What made some miracle claims more credible than others? And why --
-- why is Jesus Christ the only miracle-worker for whom we have evidence? There's another? Who?
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And if there had to be parlor tricks, then it would be even more impressive if such an event was noticed by other peoples and written down and preserved. For example, if somehow there was a 24-hour day in Canaan, then it would be fascinating to have the Egyptians writing about it in absolute panic; or maybe the Chinese writing about a night that never seemed to end.
What's really "fascinating" is that all you can do is poke fun at the ancient Hebrew myths, as if these cheap shots have any relevance to what Jesus did or did not do in 30 AD. If Jesus had appeared instead in India and did his miracle acts there, then he would have been put into the context of the ancient Hindu myths, which you could also poke fun at, and prove nothing.
Your logic is that we should not believe ANY reported facts of history, because there are always some other stories nearby that are not literally true, and so therefore there are NO facts or true reports of any facts, and so we cannot know any history at all. If that's your premise, then yes, it follows that the Jesus miracle stories (and ALL reported events of history) are fiction.
Ah the "can’t know any history" meme again. What MHORC chapter is that in anyway?
What's your chapter saying you can arbitrarily delete from the historical record anything you don't like because the record also contains a few myths like Joshua making the sun stop? You need to graduate beyond this pettiness of constantly falling back on the ancient myths, for which there's no evidence, no reports from the time the event might have happened. That these fictions exist is not an excuse to toss out other reported historical events for which there is evidence but which you think should not have happened.
But again, it seems your god likes a small ant farm over a big one.
Again you're dwelling on something that makes no difference, even if what you're saying is true. It doesn't matter whether "god likes a small ant farm over a big one" or not. You can't give any reason why this word puzzle matters, regardless what the truth is either way.
But on the other hand it does matter whether our historical records are credible. If the ancient documents cannot be relied on for information about what happened 1000 or 2000 years ago, it makes a difference in our lives and our thinking and knowledge of the past. It does matter if the gospel accounts and other writings from ancient times can be relied on to inform us on the events that happened.
At a smaller level, just imagine if Pilate had written back to Rome about a rather odd character, that the Jewish rabbinical leaders insisted had to be executed.
Maybe he did. 99.9% of what was written has been lost, because it was not copied and recopied for future generations.
There's virtually nothing of Pilate in any Roman records. Josephus is the ONLY Roman who mentions him, other than the one mention in Tacitus only. Other than these two writers, and one monument, there is NO Roman record of Pilate. Nor anything written by him.
LOL…making excuses for your little god again. But again, it seems your god likes a small ant farm over a big one.
You're just repeating your "ant farm" rhetoric like a parrot, as if it means anything. Can't you explain why the size of the "ant farm" matters one way or the other? What matters is whether eternal life is a possibility, regardless whether it's a "little god" who provides it, or if he "likes a small ant farm over a big one."
Since Rome did keep good records, . . .
99.99% of which perished without a trace. And we can't be sure how important this one case seemed to Pilate at that time, in comparison to the other controversies he dealt with. The Romans finally canned him for his bad behavior.
. . . it certainly wouldn’t have been hard to manage…for a REAL god.
You're not only demanding that such a report should have been written by Pilate, but also that it alone would be copied and recopied for the benefit of future generations, when no other such writings were copied. You're demanding extra miracles on top of the ones which actually happened. There is no reason to demand that such extra miracles must happen in order for us to believe the reported miracle events which were recorded and have survived.
I’m not demanding anything.
You're saying that a "REAL god" would have caused Pontius Pilate to write a letter to Rome reporting the Jesus case and would have done something to make sure the letter got preserved as evidence for future generations, for us today, and something's wrong with this god for not giving us such evidence, because had he done so we would have this extra evidence today and God's "ant farm" would be bigger as a result.
There are millions of possible extra miracles God could have done, or unusual interventions into history, in order to produce some desirable outcome. This is like the existence-of-evil argument saying there can't be any God because if he's there he should be eliminating all the evils. And it "wouldn't have been hard" for him to vanquish all the evil.
If you can see that we're not able to make such a judgment as this, then you should also be able to see that we can't dictate to God how much evidence he's supposed to provide, or that he must intervene in history beyond some threshold level of miracle intervention, like having Pontius Pilate write a letter and make sure it would be preserved. We don't know enough to be able to make that kind of judgment. All we can do is look at the actual evidence that exists, and we can consider how persuasive it is, and compare this to other miracle claims or legends to determine which claims have more evidence for them, and which ones less.
Maybe there are some physical laws or patterns in nature which could have been made more evident to human observers, if an intelligent Being is behind it all, or some additional accidental discoveries which could have happened to bring the facts to the knowledge of science sooner than they were actually discovered, so that some time could have been saved in the progress of scientific discovery. Does that prove there's no God? because if he's really there he would have intervened in human events to make these discoveries happen sooner?
I’m making the point that if your god exists, he doesn’t seem to want most humans to get to his paradise.
Let's assume you're right that most do not get there, but it's not because "he doesn't seem to want" them to get there, but because there are conditions which have to be met.
And when you make this observation that "most" do not "get to his paradise" are you complaining that this is wrong? You're just noting this but not saying there's anything wrong with it. You seem to be making a complaint here that God is out of line to impose conditions which might exclude someone. Is that it? If you're really "not demanding anything" then what is your point in saying that God "doesn't seem to want most humans to get to his paradise."
Jesus is quoted saying "your faith has saved you" several times. If this faith is the only condition, then this could mean that more are getting "to his paradise" than would be so by any other requirement. If the requirement is to "keep the commandments," then possibly NO ONE would "get to his paradise" because no one obeys them all sufficiently. Isn't it better that some "get to his paradise," even if less than a majority, than that NO ONE gets there?
And if you're going to complain that there should be no condition which excludes some, then you have to consider whether NON-human animals should also "get to his paradise" and not only humans. Why should animals be excluded? Is it OK with you if God allows ONLY HUMANS into "his paradise"? If you're going to judge the conditions or requirements for getting "to his paradise," then you must have your own set of conditions which you've certified as being the right ones, or just, in which case you must explain which entities are entitled to "get to his paradise" by your guidelines, and whether this would include animals. And if not, why not.
If you can't answer why it's not wrong for him to let some animals perish, then why are you sure that he's wrong to let most humans perish and save only some? Isn't he also "small" for letting animals go unsaved? Wouldn't his "ant farm" be even larger if he also saved all the animals and not only humans? So why are you obsessing on the small number of humans he saves and ignoring the zero animals he saves for his "ant farm"?
We have trade records from Sumeria going back 5,000 years. Why did God/Jesus put on this whole show some 2,000 years ago then? Why the whole crucifixion/death thingy? A REAL god wouldn’t have any problem making sure such a letter survived.
Let's assume here that Pilate wrote such a letter, and it did not survive, as 99.999999% of such letters did not.
You're not saying God SHOULD have intervened in history to make this letter survive. This would have been an intervention into history, a miracle, to force something to happen contrary to the normal course of history. Are you saying he was wrong to not do such an intervention, in order to make such a letter survive?
Just to say he could have done it means nothing. Of course he could have, or he could have obliterated the whole world a million years ago, or he could have done a million other things he did not do. So what is your point in saying he could have preserved one particular letter as a miracle intervention into history to make this letter survive? Are you saying that's what he SHOULD have done, and he's a bad god for not doing it? How do you know what he should have done? or that he should have done this one particular miracle and not any of several million other possible miracles that he did not do?
What religious revelation are you relying on here to dictate which miracles God should have done and which ones it was OK for him NOT to do?
We needn't issue a list of required miracles which must first take place in order for us to believe a claim that God intervened in history by showing some particular miracle acts. We can't insist that all such claims must be false unless they are accompanied by all the miracles contained in that list.
You can issue your own personal list of demanded miracles which God must provide, in order to satisfy you, but you can't reasonably expect everyone to subscribe to your particular list of demanded miracles. One can reasonably believe based on the evidence we do have, even though we can wish additional evidence had also been provided.
I’m not asking anyone to ascribe to anything. Does your purported god want a big ant farm or a small ant farm . . .
The size of the "ant farm" is not all that matters -- you're the one obsessing on the size of the "ant farm."
He wants us to BELIEVE. If all that mattered was the largest possible "ant farm," then he should save ALL creatures, not only humans, and there should be no requirement or condition for being saved. You're dogmatically insisting that God must aim at the largest possible "ant farm" as the only thing that matters, having priority over anything else. Meaning there should be NO conditions or requirements for getting "to his paradise," but that every creature should be taken in without any being excluded.
. . . (especially if one ascribes to the Auschwitz for the masses doctrine)?
If there is an "Auschwitz" for non-believers, then the Jesus-debunking crusade you and others are on will cause that "holocaust" to be worse.
Obviously everything you say is based on the premise, from the outset, that none of this is true, which means you obviously cannot consider any other possibility, or entertain any remote chance of being wrong.
To pursue the truth rationally and objectively and with skepticism, one must be open to the possibility of being wrong and leave open the possibility that the truth is on the other side. But to ridicule the possibility of "eternal damnation" and argue against it out of ridicule is to exclude it as a possibility, or to make the impossibility of it your premise which cannot be questioned. And so you are renouncing the approach of skepticism and rational inquiry.
It is possible that there is no eternal damnation or eternal life or salvation -- we don't know. But it's also possible that they are real. I'm hoping there is salvation or eternal life, with the alternative being annihilation rather than eternal torture. But we don't know. It's appropriate to allow all these as possibilities, rather than ruling out any of them, though still having a preference for one possibility and not another, i.e., a hope that it's this but not that.
But you are dogmatically ruling out any possibility of anything other than total annihilation at death. If you left open the possibility that you're wrong and that there is Something Else, as being at least possible, you would not ridicule the eternal damnation possibility by referring to it as "Auschwitz for the masses." Leaving open all possibilities means leaving open the possibility that there is "Something More" and that there could even be something negative, like pain or suffering of some kind. And in that case, the appropriate response is not ridicule, but rather the reasonable question: How would one avoid this negative result?
Obviously and clearly, what we have is not enough evidence for the majority of people as evidenced by the huge lack of belief in any variant of the Christian theology.
But the evidence is strong enough that the majority, even 90%, should believe by now, and something has gone wrong that they do not. I.e., it's not for lack of evidence that the number of believers is lower than it "should" be, and yet the "good news" has been successfully transmitted to reach a large number, while you can always complain that it should have reached a greater number. There is no way to draw a line at some percentage and say this is the proper percent of humans who should have been reached and persuaded to believe.
You can't judge something to be false because this or that arbitrary threshold number of believers in it has not been reached.
All that can be judged is whether there is enough evidence for people to believe -- and there is enough evidence. But for those who want it (the "gospel") NOT to be true, perhaps you can say the amount of evidence is not enough to convince them. And you're insisting that the evidence should be great enough that even these ones who want it not to be true are persuaded and must admit that it's true, because the overwhelming evidence would leave them no choice but to believe, and yet the amount of evidence is not that great.
But there's no reason to insist that the evidence has to be that great. Rather, it has to be great enough to make it a good possibility that it's true, even if not a certainty and some number may still not believe it. What's inconceivable and contrary to all sense of what is just is that we'd be required to believe something for which there is no evidence.
And belief in any of the variants of Christianity has been waning for a century now, and there is little reason to think that trend is going to change.
But again, there is enough evidence for a reasonable person to believe, regardless what the latest poll numbers say. But perhaps the evidence is not enough for those who want it not to be true. That might be what keeps the number of believers lower than it "should" be.
Today, even the percentage of Christians is probably down to 28-30% of the world population. The Christian population probably peaked out around 1900, with roughly 34% of . . .
Never-mind those numbers (mostly fake news).
Jesus will turn those numbers around and make Christianity great again, after he completes his courses at Trump University.
So for a god that purported exists and cares about his little ant farm, he sure never did a good job getting the word out...
He used human communication. He provided us with sufficient evidence and left it to humans to pass this on, but we can always complain that there should have been more evidence than this.
Yeah, Trump University is probably where your MHORC theology belongs. It is not a complaint about lack of evidence, . . .
What? You're now saying there's NOT a lack of evidence that Jesus did the miracle acts? So he did show this power, and there is evidence for believing in him, as I've been saying? Are you suddenly changing into a believer? All this time you seemed to be saying there IS a lack of evidence.
. . . not a complaint about a lack of evidence, it is an observation of fact regarding the stagnation of Christian theological faith adherents.
So then you agree there's enough evidence for a reasonable person to believe, but you're only saying there's a failure of people to believe, or lack of "faith adherents."
But when you said "he sure never did a good job getting the word out," didn't you mean there's not enough evidence? i.e., that God didn't provide enough miracles or didn't intervene enough into history to give us certainty about Christ's power to save us, and that if he had provided that much evidence, most or all humans would believe so that God's "ant farm" of believers would be much larger?
That's not the point you were making?
But now you've changed and are saying there is not a "lack of evidence"?
