Interestingly enough, I’ve made similar arguments in my Pastafarianism thread as a response to another user here a week ago before the video was made, and since I lack the time now to write an OP I’ll use a part of my post in that thread as my take on this, but really, watch the video, it explains it better and more eloquently than I did. I don’t see a flaw in AntiCitizenX’s argument, just common sense based, practical standards of evidence.
There are many, you just have to dig a little deeper than popular people like The Amazing Atheist and Jaclyn Glenn… not saying they don’t have a few quality videos, but it’s not exactly peak philosophy, their videos are made to be accessible to public.
felix dakat strawmans such as…? I watched the video again, found none.
Not sure if you saw that part, but I did say you have to dig deeper than popular people like them… advanced philosophy, just like advanced anything, isn’t going to be popular by definition.
I saw what you wrote.
Most people are not going to dig deeper, especially if the first thing they find is some rude jerks with bad arguments. Why would they dig deeper?
That’s not surprising, since, I suppose, the video represents Christianity as you understand it. But, orthodox Christians don’t believe Jesus was a “demigod”. Biblical inerrancy is only the belief of one segment of the Christian population. Other notable historic figures left no writings. Should we throw them out of our historic understanding too? While Paul claimed a first-person revelation, he also reports being received by the first generation of Jesus followers including those who knew Jesus personally. So, in the rush to dismiss Christianity as a totality, the video gets a lot of details wrong. But, it’s perfect for the ADHD age we live in. Frees us up for video games.
If you are going to talk about Jesus and the NT, then you have to say that it does not have supporting evidence.
That does mean that the events described did not happen, it means that those events are unlikely to have happened.
Rude? I never really cared for the occasional swear word he puts out, as long as the rest of the video is decent. What drew me off eventually is the lack of philosophical content. I still appreciate his sincerity and openness, I’d rather listen to a person like that than a creepy, fanatical preacher pretending holiness and raping little boys and doing God knows what else in his private time. Such people creep me the f out.
felixdakat there are, quite literally, TENS OF THOUSANDS of denominations of Christianity, are you seriously criticizing such petty details? There’s almost no way to make a video about Christianity without one specific denomination going “ah-hah, that’s not what we believe”, but that’s not strawmaning. The gist of the video is the method by which we discern history from fiction, and the bible utterly fails.
On that argument, basically everything from more than 1000 years ago that we take to have happened is unlikely to have happened. Other than wars and maybe cornonations, the major events of the NT have as much evidence to support them as anything else historians believe happened that long ago. People who don't believe Jesus was a historical figure are deciding it in advance of the evidence, then trying to draw connections where they don't exist. That's why there are so few of them and they aren't a part of serious scholarship. It's just a new sort of faith- there's a type of atheist that likes to trumpet around rationality and belief in proportion to the evidence and all that nice sounding stuff as their sole doctrine, then they go advocate these crazy fringe theories in full defiance of that. As we become a less religious people, we aren't becoming a more rational people- we're just believing in ancient aliens and mediums speaking with the dead and socialism and whacky shit like that.
The difference is that nobody (expect historians) cares what Caesar said and did, but they care about what Jesus did. Or at least the priests and preachers are saying that people should care about what Jesus did.
I do like how none of the theists actually addressed the arguments as presented in the video or at least in my dumbed down version in the OP. Seriously, everything that happened more than 1000 years ago didn’t according to these standards? From my country’s history alone I know plenty of events and people who easily stand up to the method put forward. Maybe you should keep in mind not everybody is American, people do have a history longer than 500 years.
Let’s examine one particular rule I find the most interesting: suspension of physical laws. Is there any event in history that is accepted to have happened which includes such feats? I can’t seem to recall any… yet, I am supposed to accept that people can come to life after death, walk on water, turn water into wine et cetera.
Right. If you want to know if Jesus was the real deal, then you have to live his teachings. If it works, then Jesus understood the nature of man and God. If it doesn’t work, then Jesus did not know what he was talking about.
I think what turtle is trying to say is, it doesn’t matter if Jesus existed or not, the words attributed to him matter. There is also dispute over whether Homer existed, it doesn’t take away from his works. In essence I agree with such an attitude, but this thread IS discussing precisely the existence and not the message.
I am skeptical about jesus…I like the ideas that he was nothing until later after he was dead when the guys brought in heaven…that is when they destroyed the message…and when they made him a god that was destructive…
