MAJOR derail from Screwball Thread

[bridgeforsale]

Pretty ignorant and sheltered assessment coming from a supposedly intelligent atheist (but of course only arrogant twits become fanatical atheists).



Which one, dumbass??? You forget to name it. I'll be back tomorrow to see how far your idiocy goes....

I'm thinking the merits of Christianity (or something along those lines). I'll even avoid commenting in this thread further until I hear back from you (you ingraits can have a blast talking trash about me in my absence).

[Darth Executor]

you ingraits

What the heck is an "ingrait"? Maybe you mean ingrate, but if that's the case it makes even less sense than a made-up word because we have nothing to be grateful to you for (except the belly laughs you've provided so far).

[Darth Ovious]

Please ... I began this whole thing by asking a reasonable question, which turned into a few oft remarks regarding my views. As soon as I identified my position your little cult came swarming like a hive of bees.

You guys could never hold your own among reasonable well educated people. You win debates only in your own mind. But I'll debate you (after all, I have no reason to care either way how you people perceive me, since you're a bunch of bigots anyway).

Oh please, stop playing the victim card when it was you who threw the first punch. Steve has already shown you the post you made in regards to this. I'll post it again and show you where you insulted us.

I started by asking how this individual was immoral; to which I still have no answer (all I could find on the internet was that he's a former pastor who is now an atheist apologist). Why should I believe this man's ideological opponents regarding his character.

Well you didn't exactly wait long enough for somebody to show you. You just blurted out, "no he can't be, you must be wrong, he's an atheist and I agree with him".

Besides being a classic ad hominem -- it's also a red herring, because atheist arguments are pretty straight forward. There's no need to rely on the moral integrity of the person making the argument. Atheists are not the ones endorsing ancient stories of flying angels and god-men who rise from the dead

It's not a red herring. John Loftus is commonly known as a liar here. He even admitted it through his own comments. Why should anybody believe what he has to say? He could be deliberately trying to be dishonest in order to score a point within an argument.

The fact that you're saying that we don't need to rely on his moral integrity because atheist arguments are mostly straightforward just shows how little you think of Christians. Apparently you're saying that he doesn't need to lie because we are quite obviously wrong and delusional.

Atheists make claims that can usually be examined on their face. For instance, where is this god who at one time made so many appearances to our ancient predecessors? From splitting seas to rising god-men to turning rivers into blood, sticks into snakes, flooding the earth, knocking down ancient sky-scrapers, and all the rest .... but then all of a sudden not a peep (coincidentally just as man began quantifying the physical universe through the prism of science).

Challenger Grim has already shown you wrong on this. It's not like 4000 years ago God decided to perform miracles on a daily basis. The fact is God likes Naturalism, thats the laws of the Universe he choose and he will only break them in order to perform one time special events on a very rare occurrence.

Atheists say (simply) weight this against the evidence you do have for religion, like copies upon copies of yet more copies of ancient manuscripts no one can agree on (or two sentences by Josephus, and we're not even sure to what extent those writings were interpolations)?

I think you over-exaggerate. We do not have copies of copies of yet more copies of ancient manuscripts. We have good accounts on what happened. The fact that you say these kinds of things tells me that you didn't really study the matter. Have you ever heard of Craig Blomberg? He is a Historian with a professional degree and here is what he had to say in one of his lectures.

It is widely agreed that the text particularly of the New Testament, certainly of both testaments compared to works of the ancient world in general, but particularly the New Testament, because of the thousands of manuscripts first in Greek and in other ancient languages that have been preserved from the first millennium of the Christian era hundreds from the first several centuries from fragments to relatively complete documents that we are able to reconstruct to 97 some would say 99 plus % certainty to what the original new testament writers wrote.

http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesu...research.htm\\

He says it about 7 minutes into the lecture.

Also even a skeptical scholar like E.P. Sanders says that we know a surprisingly large amount about Jesus.

As for what you say about Josephus, two things.

1) The majority of scholars believe that the passage is authentic despite some interpolation and with the interpolations removed, they still think it refers to Jesus as a wonder maker.

2) The main study for the life of Jesus are the New Testament documents anyway. So maybe you should see what scholars have to say on those instead of getting your panties in a twist.

Obviously there's dozens of more arguments (I could have fun and start picking on Kirk Cameron's project to discredit evolutionary science and discuss the millions of pieces of evidence in the form of fossil records we have, but that's too easy ); but in the interest of brevity (and no overwhelming desire to engage on this issue) I'll stop here.

Oh yeah, because kirk Cameron is the authority on behalf of all Christians. Start picking at him if you want, I don't think anybody here would actually care. It's not like we look at him as the authority on the subject of evolution.

There's your problem right there. Picking apart Christians like Cameron isn't going to do much. It's just going to make us think that you are even more ignorant. NOT even the YEC's on this message board look at him as the main figure in anti-evolutionary argumentation. So epic fail right there.

Also I'm not sure who here in this section is actually YEC, so I don't know who you would be discussing with on that matter.

[Darth Executor]

I could have fun and start picking on Kirk Cameron

This moron thinks there's people here who give a crap about Kirk Cameron? Kirk Cameron is an imbecile, and the only time his name comes up is when he gets a screwball for being a stupid fundy. YD thinks that because he was (and still is) a stupid fundy, everyone else must be just as stupid, incompetent and ignorant as he is.

[lilpixieofterror]

You guys could never hold your own among reasonable well educated people. You win debates only in your own mind. But I'll debate you (after all, I have no reason to care either way how you people perceive me, since you're a bunch of bigots anyway).

If that is the case, take me on in a debate on women in the Bible or are you scared to? In fact, I'll even give you a shot at refuting my article on this topic and as a bonus... I'll even let you try to refute the one I'm writing on the POE, think you can refute any of these two things I'm writing or are you (just as I suspect) a chicken that can't debate himself out of a paper bag?

[Rational Gaze]

And the dumbass still hasn't got back to me. You know, I am considering debating him in the Advanced Debate 301 board, but that would be like going after a fly with a Mark IX Naquadah Enhanced Tactical Nuclear Device.

[Manwë Súlimo]

And the dumbass still hasn't got back to me. You know, I am considering debating him in the Advanced Debate 301 board, but that would be like going after a fly with a Mark IX Naquadah Enhanced Tactical Nuclear Device.

I have a feeling he'll pull a Member and suddenly not find time to debate.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Is this what you'all do with your time .... sit around & talk junk about people who disagree with you? What a bunch of small little minds.

No. We spend our times educating ourselves as well so we don't speak out on topics we know nothing about, like you are.

[VenomX]

Wow, am I late to this thread. That's what I get for not checking TWeb for a couple of days. *sigh*

My favorite part so far is when J.P. called Yankee Doodle a "politically correct deck ape." That's classic!

[bridgeforsale]

The fact that you're saying that we don't need to rely on his moral integrity because atheist arguments are mostly straightforward just shows how little you think of Christians. Apparently you're saying that he doesn't need to lie because we are quite obviously wrong and delusional.

pretty much, yes (that is what I was saying, though it may have been a bit pretentious).

Challenger Grim has already shown you wrong on this. It's not like 4000 years ago God decided to perform miracles on a daily basis. The fact is God likes Naturalism, thats the laws of the Universe he choose and he will only break them in order to perform one time special events on a very rare occurrence.

on that premise you can invent any set of myths you want to, and create a condition where rational objectors can only prove you wrong if they have a time machine at their disposal (which is absurd).

If there's any such thing as objective truth then that is the standard religiosity should be judged by.

Yes there may have only been a half dozen or so profound manifestations of divine power alleged by the bible, but there were hundreds (perhaps thousands) of less dramatic manifestations of power (and divine contact with man). When is the last time you can think of that someone has said god talked to me, in the articulate way he, say, allegedly spoke to Isaiah? Even most pastors, if questioned using a lie detector test, would have to admit they've never experienced this sort of divine contact (or anything close).

Creation of the universe, the flood, confusion of languages (Babel), Sodom & Gomorrah, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, birth of Isaac, the burning bush, Aaron's rod transformed into a serpent, the ten plagues, red sea divided, waters of Marah sweetened, manna sent from heaven daily, water from the rock at Rephidim, Nadab and Abihu consumed, people consumed by fire at Taberah, the earth opens and swallows Korah, fire and plague at Kadesh, serpent in the desert of Zin, Balaam's ass speaks, the Jordan divided, the walls of Jericho fall down .... that's only a small sampling of the miracles listed in the old testament (I haven't even began to explore NT miracles).

The point is if god's intervention (and power) was such a profound part of the ancient life of his people, then where is he today? Comparatively, why is the presence of god claimed by modern religious adherents a collection of obscure claims by people, which in reality are most likely outbursts of emotion that only feel like a god or spirit because they're indoctrinated to believe it's a god or spirit (even though obviously it's just emotional reactions to belief in fantastic myths).

I think you over-exaggerate. We do not have copies of copies of yet more copies of ancient manuscripts. We have good accounts on what happened. The fact that you say these kinds of things tells me that you didn't really study the matter. Have you ever heard of Craig Blomberg? He is a Historian with a professional degree and here is what he had to say in one of his lectures.

The earliest new testament manuscript we have is of the book of John, dating from 125-160 AD. The rest of the new testament manuscripts we have date from between 175 up to the 4th century. There's not a single manuscript in our possession (unless the Vatican has them hidden somewhere, which I doubt) that dates any earlier than a full century after the events it alleges.

http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesu...research.htm\\

He says it about 7 minutes into the lecture.

Also even a skeptical scholar like E.P. Sanders says that we know a surprisingly large amount about Jesus.

As for what you say about Josephus, two things.

1) The majority of scholars believe that the passage is authentic despite some interpolation and with the interpolations removed, they still think it refers to Jesus as a wonder maker.

2) The main study for the life of Jesus are the New Testament documents anyway. So maybe you should see what scholars have to say on those instead of getting your panties in a twist.

most scholars do not believe Josephus referred to Jesus as a "wonder maker" (it's more appropriate to say many scholars believe Josephus mentioned Jesus, which has been corrupted by interpolations of unspecified quantity).

However, I think there's probably more striking evidence showing that Jesus may very well have existed. Mara bar Sarapion (the Syrian imprisoned by the Romans). But what's remarkable is he mentions Jesus' death, but not his resurrection:

For what benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death, seeing that they received as retribution for it famine and pestilence? Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras, seeing that in one hour the whole of their country was covered with sand? Or the Jews by the murder of their Wise King, seeing that from that very time their kingdom was driven away from them? For with justice did God grant a recompense to the wisdom of all three of them. For the Athenians died by famine; and the people of Samos were covered by the sea without remedy; and the Jews, brought to desolation and expelled from their kingdom, are driven away into every land. Nay, Socrates did “not” die, because of Plato; nor yet Pythagoras, because of the statue of Hera; nor yet the Wise King, because of the new laws which he enacted. [//http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.ix.xvii.html CCEL]

Interestingly the most striking thing about historical references to Jesus isn't Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, or Suetonius; but rather how little historical evidence there is supporting the fantastic claim of a resurrected god-man. You would think if there were thousands of people who believed a god-man was resurrected from the dead -- running around the Hellenic world -- there would have some mention of it during the time period it happened (somewhere), and perhaps more importantly in the geographical area many of the events described by the new testament allegedly occurred in (rather than 40 plus years later by a Palestinian Jew who moved to Rome, a Syrian, and two Roman historians).

Oh yeah, because kirk Cameron is the authority on behalf of all Christians. Start picking at him if you want, I don't think anybody here would actually care. It's not like we look at him as the authority on the subject of evolution.

cool ...

There's your problem right there. Picking apart Christians like Cameron isn't going to do much. It's just going to make us think that you are even more ignorant. NOT even the YEC's on this message board look at him as the main figure in anti-evolutionary argumentation. So epic fail right there.

OK

Also I'm not sure who here in this section is actually YEC, so I don't know who you would be discussing with on that matter.

I do understand YEC is a small movement within larger Christianity (though I have no idea how popular it is). Anyway, I'm perfectly willing to focus solely on the old and new testaments (unless someone wants to challenge me on evolution .... of course I'm only one guy & I do have a job and other responsibilities, so I have to apportion my time accordingly).

[bridgeforsale]

Wow, am I late to this thread. That's what I get for not checking TWeb for a couple of days. *sigh*

My favorite part so far is when J.P. called Yankee Doodle a "politically correct deck ape." That's classic!

what's more striking to me is I was under the impression that individual was a professional apologist (which one would assume means he maintains some degree of tact and composure in his statements). Apparently I was way off base (it seems he's the least mature participant in this thread).

[bridgeforsale]

If that is the case, take me on in a debate on women in the Bible or are you scared to? In fact, I'll even give you a shot at refuting my article on this topic and as a bonus... I'll even let you try to refute the one I'm writing on the POE, think you can refute any of these two things I'm writing or are you (just as I suspect) a chicken that can't debate himself out of a paper bag?

I'm glad to debate any gender on the merits of the bible. However, why in the world would an atheist have an interest in debating something like "women in the Bible"?

If you like I'll promise to debunk all your mythological characters equally (regardless of gender)

[Rational Gaze]

If you like I'll promise to debunk all your mythological characters equally (regardless of gender)

You mean people like Abraham who is mentioned in a topographical list of Shoshenq I? People like David who is mentioned in the Tell Dan Stela?

How about "fictional" places like Ninevah and the Hittite Empire that were later discovered? Or maybe the Jewish Temple and the walls of Jerusalem that have recently been unearthed? Not even critical scholars dispute the historicity of the Divided Monarchy period and afterwards. Or how about places in the NT like Nazareth and the Pool of Bethsesda which were later confirmed to be very real places?

Jesus himself is mentioned 10 extra-biblical non-Christian sources, 27 extra-biblical Christian sources and then there is the NT documents themselves, all within 150 years of his life. That is better than Alexander the Great, whose most accurate biography was written 400 years after his death. Tiberius Caesar is mentioned a grand total of 10 times within 150 years of his death. Socrates is only mentioned in the writings of Plato and a few others. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, that obliterated Pompeii killed thousands of people and had a gigantic ash plume was mentioned once, decades after the event only because Tacitus asked Pliny the Younger to write about it.

I'll debate on you on the Jesus Myth Hypothesis... and promptly bury you in the dirt. Meh.

[bridgeforsale]

You mean people like Abraham who is mentioned in a topographical list of Shoshenq I? People like David who is mentioned in the Tell Dan Stela?

How about "fictional" places like Ninevah and the Hittite Empire that were later discovered? Or maybe the Jewish Temple and the walls of Jerusalem that have recently been unearthed? Not even critical scholars dispute the historicity of the Divided Monarchy period and afterwards. Or how about places in the NT like Nazareth and the Pool of Bethsesda which were later confirmed to be very real places?

Jesus himself is mentioned 10 extra-biblical non-Christian sources, 27 extra-biblical Christian sources and then there is the NT documents themselves, all within 150 years of his life. That is better than Alexander the Great, whose most accurate biography was written 400 years after his death. Tiberius Caesar is mentioned a grand total of 10 times within 150 years of his death. Socrates is only mentioned in the writings of Plato and a few others. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, that obliterated Pompeii killed thousands of people and had a gigantic ash plume was mentioned once, decades after the event only because Tacitus asked Pliny the Younger to write about it.

I'll debate on you on the Jesus Myth Hypothesis... and promptly bury you in the dirt. Meh.

Nice job debating a red herring ... but I'm afraid that I don't buy the Jesus myth hypothesis either, which should have been apparent from my last post (or at least I don't give the idea serious consideration). It's not uncommon for myths to contain accurate depictions of historical events; but that doesn't matter.

[jpholding]

I'm thinking the merits of Christianity (or something along those lines).

Try being a little more specific, Poodle Boy.

I'll even avoid commenting in this thread further until I hear back from you (you ingraits can have a blast talking trash about me in my absence).

You can learn to spell "ingrates" in the meantime.

Here, I challenge you to debate me on this crap you pulled out of your kiester:

The earliest new testament manuscript we have is of the book of John, dating from 125-160 AD. The rest of the new testament manuscripts we have date from between 175 up to the 4th century. There's not a single manuscript in our possession (unless the Vatican has them hidden somewhere, which I doubt) that dates any earlier than a full century after the events it alleges.

And my reply is: SO WHAT? Just what exactly do you think the problem is with this, dumbass?

Or better yet, let's debate this idiocy of yours:

Interestingly the most striking thing about historical references to Jesus isn't Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, or Suetonius; but rather how little historical evidence there is supporting the fantastic claim of a resurrected god-man. You would think if there were thousands of people who believed a god-man was resurrected from the dead -- running around the Hellenic world -- there would have some mention of it during the time period it happened (somewhere), and perhaps more importantly in the geographical area many of the events described by the new testament allegedly occurred in (rather than 40 plus years later by a Palestinian Jew who moved to Rome, a Syrian, and two Roman historians).

OH NO! The Rembserg Manuever!!! Please, please debate me on this! I'll slosh mustard all over you and have you for breakfast!

The Poodle is about to find out that when he thought Kirk Cameron was Da Man, he was waaaay off base....

Heck, MY poodle is smarter than this guy....