Evidence: The Gathering

[Randy Carson]

Who knows? Well, anyone who has read his letters, actually.

Paul was transformed from chief persecutor of the Church to its greatest proponent.

How did that happen?

Do you really not understand the point I made or are you intentionally being obtuse to avoid the obvious painful conclusion?

Luke recorded Paul's testimony:

4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.

And yet, Paul became a Christian. Why, Cato?

[Randy Carson]

No one with an IQ over 60 should fall for such absurd horseshit.

Well, given modern day polling about what American evangelicals believe, and the data preserved in Lucian from the latter half of the 2nd century, who observed of Peregrinus...

he learned the wondrous lore of the Christians, by associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine.   And—how else could it be?—in a trice he made them all look like children, for he was prophet, cult-leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He interpreted and explained some of their books and even composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be sure, whom they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.

...it appears that the primary audience of Christian mountebanks would have fit the bill.

However, the author of Acts, writing that Saul's intention was to usurp the civil authority of the Roman magistrates, coupled with Lucian's account of gullible Christians revering Peregrinus as god and lawgiver, perhaps sheds some light on the motivation for the persecution of their leaders. Christianity was a social and political movement that sought to subvert the laws of the State as much as it aimed to discredit the polytheistic superstitions the latter was poisonously enjoined with.

Paul testified:

4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. (Acts 22:4-6)

[Randy Carson]

I don't know that I found the whole list but I did find the one which most caught my eye the first time I saw it.  Remember, Celsus is writing c 180-185 or some 20-25 years after Lucian.

He has heard enough xtian malarkey to know the name "jesus" which Lucian apparently did not.  Still, this quote makes clear that there are many different xtian groups by the late 2d century.

"Christians, needless to say, utterly detest one another; they slander each other constantly with the vilest forms of abuse, and cannot come to any sort of agreement in their teaching. Each sect brands its own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense...".

 
Ehrman beats this point to death in his Lost Christianities which is a superb little book.

Indeed. Paul dealt with factionalism in Corinth, and even as late as the fourth century, Augustine noted:

"[T]he very name of Catholic . . . belongs to this Church alone . . . so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘catholic,' when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" (Against the Letter of Mani Called `The Foundation' 4:5 [AD 397]).

The Church has been dealing with Cafeteria Catholics from the beginning, Min. This shouldn't be a surprise.

[Randy Carson]

That would be the point.  No one has to exert effort to maintain belief in demonstrably true things.  God is not demonstrably true, and there for belief often requires an effort of will.  Realizing that you shouldn't believe in something that requires an effort of will to believe is the first indication of a recovering theist.

Absolutely. Flowing downhill is the natural order.

Sounds like we're all in agreement for once.

Being a skeptic requires little in the way of intellectual effort; believing requires someone to go deeper to identify the reasons behind all that exists.

[Cyberman]

Randy learned BURDEN OF PROOF

[Cato]

Do you really not understand the point I made or are you intentionally being obtuse to avoid the obvious painful conclusion?

And yet, Paul became a Christian. Why, Cato?

Intentionally obtuse it is then. I appreciate the honesty.

[Randy Carson]

And yet, Paul became a Christian. Why, Cato?

Intentionally obtuse it is then. I appreciate the honesty.

I'd appreciate an answer.

[Minimalist]

Luke recorded Paul's testimony:

"Luke" is as big a bullshit artist as you are.

[Randy Carson]

Luke recorded Paul's testimony:

"Luke" is as big a bullshit artist as you are.

[abaris]

Self portrait obviously.