Paul's 500 witnesses.

[Minimalist]

http://encounterpress.com/en/paul-reveal...!/ccomment

Bart Ehrman is defending his beloved Paul by burying the truth. But he knows the claim of 500 witnesses is absurd. Over seventy pages later, he gets around to discussing them: “it does need to be pointed out that Paul is the only one who mentions this event, and if it really happened – or even if it was widely believed to have happened – it is hard to explain why it never made its way into the Gospels, especially those later Gospels such as Luke and John that were so intent on ‘proving’ that Jesus was physically raised from the dead” (p. 202). He never attempts to explain why Paul uttered such a falsehood, as it is clearly a deliberate lie.

Virtually all New Testament scholars share Bart Ehrman’s view of Paul’s 500 witnesses. No one believes it. But virtually no one talks about it, either – especially its implication about Paul.

[Jehanne]

http://encounterpress.com/en/paul-reveal...!/ccomment

Bart Ehrman is defending his beloved Paul by burying the truth. But he knows the claim of 500 witnesses is absurd. Over seventy pages later, he gets around to discussing them: “it does need to be pointed out that Paul is the only one who mentions this event, and if it really happened – or even if it was widely believed to have happened – it is hard to explain why it never made its way into the Gospels, especially those later Gospels such as Luke and John that were so intent on ‘proving’ that Jesus was physically raised from the dead” (p. 202). He never attempts to explain why Paul uttered such a falsehood, as it is clearly a deliberate lie.

Virtually all New Testament scholars share Bart Ehrman’s view of Paul’s 500 witnesses. No one believes it. But virtually no one talks about it, either – especially its implication about Paul.

Not to mention that none of these supposed witnesses ever said anything to anyone about their experience, let alone write a single letter or document about it.  Remember, Jerusalem at that time would typically have a maximum population of only 25,000, which makes 500 people in one location a helluva lot of people in one spot!

[Amarok]

Miracles are necessarily rare.

Really do explain

If you applied that consistently in all areas of your life, you might have something. But you don't. No one does. People require much less evidence for things they want to accept, than for things they don't want to accept.

Once again that's you projecting your irrationality on everyone else.

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The Bible itself addresses this. There's value in the searching itself. In some cases it's also a matter of judgment. But again, God works with those who desire to follow him.

Also note that God gives over some people to their rejection during their lifetime. He isn't striving with every person up to the moment they die.

Translation there's how we Christians try and explain away people who wake up to the fact our cult is bullshit. So we can keep those still in bondage to our nonsense in bondage to it.

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I of course disagree on your spin, but there is an element of truth there.

1 Cor 1
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Yup pure cult propaganda right there. "If all these smart educated people keep showing our cult is a bunch of bullshit ignore them because god" Nice way of keeping people staring at the flame and ignoring people who have walked outside the cave.

[John V]

Which is just another way of saying that there aren't any.

When someone says they don't find the evidence for miracles compelling, and so they don't believe them, I get that.

When someone says that they don't believe in miracles due to a factor that's present in the definition of miracle itself, that's a poor argument.

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By definition they go against the way the universe works. there has never been one verifiable example of that actually happening.

Once there's verifiable examples of something happening, that something is part of the way the universe works, even if we don't yet understand it.

[Brian37]

"Does she love me, does she not".  I have deceived and even lied to myself on many occasions on that one, only to be disappointed when the latter truth became self-evident, but in each and every case, the truth became known!!  I agree with Hume that "no miracles now implies no miracles then".

Miracles are necessarily rare.

No, claims of "miracles" are rampant worldwide, those claims are hardly rare.

Not knowing the real scientific complexities and conditions as to why an event happens is what that ignorant word is used for. It is a place card for human ignorance, it is not an explanation of anything. 

50 to 60 millions worldwide on average DIE per year. Mostly from old age, but we die from everything, in the womb, stillborn, childhood disease, famine, crime, in war, natural disaster but adults the same.

If a passenger Jet with 300 people on board crashes and 1 person survives, 299 die you call it a "miracle". 

If another passenger Jet with 300 people 299 survive and only 1 dies, you also call that a "miracle".

When does it cease to be a "miracle"? When 150 die and 150 survive? 

Exactly what is the correct magical ratio?

It can't be that a plane crashes for non magical reasons? It cant be that where you sit matters? It cant be mechanical issues are why? It cant be weather conditions? It cant be angle of impact? I cant be pilot skill or pilot error?

"Poof" is your explanation to why people survive?

No, sorry, there are quite mundane natural reasons as to why people seemingly survive something. 

"Miracle" is a superstitious gap filling word. It does not explain reality. It is merely an argument from emotion.

It is a word born from ignorance, conformation bias, a word parents sell youth worldwide based on the religions of their parents. It is an emotional reaction to stress, or an emotional reaction to "pretty", like stupidly calling child birth a "miracle" ignoring that after birth matters and not all children in the world have a good life. There is no "miracle" to birth, there is sex and the sperm and egg meeting, and that also happens millions of times per day worldwide.

It is selection bias and sample rate error.

[Simon Moon]

[quote='Simon Moon' pid='1550054' dateline='1494271105']
Here's the problems with this statement.

Allegedly there is this god that wants to have a relationship with me. Yet, he created me with a mind that is unable to accept claims without those claims meeting their burden of proof, which include being falsifiable.

If you desire to follow him, he can work with you on the belief.

Your claims create even more problems.

Here are just a few:

If the Bible is an accurate representation of Yahweh, even if he did exist, I'd want nothing to do with him.

He condones and creates rules for slavery, including: who I can own, that I can pass them down to my children as property, it's okay to beat them as long as they don't die in a couple of days, how to sell my daughter into sex slavery.

He rewards beliefs and not deeds.

Although he has the power to simply forgive humanity for original sin, he had to set up the most baroque situation, where he came to earth in physical form, in order to sacrifice himself, to himself, in order to create a loophole for his own rules.

And a further list of things only the gullible and credulous could believe.

It also seems that this god, in his attempt to communicate what is the 'most important message ever', would want to assure that it would be communicated in such a way as not to be opened to interpretation, translation errors, copy errors, contradiction, etc.

The Bible itself addresses this. There's value in the searching itself. In some cases it's also a matter of judgment. But again, God works with those who desire to follow him.

But the problem is, this search can and does lead to the situation where many searchers get it so wrong, that they will end up in hell. Do you believe that every person who claims to be a Christian, no matter how much their beliefs differ from yours, will get into heaven?

Not to mention, I was a sincere searcher for many years. Yahweh never said a word.

Also note that God gives over some people to their rejection during their lifetime. He isn't striving with every person up to the moment they die.

Nice bit of fan fiction there.

[Jehanne]

Which is just another way of saying that there aren't any.

When someone says they don't find the evidence for miracles compelling, and so they don't believe them, I get that.

When someone says that they don't believe in miracles due to a factor that's present in the definition of miracle itself, that's a poor argument.

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How is not believing in miracles any different than not believing in invisible rainbow-colored unicorns with spotted tails who sing 70s music to each other?

[Minimalist]

Definition of miracle

1. 1 :  an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs the healing [i]miracles described in the Gospels[/i]
   

- Merriam Webster

Pure silliness.

[Silver]

The church is an unreliable source of a miracle. A statue could fart and the church would call it a miracle, not realizing there was a person standing behind the statue.

[The Valkyrie]

The church is an unreliable source of a miracle.  A statue could fart and the church would call it a miracle, not realizing there was a person standing behind the statue.

Just look at the case of the guy in India who showed that the "miracle tears" coming from a statue of Mary in some church was actually sewerage water from a leaking pipe behind the statue.  He saved many people from health problems but was still charged with upsetting religious sensibilities.

That's the sort of thing a religious mind-set can do