The standard argument, used by apologists in countless books and all over the internet, for Christianity is that the alleged resurrection of Jesus makes the most sense out of the historical record. — Gregory
I'm talking about the Gospels. — Gregory
By the eleventh year of my dozen year long parochial school catechismic indoctrination (edification), the conspicuous failure of my teachers - highly and widely learned, even brilliant, Jesuit priests - to explain away the seminal fact above with any historical and defeasible reasons (even by my naive 15-16 year old standards) had driven me to apostasy and then out of the church and christianity - which to my mind then and still now 4 decades on - is refuted thus. Quibbles about "the resurrection" are beside the point; failure of prophesy by an alleged "divinity" proves that the prophet himself was not "divine" and, therefore, that the Nicene Creed was merely a fiction and political expedience required of the bishops (church fathers) in order to appease Caesar.In the case of New Testament Gospel accounts of Jesus' Second Coming prophesy, he specifies a time and implies a place by specifying who will witness the predicted event. Here I quote (forgive the length & tedious repetitions):
“ ... “ (Matthew 16: 27, 28)
“ ... “ (Matthew 24: 25-34)
“ ... “ (Mark 13:26-30)
“ ... “ (Luke 21:27-32)
" ... " (Matthew 26: 63, 64)
Millennia of rationalizing apologias, obfuscating mystifications, dogmatic indoctrination, schismatic martyrdoms, and countless more sanctified atrocities could no more "interpret" away the fact that Jesus did not return in the lifetimes of those to whom he'd pronounced his prophesy any more than Papal writ changes the fact that the Sun does not go around the Earth and that, as Galileo said of the Earth, "Eppur si muove." — 180 Proof
The standard argument, used by apologists in countless books and all over the internet, for Christianity is that the alleged resurrection of Jesus makes the most sense out of the historical record. My argument against this is:
Every culture, civilization, and religion in history has reports of miracles. In India in particular, there are many resurrection claims.
So if we place the accounts of Jesus's resurrection next to all the other reported miracles, it looks a lot less impressive.
So we are free to believe what we want.
I also wanted to point out that Christians have no way of knowing if Luke, Mark, and even Paul were real Apostles and could write Scripture. So there is a hole in the Bible — Gregory
So we are free to believe what we want. — Gregory
Thank the secular contemporary world that has all its basis and foundations in Christianity. — Gus Lamarch
Its also possible "Jesus" was a mixture of different, anti-Pharisee/Sadducee teachers from around the same time. Word of mouth, amongst and with other things, can blend figures like that. — TimefulJoe
What do you mean? I haven't heard of Bauer, but I'll go check them out. — TimefulJoe
The New Testament does, at least in some parts, have some notable historical accuracies, but things like the supposed people needing to go to their ancestral homes to be censused for taxing, which as far as I know has no base and would be a disaster and very illogical if actually played out, really makes a good case to question the historicity of what it is saying. After all, if we can't verify something so major happening, why should we accept that a single individual described in great detail was also actually as described? Not trying to repeat myself, but it seems pretty sound, even if it is an old argument. — TimefulJoe
I think modern Christianity, especially in its traditions, can be said to be much more a fusion of those things than one might argue original Christianity was — TimefulJoe
big thanks for filling me in on all that — TimefulJoe
Here and elsewhere so much about Christianity. — tim wood
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