Herra1

It matters.

Theres been a lot of talking that the New leader of the free world is going to be catholic.

Jesus being just a myth, or sharing Your secular world wiew is something that lot of people just dont belive in.
In these circles even the word seculiarism, is four letter word.

Usually i dont put these but i think it is a good time to put one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cgAM76wyOc&NR=1

I dont want to go on a rant here so, few short ones to get us going, abortion laws, gay marriage laws and lets say nudity/vice.
Arent we so ahead in our society compered to, lets say, Taliban in Afganistan, where they put these veils over womens faces ?
They have faces, we have tits.
When we go to a titty bar, they go propably to a facey bar.
Well i know that You two wouldnt go to a... but You do get the point ?
The laws that these people who really belive in Jesus, make, they affect us. And saying that it dont matter...
A question, would either of You, wote a person who belives in creationism ?

john76

Apologizing for agnosticism is the same as apologizing for common sense. Dogmatic theists and dogmatic atheists live their lives based on a guess that has absolutely no confirmation in human experience. Basing your life on the guess that there is a god, or the guess that there isn’t a god, is no different than suffering from, at best, a kind of functional mental retardation, or, at worst, a kind of systemic indoctrination. Whether Jesus is little more than a compilation of earlier myths really doesn’t matter, regardless of whether I find the argument convincing or not.

Vinterland

John,
Yes, and Horus is only one a number of mythical figures that shares similarities with Jesus. Hercules also shares similar framework, but as for Egyptian theology relating to Horus, I have read a number of articles of the alleged correlations between him and Jesus and they appear to be a stretch. When making comparisons between any two people it is easy to draw vauge similarities. Concerning the alleged similarity of "Virgin birth by a Divine Father," I have read that there is no evidence to support this and Horus was born of a Divine father and mother. However, I would have to read translations of the original ancient mss to further develop an opinion on the subject of the alleged similarities. You said you have taken classes on theology - have you read an accurate translation?

Another I would ask before reading a translation is: is the source of this translation verified to entirely predate Christian literature or is it possible material was added afterwards?

A final thought is my agreement that there is little reason to believe any of the claims made by Bible or any other religious or theistic claims and I too see the recurring themes present in ancient metaphysical concepts as evidence that religion is a human construct.

Romans,
Christianity is a myth:
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=myth
Are you defining it as something else?
-----
As an atheist, my answer is the same as yours, but I'd like to point out how ironic this is. When I asked you "Do you believe in God", you (and most "agnostics" ) did not say No as you rationally should have, but said I don't know (because I'm agnostic) (I'm not quoting you word for word/please correct me if I'm wrong). Here we find a question with the identical question framework: "Do you believe...?".

Now, if you wanted to ask me a question concerning agnosticism you would have asked: "Did Jesus turn water into wine?" As agnostic I know that there is no evidence proportinate to the claim and my answer is I don't know.

When I asked John that question I wanted to see if his words showed a strong degree of bias in belief.

__________________
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”

romansh

Hi V
No I have no problem with your definition of myth.
Christianity is based on a myth ..... agree.
Christianity (as a religion) can be said to be many things but itself is not a myth.

I did actually say "no" as I agree with you, it is a logical consequence of not knowing. As is not disbelieving.

Can I take it from your answer that you are an atheist?
And that that you do not disbelieve god exists?
Are you ready to state your beliefs?

As a person without labels do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?

My reply would be 'no'.

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

john76

As I initially said, the relation between Dionysus and Jesus would be the hermeneutic key in my understanding - not Horus or Zoroaster. Just the same, as interesting as historical similarities may or may not be, I stand by what I said. Theism or atheism exists by virtue of the fact that one's reasoning is at a sadly infantile stage. Debating them is like trying to convince a child that a pot is hot without them burning their hand with it (a theist would have to die to learn there is no heaven, and an atheist would have to die to learn there is one). We do not know that there is, or that there is not, a god. Nonsense that may or may not have happened in the history of human literature does nothing to change that. You are either an agnostic that accepts this fact about the human condition, or you are one of the others that denies it, or else gets sidetracked on one of the side issues. We have absolutely no idea one way or another. That is the beginning and the end of the story. I titled this thread 'my agnostic journey,' but that just means starting out from this point of view and eventually, after much struggling, coming to rest in it. The whole 'mythic Christianity' thing was a fun aside, but has little bearing on the one fundamental truth of human life.

Herra1

"but has little bearing on the one fundamental truth of human life."

Which is ?

john76

I guess that for theists, it is when it comes to questions as to whether life has a purpose (consider Warren's popular book "The Purpose Driven Life"), or whether there is an absolute direction, or whether we live on after we die, or whether 'good' and 'bad' are meaningful (beyond meanings such as ‘good or bad car,’ for instance), or whether there is karma (which is to say, even in the Christian tradition, whether my actions are visited back upon me in some way), or whether it matters that I lived at all – agnostics say that we just don’t know. For atheists, it is the question as to whether the fact that god isn’t needed to explain anything means it is also true that god doesn’t explain anything. Again – agnostics say that we just don’t know. For me, as an agnostic, true human understanding begins by accepting that the fact that a question is very important to us doesn’t ‘also’ mean that the question is something that is knowable to us.

poincicco

Hey Skepticologist! I'm checking in late on this thread, but I'm trying to get to know some of you "out there." I've enjoyed your dialogue with john76 in particular. With all due respect for john, I find reasoning, while impressive, to be a bit, dare I say "weak"? I resonate fully with your response to him on the matter of choosing a rational and scientifically provable explanation for a given phenomenon over a supernatural, unprovable and scientifically unrepeatable one. Just because we can't PROVE that the supernatural explanation ISN'T true doesn't give it the same weight as the logical and provable explanation. I feel on MUCH firmer ground going with the rational and scientifically demonstrable that I can PROVE is true than with the mystical explanation which can't be proven to be untrue. If you take that route there is no limit to the possible explanations one could affirm...just because they can't be proven untrue. Therein lies madness!

poincicco

Hey john76, before you get on my case for either misunderstanding or misrepresenting you in my previous post to Skepticologist, let me say that I think I DO understand your reasoning and that I agree with the point I THINK you're making. And what is that? I think you're simply trying to underline the fact that we can't ultimately KNOW the cause of a given phenomenon since we cannot PROVE that its logical cause is, in fact, its cause. We can't PROVE that the cause wasn't some supernatural and super-rational influence. And that was given in support of agnosticism...i.e., we cannot know (though we just MIGHT have a pretty good idea Am I correct here?

romansh

Hi poincicco
There is a problem here for us: science does not prove things to be true, well not as such. Science will look for an idea that that fits all the available evidence. If the idea fits "all" of the evidence for long enough it becomes a theory and eventually a law. Take Newton's laws of motion, they work at the macroscale but fall apart at the atomic and perhaps the cosmic?

So end of the day we only have evidence and our analytical and logical skills.

Proof in any absolute sense? None.

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams