Lance

Layman: Most universities award minor and major degrees. Majors are the majority of your course work. Minor degrees are usually "x" number of hours. I've even forgetten the hour number, but I think its in the 15-30 hour range. Its probably the same thing you're calling a "minor", just different name. It wasn't anything conscious as I didn't find out until I got my transcript after graduation.

I had quized out of a lot of American history going in, and I took historical electives because I like history.

Toto: When your billing rate is in the $100-$200/hour or more range, you can afford to jack off a lot. Most of us can't...

Nomad: You're arguing in a circle again. The solid proof that Cicero is a liar is subject to the same game you're playing with Caesar? How do we know it for a fact?

And the only thing we can maybe accept from the gospels is that there *might* have been a man named Jesus.

The rest of it is mythic fantasy at best---there is no amount out of the ancient world that would satisfy the level of proof required to validate these fantasies.

For example, if you handed me the book "Star Wars" and asserted it was true, I would not believe you. I would not believe you if you showed me video (Star Wars movie) as I know it to be beyond our abilities. Maybe if you sit me in a X-Wing and fly it around with me...then maybe I'll believe you.

The same is true with the Christ cult message. We have claims of extraordinary things, out of a time when these claims were quite common. If you can understand why you don't believe in the religions of Mithra for example, then you can understand why we doubt you.

To help you understand, perhaps at least reading the parable at the front of this discussion will help:

www.infidels.org/library/historical/m_m_mangasarian/truth_about_jesus.html

Ahhh... but your missing something in your
reasoning there. Don't forget one of the basic rules of literature (fiction):

"The further away a story occurs in time
and space, the more believable it becomes".

This I believe is the basis for why Christianity can make these claims and
get away with it. But let's take your
example:

- Star Wars is a "long time ago in a galaxy far far away
- It's not *OUR* technology that you have to reconcile! It's that of an ancient civilization far off in space
- For all you know, it could be true! They could have been more advanced than us technology. They could have had a different
genome that gave them the force powers.

Now, take Star Wars and claim it happened
10 years ago on Earth, and no, it's not
believable.

This is exactly the argument that is being
made WRT claims that there was no documentation (and hence no previous claims)
about Jesus until well after the fact.
Claim that it happened 10 years ago, and people will search their memories or go
checking. Claim that it happened 70 years
after the fact, and it's now easier to believe. Esp. if potential witnesses are all
dead. (And even if you date the Gospels to
70 A.D., I doubt that the lifespans were long
enough to have live witnesses then).

Read George Orwell's 1984. He hit it right
on the nose. Unless you experience it directly, your memory of history is restricted to what you've been taught or
read. Hence, History (the story, not the
reality) is easy to modify if
done correctly.

If you don't trust Britannica, then check out the sources listed at the end of the article.

If he wasn't assassinated, then how do you explain the subsequent chapters of Roman history? It's perfectly acceptable to question the conventional wisdom, but don't expect your questioning to be taken seriously unless you can offer a compelling alternative explanation.

Would our knowledge of history change significantly if the answers to these questions were less vague than "in Rome", "by his enemies", and "between 60 and 80"? I think not.

If the contradictions in the assassination accounts trouble you, then disregard them. There is still a mountain of evidence to show that Julius Caesar was Emperor before May 44BC and that Octavian assumed power after that date. SOMETHING must have happened to Caesar around that time. If not an assassination, then what was it?

This is where your parallel to the skeptical treatment of the gospels completely falls apart. We don't need the assassination accounts to know that something happened to cause the untimely death of Julius Caesar some time in the middle of 44BC. We don't need the assassination accounts to suspect that foul play was involved. The assassination of Julius Caesar is accepted because it actually helps make sense of the other events that occurred around that time (events that are in turn attested to by multiple sources of varying perspectives and biases).



No, we don't. So what? Is anybody making substantive claims that depend on eyewitness testimony?

Toto

Cool. I admire your ability to juggle time, or however you get away with it (are you one of the ones who bill for 40 hours in a day? Check out this lawyer joke on Beliefnet)

Now are you going to address my real questions:

"But you continue to evade my question. Why is this so important to you? Is it the first beachhead for conversion?

Nomad has already stated that all history is ideological propaganda (paraphrase), so why should I trust any sources, or believe in anything historical?"

When you work 14-15 hours a day, you find time to post.

I'm sorry, but why is what important to me? I actually used to not like the label apologist, because I truly wanted to learn from informed persons with whom I disagreed. I did most of my posting on the History Channel's websites and learned a lot from people I completely disagreed with.

I came to this board in search of more good discussions, but soon discovered that amiable discussions are next to impossible here and that many skeptics, not all, are completely ignorant of history and, indeed, willing to reject the study of history itself because of their animus towards Christians or Christianity.

I'm not going to respond to a loaded "paraphrase" of Nomad's statement. But I will say that you are just proving Nomad's point for him. Skeptics take radical approach to the study of history and generally deny that any such knowledge is possible.

Nomad wrote:
Tsk tsk, Nomad, don’t exaggerate. All we have is Josephus, and we know there are problems with him. The Roman references could easily stem from Christian sources, and may well not be independent.

Do I? You haven’t been paying attention to my posts. I made it clear that I am undecided about the historicity of Jesus the man. To leave such a question open may not be permissible in your worldview, but it certainly makes a lot of sense in the sceptical worldview, given the quantity and quality of the evidence.

To further illustrate this point, please follow me here.

fG

Toto

Why is it important for you to have non-believers say that the historical Jesus exists? Is it part of a strategy to convert us, if not, why is it important?

Why do you think you can have an amiable discussion with people, when you continually brand them as "completely ignorant of history" and willing to ignore the truth because of "animus towards Christians or Christianity"? And when Nomad continually insults people and misrepresents sources and others' arguments?

Okay, the second question was rhetorical. What about the first?

And here's Nomad's exact quote:

"Every work on the Bible is a work of theology or ideology, so trying to pretend that it is somehow not connected to a philosophical argument is disingenous in the extreme."

How is that different from ideological propaganda?

First, thank you for helping to make my point CH. I am grateful.

I did. I asked for primary sources that are not from Cicero (a known liar), Mark Antony (politically motivated), Augustus (ditto), or anyone dependent on these sources or who would have been beholden to these people or their successors. Do you know of any?

Since you are new to this discussion forum, I will assume that you are unaware of the arguments put forward by sceptics here in the past.

I will quote from Earl on the What Happened? thread to help illustrate my point:

Now, the discussion was long, and no doubt too boring for most to care, but bottom line we can see the essentials of Earl's beliefs visa vie what is expected from the sceptic in a debate:

1) The sceptic is not required to offer a plausible alternative to the stated belief
2) The sceptic need only offer reasons to doubt the plausibility of the account given by the traditionalist
3) Once that is done, the discussion is over. The sceptic wins by default, since it is perfectly reasonable to doubt an argument against which one can present reasonable doubts.

Since I have offered more than enough reasons to doubt that Julius Caesar was assassinated, at least as described by the traditional historians, I consider the case to be closed. What happened? Who knows? Maybe he slipped in the tub. Maybe he was killed by a spurned lover. Maybe a chicken bone got stuck in his throat. After any of these scenarios, Octavian, Antony and Cicero get together and concoct a convenient and plausible assassination story, deliver it to the masses (and Senate) during public orations where the accused cannot defend themselves, the accused flee, and the rest is, as they say, history.

I call this the "if you can dream it up, who knows, it might have happened" thesis, and it works for many of the sceptics here, even on the mundane details of Jesus' life and death.

True. And would the existence of Jesus, and should the mundane events of his life be ruled unknown or unknowable because we cannot be certain about all the details?

All of what you said was very true, and excellent points. As to what actually happened, sceptics don't really need to know I suppose. The evidence just isn't sufficient to decide one way or the other.

Thanks again for helping to make my point. Perhaps you could account for all of the events that followed the presumed crucifixion of Jesus, and do so on the basis that Jesus never existed as a real life human being. Can you do this?

According to many sceptics on these boards, if an eyewitness is not giving the testimony, it must be disregarded as hearsay. This is why I eliminate Plutarch and Suetonius as possible sources, as well as any other that did not witness the events. At the same time, since any confession offered by one of the presumed conspirators could easily have been forged or interpolated by apologists for Augustus or Antony, we must not accept them either.

Do you have any independent non-interested sources that Julius Caesar was actually assassinated. If not, that is cool. We can then agree that we don't really know what happened to him and move on.

On the other hand, doing this does look pretty daft don't you think?

Thank you for the feedback CheeseHead.

Nomad

Why is it important to me? Again, this is an irrelevant question. This is a Biblical Criticism and Archeology Board. Most of us come here to debate ideas. The idea that Jesus did not exist is absurd and I disagree with it.

Why is that so hard for you to understand? And, again, why is this relevant to our discussion?

I do not accuse all of my debate opponents in the way you claim.

But, since we seem to have completely abandoned any discussion about history, why is it so important for you that I comment on Nomad's statement?

Tell us why you reject Josephus as a source please.

Demonstrate how Tacitus could easily be dependent on Christian sources please. Then show how Tacitus would have reported the connection between Jesus and Pontius Pilote differently if he did not get his information from Christians.

Remember, just because you can dream it up doesn't make it so.

I dunno. From your last statement I assumed you rejected Josephus and Tacitus. Do you? If so, on what basis?

Given that the only question is the completely mundane question of "did Jesus exist or not", how much additional evidence do you need beyond the Gospels, NT Canons, Josephus and Tacitus?

I saw it. What is the purpose of the poll? Do you know of a single historian that uses polls and arbitrarily assigned percentage probabilities to determine if historical events happened, and historical people lived? If so, how does he or she use this methodology?

For example, how did you arrive at 98% for Caesar, 75% for Jesus and 5% for Hercules? If these numbers came out of thin air, or your head at the moment, what value do they hold for determining the truth of the claim?

Nomad