Jesus is the Proof that God Exists

Magical Realist said:
Yeah, you just take the self-serving liberty of proclaiming what was and was not embellishment.
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Just as you do..
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The difference is that my arguments do not solely rely on what particulars may or may not be embellishment, so I have no real need to make such proclamations. Yours relies solely on your proclamation that the label of Messiah was added post hoc. You think if no one knew his messianic claim, at the time, then Jewish rejection refutes any "miracles". I think this is a needless and unsupportable hoop to jump through. It is just more likely that the "miracles" were embellished and the Jews rejected Jesus on his messianic claim. Your argument refutes "miracles" but then offers no rationale for Jewish rejection.

But I do not need to rely on miracles being an embellishment. Even if he did accomplish all the miracles attributed to him, his messianic claim alone would have been sufficient grounds for Jewish rejection.
 
Syne said:
The difference is that my arguments do not solely rely on what particulars may or may not be embellishment, so I have no real need to make such proclamations.
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Sure it did. You claimed all those quotes of Jesus privately claiming to be the Messiah were NOT embellishments. As if there were gospel writers present when he made those claims. So yes, your argument absolutely relies on what may or may not be an embellishment.

Yours relies solely on your proclamation that the label of Messiah was added post hoc. You think if no one knew his messianic claim, at the time, then Jewish rejection refutes any "miracles". I think this is a needless and unsupportable hoop to jump through. It is just more likely that the "miracles" were embellished and the Jews rejected Jesus on his messianic claim. Your argument refutes "miracles" but then offers no rationale for Jewish rejection.

But I do not need to rely on miracles being an embellishment. Even if he did accomplish all the miracles attributed to him, his messianic claim alone would have been sufficient grounds for Jewish rejection.
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Sorry, it's just common sense. A miracle worker would at least have been accepted as a prophet by the Jews of that time. Hence the probability those miracles were all embellishments added later on, just as they were in all the other 60 gospels. I stand by my thesis..
 
Magical Realist said:
Sorry, it's just common sense. A miracle worker would at least have been accepted as a prophet by the Jews of that time. Hence the probability those miracles were all embellishments added later on, just as they were in all the other 60 gospels. I stand by my thesis..
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Nope. My take has fewer assumptions and is thus more parsimonious. Hence, as a thesis, it is necessarily stronger.
 
Syne said:
Nope. My take has fewer assumptions and is thus more parsimonious. Hence, as a thesis, it is necessarily stronger.
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But it defies common sense. A religious figure who works miracles will always be more convincing than one that doesn't. Your bullshit is hereby refuted..
 
Magical Realist said:
A man who goes around healing people and even raising a man from the dead would quickly be viewed an agent of God. The fact that he wasn't weighs in favor of these miracles being inserted later on to help prove Jesus was the real thing.
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I’m not sure about that. In the New Testament Jesus was not the only person who did miracles – in the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, for example, Peter healed a lame beggar outside the Beautiful Gate. This was done in broad daylight and in full view of many people, so it was possible that some of the high priests would have seen it. Yet, despite the miracle they saw, these people were quick to arrest Peter for preaching in the name of Jesus:

1 And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them,
2 Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
3 And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day: for it was now eventide.
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—Acts 4:1–3 (KJV)

It woud appear that those in authority couldn’t give a damn about miracles: they had already branded Jesus as their public enemy number one for some other reason, and they wouldn’t have changed their mind for all the miracles Jesus (or anyone else) had done.


FYI I’m an atheist, but I have a strong interest in religious texts, including the Bible and the Qur’ān. I’m not taking sides, just approaching the texts from a critical point of view. :cool:
 
In the New Testament Jesus was not the only person who did miracles – in the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, for example, Peter healed a lame beggar outside the Beautiful Gate. This was done in broad daylight and in full view of many people, so it was possible that some of the high priests would have seen it. Yet, despite the miracle they saw, these people were quick to arrest Peter for preaching in the name of Jesus.
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OTOH, imo the miracles of the apostles could be just as legendary and inserted into the literature as Jesus' miracles were. This would explain why the high priests were not swayed towards them as being true messengers of God.
 
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TheHun said:
How could you not know about his affiliations and his background and insist that he is a skeptic? And your insistence that the people he interviewed are serious scholars? Did you even look at who they are?

They are all from the same creationist group and are well known for their diploma mill degrees and their creationist world view. Do you really assume I don’t know what they are just because you insist that an evangelical pastor and creationist apologist is a hard-nosed skeptic according to you? I did look into their background, as a matter of fact I have known about those clowns for quite a while and they are not reputable scholars outside their own little world where they bestow PhDs and other awards on each other. And just because Craig, once upon a time got a degree does not make him any less a religious zealot and creationist nut case either.

So no, you are not correct about your insistence that these guys are reputable scholars outside their narrow little world. And no, you do not have the right to tell me that I need to watch some ridiculous video before I dare open my mouth. Unlike them, my degrees are from real universities and my publications have been peer reviewed by REAL academics. Besides, spending a lifetime studying the bible is no recommendation. It just means that they are too narrow minded to do any other kind of studying.


Those are your assumptions and nothing but patronizing attitudes given voice. You know nothing about what I have and have not done in regard to religious studies. I simply stated my opinion about the veracity, reliability and all around legitimacy of the author, his sources and his ever so transparent agenda.


That kind of one-sided drivel really only works if you are preaching to the choir, the rest of us just laugh at the assumptions and the simplistic and overt agenda driven content of that book. But the video is actually funny. Looking at that dude and his self-important, patronizing attitude is laughable.


Really what? Listing the guys former achievements and insisting that those guys are serious scholars should make me accept your word that all is as you say? Again, the diploma mills they have created, where they get and give all kinds of degrees to each other—it’s a reciprocal system—and all those videos they do to make themselves look as if they were legitimate do not impress me. As long as they stick to religion, they don’t even bother me. When they start insisting that they have something to say in regard to science and especially evolution, then it gets funny.

And what about the mythology about suffering and god? That should impress me how again? You can believe what you want, but include me out. I don’t do fairytales and I really don’t see where they are supposed to be relevant to anything outside their confines…like in the real world.


Boy, you must think I am stupid, if you insist that this was not about ID and creationism. What else did that Craig guy talk, if not his creationist ideas? Just because he talked about the Big Bang, as if it is something out of his god’s cook book does not make it science it is still just another attempt to lure the unwary and scientifically uneducated and indoctrinate them with the usual creationist nonsense.

Yes, there was much debate in the early church and some of it centered on the idea that the Christ was not a man but merely a concept. Why don’t you stop trying to confuse the issue and actually study what those early bishops believed instead of telling me your version of what they thought? Irenaeus and Theophilus did believe that there was the divine word, but not that your Jesus existed as a man. And don’t try to confuse the issue by going on about “millions of people” either. Who cares what the rest of the world believed. That never was the issue. The point is that those who were actual followers of that new movement originating from Judaism and even more importantly high ranking religious specialist of the time denied that a man like Jesus existed.



Yeah, that’s cute. “Theophilus” means lover of god and is widely assumed to be a generic term for believers. Nobody knows who Luke addressed this to and the assumption most scholars accept is that he was a ranking Roman officer or official whom Luke wanted to either convert or at least influence.



Well, my friend, you may admonish me all you want about being quiet unless I agree with you. But, that’s not how this works in the world of academia. You have done nothing to convince me that Strobel is anything but yet another creationist trying to make money off people who want their beliefs reaffirmed. His sources are make-belief scholars who have long ago been debunked. It is just another one-sided argument under the guise of skepticism. He can play that card as long as he wants to, but it is meaningless as it is quite obvious that he is using that merely as a marketing tool.

And your belief in god is fine for you, but again utterly meaningless to me. I don’t need some invented figurehead to provide my life with meaning. Nor do I need to prove that I am open-minded by pretending that religion is anything else but a mental pacifier for those who choose to use one.

Being religious is not a sign of open-mindedness. It’s just something you choose to belief. And as patronizing and condescending as you are, you certainly do not make a good advertisement for open-mindedness.:)
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Patronizing and condescending? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? While most of the people Strobel interviewed were theologians, some also had degrees in history, chemistry, archaeology, linguistics or medicine. If we were going to discuss open-mindedness, we wouldn't be talking about you. You cannot summarily dismiss scholars because you do not agree with them. Your whole foundation is an ad hominem attack on men who know far more about their chosen field of study than you (or I) will ever learn. It is you who is clouding the issue. You ignore my main question: if Jesus can be considered proof of God's existence because you dismiss this historical figure as a fairy tale. I won't say that the sheer number of people who believe in his existence proves that fact, but I do know that only crackpots claim there never was such a person, and only heretics say that Christ was not a human being. Even the Pro-Roman Hebrew historian Josephus admits to the bare fact of Christ's existence, and moreover refers to him as a miracle-worker (if I recall) even if he does not believe Jesus was the messiah. Really there is no need to go into it with you. You are obviously willfully ignorant on this subject. So may I leave you with this bit of netiquette - if you don't accept the basic premise of a discussion - butt out! I should not have had to explain that there was no need for non-believers to put their two cents in, or in your case about a buck seventy five. Your unbelief in a god, God, opposing scholarly views or common courtesy are fine for you, but your arguments are utterly meaningless to me. I have read The Case for Christ twice over this last half-year and recently leafed through it for your benefit, and no there is not a word about creationism or intelligent design. I grant you that many of the interviewees may be proponents of creationism (I myself am not) but it is simply not what the book is about. You are mistaken in that. Good bye and God bless you.
 
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Mark 9:38

38 John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us." 39 But Jesus said, "Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me.

So, there were miracles being performed by other religious groups.
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
I wish to recommend Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ ...

Obviously, I admire his work, and it got me thinking: all this endless search for proof of God's existence... well. if Christ is who he says he was, the Son of God, and God the Father in a form we could deal with (and the Holy Spirit) is that not indisputable evidence?

Doesn't a man who can walk on water, feed thousands on very little, heal the crippled and insane, cure lepers, raise people from the dead, invoke voices from heaven that claim He is the Son, and turn everything the religious authorities had been saying for thousands of years on its head, so that it made far more sense prove that he is who he claims to be?
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You read a book that you think confirmed your beliefs. That's called confirmation bias.
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
Patronizing and condescending? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? While most of the people Strobel interviewed were theologians, some also had degrees in history, chemistry, archaeology, linguistics or medicine. If we were going to discuss open-mindedness, we wouldn't be talking about you. You cannot summarily dismiss scholars because you do not agree with them. Your whole foundation is an ad hominem attack on men who know far more about their chosen field of study than you (or I) will ever learn. It is you who is clouding the issue. You ignore my main question: if Jesus can be considered proof of God's existence because you dismiss this historical figure as a fairy tale. I won't say that the sheer number of people who believe in his existence proves that fact, but I do know that only crackpots claim there never was such a person, and only heretics say that Christ was not a human being. Even the Pro-Roman Hebrew historian Josephus admits to the bare fact of Christ's existence, and moreover refers to him as a miracle-worker (if I recall) even if he does not believe Jesus was the messiah. Really there is no need to go into it with you. You are obviously willfully ignorant on this subject. So may I leave you with this bit of netiquette - if you don't accept the basic premise of a discussion - butt out! I should not have had to explain that there was no need for non-believers to put their two cents in, or in your case about a buck seventy five. Your unbelief in a god, God, opposing scholarly views or common courtesy are fine for you, but your arguments are utterly meaningless to me. I have read The Case for Christ twice over this last half-year and recently leafed through it for your benefit, and no there is not a word about creationism or intelligent design. I grant you that many of the interviewees may be proponents of creationism (I myself am not) but it is simply not what the book is about. You are mistaken in that. Good bye and God bless you.
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I pointed out that you succumbed to the fallacy of assuming that people who get their degrees from diploma mills actually are scholars. Given that scenario, then what difference does it make what they got degrees in?

So I am not as open-minded as you because I question their credentials? Yeah, go back to condescending and patronizing. And yes, I can dismiss those so-called scholars you try to pass off as being legitimate. I can dismiss them because they are nothing but some men who give each other titles and degrees from their wanna-be universities. There is not one among them who is taken seriously by actual scholars.

And no, I do not use ad hominem attacks, I am pointing out that nothing they say is of any scientific value. Regarding my academic qualifications, you know nothing about my degrees , and even less about my academic standing in my field. So, quit telling me that I know nothing . In one thing I will concede a point. I truly know little about creationism and the reasoning behind it because it is just too ridiculous a premise to even waste time on. I prefer science to fairy tales that serve only to pacify the willfully ignorant.

I am furthermore not ignoring your main question. I have already and multiple times stated that there is no proof that god and or Jesus existed. You cannot prove otherwise. End of story; teleological and ontological arguments notwithstanding. Regarding crackpots, well how about reading some of the early church leaders and their statements that Jesus was not a person, but that Christos was actually an incorporeal manifestation of logos.

And seriously, Josephus again??? Did you really not read anything that went on in this forum regarding his reliability as source? One more time: There is no god, there was no Jesus and therefore, all that drivel you are spouting in defense of people who are mainly in it for fame and fortune—and we can follow their fraud and embezzlement trials in the media—is pointless.

These men you call scholars are not; they simply cover themselves in trappings to make it look as if they were capable of objective discourse. Strobels book is just another one of those attempts to prove something that cannot be proven other than through appeals to authority, quoting people who are of the same ilk and incapable/unwilling of/to examine evidence against their beliefs. That’s not scholarship, it is conformation bias at work.

Your reading and re-reading of a book does not constitute a compelling reason for me to accept it as anything other than yet another one of those creationist/ID books that’s found a mark. I was also not aware of the fact that this was a believer-only forum. So thanks for clearing that up. Maybe you should have stated at the very beginning that only those who agree with you ought to get involved.

And when it comes to the book not mentioning creationism and/or ID, yeah duh. Given who the author is and his (and his interview partners) background, job, and written output makes it clear where he stands. You acting as if those guys did not have an agenda and that he and they do not do everything to promote it, makes this assertion that it does not mention those words nothing but a sneaky tactic to snag the unwary, those who do not look at an author’s background in order to discover what garden path they are being led on. To check out who an author is, after all, is the first thing you learn in a real college. And if you think that this book you so dearly love is not about ID/creationism, then you must have read another version of the one that is published.
 
TheHun said:
I truly know little about creationism and the reasoning behind it because it is just too ridiculous a premise to even waste time on. I prefer science to fairy tales that serve only to pacify the willfully ignorant.
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Then why are you spending so much time posting in the Religion subforum?
 
Fun and entertainment comes to mind. also, just because i cannot fathom the reason why anyone would take creationism and/or ID serious, does not mean that i am bereft of understanding and or knowledge concerning various religious traditions and their functional-structural appeal.
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
...Even the Pro-Roman Hebrew historian Josephus admits to the bare fact of Christ's existence, and moreover refers to him as a miracle-worker (if I recall) even if he does not believe Jesus was the messiah. ....
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Most biblical scholars agree that the passage of Josephus in question is a later addition to the text. Look, even if Jesus was a real person, that doesn't mean any myths about him are also real. You are the one opposing scholarly views. And I wouldn't trust anyone back then to be able to tell the difference between a genuine miracle and something else.
 
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