Comment from Amit
MIKE:Well, you looked up the sanadtrd apologetic. However, it doesn't quite work. Over and over in fact, the New Testament paralleled - and often directly quoted - the Old Testament. In part to try to gain legitimacy for its otherwise too-new, Platonistic ideas. However? When Jesus quoted the Old Testament, it was not just attempting to gain legitimacy; and Jesus here specifically, was not JUST proving his tie to David (and not Job?) by quoting him. Normally, when OT phrases are quoted in the NT, it is because the particulars of the old event, match in SEVERAL respects the new situation. Of in this case, Jesus on the cross.Here in fact, 1) if Jesus invokes this PARTICULAR quote from David, it was to link not just to David or the OT .. but 2) to link his own sense of abandonment by God, to earlier texts.Which indeed was relevant for apologetics reasons. most Jewish ideas of God returning to earth, do not have him being killed. Nor even his hero son. So that Jesus - rightly - might feel that he has indeed been abandoned by God. Rather more exactly in parallel with David, than you think.Indeed there is every indication that Jesus did not really know or think he was God, or even Christ. How could he have been a real human being in part,knowing that he was God? Wouldn't that interrupt his human side? Clearly he didn't really know his mission, or status.Jesus was far more human - and fallible - than dogmatists like yourself have claimed.Mike? By your own account, you began your college education in South Carolina; the state that is 49th in the US in high school graduation rates. The state that dragged the whole US into an immensely destructive Civil War, because it wanted to fight to the death, to hold on to Slavery; the enslavement of other human beings.That was not a good place to begin your education Mike. It is not the place to be from, if you really want to learn to think your way through complicated problems. Even a later Min.D. at Fuller, finds a Fuller that in this late date, is nothing like the critical powerhouse it was decades ago.It you want to learn to think clearly on religious problems, you're going to have to cut loose from some of the traditions behind you. Just quoting what you always heard in church in SC is no good. Especially not when the Bible itself began warning us of flaws, sins, even in the very earliest Christian churches for example. (Rev. 2-3).Jesus was invoking the Ps. 22 ... and its more complete content. As being approriate to his own sitation: not knowing if he was really from God, or not.And like Jesus himself, you Mike - and all of us - should wonder, and think. Before presuming to harrange and prosletize others."NOt many should become teachers," James warned; against the Great Commission.Who commissioned you Mike? Are you SURE it was really God? Or a "false spirit" posing as God, the "angel of light"?Many, many people present themselves as the voicepieces of God; all our ministers it seems. And yet? The Bible warned over and over of massive sins in essentially "all" our holiest men and angels.Who is so vain among us, as to imagine that he or she is good enough, to escape the foretold sins and errors of holy men?Only our preachers. Who pretend to have modesty. But who deeper down experience the massive vanity, of presuming to speak for God, day after day. Rather than merely preaching, it would be better to be truly humble and circumspect, Mike. Listen carefully to others, before you speak. And try to address their comments, in part on their own terms.
to top ^Comment from Shashank
Will PZ and Richard Carrier be giving prtsentaeions this year? They've done so at all of the previous Skepticons. I really enjoy Carrier's prtsentaeions. I always learn so many new things when he talks, I appreciate that he peppers his talks with humor, and I like to hear the odd cuss word or 5 thrown in here or there to put an exclamation point on some of his sentences. Plus, he's a great historian. And it seems likely that he might get into the mythicist view of Jesus (I'm really looking forward to that!)I don't know if this is the proper forum in which to do this, but I think Ophelia Benson would make for an excellent speaker. She an extremely intelligent and well-spoken gnu atheist who writes her own blog, Butterflies & Wheels, where she takes on numerous false claims and tears them apart. She's well-known in the skeptic/atheist community and has spoken at other major conferences.
to top ^Comment from Hemant
Admiring the dedication you put into your blog and deleitad information you provide. It's great to come across a blog every once in a while that isn't the same old rehashed information. Wonderful read! I've saved your site and I'm including your RSS feeds to my Google account.
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