(July 31, 2017 at 8:56 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(July 30, 2017 at 10:24 am)Aroura Wrote: This.

I'd honestly like to hear Steve (or anyone liking Steve's posts) to address this.

Well, I cannot speak for Steve, but in my own case I think people need to look at the type of literature containing miracle accounts. Works of mythological or allegorical literature describe vague seemingly timeless settings and begin with phrases like "a long time ago in a gallexy far, far away...once upon a time" or even "in the beginning" like in Genesis. The Vedic texts, Sutras, and so-called Gnostic gospels are pretty much all like this. The canonical gospels are very different.

They mention specific times and places using the narrative conventions of the period similar to Plutarch. The Pauline epistles are letters on par with other similar types of functional documents produced at around the same time. As such, the miracles found in the NT are presented to us as historical events, with the Resurection in particular being prominently mentioned from in multiple places.[/quote]


But the accounts are very similar to the myths of other contemporary figures. The hagiography of the Caesars for example.

Quote:As for me I have no bias against the supernatural as such, so I see no reason to automatically rule them out simply because they are miraculous.

The supernatural is not a real thing, its a fantasy like the loch ness monster and gnomes

I don't need evidence for my atheism, because the only claim it makes is about my belief state. I do not say "there is no god." There may be. But I've yet to see any evidence for any god.

(July 31, 2017 at 1:42 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I don't need evidence for my atheism, because the only claim it makes is about my belief state. I do not say "there is no god." There may be. But I've yet to see any evidence for any god.

I agree, I find it frustrating that Steve thinks he has this though.

If his bullshit was so obvious we would all believe. So he either thinks we are in wilful denial or that we are fibbers. Or, and he won't accept this, he may be wrong.

(July 31, 2017 at 10:20 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:

SteveII Wrote:You (and others) keep saying that there is a reasonable explanation. However, there is none forthcoming that answers all the facts we find in the first century church. Go ahead, try one.

An offshoot of Judaism formed around the beginning of the first century AD/last century BC that spoke to the common Jewish person under Roman domination and caught on. The movement was at least partially based on the teachings of an itinerant rabbi known as Yeshua, who was once a follower of John the Baptist. He was a reputed miracle worker, believed to be accompanied by healings wherever he went. There were reports that this holy teacher was conceived out of wedlock, but such a holy man could not possibly have come from the loins of a fallen woman. Some went so far as to call him the Son of God, immaculately conceived. He ran afoul of the Roman authorities, possibly due to the machinations of the Sanhedrin, and was executed. His most devoted followers, the ones who considered him God's direct offspring, couldn't believe he was really dead, that God would allow his son to be killed like that. Soon, there were reports that he was still alive, that hundreds of people had seen him. A movement based on venerating the risen messiah grew over centuries and survives to the present day, though it now faces stiff competition from another religion originating in the Middle East.

Thank you! Something to discuss!

Bold added. It seems you are going with myth. However, as I think I defend below, there was not sufficient time to be myth. It would have to be a lie on some people's part. 

1. The Message
1.1 The content of the message was not just be nice/aspire to serving one another. The claims of Jesus were specific (equal to God, can forgive sins, is the only path to God, able to give everlasting life, need for atonement, would be the sacrifice, judgment, etc.). Are you saying Jesus never said any of this and that this complex teaching was added later? This was 180 degrees from Judaism. 
1.2 If so, why? This was a long list of blasphemy that would get you killed by the Jews. When their world came crashing down on them at the crucifixion, what made the disciples say "I know, let's make life more difficult...". What gain/reason could they have anticipated (real or imagined)?
1.3 The disciples were simple people from simple walks of life without schooling. Were they capable of making up the complex theology framework that would be different than but dovetail with the OT? Would they be able to quote from and draw parallels to the OT, weave in a few prophesy fulfillments? 

2. Timing
2.1 There was insufficient time between the events and when people started writing stuff down for just plain myth. People would have had to start lying so the revised version of events were believed to be the facts (message, miracles, resurrection). 
2.2 Since there was one or more documents that preceded the gospels (Q, M, and/or L), they would have had to develop this new decidedly non-jewish religion from scratch fairly early on. Add to those Matthew/Mark/John and you have quite a body of body of claims all in the lifetime of rebuttal witnesses. How come there are no rebuttal witnesses (no miracles, no resurrection, etc.)?
2.3 The activities to get the churches started across the empire by at least 50-55 AD required that there be a critical mass of people to get things going fairly early on. There had to be an established narrative about Jesus' message, claims, miracles, death and resurrection.  In any case, there is again ample time for rebuttal eyewitness testimony in the 20 years leading up to Paul's letters.

3. Luke
3.1 A highly-educated Greek guy, who endeavored to write a chronicle of the events of the first decades or so, represents 27% of the NT. Was he part of the conspiracy when he related all the events of the life of Jesus and the early church history in Acts? 
3.2 If he was deceived, he was deceived by some pretty simple, uneducated people.
3.3 He wrote within the lifetime (and certainly within the collective memory) of possible rebuttal witnesses (he finished before Paul's death before 68AD). 
3.4 Luke mentions other written accounts he was aware of in Luke 1:1.

4. Is Paul part of this conspiracy? If so, he had some dedication!! Prison, shipwrecked, prison, death. To what end? If not, it is hard to classify 1 Corinthians 15 as mistaken--especially where he mentioned the eyewitnesses and then went on to discuss if Christ had not been raised from the dead. Was he also mistaken about Christ appearing to him on the road when he was a such a good Christian hunter.

5. Extra Biblical sources back up the gospels and the resurrection as being central to Christianity. 
5.1 Epistle of Barnabas, Epistle of Clement, Shepherd of Hermes, Theophilus, Hippolytus, Origen, Quadratus, Irenaeus, Melito, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Tertullian, Cyprian, Tatian, Caius, Athanasius, and Cyril.

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(July 31, 2017 at 11:10 am)Harry Nevis Wrote:

(July 31, 2017 at 9:59 am)SteveII Wrote: Two things about that:

1. Most of the NT is not hearsay. John, Peter and James were eyewitnesses. Paul never related the events of Jesus' life. It is not necessarily true that 
2. Hearsay is evidence. So what you are saying is "I am simply rejecting ancient hearsay [evidence] as evidence..." 

So, you are making claims regarding the evidence that is not hearsay and you reject the hearsay evidence without reason (so you say)--in spite of accepting it in every other ancient historical account ever. 

1. You claim they were eyewitnesses.  Prove it.
2. It may be evidence, but it advances your claim not one bit.

1. See, I don't have to prove it. All I have to do is accept their testimony--testimony that is better than 99% of all historical documents. Don't accept it if you don't believe them. I have no reason to think they were lying. 
2. That's a stupid statement.

RoadRunner79 Wrote:My question, is what do you base this conclusion on (without begging the question)?   I would think that this type of post-facts approach could be used to re-frame any number of things, and while it may be useful in a culture that want's things tailored to what they already believe, I don't think it is objective.

I base this possible conclusion (it's just an example, as was requested, there are many other possible interpretations of the contents of the NT) from my frequent readings of the gospels. Even that conclusion is very tentative, as there's virtually nothing in terms of corroborative evidence of the events in the gospels outside of the gospels except more fanciful gospel texts that the Council of Nicea rejected for inclusion it the Bible, but textual analysis leads me to lean towards there having been a real person behind the legend of Jesus, whose baptism by John and whose crucifixion and circumstances of birth required explaining. For the record, I was a true believer when I first read the gospels, if I had any bias, it was towards it being true; but I noticed inconsistencies and I had been raised to be a literalist, so I did more research, which didn't make it seem any more likely to actually be a true and objective account of events in the first place.

Do you know how to make a post without referring to the motivations you imagine other people have for not posting what you think they should?

Please be specific: How is it begging the question? How is it a 'post-facts' approach?

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SteveII Wrote:

Mister Agenda Wrote:An offshoot of Judaism formed around the beginning of the first century AD/last century BC that spoke to the common Jewish person under Roman domination and caught on. The movement was at least partially based on the teachings of an itinerant rabbi known as Yeshua, who was once a follower of John the Baptist. He was a reputed miracle worker, believed to be accompanied by healings wherever he went. There were reports that this holy teacher was conceived out of wedlock, but such a holy man could not possibly have come from the loins of a fallen woman. Some went so far as to call him the Son of God, immaculately conceived. He ran afoul of the Roman authorities, possibly due to the machinations of the Sanhedrin, and was executed. His most devoted followers, the ones who considered him God's direct offspring, couldn't believe he was really dead, that God would allow his son to be killed like that. Soon, there were reports that he was still alive, that hundreds of people had seen him. A movement based on venerating the risen messiah grew over centuries and survives to the present day, though it now faces stiff competition from another religion originating in the Middle East.

Thank you! Something to discuss!

Bold added. It seems you are going with myth. However, as I think I defend below, there was not sufficient time to be myth. It would have to be a lie on some people's part.

I didn't go with myth. I went with an historical Jesus.

Quote:As I said to Harry, if you say my list is not evidence, you are making a claim that you have knowledge of an alternate explanation to everything I listed

I'd like to expand on my response to this. You are attempting to shift burden of proof here. I do NOT need a verified alternative explanation for any of the supernatural claims made within the pages of the Bible in order to reject them. No one is obligated to offer defeaters. A jury deliberating over a man accused of murder does not need to know who the actual murderer is in order to reach a verdict of "not guilty." All they need is reasonable doubt.

"The claims in my book are true because the characters in my book claim that they're true," is, at best, a circular argument no matter how you slice it. You're right, Steve. The Bible IS evidence of something. It's evidence of the claims. But, that doesn't tell us very much now, does it?

SteveII Wrote:1. The Message
1.1 The content of the message was not just be nice/aspire to serving one another. The claims of Jesus were specific (equal to God, can forgive sins, is the only path to God, able to give everlasting life, need for atonement, would be the sacrifice, judgment, etc.). Are you saying Jesus never said any of this and that this complex teaching was added later? This was 180 degrees from Judaism.

The claims of Jesus aren't truly known, only what was eventually written down about what he was said to have said. There's no way of discerning his own words from words put in his mouth by followers who wanted the deified version of their teacher to be ascendant. I doubt it was added later, more likely the sayings of Jesus were mixed with those of previous or contemporary teachers very early in the oral tradition.

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SteveII Wrote:1.2 If so, why? This was a long list of blasphemy that would get you killed by the Jews. When their world came crashing down on them at the crucifixion, what made the disciples say "I know, let's make life more difficult...". What gain/reason could they have anticipated (real or imagined)?

The very story you're trying to defend as accurate in every jot and tittle illustrates that the Jews had no authority to put anyone to death under Roman occupation.

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SteveII Wrote:1.3 The disciples were simple people from simple walks of life without schooling. Were they capable of making up the complex theology framework that would be different than but dovetail with the OT? Would they be able to quote from and draw parallels to the OT, weave in a few prophesy fulfillments? 

Even the doctor was without schooling? Since the disciples didn't actually write the gospels, there's no reason to drag them into it. They weren't around to make corrections.

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SteveII Wrote:2. Timing
2.1 There was insufficient time between the events and when people started writing stuff down for just plain myth. People would have had to start lying so the revised version of events were believed to be the facts (message, miracles, resurrection). 

You seem to have a very distorted idea of how long it takes for events to be mythologized. It can happen in a very short time, and it's easy to find documented examples of that sort of thing happening in the last hundred years, including people who walked around healing pretty much anyone who touched them (and who weren't remarkably religious, they were just novel to the locals). It only takes a minute to tell someone a version of events that is inaccurate and the version that spreads by word of mouth is the version that is most dramatic and entertaining.

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SteveII Wrote:2.2 Since there was one or more documents that preceded the gospels (Q, M, and/or L), they would have had to develop this new decidedly non-jewish religion from scratch fairly early on. Add to those Matthew/Mark/John and you have quite a body of body of claims all in the lifetime of rebuttal witnesses. How come there are no rebuttal witnesses (no miracles, no resurrection, etc.)?
2.3 The activities to get the churches started across the empire by at least 50-55 AD required that there be a critical mass of people to get things going fairly early on. There had to be an established narrative about Jesus' message, claims, miracles, death and resurrection.  In any case, there is again ample time for rebuttal eyewitness testimony in the 20 years leading up to Paul's letters.

Your arguments seem to be based on personal incredulity, for the most part.

SteveII Wrote:3. Luke
3.1 A highly-educated Greek guy, who endeavored to write a chronicle of the events of the first decades or so, represents 27% of the NT. Was he part of the conspiracy when he related all the events of the life of Jesus and the early church history in Acts?

I thought you said the disciples were too unschooled to do sophisticated theology?

SteveII Wrote: 
3.2 If he was deceived, he was deceived by some pretty simple, uneducated people.
3.3 He wrote within the lifetime (and certainly within the collective memory) of possible rebuttal witnesses (he finished before Paul's death before 68AD). 
3.4 Luke mentions other written accounts he was aware of in Luke 1:1.

You so often cite how many scholars agree with you that it didn't occur to me that you would actually think the Gospel of Luke was written by the apostle Luke. How many scholars agree with you on that?

SteveII Wrote:4. Is Paul part of this conspiracy? If so, he had some dedication!! Prison, shipwrecked, prison, death. To what end? If not, it is hard to classify 1 Corinthians 15 as mistaken--especially where he mentioned the eyewitnesses and then went on to discuss if Christ had not been raised from the dead. Was he also mistaken about Christ appearing to him on the road when he was a such a good Christian hunter.

You're the only one proposing a conspiracy. I guess that's easier to argue against than what I actually proposed. Paul joined in on an existing movement and seems to not have known about some of the events of the gospels.

SteveII Wrote:5. Extra Biblical sources back up the gospels and the resurrection as being central to Christianity. 
5.1 Epistle of Barnabas, Epistle of Clement, Shepherd of Hermes, Theophilus, Hippolytus, Origen, Quadratus, Irenaeus, Melito, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Tertullian, Cyprian, Tatian, Caius, Athanasius, and Cyril.

That those beliefs are central to Christianity is not in question. Whether the resurrection and everything else in the gospels actually happened is what is in question.

SteveII Wrote:1. See, I don't have to prove it. All I have to do is accept their testimony--testimony that is better than 99% of all historical documents. Don't accept it if you don't believe them. I have no reason to think they were lying. 

1. You don't have to prove it to yourself, true. What are all your posts on the topic for, then?

(July 31, 2017 at 12:00 pm)Cecelia Wrote:

(July 31, 2017 at 11:18 am)SteveII Wrote: 1. Here is a recap on the evidence we have:

[1]- Documentary--books, letters (both actual and inferred-by careful textual examination)
[2]- The presence of churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
[3]- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
[4]- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
[5]- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and how it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that.
[6]- Paul and his writings on application and affirmation of the major claims--done before the Gospels were independently written. To have them work so well together is incredible.
[7]- This one can't be stressed enough: the unlikelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard an alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have.


[8]3. We know quite well who wrote most of the NT. The books that we are unsure of, at least we know what group they came from. That is NOT to say the people who first started copying these texts did not know where they came from. In addition, the books we do not know NOW exactly who wrote them, they agree with and compliment the others. 

[9]4 Except the eyewitnesses that wrote books/letters like John/Peter/James and the other eyewitnesses mentioned all throughout Luke and Acts (which was written specifically as a investigative account) that interacted with Paul and the churches.

[10]5. I am not trying to spin anything. I am discussing a premise that there is no such thing as extraordinary evidence. Only evidence.

1- Which books?  Which letters?  Who wrote them?  What makes them reliable?  There's too many questions.  And from which time period are these books and letters?  How can you possibly authenticate them?

2- Not evidence.  Churches exist.  So what?  So do temples, and mosques, and the Parthenon. 

3- The stated goals of their words are meaningless.  How can you discern their actual goals without knowing anything about the people who originally wrote the texts?  

4- Jesus' claims are just that.  Claims that are themselves unproven.  

5- A lot of books resonate with people.  Harry Potter resonated with me.  Does that mean Harry Potter is true!?  I've been a muggle all this time, and just never realized it I guess.

6- What makes Paul trustworthy?  Why should we trust him?  What do we even know about him, other than what he himself tells us?

7- Here's an alternate theory: People believed all sorts of stuff back then.  People believe all sorts of stuff today.  Some people believe Elvis is still alive.  Does this prove Elvis is actually still alive?

8- No, we don't know who wrote them.  We only know who the church claims wrote them--and who they themselves apparently claimed to be.  But that's all from their own words, nothing from anyone else.  Take Dianetics for example.  We know who wrote Dianetics.  I can tell you it was L. Ron Hubbard, and I can tell you he was a science fiction writer.  I can tell you this without reading Dianetics, and that's why I can trust the information.  It comes from multiple external sources.  Scientologists at the very least can know about L. Ron Hubbard, but nobody can really tell us anything about the supposed authors of the bible, without referring to the bible itself.

9- And what makes those eyewitnesses reliable?  You can't really tell me anything about any of those people without referring to the bible, or referring to something that uses the bible as a source.  Imagine me telling you some guy named Doug 3000 years ago wrote a book that said the earth was made by Turtles.  And two guys named Ted and Steve back him up.  Are you just going to accept their claims?  If not, then you can see why we don't accept your claims.  If so, then I ask you to look up gullible in the dictionary, because last I checked they removed it.

10- Now you're just spinning your spinning.  Extraordinary evidence would certainly be more than some eyewitnesses (which we can neither question, nor know anything about), a really old book that's inspired people, and the fact that we have buildings built in honor of said book.

Here's an example of what would be considered extraordinary evidence:

Jesus says that "Again, I tell you truly that if two of you on the earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven."

So... two Christians just need to pray, and cure cancer.  Or end world hunger.  Or do something  extraordinary like that.  It'd be a good start in any case.

You are just proving your are unfamiliar with the evidence that you said was "not evidence" (which is a claim) in your previous post. If you are unfamiliar then you cannot possibly know whether they are evidence of not. I don't care if you don't think the evidence is compelling. However, that was not the claim you made. 

So...back up your claim. What accounts for the evidence we have that reasonably shows why the NT and the first century Christians is NOT evidence of Jesus being who he claimed to be?

(July 31, 2017 at 4:04 pm)Oh SteveII Wrote:

(July 31, 2017 at 12:00 pm)Cecelia Wrote: 1- Which books?  Which letters?  Who wrote them?  What makes them reliable?  There's too many questions.  And from which time period are these books and letters?  How can you possibly authenticate them?

2- Not evidence.  Churches exist.  So what?  So do temples, and mosques, and the Parthenon. 

3- The stated goals of their words are meaningless.  How can you discern their actual goals without knowing anything about the people who originally wrote the texts?  

4- Jesus' claims are just that.  Claims that are themselves unproven.  

5- A lot of books resonate with people.  Harry Potter resonated with me.  Does that mean Harry Potter is true!?  I've been a muggle all this time, and just never realized it I guess.

6- What makes Paul trustworthy?  Why should we trust him?  What do we even know about him, other than what he himself tells us?

7- Here's an alternate theory: People believed all sorts of stuff back then.  People believe all sorts of stuff today.  Some people believe Elvis is still alive.  Does this prove Elvis is actually still alive?

8- No, we don't know who wrote them.  We only know who the church claims wrote them--and who they themselves apparently claimed to be.  But that's all from their own words, nothing from anyone else.  Take Dianetics for example.  We know who wrote Dianetics.  I can tell you it was L. Ron Hubbard, and I can tell you he was a science fiction writer.  I can tell you this without reading Dianetics, and that's why I can trust the information.  It comes from multiple external sources.  Scientologists at the very least can know about L. Ron Hubbard, but nobody can really tell us anything about the supposed authors of the bible, without referring to the bible itself.

9- And what makes those eyewitnesses reliable?  You can't really tell me anything about any of those people without referring to the bible, or referring to something that uses the bible as a source.  Imagine me telling you some guy named Doug 3000 years ago wrote a book that said the earth was made by Turtles.  And two guys named Ted and Steve back him up.  Are you just going to accept their claims?  If not, then you can see why we don't accept your claims.  If so, then I ask you to look up gullible in the dictionary, because last I checked they removed it.

10- Now you're just spinning your spinning.  Extraordinary evidence would certainly be more than some eyewitnesses (which we can neither question, nor know anything about), a really old book that's inspired people, and the fact that we have buildings built in honor of said book.

Here's an example of what would be considered extraordinary evidence:

Jesus says that "Again, I tell you truly that if two of you on the earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven."

So... two Christians just need to pray, and cure cancer.  Or end world hunger.  Or do something  extraordinary like that.  It'd be a good start in any case.

You are just proving your are unfamiliar with the evidence that you said was "not evidence" (which is a claim) in your previous post. If you are unfamiliar then you cannot possibly know whether they are evidence of not. I don't care if you don't think the evidence is compelling. However, that was not the claim you made. 

So...back up your claim. What accounts for the evidence we have that reasonably shows why the NT and the first century Christians is NOT evidence of Jesus being who he claimed to be?

No...what she is demonstrating with all those unanswered questions is that your "evidence" is not reliable or sufficient to prop up extraordinary claims of the supernatural.

(July 31, 2017 at 8:56 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Well, I cannot speak for Steve, but in my own case I think people need to look at the type of literature containing miracle accounts. Works of mythological or allegorical literature describe vague seemingly timeless settings and begin with phrases like "a long time ago in a gallexy far, far away...once upon a time" or even "in the beginning" like in Genesis. The Vedic texts, Sutras, and so-called Gnostic gospels are pretty much all like this. The canonical gospels are very different.

No they are not, Wooters. And will I tell you why, Wooters, you unintelligent little lickspittle?

Because they describe events which didn't happen (e.g. the thousands of zombies that rose from the dead after Jebus died), which were retreads of older events (pretty much every "prophesy" about Jebus in the nt is a retelling of ot "prophesies" taken out of context, like the virgin birth bullshit), or they were simply events for which people at the time didn't understand but we now have perfectly reasonable and verified naturalistic explanations for (like all the people Jebus "rose from the dead", most likely weren't dead but unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. There is a reason why people seeming to come back to life become less common the better medical knowledge becomes).

The fact that the nt "miracles" have the same vagueness, the same snake oiliness, the same hucksterish qualities and the same impossibilities as all other non christard "miracles" points to the salient fact that they are as bullshit as any other religious shitology.

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(July 31, 2017 at 10:49 am)SteveII Wrote: Because there is not evidence for these other religions in which to examine!!!!!!

The evidence for islam, for nordic paganism, for brahmanism, for jainism, for plains shamanism, for east African fetishism, for JonFrumism is of the exact same quality and quantity as the evidence for christianity, viz "somebody in the pub told me once".

You cannot escape this fact, no matter how hard you scream, no matter how hard you shout, no matter how hard you plead, no matter how hard you whine. There'll always be that little voice in the back of your head, your scepticism, your rationality, your intelligence, whispering, whispering "what if". There'll always be doubt, because you cannot know you cannot prove and you cannot refute.