Wednesday 4 June 2008

A final whooping of JBs arse

We find that JB has realised that he is loosing and so acuses me of being a parody and says that after one more post he will have to duck out. I also notice that JB is trying to make out that he is a top notch scholar but i see no evidence for this. JB has also done nothing to address my arguments.
JB then shows his stupidity be responding to Fifi on his blog ... when fifi says that they dont read JBs blog.

Highly inaccurate. Mike does not wish to grapple with the fact that he carefully evaded my arguments, as any comparison of our respective posts will demonstrate.
Xians really are hipocrits.

You need to show plausibility, not mere "possibility"
Umm, hang on. you need to show that the reserection is plausable. Now a dead body being eaten by worms is fairly normal ond so possible. Dead people coming back to life never happens and is impossible. All i have to do is come up with an explanation that is better than your one. Why isnt saying that jebus rose from the dead plausable in your books? you might say 'oh wellm i know sky daddies exist and raise people from the dead' but then i can say 'well i just know worms ate jebus'

Jesus existed
Wow - what a refutation of my argument. you just state your beliefs as if they were facts

The disciples didn't go to Pompeii after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Mike
you

What's a rarity
how often do people find skeletons? Couldnt we just conclude that archaologists have not found jebus skeleton yet? May James Caron has found jebus body?

No non-Christian scholar thinks that any biblical documents were intended as historical?
so they actually believe jubus rose from the dead? think again.

Oh? Who (Roman ruler? Sanhedrin?), when (immediately? 40 AD? 50 AD? 60-80 AD?), and what's your evidence?
I dont need to show that they did, just that they might have done. I dont need to show that jebus didn't rise from the dead, if there is a posability he didnt then any rational person will conclude that he didnt.

Don't project the attitudes of the stereotypical, fundamentalist uber-fideist back onto the disciples, Mike.
the disciples were fundamentalists, or at least there is no reson to assume they werent. how do you know that the diciples would change their opinions in the face of evidence?

Don't be absurd, Mike. There's ample historical evidence that Christianity predated the reign of Emperor Constantine.
which christianity? the ones who belived the gopel of thomas? the one of believed the gopel of judas? the ones who belived the secret gospel of mark? the ones who belived the gospel of barnabus?

and that link is to a summary of a book that uses "Christianity" to mean Pauline Christianity, not "Christianity" in the sense of, e.g., Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and Lordship.

but you are a pauline xian. But you admit that you follow paul and not jebus? why does pauline xianity and gospel xianity contradict?

If it had been revealed in, say, 50 AD? News would have spread to the capital, yes, as the opponents of Christianity would have leapt at the chance to eradicate acclamation of Jesus as the Messiah by making known that Christianity was a proven fraud
before cars it took ages to travel to rome so the news would have not got through

(that is, the disciples) firmly believed in the physical resurrection
how do you know that without getting inside their heads? maybe it was all an april fools day joke gone wrong?

Maybe
who cremated Jesus, and when? Details, Mike, details are key. Vague proposals gain you nothing.
i'm showing it is possible for the reserection not to be true. A naturalist xplanation is always better than a supernatural one even if there is no evidence for it.

That's not "argumentation", it's mere assertion. The persecution of the early church is a recognized historical fact.
you seem very reluctant to give me any evidence for this so called historical 'fact'. I notice that im meant to back up all my claims with evidence and you dont. Shouldnt it be the other way around?

The comparison does not hold, since Smith went down fighting and would not have been spared by repudiating his teachings and his story.
so? Maybe the disciples would have been persecuted (assuming they were) regardless of whether thy owned up to it all being a lie.

First of all, that's false, and I ask you to substantiate the claim.
which ive already done with my photos of dionysus

I've basically co-taught courses in logic.
i mean proper logic, not xian logic

First of all, there's a distinction to be drawn between art and literature. Second, provenance would apply most properly to biblical manuscripts, not to the content of the text itself. Third, yes, I could provide a rough estimate of the date of most individual biblical documents, the New Testam
i can confirm that both those photos i gave pre date xianity. And even they didnt it seems unlikely that dionysusism changed radically after jebus

Mike refers to this post, but neither there or here does he both to actually substantiate his claim that the Vatican destroyed the evidence that would have justified his positio
I did substantiate it by giving you a link o a video by an archaologist (they is a photo of her digging in the video) who shows pictures of the vatican destroying evidence

I think that JB better stop beLIEving Jebus rose from the dead, how is his case any more convincing that this lots? Where did the belief that elvis is alive come from? what about all the eyewitnesses. Oh dear, has JB already signed up.






11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"JB then shows his stupidity be responding to Fifi on his blog ... when fifi says that they dont read JBs blog."

Fifi says they dont read JBs blog. Evidently Fifi dont feel like they need to. Mike is a free thinker and can paraphrase what JB said for them.

I like Fifi they is a good girl.

So Saith the Velvet Revolver.

Anonymous said...

Rats. It is evolver people, evolver.

So Saith the Velvet Evolver.

Anonymous said...

People like Richard Dawkins have pointed out in the past that all the arguments for Jesus' resurrection could be used by Elvis is alive conspiracy theorists and yet what do Christians do? Put their heads in the sand. I'll be interested to read JB's response...he seems pretty screwed to me.

Anonymous said...

Mike said:
i mean proper logic, not xian logic


?ekiM esu uoy dnik eht ekil ,ym hO

Anonymous said...

"People like Richard Dawkins have pointed out in the past that all the arguments for Jesus' resurrection could be used by Elvis is alive conspiracy theorists and yet what do Christians do? Put their heads in the sand. I'll be interested to read JB's response...he seems pretty screwed to me."

People like Richard Dawkins are retarded. They know a lot about their expertise, but when it comes to philosophy and theolgy they are terrible. Even (smart) athiests find the God Delusion a pile of crap.

Sorry, but Mike's lost here. All hes done is recycle refuted claims, mixed in some ad hominen attacks and generally ignored most of JBs responses

Nick said...

I would love to challenge Mikey to live debate where he gets to show how ignorant he is before an audience.

Well, he's already shown how ignorant he is here.

Anonymous said...

I'll take the time to address a few of these...
posted in multiple posts


JB: Highly inaccurate. Mike does not wish to grapple with the fact that he carefully evaded my arguments, as any comparison of our respective posts will demonstrate.

Mike: Xians really are hipocrits.


Me: in my hopefully humble opinion, JB hit the nail on the head. You have not adequately answered the problems presented to you.

JB: You need to show plausibility, not mere "possibility"


Mike: Umm, hang on. you need to show that the reserection is plausable.


johnny: Firstly, none of the "naturalistic" answers, answer all of the facts.

Secondly, some of the facts are claims that the Bible is making, so it is not just JB or Christians making a claim of resurrection.

And i'll save "thirdly" for further down...

MIKE: Now a dead body being eaten by worms is fairly normal ond so possible.

Worms do not consume bodies in three days.

Also, look at the Biblical evidence and then also look at historical evidence.. not to mention, geographic evidence.

Biblical evidence against worms consuming the body in three days:

John 19:39-42 (i'll summarize)
The body of Jesus was wrapped in cloth strips with about a 100 pounds of burial spices included.

John 20:3-8 (summarized-) John looked in the tomb and saw some burial cloths. Peter went in the tomb and noticed the manner in which the cloths lay.

In the situation above, Mike-- you are being like John. You are seeing some evidence, like in John's case, he saw the cloths, but you need to be like Peter... LOOK AT WHAT you are seeing. Examine the evidence!!

You are making excuses why the Bible is wrong, but your answers don't even come close to answering what the Bible claims.

I asked you earlier to look for yourself.. don't take a Christian's word for it... i still invite you to do that.


Next... Historical evidence:

I'll leave it up to you, Mike, to look for answers to this...

Was it the case, in the time of Jesus, that the dead were buried with 100 pounds of spices and wrapped in cloth?

(oh, and as a side note... if Jesus' followers expected Jesus to rise from the dead.. or, if they had been expecting to make it appear that He rose, why go through such elaborate efforts? The spices alone must have cost a small fortune).

Geographic evidence: What is the climate like?

How many bugs/worms that are capable of consuming a corpse in such a short time, are indigenous to that area?

MIKE: Dead people coming back to life never happens and is impossible.

First, 'impossible' is an awful strong word. This implies that you have complete knowledge... which brings me to ...

Secondly, on Tweb you thought you trick us, by sneaking in Bertrand Russell.. we were already aware of Russell and his little teapot too.

Are you familiar with David Hume (yes, the same guy that gets credit for his attack on miracles)?

Hume said that you only have confidence in the future, because you have confidence of the past, but all that is, is an unprovable assumption.

Wow, i was kinda worried that i couldn't sumerize that in less than 20 pages... lol.

MIKE: All i have to do is come up with an explanation that is better than your one.

So far you have failed.

MIKE: Why isnt saying that jebus rose from the dead plausable in your books? you might say 'oh wellm i know sky daddies exist and raise people from the dead' but then i can say 'well i just know worms ate jebus'

Sorry Mike, but i think you are not understanding something...

The role you are playing is like that of a prosecuting attorney. You are the guy that is trying to prove that the Christians lied about Jesus' body....

Now, if you KNOW that worms ate Jesus' body, then produce those worms. If you KNOW that it was dogs that ate the body, either present the dogs or present a stool sample. If you KNOW that the disciples burned the body, let's see some pictures of the crematorium.

And if you try to say, "well, that was a long time ago, and we couldn't have access to such things....", then you really have proven Hume right.

MIKE: Jesus existed
Wow - what a refutation of my argument. you just state your beliefs as if they were facts


No. But it is a beautiful strawman that you built there.

Go back and actually address JB's statement.

JB:
The disciples didn't go to Pompeii after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Mike

Mike:
you


Let me guess... your teapot whistled and you forgot to finish your thought?

JB: What's a rarity?

MIKE: how often do people find skeletons? Couldnt we just conclude that archaologists have not found jebus skeleton yet?


Mike, you brought up Pompeii. It was your claim that skeletons weren't found, yet JB presented a response that showed skeletons WERE found at Pompeii.

So, in a nut-shell, you moved from, "no bones found, at Pompeii", to "well, they're rare".
And that kind of logic equates to to you as, "since bones are rare, maybe nobody found the Body."

Anonymous said...

May James Caron has found jebus body?

Did you notice how that story fizzled out very quick?

There were people that actually knew stuff, that challenged the claim, and corrected the people making the claim.

If you want to go that route, fine, just let me know, and i'll dig up some references that you can read through.
If you want to start without me, i think Ben Witherington (sorry, spelling) has some info... google his name.

Anonymous said...

MIKE: No non-Christian scholar thinks that any biblical documents were intended as historical? so they actually believe jubus rose from the dead? think again.


Read more carefully Mike. JB was saying that most non-Christian scholars believe Jesus actually lived.
However, by definition, if they are non-Christian, they would not believe who the Bible claims Jesus really is.

Anonymous said...

JB: Oh? Who (Roman ruler? Sanhedrin?), when (immediately? 40 AD? 50 AD? 60-80 AD?), and what's your evidence?

MIKE: I dont need to show that they did, just that they might have done. I dont need to show that jebus didn't rise from the dead,


Again, you seem to have misunderstood your role, since it is you who is trying to prove Christianity false.

MIKE: if there is a posability he didnt then any rational person will conclude that he didnt.

You even have this little concept goofed up.

You say, "if there is a posability he didnt [rise from the dead]".

But what if we show that there is a possibility that He rose from the dead?

When both sides of the coin is a possibility, then a rational person will not chose the possibility that you present... nor would a rational person chose the possibility presented by Christians.

The coin will fall to which side the rational person feels is the better explaination.

And EACH rational person has individual requirements for what they judge to be the best explaination.

However, it seems that all you have done, is look at the surface and draw your conclusion, and the Christians visiting your blog, have looked deeper, studied harder, and presented better evidence... but hey, that's just my opinion.

JB: Don't project the attitudes of the stereotypical, fundamentalist uber-fideist back onto the disciples, Mike.

MIKE: the disciples were fundamentalists, or at least there is no reson to assume they werent. how do you know that the diciples would change their opinions in the face of evidence?


I'm going to leave this one stand, since i'm not sure where JB was going with this (without, maybe re-reading both blogs, again--)

JB: Don't be absurd, Mike. There's ample historical evidence that Christianity predated the reign of Emperor Constantine.


MIKE: which christianity? the ones who belived the gopel of thomas? the one of believed the gopel of judas? the ones who belived the secret gospel of mark? the ones who belived the gospel of barnabus?


Have you read any of these, Mike? Have you read any reports of these, that discuss authenticity and dating?

Me, no, i have not read them.. i started reading the Gosp. of Thomas, but i set it to the side and have not gotten back to it.

I have read a few of the reports though, and... well, let's say that if you want to continue this line of argument, you need to present much more than what you've given so far.

JB: and that link is to a summary of a book that uses "Christianity" to mean Pauline Christianity, not "Christianity" in the sense of, e.g., Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and Lordship.

MIKE: but you are a pauline xian. But you admit that you follow paul and not jebus? why does pauline xianity and gospel xianity contradict?


ok, i'm making a guess here, as to what JB meant. (i didn't follow that particular link)

JB seems to be saying that the book that is summarized is defining "Pauline Christianity" and "Christianity" differently than JB would define the two.
Since i already said that i didn't follow the link, i have no opinion on the book's claim vs. JB's.

But the rest of your questions to JB about this, hinges on those definitions... and, possibly, your definitions.

JB: If it had been revealed in, say, 50 AD? News would have spread to the capital, yes, as the opponents of Christianity would have leapt at the chance to eradicate acclamation of Jesus as the Messiah by making known that Christianity was a proven fraud

MIKE: before cars it took ages to travel to rome so the news would have not got through



You're wrong Mike. Caravans and boats and the shoe lace express.
One cool thing you are overlooking is the Roman Empire itself. Rome built roads. Rome would have had messengers to and from all parts of it's empire.

JB: (that is, the disciples) firmly believed in the physical resurrection

MIKE: how do you know that without getting inside their heads? maybe it was all an april fools day joke gone wrong?


The existence of Christianity, for one-- remember? the impossible faith?
For two, by the actions chronicled in the New Testement.

JB: Maybe who cremated Jesus, and when? Details, Mike, details are key. Vague proposals gain you nothing.

MIKE: i'm showing it is possible for the reserection not to be true. A naturalist xplanation is always better than a supernatural one even if there is no evidence for it.


Sorry Mike, but all that shows is your own bias.

Let's put it in different terms...

Suppose the Supernatural explaination is the true/correct explaination... by allowing for only natural explanations, you have eliminated yourself from the truth.

JB: That's not "argumentation", it's mere assertion. The persecution of the early church is a recognized historical fact.

MIKE: you seem very reluctant to give me any evidence for this so called historical 'fact'.


Maybe because it's pretty easy to find, you being so smart and all.

Are you familiar with phrase, "throw the Christians to the lions"? Do you suppose that was before or after Constantine?

Mike: I notice that im meant to back up all my claims with evidence and you dont. Shouldnt it be the other way around?

Actually, both JB and Nick have given references. You haven't sufficiently refuted their claims, so the burden is still on you.

JB: The comparison does not hold, since Smith went down fighting and would not have been spared by repudiating his teachings and his story.


MIKE: so? Maybe the disciples would have been persecuted (assuming they were) regardless of whether thy owned up to it all being a lie.


Aside from the fact that you are now hanging your case completely on "what if?"... let's deal with the "what if?" anyway...

Assume you and 11 friends knowingly hid/destroyed the body of Jesus, and you went about telling everyone that He was risen.
Suppose also that one of your friends was stoned to death for claiming this lie, how confident would you be in continuing?

Then the next friend... gone.
Couple of more jailed.
another one bites the dust..

If it was an outright lie, and you happened to still be one of the living ones, how much passion would you still have, knowing that all you have to do, to stay alive, is shut your mouth.
No satelites, no photographs on the Post Office wall, you could go into hiding pretty easy.
After a few years, or months or whatever, things would die down.

But NO, the Biblical record claims that they got BOLDER.
Christianity grew.
It flourished.

JB: First of all, that's false, and I ask you to substantiate the claim.

MIKE: which ive already done with my photos of dionysus


I've been looking at those "photos".... please, i hope you realise that they are photos of paintings and relief carvings..

At anyrate, the first has no indication that it is Dionysus... we need more information.
However, let's look at some of the stuff in the pict.

1. person on cross.
2. people carrying a BIG bunch of grapes
3. the upper corners have what looks like representations of cherubim.

(i'm by no means, claiming to be an expert.. i'm just observing and thinking)

3. The cherubim, if that's what they are, seem to be a clue to when the relief was made... by the style
2. Although Dionysus was the vegetable god.. god of wine, there is an older narrative of the Israelites/BIG grapes/Walls of Jericho
1. Christianity has a teaching that is foundational... maybe you've heard of it?... Christ crucified

However, i think Dionysus was claimed to have been ripped apart, as a child, by Titans. He was lured by some toy or something.

Which brings us to the second picture... sure, Dionysus was said to have been brought back to life, but again, he was killed as a child, iirc.


JB: I've basically co-taught courses in logic.

MIKE: i mean proper logic, not xian logic


logic is logic.


JB: First of all, there's a distinction to be drawn between art and literature. Second, provenance would apply most properly to biblical manuscripts, not to the content of the text itself. Third, yes, I could provide a rough estimate of the date of most individual biblical documents, the New Testam

MIKE: i can confirm that both those photos i gave pre date xianity. And even they didnt it seems unlikely that dionysusism changed radically after jebus


Ok, Mike, let's see your confirmation.
And secondly, "dionysusism?"... well, i don't see your point with this point anyway.

JB: Mike refers to this post, but neither there or here does he both to actually substantiate his claim that the Vatican destroyed the evidence that would have justified his positio

MIKE: I did substantiate it by giving you a link o a video by an archaologist (they is a photo of her digging in the video) who shows pictures of the vatican destroying evidence


I've dug and i've made a video... does that mean that i am an archeologist? Or, for that matter, a film-maker?


MIKE: I think that JB better stop beLIEving Jebus rose from the dead, how is his case any more convincing that this lots? Where did the belief that elvis is alive come from? what about all the eyewitnesses. Oh dear, has JB already signed up.

Based on what you have presented, i'm guessing you've set athiesm back 50 years.

Thank you... you might be a strong member of the Christian team if you keep up that good work.

God Bless,
johnny


ps my apologies in advance, if i got your's and JB's posts goofed up.

Anonymous said...

sorry about the multiple posts.
it said that it couldn't use my html, php, or whatever, so i broke it down until i found a tag that i forgot to close.

Does this thing have an edit mode?