Bill Nye The Idiot Guy

[Sparko]

Science investigates the natural world. If there was scientifically verifiable evidence of a "seemingly" miraculous occurrence it would be a natural explanation, not a supernatural one. I've been saying this all along. History is replete with alleged miracles of dubious veracity.



This from the person who would accept that an invented fairy-tale figure was real if she granted your wishes.

Once again: If the Blue Fairy granted your wish the obvious thing would be to search for the natural explanation of this seemingly supernatural occurrence NOT declare that the Blue Fairy is real, which is what you did.



It is you, not me, asserting God is real, it is not up to me to provided hypothetical evidence. The burden of proof is yours.

No Tassy, YOU were the one asserting that you would accept scientifically verifiable evidence for God. Yet above you just said that science can't verify anything not natural. Which means you would not accept any scientifically verifiable evidence for God. So if you actually would do as you assert, you need to provide an example of what you would accept. So far it is "nothign" as I have been saying.

prove me wrong.

[oxmixmudd]

Being that the N.T. was written long after the O.T biblical quotes you mentioned, isn't it logical that the N.T. authors would take that into consideration when relating the story of Jesus whom they wished to be seen as the messiah? I mean, what would you expect them to write, something that contradicts what the O.T. predicted? I believe that there is even one passage in the N.T. that expresses exactly that, something about Jesus riding an ass into town so that the prophesy might be fulfilled.

Many of the prophesies involve elements that could not be directly controlled - birth place, manner of death. Despite what Tassman claims, many were understood to be Messianic prior to Christ's birth. The concept of Messiah was developed long before He came, and we see in the Gospels incidental points like Pharisees debating where Messiah was to be from (the issue there was though not born there, Jesus grew up in and thus was from Nazareth and Messiah was to be 'from' in Bethlehem. Another prophesy, however, describes Him as being a Nazarene). And yes, some events are recounted just as you say, some things were done to fulfill KNOWN Messianic prophecies. But doesn't that do a number on the idea these prophecies were force fit AFTER Christ rose? There already was a set of prophecies understood to be about the coming Messiah*.

And there are a lot of them. But what of verse 7- 9 in Isaiah 53 in my previous post. Can Jesus make all those things happen? Even if He could, how did He convince people He rose from the dead?

But more to the point: You have a large number of the original disciples that persisted in their telling of these stories to their death. Does it really make sense they would do that over the recounting of a set of events they knew was false? Logically, it is far more likely for a person facing torture and death to recant - even of something they know is true! But to persist in telling a story of something incredible and hard to believe to the death would indicate at the very least they believed the stories they were telling. And thus it is far more likely the story of Christ's life and death always fit the known Messianic prophecies. That is one of the reasons they believed so steadfastly.

Now to one who believes (believe, not knows) that miracles are impossible and that the Resurrection can't possibly be true, it may well be more likely that these fellows were willing to die for something they knew was false. But now who is it that is accepting the more unlikely explanation for what is the more likely explanation because of what they believe to be true?


Jim

*and as tabibito pointed out above, in cases where that phrase is used context would indicated it was not saying the actor in the story was intentionally doing the act to fulfill the prophesy, but rather ascribing the event itself the role of the fulfillment of the prophesy.

[tabibito]

Well of course not, if the authors were trying to fool their readers, then they would not tell them that that was their intention. Its a very simple process to look back at the O.T. prophesies and then fit them into your N.T. stories as if they had been fulfilled.

And again - the soldiers at the cross who were casting lots for Christ's clothing would not be likely to act with the intention of fulfilling a prophecy.

[JimL]

And again - the soldiers at the cross who were casting lots for Christ's clothing would not be likely to act with the intention of fulfilling a prophecy.

No, but the authors of the N.T. whose intention it would be to concur with and validate the prophesies of the O.T. would. You see, you are assuming the story to be non-fiction, but that is not necessarily the case particularly when the N.T. was written many decades after the claimed event took place.

[JimL]

Many of the prophesies involve elements that could not be directly controlled - birth place, manner of death. Despite what Tassman claims, many were understood to be Messianic prior to Christ's birth. The concept of Messiah was developed long before He came, and we see in the Gospels incidental points like Pharisees debating where Messiah was to be from (the issue there was though not born there, Jesus grew up in and thus was from Nazareth and Messiah was to be 'from' in Bethlehem. Another prophesy, however, describes Him as being a Nazarene). And yes, some events are recounted just as you say, some things were done to fulfill KNOWN Messianic prophecies. But doesn't that do a number on the idea these prophecies were force fit AFTER Christ rose? There already was a set of prophecies understood to be about the coming Messiah*.

And there are a lot of them. But what of verse 7- 9 in Isaiah 53 in my previous post. Can Jesus make all those things happen? Even if He could, how did He convince people He rose from the dead?

But more to the point: You have a large number of the original disciples that persisted in their telling of these stories to their death. Does it really make sense they would do that over the recounting of a set of events they knew was false? Logically, it is far more likely for a person facing torture and death to recant - even of something they know is true! But to persist in telling a story of something incredible and hard to believe to the death would indicate at the very least they believed the stories they were telling. And thus it is far more likely the story of Christ's life and death always fit the known Messianic prophecies. That is one of the reasons they believed so steadfastly.

Now to one who believes (believe, not knows) that miracles are impossible and that the Resurrection can't possibly be true, it may well be more likely that these fellows were willing to die for something they knew was false. But now who is it that is accepting the more unlikely explanation for what is the more likely explanation because of what they believe to be true?


Jim

*and as tabibito pointed out above, in cases where that phrase is used context would indicated it was not saying the actor in the story was intentionally doing the act to fulfill the prophesy, but rather ascribing the event itself the role of the fulfillment of the prophesy.

Jim, all of what you see to be evidence of the validity of biblical events, comes from the Bible.

[oxmixmudd]

Jim, all of what you see to be evidence of the validity of biblical events, comes from the Bible.

You focussed on the part of my reply to Tassman that was talking about the prophecies. Of course they come from the Bible. But I have talked about a good bit more than that. I talked about Ehrman's use of textual criticism, I talked about the absurdity of claiming the gospel of john could not possibly be written by an eyewitness when the Gospel itself is known to have existed prior to the disciple's death. And I responded to other points as well. Even in this post I'm referencing the known lives and manner of the disciples death which comes to us from extra-Biblical sources. So I disagree. But if you can support the point I'm willing to try to see it from your point of view.

Jim

[Tassman]

No Tassy, YOU were the one asserting that you would accept scientifically verifiable evidence for God. Yet above you just said that science can't verify anything not natural. Which means you would not accept any scientifically verifiable evidence for God. So if you actually would do as you assert, you need to provide an example of what you would accept. So far it is "nothign" as I have been saying.

Again: The possibility of your hypothetical god acting in the world depends upon the existence of the scientifically verified reality of a supernatural realm in which gods and spirits could exist. This we don't have. Hence, any seeming

[oxmixmudd]

Again: The possibility of your hypothetical god acting in the world depends upon the existence of the scientifically verified reality of a supernatural realm in which gods and spirits could exist. This we don't have. Hence, any seeming

No, the possibility exists as long as there exists a supernatural realm. Our ability to validate that realm's existence using the scientific method is irrelavent.

Jim

[Tassman]

No, the possibility exists as long as there exists a supernatural realm. Our ability to validate that realm's existence using the scientific method is irrelavent.

The existence of a supernatural realm is a faith-belief only, it's not supported by any substantive evidence.

[Tassman]

I never said there was - excepting the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the witness of the Old and New Testaments, which you do not believe in.

Most 'scholars' in this camp don't believe in the Resurrection either.

The issue here as I see it is that the assumptions that go into these conclusions are no more verifiable than the alternates. For example, St. John (the Disciple) who is traditionally believed to have written the Gospel of John, the earliest fragments of which date to 125 CE.

Ehrman is a sad product of the same sorts of fundamentalism that pushes YEC pseudo-science.

Oh dear!

Ehrman is a respected, reputable, mainstream biblical scholar.

Again - I never did that. And even what Sparko said is only bizarrely interpreted in this light.

Dealt with elsewhere in this thread.

Indeed it is. I have performed it so many times over the years I've lost count, both in the Chorus and as a Soloist. And I never tire of it and will happily be on the stage again performing it this Christmas in two separate venues, one as a chorister, and one as a soloist.

What was a 'young girl', an unmarried righteous women in the time of the textual writing but a virgin? You swat at gnats but swallow camels.

One of the texts I referred to of being accused of being 'added after the fact' because they were so to the point, so obviously about the Messiah is Isaiah 53:

[CITE=Isaiah 53 1-11]
53 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

<snipped>

Everything is believable to those who are determined to believe.

Again it is the height of absurdity to believe that no eyewitness could possibly have been alive 40 to 60 years after the death of Jesus - especially when St John was alive until 70 years after Christ's death and resurrection. You might be motivated to conveniently overlook that simple fact, but I certainly am not.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidbo...ospels-part-1/

This is the scholarly consensus.

Which misses the point. To believe that there are no historical events and eyewitnesses of those events whose lives and recounting of Jesus' teachings are what created the Christian Faith is antithetical to all we know about the time and the history and writings of the Church.

[Sparko]

Again: The possibility of your hypothetical god acting in the world depends upon the existence of the scientifically verified reality of a supernatural realm in which gods and spirits could exist. This we don't have. Hence, any seeming

no because if the supernatural has the ability to act in the natural world (miracles) then those actions could be scientifically investigated. such as my example of bringing someone long dead back to life. If God appeared and did that, science could determine if there were a natural cause or not.

[JimL]

You focussed on the part of my reply to Tassman that was talking about the prophecies. Of course they come from the Bible. But I have talked about a good bit more than that. I talked about Ehrman's use of textual criticism, I talked about the absurdity of claiming the gospel of john could not possibly be written by an eyewitness when the Gospel itself is known to have existed prior to the disciple's death. And I responded to other points as well. Even in this post I'm referencing the known lives and manner of the disciples death which comes to us from extra-Biblical sources. So I disagree. But if you can support the point I'm willing to try to see it from your point of view.

Jim

There is nothing about the 12 apostles in any secular source that I know of, which is rather odd don't you think? Kinda makes you think they must be fictional characters, no?

[Tassman]

no because if the supernatural has the ability to act in the natural world (miracles) then those actions could be scientifically investigated.

such as my example of bringing someone long dead back to life. If God appeared and did that, science could determine if there were a natural cause or not.

Science is the systematic study of the physical or material world and works on the assumption that all events (including seeming miracles) have a natural explanation. Science does not resolve mysterious phenomena by attributing it to a miracle; this would be to abdicate the scientific method.

[oxmixmudd]

There is nothing about the 12 apostles in any secular source that I know of, which is rather odd don't you think? Kinda makes you think they must be fictional characters, no?

This is the secular bias of discounting all records found in the Church itself. But perhaps more tellingly in terms of how you yourself are handling this: The issue is not that there is no historical evidence for ANY of the Apostles. There is (secular) evidence for Peter, John, James and perhaps Thomas. The issue then is more properly framed as: is there (secular) evidence for ALL twelve disciples. So you are being very misleading here.

But to the point of (secular) evidence for ALL twelve: these were not people that would have been recorded by secular history. Common fishermen, carpenters, the poor, the meek. The people that would have kept records where the ones that cared for them or that were led by them, which would have been their fellow Christians.

That is just the way it is. It took time for the presence of the Church and its leaders to rise to sufficient prominence to be noticed by those around it that where not themselves Christians. If you want to use that as an excuse to dismiss their reality, that is your business. But I don't have to agree with you that it makes any sense. And I won't. It is popular these days in secular and skeptical circles to make up reasons not to believe any of the very Early Church figures existed. It's bull, but it's popular bull.

And It is not science, nor is it by any means necessarily 'more scholarly' than approaches that recognize the historical significance of the Early church and its founders and the usefulness of early Church records.


Jim

[oxmixmudd]

Sorry. That is an arbitrary assumption that is completely out of place evaluating the claims of scripture. To make that assumption is to assume a fixed conclusion. An invalid scientific approach by any standard. That is, if miracles do not occur, then the story of the Resurrection is concluded to be a fiction independently of any evidence, and it doesn't matter what evidence exists for it. It could have occurred yesterday with cameras rolling, seisemometers recording, medical equipment in place and sensors attached to the body and it still would not matter. So I take with less than a grain of salt any conclusions about the reality of the miraculous elements of the text. It's a rigged system of investigation as far as those sort of things are concerned.



He is entitled to his opinion. He might even be right. But it's just so much conjecture as far as I'm concerned. This is not science Tassman. This is a best guess based on certain sorts of criteria. That our oldest fragment of John is CE 125 is science. Whether or not the text found in that fragment are the recorded words of the disciple John is a matter of belief, no matter how one justifies that belief.

Oh dear!

Ehrman is a respected, reputable, mainstream biblical scholar.

Your answer here leads me to believe you misunderstood me or did not read my entire statement. I am not saying Ehrman's scholarship is invalid. I am not comparing Ehrman's scholarship to YEC pseudoscience. I am saying I believe and Ehrman's recounting of his experiences support my observation that when Faith is supported by 'evidences' that are provably false, that Faith is destined to be at the very least challenged if not upended. Ehrman, in addition to being a great scholar, is a man on a mission. And that mission appears to be to make sure everyone has the same very low view of scripture he has come to hold. But the truth is that his view derives from his earlier belief that the Scripture must be perfect in every possible way to have been inspired by or revealed by God. And this is effectively the same driving logic that defines YEC. And it is NOT a belief I hold to. The Scripture reflects both its divine and human origins. And any Christian whose Faith can be expected to survive a challenge like the one Ehrman's knowledge presents had better understand that.

Dealt with elsewhere in this thread.

Poorly. Your aversion to answering Sparko's questions is irrational, your attempt to cast his question as him demanding you produce evidence empty.


Thanks - I've greatly enjoyed the privilege of performing the work over the years. But it is also wonderful to just sit back and enjoy it (or other works). There are far to few people in the world that can appreciate good music, good art - and I think we have finally found something we have in common and could correspond amicably about :)

Everything is believable to those who are determined to believe.

Likewise nothing is believable to those who are determined not to believe.

So is there any middle ground?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidbo...ospels-part-1/

This is the scholarly consensus.

And it might be right, and it might be wrong. The point is there are a large number of possibilities, and your points all go to trying to say these stories are made up fiction. And that is significantly overreaching based even on the 'consensus' you quote above. Is a story necessarily fiction if I tell it to you and you write it down. Or if tell it to my friend, he writes it down, and you later take it and add it to a larger collection of stories I told written in another language? No - the story I tell is fact or fiction independent of how it is recorded.

You also say over and over again these works were written 40+ years after and THEREFORE are not eyewitness accounts. And there is no logical connection there because

1) eyewitnesses would have still been alive at that time.
2) the accounts could have been written down on other documents prior by eyewitnesses or simply told directly to the writer by the eyewitness at the time.


That is an overreaching statement. These extra-Biblical statements do not exist in a vacuum. They exist along side historical Christian documents that also record information about the Church's early history that do give us that information. And I have no valid reason to dismiss that information, nor do I think you do.

Why should a secular document about a hated religion be presumed to be any more accurate about the beliefs of that religion than the documents of the religion itself? Nero accused the Early Christians of burning down Rome. Should we believe that is what they did?

But here is what Tacitus said.

Source: Tacitus

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called "Chrestians" by the populace.

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.

Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

© Copyright Original Source

So - this was 64 CE, a little over 30 years after Christ's death. There is a lot there to 'unpack', but your take of the impact of that statement on confirming much of what is reported in the Christian records of the time is quite obviously overreaching.


Jim