Wans

I think we must be boring bystanders to death by now

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Originally Posted by Hoss First off, this is your own bias claiming these people weren't contemporaries of Jesus. But even if we just go with what you have admitted, that Paul's letters were legit, he was a contemporary and he wrote most of the NT. So how was most of it written 'a fair while later'? What is a fair while anyway?

I meant contemporary in the sense of companions or observers. Apologies for the terminological inexactitude.

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Originally Posted by Hoss You conveniently ignored what I said about things written within 200 years of an event in ancient times being deemed generally trustworthy enough for scholars.

I "conveniently ignored" it because you failed to give any sort of reference for this nonsense. If you walk up to someone on the street tomorrow and ask them for an account of the Battle of Waterloo, would whatever they say be historically valid because it happened within the last 200 years? Obviously not.

I like the "God would destroy the evidence" bit, that's marvellous. Noodly appendages strike again. If faith is the cornerstone of Christianity, and faith requires no evidence, why did Jesus perform miracles? Why did he rise from the grave? Why the catering magic with the fish?

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Originally Posted by Hoss why is it such a catching point for you that in 40 years time, some memories became a little fuzzy

So, the earliest known Gospel of Mark failing to mention the resurrection - the seminal point of Christ's story, the reason for the existence of Christianity - is because he's "a little fuzzy"? If you are going to explain away the legions of contradictions by saying that the gospel writers' memories were faulty, I reserve the right to apply the very same argument to any single statement in them. What textual roadsigns are you using to determine what's right? When one gospel contradicts another, which is correct, if either?

I ask because you do not seem to have read any textual research into the history of the Bible. Whole sections were inserted c.125AD and later. In fact there were centuries of editing and compiling. That doesn't necessarily make all of it incorrect, but makes claiming that some parts are incontrovertibly true intellectually untenable.

As for your rooster analogy, you are evading the point that I can refer to these inconsistencies to simply cast doubt on the very existence of Jesus. You need his existence as a starting point for your belief. I’m challenging your starting point.

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Originally Posted by Hoss The Bible.

Once again, you're using it to prove its own truth. Pathetic.

Please, entertain us with your reasoning as to why your particular imaginary friend’s holy book validates itself, yet for some reason you don’t extend the same argument to all the other holy books out there? We’re both atheists about 99.9% of all claims regarding divinity there have ever been. The difference is you leave your critical faculties at the door when it comes to the one you just so happen to have been raised with (correct me if I’m wrong – but if I’m not, what an amazing coincidence!).

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Originally Posted by Hoss You give great credence because 3 of lane fox's classmates read his work

Your assumptions of conspiracy, your venom at the peer review methodology, and your overall anti-intellectualism are becoming tedious. However, you've repeated this so often I will have to believe you genuinely aren't able to differentiate between true scholarship and research, and the person with his hand in your pocket every Sunday.

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Originally Posted by Hoss But centuries of review by billions of people means nothing

Ahh, the argument from tradition. Amusing. Most people have believed in different gods to you, so by your logic, you're wrong. See, I can do it too. Doesn’t work as a substitute for coherent logic, though. Let’s also skip lightly past the fact that throughout nearly all of the last two millennia, the church has kept the masses illiterate as a deliberate policy, and has threatened anyone carrying out “review” of the Bible with hellfire and worse. I mentioned this before, you seem to have forgotten it.

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Originally Posted by Hoss if Mark verbally passed the story to someone else and THEY wrote it down, sure you could technically say he wasn't the author.

You could technically say that, but I didn't. Instead of me doing all the historical research, let me set you an easy question: when was “Mark’s” gospel first attributed to him, and by whom? You're really barking up the wrong tree trying to attribute the gospels to the disciples, but you persist. Why do you know so little about your own revealed texts? Does your church dissuade you from independent thought? Don’t feel too bad if so – it’s been the modus operandi of all faiths for a long, long time.

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Originally Posted by Hoss They were both there seeing it all. On one hand if the gospels disagree you go "AHA proof it was all made up". But then when they do agree you go "AHA proof that they were copied!"

See above. You’re actually making this argument, not me. You might, instead, want to note that I said “copied from”, NOT that they merely agree. The fact you’re struggling to (accept or) understand the difference reflects badly on your understanding of the history of the text which you claim is so important to you.

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Originally Posted by Hoss If evolution really happened to the grand scale that would be required for it to explain the origin of the species, where are the missing links? Where are the birds being born to reptiles? Where are the human babies being born to something that's not human?

Oh, the god of the gaps. Again. We haven’t seen that for a couple of posts now. Read a decent book on evolution, it’ll easily answer your questions.

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Originally Posted by Hoss I just don't believe it happened on the scale that would be required for your pet theory to be plausible

You’ve lost me. You think evolution only occurred in certain geographical areas? Or that evolution resulted in the easy changes, then gave up and handed the tougher work to god? Or perhaps you think evolution only happens for living things smaller than, I don’t know, an iguana? This is more mystifying than outright rejection. Anyway, read a book on the subject, etc etc.

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Originally Posted by Hoss Well ya see, as the story goes, he actually created this whole planet. Asia included

Seems I have to repeat the basis for the exchange again. Happy days.

You claimed that the blood on the Turin Shroud, being AB and B being an Asian-derived blood type, “proved” that God “had” to be Jesus’ babydaddy. I had assumed you were kidding as it was such a daft idea, hence me asking what part of Asia he came from. Now you’re saying he’s from everywhere. Please knock yourself out explaining how someone with ALL blood types (I’d have guessed religious “logic” meant he had none at all, but what do I know) created a baby with type AB? Shouldn’t the blood be type O-O+A+A-B+B-AB+AB-? Crazy stuff.

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Originally Posted by Hoss Gravity is a law. You are using the fact that there are theories about how gravity works that include the word gravity to cloud the definition of a scientific theory.

Oh dear, oh dear. A law of physics is simply a theory that is so well-observed as to be accepted throughout the scientific (and wider) community. Two minutes’ research (not your forte, agreed) would have told you that while indeed Newtonian gravity theory is indeed a scientific law, so is Einstein’s gravity theory. Well done on your own-goal.

Meanwhile, and probably as you intended, you failed to address the awkward bit where I pointed out the difference between a theory and a story which made your original comparison fatally flawed. Oh well!

Otis

By all means. Watching Hoss get his clock cleaned never gets old.

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Foggy

God! To have Hoss's brain! Could you imagine....

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Ouchy Dathurts

I find the back and forth to be entertaining. I don't think Hoss has proven anything at all. But its at least been an entertaining read.

Hoss

I don't care much for anyone who's too chicken to get into the conversation, TBH.

Nope because I thought I was clear I was talking about ancient events. Since history was being recorded fairly well back in the days of waterloo, it would be silly to ask someone randomly on the street today.

I'm glad you liked it, I was, after all, clowning you. So it was purely for your entertainment value.

BTW, as for the miracles, there is no proof of them today is there?

That's an excellent question. Basically you do what all scholars do and believe the parts that are corroborated. When something isn't, then you put it into the 'unconfirmed' category.

There are more copies of the bible than anything else from that era. Sure there are errors, that's to be expected since things were scribed by hand. But the multitude of source material allows us to ferret those out more easily. The very thing anti-christians use to cast doubts on the authenticity of the Bible are the reasons its more trustworhty than most ancient documents.

Make up your mind, you even admitted earlier that there was enough evidence to convince you he lived.

I don't even know what God of the gaps is. Not sure how I've made the argument even once, much less twice. I have an idea, why don't you try making some original arguments instead of regurgitating what other people say? I thought I was having a discussion with you.

From those choices, I guess it would be the easy changes. What I'm saying is that you can't have one species giving birth to another. Something I thought I was pretty clear about. Its obvious there have been changes in the way humans (and probably most animals) look over the ages.

Whats the latest guess regarding what animal humans evolved from?

As for reading a book on the subject, how about Origin of the Species? Is that book good enough for ya? Darwin thought that if you cut off your arm, you'd have a 50% chance of having a child born with 1 arm.
Actually, i did not claim that. For the most part I was clowning you again, but you weren't even able to understand it, so I guess I failed. I need to learn my audience and tell appropriate jokes. Here ya go.

A guy goes to the doctor and says, "Hey doc, there's something wrong with my farts ... they don't stink"

So the doctor says, "Well, why don't you cut one for me right now"

So the guy cuts a loud one and goes, "see, no odor!"

The doctor sniffs a few times and says, "I think I know what your problem is, I'll be right back". He leaves the room and comes back with a long stick with a hook on the end.

The guy goes "Whoa whoa whoa! Whats that stick for doc, whats wrong with me?"

The doctor replies, "The stick is to open a window, there is something wrong with you nose"

Fart jokes are your speed right?

This is like the 4th time in this thread that you have assigned a false 'point' to me in order to make it look like you've won something. Just stop it.

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Wans

Before I move on to your latest replies, I failed to address this from earlier.

Your argument against my statement that the Romans, not the Jews, killed your Christ, is to say that the Romans put him to death? How on earth does that make your point?

In the biblical stories, Jesus was sentenced to death by the Roman governor, in a Roman court, was then held by the Roman authorities until led by Roman soldiers to be executed by the Roman method of crucifixion. You throw in the puppet authority of the pharisees to adduce blame to "the Jews". I'd compare them to Vichy France, but that's not strong enough. These pharisees may have been allowed some jurisdiction over rabbinical matters, but even within your story their motivation is to divorce themselves from this rabble-rouser before his preached rejection of all earthly authority (including Rome) came to the attention of the occupiers. Have you no understanding whatsoever as to how the Roman Empire was controlled, and how they reacted to sedition? Do you know what the Romans did to the Jews as a result of the Judean Revolt of AD66-73?

I suppose I'm not surprised you've bought into this calumny. It's an inevitable result of the Romans deciding to take the Christian franchise on, warping their role in it, together with centuries of anti-semitism poisoning the argument. How anyone can read the assertions of the Bible and conclude that a people other than the Italians could be held remotely responsible is beyond me, though.

Hoss

You're daft. You're trying to lump me in with hitler by making out like I blame jews for the saviour's death. If you hear something buzzing over your head, jump up and try to catch it, it might be a point.

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Wans

You said

and when I pulled you up on it, you modified it to

You have read a story that has a Jewish rabbi preaching sedition to his Jewish followers causing the puppet local (Jewish) authorities to panic and hand him over to their brutal occupiers, and yet - twice! - you talk about "the jews". As in all Jews. Your inability or unwillingness to differentiate between a handful of people and an entire tribe/race/religion reflects badly on you. I didn't mention Hitler, you did. There are many different shades and depths of anti-semitism out there.

You're getting increasingly abusive in your replies. Should I attribute that to the strength of your arguments, your following of your Messiah's teachings, or both?

Wans

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Originally Posted by Hoss Nope because I thought I was clear I was talking about ancient events. Since history was being recorded fairly well back in the days of waterloo, it would be silly to ask someone randomly on the street today.

You still haven't produced a reference or even attribution for this assertion. How can something being further away from a time in which, in your words, "history was being recorded fairly well" (wrong in its assumptions, but let's move on) make something non-contemporaneous more accurate and persuasive?

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Originally Posted by Hoss as for the miracles, there is no proof of them today is there?

That is counter to your overall argument - I thought you did accept them as proof because of the testimony of the gospels? - and evasive of my central point. Why, if faith alone is enough, did the Jesus in your story constantly prove his divinity through miracles? Why was such proof needed and provided then, but not now?

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Originally Posted by Hoss Basically you do what all scholars do and believe the parts that are corroborated. When something isn't, then you put it into the 'unconfirmed' category.

A breakthrough. I agree entirely with you, which is why I have been pointing out a) the lack of third-party corroboration/reporting of any events in the bible, especially from the Romans who had a pathological need to document noteworthy occurrences, and b) the vast numbers of textual problems with the gospels making the very process you describe put a lot of crucial story elements into that "unconfirmed" category.

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Originally Posted by Hoss There are more copies of the bible than anything else from that era. Sure there are errors, that's to be expected since things were scribed by hand. But the multitude of source material allows us to ferret those out more easily.

Again, you're nearly there. However there is no extant copy of the gospels from earlier than the fourth century, so it's not "from that era" in the sense of an original manuscript or similar. You now need to go the extra mile and read up on the history of the texts so you realise the massive amount of editing, translating, and politically-motivated adjustments that were made over the centuries. R.E. Brown, hardly someone sympathetic to my point of view, wrote:

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The needs of dogmatic theology were undisturbed by much historical sense. [By c.600] they had resulted in a distortion of the historical materials on which theology was supposedly built. The absence of any understanding of historical development allowed genuine and false documents to be so thoroughly mixed that they would not be disentangled for more than a millennium.

- The Critical Meaning of the Bible

If the gospels represent historical accounts of Jesus' life, why do they miss nearly all of it out? We have (extremely problematical) accounts of his birth; a few references to his childhood precociousness; then a violent fast-forward to the last few months of his life. Why is the rest of it of no interest to the authors? Why has so much about his family been removed or side-lined?

I repeat my question: when was “Mark’s” gospel first attributed to him, and by whom?

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Originally Posted by Hoss Make up your mind, you even admitted earlier that there was enough evidence to convince you he lived.

No, I didn't. I said I was willing to entertain the possibility that a rabbi called Jesus (a common name at the time) lived, preached, and was executed by the Roman occupiers around that time if the evidence supported it (in other words, I have an open mind about it). The only reason for allowing that possibility at this time would have to be the Bible, as we have no corroborating evidence. I'm bringing forward the reasons NOT to simply accept those possibilities as given truth, as any critical analysis should.

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Originally Posted by Hoss I don't even know what God of the gaps is

Oh come on - I've mentioned it many times, it’s a common term, and you can't be bothered to use Google, Wikipedia, or any source of your choosing to at least understand what I mean? I'm not doing all your work in this argument for you.

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Originally Posted by Hoss why don't you try making some original arguments instead of regurgitating what other people say?

Are you seriously suggesting I should come up with a new theory of evolution for this thread? I’m flattered you think I could develop a credible alternative to the last 150 years of experiment and research since Darwin, but I’m not that clever, unfortunately. Plus of course I don’t think it’s likely there is a better explanation.

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Originally Posted by Hoss From those choices, I guess it would be the easy changes. What I'm saying is that you can't have one species giving birth to another. Something I thought I was pretty clear about. Its obvious there have been changes in the way humans (and probably most animals) look over the ages.

Your last concession here answers your question. No-one has ever suggested that entirely different species spring up in one generation, so it’s a failure of your understanding and imagination to grasp how the amount of time – well, the number of generations – combined with changing environments causes populations to diverge. I’d suggest you read Dawkins’ excellent “Climbing Mount Improbable” on this, but I expect the mere mention of his name will have you frothing at the mouth, so try some Gould or Prof. Steve Jones (“Almost Like A Whale”) if you really care about learning the answers to your questions.

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Originally Posted by Hoss Whats the latest guess regarding what animal humans evolved from?

Hello, anti-education, my old friend, come in! Oh and I see you’ve brought “still unable to understand the difference between a theory and a guess” with you. Try not to topple over due to the weight of the chip on your shoulder.

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Originally Posted by Hoss Darwin thought that if you cut off your arm, you'd have a 50% chance of having a child born with 1 arm

Once again I’m going to challenge you to provide a reference, as frankly I don’t believe you. I can find no such suggestion in his works. Sounds like a particularly crude form of Lamarckism to me.

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Originally Posted by Hoss Actually, i did not claim that. For the most part I was clowning you again, but you weren't even able to understand it, so I guess I failed.

Yes, you did claim it:

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Well that's just further proof of Jesus's divinity.

As for the “I was just joking” dodge, the problem with claiming something you said was deliberately ridiculous becomes harder when you don’t flag them, and when you make so many improbable and unsupported assertions.

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Originally Posted by Hoss (fart joke)

Is that Christian comedy? It’s nearly as good as Christian rock.

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Originally Posted by Hoss This is like the 4th time in this thread that you have assigned a false 'point' to me in order to make it look like you've won something.

Erm, no. I didn’t assign a point to you at all, I was referring back to where I explained the difference between a theory and story when you compared scientific theories to Genesis' account of creation. You keep side-stepping it.

Deson

Wans, you're going to lose this but it's always entertaining to see someone get a lesson in Hoss.

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