Originally posted by Johnny EC

Now I now that dispies often affiliate the "enemy to the north" with Russia, but where exactly in the Bible are America and China mentioned?

I don't know about China, but I do know that some folks believe that America not being mentioned is proof that it will no longer be influential in world affairs when the "end times" roll around, so in their minds, America's supposed decline as a world power is to be expected.

Personally, I'm glad to have been introduced to preterism since I no longer have to try and reconcile this nonsense.

I found out that someone had been posting my replies to Sam Harris on his forum, without my clearance (not that I mind necessarily) and it's become a Screwball mine:

http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3055

(I give permission for this link to stay.) The idiots there think it is me posting.

Response 1:

Look sir, no one in his right mind would want to debate with you and a common-sense approach as Sam Harris takes in his critique of theism is aimed at the common, believing theist not at some kind of scholastic, catholic apologist gone mad, i.e., you. It is quite obvious from your long-winded put down of what you call Harris's unsophistication and his poor reasoning, that you will go to any length to defend your religion. You are waaayyyyy beyond the capacity to appreciate any kind of common sense.

The Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith, were not meant for the ten in a billion spectacular text-spinners such as yourself. No, I think Sam's audience and the target for his well reasoned attacks are the other 999,999,990 in a billion theists who inhabit this planet. Theists who realize that the Inquisition was evidence that what is acceptable and sanctioned by religion can sometimes be horrific and inhuman - Sam is appealing to that kind of common sense.

I haven't read part two of your reply but I can almost guess what you have to say about slavery . . . more Orwellian double-speak. It's actually a good life, the life of a slave (and you should know!).

Oh, Sam wrote for stupid people, I see.


Response 2:

JP, I've been familiar with your web site for quite some time. You are, or try to be, to Christian apology what AIG and CRI are to creationism. Like them, you use doublespeak, quotes out-of-context, half-truths and just plain lies to comfort your flock and keep them in the corral.

No support among biblical scholars for a non-existent Christ? Malarkey! Would you please cite a competent archaeologist who has knowledge of a settlement at Nazareth that was existent in the early first century? Oh, and while you're at it, could you produce a single Christian writer prior to Eusebius who quotes the Testimonium Flavianum? That's right, none of them do. The passage is obviously forged (probably by Eusebius), and was known to be such as early as the 18th century. It has only been in the last hundred years that desperate apologists, such as yourself, have reopened the "debate" and tried to redefine the passage as authentic.

The main problem you have, other then credibility, is that you don't speak for all of the 34,000 different Christian sects. You would like us to forget about the fundies who take every single word of the bible as absolute literal fact, wouldn't you? And yet you criticize those who lump all of you together in one pot don't you?

Well, you are in one pot, whether you like it or not, and the inquisition was just as much an expression of Christianity as the folks who protest at military funerals.

By the way, why is Wikepedia about to delete your bio page?

Oh wow. Harris attracts idiots who think that Nazareth didn't exist and think Josephan scholars have some sort of plot for showing that the TF is valid. Including Jewish scholars like Feldman.

(I actually like that Wikipedia is deleting its entry about me, by the way. I asked them to, if they couldn't keep idiots like this one from defacing it with nonsense claims.)

Response #3:

JP, evening,
I have but one question. You criticise Sam for his disbelief based on a poor "understanding" of the Bible. Do you, as well, criticise those who believe based on an even more superficial treatment of the same book? Do Christians who do not "understand" the book as you do have any rational basis of belief?

Yes I do. No they don't. And I have said so many times. Next.

Response #4:

So on the one hand we have the view of hell held by those who claim to have spoken with god in ancient times and the view of hell held by educated christians in nowadays. Well, stupee, if the ancient people were wrong then the whole christianity is wrong, that means yours too. Or are you a new breed of priests that hijack old concept to gain a little power? You know, just like ancient christians hijacked the concept of "Word" from the greeks in order to "sell" their god, you are hijacking Jesus in oder to "sell" a new hell. You should be ashamed of yourself now, not in the after life.

Hmm, someone seems to have never heard of ANE hypostases.

Response #5:

Welcome, *****. TheChamp sometimes gets weary spewing his ridiculous lies all over the place. He needs your help trying to keep us all as stupid as you are.

Please expand a bit more on the circumstances under which it's ok to specifically target and murder little children. And then tell us all about the evils of moral relativism.

Yep, Harris sure attracts the intellects over there.

Various citizens:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,229641,00.html

Nevertheless, 82 percent of gay marriage opponents say it runs counter to their religious beliefs. For Jeff Ellis, the Bible was clear that being gay, much less being gay and married, was a sin in the highest order. Rev. Bob Hudak, of the Church of Nativity in Fayetteville, Georgia, puts it even more bluntly."If I were to take the Bible literally," says Hudak, "every homosexual should be put to death because of what Leviticus says."

Nevertheless, with some interpretation, the Ellises have found other passages in the Bible that have given them hope, such as John 8:7, in which Jesus says to a crowd criticizing an adulterous woman, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Jeff asks: "If the story were to be exchanged with a gay man, would Jesus have responded differently? Would he have said, 'You have my blessing in stoning this man to death?' I don't think so."

Originally posted by Darth Executor

Various citizens:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,229641,00.html

This is a YouTube viewer who seems to believe almost all wars in history were caused by religion. He posted on someone's profile saying so, and I responded by saying how false it was:

Originally posted by P-Dunn

"THIS GUY IS BRILLIANT!!!! MOST WARS ARE CAUSE OF RELIGION(RELIGIOUS WAR) POWER AND LAND TOO BUT MOSTLY RELIGION. PEOPLE ARE SO DELUSIONAL THEY ARE WILLING TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES TO THEIR SO CALL GOD (ALLAH), (JESUS), ETC. IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, ITS KINDA SAD AND STUPID."

Let's see, now. Most wars are caused by religion? That's completely false: 89.2% of wars were fought on matters completely unrelated to religion. Out of the 489 wars Wikipedia lists as major conflicts, only 53 of them can be counted as religious, and that's after including the 10 Crusades.

I'll let you ponder that one for a while.

This is his angry tirade of a response to me, heavily edited.

Originally posted by TheS3xiiness

hhahaa ponder? are u retarded? WOW!! your a [string of expletives] im speechless wow! look at the history ever since isaac and ishmael made their own religion (christianity)and (muslims) there was always WAR!!! more like 89.2% of war were fought on matters completely related to religion!!! Go learn the history and come back and talk to me lol!! Google president Iran speech he says he will wip Isreal off the map with a mushroom cloud. And he says he will create chaos and jesus and allah wil come down and muslims will win the war at armegeddon and jesus will convert to muslim at the shrine. Also why is Iran so angry about U.S. and Israel? they hadnt done [expletive] to Iran and hes already planning WAR! so there u go.

I'll let you ponder that one for a while.

• Edited by a Moderator •

Oh, I do love YouTube. Plenty of Screwballs there.

Moderated By: Jill

Please use appropriate language, even in quoted text. ***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.*** Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publically complain or whine, please take it to the Psychotherapy Room unless told otherwise.

• Edited by a Moderator •

Originally posted by Johnny EC

• Edited by a Moderator •

EDIT: Linky Linky.

No can do, Johnny. This is a private message conversation.

Earl Doherty (jesuspuzzle.com) wins Gold for finally becoming too stupid for me to address. His latest effort has him barking at the heels of real scholars like Michael Grant for not taking the nutsy Jesus myth idea seriously. And I appear only thusly:

The notorious Internet apologist, J. P. Holding (a pseudonym), has offered the following as an explanation for the universal silence on the life of Jesus in the epistles: there was no need to mention any of this stuff—everyone already knew it! Quite apart from this never being a reason for Christian writers and preachers, since the Gospels were adopted, not to make mention of things we already knew, it is based on more than one unlikely assumption. Are we to assume that this awareness would universally lead all Christian writers before the Gospels (and many after) to remain silent, suppressing their own instinct to talk about the historical Jesus? Are we to assume that in fact, in every Christian community, everyone did know everything there was to know about Jesus’ life, even in newly-formed congregations such as Paul sometimes writes to? Perhaps such congregations circulated memos admonishing those who wrote to them not to mention details about Jesus because they already knew everything there was to know and were tired of hearing it. (One wonders if Mr. Holding ever receives complaints from his wife that he never tells her that he loves her. Perhaps he answers: “But, dear, you don’t need to be told. You already know that I love you!”)

No mention of my points about high context vs low context -- he apparently never checks my material for updates.

Holding claims that only if someone forgets a piece of information does it become necessary to remind him of it. To judge by Paul’s letters, many people did indeed forget what Jesus had said on earth, since they were still arguing over issues that Jesus supposedly had settled. Here is Holding’s “need,” yet no one answers the call.

He tried to show this in his Sound of Silence nonsense and failed all 200 times.

Sentiments like those of Stanton and Holding are beyond naïve. They are a denial, a surrender, of common sense reasoning which a moment’s consideration should render dismissible. The problem is, like so many of the glib arguments used against mythicism, they have not been given a moment’s consideration.

I guess the concept of high context is one part of that denial.

Originally posted by Various Citizens

Nevertheless, with some interpretation, the Ellises have found other passages in the Bible that have given them hope, such as John 8:7, in which Jesus says to a crowd criticizing an adulterous woman, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."

I think that along with "Judge not lest you be judged" are two of the most abused verses in the Bible.

Originally posted by Earl Doherty

The notorious Internet apologist, J. P. Holding (a pseudonym)...

On that point, I have to thank JP for using a pseudonym since the clueless can never seem to resist identifying themselves by pointing out that it is a pseudonym, as if that had any relevance to anything.

Originally posted by Mountain Man

On that point, I have to thank JP for using a pseudonym since the clueless can never seem to resist identifying themselves by pointing out that it is a pseudonym, as if that had any relevance to anything.

Or the clueless tend to use pseudonyms so nobody can check out their qualifications, or lack thereof

Originally posted by Sevivon1913

Or the clueless tend to use pseudonyms so nobody can check out their qualifications, or lack thereof

You mean like "Sevivon1913?"

sheesh.

Or the clueless tend to use pseudonyms so nobody can check out their qualifications, or lack thereof

You mean like Mark Twain, or Julie Andrews, or Fred Astaire, or Eric Clapton, or Bruce Lee? How about this list? http://home.tiscali.be/patrick.verbo...pseudonym.html

Originally posted by Sparko

You mean like "Sevivon1913?"

sheesh.

I'd be more than happy to give you my real name. I'm not ashamed of it.


Hmm, Mark Twain? I didn't know that one. I love Clint Eastwood's real name

Originally posted by Sevivon1913

Hmm, Mark Twain? I didn't know that one.

I am restraining the librarian in me from giving you a whack.

Originally posted by Sevivon1913

Or the clueless tend to use pseudonyms so nobody can check out their qualifications, or lack thereof

Yeah, no wonder I put a resume' on my site. How hard do you work to get this stupid, anyway?