Good article on did Jesus exsist?

[Angel of Ioren]

Oh,mike,mike,mike,you have become such a joke to me. I lost interest in you quite a while ago. Read some books, actually study something academic seriously. Without the Internet you wouldn't be able to make any "case" at all on anything. This observation of mine about you is indisputable. Aren't you serious about anything of an academic nature that actually requires you to put in the effort of reading whole books and learning about something in depth for the love of it, for instance history? An obvious fact about you I've noticed is your ignorance of history in all its aspects: its chronology, its characters (you throw out names you've seen for the first time on the Internet and feel you've made a point), its themes and movements, its political history, movements of peoples, change over time, and on and on. Abysmally ignorant, and evident more and more as I've read your postings. Kim

Kim, having known Mike's posting on this forum for quite some time, I can tell you, he's not as ignorant as you seem to think. Although you may disagree with him on this topic, he's not a fool. Trust me, we've disagreed with each other lots, but when we do, we always try to see each other's point of view.
Also, it frustrates me to no end when people deride the internet in any way, and make it out to be a "dumb man's" tool. You say that without the internet, he would not be able to make any case at all. That's true. It's because that without it, you would not be aware of each other's existence. It's the future - embrace it and use the tools God has given us!

 

[mike]

Animals: estimated 3-30 million species
|
|--Invertebrates: 97% of all known species
| `--+--Sponges: 10,000 species
| |--Cnidarians: 8,000-9,000 species
| |--Molluscs: 100,000 species
| |--Platyhelminths: 13,000 species
| |--Nematodes: 20,000+ species
| |--Annelida: 12,000 species
| `--Arthropods
| `--+--Crustaceans: 40,000 species
| |--Insects: 1-30 million+ species
| `--Arachnids: 75,500 species
|
`--Vertebrates: 3% of all known species
`--+--Reptiles: 7,984 species
|--Amphibians: 5,400 species
|--Birds: 9,000-10,000 species
|--Mammals: 4,475-5,000 species
`--Ray-Finned Fishes: 23,500 species

Its not rocket science the math is simple, we are talking millions of animals on a single boat......

"I think our collection is about 18,000 animals," Annie Schauster, an animal nutrition keeper at the Saint Louis Zoo points out.
And most of them eat produce, which means the zoo goes through a lot of it.
"Every week, we go through typically about two tons of produce," Schauster says.

If 18,ooo animals at the St louis zoo go through 2 tons of food a week........

Noah entered the ark in the 600th year of his life, on the 17th day of the 2nd month (Genesis 7:11-13). Noah left the ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month of the following year (Genesis 8:14-15). Therefore, assuming a lunar calendar of 360 days, Noah was on the ark for approximately 370 days.
Noah was told to go on the ark and in 7 days it would rain. So Noah was on the ark 7 days prior to the flood adding to the 370 making it 377.

The encylopedia britannica By the ninth edition, in 1875, no attempt was made to reconcile the Noah story with scientific fact, and it was presented without comment.

You cannot possibly reconcile the "story" with scientific fact.

At least 60 millions critters for 377 days........ how much food would it have had to carry based on the 2 tons for 18,ooo model......

Its freaking impossible...... Its a fairy tale

The bible is a collection of fables, its fiction and bad fiction at that, the plot is full of contradictions and outright impossibilitys

yet even today some misguided people think The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc

And want to teach it instead of real history , geography and science in our schools

 

[stonehart]

Gilgamesh Epic changed and retold.. end case.

 

[mike]

Gilgamesh Epic changed and retold.. end case.

Exactly, i once saw an excellent doco on Gilgamesh, it tied in dates with rock core samples that showed a once in a hundred year downpour, and all the other facts.
Makes perfect sense in that context.

But global flood where god kills everyone (including babies and pregnant women)
except noah and his floating zoo...... complete fable

You cannot possibly reconcile the "story" with scientific fact

Most of the bible is a rehash of older stories dressed up and exagerated to make god look all powerful

 

[mike]

Oh,mike,mike,mike,you have become such a joke to me. I lost interest in you quite a while ago. Read some books, actually study something academic seriously. Without the Internet you wouldn't be able to make any "case" at all on anything. This observation of mine about you is indisputable. Aren't you serious about anything of an academic nature that actually requires you to put in the effort of reading whole books and learning about something in depth for the love of it, for instance history? An obvious fact about you I've noticed is your ignorance of history in all its aspects: its chronology, its characters (you throw out names you've seen for the first time on the Internet and feel you've made a point), its themes and movements, its political history, movements of peoples, change over time, and on and on. Abysmally ignorant, and evident more and more as I've read your postings. Kim

I dont need to regurgitate someone elses opinions on the bible, i have the source right here.
I will quote it directly to show its a crock of shit, You cannot possibly reconcile the "storys" with scientific fact.

Yet again unable to refute a single aspect that ive quoted from the sourcebook itself, you dodge

Insisting that your observation im in england is indisputable......

I live in the blue mountains west of Sydney Australia.

Your insistance you are right is delusional

 

[Kim323]

Angelo, you haven't once to my knowledge admonished mike and Stonehart on their ridicule. I finally wrote my rules post enumerating some clearly vile stuff, personal and beyond mean. You responded with, well, Kim, you signed on to those rules, which is true and I read the link you provided, and I feel that mike and Stonehart have egregiously maligned a group and have used that as their main mode of "discussion.". Mike has twice today told tyder sarcastically he is blind, and reas his latest posts, which besides being a hodgepodge of stuff no one could respond to, he says stuff like anyone who believes "this shit will believe anything.". There's no way to have a civil discussion, because they want to crush with cruelty and venom. You darn right I developed over the course of this a profound disgust for their kind of discourse. This isn't getting my feelings hurt, this is doing damage to the level of discourse on the forum when someone wants to win at any cost. I've seen him do this on another thread and he was admonished. If you want to run off members, you are doing a good job. Kim

 

[mike]

Angelo, you haven't once to my knowledge admonished mike and Stonehart on their ridicule. I finally wrote my rules post enumerating some clearly vile stuff, personal and beyond mean. You responded with, well, Kim, you signed on to those rules, which is true and I read the link you provided, and I feel that mike and Stonehart have egregiously maligned a group and have used that as their main mode of "discussion.". Mike has twice today told tyder sarcastically he is blind, and reas his latest posts, which besides being a hodgepodge of stuff no one could respond to, he says stuff like anyone who believes "this shit will believe anything.". There's no way to have a civil discussion, because they want to crush with cruelty and venom. You darn right I developed over the course of this a profound disgust for their kind of discourse. This isn't getting my feelings hurt, this is doing damage to the level of discourse on the forum when someone wants to win at any cost. I've seen him do this on another thread and he was admonished. If you want to run off members, you are doing a good job. Kim

ROFL

have become such a joke

wouldn't be able to make any "case" at all on anything

your ignorance of history in all its aspects

Abysmally ignorant

But quoting the none so blind adage is just not cricket ?

None so blind as those that won't see.’‥A single effort of the will was sufficient to exclude from his view whatever he judged hostile to his immediate purpose.
[1852 E. Fitzgerald Polonius 58]

Yet again unable to post any real evidence, or refute any that ive presented, you resort to diversionary tactics like this.Tis but a single effort of the will , sufficient to exclude from your view whatever you judge hostile to your immediate purpose

There has been no discussion here thats for sure, ive presented evidence and links, examples galore to support my premise. Youve dodged every single one and bleated on about how unfair im being.

Clearly what your complaining about is that you dont like the fact im right, you cant refute it, not a single point, Ive quoted the source in making my case, had i done otherwise we would no doubt be regaled with "its all second hand opinion" complaints.

You have to try and make this about personalitys, because you cant debate or refute the data presented, data taken from the very sourcebook itself.
No wonder the church didnt want it translated, they knew what was in it.
The internet is the final nail in this hoax's coffin, may it rest in pieces

The proof as they say is in the pudding....... mmmmmm pudding

Church attendance in America is on the decline.

Dave Olson, the director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, has done some really interesting research into the church attendance patterns of Americans.

Olson's findings contain a ton of bad news. For starters, his research found that the percentage of Americans regularly attending church is only 18.7%.

Olson has put his findings into an eye opening slideshow entitled "Twelve Surprising Facts about the US Church".

Here are some of the things that he found:

The percentage of people who actually physically attend a Christian church each week is quite a bit below what pollsters report.

The percentage of people who attended a Christian church each week decreased significantly between 1990 and 2000.

The Anglican Church of Canada has experienced a huge decline over the past 40 years, according to a new independent survey.
Over the period of 1961 to 2001 the Canadian region of the worldwide Anglican Church has lost 53% of its members, with numbers declining from 1.36 million to just 642,000.
An even more worrying sign for the worldwide Church is that the survey suggested that the decline is accelerating.

 

[Voyager]

ROFL






But quoting the none so blind adage is just not cricket ?



Yet again unable to post any real evidence, or refute any that ive presented, you resort to diversionary tactics like this.Tis but a single effort of the will , sufficient to exclude from your view whatever you judge hostile to your immediate purpose

There has been no discussion here thats for sure, ive presented evidence and links, examples galore to support my premise. Youve dodged every single one and bleated on about how unfair im being.

Clearly what your complaining about is that you dont like the fact im right, you cant refute it, not a single point, Ive quoted the source in making my case, had i done otherwise we would no doubt be regaled with "its all second hand opinion" complaints.

You have to try and make this about personalitys, because you cant debate or refute the data presented, data taken from the very sourcebook itself.
No wonder the church didnt want it translated, they knew what was in it.
The internet is the final nail in this hoax's coffin, may it rest in pieces

The proof as they say is in the pudding....... mmmmmm pudding

I have only one message for Christians: If all of you people are going to be in Heaven, I don't want to go there!

 

[tyder001]

I don't think anybody proved anything to anybody here. I have never been convinced of anything in these forums. I have been entertained and enraged and I have even been able to consider new ways of looking at some stuff. I've said that (and the church attendance Mike posted is very true) the church will either have to evolve or it will indeed become as musty in America as it appears to be in Europe. I happen to know some really "spiritual" gay people. They would love to pratice their faith and be involved in community. But, instead they are having to do what I have to do. Find others to talk with about deep convictions because they aren't right wing zealots. I honestly think Rome hijacked the Christian movement. I have often wondered what it would have been like if the men in jewels and robes and funny hats had not have taken it over. I think it would be more Jewish and more inclusive but I honestly don't know. Anyway, this really got way off and out there. So, (as all of you already have) Declare victory and move on if you want to, I'm not the boss of you. At least in this silly war there are no actual bombs or bullets being shot. Now, I'm on to other topics. Where did I put that "How to call U.f.o.'s" manual?

 

[Voyager]

I don't think anybody proved anything to anybody here. I have never been convinced of anything in these forums. I have been entertained and enraged and I have even been able to consider new ways of looking at some stuff. I've said that (and the church attendance Mike posted is very true) the church will either have to evolve or it will indeed become as musty in America as it appears to be in Europe. I happen to know some really "spiritual" gay people. They would love to pratice their faith and be involved in community. But, instead they are having to do what I have to do. Find others to talk with about deep convictions because they aren't right wing zealots. I honestly think Rome hijacked the Christian movement. I have often wondered what it would have been like if the men in jewels and robes and funny hats had not have taken it over. I think it would be more Jewish and more inclusive but I honestly don't know. Anyway, this really got way off and out there. So, (as all of you already have) Declare victory and move on if you want to, I'm not the boss of you. At least in this silly war there are no actual bombs or bullets being shot. Now, I'm on to other topics. Where did I put that "How to call U.f.o.'s" manual?

Reality is relative to your frame of reference.

 

[tyder001]

Reality is relative to your frame of reference.

Dang, that wuz good. I wasted all them werds trying to say that. A'h thank.

 

[dyingsun]

I sat in a church just the other day, at a funeral service no less.It felt peaceful and it was a somewhat humbling experience. I hadn't been in a church for three years prior, but it was an interesting experience. I didn't know the deceased well, but the family..every religion/liturgy has a reason to exist, the best ones make us think.

 

[Voyager]

I sat in a church just the other day, at a funeral service no less.It felt peaceful and it was a somewhat humbling experience. I hadn't been in a church for three years prior, but it was an interesting experience. I didn't know the deceased well, but the family..every religion/liturgy has a reason to exist, the best ones make us think.

We have a church here called the Assembly of God Church. They are all end-timers. If you mention something good happened to you; they say, "The Lord made it happen." They are trying to save my soul. The Pastor used to be a logger. I knew him when he was younger. About a year ago I talked to him about UFOs. He admitted he has seen them. He abruptly changed the subject. He didn't want to go there!

 

[trainedobserver]

I sat in a church just the other day, at a funeral service no less.It felt peaceful and it was a somewhat humbling experience. I hadn't been in a church for three years prior, but it was an interesting experience. I didn't know the deceased well, but the family..every religion/liturgy has a reason to exist, the best ones make us think.

I had a similar experience recently. I left the service disappointed that what I had just witnessed was more of commercial for the faith (notice I'm not singling out any particular group here) than a tribute to the deceased. More was said about the after-life and the spiritual protocol that needed to be followed to get a good spot there than remembering the life of the person we were there to honor.

That service contrasted tremendously with a secular service I attended for a co-worker many years ago. Everyone spoke about the life of the deceased without a single mention of the supernatural, the after-life, sin, forgiveness, or anything of the sort. It was by far the most moving service I had attended in my life.

 

[dyingsun]

I'm still worried, a lot actually, about the US. I went to a catholic funeral while I'm a born 'lutherian /protestant', and that is leaving my personal believes totally aside. I think even if you dislike or downright refuse/hate someone's believes, if you knew him and have even an ounce of sympathy for the person, be here. Last Chance....

 

[trainedobserver]

I'm still worried, a lot actually, about the US. I went to a catholic funeral while I'm a born 'lutherian /protestant', and that is leaving my personal believes totally aside. I think even if you dislike or downright refuse/hate someone's believes, if you knew him and have even an ounce of sympathy for the person, be here. Last Chance....

Yes, I agree completely. I've been to all sorts throughout my life and never gave the differences much thought. And certainly, it depends on the individuals involved more than anything. The religious service I mentioned earlier was what you might refer to as a non-denominational freestyle kind of thing.

 

[mike]

Why are the fictions in the bible important to the OP question ?

In a modern court of law, the magistrate must try and get to "the truth of the matter"
In doing so he/she has some rules to follow.

One is that of the "unreliable witness".
Essentially if any part of the witness statement or documented evidence is shown to be false, the entire statement/document must be rejected as "unreliable"

Unreliable Witness: it's better not to rely on a witness at all, than to rely on a flase witness

She had proved to be an unreliable witness and had lied to police

The Court’s decision also highlights the fact that the Constitution precludes defendants from convictions based on unreliable evidence

Thus the bible is "unreliable" as a source for truth

Ultraviolet photo of a critical word from the earliest known extant manuscript of Tacitus (second Medicean, Laurentian library, Italy).

The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos ("the good"), has been overwritten as christianos ("the Christians") by a later hand, a deceit which explains the excessive space between the letters and the exaggerated "dot" (dash) above the new "i". The entire "torched Christians" passage of Tacitus is not only fake, it has been repeatedly "worked over" by fraudsters to improve its value as evidence for the Jesus myth.

The truth may be that there was an original gnostic cult following a personified virtue, "Jesus Chrestos" (Jesus the Good). Consequently, they were called Chrestians, an appellation which seems to have attached itself at an early date to the sectarians of the "heretic" Marcion. Support for this possibility comes from the earliest known "Christian" inscription, found in the 19th century on a Marcionite church at Deir Ali, three miles south of Damascus. Dated to circa 318, the inscription reads "The meeting-house of the Marcionists, in the village of Lebaba, of the Lord and Saviour Jesus the Good", using the word Chrestos, not Christos.

As a flesh-and-blood, "historical" Jesus gradually eclipsed the allegorical Jesus so, too, did "goodness" get eclipsed by "Messiahship". Justin, in his First Apology (4), about thirty years after the death of Tacitus, plays on the similarity in sound of the two words Χριστὸς (Christ) and χρηστὸς (good, excellent) to argue for the wholesome, commendable character of Jesus followers.

Caius Suetonius (c.69–140 AD)

Nowhere in any of Suetonius's writings does he mention 'Jesus of Nazareth.' Suetonius did write a biography called Twelve Caesars around the year 112 AD and of Emperor Claudius he says:

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."​

Jesus in Rome in 54 AD? Of course not. But the unwary can be misled by this reference'Chrestus' does not equate to 'Christ' in English but to 'The Good' in Greek, It was a name used by both slaves and freemen and is attested more than eighty times in Latin inscriptions. Clearly, Suetonius was explaining why the Jews (not Christians) were expelled from Rome and is referring to a Jewish agitator in the 50s – not to a Galilean pacifist of the 30s.

Not a single writer before the 4th century – not Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc. – in all their defences against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus’ wondrous words.

The third century Church 'Father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defence of Christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively. Yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. In fact, Origen actually said that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ."

Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written.

It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum.

Non-Christian Testimony for Jesus? – From the authentic pen of lying Christian scribes !!

There is more than enough evidence of falsehood and fiction in this book to introduce reasonable doubt.
In a court of law and indeed a court of public opinion, the book itself must be declared unreliable, and thus discarded.

We are told to accept that Jesus existed based upon the Gospels of the Bible, yet the Gospels are so poorly written that a logical person is at best left to ponder if Jesus even existed. The Gospels are consistently contradictive, filled with mathematic errors and don’t compliment each other on very important details. This page shall serve as an example for just how unreliable the Gospels are.

Contradictions of the Gospel

 

[mike]

In addition, the Rev. S. Baring-Gould remarked:

"This passage is first quoted by Eusebius (fl. A.D. 315) in two places (Hist. Eccl., lib. I, c. xi; Demonst. Evang., lib. iii); but it was unknown to Justin Martyr (fl. A.D. 140), Clement of Alexandria (fl. A.D. 192), Tertullian (fl. A.D. 193), and Origen (fl. A.D. 230). Such a testimony would certainly have been produced by Justin in his apology or in his controversy with Trypho the Jew, had it existed in the copies of Josephus at his time. The silence of Origen is still more significant. Celsus, in his book against Christianity, introduces a Jew. Origen attacks the argument of Celsus and his Jew. He could not have failed to quote the words of Josephus, whose writings he knew, had the passage existed in the genuine text. He, indeed, distinctly affirms that Josephus did not believe in Christ (Contr. Cels. I)."​

Remsburg also recounts:

"Cannon Farrar, who has written an ablest Christian life of Christ yet penned, repudiates it. He says: 'The single passage in which he [Josephus] alludes to him is interpolated, if not wholly spurious' (Life of Christ, Vol. I, p. 46).​

"The following, from Dr. Farrar's pen, is to be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica: 'That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it now stands no sane critic can believe.'"​

And so on, with similar opinions by Christian scholars such as Theodor Keim, Rev. Dr. Hooykaas and Dr. Alexander Campbell. By the time of Dr. Chalmers and others, the TF had been so discredited that these authorities understood it as a forgery in toto and did not even consider it for a moment as "evidence" of Jesus's existence and/or divinity. In fact, these subsequent defenders of the faith, knowing the TF to be a forgery, repeatedly commented on how disturbing it was that Josephus did not mention Jesus

Josephus on Jesus | Forgery and Fraud? | Flavius Testimonium

 

[stonehart]

That is not a very bad essay at all on the subject and quoted from it myself

 

[Kim323]

Mike, lots of bandwidth here (your word criticizing me on my signature). You brought up your ridicule of Christianity on your own thread about your experience. I posted sympathetically and linked to two scholarly articles about what you experienced. Just my presence set you off, and you hijacked the very thread about your own experience with more rantings, personal ones of course, and left. Now, I want on this thread to point out again that your very entertainment of the possibility that an actual "abduction" was what you experienced, in face of much research on the phenomenon, leaves you open to my question about your own capacity for rational explanation. It's ok to show YOUR utter contempt for Christians and Christianity, and ridicule things they hold true, but here you are leaving very much open the possibility that an actual, objectively existing, freestanding entity visited you that night. By the way, this incapacity I feel you demonstrate for rationality in your own experience has been on display in this thread, where your utter contempt for Christians has precluded even your consideration that Jesus existed. This Josephus/Eusebius stuff was put to rest long ago by scholars, yet you continue to spout it. Yet here you are making clear in your post about your experience that you are not sure that it was not an actual alien who visited you. Kim