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How do you convince people god exists?
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So, you're wrong, and here's why.
Let's start with Josephus. As Bannasidhe points out, Josephus isn't a contempraneous source. He wasn't even born until 37CE and his first major work Jewish War wasn't written until the 70s CE. The text that supposedly mentions Jesus wasn't written until the 90s CE making it already later than the first two gospels. And the growing opinion is that the entire Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus is a forgery. There are a number of reasons for this. For those unfamiliar with the Testimonium and for ease of reference, here is the passage from Josephus:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. "
This passage is likely to be a forgery, for the following reasons.
Hi oldrnwisr
That's quite a reply, you clearly put a lot of research into it. However, I will have to disagree on many of your points. Let's take a look.
Many of the facts which you mention about Josephus are correct. I should have elaborated; I posted off the cuff. Josephus isn't reliable as a historian - he mentions a third wall in Jerusalem at the time of the Jewish War with Rome, and archaeologists have no evidence whatsoever of that wall. It has always been a matter of debate as to how much of Josephus' mention of Jesus is directly from his pen and how much interpolation. Scholars debate this: however my friend, in contrast, you seem to be very certain of your facts. It has been debated endlessly and could be debated endlessly. A few comments:
It is likely that the passage has been changed by Christians over the centuries, but it does not follow that Josephus made no reference to Jesus. If Christians interpolated the whole passage, why not make it more impressive? As it stands now, it is very modest, especially in relation to Josephus' treatment of John the Baptist. So an entire interpolation has that evidence against it.It's unlikely that the Roman audience Josephus is targeting in 93 CE would have understood the connection between Jesus and Christians.
Why not? We do, in fact, know, from documents of two decades later that Christians were already widespread, and these documents, (Tacitus' referring back to the 60's of the first century), already speak of large numbers of Christians in Rome. References are already given - both in Acts and in various other sources - of the expulsion of Jews from Rome in the 40's of the first century due to disputes caused by "Chrestos." This "Chrestos" may or may not refer to Jesus, but at least means that some sort of messianic sense (the Greek for "Messiah" being "Christos") was present in Rome thanks to its Jewish population, for half a century before Josephus wrote."If the Josephan reference to "performing surprising deeds" were authentic we would expect Origen to mention it."
Not necessarily: if Josephus' mention is short and uninteresting, then Origen might not have felt it worthwhile to mention. As for the comment that "Josephus had nothing but negativity for false messiahs which he would have concluded about Jesus", it is not necessarily true either, if Jesus, among all the other claimants, was outstanding, and especially if he had a name for a miracle worker rather than a rabble rouser.
In any case, though, Josephus is not solid ground to debate since it is perfectly correct that we do not know how much of it is interpolation and, in any case, how dependable Josephus is as a historian.
Much more interesting are the letter of Pliny to the Roman Emperor and Tacitus on the Lives of the Caesars, both of which make it clear that Christians are widespread in the Roman Empire within eight decades of the purported death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. If Tacitus is accurate in his description of a "huge number" of Christians being killed in Rome in the 60's of the first century, then Christianity spread very rapidly indeed. Did their religion, which resulted in many martyrs, and spread so quickly and widely, result from thin air? What parallel would there be in the history of the world to that? It takes a lot of credulity to imagine that such a religious movement could have grown so fervently and rapidly out of nothing but "legend." If, as you rightly say, the Gospels are written at least four decades after the life of Christ, is four decades long enough to give birth to a major religious movement based on a falsehood? Is eight decades? Is any amount of time? Are there any parallels to this in the history of the world that would make such a thought plausible?Now, we can continue to go through all of the supposed extrabiblical sources for Jesus, going through the reasons why they aren't the evidence that Christians claim them to be, but for the moment I think the points above serve as a lesson in not taking random references to Jesus at face value.
You are quite right to say that St. Paul, writing in the 40's to 60's of the first century, makes little reference to the life of Christ. He speaks only of his death and resurrection, the Last Supper (1Cor 11), and his birth from a woman (Gal 4). Which is not paltry. Nevertheless, since he does refer to Christ as a real historical person, your point that Paul's writings fail to support the historical existence of Jesus itself is self-contradictory.As for the scriptures, they also aren't reliable as evidence for a historical Jesus. Apart from their late composition, late manuscript evidence, internal and external contradictions, factual mistakes and borrowed stories, the gospels and Acts don't even read like historical accounts or eyewitness testimonies. There are several reasons for this.- The gospels make little or no attempt to identify the sources they draw upon in writing their stories. (e.g. Luke mentions that he draws on sources but does not name them)
- The later gospel authors make no attempt to resolve contradictions with earlier works (e.g. Luke makes no attempt to reconcile his nativity narrative with Matthew's)
- The author does not place himself in the story.
- The gospels are written for the common man rather than the social and literary elite audience of Greek and Roman histories/biographies.
- The gospels contain far too many hagiographical elements to be historically reliable.
- There is no attempt to warn the reader that certain events or words may not be recorded clearly. None of the gospel authors make any attempt to identify where they speculate on content.
- The interdependence of the gospels makes them unlike the historical writings of the time.
- Unusual events disappear from the wider narrative. The aftermath of the graves opening in Matthew is not discussed in any other text.
Moreover, the layout of the gospels themselves align better with fictional novels that of historical accounts. Mark, for example, employs dramatic irony and an omniscient narrator, uncharacteristic of a historical retelling. The gospels also employ dialogue at a much higher level than historical accounts of the day. Acts reports the highest usage with 51% of the overall text being made up of direct speech. The gospels have a slightly lower but similar proportion. This aligns well with Jewish novels of the day (Judith 50%, Susanna 46%) but stands in marked contrast to historical accounts and biographies: (Josephus’ Jewish War I: 8.8%, Plutarch’s Alexander: 12.1%; Tacitus’ Agricola: 11.5%).
As for the Gospels, they are certainly inconsistent and even at first glance contradictory in their accounts (they can be easily reconciled through a practice known as harmonisation, dating back to the times of the ancient Church Fathers). However, these inconsistencies in detail only serve to underline the consistency in the story more generally: it makes it clear that the Evangelists were not trying to construct a cover-up by quoting each other. And yet they are consistent in pointing to a man, whose origin is Nazareth, preacher and miracle worker, who drew crowds after him, who descended to Jerusalem, entered in triumph, was crucified, died, rose and ascended. The contradictions themselves point to the authenticity of the event, even as they show that the passage between event, oral tradition, and written word, was, as we would expect in a rapidly expanding religious movement, rocky in patches. Nevertheless, the one Jesus is recognisable in all four accounts amidst the inconsistencies of detail.Luke mentions that he draws on sources but does not name them
Not quite true: Luke speaks specifically of "eyewitnesses" and not just "sources."The author does not place himself in the story.
Not true: John twice refers to the author as an eyewitness. From Acts 16 on most of the Book of Acts is eyewitness material, both in the use of the first person plural in recounting the story and in the details of places given.The gospels are written for the common man rather than the social and literary elite audience of Greek and Roman histories/biographies.
So?:)The gospels contain far too many hagiographical elements to be historically reliable
How many hagiographical elements are "too many" if they are narrating the story of God Incarnate?Moreover, the layout of the gospels themselves align better with fictional novels that of historical accounts. Mark, for example, employs dramatic irony and an omniscient narrator, uncharacteristic of a historical retelling. The gospels also employ dialogue at a much higher level than historical accounts of the day.
Change of style doesn't change the historicity of the work. Each of the four Gospels has a different style ... what point does that make? And Acts has a different style from the Gospel according to Luke, although they come from the same pen and are of the same genre.The interdependence of the gospels makes them unlike the historical writings of the time
What does that mean? If the Gospels contain inconsistencies among themselves, to what degree are they interdependent? The most plausible answer is that their interdependence is not because they closely copy one another, but a joint interdependence on an event, which event you, my friend, are trying to deny. Since they clearly did not closely copy each other, they would then be interdependent on an event which ... wasn't an event? What sense does that make?As for your rewording of Lewis' trilemma of liar, lunatic or lord, I've always felt that Lewis left out one option from his original trilemma: legend. It is perfectly possible for Jesus to have been an obscure preacher who later had legends build up around him. It is also possible for Jesus to have been an entirely fictional character, made up out of whole cloth to fill a Jewish theological need. You see, there is the Jewish belief that the Jews are God's chosen people and that God is on their side. You also have the Jewish belief in the Messiah, a kind of immortal warlord who will turn the Jewish people into the rulers of the world, presiding over an era of perpetual peace. However, in reality its difficult to reconcile this self-image of God's chosen people with being overrun by the Roman empire and having the temple, which the Messiah was supposed to rebuild and resume sacrifices in, being destroyed. So, its possible that first century Jews adopted a revisionist idea of what the Messiah should be, just as second temple Judaism did after the Babylonian captivity.
I would argue that a tetralemma is impossible here. From the main sources we have about the historic Christ (Gospels and Paul), none of them claim that he was a guru, a good man, a leader. They all put words into his mouth that, in a way, make it all or nothing: he was God or he was a "bad man". To make it a tetralema would be akin to asserting that Neil Armstrong landed on Mars; based on the sources actually in our possession, the only [semi] reasonable debate you could have is whether he landed on the moon or nowhere at all. I do not get to put in my own variable. To quote Christopher Hitchens (yes, the Christopher Hitchens
):Absent a direct line to the Almighty and a conviction that the last days are upon us, how is it 'moral' [...] to claim a monopoly on access to heaven, or to threaten waverers with everlasting fire, let alone to condemn fig trees and persuade devils to infest the bodies of pigs? Such a person, if not Divine, would be a sorcerer and a fanatic.0 -
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Ty Straight Villa wrote: »What I have shown with the above arguments is that belief in God is reasonable and that Catholic claims are credible.
I don't think you've showed anything tbh.Ty Straight Villa wrote: »This requires faith - an assent of the mind to what God reveals about Himself. Moreover, this faith is a gift from God to those who want it.
I would describe it as a conscious decision to ignore the ridiculous nature of many of the claims religions make, and the complete lack of evidence for any of the claims religions make, in favour of what feels good to the person concerned - almost always the same or a slight variation of the religion that was put forward as true by the authority figures in their childhood.Jordan2077 wrote: »Ok so if you dont believe in God then what is good and bad, why dont we just make up good and bad for ourselves and do what we want?
But this is exactly what we all do.
Religious and non-religous alike.
It is always rather convenient for believers that their god dislikes all of the same kind of people that they do
why do we let other things create what is good and bad for us?
What other things?
If you mean laws, in a democratic society these are agreed by broad consensus by the lawmakers we elect, with the aim of providing for the greater good of society as a whole.
Infinitely preferable to having a god-man telling us the rules under which we all must live.If a cat kills a bird why is that not bad. But if a cat kills a human that is bad.
Presumably a big cat in the latter case!
No it's not bad. In both scenarios the animal is acting according to its nature and its instinct to hunt prey in order to eat. No doubt the bird and the human concerned regarded this as a bad thing, but it's a law of nature. Some days you're the hunter, some days you're the prey. Who considers the fate of the worm or insect the bird ate? And I fail to see what any of this has got to do with a god at all.What makes our life worth more than theirs?
Is it?Yet if any other creature or thing kills any other creature or thing it is not bad?
Killing to eat, whether by humans or any other creature is imho entirely justifiable.
Killing for fun, as humans and cats sometimes do, is much harder to justify.
But again, nothing to do with any god or religion.I believe in God but that is my own personal belief. I also don't really go to mass etc as I don't think it's necessary. Actions speak louder than a few words in a specific building.
That's rather... convenient, isn't it?
Does your god require you to do "good works" or give to charity or do anything at all, or is it all one way? You get the good feels and don't have to really do anything?Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.
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Hotblack Desiato wrote: »That's rather... convenient, isn't it?
Does your god require you to do "good works" or give to charity or do anything at all, or is it all one way? You get the good feels and don't have to really do anything?
I think you're possibly being a bit harsh. Mlem123 doesn't seem to have provided enough information to draw any conclusions, and as for criticising him/her for going for a "watered-down" version of religion, that's more the kind of thing I'd expect from other believers.
If Mlem's beliefs include not inflicting those beliefs on others, and not insulting the intelligence and/or morality of people who lack faith. then I'd say more of that kind of religion would be a good thing. Surely you'd agree?0 -
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