What do you Believe??? (Religion)

[grego]

30 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Far as I can tell, when I think of "same God" (and I should've clarified this),  I'm talking about Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, etc, NOT Jesus.  You're right that they all look at Jesus differently, but they all acknowledge that he existed in one way or another (which fascinates me).

It is fascinating. Religion is very interesting, especially when it comes to why people believe what they believe. 

 

Jesus being God is a big distinction and a really interesting one. It starts with something called theophanies in the OT. Whenever you see the phrase 'the angel of the lord' you almost always see the people he appears to saying they have 'seen God face to face' or the wording, when talking about the angel talking to people, switching the wording from the angel to God,  "then God turned to him (Gideon) and said...."  Then you see Isaiah - he will be called 'wonderful counselor almighty God, everlasting father prince of peace' etc. 

 

So God appearing to man isn't a new revelation. John says 'in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.... He was with God in the beginning.' 

 

Jesus says 'who do you say I am?' ... 'before Abraham was, I Am! ' ('I Am' being a term for God) 

 

Its like a puzzle in a way. 

 

"Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father?" 

 

Essentially, if you have 'seen' Jesus you have seen God himself. 

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by grego

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

First, how can you say they definitely exist?  What evidence do you have that you aren't going to wake up and gravity is going to be very different?

 

.......

You’re going to have to give me the simplified, layman’s terms version of your argument because I'm just not grasping what you're saying.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Sacks 'n' Stuff

[The Sisko]

 

7 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

Well, the question becomes why.  It doesn't make sense to live that way unless you have a reason to believe that's true, right?

 

To my knowledge, only one system said that was the case before it became clear that it is the case and that's Christianity.  Science comes from Christianity (and most specifically St. Augustine).  At the heart of an idea of a personal God is that God will have given us the ability to learn more about him.  God wants us to know him, and he wants us to stay alive.  A universe where there are no natural laws does allow those things to happen.  The fact that science provides useful information was predicted by a belief system that believed in a personal God, and really isn't predicted by any other.

Sorry, but the Babylonian, Greek, Egyptian, etc. scientists that predated Xtianity in some cases by thousands of years would beg to differ. Besides, Xtianity, among other religions has found itself in conflict with science for obvious reasons. Your boy St. Augustine is well known to have written of just this issue in favor of reconciling the two.

 

7 hours ago, grego said:

 

isn't 'in christianity (outside of jehovahs witnesses and some small groups, who are different enough doctrinally to not count under the umbrella of christianity) , jesus is god in the flesh' the best argument to counter that?

Jews don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus and I have yet to hear a Xtian say they don’t worship the same god.

 

Going back to what I said about the possible non-existence of Jesus, I do believe the chances were good that he existed. There is a good bit of scholarly work that generally supports it. However, as was mentioned earlier, the lack of any contemporary writings from neutral parties is what makes me give the historical Jesus the side eye. So, Josephus is the first and his tome was almost a century after the fact. Therein lies the rub. Let’s say some guy comes around doing all sorts of supernatural miracles and caps it all off by rising from the dead. Seeing this, nobody among Jesus’ contemporaries thought it worthy of writing about? Yes, most of them were illiterate, but there’s no contemporary art either. All of a sudden, several decades after the fact, then the books, art, etc. starts up. Moreover, none of these people that saw this stuff kept “souvenirs” of the experience? “Holy crap! That guy just walked on water, healed some dude and fed a multitude of people with just a few fish and stuff. I’m gonna get his sandal!” And yet there are all sorts of alleged relics of other religious figures around.

 

So, my personal take is similar to Ehrmann’s. Jesus probably existed but not at all in the way he’s thought about today. Instead, he was probably just a charismatic, itinerant radical (for the times) preacher who found himself on the wrong side of the religious and political elites and got himself crucified. His followers then sought to keep his legacy alive and gained converts preaching the good news. Over time, with its start as an oral tradition, the miracles and other stuff got added in, and away we go.

Edited April 4, 2018 by The Sisko

[techboy]

 

Okay... I've lurked a little bit, but stayed out of this for the most part. I will toss a couple of things in, though.

 

On 3/26/2018 at 2:36 AM, Renegade7 said:

For the life of me, I do not understand why people take the Bible word for word when you have to consider the differences in all the languages its been translated through to get to where its at now. 

 

This is a misconception. Scholarship (and all good modern translations) works from the original Greek and Hebrew, which is well attested. No need to translate through anything.

 

9 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I don't want to answer that in a thread where I specifically asked people not to do that. =

 

Which is why I generally haven't commented. 

 

1 hour ago, The Sisko said:

Going back to what I said about the possible non-existence of Jesus, I do believe the chances were good that he existed. There is a good bit of scholarly work that generally supports it. However, as was mentioned earlier, the lack of any contemporary writings from neutral parties is what makes me give the historical Jesus the side eye. So, Josephus is the first and his tome was almost a century after the fact. Therein lies the rub. Let’s say some guy comes around doing all sorts of supernatural miracles and caps it all off by rising from the dead. Seeing this, nobody among Jesus’ contemporaries thought it worthy of writing about? Yes, most of them were illiterate, but there’s no contemporary art either. All of a sudden, several decades after the fact, then the books, art, etc. starts up.

 

That doesn't really match the historical record, though. The scholarship is pretty solid, for example, that in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul relates the oldest known creed of Christianity, and it dates to within a few years of Jesus' crucifixion. For instance, Justin Bass notes here: https://danielbwallace.com/2015/08/01/fact-checking-dan-barker-from-our-recent-debate-june-6-2015/

 

Quote

It is also agreed upon by all teaching scholars (Ludemann, Dunn, Ehrman, etc.) that this creed Paul is quoting in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 dates to within 2-5 years of Jesus’ death.

 

For the record, this is the creed: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A3-8&version=ESV

 

Quote

³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

 

There's a much more detailed bibliography with quotes here: https://beliefmap.org/bible/1-corinthians/15-creed/date/, and there's also good reason to believe that the passion story found in Mark dates to within 7 years of events, but that's probably getting into the weeds.

 

Jesus and his followers lived in a place where oral tradition was predominant, and literacy was rare. The most reasonable explanation of the facts is that his earliest followers really believed that the tomb was empty and he rose from the dead, and taught this. This was passed around as oral tradition, as was the custom of the time and area. The first writings were letters from people like Paul who needed to communicate with other members of the nascent church over a distance. People only really saw the need to write the stories down when the original witnesses got older and were in danger of dying, which is why you see the histories (gospels) being written a couple of decades later and on. We wouldn't necessarily expect art or artifacts to have existed or survived from a time period when you could literally be killed for being a Christian. Those things arise from the later Church, which also had the money and incentive to commission them.

 

Also, since we're on the topic and someone else mentioned it, this is a pretty good scholarly article covering the non-Biblical sources for the existence of Jesus as an historical person by a professor at Purdue: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/

 

This is an interesting excerpt:

 

Quote

 

We can learn quite a bit about Jesus from Tacitus and Josephus, two famous historians who were not Christian. Almost all the following statements about Jesus, which are asserted in the New Testament, are corroborated or confirmed by the relevant passages in Tacitus and Josephus. These independent historical sources—one a non-Christian Roman and the other Jewish—confirm what we are told in the Gospels:31

 

1. He existed as a man. The historian Josephus grew up in a priestly family in first-century Palestine and wrote only decades after Jesus’ death. Jesus’ known associates, such as Jesus’ brother James, were his contemporaries. The historical and cultural context was second nature to Josephus. “If any Jewish writer were ever in a position to know about the non-existence of Jesus, it would have been Josephus. His implicit affirmation of the existence of Jesus has been, and still is, the most significant obstacle for those who argue that the extra-Biblical evidence is not probative on this point,” Robert Van Voorst observes.32 And Tacitus was careful enough not to report real executions of nonexistent people.

 

2. His personal name was Jesus, as Josephus informs us.

 

3. He was called Christos in Greek, which is a translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, both of which mean “anointed” or “(the) anointed one,” as Josephus states and Tacitus implies, unaware, by reporting, as Romans thought, that his name was Christus.

 

4. He had a brother named James (Jacob), as Josephus reports.

 

5. He won over both Jews and “Greeks” (i.e., Gentiles of Hellenistic culture), according to Josephus, although it is anachronistic to say that they were “many” at the end of his life. Large growth in the number of Jesus’ actual followers came only after his death.

 

6. Jewish leaders of the day expressed unfavorable opinions about him, at least according to some versions of the Testimonium Flavianum.

 

7. Pilate rendered the decision that he should be executed, as both Tacitus and Josephus state.

 

8. His execution was specifically by crucifixion, according to Josephus.

 

9. He was executed during Pontius Pilate’s governorship over Judea (26–36 C.E.), as Josephus implies and Tacitus states, adding that it was during Tiberius’s reign.

 

Some of Jesus’ followers did not abandon their personal loyalty to him even after his crucifixion but submitted to his teaching. They believed that Jesus later appeared to them alive in accordance with prophecies, most likely those found in the Hebrew Bible. A well-attested link between Jesus and Christians is that Christ, as a term used to identify Jesus, became the basis of the term used to identify his followers: Christians. The Christian movement began in Judea, according to Tacitus. Josephus observes that it continued during the first century. Tacitus deplores the fact that during the second century it had spread as far as Rome.

 

As far as we know, no ancient person ever seriously argued that Jesus did not exist.33Referring to the first several centuries C.E., even a scholar as cautious and thorough as Robert Van Voorst freely observes, “… [N]o pagans and Jews who opposed Christianity denied Jesus’ historicity or even questioned it.”34

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by techboy

[thinwhiteduke]

8 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

I implore all of you to check out several episodes of "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman if you haven't already.  Some of these topics (like a soul, time before the big bang, and God's possible influence on evolution) are all touched on and some have full episodes about it (these ones I've mentioned and more are on Youtube).  

 

In regards to the whole thing starting from scratch versus God being involved in every single thing to get this point, those both sound like extremes where the truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

lol at through the worm hole. Its a corporate tv show where they hired a famous actor, to sell it to you.Any time a famous actor is involved, that immediately makes it bullsh-- Nothing in it will remotely lead you to any truth.

its just more bullsh--, by the establishment. Just creative nonsense to mislead you from what ever the real reality is.

 dont watch anything on tv if you really want learn anything.

[twa]

Why do Muslims believe he (Jesus) performed miracles ect. then Sisko?

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by twa

[grego]

8 hours ago, The Sisko said:

 

 

Jews don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus and I have yet to hear a Xtian say they don’t worship the same god.

 

true. i would say what makes it a little bit different is that christianity accepts the OT as is. the OT talks about a messiah so to the christian, jesus is that messiah, but the OT and the NT are seen as compatible in the christian view. claims of prophets or revelations after the NT (mohammed, joseph smith) all say the OT and NT have been tampered with or corrupted so as to not be reliable, therefore requiring a new, better, perfect revelation. and the ideas about God in those books and the doctrines within differ sometimes slightly sometimes quite a bit. 

 

so in the sense that the books are essentially the same in judaism (the Torah) and christianity (to the christian- jews obviously dont accept the NT), there is continuity and sameness. but jesus' divinity is the dividing line, so in that sense, they are different Gods as jesus is not recognized as the messiah. 

 

Quote

Going back to what I said about the possible non-existence of Jesus, I do believe the chances were good that he existed. There is a good bit of scholarly work that generally supports it. However, as was mentioned earlier, the lack of any contemporary writings from neutral parties is what makes me give the historical Jesus the side eye. So, Josephus is the first and his tome was almost a century after the fact. Therein lies the rub

 

maybe techboy can talk about simon greenleaf and his work on the laws of historical evidence. its an interesting subject because it deals with 'how do we know what we think we know' when it comes to history and historical events. 

Edited April 4, 2018 by grego

[Zguy28]

13 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

It is the same God.  If other people don't want to admit that, that's their prerogative.  My understanding is the name Jesus appears in the Quran more then Mohammad does (someone's name appearing more doesn't mean they are more or less important, but that was always telling to me on the topic at hand).  

Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, not the eternal Son of God. It teaches that Christians are mistaken, and that it all was revealed to their prophet by God. So, in one sense, yes they believe the same God is God (the God of Abraham), but they do not believe He is the same as Christianity teaches. It's all in the context of the thought. It sounds nice and polite to say they are the same, but when you break down the attributes and what is taught regarding the nature of God, they are fundamentally different.

[Renegade7]

40 minutes ago, Zguy28 said:

Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, not the eternal Son of God. It teaches that Christians are mistaken, and that it all was revealed to their prophet by God. So, in one sense, yes they believe the same God is God (the God of Abraham), but they do not believe He is the same as Christianity teaches. It's all in the context of the thought. It sounds nice and polite to say they are the same, but when you break down the attributes and what is taught regarding the nature of God, they are fundamentally different.

Think this issue is being overthought. 

 

The Christian God is based off the Jewish one, the Islamic God is based off the Christian one.  Just because there are slight variations (which you can expect in regards to creating a different religion), that's still the same God to me.  We're treating this on the basis that everything each says about Him is accurate from their perspective versus the fact they are all based off the same God. If you look at it from a bottom up approach, ya, I can see why some people might think they are different.  If you look at it from a top down approach, you should already know what time it is, its obvious.

 

I later clarified my distinction between how they look at God and Jesus, I should've done that to begin with, because that's a completely separate conversation.  

[Riggo-toni]

Where the linguistic elements get slightly complicated is where there are differences between the oldest surviving Hebrew texts and the copies of the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament from around the 3rd century B.C.). Interestingly, the Samaritan Torah, which came to light in the West in the 19th century, as well as OT scrolls found in Qumran, seem to agree with the Hebrew texts in some areas and the Greek in others.

Early Christian authors, like most Jews of their era, probably spoke little or no Hebrew, and so were more (if not exclusively) familiar with the Septuagint than the Hebrew.

For example, most people today accept that Moses crossed the Red Sea (Gulf of Aqaba) because of a Greek mistranslation of "yam suf" which actually means Sea of Reeds. Forget the dramatic depiction by Cecille B. DeMille - Moses was leading the Israelites across a tidal swamp at low tide in order to bog down the Egyptian chariots.

The big debate is over the Greek translation of "alma" in Isaiah (maiden, young woman) as parthenos (virgin) in Greek, since Christians consider this text to be a prophecy of the birth of the new messiah.

1 minute ago, Renegade7 said:

The Christian God is based off the Jewish one, the Islamic God is based off the Christian one.  

Actually, Islamic theology is based far more off of Judaism than Christianity. Mohammed had significant exposure to Jews and their beliefs because there were 3 Jewish tribes/clans living in Medina. His knowledge of Christianity was mostly second-hand.

[Renegade7]

52 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

 

For example, most people today accept that Moses crossed the Red Sea (Gulf of Aqaba) because of a Greek mistranslation of "yam suf" which actually means Sea of Reeds.

 

Actually, Islamic theology is based far more off of Judaism than Christianity. Mohammed had significant exposure to Jews and their beliefs because there were 3 Jewish tribes/clans living in Medina. His knowledge of Christianity was mostly second-hand.

The Sea of Reeds thing I've seen before, it was in that Exodus documentary I recommended to you.  For Islam being based off of Judaism more, that makes sense (I guess).  From what I understood, what I read and people were explaining  to me that the Quran was an "extension" to the Bible, not the Torah, and with Jesus being in the Quran multiple times, that's why I felt that way.

5 hours ago, thinwhiteduke said:

lol at through the worm hole. Its a corporate tv show where they hired a famous actor, to sell it to you.Any time a famous actor is involved, that immediately makes it bullsh-- Nothing in it will remotely lead you to any truth.

its just more bullsh--, by the establishment. Just creative nonsense to mislead you from what ever the real reality is.

 dont watch anything on tv if you really want learn anything.

If you're saying everything we know is untrue, how do we find out what is true and prove it?  Is Scientific Method a lie, too?  How can you say all our facts are wrong without evidence to support that?  Isn't that Blind Faith, too?  Saying everyone is lying about everything isn't a fact, its an opinion, especially if you can't prove that.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Renegade7

[Riggo-toni]

 

One other historical nugget I'd like to throw out there for perspective (sorry, my inner nerd is showing).

 

The so-called barbarians who sacked Rome (Goths under Alaric, Vandals under Geyseric) were actually Christians, but they had converted during the rule of Constantine's son Constantius, who was an Arian Christian- those who rejected homoousios (one substance) in favor of homoiousios (similar substance - God created the divine Jesus rather than Jesus and God being one and the same).

[Renegade7]

8 hours ago, techboy said:

 

Okay... I've lurked a little bit, but stayed out of this for the most part. I will toss a couple of things in, though.

 

 

This is a misconception. Scholarship (and all good modern translations) works from the original Greek and Hebrew, which is well attested. No need to translate through anything.

 

 

Which is why I generally haven't commented.

 

 

Ya, I've seen you lurking, been waiting for you to comment : )

 

As for translations, I was speaking more to the multiple variations of the text translated away from the original text, such as the ridiculous number of English translations that are out now.  At the same time, because so many stories in Genesis were orally shared long before it was every written and some you can argue came from as far back as the Mesopotamia (like the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood), ya, I think you still need to be careful on assuming what's written is exactly what was meant when the story was first being shared. 

 

If you're going to take the religion seriously, I get that you kinda have to take the text seriously as well.  I don't know Hebrew or Greek, though, do all the words in Hebrew translate properly into Greek?  I'm confused on the whole "Hebrew does or doesn't have vowels" thing.

[Mr. Sinister]

I have to say, that despite our differences, and distractions, this has been a very rewarding read and discussion for me. Despite my beliefs, I have always been intrigued by the religions themselves, and how they interact.

 

Just curious, but does anyone have any insight into how Buddhism and Hinduism fit into this? Like do they borrow some elements from the major religions, or are they totally separate?

[Riggo-toni]

I'm no expert on Eastern religions, but I believe Buddhism was an offshoot of Hinduism. I know it's originally an Indian religion that was introduced into China by King Ashoka. As for tenets and such, I think they developed quite independently from western influence.

The only possible commonality might be Zoroastrianism - IF older elements of that religion formed the basis of Hindu creeds, but I have no idea if that is true. Zoroastrianism did have significant influence on western religions, particularly in heterodox mystic sects like Gnostics, Kabbalah, Druze, Alawites, Ismaili and Yazidi.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Riggo-toni

[Zguy28]

3 hours ago, Mr. Sinister said:

I have to say, that despite our differences, and distractions, this has been a very rewarding read and discussion for me. Despite my beliefs, I have always been intrigued by the religions themselves, and how they interact.

 

Just curious, but does anyone have any insight into how Buddhism and Hinduism fit into this? Like do they borrow some elements from the major religions, or are they totally separate?

Maybe if we get a vote for Polytheism they can give us perspective on Hinduism. I think Jumbo may be Buddhist, not sure.

[Renegade7]

1 hour ago, Zguy28 said:

Maybe if we get a vote for Polytheism they can give us perspective on Hinduism. I think Jumbo may be Buddhist, not sure.

Does Non-Monotheism not cover that? 

 

I've suspected all thread that I mis-labeled that, should I just change it to that instead?  This is why I really wanted to hear from the horses mouth on that one, because I can't tell if Buddah is actually a god or a diety (that's why I left it as a semi-other category for picking an organized religion that didn't fit into the Monotheism umbrella).  There's so many religions that I don't understand very well, that's why I basically made a catch-all for any organized religion that wasn't Monotheistic.

 

This is one of those things that I'm not afraid to admit I don't know what I'm talking about and another reason I made the thread (because I want to).

[JCB]

Buddhism probably shouldn't be understood as an offshoot in the sense that the term is generally used (which implies some kind of prior institutional or sociological connection). It developed, according to classical Buddhist understandings, in a milieu defined by Hindu cosmology, social caste, and devotion, but that's a distinction with a difference. Siddhartha Gautama studied, we are told, with multiple sages and gurus and professed not to have achieved enlightenment. It was only in solitary meditation that he achieved insight into the suchness of reality, the Four Noble Truths, etc. Buddha is understood (again, in classical lineages, which doesn't account for all the folk adaptations in East Asia especially, where it's partly woven with lots of much older traditions) as in no way divine, certainly not a god. The very tradition seeks to develop disciplines for avoiding attachments to things and categories (even categories like "God" or "religion" or "the self") which might hinder us in the quest for awakening.

[PeterMP]

On 4/3/2018 at 10:59 PM, The Sisko said:

 

Sorry, but the Babylonian, Greek, Egyptian, etc. scientists that predated Xtianity in some cases by thousands of years would beg to differ. Besides, Xtianity, among other religions has found itself in conflict with science for obvious reasons. Your boy St. Augustine is well known to have written of just this issue in favor of reconciling the two.

 

Jews don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus and I have yet to hear a Xtian say they don’t worship the same god.

 

Going back to what I said about the possible non-existence of Jesus, I do believe the chances were good that he existed. There is a good bit of scholarly work that generally supports it. However, as was mentioned earlier, the lack of any contemporary writings from neutral parties is what makes me give the historical Jesus the side eye. So, Josephus is the first and his tome was almost a century after the fact. Therein lies the rub. Let’s say some guy comes around doing all sorts of supernatural miracles and caps it all off by rising from the dead. Seeing this, nobody among Jesus’ contemporaries thought it worthy of writing about? Yes, most of them were illiterate, but there’s no contemporary art either. All of a sudden, several decades after the fact, then the books, art, etc. starts up. Moreover, none of these people that saw this stuff kept “souvenirs” of the experience? “Holy crap! That guy just walked on water, healed some dude and fed a multitude of people with just a few fish and stuff. I’m gonna get his sandal!” And yet there are all sorts of alleged relics of other religious figures around.

 

So, my personal take is similar to Ehrmann’s. Jesus probably existed but not at all in the way he’s thought about today. Instead, he was probably just a charismatic, itinerant radical (for the times) preacher who found himself on the wrong side of the religious and political elites and got himself crucified. His followers then sought to keep his legacy alive and gained converts preaching the good news. Over time, with its start as an oral tradition, the miracles and other stuff got added in, and away we go.

 

1.  I would differentiate between engineers and natural philosophers and scientists, and I think most science historians do too.  For example, a lot of people before science did things with respect to math and other topics in terms of applying ideas to architecture, farming (including water management), and even calendars, but that wasn't science.  People even refer to protoscience and prescience:

 

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

 

2.  St. Augustine did not believe in reconciling religion and science because at the time of St. Augustine, there were no known conflicts (in his part of the world) (e.g. St. Augustine pre-dates the wide spread belief of a heliocentric solar system in the West).  St. Augustine died in 430 AD.  There was no known science any where and certainly not in the west in 430 AD as there was no science.  St. Augustine recognized (as did other Christians even earlier did) that parts of the Bible were not likely to be read literally, and he saw the study of nature as a way to better understand what parts of the Bible were more likely to be literal and which were not, and in general, to fill gaps of our knowledge on creation, and therefore God, lacking in the Bible.  He did believe in reconciling logic and natural observation with the Bible and when they conflicted, he believed that we should realize that part of the Bible should not be taken literally (and again, this was well before the creation of science by hundreds of years and even before the heliocentric solar system was proposed (in the west).

 

3.  Paul's letters, which discuss the resurrection, were written shortly thereafter.  Not decades later.  The vast majority of the spread of writing and art comes as Christianity become more wide spread.  Even with Paul, we have his letters, but clearly in creating his Churches, there must have been communication beyond his letters.  He went into a town and started talking to people and evangelizing and gave them enough teachings to get started, but we have no idea really what he said.  What he said was clearly powerful and impactful as it encouraged people to take on this new religion, but we have no idea of what it was.  We only have his letters, which were direct written communication, and were for the most part written to address specific things.  We don't even know that we have all of the letters.  I think there are like 7, which are directly acknowledged to be his, but for all we know he could have written 700.

 

The writing and art really starts up as more people become Christian.  It isn't really surprising.  More people means more outside attention and more specialization of the people involved in the religion to more stuff and more resources to protect what you do make.  (It isn't like the Jewish authorities at the time were going to be eager to reserve works describing the greatness of the guy they crucified or spread the word to Rome or elsewhere for things to have survived.)

 

(Serious question, how much original writing do we have from Palestine from that era?  Is there any surviving contemporary writing from the Palestinian region?  If you have 0, is it surprising that 0 mention Jesus?)

Edited April 5, 2018 by PeterMP

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

21 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

2.  St. Augustine did not believe in reconciling religion and science the two because at the time of St. Augustine, there were no known conflicts (in his part of the world) (e.g. St. Augustine pre-dates the wide spread belief of a heliocentric solar system in the West).  St. Augustine died in 430 AD.  There was no known science any where and certainly not in the west in 430 AD as there was no science.

There are very famous scientists who lived many centuries before St Augustine or even Jesus.

[zCommander]

7 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Does Non-Monotheism not cover that? 

 

I've suspected all thread that I mis-labeled that, should I just change it to that instead?  This is why I really wanted to hear from the horses mouth on that one, because I can't tell if Buddah is actually a god or a diety (that's why I left it as a semi-other category for picking an organized religion that didn't fit into the Monotheism umbrella).  There's so many religions that I don't understand very well, that's why I basically made a catch-all for any organized religion that wasn't Monotheistic.

 

This is one of those things that I'm not afraid to admit I don't know what I'm talking about and another reason I made the thread (because I want to).

 

You know I was thinking that your poll is kinda limited. There are like 4,200 known religions/faiths.  

[Renegade7]

31 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

There are very famous scientists who lived many centuries before St Augustine or even Jesus.

Most everything going else is on point though.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_history_of_scientific_method

15 minutes ago, zskins said:

 

You know I was thinking that your poll is kinda limited. There are like 4,200 known religions/faiths.  

4,200 poll options sounds pretty cumbersome, don't you think? : )

Edited April 5, 2018 by Renegade7

[zCommander]

2 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

4,200 poll options sounds pretty cumbersome, don't you think? : )

 

All I am reading here is that you are too lazy to put up all the options.  

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

There are very famous scientists who lived many centuries before St Augustine or even Jesus.

 

You missed point #1.  People like Aristotle were not scientists nor did science in the way we understand it today.  Aristotle was a natural philosopher who practiced pre or protoscience.  He did not carry out falsification of hypothesis through experiments.  That's the key to science.

 

Aristotle was a natural philosopher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy) who observed and gathered, cataloged, and thought about information.

 

"From the ancient world, starting with Aristotle, to the 19th century, the term "natural philosophy" was the common term used to describe the practice of studying nature. It was in the 19th century that the concept of "science" received its modern shape with new titles emerging such as "biology" and "biologist", "physics" and "physicist" among other technical fields and titles; institutions and communities were founded, and unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred."

Edited April 5, 2018 by PeterMP

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

32 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

You missed point #1.  People like Aristotle were not scientists nor did science in the way we understand it today.

Alright, I'm down with that. But was St. Augustine, then?