Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[LadyForCamus]

Huggy, do you think if you had presented this case to Carl Sagan with the evidence you've presented here, he would have come to the conclusion that the light in your picture was, beyond reasonable doubt, caused by the Holy Spirit of the Christian God of The Bible?  Why, or why not?

No, Mr. Lacy didn't even draw that conclusion, but I do believe he would know the difference between supernatural and natural... which you clearly don't.

Branham is the one that said it was Jesus Christ, and not only that he demonstrated it.

Just know this, the evidence I presented in this thread is just the tip of the Iceberg, but there would be no point in taking it any further since it'd be lost on you yokels, heck there is a 30 some odd page thread with atheists arguing that Denmark had a secular government (which it doesn't)...

If they wouldn't accept evidence that contradicted their position on something that is easily proven and really not debatable, accepting evidence of the supernatural is completely out of the question.

Now you guys can no longer say that evidence has not been presented.

No one demonstrated Jesus Christ.  You demonstrated evidence of light.  And, you demonstrated evidence that people thought the light was Christ, because some picture in the Bible depicts...*gasp* light.   You're a lost cause, Hugs.  I still love ya though.  Thanks for playing.

[Pat Mustard]

We have hundreds of surviving Christian writings from before Roman got involved.

No.  You really don't.



Also note the predominance of papyrus "texts" ( and these are largely fragmentary ) which indicates Egypt and thus, for xtianity, Alexandria.

Which probably means that Bob Marley was closer to original christianity than Steve the Coward ever will be. Jah, mon!

[Harry Nevis]

Now you guys can no longer say that evidence has not been presented.

I don't think anyone has claimed this.  What is your evidence for?  Does it prove the Holy Spirit?  Hardly.  It's also evidence for photographic anomalies. The people claiming to see it after it was pointed out is evidence for mass delusion, the type you see every Sunday in churches where people a "filled with the Holy Spirit". It's also evidence for how gullible people can latch on to these occurrences and decide that they prove what they believe, whatever it is.

It may be evidence, but it does nothing to support your claim.

[drfuzzy]

The all powerful Judeo-Christian god, the ancient Canaanite war god, the supposed creator of the universe, did not lift one finger to save nine people in a church, IN A CHURCH, HIS CHURCH, from a white racist asshole.   There is some evidence for you.  What is one to think?  Either this supposed being does not exist, or it is a monster, or a racist, or both.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? - Romans 8:32


Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. - Psalm 116:15

"graciously give us all things?"  --  One of the underpinnings of the "prosperity gospel" preachers.  Funny how THEY get rich, but their followers do not.  And then there are the millions of poor xtian children around the world who pray every day not to be "given all things" - - just, maybe, something to eat??  Interesting that the prayers do not work.

And then there is the Psalm 116 monstrosity.  Born from an era where watching people die was commonplace.  Born from martyrdom.  Born from desperate efforts to deal with death.  Oh how many times I have heard "it was a blessing, ____ is now in paradise, with the Lord".  It's really very sick when -- let's say a depressed teenager -- takes that to heart and prays to be murdered by a wackjob so they can escape life on this earth and just "go to be with the lord".  It's really very sick when people treat murder as a cause for celebration.  And it's a deflection -- these people believe that god CAN protect them, but god never does, so it all must have been god's will.  He's not a monster, he has reasons for taking ___ home.  Dying for an imaginary friend to take you to a place that doesn't exist.  These beliefs and behaviors really should be listed as a mental illness.

[Minimalist]

Continuing with K. L. Noll's dissection of jesus freak "testimony" claims.....

The genuine contribution of Thompson’s monograph is its explication
of motifs in the New Testament that appear to be part of the universal
ancient literary conversation. The Gospel narratives of the New Testament
are fictions constructed from prior literature and betraying only minor
influence, at best, from memories of (or, perhaps, gossip and folklore inspired
by) real-world events. The researcher must accept, as a necessary methodological
foundation, that any tale about Jesus is likely to have a long and
rich pre-Christian provenance. The miracle stories have derived from the
prevailing literary (and probably folk) culture, as demonstrated by Wendy
Cotter; moreover, Jens Schröter observes that ‘the distinction between
“genuine” words of Jesus and other traditions played no part at all’ in the
construction of the Gospels’ teaching segments.44 For example, Schröter is
able to identify many formulations that appear firstly in the letters of Paul,
and were only secondarily attributed to Jesus himself.45 Observations of this
kind must play a central role in any historical hypothesis that hopes to be
plausible. In sum, the variant images of a Jesus are identical to the variant
images of a Moses or a Jeremiah, suggesting that attempts to dissect Gospel
narratives in quest of a historical Jesus are methodologically unsound.

Is This Not The Carpenter's Son    pg. 245

I hope the xristards are frightened off by all the big words.

[Whateverist]

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? - Romans 8:32


Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. - Psalm 116:15

Ooh.  Huggy opened his fucking bible and thinks anyone besides him cares.

Did you glaze over too? Scripture is better than Ambien for me.

[Minimalist]

Nah.  Shit like this:

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. - Psalm 116:15

infuriates me.  Fucking god can go fuck himself. 

I bet Huggy wanks to it, though.

[Whateverist]

Oops, nodded off again. Thank gawd there wasn't any begettin in that sample or I'd still be out.

[LadyForCamus]

Okay so...to re-cap, so that I can wrap my brain around all of what I've read here, and what I've been reading on my own to fill in knowledge gaps:

Have I got this timeline right enough that we all (Theist and atheist) more or less agree?

-Jesus died around year 30
-Paul's letters weren't written until around year 50
-Gospel of Mark -not until around 70
-Luke, Matthew (taken from Mark and hypothetical Q) approx. 80's/90's
-Then John

And the final version of the NT that we know today, after being picked over several times, wasn't solidified until around year 390ish?!

How, in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, could any rational person take the supernatural claims in this story seriously? I mean, no one can even be sure that Paul himself ever met Jesus, and the gospel writers, whoever they were, came way too late! But Christianity is somehow more "evidenced" than Mormonism? Or any other religion? What evidence?! Stories passed down across a hundred or so years? This is special pleading. Cry me a river. And it's even worse than I'd realized.

[TheBeardedDude]

Okay so...to re-cap, so that I can wrap my brain around all of what I've read here, and what I've been reading on my own to fill in knowledge gaps:

Have I got this timeline right enough that we all (Theist and atheist) more or less agree?

-Jesus died around year 30
-Paul's letters weren't written until around year 50
-Gospel of Mark -not until around 70
-Luke, Matthew (taken from Mark and hypothetical Q) approx. 80's/90's
-Then John

And the final version of the NT that we know today, after being picked over several times, wasn't solidified until around year 390ish?!

How, in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, could any rational person take the supernatural claims in this story seriously?  I mean, no one can even be sure that Paul himself ever met Jesus, let alone any of the gospel writers, whoever they were.  But Christianity is somehow more "evidenced" than Mormonism?  Or any other religion?  What evidence?!  This is special pleading.  And it's even worse than I'd realized.

"I mean, no one can even be sure that Paul himself ever met Jesus, let alone any of the gospel writers, whoever they were."

Don't know how Paul could have ever met Jesus. He had a vision where he hallucinated meeting Jesus, but that is no more believable than when someone dreams/hallucinates about being abducted by aliens.

---

Ahhh back to proclaiming evidence you don't like as a conspiracy theory.

No... but if your theory is that a number of people across a geographical diverse area conspired to make it look like they are past historical events, when they are not.  I call that a conspiracy theory.  

It's not a problem if you have evidence to support your theory, however I would ask to see it.  Until then, I remain skeptical.

"No... but if your theory is that a number of people across a geographical diverse area conspired to make it look like they are past historical events, when they are not.  I call that a conspiracy theory.  "

And we call that a straw man.