There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[Luchito Prays]

Are you just trolling here? Surely you know what a reliable source is? I hope.

I gave you an Egyptian historian whom lived centuries after the exodus, and you call his writings as invalid. Look, to this Egyptian historian was best to deny the existence of Moses, but he wrote about him instead.

Archeologists swear with their lives there was a Hittite empire, while maps from those times show no such an empire ever existed, but a small kingdom subjected to Babylon.

Your "reliable sources" are not to be trusted. And yes, enjoy the recommended movie right above.

 

[Luchito Prays]

I can give you some links as well. Here is a page from a book, but it will bring you no joy:

Dang! Well it gives me no joy either. At any rate here is a link to the soruce:

The Date of the Exodus and the Conquest/Settlement: The Case for the 1100S on JSTOR

I will check that after I post this, but you can read a hundred articles there a month for free.

EDIT Oh that was weird. When I wrote this I only got the generic IMG symbol telling me that something went wrong. But I see that the image did post. Nice.

It is way known that there is at least a 500 years error made by historians in ancient history.

This common error have caused lots of controversies.

Homer lived on times near the exodus of the Israelite. However, his writings belong to a 500 years different Greek language. To this chronological error, historians have tried to cover it arguing that yes, Homer "told" orally the books of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and "someone" wrote them in a book centuries later.

Sure, right... 500 years later...

To cover their second error, some have tried to say that Homer lived centuries later.

What a bunch of fools.

Other controversies is the finding of Egyptian tombs, which belonged to known authorities. The problem is that the decorative vases found in the tombs, belong to a style that belong to an era centuries before. Then, historians argue that the family of the dead persons went and stole the vases from older ones. This argument is nonsense, since for Egyptians is a curse to do that kind of action.

But historians will say whatever but recognize they are the ones who committed a chronological error.

Your article is another sample of the chronological error committed by historians, not from the biblical narration.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Oh, I have to disagree here, TM. I find other people’s beliefs to be fascinating, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

Same here. In fact it's a big reason for why I even participate in these forums.

But the post you are replying to qualified it with "...when one is trying to find out what is actually true."

 

[firedragon]

Here's something I found using google scholar.

Gale - Product Login

I think the point is, there is evidence of the exodus. Whether or not this evidence meets your standards is another story. It's certainly debatable. I found several articles rather quickly when searching. When was the last time you looked into this?

dybmh. Why do you accept these articles? whats your methodology of acceptance?

 

[firedragon]

Let's see it from the right angle.

You are 30 years old. Then, for you 29 years old is the past, and 40 years old is your future.

Well, in physics you are not 30 years old, applying physics you have orbited 30 times around the sun. Then, the time data "years" is just a word that have replaced the phrase "orbits made around the sun"

The physical reality is the 30 orbits around the sun, while the years are just an invented measure of each period of earth surrounding the sun. Then, time is nothing but a measure. By consequence, all your ideas about time are just erroneous.

[/QUOTE]

Do you actually believe that measuring time with some kind of measure means one cannot speak of past, present and future?

Thats a fallacious argument. Even if time is relative, time keeps going like an arrow, and there is always a present, past, and a future which begins from the next moment. The measurement is relative, and subjective. That does not mean the ontology is absent.

 

[Sheldon]

Subduction Zone said: ↑
What "eyewitness accounts"? The Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses

Wrong.

Oh dear, of course it's not wrong, how can people profess a belief, and be this ignorant of the facts about it. Mathew Mark Luke and John are fictional names, made up to sound like apostles and assigned to those narratives at the 1st council of Nicaea over 3 centuries after the alleged evets took place. The earliest written records of them are in Greek, did the people of that region speak and write in the Greek language.

No one knows who wrote those stories, they deviate in important details in some places, and 3 of them clearly plagiarise the 4th in others. They're second or third hand hearsay at best. How can anyone profess to be a Christian and not know this?

 

[Sheldon]

Where did you get that, from a Dan Brown fiction novel?

"Students taking a college-level Bible course for the first time often find it surprising that we don't know who wrote most of the books of the New Testament.

What came as a shock to me over time was just how little actual evidence there is for the traditional ascriptions of authorship that I had always taken for granted, and how much real evidence there was that many of these ascriptions are wrong."

Did you really not know this? Had it never occurred to you to fact check such an important claim?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FOUR GOSPELS WERE ORIGINALLY ANONYMOUS

"That the Gospels were not originally composed bearing their traditional titles is now a well-established matter in New Testament scholarship. This mainstream view is conceded even among various conservative scholars such as Craig L. Blomberg, who stated: “It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First Council of Nicaea
Astonishing how many Christians are blissfully unaware of the facts of how their bible was subjectively cobbled together, and it's origins.

 

[Sheldon]

No, I am right. Most Bibles even admit this. Why have you never studied the history of the Bible?

It never fails to amaze me how many Christians are ignorant of this fact, astonishing really.

 

[Sheldon]

I can go to a magic show, that doesn't mean magic is real. You made a claim you can offer no objective evidence for, just this kind of unevidenced anecdotal claim.



If you mean the gospels of Mathew Mark Luke and John being fictional names, assigned over three centuries after the alleged events, at the first council of Nicaea, it's a well established fact, I am stunned someone claiming to be a Christian can not know this?

ElishaElijah said: ↑
do you know what hearsay is?

hearsay
noun

1. information received from other people which cannot be substantiated; rumour.

And that’s not what the Bible is

We were discussing the 4 anonymous gospels, that have been assigned the fictional names of Mathew Mark Luke and John, and they absolutely are hearsay, by definition. The only claims that can remotely corroborated are the crucifixion, and thus an historical figure named Jesus.

Seriously did you not know this? How are so many Christian so ignorant of the origins of the gospels? There are no verifiable eyewitness accounts, obviously.

 

[Sheldon]

Scientific " fact" that you probably heard as a kid:
Lightning never strikes the same place twice, (not true. )

During the nineteenth century, scientists believed that there was a planet that existed between Sun and Mercury. Its name was Vulcan.

For centuries, science taught that life rose from elements without seed or an egg or any other means of reproduction.

Science used to teach that the earth itself was expanding.

Science brought us water canals on Mars.

Science taught that a person had no built-in personality when he is born.

Before the Big Bang Theory was accepted, it was believed that the Universe and its size were not changing. That's a pretty big "fact" to be wrong about.

Go back a bit farther, the earth was the center of the universe according to science.

Just a few obvious ones.

You can't just collect old myths and assign them to science, the geocentric earth was an idea derived from religions for a start, and it was an adoption of modern scientific rigour using empirical evidence that falsified it. The lightning claim is an old wives tale, I am dubious there was ever a consensus in modern science to this end. The claim about Vulcan predate modern science and originate in the 17th century, not the 19th. The idea was never an accepted scientific fact, since it's existence was never confirmed, and originated to explain anomalies in Mercury's orbit, this hypothesis (not fact) was rendered redundant finally by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which is now an accepted scientific fact.

For centuries, science taught that life rose from elements without seed or an egg or any other means of reproduction.

I am dubious, please offer a citation, but even prima facie if this was accepted for centuries what are the odds it predates modern science, certainly the field of biology.

Science used to teach that the earth itself was expanding.

This idea predates modern science as well, though it did persist it was never an accepted scientific fact, it was finally falsified by the discovery of tectonic plate shift. It hardly supports your sweeping assertion that science is "always changing". One of science's greatest strengths its inbuilt necessity that all ideas, even the most well established fact remain open to revision in the light of new evidence. Of course creationist who regularly accuse science of being dogmatic, then make the contradictory claim that science is "always changing" as if this means no scientific fact is reliable, a risible idea of course.

Science brought us water canals on Mars.

Again this was one hypothesis explored, not a scientific fact, no wonder you're so confused if you don't know the difference between the two.

All in all this gets a resounding so what? Science doesn't cling to errant dogma the way religions do, this doesn't make accepted scientific facts unreliable, that's just a propaganda canard creationists and religious apologists espouse when scientific facts contradict their unevidenced myths.

Compare these few superseded hypothesise to the mass of all scientific facts and it's pretty meaningless. let alone when compare to you not even knowing that the 4 gospels of Mathew Mark Luke and John were penned anonymously, and the names fictional, and assigned centuries later. How can one profess to be a Christian, and not know about the 1st council of Nicaea.

 

[Sheldon]

Let me ask you how many Jewish believers were at the Council of Nicaea?

Before we discuss the bizarre question of how many Jews were present at a council of early Christians. Do you now accept the fact that those Gospels are of unknown authorship, and the name Mathew Mark Luke and John are fictitious names assigned those narratives over 3 centuries after the events they purport to describe, and that since the earliest written records are decades after the alleged events, they are by definition hearsay, since no eyewitness records can be validated as such?

Also that there is a consensus among historians of these facts?

 

[Sheldon]

Although the Bible has rumors in it and hearsay, its not a rumor but Holy Men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

You can't validate hearsay accounts with a subjective unevidenced claim they are not, good grief.

Eyewitnesses,

Name one eyewitness and demonstrate how you validated this? Your claim seems to be at odds with modern biblical historians.

Prophets, Moses all wrote and recorded the Scriptures as God determined and directed.

Another entirely unevidenced claim, and as fine an example of a circular reasoning fallacy as one could hope for. There is no historical evidence anyone called Moses ever existed at all. Your god claim of course is risible, as this begging the question fallacy if true, would render speculation about the authenticity of biblical authorship entirely moot, it's the kind of woeful circular reasoning that abounds in biased attempts to validate beliefs in religious apologetics.

 

[Sheldon]

Sorry, newsflash. Moses is fictitious and those books are younger than the book of Job.

Why haven't you ever looked into the history of the Bible?

Oh oh oh, me me me, I know this one....

 

[samtonga43]

Same here. In fact it's a big reason for why I even participate in these forums.

But the post you are replying to qualified it with "...when one is trying to find out what is actually true."

What do you think is actually true, TM?
.

 

[Sheldon]

Well their first hand accounts

Just how many times do you need to be told this is not true? None of the gospels are contemporary accounts, the authorship of Mathew Mark Luke and John are fictitious. The earliest written records are decades after the alleged events, so no they are not by definition "first hand accounts". Paul neither met nor even knew Jesus.

 

[Sheldon]

actually does happen to a person when they receive Eternal Life through Jesus Christ. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be saying it did, I’d still be a drug addict, be dead, in jail or some institution. But what happened is that I was born again and that is no pipe dream, myth or fantasy.

The effect of a belief on a person is not objective evidence the belief is true, no one I suspect would argue that a belief, even a false one based entirely on a delusion, cannot have a profound effect on the believer. Just as many believers have harnessed their belief to be profoundly barbaric and immoral, what does this tell us about the belief, and try not to use a no true Scotsman fallacy.

 

[Sheldon]

Polymath257 said: ↑
Nope. That was when religion was in control and well before the rise of modern science.

So now you just redefine science to fit what you want.

That is not remotely what he did, it's hardly his fault that your ignorance of the history of science is so all pervasive. You also seem to have pulled a single sentence, and ignored his refutations of your woefully inaccurate claims, quelle surprise.

You had only one scientific fact in there, and the scientific method has advanced its knowledge, and superseded this, so what? You made a claim about science you have failed to support, quod erat demonstrandum.

 

[Sheldon]

Galileo was opposing what was the accepted science at the time.

Not even close to being true, and it was the church that told Galileo to stop making claims that contradicted their doctrinal teachings, and usurped their authority as "god's sole arbiters of truth on earth". When Galileo ignored the Pope's warning, it was the church who arrested him, the Inquisition who tried him, and sentenced him, not science. Do you ever fact check anything you believe, and I don't mean by reading the subjective opinions of other religious apologists?

 

[Sheldon]

I have, seems you got some bad intel

 

[Sheldon]

What makes you think that the Gospels are "first hand accounts"?

It says so in the gospels mun....

OF course this rationale would make the Harry Potter books evidence of wizardry???