There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the New Testament

[Tony B]

In a nutshell, he believes that Christians agree on all the basics. I sent him a long, long list of important issues that Christians disagree on and have even killed each other over in the past, and he didn't like that very much.

You sent me your opinion, I simply disagree with it, and as a practising Christian I'm probably better placed to know than a Jew with a 2000 yr old axe to grind to be honest.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Genuine question, what is your definition of 'sufficient evidence' for a claim?

Genuine question?

Sorry, Tony, but I won't bite again. You did this a few days ago as well. You asked me, "How do we know those things didn't happen? that's simply a belief isn't it?" referring to the Genesis myths and the scientific refutation of them, and I gave you a polite and respectful answer here. You couldn't return the favor. Your reply included words like laughable, pseudoscience, hilarious, lies, manipulated, and joker all in derogatory ways.

You demeaned scientific consensus, the human genome project, and Darwin - and I don't mean made counterarguments - just broad, dismissive, unsupported, and hostile-to-science claims. You were dismissive of an AI passage because it was AI and gratuitously attempted to demean my critical thinking skills.

Now, here you are again with a question similar to the one above - seemingly sincere and inviting discussion, but that's not your style.

You might want to reexamine your posting etiquette and ask yourself what's in it for the other guy to engage you in discussion - why he should submit himself to more of that. I'm not interested in what you think of me, nor hostile and disrespectful creationist apologetics.

 

[Tony B]

Genuine question?

Sorry, Tony, but I won't bite again. You did this a few days ago as well. You asked me, "How do we know those things didn't happen? that's simply a belief isn't it?" referring to the Genesis myths and the scientific refutation of them, and I gave you a polite and respectful answer here. You couldn't return the favor. Your reply included words like laughable, pseudoscience, hilarious, lies, manipulated, and joker all in derogatory ways.

You demeaned scientific consensus, the human genome project, and Darwin - and I don't mean made counterarguments - just broad, dismissive, unsupported, and hostile-to-science claims. You were dismissive of an AI passage because it was AI and gratuitously attempted to demean my critical thinking skills.

Now, here you are again with a question similar to the one above - seemingly sincere and inviting discussion, but that's not your style.

You might want to reexamine your posting etiquette and ask yourself what's in it for the other guy to engage you in discussion - why he should submit himself to more of that. I'm not interested in what you think of me, nor hostile and disrespectful creationist apologetics.

It's not a difficult question, essentially your previous answer was 'trust the science', and when I pointed out the obvious flaws in that reasoning you weren't interested. I didn't actually realise it was you this time, but if you can't answer that question then it's not very convincing. Science has been completely corrupted, John Ioannidis essentially pointed this out in his famous paper Why Most Published Research Findings Are False . He who pays the piper calls the tune, quite clearly. You put a premium on what you call 'empiricism', apparently science doesn't agree with you these days. Empiricism itself is deeply flawed as many things could not pass such a test. I can guarantee there ARE things you believe to be true which cannot pass this test and don't so it's a house built on sand.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's not a difficult question, essentially your previous answer was 'trust the science', and when I pointed out the obvious flaws in that reasoning you weren't interested. I didn't actually realise it was you this time, but if you can't answer that question then it's not very convincing. Science has been completely corrupted, John Ioannidis essentially pointed this out in his famous paper Why Most Published Research Findings Are False . He who pays the piper calls the tune, quite clearly. You put a premium on what you call 'empiricism', apparently science doesn't agree with you these days. Empiricism itself is deeply flawed as many things could not pass such a test. I can guarantee there ARE things you believe to be true which cannot pass this test and don't so it's a house built on sand.

Using articles that you probably did not read and definitely did not understand does not help you. It looks as if @It Aint Necessarily So was correct in his assessment of you.

Do you want to go over the basics of science? You cannot properly criticize that which you do not understand.

 

[Tony B]

Using articles that you probably did not read and definitely did not understand does not help you. It looks as if @It Aint Necessarily So was correct in his assessment of you.

Do you want to go over the basics of science? You cannot properly criticize that which you do not understand.

Wow, where do you live? assumption central? did my critique of science hurt your feelings? I think, in as a few as words as is possible you successfully summed up the arrogance and hubris that ensures the corruption in science flourishes as it does. Please tell me what I missed about Ioannidis's assertion that most research papers are false positives?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Wow, where do you live? assumption central? did my critique of science hurt your feelings? I think, in as a few as words as is possible you successfully summed up the arrogance and hubris that ensures the corruption in science flourishes as it does. Please tell me what I missed about Ioannidis's assertion that most research papers are false positives?

There you go with more falsehoods. I offered a way to correct errors. That is all.

Ease up a bit on the projection dude.

 

[Tony B]

There you go with more falsehoods. I offered a way to correct errors. That is all.

Ease up a bit on the projection dude.

I asked a question, was it too difficult?

 

[Trailblazer]

Whilst some people are born into Christianity it's entirely different in terms of leaving, there's generally no compulsion, yet it's still the majority faith, because it attracts new adherents daily. The Muslim community in particular loses people to Christianity when they migrate to Christian countries, as they come to understand how they have been deceived from birth.

The growth rates of the Abrahamic religions from 1910-2010 were as follows: Judaism .11%, Christianity 1.32%, Islam 1.97%, and Baha’i Faith 3.54%.
From 2000-2010 Islam became the fastest growing religion (1.86 %) and the Baha’i Faith was the second fastest growing religion (1.72%). Christianity is trailing behind at 1.31%.
Statistics from: Growth of religion - Wikipedia

The growth rates of the Baha’i Faith were higher than Islam from 1910 to 2010 because it includes the “formative age” of the Baha’i Faith (1921-1944)

Growth of the Baha’i Faith has slowed down since 2000 because the new goal is consolidation and community building, so the emphasis is not spreading the Faith all over the world as it was before in the 20th century.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

It has to do with two things.

The first is that eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. You know, there are plenty of people who were on death row due to eyewitness testimony that have been exonerated by new DNA evidence.

The second is the nature of story telling. Every time someone tells a story, they change it just a little. When I tell a ghost story around the campfire, I'll change it just a bit to make it more interesting or scarier. Now imagine how these natural embellishments accumulate over time. By the time the gospel writers set out to record all these stories of Jesus, decades had gone by. Whatever elements of actual history were left, they were all mixed up with legends and myths.

All religions and even many secular ideologies have their martyrs. Christianity does not have a monopoly on dying for the cause. People are willing to go to their deaths because they BELIEVE. Belief is not evidence of accuracy.

Consider how many Japanese kamikazes there were. They were true believers! As very devout Shintoists who believed the emperor was a god, they willingly went to their death to advance the righteous cause of rightful Japanese domination.

Would you like a list of Jews in history who went to their deaths rather than convert to Christianity?

I assume you've heard of the telephone game, in which a story is told among a group of people, and over time the original story significantly changes because some of them forget what was said, so they guess by making something up to fill in the blanks or adding their own narratives to embellish the story. I believe this could be one of the reasons why the stories about Jesus were so widespread and why they were inflated to make him appear to be a godlike figure or even the son of God. To be honest, reading about Jesus in comparative mythology was very eye-opening for me, and it made me realize that the stories told about him in the Bible (e.g., his alleged virgin birth, miracles, crucifixion, death, and resurrection) weren't as unique and compelling as I had been led to believe when I was a Christian. Now I believe that the stories about him in the Bible were greatly embellished, either stories based on hearsay that became more elaborate as they spread or copied and adapted from Greek mythology and other ancient pagan religions that his followers were aware of at the time. I believe that paganism has had a substantial impact on Christianity and that some of the stories about him are plagiarized pagan myths, proving that they are not as unique or as credible as I once believed. Of course, this is what I believe, and I know that others may disagree.

Despite the common belief and claim by Christians that the Bible was divinely inspired by God and that Christianity is the only true religion in the world, I believe these other stories prove that neither the stories about Jesus nor Christianity are as unique as Christians claim. I believe that the facts I discovered in comparative mythology about Jesus challenge the authenticity of Christianity and that the stories about him are no more credible or believable than all of the other similar savior stories from ancient pagan religions. Yes, the stories about him are believed by people all around the world, just as the stories about Santa are believed by countless children all around the world. Moreover, these stories about Jesus and Santa vary depending on the people and location where they live. And, just as the mythical stories of Santa were based on a real person, I believe that the stories about Jesus were as well. I believe these stories, like those about Santa, were greatly embellished for popular effect. In the stories about Jesus, he was given divine attributes, just as Santa was given divine attributes. My point is that these stories were embellished to make people believe that they appeared to be more than they really were.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

if you can't answer that question

Maybe you didn't understand my last post. It's not about being unable to answer questions. I am unwilling to do so again for you. Your condescension is insufferable. You just answered another poster similarly with, "I asked a question, was it too difficult?"

I'm actually not interested in the conclusions of any faith-based thinkers - not creationists, not flat earthers, not vaccine deniers, not election hoax advocates, and not MAGA. What interests me about them is how they defend those beliefs, and in many cases, how quickly they turn emotional. I often refer to the three stages of the apologist's decompensation. First, he begins unemotionally by presenting what he considers a point worth discussing. When he is challenged by the critical thinkers, he becomes defensive and a little flustered - the beginnings of an emotional reaction. Then, frequently, he becomes angry and hostile. Here's an example from a previous post:

Me: There is no biblical evidence of Jesus.​

​

He: I stopped reading your antichrist post right there. That's moronic.​

​

Me: I see you've returned to stage three of apologetics, the angry, emotional posting. You did well for a few days, but I guess you couldn't maintain the facade any longer. So your feelings were hurt and you ran off.​

You hit that third stage almost immediately. I find that more interesting than your opinions about science and scientists.

It's also helpful to contrast that kind of thinking and emotional lability with the critically thinking set, who rarely if ever go there. What's the reason for that? What distinguishes these two groups besides the quality of their arguments and their temperaments?

The answer seems to be a higher education, where critical thinking and academic culture are taught. Attorneys and professors don't behave emotionally. Thery don't typically express anger or demean one another personally. They don't use the language you so quickly devolved into. When they do, they are censured by their professional oversight institutions.

Anyway, once again, I would ask you to examine your posting behavior, decide what it is you want out these discussions, and decide if your current posting etiquette is conducive to that. I'd have been happy to discuss whatever you liked, but it seems that all you wanted to do was to insult science, scientists, and me. If there were other issues that you would have liked to have had a respectful and meaningful discussion about, which seems unlikely at this point, you went about it all wrong.

Or maybe you're here for the trolling and insulting. Either way, whether it's malice or lack of insight - and we seldom can determine which it is in any given poster - nobody needs to tolerate your dismissive demeanor. You don't merely disagree with others. You feel the need to demean them, which is boring and of no value.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Maybe you didn't understand my last post. It's not about being unable to answer questions. I am unwilling to do so again for you. Your condescension is insufferable. You just answered another poster similarly with, "I asked a question, was it too difficult?"

I'm actually not interested in the conclusions of any faith-based thinkers - not creationists, not flat earthers, not vaccine deniers, not election hoax advocates, and not MAGA. What interests me about them is how they defend those beliefs, and in many cases, how quickly they turn emotional. I often refer to the three stages of the apologist's decompensation. First, he begins unemotionally by presenting what he considers a point worth discussing. When he is challenged by the critical thinkers, he becomes defensive and a little flustered - the beginnings of an emotional reaction. Then, frequently, he becomes angry and hostile. Here's an example from a previous post:

Me: There is no biblical evidence of Jesus.

He: I stopped reading your antichrist post right there. That's moronic.

Me: I see you've returned to stage three of apologetics, the angry, emotional posting. You did well for a few days, but I guess you couldn't maintain the facade any longer. So your feelings were hurt and you ran off.​

You hit that third stage almost immediately. I find that more interesting than your opinions about science and scientists.

It's also helpful to contrast that kind of thinking and emotional lability with the critically thinking set, who rarely if ever go there. What's the reason for that? What distinguishes these two groups besides the quality of their arguments and their temperaments?

The answer seems to be a higher education, where critical thinking and academic culture are taught. Attorneys and professors don't behave emotionally. Thery don't typically express anger or demean one another personally. They don't use the language you so quickly devolved into. When they do, they are censured by their professional oversight institutions.

Great response! Well said, in my opinion.

Anyway, once again, I would ask you to examine your posting behavior again, decide what it is you want out these discussions, and decide if your current posting etiquette is conducive to that. I'd have been happy to discuss whatever you liked, but it seems that all you wanted to do was to insult science, scientists, and me. If there were other issues that you would have liked to have had a respectful and meaningful discussion, which seems unlikely at this point, you went about it all wrong.

Or maybe you're here for the trolling and insulting. Either way, whether it's malice or lack of insight - and we seldom can determine which it is in any given poster - nobody needs to tolerate your dismissive demeanor. You don't merely disagree with others. You feel the need to demean them, which is boring and of no value.

As well as being outright dismissive of my negative experiences with Christianity, which I addressed when @IndigoChild5559 kindly responded to me.

I'm including my response to her.

There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the New Testament

My extended family is split among Baptists, Methodists, JWs, Episcopalians and Lutherans. The only ones who do not actively talk smack about other denominations are the Episcopalians. My husband's family is primarily evangelical, specifically Nazarene and Church of Christ. My father-in-law is...

www.religiousforums.com

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is evidence enough to rest rest a faith upon.
Denying the evidence seems to come from a place of wanting to say that anything other than the supernatural is a better explanation.

Anything other than "the supernatural" is a better explanation because there is no evidence for the supernatural and therefore no reason to consider it as an option. Why don't you consider "inter-dimensional space aliens" as an option? What about invisible pixies? Why or why not?

And simply invoking "the Supernatural" itself has no explanatory power anyway. It doesn't tell you anything. It doesn't provide you with any additional information. It's just a placeholder to say "I don't understand this thing."

 

[SkepticThinker]

How do you know that?

You've demonstrated it yourself on these threads. I have pointed that out to you several times throughout our discussions.

OK that is fairly convincing and most Christians might believe something like that also.
There is nothing like that for all ideas of what happened in the past and it does not eliminate God from the process.

If you want god included in the process, you'll have to demonstrate that one exists and requires inclusion.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The age of the universe is based on pseudo science such as radiometric dating, which is demonstrably full of holes and assumptions and frankly laughable when it comes to accuracy, this has been demonstrated many times and by many examples, the Turin Shroud being the most notable.

False. Long ago debunked PRATT based on misunderstanding of scientific methodology.

Ah, the laughable catchall known as 'consensus'. You know the argument has failed when that joker has to be produced. The human genome project is a failure, so simply more pseudo science I'm afraid. It's also interesting to note that when maths is applied to the increase in population from Adam and Eve, the rate of decay caused by the fall, and including the great flood, then we arrived at the population of earth as it is today.

False. Long ago debunked PRATT based on misunderstanding of scientific methodology.

The Human Genome Project was definitely not a failure. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

Simply more pseudo science based on huge assumptions and 'consensus'. Since Darwin's hilarious tome we have seen how science is owned and manipulated by the same people with the same agenda. Even Darwin couldn't substantiate his own work in the Origin of the Species, so others were used to promote the lies.

False. Long ago debunked PRATT.

The fact you place all your faith, and yes it is faith, in AI, which is produced by the very same people responsible for all the pseudo science you have been indoctrinated with, speaks volumes to the level of critical thinking you have employed here, or rather the absence of it. The appeal to authority is also rather telling.

False.

 

[Tony B]

False. Long ago debunked PRATT based on misunderstanding of scientific methodology.

False. Long ago debunked PRATT based on misunderstanding of scientific methodology.

The Human Genome Project was definitely not a failure. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

False. Long ago debunked PRATT.

False.

That was awesome, basically you just need to use the word 'debunked' and apparently it makes it so

 

[SkepticThinker]

Wow, where do you live? assumption central? did my critique of science hurt your feelings? I think, in as a few as words as is possible you successfully summed up the arrogance and hubris that ensures the corruption in science flourishes as it does. Please tell me what I missed about Ioannidis's assertion that most research papers are false positives?

Actually, your "critique of science" demonstrated that you don't actually understand the scientific method at all, nor do you understand evolution.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Anything other than "the supernatural" is a better explanation because there is no evidence for the supernatural and therefore no reason to consider it as an option. Why don't you consider "inter-dimensional space aliens" as an option? What about invisible pixies? Why or why not?

And simply invoking "the Supernatural" itself has no explanatory power anyway. It doesn't tell you anything. It doesn't provide you with any additional information. It's just a placeholder to say "I don't understand this thing."

I'm not sure why Christians try to convince you and other skeptics that the supernatural is real because, in my experience, that's not how it works.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That was awesome, basically you just need to use the word 'debunked' and apparently it makes it so

That's all that post required. Anyone who understands science and evolution knows you're using old creationist talking points from over 50 years ago that have been debunked many times over.

They're all listed here:

An Index to Creationist Claims

 

[Tony B]

Actually, you're "critique of science" demonstrated that you don't actually understand the scientific method at all, nor do you understand evolution.

I definitely understand it, and I definitely understand how evolution is so full of holes it gives a Swiss cheese a run for it's money, why don't you just call yourself the 'Master of the Unsubstantiated Statement', it's far more realistic than 'Skeptic Thinker'.

 

[Tony B]

That's all that post required. Anyone who understands science and evolution knows you're using old creationist talking points from over 50 years ago that have been debunked many times over.

They're all listed here:

An Index to Creationist Claims

I just picked one;

CB925: Incomplete creatures

I mean seriously? where are all the missing links? where is the man ape? you keep looking for him but you can never find him. Why are fossils of mammals found below and alongside Dinosaurs etc etc, I could go on. This hilarious 'debunking' includes aquatic snakes, newsflash, some snakes can swim, it doesn't prove evolution at all. Yes, some fish can live for short duration out of water, it doesn't prove fish became anything else, it's speciation and adaption, you're definitely not a skeptic thinker at all are you.