Not_Registered

Look Sven, I don't have all the necessary terminology and lawyerly skills to diffuse your deleted statement, but you know and whoever sees it knows that's a deleted. Your trying to force your issue to fit and it's almost to the point of being pathetic. Others had had great points they brought to my attention, but yours is lame. Even lamer is the fact that you are backing it up and supporting it full-heartily, personal comments deleted

Mageth

I find that rather interesting, since I, whose opinion you seem to respect, made essentially the same point on the previous page:

Try as I might, I can't see anything "illogical" about that statement, or Sven's reformulation of that statement (note that Sven did include "certainly" in his conclusion, while I prefer "unlikely").

But your arguments against Sven's statement, including "It is an "apply to all situation" sayings. It's a saying someone says when they don't want to admit something", now, honestly, I can't see what thread of logic would lead one to those conclusions from either my or Sven's formulation of the statement. Neither of us intended our statements to "apply to all situations", nor were we using those statements because we "don't want to admit something."

CX

Fair enough, though I think its a distinction without a difference. That being said I don't see how the conclusion follows from the premises. It assumes a great deal about human motivations etc. Furthermore, we do know, if we accept the gospel accounts, that Jesus anticipated his execution and believed it was part of God's soteriological program. Consequently, it would run counter to his mission, as he saw it, to avoid execution by any means. Why then should we expect him to undermine that by denying the very thing that was going to get him executed? Ignoring all the problems with plausibility and evidence for the passion narrative, your argument fails on it's own assumptions. As long as we're engaging in speculation it is equally plausible that Jesus did not believe himself to be god incarnate, believed that his execution was central to god's mission for him on earth, and allowed trumped up charges of blasphemy to be levied against him uncontested so that he could carry out god's plan. People have done far stranger things in the name of god than that.

-DM-

I think you meant "never" said, not "ever" said.

Here is an exact quote from your first post (emphasis added):

Continuing...

Saying you never did doesn't change the fact that you did, although I'll grant you that you have since changed your argument--many times--to suit various objections that have been raised, but as CX most recently pointed out, your argument is still without substance.

-Don-

Not_Registered

Whoa Whoa Whoa....I'm sure you say a lot of things Mageth. Just because I said I respect your opinion, as well as Amaleq13's doesn't mean I was on page with everything you said. Ya'll constantly put words in my mouth and imply I mean things that I never said. How can you say that ONE...ONE...specific quote of yours is what I respected. You just pulled a quote from the entire, lengthy reply you had just to make a point. You said many things in your reply. Before your reply I was saying it was not important to know what Jesus' was saying (I explained what I really meant in one of my replies), so I respected your idea that it was important to know what Jesus said because if He said something that proved that He denied claiming to be God, then that would be crucial. Here is a quote from what I said previously
As you can see I said the same things I said to you that I am saying to Sven about the abscence of Jesus' denial statement. The difference is that you didn't harp on it, until now. The main statement I respected was your point that maybe Jesus wasn't even crucified for his claims of divinity, which would invalidate my arguement. That is what I respected. Just as I respected Amaleq13 for the same statement.
I never fully respected your statement about the absence of Jesus' denial. I acknowledge that it made sense to question it, but I said the same thing to you as I said to Sven (that the statement can be made about anything and it isn't really a solid retort). Sven just dwelled on that issue, which I think is lame. You, previously, didn't dwell on it and os I didn't either. The main issue became the reason for Jesus' crucifixion. I'm not changing my point of view, ya'll are just distorting it and taking my statements out of context to make them fit into your reasoning.

Not_Registered

Yeah, because Jesus clearly was insane. We should be engaging in a logical argument. I find it a waste of my time to debate issues that really in a probabilty aren't true inflammatory language deleted. I'm sure you wouldn't debate a man who honestly believed the Earth was created by a chicken. So, I'm not going to waste my time debating you if your argument is that Jesus helped, through his acts, contrive some false allegations that He didn't even believe just so He could die in the name of the Lord. Yeah it's possible. inflammatory language deleted. If you honestly believe Jesus to be crazy and irrational then so be it. I'm not going to debate it with you. Most people (even atheist) believe Jesus was just a brillant teacher and prophet and not God incarnate, but they still are wise enough to know Jesus was not loony.

Mageth

U_R:

I did not say nor imply that you were "on page with everything (I) said". That comment was intended to call attention to the fact that the vitriol you were spewing at Sven (including the pointless "Seems uncharacteristic of a "Veteran User". Maybe they just give that title to anyone") was uncalled for.

And your additional ramblings in this post do not answer the second part of my post - namely that there is nothing "illogical" about either Sven or my versions of that "statement", and that your conclusions about those statements are, well, rather illogical. For example, you say "the statement can be made about anything and it isn't really a solid retort", but that does not follow from the content or intent of those statements. Neither Sven nor I intended those statements to be taken as universal; both statements were heavily qualified as to this particular document (the Gospels).

So, despite your misdirected protestations, I still assert that it is unlikely that the Gospel authors would have included any statements by Jesus that they were aware of that would contradict the theological view the authors were writing the Gospels to support. That, my friend, is a logical statement.

And I can support that statement by appealing to extrabiblical sources of Jesus' alleged sayings, for example the Gospel of Thomas. The GoT includes many alleged sayings of Jesus that are included in the canonical Gospels, and many that are not. And guess what? Several of the ones that are not included in the canonical Gospels don't support the theological view the authors of the canonical Gospels were supporting; instead, they support the theological view (gnosticism) of the writer of the GoT.

So we have examples of apparent selective inclusion and exclusion of Jesus' alleged sayings (and actions) if we compare and contrast the canonical Gospels to the non-canonical texts. Indeed, comparing the canonical Gospels to each other, we can find examples of selective writing to support the particular intent or view of the author.

Mageth

Wow...you sure have a tendency to read something into a post that simply isn't there.

Magdlyn

If you do bother to read them, one gospel (Mark) does suggest J's own family did in fact think he was insane. Beside himself was their term.

Not_Registered

I have not changed my argument -DM-. If you can, please point out the "many times" I've changed my argument.
As for the quote from my First Post, I clearly used the wrong wording. There is a phrase people use all the time. The phrase is: "you know what I mean". This phrase is used when people do just what I did: use the wrong wording. I, from the start, never set out to claim that I know what Jesus said or didn't say. That would be preposterous. I have appologized many times, and this is the last, for giving anyone the sense that I claim I know what Jesus said or didn't say. So if you want to quote on that issue anymore your comments will fall on deaf ears. It's amazing how you are the Administrator of the forum yet you nit pick people who oppose your beliefs not based on the issue and hand, but based on irrelevant matter. All but two of your comments have had absolutely nothing to do with the topic being discussed. Everyone else had or atleast has tried to submit some pertinent comments. Try to keep up, or fall so far behind that I can't see you.