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

[The Valkyrie]

lol, "intellectual spanking".

The only "intellectual spanking" happening here is an internet dolt mentally spanking his monkey.

This intellectual giant is a dwarf with delusions of adequacy.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I didn't say "knowledge", dumbass.

Reading comprehension...I said you made a CLAIM of knowledge when you stated that God didn't say it or whatever it was that you said.

Read comprehension people.

But the thing is, Shakespeare, I didn't make that claim. For someone who urges reading comprehension on others, you display a remarkable lack of that skill in yourself.

I voiced my opinion that your god is a figment of your imagination.

I find the concept of naturalism virtually impossible.

Of course you do. You're not prone to reading evidence that has been presented to you, after all; you've displayed that trait in this very thread.

What that means, of course, is that while in your opinion naturalism is virtually impossible, your opinion is not an informed one.

I'll disregard it for the rubbish that it is.

[Strider]

This would be an excellent point if it wasn't for the fact that I was talking about the two worldviews of atheism and Christianity, you know, one of which I hold, and the other of which he holds.

But see, I know you were so hell bent on wanting to jump into the conversation without paying attention to the itty bitty details like that...the kind of guy that would sign the contract without reading the fine print first...those small itsy bitsy words that are so tiny yet they mean so much...shit like that.

Now you're backpedaling. You made the statement that "[you] can give statistical data which show that over 2 billion people in this world IS (BTW, sweet grammar fail) convinced". You can't go back and arbitrarily apply limits to your statement now. Oh, I was only talking about atheism and Christianity...the other religions don't count. That's disingenuous. Facts are facts. Statistical data shows there are more people worldwide who are not convinced, just as we are not.

You've already demonstrated how someone can jump into a conversation without taking the time to comprehend exactly what the hell is going on...so just go back to wherever you came from and we can pretend as if this intellectual spanking never happened.

The guy who believes in an invisible sky being with a 24/7 surveillance system that knows what every person on Earth is doing at any particular time and knows all of their thoughts is going to boast about a perceived intellectual spanking?

lol. Sure, let's pretend it didn't happen.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[...] over 2 billion people in this world IS (BTW, sweet grammar fail) convinced" [...]

Now, you lay off ole Shakespeare here. He's forgotten more about the English language than you'll ever forget!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I object to this thread. Case 1 was never resolved, and a convincing case was never presented let alone defended.

This thread is effectively spam.

Who determines whether or not it was solved? Is this a democracy or dictatorship?

Our word is the law. You have no say here.

This site is not a democracy and never has been. We write and enforce the rules as we see fit.

[The Valkyrie]

Who determines whether or not it was solved? Is this a democracy or dictatorship?

Our word is the law. You have no say here.

This site is not a democracy and never has been. We write and enforce the rules as we see fit.

Fidel's new image:

[pocaracas]

The possibility... never forget that it's not established that such a man existed for real.

The vast majority agree that he did exist, pocaracas. Jesus of Nazareth's existence is about as certain as any other historical figure. Anyone that says otherwise comes from a very small percentage of historians, and secular individuals on atheist forums who don't have a freakin clue on what the historical consensus is regarding the subject matter...either way, it is the minority.

A Jesus existed, I grant you that... not THE Jesus of the bible.
I keep telling you about another person who lived about a hundred years before christians claim Jesus existed, a person who, it is written, did many of the things that were later attributed to Jesus.
This other person may have been the one who started the cult.... a cult which then spread out... and, by the time your gospel writers put the pen to the paper, there were already more than one hundred years of spreading of the notion that the ruling jewish priests were abusing their power... the good old allure of the conspiracy theory... or the underlying dissatisfaction with the ruling priesthood.

As you can see, the case can be made that christianity arose and spread so much precisely because of a very human fault: greed. And general dissatisfaction of the people with that greed.
This problem is resurfacing, today, but slightly differently:
(please take a while to listen to this video)

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yeah.... so?

The further you get away from the timeline of the events, the more legendary hocus pocus will result. The belief in the Resurrection was something that was held extremely early, which makes it more trustworthy than crap written hundreds of years later.

What if that resurrection tale was already circulating for hundreds of years, prior to it being integrated in the Jesus myth?
This has been told to you a few times: in that region, there were people who believed in other gods or demi-gods who also went through a death and then made a comeback.

derp... christian stuff is jewish stuff.
You ever seen the acronym INRI?
What does the last I stand for, huh?
I was showing you a story already in circulation about 100 years before J.C.'s alleged birth... a story which shares way too many details with the J.C. myth.
One more ember in the fire that destroys the credibility of those eyewitnesses still alive after the year 60AD.

Ummm, huh?

Are you saying you don't know what INRI stands for?
A 29 year old apologist doesn't know?

I know... that is why you believe in the fairy tale and I don't.

Well, believing that life came from nonlife and reptiles changed to birds, that is worse than a fairy tale...that is voodoo.

What does that have to do with what we're talking about?
How about you start a thread where we can educate you on how the Universe is thought to have developed, and, with it, the Earth, the moon, the building blocks of life, multi-cellular life, plants, fish, land animals, dinos, mammals, birds and, finally, humans.... what come after humans?.. we cannot say.

Could Luke... *gasp*... be lying about that?

Sure, but then again, so could any other person that has written anything regarding events in antiquity. So we shouldn't believe anything that was written at any time pre-camcorder/photo days.

Remember when I said I'd have little trouble believing that a Teacher of Righteousness?
What's the fundamental difference between the claims made about this teacher and those made of Jesus?
[hint]extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence[/hint]

A Lie that, if believed, would boost the credibility of the remainder of the story.... worth a shot... and see where it's brought him!

It could be a lie...but it also could be the truth..I will base my life on it being the truth, and you base your life on it being a lie...we will let the chips fall where they may

If it is the truth, then many many questions arise... questions which lead to some lack of consistency or logicality of the overall story.

A lie that's been believed by many would explain all... and remain "ordinary".

It's an analogy... I thought you people liked analogies...

We do, but the analogy has to bear some similarity to what it is being compared to.

How dare you?!
Harry Potter not bearing similarities with J.C.?
Let's see...
Extraordinary feats: magic / miracles.
Real widely known locations mentioned in the text: London / Jerusalem.
Person telling the story: third / third

I see quite a few significant similarities...

I would much easier believe the story of the Teacher of Righteousness, than J.C.

Then, like...believe it.

Why not?

[His_Majesty]

So far the goal post isn't moving. If you want to prove a man existed, especially about whom nothing is told that isn't bound up in the supernatural, you need much better evidence than second hand reports

The story of the Gospels were told by eyewitnesses, how whether those eyewitnesses were the actual authors (which I believe at least one was), or the authors were friends of the eyewitnesses, either way, an eyewitness had its hand in it.

written decades later

The central belief in Christianity was already viral well before it was written about. It doesn't matter how much you cling on to the whole "written decades later" factor, I will continue to point out to you that it doesn't matter how long it took for the story to go on paper, as long as the belief was already spread.

, especially if those reports are not told in the style of history and do not reveal any awareness of the comparative value of sources.

Again, as I pointed out to you...a point that you conveniently ignored..I mean, it would have been nice for you to have at least address the point that I made....the fact that you continue to say that the reports are not in "the style of history...which is nonsense considering the fact that we have Matt 2:1 stating shit like "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the TIME OF King Herod".....do you see that? "During the time".

Time = history.

Luke 2:1 "In those days...."

In those days = periods of time...which = history.


So your objections are completely false, and conveniently ignoring that fact won't change it.

Your arguments that the Gospels were somehow well researched, resulting from eyewitness accounts, or a sudden urge 30 years later on the part of eyewitness to write it all down, are absurd. They remain absurd. Far fetched perhapsing, won't get you anywhere.

The Resurrection account was already spread before anything was written down, Jenny.

I repeat:

The fact that you or anyone else can come up with reasons why we don't have evidence, does not create evidence. To prove something you need real evidence, not just an explanation for why you don't have it.

If your critique is the fact that nothing was written down about an event, and the explanation to why it wasn't written down was because people COULDN'T WRITE...I would think that is a good reason why it wasn't written down.

What does that have to do with how fast Christianity spread? You claimed it spread rapidly, I present evidence that we don't know that it did. You respond, well Jerusalem was still Jewish. WTF?

WTF? Your quote was "Had there been that many converts in Jerusalem, it would have been the first Christian city, since there probably were no more than twenty thousand inhabitants at this time"

And I said JERUSALEM WAS STILL PREDOMINATELY A JEWISH POPULATION.

And you are right, we are talking about how fast Christianity spread...and as I said previously, a point that you still didn't address yet: Paul was writing to the Church in Corinth around 20 years after the cross...and Corinth is almost 2,000 miles from Jerusalem by road, where the belief originated. That is the equivalent to traveling from Phoenix, AZ to Detroit, MI...long before cars and airplanes...and long before the internet, television, and social media to spread the word.

So it traveled fast, far, and wide.

http://www.distance-cities.com/search?fr...%2C+Israel

[Minimalist]

Corinth, in the mid-first century AD was not a major city. In fact, some 20 years later Vespasian had to "re-found" the colony because it was an abject failure. The second time it did begin to grow and was visited by the Greek geographer, Pausanias, during the reign of Hadrian. Oddly, in spite of his interest in various cults, Pausanias detected no jews or xtians in Corinth in the mid second century, AD. Curious but probably not to a dickhead like you.

[His_Majesty]

Your sample size is too small.

Then more people should start posting.

Ah, so by your very own logic, there are more than 5 billion people who *don't* agree with you.

Wait a minute, there are 5 billion atheists in the world? After all, that is what I was comparing Christianity too.

And you're still wrong about the facts on that.

No I am not...there are more Christians in this world than atheists.

(not that argument ad populum isn't a logical fallacy or anything)

If it is so much of a fallacy, why would you ask me how many people in this thread were convinced of my argument? Is that argument ad populum? You know, a logical fallacy. I wasn't using it as an initial point, I was only saying that IF you wanted to play that game, then I can play it too.

In addition, you also claimed you could present data which supported your claim that most historians believe in a historic Jesus, and I not that you utterly failed to support that claim.

Which I did. I gave a video of Bart Ehrman...a video of Richard Dawkins..and a citation of Robert Price...plus a few quotes from historians...and they all said the same thing...and the interesting thing is, why would Bart, Richard, or Robert make the statement if it wasn't true...after all, they are unbelievers...yet they acknowledge that the con-Historical Jesus view is the minority view.

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But the thing is, Shakespeare, I didn't make that claim.

You said in post #75 "He (God) actually doesn't do anything at all, because he is a figment of your imagination."

That is a claim of knowledge...and I simply asked you to provide evidence for that absolute claim...which you didn't, which you can't.

I voiced my opinion that your god is a figment of your imagination.

You conveniently left out the first part where you said made the absolute claim...I just posted it in context above...and the # post you said it in...so keep it real...have some integrity about yourself.

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Now you're backpedaling. You made the statement that "[you] can give statistical data which show that over 2 billion people in this world IS (BTW, sweet grammar fail) convinced".

You can't go back and arbitrarily apply limits to your statement now. Oh, I was only talking about atheism and Christianity...the other religions don't count. That's disingenuous. Facts are facts. Statistical data shows there are more people worldwide who are not convinced, just as we are not.

Yeah, it was a sweet grammar fail on my part, and it is still sweet reading comprehension failure on your part, because again...I was comparing his belief (atheism) with my belief (Christianity)...he was implying that the majority of the people on this thread (who are ATHEISTS), aren't convinced...and my point was, the 2 billion Christians in this world ARE convinced...which is why I gave the pizza analogy (which you fucked) in the first place.

Now, you can keep displaying your lack of comprehension all you want...I have patience, I will work with you.

The guy who believes in an invisible sky being with a 24/7 surveillance system that knows what every person on Earth is doing at any particular time and knows all of their thoughts is going to boast about a perceived intellectual spanking?

At least my belief is conceivable. I can't even conceive the thought of infinity being traversed, inanimate matter coming to life, and consciousness coming from unconsciousness.

You can't even conceive of those things, and if you can, you can't conceive of it occurring NATURALLY.

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Now, you lay off ole Shakespeare here. He's forgotten more about the English language than you'll ever forget!

Yeah, I am Shakespeare......"To be saved and spend eternity with the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, or not to be saved and subjected to the wrath of the Almighty".

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Our word is the law. You have no say here.

This site is not a democracy and never has been. We write and enforce the rules as we see fit.

Right on, Saddam.