Who Wrote The Gospels?

[headinhands]

"Matthew contains 606 of Markâ??s 661 verses. Luke contains 320 of Markâ??s 661 verses. Of the 55 verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce, Luke reproduces 31; therefore there are only 24 verses in all of Mark not reproduced somewhere in Matthew or Luke."

A good diagram here

head I have no reason to think they did, make it up! either.

According to reason the evidence is inconclusive. However neither if us claim to be Agnostic.....

we chose what we believe

The difference between how you and I choose is that I don't add elements and explanations that there is no reason for. If I am not sure how something happened I wait until I have some evidence to inform me. I don't have a predetermined idea that I need to fit new information into. If I find some evidence that there is a god then I have to explore that honestly. I guess that's where we define evidence differently. personal experience is a poor tool for determining facts which has been shown again and again.

caps if you have no reason to think they made it up, and that therefore you now think it is fact, how come you don't believe in all the other religions/beliefs/personal accounts your ever read/heard. How come you don't worship Thor/Zeus and the other thousands of deities? What reason do you have for rejecting those beliefs? Why don't you hold them with as much regard?

head if you were completely neutral in terms of belief you would be Agnostic, but you say you are an atheist.

My position is that I've yet to be convinced of the existence of a god. I'm not saying there isn't one. It seems vanishingly unlikely but maybe there is. I don't know. Until I have some reason to think there is a god I can't say 100% for sure.

I suppose I am agnostic in that technically I recognise I can't be 100% certain that there is no god. But from memory agnosticism is a bit too wishy washy and I'm so certain that the god of the bible is a human fabrication that agnostic seems too feeble a word.

The evidence for your belief is the same as other religions, anecdotes and old books. They all look the same and there's no hard evidence to back it up.

head I do think the other beliefs may be true for the people holding them, however I worship God through Christ. Valhalla, for example sounds like a kind of hell to me. The Norse Armageddon account is interesting too.

I do not worship other gods because I believe in Christ.

I used to think like you, capsium, but have realised that in recent years (decade?) the definition of 'atheist' has expanded to include people who are just not convinced by the God hypothesis - i.e. the minimum requirement to be an atheist is disbelief, and denial is not essential.

That describes me, too. There may well be a God, and I would totally believe in such if He shows up one day or if there is any proof discovered. Until then, I'm just not convinced.

'Agnosticism', on the other hand, means "I don't know".

There are similarities, but they are not the same thing.

caps that seems an untenable position to me because it suggests a god who knowingly set people up against each other by suggesting that the other religions were a threat. Wouldn't it have been a good idea for Yahweh to have explicitly said 'you know what, if you're a good person it doesn't matter what idol you worship because it's all me anyway' instead of saying 'you shalt have no other gods before me' and then using the difference of religion to cause division and war?

Cote I would say disbelief is an assertion, the same as belief is an assertion. Unbelief is used as a term in the Bible. Unbelief, I would say, is more neutral / passive, than disbelief.

I don't know is neutral.

Yourself and head seem to, too passionately speak out against Christian belief to be neutral. You could go possibly go further for clarification's sake and call yourself anti-theist.....

heads people choose whether to worship idols.

You can think what you think, obviously, but "I don't know" is complete cop-out that many people who have thought on this subject prefer. That doesn't mean that they are taking sides.

It might mean that they find the stories silly and see no proof - a non-belief.

That is not the same thing as saying "There is no God" which would be a belief in itself.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't think Christianity is singularly egregious.

And head & I can't be called theists because we don't believe in the existence of any God.

" I would say disbelief is an assertion, the same as belief is an assertion. Unbelief is used as a term in the Bible. Unbelief, I would say, is more neutral / passive, than disbelief."

I'm not sure what difference you are getting at there, but ok, if you like you can say I unbelieve your God.

Cote I said anti-theist, as in against or rejecting theism.

To the extent that I understand what "anti-theist" even means, it seems to be about taking a stand and opposing all religions. That is what Richard Dawkins et al are doing.

I don't think telling people there is no proof whatsoever for any of their stories and that they are not even internally consistent is the same thing. And that is I what I do.

I am not on a crusade against all religions. They serve a purpose, unfortunately, in maintaining peace and social order and will need to exist if only for that reason. Most people need a crutch and if it's not religion, it may be something far less benign.

None of it is believable, though, and I shall continue to say so

Cote If I can believe it, it is believable, in that it is possible to believe....

There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat, and others who believe it only came into being about 4000 years ago. And yet those two hypotheses are not believable imho in any sense of the word, given extensive proof re the Earth's shape & age.

They are believable to those who believe, Cote. Not saying their belief is necessarily justified but if belief exists, strictly speaking, what is believed is believable. Unless these people have, somehow, super human powers of belief....

"super human powers of belief."

'Gullibility' might be the word you are looking for there.

Or 'ignorance & stupidity'. Especially re flat earth, for example.

Well, call it whatever, I don't believe the earth is flat, anyway.

OK then

Do you understand that some people believe in seriously unbelievable stuff, and that your earlier statement "what is believed is believable" is not always correct?

What I am saying is, whether something is believable or not, is a matter of personal opinion, i.e. it is subjective, since beliefs are subjective.

So what can be believed, by any one person or group of people is by definition believable. Whether I find some beliefs personally believable is another matter....

That is not at all the definition of "believable".

You can find a group of loons to believe anything. The internet is full of such bizarre people with laughable convictions.

'Believable' means credible, convincing. And that is what I meant when I said the religious mythology is not believable.

'Believable' does not mean anything at least one person believes in. If that were the case, you would have to call loony claims like "The Earth is flat" and "The Earth is only 4000 years old" also 'believable' since there are people who believe in them, too.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. D Moynihan