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

I don't know how the universe was formed, but there is a chance that scientists will come up with a plausible explanation during my lifetime

So you would prefer to put your Faith in scientists.

This kind of cognitive dissonance pretty much only affects the religious Don't kid yourself, BigDorrit. You are dismissing any evidence for God loving us, essentially you are dismissing Christ and what He did for us. Why do you dismiss this? Cognitive dissonance?

As a Christian, my Faith is tested too, and so it should be. Christians can get things wrong, interpretations of what they read in the Bible can be lacking. Our understanding grows and develops.

There is not only the evidence from the Bible but individual experiential evidence too. It is not empirical evidence, no one could pretend it is, but it is valid to me.

So I cannot provide you with stunning evidence. All I can say is that if you want to learn about something you have to look for it, study it, not reject it out of hand, because then you do not bother even looking. This is true in the scientific arena too. So if you want to learn about God, seek Him. Studying Jesus' life, death and Resurrection, would be a good place to start....

There is evidence. The Bible is evidence, people's experiences are evidence. This evidence just us is not of the scientific, empirical sort that I expect you would want, BigDorrit, as it is anecdotal.

However even if I had that, would it be enough for you? Would it be any more meaningful to you? Would all be just considered data and not regarded as evidence? As empirical evidence only tells you about trends in a sample group, at a particular moment in time.

And to collect evidence, you have to look for it....

Anecdotal evidence is a form of evidence, BigDorrit, whether you like it or not....The Bible contains narrative, lots of anecdotes.

You can choose to dismiss the evidence within the Bible...you can choosers dismiss anything outside of immediate experience, like the Pirahã, if you wish. There are implications though.....

BigDorrit you ask me about ghosts, when it believe in the spiritual realm? I believe some people can detect spirits. However the term spirit, in how I understand it, encompasses more than the Essenes of somebody who has died.

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spirit?show=0&t=1397999385

And I expect even yourself would acknowledge the alcoholic variety, although maybe not the reasoning of why Alchemists named the substances they produced as Spirits in the first place....

^I believe, not it. Typo

^Essence not Essenes. Typo

Not my theory Dorrit.

I didn't have to event a new word for the phenomenon. What I write is mainly in reference to how other people have used the word spirit or connected words such as, aghast. I may have a few ideas but they are not especially peculiar to me, or even that peculiar really, considering a lot of people talk about matters that are spiritual, hence the title of this topic board.

Have you read about the Pirahã BigDorrit? What do you think, do you think only accepting that which is within immediate experience is a good idea, or not?

^^invent not event. Typo.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously

This is just not something I can suffer from. I could find out tomorrow that something I always thought was true was actually incorrect, but I wouldn't try and hold both answers in my head at once. I'd simply replace the incorrect one with the correct one. That happens all the time anyway. You'd be amazed at the number of things I thought were true that turned out not to be.

It might be that the correct answer is in some doubt. But that's okay too. As long as I don't have to take one answer into my heart and marry it then it's no trouble to me to accept that we don't know the answer.

Religion requires you to hold onto the previous answer and your natural intelligence requires you to see the correct answer. That is bound to have a harmful effect eventually. The more faithful you are and the more intelligent and educated you are the more often this is going to arise. Many religious cultures prize ignorance of everything outside religion and you can see why.

People deal with this in different ways. Some people avoid looking at any answers in case one of them turns out to contradict an important belief. They may try to ban the teaching of certain subjects in schools. They may make blasphemy laws so they won't hear the truth in public and so on.

Others turn to obfuscation to avoid looking at the truth. You can show them the box they believe contains something important and say "look it's empty!" and they will look away.

They may say "oh it's too literal to actually look in the box. We must instead consider the context of the box and our observation of it. We must read some learned books on box examination and only then look in the box with the eyes of our spirit (while actually keeping our eyes firmly covered)".

Others may say that we don't need to know what's in it, but can just trust that it will be the right thing.

I am free to look into any box at any time and I can tell you that it's much easier and makes for a relaxed life.

Back your assumption is that you do not experience Cognitive Dissonance. I would say that everybody does, however momentarily, when encountering something that does not fit with their world view. That cognitive dissonance us held until the decision is made either to:

1. reject the new information and maintain own world view
2. accept new information and reject own world view

or
3) accept the new information and refine your own world view.

Until you have made the decision to choose one of the above options, Cognitive Dissonance is present. However I do not believe this is something to fear. If we fear cognitive dissonance, we can be too hasty to choose option 1 or 2 . We do not need to fear because we can hope to find the answer at a later date. Our knowledge grows and develops. Otherwise, without this hope we might reject new information out of hand, which is as blind as accepting it too easily.

As I have said earlier I believe in balance, the third option if you like. This belief does not conflict with my Christian beliefs either, Christian teachings show us that we can get things wrong and are fallible and also that new information can be deceptive, we could be interpreting it wrong. My Christian belief does not require me to hold onto Cognitive Dissonance, only be patient with it.

And guess what I glanced inside the box, but, on that first glance, appreciated it's mysteries were so amazing, I couldn't quite appreciate them all in one go. So I shut the box to think on them a while, savour them. When I have thought, I will glance again. I look forward, to that moment.

BigDorrit the Pirahã are people, they cannot be discounted. If you studied them you would find out how very different they are to us, in the Western world. They redefine ways in which we define humanity (essentially concerning language as a defining aspect of humanity). They have no narrative, no interest in the past, so no I would not want to be exactly like them.