Church losing its grip...

Sleepy

Excelsior, let me put my view on the crucifixion into the words of the most famous (fictional) detective of all time:

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"

So, given that it's impossible for a human being to rise from the dead 3 days after their death, and that you argue quite convincingly that Jesus couldn't have recovered from a coma like state and escaped the tomb, it seems to me that the only remaining alternative was that he had a twin who took his place in an attempt to prove his brother's teachings true.

Logic, reason and science all tell us that Christianity is little more than a fairytale adopted as true by the masses (and regardless of your opinion of Dan Brown, Constantine's roll in the spread of Christianity is unquestionable). Why otherwise intelligent people seem to believe it still baffles me tbh.

Sleepy

Excelsior wrote:

Witty arrogance is what makes you so attractive.

In TC's defence, the same could be said of Oscar Wilde or Stephen Fry

Sleepy

Excelsior wrote:

I need a plausible argument. Science says absolutely nothing against the claim that Jesus rose from the dead.

I think you'll find that Science says it's impossible for *anyone* to rise from the dead three days after being confirmed as dead.

Excelsior

Sleepy, Corinthian and gach duine ar fad, forgive for continuing my unreasonable belief in the risen Jesus over the Jesus twin theory.

Corinthian, I have never imposed empirical standards on anyone. I think you have misunderstood me.

The proposal you give for the 2nd point is like Christianity if Christianity is a one sentence-able fairy tale. Instead, it is a belief system grounded in historical events. Strip context and historical rigour from the scenario and you might have a comparison.

The Roman Empire embraced Christianity with Constantine and quickly rejected it with Julian- the truth of the situation is more appropriately phrased in terms of the momentum of Christianity becoming so strong that the Romans had to embrace it. This led to a great deal of dreadful things but claiming that Christianity has more to do with Constantine than with Christ is absurd.

Let me say it clearly then in terms of New Advent- it is not an academic source and it in no way references any serious or contemporarily held views regarding the authorship of John or the age of John. The debate about Johanine texts is to do with the non-Synoptic style of writing, the philosophising and the imagery- can they be regarded as historical. The whole debate, most publiclitly laden in the Jesus Seminar is about whether the John Gospel is history in the same way as the Synoptics.

If I say something is "widely known" and "well broadcast", there is no contradiction. Those who wish to geniunely investigate Magdalene will very quickly find the source of such stories. Such stories and their genesis are not on the secondary school curriculum and are not featured in government publications posted to every house, yet everyone in the field will quickly become familiar with it.

I do take the apostle John as more trustworthy than Mel Gibson, you have me pegged there.

As far as sources are concerned, let's look at why I was so sure that Roman soldiers lanced the crucified if they were to be buried. Quintillian was the Roman writer who filled us in on that independent of the Gospel account. In relation to the early church's charity, we see from among many others the aforementioned Julian moan about it in his letters. How broad do you want to go?

While an assertion of fact is a faith statement, it is an entirely different faith statement to "Jesus loves me this I know, cos the Bible told me so", as explicitly qualified.

Mohammed was a great figure but he wasn't in Jerusalem over Easter. Of course there are skeptical works against the risen Christ claims but my argument has been that there is a fascinating absence of conflicting works- nobody has questioned the accounts who was close to the events.

TC wrote:

Spare me your self-deprecatory justifications for avoiding uncomfortable discussions.

I didn't mean to be self-deprecatory when I complimented you.

Manach

From memory, there is a doctrine that stated Jesus had a dual nature, both God and man. As science deals with observations from discernable facts do you wish to withhold judgement on the rising, until we find another such unique sample?

Sleepy

Science typically holds that something is not true until it's proven to be so.

At present it is held that resurrection from the dead after three days is impossible. It would take a scientific proof of a case of that magnitude to convince me of even *that* much of the catholic faith and even at that, it still wouldn't prove the existence of a deity, merely the fact that there is an infinitessamally small proportion of the historical population of the earth that can escape death.

I've no idea of the historical number of people who have lived on this earth but I know it's in the trillions (at the least). How someone can seriously suggest that one person amongst this number cheated death purely because they've been told so since birth baffles me. If you were never told that Santa Claus wasn't a fairytale would you still believe in him?

rsynnott

Sleepy wrote:

I've no idea of the historical number of people who have lived on this earth but I know it's in the trillions (at the least). How someone can seriously suggest that one person amongst this number cheated death purely because they've been told so since birth baffles me. If you were never told that Santa Claus wasn't a fairytale would you still believe in him?

Actually, it's estimated at only about 100billion, I think. Giant world populations are recent.

But yes, people are willing to believe ridiculous things on little or no evidence because people they trust tell them it is so, or just because they want to believe. Homeopathy, the lunatic end of the audiophile industry, stickers that prolong battery life, mobile phone signals as death rays, fortune telling... lots of things.

Of course, most people have no real conception of how, say, electricity works, either. The difference is, that if they want, they can go and find out about it, see for themselves. People believe without question that Intel's unexpected problems with their recent processors are largely due to Quantum Tunnelling (which is just plain MAGIC by most standards); but even that is checkable... Noone who claimed that it was really caused by goblins would be taken at all seriously.

Oddly, some people seem more willing to believe in the unprovable than the provable; compare many people's faith in homeopathy to their distrust of real medicine.

Excelsior

Sleepy, I appreciate where you are coming from but I have tried my best in the very limited forum of an internet bulletin board to outline some of the reasoning that informs a considered Christianity.

Jesus never claimed to be a man like me or Manach, he never claimed to even be a sage or cynic like the role The Corinthian plays on these boards but was always working off the assumption that he was the Son of God. He doesn't claim that anyone else will be able to do what he did. So I find it hard to conceive where scientific testing comes into the equation.

There are a great deal of things that we all accept as truth even though science has nothing to say into them. I don't just mean airy-fairy ****e like the value of every individual human let's all hold hands, but even the relationships that form the very fabric of your existence are extra-scientific. To demand a scientific testing for everything (which I don't think you are doing) would be to dismiss all other routes to truth. Philosophers would be sacked from their McDonalds and Burger King positions immediately!

Santa and Christ do not come into the same category and to claim that they do either shows a wilful refusal to investigate the data as it is or an unthinking ignorance that couldn't exist after a few informed conversations and a handful of books.

Zombrex

The point is that the Bible is not proof or evidence that Jesus actually rose from the dead, anymore than talk radio is proof or evidence that asylum seekers get allowances for cars (they don't). Even in this modern time with high tech access to information and news urban myths continue to develop all the time. You will meet people who say that they know for a fact that asylum seekers get "entertainment" money, that is completely incorrect. 2000 years ago you would probably meet people who know for a fact that Jesus walked out of his tomb...

The argument that a load of people claim they saw him do it therefore he probably did does not stand up. The descriptions of the event were written decades after the event, in a time where recording things was not as sophisticated as it is now. Word of mouth was largely used to record these events until they were eventually written down.

If you believe Jesus is the son of God then when you read he rose from the dead you would tend to believe that. But the fact that it was written down 2000 years ago that he did is not evidence he did, and I don't think would convince anyone who doesn't already believe he is the son of God.

I am not trying to convince you it didn't happen, just responding to the idea that the Bible proves it did happen. It doesn't, you have to believe in Christianity first to believe it happened. If you don't believe there is nothing in the Bible that would convince you otherwise

The Corinthian

Excelsior wrote:

Sleepy, Corinthian and gach duine ar fad, forgive for continuing my unreasonable belief in the risen Jesus over the Jesus twin theory.

I have never postulated any ‘Jesus twin theory’.

Corinthian, I have never imposed empirical standards on anyone. I think you have misunderstood me.

You imposed standards of logic, sating that you required proof of non-existence and then refused to be bound by any standards of logic yourself.

The proposal you give for the 2nd point is like Christianity if Christianity is a one sentence-able fairy tale. Instead, it is a belief system grounded in historical events. Strip context and historical rigour from the scenario and you might have a comparison.

Actually my point was precisely related to the context and historical rigour from the scenario. It is you who are happy to overlook them and take Christianity at face value.

The Roman Empire embraced Christianity with Constantine and quickly rejected it with Julian- the truth of the situation is more appropriately phrased in terms of the momentum of Christianity becoming so strong that the Romans had to embrace it. This led to a great deal of dreadful things but claiming that Christianity has more to do with Constantine than with Christ is absurd.

Rejected briefly by Julian and then again adopted again, largely because of infighting between the various noble families in Rome rather than its perceived popularity. After all, similar moves were attempted by Christians in the Persian Empire, but without political patronage, they failed.

Let me say it clearly then in terms of New Advent- it is not an academic source and it in no way references any serious or contemporarily held views regarding the authorship of John or the age of John. The debate about Johanine texts is to do with the non-Synoptic style of writing, the philosophising and the imagery- can they be regarded as historical. The whole debate, most publiclitly laden in the Jesus Seminar is about whether the John Gospel is history in the same way as the Synoptics.

I’m sorry, but given a choice on academic sources between your opinion and a source of information backed by a major religion, I’ll go for the latter first.

If I say something is "widely known" and "well broadcast", there is no contradiction.

If you say something is “widely known” and then begin to backtrack by saying that it “may not be well known” is.

I do take the apostle John as more trustworthy than Mel Gibson, you have me pegged there.

The problem is that he’s not. There’s no real evidence to say that he was even the apostle John for that matter, let alone the veracity of his accounts.

As far as sources are concerned, let's look at why I was so sure that Roman soldiers lanced the crucified if they were to be buried. Quintillian was the Roman writer who filled us in on that independent of the Gospel account. In relation to the early church's charity, we see from among many others the aforementioned Julian moan about it in his letters. How broad do you want to go?

Outside of verifying the existence of early Christians, which nobody here denies, where exactly did Quintillian or Julian independently verify anything?

While an assertion of fact is a faith statement, it is an entirely different faith statement to "Jesus loves me this I know, cos the Bible told me so", as explicitly qualified.

A faith statement is a faith statement regardless of where it comes from and claiming you don’t want to make a faith statement but will make an assertion of fact is just playing with words.

Mohammed was a great figure but he wasn't in Jerusalem over Easter. Of course there are skeptical works against the risen Christ claims but my argument has been that there is a fascinating absence of conflicting works- nobody has questioned the accounts who was close to the events.

Most, if not all, of the Gospels were written by individuals who were not in Jerusalem over Easter while we’re at it.

But that’s hardly the point, you claimed that there had not been dissenting gospels and I pointed out one (and that’s before we consider the numerous apocryphal works - that we even know of).

So your assertion that there is a “fascinating absence of conflicting works” is false; there are plenty of them. And Islam, for example, is based on one.

I didn't mean to be self-deprecatory when I complimented you.

I don’t believe you meant to compliment me.

Excelsior

The Corinthian wrote:

You imposed standards of logic, sating that you required proof of non-existence and then refused to be bound by any standards of logic yourself.

If logic is defined as agreeing with you or being convinced by you then I have been illogical. But there is nothing illogical in what I have argued.

TC wrote:

Rejected briefly by Julian and then again adopted again, largely because of infighting between the various noble families in Rome rather than its perceived popularity. After all, similar moves were attempted by Christians in the Persian Empire, but without political patronage, they failed.

If Constantine has had more influence in Christianity as you have argued than Christ, then the fanatical paganism of the very next emperor would pose a problem to your theory. Let us stay on topic here- you have argued that Constantine is more important to Christianity as a movement than Jesus. This is absurd.

TC wrote:

I’m sorry, but given a choice on academic sources between your opinion and a source of information backed by a major religion, I’ll go for the latter first.

Again, let us stay on topic. In an effort to prove that John's Gospel may have been written 3 generations after the most liberal Jesus Seminar theorises it was written, you quoted a Catholic mouthpiece who discussed the opinions of 200 year old Catholic theories on John and then concluded that it was written in 96AD. I would not be willing to advise friends to cite New Advent as a source in an academic paper. Failure would ensue.

The New Advent site doesn't even state that the Gospel of John might have been written in 165AD but was misread by you. What it actually references is a commentary on John written in 165AD, thus clearly proving that such a late date is impossible.

The fact remains that scholars agree on a 90s AD date for John. As far as John's authorship is concerned, I admitted in the first posting on this maze like discussion that I could well have just not familiarised myself with discussions about multiple or non-John authorship but that all I have read is secure to say that John is by John. I would love a magazine article or book or website reference to learn about this theory.

TC wrote:

If you say something is “widely known” and then begin to backtrack by saying that it “may not be well known” is.

Indeed, I agree. But I didn't say that. I said it was widely known and then said it was widely broadcast.

TC wrote:

Outside of verifying the existence of early Christians, which nobody here denies, where exactly did Quintillian or Julian independently verify anything?

Quintillian verifies that a disputed aspect of the Gospel account is ture. Julian, like many others, sheds light on the early church by sharing his opinions and these opinions corroborate the NT accounts.

TC wrote:

A faith statement is a faith statement regardless of where it comes from and claiming you don’t want to make a faith statement but will make an assertion of fact is just playing with words.

In a Humian sense, I can still make qualitative assessment sof the value of the faith-based statement, such that empirically supported beliefs have more appeal to undisputed universiality than a religious belief. While the claim "The earth revolves around the sun" remains strictly faith-based, we recognise that the category of faith is entirely different than a statement such as "The homeopathic remedy cured my cancer" which in turn is very different to the statment "Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah".

TC wrote:

Most, if not all, of the Gospels were written by individuals who were not in Jerusalem over Easter while we’re at it.

We have reason to think that Matthew and John (and maybe John Mark) were, in that we have reason to think they were either disciples or apostles of Jesus. But where do you draw this comment from?

TC wrote:

So your assertion that there is a “fascinating absence of conflicting works” is false; there are plenty of them. And Islam, for example, is based on one.

Islam is a skeptical report. I clarified earlier in the thread that I meant to distinguish a skeptical record (of which there are many) from a conflicting record (which would be a record written by someone at or near the events).

TC wrote:

I don’t believe you meant to compliment me.

At the risk of annoying you, I think you are witty and that wittiness comes with a certain arrogance that makes reading your responses very enjoyable.

Wicknight wrote:

The point is that the Bible is not proof or evidence that Jesus actually rose from the dead, anymore than talk radio is proof or evidence that asylum seekers get allowances for cars (they don't).

Wicknight, I should clarify that I don't intend to pass the Bible off as undeniable proof that Jesus walks. Instead, I do hope to simply defend it as an authoritative classical work of history, the best supported that we have.

Accepting that the NT has historical value is not the same as accepting Christ, the Lamb who was slain as your personal Lord and Saviour yadda yadda yadda. Accepting the NT has a valid classical historical text does not mean that you have to accept each verse as God's inerrantly transmitted utterance.

Instead, it means honestly surveying the data at hand and accepting that there is a lot more to do this than the default opinion within our society gives to it.

On the asylum issue, I think your analogy is faulty because at most the racist lies promulgated on the likes of the Adrian Kennedy Phone Show lead to harsh words and violent attacks on immigrants. History shows us that it doesn't take much for humans to get angry and aggressive.

Yet with the fairy-tale of Christ's resurrection, supporters by their thousands forsake entirely their world views and created a movement that was a revolutionary force for good (and I know full well that this went wrong but leave it aside for a second so I can finish my point ). They were willing to die by their bucketloads for it. Any crazy story can incite violence, aggression and barriers in the hearts and minds of people. A very good political theory can encourage some martyrs and some really great communal behaviour. But the Christian movement was not a political one and didn't encourage some martyrs and some good but a great deal of it and it also demanded a complete rejection of previous identity, unlike many political ideologies.

Be clear that I am not trying to say "ooh the Church was perfect, get yourself rebaptised boy!". Instead I just intend to show that the movement of Christianity can't be explained by comparing it to Santa Claus or the asylum seeker myths. If this is a myth, it is a much more interesting one than you are giving it credit for.

One final word, as I have to go away with work for a while and this thread will probably be dead by my return. I am sorry if I got side-tracked in Christ-is-God discussions not only because it is annoying for others to read through that but also because my point isn't that Christianity is an undeniable logical force that you can't resist (because it isn't) but that the New Testament has a great deal of value as a historical document that gets ignored.

Fysh

Excelsior wrote:

One final word, as I have to go away with work for a while and this thread will probably be dead by my return. I am sorry if I got side-tracked in Christ-is-God discussions not only because it is annoying for others to read through that but also because my point isn't that Christianity is an undeniable logical force that you can't resist (because it isn't) but that the New Testament has a great deal of value as a historical document that gets ignored.

If we're talking about the same NT that contains the Book of Revelations, then I concur. If nothing else, it proves that hallucinogens have been kicking around (at least on Patmos) since waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. And if Jesus didn't make a commandment against taking mushrooms, that means he must approve of them! Right?

Right?

(Yeah, ok, I'm just kidding around....don't mind me)

(On a faintly serious note, it could be argued that the NT is valid only insofar as it shows what people thought was happening, not necessarily what was actually happening. Although this can be said about any historical source, it does become rather more relevant when the source in question is discussing a document reporting gross violations of accepted scientific rules.)

Zombrex

Excelsior wrote:

Instead, I do hope to simply defend it as an authoritative classical work of history, the best supported that we have.

The Bible is a very very weak historical document, and should be viewed as such. Because it is one of the few remaining docuements from that time doesn't change that fact.

It was written not as an historical document but as a teaching/propaganda tool for a religion. That instantly diminsishes its autority as a historical text. Secondly it was written decades after the events it descibes, again severly weaking its authority as a historical document.

Purely from a historical point of view it would be very hard to trust or assume anything described in the Bible actually happened without corroborative external evidence.

Excelsior wrote:

But the Christian movement was not a political one and didn't encourage some martyrs and some good but a great deal of it and it also demanded a complete rejection of previous identity, unlike many political ideologies.

Well even in this modern world full of science and logic you find groups of people willing to commit mass suicide because they believe a UFO from a commet is going to take them home to heaven.

A large number of people follow the Hindu religion, that has nothing to do with the Judaism/Christian/Islamic history and belief structure. Does that mean they are more or less "right" than Christians?

Because a large group of people follow a religion (some fanatically) it doesn't really prove either way the validity of that religions beliefs.

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

The Bible is a very very weak historical document, and should be viewed as such. Because it is one of the few remaining docuements from that time doesn't change that fact.

The Bible as a whole is not meant to be a historical text. In terms of author's intention, only 5 books in the whole Bible are certainly meant to be a historical record of events as they happened and all of them are in the NT.

The huge remaining deposit of NT texts does weigh heavily on any assessement of its value as a carrier of historical detail and to disregard that is, I think, to be very narrow minded.

Wicknight wrote:

It was written not as an historical document but as a teaching/propaganda tool for a religion. That instantly diminsishes its autority as a historical text. Secondly it was written decades after the events it descibes, again severly weaking its authority as a historical document.

You are applying categories of writing to the Roman era that are suspect at best. The way a history book is written today by say, Joe Lee is entirely different to a historical text from 2000 years ago. There are entirely different methodologies.

But seperate even from that, we know that much of the NT is written to instruct. The Pauline letters, for example, reveal implicit historical data of great worth just as a feature piece in a newspaper whose primary purpose is not historical in the modern sense will leave valuable historical data for the future. Then there are sections of the NT that are clearly not intended to be viewed in such ways, such as Revelations. And then there are sections that are very definitely written with the intention of recording events as they happened. The Gospels, specifically the Synoptics fall into this category.

Now regardless of whether the Gospel stories regarding Jesus are trustworthy in a modern understanding of history (which is not as cut and dried a proposition as sometimes it is assumed to be), the Gospels are a mine of data of great historical worth that may be incidental to the intentions of the evangelists. I am not arguing that the NT is an authority to the extent of undeniability, but that of all the ancient texts, it is the most profitable in terms of historical insight.

To claim that as something was written decades after the event it can't serve as history is harebrained. I am giving this book away since it can't possibly be historically valid.

Finally, I am not talking about the Bible but the New Testament.

Wicknight wrote:

Purely from a historical point of view it would be very hard to trust or assume anything described in the Bible actually happened without corroborative external evidence.

It would be a strange and unrigourous approach that intends to study a text without referencing the contemperaneous texts. One of the most under-accepted aspects of this discussion is that the corroborative evidence lines up to a surprising extent.

Wicknight wrote:

Well even in this modern world full of science and logic you find groups of people willing to commit mass suicide because they believe a UFO from a commet is going to take them home to heaven.

So large numbers of people can very easily be convinced to do destructive things. How do you explain the very rare phenomenon of people rejecting their identities for positive purposes?

Excelsior

Just one final note, the belief in progress so that somehow we are now in a world "full of science and logic" where previously humans were not logical is a fallacy.

Any assessment of the most logical and science-booned century, our last, would show you that the destructive instinctive illogic of humankind has been sharpened and not controlled by the technological explosion.

Let me put it this way, are you somehow more capable of discerning truth or applying logic than someone from 1005AD or 0005AD? Discounting the mountainous extra data at your disposal, you are in no way more intellectually capable than a Brehon Irishman from pre-Norman times. The idea that you have an intellectual advantage by dint of your fortuitous placement on the chronology of civilisation is flawed.

Manach

Well, Excelsior is off, so the team reserves have been called up

In my experience, the Bible has been used in University courses as an indication of how people embraced or rejected the culture of the Roman Empire. Fysh mentions the Book of Revelations: this has been sited as the one of the best ancient texts which articulate opposition to the corruption of an oppressive and arrogant elite.
The rather colourful language used is an idiom (which was widespread in the Meditarean during that period) that was used to predict the fall of the Empire.

Offhand, I can time of only one historical source of that period that was written as the actual events were occurring, and that would be Caesar’s “Gallic Wars”. But in common with all sources, it was written with its own in-built bias.

As for being “right”, forgive me for thinking that there are many ways to achieve a Religious truth. The great strength of science, is that observable data can be gathered into fundamental laws, but humans do not so easily fall into such neat categorisations.
A Christian/Catholic belief is that everybody has the grace to be saved, but it is because of the humanity that was present in Jesus.

mycroft

Excelsior wrote:

Let me put it this way, are you somehow more capable of discerning truth or applying logic than someone from 1005AD or 0005AD? Discounting the mountainous extra data at your disposal, you are in no way more intellectually capable than a Brehon Irishman from pre-Norman times. The idea that you have an intellectual advantage by dint of your fortuitous placement on the chronology of civilisation is flawed.

I do however have a vast amount of data at my disposal, and a greater understanding of how my environment works.

I understand why the sun rises and sets, and seasons happen. I don't have to rely on religion to justify how we all got here.

Fysh

mycroft wrote:

I do however have a vast amount of data at my disposal, and a greater understanding of how my environment works.

I understand why the sun rises and sets, and seasons happen. I don't have to rely on religion to justify how we all got here.

Thank you for saying what I was going to say.

The whole point of science and the scientific endeavour is to allow us to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and see further than was previously possible and further our knowledge. Religions, being static by virtue of being defined in ancient texts, cannot grow and adapt without some fancy explanations by leaders and so end up having to make excuses of one sort or another when the contents or claims of their texts are challenged by new scientific theories and data.

TBH none of us have claimed to be more intelligent or intellectually proficient than those in biblical times. Nice try and deflecting our arguments though. What we've been saying is that, through our distilled understanding of the months and years of effort of those who went before us we are in a better position to try and understand any phenomenon described and discuss its merits and likelihoods of happening. I don't see how you can claim that this is not the case; especially not when the scientific notions we have been passed generally all come with details of the experiments which led to their formation, thus enabling us to test them to our own satisfaction.

The Corinthian

Excelsior wrote:

If logic is defined as agreeing with you or being convinced by you then I have been illogical. But there is nothing illogical in what I have argued.

It has nothing to do with agreeing with me or not. It has to do with asking people to provide proof and then suggesting that you do not require the same of yourself.

If Constantine has had more influence in Christianity as you have argued than Christ, then the fanatical paganism of the very next emperor would pose a problem to your theory. Let us stay on topic here- you have argued that Constantine is more important to Christianity as a movement than Jesus. This is absurd.

The attempt to return to paganism by Julian was short-lived - his reign lasted only two years. Jovian, who succeeded him was Christian and he reinstated the Christian direction started by Constantine. Had Julian’s reign been longer or had successive pagan emperors succeeded him, your assertion might have some currency. As this was not the case, Julian’s policies had limited influence on the already established state religion.

History is littered with religions that have risen and fallen once more. Typically, one of the determining factors is that they gain support from the State, and in this regard it is undeniable that Constantine’s adoption of Christianity as the religion of the State significantly helped it to thrive. Otherwise there is no reason to believe that Christianity would not have eventually fallen in popularity and disappeared from history like any of the other cults and faiths that Rome saw in her imperial history.

To this add that we do not know if Jesus really had any input into Christianity. A combination of unreliable third hand accounts and the subsequent Pauline slant to the New Testament is such that it is even questionable that Jesus had any input into what we now call Christianity.

So in all practical terms Constantine was most likely much more influential to Christianity than Jesus.

Again, let us stay on topic. In an effort to prove that John's Gospel may have been written 3 generations after the most liberal Jesus Seminar theorises it was written, you quoted a Catholic mouthpiece who discussed the opinions of 200 year old Catholic theories on John and then concluded that it was written in 96AD. I would not be willing to advise friends to cite New Advent as a source in an academic paper. Failure would ensue.

You claimed that there is no decent with regard to the veracity of the fourth gospel. I demonstrated dissent. You now are attempting to invalidate that decent because you dislike the source quoted (you can find the same information in non-Catholic sources, BTW) and the age of the decent.

Yet throughout this all, you have failed to provide evidence to back up your own claims. Funny that.

The New Advent site doesn't even state that the Gospel of John might have been written in 165AD but was misread by you. What it actually references is a commentary on John written in 165AD, thus clearly proving that such a late date is impossible.

Actually I didn’t misread it, I was just working from memory and got it wrong (AD 160 was the correct year). But just to show that such dissent (which you claimed does not exist) is out there a quick Google got me this.

The fact remains that scholars agree on a 90s AD date for John.

The fact remains that this is not a fact. I’ve demonstrated that scholars do not agree and you have not presented any evidence to back up your assertion.

Indeed, I agree. But I didn't say that.

You’ll find you did. Hence the quotes.

Quintillian verifies that a disputed aspect of the Gospel account is ture.

Where does he say this?

Julian, like many others, sheds light on the early church by sharing his opinions and these opinions corroborate the NT accounts.

Where does he say this?

In a Humian sense, I can still make qualitative assessment sof the value of the faith-based statement, such that empirically supported beliefs have more appeal to undisputed universiality than a religious belief. While the claim "The earth revolves around the sun" remains strictly faith-based, we recognise that the category of faith is entirely different than a statement such as "The homeopathic remedy cured my cancer" which in turn is very different to the statment "Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah".

That has no relevance to you playing with words earlier. Outside of being another attempt to play with words, that is.

We have reason to think that Matthew and John (and maybe John Mark) were, in that we have reason to think they were either disciples or apostles of Jesus. But where do you draw this comment from?

From the fact that the authorship of the Gospels and that the integrity of the original texts is disputed.

Islam is a skeptical report. I clarified earlier in the thread that I meant to distinguish a skeptical record (of which there are many) from a conflicting record (which would be a record written by someone at or near the events).

Actually most of the apocryphal Gospels such as of Mary, Thomas, the Egyptians and Pistis Sophia would disagree significantly.

At the risk of annoying you, I think you are witty and that wittiness comes with a certain arrogance that makes reading your responses very enjoyable.

And I do not believe that this was the meaning behind your earlier comment.

Let me put it this way, are you somehow more capable of discerning truth or applying logic than someone from 1005AD or 0005AD? Discounting the mountainous extra data at your disposal, you are in no way more intellectually capable than a Brehon Irishman from pre-Norman times. The idea that you have an intellectual advantage by dint of your fortuitous placement on the chronology of civilisation is flawed.

The rules of logic have not changed, so no we are not more capable of discerning truth or applying logic than someone from 1005AD or 2005AD. However the flaw of logic is that it is axiomatic and if we make false assumptions then no matter how perfect our logic is, our conclusions will inevitably be false. And in this regard we are probably in a better position to discern truth.

Your problem in this discussion is you have been attempting to sit in two camps; one of faith and one of cold reason. Your axioms are essentially based on faith, and so you fall into the trap of attempting to justify premises that you accepted before applying reason. Your logic is perfect thereafter; unfortunately it is these axioms that are being challenged.

bus77

mycroft wrote:

I do however have a vast amount of data at my disposal, and a greater understanding of how my environment works.

So do trekies. But nevertheless you still get in-depth enjoyment of fiction.

tomireland

Muslum scum on here slagging the catholic church. We all know yer agenda! Filth!

goin'_to_the_PS

your not backing up anything you say, why do you feel there filth

rsynnott

Oh, don't worry about him, he's some sort of troll thing. He just posted on the LGBT board with the "AIDS is a punishment from god" ****e.

tomireland

Everyone knows yer Muslum scum here to convert!

rsynnott

tomireland wrote:

Everyone knows yer Muslum scum here to convert!

No, no, I'm not a fan of any Abrahamic religion, to be honest

goin'_to_the_PS

tomireland wrote:

Everyone knows yer Muslum scum here to convert!

you clearly are not a member of any religion(like me) if you were you'ld realise that to judge someone is a sin

rsynnott

goin'_to_the_PS wrote:

you clearly are not a member of any religion(like me) if you were you'ld realise that to judge someone is a sin

It's funny how often the obstensibly religious forget that one. And the whole love for your fellow man thing. And in fact ALL the good elements of christianity.

tomireland

also pagans who have no morality..

goin'_to_the_PS

pagans are nearly non exsistant....

tomireland

pagans are nearly non exsistant....

True. Thank God for that