Is God real post your thoughts!

[Shinjula]

"The law of God is perfect."

Thats not quite the same statement though, i wonder hows its interpreted, esp from the original text?

 

i.e. that statment could only apply to statements recorded reagrding gods law.

 

 

 

incidentally the beauty of mathematics IS the main reason i do believe in god, i just dont believe in any religeon.

[Shinjula]

Sorry, does the Proof of the Bibles fallibility need a repost in order to get a response?

 

 

 

Actually ive just realised my previous post, entirely coincidentally is precisely godels incompleteness theorem as applied to bible infallibility

 

 

 

If the bible conatins everything we need to know, then

 

 

 

either the bible contains a statment which says its fallible

 

...in which case it is either true and it cannot contain everything we need to know, contradiction

 

...or it is false in which case the bible is wrong, contradiction

 

 

 

or it doesnt

 

...in which case either the bible doesnt conatin everything we need, or bible infallibility is unimportant and cannot be used to jstify anything of importance.

 

 

 

 

 

Yey, knew it could be done. :)

[Sly_Wizard]

Took me a while to think about this.

 

 

 

Actually ive just realised my previous post, entirely coincidentally is precisely godels incompleteness theorem as applied to bible infallibility

 

 

 

If the bible conatins everything we need to know, then

 

 

 

either the bible contains a statment which says its fallible

 

 

 

...in which case it is either true and it cannot contain everything we need to know, contradiction

 

...or it is false in which case the bible is wrong, contradiction

 

 

 

or it doesnt

 

 

 

...in which case either the bible doesnt conatin everything we need, or bible infallibility is unimportant and cannot be used to jstify anything of importance.

 

 

 

Yey, knew it could be done. :)

 

 

 

I'm sorry, but the first assumption (Bolded) is patently untrue and can be thrown out, since we know the Bible doesn't contain a statement saying it's fallible. The second assumption (Underlined) is also untrue, because the Bible indirectly insinuates that it is infallible.

[Ginger_Warrior]

What are you saying?

 

 

 

The Bible says it's infallible, but at the same time, it doesn't?

 

 

 

I'm utterly confused at your logic.

[Shinjula]

those arent assumptions, its a logical question with one of two possibile answers, fortunately because the bible is small and because you know it well, we can say that the bible does nowhere mention that it is fallible.

 

 

 

Essentially the first set is there for completenes sake as it is an inherent part of the incompleteness theorem, even if we dont need it. It also is there in case of back tracking so that, we can include any interpretation of the bible, if we interpret the bible, as you suggest as having indirect statements asserting its infallibility, the second block of statements are what concern us, however if someone new were to also join in and assert that the statements were too indirect, we would have the first block of statements to show that there is still a contradiction the other way.

 

 

 

Now remember the way it has to be positied, (the way godel did it), the question isnt whether or not the bible says its infallible, its whether or not the bible says it *IS* fallible, the direction of it is important and what makes the argument work, there isnt a statment in the bible which says "The bible IS fallible", we can be sure of this, therefore we can be sure that its categorical fallibility isnt something we need to know.

[Shinjula]

What are you saying?

 

The Bible says it's infallible, but at the same time, it doesn't?

 

I'm utterly confused at your logic.

Lol, I'm saying that because the bible doesnt categorically state that it is fallible, and with the definition of infallible taken to be, contains everything we need to know (from earlier in the thread),

 

whether or not the bible is infallible, cant be something we need to know.

 

 

 

 

 

Incidentally, you should feel free to see if changing the definition of infallible leads to different results

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT : Couple of errors in the logic on the last two posts, just fixed

[Ginger_Warrior]

What are you saying?

 

The Bible says it's infallible, but at the same time, it doesn't?

 

I'm utterly confused at your logic.

Lol, I'm saying that because the bible doesnt categorically state that it is fallible, and with the definition of infallible taken to be, contains everything we need to know (from earlier in the thread),

 

whether or not the bible is infallible, cant be something we need to know.

 

 

 

 

 

Incidentally, you should feel free to see if changing the definition of infallible leads to different results

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT : Couple of errors in the logic on the last two posts, just fixed

 

I was actually replying to Sly. He seemed to be having his cake and eating it with his reply to your post.

 

 

 

It's quite clear that you can't argue the Bible doesn't say it's infallible, and then proceed to argue in the same paragraph that it implies exactly the opposite.

[Shinjula]

Hmm just thought of something, if god is omnipotent, does that mean he can create something logically impossible?

 

[personally i believe in a non omnipotent god - the logical universe suggests it, logic transcends god to my mind]

[Ginger_Warrior]

The concept of an omnipotent God seems like a logical fallacy to me. The idea that there's millions of people around the world who refuse to believe in His path, and he refuses to do anything to convince them He's there when He could literally do anything seems like total nonsense.

[Shinjula]

and to me also, but i suppose from the perspective of someone convinced of gods omnipotence theres a simple argument that logically if god is omnipotent then he created the laws of logic and does not have to obey them.

 

 

 

That sort of a creature would then be completely alien to us and fulfill the ineffable quality hes supposed to possess.

 

 

 

Of course it would be difficult to describe us as 'made in his image', then whosays he is required to make sense.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately my response is that whilst this is a god that could exist, in no way what so ever would i worship him. The sort of creature that would do that would be nothing that i would have anything to do with.

[warri0r45]

Hmm just thought of something, if god is omnipotent, does that mean he can create something logically impossible?

 

[personally i believe in a non omnipotent god - the logical universe suggests it, logic transcends god to my mind]

 

 

 

Like a four-sided triange? I don't think so, hence why I don't find the concept of an omnipotent god possible either.

[Sly_Wizard]

What are you saying?

 

 

 

The Bible says it's infallible, but at the same time, it doesn't?

 

 

 

I'm utterly confused at your logic.

 

 

 

No, I said the Bible doesn't say it's fallible and indeed insinuates it is infallible. The first premise notwithstanding, as it is completely untrue, we can focus on the second premise and the two conclusions that follow from it. The first, the conclusion "...in which case either the bible doesn't contain everything we need", is false because the Bible implies it's infallibility by claiming God is both perfect and the Divine Inspirer of the Bible. The second conclusion, that "...bible infallibility is unimportant and cannot be used to justify anything of importance" is false because, not only does the Bible insinuate it's infallibility as seem prior, but if Biblical infallibility is unimportant, then the Bible itself becomes unimportant and whether or not the Bible indeed mentions it's own infallibility therefore becomes unimportant, presupposing any need to ask whether or not the Bible speaks of its own infallibility or not.

 

 

 

This is what I said initially. You just made me elaborate on it.

 

 

 

those arent assumptions, its a logical question with one of two possibile answers, fortunately because the bible is small and because you know it well, we can say that the bible does nowhere mention that it is fallible.

 

 

 

Erm... They are both premises upon which the following conclusions are derives.

 

 

 

those arent assumptions, its a logical question with one of two possibile answers, fortunately because the bible is small and because you know it well, we can say that the bible does nowhere mention that it is fallible.

 

 

 

Erm... They are premises. And no, the Bible doesn't.

 

 

 

Essentially the first set is there for completenes sake as it is an inherent part of the incompleteness theorem, even if we dont need it. It also is there in case of back tracking so that, we can include any interpretation of the bible, if we interpret the bible, as you suggest as having indirect statements asserting its infallibility, the second block of statements are what concern us, however if someone new were to also join in and assert that the statements were too indirect, we would have the first block of statements to show that there is still a contradiction the other way.

 

 

 

First of all, anyone claiming the statements too indirect would simply be playing Devil's Advocate, for the simple fact that we could set up a syllogism to show why the Bible is claimed to be infallible (God is without error. God Divinely Inspired the Bible. Therefore, the Bible is without error). Therefore, we do not need the first set of premises. Furthermore, since the Bible does insinuate it's infallibility, the second portion also becomes unneeded because it's stooped in the assumption that the Bible makes no mention of it's infallibility when, indeed, it does.

 

 

 

Now remember the way it has to be positied, (the way godel did it), the question isnt whether or not the bible says its infallible, its whether or not the bible says it *IS* fallible, the direction of it is important and what makes the argument work, there isnt a statment in the bible which says "The bible IS fallible", we can be sure of this, therefore we can be sure that its categorical fallibility isnt something we need to know.

 

 

 

This is why Godel's theory fails when trying to apply it here. If the Bible says it is infallible, it is saying that it is not fallible. The fact that it doesn't use the words "not fallible" and is therefore incomplete is a terrible game of semantics as, logically speaking, the two are the same. It seems to me that you're trying to act as if it's the same vein as saying, for example, "I'm black" and "I'm not white", whereas the first one means I'm black while the second means that I could be any color besides black. This isn't the same as the first statement, whereas there are only two choices: Fallible or infallible.

 

 

 

Correct me if you think I'm wrong, though.

 

 

 

It's quite clear that you can't argue the Bible doesn't say it's infallible, and then proceed to argue in the same paragraph that it implies exactly the opposite.

 

 

 

Except that's not what I said. I said that the Bible doesn't say it is fallible and, indeed, insinuates that it is infallible.

[Shinjula]

No youve missed the point, probably because you seem confused about how exactly the proof works, this is no bad thing, its a complex proof.

 

 

 

Insinuating infallibility isnt enough to counter act this, because we are taking the bible as everything we ever will need to know.

 

if the bible doesnt tell us it is "everything well ever need to know in language everyone can understand", then it cant be "everything well ever need to know in language everyone can understand", SINCE IF IT WAS, IT WOULD BE IN THE BIBLE TELLING US SO.

[Shinjula]

>>>>First of all, anyone claiming the statements too indirect would simply be playing Devil's Advocate, for the simple fact that we could set up a syllogism to show why the Bible is claimed to be infallible (God is without error. God Divinely Inspired the Bible. Therefore, the Bible is without error). Therefore, we do not need the first set of premises. Furthermore, since the Bible does insinuate it's infallibility, the second portion also becomes unneeded because it's stooped in the assumption that the Bible makes no mention of it's infallibility when, indeed, it does.

 

 

 

No, that would simply be a different belief system than yours, I'm thinking here of people who believe that god is without error, but the bible is an interpretive document, i simply have a wider group that i am disproving than simply your belief system

 

 

 

Edit: it also occurs to me that your syllogism is in error, since god is quite capable, for his own reasons, of creating imperfect creations (man), just because god divinely inspired the bible does not imply its innerrancy, since it is up to god whether or not he wanted it inerrant

[Shinjula]

Sorry, i have to head off now, ill look at any further posts later on

 

thanks for the debate, its been good.

[Sly_Wizard]

Hmm just thought of something, if god is omnipotent, does that mean he can create something logically impossible?

 

 

 

Questions like these are highly ridiculous. They're akin to asking if you can be taller than yourself, or if any city can be the tallest in the world. They make little sense.

 

 

 

No youve missed the point, probably because you seem confused about how exactly the proof works, this is no bad thing, its a complex proof.

 

 

 

Insinuating infallibility isnt enough to counter act this, because we are taking the bible as everything we ever will need to know.

 

if the bible doesnt tell us it is everything well ever need to know in language everyone can understand, then it cant be "everything well ever need to know in language everyone can understand", SINCE IF IT WAS, IT WOULD BE IN THE BIBLE TELLING US SO.

 

 

 

I understand the proof well enough to know why it isn't applicable outside of the realm of mathematics without calling everything "a falsehood" and/or "unimportant".

 

 

 

Yet again, it seems to me that you're playing a game semantics. That is, the Bible implies that it is infallible rather than not, it is fallible when, in fact, these are the same statements. I really don't see where the disagreement is coming from, aside from the fact that the Bible doesn't explicitly say "not fallible".

 

 

 

No, that would simply be a different belief system than yours, I'm thinking here of people who believe that god is without error, but the bible is an interpretive document, i simply have a wider group that i am disproving than simply your belief system.

 

 

 

Then you're not speaking of the Bible and Christianity, then.

 

 

 

Edit: it also occurs to me that your syllogism is in error, since god is quite capable, for his own reasons, of creating imperfect creations (man), just because god divinely inspired the bible does not imply its innerrancy, since it is up to god whether or not he wanted it inerrant

 

 

 

The syllogism is fine, as God did not create man imperfect. He created man perfect, who then later became imperfect.

[Zierro]

No, I said the Bible doesn't say it's fallible and indeed insinuates it is infallible. The first premise notwithstanding, as it is completely untrue, we can focus on the second premise and the two conclusions that follow from it. The first, the conclusion "...in which case either the bible doesn't contain everything we need", is false because the Bible implies it's infallibility by claiming God is both perfect and the Divine Inspirer of the Bible. The second conclusion, that "...bible infallibility is unimportant and cannot be used to justify anything of importance" is false because, not only does the Bible insinuate it's infallibility as seem prior, but if Biblical infallibility is unimportant, then the Bible itself becomes unimportant and whether or not the Bible indeed mentions it's own infallibility therefore becomes unimportant, presupposing any need to ask whether or not the Bible speaks of its own infallibility or not.

 

 

 

How convenient for Christianity that the bible states it's perfect... even though it has to be the most contradictory pieces of work I have ever heard of.

 

 

 

Tell me, which statement is more "infallible"? And try your hardest not to evade it this time:

 

 

 

Thou shall not kill or thou shall kill gays?

[Lenticular_J]

The concept of an omnipotent God seems like a logical fallacy to me. The idea that there's millions of people around the world who refuse to believe in His path, and he refuses to do anything to convince them He's there when He could literally do anything seems like total nonsense.

 

I don't think I believe in God being omnipotent. I believe He has the capabilities to be omnipotent, but chooses not to.

 

 

 

Of course, of He was, I guess we could consider that He really would work in mysterious ways.

 

 

 

Hmm just thought of something, if god is omnipotent, does that mean he can create something logically impossible?

 

Probably. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense in the world, anyways. And the phrase "logically impossible" is a little widespread. From our logic, the concept of the size of the Sun is impossible. I know I can't comprehend it.

 

 

 

And Zierro: It would be "shalt not", not "shall not".

 

 

 

Biblical grammar is quite teh leet.

[Sly_Wizard]

How convenient for Christianity that the bible states it's perfect... even though it has to be the most contradictory pieces of work I have ever heard of.

 

 

 

Tell me, which statement is more "infallible"?

 

 

 

Thou shall not kill or thou shall kill gays?

 

 

 

1.) It's known that the word kill in the 10 Commandments is used in the context of murder.

 

 

 

2.) I don't know any commandment which commands people to murder gays. I do believe that if someone was caught engaging in homosexual acts, though, that they were to be stoned (But don't quote me on that) which is not murder, as it was punishment by the law and being killed under the law cannot be deemed as murder (Murder = Unlawful).

 

 

 

3.) Furthermore, I refer you to whatever I said in an earlier post to you about killing sinners.

[tryto]

Have I not already refuted this? Name a historical reference to Jesus in his time that is not a forgery. I mentioned several sources that refer to Jesus, and none of them are contemporary or hold water. Please, simply cite a source and prove me wrong.

 

 

 

No, you didn't refute anything. All you've done is scream "They're not contemporary and they don't hold water" which is itself a fairly odd claim, to say the least. Not only is the definition you're using of contemporary incorrect, but you then apply standards to the Bible (In this case, the Gospels) that are not applied to other historical documents.

 

 

 

The Bible claims to be the INFALLIBLE WORD OF GOD, WHERE IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW IT YOU WILL BE PUNISHED FOR ALL ETERNITY. Less is applied to the Bible; Luke is the only Gospel that could actually be called a historical document, as he at least alludes to a source and where he got his information.

 

 

 

"[Luke and Acts are] the only book in the New Testament that actually belongs to the genre of history. Luke alone claims to have written a history (a diagesis...pragmatô, "narrative of events," Luke 1:1). Luke alone claims to have done the work of a historian for the purpose of establishing an accurate account (Luke 1:2-3). Luke alone employs any of the distinct markers of the historical genre (such as fixing dates, e.g. Luke 3:1). And Luke's preface consciously mimics those of known histories, and is an important marker of that genre--a marker absent from all other Gospels. In contrast, the other Gospels seem to fit the genre of mythic biography, in the specialized sense of a "didactic hagiography," an instructional account of a holy man, identical to the legends of medieval saints or the sacred biographies of men like Pythagoras or Empedocles. The meaning of such texts could lay more in universal truths communicated symbolically than in particular claims to historical fact as we understand them today. Whether you agree with that or not, only Luke-Acts bears any definite claim to being a historical account."

 

~Carrier

 

 

 

Real historians tell their readers HOW they got their information and where. They tell if there are contradicting views, and they explain why they came to these conclusions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Continued below*

 

 

 

Surely you read my post on how the Gospels were not written until at least 20-50 years after his death at the EARLIEST?

 

 

 

Apparently you are unfamiliar with historicity as it relates to the Gospels and Jesus. Twenty years is a relatively SHORT period of time for writings concerning Jesus to exist after his death to begin surfacing. Most writings of a central figure do not begin to appear until, at the very least, one to two centuries after his or her death. Look at these two links:

 

 

 

http://www.carm.org/evidence/textualevidence.htm

 

 

 

http://www.creatingfutures.net/validity.html

 

 

 

As you can clearly see, the Bible (In this case the New Testament) far surpasses any other literature of the Classical era in every respect. To try to cast doubt on the New Testament because there is a span of approximately 70 years between Jesus' death and the completion of the New Testament is incredibly dubious, considering you would have to simultaneously discredit ALL other major works of not only the Classical period, but also the Early and maybe even the High Middle Ages, as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Iliad was never the holy books of a major religion. It is simply a fact that allegedly holy books are regularly reproduced by members of their respective religions. The larger the religion, the larger the number of copies made. There are also large numbers of copies of the Buddhist Sutras and Islam's Koran. The number of texts is greatly increased in all of these counting by the sheer number of fragments, which can be merely a few verses. While you're on the subject of infallibility, the SECOND oldest surviving christian document is a non-canonical gospel from around 150CE, which differs in some of the canonical gospels stories.(The oldest is a fragment of John from about 125).

 

 

 

I won't bother debating this point, although it has been questioned by Schurer and others. Would you not admit that if you found a passage in a historical text that was a clear forgery, it would not cast doubt on the rest of his works?

 

 

 

No. Mainly because it's been proven to not be a fake.

 

 

 

As Mr. Garrison would say, Present them.

 

 

 

And? See my refutation of the suffering for a lie chronicles. Do you believe Mithra rose from the dead? What possible motive did people who spread that particular fairy tale have to gain from it?

 

 

 

This is not a refutation. This is, pure and simple, a conspiracy theory and a fringe belief among historians. Not only that, but it sounds like something picked straight out of Zeitgeist.

 

 

 

Fine. Let's use Hinduism if you get so antsy about using a similar religion. Who first spread it? You obviously aren't a Hindu and don't believe that it's true, so what motive would they have had to use it.

 

 

 

"Dude, everyone knows Odysseus existed, only naive people don't." "Odysseus existed, end of story".

 

 

 

This doesn't even warrant a serious response.

 

 

 

Oh? When I quote you exactly and change the noun, it doesn't get a serious response, but when you say it, it's okay?

 

 

 

And I take it you didn't read the link I gave you, huh? Yes, it's to Wikipedia but it's got oodles and oodles of documented sources, which you could at the very least take time to read. But, alas, I doubt you will. You'd rather keep spouting this "Jesus didn't exist!" nonsense.

 

 

 

I did read it. I then didn't reply about it, because it didn't site any historical sources other than the Gospels, as far as I could tell. There are other cites in other wikipedia articles, but I've addressed those in my very first post on this subject. It was mainly to modern day historians; I could link you to Richard Carrier and others all day long, but that wouldn't be fun at all.

 

 

 

Well done. Much kudos. =D>

 

 

 

Now prove he's the Son of God. You have 48 hours. Go!

 

 

 

Don't need to.

 

 

 

Proving whether or not Jesus existed is not in the same vein as proving whether or not he's the Son of God. One is in the realm of history, the other religious studies (Or philosophy, either or). There is no reason to believe that accepting Jesus existed means you have to accept he's also the Son of God.

 

 

 

But I'm sure you knew that and all.

 

 

 

 

 

This is turning into a pissing contest, which serves no purpose whatsoever. I can post stuff, and you can link to wikipedia and baptist sites all day, but it won't serve a purpose.

 

 

 

Hmm. On the current subject, I think I'll just put in ONE contradiction, chosen at random.

 

 

 

Who is the father of Joseph?

 

 

 

Matthew 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

 

 

 

Luke 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.

 

 

 

So? Who's Jesus' Step-granddaddy?

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: Wait. Sly, you are FOR a universal morality, but you're still defending this guy:

 

 

 

"They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man. Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba-the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho. Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. Moses was angry with the officers of the army-the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds-who returned from the battle.

 

 

 

"Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. [Numbers 31:7-18]"

 

 

 

"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God. [Deuteronomy 20:10-18 New International Version]"

[Shinjula]

I understand the proof well enough to know why it isn't applicable outside of the realm of mathematics without calling everything "a falsehood" and/or "unimportant".

 

Yet again, it seems to me that you're playing a game semantics. That is, the Bible implies that it is infallible rather than not, it is fallible when, in fact, these are the same statements. I really don't see where the disagreement is coming from, aside from the fact that the Bible doesn't explicitly say "not fallible".

I really am not playing at semantics here, just logic, but i have realised that it doesnt matter whether or not the bible doesnt say fallible or whether it indirectly says infallible, the arguement works as long as it doesnt categorically states its totally infallible, which it doesnt. If it doesnt say infallible, then infallible is clearly not something we need to know, otherwise it would be in there.

 

And just because something is mathematically true doesnt mean it cant be applied to the real world, in fact thats often the whole point of mathematics.

 

No, that would simply be a different belief system than yours, I'm thinking here of people who believe that god is without error, but the bible is an interpretive document, i simply have a wider group that i am disproving than simply your belief system.

Then you're not speaking of the Bible and Christianity, then.

 

I dont know how you are defining Christianity, but i certainly know some people who would call themselves Christian to which it would apply.

 

If you make something perfectly, it doesnt just stop being perfect, just because of some property such as free will, because those properties must inherently be perfect.

[Rebdragon]

I'm pretty sure Sly's been the right one for the vast majority of the arguments on this page. Just throwing it out there.

[Zierro]

Why don't you go back a few pages then? :lol: He's yet to give us proof of how Jesus is the son of God.

[Sly_Wizard]

First of all, the Bible doesn't say that you will be punished for all eternity, seeing as how Hell as en eternal place of torment does not exist. Secondly, the notion that Luke is the only Gospel which could actually be called a historical document is wildly inaccurate.

 

 

 

1.) The Gospel of Luke was written after both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the latter of which it borrowed heavily from. In fact, if I remember correctly, 72% of what can be found in Mark is also found in Luke. The only thing which differentiates Luke from Matthew or Mark is that it uses an unnamed third source whereas the previous two Gospels appear to ignored, which is why you see certain concepts of Jesus' divinity appear within Luke. The Gospel of Luke is not more or less historically accurate than any other Gospel (Though, it should be noted that I believe there's a dating error in Luke. It might be Mark. I can't remember atm).

 

 

 

2.) Furthermore, I'd like to know what, exactly was stolen from both Pythagoras and Empedocles. Pythagoras himself, believed in metempsychosis, which is equatable to the Hindu concept of reincarnation. As for Empedocles, well, the only thing I guess which could have been stolen from him was his concept of Love and Strife being the ultimate cosmic forces, but even that is a stretch.

 

 

 

The label you proceed to place on those historians who do not support the "Jesus didn't exist" position is laughable. So, in other words, the majority of historians aren't really historians. Only that fringe group upon which you agree? Okay.

 

 

 

Now, I know that the Illiad isn't a Holy Book and I feel the point of the comparison was lost upon you. We were talking about the New Testament versus other Classical Era literature, of which there are significantly more copies and are about 99.5% contextually pure. Furthermore, yes, the oldest extant manuscript available is called the Rylands Papyrus. However, because that it the oldest surviving manuscript we have doesn't mean that the Gospels weren't written until then, as there is significant evidence that the 4 Gospels were mostly-- If not wholely-- Written in the 1st century AD. Generally, the proposed written dates of the 4 Gospels are as follows:

 

 

 

Mark: Somewhere between 57 - 73 AD

 

Matthew: 80 - 85 AD

 

Luke: 80 - 85 AD

 

John: 90 - 100 AD

 

 

 

Really, I wonder what the point of bringing this up was. Anyway, continuing on.

[Sly_Wizard]

Typically, the argument against the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum is that it is mentioned nowhere else, not even by Origen who happened to cite a lesser known passage in which Josephus linked Jesus as being the brother of James the Just. However, few historians dispute Josephus' claim as James the Just being Jesus' brother BECAUSE Origen mentioned it in a few of his works during the 3rd century.

 

 

 

I faily to see why you mentioned Hinduism in your post. Hinduism has no central figure who is claimed to be the founder. This analogy would work better for, say, Buddhism. Buddhism follows the teachings of the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), even though he didn't leave any writing for himself. Do you deny his existence, even though he lived about 500 years prior to Jesus? I highly doubt it. Why? Because it leaves too many question unanswered and raises many, many, many new ones. It's easier to claim that a man named Siddhartha Gautama did indeed exist and started a religion than it is to assert that he didn't exist and a group of people decided to conjure up a lie (A lie, mind you, nowhere near as big as the lie James, John and Peter would have had to conjure up).

 

 

 

The reason your Odysseus blurb didn't warrant a serious response is because we know, once again, that a man named Odysseus existed. Do you not read up on your history?

 

 

 

And I take it you didn't read the link I gave you, huh? Yes, it's to Wikipedia but it's got oodles and oodles of documented sources, which you would at the very least take time to read. But, apparently you didn't read it. If you had you would have noticed it says at the top, and I quote:

 

 

 

The historical Jesus is Jesus of Nazareth as reconstructed by historians using historical methods. These historical methods use critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for the biography of Jesus, along with non-biblical sources to reconstruct the historical context of first-century Judea. These methods do not include theological or religious axioms, such as biblical infallibility. Though the reconstructions vary, they generally include these basic points: Jesus was a Jewish teacher who attracted a small following of Galileans and, after a period of ministry, was crucified by the Romans in the Iudaea Province during the governorship of Pontius Pilate.

 

 

 

Furthermore, your entire "it didn't link to any other historical sources other than the Gospels" is a flat out lie. You really haven't addressed anything. All you've done is stick your finger in your ear and proceed to ignore the absolutely overwhelming number of historians who do not dispute the fact that Jesus existed. Link to Richard Carrier all you like. He's in he minority. I could link to Kent Hovind all day long, but that doesn't make any of the things he says true or represent a majority.

 

 

 

Honestly, I'm not gonna' toot my own horn, so to speak, but this isn't a pissing contest-- This is a me proving you wrong contest.