Homosexual Books for First Graders

[Checkmate]

[QUOTE="Damian Silverblade"]Ok, glad to see it was more of a misunderstanding.[/QUOUTE]

Me too. I'd hate for you to lose what little respect you have left for me.

The truth of the matter (re : WTC) is that there's no way to know how things will turn over the next few hundred years. Certainly conspiracy theorists have only grown in strength and number over the years over the Moon Landing (1969), the Kennedy Assassination (196? - don't rightly remember which ATM), The Pearl Harbor attack (1941) and so forth. In fact the "fringe conspiracy theory" for the last has since then come to be nearly as accepted (if not even more so accepted) than the "official" version - it's split half and half or so.

The problem with those analogies is the same problem I've been stating for the past while. They didn't thrive under the intense persecution the Christians braved. I have some questions about the theories you present. What proof have the supporters offered. Yeah5 and I have offered corraborative evidence to support the Bible. (specifically Luke) Also, who's to assume that those theories are wrong? You yourself admit that the minority is not always incorrect, as stated below

Of course, I'll note here that a "fringe group" theory is not by default wrong (the relevance of the WTC example is simply "do you realize how quickly alternate histories begin to show up?". After all, if they were then virtually all political, economical, religious and social theories the world has ever known would be wrong by virtue of having been a fringe theory at some point in time. Communism was a fringe theory, so was capitalism. Catholicism, Christianism and Atheism were all fringe groups at some point in time. Darwinism the same, and so forth.

We agree on something.

(NOTE : the reverse statement is true also : just because a theory was dominant and we therefore have many more copies of their text left doesn't mean the text themselves are worth more than other, less dominant texts. READ : just because we have more manuscrips of the Bible than of, say, Caesar's commentary is patentedly irrelevant to how trustworthy each is.)

Now here's something we disagree on. I don't think it's patentedly irrelevant. Many things have passed the test of time that are false. What those things are is up for debate. However, the test of time is still a very relevant test. As a pharisee said in the Bible (in the Acts) one guy (I think he might have named him) had hundreds of followers, but when he died, so did his cause. Quite wise considering he was a pharisee. The test of time is a very relevant test. Just not a final exam of any sorts.

As to the point you and Green Pikachu make, I'll beg your pardon but this is not quite true. The bible and Illiad started out as the same thing : the national epics of the Greeks and Hebrews - the tale of how they had come to be were they were, who their ancestors were, what they had done. The Illiad (and the story of the Trojan War on which it is based) were NOT originally epic poetry meant to amuse or any such : they were what the then-Greeks believed to be history.

Are you absolutely sure the parts of divine intervention were actually reported history that was told by the people the gods allegedly interracted with. If not, that's a crucial difference between the two.

The difference in how they developed lies probably in the fact that the Hebrews had far stronger religious feelings than the Greeks. They wove a very jealous, wrathful God in their history, to the point that actually challenging their national epic would have been to challenge God.

Actually, as far as I know, it's never been considered sin to question or challenge God. That's the Christianity I know. Christianity never forbids looking into other religions. One can obey God while still questioning his existence. I know from plenty of personal experience.

By comparison the Greeks had a more complex relation with religion (they prayed to the god, offered sacrifices, etc - but their relation with the gods was grounded in the present. Wether or not god X had done Y or Z in antiquity was patentedly irrelevant to his existence and what he would do now (incidentally, I agree with the Greeks where most gods are concerned). Therefore, questioning the national epic was not challenging the very basis of society.

I could give you a truckload of cases in which God has been evident in present-day society. Two hour's worth of research would certainly give me a least a dozen incredible life changes and miracles. I could name a few off the top of my head. God is certainly not a god of merely two-thousand years ago.

The other relevance of the Illiad to the points is as was already illustrated : it demonstrate that it's possible for a historical text (which was MEANT to represent what the then-greeks thought was history - again, just because it was WRITTEN in poetry form doesn't make it somehow "less historical") to have *some* facts rights without having *ALL* facts right.

The Illiad is written fictitiously. It's never been shown as anything other than fiction. I've already demonstrated (in my opinion) beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible is not intentional fiction. I think to more effectively argue your point you would need something like the Illiad only without the fictitious element. I think it would be a better analogy if you mentioned a historical test that was at least purported to be true.