(June 30, 2015 at 10:59 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Laugh now, but there are evil spirits in this world.

Play nice or Santa won't come to you this year.

(June 30, 2015 at 10:59 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Laugh now, but there are evil spirits in this world.

lolololol

But of course there are.

(June 30, 2015 at 7:30 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

Quote:That's odd. Does this suggest that while the time may not have agreed, two independent sources claim that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate?

Well this certainly seems to play into my over-arching point so thank you. As far as your red herring concerning Pilate, Just because someone throws a real person in a mythical story does it make that story any more true. Besides, the irony of how closely related Jesus Christ (Son of God) and Barabbas (Son of Father) is pretty odd. Both allegedly arrested as rebels etc. It seems more likely the perfect metaphor for the scapegoat into the wilderness taken from the Old Testament. This points heavily to some doctored writing of a myth based on that information. It has all the common elements. 

Quote:As God, Jesus is not constrained by space or time. He was not sitting in the tomb watching the clock.

  Oh my...more magic invented here. Keep it coming sir, you are making my day!!

Quote:we are repeatedly told that Jesus was crucified on “the Day of Preparation,” which was the first century Jewish way of referring to Friday, the day of preparation for the sabbath (Saturday):

• Matthew 27:62 “Next day, that is, after the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate”
  
• John 19:14 “Now it was the Day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’”
  
• John 19:31 “Since it was the Day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.”
  
• John 19:42 “So because of the Jewish Day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.”
  

The fact that the Day of Preparation is the day before the sabbath is not only attested outside the New Testament, but in the gospels as well. Luke tells us: “It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin” (Luke 23:54, NIV). And Mark is totally explicit: “And when evening had come, since it was the Day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea … took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:42-53).

Again...
After noon on the day before the Passover meal:
Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. John 18:28

Mid-morning on the day after the Passover meal:
And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover? Mark 14:12

It seems likely that the author of John is actually trying to make a “truth-claim” about Jesus in the way he has told his story. Readers have long noted — and this can scarcely be either an accident or unrelated to our present dilemma — that John’s is the only Gospel that explicitly identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God.”

In fact, at the very outset of the Gospel, Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, sees him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29); and seven verses later, he says it again: “Behold the Lamb of God” (1:36). John’s Gospel thus portrays Jesus as the Passover lamb, whose blood somehow brings salvation, just as the blood of the Passover lamb brought salvation to the children of Israel so many centuries before.
John, or someone who told him the story, made a slight change in a historical datum in order to score a theological point. For John, Jesus really was the Lamb of God. He died at the same time (on the afternoon of the day of Preparation), in the same place (Jerusalem), and at the hands of the same people (the Jewish leaders, especially the priests) as the Passover lambs. In other words, John has told a story that is not historically accurate, but is, in his judgement, theologically true.

Quote:Wow. Women - who had absolutely NO standing in the ancient world whatsoever - were the first to discover that the tomb was empty? That meets the criterion of embarrassment, doesn't it?e (Matthew 28:1-6)

The castration of Attis was also embarrassing, yet no one would argue that therefore there must really have been an Attis who really did castrate himself. Arguably this was even more embarrassing than the women issue; emasculating yourself was regarded as the most shameful of all fates for any man. Yet “no one would make that up” clearly isn’t a logically valid claim here. Attis did not exist, and a non-existent being can’t ever have castrated himself. So clearly someone did make that up. It's being embarrassing did not deter them in the slightest. And in fact that is true throughout the history of religions: embarrassing myths were (and in all honesty, still are) the norm, not the exception. Thus “embarrassment” just isn’t a valid argument. You need to look at all the available explanations and compare their relative probabilities.

Quote:Matthew and John both attest to the fact that Jesus was alive? And that he was seen by Mary?

Did the people who survived the sinking of the Titanic agree on whether the ship broke in two before it went down? 

The differences in the testimonies INCREASES the probability that the authors are telling the truth. Ask any detective how he evaluates whether suspects have rehearsed their alibis. 

Again, grabbing information from gospels written by people many many many years after the fact with so many holes in the story can't be deemed as reliable. Especially when the story breaks the laws of physics as we know it. That should be your first red flag. To plead this argument is the simplest of fallacies. If you give claim to this then you must say Joseph Smith, Ron Hubbard or any other religion starter who makes outrageous invocations, has  equal ground on it's claim. We simply know this isn't logical. 

(July 1, 2015 at 8:02 am)Neimenovic Wrote:

(July 1, 2015 at 7:54 am)Randy Carson Wrote: That is the offense of the gospel, N.

It doesn't make it any less true just because we take offense at hearing it.

No, your gaping lack of supporting evidence makes it less true. And hearing it all over again isn't good for my mental health, so I'll ignore you whenever you say it.

There is evidence, Neimenovic, and I have presented quite a bit of it in various threads.

However, it's inconvenient, so you ignore it. I get it.

(July 1, 2015 at 8:26 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(July 1, 2015 at 8:02 am)Neimenovic Wrote: No, your gaping lack of supporting evidence makes it less true. And hearing it all over again isn't good for my mental health, so I'll ignore you whenever you say it.

There is evidence, Neimenovic, and I have presented quite a bit of it in various threads.

However, it's inconvenient, so you ignore it. I get it.

Your failure to understand what constitutes good evidence for supernatural claims is inconvenient to your critical thinking skills.

(July 1, 2015 at 8:08 am)Pandæmonium Wrote:

(July 1, 2015 at 8:00 am)Randy Carson Wrote: It's not that so much as it is trying to get folks who are willing to assume that science can do just about anything (I'm using a wee bit of hyperbole here) to consider that the God who created everything that science can study (and more!) can do even more.

i.e. magic.

Yeah we get it. "Everything you can do I can do better" and all that.

Your imagination doesn't wash with those who can't experience or believe your imagination, Randy. I thought this would have been obvious by now no? There is no competition between 'science' and 'god'. One is a 'thing', a tool we use to discover things we don't currently know, whilst the latter is a get of of jail clause to explain things away that we can't be bothered to explore.

Come on, you're supposed to hit back with a spell. Preferably one with nice colours.

Can you at least agree with the following? (please notice the conditional "if")

If God exists and if He is capable of creating all things out of nothing (which is not a thing itself), then He would have no problem whatsoever suspending the laws of the physical universe to suit His own needs whenever He wanted to do so.

Yes or no?

(July 1, 2015 at 8:05 pm)tonechaser77 Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 7:30 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Well this certainly seems to play into my over-arching point so thank you. As far as your red herring concerning Pilate, Just because someone throws a real person in a mythical story does it make that story any more true. Besides, the irony of how closely related Jesus Christ (Son of God) and Barabbas (Son of Father) is pretty odd. Both allegedly arrested as rebels etc. It seems more likely the perfect metaphor for the scapegoat into the wilderness taken from the Old Testament. This points heavily to some doctored writing of a myth based on that information. It has all the common elements. 





  Oh my...more magic invented here. Keep it coming sir, you are making my day!!




Again...
After noon on the day before the Passover meal:
Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. John 18:28

Mid-morning on the day after the Passover meal:
And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover? Mark 14:12

It seems likely that the author of John is actually trying to make a “truth-claim” about Jesus in the way he has told his story. Readers have long noted — and this can scarcely be either an accident or unrelated to our present dilemma — that John’s is the only Gospel that explicitly identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God.”

In fact, at the very outset of the Gospel, Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, sees him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29); and seven verses later, he says it again: “Behold the Lamb of God” (1:36). John’s Gospel thus portrays Jesus as the Passover lamb, whose blood somehow brings salvation, just as the blood of the Passover lamb brought salvation to the children of Israel so many centuries before.
John, or someone who told him the story, made a slight change in a historical datum in order to score a theological point. For John, Jesus really was the Lamb of God. He died at the same time (on the afternoon of the day of Preparation), in the same place (Jerusalem), and at the hands of the same people (the Jewish leaders, especially the priests) as the Passover lambs. In other words, John has told a story that is not historically accurate, but is, in his judgement, theologically true.


The castration of Attis was also embarrassing, yet no one would argue that therefore there must really have been an Attis who really did castrate himself. Arguably this was even more embarrassing than the women issue; emasculating yourself was regarded as the most shameful of all fates for any man. Yet “no one would make that up” clearly isn’t a logically valid claim here. Attis did not exist, and a non-existent being can’t ever have castrated himself. So clearly someone did make that up. It's being embarrassing did not deter them in the slightest. And in fact that is true throughout the history of religions: embarrassing myths were (and in all honesty, still are) the norm, not the exception. Thus “embarrassment” just isn’t a valid argument. You need to look at all the available explanations and compare their relative probabilities.


Again, grabbing information from gospels written by people many many many years after the fact with so many holes in the story can't be deemed as reliable. Especially when the story breaks the laws of physics as we know it. That should be your first red flag. To plead this argument is the simplest of fallacies. If you give claim to this then you must say Joseph Smith, Ron Hubbard or any other religion starter who makes outrageous invocations, has  equal ground on it's claim. We simply know this isn't logical. 

Best of luck in your music ministry.

(June 30, 2015 at 7:38 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 6:50 pm)Pandæmonium Wrote: Therefor the magic trump card wins again.

Randy, you must realise therefore that it's pretty pointless to try and engage in conversation and honest debate if all you do when confronted with a contradiction is invoke magic, right? If x and y contradict each other, invoke magic and the contradiction resolves.

Not very fun, or very convincing.

Nor is it terribly fun when small-minded people cannot conceive of a BIG God who can do whatever He wants whenever He wants.

All we require is evidence.  Your opinions are fucking worthless.

I actually think that you really mean that. In turn I mean it when I say thank you. It is difficult when coming to terms with lay-believers who will not truly understand what I have gone through. At least I know someone like yourself may be able to relate even though you don't agree.

(July 1, 2015 at 8:30 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(July 1, 2015 at 8:08 am)Pandæmonium Wrote: i.e. magic.

Yeah we get it. "Everything you can do I can do better" and all that.

Your imagination doesn't wash with those who can't experience or believe your imagination, Randy. I thought this would have been obvious by now no? There is no competition between 'science' and 'god'. One is a 'thing', a tool we use to discover things we don't currently know, whilst the latter is a get of of jail clause to explain things away that we can't be bothered to explore.

Come on, you're supposed to hit back with a spell. Preferably one with nice colours.

Can you at least agree with the following? (please notice the conditional "if")

If God exists and if He is capable of creating all things out of nothing (which is not a thing itself), then He would have no problem whatsoever suspending the laws of the physical universe to suit His own needs whenever He wanted to do so.

Yes or no?

No, because, even if we assume and accept there is 'god', I have no further evidence to accept your definition. There could have been a god, for example, that created everything, then either died or withdrew into a void of nothingness and has no impact on the physical universe we see around us. There's also no reason to assume just one god. What about gods? What about a collection of beings that, when combined, can do all the above, but separately they are unable to?

Regardless, even noting the 'if' conditional, I don't see the point in asking me the question. Even if I agreed that a god could do all that, it doesn't make it true. Just believing something doesn't mean it is right. And invoking the 'my dad is bigger than your dad' argument in a mature debate amongst adults is just infuriating and purile. Why even bother contributing Randy if that's the total sum of your efforts? And that's a serious question.