Daniel Smith
Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007
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| Quote (Quack @ Mar. 03 2009,00:24) | | Quote | | - it's not about evidence or stories. I've experienced the reality of Christ - that's enough for me. |
That's enough - for what? Evidence that the symbol of Christ really is a powerful symbol that one may realize, like St. Paul obviously must have experienced, he is quite clear when referring to "Christ in me" - or evidence for the inerrancy of the Bible?
But, what if conclusive proof was found, showing that the Jesus story is a fabrication, modeled after the many accounts of dying-and-resurrecting godmen, accounts that we know were created as symbols, used as symbols, worshiped as symbols and never believed to be accounts of historical events - until literalism raised its ugly head ~2000 years ago?
Would that lessen the value, the effect or whatever of St. Paul's experience - or yours, or the experience of the millions of people who have had and still may have the same experience?
Prove me wrong, prove that if if it could be shown that the Jesus story is 'only' a myth, then your experience would suddenly be erased?
The point is: "Salvation" does not depend on the historicity of Jesus!
I believe theology might be better for you than the science of which you obviously have a lot of study - with a will and an intent to really understand - to do before you know what you are talking about.
Theology has the obvious advantage for people like you that every man's opinion is as good as the next man's - theology is not science, therefore you can make it into what you want it to be. That's that what you want with science, isn't it?
When will you realize that you are barking up the wrong tree here? |
I think you may have found your calling Quack. Perhaps you should be the one to finally prove that Jesus never existed! (Good luck with that BTW).
I'm curious as to why you only mention Paul... What of Peter, John, and James? They too wrote letters to the early churches. They were contemporaries of Paul and were mentioned in Paul's letters. They were also eyewitnesses of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Is that why you focus only on Paul?
(BTW, just to head you off at the pass - I don't believe the bible is always to be taken literally or that it is inerrant. I believe it is a collection of historical documents colored by the author's perceptions of what they saw or heard. It's not the "be-all, end-all" when it comes to God, but it gives us a good idea of what godly people were thinking back then.)
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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." Orville Wright
"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins
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