• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

Status
Not open for further replies.
This whole side-track is off-topic, and should probably be split into a separate thread.
(Unless someone can make a good argument showing this is on-topic).


However, because it hasn't been posted yet, and because movies are a little easier to wade through thant scholarly papers and textbooks (although not as informative):
Link to "Origins" series by cdk007 on Youtube.
But since the ones before it lead up to it, you might want to take the time to watch them, too.
Except for the justnowism, which I think is a misplaced video.
 
DOC said:
Well then give a source for any lurkers then: they might be interested a source.
Click to expand...

Most lurkers (such as myself, as I don't have the scientific background to really add to this debate) will take the advice of the three different people who have said to look it up in a book about genetics or google it. When all else fails, wikipedia is a good jumping off point for an area of interest. Again, I'm seeing nothing but dodging answering the questions that don't agree with your worldview, and pretending that assertions that have been refuted have been established as fact. It's really amusing to me, but nothing I've read in this thread lends any credence to your basic premise.
 
X is right. Let's get back on topic.

One assertion, often repeated, is that Christianity spread through the supposedly brutally repressive Roman Empire.

So, let's once again look at the facts instead of the bare assertions.

The first possible persecution, referred to by Suetonius, involved the ejection of some Jews from Rome during Claudius' reign.

Next was Nero's persecution -- nothing to do with Christianity itself, only an easy excuse for a fire in Rome near the Colosseum. Short-lived persecution (Nero committed suicide soon after) that was restricted only to Rome. The evidence suggests that this probably caused Christians to leave the faith -- why Mark's gospel was written as it was.

No more pesecutions for a generation until possibly Domitian, though no one is entirely certain of this. The reason had nothing to do with Christianity, though, but concerned groups that met in secret because they might cause later uprisings. If there were persecutions they would again have been localized to Rome.

Next was another local affair in Bithynia-Pontus under Trajan. No evidence that this was anything but short-lived and it appears to have occurred in only this one place. The reason -- Trajan also feared uprisings in secret groups. He wouldn't even allow a fire brigade to form in one town that Pliny governed because of this fear.

Nothing again for another 60 or so years until there was another local affair in Gual that seems to have been started by the local inhabitants of Lyons.

To suggest that the Roman Empire was a terribly repressive force that the delicately sprouting Christian era barely escaped is simply hogwash. Add to this the argument that Christians themselves made -- that the blood of the martyrs was seed for the faith -- and the argument disappears in a puff of smoke. The Romans were largely religiously tolerant. They were polytheists after all.
 
Wolrab said:
Wow, half a dozen posts and no smart arsed comment. What are you guys, mature?
Click to expand...
To be fair, three of those six were from me, so ya gotta cut us some slack.
Greediguts said:
I'll give it a shot...ahem...

It is possible to sex a bacterium...it just involves alot of booze!
Click to expand...
See, I would have worked "flagellum" into the joke somehow. I guess that's the difference between the Chief IDIOT and a rank amature. ;)

DOC said:
But don't you agree that the first female of anything must have come from the side of something. If not how then do you propose the first female of anything came into being.
Click to expand...

I have two answers for this question. They depend on who asked the question.

1) From either an unknown/noob poster or a veteran poster whom I know has a history of asking honest questions and is willing to consider before posting.

If you look at it symbolically, yes the first female could be said to have come from the side of its predecessor creature. This, however, would only be as good an analogy as the hydrostatic analogy for electronics. It could be used for illustration purposes only.

2) From a poster who's posting history shows a pattern of dishonest questions, and no desire for honest conversation. Yes, I'm looking at you, DOC.

No.
 
Let's go back to another claim: Why would the "martyrs"(assuming anyone one of them really existed) be willing to die for a false belief therefore they must have knew it to be "true"?

Joseph Smith never repented for the creation of Mormonism, a we documented fraudulent religion, while he was lynched and "martyred" by a mob so even fraudsters could be self-deluded or even willing to die for a known lie. Jim Jones was willing to "martyr" hundreds and himself to prevent their cult from being destroyed. Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire to protest the persecution of Buddhist by the South Vietnamese Regime while Yukio Mishima commited suppuku, slid his belly open with a sword, in protest for Japan's impotence and the Emperor's lack of power.

So we have evidence that people who are fraudsters, insane and even politically driven enough are willing to die for their beliefs.
 
kurious_kathy said:
Oh I see you think intellect is all that matters? Can your intellect save you from hell??

The evidence for the New Testamnent and Jesus is all around you, but you must have faith before you can see.
Click to expand...
Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, stop blathering nonsense at us, who think your silly "evidence" is all in your head. It makes my head want to explode! You have absolutely not one iota of an idea of what evidence is, nor do you care. You just spout the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over! Saying it a lot doesn't make it true!
 
wolfgirl said:
Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, stop blathering nonsense at us, who think your silly "evidence" is all in your head. It makes my head want to explode! You have absolutely not one iota of an idea of what evidence is, nor do you care. You just spout the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over! Saying it a lot doesn't make it true!
Click to expand...

Could you expound on that middle bit? I think I didn't catch the subilty of your argument.
 
wolfgirl said:
Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, stop blathering nonsense at us, who think your silly "evidence" is all in your head. It makes my head want to explode! You have absolutely not one iota of an idea of what evidence is, nor do you care. You just spout the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over! Saying it a lot doesn't make it true!
Click to expand...
That made more sense than KK's post and was way more intelligent than DOC's.
 
paximperium said:
So we have evidence that people who are fraudsters, insane and even politically driven enough are willing to die for their beliefs.
Click to expand...


And perfectly normal people who simply believe.

I know that we've said all this before, but DOC and KK should learn to distinguish between ontological and existential reality. KK's own evidence is virtually always of an existential nature -- Jesus saved me so he must be real. But this sort of existential reality (why life is meaningful for someone) does not necessarily (and usually doesn't at all) translate into "what is really out there".

That Paul and Peter died for their faith (and there is decent evidence that they did as opposed to most of the other disciples) means that they believed it. All that they believed, however, was not literally true. Paul, for instance, believed that the Kingdom was coming during his lifetime, but that obviously didn't happen in an ontologically literal sense. The Kingdom being present may possibly be true in an existential sense, though.

There is enough ambiguity in Paul's letters that we cannot be certain that he didn't refer to a dream (vision) of Jesus re-awakened. The later gospel writers could easily have turned that experience -- of Jesus awakened and "seen" in a dream or a feeling -- and turned it into the literary form of Jesus as an actual, physical resurrected being for illustrative purposes (so that people could "see" through the story that he truly was the chosen one of God). That was a fairly common literary trope of the time (the Spartans and Persians probably did not literally fight over Leonidas' body at Thermopalae; it was a way of making his death appear Homeric).

Since the apocalypticists amongst them would have interpreted this as beginning of the end (and Paul was clearly one of these), dying for that belief was easy. From his perspective no one was going to remain in his/her current form much longer.
 
Fireshadow said:
Again, I'm seeing nothing but dodging answering the questions that don't agree with your worldview, and pretending that assertions that have been refuted have been established as fact. It's really amusing to me, but nothing I've read in this thread lends any credence to your basic premise.
Click to expand...

Not even one of my 824 posts?
 
Last edited:
DOC said:
I disagree there is no evidence for the truth of Christianity. Here is some evidence:

...

3) the absurdity of the current mainline scientific theory that all the 100 billion galaxies in the known universe (including all of its matter and space) came from something smaller than one atom and this happened by unintelligent random forces.
Click to expand...


Er, DOC, old bean, you do realise that even if "the current mainline scientific theory" were to turn out to be wrong, this would not be evidence that Christianity is true, don't you?

The alleged absurdity of one idea is not evidence that another unrelated idea is true. For example, the idea that you are Jesus Christ is entirely absurd, but this is not evidence that you are in fact Micky Mouse.
 
Mojo said:
Er, DOC, old bean, you do realise that even if "the current mainline scientific theory" were to turn out to be wrong, this would not be evidence that Christianity is true, don't you?
Click to expand...
Don't be silly. That would be evidence that Gaia gave birth to Uranus who birthed the Titans THEREFORE Zeus is the Lord of Olympus and Heracles is his son.
 
DOC said:
Not even one of my 824 posts?
Click to expand...
No.

If you want to post something meaningful.
1.) Don't repeat already countered arguments.
2.) Challenge the counter arguments using rational thought and evidence, not logical fallacy and semantics.
3.) Present new arguments with evidence.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom