A Chilling Example of Modern Philoshpical Totalitarianism

A Chilling Example of Modern Philoshpical Totalitarianism

A dialogue I once had on a message board when an atheist assaulted me with a little essay on philosophy that I find most depressing. It's depressing because it basically confirms all the most alarming and anti-human aspects of modern thought I have accused the New atheists of harboring, it affirms in an unabashed, proud and defiant manner as though they are so obvious that to state them is prove them. Yet what's being is proving is basically that none of us have the right to think apart form affirming the ideology handed down form the atheist hierarchy. This "atheist hierarchy" is basically scinece. Not that I think science is an atheist hierarchy, I think that's what the new atheist think it is. I am leaving the interlocutor's name out, because I don't him to feel put on the spot. I'll just call him:

SG

Existentialism is an unfortunate example of how philosophy gets side tracked by bad ideas. Existentialism essentially destroys any meaningful conception of knowledge and resorts to subjectivism to explain the human experience. It's not any better than the Idealism it wished to criticize, simply because it just offers the other extreme as a solution.

Meta: Right away we have what I consider to be pure evil. The vilification of existentialism, if it is not centered around the pretentious nature of his French exemplars, will probably be base upon the desire to control the thinking of others. Existentialism rebelled against imposed structures that filter our understanding of world for us and force us to think in prescribed ways. The criticism made here asserts that to undersatnd reality by understanding our own perceptions of it is a mistake can only mean that the author feels that the prescribed and contorted version of reality is the only one that counts as knowledge. In other words, he wants someone to do his thinking for him. He continues with several several misconceptions about Kierkegaard:

SG

Kierkegaard describes religion as a matter of individual subjective passion, unmediated by others. The reason he favored Christianity was because he lived in a Christian culture. His argument for faith is, even by his own admission, absurd. He denies all reason in it and treats it as something that can never be understood, through experience, by others, which more or less means that the study of human psychology is completely fruitless. He just says faith is a miracle, so there. That's not philosophy, it's art at its best and lazy thinking at its worst. He was a product of his time, and utilizes the same inaccurate theory of mind that rational idealists and empiricists of the time had to rely upon, which explains why all three philosophies are incredibly problematic.

Meta: First of all, as always pointing out that "he's a Christian because he lives in a Christian culture" is just not meaningful to someone who thinks God is working in all cultures. It's no different than saying "he's only a Christian because that's the tradition that speaks to him." You see the contradiction in his thinking here. He says the kind of thinking that recognizes the power of the individual to perceive reality and not be forced a prescribed way of thinking is invalid when it challenges the atheist fortress of facts, that's scinece and science is the only form of knowledge, because it backs atheism (supposedly) but religious belief is based upon a prescribed set of premises then that's proof that it's not true. Yet by his way of thinking the cultural norm should be seen as truth a priori, the individual's understanding of what's true should be shunned a violation of the relationship between perceptions and knowledge (as he talks about above). Wait, the difference is with religion it's not coming through his prescribed form of knowledge (science) so it must be wrong either way. Very convoluted way of thinking.

Moreover, his understanding of SK is sophomoric. SK did not mean that faith is irrational in the sense of being stupid and unjustified. That's a standard misconception. He's just saying that logic is hypothetical and unless faith is experienced, the presence of God first hand, it's not real. He disparaged Cartesian coordinates on the basis that unless doubt is real then faith is not real (by this I mean his philosophical coordinates). Doubt is not real when it's a philosophical exercise and one doesn't really doubt. Therefore, it is not establishing faith to overcome phony doubt with hypothetical. New atheist dread the subjective. They are scared to death by experience. My guess is they are aware of the power of religious experience to convict and turn people to God. The first thing they have to crush is the validity of experiencing God.

He goes on to give a lot phony talk about the history of philosophy which I don't he understands:

SG:

This theory of mind I'm talking about is the nineteenth century paradigm that sees the mind relating to the environment through sensory perception, so experience is seen as passive and observational. Experience can only be described as participatory action with one's environment, which is something that the rational idealists, empiricists, and existentialists failed to recognize. Empiricism grasped the spirit of the modern age, but it lacked the teeth to actualize it. Rational idealists like Kant and existentialists like Kierkegaard understood empiricism to be destructive to knowledge and went in separate directions, the former relying on a transcendental realm of Being that is responsible for absolute truth to restore knowledge and the latter retreating into subjectivism in the personal sphere.

Meta:"Experience can only be described as participatory action with one's environment," I think if I put my mind to it I could describe experience in other ways. What he's really doing there is setting up a the need to actively control things as the basis for knowledge. Anything that doesn't imposes an ideology of atheism is not knowledge. The only proper knowledge is the imposition of control. Defining experimentally based philosophy as a passive reception of sense data is a mistake in understanding the nature of experience. That does not mean, however, the only alternative is the impossition of a pre coincided view.Now to undersand his comments fairly we should probaly think of what he is saying as an active hands-on search for what's out there rather than the imposition of control. Yet what he's prescribing is control because it assumes a set of percipience steps that the only valid steps and screening out of all else that is not part of ht steps (hence the dread of subjective experience). I can relate the notion of knowledge as an active search but why must it be limited to his active search and other those of others? Why just scinece and not all forms of knowledge? Why must it always be active search why can't it be a dialectics where passive gathering of sense data and informed watchful reception is combined with active searching in a global way rather than a prescribed way?

SG:

All of these notions, by today's standards, ought to be considered silly.

Meta:In other words, "all of these notions" existentialism, Phenomenology, experience, individuals thinking for themselves perhaps? Very silly.

SG:

All deny, implicitly, the role of intelligent practice in acquiring knowledge. Sensory perception is merely a stimulus to action, it is not knowledge. Knowledge results from the intelligent modification of habits in relation to environmental stimuli. Knowing is not a matter of passively observing reality, it is a manner of interacting with it... probing it, controlling it, etc.

Meta:Probing it hu? Seriously, this statement confirms all my worst fears. It's a frank admission that it's talking about control. The future belongs to us! How about this definition, knowledge results form "intelligent modification of habits in relation to stimuli " In ohter words knowledge is not about knowing things Perish the thoguht, who would ever think that? Knowledge is about knowing what i want you to know. It's about being trained to look at the world the way we want you to see it. But of course we should just accept that it's all meant for he best, those wonderful science wouldn't do anything wrong would they? They weren't any scientists developing racial scinece for Hitler were there? It's ok to erase the ability of the individual to think for himself, and to decliar everything opposed to out ideology as "non-knowledge." That's just that philosophy stuff that can't get us in any trouble.


SG

This understanding of mind, which is scientifically current, offers a solution to the major criticism of empiricism. The need for transcendental realm of Being in order to have knowledge of the world is gone, which was only needed when the thought was that experience was atomized instead of unified through the very necessities of life.

Meta:What did he just say now? He said the current understanding of mind, which what? According to most new atheist the current understanding of min is that there is none. That mind is just an illusion or a side effect (if it's anything at all) brought on by brain chemistry and it means nothing. So in other words the idea we can erase the mind and thinking of ourselves as deterministic robots is solution to the problem of knowledge. Of cousre it is. There's no problem of knowledge if you dont' seek to know anything. After all his definition of knowledge leaves out the idea that knowledge is about knowing things. Of course he asserts hat transcendental stuff is just an old fashioned for things we don't have any more because scinece has replaced the need. That need was born of pretending that truth is somewhere out there and we have to seek it in ways that are not prescribed by the ideology. So course we course we don't need that now because we have the ideology. Because the ideology frees us form needing it the potential reality of it just goes away. There is no reality in transcendent realm because we we don't need it with the ideology telling us what to think. Yet the worse is still to come:

SG

The absolute subjectivity of human experience disappears because knowledge exists as real interactions... one can judge whether their actions are ones informed by knowledge or not.

Meta:

Subjectivity disappeared? Our qualia and sense data are no longer subjective? We cut that off an let it go away. It's not there we don't have to think about it. I can see how we can ignore the subjective and pretend that all becomes objective. Yet how do we get your experience of it into my head? you can dictate that I must think as you do but you cannot dictate that I experience what you expedience. my experience is still mind. I still perceive the world though my own perceptions and not yours. Now matter how ardently you seek to pretend that all now share the same perceptions we do not. Subjectivity can't ever go away. That's just the epistemological fallacy. you can't get outside your own perceptions to check them and you can't make them become those of others just by trying to impose the same ideas upon the thinking of others. The subjectivity of human experience disappears. What extreme arrogance and nonsense. We don't all start having the same experiences just becuase one imposes a party line.

SG:

While there is still room for authenticity in this view, the notion of it in the existentialist view is overblown.

Meta: Room for authenticity where? Where can there be authenticity when subjectivity is gone? There can only be authenticity if we accept that we have different view points and different sets of perceptions. But we he just said subjectivity is gone. After all, like the transcendent, if we don't need it anymore it must go away.

SG:

Much of what existentialists refer to as "authentic" is merely a product of culture as opposed to something really authentic to that particular individual. It is true that each individual has his own unique impulses, but how he acts on them is largely a product of the given social environment. Kierkegaard, for instance, decided that Christianity was authentic to him, when in reality it was a product of the habits and customs of his culture.

Meta: So in other words there's still some authenticity but only the bit that agrees with the party line. The bit that doesn't is "merely product of culture." There's that contradiction again. He's supposed to think that knowledge is imposing an active view point where everyone has these objective facts that makes them right and they don't need to wonder about things, anything we have to wonder about is not worth keeping around. We reduce knowledge to just the answers that result from the question we can answer our way. There's some authenticity around but not the kind that disagrees with the party line?

web definition of existentialism:

ex·is·ten·tial·ism/ˌegziˈstenCHəˌlizəm/

Noun:

A philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining...

isn't that what's being replaced, the silly idea we don't need anymore? So where's this authenticity going to come from?
part 2 on friday.

The Mocking Atheist

http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/blog

The Cancer Prayer

This is from the so called "Thinking Atheist" blog



Seth

Jan 9, 2016 at 9:15 AM

6 Days Ago

Comments

   

 

     

Quoting their blog:

I was sent a Facebook meme from a page called, "Stop Cancer. Start Praying." The page is filled with hopeful (yet sadly vacuous) platitudes like, "Sorry cancer, GOD is bigger than you!"  "Dear God, Heal all those fighting cancer.  Amen!"  And this one:

Holding up a hand of doubt or challenge in these difficult scenarios is front-loaded to make the challenger sound like an asshole.  After all, who could ever say an untoward thing about prayer when so many desperate and grieving people are leaning upon it in their darkest hours?  What kind of heartless, wicked person would trod upon the pleas of the heartbroken?

He talks like they designed their pagevwith him in mind. Of course the only thin he has in place in place of hope is the cold comfort that they are not suckers for a religious curse that's not coming so they can die with whatever what passes for dignity in the atheist mind.

 

But these prayers happen in desperate, difficult times.  Must we only explore the validity of our words and actions in the best of days?  Does struggle and desperation license us to ignore the hard questions and isolate ourselves inside potential falsehoods for comfort's sake?  Are we only concerned about truth when we're conflict-free?

In my mind, I've determined that I'd rather know a hard truth than a happy fantasy, and we've all heard the stories of those who have eschewed real-world solutions for supernatural ones and often paid with their lives.  They cancel the chemo and claim divine favor.  They toss their medications at the church altar.  They embrace the promises of charlatans with an offering plate.  And, at times, tragically, they're so busy looking at the empty sky that they miss opportunities right in front of them.

I am so happy that he has this settled in his mind because he knows best. Who are they to seek healing when the all knowing one is there to tell them to stop? This is what we call "rationalization." In this case it means my whims are more important than yours and here's my excuse to justify it.

 Even those pursuing science-based solutions are often huddled in the prayer circles between doctor consultations, and exploring the sense and effectiveness of those prayers has merit.

 Of course he thinks science an God are enemies. That shows no understanding of either science or God.

I responded to the post, and I'm sure I'll be the target of indignation by those who consider "God is bigger than cancer!" a suitable treatment program.  But perhaps it will provide a rallying point for productive discussion on the merits of asking for our physical ailments to be healed by a divine and magic wand....

 What a martyr.

 

I take no joy in this conversation amidst the prayers and pain experienced by so many good people, but we should...we must...look at these prayers honestly to determine what they really mean.

It couldn't be that they don't want to die could it? No that's too easy. I know it must mean they are fools and suckers and they need him to tell them how to behave properly when they dying so they they don't burden him with guilt for betraying God.

* God holds the global cure for cancer. He does not use it.

* God holds the individual cure for cancer. He does not use it. Or if he does, he cleverly disguises it as a human construct.

* Even if healing prayers worked, it would mean that God was holding the cure hostage until he felt the adequate number of petitions had been offered up. He's content to watch a baby suffer with cancer, because it's more important that he hear the parents beg.

Of course it's God's fault and so he has cart blanch to mock their sickness all he wants because he's just highlighting for them what a bastard God is not to heal them and not to exist! It would never occur to him to read some philosophers or theologians to get answers to theodicy. So I'll have to provide the link to my article:  [1]
 

 

* God's Will is unmovable, unchangeable, a foregone conclusion, which means that he must wish that the boy have cancer, and that all petitions and prayers are being heard by someone who has already made up his mind about what his will shall be. Essentially, humans are asking God to alter his predetermined plan.

Of course he's such an expert on God's Will.

 

 God, in this context, isn't a hero. If he exists in the all-powerful, truly god-like sense, and if he sits silently while a precious, innocent child suffers in an arena where suffering is declared self-imposed ("We're all born sinners." "It's a fallen world." "Pain in this life, bliss in the next." Etc), this isn't a "loving Father" I'd want anything to do with.  I disagree with the nonsensical notion that, the less we see and hear, the more God is doing.

I wonder if he would admit God was the ?hero" if God healed him. Of course he's taking the father metaphor literally and he's treating  God like the big guy in sky. He hasn't read my theodicy yet so he has no argument. If he does read it he can't answer it.

 

Prayer. It's understandable why so many reach out (and up) in times of desperation. And if some wish to pray as they navigate through their treatments, I certainly wouldn't begrudge them that. But if we are to look at the scenario with an objective eye, we have to ask some uncomfortable yet important questions about prayer.

The point is what? makes no one has faith so you want have to feel guilty. Now we move to the enlightened comment section.

Wil Fry • 2 days ago

Very well said. As a child growing up in church, I lost track of how many sick people we prayed for and how many either (1) died or stayed sick, or (2) recovered on their own or had medical help to fix them, and no matter what happened, God was the hero.

 

• 

  Joe Hinman Wil Fry • 8 minutes ago

  
  

  and when they get healed you refuse to believe it.

[see now this guy know what he's talking about. They really need to listen to that guy]]

Kay Callaghan • 3 days ago 

I almost lost it about an hour ago when a colleague of mine asked me to cover her clients for a couple of hours next week - driving 45 minutes each way to the office - so she could go to an "angel reading". WHAAAAATTTTT???

[I have to admit that is kind of wired I don't even know what that is

PinxEngrayz • 5 days ago

Oh Seth God LOVES you ssooooooo much, "Mr." Andrews btu your just so sinnical!!! PRAY and GOD will answer even if sometimes the answer is "Eat shit and die, humans!" I PRAY for yuo "Mr." Seth. GOD iS GRAETER then CANCER!!!!! Bless you "Mr." Andreson.

[remember how the guy at the top said te page was designed to make them look like assholes? it worked ]

Joe Hinman PinxEngrayz • 5 minutes ago




why does it hurt you so deeply that others have faith when you don''t you don't want faith why does it anger you so that others do? why does atheism breed narrow minded stupid people?


[this guy really knows what he's talking about]








 
• in this conversation
⬇ Drag and drop your images here to upload them.




• 
  Joe Hinman
•  
•   PinxEngrayz • a few seconds ago

  
  

  "Most people would never apply the standard of "faith" to anything in their lives besides religion. As Seth rather eloquently points out here, "persons of faith" often see the hand of God or the supernatural no matter *what* happens — all without a shred of evidence

  ."}
•  
• ;Contradiction. If they would never apply faith to anything outside religion, you seem to say that as a criticism then you can't criticize them for seeing the SN in everything, Which is it?
• 
  "
  

  And when someone is willing to believe something without the kind of evidence they would require to believe virtually anything else, it makes me nervous. Surely you see that Islamic terrorists *fervently* believe in the rightness of their cause ... without evidence."

  
   I question your credentials for setting standards on evidence.
  (2) you don't what they have experienced. most charismatics have healing experiences but you would never admit it couldn't;'t be explained was want crap.
  3) here is an article from a journal medical history, on Lourdes says the healimgs can't be explained let's see uyou cope with thiat evidence.http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/...[2]
 
"And if you would, please tell me how *I* can objectively distinguish between what *you* — or some murderous jihadist — calls "God" and something that you are only imagining?"


• 
  you could start by leaning some logic and a good place to start would be the stuidy of the fallacy called "guilt by association"
  see more 0

  
  
  

[1]Answer to Theodicy Soteriological Drama
http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2011/04/answer-to-theodicy-soteriological-drama.html


[2] Medical Historians agree Lourdes curse inexplicable
http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2012/11/medical-historians-agree-lourdes-cures.html
 

Battle for Civilization: Atheist Propaganda Machine in Action

French Revolution, Mary Ann (their "uncle
Sam." Not an atheist symbol because the
Philosophes were not atheists.



John Shook of the center for Inquiry took to the soap box espousing atheist ideology in the guise of science and enlightenment.[1] I have blogged about the center on AW years ago. It's the centerpiece of the atheist propaganda machine, In guise of academic think tank, their bread and butter is exposing hauntings and disproving Psychic phenomena. But their ideological stance, and raison d'être is secularism and it's sought after triumph over religion. Shook says:

In a previous essay that asked the question, " Can Science Eliminate Religious Faith? " I explored whether psychology can disprove God. Specifically, can psychology's explanations for religious belief be used to conclude that all religious belief is unreasonable? The proposed conclusion was negative: only the hard work of advocating secular culture can fully engage religion. Religion may be more "normal" than atheists wants to admit, but "normal" cannot mean "inevitable" or "right". We need the same reminder when appreciating the brain sciences and their investigations into religion. Some religious beliefs are the product of diseased or defective brains, but apparently some religious beliefs are the product of normally functioning brains. Other brain sciences, such as neuroscience and cognitive science, along with some behavioral science, are coming to agree with this view. Religion is not just for crazy people anymore.

The first thing one might say is that this was five and a half years ago. But we look around the country, over the last couple of years, we find the local chapters dispensing the same medicine; in Cleveland, and in L.A.[2][3] He's speaking as though his little 6% set the norm. He preaches the word and the faithful go into all the world and subvert the Gospel.Secondly, he sounds conciliatory at this point but he's going to turn around on it pretty quickly. Sure not all religious people are stupid but we are still going to try and destroy it. What's really absurd about this is he represents maybe 6% as a liberal estimate (Americans) and he's telling 90% they have to pass his scrutiny.

Religion appears as natural as any other human activity, such as agriculture, cooking, or engineering. And, like any other human activity, religion uses the same basic cognitive architecture, available to homo sapiens for at least 50,000 years or more. Both biological and cultural evolution has been quite hospitable to religions. Most religious ideas are not just compatible with evolution, they are positively supportive of our biological and cultural needs. From strengthening social bonds and enforcing moral codes to supplying comforting consolations, religions have found a variety of ways to make themselves useful for human life.

Religion is beneficial but it's usefulness is at an end. We starting the process of evolving out of it. In a previous paragraph he talks about how evolution is social as well as physical. So I suppose the implication is that atheism is helping evolution along. They clearly have no intension of having a peaceful coexistence with religion. Their point is to make religion go away. I've talked about other atheists who think they are an evolutionary leap forward. This must give them a feeling of superiority.

Again he reiterates the same theme religion isn't all bad it has it's uses and it's [art of the evolutionary scheme of things:

No malevolent viruses indeed – religions are more like symbiotic parasites. Their supplemental ideas and institutions demand sacrifices, but they arouse fresh energies in return, and supply a net balance of positive vigor. If religions could not serve as extra engines, like mitochondria in the cell body, they would have never survived so long in humanity. They would have either killed off their hosts in an energy drain, or entirely killed off each other in cultural collisions.

He has to walk a tight rope between their purpose in destroying religion vs. explaining it as a useful adaptation. Of course without accepting a degree of useful ness they can't argue that it's explained by evolution and  brain chemistry. At the same time they can't argue that without admitting it's a useful adaptation. Thus they have to take the obsolescence line.

Shook clearly sees it all as a battle for the culture:

Religion had to be scientifically naturalized, and it is getting naturalized. As many useful explanations for religion emerge from the sciences, scientists feel very confident about their success. "Religion is real," they proclaim, "and we can watch how the brain naturally does it." Some scientists are so impressed by religion's basis in the human brain that they think that the brain must produce religion. Taking this notion to its rhetorical heights, Michael McGuire and Lionel Tiger state that "a god or some equivalent is the product of a normal human brain" and they conclude, "Like it or not, the brain will continue to secrete religion as long as life generates problems" ["Brain Science, God Science" in Skeptical Inquirer (May/June 2010)]. [4]

Religion has to be reduced, the phenomena can be lost in reductionism. The value of religious experience can be denied it just originates in brain chemistry, the life transformation is explained away as just the beneficial aspects of cooperation or what have you. Then he imagines the secular culture card will carry the day:

When it comes to cultural evolution, we are active players on the stage of history, not passive observers awaiting the dramatic climax. We are our brains, in a sense, but we also use our brains.... We can take responsibility for creating alternatives to religion.+998

That is a ridiculous position because it was Christianity that built Western civilization. The vast majority of great thinkers, the development of logic, science, (yes modern science was created by Christians) and most of the great charitable organizations, they played a major role in the labor movement, the started the abolition movement, and they ran the civil rights movement. At a time when Western civilization is clearly in decline, why turn to a philosophy with no track record, that seeks to strip us of our moral, ethical, philosophical, and spiritual moorings?


See my article on "Christianity and Western civilization."


Source

all online sources accessed 1/14/2016


[1] John Shook, "Are Brains Destined For Religion?" Center for inquiry, Aug 25, 2010,  Blog, URL:
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/are_brains_destined_for_religion/  accessed 1/14/2016
all quotes by Shook from this article.

[2] Brandon Withrow,  "Brighter Future Through Science Not Religion, Says Cleveland Cahapter of Center For Inquary,"Toledo Faith and Values Religious News, Oct, 7 2014.
http://toledofavs.com/2014/10/07/brighter-future-through-science-not-religion-says-cleveland-chapter-of-center-for-inquiry/

[3] Staff, "Feed Your Brain," Center for Inquiry Los Angeles, 1/5/14, blog URLO:
http://www.cfiwest.org/calendar/FeedYourBrain.htm

  (1) All contingent things have causes
(2) All contingencies require necessities to ground them.
(3) All natural things are contingent
(4) the universe is natural, therefore, the universe is contingent
(5) the universe requires a necessity upon which its existence is grounded, Therefore, the origin of the universe must be necessary.
(6)Since the origin of the universe must be necessary (from 2,4 and 5) and not contingent the origin cannot have a cause.
(7)The origin of universe is necessary and must be eternal and first cause, since this is the definition of God (see Rational Warrant page) then the origin of the universe must be God.

This version understands Necessity and contingency largely in causal terms. The necessity that creates the universe must be understood as eternal and uncaused for two reasons: (1) The impossibility of ICR, there has to be a final cause or nothing would ever come to be, (2) empirically we know the universe is not eternal. See the supporting material. Atheists will often argue that this kind of argument doesn't prove that God is the necessity that causes the universe. but being necessary and creator and primary cause makes it the sources of all thins we can rationally construe that as God.
I do not claim to "prove the existence of God." God is not just another thing in the cosmos. God is being itself, the basis upon which reality coheres. This is beyond our understanding so it is beyond empirical proof. I argue that God arguments prove that belief is rationally warranted, The do not prove that God exists nor do they have to. ultimately belief will not be decided based upon such matters but they may help to clear away the clutter.

Below are links to essays showing the Christian nature of this idea of being itself.


Please join me in the comment section


Being itself source of consciousness
http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2009/01/ground-of-being-as-source-of.html


Bible God and the Depth of Being
Bible God and the Depth of Being
http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2009/01/the-bible-god-depth-of-being.html

Major Contradictoin At the Heart of Atheism no 1

On the one hand you tell me that laws of physics are just descriptive and they don't determine anything. On the other hand you say that there is natural world that extends beyond our space/time, presumably to anything physical? So you see the dichotomy of nature/spirit as physical, tangleable, visible vs "in" and "un" and "non" versions of these, intangeable, inviable, non physical.
But how can it be that "nature" extends all over existence beyond the realm of all we know to all other realms anywhere and yet there are no prescriptive physical laws? It seems to be that to be able say that you would have to have a set of laws that delimit what can happen. Otherwise how can you passably know there is not a universe in which all existence is immaterial?

Here are some quotes about Big bang cosmology. They are from major physicists and some obscure physicists and the major upshot of them is we have no physics to explain the big bang.

No Physics to explain something from nothing.


John Mather, NASA's principal investigator of the cosmic background radiation's spectral curve with the COBE satellite, stated: "We have equations that describe the transformation of one thing into another, but we have no equations whatever for creating space and time. And the concept doesn't even make sense, in English. So I don't think we have words or concepts to even think about creating something from nothing. And I certainly don't know of any work that seriously would explain it when it can't even state the concept."[John Mather, interview with Fred Heeren on May 11, 1994, cited in his book Show Me God (1998), Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 119-120.]

That is describing the excepted theory, that the universe seems to pop up from nothing, yet physicists just accept it and assume that its possible even with no physics to explain it. That is a total paradigm shift.

*Multi verse is unscientific metaphysics.

Sten Odenwald, Gaddard, Nasa: http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11215.html

"yes there could be other universes out there, but they would be unobservable no matter how old our universe became...even infinitly old!! So, such universes have no meaning to science because there is no experiment we can perform to detect them."

John Mather, NASA's principal investigator of the cosmic background radiation's spectral curve with the COBE satellite, stated:

"We have equations that describe the transformation of one thing into another, but we have no equations whatever for creating space and time. And the concept doesn't even make sense, in English. So I don't think we have words or concepts to even think about creating something from nothing. And I certainly don't know of any work that seriously would explain it when it can't even state the concept."[John Mather, interview with Fred Heeren on May 11, 1994, cited in his book Show Me God (1998), Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 119-120.]That is describing the excepted theory, that the universe seems to pop up from nothing, yet physicists just accept it and assume that its possible even with no physics to explain it. That is a total paradigm shift. "yes there could be other universes out there, but they would be unobservable no matter how old our universe became...even infinitely old!! So, such universes have no meaning to science because there is no experiment we can perform to detect them."

Some physicists, such as Oldenwald, are aware of this, but that doesn't stop the the materialists from continuing the assumption. So if it is religious metaphysics its bad, but if its metaphysics the materialist can use it's "ok."


We have no physics to explain the bb and yet you want to argue that know what it is and how works and that is material. dilemma


(1) if physical laws are not prescriptive then you must explain how everything can be the same all over all existence

(2) if physical laws are not prescriptive

.....(a) believe in miracles there no barrier to them

.....(b) it could be that some worlds are supernatural. It's only if you have a delimiting set of laws that you can clearly define natural from supernatural (if you go by the degraded concept most of you try to defend)

Second dilemma


(1) if there is a physics to explain bb then it's seems physical laws are prescriptive

(2) if there is no physics to explain it then it doesn't opporate by natural law we can well think of the bb as supernatural. Or even magic.

Peter Kirby's Straw Man arguments: Joephus

Peter Kirby is a gifted armature in Biblical research. He knows an incredible amount for a message board poster. He also runs an impressive message board and he prevents it from being contaminated by Christians and people who disagree with him by removing their posts under the guise of cleaning up the board. This is how he got me off the board when my presence there threatened him since he was unable to combat my superior knowledge. I've been running message boards for 15 years and I've never found too many posts to be a problem,. I also find it odd that he just happened to take off all the posts that he could not answer,

Little did he know that in so doing he has called down upon himself the wrath of Atheistwatch! When the readers of this blig learn this, both of them will be very angry, Kirby had made the statement that the case for Jesus' historicity is very weak and that his bog piece, The Best Case for Jesus:

 Historical Jesus, proves this. That is pretty arrogant because it assumes that he can make the best case. So let's look at what he missed. "Fair’s fair. Let’s try to make the best possible case for the historical existence of Jesus. One never learns about an issue completely unless they are willing to look at it from more than one angle..."[1]

He Starts with extra biblical sources, the most important first: Josephus.He alludes to F. Bermejo-Rubio  exemplary argument for the historicity of Jesus as his starting point. His first argument, drawing upon this source, argues based upon Josephus' use of the term Christ:  "It is scarcely imaginable, first of all, that Josephus would introduce the very word for the concept of “Christ” here, so assiduously avoided elsewhere in his many volumes of Jewish history, without something by way of an explanation, particularly one with the goal of creating distance and disavowal." He goes on:

 Nor, secondly, should we imagine that this passage of credal simplicity (so Hopper) emanates from the pen of Josephus, who would surely have managed to make some kind of explicit comment regarding the preaching and execution of Jesus or the movement called the Christians. We can see this in comparison with Josephus’ treatment of similar figures such as John the Baptist, Judas the Galilean, Theudas, or Honi the Circle-Drawer, who all elicit enunciated statements of approval or disapproval from Josephus.

So essentially, treat this as one argument, is saying "if ere Jo I would have written it differently." Really it's a bit more of a serious argument than that, saying uncharacteristic of Jo's writings. Since it comes in a passage argued by some to be forged then it is only logical to compare it to his usual style Is it really so out of character for him? First of all, most scholars admit the passage has been tweaked. That means some things are added, but the whole passage is not made up by a forger, there's core of Josephus' actual writing.[2] perhaps the word Christ is one of them. That doesn't mean the basic existence of Jesus is in question because there is a core passage that most scholars accept. James Tabor understands that core to be this:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man IF IT BE LAWFUL TO CALL HIM A MAN, for he was a doer of wonders, A TEACHER OF SUCH MEN AS RECEIVE THE TRUTH WITH PLEASURE. He drew many after him BOTH OF THE JEWS AND THE GENTILES. HE WAS THE CHRIST. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, FOR HE APPEARED TO THEM ALIVE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY, AS THE DIVINE PROPHETS HAD FORETOLD THESE AND THEN THOUSAND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT HIM, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Antiquities 18:63-64).[3]

Of course the blue represents the forgery. If we take that out:

Now there was about this time Jesus a wise man. . He drew many after him  When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him,, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Antiquities 18:63-64).

Kirby says he should have mentioned "the preaching and execution of Jesus or the movement called the Christians." he does two out of three. He may not have used the word Christ. Perhaps it's a bit uncharacteristic of Jo not include some of his teachings, although he may not have known them. But we can't base the whole issue on that one detail,

Now Kirby is supposed to be giving us the best case for Jesus, but it's a "left hand shake," he's using a poor defense to give himself a good straw man to attack. His defense uses the emendation argument that I justvgave to save the TF from the criticisms he just made, then he concludes in favor of interpolation rather than "amendation," (his word--what I call "Tweaking." ?The balance of actual evidence, in my estimation, points to the interpolation, rather than amendation,"  So he basically argues that the best defense would be explaining why Jo doesn't tlk about Jesus, This is so obviously a straw man, he's made the case as week as possible calling it "argument from silence." Glossing over the fact that the whole Jesus myther thing is an argument from silence.

Now he says something extremely telling as far as building the straw man. "Such an argument for the silence of Josephus regarding Jesus and the Christians was a commonplace of scholarship in the early twentieth century and speaks well of the critical acumen of these scholars, who did not confuse a need to find evidence for their conclusions with a need to find evidence where it cannot be found." he admires the scholars who rejected the TF because they are being honest, how honest is he? If he really read them he would see how their rejection of the TF was totally ideological. Alioce Whealy an important scholar from Berkeley tells us:

Twentieth century controversy over the Testimonium Flavianum can be distinguished from controversy over the text in the early modern period insofar as it seems generally more academic and less sectarian. While the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by Protestant scholars and while in the same period Jews outside the church uniformly denounced the text's authenticity, the twentieth century controversies over the text have been marked by the presence of Jewish scholars for the first time as prominent participants on both sides of the question. In general, the attitudes of Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular scholars towards the text have drawn closer together, with a greater tendency among scholars of all religious backgrounds to see the text as largely authentic. On the one hand this can be interpreted as the result of an increasing trend towards secularism, which is usually seen as product of modernity. On the other hand it can be interpreted as a sort of post-modern disillusionment with the verities of modern skepticism, and an attempt to recapture the sensibility of the ancient world, when it apparently was still possible for a first-century Jew to have written a text as favorable towards Jesus of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum.[4]

Pete probably knows  about the quote[5] Then we come to his anemic conclusion:

 If Josephus wrote that James, the brother of Jesus called the Christ, was executed, he did so because James identified himself as the brother of Jesus called the Christ. And if that is a fact, then we should leave it to others more obtuse than us to scribble about how his brother yet did not exist.In conclusion, Josephus is conclusive evidence for the historicity of Jesus if the references are authentic, and Josephus is valuable evidence of the non-historicity of Jesus if the references are inauthentic (by way of an argument from silence that is not without force). The literature justly focuses on this question, but it cannot be the only question we ask. There is other evidence available to us, and any balanced conclusion must rest on the balance of evidence.

His summary is like saying: "I guess maybe if the argument is proven then it's true but probably not." Notice how he asserts the value of argument from silence which is almost never forceful. The cased I make for Josephus is a lot stronger than this. For one thing he doesn't discuss much of the textual attestation to the passage.

It is crucial to note that we have other readings that have the same core information about Jesus but lack the same emminadations, because this proves that Eusbius didn't make up the core information about Jesus. It also proves that previous readings existed which lacked the emmindations but which did not lack the mention of Jesus. That builds the probability that Jospehus really did mention Jesus. That probality is very high.Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an Arabic version of the tenth century. It has obviously not been interpolated in the same way as the Christian version circulating in the West:"

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders."[6]

 Syriac text.

Alice Whealy, Berkely Cal.The TF controversy from antiquity to present

In the second major twentieth century controversy over the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum, the erudite Near Eastern studies scholar, Shlomo Pines, tried to argue that the paraphrase of the Testimonium that appears in a Christian Arabic chronicle dating from the tenth century might be more authentic than the textus receptus Testimonium. 21 Reaction to Pines' thesis was mixed, but the most important piece of evidence that Pines' scholarship on Christian Semitic sources brought to light was not the Arabic paraphrase of the Testimonium that he proposed was more authentic than the textus receptus, but the literal Syriac translation of the Testimonium that is quoted in a twelfth century chronicle compiled by the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch (1166-1199). 22 It is this version of the Testimonium, not the Arabic paraphrase of it, that has the greatest likelihood of being, at least in some ways, more authentic than the textus receptus Testimonium because, as noted earlier, this version of the text agrees with Jerome's Latin version of the text in the same crucial regard. The medieval Syriac Testimonium that Pines uncovered is very strong evidence for what many scholars had argued since birth of the controversy over the text in the Renaissance, namely that Jerome did not alter the Testimonium Flavianum to read "he was believed to be the Christ" but rather that he in fact knew the original version of the Testimonium, which he probably found in Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica , which read "he was believed to be the Christ" rather than "he was the Christ. [7]

No textual evidence supports the charge that Origin or Eusbius made up the passage.All copies we have contain the quote.If it had been forged we should have some copies that don't contian it.

New Advent Encyplopidia:

"all codices or manuscripts of Josephus's work contain the text in question; to maintain the spuriousness of the text, we must suppose that all the copies of Josephus were in the hands of Christians, and were changed in the same way.

 Passage known prior to Eusebius

Nor is it ture that our first indication of the existence of the Passage begins with Eusebuis:

Again, the same conclusion follows from the fact that Origen knew a Josephan text about Jesus, but was not acquainted with our present reading; for, according to the great Alexandrian doctor, Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Messias ("In Matth.", xiii, 55; "Contra Cels.", I, 47).

Silence of Early writters is explained

Second, it is true that neither Tertullian nor St. Justin makes use of Josephus's passage concerning Jesus; but this silence is probably due to the contempt with which the contemporary Jews regarded Josephus, and to the relatively little authority he had among the Roman readers. Writers of the age of Tertullian and Justin could appeal to living witnesses of the Apostolic tradition. (Ibid)[8]

Theb rother passage is rarely questioned. That in itself proves the historicity of Jesus.. The reasons for accepting th TF are overwhelming. If we need three such solid proofs we have the Talmud and Paul. We have more. but all of that latter.






[1] Peter Kirby, "The Best Case for Jesus: Historical Jesus," Peter Kiby (blog) (Jan 22 2015)
http://peterkirby.com/the-best-case-for-jesus.html
All references to Kirby will be from this source unless otherwise noted.

[2] Louis H. Feldman in "The Testimonium Flavianum: The State of the Question" in Christological Perspectives, Robert F. Berkey and Sarah A. Edwards (New York: Pilgrim, 1982) there are liberal scholars who leave the entire passage intact! (e.g. A.M. Dubarle, the French scholar). Feldman's count: 4 scholars regard as completely genuine, 6 mostly genuine; 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.
also see my page on Doxa.So, according Feldman, the vast majority of scholars (75 %) favor partial authenticity of the Testimonium. Some scholars who accepts that Josephus wrote something about Jesus: Lane Fox, Michael Grant, Crossan, Borg, Meier, Tabor, Thiessen, Frederiksen, Flusser, Charlesworth, Paul Winter, Feldman, Mason

[3] James Tabor, "Josephus on Jesus," Jewish  Roman World of Jesus, Josephus’ Testimony to Jesus, (Testimonium Flavianum)"Josephus, Antiquities 18. 63-64, Website URL:
https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/james-tabor/ancient-judaism/josephus-jesus/  (access 1/5/2016). 

 

 [4] Alice Whealey, Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times, Peter Lang Publishing (2003).

Alice Whealey is an independent historian specializing in the intellectual history of Europe, she received an M.A. in history in 1988, A M.A. in Demography in 1992, and Ph.D. in history in 1998 from U.C. Berkeley
 

 [5] It was discussed on his message board and rejected with better reason than that it contradicts their ideology: http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=612&sid=7700c624556a3a24f7d1328c8586ac78&start=20

"Philosopher Jay" whoever he is asserts after a ranting mock;

She mentions the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by Protestant scholars" and "Jews outside the church" who "uniformly denounced the text's authenticity." Apparently she believes the Protestant Pope was orchestrating some kind of challenge to the Catholic Pope and he tricked the "Jews outside the church" into going along. In fact, it was just about every scholar outside the Catholic Church who found the text wanting. I read the subtext here as saying that there was some kind of conspiracy of Protestants and Jews against the Catholic Church. One could just as easily say that in early modern times the Catholic Church held to its dogmatic position that the Good Catholic Eusebius was not an historical forger, while everybody else who was somewhat disinterested and impartial saw the clear evidence that TF was a forgery.
In the Twentieth Century, the change was that even Catholics admitted the document contained some important changes that Josephus could not have written. Instead of saying that the Catholic scholars, 300 years late, finally joined other scholars in questioning the document, (just as they were 300 years late in admitting that the Earth went around the Sun) she changes things around and blames secularism for the defection of catholic scholars to the "Academic world."

She then imagines that post-modernism is a rejection of modernism (instead of its triumph) and imagines that some kind of new consensus somehow supports her belief that "a first century Jew" wrote "a text as favorable towards Jesus of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum." These a few of her logical gymnastics.

This dumbass thinks postmodernism is not an attack on modernism. Enough said. The usual cast of characters is involved in that, I am part of that train wreck. Kirby doesn't comment that I can see but it's his board.

[6]

[7] Whealey, op cit

[8] New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, "Early Historical Documents on Jesus Christ," on line resource URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08375a.htm accessed 1/4/2916.

there is a misconception that New Advent was done in 1910 but/s work is on going.

The work is entirely new, and not merely a translation or a compilation from other encyclopedia sources. The Editors have insisted that the articles should contain the latest and most accurate information to be obtained from the standard works on each subject. Contributors have been chosen for their special knowledge and skill in presenting the subject, and they assume the responsibility for what they have written. Representing as they do Catholic scholarship in every part of the world, they give the work an international character. [NA homepage]

 

Did anyone exist in the first century? (part 2): Paul

Kenneth Humphreys Is probably the major Paul Myther.I can't find out much about him, but he wrote a Jesus Myth book, The Christos Mythos. See a review by major historian James omerea. His anti-Paul arguments are laid out on a blog: A Fabricated Apostle: Two Different Pauls.

Humphreys has many argumens but I will deal with six, and to summarize them:

(1)Argument from silence on Paul's great acts

(2) Disparities between Epistles and Acts

(3)Conflicts between Paul's Roman citizenship and Jewishness

(4) Paul's conversion story is implausible.

(5)Supposedly parallel passages with Josephus.

(6)No evidence of Paul in Ephesus His First Argument is an Argument from Silence (OF COURSE). There's no record of Paul being assigned to enforce Jewish sanctions against heretics. Moreover, Paul was always meeting Kings and civic dignitaries yet there is no record of it in secular history. "The trail-blazing Christian missionary and apostle, St Paul, appears nowhere in the secular histories of his age (not in Tacitus, not in Pliny, not in Josephus, etc.) Though Paul, we are told, mingled in the company of provincial governors and had audiences before kings and emperors, no scribe thought it worthwhile to record these events."

Humphreys seems to assume that there's some archives to which we can go to look up all that happened in first century Palestine. There is no such place. They did not have a vast governmental achieve, if they did we don't have it now. We have little from the first century. The list of all first century writings that don't mention Jesus (excluding prolific Philo) is so small it's not much bigger than those that do. Any authority granted Paul if even written, would be so totally obscure it's silly to expect to have it.[1] As for meeting with important people a lot of that was due to Paul claiming rights of Roman citizenship when charged with crimes. There's nothing remarkable about that so no reason to expect to find the records. That's like saying "my son [the drug addict] is always talking to layers and judges so he's an important guy." Moreover, Stephan Neil points out that Luke gets the titles of all the functionaries correct in all the different regions.Neil thinks that one of the most impressive aspects of Luke as an historian is that he always gets the titles right. Many of the titles of local officials which Luke provides us with were not validated until modern times. "The writer of Acts knew the correct titles and used them with varying precision. In the words of Ramsey: 'the officials with whom Paul and his companions were brought into contact are those who would be there. Every person is found just where he ought to be; proconsuls in senatorial provinces, asiarchs in Ephesus, strategoi in Philippi, politarchs in Thessolonica, magicians and soothsayers everywhere.' The Most remarkable of these titles is Politarch the ruler of the city used in Acts 17:6...previously this word had been completely unknown except for this passage in Acts. It has now been found in 19 inscriptions dating from he second century..." Neil argues that titles are the hardest things to get right, modern French writers never get English titles right, and this is something that would easily and surely betray an anachronism (147)Historians of the modern day judge Luke a superb historian.This is good evidence that he did make the journey because getting such title's right is very hard to do.[2]It seems the author really was on the trip and thus it's not made up out of whole cloth. He probably knew Paul as well.

His second argumentis that the Pauline Epistles and the book of acts portray widely divergent views of Paul. Paul of the epistles is independent and confident, not intimidated by authority of the Apostles. He confronts Peter (Galatians); the Paul of Acts is cooperative, dedicated to the team, and willing to be commanded and led:

Now part of the brethren ("with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem" - 9.28), he is "managed" by the elders. Disciples "took him" from Damascus (9.25) and Barnabas "brought him" to the apostles (9.27). They "brought him" to Caesarea and then they "sent him" to Tarsus. Barnabas "brought" Paul back to Antioch (11.26) and then with him was "sent" to Jerusalem with famine relief (11.30) – (as it happens, a visit to Jerusalem completely unknown to Paul himself). Eventually the brethren "send" Paul on his first missionary journey (13.4). As a missionary, Paul is very much on the collective message:"And as they went through the cities they delivered them the decrees for to keep that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established." – Acts 16.4,5.

From Thessalonica, Paul is "sent away" to Berea by the brethren (17.10). He is also "sent away" by sea and "brought" to Athens (17.14,15). In Cenchrea, Paul even takes a Jewish vow and shaves his head! (18.18).

On this point there's an ironic but obvious counter. Humphrey's says of the Paul of Acts: "The closest Acts comes to bestowing the title [Apostle] is 14.14 where his name follows Barnabas and the plural is used." Then: "Full of his own importance, in all his letters Paul hammers home the point that he is an apostle and that his appointment comes directly from the divine." Do you see a relationship there? That is certainly not proof that he didn't exist. All it really proves is that once got out on his own he realized how they treated him and decided to do it this own way; more a proof of his historicity because it shows he was human. Moreover the fact of shaving his head means he was in conflict with them. He was commanded to do it, it was a PR move and Paul's own idea. My argument is not that here is no disparity but that Humphreys is making much more out of it than should be made. First you have the difference between Paul's account of himself (ok so he's not Mother Teresa--he has an ego)juxtaposed to Luke's understanding of him. In fact Luke's account might have been recorded and embellished from verbal recollections by a well meaning acolyte. Secondly you have to consider the tine and the on text. Luke is writing to put Paul's life in a light that would flatter him and promote unity, and he was writing in the 80s, 20 years after Paul's death. Paul was writing to churches ad hock about immediate problems confronting. Humprey's argues that Paul, in his letters, doesn't tell them about the things in the book of Acts. Yet he was not writing an auto biography. He also did not tell them about his mother, we can safely assume he had one. At worst all this proves is that the Greek physician was a spin doctor not that Paul did not exist.

In his third argument, implausible and contradictory aspects of Paul's story, Humphrey's real ignorance is showing. He thinks that if Paul was a hotshot student of the major rabbi, there would be some Jewish polemics about it. Then an even more egregious and telling display of how little he really knows: "How likely is it that Paul really studied under the Pharisaic grandee (Acts 22.3)? Paul clearly had difficulty with the Hebrew language: all his scriptural references are taken from the Greek translation of Jewish scripture, the Septuagint." He also compounds the ignorance by questioning if a Roman citizen could have any authority in Judaism and asserts nothing in the texts spell out official authority.

First, Paul's status as a hotshot student. No one ever really said, nor did Paul say, "I was the best student.." He said he learned from Gamaliel he did not say "I was the top student." He said "I was zealous" and he said kept the law he didn't say "I was brilliant I was the best." Of course there is also the possibility that such polemics did exist but are lost to posterity; I've already shown that we have little in the way of documents surviving that era. The Romans may well have destroyed any achieves they had in 70 or in 135. When they destroyed Jerusalem the second time they put Roman temples over Christian and Jewish holy sites such as the site of Jesus' tomb. hy would they not destroy archives?[3]

Secondly, the Septuagint gaff. It is common knowledge that the LXX (Septuagint) was the Bible of the early church. In fact the Jews were so angry that the Christians made so much of the Greek scripture and used it to link Jesus to Messiah that they commissioned a new Greek Translation in 100 AD. Why? Because Palestinian Jews spoke Greek. obviously Paul had no trouble with either language he used LXX because that was the favorite of the people.

This translation became very popular among Jews in the first two centuries before Christ because many Jews in those days did not understand Hebrew. Their ancestors had left Israel centuries before, and generation after generation gradually lost the ability to read the Scriptures in Hebrew.Many of the Jews in Jesus' day used the Septuagint as their Bible. Quite naturally, the early Christians also used the Septuagint in their meetings and for personal reading; and many of the New Testament apostles quoted it when they wrote the Gospels and Epistles in Greek. What is most fascinating is that the order of the books in the Septuagint is the same order in our Bibles today, and not like the Hebrew scrolls....

[4]

As for Roman citizenship in Judaism apparently he doesn't know, what anyone well versed in Paul should know, that the Jews of Asia minor did have Roman citizenship and they were full fledged Jews and had rabbis and everything (Tarsus, where Paul was from, is in Asia minor).[5] The fourth argument with which I will deal is argument from incredulity; has a lot of little parts, part of his spread on implausibility. The doubts the conversion story, saying if Paul was not convinced by Jesus' miracles why would the Damascus road experience.

Perhaps because it happened to him? Let's assume Paul saw Jesus from afar as a member of a huge crowd, a hostile spectator who never said one word tov Jesus. Probably didn't get close. For all we know he could have been back in Cilicia during Jesus ministry, but let's assume he was there. He's watching Jesus surrounded by hundreds, or thousands, of followers what's he going to do attack him? He was smart enough to know he wouldn't get very far. He was a scholar not a son of Hercules. Would he be convinced by Jesus? I imagine he would think of Jesus in the same way that Modern atheists think of faith healers. Having the experience himself could be transformative.

The fifth argument is not one argument but kind of argument he makes many times. He compares passages in Josephus to those in Acts to show that "this is where they got their ideas." This takes an absurd form even counting passages that have nothing more in common than the uses of two names that are the same: John and Silas. Josephus in his Life (auto biography) says (as Humphries summarizes) "Josephus was himself betrayed by 'John', chose an ally named 'Silas', and made a miraculous escape!" While in Acts (16:25-29) Paul sees some reason not to take John and does take Silas. Jo is betrayed by a John, and has an ally named Silas. In a second such example(also from Life but not cited so we don't know where Jo tells Jews not to force circumcision on some gentiles and Paul says the same thing in relation to Timothy.

This is typical of myther thinking (see part 1). Two stories share the same word so one must have copied the other or must be referring to the other. read the parallels see that the stories are not about the same things it's only veg references like negative about a John and Silas is a friend.[6]

The Sixth Argument no evidence of Paul in Ephesus. He argues that all the legends have John founding the church of Ephesus not Paul. Paul was supposed to have lived there for three years a d founded the church there.

Just left our one little thing, mythers have so thoroughly purged the Bible from their consciousness he doesn't even consider it to exist. So he doesn't dawn on them that the txt is an artifact itself, like pot shard. All he can see is the pastoral epistles not written by Paul. But they were written in Ephesus. So why are people in Ephesus trying to attribute works to Paul? Not just because he was important but, perhaps, because he was in Ephesus. Otherwise why attribute the work to someone who was never in that city. What's really odd is that suddenly we trust these legends. The Bible is rubbish and has no authenticity, full of mythys and copied after pagan religion but in this one area the Christian legends (they are really legends) are right that John started the church in Ephesus. Praise God, We found one historical church figure who actually existed! In reality of course we better reason to think Paul was there than was John. On the other hand there is no reason why they both could not have been there. The most up to date scholarship shows us that there ere many Christian communities in Ephesus. There was no on church community that was the true official church.[7] Some were gnostic some had nothing to do with each other. There could have been a core community started by Paul that eventually merged with the Johanine community, if John was even there. Another possibility is that is that Paul could still exist even if he never went to Ephesus.

Even if we accept his major thesis that Acts is a gloss on Paul for propagandistic purposes, that still doesn't prove there was no historical man who wrote Romans and was named Paul, and was from Tarsus. none of these arguments actually prove there was no Paul. The author of Acts could have propagandized weather Paul existed or not. Just for the record, I can accept that Luke did propagandize or spin or gloss to some extent, but Acts is too well verified by Sir William Ramsey not to be a valuable historical source. But that's another blog. I will do a part 3 giving positive reasons to believe that Paul existed. Remember Paul is a source for proving that Jesus existed. see Cadre blog pieces on historicity of Acts (Nov 4, 2007 by BK and one by me against Richard "Bayes Boy" Carrier's views im marfh of 14).

Sources


[1] E.M. Blaiklock, Jesus Christ: Man or Myth? Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984.

Non Christian writings of Roman empire (excluding Philo) that don't mention Jesus. This is all of them, the point being we don't have much first century stuff.

* An amateurish history of Rome by Vellius Paterculus, a retired army officer of Tiberius. It was published in 30 A.D., just when Jesus was getting started in His ministry.
* An inscription that mentions Pilate.
* Fables written by Phaedrus, a Macedonian freedman, in the 40s A.D.
* From the 50s and 60s A.D., Blaiklock tells us: "Bookends set a foot apart on this desk where I write would enclose the works from these significant years." Included are philosophical works and letters by Seneca; a poem by his nephew Lucan; a book on agriculture by Columella, a retired soldier; fragments of the novel Satyricon by Gaius Petronius; a few lines from a Roman satirist, Persius; Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis; fragments of a commentary on Cicero by Asconius Pedianus, and finally, a history of Alexander the Great by Quinus Curtius.

Of all these writers, only Seneca may have conceivably had reason to refer to Jesus. But considering his personal troubles with Nero, it is doubtful that he would have had the interest or the time to do any work on the subject.
* From the 70s and 80s A.D., we have some poems and epigrams by Martial, and works by Tacitus (a minor work on oratory) and Josephus (Against Apion, Wars of the Jews). None of these would have offered occasion to mention Jesus.
* From the 90s, we have a poetic work by Statius; twelve books by Quintillian on oratory; Tacitus' biography of his father-in-law Agricola, and his work on Germany. [Blaik.MM, 13-16]

"To this Meier adds [ibid., 23] that in general, knowledge of the vast majority of ancient peoples is "simply not accessible to us today by historical research and never will be." It is just as was said in his earlier comment on Alexander the Great: What we know of most ancient people as individuals could fit on just a few pieces of paper. Thus it is misguided for the skeptic to complain that we know so little about the historical Jesus, and have so little recorded about Him in ancient pagan sources. Compared to most ancient people, we know quite a lot about Jesus, and have quite a lot recorded about Him!"

So there just aren't that many overall sources to go by in the first palce. But why wouldn't more of Jesus' contempoaries write about him?

[2] Stephen Neil, The Interpretation of the New Testament:1861-1961, London: Oxford University press, 1964,143.

[3]G.Cornfeld,Archaeology of The Bible: Book by Book, New York: Harper and Row, 1976, 271-2).

[4] John Barnett, "What Bible Did Jesus Use? "Jesus.org. on line resource URL: http://www.jesus.org/birth-of-jesus/genealogy-and-jewish-heritage/what-bible-did-jesus-use.html

[5] Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus From Paul To Ignatius,Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007.

article about Tarsus then and now, archeological excavations and pictures.

[6] compare the two passages

" But when John [of Gichala] was come to the city of Tiberias, he persuaded the men to revolt from their fidelity to me ... A messenger had come to me from Silas, whom I had made governor of Tiberias ... Upon the receipt of this letter of Silas, I took two hundred men along with me, and traveled all night ...

"But Paul thought not good to take John with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia ... And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.– Acts 15.38,40 " And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them " And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.

We can see there is almost nothing parallel about these passages. The names are about all they have in common.

[7] Trebilco, op,cit., 2-4.