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Good luck.
I already proved Extra Stout is full of hot air in previous pages. He's not worth wasting your time, but good luck if you want to.
What does it matter? Anyway, you have been very polite so I will honor your question.
I don't believe in any God. We (humans in general) invented them for a variety of reasons. Do I deny that a God COULD exist? Maybe there is some sort of God somewhere, but I know that religion is man-made, fake. If a God does exist, he has nothing to do with these religions. The Universe is gigantic, enourmous, so expansive that we can't even comprehend how big it is.
That is what these pagan passion plays were at first. A way to become enlightened to become your own 'Christ', to kill your mortal desires and flesh and be 'reborn' into a new spirituality.
I agree that all men should become better human beings, selfless, etc.
When you get down to it, we have no real purpose other than to survive and reproduce.
Does a roach have a purpose? Does a mosquito have a purpose? Does a monkey have a purpose?
We are just organisms, a collections of cells that have specialized for survival. We are alive and then one day we will die. There is no purpose.
Now, since we ARE alive, we might as well make the best of it. I don't have a guide. I learn from anywhere I can learn and live an honest life. Through logic, everyone on earth will come to the same conclusions. Compassion, justice, temperance, wisdom, all of these things are favorable, they are 'good' things. You don't need a 'guide' to edify yourself. Learn from your ancestors who went through everything you can imagine. Learn from anywhere you can learn from and judge for yourself. This is why I sometimes quote the Bible. Just because I know it is not real doesn't mean it doesn't contain wisdom.
All of this is irrelevant but you have been very polite so I answered.
Last edited by MiamiHeat; 01-03-2009 at 11:45 AM.
Good luck.
I already proved Extra Stout is full of hot air in previous pages. He's not worth wasting your time, but good luck if you want to.
I'm just curious more than anything. I didn't ask the question to debate.
Well, re-quoted for you then.
I'll actually read what Extra Stout writes in response to your question.
The single most compelling piece of evidence of a historical Jesus would be the physical fragment from the Gospel of John called P52, which dates from ~AD 125. This dating is determined from the style of script. That the fragment exists several hundred miles from its traditional date of authorship indicates that the Gospel of John was a do ent in wide circulation. That is is dated merely 30 years from the tradtional dating of the Gospel of John to AD 90 lends much credence to the ancient witnesses that claimed that date.
Literary criticism of John's Gospel indicates that it was written after the Synoptics, independent of them, and providing theological content they do not have, in response to them. That means the author had to have read one or more of the Synoptics or their hypothetical source do ents. This places their authorship somewhat earlier than 90 and reinforces the traditional witness to NT authorship dates.
The earliest of Paul's epistles date to the mid-50s. Since they have quan atively zero content from the four Gospels, it is taken by literary criticism that they are written beforehand. Writings from the Apostolic Fathers dated from AD 90 to AD 120 do quote the New Testament and some other early do ents now lost, for example. So the dating is considered reliable.
If Paul wrote epistles in the 50s to Christian communities, that means Christian communities existed as little as 20 years following when Jesus was supposedly executed.
That is not near enough time for a myth to form out of nowhere. It takes a couple of centuries at least for myths to develop like that. That was the whole reason why skeptics 100 years ago argued for very late authorship of the New Testament, and why archaeological evidence to the contrary found in the 20th century disproves their thesis.
Take away that papyrus, and there are a handful more almost as old. Take them away, and you have independent witnesses to the existence of Christians in the first century.
The solid physical do entary existence of Christians soon after Jesus' life, and the lack of evidence of them beforehand, demonstrates that some kind of Jesus lived.
Of course, it doesn't prove he was the Son of God. No one can ever prove that.
Last edited by Extra Stout; 01-03-2009 at 12:18 PM.
weird repost
Let's get the facts straight on this.
1) P52 is believed to be dated anywhere from 125 to 170 AD. You have generously chosen 125 AD for your argument. P52's date is heavily debated. Some argue it can even be from around 250 AD or even 50 AD.
2) The method of dating P52 is based on hand writing. The style of writing. Knowing that script style cannot be used to accurately determine the age of a text, and knowing that Christians have been scandalous forgers throughout history, it is irresponsible to use P52 as a 'compelling piece of evidence'
Papyrologists themselves will tell you that paleography is not an effective method of dating texts.
Last edited by MiamiHeat; 01-03-2009 at 12:39 PM.
At 170, the point becomes moot because Church Fathers from that era quote John.
Response from a paleographer: "Nevertheless, experienced paleographers have looked at a sufficiently large number of such do ents and, have to a certain extent, internalized what the acceptable range of variation of the hands is supposed to be." -- Brent Nongbri2) The method of dating P52 is based on hand writing. The style of writing. Knowing that script style cannot be used to accurately determine the age of a text, and knowing that Christians have been scandalous forgers throughout history, it is irresponsible to use P52 as a 'compelling piece of evidence'
Scandalous forgers? Is that even an argument? You have zero evidence to suggest that P52 is a forgery. You are engaging in wishful thinking.
If it irresponsible to use P52, or the other fragments similar to it, to date the authorship of the New Testament, then all of mainstream scholarship on the dating of ancient do ents, Christian and otherwise, is irresponsible, I guess. Apparently you are qualified to critique those who study it for a living.
He also said :
What emerges from this survey is nothing surprising to papyrologists: paleography is not the most effective method for dating texts, particularly those written in a literary hand. Roberts himself noted this point in his edition of P52. The real problem is the way scholars of the New Testament have used and abused papyrological evidence. I have not radically revised Roberts's work. I have not provided any third-century do entary papyri that are absolute "dead ringers" for the handwriting of P52, and even had I done so, that would not force us to date P52 at some exact point in the third century. Paleographic evidence does not work that way. What I have done is to show that any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries. Thus, P52 cannot be used as evidence to silence other debates about the existence (or non-existence) of the Gospel of John in the first half of the second century. Only a papyrus containing an explicit date or one found in a clear archaeological stratigraphic context could do the work scholars want P52 to do. As it stands now, the papyrological evidence should take a second place to other forms of evidence in addressing debates about the dating of the Fourth Gospel.
--------------------------------
Sigh. It's almost like you are intentionally trying to be deceitful.
Anyway. This is your compelling evidence?
In 50 years our grandchildren will talk as if scientology is REAL. "Grand Dad there is a alien born in all of us, you must get rid of the alien in order to move on to the next stage of life" If not you will DIE!....HAHAHAHAHA....
Every religion has torture or deathly consequences if you donot do what the leaders want you to do. Be sure to give them money.
I think Extra Stout needs to look up the definition of 'compelling'
Thanks ES.
I've found him! I have Jesus in my trunk!
Check to see if he has a green card,to many illegal Mexicans in SA already
You have proven squat, zilch, nada.
Are you all giving up anything for Lent?
So Nostradamus and the Mayans were right?
I knew it.
Last edited by desflood; 01-09-2009 at 12:33 PM.
Neither did you
I never set out to prove the unprovable (God's existance).Neither did you
You and MH have . . . and failed.
And the sad thing is that you guys think you have accomplished something.
I'm watching the Armageddon series this week on the HIstory Channel. Pretty interesting.
Wrong thread?
I hope everyone noticed how conclusively the point was driven home.
Listen up. I'm not going to explain it again. I know how hard it is for you to pay attention so I'm going to spell it out slowly and with large bold print so you can try and understand this with additional visual help.
I NEVER SET OUT TO PROVE OR UNPROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. NEVER ONCE DID I ATTEMPT TO DO SUCH. YOU S STILL AFTER 30 PAGES THINK THIS IS A DEBATE ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. HOW ING BLIND ARE YOU. CAN YOU ING READ. CAN YOU? THIS IS AND ALWAYS WAS A DEBATE ABOUT MODERN DAY CHRISTIANITY AND JESUS. THE THREAD WAS HIJACKED ON PAGE 1 OR 2. PLEASE TAKE YOUR "GOD" LINES AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR ASS.
SAKE PEOPLE HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE EITHER NO LESS THAN 10 TIMES HAVE YOU ING DENSE ASSHOLES REFERENCED "GOD". I KNOW WHAT THE LE OF THE THREAD IS AND IF YOU READ THE THREAD YOU'D REALIZE ITS MOVED IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION.
OH OH OH IS THAT TOO ING HARD FOR YOU TO DO? IS IT? DO WE NEED TO READ IT PAGE BY ING GOD DAMN PAGE FOR YOU. . YOU ING PEOPLE WILL NEVER GET IT. I'M SURE TWO MORE PAGES MORE AND I'LL HERE "WELL WELL YOU DIDN'T PROVE THERE IS NO GOD". I BET I ING READ IT. YOU MORONS CAN'T HELP YOURSELVES.
THIS MOTHER ING THREAD ISN'T DEBATING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD OR ANY HIGHER POWER. YOU ING UNDERSTAND NOW? DO YOU?
Without a shadow of a doubt
Well technically, the thread wasn't hijacked at all B2B.
The original poster's post makes it clear he believes in some form of Judeo-Christian god
So technically, we've been on topic all along because the OP is asking about the existence of the Bible's God
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