Chris Weimer

We were discussing whether Jesus was historical, not if the Bible is 100% accurate. Many here assume he wasn't historical. You disagree with them, yet you pick on Roger (who here hasn't been promoting any sort of Christian dogma). If you have a problem with Roger's faith, take it elsewhere, but it doesn't belong in this thread.

Cheerful Charlie

Roger take spot shots at atheists and has for quite some time, he is a passive/agrressive sort, and has some double standards, which I call him on from time to time. His support is of a negative sort, he most certainly does promote the thesis that atheism is wrong. And that the bible is reliable. Roger takes care of himself.

CC

Chris Weimer

I'll let Roger speak for himself, but here, and on the blog, I try to remind him that not all atheists are like the rabid ones found here.

aa5874

You have failed to address the next events, the resurrection and ascension, which, by your standards and methodologies would show a mythical figure.

The crucifixion, the resurrection and ascension are all historical events, according to the authors of the NT. These events are multiple attested to internally, that is, according to the authors, the very same body that died on the cross, raised itself and this being, a revived figure of history, bodily ascended, in the view of all the contemporary historians and writers within eyesight.

In the NT, the ascension is just as important historically as the resurrection or the crucifixion, they are presented as fundamental historical events and are the final core acts to complete his role of salvation and victory over death and sin.

Now if the authors of the NT believed the ascension occurred, even though it didn't and also believed the resurrection occurred, but it didn't happen, then there is a likely hood that the authors were misguided in their belief about the crucifixion and about Jesus.

Nothing is known of the Gospel writers, in terms of who they were and when they wrote, but it is known that they wrote about events with respect to Jesus that clearly could not have occurred and yet these improbable events were witnessed.

It appears to me that the authors could not differentiate their beliefs from reality. They believed the ascension occured, so it did and they have witnesses.

What else did they believe but never happened even though they had witnesses?

Cheerful Charlie

You must remember, Roger and I go way back before we met again on this forum.

CC

Chris Weimer

But I've known him since. And as my co-blogger, I have a lot of respect for Roger, and he's never given me a reason to think his faith interferes with sound thinking.

Roger Pearse

Certainly. But...

Ah, not this one.

Our manuscripts of most ancient texts are so late as to make this 'test' meaningless. Most Syriac texts are extant in manuscripts of the 19th century or later; the same is true of texts like the Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes.

Even if we have papyri, these may be uncorrected private copies rather than from the main stream, and preserve an inferior text to that of a parchment manuscript from 8 centuries later.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Cheerful Charlie

A papyrus copied by hand by an interested Christian in 245 CE and found in a trash dump in Egypt maybe far more reliable than a well massaged text from 800CE. Mainstream does not necessarily mean best or correct.

CC

Cheerful Charlie

I have seen Roger play games with atheist bashing for a long, long time on alt.atheism. What he does is avoid openly saying what his position is in detail to avoid being caught out in errors et al. He likes to play gotchya when atheists would make errors about ancient documents et al. But tries to merely criticize, he refuses to state his position,though he is rather upset that Atheism exists and England is abandoning Christianity. In alt.atheism, he has long posted rather bizarre screeds against atheists.

The problem is, the gospels are not trustworthy. They are anonymous, not eyewitnesses, make foolish claims and contradict each other fatally. Roger needless to say will not address these major problems with biblical documents. He will criiticize atheists on pendantici points about old docs and manuscripts but the contents of these things is something he refuses to admit are not believeable on various grounds. Which as an atheist, is what I am interested in. Are these gospels et al believable, true, and sensible? No. The fun is trying to get Roger to admit these things, but he'd rather avoid these issues all together. Which is why I keep thrusting them at him when he plays his game.

Answering his rants with the facts on these problems has been ny approach for a long time, to no avail. Roger will not deal with my critiques of these gospel problems meant to counter his rants about atheists on AA.

Not that I care, I know what he is up to, he knows what he is up to, and all soon learned what Roger was up to seeing him doing it many times.
As an example we may note his posts about a 109 year old soldier revisiting old battlefields. He implies that thus, it is not impossible things like the gospels are not eyewitness accounts written 40 years or more after events. But he will not answer my pointed replies that the gospels are not a similar deal where a known participant wrote anything down under his own name, such as we knew that there was a reliable chain of eyewitness here.

Roger will not deal with known gospel problems, the glosses, additiions, changes, contradictions, and outright silliness, and freedom which these writers take with copied materials.

I whomp on 'ol Rog just because I know what he will not answer, and its all part of a silly little game that has been going on for years. As it goes on, people see what is going on here.

Its all fun to argue what the earliest and best manuscripts are, or what family this or that manuscriptis in,or what the age of that manuscript is, or if John is known to early church fathers etc.

But the real question is, are the gospels et al reliable, true and believable? No. Are atheists correct to note this? Yes. Is Christianity then, true? No. The whole thing then is not to let people bullshit us because this or that atheist made some pendantic error about this or that manuscript while keeping an eye on the real issue, is the NT reliable and believable?

Its nice Roger has a good website with lots of good stuff and he works hard to do that. Allshopuld give Roger kudos far that. Too bad he wants us atheists to believe the unbelievable though.

I am ready to discuss why the gospels are not believeable any time Roger is, and why pendantic errors by some atheists (and they are irritating) are not the main issue as far as atheism goes. One does not have to be an expert on bible manuscripts and early church fathers to read the gospels and go "Bullshit!". And no amount of ancient church father's commentaries and wisecracks (some of these guys are arrogant, nasty pricks) , and ancient documents makes these bible contradictions and stupidities palatable.

The amusing part is, Roger is always ready to comment, just not on these issues of gospel believability. In the end, that is all that matters. And Roger will not touch issue that with a 20 foot burlap wrapped pole.
He tries to avoid the issue, I try to point out it is THE issue. The game goes on and on. It has been going on between me and Rog' for years now.



CC

GakuseiDon

I can only be sympathetic with Roger here. I've been accused of similar on other boards, when I point out the problems in the position of the "Christ copycat" mythers. They often will come back with "But what are your beliefs?", even though it isn't relevent to the topic. If I don't answer, I'm accused of ducking the question. But I'm just not interested in that topic.

Ah, so you are saying that you refuse to criticize atheists who are wrong on points about old docs and manuscripts. What are you hiding???

What if it isn't THE issue for Roger? What do you suggest that he should do, esp if someone has been bringing the topic up for years now? What would you do if someone kept bringing up an issue you weren't interested in for years?