Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based?

I was not going to respond to this thread since it would mean opening another discussion with the potential to be very long and intricate. But after watching the videos, I felt compelled because of all the misinformation and vague, weird content they presented. So here we go This is an interesting hypothesis and I look forward to you showing, with evidence, that this is indeed the case. However I can say(and will demonstrate) right off the bat that this is simply an alternative belief, made from misunderstanding scripture, misconstruing history, and once again, incorrect assumptions.I will now address each link and respond to the content contained:(I do not have time unfortunately to address Dan Dennett's video at this time, I hope you will not see this as me avoiding it . Hopefully I will be able to come back and address it at a later date! College calls! )II. The Invention Of God & ReligionYou posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1PDxeUynA as evidence that all religions are made up. I watched the whole video. (As you prob. already know) this video is based on the work of Rudolf Steiner, author of The Philosophy of Freedom in 1894. The first thing we need to realize is that almost everything quoted in this video are part of a belief system, specifically, anthroposophy (a pseudo-science) and therefore are not necessarily backed up by much hard evidence. They are (not the Philosophy of Freedom as a whole, but the information in the video) mainly, only assertions, or truth claims, without any evidence whatsoever.The entire video commits at least three or four different kinds of logical fallacies:1) Ad hominem: the video bases at least the first half on "what religions/religious people are like" to say that religion is manmade/not supernatural. He cites two religious people as examples, picking at their character instead of attempting to rebut the actual claims of Christianity and scripture.2) Begging the question/claim: The speaker already assumes he is correct without giving the viewer absolutely any evidence that it is so3) It is a circular argument: the language used is the same language over and over again, reinstating itself but never offering any proof 4) Using the 10 Commandments (the movie, no less! lol) to draw a conclusion about reality is extremely fallacious and suspicious.In conclusion, this video is built on so many logical fallacies that it's literally difficult to take it seriously at all. I know of Rudolf Steiner, his work is actually pretty interesting, but even Steiner himself was not fully convinced of the 100% accuracy of his ideas. In fact, in 1907, Steiner separated himself from the Theosophical Society Adyar (of which he was heavily involved in) because the Society was prepping a young man to become "the New World Teacher," and were claiming this boy was the reincarnated Jesus Christ, and Steiner totally disagreed!, causing a split in the Society. We find that Steinier was actually working toward developing a path that embraced Christianity at the time, and could not consent to the heresy. (check it, 4 paragraphs down for source)III. The Father ComplexLuckily I am also a Psychology minor so this stuff is very interesting to me I read this whole article.I am familiar with the idea of the father complex. However, this psychological phenomenon is more proof for there being a God than against. Think of it this way. We each have an innate desire/compulsion and real need to eat food. Food exists. Doesn't make sense that food would exist, given that we naturally crave it? The same goes for many things in life. Water. Sex. Belonging. Love. This is the same idea. The father complex (which we all have to some extent or another) is the innate desire to be fathered and all the ideas/assumptions/learned ideas about what that means. But at a base level, we all desire to be fathered. Does it not logically follow that this need is based on a reality? And, in fact, we find that it is. We all have a father. So what does this prove? It proves: This innate desire for a father, and the subsequent projection of this need, is based on reality; we all have a father that exists/existed. Therefore, this seemingly innate desire to think about God, create Gods, worship God, know God personally, and create religions around God also is based on reality. That which fulfills this desire, the food to our hunger, is the real, actual, God, YHWH.IV. Gnosis - The Secret of Solomon's Temple this was the video in question. I also watched this whole video. The first thing I noticed is the title is extremely misleading. The speaker mentions at the beginning something about the secret of Solomon's temple, but then we hear absolutely nothing about Solomon's Temple again afterwards. Maybe this video is a portion of a longer one?Moving on, I must say right off the bat, Gnosticism is not Christianity. It is a heresy that developed by the mixing of Eastern mysticism and mystery cults with Christianity during the first and second centuries, specifically. As an aside, I noticed you identify as a Gnostic? In that case, I need to say that I hold nothing against you personally and anything I write here is not a personal attack on you or your journey/life. If this were real life perhaps we might sit down over coffee and some apple fritters . It will, though, be a rebuttal of the misconceptions and assumptions of the ideas. AKA= offense is not the intention I found this video extremely vague and misleading. The key here, friend, is EVIDENCE, where is the evidence? Once again, the speaker in the video provides us with a circular argument: he spends the entire time saying the same things without offering any real evidence for his assertions. Another huge red flag to me is the speaker quoting The Gospel of Thomas, a heretical book in the Apocrypha. If the claims of the speaker were so legit, why quote from a source that is inherently suspicious? Why not just quote from scripture or another historical figure? What this does for me is really hurt the credibility of his claims.Now here, you you object to me classifying the Gospel of Thomas as heretical, and in that case you may not fully understand how the Bible was created. As I do not have time to go into that in this thread, here is an excellent source (the same one I quoted in your other thread) that goes very in-depth into how sources were gathered, the OT and NT were formed, and the Canon created: Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism by Greenlee.In conclusion, this video is nothing but wild claims without so much as a shred of actual evidence. Further, the speaker, again, never actually addresses the real claims of what he would call "mainstream" Christianity, and therefore a case really is not made. Cool ideas, but again, no evidence. I'm afraid that the way you've classified Christianity is absolutely nothing like that. This again, seems to be based around incorrect assumptions on what Christianity actually is. On an absolute basic level, Christianity is the assertion that: God inserted Himself into human history without prompting/manipulation from anything outside of Himself. "Dictating policy" has absolutely nothing to do with the God found in scripture. Rather, we find that God is good, and humans are not. In Exodus, we find a place where God invites humanity into a personal relationship with himself. (Exodus 20) Incredible! That's what the 10 Commandments really are, friend! Basically, a marriage ceremony initiated by God. the 10 Commandments (actually the 10 "Words" in Hebrew) are not even commandments (I can demonstrate this with a Hebrew study if required), but rather promises of what life is like in relationship with God.Christianity is unique in that it is essentially an anti-religion. The main idea/goal of "Religion" is somehow "getting to god/supernatural" by means of "doing something." Christianity says God did it. There is no such thing as "proof" for a supernatural God. And there doesn't need to be, because the supernatural cannot be proven. Of course. But. There is evidence for a supernatural God. The greatest evidence being the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I wish I could go more in detail here, but will answer any questions. Another assumption, friend. . Why assume that if there were a God, he would correct information about Himself? If Jesus was who he said he was, and actually rose from the dead, then we have to assume God has a good reason. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, who cares? I believe in a supernatural God. I believe this because of the overwhelming evidence for the legitimacy of the New Testament, because of the existing evidence for existence of Jesus Christ, I believe this because of the cogent, excellent evidence for His resurrection, and lastly because of my personal experience with knowing Him as a friend and father, and experiencing unexplainable occurrences in my own life. I am willing to go into detail on any of these topics, I am not afraid of a debate Regards!
- RaphEdited by Raphael, : No reason given.

Hey there Paul! I am writing up a response but am not quite finished yet, so will reserve this spot here. You have asked a valid question and I will treat it respectfully, and in typical long-winded Raphael fashion . This may be later today or tomorrow.Until then, regards!- Raph

So when responding to a question like this we need to, first off, define what exactly we're talking about when it comes to the terms we're using. Really, this conversation is, at the most basic level, a conversation about epistemology. I will come back to this later.Some books I will be quoting from throughout:- Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, Michael Grant (1977)
- The Reason For God, Timothy Keller (2014)
- Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, Greenlee (1993)Anyway. We're speaking of the term "evidence." Technically, evidence is (according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:1) the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.and2) one who bears witness; especially : one who voluntarily confesses a crime and testifies for the prosecution against his accomplicesOn the one hand, evidence is a collection of things we know, things when, gathered into a collective, point to a conclusion. And secondly, evidence is defined as a witness, aka, someone who can corroborate the evidence with a testimony of experience.Now, this is difficult when approaching the story of Jesus. To quote the historian Michael Grant,

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"...true, a great deal is missing. Nevertheless, his (Jesus') public career can to a considerable extent be reconstructed. The evidence is hard, very hard, to decipher, but something substantial is there for the finding. - from Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (1977)

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In the same book (which I do recommend) Grant mentions that attempting to reconstruct "what really happened" is always a well known snare when studying history, because it is beyond the power of humans beings to actually be objective. We can't prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what we think happened actually happened, no matter how certain. The book is excellent because Grant acknowledges that to even attempt to approach a study like this one must set aside their own belief/unbelief. They are irrelevant. What we're looking for is evidence. Is there enough to make a case?I say all this to say it it still up to the hearer to decide whether or not to accept the conclusion the evidence points to. Below, I will present a few things that I believe are the strongest pieces of evidence for the person and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I will attempt to doubt my convictions/presuppositions for the time being, so will not assume I have proven anything until the conclusion. I respectfully ask that you try do the same Outline:
I. Evidence for the Historicity & Validity Of the New Testament
II. The Resurrection: The Women, The 500, Terminology
III. ConclusionsI. Evidence for the Historicity & Validity Of the New TestamentMy first reason for believing in the story of Jesus is the amount of physical evidence we have for the legitimacy of the New Testament, in comparison with how much real evidence we have for other historical people and documents. There are currently 5,686 Greek manuscripts (copies, not autographs/originals) in existence today for the New Testament. That is an overwhelming amount when you consider that we have 7 copies of Plato's earliest works (also copies, not autographs). We have 8 copies of Suetonius. 20 copies of Tacitus. 49 copies of Aristotle.Also, the amount of time between the original documents and the first/earliest copies is interesting to see. The earliest copy of Plato we have dates 1,200 years between his original and the first copy. The earliest copy of Suetonius dates 800 years between his original and the first copy. The earliest copy of Tacitus dates 1,000 years between the original and first copy. Aristotle? 1,400 years. The earliest copy of manuscripts used in what would become the NT date approximately 100 years between the original and first copy. The papyri mss, some of the earliest sources we have, (we have 98 of them) all come from between the second-fourth centuries. The Chester Beatty papyri specifically, containing much of the Gospels, Acts, all the Pauline Epistles, and Revelation all date from the third century. P52, a small fragment containing parts of four verses in John 18, is the oldest known fragment we have of the NT, and it dates from the first half of the second century (100-150AD). This would have been, at the most, only 130 years after the death of Jesus. Keep in mind this is only a copy, not one of the originals, the autographs.Some might say "but there are so many inconsistencies in those manuscripts that it doesn't matter," but that is just simply an assumption. 90% of inconsistencies in the NT are grammar, punctuation, and minor details. There are inconsistencies. I admit this. It is not black and white, and there do exist things to wrestle with. Unfortunately, many who doubt the validity of the Bible just don't understand how manuscripts were originally made, copied, preserved and compiled, so they just make assumptions while being totally uneducated about the process.While the classics of the time were copied by professional scribes, the earliest copies of the NT were probably done by Christians in their homes or gatherings who were not professionally trained, and no corrector (as was customary) was employed to check the copyist's work. This is due to a few reasons:1) Since the message of the gospel was of paramount importance, more emphasis was put on the message and meaning rather than such matters as word order and punctuation that did not affect the meaning.2) Christianity, an unofficial (at times illegal) and often persecuted religion simply did not have the luxury the classics had of establishing an official edition of its books with which copies could be compared and edited for pinpoint accuracy.3) The earliest Christians believed that Christ's return was very immanant, therefore they would not necessarily have been concerned with acutely preserving their books and making sure they were perfectly accurate for following centuries.In conclusion, we readily accept that historical persons like Plato and Tacitus existed, but doubt the validity of the NT, when there is far more, and more valid, evidence for the New Testament. Surely a copy of a manuscript found dating 1,200 years between it and the original is, at the very least, just as likely to contain errors, embellishment, and truth-stretching than one with a few hundred years between it and the original. Moreover, it would be suspicious to accept the validity of documents like Plato and Suetonius and reject the NT simply because of perceived inconsistencies when the inconsistencies that do exist are understandable and do not affect the overarching goal and theme of the whole at all.II. The ResurrectionThe second piece of evidence for why I believe in a supernatural God, the God of scripture, is the resurrection. For me, this is where the argument hinges the most. if Jesus was who He said He was (One with God), and the resurrection happened, it matters. Before I give my reasons I have to state, outright, this cannot be proven. If it could, we wouldn't be having this discussion currently. But, keeping in mind what we layed out above about the nature of evidence, that evidence is not only the sum of materials produced, but also the sum of witnesses and the testimony of said witnesses. There is evidence. Let's investigate.A. The WomenAt this point, as I have read the posts above, this point has for the most part been beaten to death. However I will add my take because I think it does add some things of value.For context, below is the account of the Resurrection in Luke. I use Luke because, unlike the other gospels, Luke states from the get-go that he has compiled all the evidence, and created a narrative, and his purpose is "... that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught" (Luke 1:1-4). Luke does borrow from Mark, and of course he would, since Mark would have been one of the sources he consulted when crafting his account. There are also differences between this account of the resurrection and others, as there would be in any situation where different witnesses give their testimony from different perspectives. If they were all exactly the same, it would be quite suspicious. At any rate, I will stick to the basic outline and not use anything that may have been added later.

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But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. 8 And they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. - Luke 24:1-12

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Now what needs to be pointed out is this entire story hinges on the testimony of 3, perhaps 4 women. This has been stated already by Faith, and GDR (my thanks ). However, what needs to be talked about is how this story would have spread. All the disciples are Jewish. There are only a handful, if any, non-Jewish Christians in existence at this point, and in reality, the movement, or "Way," of Yeshua should have just ended here. As those above have already pointed out, in Jewish culture, a woman's testimony was not acceptable as a witness in court, and would not even have been taken too seriously by hearers. What I'm trying to get at is this: if this story is not true, the author is building into the story something that would have made hearers doubt the validity of it. There is absolutely no reason to craft a persuasive "Messiah" story that is based on the testimony of women. In fact, Jewish hearers of such a story would simply dismiss it as nonsense and chalk it up with all the other "resurrected Messiah" stories that had been told before. So why did the story spread? What possible reason would the author have to hinge his story on the witness of women, when he could have easily had someone like Joseph of Arimathea, or Nicodemus - both wealthy males and one being a pharisee and having a voice in the temple - as the main witnesses? How persuasive it would have been to have the testimony of a pharisee like Nicodemus, saying, "Jesus is alive, I saw him!" in the temple! A story like that would have spread like wildfire.In Tim Keller's, The Reason for God (Which I highly recommend!!!) he touches on this issue. He mentions that this is what historians look for when trying to judge the historicity of a document or not. Are there details which serve no purpose? Are there characters, like Joanna in the above account, who are mentioned for no reason? Fiction authors do not include people for a split second without any development, and then go nowhere with them. Rather, people are mentioned like this because the author knows that the reader will know who they are from a first name basis. The letter of Luke/Acts is a personal letter to a man named Theophilus, so this makes sense.In conclusion, considering the evidence, it is far more likely that this story is the retelling of an accurate account rather than a fictitious one. If it were fictitious, it simply would not have spread, because it wouldn't have been taken seriously. The only logical explanation is that it was true, and thus was too incredible to ignore.B. The 500In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul, in writing to the church in Corinth, includes this list of people who Christ appeared to after His resurrection:

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...that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me... 1 Cor. 15:3-8

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Notice what I have bolded. Paul claims here that Jesus appeared to over 500 people simultaneously, meaning that they all saw Him and were witnesses to this. The reason Paul wrote this is to affirm to the church in Corinth that the resurrection happened, and that there are still witnesses. So what is the significance of this?Most scholars date the writing of 1 Corinthians to around 53-57AD. (from The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. The more conservative scholars date it at around 70AD. This is a mere 20 years-at the most, 40 years-after the death of Jesus. So again, what is the significance of this?The significance is: for such a FANTASTICAL story to spread, there HAD to have been witnesses, or it just would have gone absolutely nowhere. In the gospels, we learn that Jesus appeared to a few; Mary, the main 12, and a few other apostles. But here in 1 Corinthians we have an account of Paul claiming in a public letter to a church community that there are over 500 people who all saw the risen Christ at the same time, and that MOST are still living! What he's doing here is basically challenging anyone who doubts the story to ask one of these people for confirmation. It simply does not make sense that Paul would make such a huge claim without the reality to back it up. What this says to us is that there was a HUGE body of living people during the very beginning of the church who actually saw the resurrected Christ, in a group setting where it could be confirmed by the majority, and who could be questioned by doubting non-believers who wanted proof.This, for me, is almost greater proof for the resurrection than the women. Jesus was a ragtag homeless rabbi, hated by his own people, with an incredibly tiny following when you compare it to other messianic characters before him who actually attempted revolutions. His closest friends (all but 1) abandoned him at his death, some betraying him and others fleeing for their lives. "Christianity" as we know it should have gone nowhere, friend. But it didn't. It grew. And then it exploded. Why? Because of hundreds of people, carrying a massive joy, and the good news, the GOSPEL, that "Jesus is alive, and I have seen Him." . III. ConclusionsThere are other details I could go into. But I won't at this time, because of the admittedly harsh reality that no matter what I say, no matter how intellectually persuasive I am in this post, only YOU can decide for yourself what you will believe. In his book, The Reason for God Tim Keller spends his entire first chapter (and really the entire first half of the book) explaining how every person decides on a set of beliefs. Every argument is logically fallible. Perhaps your faith is science, in a "all "truth" must be scientifically proven," scientism sort of way. That is a faith, for there are still, and always will be, unexplainables in the universe. Perhaps your faith is atheism, the belief that there is no god. For there is no way for anyone to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt whether there is or is not a god. Therefore it is faith. I could go on.I could mention the time I felt God spoke directly into my brain, or the going-on hundreds of times I have prayed for a specific need/amount of money and God has miraculously answered, down to the very cent. I could mention the girl I know who was constantly oppressed by visible demonic entities, who would wake with unexplainable marks on her body. But I won't at this time, because again, YOU decide. As for me, Jesus is alive, and I have seen Him I hope my arguments have seemed open-minded, and cogent. It is up to you now to answer some hard questions: - How do you account for the story of the resurrection being taken seriously in a culture that deems the witness of women irrelevant? - How do you account for Paul's PUBLIC claim that 500 people, simultaneously, witnessed the risen Jesus Christ and therefore could be consulted for corroboration of his story?If you do not accept my arguments for either of the above,- How do you account for the growth of the Christian church in general had neither of these phenomenon occurred? Keep in mind 1) I am acutely aware of early Christian history so will cogently refute assumptions or incorrect generalizations about the climate and occurrences of the time period, and 2) a "we don't know" answer is insufficient if I have cogently given the most logically possible explanation. I look forward to your response Regards!
- Raph

This is where I expected you to go, based on previous conversations with you here . First, this is a misleading statement simply because there isn't a lot of physical evidence for the reliability of many ancient documents. In fact, less. Second, your bias for physical evidence is shown here when, in reality, testimonial evidence is almost equally as valid, especially when it is impossible to procure physical evidence. This is a logical fallacy, an argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio). We cannot assume the originals are not accurate simply because we don't know. "We don't know" is the furthest we could go. The amount of manuscripts is significant because we can create a stronger approximation of what the originals would be than if we had less. We do this with Plato, Caesar, Aristotle, so why the stretch when doing the same thing with scripture? This is an incorrect assumption about the nature of early Christianity. There were no "doctrines" in the first century. There was no "Church." There were churches. In fact, this point is so significant that the historian Justo Gonzalez, in The Story of Christianity, writes "it would be more accurate to speak of "Christianities," (P.70), rather than any movement united in theology and doctrine. Therefore, while being an appealing idea, the assumption that Christians would have some "agenda" to pass on their doctrines is simply not true, since no organized group decided upon any orthodoxy until at least a hundred years later.So on what grounds do you assume the stories drifted away from the original histories? Where is the evidence? Unfortunately this is only an assumption friend. This is exactly the kind of conclusion that is not sufficient, since it basically says "we can't know for sure the original history, therefore the copies probably can't be trusted" without offering any alternative. This is a logical fallacy, an appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam). We can't say "because we're not 100% sure about the originals, we can't draw conclusions about the copies," because if we do that with scripture we have to do that with Plato, Suetonius, Tacitus, because we have no originals from them either. And of course older works which we have even less evidence for, like Lucretius, Pliny, Demosthenes, and Herodotus would be in the same boat as well. It's not. All four women have a mystical experience:

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...while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.

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This section of the story was not a late addition. This is the story they went back and told the apostles. Why was this story to be believed, and not dismissed as the fantasies of grief-stricken women? I agree that this story is not as significant as the post-resurrection appearances, but it is not as simple as a missing body. That is not quite what I was getting at. The point of this is that Jewish readers of the resurrection story would have totally dismissed it because women are depicted as the very first witnesses to the resurrection. Jewish readers would have stopped reading and said, exactly as you have, "so you believe the ramblings of women who did not even see the risen Yeshua, but claim to have spoken to shiny men? Nonsense." The Apostles and early Christians did not believe the gospel was even available to any Gentile (see Acts 10), so therefore their main audience would have been Jews at this time. The story should have gone nowhere, because there is a roadblock to the audience built into the story. Even in telling the story orally, the apostles would have been mocked because women are depicted as the first witnesses. Another argument from ignorance here. We cannot assume the appearance to the 500 has little value because of the information we don't have. . We only work based on what we know, not the other way around. Since we don't know when this appearance happened, it makes sense that it would not appear in the Gospels or Acts, and logically must have happened after these accounts were written. At the same time, it must have happened relatively soon to their writing, since 1 Corinthians was written approx. 55 AD. This is admittedly troubling, and I do see this hurting the argument. However this does offer the best explanation for the rapid growth of early Christianity instead of dismissal from hearers. The sort of "time-period bias" we have today seems to make us think a "superstitious" ancient people accepted things without proof, when this is simply not the case. Also, there is simply no proof that this was an interpolation, as only a tiny minority of scholars believe this.Therefore, in response: - As the audience of early christianity were all Jews, it remains a fact that built within the account is a roadblock to its plausibility a creator of a fictitious story would not have included if he wanted it taken seriously. - We cannot draw conclusions from what we don't know. You have failed to sufficiently given an explanation for why the early church grew so fast if these witnesses did not exist (discounting other witnesses, such as Cleopas, and Paul himself, who also witnessed the risen Christ). Unfortunately, most scholars agree that these things did have a large role to play within the early growth of the Christian church. Your argument seems to, again, be appealing to the "we don't know" factor, rather than offering alternatives.Mentioning the Mormons here makes sense, but it leaves out huge factors like the cultural norms of Mormonism, which includes control, indoctrination, seclusion, and community isolation. These things were not characteristic of early Christianity. Unfortunately friend, almost all of these arguments are based on the fallacious appeal to ignorance. We can compare this debate to the one about origins (bringing it full circle EvC style! ). We cannot assume the universe was not created by some sort of God, because science tells us that we simply do not know, and cannot know. In the same way, we cannot doubt the validity of the NT simply because we are not 100% certain of the believeability of the events within the originals. In fact, this seems to be more of a personal belief issue than an issue of evidence.So in conclusion, my appeal remains: I have known the risen Christ I choose to believe this. What will you choose to believe?Regards!- Raph

Very interesting. I do not believe this is an accurate comparison and an oversimplification but I will still run with it .I do not believe that is enough evidence to make that conclusion. However, let's take this a step further. What if your wife also complained that she constantly saw the cat? What if she also said she pet the cat, and noticed it has the same scars as the one yours had before it died? Then, your neighbor also confirmed that they have seen your cat, then your best friend. The evidence now points to the conclusion that either your cat was not dead in the first place, or something weird and supernatural is happening (this sort of thing happens all the time by the way).The "onus" then, would lie on you to choose what to believe. So this argument leaves us at the same place: it is a personal belief issue. Say you never saw the cat again and never quite figured out what happened, and told this story to your grandchildren. What would they think? What is right to believe? Even under the best circumstances, you would have to conclude that at the end of the day, you simply don't know. The fact would remain, though, that you actually have more positive evidence than negative, in the form of what your kids, wife, neighbor, and best friend all saw confirming that the cat did, indeed, resurrect.Regards!
- Raph

I'm afraid that it is, when you seem to be merely avoiding the argument. In case you have forgotten, here it is again: On what grounds do you accept the historicity of Plato, Lucretius, Pliny, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Aristotle, and deny that of the NT, when equally as little evidence (absolutely nothing) of original texts exist?You seem to be misquoting me. Here is what I said:

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I believe in a supernatural God. I believe this because of the overwhelming evidence for the legitimacy of the New Testament, because of the existing evidence for existence of Jesus Christ, I believe this because of the cogent, excellent evidence for His resurrection - Message 3
  —Raphael

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I never claimed to have physical evidence. Only that evidence exists, and I have shown some. And that is really the issue here. At a basic level, you refuse to be open-minded to the possibility that the claims of scripture (the original documents) might be be true. There is no "imagining" here, friend. The fact remains that this is a fallacious argument from ignorance. We can't say "because we don't know for sure" the stories are probably untrue. This is a leap of faith on your part and remains to be proven. I have agreed with you that the number of copies is not evidence of the reliability of the original documents. But have rebutted that we have the same problem with many other ancient documents, and yet easily accept their historicity. You have continued to avoid this argument. Yes, if that point is "we don't know." However, I have demonstrated that there exists more evidence for than against in this case, so a case can cogently be made. If it could not the debate would not exist. If far more evidence can be produced confirming something that might have happened, the weight rests on the individual to decide what he or she will believe. I have cogently given reasons for my conclusion. You seem to have already made up your mind. I'm merely pointing back to my above argument, that there exists a smaller body of evidence to work from with other ancient writers, and yet they are accepted as historically valid. I agree with this, but it essentially inconsequential because the story needed to spread before it could be "passed down." Nobody was concerned with passing down anything until after the story had spread and gained a following. How did the story spread? Why did it spread? How can you account for the rapid growth of the Way of Christ in a setting where it should not have happened? My argument seems to offer the best explanation here, since you have given no alternative thus far, only arguments from ignorance. We know that all the gospels compiled sources to make their claims. At worst, this again becomes a personal faith issue, for it would be another argument from ignorance, since there are things we don't know. We can't make assumptions based on what we don't know. Why assume they were? Seems like more fallacious ad hominem - people fall for all sorts of things all the time, Christians are not special in that regard, and this line of reasoning does not logically follow.The issue remains, simply, a matter of faith.Regards!- Raph

Wow I missed a lot! Bleh. I have become swamped with midterms and so many responses to make I'll do my best to catch up. Sure, as long as you recognize that it is not an accurate comparison to the resurrection. I would propose that no, it is not adequately evidenced at this point in time. Children have been shown to be developmentally less able than adults to separate reality from fantasy, so a case really couldnt be made.Again, considering that nobody in the story of the resurrection were children, this isn't an accurate comparison so it would be fallacious to draw conclusions about the resurrection from it.Regards!- Raph

Again, this was not my argument. My argument was that we have a lot of physical evidence for the legitimacy of the NT in comparison with how much real evidence with have for other historical people/documents. This is the same argument I have been pointing back to. This is true. However, for example, the wide majority of the scholarly community accepts that Socrates did indeed exist, even though we have absolutely nothing original from him, only the things Plato said about him. My point is that the evidence is the same, and a certain element of faith must be employed in both cases. Then you must be willing to say that you can't possible know one way or the other, just like we can't possibly know one way or the other with most of the other writers I've mentioned. It is a personal faith issue. I won't respond to each of these, but in a general sense, your argument thus fas has appeared to be one based on a logical fallacy, an appeal to the facts that:1) While we have many manuscripts of the NT, they are copies, so this is no indication that the originals were accurate stories
2) We don't know for sure Mark's sources, therefore because of the extraordinary claims it probably isn't reliableBoth appeals to ignorance. But neither logically necessarily follow. Just because we don't know for sure does not prove that they are not trustworthy. If it was that easy the debate would be settled, and as far as I know, it's not.I have indeed provided evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, and offered the best explanation for the rapid spreading and growth of the early Christian church. You have not offered an alternative argument for how this could have happened. I recognize that your entire counter argument is the ambiguity surrounding the source(s) of Mark, however this is still an appeal to ignorance. I am comfortable admitting that we have hypotheses based on what we know, and a couple different cases for the authorship of Mark can be made, but we are not 100% sure. Personally I believe that John Mark, the traveling companion of both Paul and Peter compiled the book of Mark, with his largest source probably being the stories Peter told him personally. There is evidence for this.(The Biblical scholar Tim Henderson does a great job explaining this in his blog here,, and another great source is Mark Roberts Can We Trust the Gospels?: Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (2007). )I hope I do not appear to be avoiding going into the details about the authorship by posting a link; I am not trying to dismiss your argument. I can post some of the information here if it is easier. However I believe the conclusion is still the same: We have good reason to believe that Johnmark the companion of Paul/Peter is the one who penned Mark. It is TRUE that we cannot prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that his sources were absolutely historically perfect, but at best all we can conclude is we don't know for sure. So again, we cannot make a judgement about something we don't know. This leaves you and I both at the same place, having to choose what we will believe.Regards!- Raph(PS: Will try to finish up responding later tonight or perhaps in the next couple days or so)

Apologies for being gone so long, midterms are now over so I am free to engage in friendly discourse Hopefully it is not too off-topic at this point to return to where we left off! 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.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.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).What will you do with this information? How unfortunate. This sounds like a bias on your part to the idiothetic side of research. You should check out The Psychology of Religion by Hood, Chill, Spika sometime. An excellent work; the authors go into good detail about the Western bias against the idiothetic side of epistemology. We are quite quick to dismiss mystical experiences in western culture, mostly because over time we have developed a favoritism of the nomothetic side of epistemology - that is, we favor numbers and statistics in our search for knowledge, over a more wholistic approach which actually engages an individual in their experiences. 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. And as for the differences, here's Mark's account:

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4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.Don’t be alarmed, he said. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you... - Mark 16:6-7

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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. Indeed, but I was speaking of the progression unto what we now call "the Gospels." There never should have been stories going around in the first place, because (almost) all first hearers of the good news of Jesus resurrection were Jews. 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. There could be many reasons for this; perhaps Paul himself did not believe those claims, Perhaps he was told otherwise. He does not tell us where he got this progression of people who were told, nor if it is a comprehensive list or a timeline. We simply don't know enough to draw a conclusion. At the end of the day, semantics. Haha. I won't press the issue any further. Indeed this is true, to 70-90AD. This all stands to reason that these written claims of sightings of the resurrected Christ would have sparked curiosity. It is interesting though, that the movement did not die here but instead began flourishing greatly. How could such a movement have rapidly grown when witnesses could not be found? If prominent people like Paul are claiming so many have seen the risen Christ, and nobody has actually seen him, wouldn't such a a hoax be exposed rather soon? We see examples of this in modern culture in the Koreshes and Mansons, people who both had followers who believed everything their leaders said for a time, but later on defectors come forward, admitting the hoax for what it was. Well, no, actually. This is a search for "truth," so you don't (none of us do) stand from some neutral, objective position able to critique without also offering alternatives. In fact, your bias reveals itself in that you have more to lose if the resurrection happened than if it did not. So it's a little of a conflict of interest. This is confirmed in that you have not even attempted to offer an answer to my initial question, which was:- 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?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.The second account in Acts 5 takes into account the theology surrounding tithe giving and the selfishness of the human heart. Certainly a passage to be wrestled with, personally and collectively. However it would seem very reductionistic to simplify what took place in this account from the workings of God among his people to a symbolic tale of how the church pressured people into giving money. This may be your personal interpretation, but it's not the best exegesis. 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.Jesus was a real historical figure. This is fact, and it is not debated by anyone. We have more historical evidence for his life than we do for many other historical figures, people, places, and conquests. I have shown this with both the evidence that exists for the existence of Socrates and the infestismle amount of evidence that we have for Caesar's Invasion of Gaul. My claims about the resurrection are claims based on conclusions drawn by solid investigations of scripture, corroborated by scholars of Biblical history (Justo Gonzalez, Kenneth Scott Latourette of Yale, Timothy Keller, Bart Ehrman to name just a few).I cannot, and nobody ever will be able to prove that Christ rose from the dead. I never claimed to be able to do this, and I stand by this. However, I have presented a cogent case for the evidence that exists, with the knowledge that any search for truth within history is bound to be inconclusive. Of course belief is a choice. We all plant stakes in the ground on what we think to be true, and no matter the worldview, everyone, at some point, holds a belief (or counter-belief,which is still a belief, such as atheism) or unprovable presupposition about the world, the nature of reality, the meaning of life, etc. Can you prove to me you are not dreaming right now? Can you prove to me your mother/spouse/child/pet loves you? Of course not. Perhaps they might hook up your brain to a machine and determine that you are not in your REM Cycle, but then again, how would you know that the doctors you go to are real, if it's a dream? #thematrix #inceptionFor you, it seems that your presupposition, or dare I even say deeply rooted belief, is: since we cannot know 100% that what people wrote down in the gospels actually happened, they "probably didn't happen like you think." And even deeper, you seem to believe that since the claims in the gospels are so outrageous (miracles, an empty tomb, talk of resurrection), they "probably didn't happen."Unfortunately, in real life, we don't always go where the evidence leads us. That's a pretty huge illusion. We make "gut decisions," use intuition, have "a feeling" about things all the time, with absolutely zero evidence, and often times, it pays off. I invite and encourage you to leave behind what seems to be a "scientism" sort of bias you carry, a "there must be hard proof for all things" bias - one that the current age and culture has actually influenced you to use - and re-approach the claims of scripture.So, the question still remains, my friend : What will you do with Jesus?Regards!
- RaphEdited by Raphael, : No reason given.Edited by Raphael, : No reason given.

Sure, but to what end? There is essentially no serious scholar today that would say Jesus did not exist, which I hope you're not trying to insinuate here. My point in using the roman invasion of Gaul is in the literary evidence category. We all know that, Jesus existed, had a following of people, was killed, and then his followers claimed he rose from the dead and appeared to them, in different places, at different times, and among different people. The evidence - not proof - is there, and we can draw conclusions about it.I would never be so naive to think that this could be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. And it shouldn't be. The accumulated evidence does, though, force us to ask a few questions:1. If there were a God, does Jesus fit into the category of what we would think God is like? Is he both existentially satisfying and intellectually credible?2. If Jesus did resurrect, like he said he would, don't we also have to examine his claim that he was THE God? Not one of the options, but the only way, truth, and life?and finally,3. If there were a God, and that God was indeed Jesus, wouldn't the things he has to say about where we ought to find meaning, self-worth, and fulfillment be even better than what we think will give us those things? Food for thought Then, my friend, you delude yourself. We make beliefs about things every single day, subconsciously and consciously. On the other hand, always making decisions based on infallible evidence is an illusion. It's nonsense. You believe you have inherent worth and value as a human being, even though this could never be proven. You believe you're not dreaming currently because you assume certain things about what a dream is like, unproveable things. You choose to believe your spouse/parent/children love you, despite not being able to offer 100% objective evidence that it is so. This is how real life works. I think that's great! I love history. But as I have already stated, always needing what we would call "hard evidence" before making conclusions is an assumption about epistemology. It is a presupposition about the way knowledge is even attained or gathered.Regards!
- Raph

The only similarity I was attempting to draw was a literary one, and I was up front about it. So how would you define a "spook?" Someone who claims impossible things? Would I be a spook if I said I believe in luck/karma/"good juju" or something like that? I certainly agree that if Jesus was not who he said he was, he was in the category of "spook," as well as probably deranged. But I think the evidence says otherwise You seem to have already made up your mind. How unfortunate. A conversation doesn't seem possible if you are not, at the least, willing to have an open mind. I think that by appealing to the "Gish Gallop" trope you simultaneously reveal your personal bias and put my argument in a box. The "Gish Gallop" idea is to spout so much nonsense in an attempt to confuse the opponent, but that's not really what's happening here. I'm merely logically demonstrating my position. I believe this is the first time you have commented on anything I've posted, Percy. It is truly an honor and I enjoy being a part of this community .This is truth, and important to consider. In response I would say that in the case of the Gospel of Mark, we know that the early church father Papias (who lived from 60-135 AD) commented that Mark was written by the scribe of the Apostle Peter. This would make Mark a collection of eyewitness testimonies. Papias is significant because there is evidence that he may have even been a contemporary of the apostle John. But there are others. Polycarp, Eusebius, Origen, all affirm this.(Sources: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham, New Testament Introduction by Donald Guthrie)Regards!
- Raph

I am graduating from University in 3 and half weeks. This kind of ad hominem is fun but doesn't really address my argument. Well, yes and no. As scholar Richard Bauckman puts it, "all history, meaning all that historians write - historiography - is an inextricable combination of fact and interpretation, the empirically observable and the intuited or construed meaning." So again, it's the same challenge. 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. I need to recognize that my earlier statement was pretty dang rash, however I disagree, and I do not believe we could ever come to any sort of common agreement unless we both recognize the tools we presuppose and use in this pursuit of understanding. 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. Let me pose to you this question:If your wife/mother/best friend had an encounter with an alien, where he recounted specific things that took place, and then his story was corroborated with over a hundred others in your town, where they corroborated the same specific events, even though none of them knew each other, but you had no objective/physical evidence to confirm that it happened, would you believe them? Before you automatically say "no," let me pose another question:Would not accurate testimony be an excellent historical source if it were indeed accurate? If so, why wouldn't you believe eyewitness testimony if it's the best place to go for accurate information? Seems like another argument from silence. What evidence do you have that the story did not originate with Mark? This puts you in a sort of awkward position, since I will readily admit that the story probably didn't originate with Mark, since there were hundreds of people telling the same story. The problem, once again, is that the methodology you use to ask your questions is fundamentally biased and skeptical. You assume that it is 1) a "story" 2) that it had to originate somewhere 3)that it is untrue, but you have not proved any of these premises. "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. 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. 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. 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 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.I have offered the most logical reasoning and explanation for the formation of the early church (whereas you have offered none).I have offered the most logical reasoning and evidence for the authorship of the Gospel of Mark (whereas you have offered none).I'm not resorting to a "na na -boo boo" tactic here, and I am totally willing to hear your alternative explanation. I have an open mind and am willing to listen. But I'm working with what I have read so far. Finally, more ad hominem lends less credibility to your arguments rather than more.Regards!
- Raph