buckshot23

Didn't like it huh? :huh:

I would classify your post as stupid and useless based upon the fact that you just state your opinion without any reason.

Julian

My reasons should be painfully obvious without the need to state them. If there is anyone reading this thread who did not understand my reaction to buckshot23's post, please post a need for clarification and I shall be happy to provide it. Somehow I don't think there will be any readers who will be needing that explanation...

Julian

buckshot23

That just isn't the case. This is a subjective field with not a whole lot of data to be able to say conclusively one way or another.
The whole point of that little parody was that the original was ridiculous not that mine had any more weight. To simply dismiss a person because of their ideology is stupid and wrong. Please do not insinuate that I am lying, OK?
Believe what you like. That isn't the point. Just do not act like that consensus actually proves anything about what actually took place.
Exactly.
Your burden maybe.
:huh: Again the accusations of dishonesty. Mods? All I have done here is asked what consensus actually proves and then you accuse me of lying (or being dishonest).

Consensus can be wrong and I think history provides substantiation of that.

buckshot23

Why not ask me in what context I intended that post instead of immediately calling it stupid?

jackrabbit

Because you make a big deal about it?

If there are errors in the story of Alexander the Great, does this matter to me? Does it have an impact on my life?

If the Battle of Waterloo didn't happen, who cares? Does it have an effect on me?

If King Authur didn't actually exist, that's sad for him but makes no difference to me.

Yet you expect people to base their entire lives on the jeebus shit. So yes, it is held up to a higher standard because of the significance you think it has and the things you do based on it.

The Bishop

You're not really making any sense, jackrabbit. None of us here, I sincerely hope, are basing their lives around "this jeebus shit" or anything else of such unimportance. You haven't really explained why one thing needs to be held to a higher historical standard than other history, just because some people (not necessarily posters here) base their lives around "jeebus". That's their lookout. I personally base my entire life around the rational/skeptical viewpoint. And it's painful to me to see fellow atheists/supposed rationalists diving down irrational avenues in order to try to disprove the existence of someone whose existence does not affect my atheism one way or the other.

If the proper pursuit of history "has no effect" on your life, then kindly butt out of a discussion in which people find these things of interest. That includes people on both sides of the debate, I hope.

jackrabbit

Sorry, didn't look at your profile, thought you were a biblebanger. But the excessive importance placed on jeebus is the reason that it is held to a higher standard than other history, because both sides argue about minute details and are always trying to prove things. All kinds of people who care absolutely nothing about any other kind of history are involved.

Richbee

Under Whelming,

Try Again!

Dr. Simon Greenleaf writes about the nature and quality of evidence, and burden of proof required by "skeptics" who wish to impeach the New Testament evidence.

Testimony of the Evangelists - by Dr. Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853)

In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown; the burden of impeaching his credibility lying on the objector.

This rule serves to show the injustice with which the writers of the Gospels have ever been treated by infidels; and injustice silently acquiesced in even by Christians; in requiring the Christian affirmatively, and by positive evidence, aliunde, to establish the credibility of his witnesses above all others, before their testimony is entitled to be considered, and in permitting the testimony of a single profane writer, alone and uncorroborated, to outweigh that of any single Christian. This is not the course in courts of chancery, where the testimony of a single witness is never permitted to outweigh the oath even of the defendant himself, interested as he is in the cause; but, on the contrary, if the plaintiff, after having required the oath of his adversary, cannot overthrow it by something more than the oath of one witness, however credible, it must stand as evidence against him. But the Christian writer seems, by the usual course of the argument, to have been deprived of the common presumption of charity in his favor; and reversing the ordinary rule of administering justice in human tribunals, his testimony is unjustly presumed to be false, until it is proved to be true. This treatment, moreover, has been applied to them all in a body; and, without due regard to the fact, that, being independent historians, writing at different periods, they are entitled to the support of each other: they have been treated, in the argument, almost as if the New Testament were the entire production, at once, of a body of men, conspiring by a joint fabrication, to impose a false religion upon the world.

It is time that this injustice should cease; that the testimony of the evangelists should be admitted to be true, until it can be disproved by those who would impugn it; that the silence of one sacred writer on any point, should no more detract from his own veracity or that of the other historians, than the like circumstance is permitted to do among profane writers; and that the Four Evangelists should be admitted in corroboration of each other, as readily as Josephus and Tacitus, or Polybius and Livy."

Hotlink: Simon Greenleaf

Richbee

Please spare us this nonsense if all you have is more rubbish?

Paul Copan, Ph. D. writes, about the Historicity of the Gospels:

"And when it comes to the Gospels, the question must be raised: What actually motivated the evangelists to write what and as they did? A good case can be made that it was their own experience with Jesus.

Now when it comes to actually examining the historicity of the Gospels, we see remarkable indications of accuracy. Take John's Gospel, which often isn't accepted as reliable history because it contains more developed theological reflection than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Yet this Gospel reveals a first-century Palestinian background rooted in the Old Testament--as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed this through, for instance, their reference to "sons of light" and "sons of darkness."

It also offers exceptional topographical information that has been repeatedly confirmed archaeologically. John's mention of Jacob's well at Sychar (4:5), the pool of Bethesda (with five porticoes) by the Sheep Gate (5:2), the pool of Siloam (9:7), and Solomon's Colonnade (10:23) have had the strong support of archaeology. In light of the extensive usage of the "witness" theme in this Gospel, the author's emphasis is clear that the incidents included can be relied upon (see 21:24). John is even interested in chronology and specific times (1:29, 35, 43: "the next day"; 4:43: "after the two days"). John is also familiar with particular cultural understandings such as the relationship between Jews and Samaritans (4:27), the general view of women in society (4:27), or the nature of Sabbath regulations (5:10)."

[Thomas D. Lea, "The Reliability of History in John's Gospel," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 38 (Sept. 1995): 387-402.]

PaulCopan.com

Richbee

<edit>,

Mohammed couln't read or write.

So, what is your point?