David Biedny said:
OK, I'll make this brief, as I'm apparently coming down with a cold and am knee deep in an animation production gig:
The Bible is a book, written by men, that has gone through more than a couple of revisions and mods. I cannot speak with the people that wrote it, there are any number of issues regarding provinence and political context when talking about that book. It's reasonable to assume that chunks of it were completely changed in meaning, or simply deleted, over the many, many years it's been around. As far as the Bible itself, I've studied the old testament Jewish books of the Torah, in the original Hebrew (I grew up speaking and writing at just shy of fluent level, have forgotten much of the spoken language, but still read and write it), and still feel that there is much that we don't completely understand about them. I suspect that many of the stories - such as Creation and Genesis - are abstractions of older knowledge and have also changed in meaning through the millenia. The claims of the Christ story have a political agenda, and have been used to control populations over the years. Growing up in Venezuela, I was directly exposed to the power of the Catholic church and how it manipulated the people of that country, at a level that is quite different that what goes on in the undamentalist Christian movement in the US.
I'll qualify my personall feelings about the topic - more than a few ancestors of mine were killed in Eastern Europe in the name of Christ, so I definitely have a bit of a bias in my feelings towards Christianity. We are who we are.
Jeff Ritzmann is someone I can see, speak with, and part of the reason I feel so strongly about his testimony is that I sat in front of the man for over two days, with full access to his body language, eyes and face. I place a different weight on that type of experience, a direct, first person interaction is as undiluted as you can get without access to the actual event itself. Jeff is not pushing an agenda, is not trying to exert control over anyone, is not selling a lifestyle based on his experiences, and seems to me to be genuinely interested in trying to gain an understanding of his experiences, as am I. We seem to be on similar paths, and neither of us will claim to understand the meaning of those paths or their (hopeful) resolution.
In my world view, ANYONE who claims to have ALL the answers to this mystery called life is immediately suspect in my eyes. It seems to me that ALL institutional, organized religions seem to be one-stop shops, so I personally have no use for them, especially when they push their narrow philosophies onto those of us who don't feel that they are useful in moving the evolution of the species forward. ANY method based on fear of an immortal God, or any form of FUD is simply not valid in my eyes.
dB
Well, at least I now know what you're going on when you lend credibility to one eyewitness account over another - why modern eyewitness accounts of appearances by Jesus don't interest you, I don't know. Not every account of Jesus' supposed appearance appears in the Bible. Paul's two accounts of his claimed encounter with Christ, and the account that appear in Luke, are corroborated by outside, extra-Biblical sources (Clement, for example). Folks around the world claim personal encounters with Christ, Mary, et al - these encounters sometimes have multiple witnesses (Fatima, anyone?). Because you've discounted the validity of Christianity, none of these count? Who's being close-minded and biased now?
I'd suggest strongly that contactees have political motivations as strong as anything Christianity has to offer, and that's really exemplified by your answer. Let's take a look at Christian cosmogony:
Christian: The world is in terrible shape (sin), and needs to be saved.
Skeptic: What will save it?
Christian: Jesus. He came to visit us, left, but is coming again. He makes appearances even today. If we only hear and understand his message, salvation is ours.
Skeptic: What evidence do you have for this?
Christian: Look at the Bible. Look at the modern eyewitnesses. Listen to my story.
Skeptic: What about hard evidence?
Christian: (Begins list of excuses.)
How about contactee cosmogony?
Contactee: The world is in terrible shape (global warming, the environment, nuclear proliferation, war - pick your gripe), and needs to be saved.
Skeptic: What will save it?
Contactee: Aliens (you can also input the supposed "spiritual nature of UFOs" nonsense we hear so often). They probably visited us in the past, left, but have been coming back regularly, and will come again.
Skeptic: What evidence do you have for this?
Contactee: Look at UFO history. Look at all the modern UFO reports. Listen to my story.
Skeptic: What about hard evidence?
Contactee: (Begins list of excuses.)
Where's the difference, Mr. Biedny?
You've clearly stated that you do, indeed, prefer one account over another because you trust your senses to tell you the difference between prevarication and the truth. That's hunch, not reason, and isn't logical at all. The very fact that you
are friends with Mr. Ritzmann should give you pause when considering his account. Furthermore, the fact that you personally observed the reactions of Mr. Ritzmann, who is the only claimant to the phenomena, means that
two minds capable of misinterpretation, error and misperception are involved, not just one. That's why studies use blinds, double-blinds, and even triple-blinds, and why these studies rely on hard, measurable, testable data and not only on testimony.
Folks who have a dog in the fight aren't objective. I submit, too, that your natural (and understandable) biases against Christianity preclude you from seeing the metaphor objectively.
I guess what I'm saying is that your response illustrates precisely what I've been trying to get across all along.
Supernaturalism isn't reasonable, does not depend on logic, cannot use the scientific method and depends purely on
faith, since it has
nothing to do with corroborating evidence. In short,
supernaturalists will never find any truth, because they refuse to use the tools available to find truth in the first place.
I see
no difference between the faith of a Christian believer and the faith of a contactee believer. Hell, when an idiot in a New Mexico town sees Jesus' image appear on a cookie sheet, at least he presents a cookie sheet for inspection. These endless contactee and supernatural eyewitness stories don't give us
anything at all. Supernaturalists and Christians had information transmitted to them about experiences that cannot be tested, cannot be verified and have
no supporting evidence to buttress them (cookie sheets with Jesus' mug excluded). How do you find any truth under those circumstances?
Duplicate it!!1!1!
