Is there a God?

[louisiana]

I'm surprise to see no postings from Bizzy on this thread. Elsewhere, Bizzy's on god-bothering top form.

[HAL9000]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> really? By shortly you mean a century and a half in the west

Something like that.

> and nine centuries later in the east?

Byzantium survived the collapse of the western Empire but became mired in the Christian-inspired Iconoclast wars by the 8th century (from 730-ish AD) until Constantinople fell in 1453 to armies inspired by yet another Judaeo-religion.

> The west collapsed because it went bankrupt after

> losing north Africa to the vandals and having too

> many commitments fighting barbarians and Huns on

> every front.

I happen to think that Christianity played an important role, amongst many other factors. Let me quote something to put your explanation into perspective:

In 1984, German professor Alexander Demandt published a collection of 210 theories on why Rome fell, and new theories have emerged since then. -- Decline of the Roman Empire

Modern historians cannot agree on the cause - your apparent certainty is unfounded.

> Moral frameworks had nothing to with it.

Well, at least not as far as you are aware, obviously :)

[mockney piers]

The truth is of course never one thing or another, they are always complex, but the decline of empires are always down to economics(though this may be a result of climate change or other world altering change) sometimes combined with military issues and often exaggerateded by administrative issues. I've yet to see any convincing evidence that morality has anything to do with it.

[Brendan]

Yes there is a god in fact there are many of them and they are still pissed at the Romans.

[immaterial]

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Nietzsche

Discuss.....

[HAL9000]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> I've yet to see any convincing evidence

> that morality has anything to do with it.

"Morality" is a bit of an over-simplification.

I?m relying on the work of Edward Gibbon and, for example, J.W.C. Wand. The argument is based on the incompatibility between the early interpretation of Christianity and the established Roman social order. The early Christians boycotted Roman law, taxation, civil and military service, slavery, trade, industry, agriculture, medicine, and family relationships, to name but a few points of contention.

Converts abandoned their families and professions, gave away their wealth and property and wondered the countryside as mendicant evangelists. They made no provisions for the future in the forlorn expectation of an imminent Second Coming.

It is doubtful whether any modern society would survive under such circumstances, let alone one struggling against the multitude of other problems faced by the Roman Empire.

Of course, history is written by the victor - in this case Christianity.

[Huguenot]

Oh HAL9000, I think you're overplaying that one.

You're implying that the Roman empire died because they all stopped farming and wandered about until they died.

I don't think latter Emperors considered Christianity as anything more than a convenient man-management tool - a concept that survives until this day.

[HAL9000]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Oh HAL9000, I think you're overplaying that one.

I made a point of citing my authorities. Wand is a former Bishop of London and Gibbon needs no introduction from me - they are both eminent and impecable historians.

> You're implying that the Roman empire died because

> they all stopped farming and wandered about until they died.

We are talking about a religious heritage whose adherents sacrificed their firstborn children by burning them alive. We are told that the earliest Christian converts chose to become lion fodder rather than cooperate with the Roman authorities. They were fanatical fundamentalist, in today's terminology.

Why is it so difficult to accept that Roman converts would became mendicant preachers, or attempt to heal lepers by laying on of hands, or stop bathing, or eat without washing their hands, or castrate themselves, or handle venomous snakes, or drink poisons or consume Amanita muscaria? Isolated Christian congregations are still practicing many of those rituials today.

> I don't think latter Emperors considered

> Christianity as anything more than a convenient

> man-management tool - a concept that survives

> until this day.

I'm not sure that Christian history is entirely reliable regarding what happened in the early days.

No modern church publicises the bizarre interpretations of early Christianity. How many Christians know that early doctrine included reincarnation until around 600 AD? Or that Jesus had an identical twin brother? Or that Thomas was the other twin? Or that Jesus and Barabbas were both known as "Son of the Father" - the literal translation of "Son of God" in Aramaic? How many Catholics know that their Church was born out of a schism just 1,000 years ago or that the lingua franca of 1st century Rome was (koine) Greek rather than Latin? Not many, I'd wager.

[Huguenot]

I don't take task with your characterisation of early Christian fundamentalists, I do take task with the assertion that they were active in such numbers, and represented such a vaste swathe of the working population that they single handedly brought the empire to its knees.

Supported by Bury, Potter, Millar and Drake, and masked by the heretic Gibbon ;-) who, whilst systematic, was far from impeccable.

[Huguenot]

A binding force perhaps:

"Theological heresies were indeed to prove a disintegrating force in the East in the seventh century, when differences in doctrine which had alienated the Christians in Egypt and Syria from the government of Constantinople facilitated the conquests of the Saracens.

But after the defeat of Arianism, there was no such vital or deep-reaching division in the West, and the effect of Christianity was to unite, not to sever, to check, rather than to emphasise, national or sectional feeling. In the political calculations of Constantine it was probably this ideal of unity, as a counterpoise to the centrifugal tendencies which had been clearly revealed in the third century, that was the great recommendation of the religion which he raised to power."

(Bury)

[mockney piers]

Indeed much of gibbon's epic history has been found wanting, I wouldn't be citing him as a reliable source. Recent archeaological evidence has shown how many of the small to medium size towns across the empire were thriving in the post Constantine era, hardly signs of a social fabric undone by an immienet eschatological apocalypse.

As usual a few vocal nutters do not a social history make, just entertaining reading, especially when half of them end up saints in the pantheon of the only people who could write for the best part of 800 years.

[Huguenot]

:))

[Brendan]

So is there a god or not? I don?t care what the answer is I just need to make sense of the world inside my own little head and then share my opinion as an unadulterated truth with all and sundry.

[louisiana]

More fundamentally, what is a god?

[Huguenot]

Well quite, although it seems that the OP has responded himself within the thread with specific reference to a God probably identified within the Council of Nicea 325.

It's a sort of Catholic/Protestant cross-over interpretation as the OP obviously sees God as an independent entity, but also within the eyes of a baby.

[Brendan]

What is a god and can they explain what is is?

[HAL9000]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> I wouldn't be citing him as a reliable source.

Gibbon's reliability regarding factual matters remains unchallenged. Bury, Potter, Millar and Drake cite him as their primary principal source. The fact that many Christian apologists have disputed conclusions that challenge official Church History should come as no surprise.

More about that here: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Christianity unleashed no less than three religio-terrorist paradigms on the unsuspecting Romans: those of the Nazorites, the Sicari and the Zealots. Not to mention the concept of Martyrdom (i.e. fanatics willing to carry out suicide missions - in today's terminology).

A handful of Judaeo-religious fanatics have caused mayhem in our modern world yet Mockney and Huguenot cannot imagine the effect that hundreds of thousands of them could have had on the Roman world?

I'm not claiming to be right - I'm merely investigating alternatives to the official Church History based on rational extrapolation. The whole point of this thread is to see through the religious smoke screen in order to perceive an underlying reality. You two claim to be rationalists yet appear predisposed to resist that notion. Go figure.

Free your minds ? there is no spoon! :)

[mockney piers]

The poit rather being that they haven't actaully caused mayhem at all ahve they. Really, a couple of buildings a few high profile bombs over the past few years. Nothing has changed has it. Commerce continues unabated, peoples day to day lives would be utterly unaltered if it wasn't for the news, and you're saying that a media war like that could have existential consequences for a thousand year old empire 1500 years before the inventionnof the printing press.

I don't require a spoon I require common sense. If it looks like massive barbarian incursions with preferable settlement termsover three hundred years and it quacks like them then it's probably a duck.

[Curly]

Of course there are Gods. David Beckham is one. He is worshipped and followed. :)) The question should be: Is there an Almighty God?

As regards the afterlife. Most people can't accept that when you're dead you're dead so they invent places to go afterwards, and with so many different places to go they can't all be right. Even atheists I know have told their children that their deceased grandmother/grandad have gone to heaven. As for me, I plan to never die at all so I won't find out.

[HAL9000]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> The poit rather being that they haven't actaully

> caused mayhem at all ahve they.

They have had an enormous impact on Western society - it's a matter of record, silly even to argue the point.

> Really, a couple of buildings a few high profile bombs over the

> past few years. Nothing has changed has it.

What? We have been drawn into two wars - with others on the horizon! Hundreds of thousands have died. What planet are you on?

> Commerce continues unabated, peoples day to day

> lives would be utterly unaltered if it wasn't for

> the news

Perhaps you think that the origin of the recent financial crisis, which has affected almost everyone, and will continue to do so for many years to come, was not rooted in the massive interest rate cuts following 911, imposed to prevent a global financial collapse then and there?

, and you're saying that a media war like

> that could have existential consequences for a

> thousand year old empire 1500 years before the

> inventionnof the printing press.

It's interesting that you raise that point. The innovation that brought Christianity to the Roman Empire was the papyrus codex, the first recorded use of mass media. Despite their frailty, some 8,000 examples have survived into modern times, giving some indication of their original numbers.

> I don't require a spoon I require common sense. If

> it looks like massive barbarian incursions with

> preferable settlement termsover three hundred

> years and it quacks like them then it's probably a

> duck.

Again, a revealing reference: how can one be sure what came first, the Christian egg or the barbarian duck? The only records we have are those filtered by Christian self-interest - the last group that would blame itself for the collapse of its own Empire.

Common sense? It seems to me that you have a great deal of faith in the official history.

[mockney piers]

Seriously. Tenuous connections in all your points. Financial crisis had Bern a long time in the offing, I commented on many of the problems regards risk while I worked in banking pre 9/11. The credit boom is down to deregulation of the banking industry in the anglosaxon world and a dependence on spending and house price rises to fuel growth. It has little or nothing to do with 9/11.

Iraq, 9/11 helped them get it through but to call it a consequence of judaeo-religiosity is laughable. Read the PNAC documents, their goals are predefined, well expressed and predate the idea of Islam as a convenient enemy.

As for your egg question. None of these barbarians were Christians. They are unrelated topics. Some may have become converted within the empire's territory once they adopted more of Romes ways but their faith has no bearing on their tax exemptions or control of income, or

in the case of the vandals an Huns, their sacking of Rome (spiritual capital, though seat of power was Milan).

If you reframe your place in this debate I'm going to agree on many points regards the influence

of christianity and Islam in politics,

But you're flogging a dead horse, stop it.

[mockney piers]

Teasing apart coincidence and causality, rhetoric from reality, these are the basic tools of the historian.

[macroban]

I'm still struggling with HAL9000's reference to Godel and hence Anselm.

Meanwhile I would like to distinguish two types:

[1] Those who believe in a "god" and search for evidence to support their belief.

[2] Those who rake over information to see if anything points towards the existence of a "god".

[HAL9000]

Teasing aside, allow me to spell out this speculative argument clearly to avoid any confusion:

The Old Testament is a human invention designed to deceive its readers.

Josephus and Philo are cut from the same cloth: both are intent on deceiving their audience.

The New Testament and its associated non-canonical works are also works of fiction.

Hundreds of early Christian documents are known or suspected forgeries: one example

If the OT is false then the Talmud and the Koran are also false.

The common factor between them is that they are all mythologies presented as history.

Without them we would know virtually nothing about pre-rabbinical Judaism or early Christianity and Islam.

Yet, if they are all forgeries, then we really don't know anything about the real history of those religions because there are no independent sources.

Given that virtually all of our knowledge is based on forgeries, by what logic can one accept anything passed on by the Church at face value? Logic dictates that one cannot accept anything without question.

That is why I challenge the validity of some poster's opinions where they are based on Official Church History. The Official History is just as likely to be yet another self-serving mythology presented as history. There is no way of knowing ? apart from blind faith. QED

[Curly]

HAL9000 Wrote:

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>> The Old Testament is a human invention designed to

> deceive its readers.

> > The New Testament and its associated non-canonical

> works are also works of fiction.

>

and written by people who could see two thousand years into the future and could fortell that mankind cannot rule themselves.