sky kunde

Hi, folks!

Well... frequently I see christians claiming that, like Jesus, we haven't good evidences to Aristoteles (or another one), but no one denies his existence, and then it's unreasonable doubt Jesus' existence pointing out the same problem. How do you debunk that?

Spaz

Aristotle wrote stuff, he was a student of Plato, and he taught Alexander the Great.

Not that there isn't more, but that's pretty much sufficient to show there's more there than Jesus

lpetrich

Aristotle seems more like a real person than Jesus Christ, who fits Lord Raglan's Mythic-Hero profile remarkably well. And I've discussed JC's and others' fits to Lord Raglan's profile in several previous threads here.

Richard Carrier has taken on a similar case in Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection; he showed that the evidence for Julius Caesar's Rubicon crossing is much better than the evidence for Jesus Christ's resurrection.

Furthermore, historians do NOT treat sources outside the Bible as absolute, unquestionable Truth. I don't think that you'll find many historians believing that Roman Emperor Vespasian had once worked some miraculous cures, which is what historians Suetonius and Tacitus report -- and those two gentlemen are among our main sources for the earlier Roman Emperors. And who believes that Apollonius of Tyana once resurrected a little girl who had died? That is what his biographer Philostratus had stated.

Barbarian

We do not actively doubt Aristotle's existence because it does not matter. We have some writings (unfortunately, Metaphysics among them ...) attributed to Aristotle and use his name as a label in wordings such as "Aristotle says that arguing is not always possible, because to argue entails education, and not everyone can be educated" instead of "It is written in this bunch of ancient manuscripts that ...". Furthermore, his existence is not an exceptional claim. I mean, just how many bricks did you have to throw in ancient Athens to hit a philosopher, and why could not any one of them be named Aristotle?

OTOH, existence or inexistence of Jesus does matter, as it is fundamentally important to the truth of Christianity. If there was no savior, the whole stuff is a lie, regardless of the possibility to cherry-pick some wisdom from scripture. In addition, a real son of god, resurrected dead and savior of humanity is not that frequent an apparition, and thus claims to his existence are exceptional ones, in need of solid support.

Julian

Mostly, it lies in the nature of the claim. The claims regarding Aristotle are mostly mundane and therefore only mundane evidence is necessary. The claims regarding Jesus are miraculous and, as such, require miraculous evidence.

Outrageous claims require outrageous evidence, some said once or something to that effect.

Julian

Julian

Mostly, it lies in the nature of the claim. The claims regarding Aristotle are mostly mundane and therefore only mundane evidence is necessary. The claims regarding Jesus are miraculous and, as such, require miraculous evidence.

Outrageous claims require outrageous evidence, some said once or something to that effect.

Julian

Julian

Mostly, it lies in the nature of the claim. The claims regarding Aristotle are mostly mundane and therefore only mundane evidence is necessary. The claims regarding Jesus are miraculous and, as such, require miraculous evidence.

Outrageous claims require outrageous evidence, some said once or something to that effect.

Julian

sky kunde

Sorry for the "Aristoteles". That's how we spell his name in portuguese. At least, now i can spell it right in english :thumbs: