Should the success of religion impact its credibility?

I do not think there are reliable historical accounts of jesus
The accounts that are referenced as historical are dubious imo
And i do not believe the claim he is god

 

It sounds like you're saying there shouldn't be a credibility gap getween beliefs involving gods and beliefs involving aliens. I'd never viewed it that way before, but it is logical.

 

Either or.... both and
People will argue success as a validation of religion on what ever version of success they find expedient.... and what ever that expedient version of success is... i argue that this does not validate religion as a transcendent truth. The egyptian religion was successful, the greek, and roman and persian and aztec and inca religions were successful... and few people today would argue that these religions had any preternatural truth

 

Sorry that i do not quite understand what you are saying
I guess that we have approximately a similar evidence for aliens as we do for god.... otoh, no one proposes that space aliens answer prayers , or voyeuristically monitor our sex lives

 

Maybe some readling will help ?
http://freebookslegal.info/the-soci...f-religion-standard-book-roland-robertson.pdf

 

So you don't even believe historical accounts of Jesus existing?

 

If you know the history of the period you’d know there were hundreds of men wandering around the area claiming to be the Messiah.
My feeling, and it’s only a feeling, is there was an actual Jesus, as unlike the Old Testament, the Gospels don’t read as regurgitated myths from way back (apart maybe from the idea of ressurection from the dead which was central to many middle eastern religions.) That’s not to say the Gospels and other books of the time are in any way a fully accurate account. Paul and the early church for instance fictionalised a great deal and subsequent translations fiddled with, totally altered and removed large sections of the original writings. Why does this matter? Because true believers are convinced their particular bible ( and there are many versions with significant differences) is The Word of God which gives them the authority to force their twisted sad-masochist theology on the rest of us.

 

Very well put.

 

The likely story behind the raising from the dead story was that he wasn't dead when he was taken down; his friends would have bribed the guards. They took him away and patched him up and then paraded him around. Eventually he died from his wounds. No miracles needed, which is just as well 'cos there ain't no miracles to be had.

 

there is certainly anecdotal evidence that jesus existed.... but little reliable beyond that.

Poly, we have much better records of joseph smith.... right?
And look what has grown up around his real life.
How much that is religious do you trust about the so called historical record about joseph smith? I think that very much less is known with certainty about the historical jesus, i do not think there were wise men guided by a star, or angels coming from heaven at his birth, i do not think there was a census that caused the family to return to Bethlehem, or that herod went around killing children.... so if i think that all that stuff was invented.... i see no reason that a lot of other invention went on.... which you now regard as historical record, and i do not

 

Well I would argue against the Aztec religion being successful. Religious worldview matters, and a religion that thinks if it just pulls out enough hearts out of the chest of sacrificial victims, the bearded men from the East would go away, doesn't have a successful worldview. The root beliefs of Mormons are to my mind crazy, but they've built very successful communities because their worldview is more attuned to what actually works in the real world.

 

It's a yes or no thing.

 

By that metric, the byzantine Christians were not all that successful when they fell to the muslims either, and the roman empire was christian when it fell to barbarians, nazareth and Bethlehem and jerusalem are not Christian either...

yes, and that is my point , mike.... the undeniable success of the mormon religion is not predicated on
An alignment with your version of god.... therefore success provides no intrinsic validation fundamental religious verity

 

Well that goes back to the original question I asked in the thread. Islam is a fairly good warrior religion, so it expands and rarely (Spain) suffers an actual defeat of territory. However the societies it produces are terrible places to live. However in terms of expansion, that's not necessarily a problem since it keeps pushing people outward. Long term prediction for Europe for example, is that of the existing major religions, Islam is more likely to be dominate in Europe than Christianity, especially the tepid current version.

There is no "validation [of] fundamental religious verity" so it's not relevant.

 

Sorry to be dense, but i miss your point

 

In case you want more info about the case for non historicity...
Here is a video debating the topic with more expertise than i can produce. An important point that is implicit, but not explicitly made is that the problems that are detailed are not inconsequential or accidental errors. They are cases where the authors had explicit objectives.... for instance the census story had the objective to put jesus birth in Bethlehem rather than Nazareth in order to fulfill biblical prophesy.... so the narrative was intentionally modified to better conform to the messiah narrative.

In the case of the census, it is clear the nature and motive of the change. But in many other cases, there wouldn’t be the same clarity.

Another illustration is the trial n front of pilot. This trial is narrated in the gospels.... and yet there is no plausible witness to this trial.... so where does the narrative come from? It seems to me that it was again invented to shape the christ as messiah narrative

When you have so many cases of distorted narrative in order to shape the story.... I am then unwilling to grant the historical accuracy of the gospels other than the most basic details, such as,....there was a guy named jesus who was likely an itinerant apocalyptic preacher who was killed by the romans

 

It's possible that the reason why is because I wasn't sure of your point and responded based on what I thought you were saying. Here is my original question, which I don't think I got a satisfactory answer to:

 

Ok mike, starting from the beginning
I said

In short.... the latter day saints religion should produce a strong estimate of credibility based strictly upon its results... even despite an origin story that seems dubious at best. So, for that reason, it seems to me that we cannot accept Christianity as unquestionable simply because it has grown large, has produced good societies, and has been promoted by unquestionably brilliant and well intentioned followers. And, frankly, when looked at with an unbiased perspective.... i think the origin story of Christianity is about as dubious as that of Joseph Smith
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So in answer to your question. Successful in terms of generating adherents and a successful society ..,, with a specified example of the mormons.

 

OK in that case I'm not sure about he confusion. Carry on.

 

Surely we can find something to dispute?

 

I personally expect that the near death experience account of Dr. Eben Alexander will have
an important impact on many branches of spirituality over the upcoming months, years and decades.

I do believe that many religions were began by somebody who had a near death experience or a similar experience and after several years of attempting to digest the grandeur of what they encountered.......
they simply had to begin to teach others what they feel they learned themselves.

I do believe that the success of religion to some degree does tend to verify that there is indeed something to
the foundation for that religion but....... we humans take powerful spiritual writings and twist them around to
set ourselves up for wealth, power, influence or even a harem if possible.

 

Are you certain there is no “natural” explanation? After all, people have vivid dreams and hallucinations all the time. And i see no reason why this extreme circumstance might not have provoked the related experiences through purely natural phenomena

And yet, these teachings are quite varied... and therefore do no t seem to emerge from a a common experience of the supernatural

Certainly there is a “foundation” for religion”
Successful social structures must necessarily be addressing some human needs
The church of the latter day saints is a prime example of a “religious” organization that is successful in no small measure because of its effectiveness in meeting social needs.
But, i would argue that this social success is unrelated to the veracity of the supernatural claims of joseph smith ..... a similar logic could be applied to the successes of scientology being independent of the supernatural claims they make

Yes, and there in lies a fundamental problem of organized religion. Even if it were the case that there were some underlying truth to religion.... the corrupting nature of humanity will co-opt that truth as the popes of the middle ages did, and as tele-evangelists do today

 

I am of the opinion that people with genuine prophetic gifts can be tempted.... and can fail.........
much as King Solomon made all kinds of mistakes.......
but yet his wisdom was not taken away from him.

King David failed terribly in the matter of adultery with the wife of Uriah and in his murder......
but his error worked out good for you and I because we can tell ourselves that if there is hope for
King David who failed so terribly...... then there is hope for us as well.

I am wide open to the possibility that Joseph Smith may have had genuine spiritual and prophetic experiences but.......
unlike Messiah Yeshua - Jesus he failed and gave into some of the temptations........

His followers at the least did learn from him and I find Latter day Saints to be some of the most humble......
most polite.. .and most well read Christians to debate with that I ever ran into online.

 

Imo, if you make such allowances, you are simply picking and choosing what you conclude to be prophetic.

So.... do your think he found gold tablets in a forgotten language, which tablets were left here by he ancient Egyptians? Because the Mormon religion is based upon such (in my opinion) fraudulent wonders, just as Christianity is based on wonder of the resurrection

Yes, i agree that the social result of mormon religion is quite impressive.... as has been the result of jewish culture, and for a time in their golden age the muslim culture.... but then again Asian cultures are impressive also, and my atheist chinese sister in law wad among the most wonderful people that i have ever known. Marcus Arelious Was not religious and yet produced profound and inspired reflections

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
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