A simple challenge for atheists

[JuliaL]

1. Why were the gospels written?

It is plausible that the gospels were written for the same reason that David Miscavige is keeping Scientology going: it is profitable to scam the faithful.

2. Why were the letter(sic) of Paul, John, Peter and James written?

Same reason.

3. Why did the early church come up with a religion that was so non-jewish as to cause life and death struggle with the jewish establishment?

Same reason.

4. How does a real Jesus fit into these events?

The itinerant preacher Jesus got caught up believing his own shtick about this being the end times and everybody was going to get happy in the new and improved kingdom of god. Got himself convicted by the local religious authorities because he was upsetting their (profitable) gig in the temple and executed by their friends, the military occupying government because they didn't want a rabble rouser upsetting peace in the community.
I prefer simple, non-miraculous explanations, specially when they are more explanatory than the ones that require constant divine twiddling.

[Dystopia]

Steve, I have a question - If the Christian god is the one true all mighty god, then how do you explain that the Quran preaches the exact same claim to Muslims?

The muslims believe in the same God from the OT. They however only believe Jesus was a great prophet and not God incarnate who died and rose again. The Quran is a book on how to live. Christianity deals with atonement, a personal relationship with God etc.

This is a straw man fallacy. You have not answered my question - In case I wasn't clear, I asked why the bible is valid and the Quran is not? (I have immense doubts that a Christian would consider the Quran reliable)

[Esquilax]

Oh, then if we had 4 accounts from named eyewitnesses that wrote miracles happened, then you wouldn't believe them anyway. So the real problem is miracles and not really who did or did not write the narratives.

I'll entertain the probability of your miracle claims the exact moment you can demonstrate that miracles are even possible, which I don't think is an unreasonable request given that we're discussing the existence of a thing. By trying to just take the extraordinary claims here as a given you're putting the cart before the horse; a discussion of whether or not the gospels represent an accurate account of history necessarily requires that all of the events depicted therein be events that could actually happen. Obviously we could not call it an accurate representation if it contains things that were impossible, so demonstrating those events for which that is in question to be possible is a key part of the process. It's literally the first step: "could these things happen?" is a question we need to ask before "did these things happen?" and so far you seem desperate to just skip that stage, probably because doing so confers a slight bit more weight to your citations. But I'm under no obligation to assume some of your conclusions to be true, in order to allow you to prove that the rest of those conclusions are true, so that in turn we can verify those first claims as true. You're skipping steps simply because you have no method of passing the initial investigation, and we're not just going to let you do that.

However it is logically possible, even probable that if God exists, miracles happen.

And you can't just cover for your first baseless assertion with a second, because now you've just replaced "are miracles possible?" with "is god possible?" and even if you answer the latter question you'd still need to answer the former. As it stands, you're attempting to rush ahead without answering either question, and that alone makes every conclusion you draw suspect at best.

We are starting from 2 different position, you have pre-judged the content according to your worldview. My worldview is open to more options--therefore not irrational to believe the events described and the subsequent events of the early church happened.

So, I hope you can see how making such presumptions about what I think is not conducive to a productive exchange of ideas. Just ask, next time. I'm not averse to just telling you what I think.

Now, when you talk about being open to options, actually, that can be irrational, if you're open to options that are impossible. That's why I opened with the question you've yet to answer: how do you know miracles are possible? If you're just going to say that they would be possible if god exists, that's akin to saying that if aliens exist, UFOs are possible; you haven't actually answered the question, you've just detailed an alternate world in which miracles are possible, without ever demonstrating that that hypothetical world is this one. You're skipping basic questions and then going on as though you've answered them. It's like if I tried to prove the existence of a time travelling sentient mushroom by just starting out by assuming that both time travel and mushroom sentience were possible; it's begging the question.

While I'm at it- and I know there's like three more pages to the thread but my wife's in the hospital and that's a pretty good distraction- you denied that you were employing circular reasoning, stating that you just believe that the bible is an accurate historical record. But why do you believe that? Because the four books of the bible say so... oh, and we're back to circular reasoning again.

[Dystopia]

While I'm at it- and I know there's like three more pages to the thread but my wife's in the hospital and that's a pretty good distraction- you denied that you were employing circular reasoning, stating that you just believe that the bible is an accurate historical record. But why do you believe that? Because the four books of the bible say so... oh, and we're back to circular reasoning again.

Circulus in demonstrando

[robvalue]

I heard that the bible is wrong.
Hearsay is reliable evidence.
The bible is wrong.

Be careful what standards you draw, as you have to accept the consequences.

I can probably get more hearsay on this matter?

Hey, chainsaw of logic, I would like to know how you explain why the early Christians believed in the actual event of the resurrection. Don't tell me that every early adherents to a religion believe in the religion. These people believed in AN ACTUAL EVENT--not a new philosophy or some written revelation.

They didn't, none of it happened. I just told you, I have hearsay evidence that the bible is wrong. And esq provided substantially more hearsay evidence too, hundreds of secret gospels. You only have 4 gospels. So we win, right?

Does our hearsay evidence not count as equally valid?

[Esquilax]

Does our hearsay evidence not count as equally valid?

If I had any confidence in Steve's ability to actually understand the point you just made, I'd say that'd be a fun question to watch him try to answer.

[robvalue]

Haha yeah, we'll see

I told him earlier that God gave me first hand testimony as well. But he seems to have ignored that. Why would my evidence be ignored?

[SteveII]

The jesus story is older than christianity. Other religions have lasted longer than christianity. Christianity is just the 'new guy' on the block without any new information. They just changed the names, but the events are the same.

People were telling this story almost four thousand years before the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Actually no. I read through Wikipedia's article and some others. It seems that the Inanna, the Summerian goddess of love, fertility and warfare was hung on a hook already dead.

I think I will start another thread to discuss if anyone is willing.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, I'd be willing to provide a massive list of sacrifical gods, crucifixions, and general nuttery from every corner of the globe. Count me in. I'm sure none will hook you as much as your favorite brand of torture pron...but at least I'll get to expose you to a wider selection from which you might satisfy your fetish. It's not only an older narrative - it's not even geographically limited. People were telling this story oceans apart with no contact - it clearly has appeal to us.

[Brian37]

Sure, I'd be willing to provide a massive list of sacrifical gods, crucifixions, and general nuttery from every corner of the globe. Count me in. I'm sure none will hook you as much as your favorite brand of torture pron...but at least I'll get to expose you to a wider selection from which you might satisfy your fetish. It's not only an older narrative - it's not even geographically limited. People were telling this story oceans apart with no contact - it clearly has appeal to us.

The part that humans do not want to face is that independent tropes and memes that have similarities does not make god real, or even scientifically required as a gap answer.

The god/s of Abraham were not original or the first claims of humans. The god/s of Abraham are simply spinnoffs of prior and surrounding religions.

Humans in polytheism and monotheism independently came up with similar stories. That does not make the god of Abraham the one true god. It merely means, the fans, after the fact, are picking an arbitrary starting point of our existence and ignorantly claiming they invented humanity.

It is retrofitting after the fact. There are prior memes in older polytheism that were merely adapted by Abrahamic monotheism. Humans like the idea of having a super hero, be it many gods or one god. But none of them are real.

Watch the entire new Cosmos series, with Neil Degresse Tyson. He explains our collective species ignorance which lead to many similar independent memes.