One question for Christians

[Statler Waldorf]

Definition of Psychological Projection

Cute but irrelevant to what I said.

How many different ways are there to say "you have no evidence for an invisible sky-daddy who created the whole fucking universe?"

Apparently only one; and there’s even fewer ways to actually back that tired old assertion up as you have so eloquently demonstrated for us.

Of course, the perpetrators of xtianity knew from the start the caliber of their followers.

John 10:14

New International Version (NIV)

14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—

Sure beats the alternative….

And as we all know, the shepherd has the best interests of the sheep at heart. From farm to fork.

Actually we get this wonderful thing known to those of us in the civilized world as wool from sheep. Do you know what is really amazing about wool? It grows back and sheering does not harm the sheep.

Statler

Your statement here shows either a profound lack of knowledge of the early church or it is a deliberate lie.

Very consistent views aren't they.

The only reason we know what any of those heretics taught is because of what the early church fathers wrote about them. They were quickly identified as heretics and early Christians rejected their teachings and still reject them today. So all you have done is prove my claim to be accurate, Christians have always been greatly united in their Christology and have quickly struck down any attempted distortions of it that contradict the clear teachings in scripture.

Sorry, I never did get around to spoon-feeding SW after he refused to watch my video series on the subject. I didn't even touch the "heterodox" Christianities in history. I stuck to the canonical sources in the Bible!

Yes, I noticed you pouted after I refused to give you traffic on YouTube. You’re going to have to fight your own battles in here for once, and thus far you have not been fairing too well.

Jesus' birth:

Matthew:
Jesus' family lived in Bethlehem.

False. Matthew never says where they lived.

Jesus was born before 4 BCE (during the reign of Herod the Great)

Herod dying in 4BC is obtained from Josephus, not Matthew. Luke also says that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod so this is not a contradiction.

and they were visited in their house by "wise men".

False again, Matthew says the wise men visited Jesus at a house, it never says it was his family’s home.

Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with baby Jesus and later came back to settle in Nazareth.

You finally got one right! They return to Nazareth.

They did so because Joseph wanted to avoid his home town because Herod's son Archelaus was ruling Judea and he was just as bad as his father.

Almost correct, Matthew never says it is Joseph’s hometown in Matthew 2- you added that part.

Luke:
Jesus' family lived in Nazareth.

Yup.

Jesus was conceived during the reign of Herod the Great (who died in 4 BCE).

The 4BC death of Herod is obtained from Josephus, not Luke.

Jesus was born after 6 CE (during the administration of Quirinius),

False, Luke does not actually say this.

where Mary gave birth in a manger, not a house.

This does not contradict Matthew for the following reasons…

A. Matthew never says Jesus was born in a house, he merely states that the wise men visited Jesus as a child in a house.
B. Jews from that time period often kept their animals on the first floors of their homes and slept on the upper floor. This means that mangers were located inside the house, not in a detached stable or barn like we see in America.

JC was visited by shepherds.

As a newborn yes.

They then returned directly to Nazareth.

False, Luke never says this.

Yeah, no contradictions so far...

Nope, just an ill-informed interpretation of the two accounts. Not sure how any of this is even relevant to denying that Christ ever existed, but obviously when you’re beat you’re just going to toss out anything and see if it sticks.

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The start of JC's ministry

The Synoptics (Matt, Mark, Luke):
JC was baptized by John the Baptist. What the booming voice in the sky said and who booming voice addressed depends on which account you read. Then JC was "immediately" wisked by The Holy Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days where he was alone and tended to by angels and tempted by Satan. Then he returned to Galilee upon hearing that JtB had been arrested and began to preach.

John:
JC was not baptized by John the Baptist. Booming voice in the sky said something completely different than what was heard in the Synoptic versions. JC "the next day" and "on the second day" gathered followers (no wilderness adventure) and then attended a wedding on the "third day". He then had his temple tantrum (something that happens at the end of his ministry in the Synoptics). Then he opened a rival baptizing franchise to compete with JtB and, needless to say, JC beat JtB at his own game by delegating the baptizing to his disciples (what a business innovator). No need for JtB to get out of the way because JtB was JC's bitch-boy!

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I’ve already refuted this nonsense for you. I’ll wait for you to actually address my refutation rather than merely reasserting the same nonsense ad nauseam.

Did Jesus fly up into the clouds on the same day of his resurrection (Luke) or did he drop by to show Thomas (John) or did he terry about for 40 days (Acts)?

I already refuted this one, Luke never says Jesus ascended on the same day he resurrected. His ascension took place forty days after the resurrection.

Or was the entire sighting of the resurrected Jesus a later add-on to the story (Mark)?

Demonstrate it.

Was the stone rolled away before Mary got there or was it rolled away by an angel?

False dichotomy, it was rolled away by an angel before Mary arrived at the tomb. Only the guards witnessed this.

Was there one angel or two?

Three . One rolls away the stone and is seen by the guards. The other two are seen in the tomb by the women.


I do not think the word contradiction means what you think it means. All of these can be easily harmonized, but none of this is relevant to whether Jesus existed or not; so can you say red herring fallacy?

And far from being "reliable eye-witnesses", even if we take the Christian claims of authorship at face value, they are clearly not.

Do you also reject the historically accepted fact that Hannibal traversed the Alps in 218 BC?

Mark: Gospel based on the preaching of Peter. Not an eye-witness.

Um, Peter was one of Jesus’ disciples, that is what we would call an eye witness.

Matthew: Lies repeatedly in his account of what the OT says. Not credible.

Even if this claim were true, which it is not, it would be the fallacy of poisoning the well.

Luke: Companion of Paul. Not a witness.

Luke based his gospel on the testimony of eye witnesses like all good historians do.

John: "Advanced" theology and the fact that "the Jews" are an adversarial religion indicate a late date of authorship.

We have a first century fragment of a copy of John’s gospel so it was not a late authorship at all. Learn your facts and stop appealing to long since refuted 19th Century German scholarship.

[*]Claiming Isaiah 7:14 is a prophecy of the messiah. This is not true. Reading Isaiah 7 in its entirety clearly indicates he was speaking about current events, not a prophecy of a future messiah.

False. Isaiah 7 does in fact prophesize that the Jewish Messiah would be born of a young woman (virgin). It’s amusing but at the same time a bit sad that you are arrogant enough to believe that you know the Old Testament better than a well-educated 1st Century Jew did.

[*]The massacre of the innocents by Herod the Great is supposedly a fulfillment of Jeremiah but reading Jeremiah shows us that Jerry was speaking of the Babylonian Captivity.

An inaccurate oversimplification; God uses several double meanings like this throughout the preordained redemptive history documented in the Old Testament (the same applies to the example in Exodus). Matthew would have known the Old Testament better than anyone does today.

Three whoppers and we're only in chapter 2.

One falsehood and two naïve over simplifications on your part and we’re only in Chapter 2.

So, yeah, there's no rational reason to think the Gospels are historical documents.

Demonstrate this, do not merely assert it.

They are dumb as a 5 pound bag of rocks.

Wait, so you get destroyed in debates by people as dumb as bags of rocks? Yikes!

I also feel the whole death/ post-death judgement seems like double jeopardy.Any input from our resident theists?

What do you mean?

and since there is no christian god, then there is no sin.

Do you know this to be true, or do you simply hope this is true?