The Resurrection

gfm7175 said:

Maybe I should have specified (instead of leaving it as an implied) that I was saying what I said from the typical base-10 additive sense, as in counting the number or oranges. Of course there are different scales and bases and what not, but that inserts much unnecessary complexity into a simple point that I was making about there being absolute truths (because deviddavid accused me of not believing in them).

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No, I pointed out that you think we can't be certain of anything. So this would include all beliefs as well.

devildavid said:

No, I pointed out that you think we can't be certain of anything. So this would include all beliefs as well.

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Yup, you're right... my bad... You accused me of saying that we can't be certain of anything. But I'm saying that I don't assert that position, and I support the position that we can be certain of certain things, by saying that (in the base-10 additive sense) that 2 oranges + 2 oranges will ALWAYS = 4 oranges. Every single time. You will never be able to give me 2 oranges + 2 oranges and end up giving me 5 oranges. I am most certain of that.

gfm7175 said:

Thanks for the info, but I am well aware of all of that, being a person with an interest in mathematics. My point was that, in the additive sense, 2+2 will always equal 4. Every single time. At no point will 2+2 ever equal 5. At no point will two oranges plus two oranges ever give you five oranges.

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And at no point will imagining a god make that god spring into existence.

gfm7175 said:

Maybe I should have specified (instead of leaving it as an implied) that I was saying what I said from the typical base-10 additive sense, as in counting the number or oranges. Of course there are different scales and bases and what not, but that inserts much unnecessary complexity into a simple point that I was making about there being absolute truths (because deviddavid accused me of not believing in them).

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Gods are not absolute truth. They are merely a conjecture.

zyzygy said:

And at no point will imagining a god make that god spring into existence.

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Nor at any point will your incapacity to imagine a God remove that God from existence.

Give it a rest, man.

Angel said:

Nor at any point will your incapacity to imagine a God remove that God from existence.

Give it a rest, man.

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Nor does the ability to imagine god, or any other make believe thing cause the make believe thing to exist. You have not made the case that god warrants any special treatment among make believe things.

zyzygy said:

And at no point will imagining a god make that god spring into existence.

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And at no point will putting your blinders on remove God from existence.

gfm7175 said:

And at no point will putting your blinders on remove God from existence.

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You can't remove what isn't there. Do you believe in every god ever invented by man? If not, why not? Are you putting blinders on regarding them?

gfm7175 said:

And at no point will putting your blinders on remove God from existence.

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Which god? Do you wear Krishna, Zeus, Odin and Kali blinders?

devildavid said:

You can't remove what isn't there. Do you believe in every god ever invented by man? If not, why not? Are you putting blinders on regarding them?

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I only believe in the Judeo Christian God. I don't believe in other gods because those gods do not have nearly the same support for their existence that the Judeo Christian God has.

gfm7175 said:

I only believe in the Judeo Christian God. I don't believe in other gods because those gods do not have nearly the same support for their existence that the Judeo Christian God has.

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So you wear blinders too.

zyzygy said:

So you wear blinders too.

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Not in the slightest, but I'm glad that (given your "you wear blinders too" choice of language), you finally admit that you wear blinders.

gfm7175 said:

Not in the slightest, but I'm glad that (given your "you wear blinders too" choice of language), you finally admit that you wear blinders.

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You are a Hindu atheist. When it comes to the Hindu gods you wear blinders. You brought up the word blinders. My eyes are wide open to the fact that all gods are imaginary.

gfm7175 said:

I only believe in the Judeo Christian God. I don't believe in other gods because those gods do not have nearly the same support for their existence that the Judeo Christian God has.

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What kind of support and why does that matter. Now you are venturing into The world of evidence. So what evidence do you consider good evidence? What standard does it have to meet?

zyzygy said:

You are a Hindu atheist. When it comes to the Hindu gods you wear blinders. You brought up the word blinders. My eyes are wide open to the fact that all gods are imaginary.

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Twice wrong. Our friend gfm is not a Hindu; thus he cannot be a Hindu anything. And your eyes are closed.

You persist in this puerile game of Gotcha, trying to confuse the issue so as to score cheap points in your posts.

Every genuine organized religion enjoys a connection to transcendent reality -- something you as a New Atheist lack. So be it.
Trying to turn religious belief against religious belief in the vain hope of justifying your own imaginative limitations and cognitive deficiency vis-a-vis transcendent reality is a transparently dishonest tactic.
Every true believer believes sincerely in his own religious connection to transcendent reality, and not in another's connection.
Instead of trying to understand what presently lies beyond your understanding, you try to trip up and deride those with deeper understanding.
Look to it.

Namaste.

Angel said:

Twice wrong. Our friend gfm is not a Hindu; thus he cannot be a Hindu anything. And your eyes are closed.

You persist in this puerile game of Gotcha, trying to confuse the issue so as to score cheap points in your posts.

Every genuine organized religion enjoys a connection to transcendent reality -- something you as a New Atheist lack. So be it.
Trying to turn religious belief against religious belief in the vain hope of justifying your own imaginative limitations and cognitive deficiency vis-a-vis transcendent reality is a transparently dishonest tactic.
Every true believer believes sincerely in his own religious connection to transcendent reality, and not in another's connection.
Instead of trying to understand what presently lies beyond your understanding, you try to trip up and deride those with deeper understanding.
Look to it.

Namaste.

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Once again, there is only reality. There is no transcendent reality. It is make believe. Transcendent reality is an oxymoron.

devildavid said:

Once again, there is only reality. There is no transcendent reality. It is make believe. Transcendent reality is an oxymoron.

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You've recently shown great confusion as to the nature of reality, David, asserting that the past is real. Since the past is not physical in any coherent sense, it must be transcendent of physical reality, and accordingly you yourself either believe in make-believe or in transcendent reality, or in both.

Angel said:

You've recently shown great confusion as to the nature of reality, David, asserting that the past is real. Since the past is not physical in any coherent sense, it must be transcendent of physical reality, and accordingly you yourself either believe in make-believe or in transcendent reality, or in both.

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You don't understand the nature of the past. A non-physical past lead to a physical present. The physical universe is not being constantly recreated. If the past is not physical, none of us would physically be in the present.

devildavid said:

You don't understand the nature of the past. A non-physical past lead to a physical present. The physical universe is not being constantly recreated. If the past is not physical, none of us would physically be in the present.

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So you are now either embracing something non-physical as real or you are positing something as physically real which is not being experienced physically by anyone.

devildavid said:

What kind of support and why does that matter. Now you are venturing into The world of evidence. So what evidence do you consider good evidence? What standard does it have to meet?

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Part of my reasoning that the Bible is true is that the New Testament gospels share many embarrassing details about the writers themselves, such as how they were dim-witted doubting cowards, especially during the events leading up to the crucifixion, while the women were faithful and brave. The disciples recorded that Jesus called their own 'lead' disciple Peter "Satan". They recorded that the Messiah they were following was called crazy by his own family, his brothers didn't believe him, he let a prostitute wipe his feet with her hair, etc. etc.

If I were writing a "made up story", I wouldn't in my wildest dreams choose to write it like that. I wouldn't portray myself as a dim-witted doubting sissy.

gfm7175 said:

Part of my reasoning that the Bible is true is that the New Testament gospels share many embarrassing details about the writers themselves, such as how they were dim-witted doubting cowards, especially during the events leading up to the crucifixion, while the women were faithful and brave. The disciples recorded that Jesus called their own 'lead' disciple Peter "Satan". They recorded that the Messiah they were following was called crazy by his own family, his brothers didn't believe him, he let a prostitute wipe his feet with her hair, etc. etc.

If I were writing a "made up story", I wouldn't in my wildest dreams choose to write it like that. I wouldn't portray myself as a dim-witted doubting sissy.

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In the early centuries of Christianity, there were over 200 Christian gospels in circulation, all of them containing wildly varied stories and theologies1. As the Church became organized there was much worry that no-one truly knew what Jesus had said or done, so they ratified just four Gospels: They picked the number four because "there were four winds, four points of the compass, four corners of the temple", mirroring the arguments of Irenaeus in the 2nd century - "just as the gospel of Christ has been spread by the four winds of heaven over the four corners of the earth, so there must be four and only four Gospels"2. The four canonical gospels comprise of synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) plus John. None are eye-witness accounts of Jesus' life and they are all written in Greek, not in the native tongues of anyone who met and followed Jesus. Many of the stories in the Gospels are copied from Greek god-man legends, especially those of Dionysus and Osiris. Although we now know them by the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they are all originally anonymous3.

Mark is the earliest gospel, composed between 60 and 80CE, by a Roman convert who was unfamiliar with Jewish customs and who had not met Jesus. The oldest versions of Mark all ended at Mark 16:8 with the words "according to Mark", and an unknown author at some point added Mark 16:9-20.

Matthew and Luke both used Mark as their source material (92% and 54% copied, respectively), except they corrected many of his blunders about Jewish life and added additional material from a second source document that historians call "Q"4. Matthew was written after 70CE and before 100CE. The first two chapters of Matthew were not present in the first versions and were added later by an unknown author. Luke was written after 93CE and uses Josephus's Jewish Antiquities. It claims to have been written by a travelling partner of Paul but the text contains too many mistakes with regards to Paul, and was written too late, for that to be true. Matthew and Luke copied such a large portion of their texts that it is clear neither were eye-witnesses, or friends-of-eyewitnesses, of Jesus.

John was written last. Our earliest fragment of it dates from 125CE. It has Jesus speak using completely different language, sentence structure and style to the other gospels. It contradicts the others on almost every point of history. Most people assume that John was writing figuratively writer and not attempting to record history, but was instead set out to write interesting and meaningful stories about Jesus, who was by then, famous. John is considered the least trustworthy of all the gospels.

Who Wrote the Four Gospels of the New Testament? An Introduction to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

zyzygy said:

[Copy&Paste omitted]
Who Wrote the Four Gospels of the New Testament? An Introduction to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

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A comment from the site you linked:

Using Ehrman as your source for New Testament scholarship is a mistake. He is no scholar, but an atheist pretending to make conclusions for which he had no evidence to support.

I have written extensively to expose his many errors. have you noticed the lack of evidence or citations in his books to support his conclusions? This is because Ehrman uses himself as his authority. His belief that God doesn’t exist, Jesus is not God, and the Bible is not the word of God, taints all of his assertions.

For example, the four gospels were not written anonymously. Ehrman made this conclusion based upon his opinion, not evidence. There are no surviving autographs for any ancient works of antiquity, only manuscript copies. Of these 24,493 extant copied, the four gospels did not have the authors names. This is likely due to copyist omissions.

It is certain that the original autographs did have indications of authorship as Origen was certain of their authorship by 250 AD. He quotes from all four gospels and uses the authors name.

There is absolutely no proof the four gospels were originally anonymous. This entire hypothesis by Ehrman is based on conjecture and speculation.

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The disclaimer from the site you linked:

Many of our pages veer into conclusions that can be questioned. Some of our texts use arguments that can be improved upon. Some rely on facts that can be contradicted. We encourage anyone to get involved, and contribute to the discussions with your own well-argued pieces.

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gfm7175 said:

Part of my reasoning that the Bible is true is that the New Testament gospels share many embarrassing details about the writers themselves, such as how they were dim-witted doubting cowards, especially during the events leading up to the crucifixion, while the women were faithful and brave. The disciples recorded that Jesus called their own 'lead' disciple Peter "Satan". They recorded that the Messiah they were following was called crazy by his own family, his brothers didn't believe him, he let a prostitute wipe his feet with her hair, etc. etc.

If I were writing a "made up story", I wouldn't in my wildest dreams choose to write it like that. I wouldn't portray myself as a dim-witted doubting sissy.

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That is not evidence that they are true. A writer of fiction can pretend to be self-deprecating. It could be a fiction within a fiction.

devildavid said:

You don't understand the nature of the past. A non-physical past lead to a physical present. The physical universe is not being constantly recreated. If the past is not physical, none of us would physically be in the present.

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So, le's get this straight. Are you saying that there is or there is not a portion of reality that is non-physical, namely the past?

If you're saying there is not, and that the past is physical, how is this physicality verified?

Angel said:

So, le's get this straight. Are you saying that there is or there is not a portion of reality that is non-physical, namely the past?

If you're saying there is not, and that the past is physical, how is this physicality verified?

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Are you here? Where did you come from?