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All of vtiola's Comments + Replies

6drethelin
Imagine I write a book. In this book there are two claims 1. I am able to fly like superman. 2. Obviously you will disbelieve that claim. This is because you are unenlightened. If you were not wicked and sinful, you would understand the truth of my abilities. Does claim 2 make claim 1 more true? If not, please refrain from using this style of argument in this sort of debate.
Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
vtiola-30

Like I mentioned earlier, there's probably ample evidence for the events recorded in the book of Exodus. The evidence that currently supports the Exodus account is likely being misunderstood or ignored by mainstream historians and archeologists. A minority voice within the field of Egyptology, Dr. David Rohl's makes a compelling case against the traditional ancient Egyptian chronology. A majority of Egyptologists acknowledge that there are major problems with the traditional chronology but they reject Rohl's alternative chronology (which is expected when... (read more)

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2MixedNuts
Full translation of the Ipuwer papyrus It's a document, thought to be fictional by most Egyptologists, describing many disasters, some of which are similar to the Plagues. The main disaster is disruption of the social order - downfall of the upper classes and rebellion among the lower classes, including slaves. It's also mighty good poetry.
2drethelin
I think that even if religious people are presented with evidence piled up to the moon against the accounts in the bible they will still find one way or another to dismiss it by whatever means possible because it is something they simply do not want to believe. The moral implications of the Bible being untrue are too great which creates a relentless motive to find ways to support it and convince oneself that it's true no matter what.
Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
vtiola-40

It's their word against that of the disciples; you have no reason to believe one side or the other, side from the fact that resurrections are so improbable.

There are ways to test oral testimonies and eye witness accounts for truthfulness and our courts do it all the time. There are lots of reasons to believe the Gospel writers over the other side. The late Simon Greenleaf, a skeptic at one point and also one of the founding members of Harvard Law School, wrote an essay on why the Gospel writers should be taken as innocent of deception if given a fair ... (read more)

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Randaly150

Greenleaf also makes a number of claims, like this one:

That the books of the Old Testament, as we now have them, are genuine; that they existed in the time of our Savior, and were commonly received and referred to among the Jews, as the sacred books of their religion; and that the text of the Four Evangelists has been handed down to us in the state in which it was originally written, that is, without having been materially corrupted or falsified, either by heretics or Christians; are facts which we are entitled to assume as true, until the contrary is sh

... (read more)
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Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
vtiola-20

Just because you find the God of the Bible unpalatable to your personal tastes of what God should or should not be, doesn't make it any more true or false, does it?

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8Vaniver
Your claim was that you had not met a skeptic who read the Bible while expecting it to be true. I provided evidence that I am a skeptic, and that I had read the Bible while expecting it to be true. You are, of course, free to take the No True Scotsman route and declare that I didn't really presuppose that the Bible was telling the truth, but I might as well declare now that doing that would end this conversation.
Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
vtiola-20

You could look for the body- but, canonically, the body was given to one of Jesus's followers (Joseph of Arimathea; see Matthew 27:57 and John 19:38 for descriptions of him as a disciple of Jesus), so we have no idea where the body is, besides his claim to have put it in a tomb. Even if he's being honest, there are certainly other ways for the body to have vanished- for example, the Jewish Toledot Yeshu claims that a gardener named Juda stole the body.

All alternative explanations to what happened to Jesus' body really point to the fact that his enemies ... (read more)

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3Randaly
It's their word against that of the disciples; you have no reason to believe one side or the other, side from the fact that resurrections are so improbable. Furthermore, I'm now starting to be confused: again, what kind of evidence would you possibly consider a disproof of the resurrection, either today or if you lived in contemporary Rome? After all, the only available evidence, objective non-cult witnesses, all claimed that Jesus did not in fact resurrect. If you don't consider the resurrection disproved after that, then what available evidence would you consider a disproof? (This question is, after all, your original claim- that had the resurrection not occurred, there would evidence to convince you that it had not occurred.) These kind of screwups happen....not all the time, but there are a fair number of recorded and verified instances. (As opposed, again, to zero recorded resurrections. 5 seconds googling found Maggie Dickson, Anne Green, Zoleykhah Kadkhoda, and William Duell as execution survivors.) Also, the Jews were not in charge at the time, the Romans were- and the Roman leader, Pontius Pilate, didn't want to kill Jesus, according to all of the Gospels. Fair enough; I'd been only looking at the accounts in the Gospels. (Again, though, there are plenty of easy, non-supernatural explanations. This undoubtedly sounds like hedging to you, but that's because you do believe, and your belief is high status. Your explanations of why UFO sightings are wrong would sound the same to somebody who had actually seen the alien ships.) Ah. So, you do trust the soldiers who reported that the body was stolen, then? ;) More broadly, we simply don't have much solid evidence; it's a he-said she-said kind of situation- only it's also one where one side was entirely made up of fanatical cultists (or, equivalently, extremely faithful believers) who were claiming something impossible by natural means.
2RomanDavis
Sure. But, y'know, Occam's Razor. Because...? Unless they were bribed. Or overworked. Or corrupt. Or a hundred other things. Maybe it wasn't typical to fuck up an execution, but I bet it happened sometimes. It also explains why the Israeli Resistance Front would know the soldiers out, roll away the stone, and steal the body. Now, I'm not sure Jesus ever existed. There's some evidence, but the strongest evidence is probably forged. But if I knew Jesus existed, then I'd believe that over the Resurrection story for the same reason: Occam's Razor. Dude. You said yourself that a human rising from the dead is impossible. There's your reason, right there. Now, you might believe on faith, but as far as I can see, you don't have much better evidence than the Mormons, the Scientologists, the Muslims or the followers of Charles Manson. Once you realize why you disbelieve in all other Gods, etc.
Xachariah150

The ancient Egyptians don't have any incentive to leave records of this embarrassing occurrence. If anything, they would want to cover this event up so as not to be ridiculed by neighboring nations or by their posterity who would view them as weak.

It's not just about history books and monuments. It's about every facet of life that gets effected. For example, when the black death hit Europe, we were able to see massive changes to everything.

  • Economists, archeologists, and historians for example can trace the massive economic disruption of the black

... (read more)
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5RomanDavis
There are just so stories about both the recent and distant past invented all the time. Even when disproved people continue to still believe them. Religion isn't a special case; these are every where. There are all sorts of widely believed bullshit about foreign cultures, unfamiliar occupations, and everything else. Just read snopes. In Egypt? With all the evidence we have? Unlikely. Is it fair to say that you'd agree that the authors of the Epic of Giglamesh were lying about everything? You can't have it both ways: either the Ancients were smart and skeptical enough to believe in miracles based on evidence, or they were a bunch of plebs who only believed what the official history was. Not both. But they weren't. The symmetry isn't there. They were all or very, very mostly all dead at that point. At this point, we aren't even talking about a world religion, just a particularly successful cult. How many people alive have personally met L Ron Hubbard? How many people are Scientologists? There you go. There's no evidence of that. I think the authorities in this case refer to the Romans, who had been pretty successful with the whole religious tolerance thing. They let all sorts of insane mystery cults hold sway over small groups of followers as long as they recognized Roman law. The Romans would see a new cult, the eigth messiah in just as many years, and made sure they paid their taxes and didn't make trouble, at least as long as they couldn't be viewed as a threat. The Jews are another matter, of course: http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/false_prophets/dt13_01.html
Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
vtiola00

It's possible that someone can be convinced that what they are writing is from God (which a few people have done). The difference that I see with other religious texts and the Bible is that the Bible does not shy away from naming real people, dates, and places. If I were to fabricate a lie I will steer away from mentioning identifiable people, places, and dates in fear of emboldening my audience to call out my BS. The more specific I am the easier it becomes to discredit my claims.

Look, ancient people were just as skeptical as people are today. They al... (read more)

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1drethelin
Ancient people were just as skeptical with the key difference of having virtually no information, relative to what we do today. If I hear about something happening in Africa, I can go to the internet, or go to any of a dozen news sources to try and find out how true what I heard was. If someone 2000 years ago in europe heard about something happening in africa, they would have none of these options. People made things up, misinterpreted things heard from other languages and cultures, and just plain didn't understand all sorts of things. Consider Herodotus, to all accounts a man who intended to write true stories of different countries and events, and yet whose accounts are littered with what we now know to be untruths and misrepresentations. We know that there were apocryphal gospels that never made it into today's bible, so at some point historically things were selected by people in power, presumably because they furthered their agenda. You're trying to argue that it's implausible that the bible is one giant lie, and I agree, but it's very likely to be a hundred different lies or distortions from a hundred different eras piled on top of each other. If everyone believes some simple claim, then then next censorship or invention is not the giant lie you make it out to be.
2RomanDavis
Sure. And people had crazy apocalyptic cults and mass hysteria just like we do today. What's your point?
Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
vtiola-40

To claim Jesus resurrected is a bold claim, especially since Jesus was a public figure who received a public execution within a very hostile and skeptical environment.

Let me illustrate with two scenarios. For the purposes of this example, let's say I'm from a small town and both scenarios involve me making a claim to a miraculous event.

Scenario 1:

I tell the people in my town that all of Israel's modern day enemies (Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) just miraculously got wiped out by hail stones and fire from heaven. Yes, that is a bold claim.

Scenario 2: ... (read more)

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5Vaniver
Um... I read the Bible as a child, as I would expect most skeptics who were raised by Christian parents did. I actually turned against Christianity because I did not like the God depicted in the Bible, which happened because I took the Bible at face value. It wasn't until later that I built up the materialistic worldview which sees the Bible as a piece of literature rather than a collection of historical claims. If I had just treated the Bible as clothing that my family and friends chose to wear, it would have been easy to continue wearing that clothing, while not actually holding the implied belief system. (I like my family and the friends I grew up with!) Instead, I treated it as actually constraining my expectations of God and the universe, and the resulting beliefs clashed against each other until they were destroyed. (My materialistic beliefs work together much more nicely.)
6Xachariah
Scenario 1 is still the bolder claim. Egypt wasn't that far away from Isreal and any member of the village could have actually gone to Egypt. Jerusalem Isreal to Giza Egypt would be about a 2 week travel on foot. Tel-Aviv Isreal to Alexandria Egypt would be about a 3 day boat ride with biblical technology. Yeah, it's kind of annoying to travel that far, but ancient traders did that all the time to trade goods. As it turns out, those stories in Exodus were complete lies and fabrications. There is little evidence any significant number of Jews were ever in Egypt during that time period, and zero evidence the plagues ever occurred. The Bible was willing to lie about something so massive it would have made all the history books, and been carved on every monument. That's really, really bold. Additionally, we don't have hundreds of reports of Jesus' resurrection. We have one report saying that hundreds of people saw it, and that one report was written down a hundred years after Jesus' death. If I claim that my great-grandfather rose from the grave in 1912, it doesn't make it any more credible if I claim that 1,000 people also saw it. It would be silly to say that since 1000 is twice as much as 500, so my great-grandfather's resurrection is twice as likely as Jesus'. The authorities didn't bother discrediting it at the time any more than the CIA bothers with discrediting Elvis sightings. There was nothing there for them to discredit.
6Randaly
Alternately, suppose I'm from Rome and I hear of the two scenarios: Scenario 1: I tell the people in Rome that all of Israel's modern day enemies (Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) just miraculously got wiped out by hail stones and fire from heaven. This can be easily checked- just dispatch somebody to go look at them. Scenario 2: The people in a small town somewhere claim that their Sheriff died, then rose from the dead, then vanished. This isn't nearly as easy to check. You could look for the body- but, canonically, the body was given to one of Jesus's followers (Joseph of Arimathea; see Matthew 27:57 and John 19:38 for descriptions of him as a disciple of Jesus), so we have no idea where the body is, besides his claim to have put it in a tomb. Even if he's being honest, there are certainly other ways for the body to have vanished- for example, the Jewish Toledot Yeshu claims that a gardener named Juda stole the body. We also don't have solid evidence that he ever died- again, according to the Bible, Herod was astonished at how quickly Jesus died, and had a centurion check. That one man's check is the reason it was believed he was dead; it's certainly within the realm of possibility that he was wrong. (Or, for that matter, that the Roman officer didn't feel actually giving a proper medical check, which would involve walking up to and feeling, closely and repeatedly, Jesus's bloody, sweating, dirty body.) (And your prior should possibly favor that- after all, there have been many more verified cases of mistaken death pronouncements than there have been resurrections.) There were witnesses, of course. Almost all of them were Jesus's disciples, a small band of fanatical followers, some of whom would later demonstrate their willingness to lay down their lives for their faith. (Your claim that he was seen by 500 is flat out non-biblical.) Also, most gospels present the resurrection as having been seen by some Roman soldiers, who were then supposedly bribed to claim
Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
vtiola-40

The Roman Empire did have libraries. Thus, the New Testament doesn't claim big, showy, large-scale geopolitical miracles as the Old Testament routinely did. Instead the New Testament claims smaller miracles…

Here you are making the claim that Old Testament miracles were bolder and more daring than New Testament ones because the Old Testament writers felt they could get away with a lot more because they knew that their contemporaries lacked the means to verify or discredit their claims. You imply that if not for the fact the Romans were better record k... (read more)

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0Mitchell_Porter
Along with the Bible, I suggest that you study the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Lotus Sutra, as exemplifying the mind-state of the epoch of religion. And then contemplate yourself as a Homo sapiens living in the next epoch, that of science.
Xachariah100

One of those things that Paul was telling King Agrippa about was the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is arguably the boldest and most daring claim of the entire scriptures, Old and New Testament. Think about it.

No, it's not. Nowhere even close. You seem unable to distinguish between 'claims that are bold and daring' with 'claims that are important to my faith'. Claiming some guy came back from the dead for a couple of days, then disappeared again, but we totally have witnesses is not a bold claim.

The entire population of Earth... (read more)

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2drethelin
If an islamic martyr today can be convinced that he gets x virgins in paradise (something your evident christianity would claim is untrue) in a world full of science as well as the true faith (from your point of view), why can't some writer 1800 years ago be convinced that what he writes is the true word of god?