What would you have done?

[watsup]

My position is that the NT should not exist, it should never have existed, never propagated beyond a few villages around Jerusalem two thousand years ago, all the odd are against it.

Only a truly open minded examination of all the available data could begin to make that clear to you, but you are not open minded, you demand evidence despite having evidence, you ask for impossible degrees of evidence precisely because you want to reject it.

There was no such thing as the New Testament 2000 years ago.

 

[Daisy]

There was no such thing as the New Testament 2000 years ago.

Not true...there are copies dating back to the 2nd century, which is very close to the time the originals were written...

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

I am not concerned about who you are, just what you post. Your background is irrelevant. That is why I never use any personal claims of knowledge or authority or background. My background is irrelevant.

Very well, as you wish.

All you did was replace one point of view with another. Really has nothing to do with prejudice at all. We have different points of view. Your current point of view does cause you to come to conclusions that your prior point of view did not. This doesn't make you more or less open minded or more or less prejudiced. But judging by what you post, it does inform the conclusions you come to and it doesn't mean that view is more open minded or less prejudicial; just different.

OK, fair enough.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

See, this is the crap that has no place in debating ideas. Don't play psychologist with me. Stick to debating ideas, not what you think of me.

Except I think it's relevant, I learned that I held the views I do (similar in almost all respects to almost all atheists I encounter here) because of prejudices.

So don't be so quick to dismiss what I said.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

If I perceive "atheism" as a delusion much as Dawkins claims "theism" is a delusion, then do I not have as much right as he to express that view?

 

[watsup]

Except I think it's relevant, I learned that I held the views I do (similar in almost all respects to almost all atheists I encounter here) because of prejudices.

So don't be so quick to dismiss what I said.

Do you have any prejudices now?

 

[watsup]

If I perceive "atheism" as a delusion much as Dawkins claims "theism" is a delusion, then do I not have as much right as he to express that view?

I agree with Dawkins.

 

[devildavid]

Except I think it's relevant, I learned that I held the views I do (similar in almost all respects to almost all atheists I encounter here) because of prejudices.

So don't be so quick to dismiss what I said.

It is not relevant at all. All that is relevant here are the contents of our posts. It is these contents that represent who we are in this forum. Maybe you think you had prejudiced views due to your atheism and maybe I think had wrong views when I believed. None of these views have to do with prejudice or being open minded. They have to do with beliefs. Not believing in gods does not mean being closed minded. Believing in god does not mean being open minded. And vice versa.

 

[devildavid]

If I perceive "atheism" as a delusion much as Dawkins claims "theism" is a delusion, then do I not have as much right as he to express that view?

You cam express any views you want to. But don't characterize disagreement with your view as being closed minded. Because that is not what it means to have a closed mind.

 

[devildavid]

Payback for your stupid arguments...

And once again with the insults. Do I ever call anything you post stupid? Why are you so insulting with those who don't go along with your views?

 

[Daisy]

And once again with the insults. Do I ever call anything you post stupid? Why are you so insulting with those who don't go along with your views?

Ha ha ha...you missed your calling, you shoulda been a comedian...

 

[devildavid]

Ha ha ha...you missed your calling, you shoulda been a comedian...

There are no examples of any of my posts calling your posts stupid. But plenty by you doing it to me. So laugh on, because the insults are one sided and you are the guilty party every time.

 

[Daisy]

There are no examples of any of my posts calling your posts stupid. But plenty by you doing it to me. So laugh on, because the insults are one sided and you are the guilty party every time.

You are either pulling my leg or you're the most unaware person ever...

 

[devildavid]

You are either pulling my leg or you're the most unaware person ever...

Then go find just one of my posts that ever referred to any of your posts as stupid. Go do it. Go find any post where I insulted you. Go do it. Prove your point.

 

[distraff]

Be careful, evaluating the NT by the kinds of people who claim it as "their book" two thousand years later is a huge epistemological mistake.

I mean look at many Trump supporters, thugs, plain and simple thugs who call themselves Christians yet admire Trump's bullying and violent rhetoric - even the staunchest atheist can see these kinds of people are a universe away from the things Christ spoke of.

I've met many "christians" who regularly attend their services and get furious over abortion being legal, yet are eager to support and justify bombing children in "foreign" countries or starving them with sanctions, killing them with medicine sanctions and so on.

I know many people can't decouple this kind of attitude from the Bible but you must, the NT predates the perverse christianity we see today by thousands of years, it never advocated the stuff we see today all around us.

This is actually a good point.

 

[distraff]

None of these pertain to antiquity, we see no examples from antiquity, I think I am correct here.

So you only believe eyewitness accounts from antiquity but not from more recent times? UFO claims, bigfoot claims, reincarnation claims, and Mormon claims all have many books written about them and countless eyewitnesses. In the cause of the Mormons a dozens apostles who signed their names to the claim they saw an angel take the golden the golden plates. And that record was written very soon after the events and there were millions of copies of this that were printed.

1. True, but again there are no examples at all of such extant material from the Roman empire or any of its dominions, the NT stands out dramatically.

See points 1 - 4 to see what set Christianity apart.

2. Yes this is true, but can it account for the immediacy we find in the creation of written accounts?

Sure, one of Jesus's buddies wanted to write about it and obviously wanted to do this before he died.

the rate at which copying grew? a wandering philosopher, upsetting established Judaism who ends up executed was not unusual back then, so why this one?

I explained the popularity of Christianity in this point. Christianity had an incredible message of hope of kindness that was ahead of its time. Just imagine you were a farmer at the time paying heavy taxes and giving money to your religion that seemed to care only about the rich people. And then you heard Christ's message that put the poor above the rich, and the weak ahead of the wrong.

3. I agree but the question is WHY was that? I think that the miracles, the absolute astonishment these caused must be part of the reason, this is my thesis - this was a huge motive for creating records, spread them, it was almost unbelievable.

Christianity focused on missionary work because Jesus did. Jesus spent years preaching in front of massive crowds trying to convert people. He even did this at the risk of his own life. His apostles continued this tradition. One of the core beliefs of Christianity is that you can only be saved through Christ. So converting people to Christianity was literally saving them from a horrible fate. This focus on missionary work was pure genius and combined with an incredible message allowed Christianity to catch on like wildfire.

4. This occurred in the early 4th century though, we have clear evidence of NT manuscripts and fragments predating this period by at least 150 years, the copying had already started and was what enabled Christianity to grow.

What I am referring to is these document actually being saved. The vast majority of historical documents don't make it or are lost. The catholic church made it a priority to preserve Christian records but didn't care about documents from other religions or anti-Christian sources.

Your arguments boil down to two fallacies:
When you point to the gospels themselves as evidence for themselves, you are committing the circular reasoning fallacy.
When you point to Christianity's popularity and number of records, you are committing the ad populum fallacy. People can get excited about a wrong belief.

 

[distraff]

This is interesting, your phrasing and structure are interesting here.

First you wonder about "non Christian" sources but all the sources we find later became known as Christian sources; at the time these events were witnessed there was no "christianity", the original writings cannot be called "Christian sources" at the time they were simply chroniclers.

The only sources you have are the four gospels who were written by Jesus's top leaders in the religion he was founding. This is as biased as you get and not objective at all. Your sources are Christian and were Christian for decades at the time of writing.

And tell me how could a "less biased" source verify anything? how can you call the sources that do exist as biased simply because they are sources? surely any source would biased in your view simply because it is a source?

You hit on a good point. It takes a lot of evidence to verify supernatural claims and historical claims by their nature are too fragmentary. To verify a supernatural claim we need it to be verified by objective experts who can provide physical evidence that they can show. For example a team of doctors showing a bone healing on tape with before and after x-rays. Historical claims just can't do anything like this.

Then you make your decisions as you have - if the NT really is evidence and if the NT is all that remains of a possibly urgent, perhaps even desperate effort to propagate an absolutely astonishing set of events - then you cannot get the corroboration you seek, you may have set the bar just a teeny bit too high that despite the events being true you can never recognize it, you, your personal criteria (whatever they mal really be) could be blocking you from seeing truths.

Maybe the NT was never intended to be evidence for itself. You can't use a book to be evidence of itself anyway. Belief in Jesus is based on faith not evidence. If there was evidence, there would be no need for faith.

Incidentally there are many extra-biblical texts around that stem from the early church period (called the "ante-nicene" fathers), for example take a look at Clement's Epistle this is believed to have been penned very early, perhaps 70 AD (though the oldest copy we have is later than that) and there are numerous other fascinating examples.

Clement wasn't an eye witness. Many later sources got their information from the original gospels and don't count.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

It is not relevant at all. All that is relevant here are the contents of our posts. It is these contents that represent who we are in this forum. Maybe you think you had prejudiced views due to your atheism and maybe I think had wrong views when I believed. None of these views have to do with prejudice or being open minded. They have to do with beliefs. Not believing in gods does not mean being closed minded. Believing in god does not mean being open minded. And vice versa.

As you wish.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

You cam express any views you want to. But don't characterize disagreement with your view as being closed minded. Because that is not what it means to have a closed mind.

I'll characterize it as I see fit.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

So you only believe eyewitness accounts from antiquity but not from more recent times? UFO claims, bigfoot claims, reincarnation claims, and Mormon claims all have many books written about them and countless eyewitnesses. In the cause of the Mormons a dozens apostles who signed their names to the claim they saw an angel take the golden the golden plates. And that record was written very soon after the events and there were millions of copies of this that were printed.

Of course I don't, but if that's what it seems like I'll clarify. I'm striving to compare the NT with other written accounts of things that are somewhat contemporary, certainly before printing and the mass use of writing and before the mass availability of books.

So I haven't argued that I believe the NT because its from antiquity only that we should compare the NT to approx contemporary written documents.

See points 1 - 4 to see what set Christianity apart.

Sure, one of Jesus's buddies wanted to write about it and obviously wanted to do this before he died.

I explained the popularity of Christianity in this point. Christianity had an incredible message of hope of kindness that was ahead of its time. Just imagine you were a farmer at the time paying heavy taxes and giving money to your religion that seemed to care only about the rich people. And then you heard Christ's message that put the poor above the rich, and the weak ahead of the wrong.

How can you establish anything about the nature of christianity during the first century following Christ's crucifixion? what sources are available to you to do this?

Christianity focused on missionary work because Jesus did. Jesus spent years preaching in front of massive crowds trying to convert people. He even did this at the risk of his own life. His apostles continued this tradition. One of the core beliefs of Christianity is that you can only be saved through Christ. So converting people to Christianity was literally saving them from a horrible fate. This focus on missionary work was pure genius and combined with an incredible message allowed Christianity to catch on like wildfire.

Once again though, during the first years after the crucifixion the "church" likely was nothing like what we see centuries later, regarding the "church" as having a Bible, catechisms, a hierarchical clergy, statements of beliefs, governing councils and political influence is not appropriate.

What I am referring to is these document actually being saved. The vast majority of historical documents don't make it or are lost. The catholic church made it a priority to preserve Christian records but didn't care about documents from other religions or anti-Christian sources.

Yes the catholic church did do that but many centuries later, the oldest codex owned by the catholic church (codex Vaticanus) dates from the 4th century (300AD - 400 AD) so the preservation and copying had been underway for several centuries even before the oldest codex the Church has.

Your arguments boil down to two fallacies:
When you point to the gospels themselves as evidence for themselves, you are committing the circular reasoning fallacy.

Yet I don't think I've done that. I've cited the gospels as evidence for the events, the miracles.

If such events did take place then people will have reacted to them with astonishment, have no illusion, people know that the dead don't come back to life, that water cannot be turned into wine, they knew that better than us today perhaps, there were no hospitals, medicines, people got sick and died, that was understood very clearly back then as it is today, life was much harsher back then and people had to deal with it.

So witnessing such events would not be taken with a pinch of salt, a shaking of the head, people would be absolutely astonished and I suspect that would motivate some to document or verbally propagate what they'd seen.

When you point to Christianity's popularity and number of records, you are committing the ad populum fallacy. People can get excited about a wrong belief.

That cannot be used to prove that the NT, the gospels are make believe though.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Look:

The second and third centuries saw a sharp divorce of Christianity from its early roots. There was an explicit rejection of then-modern Judaism and Jewish culture by the end of the second century, with a growing body of adversus Judaeos literature. Fourth- and fifth-century Christianity experienced pressure from the government of the Roman Empire and developed strong episcopal and unifying structure. The ante-Nicene period was without such authority and was more diverse.

The ante-Nicene period ran from Christ through to around 325 AD, over three hundred years before the "church" even began to look anything like the kind of organization we all associate churches with today.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

The only sources you have are the four gospels who were written by Jesus's top leaders in the religion he was founding. This is as biased as you get and not objective at all. Your sources are Christian and were Christian for decades at the time of writing.

You simply cannot demand evidence and then when presented with it object that it is biased because it was composed by those who witnessed the events!

Of course the evidence is biased, all personal accounts are biased, so we are helped here in that there are four gospels, what else could they do? by your reasoning anyone who wrote an account was a Christian and therefore biased this is the stuff of Kafka's The Trial.

We cant accept evidence from a source we call a "Christian" because that's biased and all those who served as sources were by definition Christian so therefore we can reject all sources.

But we do not know who created these initial written accounts, the writers were not the witnesses, they were chroniclers, saying that those collected and wrote an account of these events cannot be trusted because we don't trust people who would write accounts of such evidence is utter foolishness.

You hit on a good point. It takes a lot of evidence to verify supernatural claims and historical claims by their nature are too fragmentary. To verify a supernatural claim we need it to be verified by objective experts who can provide physical evidence that they can show. For example a team of doctors showing a bone healing on tape with before and after x-rays. Historical claims just can't do anything like this.

Maybe the NT was never intended to be evidence for itself. You can't use a book to be evidence of itself anyway. Belief in Jesus is based on faith not evidence. If there was evidence, there would be no need for faith.

You must personally set the bar for what you regard as evidence, there are no universal laws or rules for what is or is not evidence, we each must evaluate and make up our own minds as best we can.

But once again I don't claim the books are evidence for the books, I claim the book are evidence that the events did occur, not proof, evidence.

Clement wasn't an eye witness. Many later sources got their information from the original gospels and don't count.

Clement may well have been a witness;

Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

But I never claimed he was a witness did I?

 

[watsup]

"IF!"

 

[ataraxia]

If I perceive "atheism" as a delusion much as Dawkins claims "theism" is a delusion, then do I not have as much right as he to express that view?

You simply cannot demand evidence and then when presented with it object that it is biased because it was composed by those who witnessed the events!

Of course the evidence is biased, all personal accounts are biased, so we are helped here in that there are four gospels, what else could they do? by your reasoning anyone who wrote an account was a Christian and therefore biased this is the stuff of Kafka's The Trial.

Religious people all over the world have a well-known tendency to say they see miracles:

1) During the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, there were many, many Iranians who were swearing they were seeing the face of the Ayatollah Khomeini in the moon.

2) There is a Hindu holy man today in India who has hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit him, and they have all been eyewitnesses to incredible miracles by him. They can't all be wrong, can they?

"I don't know how to describe because while typing this my hands are shivering as still I can’t believe what has happened in this one week time. I believed in Sai Baba, but never had much attention towards Him. I used to worship Him as any other God. I had been going through rough path of life for so many years. I had dreams of Sai Baba, but never took it seriously. Since I have started reading experiences of devotees in this site, I understood how stupid I have been these years, when Sai Baba Himself came in my dream. But I never understood Him. Thanks to all the people whoever posted in this site and to creators, who have seeded the faith in people like me.

Miracles Of Sai Baba & This Blog Changed My Life - Anonymous Devotee | Shirdi Sai Baba Answers Grace Love Blessings

Watch Video Listen to Podcast Recent Miracles Anonymous Devotee from India says: Sai Ram Hetal Ji, I am very new to your site since I have started reading your blog just from a week ago. I never thought this soon I will share my experience. Please edit wherever necessary as I am new to this...

www.shirdisaibabaexperiences.org

3) I am sure even in this country you have heard of the miracles of Benny Hinn and his ministry. He performs amazing miracles live in front of thousands. And yet he is viewed by most as more of a huckster than any kind of miracle worker. Should we reevaluate that opinion because his miracles have so many eyewitnesses?

https://m.facebook.com/BennyHinnMinistries/videos/a-night-of-amazing-miracles/295030571663233/

_____________________
There are entire books written on fake miracles, coming from the Christian tradition and just about every other religious tradition. The main reasons seem to stem from excessive gullibility zeal and enthusiasm to believe on the part of the believers, or fraud and hucksterism on the part of those claiming to be doing the miracles. Having huge numbers of people saying they have seen miracles has not been shown to be a reliable indicator that it is true. Many of such miracles have still definitively been proven to be false, where it has been possible.

So if you think this particular miracle you are so impressed by is somehow different, you would have to show us why it is somehow different. It just sounds and smells too much like all the other miracles touted by fraudsters, hucksters, and overly enthusiastic believers. I think you can see why supposed personal accounts from 12 people (which in and of itself is also highly questionable) from 2000 years ago, is just not enough to reasonably convince a non-believer who sincerely wants to entertain the idea.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Religious people all over the world have a well-known tendency to say they see miracles:

1) During the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, there were many, many Iranians who were swearing they were seeing the face of the Ayatollah Khomeini in the moon.

2) There is a Hindu holy man today in India who has hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit him, and they have all been eyewitnesses to incredible miracles by him. They can't all be wrong, can they?

"I don't know how to describe because while typing this my hands are shivering as still I can’t believe what has happened in this one week time. I believed in Sai Baba, but never had much attention towards Him. I used to worship Him as any other God. I had been going through rough path of life for so many years. I had dreams of Sai Baba, but never took it seriously. Since I have started reading experiences of devotees in this site, I understood how stupid I have been these years, when Sai Baba Himself came in my dream. But I never understood Him. Thanks to all the people whoever posted in this site and to creators, who have seeded the faith in people like me.

Miracles Of Sai Baba & This Blog Changed My Life - Anonymous Devotee | Shirdi Sai Baba Answers Grace Love Blessings

Watch Video Listen to Podcast Recent Miracles Anonymous Devotee from India says: Sai Ram Hetal Ji, I am very new to your site since I have started reading your blog just from a week ago. I never thought this soon I will share my experience. Please edit wherever necessary as I am new to this...

www.shirdisaibabaexperiences.org

3) I am sure even in this country you have heard of the miracles of Benny Hinn and his ministry. He performs amazing miracles live in front of thousands. And yet he is viewed by most as more of a huckster than any kind of miracle worker. Should we reevaluate that opinion because his miracles have so many eyewitnesses?

https://m.facebook.com/BennyHinnMinistries/videos/a-night-of-amazing-miracles/295030571663233/

_____________________
There are entire books written on fake miracles, coming from the Christian tradition and just about every other religious tradition. The main reasons seem to stem from excessive gullibility zeal and enthusiasm to believe on the part of the believers, or fraud and hucksterism on the part of those claiming to be doing the miracles. Having huge numbers of people saying they have seen miracles has not been shown to be a reliable indicator that it is true. Many of such miracles have still definitively been proven to be false, where it has been possible.

So if you think this particular miracle you are so impressed by is somehow different, you would have to show us why it is somehow different. It just sounds and smells too much like all the other miracles touted by fraudsters, hucksters, and overly enthusiastic believers. I think you can see why supposed personal accounts from 12 people (which in and of itself is also highly questionable) from 2000 years ago, is just not enough to reasonably convince a non-believer who sincerely wants to entertain the idea.

I am aware that many Christians say this kind of stuff, I've challenged some of them in fact because I doubt what they say.

But it doesn't matter, what we have in the NT predates any organized christianity, and the way people behave thousands of years later is obviously unrelated to what may have happened in the past.

You cannot evaluate the NT by looking at data from two thousand years later, it has no bearing, the NT can only be evaluated with reference to contemporary data.

I don't actually have to show anybody anything, if others are uninterested or are unconvinced then so be it, we each must decide what to believe.