Why be good?

[Randy Carson]

RESPONSE TO LAX'S REALLY IMPORTANT POST - AS REQUESTED

Seriously? That was your big point? I had suspected, when you first started, but I had hoped otherwise;

It's kinda convenient to say that you had "suspected" the direction my line of questioning was leading AFTER the fact. But I do appreciate you letting everything play all the way out to the end. (If you really knew the cards I was playing, you might have given your friends a "heads up" by PM, though.) I won't call you a liar...let's just say you were "lax" in exposing of my intent.

I guess you just decided to ignore the entirety of your own thread on the reliability of the new testament, then? Hardly surprising, for one so dishonest.

That's an interesting conclusion. Why do you think I have abandoned the reliability thread when we're here discussing the reliability of the authors in another thread. Obviously, it's not a concept I have abandoned; it's more like I've doubled-down, actually. Here, let's just say you were "lax" in making that connection between the threads.

Okay, so here's the difference, oh king of equivocations: The people of this forum are people you can talk to, people whose identities are confirmed, who are currently alive to confirm their experiences and, in many cases, have had their identities confirmed visually by others here.

Oh? To me, they are just login names and avatars...I can't confirm their identities. I'm not likely to meet any of them in person. And while there are people in the forum who CLAIM to have met them in person there are still problems:

1. Why should I believe anything that CD, Steel and Parkers (the boys) have said about their near-death experiences or speaking with others who had NDE's?
2. Why should I believe the people who claim to have met the boys? They are friends and BIASED.
3. How do the people who have met the boys know with certainty that the boys are being truthful about their experiences?
4. While anyone one who has met them might be willing to "die" for their beliefs that the boys have told the truth, how does that prove that the boys were honest when these friends don't actually KNOW that the boys were being honest?
5. I have been told repeatedly in this forum that eyewitness testimony is the weakest forum of testimony; yet, here we are...relying on the eyewitness testimony of the boys (and Kitty, too, here) that what they experienced and heard is true. Isn't that weak testimony?

So, you see, objections that are raised about the reliability of the gospels could be raised against the boys, but no one here doubts the latter. Why is the former any less credible?

The gospel authors, by contrast, were anonymous, the names on the books added later by people in no position to know, and regardless of your baseless, fiat assertions of certainty, the scholarly consensus, from people actually studying these things, disagrees.

1. On the one hand, it does not ACTUALLY matter who the authors were; what matters is whether we can verify the truth of what they wrote.
2. OTOH, since the names of the authors WAS known in the Early Church (and hence added later to the flysheets of the books), it is a nice little bonus that these specific authors were in a position to speak authoritatively.

You also have no idea, by that token, whether they endured any form of torture or threats, but even if they did, so what? People can endure those things and still be mistaken; the martyrs of every other religion are testament to that, if we are to take christianity as true.

You mean other than the fact that extra-biblical evidence reports Nero was blaming the Christians for the fire in Rome, or that Roman officials recorded in their official correspondence that they were questioning Christians or even that the NT records the deaths, imprisonment and punishments of the early believers?

Lax, I have said repeatedly that people die for mistaken beliefs ALL THE TIME. However, people are not typically willing to be tortured and killed for something they know they made up.

That the early church fathers vouched for the character of the people who happened to confirm what they already believed, and would keep them seated in a position of power, is immaterial; their bias is obvious.

It might be good to recall that these were ADULT converts to Christianity. The earliest believers, the first generation, didn’t hear the gospel from their parents; so much for the “indoctrination” theory that is bandied about frequently in this forum. These were people who were just as intelligent as you, and they were actually members of another faith (Judaism), and they still accepted the gospel based upon the testimony and witness of the apostles. The apostles, by the way, had to go through the same process of coming to terms with who Jesus really was. They were just as skeptical as you are…but three years of witnessing miracles culminating is seeing the risen Jesus convinced them. And they never gave up those beliefs…even unto death.

Now, is it also reasonable to assume that members of this forum might be biased in their support of the boys? Just asking.

Given the above, and the supernatural nature of the claims, in a world where the supernatural hasn't even been demonstrated as possible, it is not reasonable at all to accept that what they wrote about Jesus was true. Hell, even if we lived in a world where the supernatural had been demonstrated as possible, we still could not say more than that the authors believed what they wrote... and possibly not even that, given the severe lack of evidence in support of either conclusion.

“It is not reasonable at all”? Really? I think the amount of evidence is far more compelling than you suggest.

Which, of course, is all secondary to the main point, which is that you are only pretending that you know who the authors of the gospel are. Whether consciously or not, I don't care; you have no good reason to believe the authors are the ones on the epigraphs.

I’m pretending to know? I laid out my argument for the traditional authorship in the Historical Reliability thread.

We had to spend a day contorting ourselves through these ridiculous games for this? Really?

If you had more important things planned, I hope you didn’t cancel them on my account.

Are we going to get an apology for the insane overreach with which you began this stillbirth of an argument? Or are you going to stick to your dishonesty guns to the last?

Of course I’m sticking to my guns. There was no overreach, and there will be no apology because none is warranted.

Now, I have responded to your post at length. Please return the courtesy by responding to the three questions I posed to Cthulhu Dreaming earlier this morning. Thanks.

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Why is what the authors of the gospels wrote about the things they saw any less credible than the things you wrote about (highlighted above for clarity)?

OK, let me try something different to capture your attention here: WHAT IS YOUR EVIDENCE THAT THE AUTHORS OF THE GOSPELS SAW WHAT THEY PENNED DOWN?

They don't even put that claim out themselves and they spin quite different tales. So these are obviously not eyewitness accounts but a collection of tales that were floating round at the time in question.

Two of the four gospels contain passages which show that the author was either an eyewitness or based upon interviews conducted with eyewitnesses.

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Here, I'll play:

Thank you, Parkers. Discusson is much more persuasive than simply hurling foul language at me.

Why is what the authors of the gospels wrote about the things they saw any less credible than the things you wrote about (highlighted above for clarity)?

Because unlike our experiences, they aren't verifiable.

What do you have in mind when you say "verifiable"?

And how could any member of this forum verify the experiences that any of you three had?

Alternatively, why should we give you the benefit of the doubt - and take you at your word - but not do the same with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

Because if push comes to shove, you could get hold of the Reserve records for his branch of service and verify his service -- including his presence in combat -- from their records. You could also find his squad-mates and interview them.

Agreed. That would add credibility (for the record, I do not doubt your service record). But would that help us to know what was in CD's mind when he was facing death? Would that prove beyond a doubt that you never thought of God when you personally were confronted with death? Would that eliminate the possibility that the marines with whom Mike spoke weren't simply trying to maintain their "tough guy" image?

All we really have is your testimony (oral if given to friends in person and written in your service records and this forum) about what you saw, heard and experienced personally and from others.

Your claim to be telling the truth is strong...just as strong as the same claim made by the Apostle John at the end of his service record.

Can you explain what makes YOUR write up of YOUR personal experiences more believable than theirs?

Because claiming to have been in combat -- or in my case, to have gone into the danger of a working fire -- is much more believable than claiming to have been the son of God.

But we're not talking about Jesus' claim to be the Son of God. Not yet, anyway. We're only trying to establish the claim of reliability for the service records of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and shit a better argument than this one that you're mounting, Pigeon.

You are truly a man of many talents, Parkers.