120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Tom Sawyer]

... and they obeyed the "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".

To be fair, though, that's not really enforcable today since she's the odds-on favourite to be the next President and that would make it kind of gauche to kill her.

 

[skepticalbip]

... and they obeyed the "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".

To be fair, though, that's not really enforcable today since she's the odds-on favourite to be the next President and that would make it kind of gauche to kill her.

...

 

[DrDoomNGloom]

Abraham Lincoln did not write the declaration; so I fail to see why one would cite him as a source on its inspirations. Incidentally, it seems odd for you to keep appealing to Lincoln; given that Lincoln does not appear to have been particularly christian. He often criticized christianity. Indeed, some of his closest friends described him as an atheist. Not that it particularly matters what, if anything, he believed.

I know comprehension is killing you, this from the first quote in that reply. It explains the question you seem to be asking.

[Snip]
Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his rhetoric (as in the Gettysburg Address of 1863), and his policies
[/Snip]

It provided inspiration to numerous national declarations of independence throughout the world. Historian David Armitage, after examining the influence of the American "Declaration" on over 100 other declarations of independence, says:

The American Revolution was the first outbreak of the contagion of sovereignty that has swept the world in the centuries since 1776. Its influence spread first to the Low Countries and then to the Caribbean, Spanish America, the Balkans, West Africa, and Central Europe in the decades up to 1848.... Declarations of independence were among the primary symptoms of this contagion of sovereignty.^[10]
​

[/Snip]

This is a rather incomplete and wrong view of history. The American revolution was most certainly *not* the "first" modern outbreak of 'sovereignty' or democracy. And indeed, the US Declaration of Independence was directly inspired by a very similar declaration of independence of a country that in many respects served as the model for the early US government; namely my own. The declaration of independence has often been compared to the 1581 Act of Abjuration; and it is quite evident by reading the act that the US declaration was inspired by it. Indeed, Jefferson was quite familiar with the Act and the Dutch republic.

Of the two, the Act of Abjuration is the only one to include explicitly christian language (by referring to God instead of a creator, and referring to bishops); though like the declaration, it does nothing to establish christianity as the basis for the new country. The Act of Abjuration, and not the declaration, was the first time in known history that a people deposed a ruler on the basis of him having violated the social contract with his subjects. It is a shame that just as with the pilgrims, we see you choosing ignorance of your own history and the ways in which it has been influenced so that you can hold fast to an idealized (and christianized) fairytale. After all, if the declaration was just inspired by the declaration of independence of another country instead of being divinely inspired and the first of its kind, it loses its 'mystical authority', doesn't it?


Compare the preamble of the Declaration of Independence (1776):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.


With the preamble of the Act of Abjuration (1581):

As it is apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects (without which he could be no prince), to govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his children or a shepherd his flock, and even at the hazard of life to defend and preserve them. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects are to consider him in no other view. And particularly when this is done deliberately, unauthorized by the states, they may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense. This is the only method left for subjects whose humble petitions and remonstrances could never soften their prince or dissuade him from his tyrannical proceedings; and this is what the law of nature dictates for the defense of liberty, which we ought to transmit to posterity, even at the hazard of our lives.

Those moral standards were based on Judea-Christian beliefs, no matter how much you would like to you can not change that.

Forgetting that neither Christianity, nor Judaism, came up with these moral standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Abjuration

Act of Abjuration

This, however, presented a problem: the magistrates of the cities and rural areas, and the provincial states themselves, had sworn allegiance to Philip. Oaths of allegiance were taken very seriously during this era. As long as the conflict with Philip could be glossed over these magistrates could pretend to remain loyal to the king, but if a new sovereign was recognized, they had to make a choice. The rebellious States General decided on 14 June 1581 to officially declare the throne vacant,[3] because of Philip's behavior, hence the Dutch name for the Act of Abjuration: "Plakkaat van Verlatinghe", which may be translated as "Placard[4] of Desertion." This referred not to desertion of Philip by his subjects, but rather, to a suggested desertion of the Dutch "flock" by their malevolent "shepherd," Philip.

A committee of four members – Andries Hessels, greffier (secretary) of the States of Brabant; Jacques Tayaert, pensionary of the city of Ghent; Jacob Valcke, pensionary of the city of Ter Goes (now Goes); and Pieter van Dieven (also known as Petrus Divaeus), pensionary of the city of Mechelen – was charged with drafting what was to become the Act of Abjuration.[3] The Act prohibited the use of the name and seal of Philip in all legal matters, and of his name or arms in minting coins. It gave authority to the Councils of the provinces to henceforth issue the commissions of magistrates. The Act relieved all magistrates of their previous oaths of allegiance to Philip, and prescribed a new oath of allegiance to the States of the province in which they served, according to a form prescribed by the States General.[5] The actual draft seems to have been written by the audiencier[6] of the States General, Jan van Asseliers[7]

The Act was remarkable for its extensive Preamble, which took the form of an ideological justification, phrased as an indictment (a detailed list of grievances) of King Philip. This form, which is strikingly similar to that of the American Declaration of Independence, has given rise to speculations that Thomas Jefferson, when he was writing the latter, was at least partly inspired by the Act of Abjuration.[8][9]

The Preamble was based on Vindiciae contra tyrannos by Philippe de Mornay, and other works of monarchomachs may have been sources of inspiration also.[10] The rebels, in their appeal to public opinion, may have thought it more important to quote "authoritative" sources and refer to "ancient rights" they wished to defend. By deposing a ruler for having violated the Social Contract with his subjects, they were the first to apply these theoretical ideas.
[/Snip]

So your notion is that a document termed in English as "Placard of Desertion" which is a rebels laundry list of grievances compares to the DOI??

So there is speculation but no hard evidence ......................... I see, but you state it as though it is fact ................

 

[dystopian]

I know comprehension is killing you, this from the first quote in that reply. It explains the question you seem to be asking.

[Snip]
Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his rhetoric (as in the Gettysburg Address of 1863), and his policies
[/Snip]

WHO CARES? Abraham Lincoln does not decide what the inspiration for the declaration was. He is completely irrelevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Abjuration

Act of Abjuration

This, however, presented a problem: the magistrates of the cities and rural areas, and the provincial states themselves, had sworn allegiance to Philip. Oaths of allegiance were taken very seriously during this era. As long as the conflict with Philip could be glossed over these magistrates could pretend to remain loyal to the king, but if a new sovereign was recognized, they had to make a choice. The rebellious States General decided on 14 June 1581 to officially declare the throne vacant,[3] because of Philip's behavior, hence the Dutch name for the Act of Abjuration: "Plakkaat van Verlatinghe", which may be translated as "Placard[4] of Desertion." This referred not to desertion of Philip by his subjects, but rather, to a suggested desertion of the Dutch "flock" by their malevolent "shepherd," Philip.

A committee of four members – Andries Hessels, greffier (secretary) of the States of Brabant; Jacques Tayaert, pensionary of the city of Ghent; Jacob Valcke, pensionary of the city of Ter Goes (now Goes); and Pieter van Dieven (also known as Petrus Divaeus), pensionary of the city of Mechelen – was charged with drafting what was to become the Act of Abjuration.[3] The Act prohibited the use of the name and seal of Philip in all legal matters, and of his name or arms in minting coins. It gave authority to the Councils of the provinces to henceforth issue the commissions of magistrates. The Act relieved all magistrates of their previous oaths of allegiance to Philip, and prescribed a new oath of allegiance to the States of the province in which they served, according to a form prescribed by the States General.[5] The actual draft seems to have been written by the audiencier[6] of the States General, Jan van Asseliers[7]

What is the point of posting this? Are you under the obviously mistaken impression that I'm unfamiliar with this?

So your notion is that a document termed in English as "Placard of Desertion" which is a rebels laundry list of grievances compares to the DOI??

That is the contention of many actual *historians* yes. Again, read the two texts; they are remarkably similar in tone and content. They are both laundry lists of grievances against kings seen as tyrannical, and they are both declarations of independence. The Act of Abjuration (which is its common name in English; Placard of Desertion is just the literal translation) was the formal declaration of independence from Spain by the seven Dutch provinces that rebelled. This is pretty much exactly the same as the DOI, which is a document written in the same style, covering very much the same topics, establishing the thirteen rebellious colonies and independent from Great Brittain. There really isn't any fundamental difference between the documents. To think these similarities a coincidence is absurd, especially when one understands the state of the world as it existed at the time.

If you're genuinely interested (which you clearly aren't) in some of the non-american/christian influences on your own history, you might want to read: http://rdc1.net/forthcoming/DUTCH6_final_.pdf

But you seem solely interested in maintaining your fiction of your country's DOI being special; even divine.

 

[skepticalbip]

.......................
So your notion is that a document termed in English as "Placard of Desertion" which is a rebels laundry list of grievances compares to the DOI??

Dude. The US Declaration of Independence is a "rebels laundry list of grievances". It has a nice preamble but the meat of the document is a simple laundry list of grievances. Below is the section of that document that you have apparently never read.
(note: The "he" is, of course, King George "the mad")

From the US Declaration of Independence:

.................
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

...................

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

There is evidence, but not PROOF, that the Jesus miracles happened. As with many historical events.

Why do the Jesus miracle events have to be put into a separate category that requires a different quality of evidence than what is required for other historical events?

A few years back, there was a big hullabaloo about cattle mutilations.

The reports people were getting was that organs were excised from cattle 'with surgical precision.'

The problem was, no surgeons were examining the dead cattle and saying, 'Yep. That's surgical precision.'

What actually happened was that the soft tissues would bloat after the creatures died, and expanded out the . . .

Wait -- how do we know this is what "actually happened"? There are probably a hundred theories of what actually happened. Why should we assume that only your "what actually happened" theory is the correct one?

. . . mouth and anus of the dead body. Scavengers would come along and devour the bloated organs during the night. By the time the cattle were discovered, the tissues had shrunk back down, so the animal bite marks were largely invisible to the naked eye.

Maybe. Though someone else's theory probably explains it as well or better.

Even if you've really divined the Absolute Truth about the cattle mutilations, which isn't clear, this doesn't explain or debunk all paranormal claims. Debunking one hoax doesn't prove that all other claims of something unusual must also be hoaxes.

Non-experts were offering opinions and throwing around descriptions that ended up not standing up to expert scrutiny.

But where did the "expert scrutiny" come from? You have your own "expert" genie-in-a-bottle paranormal-debunker which you pray to for answers that make you comfortable, but someone else gets their own "expert scrutiny" from some other genie than yours.

If you want Jesus' (or Rasputin's) (or anyone's) magic healing act to be taken seriously as science, we'd need actual evidence of the medical condition before the healing.

There IS evidence in these cases that the victims suffered from illness or disability before the healing. Of course, if you mean we cannot go back in a time machine and have the patient examined by modern medical experts, then no, there is no such time-travel evidence, and likewise there is no such evidence for anything that ever happened in history. You are demanding a standard or criterion for evidence by which all historical events would have to be rejected by science.

Make sure that there was actually something that needed to be healed, not a symptom of their hypochondria.

In these cases, the Jesus healings, and also the case of the child healed by Rasputin, the evidence is that there was a real physical disability or illness needing to be healed.

We'd need another professional examination after the healing, to make sure the condition was healed, not just the symptoms.

You can always make more demands for proof, including proof that a condition thought to be healed did not return a year later, or 5 years later. By a strict scientific standard, there may be no way to prove that anyone in history was ever truly healed from any illness. There is no proof that it wasn't really a condition of hypochondria, or that it wasn't just the symptom that was healed.

Witch doctors can treat symptoms with a placebo effect, convincing their patient that he's chased away the demon causing their pain or discomfort.

And standard medicine does the same, often treating only the symptom, and using the placebo effect. There's no strict scientific proof that this is not what mainline medicine has always done for centuries. All you have for evidence is anecdotes from non-experts or from professionals who might have been quacks. There's no scientific proof that they were true experts or healers rather than quacks.

You might as well conclude that no historical events have ever really happened. We don't have real scientific proof for any of them. The historical record could be distorted. Claims of medical benefits could all be only placebo events, and also any other reported good events could all be distortions where people were deceived into thinking it happened when it really did not.

That's what would be needed for science to have to rewrite science and say people can just heal other people.

You say you want to rewrite science? Why?

No, science doesn't need to be rewritten. It just leaves open the question whether these healings ever took place. No rewriting of science is necessary. Science today does not proclaim that "miracle" healings, such as the reported healings of Jesus, did not happen. It makes no claims one way or the other as to whether these events happened. (Some scientists could say legitimately that such events are "improbable," but not that they are "impossible" or could not have happened.)

The ones who are trying to rewrite science are those who say that certain reported past events, like the healing miracles of Jesus, are scientifically impossible and thus could not have happened, or are disproved by science. They are wrong -- science has not disproved these reported events and does not proclaim that these events never happened or could not have happened.

One can reasonably believe that these events took place, based on the evidence, without there being a scientific explanation as to how the events could have happened. It is simply not known how they happened, if they happened. It is not true that modern science claims to be able to explain everything that ever happened in history. Many events have happened which are not explained by science.

That kind of evidence, performed consistently.

No, this too is not what science claims, and this demand is a demand to rewrite science. Science does not proclaim that nothing can happen unless it happens repeatedly and consistently. It is possible for unusual singular events to happen that are unlike other events. Even though there is a regularity and a cause-effect predictability about events, this does not rule out irregular events or inconsistency in events. If a singular event reportedly happens, inconsistent with other events, science is not able to proclaim that it did not really happen. At most it might judge that it's improbable, but not that it's impossible or could not have happened.

Without that, science would look for explanations that don't require rewriting the science textbooks.

The Jesus miracle events do not require any rewriting of the science textbooks.

Science does not rule that these or other unusual events did not really happen, based on a dogmatic claim to have explained everything that is possible and declaring as false anything not fitting in with its explanation. Thus, no rewriting of textbooks is needed in order to accommodate these unusual events as possibilities. It has to allow the possibility that an event can happen that is inconsistent with some other events or with its explanations. It always looks for explanations, but that does not include making judgments that the reported event could not have happened.

If the story never happened, then that's well within modern understanding of medical science: People make shit up.

No, most people do not. And when some do, people generally do not believe them. The conditions where people believe someone who made shit up are very restricted to limited situations. In general, people do not believe someone who made shit up.

The one who is believed uncritically by a large number is always someone with a reputation or a career as a clairvoyant or prophet who has charisma. It is not true that someone with no talent for deceiving people can "make shit up" and be believed. Your perception that only you and a few enlightened ones are able to think critically, and that the vast majority are idiots who believe anything someone says, is a delusion you have which you need to re-examine.

It is unscientific to account for reported miracle events with the simplistic explanation that people make shit up. They generally do not, and this explanation is not satisfactory. Only in some rare cases do people make shit up that large numbers of other people believe. That's extremely rare.

If it's exaggerated, that's also very possible. Maybe he cured an ache with deep tissue massage or acupressure and that tale grew into a more powerful healing in the retelling.

Of course that sort of thing happens. But the average person understands this and does not believe such exaggerations. Any claims of this kind that are based on simple exaggeration of something normal will generally not be widely believed. And 2000 years ago, when there was no publishing industry like today, the wide spread of such exaggerations and distortions in a time space of only a few decades was virtually impossible. You can't name an example of any such widespread belief in such exaggerations/distortions emerging and being published within a space of less than 100 years from the time of the alleged event, i.e., the event that became exaggerated or distorted .

Yes there have been deceptions where some people believed a false report, but this happened only on a small scale and was limited to a tiny local group and did not spread widely or get published in documents, because such deceptions or false beliefs were not convincing to any other than a tiny few. The general population does not get caught up in it, despite your misperception that most people are idiots who believe anything. The vast majority do not.

Maybe the patient was 'in on' the hoax and only pretended to be blind, deaf, lame, sick or halt.

This is less likely than that the healing event really took place. In some cases a "healed" patient really was deluded, but there is probably no case on record, that far back in history, of a patient deliberately and knowingly participating in a hoax, i.e., pretending to be afflicted and then pretending to be healed. You can't give an example of this. There's no reported case of such a thing.

The problem is, we can't isolate what parts were exaggerated, if any were.

Right, we don't know. There is evidence that the healings did happen, but we can't be sure. One reasonable possibility is that it really did happen. One can reasonably believe it, but there are other possibilities too. There are many possible hoaxes or delusions or deceptions.

If it happened, really happened, that's great. But there's no evidence beyond 'someone wrote it down' that would force science to accept that it happened.

Right, you're finally making some sense. Science can only say we don't know. It cannot be forced to admit that the event really happened. There is evidence that it happened, but not proof. There is still doubt. One can reasonably believe it, but there's not the proof necessary to force science to accept it as fact. A scientist might believe it, but not claim to know it as proven fact.

There are non-magical explanations, so science would accept those faster than having to accept the supernatural explanations.

There are various possible explanations. However, science does not have to choose one and dictate that this or that must be the correct explanation. Or rule out certain ones.

Also, that Christ had power to heal is not necessarily a "magical" or "supernatural" explanation. Legitimate science does not use this kind of sensationalist language, but simply says we don't know.

Which is how science works.

Science might judge that one explanation is more probable than another, but it does not dictate to us that a certain reported event did not really happen. Just because an event is highly irregular does not lead to any scientific conclusion that it must not have happened. True science admits that we don't know rather than presuming to dictate to us what to believe about something it cannot explain.

It can change, and it will. But only when it's forced to.

Not at the first opportunity.

The ones trying to change science are those who insist that the miracle healing acts of Jesus are scientifically impossible. But legitimate science simply says we don't know.

It is a distortion and abuse of science to use it as a club to bash the Jesus miracle accounts as contrary to science and impossible. The Jesus-debunking crusade is not based on science but on ideology.

And it's only dogma, not science, to demand that any reported event which is unexplainable must for that reason not have really happened. You cannot pervert science into a dictatorial authority that decrees which reported events really happened and which ones did not.

Science can instruct us broadly on past patterns of biology and geology and astronomy and climate, but it does not claim power to dictate individual historical events and issue rulings on which reported events really happened and which ones did not.

Some unusual reported events were hoaxes, or delusions, etc., but others really did happen and simply cannot be explained by science. It is not true that science dogmatically rejects everything as false which it cannot explain.

 

[Atheos]

We've been over this before Lumpenproletariat. There are lots of different things that make up the historical record. Unsupported anonymous tales of miraculous events is not one of them. Responsible historians understand that human nature has hardly changed over the centuries. People make up all kinds of fantastic claims now and they have done so throughout the history of civilization.

It is not difficult to establish that George Washington was 1st president of the United States. There are numerous artifacts, letters, etc., attesting to that piece of history. We have a sitting president today, so we know that it possible for someone to hold that office, and we can infer that at some point there must have been a first one. It is a mundane claim with extraordinarily strong evidence.

It is much more difficult to establish that George Washington hurled a coin across the Potomac River (about a mile wide). The "historical record" is full of reports that this happened, many of them as anonymous as the reports that Jeezus levitated off into the sky. Avid fans of history have conjectured that at some point George Washington threw something across a river. This much is the claim of Martha Washington's grandson, who claimed he threw a piece of slate roughly the size of a silver dollar across a river but did not specify which river. Some believe the river to be the Rappahannock, which was near where they lived and only 250 feet wide. It is possible for someone with a really good arm to make that distance.

But Martha Washington's grandson was not an eyewitness, so even that bit of trivia is suspect.

There is no historical evidence that the miracles included in the Jesus myths happened. There is only anonymous tales of miracles, something which can be had for a dime a dozen throughout the annals of human history.

 

[atrib]

It is a distortion and abuse of science to use it as a club to bash the Jesus miracle accounts as contrary to science and impossible. The Jesus-debunking crusade is not based on science but on ideology.

That is untrue. Science tells us people don't rise up from the dead after many days and float up into the sky. You are making up shit as usual.

Some unusual reported events were hoaxes, or delusions, etc., but others really did happen and simply cannot be explained by science. It is not true that science dogmatically rejects everything as false which it cannot explain.

Name one event where someone rose up from the dead and floated up into the sky that modern historians believe to be true.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What is the difference between those who are saved by Christ and those who perish?

Faith vs. Merit -- Livesaver Analogy

Part 1

What if finding salvation is like finding a way to safety when there is a danger, like from an electric shock. You find it by touching the right kind of non-metallic material, e.g. That safety measure says nothing about anything other than making that one escape action, i.e., of touching that one safe material. You could be the worst blood-thirsty monster that ever lived, but if you follow that one safety measure, you are saved, whereas if you're the kindest and most upright pillar of your community but fail to follow the safety measure, you get killed.

Is there something wrong with that safety measure because it doesn't require you to be an upright citizen or does not contain an exclusion clause for bad people?

Why couldn't pleasing God, or finding salvation, be of the same nature as a safety measure to escape harm? Even if it's counter-intuitive, why couldn't the way to eternal life be something that is like a safety measure, as opposed to a rule about upright living or good behavior?

Although very few christian representatives would outright say "It's not important how you behave, it's only important how you think" that is the net result of this core doctrine.

It doesn't matter what the "net result" is. All that matters is whether Christ had life-giving power or not, and whether we can connect to it. If we can connect to it, like through "faith," and thus gain eternal life, that's what matters. Just like reaching the lifesaver is what matters.

The fact is that people who claim to be some variant of christian do not behave in a more moral or ethical fashion than people who are skeptics. That was exactly my point.

Maybe you're right. But it doesn't matter. Though it's always good for people to behave better, and Christians preach this, it's not the basic salvation message. I.e., the "good news" or euangelion.

There are many christians in prison for murder, rape and other violent crimes. But because they happen to believe an absurd myth they end up in heaven.

No, if they end up in heaven, then what they believe is not an absurd myth. If it's absurd what they believed, it means there isn't any heaven. It's the UNTRUTH of what they believed that makes it an absurd myth. But if it turns out to be true, then it's not the absurd myth after all.

All the while a skeptic who is a good citizen, never does anything to harm or defraud his fellow man ends up in an eternal state of torture for no other crime than his skepticism.

No, his "skepticism" is not a crime, and if there is this eternal state of torture, it's not a result of his being skeptical.

We can pick it apart analytically, but one way to put it is simply that the lifesaver is tossed out there to whoever finds it, i.e., the good news, the euangelion, the report about Christ's life-giving power, and those who find this good news and place their hope in this, hoping it's true, find salvation. Even a skeptic might see this as a possibility, and become a believer, even though still having doubts, or still being skeptical.

Being skeptical does not mean one has no beliefs at all. So when one "ends up in an eternal state of torture," it's not his "skepticism" that is to blame. He just missed that lifesaver, for whatever reason.

It doesn't matter how these two individuals behaved, it only matters what they believed.

For finding salvation, yes, it's the faith in Christ's power that matters, not their moral behavior. Like finding the lifesaver is what matters to be saved from drowning.

But there is no Absolute Scientific Decree that a "miracle" event cannot ever happen. It is OK to consider the possibility of such events, based on the evidence. . . .

I know most Christians believe it [virgin birth], but this is not an absolute requirement to believe in Christ. The Bethlehem stories are not credible. But the miracle healing acts by Jesus are believable, because there is good evidence that they happened.

Okay, so you agree with me then that the virgin birth narrative is bogus.

A better way to put it is that there is virtually no credible evidence for it. And it's very easy to explain how the Bethlehem/virgin birth stories emerged even if they are totally fictitious. But the explanation requires that there must be something else that was very important about Jesus which caused him to become mythologized.

There must be something special about him that caused people to start believing he was God or a Cosmic figure, or Savior or Messiah. And then, AFTER they had this thought about him, then they created the virgin birth story. And the Bethlehem story also could easily be created, because this was thought to be a prerequisite for the Jewish Messiah. This story came about AFTER they started believing he was the promised Messiah.

Whereas the miracle healing stories cannot be explained this way. I.e., how they originated.

Please present the evidence that the miraculous healing acts by Jesus happened. What is the difference in the nature of the evidence between the one and the other?

There are at least two major differences:

1) the miracle healings do not fit into any pattern (as the virgin birth does), but rather pop up suddenly in history without any precedent. So we cannot explain how they came about by any normal mythologizing process; and

2) we have at least 4 sources for the miracle healings, with only minor discrepancies between them, but only 2 for the virgin birth/Bethlehem stories, and these 2 do not harmonize at all. Plus, the writer of the 4th Gospel believed Jesus was NOT born in Bethlehem but in Galilee (John 7:41-42).

Further, we need an explanation why Jesus became mythologized into a god. That he did miracle healings easily explains this. But that he was virgin-born? How would this impact on people such that they would start worshiping him and make him into a god? How would they know he was virgin-born? How would they come to believe it or know of it even if it were true?

Such an event as a virgin birth is not a public event that large numbers of people would witness, whereas the miracle healing acts, done publicly, would obviously cause a stir and arouse the mythologizing.

It's very simple: Extraordinary claims require equally extraordinary evidence. What is so hard to understand about that simple principle?

But it's just a slogan that doesn't mean anything. What a miracle story requires is EXTRA evidence -- the same kind of evidence as for any other events, but simply a greater quantity of it. Extra witnesses, extra accounts rather than only 1 or 2.

The alien abduction stories of  Betty and Barney Hill are extraordinary claims that are considerably more plausible than the story of an itinerant preacher . . .

What is more plausible about those abductions stories?

. . . 2000 years ago literally turning water to wine, instantly healing incurable conditions such as blindness, walking on top of a storm tossed sea or levitating unassisted off into the sky. Yet most intelligent and rational people dismiss the Hill story as a hoax.

But if the Hill story is really as plausible as you say, then it would not be dismissed as a hoax. I suggest it's not so plausible, and this is why it's dismissed as a hoax. So, to prove your point, you'll have to explain why it's "considerably more plausible" than the Jesus miracle stories.

Or, on the other hand, maybe it's not really dismissed as a hoax by everyone, and maybe the story is really true, or mostly true. Many weird events have really happened. In at least some cases, something strange or unexplainable really did happen, and then subsequently the story became enlarged or exaggerated, so that it eventually develops into something mostly fictional.

Just because you can produce a story that turned out to be a hoax does not mean that all other stories of something weird are also hoaxes. If there's evidence that some strange phenomenon really happened, then maybe it's true. Or even if some part of it is fictional, maybe there was a real event that caused it to get started in the first place, and so this original part of the story is genuine.

So just citing one case of a supposed hoax somewhere doesn't prove anything.

You're giving a "hoax" story example, but you're not taking it seriously. To take it seriously you have to quote from the witnesses, or from the nearest evidence we have of it, and subject that report to criticism.

The irony of the situation is that the evidence in favor of Betty and Barney Hill's story is considerably better than the evidence for any of the miracle claims in the "Jesus" story.

If the evidence (for the Hill story) is really that good, then the story is probably true. But also, you should be providing us with that evidence instead of just expecting us to take your word for it that the evidence is as good as you're saying.

What you're doing is throwing out an example of a supposed hoax and insisting that we must agree that this is a hoax, like it's an absolute proven fact that it's false, but then you're telling us that there is strong evidence to support this hoax story -- which is inconsistent, because if it's proven that it's a hoax, how can you claim there's strong evidence to support it? If the evidence is really so strong, then it's probably true and not a hoax at all.

So you need to make up your mind: is this story really supported by the evidence, or is it a proven hoax? You can't claim it's a hoax unless you disprove the evidence for it, or show us how poor this evidence is.

You might be partly right -- maybe there's some convincing evidence, and yet the story is false. Or, maybe it's true, and we really don't know. The evidence for the Jesus miracles is sufficient that the reported events might be true. And a "believer" is one who considers this evidence and hopes that it's true. By contrast, the alien abduction stories may or may not be true, and I don't really care if they are or not.

It is not vitally important for people to either believe or DISbelieve most stories of paranormal events, like alien abductions. Probably some of these stories are true, or partly true, and perhaps most of them false.

Yet millions of otherwise sane people just believe the Jesus myths uncritically.

No, they believe it on the superiority of the evidence, because we have at least four sources attesting to the miracles of Jesus, and this evidence, or these sources, are totally unique for that time, as accounts of miracle events, being relatively close to the time of the reported events.

This sets the Jesus miracle accounts apart from other miracle legends for which there is no such evidence, i.e., no similar evidence attesting to such events elsewhere, or at other times, making these reported events, i.e., the Gospel accounts, totally unexplainable as being part of the normal mythologizing process, so that the best plausible explanation for the accounts is that the reported events actually did take place.

This is not uncritical belief. If it were UNcritical, there should be many more cases of such belief, i.e., belief in other fictional miracle characters, recorded in documents near to the time of the alleged events. So this is critical, not uncritical, belief. I.e., this is the kind of belief that is reserved only for cases where there is extra evidence.

I was once one myself, so I'm not trying to judge, just trying to understand why. I searched desperately for many years for this evidence of which you speak. If it exists I was never able to find it.

You had and still have the evidence. These accounts are evidence. Documents which claim something happened are evidence that the something did happen. In this case we have at least four such documents, not only one. This is not proof, but it is extra evidence that the alleged events did in fact happen. This evidence offers reason to believe, even if one still has doubts. It is a basis for reasonable hope.


(to be continued)

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What is the difference between those who are saved by Christ and those who perish?

Faith vs. Merit -- Livesaver Analogy

(continued)

Part 2

Yes, that belief was the safety escape to eternal life. But this doesn't mean that their behavior generally didn't matter. It's for the specific need to get rescued that their belief was the safety escape or the way to escape. If you're drowning, that lifesaver may be all that matters for getting to safety. Being an upright morally superior citizen doesn't help you escape if the lifesaver is thrown to you. Why should the lifesaver not be sufficient? Why should the drowning victim also have to have good moral behavior before the lifesaver can function?

Should the producers of lifesavers for boats add an extra feature to the lifesaver that would make it malfunction for anyone who did not live an upright morally superior life? Suppose this feature could somehow be added at no extra production cost? Should it be a required extra feature?

If those producers should not add such a required feature to lifesavers for boats, then why should God impose such a feature in providing a way of salvation to humans? Why shouldn't God just toss the lifesavers out to those drowning, regardless of their deeds, just as we would toss lifesavers to victims who fell overboard regardless of their deeds?

This is a very strange argument to make your purported tri-headed god seem less bizarre.

What's strange about it? Is there something "strange" about lifesavers?

If there is any such thing as eternal life or salvation or resurrection or overcoming death, then whatever it is that can offer us this eternal life or salvation might very well be something unusual, or maybe even "bizarre" or "strange" in the sense of not being an ordinary every-day phenomenon.

Why couldn’t the “producers of lifesavers” just make it have one feature, just pop those that aren’t evil into this 5th dimension of kumbaya eternity?

Because that's not the purpose of the lifesaver. Or a car airbag. By your logic, the airbags in cars should be rigged so that they work only for passengers who live a morally good life. Is that what you want? You would require the auto-makers to install a feature into airbags which would de-activate the device for passengers who are morally deficient?

Those seeking to be healed by Jesus did not have to exhibit moral behavior in order to gain this healing. Jesus required only that they have faith. After healing the bleeding woman, he said to her: "Your faith has saved you."

Her "lifesaver" was her believing he had the power to heal her. There's no indication that the saving act required morally superior behavior, but rather, only the faith from the one seeking Christ's healing power. I.e., his/her belief in Christ's power to do the healing.

There is no reason to insist that morally-superior behavior must be added as a further condition.

That way the tired old god wouldn’t have to work any harder.

It's not about extra work. Even if a lifesaver or air-bag mechanism could be rigged to disable the device for evil drivers or passengers, and it could be done at no higher cost or with no extra labor, this still is not something that should be done. The life-saving device is supposed to work for everyone regardless of their moral status.

Your proposition requires an unnecessary condition to be imposed. All that is needed is a lifesaver cast out to anyone who needs to be rescued. Requiring that they must first be morally superior makes no more sense than for airbag producers to add a feature requiring passengers to be morally superior as a condition for their airbag to function properly.

Besides, this is purportedly the omnipresent god who created everything, and knew from the moment it created it, that most of its human creation would fail the Lumpy theological test.

If you're hung up on predestination riddles, or determinism vs. free will, this is just a general philosophical puzzle not needing a solution uniquely from Christ believers.

Would a just and uber powerful entity let most of his creation just fall to the way side of eternal torment, because he created failures that couldn’t figure out its meager bread crumb trail?

What is it that we have to "figure out"? The woman who touched his cloak and was healed, and to whom he said "Your faith has saved (healed) you," didn't have to "figure out" anything. She thought he somehow had this healing power, from what she had heard earlier, and she touched his clothing, hoping this power would heal her. So, what did she "figure out"? What about that would be difficult for someone to "figure out"?

The faith requirement might be important, despite your instinct that it should not be.

And what kind of substitution is having one of its heads knowingly spending only 3 days in hell, as substitutionary atonement, for the sins of roughly 2 billion people, as a sacrifice to itself?

It is not necessary to untangle blood atonement riddles. Those who came to Jesus to be healed did not need to sort out different theories about blood atonement in order to gain healing from him.

 

[DBT]

''What is the difference between those who are saved by Christ and those who perish? ''

The difference? A mere whim of the fickle Potter wanting to glorify Himself:

“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,” - Romans 9:21-23

John 3:17 “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”

 

[Atheos]

Faith vs. Merit -- Livesaver Analogy

Part 1

Although very few christian representatives would outright say "It's not important how you behave, it's only important how you think" that is the net result of this core doctrine.

It doesn't matter what the "net result" is. All that matters is whether Christ had life-giving power or not, and whether we can connect to it. If we can connect to it, like through "faith," and thus gain eternal life, that's what matters. Just like reaching the lifesaver is what matters.

It doesn't matter if you have actual evidence that there is a drowning person, but this isn't the case. You (and millions of Christians worldwide) have absolutely squat when it comes to evidence that there is any sort of "afterlife." Other religions believe in reincarnation, still others believe in no afterlife at all, and the one thing they all have in common is that none of them have a single freaking clue what the hell is going to happen (if anything) to someone after they die. The single most plausible scenario is that upon death the electro-chemical reactions that cause our brains to experience consciousness will cease and we will cease to exist. Period. Anything else is wishful thinking because there is absolutely no evidence that a person's "life force" continues to exist after that point.

So your lifesaver analogy means absolutely nothing. There is no drowning person, just as there is no lake of fire into which the person will be tossed and there is no heavenly paradise representative of some alternative end-result. Death will bring me the same oblivion I "experienced" before I was born. Until you've got actual evidence otherwise everything else is just bullshit people made up to sell to folks who were afraid of death and grieving because someone they cared about had died.

The fact is that people who claim to be some variant of christian do not behave in a more moral or ethical fashion than people who are skeptics. That was exactly my point.

Maybe you're right. But it doesn't matter. Though it's always good for people to behave better, and Christians preach this, it's not the basic salvation message. I.e., the "good news" or euangelion.

It does matter. Christianity does absolutely nothing to improve the condition of the world and it takes away from productivity that could be applied elsewhere. It is a leech on society and deserves to be exposed for what it is. The core doctrine that it's more important how you think than how you act eventually results in people committing all manner of atrocities against other human beings and justify them because they believe it to be the will of their imaginary friend. It's absurd and needs to stop. Now.

There are many christians in prison for murder, rape and other violent crimes. But because they happen to believe an absurd myth they end up in heaven.

No, if they end up in heaven, then what they believe is not an absurd myth. If it's absurd what they believed, it means there isn't any heaven. It's the UNTRUTH of what they believed that makes it an absurd myth. But if it turns out to be true, then it's not the absurd myth after all.

And that's the big "IF" that we have no evidence is ever going to happen. It is an absurd myth, every bit as absurd as Hercules slaying Medusa or Perseus riding a winged horse named Pegasus.

All the while a skeptic who is a good citizen, never does anything to harm or defraud his fellow man ends up in an eternal state of torture for no other crime than his skepticism.

No, his "skepticism" is not a crime, and if there is this eternal state of torture, it's not a result of his being skeptical.

We can pick it apart analytically, but one way to put it is simply that the lifesaver is tossed out there to whoever finds it, i.e., the good news, the euangelion, the report about Christ's life-giving power, and those who find this good news and place their hope in this, hoping it's true, find salvation. Even a skeptic might see this as a possibility, and become a believer, even though still having doubts, or still being skeptical.

Being skeptical does not mean one has no beliefs at all. So when one "ends up in an eternal state of torture," it's not his "skepticism" that is to blame. He just missed that lifesaver, for whatever reason.

Being skeptical certainly means that one has the common sense to refuse to accept at face value anonymous tales of some dude performing miracles, raising dead people and levitating off into the sky. That's pretty much the textbook definition of "skeptical." Anything that doesn't at least rise to that level is what we call "gullible."

It doesn't matter how these two individuals behaved, it only matters what they believed.

For finding salvation, yes, it's the faith in Christ's power that matters, not their moral behavior. Like finding the lifesaver is what matters to be saved from drowning.

The important thing here is that you and I do agree that this is the core doctrine of Christianity. What we disagree about is whether it is acceptable. Personally I have higher standards than that. It would appear that you are perfectly fine with this state of affairs. I'm not judging, just clarifying where we stand.

But there is no Absolute Scientific Decree that a "miracle" event cannot ever happen. It is OK to consider the possibility of such events, based on the evidence. . . .

I know most Christians believe it [virgin birth], but this is not an absolute requirement to believe in Christ. The Bethlehem stories are not credible. But the miracle healing acts by Jesus are believable, because there is good evidence that they happened.

Okay, so you agree with me then that the virgin birth narrative is bogus.

A better way to put it is that there is virtually no credible evidence for it. And it's very easy to explain how the Bethlehem/virgin birth stories emerged even if they are totally fictitious. But the explanation requires that there must be something else that was very important about Jesus which caused him to become mythologized.

There must be something special about him that caused people to start believing he was God or a Cosmic figure, or Savior or Messiah. And then, AFTER they had this thought about him, then they created the virgin birth story. And the Bethlehem story also could easily be created, because this was thought to be a prerequisite for the Jewish Messiah. This story came about AFTER they started believing he was the promised Messiah.

Whereas the miracle healing stories cannot be explained this way. I.e., how they originated.

Please present the evidence that the miraculous healing acts by Jesus happened. What is the difference in the nature of the evidence between the one and the other?

There are at least two major differences:

1) the miracle healings do not fit into any pattern (as the virgin birth does), but rather pop up suddenly in history without any precedent. So we cannot explain how they came about by any normal mythologizing process; and

2) we have at least 4 sources for the miracle healings, with only minor discrepancies between them, but only 2 for the virgin birth/Bethlehem stories, and these 2 do not harmonize at all. Plus, the writer of the 4th Gospel believed Jesus was NOT born in Bethlehem but in Galilee (John 7:41-42).

Further, we need an explanation why Jesus became mythologized into a god. That he did miracle healings easily explains this. But that he was virgin-born? How would this impact on people such that they would start worshiping him and make him into a god? How would they know he was virgin-born? How would they come to believe it or know of it even if it were true?

Such an event as a virgin birth is not a public event that large numbers of people would witness, whereas the miracle healing acts, done publicly, would obviously cause a stir and arouse the mythologizing.

Regarding point # 1, I find it laughable if you can make this claim with a straight face. Hundreds of years before the Jesus myths surfaced there were myths of gods (and god-men) performing miraculous acts. The similarities were so obvious that Justin Martyr pointed them out in his 1st apology. You've been presented with this rejoinder many times in this thread and your propensity to ignore this damning evidence and continue to simply parrot this demonstrably false claim has grown quite tiresome.

Regarding point # 2, we have also demonstrated that there is actually only 1 independent source for these claims and dozens of copycats that appeared years (even decades) later. The copycats could easily have been influenced by the original writer. Citing these as independent is stretching the truth far beyond the breaking point.

Regarding point # 3, you have no evidence that an actual historical Jesus existed which is not equally compatible with the very real possibility that this character was entirely fictional. The "testimony" of Flavius Josephus in A.D. 90 only tells us that people were telling stories about a Jesus character, not that such a character actually existed. They made up a story about a god-man who came from humble beginnings. This is demonstrably similar to the god-men stories of the ancient Greeks, where Perseus was raised from obscurity to become great as was Hercules. Again, nothing new here. This argument is also trivial and quite tiresome. Even if it were true and the Jesus myth was the only one in the entire history of the planet that began with someone obscure and elevated him to god-status (which it isn't) that would not be sufficient evidence to suggest that the claims of miraculous events were based in any sort of reality.

It's very simple: Extraordinary claims require equally extraordinary evidence. What is so hard to understand about that simple principle?

But it's just a slogan that doesn't mean anything. What a miracle story requires is EXTRA evidence -- the same kind of evidence as for any other events, but simply a greater quantity of it. Extra witnesses, extra accounts rather than only 1 or 2.

The alien abduction stories of  Betty and Barney Hill are extraordinary claims that are considerably more plausible than the story of an itinerant preacher . . .

What is more plausible about those abductions stories?

. . . 2000 years ago literally turning water to wine, instantly healing incurable conditions such as blindness, walking on top of a storm tossed sea or levitating unassisted off into the sky. Yet most intelligent and rational people dismiss the Hill story as a hoax.

But if the Hill story is really as plausible as you say, then it would not be dismissed as a hoax. I suggest it's not so plausible, and this is why it's dismissed as a hoax. So, to prove your point, you'll have to explain why it's "considerably more plausible" than the Jesus miracle stories.

Or, on the other hand, maybe it's not really dismissed as a hoax by everyone, and maybe the story is really true, or mostly true. Many weird events have really happened. In at least some cases, something strange or unexplainable really did happen, and then subsequently the story became enlarged or exaggerated, so that it eventually develops into something mostly fictional.

Just because you can produce a story that turned out to be a hoax does not mean that all other stories of something weird are also hoaxes. If there's evidence that some strange phenomenon really happened, then maybe it's true. Or even if some part of it is fictional, maybe there was a real event that caused it to get started in the first place, and so this original part of the story is genuine.

So just citing one case of a supposed hoax somewhere doesn't prove anything.

You're giving a "hoax" story example, but you're not taking it seriously. To take it seriously you have to quote from the witnesses, or from the nearest evidence we have of it, and subject that report to criticism.

The irony of the situation is that the evidence in favor of Betty and Barney Hill's story is considerably better than the evidence for any of the miracle claims in the "Jesus" story.

If the evidence (for the Hill story) is really that good, then the story is probably true. But also, you should be providing us with that evidence instead of just expecting us to take your word for it that the evidence is as good as you're saying.

What you're doing is throwing out an example of a supposed hoax and insisting that we must agree that this is a hoax, like it's an absolute proven fact that it's false, but then you're telling us that there is strong evidence to support this hoax story -- which is inconsistent, because if it's proven that it's a hoax, how can you claim there's strong evidence to support it? If the evidence is really so strong, then it's probably true and not a hoax at all.

So you need to make up your mind: is this story really supported by the evidence, or is it a proven hoax? You can't claim it's a hoax unless you disprove the evidence for it, or show us how poor this evidence is.

You might be partly right -- maybe there's some convincing evidence, and yet the story is false. Or, maybe it's true, and we really don't know. The evidence for the Jesus miracles is sufficient that the reported events might be true. And a "believer" is one who considers this evidence and hopes that it's true. By contrast, the alien abduction stories may or may not be true, and I don't really care if they are or not.

It is not vitally important for people to either believe or DISbelieve most stories of paranormal events, like alien abductions. Probably some of these stories are true, or partly true, and perhaps most of them false.

You totally missed the point, which is that the evidence in favor of Betty and Barney Hill's story is considerably better than the evidence in favor of the Jesus myth. I had presented my arguments for this in a different post earlier if I recall correctly. Your myopic treatment of the arguments presented against your case do nothing to enhance your position. Evidence for the Hill Abduction story is considerably better than evidence for the Jesus myth for many reasons:

• The people making the claims are not anonymous. They are named people who swore and signed testimony.
• This testimony was delivered within days of the events, not decades.
• We have considerable documentation of these claimants being voir-dired by experts attempting to get at the legitimacy of the claims.
• We have sent rockets into space and know that such is possible. We know the universe is vast and possibly billions of civilizations could have evolved, some millions (or even billions) of years more advanced technologically than us. It is possible some of them have discovered ways to traverse the vast distances necessary to reach our planet from theirs.
• Absolutely nothing in Betty and Barney Hill's stories was ever been demonstrated to be incompatible with physical evidence.

On the other hand...

• The Jesus myth is only supported by a single anonymous source and dozens of anonymous copycats appearing in series years and decades later.
• The first claim that any of the Jesus stuff happened appeared 35-40 years and 1500 miles removed from the time and place they supposedly happened.
• There is no evidence that anyone challenged these myths. The fact that they first appeared decades and hundreds of miles removed from their alleged time and place would mean that there just wan't anyone around to gainsay the myth and the Roman culture was already used to similar stories (See Justin Martyr's 1st apology).
• There is no evidence of anyone being able to walk on storm-tossed water or levitating off into the sky, much less heal paralysis and blindness with a touch. None.
• Many details of these anonymous myths have been debunked by the historical record. These anonymous people have been shown to be willing to lie about mundane things. Only the most gullible would continue to believe them about extraordinary things.

Deal with it. Quit sweeping it under the rug already.

Yet millions of otherwise sane people just believe the Jesus myths uncritically.

No, they believe it on the superiority of the evidence, because we have at least four sources attesting to the miracles of Jesus, and this evidence, or these sources, are totally unique for that time, as accounts of miracle events, being relatively close to the time of the reported events.

This sets the Jesus miracle accounts apart from other miracle legends for which there is no such evidence, i.e., no similar evidence attesting to such events elsewhere, or at other times, making these reported events, i.e., the Gospel accounts, totally unexplainable as being part of the normal mythologizing process, so that the best plausible explanation for the accounts is that the reported events actually did take place.

This is not uncritical belief. If it were UNcritical, there should be many more cases of such belief, i.e., belief in other fictional miracle characters, recorded in documents near to the time of the alleged events. So this is critical, not uncritical, belief. I.e., this is the kind of belief that is reserved only for cases where there is extra evidence.

I was once one myself, so I'm not trying to judge, just trying to understand why. I searched desperately for many years for this evidence of which you speak. If it exists I was never able to find it.

You had and still have the evidence. These accounts are evidence. Documents which claim something happened are evidence that the something did happen. In this case we have at least four such documents, not only one. This is not proof, but it is extra evidence that the alleged events did in fact happen. This evidence offers reason to believe, even if one still has doubts. It is a basis for reasonable hope.


(to be continued)

Your continued baseless assertion of points that have been demonstrated over and over in this thread to be false will continue to be rebutted. This is because we skeptics are far more interested in truth than fairy tales.

 

[atrib]

Your continued baseless assertion of points that have been demonstrated over and over in this thread to be false will continue to be rebutted. This is because we skeptics are far more interested in truth than fairy tales.

This point bears emphasizing. He continues to shamelessly repeat his untruths that have been rebutted dozens of times over, while pretending he has has not read, or has not understood these rebuttals. Some of the untruths that Lumpy likes to repeat are:

1. The Jesus myth has no parallel in history.
2. There are multiple credible sources for these Jesus myth.
3. Historians routinely believe other myths involving supernatural acts performed by mythological figures.

Lumpy does not participate in the discussion, and he clearly knows very little of the Bible and history. He randomly picks an old post and pastes his walls of text that either say nothing, or simply repeat these untrue claims that have been demonstrated to be false many, many times over. Lumpy is the perfect example of the corrupting influence of religion on the human mind. His posts demonstrate a lack of integrity and ethical standards that can only be witnessed among those who suffer from an extreme affliction of religious faith. Lumpy cannot be shamed into telling the truth.

 

[Atheos]

I'd also like to address a couple of other things Lumpnproletariat said in the previous point to which I responded:

But if the Hill story is really as plausible as you say, then it would not be dismissed as a hoax. I suggest it's not so plausible, and this is why it's dismissed as a hoax. So, to prove your point, you'll have to explain why it's "considerably more plausible" than the Jesus miracle stories.

I never said the Hill story was plausible. The tactic of putting words into someone else's mouth and then arguing against those words is called the "Strawman Fallacy." My experience has been that it is quite popular among Christian apologists.

What I did say was that the Hill abduction story was...

... considerably more plausible than the story of an itinerant preacher 2000 years ago literally turning water to wine, instantly healing incurable conditions such as blindness, walking on top of a storm tossed sea or levitating unassisted off into the sky.

To say that something is more plausible than the Jesus myth is not saying much. The Jesus myth sets an extremely low bar in that area.

Intelligent life on other planets in our universe is a distinct possibility. Space travel is a distinct possibility, one which we ourselves have witnessed. Everything in their abduction stories is consistent with things we know could possibly happen without changing anything we know about how the world works. A man curing neurological disorders in the ancient mid-east when the most technologically advanced medicine involved blood-letting and assuming insane and epileptic people were possessed by demons; the same man levitating off into the sky without benefit of modern rocketry; these things are not plausible in any sense of the word. I stand behind my original statement. As time has gone by I suppose I've forgotten how easy it is to let the constant bleating of believing fellowships warp ones mind into not realizing just how absurd the Jesus myth actually is.

If the evidence (for the Hill story) is really that good, then the story is probably true. But also, you should be providing us with that evidence instead of just expecting us to take your word for it that the evidence is as good as you're saying.

Ditto from before: Words into my mouth. Try listening to what someone says for a change rather than just arguing against what you wish they'd say. Shake things up a bit.

The evidence is not that good. It's the unsupported testimony of several named witnesses. It alleges that an extraordinary event happened but the only support for it is testimony. The "evidence" is mundane and the claim is extraordinary.

In spite of how poor the evidence in favor of the Hill abduction stories is, it's still of considerably higher quality than the evidence supporting the Jesus myth. But rational people rightly dismiss it as a hoax. Just as they do with the Jesus myth.

So let's tally up the results:

• Lifesaver Analogy - Uses the "Begging the Question" fallacy to argue that a counter-argument is invalid only because the thing it argues against is the desired conclusion.
• As shown above Lumpenproletariat often employs the Strawman Fallacy.
• Lumpenproletariat enjoys using inclusive phrases like "we cannot imagine how so-and-so myth could have developed" when most of us already have very good ideas how. Maybe it's the Royal We. Or maybe he has a mouse in his pocket whose imagination is the equal of his own.
• Lumpenproletariat stubbornly refuses to address real and well-reasoned points made counter to his desired conclusion, preferring to parrot baseless (and demonstrably false) assertions like a broken record.

On a positive note, nothing demonstrates the abject vacuousness of the christian positions any more effectively than when a proponent continually has to resort to this atrocious level of debate.

 

[Iznomneak]

Even if you've really divined the Absolute Truth about the cattle mutilations, which isn't clear, this doesn't explain or debunk all paranormal claims. Debunking one hoax doesn't prove that all other claims of something unusual must also be hoaxes.

Correct, paranormal claims need to be debunked on a case-by-case basis. However, how many paranormal claims have actually been successfully substantiated? My count is zero. And the claims that can be tested have been debunked.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge

One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge

The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge is an offer by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) to pay out one million U.S. dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. A version of challenge was first issued in 1964, and over a thousand people have applied to take it since then, but none have yet been successful.

I would expect if paranormal claims had ANY validity, at least one claim could be shown that a paranormal activity is the best explanation.

 

[skepticalbip]

I have wondered if any of the statements of our resident apologists have made it into the archives of "Fundies Say the Darndest Things" http://www.fstdt.com/

One of my favorite fundy quotes:

As I said when this subject first came up, once again: Penises are not just for sex & peeing. It is only because man is evil that he thinks of penises exclusively in those terms.

Man is made in the image of God the Father. That is the primary reason why man has a penis.

 

[Potoooooooo]

I think these people would count as reasons

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The evidence for the Jesus miracles is as reliable as for most historical events.

"History is mostly guessing -- the rest is prejudice." -- Will Durant

Part 1

Overall the accounts were preserved accurately with no significant change. During copying some minor changes happen with no change of substance.

You have absolutely no way to show this to be true.

But if it were not true, someone would give an example of such a significant change or change of substance.

No.

This is still not demonstrating that the accounts were preserved over time.

You would need to have two accounts to compare, from known times of authorship, in order to see if major error were or were not introduced.

By that standard we can't believe most accounts of historical events, most of our accepted historical record would have to be rejected. We can't prove that the record or the documents reporting them were not changed over time in the copying. You're arguing against most of the historical record, eliminating most of what's taught in history classes about Rome or Greece or any other early period.

There are a tiny few cases where a comparison similar to what you're demanding is possible. E.g., the earliest manuscript fragment of the Gospel of John, dating from the early 2nd century, has exactly the same wording as the later-dated manuscripts.

And there are a few other variant readings or versions to allow some comparison, e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls contain long excerpts from the Hebrew scriptures, and the text is the same.

So there's a little evidence that earlier documents were preserved in substance as they were copied and recopied over many centuries. And probably there were changes, or additions, but nothing substantial. No indication of "major error" being introduced.

But for the vast majority of the historical record, or documents of any kind, there is no possibility of comparing later manuscripts with earlier ones to prove that the text was not changed over time. So by your standard, most recorded history from that far back -- the accepted historical record -- has to be rejected as unreliable.

You do not have any evidence of the original story to show what the resulting story was, whether it was loyal to the event or if it was exaggerated.

Most of our accepted historical record would have to be thrown out by this standard. The documents we rely on do not meet your standard.

There's "absolutely no way to show" that there are no major changes in the writings of Tacitus or Suetonius or Livy or Polybius etc. interjected between the time of the original writing and the time of the physical copies or manuscripts which we now possess.

A fact which does nothing to make your claim any more credible.

But it means your whole argument for rejecting the gospel accounts is an argument for rejecting virtually ALL the historical record. When we learn history, we are relying on documents that fail the test you're imposing here. You are arguing not against the gospel accounts only, but against most or all historical documents or sources we use for history.

Are the writings of Tacitus that we have now really his original writings?

Doesn't matter. YOU are claiming that the gospels were preserved accurately.

Yes, but only in the sense that other documents also were preserved, i.e., the documents that history is based on. I'm making no special claim for the gospel accounts in particular. There are problems establishing the original text for any documents that far back.

If your claim is that all documents from the past, or from that far back, are unreliable for history, then it's not the gospel accounts per se that you're rejecting, but all historical documents. It makes a big difference if this is your argument against the credibility of the gospel accounts. It's an argument against the credibility of ALL documents and ALL history prior to modern times.

You have bupkes for evidence of that claim.

I personally have no direct evidence for any documents from history. I've never seen any alleged documents myself. I just believe what I was taught in school and on the History Channel etc., that there are scholars who have studied the documents, the manuscripts, directly and assure us that our published copies are accurate.

And there are problems with all the documents -- variant readings, discrepancies, some bad spots in the documents where they speculate what the original text was. So there's always some uncertainty and some guesswork that goes on. But it's assumed that our documents are a reasonable account of the events, even if some changes in the text took place during the copying.

What is it you're saying about the gospel account text that casts doubt on the reliability, anymore than the same also applies to any other writings of the period?

I'm not saying anything about the gospel accounts right now.

I'm saying you've got fuck all to support the claim I quoted.

So you're saying we should not believe anything in history books or in a history lecture, because the documents from which it came could have been altered over time, and we've got "fuck all" to prove they were not altered, and that makes them unreliable and their content probably untrue.

This is not a very strong case for rejecting the gospel accounts as credible. Unless your point is that ALL the historical record has to be rejected.

There's no recently unearthed eyewitness account that matches the later-created gospels. So you have no way to establish that there were no substantive changes.

OK, but you understand that with this standard you are throwing out virtually ALL the known historical record for anything from several centuries ago. Probably anything farther back than 200-300 years ago.

Where there's a disruption in the literary style, like the ending of Mark, this is obvious, and it's accounted for.

What do you mean 'accounted for?'

It's recognized and there's no difficulty explaining it, and it doesn't undermine the credibility of the gospel text generally. It's understood that these accounts are mostly compilations, containing pieces that were put together later into a final version, and we can distinguish some earlier parts from some later ones, such as the Mark ending. It's not a major change. The general portrayal of Jesus and those events is the same. Minor discrepancies don't negate the overall truth of the accounts.

Are there some other examples of this that cause a problem? How does it undermine reliability?

Well, when you make a claim that is not possible to support, one has to wonder why you'd do that?

I'll make another claim that is not possible to support: History did not begin 5 minutes ago, as some philosopher once proposed (was it Bertrand Russell?). It is not true that all history really began only 5 minutes ago and all evidence, including memories, of anything earlier was planted there by God or some Demon in order to deceive us into believing that history extends back thousands or millions of years.

That proposition is false. It did not all begin only 5 minutes ago, and our memories and all the evidence was not planted to deceive us.

I cannot support this claim I'm making. But I make it anyway. I'm not lying in making this claim.

How come you have to tell lies about your superstition?

But according to you, virtually all historians are liars, telling us we can rely on the documents to tell us what happened, when they have not proved the documents are reliable by going back in history in their time machine to prove it, as you are demanding.

And likewise I believe it's true that we have some reliable documents to tell us what happened in the past, even more than 1000 years ago. I can't support this belief with the kind of strong evidence you're demanding. But I assert it anyway, believing it's true, so it's not a lie.

Isn't there sufficient evidence aside from the need to tell lies?

No, what you're calling "lies" are necessary if there is to be any historical record. We cannot prove that the historical documents really come from where or when they claim, or that what they originally said is what our manuscripts say today. There is no proof that all our manuscripts were not planted by an evil demon trying to deceive us into believing they were written centuries earlier.


(to be continued)

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The evidence for the Jesus miracles is as reliable as for most historical events.

History is mostly guessing -- the rest is prejudice. -- Will Durant

(continued)

What matters here are the accounts of the miracle events, suggesting Jesus had super-human power.

Yeah, that's what matters.

And there's no good evidence to believe the accounts.

There is the same evidence as for any other historical events. I.e., these are documents from the period, relatively close to the time of the reported events. That's all the evidence we have for virtually all historical events (from that far back).

In a very few cases we have something written concurrently with the events, or within less than 5 or 10 years, or by an author who lived concurrently with the events. But that's the rare exception. If you demand that, you must toss out the vast majority of the historical record for anything near the period, or even to 1000 or 1500 AD.

And for these, there is no basis for any judgment that they were added later,

Except for the fact that Paul never mentioned anything about the events.

But he mentions NO biographical information about Jesus, other than the crucifixion/resurrection and the night he was arrested ("handed over"). And yet there must have been more than this. You think Jesus did not exist prior to the night he was arrested, because Paul omits it?

It cannot be argued that anything Paul didn't mention must not have happened. Jesus must have done something prior to that night, and Paul must have known of it, even if he omits any mention of it.

Except for the fact that the Jewish Messiah prophecies never predicted such powers.

Let's assume that's true, though Georg Friedrich Haendel thought Isaiah 35:5-6 was a messianic prophecy pointing toward Christ's miracle acts.

But assuming healing miracles were not official messianic powers being anticipated by 1st-century Jews, then how do we explain where the Jesus miracle stories came from?

If he did not perform these miracle acts, then nothing makes any sense. We cannot explain how these accounts emerged. They fit into no pattern. There was no healing miracle trend taking place for these accounts to fit in with.

We see much in the gospels that was borrowed from the Essenes, but not the healing miracles -- no, we cannot explain where they came from. We see baptism rituals, we see beatitudes, we see "New Covenant" and blood sacrifice rhetoric. From apocalyptic writings we see Hell Fire and Satan and Lucifer being cast into it, we see "sons of light" and "sons of darkness," also the "Son of Man," and we see "the Law" and commandments and judgment and God's wrath poured out onto the wicked.

But where are the healing stories prior to those in the gospel accounts? Zero!

What's the explanation? The best one is that these healing events really did happen, and that explains why they were recorded. Whereas many other symbols and beliefs about Jesus were added, AFTER he became deified into the Messiah or the Son of God, to have him born in Bethlehem and visited by the Wise Men etc. His miracle acts are the original catalyst that got it started or stirred up some people, and then the rest followed as a result of psychology and human nature, trying to explain his Power Source or What he was or Where he came from.

. . . as some kind of disruption in the text that must have been surreptitiously slipped in decades or centuries later, after the original writing.

you don't HAVE the 'original writing.'

We don't have the "original writing" for any historical document. All original manuscripts rotted. So does that mean we can't say anything about any "original writing"? Could it be that all supposed historical writings from that time are really fabrications created by pranksters 1000+ years later? There's no evidence to prove otherwise, though we have some evidence and common sense to indicate that our documents are substantially reliable.

You can't even show a date for the 'original

The gospel accounts can be dated as easily as most historical documents can be. Imprecision in dating does not undermine the credibility.

IF the gospel accounts were written decades later, and made up in part or entirely, then there won't be a sudden disruption.

Well there are some "disruptions" in the sense that there are pieces of the gospels which came from separate sources, and obviously later editors made some changes, such as adding something new. If they had been "made up" by later writers, the accounts would be different than what we have. Rather than "made up," they were pieced together from earlier written and oral sources.

And I'm not arguing that nothing at all was added later, or "made up" or fabricated -- rather, our accounts are substantially reliable, the Gospels and others, even though there are some later additions or edits. Such changes do not distort the original version or substantially alter it.

Why is there so little trace of what surely was a John-the-Baptist cabal that was trying to make him the new miracle-working messiah?

There's no need in Jewish tradition for the messiah to work miracles. So the 'cabal' would not have tried to sell a miracle-working messiah to the Jews.

That's the point! No one did try to sell a miracle-working messiah. No one "made up" this stuff because no one had a reason to. The only explanation why we have these miracle accounts of Jesus is that he actually did perform these acts.

But whoever you imagine did "make up" these Jesus miracle accounts also had as much reason to do the same with John the Baptist, and dozens of other charismatic figures who were popular with some groups. You're failing to explain why it's only this one Jesus of Galilee figure who got mythologized into a miracle healer.

How did the Jesus cabal succeed so efficiently in wiping the record clean of all his [John the Baptist's] miracles?

Fire is the cleanser.

There's no basis for this other than paranoia. It would make as much sense to say that Evolutionists have planted all the evidence for Evolution and destroyed evidence which would have proved Creationism.

We have RECORDS of the Early Christains stamping out heresies.

No we don't. You can't give any examples of this (nothing prior to 300 AD).

Letters to each other about what gospels to burn, which were being burnt, and so on.

No we don't have any such records. You are hallucinating this. I will pay a $100 donation to this website, TALK/FREETHOUGHT, if you provide one example of any such records.

I will bend over backward to let you win this "wager": Just give any source for the above, no matter how erroneous it may be, asserting that these early "gospels" (prior to 300 AD) were being burned by Christians.

(This will not include the incident of Acts 19:19, in which some exorcism/magic books were burned.)

This is why we have so little of the gnostic gospels available today.

No it's not. The only reason we don't have them is that they rotted, like all documents did, and no one copied them. They were not destroyed. You can't give one citation of any evidence to support this.

Put my money where your mouth is! Give the source for this, naming those "gospels" (written before 300 AD) and the early documents that tell of them being destroyed. I will pay the $100 donation even if your citation is erroneous, as long as it cites an early document making this claim about early "gospels" being burned.

Some suppression of "heresies" began after 300 AD after the "church" had gained some power. The only writings destroyed were a very few cases of high-profile heretics, but no burning of any earlier "gospels" -- and nothing was destroyed which told of any other miracle-workers such as Jesus parallels.

Anything destroyed after 300 AD were Christian heresy writings which amplified on the same 1st-century Jesus Christ miracle-worker, but not anything offering an alternative deity or messiah or savior figure having some resemblance to the 1st-century Galilean Jesus figure. And no writings about John the Baptist or any other early figure performing miracles as some kind of rival or parallel to Jesus.

You can't name one example of any such writings being destroyed or any reference to such a thing, despite the unsupported claims by your favorite Jesus-debunker celebrity pundit scholar. They never give any evidence -- quotes from early documents -- for such preposterous claims as this. Rather, they know you'll accept their word on blind faith.

It's quite possible that such a conspiracy was pulled off.

It's possible, but highly unlikely. There's no evidence of any such thing. But there is evidence that the Jesus miracles did happen.

They just didn't call it a conspiracy, they called it The Truth.

"They" didn't exist, other than in your imagination.

There is less evidence for any such conspiracy than there is for the miracles of Jesus. It is more reasonable to believe the miracles of Jesus really happened, based on the evidence, than to believe there was an early conspiracy to burn alternative "gospel" accounts or accounts of alternative miracle-workers. Your paranoid conspiracy theories are not evidence. Real documents written before 300 AD are real evidence, such as the 1st-century accounts of the Jesus miracles.

 

[none]

There is the same evidence as for any other historical events.

I'm convinced Saul/Paul was delusional and his followers mimic the delusion
look at the evidence