Doug Shaver

Your calling it proof doesn't make it proof of anything.
The other guys will have to speak for themselves. Here is what I mean when I ask for evidence: http://dougshaver.com/science/evolution/evol01.html

arnoldo

The darkness wasn't miraculous, it's called an eclipse.

arnoldo

None taken, peace be upon you.

Gullwind

If free will is so important to you then they should be given that option, don't you agree? And as you say, revealing himself wouldn't force anyone to worship him, but a lot of people would, though. Wouldn't that be a good thing?

Nero's Boot

.....you really don't get it, do you???! Free will goes out the fucking window when BibleGod backs up even the most minor blessings with threats of sanity-destroying atrocity. "Believe in me, do everything I tell you to do, love me so obsessively you think not with common human compassion but with inflexible zealotry, or I will torture you forever in the most diabolical torture chamber imaginable."

--that's not "respecting free will", that's flat-out psychological abuse NB

Minimalist

Let's say that there was an eclipse in 32 AD, just for the sake of argument.

How does that help you? Your own 'gospel' says that John the Baptist got himself arrested for denouncing the marriage of Herod Antipas and the widow of his brother Phillip, Herodias. Although Josephus says nothing about the marriage as the reason for his arrest he does confirm that JtB was killed by Antipas. Now, with Josephus' regrettable tendency to digression there is no way to precisely date when JtB was killed (Josephus puts it in a discussion of events which happened no earlier than 35!) but


Of course, in order to marry Phillip's widow, Phillip of necessity, had to be dead and Josephus tells us:

.

(Antiquities of the Jews Book XVIII, Ch. 4, #6)

As Tiberius came to the throne in 14 AD upon the death of Augustus we can add 14 and 20 and find out that Phillip died sometime in 34 AD....which is already 2 years after your eclipse. Odd, eh?

Part ( a big part) of your problem is that christians can't seem to place their god boy firmly in time. Matthew indicates he was born before 4 BC....Luke insists he was born after 6 AD...Mark and John don't seem to care either way.
Nor can you figure out just when, exactly, he is supposed to have died. Pilate was praefect for 10 years but we don't seem to have any indication which of those ten years might have been the one where the dirty deed was done....if it was done at all.

Frankly, I would expect such vagueness from a mythical creation who was written into the record later on by different authors.

In any case, Luke and Matthew cite the arrest of JtB as the triggering event for jesus so-called ministry getting off the ground. JtB could hardly have been arrested prior to 34 as he would have been denouncing the wedding of a man to his brother's widow when that man was not yet dead.

Yes, in 32, if Luke and Matthew are right, your Jesus would have been building bookshelves in the carpentry shop and would look up and say "Shit....it's getting dark!" (He wouldn't say "Jesus Christ, it's getting dark" because in 32 he was a nobody.) So, perhaps Thallus (if he ever existed) was speaking of an actual eclipse....or later writers did not know the date any better than you and simply got it wrong.

Iasion

Hiya,

Well, how many do you have ?
Zero.

Many writers COULD have mentioned it :
Philo Judaeus
Valerius Maximus
Marcus Manilius
Hero(n) of Alexandria
Geminus
Plutarch
Pliny the Elder
Josephus
Epictetus
Theon of Smyrna
Pliny the Younger
Tacitus
Suetonius
Ptolemy
Marcus Aurelius
Aulus Gellius

NONE of these writers mentioned the darkness.

Thallus didn't - he merely mentioned a known eclipse as an eclipse.
Phlegon didn't - he merely mentioned a known eclipse as an eclipse.


So far you have ZERO evidence.


Iasion

crispy

Go here for all your eclipse needs: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/JSEX/JSEX-AS.html

As you can see, eclipses very often, maybe not total, but at least partial - so a historian recording some darkness in 32AD is barely noteworthy or miraculous...

Sheshbazzar

For all who are not yet aware, Half-Life has clearly announced a significant change of heart, so let us all be on our best behaviour, as he collects his thoughts, and allow him get himself oriented to his new perspective.

Minimalist

Okay. I'll help.


Here you go, H/L. I've always loved this one.

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ier/kooks.html