A belief in something unproven, unevidenced within the reality we all share, isn’t at the very least slightly dillusional?
Interesting take.
I would counter that scientific answers offer the best chance of being testable, evidenced and in accordance with reality.
I don’t think that true and i don’t think all athiests would agree… historically there is some accuracies for instance… pontius pilot we know was real, so there is some factual material to be taken in.
However, claims of miracles are not substantiated, so some points have merit, others are that of fantasy and wishful thinking.
Be clear then, if you accept that Jesus did exist say that, do you accept he existed? I understand you want to be selective with the historical record, but just which parts of the record do you accept and which don’t you? why accept any of it?
Yes it would indeed, but we’re not talking about such a thing. There is evidence, you cannot confuse your inability to perceive evidence with there being no evidence. I do not hold beliefs without evidence, justification, a sound basis.
Despite your duplicitous and smarmy comments I will answer your question. (Something rather foreign to you apparently) I accept that the historicity of Jesus is widely accepted. Whether or not I accept that he existed is irrelevant to your fatuous claims of a supernatural being.
Thanks for ignoring my points btw.
As to wanting to be “selective with the historical record”, there is no fucking way you could have typed that without laughing, considering your quote mining and such! Your rhetoric is nearly as overbearing as your arrogance and smugness…but, that’s just my “interpretation”…
Then how come you got your evidence for the jesus figure so wrong? The evidence you supplied was the kind of offering we have witnessed so many times, Straight from 5th grade apologetic manual,and it is wrong! I note that you have not refuted any of the quotes or evidence of non mentions of the jesus figure?
Nor have you answered my question how do you find this evidence so compelling? Considering that your witnesses were as I described: undead, anonymous, hearsay or anachronistic?
He also claimed there are “a host of good reasons to believe the origins of the gospels were supernstaural”, but when asked couldn’t domesontrate a single one. He went straight to combining an argumentum ad populum fallacy with an argument from authority fallacy, citing the subjective beliefs of most biblical “scholars”. As if a scholarly knowledge of the bible, better places one to judge the truth of the claims for magic it contains. Like insisting an expert on The Legends of Hercules is better placed to adjudge whether those myths are true or not.
I asked @Sherlock-Holmes a few questions to explain this, here (below) are the responses, as if it is all one giant appeal to mystery, that he cannot explain at all, and has no rational argument for, and can demonstrate nothing but subjective assertions to support. Like his assertion that there can be no natural or scientific explanations of the universe, as if he can possibly know what was and was not possible prior to the big bang, and then of course as above, his false dichotomy between that and his god assumptions, to use an argumentum ad ignorantiam claim.
Note his claim a thing cannot be an explanation for itself must therefor also apply to imagined deity, and parenthetically as we see below, @Sherlock-Holmes can offer no explanatory powers from the claim, nor can it’s purported existence be explained at all.
Everytime he lies he has offered rational inferences I want to burst out laughing.
Funnily enough @Sherlock has inspired me to further educate you heathen lot and start posting a series which I started some years ago with the Ebionites and most recently with the Marcionites. This series of mini posts is designed to pique anyone’s interest in that great vat of bubbling competing “christian” sects, cults and those “churches” and temples that posed a great challenge to the nascent Roman Church authority pre 5th century. .
By appreciating how many, and how varies the beliefs, sects, cults and churches were post Paul and in the 1st and second centuries one can disregard the modern texts as anything like a reliable interpretation or historical narration of the jesus’s figure’s life and preaching.
@Sherlock seems to be a reactionary, a recidivist and has decided (without any proper and demonstrated research I feel) to believe in one or more of the ancient creeds without the knowledge of their founding… I will let you mongrel lot decide which boots best fit the mishappen toes of our resident calumniator.
Of course @sherlock and his multiple successors in this forum will decry proper research, disagree with the obvious and indisputable conclusions and blithely continue with their equivocations and accusations of "false dogma’ . False dogma is something my resident guru Captain Cat is well familiar with, and utterly rejects. He is an atheist as he knows that there is no god but himself.
One thing is the fallacy that natural laws cannot give rise to natural laws therefore god is both an argumentum ad ignorantiam and a false dichotomy. Another is that he attempts to deny rational explanations by denying infinite regress in the explanation hierarchy or infinite existence of the universe and (some set of) natural laws by replacing it with the infinite existence of a creator that does not seem to follow any natural laws. Which is both a contradiction of his own imposed rule of no infinities, as well as special pleading. So we have at least a four-in-one here. Not bad.
PLEASE DO! I bookmarked this thread waiting for Sherlock to respond to your posts. I have been sorely disappointed. I would thoroughly enjoy reading more of what you know!
Disappointment doesn’t imply that I thought it would go any other way than it did. One can always hope for the unexpected and still be disappointed that their one in a trillion outcome didn’t happen.
That’s fascinating, so you don’t say whether you accept that Jesus existed but you do accept that others accept that he existed, right, OK, I see (remember what I said about atheism and vacuities?)
If you accept some claims in the gospels and not others, then why is that not to be described as being selective? I didn’t say that as a derogatory accusation, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being selective I just wanted you to explain which bits you accept and which bits you don’t. and perhaps even get at what your criteria are for designating a two thousand year old written claim as acceptable or not.
One again DO YOU regard Jesus as having really existed, I didn’t ask for your view on the views of others, I want your position on this pretty straightforward question.
