(January 5, 2015 at 12:59 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Well, we have actual writings from Plato himself, plenty of reference to his impact in both Athenian and Syracuse politics- in fact it was a christian emperor that eventually closed his Academy for good, on the basis that it was pagan- and numerous secondary sources too.
Not to mention, the claims regarding Plato are way different from those regarding Jesus; the former are mundane, whereas the latter are extraordinary. If you truly wouldn't accept the existence of Plato- assuming you're being serious and not just engaging in equivocation- on the basis of better evidence than we have for Jesus, then what business have you accepting the existence of Jesus, for whom the claims are vastly more impossible, on worse evidence?
I do believe that Plato existed based on the evidence that we have for that assumption. We don't have better evidence for the existence of Plato that we do for Jesus. You claim that the writers we attribute to the books of the new testament are not the actual writers. Why should be assume that the 1,300 year or older copies of Plato's works were actually written by him?
Quote:Put simply, accepting the probability of Plato's existence (because all of this is probabilistic), even if the level of evidence was equal with that of Jesus, doe not require me to believe that the physical laws of the universe were ever suspended, as acceptance of Jesus would.
Why not? We have unexplained healings now. Why couldn't Jesus have the done the same thing then?
Quote:Well, given that even church historians accept that the new testament authors were anonymous, and that the names attributed to each book were added later, and in some cases even the idea that those names refer to the apostles specifically were added later still, I don't think I'm being particularly controversial. You really need to do some research on the history of the gospel, Lek; do you realize that in this conversation it's the atheist that is in line with the opinions of christian historians, while the christian is directly contradicting them?
No. Your're wrong about that. Some church historians attribute them to someone else. I'm aware that it appears that the synoptic gospels relied on other sources for information, but that doesn't mean that they weren't written by the named authors. Many authors rely on other sources.[/quote] If you think that all christian historians agree with you, read the introductions to the books of the new testament in the New International Version and the New American study bibles. These bible translations were accomplished by teams of qualified bible scholars and historians.
Quote:Besides, none of the gospel authors ever made the claim that they were contemporaries to Jesus. I know that's what you think, because it's more convenient, but if you actually read the books, not a one of them contains that claim; you're just patching it together based on an assumption, made without evidence, that they truly were who the books claim them to be... and we know that they aren't, because we know when those names were added to the books.
Did they have to? The early church carried along that knowledge, just they carried along the gospel message.
Quote:This is only an issue if you continue to assume that the only thing you're going to get is a lack of evidence for natural means, which isn't what you need. If you get positive evidence for supernatural causation, which is what you'd actually need for scientific verification, then there would be no question that the cause was supernatural.
Beyond that, it's not my problem that your claims aren't falsifiable or capable of generating positive evidence. That's a problem with your claims, not the methodology that would verify them.
If it's supernatural, natural science is inadequate to verify it. We've given science a chance to decide if there was a natural cause for the healing of individuals, which they didn't find, and we've determined that these people did have faith and prayed for healing. We don't have any instruments to detect the power of God working in them. Based on that and other countless other testimonies to the power of God, I'll accept it. You need more so you won't. Okay.
