Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[Amarok]

ahhh.. .back to conspiracy theory

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

[TheBeardedDude]

ahhh.. .back to conspiracy theory

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

Oh man, this conspiracy is getting deep.

[Minimalist]

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

Do you know that there is no xtian catacomb in Rome prior to the late 2d century?  Why don't you consider the ramifications of that?

[RoadRunner79]

ahhh.. .back to conspiracy theory

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.

[LadyForCamus]

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

 
Calling someone out for asserting something without evidence is not pushing a conspiracy theory.  Like...wut?

[SteveII]

Your comparison is way way off. Joseph Smith wrote down a bunch of things that happened only to him. No one else was there. This is actually a good comparison to the alien abduction example atheists are so fond of. 

The 9 authors of the NT wrote down what happened in public.

And yet none of those 9 were verified eye witnesses to the events.  That's 1 good witness to 0 witnesses on your side.  Spin cuts both ways.

Tens of thousands of people would have been affected in some way by the events they relate. We have historical evidence that some significant number of people acted on their belief that the events of the NT happened (even before the gospels were written): there are churches across the Roman Empire before 50 AD. 1 Peter? Are you kidding me? That's 5 chapters out of 260. 

This testifies to the fact that people believed the stories.  That's hardly in question.  Many believed in the Eleusinian mysteries.  Their belief doesn't count as evidence to the truth of those mysteries.  The fact that a belief spreads to others isn't evidence of the facts supporting that belief.  This is a nonsense complaint.

In addition, your use of the term 'anonymous' is inaccurate and often used in an attempt to poison the well. Do you actually think that the people who received the first copies of the gospels received them on their doorsteps and did not know where they came from? Get real. They would have known exactly who the editor was and where the information came from. The name of the editor is unimportant to pass along. The only concern was the apostle's name who provided the input.

This is meaningless speculation.  Your speculations on the matter don't count as evidence.  Plenty of documents were circulated in the ancient world with either no attribution or false attribution.  Some of those documents even appear in the bible, which impugns your weak "just so story" about people not accepting anonymous testimony.  And our knowledge of practices back then flatly contradicts your rosy spin.

So, your comparison is nonsense and your charge of special pleading unsupported.

Why?  Because you don't believe the testimony of one good witness but you gullibly swallow the hearsay testimony of a corral of anonymous writers, liars, and forgers?  Regardless, preferring the anonymous testimony of 9 unknown writers to one known writer isn't any kind of rational metric, it's simply a preference for what you already believe.  We don't know whether any of those 9 even witnessed anything.  It's your comparison of the two that is nonsense.  You don't believe Joseph Smith.  Period.  That's your only actual criterion.  In a prior post you stated that you believe the testimony of the new testament is what it appears to be ("I believe that most of the epistles are what they appear to be.").  You accept uncritically the Christian testimony, yet get skeptical when the testimony is in favor of another religion.  That's special pleading.

Ah, but you are proving my point. You just spent who knows how many minutes telling me how the facts we have (which are very different and more plentiful than Joe's) could be interpreted another way or insist on characterizations which you couldn't possibly know for sure. You cannot prove that the events of the NT did not happen. I cannot prove they did. 

Even if I am speculating on the gospel editors, I don't speculate without reasons and I still have 3 editors and 1 Luke. While one account can be dismissed, a whole web of hundreds of facts exists, including 27 books and a bunch of people and churches (the context). My theory is that the events happened as this web of facts suggests at face value. It is not an illogical reading of the facts. I am not ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

Even if you came up with a theory that would account for all of them, me believing my particular theory over that of Joe's sole testimony without any context is definitely not special pleading because I have laid out justification for treating the two circumstances differently. I could be dead wrong, but I am certainly not special pleading Christianity.

[Amarok]

I stopped caring about your responses ages ago Road so why do you bother?

[Huggy Bear]

ahhh.. .back to conspiracy theory

 
Calling someone out for asserting something without evidence is not pushing a conspiracy theory.  Like...wut?

You guys have been making assertions without evidence pretty much this whole thread...

[Wyrd of Gawd]

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No there isn't, coward. For example Vorlon's citation of mormonism, where we have proof of the founder, his history, his religion's history, everythinghe wrote and quite a lot of what he said. As we have virtually nothing of christianity until well into its second century (and no three word fragments of single pages don't count) you cannot truthfully claim christianity has the same evidentiary basis as mormonism. Hell, even with islam, another religion bsed solely off legend we know most of the major players actually existed and did at least some of the stuff attributed to them. We can say this about exactly none of the founding members of christianity (unless you want to argue it was largely founded at Nicaea).

So your latest baseless assertion fails under even the most dilletantish of scrutinies.

And not only that, an examination of Early Christian History shows that from the very beginning they did not agree on the substance of who Jesus was.  The diversity of Christian theology was even more intense in the 1st and 2nd Centuries CE than even now.  A sect of Judaism, divided among Ebionites, Nazarenes, and Elkasites, each of whom had different versions (Christologies) of Jesus based on their theology (Docetism, Adoptionists, and Gnosticism).  It was the Proto-orthodox view, championed by Paul the Apostle, gained wider adherence throughout the Roman Empire as they gained more influence with the imperial throne, you know, Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, the oppression of Pagans, and all that.   You Christians really have a nasty habit of weeding out opposing views and killing them off.  Does not help your cause one little bit.

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Just as I thought...

It's funny how you guys shut up the moment anything resembling evidence is is actually produced...

Since you refuse to respond, you forfeit the privilege of requesting that any theist produce  evidence from now on.

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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.

According to the biblical fairy tale a certain number of Christians must be killed before Yeshua returns.  That number hasn't been reached but every victim speeds up his return.  So people who want Yeshua to return should rejoice when Christians are killed, especially for their faith while in church.  Yeshua insists.

And Sodom has to be rebuilt to all of its former glory plus Egypt has to be empty of people for 40 years.  Since those requirements haven't been met it seems that a certain number of Christians must be killed in order to trigger them.  You know the shit is going to hit the fan once Egypt is empty of people.

[LadyForCamus]

 
Calling someone out for asserting something without evidence is not pushing a conspiracy theory.  Like...wut?

You guys have been making assertions without evidence pretty much this whole thread...

Example?