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Peter_Plato
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Plato’s Republic, Book II, 361-362…
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Gorgias
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Hmm… so, if I said, “70,000 people watched the Patriots defeat the Seahawks in Super Bowl 49”, would you really respond, “hmm… 70,000 sounds like too much a nice round number; clearly, the assertion is false”…?
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Peter_Plato
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Except that you have to ignore the arguments of Habermas and others that place the first public oral references to the empty tomb and Resurrection to within 6 months of the event and written references to within one to two years in Paul’s work. You also have to ignore that the biographical writings by the eyewitnesses provide the quality of details that could not have been constructed years later. These are not explainable as “adjustments” to the Teacher story. The “adjustments” make the Teacher story look pale and distant in their rich detail and accuracy. We have many more compelling reasons to take the Gospel accounts as original and the Teacher story as derivative AND your “argument” to be a contrived one.
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PRmerger
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Excellent.
So let’s just put this entire nonsense away.
Great. It* is* merely more believable than magic.
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Peter_Plato
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That isn’t the argument, Bradski.
The argument is…
They REALLY believed it, gave a detailed and rational accounting for why they believed it, were willing to die instead of betray or deny the person who made the accounting possible in the first place, so THEREFORE we have a compelling set of reasons for thinking it is quite possibly true.
The ball is now in your court to provide a more compelling set of reasons for why it isn’t or can’t be true.
You haven’t done that.
Simply calling it “abject nonsense,” doesn’t amount to a compelling alternative account.
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Peter_Plato
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Except, that isn’t what Paul was getting at, now was it?
What he was getting at was that at least 500 individuals witnessed the risen Christ at the same time and since we (Paul speaking) are just a few years removed from that event, many of those eyewitnesses are in your communities at Ephesus or Corinth or Philippi or wherever they have dispersed to and you can go to them and get a first hand account. Heck, you will probably run into several of them and you can corroborate the story of one by talking to several others.
Now, do you see the point of the number 500, Bradski?
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PRmerger
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Except you have to understand Jewish culture, Brad.
In Judaism there were numerous sects throughout history which propped up some guy as the messiah. When this messiah was killed (as he usually, eventually was), his followers merely went home, licked their wounds.
No one ever claimed that this messiah rose from the dead. It wasn’t the modus. It was the thinking.
Except…
if it actually happened.
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PRmerger
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No, Bradski.
That’s not the argument.
No one is claiming that it isn’t possible to believe something that’s false.
What is being claimed is that people make up a LIE, proclaim it as true, then are tortured because of this allegation (with authorities assuming it to be true)…and* no one simply says, “Ok. I lied!”*
That is contrary to all experience, knowledge, common sense, logic, and reason.
Why wouldn’t a LIAR simply tell the authorities, while he’s being sent to the lions, “I made it all up”.
It defies logic.
And it is oh-so-puzzling to think that reasonable men today believe this absurdity: LIARS will go to their deaths sticking to their lie.
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PRmerger
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PRmerger
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This is begging the question, isn’t it, poca?
“A man can’t be God because God doesn’t exist. Therefore, when this man died, that’s all that happened to him.”
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PRmerger
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LOL!
What you mean is they were mistaken. Not that they lied.
So how does one mistakenly believe that your best friend, master, teacher, rabbi, beloved whom you saw die in the most horrific way, is actually alive, when he isn’t?
You are correct here.
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pocaracas
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So, based on all these writings, you see an evolving notion of a figure presenting the need of peace and love.
With ever more increasing detail… each retelling drawing details from the present society and location.
I have no qualms with the possibility that the tale of the Teacher itself was just a story, drawing from these previous motifs.
And Jesus is just another one… more detailed… just a story.
Historical detail exists in a series of books called Harry Potter… London is mentioned and parts of it described… Does that make Hogwarts real?
We should take extreme care in accepting what is historical and what isn’t, from within any text.
Yes, some things in the gospels are historical, some things are great insights into standard life in that place, at that time… but I don’t think anyone will draw a historical turning water to wine, multiplication of bread, healing of lepers… or the resurrection…
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PRmerger
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pocaracas
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I once heard him tell that… but I didn’t follow… He seemed to just say that he was using Paul’s writings, the only letters recognized to be authentic… and since people think they’re authentic, then what is in them is true.
Yep… of course.
Compare the original superman from 1938 (upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5a/Action_Comics_1.jpg/170px-Action_Comics_1.jpg) with the superman “killed” by Doomsday in 1992 (joblo.com/newsimages1/DRS_deadsupes_comic.jpg), and with the superman that appears in the ongoing “Injustice - gods among us” series (static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/13/135013/2970364-0051542014-1zlf2.jpg).
Each reincarnation of superman displaying an ever increasing “rich graphical detail and accuracy” of the tale of the man of steel… always portraying superman as contemporary to when the story is written… moving from old telephones and radio, through TV, to mobile phones and positioning satellites.
It would be odd to find a writing from the first century to wrongfully detail how life was in the first century.
The Teacher story seems to be an intermediary between the ones you showed before and the Jesus one. Dating of the documents detailing that story agrees.
Unless you want to posit that Jesus came a few decades before what christianity generally claims.
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pocaracas
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“There is no such thing as magic” - said every parent to their kids.
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PRmerger
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But there is such a thing as miracles.
You do see how your argument is circular, right?
“I don’t believe in the Bible because it contains things like miracle stories”
and
“I don’t believe in miracles, so therefore the Bible can’t be true.”
#circularreasoning
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pocaracas
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So, that’s all you have?
How would anyone know that a God exists?
Wishful thinking? Inspiration? Muses?
Some things are not passing through this imperfect medium of writing…
Someone, somewhere, preaches the good word, draws upon him disciples, goes against the established religious powers and gets himself killed. This person may or may not have actually existed. We can assume that he did, for simplicity, but it is not required and may have not existed, given the texts that Peter shared where such a figure is already present.
People, his followers, wanted him to resurrect.
This story is spread.
Someone, unrelated to that original person, goes a step further in telling the story and the desire for the resurrection becomes a fact of the story.
Those listening to it, then go forth and share it with the last bit they had heard. Some may even move the story further along.
Some people are so moved by such tales that they go on to preach it as true.
At some point, they may attribute the story to some figure they heard about and that had died a bit earlier… A name is given to the person… a time period is attributed.
Others who were spreading the tale, hear this name and adopt it.
Were these people who preach this word and attribute it to that person they heard about… were they best friends? disciples? apprentices?
In a time with no TV, no radio… all entertainment is provided by talking to other people, listening to stories… making up stories… drawing upon previously heard stories, ever incorporating contemporaneous details for the benefit of the audience.
Until it is committed to writing.
And then it is done… it is fixed to a particular time and location.
What reason is there to accept the gospel accounts of the apostles as being actual followers of the one Jesus from the early first century AD?
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pocaracas
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LOL!
How about this?
I believe there is a god, hence miracles are possible.
Miracles are true, hence God exists.
Circularity abounds.
Going for my circularity, I present everybody’s life. Everyone who is alive… everyone who I’ve ever known. No miracles happen to them. I see no miracles happening. Why should I accept miracles in the stories as trustworthy? Particularly, knowing how much I myself desire magic to be real!
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PRmerger
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Oh, poca, you haven’t even begin to scratch the surface of what we have.
You come to a Catholic forum without examining the reasons to believe a God exists?
Read these, and then come back, and we can chat.
peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm
And before you say, “These arguments have been examined and refuted”, I will concede that some folks have read them and offered refutations.
I’d like to see *your *refutations.
Pick the argument you find to be the most compelling, and then tell us why you believe it fails.
In your own words, please.
NB: it is acknowledged that you don’t find any of them compelling. We get that. You’re an atheist.
But take the one that you find the best of the worst, and let’s discuss.
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PRmerger
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Tu quoque arguments fail here.
You still have to address how your argument isn’t circular.
Well, this assumes some sort of omniscience, doesn’t it. You’d have to know the details of everyone’s life, (past and present) to know that not a single one has ever had a miracle occur.Going for my circularity, I present everybody’s life. Everyone who is alive… everyone who I’ve ever known. No miracles happen to them. I see no miracles happening. Why should I accept miracles in the stories as trustworthy? Particularly, knowing how much I myself desire magic to be real!
Can you say that you know this?
And, just to be clear: all it would take would be for ONE miracle to have occurred–ever, in the history of human existence–to disprove your theory.
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