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darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
 Posted - 11/27/2003 : 23:52:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
CA:Tar and feathers? I'm hurt.
I'm sorry didn't mean anything to you just a joke.Before I go on let first say I'm battling both a cheap internet provider and an old computer over 5 of my respons's have failed to go thru.I will work on it but have limited funds.(sp.errors) |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
| Edited by - darwin alogos on 11/29/2003 02:54:31 |
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darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2003 : 03:04:09 [Permalink]
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quote:
Dave W.:If such is the case, then I submit that history is practiced badly. Josephus' comment constitutes nothing more than prima facie evidence that Josephus believed that Jesus was historical.
Agreed,I never stated that Josephus statements were prima facie(The NT is).However, since he was much closer to the sources the question for those who doubt the historic existence of Jesus is what prima facie evidence do you have to refute what he (Josephus) believed ? |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
| Edited by - darwin alogos on 11/29/2003 03:06:21 |
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darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2003 : 03:19:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
Dave W.:Especially since other similar prima facie evidence from other historians about other situations is known to be flat-out wrong.
According to Magen Broshi,
quote:
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Was Josephus always correct? Certainly not. His inaccuracies range from vagueness to blatant exaggeration. Shaye Cohen accuses him of "inveterate sloppiness". The index to Cohen's book goes so far as actually to include entries for "exaggeration", "inconsistency and sloppiness" and "corrupt transmission of names and numbers". Indeed, even if it is accepted that copyists were responsible for not a few of his mistakes (some of which have been hinted at already), it still cannot be denied that he was by nature somewhat negligent.
On another thread this very point was brought up by yours truly,and another historian Philostratus, the point was that inspite of the fact that both make "blunders","exaggerations" ect... they are both considered reliable sources for are knowledge of the ancient world.The point is that the reason we know they made these kinds of mistakes is we have some kind of evidence to contradict their assertions.Now my question to you is what kind of evidence do you have to contradict Josephus statements being discussed on this thread,other than resorting to selective historical solipsism? |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
| Edited by - darwin alogos on 11/29/2003 03:21:47 |
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darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2003 : 03:49:50 [Permalink]
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quote:
Dave W.:The least contentious position appears to me to be this: that there is very little evidence for the historical Jesus. While some will take this as a reasonable exception to the rule that absence of evidence doesn't equal evidence of absence (since many of Jesus' acts were more than simply 'noteworthy'), others will be content to take this position as it is: a withholding of judgement on whether or not Jesus actually lived and did the things claimed by the Bible, until such a time as more evidence comes to light, pro or con.
On the other hand, we have Darwin Alogos agreeing with Kirby that Josephus' comment(s) mean that Jesus actually lived, claiming that "To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world" (among other things), and generally insulting people who disagree with him. Such actions seem to me to be so far from the "balanced approached" [sic] he deems acceptable that the abbreviated cliche "pot-kettle-black" seems utterly appropriate.
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- Dave W.
Now Dave would you agree that Alexander the Great did many"acts[that] were more than simply 'noteworthy'"?Yet our knowledge of him comes from sources written hundreds of years after he lived but no one seriously doubts his existence nor that his"noteworthy acts' aren't has they have been recorded. That's why I have my signature statement worded the way I do (not to "insult" you) but to hopefully spur you on as to how we know anything about our past and once you've set down that criteria and you compare it with our knowledge of Jesus you will understand why I'm as confident as I am to say "That to deny the existence of Jesus you have to throw away your knowledge of the ancient world". |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
| Edited by - darwin alogos on 11/29/2003 03:53:49 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2003 : 14:24:20 [Permalink]
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Darwin Alogos wrote:quote:
Agreed,I never stated that Josephus statements were prima facie...
No, but Kirby did.quote:
...(The NT is).
How so?quote:
However, since he was much closer to the sources the question for those who doubt the historic existence of Jesus is what prima facie evidence do you have to refute what he (Josephus) believed ?
Why do I need evidence to refute what Josephus said any more than I need evidence to refute the idea that the Harry Potter books are fiction? It is the person who believes that they are fact who is in need of evidence to support that position. Doubting that they are fact is not the same as claiming that they are not fact.quote:
On another thread this very point was brought up by yours truly,and another historian Philostratus, the point was that inspite of the fact that both make "blunders","exaggerations" ect... they are both considered reliable sources for are knowledge of the ancient world. The point is that the reason we know they made these kinds of mistakes is we have some kind of evidence to contradict their assertions.
The fact that they've made mistakes means that any statement of theirs which we cannot verify through more direct methods is questionable, at best. That they are considered "reliable" does not mean that every statement they make is considered to be absolute truth.quote:
Now my question to you is what kind of evidence do you have to contradict Josephus statements being discussed on this thread...
Why do I need any evidence? I am making no claims, only pointing that Josephus' statements aren't good evidence of the existence of Jesus.quote:
...other than resorting to selective historical solipsism?
That certainly isn't what I'm doing, especially the "selective" bit. Give me another example of someone who left no mark on the world while he lived, yet has been deified, and I'll doubt their existence, as well. Heck, I certainly have no reason whatsoever to believe that Achilles, Odysseus, or even Homer existed as actual, living people, for just a few other examples. Care to name anyone else?quote:
Now Dave would you agree that Alexander the Great did many"acts[that] were more than simply 'noteworthy'"?Yet our knowledge of him comes from sources written hundreds of years after he lived but no one seriously doubts his existence nor that his"noteworthy acts' aren't has they have been recorded.
You should have picked someone else. We do apparently have fragments of documents written about Alexander during his life, and entire works which used the previous documents as source material. We have nothing similar with Josephus or the New Testament.
Plus, and here's the really important thing: nobody is telling me that if I do not believe that Alexander was the son of God, I will be punished for all eternity after I die. Nobody is asking me to believe that Alexander could heal the sick, multiply loaves and fish, or come back from the dead. Surely someone other than one or more largely anonymous authors writing decades after his death would have recorded Jesus' miracles as they happened.
Even if we discount the miracluous, nobody wrote about the entirely worldly, but far-reaching and extremely notable acts of Jesus shortly after they happened. We instead need to wait decades before anybody chooses to commit these things to paper.quote:
That's why I have my signature statement worded the way I do (not to "insult" you)...
It is not your signature I find insulting, but your insults. Perhaps you've forgotten them?quote:
...but to hopefully spur you on as to how we know anything about our past and once you've set down that criteria and you compare it with our knowledge of Jesus you will understand why I'm as confident as I am to say "That to deny the existence of Jesus you have to throw away your knowledge of the ancient world".
We know things about the past because they are verifiable through more than one contemporary source, or through archeological findings we can measure directly. Anything less is either speculation, or is basing historical "truth" upon the beliefs of one or a few people (such as in the case of Josephus, Tacitus, and the mostly-unknown authors of the New Testament). Neither is acceptable to me as a good basis for historical "fact," and honest historians appear to have the ability to say, "well, we just don't know, but X is what we think might have happened" (see the above link on Homer for an example). Plus, the larger the consequences of any purported historical "fact," the more evidence is required to support it (and the consequences, to me, for not believing in Jesus are very large, indeed, according to the believers).
So, there are the criteria that I will stand by, for any alleged historical fact. They aren't selective, nor are they solipsistic. They appear to me to be very reasonable, and I'd like to hear from you how they aren't, since it appears that "Jesus was a real person" fails to meet those standards, while "Alexander was a real person" does. (Even then, the existence of Alexander doesn't matter to me, so if you can throw his existence into question, go right ahead. The worst that would happen to me would be a lower grade on a history test.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2003 : 14:25:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
Dave W.:quote:
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...(The NT is).
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How so?
Huh because most of it was written by eyewitnesses. |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
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darwin alogos
SFN Regular
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2003 : 14:39:58 [Permalink]
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quote:
Dave W.:quote:
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However, since he was much closer to the sources the question for those who doubt the historic existence of Jesus is what prima facie evidence do you have to refute what he (Josephus) believed ?
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Why do I need evidence to refute what Josephus said any more than I need evidence to refute the idea that the Harry Potter books are fiction? It is the person who believes that they are fact who is in need of evidence to support that position. Doubting that they are fact is not the same as claiming that they are not fact.
Nice try DW this thread was started to discuss the writings of Josephus and weather they demostrate evidence to the question of Jesus existence. CA and I have been going over this evidence and you chime in and share your feelings that you think its all "fiction"(which is your right to belive)but that you have no burden of proof to bear. As I asked before do you have better criteria fo studing the past than I have outlined many times before? |
To deny logic you must use it.To deny Jesus Existed you must throw away all your knowledge of the ancient world. To deny ID
you must refute all analogical reasoning. So the question is why deny? |
| Edited by - darwin alogos on 11/30/2003 14:55:58 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2003 : 16:32:45 [Permalink]
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Darwin Alogos wrote:quote:
Nice try DW this thread was started to discuss the writings of Josephus and weather they demostrate evidence to the question of Jesus existence. CA and I have been going over this evidence and you chime in and share your feelings that you think its all "fiction"(which is your right to belive)but that you have no burden of proof to bear.
And it is your right to construct strawmen, if you so choose. I did not claim that Josephus was writing fiction, I simply picked a fictional work with which to illustrate that the burden of proof is on the person making the claim that a work is fact.quote:
As I asked before do you have better criteria fo studing the past than I have outlined many times before?
Okay, apparently you cannot be bothered to read my entire post. If you believe that is a "balanced approach" to this discussion, you and I will not get along any better than we did nine months ago. In fact, now that I think back upon the threads you've participated in, perhaps not reading what others have to say is, indeed, the reason you brought up the same points over and over and over again. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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walt fristoe
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2003 : 17:01:41 [Permalink]
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| Sounds like "The Argument From Selective Memory" to me. |
"If God chose George Bus of all the people in the world, how good could God be?"
Bill Maher |
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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2003 : 20:36:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Darwin Alogos wrote:quote:
Agreed,I never stated that Josephus statements were prima facie...
No, but Kirby did.quote:
...(The NT is).
How so?quote:
However, since he was much closer to the sources the question for those who doubt the historic existence of Jesus is what prima facie evidence do you have to refute what he (Josephus) believed ?
Why do I need evidence to refute what Josephus said any more than I need evidence to refute the idea that the Harry Potter books are fiction? It is the person who believes that they are fact who is in need of evidence to support that position. Doubting that they are fact is not the same as claiming that they are not fact.quote:
On another thread this very point was brought up by yours truly,and another historian Philostratus, the point was that inspite of the fact that both make "blunders","exaggerations" ect... they are both considered reliable sources for are knowledge of the ancient world. The point is that the reason we know they made these kinds of mistakes is we have some kind of evidence to contradict their assertions.
The fact that they've made mistakes means that any statement of theirs which we cannot verify through more direct methods is questionable, at best. That they are considered "reliable" does not mean that every statement they make is considered to be absolute truth.quote:
Now my question to you is what kind of evidence do you have to contradict Josephus statements being discussed on this thread...
Why do I need any evidence? I am making no claims, only pointing that Josephus' statements aren't good evidence of the existence of Jesus.quote:
...other than resorting to selective historical solipsism?
That certainly isn't what I'm doing, especially the "selective" bit. Give me another example of someone who left no mark on the world while he lived, yet has been deified, and I'll doubt their existence, as well. Heck, I certainly have no reason whatsoever to believe that Achilles, Odysseus, or even Homer existed as actual, living people, for just a few other examples. Care to name anyone else?quote:
Now Dave would you agree that Alexander the Great did many"acts[that] were more than simply 'noteworthy'"?Yet our knowledge of him comes from sources written hundreds of years after he lived but no one seriously doubts his existence nor that his"noteworthy acts' aren't has they have been recorded.
You should have picked someone else. We do apparently have fragments of documents written about Alexander during his life, and entire works which used the previous documents as source material. We have nothing similar with Josephus or the New Testament.
Plus, and here's the really important thing: nobody is telling me that if I do not believe that Alexander was the son of God, I will be punished for all eternity after I die. Nobody is asking me to believe that Alexander could heal the sick, multiply loaves and fish, or come back from the dead. Surely someone other than one or more largely anonymous authors writing decades after his death would have recorded Jesus' miracles as they happened.
Even if we discount the miracluous, nobody wrote about the entirely worldly, but far-reaching and extremely notable acts of Jesus shortly after they happened. We instead need to wait decades before anybody chooses to commit these things to paper.quote:
That's why I have my signature statement worded the way I do (not to "insult" you)...
It is not your signature I find insulting, but your insults. Perhaps you've forgotten them?quote:
...but to hopefully spur you on as to how we know anything about our past and once you've set down that criteria and you compare it with our knowledge of Jesus you will understand why I'm as confident as I am to say "That to deny the existence of Jesus you have to throw away your knowledge of the ancient world".
We know things about the past because they are verifiable through more than one contemporary source, or through archeological findings we can measure directly. Anything less is either speculation, or is basing historical "truth" upon the beliefs of one or a few people (such as in the case of Josephus, Tacitus, and the mostly-unknown authors of the New Testament). Neither is acceptable to me as a good basis for historical "fact," and honest historians appear to have the ability to say, "well, we just don't know, but X is what we think might have happened" (see the above link on Homer for an example). Plus, the larger the consequences of any purported historical "fact," the more evidence is required to support it (and the consequences, to me, for not believing in Jesus are very large, indeed, according to the believers).
So, there are the criteria that I will stand by, for any alleged historical fact. They aren't selective, nor are they solipsistic. They appear to me to be very reasonable, and I'd like to hear from you how they aren't, since it appears that "Jesus was a real person" fails to meet those standards, while "Alexander was a real person" does. (Even then, the existence of Alexander doesn't matter to me, so if you can throw his existence into question, go right ahead. The worst that would happen to me would be a lower grade on a history test.)
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For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." -- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2003 : 21:18:20 [Permalink]
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"Selective memory" hell. "Selective reading" is more like it. Darwin Alogos appears, to me at least, to be batting only at what he thinks are the easy pitches (made easier with the help of strawmen). Throw a tricky one at him, and he ducks and covers so fast he could probably honestly say that he never even saw my answer to his question, which is perhaps why he asked it again almost immediately. You'll notice that I wrote eight entire paragraphs between what DA quoted in his last post and my answer to his criteria question. I'm guessing that he bugged out when things got too difficult (and strawmen couldn't help further).
...Or perhaps he's just disrespectfully sloppy, since he seems to be replying to bits and pieces of what others write, using multiple posts. If he doesn't have enough time all at once to read everything, he should probably - just to be polite - refrain from responding at all until he has managed to finish. That may just be a stylisic thing (or perhaps he thinks he needs to do it until his computer problems are fixed), but no matter what the real reason, doing so would prevent him from asking questions which have already been answered in detail, very recently, and looking the fool for even implying that I failed to answer (and ask questions in return, which he failed to answer). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Les
Skeptic Friend
59 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2003 : 12:55:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by darwin alogos
quote:
Dave W.:quote:
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...(The NT is).
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How so?
Huh because most of it was written by eyewitnesses.
When one considers the vast number of contradictions throughout the NT, I think it becomes apparant that the "eyewitnesses" weren't terribly reliable.
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2003 : 03:14:25 [Permalink]
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Hi Les and welcome to Skeptics!
Ask any cop or DA about eye witness'. They are all too often mistaken, seeing only what they want to see. Sometimes their memories fail, and some few lie outright for profit, revenge or some other, perverse reason.
If someone were to be trying to start up a brand, new religion (Christianity, in this case), eyeball testimony would be suspect immedatly due to the profit motive. I rather doubt that the peoples of the times were any different from us in that respect.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Badman
New Member
United Kingdom
20 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2003 : 11:13:25 [Permalink]
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Excuse me for being completely ignorant about this topic but i thought i'd like to rant and rave for the sake of it.
Now, it seems to me that most people in here are not believers. Also, i thought i would just point out the obvious here when i say that the world is divided into 2 - the believers and the non-believers. now THAT is a fact! Try refuting that please.
I was thinking about small minds. A small mind is like a nitpicker; very good in the details but poor in comprehension overall. A large mind doesn't have this problem; good on the details and brilliant on overall understanding. So we see that to have a mind that is closed (no compromise here) is to throw out the baby with the bath water or, to put it more explicitly, to be a fool. I wonder where these closed minds come from? There must be something in their lives that just doesn't work quite right. Close your mind to the possibility that the earth hangs on space and spins on an axis with polarity around a sun (which is a star) all the time. Close your mind to the possibility that power is generated from nothing to make this earth alive. Close your mind to the possibility that you do not understand what powers your heart to beat blood into your body to keep you alive. Close your mind to the possibility that life is a mystery that you cannot understand, measure, and ever circumscribe.
Pick up a book on the philosophy of religion. Soon enough you will find that what you previously assumed to be the truth has now become gravely erroneous. EG miracles are reported to have occurred and NOTHING goes against them. No shred of evidence will show that those miracles are fake. Likewise, what is so impossible to accept that miracles occur TODAY, that to believe in Jesus who lived 2000 years ago is not acceptable? If James the brother of Jesus is historical, then how does that affect the miracles Jesus performed? It doesn't. It cannot. So whether or not James (indeed even Jesus) is historical OR NOT, the main point is to understand that miracles happened, are happening and WILL happen tommorow. Everything else is irrelevent. How will your life change if Jesus was somehow proved to be historical? Will that mean that your mind will open just a tiny crack to the possibility that there are things that exist which you cannot explain? This is your problem: you think you know everything. Humility is accepting that you know very little when faced with the immense mystery of life. An ego pitting itself against a God? Face it, you do not have an open mind. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2003 : 12:34:51 [Permalink]
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Actually, there is lots of reason to think that miracles do not exist.
There is also lots of reason to think that Jesus of Nazareth never existed and James the brother (meaning sharing one or more parents) of Jesus never existed. Humility (as well as open-mindedness) is accepting that you know very little, and not rushing to put a label like "miracle" on something that you don't understand. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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