I'd probably be too busy working with the People's Front of Judea to rid the country of the Romans. After all, what have they ever given us?

(March 11, 2014 at 10:53 am)Fromper Wrote:

(March 11, 2014 at 12:51 am)whateverist Wrote: First, it would be interesting to see just exactly what there was to see. Maybe you'd be disappointed.

Secondly, the same hypothetical could be applied to any religion's cast of characters. If you had been there to witness Thor battle the ice giants, would you still be so sure Jesus/God was the only act in town?

Yup. I can't believe so many atheists here are playing this guy's game by actually answering the loaded question. He combined three hypothetical fantasy scenarios into one and tried to pretend it was only one. He acts like "if you lived in that time" was the only hypothetical scenario, and the whole bit about healing and miracles was assumed to be true. It's not.

If I lived back then, I still wouldn't have witnessed any healing or miracles, because there were none. I would have seen a Jewish guy preaching and probably would have disregarded him, because I never took religion all that seriously even when I was Jewish.

As CapnAwesome pointed out, there's been a definite decline in claims of miracles as the understanding of science has advanced. People are better at thinking rationally and not believing any charlatan with a fake miracle to perform. Not that I think Jesus was a charlatan who pretended to perform miracles. Even if he did exist (still an open question in my mind, but I tend to accept that assumption for the sake of avoiding a debate about a subject I don't know or really care much about), it's a pretty safe bet that he wasn't going around claiming to be performing miracles. All that stuff was written into the books that became the Bible 30+ years later. Those writers would seem to be the ones who made up the claims about miracles, not Jesus himself.

How can you say as a matter of fact that there was no miracles back then? I gave the question as a hypothetical as if there were indeed true miracles how you would of responded to Him.

(March 10, 2014 at 10:26 pm)Revelation777 Wrote: Not that you believe, but let's just say that you lived and witness Jesus as He is described in Scripture. Out of curiosity, you listened to Him speak, you saw him heal, you witnessed the miracles, etc. How would you of reacted?

I'd probably have called him out for his blasphemy. After all, I'd (more than likely) have been a Jew or Roman polytheist (I don't know the word for a 'believer in the Roman pantheon').

(March 11, 2014 at 11:20 am)Revelation777 Wrote: How can you say as a matter of fact that there was no miracles back then? I gave the question as a hypothetical as if there were indeed true miracles how you would of responded to Him.

How can you say that there were miracles back then? The wording of the first post in the thread didn't act like you were treating the miracles as a hypothetical. You acted like they were an assumption. They're not.

You're pretty much asking, "If there was proof of God's existence, would you believe in God's existence?" This isn't a yes or no question. It's a loaded question with only one correct answer. And until there is such proof, either for God's existence or that there were true miracles 2000 years ago, then the question of how to treat that proof isn't even worth discussing.

(March 11, 2014 at 11:20 am)Revelation777 Wrote: How can you say as a matter of fact that there was no miracles back then? I gave the question as a hypothetical as if there were indeed true miracles how you would of responded to Him.

If you saw Muhammad miraculously split the moon in two or ascend to heaven on a flying horse, how would you have responded to that? Would you be a Muslim?

Quote:How can you say as a matter of fact that there was no miracles back then?

Because there are no "miracles" now.

(March 11, 2014 at 11:53 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:How can you say as a matter of fact that there was no miracles back then?

Because there are no "miracles" now.

Shhhh! You're going to blow this poor fellow's mind!

It's a tough job but someone's got to do it.

(March 11, 2014 at 10:53 am)Fromper Wrote: Yup. I can't believe so many atheists here are playing this guy's game by actually answering the loaded question.

Ehh, we get lots of loaded questions. I think that when it comes to god's existence we're down to bad philosophy and loaded questions. I don't mind taking the question at face value and thinking about an answer, as I don't see the harm in it. Forming a position on it and reading that of the others can help me to learn something or to see things a bit differently or to develop my understanding about a topic a bit further.

How would I have responded?

Dunno - foot-race with Judas probably.