So what really happened 2000 years ago?

[I Ratant]

It is indeed an honor and a priviledge to post in this forum. I am indeed thankful.
What can a person really receive typing at his computer??
Know this. Where ever the post is made, where ever the post is read,
or where ever the post will be many years from now...
I will not be there.
Question everyting. It just might lead you in the right direction.
~Michael

.
One's view of the world increases enormously participating in discussions on the Internet.
I figured out some time back that any one person may not have all the answers, but with a large enough group, all the answers are there, if the proper questions are asked.
You may find that just about everyone here -does- question everything, taking nothing at face value, especially when it comes to religions.
There being so many of them, it's not that great a stretch to see that any religion can satisfy any one person, but be totally repugnant to the next.
This is not an indication of "universal truth", but something far from truth, and when seeking that truth in religions, it should be obvious that all of them have nothing more than totally human wishful thinking, or just plain cupidity for their sources.
Religions fail the most simple of tests... congruence with reality.
From the absurdity of Genesis to the obvious fiction that is the Book of Mormon, all religions contain too many inconsistencies to be able to have any of them label themselves as "the truth".
The modern day prophets can be no different than those in the books.
As viciously murderous as Samuel, or consumed with greed as too many of them today, they spout nothing but what the disarranged synapses in their head tell them.
And their audiences are still the same; seeking an easy answer to life's real problems, they look for an easy out that takes no effort on their part to achieve that carrot of "eternal life", while conducting business as usual.
Lip service to the Golden Rule, and each man for himself.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I agree.

I agree.

I have no slaves, but I would argue that we are all slaves to something or
someone whether we realize it or not. As far as my wife and children, everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives in freedom from the bondage
of a heart that is now proned to disobedience.

The real question is "how will you exist in all of eternity after you die???"

Are you living life as a fantasy, where DEATH will be your final reality?

OR, are you seeking truth and praying to the Creator from protection from
that which is not true and NOT from Him?

This question exists whether I ask the question, or whether you ask yourself the very same question.

~Michael
Question everything. It just might lead you in the right direction.

Amusing response. So is God jerking you around with the Jesus Christ fiction or not?

What makes your belief correct and that of the Jews wrong? JC could not even convince the population he preached to and miracled for. The only evidence I have is some foolish contradictory tales by credulous, uneducated folks who invented them sometime after the personage they talk about purportedly lived.

What have you researched about religion from non-Christian sources?

 

[Hokulele]

Acumulative case argument.

Preponderance of evidence.

Always start with orthodoxy. The world was flat was NOT orthodoxy.

Neither was geocentricism.

Wait, what? Geocentrism was not orthodoxy? When and where are you talking about?

 

[slingblade]

OR, are you seeking truth and praying to the Creator from protection from
that which is not true and NOT from Him?

How does that work, exactly?


I mean, it's tossed out there so casually, so matter-of-factly, that I figure some experience must lie behind it. It seems uttered as if it's a given.

So, you pray to the Creator to protect you from "that which is not true."

After you pray, do you then faithfully accept everything you hear as truth, because you are now being protected by the Creator from that which is not true?

You can't question anything anymore, can you, without at least suggesting that maybe your prayer wasn't heard or answered, and you aren't yet being protected by the Creator from that which is not true.

But if you demonstrate a lack of faith and do question anything, even if only inside your own head, then you've shown you don't have enough faith for your prayer to be answered, and so you're still receiving that which is not true.

So, tell me, how does such a prayer work?

 

[quarky]

I've decided I no longer have any opinions on this matter.

 

[shadron]

I'm sure it will be anything but the Canon of the N.T. scriptures. If you say
which canon, I am referring to the Council of Nicea or the Council of Trent.
I will be happy to see you submit to either one and acknowledge any of those books.

Let's go with this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mary

Catholic boy is a red herring. The Unique Son of God Who was born to die
and set the example and not pro create is the real issue. Everything else
is a red herring. IOW, there was a PURPOSE for Yeshua. It was not to
have sex and make a baby, but to die for the sins of the world.

I think I have to resent you dismissing my argument with "red herring". Would it have been better if I'd said "Jewish boy"? Would it then still be a red herring? Your "PURPOSE" is only defined in your book, written somewhat after the fact with axes to grind, so why should I acquiesce to your belief?

This is evasive to the role of decisions and disobedience, as well as a mis-
understanding about evil. The imperfection is the result of disobedience.
This is based on choice. God did not create us perfect. That is impossible.
When He looked at creation before the fall of mankind He simply said it was
"good" which does not mean "perfect" like the English word does.

Just a litle contradiction there - either the imperfection is impossible to avoid (God just couldn't do that) or its is there through choice; can't be both. And definitely not there by my choice, in any case.

And you are evasive to the role of logic. It is impossible to make us perfect, so instead he condemns the vast majority of his creation to eternity apart from him (hell, I suppose) because of they never heard of him? or because the built-in imperfections are a slight to his honor? And yet he admits to not being able to create them perfectly? What kind of beast is this?

You misunderstood argumentum ad consequentium. This is in reference to
finding fault with an argument based on its consequences. Just because
an argument has consequences for not accepting it, does not mean you
can point to those consequences and claim that it is based on fear. It is
irrelevant to whether or not it is true. It is true or false on its own merit
and evidence, regardless of how horrible the consequences will be for you
not accepting it.

Uh - I'm sorry. I don't admit to doing so - Pascal's wager does, but I don't subscribe.

There is a wise system for accepting and rejecting text that are in
conflict, just as they did at the Coucil of Nicea.

What - majority vote? Since when is truth decided by a majority? I wouldn't consider it wise, I'd consider it open to all sorts of pressures, which it was. The Catholic church insists that tradition, which this sort of decision falls under (at least after a while, and the minorities have been quashed), is an important source of truth. I think that's an illusion, but then I've never been really enamored of obviously self-serving conservatism.

Is cherry picking allowed in your church?

Only if you use logic as a hermeneutic and contextual exegesis and you
pray for "sight" which is a gift from God's Spirit. Anytime you read the
scriptures, you should pray that God would "open your eyes and hears
(spiritual ones) to see clearly the things He would teach you by divine
revelation.

A cherry has a seed. That seed can grow into a whole other tree.
Question everything.

I'll take that as a "yes"; I can't see how it can be construed otherwise.

Calvinism fails in many aspects as does Lapsarianism (Supra, Infra, Sub, Ante), because it wrongfully looks at the Infinite Creator from a three dimensional time space contiuum. Besides, the demonic spirits or deceiving
spirits believe what is true also, and they tremble. They do not repent.

Hmmmm. Well, I don't much like Calvinism either, but not because it doesn't affect the demonic spirits. Personally, I don't have much use for them or anything else beyond the notional 4-dimension continuum I find myself in.

Repentance is important, but it is a complete turn around in the "mind"
and an experience of spiritual regeneration, it is NOT the result of works.
Works are the PRODUCT of salvation, but never a means to salvation.
Abraham "believed" God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
His works, only justified him before men, NOT God. His FAITH (trusting
God) justified Him before the Lord. I believe that you misunderstood
what Luther was saying. He was talking about saving faith which will
produce good works and repentence.

So when Paul referred to those who have the faith to move mountains but have not charity, he was inexplicably addressing only an imaginary situation, for anyone with faith automatically has charity? Why then is the world so poor in it when some 80% of Americans (and, perhaps, 50% of Europeans) believe in a Christian god? (And you'd better not blame it on me!)

Your prior circumstances make you a strong candidate for becoming an
evangelical Christian. There are many many evangelical Christians who
could not be satisfied until they had a loving relationship with their Eternal
Father in heaven. I know of many RC's who became atheists before they
became Christians. Close friends. I probably would have become an
atheist too if I was raised by nuns who did not encourage me to question.

Ain't gonna happen. And you really don't need to be out dissing the nuns, either. Some were disciplinarians, but some weren't - just about par for humanity in general. On the whole, I am grateful to them.

If you do not question, then how will you ever know "why" you believe
what you believe, and whether it is incorrect or not. You have to test
what you believe in order to know that it can hold up to skepticism.

I was once liberal. I was an evolutionist. I was surprised that it could
possibly be wrong. The road to dissecting these systems is to go back
to basic assumptions. You have to systematically dissect these invalid
assumptions based on circular reasoning and "thousands" and even tens
of thousands of inductions.

Thanks for the warning. I shall remain vigilant.

It is good to question.

Yes. I agree.

 

[arthwollipot]

Logic would dictate that we should all pray to the Creator...

 

[Breckmin]

It wouldn't matter...

Amusing response. So is God jerking you around with the Jesus Christ fiction or not?

What makes your belief correct and that of the Jews wrong? JC could not even convince the population he preached to and miracled for. The only evidence I have is some foolish contradictory tales by credulous, uneducated folks who invented them sometime after the personage they talk about purportedly lived.

What have you researched about religion from non-Christian sources?

Studying comparative religions shows you the confusion of faulty assumptions
and historical lies about the Person and work of Jesus Christ Who was clearly
non fiction. He is a fact of reality. How about the fundamental reality.

Perhaps what you don't realize is that for me personally, it would not matter
what I studied...because I know God is absolute fact and His Infinite Personal
Existence to be indeed absolute fact from personal communication. This includes the fact that Jesus Christ is uniquely the Son of God, and the Messiah to the Jews. There is nothing in this universe that can ever shake
my communication with the Eternal Creator so the only thing I can really do
now is try and dissect the invalid assumptions based on circular reasoning
and induction and see how indeed the world is involved in its own aggregate
self-deception.

That is all that is left for me personally.

Suppose you knew someone who believed in God for 17 or 18 years and he
went up to a mountain top to pray. Suppose just one of those times, out
of say a dozen or so, he actually communicated with the Infinite Creator,
say - just one time in all of his life - just one miraculous event which was
so clear to him in its existence that it gave him the knowledge that there
was indeed only one believe structure/sytsem (within many denominations)
that was the exclusive way to this Creator.

How would you ever shake this persons faith????

The only thing you could ever do is make the person uncertain to whether
he or she is subordinate to such a believe structure. Someone may go 70
years of his/her life and only communicate with the Creator one time in
his whole life (other than reading the bible and praying), and that is ALL it
will take to have absolute knowledge that there is indeed a Creator and we
should be acknowledging Him in our lives and seeking salvation from our
own wrong doing.

Suppose you knew such an individual? How could you ever convince him
otherwise?

Question everything.... It just might lead you in the right direction.
But when you question, try to find the Creator's answer to the question
and not the answer you personally want. Make up your mind to believe
what you have to believe, and not what you want to believe.

Everything else is agenda and bias....
~Michael

 

[Breckmin]

It wouldn't matter...

Amusing response. So is God jerking you around with the Jesus Christ fiction or not?

What makes your belief correct and that of the Jews wrong? JC could not even convince the population he preached to and miracled for. The only evidence I have is some foolish contradictory tales by credulous, uneducated folks who invented them sometime after the personage they talk about purportedly lived.

What have you researched about religion from non-Christian sources?

Studying comparative religions shows you the confusion of faulty assumptions
and historical lies about the Person and work of Jesus Christ Who was clearly
non fiction. He is a fact of reality. How about the fundamental reality.

Perhaps what you don't realize is that for me personally, it would not matter
what I studied...because I know God is absolute fact and His Infinite Personal
Existence to be indeed absolute fact from personal communication. This includes the fact that Jesus Christ is uniquely the Son of God, and the Messiah to the Jews. There is nothing in this universe that can ever shake
my communication with the Eternal Creator so the only thing I can really do
now is try and dissect the invalid assumptions based on circular reasoning
and induction and see how indeed the world is involved in its own aggregate
self-deception.

That is all that is left for me personally.

Suppose you knew someone who believed in God for 17 or 18 years and he
went up to a mountain top to pray. Suppose just one of those times, out
of say a dozen or so, he actually communicated with the Infinite Creator,
say - just one time in all of his life - just one miraculous event which was
so clear to him in its existence that it gave him the knowledge that there
was indeed only one believe structure/sytsem (within many denominations)
that was the exclusive way to this Creator.

How would you ever shake this persons faith????

The only thing you could ever do is make the person uncertain to whether
he or she is subordinate to such a believe structure. Someone may go 70
years of his/her life and only communicate with the Creator one time in
his whole life (other than reading the bible and praying), and that is ALL it
will take to have absolute knowledge that there is indeed a Creator and we
should be acknowledging Him in our lives and seeking salvation from our
own wrong doing.

Suppose you knew such an individual? How could you ever convince him
otherwise?

Question everything.... It just might lead you in the right direction.
But when you question, try to find the Creator's answer to the question
and not the answer you personally want. Make up your mind to believe
what you have to believe, and not what you want to believe.

Everything else is agenda and bias....
~Michael

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I wonder how many girls claimed to have "virgin births" way back when and got away with it? Apparently one... Since parthenogenesis is impossible in humans, then she was was either drugged or drank too much if she believed she saw some otherwordly thing impregnate her. I find the whole the story rather grotesque. Don't get me started on Lot's daughters...

Basically the bible is all rather old school stories made up to make people think about gods and morality, but designed to never allow updating. Which is unfortunate. It needs a good updating to be more "believable".

I'd be far more into mainstream religions if they were open to adopting new information as we discover it. They could also drop the bias and male chauvenism that prevales in the texts. If it all weren't so offensive intellectually, then they could sell it to more people. Personally, being a part of a group is fun. It's just not fun when you leave your brain at the door to be a part of it anymore.

 

[cj.23]

I wonder how many girls claimed to have "virgin births" way back when and got away with it? Apparently one... Since parthenogenesis is impossible in humans, then she was was either drugged or drank too much if she believed she saw some otherwordly thing impregnate her. I find the whole the story rather grotesque. Don't get me started on Lot's daughters...

IS parthenogenesis actually impossible in humans? I thought it was theoretically possible, as in any mammal, though the odds of it occurring spontaneously were vanishingly remote? Just curious really - it is possible in mice with lab intervention, I recall that. I'm not looking for theological debate here, juts interested in the biology question...

cj x

 

[I Ratant]

From Wiki:
Mammals
"There are no known cases of naturally-occurring mammalian parthenogenesis in the wild. However, in 1936, Gregory
Goodwin Pincus reported successfully inducing parthenogenesis in a rabbit.

In April 2004, scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture used parthenogenesis successfully to create a fatherless mouse."
...
"Induced parthenogenesis in mice and monkeys often results in abnormal development. This is because mammals have
imprinted genetic regions, where either the maternal or the paternal chromosome is inactivated in the offspring in order for
development to proceed normally. A mammal created by parthenogenesis would thus have double doses of maternally
imprinted genes and lack paternally imprinted genes, leading to developmental abnormalities if any were present in the genes
of the mother. As a consequence, research on human parthenogenesis is focused on the production of embryonic stem cells
for use in medical treatment, not as a reproductive strategy."
.
There's a "work-around" that is religiously unpopular.

 

[cj.23]

Wait, what? Geocentrism was not orthodoxy? When and where are you talking about?

Geocentricism was normative in Western Europe in the late middle ages, but had been critiqued repeatedly and heliocentric theories had been postulated in a number of cultures, though Ancient Greek heliocentricism is best known. There were certainly medieval theologians and thinkers before Copernicus who embraced the heliocentric model.

Personally I have no problem with geocentricism. I just defined the earth as my static point, and mentally tried to mode it using this frame of reference, and while it made my head hurt it seems to work just fine, given my arbitrary decision that Earth is the static point (though I'm stretching the centre implication here!) Likewise any other spot in the universe...? Just choose your spot and define everything else in relation to it???

cj x

 

[cj.23]

As a consequence, research on human parthenogenesis is focused on the production of embryonic stem cells
for use in medical treatment, not as a reproductive strategy."
.
There's a "work-around" that is religiously unpopular.

Not in this part of the world...

cj x

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Studying comparative religions shows you the confusion of faulty assumptions and historical lies about the Person and work of Jesus Christ Who was clearly
non fiction. He is a fact of reality. How about the fundamental reality.

Perhaps what you don't realize is that for me personally, it would not matter what I studied...because I know God is absolute fact and His Infinite Personal Existence to be indeed absolute fact from personal communication. This includes the fact that Jesus Christ is uniquely the Son of God, and the Messiah to the Jews. There is nothing in this universe that can ever shake
my communication with the Eternal Creator so the only thing I can really do now is try and dissect the invalid assumptions based on circular reasoning and induction and see how indeed the world is involved in its own aggregate
self-deception.

That is all that is left for me personally.

Suppose you knew someone who believed in God for 17 or 18 years and he went up to a mountain top to pray. Suppose just one of those times, out of say a dozen or so, he actually communicated with the Infinite Creator, say - just one time in all of his life - just one miraculous event which was so clear to him in its existence that it gave him the knowledge that there
was indeed only one believe structure/sytsem (within many denominations) that was the exclusive way to this Creator.

How would you ever shake this persons faith????

The only thing you could ever do is make the person uncertain to whether he or she is subordinate to such a believe structure. Someone may go 70 years of his/her life and only communicate with the Creator one time in
his whole life (other than reading the bible and praying), and that is ALL it will take to have absolute knowledge that there is indeed a Creator and we should be acknowledging Him in our lives and seeking salvation from our own wrong doing.

Suppose you knew such an individual? How could you ever convince him otherwise?

Question everything.... It just might lead you in the right direction. But when you question, try to find the Creator's answer to the question
and not the answer you personally want. Make up your mind to believe what you have to believe, and not what you want to believe.

Everything else is agenda and bias....
~Michael

Once upon a time doctors at a lunatic asylum tried an experiment where they housed three people who were absolutely certain that they were Jesus Christ and knew "that God is absolute fact and His Infinite Personal Existence to be indeed absolute fact from personal communication". After two weeks, two were no longer convinced they were JC because the third had convinced them that He was.

Why was he not?

You must understand that there are others who believe as sincerely as you do in other gods. To we atheists we don't find any of their professions of belief in any way convincing.

Really, I don't care what you believe. But you are posting in a forum that is dedicated to skepticism. Why?

 

[slingblade]

Breckmin, two things:

1) I asked a question in post #84. Will you answer it?

2) You keep insisting we ought to "question everything." Do you? Because I did, I do, and that's what ultimately led me to atheism.

 

[Breckmin]

sorry,
I was downstairs on my son's old computer and having
issues here with the taskbar... this was written yesterday in response to
Slingblade:

Slingblade wrote the below << >>

RE: Praying for protection for that which is not true and for that which is not from
God.

Slingblade<<How does that work, exactly?>>

First, it comes from absolute sincerity of the heart and reverence to the Creator.
Humility is one of the most important steps in discovering truth. Jesus said that
unless you humble yourself as a little child, you will not see the Kingdom of God.
He also noted that God had hidden profound things from wise intellectual men and
had revealed truth to "babes."

1. Admit that you are a babe to the Creator. As a finite created being you are
indeed infinitely small to the Creator. It is logical to see yourself as a very small
child in comparison to God.
2. Don't be afraid to get down on your knees and pray to God to ask Him to "show"
you truth. Ask Him to open your eyes and your ears (spiritual ones) to the truth
of His Existence. There are many men of God who get down on their faces in humility
and recognize the absolute Holiness of God.
3. Recognize your tendency to do that which is opposed to the spirit of the law.
In this case it would be the 10 commandments. If you are tempted to break them
in thought as well as action, THEN the law is doing its job in teaching you that you
are a LawBreaker. In this case, a Law of God breaker.

Question everyting.


<<I mean, it's tossed out there so casually, so matter-of-factly, that I figure some experience must lie behind it. It seems uttered as if it's a given.>>

Trusting the Creator is logical. It is logical for the creation to Trust in the Creator
for all things and all needs, but certainly you must grow and you must work. Just
as there is no free lunch, there is no lunch that is ultimately not a result of circumstances. All food is ultimately the result of abilities and sustained order
so it is logical to thank the Creator for such nutrition.

Slingblade<<So, you pray to the Creator to protect you from "that which is not true.">>

With sincerity. With humility. And with the knowledge that all logical truth ultimately
comes from the Owner of the Universe.

SB<<After you pray, do you then faithfully accept everything you hear as truth, because you are now being protected by the Creator from that which is not true?>>

You will hear conflicting assumptions, so the answer is clearly -
Of course not. First, life is a growing process. You have to "learn" about truth and
distinguish it from non-truth, just as you have to learn about the knowledge of good
and evil and why it is logical to always choose good (or God). This is a life long
process of trial and error. You will never be 100% correct because there is so much
that you will be required to remain "agnostic" because there is no way to know for
certain. You CAN, however, know several different positions on peripheral theology
and lean one direction and wait until you get to the next life to find out just how
wrong you are on various topics. Test all things, hold fast to what is true. But when
you "test" you must be willing to submit to the practicality of the law and the prophets.
Divine revelation from the God of Abraham to the Nation of Israel.

<<You can't question anything anymore, can you, without at least suggesting that maybe your prayer wasn't heard or answered, and you aren't yet being protected by the Creator from that which is not true.>>

Life is not only a test, life is a journey. It is a learning experience. Praying for protection
from that which is not true, and that which is not from God is the first step. You must
have foundational truth from which to "build" on so that you can "test" such truth. This
is all part of the God-given wisdom that you are seeking. It starts with sincerity of the
heart, and asking the Creator to show you the truth about Himself.

<<But if you demonstrate a lack of faith and do question anything, even if only inside your own head, then you've shown you don't have enough faith for your prayer to be answered, and so you're still receiving that which is not true.>>

First of all, if you do not question something, then how will you know "why" it is true?
It is logical to test all things and hold fast to what is true. It is not a lack of "faith"
but a quest for truth. God indeed often uses your own skepticism to guide you in truth,
as well as various other factors (including His Spirit) to help you discern truth from error.
The Spirit of God (or Holy Spirit), whether Personal Manifestation, or Entity, or Persona
or Hypostasis, or God's Spirit, is a "Heloer." He guides the believer to truth, but often
the believer can get in the way until he or she is more mature. Praying for protection
is the first step in a long process by which God's Spirit, the testing of evidence, the
humility of the heart to accept God's truth, the building up of sound assumptions, and
the reading of the scriptures (which contain God's revelation from God to humankind)
{prophets and apostles representing the truth of God to the nation of Israel}, ALL help
to protect the person of "faith" from error. It is not a magical process but a prudent
one.

But it is by sincerely asking for God's help that the above actually ever even begins
to take place.

Slingblade<<So, tell me, how does such a prayer work? >>

If you are searching for perfection without technical flaw you will not find it.

To be human is to error. - Karl Barth (paraphrase)

God works "perfectly" through imperfection. He has always done this with
mankind. Our imperfection is inevitable. The prayer points you in the "right"
direction for growth. It helps you to question "error" and "identify" it.

Often you will be able to detect invalid assumptions by which the error was
based on.

It always comes down to "what is this based on?" Everything we believe should
come down to "what is this based on?" Is the starting assumption circular? OR
is it scientific observation that is repeatable? That is the starting point. Then,
the next step is to look for the right objective absolute truth that is not subjective.

What it should also come down to is "Is this what the Creator believes or knows?"

That question exists no matter who asks it.
~Michael

 

[Hokulele]

Geocentricism was normative in Western Europe in the late middle ages, but had been critiqued repeatedly and heliocentric theories had been postulated in a number of cultures, though Ancient Greek heliocentricism is best known. There were certainly medieval theologians and thinkers before Copernicus who embraced the heliocentric model.

I wasn't suggesting it was never challenged, or that other theories weren't postulated, I simply had never heard of it being called anything other than orthodoxy until Western Europe began taking heliocentrism seriously.

Personally I have no problem with geocentricism. I just defined the earth as my static point, and mentally tried to mode it using this frame of reference, and while it made my head hurt it seems to work just fine, given my arbitrary decision that Earth is the static point (though I'm stretching the centre implication here!) Likewise any other spot in the universe...? Just choose your spot and define everything else in relation to it???

cj x

Mathematically, there is nothing wrong with geocentrism, and such a reference frame is often used when calculating satellite orbits. As long as you are consistent with your reference frame, relativity will chug along merrily.

It does make the math more interesting if you are planning interplanetary travel...

 

[Aepervius]

what I think happened is one of the multiple prophet of that time (can't remember how they were called but there were a bunch) did the usual trick to get donation, and the usual magic trick to pass as magic, but it went out of hand and was condemned to be crucified. Since he had a few coin saved, he gave them to the roman guard suposed to verify he was dead and the guy supposed to put the spike to spare him. Afterward he fled from his tomb, swearing to be more prudent in his scams. But he was seen, and made up some excuse on being "ressurected", then fled not to be seen again. Some reaaaaallly gullible believer saw him "resurected" and went a bit harder to preach his word. After that it snowballed. The rest is made up by people 100 years afterward, mixing up some real historical event with made up stuff.

Now read that again and compare to the new testament. What make more sense, and is in accord with what we know of the world ?
* some guy scam a few gullinle and buy his way out. The gullible are particularly sucessfull at preaching the word
* god made the world, god inseminated a random woman, she gave birth to a real son of god / prophet which really walked on water, really transformed the bread, and really resurected after dying.

There is no way to prove this naturally, but all my money *IS* on the first hypothese, or something similar. Heck, look at all the gullible believing in all modern scammer, and rpeachign THEIR word, and tell me the scenario above is improbable.

 

[Breckmin]

Atheism is not really skepticism. It is much more a refusal of evidence.

Once upon a time doctors at a lunatic asylum tried an experiment where they housed three people who were absolutely certain that they were Jesus Christ and knew "that God is absolute fact and His Infinite Personal Existence to be indeed absolute fact from personal communication". After two weeks, two were no longer convinced they were JC because the third had convinced them that He was.

I would be interested in a source for this if it is not a fictitious example. The
reason for this is I would like to deal specifically with the false assumptions as
to "why" the three individuals believed something that was false, and expose
those specific false assumptions and what they were based on.

Why was he not?

The historical Jesus claimed His return would be from the clouds (sky) as was
His ascension (in clouds). This is to help us distinguish the real Messiah from a future
world president (or anti-Christ).

You must understand that there are others who believe as sincerely as you do in other gods. To we atheists we don't find any of their professions of belief in any way convincing.

What are the specifics of what their belief structures are based on? This is
how you dissect and examine truth?

Really, I don't care what you believe. But you are posting in a forum that is dedicated to skepticism. Why?

Skepticism is a good thing when you have a heart that is humble toward the
Creator and you are truly seeking what the Standard for all truth (the Owner
of the Universe) is, and you are skeptical of invalid assumptions based on
circular reasoning and induction.

The first thing a skeptic should be skeptical of is his/her own bias and agenda.
What is the motivation for belief? How many times have I been in a discussion on information in RNA/DNA or the ridiculous assertion of abiogenesis
and the so called "atheist" will start talking about misunderstandings about the Judeo-Christian God, or misunderstandings about the O.T. Such is not
a valid basis for denying scientific observation and foundational deduction.

The second thing a skeptic should be skeptical of is that this whole world of
complexity is somehow the result of just random chance. We do not observe
intelligence or intelligent results as being the result of random chance so why would we conclude it for life itself? It is illogical.

The third thing a skeptic should be skeptical of is the difference between
humans and all other mammals, including the chimpanzee. We are not only
talking about human consciousness and basic intelligence, but what about
self-sacrificing love itself? If the chimpanzee or apes in general are given
to us as a gift to teach us that we are uniquely created in His image, then
how have we taken these creatures and used "induction" (that leads to
error) to conclude common ancestry based on similarities. The true skeptic
should be skeptical of commonalities vs relatedness. Commonalities are
an induction and we do not observe common ancestry outside of genera
of difference species. Chimpanzees do not have the basic abilities of artistic
expression, complex communication and engineering, mathematical under-
standing and the concept of infinity, religious awareness, etc.

The list can go on and on. It is completely illogical to conclude common
descent with those who do not have the same capacities, especially when
you have no mechanism from which to bring those capacities into existence.

~Michael