I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Jon Paul]

I cannot present any type of logical argument to someone who is unaware of their own beliefs being fiction and not fact.

Begging the question.

In that sense the onus is on you, that was your invitation to us; I'm an Orthodox Christian ask me a question,

There is (obviously) a limit to my ambitions with the thread. I never imagined close to 50 pages.

You wouldn't know special pleading if it smacked you upside the head. You think you know the logical fallacies but you apply ones you think sound like what you want and apply them. Special pleading requires a lack of criticism, a lack of standards of evidence. I, on the other hand, am applying a rigorous standards of evidence, in fact demanding better evidence. Learn the logical fallacies before you attempt to say anyone is using them.

You are not applying rigorous or correct historical methodological standards, when we are speaking about a Jewish peasant who became, then, only an obscure Jewish religious teacher, marganialised by Jews and gentiles alike; considered a heretic who should be suppressed by the prevailing Jews who were _not_ his followers; and unknown and completely irrelevant to non-Jews. You are comparing a Jewish peasant to Caesar. This is not a correct approach, but is special pleading because you don't apply the same standard to all other first or second century Jewish (or even pagan!) religious leaders in a remote province of Rome on it's border even, with ministries as short as 3 years as in the case of Jesus, not to mention radical and marginal ones. You are not taking into account, either the reputation of the Jews among gentiles as marginal and obscure (especially in their obscure religious belief in some radically transcendent and non-anthropic god) nor the general changing situation in Iudea in this historical period, nor the view of even Jews at Galileans such as Jesus as aliens, and a fortiori what their view of would be Jesus considering his specific religious stance.

Special pleading again. Incomparable examples. Jesus was a peasant in Galilee, not Caesar. There were many magicians at the time, and this was nothing special. People who hadn't eyewitness experience of Jesus, and especially non-Jews, would likely confound Jesus with a magician, or an obscure sage, foolish Iudean, heretic, or any other number of things. As Graham Stanton says, "There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first- or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher."

Doesn't matter. Jesus is not even mentioned as "That annoying fuck", so to speak. The Bible claims he had massive sermons, people followed him, he performed many miracles in front of people. And none of that, NONE was recorded at all.

First of all, there is no reason to think his existence would be recorded outside of the Jewish literature of his followers, unless his followers were actually of a notable amount and his existence would thus be widely known by spreading the word (something which happened much later in Rome). Yet more was recorded by his followers than about most or even any first/second century religious teachers, pagan or Jewish, that we know of. It was recorded, both in the Q and the earliest versions of the first Gospel, which may have been as early as within 15 years of his death, and clearly in the time of his contemporaries. Later dates are usually predicated because the historian in question believes the Gospel predicts the fall of Jerusalem, and must thus be written after it. First of all, it is debatable whether it requires a supernatural explanation to vaguely prophesy something; it's quite plausible naturalistically even to say that it might have been a coincidence; second, it is a naturalistic presupposition to say that a supernatural prophesy is impossible, which obviously a Christian would not agree with - on top of the presupposition, that what turns out as a prediction, must be false and written after the event in question, rather than being a naturalistic coincidence. Therefore, many scholars believe the first Gospel to be written much earlier than the dates which are held to only because of the fall of the Jerusalem being an impossible prediction-presupposition, while it is far from impossible, even if the explanation is natural. It's a matter of what philosophical presuppositions one brings to the material.

The non-Christian historians, both the Jews and gentiles alike, had absolutely no loyalty to or brotherhood with this obscure teacher or his followers, but were rather his enemies whose only interest was to suppress and contain the movement and prevent the word from spreading. Even in the rare occasion that they were willing to record something about Jesus or his followers, it was not because of Jesus himself, but because of their despise and hatred of anyone who would follow him; rather a warning and statement of propaganda against the movement, because it would not "disappear" by simply ignoring it.

You can't speculate about evidence if it isn't there. If it isn't there then you must come to the conclusion that either it never existed or was destroyed.

The evidence is there, in the writings we have, both the Gospels and Epistles, of earlier texts which are lost, and which have been reconstructed. This is the mainstream position, that there were earlier written records of Jesus' existence, which the authors had at hand (like the two-source hypothesis). Second, the writings we do have are from as early as within 15 years of Jesus death, thus in the time of his contemporaries.

Extraordinary claims REQUIRE extraordinary evidence. If you want to tell me that a dude named Jesus walked around, maybe did some preaching, etc... That's believable and not really of any consequence either. But if you're going to claim your messiah existed at specific times and did miracles and had hordes of Jews listening to his sermon, there needs to be far more evidence than a few gospels 40 years after he died. This is basic standards of evidence.

Actually, no. Because you don't have to accept that Jesus is a messiah, or accept Jesus teachings, or accept his divinity, to accept that he historically existed. There is simply no reason to dispute his historical existence except an extreme pathos going beyond the necessary.

I don't dispute the historical existence of any other religiously significant person or leader, just because I don't agree with their teachings, and the teachings of their followers. Neither ancient or modern ones. Nor with ideological leaders, for that matter; not with Hitler, either, just because I don't agree with his views or the views of his followers such as they have been presented to me.

The "mythical Jesus" position is not the mainstream scholarly position; the mainstream scholarly position is that there was a historical Jesus, but with many disagreements as to his exact reconstruction; nevertheless, this does not mean that most historians in any accept Christianity, simply because Jesus existed. The mainstream position as to written record, also, is exactly that of the two-source hypothesis and similar, for an early and contemporary written record of Jesus available to the early Christians and Gospel writers.

What you have also completely ignored is that the New Testament (and the Old alike) contains historically verifiable data about real events and real locations in which the events it speaks of take place, and the timespace that they do. It demonstrates contemporary knowledge of the time and place in history in which it posites Jesus life which at the very least proves that the writers had access to a source of this knowledge which was contemporary with Jesus' existence. A review and verification of this contemporary and verifiable historical knowledge has been made by numerous mainstream scholars, in many different disciplines relevant to historical inquiry. I have recently read a great book in my own language on this topic, but there are also ones available in English, such as The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by C. Blomberg.

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So ... disingenuousness is a typical theist trait eh? I put an immense level of effort into that response explaining to you EXACTLY why quantum physics does not dismiss reality and your answer was little more than, oh yes it does!

I don't know what you are talking about. Are we talking about the same post, here? I am talking about post #444, and there is nothing significant in that post, and nothing in it that I didn't address in my reply post #446.

I can only conclude you know even less about quantum physics than I do

What is it that I don't know?

quantum physics does not disprove reality

I've never said it does. I've specifically defended the marginalised, realist Bohmiam interpretation of quantum mechanics in this very thread. But the prevailing Copenhagist orthodoxy is far more radical, to the point of arealism in many cases.