Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Zen Badger]

So where's the proper evidence that Alexander the Great existed then?

This tactic is not proof that your god boy lived, so stop wasting our time with it.

And even if a person called Jesus did live and was crucified, you then have to come up with evidence for the miracles and the resurrection.

[Thor]

[quote='Thor' pid='532058' dateline='1382808240']Thank you for confirming that no one knows who wrote the Babble.

an idiot, either contribute, or go practise falling down someplace else please.

Insults... nice.

Of course, you didn't address my point at all. No one knows who wrote the Babble, so why should we take it seriously?

Maybe you can cite ONE historical document or record written DURING THE SUPPOSED LIFETIME OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT that mentions the life and/or death of this man?

Nice attempt at deflection. For starters, Alexander the Great is not claimed to have been divine. So there is little reason to believe he didn't actually exist. But if you want proof from his actual lifetime, we have coins that were minted during his lifetime that mention his name.

So there is actual evidence that Pontius Pilate was a real person! Now, as for this "Jesus" guy.....?

Yes there's evidence, but far less evidence then there is that Jesus was a real person.

And this "proof" would be...?

My point in this thread is to draw your attention to the fact that you're a complete idiot if you doubt that Jesus was a real person, or doubt any of the other "indisputable" facts.

I would go so far as to say there probably was a guy named Jesus. However, at best, he was a local preacher who generated a small following. After his death, stories about him were wildly exaggerated and the religion based on him took off when Constantine declared Christianity to be the state religion of the Roman Empire. Without Constantine, your little belief system would have either died out long ago, or today would be a fringe religion.

Why do you believe the incredible stories about him are true, anyway?

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

So where's the proper evidence that Alexander the Great existed then?

How about some contemporary with his face on?

[Aractus]

Why am I not surprised that Dallas Theological Seminary where Wallace teaches upholds the authority and inerrancy of the scriptures, in fact, puts it first on their list of doctrines to which students are required to adhere.

A commitment to inerrancy undermines biblical scholarship as the conclusions are predetermined in advance of any evidence. I know whereof I speak having emerged from the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, aka Misery Synod.

The upholder of inerrancy is a priori prevented from considering the possibility of multiple strands of authorship in a document and is required to come up with the most incredible bullshit to reconcile conflicting narratives of the same event. It ultimately leads to the dishonest translations of the NIV, which does not scruple to insert words in the translation which have absolutely no warrant in the original text.

If your point is that he's biased and his work isn't professional in its approach, based on where he teaches, then I'm afraid you've failed to raise a convincing concern. We have a college in Canberra called StMarks which has the exact opposite reputation, yet I know some of the teachers there are extremely evangelical. So don't stoop so low as to try and raise concerns about someone's character and more importantly the quality of their work, base on where they work.

As for that and NIV translation problems, you've just jumped a huge canyon to make that link. Evangelicals don't like the NIV because of the fact that it sways quite a way from a literal reading of the Greek in a number of places.

---

How about some contemporary coins with his face on?

That's great, but where are the contemporary texts written during his lifetime??

[Owlix]

That's great, but where are the contemporary texts written during his lifetime??

Here are three people.

[Aractus]

Again, where are the contemporary texts written during his lifetime? All you provided was a link with a list of 9 people (not 3) that wrote about him.

[Owlix]

2 of those first 3 were historians for him.

Callisthenes of Olynthus, (born c. 360 bc—died c. 327), ancient Greek historian best known for his influential history of Greece. Callisthenes was appointed to attend Alexander the Great as historian of his Asiatic expedition on the recommendation of his uncle Aristotle, who was Alexander’s former tutor.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topi...f-Olynthus

Aristobulus († after 301 BCE): Macedonian officer, biographer of Alexander the Great.

Aristobulus was probably one of the friends of Alexander's father Philip and accompanied Alexander on his war in the East. Since he is never mentioned as a participant to the fights, it has been assumed that he was either a military engineer or a non-military official.

http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/aristobulus...bulus.html

While the King was engaged in incorporating in the various Macedonian units the troops which had come from Persia with Peucestas and from the coast with Philoxenus and Menander, he happened to feel thirsty, and getting up from where he was sitting moved away and left the royal throne empty.

On either side of the throne stood couches with silver feet, on which his attendants had been sitting, but they had got up and gone away with the King, and only the guard of eunuchs was left standing round the throne.

Now some fellow or other -some say a prisoner under open arrest- seeing the throne and the couches unoccupied, made his way up through the eunuchs and sat down on the throne. The eunuchs, according to some Persian custom, did not turn him off, but began to tear their clothes and beat their breasts and faces as if something dreadful had happened.

Alexander was at once told, and ordered the man to be put to the torture in an endeavor to find out if what he had done was part of a prearranged plot. However, all they could get out of him was, that he acted as he did merely upon impulse. This served to strengthen the seers' forebodings of disaster.

http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/al...r_t64.html

You can fuck off if you expect me to literally provide the paper or linen or whatever the document was originally created on.

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

Right. So datable, physical evidence isn't good enough?

[Aractus]

You can fuck off if you expect me to literally provide the paper or linen or whatever the document was originally created on.

So you're admitting, then, that what they wrote down is lost - but you're still sure it existed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_t...in_sources

• Diodorus
  
  Bibliotheca historica (Library of world history), written in Greek by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus, from which Book 17 relates the conquests of Alexander, based almost entirely on Cleitarchus and Hieronymus of Cardia. It is the oldest surviving Greek source (1st century BC). Diodorus regarded Alexander like Caesar as a key historical figure and chronological marker.

That's 300 years after the death of Alexander the Great! What? No contemporary accounts at all?

Do you have the original? Of course not, I did a quick google search for this one:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manusc...icilus.htm

The earliest manuscripts you have for Bibliotheca historica is 10th century, and none of the manuscripts are complete - even with all put together you're missing over half of it!

My point is that you idiots are always demanding standards that can't be met by ANY characters from the ancient world prior to the printing press, not Alexander the Great, and not anyone else. Alexander the Great - no surviving contemporary writings. Jesus - 27 New Testament books - contemporary writings written in the decades following his death; not centuries later.

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

Right. So datable, physical evidence isn't good enough?

I guess not.