> > >Archeology. Science. History...
> >
> > Are all tainted by their authors, are all constructs of our desire to find patterns, correspondences and systems of cause and effect.
>
> It's easy to say this in a philosophical debate. It proves my point. But when you come down to real life, where things actually matter, it doesn't hold up.

I'm surprised and pleased to have stirred up such well thought debate - living in a land of Godless communism you forget the passions religion arouses.

I'd just like to clear up a couple of points.

In saying that archeology, history and science are all tainted by their authors I am not saying they should be taken as the reverse of true. So no, I am not going to put my hand on the fire (or even walk on coals as some do), and yes, I do accept that the Declaration of Independence was written circa 1776 - a scenario where that were not true would require too great a sleight of hand for me to find it credible. But I do claim that any person's conclusions will be affected by the culture and beliefs in which they are immersed - it takes a bold person to break free. So it is right to continually reassess history, science et al, whilst holding onto a modesty that accepts that we too will be mistaken in some degree. Gallileo upset the status quo of his day because the establishment, both religious and scientific, required that the universe have man at it's centre. Darwin was villified for his suggestion that man and apes have common ancestors as it flew contrary to a strict interpretation of the Bible. And look at any event in history to see how interpretations vary from age to age, culture to culture. I'm reminded of a line from Chairman Mao, when asked to comment on the impact of the 1789 French Revolution he replied that it was 'too early to tell'.

I nowhere claimed as Issachar supposes I might be about to that there are "inaccuracies"and "contradictions" in the Bible. Firstly, because I do not claim that the Bible disproves the existence of God, and secondly because I am not so well familiar with the work that I could pretend to be an authority. Neither am I schooled in the Qur'an, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita or any of the other religious texts - and I would therefore not have the gall to claim as Sam does that of these only the Bible has the ability 'to legitimize itself on its own'. It may well have internal consistencies but bear in mind that though the Bible is the work of many hands, it is also the work of many editors, who expunged 'heresies' and cast the merely dubious into the Apochrypha. And for some events in the Bible to be supported by archeology is not surprising, it is after all a history from the same monotheistic tradition that also spawned Judaism and Islam, and there are correspondences between the texts of each. The Qur'an says "Say we believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and the revelation given to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to the prophets from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another of them, and to Him we are submitters." The difference of course is that Christianity capitalises Jesus's personal pronoun and the others do not.

All that said, I'm sure Jesus was a cool guy and if it serves people well to believe he was part of a Holy Trinity then that's fine for them. Though that Old Testament version of God - I wouldn't want him for a flatmate (I feel a comedy sketch coming on).

Excuse the delay in replying, I've had to prove my existence to my boss.

All the best,
en'doomed for all eternity'ile