J-D

I can't. The hypothesis that Christianity existed before Constantine has not been falsified. Certainly not by you.

J-D

'You can't prove it ain't so!' is a valueless argument.

skepticalbip

Gee, is it really this easy to rewrite history? Just claim as fraudulent any historical reference that indicates anything other than the "truth" you claim?

I think that I will start the idea that there was never such a person as Henry VIII. He was just an invented character by the first Stuart (James I) as a way to defame the Tudors. All references to Henry VIII were just elaborate forgeries and plants by the Stuarts.

J-D

It occurs to me that it is possible that your logical skills fall short of making the distinction between arguing that something is possible and arguing that it is true. Certainly, whenever you are pressed to give reasons to accept that your hypothesis is true, you fall back on arguing that it is possible: perhaps this is not deliberate sophistry on your part, but a genuine mental block.

If so, it's very sad. But I mention it because it's still something that people who haven't seen you do this as often as I have should be aware of before arguing with you.

J-D

Yes, it really is just this easy to rewrite not only history, but science, mathematics, and logic.

skepticalbip

J-D,
Thanks, that looks like a great site. I'll have to bookmark it. It looks like it will be fun to browse through when I get bored with reality.

Goathead

J-D that site is freaking funny!!!! Aliens implanted my dog FTW

Roger Pearse

I was reading some remniscences by two Victorian lawyers at the weekend, and MountainMan's approach reminds me uncommonly of the fraud perpetrated by the Tichborne claimant.

Many will not remember this case. Sir Roger Tichborne was lost at sea. Some years later a man turned up claiming to be him. The case dragged on for years, not least because the cross-examining was so inept and, instead of forcing the claimant to provide information, tended to supply it to him, allowing him to use it to impress others with 'background' which he in fact had not known when he first staked his claim. Indeed one witness exclaimed something he said was "Just like Roger!" -- which became a catchphrase at the time, after the truth was known.

He was in the end destroyed in court by a more careful cross-examiner, Sir Henry Hawkins. The man proved to be an Australian butcher by the name of Orton. He was sentenced to many years for perjury.

The manner in which MM goes around relying on assertions, while everyone else provides him with evidence against his thesis -- saving him the trouble of locating it and allowing him to make up excuses to ignore it or reasons to incorporate it -- seems to me exactly the same. He isn't interested in getting the facts. At the moment all you are doing is furnishing him with any amount of material which he can use to make his own thesis sound more scholarly, and the product of more research, than is in fact the case.

Orton was an impudent rascal. Is it necessary to suppose that Mr Brown is different? We tend to presume that even the dirtiest opponent is to some degree sincere. But just because we haven't met many rogues doesn't mean that one day we might not.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

youngalexander

Roge Mate, you seem to be having a bout of misanthropy of late? We are all very supportive of Christian charity here.

mountainman

JD it is your logic and acumen which is here at fault.
A thesis in ancient history is not supported by "reasons".
It is supported, in a scientific fashion, by evidence and
citations in a wide variety of fields which include but are
not restricted to coins, art, sculpture, inscriptions, burial
relics, architecture, archeological relics and sites, texts,
papyrii fragments and carbon dating citations.

Consequently, as you have seen, the thesis in ancient history
that there existed an historical Jesus has no evidence.

However, the thesis that Constantine invented christianity
has a number of evidentiary bases in ...

1) The words of Arius, and
2) The words of Emperor Julian
3) The political climate depicted during the rise of Constantine.
4) The fact that Constantine first published the complete "bible".
5) The subsequent christian persecution of pagans for 250 years
after the council of Nicaea.