(September 20, 2013 at 4:10 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: How convenient!

Atheists: “Jesus never existed!”
Theists: *Point out how absurd that position is
Atheists: “Well it doesn’t really matter if he existed anyways!”

It's called "different people having different opinions".

The only thing atheists have in common is believing in one less god than you do.

Truly, you don't think I can say with 100% certainty that he did or did not exist. I'm just pointing out that it's silly either way to get caught up in such a trap.

(September 20, 2013 at 4:44 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: It's called "different people having different opinions".

The only thing atheists have in common is believing in one less god than you do.

Oh stop it! Atheists (and apparently agnostic deists) actually have more in common than many Christians. I’ve been debating atheists and Christians for years now and can assure you that for a group of supposed free thinkers atheists are the largest group of “goose steppers” I’ve ever encountered. It makes debating them rather easy though because you never run into any argument even slightly resembling novelty.

(September 20, 2013 at 5:31 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Truly, you don't think I can say with 100% certainty that he did or did not exist. I'm just pointing out that it's silly either way to get caught up in such a trap.

History does not really deal with 100% certainty, but the existence of Jesus is as certain as any other figure from that time period.

(September 19, 2013 at 7:14 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

(September 19, 2013 at 6:37 pm)Brakeman Wrote: Whoa there! You over reached quite a bit there! The scholars of Erman's ilk agree only that there was a man that the jesus myth was based on, Not that his name was really jesus, not that he was executed by the romans, not that the Jews held sway with the romans to instigate his execution, and certainly not that any miracles were performed by the man.

No, Ehrman believes all of that. I never said that it is accepted that Jesus did miracles; I said that his followers believed that he did miracles and that is a historically accepted fact.

Let’s let Ehrman speak for himself…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQMJR2BP1w

Liar! I watched the video, It says NOTHING about those attributes. He might yet believe that other stuff, but he certainly doesn't say that in the video.

(September 19, 2013 at 7:14 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Ehrman even goes as far as to associate the Jesus myth with denying the Holocaust and denying that Abraham Lincoln existed.
“We have more evidence for Jesus than almost anybody from his time period.”- Ehrman

Yes, he has said that and he got his Scholarly butt burnt for saying it too. His reputation was well shredded by a rebuttal book. He is not acting "scholarly" at all in clinging to the "real jesus" claim. A REAL scholar understands the positions of his detractors and counters them with evidence. Erman can't or won't do this.

Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Brakeman Wrote:Furthermore, for your stance, all of it needs to be historical, even the miracle birth and the associated magical events by stars, rich wise men, baby slayings, and other verifiable events.

Nope, that’s actually false. Marco Polo’s writings are often used as historical references even though he claims he saw dragons in China. Secular historians do not believe in the virgin birth but they still accept the historicity of Jesus.

Marco polo does not have religious followers who think he is god. If he did, then the fact that he claimed he saw dragons would be most pertinent. A person whose brain wasn't irretrievable addled by too much sky daddy imaginations would have understood that.

(September 19, 2013 at 4:31 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Unless you can't count the circular reasoning bible as a source to verify the bible..?

I am not verifying the Bible I am verifying the historicity of Christ. It is no different than using Roman scholars to support the idea that gladiators fought in Rome. [/quote]
The bible is the source that we know about christ, We know about gladiators by other sources in addition to Roman scholars. The Galdiator's existence carries no motive to control a population as a religious tome does.

Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: If we have so many sources, name 5 contemporary sources dated 1 to 33AD that we have good original evidence of.

How could a source that details Christ’s death be written during his life? That’s absurd. Not to mention, that’s not what the word contemporary even means. A contemporary source is merely a source from around the same time period. We view all first century sources as being contemporary with Christ. Peter, John, Luke, Paul, Matthew, and Jude all lived at the same time as Christ (Jude being Jesus’ brother).

Yes, it is absurd that you think that's what was meant by contemporary source. All of the bible authors are Pseudepigraphic authors. There is no evidence that any of them are the least bit historical.
That is not unlike saying Starwars was real because Chewbacca, Luke, and Princess Leia were there and they witnessed it.
Give up SW, the whole thing is just a stupid fairytale.

Quote:I’ve been debating atheists and Christians for years now and can assure you that for a group of supposed free thinkers atheists are the largest group of “goose steppers” I’ve ever encountered.

A ridiculous comment coming from one of the sheep who unquestioningly accepts every bit of bullshit in an absurd old book. But, you should be used to looking ridiculous by now.

(September 22, 2013 at 1:16 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:I’ve been debating atheists and Christians for years now and can assure you that for a group of supposed free thinkers atheists are the largest group of “goose steppers” I’ve ever encountered.

A ridiculous comment coming from one of the sheep who unquestioningly accepts every bit of bullshit in an absurd old book. But, you should be used to looking ridiculous by now.

Yes, it is really ridiculous that sane rational people keep "goose stepping" towards reality and rational thinking. It must amaze SW that we don't bell curve towards Mystical magic, psychotic rituals, and psychic communication with beings in imaginary dimensions.

Somehow I'm now imagining SW being involved in one of those faith-healing-gone-wrong debacles. If it's rational to believe in the god of the Bible, it only makes sense to think that if the power of Zombie Christ can heal the blinded Saul of Tarsus, that it will do the same for the afflicted of today who hold enough faith. When the faith healing fails, the faith of the victim or those helping the victim is always what's at fault, isn't it?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312698/

(September 22, 2013 at 4:22 pm)catfish Wrote: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312698/

Nice god of the gaps attempt there. Obviously, anything that we can't explain naturally must have a supernatural cause. Kinda like how Astronomers couldn't explain for the longest time how planets kept their orbits or moved the way that they did in the night sky; was the answer for that particular phenomenon god? If you answer "no", then you're a blasphemer.

(September 22, 2013 at 6:05 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote:

(September 22, 2013 at 4:22 pm)catfish Wrote: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312698/

Nice god of the gaps attempt there. Obviously, anything that we can't explain naturally must have a supernatural cause. Kinda like how Astronomers couldn't explain for the longest time how planets kept their orbits or moved the way that they did in the night sky; was the answer for that particular phenomenon god? If you answer "no", then you're a blasphemer.

lol, I don't need a god to demonstrate the effectiveness of "faith", research the placebo effect...