Circumcision was apparently quite the debate in the early Christian church. Jesus would have been circumcised, as would have been his Jewish disciples. It would have been quite the barrier to recruiting male converts if circumcision were a requirement, so eliminating that requirement would have contributed to the rise of christianity. I wonder what the rate of complications was for the procedure before they understood the importance of having sterile instruments and clean hands? It really didn’t gain popularity in the US until the 20th century.
Of course practitioners of the christian religion have had arguments over which church
processed Jesus foreskin. That holy of holies, and no doubt a big draw for religious pilgrims. What a lousy vacation that would be.
There ya go Kelly, and as a plus you can drink Italian wine while looking!
Foreskin relics began appearing in Europe during the Middle Ages. The earliest recorded sighting came on December 25, 800, when Charlemagne gave it to Pope Leo III when being crowned Emperor. Charlemagne claimed that it had been brought to him by an angel while he prayed at the Holy Sepulchre, although a more prosaic report says it was a wedding gift from the Byzantine Empress Irene. Its authenticity was later considered to be confirmed by a vision of Saint Bridget of Sweden,[3] who confirmed that it was somewhere in Rome.[4] The Descriptio lateranensis Ecclesia, written shortly before 1100, indicated that a cypress chest commissioned by Leo III and placed under the altar in the Chapel of St. Lawrence held three caskets. One of the caskets contained a gold jeweled cross. The document stated that in this cross was the foreskin and umbilicus of Jesus.[5]
David Farley recounts how the foreskin was then looted during the Sack of Rome in 1527. The German soldier who stole it was captured in the village of Calcata, 47 km (29 mi) north of Rome, later the same year. Housed in Calcata, it was venerated from that time onwards, with the Church approving the authenticity by offering a ten-year indulgence to pilgrims. Pilgrims, nuns and monks flocked to the church, and “Calcata [became] a must-see destination on the pilgrimage map.” The foreskin was reported stolen by a local priest in 1983.[6] Wiki.
Edited to wear cricket cup.
Which is exactly what “paul” realised. That is the reason for the great schism between the ‘jewish’ christians (Followers of the way) and what later became mainstream christianity.
Hi get baptised! Eternal Life!
Good deal! Water? Dont mind if I do!
Prostrate yourself before the risen god:
Hmm yeh ok…Oh proSTRate…fine no probs bro
Now, we just need to cut a teensy bit off your peni…hey!!! where you going?
Edit to remind Kelli to read my piece on the Ebionites.
Science and empiricism are not mutually exclusive.
We can use various methods to validate or invalidate claims.
And i sure as hell wont be bogged down by semantics just so people can dodge a bullet and not demonstrate evidence to the contrary.
I honestly cannot be bothered to go through what dozens of others have prior to myself and dig up more and more crap spouted by intelligent design proponents.
But a simple study of the wedge document and who authored it and what their beliefs are, is sufficent enough for now.
Also, as stated earlier… minute 20 to min 23 roughly on Mayer’s appareance on joe rogan.
Not really, naturalism is at least part of our reality and evidenced, as oppose to god of the gaps which is completely unproven, untestable etc…
Its also a fact that you’re trying to dodge, by adding something that likely doesnt exist and cannot be quantified or tested and lacks and evidence to prove its real, would massively increase the odds.
You dont need a calculator or advanced mathematics to know this.
We can use very basic reasoning to asign probabilities, if i say to you that i am the father of my child, its very reasonably.
If i say ‘old man’ on here may be the father despite them not having a great resemblance, we could say, unlikely but a slim chance.
Now if i was to say an invisiable pan dimensional goat is the father, youd think i was a fucking idiot.
Get the jist?
You leave my jist out of this…oh wait jisT, sorry. Carry on.
Edit: to examine a load of bolloacks.
Any data to support it?
Oh really, lets take a look at your track record on that:
That’ll do for now.
Did you hear the story about the Jewish moyel who saved all the foreskins to make a wallet?
When he rubbed it . . . it would turn into a suitcase.
Yes, but first we must define what constitutes “validation” science relies on repeatability, if a result cannot be repeated by others then its deemed invalid but does that prove that one-off events cannot occur in nature?
So how did you prove that there’s nothing other than naturalism?
What do you mean “dodge” I stated a fact, look in any book on probability and statistics these terms have formal definitions in a science oriented discussion. Go ahead though, show me the “logic” the reasoning that shows that God creating the universe is “less likely” than it having existed always.
Can you first provide a one off event?
I don’t believe i made that claim, did I?
What i would claim however, is that naturalism is by far the best explanation and best methodology for the world and reality we share.
If you have a better idea, have at it…
Sure, first demonstrate that god exists.
The detection of cold fusion.
Except for the fact that it cannot logically serve to explain the presence of naturalism itself, that’s the rub.
You mean show you some evidence that you’ll accept? is that what you want me to do?
Straw man fallacy, and you can stick all the question marks you want, he clearly didn’t say what you’re asking him to prove.
I seriously doubt those methods violate Occam’s razor, like adding an unevidenced deity from an archaic superstition, using inexplicable magic. Why not use that methodology and show your calculations for the probability of a deity, I’m sure if you asked nicely @Nyarlathotep will take a look.
Glad to, your comparison of something you cannot explain or demonstrate any objective evidence is even possible, with something we know exists as an objective fact, is clearly a false equivalence fallacy.
Last i read, the two scientist who reportedly made the claim of detecting cold fusion hadn’t actually deteced any nuclear reation.
There were also faults within the testing.
I may be wrong and happy to be corrected.
But for now, i would imagine this would not count as a one off event.
Then offer a better alternative! For now, it works very well and accounts for itself rather well.
Sure, otherwise you’re essentially asking me to provide probability and logic to something that has zero evidence of being true.
*typo
That’s the current interpretation yes.
Yes, that might be a better explanation but…
Yes it could be, they might very well have detected true cold nuclear fusion and for reasons we can’t grasp it is truly hard to repeat. Or - more worring - might it be true that one-off events can and do happen and science uses blinkers to pretend these never really happen.
That’s exactly what the theist does, they posit a better explanation but at the cost of making a fundamental change to one’s worldview. If one is willing to make the change they can accept and consider the alternative explanation, if that cost is just too high, if the worldview is just too precious then one must live with the paradox (or as some do, convince oneself there is no paradox and attack anyone who dares to say otherwise).
And again, its more likely that they did not, given the glearing errors, the fact nuclear reaction were not detected.
I dont believe science uses blinkers to pretend things never happen, i do believe science or better said, scientists may make mistakes.
But the beautiful thing is that it is heavily scrutinised within its own field.
They’re many great theistic as well as atheistic scientists and if one off events or gods or anything else were proven to be true, then im sure theyd demonstrate that.
But it doesn’t, does it?! Theism has progressively taken backward step after backward step as science has unravelled the universe we reside in.
Lets be fair, for explanitory power, its not even remotely close.
I’ll speak planely here, for most (at least that ive spoken to) if there was any decent objective, empirical eveidence, then most would welcome it and change their views and opinions.
For me, as many here know, my father commited suicide 3 years ago (he was spiritual, but not a follow of a particular religion, but he admired budhism)… now, i would love nothing more then to meet him again one day and tell him its fine and embrace him.
If there was proof/evidence to support the god/heaven hypothesis, id be delighted… but theres not, so i have to deal with that best i can.
Atheism is one who is without theism, or unconvinced of the claim.
Id say you folks need to do a far better job.
Yes it likely is but we really don’t know, we can’t, the papers were published in peer reviewed journals after being peer reviewed.
I don’t dispute that either, but we must be cognizant of the limits science is subject too, after all no amount of science can help you choose from the available interpretations of quantum physics. These are very different models of reality yet they are all equally consistent with observation.
I don’t have a negative opinion of science, only of those who misrepresent it and I see that here from time to time.
You raise several contentious points here. I don’t know what you mean by “backward step” I agree there are historic views expressed by authoritarian people (in the name of God) that were simply wrong, but that’s all because it was the interpretation of those people that was wrong.
Galileo for example (and even senior Catholic officials at the time) saw no conflict between observation and the Bible, the only conflict was between observation and some people’s interpretation of the Bible.
As for “explanatory power” I agree we can’t use a Bible to send a man to the moon, but why is that a criteria here? The intent of the Bible is not physical or material in nature, there’s no reason to even make a comparison in terms of predictive capabilities.
Well God reveals that people - of their own nature - do not welcome a God at all, humanity is generally hostile to God. The evidence is plain, clear as day to me and many others but many people cannot perceive it or strive to discredit far beyond what is reasonable.
I asked the very serious question about what EXACTLY could an atheists do with evidence to decide if it is or is not actually evidence for God. Only one person answered sensibly (I can’t recall who) but everyone else here attacks me for just asking the question!
I’m sorry to hear that, I can’t really imagine the feelings I’d have if a loved one did that. My view today is that there are two distinct realms, the spiritual and the physical. Scripture is revelation purely about the spiritual realm. The physical realm is rationally intelligible and we are equipped to explore it and develop some understanding of it.
The spiritual realm is inaccessible to us, it has to be revealed to each of us in our own time. The “real” world is in fact the spiritual one, the physical is temporary, fleeting, and absolutely irrelevant when it comes to our reason for existing.
But I digress.
Your mind is evidence the presence of a vast universe together with its profound mathematically abstruse descriptions and laws is evidence, the information revealed in the New Testament is evidence, the existence, longevity and relative textual stability of the scriptures is evidence.
You won’t find “obvious” material pointers to God, science cannot decide the question for us because science deals only with the material, when we try to shoehorn reality into a purely material worldview we get problems.
Peer reviewed in name, yes. But the initial publication was rushed through the peer-review process, without a thorough review.
Given the importance of their results, the U.S. editor of the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry — and personal contact of Pons — offered to get Pons and Fleischmann’s paper through the review process quickly. By setting tight deadlines for the reviewers and agreeing upon revisions between themselves (instead of sending them back to reviewers for approval as is customary), a process that normally takes months took just nine days. Then, before their work was published — before it could be reviewed by the scientific community as a whole — they held a press conference to announce their results.
[…]
The elements of this story that deviate from scientific norms involve the researchers’ behavior: Bypassing the feedback of the scientific community, ignoring evidence, and not trying to find evidence that contradicts a pet hypothesis are behaviors antithetical to the goals of science.So is it science? This case demonstrates science’s fuzzy borders. The research ended up producing scientific information (even if just about what doesn’t happen in a particular situation), but the investigators’ behavior carried the study away from the solidly scientific.
This website is overdue for its midday crash, I’ll return later, much later…
Possibly, but the point stands, it’s not a one off event.
Currently.
As time passes and more breakthroughs are made, this will change and the prevailing ideas will come to light, will be altered, will be tested etc… this again is the beauty of science and why it is massively clear of any other methodology.
For clarity, what i mean by ‘backwards step’ in where theology has made a claim regarding reality or the universe etc… its on the whole been wrong about a lot of things.
Be that a global flood or evolution etc… take your pick really.
Well if at least had something regarding germ theory, or something note worthy, it would be impressive… imagine if the last line was a key part of the equation to discovering something like dark matter etc… years before we could ever understand.
But it doesn’t.
Even from a moral perspective… why not have one of the commandment be, “dont own slaves”.
It just doesnt strike me as a lay person as even remotely impressive.
Thats a fair question, to which i’d answer, i don’t know.
I dont even know what would convince me there is a god, but im sure if this god is as all powerful, all knowing etc… they should know what it would take to convince all and do so… but thats just my subjective opinion.
Thank you, Bi Polar is horrific.
That is purely a subjective view.
This is a good point and one that goes to the heart of biblical theology. Scripture is always interpreted as is evidence. We interpret scripture initially so as to reconcile it with our existing views. Naturally people make errors. Galileo pointed out that his interpretation of observations was not at odd with scripture it was at odds with a particular interpretation of scripture.
When people try to interpret scripture in some literal physical sense, it is that interpretation that’s the often the source of problems not the scripture itself.
But it does:
It is clear too but not if you are shackled to a materialist worldview. Much of scripture’s language reflects ideas and abstractions that were common thousands of years ago, this is true though:
That is correct, but surely a primitive uneducated people would never write that, it’s nonsensical, how can it be suspended on nothing, it would fall! No human mind would ever say the earth is hanging on nothing, it is contrary to everyday experience - yet there it is, written a long time ago.
We can see too from observation that the universe had a beginning, winding the clock back to the initial “big bang”. People have always understood that the universe is described as beginning, starting to exist at some point in the past. Yet for years the universe was believed to be static, there was no speculation that it was expanding.
It was Einstein who first saw that his general relativity theory implied an expanding universe. He hacked the equations to eliminate that, at the time it was to all intents and purposes undisputed that the universe was static.
Later in the 1920s it became evident that it was in fact expanding, it was not static. Einstein removed the hack from his equations and was appalled at himself for not having trusted the theory at the time. Had he done that though (before there was evidence of expansion) his theory would have been rejected by many.
We’re back to interpretation again though and that involves our interpretation about what physical existence means, why we exist at all. I mean which definition of slave do we use? The NT describes humans as being “slaves to sin” all of us are slaves, but what can it mean?
I agree, I was once a very vocal atheist and would decimate theists, quite cruelly too. But since that time I’ve grown to understand the interpretation issue, we - each and every human - interprets scripture and I am now at the point where I think there might be multiple distinct valid intepretations, we each see what is shown to us, there is no “objective” Christianity, not at a fine granular level anyway.
Years ago when I looked at scripture or heard it quoted I knew only one way to interpret it - as claptrap, the ramblings of primitive tribes of nomads fantasizing about Gods because they understood so little about the world.
Later after some years of struggle I began to grasp that scripture is not at odds with science at all, it is only interpretations that are at odds with the right interpretation there is no conflict.
Well it is written “his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made”. It says its clear, why do so many of us not see it? It’s because we have chosen a worldview, chosen one that suits our own selfish desires and egos.
If a person can step back - right back and have no worldview at all - and then start afresh, consider the options, rank them, compare them and choose a worldview from a point of intellectual neutrality, they might then be able to see.
A further issue arises in that we don’t know who actually wrote any of this, or large parts… i.e. matthew, mark etc… and some of the stories for example, the resurrection are conflicting, which is odd at the very least.
The immaterial is yet to be demonstrated to be possible, let alone true.
So whilst you may consider me ‘shackled’, i consider myself grounded.
And content with what we experience within reality, rather then essentially wishing or believing for something unproven to be true.
The earth doesnt sit on nothing.
Thats not known, and still a highly debated topic within cosmology and other academia.
Well from my personal perspective, i feel the owning of any human is completely immoral, if a god in any way condones it, then i say im more moral then that god.
An interesting take, i myself would consider them as efforts by ancestors to try and make sense of the world they saw.
Much like the vikings did with Odin, and the romans did with their gods… the greeks and so on…
And yet here we are, where the vast over whelming majority of scientists would disagree and there is not a sindle shred of scientific evidence to support any god(s).
Thoughy id concede that i would imagine Jesus may have been an historical person.
Which I do, along with most atheists.
I look at my world view and its one where im very easily able to step away and view the bigger picture.
For me it comes down to probability and im not talking from a mathematical position requiring streams of data, i simply cannot be bothered to try and attempt it.
But i look at what is more plausible?
And a theistic world view just doesnt cut the mustard and answers very little.