Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Angrboda]

You're right. They don't NORMALLY resurrect. Here's what we know:
. . . . . . .
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.

Even so, it is often said in objection that we can trust the Gospels more than we normally would because they were based on the reports of eye-witnesses of the event who were willing to die for their belief in the physical resurrection, for surely no one would die for a lie. To quote a Christian website: "the first disciples were willing to suffer and die for their faith...for their claims to have seen Jesus...risen bodily from the dead." Of course, the Gospel of Matthew 28:17 actually claims that some eye-witnesses didn't believe what they saw and might not have become Christians, which suggests the experience was not so convincing after all. But there are two other key reasons why this argument sounds great in sermons but doesn't hold water under rational scrutiny.

First, it is based on nothing in the New Testament itself, or on any reliable evidence of any kind. None of the Gospels or Epistles mention anyone dying for their belief in the "physical" resurrection of Jesus. The only martyrdoms recorded in the New Testament are, first, the stoning of Stephen in the Book of Acts. But Stephen was not a witness. He was a later convert. So if he died for anything, he died for hearsay alone. But even in Acts the story has it that he was not killed for what he believed, but for some trumped up false charge, and by a mob, whom he could not have escaped even if he had recanted. So his death does not prove anything in that respect. Moreover, in his last breaths, we are told, he says nothing about dying for any belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus, but mentions only his belief that Jesus was the messiah, and was at that moment in heaven.[17] And then he sees Jesus--yet no one else does, so this was clearly a vision, not a physical appearance, and there is no good reason to believe earlier appearances were any different.

The second and only other "martyr" recorded in Acts is the execution of the Apostle James, but we are not told anything about why he was killed or whether recanting would have saved him, or what he thought he died for.[18] In fact, we have one independent account in the Jewish history of Josephus, of the stoning of a certain "James the brother of Jesus" in 62 A.D., possibly but not necessarily the very same James, and in that account he is stoned for breaking the Jewish law, which recanting would not escape, and in the account of the late 2nd century Christian hagiographer Hegesippus, as reported by Eusebius, he dies not for his belief in a physical resurrection, but, just like Stephen, solely for proclaiming Jesus the messiah, who was at that moment in heaven.[19]

Yet that is the last record of any martyrdom we have until the 2nd century. Then we start to hear about some unnamed Christians burned for arson by Nero in 64 A.D.,[20] but we do not know if any eye-witnesses were included in that group--and even if we did it would not matter, for they were killed on a false charge of arson, not for refusing to deny belief in a physical resurrection. So even if they had recanted, it would not have saved them, and therefore their deaths also do not prove anything, especially since such persecution was so rare and unpredictable in that century. We also do not even know what it was they believed--after all, Stephen and James did not appear to regard the physical resurrection as an essential component of their belief. It is not what they died for.

As far as we can tell, apart from perhaps James, no one knew what the fate was of any of the original eye-witnesses. People were even unclear about who the original eye-witnesses were. There were a variety of legends circulating centuries later about their travels and deaths, but it is clear from our earliest sources that no one knew for certain.[21] There was only one notable exception: the martyrdom of Peter. This we do not hear about until two or three generations after the event, and it is told in only one place: the Gnostic Acts of Peter, which was rejected as a false document by many Christians of the day. But even if this account is true, it claims that Peter was executed for political meddling and not for his beliefs. Even more important, it states that Peter believed Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in the flesh...

Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story

[Randy Carson]

Fail #1: The apostles weren't all martyred by Romans. Thomas was martyred in India, but not because the Romans would have killed him "regardless".

Red herring. All that matters is that there is a simple explanation that is consistent with biology and psychology, therefore the explanation is more likely than yours.

Uh, no, you're going to have to account for ALL of the evidence that is available to us in your explanation.

Wait...I thought the apostles simply made everything up. Now, you're switching to the legend theory. These are two different things. Are you not sure what really happened?

Did you read what I said. "There, I named two explanations" I was giving two different explanations more likely than resurrection given biological facts about dead bodies. It is more likely that con-men/cult leaders should die for a lie than for a dead man to resurrect three days later and then shoot up into the sky. No matter how unlikely it is more likely than flying dead man.

And both explanations fail to account for all of the information that we have at our disposal.

Simply saying, "Gee, people rise from the dead a whole lot less frequently than con men die for a lie" doesn't really cut the mustard. First, we're talking about a dozen of these con men and not one of them cracked. How likely is that? Second, Paul would not have been converted by the mere stories of con men when he was already putting believers into jail and had seen the stoning of Stephen, the first con man to die for his faith.

So, no, you really haven't accounted for ALL the evidence by your two theories.

Fail #2: The proto-creed contained in 1 Co. 15 dates to within about five years of the resurrection. Not much time for legend to have sprung up...especially since people who were familiar with the events of Jesus' very public ministry and execution were still alive. Skeptics and believers both, btw.

What is the bold claim based on? It's actually a scientific claim, so where's the evidence for that being unlikely? If it is unlikely because it normally doesn't happen then bodily resurrection would be unlikely on the same grounds.

It's not a scientific claim; it's a historical claim made by eye-witnesses or those who had access to eye-witnesses.

Fail #3: Yes, we do have a pretty good idea that the gospels were written by the authors whose names they bear. See my "Historical Reliability of the NT" thread for full details.

I'm not going to read every thread you write.

Your loss. Truly.

Oh, and clear reasons why your theories don't hold water.

Not really. You haven't really given one explanation with any explanatory virtues like being supported by biological facts. As has been pointed again and again dead bodies don't resurrect is a fact of biology. The facts of biology win, if can't give stronger "evidence" to overturn well known biological facts. Hear say from ancient times isn't enough. Give me biological fact. I've shown there is a shadow of a doubt. That's all I need to do to deflate your case.

I agree that under normal circumstances, dead bodies don't resurrect. Okay, so what?

All that biology can tell us is that a person is not going to rise from the dead by natural causes. But this does not apply to Jesus’ resurrection, since we are not claiming that Jesus came back to life naturally. The writers of the New Testament asserted that it was God who raised Jesus from the dead. Science must be mute on this point.

Additionally, the resurrection is not an isolated event; it occurred in the religious context that gives it meaning. This context includes such facts as Jesus’ personal claims to divinity, his deeds that appeared miraculous in nature, and possibly even his predictions concerning his resurrection. Within this context, Jesus’ resurrection is right at home.

How so? In this thread, all I have done is present non-biblical evidence that points to a conclusion.

You're assuming it is likely there is a god that resurrects dead men.

The evidence shows that a man named Jesus rose from the dead as He promised to do. If true, then His other claims (including His claim to be divine) are worth serious consideration.

They could argue the same way. And we would demand evidence of them just as you are demanding it of me. Problem is, they don't have any.

Neither do you. Where is the evidence for god resurrecting dead people? You can't point to all these ancient anecdotes and interpret them as strong evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt. They aren't because they contradict scientific fact about human biology. [emphasis added]It don't matter if they say a dead man walked in the same way it doesn't matter how many people claim that had their penis stolen by wizards. These things don't normally happen and there is no hard biological evidence for things like this happening. It's all a matter of inductive reasoning. This is how most historians study other periods of history. If a holocaust denier produced an a few eyewitnesses claiming the holocaust was a satanic mass hallucination, the mountains of evidence for the holocaust would trump that. There is nothing more to say.

Oh. I don't have any evidence because you say I don't. And you say I don't because your science cannot explain the supernatural. But rather than admit that limitation, you insist that God does not exist because you have no evidence. And you rule out the evidence that can be shown because it is your belief that God cannot suspend the laws of nature (which He made, btw) in order to provide a miraculous sign - the very evidence that you demand of his existence.

On the other hand, if miracles are possible and if a God does exist, then the resurrection is far more plausible; in fact, in light of the testimony of the gospels, it is probable.

[Randy Carson]

You're right. They don't NORMALLY resurrect. Here's what we know:
. . . . . . .
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.

Even so, it is often said in objection that we can trust the Gospels more than we normally would because they were based on the reports of eye-witnesses of the event who were willing to die for their belief in the physical resurrection, for surely no one would die for a lie. To quote a Christian website: "the first disciples were willing to suffer and die for their faith...for their claims to have seen Jesus...risen bodily from the dead." Of course, the Gospel of Matthew 28:17 actually claims that some eye-witnesses didn't believe what they saw and might not have become Christians, which suggests the experience was not so convincing after all. But there are two other key reasons why this argument sounds great in sermons but doesn't hold water under rational scrutiny.

First, it is based on nothing in the New Testament itself, or on any reliable evidence of any kind. None of the Gospels or Epistles mention anyone dying for their belief in the "physical" resurrection of Jesus. The only martyrdoms recorded in the New Testament are, first, the stoning of Stephen in the Book of Acts. But Stephen was not a witness. He was a later convert. So if he died for anything, he died for hearsay alone. But even in Acts the story has it that he was not killed for what he believed, but for some trumped up false charge, and by a mob, whom he could not have escaped even if he had recanted. So his death does not prove anything in that respect. Moreover, in his last breaths, we are told, he says nothing about dying for any belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus, but mentions only his belief that Jesus was the messiah, and was at that moment in heaven.[17] And then he sees Jesus--yet no one else does, so this was clearly a vision, not a physical appearance, and there is no good reason to believe earlier appearances were any different.

The second and only other "martyr" recorded in Acts is the execution of the Apostle James, but we are not told anything about why he was killed or whether recanting would have saved him, or what he thought he died for.[18] In fact, we have one independent account in the Jewish history of Josephus, of the stoning of a certain "James the brother of Jesus" in 62 A.D., possibly but not necessarily the very same James, and in that account he is stoned for breaking the Jewish law, which recanting would not escape, and in the account of the late 2nd century Christian hagiographer Hegesippus, as reported by Eusebius, he dies not for his belief in a physical resurrection, but, just like Stephen, solely for proclaiming Jesus the messiah, who was at that moment in heaven.[19]

Yet that is the last record of any martyrdom we have until the 2nd century. Then we start to hear about some unnamed Christians burned for arson by Nero in 64 A.D.,[20] but we do not know if any eye-witnesses were included in that group--and even if we did it would not matter, for they were killed on a false charge of arson, not for refusing to deny belief in a physical resurrection. So even if they had recanted, it would not have saved them, and therefore their deaths also do not prove anything, especially since such persecution was so rare and unpredictable in that century. We also do not even know what it was they believed--after all, Stephen and James did not appear to regard the physical resurrection as an essential component of their belief. It is not what they died for.

As far as we can tell, apart from perhaps James, no one knew what the fate was of any of the original eye-witnesses. People were even unclear about who the original eye-witnesses were. There were a variety of legends circulating centuries later about their travels and deaths, but it is clear from our earliest sources that no one knew for certain.[21] There was only one notable exception: the martyrdom of Peter. This we do not hear about until two or three generations after the event, and it is told in only one place: the Gnostic Acts of Peter, which was rejected as a false document by many Christians of the day. But even if this account is true, it claims that Peter was executed for political meddling and not for his beliefs. Even more important, it states that Peter believed Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in the flesh...

Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story

Jorm-

Carrier has been pretty badly discredited among the atheist community. Are you a Jesus Mythicist, too?

[Angrboda]

You're right. They don't NORMALLY resurrect. Here's what we know:
. . . . . . .
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.

Even so, it is often said in objection that we can trust the Gospels more than we normally would because they were based on the reports of eye-witnesses of the event who were willing to die for their belief in the physical resurrection, for surely no one would die for a lie. To quote a Christian website: "the first disciples were willing to suffer and die for their faith...for their claims to have seen Jesus...risen bodily from the dead." Of course, the Gospel of Matthew 28:17 actually claims that some eye-witnesses didn't believe what they saw and might not have become Christians, which suggests the experience was not so convincing after all. But there are two other key reasons why this argument sounds great in sermons but doesn't hold water under rational scrutiny.

---

First, it is based on nothing in the New Testament itself, or on any reliable evidence of any kind. None of the Gospels or Epistles mention anyone dying for their belief in the "physical" resurrection of Jesus. The only martyrdoms recorded in the New Testament are, first, the stoning of Stephen in the Book of Acts. But Stephen was not a witness. He was a later convert. So if he died for anything, he died for hearsay alone. But even in Acts the story has it that he was not killed for what he believed, but for some trumped up false charge, and by a mob, whom he could not have escaped even if he had recanted. So his death does not prove anything in that respect. Moreover, in his last breaths, we are told, he says nothing about dying for any belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus, but mentions only his belief that Jesus was the messiah, and was at that moment in heaven.[17] And then he sees Jesus--yet no one else does, so this was clearly a vision, not a physical appearance, and there is no good reason to believe earlier appearances were any different.

The second and only other "martyr" recorded in Acts is the execution of the Apostle James, but we are not told anything about why he was killed or whether recanting would have saved him, or what he thought he died for.[18] In fact, we have one independent account in the Jewish history of Josephus, of the stoning of a certain "James the brother of Jesus" in 62 A.D., possibly but not necessarily the very same James, and in that account he is stoned for breaking the Jewish law, which recanting would not escape, and in the account of the late 2nd century Christian hagiographer Hegesippus, as reported by Eusebius, he dies not for his belief in a physical resurrection, but, just like Stephen, solely for proclaiming Jesus the messiah, who was at that moment in heaven.[19]

Yet that is the last record of any martyrdom we have until the 2nd century. Then we start to hear about some unnamed Christians burned for arson by Nero in 64 A.D.,[20] but we do not know if any eye-witnesses were included in that group--and even if we did it would not matter, for they were killed on a false charge of arson, not for refusing to deny belief in a physical resurrection. So even if they had recanted, it would not have saved them, and therefore their deaths also do not prove anything, especially since such persecution was so rare and unpredictable in that century. We also do not even know what it was they believed--after all, Stephen and James did not appear to regard the physical resurrection as an essential component of their belief. It is not what they died for.

As far as we can tell, apart from perhaps James, no one knew what the fate was of any of the original eye-witnesses. People were even unclear about who the original eye-witnesses were. There were a variety of legends circulating centuries later about their travels and deaths, but it is clear from our earliest sources that no one knew for certain.[21] There was only one notable exception: the martyrdom of Peter. This we do not hear about until two or three generations after the event, and it is told in only one place: the Gnostic Acts of Peter, which was rejected as a false document by many Christians of the day. But even if this account is true, it claims that Peter was executed for political meddling and not for his beliefs. Even more important, it states that Peter believed Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in the flesh...

---

Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story

Jorm-

Carrier has been pretty badly discredited among the atheist community. Are you a Jesus Mythicist, too?

Can you discredit anything in the passage?

[Simon Moon]

Jorm-

Carrier has been pretty badly discredited among the atheist community. Are you a Jesus Mythicist, too?

Can you discredit anything in the passage?

Of course not. 

He'd rather just toss a genetic fallacy at you, and move on. 

Makes him feel as if he refuted the point, without actually refuting it.

[Pizza]

Biology cannot explain the supernatural but history can? Oh that's rich.

[Jenny A]

http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/J_S...05.htm#ch4  

---

And even for that limited consensus Habermas relies primarily on theologions including Reginald Fuller a British angelican priest and theologian;  John Meier, a Catholic Priest, who authenticates the claims of Paul and James but not the disciples of Jesus referred to in the gospels as people who reported having seen Jesus; and James D.G. Dunn, yet another British theologian and again one who relies visions of early Christians, not necessarily your disciples.

---

So if the claim is some early Christians had visions they thought were of Jesus, I agree they did.  But that doesn't show the disciples did.

Jenny, I have read that article in the past, and I am quite comfortable with it. I encourage everyone in this forum to spend some time reading it.

Then you need to read it again.  It does not make nearly the case you claim it does.  It merely makes the case that most scholars (most of whom are theologians) believe early Christians thought they'd seen Jesus.  

If Pilate did that it was while not exactly a first for Romans it was highly unusual and most uncharacteristic. Therefore highly unbelievable.  And it wouldn't have been the Jews throwing the corpse to the dogs, letting it rot on the cross, or burying it in a mass grave, it would have been the Romans.   It was considered part of the punishment.

---

But is that what happened, Jenny? The Romans buried Jesus?

---

Mark 15
42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45 When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. 46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.

That would be the claim yes.  But it's not proof of anything.  It's an account written 70 years later by who knows who.

---

With the exception of Paul, we have no eyewitness.  The gospels are nothing like eyewitness testimony, and saying O YES THEY ARE over and over won't make them eyewitness testimony.  Paul claim a vision.  

---

Why were the disciples transformed from cowering men in hiding for fear of the Jews to bold evangelists who turned the world upside down?

We have no evidence that they were except for a book written 70 years after the events by who knows who.

It's an extra ordinary claim and the gospels are much less than ordinary evidence.  They cannot prove the resurrection.

This sounds so commonsensical, doesn’t it? But in fact it is demonstrably false.

Probability theorists studying what sort of evidence it would take to establish a highly improbable event came to realize that if you just weigh the improbability of the event against the reliability of the testimony, we’d have to be skeptical of many commonly accepted claims. Rather, what’s crucial is the probability that we should have the evidence we do if the extraordinary event had not occurred. This can easily offset any improbability of the event itself.

In the case of the resurrection of Jesus, for example, this means that we must also ask, “What is the probability of the facts of the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection, if the resurrection had not occurred?” It is highly, highly, highly improbable that we should have that evidence if the resurrection had not occurred (William Lane Craig, “Stephen Law on the Non-existence of Jesus of Nazareth”, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/stephen-l...f-nazareth.).

So, no, extraordinary claims require sufficient evidence...just like any other kind of claim.

Sufficient means sufficient to make the claim more probable than not. 

While the idea that a sufficiently outlandish claim requires a lot more compelling evidence is quite intuitive, it can be quantified nicely with probability theory in a Bayesian framework. In short, sufficient evidence must be capable of raising a highly improbable claim to be highly probable - and the more improbable the evidence, the better. By application of Bayes' theorem, it's possible to show this in action mathematically.

---

Assume, for instance, someone claims to be able to predict what way a coin[1] will land almost perfectly. We know this is an extraordinary claim, so we'll say that just by guessing if the person is telling the truth or not that it's a million-to-one chance. In reality, the number would be even more improbable, but this can be used for illustration. So we ask them to demonstrate the skill. They're almost perfect, so let's assume they guess right about 90% of the time - this allows them the opportunity for their skill to mess up once in a while, but still prove to be pretty good. This gives us all the information we need to know to actually quantify how extraordinary the evidence must be.

Consider if they guessed a single coin toss correctly. The odds of guessing by chance is a mere 50%, or 50:50.

\frac{0.9 \cdot 0.000001}{0.5} = 0.0000018

A single coin toss doesn't improve our odds very dramatically. The evidence just isn't extraordinary enough - you can correctly guess a single coin toss correctly 50% of the time with no special skills involved. It all rests on how improbable our evidence, P(B), actually is and a 50:50 chance isn't particularly improbable. For two coin tosses P(B) becomes 0.25, and for 10 coin tosses it comes to roughly 0.00097. Plugging those numbers in Bayes' theorem gives us a probability of genuine skill (given P(A) of a million-to-one) of around 0.0009, which although still small is a considerable improvement on that original million-to-one chance. By 20 or so correctly guessed coin tosses, the skill is starting to look a lot more genuine.

This is the basic idea underpinning statistical significance; is it more likely that our evidence is random, or due to a real effect, and is the improbability of the evidence presented in proportion to the improbability of the claim being made.

---

But Sagan's quip about extraordinary evidence doesn't just mean that we can take someone's word for it if they managed to toss so many coins in a row. Derren Brown can pull off such a feat with some effort and misdirection as shown in his special on The System, so we always need to consider alternative hypotheses and compare how likely they are. Like with Derren Brown tossing a coin with 10 heads in a row, is it more likely that they're psychic, or are cheating? So tests such as James Randi's million-dollar challenge will control for this potential factor, making sure that the probability of foul play, fraud and cheating is far less than the probability of genuine psychic power.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Extraordina...y_evidence

Take the time time to read the hidden material.  Sufficient evidence is far, far more than what you are offering here.  Sufficient evidence is the evidence necessary to make the claim more probable than not.  So far you are still light years from there.

[Pizza]

"I agree that under normal circumstances, dead bodies don't resurrect. Okay, so what? All that biology can tell us is that a person is not going to rise from the dead by natural causes. But this does not apply to Jesus’ resurrection, since we are not claiming that Jesus came back to life naturally."

Just slap the supernatural label to it and no evidence outside of biased anecdotes is needed. I see clearly now. I better convert to Christianity because that line of reasoning couldn't be applied by anyone to defend absurd claims like a wizard stealing penises supernaturally. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9701/18/briefs/...penis.html
My pet cat wrote this post supernaturally, science can't refute that. Don't ask how. It just happened.
"The writers of the New Testament asserted that it was God who raised Jesus from the dead. Science must be mute on this point."

Because ancient people know better than modern biologists. I agree science must be mute and historians can talk all they want. No limits for them because.....magic. Historians use magic all the time as explanations. Historians never appeal to science.

"Additionally, the resurrection is not an isolated event; it occurred in the religious context that gives it meaning. This context includes such facts as Jesus’ personal claims to divinity, his deeds that appeared miraculous in nature, and possibly even his predictions concerning his resurrection. Within this context, Jesus’ resurrection is right at home."

We know Jesus performed miracles because ancient sources say so, fuck science, fuck common sense. Also fuck inductive reasoning and the principle of analogy. We needs them? I love Jesus.
"On the other hand, if miracles are possible and if a God does exist, then the resurrection is far more plausible; in fact, in light of the testimony of the gospels, it is probable."
Because god is resurrecting people like all time. Just the other day I walked down the street and tripped over a resurrected person. It's a well known fact of biology these happen. Last Tuesday god turn me into a newt....I got better.

God is powerful but fine tuning the universe so that con men should die for a lie is out of the question.  Swoon theory? God can't do that. Spiritual resurrection? You must be an stupid sinner.

[Longhorn]

No, you have enough information. What you lack is the guts to make the decision to accept Jesus.

Lol. When did you get all stingy preachy?

The problem is this: you know there is evidence supporting the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You know that that evidence has been in existence for 2,000 years.

Nope. You're trying to provide historical facts as evidence for a biological phenomenon that could not have possibly taken place. I cannot accept that as evidence. There has not been one documented case of a human being dying and then coming back to life after three days.

What you have is an old book full of hearsay. That is nowhere near enough to accept the virtually impossible as truth.

You know that there are over 2 billion people in the world today who accept it. And if you stop and think about it, mathematically, the odds are that not all of them are less intelligent than you are.

So, yes, you have to come up with some explanation for the existence of a large, robust Christian community which (despite recent news reports) isn't going away anytime within your lifetime.

Some of the members of that Church are actually smarter than you are.
Some of the members of that Church have actually studied the issue more carefully than you have.
Some of the members of that Church have personally experienced God in their lives.

And there aren't just a few who fit those descriptions. There are thousands. Maybe tens of thousands who fit those criteria. And you know this.

You want to get mathematical, Randy?

There are 21 major religious groups in existence today, with the smallest one of the size of 500,000 people.

Christianity is only one of them, covering 1/3 of the population.

It has 44,000 denominations, mosty of them excluding all others as heretics.

Source: religions by adherents

They cannot possibly all be right, but it is entirely possible that they are all wrong.

If indoctrination of children were to stop, religious population would drastically drop. Ot already is in the US-the comforting statistics of christianity being on the rise come from third world developing countries.

All that aside, argument from popularity, really? That's low. Like, really low.

So, you have to come up with an explanation which you tell yourself to deal with the dissonance, and you hang out in this forum where a small gathering of others will continually reinforce one another's lack of faith.

It's group therapy.

"Hi, I'm Larry, and I'm an atheist."
- "Hi, Larry."

I don't suffer from cognitive dissonance. I fully understand the roots and origins of religion and why people believe. I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to change their mind. I don't care. I'm here to discuss, and to be a part of a community. I don't know a single atheist IRL so it's nice to talk to some like minded people. But my lack of faith doesn't depend on being here.

What's gotten into you? Bad day?

[Redbeard The Pink]

Randy, you have failed to meet any of these arguments with anything but more lies from your bible. You keep saying that you don't need NT books because there are these facts that "NT scholars" accept to probably be true. Citations, please.


The facts you bring up are things those scholars believe because they appear in the New Testament, and they believe the claims of the New Testament for one reason or another (but I'll bet you a bucket of Wartok shit that whatever they're taking as evidence is worth less than a bucket of Wartok shit...seriously, does anybody want this Wartok shit?), and once again the problem with that is that (as I have pointed out in this very thread a good 2 or 3 times at least) THE NEW TESTAMENT IS THE SHIT-SUCKING, MOTHERFUCKING, HAS-TO-BE-PROVEN-BY-SOMETHING-BESIDES-ITSELF CLAIM!!!

ALL you're doing by referring to "NT scholars" is trying to get us to accept as fact things that you have STILL failed to prove, nor have you managed to demonstrate so much as a scrap of plausible evidence for things that HAVE be presupposed for your argument to work. It's appeal to authority, it's begging the question, I think I've even seen some straw-manning of Christ Myth theorists...in case it wasn't clear, I AM yelling at you at this point because you can't get it through your skull that your gospel is a work of MYTH, FICTION, and PROPAGANDA, and that mainstream historians (of, you know, REAL history) have agreed on this fact for years. All the logical fallacy and circular logic and irrelevant fault-finding in the universe will NEVER grant you the rhetorical victory you want because your arguments are based on things that were not true 2,000 years ago and are not true now.