MERGED: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1) & (Part 2)

[robvalue]

Sam Harris said I believe that religion allows large groups of people to believe things that only a crazy person would believe on their own.

I agree it is really sad. I've seen so many videos of obviously intelligent men tying themselves in knots trying to convince themselves and others of obvious bullshit. When you have fake answers, you stop looking for the real ones. And try to stop other people looking too.

[DeistPaladin]

Sam Harris said I believe that religion allows large groups of people to believe things that only a crazy person would believe on their own.

1 crazy person: An asylum inmate
2 crazy people: A cult
3 crazy people: An established and respected religion.

[Esquilax]

Yes, but I don't see any definition of extraordinary that resolves to just "some guy who was never involved in the event in question said something that some other guys, who he never sees fit to identify, might have believed about it."

Then apparently it isn't extraordinary to you.

As evidence? No. But you're still trying to use it to justify an extraordinary claim.

I notice also that you've chosen to cover for your baseless dismissal with vague deflection; did you really think that would work? That I wouldn't remind you, and everyone else, of your total failure to address the point I made?

Point? What you said was like a broken pencil, it had no point.

My point was that you just saying "that's a played out atheist catchphrase. It's not effective," is not an argument. It's just a flat out dismissal, like the one you just gave when picked up on your dishonest deflection, and it doesn't suddenly make the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" point invalid, just because you think it doesn't work, presumably solely because of how inconvenient it is for your position.

We know that life exists, and that things that are not alive also exist. We do not have any indication, despite the best efforts of chumps like you, of the existence of magical designers of life.

We dont have any indication as to how inanimate matter can begin to live, and how inanimate matter can begin to think, despite the wishful thinking of chumps like you

Miller-Yurey, and John Oros' experiments. That's literally one hundred percent more indication than we have for intelligent design of any stripe. Thus, probabilistically- which I'd remind you is the method you asked me to use- it is more likely that no intelligent designer was necessary or involved. I don't happen to think this is some magic bullet sure shot win for natural causes, just one point worth mentioning, but don't ask me to use a certain method and then laugh at me for using that method, asshole.

Incidentally... inanimate matter beginning to live? You mean, like Adam coming to life from dirt?

Oh no, I forgot: that's your beliefs. Apparently those don't require evidence at all, nor do any of your arguments also apply to them. Because you said so.

Well I will put it to you this way, pimp: We appeal to what we think is the best explanation to explain the effect...and I believe that intelligent design is the best explanation to explain the origin of life, consciousness, and species.

Now, you feel differently...but that is your illogical problem, not mines.

So, couldn't answer the actual point, and thus decided to try and turn all of this into a matter of opinions, eh?

However, since we can readily determine that the things required for natural life exist

Ok, so what are the "things" required for consciousness? You can't say the brain, because there are plenty dead people out there with a brain with no consciousness. So how do you get consciousness?

I could say that a brain is a necessary but not sufficient cause for consciousness, with life being another component. But you're equivocating, since even the sentence you quoted doesn't say anything about consciousness, it speaks about life. That consciousness evolves as a part of life is well documented, regardless of your simplistic, offhand dismissals without looking at any of the evidence. But you're not going to re-route the conversation midway through when you can't actually answer the point; we know that the components of life, organic matter and so on, are naturally occurring, and that the building blocks of those can form without direction from outside sources. That was my point, that those things are readily demonstrable as real, and yet magic designers are not.

Once again, this is a question you asked me. I didn't bring this up, you did, and the least you could do is stay on topic rather than throwing desperate non-sequiturs at me in an attempt to deflect.

and we cannot do the same for supernatural things of any kind, probabilistically it is more likely that natural things were involved, than supernatural.

I want demonstrable evidence, not bs theories.

You asked for a probabilistic model, shitlord! Besides, the fact that physical matter exists is demonstrable, as is the laboratory experiments I pointed you to earlier! Jesus fucking christ, are you even reading what you write?

We can theorize anything, I theorize that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth". That is my theory, and you obviously don't buy it, and neither do I buy yours.

I don't think you know very much about scientific theories if you think they're that easy to come by.

The fact of the matter is, abiogenesis has never been observed, so there are no good reasons to think that it happened, unless you need an alternative besides intelligent design, which is obviously the case here.

But probabilistically, which again, is what you asked for, there is a greater probability of abiogenesis happening versus intelligent design, since we have experimental results, and the components of abiogenesis have the advantage of being readily apparent to all.

Oh, and intelligent design by supernatural space wizards has never been observed either, so...

I actually mentioned that in my probability model above. Strange that you missed it; I guess it was inconvenient to your position too.

That was easy.

Think so? It would have been even more easy to just say "Naturedidit".

Yeah, but oversimplified strawmen are your bag, not mine.

So, you believe exactly the same shit that you keep making fun of us for believing in. Thank you, you hypocritical ass.

SMH. I was talking about LIFE THAT BEGAN, dummy..obviously Christians don't believe that our God began!!!

Whewwww weeeee.

So you believe your god is eternal? After spending a few weeks explaining to us why you think eternities are impossible? Hmm...

Besides, "began to exist" doesn't absolve you of this problem either; you still believe in a lifeform that exists without requiring another life form to do so, something that you're claiming is impossible. So when you say "life comes from life" you evidently don't believe that.

The really rich thing is that if I tell you that life didn't "begin to exist" either, you'd probably start yammering about how impossible that is.

Another problem with what you just said is that we've never seen a life or consciousness that didn't begin to exist, so under the same logic you were using on me a moment ago, we have no reason to believe it... And yet you do. Still a hypocrite, I see.

Yet, I've spent my entire time in the other thread arguing for the existence of a first cause??

Yes, I'm aware that a lot of christian apologetics comes down to "god is the thing that does the thing that resolves the problem Ive defined into existence by fiat, by being able to violate the rules I've set in place by similar fiat." I'm just also aware, apparently unlike apologists, that if you have to propose a thing that violates the rules you've set in order to resolve a problem, then those rules evidently do not apply consistently, and thus are not a problem at all.

Seriously, boiled down, your first cause argument is basically "Life only comes from life, so therefore we need a life which doesn't come from life in order to make the first life, and that thing is called god." Your conclusion, regardless of the semantic "begins to exist" tricks you want to pull, violates the first premise you erect as a problem that needs to be resolved. Obviously therefore, you do not believe that the problem is universal or consistently applied; you don't think life only comes from life, you just want that to be a problem for everyone else, but not you, because reasons.

If you don't believe that life needs to come from life then fine, but don't pretend that you do so that you can force other people to play by rules you have no intention of playing by yourself.

By the way, how did you determine that it's possible for life to exist without beginning to exist? How did you observe that?

Oh, you didn't? You're just putting in that little caveat based on no evidence as a matter of convenience, to avoid the obvious problem with your argument? Color me shocked! hock:

Dude, just stop talking to me lol. The more I talk to you, the dumber I get. I am the kind of Christian that you are used to running hurdles around...I can make a case for my faith, defend it, and also attack yours. I can point out logical fallacies, too, which you definitely are aware of.

Once again, you cannot be trusted to come up with accurate conclusions as to how these exchanges are going. Like a lot of apologists, you seem to have mistaken self-aggrandizing bullying for winning an argument. But it doesn't work on me, nor anyone else here. We've dealt with real hostile theists in the past; your passive aggressive nonsense is just too obvious.

So please, just stop. You aren't going to get away with that nonsensical crap that you may have ran on someone else.

Are you running away, then? Can't handle what I'm saying, finally realized I won't just let you change the subject whenever you want to escape via rhetoric, and so you're going the route of every other theist we've thwarted here; "You guys is dumb, stop talking to me!"

Since when has pleading for silence ever led to a decent debate, H_M? You don't see me commanding everyone to shut up. I wonder what you have to hide?

[DeistPaladin]

"Paul never met Jesus. The chronological facts are undisputed. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified during the reign of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor or prefect of Judea, in April, A.D. 30. As best we can determine it was not until seven years after Jesus' death, around A.D. 37, that Paul reports his initial apparition of "Christ," whom he identifies with Jesus raised from the dead."

Not only is he behind me on this one, but it even looks like he is using the same sources I used (and everyone else uses, for that matter).

Actually, the dates depend on which Gospel you use.

Luke says Jesus was born under the administration of Quirinius over Syria, which started in 6 CE. Jesus was "about 30" when he started his ministry after John the Baptist was put into prison. If we fudge what "about 30" means, we can make that as early as 34 CE for the start of his ministry, include three Passover holidays per the Gospel of John and end on 36 CE, just in the nick of time the same year Pilate is recalled to Rome.

These dates all fit together nicely with only one problem. Mary conceived Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. This means that Mary must have had a 10 year pregnancy. Well, perhaps those sons of God take longer to bake in the oven, yes?

On the other hand, if we go by the Gospel of John, Jesus would have started his ministry in 27 CE and was crucified in 29 CE. The reason we know this is at the start of JC's ministry, the priests said to him:

John 2:20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

Temple construction started in 20 BCE. Considering there is no year 0, that means the argument would have been dated in 27 CE. Allowing for three Passover celebrations places the crucifixion at 29 CE, only 1 year after Luke tells us John the Baptist started his ministry.

For the dates provided by John to make any sense, JtB, would have had to have been an overnight success, shot his mouth off about Antipas' wedding to Herodius and been executed all in the space of 1 year. Then again, John's Gospel has Jesus starting his ministry before JtB was arrested.

Then again, we also have the Gospel of Matthew, which tells us JC was born during the reign of Herod the Great, so he would have been born before 4 CE. This would make him too old to be "about 30" by the time JtB started his ministry in 28 CE and certainly too old by the time John the Baptist was put away into prison.

I guess the 30 CE date is a compromise between all the different Gospel accounts. Yes?

[Jenny A]

A little list of atheist biblical scholars who do not believe in the historicity of Jesus:

G. A. Wells, an Emeritus Professor of German at Birkbeck, University of London. He does allow the the possibility of historic Jesus he just doesn't think it's likely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Albert_Wells

Earl J. Doherty, a Canadian author with bachelor's degree in Ancient History and Classical Languages but no completed advanced degrees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Doherty

Robert McNair Price, doctorates in theology and former Baptist preacher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Price

Richard Cevantis Carrier, PhD in ancient history from Columbia University in 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier
Looky, Looky, a man whose background really is history---that makes him a rare man in the Jesus wars.

If we discuss whether Jesus was crucified, the list will get longer.

Does this prove Jesus wasn't a real man? No. But note how easy it is to come up with a list a men who have studied the NT and come to rather different conclusions. What do they lack? Christian bias. So, can we discuss the texts and not the scholars?

[robvalue]

Do you remember that kid at school who, no matter how many times you tagged him, claimed he wasn't caught?

---

Let's try this again:

Even if you somehow prove beyond reasonable doubt your claim, you have-

Some guy who said some impressive stuff, got crucified, declared dead, stuck in a tomb for three days then somehow got out and was alive again.

That's your jackpot. It's as much as a historian could hope to prove.

What you then have is a very interesting, but unexplained event. Just because someone did something supposedly impossible, that doesn't render true anything they say about the event, or anything else.

Say I died, and three days later I returned to life. I then tell everyone how and why this happened. Is what I say automatically true, or does it need verifying in its own right?

The Christian faith is based not on whether this event (resurrection) happened, but why it happened (assuming it did happen at all). Any claims about this are all but untestable, and as such are speculation. Hence the faith part.

[Minimalist]

So, can we discuss the texts and not the scholars?

How about the reliability of the texts?

[Ravenshire]

Wow, I'm out for a couple days and the tread balloons up to 37 pages. Successful troll is successful.

H_M, to answer your question about who's kicking your ass. Everyone in this thread and you're still too stupid to realize it.

[DeistPaladin]

So, can we discuss the texts and not the scholars?

How about the reliability of the texts?

How about how to resolve the inner contradictions between the parts of the texts? Step 1 is to tell me an internally consistent story. Step 2 is convincing me the story is a true story.

[atheism is illogical]

Name ten.

Name five.

Sod it - name one.

I know it is a sad fact lol. I know

1. John Dominic Crossan
2. Bart Ehrman
3. Gerd Ludeman
4. James Tabor
5. E.P Sanders

That is at least five. So you asked for a minimum of one, and maximum of ten...well, I split it right down the middle...with five.

Don't forget Dawkins.
http://youtu.be/Ant5HS01tBQ