Let me guess … he didn’t realise IP addresses are traceable 
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That’s a “fact” 
…………
Okay, I know he is on an involuntary “vacation” at the moment, but I just couldn’t resist replying. By the way… Hi, Sherlock. Hope you are reading this… (waving like a lunatic 
)…
It’s quite obvious Sherlock is terribly oblivious to the fact that (for the most part) the regular members here on the AR actually prefer to maintain some amount of civil manners during general discussions. Meaning, the language we use is typically devoid of unnecessary profanity. (Aside from Cog, of course. He just a fucking foul-mouth asshole. But that’s beside the point…) Anyway, where was I?.. Oh, yes… And the thing is, even when we are throwing good-natured insults at each other and/or pointing out glaring absurdities displayed by dishonest and patronizing theists/trolls, EVEN THEN we maintain control and refrain from going full-force with the expletives. Quite frankly, in regards to those such as Sherlock, there’s no need to do so simply because most of them are too easily dismantled without our having to exert that much effort. In other words, Sherlock knows not of what he speaks. (I know… Big surprise, right? 
)
(Edit for restraint.)
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LOL… Oh how I hate being on my best behavior. I have basically left his rantings to Sheldon, who can certainly hold his own against any theist. But I’ll tell you, the exact same argument in 50 different ways was getting to me. "You don’t know, therefore god.’ So your, that good of a curse, are you? I might be your father. (There is a line that comes after this that I would so like to say! But I don’t want you to cry and run away. We are trying to keep people around and keep the threads moving. So after your week off, we are all happy and little new born atheists to welcome you back.
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I think our pug found him trying to pretend to be Captain Cat at the food bowl, She went ballistic and he is on an extended time out mate.
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Ha ha ha ha… Well, you know what Forrest Gump would say…
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Er, he blotted his copy book again, and tried to log in using a different user name, he is now on the naughty step for 6 months. I’m going to go out on a limb, and assert he won’t have learned a goddamn thing if he does come back in 6 months. Still it’s a chance for him to look up atheism in a dictionary, instead of Googling the archaic definition that suits his dishonest trolling, and risibly citing them while pretending he has been anywhere closer to those university philosophy departments or their encyclopaedias, than I have to the fucking moon.
Bless him, scientifically trained fnarrr, 
, at this point I am 50/50 that he is from Liverpool, but I wouldn’t trust another word he said.
This does not of course remotely evidence he was anything but human, and the objective evidence by any historical standard is scant. The gospels are little more than anonymous unevidenced hearsay, written decades after the events they purport to describe, and interpreted and included or discarded based on the subjective bias of early church leaders approx 3.5 centuries later. When measuring historical claims the possible bias of any source is a paramount consideration, as are contemporary sources of which there are none. Even were one to accept an historical person with a pretty common name of that era, was executed in what was a very common fashion for political prisoners of that era, it doesn’t objectively evidence anything the bible claims Jesus is purported to have said or done, and it goes without saying subjective claims for the supernatural from persons unknown, in an epoch of extreme credulity, ignorance, illiteracy and superstition are largely worthless as evidence for such claims to any remotely objective person.
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Given that being an apocalyptic religious preacher was practically a cottage industry in first-century Judea, it’s entirely possible that the “Jesus character” is a composite entity, with details taken from several individuals. We are dealing with mythology after all.
Composing a composite character from several (anonymous or otherwise) real persons is a recognised literary device, and it won’t take the diligent long to find examples in other works of fiction.
Of course, we have other reasons to be sceptical of assertions from this mythology. The fantastic tale of Jesus being “tempted by the devil” while completely alone, makes one wonder who was on hand to compile the account thereof, but mythology fanboys have a habit of pretending that such absurdities don’t exist in their favourite mythology.
As for that ridiculous tale in Matthew about zombies walking the streets of Jerusalem prior to the crucifixion, well that can be tossed into the bin straight away. Though I note the darkly humorous events when Michael Licona, a “Biblical scholar”, tried to pass this off as “allegorical”, only for the usual suspects among the “Biblical inerrantists” to stick the knives in afterwards.
The frankly hilarious level of anti-consilience endemic to mythology fanboyism is, of course, completely ignored by mythology fanboys, who continue to invent ever more amusingly encephalitic excuses to prop up the house of contradictory cards they’ve chosen to live in.
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very good, and then there is this;
3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
If only Jesus and the woman were there, then who one wonders wrote that down, since the earliest estimates for the writing of the gospel of John is 90 to 100 years after the alleged death of Jesus, and it was unauthored, and the name like the other gospels added some 3.5 centuries later to lend it some gravitas, wonder we shall.
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That’s a rather facile claim, and again a belief can also be an irrefutable fact, or an unsupported subjective opinion, this facile claim has all the hallmarks of laying groundwork for another false equivalence fallacy.
"Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be drawn on, and the historian’s skill lies in identifying these sources, evaluating their relative authority, and combining their testimony appropriately in order to construct an accurate and reliable picture of past events and environments.
In the philosophy of history, the question of the nature, and the possibility, of a sound historical method is raised within the sub-field of epistemology. The study of historical method and of different ways of writing history is known as historiography."
- When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
- Where was it produced (localization)?
- By whom was it produced (authorship)?
- From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
- In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
- What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?
Lets apply those basic techniques of the historical method to the gospels:
- Long after the events it purports to describe, not one contemporary word.
- Unknown, this cannot be reliably established.
- Again unknown, the earliest texts are unauthored and therefore anonymous.
- None, no archaeological evidence or independent or contemporary sources or evidence of any kind.
- Unknown, the earliest copies are unauthored, and their provenance unknown, the four extant canonical gospels were also all written in Greek, a different language to the one used during the events they purport to describe.
- There isn’t a single contemporary account, or a single independent
account or any evidence to corroborate them.
To refer to them as historical documents is true only the sense they are derived from an historical period to the one examining them, but then so do the legends of Hercules.
Put simply the gospels are anonymous hearsay, that is at least second hand, the names assigned arbitrarily almost three and a half centuries later, the earliest gospel text written around 70 to 100 years after the events it purports to describe.
Now compare that to the relics we have with a likeliness of Alexander the Great, and the contemporary records kept of his life, and no one is making any claims about him that involve supernatural magic. So @Sherlock-Holmes assertion is an extremely facile generalisation.
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Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha … You know… If you stop to think about it… It makes perfect sense that our friend Sherlock would make such a stupid comment. Everything he believes about history is based on ‘OPINIONS’ that he has found to be ‘reasonable.’ That which is reasonable is in concordance with his theology.
Here are 5 historical facts… Please demonstrate how any of these are "Beliefs based on opinions.’
- There are pyramids in Egypt and they have been there a long time.
- A city called Rome existed in the first century.
- DaVinci was once a painter.
4.The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. It was engrossed on parchment and on August 2, 1776, delegates began signing it. - The Dome of the Rock is an Islamic shrine at the center of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Its initial construction was undertaken by the Umayyad Caliphate on the orders of Abd al-Malik during the Second Fitna in 691–692 CE
Please demonstrate the fallacious nature of the historical claims above.
Sherlock’s problem is that he has no idea how to tell the difference between a ‘Historical Fact’ and ‘Historical Opinion.’ This explains the majority of his posts.
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I think it seems clear his beliefs about the historicity of the gospels are based ONLY on opinions his a priori beliefs would find reasonable. I’d bet my house the facts I outlined, which anyone can check in a few minutes online, will be dismissed or waved away, with appeal to authority and argumentum ad populum fallacies, that cite a consensus of the subjective religious beliefs of biblical scholars, even if that contradicts the facts just presented. If he doesn’t falsely accuse me of bias without even attempting to demonstrate any evidence, it’ll be the first time on here.
Like the no true Scotsman fallacy he created that creates a sub group of people unable (according to him and without evidence) to properly examine evidence for a deity, which consists of…wait for it…anyone who doesn’t hold any theistic belief, and all so he can prepare the way for the poisoning of the well fallacy he has then trotted out every time he is asked to evidence or justify any claim. He’s not just dismissing any argument or challenges to his arguments a priori before anyone presents them, he dismissing them without offering anything to challenge or examine.
He doesn’t want to, as this would mean he couldn’t use a false equivalence fallacy to pretend all historical facts are the subjective anonymous hearsay in the gospels.
Then he can present the same false dichotomy we have seem Christians present time and again, along the lines of you must believe the gospels are true if you belief Alexander the Great existed.
Hilarious…
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Do you find think the Spider-Man films are factual? They’re based in real 21st century New York city? I think you can see why this isn’t a sufficient reason to believe it is true, and we know who wrote every word of those movies, the gospels are all anonymous, and written in Greek, the people in that part of the world including Jesus did not speak Greek, they spoke Aramaic or early Hebrew dialects.
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Many scholars hold subjective religious beliefs, and if you had said Jesus and not the christ, your argumentum ad populum fallacy might have been less easy to spot, but still irrational nonetheless.
See what you need to do is demonstrate some scholarly work that has passed peer review, not that someone with a common enough name might have existed, but that he was a deity who use supernatural magic, as calling him the christ suggests, but I’m guessing you knew that, and won’t revisit this with any such evidence, as I am dubious it exists.
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I think many more probably assert someone named Jesus probably existed. Richard Carrier gives Jesus a 30% chance of possible existence based on his research, and he identifies as a mythicist. There is a lot of difference between some itinerant preacher named Jesus and a magic man walking on water, spitting in people’s eyes, and creating zombies. Calling this possible character ‘Christ’ is poisoning the well. I doubt that most reputable historians will assert that a magic man named Christ existed.
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Indeed, I’ve already mentioned here on several occasions, that the business of being an apocalyptic preacher in first-century Judea isn’t a remarkable idea - apocalyptic preaching was practically a cottage industry in first-century Judea.
The Roman occupiers thereof provided independent corroboration of this, along with accounts of how some of the emotions stirred up by said preachers caused them several administrative headaches.
Though the Romans also realised that clamping down hard on this cottage industry was more trouble than it was worth. The inhabitants of the region were more than willing to become involved with violent conflict with the Romans, if the Romans trod on their religious toes, so to speak.
Of course, I’ve also mentioned that the “Jesus character” could very easily have been a composite, drawn from several actually existing but otherwise anonymous members of the requisite demographic.
Hard evidence that the “Jesus character” was a single individual is on its own scant at best, and so the composition hypothesis I’ve offered up here remains plausible, not least because such composites can be found elsewhere in literature, particularly in fiction.
Of course, even if archaeologists alight upon compelling evidence tomorrow supporting the historical Jesus idea, this still doesn’t provide an atom of support for any of the ridiculous supernatural bollocks that’s been welded onto this character in the requisite mythology.
I enjoyed a particularly piquant episode of schadenfreude related to this issue, when Michael Licona was sacked from a seminary, for suggesting that the zombie bollocks in Matthew was merely allegorical, and not historical fact. Though as another commentator on the other forum in question remarked, when you make your ideological bed with inerrantists, this is the sort of reaction you should expect if you present even the mildest suggestion to them, that nonsense assertions should be disregarded.
Though of course, another piece of humour was provided by Kalamity Kraig, when someone asked him how he would react, if [1] he was invited to journey back to first-century Judea in a time machine to witness the “resurrection”, and [2] observed for himself that the tale was fiction.
His response effectively consisted of reaffirming what we know about mythology fanboys and their modus operandi . His answer consisted, at bottom, of “if reality and my mythology disagree, then reality is wrong and my mythology is right”.
Anyone who takes him seriously as a “philosopher” after that, should take a long, hard look in the mirror. As should Craig himself.
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Do you have a reference to this? I’d like to read more about it.
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Ding ding ding ding ding, we have a winner!
Wait, what, are you denying the eyewitness testimony?
There is no eyewitness testimony, none, not one word written in the anonymous hearsay of the gospels is contemporary. Just to be clear if you had Jesus’s DNA, his foreskin in a jar of formaldehyde, 3 rusty nails with his blood on them, and the bloodied tip of a Roman spear, all with a DNA match, along with signed notarised affidavits from Pilate, all twelve disciples, fuck that splitter Judas, a couple of centurions, Mary and Joseph, all swearing that the fucking tomb was firmly secured, and the corpse in it, and that the following morning it was mysteriously empty, then 3 days later there he fucking was large as life.
I would still not believe them, because claims of inexplicable magic from an epoch of extreme ignorance and superstition, are of about as much evidential value as the average mother’s opinion on the beauty of her newborn baby.
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The original forum post where I was told about this dates to 2012.
There’s also this account from John Loftus that exposes Craig via a different route, but results in essentially the same answer.
In that other forum, I had fun with one of the usual suspects courtesy of this post. Yes, there’s a nice historical record of my output, so that such details as post style can be checked if ever you find in imposter turning up here. 
Craig has been known to be a charlatan for a long time among people with functioning neurons, but the fanboys continue to spoon up whatever collapsed apologetic soufflés he continues to serve up. “Reasonable faith” my arse.
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