What is truth? tell me how do you derive at truth? is truth like morals from a moral law giver something to be accepted by us humans? Pontius Pilate asked Jesus what is truth Do you have any input here?
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@Devout Christian: "tell me how do you derive at truth?"
I use empirical observations plus logic. How about you? f you're talking about morality, I rely on my own conscience, refined by my experience in my family and society.
As far as people are concerned, I believe them until they give me reason to doubt.
In all my life I've seen no empirical, logical, or moral evidence to support the existence of any god(s). I've had religious experiences, but those I'd attribute to fatigue, dreams, chemicals (mainly alcohol) and mistaken perceptions.
and how do you derive from a persons or group of persons making a statement that you doubt? On what basics are you doubting? Where`s your point of reference here? And how do you know that your conclusion is correct? How do you know that your perception is correct and not in error?
what is logic where does it derive from You say discussing morality that you rely on your own conscience refined by family and societal experience. Isn`t that all relative. isn`t that total subjective? You derive at making a decision by bias and not objective truth.
@Devout Christian: "Isn`t that all relative."
Doubt and relativity are part of the human condition. We can improve our morality and knowledge through discussion, cooperation, example, and education. But we can't change the human condition by dreaming up gods.
I've encountered people from many religions, including various flavors of Christianity. That experience tells me that religion is by far the most relative and biased approach to morality and truth.
well if the gospel of John is accurate according to jesus words found in chapter 18 verse 36 and especially verse 37; He alone is and was the truth you can`t use any other standard like discussion cooperation example and education; Truth doesn`t change according to time and culture, No there is one truth that humanity should go by and that is conveyed by Jesus. I f the Christians you meet in your corner of the world cite the scriptures only then it is not biased or relative but the are quoting an objective source from without it has nothing to do with how they feel or think.
The bible is certainly not an objective source for morality. You know what they say: even the devil can quote scripture to fit his needs.
A more interesting angle is that it certainly could have been objective. If we believe the mythology, we might wonder: why did the supreme ruler of the universe fail to produce an objective text?
If you don't believe the mythology (like myself); then the answer is simple. How could you get anything but contradictions when you take a collection of books written by dozens of different authors over hundreds of years and then compile them into a single volume?
I`m using as my guide post the Gospels especially J ohn, I only go by what Jesus says regarding truth and chapter 18 of john verse 37 he in great detail explains why he is the truth and his reasoning for coming into the world. And are you insinuating that the biblical authors were demons. what a blasphemy to say such a thing, The supreme ruler I will call god, did not give us a wrong view here; He sent the truth into the world to according to there free will accept or reject.
You know I'm an atheist. You know I don't believe in demons. What kind of drugs are you on that make you that clueless?
@Devout Christian: "well if the gospel of John is accurate"
Well that's a big 'if'. One question. Was John a fly on the wall during Pilate's conversation with Jesus? In John 18 33 we're told that Pilate went back into his house and had Jesus brought in. How could John have known verbatim the conversation between them? Do you think it's possible that the John character made it up years later?
the centrality of the message is there and clear I`m not saying every word was accurate but the central part of the verse 37 is. I believe the message is easy enough for a child to understand why do adults who should no better can`t see it.
@Devout Christian: "I believe the message is easy enough for a child to understand"
Why don't you explain it then. In that text, we have one man saying he represents the truth, and another asking him what he means. Jesus also says his kingdom is not of this world. I could say that. My kingdom is on Mars. It's all mine and you're not allowed to go there.
"I`m not saying every word was accurate"
You got that right.
Yeah John 18:36-37 is bollocks DC. The Bible isn't a great place for moral guidance. For example, do you believe that stoning disobedient children to death is morally just, or stoning rape victims or focing them to marry their rapist, or ownership of another human are morally just? These were perfectly acceptable when the Bible was written but are, quite rightly, not acceptable today. So the idea morals come from God and don't change over time is false.
I use doubt as a guide. Truth is not my main concern. Convincing me enough to say some thing is possibly true is never a stone carving. You might convince me otherwise tomorrow. I would be a difficult juror for a DA bent on a conviction. I require a lot of evidence.
And what measuring rod do you use to come to such conclusions? Where is your starting point and how did you get from square 1 to square 2>
Why do I need a measuring rod? I do not want to hurt anyone, why should I require a ruler?
T he bible is how I live my life chimp; I don`t cause anyone any harm in fact I look at humanity as my cousins who need correcting at times. I USE a standard called biblical hermeneutics to live out my life. I love the sinner but hate the particular sin that he or she is caught up in; Things like adultery murder rape taking some ones savings as real estate and car salesman do and a whole laundry list of evil that is being perpetrated on people, Something is definitely going on here and it is called sin.
devout christian,
According to the Bible Christians are not supposed to love or associate with sinners who call themselves believers. Bad habits corrupt good company.
@Devout Christian: "And what measuring rod do you use to come to such conclusions?"
What do you use? A dipstick?
Your problem again DC is you are dealing in absolutes. You seem to be trying to bolster your own beliefs under the pretext of open discussion.
I suspect you will try and bring in a passage from your holy book at some time
" Here’s a simple definition drawn from what the Bible teaches: Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. Even more to the point: Truth is the self-expression of God. That is the biblical meaning of truth. Because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological.
Truth is also ontological—which is a fancy way of saying it is the way things really are. Reality is what it is because God declared it so and made it so. Therefore God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth."
https://www.gty.org/library/articles/A379/what-is-truth
The simple reality is , in a room full of free thinkers, the definition of truth is unlikely to be found in your book, rather the definition of truth supplied by Oxford: 1: The quality or state of being true. 1.1 (also the truth) That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality. 1.2 A fact or belief that is accepted as true. These are much more likely to be accepted as common usage. Words do NOT have intrinsic meaning they have usage.
So, if we look at your initial question and subsequent replies we see that you are trying to obtain confirmation of definition 1.2, where that you and some people accept something as truth because it is truthful to you and your fellows. You then extrapolate this to everyone else and attempt to leap to the first usage (top level) without the burden of proof required by 1.1. For a thing to be truthful to this audience you will have to have 1.1 and 1.
Even then, I would think that a preponderance of provable evidence is required by any thinking person 1.2 is evidence of opinion not of fact. The passage you have read and that I quoted above makes a statement that you and others accept as true. This does not make it so. It is merely a claim and fails the evidence test implicit in 1.1. That you use the word "truth" to describe unproven claims shows your need to re question your beliefs and really read that book of yours. Faith alone is not a reliable indicator of truth.
Jesus said so I believe it and live my life by it. John is a reliable gospel written before the 1st century ended so I take at face value what he reports. You have to remember these were eyewitnesses to the majesty of jesus life. I have head knowledge not only faith and I can extrapolate from the scriptures what the given text means' I know my hermeneutics and I can exegesis well enough by now after all I`m not new at this I been a Christian for a good 55 years.
All the gospels were written down from oral sources not less than 35 years after jesus supposed death. The gospels are not eyewitness accounts but were rewritten, editied, added to and, finally, 300 years later some, and only some of the 109 extant books were accepted by a panel of state funded bishops. (see Book of Thomas, Book of Mary, Repentance of Judas)
Further evidence is available that every single testimony by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were rescribed by later Greek scholars, in the third person, in the very late first or second centuries. This is not my opinion, I am sure at your age you can google "origin of the gospels" and find the exact references I do not have the time to supply.
Note, I am not making baseless claims on my "experience", not making claims by "faith" but hard analysis of evidence presented. You should maybe try it DC, rational discourse on evidence presented, it might be a novel experience.
@Devout Christian: "I been a Christian for a good 55 years"
I've been an atheist for about the same time. One of us needs to wake up and smell the reality.
devout christian,
Really? Do you actually believe that some guy in First Century Judea actually sat down and wrote a rather long story about a Yeshua guy while the area was in turmoil all around him and the Romans were destroying Jerusalem and carting tens of thousands of Jews off to Rome to build the Colosseum? And then, after finishing his story he was able to pass it around to other scribes so that they could duplicate it? Really?
the central message is there and clear; jesus said he was the truth and the way and the light when we get closer and closer to Christ we see all our imperfections in life. My guide post is the written word written before the first century ended. MY faith is in Christ alone. Saint Paul lost his life for Christ and so did Saint Steven the first martyr; The Christians called the way before Paul named them in Antioch were persecuted and many lost there lives the scriptures were circulated throughout the early church just refer to the book of Acts. I don`t have to Google anything I know my Christian history
Dear DC,
John was written by a scribe, in Greek over 50 years after the events. The scribe wrote down fragments of recollections from oral sources. Here is a passage from biblical archeology that might remove that beam from your eye:
"We may never know for certain who wrote the Gospel of John, any more than we can know who wrote the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. We do know that John is a gospel apart, however. Early Matthew, Mark and Luke are so alike in their telling that they are called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning “seen together”—the parallels are clear when they are looked at side by side. Matthew and Luke follow the version of events in Mark, which is thought by scholars to be the earliest and most historically accurate Gospel. John, however, does not include the same incidents or chronology found in the other three Gospels, and the fact that it is so different has spurred a debate over whether John’s Gospel is historical or not, something that has been noted in Gospel of John commentary for hundreds—even thousands—of years."
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/
You, on the other hand, without a skerrick of evidence maintain that this "John" was an historical person, that the account is his own and contemporary to unprovable events. Therefore you are making a claim. A claim that demands evidence outside the text. So far you have only offered a) your longstanding belief b) More unrelated claims. So a bit of evidence from you to back up these assertions about historical fact would be gratefully received.
By the way,since you mention him, your precious Paul/Saul was a jolly fine chap, didn't he manage to fall out with everybody who actually knew this supposed messiah figure (according to the gospels) even poor old Matthias (the biblical one liner) who ended up in Nubia with Timothy?
Assertion is not evidence. Your faith is not in question, your claims are. Unfortunately if I asked you to confine yourself to provable facts , there would not be much to talk about would there?
And why Should the gospel of John follow the same pattern as the synoptic Gospels did. John is coming from a completely different perspective here. That is why the gospel given to new converts is always Johns gospel. we have manuscript called p52 the Rylunds manuscript in the Manchester England library of jesus trial. Even though it is late I still accept is like the church fathers did back in the 4th century. They comprised the books as authority and closed the Canon. only books from the apostles and men who new the apostles was allowed, nothing else. Polycarp mentions john that's how he was aware of his writings. And the church fathers early on like clement athanasius Polycarp etc. all cite johns work. I t may have been comprised late in the 1st century but it was received as truth.
Who wrote the gospels?
Once again you make claims with no evidence to support them.
Forgive me I guess you misprinted "Rylunds" and meant Ryland fragment which is a tiny fragment of papyri. Here: some real scholarship: "Although Rylands is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among scholars. The original editor proposed a date range of 90-150 CE,] while a recent exercise by Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse, aiming to generate consistent revised date estimates for all New Testament papyri written before the mid-fourth century, has proposed a date for of 125-175 CE. But a few scholars say that considering the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows the possibility of dates outside these range estimates, such that "any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries."
It is on display at the John Rylands University Library Manchester, UK. (I dont understand the jesus trial bit in your post). Just because a couple of 4th Century priests accepted it as a genuine transcript does not make it a fact. After all at the time there was a brisk sale in Christs toenails, foreskin, bits of the cross, the virgins veil etc. All supposedly true relics. All verified by senior priests and other ecclesiastics.
My point is however you have made large claims and once again been either wrong in fact, or failed utterly to produce any evidence that your claims are verifiable. Do you not understand verifiable? Whether someone in the 4th century (that is 500 years after the events!) and without evidence accept the fragment as a genuine copy of an earlier document , or you 2000 years after the events and no scholarship worthy of the name accept the claims of a 4th century priest is immaterial. Produce some verifiable evidence.
Polycarps one letter to the Phillipippians was composed mid 2nd century. It does quote passages that appear to come from John 1 viz: For "whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is antichrist", and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross "is of the devil" and John 3 viz: "fellow companions in the truth". All this demonstrates is that the gospel of John had circulated, as had all the testaments that Polycarp quoted. He quoted much more from the other gospels than John, what does that prove? Anything? Nothing? Polycarp was in the mid 2nd century when he wrote this admonishment to the Philippians at least one hundred years after the events described in the gospels. He is quoting from the Greek document we have already established probably wasn't written until at least 50 - 75 years after the events.
We are back to: you claim eyewitness testimony for a series of events. As yet you have not returned a skerrick of verifiable evidence for the a) identity of John b) The actual authorship of the gospel John 1 c) Independent corroborating accounts of the events.
Your claims must fail.
Also your claim to truth.
@Devout
If you use the bible as your guide for truth then you don't know the truth at all.
You can't prove any of the bible to be true.
Morality isn't objective in the first place. I don't know how many times this has to be proven before it gets through that thick confused head of yours.
I have no idea why you persist in trying to convince people that have known christianity far better than you that christianity is "truth". It isn't, and we all know it.
Jesus Christ as conveyed in the bible is the truth for me and over 2 billion fellow Christians. And don`t tell me that your subjective reasoning is acceptable to true Christians who practice basic Christianity. There is an objective law giver and that is God .Prove to me that God doesn`t exist!!!!!,Christ morality is objective!!! the only way to live is to live Christian. love god with all your heart with all your mind and with all your strength. And most of all love your neighbor as you love yourself. You know in an earlier post you stated that you have to fight for everything in this life, Well let me correct you my dear atheist jesus said to love your neighbor not fight it is better to be humble in the eyes of GOD then to be a fighter in the eyes of men.
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