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Atheism causes creationism
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Eh what? Where did I argue that people don't follow discredited religions?! I said that I agree that people are frequently fooled by false belief systems. In fact this might be the third time saying it.
And yet you keep making the argument that Christianity wasn't refuted because if it was we wouldn't have any Christians.How many dead Scientologists? What I'm talking about are those who died for Christianity who were in a position to know whether it was a lie or not. Can you say the same about Scientology followers? How about Jim Jones?
Yes, you can.
Jim Jones for a start knew he wasn't magical. And he shot himself.
His inner circle knew that he was faking his powers because they helped him do it. And they killed themselves and their children.
And then you have all the believers who did not witness the frauds first hand but of course we exposed to all the information in the media at the time discrediting Jones and his practices. And they killed themselves and their children.
This is far more significant than allowing yourself to be killed, since it takes acknowledgement that you are certainly going to die, where as being executed people always hold out hope they will be rescued, even if it is by an angel sent by God.No need to get on the high horse there. Trust me when I say that forum posts on the internets do not really have the capacity to piss me off
Which only makes the assertion I made all the stronger.
Your posts have got increasingly snotty and aggressive as your reasoning has been discredited.Again you may be missing the point. I'm referring to historical analysis of evidence and testimony, backed up in many cases by scholarly research (much of which gets the stamp of approval from confirmed atheist scholars, mind). How can you possibly compare this to the fact that Hubbard was a 'real person'? The claims that Hubbard made are patently made up because there is zilcho evidence for them.
The only evidence for the claims made by Hubbard are the testimony of those who believed those claims.
The only evidence for the claims made by Jesus and his followers are the testimony of those who believed those claims.
I asked you for a non-Christian source supporting the events around the cruxification and the resurrection. Do you have one?A bit facetious here no? I'm just gonna have to ask you to not bring Scientology into it any more for the reasons I've pointed out already....
What, because it is devastating to your arguments? Yes, that is a reason to stop mentioning Scientology..So you don't think it's odd you don't have too much material from that time refuting it no?!
Not in the slightest, Jesus was utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of the Roman occupation. I would no more expect a historian to detail the manner in which he was executed than I would expect an historian to detail the manner in which all the other people on crosses on the same day were executed. There were hundreds of people claiming to be the Jewish messiah in that period (common in times of occupation), many of who lead much bigger and more historically significant groups who lead rebellions against the Romans, who only get passing footnotes in historical records.
Historians only started noticing Christianity decades after the events when the cult had grown to numbers that made it worthy of notice, and even then as Robin pointed out, Christianity was simply lumped in with all the other similar size cults that sprung up all the time in Rome.
Please feel free to give the non-New Testament source for the events surrounding Jesus execution and resurrection.Not talking about the New Testament?
You have no idea if it was refuted or not. Your justification for claiming it wasn't refuted was that if it was we wouldn't have any Christians because they would have all stopped believing after it had been refuted.But it wasn't refuted, and yes it wouldn't because the earliest believers were in a position to easily find out if it was refuted, or could be refuted? You know, there were thousands of people living back then in 33AD or so?
As has been pointed out to you this is clearly not the case.Pontius Pilate ruled from 28AD - 36AD. So he ruled for 4 years after Jesus died. Wouldn't he have had something to say about these resurrection stories at the time?
Who would Pilate say that too? A tiny underground cult who were in hiding because their leader had just been executed?
Explain to me the circumstances that Pilate even finds out that the early Christians believe their messiah rose from the dead, and why he would care at all about disputing that?
You think Pilate is sitting around in a time filled to the brim with Jewish messiah cults thinking Man I better dispute that Christian one because even though right now they are a tiny handful of insignificant followers in 2,000 years they will be huge!
You are making the classic historical mistake of confusing something being significant now with people viewing it as significant then.Again this is where I would fear for the calibre of discussion going on here. 'Facts mean very little' ? Given it is impossible to discuss on a scientific basis, and historical analysis and analysis of written testimonial is necessarily based on facts, or those established as such, you're kinda putting yourself in a bind here, no?
You have been given tons of facts disputting your arguments. You have ignored every single one of them, going so far to say we shouldn't even mention Scientology again (cause lets be honest it is devastating to your arguments).
So you tell me Newsite, how rational and open to factual argument are Christians, now or then?
Name one secular historian who believes that the New Testament account of Jesus resurrection is historically reliable.I know you are a hardened atheist, but you do realise that many prominent secular historians and learned men completely affirm the Bible as authentic and reliable?Howard Vos, researcher {and Emeritus Professor of History and Archaeology from The King's College in New York} declares that: 'From the standpoint of literary evidence the only logical conclusion is that the case for the reliability of the New Testament is infinitely stronger than that for any other record of antiquity.'
Dr. Howard Vos is a "renowned evangelical scholar", who has written among other things a book on how Genesis can teach us about the "big questions" in life, along with a book explaining how to be a better Christian.
This is your example of a secular historian?Em no, but glad you bring up this example. If I'm in Mountjoy, and I die, and then 30 years later someone writes an essay saying I came back to life and that my body disappeared from the funeral home, and this is taken to be truthful and the idea spreads, I certainly would expect plenty of people who would have been alive when I was alive, and would have met me, to come forward and declare it a pack of lies!!
And how exactly would they do this if you only appeared to your followers?
The most they could say is that yes you existed and yes you died. It is only the believers who claim you came back to life, how would anyone dispute that 30 years later?
My great grandfather appeared to me after he died. Dispute this please. :rolleyes:0 -
As the poster mentions above, this all shows a certain naivete of which I have been already accused myself Do you really think Jesus would have come back and went about things that way and spoke in that way?!
There is a consistency of approach throughout the NT - just as He didn't make a big deal of the miracles He performed - and actively told people not to tell others about them, just as He spoke plainly to the apostles but in parables to the crowd - He wouldn't have appeared and reported back to the masses in this way either.
Ok forgive me Newsite and Peregrinus , I was obviously taking the piss when I digressed with my imaginary encounter between Jesus and Pilate, next time I will be sure to include this
But my point still stands concerning the resurrection and for that matter all the other miracles that had hundreds if not thousands of witnesses, the loaves and fishes, the marriage feast at Canaan. Of such wondrous happenings no mention in history. That is what is significant Newsite.0 -
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So 30 years later someone would dig up your body and go here, he is still here?
They could yes, extraordinary claims require evidence, right? And in the case of Jesus it is even easier - rolling a stone away from the entrance of a tomb, as opposed to digging a grave.The most common way of disposing of bodies after a cruxification was to throw them to wild animals. Why do you think there was a body in the first place?
I'm sorry Zombrex, but this is a bit of a clanger. The most common way of disposing bodies in Roman crucifixion was to leave the bodies on the cross until they disintegrated, so as to deter other would be offenders and make a statement. In some cases these bodies may have ended up being thrown to wild animals. But you're missing the context and scene in which these events happened. For the Jews, not burying a body was horrifying to them. It violated their law!! The first thing the Jews would have wanted to do would have been to get the body of Jesus off the cross before sundown (this was the eve of the Sabbath, remember) and buried asap. If they had sought to do otherwise, they would have been in violation of the law they sought to obey at all times! For a Jew, leaving a body out to decompose in the air meant defiling the land!
And Pilate would have been loath to do otherwise, even if He did feel Jesus should not have a burial. You think he would have wanted to upset the Jews in this particular scenario...?
Deuteronomy 21:22-24 And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.Yes I think Caesar existed, I also think Jesus probably existed. There are of course far more sources for Caesar than Jesus.
A better question was do I think Caesar paused before crossing the Rubicon. Possibly, but I certainly wouldn't assume that story is true given how few sources there are for it.
And you say I'm ignoring point being made Of course Caesar existed, to suggest otherwise would be silly. Just as we all agree Jesus existed, so did Caesar. That's not what I asked though.
I asked you; do you believe that Caesar conquered Gaul?Just so there isn't any "confusion" about what you are stating, you accept that just because Jesus existed doesn't make any of the elements of the story true, correct?
Yes I do accept that. I don't believe that because Jesus existed that everything written about him is true. But I do believe that to establish the facts we need to look at the evidence available, the context in which the events happened, and the motivations of all the parties involved within that context.And that just because his followers believed these supernatural elements doesn't make any of them true, correct?
Again, see above. It's not just about what they believed, it's about looking at the factors I mentioned above.
You will accept though, that the people writing the Gospels either knew Jesus first-hand, or knew people who knew Him first-hand? And that we have accounts dating from that period (25-30 years after the events happened is not a long time at all) describing all of the events, but nothing condemning them as false?0 -
Ok forgive me Newsite and Peregrinus , I was obviously taking the piss when I digressed with my imaginary encounter between Jesus and Pilate, next time I will be sure to include this
But my point still stands concerning the resurrection and for that matter all the other miracles that had hundreds if not thousands of witnesses, the loaves and fishes, the marriage feast at Canaan. Of such wondrous happenings no mention in history. That is what is significant Newsite.
No mention in history?! A book of works - the Bible - highly regarded by secular and religious historians alike throughout the ages, to this day? I mean, I know you're all atheists, but I think it's kinda laughable that you completely discredit it. And all of the writings recounting the works of the Bible?
But the really questions is 'why are there no writings' on all of these things - I know that's what you're really asking. You're falling into the trap here of viewing history through your 21st century lens. You have to remember that 95% of the population at that time, in that tiny corner of the Roman empire, could not read or write at all. Writing things down was not the done thing like it is now - people relied on oral communication. The tradition of that time was oral transmission, not writing every little thing down as we do today. This was impossible for the vast majority of people.
Also, the apostles and those who knew Jesus first-hand or second-hand were all still alive, and so nobody felt the need to write stuff down when you could just talk to people and rely on oral transmission. Another factor was that they likely felt that Jesus was going to return - after all, He had done it once!
Think of it - without considering the above, you'd probably think it odd that it took approx 20-25 years for the first Gospel to be written. But then, in addition to the above, think that the first Gospel was written at approximately the same time that those with first-hand accounts of the events were about to pass away!0 -
They could yes, extraordinary claims require evidence, right?
Er, they aren't making an extraordinary claim, the people who think you came back from the dead are. You seem to be saying that other people have to prove them wrong, as if that is even possible.And in the case of Jesus it is even easier - rolling a stone away from the entrance of a tomb, as opposed to digging a grave.
30 years later?I'm sorry Zombrex, but this is a bit of a clanger. The most common way of disposing bodies in Roman crucifixion was to leave the bodies on the cross until they disintegrated, so as to deter other would be offenders and make a statement.
Bodies don't "disintegrate". The bodies were eaten by birds and then feel off or were taken off the cross to be eaten by wild animals.But you're missing the context and scene in which these events happened. For the Jews, not burying a body was horrifying to them. It violated their law!! The first thing the Jews would have wanted to do would have been to get the body of Jesus off the cross before sundown (this was the eve of the Sabbath, remember) and buried asap.
The whole point of a cruxification is that the body is not buried. Taking down the body for burial was a rare exception often only carried out if the family of the prisoner was wealth. The authors of the Bible knew this, which is why they have the story of the wealthy official offering to take the body.
Whether that actually happened or not who knows.And you say I'm ignoring point being made Of course Caesar existed, to suggest otherwise would be silly. Just as we all agree Jesus existed, so did Caesar. That's not what I asked though.
I asked you; do you believe that Caesar conquered Gaul?
That would be what the historical records state. Are you suggesting he didn't?Yes I do accept that. I don't believe that because Jesus existed that everything written about him is true. But I do believe that to establish the facts we need to look at the evidence available, the context in which the events happened, and the motivations of all the parties involved within that context.
Ok. So given we can't trust the New Testament any more than we can trust the website of Scienology, what other sources for the resurrection can you present?Again, see above. It's not just about what they believed, it's about looking at the factors I mentioned above.
The New Testament is just about what they believe because it is a Christian source.
Can you offer any alternative, less bias, sources?You will accept though, that the people writing the Gospels either knew Jesus first-hand, or knew people who knew Him first-hand? And that we have accounts dating from that period (25-30 years after the events happened is not a long time at all) describing all of the events, but nothing condemning them as false?
I happily accept that.
Do you accept that all official works of Scientology are written by people who knew L. Ron Hubbard personally, or people who knew people who knew him?
And do you accept that there is nothing in the official records of Scientology that discredits Scientology?0 -
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