On July 10, 2023, Why I Am Not a Christian: How Leaving the Faith Led to a Life of More Meaning and Purpose
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by Steve Campbell
Bart D. Ehrman
The bigger picture is that there are more serious challenges to the Christian faith than the inerrancy of Scripture.
Steve Campbell
Not just the inerrancy of scripture but the inputs to scripture.
Bart D. Ehrman
The ultimate issue is the existence of God himself: no God, no Christianity.
Steve Campbell
But Jesus BECAME God.
You wrote that book before or after you concluded that God does not exist(?)
and
a human being cannot become God with the help of a God who does not exist.
Bart D. Ehrman
I recited numerous “proofs” for God but now I believe God cannot be proven. There was no divine being in and over this world.
Steve Campbell
The Sun has been recognized as God. Through it we are Created, Preserved, and Destroyed.
The Sun and the Solar System can be divine (life giving, life preserving, and functional) and not divine (not life giving, not life preserving, destroying and dysfunctional.
The notion of God has a bearing on the question, Does God exist.
Apollo has been recognized as a god of Truth, Prophecy, Healing, and the Sun.
Socrates was pious to Apollo.
I adapted Gorgias by Plato into a theatrical play (yet unproduced).
At the end of that dialogue, Socrates speaks of, after death, being able to present himself with integrity to Apollo.
If you respect Socrates/Plato’s notion of God/Apollo/Sun, you would not have the situation in which you find yourself.
In Astrology, the Sun and its Solar System, governs the world (mundane astrology) and the individual.
The Sun is not a local god, like the god of Christianity. Local gods do not exist everywhere in space and time.
The Sun and the Solar System governs Earth and individuals on Earth.
Bart D. Ehrman
Very few of my many biblical-scholar friends went that route or agree with me today.
Steve Canmpbell
You were a Christian but followed truth wherever it led. Your route and my route have the same stated purpose.
You told me to look at Deuteronomy 18:22.
You wrote a book on Jesus being a prophet of Jewish Apocalypticism.
Jesus was a false prophet.
You rephrased that and said Jesus was mistaken.
Of course, few people will agree with you: turning away from Christianity only on the basis of your notion of God not existing and not basing it on the mistakes of Jesus (Jesus being a false prophet).
Bart D. Ehrman
Very few of my many biblical-scholar friends went that route or agree with me today.
Steve Canmpbell
You were a Christian but followed truth wherever it led. Your route and my route have the same stated purpose.
You told me to look at Deuteronomy 18:22.
You wrote a book on Jesus being a prophet of Jewish Apocalypticism.
Jesus was a false prophet.
You rephrased that and said Jesus was mistaken.
Of course, few people will agree with you: the friends who are biblical-scholars and those who are authors should expect you to leave Christianity because of Christ, not for one or more theological reasons. Become an atheist for theological reasons, leave Christianity for matters of the historicity of Christ and for Christological reasons; for example, the mistakes of Jewish Apocalypticism (that declaration proven false, and its false/mistaken prophets.
You comment is outside of context.
The context is the past 12,000 years, within our solar system.
The comparison is Hebrew God to God of the Solar System.
The context of the conversation is not the universe or the multiverse.
It is god of a region on earth compared to god of the Earth.
Robert:
I still do not understand the contrast between the god of Christianity as a local god as opposed to the Sun not being a local god.
Steefen
Exodus to the Gospel of John is localized to the Middle East.
Apollo, the Sun, Sol Invictus, the Aten, Ra (the king of the deities and the father of all creation, patron of the sun).
If you want to be a fallen victim to unjustified scope creep of the Hebrew God beyond God of the Hebrews with a flawed Jewish Apocalyptic over-reach (to Global God, even though the Hebrew God was not the God of China in the late 20s/early30s) despite (in the late 60s CE) the Roman Empire having to put down Jewish Revolt and Jewish Civil War that resulted in the destruction of the Hebrew God’s Temple (an act unprotected by Hebrew God and Hebrew Messiah and proclaimed Son of God,
you go right ahead Robert.
We agree to disagree.
Bart, with a flawed notion of God, is rejecting Christianity and its Christian God. He claims to have a more meaningful life for doing so.
(The Hebrew God of Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet, was a flawed notion of God.)
When a person lets go of flawed notions, that person may or may not be better off. The letting go can be a flawed process. The new destination may be a place where the baby was thrown out with the bath water–rejecting valid notions of God.
Bart D.E.
My goal will not be to deconvert or convert anyone.
Steve Campbell
But other people do not want a life of more meaning and purpose?
You are not a leader? You haven’t been leading us through the subject matter?
“My goal is not to lead…” Well, that comes with being a distinguished professor.
Robert:
So, if the Hebrew/Jewish/Christian God created light–
Steefen:
Many pantheons have a creation story…
Yahweh was formerly the god of the Canaanite guild of metallurgists.
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Canaanite deities were organized in a pantheon: El the creator, his consort Athirat (Asherah), the storm god Ba’al, and his sister Anat, a goddess of hunting and warfare. El, the chief god of the pantheon, is identified in Canaanite art as a seated male figure with arms raised as if about to give a blessing.
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god of the Canaanites … chief god of the Canaanites
of the Canaanites is LOCAL, not Global or cosmic … many pantheons have a creation story
I still do not understand the contrast between the god of Christianity as a local god as opposed to the Sun not being a local god.
Solar worship presupposes that the Sun holds a privileged position in the sky. Christianity presupposes that events that may or may not have taken place two thousand years ago in Palestine hold a privileged position in space-time. Both views are hopelessly parochial.
The intelligent octopi race that dwells in the depths of the ocean beneath the icy surface of Pluto know nothing of Yahweh. One of their intrepid explorers once found a volcanic fracture in the surface of the planet and spied the stars. When he went back and reported this marvel to his fellows they thought he was mad.
Robert gaslights with his post suggesting Yahweh and El are not Gods in the Jewish Bible.
We agree to disagree, and even if you do not agree, I disagree with you.
= = = =
“The Israelites probably borrowed the Canaanite plural noun Elohim” – Britannica.com
Yahweh, El, and Elohim are not in the Jewish Bible and brought over into Christian bibles.
Robert, you are in error.
I am not persuaded by errors.
You say I misunderstand you.
I say again, we agree to disagree.
The power of the Sun over its solar system is certainly not limited to astrology.
Do you think Canaanite gods keep Saturn and Jupiter orbiting the Sun?
Do you think the Sun keeps Saturn and Jupiter in their orbits?
I’m still interested in how you might further dissociate determinism from astrology.
Well the ancient views are much misunderstood. The belief was not that the stars controlled human destiny. It was that all the events that take place at a discreet moment, earthly or celestial, share a common nature. As above, so below. One examines the stars to determine their nature because events on earth at that moment will share that nature. I agree there is a certain degree of determinism inherent in this view. But the ancients didn’t really distinguish between fate and choice the way we do. For example Paul believes in both predestination and human will. There was no conflict for him the way it is for our sectarians who endlessly debate the issue.
the ancients didn’t really distinguish between fate and choice the way we do.
I’m curious whether you’d elaborate.
It seems to me the ancients did distinguish fate from free choice; the relationship between fate, free choice, and chance was, as I recall, discussed pretty actively by the philosophers, and the opinions represented in those discussions fell all over the spectrum, much as they seem to still today.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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