Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Star, The Virgin,The Son of God -- All Historically Credible!

Three out of four Americans believe Jesus Christ was born to a virgin. A Blade article about the star of Bethlehem was also interesting, as a couple of academics are taking the Biblical account seriously enough to put forth theories as to what the star might have been, scientifically speaking. They are at least smart enough to believe that the Biblical accounts have historical validity --or they wouldn't be working on this project.

As for the virgin birth, anyone who can raise Lazarus from the dead after 3 days, heal 10 lepers, feed multitudes with a boy's lunch, change water to wine, heal the blind and the lame, control the weather, etc. --such a man can be born of a Virgin. Since His life and His own resurrection were miraculous, why not His birth? There is no reason for the disciples and the Apostle Paul to be willing to suffer persecution, imprisonment and death for the story of Jesus Christ --except that they saw and believed. Many will die for a cause --like a radical Islamist --but these men died for the One whom they saw raised from death. They died for what they had witnessed and experienced. And they died for a message of love, joy and peace --not to bring death to others. That's unique.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! REJOICE --THE LIGHT HAS COME! THE SAVIOR IS BORN --AND HE IS CHRIST, THE LORD!


"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

8 comments:

steve said...

"Three out of four Americans believe Jesus Christ was born to a virgin."

And:

"Four out of five dentists recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum".

Barb said...

And the majority is right in both cases! : D

SNAKE HUNTERS said...

Steve,

If three-out-of-four are believers
in Jesus Christ, just where, why, and how are there enough "Secular Progressives" to put George Soros in command of My Old Democratic Party? (Re-read).

To Constantly... Bring Religion Into Political Discussion is to enure, and turn away the hearts & minds of a Much-needed.... Majority of Voters.

Barb is a very nice lady, but she does not help the 'broad middle' of this
country, in dealing firmly with the huge Negative Elements that threaten our two-party system, AND our Precious 'Freedom of Religion'.
>>
It's not Hillary's "social grace",
or Obama's vast experience in International Affairs, or Senator
John Edward' $400 haircut! These are MoveOnDotTrash's Top-Three Nominees! Think! It's the George Soros "Peace" Foundations That Are Winning the Majority of Voters.

To Ignore these evil scum, is to surrender to this pernicious and vast "Left-Wing Conspiracy".

If you insist on Losing Elections, just ignore Political Reality!

Sorry. reb
__________________________________
www.lazyonebenn.blogspot.com

Barb said...

"she does not help the 'broad middle' of this
country, in dealing firmly with the huge Negative Elements that threaten our two-party system, AND our Precious 'Freedom of Religion'."

and those huge negative elements are?

To me our freedom of religion is threatened by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood and the abortion Rights Action League and others of their ilk. Those who want to change our religion-based moral values, our culture, to be more palatable to licentious and immoral tastes in the name of "freedom." --freedom from morality, it would seem. They threaten our freedom of religion by wanting to squeeze all religious expression back into the houses of worship --not wanting any Christian influence in public.

Just believing in Jesus doesn't make people Republican obviously or the GOP would win all the elections since a majority of Americans believe in the virgin birth--according to a Blade article recently.

Too many believers in Christ and the Bible vote for the give-away party of entitlements more than for the party that champions Right to Life and traditional marriage, suppression of pornography and illicit sex establishments.

The one thing the Democrats have done that is surprisingly like the old fashioned evangelicals, is oppose public smoking. Oddly, conservatives like Rush defend the right to smoke.

mud_rake said...

You gave me permission to post on your blog and so...

It's freedom FROM religion that shakes our boots and makes our palms sweat.

Look at those theocrats in Pakistan today or those in Iran or Saudi Arabia. Or the new theocracy created by George Bush in Iraq.

We Americans tremble at fundamentalists like that and you want your religion to be placed on some political altar here??

Barb said...

I want our religion treated like it has always been in America --as the main religion of the citizens --which religion inspires our nation to welcome people of other faiths to live here and worship freely --which religion taught a nation of people the value of the golden rule and its relationship to civil rights/ human rights/moral laws, etc.

We don't want a gov't or a culture that acts as though there is no Supreme Being to acknowledge. We think it is appropriate to invoke the blessings of a heavenly father upon all the graduates, upon our office holders as they take office, to open our days in court, school and legislature with prayer --led by the religious leaders of different religions.

It was appropriate when graduates of all the different faiths represented in a community received their holy books at graduation time. When they held a baccalaureate service. It is appropriate to teach all children the real story behind Christmas and easter so they will be educated about American religious culture. And I don't care if they learn about the others, but the minority faiths ought not be used to undermine the majority faith.

It is appropriate to recognize marriage as between a man and woman --as we were created to be --not man with man --and woman with woman --as there is nothing same sex couples can do sexually that is normal, procreative, healthy or a good example to the next generation.

Geo. Bush has not created a new theocracy in Iraq --just because the Shia are in the majority. Both sides were theocrats even if Sadam was a phony--even if they claimed it was a secular gov't --they still maintained the appearance of a theocracy.

we don't want to be Balkanized -immigrants need to assimilate into mainstream American culture --which happens to be influenced by Judeo Christianity --and they will do so if they go to our schools --but if they have saudi schools, assimilation is done by TV --and if TV is corrupt --as so much reality tv is --we shouldn't be surprised if there is a decline in ethical values in the average citizen of the U.S.

I'll take Little House on the Prairie values as the American values any day.

mud_rake said...

...by the way, the title of this post is a classic fallacy of Petitio Principii, but you probably aleady knew that.

Rob R said...

No, it is a title and there is not enough in just a title, nor the vast majority of titles to constitute begging the question. An example might be if the title where something like, "The claim this article makes is true because this title is for a true article" may be an example. I'm not a 100 percent sure about that but even if the article begged the question on the basis of the title, that doesn't mean the title begs the question. That would look like this

Title: "The virgin birth is true"

Conclusion within body: "Just look at the title of the article. That just further exemplifies the truth of the claim that the virgin birth is true".

So in that case, the claim does beg the question but not the title in and of itself. A title that is complex enough to do that generally would be too elaborate to be a good title.

Mom here is making a good point, that there are historians who are taking the story of the star to be historically plausible implicitly by the fact that they are probing into possible phenomena that might explain the star. Mom hitches the rest of the story to the claim and I don’t think that is a legitimate move. Nevertheless, it is still worth it to note that historians are treating this specific part of the story as plausible.

Of course mom also refers to the classic observation that many people died for what they said of Jesus and that just doesn’t happen of charlatans. But I think this is more historically relevant to the major claims of Christianity, than the nativity stories such the death and resurrection, Godhood, and kingship of Jesus. The attachment of the nativity stories to these historical claims is not historical themselves but theological and metaphysical, rather than historical, and that is not by any stretch a bad step to take.