Convincing Evidence Against God (prophecies, punished, contradiction, Apostle)
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I understand your point, Shirina and in no way would I pretend to credit or validate the literal nonsense that Eusebius tries to do with convoluted rationales like "freeze-dried" food, etc. But what I object to is the extreme claims that there are no "historical" references to Jesus. That is preposterous. It is only because you define the documents that men compiled into the Bible and its Apochrypha as "Non-Historical" non-secular documents that such a preposterous claim could even be made. There are far more extant relatively contemporaneous documents about Jesus than about any other figure. Just because the documents were also aggregated and compiled to promote a religion and absurd beliefs . . . in no way invalidates them as contemporaneous historical sources for the existence of Jesus.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
Oh, My dear Mystic, please! Do not tell me that you are are going to fall into the Josephus, Phleghon, Thallia bearpit. There are historical documents - letters, discussions about eclipses - based on what was in the Bible or the claims of the Christians - as per Bar-Serapion. But there are No unequivocal extra Bible historical references to Jesus as distinct from references to the Christian claims.
My dear Arq . . . that was not my point. The distinction between extra Biblical and Biblical is entirel artificial. You have artificially lumped the documents in the Bible and its Apochrypha into the non-historical category because they are used in the Christian religion. Sorry . . . but using them for religious purposes does not in any way invalidate them as relatively contemporaneous historical documents . . . and there are far more extant versions of them than any others from that time period.
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The only one I am willing to credit is Tacitus, and all he does is tell us that Pilate executed a Jewish troublemaker and a group of his followers called Christiani were known in Rome. That much I accept about a historical Jesus. but it does not make the rest of the Gospel a historical document, given that I cannot believe that a single word in them can really be the words of Jesus, nor for that matter the account of the baptist, who IS reliably attested in Josephus, be given any historical reliability in the gospel account where the purpose is not to tell us what happened, but to disguise what happened in order to make Jesus look like the top of the bill and John merely the compere.
I agree that much of the hyperbole and allegory and fabled nature of the things in the Gospels cannot be historical . . . but the man they are attributed to most certainly is. My complaint is with the artificial distinction between extra Biblical and Biblical . . . which is just silly.
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Ps. I loved the Freeze -dried idea, but the problem there was that it threw up too many problems of its own - whether the Koalas would touch the stuff after being kept in a fetid Ark for a month, whether Noah in Lush Urartu -on-sea would even have heard of freeze drying or indeed (given that his theory depends on mountains growing for most of their height in a few months) whether there would be any snow -lines to go and experiment with.
The nonsensical attempts to validate the Ark fable are simply preposterous.
Ok. I hoped that you were too smart to fall into that trap. It was just that "There are far more extant relatively contemporaneous documents about Jesus than about any other figure. .." Looked awfully like it. Since it is not a misinformed remark it becomes simply irrelevant.
I agreed you has a point about the artificial distinction, but on the other hand the fallacy of the beard cannot be allowed to remove distinctions that, while blurred and with exceptions, are necessary and valid. And, as I explained, with the Bible, both testaments increasingly fall into the 'Non -historical' category.
I understand your point, Shirina and in no way would I pretend to credit or validate the literal nonsense that Eusebius tries to do with convoluted rationales like "freeze-dried" food, etc. But what I object to is the extreme claims that there are no "historical" references to Jesus. That is preposterous. It is only because you define the documents that men compiled into the Bible and its Apochrypha as "Non-Historical" non-secular documents that such a preposterous claim could even be made. There are far more extant relatively contemporaneous documents about Jesus than about any other figure. Just because the documents were also aggregated and compiled to promote a religion and absurd beliefs . . . in no way invalidates them as contemporaneous historical sources for the existence of Jesus.
The historical records of Jesus, such as from Pliny the Younger, comprise of writings about the Christians and what they believe in. It would be no different if someone today wrote a treatise on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its influence on atheism. If this treatise were found 3,000 years later, it doesn't prove that there really was (and perhaps still is) a Flying Spaghetti Monster. What it DOES prove is that some people who lived 3,000 years ago believed that the Flying Spaghetti Monster existed.
Therefore, any historian or chronicler living during that era who wrote about Christianity would certainly have to write about Jesus and his messiah-hood as the core doctine of their beliefs. Writing about what someone else believes does not make what they believe suddenly true.
Even so, the fact that the Romans executed a Jewish troublemaker doesn't mean Jesus was crucified for our sins, that he was resurrected, and will again return. Nor does it prove, in any way, that Jesus ever uttered a single phrase, command, promise, or pearl of wisdom attributed to him in the New Testament. So far as we really know, Jesus was as Tacitus said - a Jewish troublemaker who formed a cult around himself.
The historical records of Jesus, such as from Pliny the Younger, comprise of writings about the Christians and what they believe in. It would be no different if someone today wrote a treatise on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its influence on atheism. If this treatise were found 3,000 years later, it doesn't prove that there really was (and perhaps still is) a Flying Spaghetti Monster. What it DOES prove is that some people who lived 3,000 years ago believed that the Flying Spaghetti Monster existed.
Therefore, any historian or chronicler living during that era who wrote about Christianity would certainly have to write about Jesus and his messiah-hood as the core doctine of their beliefs. Writing about what someone else believes does not make what they believe suddenly true.
Even so, the fact that the Romans executed a Jewish troublemaker doesn't mean Jesus was crucified for our sins, that he was resurrected, and will again return. Nor does it prove, in any way, that Jesus ever uttered a single phrase, command, promise, or pearl of wisdom attributed to him in the New Testament. So far as we really know, Jesus was as Tacitus said - a Jewish troublemaker who formed a cult around himself.
If you lived in the time of Christ and witnessed Him raising people from the dead and witnessed Him being raised from the dead and ascending into Heaven, I'm sure you would say things differently than what you do now. Eyewitnesses saw all that. It is historical. It is the truth.
If you lived in the time of Christ and witnessed Him raising people from the dead and witnessed Him being raised from the dead and ascending into Heaven, I'm sure you would say things differently than what you do now. Eyewitnesses saw all that. It is historical. It is the truth.
No they did not. There is no confirmation of that outside of the Bible. And even the Bible doesn't have one single word from one of the actual eyewitnesses. It's essentially someone writing about supposed eyewitnesses at least a generation later.
No they did not. There is no confirmation of that outside of the Bible. And even the Bible doesn't have one single word from one of the actual eyewitnesses. It's essentially someone writing about supposed eyewitnesses at least a generation later.
Who says there never was confirmation of that outside the Bible? And even if there was no confirmation, that does not disprove the historical, eyewitness accounts of Christ's many miracles and His being raised from the dead and ascending into heaven and later seen on the road to Damascus by Paul.
You have no verifiable, absolute, scientific proof that the four gospels were written a generation later, so why say so? I'll tell you why. No I won't. I'll let your own heart speak to you.
Yeah, thanks. it was quite an old one and, while I found references to it, I couldn't find the original...you want to post your video 'Noah it All' where you explain it?
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For the others in this thread: The supposed "Convincing Evidence Against God" is anything but "convincing." It is built upon make-believe ideas.
As usual, browsers can decide whether the arguments made against 'god' or God are valid or deserve to be dismissed as 'make believe'. It does not help that the arguments for god or "God" are not merely make believe but are demonstrated misunderstandings or misrepresentations of science, such as ID/IC.
You may recall the thread where Behe's Irreducible Complexity was shown to be non -science and the 'Published paper' was reduced (in the Dover trial where he got trounced and exposed) to his own book. Thus an attempt to put humpty Behe together again after his great fall fell equally flat.
As I say, science against make believe is rather on the evidence against god side.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-18-2014 at 09:46 AM..
Yeah, thanks. it was quite an old one and, while I found references to it, I couldn't find the original...you want to post your video 'Noah it All' where you explain it?
I don't know. I hate hearing my own voice and watching myself speak.
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Do not tell me that you are are going to fall into the Josephus, Phleghon, Thallia bearpit. There are historical documents - letters, discussions about eclipses - based on what was in the Bible or the claims of the Christians - as per Bar-Serapion. But there are No unequivocal extra Bible historical references to Jesus as distinct from references to the Christian claims.
