Jesus > Superman

[Auguste Dupin]

Sure never said religion was the only reason. But it still stands.




Right, and Jesus's influence on human history has been more negative than anything else, which is why I take the guy who has had considerably less.

- I seriously have no idea if buddhism has ever been used to justify atrocities. But I wouldn't underestimate the ability of mankind to use the greatest ideals to justify the worst actions they take.

-Okay, now no more making fun: is there any point to this discussion? They litteraly have nothing of importance in common, appart from Superman having some religious undertone (and we all know that's because their creators were jewish). I don't know why this thread started, I think the opening post made no sense whatsoever( hence why I just made fun of him a bit.), but now this thread must die before things get really ugly.

[dshipp17]

Yeah you believe that.

Oh, it's true; I strongly believe that, with increasing vigor, as the days go by; thank you Jesus.

[Mr. Holmes]

- I seriously have no idea if buddhism has ever been used to justify atrocities. But I wouldn't underestimate the ability of mankind to use the greatest ideals to justify the worst actions they take.

-Okay, now no more making fun: is there any point to this discussion? They litteraly have nothing of importance in common, appart from Superman having some religious undertone (and we all know that's because their creators were jewish). I don't know why this thread started, I think the opening post made no sense whatsoever( hence why I just made fun of him a bit.), but now this thread must die before things get really ugly.

Yeah I started to take this discussion more seriously than I needed to.

[Auguste Dupin]

Yeah I started to take this discussion more seriously than I needed to.

Heh, it's the Internet. Nobody can blame you.

[Coyote2010]

I loved reading about Gladiator from this thread. I wish I could see a great comic and movie adaptation of that. May have to read that book, John Carter, and Doc Savage.

[MadDog1981]

John Carter's first book is Princess of Mars. I really enjoyed that book a lot.

The Doc Savage books are fun, mindless adventures. But those were published on a monthly basis for pulp magazines and it shows. You're not in for literary classics when you read a Doc Savage novel. But if you keep that in mind, the books are really fun and you can see the influence he's had on a lot of characters. You can blow through a Doc Savage in a couple of sittings.

[666MasterOfPuppets]

- As a big follower of DBZ, it really depends how you look at it. The Silver Age Superman would kick Goku's ass without much of a sweat.

When Goku is able to bench press the weight of the whole damn planet Earth for five days in a row, and with only ONE single drop of sweat, then he'll have a shot.

[Conan The Barbarian]

Oh, it's true; I strongly believe that, with increasing vigor, as the days go by; thank you Jesus.

lol, oh the insanity of believing a 2000 year old fairy tale as fact. Thanks for the laughs

[dshipp17]

lol, oh the insanity of believing a 2000 year old fairy tale as fact. Thanks for the laughs

Seems like you and others like you are scientifically insane, where, despite thousands of people at the time providing eyewitness evidence, you still implicitly recycle rebutted challenges about whether evidence exist; it's like throwing a marble up in the air 120 times, seeing it come back down 120 times, than claiming there is no evidence showing the marble will come down if thrown up. Show me the thousands of people attesting to the existence of Mother Goose and subsequent generations who are confused about whether Mother Goose is a cultural icon or a fairy tale. Mother Goose is your fairy tale, or, are you confused about the definition of fairy tale? It's up to you to refuse to accept the Law of Gravity; but, I'd recommend not trying to criticize the people who do accept the Law of Gravity; similarly, there's no real basis left for you to criticize the people who accept the foundations of Christianity; I referred others to Everett Ferguson for any further clarification; just follow suit; once again, your type has been soundly beaten in debate.

[slvn]

Seems like you and others like you are scientifically insane, where, despite thousands of people at the time providing eyewitness evidence, you still implicitly recycle rebutted challenges about whether evidence exist; it's like throwing a marble up in the air 120 times, seeing it come back down 120 times, than claiming there is no evidence showing the marble will come down if thrown up. Show me the thousands of people attesting to the existence of Mother Goose and subsequent generations who are confused about whether Mother Goose is a cultural icon or a fairy tale. Mother Goose is your fairy tale, or, are you confused about the definition of fairy tale? It's up to you to refuse to accept the Law of Gravity; but, I'd recommend not trying to criticize the people who do accept the Law of Gravity; similarly, there's no real basis left for you to criticize the people who accept the foundations of Christianity; I referred others to Everett Ferguson for any further clarification; just follow suit; once again, your type has been soundly beaten in debate.

Telling people to go read Everett Ferguson isn't a winning move in a debate. You haven't provided specific evidence to prove your point. I don't believe that there are "thousands" of eyewitness accounts of the major events in Jesus' life; but then again I don't doubt that Jesus lived. What eyewitness accounts can't prove is that he was immaculately conceived, that we was resurrected, or that was God Incarnate. I wouldn't use the term "fairy tale," but whether the Christian story is a myth or is Truth is really a matter of belief, not proof.

[T Hedge Coke]

Heck, believing in the immaculate conception or virgin birth aren't proof of a) divinity or b) any rights or privileges beyond those of you, me, and your neighbor who strips off without closing their blinds.

Superman doesn't pretend being born of Krypton gives him any more or less say over people's behavior or beliefs, you know?

[Jon Clark]

I loved reading about Gladiator from this thread. I wish I could see a great comic and movie adaptation of that. May have to read that book, John Carter, and Doc Savage.

There was a slightly updated comic book version of Gladiator out a few years back called Legend from Wildstorm. Other than moving up events so Danner fought in Vietnam rather than WW1, it was pretty faithful. And the book is I believe available somewhere online for free (and if you have a Nook, I know it is free from Barnes & Noble as i got it there in addition to an earlier paper copy i bought).

[dshipp17]

Telling people to go read Everett Ferguson isn't a winning move in a debate. You haven't provided specific evidence to prove your point. I don't believe that there are "thousands" of eyewitness accounts of the major events in Jesus' life; but then again I don't doubt that Jesus lived. What eyewitness accounts can't prove is that he was immaculately conceived, that we was resurrected, or that was God Incarnate. I wouldn't use the term "fairy tale," but whether the Christian story is a myth or is Truth is really a matter of belief, not proof.

Referring him to Everett Ferguson to allow him to look him up and pick his mind is evidence of sorts; it's like referring him to a video that can interact with him or a book that can interact with him or a research paper that can interact with him; that seems like a more superior form of evidence than referring him to the book, video, or research paper. Again, I'll refer to a statement in a prior post with Jesus using the phrase, if you don't believe my words, believe my works. And because there are not many witnesses to the immaculate conception does not invalidate it no more than the lack of witnesses to say Tiberius' birth; because there weren't many witnesses, it's like saying he should not have been a Roman Emperor; the people would have to have some degree of faith to allow Tiberius to serve as their Emperor. The point of the resurrection is that thousands witnessed him after the event, which was the spark of Christianity; because of His works, we can accept Jesus was God incarnate, because we also have Old Testament accounts of God not granting miracles to support the words of someone not truly acting in His name; God actually said that He would be the enzyme for peoples' works who are truly acting in His name or that He would refuse to act if they were not acting in His name; thus, if Jesus was essentially blaspheming, He wouldn't have gotten away with just one act, as Jesus would have been untruthful in claiming to be the Son of God; and God Himself is by far the best lie detector.

[dancj]

God did not turn Lot's family member into a pillar of salt because she became nostalgic.

All she did was look back at the place where she used to live. Hardly a capital offence.

God already had the right to end human existence at the point of Adam and Eve, but chose to allow the human race to persist due to his nature of mercy

No. Creating life does not give you the right to end it - unless you think parents should be allowed to kill their children.

Thus, rather than end human existence outright, God sent His son, Jesus, to atone for and take the place of Adam's mistake, dying in his place, but still having the ability to conquer death.

Yup - requiring/allowing his son to die is another crime in God's long list.

God allowed all of the examples you cite to exercise their free will

I'm really interested to see how thousands of people being killed by a Tsunami is people exercising their free will.

including Noah, but they each chose another course contrary to God due to the influence of another malevolent force

So "do as I say or I'll kill you all". That's Darkseid's style of 'free will'.

although Noah must have been an exception in some respects and God wanted to allow the human race to live so that Jesus could atone for Adams mistake at a future time.

Let's go with the whole concept that Adam actually had committed some hypothetical sin that needed to be atoned for... Why exactly was anyone other than Adam himself required to atone for it? I certainly wouldn't want to be punished for any crime my dad committed.

Lex Luthor is a peer human being, so he cannot possibly have the same rights as God to judge and sentence humans. While Luthor murders, God killed, in the physical sense, but God is in control of both life and death; Luthor is not. Not being the creator of existence in general or human existence in specific, Superman lacks these key abilities.

Having the power does not give you the right.

One major flaw in your citings is you do not account for the influence of the malevolent force and the death and destruction he causes or instigates into taking place (take a look through the Book of Job for further illustration); fortunately, God, the benevolent force, is ultimately in charge of life and death.

Sorry - I'm not seeing anything benevolent about God. If he's omnipotent then he could have done something about the malevolent force - not doing so is negligent or sadistic.

[slvn]

Referring him to Everett Ferguson to allow him to look him up and pick his mind is evidence of sorts; it's like referring him to a video that can interact with him or a book that can interact with him or a research paper that can interact with him; that seems like a more superior form of evidence than referring him to the book, video, or research paper.

I haven't read Ferguson, so I'm glad you mentioned him. It might be a good reading suggestion. It's just not proof. The previous poster could say "go read Dawkins or Hitchens," but just saying that wouldn't refute your point; likewise, simply telling him that Everett Ferguson supports your side of the argument doesn't refute his point. I'm not saying Ferguson's arguments aren't better than Dawkins' or Hitchens'; I'm just saying that merely mentioning an author, without providing evidence to support the author's conclusions, doesn't prove anything. If we haven't read Everett Ferguson, there's no particular reason for us to assume that his arguments are decisive and irrefutable. So you can't refute anyone's argument (or win a debate, as you claimed to have done) simply by invoking an author's name. Maybe Ferguson refutes the argument you disagree with, and maybe he doesn't; all I can say is that you haven't refuted it here.

And because there are not many witnesses to the immaculate conception does not invalidate it no more than the lack of witnesses to say Tiberius' birth; because there weren't many witnesses, it's like saying he should not have been a Roman Emperor; the people would have to have some degree of faith to allow Tiberius to serve as their Emperor.

I didn't say a lack of witnesses invalidates the Immaculate Conception; you're certainly free to believe in it, and there's no proving that you were wrong.
But, since it's an event that could not be witnessed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to prove that it happened. You have to take it on faith--or not.

It's not a putdown to say that the basis of Christian belief is faith, not evidence. Faith would have been a great reason for Tiberius to be made emperor. In actuality, Tiberius was chosen as Emperor not because of a miraculous birth or even really because of the faith of the people, but because the powerful Imperial Guard decided they wanted him. If the people chose him because of their faith, that would actually have been a more valid basis for his power, in my democratic, populist opinion--though of course, my opinion is anachronistic and not really relevant.

The point of the resurrection is that thousands witnessed him after the event, which was the spark of Christianity;

But we don't have thousands of eyewitness accounts. We may have a small number of eyewitness accounts that mention thousands of eyewitnesses. Similarly, the Latter Day Saints may tell us that there were thousands of eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus' appearances in America. But we don't have a lot of contemporaneous eyewitness accounts of either event, so believing them is a matter of faith.

because of His works, we can accept Jesus was God incarnate, because we also have Old Testament accounts of God not granting miracles to support the words of someone not truly acting in His name; God actually said that He would be the enzyme for peoples' works who are truly acting in His name or that He would refuse to act if they were not acting in His name; thus, if Jesus was essentially blaspheming, He wouldn't have gotten away with just one act, as Jesus would have been untruthful in claiming to be the Son of God; and God Himself is by far the best lie detector.

This just shows that once you have faith, a lot of data becomes interpretable as "evidence" to support your beliefs, since you're looking at that data through the prism of your faith. But someone who doesn't already believe looks at the same data through different lenses and doesn't see it as evidence that supports your conclusions. It's as you're saying "you have to believe what's in the Bible, because the Bible says you have to believe what's in the Bible." And that loop is only compelling to people who have already entered into it.

But this is way off topic, so I'll stop now. To gesture towards the topic, I'll say this: while the story of Superman has become a powerful modern myth and has inspired a lot of people, the story of Jesus, whatever you think about its historical accuracy, has had incomparably more impact on individual lives and on history. Count me among those who don't really see the point of the comparison.