Diogenes the Cynic

When Luke said he was writing his own account, he said he was writing things down kathexes. Kathexes mean "in [consecutive] order" "one after the other," "successively." That refutes your suggestion that Luke wasn't putting things down in chronological order. He explicitly claimed to be doing exactly that.

buckshot23

I didn't suggest that Luke wasn't putting things in order. I said
Notice I make no claim about Luke specifically.

Kosh

Why am I not surprised by this? Let's all join buckshot in doing the Time Warp!

"It's just a step to the left..."

buckshot23

Attack what I say and not what you think I say. If I said that Luke is not always chronological then that would be a fair criticism. However I didn't say that.

wjs3

Thank you for reiterating this Yahzi. I expect the response will be more dismissiveness and name calling, unfortunately. That's what seems to happens when claims are actually proved to be incorrect. The real evidence is ignored.

Sigh.

WJS3

Patriot7

Atheos,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. You have an interesting background and I appreciate your well reasoned opinion.

I apologize for appearing to ignore your Sam Walton example. I did read it the first time, and thank you for expounding on it here. I didn't respond to it, because it didn't create a problem for me with regards to the topic at hand. I understand exactly what you're saying with that analogy. And all things being equal, if we were analyzing the NT in a vacuum, without mind to other evidence from nature, the sciences and other history, and my personal experience, I would agree with your conclusion. I just don't find the Bible compelling in "that way." Meaning, I don't think the Bible as it stands alone is compelling evidence for the supernatural.

My experience has been that most of the world's population is pre-wired to seek God. If you're trying to make the case here that you aren't biased, I'm afraid I simply don't believe that. We are all biased. The question is, does your bias demand a very particular interpretation of the evidence as DTC's does. (Namely in the advancement of naturalism as a philosophy). Is it possible to think objectively and still be biased? I think the answer to that is clearly yes. If the goal is only to converse with people who aren't biased, then going to a university or taking night classes- enviornments filled with professors who are extremely biased would be the last thing we would do! Again, I respect your opinion, appreciate your experience and understand that your reasons for rejecting theism may go beyond the critiscm of the bible and the scope of our discussion here.

In regards to extraordinary evidence, I think at the heart of the matter is a difference in approach. It is perhaps the fundamental difference. Do we assume the Gospels are true and then try and prove them false? Or do we assume them false and try to prove them true? There are clearly advantages and disadvantages to both approaches and I find no compelling reason why freethinkers cannot assume one and then the other when carefully considering the empirical evidence. This is my purpose here. For the sake of our discussion I am attempting, in as much as I am able, to approach the subject matter as false.

Rationally speaking, there are some limits to this approach, which is what I mean by the phrase in as much as I am able. If radical skepticsm is the default position, then to be consistent, I should be skeptical about my skepticism. Clearly, dogmatic skepticism would only lead to an infinite regress to where we could never know anything. So at the end of the day, the approach - or we could also call it the worldview used to interpret the empirical evidence is as much a matter of rational concern for me as the data itself. Simply put, the bias of the individual interpreting the data, can be as equally important as the data itself.

The source document, Fragment of Papias in otherwords - the empirical evidence says this:
"Instead, Matthew arranged the oracles in the Hebrew dialect, and each man interpreted them as he was able."


Two things come to mind here Atheos:

1. The things you list as evidence against the gospel traditions, are not evidence at all. They are certainly arguments or theories for explaining the evidence. But they just aren't evidence in the same way Fragment of Papias is. Is there any source document that you know of that would've contradicted Papias' claim?

2. I'm not saying these theories aren't correct or well thought out or not held by the consensus of modern scholarship, or even that they are wrong.

Moving past that, this line of interpretation, this approach if you will, is similar to Toto's - that the early church father's were ideologically driven politicians. Ok, even from the other view - that the Gospels are true, this statement does not present a problem, because we already know everyone is biased. The important question is: did these men lie? The fact that men do lie, that we are prone to bending and spinning the facts to advance our causes does not automatically suggest that they did lie in this case. It doesn't logically follow that because men do lie that these men did lie. That evidence must come from somewhere else. Specifically, I would like to see empirical evidence of this - that is to say the notion that the early church father's were wild eyed liars can't simply come from our imagination or even our general knowledge of persons. Because if we are going to accept this as a fact of history based on that premise and line of reasoning, then we are only proving the premise of Christianity true - that all men are liars.

Your thoughts?

Julian

You said 'gospels.' It is fair to assume that 'gospels' would include Luke. It seems like a desperate dodge on your part.

Julian

Sven

Of course it does. (actually, it uses both deduction and induction)

No, he's right again (the problem is rather that philosophers use deduction rather sloppy often and neglect to look at the evidence when thinking up their axioms on which they base their conclusions)

I wonder if you know them.

Could you please provide support for this claim? Sorry, it looks laughable to me (who has been a working scientist and followed quite a lot discussions in Ev/Cr and S&S).

Kosh

OK, let's nail your feet down then.

As a recap, you were responding to Pharoah's first page post where he said

Hint: he is discussing Luke here. And therefore, so were you when you replied directly to his statement:

So, it sure looks like you tried to weasel out of it by saying that Luke wasn't chronological, despite what the opening text of Luke explicitly states (as shown in my ealier post).

"You put your hand on your hips...."

Sven

I think you can find quite a few at IIDB. But if you substitute "fundie" for "theist", I'll wager that the answer is "no".