Record few Americans believe in Biblical inerrancy.

[John V]

Oh, the Egypt canard.

A- You do understand that Egypt represented a special case in the entire Roman Imperial System, right?  Having been personally conquered by Octavius the entire province was considered the personal estate of the emperor. 

What has that to do with the method of taking a census?

Further, there is evidence of a Roman census taking there back as far as 33-34 AD and the speculation

Speculation noted.

is that the Romans inherited the Ptolemaic census system.

What's the evidence that the Ptolemaic census system required people to return to their homes?

[Minimalist]

Books have been written on the subject.  I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find one.

None of which alters the fact that "Luke's" vision is historically absurd, economically unfeasible, geographically insane and politically mind-numbing!

[John V]

Books have been written on the subject.  I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find one.

None of which alters the fact that "Luke's" vision is historically absurd, economically unfeasible, geographically insane and politically mind-numbing!

If it was so absurd, why did people bother copying it and passing it around?

[Minimalist]

Because the fucking church insisted.

Back when they had power they could be quite persuasive!




I'm sure "jesus" approved!

[John V]

Okay, so I think I need to show you what I mean when I say logic is consistent:

Not really. Consistency by itself doesn't get you anywhere. And while you can technically divorce logic from the premises it acts on, for practical purposes they're bundled. Logical rules without premises to act on don't accomplish anything.

And also, many philosophers (at least historically) have been theists who tried to logically argue for the existence of God.

Yes, and some secular philosophers participate. That was a point I considered making earlier but omitted.

My comparison was between inerrantists and philosophers, not theists and philosophers. I slipped up there, and you were right to call me out on it.

That doesn't change anything. Inerrantists still differ in interpretation.

So? Some people suck at their jobs.

Not necessarily, as you go on to note yourself.

George Berkeley was a theistic philosopher who utterly rejected materialism. He called his philosophy "immaterialism"-- ie. the opposite of materialism. However, he also used logic to reach his conclusions. To value logic in no way makes you a materialist by default.

I haven't said I value logic in no way. You've got to watch your false dichotomies.

---

Because the fucking church insisted.

Back when they had power they could be quite persuasive!

How long was it between the writing of Luke and the church having such power?

[Jehanne]

I can't find a single classical Roman scholar who believes in it; prove me wrong, and I'll change my "none" to just "most".  It's kind of like WLC being able to find a single living physicist who supports his positions!  In any case, "most" is, for all practical purposes, equivalent to "none".

Since you're fond of wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false.

You could make the exact same claim about the existence of fairies. They must exist, otherwise, why are (or at least were) large numbers of peoples who believed in their existence?

[John V]

Since you're fond of wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

You could make the exact same claim about the existence of fairies.  They must exist, otherwise, why are (or at least were) large numbers of peoples who believed in their existence?

Yes, and that would be a fallacy just like your claim. So you point this out because...?

[GrandizerII]

Books have been written on the subject.  I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find one.

None of which alters the fact that "Luke's" vision is historically absurd, economically unfeasible, geographically insane and politically mind-numbing!

If it was so absurd, why did people bother copying it and passing it around?

We see it as absurd. Christians, at the time, did not. But that's to be expected, given that it was hard to verify/falsify the contents of the manuscripts (especially in the absence of today's technology) since they were written decades after the fact, being circulated to people separated from the events described in the Gospels due to geographical and/or time distances.

[John V]

If it was so absurd, why did people bother copying it and passing it around?

We see it as absurd. Christians, at the time, did not. But that's to be expected, given that it was hard to verify/falsify the contents of the manuscripts (especially in the absence of today's technology) since they were written decades after the fact, being circulated to people separated from the events described in the Gospels due to geographical and/or time distances.

So people 80 - 100 years from the supposed events thought the census details were plausible, but after 1,900 years of lost records, we now know better. Got it.

[GrandizerII]

We see it as absurd. Christians, at the time, did not. But that's to be expected, given that it was hard to verify/falsify the contents of the manuscripts (especially in the absence of today's technology) since they were written decades after the fact, being circulated to people separated from the events described in the Gospels due to geographical and/or time distances.

So people 80 - 100 years from the supposed events thought the census details were plausible, but after 1,900 years of lost records, we now know better. Got it.

Glad you do.