Saturday 7 June 2008

Argument from amazon reviews

Now if the bible was the word of a sky daddy wouldnt it have 5 stars on amazon and glowing reviews? Well no, it actually has less than 4 stars. If you dont believe me click here.

Here are some of the reviews:

This book should never be left where it could fall into the hands of children. Recurrent themes of bloody violence, murder, racism, incest and rape are dealt with extremely irresponsibly. Horrific events are presented as justified by circumstances and as solutions to petty wrongs.

Constant repetition yet also hypocracy of previous chapters within the same sentance
It's almost as if someone wrote this is some kind of a joke!

First of all there seems to be a million different versions of The Bible to choose from, so settling down on just one is a little difficult. How would I know which one is the best? Eenie-meenie-miney-moe saves the day.

The second half of the book introduces some new characters, most importantly Jesus Christ who seems to be based on Buddha. Here's a confusing part that is never really clarified. Jesus is the son of Mary and Joseph, but he is also referred to as the son of God. Which is it?

I think we get the idea.

Friday 6 June 2008

scientists prove that sky daddies didnt make the universe

I've noticed that JB still hasnt responded to me, presumably because he cant think how to respond to my arguments. therefore i will give an interesting argument.

in the news, scientists have proven that the universe was not made by a sky daddy but came from a parent universe.

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.






Tuesday 3 June 2008

JB gets beated yet again

JB has now realised that ive smashed his argument and is acusing me of only focusing on trivial points. No JB, it that your points were all trivial.

Second, I'd like Mike to articulate what "special conditions" applied to the preservation of Yohanan's bones that would not have, within a non-resurrection framework, also have applied to Jesus' bones.
Maybe jebus' body was exposed to the air more, or there was a worm infestation in the tomb of jebus. i dunno, all i need to show is that it is possible that jebus body rotted away. Maybe we dont have jebus body because he didnt exist. Scholars like G A Wells thinks so. just use your imagination. Domonic crossan thinks dogs ate jebus body. there all kinds of options which dont resort to sky daddies

Third, Mike is obviously playing the 'idiot atheist' role at this point, because his assertion of no skeletons being found at Pompeii is patently false.

I meant the disciples found no skeletons there and your articles you linked to dont show that. And anyway, these are a rareity which is why it was mentioned in the magazines you linked to

Aside from the blatant falsity of Mike's claim that "only Christians take the Bible slightly seriously
emm no. no non-christian scholar doesnt recognise that the bible is full of errors, biased and was not written as history.

why the authorities never disconfirmed the Christian account
they did. Have the authoroties disconfirmed mormonism? Yes. Does that stop mormons? No. Obviously if the authorities had proven xianity to be false wouldnt the disciples have the same atitude mormons do. They would claim that the devil had put it there to test them or something.

on a much grander scale, and without recourse to a founding figure
consintine founded xianity. or maybe paul did

third, that the issues surrounding, e.g., the Book of Abraham are such that the rank-and-file Mormon is unaware of them
would your rank and file xian living in rome be aware of jebus body?

fourth, that Latter-day Saint apologists can offer some arguments on their behalf, no matter how ultimately devoid of significance
Maybe the diciples came up with arguments for the fact jebus was still in his tomb. Maybe the cremeated him.

and if you care to invoke his opinion, you'll have to provide the supporting argumentation as well.
ummmm - i did. I pointed out that there is no evidence that the first xians were persecuted.

also gained greatly from the power of their positions, and the founder went out fighting during his lynching.
my point, the founder of mormonism dided for their beliefs.

given that Mormonism is by its very nature an offshoot of Christianity
And xianity is an offshot from paganism

No, Mike. Substantiation for the alleged implication ("so people got bored and made up stories of [resurrected] friends for fun"). Hop to it.
Well when people are bored they do things to entertain themselves. So they decided to make a new religion.

That's not an ad hominem attack, Mike. You don't appear to know what that term means. And no, you don't get to use it unless you invoke it properly: introduce it, expound it, argue for it, and defend it from criticism.
You really should take a course in logic. Why dont you start here.

If you want to defend the usefulness of memetics, by all means do so. However, memetics does not "explain why people believed in the resurrection". You postulate no sufficient cause for the "Jesus-rose-from-the-dead meme", nor do you explain its spread.
Basically memes work like evolution. So each generation of xians comes up with variations of the reserection meme and the most successfuly version of the myth survives. I realise that it is a bit complicated and you preoberly dont understand meme theory byut many inteligent people think it is the best advancement in biology of the twentth century.

A picture of a relief, without any data as to its provenance, its date, etc., cannot be acceptable evidence.
In which case you cant use the bible asthat doesnt have a date written on it or a sign saying its provenance

Mike, if you really want to make solid arguments on this point, you'll need to back up your stance with literary evidence, not just artistic,
Unfortuantly the vatican have destroyed that kind of evidence. infact ive written a whole blog entry on this

How peculiar, then, that you haven't overturned a single one of my arguments
In your dreams. ive been running rings around you and shredding your arguments to bit. on the contrary, you havent overturned any of my arguments.








Monday 2 June 2008

Next round

Firstly i would like to thank JB for giving me such an easy response to demolish and steven carr and fifi for their intelligent comments on the previous post. Johnny anomonus also aknowledged there was a lot of meat in my post and he is an xian. So here we go, i feel like a big ball on the end of a chain ready to smah into the argument and knock it to bits.

We still have bone remnants of ancient Jews, even Jewish crucifixion victims (e.g., the famed Yohanan), preserved to this day;
But these are rare preserved under special conditions. Pompeii is meant to be the best conditions for perserving archaeology in the world and yet they found not skeletons there. So if the people of pompeii had their body eaten why didnt jebus?

why, precisely, would worms have consumed the body of Jesus, bones and all, within the lifetimes of the disciples?
Who says it happened in the life time of the disciples? Oh sorry the bible does. you realise that only xians take the bible slightly seriously. there is no evidence that jebus body was in the tomb. Now wouldnt the disciples notice and loose their beliefs? No. Mormons believe their book is authentic despite it being proved false. Imagine in 2000 years time someone said "well nobody would have remained a mormon if the book of arbraham had been shown conclusively to be a fake..."what would you say? What about creationism? wouldn't people not believe it if evolution had been shown to be true. Religios people believe whatever they want to believe. If the body of jebus was still in the tomb they would claim it was a fake or only a theory etc etc.
Which of the claimed "eyewitnesses", either among the Three or the Eight, were martyred?
Earl dorothy thinks that there is no evidence that the first xians were martyred
hat is, of course, pure speculation on my part, but given the fairly clear evidence that the story narrated by Smith's purported translation of the plates is utterly ahistorical
youve missed the point. We know mormonism is ahistorical and yet many people believe it. Why do we know it is ahistorical? Because it happened a lot more recently. How do you know that xianity didnt start in the same way mormonism did? maybe if mormonism happened 2000 years ago and xianity a hundred years ago it would be the other way around

And your substantiation for this would be...?
Are you seriously asking for evidence that they didnt have wiis, tvs and the internet in jebus day? your even more ignorant than i thought

First of all, Russell's Teapot was one of the most pitiful epistemological blunders that Russell ever made.
ad homin attack. It is valid, i can sit here and wait for you to give me evidence to my satisfaction

Your arguments also commit the anthropic principle. To ask why people came to belive jebus rose from the dead is a non quetion as we wouldnt be asing it if such a belief hadnt been belived
I question the value of memetics as a contribution to scientific study
your ignorance astounds me. indeed memes explain why people believde in the reserection. Someone caught the jebus rose from the dead meme and it spread like the plague.
Come now, Mike, unlike yourself, I've researched the ancient myths.

Ah - so you admit that the bible is an ancient myth. I win the debate
If you want to set forth any of Price's arguments on behalf of the pagan copycatting thesis, by all means do so, but I warn you that playing that card in a debate with me is rather
Here is a photo of dionysus crucified:

and here he is risen from the dead:


There we go.

you really are going to have tyo try harder JB


Sunday 1 June 2008

Round 2

Well, JB has come up with a response even more stupid than I was expecting here. I cant believe that im wasting my time responding to such stupidity but here we go.

At this juncture, I could rehearse various standards in resurrection apologetics.
All of which have been debunked time and time again

Early testimony to the empty tomb, perhaps.
Easily explained by Richard Dawkins here:
"Presumably what happened to Jesus was what happens to all of us when we die. We decompose." Now when you think about it Jubus body was not in the tomb because it was eaten by worms.

group of remotely rational individuals will especially not surrender their lives in such a manner without an especially passionate belief in the validity of their cause
So would a group of people believe something as stupid as a guy discovering golden plates in a wood when they had been proven to be a fake by a guy who had fraud metaphorically written all over him. I remember some mormons telling me that there were eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen Joseph smith with the golden plates and died for this belief of theirs. Oh hang on, your not a mormon. Does the fact that xianity started seem any more odd than something as stupid as mormonism?

the origin of the disciples' belief seems inexplicable
Nobody believed that golden plates were hidden in a wood before mormonism so it must be true...it think not. Where id the mormon belief of the golden plates come from? We must also remember that this was a time before TV, nintendo wiis and yhe internet and so people got bored and made up stories of reserected friends for fun.

This all being the case, it remains for Mike to propose a detailed and historically plausible alternative explanation for the rise of early Christianity that encompasses all available data in a satisfactory manner.
No, because of russels teapot you have to show why xianity starting is different to other religions and offer a sensible explantion of how a man eaten by worms came back to life.

"Science" is thus powerless, by its very nature, to provide "an overriding reason to believe the resurrection of Jesus to be genuinely impossible".
You cannot say that the BBC website is not credible and yet that says:
Almost all rationalists are atheists or agnostics. There has been a long link between rationalism and scientific method.

Dawkins, with all due respect to the man for... well, whatever his positive contributions to the world might happen to be
He discovered memes, conveted many people to science, has written best selling books, converted douglas adams to reason,is going to be on dr who...the list is endless

The simple reply to this is that the premise is simply false. "Most pagan gods" were not claimed to have experienced anything comparable to a historical resurrection from physical death to living physical existence.
Oh dear - youve been brain washed by your xian friends

provided he does so with something more credible than Zeitgeist
Well what about robert price - he thinks they ripped of the reserection from pagan myths. now robert price is proberly the top scholar on this subject in the world. As indiana jones is to a good action movie, einstein is to science and mr bean is to comedy Robert Price is to biblical scholarship.

I hope that perhaps one day, you might happen to dispense with your irrational objections to Christianity and finally submit to the truth.
You wont convert me to xianity in a million years. I hope that one day you'll see the light and start reading science books instead of the bible.