Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

[Free]

It's called the Evidence of Absence.  

"Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist."

The argument works like this:

There are two employees in a meeting hall setting up chairs for a meeting, one is a supervisor and the other a laborer. The supervisor tells the laborer to go into an adjoining room and get a stack of chairs. The laborer goes into that room, and sees no chairs at all. He tells his supervisor "There are no chairs in that room."

Another laborer shows up, and the supervisor- after doubting the claim of the first laborer, tells the 2nd laborer to go into the same room and get a  stack of chairs. The 2nd laborer does as he is told, but also sees that there are no chairs in that room. He returns to the supervisor and tells him the same thing the 1st laborer said. More and more laborers show up, and each one is sent to the same room to get a stack of chairs, and all of them return to the supervisor and tell him there are no chairs in the room. Finally the supervisor goes into the room and also finds it completely empty.

After numerous failed attempts by numerous individuals to get chairs from that room, and each one saying the room has no chairs in it and that the room is completely empty, should we conclude it as being possible that there are chairs in the room?

No, we reasonably and logically conclude there are no chairs in that room. We can enter that room and see that the evidence of the absence of chairs is the evidence of absence required to confirm the non existence of chairs in that room.

Likewise for any god or any supernatural entity. Throughout history, there have been numerous attempts to prove the existence of god, but at the end of the day all we have is the god who wasn't there. No one in history has ever provided any evidence whatsoever to demonstrate even the possibility of the existence of god.

When people say that the existence of god is possible, even remotely possible, they are making a positive claim of the existence of a possibility. They are therefore required to prove how and why that possibility is valid. Just saying it's possible does not make it so. Evidence to support that possibility, however remote, is still required to qualify it as valid.

Hence, you have exactly the same problem with proving the possibility of the existence of a god as you do with proving the actual existence of god. Both are positive claims, and without evidence to support either, you have nothing but assertion.

Therefore, if you are a 6.9, then what evidence can you provide that supports that shred of doubt that keeps you from being a 7.0? Since there is absolutely no evidence at all, thereby you have no reason whatsoever to not be a 7.0.

It it possible I could be wrong? Only if you show me the evidence to make such a possibility valid. Until then, I am correct and justified at being a 7.0 since there is no valid possibility in existence. Therefore, it is the most honest position to hold.

The difference is that in your hypothetical, it's entirely possible for the supervisor to go into the room and see for himself, and indeed, even the underlings going in and reporting back are a good proxy for that. With supernatural, invisible deities, there's no actual room to even hold the chairs. There's just an alleged room. In another dimension.

My objection to theism is that it's specifically designed to be non-falsifiable, therefore, it is not even possible to prove OR disprove it. Therefore I have no views on the matter in terms of a knowledge claim, because knowledge is inherently unobtanium. I simply cannot form a belief concerning it, for lack of evidence to support it.

I can posit all sorts of fanciful things that technically COULD be true but cannot be demonstrated -- such as the existence of sentient lampshades cavorting on the fifth planet from Proxima Centauri. At this point we are only aware of one planet in that system to begin with, so there's no way to prove or disprove that. Of course, the claim is ridiculous enough that even if we discover that planet and explore it, we can be quite confident that the claim will be disproven. In that sense I am also 7+ on the Dawkins scale (which BTW I don't think is a valid scale as it gets the relationship between atheism and agnosticism wrong). But in a technical sense I have to remain a 6.9. Not that it's of any practical consequence either way.

That's where the following section from the Proof of Impossibility is to be applied:

"In natural science:

In natural science, impossibility assertions (like other assertions) come to be widely accepted as overwhelmingly probable rather than considered proved to the point of being unchallengeable. The basis for this strong acceptance is a combination of extensive evidence of something not occurring, combined with an underlying theory, very successful in making predictions, whose assumptions lead logically to the conclusion that something is impossible.

Two examples of widely accepted impossibilities in physics are perpetual motion machines, which violate the law of conservation of energy, and exceeding the speed of light, which violates the implications of special relativity. Another is the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, which asserts the impossibility of simultaneously knowing both the position and the momentum of a particle. Also Bell's theorem: no physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.

While an impossibility assertion in science can never be absolutely proved, it could be refuted by the observation of a single counterexample. Such a counterexample would require that the assumptions underlying the theory that implied the impossibility be re-examined."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_impossibility

The whole point of my chairs not in the room scenario was to demonstrate extensive evidence of something not occurring ie; no chairs in the room. No matter how many times anyone goes into that room, there will be no chairs. Sure, it's possible someone could put chairs in the room, but that changes the entire static and make it a dynamic. Statically, there are no chairs in that room and there never will be.

We cannot conclusively prove that the square cannot be circled, or the Pi goes on forever, or that counting numbers can be counted infinitely, but we can reach a logical and reasonable conclusion about them. 

Therefore, in regards to something such as counting numbers, should we conclude that it is impossible to know that they will come to an end, or should we conclude that they will continue infinitely, for example? 

What is the best and most probable conclusion according to the pattern of those numbers constantly progressing?

[Minimalist]

As I always say ... take all the time you need.

Thanks for the extension.  I knew this was going to get long so I wrote it out in Word and then copied it.  Was afraid of losing it when switching screens!


1. Which came first, the letters of Paul, or the Gospels?
 
That’s actually a good question and an irrelevant one at the same time which is really quite a trick.  Leaving aside all church bullshit which I know you love and which I consider inherently unreliable what we know is that Irenaeus wrote c 180 inventing the “apostolic” names for the gospels and also bitching and moaning about Marcion and this “paul” fucker that Marcion championed.  Of course, if the legends about Irenaeus are true - and some of them may be - he was writing some 40 years after Marcion burst on the scene with his version of this jesus shit and had the foresight to write it down in a canon which apparently the churchie fucks had never thought of until then.  Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  We also have some confirmation of Irenaeus’ dating from Celsus who also c 180 became the first Greco-Roman writer to mention this jesus fucker.  For the record, Justin Martyr, supposedly writing c. 160 knows of Marcion but never mentions any “paul.”Now Irenaeus accuses Marcion of “deleting” any references to yhwh from “Paul’s” epistles and also re-writing Luke.  Possible but were it the case that “Paul” was so well known it seems unlikely that Justin would not have mentioned him.  After all, the churchie fucks claim that “paul” was the great apostle to the Gentiles in the mid first century.  One would think that Justin would know about his sorry ass.  Or at least anyone who questions what they are told would think that.  There are, to be sure, indications that Justin’s work was tampered with by later xtian liars but they seem to have added shit in rather than re-written what was already there. So it seems equally if not more probable that Marcion was the initial author/compiler/editor of the paul stuff and it took later xtian writers a long time to salvage what they could out of it and make it conform to the dogmas they were pushing.  That’s why Justin did not write about him. He had not yet been “re-habilitated” from his Marcionite origins!
 
We do not have Marcion’s original writings.  Nor do we have the original writings you profess to think are real.  We have, as Italians say “oogatz.” We do know that there are later forgeries and interpolations into the pauline writings we do have but who the fuck knows when they were written. I don’t and neither do you.  Many scholars, including Ehrman, admit that some of what passes for paul's epistles are mash ups of multiple letters combined into one.  I suspect there was a whole lot of editing going on.

2. Internal biblical evidence indicates Paul's letters preceded the Gospels.
 
After the above I probably shouldn’t have to tell you what I think about “internal biblical evidence.”  By comparison, a modern equivalent was Pravda which, as the NY Times reports:
 
[u]https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/31/world/russia-s-purveyor-of-truth-pravda-dies-after-84-years.html[/u]
 
Lies were the special talent of the Soviet leadership, and as its official mouthpiece, Pravda was the best showcase for that talent.
"The experience of the first few months during which the compulsory labor camps have operated on the basis of self-financing have produced positive results," the newspaper said on Aug. 30, 1922, describing the origins of what would become the largest system of death camps in modern history.
Pravda was often the only place a reader could turn to to get a sense of what mattered to the Soviet leadership. When Stalin ran it, the newspaper set the dark tone for the vast repressions of the 1930's, using letter campaigns in which writers -- always assumed and later proved to be fictitious -- demanded the death penalty for "enemies of the people."

Sorry.  I am not as impressed by their bullshit as you are.
 


3. Paul mentions Jesus at the Last Supper. Did the Gospels quote from the works of Paul in regards to the Last Supper? 
 
Does he?  Did he?  We do not know what, if anything, this paul fucker wrote.  We have only the later alleged copies of them in his name.  I don’t know why you can’t simply admit that.
 

4. Since we have the evidence listed above in 1, 2, and 3, does it not show that Paul may very well be the origin of the Christian religion?
 
You are easily impressed. I guess my biggest problem with your whole approach is that not only do you not question your sources it would never occur to you to question your sources. Do you also think that the Soviet labor camps were part of the worker’s paradise?  Why not?  Pravda wrote it down.  North Korea reported that Kim Jong-Il picked up a golf club for the first time in 1994, shot a 38 under par and had 11 holes-in-one.  I guess you believe that too, uncritically as you believe everything else.

5. Paul makes the claim of him creating a Gospel  and also complains about worshippers wasting time on genealogies. This demonstrates the first and earliest mention of a written Gospel which includes genealogies, which is what we see in the current Gospels.
 
Would you care to give a citation for such a claim.  I looked.  No one else seems to know what you are talking about.
 


6. Paul's works mention Pilate, therefore we have a connection from Paul about his Jesus and Pilate.
 
Yes, in Timothy.  One of the pastoral epistles and one which is recognized as a later pseudonymous work.  Is fraud the best you can do?

7. Paul was a Roman, and all of Tacitus' sources indicate a Roman origin. Tacitus also mentions in the same sentence of a "mischievous superstition" breaking out in Judea concerning the execution of Christ.
 
Understanding that the Book of Acts is about as reliable as a $2 watch, would you care to provide your basis for that assertion?  

8. To the Roman's the existence of Christ is a Jewish myth. Tacitus had a curious habit of making tongue-in-cheek comments in a humorous way, so his mentioning of the execution of a mythical creature may very well have been another if his attempts at infusing some humor into his works, and refers to the result of it all as being mischievous superstition.
 
Wow.  You hang a lot of weight on a single, probably interpolated, sentence in Annales.  I’m glad that you waste your time with this bullshit because if you built bridges out of such thin material people would be dying left and right.Do try to remember that even if that passage were authentic it still does not mention any “jesus.”

[Ranjr]

I'm lost here, not having read the whole thread.  It's gotten too philosophical for me to follow.  However, since Minimalist mentioned him, I'd like to make a point about Justin Martyr.  We shouldn't draw any conclusions about what Justin should or shouldn't know.  That guy was a dumbass.  Trypho owned him, and he didn't even know it.

[mordant]

Therefore, in regards to something such as counting numbers, should we conclude that it is impossible to know that they will come to an end, or should we conclude that they will continue infinitely, for example? 

What is the best and most probable conclusion according to the pattern of those numbers constantly progressing?

For practical purposes we conclude they will progress forever.

For technical purposes we can't say it's proven.

I behave exactly the same as if I were making a positive knowledge claim that there is no god. But I'll be damned if some theist is going to claim I'm making a positive knowledge claim that I can't "prove". So I don't go there.

Theists have their deity conveniently squirreled away in an alternate dimension that no one has ever seen or visited, and until they liberate him from that box I can't prove OR disprove their deity's existence. I think it so vanishingly unlikely that I live my life precisely AS IF it were disproven ... but I'm not conceding the philosophical "gotcha" they are always trying to impose.

[Bucky Ball]

I'm lost here, not having read the whole thread.  It's gotten too philosophical for me to follow.  However, since Minimalist mentioned him, I'd like to make a point about Justin Martyr.  We shouldn't draw any conclusions about what Justin should or shouldn't know.  That guy was a dumbass.  Trypho owned him, and he didn't even know it.

You do know that Justin Martyr made him up in order to debate him, right ... he was talking to himself.

[Ranjr]

You do know that Justin Martyr made him up in order to debate him, right ... he was talking to himself.

You mean he didn't really have dialectical discourse in a remote place with a random stranger who introduced him to the ancient prophets and changed his philosophical outlook?  Huh.

[Bucky Ball]

You do know that Justin Martyr made him up in order to debate him, right ... he was talking to himself.

You mean he didn't really have dialectical discourse in a remote place with a random stranger who introduced him to the ancient prophets and changed his philosophical outlook?  Huh.

You mean he made up someone who owned himself ? 
Oh. OK.

[Free]

Therefore, in regards to something such as counting numbers, should we conclude that it is impossible to know that they will come to an end, or should we conclude that they will continue infinitely, for example? 

What is the best and most probable conclusion according to the pattern of those numbers constantly progressing?

For practical purposes we conclude they will progress forever.

For technical purposes we can't say it's proven.

I behave exactly the same as if I were making a positive knowledge claim that there is no god. But I'll be damned if some theist is going to claim I'm making a positive knowledge claim that I can't "prove". So I don't go there.

Theists have their deity conveniently squirreled away in an alternate dimension that no one has ever seen or visited, and until they liberate him from that box I can't prove OR disprove their deity's existence. I think it so vanishingly unlikely that I live my life precisely AS IF it were disproven ... but I'm not conceding the philosophical "gotcha" they are always trying to impose.

I go there based on practical purposes because we can demonstrate that numbers can be counted infinitely by merely progressing one number after another, and thereby demonstrating the proof of impossibility of absolute knowledge of infinity.

Hence, since it is impossible to prove infinity, yet the counting of numbers demonstrates the existence of infinity, we can conclude the existence of infinity rationally.

It isn't always about what we prove, but rather what we must accept as being factual. For example, if you agree that it is factual the the counting of numbers will go on infinitely, then you really have no choice but to conclude it as being factual.

Therefore, are you in a catch 22 here? The question you need to answer is; what is more truthful?

1. Is it more truthful to state as factual that numbers can be counted forever? Or ...

2. Is it more truthful to state that you don't know that numbers can be counted forever?

Which one appeals to you as possessing the greater truth value?

Also Intuitionism.

(Man, do I ever miss Girly with this. He would be all over this like white on rice. )

[Ranjr]

You mean he made up someone who owned himself ? 
Oh. OK.

Yeah, just like the guy who made the creation/evolution video thought, I'm killin this.  People often think they are making good points when in actuality, they point out the very reason they are wrong.  But if you think Justin makes a good case with Trypho, I'll defer to your superior acumen.

[Phaedrus]

Story of Jesus a hoax

[SYZ]

As far as I'm aware, claims about  god are unfalsifiable. IE they cannot be proved or disproved...

Not exactly.  An unfalsifiable claim cannot be disproved.  If a claim can be proved, then it's a falsifiable claim.

An unfalsifiable claim is that supernatural entities exist.  A falsifiable claim is that ozone is an inert gas whose
molecules are comprised of 5 oxygen atoms.  Two totally different claims.

God cannot be argued into or out of existence.  This because  logic is not a reliable tool for establishing truth.

Nope.  Gods can  be argued "out of existence" using pure logic.  In exactly the same way we argue leprechauns
out of existence.  Logic is a very good tool for establishing the truth.  Every scientific theory ever postulated has been
proved (at least) in part by logic.

For example:  The earliest notion of a spherical Earth was documented by early Greek philosophers in the 5th century BCE,
without any empirical evidence as such, and using... logic.

The only proof this atheist will accept for any claim about god are empirical evidence.

As an ignostic, I have to disagree with this from my personal perspective.  There will never be any empirical evidence
proving the existence of gods—good, bad, or indifferent.

If "you can't prove a negative" means you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt that certain things don't exist, then the
claim is just false. We prove the non-existence of things on a regular basis. If, on the other hand, "you can't prove a
negative" means you cannot prove beyond all possible doubt that something does not exist, well, that may, arguably,
be true. But so what? That point is irrelevant so far as defending beliefs in supernatural entities against the charge that
science and/or reason have established beyond reasonable doubt that they don't exist.
—Stephen Law Ph.D, You Can Prove a Negative, Psychology Today.

[SYZ]

Story of Jesus a hoax

A Critique of Joseph Atwill’s Caesar’s Messiah

[mordant]

Therefore, in regards to something such as counting numbers, should we conclude that it is impossible to know that they will come to an end, or should we conclude that they will continue infinitely, for example? 

What is the best and most probable conclusion according to the pattern of those numbers constantly progressing?

For practical purposes we conclude they will progress forever.

For technical purposes we can't say it's proven.

I behave exactly the same as if I were making a positive knowledge claim that there is no god. But I'll be damned if some theist is going to claim I'm making a positive knowledge claim that I can't "prove". So I don't go there.

Theists have their deity conveniently squirreled away in an alternate dimension that no one has ever seen or visited, and until they liberate him from that box I can't prove OR disprove their deity's existence. I think it so vanishingly unlikely that I live my life precisely AS IF it were disproven ... but I'm not conceding the philosophical "gotcha" they are always trying to impose.

I go there based on practical purposes because we can demonstrate that numbers can be counted infinitely by merely progressing one number after another, and thereby demonstrating the proof of impossibility of absolute knowledge of infinity.

Hence, since it is impossible to prove infinity, yet the counting of numbers demonstrates the existence of infinity, we can conclude the existence of infinity rationally.

It isn't always about what we prove, but rather what we must accept as being factual. For example, if you agree that it is factual the the counting of numbers will go on infinitely, then you really have no choice but to conclude it as being factual.

Therefore, are you in a catch 22 here? The question you need to answer is; what is more truthful?

1. Is it more truthful to state as factual that numbers can be counted forever? Or ...

2. Is it more truthful to state that you don't know that numbers can be counted forever?

Which one appeals to you as possessing the greater truth value?

Also Intuitionism.

(Man, do I ever miss Girly with this. He would be all over this like white on rice. )

I think this also plays into fundamentalist notions of absolute truth / right / wrong. Since they assume there is such a thing -- even to the extent that they can claim an objectively correct hermeneutic can be ascertained, and applied without any subjectivity at all -- they cannot see any distinction between truth and "truth value", and conversely, they see a huge difference between "proven not to exist" and "extremely highly likely to not exist". Particularly when they are in such a weak position of argument that they must badger people about whether they can "prove" god doesn't exist as if that were some sort of proof that he does.

Since substantiatable beliefs must be formed out of falsifiable hypotheses, and theists have none, I declare myself lacking in belief for lack of evidence. They are always welcome to present evidence; they never do.

When I wake up every morning, in private, of course I absolutely do not have to wrestle with any doubt about the non-existence of god, and live exactly as if I have an active disbelief in him. There's no practical difference. Indeed, my belief began to falter in a way very similar to your "no chairs in the room" metaphor. Every time I went to the room for a chair -- no chair. Of course that can always be styled as a lack of sufficient piety, secret sin, practicing my faith incorrectly, or any number of excuses, and so I needed something more compelling than my own personal confusion or disappointment with my faith. Fortunately, there is a host of logical argument and fact-based reasoning that's far better than my frustration with the lack of chairs in the room.

But ultimately you can't get around the fact that their god is non-falsifiable by design, and I can't make a positive claim or form a belief around something about which proof is unobtanium. Since they hear "highly unlikely" as "I know deep down it's likely", I just refuse to engage with them in that way.

[Free]

As I always say ... take all the time you need.

Thanks for the extension.  I knew this was going to get long so I wrote it out in Word and then copied it.  Was afraid of losing it when switching screens!


1. Which came first, the letters of Paul, or the Gospels?
 
That’s actually a good question and an irrelevant one at the same time which is really quite a trick.  Leaving aside all church bullshit which I know you love and which I consider inherently unreliable what we know is that Irenaeus wrote c 180 inventing the “apostolic” names for the gospels and also bitching and moaning about Marcion and this “paul” fucker that Marcion championed.

Unsupported assumption detected. Although Irenaeus provides the earliest record of assigning names to the Gospel records, we cannot assume he invented those names.

Of course, if the legends about Irenaeus are true - and some of them may be - he was writing some 40 years after Marcion burst on the scene with his version of this jesus shit and had the foresight to write it down in a canon which apparently the churchie fucks had never thought of until then.  Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  We also have some confirmation of Irenaeus’ dating from Celsus who also c 180 became the first Greco-Roman writer to mention this jesus fucker.  For the record, Justin Martyr, supposedly writing c. 160 knows of Marcion but never mentions any “paul.” Now Irenaeus accuses Marcion of “deleting” any references to yhwh from “Paul’s” epistles and also re-writing Luke.  Possible but were it the case that “Paul” was so well known it seems unlikely that Justin would not have mentioned him.  After all, the churchie fucks claim that “paul” was the great apostle to the Gentiles in the mid first century.  One would think that Justin would know about his sorry ass.  Or at least anyone who questions what they are told would think that.  There are, to be sure, indications that Justin’s work was tampered with by later xtian liars but they seem to have added shit in rather than re-written what was already there. So it seems equally if not more probable that Marcion was the initial author/compiler/editor of the paul stuff and it took later xtian writers a long time to salvage what they could out of it and make it conform to the dogmas they were pushing.  That’s why Justin did not write about him. He had not yet been “re-habilitated” from his Marcionite origins!
 
We do not have Marcion’s original writings.  Nor do we have the original writings you profess to think are real.  We have, as Italians say “oogatz.” We do know that there are later forgeries and interpolations into the pauline writings we do have but who the fuck knows when they were written. I don’t and neither do you.  Many scholars, including Ehrman, admit that some of what passes for paul's epistles are mash ups of multiple letters combined into one.  I suspect there was a whole lot of editing going on.

1st Clement mentions Paul and quotes him extensively, and was written circa CE 90.

2. Internal biblical evidence indicates Paul's letters preceded the Gospels.

 
After the above I probably shouldn’t have to tell you what I think about “internal biblical evidence.”  By comparison, a modern equivalent was Pravda which, as the NY Times reports:
 
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/31/world...years.html
 
Lies were the special talent of the Soviet leadership, and as its official mouthpiece, Pravda was the best showcase for that talent.
"The experience of the first few months during which the compulsory labor camps have operated on the basis of self-financing have produced positive results," the newspaper said on Aug. 30, 1922, describing the origins of what would become the largest system of death camps in modern history.
Pravda was often the only place a reader could turn to to get a sense of what mattered to the Soviet leadership. When Stalin ran it, the newspaper set the dark tone for the vast repressions of the 1930's, using letter campaigns in which writers -- always assumed and later proved to be fictitious -- demanded the death penalty for "enemies of the people."

Sorry.  I am not as impressed by their bullshit as you are.

Your explanation is insufficient to generate reasonable doubt.
 

3. Paul mentions Jesus at the Last Supper. Did the Gospels quote from the works of Paul in regards to the Last Supper?

 
Does he?  Did he?  We do not know what, if anything, this paul fucker wrote.  We have only the later alleged copies of them in his name.  I don’t know why you can’t simply admit that.

What we have is what we are working with, with a scholarly consensus of being written between CE 50 - 62. Your disagreement provides no evidence or argument to offer any reasonable dispute.
 

4. Since we have the evidence listed above in 1, 2, and 3, does it not show that Paul may very well be the origin of the Christian religion?

 
You are easily impressed. I guess my biggest problem with your whole approach is that not only do you not question your sources it would never occur to you to question your sources. Do you also think that the Soviet labor camps were part of the worker’s paradise?  Why not?  Pravda wrote it down.  North Korea reported that Kim Jong-Il picked up a golf club for the first time in 1994, shot a 38 under par and had 11 holes-in-one.  I guess you believe that too, uncritically as you believe everything else.

You have provided no good reason to question the sources.

5. Paul makes the claim of him creating a Gospel  and also complains about worshippers wasting time on genealogies. This demonstrates the first and earliest mention of a written Gospel which includes genealogies, which is what we see in the current Gospels.

 
Would you care to give a citation for such a claim.  I looked.  No one else seems to know what you are talking about.

Below is Paul writing to Timothy about Timothy instructing followers not to teach any other doctrine nor to listen to any fables and endless genealogies, and this part of his instruction to Timothy ends with 1:11 in which Paul states clearly that the "glorious gospel" was committed to HIS trust. 

1Ti 1:3-4  Even as I begged you to remain at Ephesus, when I was going to Macedonia, that you might charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor to give heed to fables and endless genealogies which provide doubts rather than the nurture of God in faith.

1Ti 1:11  1Ti 1:10  for fornicators, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and anything else that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

Therefore, Paul was preaching his own Gospel, and further more he states the following about that Gospel:

Gal_3:1  O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you not to obey the truth, to whom before your eyes Jesus Christ was written among you crucified?

He literally tells the Galatians that it was written in their midst that Jesus Christ was crucified, indicating a written record of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

6. Paul's works mention Pilate, therefore we have a connection from Paul about his Jesus and Pilate.
 
Yes, in Timothy.  One of the pastoral epistles and one which is recognized as a later pseudonymous work.  Is fraud the best you can do?

So are you saying that you only accept the scholarly consensus when it accords with your views, but then reject that same scholarly consensus when it contradicts your views?

The bottom line is, it doesn't matter who wrote it as it is an agreement with the Pauline philosophy and the dating is from the same time period. So here we have Pilate being mentioned in this record from the year CE 62. 

[quote]7. Paul was a Roman, and all of Tacitus' sources indicate a Roman origin. Tacitus also mentions in the same sentence of a "mischievous superstition" breaking out in Judea concerning the execution of Christ.

 
Understanding that the Book of Acts is about as reliable as a $2 watch, would you care to provide your basis for that assertion?

Let me explain how to know:

1Co 9:1  Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? 

The word "free" above refers to directly to citizenship of the Roman Empire. The following is the translation of that word into English:

Strong's Number: 1658

eleuqeroV
eleutheros
el-yoo'-ther-os

probably from the alternate of ercomai - erchomai 2064; unrestrained (to go at pleasure), i.e. (as a citizen) not a slave (whether freeborn or manumitted), or (genitive case) exempt (from obligation or liability):--free (man, woman), at liberty.

https://www.htmlbible.com/sacrednamebibl....htm#S1658

Therefore, in the same context when Paul says the following:

1Co 9:20  And to the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might gain the Jews. To those who are under the law, I became as under the law, so that I might gain those who are under the law. 

Above he is speaking in contrast to being a Jew by saying "under the Law." He is directly referring to being a Roman under Roman law. We can see the contrast in the Greek text, and thereby we know he is not speaking of Jewish law.

Indeed, many Jews were born into Roman citizenship. 

8. To the Roman's the existence of Christ is a Jewish myth. Tacitus had a curious habit of making tongue-in-cheek comments in a humorous way, so his mentioning of the execution of a mythical creature may very well have been another if his attempts at infusing some humor into his works, and refers to the result of it all as being mischievous superstition.

 
Wow.  You hang a lot of weight on a single, probably interpolated, sentence in Annales.  I’m glad that you waste your time with this bullshit because if you built bridges out of such thin material people would be dying left and right.Do try to remember that even if that passage were authentic it still does not mention any “jesus.”

No evidence to support "probable interpolation" whatsoever. Assertions without evidence demonstrate no proposed possibility.

[Free]

For practical purposes we conclude they will progress forever.

For technical purposes we can't say it's proven.

I behave exactly the same as if I were making a positive knowledge claim that there is no god. But I'll be damned if some theist is going to claim I'm making a positive knowledge claim that I can't "prove". So I don't go there.

Theists have their deity conveniently squirreled away in an alternate dimension that no one has ever seen or visited, and until they liberate him from that box I can't prove OR disprove their deity's existence. I think it so vanishingly unlikely that I live my life precisely AS IF it were disproven ... but I'm not conceding the philosophical "gotcha" they are always trying to impose.

I go there based on practical purposes because we can demonstrate that numbers can be counted infinitely by merely progressing one number after another, and thereby demonstrating the proof of impossibility of absolute knowledge of infinity.

Hence, since it is impossible to prove infinity, yet the counting of numbers demonstrates the existence of infinity, we can conclude the existence of infinity rationally.

It isn't always about what we prove, but rather what we must accept as being factual. For example, if you agree that it is factual the the counting of numbers will go on infinitely, then you really have no choice but to conclude it as being factual.

Therefore, are you in a catch 22 here? The question you need to answer is; what is more truthful?

1. Is it more truthful to state as factual that numbers can be counted forever? Or ...

2. Is it more truthful to state that you don't know that numbers can be counted forever?

Which one appeals to you as possessing the greater truth value?

Also Intuitionism.

(Man, do I ever miss Girly with this. He would be all over this like white on rice. )

I think this also plays into fundamentalist notions of absolute truth / right / wrong. Since they assume there is such a thing -- even to the extent that they can claim an objectively correct hermeneutic can be ascertained, and applied without any subjectivity at all -- they cannot see any distinction between truth and "truth value", and conversely, they see a huge difference between "proven not to exist" and "extremely highly likely to not exist". Particularly when they are in such a weak position of argument that they must badger people about whether they can "prove" god doesn't exist as if that were some sort of proof that he does.

Since substantiatable beliefs must be formed out of falsifiable hypotheses, and theists have none, I declare myself lacking in belief for lack of evidence. They are always welcome to present evidence; they never do.

When I wake up every morning, in private, of course I absolutely do not have to wrestle with any doubt about the non-existence of god, and live exactly as if I have an active disbelief in him. There's no practical difference. Indeed, my belief began to falter in a way very similar to your "no chairs in the room" metaphor. Every time I went to the room for a chair -- no chair. Of course that can always be styled as a lack of sufficient piety, secret sin, practicing my faith incorrectly, or any number of excuses, and so I needed something more compelling than my own personal confusion or disappointment with my faith. Fortunately, there is a host of logical argument and fact-based reasoning that's far better than my frustration with the lack of chairs in the room.

But ultimately you can't get around the fact that their god is non-falsifiable by design, and I can't make a positive claim or form a belief around something about which proof is unobtanium. Since they hear "highly unlikely" as "I know deep down it's likely", I just refuse to engage with them in that way.

The bottom line is the evidence of absence is sufficient enough to falsify any claim of the existence of such a god in exactly the same way any claims of the existence of anything else is falsified by its non existence.

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin  I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle--but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? 

If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so."

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Dragon...he_analogy

Which brings us to the same question regarding a god.

There is simply no difference between an invisible, incorporeal omni-everything god and no god at all.

Hence, the positive claim that there is no god at all is not only justified, but proven via the lack of evidence, which supplies us with actual evidence of absence.

[Minimalist]

Story of Jesus a hoax

PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOL....UH, PROFANE, DON'T BRING UP THAT CRACKPOT ATWILL!!!!!!!!!

[Minimalist]

And we go around the circle again...with Free's bullshit in the middle.



Unsupported assumption detected. Although Irenaeus provides the earliest record of assigning names to the Gospel records, we cannot assume he invented those names.
 
 
When you find evidence that these bullshit names existed prior to 180 you can talk about “unsupported assumptions.”  I know you love to play little word games but you can stick that one up your ass.
 
1st Clement mentions Paul and quotes him extensively, and was written circa CE 90.
 
Sorry.  First Clement was dated to 90 on the basis of the “persecution of Domitian.”  The only problem is that there was no persecution under Domitian.  Just made up shit by jesus freaks of the sort that I know you fall for every time.
 
[u]https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/post-biblical-period/domitian-persecution-of-christians/[/u]
 
“So Jones concludes, “No convincing evidence exists for a Domitianic persecution of the Christians.”[u]4[/u]”
 
“Jones writes as a Roman historian outside of Biblical studies, but a New Testament scholar has similarly articulated this view. Leonard Thompson notes that a more critical reading of Eusebius raises doubts about a widespread persecution of Christians under Domitian. He concludes that “most modern commentators no longer accept a Domitianic persecution of Christians.”
 
As usual, I guess you dismiss anyone who disagrees with you.
 
“Your explanation is insufficient to generate reasonable doubt.”
 
It has long since become apparent to me that there is NOTHING which can generate reasonable doubt in your mind.  It is a serious defect in the closed-minded.  You should work on it - but you won’t.
 
What we have is what we are working with, with a scholarly consensus of being written between CE 50 - 62. Your disagreement provides no evidence or argument to offer any reasonable dispute.
 
Exactly as I suspected.  You have no solid evidence of anything.  Just the whining of assorted jesus freaks desperate to keep their boy relevant.
You will call if you ever find anything substantive, won’t you.  I won’t hold my breath waiting.
 
You have provided no good reason to question the sources.
 
As I said before, you are incapable of questioning your sources.  I regard this as your problem.  Maybe you can caddy for Kim Jong-Il?
 
Below is Paul writing to Timothy about Timothy instructing followers not to teach any other doctrine nor to listen to any fables and endless genealogies, and this part of his instruction to Timothy ends with 1:11 in which Paul states clearly that the "glorious gospel" was committed to HIS trust. 
 
1 Timothy, again.  What part of pseudonymous fraud gives you the most trouble. Even most jesus freaks know that it is phony bullshit.
 
No evidence to support "probable interpolation" whatsoever. Assertions without evidence demonstrate no proposed possibility.
 
Poor lad. I think I have used this source before.  This is where you get to tell me that Rudolf Bultmann was not a “real scholar.”
 
[u]https://vridar.org/2014/09/08/list-of-scholars-believing-pauls-letters-were-interpolated/[/u]
 
[b][b]List of scholars believing Paul’s letters were interpolated[/b]
We know that forgery and interpolation of texts were very [u]common in the ancient world[/u] so it is odd to hear some theologians insist that we should discount the possibility of any of Paul’s letters had been so doctored unless and until we find very compelling reasons — usually only by means of manuscript evidence — to think otherwise. Is this some hangover from the days when the Bible was supposed to be sacred and inerrant?
We do know not all biblical scholars take this advice, however. Here is a conveniently set out list of scholars who have argued that specific verses in the “authentic” Pauline letters were added by Christian scribes after Paul had departed the scene. The list is compiled from John Sturdy’s notes and published in 2007. Sturdy died in 1996 so the list includes no scholars who have added arguments for interpolations since then.
 
 
This list, of course, does not include your particularly useless 1 Timothy as that is commonly regarded as a fraud.  [/b]

[Free]

Unsupported assumption detected. Although Irenaeus provides the earliest record of assigning names to the Gospel records, we cannot assume he invented those names.

 
 
When you find evidence that these bullshit names existed prior to 180 you can talk about “unsupported assumptions.”  I know you love to play little word games but you can stick that one up your ass.

You made the claim that Irenaeus invented the names for the writers of the Gospels. 

Prove it.
 

1st Clement mentions Paul and quotes him extensively, and was written circa CE 90.

 
Sorry.  First Clement was dated to 90 on the basis of the “persecution of Domitian.”  The only problem is that there was no persecution under Domitian.  Just made up shit by jesus freaks of the sort that I know you fall for every time.
 
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dail...hristians/
 
“So Jones concludes, “No convincing evidence exists for a Domitianic persecution of the Christians.”4”
 
“Jones writes as a Roman historian outside of Biblical studies, but a New Testament scholar has similarly articulated this view. Leonard Thompson notes that a more critical reading of Eusebius raises doubts about a widespread persecution of Christians under Domitian. He concludes that “most modern commentators no longer accept a Domitianic persecution of Christians.”
 
As usual, I guess you dismiss anyone who disagrees with you.
 
“Your explanation is insufficient to generate reasonable doubt.”
 
It has long since become apparent to me that there is NOTHING which can generate reasonable doubt in your mind.  It is a serious defect in the closed-minded.  You should work on it - but you won’t. 
 
What we have is what we are working with, with a scholarly consensus of being written between CE 50 - 62. Your disagreement provides no evidence or argument to offer any reasonable dispute.
 
Exactly as I suspected.  You have no solid evidence of anything.  Just the whining of assorted jesus freaks desperate to keep their boy relevant.
You will call if you ever find anything substantive, won’t you.  I won’t hold my breath waiting. 
 
You have provided no good reason to question the sources.
 
As I said before, you are incapable of questioning your sources.  I regard this as your problem.  Maybe you can caddy for Kim Jong-Il? 
 
Below is Paul writing to Timothy about Timothy instructing followers not to teach any other doctrine nor to listen to any fables and endless genealogies, and this part of his instruction to Timothy ends with 1:11 in which Paul states clearly that the "glorious gospel" was committed to HIS trust. 
 
1 Timothy, again.  What part of pseudonymous fraud gives you the most trouble. Even most jesus freaks know that it is phony bullshit. 
 
No evidence to support "probable interpolation" whatsoever. Assertions without evidence demonstrate no proposed possibility.
 
Poor lad. I think I have used this source before.  This is where you get to tell me that Rudolf Bultmann was not a “real scholar.”
 
https://vridar.org/2014/09/08/list-of-sc...erpolated/
 
List of scholars believing Paul’s letters were interpolated
We know that forgery and interpolation of texts were very common in the ancient world so it is odd to hear some theologians insist that we should discount the possibility of any of Paul’s letters had been so doctored unless and until we find very compelling reasons — usually only by means of manuscript evidence — to think otherwise. Is this some hangover from the days when the Bible was supposed to be sacred and inerrant?
We do know not all biblical scholars take this advice, however. Here is a conveniently set out list of scholars who have argued that specific verses in the “authentic” Pauline letters were added by Christian scribes after Paul had departed the scene. The list is compiled from John Sturdy’s notes and published in 2007. Sturdy died in 1996 so the list includes no scholars who have added arguments for interpolations since then.
 
 
This list, of course, does not include your particularly useless 1 Timothy as that is commonly regarded as a fraud.  

Blah blah blah.

None of this disputes 1st Clement at all.

[Bucky Ball]

Which brings us to the same question regarding a god.
There is simply no difference between an invisible, incorporeal omni-everything god and no god at all.
Hence, the positive claim that there is no god at all is not only justified, but proven via the lack of evidence, which supplies us with actual evidence of absence.

Nothing is proven. Nothing. 
Your claim that it's proven by lack of evidence does not follow from the fact that, at the moment, you have no evidence, or do not accept what many consider, to be evidence. Your lack supplies you with nothing. You have not proven that you should have objective evidence ... ie you have not demonstrated that what you are claiming as "absence" is both actually absence and that what your opinion claims as absence, is evidence.

[Free]

Which brings us to the same question regarding a god.
There is simply no difference between an invisible, incorporeal omni-everything god and no god at all.
Hence, the positive claim that there is no god at all is not only justified, but proven via the lack of evidence, which supplies us with actual evidence of absence.

Nothing is proven. Nothing. 
Your claim that it's proven by lack of evidence does not follow from the fact that, at the moment, you have no evidence ...

Correction:

Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

Thank you and have a wonderful evening.

[Bucky Ball]

Which brings us to the same question regarding a god.
There is simply no difference between an invisible, incorporeal omni-everything god and no god at all.
Hence, the positive claim that there is no god at all is not only justified, but proven via the lack of evidence, which supplies us with actual evidence of absence.

Nothing is proven. Nothing. 
Your claim that it's proven by lack of evidence does not follow from the fact that, at the moment, you have no evidence ...

Correction:

Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

Thank you and have a wonderful evening.

You have not demonstrated that anything is missing.

[Free]

Nothing is proven. Nothing. 
Your claim that it's proven by lack of evidence does not follow from the fact that, at the moment, you have no evidence ...

Correction:

Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

Thank you and have a wonderful evening.

You have not demonstrated that anything is missing.

Yes, I have.

God is missing.

[Minimalist]

And so is his fucking son.

[Free]

And so is his fucking son.

If there is no God, there is no son.

There's just some god damn wanna-be who was crucified for his bullshit.

[Minimalist]

Or not. 

But it is a great yarn and has fooled a shitload of people over the centuries.