This isn't even remotely on the thread topic. Mud-slinging and scathing remarks won't get you anywhere. If you're going to try and offend me, at least do it properly.
No worries, I know how that feels. It's all cool.
No, my logic does not imply that I would have to believe every single supernatural event that has ever been rumored to occur.
The key element here is that what happened was a prediction where the odds were so insanely slim, and it happened down to the T.
Empirical evidence is information acquired by observation or experimentation.
By that logic, how are you trying to invalidate the
observations of over a dozen people? I'm not trying to spread the news of my mom's prediction to gain attention, like many who tell of alien stories. I'm using it as a perspective-basis that, the way I see it, is impossible to deny if you take all the factors and events into consideration.
And if it's repeat occurrences that you're looking for, then how about the
other aforementioned predictions and prayers that have
all come true?
I highly doubt you've searched
all of the related historical documents, even if it does seem like you're pulling up some of the most obscure pages and articles to be found on the entirety of the World Wide Web.
Actually, the exact excerpt that you quoted can be used to determine that this "Tactitus" fellow was referring to Jesus in particular.
Ta-da!
Pontius Pilatus, more commonly known as Pontius Pilate, sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion, "the extreme penalty," and he was a procurator/prefect for only ten years.
Within your list of people who claimed to be the Messiah, you have only three people who are listed within Pilate's time period.
John the Baptist, as you have
incorrectly stated, did not claim to be the Messiah - rather, some of his followers wondered if he was, but John the Baptist was actually the nephew of Mary, Jesus' mother. John preached that he was making the path for the
coming Messiah, and when John baptized Jesus, John stated that he was not worthy even to wash Jesus' feet, as Jesus was the true savior.
The Samaritan prophet, on the other hand, is disproved by
your own source.
"The Samaritan prophet may be called a Messiah, because he announced the restoration of the cult in the Samarian temple, which was on Mount Gerizim. But he was not a Messiah in its original sense, because that is a Jewish concept. The Samaritan equivalent is the 'like Moses' announced in Deuteronomy 18.15-18. "
Plus, there's a whole bucket-load of other reasons why he can't possibly have been the right guy.
I won't bother asking - you use a lot of sources, but they're often poorly used and hardly explained at all. It might not be intentional, but it seems like what you're doing is using what I would describe as an informational overload - you're dumping a massive amount of sources and websites, knowing that I'll either be confused or too overwhelmed by the sheer number to properly analyze them all.
Calling me stupid in a roundabout manner isn't going to achieve anything in your favor. The way that you did it only serves to indicate your arrogance and sense of undue superiority.
When you can consistently school me as well as
Col_StaR was able to, and even he didn't seem to have an easy job,
then and only then will I allow rude remarks to pass off as a joke, which this clearly wasn't.
It would appear that you've misinterpreted my point - it was a reminder that I made to bring to mind the possibility of errors and mistakes in "science"
as well as human memory.
I may have done a poor job of explaining that, though - pardon my oversight.
You really don't know enough about Christianity and the Bible to thoroughly argue against it.
Six days? Do you know how many times even middle school children are told that it's not literal?
In the first 50 seconds of the video, the fellow in the low-res video was making incorrect statements left and right.
- The creation story says "six days", but does not mean 1/365th of the Earth's orbit around the sun/six 24-hour periods, where each hour is 60 minutes and each minute is 60 seconds. Some denominations of Christianity will say otherwise, but those are often denominations who are more easily crushed. "Six days" refers more to the different cycles of activity that God went through - remember, if we're taking this story to be interpreted as true (within the situation), then the sun and moon didn't yet exist to be orbited around.
- The flood does not claim to explain all of the geology of the world - where'd he get that from?
- The other guy after the low-res video is treating evolution as a law, not a theory - or in the last few months since I was in biology, did they change it into a law?
Do I even need to keep going?
THIS is what I'm talking about when I said:
refer to the above.
I'm not saying the Historical Method is flawed, I'm saying that in the sources that I reviewed and analyzed, their alleged
usage of the Historical Method (or other Methods) are flawed.
That's actually a pretty well-narrated video. It's much more clear than the other sources that you used.
However, just because something
can be explained through a simpler process, doesn't make it the
correct method 100% of the time.
Occam's Razor, the way I understand it, is an explanation of the way that our minds tend to work, and very little else.
That is,
if the faith is without reasonable basis. The difference here is that Christianity and faith in the divine being that we refer to as "God"
does have a reasonable basis, which has previously been explained so many times that I feel it's becoming arbitrary to go much further.
I'm not trying to persuade you to become a Christian - that's not my objective here. If it was, I'd spend the time and put forth the effort to track down the guy and ask him for the source, sure.
What I
am trying to accomplish, although I keep being side-tracked by small details, is to give a decent perspective of the Christian faith for Bito and his friend. It really seems like you're taking it a tad too personally, judging by the harsh undertones in some of your writing.
But then again, that's happened to me as well at times - I can't really criticize you too much for that, since I know what it's like to have that happen as well.
he brought this upon himself
and really, it's a discussion, not flame until people make comments like this
