What is scholarly about discussing any aspect of religion?

[Stranger]

At least progress has been made.We have Christians.We  have some names,We have the symbol of the cross.

These were never in dispute.

We have this week a first Shaker telling us the world is about 7000 years old...

Citation needed.

[Gordon]

Well according to your brain dead mates the information{some of it} come from a daft old book which is simply un-true.So maybe you could call a meeting of your brain dead mates and explain{be gentle} they are wrong.
~TW~

Not exactly: agreeing that there were early 1st century Christians, and going on to agree that these early Christians were responsible for the NT doesn't mean agreeing with what these early Christians either believed or what they recorded in the NT.

Simple question - how do you know that what the NT states regarding what Jesus allegedly said and did doesn't involve mistakes, exaggeration or lies?

[~TW~]

  Simple question - how do you know that what the NT states regarding what Jesus allegedly said and did doesn't involve mistakes, exaggeration or lies?

 Your question is a way of saying,----I am well and truly stuffed here.I will make out these people lied through their teeth and were stupid enough to die for it.

~TW~

[Gordon]

At least progress has been made.We have Christians.We  have some names,We have the symbol of the cross.

So? Nobody had disputed that there weren't early Christians.

We have this week a first Shaker telling us the world is about 7000 years old

I suspect you are wrong here: Shaker is unlikely to be a YEC.

and we also have 2016 not bad.

Why is this 'not bad'?

[~TW~]

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a008.html

Gordon read Shaker  a bad case of slip up foot in mouth.

 Anyway must go.

 ~TW~

[BeRational]

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a008.html

Gordon read Shaker  a bad case of slip up foot in mouth.

 Anyway must go.

 ~TW~

Yes you always have to go when you are facing questions you cannot answer, and realize your argument is destroyed.

[Gordon]

Simple question - how do you know that what the NT states regarding what Jesus allegedly said and did doesn't involve mistakes, exaggeration or lies?

 Your question is a way of saying,----I am well and truly stuffed here.I will make out these people lied through their teeth and were stupid enough to die for it.

~TW~

No it isn't: I'm just asking you, since presumably you accept what the NT says about Jesus, to explain how you've dealt with the risks of human fallibility since these are always risks when it comes to what people claim.

For instance, how do you know that the 'Blessed are the etc' statements in the 'Sermon on the Mount' are an accurate record of what was actually said by Jesus? 

[john]

Hope says.... in another of his posts that completely miss the point

"I suppose the same could be argued for the whole menagerie of ideas that surrounds the Big Bang theory at al, all of which are dependent on human interpretation of the same evidence.  If we were to take your viewpoint, we could ask why debate and discuss that topic?  I appreciate that you aren't too keen on seeing ideas that contradict your own but that is how we learn."

Please tell us about they way in which people with differing views about the big bang theory have used those differences to justify killing others with differing views , to help them justify the abuse of children, supressing knowledge, etc.

[Shaker]

At least progress has been made.We have Christians.We  have some names,We have the symbol of the cross. We have this week a first Shaker telling us the world is about 7000 years old

Why do you continue to lie about this? I said that according the Jewish calendar the year that we call 2016 is 5766 (or whatever it was). I am not Jewish and presumably neither are you, so neither of us are bound to accept the basis for that calendar.

[Stranger]

I am not lying you mentioned the jewish calender as about 7000 years.

Mentioning a calender is not saying how old the world is. Either you are lying or you are very, very stupid.

[Shaker]

I am not lying you mentioned the jewish calender as about 7000 years.

It's 5776 to be specific, but I did indeed mention the Jewish calendar to demonstrate the fact that there are many different calendrical systems across the world's societies and cultures and thus there's nothing intrinsically special about the Christian calendar. The lie comes from your suggestion that I think the planet is only 6000-ish years old. That's something that only the truly brainless believe. Sorry and all that; I know that we're all supposed to be respectful of others' beliefs (especially their deeply held and sincere beliefs, as though that makes a difference) to the point of polite acquiescence in the face of the most witless gibbering stupidity, but the most tactful way of putting it is that if you think the planet is 6000 years old you don't really understand anything at all about the world around us.

I am duty bound to state that there alternative ways of rephrasing that statement.

I know you would see it as 25 billion years or something daft like that.

That would indeed be daft as that's about twice the age of the universe, nearly. The age of the Earth is around 4.5 billion years.

You need to take it up with the Jewish community if you disagree and you will need to provide EVIDENCE to them,as to why they are wrong.

The evidence as to why the planet isn't 6000 years old is already abundant.

The evidence isn't lacking; only the intelligence of some, like you, to understand it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Some et al,

Here's what Rational Wiki has to say about trolls:

"A troll usually has little or no interest in contributing to the development of the site in question and is interested in some or all of the following:

Deliberately angering people.

Breaking the normal flow of debate/discussion.

Disrupting the smooth operation of the site.

Deliberately being annoying for the sake of being obnoxious. For instance, using abusive names to refer to all the members on the site.

Pretending to be profoundly ignorant or stupid, gleaning some weird sense of having "won" when other users subsequently come to believe this.

Making itself the main topic of interest or discussion."

This seems to me to fit like a glove TW's behaviour here, and to a lesser but still still significant extent Sassy's behaviour too. These people have no interest in contributing to a rational, civilised, reason-based discussion but rather make themselves the centre of attention, misrepresent the posts they don't like, insult rather than engage, invent their own "facts", and generally make the place as dull and sterile as possible.

The only way to restore some health to the site is to ignore them - ie, not to feed the trolls - until they lose interest in despoiling their environment and wander off somewhere else. To varying degrees we've all been taken in because we naturally assume them to be amenable to reason and argument, whereas in fact they're susceptible to neither and so bring only bludgeoning nihilism instead.   

Me, I'm bored with catering for trolls so will engage just with those who are engaging from now on I think - your good self included, and of course those with whom I disagree profoundly but who tick that box too.

Trolls though? Nah.

[ippy]

I appreciate our recording of information in today's world is the best it's ever been, no doubt our present methods of recording would stand any test of time probably still give an accurate account of events even in a couple of thousand years hence so fictional characters such as Spiderman would, more than likely, be understood with much the same kind of understanding as we have of him now.

When it's considered how primitive, superstition and  myth filled every day life was a couple of thousand years back, no films, no internet, no TV, no radio, no telegraph, not the paper version, and they probably hadn't, as far as we know, even developed anything as advanced as semaphore; ignorance was all around, including ignorance of how to record events with very much accuracy; it makes me wonder why so many people take these old books or scrolls, as wrote.

I regularly see supposedly deep debates about mistranslations of various words and parts of quotes etc but never do see anything that could be taken as evidence, only assertions by the bucket load, big buckets and lots of them, the religious pitch is unable to break away from assertion and until it does, it will continue to be open season, unless of course perhaps someone might come up with the necessary, in the mean time they might just as well had Spiderman, say as one of the disciples, it wouldn't make much difference to the validity of the old books/scrolls if he was said to have been one of the disciples. 

Scholarly debates about religious subjects?, Until and unless some sort of credibility can be found, not really that scholarly.

ippy
 

[~TW~]

Some et al,

Here's what Rational Wiki has to say about trolls:

"A troll usually has little or no interest in contributing to the development of the site in question and is interested in some or all of the following:

Deliberately angering people.

Breaking the normal flow of debate/discussion.

Disrupting the smooth operation of the site.

Deliberately being annoying for the sake of being obnoxious. For instance, using abusive names to refer to all the members on the site.

Pretending to be profoundly ignorant or stupid, gleaning some weird sense of having "won" when other users subsequently come to believe this.

Making itself the main topic of interest or discussion."

This seems to me to fit like a glove TW's behaviour here, and to a lesser but still still significant extent Sassy's behaviour too. These people have no interest in contributing to a rational, civilised, reason-based discussion but rather make themselves the centre of attention, misrepresent the posts they don't like, insult rather than engage, invent their own "facts", and generally make the place as dull and sterile as possible.

The only way to restore some health to the site is to ignore them - ie, not to feed the trolls - until they lose interest in despoiling their environment and wander off somewhere else. To varying degrees we've all been taken in because we naturally assume them to be amenable to reason and argument, whereas in fact they're susceptible to neither and so bring only bludgeoning nihilism instead.   

Me, I'm bored with catering for trolls so will engage just with those who are engaging from now on I think - your good self included, and of course those with whom I disagree profoundly but who tick that box too.

Trolls though? Nah.

 Yes do me a favour ignore me please.After all I am ignoring you.
~TW~

[Brownie]

I do not think TW and Sass are comparable.  Sass is at least consistent and, even if difficult to understand sometimes, is not cryptic.  We know where we are with Sassy and we know what she believes. She is a Christian. TW is quite different, who knows what he or she believes?  Sometimes Christian, sometimes not.

I always think of a troll as being something that lives under a bridge....

[bluehillside Retd.]

Continuing the thought, just as we now have the faith sharing corner maybe we should start a trolls corner too. Anything with TW's, Sassy's, Vlad's etc's moniker on it could be dumped straight there for those who like that kind of thing, and the rest of us would be restored to engaging reasonably.

To be fair perhaps a mod would have to look in from time-to-time just in case one them managed to post something that wasn't abusive, dishonest, accusatory, threatening or condemning so as to transfer it back to an actual discussion board (much as my spam filter asks me "Do you really want to delete this?" before I do) but this place would be so much more interesting - and pleasant - that way.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Brownie,

I do not think TW and Sass are comparable.  Sass is at least consistent and, even if difficult to understand sometimes, is not cryptic.  We know where we are with Sassy and we know what she believes. She is a Christian. TW is quite different, who knows what he or she believes?  Sometimes Christian, sometimes not.

Well, to be fair as Sassy's posts consist almost entirely of cutting and pasting bits from a book she thinks for reasons known only to herself to be infallible, perhaps the faith sharing area would be more suitable.

TW as you say is harder to fathom: perhaps there is an intellect there of some kind at least that's deliberately trolling, but to do so over such an extended period and with such consistent contempt for others would take some stamina. On the other hand, maybe the badly disordered thought processes are real and we should just look pityingly as we cross the street to avoid him. Dunno. 

I always think of a troll as being something that lives under a bridge....

In TW's case, that wouldn't surprise me either.

[Jack Knave]

So you are now on your back pedalling bike well done.
~TW~

On that score, TW, that would mean the Aztec gods are real and true, because we have their structures and tombs.

[Jack Knave]

Well according to your brain dead mates the information{some of it} come from a daft old book which is simply un-true.So maybe you could call a meeting of your brain dead mates and explain{be gentle} they are wrong.
~TW~

Oh, you're talking about dubious interpretations!

That's odd the Aztecs and Mayans did that and because they were so symbolically vague they came true as well.

[Jack Knave]

Simple question - how do you know that what the NT states regarding what Jesus allegedly said and did doesn't involve mistakes, exaggeration or lies?

 Your question is a way of saying,----I am well and truly stuffed here.I will make out these people lied through their teeth and were stupid enough to die for it.

~TW~

Now we are on the "why did they die for something?" Well people have died and given up their lives for all manner of things, many had nothing to do with religion and God/gods.

[Shaker]

Now we are on the "why did they die for something?"

Ah yes, that perennial favourite.

Well people have died and given up their lives for all manner of things, many had nothing to do with religion and God/gods.

I feel a Godwin coming on.

Which is a pity, really, as it's actually a pretty resounding refutation of that particular fallacy.

[Jack Knave]

Continuing the thought, just as we now have the faith sharing corner maybe we should start a trolls corner too. Anything with TW's, Sassy's, Vlad's etc's moniker on it could be dumped straight there for those who like that kind of thing, and the rest of us would be restored to engaging reasonably.

To be fair perhaps a mod would have to look in from time-to-time just in case one them managed to post something that wasn't abusive, dishonest, accusatory, threatening or condemning so as to transfer it back to an actual discussion board (much as my spam filter asks me "Do you really want to delete this?" before I do) but this place would be so much more interesting - and pleasant - that way.

Dream on brother!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Continuing the thought, just as we now have the faith sharing corner maybe we should start a trolls corner too. Anything with TW's, Sassy's, Vlad's etc's moniker on it could be dumped straight there for those who like that kind of thing, and the rest of us would be restored to engaging reasonably.

Why don't you show us how that would work........by putting your own posts in a trial "A-holes corner" perhaps?

[~TW~]

Why don't you show us how that would work........by putting your own posts in a trial "A-holes corner" perhaps?

 How about a FEAR and DREAD CORNER lets look at the facts we go back 5 years,we could go back 10 and we see the same old names every day every week,every year,slapping each other on the back laughing at the bible telling each other how wrong it is,look at the mistakes in the bible,only nutters believe it.And that
really is your daily fix,but deep down you know it is true and you are in fear and dread as the seconds tick away doom laden  seconds that bring you nearer to your maker.No escape as certain as  breathing,And yet each day you kid each other it aint gonna happen. The fool  in his heart says there is no God.

               ~TW~

[Shaker]

How about a FEAR and DREAD CORNER lets look at the facts we go back 5 years,we could go back 10 and we see the same old names every day every week,every year,slapping each other on the back laughing at the bible telling each other how wrong it is,look at the mistakes in the bible,only nutters believe it.And that
really is your daily fix,but deep down you know it is true and you are in fear and dread as the seconds tick away doom laden  seconds that bring you nearer to your maker.

Provide the evidence that backs up this ridiculous assertion.

No?

No evidence?

Oh well.