I get thrown the miracle of the shroud of Turin on a regular basis — just last week someone confronted me with it, basically saying “A-ha! Jesus existed because there’s an old scrap of cloth with a face on it!” It doesn’t matter that I point out that it’s been dated to the 13th century, and was nothing more than a profit-making ‘relic’ for churches that would also hawk Jesus’s foreskin and John the Baptist’s pinky bone. They’d usually retort that it was not humanly possible to make the shroud, so it had to be a religious miracle.
Now I’ve got more ammo. The Shroud of Turin has been recreated, using simple medieval technologies. No magic, just acidic pigments.
I know, it won’t stop the kooks, but it’s still useful to know. Next up, we need more evidence against the patently goofy Miracle of Luciano, which is the other ‘proof’ of god that gets flung around a lot.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8415377.stm
Another massively inconvenient rusty nail in the guts of theism…oh dear! …how sad!…never mind!
PZ- you too may be deemed a Kook because it seems you are selectively choosing information to justify what you want to believe, just as you describe the religious “kooks” doing. There are solid, cogent scientific counters to the proof points you argue, assimilated by noted professors (not associated professors- might I add).
So for this particular “recreation” point you noted- sindonologist Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermic measurements at the Padua University, reviewed “the image in discussion does not match the main fundamental properties of the Shroud image, in particular at thread and fiber level but also at macroscopic level”.
Yes, those that choose to have faith are making a choice, just as many of them choose to believe in the authenticity of the shroud without a full understanding of all counter points. But you too are making a choice to not have faith, and I question if this choice is similarly soiling your objective look at all sides of the Shroud argument.
In the end, isn’t religious faith simply making a choice to believe in something even though you recognize you do not have nor could ever grasp the totality of information regarding the complexities of the material & immaterial world? I would counter that religious faith is much more intellectually honest than scientific faith (and thus less Kooky). Sure, scientific findings may ultimately and sufficiently explain objects of a religious person’s faith but until science can explain every aspect of all things, I guess we are all just livin’ on faith. I guess its boils down to which side we choose to be on.
What immaterial world? Assertion without evidence to back it up. Ergo, meaningless. It doesn’t exist by parismony.
No. Faith is belief without evidence. Science has the evidence (facts) that the shroud is a fake. Ergo, no belief without evidence, as the evidence exists. People who believe without evidence are delusional fools. Which explains your inane statement. You have no facts, so you must create a smoke screen by trying to pretend science and its evidence is an act of faith to hide your delusions from the truth.
immaterial=not consisting of matter, e.g. spiritual world.
Concerning my inane statement, let’s use Christianity as case in point. There is extrabiblical evidence that Christ existed (Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, etc.) . There is evidence that something happened which caused his terrified followers to all of a sudden become bold and travel all over Asia Minor proclaiming his word- with many ultimately giving their lives. There is evidence the world turned dark during the Crucifixion. The sheer energy and dedication of these followers to spread the word is evidence that these firsthand accounts who lived with him truly believed in him. There is evidence that faith in Christ changes lives.
Thus, this is faith With evidence. This is not equivalent to faith in flying pink unicorns but rather faith in something which evidence says indeed could be real. True this evidence isn’t bulletproof as you/I were not there to witness it. Sure, there are potential inconsistencies with the various accounts but that in itself is not proof it did not happen. I could argue the evidence for Christ is stronger than many of the pillars of science that you place your faith on. The term ‘Delusional fool’ could apply to you just as easy as it could to Mother Teresa.
Thus we all take new evidence at hand and Choose what to do with it. None of us are truly objective as we all have preconceived paradigms. If I believe in Christ naturally I take the shroud, weight it against the evidence and even if I seek to be truly objective, my worldview will probably impact my ultimate choice on how I view the evidence. The exact same thing happens to you when you evaluate the evidence. Your seek out objections because your physical worldview says it cannot possibly be real.
In short- there is no difference in Christ faith vs. the faith you have in science. We both make a choice on what to believe. We both place faith in something because humanity cannot possibly grasp the uber truth of the universe due to the finite nature of the human mind. You are a delusional fool.
What spiritual world? Until you define it and show it acutally exists with physical evidence, you have nothing but an inane assertion, essentially mental masturbation.
Still lying to yourself I see. Xian faith is believing without physical evidence for said belief. There is no evidence for your deity, for your babble being inerrant, or even conclusive evidence that Jebus existed. Believing in all that without evidence makes you, not me, the delusional fool.
Science has no faith in anything. Which is why the physical evidence is checked and rechecked. Evidence is not faith, but rather physical facts. On doesn’t chose those facts, they simply are. Ignoring them is delusional behavior. I need no faith in the evidence of science, because the physical facts back up scientific theories. Since there is supporting data that is lacking from the religious belief, attempting to say that science requires faith is a bald faced lie. Science deals with reality and doesn’t need to invoke imaginary things like deities, babbles, and spiritual worlds.
Repeating your inane statement doesn’t make it truer. It just shows you don’t understand the real problem, and can’t directly address. Which is that your beliefs don’t agree with reality. And it shows why science and those who appreciate it aren’t delusional. The facts speak for themselves.
None of this evidence is first-hand. There is no non-Biblical contemporaneous primary source, be it witness testimony or other record.
Of course, no member of any modern cult has ever done that. [/snark]
Citation, please.
The Aztec priests will be relieved to learn that the zealousness with which they ripped the hearts out of the chests of other human beings will now be considered proof of the existence of their gods.
Jim Jones and Charles Manson are also likewise vindicated.
“without evidence?” I cited 4 quick examples of evidence for Christ. Do you need more or will you just skip over them again and reflexively fit everything into your faith-must-be-dumb paradigm?
Yes science explains some things- as I will grant you the human mind is capable of contemplation and problem solving. But it does not explain all things- and topics that are of most importance (creation of universe, universal laws, etc.) – scientific faith is required.
Again, the crux of your argument is equally delusional. You may believe all matter came into existence from nothing. Please explain this without a Creator. Agreed, I wasn’t there to witness it, just as i wasn’t there to witness the building of my beach house. I guess it could could have made itself via the wind, waves & driftwood. But logic and reason leads us to a more plausible explanation.
No, this is extrapolated conjecture and wishful thinking. Please look up “evidence”.
This was a common method of information dissemination in this part of the world at that time. Nomadic tribes tell stories of their cultures… they spread… etc, etc… This is not evidence of Christ anymore than there is evidence of “Odysseus”.. again… please look up the meaning of “evidence”.
This is purely made up.
Have you ever seen the fervor and conviction that 100s of “UFO abductees” retell their tale?
So since it’s told with “evergy and dedication” it must be true? Boy, you are an easy mark… no wonder you’re such a fervent believer.
Again, what you have presented is examples of nomadic, illiterate goat herders and tribesman really believing the things they were told by other nomadic illiterate goat herders… it happens.
How do you think Mayan religion and culture spread? You think the early adopters of that religion were any less convinced of their experiences? So therefor their religion must also have been true?
Better head on up the pyramid to the sacrificial slab, bub…
Bzzzzzz! No, religious faith clings to its tenets whatever disoveries may be made: Science adapts to reality, and changes to accommodate new information.
Science is not a faith. You do not need to believe in gravity to stick to the ground, your faith in electrons is not recquired to view this message on your screen.
No again (you don’t understand science at all, do you?) We feel that it is unlikely that an apparent image on an old sheet is that of Jesus; we suspect it is a fake; we test it: it is a fake. What’s wrong with that?
It says little about your own faith that you equate science with it, since science has no holy books, no men set above all others, no recquirement to praise or to pray to any entity, no holy rituals, why it’s nothing like religion at all!
We cleave to science only because it gives us an insight into the phsyical world around and inspires with a wonder, we contend, far greater than your world of fairies and magic can ever provide.
And we don’t have to bolster it by waving tatty magic shrouds – because, unlike religion, science and discovery are true for everyone – even you.
There is extrabiblical evidence that Christ existed (Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, etc.)
The so-called Testimonium Flavianum (Josephus) is widely agreed upon among scholars to be a later interpolation into the text, in whole or in part. The fact is, Christian scribes’ fingerprints are all over the thing, and so you can’t appeal to what Josephus wrote, since we don’t know what it was, or even if he wrote anything on the subject. Tacitus and Suetonius are reporting what Christians believed at the time that they wrote, long after the putative events and so their writings simply pass along a credulous gloss on the minimal Christian confession after the basic outline of the Synoptic narrative was well-established. Such credulity in the reporting of unsourced narratives is typical of ancient historians and it can’t be adduced as primary evidence.
There is evidence the world turned dark during the Crucifixion.
Hahahahaha! So you’re just a moron, then. Never mind.
Wrong. Wrong Wrong. And even trying to make that long stuffed canard is evidence of either your lack of understanding how science works or your intellectually dishonest way of presenting arguments.
Maybe both.
Faith is the belief in something in the face of a lack of evidence. Acceptance of what science shows us is based on actual empirical evidence, something the supernatural is wholly lacking.
If you’d like to provide us with some actual evidence feel free, but i have a feeling we’ll be explain what evidence actually is here soon enough.
For some reason I expect the trilemma….
Please explain the existence of a creator without a creator…
You also have a quite mis-informed view of what we “believe” regarding matter coming into existence.
Assuming that god, or any other creator, is the answer for things we don’t yet have answers to without any shred of evidence is, well… infantile.
Ah, yes… excellent point…
So, does logic and reason leave you to believe your beach house was cobbled together by magical little elves that no-one can see in the middle of the night, stopping time to do so, so that it was not there one minute, and was the next?
So why apply similar logic to the rest of your world-view?
Wow reading back through mhugs it’s pretty fantastic how many bad christian apologist cliches can be packed into one person’s arguments.
And you can prove this is a result of a supernatural happening instead of an easily explainable social one?
Hahaha. And truly believing in something makes it true? I’ll be sure to tell the Heaven’s Gate people’s relatives.
Mhugs, you presented no hard evidence, just a bunch of assertions and presuppositions. Hard evidence. Like the carbon dating from three univerisities around the world for the shroud that date to its first recorded appearance in the 14th century. Obvious fraud to anyone who isn’t presupposed to belief. Religious “evidence” isn’t scientific, as it lacks such rigor and testing, and presupposition is the name of the game. There is no evidence for Jebus that has any scientific rigor. I know that, and you should too.
Again, the crux of your argument is flawed and delusional. Science doesn’t chose to believe any evidence. The evidence just exists, and science explains it. Science has no need for your imaginary deity (creator), and can’t use the supernatural in its explanations. The same explanation is there with or without the supernatural, so parsimony says leave the supernatural out. So science explains things without your imaginary deity. If you don’t like it, show that the science is wrong with more science.
For example, you could show hard physical evidence for your imaginary deity, evidence that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers, as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. I don’t see that happening, as you appear to be a presuppositionalist with respect to your deity. Ergo, you have no argument for your deity. Parsimony says it doesn’t exist.
Don’t be silly Celtic. Logic and reason of that sort only extends to where you want it to, so that you can believe your presupposed ideas have grounding. So the beginning of the universe is fine, but you do not want that idea extended to everything else. It would make the argument look foolish!
Cue PZ admonishing us for feeding a troll in an old thread in 3… 2… 1…
;^)
mhugs,
I cited 4 quick examples of evidence for Christ.
All of which displayed your abysmal ignorance and in some cases, crass stupidity.
In the end, isn’t religious faith simply making a choice to believe in something even though you recognize you do not have nor could ever grasp the totality of information regarding the complexities of the material & immaterial world?
No. It’s believing ridiculous crap in the teeth of the evidence, usually because your parents drummed it into you when you were too young to know better.
There is evidence the world turned dark during the Crucifixion.
Blimey, we’ve got a grade A moron here. If it had done, this would have been noted in the detailed Chinese annals of that time (they recorded eclipses, comets, even sunspots IIRC), as well as the accounts of Greek and Roman witers, many of whom eagerly collected accounts of strange happenings. The fact that it is claimed in the synoptic gospels that it did, is therefore conclusive evidence that they contain lies.
Rev, whenever I hear the argument based on how much they really, really believed it I laugh as well. Of course, really believing it is only an argument they accept for their own belief. It would be wrong if someone else used it.
AoA contributor Jake Crosby got boring over at Orac’s place so I really hope PZ doesn’t admonish us. I need a replacement!
Yes, it’s called night. Excepting extreme latitudes near the poles, it happens once each 24h period.
If you meant something else, than (a) What, precisely, did you mean; and (b) What, precisely, is this evidence?
I haven’t checked recently, but did he ever admit to being mistaken about anything?
topics that are of most importance (creation of universe, universal laws, etc.) – scientific faith is required. – mhugs
No it isn’t. You really should learn the difference between faith and provisional assumptions, subject to revision in the light of testing and experience. Science may discover in future that the Big Bang theory is wrong, or more likely incomplete; and/or that there are no universal laws – they may differ across time and space.
No, of course not. He is never wrong, he just meant something other than what he wrote. As for the other things he was wrong about I am not even sure what argument he is making to save them any longer.
I found it quite amazing how everyone else stopped poking him at the same time and it totally went silent on that thread. Is there some sort of critical amount of inanity that kills a thread?
Yes, it’s called night.
Except according to the earliest version in Mark, which is very explicit about the timeline of the Passion, it was noon in Jerusalem, which is at 31 degrees North lattitude.
I’ve no idea what the moron is on about, but in answer to (a), for the author of Mark it was an apocalyptic (and completely symbolic) sign of the fall of the “Powers” of the heavens, believed to be in control of earthly events. Basically like the sun, the moon, and the stars falling out of the sky.
Cheese for everyone!
Where to even begin!
1. Science isn’t philosophy. Science is not contemplation. Science doesn’t merely come up with ideas, it tests them against reality because that’s the only way of finding out whether a logically consistent idea is wrong. Science is the quest for everything that’s wrong – I’m not kidding.
2. If science could already explain everything, it would be over. Duh.
3. “Scientific faith” is a contradiction in terms, see point 1.
Wow. The crux of this entire argument is you too have faith- because you cannot prove everything. I don’t have enough time in the day to respond to each point.
Josephus- deep study has been made around what was original vs. added at a later date. The historical record has been ferreted out to justify the historical Christ. For example “man, if you can call him that” was probably added. The historical Christ reference is generally agreed to be authentic. But feel free to dismiss it because it can’t possibly be correct if he never existed.
Crucifixion eclipse: Phlegon wrote about the darkness that occurred in the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad (equivilant to 33 A.D.). “There was the greatest eclipse of the sun. It became as night in the sixth hour of the day (noon) so that the stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia and many things were overturned in Nicaea”. Moreover, Julius Africanus in gives a commentary on Thallus’ AD 33 record of the darkness across the land. “Thallus in the third book of his histories, explains away the darkness as an eclipse of the sun – unreasonably as it seems to me.” in AD 33. Has to be coincidence again because your worldview says it is. And well Im just a moron anyway to even bring this up.
The Snark comment about Christianity being similar to modern cults: Are the Branch Davidians still around after David Koresh died? Are their leaders still around preaching he’s the messiah? They haven’t been to my town proclaiming it on the court houses and arguing in the synagogues from what I can see.
Aztec priests- nonsense argument as they were not risking their lives to proclaim a new message that they personally witnessed. They were just ripping hearts out because they thought their gods dug it and they looked cool bouncing down the pyramid.
Show me 12 UFO abductees who were all apart of the same abduction and report the same story. Yes, they often suffer from PTSD from their hypnosis sessions, and they truly believe what happened but again- but they are individual stories stitched together per stimulation of temporal lobe. They have proven that you can put a frickin electro magnetic hat on the temporal lobe and reproduce an alien abduction experience. Christ appeared to 100+ people and to 20+ in the same room who reported the same story. James, his very own brother who saw him from day 1 – believed he was the Messiah- and had calluses on his knees from praying so much.
Evidence & points don’t really matter to you. Each point will always be refuted because they are counter to what you want to believe. Go ahead and say the same thing about me.
Its odd that each time there is a debate about this- the debate always turns to personal attacks (delusional, moron, etc.) where you directly or indirectly espouse your intellectual superiority over the person of ‘faith’. Realize you too are accepting other’s evidence that you have not personally witnessed or personally investigated. You too cannot explain all- so you choose an explanation which seems logical to you based on your worldview. You too have a foundation based on faith.
I think we’re troll deprived – and it’s your fault! Some twit posts a “science doesn’t know everything and it really a religion” post on an old thread, and here come the tank corps….
Guys, we’ll never get any decent, mature, trolls if you strangle them fresh from the womb like this. Remember PZ’s cardinal rule – keep the tone gentle. On which, has anyone read the pathetic blog “yourenothelping”?
It even uses the royal “we” – appropriate for such pissants.
Yes, but: Are you arguing a scroll written years (probably decades) after the alleged event, and edited numerous times by biased copyists, is accurate? And, Roman custom of the time (as I understand it) was to leave the body hanging to rot and/or be eaten. The Jews of the time found that very offensive (which, of course, it was meant to be). Apparently there are some non-canonical gospel(s?) which say Herod(?) ordered the body taken down before nightfall.
All this, of course, is not too relevant to our troll (who, I will guess, doesn’t even know what we’re talking about). For the troll, the point was night must have happened, whether or not there was an execution, and independent of the poor sod(s) who were killed—In order words, a (presumably literal) claim the Earth was dark is normal and expected.
That is your fallacious assertion, without evidence to back it up. Just like all your other points.
You have no points, just assertions without solid evidence.
Boy, are you stoopid, and are showing it. We keep talking evidence. So how can good solid scientific evidence not be important to us? Oh, that’s right, you think religious presupposition is solid evidence. It isn’t.
This is meaningless as evidence unless you tie it directly the crucifixion, which you haven’t done. You also need to provide the conclusive physical evidence for your deity, and the actual existence of Jebus first. Then, and only then, can this factoid come into play. We understand evidence, you don’t.
Sorry, personal witnessing isn’t evidence, and science has the peer reviewed scientific literature so we don’t have to do all by ourselves, as it is shared. You really don’t have a clue on how science operates.
Show me one confirmed UFO abductee. Confirmed by science that is, and not just based on their delusional testimony.
Another assertion without supporting evidence. We have physical evidence backed by the scientific literature. You don’t. You need to quit lying to yourself, so you can quit lying to us. So, since you keep repeating the same fallacious and inane argument, you are a liar and bullshitter. Prove us wrong by showing conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity, or acknowledge you have nothing but your delusions.
Wow. The crux of this entire argument is you too have faith- because you cannot prove everything. – mhugs
Look, shit-for-brains, the difference between faith and provisional, testable assumptions has already been explained to you.
Phlegon wrote about the darkness that occurred in the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad (equivilant to 33 A.D.). “There was the greatest eclipse of the sun. It became as night in the sixth hour of the day (noon) so that the stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia and many things were overturned in Nicaea”. Moreover, Julius Africanus in gives a commentary on Thallus’ AD 33 record of the darkness across the land. “Thallus in the third book of his histories, explains away the darkness as an eclipse of the sun – unreasonably as it seems to me.” in AD 33.
Utter bilge: see Thallus: an Analysis (1999). Also, why doesn’t Pliny the Elder, who was much neaer in time, and made a vast collection of strange events, mention it? Why isn’t it in the Chinese annals?
Are the Branch Davidians still around after David Koresh died?
As a matter of fact, I believe so. Whatever, the Mormons certainly are: following Joseph Smith’s lynching, they showed their faith by trekking halfway across North America seeking their “promised land”. So are the Scientologists, despite also being founded by a many-times proven liar.
Christ appeared to 100+ people and to 20+ in the same room who reported the same story. James, his very own brother who saw him from day 1 – believed he was the Messiah- and had calluses on his knees from praying so much.
Crap. We have claims that the resurrected Jesus appeared to 100+ people – we do not have 100+ independent accounts. Tell you what – I can walk on water and raise the dead. Well over 10,000 people have seen me do it at once! What do you mean, you don’t believe it? I tell you again, more than 10,000 people saw me do it! If you actually look at the gospel accounts of both crucifixion and resurrection, they are full of inconsistencies as to what happened when, who saw him first, etc. etc.
Evidence & points don’t really matter to you.
We have a true master of projection here!
Each point will always be refuted because they are
counter to what you want to believecompletely stupid crap.Fixed for you – no charge.
directly or indirectly espouse your intellectual superiority over the person of ‘faith’.
If the best I could reasonably claim about my intellect is that it is superior to yours, I’d go and hide in a hole.
So you’re saying that Elron Cupboard is necessarily still alive somewhere, pulling the strings that make Thumb Cruise jump on couches? Fascinating.
Shakespeare wrote about the great comet in one of his plays. Is that why we know Halley’s Comet returns every 76 years?
Please show me you have physical evidence for the origins of the universe. please enlighten me how something comes from absolutely nothing. this is the foundation for everything and if you cannot explain how we came from nothing then how is your argument any way superior to mine? A pink frickin fairy created the universe with fairy dust. Show me physical proof she didnt. It’s as logical as something comes from nothing argument that we are simply the chanced biproducts of galactic garbage.
mHugs – warning, we have some serious biblical experts on this board (many of them ex-fundies). You’ll be trounced on biblical history and on theology. By the way which brand of Christian are you? Because, after all, to each thread of Christianity all the others are miswoven: we just see a fucking ugly carpet.
Please enlighten me how your imaginary creator came into being out of nothing. Please enlighten me on how such a creator could be formed fully powerful. Please enlighten me how the creator did the big bang. Leaving out the creator (parsimony), gives the scientifically simpler explanation. Ergo, we don’t need your imaginary deity.
Ah, here you lost it. Negatives can’t be proven. The existence of your imaginary deity is a positive statement, which could be proven. Why are you shying away from doing so? Maybe you know you have nothing but you delusions. Why can’t you just take your delusions and go away…
A little hint about capital letters: they go after full stops and in front of proper names; they should not appear randomly throughout text. May I suggest you check your shift key for bread crumbs?
The observable galaxies are all moving away from us at a speed proportional to their distance. This implies a denser, smaller configuration in the past. A prediction of this past is the surface of last scattering when the universe was cold enough to no longer interact significantly with matter. We have confirmed that prediction in the Cosmic Microwave Background – one of the most accurate measurements ever formed.
Quantum mechanics limits the lifetimes of matter and radiation in proportion to how well determined their energies are. Consequently energy (and thus matter) may appear out of nowhere for limited lengths of time depending on their size. Some current hypotheses suggest that symmetry breaking during one such fluctuation allowed for inflation to our current state of affairs. Alternatively, my (admittedly, poor) understanding of Lawrence Krauss is that the flatness of the universe allows for accounting for gravitational attraction as an essentially negative energy, the result of which is that the total energy of the universe as we know it is, indeed, zero. So everything came from nothing, because everything is still fundamentally nothing – just a much lower symmetry configuration of nothing.
Which explanation is correct, I don’t know, but I’m perfectly happy to admit that, and I’m looking forward to seeing the evidence gathered in the coming decades.
Well, we’re ready to say we’re wrong in out current understanding when evidence comes in to falsify our predictions. In that respect our argument is indeed superior to yours, in that we gladly seek TEH TROOF, but we do not blindly claim to have found it.
I cannot. My neighbour’s cat tells me he created the universe from scratch last Thursday, but I have no evidence to believe that he’s correct and not just jealous of her invisible, pink majesty (MHHNBS).
Selected. Selected biproducts of stellar garbage. Only half of it is chance.
Phlegon wrote about the darkness that occurred in the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad (equivilant to 33 A.D.). “There was the greatest eclipse of the sun. It became as night in the sixth hour of the day (noon) so that the stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia and many things were overturned in Nicaea
It can’t have been an eclipse. Passover begins on a full moon, making an eclipse of the Sun a physical impossibility on the day Jesus was crucified according to the story. Furthermore, had totality been visible in Nicaea, it could not have been any more than partial at Jerusalem.
Clearly what is being narrated is a supernatural, apocalyptic event, and one that is not remarked upon in any number of sources that easily could have witnessed or been informed of such a singular occurrence and who would have been eager to report it, as Knockgoats points out.
Good grief you are an idiot. Branch Davidians were around before David Koresh and they are still around after him. And the fact you don’t personally see them has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
Logic, you are doing it wrong.
Hmmm. I can’t find out for certain where the centre of the Chinese intelligentsia in the first century CE was, but if we use Beijing to test the hypothesis, then it’ll have been around 17:00 there when Noon struck in Jerusalem and the world turned dark. Beijing is pretty southerly, but it’s not completely out of the question that for the Chinese observers at the time it was already night when darkness fell. Since it was only for three hours it could well have gone completely unnoticed depending on the kind of darkness.
So to be scrupulously fair, the silence of the Chinese does not necessarily invalidate the claim of a worldwide darkness of supernatural origin.
blf, no, I certainly do not mean to imply that anything in the gospels is an accurate account of any actual events. But if we simply take the narrative in Mark at face value, it doesn’t refer to nighttime, that’s all I mean.
And, yeah, the non-canonical Gospel of Peter writes Pilate out of the trial narrative altogether, and has Herod Antipas ordering the crucifixion.
Except we have evidence pointing to what we know scientifically about the origins, though it admittedly is incomplete. Where you have exactly bupkis supporting your claims of a creator that came from nothing past some stories recorded long after the supposed events occurred and their supernatural claims left as wholly unsupported as your pink unicorn (or teapot or invisible green dragon if you will).
The big difference here is this:
To this date not one mystery of the world has been solved by religious proclimations, where every other mystery that we have answered has been done so in some scientific manner.
A Jewish ruler ordering a Roman execution? On the Seder?
Here’s the thing about science. See there are these nice little things called journals and research papers where experiments and studies are recorded so that their methods can be repeated and their results verified. Any scientists with the proper understanding of subject matter can in theory repeats the research and experiments and can thereby verify what the original results were.
Discoveries such as fossils like Tiktaalik have their methods for determining where a fossil is likely to be found via already known facts about geology and previous fossil discoveries among other things. The very fact that these things can be found is because science works. There is a method to the work, a fact checking structure in place to verify discoveries and conclusions and the information is recorded so that people in the future can repeat the work that allowed for the discoveries to happen. It’s not a matter of faith like you’d like to claim it. It’s a matter of reality.
now, explain the complimentary religious structure for verification of claims?
A Jewish ruler ordering a Roman execution? On the Seder?
Yeah. Pretty over-the-top, even if, historically, Antipas wasn’t much of a religiously observant Jew. But if you think Matthew is anti-Jewish, you should see some of the later non-canonical stuff.
mhugs #155 wrote:
Where did you get the idea that there’s ever been ‘absolutely nothing’?
I’d forgotten he was supposed to be that. I’m horribly uneducated in matters of biblical scholarship. Guess I shoulda paid better attention in high school.
I just pick up snippets here and there. Mainly here.
I thought I had Peter with the synoptic gospels I snagged from the ‘to pulp’ pile at the library, but unfortunately it only has the bits of Thomas that fits the synoptics.
Please ignore the typos above. For some reason i felt the need to add s to the end of a number of words that did not require it (among other things).
Have you considered the simple fact that the shroud contradicts the bible?
John 19:40 states that Jesus was wrapped in strips of linen, not one large sheet.
None of the gospel writers or evangelists refer to this miracle of a large sheet with Jesus’ image.
What exactly is it that you have faith in, then?
=============
(I see Knockgoats already covered some of this, but: )
Actually, it’s not a coincidence — it’s a mistake, deliberately perpetrated by Christian apologists.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/thallus.html
And let’s re-emphasize the “physical impossibilities” part: Eclipses of the sun can only occur during new moons, when the reflective side of the moon is directly facing the sun, and the dark side is facing the Earth. That’s how it gets between the sun and the Earth.
Passover occurs during the 14th of a lunar month (which itself always begins on a new moon) — the moon is full on the 14th because it is directly opposite the sun, thus providing full reflectivity.
Read the rest of the essay linked to for why the supposed “eclipse” is nonsense.
A quick lookup on Wikipedia says that yes, they still exist.
LOL. It depends on the person — some people have a religious experience. Some don’t feel much of anything.
According to the story itself. How very convenient.
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Parsimonious explanations from evidence is always superior to making shit up with no evidence. Science has evidence, you have making shit up with no evidence.
Science wins.
(And I didn’t refresh before seeing that CJO said the same thing. Oh, well.)
I don’t think anyone claims there was an eclipse in the astronomical sense. The darkness was supernatural in origin, but mistaken for an eclipse by witnesses unaware of it’s miraculous origin.
Of course, one’d have thought that people in the habit of writing about eclipses woulda known about them not lasting three hours or occurring during the full Moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence
Now if you’re asking “what came before the big bang” or “why is there something instead of nothing”, then we don’t know. We don’t even know if the questions make sense (talking about “before the big bang” could very well be like asking what’s north of the North pole). We got people working on it. However, what we do know is that “magic man done it” is not a satisfactory explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
Not really.
It’s backed by evidence and basic logic.
I think the Christian copyists that Richard Carrier cites thought that it was, or could have been. And any other Christians, modern or not, who don’t know anything about astronomy, might well think likewise. Like mhugs, say.
Then the historian wouldn’t have called it an eclipse, but a completely unnatural darkness which didn’t start and end like an eclipse, in the wrong time of month to be an eclipse, and which therefore freaked everyone — especially the astronomers — out.
“Yes science explains some things- as I will grant you the human mind is capable of contemplation and problem solving.”
Shades of Life of Brian here. “Okay, aside from disease prevention, cures, clean water, transportation, space travel, and computers (and religious tale debunking), what has science ever done for us?”
“But it does not explain all things- and topics that are of most importance (creation of universe, universal laws, etc.) – scientific faith is required.”
I could be terribly practical and suggest that how the universe was created is not really of any importance to life on earth, and that questions about the afterlife are only important to people who are afraid of death.
At any rate, science has provided the best and most reproducible results. Religion has had it’s chance to solve those mysteries for thousands of years, and all they’ve got are thousands of contradicting stories that people only believe because somebody wrote them down in an Important Book before they were born.
Wow. The crux of this entire argument is you too have faith- because you cannot prove everything.
Right; so the crux of your entire argument is based on rank stupidity, as “you too have faith” in no way follows from “you cannot prove everything”. But it’s not just the crux — every element of your argument is full of stupidity.
Again, the crux of your argument is equally delusional. You may believe all matter came into existence from nothing. Please explain this without a Creator.
I don’t believe that. What I believe is that there are a number of competing explanations of the origin of the universe that appear to be consistent with all available evidence — for instance a universe that extends infinitely backwards in time, just as it presumably extends infinitely into the future. I find that more plausible than other explanations I’ve seen but I don’t think the evidence is conclusive, and there may well be other explanations that better explain the data so I don’t “believe” any of these explanations. As for “a Creator”, goddidit is not an explanation at all, and it isn’t even coherent — we would need some way to apply the concept of “cause” beyond a causally closed physical universe, but we don’t really have any such thing. In any case, there is no positive reason to “believe” in such a Creator — and the negative reason, your claim that any other explanation is implausible, fails doubly because an infinitely old universe is plausible and an uncreated Creator is implausible by your own argument (the usual religious apologist’s response to that is the intellectually dishonest carving out of god as a special case, often based on question begging quotation of the bible as to the nature of god).
So to be scrupulously fair, the silence of the Chinese does not necessarily invalidate the claim of a worldwide darkness of supernatural origin.
Um, scrupulous fairness requires note that mhugs claimed that there is evidence that the world turned dark during the Crucifixion, and cited reports of a solar eclipse. That something or other doesn’t necessarily invalidate a claim of the supernatural is a stunningly weak claim, obviously tautological, and beyond irrelevant.
All I meant was that it would have been possible for the Chinese to miss an world encompassing supernatural darkness, if they were so far East that night had already arrived where they were.
I’m not saying it’s a good argument. I’m not exactly skilled in apologetics for crazy claims.
I’ll try to improve. Thanks.
All I meant was that it would have been possible for the Chinese to miss an world encompassing supernatural darkness
Congratulations on completely missing the point. You wrote “the silence of the Chinese does not necessarily invalidate the claim of a worldwide darkness of supernatural origin” — but how can the silence of anyone necessarily invalidate any supernatural claim? Do you understand what “necessarily”, “invalidate”, and “supernatural” mean? You wrote “to be scrupulously fair”, but you seem unwilling to scrupulously examine your own words.
Again: mhugs said that there is evidence that the world turned dark during the Crucifixion, and cited reports of a solar eclipse as that evidence. Of course one can just assert that it was a “supernatural darkness”, a miracle that doesn’t have to play by any physical rules, in which case one can come up with an infinity of explanations of why the Chinese didn’t record it. But positing miracles of arbitrary nature when one claims to be offering evidence is not what I would call being “scupulously fair”.
I’m not exactly skilled in apologetics for crazy claims.
No, actually you are quite skilled at it, which is the problem. Here’s the take-away message: “scrupulously fair apologetics” is an oxymoron.
So what is the verdict on Christ (no I’m not going into the trilemma)? Did he or did he not exist? If the latter, did his named followers (and those named who saw him after resurrection) exist or were they too part of the myth?
mhugs, it’s an open question, about which there has been discussion on other threads.
Did King Arthur exist, and did his named followers (and those named who saw him pull the sword from the stone) exist or were they too part of the myth?
Mhugs, we’re waiting for your conclusive physical evidence. After all, parsimony says non-existence without conclusive evidence. Which hasn’t been presented. When is that going to happen…
If the latter, did his named followers (and those named who saw him after resurrection) exist or were they too part of the myth?
Those who claim to have seen him, or are claimed by others to have claimed to see him (remember, none of the Gospels was written by eyewitnesses, or even contemporaries.
The question isn’t really meaningful until you are more explicit in what you’re asking. When people ask that question, they are asking whether a biblical Jesus existed – one who went around preaching and performed miracles, then died on the cross only to resurrect 3 days later. That’s a pretty tall order to say actually happened. But instead what is argued is whether there was a historical figure at the base, and a historical figure by no means supports a biblical figure.
Consider the following statement: “Santa Claus is indeed real, only he doesn’t live at the north pole but lived in New Jersey. And he doesn’t ride a sleigh and deliver presents to every house in the world on Christmas, but was an insurance salesman who crafted wooden toys to give to the disadvantaged neighbourhood children.” If someone was to ask whether Santa exists, would they find such an answer satisfactory? I would contend not. The very parameters of Santa are one of a mythic being, Santa as a myth and Santa as a real person are two totally different things.
The point being that a man behind a myth doesn’t make the mythic figure true. Now there may have been a man who preached in the middle east, said a few good things, drew the ire of the Jewish establishment who in turn had the rogue preacher executed. But if there was such a figure, would it mean that the figure was God-incarnate, born of a virgin who was inpregnated by the holy spirit – who in his adult life healed the sick, raised the dead, died to redeem humanity only to ascend to heaven 3 days later? To say such a figure existed is clearly absurd.
My answer to your question is “no”, or “I don’t know” depending on whether you are talking about a biblical Jesus or a historical Jesus. The evidence that would be needed to support the claims of a biblical Jesus combined with the implausibility of the construct means that to claim there was a biblical Jesus requires a huge heap of faith. But a figure behind the myth? There might have been one, but like a historical Santa it doesn’t mean that one should believe that there really is a figure who is flown around the world by flying reindeer and delivers presents to every child at midnight on December 25th.
Mhugs, showing conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity comes first. No deity, no son of deity. Simple logic you godbots always try to ignore. Which makes your logic fail every time…
Quite simply turn on your television. About 1% of the static you’re seeing is caused by cosmic background radiation – the same cosmic background radiation that the big bang theory predicts. If that’s not enough for you, then how about nuclear weapons? e=mc² in action.
There’s more of course, including the ratios of different elements in space or the redshifting of distant galaxies. But those two examples should be sufficient.