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

[robvalue]

The three pillars of apologetics: deception, logical fallacies and emotional manipulation. We see them all, in rapid rotation. And we see nothing else. Dress a turd up and take it to the prom, it's still a turd. Don't forget this and have sex with it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

What they pour out into this forum is, at best, dislike or hatred of christianity. When you accuse them of bias you speak not to the content of their position but the motive that underlies it, intimating that they didn't come to their beliefs through rational observations, or with any justification, but because they had decided to hate on christianity no matter what. An accusation of bias carries with it the idea that the position reached is an unfair and unjustified one, but since you have- as I pointed out- no way of determining what the given motivation is, you have no justification for accusing any of us of bias.

To be fair, I think his point about bias is apt, just as apt as when I signed up on a Christian forum and received similar treatment.

I don't think it's a mark against the forum or its members, for the simple reason that bias can be grounded solidly or it can be irrational. I am biased against companies which disseminate cancer-causing agents, not out of emotional spite, but out of rational views. In a similar vein, I am biased against Christianity, because I have examined its premises, and found the god hypothesis entirely unsatisfactory in explanatory power; it raises more questions than it answers.

If someone comes to me and says, "I have the true answer, and I found it in Genesis", my skeptic's radar zeroes in on the claims and I go over them with a fine-toothed comb, because from almost all of my experiences with Christians in discussing matters of spirituality, I find their premises to be unfounded, unsupported, and unstable. Is that bias? I think so; I have a predisposition to dissect the proffered opinion to a fineness I wouldn't give to, say, his opinion of Camembert cheese.

Is it justified? Again, I think so. The first time I ordered the Atomic Joy Buzzer from a comic book back in the day, I was terribly disappointed. When I later ordered the seamonkeys and found them to be little floating spicules, I was still disappointed, though less so -- I had already been burnt once.

So when I saw the ad for the X-ray specs, after dousing the woody brought on by thinking of Courtney naked in my eyes but not asking why I was suddenly sporting glasses, I thought back to the two previous times I'd been stripped of my dough and decided that the X-ray specs were most likely bullshit.

The same process has occurred with me as a youthful believer who found his illusions taken away. The first time the prayer was unanswered, perhaps I hadn't prayed hard enough. The second time, sure, perhaps I was too insouciant. and so on. But at this stage in my life, I've seen so many claims of Christianity fail that I am indeed biased when someone says, "Christianity will do X for you!", because I've been through it, and it was bullshit then. Without further reason to expect a different result, I'm inclined to believe that claim X is bullshit now, too.

And put fairly, that is indeed bias. And I will own my bias against Christianity lock, stock, and barrel. I will listen to any believer who comes my way, but when what they report goes against my personal experience, well, there's the rub, and we'll move forward from there based on their attitude towards my empirical skepticism.

[robvalue]

Bias as in... if I see someone is trying to defend God, I know through experience they are going to produce a flawed argument. It is of the same level of certainty that a ball will drop when I release it. I'm happy to look at and dissect the argument of course.

So it's not so much bias, as a total lack of confidence in any such arguments being of any value. The day I see a good one, I'll change my stance.

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Once you see a certain person put forward 5 terrible arguments say, or misunderstand the premise of what they are arguing about, then it's reasonable to stop listening to them completely, on that subject at least.

So as Parkers says, if it is bias, it's not irrational bias.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Did you say "I came to my atheism using my own fallacious reasoning"?

That's what I got out of it

"Reading comprehension, people."

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Bias as in... if I see someone is trying to defend God, I know through experience they are going to produce a flawed argument. It is of the same level of certainty that a ball will drop when I release it. I'm happy to look at and dissect the argument of course.

So it's not so much bias, as a total lack of confidence in any such arguments being of any value. The day I see a good one, I'll change my stance.

---

Once you see a certain person put forward 5 terrible arguments say, or misunderstand the premise of what they are arguing about, then it's reasonable to stop listening to them completely, on that subject at least.

So as Parkers says, if it is bias, it's not irrational bias.

The first time I read one of His_Masturbatory's posts, I read it through and gave it consideration. The second, where he ignored objections and only repeated his yammerings, I read faster.

But now, after his metric shit-tons of effluvium, I know right away that when a post has his screen-name at the top, I'll be getting a heaping helping of bullshit. He's dug himself such a hole that not only will no one here take him seriously -- if he went to another atheist forum and tried to be decent and reasonable, any one of us could torpedo him simply by linking to this output.

Is that bias? Sure. Because I'm biased against fucking idiots.

Sue me.

[downbeatplumb]

[quote='downbeatplumb' pid='825008' dateline='1419182804']

Are you really asking for tangible evidence for the non-existence of a character alleged to exist two thousand years ago?

Do you think it is unreasonable to find some kind of ancient text which disputes historicity?

Well yes actually I do think it unreasonable for a couple of reasons.

In the beginning it was a crazy cult that people dismissed as being kooky and took no real interest in.

Until that is Constantine thought it would be useful. Then it became the official government view and the Roman Catholic church would have suppressed dissenting views in any text found and it was the church that held all the texts for hundreds of years. There is a long history of fraud and invention in the catholic church as I am sure you are aware.

A person that has no contemporary evidence that supports them existing and just happens to conform to your personal bias, that person?

In my opinion, and no offense intended, but this clearly demonstrates the weakness of the Mythicist argument, for there is one thing that Mythicists either fail to understand, or intentionally ignore:

Paul was a 1st century contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, and he wrote of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Didn't he have a dream on a road and convert never having met jesus alive?

Is this the best you can present.

Requiring further evidence such as "oh but, he never met Jesus" is completely irrelevant to the point.

It is a perfectly valid point.

There is no mention of a jesus anywhere before paul, so it is entirely possible he made the whole thing up.

Talking about your"poorly scripted persuasive arguments".

Yes, as had just been demonstrated once again with yours. No offense intended.

No offense taken. Mainly because it you are wrong in every conceivable way.

[robvalue]

Oh yeah, and I find Christianity utterly vile, you bet. I feel that way about any organisation that uses child abuse to get new members, and worships a book full of horrors as fact.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I'd like to move to part 3, but I need to know whether the forum God's are going to stretch out their almighty hands and fuck with my post for the simple fact that they don't have anything else to do on here besides watch me and find out ways they can limit my effectiveness, even if it is just by unjustifiably merging my threads just so they can hi-five each other and have themselves a few beers and a good night's sleep.

Ah, your effectiveness. You are pretty effective at crying about staff decisions and having immense delusions of grandeur. Your stupidity ranks up there with the best (worst of them) as well. Aside from that, I don't really see any evidence of you being good at anything.

If you've got an issue, I suggest you either report it, or suck it up and out your big boy pants on.

[Cyberman]

I will freely admit that there is anti-religious bias demonstrated here. However, not every atheist member shares that necessarily and not every post reflects it. Dismissing any and every opposing view as being rooted in bias and hatred is a blatantly desperate tell that the person is about to bluff on an empty hand. It's an irrational knee-jerk reaction intended to claw back lost higher ground, and I apologise for the horrible mixed metaphor there.

[Free]

You are a little late for the party. The discussion with him alone is what is so tediously fucking boring. I have other discussions going on.

Excuse me. I'm not late to the party, nor am I unaware of what has been happening in this thread. Take your arrogance elsewhere.

If you are unaware of what's happening in this thread, why then did you even comment to me? Your comment was indicative of some degree of awareness.

[Cyberman]

Is English your first language? She said she is not unaware - a standard rhetoric device to emphasise that she is aware and fully so.