Wether Jesus existed...

"The list of contradictions in this paper is by no means complete, the examples being chosen primarily from the gospels. The examples given above, however, more than prove the point that the Bible is most definitely not, in any sense, the Word of God. The church has made imaginative (and often absurd) attempts to reconcile these contradictions. None of these attempts have the ring of truth - instead they have the ring of desperation."

Source: New Testament Contradictions by Paul Carlson

 

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Is the ring of truth something from Lord of the Rings? Because I have never seen it defined in any scientific papers.

 

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"Ring true, To. To appear authentic; to seem likely. The allusion is to the former method of testing coins by dropping them on a hard surface. Those of pure silver or gold had a distinctive ring, i.e. they 'rang true', while those of base metal had a duller sound." Source: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (Sixteenth Edition)

 

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You truly have no idea of how ignorant this is.

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I thought yo were smarter than this: all folklore, all legend, all superstition ", all gossip, and all rumor claim to be a faithful representation of events". If you truly see no options other than truth and lies, you are simply not bright enough to warrant discussion.

1. I am not X many atheists
2. I haven't a clue what the phrase "from out of the glaring silence of any "claims" they might or might not have made themselves" might mean

 

I'm not the one making the claim that all of the above claim to be faithful representations of events (an unsubstantiated generalization). If you only accept truth to exist in the form of faithful representations of historical events, you are also not bright enough to warrant discussion.

Fortunately, we are both aware of each other's "brightness".Therefore I can say that the biblical stories claim truths other than those that can only be found manifested in historical events. Therefore they may remain true, whether you can verify the events or not, and you might still doubt the truth even after the event had been verified. Doubt needs no justification, and truth needs no qualification.

1.Where X=1 you are.
2.It's a bit like circumscribing a silence so clearly that it leaves no doubt as to its content, thereby becoming a veritable "claim from silence" that leaves nothing to defend, no burden of proof, on that side - and is all interpretation, all speculation on my side. It should be an art.

 

I don't believe that if I die a martyr's death I'll go straight to heaven. I would be charged with murder before God himself and have no inheritance in Jesus Christ.

My faith is powerful enought to immunize me from fear of burning in Hell forever and allow me to be at ease in the thought that I will spend forever in Heaven.

That's my faith, my own personal faith.

 

They certainly do. So what? What does that have to do with historicity? Christian apologists must tie themselves into knots to explian the difficulties surrounding the birth narrative. They strain credulity to explain the absence of records pertaining to such things as Herod's infanticide. They invent the most fantastic explanations to explain the total absence of the bith narrative in Mark. No doubt apologist can fabricate excuses for each of these, much as they reconcile within themselves the death narratives of Judas, but the strain is obvious.

They are stories, Jenyar, and not very good ones.

 

They are different accounts of the same thing. Be honest, is the real reason why you doubt their truth not because you doubt what they all say, rather than the problems you have with what each one says individually?

 

I leave to you the pretense of "truth" - I challenge the assumption of accuracy. Jenyar, no one, no one, has any rational reason to presume that the words read in the Gospels in any way, shape, or form represent what any Jerusalem cult leader said decades, or even centuries, earlier, much less use them to construct an historical Jesus.

 

My pretense of "truth" is the result of my belief in the absence of lies. The "accuracy" you challenge are on your own terms. By pointing out many inconsistencies, you think you have shown beyond "rational reason" that the the whole, and all of the accounts, are necessarily false or fabricated. Where accuracy is visible, you dismiss it as irrelevant, arbitrary, and at best inconsequential. How does one follow, but the other not?

Have I missed something, or have you failed to show why the gospels should indicate something other than what they propose to indicate?

There are innumerable events whose records have not survived. The absence of a birth narrative from Mark is exactly that: the absence of a birth narrative from Mark. Likewise the presence of Herod's infanticide, the death narratives of Judas, etc. The strain happens when you suppose they all come from the same source, were witnessed by the same people, and reported to the same audience.

 

What about all of the predictions of Christ coming and what would happen to him? Do those mean anything at all to you?

 

Jenyar, jcarl, I have to ask, what makes you believe that? Because the Bible has not been disproven? If that is your reasoning, why did the fact that it hasn't been proven fail to sway you?

What you said above, is an example of completely blind faith.

Wrong. He hasn't asked--nor have any of us--for anything extreme or outlandish. Asking for evidence isn't outrageous.

Again, not true. The inconsistancies should tell you that it's a bunch of crap, but to jump to that conclusion isn't right either.

And where the hell is it visible?? That's an outright lie, Jenyar.

If you'd check the thread "The Dinosaurs" you'd see a very strong case against the Bible, but since I don't expect you to go and "search for the truth" all the way over in another thread, I'll post a couple things in this one...

Abraham was from Summeria, which is why the Bible is just a different version of old Summerian texts. Stories which bear the characters with Biblical counterparts such as Adam and Eve, Moses; and the stories themselves are simply older versions of the Bible, save the "One God" idea. There's a flood story in Summeria, as there is one of Creation (Starring Adama...how origional does Adam seem now?)

And the fact that the OT books can be found in ancient Summerian and Akkadian writings should tell you that the God in the Bible isn't a Jewish God, nor a single God story. Abraham, the father of the Jewish religion and it's cults thereof, passed Summerian stories along as his own (Apparently) and turned the stories of many different gods into the story of a single God.

How do you know?

How do you know?

Again, how the HELL do you know? This is my biggest beef with you people--the fact that you talk so presumptuously about the Bible and it's history! You just said, without question, that you know records didn't survive--as opposed to being cut by one of the hundreds of people who must have edited the Bible through the years (And we know it happened with King James) or just plain not finished by it's origional authors. No, you KNOW that the discrepencies are merely coincidence.

Bull. No one is supposing that on this thread. The oversimplification is on your side of the court, as you presume, with no evidence to back you--and a ton of evidence that says the Bible isn't an origional story--that the Bible is correct and accurate. You people claim to know the truth, and the Word of God is the end-all be-all, all the while you presume things about the stories themselves, all to fit your particular argument.

No, young child, because you cannot use the Bible to prove the validity of the Bible. Dude, you're 15, you didn't reach these beliefs on your own; you were told that God existed and the Bible was accurate. You never studied, you know little about the origins of your own religion. You are a prime example of religious brainwashing. Eventually, you'll look at what the fuck you're fighting for and say "Jeez, this is stupid!" and finally get over your force-fed beliefs.

JD

 

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Jesus was many men.

 

And all of them imaginary.

 

Who said, imaginery, a normal man could not do the miracles jesus did on his own, unless..ah nevermind.

 

Speaking of falsehoods and fabrications, either drop the dishonest rhetoric or quote where I have asserted "that the the whole, and all of the accounts, are necessarily false or fabricated".

I have done so where, exactly? And what relevant accuracy did you have in mind?

You're so fully engaged in distortions that you miss a great deal. You have a body of text claiming the abrogation of natural law, unattested before the 2nd century, copied, redacted, harmonized and, where deemed necessary, purged as heresy. The this gruel that managed to seep through this doctrinal sieve is what you proudly proclaim the word of God.

And plenty of stories that have ...

 

jcarl, would you please clean up your posts such that they're readable? figure out the use of quotes and edit your posts until they aren't difficult to read if you don't mind.