Debate with a Christian

[Mudhammam]

"I am not at all against using empirical evidence to determine the veracity of a truth claim where empirical evidence is expected to be present."

Right, and considering the claims of the Gospels, that evidence is expected. And yet it is nowhere to be found in ancient history outside of the claims of Christian evangelical literature. Is there a reason why the only religion you suspend your skepticism on, for reasons that appear entirely arbitrary to us, is Christianity? Do you believe in Big Foot and aliens too because there are multiple "eyewitnesses"?

Now, if Jesus, who we know was crucified, had died and indeed remained dead, then it becomes inexplicable as to how His immediate disciples (all of which were Jews), who were despondent, fearful of their lives and forced into hiding, could have somehow been the cause of there being an immense multitude of Christians in Rome which is roughly 2,000 miles a way in a mere thirty years!

"THE ONLY REASONABLE EXPLANATION IS THAT ZOMBIE JESUS IS REAL!" Lol. 2,000 miles in a mere "thirty years"! NO WAY! I'd say Christianity continued on the same way other religions do once their charismatic leaders die. People make up stories.

[discipulus]

"I am not at all against using empirical evidence to determine the veracity of a truth claim where empirical evidence is expected to be present."

Right, and considering the claims of the Gospels, that evidence is expected. And yet it is nowhere to be found in ancient history outside of the claims of Christian evangelical literature. Is there a reason why the only religion you suspend your skepticism on, for reasons that appear entirely arbitrary to us, is Christianity? Do you believe in Big Foot and aliens too because there are multiple "eyewitnesses"?

Now, if Jesus, who we know was crucified, had died and indeed remained dead, then it becomes inexplicable as to how His immediate disciples (all of which were Jews), who were despondent, fearful of their lives and forced into hiding, could have somehow been the cause of there being an immense multitude of Christians in Rome which is roughly 2,000 miles a way in a mere thirty years!

"THE ONLY REASONABLE EXPLANATION IS THAT ZOMBIE JESUS IS REAL!" Lol. 2,000 miles in a mere "thirty years"! NO WAY! I'd say Christianity continued on the same way other religions do once their charismatic leaders die. People make up stories.

I must be in the twilight zone....

[MindForgedManacle]

C. Fabricate a lie (Jesus rising from the dead)

Lies aren't hard to start, especially amongst people who wanted such to be the case. No advanced fabrication necessary. But oh, I'm sure you think the disciples were above lying.

D. Go out and proclaim that He did indeed rise from the dead (something they knew was a lie)

Yeah, people have lied about supernatural claims. In fact, as the narrow-minded Christian you likely are, you HAVE to believe that aboit ALL other religions. Mohammed riding a flying horse(?) to heaven? Why would the Muslims lie? Buddha attaining enlightenment after an incredible feat of meditation? No way Buddhists could have lied about that.

Worse, you don't seem to consider that people's psychology can warp their view of reality to preserve deep-seated wants. You don't have to "know something is a lie" to defend a falsehood.

E. Boldy proclaim the remission of sins in His name in a Second-Temple Judaistic culture which would have earned them immediate ostracism

They were ALREADY ostracized. And according to the Bible, Jesus ALREADY claimed that he would redeem their sins, as being God he could do so.
And religious fanatics are no strangers to WANTIMG persecution. It often is validation that they are on the right path, and Jesus says as much in the Bible ("You will be persecuted in my name", and the like).

F. Be so effective in their proclamation of this lie that Christianity spread so rapidly as to have an immense multitude of followers 2,000 miles away in the capital city of a pagan empire...

A GROSSLY exaggerated claim, something Christians are no steanger to.

G. Be willing to die and suffer some of the most extreme forms of torture, and persecution and ultimately death for something they knew was a lie.

Sometimes people are willing to die for a cause. That says NOTHING about the veracity of what they're dying for, nor whether or not they "knew it was a lie". Certainly Muslims and Jews have suffered persecution and death for their faith. The Jews FAR more than Christians. Please, be consistent.

H. Inspire an immense multitude to also die and suffer the most extreme forms of torture

Again, people can be persuaded to believe something is true when it is in fact not. You are very simple-minded if you don't know that from... living.

And accomplish all of the above by basing their new religion on a complete lie?

Pretty much EVERY major religion EVER accomplished that. Or is Islam based on truth? Certainly you don't believe Hindus are right in revering the Vedas? There is no valid inference rule regarding people's belief in something and whether or not what they believe is in fact true. This is stupidly obvious.

Overnight they go from despondent, leaderless, cowardly, fearful men, to men who literally turned the world upside down so that today in 2014 nearly a third of the world's population (over 2,000,000,000) people worship Christ as God!

1) Wasn't overnight.
2) They weren't leaderless; they were fractured into mutually exclusive subsets with their own pioneers like Marcion.
3) They didn't "turn the world upside-down", at least not in any sense that Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism didn't, or Zoroastrianism before it died down.

To say that this is extraordinary would be a gross understatement. Not only that but the sheer improbability of this happening and all of it happening while Jesus lay dead somewhere is so staggering as to make one's mind reel when thinking of the improbability of it.

If the prophet Mohammed didn't receive the final revelation and meet Moses in Heaven, it is so improbable that there would be nearly 2 billion Muslims today, and for Islam to be the fastest growing religion...

Oh wait, I'm not using probability correctly, just as you weren't. You can't work backwards to retrodict things like that, especially when you have shown no awareness nor given any of the variable priors from which you could actually use Bayesian probability to determine the likelihood of something so complex.

Zealous men will oftentimes die for what they believe to be true, but I am aware of no one who would die for something they knew to be a lie. This is exactly what we have to believe if we are to believe that Christianity is based on some colossal lie.

Again, this is stupid. We know that people have died for falsehoods, regardless of if they knew them to be so.

Is it not more probable and in accordance with Occam's Razor( i.e the principle of parsimony or succinctness) that Jesus Rose from the Dead in accordance with scripture and that Christ was and is alive and well and building His Church as He said He would?

Oh joy, massacreing Ockam's Razor now are we? Dude, go read up on some damn philosophy, history and Bayesian inferencing PLEASE.

[Mudhammam]

Right, and considering the claims of the Gospels, that evidence is expected. And yet it is nowhere to be found in ancient history outside of the claims of Christian evangelical literature. Is there a reason why the only religion you suspend your skepticism on, for reasons that appear entirely arbitrary to us, is Christianity? Do you believe in Big Foot and aliens too because there are multiple "eyewitnesses"?


"THE ONLY REASONABLE EXPLANATION IS THAT ZOMBIE JESUS IS REAL!" Lol. 2,000 miles in a mere "thirty years"! NO WAY! I'd say Christianity continued on the same way other religions do once their charismatic leaders die. People make up stories.

I must be in the twilight zone....

Are you seeing bright lights and hearing voices? Apparently that's the normative Christian experience.

[discipulus]

Look into what he says closely, something extraordinary is indeed present. He states that an immense multitude of Christians were convicted by Nero for starting the fire that burned a great deal of Rome in 64A.D.

Now, if Jesus, who we know was crucified, had died and indeed remained dead, then it becomes inexplicable as to how His immediate disciples (all of which were Jews), who were despondent, fearful of their lives and forced into hiding, could have somehow been the cause of there being an immense multitude of Christians in Rome which is roughly 2,000 miles a way in a mere thirty years!

The presence of so many Christians in Rome at this particular time roughly 2,000 miles away from where Christ was crucified and buried leaving behind a rag tag group of Galileans who were forced into hiding and despondent at the death of their Rabbi, cries out for an explanation.

Both Suetonius, the Chief secretary to Emperor Hadrian and the Roman Historian Tacitus mention a "superstition" when speaking of Christians and many historians see this as an allusion to the claim of the disciples that Jesus had been resurrected.

Are we really to believe that these twelve Galileans would:

A. Be able to somehow steal Jesus' body guarded by Roman soldiers....

B. Hide the body in such a way as for it to never be found...

C. Fabricate a lie (Jesus rising from the dead)

D. Go out and proclaim that He did indeed rise from the dead (something they knew was a lie)

E. Boldy proclaim the remission of sins in His name in a Second-Temple Judaistic culture which would have earned them immediate ostracism

F. Be so effective in their proclamation of this lie that Christianity spread so rapidly as to have an immense multitude of followers 2,000 miles away in the capital city of a pagan empire...

G. Be willing to die and suffer some of the most extreme forms of torture, and persecution and ultimately death for something they knew was a lie.

H. Inspire an immense multitude to also die and suffer the most extreme forms of torture

And accomplish all of the above by basing their new religion on a complete lie?

Overnight they go from despondent, leaderless, cowardly, fearful men, to men who literally turned the world upside down so that today in 2014 nearly a third of the world's population (over 2,000,000,000) people worship Christ as God!

To say that this is extraordinary would be a gross understatement. Not only that but the sheer improbability of this happening and all of it happening while Jesus lay dead somewhere is so staggering as to make one's mind reel when thinking of the improbability of it.

Zealous men will oftentimes die for what they believe to be true, but I am aware of no one who would die for something they knew to be a lie. This is exactly what we have to believe if we are to believe that Christianity is based on some colossal lie.

Is it not more probable and in accordance with Occam's Razor( i.e the principle of parsimony or succinctness) that Jesus Rose from the Dead in accordance with scripture and that Christ was and is alive and well and building His Church as He said He would?

No, it's not more probable that Jesus rose from the dead, etc. If you apply Occam's Razor properly, you end up with a fairly mundane and uncontroversial conclusion: Paul and his cohorts were remarkably successful at proselytizing Gentiles -- hence the presence of Christians in Rome circa 64. A successful salesman -- big fucking deal. We're still no closer to having good reasons for believing any of the supernatural hokum in the Gospels or believing that Jesus was anything other than a person who had a following and met a very bad end.

Also, this isn't necessarily about whether Jesus's followers lied (though it can't be ruled out). Good god, man! As much as you like to hector everyone else about logic and philosophy, you really can't think of another (or several other) possibilities aside from a spin on Lewis's "Lord, lunatic, or liar" spiel? There were Christians in Rome about thirty years after the execution and therefore, according to the principle of parsimony (according to you anyway), Jesus rose from the dead? Sorry, it doesn't follow.

It will soon.

[Mudhammam]

No, it's not more probable that Jesus rose from the dead, etc. If you apply Occam's Razor properly, you end up with a fairly mundane and uncontroversial conclusion: Paul and his cohorts were remarkably successful at proselytizing Gentiles -- hence the presence of Christians in Rome circa 64. A successful salesman -- big fucking deal. We're still no closer to having good reasons for believing any of the supernatural hokum in the Gospels or believing that Jesus was anything other than a person who had a following and met a very bad end.

Also, this isn't necessarily about whether Jesus's followers lied (though it can't be ruled out). Good god, man! As much as you like to hector everyone else about logic and philosophy, you really can't think of another (or several other) possibilities aside from a spin on Lewis's "Lord, lunatic, or liar" spiel? There were Christians in Rome about thirty years after the execution and therefore, according to the principle of parsimony (according to you anyway), Jesus rose from the dead? Sorry, it doesn't follow.

It will soon.

1,984-ish years and counting.

[discipulus]

C. Fabricate a lie (Jesus rising from the dead)

Lies aren't hard to start, especially amongst people who wanted such to be the case. No advanced fabrication necessary. But oh, I'm sure you think the disciples were above lying.

D. Go out and proclaim that He did indeed rise from the dead (something they knew was a lie)

Yeah, people have lied about supernatural claims. In fact, as the narrow-minded Christian you likely are, you HAVE to believe that aboit ALL other religions. Mohammed riding a flying horse(?) to heaven? Why would the Muslims lie? Buddha attaining enlightenment after an incredible feat of meditation? No way Buddhists could have lied about that.

Worse, you don't seem to consider that people's psychology can warp their view of reality to preserve deep-seated wants. You don't have to "know something is a lie" to defend a falsehood.

E. Boldy proclaim the remission of sins in His name in a Second-Temple Judaistic culture which would have earned them immediate ostracism

They were ALREADY ostracized. And according to the Bible, Jesus ALREADY claimed that he would redeem their sins, as being God he could do so.
And religious fanatics are no strangers to WANTIMG persecution. It often is validation that they are on the right path, and Jesus says as much in the Bible ("You will be persecuted in my name", and the like).

F. Be so effective in their proclamation of this lie that Christianity spread so rapidly as to have an immense multitude of followers 2,000 miles away in the capital city of a pagan empire...

A GROSSLY exaggerated claim, something Christians are no steanger to.

G. Be willing to die and suffer some of the most extreme forms of torture, and persecution and ultimately death for something they knew was a lie.

Sometimes people are willing to die for a cause. That says NOTHING about the veracity of what they're dying for, nor whether or not they "knew it was a lie". Certainly Muslims and Jews have suffered persecution and death for their faith. The Jews FAR more than Christians. Please, be consistent.

H. Inspire an immense multitude to also die and suffer the most extreme forms of torture

Again, people can be persuaded to believe something is true when it is in fact not. You are very simple-minded if you don't know that from... living.

And accomplish all of the above by basing their new religion on a complete lie?

Pretty much EVERY major religion EVER accomplished that. Or is Islam based on truth? Certainly you don't believe Hindus are right in revering the Vedas? There is no valid inference rule regarding people's belief in something and whether or not what they believe is in fact true. This is stupidly obvious.

Overnight they go from despondent, leaderless, cowardly, fearful men, to men who literally turned the world upside down so that today in 2014 nearly a third of the world's population (over 2,000,000,000) people worship Christ as God!

1) Wasn't overnight.
2) They weren't leaderless; they were fractured into mutually exclusive subsets with their own pioneers like Marcion.
3) They didn't "turn the world upside-down", at least not in any sense that Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism didn't, or Zoroastrianism before it died down.

To say that this is extraordinary would be a gross understatement. Not only that but the sheer improbability of this happening and all of it happening while Jesus lay dead somewhere is so staggering as to make one's mind reel when thinking of the improbability of it.

If the prophet Mohammed didn't receive the final revelation and meet Moses in Heaven, it is so improbable that there would be nearly 2 billion Muslims today, and for Islam to be the fastest growing religion...

Oh wait, I'm not using probability correctly, just as you weren't. You can't work backwards to retrodict things like that, especially when you have shown no awareness nor given any of the variable priors from which you could actually use Bayesian probability to determine the likelihood of something so complex.

Zealous men will oftentimes die for what they believe to be true, but I am aware of no one who would die for something they knew to be a lie. This is exactly what we have to believe if we are to believe that Christianity is based on some colossal lie.

Again, this is stupid. We know that people have died for falsehoods, regardless of if they knew them to be so.

Is it not more probable and in accordance with Occam's Razor( i.e the principle of parsimony or succinctness) that Jesus Rose from the Dead in accordance with scripture and that Christ was and is alive and well and building His Church as He said He would?

Oh joy, massacreing Ockam's Razor now are we? Dude, go read up on some damn philosophy, history and Bayesian inferencing PLEASE.

Do you expect me to address any of the above?

---

It will soon.

1,984-ish years and counting.

No, I mean you will die soon and you will know the truth.

[MindForgedManacle]

Lol, "Do you expect me to respond to many dozens of vapid assertions that i thought I could bullshit to people and get away with".

^Translation of the bullshitese.

[Rampant.A.I.]

SO DID IT START? ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE DEBATE IS LOCATED? (URL PLEASE)

It's already over. Esquilax destroyed the "empirically unverifiable" claim Disciplus has been using, and Disciplus is heaping red herrings and Gish on top to cover it up.

[discipulus]

Lol, "Do you expect me to respond to many dozens of vapid assertions that i thought I could bullshit to people and get away with".

^Translation of the bullshitese.

I am startled you would say that about your own posts!?!

I am in the twilight zone!!!