'Tolerance' on American Universities???

POSTED BY: cartoon
UPDATED: Thursday, November 30, 2006 23:02
VIEWED: 13388
PAGE 8 of 10

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Like, maybe that that person is an individualist? Most professors that have any expertise in their field have heterodox opinions. You seem to have a pretty Soviet notion of what should be taught in college

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universities teach evolution, but its not science, its a cleverly disquised gnostic myth with satanic origins. its a theory that even Darwin admitted was flawed and in many ways baseless; and nothings changed. 'long long ago and far away, all the matter in existence exploded from a particle.. that came from nowhere.. and we, well.. we come from a rock that finally chose to come alive'.. thats a theory, and unless im shown the physical evidence that i came from a rock that came from nowhere, then evolution is nothing more than a government* funded religion

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You do know that the founding fathers of this country were non-Christian Deists, yes? They weren't athiests, but they did not worship Jesus. Did you know Jefferson wrote his own gospel, in which he excised all references to Christ's divinity?

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but they werent athiests. if the greatest influence among the founders came from Masonic concepts and idealogies, then masonry deserves to be scrutinized; which it has, and has been exposed to be entirely religious (Luciferian specifically) and represent a shared but paradoxical paradigm with christianity. this is the real significance of the all seeing eye of Osiris, since it is contained within a capstone that represents Lucifer- the god of this age. Jesus says in the bible that he is the capstone "that the builders rejected", not the god of this world. but regardless the intent of the founders or what they believed, America appears to be fullfilling its destiny set forth by these secret societies to become a new atlantis, the "novus ordo seclorum" or "a new order of the ages", which is to use America to establish the kindgom of antichrist

and regarding Islam, they do not believe Jesus is God.. so which God are they worshipping(this is the same for the Jews)? Allah, if he is the Creator, had to have manifested as JEsus; the NT makes that abundantly clear, so anything added or taken away from this concept is heretical and becomes occultic and antichristian

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this is interesting... if the bible isnt to be taken as a moral compass, presumably because you disagree with it... then what determines your moral compass? what is this universal standard that youve tapped into? if their truly is no God, and we are just a variation of animal, than what is morality and what makes it emperical?

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This is where we dust off our humanity, make choices, and take the responsibility for it instead of dumping it off on some mythical creation that excuses all of our stupidity and worst impulses.

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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Yes, but we don't need to trace textual history backwards if we're making our current translations from the oldest copies still in existence, right? Or am I missing something? (I'm not asking sarcastically, but genuinely, in the event that I've misread what you're saying. I've already misread one poster on this subject, so I'm already over my quota for allowable blunders per thread.)

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No, but my point is that there are OTHER texts just as old with contradictory statements. Out of the multiple threads of documentation that head off in all kinds of directions, some of which contradict others, if you restrict your study to a single line that talks about the divinity of Jesus it will perforce be internally consistent.

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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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where is the evidence that refutes the biblical accounts ... ive heard that Jesus' was permanantly killed, never killed, never performed miracles, or never even existed; but the burden of proof is on the skeptics to provide an alternative version of history that can adjust all the variables that Jesus' presence created. considering, again, that we werent there... isnt that something we in the 21st century ought to be a little more reserved speculating about, if all of this documentation is incredulous to begin with?

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But the documentation around Mohammed is MUCH more complete than around Jesus. And people gave their lives for Mohammed too... still are giving their lives. With the conflicting claims flaoting around as to the "real" Messiah ("Will the real Messiah please stand up?") it seems to me that the burden of prrof lies with the person making the claim.

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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Holy crap! I'm gonna try to address the grim misunderstanding between us evident in your latest post, kpo, but I'm not very optamistic at this point that you'll pay attention to what I'm actually saying and find a way to curb your tendency to read into everything I've said to suit your prejudices. I don't know you and you don't know me. But I know what you've written and I try to limit my discussion to the actual substance of your posts.

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Originally posted by kpo:
Wow. I’ll be honest, and admit that you’ve caught me by surprise with this move HK. After vehemently backing up the claim that Jesus was a homosexual, I never saw it coming that you would then argue the case that Jesus never existed. Perhaps you believe both points are true?

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What? I didn't "vehemently" back up the claim that Jesus was a homosexual, I simply asserted that there is respectable scholarship to back it up. Respectable scholarship doesn't mean conclusive proof. And just because I find the scholarship respectable doesn't mean I agree with it. There's also respectable scholarship suggesting that Jesus was married and that He survived the Crucifixion. Doesn't mean He did. I was defending the scholarship as sincere in the face of accusations that for one to assert that Jesus was homosexual was patently defamatory. I simply meant to say that there's a case to be made; that the position is sincere and not defamatory.

And I'm not arguing that Jesus did not exist, either, only that you cannot determine that He existed from the historical record. Our certainty about the past is limited. That's all. Saying that Jesus existed and saying that there's rock solid historical proof to back it up are two different things.

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No, *sigh*, I don’t think you agree with either one - you’re just being contrary. That, and picking a fight on a subject where you are very learned, but one which I’m not really interested in debating, I’m afraid.

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I'm talking about the limits of evidentiary proof. Cartoon asserts that he has documented proof of Jesus' existence. I've studied that evidence and I didn't find it at all conclusive. Can it then be concluded that Jesus never existed? Not really. Only that proof of His life and His miracles have yet to be found.

And just so you get an idea of who I really am, I began my study of first century Christianity as the result of a series of dreams/memories I was having of the Crucifixion. Yeah. I have normal dreams like everyone else, but sometimes I've had dreams that come true; I've had vivid dreams of meeting people and then met them. Once I even had a dream about what kind of shoe I was going to buy (there's a lot of information on this board about my experiences, just look through the archives of the RWED for topics with the word "psychic" in them). So I began my study with the intention of finding evidence of an event for which I had no scientific proof (but no less compelling for that). I can't say that I was much surprised to find no conclusive evidence, but it made me sad.

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History is to some an extent an exact science, in that some things happened and some things didn’t (interpretation of historical events and their causes etc is another matter).

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An exact science? Are you kidding me? Of course, certain things happened in the past and certain things did not, I don't dispute that. I don't believe that reality is nothing but oppinion. But History is often a lot like puting together a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle with 750 pieces missing. Sometimes the same piece looks like it would fit in several different places. We don't know, so we make a case. There are limits to scientific knowledge and there are all kinds of things about which history cannot give us certainty. And in history as in science, you don't get nearer to the truth without questioning.

Ancient historical texts are full of fanciful additions and mythological events treated as fact. People back then didn't have our modern obsession with veritical reality. To pretend th

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Here is a news story that is relavent to this issue. It looks like a good example of the unfair treatment that religious people sometimes face on campus.

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Originally posted on the FIRE website:
Mystery Shrouds Brown’s Suspension of Religious Student Organization

Today’s press release explains how Brown University suspended one of its largest and most active religious student organizations for reasons that remain unclear. The Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life (OCRL) suspended the evangelical Christian ministry of Trinity Presbyterian Church on September 13, 2006.

OCRL Director Janet Cooper Nelson explained that she suspended the group because its local sponsoring body, Trinity Presbyterian Church, had revoked its sponsorship. But Trinity’s senior pastor, David Sherwood, corrected Cooper Nelson in an e-mail by saying that “Trinity Presbyterian Church has not, in any sense, withdrawn its sponsorship.” Trinity is one of the 1,500 congregations of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which has a strong history of ministering to college students, and, as Rev. Sherwood explains to FIRE, greatly values its association with the Brown students.

The OCRL’s Allen Callahan then explained that the group had actually been suspended since last year, when its former leader failed to submit paperwork on time. Except the group didn’t know about any suspension last year, and was able to reserve rooms for meeting throughout the year. Unless there was some secret suspension in place, Callahan’s claim seems to be false.

Since the first two explanations for the suspension don’t hold water, the suspension rests on Callahan’s claim that the group has “become possessed of a leadership culture of contempt and dishonesty.” But what does that even mean? The students were also confounded by Callahan’s accusations, and sent his office a letter asking for clarification about its “culture of contempt and dishonesty,” but received no response.

So, in short, the OCRL suspended a group, pointed to two explanations that are at best mistakes (and at worst deliberate misrepresentations), and then hurled vague and unverifiable accusations at the group. The documentation shows nothing but a good-faith effort by the students to get the suspension lifted. But all one has to do is read Callahan’s e-mail carefully to see that it has been the OCRL that has acted arbitrarily and, dare I say, dishonestly, suspending the group based on what seems to be personal animosity dating back to past years.

Student groups—religious or otherwise—should not exist at the mercy of administrative caprice, especially at America’s most venerable institutions. Brown University encourages its students to forge their own path, famously telling them that at Brown, “you will be challenged to define liberal education for yourself.” But students whose definition includes membership in this evangelical Christian fellowship are just out of luck.

In response to FIRE’s October 27 letter, Brown says it will look into the situation. That is little consolation for the 100 students who are not allowed to meet on campus. The message that Brown is sending its students is that their associative rights rest at the discretion of a few administrators; displease the wrong people, and you might find your group mysteriously suspended.

Posted by Tara Sweeney on November 16, 2006, at 01:51 p.m.

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Originally posted by evilmike:
Here is a news story that is relavent to this issue. It looks like a good example of the unfair treatment that religious people sometimes face on campus.

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This is the problem. Folks believe in Jesus. So when they find specious evidence of His historical existence, they say to themselves, "Ah, see, there it is! Proof!" Folks like that are looking for validation and find it.

So you find a case where a religious student organization is suspended and because you already believe religious students are persecuted on campus, you take this case as further evidence. It might be, but it's entirely likely that it is not. This article is really far too self-serving to FIRE and too full of holes. And yet it's posted as "an example" of Christian persecution on campus.

I worry that the whole of American discourse has been entirely made over in the image of partisan politics. Critical thinking has been replaced by mere team spirit. People endorse anyone who agrees with them in the broadest terms and trash everyone who disagrees with their "platform." Everything becomes a matter of winning and losing and numbers. I'm right because the people that I cite agree with me.



HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
No, but my point is that there are OTHER texts just as old with contradictory statements. Out of the multiple threads of documentation that head off in all kinds of directions, some of which contradict others, if you restrict your study to a single line that talks about the divinity of Jesus it will perforce be internally consistent.

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Hi. Thanks for clarifying.

Okay, but I have to wholeheartedly disagree with your statement about "other texts just as old with contradictory statements" -- unless, of course you're referring to the type of "variations" I was speaking about previously (tense, gender, different word with same meaning, miscopied phrase or sentence in a different location).

In an effort to give the best overview I can (using the least amount of words) regarding the earliest, surviving manuscripts of the New Testament, from which our English (and other language) translations are derived...

Firstly, the Received Text (Greek). This was compiled in the early 16th century from what (at the time) were relatively few, of the oldest Greek manuscripts known at that time. Over the years, many critics have claimed this text to be of late Byzantine origin. However, this is obviously a false allegation, as there are close to 90,000 scriptural citations from this text within early Christian documents -- more than 4,000 of which were quoted in the writings of the earliest of church fathers before 400 AD, well before the Byzantine era.

The Papyrus Bodmer II or P66 (dated from between 125 & 200 A.D. -- initial dating had it closer to 200 A.D., but more recent dating pushes it back towards the first quarter of the second century) is a Greek manuscript consisting of (portions of) the book of John. It is the oldest (or one of the oldest) suriving Greek texts from the New Testament -- and it is in agreement with the Received Text.

Incidentally, this is yet another thorn in the side Bible critics, who, for years, have been insisting that many of the disputed passages in John were attributed to the work of late Byzantine copyists. However, as this papyrus pre-dates the Byzantine era, and these passages appear in this papyrus (which agrees with the Textus Receptus), that criticism has been pretty much been shot down in flames.)

The Old Syrian Text (called the "Peshitta") (which is in Aramaic) first dates from c. 150 AD. It is assumed that this text was translated from the Greek Received Text, as it is in agreement it.

The Old Latin Text (the "Old" Latin Vulgate -- not Jerome's, the other one -- three centuries prior to Jerome's) first dates from 157 AD, and was also likely translated from the Greek Received Text, as it is also in agreement with it -- as evidenced by a number of quotations from it (The Old Latin text) by the early church fathers.

The Gothic Text, first dates from c. 350 AD, and is similarly assumed to have been translated from the Greek Received Text, as it is also in agreement with it.

The Latin Vulgate was translated by Jerome in the 5th century.

The Majority (or Byzantine-type) Text is obviously of later, Byzantine origin. Although, the majority of New Testament texts fall into this category, there are no citations from it from the early church fathers (that would be difficult, as it didn't exist at the time).

To quote from Wikipedia...

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Among those who believe that the Byzantine text is only a secondary witness to the autograph, there is some debate concerning the origin of the Byzantine text and the reason for its widespread use. The suggestions that have been put forward are:

1) That Lucian of Antioch used his text critical skills to produce a recension. (Jerome makes separate references to Lucian's recensions of both old and new testaments).

2) That Constantine paid for the wide distribution of manuscripts which came from a common source. (There are several references in Eusebius of Caesarea to Constantine paying for manuscript productio

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