How much do we know?

leov said:

Neil deGrasse Tyson: we don't understand the most fundamental aspects of our universe

Looks like not too much...

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You are correct. We begin by what you just did. We acknowledge our ignorance and then we begin to question everything we hear or see? Plus the brain is unable to KNOW anything beyond the physical dimension except for abstract terms that "stand" for that which the brain will never experience". Peace

gnostic said:

That’s really a matter of your personal faith in your personal belief, which is merely another word, your personal opinion.

Your claim is nothing more than that.

Thus, the claim - spiritual world “is very real”, is just your opinion that you could never substantiate.

You started this thread of yours in the “Science and Religion” forum.

Science required “evidences” to determine - what is the probability of being “true” and what is the probability of being “false”.

But since you are the one making claim that the spiritual world is real, then the burden of proof falls upon the claimant, which is “you”.

Saying the spiritual world is very real, is a claim, not evidence. The “claim” is does not equal to “evidence”.

To give you an example. Say you are physicist who wrote a hypothesis that explain why the sky is blue. Since you are the one offering the explanation, which is essentially making a proposed “claim”, then according to requirements of Scientific Method, you are the one who have to develop methodology of finding these evidences, eg instruction on how to perform the experiments, and then you would carry out the experiments, and record your findings; the test results are your data.

As you can see, the person (ie the “claimant”) who write up the hypothesis (ie the claims), then that person should be the one to find the evidences, hence the burden of proof lies with the person who offer the explanation.

Do you understand this?

When you say “I say it is very real”, then you are the one who must show evidences for the spiritual world to be “real”.

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Your dialog is an excellent example of Intellectualism, but short on separating thinking from Knowing. Peace

1-Brother James said:

Your dialog is an excellent example of Intellectualism, but short on separating thinking from Knowing. Peace

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leov’s and your problems, as with a large number of theists, confusing faith-based belief (which is essentially nothing more than “personal opinion”) with “knowing”.

leov’s example that the “spiritual world” exists and being “real” is based on faith, and faith alone.

Blind faith on god, spirits and spiritual worlds (such as “heaven”, “hell”, “purgatory”, etc), so far is wild imagination, no different from hallucinating delusions or acid-tripping. They are nothing that you or any other religious person (not just talking about Christians here) can substantiate, except to say “I believe in...” this or that.

If you read leov’s most reply to me, he seemed to have finally admit that “Gnosis” or his version of “knowing” is personal, and therefore subjective:

leov said:

if course it is my personal Gnosis. I cannot produce a cubic foot of physical God or spirit. God is personal and individual matter, only psychic crowd think that they can promote God with ignorance. They judge that God wants a promotion and vanity.

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His “knowing” (Gnosis) is still based on faith and, for someone like me, it is tenuous at best.

What is faith?

Faith is conviction, a conviction that something you believe in to be “real”, this doesn’t mean what a person believe in, to be true, and faith does this without the needs for any evidence.

Faith and belief are like personal opinions, highly subjective.

The only way to know things objectively is through evidences.

leov's claim about the spiritual world being real, is merely a statement or declaration of what he believe in...nothing more, nothing less. He certainly can't show any evidences that what he believe in, to be true.

blü 2 said:

That's where the dreadful quality of the evidence lets you down. The story of a man all of whose life functions have authentically and irreversibly failed but who comes back to life anyway is not believable anyway, so would already have to overcome the 'overwhelmingly unlikely stories require overwhelmingly good evidence' problem ─ you have nothing but very bad evidence.
No, it's simply an unfalsified statement. I invite you to falsify it with a counterexample, a statement about reality that's absolutely true.

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Do you typically view over a dozen authors, who provide hundreds of historical details verified by archaeology in their details, as "very bad evidence"? Your incredulity at a supernatural event is not proof that the Bible was written poorly.

BilliardsBall said:

Do you typically view over a dozen authors, who provide hundreds of historical details verified by archaeology in their details, as "very bad evidence"? Your incredulity at a supernatural event is not proof that the Bible was written poorly.

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First, as I said. none of resurrection accounts is by an eye-witness, contemporary or independent ─ Paul's non-eyewitness, partisan account is at best over twenty years after the purported event, and is very short on detail; the next, by the author of Mark, is also non-eyewitness, partisan, not less than forty years late and ends at the empty tomb, no Jesus sighted; those of the non-eyewitness and partisan authors of Matthew, Luke and John, are about fifty, fifty and seventy years late, as is Acts. Second, all six contradict the other five on major details. And third, extraordinary claims require extraordinarily good evidence; while in fact there's no credible evidence at all.

But of course facts are easily overridden by faith, and in a free country you may believe what you like.

gnostic said:

leov’s and your problems, as with a large number of theists, confusing faith-based belief (which is essentially nothing more than “personal opinion”) with “knowing”.

leov’s example that the “spiritual world” exists and being “real” is based on faith, and faith alone.

Blind faith on god, spirits and spiritual worlds (such as “heaven”, “hell”, “purgatory”, etc), so far is wild imagination, no different from hallucinating delusions or acid-tripping. They are nothing that you or any other religious person (not just talking about Christians here) can substantiate, except to say “I believe in...” this or that.

If you read leov’s most reply to me, he seemed to have finally admit that “Gnosis” or his version of “knowing” is personal, and therefore subjective:



His “knowing” (Gnosis) is still based on faith and, for someone like me, it is tenuous at best.

What is faith?

Faith is conviction, a conviction that something you believe in to be “real”, this doesn’t mean what a person believe in, to be true, and faith does this without the needs for any evidence.

Faith and belief are like personal opinions, highly subjective.

The only way to know things objectively is through evidences.

leov's claim about the spiritual world being real, is merely a statement or declaration of what he believe in...nothing more, nothing less. He certainly can't show any evidences that what he believe in, to be true.

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In my experience "faith" came as communication with a lot of synchronicities that was not able to deny.

leov said:

In my experience "faith" came as communication with a lot of synchronicities that was not able to deny.

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Faith in beliefs are no different from their personal opinions. It highly subjective for each person, and naturally what they believe in, they believed to be true.

You as a Christian and Muslims believe in the same things where you died, you will be judged in the afterlife, in either in heaven or in hell. But what Christians believe were byproduct of the Second Temple period Judaism, which were influenced by Hellenistic Greek and Egyptian religious beliefs in the afterlife (3rd century BCE to 70 CE).

The Jews themselves, on the other hand, believe that all spirits (the proper word here is rephaims, meaning “shades”) goes to Sheol (netherworld), whether they good or bad, believers or non-believers. This concept actually is similar to most ancient middle eastern religions that predated early Judaism.

The Christian concept of heaven and hell were foreign to the Judaism of the 7th & 6th centuries BCE Judaism (from King Josiah to the Babylonian Exile).

But with dharmaic religions they believe in death come with rebirth in the form of series of reincarnation.

In Taoism, immortality are only bestowed on very selective few, while the rest go to the netherworldly existence not much different from the older belief in the netherworld in the Middle East.

In Norse myths, only the brave warriors were chosen for Valhalla or for Fólkvangr, where the goddess Freyja get the other half of fallen warriors in battles.

I am not certain about beliefs of Native Americans or the Australian indigenous. There are all types of afterlife from different cultures, past and present, which I don’t about.

Who can really tell which of these are true?

My points are that they can’t all be true, and those believe they are in the right, is highly subjective, highly dubious, and highly biased.

gnostic said:

Faith in beliefs are no different from their personal opinions. It highly subjective for each person, and naturally what they believe in, they believed to be true.

You as a Christian and Muslims believe in the same things where you died, you will be judged in the afterlife, in either in heaven or in hell. But what Christians believe were byproduct of the Second Temple period Judaism, which were influenced by Hellenistic Greek and Egyptian religious beliefs in the afterlife (3rd century BCE to 70 CE).

The Jews themselves, on the other hand, believe that all spirits (the proper word here is rephaims, meaning “shades”) goes to Sheol (netherworld), whether they good or bad, believers or non-believers. This concept actually is similar to most ancient middle eastern religions that predated early Judaism.

The Christian concept of heaven and hell were foreign to the Judaism of the 7th & 6th centuries BCE Judaism (from King Josiah to the Babylonian Exile).

But with dharmaic religions they believe in death come with rebirth in the form of series of reincarnation.

In Taoism, immortality are only bestowed on very selective few, while the rest go to the netherworldly existence not much different from the older belief in the netherworld in the Middle East.

In Norse myths, only the brave warriors were chosen for Valhalla or for Fólkvangr, where the goddess Freyja get the other half of fallen warriors in battles.

I am not certain about beliefs of Native Americans or the Australian indigenous. There are all types of afterlife from different cultures, past and present, which I don’t about.

Who can really tell which of these are true?

My points are that they can’t all be true, and those believe they are in the right, is highly subjective, highly dubious, and highly biased.

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. Believes don’t matter, only state of consciousness is important only thing that can brake karmic cycle.

leov said:

. Believes don’t matter, only state of consciousness is important only thing that can brake karmic cycle.

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That’s only true with Buddhism, but not with Hinduism.

And even in Hinduism, different schools place different important of karma, cycle of rebirth (samsara), and of breaking the cycle (moksha), so these schools may disagree with each other.

gnostic said:

That’s only true with Buddhism, but not with Hinduism.

And even in Hinduism, different schools place different important of karma, cycle of rebirth (samsara), and of breaking the cycle (moksha), so these schools may disagree with each other.

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Schools differ, they all as well may be wrong and reality may be something else. I like Steiner’s take.

blü 2 said:

First, as I said. none of resurrection accounts is by an eye-witness, contemporary or independent ─ Paul's non-eyewitness, partisan account is at best over twenty years after the purported event, and is very short on detail; the next, by the author of Mark, is also non-eyewitness, partisan, not less than forty years late and ends at the empty tomb, no Jesus sighted; those of the non-eyewitness and partisan authors of Matthew, Luke and John, are about fifty, fifty and seventy years late, as is Acts. Second, all six contradict the other five on major details. And third, extraordinary claims require extraordinarily good evidence; while in fact there's no credible evidence at all.

But of course facts are easily overridden by faith, and in a free country you may believe what you like.

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I don't understand how I would forget "little details" like a resurrection, even decades after the fact, but the "seventy years late" is nonsense.

BilliardsBall said:

I don't understand how I would forget "little details" like a resurrection, even decades after the fact, but the "seventy years late" is nonsense.

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No doubt if you were eyewitness to a resurrection, you'd think, Ah, he couldn't have been dead in the first place ─ since that's overwhelmingly more likely than the alternative. But of course none of the accounts is by an eyewitness, nor even pretends to be.

As for the seventy years, John is dated to around 100 CE, and its antisemitism reflects the movement of Christianity at that time from being a Jewish sect to being a distinct religion. The crucifixion is traditionally dated to 30 CE, sometimes 32 or 33 CE; but seventy years is about right.

blü 2 said:

No doubt if you were eyewitness to a resurrection, you'd think, Ah, he couldn't have been dead in the first place ─ since that's overwhelmingly more likely than the alternative. But of course none of the accounts is by an eyewitness, nor even pretends to be.

As for the seventy years, John is dated to around 100 CE, and its antisemitism reflects the movement of Christianity at that time from being a Jewish sect to being a distinct religion. The crucifixion is traditionally dated to 30 CE, sometimes 32 or 33 CE; but seventy years is about right.

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Hmm, I have to disagree with "none of the accounts is by an eyewitness, nor even pretends to be". For each NT writer claims two or more up to THOUSANDS of eyewitnesses of the events--like this "myth" that John the Baptist changed rivers so he could get MORE WATER to baptize many converts. Why do you think the ancient Israelites and Romans stupidly were unable to refute multiple reports of a nonexistent miracle worker(s) like Jesus who healed THOUSANDS of people and spoke to TENS OF THOUSANDS of listeners in the Temple courts?

Even if we take a VERY liberal timeline of 40 years to 70 years for writing down the events, there were ZERO people living aged 50 to 90 or so who could have said or written, "I lived in Jerusalem, Jesus did not visit here annually between "30 and 33 AD" to heal thousands of people, perform other miracles, and get into titanic debates with the Pharisees in public at massive religious festivals, before being executed on a hill where thousands of people could see him die, then rise"?

That beggars all belief. Your faith against Jesus is far larger than my faith in Jesus.

BilliardsBall said:

Hmm, I have to disagree with "none of the accounts is by an eyewitness, nor even pretends to be". For each NT writer claims two or more up to THOUSANDS of eyewitnesses of the events

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Ah, there's our misunderstanding.

An eyewitness account is an account by the person who was the eyewitness, usually in the first person and usually stating where, when, who and what. Anyone else who reports the event is giving a hearsay report, that is, a second-, third-, fourth-hand &c report. All of the NT reports are thus hearsay. Hearsay is someone's interpretation of what someone else said, and is well-known to be prone to variation, omission, insertion, and polishing up according to the hearsayer's own views.

BilliardsBall said:

Even if we take a VERY liberal timeline of 40 years to 70 years for writing down the events, there were ZERO people living aged 50 to 90 or so who could have said or written, "I lived in Jerusalem, Jesus did not visit here annually between "30 and 33 AD" to heal thousands of people, perform other miracles, and get into titanic debates with the Pharisees in public at massive religious festivals, before being executed on a hill where thousands of people could see him die, then rise"?

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Do you believe Athena counseled Achilles and also Odysseus at Troy? In the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana? Do you think statues of Ganesha sometimes drink milk (here at 2:50 and more if you google 'ganesha milk miracle')? If not, why not? The latter, after all, are supported by videos, which are light years ahead of the gospels in their quality and credibility as evidence of their claims.

BilliardsBall said:

Your faith against Jesus is far larger than my faith in Jesus.

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I don't have 'faith against Jesus'. There's nothing unusual about my skeptical approach to reports, historical or current; and I wouldn't doubt that you only believe in reports of miracles that support your personal faith, not the miracles of the gods of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Celts, Greece and Rome, Arabia, India, China, and so on round the world ─ but please correct me if I'm wrong.

BilliardsBall said:

Do you typically view over a dozen authors, who provide hundreds of historical details verified by archaeology in their details, as "very bad evidence"? Your incredulity at a supernatural event is not proof that the Bible was written poorly.

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What are these details? Sure, there are geographic and historical details, but these would have been common knowledge. Moreover, there are major themes, with details you'd expect to be fact based, and that would surely have left empirical evidence, for which there is little or no evidence. There was no Flood, there was no exodus, Quirinius' census did not happen as recorded, and there are four different accounts of Jesus' resurrection. How is one to distinguish the folklore from fact?

If there were relevant and verifiable historical details they'd be known and accepted worldwide. Yet there is no accord.

BilliardsBall said:

I don't understand how I would forget "little details" like a resurrection, even decades after the fact, but the "seventy years late" is nonsense.

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But there are miracle tales from all over the world, including resurrections, from hundreds of mythologies. What makes Christian mythology more reliable than Greek or Aztec?

Face it. There are no eyewitness accounts -- including Josephus'. It's all hearsay, and a great deal of it is empirically falsifiable. Christianity is faith based, not fact based.

BilliardsBall said:

Hmm, I have to disagree with "none of the accounts is by an eyewitness, nor even pretends to be". For each NT writer claims two or more up to THOUSANDS of eyewitnesses of the events--like this "myth" that John the Baptist changed rivers so he could get MORE WATER to baptize many converts. Why do you think the ancient Israelites and Romans stupidly were unable to refute multiple reports of a nonexistent miracle worker(s) like Jesus who healed THOUSANDS of people and spoke to TENS OF THOUSANDS of listeners in the Temple courts?

Even if we take a VERY liberal timeline of 40 years to 70 years for writing down the events, there were ZERO people living aged 50 to 90 or so who could have said or written, "I lived in Jerusalem, Jesus did not visit here annually between "30 and 33 AD" to heal thousands of people, perform other miracles, and get into titanic debates with the Pharisees in public at massive religious festivals, before being executed on a hill where thousands of people could see him die, then rise"?

That beggars all belief. Your faith against Jesus is far larger than my faith in Jesus.

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All hearsay, as Blu said, and you could make the same case for a thousand other mythologies.

1-Brother James said:

You are correct. We begin by what you just did. We acknowledge our ignorance and then we begin to question everything we hear or see?

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Yes, skeptical questioning and conclusions argued honestly and transparently from examinable evidence and falsifiable but unfalsified hypotheses are the basics of reasoned enquiry, of which scientific method is part.

1-Brother James said:

Plus the brain is unable to KNOW anything beyond the physical dimension except for abstract terms that "stand" for that which the brain will never experience". Peace

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You appear to be saying there's not just something external to the self that is out there to know, but that it's unknowable ─ which sounds like self-contradiction, no?

blü 2 said:

Ah, there's our misunderstanding.

An eyewitness account is an account by the person who was the eyewitness, usually in the first person and usually stating where, when, who and what. Anyone else who reports the event is giving a hearsay report, that is, a second-, third-, fourth-hand &c report. All of the NT reports are thus hearsay. Hearsay is someone's interpretation of what someone else said, and is well-known to be prone to variation, omission, insertion, and polishing up according to the hearsayer's own views.
Do you believe Athena counseled Achilles and also Odysseus at Troy? In the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana? Do you think statues of Ganesha sometimes drink milk (here at 2:50 and more if you google 'ganesha milk miracle')? If not, why not? The latter, after all, are supported by videos, which are light years ahead of the gospels in their quality and credibility as evidence of their claims.
I don't have 'faith against Jesus'. There's nothing unusual about my skeptical approach to reports, historical or current; and I wouldn't doubt that you only believe in reports of miracles that support your personal faith, not the miracles of the gods of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Celts, Greece and Rome, Arabia, India, China, and so on round the world ─ but please correct me if I'm wrong.

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You asked for God evidence, if I thought Athena and Appollonius were gods with objective evidence, I would have brought them forward to you.

I understand the difference between eyewitness and hearsay evidence. The claims that 1) some of the Bible is eyewitness accounts and 2) all of the Bible has veracity are both strengthened by my contention--both testaments report that many, many thousands of people were eyewitnesses, present, received miracles, etc. The natural expectation is contemporaneous refutation(s). There is none.

Again, why do you think we lack dozens of counter-documents like the following: "I lived in Jerusalem 40 years ago, when these multiple authors claim Jesus was there, preaching to tens of thousands and doing awesome miracles. No one named Jesus existed or did those things. The thousands baptized in his name are all nutty!"

Valjean said:

What are these details? Sure, there are geographic and historical details, but these would have been common knowledge. Moreover, there are major themes, with details you'd expect to be fact based, and that would surely have left empirical evidence, for which there is little or no evidence. There was no Flood, there was no exodus, Quirinius' census did not happen as recorded, and there are four different accounts of Jesus' resurrection. How is one to distinguish the folklore from fact?

If there were relevant and verifiable historical details they'd be known and accepted worldwide. Yet there is no accord.
But there are miracle tales from all over the world, including resurrections, from hundreds of mythologies. What makes Christian mythology more reliable than Greek or Aztec?

Face it. There are no eyewitness accounts -- including Josephus'. It's all hearsay, and a great deal of it is empirically falsifiable. Christianity is faith based, not fact based.

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From just the last 16 chapters of Acts, the author accurately records:

1. the natural crossing between correctly named ports (Acts 13:4-5)

2. the proper port (Perga) along the direct destination of a ship crossing from Cyprus (13:13)

3. the proper location of Lycaonia (14:6)

4. the unusual but correct declension of the name Lystra (14:6)

5. the correct language spoken in Lystra—Lycaonian (14:11)

6. two gods known to be so associated—Zeus and Hermes (14:12)

7. the proper port, Attalia, which returning travelers would use (14:25)

8. the correct order of approach to Derbe and then Lystra from the Cilician Gates (16:1; cf. 15:41)

9. the proper form of the name Troas (16:8)

10. the place of a conspicuous sailors’ landmark, Samothrace (16:11)

11. the proper description of Philippi as a Roman colony (16:12)

12. the right location for the river (Gangites) near Philippi (16:13)

13. the proper association of Thyatira as a center of dyeing (16:14)

14. correct designations for the magistrates of the colony (16:22)

15. the proper locations (Amphipolis and Apollonia) where travelers would spend successive nights on this journey (17:1)

16. the presence of a synagogue in Thessalonica (17:1)

17. the proper term (“politarchs”) used of the magistrates there (17:6)

18. the correct implication that sea travel is the most convenient way of reaching Athens, with the favoring east winds of summer sailing (17:14-15)

19. the abundant presence of images in Athens (17:16)

20. the reference to a synagogue in Athens (17:17)

21. the depiction of the Athenian life of philosophical debate in the Agora (17:17)

22. the use of the correct Athenian slang word for Paul (sper-mologos, 17:18) as well as for the court (Areios pagos, 17:19)

23. the proper characterization of the Athenian character (17:21)

24. an altar to an “unknown god” (17:23)

25. the proper reaction of Greek philosophers, who denied the bodily resurrection (17:32)

26. Areopagites as the correct title for a member of the court (17:34)

27. a Corinthian synagogue (18:4)

28. the correct designation of Gallio as proconsul, resident in Corinth (18:12)

29. the bema (judgment seat), which overlooks Corinth’s forum (18:16ff.)

30. the name Tyrannus as attested from Ephesus in first-century inscriptions (19:9)

31. well-known shrines and images of Artemis (19:24)

32. the well-attested “great goddess Artemis” (19:27)

33. that the Ephesian theater was the meeting place of the city (19:29)

34. the correct title grammateus for the chief executive magistrate in Ephesus (19:35)

35. the proper title of honor neokoros, authorized by the Romans (19:35)

36. the correct name to designate the goddess (19:37)

37. the proper term for those holding court (19:38)

38. use of plural anthupatoi, perhaps a remarkable reference to the fact that two men were conjointly exercising the functions of proconsul at this time (19:38)

39. the “regular” assembly, as the precise phrase is attested elsewhere (19:39)

40. use of precise ethnic designation, beroiaios (20:4)

41. employment of the ethnic term Asianos (20:4)

42. the implied recognition of the strategic importance assigned to this city of Troas (20:7ff.)

43. the danger of the coastal trip in this location (20:13) 44. the correct sequence of places (20:14-15)

45. the correct name of the city as a neuter plural (Patara) (21:1)

46. the appropriate route passing across the open sea south of Cyprus favored by persistent northwest winds (21:3)

47. the suitable distance between these cities (21:8)

48. a characteristically Jewish act of piety (21:24)

49. the Jewish law regarding Gentile use of the temple area (21:28) (Archaeological discoveries and quotations from Josephus confirm that Gentiles could be executed for entering the temple area. One inscription reads: “Let no Gentile enter within the balustrade and enclosure surrounding the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will be personally responsible for his consequent death.”2

50. the permanent stationing of a Roman cohort (chiliarch) at Antonia to suppress any disturbance at festival times (21:31)

51. the flight of steps used by the guards (21:31, 35)

52. the common way to obtain Roman citizenship at this time (22:28)

53. the tribune being impressed with Roman rather than Tarsian citizenship (22:29)

54. Ananias being high priest at this time (23:2)

55. Felix being governor at this time (23:34)

56. the natural stopping point on the way to Caesarea (23:31)

57. whose jurisdiction Cilicia was in at the time (23:34)

58. the provincial penal procedure of the time (24:1-9)

59. the name Porcius Festus, which agrees precisely with that given by Josephus (24:27)

60. the right of appeal for Roman citizens (25:11)

61. the correct legal formula (25:18)

62. the characteristic form of reference to the emperor at the time (25:26)

63. the best shipping lanes at the time (27:5)

64. the common bonding of Cilicia and Pamphylia (27:4)

65. the principal port to find a ship sailing to Italy (27:5-6)

66. the slow passage to Cnidus, in the face of the typical northwest wind (27:7)

67. the right route to sail, in view of the winds (27:7)

68. the locations of Fair Havens and the neighboring site of Lasea (27:8)

69. Fair Havens as a poorly sheltered roadstead (27:12)

70. a noted tendency of a south wind in these climes to back suddenly to a violent northeaster, the well-known gregale (27:13)

71. the nature of a square-rigged ancient ship, having no option but to be driven before a gale (27:15)

72. the precise place and name of this island (27:16)

73. the appropriate maneuvers for the safety of the ship in its particular plight (27:16)

74. the fourteenth night—a remarkable calculation, based inevitably on a compounding of estimates and probabilities, confirmed in the judgment of experienced Mediterranean navigators (27:27)

75. the proper term of the time for the Adriatic (27:27)

76. the precise term (Bolisantes) for taking soundings, and the correct depth of the water near Malta (27:28)

77. a position that suits the probable line of approach of a ship released to run before an easterly wind (27:39)

78. the severe liability on guards who permitted a prisoner to escape (27:42)

79. the local people and superstitions of the day (28:4-6)

80. the proper title protos tÓs nÓsou (28:7)

81. Rhegium as a refuge to await a southerly wind to carry them through the strait (28:13)

82. Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae as correctly placed stopping places on the Appian Way (28:15)

83. appropriate means of custody with Roman soldiers (28:16)

84. the conditions of imprisonment, living “at his own expense” (8:30-31)

Is there any doubt that Luke was an eyewitness to these events or at least had access to reliable eyewitness testimony? What more could he have done to prove his authenticity as a historian?

Valjean said:

All hearsay, as Blu said, and you could make the same case for a thousand other mythologies.

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A "thousand other mythologies" have dozens of authors who claim that in specific times and places, in modern history, with those opposed (Jews and Romans) nearby, their leader did hundreds of miracles, affecting thousands of people?

Wow. Are you thinking instead of "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" instead of "a thousand other mythologies"?

I've told you a million times, stop exaggerating.