81–90 of 126 posts
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> there is the option "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was". That's what I'd class as 'legend'.
Yeah, agreed. I just wanted to make clear that you could believe in the historicity of Jesus without having to accept the Liar/Lunatic/Lord dilemma, since Jesus never claimed to be "Lord" in the first place.
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The three L argument is aimed only at people who believe in the historicity of Jesus, as well as that he was a great spiritual leader, but who belief that there are also other paths to spiritual enlightenment or salvation. It obviously carries no weight to people who don't believe Jesus was a historical figure, or who believe he was a liar or a lunatic.
From what I understand, 'legend' means there is a kernel of history there, but it's been so crusted over with stories that it's impossible to recover. The word 'myth' is used when it's all fiction. So the 'legend' position would be "There was a heretical Judean Jew named Joshua son of Joseph who may well have given a sermon on some mount and was very likely crucified, but beyond that we are in no position to say anyt…
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The three L argument is aimed only at people who believe in the historicity of Jesus, as well as that he was a great spiritual leader, but who belief that there are also other paths to spiritual enlightenment or salvation. It obviously carries no weight to people who don't believe Jesus was a historical figure, or who believe he was a liar or a lunatic.
Among historians it is generally believed that there was a preacher called (something like) Jesus which was crucified by the Romans. But looking at the only available sources (the Gospels) it is not even clear that he claimed to be the Messiah. The gospels are clearly written by people who believed him to be the Messiah, but the quotations directly attributed to Jesus are quite ambiguous regarding the "divinity" of J…
I'm curious, what are this position's ideas on how his followers came to believe this? One common response to the general argument is that most of Jesus' disciples were martyred and would have had no motivation to die for a lie.
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> I wonder what's the evolutionary reason for this not happening in more species. There's rarely an "evolutionary reason" for a trait not developing. Wings would certainly be a net benefit to mice survival-wise; but unless there's a strong evolutionary pressure for such a trait to develop, it's unlikely to appear. It's the same for asexual reproduction: unless there's a strong advantage for a species to reproduce ase…
>>unless there's a strong advantage for a species to reproduce asexually, it's likely not going to appear. I was under the (perhaps wrong) impression that asexual reproduction predated sexual reproduction in the history of life (prokaryotes predating eukaryote?) so I always thought that organisms "lost" the trait of asexual reproduction somewhere down the line. Probably an assumption without basis. >>perhaps in reali…
Yes, you are right that life originally started as asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction appeared later; my answer was more about the likelihood of a species that already reproduces sexually moving towards asexual reproduction.
Regarding the question of why the asexual->sexual shift happened in the first place, the wikipedia article on asexual reproduction has this to say:
Current hypotheses [2] suggest that asexual reproduction may have short term benefits when rapid population growth is important or in stable environments, while sexual reproduction offers a net advantage by allowing more rapid generation of genetic diversity, allowing adaptation to changing environments.
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Yeah, agreed. I just wanted to make clear that you could believe in the historicity of Jesus without having to accept the Liar/Lunatic/Lord dilemma, since Jesus never claimed to be "Lord" in the first place.
"I and the Father are one." --Jesus in John 10:30
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>>unless there's a strong advantage for a species to reproduce asexually, it's likely not going to appear. I was under the (perhaps wrong) impression that asexual reproduction predated sexual reproduction in the history of life (prokaryotes predating eukaryote?) so I always thought that organisms "lost" the trait of asexual reproduction somewhere down the line. Probably an assumption without basis. >>perhaps in reali…
Dawkins' books, especially the earlier ones (e.g. Blind Watchmaker), are quite a good and gentle introduction. Yes, you are right that life originally started as asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction appeared later; my answer was more about the likelihood of a species that already reproduces sexually moving towards asexual reproduction. Regarding the question of why the asexual->sexual shift happened in the fi…
No, that's a hot research topic.
E.g. a popular hypothesis is than in an RNA world very early and simple organisms had inefficient metabolism and error-prone genetic copy. They didn't have enough energy to sustain a backup of their genetic information, RNA is not very stable, etc. So the only way to keep functioning was to constantly mate with other organisms and exchange good replacements for broken genes.
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>>unless there's a strong advantage for a species to reproduce asexually, it's likely not going to appear. I was under the (perhaps wrong) impression that asexual reproduction predated sexual reproduction in the history of life (prokaryotes predating eukaryote?) so I always thought that organisms "lost" the trait of asexual reproduction somewhere down the line. Probably an assumption without basis. >>perhaps in reali…
Dawkins' books, especially the earlier ones (e.g. Blind Watchmaker), are quite a good and gentle introduction. Yes, you are right that life originally started as asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction appeared later; my answer was more about the likelihood of a species that already reproduces sexually moving towards asexual reproduction. Regarding the question of why the asexual->sexual shift happened in the fi…
These topics are truly fascinating. Many seem to consider them 'soft' compared to Physics, but in some ways, I find some of the questions involved at least as deep and fundamental (or even more) as those currently being asked in the Physics discipline.
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Among historians it is generally believed that there was a preacher called (something like) Jesus which was crucified by the Romans. But looking at the only available sources (the Gospels) it is not even clear that he claimed to be the Messiah. The gospels are clearly written by people who believed him to be the Messiah, but the quotations directly attributed to Jesus are quite ambiguous regarding the "divinity" of J…
> "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was" I'm curious, what are this position's ideas on how his followers came to believe this? One common response to the general argument is that most of Jesus' disciples were martyred and would have had no motivation to die for a lie.
An important transformation is that the title of Messiah (or Christ in Greek translation) has a very specific meaning in a Jewish context, as a human king or savior of the Hebrew people. When early Christianity spread beyond Jews, this context disappeared, and the title "son of God" got reinterpreted in a Greek context, where gods could literally have children.
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Based on what? This is a genuine question, not snark. Serious claims like this require equally serious evidence (and if you have some, I'm quite interested).
I think that almost anyone's foundational world view is interesting, and worth asking questions about. Why, for instance, do you believe that serious claims require serious evidence?
One of the classical ideas in epistemology is the justified true belief theory of knowledge [1]. This has flaws (see: the Gettier problem [2]), but it's a reasonable approximation. Obviously what qualifies as justified is a debated topic, but it's generally agreed that "no justification" is not a justification.
Ah, apparently the BBC forgot about the scene in the first movie Jurassic Park !
Why was it downvoted? It is in some way relevant. I remember in Jurassic Park 1 the premise was that the dinos reprocuded themselves because the contained parts of an African frog DNA, a species that needs only females to reproduce.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/quotes
early in the movie we have a discussion saying that the animals can't breed in the wild due to them all being female:
"John Hammond: [as they gather around a baby dinosaur hatching from its egg] I've been present for the birth of every little creature on this island.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Surely not the ones that are bred in the wild?
Henry Wu: Actually they can't breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions. There's no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: How do you know they can't breed?
Henry Wu: Well, because all the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We've engineered them that way."
and later with three of the characters wandering in the park we have
"Dr. Alan Grant: [finding egg shells] Oh my God. Do you know what this is? This is a dinosaur egg. The dinosaurs are breeding.
Tim: But Grandpa said all the dinosaurs were girls.
Dr. Alan Grant: Amphibian DNA.
Lex: What's that?
Dr. Alan Grant: Well, on the tour, the film said they used frog DNA to fill in the gene sequence gaps. They mutated the dinosaur genetic code and blended it with that of a frog's. Now, some West African frogs have been known to spontaneously change sex from male to female in a single sex environment. Malcolm was right. Look..."
So, yes, the movie anticipated the OP from the BBC.