(May 23, 2016 at 9:54 pm)Godschild Wrote: Everyone needs to forget the recanting and understand these people died for their belief in who Jesus was, the Messiah. That means they believed in the virgin birth, his life lived sinless on earth, his death and resurrection and that He is the Son of God. So with this said, yes they believed in his resurrection.

 There is only one place Jesus life is recorded, the Bible and that is where we have to start and end, the rest spoken here and by others over the ages and around the world are only speculation, and everyone admits they are speculation. No evidence has ever been offered to these speculation and it's certainly true no facts have been produced for them. So why do people accept single accounts about history and claim them as truth when no facts or evidence are produced. Shouldn't the records of the NT be accepted as the other history, but then the atheist would have to believe right, right. So people dismiss the NT so they can reject God, now this is a logical conclusion a true statement.

 All the different speculations given in this thread are childish at best, why, because they do not consider the NT account to be true, none of it, yet there is no proof given that the biblical account is not the truth, only speculations. Most of the speculation twist what the Bible says so those people can speculate, is this the honesty we should expect from anyone, no, this is a moving moral standard to satisfy those who have no desire to believe. 

GC

Our views are flawed because they don't presuppose that your fairytale is true? That is asinine.


The NT cannot be accepted as truth until it is supported by sufficient evidence (which it is not).

(May 24, 2016 at 12:49 am)Godschild Wrote:

(May 24, 2016 at 12:46 am)Irrational Wrote: Better than Peter then.

Peter did what I said I would do, I only hope to be 1/2 the man Peter was.

GC

There's no evidence that peter was anything other than a character in a very poorly written piece of fiction.

For anyone who thinks "Die for a lie" has any validity, consider this:

Religious wars happen. People from both sides are prepared to die for what they believe in. Does that make them both right, even though the differences between their beliefs are enough for them to start the war in the first place?

Does your answer depend on what religion they are fighting for? If it does, then that's your answer. No one would die for a lie for your religion specifically, apparently. Everyone else can do so just fine.

Oh wait, they're both different religions to yours? I guess that everyone involved can be wrong then! Fancy that.

I feel that I need to break this down a bit, for the theists.

The theist states, "We have died for that in which we believe" (Proper grammar is obviously provided by the atheist)

First and foremost, what the theist believes cannot be evidenced as truth in any way.

It is due to the fact that the theist relies on faith.

Faith is not evidence, except in the warped mind of the theist. That is why they are theists. That is why they ignore logic.

At this point is should be evident that belief itself is not evidence of anything unless it can be supported by something stronger than faith.

(May 23, 2016 at 10:52 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Atheist have no other reason to reject the gospels than the fact that they record miracles. If they had no miracles they would be accepted without question.

Wrong. We have the internal evidence from the inconsistency and such of the gospels. We also have knowledge of the culture and standards of credulity of the time. We have the history of the period as shown in secular sources. We have the testimony of archaeology which demonstrates that the Jews were all too ready to endorse mythical accounts. And we have the eternal verities of human nature which shows that people err, they lie, they confabulate, and they concoct legends.

So no, Chad, you're simply wrong. We have other reasons, good reasons, which combined with the unlikelihood of the truth of these miraculous accounts (on account of their improbability as well as the low quality of evidence for them) yield the conclusion that the gospels are not reliable as historical documents. Thus Christian adherence to the legends in the New Testament are every bit as poorly founded as any such speculations. It's a meeting of equals.

This may help explain a few things: new Darkmatter vid!

https://youtu.be/l2vy2ZTCAvs

(May 23, 2016 at 9:54 pm)Godschild Wrote: Everyone needs to forget the recanting and understand these people died for their belief in who Jesus was, the Messiah. That means they believed in the virgin birth, his life lived sinless on earth, his death and resurrection and that He is the Son of God. So with this said, yes they believed in his resurrection.

 There is only one place Jesus life is recorded, the Bible and that is where we have to start and end, the rest spoken here and by others over the ages and around the world are only speculation, and everyone admits they are speculation. No evidence has ever been offered to these speculation and it's certainly true no facts have been produced for them. So why do people accept single accounts about history and claim them as truth when no facts or evidence are produced. Shouldn't the records of the NT be accepted as the other history, but then the atheist would have to believe right, right. So people dismiss the NT so they can reject God, now this is a logical conclusion a true statement.

 All the different speculations given in this thread are childish at best, why, because they do not consider the NT account to be true, none of it, yet there is no proof given that the biblical account is not the truth, only speculations. Most of the speculation twist what the Bible says so those people can speculate, is this the honesty we should expect from anyone, no, this is a moving moral standard to satisfy those who have no desire to believe. 

GC

This is just absolutely false, pitiful nonsense.  There is NO evidence that anyone was martyred by the Romans for just professing the newly formed Christian faith.  Other than the tale of James in Acts, which was written near the end of the first century, there is no documented evidence that the Romans persecuted Christians during the first century, other than Nero, who did persecute them in Rome around 64 AD.  But, other than that rare exception, none of the disciples were martyred for the Christian faith; those tales do not come into print until well until the second century.

(May 23, 2016 at 10:52 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Your point is generally valid with one nitpick. The bible is not one source. There are 4 Gospel accounts and these are four sources. Even if the synoptics are grouped together John is still an independent tradition. That makes it a minimum of 2 sources. But like I said. Atheist have no other reason to reject the gospels than the fact that they record miracles. If they had no miracles they would be accepted without question.

This is just absolutely false.  Unlike the Gospels, good historical sources from antiquity are NOT anonymous.  But, just having a known historical source written by a known historical person does not automatically guarantee its acceptance by modern historians.  The Roman historian Livy, for instance, is accepted by modern historians, because Livy researched his sources carefully and was a good fact checker; in addition, scholars have been able to collaborate Livy's accounts with other sources, both historical and archeological.

While in college, I took a course in US history ("US History until 1877", with '1877' being the year when Reconstruction ended).  The professor, who had a PhD in history and was an expert in US mid-western Civil War studies, during a lecture told my class that (paraphrase, of course), "Civil war historians consider diaries to be nearly worthless...."  I was shocked and remember sitting in the lecture hall (in a class of about 300 students), thinking, "How could that be???"  The good Prof went on to explain those reasons, and after that, it made perfect sense to me.

He said that people write diaries with the intent that someone, someday, will read that diary!!  He said that diaries are not dispassionate, disinterested sources of history!  Rather, people who write diaries often have an "axe to grind"; as such, diaries are always suspect and not good sources of historical information, even if they were "1st hand" accounts.  And, diaries often contain blatant falsehoods and distortions, even if the author is known and even if the author was present at "such and such" event.  Just because someone was an eyewitness to an event does NOT automatically make their account true.  Rather, it is the job of the historian to sift the wheat from the chafe, and to adjudicate trustworthy sources over less trustworthy sources.

The author of the Gospel of Luke is not a trustworthy source.  For starters, historians do not know who he was, when he wrote his Gospel and where he wrote it from.  More importantly, the author of Luke gets some of his historical facts wrong, blatant errors; as such, historians do not take his Gospel at face value.  Rather, historians use form and higher criticism to sift the Gospel of Luke for what may be historical nuggets, but clearly, the author of the Gospel had a theological axe to grind and his portrayal of Jesus is fundamentally different from the Jesus portrayed in Mark, Matthew and John.

I made a general statement that may not apply in every case. I still think it is fair to believe that modern readers give the Gospels (and the biblical canon in general) greater scrutiny because of the miracles.

(May 24, 2016 at 3:23 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: We have the internal evidence from the inconsistency and such of the gospels.

Many of the apparent contradictions can be reconciled when people do not shoehorn the narrative styles of antiquity into modern formats. For example, the Gospel accounts do not necessarily record events successively on a strict timeline. Events omitted in one account but included in others can sometimes be attributed to the differences in the intended audience. Jesus probably repeated sermons and parables so minor differences in similar quotes could have come from speeches made at different times and places. There are some problem texts, like the death of Judas. Even this could plausibly be explained by the writers (Mathew and Luke) focusing on different aspects of the same event.

(May 24, 2016 at 3:23 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: We also have knowledge of the culture and standards of credulity of the time.

Do we? You seem to be suggesting that modern humans are somehow wiser that our ancestors. If God did enter human history as recorded in the Gospels, then it is reasonable to expect that the people at that time and place would have been exposed to unprecedented and historically unique events. Modern incredulity may reflect our lack of experience, not being smarter.

(May 24, 2016 at 3:23 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: We have the history of the period as shown in secular sources.

Secular sources generally confirm the Gospel accounts.

(May 24, 2016 at 3:23 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: We have the testimony of archaeology which demonstrates that the Jews were all too ready to endorse mythical accounts.

All the Prophets lamented the tendency of God’s people to fall into idolatry. So are modern people, like Scientology. That is nothing new. The so-called Gnostics were highly creative and self-admitted myth makers in a Hellenistic narrative style. The Gospels are entirely different in what they profess to be.

(May 24, 2016 at 3:23 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: And we have the eternal verities of human nature which shows that people err, they lie, they confabulate, and they concoct legends.

That is true even today. Evaluating the veracity of documents from antiquity requires discernment just like we must use to evaluate what modern texts and speeches. Just because some other people make stuff up doesn’t mean that a particular person is not to be believed. Each writer must be considered individually.

Quote:Atheist have no other reason to reject the gospels than the fact that they record miracles. If they had no miracles they would be accepted without question.

If there were no fucking miracles in it you would be looking for something that had them.