120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[skepticalbip]

No, that's not correct. And your phrase "evidence from outside the cult" is meaningless.

It is hardly meaningless. That is how historians manage to understand the past and separate the myth from reality in old writings.

ETA: Hell, that is how courts separate perjury from fact in trials today.

Back to the Iliad; the reason that historians find the Greek siege of Troy believable is not just that it was told in the Iliad but the fact that the war was also recorded in a couple other cultures not in the Greek sphere of influence.

For evidence from outside the cult:
The Romans kept quite good records. If Roman records were unearthed that described a trouble maker Nazarene (in the right time frame) that was drawing crowds by healing the infirm and raising the dead, that was another troublesome Jewish prophet that was being proclaimed "king of the Jews" that had to be stopped. If there was a Roman record of taking thirty pieces of silver from the treasury to pay off an informant that could lead them to this prophet. etc. etc. Roman records (evidence from outside the cult) that could corroborate any of the Biblical claims could make the particular claim more believable. However, given that the Romans did keep very good records and nothing has come forward is also telling.

 

[Atheos]

Lumpenproletariat, you're still drawing a bulls-eye around your favorite myth. Somehow you want us to accept this baseless assertion you keep making that people couldn't fabricate incredible stories about a person who "only" lived 40 years earlier, something clearly demonstrated to be incorrect by the mounds of evidence available about incredible tales being invented practically overnight.

You continue with this baseless assertion (as if somehow we've all bought it) that the stories about Jesus originated from people other than "those directly influenced by the preacher's charisma." This is not in evidence as we have no freaking clue who was involved and how these myths originated. And even if we had an exact chain of custody for these stories it wouldn't make a hill of beans difference because we know that people make shit up all the time! It is a constant process and we know for a fact that the purveyors of these particular stories made up stories that we know to be false. Why the hell should we believe the rest of their fish stories when they are clearly about things that cannot happen? Every one of them is a 50 pound bass, and reasonable people are well within their right to expect to see a fish rather than take someone's word that the fish got away.

There is absolutely nothing about the various criteria you use to draw this sharpshooter fallacy that amounts to anything other than a transparent attempt to draw attention to things you wish we'd be impressed with so we'll ignore that all the fish got away.

 

[funinspace]

No, that's not correct. And your phrase "evidence from outside the cult" is meaningless.

It is hardly meaningless. That is how historians manage to understand the past and separate the myth from reality in old writings.

ETA: Hell, that is how courts separate perjury from fact in trials.

Back to the Iliad; the reason that historians find the Greek siege of Troy believable is not just that it was told in the Iliad but the fact that the war was also recorded in a couple other cultures not in the Greek sphere of influence.

Holy Zeus, Batman! You have just demonstrated the truthiness of the Olympian Pantheon...in a Lumpyan sort of way.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Behold the magic appearing bulls-eye.

Your "bulls-eye" and "sharpshooter" rhetoric is obviously just as thoughtless and devoid of substance as your above misunderstanding about the difference between original writings, written by the original author, and the later manuscripts/COPIES which have survived and are the only physical evidence we now have.

Nope.
He's talking about how you select the evidence you think will bolster the myths you want to be true. Nothing to do with the difference between originals and copies. It's all about YOUR approach and your bias.
If you can't see that, then why would anyone think you could see clearly through 2000 years of history?

 

[Smoker]

Why would a moral god that has any sense of right and wrong put in the Bible that we might be tortured for eternity if we don't believe everything in the Bible? Is it morally acceptable for god to torture the people who have been disagreeing with you in this thread in the eternal lake of fire?

That chaff just burns and burns and burns forever. And yet amazingly it never disintegrates into ash/carbon dust. Those flames must be stone cold.

.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of chaff that just burns and burns forever. How would you like it if Allah was the only true god, and he tortured you forever in the lake of fire just because you didn't interpret these metaphors in the holy books correctly. Why would it be ok to torture me and most of the other people on this forum for eternity in the lake of fire?

 

[DBT]

So you are saying that one set of scrolls describing supernatural entities are plausible, the books of the bible, but reject another set of scrolls, the writings of a different culture and different beliefs, the Gita, Upanishads, describing a different set of supernatural entities, as quack?

Why?

No. The scrolls about what Brahma did 4 billion years ago are credible as long as they have been carbon-dated that far back. We need a source near to the time that the miracle event happened.

So you're talking about scrolls written 4 billion years ago?

When are you going to get serious?

I've made this point enough times that you should have been able to figure it out by now.

You are misrepresenting Hinduism and the concept of Brahma. Nor is anyone claiming the scrolls were written 4 billion years ago because the time scales in the Gita, Yuga's, etc, describe a far more ancient universe than the genesis scroll which strongly suggests 6K universe.

So right there, the Hindu scroll have more credibility the Torah scrolls because they are closer to scientific estimates.

Nor is Brahma said to have created the world. In Hinduism, Brahman represents the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality, the primal ground of all being, being present in all things.

None of which can be verified, of course, but the genesis scrolls are themselves in no better position.

Both are on equal footing, so the choice for a seeker of 'truth' rests on emotional/psychological preferences and faith.

Which is no foundation at all.

 

[Atheos]

No. The scrolls about what Brahma did 4 billion years ago are credible as long as they have been carbon-dated that far back. We need a source near to the time that the miracle event happened.

So you're talking about scrolls written 4 billion years ago?

When are you going to get serious?

I've made this point enough times that you should have been able to figure it out by now.

You are misrepresenting Hinduism and the concept of Brahma. Nor is anyone claiming the scrolls were written 4 billion years ago because the time scales in the Gita, Yuga's, etc, describe a far more ancient universe than the genesis scroll which strongly suggests 6K universe.

So right there, the Hindu scroll have more credibility the Torah scrolls because they are closer to scientific estimates.

Nor is Brahma said to have created the world. In Hinduism, Brahman represents the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality, the primal ground of all being, being present in all things.

None of which can be verified, of course, but the genesis scrolls are themselves in no better position.

Both are on equal footing, so the choice for a seeker of 'truth' rests on emotional/psychological preferences and faith.

Which is no foundation at all.

And more to the subject at hand the scrolls containing the Jesus myths cannot be verified either. It has to be taken on faith that they depict impossible activities that actually happened. They are fish stories.

Lumpenproletariat has yet to produce any evidence of similar ancient documents containing impossible activities that are believed to have occurred for no other reason than they were written down in an ancient story. And that is one of the many reasons why he must resort to this sharpshooter fallacy approach. Pretend like it's ordinary for rational people to accept that impossible activities occurred simply because they were written down in some ancient religious myth.

It's religious, and it is common for people to believe things for religious reasons, but that is not the same as rational. Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus and thousands of other competing religious followers believe the teachings of their religions for the exact same reason that Christians then and now believe theirs. Someone managed to convince them.

 

[James Brown]

For someone who insists that four gospels means four independent sources, I find it interesting that the four gospels can't agree on the exact wording of the inscription on Jesus' cross. And that was something that was written down.

 

[funinspace]

For someone who insists that four gospels means four independent sources, I find it interesting that the four gospels can't agree on the exact wording of the inscription on Jesus' cross. And that was something that was written down.

Well, clearly that part should be set aside, leaving all the important and valid Gospel parts clearly still valid.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

So Lumpy's still sticking to his "4/5 sources" story, despite the fact that these are not independent sources, as has been pointed out to him more than once. Ho hum.

It's also disingenuous to claim, as he does, that the gospels were written between 70-90 CE, give or take, making them 40-60 years after the events discussed. Well, most of them probably were. But since we know there are later additions, stories and passages that were added later and don't appear in the earliest manuscripts, this claim can only be partially true. And since we don't have the autographs, it's impossible to say with certainty that other stories were not added between the autographs and those earliest extant manuscripts/fragments. What we can say with certainty, though, is that the accretion evident in the Matthew and Luke gospels continued after those were published, hence those added stories/passages. From there, it's a small step to the idea that this accretion of mythic elements was already present in the stories during the decades before they took their first written form. This is supported by the fact that many of the "miracle" stories are reflections of OT stories (feeding of multitudes, raising of the dead, etc.), which makes them much more likely to be additions to whatever elements, if any, are truly historical, in order to raise Jesus to the same status as the OT prophets.

 

[Atheos]

Apologies in advance for this wall of text

Lumpenproletariat's sharpshooter bulls-eye is a convoluted and self-contradicting argument that ignores inconvenient truths and draws attention to irrelevancies. He recently accused me of failing to give thought to his arguments and simply dismissing them. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have given them much more thought than they deserve. And not just me, there are quite a few participants in this thread who have taken the time do demonstrate what is wrong with his arguments; refutations that have fallen upon deaf ears.

So once again, by the numbers. Lumpenproletariat's argument begins with the premise that back in the period in question people did not write things down that weren't true. That premise is immediately refuted by the existence of written examples of things that he finds inconvenient, such as the miracles of Roman Emperors, Simon Magus, etc.

So then Lumpenproletariat draws the first circle of his sharpshooter fallacy: All these other people spent years developing their fame. Jesus's ministry was too short for him to achieve the amount of fame necessary to have mythology written about him. This circle has been soundly refuted by the claims of the gospels themselves, which indicate that from the time he was born prophets and prophetesses were drawing attention to him; that at the age of 12 he was confounding Jewish leaders in the temple and saying that "He must be about his father's business" (which evidently included confounding Jewish leaders with his wisdom since that is the context in which this statement was made). The stories to which he appeals refute his premise that he just sat on his ass for 30 years then wowed everyone with 3 years of blockbuster miracles before disappearing into the clouds never to be seen again.

Lumpenproletariat has thus-far ignored this inconvenient blockage of his fantasy and gone on to fabricate an entire thing called "Normal Mythologizing." I can only assume he uses this term because he well-recognizes the similarities between his preferred myths and the myths in which it gestated. He draws more circles around his favorite myth, suggesting that "normal mythologizing" cannot happen within 40 years of the existence of the person around whom the myth is centered unless the person is famous. He then ignores the fact that according to the best models we can put together Paul the Apostle spent at least 20 years making Jesus famous all over Asia Minor. His "But Jesus wasn't famous enough" argument takes flight. Unfortunately for his purposes this also negates the gospels commonly referred to as "Matthew," "Luke" and "John," as they would have been fabricated by people living in a milieu wherein this character was at least famous enough to have a book written about him.

Lumpenproletariat then attempts to extricate his favorite fairy tale from similar examples of Joseph Smith et al, by arguing that the Jesus miracles were attested by "curious onlookers" rather than direct disciples under the charismatic influence of the preacher. Even if we were to accept this ridiculous and unevidenced premise it would seem that this would exclude the vast majority of the Jesus miracles, as they are suspect for the same reason. Few if any of these miracles were performed in a vacuum where the people observing didn't have the opportunity to listen to the preaching of the guy and be influenced by his charisma. Many of them explicitly describe scenes in which the only observer was Jesus himself or the apostles. How, indeed, does one observe Jesus performing miracles while being immune to being influenced by his charisma? It would be like going to a Rolling Stones concert and casually observing the screaming women at the foot of the stage but being uninfluenced with the charisma of Mick Jagger. Lumpenproletariat's arguments strain to walk the tight wire of his own construction.

Ultimately, buried under the massive weight of counter evidence composed of everything from ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman, Greek, Chinese, Hindu and Jewish mythology all the way to the constant onslaught of hoaxes on Snopes.com, Joseph Smith, J.Z. Knight, Mohammad, Benny Hinn and others, Lumpenprolariat is forced to create myopic constructs that deal with one of these at a time, hoping that we won't notice how they are refuted by one of the others, and ultimately bury his favorite fairy tale in an avalanche of fairy tales that run the entire gamut of everything he can hope for to find separation. The only thing he's left with is overall popularity of his favorite myth, and even that is watered down by the fact that in order to make that claim he must gather hordes of disparate doctrines including those who believe in the virgin birth narratives (which he doesn't) as well as those who believe in the more gnostic variants of christianity (which don't necessarily even include a physical Jesus).

His arguments are like a deer running after being shot through the lungs with an arrow. Dead and don't know it.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Wow!! I like that third paragraph. That really is the answer to the 'sharpshooter' position -- I would add to it the ridiculous poem Mary makes up in Luke -- right, like a hillbilly woman's lyric to her unborn is going to be archived for later use by her kid's biographer.

 

[Atheos]

And even if Lumpenproletariat just jettisons Luke's accounts of these early anecdotes (something he is likely to do considering his willingness to jettison the inconvenient birth narratives) it does nothing more then belie his propensity to simply make shit up and pretend like it's an established fact because there is nothing in the story line to contradict his fantasies. Stuff like "anonymous onlookers" and "Jesus didn't hit a lick at a snake until he turned 30."

Makes up shit he does. Tangled web he weaves. Yes.

 

[Learner]

For someone who insists that four gospels means four independent sources, I find it interesting that the four gospels can't agree on the exact wording of the inscription on Jesus' cross. And that was something that was written down.

It is interesting, according to Luke the inscription was written in 3 languages; Latin Greek and Hebrew for all people to see. The last part of the phrase is still correct between all gospels but yes it is not quite clear,but still interesting nevertheless (IMPO).

Matthew 27:37, THIS IS JESUS .............THE KING OF THE JEWS
Mark 15:26, ....................................THE KING OF THE JEWS
Luke 23:38, THIS IS ........................THE KING OF THE JEWS
John 19:19, JESUS OF NAZARETH .....THE KING OF THE JEWS

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-t001.html

 

[Keith&Co.]

The last part of the phrase is still correct between all gospels

Now that's something i'd really like to see evidence for.
I mean, if you were to say it's CONSISTENT between all four gospels, that's a simple enough matter to support.
But... You claim it was quoted correctly in all four? So, you've got some independent source to corroborate the gospels?

 

[Learner]

The last part of the phrase is still correct between all gospels

Now that's something i'd really like to see evidence for.
I mean, if you were to say it's CONSISTENT between all four gospels, that's a simple enough matter to support.
But... You claim it was quoted correctly in all four? So, you've got some independent source to corroborate the gospels?

Apologies the example/source I used was from. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-t001.html

 

[Learner]

That chaff just burns and burns and burns forever. And yet amazingly it never disintegrates into ash/carbon dust. Those flames must be stone cold.

.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of chaff that just burns and burns forever. How would you like it if Allah was the only true god, and he tortured you forever in the lake of fire just because you didn't interpret these metaphors in the holy books correctly. Why would it be ok to torture me and most of the other people on this forum for eternity in the lake of fire?

Jesus was comfortable being with sinners and gentiles (Non believers) against what the traditional Jews of the times believed in and detested. Sinners are not neccessarily seen as evil people and Jesus would not be near anyone seen as evil.Obviously we are all sinners. I believe (imho) there is a lot more to it in the context regarding hell.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Inscriptiongate

For someone who insists that four gospels means four independent sources, I find it interesting that the four gospels can't agree on the exact wording of the inscription on Jesus' cross.

If anything, this is further evidence that the 4 sources are independent. If each one only copied the earlier source, they'd all have exactly the same wording.

Instead, each one knew of some "inscription" containing the phrase "the king of the Jews" but couldn't remember the exact wording, or had a different version from their source. When there are differing versions of the same fact, this indicates that the fact is real, it did happen, but that it is remembered differently by different persons, and so the exact details are not certain.

But if all the versions are exactly the same, it indicates that each one is copying the earlier version, so there's only one ultimate source for this fact, and that might be fictional, because this is the only source = lower probability. While multiple versions/sources = higher probability.

And that was something that was written down.

You mean the inscription itself? But the later gospel writers likely did not see this themselves.

And those present who did see it likely did not later remember the exact wording.

It is interesting, according to Luke the inscription was written in 3 languages; Latin Greek and Hebrew for all people to see. The last part of the phrase is still correct between all gospels but yes it is not quite clear,but still interesting nevertheless (IMPO).

Matthew 27:37, THIS IS JESUS .............THE KING OF THE JEWS
Mark 15:26, ....................................THE KING OF THE JEWS
Luke 23:38, THIS IS ........................THE KING OF THE JEWS
John 19:19, JESUS OF NAZARETH .....THE KING OF THE JEWS

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-t001.html

 

[Lion IRC]

Try to put yourself in the shoes of chaff that just burns and burns forever. How would you like it if Allah was the only true god...

Allah is the Arabic word for God.
Christian Arabs worship Allah.

But you miss the point. It's about metaphoric flames without heat Smoker.

...see what I did there

 

[Keith&Co.]

When there are differing versions of the same fact, this indicates that the fact is real, it did happen, but that it is remembered differently by different persons, and so the exact details are not certain.

So, ultimately it means that people MAKE SHIT UP to fill in missing details. Which means it's not possible to dependably filter out the made-up-shit from the facts.