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Lies and Phony Caricatures of Christianity

Spartan

Well-Known Member
Like I said before, I've read many such books and have yet to find any of them compelling. If I had, then I would be a believer now. Sorry, but I'm not going to go read 5 or 6 more books in order to understand what you're getting at. You should be able to get that across here on the forum.

And as I also asked before, then give me your best piece(s) of evidence.
For instance, what evidence convinced you to believe in a God and/or to believe that Jesus is in any way divine? You are making claims. Can you back them up, or not?

My evidence is the Gospels and supporting epistles. If you think the Gospels are false, then show me your best ONE (1 - just ONE, your best ONE) example of a person, place, or event that has been shown to be fictitious. Cite the pertinent scripture and your argument.
 

usfan

Well-Known Member
Do you realize that the historical Jesus and the mythical Jesus are not exactly the same person
I'll agree with you there! :D

The 'mythical!' Jesus is a composit of beliefs, pop religion, distortions, and unevidenced theories.. all of these blend together and form the mysterious person that is indoctrinated by progressive ideology. They don't attack Him directly (usually), but discredit and marginalize Him with innuendo (hath God said?), revisionism, and speculations with no evidence. This 'narrative' is pounded into people from infancy by the competing ideology of Progressivism, until only a hollow caricature of Jesus remains, not the Man, Himself.

When people dare to question their Indoctrination, and study the Real Person of Jesus, they are usually struck by the contrast between the cultural myth, and the historical figure.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
no, just mysterious, alleged experts. I've been alone in quoting actual historical figures, iirc..

i have to embrace your personal, revised definition? Why cannot the classic, common, and historical usage be in effect?


That is absurd. That does not make them anonymous. That is a prejudicial belief, not an historical view.. with some ad hom spice! ;)

Oh good. A link.
I don't debate links. If you have a claim or accusation, make it. Support it. Relying on someone else to make your arguments by proxy is fallacious.
Please, not alleged. Once again you take a burden of proof upon yourself when you dispute rather well known facts. If you want I can link Carrier's education and qualifications for you. It is not that hard.

And you are the one guilty of trying to redefine ad hominem. I can find numerous sources that explain it to you in depth. All you have is your poor misunderstanding based upon an equivocation fallacy. Here let me show you:

Ad Hominem (Abusive)

"
Description: Attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, when the attack on the person is completely irrelevant to the argument the person is making.

Logical Form:

Person 1 is claiming Y.

Person 1 is a moron.

Therefore, Y is not true.

Example #1:

My opponent suggests that lowering taxes will be a good idea -- this is coming from a woman who eats a pint of Ben and Jerry’s each night!

Explanation: The fact that the woman loves her ice cream, has nothing to do with the lowering of taxes, and therefore, is irrelevant to the argument. Ad hominem attacks are usually made out of desperation when one cannot find a decent counter argument.

Example #2:

Tony wants us to believe that the origin of life was an “accident”. Tony is a godless SOB who has spent more time in jail than in church, so the only information we should consider from him is the best way to make license plates.

Explanation: Tony may be a godless SOB. Perhaps he did spend more time in the joint than in church, but all this is irrelevant to his argument or truth of his claim as to the origin of life.

Exception: When the attack on the person is relevant to the argument, it is not a fallacy. In our first example, if the issue being debated was the elimination of taxes only on Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, then pointing out her eating habits would be strong evidence of a conflict of interest."

You have been corrected. You have not been attacked. The corrections have to do with the topic at hand, they are not on some unrelated manner. So no ad hominem attack or fallacy. The attacks would have to have nothing to do with the subject at all.

Do you need more? That was only the first example that I came across. I could go down the list for you.

And you do not seem to understand how to debate Claims are supported with links. You are not an authority. Neither am I one must be able to support one's claims with valid links. Those that say "I don't debate links" are tacitly admitting that the experts in the fields do not support their beliefs.

And yes, by definition if a work is not signed it is anonymous. The names attached to the Bible did not occur until the second century. Long after they were written as a means of separating them.

And you don't need to read the link on Luke, but I thought that you might want to learn.


Tell me, if I make a claim how do you know if it is correct or not if I cannot support it with a link? A simple "Because I said so" is no more valid for me than it is for you.

But let's start with Luke. Have you read it? Where do you want to start? When do you think that Luke put's the date of Jesus?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I'll agree with you there! :D

The 'mythical!' Jesus is a composit of beliefs, pop religion, distortions, and unevidenced theories.. all of these blend together and form the mysterious person that is indoctrinated by progressive ideology. They don't attack Him directly (usually), but discredit and marginalize Him with innuendo (hath God said?), revisionism, and speculations with no evidence. This 'narrative' is pounded into people from infancy by the competing ideology of Progressivism, until only a hollow caricature of Jesus remains, not the Man, Himself.

When people dare to question their Indoctrination, and study the Real Person of Jesus, they are usually struck by the contrast between the cultural myth, and the historical figure.
No, no, no. You believe in the mythical Jesus. You call any attempts to bring you back to reality "smearing". Correcting your false beliefs is not attacking Jesus. If anything that is your sin.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
My evidence is the Gospels and supporting epistles.
Okay, so again, like I asked the last time you said this, what reason do we have to believe the Gospels are accurate and true accounts of real events? And how do we verify the supposed supernatural events found within said Gospels?

If you think the Gospels are false, then show me your best ONE (1 - just ONE, your best ONE) example of a person, place, or event that has been shown to be fictitious. Cite the pertinent scripture and your argument.
Um, we can't even verify who the Gospel writers actually were in the first place.

But again, that is not how this works. You need to demonstrate that the claims of the Bible are true, rather than somebody else disproving them. Things aren't true and real simply because they're in the Bible any more than Spider Man is real because New York City actually exists.


So, the Gospels are what convinced you to believe in God? What about them convinced you that God exists?
 

sooda

Veteran Member

Based on Daniel 2? Daniel wasn't born during the Babylonian exile. In fact the book of Daniel had many authors.

I doubt Irenaeus knew about "Daniel".. Daniel was writing about the Abomination of Desolation under Antiochus IV Epighanes.. around 165 BC... during the Maccabean revolt.

Seems obvious to me that Irenaeus is reacting to Revelation teaching that it will happen soon.. within a generation so he starts concocting excuses and attacking gnostics.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Here's extra-biblical evidence for the strange darkness that occurred during the crucifixion: Documenting A Miracle

The rest of your post is nothing more than unfounded conjecture. It is countered by the multiple, independent, historical Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.

By the skeptic's common practice of discarding or attempting to marginalize ALL historical references to Jesus, you unwittingly would have people believe in a massive and complicated conspiracy by mostly common, uneducated fishermen, etc., to advance a false narrative about Christ. Let's review who would probably have to be in this unwitting conspiracy and be labeled as liars, charlatans, etc.

1. Most or all of the disciples, including early unbelievers such as James and Thomas. Skeptics would, in effect, be assigning acts of deception to these men in spite of there being no narrative or history of dishonesty on their part.

2. The women at the tomb. First-century testimony of any kind that a resurrection never occurred is absent in history.

3. Luke, the physician and author of his Gospel. He wasn't a disciple. He wrote that he carefully investigated "everything" from the beginning. There's no evidence he just focused on the words and accounts of the apostles alone. What's more, he continues his narrative with the Book of Acts, with additional miracles and people (including Paul, a person initially hostile to Christianity) claiming to have had experiences with Christ. Plus, Paul's companions on the road to Damascus "heard the sound" of Paul's experience with Jesus. So Luke would have to be a liar, fool, or charlatan also.

4. Eusebius and Josephus and others who wrote about Jesus had to be lying, mistaken, or also in on the conspiracy to defraud the populace. We do know of at least forty-two authors, nine of whom were secular, who mentioned Jesus within 150 years of his death. Scholar Gary Habermas, in his Book "The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus" (p.233), listed the following: 9 authors from the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Author of of Hebrews, James, Peter, and Jude. 21 early Christian writers outside the NT - Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Didache, Barnabus, Shepherd of Hermas, Fragments of Papias, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophious of Antioch, Quadratus, Aristo of Pella, Melito of Sardis, Diognetus, Gospel of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, and Epistula Apostolorum. 4 heretical writings - Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Apocryphon of John, Treatise on Resurrection. And 9 secular non-Christian sources, including Josephus, Tacticus, Pliny the Younger, Phlegon, Lucian, Celcus, Mara Bar-Serapion, Seutonius, and Thallus.

5. We need to add Paul to the conspiracy, since he wrote of the resurrection of Jesus in his epistles, and since he wrote most of the New Testament. According to Luke, Paul had an experience with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

6. Let's also add in all the other eyewitnesses of miracles and/or authors of the New Testament, since they must also be liars, madmen, or charlatans.

I can probably dredge up some more, but the list of people who would have to be liars, charlatans, etc., is now too long (and unsupported by any credible evidence on the part of skeptics) to be believable.

Luke doesn't know anything about the geography of Palestine.. Where do you think he was living?
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
..not sure of your criticism.. since they quote the description about John consistently, this proves error?
It proves that Mat and Luke copied Mark.
It's simple research investigation.
And so it also proves something else, coming up shortly.

Now, why don't you go right through the three SYNOPTICS and find all the passages like that? There's quite a lot, you know.

If they agree on an account, 'Error! Coping!'.. if they fiffer, 'Error! Conflict!'
These Christians....... just shoving words in our mouths like that.
Oops! You can add that to your OP list :D

Honestly..... I can speak for myself.

As long as you presumption of 'error!' is there, that is all that matters, it seems.
I do not presume, I just study and gather what evidence there might be.

You are accusing. I am defending. I can only present facts, ....

laughing.jpg
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Seriously? You see no references to Matthew in the NT? Not listed as a disciple?

You missed the point.
I might have discovered more about Matthew than you, actually.

No....... the point is that the APOSTLE certainly was not the DISCIPLE. Not possibly.

Even the best and most true gospel, G-Mark, is full of evangelical fiddling. See the very first verse...!!!!!

The Gospel According to St. Mark
{1:1} The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God
; .........

The New International Version points out quite clearly that the earliest copies of the bible DID NOT INCLUDE THAT DECEPTIVE ADDITION. :)

You see? Fiddling. That's the first of loads of fiddles, usfan.

I feel absolutely sure that Yeshua BarYosef did exist and did pick yup the Immerser's mission, so I believe in Jesus, just don't believe in Christ.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
The Evangelist St. Luke was a native of Antioch in Syria.

Profile of Luke the Evangelist, Author of a Gospel Acts
Guide to the Beliefs and Religions of the Worldluke-the-evangelist-profile-and-biography-248815
Because the Gospel According to Luke doesn’t display accurate knowledge of Palestinian geography, the author probably didn’t live there or compose the gospel there.

Some traditions suggest that he wrote in Boeotia or Rome. Some scholars today have suggested places such as Caesarea and the Decapolis. He might have traveled with Paul on some of this journeys.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Paul mentions Luke in his Epistle to Philemon so, depending on how old Luke was at this time, he may well have been alive during Jesus' ministry. However, Luke was not the author of the gospel that now bears his name.

Like all the New Testament gospels, Luke's Gospel was originally anonymous, so the second-century Church Fathers decided to attribute it to the person they felt was most probably its author.

And so, for nearly two thousand years, we have believed that one of the gospels was written by Luke.

However, the gospel appears to have been written far too late to have been written by the Luke that Paul knew.

In fact, it was written far too late to have been written by anyone likely to have been alive around seventy years earlier, during the time of Jesus.

Because Acts of the Apostles seems to have been written by the same author, they expected that he must have been an educated gentile who knew Paul, and narrowed it down to Luke.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
By the way, you end up contradicting yourself when you try to claim that there are both plenty of "manuscripts" supporting Christianity and if you reject the work of those that study and understand those manuscripts. You can't have it both ways.

So true.
I have scraped and scratched for years in attempts to discover more than part of one gospel which might be considered as evidence. Josephus's account was either fiddled with or inserted (I think fiddled-with because of where the account is, amongst a list of troublemakers, so not an ideal place for a Christian insertion).

In fact the most interesting references (not witness accounts) are found in Origen's copies of Celcus's comments about Jesus, so a protaganist helped more than any apologist.

All we've got is something between 'possible' and 'probable' for the man who followed the Baptist, and absolutely nothing at all for 'Christ the God'.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
I find this passage from Irenaeus 3.3.3 to be a particularly fascinating look into the early church, with references to actual apostles, & showing a theological line & continuity of the faith.. in the context of growing heresy & false doctrines that were corrupting influences on the original message.

Ah yes......... I have read that Irenaeus met John, which of course places John in to the 2nd century, along with his gospel. Probably 105-110 AD ?

In my opinion G-John was the most dishonest gospel of them all. Such claims!

He was never John BarZebedee...... never.
 

Riders

Well-Known Member
Here's extra-biblical evidence for the strange darkness that occurred during the crucifixion: Documenting A Miracle

The rest of your post is nothing more than unfounded conjecture. It is countered by the multiple, independent, historical Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.

By the skeptic's common practice of discarding or attempting to marginalize ALL historical references to Jesus, you unwittingly would have people believe in a massive and complicated conspiracy by mostly common, uneducated fishermen, etc., to advance a false narrative about Christ. Let's review who would probably have to be in this unwitting conspiracy and be labeled as liars, charlatans, etc.

1. Most or all of the disciples, including early unbelievers such as James and Thomas. Skeptics would, in effect, be assigning acts of deception to these men in spite of there being no narrative or history of dishonesty on their part.

2. The women at the tomb. First-century testimony of any kind that a resurrection never occurred is absent in history.

3. Luke, the physician and author of his Gospel. He wasn't a disciple. He wrote that he carefully investigated "everything" from the beginning. There's no evidence he just focused on the words and accounts of the apostles alone. What's more, he continues his narrative with the Book of Acts, with additional miracles and people (including Paul, a person initially hostile to Christianity) claiming to have had experiences with Christ. Plus, Paul's companions on the road to Damascus "heard the sound" of Paul's experience with Jesus. So Luke would have to be a liar, fool, or charlatan also.

4. Eusebius and Josephus and others who wrote about Jesus had to be lying, mistaken, or also in on the conspiracy to defraud the populace. We do know of at least forty-two authors, nine of whom were secular, who mentioned Jesus within 150 years of his death. Scholar Gary Habermas, in his Book "The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus" (p.233), listed the following: 9 authors from the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Author of of Hebrews, James, Peter, and Jude. 21 early Christian writers outside the NT - Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Didache, Barnabus, Shepherd of Hermas, Fragments of Papias, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophious of Antioch, Quadratus, Aristo of Pella, Melito of Sardis, Diognetus, Gospel of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, and Epistula Apostolorum. 4 heretical writings - Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Apocryphon of John, Treatise on Resurrection. And 9 secular non-Christian sources, including Josephus, Tacticus, Pliny the Younger, Phlegon, Lucian, Celcus, Mara Bar-Serapion, Seutonius, and Thallus.

5. We need to add Paul to the conspiracy, since he wrote of the resurrection of Jesus in his epistles, and since he wrote most of the New Testament. According to Luke, Paul had an experience with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

6. Let's also add in all the other eyewitnesses of miracles and/or authors of the New Testament, since they must also be liars, madmen, or charlatans.

I can probably dredge up some more, but the list of people who would have to be liars, charlatans, etc., is now too long (and unsupported by any credible evidence on the part of skeptics) to be believable.

Most of what Josephus said and the others you mention have been proved to be phonys.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
What you have is a THEORY, with ZERO evidence to support it. It's entirely feasible that Noah's flood story was the original, and others piggybacked off of Noah. Noah was there first. And if you say there's no Noah manuscripts, I can argue there were, but they didn't survive. So, your EVIDENCE is nothing more than a THEORY.

The evidence that the flood story is a myth is compelling, as is the evidence that the story predates the Hebrews' version. You and @usfan are each continually telling a gallery of people that all claim to have seen the evidence contradicting the myth that you see no evidence.

What do you expect the effect of such posting to be? I don't think that either of you understand how you appear telling those that see the evidence that you can't see it. Those aren't your words - you say it doesn't exist - but to people that have seen it, and these people are in agreement about what the evidence looks like and what it means, you're kind of like the king who thinks he is wearing fine array, telling the townspeople how well he dressed when they're looking at him standing there naked. If the king has no idea that others see something different, it can't work out well for him.

It's the oldest that's SURVIVING. There's no evidence it's the oldest that there ever was.

Evidence is what is evident, not what potentially may become evident in the future. The working hypothesis has to account for the facts in evidence at any given time, and the simplest explanation that accomplishes that is the provisionally preferred one.

If the oldest known version of a myth is Sumerian or Babylonian, then that is the oldest known version of the story. It's really that simple. If an older Hebrew manuscript surfaces, then that will be considered the oldest known version of the myth, and evidence-based thinkers will agree with what you have guessed correctly based on faith.

But until then, there is no agreement. The evidence-based and the faith-based beliefs are in contradiction. Those who decide what is true about reality from evidence will disagree with those who have chosen to believe by faith, that is, without evidence or against contradictory evidence based on faith.

Actually no if you read the article in Wiki it says the Babylon texts on the flood myth is the oldest that has been tested. Scientists tested it and proved its the oldest, Babylon is the oldest not the Jewish. Scientists, its been tested, thats scientific proof

He's not interested in the evidence that exists. He's interested in the "evidence" that he hopes will be found to support his faith-based belief.

Both of these guys clamor for evidence, but neither can see it, or so they tell us, and as I indicated, I believe them. They cannot see what you, I, and others not ensconsed in a faith-based confirmation bias can clearly see Hebrew myths derived from older Mesopotamian myths.

So you still have nothing but a theory.

No, what she has is the archeology on the ancient manuscripts that date the various incarnations of the myth as they appeared in history.

What you have is a faith-based belief in contradiction to the evidence, meaning that it has already been provisionally disconfirmed to the evidence-based thinker pending uncovering additional evidence that leads to a new understanding.

I can read the ark story of Noah and get a good message from it without reading it literally as true.The message is all that counts.

What message do you get from that story?

The message to me is that a god alleged to be perfect was distraught with what mankind was, and rather than accept man as he was, or use His omnipotence to rewire man to His liking, he decided to exterminate almost all terrestrial life with a flood, which seems like a particularly terrifying way to nearly sterilize the earth.

We can imagine animals seeking higher ground until there was no higher ground, the water levels rising over their heads as they crane their necks in terror for their last breaths before inhaling water and dying. This is what this good god allegedly did to the creatures of earth. What would a devil have done?

And to what purpose? To restock the earth using exactly the same breeding stock in the hope that things will turn out better the second time. Maybe man won't be a sinner this time.

Did I miss something? What did you get out of it?

We have the written record from Genesis that God (Jesus) himself confirmed in the Gospels. Only eight people got off that boat. But then you won't believe Jesus either on that when there is a written record of his life and resurrectio

Believe Jesus? You mean believe the words attributed to him. No, I don't believe any of that. I don't say that it didn't happen, just that the only evidence for it - hearsay testimony from anonymous sources of unknown agendas and character - is too weak to be persuasive.

You don't seem to understand that it takes faith to believe that the Bible is accurate. To the skeptic, scripture is evidence of nothing except that it was written a very long time ago by people with a primitive understanding of their world. So telling unbelievers that one part of scripture confirms another part doesn't gain traction.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Ah yes......... I have read that Irenaeus met John, which of course places John in to the 2nd century, along with his gospel. Probably 105-110 AD ?

In my opinion G-John was the most dishonest gospel of them all. Such claims!

He was never John BarZebedee...... never.

Where can you find the bare bones facts on what is certain about John?


Saint John the Apostle | Biography, Facts, Writings ...
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-the-Apostle
May 17, 2019 · John was the son of Zebedee, a Galilean fisherman, and Salome. John and his brother St. James were among the first disciples called by Jesus. In The Gospel According to Mark he is always mentioned after James and was no doubt the younger brother. His mother was among those women who ministered to the circle of disciples.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Most of what Josephus said and the others you mention have been proved to be phonys.

You mean that stuff about darkness at the crucifixion? Well, yeah.. They claim it was world wide and after a few hundred years they claimed it was local.. "just in Palestine"..
 

sooda

Veteran Member
The evidence that the flood story is a myth is compelling, as is the evidence that the story predates the Hebrews' version. You and @usfan are each continually telling a gallery of people that all claim to have seen the evidence contradicting the myth that you see no evidence.

What do you expect the effect of such posting to be? I don't think that either of you understand how you appear telling those that see the evidence that you can't see it. Those aren't your words - you say it doesn't exist - but to people that have seen it, and these people are in agreement about what the evidence looks like and what it means, you're kind of like the king who thinks he is wearing fine array, telling the townspeople how well he dressed when they're looking at him standing there naked. If the king has no idea that others see something different, it can't work out well for him.



Evidence is what is evident, not what potentially may become evident in the future. The working hypothesis has to account for the facts in evidence at any given time, and the simplest explanation that accomplishes that is the provisionally preferred one.

If the oldest known version of a myth is Sumerian or Babylonian, then that is the oldest known version of the story. It's really that simple. If an older Hebrew manuscript surfaces, then that will be considered the oldest known version of the myth, and evidence-based thinkers will agree with what you have guessed correctly based on faith.

But until then, there is no agreement. The evidence-based and the faith-based beliefs are in contradiction. Those who decide what is true about reality from evidence will disagree with those who have chosen to believe by faith, that is, without evidence or against contradictory evidence based on faith.



He's not interested in the evidence that exists. He's interested in the "evidence" that he hopes will be found to support his faith-based belief.

Both of these guys clamor for evidence, but neither can see it, or so they tell us, and as I indicated, I believe them. They cannot see what you, I, and others not ensconsed in a faith-based confirmation bias can clearly see Hebrew myths derived from older Mesopotamian myths.



No, what she has is the archeology on the ancient manuscripts that date the various incarnations of the myth as they appeared in history.

What you have is a faith-based belief in contradiction to the evidence, meaning that it has already been provisionally disconfirmed to the evidence-based thinker pending uncovering additional evidence that leads to a new understanding.



What message do you get from that story?

The message to me is that a god alleged to be perfect was distraught with what mankind was, and rather than accept man as he was, or use His omnipotence to rewire man to His liking, he decided to exterminate almost all terrestrial life with a flood, which seems like a particularly terrifying way to nearly sterilize the earth.

We can imagine animals seeking higher ground until there was no higher ground, the water levels rising over their heads as they crane their necks in terror for their last breaths before inhaling water and dying. This is what this good god allegedly did to the creatures of earth. What would a devil have done?

And to what purpose? To restock the earth using exactly the same breeding stock in the hope that things will turn out better the second time. Maybe man won't be a sinner this time.

Did I miss something? What did you get out of it?



Believe Jesus? You mean believe the words attributed to him. No, I don't believe any of that. I don't say that it didn't happen, just that the only evidence for it - hearsay testimony from anonymous sources of unknown agendas and character - is too weak to be persuasive.

You don't seem to understand that it takes faith to believe that the Bible is accurate. To the skeptic, scripture is evidence of nothing except that it was written a very long time ago by people with a primitive understanding of their world. So telling unbelievers that one part of scripture confirms another part doesn't gain traction.

What they cannot accept is that the Hebrews borrowed old stories from the cultures around them to create a history and identity for themselves AFTER the Babylonian exile.
 

Riders

Well-Known Member
The evidence that the flood story is a myth is compelling, as is the evidence that the story predates the Hebrews' version. You and @usfan are each continually telling a gallery of people that all claim to have seen the evidence contradicting the myth that you see no evidence.

What do you expect the effect of such posting to be? I don't think that either of you understand how you appear telling those that see the evidence that you can't see it. Those aren't your words - you say it doesn't exist - but to people that have seen it, and these people are in agreement about what the evidence looks like and what it means, you're kind of like the king who thinks he is wearing fine array, telling the townspeople how well he dressed when they're looking at him standing there naked. If the king has no idea that others see something different, it can't work out well for him.



Evidence is what is evident, not what potentially may become evident in the future. The working hypothesis has to account for the facts in evidence at any given time, and the simplest explanation that accomplishes that is the provisionally preferred one.

If the oldest known version of a myth is Sumerian or Babylonian, then that is the oldest known version of the story. It's really that simple. If an older Hebrew manuscript surfaces, then that will be considered the oldest known version of the myth, and evidence-based thinkers will agree with what you have guessed correctly based on faith.

But until then, there is no agreement. The evidence-based and the faith-based beliefs are in contradiction. Those who decide what is true about reality from evidence will disagree with those who have chosen to believe by faith, that is, without evidence or against contradictory evidence based on faith.



He's not interested in the evidence that exists. He's interested in the "evidence" that he hopes will be found to support his faith-based belief.

Both of these guys clamor for evidence, but neither can see it, or so they tell us, and as I indicated, I believe them. They cannot see what you, I, and others not ensconsed in a faith-based confirmation bias can clearly see Hebrew myths derived from older Mesopotamian myths.



No, what she has is the archeology on the ancient manuscripts that date the various incarnations of the myth as they appeared in history.

What you have is a faith-based belief in contradiction to the evidence, meaning that it has already been provisionally disconfirmed to the evidence-based thinker pending uncovering additional evidence that leads to a new understanding.



What message do you get from that story?

The message to me is that a god alleged to be perfect was distraught with what mankind was, and rather than accept man as he was, or use His omnipotence to rewire man to His liking, he decided to exterminate almost all terrestrial life with a flood, which seems like a particularly terrifying way to nearly sterilize the earth.

We can imagine animals seeking higher ground until there was no higher ground, the water levels rising over their heads as they crane their necks in terror for their last breaths before inhaling water and dying. This is what this good god allegedly did to the creatures of earth. What would a devil have done?

And to what purpose? To restock the earth using exactly the same breeding stock in the hope that things will turn out better the second time. Maybe man won't be a sinner this time.

Did I miss something? What did you get out of it?



Believe Jesus? You mean believe the words attributed to him. No, I don't believe any of that. I don't say that it didn't happen, just that the only evidence for it - hearsay testimony from anonymous sources of unknown agendas and character - is too weak to be persuasive.

You don't seem to understand that it takes faith to believe that the Bible is accurate. To the skeptic, scripture is evidence of nothing except that it was written a very long time ago by people with a primitive understanding of their world. So telling unbelievers that one part of scripture confirms another part doesn't gain traction.


I agree a lot of the old testament bible with the war God who was judgemental and wanted to destroy the world for not obeying him is a mean God. How about survival?
Can you make a message about Noahs survival against a flood? I get you though, yea, I think the Jewish God was and is in the bible anyways, a war God. Military God. You know the term Gospel means the good news of the military not the Good news of Jesus?

But there is still lots of good in the bible in certain parts, Psalms is good. I plan on reading it this year anyways, well the ark story is interesting anyways.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
I agree a lot of the old testament bible with the war God who was judgemental and wanted to destroy the world for not obeying him is a mean God. How about survival?
Can you make a message about Noahs survival against a flood? I get you though, yea, I think the Jewish God was and is in the bible anyways, a war God. Military God. You know the term Gospel means the good news of the military not the Good news of Jesus?

But there is still lots of good in the bible in certain parts, Psalms is good. I plan on reading it this year anyways, well the ark story is interesting anyways.

Much of Psalms was lifted from the Canaanite culture of the Ugarit... predates the Hebrews.
 
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