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Author | Topic: Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5
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I won't comment on the videos because I haven't watched them.
But your own positive claims seem pretty dubious. And I laughed, almost out loud when I saw the claim that there was excellent evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Odd that I've never seen any, despite investigation. I'd say that the evidence, properly considered is against it. Care to produce your evidence?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5
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As you know we've been over this and the case against the resurrection is stronger. Despite your dishonest attempts to attack the evidence.
The Gospel accounts certainly do not have a "ring of truth" and the differences between Matthew and Luke show clear signs of legendary development. Adding in the paucity of the pre-Gospel accounts that Jesus was not resurrected is the best way to make sense of the mess. Even the women's discovery of the tomb is poor evidence. Having women who did not pass on the story as the discoverers of the tomb would explain why the empty tomb story was not known earlier. Certainly it is absent from an earlier sources. The absence of the body is easily explained, since there is no clear motivation for anybody who would have known the whereabouts of the body (likely a common grave) to produce it. The rest is equally subjective. We can't know what happened to the others, whether some core of their movement hung on and found ways to deny their failure or not. Likely they did - unless the Romans killed them all - and certainly we can't know what beliefs they came to. Really you haven't got much - relying on accounts known to be inaccurate. Claiming that they have the "ring of truth" Claiming they would have been corrected when the big, obvious differences between Matthew and Luke persist. Subjective and inaccurate impressions and obvious falsehoods have no value as evidence.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Faith, I am afraid that you have no ability to evaluate evidence. Which is something of a handicap in these discussions.
The women did not even see the resurrection (nobody saw the actual event). They aren't put forward as court witnesses, just participants in the events. And in Mark, the original version, they don't even tell anyone what they supposedly saw. As I pointed out to GDR this is evidence against the empty tomb story (which likely is fiction)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Come off it Faith. if that was true they would have better reasons. And inerrancy in particular generates a lot of silly excuses to twist the Bible.
quote: How can you be a witness to a resurrection without seeing an actual resurrection? And surely the decades-long delay between the supposed events and the first report does rather more to discredit the account than any opinion I might offer.
quote: I'm hardly splitting hairs. The first reports we have just say that various people - not including the women saw Jesus in some sense. and even if we granted the empty tomb story (and I don't) a missing body is just a missing body. It's hardly good evidence that the body came to life again.
quote: Hardly a lie - the considered opinion of the majority of Bible scholars. People much more familiar with the evidence than you are. All you have to the contrary is tradition, which we know is unreliable,
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
In fact I said that I wasn't aware of any "excellent evidence". And you certainly didn't manage to produce any of that.
As for your dishonesty, I give one example from the previous discussion. According to the Gospel of Luke Jesus ordered to the disciples to stay in Jerusalem. Because the gospel also says that they took a short trip outside the walls, to the Mount of Olives - a trip too short to count against Sabbath provisions against travelling, you insisted that the restriction would also allow a trip to Galilee!
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Just to make things easier I'm probably familiar with the common arguments and consider them to be pretty worthless, so you needn't rehearse any of those.
If you want to use the Empty Tomb story, then you'd better come up with some pretty novel reasons to think it genuine AND explain why a missing body qualifies as "excellent evidence" of a resurrection. I think that's a tall order. And don't assume that the Gospels are reliable for anything more than telling us about Christian beliefs in the later part of the 1st Century. They aren't (although the conflict between Matthew and Luke looks interesting - and it's probably worth considering why that conflict might be there)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5
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Yes Faith, we know you despise the honest search for the truth. And that is really all you've said. Personally I have some hope of an intelligent discussion with Raphael, and neither you, nor GDR seem able to manage that. So please butt out, instead of indulging your usual hostility to honest enquiry.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: On the contrary. However, if you had found the truth you would still have no cause to attack those honestly searching for it. Rather you should help them. Your approach makes it quite obvious that you don't have the truth and don't want anyone else to know it wither. Since your hate for the truth and the Bible - the real Bible - leaves you unable to rationally discuss the matter, again I ask you to please bow out of the discussion.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: I'd say that it is the facts against your opinion. Even if I were being generous my opinion clearly has a rational basis and yours does not. if your mind was open there would be a chance of agreement. So long as it remains perversely closed, there is not.
quote: Really? Do you really accept that a command to stay in Jerusalem would allow a short trip outside the walks, but rule out a trip to Galilee ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Interesting that you don't answer the question.
But here you are insisting that if the disciples could get away with a trip to the Mount of Olives, they could get away with going all the way to Galilee.
Message 27 Seriously, a little day trip,just outside the walls, certainly could be within the bounds of staying in Jerusalem. Heading off to Gallee certainly is not,
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Yawn, just more of your usual slanders. Look we all know what a nasty peace of work you are. It doesn't encourage anyone to believe your silliness.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Not exactly true, is it ?
It is an open question as to where the disciples were over the 40 day period but it seems pretty clear that they didn't remain in Jerusalem the whole time. Even in Acts Luke has them returning to Jerusalem from Olivet, which has to lead you to understand that Luke is agreeing that they didn't stay in Jerusalem even though he had written in his gospel that they had been told to do
You definitely suggest a trip to Galilee, based on the short day-trip to the Mount of Olives, which is only against the strictest interpretation of Jesus' (supposed) command.
quote: In reality the suggestion of collusion is a straw man, and one that serves to obscure the copying between the Synoptic Gospels. But writing off the differences without considering them as you do is just to ignore what is going on. And in this case The author of Luke/Acts seems to be deliberately attacking the account in Matthew. And that is hardly the only significant difference between the two Gospels. And really, can you imagine Matthew completely ignoring the encounter on the road to Emmaus, and wrongly placing the appearances in Galilee as would have to be the cause if Luke/Acts is correct. And if Luke/Acts is wrong, then the Encounter on the road to Emmaus must be a fiction and quite likely more, besides. But I don't expect you to deal honestly with these points, because you have already failed to do so.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Oh dear, already I see the bad apologetic arguments turning up.
There is not a lot of physical evidence for the Gospel's reliability. The number of manuscripts is only evidence for transmission, not that the original text was accurate. And even that is hampered by the fact that most are relatively late and the early manuscripts are often just fragments. The amount of time is likewise at best evidence for accurate transmission, it dies not and cannot show that the original text is trustworthy. Moreover Christians would be more concerned with passing on their doctrines than accurate history. And the stories that they told and believed almost certainly drifted away from the original history. The evaluations of Tacitus and Suetonious and so on are not based solely on the existing manuscripts. Knowledge of the authors, their sources, their methods - and their biases - are far more important. The Gospels have very little there. So really, this is just an apologetic mangling of the historical method.. On to the next part. The only thing that depends on the women's story is the discovery of the empty tomb. Even if I did not believe that that is better explained by that story being a late addition, it would still be less important than the post-resurrection appearances. A missing body is simply not good evidence for a resurrection The list of appearances given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 predates any mention of the empty tomb, and that omits any mention of the women. The claim that the whole thing depends on the testimony of women is a clear falsehood. The appearance to the 500 also has little value as evidence. We have almost no information on it at all. It does not even recognisably appear in the Gospels or Acts. I personally suspect it was simple pareidolia. Nothing that is said contradicts that, and people "see" Jesus in that even now. The witnesses are in no way identified so there is little risk even in inventing the whole thing (if it is not, as some have argued, an interpolation) So in answer to your two claims I point out 1) the idea of the resurrection rests in the testimony of men, not women. All the named witnesses in 1Corinthians 15 are men. 2) even if we trust the story of 500 witnesses, despite the problems it is too lacking in detail to provide real evidence of a resurrection And finally, the growth if the Christian church had very little to do with the evidence you've produced. Nor should we expect it to depend on the truth of the story. The Mormons have been quite successful despite the fact that their (new) scriptures are 19th century fabrications, claimed to be translations of ancient doctrines. In summary, nothing you have offered is good evidence for the resurrection, even the parts that are true.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
You didn't realise that the Mount of Olives was only a little way outside the walls ? I'm fairly sure I pointed that out, and anyway Luke/Acts calls it a Sabbath-days journey - too short to count as travelling.
The rest is just more silly excuses. Not worth the time.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5
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quote: Pointing out that your false assertions are untrue is certainly predictable.
quote: No, pointing out that your false assertion is in fact false is hardly misleading.
quote: You were the one who claimed that the "amount of physical evidence" for the Gospels was a good reason to believe in their reliability. The fact that the physical evidence isn't anywhere near as good as you claim doesn't illustrate bias on MY part.
quote: I have no responsibility for whatever arguments you imagine I am making. I am only pointing out that the number of copies is not significant evidence of reliability in the original documents. There's no argument that they are unreliable there.
quote: Which essentially agrees with my point.
quote: What stretch? I *agreed* that the manuscripts can be used as evidence for transmission. Why are you assuming otherwise.
quote: And there is a massive non-sequitur. I'm not making any claim that there was full agreement on doctrine, only that passing down doctrines like the resurrection - which would have been commonly agreed anyway - was more important to the writers than historical accuracy.
quote: The fact that even oral traditions are mutable until they are formalised, and there were decades between Jesus' death and the writing of even the first Gospel. And indeed, modern Christians can fall for and circulate urban legends or mistake fictions for facts (see some of the "glurge" entries on Snopes). Why assume that the early Christians were so different ?
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