HelenM

I didn't think I used any beyond the ones you used, of other people.

Fair enough - thanks for the discussion

Helen

Ted Hoffman

Pz,
Thank you for putting it so clearly. I would also like to add, whether or not one trusts what another when the trusted person speaks would depend on whether that other person has oratory powers or is a smoothtalker. How credible he seems to the audience - plus how credible his ideas/claims are.

But when one examines the content of what that other person speaks/spoke, and finds that that person spoke trash, the act of trusting such a person speaks more of the one doing the trusting than the one being trusted.

When a con-artist swindles someone of the money, it bespeaks of his being good at deception, as well as indicates how foolish the conned person was.

In his private life, the con artist might be an honest man. But that is a judgement one cannot make unless one knows the con-artist beyond the stage.

Paul did not write who he ever gave the money he kept colllecting (of course according to me, he pocketed it). We do know of other things he wrote however regarding Jesus - like more than 500 people seeing Jesus and Jesus roaming around 40 days after he resurrected. Based on the suspicious nature of his claims, we have reason to distrust him.

If he wrote about collecting the money - why didnt he write about distributing the money? Is taking more important than giving?
Wouldn't writing about giving have highlighted his being noble - wouldn't he have desired to share with the contributors the radiance of the broken-toothed smiles he got from the poor everytime he gave them money from the people of Corinth? And the grace of God that was manifested in the joy in those poor souls?

In all likelihood, he never wrote about giving because he never gave. If he dared write he gave money to the Macedinians for example, they would have come out and said he never did any such thing. And that would jeorpadise his nice little charade.

Helen, describing me as holding a know-nothing, ignorant position is an ad hominem. All my arguments were directed towards the early christians and Paul. I never directly imputed ignorance to your position, or your arguments.

HelenM

I don't think it's an ad-hominem to say that someone who has no evidence for what he speculates, is holding a 'know-nothing, ignorant' position.

It would be an ad-hominem if I said that your position is not worth considering because you are an ignorant, know-nothing person.

I'm not saying that, nor do I think it. My reasons for rejecting your position have nothing to do with you per se so they are not ad hominem. They have only to do with your lack of evidence to support your position.

I apologize if I came across as being rude. I would still like to see you support your position with evidence because I suspect you have none - but, I think you said we were done...

Helen

pz

Whose side are you on? That's exactly the argument I'd make against believers in religion.

Toto

Helen - why do you say that the early church valued honesty, or that Paul must have been honest because he was a respected leader? How do you know that he was a respected leader? We have his letters, but the Book of Acts is clearly fictionalized to some extent if not completely. Paul was evidently a traveling missionary, but no one claims that he held any church office, so the term "leader" has no support.

We actually know very little about Paul, but from his own letters (some of which have been forged) we know that he bragged about speaking as a Greek to the Greeks and as a Jew to the Jews. While this is not totally dishonest, it indicates that Paul had some higher purpose in mind that mere honesty. He also says several times "I do not lie." This indicates that someone had accused him of lying, so not everyone in the early church thought so highly of him. (Sorry I don't have the time now to fully annotate all that. Robert Eisenman thinks the evidence shows that Paul was attacked by his enemies as a liar.)

The extensive forgery of early Christian documents does not support the idea that honesty was important to the church.

So be careful when you speak about evidence - there is very little evidence here to work with, and what there is goes against some of your ideas.

HelenM

That letters purported to be from Paul have been kept so carefully suggests he is respected. Whether you want to call him a leader is just semantics - I mean it in the sense of someone that others listened to/followed the example of.

The Bible upholds honesty as a virtue and I think it's reasonable to suppose that those who believed the Bible did so too.

I disagree. It's not necessarily dishonest to take your audience into account. It seems to me that it's wise to consider the culture and language of your audience and not dishonest. I think that's all he meant.

Thank you for citing a source and explaining your reasoning. At least it shows you have some and are not just saying "he was a liar" out of the blue which IM seemed to be doing.

I'd have to have more information before I could comment on that.

I have no problem with you challenging my evidence. What I have a problem with is when someone posts "Paul was a liar and a thief" but as far as I can tell they have no evidence supporting their theory.

Feel free to contest anything I've said as long as you have something to base your challenge on

Although, I probably don't have time to get into a very detailed back-and-forth...

Helen

HelenM

There are sides?

I'm on the side of anyone who takes evidence into consideration and is a little cautious about advancing theories that they have no evidence to back up.

Helen

pz

I'm surprised that you haven't noticed.That's my point. This "god" hypothesis is more than a little far-fetched, and there is absolutely no evidence to back it up, so if you were to be consistent, I'd expect you to be on the skeptical side about it.

HelenM

I don't agree that there's absolutely no evidence for the existence of God but a) this is not the forum for discussing the existence of God and b) even if it were, I wouldn't waste my time discussing anything I consider evidence of God's existence with someone who is convinced there is absolutely no evidence. It seems to me that it would be a waste of time having that discussion.

Thank you for your comments

Helen

Ted Hoffman

Helen,

It is one thing to claim others have no evidence and it is another thing to claim you have some.

I have no problem with you swallowing everything that is written, line hook and sinker and dismissing my arguments casually. But it is another thing to use fictionalized accounts as evidence of whatever it is you are claiming. Unless you believe this is the first century.

We have no reason to believe that everything Paul wrote even took place. Just recently, we disproved the possibility that Paul could have been bitten by a Viper in Malta - scientific studies shows there were no poisonus snakes in Malta at the time Paul allegedly was bitten.
Paul is known to have at least fudged the truth or outrightly lied about over 500 people seeing Jesus and a resurrected Jesus roaming on earth for 40 days.

Paul was a liar for the simple reason that the claims he made like the ones above are impossible and falsifiable. Whether he, himself believed in that nonsense is irrelevant - what he said was untrue.

Paul also fleeced the gullible people wherever he went (assuming the accounts we have of his travels are true). He collected money purpotedly to give poor people in other communities and no community is known to have received any money from Paul or the early apostles.