(March 4, 2014 at 11:12 am)discipulus Wrote: Since he has stated that Jesus did nothing at all then he has to substantiate the claim, or say it is just his opinion, or retract the statement altogether. He can't do the first, which leaves him with it just being his opinion to which I would say he is entitled to it. If he retracts the statement then there is no issue.You really need to take a break from posting and go study logical fallacies. I recommend this website but there are many others to choose from. Just enter "logical fallacies" into a search engine and you should find one. Then practice for a bit. Before you hit the "post reply" button, run over your post and ask yourself, "have I committed one of these fallacies?" If you are aware that your arguments are fallacious but are dishonestly positing them anyway, you should know you will be called out on them.
Your attempt here is still to shift the burden of proof despite your denial that this is what you're doing. To explain, I'll use a simple example:
Christian: "You assume naturalism! You have a preconcieved bias against miracles!"
Skeptic: "The natural universe is all we experience and there's no evidence that anything else is at work."
Christian: "Well, how do you know there aren't supernatural forces at work that you just can't detect."
The shifting of the burden of proof in the above example is disguised with a little mental slight of hand. The demand on the skeptic is to provide evidence that miracles DON'T happen. This is an unreasonable demand to prove a negative. Again, you already know this because this is exactly how we operate in every area of life outside our favorite religious woo.
If your child says "there's a monster under my bed" do you worry about looking under the bed to prove otherwise? Maybe there really IS a monster that will devour you as you move close to the underside of the bed? Of course it's silly to consider that. You are reasonable in assuming the negative by the lack of evidence for an extraordinary claim. You don't have to prove there are never monsters under any bed to be confident of this.
To borrow from Sam Harris, if your child says there's an elephant in the hallway of your home, you go with your child into the hall carrying an imaginary gun. If your child says there's a strange man in the hallway of your home, you tell the child to stay in his room while you go into the hall carrying a real gun.
This is how we operate in every area of our life outside the claims of our favorite religion.
With me so far?
So, you are demanding that I provide evidence that there WEREN'T booming voices from the sky telling them to stop or there WEREN'T angels intervening to get them to stop or there WASN'T an unsuccessful direct intervention by your god to get them to stop. These things happened according to your Bible, yet there's no evidence they happened in history at these crucial times when Christian leaders committed atrocities to spread the Christian faith.
The burden of proof is on you should you wish to suggest that there were supernatural efforts by Jesus to stop the torture and mass murder.
...and while you're at it, explain why Jesus failed.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
