Prophet
breaking the statutes of my local municipality
Math was never my major, but I have the strong impression that it works in base 6, too.
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Jesus or Christ Myth Theory
- Thread starter steeltoes
- Start date
Math was never my major, but I have the strong impression that it works in base 6, too.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
I do believe you are right.Math was never my major, but I have the strong impression that it works in base 6, too.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
I get that you are having fun trolling me. But sadly you appear to believe yourself to be rather more intelligent than you are. All you are really doing is making a fool of yourself..
But by all means continue - i'm hardly going to take offence.
As stated above, my objection to your position is that it is not relevant to the topic at hand. You are essentially arguing for a position that no one is arguing with you about, at least not most of the main contributors to this thread that I have seen.
Secondly, I did not claim that you were incredibly slow and stupid, that was another member on the forums. But I do find it hard to believe that if you are as educated as you say you are, that you can't understand the point that I'm trying to make to you, which I will make one more time.
Unless someone is saying that something IS a 100% proven fact, the position that something is NOT a 100% proven fact is not a relevant position.
Again, no one is arguing with you that Jesus' historicity is 100% proven (and if they are arguing that point then I don't agree with them either) they are arguing that the evidence that we have supports that Jesus' historicity.
So the counter position to that argument is that the evidence we have does not support Jesus' historicity.
There are no other positions to hold in this particular debate, yet you seem dead set on holding a totally different position nonetheless.
Why don't you write a quick post summarizing your views on Jesus' historicity. I think that would clear a lot of things up, because I see you stating that many different views, that while not opposing, are not necessarily related to on another, and that could be a point of confusion.
I don't think it will, but your welcome to try.
One example that someone on this forum gave to me a while back, that is great for demonstrating this point.
Let's say we are trying to decide what causes someone to be a serial killer. We do a study, and find out that all serial killers drink water. While it is true that all serial killers drink water (because all human's do), it is meaningless for our original inquiry because it doesn't really tell us anything about why people are serial killers.
The same thing goes for the position that Jesus' historicity is not 100% proven. While I agree with you that the above statement is true, it doesn't tell us anything regarding the point of this debate.
Which the point of this debate is to decide "Is it more likely that Jesus was a real person or a mythical creation based on the evidence that we have?"
So in summary, you are presenting a true statement, but it, in reality, has nothing to do with what is being debated.
Another example for ya. Let's say I switch my position up on this subject to "The Earth is round". While I think we can both agree that the statement is true, would you not also agree that it is pointless with regard to the subject at hand?
Who exactly is contesting that Jesus' historicity is 100% proven? Please name names.
It is not a useless answer altogether, but it is a useless answer within the context of this thread/debate?
Refer to my above examples regarding serial killers and the earth being round.
My new position regarding this matter is that 2 + 2 = 4. So there, now I have the most correct and most accurate position on this thread, which is simultaneously the least respectable, the most meaningless, and the most useless. It's just correct.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Nash8
You need to think a lot harder before you post so that your responses make some kind of sense, rather than coming across like some sort of epic tantrum. Calling me names pretty much wins the case for me buddy, that stops working when you are a grown up so you need to rethink your strategy.
Good luck with that.
You need to think a lot harder before you post so that your responses make some kind of sense, rather than coming across like some sort of epic tantrum. Calling me names pretty much wins the case for me buddy, that stops working when you are a grown up so you need to rethink your strategy.
Good luck with that.
Wrong. I am stating what most historians think. You have done the same. You can't substantiate your claims. So, you lie. I quoted two statements you made which are obviously contradictory. I can quote you making claims about what historians think. The above doesn't claim that historians are correct, but addresses what they believe. You have done this repeatedly. The only difference is that you have yet to substantiate any claims you've made about historians. I have. So have others.
You rely on ad hominem, dismissal of others for what you claim is reliance on ad hominem, playing the victim, and in general anything other than presenting either an argument or a support for your assertions. I'm asking, once again, for something (whether analysis of Greek or reference to scholarship) that substantiates your claims.
Are you admitting your claims about what historians think/believe were baseless and made in ignorance, or can you back them up?
Which you know of from Wikipedia. I refer you to logicians, sources on reasoning, and explanations of my own based on familiarity with logic, analytical reasoning, mathematics, linguistics, etc., and you ignore these in favor of your interpretation of Wikipedia.
We agree on this: history isn't a matter of proof. The difference is that perhaps the one source you've referred to used mathematics and proof in the very way you state history can't (and I agree). Other than that, your first response to me was an appeal to your own authority (claiming to be an historian), another was a lesser version of that (claiming to have a major in history), but you have failed completely to substantiate any claims you've made, whether they are of historians and historical methods or the historical Jesus.
I'm not the one who confused mathematics with historiography by invoking "proof" in reference to historical figrures, whether Jesus or Caesar. Abductive reasoning isn't a fallacy. Had you reviewed any of the sources I provided for you (rather than refer to a wiki page you apparently don't understand) you might have spared us all another post in which you contradict yourself.
Instead, you have made repeated claims about what all of them believe.. YOU HAVE NO PROBLEM CLAIMING WHAT HISTORIANS BELIVE. YOU ARE SIMPLY INCAPALBE OF SUPPORTING SUCH STATEMENTS.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
You must have missed the other times I corrected you on this - but I'll repeat;
I'm not making any appeal to authority, there is no claim I need to substantiate. You are the one making claims that can not be substantiated beyond facile appeals to authority. Furthermore, despite the fact that I keep restating the claim in question - you never actually address it. Please stop trolling me Legion. In that last post the only times you refer to my actual contention you expressly agree with it.
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Not really. Mostly, you've just made claims you have no basis for and can't defend. However, when you make statements about what "historians" think, do, believe, etc., you are making claims that could be supported by what such historians have actually written. You can't.
You tried to appeal to your own authority by claiming to be an historian (this turned out to be false).
You made claims about historians you backed up with reference to Richard Carrier, who disagrees, fundamentally, with what you said in that post.
You repeatedly made claims about what "historians" do or do not think (in general) and why without basis.
You have made claims about the nature of our evidence either without basis or by using your own idiomatic definitions of terms you claim are equivalent to how specialists use these that you can't substantiate.
You don't need to. You've asked me to point out such claims, you've said you would substantiate them if I pointed them out, you've avoided doing so when I have, and you have in general made multiple claims you haven't supported while claiming you haven't and that you have and now that you never made such claims. Luckily, you so clearly indicated that you are willing to lie here and in your failure to admit the obvious that we need not pay attention to anything you say.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Take a trolling break Legion. Gather your thoughts, that entire post was just a whinge again. Please don't post any more of them.
Please Legion, telling lies about me isn't helping you mate
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Ok. So why was "Sapiens" correct? Here's the only support you ever supplied:
Hm. An appeal to authority. Not real authority, mind you, but yourself. Later, it turned out that this wasn't your field:
Did you manage to back up your statements with more? No.
Did you claim to? Yes:
So why was Sapiens correct? This is a matter concerning the methods historians use. You cannot even pretend that referencing actual experts is an "appeal to authority" as you began your response with an appeal to your own authority as an historian and cannot and have not substantiated your claims other than by such an appeal.
Here's another obvious lie (or unconscious but obviously untrue statement) you've made. You supported a claim solely due to your supposed expertise. When confronted with scholarship, you deflected.
This may not be so obvious a lie as your claim that Paul wasn't a contemporary of Jesus and the assertion that you never claimed he wasn't, but it's still pretty obvious how disingenuous, dishonest, and unsupportable your claims are. You deny that you appeal to authority, but begin your first reply to me by a claim of an authority you don't possess.
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nash8
Da man, when I walk thru!
Not necessarily true, the way you express the answer to 2 + 2, would be different using a different base, but referring strictly to quantities, 2 + 2 will always equal 4. Using different base systems just changes the way you express those quantities.
Hence, whenever I refer to mathematics being the only field where proof is possible, I "usually" put the disclaimer of it being dependent on acceptance of specific rules governing the system.
Was there an argument in your response anywhere?
I don't know how you got epic tantrum out of that, but to each their own.
And I apologize for indirectly calling you names. There is no place for that in any aspect of life. A better way to categorize my opinion's on your position is "epically stubborn".
I have no doubt that your intelligent, otherwise you would not be on these forums, and I can tell by your posts that you are at least knowledgeable in the topic at hand.
I think your problem is one of pride rather than intelligence. I think that you have realized that certain position(s) of yours on the subject are not as supported as you once thought, and other position(s) you hold are not as relevant to the discussion as you had originally thought. Upon realizing this, you have chosen to slightly alter, or change altogether the position(s) you hold, while maintaining that it was the position you held all along.
Everyone is guilty of doing the same thing you are at one point or another, myself included, but if you truly want to gain knowledge you have to be able to admit when you need to change your position when presented with new evidence/arguments instead of holding steadfast to positions that you know that you should change.
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Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Yet again you repeat the same dishonest accusations and greivances as opposed to engaging on point. I ask again tha you desist from trolling me Legion. I am not making any appeal to authority - no matter how ofter you parrot the same infantile accusations.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
As I said, please troll somebody else. Your rebuttals are brainless dribble. It leaves me nothing to respond to. You agree that my position is correct, and dismiss the correct position on the grounds that it is meaningless. You then gave an utterly fatuous example (2+2=4). You give me nothing of any substance, beyond a truly astonishingly silly sequence of brush offs to engage with. I have maintained the same position from the outset.
LOL - this from the guy who thinks that the most accurate answer is not useful or pertinent. As with Legion and Prophet, when pushed you actually agree with my claim. The rest is just trolling. My opposition on this point has, had nothing more than insults, repetition, false accusations and utterly brainless rebuttals - it shows that your 'side' here is transparently without merit. If any of you could address or refute my claim without resort to infantile insults, lies and personal attacks one of you would have done so by now.
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outhouse
Atheistically
When one through ignorance, not lack of intellect, does not see the mistakes, they think they are correct, and have no reason to change opinions.
With education it may not even be cured, opinions can change, even difficult ones. Just try not to get sucked down in the mud while protecting education and knowledge
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Legion
You said: "I have claimed that most historians believe we have more than enough evidence to conclude Jesus exists and that hardly any serious scholars believe we don't. "
I pointed out: "That is an appeal to authority Legion."
You respond: "Wrong. I am stating what most historians think. "
Which is an appeal to authority buddy. Stating what most historians think is an appeal to authority Legion. Think harder.
You said: "I have claimed that most historians believe we have more than enough evidence to conclude Jesus exists and that hardly any serious scholars believe we don't. "
I pointed out: "That is an appeal to authority Legion."
You respond: "Wrong. I am stating what most historians think. "
Which is an appeal to authority buddy. Stating what most historians think is an appeal to authority Legion. Think harder.
And again rather than actually demonstrating they are dishonest rather than accurate you refuse to answer.
I have repeatedly asked you to support many claims, and you have more than once said you would do so.
You haven't. Ever.
Perhaps we should look at a few related claims we've made:
1a) Paul provides us with contemporary evidence for Jesus (me)
1b) Paul does not provide us with contemporary evidence for Jesus (you)
To support my view, I cited how historians use the term contemporary when it comes to ancient historical evidence. You refused to support your definition but dismissed my reference (without justification for either determination). So I'll add more:
"Secondary sources are interpretations of the past written by historians relying on primary evidence, which are contemporary accounts of an event...A primary source is any record contemporary to an event or time period. Primary sources may be written, oral, visual, or physical."
(emphases in original)
from the definitions given in chapters "Tools for Analysis- Secondary Sources" & "Primary Evidence" in the textbook on historical research methods Doing History by Galgano, Arndt, & Hyser (Thomson, 2008).
That's the kind of extremely basic definition you should, as a history major, be familiar with. It can be readily compared with that from e.g., Berkin & Anderson's The History Handbook (2nd Ed.) : "A primary source is any record contemporary to an event or time period. Primary sources may be written, oral, visual, or physical." (recall you've already admitted that Paul & Jesus were contemporaries, despite denying that they were earlier and continuing to deny that you did so).
If we look at scholarship on historical research and historiography, we get even further from your dogmatic, idiomatic definition:
"Historians usually agree on the classifications of sources. Still, the abstract definition of primary sources is more challenging. Marwick suggested first that 'primary sources are sources the historian is studying, they are those relics and traces left by the past, while secondary sources are those accounts written later by historians looking back' (1993, p. 199). However, some primary sources come into existence long after the events the historian is studying; for example, later copies of ancient manuscripts such as the Greek classics...Generally, the nearer a source is to the event on an information causal chain, the more primary it is."
from Tucker, A. (2004). Our Knowledge of the Past. Cambridge University Press.
Finally, if we look even at basic sources for understanding how historians of antiquity distinguish primary vs. secondary, we find that our literary sources for Jesus are about as primary as we can get for any figure from antiquity:
"there is no doubt that the study of Greek and Roman history originated from the study of texts: first, literary texts of the great Greek and Roman authors, and especially the historians; then epigraphic and papyrus texts, as they became available in increasing numbers by the later decades of the nineteenth century....This resulted in both strengths and weaknesses: it fostered a method of teaching that placed great emphasis on the students direct use of the primary sources, and this has continued to be an appealing feature of how the subject is taught, even if primary in this context really means modern texts derived by generations of scholarly effort from manuscripts, preserved often in a poor state and copied and recopied over centuries."
I have now added several other academic sources on the ways in which real historians define and differentiate primary & secondary sources. You offered a dictionary definition that didn't even support your conclusion.
2a) Historians of antiquity (classicists, Near Eastern scholars, early Christian scholars, Biblical scholars, and other experts in ancient history) believe with almost no exceptions that we have overwhelming reasons to conclude Jesus was an historical figure (me)
2b) Historians agree that the best explanation for our evidence is that there was an historical Jesus, but not that we have good evidence to support such a conclusion (you)
I'm not going to add more references (unless you request them) to the list I've already produced to support my position. I would request you do as you said you would and produce a shred of evidence for your various claims about what historians believe on this and other issues related to the historical Jesus you've made from the beginning and have yet to substantiate (other than a reference to Carrier which you combined with an argument completely contradicting Carrier's central method and belief about historical research).
I fully expect to receive another dodge and perhaps an additional accusation (hopefully novel) about my "trolling" or otherwise failing to engage in a reasoned debate. But I thought I'd offer you another opportunity to support the claims you've made AND the fact that you said you'd substantiate any specific claims you've made.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Legion
You have posted all of those empty gripes ad naseum.
I am not making an appeal to authority Legion, you are. I am making a logical argument - one that you have already conceded several times.
Adding sources as you are doing is just more appealing to authority. You are trying to validate an appeal to authority by appealing to more authorities. As I said, think harder mate. Your tactics are utterly unthinking.
You have posted all of those empty gripes ad naseum.
I am not making an appeal to authority Legion, you are. I am making a logical argument - one that you have already conceded several times.
Adding sources as you are doing is just more appealing to authority. You are trying to validate an appeal to authority by appealing to more authorities. As I said, think harder mate. Your tactics are utterly unthinking.
Let's examine what you've said:
Notice the bolded portion. You assert that my position about what historians agree upon is wrong. How can you claim anything about what historians do or do not agree upon without relying upon their actual beliefs, works, etc.? Nor am I alone in having challenged you to produce evidence for your appeals to scholars & historians:
Here you were challenged by one with a doctorate in this field and again you dodged the question and accused him of trolling.
The best part is that your statement "you are wrong" was addressed to a quotation:
If what you quoted is wrong, then you'd have to take that up with one of the foremost historians of antiquity of the 20th century, whom I was quoting:
Even before the two quotes immediately above I quoted you twice asserting what historians believe/think.
So when you claim to know "what any honest historian" would say, that "[o]f course historians doubt [Jesus'] existence", and that anybody who says historians would "agree that the historicity of Jesus is conclusively evidenced", you are relying upon what? If you are saying you know what most historians think, than by your own admission you've made multiple appeals to authority. If you are relying on some other evidence, produce it.
Here's an interesting one for you: a reference to authority on what a fallacious appeal to authority really is:
"As we will see, it is sometimes legitimate to appeal to an authority. The fact that an expert makes a claim about something that truly lies within this person’s area of expertise is a reason in favor of believing it. Also, pointing out correctly that someone is prone to lie can be a good reason against believing what this person says. Appealing to authority is a fallacy when a person really isn’t an authority in the area in question." (emphasis added)
Cederblom , J., & Paulsen, D. (2006). Critical Reasoning: Understanding and Criticizing Arguments and Theories. CENGAGE Learning.
Likewise:
"Sometimes the appeal to authority is fallacious because the authoritative person is not an expert on the issue in dispute. The fact that a high-energy physicist has won the Nobel Prize is no reason for attaching any special weight to her views on the causes of cancer, the reduction of traffic accidents, or the legalization of marijuana. On the other hand, one would be well advised to attend to her views on the advisability of ballistic missile-defense systems, for there may be a connection between the kind of research for which she received the prize and the defense research projects.
All of us depend heavily on the knowledge of various experts and authorities, and so we tend not to ignore their views. Conversely, we should resist the temptation to accord their views on diverse subjects the same respect that we grant them in the area of their expertise." (emphasis added)
Barnet, S. & Bedau, H. (2011). Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument (7th Ed.). St. Martin's.
Notice that I appeal to actual authorities while you've quoted a dictionary, appealed to yourself first as an historian than as a major in history, and to what you assert historians think/believe. Also note your fallacious use of the classical "appeal to authority" fallacy. For some help on how to actually use these, see my thread here: The Fallacy of using classical fallacies.
No, I just don't quote a dictionary to support my view and then ignore what historians say when I've made multiple claims about their beliefs/thoughts. That's your move.
EDIT: Rather than just quote from sources I went ahead and found one for you: "Reasoned Use of Expertise in Argumentation". Feel free to familiarize yourself with the basics on fallacious use of appeals vs. the foundations for the entirety of modern academia, the sciences, scholarship, etc. Or just continue to really on fallacious arguments based upon your misunderstanding of "fallacies".
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nash8
Da man, when I walk thru!
You didn't have to push me to agree with you that Jesus' historicity is not 100% proven. But since we have seemed to have established some common ground let's begin anew with a new discussion.
Do you believe that the evidence we have concerning the historicity of Jesus better supports a real person, or a fictitious mythical creation with no basis in reality?
Ahh, a great dilemma indeed. And one that all of us are afflicted with, it is just the extent to which we allow our intellect/ego blind us to the truth that determines our level of wisdom, according to my admittedly biased opinion of course.
In my opinion, it is very difficult for formal education to change opinions. Wisdom is what allows people to change opinions in the face of new information, and sadly wisdom is in short supply in the formal education process in my opinion.
I love playing in the mud though, and I love throwing mud while protecting education and knowledge even more.