What a waste of money.

[View From The Top]

It seems logical from the programme I saw on it, and similar happened (on a smaller scale) in the USA. Also factor in the layer of volcanic ash (dated to the time of the santorini eruption) found in the Nile Delta and the unexplainable in the bible begins to be explained.

 

I watched it as well and found it fascinating and a compelling argument, however, that still doesn't alter that it's conjecture and cannot be proven as fact.

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

In the same way someone with a MA is somewhat more qualified than a mere enthusiast Schama, Beevor etc are somewhat more qualified and experienced than TLS.

 

It's like comparing apples and pears.

 

I would argue that an enthusiast in history would develop his own though process without the influence of his lecturers.

[pap]

All our beliefs are a coincidence of our environment. A religious man born in say, India, will likely believe different things to a religious man born in Britain. People have killed over the differences for centuries and will continue to do so.

 

We're a highly secular society. There's a big difference between self-identifying as a faith and actually practising it. I wonder what percentage of people who would call themselves Christian have actually read the Bible.

 

If you really want to see how relevant the Bible is, try looking at churches that take it as the literal word of God.

[View From The Top]

If a scientist says that the big happened 3billion years ago or that a dinosaur is 3m years old people today are more willing to believe it. If Pontious Pilot existed then it is pretty likely that Jesus did. Muslims belived he existed but was not the son of God but just a prophet and that because the new Testament was written afterwards his presence was exploited. The context seems to be right. No serious historian would rule out that he existed but lets face it at what point in history before cameras and artists can we conclude that anybody existed.

 

If you read this thread I say that I believe he did exist, however, that does not alter the fact that there is no primary evidence that he did, or at least evidence that has been released from the Vatican archives.

 

If there was prima facie evidence you'd think, in these secular times, it would be released.

 

I'd love to know what the Vatican actually hold, including the testaments that were rejected at the Council of Nicea

[Frank's cousin]

Did you actually study history? Your powers of analysis are somewhat under developed - lets start with the impact of the spread of Christianity on the Roman Empire, or maybe when the Vikings discovered Christianity, what about the crusades, the power of the Church in the Middle Ages, the consequences of the reformation. What do you think children had read to them everyday, what do you think they first read? What about the role of religion in the empire and Gladstone's faith influencing his politics. What about Ireland? What about Gordon Brown and his moral compass? Even now it is a political issue and that is why Gove rather grandly is providing Bibles with a foreword from him. You do not think then that the Bible has probably had more influence on the direction of our nation than any other single factor.

 

How does your science explain emotion, love, spiritualism? I would suggest that the first rule of science is to not rule out anything. Religion can be a great force for good when it is not exploited for the wrong reasons.

 

By the way you come across as if you are shouting. Rather sad.

 

Surely though Sergei, you have in a somewhat roundabout way illustrated the senselessness of these 'books' - NO one is denying the historical significance of these teachings and their influence on the cultural development of many nations, civilizations etc... but look closely at your examples and what is clear is that they all involve invasion, war, political strife.... all as you point out on the back of the 'good books' and the religious zealots that say it is representative of some higher being. I think there is some confusion with Thorpe's post - I don’t believe he is dismissing the importance of religion on history, but merely IMHO quite rightly feckin angry that they played such a part, that scholars may have studied them, but politicians and religious zealots have used them for their own political ambition (of which there is no doubt). The fact that they are able to control huge populations through cementing the written word (after 100s of years of rewrites and interpretation) with some mythical divine being and thus ensure a decent power base is what we should be angry at.

 

Personal faith/belief does no harm (even if iMHO utterly misguided) but when used as a political force - it really shows its hideousness. Therefore, indoctrinating kids when they are not of an age to know any better or question the validity of the content is for me abuse and why such texts of whatever type should have no place in schools... until placed in their proper context (IMHO works of fiction/folklore that over time have had way too much influence on political, social and cultural development) and studied from that perspective.

Explaining emotion and love, is relatively straight forward: ask any evolutionary biologist to explain the clear link the natural selection for pair bonding in species that bare young that are immature and require years of looking after to reach maturity and its quite simple… spiritualism, well sorry but that IS mumbo Jumbo and always about the money – there are several very well researched books (often by ‘ex-spiritualists’) who explain the shenanigans and tricks used to appeal to the gullible and vulnerable… ‘those who are desperate to believe are easy to fool’

You are right in stating in a later post that science should be open to all things… and indeed it is. You state that why should we believe in the Big bang as explained by scientists and not believe Jesus etc existed… I am sure he did, but draw the line at the son of god thing. The main difference between science and belief in the divine is that those who advocate belief (churches) expect it to be absolute, ‘no doubting Thomas’s here please’, no questioning no acknowledgement that the ‘holy books’ have been rewritten countless times and originally penned many years after what little factual evidence there was has long been forgotten, shaped and molded through the centuries to support whatever political doctrine the times called for… science on the other hand acknowledges that most of what we know (especially around the more specialist areas such as Quantum theory) …is theoretical, but it is based on direct observation and analysis of results available to date – we may not be able to see inside the atom, but the way a simple resistor works supports the theory… computers and the like work because we used the theory to build components that if the theory was correct, should do as we predict and they do… but with science everyone acknowledges that as we learn more the theories will change and so will our understanding of it… with absolute faith/belief, no one is allowed to challenge and there is no acknowledgement from the Vatican etc that they might be wrong… and that is a BIG difference.

[Special K]

Of course it has, hugely for at least 1500 years. One could even argue that the King James's Bible is the singularly most important book ever published in the English language.

 

However, that doesn't alter the fact that no serious historian considers the bible as a factual source and there is no primary evidence that Jesus existed, or at least none that isn't held in some Vatican vault!

 

Far too many folk confuse interpretation of events by historians with facts. The two are not the same.

 

You miss my point. I was not commenting on the validity of the bibke as a factual source. I was commenting on TLS's rather ugly attitude towards religion and questioning whether it influences his teaching methods. Such vehemence shows no boundary and one can only presume it is difficult for him to contain himself in the classroom, which imho, would be wrong.