Is Christianity something other than a religion?

Even the Q document was written decades after the fact and again by other people.

 

Must be a new development on that then. For the last I heard, they were not sure when it was written, but thought it was within the first decades, a compilation of at least a couple apostle, or followers accounts, written down. The thing is, there is no found Q text, there is only a tradition that there was. Given that the words of christ would be seen as very important, and given he did not come back in the life span of his apostles, as he said, some of those guys would have written them down. We have none of these, but they could be buried, especially if the religion was hijacked during their own lives. I have a feeling we will find them perhaps one day. If they were preserved.

So, who informed you Q text was written by non apostles? And how would they know, given there is no Q document found?

 

'Religion' has multiple meanings. Commonly, its just used to describe a faith or version of spirituality that is common among enough people to elevate it above 'cult' status. But technically speaking, its the following of a specific doctrine. In this regard, I dont consider myself religious even though Im a Christian. I find myself in disagreement on one aspect or another with every dejomination or 'sect' that Ive yet encountered. To be fair, I believe The Bible (and every other religious text) is ultimately personally interpreted by any serious follower, and no two true beleivers will have precisely the sane interpretation, lending a certain degree of 'similar but not the same' to the beleifs of the followers of any religion. But Religion tends to suggest the adherence to an authoritatively determined doctrine that I believe only lends to twist and corrupt the religion for power and control. So, yes, I consider Christianity to be more than just a religion, at least to all but the casual 'weekend warrior.'

 

They do know that the Q document came after Mark and even Mark was written decades later.

 

Again, this is totally new to me. I was taught at university, that the Q document was suspected to exist, but it was never found, and it was assumed to have been written much earlier than any of the 4 gospels. Of course I was attending college right after I got out of the service in 1970. From 70 to 77. Yeah, a professional student.

So, I bit the bullet and looked it up, and it is still according to wilkipedia only a theoretical source, but much has been conjectured about it. So what you posted about it is pure conjecture as my own is.

 

True in the sense that it's not a lie? Sure, if they wrote under similar circumstances, I will not call them fabricators or liars. You're desperate to call me out as a Christian fundamentalist. Knock yourself out, but I actually believe that there are little nuggets of truth, and of the divine, in just about every culture and time period.

One of the early church fathers said the same ... either Ambrose, Justin Martyr or Origen. I lost my cotton picking copy of Henry Chadwick's excellent "The Early Church" or I'd cite it. Need to get a new copy ....

On edit, yeah, it must have been Justin Martyr I was thinking of:

Further, he also indicates, as St Augustine did regarding the "true religion" that predated Christianity,[6] that the "seeds of Christianity" (manifestations of the Logos acting in history) actually predated Christ's incarnation. This notion allows him to claim many historical Greek philosophers (including Socrates and Plato), in whose works he was well studied, as unknowing Christians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Martyr

As you see, men as smart as we have been grappling with these questions for quite a while. I frankly find their arguments persuasive because of their focus, seriousness, and clarity. Their writing are devoid of modern-day snark, abuse, cynicism and sarcasm which permeate all our threads, including this one. This increases their power.

 

Comparing the reliability of a car to the reliability of Biblical claims is a false equivalence.

Red herring as the above has nothing to do with fantastical claims made in the Bible.

 

Hey, the old president of skunk works said that we now have the technology to take ET home. A fantastic claim, with no evidence. Do you believe him?

 

Red herring as the topic is not old presidents and technology to take ET home. Just realized that you may be joking. Sorry jokes tend not to translate well with me while I am debating.

 

And yet the success rate of answered prayers is no better than chance so what is that "strong evidence" for?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?mcubz=1

 

Non sequitur!

There is physical evidence for Hannibal but zero for Jesus.

 

Yet another false equivalence failure on your part,

No one is basing their entire life around a mythical belief about Homer or Shakespeare.

Furthermore Homer and Shakespeare were writing FICTION and never made any false claims to be the "gospel truth" either.

Interesting that we KNOW the NAMES of ancient writers of FICTION but the "authors" of the bible HIDE their own names? What did they have to be ashamed of? Why did they not give their names and stipulate that what they were writing was what they personally witnessed happening and what was actually said?

 

Socrates, who died 400 years before jesus was born, said "the unexamined life is not worth living" when he chose death over exile at his trial.

FTR Socrates, the Buddha and Confucius all lived within a century of each other. Their sayings echo those of Socrates.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large. Confucius

 

That actually boils down to the question that "can you prove what you yourself just did yesterday with evidence". The answer is no, no one can made his own daily history evidenced for others to examine. This is the incapability of humans to verify the past. We don't know what you did just yesterday with evidence. However we can get to know what you did if an eye-witness wrote about what you did for us to believe with faith. This is the one (and more often the only one way) for us to get to know your history.

Now what is history?

History is the recording of human deeds written by historians with a credible sources back then from eye-witnesses (or indirect witnesses sometimes). However, it is yet another human incapability to verify the credibility of the sources by today's humans. These two human incapability are often leveraged as atheistic (but fallacious) arguments.

That said. Christianity is the recording of God's deeds written by the Jews from sources of eye-witnesses (called prophets of God). This is the one and only way for humans to reach such a kind of truth (i.e., shall it be a truth).

This remains the only way as long as God chooses to hide behind. God chooses to hide behind instead of showing up to all mankind because He ever granted a covenant for humans to be saved by faith. If He shows up to all mankind, all mankind are thus not savable simultaneously. The only way He lets human know about Him is by showing Himself up to chosen eye-witnesses (His prophets) and for them to write the history of His deeds for later humans to believe with faith.

 

No, not buying Socrates, nor confucius. But the buddha, absolutely. For his inner search yielded a discovery. And as I have mentioned before, many times, I see JC along the lines of Buddham, an enlightened being. JC was coming from within Judaism, but also was using an idea they had rejected, that we can all be sons of god, or, enlightened.

So there was this idea in Judaism, which JC was expressing. Of course, the inner seeking is very much of the buddha. But at that time in israel, do you think people like JC had ever heard of buddha and what he said. I think buddha was around 400 years before christ. We know at some point the teachings supposedly of buddha went to china and other parts of the far east. But the middle east? Never heard of any such records, You?

So not so sure you have valid points here, except the ancient greek idea, to know oneself, is certainly what JC promoted, although he actually never said it directly. But in seeking inwardly, this has to come up. For I spent many years on this path. It is what stopped the orthodox christianity which I was conditioned with from my youth. Inner seeking can or will do that, a rejection of all organized religion, while still having a 'feeling', and intuition that there is something in a state of consciousness that once you come out of it, seems to be what could be called sacred. I will admit, that much of my thinking on this subject is reinforced by an inner seeking, an attentive observation of my own consciousness. If nothing else, it made me a more moral person, without direct effort to be moral, as it changed my thinking about the nature of reality itself, including what the ego, the self, the self image is. Which IMO is a creation of thought, memory. It left me with an odd feeling, that I can never take this ego seriously. And that it is such a devious thing, willing to hurt others in various ways to maintain the ego reality. I believe people can actually see this, deeply, with long self observation, watching the movement of the ego, etc.

 

Yes, it was just a joke. Sorry about that. You were seriously debating. And yet I thought, this guy from skunk works made a fantastical claim, a few years ago, which has never been proven. And this is in modern times. No relationship to your point of the fantastical, unproven claims, so long ago? Perhaps not.

 

This is yet another fallacious argument. Red herring has no serious witnessing claims. Christianity is built upon those choosing to martyr themselves to back up their claims.

 

Thanks for setting it straight. I did say perhaps not, if you will notice. So, I will take that exit. LOL

 

Duplicate post

 

The point is that requiring original documents is

Homer's Iliad contained much fact and has been very useful to archaeologists and historians. Just because a story plot is fiction does not mean it is not useful and accurate in other areas. Get educated.

The point is that original documents are not needed. Documents are copied in part and whole, and referenced in other documents. That's how we know so much about the ancient world and all the way to modern times.

Original documents throughout much of human history were made of clay, carved in tablets, written on frail papyrus, vellum. Very few survive the ravages of time. Robust documentation did not occur until around the 14th century AD.

 

The sumerian tablets sure lasted a long time.

 

Are you seriously asserting that there are more sources for Hannibal's crossing the Alps than there are for the occurrences listed in the New Testament?

 

Can you verify that these were "total fabrications? (From a neutral source, please?)

 

Probably the best theory that I have heard is that of B.H. Streeter (from almost 100 years ago): The first gospel writer was Mark (not Matthew, as had long been believed); and the other two Synoptists (Matthew and Luke) used Mark as a base.

According to the theory, an Antiochene document (as yet undiscovered), known as "Q" (for the first letter of the German word, quelle, meaning source), was also used by Matthew and Luke.

Matthew is believed to have supplemented that with yet another undiscovered source document, known as "M," which gives Matthew its distinctively Jewish flavor.

Luke, on the other hand, is believed to have supplemented Mark and "Q" with a Caesarean source document, known as "L."

Whereas this theory is not perfect--the fact that no such documents have yet been discovered is probably the most serious objection to it--it is the most probable theory that I have yet seen: That is largely because it obviates the so-called "Synoptic Problem." (The only alternative to this, I believe, is a sort of "inspiration" that very few scholars embrace today--and I would certainly not, either: the so-called "Dictation Theory" of inspiration.)

 

Would you care to prove your assertions (from neutral sources, please)?