(July 9, 2015 at 9:11 am)Easy Guns Wrote: The thing about the existence of a man named Jesus living and preaching in the Middle East 2000 years ago is, it's not outlandish to think it could possibly be true. The less extraordinary a claim is, the less extraordinary your evidence needs to be to convince people of its truth.

Was there a man named Jesus? Probably. Millions and millions of people have been named Jesus.  There is plenty of evidence to support this.

Did a man named Jesus preach Christianity? Probably. Millions and millions of people have preached Christianity. There is plenty of evidence to support this.

Did a man named Jesus perform miracles? Probably not. There is no evidence to support these miracles ever occurred.

Was a man named Jesus born of a virgin mother? Probably not.  There is no evidence to suggest conception can occur without insemination.

Did a man named Jesus rise from the dead? Probably not. There is no evidence to suggest that a man can be dead for 3 days and then rise to life again.

Religious scholars come from many nationalities and religious backgrounds. The only ones who don't agree with the above statements are the Christian scholars. I suppose that's just a coincidence?  No, that's what we call good old fashioned BIAS.

If all you plan to do is pull facts out of your behind without any citation or evidence to support your claims, then don't bother. Come back when you have something of substance to add.

There's a report about a "teacher or righteousness", dated to before 50BC, which sort of describes such a person...

Randy, is it not conceivable that such a leader of people could have existed and sparked the christian myth, which then evolved, passing several people, several retellings, until you get Paul?

As for a brother called James, aren't all members of a sect "brothers" amongst themselves?

But you see Min, he's got this one book.....

Yes, that is the problem.

One absurd book.....

The problem essentially is that apologists don't want less extraordinary explanations. In fact, the more extraordinary the better - after all, however ridiculous it sounds, the writers wouldn't include it if it weren't true, surely? It's so embarrassing, it must be true. I mean, we'd have evidence that didn't hurt the story if we could, so the fact we're even mentioning it is testament to our honesty... right? It's the same shit, exploiting this loophole in human gullibility, that's allowed everyone from Joseph Smith and his magic hat to L Ron Hubbard and his alien ghosts to turn ordinary people into ATMs. Or worse.

We actually had a member a few years ago trying to sell the Bethlehem star as a real astronomical event, before and despite some of us attempting to set her straight. Basically the story elements are: the birth of a baby; peripatetic astrologers; a miraculous planetary alignment not witnessed by anyone else on the planet. Guess which part she selected as the most plausible?

(July 9, 2015 at 12:46 pm)Stimbo Wrote: The problem essentially is that apologists don't want less extraordinary explanations. In fact, the more extraordinary the better - after all, however ridiculous it sounds, the writers wouldn't include it if it weren't true, surely? It's so embarrassing, it must be true. I mean, we'd have evidence that didn't hurt the story if we could, so the fact we're even mentioning it is testament to our honesty... right? It's the same shit, exploiting this loophole in human gullibility, that's allowed everyone from Joseph Smith and his magic hat to L Ron Hubbard and his alien ghosts to turn ordinary people into ATMs. Or worse.

We actually had a member a few years ago trying to sell the Bethlehem star as a real astronomical event, before and despite some of us attempting to set her straight. Basically the story elements are: the birth of a baby; peripatetic astrologers; a miraculous planetary alignment not witnessed by anyone else on the planet. Guess which part she selected as the most plausible?

There is a certain amount of one up man ship with belief. The more ridiculous the thing they believe the more devout they are.

I'm starting to get that feeling, yeah...

I mean, these so called God books really are total shit. Utter complete nonsense garbage. I could have written a better story, and portrayed more worthwhile morals when I was a little kid. Even then I knew not to contradict myself from one sentence to the next, and that hitting other kids with rocks wasn't a nice thing to do.

I was blessed with an unindoctrinated mind, and even as a nipper this bullcrap just bounced right off me. I wasn't taught to be "an atheist", I wasn't taught to be anything. I made my own mind up about things.

Well, for all his worth, Randy prizes being a chewtoy.

(July 9, 2015 at 8:08 am)Randy Carson Wrote: So, I'd like to ask this:

If you were writing a story in order to promote a new God-man, would you:

• Have him die on a cross (which would scandalize your audience, Jews and Gentiles, alike)?
  
• Have the empty tomb found discovered by women (whose testimony was worthless in the eyes of your audience)?
  
• Attribute your play to Matthew (a hated tax collector), Mark (who wasn't even there) or Luke (a Gentile) instead of the more famous players such as Peter, James or John?
  
• Would you have your God-man saying un-Godlike things such as he was less than the Father, that he did not know all things or that he could not do many miracles in his hometown because of the lack of faith of his neighbors?
  
• Would you have your God-man's own brothers and sisters claiming that he was "out of his mind" and not believing in him?
  

You've hit upon one of criterion for  evaluating primary sources, dissimilarity: statements that go against the message the writer wishes to convey are more likely to be true statements. And indeed that is one the reasons I believe Jesus was crucified. 

However, when using that criterion, one must evaluate the bias of the author at the time he was writing.  It is very hard to determine just what it was that early Christians believed about the divinity of Jesus.  As late as the second and third centuries Christians held extremely diverse views on that subject.  Un-godlike statements made by Jesus would not be against bias for several early christologies including an adoptionist or exaultationist one (Jesus became divine when god adopted him as his son either at his baptism or at his resurrection) which appears to be the view of the author of Mark. 

The criterion does not apply to the names affixed the the gospels a hundred years after they were written.  They were quoted simply as "scripture" for some time before any names were attached to them, and traditions closest to the event are more likely than later traditions.   Therefore it's highly unlikely that anyone attributed the gospels to any particular author when they were first circulated.

I wouldn't hammer too hard on the empty tomb if I were you.  It suggests that the empty tomb really was the only evidence the author had for the resurrection and other traditions were made up after Mark.   And in it's case another criterion applies, that of historical context.  And in that historical context it is extremely unlikely the Romans would have allowed Jesus to be buried.

Quote:Is that how you would conspire with your friends to get a new religion off the ground?

And would you be willing to die rather than admit that you made the whole thing up even though neither you nor anyone in your family would benefit in any way from maintaining the charade?

New religions start all the time and people do die for them.  People die for all sorts of things, some true, some not.  It does not prove anything.