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Post by clusium on Dec 11, 2017 23:10:48 GMT
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Post by progressiveelement on Dec 11, 2017 23:33:42 GMT
I'm sure all those "ex-military" people who claim there are aliens flying robot shuttles seem convincing too.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2017 23:41:07 GMT
How can jesus prove that god exists when it's not even certain that jesus exists? It's like that line in Superman - "You've got me?! Who's got you?!" |
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Post by lowtacks86 on Dec 11, 2017 23:46:58 GMT
How can Jesus "prove" God when it's uncertain Jesus exists to begin with? That's like saying Lex Luthor proves Superman.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2017 23:54:15 GMT
How can Jesus "prove" God when it's uncertain Jesus exists to begin with? That's like saying Lex Luthor proves Superman. Whoa... Deja Vu. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2017 23:58:07 GMT
Incidentally one can watch a pretty good atheist response to his book Cold Case Christianity here :
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Post by Catman 猫的主人 on Dec 11, 2017 23:58:52 GMT
Carts prove the existence of horses.
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Post by clusium on Dec 12, 2017 0:03:57 GMT
Carts prove the existence of horses. Yep. That's right.  |
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Post by progressiveelement on Dec 12, 2017 0:18:24 GMT
Carts prove the existence of horses. Yep. That's right. Actually, no. It could prove oxen, elephants or several slaves being used. |
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Post by thefleetsin on Dec 12, 2017 0:37:22 GMT
and i have proof that botox can make jim baker look ridiculous without even mentioning jesus.
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Post by gadreel on Dec 12, 2017 0:56:15 GMT
The gospels are testable?  ?? How so?? Did he walk on water? |
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Post by goz on Dec 12, 2017 2:43:34 GMT
Yep. That's right. Actually, no. It could prove oxen, elephants or several slaves being used. Actually, in Clusium's case I think it could be a case of what we call in Australia 'gully bulls' which prove the existence of carts. It is a bit like 'drop bears' proving the existence of gravity.  |
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Post by goz on Dec 12, 2017 2:53:58 GMT
For me this is deeply problematic: It is like saying ' God must exist, if Jesus exists because I believe the Gospel was written to prove it!' It is nonsensical and illogical.  Also, what does him being a detective have to do with anything?  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2017 3:50:37 GMT
For me this is deeply problematic: It is like saying ' God must exist, if Jesus exists because I believe the Gospel was written to prove it!' It is nonsensical and illogical. Also, what does him being a detective have to do with anything? His "evidence" is actually quite... well. Take his "The gospel accounts are testable". You may think this means that... well, that they can be tested. Not so. What he means is that the gospel accounts meet four tests he devises. Here's one of them : So what he's saying here is that he considers a person to be a valid witness if it is possible that they were alive when the event they witness to happened. This is a terrible standard of evidence for a detective to apply! A detective would need to know that the witness was alive, was physically present, was in a position to actually observe what happened, was of sound mind and capable of accurately remembering what happened, was not biased... etc. And a detective would want the testimony as soon after the event as possible, since memory demonstrably erodes with time. The earliest gospels were written 35-70 years after the events they speak of. We have no idea who wrote them. Thus we have no way to assess their accuracy or motivations as witnesses. That he just skips over this - and he skips over all such objections to every one of his points - indicates that he is not, as he claims, approaching this with an unbiased eyes and drawing the obvious conclusions. Which is the dirty little secret of all apologetics. Almost every one of them is written as if they are aimed at convincing unbelievers and skeptics. But they really aren't. Apologetics are written for believers, and their purpose is to misrepresent skeptical arguments in order to convince believers that they don't need to worry about unbelievers and what they have to say. The entire apologetics industry is one big con job perpetrated on believers. |
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Post by goz on Dec 12, 2017 5:23:38 GMT
For me this is deeply problematic: It is like saying ' God must exist, if Jesus exists because I believe the Gospel was written to prove it!' It is nonsensical and illogical. Also, what does him being a detective have to do with anything? His "evidence" is actually quite... well. Take his "The gospel accounts are testable". You may think this means that... well, that they can be tested. Not so. What he means is that the gospel accounts meet four tests he devises. Here's one of them : So what he's saying here is that he considers a person to be a valid witness if it is possible that they were alive when the event they witness to happened. This is a terrible standard of evidence for a detective to apply! A detective would need to know that the witness was alive, was physically present, was in a position to actually observe what happened, was of sound mind and capable of accurately remembering what happened, was not biased... etc. And a detective would want the testimony as soon after the event as possible, since memory demonstrably erodes with time. The earliest gospels were written 35-70 years after the events they speak of. We have no idea who wrote them. Thus we have no way to assess their accuracy or motivations as witnesses. That he just skips over this - and he skips over all such objections to every one of his points - indicates that he is not, as he claims, approaching this with an unbiased eyes and drawing the obvious conclusions. Which is the dirty little secret of all apologetics. Almost every one of them is written as if they are aimed at convincing unbelievers and skeptics. But they really aren't. Apologetics are written for believers, and their purpose is to misrepresent skeptical arguments in order to convince believers that they don't need to worry about unbelievers and what they have to say. The entire apologetics industry is one big con job perpetrated on believers. Well, you have quickly analysed one of the points which I found deeply problematic and found it wanting, and I feel that a similar, and in fact, any deeper analysis of the other points would come up with the same conclusions. I also entirely agree with your theory of apologetics which is admirably borne out by the fact that Clusium posted this link. |
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Post by theoncomingstorm on Dec 12, 2017 6:10:45 GMT
If anybody is expecting Clusium to respond honestly to any of your posts I hope you're prepared to wait a long time.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Dec 12, 2017 10:28:52 GMT
Just as well Jesus never said this very thing then. In fact: 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3 (NIV) Jesus here calls the Father “the only true God,” and Jesus distinguishes himself from this God. This while John 1.18 has variants in the Greek manuscript evidence. The preferred Greek textual reading of it contradicts that Jesus is God. It says in English, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
There are no contemporary sources for the existence of, let alone the claims about Jesus from anyone. And the earliest one shows signs of tampering.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2017 11:49:01 GMT
I have no problem believing that Jesus was an historical person who existed. But in no way does it proves that God exist,
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Post by rizdek on Dec 12, 2017 12:46:28 GMT
Well, if he came to "faith," that means he came to a point where he's believing in something with inadequate justification and "faith" smooths the way to a conclusion. Faith fills in the gaps. IOW, faith keeps us from an infinite regress in our beliefs. There's nothing particularly wrong with having faith in some things. Humans (and other animals) have the ability to make a decision with inadequate info...we have to or we'd never make any decisions. But basing things on faith is fraught with error and can lead to misdirection. It means you've gone beyond what can be shown with fairly convincing evidence and are accepting things operationally.
Besides, billions believe in God and don't believe Jesus was divine at all.
Second, all of the stories of Jesus' actions could be true and there still might not be a God in the sense of a personal infinite/maximal being that exists outside of time and space. So his investigation is not worth much.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2017 13:32:00 GMT
There are no contemporary sources for the existence of, let alone the claims about Jesus from anyone. And the earliest one shows signs of tampering. This is another example of how he's deliberately misleading. For 'corroboration' he uses an example of a fingerprint. All a fingerprint does is confirm that a particular person touched a particular object at some point. It says nothing of when or why they touched it. Thus if your fingerprint is on a murder weapon, it doesn't prove that you used it in a murder, only that you've touched it. Yet that would be considered to be strong evidence. He uses this as an excuse to consider literally anything that confirms anything in the gospels as corroboration of the gospels. For example, the gospels mention Bethlehem - and thus he considers any secular source that mentions Bethlehem to be a corroboration of the bible. Does Pilate exist? Corroboration. And so on. Then he claims that if you have enough such 'circumstantial' evidence, that amounts to a compelling case. Under this standard, any source that establishes that New York City exists is a corroboration of the truth of The Avengers movie. And if enough sources confirm that New York is real, then we have a compelling case that The Avengers actually exist. It's nonsense - but it's also very obviously been very carefully constructed to be a plausible-sounding case on the surface. If you never actually spent time talking to real skeptics, if you lived all your life in the believer bubble, this is the kind of thing that you would read and think "yeah, that makes sense". And as I said, that is exactly what this kind of apologetic is written for. |
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