Christian Apologetics and Arguments are Futile

[catfish]

Really? I figured it was a done by a controlling Roman government.

Meet God's Creator.

Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus

He was Jewish?

[Minimalist]

No...and neither was fucking jesus.

[catfish]

[Lemonvariable72]

No...and neither was fucking jesus.

meet fucking jesus

Also seen at work here

[Ryantology]

Really? I figured it was a done by a controlling Roman government.
C'mon, think about it. "Render unto Ceaser"... "Submit to masters..."
Then the story of the crucifixion, they blame the Jews who then wish a curse upon themselves. Noone would do that if they thought they were correct. Obvious lie is obvious.

If this is your way of telling me that you couldn't comprehend what I wrote, you should be more direct about it.

[catfish]

Really? I figured it was a done by a controlling Roman government.
C'mon, think about it. "Render unto Ceaser"... "Submit to masters..."
Then the story of the crucifixion, they blame the Jews who then wish a curse upon themselves. Noone would do that if they thought they were correct. Obvious lie is obvious.

If this is your way of telling me that you couldn't comprehend what I wrote, you should be more direct about it.

lol, ditto...

[Esquilax]

The comment came from the premise that He was a real person. If you don't agree with the premise to start then we can move no further.

Of course, Lemonvariable72 wiggled out of it by saying that there was no crucifixion, so . . . there you go.

I understand the premise well enough, but even then your two choices are limited; you might notice that all but my last alternative possibility required at least one living figure to base the stories upon too. This Liar, Lunatic or Legend argument pops up from time to time, and though I don't think it's very effective, it's also rife with incorrect assumptions. Jesus could very well have existed, but willful deception isn't the only alternative to being the literal messiah.

[bennyboy]

BennyBoy, are you admitting that the gospels of Christ stem from a true person that actually existed?

Or are you making unfounded claims made popular in today's culture by prominent fiction?

Because admitting that Christ was a real person that actually existed is actually the first step to becoming a believer.

I don't know whether the person existed, or is an idea of an archetypal mythological Man that was created at that time. I find it highly plausible that he's a real person, and that through his influence, a religion was started.

Unlike others here, I see some real value in religion and in religious ideas and experiences. I think much of human experience is better described in anecdotes, in metaphor or poetry than in scientific terms. Mythology captures no physical truth, but rather the essence of the human experience. And I personally feel that essence is beyond the grasp of any objective system of inquiry.

But when people move away from the ideas of a metaphorical system of thought to fighting over the existential reality of a God walking on the Earth that I pull the emergency stop cord on the crazy train. If you want to talk about whether "turn the other cheek" is a good idea, I see much merit in it, and imagining a handsome blue-eyed, wavy haired hippie saying it does nothing to turn me off from it. But if you want to say the handsome blue-eyed, wavy haired hippie existed, and was also God incarnate, and died after asking himself why he had forsaken himself, and was reanimated but nobody recognized him, then no. That's dumb.

[MindForgedManacle]

No, you are changing what you said now.

No I'm not.

The original post presented several arguments that Christians use in regards to proving their stance. Your claim was that they did not hold together, and the only argument you made to plausibility was as a side note to remind the reader that you did not take the arguments as fact in either case.

That's actually not what I said so I'd appreciate it if you didn't misrepresent my position. My OP specifically says that the arguments, when assumed as true in a "cumulative case for Christian theism" fail. I didn't say they don't "hang together. I said they don't and cannot establish Christianity as true or as more plausible than other theisms in principle.

You claimed that there is a disconnect in reason between a supreme being and His ability to become a man. I disagree. If something is all powerful it can therefore do all things. This idea has no disconnect in itself, whether you take it as truth or not.

No, again with you misrepresenting my positions. I said that even assuming the philosophical arguments and thw historical one, there is no way to logically establish that a person claiming to be an emissary/incarnation of whatever supreme being there may be as true: it's just a claim. And I further elaborated this by pointing out that the historical argument can only show that there were people who believed this, not that it was true.

Christ's "proof" that he was God was not just in miracles, but in actions and presentation of a ideas that were completely strange (like loving your enemy, and the poor inheriting the Earth).

Strange to an extent, but not unique. Buddha expressed many (if not all) of those ideas 500 years earlier

He also rose from the dead of His own volition. I think that helped seal the deal. This idea connects back the to idea that God could so all things.

Firstly, this fails because there is no evidence for that. Secondly, that is part of why the historical argument is complete nonsense. It's merely written testimonies by people decades later writing down things from an oral tradition, which originated from what people believed. That's tragically weak. And again, miracles (of which the resurrection is one) were not thought to be unique to God.

It is a complete idea, whether you take it as truth or not.

Your belief is not the same as truth. You make that mistake a lot.

[Lemonvariable72]

The comment came from the premise that He was a real person. If you don't agree with the premise to start then we can move no further.

Of course, Lemonvariable72 wiggled out of it by saying that there was no crucifixion, so . . . there you go.

I understand the premise well enough, but even then your two choices are limited; you might notice that all but my last alternative possibility required at least one living figure to base the stories upon too. This Liar, Lunatic or Legend argument pops up from time to time, and though I don't think it's very effective, it's also rife with incorrect assumptions. Jesus could very well have existed, but willful deception isn't the only alternative to being the literal messiah.

Of course I don't think the crucifixation happened, I don't think the miracles did either or that nazereth was even a town then. Jesus was a nazerite? Yeah sure it's possible. What I think it was is that there was some man who was a nazerite preaching a doctrine of pacifism, in a political hot bed and his follower deified him.