Do we all share in the divine?

Using the word divine as a verb, of course.

The divine does not exist. Easy. Prove me wrong with any evidence you have of its existence.

And you are welcome to it.

Check the Amazon site. They might have some books on the topic.

Guillaume,
Mon frère,
mon ami.
Je vous admire beaucoup.
La bonne Bon Bon.

[Ah caint hep mahself wit' them googly thingies.]

that they cannot see it. Obstacles that they often create by not recognizing the limitations of human intelligence.

Is a pretty sly, slippery, Satanic trick. To try to slip away from numerous, constant empirical disproofs of the biblical God.

It's a trick that seems to work for a while. But in the end, most pay a very heavy but subtle price for it. The constant denegration of reason and science subtly cripples the intelligence of many ardent proponents. And cripples their material effectivess. Dooming billions to poverty.

There was a big theological/philosophical back-and-forth.

He was a radical empiricist. If it couldn't be verified empirically, it wasn't knowledge.

I checked Wikipedia article.

As I recall, many took part in the discussion of various questions raised by the parable, and the discussion went on for several years.

I believe, from reading yrs ago, that the falsifiability demand goes back to Popper.

A Google search for the parable comes up with a source at Dartmouth.

For those who enjoy this kind of discussion, the various wiki and Google links could be interesting.

If something can't be shown to be true or false either, or if it has no definite observable results, then it is 1) moot. Or say, 2) useless. And 3) most probably false.

4) When promises of physical miracles failed, much of Christianity switched to promising only spiritual results, in our heads. But even the Bible warned there are many bad, false spirits, that delude our heads with illusions. 5) So we are not supposed to have so much faith; we are supposed "test the spirits" even. With "science" Dan. 1.4-15 KJE.

So the Christianity that stresses faith and spirituality is not ultimately biblical. And it is of course anti rational as well.

Nobody prays to human intelligence or thinks it created the universe. The most you can say is that some people think we are smart enough to think for ourselves. Not a god, just our most useful natural trait.

Never mind then...I'm correct. Thanks.

Did you notice the very subtle reference to Amazon?

I define the Creator for myself, not others.

If you refuse to do so, then it can be safely assumed you were just speaking gibberish.

human beings also create, the arts, procreation, society, etc. Even with all its warts and disasters, that is the only thing I could consider divine under that little bit of theology.

I’m certain my dad was not an immortal being.

It is a tenet of Christianity that this Jesus person was the literal, not metaphorical, son of the Abrahamic god(s).

Doesn't say much for an "omnipotent" god.

But not mine."

Last edited Sun Feb 17, 2019, 08:16 PM - Edit history (1)

..deity attributes.

For a more detailed summary of many of the historic 'sons of Ra' go to:

https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/23737-cookie-cutter-christs

For example, I have never seen any Buddhist text teaching that Buddha was crucified, descended into hell for three days, and then ascended into heaven. The Mahaparinibbana sutra, for example, makes it sound as if Buddha died after several days of food poisoning

Much of the nonsense on the FFRF webpage you link probably comes from the Kersey Graves silly book, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors

Graves once saw a statue of Krishna with a hole in his foot and concluded that Krishna had been crucified -- although the Mahabharata contains a story that a hunter shot Krishna in the foot with an arrow

Graves says of Osiris: Osiris appeared on earth to benefit mankind, and .. by rising from the dead, after being crucified, he became the judge of mankind in a future state. But in the actual Egyptian story, Osiris was a ruler, murdered by his brother Set, whoicast his dismembered body into the Nile, from which place his widow Isis retrieved and temporarily reanimated most of his his body so she could become pregnant, although afterwards the green-skinned Osiris was described only as the ruler of the land of the dead.

...the bible is a credible document for historical accuracy of who was or wasn't crucified and/or other documented magical events?

If so, then there isn't much reason to continue a discussion.

The bible is a book of fiction, there is no point in participating in a discussion of it's factual value.

the nonsense written by Kersey Graves and similar authors provide us nothing useful; and I cannot really understand why you would promote such garbage

...who treats the bible as historical, informative and/or useful (in a positive sense).

However, the supposition that jesus is merely an amalgamation of magical attributes and associated miracles gleaned from historic fictional figures is supported by a preponderance of the narrative similarities between them (i.e. Mithra, Hercules, Horus, Attis, and Adonis) and what is written in the text of the bible.

Your ability to provide apparent criticism of a few elements of comparisons, provided within the ffrf non-track references, is notwithstanding. Graves names 16 crucified saviors, you provided criticism of only the comparison (i.e. Krishna). Then you jump to the broad dismissal that "Graves and similar authors provide us nothing useful", all the while apparently supporting narratives from the bible as true? Wow.

It should be noted that not all of the attributes of each of these historical fictional figures were applied to the fictional jesus. That is not the claim. Finding individual elements that don't match the separate jesus narrative isn't valid criticism.

The "Nothing Useful" tagline truly should be applied to the bible as a whole.
It maybe historically significant (can't get the full gist of Shakespeare without a passing knowledge of the bible) but as a stand-alone document it provides almost nothing useful to the human condition.

The bible is the fictional story that should be earnestly labeled as garbage.

...you discount Graves.

It still dosen't alter validity of the general comparison and overlapping attributes between jesus and multiple religious fictional characters created throughout the history more than one iota.

The end result is the same: religious fictional characters share the same old tropes.

as opposed to ax-grinding, where the "facts" are derived from the desired conclusions

Actual cultural histories are fascinating and informative: it seems likely that many ideas have long and complicated pedigrees, evolving in multiple transfers

It's interesting to try to sort out actual details, and to try to understand what we have learned from that process

"Facts" derived from prechosen conclusions, and deductions from such "facts," are without interest

...the bible as a reliable source, in of itself?

I have never suggested that the texts in the Jewish or Christian bibles should be regarded as scientific texts or careful historical accounts. In fact, biblical literalists very seldom post on DU

If you don't like the texts in the Jewish or Christian bibles, that's fine with me. If you want to provide interesting perspectives using genuine scholarship to help us understand cultural history, that's fine with me too. But why link to idiotic garbage like that Kersey Graves inspired FFRF page?

you don't take the texts in the Jewish or Christian bibles as scientific texts or careful historical accounts.

Then why are you arguing against Graves if the historicity of the four crucifixion narratives in the new testaments can be discounted as fiction?

Why so much energy discounting someones apparent error in reconciling/comparing accounts in fictional texts?

of whatever they relate. I can't make sense of that view: it doesn't seem to me helpful for reading the texts or for any other purpose

You seem to take a fun-house mirror approach to the literalists' view, namely, that the texts cannot contain anything that might be helpful or informative in any way -- and then because Graves, if he were right, seems to you to discredit the texts, you apparently conclude that we should all accept the nonsense Graves promoted

The notion that cultural ideas and mythologies have long complicated histories, involving appropriation and transformation of elements from earlier and even external cultures can be a useful guide in investigation, but it's not a substitute for careful work

...the primary focus of my criticism is upon the literalist's idea that the magic related in any of these stories is real, should be revered and can not be questioned.

There may be some subtle narrative on morality to be gleaned from some of the stories in these historic religious tracks, but it is overwhelmed and destroyed by the literalist's fervor.

My secondary focus is on those who provide a modicum of cover for the literalist's ideas by providing support (let's call it material support to keep with the current vernacular) to those same institutions where the literalist acquires and foments his bad ideas.

The Jewish phrase "son of god" during the time of Jesus meant something entirely different than what modern Christians think it means today.

the sons of the gods

When Octavian became Augustus Caesar, he was called Divi filius -- the son of god

But Jesus was a poor man, executed as a criminal in the most ignoble manner possible: a method usually used only for slaves

To say "This was the Son of God!" defied the accepted social order

by the standards of most priests and preachers I've heard...

Mostly from atheists, who didn't call their exhortations with prooftexting "sermons" but could have.

Bits and pieces elsewhere, on how knowing the game plan ahead of time allowed the devil to have a bunch of fake mock-ups ready.

But there are differences. The NT strongly implies that Jesus pre-existed; demi-gods didn't pre-exist their human incarnation.

Demi-gods also had a tendency not to see eye to eye with daddy (or mommy).

And the Greeks overall didn't have "expiation" or some sense of divine righteousness that wasn't fairly whimsical. Different philosophical system entirely, and as was known in 100 BC, rather hostile to each other.

I'm pretty sure the first three centuries of christian history were full of christians killing other christians over this and other "true nature of christ" theological gobbledygook.

Oh I had to go look it up again, the murdering around Arianism went on for quite a while. So your assertion that the NT "strongly implies" the trinitarian view is valid only because for 1700 years the trinitarians have been drilling the orthodox perspective into the heads of their flocks. A more objective opinion is that the NT says nothing of the sort.