Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based?

Even a descriptive law may be spoken of as a cause. So I would really like to see some evidence that Hawking thinks of the law of gravity as prescriptive rather than prescriptive. Some half-baked apologetics published in a low-quality newspaper hardly qualifies.

I think you're missing - as kbertsche does - the distinction between a description and that it describes. The distinction between prescriptive and descriptive is to say that the law describes rather than controls. It has no real consequences for the way things actually work.

Well I have to give you a big F- and wish you luck on graduating high school. You'll need it.

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I want to acknowledge this. You are correct in saying there is an absence of lots of good evidence for reliability. However, my point still stands: this is the case with almost any study of history. We never know for sure that what we piece together is what actually happened. As I quoted earlier, this is always the tension with studying history in general.

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And there is often better evidence than we have for the Gospels...

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Take, for instance, Caesar's Firsthand account of the Roman invasion of Gaul (in the Commentarii de Bello Gallico). It is the only account we have of this invasion - we only have one manuscript - written by Caesar (or claimed to be), and the only copy we have is written 900 years after the event. Basically all mainstream historians agree the Synoptic Gospels were written 70-90AD (Mark 70, the others 80-90), at the latest, 60 years after the death of Christ.

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Let us note that you are comparing apples and oranges. For Caesar you take the gap between the events and the oldest existing copy. For the Gospels the gap between the events and the original documents. However Caesar wrote at the time he was commanding in Gaul, and he was an eyewitness. That beats the Gospels, which is why you don't mention it.

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All this to say: It is historical fact that we have more evidence of the life of Jesus than we do for the Roman invasion of Gaul (we have 4 accounts of Jesus life, 1 of the invasion).

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Given that the Gospels only cover one or maybe three years in Jesus' life, given that the historical Jesus is judged to be unrecoverable, given that we have other evidence for the Roman invasion of Gaul, given the dependencies between the Synoptic Gospels (and quite possibly John) I'd really have to say that you haven't even begun to discuss the matter.

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Not necessarily, unless by "late addition" you mean "Luke was written about 10-15 years later than Mark," than sure. "Late addition" is a pretty deceptive phrase, considering there were many gospels being passed around throughout this time.

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I note that the figure of 10-15 years only applies if the story originated in Mark. So thank you for implicitly conceding that much.

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Regardless of the change of interpretation of the kind of garments, the experience is still one where the tomb was empty, Jesus was gone, and this man claiming Jesus rose from death. It remains mystical, especially considering the man's claim that Jesus would meet Peter in Galilee.

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In other words it wasn't a mystical experience. And I will note that Luke/Acts denies the Galilee appearances. (A rather significant point, I think)

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This lends credibility to my argument as well, for a male-dominated society of which Paul was definitely apart (he was a Pharisee no less) would definitely have left out the fact that women were the first witnesses.

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Unfortunately for you, your argument relies on that "fact" being passed around as an argument for the resurrection. The fact that no source prior to Mark does anything of the sort makes that claim a mere assumption, lacking in credibility.

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- How do you account for the growth of the Christian church in general had neither of these phenomenon (the empty tomb, the appearance to the 500) occurred?

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Of course I have already Nswered that. But I will add that since neither event seems to be of great importance in the rise of Christianity the question is fundamentally mistaken.

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Sounds very much like reading one's own ideas into the text here. The first text you mentioned, Acts 4:34-35 is a description of a community of believers giving voluntarily of what they owned so they could share, and the less fortunate could have more, a beautiful picture. Surprisingly, there is absolutely nothing in the text that might suggest people were coerced or manipulated into this, despite the fact that the NT does paint the church in negative lights quite often.

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And yet we know that Ananaias and Sapphira both felt that they could not admit to holding *some* of the money back from the sale of their property, even when confronted on the matter - and the text says that they died for it. That does speak of pressure, with the story of their deaths adding more.

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First off, my friend, Paul, I do not presume you do not have reasons for concluding the Gospels are unbelieveable. I do not have any way of knowing you personally, knowing your life journey, or the reasons you have for holding the beliefs you do. And I also do not assume they have not been sufficient for you. What I am doing is making logical conclusions based on things you are saying.

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Of course the evidence is there in the Bible if you choose to read it and consider it fairly and rationally. Your fantasies about me are irrelevant.In reality you have made no case for the resurrection, barely started to discuss the evidence and made numerous other errors.Indeed, the performance of the Christians in this thread is quite damning evidence against the resurrection. The irrationality, the dishonesty, the evasions and the lame excuses hardly speak of an intellectually defensible belief, nor of anything anyone could call Christian in anything but the loosest sense.

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I acknowledge this. However, as I have argued, Mark is an eyewitness account. We have very good reason to believe Mark was the words of Peter, penned by his scribe Johnmark. So I have mentioned it, it's just that what you're saying is quite a stretch.

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Obviously you have failed to understand the scholars. Mark is not supposed to have been dictated by Peter, simply written by an associate of Peter. It is not an eyewitness account.

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You presuppose that only "facts" are reliable. This is a presupposition about epistemology and not necessarily true. I, on the other hand, have attempted to demonstrate that testimony (accurate testimony specifically) is also a reliable source of historiography.

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A ridiculous misrepresentation. Aside from the general weakness of testimony the point you are missing is how to determine if testimony is accurate, and where it is more or less trustworthy.

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Seems like another argument from silence. What evidence do you have that the story did not originate with Mark?

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And here we have another foolish error on your part. I suspect that the story may well have originated with Mark. It is you who claims otherwise.

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Denies" is yet again a pretty biased and deceptive way of speaking here. Luke/Acts simply do not contain that specific story, since Luke's goal was different than the other Gospels.

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And another foolish and ignorant mistake. Anyone familiar with Luke/Acts should know that it sets the post-resurrection appearances (Paul's vision aside) in and around Jerusalem.Indeed, the whole point of the Road to Emmaus story is to deny the Galillean appearances.

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I see what you are saying. At the same time, we have to get into the context. Paul is writing from what he has heard, testimony and hearsay, so I see no problem with him not including the women.

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The problem, of course is, that you have no sign of the story passing around prior to Mark. Thus any claim that it was being passed around earlier or used as evidence prior to that lacks evidence.

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I looked over all your previous posts and you never have attempted to answer this question. This is an interesting conclusion since the majority of scholarship on the era disagrees with you.

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Don't be ridiculous. Message 126 answers your argument

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But my friend, the tools you use to approach the story (redaction criticism among others) are inherently biased and fundamentally geared towards criticism of the text, instead of learning from the text. Try a more unbiased approach

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Funny how "Christians" hate people reading and understanding the Bible. Because I did not use any special scholarly tools. I simply read the text and thought a little.

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I'm can take this. However, I'm a little tired my friend. You seem to be inherently aggressive to this type of argumentation, and have already made up your mind. I understand. You don't seem to recognize 1) Your fundamental predetermined bias 2) The assumptions behind your epistemology 3) Your failure to offer alternative explanations for the phenomenon in question.

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By which you mean I don't like dishonesty and I don't accept your fantasies about me.If you are capable of entering university you are capable of doing better. So do it.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Why is it that people have no difficulty imagining an eternally existing universe yet so many have trouble imagining an eternally existing God? They always ask "who created God"?

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Of course the question is fundamentally mistaken. It's not a question of imagination it's a question of intellectual honesty. If God has the features that - supposedly - require a creator then it is natural to ask "who created God" rather than ignore the inconvenient question. And that is where that question comes out.So the real question again comes down to why are people fooled by the intellectual dishonesty (and sometimes plain dishonesty) of apologetics. I think it comes down to pride, and an unwillingness to admit that a belief of personal importance is not rationally defensible.