Your Vote, Your Reasons

[TheMadHatter]

Astounding.

Context, context, context. You clearly don't understand what we were arguing about in this thread. I'm not going to waste anymore time explaining this to you.

[DisgruntledLionFan#54,927]

I bet angel_luv gives great helmet.

Yes, we're gonna have to go right to ludicrous speed.

[timvp]

Context, context, context. You clearly don't understand what we were arguing about in this thread. I'm not going to waste anymore time explaining this to you.

So this will be another case where you refuse to answer your own questions. You want proof yet you won't detail the type of proof you want.

A troll couldn't self own himself more than you own yourself. That's a unique talent you have.

[Mr. Peabody]

Only if flights of angels sing me to my rest. I'm picky about angels that way.

You know what happened to the musically-inclined angel in the Bible, right? He ended up running for President.....

[Shastafarian]

So this will be another case where you refuse to answer your own questions. You want proof yet you won't detail the type of proof you want.

A troll couldn't self own himself more than you.

Obviously you never read BRHornet's posts.

[timvp]

Obviously you never read BRHornet's posts.

Son, do you have examples of him owning himself handy? That'd be a fun read.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

You know what happened to the musically-inclined angel in the Bible, right? He ended up running for President.....

Impossible. Angels have no sex organs. ;P

[Shastafarian]

Son, do you have examples of him owning himself handy? That'd be a fun read.

Pretty much every thread he posts in he manages to own himself somehow. Like the one where he said NBA players overwhelming supporting Obama was "ironic". He never explained how it was ironic.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

Pretty much every thread he posts in he manages to own himself somehow. Like the one where he said NBA players overwhelming supporting Obama was "ironic". He never explained how it was ironic.

You shouldn't talk about your father like that. It's against one of those Commandment thingys.

[TheMadHatter]

So this will be another case where you refuse to answer your own questions. You want proof yet you won't detail the type of proof you want.

A troll couldn't self own himself more than you own yourself. That's a unique talent you have.

Reading comprehension....you lack it.

I don't want proof, and the kind of proof that it would take for me to believe in Christianity does not exist at this moment in time.

If you understood how to read you'd see that I was explaining to Stout that the burden of proof is not on me to disprove the historicity of the account of Christ as stated in the NT Gospels, but on him to prove to me that his claim is correct. Clearly this went way over your head, you jumped to the part of my quote which said "you have to prove to me" and decided that was enough for you to draw another asinine conclusion.

We're going in circles here. You don't understand what I'm telling you, and I clearly have no idea where you are drawing your conclusions from.

[PixelPusher]

I know for a fact that the real Jesus isn't a Kings fan.

He sure as heaven is! Jesus is the King of Kings, the Bible tells me so.

And don't go bringing in some Gnostic gospel bull that says Jesus is the "Spur of Spurs".

[Phenomanul]

Impossible. Angels have no sex organs. ;P

They do... the Bible states in Genesis that some of them 'came down' and engendered 'Giants' by mating with earth's prettiest gals...

[Shastafarian]

You shouldn't talk about your father like that. It's against one of those Commandment thingys.

Despite him calling me son he can't be my father. You see I got him to admit he's gay in one of his own threads.

[timvp]

I don't want proof, and the kind of proof that it would take for me to believe in Christianity does not exist at this moment in time.

Obviously. That is why I'm asking for what type of proof would it take for you to change your mind.

If you understood how to read you'd see that I was explaining to Stout

Not all those examples of you "not asking for proof" were you talking to Extra Stout. Nice dodge, though.

[Tully365]

Despite him calling me son he can't be my father. You see I got him to admit he's gay in one of his own threads.

If Clay Aiken can have a baby, anyone can!

[Shastafarian]

If Clay Aiken can have a baby, anyone can!

Touché

[CuckingFunt]

This is one of the best threads I've ever read in this forum. I've actually learned some things from reading it and haven't seen any sodomy/fellatio related posts yet.

Page 9:

Your thinking Obama could be the anti-Christ is more like looking at someone with a Super Mario Bros. t-shirt and wondering if they're going to anally and vaginally rape you, simultaneously, with your own amputated limbs.

[TheMadHatter]

Obviously. That is why I'm asking for what type of proof would it take for you to change your mind.

Not all those examples of you "not asking for proof" were you talking to Extra Stout. Nice dodge, though.

If you can't understand the points I was driving at then there is no hope for you. Are you sure you're not a Republican? You are awfully good at picking out selective words in a sentence and drawing your own conclusions from it.

It's irrelevant what kind of proof it would take for me to believe in Christ. That's not what we were discussing in this thread. At least that's not what I was discussing with Stout and others.

[Extra Stout]

. There you go again with your ASSumptions.

The point I'm trying to discuss with Extra and other conservatives is whether or not the historicity of Jesus as indicated in the NT Gospels can be trusted. He believes so, I don't. We debate. You make asinine comments and inferences. Life goes on.

The primary obstacle to the historicity of the gospels is that they record Jesus performing miracles like turning water into wine, healing people, and turning a few loaves and fish into a meal for thousands. Jesus predicted the future destruction of the Temple. There are accounts of angels appearing to people and talking to them. No scientific historian could take those kinds of claims seriously. Supernatural events do not happen, there is no such thing as future prophecy, and any account of them is fantastical. That is what started the whole question about historicity in the first place.

So many of these other arguments that have come in the intervening century, though, are speculative. There are no countervailing source do ents to tell us that Jesus did not say a certain thing, or do a certain thing in his ministry. All that comes from scholars who speculate based upon the premise that if the Gospels fabricate accounts of clearly impossible miracles, they probably fabricated other things too.

On the other hand, there are things like discrepancies and possible historical errors in the accounts. There are two different genealogies of Jesus, for example. Traditionally, Christians believe one is traced through Mary and the other through Joseph, even though Joseph is only Jesus' legal guardian and not his blood relative. A skeptic has no reason to accept that and might just instead figure the authors made up the genealogies.

The same thing goes for the birth accounts. Matthew and Luke record totally different details. While a believer could piece them together into a coherent timeline, a skeptic has no reason to and could just conclude the accounts are fictional.

Luke says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem because Joseph and Mary travelled there to report for a census overseen by Quirinius. Extrabiblical do entation (Josephus) records an infamous census in Judaea overseen by Quirinius in AD 6, which is too late both because King Herod, who supposedly tried to kill Jesus, is recorded by extrabiblical sources to have died in 4 BC, and because Jesus could not have been thirty years old in the fourteenth year of Tiberius, i.e. AD 28, as recorded elsewhere in the Gospel, if he were born in AD 6. A Christian who insists on inerrancy might scratch his head and decide that Luke cannot be talking about the census in AD 6, but rather a possible earlier one while Quirinius was in the area leading an army up in Syria in 4 BC. A Christian who does not insist on inerrancy might figure Luke screwed up and meant Saturnius instead of Quirinius. A skeptic might just figure Luke made it up to place Jesus' birth in Bethlehem instead of Nazareth and didn't catch the math error it forces him into when he cites the date for the start of Jesus' ministry.

There is another class of differences, wherein parallel Gospel accounts record the same events in a different order and with different details, but denying historicity based upon those applies an anachronistic standard of precision which no ancient work nor most contemporary eyewitness accounts can meet.

There's no reason for a skeptic to believe in miracles. Of course, Christianity makes no sense without them anyway, so if one does not believe in miracles, the point is moot. There are some possible historical problems, but we don't have enough countervailing do entary evidence to make definitive conclusions.

So it comes back to what you think is the most likely thing.

[Mr. Peabody]

Obviously. That is why I'm asking for what type of proof would it take for you to change your mind.

That's a good question and one that I've pondered myself. I am an atheist, but have nothing against religion. I've often wondered what kind of proof it would take to get me to believe in the Christian God. Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that outside of a guy with a flowing beard and robes descending from the sky and saying "That whole Bible-thing. Yeah, it's all true," I'd probably evaluate any other type of evidence with a great degree of skepticism and disbelief.

I say "sadly," because at times I've been critical of believers and I've thought to myself "Man, what's it going to take before they realize that the Christian God is man-made phenomena created to provide us with a sense of security and comfort in an unpredictable and uncaring world." I'm no better than they are and really have no more evidence for my beliefs than they do.

[PixelPusher]

There's no reason for a skeptic to believe in miracles. Of course, Christianity makes no sense without them anyway, so if one does not believe in miracles, the point is moot. There are some possible historical problems, but we don't have enough countervailing do entary evidence to make definitive conclusions.

So it comes back to what you think is the most likely thing.

Why does your morality and value system depend on supernatural miracles? Would your core values crumble if someone with a time machine definitively proves Jesus didn't perform miracles or rise from the dead? Would you descend into nihilistic depravity?

[timvp]

That's a good question and one that I've pondered myself. I am an atheist, but have nothing against religion. I've often wondered what kind of proof it would take to get me to believe in the Christian God. Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that outside of a guy with a flowing beard and robes descending from the sky and saying "That whole Bible-thing. Yeah, it's all true," I'd probably evaluate any other type of evidence with a great degree of skepticism and disbelief.

I say "sadly," because at times I've been critical of believers and I've thought to myself "Man, what's it going to take before they realize that the Christian God is man-made phenomena created to provide us with a sense of security and comfort in an unpredictable and uncaring world." I'm no better than they are and really have no more evidence for my beliefs than they do.

Thank you. That is a very reasonable response

Now I can just pretend this came from TheMadHatter and let him off the hook.

[TheMadHatter]

The primary obstacle to the historicity of the gospels is that they record Jesus performing miracles like turning water into wine, healing people, and turning a few loaves and fish into a meal for thousands. Jesus predicted the future destruction of the Temple. There are accounts of angels appearing to people and talking to them. No scientific historian could take those kinds of claims seriously. Supernatural events do not happen, there is no such thing as future prophecy, and any account of them is fantastical. That is what started the whole question about historicity in the first place.

So many of these other arguments that have come in the intervening century, though, are speculative. There are no countervailing source do ents to tell us that Jesus did not say a certain thing, or do a certain thing in his ministry. All that comes from scholars who speculate based upon the premise that if the Gospels fabricate accounts of clearly impossible miracles, they probably fabricated other things too.

On the other hand, there are things like discrepancies and possible historical errors in the accounts. There are two different genealogies of Jesus, for example. Traditionally, Christians believe one is traced through Mary and the other through Joseph, even though Joseph is only Jesus' legal guardian and not his blood relative. A skeptic has no reason to accept that and might just instead figure the authors made up the genealogies.

The same thing goes for the birth accounts. Matthew and Luke record totally different details. While a believer could piece them together into a coherent timeline, a skeptic has no reason to and could just conclude the accounts are fictional.

Luke says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem because Joseph and Mary travelled there to report for a census overseen by Quirinius. Extrabiblical do entation (Josephus) records an infamous census in Judaea overseen by Quirinius in AD 6, which is too late both because King Herod, who supposedly tried to kill Jesus, is recorded by extrabiblical sources to have died in 4 BC, and because Jesus could not have been thirty years old in the fourteenth year of Tiberius, i.e. AD 28, as recorded elsewhere in the Gospel, if he were born in AD 6. A Christian who insists on inerrancy might scratch his head and decide that Luke cannot be talking about the census in AD 6, but rather a possible earlier one while Quirinius was in the area leading an army up in Syria in 4 BC. A Christian who does not insist on inerrancy might figure Luke screwed up and meant Saturnius instead of Quirinius. A skeptic might just figure Luke made it up to place Jesus' birth in Bethlehem instead of Nazareth and didn't catch the math error it forces him into when he cites the date for the start of Jesus' ministry.

There is another class of differences, wherein parallel Gospel accounts record the same events in a different order and with different details, but denying historicity based upon those applies an anachronistic standard of precision which no ancient work nor most contemporary eyewitness accounts can meet.

There's no reason for a skeptic to believe in miracles. Of course, Christianity makes no sense without them anyway, so if one does not believe in miracles, the point is moot. There are some possible historical problems, but we don't have enough countervailing do entary evidence to make definitive conclusions.

So it comes back to what you think is the most likely thing.

Excellent post. Sums up my thoughts for the most part.

You are humble enough to admit that it really comes down to "what you think is the most likely thing". I would ask a follow up question.

Do you believe that there is a possibility your beliefs could very well be wrong?

[Mr. Peabody]

Page 9:

Ha. Yeah, but usually the sodomy/fellatio posts are directed at a poster (or a poster's mother!).

BTW, did you see that your post was mentioned in a blog -

Link to Cucking Funt reference on Holes in Thoughts

[TheMadHatter]

Why does your morality and value system depend on supernatural miracles? Would your core values crumble if someone with a time machine definitively proves Jesus didn't perform miracles or rise from the dead? Would you descend into nihilistic depravity?

Great question. If we could ascertain that the New Testament accounts of Jesus's miracles were completely fabricated would you denounce Christianity?