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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: Terror in my City
Thread: Terror in my City This thread is 3 pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT»
artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 15, 2014 07:45 PM

Quote:
Edit: @Artu
I didn't see what I wrote as specific optimistic?

Anyway all I meant was that it's sometimes a little too easy to blame e.g. religion on a matter of a single individual. With that said I do think that e.g. Islamism does produce more extremism than non-Islamic people, but if that's because of the faith itself or the condition the larger part of people of said religion lives under, I do not know.

In the case of science itself, I find it a little problematic that we as a single person on the planet often do not have the possibility to test out many of the stuff that's regarded as truth.. We get the data and we're told how they did, but often there's no way a person either has the money or time to test it by themselves. Then to me it comes back to rely on faith and authority, maybe to a less degree than for religion and for the "world before this", and the world is working, so there isn't any serious problems as it is..

But I was really only talking about that we can find extremist everywhere with whatever reasons..



That's an oversimplification by many aspects.

There is a direct link between the mentality of dogmatic thought and extremism. Not all extremists are extremists of religion and not all religious people are extremists. That, however, should not lead us to ignore the causality between dogmatic thought (which religions are, by definition) and the potential of it, turning people into extremists. If you look around, today, most ridiculously out of proportion ideas that are extreme, such as young earth creationism, women forced to wear burkas, beheading converters etc (there are really too many to count), they are usually religion driven.

Practically, nobody can have the time, expertise or energy to test everything about anything themselves, so scientific or not, most of our knowledge is inherited. The important part is, how does the authorities that we apply to (such as going to a doctor when you're sick) become so. If a methodology is based on giving you credit as an authority because of your unbiased expertise and relies upon checks and balances, there is nothing irrational about applying to it. You rely on the authority of a driver and the state that gave him a license, when you take a cab.
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OhforfSake
OhforfSake


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posted December 15, 2014 07:48 PM
Edited by OhforfSake at 19:55, 15 Dec 2014.

That's why I used loose terms such as "good knowledge" and "certain accuracy".
I can give percentage probability to many event occurring that could alter the experiment and can therefore e.g. say if you do X, to within a certain probability Y will happen, when it will happen, how it will happen, etc.

The world is not unknowledgeable, but I'm not sure that's what you're saying though. An easy way to see it's not unknowledgeable is that modern technology works. Cars works. Cell phones works. Etc.

Edit: @artu Yes I never take a cab.. Joke aside, in my opinion what really matters to you is what you ought to test, what is only discussed on an internet forum at a leisure, that's maybe not that important. But it also depends on how difficult it is, I mean if I can either put my life in someones hands or easily find out if that's a good idea, I'd do the second, but at some point it becomes so difficult we do the first.

Yes Religion is in our part of the world the large blame factor, I don't know if it's correct to blame Religion, but if I were to believe media coverage then it'd seem so.
I like to think there are more sides of a story and I often only see one though, the perspective from our viewpoints.
That does not in any way defend what's happened today regarding the incident this thread is about, but if that person wouldn't have done the same if he'd not been from any particular religion, I do not know. I'd like to think the mistake happened long before and religion is merely his excuse. But now I guess I might be getting too optimistic, so I'll stop this train of thought here..

But I guess my point is mainly that everyone who does bad stuff typically gives some reason, "in the name of X", but I believe the reason they do the bad stuff has more to do with imbalances in how society works today, i.e. the conditions people are raised and live under.
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Salamandre
Salamandre


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posted December 15, 2014 07:55 PM

No comment, except that Islam never proved to be of any good for countries accepting immigration from.

French politicians use to say "Islam is a chance for us"; probably because living together and trying to play blind is the only valid social options left to us, to avoid social tensions and such.

The truth is that it is too late, we never should have let them enter first in such big numbers, now we pay the price and have to hide our head in sand. In fact, it proved to be a cancer and a powerful social destabilizing vector, wherever it goes.
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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 15, 2014 07:59 PM
Edited by artu at 20:03, 15 Dec 2014.



When a chemist (or anybody with a common sense) looks at this, he concludes a fire in the past. In a world of absolute mysticism, 2 hours ago, a waterfall may have also caused this with alternative physical laws and you could be in this world for only five minutes with fabricated memories installed in your brain by a genie.

Science DOES make assumptions, falsifiable assumptions based on probabilities. When it comes to mainstream theories, the probabilities are so high and possibility of the alternatives are so astronomically low, they are considered facts. They couldn't have been falsifiable (therefore rational hypothesis and not mystical speculation), were they not assumptions.
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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
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posted December 15, 2014 08:00 PM
Edited by Stevie at 21:01, 15 Dec 2014.

Salamandre said:
No comment, except that Islam never proved to be of any good for countries accepting immigration from.

French politicians use to say "Islam is a chance for us"; probably because living together and trying to play blind is the only valid social options left to us, to avoid social tensions and such.

The truth is that it is too late, we never should have let them enter first in such big numbers, now we pay the price and have to hide our head in sand. In fact, it proved to be a cancer and a powerful social destabilizing vector, wherever it goes.


It's not only Islam. It's not even religion. It's every single worldview. Ideas and individuals are both equally dangerous.

artu said:

When a chemist (or anybody with a common sense) looks at this, he concludes a fire in the past.


Still forensic science in which the conditions are assumed or at least deduced and not observable.
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kayna
kayna


Supreme Hero
posted December 15, 2014 08:37 PM

Rakshasa92 said:
I wouldn't go all anti-religion if I were you guys.

I once used a creature from Moslim mythology in one of my many proposals, and I already got a life-threat private post.


Somehow that made me curious, tell us more!

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Rakshasa92
Rakshasa92


Supreme Hero
posted December 15, 2014 09:13 PM

kayna said:
Rakshasa92 said:
I wouldn't go all anti-religion if I were you guys.

I once used a creature from Moslim mythology in one of my many proposals, and I already got a life-threat private post.


Somehow that made me curious, tell us more!


No. I won't go over that again, it was the Ababil I used wrong.

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 16, 2014 02:43 AM
Edited by artu at 07:26, 16 Dec 2014.

Quote:
Still forensic science in which the conditions are assumed or at least deduced and not observable.

You recently said "unless you're going to "assume" the conditions, in which case is no longer science" and know you say it is "forensic science." You present, yet another logical fallacy by reducing the meaning of observation to "observing something with your naked eyes while it is happening at that moment" when, observation of the remains also results in valid information. From geology to astronomy, there are hundreds of branches in science that both reveals the past or predicts the future, such as looking at enormous insect fossils and deducting the vast amount of oxygen levels in the atmosphere they needed to be able to exist in the past or predicting a moon eclipse in the next century by mathematical calculation or estimating when the sun will go into red giant state. These are all science and they are not social sciences such as history or anthropology, they are natural sciences, they are based on calculation, mathematics, when they predict something, it actually happens, when they produce medicine based on evolution, it works.

You can not reinvent the definition of science so that it shall fit your out of proportion agenda of categorizing both mythical creation and the Big Bang as faith. One is based on a rational hypothesis and deduction backed up by vast amount of data (including data from the past since when astronomers are looking in the sky now, they are directly looking at the past). These are all mainstream knowledge. Knowledge of the basics about methodology, even the most lazy lay-man can learn with a few books in a week. Yet, you arbitrarily try to redefine everything and misinform in the name of apologist justification of mythology, which neither scientists nor philosophers take seriously by any academical or non-academical standard.

You can't learn about the Big Bang from sites such as creationist.com or weshallgotoheaven.com or hallelujah.com. They are overwhelmingly and openly biased and ideological. You can't reduce the qualifications required for an observation into "in the moment when no assumptions are made" and expect a single person with common sense to stop defining credible research as science, if it studies anything before the invention of the alphabet and then label those as something not different from throwing around wild guesses about the past or having subjective faith in a folk tale. Every time you open your mouth, you present blatantly wrong, uneducated, inconsistent, shallow propositions of immature imagination, you propose them with a misguided confidence of Dunning Kruger Effect flavor. When this is explained to you, you switch to trolling, start cross-lining posts and wrap yourself in a misdirected sarcasm that would only result in shame in any person with the slightest sense of decency. You are just embarrassing yourself and you are the only one unaware of it.

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kayna
kayna


Supreme Hero
posted December 16, 2014 04:22 AM

Stevie said:


Still forensic science in which the conditions are assumed or at least deduced and not observable.


*hops in the thread derail train*
Nobody ever tampered with evidence before. Never!

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Neraus
Neraus


Promising
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Pain relief cream seller
posted December 16, 2014 07:10 PM

artu said:

[..]You can't learn about the Big Bang from sites such as creationist.com or weshallgotoheaven.com or hallelujah.com. [..]


Artu, you lying scoundrel, these sites don't exist, how am I supposed to get my information?

In all seriousness though, while I firmly believe that religion and science can collaborate and coexist I find that trying to justify a text and propose it as a literal truth it's kind of difficult and pretty much useless.

As a small digression, Holy Texts like the Bible need to have some parts of it interpreted.

But now, that's going a bit off-topic isn't it?

Anyway, this doesn't surprise me that much, I mean, considering what happens every day I'm more surprised by the fact that someone didn't kill me yet.
Although I find amusing how people are realizing just now that we westerners have created this, we and of course you know who.
Suddenly I see on television experts saying that since society is so dull and uninspiring these guys go to war on their petty Jihad.
But there is one thing that I find unfair, there have been multiple jihads and yet people get all mad when we made just nine crusades, not only, defacing a mosque will mean that your life is ruined, deface a Cathedral and you are off with a fine...
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markkur
markkur


Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
posted December 17, 2014 04:27 PM

Neraus said:
But there is one thing that I find unfair, there have been multiple jihads and yet people get all mad when we made just nine crusades, not only, defacing a mosque will mean that your life is ruined, deface a Cathedral and you are off with a fine...


Only one thing? Every time those "guys" strike, <roll tape> the tiresome anti-all-religion tirade plays once again as if people of ALL Faiths were involved...in whatever headline.

But there is an explanation for the Media and the new misguided code of politically-correct, it's called fear.

How sensible is it to frisk "old ladies in wheel chairs" at airports because you do not want to offend a "description" of someone possibly involved in the crime?

If someone that looks like me (a handsome grey-haired wizard with a winning smile behind charisma that could win the presidency) commits a crime; <imvho> I should be ok if I am interviewed. As a matter of fact, I am perfectly fine with that and also expect to be asked some questions.
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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 17, 2014 05:25 PM

The international conflict is not mainly religious, the motivations of certain extremists who are used as pawns are. They are different subjects.

And yes, although they come from the same line, there are theological differences between Islam and Christianity, the New Testament  has a humanitarian aspect which is not completely non-existent, yet, much weaker and overshadowed by call upon war against infidels in Islam. But this doesnt make up for the dogmatic aspect of all religions in a broader context, the reason Christians have less problems with extremists is that their culture and regimes have already been secularized for a much longer period and religion has no de facto power over people. I just invite you to imagine what would happen if someone draw a caricature of Christ in 16th century Europe.
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kayna
kayna


Supreme Hero
posted December 18, 2014 04:29 AM

As a non faithful, I tend to compare Jesus and Mohammed rather than christianity versus islam. Seems to me Jesus did quite a few magic tricks here and there to strip the religious authority from the Jews to the people while Mohammed wanted to experience the warlord lifestyle and bang 10 + wives.

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 18, 2014 05:26 AM

The story of Jesus is much older and it had molded into what it is many years after his death. Dale Allison, an ex-evangelist, a New Testament scholar and historian puts it like this in his book Resurrecting Jesus, (which I recommend btw, a good read):

Even though it is very hard to date the Gospels with precision, most scholars agree on the basic range of dates, for a variety of reasons.Without going into all the details, I can say that we know with relative certainty—from his own letters and from Acts—that Paul was writing during the fifties of the common era. He was well-traveled
in Christian circles, and he gives in his own writings absolutely no evidence of knowing about or ever having heard of the existence of
any Gospels. From this it can be inferred that the Gospels probably
were written after Paul’s day. It also appears that the Gospel writers
know about certain later historical events, such as the destruction of
Jerusalem in the year 70 CE (possibly Mark, in 13:1; almost certainly
Luke, in 21:20–22). That implies that these Gospels were probably
written after the year 70.There are reasons for thinking Mark was written first, so maybe he wrote around the time of the war with Rome, 70 CE. If Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source, they must have been composed after Mark’s Gospel circulated for a time outside its own originating community—say, ten or fifteen years later, in 80 to 85 CE. John seems to be the most theologically developed Gospel, and so it was probably written later still, nearer the end of the first century, around 90 to 95CE. These are rough guesses, but most scholars agree on them. This means that our earliest surviving written accounts of Jesus’ life come from thirty-five to sixty-five years after his death. What was happening during all the intervening years? It is quite clear what was happening to Christianity: it was spreading throughout major urban areas of the Mediterranean region. If the Gospels and Acts are right, immediately after the resurrection of Jesus his followers included maybe fifteen or twenty men and women who had been with him previously,in Galilee, and who came to believe that he had been raised from the dead.By the end of the first century—thanks to the missionary efforts of the apostles and of converts like Paul the religion could be found in the villages, towns,and cities of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and Syria; it had moved north and west into Cilicia and throughout Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and Macedonia and Achaia (modern Greece); it had made its way as far as Rome, the capital of the empire, and possibly as far west as Spain.It had also traveled south, possibly to North Africa and probably to parts of Egypt.
It is not that thousands and thousands of people were converting
overnight. But over the years, dozens and dozens of people—probablyhundreds—were converting in major urban areas. How did Christians convert people away from their (mainly) pagan religions to
believe in only one God, the God of the Jews, and in Jesus, his son,
who died to take away the sins of the world? The only way to convert
people was to tell them stories about Jesus: what he said and did, and
how he died and was raised from the dead. Once someone converted to the religion and became a member of a Christian church, they, too, would tell the stories. And the people they converted would then tell the stories, as would those whom those people converted. And so it went, a religion spread entirely by word of mouth, in a world of no mass media. But who was telling the stories about Jesus? In almost every instance, it was someone who had not known Jesus or known anyone
else who had known Jesus. Let me illustrate with a hypothetical example. I’m a coppersmith who lives in Ephesus, in Asia Minor.
A stranger comes to town and begins to preach about the miraculous
life and death of Jesus. I hear all the stories he has to tell, and
decide to give up my devotion to the local pagan divinity, Athena,
and become a follower of the Jewish God and Jesus his son. I then
convert my wife, based on the stories that I repeat. She tells the
next-door neighbor, and she converts. This neighbor tells the stories
to her husband, a merchant, and he converts. He goes on a business
trip to the city of Smyrna and tells his business associate the stories.He converts, and then tells his wife, who also converts.
This woman who has now converted has heard all sorts of stories
about Jesus. And from whom? One of the apostles? No, from her husband.
Well, whom did he hear them from? His next-door neighbor,
the merchant of Ephesus. Where did he hear them? His wife. And
she? My wife. And she? From me. And where did I hear them from?
An eyewitness? No, I heard them from the stranger who came to
town.This is how Christianity spread, year after year, decade after
decade, until eventually someone wrote down the stories. What do you suppose happened to the stories over the years, as they were told
and retold, not as disinterested news stories reported by eyewitnesses
but as propaganda meant to convert people to faith, told by people
who had themselves heard them fifth- or sixth- or nineteenth-hand?
Did you or your kids ever play the telephone game at a birthday
party? The kids sit in a circle, and one child tells a story to the girl sitting next to her, who tells it to the next girl, who tells it to the next, and so on, until it comes back to the one who first told the story. And it’s now a different story. (If it weren’t a different story the game would be a bit pointless.) Imagine playing telephone not among a group of kids of the same socioeconomic class from the
same neighborhood and same school and of the same age speaking
the same language, but imagine playing it for forty or more years,
in different countries, in different contexts, in different languages.
What happens to the stories? They change.Is it any wonder that the Gospels are so full of discrepancies? John heard different stories than did Mark, and when he heard the same stories he heard them differently. The Gospel writers themselves evidently changed the stories of their sources (remember how Luke changed Mark’s account of Jesus going to his death). If things could change that much just from one writer to the next, imagine how much they could change in the oral tradition.


So, while it is true that Muhammed wanted to be king, he had done some ruthless things on the way and Jesus, on the contrary, is an outcast prosecuted by the authority of both his local people (the Jewish priests) and the Roman Empire, it would be quite baseless speculation to suggest he wanted to become the prophet of a new religion. They had a completely different agenda. It's more likely Jesus as a Jewish priest, was blowing the whistle on the other corrupted clergy with power, so they had him killed by taking it to the Romans.

Other than that, if you take the legend as a symbolical story, I agree that he is a much more loveable, a Gandhi-like figure and I would see no problem with people approaching him as some early, ancient teacher of morals, similar to how Confucius is seen in the Far-East. The feudal, outdated norms in the books would be also seen in their historicity that way, the mythology would be taken as what is, creative, imaginary stories from early people with very little means to explain the world around them.


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kayna
kayna


Supreme Hero
posted December 18, 2014 06:05 AM

Jesus was also mentioned in the old testament. I've read the bible, and from what I remember, the old testament was a series of small books written by people trying to explain how we came to be, how life came to be, etc. Mix in a few books later on to tell how people should live, and laws they should abide. Fitting, considering they had a snowty law system with no way to prove anything back in the days. Certainly more positive mind control than bad ones in my opinion. Then, Jesus is mentioned somewhere along the lines.

My guess was that the Jew kings of the time were working on a religious world order and were still trying to figure out who would be the Jesus to rule over all ; but then the new testament appeared and Jesus did not came from the house of David ( Jewish ). Hence why I see the bible as a story how a man foiled a master mass mind control plan. Whether your source says Jesus was but a story retold rather than an actual man or an exaggerated story of an outspoken guy that got crucified doesn't change the resulting moral.

Mohammed, on the other hand, I haven't read his Coran, but I've trouble separating his phallus from his teachings. It's like it's still spiritually throbbing across the centuries.

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 18, 2014 06:14 AM

I've read both. And it's technically impossible for Jesus to appear as Jesus in the Old Testament, it's material written before his time. Christians interpret the parts about the prophecy of a messiah as hinting at the coming of Jesus,(and Jews naturally disagree, since the Old Testament is basically their Torah and other books), that's something else.
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Stevie
Stevie


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted December 18, 2014 06:38 AM
Edited by Stevie at 06:42, 18 Dec 2014.

Except that it transcends any kind of knowledge or reasoning in those times. Think about it in context. The jews were under the romans and they expected a warrior Messiah to deliver them from the occupation. They were tortured and enslaved and those who dared resist were crucified. Yet they receive Jesus who preaches love and peace and sacrifice for everyone, including the very same romans who were harshly ruling over them. Imagine, a jew sacrificing his life for the very same person who piked him, out of love! Absolutely insane. No mystical sugarcoating can cover it's insane character if it were just a myth. But the power in it is that it pretends to be the truth in the most literal sense. Obviously, if Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me", it's either true and He's the Son of God who He pretended to be, or He's wrong in which case He's a liar or a lunatic. So it's totally stupid to believe that Jesus can be interpreted as a just a "good teacher" when you deny his own teachings as not being true!


As for the fragment above, I have read it, and I have read at least one book which presents the same arguments, with no analysis or exegesis based on the text itself which is even in contradiction with at some points (like when he says that conversions happened slowly during the years, when there are many  accounts in the bible with thousands of people converting in one day). The main point he sustains is that the New Testament is unreliable because it's based on story telling, which is completely false because the scriptures, especially the gospels, ultimately trace to eye witnesses which were the apostles. So it's not a "telephone game" in the slightest. If they were just "stories" they would've had no power. "Hey Mary worshiper of Jupiter and the roman gods, wanna hear a story about Jesus and the God of the Jews? He preached about His Father in Heaven and died for our sins! But none of it is actually true, it's just a story!" "Oh great Marta, worshiper of Mars, Imma convert and even get myself killed for worshiping Jesus as what He pretended to be, God, by the local authorities. Imma die a silly death believing something that I know it's not true but just a story." Obviously the people in those times face torture and gruesome deaths because they were believing that what Jesus told the was the absolute truth and not just a bedtime story.

If you want an easy to comprehend article about the reliability of the New Testament, here - link. Apparently, the new testaments manuscripts found to date, written in a time span of only 25 years, are over 24.000! With the next most numerous manuscripts being of Homer's Iliad with approximately 700 copies. That comparison pool is absolutely demolishing. Now read that guy's text above and tell me again that there was no written eye witness support for the christian "stories". There's absolutely no question about Biblical reliability.

kayna said:
but then the new testament appeared and Jesus did not came from the house of David ( Jewish ).


Are you absolutely sure Jesus was not a descendant of David?
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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted December 18, 2014 06:55 AM
Edited by artu at 07:49, 18 Dec 2014.

Stories have all the power, especially in times when 99 percent of people are illiterate villagers and to explain things with super natural powers is still the daily norm about anything. Even today, with all the recording power and secular education we have, urban legends spread out fast. Saying if it wasn't true how would people devote themselves with such determination is wrong, since people from all religions do hard to believe things including sacrificing their lives, sacrificing their children even... Tibetian monks burn themselves alive! They can't all be true though, can they. Faith is a strong motive, no matter if it's based on truth or not. I once heard a Muslim defending Islam on the basis of how would little children be able to memorize all the Quran if it wasn't the true word of God. Lovely educational model! This is not even specific to religion, Hitler was a lunatic and millions followed him blindly, when he lost, the Goebbels couple poisoned their own chidren and then committed suicide together, the world without their fuhrer was not a world worth living in anymore.

And you miss the scholar's point entirely, Jesus wouldn't be a liar, if literally being the son of god was attributed to him after he died, just like the way any urban legend spreads around with alteration. All the written material you base his claims on or events you consider actual history came into existence AFTER the telephone game. (Your link doesn't present any contradicting argument about that, they also state it's within a hundred years. And some of those 25.000 copies were considered fake and heretic during Constantine's time centuries later, when the Bible as you know it was finally decided upon. The number in your link is about hand written scrolls, not fabricated print outs.) The book in my post argues (and the writer, unlike you, reads the scripts in their original language) "son of God" was a figure of speech he may have used as someone who follows God's path.
Or he may indeed be delusional about that part, who knows. It was normal to believe such things those days, even today we have many people claiming prophecy and some of them are not crooks, they only have psychological problems.

All religions are anthropologically explainable, you may have your subjective faith in whatever you like but proposing they can not be explained without the miracle is plain wrong.

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kayna
kayna


Supreme Hero
posted December 18, 2014 06:58 AM

Of course not. It happened 2 000 years ago and I've read it like 13 years ago so... It's just a theory. Maybe Jesus understood what was going on and passed himself as Jesus. Maybe his parents brainwashed him. *shrug*

I've heard Jesus' time was a weird one for the Jews, like, some rather twisted minds took over the Jewish community and were shaping the Talmud and/or old testament to allow, legally wise, the anal rape of young children by saying it's only illegal ( rape ) if it goes in a female sexual organ. Makes the Mohammed talk all the more awkward!

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markkur
markkur


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Once upon a time
posted December 18, 2014 03:51 PM

Goodness, like I said...the OP is about...what?

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