I found this quite hilarious. An evangelical apologetic radio host tries
to ensnare no other than Christopher Hitchens into one of their wordplay
that they think are so smart. If you know who Hitchens was, you'll guess
that the script didn't go exactly as planned...

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/how_to_frustrate_an_evangelica.php

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:59:22 -0500, Warp wrote:

> I found this quite hilarious. An evangelical apologetic radio host tries
> to ensnare no other than Christopher Hitchens into one of their wordplay
> that they think are so smart. If you know who Hitchens was, you'll guess
> that the script didn't go exactly as planned...
> 
> http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/
how_to_frustrate_an_evangelica.php

That was excellent. :)

Jim

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On 07/01/2012 09:59 AM, Warp wrote:

> http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/how_to_frustrate_an_evangelica.php

I couldn't bring myself to actually watch the video - the still shot was 
enough to convince me that it would probably be horrifying.

How many of you guys read all 2000+ comments? The first few hundred are 
just people congratulating the guy for making Mr Bible look like the 
idiot he is - although, as somebody pointed out, Mr Bible doesn't seem 
to notice he's being beaten, and the regular listeners probably thing Mr 
Bible actually won. This seems to be the thing with these bible people, 
see - you beat them, and then they celebrate for having "won" the 
argument. (WTF?) Maybe it's a belief thing.

But further down, people start writing utterly crazy stuff. I find 
myself literally uttering the phrase "can't tell if trolling or just 
stupid?" For example, one guy wrote some long [and poorly formatted] 
post to the effect of

   "Hahaha! I can't believe you stupid fools thing that the delusion of 
evolution is true. No thinking person could possibly take such nonsense 
seriously. You people need to lose your dogmatic religion and go learn 
some science!"

I honestly can't decide whether this person is just writing obviously 
inflammatory comments to try to start an argument, or whether they're 
actually stupid enough to genuinely believe what they're saying.

Another commenter wrote something that amounts to "I don't understand 
why you non-believers are so aggressive towards honest Christians like 
myself who honestly just want to help you". To which somebody replied 
that nobody gets beaten to death for wearing a Holy Cross, but saying 
that you don't believe in Jesus is likely to result in your untimely 
demise in certain places in America. (!!)




All of that aside, here's an interesting observation: There's no 
evidence that God exists. There's no evidence that Adam or Eve existed. 
In fact, a lot of people regard the entire Bible as something that 
should be in the "fiction" section. But think about this for a moment: 
the Bible *itself* most definitely *does* exist. It's a real book, and 
it has existed for a very long time.

That's kind of interesting.

The contents of the Bible may or may not be real, but the book itself is 
quite real. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia (which is inerrant), 
it seems that at least a few of the things in the Bible might actually 
be true. In particular, there might actually have been a real person 
actually called Jesus, who at least /claimed/ to be a messenger of God.

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Le 09/01/2012 16:31, Invisible a écrit :
> 
> All of that aside, here's an interesting observation: There's no
> evidence that God exists. There's no evidence that Adam or Eve existed.

But we are playing "What if" game! Just assume that whatever fantasy is
true, then tell...



> In fact, a lot of people regard the entire Bible as something that
> should be in the "fiction" section. But think about this for a moment:
> the Bible *itself* most definitely *does* exist. It's a real book, and
> it has existed for a very long time.

can you define long time ?
The bible (which Bible ?) has been made as an assembly of various texts
from various sources, along various translation paths, which were highly
disputed at the beginning of the church (and some authors and sustaining
people were persecuted on that base, but often for other hidden
political reasons. It was a time where you would have to be more than
prudent on the texts you would advertised as true. Including the
subtleties of the interpretation, and taking reserves about such great
scholars which did a translation... sometime to push some actual agenda
for temporal things... often to push some actual agenda indeed.)

Whatever is called the "New Testament" is just the final result of that
evolution. About the "Old testament"... it should be, as of Jewish
sources, in Hebraic texts (Torah ?). All other transcriptions are
subject to translation shift. And the issue with Hebraic text, IIRC, is
that they did not write the vowels, so it might also be interpreted.
(and do not forget the temporal distortion either: meaning of words do
evolve with time). Changing a noun in an adjective or a verb might
really changes the meaning.

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On Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:31:11 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> I couldn't bring myself to actually watch the video - the still shot was
> enough to convince me that it would probably be horrifying.

It was actually quite good.

> How many of you guys read all 2000+ comments?

I don't have time for that. :)  I only tend to read comments on stuff 
like that if I'm bored and have some time to kill - which ain't often 
these days.

Jim

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On 9-1-2012 17:12, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Le 09/01/2012 16:31, Invisible a écrit :
>>
>> All of that aside, here's an interesting observation: There's no
>> evidence that God exists. There's no evidence that Adam or Eve existed.
>
> But we are playing "What if" game! Just assume that whatever fantasy is
> true, then tell...

I haven't read all comments, but did anyone notice that in logic you can 
prove anything from a false assumption?

It is tempting to prove from that, that god does not exist because his 
existence can be used to prove contradictory statements, but I won't. ;)




-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

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On 1/9/2012 8:31 AM, Invisible wrote:
> The contents of the Bible may or may not be real, but the book itself is
> quite real. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia (which is inerrant),
> it seems that at least a few of the things in the Bible might actually
> be true. In particular, there might actually have been a real person
> actually called Jesus, who at least /claimed/ to be a messenger of God.

Based on what? The census data that, supposedly, was collected when he 
was born, but doesn't mention him? The total lack of anything written 
"during his own life", by anyone at all, that mentions him. The 
detailed, complex, and precise data on everything from the guy that 
collected piss for the leather workers, to the one that replaced the 
sponges in the public toilets, which, never the less, fails to mention 
him at all, even as an apprentice carpenter, under his step father, who, 
while living a ways away, and never the less considered a Roman citizen 
(why else have him be traveling for the census)? Hmm, the fact that 
Romans tended to be efficient, and wanted to know where people where, so 
wouldn't have require his step father to travel hundreds of miles, just 
to put his name down, instead of just doing so where he was at the time?

And, that doesn't even go into the problem with how nothing claimed 
about his wasn't basically stolen from other religions, from virgin 
births, to raising the dead, and walking on water (or turning it into 
whine). Or, the really big one, that nothing at all in the Bible's NT 
has *ever* been found, in any form, earlier than roughly 50 years 
"after" he was supposedly crucified. You would think someone, some 
place, would have made mention of it, kept and old copy, accidentally 
stuffed a wall with a manuscript that contained mention of "any" of his 
speeches, describing any of the events, etc.

Basically, nothing exists, prior to roughly 50 AD that even mentions 
him. The few 'maybe' exceptions are things, like Josephus's history, 
written within 5-10 years of that same date, to catalog the events of 
Titus Flavius' campaign against the Jews, and its strongly suspected 
that its pre-face, which makes vague mention of Jesus was added later, 
probably *after* one of Flavius' cousins renamed himself after one of 
the, probably equally fake, disciples, and then claimed that one of them 
had "personally" made him the first pope of the true Church. (This took 
place a bit after Titus failed to actually put down the Jewish rebellion 
completely, and someone else because the next Emperor, his fathers 
elevation to godhood, as was the practice for a brief time, having not 
quite panned out.

Interestingly, someone did a look over of Titus' campaign, and found 
interesting parallels, in terms of where, and when, certain major 
engagements took place, and places Jesus was "supposed" to have stopped 
to make sermons. One interesting example was the shores of a certain 
place where Jesus was said to tell people to become fishers of men, and 
Titus used nets to drag his enemies from their boats, before killing 
them. Its hardly clear if one was written, and the other adapted from 
it, or both where done at the same time, or what. The NT might be an 
attempt to invent religion, which Titus tried to take advantage of, or 
something they came up in parody of his real campaign, then decided a 
lot of people liked, so decided to use to gain power that they couldn't 
via politics, or.. who knows. But, there really isn't one single scrap 
of actual evidence, at all, that Jesus himself ever existed.

What people call evidence are documents, like the addendum at the start 
of Josephus' work, which doesn't fit the style of the rest of the 
manuscript, and they can't show existing *earlier* than the rest of it, 
a few mentions of his name, which was not much less common than it is in 
Mexico now, and thus not evidence of anything, and a complete and total 
lack of *anything* from his own life time, which clearly identifies him 
specifically, or even closely enough to be him, and not one of thousand 
of random prophets, seers, magicians, and claimed messiahs, who where 
running around at the time.

In point of fact, assuming that any of the events "sort of" happened, 
for which there isn't any, "from the time they supposedly did", 
documentation of them, its far more likely that someone stitched 
together an absurd number of random bits of stuff, tacked on some common 
stories/traits of existing gods/sons of gods, and when it proved popular 
enough, some group figure that they needed to consolidate power, by 
"reworking" all of it, into something that made more sense than the 
hodgepodge of nonsense that they had originally. Heaven and Hell 
certainly where not places in the OT, they had to have come from the 
Elysian Fields, and Hades, for example. The OT is actually fairly 
explicit that everything about heaven and hell, described later, is 
nonsense, and that you learn, discover, do, and gain, nothing in death 
that you didn't have in life, so you need to accomplish what ever 
wisdom, knowledge, love, happiness, etc. you can *now*. Its why its 
taken 2,000 years for some Christians to get to, "Maybe this heaven and 
hell thing is just myth.", while Jews have had secular (i.e. atheist) 
members for a very long time, by comparison. Taken literally, 
Ecclesiastics describes atheist philosophy, if in confused, and flowery 
words, which someone could stretch to say something else, if they tried 
hard enough, with respect to the value of making *this* world better, 
not some next one, that doesn't exist, quite well.

If there is nothing to look forward to, *now* is more valuable, and thus 
more precious, than, "maybe some time later, if there is later".

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Le 10/01/2012 04:36, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> and walking on water (or turning it into whine)

I have explanation (or heresy) for that two, both due to bad translation
(well, enhanced translation), and more:

Laziness : walk on water; he took the road of water (he swam at worst,
he might have know some spot where the river was not so deep) to get to
the other side... whereas usual road on earth was longer.

Turning water into whine: Assume you have a barrel of strong whine for
twelve people, and usage is to never drink pure water (well, dirty water
really), and the meal is going to have fifty people: dilute the whine
with water, actually turning water into whine. A lighter lighter whine,
but still whine.

Multiplication of bread: well, the word for multiplication might have a
translation-side for division (indeed), he did not create more bread, he
split the bread amongst the people. There was X breads (big size) and
when done, every people (N people, N >> X) had bread, a part of bread.
(like milk: 1 bottle of milk can serve many glasses of milk)

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On 10/01/2012 03:36 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 1/9/2012 8:31 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> The contents of the Bible may or may not be real, but the book itself is
>> quite real. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia (which is inerrant),
>> it seems that at least a few of the things in the Bible might actually
>> be true. In particular, there might actually have been a real person
>> actually called Jesus, who at least /claimed/ to be a messenger of God.
>
> Based on what? The census data that, supposedly, was collected when he
> was born, but doesn't mention him? The total lack of anything written
> "during his own life", by anyone at all, that mentions him.

I won't claim to be an expert in such fields. But it appears that a 
couple of non-Christian sources do mention him (though never first-hand 
accounts).

To be clear: I didn't say there is /proof/ that he existed, I merely 
said that some evidence suggests that he /might/ have existed.

> And, that doesn't even go into the problem with how nothing claimed
> about his wasn't basically stolen from other religions, from virgin
> births, to raising the dead, and walking on water (or turning it into
> whine).

I have seen absolutely no evidence at all that this person was actually 
God incarnate, or that he actually performed any miracles. I only said 
he might have been a real person, who /claimed/ to be a messenger from God.

I see nothing particularly implausible in a man being born, walking 
around giving speeches and stuff, and then after his death the stories 
being gradually embellished until we end up with the current Bible myth 
about him being the son of God and rising from the dead and performing 
other miracles. Obviously the Bible story is fiction; that doesn't mean 
that it isn't at least loosely based on a real person, or on events that 
really happened. And it seems possible that some of the words he is 
credited as having said might be words that a real person actually 
spoke. (Mind you, the words could have been altered somewhat over the 
years too.)

> Or, the really big one, that nothing at all in the Bible's NT
> has *ever* been found, in any form, earlier than roughly 50 years
> "after" he was supposedly crucified. You would think someone, some
> place, would have made mention of it, kept and old copy, accidentally
> stuffed a wall with a manuscript that contained mention of "any" of his
> speeches, describing any of the events, etc.

We're talking about something which [may have] happened two *thousand* 
years ago. It's a miracle we have any documents at all.

> Basically, nothing exists, prior to roughly 50 AD that even mentions
> him.

I'd argue that nothing much of /any/ documentation survives from 50 AD. 
It's a hell of a long time ago, after all. Also, some people believed 
that Jesus was a prophet, messiah, or even the son of God, but to most 
people he was just some random guy who talked a lot. Probably not 
especially noteworthy to mention.

> The NT might be an
> attempt to invent religion, which Titus tried to take advantage of, or
> something they came up in parody of his real campaign, then decided a
> lot of people liked, so decided to use to gain power that they couldn't
> via politics, or.. who knows. But, there really isn't one single scrap
> of actual evidence, at all, that Jesus himself ever existed.

I didn't say Jesus was real. I said he might be real. Some limited 
evidence suggests he was real.

...or the entire thing might be a forgery from start to finish. 
Interesting that there's only one version of that forgery, but it's not 
completely implausible. I doubt we'll ever know one way or the other.

> In point of fact, assuming that any of the events "sort of" happened,
> for which there isn't any, "from the time they supposedly did",
> documentation of them, its far more likely that someone stitched
> together an absurd number of random bits of stuff, tacked on some common
> stories/traits of existing gods/sons of gods, and when it proved popular
> enough, some group figure that they needed to consolidate power, by
> "reworking" all of it, into something that made more sense than the
> hodgepodge of nonsense that they had originally.

You realise that this entire paragraph is one sentence, right? With the 
wonky punctuation, it's almost unparsable.

I doubt we'll ever know the true origins of the Bible. It's interesting 
that some evidence suggests that bits of it might be real. But I won't 
lose too much sleep wondering about which bits or how real. ;-)

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Le 10/01/2012 11:10, Invisible a écrit :
> I didn't say Jesus was real. I said he might be real. Some limited
> evidence suggests he was real.
> 
> ...or the entire thing might be a forgery from start to finish.
> Interesting that there's only one version of that forgery, but it's not
> completely implausible. I doubt we'll ever know one way or the other.


From the Roman documentation, at least the crucifixion did happened.
It was a seditious Jewish man named Jesus, sold to the Roman ( "give to
Caesar what belong to Caesar" is about paying or not the tax to the
invader: as the coins are the coins of the invading country, he states
that the tax should be paid.), opposing local Jewish powers and local
business (expulsion of the merchants from the Temple...)

From where did he came, nothing is sure. Only the last 3 years of his
life were dedicated to propaganda and sedition. It is also well-known
that he frequented a whore (Marie Madeleine)... put that on the prudish
and puritan Church. Coherency and consistency never make it inside dogma.

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