exchange with some atheist on carm.
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
(1) he can't disprove that the primary gospel material dates to 50.
aqualung:
Which is irrelevant whether or not it's true.
wrong! obviously relevant because the McDowell arguments come in at that point. 18 years after the event most of the eye witnesses are still alive, probalby most of the communities are still together. That creates a very high probability that the story is accurate and reflects eye witness testimony.
(2) can't disprove early independent tradition of Guards on tomb.
aqualung:
Which is irrelevant whether or not it's true.
how? how could be possibly be irrelevant? The Guards on the make me it practically impossible to think that he didn't raise from the dead. That's the holy grail that Josh McDowell didn't have.
(3) can't dispute logic of empty tomb.
aqualung
This is the only bit which really matters. Was there an empty tomb, or is it just a story?
I'm sorry you can't understand the issues or the consequences of the argument. if you were more considered with learning than with being snide maybe you would pick up something. All the points I've made so far increase the likely hood of this point.
(1) we have 500 eye witnesses most of whom are still alive when this is penned.
(2) that means if it's not true you have 500 chances to contradict it.
(3) we have a second independent tradition from an early period saying there were guards on the tomb. just think about it. if what you say is true you see the empty tomb is significant, well having guards on it is what makes it work as "the empty tomb." Otherwise its just a tomb some took a body out of.
what I've said so far vastly increases the likelihood of guards on the tomb.
Aqualung
Do you have any proof of it? If the tomb has been proven to exist, and to have been used by a man referred to as Christ, and was found empty after three days, how do you know that the emptiness is due to resurrection rather than his body simply being moved?
the guards were stationed to prevent that. No one would mess with Roman soldiers. That' why I say it works as "the empty tomb."
have you never heard of Josh McDowell? Atheists make fun of him but that's because he didn't have the material I'm telling you about. [Not that I think Evidence that Demands a Verdict is some great hall mark of human thought, but if you can connect it to the early date the arguments work pretty well.]
(4) he can't dispute link to eye witnesses such as Apostolic and disciples through
aqualung
Which could and probably did lie,
why? give me one good reason to think that? Cant' you see what a childish armature silly response that is? you sound bt "I refuse to believe I don't care about the fact, the facts are lies! I will not believe!" silly! That's nothing but gain saying the evdience.
aqualung
embellish, or otherwise alter the story.[Before he and the other atheists were saying "there's no validity" "there's nothing to back it up" when you show them there is they don't go, "gee really? maybe I should think about it" their knee jerk reaction is"it's a lie!" "I refuse to believe!"]
I refuse to believe therefore it can't be true. so like most atheists the facts be damned. You don't give a rats hind quarters about evidence, logic, facts or arguments. When push comes to shove you can't face the truth honestly you still refuse to believe.
what's the point of talking to you?
thanks for exposing atheism as what it is.
In the same thread a Breif exchange with a character called "Derwood"
Originally Posted by derwood
It doesn't "Make" it true it's the only way to know it's true. Its' silly to disvalue eye witness info because person expedience and direct encounter is still our best way to be sure of events that are not microscopic or telescopic.
The links go to articles that reinforce common knowledge that eye witness testimony can be unrelated. This guy is so stupid because he doesn't understand the basis of historical evidence.Eyewitness is still the best we have on most things, it may suck but it's still the best. If you were on trial for murder would you want 500 witnesses saying "He was with me at the time" or some theoretical deal loosely based upon DNA? legal system and historians both still assume eye witness is best. Historians don't function as archaeologist inferring everything from artifacts. Histoirans use documents and doctuments are only as good as the knowledge of the people who write them. But we have more than eye witness testimony here. What we have here is the witness of several whole communities, not one but at least four or more where the whole community itself testifies to being there.
Why is that not enough to at least prove the events happened, Jesus existed in history, people who knew him at least thought he was great if not Messiah?
If you are relying on that for the 'evidenced' for your Faith, then you'd best find a better faith.
do you even consider for a moment that it might be true. no like the brain washed minion that you are you automatically turn off the facts and turn on the incredulity.
you have proven once again there's no point in talking to atheist. atheists are ignorant, don't are about truth, don't want proof, refuse to consider facts and basically are brain washed ideologues.
(1) The oriignal pre Mark readaction
(2)the Pauline corups
(3)....(a) what he got form people ho were there
(4)....(b) his saying source.
(5)The Gospels themselves which reflect the community as a whole, a whole community full of people who were there.
(6) writers who write about their relationships with those who were there.
That's six levels of verification behind the Gospels. We could include Paul's a and b as part of 5 but it's a matter of where they come to us from. They are not coming to us from the Gospels but form Paul.
5 comments:
Just to point out that there are atheists with honor who are honest in their appraise and admit when good evidence exists.
I recognize Donald of CARM in this regard.
"The case you (and others who are honest about the historical evidence) present may not be compelling enough for many of us to accept the claims of Christianity. But it's certainly not "nothing." To simply dismiss the Gospel accounts as historical evidence, simply because they were later included in a collection of writings named "the Bible," is bad thinking. They should be discussed on their own merits, as you seem willing to do."
In the past, I had a discussion with an atheist on my blog about the miracle stories of the bible, and I explained one of the reasons why I accept the resurrection story (over the hallucination hypothesis) and the way I presented it was:
"... when critics suggest that the disciples could have been hallucinating the post-mortem appearances of Jesus, that does not explain their belief in a resurrection.
Ex: A person who claims to see appearances of say, a dead brother – if you tell this person “ look, we can prove to you your brother is dead, we can show you his grave, we could even expose the body…he is dead…DEAD”…that person would probably be confused as to why your’re emphasizing that their loved one is dead. The person might say “Of course he’s dead. Did you think I was claiming he’s still alive? I meant I saw his ghost.”
If the story of the resurrection in the gospels were that Jesus spiritually rose from the dead (i.e. his body remained at the tomb, no physical resurrection ever occurred), THEN the hallucination hypothesis would hold far more water. Because the hypothesis would say essentially this: “Ok, the disciples reported appearances of Jesus. And eventually the gospels were written to tell us that Jesus spiritually rose from the dead. Therefore, clearly, the disciples believed that the appearances of Jesus were made by his risen SPIRIT.”
But they believed he was physically resurrected. How do we draw a connection between hallucinating the appearances of Jesus, and the disciples’ conclusion that he was physically raised from the dead (as opposed to the the conclusion that they saw his “spirit”)?
Also, to expose the body of Jesus would be to kill the rumor of his resurrection. It would literally have been a simple as showing that the body was still at the tomb."
That is an excellent point Ana. Glad you raised it (no pun). I have made that point to them too. In fact I have also argued that the Hebrew concept of resurrection was not of ghosts, but of people returned to life. I've long drawn out discussions with them while they claim the mythological use of entrance into Olympus in Greek myth of figures such as Heracles is resurrection, when it fact it is the spirit of the dead hero being taken into the pantheon.
Unfortunately I find from all of this that the distinction between a ghost and a resurrected person is wasted on them.
It's a point worth making anyway.
No eyewitness testimony is good enough to prove a supernatural occurrence. Period. No amount of eyewitnesses from 2000 years ago is good enough to prove that a man died and then came back to life. Believing such an extraordinary story on nothing but written accounts by people claiming to be eyewitnesses from 2000 years ago is flat out stupid. Keep trying to justify it--I welcome your efforts. Through your failure and ineptitude you do more to further the cause of atheism than Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins ever could. Every day more and more people realize that you have no way of knowing the things you claim to know, no basis for the assertions you make and no proof whatsoever. Your attempts at proof are beyond pathetic. This is why atheism is the default position--because you have absolutely not one piece of evidence to justify your ridiculous claims. Eyewitness accounts of the supernatural. Um, okay. Whatever.
Idont'give a fuck. I'm going to answer your thing in the main blog section.
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