ElectEngr

Probably Hank Hanegraaff. the buy-bull spin meister. I know that's where I've heard it.

Later,
ElectEngr

martinc

mc Pardon me I am new to this board and come because I was challenged by an unbelieving acquantance who wants me to be ganged up on by atheists and agnostics to pay me back for many sins he believes I have. Anyway I really prefer to debate one person at a time and have challenged Dr X to debate me and would like a liesurely response time of a week per rebuttal . I am unfamiliar with the technical aspects of this board ie edit function which I will explore later.. All my replies are preceded by MC

Anyway my main point is that there seems to be a presumption that since the New Testament was written by followers of Christ that it can not be historically accurate. This may or may not be true but it most certainly does not HAVE to be true.The way to determine what actually happened back then would be to get as much corroborating evidence from as many sources as possible. I have never seen any evidence that clearly contradicted any scriptures.For every suppsed Proof I have always within a very short period of time been able to find some opposing evidence which at the very least cast reasonable doubt on the supposed anti Bible evidence.Am I biased? Of course I am biased.I believe Christ died and rose from the dead, but so are all of you biased.Bottom line biased men can record honestly.

Martin C

Llyricist
User
Registered: October 2002
Location: Fort Lauderale, FL
Posts: 482
Re: Martin (Christian)replies to Dr X (Infidel)
quote:Originally posted by martinc
mc Please Do not avoid or atempt to joke away this valid point of mine. If we can't trust early Christian writings to be accurate because they write about Christ then how can we trust ANY Republican to write objectively about a Republican like Bush? Or how can we trust a democrat to faithfully record the transcripts of Slick Willie's impeachment ? Does not everyone have a bias or opinion of some sort? The gospel writers are not disqualified from writing accurately simply because they were followers of Jesus. Who else would you expect to record all the details of his life?


It is not a valid point, this is not how one does history. One takes sources of ALL biases they can get their hands on, and on those points where the varying sources agree,

mc I understand this. I will gladly consider any other source you have about Jesus.

one can have a high level of confidence that those things happened. However, on those points only supported by ONE bias, one can have no confidence at all....

MC..OH CONTRAIRE... that is your fatal flaw... an assumption that the gospel writers are liars and in collusion to perpetuate a prophecy fulfilled deception on the world. I readily concede that a number of followers of Jesus MAY have some errors in their writings but I want to see proff.I have seen none and debated a guy for years on this and every time he gives me a so called contradiction I ask him to just simply tell me which two scriptures supposedly contradict each other and to date he nor anyone else has ever done that.(I don't care about silly riddles about the resurrection,just give the two scriptures that definitely contradict each other)

i.e. "it may or may not have happened". In fact, in matters of religion, they CAN'T be trusted.

mc why? if that were true then we should not let any historians that also happen to be democrats publish books about the Clinton White House

By YOUR reasoning, we have to trust ALL the religious myths... Zeus really DID live atop Mount Olympus... Joeseph Smith really did get visited by angels and did the Umum and thumum thing with the golden tablets...

mc NOW dude that is a good point and needs to be addressed. The only thing is it ISN'T my reasoning. I never said we should "automatically" believe the gospel writers.(or Brigham Young etc) I merely pointed out and will keep pounding away at this MAIN POINT until I am not misunderstood.The point is that just because someone believes in what a person says doesnt mean he is going to lie about them. Just because the apostles were early followers of Christ does not mean they were filthy liars as you suppose. I would like to get corroborating evidence but unfortunately little if any writings from that era exist. However in general I have found that scripture is always always verified by true science. I gave examples of the walls of Jericho being found to fall outwards and the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah.Just recently I read of a tunnel that was discovered which confirms a biblical story of a tunnel. BTW there are countless flood myths which refer to NOT Local floods but Universal floods where most of the world perish.Someone corrected me that the Incas did not have writing and I had said earlier Inca writings so I stand corrected on that.I was going from my memory of Velikovskys worlds in collision book which I read in the eighties but the FACT is the Incas TOLD of a universal flood as well as many other ancient civilisations which is corroborating evidence for the flood actually occuring. Here is the Inca flood myth link

http://www.meta-religion.com/World_R..._the_incas.htm



In JC's case, ALL we have are sources of the one bias. So all we have is ... "He may or may not have done this or that." (actually it even comes down to "he may or may not have existed")

mc I agree and that is an objective statement. At least you are not making an assumption that the gospel writers were liars.

And in GWB's case, we have sources from all sides agreeing he took us to war with Iraq..... but when it comes to whether he lied or not to get us there, whether we were justified or not... etc... we have writings all over the map. And quite a bit of fabrication... on all sides.

mc I don't want to digree into a political debate.BTW I am Libertarian

Doctor X

Martin:

First things first, readers will have an easier time understanding your responses if you figure out the "quote" function. To set aside someone's text such as Amaleq13 stating, "It is clear that Doctor X is a supreme being," pretend that the following "<" ">" are "[" "]"

Thus:

<quote><B>Amaleq13:</B> <B>Doctor X</B> is a supreme being.</quote>

Now using the "[" instead:

Second, as I indicated in my PM back to you, there are some standard texts that explain where these prophecies come from. So, you may save us all some time by checking those first. Also, you need to better define "what" you want to debate as in scope. Perhaps you have PM'd back and I have not received it yet.

Now:

Actually, you have a problem with that statement to begin with. The NT was not written by followers of Junior. The authors did not know him. The earliest full gospel is Mk and its earliest date is just after the Squishing of Jerusalem in 70 CE. As I think I mentioned, even Lk admits to not being a follower or witness to the events he tries to describe.

There is none. Outside the NT texts and far later texts that "did not make it" we have nothing. The Josephus references are interpolations. If you disagree with that, they do not tell us anything useful anyway! Similarly with Tacitus writing in the 100s CE to my memory, and the reference is probably not to Junior!

Well, we have already mentioned contradictions between NT scripture. These leads to at least one version being wrong. Thus, did Judas hang himself or explode?

There is severe evidence contradicting the passion narratives. It involves the power of the Romans--records of Pilate basically crucifying without qualms--the Jewish "leaders" having no power, et cetera. I do not have good "complete" reference for you on that. I think Crossan has written on it--another poster can direct you to it. I only have scattered references.

Very good, however, you have not made 4 BCE the same date as 6 CE, you have not demostrate whether or not Judas hung himself or exploded, reconciled the genealogies, et cetera.

I am glad you are honest, but that does not make others biased. Some of the authors quoted had a bias for a literal resurrection but have been forced to recognize it is a myth. In fact the scholars who started the whole modern era of biblical criticism WERE religious men.

Allow me to quote you something from the devout Albert Schweitzer in concluding his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus:

I like to think the reaction to that book sent him hiding into the deepest Africa. . . .

Everyone has to confront the evidence. The evidence has led to these conclusion.

You should consider the concept of "pious" fraud. You need to also understand that "history" back then was very different than what we consider history now. Authors were happy to write representation of what they wanted. In a way, the various Synoptic gospels and Jn act as "founding document" for their respective movements. Indeed, Mt and Lk rewrite Mk. They change incidents. Is this "lying?" Mt has Judas hang himself, while Lk has him explode. Who is writing the truth? That assumes a historical "Judas" actually existed!

Whatever your past debates were, you have a few contradictions on the table.

No one has made that argument. As above, the assumption had been that the text were written by witneses and that they could be harmonized. All attempts failed. Eventually, after removal of this bias, scholarship recognized what was going on. Place Mt next to Mk next to Lk and you see how they follow Mk and rewrite him. Therefore, they date after him. That is how it works.

Somewhere we handled this. No on Jericho and no on Sodom and Gomorrah. A "biblical archaeologist" of the 1930s wandered about the area "Bible in one hand and shovel in the other" trying to find evidence for details of the OT.

His work has been long overturned. One of the problems a poster noted was that if you accept a particular site, the date ends up being wrong!

Hey! We did handle this a few posts ago. Kindly respond to it rather than just make claims that have been overturned.

And . . . this means Balaam's donkey talked? This means an impossible flood happened?

You are "shotgunning" examples which means you will be "shotgunned" back with replies. The Flood Myths have been handle repeatedly here. We even had a recent thread you should check first.

Oh my . . . sit . . . comfy? Velikovsky is so much bullshit he had been scooped, bagged, and flushed DECADES ago. Wander over to Science and ask about him.

My advice is this: check out the references suggested. If you do not agree with them, you will at least understand what you are trying to argue against.

--J.D.

Doctor X

Wandering about looking for [Porn.--Ed] Shut up! looking for information on Gerd Ludmann, a NT scholar who authored a book I am reading and who lost his faith through his studies, if found this intersting page which does a good job listing the inaccuracies in the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.

Enjoy!

--J.D.

ceinwyn

A week per rebuttal.

The man needs time to think, people!

Amaleq13

Edited to correct punctuation.

Sven

If you want to have an actual debate, look here. But be warned: From what I've read there, I can safely say that the standards for debates are relatively high. If you don't want an actual debate and want to continue posting in BC&H, I would consider it to be fair to answer the points of other posters, too.


Perhaps this helps. After searching for a some time on my first few days here I found it by myself and had no problems using vB-codes since then. Also simply using the "quote" button at the right at the end of a post provides you with the fancy quote-style you see above around your writings.

exile

OK, so is the Iliad an accurate account of the Trojan War?

The Evil One

Ah me, no, now you're up against the Christian biased worldview that an ancient book other than the Bible can't be telling the truth.

Llyricist

well you see... that is the whole problem, we don't HAVE any other sources.

Me before:
one can have a high level of confidence that those things happened. However, on those points only supported by ONE bias, one can have no confidence at all....
Well here is an example in point, you interrupted the sentence and replied to something I did not mean. This is less than honest on YOUR part!

As you can see in my continuation, I did not say that we should assume they are liars, I said we have no basis to trust them one way or another.

Now Dr X takes your dfinition of "followers of Jesus" to mean actual people that followed a living Jesus.... I did not think that, but if you did mean it that way, then Dr. X handled it quite well.

However, if you intended later followers of the "Jesus movement" as I took it to mean, then they would not have to lie to be wrong... that is, they may well have sincerely believed a fiction to be true. So your whole basis of argument is well off the mark, we don't claim they were liars, only that we have no basis to believe they wrote what actually happened.

me continues:
i.e. "it may or may not have happened". In fact, in matters of religion, they CAN'T be trusted.
Again you interrupt the thought before I explained, but on this case, we have republican writers to check against, and we can be sure of things that they agree upon, and not sure about those things that are either in disagreement or not reported elsewhere, Which is my WHOLE point.


me continues:
By YOUR reasoning, we have to trust ALL the religious myths... Zeus really DID live atop Mount Olympus... Joeseph Smith really did get visited by angels and did the Umum and thumum thing with the golden tablets...
Ahhh I see Dr X interpreted correctly, you are laboring under the misapprehension that the gospel writers were actual followers of a living Jesus, be assured that they were not. The earliest Gospel is well known to have been written no earlier than 70 CE (forty years after the alleged crucifixion), which would most likely put it after any eyewitnesses were dead, not to mention the Geographical errors and such contained within that show to be written by someone unfamiliar with the area he was writing about.

snipped the rest of that paragraph as Dr X and others covered the problems.

me continues:
In JC's case, ALL we have are sources of the one bias. So all we have is ... "He may or may not have done this or that." (actually it even comes down to "he may or may not have existed")
well gee, that was my whole point all along.