Raf

Now we're at the point where there are more comments than I can possibly answer efficiently. So either I get long winded and address every point, thereby making myself look obsessed with this topic, or I just let some points go unaddressed, leaving the impression that I do not have a comeback. Fortunately I have enough of a record here that I can honestly ask: Do you really think I could not write a book-length reply to these points complete with footnotes and hyperlinks? And I think you all know the answer is, yeah, he could probably do that. But on a relaxed timetable. Hope you don't mind...

Not ignoring the posts. Just making sure I don't pounce on every line of every post I disagree with. Replying soon.

Maybe the Trinity WAS his basis for rejecting the New Testament. You don't have to read a holy book to reject it. I still haven't read the Quran. So "I reject this book as God-breathed because it conflicts with doctrines I accept as God-breathed" would still fit with my overarching thesis on this thread, for what it's worth.

Fine. Marilyn Monroe

Robert Redford, William Hurt, Angela Bassett

Fascinating. I wonder if he said anything about his basis for rejecting the resurrection or the New Testament. It sounds like you didn't go there. I definitely agree the Trinity is a stumbling block to many Jews. On topic: it raises so many tangents to this thread that I doubt we'd be able to keep up. I wonder what Jews make of Christians who don't accept the Trinity. Dovthey reject the New Testament because of what it teaches? Or because of what they THINK it teaches? [Never mind the tired question of "who's right about that, anyway?"]

Originally posted in the "God's accountant, etc." thread in response to a post that cited I Corinthians 2:14. We obviously don't look at I Cor. 2:14 the same way. I see it as Paul's way of inoculating his followers against the Reason virus. Usually, if someone disagrees with you, you respond by presenting additional evidence or reframing your argument. In one fell swoop, Paul makes that unnecessary by declaring his opponents incapable of grasping his concept because they lack what I [jokingly] call the Magic Decoder Ring. "How can he possibly understand the things of the spirit? He doesn't have what it takes?" "What's that? evidence?" "No, spiritual discernment!" "What's spiritual discernment?" "It's the God-given capacity to understand what I'm saying is true." "So it's a magic decoder ring that suddenly transforms your thesis from bulls hit to enlightenment." "Well when you put it like that it sounds silly and disrespectful. It's more like, when you humble yourself, God opens the eyes of your understanding." "Ah, so it's not a magic decoder ring at all." "Exactly." "It's gullibility." ... Note how in that conversation we go from "Paul's message doesn't make sense," which focuses on the message as the subject matter, to "It's a Yahweh thing; You wouldn't understand," which focuses on the rejector of the message as the subject. I Corinthians 2:14 is an ad hominem attack on anyone who hears or reads Paul's message and concludes it's a crock.

Pretty much. That's not to say it never applies. New birth. Morality. The difference between a fertilized egg and a baby. Science can't touch those topics [well, it can touch the last one, but not in a way relevant to this discussion]. NOMA has lots of applications. Until it doesn't. Considering that NOMA was developed to put an end to the debate over evolution v creation, it's an abject failure from the start. Those subjects are overlapping. [Reasonable minds disagree].

I don't recall saying "all" faith healing is a testable claim. In fact I thought I gave a clear example of how one claim offers a really limited ability to test. There have been plenty of tests on the healing power/effectiveness of prayer. Those tests demonstrate a result, but that's not the same as "proving" anything, if memory serves. Anyway, NOMA has its benefits and its limits. But I disagree with its central premise: you can't argue that science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria without ignoring gobs of religious claims that do indeed overlap.

Honestly, i just didn't want to argue anymore

Well, for one thing, when did I say anything that remotely equates to that?

This line is not accurate because the only thing that can be tested is the claim being made. "God exists" is not a testable claim. But if you claim God healed you of, say, the flu, I would be able to test whether you have the flu. If you have it, I could say with certainty that God did not heal you of the flu. Because you still have it. That does not prove God doesn't exist. It does not mean God never heals. It just means a particular claim is empirically false. I would never cite evidence to "disprove God." I would cite evidence to disprove a claim that is made in his name. But that's only when the claim is testable. "I've been born again" is not a testable claim. "Thomas put his hand in the side of the resurrected Christ" is a whole lot of untestable claims. I'd have nothing to say about it (except maybe that it was curious three gospel writers ignored this particular post-resurrection appearance, but that's not a scientific, empirical argument). But that last point. Wow. Just as false as it could be. Not sure where you got the idea that I was claiming it's "Benny Hinn" or "no God." All I said was that religion makes testable claims. Faith healing is a testable claim. But you don't see its adherents emptying hospitals. That doesn't prove all faith healing is false. But all faith healing is a testable claim, regardless of who makes it. For some reason, when I postited faith healing as a claim made by religion (which it undoubtedly is), the thought that popped into YOUR mind was not gnuine faith healers who genuinely exercise the power of God by healing people. You went straight to huckster charlatans. That's on you, not me. All I said was "You didn't see the CPR team getting out of the way of the faith healers." I don't recall that I have ever found it necessary to cite Benny Hinn or Creflo Dollar (winner of the ConManliest Name in Charlatan History award, better known as the Loy Medal). In any event, we were talking about non overlapping magisteria, which is one man's effort to short-circuit creation-evolution arguments, and my point is that religion makes MANY claims that cannot be defined as "non-overlapping." Any testable claim overlaps. The need for religion to undermine the reliability of empirical facts will never fade. If "facts" can be manipulated enough to sway toward confirmation bias, just imagine what can be done with "faith."

Close enough

This is not remotely true.

Ok, as long as we're agreed on that

It was historical. Would you agree that it was an oversimplified history that did not fully account for Pharisaic devotion to the Torah, or that the Talmud was developed by people who loved and cherished and revered the Torah? And that the Pharisees' interpretation of Torah was at odds with multiple sects, not just Jesus, and that they genuinely thought they were right? Or do you think they just wanted power and had no sincere faith in Yahweh?

Ok, so we have the Torah (the Bible) and the Babylonian Talmud/traditions of men (PFAL) and the Pharisees rejected Jesus because he rejected the Babylonian Talmud (PFAL) and thereby posed a threat to their power and influence. The Pharisees in this comparison are Mike, minus the Power and Influence, as he has none. I think Power and Influence is where my analogy falls apart, because we in this conversation do not really have any, so we're more of the laity than "Pharisees" or The Vatican. But I wouldn't presume that anyone in this group rejects PFAL as God-breathed merely because some higher-up is pressuring us to maintain power. I would contend, nonetheless, that 2,000 someodd years later, no Jews are worried about maintaining Pharasaic power and influence. If you ask them, they reject Jesus on scriptural grounds. They don't reject the New Testament because they reject Jesus. It's the other way around. But that's my contention and I have no qualms if you decline to embrace it.

Ok, let's go there. WHY did the Pharisees reject Jesus as Messiah?

Rocky, I'll engage in a conversation as long as there's a conversation in which to engage. "I dropped my stake in this argument a decade ago" is about the argument over whether the Bible is God-breathed and whether PFAL is God-breathed and what God-breathed even means. That's NOT what this discussion and dialog have been about. What we're discussing here is the parallel between the arguments and methods used to defend or reject PFAL as compared to those used to reject and defend the Bible. I contend those methods are precisely the same. That's THIS discussion, and I never claimed to be uninterested in the conversation. But you are correct: At some point the points are made and it's time to move on.

The problem with non-overlapping magisteria as a concept is that to adopt it, you have to ignore the fact that religion makes testable claims. The concept was popularized by biologist Stephen Jay Gould to neutralize debate between evolution v. creation. It was a deliberate effort to convince people that accepting the fact of evolution (his words) was not inconsistent with belief in God. And it's not. As long as that God doesn't define himself. Once he does, non-overlapping magisteria becomes an inapplicable principle. You can't have all of mankind bottlenecked to two humans, Adam and Eve, roughly 10,000 years ago AND pretend that is not a claim that can be tested by science. It most certainly can. Yes, there are certain things that can stay in the realm of religion without intersecting with science. The source and "objective" nature of morality, for example. The exact moment life begins and the deliberate abortion of a fetus becomes murder. Science won't answer that. Religion can, and its answer can be debated with a competing religion or with a humanist worldview. But science cannot make the moral judgment required. But religion says concrete, testable things about the world that cannot simply be declared "non-overlapping" by fiat. When that football player collapsed on the field in January, thousands of people prayed for him. But no one got in the way of the medical team that was performing CPR and other measures to save his life. You didn't see the CPR team getting out of the way of the faith healers. Why not? Faith healing is a testable claim. Just don't test that $#!T on me! Call me a doctor, stat!

That answer is a dodge. They don't accept the Messiah BECAUSE they don't accept the inspiration of the NT, not the other way around.

The reasons for Jewish rejection of the inspiration of New Testament scriptures are not mysteries that can only be revealed through individual interrogation. The idea that it takes mindreading skills to determine their thoughts on this question is ludicrous. We KNOW why Jews reject the New Testament. They reject the authors' reliability, they reject the interpretation of the Old Testament and they see the New Testament as the inspiration behind centuries of anti-Semitism. This is not mindreading, it's history. Just like you reject PFAL because of its author's unreliability, its interpretation of the scriptures you hold sacred, and its inspiration of decades of abuse. The parallels are not invented for the sake of a thread. But please, go back to your Jewish sources and tell me two things: 1. What reasons do they give for their rejection of the inspiration of the New Testament? 2. Do you not reject PFAL as God-breathed for precisely the exact same reasons?

Right. They accept the New Testament but remain hidden behind locked doors for fear of the Judeans.

And ultimately they reject the New Testament as God-breathed on the same grounds that you reject PFAL. They reject the writers and the profitability of their message. It's uncanny.

Which is how Jews felt about Paul. Identical.