Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Radorth · 09-09-2002, 09:24 PM

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I think if most Christians were given the chance to visit Calgary in 50 CE, they would jump at the chance, whether they had previously been to Jeruselem or not. And I don't think they would be there for the t-shirt.

I wouldn't jump at the chance. I don't now. Some folks are into pilgrimages I suppose, but I honestly wonder why, unless it is to bolster a shaky faith which (because of several extraordinary experiences) I do not suffer from. We don't know that he didn't visit Calgary anyway, only that he didn't show slides.

The Federalist Papers sat around gathering dust for 30 years, which is an indication that nostalgia takes awhile to develop. Did people flock to Plymouth rock in 1680? Bradford's ms on the Pilgrim's adventures was simply lost for 200 years until somebody ran across it on a library shelf looking for something else. Anyway, that's one reason I don't believe one lousy relic is real. The cross went for firewood or termite food IMO.

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we _do_ have some letters by Paul and we also have Acts, none of which mentions Paul having any interest in Calgary or any other of Jesus' earthly background.

That does not seem strange to me, particularly since he knew the spiritual Jesus so much better than the earthly one. Now if Jesus had a grave and Mary had written the epistles, she'd be scolding James for not sending flowers at Christmas...

Radorth

[ September 10, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]

Peter Kirby · 09-09-2002, 09:37 PM

We really have no idea whether Paul ever visited the Place of the Skull, and there is no good reason to believe that Paul would have mentioned such a stop in the letters that have come down to us. Doherty does make some important and intelligent arguments, but this one is definitely not Doherty at his best. Fortunately, it is not a pillar of his thesis, and I don't think that it is even mentioned in his book.

best,
Peter Kirby

Steven Carr · 09-09-2002, 11:12 PM

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Originally posted by Layman:

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Originally posted by Skeptical:
I hardly think visting the spot of your saviors birth and resurrection would be called "sitting on one's butt taking in the sites".

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Lives were on the line, Jesus was coming back soon, the Kingdom of God was at hand, and you expect Paul to take a Pilgrimige to Bethlehem? Maybe he could have gotten a big foam finger that said, "People of the Way are No. 1."

This a pathetically weak argument.

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]

Galatians 1:18 'Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.'

So Paul spent 3 years in Damascus doing nothing before deciding to talk to a disciple.

Skeptical's arguments may be 'pathetically weak', but at least he knows what the Bible says.

Steven Carr · 09-10-2002, 02:42 AM

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Originally posted by Layman:


He lived in Jerusalem before his conversion.

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]

Are we sure Paul lived in Jerusalem before his conversion?

'I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.'

Paul makes no claim in his letters to have been brought up in Jerusalem.

Layman · 09-10-2002, 07:55 AM

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Originally posted by Steven Carr:


Galatians 1:18 'Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.'

So Paul spent 3 years in Damascus doing nothing before deciding to talk to a disciple.

Skeptical's arguments may be 'pathetically weak', but at least he knows what the Bible says.

Even if he does, do you? Where does the Bible say Paul was "doing nothing" for 3 years in Damascus?

Layman · 09-10-2002, 07:56 AM

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Originally posted by Steven Carr:


Are we sure Paul lived in Jerusalem before his conversion?

'I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.'

Paul makes no claim in his letters to have been brought up in Jerusalem.

There are a number of reasons why Paul would not be known by the churches in Judea.

Paul claims to be a Pharisee, and Pharisee's generally got their training in Jerusalem.

Skeptical · 09-10-2002, 01:30 PM

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Originally posted by Layman:

Try and keep up. I was not talking about his visits to Jerusalem. I was talking about your comparison of his trips to Greek cities to missionize as "pilgrimiges." That is silly.

Yes of course, that makes much more sense and it's not in any way nitpicking.

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Umm. How did you determine that Paul had not been in Jerusalem since Jesus' crucifixion? It seems likely that he was.

seems likely based on? Paul's first mention of visiting Jeruselem is 3 years after his conversion.

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Hey, if you want to try either an informed or intelligent reply (or preferabbly both) then go ahead.

Thanks for the advice, your obviously qualified to give it.

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Like I said. This is a repackaged argument from silence in Paul's letters. Except its even sillier than most because it seeks to judge what Paul would have wanted to do 2000 years ago on something fairly trivial. The specifics were new in their absurdity, but the general argument from silence is old news and suffers from the same objections.

Fine, although I don't personally think that a visit to Calgary would be "trivial" for Paul.

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I understand you are playing 'net nanny. Why not bother all the leaps in logic and conclusory statements made by skeptic after skeptic on this site? Sheesh. It's like you guys want to pester us theists do death so you don't have to worry about us.

If someone tried to dismiss out of hand an argument from, for example, Luke Timothy Johnson, I would have responded the same way. Sorry if you think I am "pestering" you.

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Besides, what you misunderstand is that Doherty's argument is intended to show that Jesus did not exist. Please keep up. I was responding to your claim that his argument did not go that far.

I understand perfectly well what his argument is, but thanks for your encouragement to "keep up".

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No, that would be an absurd argument. And where did you come up with that particular definition of "silly argument"? Seriously. If that is true, then Christianity must be chock full of serious, nonsilly arguments because so much efforts is put into refuting it. Ditto YECS for that matter. Don't you think that the idea of a 10,000 year old earth is rather silly? Nevertheless, I've seen detailed rebuttals filling up chapters and periodicals of books.

I think the idea is silly in light of the evidence. Before the evidence and arguments, the idea of a 10K year old earth were not silly, just as the arguments of Aristotle that the orbits of the planets must be perfectly circular was not silly in his day.

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If you are not interested in making Doherty's argument then please stop. You are wasting my time. The fact is that none of Paul's letters or Acts mentions him taking a wizz either, but I'm sure he did. Neither mentions whether Paul was even married, or had children, or a thousand other things. The idea that Paul or Acts (which Doherty writes off as fiction anyway) must have listed everything you can think of that Paul might have done is not scholarship, it's silliness.

Sorry you think I'm wasting your time. Really. You mischaracterize the argument, but I won't waste your time correcting it.

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It accomplishes nothing tos ay it's "plausible" that Paul would have written about his visit to Calgary if he had done so. All that means is that if such an appearance appeared, it would not be strange. What you must show is that it was implausible for Paul NOT to have visisted Calgary. And then that it was implausible for Paul NOT to have written about it. And then that it is implausible that the reference to Calgary could have been written in a letter or other writing that did not survive.

That's quite a job. Get cracking.

It's Doherty's argument to make, not mine. He made it, you can read it if you want. I don't want to waste any more of your time.

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I never said that was his only point. I said this was a pathetically weak point. Now, perhaps conjoined with other pathetically weak points, you might think he makes a compelling case. But I was not talking about all of his points, but this one point.

Geeze, for someone who doesn't even want to discuss this one point you sure want to expand the scope of the discussion.

If you are going to be 'net nanny about "casual dismissals" should I email you all the ones I see? Then will you pop out of the woodworks and save us all from this horrible occurrences?

Sure. Email me and I'll pop out whenever you want.

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To make anything out of an argument from silence you have to make a pretty strong case. Not just claim it was plausible that Paul might visit Calgary, and plausible that he might mention it in one of his few letters, and plausible that that one letter might survive 2000 years. That is a pathetically weak argument from silence.

A single argument from silence is weak, a cumulative case might be stronger, but then I'm wasting your time again so I'll stop.

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It's not a dodge because I'm not willing to make Doherty's arguments for him. Heck, you don't even want to do that but you demand that I do it? What I said was that I don't consider all of his arguments rubbish simply because he's a JMer. I could still think all his arguments are rubbish simply on their merits. I could think some are and some are not. Some require more of a response and some don't. For you to assume based on my response to one particularly weak argument that I dismiss all of his claims as rubbish only because he's a JMer is without foundation.

I wasn't asking you to "make his argument", a simple "his point on so and so might have merit". In any case, you submit you don't just dismiss him so that's that.

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And this "think" of yours is based on what?

Christians I know who have told me how much they would love to visit Jeruselem and Bethlehem, and not for the t-shirt.

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And you missed this one: Did you find any reference in Ignatius' letters that he had visited Calgary?

I guess you missed that one, eh?

Actually, I thought we had gone far enough afield already and that Ignatius wasn't all that relevant.

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You keep comparing Paul to tourists. Can't you see how silly that is?

No, _you_ keep comparing him to tourists. I have seen with my own eyes people under extreme duress visiting the book depository in Dallas, they are not there for the t-shirt. You seem to belittle the idea that anyone might want to visit the deathplace of someone they think is very important to their life and that they would consider it a spiritual experience. That's your opinion.

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And no my discussion of Paul's fears of persecution are not the same as yours. You are pulling yours out of thin air and anachronistic comparisons to American tourists. We know that Paul was beaten and persecuted by Jews. We know that on one of his visits to Jerusalem he nearly caused a riot and was arrested. There are reasons backing up my reasons for explaining why Paul would not go touring Jerusalem.

If you think visiting a deathplace of someone vital to your life is "touring" and unimportant, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

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And Paul did know of the significance of those places to Christains, which is why he was persecuting them.

But they were not significant _to Paul_ until after his conversion. (if they were signficant to him at all)

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Well that's a relief. Because for a minute there it looked like you were arguing his point. Wonder how I got that impression?

Possibly because you don't listen to anyone you disagree with? No, that couldn't be it. Sorry again to waste your time, I was under the mistaken impression there was a discussion going on.

Clutch · 09-10-2002, 01:41 PM

Layman, Peter,

I don't see what's so strange about assuming that Paul, devoted worshipper and impassioned convert, would go to see, eg, where God incarnate had suffered, died, been entombed, etc. Nor that, having done so, he would then write not just to someone, but to everyone about the evidential import of this. Guys, I saw it! The tomb, maybe even the cross. I talked to people living along the path to Calvary, who remember exactly what he looked like, and who recall the earthquake and the darkness when he died. This would be powerful, powerful stuff to tell other converts and prospective converts.

Of course there's no logical necessity that Paul would do this, nor even an indefeasible empirical probability. But it sure seems to stand to reason. The idea that Paul would have had more important things to do is less plausible the closer he is to these sites anyhow; if any evangelical Christian, however committed to spreading the word, learned that Jesus himself had slept in the next room, would it be ridiculous to find it puzzling that s/he would not even bother to open the door, take a peek in, maybe lie on the bed and pray? The putative relative recency of Jesus' life in Paul's day means that presumably lots of evidence about the man, his life, his death and his teachings, would be available -- the actual physical evidence, perhaps. Again, it hardly seems lame, pathetic, or risible to suppose that the man had reason to go there, and reason to write widely about what he found. The heaping of scorn on the idea strikes me as just a means to avoid engaging the matter.

Layman · 09-10-2002, 02:11 PM

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Originally posted by Skeptical:


Possibly because you don't listen to anyone you disagree with? No, that couldn't be it. Sorry again to waste your time, I was under the mistaken impression there was a discussion going on.

Hmmm. Let's see. I don't give up and agree with you so that is evidence that i "don't listen to anyone." But you don't give up your argument and .... what? You should be praised for your perseverance?

I don't just listen to those I disagree with, I study them. If they are worth the time.

Toto · 09-10-2002, 02:20 PM

What a waste of bandwidth. Layman doesn't want to come out and say that he hasn't actually read Doherty's work, but it's pretty obvious that is the case. Doherty's argument from silence is not based on one niggling little incident of Paul failing to visit Calvary or writing home about it. It is based on a multitude of silences, a pervasive silence. And on top of this silence, Doherty has positive arguments. But Layman is stuck on his party line of mythicist = nutcase = too marginal to even try to read. I guess he assumes that if he keeps repeating this he will intimidate the unsuspecting and make sure they don't even read Doherty.

And the late dating of Acts is a red herring. Doherty's argument would only fail if Acts were dated to before 60 A.D., which is 1)unlikely and 2)not the scholarly consensus.

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09-09-2002, 09:37 PM	#62
Peter Kirby Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor Posts: 4,035	We really have no idea whether Paul ever visited the Place of the Skull, and there is no good reason to believe that Paul would have mentioned such a stop in the letters that have come down to us. Doherty does make some important and intelligent arguments, but this one is definitely not Doherty at his best. Fortunately, it is not a pillar of his thesis, and I don't think that it is even mentioned in his book. best, Peter Kirby

09-10-2002, 01:41 PM	#68
Clutch Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Canada Posts: 3,751	Layman, Peter, I don't see what's so strange about assuming that Paul, devoted worshipper and impassioned convert, would go to see, eg, where God incarnate had suffered, died, been entombed, etc. Nor that, having done so, he would then write not just to someone, but to everyone about the evidential import of this. Guys, I saw it! The tomb, maybe even the cross. I talked to people living along the path to Calvary, who remember exactly what he looked like, and who recall the earthquake and the darkness when he died. This would be powerful, powerful stuff to tell other converts and prospective converts. Of course there's no logical necessity that Paul would do this, nor even an indefeasible empirical probability. But it sure seems to stand to reason. The idea that Paul would have had more important things to do is less plausible the closer he is to these sites anyhow; if any evangelical Christian, however committed to spreading the word, learned that Jesus himself had slept in the next room, would it be ridiculous to find it puzzling that s/he would not even bother to open the door, take a peek in, maybe lie on the bed and pray? The putative relative recency of Jesus' life in Paul's day means that presumably lots of evidence about the man, his life, his death and his teachings, would be available -- the actual physical evidence, perhaps. Again, it hardly seems lame, pathetic, or risible to suppose that the man had reason to go there, and reason to write widely about what he found. The heaping of scorn on the idea strikes me as just a means to avoid engaging the matter.

09-10-2002, 02:20 PM	#70
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	What a waste of bandwidth. Layman doesn't want to come out and say that he hasn't actually read Doherty's work, but it's pretty obvious that is the case. Doherty's argument from silence is not based on one niggling little incident of Paul failing to visit Calvary or writing home about it. It is based on a multitude of silences, a pervasive silence. And on top of this silence, Doherty has positive arguments. But Layman is stuck on his party line of mythicist = nutcase = too marginal to even try to read. I guess he assumes that if he keeps repeating this he will intimidate the unsuspecting and make sure they don't even read Doherty. And the late dating of Acts is a red herring. Doherty's argument would only fail if Acts were dated to before 60 A.D., which is 1)unlikely and 2)not the scholarly consensus.

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