Unbelievers at church? GASP!!

[lindagarrette]

Most biographies are written after the person dies, that does not invalidate the biography. Simply because the gospels were written after Jesus died, it does not invalidate the biography. Even if it does make some of the details a little suspicious, the idea that there was a man named Jesus, who was a spiritual leader, is most likely true.

The gospels were not and not intended to be biographies. All were written, as agreed by the majority of Biblical scholars after 70 AD, in Greek, by guys who had only hearsay form the Christian community.

[C1ay]

Hmmm. If we make the argument (e.g., in these posts) that belief in God is irrational, and a reasonably detailed review of historical infomation turns up an inconclusive case (to use your words) you don't think that moves the dial up from irrational to plausible?

 

I do not think the fact that four guys can't conclude anything makes the case seemingly or apparently valid, nor does it make the case likely. It does not make the case acceptable, nor does it make the case credible. IMO, it does not make the case plausible. Especially when the one thing that they did conclude is that the arguments on both sides had serious flaws.

[pgrmdave]

I think, though I don't have time right now to do enough research, that it is provable that Jesus existed as a man, I think that the gospels show it, though I think that there are Roman records of him, again, I am not able to do the research at the moment, so don't ask me to back that up. However, Jesus as God is not provable scientifically. I have come to the conclusion, largely because of this site, that God can neither be proven nor disproven scientifically.

 

For those who are believers: Your arguments cannot succeed, because they depend on faith at some point, all religions do. If they didn't, there wouldn't be need for any more than one.

 

For those who don't believe: Your arguments cannot succeed, because they require believers to abandon faith, which is not rational.

 

If you want to discuss whether or not it happened historically, then you don't need to bring any faith into it. If you want to discuss whether or not Jesus was God, then you need to accept that belief is faith, and at some point, it requires a leap, and cannot be fully logical.

 

Furthermore, this thread has gotten completely off topic, please, either start a new thread, or continue a discussion about unbelievers at church.

[Freethinker]

Uh oh, our RA is back. :o

Hey Mr T! Got tired of working all the time. Thought I'd take a vacation at Hypgrophy Island! Some little voice was telling me to come back!Same voice that told me a double Cheese Whopper with Biggie Fries would be good for me I think! :-) You've been in my prayers.

 

Don't know how much time I have, so I thought I'd get right to the point. And didn't see many posts from you. Thought you might be on yet another vaction. Need to break the next millenia of posts also.

 

Guess I have to be nice now?

[Freethinker]

With the usual vengeance.

Vigor perhaps?

 

Vengence would presume malicious intent. Are you suggesting?

 

It's nice to be back, and wanted! :-)

[infamous]

Vigor perhaps?

 

Vengence would presume malicious intent. Are you suggesting?

 

It's nice to be back, and wanted! :-)

 

With vigor, yes. And I am glad to see you back Freethinker, always lively when your around. No malicious intent intended. Have a good one, enjoy.

[Freethinker]

True, Tormod. But the point I was attempting to make (unsuccessfully) was that those that were close enough to Him to write stories were much more likely to become Christians than others.

There ya go! You've got the idea now! Glad you not only comprehend, but can set up the situation perfectly. We have a book filled with stories called the bible. We are trying to validate the accuracy of the stories by comparing them to other OUTSIDE writers "that were close enough to Him to write stories".

 

And precisely as you suggest, the more of them there are the greater chance of confirming the biblical accounts.

 

Perfect. Now show us ONE from this massive number you want to suggest DOES (or SHOULD) exist. You were talking about 20,000 to draw from before. Show us ONE that meets the conditions YOU set down.

 

I'll give you one. Pliny the Elder. wrote extensively about the time and was alive prior to the claime crucifiction. Never mentions anyone even close to the biblical Jesus or even a specific person it could be built around. NOTHING!

 

Now your turn.

 

ONE! . "that were close enough to Him to write stories".

[Freethinker]

It's OK. I can wait for some evidence that can hold up under scrutiny a little better...

Are you holding your breath?

Exhale!

Inhale!

There now you can hold it for a while longer!

[Freethinker]

LG- I am not sure I understand your point. It is true that most scholarship holds that the New Testament documents were authored (in something like their current form) in the period 60-90AD. But, with the exception of Paul, most of the New Testament authors were direct eye witnesses.

 

There are a lot of practical reasons why the existing documents were not authored until 30+ years after Jesus' death (notably, most apostles seemed to have thought that Christ's return was immanent) but they were eyewitnesses. Further the internal consistencies between the three synoptic gospels are a credible testimony to a portion of the text.

There has always been considerable disagreement about dating of the N.T. documents. Just because a Christian quotes a Christian scholar who promotes (and offers evidence for) an early dating doesn't make it so. Christians have a vested interest in an early dating; for example, an early dating helps to answer critics who view the Gospels as legendary.

 

Critics have a vested interest in a late dating of the documents.

 

What it boils down to, of course, is that no one knows with any certainty when the documents were written -- or, in many cases, who wrote them. Although the Gospels, for example, carry the names of their alleged authors (some of them supposedly disciples), the fact of the matter is that the authors are unknown and there is good evidence that at least some are the work of more than one author.

 

Following are the likely dates of the Gospels: Mark 75, Luke 85, Matthew 90, John 100 Note: John ends after Chapter 20 in the earliest manuscripts. Our current "John" is probably the compound work of four different authors.

 

Interestingly, however, there is some evidence for dating the Gospels much later than is customary. There is no known mention of any Gospel prior to that of II Peter (c. 150 A.D.) which mentions "Gospels." Justin Martyr (c. 140), for example, never quotes from or mentions a Gospel. This is strange in that it would have been very advantageous for the early Christians to have referred to the Gospels, had they existed, in their arguments with detractors.

 

There is no known mention of the *four* Gospels prior to that of Iranaeus in 185 A.D. -- and he stated that he found them to be preposterous.

[Freethinker]

It's important to remember that the Bible is a collection of texts, so, in some sense, it's not 1 source but a collection. It's not one witnesses account, but several, all collected in one volume.

It's important to note that we do not know who wrote what in the bible. There are no such things as "original texts". The oldest full copy of the NT was from after 600CE. We don't even have any complete single texts that are close to "originals", much less from the 1st Century!

 

And it is obvious, esp after the Dead Sea and even more so the Nag scrolls, that only certain texts were selected and many others destroyed or forced into hiding. Eusebius, 4th Century Bishop of Caesarea and Father of ecclesiastical history wrote "The Preparation of the Gospel". In it he had a chapter named "How Far It May Be Proper to Use Falsehood as a Medium for the Benefit of Those Who Require to Be Deceived". In it he writes "I have repeated whatever may rebound to the glory and suppress all that could tend to disgrace of our religion."

 

And that is why we are trying to test the accuracy of that specific accumulation of stories.

 

And they are far from internally consistant.

[Freethinker]

Although I'm sure Biochemist has a better reason :o, one thing to keep in mind was the oral history tradition of cultures. They were much more skilled at passing on information then we are now in unwritten format.

And what is this tautology based on? Think about it. You are claiming that their oral history was superior to ours. And how do we test this? How do we compare what they were SAYING 2000 years ago compared to what they were SAYING 1900 years ago for accuracy if the very test preculdes written documentation? We can;t HEAR either time period, much less compare them.

 

The only reason someone would make this claim is if they were trying to jutify blind acceptance of claims of accuracy of texts that did not exist at the time. It's trying to validate itself. A bogus claim. Or at least not provable or probable.

[Freethinker]

Most biographies are written after the person dies, that does not invalidate the biography. Simply because the gospels were written after Jesus died, it does not invalidate the biography. Even if it does make some of the details a little suspicious, the idea that there was a man named Jesus, who was a spiritual leader, is most likely true.

Tell ya what, after we finish talking about written historical data from existing eyewitnesses, we can start talking about biographies. Let's not confuse the discussion by dragging it in multiple directions at one time.

 

And it is irrational (lacking a rational approach) to blindly accept his existence not only before any evidence is provided, but in what is obviously the lack of any.

 

However let me make it clear that each of you has the right to allow what ever illusions you wish to guide your life with. As long as it does not negatively impact society as a whole or especially me and my family particularly..

[Freethinker]

It's not testable, and wasn't meant as scientific evidence. Just something to ponder :o .

See this is what makes the discussions more difficult. When you first made the claim about how accurate oral history was "back then", you framed it as authhoritive. As if it was valid and verifyable. As if we were to just accept it as fact and use it to accept the next assertion it was intended to support. But when you are shown how weak it is, awe, then it really wasn;t important, Let's pretend you were not trying to use it as support! Too bad you didn't get away with it though, eh? Worth a try though, most would fall for it so why not? Makes taking the rest of the hook so much easier!

 

So why not throw out some more idle things to ponder and see if you get away with some percent of them?

[Freethinker]

Hmmm. If we make the argument (e.g., in these posts) that belief in God is irrational, and a reasonably detailed review of historical infomation turns up an inconclusive case (to use your words) you don't think that moves the dial up from irrational to plausible? I have a hard time figuring that out. ...And I truly appreciate you taking the time to read it.I did not mean to mislead. Quite the contrary, these are pretty heavy anti-Christian arguments that I included. I did think (and sitll do) that the final statement I included is the author's net-net summary.

Funny how you have so much time to post but do not have the curtousy to provde the information you claimed to have long ago. Nor the honesty to admit if you do not have it.

 

20,000 texts and you can not supply ONE.

 

Nor will you face it in your posts.

 

That much problem for you?

[Freethinker]

I think, though I don't have time right now to do enough research, that it is provable that Jesus existed as a man, I think that the gospels show it, though I think that there are Roman records of him, again, I am not able to do the research at the moment, so don't ask me to back that up.

Ya we sure would not want you to have to have any actual REASON to believe this nonsense! You are welcome to swallow whatever antiquated myth that cocks your pistol!

 

But understand how much credibility that gives to anything else you wish to post.

 

If you don't even think it is worth finding out if the very basis of your claim is true or not, why would anyone think you had any more credibility on smaller details?

 

But I do appreciate your being so open about it. We'll know going forward that what ever you post is probably no more than what ever you decided at the time and facts need not apply.

[Biochemist]

I'll give you one. Pliny the Elder. wrote extensively about the time and was alive prior to the claime crucifiction.

A reasonably complete review of the pros and cons of the bilblical texts and the contemporaneous non-Biblical authors was posted in post #83, including Pliny the elder.

[lindagarrette]

I think, though I don't have time right now to do enough research, that it is provable that Jesus existed as a man, I think that the gospels show it, though I think that there are Roman records of him, again, I am not able to do the research at the moment, so don't ask me to back that up. However, Jesus as God is not provable scientifically. I have come to the conclusion, largely because of this site, that God can neither be proven nor disproven scientifically.

 

For those who are believers: Your arguments cannot succeed, because they depend on faith at some point, all religions do. If they didn't, there wouldn't be need for any more than one.

 

For those who don't believe: Your arguments cannot succeed, because they require believers to abandon faith, which is not rational.

 

If you want to discuss whether or not it happened historically, then you don't need to bring any faith into it. If you want to discuss whether or not Jesus was God, then you need to accept that belief is faith, and at some point, it requires a leap, and cannot be fully logical.

 

Furthermore, this thread has gotten completely off topic, please, either start a new thread, or continue a discussion about unbelievers at church.

I agree. You have pretty much summed up what I and a few others in this forum have been saying for a while. This is not the place to discuss the existance of gods or any other supernatural entities, events, or even possibilities. Science does not permit such speculation and this is a science based forum.