Hostage to fear

[Redbeard The Pink]

---

Those 5 facts are not facts, and even if they were, they would prove nothing, Randy. We have been over this.

I have provided quotes from or referenced:

Josephus
Eusebius
Hegesippus
Papias
Tacitus
Lucian
Mara Bar-Serapion
the Talmud
Paul
Oral Christian Tradition
Written Christian Tradition including
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Clement of Rome
Polycarp
Clement of Alexandria
Ignatius of Antioch
Dionysius of Corinth
Tertullian
Origen
Justin Martyr

Additionally, I have provided logical explanations for each of the five points, and I have (or could have) cited numerous scholars (theists and atheists) including:

Craig Blomberg, PhD
Gregory Boyd, PhD
Walter Bradley, PhD
Michael Brown, PhD
Donald Carson, PhD
Gary Collins, PhD
Paul Copan, PhD
William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh
Bart Ehrman, PhD
Craig Evans, PhD
Norman Geisler, PhD
Gary Habermas, PhD, DD
Peter Kreeft, PhD
Louis Lapides, MDiv, ThM
Michael Licona, PhD
John McRay, PhD
Alexander Metherell, MD, PhD
Bruce Metzger, PhD
JP Moreland, PhD
Tim O'Neill
Daniel Wallace, PhD
Ben Witherington, PhD
John Woodbridge, PhD
Edwin Yamauchi, PhD
Ravi Zacharias, DD, LLD

Additionally, if you were to read the works of these respected authors, you would see that each of them, in turn, cites other world-renowned scholars as well as the Early Church Fathers. So, there are thousands of scholars and millions of man-hours invested in studying the materials that have been boiled down into the five minimal facts that I, following Habermas and Licona, presented - facts which you have not even attempted to counter with hard evidence from any historical sources.

On your side:

Richard Carrier, PhD (the only Myther with a legitimate doctorate recognized by Ehrman - and Ehrman still takes him down hard)
David Fitzgerald (?)

You failed to prove otherwise in that thread, so you won't have any better luck by hijacking this one.

The point is that even if (hypothetically) your fictional character was based on a human instead of another fictional character, HE'S STILL A FICTIONAL CHARACTER, dipshit! You have no proof to the contrary. Pull your head out of your ass.[/color]

Yeah...I'll be starting a thread to deal with this craziness soon enough...

---

Wow. Just wow. We went over this list, too, Randy. In that other thread. And now you're dragging it out here. Fucking brilliant.

 

So your text sources...I looked them up the last time we were having this exact same argument. They're either Christian sources, some other form of scripture that might have occasion to mention Jesus to provide counter-religion (the Talmud, for instance), a broad interpretation of what's written, or just a straight up forgery (see: Josephus and probably Tacitus). You have NO non-Christian, non-scriptural evidence to support the existence of a human basis for the Jesus of Nazareth character. None that isn't hotly disputed, anyway.

As to your scholars...I am fully aware of the sheer number of mainstream scholars in comparison to Christ Mythicists. There was a time in this world when most "scientists" believed the universe was geo-centric. I do not give a fuck about the mainstream opinion because it is a faulty claim based on a biased interpretation of the evidence at hand. Even atheist scholars are likely to support the idea of the historicity of Jesus on the bias of not wanting to be ostracized by the rest of their academic community. Nevertheless, there are many scholars who stand by the theory of Christ Mythicism, and having heard both interpretations of the evidence in question, the interpretation of the Christ Mythicists seems to me to be the most reasonably sound.

And again, the main fact you keep dodging (and have been dodging all throughout the various pages of this argument) is that regardless of whether it's reasonable to believe that a mortal, Jewish preacher named Yeshua used to exist 2,000 years ago, there is still no reason to believe that he was any more magical than you are (and you, Randy, are not magical; I know because I'm a wizard).

[Spacetime]

Alright, Spacetime, I see what the problem is. You don't want to be seen agreeing with the Christian apologist now that you've come out as an atheist, but my questions are so simple and innocuous that you couldn't help going along...at first. But then your Spidey senses started tingling because you realized that there must be a gotcha coming at the end, so now you're tying yourself up in knots overthinking your response to question #3 because you can't for the life of you figure out what's coming in question #4. Well, I'm going to put you out of your misery...it's just another simple, innocuous question:

Question #4

If an all-powerful creator exists, would it be possible for him to grant us full moral freedom without the ability to choose evil?

Now, remember that you said in answer to question #1 that you did not want restrictions placed on your ability to make moral choices. In your response to question #2, you agreed that having freedom to make moral choices is a good thing. You tried to avoid answering to question #3 (for reasons just explained) by arguing that "good" is not objective, but it is intuitively obvious that freedom to make moral choices requires that we can select from a full-range of options which includes some "good" (like baking cookies for a shut-in neighbor or going out on a patrol in place of a buddy who is due to rotate stateside in a couple of days) and some "bad" (like murder and rape).

So, restating Question #4: Is God's omnipotence capable of creating a scenario in which we have complete freedom to make moral choices while at the same time limiting those choices to only good options?

Can God grant us full moral freedom while simultaneously granting no possibility of doing evil?

+++

The answer to these variations of Question #4 is no. Although God is all-powerful, it is not possible for Him to grant us free will and the ability to make moral choices while simultaneously limiting our choices to the "good" only. Limiting our freedom would itself be a bad thing, and God does not make bad things.

Consequently, we have been given free will and the potential to choose to do evil; but the actualization of that potential is our decision, not God's. We could freely choose to do only good, but we choose to do bad or evil things all the time. The responsibility for those choices is on us, not God.

In summary, there is no logical contradiction in the fact that both God and evil exist, and the possibility of choosing evil is a necessary condition of having true freedom to make moral choices. Thus, it is simply a false notion that an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God would be able or even want to eliminate evil for the reasons we have seen in this exercise.

While your concerns about problem of evil and suffering in the world are understandable on an emotional level, they do not justify the complete loss of faith in God which you seem to be struggling with, and the healing of the pain you are experiencing can only come from Christ Himself.

You need MORE God - not less, Spacetime.

I've had your god, decided the relationship was one-sided, and tossed it into the bin with all the other gods I've tossed away throughout the course of my life. Despite this, take comfort in knowing that I don't respect your opinion... at all, because it's completely ignorant.

Your problem is that you've not defined the terms "good" and "evil". We could have, this entire time, been talking about entirely separate ideas; condemning each other's for falling short of our own when we have no idea what one another are talking about.

Define "good" and "evil".

And regarding the pain I felt... I didn't suspect it would take this long... but I no longer feel any sort of negative feelings regarding giving up trying to have faith. It all seems so ridiculous now... I'm happy to report.

[robvalue]

Our choices are incredibly limited as it is. We could have the good choices expanded a million times over, and the bad choices removed so that they never even occur to us. The possibility for harm need not exist at all. Why are we designed so that we can be harmed?

Life would be grand for all!