It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Say I agree with you. Say, indeed, it's all just guesswork, which, mind you, it isn't. Then we have two sides here:
- Your side: doing guesswork.
- My side: doing guesswork.
Fine. But let me give you something to think about then:
1) My "guesswork" is performed using the kind of science that has given you computers that obviously work (since you're on the internet), mobile phones, digital photography, an increased life expectancy, a better understanding of the food you're eating and possibly, one day, a very good cure for a disease, like the flu, TBC, leprosy, cancer, ... for you or a loved one.
2) My "guesswork" is performed using the kind of science that works from empirical evidence which you could easily assemble yourself, and from deductions anyone here is free to perform on their own terms. It's the kind of science that uses only the pinnacle of logic -- mathematics -- for its interpretation of the facts presented, freely, to us all, by nature and the universe that houses it.
3) My "guesswork" is performed using the kind of science that keeps piling successes on top of successes on top of successes. We have put men on the moon, unravelled the genetic code, split the atom (for better or worse), ...
Now then, where does your "gueswork" come from?
1) What your parents, neighborhood priest, ... told you?
2) What your gut feeling tells you?
3) What you want to be right since you'd feel quite betrayed should all that stuff you've so proudly clung to for all those years turn out wrong after all?
No offense, @Dragonpol. You know I like you; you're a good friend and will remain so. But clearly you can see how that statement puts you in a very weak position. You're like the jury member who was sleeping during the trial, missed pretty much everything and then cries "guilty" and walks away.
Oh I believe Jesus existed, @Risico007. That man, who most likely never called himself "the son of God", certainly existed. Many such inspirational, well-intending men have lived and still live among us. Firemen risking their lives for the sake of others during the 9/11 attacks. Rich people, giving it all to charity and live a sober life henceforth. People willing to spend Christmas in a place where the homeless are given food and shelter, to help them, selflessly, and bring them hope...
Jesus must have been a good man. More than one "Jesus" may actually have lived in Judea at the time of Pontius Pilate. No doubt about that. The Romans did a lot of crucifying at the time so I believe Jesus of Nazarth was crucified too. I bet he was a troublemaker in the eyes of the Romans and the corrupt, hence, they wanted him out of the way. In fact, I admire him, a man who did what he could with all odds against him. As a symbol of hope in dreadful times, a man like Jesus (or the many Jesuses before and after him) is important. He's not so different from Spartacus the slave and others that have earned a place in the history books.
But he wasn't the son of God. (Again, scholars believe he himself never even claimed that.) His mother did have sex with his biological father. (God has given us all reproductive organs after all. Why not use them?) And he never zombied out to walk as an undead. Like crazy fans believing that Elvis was more than a man and that he's still with us, so was Jesus lifted to something more than the flesh and blood he truly was. He was revered, and in times when language had to be kept simple and good and evil very concrete, unnuanced concepts, and when superstition was very widespread among the uneducated, one of the easiest steps to take was to present this dead man as more than a mere man, as the Son of God even! Like Japanese emperors or Communist leaders are treated as more than mere men, so was Jesus made an immortal symbol in a language that everyone, at the time, even the simplest of folks, could understand. It wouldn't have satisfied them if he "just" had his heart in the right place. They wanted more. The promise of heaven. The promise that God cares. Well, Jesus' post-mortem PR team fixed that issue fast and good. And then his post-mortem "agents" and "managers", i.e. the Church, saw income and power and established one of the greatest criminal structures in the history of mankind.
But we have since then learned so much more; modern concepts of "great" men and women are established in far more sophisticated and ambiguous ways. Some Germans still believe Hitler was doing it all for the greater good of all of Germany; some N-Koreans cry tears when their Dictator looks in their eyes for a microsecond, and some Trumpists would kill if they hear someone say anything wrong about him. They still see him as the great one, who will drag them out of despair. Films work with these ideas all the time. Caesar in Planet of the Apes is nothing if not some Moses; not a faultless one, but all things considered, the greatest of the apes still. As people, we're always looking for strong symbols, for beakens of hope, for supermen, batmen and wonder women; for Moseses and Jesuses. It's in our nature to do that. It was easy 2000 years ago, when a "wise" elder would tell marvellous stories and the uneducated would believe him unconditionally. It's different today, which is why we're having debates like these. I'm sure @TheWizardOfIce, @Creasy47, @Ludovico, @patb, ... will all be able to describe people they look up to. Like innocents throwing themselves in a rain of bullets to protect a child during a terrorist attack. Like docters who work night and day to save the lives of others. We're not some stone-cold bunch who have no values, no morals, no sense of justice. We're simply not willing to accept an impossibly old, outdated symbol as a guide in modern life, in vastly different times facing vastly different challenges. And we're certainly not going to commit to supernatural notions which try to make the mortal man something he really isn't, before we like him.
I don't need "the son of god". I need fellow men who do good; when I'm among them, I do good too. Not by sitting in Church drilling off the same memorised texts every week. But by operating in my own best capacities. What good can a man do who was good 2000 years ago, who inspired people who were nothing like us today, in times that were nothing like ours today, especially when I can only buy his guidance and gospels if I also buy the rest of the package?
Since when must a man be the son of God, before he can be a good man?
Anyway, I'm posting and reading in this thread again after promising I wouldn't. I created it, so I suppose I feel a certain responsibility for it. However, back to radio silence...
Take your time, my good man, and please take no offence in this thread. We're all here having a pleasant talk. And it's written text after all, which makes it different to assess the other's tone. I bet we could all sit in one room together, watch SPECTRE, and have a good time afterwards discussing the film. :)
I'm not here to make enemies. I'm here to learn, believe it or not. This thread keeps me sharp. I simply happen to be in "the other camp". Nothing more.
Yeah you're right Darth is very much the genial Gerry Adams going in front of the TV cameras whilst I see myself more as Martin McGuinness happily blowing people's kneecaps off for the cause.
How does the fact that these things were written between 60-90 AD strengthen your case exactly? Given there were no cameras, no wikipedia and hardly anyone could write, your primary evidence comes from witness testimony only documented 30-60 years after the event?
If we were to remove all modern forms of recording and then ask you to go back and document the lives of famous people from around half a century ago such as JFK, Elvis or Anwar Sadat from witness testimony alone (obviously there would be no modern transport so you'd have to travel to all your interviews by donkey which would slow the whole process down) how do you think you would do? Would the world happily accept the @Risico007 'cobbled together using old fashioned methods' version as the definitive biographies of said people? Particularly if you only interviewed people who had a stake in a book that would report that Elvis was the greatest artist of all time? It's beyond flimsy and that's before we even start on the supernatural aspects.
I don't know if anyone else observed, but today's events in this thread have been very illuminating:
At 02.20 @Risico007 posed a question about the mechanics of Carbon 14 dating.
At 11.11 @TheWizardOfIce (after a cursory google search) posted a brief explanation.
At 12.52 @DarthDimi posted a more detailed explanation.
So what is my point here? Just that when a scientific question was posed we countered it with clear and concise evidence within a few hours.
Yet whenever we ask for evidence from the other side we are met with obfuscation (pointless little deviations on the probity of the Turin Shroud, carbon dating the earth etc), prevarication or just plain running away in the form of @Dragonpol's wearisome incantation 'I'm leaving this thread as I no longer want to discuss it'.
Why does @Risico007 constantly hark back to the resurrection when asked about the existence of God? There's a whole old testament out there isn't there? Why does everything seem to hinge for him on proving that the disciples account cannot be disproved?
You asked a question this morning @Risico007 about carbon 14. We answered it plainly and simply.
Can I ask you to return the favour and answer why you believe in the existence of God? No need to go into detail that someone as heathen as me wouldn't understand just the simple basic facts which when presented to you caused you to conclude without any doubt 'The universe and everything that exists was made by a benevolent (let's park baby cancer for now) creator who watches over us at all times.'
After all you have a questioning mind that seeks out the truth: So one presumes you must have seen something that makes you think 'All this stuff in the bible must be true'. That evidence is all we want and have ever wanted. It only took me a 30 second google search to find out about carbon 14 so it really is not that difficult.
Let’s see normally when I post these you either don’t watch them or watch for second find some point to nitpick and there we go give me 10 minutes and I can get more vids for you wiz just say the word
One more I swear this is the last one
In answer to this:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jason_Lisle
It merely seems that later in his career, he systematically dismissed proven science as soon as it contradicted his Creationist views. No doubt a smart man who understands physics, his Creationist stubbornness prevents him from also being an intellectually honest one.
Otherwise I have nothing more to say than what @DarthDimi and @TheWizardOfIce .
Considering their length, evidently, I couldn't have. I have 'scanned' them though, picked up a minute here and there, and downloaded them too because I want to give them my full attention.
No reasonable, rational person can come from a nuetral position, weigh up the "evidence" and decide that, of all the options, the Jesus route is actually historical fact (and by defintion, all other religions are fiction).
Some people choose the Jesus route and then try to prop this up with the tiny scraps which in no way are actually evidence. They convince themselves that this ia all actually true and then present the same fragments withina wider debate (competing with actual evidence) and ..well... lets just say the Jesus route, putting it kindly, does not stand up to the mildest level of scrutiny.
There really is little point in trying to have an evidence based debate. Faith is not based on evidence (if it was, it would not exist). It's based on human frailty
@Risico007
You may be pleased to know that I have watched the videos. It's taken me a lot of time to do so but I have, if only to show you I'm willing to continue this debate in a respectful and honest manner.
Allow me to rephrase the core essence of Dr. Jason Lisle's views. Science works. Until it contradicts scripture. Then a choice must be made. And in that case scripture wins. Empirical evidence cannot overrule the Bible after all.
Can we agree that that's what he's said?
"If the Bible is the word of God, it would be ridiculous to start with anything else, would't it?"
So substitute any other holy book and why not start with that? The whole presumption of science versus the Bible (ignoring all other religions) is just pure wrong and a wonderful illustration of the lack of perspective. Re the slide at 3.11, why are there not 2000 different views on the World?
So why is every link @Risico007 posts fronted by creationists, Christian apologists or guys trying to flog a book?
Quite. I mean I presume in the interest of balance and being fully informed about all the options available to him before deciding on Christianity @Risico007 has also watched videos such as this:
Keith Moore (2nd video) is a professor of anatomy at the university of Toronto so that makes him an authority too rather than religious crank doesn't it?
As this thread is proving.
Wise words indeed. If faith was proveable it would be called facts.
It’s a letter from C.S Lewis
Again I am saying for evidence that Christianity is the greatest fraud known to man.. where are the secret letters of peter to Paul saying “man we will be killed and persecuted but in 2000 years the pope will have a sweet life”
Please Lud either show me evidence or stop making baseless claims
That's not my job or my problem. As proving a negative would be reversing the burden of proof. YOU need to prove that the gospels are historically accurate in their depiction of Jesus, in all or in parts, THEN we can try to establish if he was everything he allegedly said he was.
That said, there's a number of gospel claims we already know to be very dodgy at best: the Nativity, the presence of Barabbas, the conversation with Nicodemus about being born again (as Bart Hermann pointed out), the Census, etc.
And I never said Christianity was fraud. Well sometimes yes it is. But it's more like a delusion. Like many cults, it started with a few superstitious, uneducated people.
What evidence is Ludovico supposed to provide?
Okay give me archeological and historical evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster never existed, or that the goddess Athena never existed, and I'll use the same method to disprove the stories of the Gospels.
That said, since there's no archeological or historical evidence of say the Census, the visit of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, and so on, I guess you should maybe you are again just throwing words around hoping that some will magically stick.
You just don't want to understand it, do you?
Logic dictates that the one who posits the existence of something is also the one who has the burden of proof. There's a gazillion things you and I will agree don't exist, like the Tooth Fairy and the Boogeyman. And yet, if I asked you to prove they don't exist, what would you do besides shrug or mock me?
This, my friend, is logic 1-0-1. Lawyers, philosophers, logicians will all disagree with you. You can't win this round as long as you're demanding proof that something which cannot be measured, seen, heard, tasted, felt or mathematically modelled doesn't exist. It's impossible to provide such proof.
It simply doesn't work this way and there's nothing you can do about that. You will have to accept this simple, basic fact of logic. Your stubbornness is your own worst enemy I'm afraid. You refuse to give up certain notions because you WANT to believe. Like wanting to believe in Santa even after your parents have told you Santa was just the friendly neighbour wearing a hired outfit.
There's no archaeological or historical evidence to prove that something supernatural never happened, only evidence to support that something does exist. So far, no historical or archaeological evidence has been found to support the notion of a resurrected man. None. The only thing you've got is what you read in a book. You have read stories, and you like them. And now you refuse to see things clearly. You want it and you're not getting it, and it's making you upset. Yet you feel strong because there are many more like you. But we don't care whether there's a hundred or a million of you, because none can provide proof of any supernatural thing the Bible so outrageously claims. Surely you can understand that if such proof existed, it would have been shared with the world long ago. Us, atheists, would have been forced to shut up forever. But alas, no such thing. In fact, more and more religious people are also willing to accept the fact that the Bible mustn't be taken literally, that it's loaded with symbols and metaphors.
You are fumbling in the dark, looking for anything that could be put against 200 years of science outruling all sorts of supernatural events by showing we don't need to invoke the supernatural to explain the universe, the origin of life and so on. And you haven't found anything. Give us SOMETHING, a splinter of hope, a pebble of evidence,... But make it reproducible, objective, neutral. A YE Creationist who throws out science in favour of scripture, even if he is himself a scientist, is merely a bad scientist, not the one to partner up with. You're trapped in an ideological maze, stubborn. Deep down inside, you must know you're never going to win this, but you want to, so very badly. You distort facts to agree with what you hope is true but must know isn't.
You're throwing youtube vids at us like they mean something. I have sat through 90 minutes of Jason Lisle, a man who lost every bit of credibility after the first 3 minutes of his speech. @patb saw it too. We're no bullies who try to use you as our scapegoat. We're not conspiring against you. Ludovico, The Wiz, patb, Creasy, ... and myself, we live half a world apart from each other, in different time zones no less. Yet none of us is getting one step closer to seeing things your way. Have you ever wondered why? Why are you more or less the only one who's still in this game on the side of the religious? You're hitting a hard wall, my friend, and it won't budge. Other religious members have lost interest in this thread, either because they understand that they can't win some of these more fact-or-no-fact debates, or because even they aren't willing to adhere to the notion of a dead man walking again.
We won't laugh at you if you sober up and admit that a dead man's resurrection is a never-going-to-happen. You no doubt agree that Elvis isn't coming back, nor is Michael Jackson and nor is, sadly, Roger Moore. And why shouldn't he if he could? He was a first class humanitarian, doing lots of good in this world. Why shouldn't he resurrect as a contemporary Jesus?
Why must a man resurrect or be the son of God before we can call him a great man? I'm sure you can see the fallacy in that too. It means we, mortal men, don't even have to try and be good men, because since we're neither sons of God nor going to resurrect when we're dead, we're not "elected" by heaven nor destined to be great men. I much rather look up to some next door bloke who does good in this life, than having to await another resurrected corpse before I admire him. Come on, sir! Be reasonable. What would you say if I told you that Zeus raped my mom and that makes me a Demi-God (or rather a Dimi-God in my case)? I bet you'd say: "prove that Zeus raped your mom and then we'll talk." How would you feel if I replied, "No, you prove he didn't." Because that, friend, is what you're doing right now.
Look let’s for argument sake say this is all a ploy a few obvious questions
1. Why make the first witnesses women? I don’t need to go through a history of the mistreatment of women before I point out how stupid this would be if it weren’t true there is literally no polite way to say this but if they wanted to lie Men would of been the first to discover the empty tomb not a bunch of women?
2. So the conversion of Paul and James were made up too? Simply put again it’s embarrassing to the Christian faith that two of its strongest proponents who wrote nearly all of the New Testament were themselves non believers at one point. Yeah look it up James the brother of Jesus thought his brother was a nut untill he came back from the dead and Saul KILLED CHRISTIANS FOR FUN.. sorry if I was creating a religion those two would be people I have killed not join to Spread the word again it’s embarrassing that we couldn’t keep it together without help from former enemies
3. Why get persecuted for a lie? It’s no secret that 11 of the original 12 all died horrible deaths so the obvious question is why go through it for a lie? And before people bring up sucide bombers or some modern equivalent uhm no they saw Christ with their own eyes they didn’t believe he was resurrected or hope he was or think he was they knew he was because they saw it Here was NO FAITH INVOVLED WITH THE DISCIPLES BECAUSE FOR THEM IT WAS A FACT! Like carbon 14 dating or the laws of physics. So if they intentionally lied... why?
Heck screw evidence give me a reason why 13 people would lie only to be brutually killed and why would they do such a poor job of inventing said religion