Homosexuality and Evolution: God's Will and Human Belief

[BilliardsBall]

Try applying that to the more general case, e.g., "there is no god." That is an unprovable negative because it is impossible to look everywhere at once. You can never assume that it is not hiding under the next rock, which you have yet to look under, or for that matter under any of the infinite number of rocks whose underside await examination.
I am not so open minded that I permit my brains to fall out by adopting definitions of apologist convenience. "Contemporaneous" means, "at the same time" not "decades later." There is not only the issue of contemporary composition, there is also the issue of contemporary sourcing. The earliest gospel dates to the first half of the 2nd century and the earliest complete New Testament book is from a century later, demanding more suspension of rational skepticism and the further invocation of apologetic clap trap.
I know what it all means, but you do not. Note what you say here, "some-to-all of the NT documents were written by Jesus's contemporaries." That is not at all the same thing as having contemporaneous cross references for Jesus' historicity, especially when you add in the doubts that are further amplified by the centuries that separate the alleged event(s) and actual source document(s). All you've got is a torpid logical fallacy in the form of an appeal to authority.
No, debating the supernatural is a waste of time, there is no evidence of it and once again you just get trapped in the issue of infinite regression. Far more reasonable to deal with realities.
There are many sentences of the Bible that are true, just as there are many sentences in Homer or, for that matter, the Hunt for Red October, that are true. The presence of such sentences in any of the three novels in no way lends credible support to other sentences, that are quite incredible.

I think we've again gone off tangent, partially my fault, no doubt, as to what constitutes credulity of belief. Let's go back to the original argument and put aside your anti-supernatural bias for now.

You are a juror and the State has the burden to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical person who taught he was the Jewish Messiah. The State provides 27 documents, each one containing these two ideas:

* would you find for the State if you have 27 documents that aligned in this regard?

* on what basis would you discard the testimonies of a dozen or 27 eyewitnesses? (are you aware that all forensic evidence in a case must be supported by oral eyewitness testimony "yes, that's his DNA, yes, I saw that gun, etc."?)

* do you discount the fact that a host of persons around the alleged Jesus are named in the documents, so that we can find Peter, John and so on in multiple documented accounts?

* are you sure that as an expert, you would testify in the same court "people who write multi-thousand word documents (for example, Romans alone is over 400 verses long) decades after an event, when they protest they are being sincere and self-revealing, cannot be trusted, whether they write immediately after the events presented or decades later"?

* since archaeology did not exist in the ancient world, how would you find as a juror that a long time after the Jews were expelled from Israel, they are recalling perfectly dozens of people and places from decades or perhaps as you think, centuries before?

* can you claim "Conspiracy!" credibly when you have a dozen writers producing 27 documents across multiple nations?

* can you claim a Roman conspiracy when even the latest datings on the documents from the most liberal scholars have them written decades before Constantine was even born?

* how do you ignore in court the dozen Roman historians who report that sect of Jews is following Jesus as Messiah, and this a century and a half before Constantine?

Taken together, you can see why the burden of "standard historical investigation" has been met in the existence of Christ, as far as "almost all" scholars as the article I cited put it.

 

[Polymath257]

I think we've again gone off tangent, partially my fault, no doubt, as to what constitutes credulity of belief. Let's go back to the original argument and put aside your anti-supernatural bias for now.

You are a juror and the State has the burden to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical person who taught he was the Jewish Messiah. The State provides 27 documents, each one containing these two ideas:

* would you find for the State if you have 27 documents that aligned in this regard?

It would depend on the provenence of those documents. How well is the evidence chain supported? How convinced are we that those who wrote did so independently? What other documents are around that might serve to contradict those 27?

* on what basis would you discard the testimonies of a dozen or 27 eyewitnesses? (are you aware that all forensic evidence in a case must be supported by oral eyewitness testimony "yes, that's his DNA, yes, I saw that gun, etc."?)

Well, if we had the actual eyewitnesses in court, we would at the very least get to cross-examine those witnesses to discern their credibility. Once again, have they been coached? Are they truly independent witnesses or did they collaborate?

But, if instead we had a *written* statement, the questions open up greatly. Was it notarized? How sure are we that the person who the State *claims* wrote the document did, in fact, write that document? Is there *any* possibility of cross-examination? If not, the reliability goes way down. How long of a gap was there between the events and when the documents were written? Did they discuss the events with others (thereby changing their story in all likelihood)?

* do you discount the fact that a host of persons around the alleged Jesus are named in the documents, so that we can find Peter, John and so on in multiple documented accounts?

Do you discount the fact that many people wrote documents and *attributed* them to the apostles to give them authority?

* are you sure that as an expert, you would testify in the same court "people who write multi-thousand word documents (for example, Romans alone is over 400 verses long) decades after an event, when they protest they are being sincere and self-revealing, cannot be trusted, whether they write immediately after the events presented or decades later"?

Yes, i would. Eye witness testimony is particularly subject to changes on retelling. In particular, a popular story told over the course of a decade will significantly change. And this is not to mention the fact that having *others* tell the story around the witness will often change the witness' story (which is one reason police separate witnesses).

people can be 'honest' in the sense of thinking they are telling the truth and still be mistaken.

* since archaeology did not exist in the ancient world, how would you find as a juror that a long time after the Jews were expelled from Israel, they are recalling perfectly dozens of people and places from decades or perhaps as you think, centuries before?

I would certainly question the 'perfection' of their memories.

 

[columbus]

Atheism is defined by a definition of god.

No it isn't. That's theism. Religions are defined by their image of god, which is why there are so many of them.
Nontheism treats all of those religious god images alike. As opposed to theism, that treats most of them the same, but makes an inexplicable special exception for the one the Believer happens to prefer.
Tom

 

[columbus]

You are a juror and the State has the burden to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical person

This isn't really even a question. (The original version of) the name Jesus was quite common in 1st century Judea.
Heck, it's still common. My partner works with two different Jesuses. The restaurant he works for isn't fussy about green cards.

who taught he was the Jewish Messiah. The State provides 27 documents,

What was taught is a completely different issue.
No matter what any particular Jesus taught, we don't know anything about it. All we know about are the teachings of people claiming to speak for Jesus.
The absence of evidence that what is described in the Gospels happened is compelling evidence that it is fiction. Legends created around a man who did exist, that don't much resemble the original Jesus.
That's why there's no record of the Crucifixion, much less the solar event and earthquake described in the Gospels. And everybody "forgot" where the tomb was, or where Jesus ascended to Heaven. Because while Jesus doubtless existed, Christ is a legendary figure invented years after Jesus's death.
Tom

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is "nothing but my personal opinion" that humans are morally flawed, commit moral sin, cannot make utopia, and destroy each other, particularly when we behave apart from scripture, and godless?

Nay!

Yes.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You've asked your family many times to recount to you the blessings of the tithe? And they are currently devout and tithing?

I've tithed and prayed many times before. God didn't show up to find me, as you said "he" would.

Obviously I don't do this any longer.

 

[Polymath257]

How did you come to understand that deities are supernatural?

capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as
a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe

From wikipedia:

A deity (/ˈdiːəti/ ( listen) or /ˈdeɪ.əti/ ( listen))[1] is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred.[2]

That seems pretty clear to me. And, yes, the creator of the universe is usually thought of as being supernatural.

An alien that is natural and created the Earth would NOT be considered a deity.

 

[BilliardsBall]

No it isn't. That's theism. Religions are defined by their image of god, which is why there are so many of them.
Nontheism treats all of those religious god images alike. As opposed to theism, that treats most of them the same, but makes an inexplicable special exception for the one the Believer happens to prefer.
Tom

Definition of atheism
: a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods: a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods

**Please try again**

 

[BilliardsBall]

This isn't really even a question. (The original version of) the name Jesus was quite common in 1st century Judea.
Heck, it's still common. My partner works with two different Jesuses. The restaurant he works for isn't fussy about green cards.

What was taught is a completely different issue.
No matter what any particular Jesus taught, we don't know anything about it. All we know about are the teachings of people claiming to speak for Jesus.
The absence of evidence that what is described in the Gospels happened is compelling evidence that it is fiction. Legends created around a man who did exist, that don't much resemble the original Jesus.
That's why there's no record of the Crucifixion, much less the solar event and earthquake described in the Gospels. And everybody "forgot" where the tomb was, or where Jesus ascended to Heaven. Because while Jesus doubtless existed, Christ is a legendary figure invented years after Jesus's death.
Tom

There's no record of the crucifixion, the solar event and the earthquake described in the gospels? Then how did you know about their alleged existence, please?

 

[BilliardsBall]

From wikipedia:

A deity (/ˈdiːəti/ ( listen) or /ˈdeɪ.əti/ ( listen))[1] is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred.[2]

That seems pretty clear to me. And, yes, the creator of the universe is usually thought of as being supernatural.

An alien that is natural and created the Earth would NOT be considered a deity.

How did you come to understand that aliens who have evolved for perhaps 5 billion years longer than we have are only subject to natural law?

 

[Polymath257]

From wikipedia:

A deity (/ˈdiːəti/ ( listen) or /ˈdeɪ.əti/ ( listen))[1] is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred.[2

How did you come to understand that aliens who have evolved for perhaps 5 billion years longer than we have are only subject to natural law?

Because that is what there is. Natural law. No evidence of anything supernatural.

 

[BilliardsBall]

It would depend on the provenence of those documents. How well is the evidence chain supported? How convinced are we that those who wrote did so independently? What other documents are around that might serve to contradict those 27?



Well, if we had the actual eyewitnesses in court, we would at the very least get to cross-examine those witnesses to discern their credibility. Once again, have they been coached? Are they truly independent witnesses or did they collaborate?

But, if instead we had a *written* statement, the questions open up greatly. Was it notarized? How sure are we that the person who the State *claims* wrote the document did, in fact, write that document? Is there *any* possibility of cross-examination? If not, the reliability goes way down. How long of a gap was there between the events and when the documents were written? Did they discuss the events with others (thereby changing their story in all likelihood)?



Do you discount the fact that many people wrote documents and *attributed* them to the apostles to give them authority?



Yes, i would. Eye witness testimony is particularly subject to changes on retelling. In particular, a popular story told over the course of a decade will significantly change. And this is not to mention the fact that having *others* tell the story around the witness will often change the witness' story (which is one reason police separate witnesses).

people can be 'honest' in the sense of thinking they are telling the truth and still be mistaken.


I would certainly question the 'perfection' of their memories.

Almost everything you wrote has nothing to do what I wrote nor jurisprudence, which requires that jurors simply observe 1) whether the State has made its case beyond reasonable doubt while 2) not investigating the case independently or speculating wildly.

12 witnesses are in court, each one testifying that Jesus did exist and claimed to be the Christ. Your "reasonable doubt" is that these 12 persons, who not only take an oath but experienced persecution for prior testimony, and risk their lives today by solemnly swearing they are telling the truth, are colluding? This framework alone would eliminate most of what you are claiming, "I swear to the God of the Hebrews, in whose tradition I've been raised, and with my fellow Hebrews denouncing me and the Romans trying to kill me outside this courtroom, that I know Jesus of Nazareth and that He said in front of me to Peter, "Yes, I'm the Christ.""

 

[BilliardsBall]

Yes.

The burden of proof would be on you, since this is a near-universal opinion held among religious adherents worldwide, as well as a near-universal ancient opinion, as well as the presentation of the numerous ancient texts we are now discussing (the scriptures)!

 

[BilliardsBall]

I've tithed and prayed many times before. God didn't show up to find me, as you said "he" would.

Obviously I don't do this any longer.

Not to bust your chops, but tithe to me means you were working, perhaps 14, perhaps 16 years old or more, and committed 10% of your income, not to some cult but an evangelical or fundamentalist church. Is that what you're saying?

 

[SkepticThinker]

The burden of proof would be on you, since this is a near-universal opinion held among religious adherents worldwide, as well as a near-universal ancient opinion, as well as the presentation of the numerous ancient texts we are now discussing (the scriptures)!

The burden of proof is on the person claiming that, " humans are morally flawed, commit moral sin, cannot make utopia, and destroy each other, particularly when we behave apart from scripture, and godless?"

While I do agree that humans can be flawed, that we do have a tendency to destroy each other and that we cannot make utopia given that we can't all agree what utopia would actually be, I definitely don't agree that if we all just believed and followed the Bible that it would get us any closer to any of those things. I see no reason to believe that, and history doesn't bear that out either.

The part I had the biggest problem with is the part I bolded for you. First of all, "godless" people do not behave any more or less morally than anyone else. Secondly, I don't know why you find scripture particularly moral given that it condones slavery, genocide, the murder of witches, gay people, and unruly children, among other things. I could argue that we are more moral as a society when we don't follow such dictates from in the Bible. Do you think the US was behaving morally when they had forced slave labour? Do you think it's moral to kill gay people? I don't. How about all that time the Catholic Church dominated the world and killed thousands of people for heresy and witchcraft all based on Biblical interpretations? Would you say that's the most moral time period in human history? I wouldn't.

Who cares about some "near-universal opinion" ancient or otherwise, about opinions of the Bible that have changed over time anyway? How does that have any bearing on anything? Muslims don't share the same opinion. They have a different holy book. Lots of people follow the Quran and think it's morally superior to godlessness or whatever. Does that make it true?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Not to bust your chops, but tithe to me means you were working, perhaps 14, perhaps 16 years old or more, and committed 10% of your income, not to some cult but an evangelical or fundamentalist church. Is that what you're saying?

You've strayed so far from the point I just don't even know what to say anymore.

Are you trying to tell me that I tithed incorrectly, and I had actually tithed the exact percentage of 10% THEN God would have shown himself to me? Do you know how silly you sound? God is a real stickler for proper bookkeeping, is he?

 

[Sapiens]

The judge will, of course, grant a summary judgement on the basis that there is no legitimate evidence. There is no chain of evidence, all the material is, at its origin, at least, a generation and a half removed from the events in question, and that none of it is original, but rather is in the form of hand transcribed material that is an additional century or two old. Your case fails before the trail even starts. The judge also remarks upon the likelihood of derivativeness, given the obvious clear similarity of the Jesus tale to many earlier discredited dying and rising precursor fables such as Herakles, Horus, Dionysus, Mithras or Osiris.

I think we've again gone off tangent, partially my fault, no doubt, as to what constitutes credulity of belief. Let's go back to the original argument and put aside your anti-supernatural bias for now.

I have no anti-supernatural bias, it is just that there is no evidence for anything that might be termed supernatural. If you consider a 100% absence of evidence to be bias ... well, that's your problem, not mine.

You are a juror and the State has the burden to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical person who taught he was the Jewish Messiah. The State provides 27 documents, each one containing these two ideas:

The documents are multi-generational copies, made over the course of one to two hundred years, with no record of who the copiests were, composed some three decades or more after the events in question. No one but a presuppositional apologist would consider them to be anything more than bumph.

* would you find for the State if you have 27 documents that aligned in this regard?

It would be irrational to find the documents to be worth considering.

* on what basis would you discard the testimonies of a dozen or 27 eyewitnesses? (are you aware that all forensic evidence in a case must be supported by oral eyewitness testimony "yes, that's his DNA, yes, I saw that gun, etc."?)

You do not have eyewitness testimony of even one eyewitness, as earlier demonstrated.

* do you discount the fact that a host of persons around the alleged Jesus are named in the documents, so that we can find Peter, John and so on in multiple documented accounts?

There was lots of time available, for whomever wanted to, to align their fables.

* are you sure that as an expert, you would testify in the same court "people who write multi-thousand word documents (for example, Romans alone is over 400 verses long) decades after an event, when they protest they are being sincere and self-revealing, cannot be trusted, whether they write immediately after the events presented or decades later"?

There are many such examples, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf and the Eniad are but a few examples from the Western Canon.

* since archaeology did not exist in the ancient world, how would you find as a juror that a long time after the Jews were expelled from Israel, they are recalling perfectly dozens of people and places from decades or perhaps as you think, centuries before?

Utter foolishness.

* can you claim "Conspiracy!" credibly when you have a dozen writers producing 27 documents across multiple nations?

I make no claim other than a lack of rational evidence. How can you claim accuracy given all the issues that are indentified above.

* can you claim a Roman conspiracy when even the latest datings on the documents from the most liberal scholars have them written decades before Constantine was even born?

I made no such claim, you may do so, if it suits you, I am indifferent.

* how do you ignore in court the dozen Roman historians who report that sect of Jews is following Jesus as Messiah, and this a century and a half before Constantine?

How do you account for Pastafarians?

Taken together, you can see why the burden of "standard historical investigation" has been met in the existence of Christ, as far as "almost all" scholars as the article I cited put it.

A couple of millennia of charletains milking a gullible public is a more reasonable explanation for the special dispensation, from the normal practices of careful historians, that is claimed by biblicists.

 

[Ingledsva]

It is "nothing but my personal opinion" that humans are morally flawed, commit moral sin, cannot make utopia, and destroy each other, particularly when we behave apart from scripture, and godless?

Nay!

My you have a great time twisting and misrepresenting what people say.

YOU SAID -

You are persisting in the behavior typified by my remarks--throwing accusations regarding the Bible, Jesus and the followers of Christ without talking about or even contemplating your own sin.

You and I have a sin nature that will not go away through human effort. We need divine help.

Thus my answer -

That is nothing but your personal opinion, - and thus worth nothing!

You saying I am just "throwing accusations regarding the Bible" - is FALSE, and just your opinion.

Saying people have a "sin nature" is also your opinion.

I don't have any sin that needs contemplating, - that too is just your opinion, - as is needing Divine help.

*

 

[Ingledsva]

Definition of atheism
: a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods: a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods

**Please try again**

That doesn't even make sense as to what he said.

*

 

[Ingledsva]

How did you come to understand that aliens who have evolved for perhaps 5 billion years longer than we have are only subject to natural law?

GOOD GRIEF!!!

Because YOU qualified them as ALIENS.

Aliens no matter how far advanced, - would still be aliens - using natural laws, - and not gods.

Their science may be so far advanced that it seem like magic, or the impossible, to us, - but that does not make it anything other then an advanced understanding of science and technology. Being advanced does not make you god.

*