The God of Convenience

[Lek]

So, do you know anything at all about how your own holy books were compiled? Because when they were originally written, they had no authors attached; the author names were traditional christian names added to the books by the church at a later date, long after anyone who was alive at the time could say otherwise. Papias- who lived in the second century, by the way- added in, despite the fact that even the early church didn't think so, and were adding the names because they were traditional, that in fact, the authors were the apostles. But he had no way of knowing that; not only was he using second hand information at best, but the names themselves were fabricated out of whole cloth just to give the books authors.

You're asking me to believe that the names the church made up just so happened to be the correct names of the real writers. I don't know why you think that's okay.

The church didn't just dream up those names They didn't just fabricate some names so they could call them something. They relied heavily on Papias and other early christian scholars.

So, you'll take purported third hand information, passed down verbally from unnamed sources, to a guy who was born at best seventy years after Jesus died, reported in the form of sheer fiat assertions, with no evidence behind it, as truth?

Yes. I could pass on to you what my father or grandfather told me about a person as important as Jesus. He was out personally interviewing people. Tell me about the more reliable methods used by modern historians to determine who penned the gospels.

Yes we can: no evidence has ever been presented that miracles are even possible. Impossible things, obviously, cannot happen, and so without some indication that these things are even possible, we have no reason to add them to the list of possible causes for things. Once again, and this is like the ninetieth time I've said this to you, the argument from ignorance is not evidence for your god.

Events that occur without a natural explanation are possibly supernatural. You don't have evidence to say that Jesus didn't perform miracles. You can say that you don't believe he did, but you can't deny the writings that say he did - quite a few, by the way. Christians aren't just pulling these things out of the air. You refuse to accept what has been researched and attested to by credible, educated people.

So you'll shift the burden of proof, and believe the unjustified assertions of non-contemporary sources.

Yes. Sorry to burst your bubble Esqilax, but despite how "smart" you think we are today, people were just as smart then. Now I know you're going to come back with some "conclusive" evidence about how stupid people were in those days.

Given that, from what we can tell, the average life span in that time period was around 20-35 years, this is doubtful unless all the apostles were children. Were the apostles children, Lek?

Based on that guess, if any of Jesus' disciples who were in their teens or twenties lived to 45 and their children and grandchildren also did, then Papias could have spoken with a disciple's child or grandchild. Or they could have lived longer since you're talking averages. Jesus had a good number of disciples also.

Among mainstream historians there is a consensus in the majority that the biblical authors are anonymous.

Oh. You know this? What is your source for that.

Your question runs both ways, though: if Mark did write the gospel of Mark, why didn't he see fit to tell us that he was the real author? Why did he remain silent? And are you really telling me that the church a century later just so happened to guess the correct name, out of their stable of plug names they added in for convenience?

I don't know why Mark didn't claim authorship. As discussed previously the church didn't just guess the right names. Like I said, they were smarter that you give them credit for.

So what you've got is evidence that every single god ever exists. But those are mutually exclusive gods, so how do you tell which "evidence" is real, and which is not?

My opinion is that there's only one God. People's perceptions of that God are different. They're not all valid. There is only true God. And, yes, I believe the christian perception is the right one.