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?
Do you consider Jesus the risen god?
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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.
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Have we even come close to identifying anything 'supernatural?" What the hell is this ‘supernatural’ thing the theists keep mumbling on about?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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He’s consistent, you have to give him that much, he started with fallacious and irrational reasoning, and has persevered.
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!
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Really? I never saw it going any other way after 7 months of the debating equivalent of dodgeball.
Now that I agree with, objective erudition is always a welcome relief from the closed minded assertions of blind faith.
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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. 
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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.
I have no idea what post you were replying to.
I did?
The only evidence we have is historic literature.
?
The question of exactly why one finds all this compelling is a great question. But not something with a two line answer, not as I see it anyway. This is a philosophical question too, how do we decide if some fantastic story is rooted in truth or not. We all need to be able to answer this, if we can’t (and the atheists generally can’t) then we have no place even stating a position in the first place.
An honest person would look at the text and remain open minded, saying “I don’t know, I don’t know if these things did or did not take place” rather than insist they did not, that’s not what an open minded seeker after truth does.
No living human being “knows” with 100% confidence that the claims are true or false, in what sense they are true, to what degree they are literally true, whether they are intended to be taken as literally true or a symbolic.
If incredulity alone underpins the doubters position then that’s not an objective basis for deciding, it’s subjective and the antithesis of the oft-cited atheist reliance on “objective” evidence.
I don’t know, it is not clear to me, there are different ways to interpret what is written in the gospels and different people interpret it in different ways.
I stopped seeking an “objective” a “correct” interpretation of this years ago. I am now of the view that the text is (by “design”) specifically intended to have differing interpretations, that God speak to each of us in different ways, at different times.
Yeah, you seem to have some difficulties with discerning the differences between widely divergent points. I openly accept that others accept that Bigfoot exists…etc., etc…
Well congratulations, you have exceeded the previous record for posing strawmen.
I have not once even remotely suggested
that I accept any claims in the gospels.
Whether I do or not is, once again irrelevant to your claims, but is yet another of your deflections.
And so here we are again with your tired attempts to shift the burden of proof by demanding verification criteria from those who have made no positive claim.
I find it completely appropriate that you have an obsession with the terms vacuous or vacuity,
considering the obvious absence of any basis whatsoever for the claims of supernaturality.
Now I have reached a point similar to one my cats reach when they have toyed with and chewed on a mouse until it is no longer entertaining.
You have repeatedly demonstrated deliberate evasion, duplicity, and a willingness to avoid being honest and forthcoming.
Try try try to grasp the fact that whether or not I am convinced of the existence of Jesus, is completely and totally irrelevant to :
A. Whether or not he actually existed
B. If he existed was he more than a mortal man
C. Is there a god ( any gods)
Frankly, I tire of your banality…
Edit (now what did I do with that catnip?)
Yes indeed, there is rather a dearth of clarity when it comes to your actual position. Even that pronouncement is vague, should I infer “I do not accept any” or simply “I have not said whether I accept any”?
I simply asked what IS your position, and you don’t really seem to know.
- Do you or do you not regard anything reported in (say) the gospels as true, historically trustworthy?
- If so, how do you decide what to accept as true and what not?
- If you reject all reports in the gospels then how do you reconcile that with the fact that the majority of scholarship consider Jesus the person to have existed?
Care to answer?
If you met someone who claimed they owned a car and some magic beans, would you believe both claims, neither claims, or would you be selective?
Click the link in the top RH corner, it took two clicks to reach your post he was answering.
The Legends of Hercules are historic literature, so are the casualty records from the battle of somme, do you think they are equally reliable, if not why not? Come on you can do this I’m sure.
You see your rationale is flawed again, we don’t need to decide, we can not know and withhold belief, just as any agnostic atheist does.
Straw man fallacy, no matter how many times you misrepresent atheism as necessitating a contrary a claim to theism, it does not. An honest and open minded person would not keep dishonestly misrepresenting the position of other people in a debate where they had relentlessly explained the error.
irony?
You see, @skriten is telling you, as has everyone else, that he can withhold belief in the gospel myths, and remain dubious about them, but without making a contrary claim, an honest open minded person would not ignore this and keep dishonestly misrepresenting him, and others.
Another rather silly lie.
Anyway time for my evening repast.
Look I don’t care for bitterness, invective and abuse, believe what you want, this is the last response you will get from me in the forum going forward. Either apologize for your rude and abusive attacks on my character and honesty and calling me a liar or you can piss in the wind, because I don’t have time for juvenility like this, it has no place in adult discourse.
I think you get the picture, this is the last direct response you’ll ever get from me, if it hasn’t sunk in yet that calling me a “liar” doesn’t incline me to want to converse with you then there’s nothing more to be done.
Another last time?!?! Wow! Do you actually know the meaning of the term, “last time”?
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