A graphic on the reliability of the New Testament....

bullethead

Of the hard cast variety
I said it in the post. Jesus' existence as a person. You can decide on your own about the divinity. That's between you and God, and really not my business.
I am not convinced that there is enough in the NT to actually prove Jesus was real. In my mind I think either he or someone like him existed, but not in the ways described there. There is very very very little evidence outside of the NT and most of those (Joseph Flavius and the likes) are argued to have later additions to make it seem more believable.



Nowhere on this forum have I ever tried to prove Jesus' divinity. I find it to be an exercise in futility, and probably designed that way if faith is the objective. I'm not going that direction because it is a huge waste of all our time. I would rather pick a fight with the Christians about gay folks.

Most excellent




Were they people? Did their contemporaries record conversations? Did those who worshipped them recognize that they were people?
Actually yes! Not only were their conversations recorded as if someone was there, but a few of those Gods slept with mortals and had children with mortals. Their stories, accounts, records and tales read darn near like the Bible is written. "And the Almighty Zeus said to......" "And Aphrodite replied...."
Just who in the heck recorded that when it was said????
Either those gods were real and inspired someone to write it down, OR, somebody(man) made it up and had hundreds of thousands of people believing it for thousands of years.
It sounds ridiculous when applied to another religion and easily dismissed as ancient beliefs, yet............we go round after round on here about another equally ancient religion. Time wise this current one didn't outlast the others, it was started later and happens to be One of the religions that is currently in favor. It too will burn out.

Please, read up...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_mythological_figures
 

JB0704

The Original JB
I am not convinced that there is enough in the NT to actually prove Jesus was real.

Which pretty much sums up my entire point....


I took Latin for a while in HS, and my teacher was determined to show the similarities between Christianity and Greek Mythology (Samson v Hercules sort of thing). So, I am pretty well learned on the Greek mythology.

My point was that the Greek Gods were not "human." They interacted as such in the mythology, but always in the third person. Jesus' story is told by contemporaries, as in "hey, I was there."

There are major differences in the objective of the writing as well. We can go on and on. In the end, you will dismiss every point I make as weak, and I will think you are just trying to look beyond the very obvious.
 

bullethead

Of the hard cast variety
I do appreciate the conversation JB.
 

Asath

Senior Member
Y’know, I spent the better part of an hour looking at that graphic, trying to make heads or tails out of just what it meant. I got nothing. It seems to try to put forward the idea that one thing was copied more than another, and is thus more reliable as a source.

“That can’t be the contention,” I thought, since not only would it cause the hundreds of millions of copies of Harry Potter books to be, therefore, true, by sheer readership and proliferation, but it would select a ‘Holy Book’ to compare against carefully selected writings that purported to be nothing of the sort.

So, being charitable and cautious, I forwarded the graphic to thirty different friends, all of whom are credentialed thinkers, and who range from linguistics experts to philosophers to theologians to astrophysicists.

As you would imagine, we hardly ever agree on a darned thing.

I’ll spare you the hundred or so pages of responses (though it livened up MY week, to say the least, and for this alone I thank the OP), but the highlights range from a simple, “WHAT????”; to an abstract addressing the vital difference between the thoughts of any single, known writer and the collected thoughts of a number of anonymous and unknown writers; to an observation that the comparisons are hardly contemporaneous, and one might as well compare hieroglyphs to movies for all the validity that is contained; to my personal favorite: “You’re telling me that any of these knuckleheads have actually READ Sophocles?”

The collective thought, in a nutshell, is that belief calls for plausibility. The endless search for a definitive ‘GOTCHA!’ that is put forward by the believers has failed the test of time, and it has always been the believers that end up trying to explain away the real progress of genuine enlightenment. There is no place, in the modern world, for the vehement defense of stories and superstitions that are thousands of years old. The believers are forced to react and retrench almost daily.

What is ‘reliable’ is the fragile web of civilization and technology that other HUMANS have put in place against the fact that what is ‘unreliable’ is the capriciousness of the natural world that some wish to believe that some sort of God put in place. We do not spend our lives, time, resources, and energy ‘worshipping’ the natural world – we spend our time defending ourselves against it, and trying to enhance our odds. If some sort of God put all this in place, then that God is trying to kill us, daily. That is irretrievably and inarguably true.

This is simple sense. Moving yourself and your family to higher ground after a flood is a ‘reliable’ survival tactic. Staying put, and ‘believing’ that it is God’s will to drown you is idiocy.

What is ‘reliable’ is what works, not what one thinks about it.
 
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ted_BSR

Senior Member
This I get. What I don't get is why the historical/factual accuracy of the other works in this list are not nearly as debated, if at all?

It is like Democrats working the unemployment percentages. Ain't no winnin' for us peoples. They believe what they can statisticalize.
 

ted_BSR

Senior Member
Y’know, I spent the better part of an hour looking at that graphic, trying to make heads or tails out of just what it meant. I got nothing. It seems to try to put forward the idea that one thing was copied more than another, and is thus more reliable as a source.

“That can’t be the contention,” I thought, since not only would it cause the hundreds of millions of copies of Harry Potter books to be, therefore, true, by sheer readership and proliferation, but it would select a ‘Holy Book’ to compare against carefully selected writings that purported to be nothing of the sort.

So, being charitable and cautious, I forwarded the graphic to thirty different friends, all of whom are credentialed thinkers, and who range from linguistics experts to philosophers to theologians to astrophysicists.

As you would imagine, we hardly ever agree on a darned thing.

I’ll spare you the hundred or so pages of responses (though it livened up MY week, to say the least, and for this alone I thank the OP), but the highlights range from a simple, “WHAT????”; to an abstract addressing the vital difference between the thoughts of any single, known writer and the collected thoughts of a number of anonymous and unknown writers; to an observation that the comparisons are hardly contemporaneous, and one might as well compare hieroglyphs to movies for all the validity that is contained; to my personal favorite: “You’re telling me that any of these knuckleheads have actually READ Sophocles?”

The collective thought, in a nutshell, is that belief calls for plausibility. The endless search for a definitive ‘GOTCHA!’ that is put forward by the believers has failed the test of time, and it has always been the believers that end up trying to explain away the real progress of genuine enlightenment. There is no place, in the modern world, for the vehement defense of stories and superstitions that are thousands of years old. The believers are forced to react and retrench almost daily.

What is ‘reliable’ is the fragile web of civilization and technology that other HUMANS have put in place against the fact that what is ‘unreliable’ is the capriciousness of the natural world that some wish to believe that some sort of God put in place. We do not spend our lives, time, resources, and energy ‘worshipping’ the natural world – we spend our time defending ourselves against it, and trying to enhance our odds. If some sort of God put all this in place, then that God is trying to kill us, daily. That is irretrievably and inarguably true.

This is simple sense. Moving yourself and your family to higher ground after a flood is a ‘reliable’ survival tactic. Staying put, and ‘believing’ that it is God’s will to drown you is idiocy.

What is ‘reliable’ is what works, not what one thinks about it.

Case in point.
 

Asath

Senior Member
Sir, if there is a truth you wish to put forward, and you can demonstrate it to be so, then, by all means, do so.
 

ted_BSR

Senior Member
Sir, if there is a truth you wish to put forward, and you can demonstrate it to be so, then, by all means, do so.

Here we go with the "Sir" thing again.

Your boogie rhetoric long word long wind mumbo jumbo speak better than thou crud know the truth speak of nothing just means PHLPTTTTTTT! Enjoy your intelligent discussion dude. I ain't buyin' it, DOOKEY!:clap:
 

Asath

Senior Member
Sir, I don't think that I said anything to merit the personal attack. If that is your entire intellectual arsenal, as displayed, then perhaps you are in the wrong Forum.

Down here, at the bottom of the Forums, we expect folks to defend their thoughts with at least some modicum of actual evidence, rather than simply perpetrate 'drive-by' assertions, engage in name-calling, and smugly rest their case.

That sort of thing is little more than playground bullying, and has no place in an adult Forum.
 

TheBishop

Senior Member
Sir, I don't think that I said anything to merit the personal attack. If that is your entire intellectual arsenal, as displayed, then perhaps you are in the wrong Forum.

Down here, at the bottom of the Forums, we expect folks to defend their thoughts with at least some modicum of actual evidence, rather than simply perpetrate 'drive-by' assertions, engage in name-calling, and smugly rest their case.

That sort of thing is little more than playground bullying, and has no place in an adult Forum.


Go read some posts by mister ted. He is not the type to add to a discussion. His M.O. his hit and run posts that attack the writer not the position. Its typical when ones own position is weak, with little basis in fact. A very common liberal tactic as a matter fact.

I bet ted drives a prius with an O'12 sticker on the back!:bounce:
 

ambush80

Senior Member
Here we go with the "Sir" thing again.

Your boogie rhetoric long word long wind mumbo jumbo speak better than thou crud know the truth speak of nothing just means PHLPTTTTTTT! Enjoy your intelligent discussion dude. I ain't buyin' it, DOOKEY!:clap:


This is like a response a twelve year old might give.

Nanny, nanny boo boo
 

ted_BSR

Senior Member
Go read some posts by mister ted. He is not the type to add to a discussion. His M.O. his hit and run posts that attack the writer not the position. Its typical when ones own position is weak, with little basis in fact. A very common liberal tactic as a matter fact.

I bet ted drives a prius with an O'12 sticker on the back!:bounce:

Should I word my attacks more like this?
 

Asath

Senior Member
That WAS a little beneath the dignity of this forum, Bishop.

Well earned, and certainly well deserved, but c’mon guys – let’s try to keep it above the swamp here. We win nothing by stooping to the tactics we receive, and it is well within our maturity levels to dodge a little bit of mud tossed our way.

For my own part, I’ve found that the ‘Ignore’ option helps to keep my own blood-pressure well within normal ranges . . .
 

TheBishop

Senior Member
That WAS a little beneath the dignity of this forum, Bishop.

Well earned, and certainly well deserved, but c’mon guys – let’s try to keep it above the swamp here. We win nothing by stooping to the tactics we receive, and it is well within our maturity levels to dodge a little bit of mud tossed our way.

For my own part, I’ve found that the ‘Ignore’ option helps to keep my own blood-pressure well within normal ranges . . .

Yeagh, I'm sorry that was pretty low.
 
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