Should a woman's bodily autonomy be disregarded when it comes to pregnancy?

[leibowde84]

Ok, so you agree with the conclusions that Ehrman and White shared correct? That the bible between oldest manuscripts and modern bibles is about 95% accurate and that virtually no error exists in core doctrine between those periods, correct? Since they both agreed with those points and all the other scholars I mentioned do as well? Can we start at that point? We can begin from the point made in what I bolded above and then move onward. IOW if you can agree that the extant manuscripts from about 200 years after the originals and modern times are textually highly accurate with each other then we can bridge the 200 years left. Can you agree?

Please provide the quote and citation for where Ehrman agrees that there is no reason to doubt core doctrine. I heard the cotrary in the debate last night, so I just want to see where you are getting this from. The 95% thing is discussed, but that really doesn't matter too much. My argument is that there is much of the Bible that can be reasonably doubted as accurate.

Just for example, I listened to a debate between White and Ehrman again last night, and Ehrman said repeatedly that there is no evidence in the Bible or from other sources that the resrection atually happpened. He also stated over and over that, if we can show there are inconsistencies between the Gospels, how can we be sure that there aren't more.

Here is a great Ehrman quote that sums up his position. I'm not sure where you got the idea that he claims that there aren't any important inconsistancies in the Bible, but that is certainly false. If I am wrong, please provide quotes and citations, as I feel that you are just making things up about Ehrman, or you might be only looking at one or two sources. See below for one of Ehrman's most famous quotes.

“One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it when it comes time for them to be pastors. They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don't have the original copies of any of the biblical books but only copies made centuries later, all of which have been altered. They learn all of this, and yet when they enter church ministry they appear to put it back on the shelf. For reasons I will explore in the conclusion, pastors are, as a rule, reluctant to teach what they learned about the Bible in seminary.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible

I know I could easily be wrong, and possibly Ehrman did agree that the Bible was dependable, I just would need to see the citation before I believe it, as the books of his that I have read and the debates I've listened to paint a very different picture.

 

[metis]

I am sure you are very knowledgeable about early Church practices and we could learn a lot from a discussion about them, but that is going way beyond where the original intent was in my statement. Someone said something kind of general about the apostles or early Christians inventing the idea of being born again because it had some kind of advantage for them. I was in a hurry to simply cancel that accusation so I pointed out that being born again was not mandatory for church attendance. I believe you sort of confirm that above. I could have added that the message they spread was the opposite of convenient, it alienated the mainstream of the nation they lived in, and the empire that nation was under. The Christian message whether true of false was not made to be convenient for those spreading it.

So to start a conversation based on my original post about the early church is to try and build a house of detailed glass on shifting mud. I did not intend it to be an opening statement in a sophisticated discussion on the early church, just a brutish way to end an unjustifiable accusation.

If you want to discuss the early church I need to back up and make a more meaningful opening statement.

I can't figure out how what I said somehow led to this rather hostile response.

 

[leibowde84]

I am sure you are very knowledgeable about early Church practices and we could learn a lot from a discussion about them, but that is going way beyond where the original intent was in my statement. Someone said something kind of general about the apostles or early Christians inventing the idea of being born again because it had some kind of advantage for them. I was in a hurry to simply cancel that accusation so I pointed out that being born again was not mandatory for church attendance. I believe you sort of confirm that above. I could have added that the message they spread was the opposite of convenient, it alienated the mainstream of the nation they lived in, and the empire that nation was under. The Christian message whether true of false was not made to be convenient for those spreading it.

So to start a conversation based on my original post about the early church is to try and build a house of detailed glass on shifting mud. I did not intend it to be an opening statement in a sophisticated discussion on the early church, just a brutish way to end an unjustifiable accusation.

If you want to discuss the early church I need to back up and make a more meaningful opening statement.

It seems that you have a habit of assuming that if I say one thing about a specific aspect of Christianity/the Bible, I am attacking the entire thing. That is certainly not the case. There are aspects of Christian Doctrine that I disagree with, but, as a whole, I am a strong supporter of it.

 

[viole]

No argument here. I am a grammatical train wreck. Of course grammar is subjective.




Rootin tootin Rasputin!!! I go to all that trouble and initial conditions forced you to bail out. I hope you get caused to come back.

My value judgments caused my to want to go to Wal-Mart. Maybe I want to see a Kurosawa movie. It is not that determinism could not account for my desire, it is that determinism does not want to gratify my desire. It has no interest in letting me watch the 7 samurai what so ever. It was just as likely to make me jump in the dryer and turn it on next, as go get a movie.

The laws of nature seem to satisfy the property of unitarity. Unitarity means that if you have two different physical states of the Universe, those two states will go to different states and come from different states. In other words: no branching nor merging of states (for simplicity, instead of using the more correct "phase space incompressibility of Hamiltonian systems" term, I extend the term "unitarity" to classical systems are well, since they basically describe the same thing). This is equivalent to the constancy of physical information in the Universe.

S.Hawking recently lost a wager by postulating the possibility of losing physical information (by throwing things into black holes, for instance). If you followed the recent debate between S. Carroll and WL Craig, you might have noticed that Craig accused Carroll of postulating theories which are not unitary, providing further evidence that even theologians recognize the importance of this principle.

Now, you seem to have found a violation of this principle simply by choosing to drive to Wal Mart instead of watching TV at home. Maybe we should inform the scientific community about this obvious violation of the principle .

Let's see. You postulate two possible end states of the Universe:

1) You are at Wal Mart. Your body mass is not home. Your car is not either. Some gas has been burned. Some tyres are not as they were before leaving, the same with your shoes if you preferred to walk, etc.

3) You watch TV. Nothing of the above happened. Now, some photons amd acustic waves are emitted by your TV, your mass is at home, some electrical power has been converted in said emissions and heat, some alcohol burned, etc.

It is safe to say that those two end states are physically different.

Now, you postulate that they can all come from the same state, namely the state of the Universe, including the state of your brain, at the time of your decision.

But this is impossible if unitarity is true. If unitarity is true then you decided to go to Wal Mart only because your brain (and the state of the world around you) had the state that caused you to decide that. And that state does not coincide with the state that would have made you decide to watch TV.

Now, you can say that our cognitive processes are not reducible to the laws of nature. But that is question begging: free will can exist because determinism is false, and determinism is false because free will exists.

In other words: before annihilating determinism you need to annihilate the reduction of our mental processes to the laws of nature, or the general applicability of unitarity in nature. And that would be sensational: you would have shown that either physical information is not conserved in nature, or minds are not natural (or both)! That would be worthy a couple of Nobel prizes (and some less important awards from the "Discovery" institute).

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

You, again, overgeneralize. I did not say that the "Christian Message" waas made to be convenient for those spreading it. Again, you are putting words in my mouth. I was merely arguing that the requirement itself COULD have easily been explained by the Early Church's interest in getting people to join them.

I did not say you did. I said you thought the idea we had to be born again was invented because of some advantage I could not even comprehend: Here is what I actually said:

Someone said something kind of general about the apostles or early Christians inventing the idea of being born again because it had some kind of advantage for them

I do go on to make a statement about claims of Christian message convenience but I did not reference you for that. In fact I never referenced anyone by name, I said someone claimed that about being born again.

So no one misrepresented you.

 

[leibowde84]

I did not say you did. I said you thought the idea we had to be born again was invented because of some advantage I could not even comprehend: Here is what I actually said:



I do go on to make a statement about claims of Christian message convenience but I did not reference you for that. In fact I never referenced anyone by name, I said someone claimed that about being born again.

So no one misrepresented you.

So, the following quote was not discussing the paragragh it was included in? You say that you were speaking about me when mentioning the "born again" aspect (which was not exactly my point), but you were speaking about someone else when you said the following? I'm confused. I thought you were attempting to disprove my message by lumping it in with a generalization that I never made and don't support. But, if I was wrong, I apologize.

"The Christian message, whether true or false, was not made to be convenient for those spreading it."

 

[1robin]

Please provide the quote and citation for where Ehrman agrees that there is no reason to doubt core doctrine. I heard the cotrary in the debate last night, so I just want to see where you are getting this from. The 95% thing is discussed, but that really doesn't matter too much. My argument is that there is much of the Bible that can be reasonably doubted as accurate.

Again, we need to stress: these texts change no fundamental doctrine, no core belief. Evangelical scholars have athetized them for over a century without disturbing one iota of orthodoxy.

Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.
The Gospel according to Bart | Bible.org

I am in a big rush currently so I only gave a representative sample.

Just for example, I listened to a debate between White and Ehrman again last night, and Ehrman said repeatedly that there is no evidence in the Bible or from other sources that the resrection atually happpened. He also stated over and over that, if we can show there are inconsistencies between the Gospels, how can we be sure that there aren't more.

I don't get this. The bible specifically states he was resurrected and even his enemies claimed to meet him post mortem. I don't know what textual evidence means but it unanimously claims he rose. There are indirect references to the resurrection in extra biblical sources. It is not inconsistencies that do any damage it is only irresolvable ones that cause any destruction. Even those are in secondary details. Like how many angels were at the tomb (it is not inconsistent for one source to say 2 and another 3) that is called textual telescoping. There were three but one author only mentions 2. All the authors had different audiences and purposes and so recorded different (but all true) details of events.

Let's get out of the bible and extra biblical texts for a second. The historical consensus among NT historians regardless of their faith is that four core facts are as reliable as history can make them.

1. Jesus appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. That he was crucified by the Romans.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Even his enemies claimed to have visited with him after death.

That is the majority view of those who are best in a position to know. Here are a few more expert conclusions:


The noted scholar, Professor Edwin Gordon Selwyn, says: "The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day in full continuity of body and soul - that fact seems as secure as historical evidence can make it."

Many impartial students who have approached the resurrection of Chris with a judicial spirit have been compelled by the weight of the evidence to belief in the resurrection as a fact of history. An example may be taken from a letter written by Sir Edward Clarke, K. C. to the Rev. E. L. Macassey:

"As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect. The Gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate."


Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said:

"The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

Wilbur Smith writes of a great legal authority of the last century. He refers to John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet."

Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

Here is a great Ehrman quote that sums up his position. I'm not sure where you got the idea that he claims that there aren't any important inconsistancies in the Bible, but that is certainly false. If I am wrong, please provide quotes and citations, as I feel that you are just making things up about Ehrman, or you might be only looking at one or two sources. See below for one of Ehrman's most famous quotes.

I did not say anything about inconsistencies until this post. I know of hundreds of them and so far I have not seen one that does not have an elegant and sufficient explanation. Only differences that can't be harmonized matter.

“One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it when it comes time for them to be pastors. They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don't have the original copies of any of the biblical books but only copies made centuries later, all of which have been altered. They learn all of this, and yet when they enter church ministry they appear to put it back on the shelf. For reasons I will explore in the conclusion, pastors are, as a rule, reluctant to teach what they learned about the Bible in seminary.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible

You for some reason dismissed the discussion we were having about textual accuracy between early extant and modern bible manuscripts and are just taking cherry picked pot shots from every angle. I have said we must do this one step at a time. The first step is textual accuracy, whether you dismiss it or not we know the bible is textually accurate from the 3rd century until today. Next we must see about that 3 century gap. Are we going to do this or are you going to throw all the kitchen sinks you can find of any type and in any order they occur to you at me? What you quoted is not an academic argument it is merely a complaint. We will eventually get to those issues but we must do this one step at a time.

I know I could easily be wrong, and possibly Ehrman did agree that the Bible was dependable, I just would need to see the citation before I believe it, as the books of his that I have read and the debates I've listened to paint a very different picture.

So far I have shown agreement exists that between the oldest manuscripts little error exists and we know where the errors are. You seem to agree but dismiss this first and most important step in the process for some reason. Next we need to see if we can get from the oldest copies to a reliable original. Are you on board? We will get to all these issues your throwing at me in the proper time and place in this discussion eventually. Like I said I am in a rush and so did not get as detailed as I wish here.

 

[leibowde84]

Again, we need to stress: these texts change no fundamental doctrine, no core belief. Evangelical scholars have athetized them for over a century without disturbing one iota of orthodoxy.

Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.
The Gospel according to Bart | Bible.org

I am in a big rush currently so I only gave a representative sample.


I don't get this. The bible specifically states he was resurrected and even his enemies claimed to meet him post mortem. I don't know what textual evidence means but it unanimously claims he rose. There are indirect references to the resurrection in extra biblical sources. It is not inconsistencies that do any damage it is only irresolvable ones that cause any destruction. Even those are in secondary details. Like how many angels were at the tomb (it is not inconsistent for one source to say 2 and another 3) that is called textual telescoping. There were three but one author only mentions 2. All the authors had different audiences and purposes and so recorded different (but all true) details of events.

Let's get out of the bible and extra biblical texts for a second. The historical consensus among NT historians regardless of their faith is that four core facts are as reliable as history can make them.

1. Jesus appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. That he was crucified by the Romans.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Even his enemies claimed to have visited with him after death.

That is the majority view of those who are best in a position to know. Here are a few more expert conclusions:


The noted scholar, Professor Edwin Gordon Selwyn, says: "The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day in full continuity of body and soul - that fact seems as secure as historical evidence can make it."

Many impartial students who have approached the resurrection of Chris with a judicial spirit have been compelled by the weight of the evidence to belief in the resurrection as a fact of history. An example may be taken from a letter written by Sir Edward Clarke, K. C. to the Rev. E. L. Macassey:

"As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect. The Gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate."


Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said:

"The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

Wilbur Smith writes of a great legal authority of the last century. He refers to John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet."

Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

I did not say anything about inconsistencies until this post. I know of hundreds of them and so far I have not seen one that does not have an elegant and sufficient explanation. Only differences that can't be harmonized matter.

You for some reason dismissed the discussion we were having about textual accuracy between early extant and modern bible manuscripts and are just taking cherry picked pot shots from every angle. I have said we must do this one step at a time. The first step is textual accuracy, whether you dismiss it or not we know the bible is textually accurate from the 3rd century until today. Next we must see about that 3 century gap. Are we going to do this or are you going to throw all the kitchen sinks you can find of any type and in any order they occur to you at me? What you quoted is not an academic argument it is merely a complaint. We will eventually get to those issues but we must do this one step at a time.

So far I have shown agreement exists that between the oldest manuscripts little error exists and we know where the errors are. You seem to agree but dismiss this first and most important step in the process for some reason. Next we need to see if we can get from the oldest copies to a reliable original. Are you on board? We will get to all these issues your throwing at me in the proper time and place in this discussion eventually. Like I said I am in a rush and so did not get as detailed as I wish here.

Hold up!! That quote wasn't from Bart Ehrman. "The Gospel according to Bart" is an article written ABOUT Ehrman. Try again.

 

[1robin]

I can't figure out how what I said somehow led to this rather hostile response.

I can't figure out how what I said was interpreted as hostile. I remember you as a very sensitive debater and so I went out of my way to make every thing I said as palatable as possible. My main points were.

1. I am sure you know a lot about early church history.
2. My original statement makes a poor opening round in any serious debate on church history.
3. I was responding to a certain claim in a certain context which meant my original statements were not tailored for a serious debate on the early church. I made a a brutish sort of claim designed only to counter act another claim.
4. I think I ended by saying if you want to have a serious debate on early Church history I would need to back up a make a better opening statement.

Which one of those is hostile?

 

[leibowde84]

Again, we need to stress: these texts change no fundamental doctrine, no core belief. Evangelical scholars have athetized them for over a century without disturbing one iota of orthodoxy.

Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.
The Gospel according to Bart | Bible.org

I am in a big rush currently so I only gave a representative sample.


I don't get this. The bible specifically states he was resurrected and even his enemies claimed to meet him post mortem. I don't know what textual evidence means but it unanimously claims he rose. There are indirect references to the resurrection in extra biblical sources. It is not inconsistencies that do any damage it is only irresolvable ones that cause any destruction. Even those are in secondary details. Like how many angels were at the tomb (it is not inconsistent for one source to say 2 and another 3) that is called textual telescoping. There were three but one author only mentions 2. All the authors had different audiences and purposes and so recorded different (but all true) details of events.

Let's get out of the bible and extra biblical texts for a second. The historical consensus among NT historians regardless of their faith is that four core facts are as reliable as history can make them.

1. Jesus appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. That he was crucified by the Romans.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Even his enemies claimed to have visited with him after death.

That is the majority view of those who are best in a position to know. Here are a few more expert conclusions:


The noted scholar, Professor Edwin Gordon Selwyn, says: "The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day in full continuity of body and soul - that fact seems as secure as historical evidence can make it."

Many impartial students who have approached the resurrection of Chris with a judicial spirit have been compelled by the weight of the evidence to belief in the resurrection as a fact of history. An example may be taken from a letter written by Sir Edward Clarke, K. C. to the Rev. E. L. Macassey:

"As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect. The Gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate."


Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said:

"The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

Wilbur Smith writes of a great legal authority of the last century. He refers to John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet."

Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

I did not say anything about inconsistencies until this post. I know of hundreds of them and so far I have not seen one that does not have an elegant and sufficient explanation. Only differences that can't be harmonized matter.

You for some reason dismissed the discussion we were having about textual accuracy between early extant and modern bible manuscripts and are just taking cherry picked pot shots from every angle. I have said we must do this one step at a time. The first step is textual accuracy, whether you dismiss it or not we know the bible is textually accurate from the 3rd century until today. Next we must see about that 3 century gap. Are we going to do this or are you going to throw all the kitchen sinks you can find of any type and in any order they occur to you at me? What you quoted is not an academic argument it is merely a complaint. We will eventually get to those issues but we must do this one step at a time.

So far I have shown agreement exists that between the oldest manuscripts little error exists and we know where the errors are. You seem to agree but dismiss this first and most important step in the process for some reason. Next we need to see if we can get from the oldest copies to a reliable original. Are you on board? We will get to all these issues your throwing at me in the proper time and place in this discussion eventually. Like I said I am in a rush and so did not get as detailed as I wish here.

Real quick, why would accounts of Christians claiming to see the risen Jesus and/or heresay accounts in any way prove that the resurrection actually took place? The writing of the Gospels occured in succession, which is agreed upon by practically all biblical scholars. The first, Mark, was used to create the later Gospels. So, descrepancies should be expected to be at a minimum.

There is no way to prove that the resurrection occured. I don't even think it can be said to be reasonably easy to assume it did. Thus, my BELIEF in the resurection is based on my own personal FAITH.

 

[leibowde84]

I can't figure out how what I said was interpreted as hostile. I remember you as a very sensitive debater and so I went out of my way to make every thing I said as palatable as possible. My main points were.

1. I am sure you know a lot about early church history.
2. My original statement makes a poor opening round in any serious debate on church history.
3. I was responding to a certain claim in a certain context which meant my original statements were not tailored for a serious debate on the early church. I made a a brutish sort of claim designed only to counter act another claim.
4. I think I ended by saying if you want to have a serious debate on early Church history I would need to back up a make a better opening statement.

Which one of those is hostile?

I think he might have been referring to your hostile response to my comment from before.

 

[1robin]

It seems that you have a habit of assuming that if I say one thing about a specific aspect of Christianity/the Bible, I am attacking the entire thing. That is certainly not the case. There are aspects of Christian Doctrine that I disagree with, but, as a whole, I am a strong supporter of it.

I though you already commented on that post. I did not say your hostile to all of Christianity. In fact I did not mention you at all.

 

[metis]

I can't figure out how what I said was interpreted as hostile. I remember you as a very sensitive debater and so I went out of my way to make every thing I said as palatable as possible. My main points were.

1. I am sure you know a lot about early church history.
2. My original statement makes a poor opening round in any serious debate on church history.
3. I was responding to a certain claim in a certain context which meant my original statements were not tailored for a serious debate on the early church. I made a a brutish sort of claim designed only to counter act another claim.
4. I think I ended by saying if you want to have a serious debate on early Church history I would need to back up a make a better opening statement.

Which one of those is hostile?

It's the underlined part (hit "click to expand" to see it) that I thought was an angered response back to me, but the more I read it, the error appears to have been mine, so I do apologize for taking it the wrong way.

 

[1robin]

The laws of nature seem to satisfy the property of unitarity. Unitarity means that if you have two different physical states of the Universe, those two states will go to different states and come from different states. In other words: no branching nor merging of states (for simplicity, instead of using the more correct "phase space incompressibility of Hamiltonian systems" term, I extend the term "unitarity" to classical systems are well, since they basically describe the same thing). This is equivalent to the constancy of physical information in the Universe.

Are you talking to me? I did not mention the evolution of Quantum systems. I mention Wal-mart.

S.Hawking recently lost a wager by postulating the possibility of losing physical information (by throwing things into black holes, for instance). If you followed the recent debate between S. Carroll and WL Craig, you might have noticed that Craig accused Carroll of postulating theories which are not unitary, providing further evidence that even theologians recognize the importance of this principle.

What? Why have you retreated to theoretical physics and barricaded your self in there? My argument was very simplistic and needs to appeal to black holes to counter if it could be countered.

Now, you seem to have found a violation of this principle simply by choosing to drive to Wal Mart instead of watching TV at home. Maybe we should inform the scientific community about this obvious violation of the principle .

Oh, no. I think you have done your patented misunderstanding my statements and will based a whole post on it. I like debating you and so when you do this it is almost painful to me to have you waste so much of your own time. The primary part of my argument is not whether determinism explains or does not explain my desire to go to Wal-mart. It is that blind events do not care about allowing me to gratify my desires. Determinism would probably never result in a desire that it then gratifies but it most certainly would not do so billions of times every day. Do you understand my argument?

Let's see. You postulate two possible end states of the Universe:

1) You are at Wal Mart. Your body mass is not home. Your car is not either. Some gas has been burned. Some tyres are not as they were before leaving, the same with your shoes if you preferred to walk, etc.

Ok

3) You watch TV. Nothing of the above happened. Now, some photons amd acustic waves are emitted by your TV, your mass is at home, some electrical power has been converted in said emissions and heat, some alcohol burned, etc.

Ok

It is safe to say that those two end states are physically different.

Now, you postulate that they can all come from the same state, namely the state of the Universe, including the state of your brain, at the time of your decision.

But this is impossible if unitarity is true. If unitarity is true then you decided to go to Wal Mart only because your brain (and the state of the world around you) had the state that caused you to decide that. And that state does not coincide with the state that would have made you decide to watch TV.

Now, you can say that our cognitive processes are not reducible to the laws of nature. But that is question begging: free will can exist because determinism is false, and determinism is false because free will exists.

In other words: before annihilating determinism you need to annihilate the reduction of our mental processes to the laws of nature, or the general applicability of unitarity in nature. And that would be sensational: you would have shown that either physical information is not conserved in nature, or minds are not natural (or both)! That would be worthy a couple of Nobel prizes (and some less important awards from the "Discovery" institute).

Ciao

- viole

Ok, I read far enough to see you have misunderstood. It is not my claim that because I had a choice in whether I went to Wal-Mart or not determinism is not true. It is that blind events do not have intent, even if they produced enough coherence to be called a desire they would not actualize the desire because blind forces don't care, they do not want, they do not intend. It does not result in questions and then supply answers because it cares not for answers, it does not produce problems and then solve them in universal ways because it has no interest in solutions, it does not propose projects and then perform the millions of actions necessary to complete the project because it does not have any interest in completing anything. Billions of intents are conceived and gratified everyday, that is not what determinism would produce. That is plenty to undermine determinism. Think of it like this, instead of numbers on a roulette wheel it has instructions in each slot. One says do jumping jacks, one says sit down, etc........ Now it may be possible to explain which slot the ball fell into using blind forces, energy fields, structural properties, etc.... but it would not explain why I can then obey whatever instruction is selected. Actually intent was involved in almost every step but lets pretend no intent was required for the ball to be determined which slot to wind up in, the problem is my ability to follow what ever instruction determinism selected is not explained by determinism but by intent, determinism contains no intent. The set of conditions that led to the ball falling in a slot are not the same and are not linked (in an intentional context) with the set of conditions that result in my behavior. They have no intent to obey anything except physics and physics has no intent to obey the instruction in the slot with the ball.

 

[1robin]

It's the underlined part (hit "click to expand" to see it) that I thought was an angered response back to me, but the more I read it, the error appears to have been mine, so I do apologize for taking it the wrong way.

No problem. When pressed for time I can be emphatic and at times that causes confusion. No harm, no foul.

 

[leibowde84]

I though you already commented on that post. I did not say your hostile to all of Christianity. In fact I did not mention you at all.

Alright, I'm confused. So you weren't referring to me at all in that post?

 

[1robin]

So, the following quote was not discussing the paragragh it was included in? You say that you were speaking about me when mentioning the "born again" aspect (which was not exactly my point), but you were speaking about someone else when you said the following? I'm confused. I thought you were attempting to disprove my message by lumping it in with a generalization that I never made and don't support. But, if I was wrong, I apologize.

"The Christian message, whether true or false, was not made to be convenient for those spreading it."

I thought this was settled. I was telling someone else that my response was no a good opener in a serious study of the early church. I said it was given only to quickly counter your claim that you had made (though I did not mention you) that the concept of being born again was manufactured for some reason that I could not even grasp. That reminded me of the larger or parent argument that Christianity as whole was invented for convenience sake. That, I did not reference to anyone by any name. That was just something I wanted to tell the person I was talking to. We have got more than enough on our plate here. Can we let these trivial matters go please?

 

[leibowde84]

Again, we need to stress: these texts change no fundamental doctrine, no core belief. Evangelical scholars have athetized them for over a century without disturbing one iota of orthodoxy.

Regarding the evidence, suffice it to say that significant textual variants that alter core doctrines of the NT have not yet been produced.
The Gospel according to Bart | Bible.org

I am in a big rush currently so I only gave a representative sample.


I don't get this. The bible specifically states he was resurrected and even his enemies claimed to meet him post mortem. I don't know what textual evidence means but it unanimously claims he rose. There are indirect references to the resurrection in extra biblical sources. It is not inconsistencies that do any damage it is only irresolvable ones that cause any destruction. Even those are in secondary details. Like how many angels were at the tomb (it is not inconsistent for one source to say 2 and another 3) that is called textual telescoping. There were three but one author only mentions 2. All the authors had different audiences and purposes and so recorded different (but all true) details of events.

Let's get out of the bible and extra biblical texts for a second. The historical consensus among NT historians regardless of their faith is that four core facts are as reliable as history can make them.

1. Jesus appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. That he was crucified by the Romans.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Even his enemies claimed to have visited with him after death.

That is the majority view of those who are best in a position to know. Here are a few more expert conclusions:


The noted scholar, Professor Edwin Gordon Selwyn, says: "The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day in full continuity of body and soul - that fact seems as secure as historical evidence can make it."

Many impartial students who have approached the resurrection of Chris with a judicial spirit have been compelled by the weight of the evidence to belief in the resurrection as a fact of history. An example may be taken from a letter written by Sir Edward Clarke, K. C. to the Rev. E. L. Macassey:

"As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect. The Gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate."


Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said:

"The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

Wilbur Smith writes of a great legal authority of the last century. He refers to John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet."

Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

I did not say anything about inconsistencies until this post. I know of hundreds of them and so far I have not seen one that does not have an elegant and sufficient explanation. Only differences that can't be harmonized matter.

You for some reason dismissed the discussion we were having about textual accuracy between early extant and modern bible manuscripts and are just taking cherry picked pot shots from every angle. I have said we must do this one step at a time. The first step is textual accuracy, whether you dismiss it or not we know the bible is textually accurate from the 3rd century until today. Next we must see about that 3 century gap. Are we going to do this or are you going to throw all the kitchen sinks you can find of any type and in any order they occur to you at me? What you quoted is not an academic argument it is merely a complaint. We will eventually get to those issues but we must do this one step at a time.

So far I have shown agreement exists that between the oldest manuscripts little error exists and we know where the errors are. You seem to agree but dismiss this first and most important step in the process for some reason. Next we need to see if we can get from the oldest copies to a reliable original. Are you on board? We will get to all these issues your throwing at me in the proper time and place in this discussion eventually. Like I said I am in a rush and so did not get as detailed as I wish here.

"The problem is that Jesus only makes claims for himself as being divine in the Gospel of John. ... But what scholars have long noted is that Jesus doesn't say any of those things in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and that Matthew, Mark and Luke are [written] much earlier than John. ... What I argue in the book is that it's virtually inconceivable that if it was known Jesus called himself God that Matthew, Mark and Luke would just leave that part out," says Ehrman.

 

[leibowde84]

I thought this was settled. I was telling someone else that my response was no a good opener in a serious study of the early church. I said it was given only to quickly counter your claim that you had made (though I did not mention you) that the concept of being born again was manufactured for some reason that I could not even grasp. That reminded me of the larger or parent argument that Christianity as whole was invented for convenience sake. That, I did not reference to anyone by any name. That was just something I wanted to tell the person I was talking to. We have got more than enough on our plate here. Can we let these trivial matters go please?

Who ever argued that Christianity in general was created out of convenience? Can you provide a link? That sounds like a straw-man, imho.

 

[1robin]

Hold up!! That quote wasn't from Bart Ehrman. "The Gospel according to Bart" is an article written ABOUT Ehrman. Try again.

What difference does it make? I told you I was in a huge hurry. I don't care what Ehrman believes about every issue. I only used him as a secondary support. If no errors have been found in core doctrine as was stated then that is the issue at hand. I just do not have time today to look up quotes unless I know where they are. I gave you quotes from all kinds of sources and you committed what I have come to call the soldier last prayer fallacy. It is the fallacy of a soldier who is surrounded by a hundred enemy soldiers and his reasoning is if he can pick off any one of them the rest are irrelevant. I am trying to show what level of faith scholarship concludes can be held in the bible, not Bart Ehrman. I gave you claim after claim to that effect, I did so because I keep many (not Ehrman) in my personal files and can get to them in a hurry. I will try and find his quotes ( I don't know if they even exist in print I got that from two debates I watched) but I have already given you many scholars and many reasons to conclude that the bible and core doctrine especially can be relied upon, add to that the textual errors are all known and so do not even matter. IOW it is the burden of the one claiming what they do not like is part of the 5% error to show it is. In legal circles documents that meet far lesser criteria's than the bible has are taken to be factual until shown otherwise (look up ancient document laws). It can different in a debate but within what is called an intramural debate (two people who hold the bible to contain largely truth) it is the burden of the one claiming the exception to prove it is an exception. Yet I am the one that is throwing up all the numbers, criteria, names, quotes, etc.......

So in summary.

1. Ehrman is one secondary supporting issue among many and is not vital.
2. I will see if I can find the quote when I have time.
3. I however have given more than sufficient evidence to show the bible is 95% accurate between it's earliest extant manuscripts and modern bibles. You seem to agree to this.
4. The errors that do exist have virtually all been found and are well known. So the errors are not even relevant.
5. If you want to play devils advocate and believe that core doctrine is and has 5% errors as well then in the interest of time I will just go with that.
6. You must show that whatever it is you have found you don't like is among the 5% errors to even begin to dismiss the core doctrine of the new birth and you must do so in every case it is mentioned.
7. You mentioned something I could not quite understand about the resurrection and I believe whatever it was, was easily overturned with the contentions I made against it. Ancient historical facts are rarely as well attested as the resurrection.

So again, are you ready to tackle the first three centuries where we do not have majority manuscripts yet found?