(November 12, 2017 at 6:50 pm)Joods Wrote: It's all bullshit. Anyone can make up a story and with some degree of decent marketing, they can sell it as fact. There are gullible people on every corner.

Point is that if millions can be deceived in our day, then tens of thousands could just as easily be deceived 2,000 years ago in 1st century Palestine where most (Paul, included) thought that the World was flat.

I wasn't disagreeing with anyone, rather, I was adding my two cents to the discussion.

I think that we are all in agreement; I was waiting for the "opposition" to show-up.

(November 12, 2017 at 8:16 pm)Jehanne Wrote: I think that we are all in agreement; I was waiting for the "opposition" to show-up.

You just talked about Travis Walton. You didn't make any "versus The Resurrection" argument. Are we supposed to actually make the argument for you before refuting it? 

OK, I'll do it.  Walton is probably full of shit.  But at least we know who he is which is more than can be said for the schmucks who wrote your precious gospels.  Those have all the credibility of nursery rhymes.

(November 12, 2017 at 9:49 pm)alpha male Wrote:

(November 12, 2017 at 8:16 pm)Jehanne Wrote: I think that we are all in agreement; I was waiting for the "opposition" to show-up.

You just talked about Travis Walton. You didn't make any "versus The Resurrection" argument. Are we supposed to actually make the argument for you before refuting it? 

It was kind of implicit in the title of my OP.  But, please, "refute" it?  Why should we value the testimony of a person such as Paul, a clear epileptic who may have been eating too many mushrooms who also thought that the World was flat with demons and angels in the air above, over someone like Travis Walton??

For one thing, Paul suffered greatly for his testimony and stuck to it. Who's to say Travis would keep it up if he suffered like Paul?

(November 13, 2017 at 7:15 am)alpha male Wrote: For one thing, Paul suffered greatly for his testimony and stuck to it. Who's to say Travis would keep it up if he suffered like Paul?

Are you saying that people do not confess to crimes that they did not commit under torture?  Or, that people never go to their graves having embraced a lie, holding fast to those lies into death?  Whose to say about what Mr. Walton would or would not say if he was persecuted?  Or, tortured?  Besides, even assuming that Paul, a Roman citizen, was martyred for his faith (and, no one knows for sure what happened after he ended-up in Rome), he had every incentive to continue to profess what he said he believed, for the Romans were more likely to execute a liar than a zealot.  In addition, Paul may have been executed solely for political reasons against the Empire having absolutely nothing to do with his religious faith.  No one really knows for sure.

And, so, you are going to base a whole worldview on the likely execution of an epileptic from the first century at the hands of a police state?

(November 13, 2017 at 8:18 am)Jehanne Wrote: Are you saying that people do not confess to crimes that they did not commit under torture?

No, but that doesn't follow from my point.

Quote:Or, that people never go to their graves having embraced a lie, holding fast to those lies into death?

No, but they're much less likely to go to the grave with the lie if someone tried to torture them out of it.

Quote:Whose to say about what Mr. Walton would or would not say if he was persecuted?  Or, tortured?

Who knows? That brings up another difference - Walton's testimony, even if true, has no bearing on my life.

Quote:Besides, even assuming that Paul, a Roman citizen, was martyred for his faith (and, no one knows for sure what happened after he ended-up in Rome), he had every incentive to continue to profess what he said he believed, for the Romans were more likely to execute a liar than a zealot.

Even if that's true (I'd need to see support to believe it; execution for lying seems pretty extreme), the Roman imprisonment/execution were at the end of a line of suffering for Paul. I'd think most people, if they had just made it up, would have given up after the first beating.

Quote:And, so, you are going to base a whole worldview on the likely execution of an epileptic from the first century at the hands of a police state?

No, but it's a factor in his favor, and something that Walton lacks.

My point with the OP is that with people like Mr. Watson and their stories, there is no reason to believe anything from the New Testament in the way of the "miraculous".  Faith is inconsistent, which is why it is irrational.