HelenM

In the same post you call the Bible 'fictionalized accounts' and yet later you say 'assuming the accounts we have of his travels are true'.

Don't you see the inconsistency of this?

Are you saying that the parts of the Bible that fit your theories are true and the rest are fictionalized accounts? If so then you need to substantiate why you accept some parts and reject the rest. Otherwise it looks like you're simply picking and choosing according to what supports your ideas.

You've added no new evidence in this post. All you've done is reasserted your theories about Paul. With no more evidence than you had before.

You've disputed my evidence but simply based on your assertion that the Bible is a fictionalized account. Which you haven't supported with evidence. And you haven't given any evidence of your own for your theories.

You can post your theories as many times as you like but that won't change that you've given no evidence for them.

Helen

Ted Hoffman

On the contrary. It demonstrates that I am willing to look at this issue from different angles. It shows I am willing to "allow" some aspects of your POV.

My theories are based on reason. Whether there are parts of the bible that support them is purely coincidental. But I dont rely on the bible to support me since its the claims made in bible that I am examining.

For all your brilliant posts, its glaringly clear that you have no response to the points I have raised - except to repeat the mantra "you have no evidence".
I will provide you with a few very simple reasons/questions why I characterise Paul as a liar:

REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING PAUL WROTE

1. Do you know that scientific studies indicate that there were no poisonus snakes in Malta at the time Paul is supposed to have visited Malta?
If you dont, well, it shows why you believe what Paul wrote - specifically about being bitten by a poisonus snake in Malta. In which case, you should ask for information/evidence.
If you do, doesnt that mean that the story is false?

2. Do you know that once someone dies, they stay dead? If you do, that should tell you that Paul lied when he said Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to more than 500 people.
The laws of science today are the same as they were in the first century and if people do not rise from the dead today, they did not rise then.
If you believe that corpses magically come back to life, I think I am wasting both your time and my time.

3. Do you believe that mere words can transform atrophied/non-functional limbs of one who has been a cripple since birth to strong limbs? That words can make non-existent muscles/nerves appear in a human body and be functional immediately?
Helen, if one has never walked since birth (pz can help here), and suddenly their useless legs become functional, do you think they will be able to start walking immediately without having to learn how to balance, how to coordinate the limbs and the upper body etc? Without any mobility assistance, without learning?

If you do believe on both counts, then you believe in miracles. In which case, I will be wasting both of our times.

In Acts 14:8-10, it is written:
Do you believe such a thing actually took place?


I have conditionally asserted that we will be wasting time because I am assuming that we are reasoning - not just thinking here.
I am invoking reason, not scripture. My logic is my evidence.
You need to demonstrate that my logic is fallacious. The bible doesn't need to tell me anything like:
Acts:99:9-1
The bible doesn't need to do that for me because I posess a working brain and I can think and reason. I believe you too can examine something and apply reason to make a judgement about the veracity of whatever it is.
If you are opposed to reason, state so. If you are, then demonstrate that my three reasons for believing Paul is a liar above are incorrect.

But if you need the bible to tell us Paul cheated, milked people dry and lied, as you have been implying, then of course we are wasting time.
They are things we can deduce. As thinking people.

HelenM

Your deductions are either based on nothing or what the Bible says.

If the former then you can deduce nothing from nothing.

If the latter then you haven't given a rational basis for using a source you refer to as 'fictional' and then picking and choosing what you believe out of it.

You may be excellent at thinking and reasoning (I think you are pretty good at it, actually ) but that will get you nowhere unless you have information to think and reason about. And the only information source you have cited is the Bible which you also refer to as 'fictionalized accounts'. I don't understand why you are using any information from what you regard as 'fictionalized accounts'.

Helen

Ted Hoffman

They are fictionalized because when put under scrutiny, it becomes clear they are not factual.
You do realize you have provided no cogent response to my 3 arguments above dont you?
Do you plan to address them? I am asking because you sound like you are at the exit door.
You need scholarly support indicating that corpses do not rise from the dead?

HelenM

I do need an explanation of why believing that makes someone a liar.

Helen

Ted Hoffman

Because its blatantly at odds with reality and known facts. We can only excuse him (ie say he was not lying) if it can be proved that he was insane or was under the influence of some drugs. We do not know what Paul believed - we only know from the epistles what a character called Paul said.

If you think people believe in everything they say, thats up to you.

From dictionary.com:
Lie
Now, I think it would be very charitable of you if you responded to the direct questions I asked above.

Do I take it that you no longer need evidence that people who die stay dead? Or do you still need evidence that Paul was lying when he said Jesus corpse came back to life and roamed around for 40 days?
Or have you figured out the lie by now?

HelenM

IM, I am never going to agree that Paul deliberately lied about the resurrection. I don't believe there's any evidence that he deliberately lied about it.

If you want to think he did that's up to you.

Also, if Paul had to be insane or on drugs to believe it, then that would be true of all Christians.

I know that's not true of all Christians so I disagree that it has to be true of Paul.

Helen

pz

So if a student were to claim that Martian invaders disintegrated his homework, in the complete absence of any corroborating evidence such as flying saucers hovering over the town, mass panic in the streets, etc., you would claim that there is no reason to think his story was a deliberate lie? How would you explain it?False dichotomy. Perfectly sane people can quite easily believe the most ludicrous inanities.

I don't believe most christians are insane or drugged. I do think that they have been indoctrinated into a pack of lies, though.Do you have a television? Turn it on sometime in the early morning when the televangelists are thick on the airwaves, or tune it to TBN sometime. I see people like Hinn and Hagee and Copeland and Baugh, good christians all, lying and pretending to knowledge they do not have, all in the name of their very lucrative and fraudulent businesses. I see hordes of christians lapping up their feculent bunkum.

Your claim that you know what is true of christians doesn't hold up very well in the face of the self-evident fact that most prominent christian leaders are perfidious racketeers and con-artists, and that they have huge numbers of gullible followers who are willingly duped. It is a reasonable extrapolation to conclude that Paul was just a primordial Swaggart or ur-Bakker, and the similarities are so striking and thorough that it should require extraordinary evidence to think otherwise.

Ted Hoffman

Helen, you are aware about the implication of your inability to give intelligent answers to the three questions I asked you above - don't you?
I think its a sorry sight. But rather than act as if they do not exist, it would be more decent to either state that you refuse to answer them or are incapable of answering them.
There has been so much talk of honesty and sincerity here as it is, all I am seeing is dancing and feeble excuses.

Will you provide answers to my 3 questions/reasons above Helen?

Aah, Pz, that was fucking brilliant!

Ted Hoffman

Helen, for arguments sake, if Paul deliberately lied about the resurrection - what kind of evidence would be used to prove that Paul indeed lied about the resurrection? What kind of evidence do you expect?

Strawman argument plus false dichotomy as Pz rightly pointed out.
You are the one saying Paul believed it. We dont know what Paul believed - we only know what he allegedly said.

And I have demonstrated that what Paul is written to have said is false.
Fallacy of affirming the consequence.
First your proposition is clearly fallacious, because you for example are not on drugs but still believe the things Paul talked about.
And nobody said that all christians have to be insane or on drugs in order to believe what Paul said was true.
It doesn't follow that Pauls virtues (assuming he had any) have to conform to what are the generally claimed/ assumed christian virtues. I know of priests who are rapists - you are aware of the sexual scandals that have buffeted the Catholic church Helen arent you?
Arent those sodomizing priests christians Helen?