Freethought Nation

Nice strawman troll. Btw, N.T. Wright is not a scholar.... he is a Christian Apologist.

where would skeptics be without ad hominems and the genetic fallacy.

he's not a scholar? did you read the books i suggested? if you haven't, how would you know whether he's a scholar or not? have you read anything at all that i've discussed? did you even bother to read the short article i suggested?

like i said, when you're ready to have a grown up conversation, let me know.

Christian Apologists are not scholars... I think you have the immature J. P. Holding or the idiotic and dishonest rantings of William Lane Craig to thank for that.

but this is just more ad hominem. name one case made by craig or wright or habermas or zacharias or mcgrath or anybody that is not scholarly and why. it would be preferable if you discussed something that is relevant to the topic in the thread, namely the existence of Jesus. you won't even bother to read what they say. they may be right for all you know. you have nothing to lose by being educated on all sides of the issue.

why are christian apologists not scholars but nontheist apologists are scholars? people like richard dawkins are dishonest. he's used every elementary school excuse in the book to avoid debating mcgrath and craig, et al.

trae has confirmed repeatedly throughout this thread that he is just another troll to be ignored. He is not to be trusted as he is just another typical Christian apologist out to shore up his faith at all costs.

trae's refusal to concede to direct quotes from the Jesus Seminar director and direct quotes from JS fellows that prove him utterly wrong is the last straw, for me. trae is just another liar for the Lord. He avoids inconvenient issues and relies heavily on distraction fallacies rather than answering the actual questions or points at hand. trae is as dishonest as the JP Holding crowd which are bottom of the barrel. It's best to ignore him as he has no intention of being honest. He uses tactics that one would expect to see from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. trae still uses these tactics even after having been called out on it repeatedly in this forum. Apparently, being honest is just impossible for trae.





If trae is unable to concede to very basic facts regarding the Jesus Seminar then, he certainly will continue to refuse to acknowledge the severe lack of credible evidence for a historical Jesus, let alone the mountain of credible evidence for Jesus myth.

trae, read that quote from Dr. Robert M. Price very slowly and as many times as it takes until it all sinks in.

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

He doesn't debate Craig or McGrath is because of the tactics they use, they constantly strawman the other side, so the opponent is really busy having the majority of his time waisted in trying to set aside the strawman... this is the tactic you commonly see in every debate you see with them.

As far as Richard Dawkins being dishonest... what does not wanting to debate someone have to do with dishonesty? It makes literally no sense.

You should watch some of the William Lane Craig is not videos, maybe that will put something's into perspective.

aluva, all you have to do is answer the one simple question i asked. it's just one question.

and when you're done with that, maybe you could tackle the caesar information i posted that you never responded to.

is that the reason? it looks more like he's afraid. in fact, it looks exactly like he's afraid. it looks like he sees people like ken parsons, dan dennett, bart ehrman, marcus borg, jd crossan, etc debating and not doing so well.

then all he has to do is point that out and they would look foolish, right? seems simple.

either that or the nontheists just don't really have a good case.

you may not be aware of this but, even atheists are saying they have pretty much lost every debate that craig has been in.

this is how to perform a google search when you don't know something

hilarious responses in the comments section. the text on the link isn't working so just select all (ctrl-a) and paste into a word document to read. good stuff.

same five arguments

grudging respect

in my opinion, craig is kind of the "rock star" but there are many other very good speakers out there. n. t. wright is astounding. allister mcgrath is very knowledgeable and an excellent speaker. ravi zacharias proved that he is formidable in this debate with jitendra mohanty.

zacharias mohanty

of course, there are quite a few others. and they're not all building strawmen all the time.

as far as the vides you posted, obviously, not everyone agrees with those conclusions. i'm not sure why you think they are any more honest or rational than craig's cases. it's not like craig is the only person out there making those statements. ultimately, it's not about the people. it's about the cases that they are making. why are you choosing one set of arguments over another?

Your question has already been answered repeatedly throughout this thread and it was also responded to in the Dr. Price quote. You are just soooo delusional that you can't understand the text before your very own eyes if it doesn't agree with your selective perception.

Your position on Caesar has already been exposed for the utter nonsense that it is. It's embarrassing to watch you attempt to bring it up again.

Jesus Never Existed:

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

it was? where?

nothing in that quote said anything about why historical experts of all stripes acknlowledge the existence of Jesus.

you didn't even respond to it so how could it have been "exposed"? here is the info you haven't addressed:

You state that Caesar has personal written documents and Jesus doesn’t. Do you know anything about caesar’s commentaries?
1. His authorship is a claim by Suetonius. That’s the only proof we have that he actually wrote them. and he didn’t even write all of them. how can we be sure he wrote any of them? we can’t.
2. They are basically journal entries during the gallic and civil wars. They do not tell us much, if anything about Caesar himself. Therefore, they really make no difference in determining if Caesar himself existed. They could have been chronicled by anyone referring to some other Caesar like person such as in the case of the Arthur legend.
3. There are clear signs of embellishment which further smears the credibility of the documents.

These are facts maintained by the academic community, not opinions. Therefore, the commentaries are completely unconvincing admissions into the record.

You state that caesar’s friends wrote about him during his lifetime but Jesus’ didn’t. there are only a handful of copies of the writings of Cicero and Sallust, they are from the middle ages, have lacunae and shows signs of editions by copyists. In comparison, there are at least 5000 greek manuscripts of the nt dating back to 150ad at the latest for the rylands fragment, even more in latin and Coptic and show a miniscule percentage of variants compared to the writings of Cicero and Sallust. By any historical standard, the accounts of Jesus are astronomically more conclusive for historicity. The difference between the size of an atom and the size of Jupiter.

As far as caesar’s enemies, they’re no more trustworthy or conclusive than the writings of Cicero and Sallust and extra biblical accounts of Jesus have been listed by the authors I’ve already mentioned.

First century Christians would be horrified if a sculpture or statue of Jesus were created so a bust of Caesar proves nothing in comparison to Jesus. The followers of Jesus were opposed to such things whereas roman culture celebrated such things. Jesus’ followers preserved His existence in other, no less palpable ways.

I’m sure you’re aware that catholics have for centuries claimed to have artifacts from Jesus’ life and crucifixion so the same for Caesar proves nothing.

Birthdate, date of death and last name come from historical sources. The historical sources are clearly in Jesus’ favor.

No matter how you slice it, the evidence is heavily, heavily in Jesus’ favor. It’s a monumental difference. Your use of the oversimplified chart is very subversive from a historiographical standpoint. It’s really more posturing than actual history.

trae, you can't even admit you were wrong about the Jesus Seminar. You've already ruined your credibility here with your Caesar claims. Nobody else, beyond other dishonest Christian revisionists, would support such utter nonsense. I've wasted too much time on you already.

You are just another Christian apologist out to shore up your faith at all costs. Find another board to troll with your constant distraction fallacies and Liberty university dishonest debate tactics. Your Christian revisionism won't work here. You are just another liar for the Lord. You have been proven to be wrong repeatedly yet, you insist on re-framing the argument in your attempt to get a different answer - the answer you want, which is never going to happen. So, you have an endless cycle running rampant through this thread demonstrating that you are delusional, trae. You might want to get some help for that. It's as transparent as glass for all to see. Everyone but you of course. Tired of your bullshit trae - get out!

Jesus Never Existed:

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Quote:
trae "the existence of the historical Jesus is as strong as anything else."

And your basing this on what? Your belief in the Bible? which cannot be proven with itself by the way.

The Encloypedia Biblica states that the order of events in the life of Christ as given to us by the Evangelists are contradictory and untrustworthy and that the chronological framework of the Gospels is worthless. In other words Mark, Luke, Matthew and John wrote not what they knew but only what they imagined.

Jesus was supposed to have lived sometime between 4BC and 30AD but there is absolutely no historical mention of him by the Romans or the Jews! Though this does not disprove his existence it does show that there are plenty of holes in the Christian myth to cast plenty of doubt on their mythological tale.

Have just read through this troll thread and have some comments

Trae's assertion that there is more evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ than for Julius Caesar is exactly like denying the evidence for the Jewish holocaust or global warming. It is crazy. No wonder he has to invoke Ronald Reagan to justify it.

Trae asks about the Christian conspiracy. The actual conspiracy is plain to see in the suppression of Gnosticism by the early church. The conspiracy agenda was to increase the secular power of the orthodox cabal of bishops by dumbing down Christian doctrine to the lowest common denominator of belief in the "saving blood" of Christ, to manipulate the ignorant majority and persecute the knowledgeable minority. The gross intimidation of opponents is seen in arguments such as the letter of John stating that all doubters are Satanists. This dogmatic emotional brainwashing has been so comprehensive and successful that it has hidden its own tracks, except from those who are willing to stand up to the slurs of bigots. Christian apologists are either ignorant dupes or gutless bigots and careerists. Their so-called scholarship is based on lies.

I wouldn't say being an Apologist is tantamount to being a Creationist. Christian Apologists do sometimes have legitimate degrees. William Lane Craig for example actually does have a PhD in Christian Theology... he is just horrible at putting forth defenses for the Christian Faith. His "Kalam Cosmological Argument" has no actual credibility.