Intelligent design (Introduction)

by Abel , Monday, November 14, 2011, 03:20 (4759 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw (12 November at 12.12.): You have singled out the Old Testament as being a collection of myths (apart from those sections which you know to be true), which implies that the New Testament is a true account.

ABEL: (13 November at 02.09): As a student I know I should take careful notes while a speaker is talking. Taking notes after class from “memory” certainly would not be an option.

I can see that you don't feel I answered this question, however I believe that I did. When I used your writing to illustrate how a message can be distorted over a short period of time by a singular mind it was to illustrate how the Bible had been distorted over a much longer time by a greater number of minds. I said, "Now imagine if you were a "divinely" inspired author of the Bible that was writing with reverence about events that occurred decades or even centuries earlier." Perhaps I should have been more explicit. The Old Testament was written centuries after the events that it recorded, while the New Testament was written decades after the events that it describes happened. Thus the Bible that I was talking about was the combined books of the Bible.

In addition, I believed that I explained what I thought of the New Testament a bit more explicitly when I said this in a previous post:

"Jesus learned "the way" of Daoism and Buddism and took from these philosophies that which he knew to be good. It was this religion that Jesus taught me, not "Christianity". Christianity is the remnant of "the way" that Jesus taught. It is what is left after the Romans and the Catholic church burned the books of those who walked the way, then burned the faithful too."

In my mind the New Testament is a huge mix of myths that were heaped upon a legend. Myths that were altered to fit existing theologies at the time and make the Jesus legend more acceptable by pagans. Thus the truthful story of Jesus was hybridized with the mystery cult of Mithraism because there were a few important similarities. Eventually the story became fully influenced by the early beliefs of that mystery cult and incorporated into the New Testament. This is my belief.