The Historical Jesus

[Fake Messiah]

h311inac311, do you still believe that the Earth is flat?

[h311inac311]

Hello h3311inac311,

What was the purpose of Jesus according to you or what have you been told his purpose is?

"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the father except through me." I find this to be the fundamental phrase that I would come back to when answering this question. Jesus is the correct way to live life, self sacrificing, telling the Truth regardless of who it offends, as well as showing a genuine Love for those who are outcasts and down-trodden (Lazarus). Beyond this we have the implication that in order to get closer to God the father we must first accept his suffering son. We are supposed to become people who are willing to make sacrifices for what is Good True and Beautiful. "When I was hungry did you feed me?"

h311inac311, do you still believe that the Earth is flat?

Can a sailor see the top of a light-house from more than 100 miles away?


As far as the male female stuff is concerned. I like to simplify it with the metaphor that girls are like cats and guys are like dogs. On the surface both animals are very similar, they are both 4 legged beasts after all. But the main differences come from their behavior. Dogs are more obvious in how they behave. If they like you then they will walk right up to you and lick your hand. When they want to play they get excited and hand you their favorite toy for you to throw. 

Cats, on the other hand, are not so obvious. If they like you they may want to rub their head against your leg, but they might also get really shy and not want to be near you.

I do find it funny that people want to project gender stereo-types onto me as though I am a gatekeeper of gendered roles. But if you want to know my opinion I suggest you read Proverbs 31.

That being said my main point is that the transgressive left has been moving so far in favor of transgenderism that now it seems they want pre-pubesent children to be able to get sex change operations. Would you agree with this? Should an 11 year old be legally allowed to get castrated? Should a surgeon be permitted to cut off a young boy's member and replace it with a non-functioning gash?

Or, are you permitted to tell the Truth regardless of who it offends? Because in my opinion, the Truth is not what you want it to be.

[Fake Messiah]

I do find it funny that people want to project gender stereo-types onto me as though I am a gatekeeper of gendered roles. But if you want to know my opinion I suggest you read Proverbs 31.

No, I don't care about your fucking opinion. You said there are fundamental and scientific difference between genders, but when pressed to explain yourself, to show us this scientific evidence, you are dodging the answer because you are full of shit.

[h311inac311]

I do find it funny that people want to project gender stereo-types onto me as though I am a gatekeeper of gendered roles. But if you want to know my opinion I suggest you read Proverbs 31.

No, I don't care about your fucking opinion. You said there are fundamental and scientific difference between genders, but when pressed to explain yourself, to show us this scientific evidence, you are dodging the answer because you are full of shit.

Okay so, let me get this straight, are you asserting that there are no differences? I'll be careful not to put words into your mouth here.

But since you are asking me I will ask you a simple question, have you ever met a girl before?

From a physical point of view the differences are obvious, men have the hardware which lets them get women pregnant. While women have the hardware which allows them to become pregnant. Men tend to be taller on average and perform better in most athletic endeavors, except for long-distance swimming. Women tend to perform better in this category because their bodies are more buoyant.

From a psychological point of view a woman's body will, on average, produce more estrogen than testosterone. For men it is the other way round. Do these chemicals have no affect on our brain or the kinds of choices that we are likely to make?

[h311inac311]

Now for sure you are the one who is missing my point about the over-abundance of available copies.

This abundance of copies that you talk about don't count because they were created many centuries later, in medieval times, and they are copies of gospels that were written centuries after the supposed death of Jesus.

"The first time we get a complete copy of the gospel of Matthew.... is 300 years later." - Bart Ehrman. Yes, paper doesn't last very long expecially when books are expensive and good books tend to be used rather than placed on display. Have you ever seen what can happen to one of our modern books after it has been used over and over in less that 50 years? I've seen people walking around with Bibles in my church where every page is dog-eared and some of the paper is turning yellow. 

Used books don't last very long. But let's say that the first copy is 400 years old, what does this do to discredit it?

You see, the issue is that we don't just have 1 copy, if all we had was a single line of letters one being a copy of the first and the 4th being a copy of the 3rd then we would have a big problem because if the 3rd letter was corrupted then that would automatically mean that the 7th would be as well. 

What we have instead, however, is a manuscript tradition that goes back to the original. Lets say that we make 3 copies of the gospel of Mark. As I said earlier (but all of you have ignored this so far for obvious reasons) if we have, even a fragmentary, or a highly suspect copy that's riddled with errors we can still discern the original by comparing the copies one to another.

Consider this collection of 3 fragmentary copies.

The ___  ______
___  cat  ______
___  ___  jumped

Are you guys smart enough to discern the original message? How could that be possible if all we have is 3 manuscripts that are only 33% accurate to the original? 
What Bart Ehrman is expressing is a reasonable doubt, however I'm still waiting for someone to back up this doubt with something historical as opposed to an appeal to evidence that hasn't been found yet.

We cannot claim with certainty the exact words which Mark originally wrote, however, we still do have a very strong case that more than 95% of what he has written is preserved within the manuscript tradition. 

Beyond this complaint there is the fact that language changes over time. For instance we know that the ancient Greek of the first century didn't even have spaces, if you can believe that. imaginehowharditwouldbetoreadsomethinglikethat. Once spaces were discovered as an easier way to read and write Greek they became essential and scholars started using them all the time. The only problem here is that now we have to add spaces to an original which had none. And so the copies that are from 500 A.D. are automatically going to have many variances that seperate them from the original. Beyond this you have the fact that an agreed upon spelling is almost never permanent, if it is even present at all. I'm not gonna bullshit you guys and pretend to be fluent in ancient Greek. However, I am able to read the original 1611 King James version despite the many spelling changes which have occurde since then. 

My point here is simple, if you're going to claim that you know that a piece of writing has a significant error in it could you please tell me where that error is and explain to me how you know it to be an error. Because if you can't do that then all I can say about your argument is that it is historical speculation. We're talking about events which occurred more than 1800 years before video cameras were invented so there will always be room for doubt. Even today when people see a miracle on camera they will say, "well that must be photoshopped,". Regardless of the evidence the sceptic has the privilege of always being able to demand more. So no matter how many gospels there are, no matter how many letters there are, no matter how many copies there are, the sceptic will either demand one more or they will demand one earlier.

[Fake Messiah]

From a physical point of view the differences are obvious, men have the hardware which lets them get women pregnant. While women have the hardware which allows them to become pregnant. Men tend to be taller on average and perform better in most athletic endeavors, except for long-distance swimming. Women tend to perform better in this category because their bodies are more buoyant.

From a psychological point of view a woman's body will, on average, produce more estrogen than testosterone. For men it is the other way round. Do these chemicals have no affect on our brain or the kinds of choices that we are likely to make?

Again, you are avoiding the answer. None of that tells us what people should do, what jobs they should work, what roles in society they should have, what they should wear, etc.

What we have instead, however, is a manuscript tradition that goes back to the original.

Wrong. There is no manuscript tradition. The manuscripts were copied by monks in medieval times, but all those centuries before, it is not known who copied them and under which conditions.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@h311inac311

But if you want to know my opinion I suggest you read Proverbs 31.

I find myself unsurprised that you’re of the opinion that women should be relegated to the status of domestic servants.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Right, so...demigods and fags it is. Not much to say there, really. I believe in one of them?

[Ravenshire]

No, I don't care about your fucking opinion. You said there are fundamental and scientific difference between genders, but when pressed to explain yourself, to show us this scientific evidence, you are dodging the answer because you are full of shit.

Okay so, let me get this straight, are you asserting that there are no differences? I'll be careful not to put words into your mouth here.

But since you are asking me I will ask you a simple question, have you ever met a girl before?

From a physical point of view the differences are obvious, men have the hardware which lets them get women pregnant. While women have the hardware which allows them to become pregnant. Men tend to be taller on average and perform better in most athletic endeavors, except for long-distance swimming. Women tend to perform better in this category because their bodies are more buoyant.

From a psychological point of view a woman's body will, on average, produce more estrogen than testosterone. For men it is the other way round. Do these chemicals have no affect on our brain or the kinds of choices that we are likely to make?

Do you understand the difference between biological sex and gender?!? You seem to be conflating the two.

While on the topic of biological sex, have you ever heard the term 'intersex?"

[brewer]

Okay so, let me get this straight, are you asserting that there are no differences? I'll be careful not to put words into your mouth here.

But since you are asking me I will ask you a simple question, have you ever met a girl before?

From a physical point of view the differences are obvious, men have the hardware which lets them get women pregnant. While women have the hardware which allows them to become pregnant. Men tend to be taller on average and perform better in most athletic endeavors, except for long-distance swimming. Women tend to perform better in this category because their bodies are more buoyant.

From a psychological point of view a woman's body will, on average, produce more estrogen than testosterone. For men it is the other way round. Do these chemicals have no affect on our brain or the kinds of choices that we are likely to make?

Do you understand the difference between biological sex and gender?!? You seem to be conflating the two.

While on the topic of biological sex, have you ever heard the term 'intersex?"

That's the beauty of religious belief, it can reinforce what ever ignorance you wish to subscribe to.