Oy vey. Wotta mess....
I know I mentioned it several times, but here is an interview with Lee Strobel who wrote The Case for Christ [...] He should be a pretty credible source.
In regards to determining the "historicity" of Jesus Christ, I don't think any modern scholar is anymore "credible" than another.
The credibility is found in their arguments and purported evidence, not in themselves. You could have an individual with fairly laughable credentials that could still make an airtight case with solid logic and sound evidence. At the same time, you could have an individual with amazingly respectable credentials that spews absolute garbage at you with no real logical coherence or evidence, expecting to be well-received because he is an "expert" in the field.
This is why adhering to the scientific process in these matters is so important, and not just being wooed by "credentials".
Logical Fallacy #1: Argumentum Ad Nauseam - Basically, this is if you repeat yourself over and over again, and in this case, write incredibly LONG posts with MANY different assumptions, supposed facts, etc., people get tired of hearing about it, so they tend to shut down. It then appears as if you've won the argument, especially on the net, because people will stop responding so it will LOOK like no one can refute your argument. This usually isn't the case, the case usually is that you've overloaded the issue so badly, and you've repeated yourself over and over again so much, that people just don't want to get involved. But...of course just because people don't want to get involved, this doesn't mean that your argument is correct.
Upon looking backwards, BOTH Heretic and myself are guilty of this one. Now, my posts are long a lot, so I have to be careful of doing this. Although, when I do this, I am not doing it intentionally. I just have a lot to say. It becomes a more serious problem when this is done intentionally to try to deter anyone from taking part in the argument so that you look like the winner. I feel that in Heretic's case this was intentional at times. A perfect example is page 8 where he rattles off a slew of info (much of it not directly applying to the argument) and 19 different questions. It then seems that I either have to answer all 19 questions in detail, which could take pages, or I don't answer them all, and I am insulted for not addressing all his points. The fact is he didn't want any of these points addressed really, he just wanted to post up SO MUCH junk that it would deter the average person from wanting to respond, thus making him feel undisputed.
I feel I should speak up here, as paul has taken it upon himself to dictate to the world what my "intentions" were in my posts without any real psychological insight or evidence into the matter.
I often repeated myself because paul seemed to ignore large parts of my posts (which, by the way, were nowhere
near as lengthy as his). The points in which he did provide "refutations" were often counter-refuted by me in later posts. He often seemed to ignore these counter-refutations, as well.
Now, I can't speak for what paul's intentions were (unlike what he has felt obliged to do to me). However, many times throughout the thread, I have been given the impression that paul attempted to place both our arguments on "even ground" by
ignoring (whether intentionally or unintentionally) many of the points and issues I raised. I was given the impression that just because many of the points and issues I raised were not addressed that they somehow "went away" or their validity was somewhere destroyed. An example of this is my refutation of the "four facts" (external sources, transmission test, internal consistency, and external consistency) paul has brought forth in his arguments.
Thus, I felt the need to repeat points of mine that were not addressed or points whose refutations I counter-refuted. I did this more than once, and paul continually ignored both many of my original points and virtually all of my counter-refutations. Eventually, it seemed this "silent treatment" was not making the unaddressed issues go away (as I kept bringing them back up), so he seemed to resort to ridiculing me with a bevy of personal attacks to somehow invalidate my arguments and counterarguments.
Again, this is all the impression I received. I don't know what paul's real purposes were or, whether any of this was intentional or not.
Logical Fallacy #2: Argumentum Ad Logicam - it is when you make a conclusion based off of false evidence, but the evidence is not proven to be true. This is tough to deal with and very frustrating because IF the evidence was true then the conclusions might indeed be true; people easily lose sight of the fact that the evidence hasn't been proven, so they assume the evidence is true, thus giving the conclusion the appearance of truth.
This seems like circular logic to me. If the "evidence" has not been proven true, then it is not real evidence or data. It is pseudo-evidence.
- "And, also, even among those that do swear there was a historical 'Jesus' (even that name in its original form, Iesous, gives little credence to this claim) have absolutely no historical documentation or proof to back this up."
He expects us to conclude that there is NO historical documentation to back up his claim, but has yet to provide proof of "No historical documentation."
You want me to
prove there is "no historical documentation"?? If you expect me to prove a negative, paul, then you can add another logical fallacy to your little list here.
What I meant is that, to date, there is no credible historical documentation of Jesus Christ that has been put forward. If you feel I am wrong on this, then prove me wrong. Put forward the documentation. Then, I will address it.
But, as is, I can't just address
every little supposed claim of historical documentation concerning Jesus that has ever been proposed (many, if not all, of which are, to be frank, bunk). Nor can I "prove" the man never existed (which is not the position I have ever assumed on here, I have merely proposed that it is very unlikely he existed). If I attempted either of these, then the posts would just be
too lengthy.
Perhaps in a later post I will submit a detailed explanation of my own position and the arguments and evidence I have to support it, as all I have done so far is provide refutations to others' positions. However, I can't just start this up in the middle of a post addressing other issues.
- "On the other hand, there are many many reasons to believe there was no historical Jesus, including the multitude of parallels between the Jesus story and various 'Pagan' myths"
Fails to prove that a pagan myth comparison disproves the historical Jesus in any way.
By itself, no. In fact, I never claimed the Pagan parallels by themselves somehow disprove the historical Jesus.
However, when we take into account that many (if not all) of the "biographical" details of Jesus Christ in the Gospel narratives are prefigured in various Pagan myths, and
other proposed claims into account (the "silence" of the early Christian fathers on Jesus' life and teachings, the lack of external sources verifying Jesus' existence, the seemingly non-historical nature of the Gospels themselves, the proliferation of Gnosticism/Docetism as the most prominent form of early Christianity, etc.), then it does seem to point to some rather startling conclusions.
- "The 'Jesus references' among Josephus's works are largely discredited as forgeries of the 2nd and 3rd centuries"
Makes a claim that these are forgeries, with no proof to back the claim.
Well, to be blunt, you never asked.
Like I said before, I can't go into detail into every little issue that is brought up on this thread. If you want me to "prove" a claim, or go into detail on something, then just ask.
- "The 'Jesus references' among Josephus's works are largely discredited as forgeries of the 2nd and 3rd centuries"
Largely...by who. Who says they are correct? Obviously there are scholars who would disagree, but we are instead supposed to believe yet another conclusion based off evidence which has not been proven to be true.
Well, the "Testimonium Flavius" is almost universally recognized as a forgery (which is fairly obvious if you've ever read it). As I understand it, many scholars believe the actual author of the excerpt is Eusebius (320 CE), who was also the first individual to ever quote it.
The supposed reference to "James the Just" is debatable, but I also regard it to be a forgery. If you want me to give my reasons for this in detail, then ask.
I could go on and on, but this is just in the 1st post. Now I know it is difficult to cite everything, but I am not talking about just citing sources here. It goes beyond that. What I am talking about is listing unproven evidence to support a claim, but doing it SO MUCH and with SUCH AUTHORITY, that the audience either A. Believes it to be true, or B. falls into the trap of the above fallacy, where there is too much stuff to address, so they shut down. In either case, this is a major fallacy that is not conducive to a good discussion. Mainly because the person performing this fallacy (heretic in this case) entraps the opposing arguers into taking part in the fallacy. Either the opposing party addresses every little side issue (as I tried to do) which leads to ad nauseum, too much info, and extremely long posts, or the opposing party shuts down and ignores the issue, so it appears that the person performing the fallacy won the argument.
Your complaints here seem to have nothing to do with the "Argumentum Ad Logicam" you mentioned before. Your major problem seems to be with the tone used in the posts, not any supposed "lack of evidence".
Again, if you want me to clarify my "evidence", the ask. Not once did you ever do this (although, admittedly, I did go in some detail in later posts on how some of the supposed external are spurious).
#3: Argumentum Ad Hominum - or "argument against the man." Heretic has done this right from the start, and this is what caused me to get extremely pissed off.
Whatever personal attacks you
believe I may have made against you are nothing compared to the blatant character assassination you have been involved in for quite some time (examples: "anyone reading this thread can tell you are a complete and total moron" and "you're delusional"). I suggest you calm down and take a good, long look in the mirror, paul.
"I suggest you study the history of the Hellenistic Roman Empire in more depth."
That's because you made a historically dubious claim (namely, that the Jews were somehow "religiously persecuted" in ancient Rome or that the Greco-Roman world did not "understand" monotheism). This claim was blatantly biased by your own personal religious beliefs and does not reflect any historical research into the subject (namely, the imperial operations and positions in Hellenistic Rome).
"*cough* Actually, if you reread my post..."
This is because, at the time, you misrepresented my position (something you've been doing a lot, actually), whether consciously or unconsciously. Thus, I asked you to reread my original post in more detail.
"*chuckles* That depends on how much weight you give to pseudo-science."
You made a claim that I believed had no scientific basis for it. Thus, the appelation "pseudo-science".
"Ahem. It's spelled 'empirical' and I can assure you it is a real word (look up 'empiricism' in the dictionary if you don't believe me)."
Yes. I overlooked this mispelling the first 7 times or so... but after you kept doing it over and over, and kept putting the word in quotation marks (which gave me the impression that I was somehow "making it up"), it just started to get too annoying.
All this stuff is an attempted attack on my character. There is a lot more, but you catch my drift. All this implies that I either haven't read enough on the subject, so my argument must be wrong.
Again, paul, don't try and assume the moral high ground here. None of my "attacks" on your character were blatant (and many of them were made jokingly), unlike yourself who felt justified in fabricating a pseudo-psychological evaluation of me (on the basis of less than 10 words I said) to somehow devalue my position. The projectionism you are engaging in here is so obvious its painful.
Or, I don't read thoroughly, or I have horrible spelling, implying that I am "stupid."
This is completely your own personal projections into what I actually said. I never once called you "stupid". In fact, not once have I ever given my standards on what I believe constitutes "intelligence" in the first place.
All I said was that you were constantly mispelling a certain word that you felt the need to place in quotation marks (which I found increasingly annoying), which was true, and that you misrepresented my position by not reading my post in greater detail, which was also true.
If you feel any of this constitutes "stupidity", then that is your value judgment. Not mine.
I have also been called "ignorant" by him as well, as well as "Liar".
Actually, you called yourself a "liar". I never called you that, nor did I call you "ignorant".
The truth, however, is that you fabricated an untrue "psychological history" of me in an attempt to devalue my position. When I called you on it, you denied it. Thus, you were lying.
I don't know what it is that you think constitutes a "liar" (lying just once doesn't pass the test for me), but the fact is that you were lying about me on the thread.
This was done as an attempt to win an argument through an attack to my character by implying that I am stupid, uneducated, and a liar. This is really low. Fallacy #1 and #2 was frustrating enough to have to deal with, but this put me over the edge.
If what I did put you over the edge, then you must really hate yourself. What I did was nothing compared to the blatant insults that have been hurled at me by you (example: "you're an idiot"). Still, you don't see me whining about it, or projecting my own personal wishes and anger onto others.
However, I did not attack his character in order to win an argument.
Actually.... yeah, you did. Or, at least you tried to.
Seriously, paul, what do you expect me to believe?? You ignore most of my arguments and counter-refutations and, after I repeat them and you still ignore them, you start ridiculing me and then attacking me (culminating in a fabricated "psychological history" of my personal beliefs). It gives me the impression that you started mud-slinging to "win" the argument and then later declare yourself the "winner" on very dubious logical grounds as if the argument is over.
So, yeah... from where I'm standing, if looked like you tried to use character assassination to "win".
I used evidence and logic to win the argument.
You never "won" the argument, as I have stated before. I once again provided a refutation to your claim that any "Joshua Messiah" in history somehow equals the "Jesus Christ" of Christianity, and you once again ignored this refutation (not even addressing it) and declared yourself the "winner" with even greater rigidity.
My "attacks" were my attempt to merely address what he had been doing to me all along on this thread, and how he had been acting.
No. You projected onto my posts what you have been doing all along. Some of your attacks were not projections but blatant attacks, also. I never made any "psychological history" of you or your beliefs.
I still shake my head in wonder and ponder why there are folks trying to prove that this ONE MAN never existed
It's very simple, macaver. Some of us are just interested in truth, no matter what form it may take. You seem to have some problem with that.
when millions believe that he did
Millions also believed the world was flat, and that slavery was justified. Popularity doesn't prove anything.
and millions more devote their whole lives to his teachings.
Purported teachings.
I mean, what is it that makes people want to say "he never existed" ? Jealousy? Envy? Fear? Shame? Bitterness from a bad experience related to beliefs? Something I tell ya. I dunno. But the alterior motive to try and DISPROVE one man's entire existence goes a lot deeper than one may want to admit.
Oh look... someone
else is trying to use some dubious "psychobabble" to devalue the mythicist position. Big surprise.
The evidence lies in one book (two, if you're LDS); the Bible.
And where does that lead us if the Bible is found to be both internally and externally inconsistent?? And, if the Bible itself is not an eyewitness account of historical events, as many Christian proponents claim?? Hmmm...
Also funny/strange that no-one disputes the existence of anyone else mentioned in the bible, i.e. Moses, Noah, Adam, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, John, Peter, Mark, Luke, etc. etc. etc. etc.... Just Jesus.
Actually, many people do dispute some (perhaps all) of those other individuals. Each one must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis in light of the evidence. This thread, however, is about Jesus.
I personally find it "funny/strange" that no one disputes the NON-existence of Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus, Heracles, Bacchus, Attis, or Adonis even though their lives are oftentimes very similar to Jesus' and there is just as much historical "evidence" to support their existence as Jesus'.
I was Awestruck that sitting in that literature class some 2500+ years after the "fact" that Aeneas was the most famous Greek to ever live. At least you could argue that he was. Seemed like a prophesy fullfilled to me. And then I learned later that Troy was actually found and the Trojan War quit being a pure myth.
Actually, it is still debatable whether the Trojan War actually happened or not.
So in a similar fashion I wonder how could Jesus not have existed but yet had this profound effect on World history, philosophy and religion?
Could all this have happened from a lie someone made up near a desert in a small province on the outskirts of the largest, most modern empire on Earth?
Yes. It's been done before, there is nothing extraordinary about it. Mithraism and Manicheism both became virtual world-religions, and the historicity of both of their respective founders is highly dubious. The historicity of Gautama Buddha is also highly questionable, but we see Buddhism all over the world.
The simple truth is that just because a lot of people start believing something doesn't make it true.
The most significant event in the history of the world was the life of Jesus Christ.
That's so debatable it's not even funny.
the United States was founded largely because of it
That is blatantly untrue. The United States (and democratic ideals as whole) was established as a
rejection of traditional religion. Why do you think democracy as a whole only began to flourish when secular humanism developed, when people began to question and criticize traditional religious concepts?? When traditional religion was running the show, you didn't see a single democracy grow. Not one.
the World Trade Center was recently bombed because of it.
That is such a simplified and untrue generalization of what really happened that I don't even know where to begin. :uhoh:
Who told this to the author of Genesis? This should be an uncomfortable realization for anyone wanting to discredit the Bible as a reliable source of information I would think. I think I recall from a class I took at UT that the Greek mentioned "void" as being the beginning and this was the word for "nothing" which seems very close in my opinion to being the same thing as a expansive Universe (or Universes) being compressed to just a few millimeters across.
No, this is a logical fallacy and quite common among many modern apologetic authors. They basically try and read their own religion's doctrines into modern scientific discoveries.
Having Yahweh declare there to be light is not even close to what the Big Bang Theory posits. For, you see, a lotta stuff happened in Genesis before there was light. Apparently, there was water first (as God had to "divide the depths"), an obvious plagiarism of the Egyptian creation myth.
Don't you find it interesting that no Jew, Christian, or Muslim could enlighten us about this great Big Band until it was conveniently "discovered" by astronomers in the 20th century??
The book of Genesis was written by Moses and passed to Joshua. According to beliefs God explained the "Big-Bang" to Moses and thus we have the accounting there of the origins.
Actually, that's not a part of Jewish or Christian belief at all. Namely, because Judaism and Christianity didn't even know what the "Big Bang" was until the rest of the world did.
That account is something modern apologetics do when they try and read their own beliefs into scientific theories.
The Bible speaks of the creation taking place in six days. But are they man's days or God's days? What may be a "day" to God may end up being a million or tens of millions of years to God. Moses was only writing down what he was told.
Actually, macaver, a literal reading of Genesis is still refuted here. The "six thousand years old" bit comes from adding up all the accumulated years of all the Biblical figures that are in the Old Testament. The number comes down to Adam and Eve being "born" about 5,500 to 6,000 years ago. We have extensive fossil evidence, however, that Homo Sapiens Sapien is at least 8,000 years old.
But when people say "there is absolutely no evidence...." to support the Christian premise, I think this is completely arrogent and ignorant. It is like saying that all Christains are ignorant puppets, which is pretty close minded and insulting. There is plenty of evidence to support Christianity, and to support Jesus, both inside and outside the Bible. It comes down to whether or not you buy the evidence that is available. If one says, "I don't agree with the evidence..." or "I don't believe the evidence available fully supports the Christian premise..." then fine. I can understand and respect that opinion. What I can't respect is comments like, "there is absolutely NO evidence available...", because these are arrogent, ignorant, and outright insulting.
It's quite simple, paul.
If the "evidence" is refuted to be false or untrue, then it ceases to be "evidence". It is pseudo-evidence. When I said "there is absolutely no evidence..." I was referring to my position that the only evidence to support Jesus' historical existence is, in fact, pseudo-evidence.
You can "respect" that position or not. The decision's up to you. However, just as I don't consider the "evidence" that the world is flat (something many "experts" believed in the Middle Ages) to be true, I also don't consider the "evidence" that Jesus existed to be true. There is indeed a very real distinction between evidence and pseudo-evidence.
Anyways, everything said here is just my opinion on the subject.
Laterz.
