Metacrock

A document written in the first five or so centuries in which the author maintains that Jesus never existed as a person in history and that the material on him in the Gospels was made up out of dying rising savior gods. They knew the myths, surely someone would have noticed.

how about a work from the mishna saying "we are first century Jews and no one we know every heard of a guy like this in the Time of Tiberius, so these Christians are liars." If Jesus didn't exist, I can imagaine well enough that this would have been said.

mightyjoemoon

Prove that Zeus didn't exist.

Metacrock

I don't understand why you think that's clever? No one ever believed Zeus existed, after the Current Era began. For 2000 years no one has calimed he did. But for 2000 years Jesus has been officially a "real historical person" and assumed so by all historians. If I can't prove Zeus didn't exit, that doesn't mean, by any streach of the imagination that Jesus didn't exist. It's not proof it's not evidence and it's not clever. Do you see why it's not clever? Becasue it's just repeating the challenge with no thought behind it because its not even germine to the issue.

As I said on the other thread I would argue this way if I were an atheist, and I did when I was an atheist. I'm talking about how to do history. I'm not intrested in trading childish bards about whose religion is stupider. Understand?

mightyjoemoon

Okay. Bad example. How about.... prove that there is no life on another planet in the universe. Get it? It's not about "whose religions is (sic) stupider", but the fact that you have asked someone to prove a negative, which is not possible. That was my point. By using a(nother) mythological entity in my example, I can see that I muddied the waters.

spin

I think both the position that you are attacking and the one you hold are wrong. This makes my post a little ambivalent in this thread. However,

The implied question can, and probably should, be taken as a logical one.

Can anyone prove any deity didn't exist?

You require something to support his position whose opposite you cannot supply for your opposite position. However, logic says, the onus is on the proponent for the positive position to supply the proof. You are just attempting to apply reverse logic, which is to some extent a logical act. However, to do so you are being hypocritical, as you will not and cannot take the analogous step for yourself.

Whether a deity is no longer believed in or not doesn't change the logical problem, so your objections carry no weight. Further, to show you this from your standpoint, would God not exist if no-one believed in it?

So what? If everyone believed the earth was flat for thousands of years, did that make the earth flat? We are not dealing with a popularity contest.

You are correct, but it should show you that your criterion is invalid. But then Doherty's position is more similar to yours than it is to mine. And I see the validity in his voicing his position after nearly 2000 years of hegemony of the one you are fundamentally supporting. It should show you that you also have no grounds for your advocacy.


spin

Metacrock

Hmmmmmm, are you not familiar with Doherty? He argues that Jesus didn't exist historically. His major arguments are based upon what was not said. Like he says Paul never said "Jesus was a real guy." So that's suppossed to prove he wasn't. That's just argument from silence.

Now I agree you can't prove a negative, but that just means that you can't prove that Jesus didn't exist historically,and that means its a dumb thesis. Im not asking him to prove a negative. I"m asking him to advance a thesis that can be validated historically.

Metacrock

We are not talking about diety. We are talking about a historical guy.



If there was no proof the earth was not flat, and if we had reason to believe it was,yea. There's no reason to believe that Jesus didn't exist, and we do have ample to believe he did. So there's no basis for saying he didn't.




that's absurd. Then all I have to do is go around making negative propositions and undermine all of history. That's not how history is done. History is not a high school debate. If we have documents that are creidle for their time and demonsrate the assumptions of the people writting them, and no counter evidence to overturn that assumption, we have to assume their assumptions were valid.

No one single person ever in history anywhere makes the claim that Jesus didn't really exist as a man in history, not untile the 18th centry. They have no proof of the assertion. But you want to give them presumption just becasue they can make a negative thesis sound like a posative argument. You cannot overturn presumption on some flimsy bS like "they've hegemony now it's time to turn the talbes." No, it'[s not. Logic doesn't work that way and neither does history. Facts don't change just because they have hegemony.

The fact is no one ever questioned Jesus existence. There is no reason to assume he didn't exist.

Metacrock

*We have hundreds of documents that calim to be knoledge about Jesus' life.
These are written between AD50 and the end of the forth century, just to impose an arbitrary cut off date.

*We have four major documents that are the distilled testimony of the communities that followed Jesus teachings.

*We have the Pauline corpus which establishes the historicity of Peter and the Apostles--the major group that knew him

*We have writtings of Clement of Rome who knew Peter, establish him as historical.

*We have writtings of Papias and Polycarp and others who claimed to have known the major players in the Jesus Drama

*All the major historians whose works we either have, or have reports of include the assumption that Jesus was a real historical guy

*We have a tradition that vinerates the tomb and the manger where he was born, Peter's house and other such sites.

*We have the Jewish sources which draw upon first century material (Mishna)


Against all of that, which may not be the best but it is reason enough to think he did exist, against all of that there is no deniel for his historical existence by anyone for 1800 years.

Agasint all of that Doherty wants to go "but Paul didn't say specifically that he really did exist in history, so he must not have." That's just not good enough. It's not the way historians do it.

Rick Sumner

This pains me in the light of a series of posts I disagree with to varying degrees, but I think it's important to point out that Metacrock is absolutely correct in this statement.

The burden of proof was never on flat earthers to prove the earth was flat--of course it was flat, look ahead of you. When there is tremendous majority agreement on such a thing, the argument stops being "It's right because it's popular" and starts being "It's popular because it's right." You combine these two facts, and Metacrock's point is unassailable: The burden of proof rests squarely on the shoulders of the dissenter.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

spin

Rubbish we are talking about a literary figure who has been claimed to have been a (part of a) god.

There is also no reason to believe that he did exist. Comprende? This is your quandary. Don't try to pass it off to others.

No, that's you not thinking.

Nothing is ever beyond question. One has to go to the evidence and deal with it. If something cannot survive questioning then it has no value.

Rubbish again. History is all about evidence, not persistence of beliefs.

You are right here.

Bad assumptions. First you are talking about literary works. How do you transpose them into anything useful to history? You have no way of knowing the assumptions of the people who wrote the texts you refer to.

So what? When will you realise that this is recourse to some sort of authority and has no value at all. We are not interested in popularity. We are interested in what did or did not happen.

Wrong yet again. When you introduce a witness you have to establish their credibility. You cannot assume it.

You misunderstand. The reason you are arguing the way you do is because you for whatever reason support the unproven status quo. It is status quo because it has been there for a long time. I see no other reason for it being the status quo. As nothing is beyond question, including the status quo (though the status quo would like you to believe contrarily), one must be allowed to question it in any way that seems logical and coherent. Please think a little bit more before you say silly things.

Logic works when it's propositions are tested.

There is no reason to assume he did.

Perhaps you'd like a serious discussion about what we can agree to being evidence in the matter.


spin