Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[Minimalist]

 there are churches across the Roman Empire before 50 AD.

There is no evidence to that at all....other than the stories that were concocted by later xtian writers.

[TheBeardedDude]

 there are churches across the Roman Empire before 50 AD.

There is no evidence to that at all....other than the stories that were concocted by later xtian writers.

Those pesky facts get in the way of Steve's assertions about how strong "Christianity" was prior to Paul and the Romans (who had only really minor roles in Christianity, don't you know?)

[RoadRunner79]

There is no evidence to that at all....other than the stories that were concocted by later xtian writers.

Those pesky facts get in the way of Steve's assertions about how strong "Christianity" was prior to Paul and the Romans (who had only really minor roles in Christianity, don't you know?)

ahhh.. .back to conspiracy theory

[Angrboda]

@SteveII

The following testifies to the truth of the Vedic view of consciousness. Do you have any contemporary scientific evidence to testify to the truth of your beliefs?

In the documentary Professor Goswami describes an experiment he witnessed, that since has been replicated by at least four other researchers, in which there seems to be scientific proof of what he calls ‘non-local consciousness,’ consciousness as the unified field, something that connects us all. It is what Jungians might call the collective consciousness, what Vedantists might call Self.

In this study, two people are brought together to meditate for 20 minutes with the intention that they communicate non-locally, directly, without any exchange of signal. Then they are separated and put in electromagnetically impervious chambers to ensure that no signal may be ‘sent’ from one brain to the other. The subjects are asked to maintain that meditative state of intention. Now their brains are connected to individual EEG machines, electroencephalographs, which will record the brain wave patterns of each subject. One subject (and only one subject. They do not switch back and forth) is shown a series of light flashes. This causes brain wave activity which is recorded by the EEG. From that information a potential can be extracted called evoked potential. Potential evoked by the light flashes. This extracted potential can be charted as a very specific brain wave pattern.

The other subject in the meantime is just meditating, but the EEG machine connected to the brain of this second observer who doesn’t see light flashes, who is never shown light flashes, consistently depicted transferred potential, the brain wave pattern of which was very similar in both phase and strength to the evoked potential that the first observer’s EEG gives us.

What does this mean? It means that electrical activity is being transferred from one brain to another without any electromagnetic connection. Without any signal. Through intention, the two brains have become correlated non-locally. There is no other way of understanding this result, according to Professor Goswami, and this understanding is to him proof of non-local consciousness. Oneness. Self, with a capital ‘S.’

http://jeffkobermeditation.com/2012/06/d...ne-4-2012/

[Whateverist]

The Paul character was the first one to write about the Yeshua character [1] (the book of Galatians, 49 A.D. https://carm.org/when-was-bible-written-...o-wrote-it).  So according to the fairy tale that means that Paul saw his vision of Yeshua 17 years earlier, around 32 A.D.

According to Acts people were first called Christians in the city of Antioch, as a result of Paul's preaching.[2]

1. That is a fact not in evidence. Scholars believe there were documents before the gospels. Paul's may be the earliest writings that survived. 

---

2. Acts 11:19-30. The church existed (v 20-21). Barnabas, more senior than Paul (mentioned in Acts 4-- ~four years earlier) took him up there around 42 AD and they taught the people there (verse 25). 42 AD is 12 years after the beginning of Acts. Paul did not start Christianity--not even close.

---

Once again you seem to be arguing for the possibility that what you already believe may be supportable, not that any evidence recommends that conclusion all things considered.

[TheBeardedDude]

Those pesky facts get in the way of Steve's assertions about how strong "Christianity" was prior to Paul and the Romans (who had only really minor roles in Christianity, don't you know?)

ahhh.. .back to conspiracy theory

I don't know what "conspiracy theory" you're on about, but you can fuck off with the half-assed insults

[vorlon13]

PAUL, The FIRST HERETIC !!!

"Let the reader contrast the true Christian standard with that of Paul and he will see the terrible betrayal of all that the Master taught. . . . For the surest way to betray a great Teacher is to misrepresent his message. . . . That is what Paul and his followers did, and because the Church has followed Paul in his error it has failed lamentably to redeem the world. . . . The teachings given by the blessed Master Christ, which the disciples John and Peter and James, the brother of the Master, tried in vain to defend and preserve intact were as utterly opposed to the Pauline Gospel as the light is opposed to the darkness."

Reverend V. A. Holmes-Gore

 

"In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther, in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ. Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down, making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ"
 

Soren Kierkegaard

 
Will Durant, in his Caesar and Christ:
"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ. . . . Through these interpretations Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, which he had not directly known. . . . Paul replaced conduct with creed as the test of virtue. It was a tragic change."
 

Will Durant

[The Grand Nudger]

I have no problem with Paul's function being to codify Christian living and being a very important figure in the early church. That in no way implies he made it up or he does not back up his reasoning at every step. 

In addition, you are failing to distinguish the content of the epistles to those of the gospels.  As far as the basics of Christ and his teachings, that was around for 20 active years before he started writing (15 chapters of Acts). The content of the gospels (although not yet written as we know them) were known and is easily sufficient for the first generation that actually experienced the events described (or knew those that did). As time passed, it became necessary for someone such a Paul to get at leas the application part down so that those new converts in far away places, who would never meet an apostle, had some guidance. 

If not Paul, somebody would have had to. Would Christianity have been different? That is not apparent. We do not know if Paul reasoned out everything himself or if his years of training supplied the basic structure.

Whether he made it up is moot point.  You're a loon who thinks this shit really happened..so there's no point in arguing with you on that count.

Regardless of whether he "made it up" or marketed a popular product- it is his version of christianity which you recognize as christianity today.  This is precisely what you're hedging with this "christianity, but not as we know it" song and dance.  

Mormonism is christianity, just not as you know it.  Do you extend the christian umbrella to them, as well?

[vorlon13]

Has to.

They have better evidence.

[Whateverist]

Those pesky facts get in the way of Steve's assertions about how strong "Christianity" was prior to Paul and the Romans (who had only really minor roles in Christianity, don't you know?)

ahhh.. .back to conspiracy theory

No that's where it begins with your lot insisting that all signs lead to the holy bible.