a moment to mull over what you say - I know you are/have got to be wrong.

Seriously?
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Seriously. In 1939 approximately 96% of Germans were either Protestant or Catholic. The Wehrmacht and SS cannot possibly have drawn only from the ranks of those who were neither.
 
Poem said:
To uphold that they were indeed real Christians you would have to show that Christ gave them / would give them grounds to commit genocide as they did.
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Christians have been committing atrocities in Christ's name since the Crusades. However, in modern times a soldier will take orders from a superior officer without regard to the religious implications of doing so.
 
arthwollipot said:
Christians have been committing atrocities in Christ's name since the Crusades. However, in modern times a soldier will take orders from a superior officer without regard to the religious implications of doing so.
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Based on our knowledge of what Jesus Christ stood for - would he have supported the Nazi's genocide of Jews?
 
arthwollipot said:
Seriously. In 1939 approximately 96% of Germans were either Protestant or Catholic. The Wehrmacht and SS cannot possibly have drawn only from the ranks of those who were neither.
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Christians in name. Mat. 7:21-23.
 
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