Burden of Proof is on Atheists

[Sheldon]

KWED said: ↑
*sigh*
You must be doing this deliberately. No one is that dense...

These are your rules, not mine , you said that any information recived by someoneelse is hearasay ......so by those standards the labeling of the stegosaurus is hearsay.

Still peddling this canard I see, the evidence for the Stegosaurus is not SOLELY based on hearsay, unlike the biblical myth of the resurrection.

 

[Sheldon]

Yes the original source can be checkedand and verified...... we have lther independent sources claiming the same things.

I doubt it, but they are still just hearsay, Since no one wrote a word about it until decades after the fact, there are no contemporary accounts of the resurrection myth. Even if there were of course, they'd still be insufficient to support a claim as extraordinary as that.

 

[Sheldon]

Maybe, but the resurrection is the exception, we do have support and corroboration for this event

No you don't. Second and third hand hearsay decades after the fact, from unknown authors. However you could have a signed affidavit from all the disciples, and video footage of them all scratching their heads in an empty tomb, proclaiming loudly it must have been a resurrection, that doesn't remotely represent sufficient objective evidence for a supernatural event.

 

[Sheldon]

Valjean said: ↑
But the four Gospels are of unknown authorship.

So what ? They where written by well informed authors / who cares if Luke was written by a man named Luke or uf he had an other name? So what ? Whats your point ?

The name is not the point, unknown authorship is obviously less credible, it could have been fabricated by anyone. Second hand hearsay just became third hand, at the very least.

 

[Sheldon]

Brilliant people (including atheists scholars) have analyzed corinthians 1 15 / the words, the context the style etc.....and have concluded that the text has material that can be date to within 2 or 3 years after the crucifixion.

This is not what mainstream scholars claim, all you quoted was a religious website making claims. You couldn't even offer anything beyond the claimed quote from the atheist professor. When asked to substantiate the claim you could not, and laughably told others to go research it for themselves. All I could find was a book reference. not that it matters, as mainstream biblical scholars don't agree. If you want to cite a credible biblical scholar, who happens to be an atheist, then try Bart Ehrman, his credentials are at least impeccable.

"Bart Denton Ehrman is an agnostic atheist American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks."

 

[Sheldon]

Ok point 2 jesus was buried



After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. This fact is highly significant because it means, contrary to radical critics like John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, that the location of Jesus’ burial site was known to Jew and Christian alike. In that case, the disciples could never have proclaimed his resurrection in Jerusalem if the tomb had not been empty. New Testament researchers have established this first fact on the basis of evidence such as the following:

1. Jesus’ burial is attested in the very old tradition quoted by Paul in I Cor. 15.3-5:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:

. . . that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
and that he was buried,
and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.

Paul not only uses the typical rabbinical terms “received” and “delivered” with regard to the information he is passing on to the Corinthians, but vv. 3-5 are a highly stylized four-line formula filled with non-Pauline characteristics. This has convinced all scholars that Paul is, as he says, quoting from an old tradition which he himself received after becoming a Christian. This tradition probably goes back at least to Paul’s fact-finding visit to Jerusalem around AD 36, when he spent two weeks with Cephas and James (Gal. 1.18). It thus dates to within five years after Jesus’ death. So short a time span and such personal contact make it idle to talk of legend in this case.

2. The burial story is part of very old source material used by Mark in writing his gospel. The gospels tend to consist of brief snapshots of Jesus’ life which are loosely connected and not always chronologically arranged. But when we come to the passion story we do have one, smooth, continuously-running narrative. This suggests that the passion story was one of Mark’s sources of information in writing his gospel. Now most scholars think Mark is already the earliest gospel, and Mark’s source for Jesus’ passion is, of course, even older. Comparison of the narratives of the four gospels shows that their accounts do not diverge from one another until after the burial. This implies that the burial account was part of the passion story. Again, its great age militates against its being legendary.

3. As a member of the Jewish court that condemned Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention. There was strong resentment against the Jewish leadership for their role in the condemnation of Jesus (I Thess. 2.15). It is therefore highly improbable that Christians would invent a member of the court that condemned Jesus who honors Jesus by giving him a proper burial instead of allowing him to be dispatched as a common criminal.

4. No other competing burial story exists. If the burial by Joseph were fictitious, then we would expect to find either some historical trace of what actually happened to Jesus’ corpse or at least some competing legends. But all our sources are unanimous on Jesus’ honorable interment by Joseph.

For these and other reasons, the majority of New Testament critics concur that Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the burial of Jesus in the tomb is “one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus. [1]"
The Resurrection of Jesus | Reasonable Faith

So what is wrong with this evidence?why isn't this evidence good enough to convince you that Jesus was buried?

William Lane Craig, seriously, his apologetics are a joke. It's hard to imagine a more biased apologist, and there are far more credible biblical scholars to cite.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So what ? Being part of the same religious comunity doesn't make them non independent

Yes, it does.

Edit: and you do realize that Luke opens with the author's explanation of how his account is not independent, right?

1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Again....no idea who this Ron is,

And you're determined not to find out, eh?

 

[Sheldon]

9-10ths_Penguin said: ↑
"Atheism is a lack of belief in gods" does not imply "atheists hold no beliefs."

It is absurd. Recall the law of non-contradiction. There is Science and logic, and there is religion/belief.

Is English your first language? Atheism is just the lack or absence of belief, this does not mean atheists do not hold any beliefs. Atheism and atheist are not the same thing, you understand that right?

 

[Sheldon]

If these 5 facts are true and no explanation is better than the resurrection, then I,ll say it's rational to accept the resurrection as something that probably happened.

It might help if you didn't use an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, in the same sentence you claim your argument is rational. Nothing that contain a known logical fallacy can be asserted as rational, that's a basic principle of logic.

"argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false"

FYI, as has been explained to you several times, by several posters, any natural explanation would be more probable than a supernatural resurrection. As we know natural phenomena are possible, and have no objective evidence that supernatural resurrections are possible.

 

[Sheldon]

No you don't. You are now simply lying. The earliest source you have is Paul, 20 years after the event. All historians agree on this.

More lies. Historians do not agree that these are historical facts.

I'm done. There is only so much barefaced dishonesty one can take.
What would Jesus think about you deliberately lying in his name? He'd be sad, wouldn't he. He would wonder why you didn't take his message to heart. He'd be upset that you value your pride over his memory.
Poor Jesus.

I though at first it might have been ineptitude on the part of @leroy, but have had to admit finally it seems more like rank dishonesty, the evidence was finally too relentless to ignore. The number of times he has ignored the fact that fossils are not validated based SOLELY on subjective testimony, was a turning point tbh.

 

[Sheldon]

So what ? Being part of the same religious comunity doesn't make them non independent

Non-contemporary texts from unknown authors, using second and third hand hearsay, that may have been edited by scribes and subjectively selected by early Christians as canonical, and you think they're independent sources? Is this another word you don't fully understand the meaning of, like your hilarious misunderstanding of contemporary?

 

[Sheldon]

1 no i didnt say that there is conclusive evidence for the resurrection (i said that it is the best explanation we currently have)

It's not even an explanation, it is a bare appeal to mystery and magic, it has no explanatory powers whatsoever. You have asserted yourself many times that the bible claims they saw something they could not explain. How is not being able to explain something an explanation?

2 I said that there is conclusive evidence that the apostoles saw something that they interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus.

Yet not one contemporary written record, not a single word about it for decades. All you have is second and third hand hearsay from unknown authorship, decades after the fact. Conclusive evidence indeed, that's risible hyperbole.

3 The case for the resurrection is a cumulative case with multiple lines of evidence.....

Nope, not one word was written about it until decades after the fact, and the gospels origins are unknown. The earliest known account is from Paul, and as has been explained multiple times, he never even met Jesus, and his accounts are hearsay long after the fact.

 

[Sheldon]

I am just the messenger, i am simply telling you what scholars say.


Brilliant people (including atheists scholars) have analyzed corinthians 1 15 / the words, the context the style etc.....and have concluded that the text has material that can be date to within 2 or 3 years after the crucifixion.

The best part is that tbeir works are published and easy to get......so if they are wrong why dont you explain why are they wrong? What are they missing?

Judging from the way you're ratcheting up the hyperbole, I'd say it's you who is cornered. I don't care if Paul was recorded on CNN live in the empty tomb, a supernatural resurrection explains precisely nothing, it is a bare appeal to magic and mystery. However you are grossly misrepresenting mainstream biblical scholars, who agree the earliest record of the resurrection is decades after the fact.

 

[Valjean]

Well most scholars accept these facts ,so in your opinion what are they missing? What information do you have that you think scholars are missing?

Which of these facts do you fibd less likely to be true (so that I can support it)?

OK, to reiterate:

leroy said: ↑
The NT proves with high degree of certainty that:
1 Jesus died on the cross
2 was buried
3 the tomb as found empty
4 early Christians saw something that they interpreted as a resurrection.
5 Paul and James became christian after the crusifixtion)

1: No doubt many people named Jesus died on the cross. Who this Jesus was is not clear.
So: A Jesus was crucified. Who this was, beneath the legends and mythology, is agreed upon only by theologians.
2: So what? How is this significant? Most people were buried, when possible.
3: And how do we know this? -- just stories; four different stories, in fact. None corroborated by disinterested parties or hard evidence.
Every religion has its legends. Most, including this one, amount to no more than mythology or folklore.
4: Perhaps somebody saw something, we have no way to know, just legends. Christians believed Jesus was risen. OK, every religion has its mythology. Belief is not reliable evidence.
5: Source, please.

We know tons of stuff about them.....but the relevant things are

1 they where non Christians (on their view jesus was a blasfemist )

2 they had an experience / they saw something that they interpreted as having seen the risen jesus

3 the became followers of christ to the point that they where persecute6and willing to die for jesus.

Who is this "they?" What are these tons of stuff we know? We have stories, legends, folklore, myths; we have precious little hard evidence, or even disinterested reports.

Don't most other religions have equally reliable legends and myths? What makes Christian mythology any different?

Imagine that someone like Richard Dawkins witnesses something that he interpreted as a miracle and becomes a Christian/ as a consequence he losses his job, his followers, people stop buying his books, etc.

Why would he lose his job? Did he lose the skillset he'd been using? Did he lose his education? Did he edit his books?

Wouldn't that strongly suggest that he witnesses a real miracle? A vague experience or something that could have been explained by hallucinations, or other natural phenomena would have not convince someone lik Dawkins. .....At the very least this will prove that something really strage and extraordinary happened.

People hallucinate and develop delusions all the time. People make emotional decisions. They have excited apotheoses.
None of these alter the facts.

Only the facts are durable. The facts reported by Dawkins stand, no matter how his personal opinions may alter.
Reasonable people make fact based decisions, they believe verifiable facts, not opinions, not popular mythology

Paul and janes (specifically Paul) where like Dawkins "strong non believers" so the experience that they had was something big and extraordinary.... (it had to be something good enough to change their minds) .... so if it wasn't a true miracles what other alternavive do you suggest?

People sincerely believe all sorts of nonsense. They're motivated by emotions, not facts, reason or logic. They'll tirelessly defend their fantasies.

 

[Valjean]

So what ? They where written by well informed authors / who cares if Luke was written by a man named Luke or uf he had an other name?

But the authors weren't well informed. They were insular, and unfamiliar with critical thinking, analysis, or fact-based decision making. They were True Believers.

That the So what ? Whats your point ?

That the traditional four gospels were cherry picked from many, to reflect the theology of a particular religious sect.

 

[joelr]

Me: "Gnostic Atheists say that there is no God. Nevertheless, scientists have not come to this Atheism's claim. Are you smarter than scientists? Why doesn't science say there is no God?".

Strawman. You have defeated your made up false argument.
Atheists say there is no evidence for any stories about Gods made up by people.

Scientists also don't say there is no Krishna. Science is trying to explain known phenomena. Krishna is just a character in a story. So is Yahweh. Science doesn't care about stories.

=
She: "Do I think that scientists are madder than me? Atheists do not do this. The one who claims must prove the claim and not vice versa."

Me: Atheists make a lot of claims. For example, they say there is no God. Does this phrase carry absolutely no meaning and no information? If it does, then they claim that there is no God. So, atheists do claim, and not only their Atheism claims. Atheists repeat the claims of Atheism.

If you don't like the atheists "No belief in God"....
It carries no information. It is just definition of Atheism, which is simply "No God". No new info is presented by "No belief in God".

The new information presented is - there is no good evidence for God.
Do you believe in Zeus? No? Is it because there is no good evidence for this God?
Well your God falls under the same group.

1. Most of humankind is perfectly sure, there is God. They even feel God and talk to God.
2. Most of humankind is not crazy.
This 1+2 is very strong evidence..

It's a fallacy, argument to popularity. Most of humankind believes in lucky rabbits foot, bad luck from the number 13, Roswell UFOs in area 51, haunted houses, and supernatural story they were told from childhood that hasn't been debunked for them. Critical thinking is not taught in schools. People will believe silly things. The minority who actually pursue critical thinking will easily get past all these myths and childish fantasies.

All theists are right in one dogma: There is God. Some theists, like Einstein, are wrong that the God is not a personal god; but they are right that there is God. Polytheists are right that there is God, but wrong about His quantity.

Please provide any evidence for this God. So far there is none that holds up. All religions are clearly syncretic stories highly influenced by older religions. Theism is a complete fail, praying has shown to be useless. The mortality rate for illness shows terminal disease always kills the exact same amount of people - if a certain cancer, stage 4 has a 75% mortality rate and we look at the annual cases we will continue to see a ratio showing 75% of all patients did succumb to the illness. The higher number of cases we look at the closer it will track to 75% mortality.
So no deity is helping. No chance.
Do you "feel" a personal God? I know many Hindu who "feel" their relationship with Krishna. He personally sends them feelings of love. Obviously the same with Jesus. Either there are demigods playing with peoples feelings or human psychology is such that when we believe a superhuman deity is watching us and cares for us we get warm tingly feelings.
This is psychological. Not supernatural.

 

[joelr]

Maybe but you have to support that assertion. Under what basis do you asert that they are not independent?

Christian scholarship is in agreement that the Synoptic Problem has been solved by the Markan Priority.
Mark is the source. Matthew is a creative re-interpretation and Luke likely is as well. This is Christian scholarship. The full argument is at
The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org


It is quite impossible to hold that the three synoptic gospels were completely independent from each other. In the least, they had to have shared a common oral tradition. But the vast bulk of NT scholars today would argue for much more than that.3 There are four crucial arguments which virtually prove literary interdependence.
This approach is historically naive for the following reasons.

Percentage-wise, 97% of Mark’s Gospel is duplicated in Matthew; and 88% is found in Luke.
To sum up reasons for Markan priority, the following eight arguments have been given.

(1) The argument from length. Although Mark’s Gospel is shorter, it is not an abridgment, nor a gospel built exclusively on Matthew-Luke agreement. In fact, where its pericopae parallel Matthew and/or Luke, Mark’s story is usually the longest. The rich material left out of his gospel is inexplicable on the Griesbach hypothesis.

(2) The argument from grammar. Matthew and especially Luke use better grammar and literary style than Mark, suggesting that they used Mark, but improved on it.

(3) The argument from harder readings. On the analogy of early scribal habits, Luke and Matthew apparently removed difficulties from Mark’s Gospel in making their own. If Matthean priority is assumed, then what is inexplicable is why Mark would have introduced such difficulties.

(4) The argument from verbal agreement. There are fewer Matthew-Luke verbal agreements than any other two-gospel verbal agreements. This is difficult to explain on the Griesbach hypothesis, much easier on the Lachmann/Streeter hypothesis.

(5) The argument from agreement in order. Not only do Luke and Matthew never agree with each other when they depart from Mark’s order, but the reasons for this on the assumption of Markan priority are readily available while on Matthean priority they are not.

(6) The argument from literary agreements. Very close to the redactional argument, this point stresses that on literary analysis, it is easier to see Matthew’s use of Mark than vice versa.

(7) The argument from redaction. The redactional emphases in Mark, especially in his stylistic minutiae, are only inconsistently found in Matthew and Luke, while the opposite is not true. In other words, Mark’s style is quite consistent, while Luke and Matthew are inconsistent—when they parallel Mark, there is consistency; when they diverge, they depart from such. This suggests that Mark was the source for both Matthew and Luke.

(8) The argument from Mark’s more primitive theology. On many fronts Mark seems to display a more primitive theology than either Luke or Matthew. This suggests that Matthew and Luke used Mark, altering the text to suit their purposes.


If you go outside of Christian scholarship to historical studies, most agree that all the Gospels used Mark as a source and inserted their politics and theology they were pushing. (there were 40 total gospels, in 313 the 4 chosen were not for accuracy but were the gospels being used in the 4 most favored churches in Rome)



Richard Carrier:


“Jesus’s crucifixion is historically certain”
Bishop bases this on his assertion that “there are many independent sources that attest to Jesus’ crucifixion.” That assertion is false. Christian apologists are confusing the word “independent” with the word “different.” A hundred different sources attest to the existence of Hercules. But they are not independent sources. They all derive, directly or indirectly, from the same single source, a myth about Hercules. Who never existed.

There is in fact only one explicit source for the historicity of Jesus: the Gospel of Mark. All other sources that mention the crucifixion of Jesus as an event in earth history derive that mention from Mark, either directly (e.g. Matthew, Luke, John; Celsus; Justin; etc.) or indirectly, as Christians simply repeat the same claims in those Gospels, which all embellish and thus derive from that same one Gospel, Mark, and their critics simply believed them because they would have thought it was too self-damning to make up, and because there was no way for them to check.


“The Gospels”

“This should actually count for four reasons to accept Jesus’ existence as each Gospel is an independent account of his life.” Nope. See above. Every Gospel is just an embellished redaction of Mark. Even John (OHJ, ch. 10.7).

41 Reasons We're, Like, Totes Sure Jesus Existed! • Richard Carrier

 

[joelr]

PAUL and the gospels (you have 5 independent documents


No

The majority also believe that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and that Matthew (who includes some 600 of Mark's 661 verses) and Luke both drew upon it as a major source for their works.


Gospel of Matthew - Wikipedia

1. Turner 2008, pp. 6–7.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b Senior 1996, p. 22.

 

[joelr]

I am just the messenger, i am simply telling you what scholars say.


Brilliant people (including atheists scholars) have analyzed corinthians 1 15 / the words, the context the style etc.....and have concluded that the text has material that can be date to within 2 or 3 years after the crucifixion.

The best part is that tbeir works are published and easy to get......so if they are wrong why dont you explain why are they wrong? What are they missing?

The current consensus on the Epistles is best summed up in Bart Ehrmans Forged. Several scholars confir this is the best summary. The earliest date is around 50CE. There is no mention of any earthly death of Jesus. Only that he was killed by the Archons of the Age.
Paul only speaks with ghost Jesus who has already died and in his transcendent form, speaking from heaven..?

 

[joelr]

Its a cumulative case, the fact (by itself)that we have a source that dates within 3 years after the resurrection is not convincing evidence (its just a part of the puzzle) Particularly it supports the claim that the resurrection is not a legend nor a rumor nor a telephone game that developed through time.

Paul was written in 50. Not 3 years after, it's a claim of a spirit Jesus and no mention where he was killed.
There already was fiction going around about an angel Jesus who died and resurrected battling Satan in the upper firmament , The Ascension Of Isaiah has many similarities. We see these myths were beginning to take shape around the time of Paul.


..

.
The resurrection hypothesis is grounded on the truth of 5 facts most scholars agree with plus the conclusion that the resurrection is the best explanation for those facts.

1 Jesus died on the cross- There are no records of this outside of Mark which can be shown to be a work of fiction. More on that later.

2 was buried - no evidence

3 the tomb was found empty - almost 100% a myth. As Bart Ehrman points out this is not what Romans did to crucified victims. They remained on the cross for a time. I can find the lecture where he discusses this. Also, no records except a fictional narrative. This is a common trope in fiction however:

Rank-Ragalin mythotype scale

1. Mother is a royal virgin
2. Father is a king
3. Father often a near relative to mother
4. Unusual conception
5. Hero reputed to be son of god
6. Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandfather
7. Hero spirited away as a child
8. Reared by foster parents in a far country
9. No details of childhood
10. Returns or goes to future kingdom
11. Is victor over king, giant, dragon or wild beast
12. Marries a princess (often daughter of predecessor)
13. Becomes king
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully
15. He prescribes laws
16. Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
17. Driven from throne and city
18. Meets with mysterious death
19. Often at the top of a hill
20. His children, if any, do not succeed him
21. His body is not buried
22. Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs

Mysterious death and body is not buried fit this senario. This is a list of common mythic plot devices the main character goes through. The myths studies include Greek, Babylonian, Mesopotamian and Roman fiction. Jesus scores 20 on this scale but the missing body fit the mythic death themes.

"4 the apostoles (and others) saw something that they interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus."w

The apostles are characters in a story. You cannot be serious thinking that is evidence?

5 James and Paul where non Christians who converted after having an experience that thdy interpreted as having seen the risen Jesus.

Paul converted. He was already Jewish and they were waiting for their savior because everyone else was getting one. Savior demigods were the largest growing trend in religion and the Jewish people wanted one of their own since the Persian occupation.
The creation of the new myth happened at the correct time.


Dying/rising savior demigods who provide salvation is a Greek and Persian myth that entered Judaism during the 2nd Temple Period. Besides the Persian elements all of the changes from Judaism to Christainity were taken from Hellenism and were happening in all surrounding religions.
Petra Pakken, historian, wrote a book on this.
Saviors who get fallen souls to a heaven, baptism, eucharist, national god upgraded to supreme, cosmopolitism...al Hellenistic religious concepts taken during the Greek occupation.

The NT makes Judaism a blend of these new ideas. We even see Mark rework Psalms, Kings, Elija and many OT narratives to create a new version of Moses (Jesus).

Every single element of Christianity was already happening in other religions, Jesus was written scoring the highest on the R-R mythotype scale, was myth from older religions....Mark even had the lead explain he teaches in parables showing the story was a parable?
The only evidence here is that this is fiction.

.

.
so assuming that you accept these facts , please provide an explanation and explain why is that explanationis better than a resurrection.

Because almost all of your facts are taking stories and declaring they are historical. Yes Christians have gotten away with this when the church was in power. It's time to stop believing stories.
There is not one shred of evidence to think a resurrection actually happened. Any more than the resurrection of Inanna or Romulus happened.
Using Gospel stories as history is literally absurd.

Mark, the source, can be broken down to demonstrate it's sources - OT and other fiction.
It draws from Psalms, Kings, Pauls letters, uses brilliant internal several-layer triadic ring structure in one part (the Sea Narrative), there is yet another chiastic ring structure surrounding it, where the Discipling Narrative and Road Narrative mirror each other around the central Sea Narrative and this goes on.....