Vorkosigan

McVeigh was an agnostic theist, not a Christian.

[ July 07, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

beausoleil

Forgive me if someone already pointed this out - I've scanned the above thread but may have missed it.

I first came across the 'Extraordinary claims...' quote from Carl Sagan in relation to the identification of fossil bacteria in a martian meteorite. I don't think 'Life on Mars' was an 'extraordinary claim' in the sense people want to use it here.

I guess I understood him to mean "claims that, if true, would guarantee the claimer a place in scientific history, require a lot to convince the scientist's peers" We're a jealous and competitive bunch - keeps us honest!

rodahi

I agree with you. Nobody seems to know how to describe his/her god. People have been conditioned all their lives to believe SOMETHING, yet, they can't tell you precisely what that SOMETHING is.

NOGO

You are saying that the percentage of skeptics who believe that Jesus never existed is HIGHER than the percentage of scholars who have the same belief.

You have qualified this statement with "I’m generalizing, and realize there are exceptions".

BUT you immediately add "and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. It’s not skepticism, it’s hyper-skepticism bordering on total epistemological agnosticism"

So, your point is that these ratios should be about the same and see an abnormal situation here on the secular web.

Have I misrepresented your thoughts?

First, about the intellectual dishonest bit. I did not address this part to you. Since, I did not know if your statements intentionally were meant to mislead, I simply made a statement based on experience with others who made similar statements.

I do believe that you did not get my point.

There is no way that the percentage can be the same. Since most NT scholars are christians and most secular web members are not, then right there is a basis for differences. Your point would be ok if most NT scholars were not christian. Then, and only then, would one expect the percentage of people believing the "Jesus-myth" to be the same in the two groups. Then, and only then, can you claim that there is something wrong with people on the secular web.

Also you must take into considerations the fact that some scholars who believe that Jesus did exist only do so on the basis that he was human and nothing else. This also will modify the percentages that you talked about.

I also noticed, Polycarp, that you are selective in the questions that you do answer. My previous post has several points but you have taken the easy way out by claiming that I have misrepresented your statements.

Please indicate where did I misrepresent your statements?


I don't know how you have come to this conclusion.
The simple fact is that you cannot answer my points.

bd-from-kg

Polycarp:

Polycarp:

Sorry to hear that you won’t be posting further. But for the record I’d like to clarify and extend some of my comments.

“Rationally justified Christian beliefs.” There’s an oxymoron for you.

As far as I’m concerned, believing that the earth is hollow, or that Mohammed split the moon in two, or that the Book of Mormon is an authentic document that Joseph Smith found and translated with the help of an angel, or that Jesus walked out of his grave after being dead for more than a day, is insane given the ridiculously inadequate evidence for any of these things. But I do not think that everyone who believes stuff like this is clinically insane. The beliefs are insane, but the people who have them generally aren’t, on the whole.

It’s not so much that Christian doctrine as such is likely to lead one to do crazy things, but that the habit basing beliefs on emotion rather than an objective evaluation of the evidence can easily do so. Islamic doctrine per se doesn’t advocate flying planes into tall buildings either, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to persuade someone who has already accepted nonsensical beliefs about the most important questions he will ever confront to accept some more nonsensical beliefs.

Frankly, this is an untenable position for a Christian. The heart of Christian doctrine is the idea that Jesus is our “Savior”. And what He has saved us from is death:

Either Jesus said these things and they are true, or the Gospel message is a lie. “Gospel” means “good news”, and this is the “good news”. We can escape certain death and have eternal life, but only if we “believeth on” Jesus – that is, accept Him as our Savior. If Christianity does not mean this, it means nothing. This doctrine is not optional for a Christian; to be a Christian is to believe this.

Now the Christian God is supposed to be perfectly just and merciful. If atheism were rationally justifiable, it could not be just or merciful to punish someone for all eternity in Hell, or to deprive him of eternal bliss in Heaven, because he evaluated the evidence fairly and objectively and came to the rational conclusion that Jesus is not the Savior. This is plainly unjust even if some others evaluated the same evidence fairly and objectively and concluded that Jesus is the Savior.

In other words, disbelief can only be culpable if it is willful – that is, if a person who rejects Jesus as the Savior does so even though he really believes that Jesus is our Savior, or at any rate has been willfully blind in evaluating the evidence. But this requires that a fair, objective person evaluating the evidence in good faith cannot honestly conclude that Jesus is not the Savior. In other words, for Christianity to be true it is necessary that disbelief in Christianity cannot be rationally justified.

Right. I can see how a rational person like yourself might conclude that some wild tales of unheard-of doings thousands of years ago found in anonymous works of unknown provence that didn’t appear until decades after the supposed events in question hold the key to the central questions of human life. A friend of mine, after carefully examining all the evidence, concluded that the Hollow Earth Theory was correct. (I am not making this up!) My brother’s wife believes that Joseph Smith found a book in a strange Egyptian dialect written on tablets of gold and translated it into English, all with the help of an angel named Moroni. Their beliefs are just as reasonable, just as rationally justifiable, as yours.

Polycarp, everyone understands that their “belief system” might be wrong. I find many belief systems other than my own reasonable even though I think they’re wrong. But that doesn’t mean that I find all belief systems reasonable. I personally think that the likelihood that Christianity, in any recognizable form, is correct is vanishingly small. It’s about as likely as the possibility that there is an invisible Martian following me around ten feet under the ground. Or the possibility that Cupid is the real creator of the universe, but lets his consort Freyja (the Valkyrie) run things. Besides the fact that there’s no evidence to speak of in its favor, Christianity is totally weird. If it weren’t for the fact that, by one of those strange accidents of history, it became the dominant religion of a major culture for a time, no one in his right mind would give it a second thought.

NOGO

Polycarp wants us to believe that we are overly skeptic and a possible source of this problem is the non-belief in God. Belief in God makes miracles, for example, ordinary things.

When asked about other religions Polycarp is equally skeptic but can't justify it. God makes miracles ordinary but Mohammad splitting the moon is still extraordinary.

The conclusion is that Christianity is special. PERIOD.

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

NOGO

Saying this is much easier than showing it.

Ted Hoffman

There is specifically one item I would like to respond to: that of representing "jesus-mythers" as "dogmatic", "fundamentalist" or even irrational.
Polycarp Said:
Polycarp,
“The “Jesus-myth” issue is a case in point. Have you ever wondered why, among non-Christian historians of the last 100 years, more than 99% of them have believed in the existence of Jesus, but among skeptics here at the SecWeb it is a much lower ratio.

And Optics Guy said:
I have been hanging around here for about a year and i have never run into many people who claim that jesus the man didn't exist historically. I would dare say that the consensus among infidels is that he did exist, but he wasn't a supernatural 'son-of-a-god', he was just a man like the rest of us.

I am a newly-born Jesus myther. I challenge you to refute my reasons for believing that the story of the historical Jesus is untrue (of course Logos Jesus remains a complete, unadulterated, unmitigated myth)
<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000380" target="_blank">In this thread</a> I have explained why I believe the historical Jesus story is a myth.

If you are uncomfortable with a particular position, portraying it as fundamentalist does little in the way of generating a discussion that can engender your understanding concerning that particular viewpoint.

Both Polycarp and Optics Guy have comitted the logical fallacy of argumentum ad numerum while handling the "jesus mythers" position. I would have expected both of you to know that appeal to numbers is a non-argument.

I urge you to post your rebuttals in that thread I have provided a link to so that I can get to know your viewpoint concerning the issue, and whether you have any good reasons for believing a historical Jesus existed.

[ July 09, 2002: Message edited by: IntenSity ]</p>

wdog

intensity,

I think you are creating an argument with me were there is none. I reread my post and all i am pointing out is my observation that most infidels I have run into think there was really a man named jesus, but that he was not supernatural. This is not an attempt to justify or argue the validity of that position, it is only a statement about a consensus opinion in order to rebut poly who said that most of claim that a man named jesus never existed.
My statement is a weak one, and therefore not really open to debate.

vorks,

thanks for the clarification of that nutjob mcveigh

[ July 10, 2002: Message edited by: Optics Guy ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Ok, Optics guy. I have cut you loose. Maybe Polycarp can then follow up on the argument?