All of yters's Comments + Replies
Why would the apostles all die martyrs deaths for someone who didn't live up to his promises? Especially since the gospels show they weren't of the most courageous character either. That is pretty convincing to me, I don't know of a good counter.
Also, if there were so many Christian communities so soon after Jesus' death, then there would be a good community of knowledge to filter false and true accounts of Jesus life.
Finally, why didn't any of the other unorthodox accounts start similar communities? Why are the communities so similar in their beliefs about Jesus, if it is quite likely to have been made up, as you suggest?
Even if we take as given that the apostles died bravely defending the resurrection, you can't take people dying martyr's death as evidence for their beliefs, only for their level of belief. People have martyred themselves for many CONFLICTING ideologies. Islam and Christianity to pick 2 of the most obvious examples, can't both be correct.
Finally, why didn't any of the other unorthodox accounts start similar communities? Why are the communities so similar in their beliefs about Jesus, if it is quite likely to have been made up, as you suggest?
Paul's letters explain this. The communities were so similar because they were all so strongly influenced by Paul.
Finally, why didn't any of the other unorthodox accounts start similar communities? Why are the communities so similar in their beliefs about Jesus, if it is quite likely to have been made up, as you suggest?
They did. There were plenty of wildly disparate sects of Christianity early on, out of whose beliefs the gospels that were declared noncanonical rose up in the first place. Most of these communities died out over time, although some lasted for centuries, and Gnostics, who existed in several branches and were the most significant competitors for what...
It's coherent to say de-ontological ethics are hierarchical, and higher goods take precedence over lower goods. So, the lower good of sacrificing one person to save a greater good does not entail sacrificing the person is good. It is just necessary.
Saying the ends justify the means entails the means become good if they achieve a good.
The problem with evolving evolution is that the search space becomes exponentially larger every time you go up a level of evolution.
I agree. See my comment for this post. My position is controversial, but pretty coherent. At least, no one came up with a counter argument, I was just downvoted alot. So, my opinion is a pretty good example of what the poster is looking for, yet such opinions inherently will not do well. Really, this forum is antithetical to this post.
@hvkhln
I said that just incase they had any empathetic qualms. I know they don't really need my permission.
Argh, it seems to be not possible to write about ID without coming across as an ideologue. This is a good blog and I do not want to pollute it. Before anyone complains about those comments, I give the mods full permission to delete them if they don't pass the well written/interesting threshold.
Now that I've made this argument, some probably have the nagging suspicion that the argument is just more intellectual obscurantism and I'm trying to muddy a clear choice between Creationism and Darwinism. To counteract your nagging suspicion here is a series of links to show you that while many experts claim Dembski is wrong, when you only accept their claims in their areas of expertise and aggregate them, they actually agree with Dembski:
- Demski is a good mathematician, but doesn't use the No Free Lunch Theory (NFLT) correctly
Good math bad math http:...
That's why in the old days gentlemen were financially independent. If you are financially independent then there is little material incentive to compromise one's principles. Today, we're taught to become heavily financially dependent, and so people don't take hard stands.
Ha, I get it now, FAI is about creating god.
Anyways, no matter what you do, mind annihilation is certain in our universe, i.e. 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Along the lines of a rationality competition and why rationalists don't seem to do all that much better, is there a criteria for rationality? In the fields where lots of work results in maximizing gain, there are quantitative criteria for what counts as good and bad. I don't know of any such criteria for rationality.
Religion is rapidly on the rise around the world. See Algeria and France for an example of what happens to a secularized society when resisting religious extremists.
So, if an extremist is both stronger and reproduces better than a non-extremist, I'm pretty sure the extremist will win.