A beginner's guide to being an atheist, by Richard Dawkins

[Cypress]

Got it.

Now, on those tough questions about Christianity that you seem to want to avoid. And millions of other Christians.

Look, I know walking on water and virgin births are the most important things in all of world religions to you.

The fact is those stories can be cut out of the Bible or treated as poetic allegory, and it wouldn't change the core essence of Christian belief, ethics, and practice at all.

All the attempts to draw analogies between Jesus with the Greek god Zeus or Norse god Odin are unimpressive.

Christianity and Buddhism are unique because the intellectual basis of those religions are based on a historical claim about a historical person, according to witness accounts.

The only question about the historical evidence for the ministry, death, and resurrection of the historical person Jesus of Nazareth is whether you believe the witnesses, and the people who interviewed the witnesses, fabricated the account or simply misunderstood their experiences.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Look, I know walking on water and virgin births are the most important things in all of world religions to you.
The fact is those stories can be cut out of the Bible or treated as poetic allegory, and it wouldn't change the core essence of Christian belief, ethics, and practice at all.
All the attempts to draw analogies between Jesus with the Greek god Zeus or Norse god Odin are unimpressive.

Christianity and Buddhism are unique because the intellectual basis of those religions are based on a historical claim about a historical person, according to witness accounts.

The only question about the historical evidence for the ministry, death, and resurrection of the historical person Jesus of Nazareth is whether you believe the witnesses, and the people who interviewed the witnesses, fabricated the account or simply misunderstood their experiences.

An excellent point about the fact both Christianity and Buddhism are based upon historical people. The same can be said about Judaism with Moses even though the evidence on the existence of Moses is weak as the evidence of King Arthur.

 

[gmark77]

Look, I know walking on water and virgin births are the most important things in all of world religions to you.

The fact is those stories can be cut out of the Bible or treated as poetic allegory, and it wouldn't change the core essence of Christian belief, ethics, and practice at all.

Ahh, the master gardener is busy picking his cherries!

The only question about the historical evidence for the ministry, death, and resurrection of the historical person Jesus of Nazareth is whether you believe the witnesses, and the people who interviewed the witnesses, fabricated the account or simply misunderstood their experiences.

Why don't the witness stories of the resurrection comport with each other? Which one of the different stories do YOU prefer, master gardener?


(Go ahead and hit up Google AI to help you with this. We all know that's what you're doing right now)

 

[Into the Night]

Perry the reason I am not constantly frantically Googling like you and getting things wrong like you do is because I read hundreds of books, take hundreds of classes, and watch thousands of hours of documentaries and podcasts.

Your method of cherry picking, frantic Googling, and confirmation bias is absolutely the wrong way to go about getting a decent working knowledge of any subject. You just have to do the hard work of actually learning.

You aren't learning.

 

[gmark77]

You aren't learning.

Cypress uses Google AI to understand the topics. He showed us.

That's why he mocks everyone else for using Google. He's even worse. He uses Google AI because Google is too "difficult" for him to use to understand a topic.

 

[Cypress]

Why don't the witness stories of the resurrection comport with each other?!

ftfy....It would actually make me more skeptical if they were all identical. That would be strong evidence they collaborated and copied from each other.

Witness accounts never match up in detail. Any cop or police detective will tell you that.

 

[domer76]

Pick out one of your strawmen and debate it? LOL Hard pass, domer76.

Despite all of your screaming and theatrics, I'm not religious. If you'd read my posts, my curiosity is piqued by adult Americans who resort to purely emotional responses on certain topics. With the MAGAts, it's politics. With you, it's Christianity. I discount people who are obviously mentally ill like Fredo or deficient like Perry since the reason for their views is clearly based upon their mental issues.

Why you hate Christianity so much that you turn into an emotional hot mess whereas on other topics, you appear normal, is a mystery to me. You won't admit to the reason. Your choice. I suspect it's still a very traumatic memory for you.

I didn’t think you’d take the challenge. I was correct.

 

[gmark77]

It would actually make me more skeptical if they were all actually identical. That would be strong evidence they collaborated and copied from each other.

Witness accounts never match up in detail. Any cop or police detective will tell you that.

LOLOLOLOOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Justification o rama.

Check out "unfalsifiability" some time. Go ahead use Google AI since you will have to.

 

[domer76]

My guess is partly one-upmanship. i.e. bullying. It's a common reaction from weak people who have been bullied to seek out others to bully. What could be easier than someone who can't harm you on an anonymous chat forum?

Another is Appeal to Authority, specifically argumentum ad seipsum since they often use themselves as the authority as many MAGAts and @domer76 frequently post.

Appeal to Authority - Examples and Definition

Appeal to Autority is the simplest logical fallacy - just referencing expert's opinion. False Authority, Questionable Authority, Celebrity examples.

www.logical-fallacy.com

argumentum ad seipsum is when person references themselves as authority.


Person in power or other government official are definitely in better position to use this way of argument because the leader is expected to produce not so much a logically reasoned, but an authoritative opinion. If the same is expressed by someone else, then the expectation changes: the opinion should be reasonably justified.

You missed the mark on what Appeal to Authority means.

 

[gmark77]

I will be checking out Google AI as soon as GMark speaks. I'm so uneducated it's almost scary! But I have YouTube and Wikipedia and Google AI can explain it all to me!

ftfy.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I didn’t think you’d take the challenge. I was correct.

Congrats on being so pleased with yourself.

 

[Cypress]

An excellent point about the fact both Christianity and Buddhism are based upon historical people. The same can be said about Judaism with Moses even though the evidence on the existence of Moses is weak as the evidence of King Arthur.

Agree. Right, I thought about mentioning Judaism, but the historicity of Moses is highly dubious.

I think Buddhism, and particularly Christianity are making a historical claim about a historical person. That is a totally different intellectual basis than the pure mythology of Odin, Zeus, and Ra.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

 

[gmark77]

Right, I thought about mentioning Judaism, but the historicity of Moses is highly dubious.

I think Buddhism, and particularly Christianity are making a historical claim about a historical person. That is a totally different intellectual basis than the pure mythology of Odin, Zeus, and Ra.

Here's a quote from a famous Wikipedia Scholar:

I only had to use Google

Yuppers. Had to use Google. Google AI at that.

Take all Cy's "erudition" with a big ol' grain o' salt because it's probably someone else's thinking or a machine's thinking.

 

[gmark77]

Agree. Right, I thought about mentioning Judaism, but the historicity of Moses is highly dubious.

But he's in the BOOOOOOOOK!

Where did your flawless reasoning go?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Agree. Right, I thought about mentioning Judaism, but the historicity of Moses is highly dubious.

I think Buddhism, and particularly Christianity are making a historical claim about a historical person. That is a totally different intellectual basis than the pure mythology of Odin, Zeus, and Ra.

Agreed 100%.

Even if the stories drifted into myth, the fact they are based on historical people is very interesting.

 

[domer76]

Look, I know walking on water and virgin births are the most important things in all of world religions to you.

The fact is those stories can be cut out of the Bible or treated as poetic allegory, and it wouldn't change the core essence of Christian belief, ethics, and practice at all.

All the attempts to draw analogies between Jesus with the Greek god Zeus or Norse god Odin are unimpressive.

Christianity and Buddhism are unique because the intellectual basis of those religions are based on a historical claim about a historical person, according to witness accounts.

The only question about the historical evidence for the ministry, death, and resurrection of the historical person Jesus of Nazareth is whether you believe the witnesses, and the people who interviewed the witnesses, fabricated the account or simply misunderstood their experiences.

No, pally boy, one cannot simply “cut those out of the Bible”. They are there and part of the canon.

It’s dang funny when apologists quote passages they like as “literal” and others that are not so favorable to their narrative as “allegory”.

I never drew a comparison of Jesus to anyone. He was merely an apocalyptic Jew. That’s all I’ve ever claimed. What I DID compare is the polytheistic YAHWEH storm god and the pantheon of which he was a member to the other mythical gods. Stop twisting my words.

Hey, about those resurrection witnesses. Paul said there was “the twelve”, then 500. Who were “the twelve” and why do we not have ANY written account from those 500? Surely, out of 500 people, SOMEONE would have an account of such an incredible miracle. And why did he fail to mention the women, the supposed ACTUAL first witnesses?

 

[gmark77]

No, pally boy, one cannot simply “cut those out of the Bible”. They are there and part of the canon.

Cy is a master gardener. He specializes in cherries. And the picking thereof.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Please, Cy, please, please, please pay attention to me.

 

[Cypress]

No, pally boy, one cannot simply “cut those out of the Bible”. They are there and part of the canon.

It’s dang funny when apologists quote passages they like as “literal” and others that are not so favorable to their narrative as “allegory”.

Christianity makes you very angry.

Ancient authors usually mixed historical factoids with myth, allegory, hyperbole. They did not write analytical history. You are using modern standards and applying them to ancient people.

You only apply your hyper-skeptical standards to Christian authors, but to no one else. That calls into question your impartiality. I've never seen you write that historians should throw away Herodotus and the Norse Sagas because they mix mythology and hyperbole with nuggets of historical data.

I notice you did not dispute my statement that whether or not one takes walking on water literally, it does nothing to change the core essence of Christian doctrine concerning faith, grace, salvation, ethics.

I never drew a comparison of Jesus to anyone. He was merely an apocalyptic Jew. That’s all I’ve ever claimed. What I DID compare is the polytheistic YAHWEH storm god and the pantheon of which he was a member to the other mythical gods. Stop twisting my words.

Hey, about those resurrection witnesses. Paul said there was “the twelve”, then 500. Who were “the twelve” and why do we not have ANY written account from those 500? Surely, out of 500 people, SOMEONE would have an account of such an incredible miracle. And why did he fail to mention the women, the supposed ACTUAL first witnesses?

I don't think there is a militant atheist on this board who hasn't tried to pull the trick of equating Christian belief in Jesus with ancient pagan belief in Thor, Odin, or the Sun god Ra.

That is a terrible analogy because it ignores that the intellectual basis of religions like Christianity and Buddhism are based on historical claims about historical people.