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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 7:03 pm
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2015 at 7:11 pm by Simon Moon.)
(May 14, 2015 at 6:35 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: God did write His own book...you just don't like the method He used or the results He obtained. 
Yes, his method and results are very unlike what any being worthy of the title 'God' would do.
He supposedly has the most important message in the universe to communicate to all his beloved human creation. A message, that if not understood correctly has dire consequences.
So what does he do?
He inspires one tribe of his admittedly faulty creation to write it down, decades or longer after the alleged events, in languages he would know would die out, be subject to mistranslations, misinterpretations, copy errors, edits. Knowing that his inquisitive creation would discover facts about the universe that would contradict the stories contained in this message of his.
He would allow all this to happen, despite knowing well ahead of time, that it would cause many to disbelieve the message he wants to communicate. Thus, sentence us to eternal punishment for the very skepticism he created us with.
Either your god is inept, immoral or nonexistent.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 7:09 pm
Quote:"Again, if God, like Jupiter in the comedy, should, on awaking from a lengthened slumber, desire to rescue the human race from evil, why did He send this Spirit of which you speak into one corner (of the earth)? He ought to have breathed it alike into many bodies, and have sent them out into all the world. Now the comic poet, to cause laughter in the theatre, wrote that Jupiter, after awakening, despatched Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedaemonians; but do not you think that you have made the Son of God more ridiculous in sending Him to the Jews?"...
Celsus, c 180 AD as repeated by Origen
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 8:01 pm
By the way, I'm going to now demonstrate my psychic ability to see into the future. This is going to be the big argument he's leading up to:
1. He's going to type a lot of words.
2. He's going to conclude these words prove his religion true.
3. He's going to wonder why we aren't convinced.
If past really is prologue, the big argument will take some 70 pages of posts to get to.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 8:01 pm
Seen it before. Wasn't impressed then, either.
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 10:12 pm
Well, it's been eight hours, and there hasn't been a single post attempting to refute anything I wrote in the OP.
Perhaps tomorrow will be different, but it appears that we have agreement that the NT has been accurately transmitted from the first century to our day.
It may only be a work of fiction, but at least we have a copy that is faithful to the original.
Time to move on...
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 10:47 pm
(May 14, 2015 at 2:19 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: (May 14, 2015 at 2:11 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: An accurate copy of a work of fiction is still a work of fiction.
One step at a time.
That was not a denial that it was not fiction.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 10:50 pm
Don't feed the troll.
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 14, 2015 at 10:52 pm
(May 14, 2015 at 10:50 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Don't feed the troll.
I agree, but that was my response to the very beginning of the thread.
Which begs the all too logical question, why the fuck does this thread continue?
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 15, 2015 at 12:11 am
It makes no difference if the New Testament has remained unchanged. It reads exactly like you'd expect for a group of Hellenistic Jews putting their shameless superstitions in writing. Read Cicero's On Divination or Lucretius' On The Nature of Things, each dated a century prior to the earliest Pauline epistles, and then tell me that the early Christians weren't precisely the religious nuts their Roman precursors had eloquently refuted.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 15, 2015 at 12:45 am
(May 14, 2015 at 10:12 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Time to move on...
Any chance we can skip ahead to the part where you show us your healing powers or pull out an artifact that casts out demons?
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
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