Validity of differing eyewitness accounts in religious texts

Prove the coins were minted in that particular time by those particular entities. Probably minted hundreds of years later. No proof in any case that they depict someone who ever lived. You have no way of proving this, therefore she never existed. All a myth invented by the aristocracy to give the people a national identity and keep them in line.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-02-2005 08:14 PM

Imagine that. You're deaf to parody. You don't even recognize the thinking of the majority of the idiots on this site whom I am parodying, very likely including yourself. Why would that matter? We all KNOW that nothing in history is true, especially if it's about unusual people or occurrences and certainly Cleopatra would be out of the ordinary if she had existed. You can't tell ANYTHING from what any expert says, or what is written about anything. It's ALL just the invention of people who want to dominate others. HAven't you learned that yet?That's the reasoning about Moses, you know, I'm simply playing by the rules of the scholarly game here. Nothing anybody has ever written about Moses is of any value whatever, you know, for showing that he existed. Volumes of material by and about him are all trash. Same with Cleopatra then. It follows. It's the accepted method. No mere coin can prove her existence if tons of writing about Moses as a historical figure can't prove his. Just because I don't think Cleopatra existed, of course. I'm sure she didn't, therefore the coins had nothing to do with a supposed time in which she supposedly did. It was no doubt all made up later to create a myth to keep the rabble in line.After all, this thinking would be in tune with the supposed "Bible scholars" who decided that Daniel couldn't have been written when it says it was written because he prophesied some things that actually came true. Therefore he had to have lived after the time of their fulfillment, just because they don't believe in prophecy. I mean, this is standard reasoning among today's sorry excuse for Bible "scholars." I'm simply following the rules. Therefore I don't believe in Cleopatra. You cannot prove she existed because nobody can prove anybody existed. So say you, but there's no evidence she existed at all, in that time or ever, so what difference does it make? Ah well, you know, people need bread and circuses no matter what times they live in, and in a time when they were losing their national identity what BETTER time to create a symbol for them. Maybe keep them from rebelling against Caesar or something. Isn't that what the Jews did with Moses and in fact their whole religion? Just make it all up to keep people in line? Clever inventors those Jews. Quite a character that Moses.This message has been edited by Admin, 05-02-2005 10:22 PM

Now apply your reasoning to Moses, Abraham, King David and Jesus Christ.For Jesus Christ you have a TON of evidence. All His followers from many nations under the Roman Empire of the time.You want to deny this is evidence? By Percy's Law then. If somebody believes it, we disqualify that person's testimony.And He attests to the other three.Also, take up the question of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan please. POint to writings about them.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-02-2005 09:47 PM

Really, no matter how you put it, it is BECAUSE they are believers that believers are doubted. Percy's Law reigns, only in degrees of sophistication, that's all. Gotta admit that the idea that an enemy would be more trusted than a believer is depressing beyond belief, but I shouldn't be surprised. Just surprising to encounter it in all its rawness sometimes. Uh huh, well, you see, the "problem" is that we have ONLY witness testimony to Moses, ONLY the writings of the Bible. Sure is a handicap given the presuppositions you lay out. All we have in the case of the Bible is archaeological evidence to various neighboring tribes, kings, locations, that were previously doubted. That's helpful for answering the persistent doubters, God's gift as a matter of fact and I'm very glad for it, but really, it is the witness testimony that is compelling and not these external things. These physical things are useful for those with weak faith but they will never make a believer out of an unbeliever because the whole plan is based on BELIEF, the "ear to hear" that Jesus talked about, which is, at a minimum, the ability to recognize the signs of -- the evidence for -- honesty, sincerity, integrity, truth versus the opposite, versus distortions. Yep. Thanks for the confirmation. The deck is stacked. Proof, if any was needed, that the way to God will never be found through the kinds of thinking you are describing. Well, that's what He actually says so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Uh huh, but ASSUMING in a given case that believer testimony is distorted is irrational, but I think in more cases than not this is in fact what is done. Whether there is distortion and what kind of distortion is involved is one of the things you have to determine from the evidence, but the problem is that when it comes to the Bible it is often ASSUMED that believer testimony can be dismissed. Uh huh, but most myths are pretty easy to identify AS myths. The Bible has NOTHING about it of the nature of myth. The idea is so absurd that it nearly literally makes me sick to hear people say such a thing. Uh huh, well, the "problem" with this is that *ALL* we have is words on paper for the Bible. That's it. You find them credible or you don't. That's OK. I don't think I'll be around much longer either.{EDIT: P.S. I guess the example of historians' also doubting the reality of Homer is supposed to show the objectivity of it all, but even that makes me sick. There is an epidemic of irrational doubting.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-03-2005 02:55 AM

Oh good, then at least I made an impact. Otherwise I'd just get dismissed as "charmingly naive" along with so many other poor fundy YECs who have stumbled into this place.Must say you play this game extremely well, Percy. I've sincerely admired your various moves in response to mine to achieve your ends here. You'd make a great diplomat -- or perhaps a great spy -- CIA, FBI etc.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-04-2005 12:16 AM

Not too bright there. I meant that YOU, personally, can't, and others of your general mental persuasion, not that ONE can't. I certainly can. I consider it easy to tell, for anybody with the basic smarts, feeling for character, etc.Alas, language is so ambiguous at times.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-04-2005 01:29 AM

We have a big disagreement here of course, since I consider your attacks on the Bible to be an example of the same problem I attribute to Mark24, an inability to judge authenticity, and a reliance on inappropriate tools for the job of judging the Bible.

The fact that so many have testified to the authenticity of this document for 3500 years, starting with those who were THERE at the TIME, means NOTHING to you, does it? You won't find anything like that for any other document in existence but you think your ponderings at such a great distance trump everything that came before, and this despite the fact that such ponderings don't have a great record of surviving archaeological discoveries that so often validate the Bible instead. The INTELLIGENT thing to do would be to distrust your PRESENT historical knowledge or put it on hold because of this massive testimony to the contrary, rather than putting such paltry current investigations on such a high pedestal.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-04-2005 11:33 AM

Just found this other record of your inability to read. YOU can't tell real history from fiction OR read a post apparently. Some of us CAN read and CAN tell real history from fiction etc. I hope you learn how, some day. Meanwhile it would behoove you to stop accusing people of hypocrisy based on your own stupidity.This message has been edited by Admin, 05-04-2005 12:13 PM

Well, but that's how I read it, and that's how it is taken by all the people I trust and admire, and that's how it has been taken throughout history. You've simply made it impossible to recognize the truth with all that studying you do about it.What is it that makes it possible to distinguish the history of Moses from Goldilocks? Basic intelligence would go a long way. Common sense. The ability to read. Or maybe it's just one of those things where the ordinary human mind is SO fallen it can't cope with such obvious stuff, in which case we must rely on God's help. If you can't recognize the stuff of reality when you read it, God help you indeed.Again, C.S. Lewis did a great job of discussing how the Bible is so far from anything like myth it takes a special kind of blindness to have such an idea.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-04-2005 11:48 AM

Nor I yours. We're even then. Sure I do. Moses himself, Joshua too. Again, testified to by the ages. 3500 years of serious Biblical study by great men is not "my assertions." Putting your tentative stuff at 3500 years remove up against that is outrageous nonsense.

Disappears? It gets clearer and stronger. Take off the blinders of the "scholarship" you are so addicted to. It isn't the truth. It's a big fat bunch of worldly fleshly hoohah. So you CAN tell the difference? Then YOU spell out the difference. What makes Attila the Hun different? Genghis Khan? Not true anyway, as I've suggested quite a few factors in passing. Here's another list: Witnesses, numbers of witnesses, credibility of witnesses, respectability of witnesses, also number and character of people who have found it credible and understood it to be true history -- character witnesses you could say.Also the *feel of reality*. Do I really have to spell that out? You really think somebody could INVENT Moses, or any of the books of the Bible or Jesus Christ? See, if you really really think that, you are beyond ANYTHING I could say to try to dissuade you from your folly. Far more likely to be effective that I just keep calling people who think they think such things idiots and stooges than actually try to explain something so mindnumbingly OBVIOUS. In other words, you CAN'T really really think such a thing, you are just under some weird spell that KEEPS you from thinking. Don't be a complete dolt. Again if you really can't tell the difference, far better you begin to take in the information that you ARE a dolt, even a blithering idiot than that I try to meet such a ridiculous requirement as to try to lay out the differences beyond what I have already done. SOMETHING has to zap you out of such mind-rotting stupidity as is mistaken here for intelligence.