AW! Epistles
From Don
Abstract
Sunday, 27 April 2003
Here’s what I despise (if I may use such a strong word) about the Jesus Never Lived article. You state everything as though YOUR input as a 21st century critic puts to rest the whole lump sum of history regarding the person of Christ. Not that this poses any real threat, opinion being just that. And of course, we should uphold everyone’s right to opinion. So with very little ceremony or remorse, we can relegate your material to that great Trash Heap in the Sky called Rhetoric.
It is as though you actually think that any reasonable person, Christian or no, who once reads this article will dismiss any further idea or contemplation of Jesus. Now I understand that is precisely your goal but even the harshest antagonists have not dared to step into the realm of asserting His non-existence! They may labor to make the case He was not God or divine but YOU set yourself as the final word.
Pssst… here’s a good one for you. Pass these things to the whole of the Muslim community. They all need a good laugh about now.
For a few thousand years no one questioned the idea that there were four elements fire, air, earth and water. Now we know that is a naive idea and the fact that it was held for so long counts for nothing against the truth that these four things are not elements, and the whole idea was mistaken. Christians obviously put a great deal of their faith on the 2000 years that Christianity has been believed, but mistaken beliefs can be held for long periods, as the example just cited shows. If Christianity is the only true religion, then Hinduism is false, yet half a billion Indians have thought it was true for 3000 years. If Hinduism is true then two billion Christians are wrong. In short, “the whole lump sum of history” counts for nothing when a view is wrong.
Moreover, it is generally true that unless someone has conclusive proof that their opinion is correct, it is no better than anyone else’s who also has no proof of it. Christianity therefore is itself merely an opinion. What I present on the AW! pages however is offered with evidence and argumentation. It is reasoned opinion and on that count is superior to Christianity which is merely belief.
You assert quite categorically that “even the harshest antagonists have not dared to step into the realm of asserting His non-existence”. I suggest that you have not understood plain English because the article you cite begins by listing several prominent scholars over the last century who say exactly that. The article also says that in my own view it is not true that there never was a historical Jesus. There was one, but he was exactly what he was crucified for in the Christian gospels. He was a Jewish freedom fighter against the Romans. So I am among those who say that Jesus was not God or divine. Did you say you had read the piece you attempt to criticise?
On your finals point, Judaism was the religion of the people of Palestine at the time. Rome was the unopposed world power who set themselves the task of suppressing the Jewish desire for freedom. Jesus was seen as the enemy of Rome and was eventually caught and disposed of. Make the appropriate changes today of Moslem for Jew and USA for Rome, and tell me who the equivalent of Jesus will be when they catch and execute him?
Mike, thanks for your reply. I thought after a week or so I would hear nothing. I’m certain, though, I’m not the only thing on your agenda so I was patiently waiting.
I only log on at weekends, so it is possible that I might not reply for a week. Stops me from wasting time and money (I am not on broadband).
As for the USA being the persecutors of Islam or the Muslim nations, when did the Jewish nation ever refer to Rome as “The great Satan” or “the Infidels”? They hated the rule and domination, yes, but the USA does not intend to rule.
I do not get you here. The USA bombed Vietnam mercilessly for a decade, and financed war there long before that. What was the purpose of this except to make the Vietnamese do what Uncle Sam thought was right? There are many lesser instances all over the world.
The last book of your own bible calls Rome the “great whore” and “Satan” and “where Satan dwelleth” and so on. The meaning is the same in this case and the examples you cited. A mighty and invincible occupying power had control of the world, and many of the people thus controlled objected. They identified the mighty enemy with all that was wicked in the world. Romans did not think they were wicked. They thought the Jews were ungrateful. What is different today, mutatis mutandis?
Again, while I can appreciate your own personal scepticism, your articles still maintain the flavor that yours is the truth (finally, after all these years) and that we only need to follow your historical analysis in order to also be correct in abandoning Christianity. You state categorically that the Christian view is “wrong”. The “whole lump sum” statement applies to your own as well. It must apply unless you yourself are God or have acess to knowledge the rest of us are deprived of. It is all slanted and just as unproven. I’d assert that you know this but dress it down in words. “What I present on the AW! pages however is offered with evidence and argumentation. It is reasoned opinion and on that count is superior to Christianity which is merely belief”. Do you sincerely imply that Christianity offers no evidence or compelling argumentation? No “reasoned opinion”? Are you asking me to accept that all scholarship TO THE MAN is inferior or in some way deceived because their investigation has led them to believe? Or should we accept only those you choose to quote as true “scholarship”? That is the same position I despised in my first correspondence and it holds.
The answer to all this is that I have read what Christians have to say and have looked at it as objectively as I am able, and find it is not merely wrong but Christians know it is wrong! Not all of them. I distinguish the shepherds from the sheep. The shepherds know! So I am indeed saying that what I offer is the truth about Christianity and what the leading Christians tell their flocks is false. It is to lead them up the garden path so that the professional Christians can have a comfortable and decadent life doing nothing useful while being paid a large or at least a comfortable amount of money. It also has the benefit for unscrupulous political leaders of keeping their subjects dormant and apathetic because they are promised rewards, that it is impossible for them ever to get, for being obedient.
Now, I have offered a lot of evidence to show that Christianity is nonsense both in its history and in its practice. Evidence is offered like advice to be considered and accepted as valid, or rejected. Christianity has not persuaded me that it is based on any sound evidence, and all Christians pushed into a corner on the argument admit that ultimately they just believe. Any evidence they offer is just trickery to persuade the unwary that there is a basis to it. They cannot persuade people with any degree of critical or analytical faculty developed, and have boasted that they persuade people by getting them young enough, before they have developed any critical faculties, or they get people whose reason has been weakened by traumas in their lives that leave them looking for impossible solutions. That is what Christianity offers. That is how it tricks the unwary.
I have given pages and pages of evidence that you or anyone who wants to read them can consider and accept or reject. I do not expect Christians to accept it. They are not rational or they are not honest. I get the impression that you do not understand evidence at all, which does not surprise me because few Christians do. I have considered the evidence and come to a conclusion. That is why evidence is presented.
In a court of law, you are offered evidence by the prosecution and by the defence, and it is up to you as a juryman to come to a conclusion. You cannot avoid the issue, the way you do, by claiming that by coming to a conclusion I think I am God. I do not think I am God but cannot see why the brain I have, that you believe God gave me, cannot be used to weigh up the evidence and allow me to make a decision. You do not object to people making up their minds on whatever basis they have. You object to anyone making up their mind that Christianity is bunk. I have decided that Christianity is false and dishonest and I explain to you and others why I have made this decision. Christians have made up their own minds in the opposite direction but based only on the assurances of their pastor or parents that an ancient book of mythology is truly the word of God. Your belief is not based on the book, but on your being conditioned to believe it is divine.
Please don’t fault me for missing a detail in your article. I didn’t miss your point. It seems you anticipate your articles to be so compelling you’ll soon see evidence of our collective “Aha” in thousands abandoning our senseless religion. The Gospel remains unintimidated.
If that happened, I should feel that I have done something useful in the world, but I have explained that irrational people cannot be persuaded by reason. There are, though, increasing numbers of people who themselves are questioning the bunkum they have been fed, often with their mother’s milk. People like that will find on these pages many of the arguments that they suspected but have not been able to find in a world swamped with Christian garbage. I also aim to offer a reasoned explanation of how these religions came about, on the grounds that it is all very well being critical but what is to be offered instead? As for the gospels, if they are evidence to be uncritically accepted, then what makes all the other religious books in the world wrong? That you accept the gospels but reject the Book of Mormon, the Quran, the Avesta or the Rig Veda proves that you merely believe, because any of these other books have just as much credibility as the New Testament books.
Incredible statement in every sense of the word. The Book of Mormon has credibility? Sir, The Book of Mormon is a laughing stock archaeologically, historically and translationally.
You should read more carefully before you get carried away with passion. I did not say that the Book of Mormon had credibility. I agree with you about it, but you make my point which is that it has as much credibility as the New Testament. Neither of them has any!
The existence of these other books “prove” that I merely believe? Ridiculous.
So, you have compelling reasons why the New Testament is believable but these others are not? Quite honestly, no Christian I have corresponded with has ever shown the least interest in even exploring the attraction of the other main religions, except, of course, Judaism. Perhaps you have done this, and are living proof that my universalism is false. Even then, the fact that tails are not uncommon in human babies at birth does not justify us in describing humans as having tails.
I’ll still read your site articles and carry on the discussion if you like but I’ll never accept your implication that I’m any less reasoned. Some choose to turn a blind or prejudiced eye to evidence.
Well, your arguments will show whether you are reasoned or not. You have not offered an argument so far, have you? Perhaps you have a beam in your own eye that prejudices YOU to the evidence, but you would rather pick away at the mote in mine. There are two sides to arguments, but no Christian will consider the opposite view. They are scared to in case their faith is challenged. Some faith!
To that point I take serious exception. If you were so adept at argumentation you would know you can not apply a universal statement.
Which of my universal statements do you mean?
You may have evidence, yes, of some who “shear the flock” for their own purposes but you leave no room for those who have labored in love and anonymity.
Why labour in love and anonymity for something that is so manifestly bogus? Large numbers of people think Uri Geller has supernatural powers. In centuries past he would have been the leader of a religion like Alexander of Abonitichos. He is plainly a fraud, yet people still believe. Christianity is no different so far as I can see. There are closer parallels like Sun-Moon and the Universal Church, and the Mormons, as you say indignantly below. I might be a sincere seeker after the truth and a doer of only good things in an evil world, but why then would I chose to profess obviously phony beliefs, or beliefs that cannot distinguish phonies from honest people? Perhaps I am wrong to use universal statements when there are fine distinctions, but only if the fine distinctions matter. The truth here is that the seeker and doer is merely one of the billion gullible people who are conned by the fleecers. For my own part, I cannot see why God should chose to save people by obliging them to follow what practice throughout history shows is overwhelmingly a disgustingly wicked mind set. Almost any non-patriarchal religion must be better.
I, like you, am sickened by what passes for Christianity today and a clear presentation of the Gospel. The CHarismatic/Prosperity movement has done grave damage to tho the church and the Scriptures. But your insistence that these men epitomize leadership and the office of the preacher is unfair. I cannot seem to get you beyond that universal indictment leveled at them or myself.
I speak universally because I mean to be universal in my condemnation of Christianity. If a gang of youths were defrauding old women in the mean streets of the city and they were caught but pleaded that they really meant to protect the old women, should we believe them? It seems to me that Christianity is like that. It purports to be doing nothing but good, but its overwhelming outcome is evil. Perhaps one of the gang really did mean to do good, but since they all, good or bad, make the same plea, what distinguishes the genuinely good one?
Until then, what evidence may I present? As for your claim that “no Christian will consider the opposite view” lest their faith be challenged, you once again categorize me never having known my own questions and struggles. If you think I smile sweetly and say “amen” to everything “christian” think again. Otherwise, why would I bother to read anything you offer? Critical thinking IS antithetical.
Yes it is, but you have not offered an argument to me. That is what I said. You are telling me that you are critical of it, but so far I am in the dark about what your criticisms might be. The position that Christians are taught to take as if by instinct is to defend. Christianity to this day pretends it is a minority struggling against an adverse world, when it has all the big battalions on its side in fact. Web pages like mine, though rare on the internet compared with vast numbers of Christian garbage, help persuade them that the poor Christian minority are still struggling against a Devilish world. What Christians have to struggle with in truth is the sheer dishonesty of Christianity as a whole. This suspicion has to be completely buried somewhere and not allowed to emerge. So, Christians much prefer to take their pick axes and put them in the eyes of Christian critics rather than digging out their own beams with them.
It always HAS to be we who are blinded to truth. It is the only way your system works. It is very frustrating. You said this yourself, Mike: “For my own part, I cannot see why God…” You know what? I cannot see why God did either. So we question God. Questioning may be fine but indicting Him when we have not yet seen every shred of evidence is risky even in a beloved court of law.
As ever you make points for me. If it is others who are blind to it, then where is the clear proof that Christians have the truth? My system, as you call it, works by the ways that have been tried and tested in real life. The methods of evidence, examination and testing. It is used in science, law and many aspects of everyday life, including buying anything in a market place. Caveat emptor means we have to take care that we know what we are doing when we buy something. Rogues and vagabonds will try to gull the unwary, and everyone has a duty to beware of them.
We sure do
Christianity demands the opposite. “Believe me”, the Christian says, and that is it.
I couldn’t care less whether or not you believe ME. It’s not my evidence.
That is the full gamut of the Christian case. They are the rogues and vagabonds.
The hated ones…just like Christ said we’d be.
I repeat again that I have a brain. If I were a Christian I must accept that an almighty God gave me it. But the Christian holy book says ignore it, it is the work of the Devil. If I were to believe in God and the story in Genesis that we are made in God’s image, then I must believe that when I question God, I am doing what God gave me the brain for. The reason is plain enough. When I question God as you put it, I am not questioning God, I am questioning the whole cesspit of lies that Christian pastors and priests tell us are what God thinks. When a priest tells me that something that God thinks is impossible to believe, then I know that the priest is a liar. An almighty God and creator of all that is just cannot be as stupid as Christian professionals want us to believe He is. The pre-Christian God of the Old Testament warned repeatedly in Isaiah that only God Himself was the saviour. He was warning against charlatans pretending to be God. Then along come the Christians!
I’m truly sorry, but Mike, now you’re displaying an ignorance of scripture. There is no such thing as a pre-Christian God. He is the same throughout, One God. And yes, He is the Savior Jesus.
Where in the Jewish scriptures does God say he is the Christian God? The Jews profoundly disagree on this, and they should know because you are claiming their God is yours. Why should they believe you? Anyway, the point is still valid because you are saying the God is the same one whether he is Christian or not. The Jewish God was not called Jesus but was called Yehouah. This Jewish God said and repeated it frequently: “…before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Yehouah; and beside me there is no saviour. ” (Isa 43:10-11)
Personally, my intent is not to change your mind. In todays world of political correctness and “choice” being the highest moral standard, you of all people should at least concede that your reasoning is limited and bias, leaving no room for “choice”.
I thought I had explained that when evidence clearly points to a conclusion, to pretend that there is still choice is to be perverse. The web pages you are reading give reasons why I think that Christianity is false and misleading, and ultimately brings about the opposite of what it pretends to be aiming for.
Why not spend some time attacking the true charlatans like James Van Praagh or John Edwards (he should be ashamed to use the name) as they speak with the dead? I note also that the main emphasis of your site is to attack CHristianity primarily and the token slam of Judaism. So I gather you could more safely adhere to Islam and the Quran even though they too beleive in “god”?
I thought you were criticising universal statements. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are not exclusive. If you had read more of the pages, and especially the Adelphiasophism ones, you would know that we regard all patriarchal religions as equally bad. I do not write about Islam because I do not know enough about it. I was brought up as a Christian in a Christian society. Let someone brought up in Islam write a criticism of it. As for my Judaism pages being a “token slam”, I thought my explanation of it was an utter demolition of it—for anyone rational, that it.
AW! Discussion Pages 027. James R. Askwhy! Publications. All these points taken, how are we to account for a man like Ravi Zacharias? Here is a man raised in India, a Hindu, understanding the vastness of religious thought and history and yet finds in Christianity alone the answers to his own questions? He is a brilliant man and most gracious. Hardly the bumpkin you like to caricature as Christian leadership. I am simply interested in your answer to this alone. Thanks.
I do not see what I am supposed to answer. You say this man was raised a Hindu but eventually chose to be a Christian. One of the fastest growing religions in the west is Buddhism. Lots and lots of people brought up as Christians are turning to this eastern faith instead. Many people are leaving Catholicism, but a few are converting. Surely there is always a flux of people at the margins of religions who move between them. Why is it so particularly significant that one of them, however clever he might be, chose Christianity?
Might I ask, out of suspicion, why this former Hindu has a Jewish name? A man called Zacharias does not sound to me like a typical Hindu. Perhaps his Jewish name gives us a clue as to why he might have been unusually disposed, for an Indian, towards a religion grounded in Judaism.
Magee’s Art of Apologetics reminds me of the Russian Cosmonaut who states, as he circles the finite sphere of earth, “There is no god. I’ve been to heaven and He’s not here.”
I do not understand you. The art of apologetics is criticising Christian methods of argument—utterly dishonest ones because Christian belief does not require justification. Christians just believe, but they like to put up spurious reasons for it. Heaven is one of them, and I cover this very point here:
Where Does God Live
“In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane”. Mark Twain
Mark Twain was a great humourist, but opinions become facts when they are proved beyond reasonable doubt. In law an opinion means that a view is given on what the interpetation of the law is. By giving it, the judge extends the law, and so the judges opinion is the law and therefore a fact, inasmuch as the law is unquestionable until it is changed. The same is true in science, and indeed, both fields are merely extensions of common sense. It might be only my opinion that if I jump from the roof of a multi-storey car park, I will die, but I am sufficiently convinced of it that I have no intention of doing it. Those who want to ignore this opinion can do so, but I think you will agree that they are insane. My very point is that people who believe without evidence are insane.
I’ve gotta say, Mike, ours is a very difficult converstation.
It sounds as though you are getting exasperated and feel you want to end it even though you have still not produced an argument.
I said our conversation IS a difficult one, not “was”. Just so you can put a face to the words, I’ve sent my mug along for the ride this time.
Well, you look quite intelligent, but far too Christian to be trusted.
If, as you say, you were raised Christian, you have simply chosen to disbelieve what you were taught. No one can do anything about that.
To simply choose to disbelieve something sounds arbitrary. I have tried to explain to you that to be invited to believe something without convincing evidence is a confidence trick. I disbelieved Christianity because it was not believable, and the evidence for it was nothing more than to do as the parson or parent told you. So, I have not simply chosen anything. I have thought about it and considered the evidence either way, and I have concluded having done all this that Christianity is a scam.
You are like Christians in general, if I can be universal about such things. None of you understand evidence at all. You obviously cannot understand that I have not just tossed a coin and it came down against Christianity. The reason is that that is all you do, but you bet heads I win, tails you lose. Any evidence or none suffices for you to believe because your decision is not a rational one. It is emotional. The rest of your letter shows that you have no idea how evidence works.
You say I have tried to explain to you that to be invited to believe something without convincing evidence is a confidence trick. Since you insist I have no evidence to produce (and ignore my comment that you’ve already rejected it out of hand) I produce the evidence for the Resurrection as one reason for my belief.
Based upon the facts that 1) The tomb was empty 2) Two women observed where he was laid 3) Three verified the tomb opened while it was still being guarded 4) Two men checked out their story and found the same empty tomb 5) The other men didn’t believe the report initially but later were given proof themselves 6) The professionally trained Roman guards took a bribe to promote a known lie. A sleeping guard would be executed himself. 7) He appeared bodily to Thomas. 8) He ate with them. 9) He appeared Bodily to over 500 (mass hallucination, I suppose?) 10) To James and to Paul I conclude the Resurrection to be factual. Based upon His own description of things to His disciples throughout the Synoptic Gospels, thing s went according to plan, giving credence to His words, even though they may not have understood them at the time.
Qualified historians have investigated the evidence as the Bible presents it, and (along with legally admissable examinations), have concluded it as fact. Men disbelieved it then, based on a documented fabrication by the Roman government (Matt. 28:11-15) and theories have been conjured to dismiss the evidence ever since—each one rendered preposterous i.e. the “Swoon” theory.
You will believe your own qualified historians because they are Christian historians. Unbiased historians whether non-Christians or Christians disagree. It would be quite impossible to criticize Christianity without criticizing the myth of the resurrection, and I have several pages devoted to it, and some correspondence. You will find my arguments online.
You keep saying I present no evidence. I must constantly remind myself that you have already rejected all there is to present. You have an argument formulated for each and every Biblical doctrine and even then pass judgement upon the Bible so we cannot even use that. Who else are we supposed to find as a credible witness? Your witnesses are always superior.
Thank you. You will therefore be abandoning your childish superstition then, and joining the ranks of the sensible? I fear not, even though you are admitting that you have no arguments to refute my refutations of Christian apologetics.
And the reason I should do this is…? Because, again, you’ve relegated everything to the garbage heap beforehand? None of us Christians understands evidence at all, is that right? For what I hope will be the last time, I will not accept your universal indictment.
You like to distinguish your self from the body of Christians perhaps and that is why you resent my addressing them all equally. But it really would be too tedious to list any exceptions even if I was patient enough to find them, so I will continue to be universal in my criticism. Cretans, I am sure, despite your inerrant book, are not always liars, but it was too tedious for God to list the exceptions.
Since you have such respect for the bible, just explain to me why it deserves to be treated as the Word of God as opposed to a year dot book of Mormon.
It seems as though you are demanding specific and tangible items be laid out on a table that you may examine them for authenticity. Then it seems you declare yourself the resident expert. Your judgement of these items will be the final determination and it will be on your findings that the rest of us will be compliant.
Your evidence can be presented however you like to present it. It can then be examined however I like to examine it. It might be faulty for any number of reasons and often is. Perhaps I will claim to have some expertise in some of these matter having studied them for several years and held discussions with people like you. If I am proving that I am not an expert in something, then it is up to you to show that I am not. My judgement will decide whether I have been convinced or not. So far, I have not been convinced of Christianity, and it is, indeed, so far from convincing me that I doubt that I ever shall be.
No other expert exists who may present an opinion to the contrary, or, if he does exist, you dismiss his evidence based solely on the fact that you dislike his evidence.
You are proving that you cannot understand evidence or indeed your own art of apologetics. If no one can offer contrary evidence then what am I arguing with? If I merely dismiss evidence then I am being a Christian, not a critic of it. I show that the evidence is false, or is better explained by natural as opposed to supernatural means.
You are incapable of misunderstanding his findings as much as he is incapable of possibly giving you something to think about. This is called “free-thinking”? This is further evidence of what Luther and Edwards describe as the “bondage of the will”.
Well you or Luther can call it whatever you like but it is not true of me. I do not doubt that I can misunderstand an argument, but when I do, it is up to my Christian opponent to show me that I have misunderstood them. As for the other point, again what am I doing in arguing other than thinking about whatever has been offered to me in opposition. “Something to think about” as you put it is another of your euphemisms for “believing what I say”. I will believe it when I am convinced. Christians believe anyway, and therefore can convince no one.
An interesting point (to me) is how one Christian Antagonist Authority has verifiable proof that Jesus never lived; never existed. Another Antagonist states with irrefutable evidence that this Jesus was a mere man, not God, and that he actually married, had children etc.
You try to win arguments by setting up straw dolls. You must know all about this having read the art of apologetics. If these people that you claim you know have irrefutable proof of this or verifiable proof of that, then tell me who they are and what their proof is. What annoys Christians is that people should be producing any sort of proof that denies the Christian fairy tale.
They both hate the Christian Jesus and yet they contradict each other. NOW who are we to believe? They can both be wrong, one right and one wrong, but they cannot both be right.
Christians are fond of saying that anyone can project any image they chose into the gospel Jesus. Their argument continues that the traditional one might just as well be chosen as any other. What this argument shows is that the Christian fairy tale is like myths in general. It is so diffuse that you can read whatever you like into it. That means the opposite of the Christian conclusion. Their interpretation is merely one of many, no more and probably a lot less meaningful, and certainly a lot less likely than others that can be devised from the same evidence. Christians believe the traditonal interpretation because they are told, or taught, if you like, to do so, from early childhood in the main, and for no more convincing reason.
I don’t use that to set up a straw man. I use that to say that when even the critics battle each others findings it should say something like “maybe something fishy is going on here.” You’re fond of legal evidence. Cases are dismissed when parties can’t get their stories straight.
Take care! The stories in the different books of the New Testamant are seriously contradictory. It is precisely one of the reasons why the bible has to be rejected as convincing evidence of the supernatural events you love. But let us get back to the point you are making. If X claims Jesus married Mary Magdalene and Y says he did no such thing, then we are back to the skill of weighing the evidence. These two views are not equally favoured by it, and the first can certainly be dismissed. You again show that you cannot use evidence properly if you consider that these two opinions are equal. The Christian book market is a vast one, and populist authors are happy to jump on to it. It does not mean we should take any notice of them. Christians like the whole of the Jesus book market for the reason that you do. They can pretend that Jesus is all things to all men, and so the Christian Jesus can freely be accepted by Christians. Yet a much more convincing case is that Jesus was the Jesus whom the Romans caught and hanged, even according to the Christian holy book. He was a Jewish rebel.
I do try to become familiar with history. Sir WIlliam Ramsay: “I set out to look for truth on the borderland where Greece and Asia meet, and found it here [ he means in the Book of Acts]. You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian’s, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment, provided always that the critic knows the subject and does not go beyond the limits of science and of justice.”
Now I grant you that what Ramsay says is evidence, but it is flawed. Do I take it that Ramsay is himself a reliable and an objective witness? Since Ramsay seems to have been a convinced Christian, his own scholarship needs to be scrutinized, and compared with the views of others. Ramsay testifies to the fact that the author of Acts could describe the world of his time with convincing accuracy. I am sure you or I could do the same. C S Forrester could do the same and so could Katherine Cookson. I have said repeatedly on my pages that the ability to set a romance in a convincing historical setting is not of itself any proof that the romance is true history. Generally, the whole point of historical accuracy in novels is to create an illusion of truth. Moreover, whereas Ramsay seemed to think that Acts was written by a single author from its broadly uniform style, other scholars disagree profoundly, saying that is is a paste and scissors affair,, and the seams are clear despite someone’s editorial hand.
I give you just one so you’ll be forced to stop saying “all” and “none”.
And I give my reply to show you that the opinion of one Christian, however often Christians like to cite him, is not the be all and end all of debate.
One thing ringing clear is that both belief and unbelief are ancient. You present nothing new; I present nothing new. I’ll be sorry for saying so but Adelphiasophism is a re-packaged heresy along with the rest. Give the whole argument a different name and we are left with what we have.
Do you mean religious belief, Christian belief or believing anything at all? A belief is whatever anyone takes to be true. For thousands if not millions of years people were happy with their own non-Christian religions, and God did not seem anxious to save any of them. I take it as a philosophical proof that Christianity is wrong that it is not a universal belief but an exclusive one. A universal God cannot be particular. What I have been spending the last few e-mails saying to you is that anyone who believes anything without convincing evidence is a fool. Christianity boasts in its own holy book it is a religion of fools and infants, and it sure enough is.
Whoever said God is a universal god? Ahem…is this thing on?…testing….CHristianity IS an exclusive belief. You want the god of Deepak Chopra! No demands, no right or wrong, no standards EXCEPT those which men choose to impose upon themselves. It’s our “god/christ spirit within”. Or not, because either way, man is king.
Well, I have to just disagree with you on this, but you will claim to be right because you are the Christian and therefore will claim to know these things. I stick to my point. The God who makes the universe is a universal God. That God cannot in love and justice choose to ignore the greater part of His human creation. Those who think God would do this show they are dangerously deluded.
When I made that statement “No other expert exists…” I was stating it as your point of view, not mine. Evidence DOES exist. You simply dislike where it points. If God’s use of supernatural means confounds you then so be it.
Yes, and I am answering that if my view is that no evidence exists then I have nothing to argue with. The whole point is that I am taking the Christian evidence and showing it is false or better answered in historical ways not by assuming the supernatural, as Christians do. The question is why do Christians invoke a supernatural answer for events that can be answered more convincingly by other means. The answer is that these events are not your evidence at all. Your belief is sufficient evidence for you, but you like to have this supernatural interpretation of quite possibly historical or semi-historical events to offer to potential converts—gullible souls who cannot distinguish evidence and so accept the words of some rogue called a priest or a minister, according to which of the 33,000 varieties of Christianity you have opted for.
I said “You are incapable of misunderstanding his findings as much as he is incapable of possibly giving you something to think about. This is called “free-thinking”? This is further evidence of what Luther and Edwards describe as the “bondage of the will”. You replied, “Well you or Luther can call it whatever you like but it is not true of me.” Luther and Edwards were both giving an exposition on a text of scripture. Yours is the perfect outworking of that condemnation laid upon men. The “something to think about” should be that one possibility. Yet it seems an impossibility to you. So I will ask rather than assume; Is it possible your will IS in bondage?
How many angels dance on a pin’s head? Whatever, it means, perhaps it is so. But perhaps it is so that your’s is the will that is in bondage. Christians are like budgerigars. They are in love with their own image.
I was telling a lady at work about our convo and she just says she won’t argue these things. That saddened me.
She is more typical than you are. Since you are interested in history, you will know that for centuries the Church would not let people read the bible. They had to have what they were told. Today, they can read their bibles but are not allowed to make of it what they will, and they are certainly discouraged from discussing it with infidels.
No, I’m not hoping she’ll begin to argue, it’s just that I’m not fond of the “keep’em at arms length” idea. It suggests superiority. And, quite frankly, so does your position. What’s a guy like me to do?
Use your brain. Treat it as the organ that God gave you so that you will not be misled by devilish people. When Christians like Bush gather in a war cabinet to plan to kill thousands of innocent people in the name of Christianity and pray publicly to God, then your brain should be alerting you to so many contradictions that you could not possibly be a fellow Christian with anyone as hypocritical and wicked as this. The Christian marriage ceremony says words to the effect of, “What God has brought together, let no man put asunder”. If this is true of marriage, then why do these Christians thinks God is happy that people that He has created should be blown asunder by ten ton bombs.
You ask me to use my brain. OK. I’m trying hard to figure out why you make GW Bush the epitome of Christianity. So the man claims to be a Christian. He has never made this a war in the name of Christianity. WHere did you ever hear that? Islam makes ALL their wars religious wars in order to Muslim-ize the world. Who said we are trying to Christianize Iraq? That sounds like it’s your personal campaign against Bush.
Now YOU are sounding just like a true Christian. Whatever Moslems think should have no bearing on your own belief, so is irrelevant to a Christian’s arguments. Nor do I make Bush the epitome of a Christian. He makes himself it. He is a self confessed Christian and uses publicity, including pictures of him praying with his war cabinet, to express it, and simultaneously he is the most powerful man in the world, able to make and break whole nations of millions of people. So, I am puzzled why you should object to my citing Bush. I certainly write a lot in opposition to Christianity, and you can call it a campaign if you wish, though I am doubtful that the word is really appropriate to one man. Bush, as the most powerful Christian in the world, and therefore in a position to exert Christian principles, cannot avoid attracting my attention. Does he rule in a Christian way? If he does, then we are shown most clearly what Christianity means in practice. If not, then I must ask, where are all the indignant Christians outraged that he should be spoiling their image by pretending to be one?
The ROMAN CATHOLIC Church would not let people read the bible. NO ONE is allowed to make of it what they will. If that is what you’re condemning, say so. The Bible interprets the Bible. We are subject to IT which is what the Reformation was all about. “…and they are certainly discouraged from discussing it with infidels.” Our command from Christ is the very opposite! We are to take it TO the world, “infidels” or not.
Well evidence or the lack of it is one thing but talking nonsense is another. “The bible interprets the bible” is nonsense. People interpret the bible, and the interpretation has to begin long before you ever get to read it. Your bibles are translated from a large number of alternative manuscripts, some in Hebrew, some in Greek, some in Aramaic, and they are checked agaisnt other earlier translations in Latin. Often the original words are meaningless, and have to be construed as meaning something. In commentaries, they are called “difficult passages”.
Then the words have to be unified to suit modern theology. The word translated Lord in the bible appears to be the name of the Hebrew God, Yehouah (YHWH). The word translated God is the Hebrew word for Gods. So, the “Lord God,” met with frequently in the bible, means literally “Yehouah of the Gods”. It would not do to translate it thus when this Yehouah is meant to be a lonely God living on his tod.
So, the bible interprets itself with passages that are false and wrong and deliberately mistranslated or suitably reconstructed often out of gibberish. Where is the self-interpretation here? Why doesn’t the almighty God get His own word right?
As for your other point, the woman you referred to obviously did not share your evangelical spirit. She took it that she ought not to debate with infidels, and most Christians are the same, because the bulk of them do not understand their own religion. A man in the UK who was the coach of the national football team famously got himself into trouble having been born again as a Christian. He said that people’s disabilities were caused by their sins in previous lives. Now what sort of Christian was that? I do not doubt that of the 33,000 there will be some that have merged with Buddhism, but will still claim to be Christian. The truth is that irrespective of the bible interpreting itself, Christians believe whatever they like.
I don’t know if this will be our final correspondence or not. But I’ll end this one with this: There are Christian distinctives. Christians are called to repentance when necessary. We are called to make a constant evaluation of our own personal lives. Sometimes I hate having to recognize things about me. These are frequently things I cannot just pull up my bootstraps and try harder to do good. Who I AM as a man has changed and needs changing still. I cannot effect those changes. Something has PROVEN to be what it says, A lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And it searches the depths of my heart and mind (debatable, I know) It is an uncomfortable life but one which drives me onward to a goal. I would hope I have at least proven I’m no yahoo just condemning everyone to hell. Though I used only the Resurrrection as my proof today, there is more but I need to hear you address the Resurrection first.
None of this impresses me. This impresses me, but no Christian (no apologies) takes any notice of it because they are taught it is wrong:
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
These are the words of the Brother of Jesus, a man who ought to know what Jesus meant when he taught. Paul, who taught the opposite of this, ought to be seen as Satan by Christians, but he is really the founder of the smug self-deception that you think is religion.
If my words seem harsh, remember they are merely words but that Christians have burnt to death multitudes of people who disagreed with them by tying them to a stake and piling barrels of tar or damp faggots around them. Those who got the tar barrels will have had a fairly swift death, but those with the damp faggots probably cooked slowly for an hour or more. Nice people, the Christian of history. Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld will understand them.
I quoted no historian.
Who said you did? I said “You will believe your own qualified historians,” in response to your saying, “Qualified historians have investigated the evidence as the Bible presents it”. You are forgetting your own words, but they are there in black and white. Anyway, let us get on to the Resurrection.
Resurrection I. The truth is most LIBERAL (apostate) religionists reject bodily resurrection. Do not call them Christian. For those others not going “around causing trouble” they are cowards and the ones you described earlier who are in it for the buck.
Christians, and I mean any of those people who profess to be followers of the Christ of the bible and to use the New Testament as their Holy Book, include a large majority of people who disagree with you. I do not know what loony sect of Christianity you profess, but internal disagreements of Christians do not interest me except to show that you are all bonkers.
What you are doing here is agreeing with me that bodily resurrection is the belief of Christ and the Christian religion as originally understood. You ought therefore be telling all of the modern spiritualists who call themselves Christians that they are wrong and are not Christians. I have said many times before that most Christians refuse to nail each other publicly, even when their disagreements are deep. They will criticize the only Christianity there was for hundreds of years, and without which, to believe the Christian account of history, there could be no modern Christianity at all because nothing could have preserved it for all those centuries if it were not Catholicism. Presumably this is all part of God’s master plan.
Anyway, throw your rattle at these apostates that you disagree with not at me. So far as most people today are concerned, they are Christians whether you like it or not, and, if they are wrong, and you are right, why is God allowing it?
In Resurrection II you blatantly misuse and misquote the passage regarding the guards at the tomb. You say:
There is no way Roman soldiers could have been bribed to say Christ’s body was stolen away by his disciples. If they had said it they would have been accused immediately of treachery to Rome in allowing it. Matthew hopes to avoid this by saying the priests would stand up for them, if the governor found out, but the priests would have had no say in such a flagrant dereliction of duty. They were supposed to be on guard to prevent the theft of the body. They failed! Matthew realizes this and gets more tangled up by having the guards make the excuse they were asleep! Can you imagine what any military power would do to soldiers who admitted being asleep while on duty? And if now they were saying they were asleep, how could they have served to prove that the disciples did not steal the body?
They did not say they were asleep! They were told to say this by the chief priests who had the governor in their pockets!
Read what you are saying. They were told to say it but did not! Is that what you mean to say? They were bribed to say they were asleep, and said it. That is what I wrote. As for having the governor in their pockets, it is like claiming that Jay Garner is in the pockets of the Shia Moslem clerics. Absurd.
The gospel passage reads as follows: “Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”
You’re quickly losing credibility here, Mike. You have fabricated your own interesting tale and buried the given account in a volume of words. Surely you recognize treachery in men when you see it?
You are the one who lacks credibility. You cannot read the words of your own book, or you wilfully misread them to fit your preconceived ideas. Roman soldiers were bribed to be traitors to their own governor. That is the story in Matthew, and I am saying it is impossible to believe, though anyone who believes in a dead man walking will believe anything—and Christians do. Just read what I say again, and if you cannot understand it, tell me what you cannot understand. The author of Matthew explains to us why he has made up the story. It is because Jews believed the corpse had been stolen by his disciples.
Now read Matt. 28:11. You will not tolerate lies but it’s OK for you to do so. “No guards came forward…” when it says specifically “they came… and reported.” I don’t even want to hear how you’ll circumvent that one.
You are being typically Christian. Dishonest. This is what I wrote in the passage you are refering to:
“If the corpse was truly resurrected in the presence of the guards, they must have seen what happened and have become the only real eyewitnesses to the resurrection. Evidently no guards came forward to the first Christians as witnesses to it. No guards came forward, though they had just seen the most astonishing act ever to happen in the world and had evidently still not believed! How then are we, who are denied such evidence, to believe? Matthew has to explain his blunder. He wanted guards in the story to prove that the corpse was not simply stolen but then has to explain why they did not come forward as the most compelling witnesses. So he tells us they were bribed not to tell the truth but to say that disciples had stolen the corpse. “
These guards actually saw whatever you think is such a great miracle that we should all believe in it and become Christians, but they were so unimpressed that they were bribed by priests, who evidently were also unimpressed by their story—the story of the only true eye-witnesses accredited in the gospels. I am saying perfectly clearly that “no guards came forward to the first Christians as witnesses to it”. I am saying that Matthew is in a mess because his excuse that the disciples did not steal the corpse actually destroys the Christian proof of the divinity of Christ and the Christian religion. Men who had actually seen the wonder itself must have been instantly converted and become the most compelling witnesses to the Christian resurrection miracle. The gospels should have been written by Roman soldiers. None of them came forward to be witnesses to the good news. It is therefore not credible.
“Christians like to think of these witnesses as…” We do, do we? How many explanations did Jesus have to give them concerning his words? These were dense, hard-headed men. They knew it and Jesus politely told them so. You contend they thought themselves saintly. Somebody is lying, Mike, and it’s not Peter. You are stating falsehoods about these men.
Can you read English? This is the passage you are criticizing:
“The gospel writers say that these witnesses said they had seen the risen Jesus. Christians like to think of these witnesses as perfectly holy people even though the gospels almost go out of their way to show that they were far from perfect, and indeed that Jesus was trying to save sinners and publicans. Why then will they not let go of their illusion of saintliness and consider that, once Jesus had died, they all lied to promote their apparently lost cause in Jesus? Or why did they never consider the possibility that Jesus was not dead at all, and had been whisked away by Joseph of Arimathea to a safe place? Or why could they not have been so distressed by the unacceptable outcome that they rationalized the defeat, in fact, into a victory, in theory.”
All of them are Christian saints. That means that Christians regard them as perfectly holy people. Where did I say that they considered themselves saintly? You cannot answer the points I make, so you invent your own to argue against. Straw men. You are supposed to know about this trick if only because you read the Art of Apologetics.
I read the rest and it is more verbal gymnastics.
Well, you Christians ought to know about those. Certainly the verbal gymnastics here are yours.
The use of the word egeiro most certainly can be used for “raised up” but why then would not Christ use that word for Lazarus? He does not. He uses “awaken”. Consistent and yet sets apart the distinctiveness of Christ.
I do not get your case here. Lazarus is described as being “raised” and the word used is egeiro (Jn 12:1,9,17), properly being awakened. In Jn 11:23,24, the word is “raise up” (anistemi), but the connotation is the resurrection at Judgement Day, the very resurrection that Jesus meant all the way through when he spoke about resurrection. In 11.43, Jesus does not use the command “rise up” or “awaken” but “come out”. Earlier on, there seemed to be confusion as to whether Lazarus was dead or merely asleep, eg Jn 11:11: “These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.”
The real point is that there is general confusion about whether these people, Jesus included, were dead or not, but my own view explained elsewhere is that the Essenes at least among Jews seem to have considered death not to have been final but a type of sleep until the general resurrection at Judgement Day when the Wicked would finally die the second death, and the Good would live on in their uncorruptable resurrected bodies. These were their beliefs, but have no more need to be ours than the beliefs of the Aborigines or the Eskimos.
This side-steps the issue. These points of supernatural evidence were not magical tricks for common entertainment. They could get these from known sorcerers. What sorcerer was able to still a sea? Who has yet conjured the illusion of walking on water? I realize you scoff and snort at these but they were done to verify Christ’s deity and THAT is the reason he was hated and sought for death. He has an authority that men despise so he is dismissed or, in the name of scholastic achievement and enlightenment, explained out of existence.
You are right, I scoff at all this. You apparently believe in sorcerers. I no more believe in them than I believe in Christ’s magic tricks, but Christians, I repeat, will believe anything. As far as I can gather, some of them think Harry Potter stories are a threat to their kids’ immortal souls. If you were not already convinced of your own delusion, you would be deifying Uri Geller, or even Superman, for his powers are of the same category as those of the biblical Jesus—they are made up.
I’ll concede that you are more adept at argument and debate than I but I maintain your approach to scripture is solely antagonistic and self-serving. As for understanding the canon and the depths of the doctrines, i.e. the nature of God, the Person and work of Jesus and the critique of mankind, yours is below average. I’ve often thought it is quite like someone describing to me what life was like with my father or telling me things about him that I knew were not true. No one can tell me what that life was like unless they had lived it too. Maybe out of your acceptable realm of comparison, but it is fitting.
You illustrate the psychology of the Christian religion perfectly. God is a mental daddy. That is why He is called the Father. I repeat that Christians are immature. They are encouraged in their own book to remain immature and ignorant. That is why they want a figmentary father. He is a particularly nice father too. He never punishes them for not doing as they are told.
I really do look forward to your letters, Mike. I remain open to viewing criticism. I, just like you, have not yet seen why I should abandon my position. Strange how we flip-flopped. You came from a “Christian” perspective, found it void of reason and so rejected it. I too was raised “Christian” but it was void of any reason and so rejected. It was no more than a set of dead rules to me. Yet I contend that neither of us grew up “Christian”. We were raised to be religious but knew nothing of regeneratiaon. There remains the difference. I am regenerate as the Spirit of God says. How? My own doing? Someone convincing me Buddha is the way or that TM will allow me to transcend myself or that Humanism, Pietism or Scepticism will break away the sham we call “truth”?
There is a distinctive of what we call Christianity. So many see only the abberation perpetuated today in the many forms. There is one Gospel and it is not to be toyed with. I see it as clearly stated, pictured, exemplified and verified in the Bible, yes. Well reasoned and capable of answer to any and all sceptics.
You are easily satisfied.
Ours has been quite a conversation thus far. In review of all we’ve said, I think this to be a fair assessment: As Freud expounded on “wish projection” as mankinds reason for religion, he may have failed to recognize that the same could be applied to the atheistic point of view driven by the very same fear.
Psychologically, Christianity is primarily based on a fear of death. I cannot see how atheism can be based on the same fear.
You insist that your case has been built upon the highest logic and reason and that for anyone to adhere to any belief in God renders that person a dishonest ignoramous and without the slightest hint of reason for belief. I must remind myself that is from one man’s perspective.
That it is built on the highest logic and reason, I do not recall claiming. I do not know what the highest logic is. I do claim, though, that one’s beliefs should be logical, and they should certainly not be based on no evidence at all. That would leave everyone encouraged to think in that way unable to use their brains properly. That is why I call professional Christians used car dealers. I cannot see how this is only one man’s perspective. It is the perspective that has allowed us to learn what we now know after over amillennium of abject ignorance. Anyone who wants to encourage us to return to that sorry state is either dishonest or is ignorant anyway.
It is well known that we can argue neither for or against the existence of God solely on a psychological basis because each will have their reasons for wanting to believe or not. Reality is neither proven nor refuted by what we disire the truth to be.
I do not see that we have to argue for or against reality. It is real by definition. God cannot be found in it, and so God is not real and does not exist.
We can argue these points but one thing remains: Yours is as much personal preference as any other’s, which is the logical outworking of a systematized atheology evidenced all around us in a decadent culture. That men prefer there to be no personal God makes sense to me in that, if there were, man would in some way be accountable to him. The preference is for there to be no God (not based on any “proof”) so that men may hold to his autonomy.
Perhaps the difficulty that Christians have is that they are inherently illogical. Whether I opt to believe God exists or not is not a whim as you seem to think it is, or always make it out to be. The logic of it is that there is no evidence for the existence of a God, and so there is no logical reason why anyone should want to believe there is one. God is in the same category as any other fantastic being that you care to mention. Fantastic beings only exist in the imagination. It is therefore impossible to prove that they exist because they do not. Since they do not exist, the proof that they do not exist is precisely that no one ever encounters them in real life. The nearest to it is that some people in moments of weakness or trauma feel the need for a helper, but any god or goddess will do to supply the need. Christians again are so arrogant that they cannot recognize that other religions supply, and have supplied in the past, the same needs as the Christians’ gods do. Your explanation that atheists prefer not to believe in a god so that they can do as they like is absurd. If god existed, then to ignore his existence is manifestly absurd. Whatever they believed would not negate the fact of the god. These people cannot find any signs of a god. It is therefore not a matter of personal whim. can you understand that, or do you insist on sticking to your amateur psychology?
You demand that the individual, a society and the world be rid of the notion of God. So, then, what becomes the basis for having law and government? The demand for autonomy must certainly lead to anarchy. Was governing authority instituted by man? On what grounds? If no one can claim right or wrong and all is subjective and relative, governing a people is impossible. This position does not tolerate authority yet sets itself as the authority. So we have rampant hedonism evidenced in our art, music and media.
You see now you are admitting the true purpose of religion without apparently realizing it. It was used in ancient days as the basis for law and order. It was easier for rulers to persuade the people they ruled to behave when the people believed an omniscient god saw everything they did, and would ensure they were suitably punished for it. The obvious punishment was applied by the state, but more subtly, the simple people of those days really thought, as you do, that a god was watching their every move, so they had better be good. The fact is that no god is needed for good government and law and order provided that democracy is working. Law is something that everyone wants to make life tolerable, and therefore they accept it. According to you, nobody wants or would accept laws once they got rid of childish ideas of god, but that is a childish idea that accompanies it. If there is only one true God then who kept people honest in pre-christian days when the gods were Orpheus and Hercules?
Granted, you may cite those in “religion” who betray the practice and exhibit corruption, but the truly godless promote wickedness at every level and seek to make their atheism the norm as though this were the highest attainable standard for mankind. (By using the term “godless” I do not refer only to the professed atheist, but anyone who regularly and habitually ignores even the notion of God.)
To equate atheism with wickedness proves that you are a cracked pot. All of the non-Christian religions must be atheistic because they do not accept your God, but many of them have had far superior civilizations to ours. What makes our civilization comfortable for us is not God but science. The truly godless in the sense you mean of being utterly and demonstrably wicked have been professed Christians, and Bush illustrates the point. He is a showy Christian along with his cabinet and they have no compunction about killing off God’s creations on the grounds that they say they are created by Satan. Your selective definition of Christian to discount all of the professed Christians who were wicked is a condemnation of Christianity anyway. Where were all the good Christians when the wicked ones were murdering and torturing everyone else?
Replace God with anarchy, with evolutionary “survival of the fittest”, with the “super-race” of Nazi Germany or with the intolerance of the Inquisitions and men will destroy one another with a smile on their faces.
The Inquisitions were Christian as you well know, and denying it is only your own post hoc justification. Nazis were Christians with the motto “Gott mit Uns”.
C S Lewis: “The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other…the standard that measures two things is something different from either” and “admitting there is such a thing as real Right.” I hope you won’t say “But we’re not talking about morality”.
Moral standards can be worked out with respect to what benefits people. Mutual benefit based on law being applied uniformly to all would ensure that no pressure groups and lobbies could benefit. Law is injustice when sought by individuals and groups for their own benefit or some else’s disadvantage. Read the legal works of the recently deceased Rawls on justice.
