PJLazy

AA, I answered your questions with specificity, I'm not going to engage with you until you answer mine...that way we can actual have a legitimate debate on the issue.

TedM

I know I"m not adding anything here, but will confirm that aa answered your four questions way too generally, so as to be virtually meaningless. AA, are you willing to answer them specifically or have you decided you will continue to be evasive and slippery?

ApostateAbe

Really? What's so facepalmy about that?

aa5874

Your so-called answers are based on the story of a character called Jesus Christ, the Son of a Ghost and God the Creator that was Raised from the dead found in Myth Fables called Gospels.

I can IDENTIFY your sources.

It is the Bible and the forgeries in Josephus.

For example, you claimed the JEWS were deceived by your Jesus.

Your claim is utterly erroneous. In the Bible, in the Synoptics, the Jews REJECTED Jesus.

It was the JEWS that shouted "Crucify him".

Now, if you cannot debate the matter then why did you start posting here??

I will personally pulverise your HJ argument if you continue the debate.

Toto

You have worked your particular beliefs into the question. You think that a human Jesus behind the gospels is plausible, and a mythical Jesus is not.

This is where most of the world disagrees with you. There is nothing inherently implausible about a first century cult based around a spiritual savior figure.

Toto

The idea that an astronomer would have any difficulty with debunking astronomy, for one.

aa5874

My answers are based DIRECTLY on the evidence available RIGHT NOW.

I have ZERO intention of inventing history from imagination.

Apologetic sources ADMITTED:

1. The JEWS had NO knowledge of Jesus called Christ up to the 2nd century.

2. The Jews REJECTED the Jesus story.

And, most devastating, No Apologetic source used Josephus or Tacitus for hundreds of years and they also ADMITTED their Jesus was the Son of a Ghost.

ApostateAbe

Toto, I know you are with me, and that's great. I would like to know if MrMacSon is with us.

ApostateAbe

Do you mean, "debunking astrology"? It was a surprise to me to learn that astrology is more than just frivolous paragraphs in newspapers. That kind of astrology is looked down upon by those who take it very seriously. The very serious astrology fills large volumes, and astronomers would have difficulty even making sense of it, because it is diverse, complex and has little to do with modern astronomy. Do you disagree with any part of what I am saying?

DCHindley

But he didn't say that. Did you mean "The idea that an astronomer would have any difficulty with debunking astrology"?

If so, I think ApostateAbe is right about this.

Astronomers can determine many things about the star fields, and the orbits (and hence visibility) of the sun, moon and the planets from any observer's position on the face of the earth. In fact, the earliest astronomer we have any significant remains to read, Ptolemy (mid to late 2nd century), also published the Tetrabiblos on, you guessed it, astrology. I believe that many, if not all, early modern astronomers also dabbled in astrology.

Astrology is also keen to know about visibility of planets, sun, moon and stars, because they have a belief that the positions of those bodies has an effect on earthly events.

In modern times, astronomy has been divorced from astrology so much that presently, an astronomer would be out of his element commenting on this latter belief of Astrologers. It doesn't help that astrologers differ as to the significance of planetary and constellation positions (division of sky by means of vernal point vs fixed sidereal points) or where to place "houses" (Placidus, lunar mansions, etc).

It would require an extensive study of positions and recorded events covering a decade or so before any sort of valid correlations between positions and earthly events might manifest themselves. To boot, there would need to be a neutral process in deciding what earthly events should be selected for study: floods of a certain magnitude, tides over or under their averages, lightning strikes (yes, folks measure this kind of phenomenon), and of course lots and lots of sampling sites all around the globe.

DCH