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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Tension of Faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
If you have nothing worth saying, better not to say it.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
In Babylon, nearly 4000 years ago a dissatisfied customer accused a merchant named Ea-Nasir of delivering sub-standard copper. We know this because we have the original complaint
This is perfectly good evidence for the existence of the copper trade, for recognising that the quality of goods was a big issue even then and for the existence of a copper trader using the name Ea-Nasir. It cannot tell us who was in the wrong since we have only one side of the story, and no other evidence. In short simplistic rules will not work. It is necessary to weigh written evidence carefully, to consider the ways in which it is likely to be unreliable. Thus, while the complaining customer may have exaggerated the problems in order to demand a refund, it is rather less likely that the complaint is addressed to a fictitious trader or over a delivery that never happened.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Clay isn’t exactly a good materal for carbon dating. As for the rest, if we had little information about the region the tablets value as evidence would increase. If we had contradictory evidence then it would be hurt - but you would need contradictory evidence, not simple ignorance.
quote: Ea-Nasir didn’t write the tablet as should be perfectly clear. However, strictly speaking it would be evidence of daemons at that time. Just not good enough evidence to be worth taking seriously.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: That’s a strange non-sequitur. Perhaps you can explain why you relate the two texts ? (Of course there was no Flood, therefore the idea of iron working before it is incoherent. And because of that we can’t count anything as evidence for it)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Then maybe you should have just asked that. Or better the general question of why business documents are considered more reliable than myths and legends. (Although that seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it ?) One important point is that a business document is a primary source while a myth or even a legend is a secondary source (at best) a long way removed from whatever real events (if any) inspired it and may even be entirely fictional, at least so far as the literal content goes.
quote: I didn’t say that you did. I was saying that we can’t have evidence for anything before the Flood because - there being no Flood - the expression has no meaning. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: That is an orthogonal to what I was saying. Since the physical evidence shows that there was no Flood anything like the Biblical story it really doesn’t matter that Genesis says that there was.
quote: Not secondary to Genesis by any means !
quote: First, if there was such a flood, the story has got far enough away from it that it could only be inspiration, not the Flood. Second, while there certainly were floods I don’t think there is good reason to suppose any single flood inspired the story.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Even if it was inspired by God - and there’s no good evidence for that - Genesis is still a compilation of myth and legend and very poor evidence for any of the events it relates.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
As I stated before an intent to persuade is better evidence of bias than of truthfulness. And it is rather obvious that the author of John, for instance was out to promote the claim of Jesus’ divinity.
If the Gospel of John were an eyewitness account it would still be of questionable reliability for other reasons. It includes things John did not witness, ancient writers were often credulous - miracle stories are not that rare, and being written relatively late there is much time for confabulation - which is all but certain to occur. However, it is likely that the Gospel was not written by an eyewitness. The author was highly literate, unlike the uneducated John. The only direct claim to an eyewitness source was very likely written by a redactor by its wording alone (we know his testimony is true) - and the redactor may not even have meant that the original author was John, and certainly could be mistaken (perhaps confusing John the Disciple with John the Elder, named by Papias) So, the authorship is far from certain, and there are very good reasons to distrust the miracle stories. Which leaves us with the fact that the Gospel of John is not good evidence at all for the truth of Christian claims.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I didn’t accuse the writer of John of any dishonesty beyond - likely - slanting his account. He probably made up many of the words attributed to Jesus, but equally likely (but wrongly) thought they were things Jesus would have said. But that was normal practice even for historians, and hardly surprising when memory was the only record - and that second-hand at best.
Although I do note that the Bible includes pseudonymous documents and outright propaganda (again normal for the period) and fictions. Even if you choose to take some things I do say as small dishonesties you don’t even touch on other and more important points, making your reply my a diversion based on faux outrage than a genuine rebuttal or even an attempt at one.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Perhaps, but it’s a low level of dishonesty, common in anyone who seeks to persuade over simply relating the truth. I’ve seen far worse from Christian apologists - professionals and amateurs.
quote: Error rather than dishonesty. And there certainly are many errors in the Bible. Are you being dishonest in making such an obviously false claim ?
quote: And more falsehoods. Really I must thank you for demonstrating the gross errors that can be produced by bias. Which is one of the reasons why the Gospels can’t be greatly trusted.
quote: According to the false dogma of your cult. Which is hardly persuasive. Maybe you should repeat your claim that debate is futile because your opponents don’t uncritically believe your every word.
quote: Let’s reword it then. You failed to address the major points in my post. Therefore they stand without any rebuttal. Fake outrage over a minor issue - which is all you offer - is just an attempt to hide that.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Nonsense. Anyone seeking to persuade is going to be tempted to slant their account, to leave out awkward details or stories that might detract from the intended message.
quote: And that is an outright lie. I for one take it as truthful. I just disagree with your bizarre idea that persuasion means telling the truth.
quote: How odd that I called it the false dogma of your cult then. An odd way of suggesting that it is yours alone. And again when I DO say that a view is yours I mean that you believe it. And usually implying that you are arguing it solely because you believe it without any real support.
quote: How can you honestly present an obvious falsehood ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: It’s pretty much true. Everything written down DOES have to come via the senses and memory. I don’t see how you can deny that. (Maybe you can quibble on memory, but only in special cases that don’t apply). And the case that any Gospel was written by an eye-witness seems weak, which gives at least one more level of indirection.
quote: A trick - or an accident - switching the barrels, or maybe the water barrels only being used to cover while more supplies were obtained is one possibility. Add in the problems of memory and bias and it is quite possible. Or - if the author was not an eyewitness - it might be a parable taken for reality.
quote: The lifelong is just the sort of exaggeration that can creep into accounts. Whether their complaints were entirely physical (or even genuine) is unknown - if the cures happened at all. The Roman Emperor Vespasian is supposed to have miraculously cured the blind and the lame, too - it’s reported by Tacitus. I don’t believe that either.
quote: They didn’t go down as inerrant until long after they were written. Papias said that Mark’s Gospel got the order of events wrong. The author of Luke was willing to disagree with Mark - and quite possibly Matthew. The main argument hypothetical source Q is that the author of Luke wouldn’t *intentionally* disagree with Matthew as much as he did. Decades after the event leave plenty of time for legends to develop, for confabulation, exaggeration, confusion, for teachings to change and the changed teachings to be put into Jesus’ mouth. The Gospels just are not reliable sources for many things.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Since we know that they were contradicted - by quite early believers - it is your response that is BS.
quote: Or so you assume. Let us not forget that - using the generally accepted dates - it is entirely possible that none of the Gospels were written before the Jewish revolt brought a devastating war to Judaea. Let us not forget that none of the Gospels cite any sources. Let us not forget that no independent source records even the most obvious miracles that supposedly occurred during Jesus’ life. Let us not forget that most Christians at they time would not even have been born when Jesus lived. Let us not forget that fiction can come to be taken for fact remarkably quickly as Arthur Machen’s story The Bowmen came to be mistaken as fact, as The Angels Of Mons - surely there were many eyewitnesses who could contradict that miracle - yet the story persisted. I could say more, but that seems sufficient.
quote: The differences are quite significant. Enough to convince many scholars that the authors of Luke and Matthew had a common source, rather than Luke incorporating material from Matthew.
quote: I am pointing out things that are likely to happen You are making things up.
quote: It’s not that I don’t like inerrant it’s that they were NOT taken as inerrant in the early years. As for inspired - well why don’t you find out when they got that classification and what it was taken to mean before you start trying to claim that it is significant.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Rejecting the idea that human beings - transmitted and recorded the story is hardly a sensible position. You can assume that Divine Inspiration made the stories absolutely accurate but you’d be begging the question (as well as being wrong).
quote: Not really. As I pointed out earlier Arthur Machen created a false miracle story without any intent. Normal human tendencies - and the circumstances - are quite sufficient.
quote: The reality of course is that the alleged miracles did not electrify the world. If they had they would show up in non-Christian sources, and they don’t. If they were just exaggerated or even made-up stories they could easily have had the same effect.
quote: That is just your love of conspiracy theory talking. Quite frankly you would probably find it plausible if you weren’t a Christian. (But the Book of Mormon is an outright fake and the Mormons have still been pretty successful.)
quote: So the logic is that the Gospels must have passed your imaginary tests BECAUSE you have faith them ? No, it doesn’t work that way. If you have faith in things without definite knowledge that they did pass the tests - which you don’t and can’t have for the Gospels - then you certainly CAN have faith in things that didn't pass the tests. That is simple, obvious fact. And that’s without mentioning your faith in Alex Jones and Info-Wars and quack medicine and conspiracy theory....
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Of course you are just lying as usual. In reality it would be quite amazing if the stories in the Gospels had not undergone considerable development (and in fact there are places in the Gospels where we can see development happening, even with written stories). Assuming that any of the Gospels is a simple and exact eyewitness account - as if it were recorded at the time of the events - is simply wrong. To say that any of the miracle stories has to be a full and accurate account is speculation indeed. To disagree with that speculation - to point out that there are more plausible alternatives is not speculation. Only if those alternatives were claimed to be fact would it be speculation.
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