Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[psstein]

No, anti-supernaturalism.

In thirty years, your belief in bodily reanimations will be a thing of history. Only a few backwoods, uneducated hillbillies will believe it. It is silly and ignorant. Abandon it now before your grandchildren are forced to read more of your superstitious nonsense scattered on the world wide web.

Drink! The same thing was said in the 1960s.

There are more religious believers now than ever before.

[psstein]

No. I want to show that it is a collection of writings by men, not of an all-knowing benevolent God. An all-knowing, benevolent God would send a very simple message of eternal salvation that even a child could understand. He would make sure that every human being on the face of the earth knew exactly what his Word meant. Instead, the Christian holy book has been the source of division, arguments, wars, and massive suffering for two thousand years.

As is to be expected, you're evading the point and changing the subject.

Being ignorant or outright stupid is easy; you don't have to do anything. Being informed is very tough.

[Gary]

No, Nick's use of "anti-intellectualism" to describe your mindset is quite accurate.
Yeah, Voltaire thought that too, three centuries ago.

Voltaire didn't have the Internet. :)

[Gary]

Drink! The same thing was said in the 1960s.

There are more religious believers now than ever before.

Not in educated western societies. In the United States the percentage of people describing themselves as non-religious is now over 20%. It is true that religion is growing in Asia and Africa. But I believe that once the Internet fully penetrates those areas of the world and once those areas reach a level of education comparable to the West, religion will decline there as well.

All one has to do is look at the continual decline in membership numbers, worship attendance numbers, and especially baptism numbers in all the major Christian denominations in the West to see the Church's rapid decline.

[Gary]

As is to be expected, you're evading the point and changing the subject.

Being ignorant or outright stupid is easy; you don't have to do anything. Being informed is very tough.

If you want to be informed on ancient Greek mythology, you need to study it. And to consider yourself an authority on the subject, you need to learn the language and be a scholar on the subject. However, you don't need to read even one sentence, of even one Greek mythology scholar, to know that Greek mythology is not real. Furthermore, you do not need to read one sentence of one book by a Greek mythology scholar to know that Zeus is non-existent and there is no need to fear eternal punishment from Zeus if you refuse to believe in him.

If you want to be an expert in the beliefs of ancient Christians, by all means, be a NT scholar and you will have my respect. But tell me that because you are a scholar in the beliefs of ancient Christians that you are an authority in the reality and historicity of ancient Christian dead body reanimations, and I will laugh in your face.

[tabibito]

The problem for Gary seems to be that he can't tell when the claims he makes about the actual record of scripture is accurate. His wildly inaccurate claims about what the scriptures actually record leaves him with little option but to make supercilious accusations.

[One Bad Pig]

Voltaire didn't have the Internet. :)

You're no Voltaire - and neither is the typical internet atheist. Besides, access to the internet has enhanced, not degraded, my faith.

[Gary]

I just published this post on my blog, along with a big picture of Zeus:

Conservative Christians often get very angry and exasperated with me when I challenge the scholarship of conservative Christian New Testament scholars such as William Lane Craig, NT Wright, Mike Licona, Peter Kreeft, et al., regarding their claim of the reality and historicity of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I am told that before I am qualified to challenge and criticize the positions of these scholars, I need to learn the ancient languages and do an in depth study of the scholarly literature (ie. become a scholar myself).

Here is my reply:

If you want to be informed on ancient Greek mythology, you need to study it. And to consider yourself an authority on ancient Greek mythology, you need to learn the language and be a credentialed scholar on the subject.

However, you don't need to read even one sentence, of even one Greek mythology scholar's books, to know that Greek mythology is not real. Furthermore, you do not need to read one sentence of one book by a Greek mythology scholar to know that Zeus is non-existent and that there is no need to fear eternal punishment from Zeus for refusing to believe in him and refusing to obey the teachings of the ancient Greek religion.

If you want to be an expert in the beliefs of ancient Christians, by all means, be a NT scholar and you will have my respect. But tell me that because you are a scholar in the beliefs of ancient Christians that you are somehow an authority in the reality and historicity of ancient dead body reanimations/resurrections, and I will laugh in your face.

[Gary]

The problem for Gary seems to be that he can't tell when the claims he makes about the actual record of scripture is accurate. His wildly inaccurate claims about what the scriptures actually record leaves him with little option but to make supercilious accusations.

"Supercilious"

I love it. Let me write that one down to use on my blog!

[Christianbookworm]

Nope. We just get mildly annoyed and amused. And Zeus is the kind of character that would make it really obvious if he existed.

[Gary]

You're no Voltaire - and neither is the typical internet atheist. Besides, access to the internet has enhanced, not degraded, my faith.

And you're no John Kennedy...

I just had to say that.

Anyway, the internet may have strengthened your faith, but it is a major factor in the decline of Christianity in educated, western civilization. I will post a link to an article on it.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view...icas-religion/

Excerpt:

He finds that the biggest influence on religious affiliation is religious upbringing—people who are brought up in a religion are more likely to be affiliated to that religion later.

However, the number of people with a religious upbringing has dropped since 1990. It’s easy to imagine how this inevitably leads to a fall in the number who are religious later in life. In fact, Downey’s analysis shows that this is an important factor. However, it cannot account for all of the fall or anywhere near it. In fact, that data indicates that it only explains about 25 percent of the drop.

He goes on to show that college-level education also correlates with the drop. Once again, it’s easy to imagine how contact with a wider group of people at college might contribute to a loss of religion.

Since the 1980s, the fraction of people receiving college level education has increased from 17.4 percent to 27.2 percent in the 2000s. So it’s not surprising that this is reflected in the drop in numbers claiming religious affiliation today. But although the correlation is statistically significant, it can only account for about 5 percent of the drop, so some other factor must also be involved.

That’s where the Internet comes in. In the 1980s, Internet use was essentially zero, but in 2010, 53 percent of the population spent two hours per week online and 25 percent surfed for more than 7 hours.

This increase closely matches the decrease in religious affiliation. In fact, Downey calculates that it can account for about 25 percent of the drop.

Gary: Factors involved in the decline of religion in the US:

1. Decrease in number of homes raising their children in a religious environment.
2. Higher education levels. The more educated people are, the more likely they are to not be religious.
3. The Internet: the exposure of millions to the literature and writings of skeptics exposing the falseness of religious claims.

[Christianbookworm]

Sure, believe every dumb thing on the internet. Opinions are facts!

[tabibito]

I don't think anyone told Gary that he had to become proficient at understanding Koine Greek to make his arguments (perhaps I missed it), but the exercise of the reading comprehension capacity in English of a mentally competent 10 year old would have given him the opportunity to avoid 80% of his posts making him a by-word.

[Gary]

I don't think anyone told Gary that he had to become proficient at understanding Koine Greek to make his arguments (perhaps I missed it), but the exercise of the reading comprehension capacity in English of a mentally competent 10 year old would have given him the opportunity to avoid 80% of his posts making him a by-word.

You silly sesquipedalian, you!

[Gary]

Sure, believe every dumb thing on the internet. Opinions are facts!

As we head into a new year, the guardians of traditional religion are ramping up efforts to keep their flocks—or, in crass economic terms, to retain market share. Some Christians have turned to soul searching while others have turned to marketing. Last fall, the LDS church spent millions on billboards, bus banners, and Facebook ads touting “I’m a Mormon.” In Canada, the Catholic Church has launched a “Come Home” marketing campaign. The Southern Baptists Convention voted to rebrand themselves. A hipster mega-church in Seattle combines smart advertising with sales force training for members and a strategy the Catholics have emphasized for centuries: competitive breeding.


In October of 2012 the Pew Research Center announced that for the first time ever Protestant Christians had fallen below 50 percent of the American population. Atheists cheered and evangelicals beat their breasts and lamented the end of the world as we know it. Historian of religion, Molly Worthen, has since offered big picture insights that may dampen the most extreme hopes and fears. Anthropologist Jennifer James, on the other hand, has called fundamentalism the “death rattle” of the Abrahamic traditions.

In all of the frenzy, few seem to give any recognition to the player that I see as the primary hero, or, if you prefer, culprit—and I’m not talking about science populizer and atheist superstar Neil deGrasse Tyson. Then again, maybe Iam talking about Tyson in a sense, because in his various viral guises—as a talk show host and tweeter and as the face on scores of smartass Facebook memes—Tyson is an incarnation of the biggest threat that organized religion has ever faced: the internet.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/reli..._the_internet/