It cannot be proven to be either or none by formal logic - but what is it really? (I meant to type "in truth" but...hey-ho)

Logic has improvable arguments, and I suspect that in the shadow of these Faith shall emerge.

I would somehow like to re-iterate a core question: what shall your faith matter, if it has not inspired you to act according to an ideal, or at least make an effort towards it?

The following challenge is bloody hard (my translation), but I admire it nonetheless:

"The moment you say: "What is there, in my Compassion! Is Compassion not the cross, unto which the One who loved Men was nailed? But my Compassion passes little for a crucifixion.""

(Die Stunde, wo ihr sagt: "Was liegt an mainem Mitleiden! Ist nicht Mitleid das Kreuz, an das Der genagelt wird, der die Menscshen liebt? Aber mein Mitleiden ist keine Kreuzigung."


For those who defend Christian faith - is your compassion anywhere near a crucifixion - or even a mustard seed closer because of Jesus' ideals and sacrifice?

Those who deride - what better moral maxim do you have, or is this just hit and run without even an insurance policy?

True, whether it's ingrained from the way they were raised (although I was raised Catholic and that didn't hold), or simply not realizing they have more power over their lives than they give themselves credit for (and it seems many things, not just religion, seek to reinforce this (mis)interpretation).

+1
It's not limited to religion. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the current North Korean "king", or even Gaultier, Gaga, Bieber. People will gladly worship anything that takes a little thinking for themselves off their back. Most people need Idols in some form. And rituals, because they bring structure into life.
The brain is not able to process all the information the senses gather. So it selects what it seems important/identifying detail and the rest is filled with memory and prejudice. That's why it is so important to do something completely new, visit strange places, meet people that live very different lives - so that the brain really has to learn new thing instead of filling out blanks.
Otherwise we get stuck stewing in our own juice - leading to intolerance and spiritual petrification.

Regarding being told what to do I have a confession to make: I'm using a walkthrough for 'Heritage of Kings' right now.

And to ask u a question back, as a Lutheran faithless: how has your unbelief made you a better man to such a degree, as to make you think a deriding (flippant) question is pretty ok?

"I am a jealous God" in warning not to keep other gods says the Old Testament, but I think this is more to do with human need to worship and sublimate their communion with God, and to feel that this need is reciprocated.

If you want a flippant answer back, go read Discworld by Terry Pratchett, and you will find a scene where gods give their answer to Blaise Pascal argument. Or The Sandman by Neil Gaiman represents the belief as the life force of gods in quite the as-a-matter-of-fact - but the Godhead has been replaced by immutable human conditions (Destiny, Death, Dream etc).

The deeper aim is a moral purpose in a form that humans can be rallied around, I would think.

Tomasello, Michael: Why We Cooperate (MIT, 2009). Have you read it?

Socialization into communities is natural for humans, as this has been one of the reasons combined with intelligence that has allowed us to thrive as species; even if most large carnivores could rip us to threads should they put their midn to it.

I do find meanwhile that this rallying up into communities is also rather unfortunate, as it often contributes into bullying back into ranks individualistic spirits.

Jesus, as such, was a radical thinker, and the diversity of Christian theologies as of today I think is a testimony of his ideals being quite dangerous to uniform thinking. I am not quite sure as such how your comment bears specifically to Christians vs Atheists vs Agnostics vs non-Christian Faithful.

I personally think that history is opportunistic, par a few principled individuals.

Général de Gaulle could have been Maréchal Pétain, should their birth years been reversed. What Hitler did pales little in brutality to what British Colonial forces did in Kenya against Kikuyus during the emancipation of the nation, except in magnitude. If there had not been vigilant press and public outrage, Finland might have handed over a good number of refugees as opposed to less than ten to Nazis because a particular minister thought it advantageous to please during WWII.

But I also think you are undermining the importance of upbringing as source of attitudes; and source criticality as a way of fair filtering the information that we receive.

These can help, or hinder.

Those who have ears shall hear and those who have eyes shall see - but those who will not: it really does not matter where they visit or whom they meet, a strong bias can enforce observation to per-conceived ideas.

Deserves it because He created all things and gave us life. Not pointless as below:
To draw a parallel and perhaps try to put it into terms we can understand: - I just sent my dad a birthday card - he doesn't 'need' it, but I'm sure he appreciates it nonetheless.
Looking at it from the other perspective: My son makes a cake for me (he's 3 years old), it's entirely imagination [cue: 'the cake is a lie' references], I don't need the 'cake' or even the effort he goes to to make me 'eat' some. But I love that he does it.

->If worship and contemplation bring us closer to Him, then it's worthwhile for US, and I think it's appreciated by Him.

Actually, the symbol is the cross - the empty cross, which signifies the risen Lord.
The crucifix is also used (especially at Easter but also in general) to remind us of His sacrifice. He went to a lot of effort for us, we shouldn't forget it. 'waterproof evidence' comes from God's knowledge of us and our hearts - it wasn't a criminal court where the guilty might go free over a techincality.
God did give warning to innocents to flee before the destruction (Genesis 19:12).(though 2 later decided to sin).
And He said "If I find any innocents, I will spare the city"
But let's say, for argument's sake, that there were some innocent babies there. They die and go straight to heaven. If God so chooses, He could reincarnate them again, or He could welcome them into heaven as is. The alternative was having them raised by wicked parents who would teach them it's ok to sleep with animals or rape guests, etc. Righteous anger can lead a person to denounce evil. For us, it's hard to separate that kind of anger from uncontrollable revenge anger. Not so for God. A human trial requires evidence because we cannot know a person's guilt by looking at them. And we sometimes get that wrong too. God already knows the truth and is able to make a fair judgement based on it. How would listening to lawyers and excuses change that?

Well, my beliefs are according to what the Bible reports. You seem to take great liberties with inserting what you think actually happened into the text in order to make it fit your preconceived conspiracy theories.

The resurrection of Jesus made a new covenant possible, but it is not seasonal or cyclic. I have looked at numerous other deities and their lives, deaths, and purposes were all very different.

Baldr didn't come around until the 12th century AD, so copying would need to involve the use of a time machine. Adonis is dated to the 2nd century, so it is likewise after Jesus. Dying because of an accident is different from being subjected to a status degradation ritual and dying the death of a criminal.
The supposed similarities either have no credibility, were written after the fact, or are superficial at best. Dionysus' mother had sex with Zeus, so she was not a virgin. The miracle of Dionysus turning water into wine postdates Jesus, so if anything, the copying was going in the other direction. Granted they both had beards...but so did the vast majority of men at the time. Not only that, but it hasn't been established that the disciples even knew about Dionysus. Furthermore, this doesn't test very well in explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, level of ad hocness, and illumination.
A belief that pops up later doesn't influence what was written about Jesus in the Gospels.
Again, drugging him would have been the surest way to kill him quickly. It's not that their breathing is slowed, but that they can't breath at all while their head is in the down position.
Christianity had a large number of rich people for its size.
The Romans didn't care which gods people worshiped as long as they also worshiped the the Emperor. Christians taught against doing that, which was a cause of early persecution. Not exactly a selling point to get people to switch gods.
"Roman literature tells us that "(t)he primary test of truth in religious matters was custom and tradition, the practices of the ancients." (62) In other words, if your beliefs had the right sort of background and a decent lineage, you had the respect of the Romans. Old was good. Innovation was bad.

This was a big sticking point for Christianity, because it could only trace its roots back to a recent founder. Christians were regarded as "arrogant innovators" (63) whose religion was the new kid on the block, but yet had the nerve to insist that it was the only way to go! As noted above, Christianity argued that the "powers that be" which judged Jesus worthy of the worst and most shameful sort of death were 180 degrees off, and God Himself said so.

Malina and Neyrey [164] explain the matter further. Reverence was given to ancestors, who were considered greater "by the fact of birth." Romans "were culturally constrained to attempt the impossible task of living up to the traditions of those necessarily greater personages of their shared past." What had been handed down was "presumed valid and normative. Forceful arguments might be phrased as: 'We have always done it this way!'" Semper, ubique, ab omnibus -- "Always, everywhere, by everyone!" It contrast, Christianity said, "Not now, not here, and not you!"

Of course this explains why Paul appeals to that which was handed on to him by others (1 Cor. 11:2) -- but that is within a church context and where the handing on occurred in the last 20 years. Pilch and Malina add [Handbook of Biblical Social Values, 19] that change or novelty in religious doctrine or practice met with an especially violent reaction; change or novelty was "a means value which serves to innovate or subvert core and secondary values."

Even Christian eschatology and theology stood against this perception. The idea of sanctification, of an ultimate cleansing and perfecting of the world and each person, stood in opposition to the view that the past was the best of times, and things have gotten worse since then."
The decline of the Roman empire didn't happen until hundred of years later.
Again, Christianity didn't gain political power until hundreds of years later. Being a rebel then wasn't as cool then as it is today because it meant actual persecution.

If something is not true, that does not necessarily mean it is false, and if something is not false, it does not necessarily mean it is true. The statement "this sentence is false" is an example of that, where it is both not true and not false, so it has a neutral truth value. In order for something to be a violation of the law of non-contradiction, it would have to be both true and false in the same sense and at the same time.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but faith and trust are synonymous.

God wants us to trust Him and having faith is acting in a way that demonstrates that we do. It's not the works that we do, such as showing compassion to others, that merit salvation, but rather salvation is received by having faith, and the works that we do are a demonstration that we have that faith.

Becoming a Christian doesn't mean that we suddenly have more compassion or that we are necessarily more compassionate than non-Christians. It means that we are a work in progress towards having the qualities of Jesus.

"Better man", Is there some league table I'm missing out on? I didn't mean to be rude. I asked the question because I have never ever had a better answer than "because he does" or "because he said so".I just don't understand. I wanted an explanation. People argue for paragraphs on the philosophical beginnings of time but if you ask them why they do their rituals its half a sentence. Is questioning why people do things not legitimate?

Why do people give praise and worship to something they argue is beyond human comprehension and why does such being require/deserve it? I can't understand why because to me its contradictory.

Don't forget its not just about Christians. Jews and Muslims have different rules and rituals on how to give praise and worship to the same being.

But the thing is you and me are humans. We're meat sacks whose emotions come from chemical reactions in our brains. If god is "outside the box", which has been discussed for for the last hundred pages, what makes you think he can feel things in the same way? Is god not beyond earthly gestures of praise? Why doesn't he have non-humans praise and worship him too? Would he appreciate me bringing the gospel to my dog?

I know Luther hammered his theses against indulgences and salvation through merit, and I do think quite rightly so, but... I also find it quite fine that a healthy dose of self-searching and ability (or even propensity) to feel a sense of guilt have not done the Scandinavians societies that much harm.

I do oppose to death penalty as well as de facto imprisonment for life because I think there must be a hope, a chance of redemption for each one of us. I know this conviction essentially has its roots with Jesus, even when I cannot say I am a proper believer.

Grace per definition is not earned, but... if it is felt truly, I would think it should inspire compassion.

Edit: I am not getting the snippeted quotes right... trying... and not getting there - what is quoted between our respective second profile pictures is by me, not Soyeong.

No. I just don't claim to know what really happened. I have a good idea how the bible came about and see it as a very weak source for historical accounts at best. Doubting your preconveived beliefs has nothing to do with conspicary theories.

Most of the named dying-and-rising gods are not cyclic, but they use the symbolism. If you don't want to see the parallels I can't make you see.

You mix up the date of known written accounts with the date of creation. The prose Edda was written down in the 12th century and transcribed to Latin in the 13th century in Denmark. The underlying oral traditions are much older.
Adonis is in fact dated to 600BCE (see Sappho) as the oldest known written account.

But you seem to be avoiding my point. Jesus' story was not "stolen" from other stories. Dionysos was not "stolen" from Adonis. The are a number of recurring themes throughout thousands of years of myths and religion and Jesus just incorporates quite a few of them.

Well, I did not claim he was drugged. I just find some of the events a little suspicious, like Jesus not having too carry his cross as was custom. The not breaking his legs. The short time on the cross, that was intentional, since they would have to take him off for saturday anyway. The bringing of spices instead of embalming stuff to the tomb. A
The unlikeliness of an all-powerful being revealing itself through an act of resurrection (when it has countless miracle options) in a remote place (when there is whole planet of people you consider your subjects).

Also, consider this: If you were member of a radical sect in a land under Roman rule and would like to commit an act of human sacrifice to create your messiah, they only way to would be through the legal system - making the person a criminal. It wasn't the Romans that wanted Jesus to be killed. They just gave in to the Jewish pleas.

The emperor cult, like most leader cults wasn't much of a religion, more of a political instrument. Christians weren't the only ones to criticize this. The pagan priest also weren't very happy about this. But the christians had no problem incorporating the methods when they took over.
The reasons of persecution were manyfold. The rejection of emperor worship is but one of them. The other reasons include arson, vandalism and the refusal to neither bring sacrifices to the Roman temples nor to pay the Jewish tax.

It should be "Some Roman literature tells us that...". It seems you see the Romans as a very homogenous society. That's the same like saying "All Americans like hamburgers" or "All Germans are Nazis".
We have enough sources that tell us (mainly complain about) the fellow Romans trying the latest religious fashion. If they had thought "old is good" all the time they would not have been able to build a huge empire. Of course, from the success of building this empire they inferred that they must have done something right, it was their "evidence" that their gods were superior.

The begin of the decline is usually dated into the first century. That is were the economical peak was reached. The political decline started much earlier, with the dissolution of the republic and the emperor cult. The decline lasted hundreds of years, but was already in progress when the Christans came.

It's not so much later. At the time of Theodosius I the Christians were a well organized "state within the state".

Oh, ok. I meant the saints that were declared after "the beginning".

I try to find something, but don't hold your breath. I read a myriad of books 15-20 years ago and most were from libraries. It's as easy as pulling something from my browser bookmarks. I'll take a look at the few books I still own and their bibliographies when I'm at home, may take a few days and I can't promise everything. Other than it may seem, my purpose in life is not to "debunk christianity" ;-)