Jedi Mind Trick

Yes, I agree... He has done this before. The funny thing is that if there is any "multilayered-ness" to that thread it's because of all the tangents he trys to take. Vork, Diogenes and DonG all stick to the issue and press him and then he sends up the multilayered flack. Then, when he gets bested he bolts from the one thread into another.

It’s amazing to behold...

Ion

To me the debate over there needs to test two stages:

A.) the historicity of Jesus is established as depicted in the Bible;

B.) Jesus' words related in the Bible are reliable.

I read the Bible at 18 twice and thought that I didn't know about A.), but B.) sure did look like a fable of naive incoherences.

I know today that A.) is not true, because there are no archaeological artifacts supporting the colossal events attributed to Jesus but there are archaeological artifacts supporting benign events and people from that time.

When I was being harrassed in U.S. by people who claimed -with no shame toward critical thinking- stereotypes propagated in the style of ProEvangelical's (which Diogenes debunked with joy in the post I am referring to in analogy with boxing punches) then I realized that I need more background in B.).

The thread over there concentrates on B.), Vorkosigan challenged A.) but ProEvangelical sidestepped A.), asumes A.) and goes to blather about B.).

I believe that in time a more prevalent critical thinking in U.S. -similar to how people are educated in Europe and how my education is- will prevail.

Vorkosigan and Diogenes help this with reason and in depth knowledge of antiquity, right now.

Ion

So it's a newly started thread for the debate now.

What can go wrong for ProEvangelical is that everyone from the old thread moves at once to the new one, so there is no split of his adversaries in between the two threads -with one thread that ProEvangelical will pretend later on to not check out anymore, so opponenents will notice later that they wasted efforts in what ProEvangelical abandoned-.

In the newly started thread, ProEvangelical copied and pasted an apologist.

Diogenes the Cynic debunks it minutiously, paragraph by paragraph, including bringing many claims to the reliability of one single source, Papias, and the confusing of different individuals Mark -one Mark being the son of Peter, why not?- with the author of the Gospel of Mark.
I am learning background here, and many points are over my head while other points I do understand.

Vorkosigan places Luke at about 90 A.D. after Josephus, and Mark later on, since Mark knew the term Christians and employs it rather than the earlier Saints.

Poster Ball over there has a very strong post, oulining lists of contradictions in Mark, injustices in Mark, false prophecies in Mark, and insults to women in Mark.
It's long lists of incoherences and past barbarisms shown in places of the text where they do occur, and it's indicting the value of the Mark's gospel.

Ion

In the new thread started by ProE, there is a punch today by CX:

"You're talking about a period that is well past the contemporary period that the Gospels were written..."

which needs to be finally absorbed by ProE.

I am a little disappointed with Diogenes' "...Traditional dates and autorship can no longer be credibly defended for any of the Gospels. What everybody wants to do with that fact is completely up to them. I am not suggesting that if they are not what tradition says they are, then Christianity is false or there is no God..." because that's a copout to what is right and wrong by critical and scientifical thinking's standards and gives room to non rigorous faith.

This allows for a wishy washy level of unsupported positions of faith (i.e.: "...and still reconcile it with faith..." ), which is an intermediate level to the scientific method that establishes the truth and the false in the quest for veracity.

Agreeing with Diogenes' watering down what believers do with facts -otherwise known as compromizing about consequences of facts- is Mickey the moderator -a liberal Christian-.

Diogenes the Cynic

I wasn't saying there IS a God either. I personally don't believe in one.

I just find that when dialoguing with Christians it helps to temper the scholarship with some reassurance that it isn't necessarily an attack on their faith in an absolute sense. It gets them to listen more.

I do the same thing with evolution. I constantly remind them that evolution is not a theory about the existence of God, the origin of the universe or the origin of life. Once they realize that I am not going to attack those topics, they are more likely to listen to the actual science of biological evolution.

If I'm talking on a Christian board about NT scholarship, I usually try to defuse the debate somewhat by leaving grand conclusions about the divinity of Jesus or the existence of God out of it and just talking about the bare facts which can be gleaned about the text. My goal is to make Christians less defensive by refraining from making certain extropolations and letting them come to certain conclusions on their own.

I also sense that some Christians can feel intellectually defensive or feel like they will be perceived as dumb or naive (by guys like me) for believing in God or believing in miracles.

I try to present material in a way that is respectful and non-demeaning and which allows them to think about the material without feeling bullied or belittled.

I do not feel driven to deconvert people or convince them that their faith is unfounded (although I used to be like that). I only hope to get them to understand what the objective facts are.

I can't prove to them that God doesn't exist so there isn't any point in trying, but I CAN give them factual information about Biblical scholarship so that's what I concentrate on.

Ion

I got the point.

First thing, first, is to be gracious with the hosts while being allowed to introduce evidenced data that counter some gratuitous claims.

Once the data pass scrutiny and are adopted, then it will be the job of later debates to discuss how people live up to these data.

mirage

I have to admire this level of optimism!

Thanks for the work everyone who has contributed to that thread, I really enjoyed the insights, having just read Mark and of course missing every literary theme going.

Ion

Yesterday, Mickey -the administrator there- wrote in the first thread by ProE (found under the title 'The reliability of the Biblical record' at http://www.xnforums.com/cgi-bin/ulti...;t=001666;p=12 ):

"...We must continue to frustrate those who attempt spiritual authority over the lives of others and to resist the hubris of Christians who judge another's faith according to the doctrines of men that they themselves believe."

Well put in critical thinking about using data, and maybe so well that it might even address my pessimism towards religions as being another doctrine, but I still think that my atheist doctrine is justified by empiricism, and this is the only thing that keeps the world materially rolling, empiricism.

In the second thread opened by ProE (found under the title 'The Gospel of Mark, an evangelical traditionalist's perpective' at http://www.xnforums.com/cgi-bin/ulti...;f=17;t=001721) RLR -an evangelical poster- writes that:

"...Good theology involves...being inside the tradition..."

and for my atheist doctrine that emphasizes empiricism over folklore this is a no no.

Logos -an inquisitive mind over there- wonders about the reason of a passage predicting the second coming of Jesus, and not cheating anymore as it is usually done in the Bible when writing about 'prophecies' after they happened, which Vorkosigan sees it as being lifted from the Old Testament, and LittleJohn suggests it to be an imagery for impressing audiences of the past.

The second thread ('The Gospel of Mark, an evangelical traditionalist's perpective') is dying slowly with a ProE tiring to show reality to the Gospel of Mark.
The Gospel of Mark is demonstrated so far by Vorkosigan and Diogenes to be a literary piece.