They both have web exploits but the Android variety can be triggered simply by being nearby an attacker. The iOS one needs a tricked user.
NFC also needs to be turned on for the exploit to work. Android users therefore have a workaround (turn NFC off if/when not needed) that doesn't involve not surfing the web.
Linux interoperates with linux better than windows does.
That goes for the desktop too.
Sure, that isn't much help in a microsoft world, but when you're working with linux servers, a linux desktop provides the ideal environment to work in.
There's no such thing as one size fits all. There's room for linux in the world.
The "Android" that you are claiming is not open source, is Google's own project, behind closed doors. Google is not claiming that THAT project is open source. I don't know of anyone who really cares about this - why should a for-profit company do free work for the public? No other company does this.
However, Android, as in the Android OPEN SOURCE Project, is open source.
You are trying to make a point that code NOT YET released under an open source license is, surprise surprise, not open source. Surely this is obvious? and no one is claiming otherwise.
However, you can download the AOSP and pretty much do what you like with it.
Now I know what you're thinking - "but the hardware is closed". Well, here we go again. No one claimed that the hardware was somehow "open". Perhaps there is open hardware out there? I don't know. But for most devices the manufacturer makes no claim that it is open, and therefore drivers and other parts of the firmware are not released to the public.
You can claim that Android as a platform is not open source, and that's right. No one claimed it was. Google claims it is "open", but even that is qualified - in that anyone is free to download it and make a device based on it.
I think you're trying to make the facts say something they don't. It's all in what you mean when you say "Android". If you want to mislead people in order to sound like you have a point to make, there's plenty of room to do that.
So what if Samsung copied. Yes, if they did, it would be illegal, but that just means they should suffer a reasonable penalty.
Do you really think the amount Samsung had to pay Apple was reasonable?
First you have to prove that Samsung's copying of Apple products benefited Samsung. Sure you can point to Samsung's sales, but if you interview people who bought their products, none would tell you it was because of the iphone similarity.
I bought my galaxy S DESPITE the similarity, not because of it. I was happy enough with the phone that I was prepared to suffer the embarrassment of owning a phone that looked like an iphone (but clearly bigger).
Do you really think all those samsung phone owners were happy every time someone asked "is that an iphone?".
Personally I don't know and don't care if Samsung copied Apple. In my view there is no way that is worth 1 billion dollars. That is basically saying that Samsung contributed nothing to their own phone, or that people only bought it because of (Apple's) design. It isn't just wrong, it is ridiculous.
Do you think Apple is being honest about all this? They are trying to include the Galaxy S3 now - a phone that looks nothing like any iphone ever made. And yet they are trying to make similar 'copying' claims about it.
IMO the original galaxy S1 and maybe the galaxy tab 10.1 are the only devices Apple actually has any shred of a valid claim against. But they are clearly not suing samsung for the reasons they state.
You said you're doing a game. Most game engines or graphics engines contain UI classes as part of the SDK. Some even have UI designers to help build your UI.
I think Swing looks ugly, and doesn't blend in with the native OS (not exactly the spirit of cross-platform), and I suspect that is the common opinion too.
Still, feel free to use it. If it's your strongest toolkit (ie. the one you know best), then it's the best toolkit for you to use.
What would you like to know, specifically? Note that the 2D UI is a minor part of the application, and a "Filthy Rich Client" (Google if you don't understand this term) Swing startup is perfectly fine to start the JoGL/OpenGL main UI.
> Because it sounds a bit... exaggerated.
This is why I am taking to point out that Java is more than adequate for 3D gaming (since all the important stuff runs on the GPU anyway). I find it lamentable that Slashdotters are so anti-Java (and have out of date perspectives) they simply cannot comprehend that modern JVMs are not only as good as C++ for gaming, they are superior in my experience as a indie game developer (for a hard-core simulation; eg. multi-threaded resource sharing in Java is so much easier than in C++ when you are targetting multiple-platforms). I understand that existing game devs with existing C++ pipelines and assets aren't interested in Java, but new games development should seriously consider it - expecially if you want to be as massively profitable as Java games like Minecraft are.
What? No one was claiming that java was inadequate in any way. Your comment seems unwarranted and very defensive.
The GP merely stated that what you mentioned could be done in almost ANY language, and did not criticise your use of java specifically.
Your original claim was "because it is the best cross-platform solution for rich clients out there" and the GP answered that by saying that for what you want to do, there doesn't seem to be any clear or obvious reason to choose java over any other modern language. You can still choose to use it, but your claim that it is the "best" for this appears to have been overstated.
Ummm, because it is the best cross-platform solution for rich clients out there. If there was something better I would use it, but there isn't (I'm writing a jet combat flight simulator and C++ and C# simply are too much effort to make truly cross-platform; eg. Mac, Linux, Window, Android). If you would please suggest a useful alternative to Java that was cross-platform and I didn't have to go through all the awful porting nonsense of C++ or C#/Mono (been there done that, don't want to do it again) for my flight sim then I'm all ears.
How about using the unity3d or corona sdk? Then you can add iPhone to the list of supported platforms as well.
Messiahs were popping up all over the place, so the desire for something to believe in to make all the suffering have a higher meaning was very strong.
Please provide evidence to support this claim. There is one claim in the book of Acts, but if you use that then you need to account for a fairly early date for the book of Acts.
Then when the Christians later had a good deal of success proselytizing the religion was adopted by the Roman empire as a last ditch effort at control and so it was spread far and wide and for almost 2 millennium it did its job of controlling very well.
This sounds nothing like what history tells us. The early christians were mostly persecuted for their beliefs. At least that is the claim that is made.
Whilst the church eventually did take off in Rome, its beliefs at that point were quite different from those of the early centuries.
Well FWIW, evolution makes a great deal more sense of the part of Genesis that says of each "day's" work "and God saw that it was good". If he had just made it exactly as he wanted it, it seems silly to think he hadn't seen it yet. But if you put an evolution interpretation in there, it means God set it up and then watched it unfold, and he liked what he saw.
I think Genesis is telling us a story, not giving us scientific details.
It can serve a legitimate (polemic) purpose without needing to be a literal historic account. The time period it was written in didn't work with 'science' - at least not as we understand it today. A scientific explanation would've been lost on them, and most likely would not have had the positive effect that the story of Genesis had.
Genesis puts God in control, it is clear, and it is simple. It doesn't need to be a factual historic account in order to be a foundational part of Israel's culture and history.
Your suggestion isn't new. It's known as the 'swoon' theory, and it carries very little weight.
Consider someone who had been crucified, considered dead by the soldiers who went to check on him, stabbed in the side with a spear (most likely puncturing a lung, as evidenced by the water content) and then wrapped up and placed in a tomb with a very heavy rock covering the entrance.
It might also help to know that if it had been found out that a convicted criminal had "gotten away alive", the soldiers responsible for checking he was dead could have paid for it with their lives. I don't think they'd have made that decision lightly - and that's what we find too. Even though they knew he was dead, they still shoved a spear into his side anyway, just to make sure.
How likely is it that that person had enough strength to firstly get out of the tomb, and then when he showed himself to the disciples and his own family, was able to happily show them his wounds without them showing the slightest concern for his wellbeing.
At least the resurrection theory has eye-witness evidence attached. This theory doesn't have any evidence at all - it is pure hypothesis. It just seems very unlikely to me that a person who had survived crucifixion would not be immediately rushed to "hospital" as soon as they were discovered. He would've left a trail of blood, and would've been extremely weak. But we have no such evidence.
You may disagree that the gospels are valid eye-witness testimony, but that's where the core issue is. If you don't think they were eye-witnesses, then you don't need any theory about Jesus (supposedly un-miraculously) surviving crucifixion. Why not just say they made it up?
I see your point, but such reasoning cannot arrive at the truth, can it?
Just because there are competing religions does not automatically make them all wrong.
I'm not interested at this point how likely each one is or is not. It would be a shame to deny a truth just because it seemed unlikely at the time.
Christianity stands or falls based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If there is evidence either way, then that's what I'm looking for. It is not a simple matter. It is not a question that can be put to rest after 10 minutes of research, or a bit of light googling of a saturday afternoon.
It requires a deep knowledge of the available resources from around the early centuries AD. I'm not content to just take someone's word for it. Whether I continue with christianity or reject it, I will do so based on the real solid evidence I uncover.
I am naturally the kind of person who will not rest until I get to the bottom of it...and even then I will not stop soaking up whatever info I can find.
I am now about to embark on a journey into the 1st and 2nd century AD from a history and theology perspective. I want to find out what we know about that time, about the people who lived then, what they believed, and how much they knew. Clearly the Bible as we have it was not complete until possibly the 3rd century AD, so I want to establish just how much was known and when.
I just cannot be satisfied with other people's conclusions - it is not enough for someone else to say "I've done the research, and here's the answer". Obviously there's a limit to how deep I can search (without learning hebrew and greek for example) but I think I can find out a lot more than I know now.
It's funny, I think I understand exactly what you mean.
The existence of God (the God of the Bible) still explains my world better than if there is no God. I have witnessed countless strange coincidences, very often linked with my prayers and thoughts. To explain it all as just mere coincidence is looking like a stretch at the moment. For example, this whole journey down the road of questioning my faith came about shortly after I prayed desperately that I wanted the truth, even if it hurts. My beliefs and worldview are already markedly different after just a few months.
My next step is to dive into learning about early church fathers and try to piece together what we know from the 1st and 2nd century AD. I have been given a small selection of books to start with from a friend who is a theologian, so that should be a good start.
I think at this point I need to accept that Christianity is/was definitely quite different to what I have been taught. However, I have not yet ruled out the possibility that it may still be true.
No matter what way I turn from here, it will be based on solid evidence. That should put me on good foundations for the future I think.:-)
The core of my research at the moment centres around the first and second century AD.
If it can be shown that the evidence points to extraordinary circumstances, where it is more likely that the NT of the Bible contains eye-witness honest accounts, that Jesus did rise from the dead, than any alternate explanation, then the rest of the Bible deserves more credit based on that one thing. And if not, then I need to be sure of that too, if only so I can have answers for those who ask.
This is by no means a foregone conclusion, but at this point I haven't seen enough evidence on either side to lay the matter to rest. Suffice to say that the amount and type of evidence required to convince one man may not be enough for another.
I believe Christianity stands or falls on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is a lot of research required before one can come to an honest conclusion. Just reading other people's conclusions on the matter is not satisfying enough for me. I'm aware there are limits to my research (I'm don't know hebrew or greek for example), but I can dig reasonably deep with the resources available to me.
The OT was already compiled before christ was born. You can see Josephus' quotes for that.
The NT was compiled in the early 2nd century, and the compilation was completed in the following centuries (I'm not sure of the specifics off hand). In any case, for the books we know to be authentic (most of Paul's writings for example), they were written in the late 1st century. We have eye-witness accounts from people who knew the original authors.
The study of this stuff is quite interesting, but also it can prove quite revealing about how trustworthy the bible really is (or isn't).
See, the problem for me was when I started thinking critically about my faith and looking for real evidence and ways to falsify it. Perhaps I'm just not a good enough christian because I dared to question my beliefs, but I'd rather think of myself as becoming more intellectually honest. And the more I head down this path, the more I see that the christians I grew up with are not intellectually honest at all. It isn't funny - I respect and like these people. It's sad.
It proves (or at least provides strong evidence) that the apostles were not lying. This makes them the deceived ones, but how were they deceived?
It is difficult to imagine the apostles carrying out their work right to the end, and to the extent that they did, just to save some face...there MUST be more to it than that mustn't there? Perhaps they were victims of a hoax?
We know that at least half of Paul's writings are authentic. So we cannot dismiss all of the NT claims as being fiction. At this point in my research it seems more credible to assume that the NT writings were mostly honest records, showing what the various authors really believed. I can accept that the gospels were not written by the claimed authors, but may well have been written and/or edited by groups of people. Either way it doesn't change the honesty of the message. The synoptic problem then becomes the result of memory loss, not a huge surprise given they were written some 30-40 years after the events.
Also, do we assume that all non-canonical works are pure fiction? I would assume that at least some accounts are factual - at least as an accurate record of the author's thoughts and opinions.
There is also compelling evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead, or at least it is difficult to find a compelling argument that can account for the apostles' later actions and the lives of all who followed after (there are many extra-biblical sources that tell us of this). We could believe that one or two people might have been hypnotised or crazy, but not tens or hundreds. Many who would have known the truth first-hand (whether Jesus rose from the dead) suffered immense persecution in order to promote the message. If they knew it was all a lie, why would they persevere with it? I'm not talking about people dying for their faith, I'm talking about people dying for what they KNEW first-hand.
I think your trouble here is that you are making the assumption that the claims in the NT about Jesus' resurrection are true and the claims that his disciples saw him resurrected were not added in after the fact decades later.
I recommend checking out some of Bart D. Ehrman's books or talks on youtube. He's a NT scholar who writes books for non-scholars. I found his book, Jesus, Interrupted, to be quite eye opening. Once you gain an understanding of how and when the Bible came to be, everything else about Christianity falls into place.
I've read Ehrman's book "forged" and found it quite interesting. However, I found his claims to be more embellished and alarmist than what his evidence actually says. Others have pointed out the same thing in reviewing his work. He is a highly regarded scholar, and one wonders what his motivation is, given that he is an agnostic (I think).
I might need to look up this other book you mentioned.
It's also a good idea to consider the case with more modern religions like Mormonism (I always feel there's a superfluous 'm' in the middle there...). There you have a known con-artist who was able to eventually fool millions of people into believing his bullshit. The criminal organization known as Scientology -- which masquerades as a religion -- has also duped thousands of people into believing in space aliens and ghosts, despite being invented by a science fiction writer a few decades ago.
If Jesus' disciples didn't see Jesus raised from the dead (which, in all likelihood, they didn't) and actually continued preaching, etc., it's not at all an unreasonable leap to believe that they simply convinced themselves that what they had invested their life in was still true despite their dead Messiah. We see this sort of behavior -- belief in things despite evidence to the contrary right in our faces -- every day among humans.
I've been reading some material online about this. All I need is something plausible to explain the beginnings, but so far I have only come across speculation, with no actual evidence. That's not to say there is no evidence, but if you can point me in the right direction I'd be grateful.
Interestingly, Bart Ehrman is one of the ones who argues that Jesus was a real person, so I'm happy to accept that much as fact.
The reason for the gospels etc being written so late is because the apostles did not expect Jesus to die. They also seemed to expect him to return in their lifetime, and it seems that only when they became old did they realise it may not happen and that they should record their memories in a book or letters.
I'm still in the process of wading through the evidence for both sides. I need solid evidence before I base my life on it, that goes for either side.
The difficulty is that someone in my position cannot just walk away from religion. Almost my entire family is religious, as is my wife's family. I have no support network outside of the religion. To exit the religion could put enough disagreement between my wife and I to end our marriage. I have 3 kids - so that would destroy me if that happened. So you see that it just isn't as easy as moving
are you just reading strongs concordance and substituting alternative meanings at will?
textual critics do in fact think about these things when translating a verse. How do your hebrew/greek credentials as well as knowledge of the culture of the day stack up against theirs?
I tried OSX for about a month. I just couldn't get the hang of the mouse.
There was too much difference between moving the mouse slow and moving it fast (pointer accelerates way too much).
The fastest speed wasn't fast enough. My mouse typically moves only about an inch to get from one side of the screen to the other, and that's without any fast movements.
I'm sure if you could cut yourself off from the outside world and pretend only macs exist (seems like a lot of apple fanboys do just that), you could get used to it, but I found that switching between OSX and windows or OSX and linux was just awful.
WIndows and Linux both seem to have very similar mouse handling and switching between those is no problem.
Ironically, every time I try using the iphone I have trouble with the keyboard. Maybe it's just me...
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They both have web exploits but the Android variety can be triggered simply by being nearby an attacker. The iOS one needs a tricked user.
NFC also needs to be turned on for the exploit to work. Android users therefore have a workaround (turn NFC off if/when not needed) that doesn't involve not surfing the web.
Linux interoperates with linux better than windows does.
That goes for the desktop too.
Sure, that isn't much help in a microsoft world, but when you're working with linux servers, a linux desktop provides the ideal environment to work in.
There's no such thing as one size fits all. There's room for linux in the world.
You are confusing the issue here.
The "Android" that you are claiming is not open source, is Google's own project, behind closed doors. Google is not claiming that THAT project is open source. I don't know of anyone who really cares about this - why should a for-profit company do free work for the public? No other company does this.
However, Android, as in the Android OPEN SOURCE Project, is open source.
You are trying to make a point that code NOT YET released under an open source license is, surprise surprise, not open source. Surely this is obvious? and no one is claiming otherwise.
However, you can download the AOSP and pretty much do what you like with it.
Now I know what you're thinking - "but the hardware is closed". Well, here we go again. No one claimed that the hardware was somehow "open". Perhaps there is open hardware out there? I don't know. But for most devices the manufacturer makes no claim that it is open, and therefore drivers and other parts of the firmware are not released to the public.
You can claim that Android as a platform is not open source, and that's right. No one claimed it was. Google claims it is "open", but even that is qualified - in that anyone is free to download it and make a device based on it.
I think you're trying to make the facts say something they don't. It's all in what you mean when you say "Android". If you want to mislead people in order to sound like you have a point to make, there's plenty of room to do that.
> Asus Transformer, Sony Xperia, Galaxy SIII - Google didn't do shit for those devices
Oh, those don't have the Google Play store?
Because Google decides who gets that.
That's not what this article is about.
So long as Acer meet the requirements for Android certification, they would have access to Google Play Store.
Huh, so what companies do not fit your definition of "evil"?
So what if Samsung copied. Yes, if they did, it would be illegal, but that just means they should suffer a reasonable penalty.
Do you really think the amount Samsung had to pay Apple was reasonable?
First you have to prove that Samsung's copying of Apple products benefited Samsung. Sure you can point to Samsung's sales, but if you interview people who bought their products, none would tell you it was because of the iphone similarity.
I bought my galaxy S DESPITE the similarity, not because of it. I was happy enough with the phone that I was prepared to suffer the embarrassment of owning a phone that looked like an iphone (but clearly bigger).
Do you really think all those samsung phone owners were happy every time someone asked "is that an iphone?".
Personally I don't know and don't care if Samsung copied Apple. In my view there is no way that is worth 1 billion dollars. That is basically saying that Samsung contributed nothing to their own phone, or that people only bought it because of (Apple's) design. It isn't just wrong, it is ridiculous.
Do you think Apple is being honest about all this?
They are trying to include the Galaxy S3 now - a phone that looks nothing like any iphone ever made. And yet they are trying to make similar 'copying' claims about it.
IMO the original galaxy S1 and maybe the galaxy tab 10.1 are the only devices Apple actually has any shred of a valid claim against. But they are clearly not suing samsung for the reasons they state.
Once you have enough money/income, it really matters a lot less after that point.
Then again, I'm assuming your goal is happiness...
huh? That argument is old now isn't it?
http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-shipped-twice-as-many-smartphones-as-apple-in-q3-2012-7
Or are you comparing multiple iphone models with just one other phone model?
You can always skew the data to say what you want.
After all, Apple still makes more profit right? so they must still be winning.
and it went viral.
If only Microsoft realised their potential...
You said you're doing a game. Most game engines or graphics engines contain UI classes as part of the SDK. Some even have UI designers to help build your UI.
I think Swing looks ugly, and doesn't blend in with the native OS (not exactly the spirit of cross-platform), and I suspect that is the common opinion too.
Still, feel free to use it. If it's your strongest toolkit (ie. the one you know best), then it's the best toolkit for you to use.
What would you like to know, specifically? Note that the 2D UI is a minor part of the application, and a "Filthy Rich Client" (Google if you don't understand this term) Swing startup is perfectly fine to start the JoGL/OpenGL main UI.
> Because it sounds a bit ... exaggerated.
This is why I am taking to point out that Java is more than adequate for 3D gaming (since all the important stuff runs on the GPU anyway). I find it lamentable that Slashdotters are so anti-Java (and have out of date perspectives) they simply cannot comprehend that modern JVMs are not only as good as C++ for gaming, they are superior in my experience as a indie game developer (for a hard-core simulation; eg. multi-threaded resource sharing in Java is so much easier than in C++ when you are targetting multiple-platforms). I understand that existing game devs with existing C++ pipelines and assets aren't interested in Java, but new games development should seriously consider it - expecially if you want to be as massively profitable as Java games like Minecraft are.
What? No one was claiming that java was inadequate in any way. Your comment seems unwarranted and very defensive.
The GP merely stated that what you mentioned could be done in almost ANY language, and did not criticise your use of java specifically.
Your original claim was "because it is the best cross-platform solution for rich clients out there" and the GP answered that by saying that for what you want to do, there doesn't seem to be any clear or obvious reason to choose java over any other modern language. You can still choose to use it, but your claim that it is the "best" for this appears to have been overstated.
Ummm, because it is the best cross-platform solution for rich clients out there. If there was something better I would use it, but there isn't (I'm writing a jet combat flight simulator and C++ and C# simply are too much effort to make truly cross-platform; eg. Mac, Linux, Window, Android). If you would please suggest a useful alternative to Java that was cross-platform and I didn't have to go through all the awful porting nonsense of C++ or C#/Mono (been there done that, don't want to do it again) for my flight sim then I'm all ears.
How about using the unity3d or corona sdk? Then you can add iPhone to the list of supported platforms as well.
Messiahs were popping up all over the place, so the desire for something to believe in to make all the suffering have a higher meaning was very strong.
Please provide evidence to support this claim. There is one claim in the book of Acts, but if you use that then you need to account for a fairly early date for the book of Acts.
Then when the Christians later had a good deal of success proselytizing the religion was adopted by the Roman empire as a last ditch effort at control and so it was spread far and wide and for almost 2 millennium it did its job of controlling very well.
This sounds nothing like what history tells us. The early christians were mostly persecuted for their beliefs. At least that is the claim that is made.
Whilst the church eventually did take off in Rome, its beliefs at that point were quite different from those of the early centuries.
Well FWIW, evolution makes a great deal more sense of the part of Genesis that says of each "day's" work "and God saw that it was good". If he had just made it exactly as he wanted it, it seems silly to think he hadn't seen it yet. But if you put an evolution interpretation in there, it means God set it up and then watched it unfold, and he liked what he saw.
I think Genesis is telling us a story, not giving us scientific details.
It can serve a legitimate (polemic) purpose without needing to be a literal historic account. The time period it was written in didn't work with 'science' - at least not as we understand it today. A scientific explanation would've been lost on them, and most likely would not have had the positive effect that the story of Genesis had.
Genesis puts God in control, it is clear, and it is simple. It doesn't need to be a factual historic account in order to be a foundational part of Israel's culture and history.
Your suggestion isn't new. It's known as the 'swoon' theory, and it carries very little weight.
Consider someone who had been crucified, considered dead by the soldiers who went to check on him, stabbed in the side with a spear (most likely puncturing a lung, as evidenced by the water content) and then wrapped up and placed in a tomb with a very heavy rock covering the entrance.
It might also help to know that if it had been found out that a convicted criminal had "gotten away alive", the soldiers responsible for checking he was dead could have paid for it with their lives. I don't think they'd have made that decision lightly - and that's what we find too. Even though they knew he was dead, they still shoved a spear into his side anyway, just to make sure.
How likely is it that that person had enough strength to firstly get out of the tomb, and then when he showed himself to the disciples and his own family, was able to happily show them his wounds without them showing the slightest concern for his wellbeing.
At least the resurrection theory has eye-witness evidence attached. This theory doesn't have any evidence at all - it is pure hypothesis. It just seems very unlikely to me that a person who had survived crucifixion would not be immediately rushed to "hospital" as soon as they were discovered. He would've left a trail of blood, and would've been extremely weak. But we have no such evidence.
You may disagree that the gospels are valid eye-witness testimony, but that's where the core issue is. If you don't think they were eye-witnesses, then you don't need any theory about Jesus (supposedly un-miraculously) surviving crucifixion. Why not just say they made it up?
Here's a video in support of the eye-witness theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Ylt1pBMm8
I see your point, but such reasoning cannot arrive at the truth, can it?
Just because there are competing religions does not automatically make them all wrong.
I'm not interested at this point how likely each one is or is not. It would be a shame to deny a truth just because it seemed unlikely at the time.
Christianity stands or falls based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If there is evidence either way, then that's what I'm looking for. It is not a simple matter. It is not a question that can be put to rest after 10 minutes of research, or a bit of light googling of a saturday afternoon.
It requires a deep knowledge of the available resources from around the early centuries AD. I'm not content to just take someone's word for it.
Whether I continue with christianity or reject it, I will do so based on the real solid evidence I uncover.
I am naturally the kind of person who will not rest until I get to the bottom of it...and even then I will not stop soaking up whatever info I can find.
I am now about to embark on a journey into the 1st and 2nd century AD from a history and theology perspective. I want to find out what we know about that time, about the people who lived then, what they believed, and how much they knew. Clearly the Bible as we have it was not complete until possibly the 3rd century AD, so I want to establish just how much was known and when.
I just cannot be satisfied with other people's conclusions - it is not enough for someone else to say "I've done the research, and here's the answer". Obviously there's a limit to how deep I can search (without learning hebrew and greek for example) but I think I can find out a lot more than I know now.
It's funny, I think I understand exactly what you mean.
The existence of God (the God of the Bible) still explains my world better than if there is no God.
I have witnessed countless strange coincidences, very often linked with my prayers and thoughts. To explain it all as just mere coincidence is looking like a stretch at the moment. For example, this whole journey down the road of questioning my faith came about shortly after I prayed desperately that I wanted the truth, even if it hurts. My beliefs and worldview are already markedly different after just a few months.
My next step is to dive into learning about early church fathers and try to piece together what we know from the 1st and 2nd century AD.
I have been given a small selection of books to start with from a friend who is a theologian, so that should be a good start.
I think at this point I need to accept that Christianity is/was definitely quite different to what I have been taught. However, I have not yet ruled out the possibility that it may still be true.
No matter what way I turn from here, it will be based on solid evidence. That should put me on good foundations for the future I think. :-)
The core of my research at the moment centres around the first and second century AD.
If it can be shown that the evidence points to extraordinary circumstances, where it is more likely that the NT of the Bible contains eye-witness honest accounts, that Jesus did rise from the dead, than any alternate explanation, then the rest of the Bible deserves more credit based on that one thing. And if not, then I need to be sure of that too, if only so I can have answers for those who ask.
This is by no means a foregone conclusion, but at this point I haven't seen enough evidence on either side to lay the matter to rest. Suffice to say that the amount and type of evidence required to convince one man may not be enough for another.
I believe Christianity stands or falls on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is a lot of research required before one can come to an honest conclusion. Just reading other people's conclusions on the matter is not satisfying enough for me. I'm aware there are limits to my research (I'm don't know hebrew or greek for example), but I can dig reasonably deep with the resources available to me.
The OT was already compiled before christ was born. You can see Josephus' quotes for that.
The NT was compiled in the early 2nd century, and the compilation was completed in the following centuries (I'm not sure of the specifics off hand). In any case, for the books we know to be authentic (most of Paul's writings for example), they were written in the late 1st century. We have eye-witness accounts from people who knew the original authors.
The study of this stuff is quite interesting, but also it can prove quite revealing about how trustworthy the bible really is (or isn't).
prove it.
See, the problem for me was when I started thinking critically about my faith and looking for real evidence and ways to falsify it. Perhaps I'm just not a good enough christian because I dared to question my beliefs, but I'd rather think of myself as becoming more intellectually honest. And the more I head down this path, the more I see that the christians I grew up with are not intellectually honest at all. It isn't funny - I respect and like these people. It's sad.
It doesn't prove that their beliefs are true.
It proves (or at least provides strong evidence) that the apostles were not lying.
This makes them the deceived ones, but how were they deceived?
It is difficult to imagine the apostles carrying out their work right to the end, and to the extent that they did, just to save some face...there MUST be more to it than that mustn't there?
Perhaps they were victims of a hoax?
We know that at least half of Paul's writings are authentic. So we cannot dismiss all of the NT claims as being fiction.
At this point in my research it seems more credible to assume that the NT writings were mostly honest records, showing what the various authors really believed. I can accept that the gospels were not written by the claimed authors, but may well have been written and/or edited by groups of people. Either way it doesn't change the honesty of the message. The synoptic problem then becomes the result of memory loss, not a huge surprise given they were written some 30-40 years after the events.
Also, do we assume that all non-canonical works are pure fiction? I would assume that at least some accounts are factual - at least as an accurate record of the author's thoughts and opinions.
I think your trouble here is that you are making the assumption that the claims in the NT about Jesus' resurrection are true and the claims that his disciples saw him resurrected were not added in after the fact decades later.
I recommend checking out some of Bart D. Ehrman's books or talks on youtube. He's a NT scholar who writes books for non-scholars. I found his book, Jesus, Interrupted, to be quite eye opening. Once you gain an understanding of how and when the Bible came to be, everything else about Christianity falls into place.
I've read Ehrman's book "forged" and found it quite interesting. However, I found his claims to be more embellished and alarmist than what his evidence actually says.
Others have pointed out the same thing in reviewing his work. He is a highly regarded scholar, and one wonders what his motivation is, given that he is an agnostic (I think).
I might need to look up this other book you mentioned.
It's also a good idea to consider the case with more modern religions like Mormonism (I always feel there's a superfluous 'm' in the middle there...). There you have a known con-artist who was able to eventually fool millions of people into believing his bullshit. The criminal organization known as Scientology -- which masquerades as a religion -- has also duped thousands of people into believing in space aliens and ghosts, despite being invented by a science fiction writer a few decades ago.
If Jesus' disciples didn't see Jesus raised from the dead (which, in all likelihood, they didn't) and actually continued preaching, etc., it's not at all an unreasonable leap to believe that they simply convinced themselves that what they had invested their life in was still true despite their dead Messiah. We see this sort of behavior -- belief in things despite evidence to the contrary right in our faces -- every day among humans.
I've been reading some material online about this. All I need is something plausible to explain the beginnings, but so far I have only come across speculation, with no actual evidence. That's not to say there is no evidence, but if you can point me in the right direction I'd be grateful.
Interestingly, Bart Ehrman is one of the ones who argues that Jesus was a real person, so I'm happy to accept that much as fact.
The reason for the gospels etc being written so late is because the apostles did not expect Jesus to die. They also seemed to expect him to return in their lifetime, and it seems that only when they became old did they realise it may not happen and that they should record their memories in a book or letters.
I'm still in the process of wading through the evidence for both sides. I need solid evidence before I base my life on it, that goes for either side.
The difficulty is that someone in my position cannot just walk away from religion. Almost my entire family is religious, as is my wife's family. I have no support network outside of the religion. To exit the religion could put enough disagreement between my wife and I to end our marriage. I have 3 kids - so that would destroy me if that happened. So you see that it just isn't as easy as moving
are you just reading strongs concordance and substituting alternative meanings at will?
textual critics do in fact think about these things when translating a verse. How do your hebrew/greek credentials as well as knowledge of the culture of the day stack up against theirs?
I tried OSX for about a month. I just couldn't get the hang of the mouse.
There was too much difference between moving the mouse slow and moving it fast (pointer accelerates way too much).
The fastest speed wasn't fast enough. My mouse typically moves only about an inch to get from one side of the screen to the other, and that's without any fast movements.
I'm sure if you could cut yourself off from the outside world and pretend only macs exist (seems like a lot of apple fanboys do just that), you could get used to it, but I found that switching between OSX and windows or OSX and linux was just awful.
WIndows and Linux both seem to have very similar mouse handling and switching between those is no problem.
Ironically, every time I try using the iphone I have trouble with the keyboard. Maybe it's just me...