Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Aractus]

Thank you for confirming that no one knows who wrote the Babble.

You're an idiot, either contribute, or go practise falling down someplace else please.

Really? Where? Please cite ONE historical document or record that was written DURING THE SUPPOSED LIFETIME OF JESUS that mentions the life and/or death of this man.

Maybe you can cite ONE historical document or record written DURING THE SUPPOSED LIFETIME OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT that mentions the life and/or death of this man?

-edit to add- or for that matter, anyone else from the ancient world.

So there is actual evidence that Pontius Pilate was a real person! Now, as for this "Jesus" guy.....?

Yes there's evidence, but far less evidence then there is that Jesus was a real person.

Even if all this is true, how does it prove he was the embodiment of a deity?

My point in this thread is to draw your attention to the fact that you're a complete idiot if you doubt that Jesus was a real person, or doubt any of the other "indisputable" facts.

[Silver]

My point in this thread is to draw your attention to the fact that you're a complete idiot if you doubt that Jesus was a real person, or doubt any of the other "indisputable" facts.

The only idiot is the one who believes Jesus, as portrayed in the silliest fiction book on the planet, was a real historical figure.

[Esquilax]

More babies died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than in Canaan.
You don't hear Lawrence Krauss apologising on behalf of scientists for the physics that produced the atom bomb!

The difference, of course, being that Lawrence Krauss isn't beholden to some Physics entity, because Lawrence Krauss isn't a follower of physics.

Look, this is such a dumb statement that I'm having trouble properly parsing a response, but I'll try: you believe in a god who demands that everything he does is just and good and praiseworthy, and the Canaanite slaughter was performed on his behalf. When you're confronted about this, it's because you still believe the attendant claim that this was somehow justified, and that your god retains his moral impeccability.

Where's the Physics deity making similar claims?

[Aractus]

The only idiot is the one who believes Jesus, as portrayed in the silliest fiction book on the planet, was a real historical figure.

Really? And yet you can't back up the assumption you just made? If you're certain of this, what are your all important reasons??

[Silver]

If you're certain of this, what are your all important reasons??

Something called the lack of proper evidence to support that Jesus actually existed.

[Aractus]

So where's the proper evidence that Alexander the Great existed then?

[Silver]

So where's the proper evidence that Alexander the Great existed then?

Not confined to a crappy fiction book, that is for certain.

[Aractus]

You're an idiot, you can't back up your claims, and you can't even tell me why you'll consider evidence that Alexander the Great lived as "proper evidence"?

[Silver]

You're an idiot

Thank you for the continuation of the kindergarten retorts that only give the illusion of strengthening the argument you have yet to show as valid.

[xpastor]

When he [Ehrman] talks within his area of expertise, he's fine. When he starts talking about the early writings being forgeries, and the like, he's off in his own little world where he has barely any peers that would take him seriously. If you want to listen to a real Greek scholar, try Daniel B Wallace, here's one video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jdKFotjGd4

But there are many others, including him debating Ehrman directly.

Why am I not surprised that Dallas Theological Seminary where Wallace teaches upholds the authority and inerrancy of the scriptures, in fact, puts it first on their list of doctrines to which students are required to adhere.

A commitment to inerrancy undermines biblical scholarship as the conclusions are predetermined in advance of any evidence. I know whereof I speak having emerged from the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, aka Misery Synod.

The upholder of inerrancy is a priori prevented from considering the possibility of multiple strands of authorship in a document and is required to come up with the most incredible bullshit to reconcile conflicting narratives of the same event. It ultimately leads to the dishonest translations of the NIV, which does not scruple to insert words in the translation which have absolutely no warrant in the original text.

---

... Herods command to have all the newborns slaughtered is recorded in the bible and nowhere else.

Strange that.

Maybe it wasn't all that extraordinary for him to do stuff like that. He wasn't a very nice guy.

How about the slaughter of the Canaanites?
Counter-apologists like to talk about that a LOT.
Historical event or fiction?

Josephus wrote extensively about Herod. He detested him and cataloged every evil deed Herod committed. He never mentions the slaughter of the innocents, which strongly suggests that it never happened.

As for the slaughter of the Canaanites, it is fiction. The evil is not that ancient Israelites committed genocide ca 1300 BCE, the evil is that the Biblical writers produced propaganda ca 600 BCE glorifying genocide, and in so doing created a picture of God as a bloodthirsty monster, whom idiots upholding biblical inerrancy tell people they should worship.