And still, this instistance that the only way is god.....you say to an atheist that god's magic (and that is apprpriate word) has worked in his life."

When you discount the notion of a god, its amazing the clarity that obtains. Try it.

John, again I apppreciate the lengnts you will go to for the good fight....

We can agree that in the scholarly transaltions, there are all sorts of variations. We can agree that people who literally intereret the bible are generally nutters.

But- you and I could go to any church this sunday, paruclauly the more, er, colourful ones, or tune into any bible thumping broadcast and hear the message that the Bible is God's word to us, his children. READ YOUR BIBLE, IT IS GOD'S WORD we will be exhorted.

So we have Mathew 21.22 and the promise that if we beleive and if ask, our prayers will be answered. A promise made not once, but repeated many times in the Bible, particlarly in the New Testaments. And regulary repeated form the pulpits of all denominations. A major plank of the Christian faith.

So the atheist says -here is a very clear commitment by JC to His people. Prove it it me. And so far, pages have been written in this thread alone expalining why this isnt so. Musnt test god, shouldnt be taken literally, not up to us, god knows best, god has a plan. But clearly, there is the commitment. Its says so, in multiple places, in God's Word.

We come back to the deceptively silly but very signicifcnat question. Why wont wont god heal amputees?

I'll take you up on that offer, BTW. Very fond of Sam Adams. We can talk about old 911s.

Back to the original topic, I think the other shoes are starting to fall on this story...from this month's People magazine:

Joe Zias, physical anthropologist who catalogues the ossuaries as they were excavated says the claim is bunk. "We're talking about people without any credibility whatsoever." Zias also said that there were as many as 200 separate bodies in the tomb, making the 6 names Cameron et al decided to talk about much less significant. In other words, the question shifts from "How likely is it that these 6 people would be buried together in a family tomb" to "How likely is it that 6 people out of 200 had these names in ancient Israel?"

Lawrence Stager, professor of archeology at Harvard said there were 71 bodies with the name Jesus on the ossuary buried in the cemetary where the tomb was found. He is quoted as saying "I would describe this as a sheep-and-donkey show."


Ouch. Time to put the champagne away boys.

I make no insistence at all. What you are witnessing is recognition my truth and expression of my belief.
You are welcome to your truth without judgment or criticism. Would I like to see other enjoy what I have? Sure

I have substituted philosophy, money, drugs, power and anger in place God and I returned to find open arms.

I have tried a life without God and you are welcome to it.

Is that clear enough?

Rick- I dont recall that anyone in this thread has treated the finding of these remains as anything other than an interesting hypothetical.

Yeah, from my standpoint, the whole thing is a non-issue. I have no confidence at all that those ossuaries (sp?) contain anything other than...bones. Nothing to see here - move along. It's just somebody trying to make a buck.

No, I think atheist is the right label. I will not go as far as to say that I *know* that there is no god, but I will say that the evidence of his existence is not compelling. :>) Honestly, to me, the term agnostic is a cop-out. It is reserved for people who shy away from the stigma associated the full-blown atheist label due to it's negative connotations. Atheists are not evil people. I know that.

In the end, I think it is important for people to feel comfortable in their world-view. If that world view is built around belief in god, so be it. Good for you to be able to discuss it in a rational manner and not get your feelings hurt if someone disagrees with you. Same for those whose world view is based on a world without any gods. I - in total honesty - take comfort in the belief that there is no god. The world makes sense to me through those eyes. I simply relish discussion with those who see the world through entirely different glasses...it is very interesting.

This is also why I enjoy these threads. Its my observation that atheists generally arrived at their position after quite some consideration. And ofcourse, so have many Christians. But its not often in real life that one meets Christians who are either willing or, sadly, able to engage in this type of dicussion without having a wigout, or more correctly I suspect an amygdala hijack. With just a few exceptions, this thread has been very informative and civil.

It would be intersting to get an equally well intetioned Islamic thread going.

Not to be disagreeable but to offer a different slant, I see the agnostic as a person who would rather not be bothered with the question of God at all.
A person who is comfortable with not taking a side because he/she sees no value in the conclusions that might be reached by the discussion.

My experience tells me the agnostic is too busy with living life to bother with the spiritual side of life.

I agree. (BTW -- Keep in mind it's taken more then a few months for this forum to get to the point where we could carry on a reasonable conversation on the God/No-God question this far and still stay polite.)

Very true. I think many people are "passively religious". That is - they're religious in that they believe that god exists and they go to church, etc., but in the end it is not something that their daily life hinges on.

To me, an agnostic is someone who has some serious doubts about what the heck is going on, but instead of taking that final step and saying "I don't believe", they choose to simply say "we cannot know". Well, of course we cannot know.

I agree John, we've (the PPOT collective) tried this thread many times and usually fail to pull it off. This has been a good one. Too bad we're spread all over the world - I'd take you up on a Sam Adams and buy stuartj a Fosters or nine. :>)

Aw shucks.

I'll take a Sam, thanks. Or an Anchor Steam on the other coast...

Stuart

There certainly seems to be no one universal truth.

What one believes is dependent almost entirely on when and where they were born.

Whatever you believe the universal truth is regarding a god or gods, your belief would almost certainly be very different if you were born somewhere a mere 12 hour plane flight away.

Or born 500 years earlier. Or 500 years later.

Or even born into the family who lives next door to you.

Some of what you say is true, but my experience my be slightly different.
Born to an Irish Catholic family with a father who nearly entered the priesthood you would think that I would be a Catholic.
My last years in high school and a couple of years of college in the early 70s left me a recovering Catholic.
A few years with the "born agains" and I had experienced my fill. Next came some chanting with the Buddhists (very popular at the time).
4 years studying philosophy, my major in college left me with no further need for God. We had a deal, he left me alone and I left him alone.
20 years on my own produced bad marriages, parental irresponsibility, drug addition, moral decay, and financial success.
I had some money, a little power, a smooth presents that opened doors to all the right parties. I'm certain the Devil was proud.
I had a medical emergency that brought the train wreck to a halt and clarity I had not seen in years. A self inflicted, drug related injury is what it said on the admit form.. (in retrospect it sounds like a cry for help.)
Sobriety followed and a light was shone on a life that needed changes.
I had a chance to reconnect with a son I raised but did not father.
During the reconnect he held out his hand and asked if I would join him at a service on sunday.
You see, this one time Catholic had raised a Baptist and he wanted to share what he had found.
The connection was short because his version of God was not tolerant enough to except that a person could be good even if their beliefs were slightly different than the doctrine of their church.
There was a new found joy in my reconnect with God (my recovery, this one visit to his house and several subsequent conversations) but this time I choose to walk the path with guidance of life experience rather than organized religion.
My son, bless his heart is now a Baptist minister preaching to his own congregation.
My experience could have been different if I was born in a different place or time but being born in my time and place would not have predicted my path.

We should collect and organize the the threads related to this subject and publish a book. Something like...

The God Question?
The Pelican Threads

It would most likely be the most balanced discussion on the subject available in Barnes & Nobles or Borders.

Well, the show has aired and it lived up to the hype.
I enjoyed the show if for the historical references alone.
It was entertaining all be it the arguments for it's hypothesis were worthy of Johnny Cochran himself.
The OJ jury would have bought it on face value. Cheap cinematic tricks were employed to walk you down a path that reason would steer you away from.
If you were so inclined before the airing, you could easily be convinced that the Jesus of the bible did not exist as Christians would believe.
As a person of faith I saw no compelling evidence of any significance.
"If this- then this" was carried to it's highest level.
If there is a yellow egg and a blue egg it must be Easter. Don't worry that it's only January.

Any show that invokes the name of Jesus over and over again is show deserving air time.
Two thumbs up for the content two thumbs down for the conclusions based on fabrication.