King Arthur

Only a super-intelligent atheist would look deeper than to call it a lie.

I'm not defending anything. I objected to Vorkosigan calling the story a lie. There could be some interesting historical truth to this that could be explored. However, no. He wants to simply dismiss it because he thinks that it was a lie. I think atheists should stop being so scared of religion and stop trying to dismiss everything as "forgery" (as he seems to think about the Tel Dan stele) or as a lie. This is "atheistic fundamentalism" and is every bit as bad and, in my opinion, dangerous as religious fundamentalism.

Besides, Peter Kirby has said something I basically agree with on the other "500" thread. He's an atheist too. It sounds as if Peter can't say for sure that the story of the 500 is a "lie" either. As a matter of fact, like myself, it seems that he thinks there could be a reasonable and even plausible explanation for the circumstance in question. The story does not necessarily have to be a lie. Why call it that?

[ August 04, 2002: Message edited by: King Arthur ]</p>

King Arthur

What? So, if as an atheist you tell me the sun is really black, I have no right to say that you're not telling "the truth". I am not talking of the Christian "truth" or "way". They don't have a monopoly on the words, you know.

Leave off the baloney!

[ August 04, 2002: Message edited by: King Arthur ]</p>

GarColga

One thing I haven't seen mentioned on this thread is the possibility that the '500' statement by Paul is neither an error or lie on his part, but a later interpolation. I think many, if not most, modern (mainstream & liberal) scholars believe that none of Paul's original letters survive intact. The belief is that some were outright 'forgeries'(Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews and probably others) written in the second century to combat heresies that were then current, and the real letters were all edited and interpolated for the same reason, and to distance Paul from Gnosticism.

[ August 04, 2002: Message edited by: GarColga ]</p>

NOGO

I would not call Paul a liar. Paul probably believed that he saw Jesus thus it is easy to believe that he believed that 500 people saw Jesus as well.

However, the statement is a lie.
How do I know this?

Examine the testimony of two such people.
One is recorded in Matthew 28 and the other in John 20. A simple read of these two stories will reveal that they are completely different. The only logical conclusion is that one or the other or both of these stories was fabricated. It is a lie. This raises a question - Can believers be trusted to tell it as it is when they are trying to make converts?

The answer is no.

Paul is a believer and he openly admits that he will do anything to make converts. He is willing to be a Jew among Jews and a Pagan among Pagans or anything in order to make converts.

What does "saw" mean?
There is "saw" as in the gospels where people are claimed to have touched Jesus and there is "saw" as with Paul who claims that he saw a vision.

Paul does not seem to know the difference.

For all these reason Paul cannot be trusted.

Paul talks about a spiritual resurrection while the Gospels talk about a corporal resurrection. Why have a corporal resurrection when the final destination is heaven where we wont need a body?

All this makes the notion of resurrection in the NT quite confused and therefore very doubful. It is not just a matter of nobody has ever resurrected before or since.

There is much more to talk about here but you can begin see now the bassis for calling the statement that 500 people saw Jesus after his death a lie.

The only way that you would not call it a lie is if you believe in that house of cards called Christianity.

[ August 04, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

Toto

Saying that the sun is black is a question that can be addressed with modern scientific methods. Saying that a poorly understood assertion in an ancient manuscript is evidence of anything is not one of those questions.

It was probably a tad overboard on Vork's part to label it an outright "lie", since that is a fighting word. (If he even did that - I think his original post what that it was a typical missionary lie. Do you deny that missionaries lie?) Most atheists prefer to find a naturalistic explanation so that they don't have to deal with Christian rage (since who knows where that might lead.)

It's a lot safer to point out that we don't know exactly what Paul meant, and he could have meant something other than that 500 people saw a resurrected corpse that violated the laws of physics. Or he could have been stupidly mistaken, repeating legends that he believed but had not checked out.

But your overreaction shows that you have some non-rational emotional attachement to those ancient manuscripts. When you drop an atom bomb (metaphorically speaking) on someone who makes a minor error, you do nothing to advance your cause, whatever it is.

Say hi to Bede for us.

Cretinist

Let’s see, the story could not have possibly happened to begin with and has all the common hallmarks of a lie. It is not a hard deduction to make for someone with half a brain.

Granted, the story isn’t necessarily a lie. Someone may have, say, hallucinated the whole thing, believed it really happened and then preceded to spread the tale, which then was changed and exaggerated (which is still technically lying). Is there any compelling reason to accept an explanation like this?

King Arthur

*sigh* I'm not going through it again.

You people couldn't tell a lie from the truth if you tried (ok, well some here are brighter than that). What exactly are "the hallmarks of a lie"? After all, you all can't even seem to figure out whether I'm for real or not! You seem to be calling me a "lie" too! Anything that is disagreeable to you is a lie!

You can have your little lie. Perhaps someone here has walked away realizing that the notion of it absolutely being a lie is moronic. Good luck in the future to those dogmatic ones of you who will probably never know any better.

King Arthur

Toto, I always overreact!

Besides, I made a point. Vorkosigan denied it. I tried to show him the dogmatic errors of his, yours, and a few others ways, but no of you will have it. Kinda like fundamentalists. Admit dogmatic errors, and things don't go this far now do they?

I'll let you do the honors since he'll probably pop in again long enough to tell you he's not me. But that will do no good because you can't tell whether he's lying or not either, though I'm sure you'll accuse him of lying anyway. Oh, Brother! Whatever...

Toto

Excuse me, but who appointed you the Dogma Cop of II? You look more like a Keystone Kop to me.

And please tell me what dogmatic errors I have committed.

King Arthur

Self-appointed. Triumphantly as Napolean once crowned himself King (or so they say, maybe they were lying too), so I crown myself, King Arthur, Dogma Cop of II.

So I can waste more time arguing with someone who has no interest in changing and parrots everyone else? No thanks.

Toto, ATA HAISH! Let me know when you figure that out one day will you? I may be a Keystone Cop, but I know an awful lot more than most here.

[ August 04, 2002: Message edited by: King Arthur ]</p>