News:

Actually sport it is a narrative

Main Menu

So you just died and...

Started by Ransom, November 30, 2011, 01:58:41 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Tank

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on December 15, 2011, 04:53:16 PM
Quote from: Too Few Lions on December 15, 2011, 02:55:59 PM
Maybe you could argue this if we had testimony from 500 different individuals claiming they'd seen the resurrected Christ, but we don't. What we have is a Christian propagandist making something up, and claiming that 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus, which is something wholly different. This doesn't appear in the gospels, which suggests it's a fabrication wholly of Paul's making, and Paul was prone to making things up in his letters.

Actually, since Paul wrote first, it suggests that the gospels just neglected to mention the 500.  Allusions to the 500 might be found in Matthew's account of disciples seeing Jesus in Galilee, but it's unclear.  Paul wrote earlier than the gospels, so he might have mentioned the 500 since most of them were still alive.  This might not have been the case when the gospels were written.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Paul never met JC?
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Crow

Quote from: CAlden on December 15, 2011, 05:44:15 AM
Who can honestly call five hundred people who saw the exact same thing liars?

I will. If you came from my neck of the woods you would know of a story involving the band the "Sex Pistols" playing at the Lesser Free Trade Hall. Thousands of people claimed to have seen that first gig in Manchester yet in reality there was only 35 - 40 people present, even if the place was rammed it would have only fit about 200 people and that would be really pushing it. Here is an article about the event: Sex Pistols gig: the truth. My point being people lie about things that they want to be associated with, they hear a story from one person and repeat it word for word and embellish certain details and caries on in that manner, even if they don't claim to have been there they know the story and rumors surrounding it.
Retired member.

Melmoth

Quote from: RansomYou find out the Christian God (Trinity) does exist after choking on a hot dog (or whatever you prefer) and died. What argument would you use to keep God's "wrath" and "anger" from descending on you?

If god exists, then she/he/it already knows my reasons. And given the monumental effort he's put into covering up his own existence, wiping his fingerprints off every asteroid, planet, sun, animal etc. in the universe, carefully constructing the illusion of natural explanations for their being there and so on, chances are he favours the non-believer. So I'm not worried.
"That life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one." - Emil Cioran.

Ecurb Noselrub

Quote from: Tank on December 15, 2011, 04:54:40 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Paul never met JC?

That is what many assume, but I think that he did, partly based on II Corinthians 5:16 (in which Paul includes himself in the company of those who knew Jesus "according to the flesh" or physically), and partly based on his testimony that he was a Pharisee, which means he probably would have been in Jerusalem on the Passover when Jesus was crucified, and would have known of the encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees.  He was not a disciple of Jesus, but, IMO, knew of him and probably had encountered him physically.  And, of course, he claims to have seen him after the resurrection.

Too Few Lions

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on December 15, 2011, 04:53:16 PM
Actually, since Paul wrote first, it suggests that the gospels just neglected to mention the 500.  Allusions to the 500 might be found in Matthew's account of disciples seeing Jesus in Galilee, but it's unclear.  Paul wrote earlier than the gospels, so he might have mentioned the 500 since most of them were still alive.  This might not have been the case when the gospels were written.
OK so you're telling me that 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus but the gospel writers neglected to mention it, despite the fact that it would clearly be very good evidence to support their claims about Jesus. And the 500 people who supposedly saw the resurrected Jesus felt no need to mention it, so it was left to Paul to mention it who wasn't there at the time and never met Jesus before or after his supposed resurrection. It seems far more likely that Paul just made it up.

Ecurb Noselrub

Quote from: Too Few Lions on December 16, 2011, 12:06:08 AM

OK so you're telling me that 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus but the gospel writers neglected to mention it, despite the fact that it would clearly be very good evidence to support their claims about Jesus. And the 500 people who supposedly saw the resurrected Jesus felt no need to mention it, so it was left to Paul to mention it who wasn't there at the time and never met Jesus before or after his supposed resurrection. It seems far more likely that Paul just made it up.

We don't know if the 500 "mentioned" it or wrote about it.  We are dealing with the documents that have survived.  With the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews from Palestine, it's a wonder anything survived.  Paul's letters survived mainly because they were sent to places outside of Palestine.

And, like I said, it's possible that the 500 are mentioned in Matthew 28 in Galilee, just not by that title.  I have no reason to think that Paul just "made it up."  He claimed that some of them were still alive, so some of the Corinthians could have traveled to Palestine to check his claims.  If Phoebe could travel to Rome from Corinth/Cencrea, she could have traveled to Palestine.

Finally, I don't think these guys were focused on presenting "evidence" like a scientist in a laboratory or even a lawyer in a courtroom.  They were simply proclaiming something that they believed to be true and real. If someone believed, they believed.  Otherwise, they didn't.


Tank

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on December 15, 2011, 08:17:38 PM
Quote from: Tank on December 15, 2011, 04:54:40 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Paul never met JC?

That is what many assume, but I think that he did, partly based on II Corinthians 5:16 (in which Paul includes himself in the company of those who knew Jesus "according to the flesh" or physically), and partly based on his testimony that he was a Pharisee, which means he probably would have been in Jerusalem on the Passover when Jesus was crucified, and would have known of the encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees.  He was not a disciple of Jesus, but, IMO, knew of him and probably had encountered him physically.  And, of course, he claims to have seen him after the resurrection.
Interesting. However the underlined does rather dent his credability as a witness  ;D
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Too Few Lions

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on December 16, 2011, 12:15:55 AM
We don't know if the 500 "mentioned" it or wrote about it.  We are dealing with the documents that have survived.  With the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews from Palestine, it's a wonder anything survived.  Paul's letters survived mainly because they were sent to places outside of Palestine.

And, like I said, it's possible that the 500 are mentioned in Matthew 28 in Galilee, just not by that title.  I have no reason to think that Paul just "made it up."  He claimed that some of them were still alive, so some of the Corinthians could have traveled to Palestine to check his claims.  If Phoebe could travel to Rome from Corinth/Cencrea, she could have traveled to Palestine.

Finally, I don't think these guys were focused on presenting "evidence" like a scientist in a laboratory or even a lawyer in a courtroom.  They were simply proclaiming something that they believed to be true and real. If someone believed, they believed.  Otherwise, they didn't.
But we also don't have any evidence from Jewish or Roman sources for this event, and there's plenty of material from that period. If 500 people had seen a resurrected Jesus I'm sure that would have been pretty big news.

As for 'the scattering of the Jews from Palestine', it's questionable whether or not the forcible eviction of Jews from Palestine ever happened. It wasn't Roman policy to force a people to leave its lands, and we have no evidence of them doing it anywhere else ever. We also have no evidence for this from Jewish or Roman sources, the first people to mention it are the Christians in the fourth century, who made the claim as a piece of anti-Jewish propaganda (God punishing the Jews for rejecting Christ).

Shlomo Sand's written an interesting book on the subject that I'm going to try and read over the next few months, 'The Invention of the Jewish People'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/moore291111p.html

This is from the wiki page on the diaspora - 'Experts dismiss the popular notion that the Jews were expelled or exiled from Palestine in the 1st century AD, in particular that this would have been a sudden event. The myth of exile from Palestine receives only minimal treatment in serious Jewish historical scholarship'

And as for Matthew 28, what part of it exactly are you rather imaginatively interpreting as referring to 500 witnesses? From what i can see, 13 people are listed as seeing the resurrected Jesus (two Marys and 11 disciples). By my maths, 13 does not equal 500.

As for the case of it being evidence, it was CAlden not me, who was trying to do that by claiming it was proof of Jesus' resurrection. I agree with you, it's no proof whatsoever, it's just a proclamation of belief