What strikes me as weird is that Christianity was soundly defeated,

Christians just retreat to a point where they are untouchable in philosophical terms and then sneer at atheists because "lol ur so dumb u think u can prove god doesnt exist". When in reality the "god" they are arguing for is little more than a philosophical abstraction at this point, and certainly has fuck all to do with the god of the Bible

this has been the real victory against religious types, to push them to a point where they can no longer claim that the creator of the universe is giving them instructions on how to live without being laughed out of the room. As far as I'm concerned it is the only victory that is necessary. Let them have their abstract proofs of the existence of "god", no amount of Cosmological argument will ever get them to revelation or miracles or dead men coming back to life or an afterlife. Serves them right for having a tard understanding of religion anyway, Hindus and Buddhists can cope with these things just fine

>>536767
Any belief outside of solipsism is faith based and an ideosyncratic abstraction. Prove me wrong
>protip you can't

>>536743

It was soundly defeated way before that.

A large subset of Christians are just undebateable, and will cling to the notion that Christianity is true even if they have to deliberately distort evidence in order to do so.

For instance, take the second verse of the first Gospel, Mark.

The original Greek very deliberately says "As the prophet Isaiah said", and then goes on to quote a different prophet (Malachai). Oops.

So what to a lot of Christians do? They just edit the Gospel. If you look at the King James Version of the bible, which is at least the most popular in America, it says "As the prophets say".

Twist the holy book around to make it true, don't evaluate it on its own and come to a decision of whether or not it's true.

Christians haven't been intellectually honest or defending a meaningful position pretty much from the get-go. Otherwise, they wouldn't use pretzel logic to try to force a holy book from a completely different religion which explicitly warns you not to listen to guys like Jesus as a theological backdrop they claim to spring forth from.

It's almost like it isn't a belief based on purely rational grounds or something
Weird

>>536743
>argument with Christians
>2000 years later
>same argument

>>536784

>>>533180

>>536743
Want something more 20th century? Granted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJu0oYvi-cY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toEYAQaYvBk

>>536743
>taking the bible verbatim instead of giving it a metaphorical reading

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>>536743

Because wanting to feel validated is a stronger motivating force than facts no matter how utterly bullshit said source of validation is?

Religion discredits itself simply by the way it's spread. From the get go, Christianity was spread at the tip of the sword or through politics and NEVER through argument or even revelation. I find it frankly disgusting intellectually that it's accepted that when people of different faiths wed, for example, one will just change their religion as one would a pair of shoes.

>>536743

Because Christianity is a powerful motivating force for many people who feel that it has had a clear, tangible, positive impact on their lives. If somebody genuinely feels that they've been rescued and their life has been improved, you can't "logic" those feelings away.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA3n2zZlLdw

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I think the fact that when these "greatest minds" got to rule a country they made it into an orgy of violence and bloodshed, that discredited them somehow.

>“The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.”

Thomas Paine

>>537656

That is completely illogical thinking and Thomas Paine is usually considered one of the most significant, arguably even the most significant, idoleologues that inspired the American War of Independence and the founding of the USA and its values.

>>537601

I'm glad to see this trend for Christians to even dump the NT as being metaphor now.

>>536784
solipsism itself is an ideosyncratic abstraction m8

>>536743
Christianity is a dead religion lad, the real idiots are atheists who argue with whatever retards are left.

Now Islam on the other hand, that is a religion which is very well alive and atheists should go after them instead.

>>537690
So...he was a major contributor to a system of genocide and slavery.

>>537681
Astrotheology is fake mmk.

Babylonian tryna get everyone to sun worship. Jesus was prophecied to be a living human being.

And Thomas Paine didn't have a time machine

>>536951

That's not true. One of the earliest arguments against Christianity we have access to is the work of the Greek philosopher Celcus who claims that Mary got fucked by a Roman soldier called Panthera and that Jesus was a sorcerer who got his dark magic from studying in Egypt.

>>537690
>That is completely illogical thinking

Not really, it was widely accepted that the horrors of the French Revolution contributed to a revival of Christianity in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Genius_of_Christianity

Thomas Paine himself was a harsh defender of the revolutionaries, especially the Jacobins.

>>537700
too bad it influences US politics more than almost any other ideology

>>537703

Slavery was already in place when the USA was founded. Paine was also in favour of abolition.

>>537706

He wasn't making his case based on astrotheology. He was commenting on the similarities / historical evidence that Christianity merged with the Sol Invictus cult.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

>>537707
Wait an Anti-christian philosopher said that? NO KIDDING

He sounds like a 4chan troll trying to win an insult argument.

>>537720
Babylonian Christianity is a thing, it is how they get people to worship the Sun, which isn't what Actual Christianity is about

>>537709

It is still poor logical thinking. It wouldn't matter if someone who made a case against Christianity turned out to be a child-molesting baby murderer, it would make no difference to the strength or weakness of their arguments against Christianity.

>>537725

That isn't terribly relevant to my post.

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>>536743
>What strikes me as weird is that Christianity was soundly defeated, from an intellectual point of view, by the greatest minds of the 18th Century, yet Christians are so deaf to the arguments that atheists have to keep repeating them over and over to this day, and Christians still force them to keep running over them again and against and again.


But they weren't. Classical Theism was defeated intellectually by people who in turn modernized the faith in their own terms. We're now aware that they themselves were wrong about a great many things and can refute their modern system. However, that leads to people realizing that Classical Theism was not properly defeated, thus the philosophical discussion still continues in some circles.


But further, you'd be mistaken to think that metaphysical systems are ran through rationally for most people. We have intellectual "icons" who still support metaphysical systems that have already been refuted and people who just adopt their system uncritically in different ways:

>grew up with it/taught it by parents or schools
>support it for reasons besides its validity in speaking of nature
>like it a bunch

Christianity/religions are just lumped in there with other metaphysical systems. You're mistaken how systems of thought move through a populace. I will say that Christianity is thoroughly dead in certain circles though, in certain circles in America where their religion becomes a shallow abstraction and they are only Christian in name only.

>>537681
>the quote is real
Well shit. Thomas, I know Zeigeist hadn't come out by your time but put it the fuck down. You're shit's all retarded.


>>537707
>Greek philosopher Celcus who claims that Mary got fucked by a Roman soldier called Panthera

He doesn't claim it, he says some Jews said that argument. He was alive at the end of the second century, he wouldn't particularly know Mary's sexual relations. Celcus literally admits to just repeating what he's heard.

>>537719
>influences US politics more than almost any other ideology

lol how? Abortion is legal, gay marriage is legal and weed is gonna probably become nationally legal too.

>>537726
It may be poor logical thinking, according to you, but it explains your initial question, on why Christianity didn't "disappear" once rationally refuted by the likes of Thomas Paine.

>>537707
Is the person who created this argument named Celsus?

>>537720
>Slavery was already in place when the USA was founded. Paine was also in favour of abolition.
Neither of which negate the point. You can't say it's completely illogical to be skeptical of a thinker because when he got to see his ideas implemented by pointing towards an even greater orgy of bloodshed that happened when he got to see his ideas implemented.

If you wanted to distance Thomas Paine from the American Experience, why did you bring it up?

>>537707
>>537739
My mistake, I mustn't have read your comment earlier. I'm rather tired.

>>537736
>lol how
By literally taking up half of more time on any political debate. It's clogging up public discourse in a huge way, the fact that abortion is even talked about (by the way, legality of which is hardly relevant when one party tries to stop it via state law) is frankly a disgrace to a country of US's magnitude. Or gay marriage.

>>537757
Dude literally the only places left in the US and really in the world that are actually Christian is bumfuck nowhere baptist churches, everyone else is just culturally christian. You're still living in 2005.

>>537757
You can make many non religious arguments against abortion, gay marriage and weed.

>>537739

Sorry, my typo.

>>537732

>He doesn't claim it, he says some Jews said that argument

The entire gospels are based on what some Jews said.

>Thomas, I know Zeigeist hadn't come out by your time but put it the fuck down.

Trying to refute his based on one shitty 9/11 conspiritard film made a couple of centuries later is stupid.

>>537741

Your suggesting his ideas led to a greater orgy of bloodshed and specifically using slavery as an example? The British Empire was already the top slave trading entity when Paine was writing and the USA split off from it, you have no basis to the claim it inspired additional slavery.

>>537737

I'm not OP and yes it clearly is an illogical point.

>>537774

*You're suggesting.

Damnit.

>>537757
Anyone who says the earth is 6000 years old in public is looked at like a retard because they are. Just face it lad, Islam is the real problem today.

>>537766
>guys like fuckabee, rick 'fecal matter' santorum and sleeping pill Ben get to seriously run for president
>half the chairs on educational boards don't believe in evolution or global warming
Yeah nah. Things are looking better, but as it stands the country is 40%+ certifiably retarded

>>537757
Most people that actually have control of the country are just fake christians that are really atheists. See: Obama, Hillary Clinton and the majority of the republican 2016 candidates.

>>537774
>you have no basis to the claim it inspired additional slavery.
Then you have to reject the notion that it inspired the American Republic in any meaningful way.

>>537802

This is just a complete ignorance of history. The American War of Independence was not the basis of slavery, it was a well established institution prior to that.

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>>537774
>The entire gospels are based on what some Jews said.

Yes, but we pay attention to the authority of these views as they are backed as authoritative by apostolic authority (except for Protestants who just think it's God's word without having a defense for how they know it is). Otherwise it is JUST SOME JEWS SAYIN' SHIT. Celcus' doesn't have an argument about Mary, he repeats some hearsay.


>Trying to refute his based on one shitty 9/11 conspiritard film made a couple of centuries later is stupid.

Re-read that line. It's intentionally trying to be obtuse for the sake of humor, hence me mentioning the problem with the logic immediately in the sentence.

Generally I'm just calling his claim retarded. The claim that Jesus has any bearing to Sol Invictus is tremendously weak and backed by historical hearsay and misinterpretation. The conspiracy theory is a modern one. The 12th century backing they use to make the claim doesn't make the claim they think it does. Paine just adopted the popular conspiracy theory at the time.

>>537798
That's true, but the masquerade still speaks to something. There's plenty of polls saying the US country bumpkins would rather vote for a gay communist jew muslim before they would an atheist.

>>537784
It's a bigger problem than Christianity by a mile, I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the absurd notion that Christianity is dead.

>>537772
And they don't get made. Nor is there much to say on non-religious grounds.

>>537822
>Yes, but we pay attention to the authority of these views as they are backed as authoritative by apostolic authority (except for Protestants who just think it's God's word without having a defense for how they know it is). Otherwise it is JUST SOME JEWS SAYIN' SHIT. Celcus' doesn't have an argument about Mary, he repeats some hearsay.

The entire gospels were written by some Greek speakers decades after the events based on oral transmission i.e. hearsay that some Jews told them. There is no reason based on this line of argumentation that Celcus' claims were less solid than the gospels.

>>537822
>Re-read that line. It's intentionally trying to be obtuse for the sake of humor, hence me mentioning the problem with the logic immediately in the sentence.
>Generally I'm just calling his claim retarded. The claim that Jesus has any bearing to Sol Invictus is tremendously weak and backed by historical hearsay and misinterpretation. The conspiracy theory is a modern one. The 12th century backing they use to make the claim doesn't make the claim they think it does. Paine just adopted the popular conspiracy theory at the time.

So where does the date for Christmas come from?

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>>536743
Yet I have to post this every day because atheists have no idea what they are arguing against.

>>537820
I never claimed the British never practiced slavery.

You on the other hand, are arguing that the American Republic never enshrined in law, expended, practiced, ideologically justified, or made a part of their culture the act of slavery.

Tell me, when did the British introduce Slavery to Texas?

True revival of Arian Christianity when?

Religion leads up to something beautiful and it shouldn't be dismissed as "stupid".
If people decide they want to be the best men they can to go to heaven THEN LET THEM.
You shouldn't fear the 1-2 Christians who ignore everyone and everything and live their lives in accordance to the Bible.
You SHOULD fear Islamist extremists. They endanger us all and intellectual conversation is impossible with them.
Remember the guy who made a sketch on Prophet Muhammed?
--The poor man had to be enclosed in an airtight room with reinforced iron doors. A sandnigger was found clanging an axe trying to break the door. In 21st FUCKING CENTURY. HUMAN EVOLUTION AND FUCKING TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS MEANS NOTHING TO THESE KEKS

>>536743

Liberalism was soundly BTFO by Carl Schmitt in 1927, but the reason we haven't all abandoned it is because nobody's constructed an alternative paradigm that works as well. Schmitt's chosen cure was worse than the disease.

Ethicists have repeatedly BTFO capitalism since Marx, but capitalism endures because nothing else has proven as productive.

Sure, if you can come along and give us an alternative paradigm, we can abandon cultural Christianity, but until then...I suppose if the reports of Western birthrates rising or the posited 'millenial baby boom' become reality, then perhaps we can say we have a post-religious and post-Christian paradigm that works, but I'm not confident.

>>537899
>Marx BTFO of capitalism

Top kek.

>>537862
>allegorical
Into the trash it goes.

>>537886

Expanded is a pretty damn strong word. If you look at the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade relatively few of the slaves were ever sent to the Thirteen Coloies or the USA compared to British holdings in the West Indies or to South America. This is especially true if you are only looking at the post-revolution time period in the USA.

And trying to pin the blame on the ideologies that created the American Revolution and Paine in particular, an abolitionist, for this is terrible. If you are starting to go down these lines you should be well aware that a theological argument based on the bible was one of the strongest arguments used in favour of the institution of slavery.

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>>537845
>The entire gospels were written by some Greek speakers decades after the events based on oral transmission

We can date all the gospels except for John to a time within the lifetimes of the apostles and know from research that what was added later was asides mentioned through the gospels to cite correlations to prophecies in other books.

The idea that the bible was a game of telephone is unfounded and forgets that the apostles are people that live for decades too.


>There is no reason based on this line of argumentation that Celcus' claims were less solid than the gospels.

Entirely wrong. The only reason the Bible is seen as authoritative is not because people just trust the Jews originally but because the church's authority was able to make declaration of what is authoritative. As the church authority was given by Jesus originally it stands as authoritative over texts.

You're coming at the comparison the wrong way if you think this is a situation of 'hearsay v. hearsay'.


>>537856
Early in Christian history there was discussion on when Mary was conceived with child. The argument came to the decision that March 25th was the best answer available. And, of course, nine months later is December 25th. The 25th of March is the date of the Annunciation.

>>537862
>le "everything is a metaphor" argument
This falls apart the moment you start asking the billions of followers (and majority of the clergy) whether or not the think certain stories are historical fact or merely a metaphor.

>>537862
Keked at black science man

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>>537862
This shit is retarded.
>>537911 is right

>>537736
and those things were illegal because...

>>537925
>The idea that the bible was a game of telephone is unfounded and forgets that the apostles are people that live for decades too.
The apostles likely didn't live for 40-60 years until they decided to write a book.

Another point that's hilarious is that the good book disagrees with itself on stuff like Jesus' birthplace, which indisputably proves it's a game of telephone.

>>537932
Off topic but what's your view on original sin and the Fall? Do you believe in polygenism?

>>537703
So was Plato fuccboi

>>536743
What a fag, can't even understand spiritual language.

>>537699
>ideosyncratic abstraction
If you stretch it far enough, only naive realism remains.

As if it matters. Let people be Christians if they want to. At the end of the day, it's just good for society as a whole. People will always do what they get away with, so Christianity prevents people from doing things laws can not prevent

>>537925
>The only reason the Bible is seen as authoritative is not because people just trust the Jews originally but because the church's authority was able to make declaration of what is authoritative. As the church authority was given by Jesus originally it stands as authoritative over texts.

But all you're doing is changing the entity in whom authority is vested (in whom "trust is placed" if you will). There's still no strong evidence.

We know Paul was writing PDQ after the death of Jesus - what took everyone else so long?

>Early in Christian history there was discussion on when Mary was conceived with child. The argument came to the decision that March 25th was the best answer available. And, of course, nine months later is December 25th. The 25th of March is the date of the Annunciation.

Quite the coincidence that it just so happened to line up with an extant pagan feast day already well established, though - wasn't it?

>>537925
>We can date all the gospels except for John to a time within the lifetimes of the apostles and know from research that what was added later was asides mentioned through the gospels to cite correlations to prophecies in other books.
>The idea that the bible was a game of telephone is unfounded and forgets that the apostles are people that live for decades too.

There are not any academics that I am aware of, even extremist evangelical ones, that still try and make a traditionalist case that the gospels were actually written by the apostles, even the evangelicals, on the far end of trying to twist the evidence to make the gospels sound as good as possible as historical sources, only claim a strong chain of transmission based on theoretical sources that do not exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjcseBJ7_Ns

>Entirely wrong. The only reason the Bible is seen as authoritative is not because people just trust the Jews originally but because the church's authority was able to make declaration of what is authoritative. As the church authority was given by Jesus originally it stands as authoritative over texts.

I'm sorry, the church's authority may stand weight with a believing Catholic such as yourself but it is in no way a serious argument about the strength of historical sources.

>Early in Christian history there was discussion on when Mary was conceived with child. The argument came to the decision that March 25th was the best answer available. And, of course, nine months later is December 25th. The 25th of March is the date of the Annunciation.

Would that be at the same time as Christianity and the Sol Invictus cult were existing side by side in the Roman Empire by any chance?

>>537967
Yeah, it will do stuff like prevent people from not treating their children with medicine, or prevent people from protecting pedos in dresses.

Oh wait. Religion is ACTUALLY correlated with every single social ill you can think of, all the best countries in the world are largely atheistic, and the largest threat to civilization at this moment is, you guessed it, an abrahamic religion.

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>>537925
>As the church authority was given by Jesus originally

>>537919
>Expanded is a pretty damn strong word.
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, the New Mexico Territory, the Indian Territory. That represents more slave holding territory than the original 13 colonies combined.

>And trying to pin the blame on the ideologies that created the American Revolution and Paine in particular, an abolitionist, for this is terrible.
You're the one who introduced the idea to the discussion that Paine's role in the creation of this orgy of bloodshed somehow vindicated him.

You were the one who claimed he was one of the most significant, arguably most significant ideologues that inspired this slaver republic, and it's values that held up the extirpation and enslavement of entire races as moral values as a moral good.

The question is, since you thought Thomas Paine should be applauded for this, why are you trying to walk back from the values you held up as good before?

>>537984
That's just because the police and the state is advanced enough to force and take care of laws so religion isn't needed.

In Mexico the state can't take care of everything so people turn to religion for a moral compass.

>>537984
>Yeah, it will do stuff like prevent people from not treating their children with medicine, or prevent people from protecting pedos in dresses.
Liberals are way more likely to do those things.

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>>537932
Nice refutation.

Not my fault your autism prohibits you from contemplating abstract thinking.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2039690/Atheism-autism-Controversial-new-study-points-link-two.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-hutson/autism-atheism_b_1557098.html

>>537926
If you are judging Christianity and the Bible based on the beliefs of Christians, then under that same logic, Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin and their followers are representatives of atheism.

Also, you should look at Socrates' view on how one achieves happiness. Then look at Buddha's view on that. Then that of Jesus. Then look at Kierkegaard's view on how to balance the finite and infinite.

Then look at Schopenhauer's view of "human will". Then compare it with the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Then compare both the concept of original sin.

>>537984
>Religion is ACTUALLY correlated with every single social ill you can think of

I'm just as euphoric as the next atheist but this is just bullshit. money is the cause of most social ill's.

>>538003
Whatever helps you sleep at night, Cletus.

>>537998
>In Mexico the state can't take care of everything so people turn to religion for a moral compass.
I'll just concede that to you to avoid wasting time. If a functioning police force can replace a non-existent deity, that's good enough for me.

>>538003
Top laff

>>538016
I said correlated, I'm not necessarily implying causation. But the mere correlation is enough to stop the argument of religion = morality dead in its tracks, because the exact opposite looks to be the case.

>>538025
You are correct, but not every country has that.
Religion is a tool of power - it can be used for good and bad things, such as justifying war or giving people a moral compass that encourages sympathy and helping the poor. Religion didn't just come out of nowhere, you know. It helps.

>>537995
>Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, the New Mexico Territory, the Indian Territory. That represents more slave holding territory than the original 13 colonies combined.

I hardly think that makes the American Revolution the genesis of the slavery institution or the amount of territory to be more relevant than numbers.

>You're the one who introduced the idea to the discussion that Paine's role in the creation of this orgy of bloodshed somehow vindicated him.

I merely pointed out he is not responsible for the orgy of bloodshed. In fact I think this is a whilly irrelevant and stuoid argument.

However since YOU insisted on making it there are much clearer links between the theology of Christianity and the slave trade than anything the abolitionist Paine ever said. I don't even think that is a good argument against the truth claims of Christianity, but your smears by association are clearly much weaker than smearing Christian ideology for the "orgy of blooshed" if that is the silly line of argumentation you want to make.

>>538011
>If you are judging Christianity and the Bible based on the beliefs of Christians, then under that same logic, Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin and their followers are representatives of atheism.

One thing, though. "Christianity" IS the beliefs of Christians. You don't get to simply pin down one point in the phase-space of possible Christianities and say, Here, this is the real Christianity. Christianity is a broad church, so to speak, and in all its forms it entails a system of positive statements, adherence to which IS the act of being a Christian.

Atheism, OTOH, is at best one positive statement, and in other forms a simple doxastic position which needn't posit anything. There's a fundamental assymetry there.

Furthermore, it's far more elegant and predictive to ascribe the actions of eg Stalin and Pol Pot to their Communism than to their atheism. It is so much more strongly predictive, and so easily separable from their atheism that it begins to verge on absurdity not to do so.

>>538044
>or the amount of territory to be more relevant than numbers.
Sure. You're in even worse shape there.
1790 -> 690,000 slaves
1860 -> 3,953,761 slaves
Hey look, a nearly 6 fold expansion!

>I merely pointed out he is not responsible for the orgy of bloodshed.
No, you proudly claimed he was the "is usually considered one of the most significant, arguably even the most significant, idoleologues that inspired" said bloodshed, and the values that justify it.

You then went on to morally trivialize bloodshed and slavery.

When neither of those tactics worked, you backed away and started to claim that Thomas Paine had nothing to do with America and had no influence or importance to the American Republic.

>
However since YOU insisted on making it there are much clearer links between the theology of Christianity and the slave trade than anything the abolitionist Paine ever said
And now the argument has come full circle.

Thomas Paine was great because he was highly influential in the establishment of a system of violence and genocide. He was, in fact THE MOST important ideological influence on said Slave State.

Said system of genocide and slavery was morally negligable. nbd.

In fact, Thomas Paine wasn't the one behind the American Revolution: It was Christianity! Christian theology had much clearer links with the American Republic than anything the abolitionist Paine ever said!

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>>538123
>>538065
>this quote chain

>>538123

I have never backed away an inch from saying Paine was one of the founding idoleologues of the American Revolution. I have said the American Revolution was not the founding basis of the institution of slavery.

The devout Catholic Portuguese and Spanish Empires had more slaves and shipped more slaves than post-revolution USA. They defended this based on Christianity.

The Southern states of the USA defended the institution of slavery based on Christianity.

The Christian British Empire with an established Christian church was the top slave trading nation in Paine's time period. This was defended based on Christianity.

The Chuch of England owned slaves and branded them with "society".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4694896.stm

Now I don't even think that is an argument against Christianity, it would be childish of me to make it one, but YOU want to blame an abolitionist, someone who literally spoke out against the slave trade, for this "orgy of bloodshed" to try and negate his attack on Christianity, without even once engaging with what he said.

Shame on you, this is pathetic.

>In fact, Thomas Paine wasn't the one behind the American Revolution: It was Christianity! Christian theology had much clearer links with the American Republic than anything the abolitionist Paine ever said!

Not only are you going to struggle to evidence this based on actual chains of ideology but it is incoherent because if that is the case then everything you have just said about the American Revolution and slavery in the USA would be Christianity's fault, by YOUR logic, not mine.

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>>537943
>Another point that's hilarious is that the good book disagrees with itself on stuff like Jesus' birthplace, which indisputably proves it's a game of telephone.

???
All the gospels come from different places. They aren't made to fit neatly side by side as they weren't written with any (or much) awareness of the others. Again, there is nothing to say there was a game of telephone going on. You're simply unfounded.

And there is contradictions in the infancy narratives, just lack of information shown. Such as people saying the dating is fucked up when Quirinius is now known to have been a governor twice and so on.

And making this discussion about the gospels when it was about the legitimacy of what Celcus said is just odd.

>>537978
>There's still no strong evidence.
You miss the overall point. To say Celcus' Hearsay is equal to the writings of the gospels (lets call them "Biblical Hearsay" for this discussion) ignores that the Biblical Hearsay aren't authoritative of Christianity based on if people trust the sources or have evidence but rather on apostolic authority, which the people there did trust and believe to be accurate. They bypassed the rational discourse of the claims (at least the lay did, their scholars went head first into discourse) by listening to the authority they knew to have to be right.

>Quite the coincidence that it just so happened to line up with an extant pagan feast day already well established, though - wasn't it?

Yes, and there is no reason to think it was anything but purely coincidence. This debate was long before Christians had any power in Rome, and falls in line with multiple other dating arguments.

All Saints Day takes place the day after Samhain and the day before the Day of the Dead. Coincidence? Surely you realize that when social groups have holidays, they are going to coincide with other ones around the world.

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>>538192


>>537944
First off, the literal/metaphorical dichotomy in talking about biblical texts is too simplistic to treat textual criticism properly.

I do believe in there being a man and a woman who triggered original sin. I have no reason to think it's a first human biologically but rather the first humans given the rational souls by Christian understanding.

When I was younger, before I became an atheist and much longer before I became a Catholic, I had wondered how the Genesis account made sense if Adam and Eve + children were all the humans there were as the text does speak of others being around. Even now I can't get good answers from Evangelicals in my town here to explain these others being around.

>>537983
>There are not any academics that I am aware of...

Hypothetical sources are assumed to be the case because of the extreme similarity between gospels. While, obviously, authorship is a very hard thing to grasp in textual criticism my point was not to say that the apostles were the authors but purely to deny the idea of a game of telephone going on.

>I'm sorry, the...

And without supporting the church authority that is fine but comparing Celcus sharing what he heard some Jews say to the acceptance of the gospels is a false equivalence for the reason I mentioned. Historical discourse is fine but if you wish to make the comparison you need to know the situation.


>Would that be at the same time as Christianity and the Sol Invictus cult were existing side by side in the Roman Empire by any chance?

Obviously, yes, and people would be hard pressed to find evidence for the claim that Christianity bore any relation to Sol Invictus or intentionally coincided dating.

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>>538011
Mate, I am not an atheist. Don't assume.

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>>538192
>And there is contradictions in the infancy narratives, just lack of information shown
Fucking hell, I screwed up a key word:

"And there is no contradictions in the infancy narratives, just lack of information shown", rather.

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>/his/ attempts philosophy

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>>538210
>you can count the posts with actual philosophical discussion on about one hand

It's sad.

>>538210
You think this is bad? Wait till you see /his/ post about politics. It made /pol/ looked actually smart and I've seen shitpost from /v/.

>>538194
>Hypothetical sources are assumed to be the case because of the extreme similarity between gospels.

Actually the main hypothesis is that Matthew and Luke were in the main copied from Mark.

>While, obviously, authorship is a very hard thing to grasp in textual criticism my point was not to say that the apostles were the authors but purely to deny the idea of a game of telephone going on.

None of the gospels even claim to be written by the apostles once you ignore the name tags stuck on them at a later date. They are anonymous sources written in the third person.

>comparing Celcus sharing what he heard some Jews say to the acceptance of the gospels is a false equivalence for the reason I mentioned

Celsus had his Jewish sources based on oral transmission, so did the writers of the gospels.

> Obviously, yes, and people would be hard pressed to find evidence for the claim that Christianity bore any relation to Sol Invictus or intentionally coincided dating.

The dating of Christmas is a pretty damn good start.

>>536835
Protestards are satanic cult of death anon, not christians.

>>538192
>You miss the overall point.

No, bro, you do. It doesn't matter a damn why the canonical gospels are held to be canonical if the reasoning by which they came to be held canonical is not the reasoning applied by contemporary historiographers. And, spoiler alert: it's not.

If we found a bucket of old scrolls in Raqqa saying "LOL Muhammed, that illiterate fuck banged 9-yos, don't listen to him", I sincerely doubt you'd explain it away on the grounds that the Koran and hadith weren't inducted into the Islamic canon by the same means through which these scrolls were identified as valid evidence. Of course you wouldn't, because that wouldn't make any sense.

>Yes, and there is no reason to think it was anything but purely coincidence.

Well, except for maybe the existence of other major Christian feast days which ALSO coincide wi-

>All Saints Day takes place the day after Samhain and the day before the Day of the Dead. Coincidence?

Well, hot damn. The process is called 'contextualisation' and instead of fighting against its possibility, you should just stake out its irrelevance to doctrinal validity.

>>538192
>Again, there is nothing to say there was a game of telephone going on.
Hearsay is a very good source of inconsistencies. So, except for the inconsistencies and the very likely event that they weren't written by the apostles in the first place, sure, there's no reason to think that the apostles didn't sit around for half a century until they got to crippling senility (if not death) to write a book about a deluded goatfucker.

Whatever helps you delude yourself, daddy-o. I'm out.

>>538241
>I'm out
Pigeons and chess etc. etc.

>>537925
>The idea that the bible was a game of telephone is unfounded and forgets that the apostles are people that live for decades too

Except the Gospels are literally a combination of several different texts from different sources. The Q source theory is almost universally accepted in academia. Even the people that assembled the bible had no clue where the texts came from.

>>538192
>Yes, and there is no reason to think it was anything but purely coincidence.
Considering pagan feasts are, "by coincidence"(not really) linked to astronomical events it's safe to assume it's deliberate.

Which doesn't means shit because in the end it's a matter of symbolism(or maybe that's exactly what it's all about but again it has no ).
Painfully simple symbolism:
Easter = redemption = spring(no surprise)
Summer = work = nothing important
Autumn = decay = 1st November
Winter = holy shit you have to put something in here because people are bored = christmas
For the same reason new year starts in winter btw.

Now why doesn't anybody raise a question of christian canon about "what happens after death" being reincarnation prior to 7th/8th century?

>>538065
>One thing, though. "Christianity" IS the beliefs of Christians
And Christians draw their beliefs from the New Testament.

However, much like their atheist counterparts, many Protestants read the Bible without interpreting it. This is where creationists, "convert or die", and 'fire and brimstone' people come from. These people, though, are most certainly not the majority. It is foolish of atheists to think so.

Also, denominations like the Calvinists have beliefs that clearly go against the Bible (see predetermination/free will). One could make the same argument against Catholic traditions such as "holy days of obligation". As such, it is a fallacy to say that Christianity is solely the beliefs of each denomination.

>>538304
>However, much like their atheist counterparts, many Protestants read the Bible without interpreting it.
>my 5000th reinterpretation is the correct one
>>>/trash/

>>538320
>5000th
1st*

>>538329
You're not the first guy to reinterpret the Bible, bub. 5000 is being conservative.

>>538304
>As such, it is a fallacy to say that Christianity is solely the beliefs of each denomination.

I don't know why you're putting "solely" in there, man. "Christianity" comprises a broad range of conflicting and occasionally mutually contradictory beliefs; as such, there is no such single thing as "Christianity". "Christianity" is the corpus of the denominations so called; each denomination is indeed composed of the beliefs which constitute it.

>ah, but the New Testament

The New Testament is only a small part of the evangelic writings about Jesus and the Jesus Movement from that general period of history. Thus, to regard the New Testament as authoritative itself requires the adoption of a doxastic position (specifically: The process of canonisation was legitimate/authoritative).

>>538293
>Easter = redemption = spring(no surprise)
Passover dipshit. Easter is always follows Passover. That's what the Last Supper was.

>>538293
>Autumn = decay = 1st November
Anti-decay more like. All Saints Day is a middle finger to death and decay?

>>538293
>Now why doesn't anybody raise a question of christian canon about "what happens after death" being reincarnation prior to 7th/8th century?
Jews never belivevd in reincarnation so why would Christians?

>>538304

>However, much like their atheist counterparts, many Protestants read the Bible without interpreting it.

Protestants interpret it, just in a different way to you.

> It is foolish of atheists to think so.

This is just a massive strawman against atheists, if you think we simply don't grasp there are different denominations of Christians then you are in cloud cuckoo land.

>Also, denominations like the Calvinists have beliefs that clearly go against the Bible (see predetermination/free will).

I hate to break it to you but there are plenty of supporting citations from the bible for predestination and a lack of free will.

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." -- Romans 8:29-30

"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." -- 2 Timothy 1:9

"He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." -- Ephesians 1:4-5

"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation." -- 2 Thessalonians 2:13

As some examples.

Not only that but there is a strong theological argument that an omniscient, omnipotent being and free will are not compatible.

>>538345
>Jews never belivevd in reincarnation so why would Christians?
Because Christians are satanist buddhists and Christ was a devil-fraud?

>>536743

agreed but muslims, jews and other unterschicht must be annihilated too. With that being said religion (for the most part) is a corruption of mans ideal to ascend, we all know that we live in the fallen world and truth is denied us

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>>538236
>Actually the main hypothesis is that Matthew and Luke were in the main copied from Mark.

Just looked back on it and it seems we were both half-wrong. I thought it was the Q Source they used and you thought it was Mark. The hypothesis is that they used both.


>None of the gospels even claim to be written by the apostles once you ignore the name tags stuck on them at a later date.

Well there is the vague name given by the author of John but otherwise that is correct, but whether they claim it or not is irrelevant. The historical claim is that they are the gospels as given and known by the apostle.

>Celsus had his Jewish sources based on oral transmission, so did the writers of the gospels.

Again, this is unfounded. There is evidence for previous gospels having had existed.

And further, Celcus' Hearsay plays no part in the system of oral transmission that the Jews had. This is a gross misrepresentation of its history.

>The dating of Christmas is a pretty damn good start.

Is it now? Well you have Christmas and Dies Natalis coming up at the same time. It doesn't follow or even assume to follow that one's dating is based on the other. Again, show me your evidence. You're pretty sure of your view so I'd like to see your reasoning.

>>537609
>From the get go, Christianity was spread at the tip of the sword

lol

you know nothing

>>537732

keep fighting the good fight brah

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>>538241
>Hearsay is a very good source of inconsistencies.
Yes, but here we have a series of gospels largely written to completion within the lives of the apostles (in terms of apostles I know the Apostle Peter was killed in 63 AD) and there is much evidence to assert there are previous gospels which the canonical gospels work off of we simply cannot say that hearsay and a game of telephone is what happened. As I have already said multiple times, the assertion that there is a game of telephone going on is unfounded.

>>538255
All I've asked for is solid arguments with evidence and all I'm getting are people taking my arguments for something they are not and emotional assertions of probability. Hopefully after that you don't think I'm the pigeon in this comparison.

>>538239
>No, bro, you do. It doesn't matter a damn why the canonical gospels are held to be canonical if the reasoning by which they came to be held canonical is not the reasoning applied by contemporary historiographers. And, spoiler alert: it's not.

Obviously. You and others have been turning my original claim into something it never was.


>Well, except for maybe the existence of other major Christian feast days which ALSO coincide wi-

There were more saint feast days than days in the year, hence, why some feast days coincide others and why All Saints Day exists.


>Well, hot damn.

It worries me that you thought that was proof of anything and not proof against your view. The Day of the Dead is a Mexican thing and Mexico was not even known by the western world by the time of the instituting of All Saints Day. Samhain was a big celebration of the Gaels which was hardly known or even prominent by the time of All Saints Day's instituting. These are examples of actual coincidence and it bothers me you don't note that but rather think it helps your point.

>>537757

Abortion is infanticide.

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>>537891

never

>>538405
There's literally nothing wrong with infanticide, you backwards fucking shit.
Even animals do it.
I mean it's 2016 already, COME ON.

>>538404
Hey wolf do you ever plan on making a thread or dealing with the points raised by the Orthodox posters here?

They seem to make some real strong points about the Orthodox Church being the most legitimate church via its rejection of modernism and its unchanged doctrine.

>>538423
Old meme desu

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>>536743
Athiests still havent been able to overcome the arguments of the Scholastics. Pic very related.

>>538385

>Just looked back on it and it seems we were both half-wrong. I thought it was the Q Source they used and you thought it was Mark. The hypothesis is that they used both.

The Q source doesn't exist, as an actual document, and might well be verbal.

The Markian hypothesis has the actual evidence behind it.

>Well there is the vague name given by the author of John but otherwise that is correct, but whether they claim it or not is irrelevant. The historical claim is that they are the gospels as given and known by the apostle.

I'm sorry but that is the traditionalist Christian claim, it is not backed by modern academics, even very devoutly Christian ones.

>And further, Celcus' Hearsay plays no part in the system of oral transmission that the Jews had

Again, if the gospels are based on originally oral transmission (and you have not written sources to counter that claim and I provided a lecture by one of the top academics in the field making that claim earlier in the thread) then a second centurty claim made by a Greek based on oral transmission isn't any worse (or better).

> Again, show me your evidence. You're pretty sure of your view so I'd like to see your reasoning.

It's a pretty enormous coincidence. I don't have absolute proof, but if you would like to show me the historical and theological reasoning that the early Christians used, a couple of centuries after Christ died that, by pure chance, put Christmas i.e. Jesus' birth and the major Christian celebration on the same day (out of 365) as the other major cult they were existing side by side with then maybe I will review my opinion....

>>538393
>or politics
>or politics

There's only one thing I left out, which is indoctrination, but that's kind of obvious.

>>538404
>Hopefully after that you don't think I'm the pigeon in this comparison
If I did, I would've replied to you and not him, tbqh famalal.

>>538405
Pre-16 weeks abortion is more moral than killing a fly. Killing is only as immoral as the capacity for joy and torment the object of the killing has.

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>>538293
I'm literally arguing against baseless assertions.

>Easter = redemption = spring(no surprise)

The Christian Easter comes from the dating of the Passover and the resurrection. The difference between when Easter is celebrated in the east and in the west being based in how the Passover is dated shows that its date comes from Passover.

>Autumn = decay = 1st November

November 1st is the FEAST OF ALL SAINTS, celebrating all those in Heaven. To connect that to decay is disingenuous, given how connected Heaven is correlated to life.

>Winter = Christmas
Dated based on the date of the Annunciation.

Come the fuck on, man.

>>538275
>Except the Gospels are literally a combination of several different texts from different sources. The Q source theory is almost universally accepted in academia.

Oh most definitely, and I acknowledge the idea of a Q Source. However, it does not follow from that that a game of telephone had been going on. Between the evidence for previous gospels (aramaic and otherwise) and the dating fairly within the lives of the apostles I find there to be no room to assert there being a game of telephone going on. I find such a view to be unfounded and largely coming from those who are ill-meaning towards it and demonstrate their bias against it.

>Even the people that assembled the bible had no clue where the texts came from.

I hope you don't mean the actual church people that decided on the canon and instead just Catholics and Orthodox generally. We have no idea of what the men at the early Councils thought of the idea of previous gospels.

>>538404
>You and others have been turning my original claim into something it never was.
>>538192
>To say Celcus' Hearsay is equal to the writings of the gospels (lets call them "Biblical Hearsay" for this discussion) ignores that the Biblical Hearsay aren't authoritative of Christianity based on if people trust the sources or have evidence but rather on apostolic authority, which the people there did trust and believe to be accurate.
>>537925
>The only reason the Bible is seen as authoritative is not because people just trust the Jews originally but because the church's authority was able to make declaration of what is authoritative. As the church authority was given by Jesus originally it stands as authoritative over texts.

It's all still there, dude. We can all go back and reread what you've been saying.

>There were more saint feast days than days in the year, hence, why some feast days coincide others

That has nothing to do with *major* feast days (not saint's days) coinciding with major pagan feast days.

>It worries me that you thought that was proof of anything and not proof against your view.

Well, I'll take your rhetorical frettings under advisement. The point, as you can't have failed to understand, is Samhain. Stop pretending to be stupid.

>Samhain was a big celebration of the Gaels which was hardly known or even prominent by the time of All Saints Day's instituting.

Samhain was prominently celebrated across the British Isles. All Saint's Day was formerly the first Sunday after Pentecost but for SOME MYSTERIOUS AND TOTALLY COINCIDENTAL REASON, it got moved to a fixed date. And the fixed date chosen JUST SO HAPPENED to coincide with a pre-existing pagan festival. Crazy stuff. The coincidences just keep on mounting, but yeah that 'contextualisation' stuff is an atheist lie and/or a Protestant heresy, tick as applicable.

The sad part is that none of this is doctrinally relevant.

>>536835
This

Christians lie, deny evidence and create a fantasy world.

Just listen to any of them discuss Bible scholarship. 99% of them will insist scholars ""agree"" that the Bible is historical, amongst other bullshit claims.

>>538445

>Pre-16 weeks

So what changes at 16 weeks? Why is that arbitrary delineation made, is it cause maybe your feels?

>Killing is only as immoral as the capacity for joy and torment the object of the killing has

Patently false in that it implies that killing a retarded person is somehow less immoral than killing a person of greater than average cognitive function.

Which is retarded. You are retarded.

>>538471
>Patently false in that it implies that killing a retarded person is somehow less immoral than killing a person of greater than average cognitive function.

This may be false, but it is not 'patently false' by my understanding of that phrase.

>>538478
>my understanding of that phrase

pat·ent·ly

>clearly; without doubt

patently patent

>>536743
The difficulty is that Christians try to convert using theology / fear rather than showing you how God works throughout your life.

They want to show you how God exists, but sometimes it is very difficult to show people through scripture or through church.

Yet, you gotta meet them halfway too.

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>>538471
>So what changes at 16 weeks? Why is that arbitrary delineation made, is it cause maybe your feels?

Clearly it is, to a certain extent arbitrary,then again the age of consent is, to a certain extent, arbitrary and has to be set at a certain age based on the best evidence and reason we can come up with, so unless you are suggesting fuking nine year olds is okay....

The sad truth is that a new born baby is less sentient that a pig. I'm not suggesting that 'abortion' of new borns is illegal but you are happy to eat pigs.

Clearly 16 weeks is an incredibly careful (and rightly so) time limit well within the bounds of reasonability that exists to give women a reasonable chance to actually know they are pregnant.

>>538346
>Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
God called upon them, not forced them.

>"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling"
Calling =/= Forcing

>"Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will."
This simply means we've all been given the Word of Jesus.

>"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation."
God has offered salvation unto thee.

>muh arbitrary omnipotence argument
A deity can be omnipotent, yet restrain itself. Is this so hard to fathom?

Also, heaven and hell are merely states of mind/spirit.

>>538489

Yeah, I'm saying that it's not clear and is definitely subject to doubt.

Personally, show me a trolley problem where I'm picking between a neurotypical and someone with major cognitive disabilities. Ceteris paribus I'm squishing the tard, sorry to say.

>>538496
>The sad truth is that a new born baby is less sentient that a pig. I'm not suggesting that 'abortion' of new borns is illegal but you are happy to eat pigs.

Whoops.

I meant 'I'm not suggesting 'abortion' of new borns should be legal'

>>538507
abortion of new-born christians should be legal.

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>>538437
Most of what the christfag said isn't worth responding to, and he doesn't even address how an immaterial god interacts with the material world.

But anyway, even if the argument was flawless, and we decided that we don't need evidence to say something exists, congrats on your "sustaining force". Good luck proving it cares what you do with your genitals

>>538496
>I'm not suggesting that 'abortion' of new borns is illegal

Are you seriously confusing morality with legality? Cause that's pleb as fuck desu.

>a new born baby is less sentient that a pig

so does that make it ok? Why are you assuming I eat meat?

>to a certain extent arbitrary
>to a certain extent, arbitrary
>at a certain age

Are you suggesting that there is any qualitative difference between a 20 year old and a 19 years and 364 days old?

Are you comparing sex to literally dissecting a fetus inside the womb and pulling out the parts with a vacuum?

>>536919
And that's exactly the problem.

>>538518
That's gross.

We were once fetuses, imagine being killed when you aren't even fully human?

>>538523
You develope a relationship with God, if you aren't willing to give it a try He makes it possible for you never to see Him

>>538499

>trolley problem

The only morally correct option is not to touch the fucking lever.

>I'm squishing the tard

The fact that you even considered the situation as a choice that you have the right to make shows that you are fundamentally immoral.

>>538537
>The only morally correct option is not to touch the fucking lever.

Choosing the status quo is still a choice; you don't abstain from agency simply by sitting still and hoping it goes away.

>The fact that you even considered the situation as a choice that you have the right to make shows that you are fundamentally immoral.

As above.

>>538526
>Are you seriously confusing morality with legality? Cause that's pleb as fuck desu.

No

>so does that make it ok? Why are you assuming I eat meat?

I have no problem with eating meat.

>Are you suggesting that there is any qualitative difference between a 20 year old and a 19 years and 364 days old?

No. The point you just made was exactly my point.

>Are you comparing sex to literally dissecting a fetus inside the womb and pulling out the parts with a vacuum?

Not really but if you want to use literalist descriptions as rhetoric then I am saying destroying an unthinking clum of cells that has no personality is fine and sticking your dick in the unlubricated vagina of a nine year old whimpering in pain is not.

>>538456
>I hope you don't mean the actual church people that decided on the canon and instead just Catholics and Orthodox generally. We have no idea of what the men at the early Councils thought of the idea of previous gospels.


Let's use Socrates as an example. We have none of his origenal writings. There are some historians that wrote about him and several other philosophers. He is often used as a mouth-piece for Plato. There are discrpencies between each writer's view of the trial. And we get vastly different views of him. Plato paints him as a seeker of truth battling the Sophists. Aristophanes shows him as a fraud who is no different than the Sophists.

In the Christian equivlent. Jesus never wrote anything. Several annoymous sources wrote about him. He is often used as a mouth piece by Paul and other church writers. There are discrepancies between each writer's view (more so than Socrates). We get vastly different views of him. The church fathers paint him as a hero and the Roman historians as a non-person or a jack-ass.

In both cases the exact message of Socrates and Jesus is forever lost and we can only extrapulate a vague understanding of them by contrasiting different sources. In general I think the Christian attempt to extrapolate the identity of Jesus has been extremly dishonest. You won't even acknowledge that each writer of the Gospel has an agenda is willing to distort information to make Jesus fit the mold and you refuse to look at the Roman sources as being valid (probably because Jesus is an utterly insignifanct character in them with no magical powers).

The Jesus in the bible and the Socrates in the Apology are not the real identity. It's written by their friends so everything is rose-colored. Treating them as an accurate account of Jesus or Socrates is wrong, you need to read between the lines. Neither Jesus nor Socrates heard the voice of God, they just thought they did and their friends want us to think so too.

>>538438
Commentary on Daniel by Hippolytus of Rome (170 AD - 236 AD)

>For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday]

274 AD - Aurelian makes Sol Invictus the official imperial cult

Checkmate atheists.

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>>538438
>The Q source doesn't exist, as an actual document, and might well be verbal.

???
The Q Source is a hypothetical previous gospel due to structure of story and choice of words. There's little reason to think it could be verbal, even in their society with a strong oral tradition. To say it doesn't exist is just obtuse. Do we know of any known copies? No. Is it very likely to have existed? Yes, we have strong evidence for it. I'd have to ask what you mean by "Q Source doesn't exist".

And yes, we can actually compare Mark to other gospels, that doesn't mean that Mark has evidence and the hypothetical Q Source does not. As you later appeal to the authority of one scholar in this post I'd assume you'd be okay with me appealing to the majority position on Biblical study.


>I'm sorry but that is the traditionalist Christian claim, it is not backed by modern academics, even very devoutly Christian ones.

"Given and known by" does not mean "wrote". "Wrote" is the traditionalist claim. How the texts came to be is unknown but there no evidence that they were done through oral transmission. Bart, in your link, asserts that they are highly educated people fluent in the Greek language and likely not immediate disciples of Jesus. However, due to the heavy evidence for using and transcribing previous gospel writings and the fact that many of them have their origin within the lifespan of the original apostles (whom all christians knew to be authoritative) there is no reason to assert there was a game of telephone going on. It's very unlikely.

>It's a pretty enormous coincidence.
All Souls Day coincides with the Day of the Dead, even though Mexico wasn't known by Christians at the time. Mate, you have no evidence by just saying they used the same date for different purposes around one another.

http://www.catholic.com/blog/jon-sorensen/why-december-25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunciation#Feast_day

>>538547
>Choosing the status quo is still a choice

I disagree, you are not an agent in the situation until you insert yourself by pulling the lever.

You didn't tie those people up and sic a train on them and are not responsible for their fate, until you decide to insert yourself into the situation. At that point you aren't saving 5 people, you're killing one.

Enjoy your lawsuit. I'd suggest you lawyer up and plead insanity.

>>538558
>He is often used as a mouth piece by Paul

nope

>>538565
>All Souls Day coincides with the Day of the Dead, even though Mexico wasn't known by Christians at the time.

Funny thing.

>Prior to Spanish colonization in the 16th century, the celebration took place at the beginning of summer. Gradually it was associated with October 31, November 1 and November 2 to coincide with the Western Christian triduum of Allhallowtide: All Saints' Eve, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day.[4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

The citations provided aren't easily accessible, so grain of salt and all that. WEIRD, though, right? MAD coincidence.

>Q source
>Markan priority
the only reason Markan priority still has some merit is because no one has presented other alternatives in the mainstream. Most Markan priority arguments work as well as Matthean priority arguments.

>>538573
>I disagree, you are not an agent in the situation until you insert yourself by pulling the lever.

You are an agent in the situation where you are possessed of agency and are aware of the situation. You are claiming that agency 'comes into being' after its exercise. This is a nonsensical position, one which I'd bet real money you neither maintain in comparable situations nor avow in real life.

>Enjoy your lawsuit. I'd suggest you lawyer up and plead insanity.

>law
>morality

>>538565
>The Q Source is a hypothetical previous gospel due to structure of story and choice of words. There's little reason to think it could be verbal, even in their society with a strong oral tradition. To say it doesn't exist is just obtuse. Do we know of any known copies? No. Is it very likely to have existed? Yes, we have strong evidence for it. I'd have to ask what you mean by "Q Source doesn't exist".

I mean there is not a historical document that comprises the Q source, that it is indeed hypothetical and there is not a shred of evidence that if such a hypothesised source ever existed it was not oral, in fact as far as I am aware it is hypothesised to be oral.

>"Given and known by" does not mean "wrote". "Wrote" is the traditionalist claim. How the texts came to be is unknown but there no evidence that they were done through oral transmission. Bart, in your link, asserts that they are highly educated people fluent in the Greek language and likely not immediate disciples of Jesus. However, due to the heavy evidence for using and transcribing previous gospel writings and the fact that many of them have their origin within the lifespan of the original apostles (whom all christians knew to be authoritative) there is no reason to assert there was a game of telephone going on. It's very unlikely.

There is not absolute evidence but there is the obvious test of probablility. The vast majority of people in that era could not read and write. The gospels themselves claim that Jesus' followers were fishermen etc. It follows, based on probability, that they could not read and write and passed on their claims orally.

>>538598
>You are claiming that agency 'comes into being' after its exercise.

I am claiming that agency in this case only leads to you killing someone, and although it's unrelated I could argue that agency is nothing outside the action itself.

a spook if you will

>law
>morality

The law is not necessarily unaligned with morality. That said, how exactly would you defend your actions in a court of law with the family right there?

It's a tragedy either way, there's no point in making yourself it's actor and facilitation out of some utilitarian math problem approach to life and death.

>>538565
>All Souls Day coincides with the Day of the Dead, even though Mexico wasn't known by Christians at the time. Mate, you have no evidence by just saying they used the same date for different purposes around one another.

But the Christians that invented the date for Christmas DID know the date for the Sol Invictus cult's big celebration. They existed side by side. So unless you can make historical or theological case why Christians made 25th December the date of Jesus' birth, out of 365 other days, then the probabilities clearly lie with the other hypothesis.

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>>538426
I have been away for the past few months because I had been caring for my father who has had surgery. After getting off I had some resolution to get my personal projects done within this year and I have a deadline to complete everything. Because of that I won't be here on 4chan much but my first part of the deadline is to get further in my prior obligations (my pastebin essays) throughout January. If I can get into the essay and question answering for other Christian sects, I definitely can discuss the points raised, but we'll see how far I get. I'm working to both improve what I have and work on what I haven't released.

I don't join in the whole Christian discussion right now on /pol/ or /his/ (even though I'd like to) because I'm usually bombarded with questions and arguments and it takes up too much time to answer it all. I have retreated to 8ch's /christian/ for what little Catholic discussion I do for right now because it's less involved while I work. Not to say I recommend /christian/ - I don't like gated communities - but I can be reached there if need be with questions.

I also have an email:
[email protected]

>>538444
WELL MY BAD, AIGHT.

>>538592

Considering most of the differences between Mark and Matthew are factual indicators, of whom there's a lot more corroboration with Matthew, that in and of itself argues for Markan priority.


If Mark wrote first, you can easily see Matthew reading Mark, thinking to himself "Wow, this is awful", and re-writing the same basic story, stopping to fix factual inaccuracies, like the proper titles of tetrarchs, or the attribution of divine laws to God and not Moses.

The reverse seems less probable, of Mark reading Matthew, deciding he needs to make a bunch of changes, and making a whole lot of stuff wrong in order to do so. I mean, why change something that would make you look stupid if someone pointed it out?

>>538629
Its all good, hope things go well with your father. What personal projects are you working on? Are they hobby or university related?

>>538627
When did the first celebration of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti occur?

>>538623
>I am claiming that agency in this case only leads to you killing someone

Yes, that is the crux of the trolley problem: that no matter what course you take, at least one death is the knowable consequence of that choice.

>I could argue that agency is nothing outside the action itself.

Such an argument would be both silly and moot, though. Silly because it entails an idiosyncratice definition of 'agency' and moot because it fails to address the objection that the choice to do nothing is still a choice (and thus an exercise of agency, contra your blusterings).

>The law is not necessarily unaligned with morality.

Astrology readings are not necessarily unaligned with my actual future. Cut the sophistry, please.

>how exactly would you defend your actions in a court of law with the family right there?

I'd point to the other family, the one beaming in relief and gratitude.

>It's a tragedy either way, there's no point in making yourself it's actor

You are an actor regardless of the action you perform.

>>536784
>prove me wrong/you can't
meme is stupid, shifting the burden of proof and all that.

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>caring so much about what other people believe when it has little tangible impact on your life

>>538645

I'm not sure.

Are you suggesting it was after the first celebration of Christmas?

>>537862
That's what we call moving the goal posts.

>>538534
That's exactly what tulpafags say

>>538669
>tax exemption
>abusive street preachers
>fucking terrorism
>literally every war ever
>repression of scientific process
I could go on, lick my neckbeard.

>>538670
I'm not sure either. It was documentally attested the first time in the Calendar of Philocalus IIRC (Christmas on December 25 too btw).
What do you think about this though? >>538563
I think it's entirely plausible that it's just coincidence if you also take into account the whole Annunciation + 9 months thing.

>>538699
>abusive street preachers

Their first few albums were class, though.

>>538633
>Considering most of the differences between Mark and Matthew are factual indicators
All of the "mistakes" that are attributed to Mark can be explained to show they arent mistakes at all

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>>538463
>It's all still there, dude. We can all go back and reread what you've been saying.

And that's good, that means I can share my point easier. It's a far smaller point than people wish to make it out to be:

See >>537822
>Anon: The entire gospels are based on what some Jews said.
>Me: Yes, but we pay attention to the authority of these views as they are backed as authoritative by apostolic authority (except for Protestants who just think it's God's word without having a defense for how they know it is).

My point was not make say that Christians don't rely on the authority of whom they hear from in themselves (like Celcus would be doing if he asserted the hearsay as truth) but rather rely on the authority of the apostles. It was a statement of telling people why they believe what would otherwise be hearsay rather than the implied comment about the historical critical method.

>That has nothing to do with...

Examples, please.

>Well, I'll take your...

So skipping over the Day of the Dead part and keeping the part that could be useful to you still? Cool.

>Samhain was prominently celebrated across the British Isles.

And All Saints Day was a regular thing by at the latest the 8th century. England was not even founded until the 10th and all you had then was the Celts and whatever missionaries and holy men that were out there, like Bede.

>All Saint's Day was formerly the first Sunday after Pentecost but...

"first Sunday after Pentecost" is an Eastern tradition only, and one that still goes on. May 13th was the western dating, though it was changed to November 1st by Pope Gregory III. The May 13th dating comes from the consecration of the Pantheon and Saint Ephrem's celebration of All Saints and falls on the last day of the Roman holiday Lemuria. It was moved to November 1st as Lemuria was still going on around them and you think it was because they wanted to stomp out a religion's holiday far to the north largely focused on a bunch of islands.

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>>538699
>literally every war ever

Would you get to fuck, you're embarrassing me as an atheist with this bullshit.

>>538721
Hyperbole, irresponsible I know.

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>>538699
>tax exemption
And all the faith-based charities?
>abusive street preachers
What is free speech
>fucking terrorism
Yeah, please tell me more about all those Salvation Army cells caught trying to blow up wealthy misers
>literally every war ever
?
>repression of scientific process
Lmao

>>538717
So then I guess you're saying Matthew made factual errors by disagreeing with Mark?

>>538713
>>538563


Plausible and probable are not the same thing.

>274 AD - Aurelian makes Sol Invictus the official imperial cult

This is before Constantine made Christianity the imperial cult, so you have no point. Unless you are suggesting that Aurelian invented Sol Invictus.

>>538718
>It was a statement of telling people why they believe what would otherwise be hearsay rather than the implied comment about the historical critical method.

Yeah, it's an expression of doctrinal faith accounting for why *this* set of hearsay is regarded as canonical, while the *other* hearsay is just hearsay. It's not addressing the point being made and it's formally incapable of persuading anyone who isn't a Christian.

>Examples, please.

Christmas and All Saint's Day.

>So skipping over the Day of the Dead part
>>538586
>Prior to Spanish colonization in the 16th century, the celebration took place at the beginning of summer. Gradually it was associated with October 31, November 1 and November 2 to coincide with the Western Christian triduum of Allhallowtide: All Saints' Eve, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day.[4][5]
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

>"first Sunday after Pentecost" is an Eastern tradition only

>In the persecution of Diocletian the number of martyrs became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. But the Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all. The first trace of this we find in Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost. We also find mention of a common day in a sermon of St. Ephrem the Syrian (373), and in the 74th homily of St. John Chrysostom (407).
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01315a.htm

>It was moved to November 1st as Lemuria was still going on around them and you think it was because they wanted to stomp out a religion's holiday far to the north largely focused on a bunch of islands.

No, I think they wanted to co-opt the pre-existing tradition of a celebration at that time to make their doctrine palatable to the natives. Again, none of this is doctrinally relevant.

>>538741
I said Mark didnt make any mistakes that are incompatible with Matthean priority

>>538771

You actually didn't, and I quote

>All of the "mistakes" that are attributed to Mark can be explained to show they arent mistakes at all

And which of the two Gospels between them is the one with the mistakes? I would point out that what corroborating sources we have outside the Gospels agree far more with Matthew than with Mark.

>>538754
>This is before Constantine made Christianity the imperial cult
And? Christianity is attested before that. Sol Invictus isn't.
>so you have no point.
Neither do you. You don't even have any proofs except for the popular le christmas is pagan meme, m8.

>Unless you are suggesting that Aurelian invented Sol Invictus.
Its origins are debated, it may have been a competetly new cult.

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>>538558
>The church fathers paint him as a hero and the Roman historians as a non-person or a jack-ass.

Not meaning to argue here but what are some Roman historians that refer to Jesus as a jackass? I could see Jewish scholars doing such things but not the roman historians immediately.


>In both cases the exact message of Socrates and Jesus is forever lost and we can only extrapulate a vague understanding of them by contrasiting different sources.

I am most definitely with you there, though I'd say we would have a similar situation of proving authorship if he wrote something too. However, unanimously between any of the respected scholars on Christianity and any people at that time that we know of is the acceptance of apostolic authority (in what form are smaller overall issues, the apostolic authority itself is still recognized) which carries with it the authority of Christ. Because of it we can still gather a view of what "Christianity" is, despite not being able to absolutely prove the words and actions of Jesus.

>In general I think the Christian attempt to extrapolate the identity of Jesus has been extremly dishonest. You won't even acknowledge that each writer of the Gospel has an agenda is willing to distort information to make Jesus fit the mold and you refuse to look at the Roman sources as being valid

I would like to see what you mean by "Roman sources" here but I'd have to say that the vast majority of Christian denominations (even protestant) support the idea of there being different agendas for the gospels, however it seems simply like assumption to say that they distorted information.

The Jesus of the Bible not being their real identity is precisely the reason why the old and new Christian scholars assert that the gospels need be read together so to get a better picture. No one gospel will be enough to grasp the overall reality of Jesus and four is helpful but still lacking in that regard.

>>538829
i didnt say that Matt had mistakes, why does one have to hold that the earliest gospel is the erroneous one?
> I would point out that what corroborating sources we have outside the Gospels agree far more with Matthew than with Mark.
And I would point out that most external sources on the synoptic problem dont agree with the conclusions of modern scholars, starting with Bishop Papias to a long line of early christians

>>538861
>And? Christianity is attested before that. Sol Invictus isn't.

So you are saying that before Aurelian made it the imperial cult Sol Invictus didn't exist.

Do you have a source for this?

If you do, combined with evidence based on theology and history, as to why Christians chose a date close to Winter Solstice, the date every major pagan religion had its major festival then I am happy to be proved wring and accept it.

That is the difference between me and you. I like evidence and will happily be proven wrong and admit it any day of the week.

>>536784
Solipsism is also based on faith. Checkmate Descartes.

>>538890
I'm saying it may have been a completely new cult, it says so in the Wiki article :^)

>the date every major pagan religion had its major festival
Did every religion have a major festival on Winter Solstice? Really?

>That is the difference between me and you. I like evidence and will happily be proven wrong and admit it any day of the week
*tips fedora*
That's why you don't have any evidence yourself?

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>>538565
>The citations provided aren't easily accessible, so grain of salt and all that. WEIRD, though, right? MAD coincidence.

So what argument are you trying to gather from this? The colonization led to the instituting of Christianity in Mexico and the Mexican people, as the link says, gradually associated it with Allhallowtide.

Neat factoid, I didn't know this, but it reads like colonization made the Mexicans gradually begin to do their Day of the Dead festival then since it was the government -instituted holiday that covered a similar topic. They merged and now Mexico has a lot of special Allhallowtide traditions from their original moved holiday.

What point were you making from this?
Correct me if I'm wrong.


>>538627
>But the Christians that invented the date for Christmas DID know the date for the Sol Invictus cult's big celebration.

I know, hence me saying "around one another".

>So unless you can make historical or theological case why Christians made 25th December the date of Jesus' birth, out of 365 other days, then the probabilities clearly lie with the other hypothesis.

Thats what the links are for.

>>538882

>i didnt say that Matt had mistakes, why does one have to hold that the earliest gospel is the erroneous one?

Because it's far more intuitive to read it as a first gospel with mistakes, and then a second gospel which keeps most of the same structure and irons out errors here and there.

Asserting that the more mistaken gospel was written second would require our gospel author to be copying large segments of text, and then deciding that certain details need to be altered, and in the process getting them wrong.

Why would anyone do that?

>>538927
>What point were you making from this?

That your original invocation of the Day of the Dead:>>538404
>The Day of the Dead is a Mexican thing and Mexico was not even known by the western world by the time of the instituting of All Saints Day

... is founded on a misconception and can be disregarded as evidence in furtherance of the case you're making.

It can also be taken as evidence of a willingness in general, among faiths, to adapt celebrations in line with changing times. Quite the own goal, really.

The amount of retards in this thread is absolutely staggering. Didn't we say at the start that we were going to make this board free from cancer?

>>538930
why are you assuming that there are mistakes in the first place? Only the most uncharitable interpretations of the gospels would allow for such things in the first place.

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>>538613
>I mean there is not a historical document that comprises the Q source, that it is indeed hypothetical and there is not a shred of evidence that if such a hypothesised source ever existed it was not oral, in fact as far as I am aware it is hypothesised to be oral.

It's still up in the air. However:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

>If the two-source hypothesis is correct, then Q would probably have been a written document. If Q was a shared oral tradition, it is unlikely that it could account for the nearly identical word-for-word similarities between Matthew and Luke when quoting Q material. Similarly, it is possible to deduce that Q was written in Greek. If the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were referring to a document that had been written in some other language (Aramaic for example), it is highly unlikely that two independent translations would have exactly the same wording

This correlates to what I just told you in the last couple posts. Hope it helped.

>The gospels themselves claim that Jesus' followers were fishermen etc. It follows, based on probability, that they could not read and write and passed on their claims orally.

Right, but it was prevalent in that time to also speak teachings directly to scribes so obviously the potential for John or Mark to speak to a scribe and have them put down their version of the gospel is still more likely than the oft mentioned game of telephone.

>>538942
Don't kid yourself, this board was doomed from the moment someone decided that it should be humanities instead of just history.

>>538953
>WOLFY
>defending Q source
i thought you were Catholic

>>538926

>Did every religion have a major festival on Winter Solstice? Really?

Sure, based on Wikipedia and all that jazz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

https://druidnetwork.org/what-is-druidry/rites-and-rituals/rites-celebrate-seasonal-festivals/winter-solstice/

>I'm saying it may have been a completely new cult, it says so in the Wiki article :^)

I'm not clear why you are posting an anti-Jewish emoji to back your point.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%209:5

>>538945

Because I look at factual claims made in the Gospels and compare them to other sources and note that the Gospels tend to say things that are wrong?

The calling of local tetrarchs kings, the geographic errors, t he mistakes given in Jewish law and practice, they're staring you right in the face. It takes a willful suspension of your critical faculties to assume that there are no errors in the Gospels, and that's even before you get into their contradictions with each other: I mean for God's sake, they can't even agree on what day Jesus was crucified on. (Although that's John and the Synoptics, not disagreements between the Synoptics)

Why are you so committed to the idea that the Gospels are flawless? And how can you sustain that belief in the event of their contradictions?

When Jesus said "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me" on the cross, do you think he said it in Hebrew or Aramaic?

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>WHY ARE THESE ORGANIZED PEOPLE WITH COMMON BELIEFS SO ORGANIZED AND HAVE BELIEFS

>>538978

I'm not sure whether this poster is from Reddit or /pol/ but they certainly managed to lower the tone of the discussion.

Wherever you are from /his/ isn't the place for you.

>>538968
>The calling of local tetrarchs kings, the geographic errors, t he mistakes given in Jewish law and practice, they're staring you right in the face.
Most of these have been dealt with by Christian Scholars, seriously, it takes a single google search to see some of the supposed mistakes arent really mistakes after all, but rest on uncharitable interpretations of the gospels

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>>538641
My dad's been improving very well.
What I'm doing is hobby-related. My father is an artist and I'm working with him to eventually get a small Kickstarter together for something I'm working on. I plan to have it ready by my birthday in August.

>>538714
Underrated post.

>>538762
>Yeah, it's an expression of doctrinal faith accounting for why *this* set of hearsay is regarded as canonical, while the *other* hearsay is just hearsay. It's not addressing the point being made and it's formally incapable of persuading anyone who isn't a Christian.


The latter it is not meant to do and for the former it was meant to be a side point. Hence me saying people are blowing up the topic.

>Examples, please.
>Christmas and All Saint's Day.

Dies Natalis is a Feast Day. Lemuria and Samhain are not feast days. You have only one relevant example and I've already provided citations and explained to you that Christmas' dating does not deal with Dies Natalis.


>>In the persecution of Diocletian the number of martyrs became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. But the Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all. The first trace of this we find in Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost. We also find mention of a common day in a sermon of St. Ephrem the Syrian (373), and in the 74th homily of St. John Chrysostom (407).

?
Antioch is in the east and St. Ephrem and John Chrysostom just mention the necessity of having an All Saints Day. This doesn't conflict with anything I said.

>No, I think they wanted to co-opt the pre-existing tradition of a celebration at that time to make their doctrine palatable to the natives.

So they stop celebrating a holiday on the date of a pagan holiday around their populace but start putting it on the date of a holiday hardly at all around their populace?

What?

>>538966
>druidnetwork.org
Epic.
So some irrelevant snowniggers and a cult that is attested later than Christianity and a mention of Jesus' birth on December 25? Wow big deal.

>an anti-Jewish emoji
I hope you're memeing m8

>>538989
see
>>538989

>>538989
Sorry for pointing out the obvious in the op. And be sure to tell me what place to go when you figure it out.

>>539011
>I hope you're memeing m8

I posted a bible citation.

>Epic.

I gave you two other citations and you already agreed Wikipedia was a good source

>Snowniggers.

This is /his/ it is not /pol/ or Reddit. Go to either if you want to post like that.

>>538996

>Most of these have been dealt with by Christian Scholars, seriously, it takes a single google search to see some of the supposed mistakes arent really mistakes after all, but rest on uncharitable interpretations of the gospels

No, most of them involve bizarre pretzel logic and unsourced claims. I have looked up a bunch of Christian apologetics. I get told things like how the "different" dates of the crucifixion in John and the other three is REALLY because the Pharisees and Sadducees celebrated Passover on different days.

Nevermind that there's

A) No record of this

B) It wouldn't matter anyway, because the Sadducee priests controlled the temple and thus the sacrifices that the Gospels are alluding to.

You get similar stuff for the Passover Pardon, the complete skipping over of the fact that "Barabbas" means "Son of the Father" in Aramaic (And earlier manuscripts call him Jesus Barrabas!), the citation of Sadducee opinions in the mouths of "Pharisees"; it always winds a merry path from apologetic to apologetic, winding up in some unsourced claim by a bishop living centuries after the fact.

I'm sorry, but that's nowhere near good enough.

>>539009
>Lemuria and Samhain are not feast days.

I'm uninterested in whatever technical distinction may exist between "festival" and "feast day". If that's all you've got, you ain't got much.

>Antioch is in the east

Can you please remind me of the date of the Orthodox Schism, specifically whether it predates or postdates the fifth century AD?

>What?

They wanted to move the holiday, yes? Why was that date chosen?

>>537609
I think you confused Christianity with Islam, brah.

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>>539036

Islam is a branch of Christianity.

You do realise ISIS are literally waiting for Jesus to turn up and help them fight, right?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

>>539023
>I posted a bible citation.
I don't see how that had anything to do with anything I had posted before that.

>I gave you two other citations and you already agreed Wikipedia was a good source
I know, hence snowniggers (Germanics) and a late Roman cult mentioned in my post, famalam. Not every religion, like you wanted me to believe.

I post however I want, m8.

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>>538936
Fair enough. It isn't a coincidence with the Day of the Dead and it does show an adaptation of celebrations on the case of the Mexican people. But the latter point is irrelevant to our point. At best you could say "well they did it so Christians could too!" and still have no evidence for your overall claims about Christian holidays.

>>539032
>I'm uninterested in whatever technical distinction may exist between "festival" and "feast day". If that's all you've got, you ain't got much.


I'm literally debating you on the words you originally chose. Having All Saints on the last day of Lemuria comes from the pope at the time consecrating the pantheon in the name of all of the saints. People gave a shit about their king's actions and it became tradition to celebrate it then. I am unaware of why it was changed to November 1st but it seems counter-intuitive to the claim they want to snuff out competing traditions. Samhain was popular in a very distant place by the time of the holiday's re-dating and they already had the date on a competing faith's festival and that festival was still going on when they changed it to Nov. 1st. This works against your claim, rather than for it, as it bluntly does not help Christians accomplish that goal you think they had.
>Can you please remind me of the date of the Orthodox Schism, specifically whether it predates or postdates the fifth century AD?

Why? The east and west had a split of non-doctrinal traditions before the schism.

>They wanted to move the holiday, yes? Why was that date chosen?

I don't really know. I gave the rest of my response above though.

>>539045

I said pagan religion and posted sources relevant to Germanic pagans, the Sol Invictus cult and Celtic druids.

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>>539042
>the war of the slave moralists

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Daily reminder that Christians purposefully ignore these thinkers.

>>539030
>No, most of them involve bizarre pretzel logic and unsourced claims.
Oh please, just because they dont agree that critic's interpretations of certain passages are actually what the writer is referring to doesnt make them dishonest.

What actually is dishonest is claiming that the interpretations that make the writers look dumb are the correct ones, that early Christians "put a Apostolic tag" on the gospels despite early Christians being against the practice, complaining about Apologetic work being "unsourced" despite failing to bring any evidence supporting their own assumptions, and that if someone offers an alternative to Markan priority he MUST be referring to the Augustinian hypothesis that wasnt explicitly implied by Augustine

>>539057
What about the rest of the "major pagan religions"?

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>>539076
>look ma, I can troll too

>>539090

Am I missing any from the European culture that might have interacted with Christianity in the Roman Empire?

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>>539093
>everyone who disagrees with me is trolling

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>>539104
Here if your (you)

>>539076
>Hume
MERE
BRILLIANT
SOPHIST

>>539093
And this is the Christian response....using the "ignore" special move.

>"Who cares about some of the most influential and significant philosophers" Mai apostolic succession!

>>539090
>>539100

Have a coupe more souces.

https://wicca.com/celtic/akasha/yule.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/holydays/wintersolstice.shtml

I'm off to bed, sorry dude.

>>539113
If you have any severe comments to bring up, then please go ahead. Else you're just spitballing unsubstantiated claims.

>>539100
Why necessarily European? Christianity has Middle Eastern origins.
I don't see how some Germanic snowniggers might have influenced Early Christianity.
Sol Invictus may have influenced the date for Christmas but again there is no evidence that it has.

>>539056
>At best you could say "well they did it so Christians could too!" and still have no evidence for your overall claims about Christian holidays.

Yeah, that's why I'm saying it's a bit of an own goal for you. tl;dr I bet you're not going to bring it up in any future arguments about this.

>I am unaware of why it was changed to November 1st but it seems counter-intuitive to the claim they want to snuff out competing traditions.

Will you please stop acting as though I ever, at any point, actually said that? I didn't. Stop fucking saying I did. Man the fuck up and address the actual claim actually being made by the person who's actually talking to you. You're rapidly making yourself unworthy of my time.

>Why?

Because there's only one date mentioned in the link I provided that took place after the Schism. Every single other event mentioned took place before that.

>The east and west had a split of non-doctrinal traditions before the schism.

Was this one of them? If so, say so. If not, stop prevaricating. If you don't know, stop throwing out potential objections that may or may not hold water.

>>539115
Epic sources, bro. Good night.

>>536835
btw, my edition of the greek says only 'the prophets'

>>539084

>Oh please, just because they dont agree that critic's interpretations of certain passages are actually what the writer is referring to doesnt make them dishonest.

So then, please, come up with an explanation as to the different dates of crucifixion given that doesn't involve wild claims of referring to different Passover dates that don't matter anyway in light of the Sadduceean control of the Temple. Please explain why the "Sanhedrin" (Ciaphas and cronies who violated half a dozen Jewish laws) didn't just execute Jesus himself, when even Acts admits that the Sanhedrin could and did execute people for blasphemy. Why the two different languages for the "last statement" of Jesus on the cross, which doesn't agree with Luke and John's claims as to what those words are.

>What actually is dishonest is claiming that the interpretations that make the writers look dumb are the correct ones, that early Christians "put a Apostolic tag" on the gospels despite early Christians being against the practice, complaining about Apologetic work being "unsourced" despite failing to bring any evidence supporting their own assumptions, and that if someone offers an alternative to Markan priority he MUST be referring to the Augustinian hypothesis that wasnt explicitly implied by Augustine

I entered the conversation with this post >>538633 I was responding to the the claim of that poster that said that

> Markan priority arguments work as well as Matthean priority arguments.

with a rebuttal that it's far more plausible that the later Gospel is the more accurate one; since Matthew tends to be on the ball more than Mark, that probably means Mark was first.

If you put another argument up, I'll evaluate that separately, but poster >>538592 made a claim I wanted to dispute, they're not mirror images of each other, and it's not equally plausible to claim that either of them borrowed from the other one.

>>537707
>Jesus was a sorcerer who got his dark magic from studying in Egypt.
That was a reasonable guess except magic doesn't exist obviously.

>>537700
>atheists should go after them instead
They are, but it's kinda hard to ignore the majority religion in their countries.

>>539147

I'm drawing from this:

http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=34&chapter=1&lid=en&side=r&verse=2&zoomSlider=0

Where I'm getting

>kαθωϲ γεγραπται εν τω ηϲαϊα τω προφητη ϊδου εγω αποϲτελω τον αγγελον μου προ προϲωπου ϲου οϲ kαταϲkευαϲει την οδον ϲου


ηϲαϊα: Isaiah.

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>>539110
>using the term sophist as a derogation unironically

All of the best philosophers from Hegel to Nietzsche recognized the sophists were better philosophers than Plato/Socrates

>>539176
Plato had some good points.

Socrates was really the last, and the greatest, of the sophists (which is why he became the most well-known and respected of them), for he was the one who took the very last step needed to achieve the ultimate proficiency and excellence in the philosophy of life expounded on and propagated by them: to really believe his own lies and sophistries.

>>539153
>So then, please, come up with an explanation as to the different dates of crucifixion given that it is an explanation that conforms to my unjustified presuppositions
wew lad, you sure got me ;^)

>>539176
>missing the point
Hume got rekt by Anscombe, m8
How can you keep worshipping him when he got rekt by a woman?

>>539219
>Hume got rekt by Anscombe

Really? Last I checked, that's only in your perception, and Hume is still hugely influential and accepted by smart and affluent people.

Weird.

>appealing to authority instead of of discussing the actual ideas

>>537862
>Christian: "I believe that YHWH created the Earth 6,000 years ago in the space of a week and then he made a single man and a woman to till his garden but they disobeyed him so he cursed them and then when he saw the Earth was wicked he sent down a flood to destroy everything and everyone save one family and from that moment on there was a new covenant and he sent down his laws in the form of stone tablets and then later his own son who he demanded be a blood sacrifice to himself but he resurrected after three days."
>Skeptic: "But there's no evidence for that. Here look at this history and science."
>Christian: "I was just pretending. It's all allegorical." :^)

crock of shit

the foundation of christianity is the nicene creed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

note that it's *explicitly* about *belief*
>We believe in
and that it makes very *specific* claims
>And in one Lord Jesus Christ ... By whom all things were made
>He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;
>etc.
that are testable/verifiable/examinable

>Christian: "Uh-uh... *tips fedora*. You're just autistic. 2d4u don't you understand PHILOSOPHY?" :^)

>>539300
If Christian belief is the Nicean Creed than I guess Catholics are not Christians since they change the creed around. :^)

>>538655
>no matter what course you take

you aren't taking a course if you don't touch the switch

>I'd point to the other family, the one beaming in relief and gratitude.

I'm sure that's great consolation, and will keep them from suing for your imprisonment after you murdered their father.

>regardless of the action you perform

Inaction is not action.

>Cut the sophistry, please.

I'm not the one claiming that the law can't be moral.

>>539855
>you aren't taking a course if you don't touch the switch

Of course you are. The trolley problem doesn't show you a trolley headed down some third track and ask which of the other two you'd like to switch it to. It shows you a trolley heading down one of two possible tracks and asks if you favour switching it. "Not switching" isn't some hip third-way answer; it's one of the only two options available.

Your position can be reduced to self-evident absurdity, since it concludes that you are not culpable in the event that you refuse to switch the trolley *even if the other track is perfectly clear*.

It also posits that someone refusing to switch to kill one person is morally identical with someone who refuses to switch saving one person. It is utterly incoherent nonsense.

>Inaction is not action.

"Inaction" is turn of phrase describing various unspecified actions selected in favour of a specified action. Someone who does not pull the switch is not "performing an inaction" nor are they engaged in no action at all: they are standing, watching, ignoring, walking away, masturbating etc. They are performing actions.

>I'm not the one claiming that the law can't be moral.

I'm not claiming the law can't be moral, either. I'm making the trivial statement that morality and law are separate questions, in an effort to prevent you from blathering uselessly on about various utterly irrelevant hypothetical legal consequences to one decision or another.

>>539916
>Of course you are.

I know what the problem is very well, I just disagree with you as to the obviousness of the nature of action.

It just so happens that lawyers and judges agree with me.

>it concludes that you are not culpable in the event that you refuse to switch the trolley *even if the other track is perfectly clear*.

No it doesn't.

>"Inaction" is turn of phrase

Now who's a sophist?

Let's rephrase the issue then and allow for it's core to remain unchanged.

You are presented with 6 innocent people tied up and about to be shot. The executioner hands you a gun and singles out one individual. He says that if you shoot the man, the rest will go free. If you don't shoot him then the rest will be shot and he will go free.

You can't shoot the executioner.

You'll pull the trigger and are later tried and convicted of murder. You are sentenced to 20 years without parole and feel bad about yourself for the rest of your life.

Let's put it another way. What is the value of a human life? Who are you to decide?

pls respond

>>536784
>Believing in yourself

>>540106
here anon

>>536743
Because the earth isn't flat retards, I thought you were supposed to be scientists... You probably believe in evolution and human equality at the same time too. Just like religious folks, you have faith in your bias. How can you even talk?

>>540120
>Because the earth isn't flat retards

So it must have been quite hard for Satan to show Jezzypoos all the kingdowms of the world then....

>>537609
You're talking about Islam dude
Unless you count being fed to lions in the Colosseum as "spreading through the tip of the sword"

>>540245
Well after Christianity gained power they made all other religions illegal in Rome. They were actually far less tolerant than the previous religion. The old Roman religion was really more about preserving culture and the new Christian religion was seen as a threat to the stability of the nation, in contrast they allowed most other religions.

When the Christians took over there was no exception, it was Christianity or nothing.

>>540256
>it was Christianity or nothing.
kek not even "or nothing", it was christianity or death.

>>540266
You can see why the Romans thought the crazy new religion was a threat to the unity of the nation....

"Why are they oppressing us? All we want is for our cult to infest every aspect of life, turn over century old traditions, completely control every aspect of everyone's lives, and eradicate all other religions."

>>540300
Traditions like glaidators

>>540330
And what's your point?

Gladiators were basically slaves, a practice that was still accepted by Christians for over a thousand years.

It's arguably better a gladiator was at least a slave that had a chance to earn honor and if they were successful would be able to buy their own freedom. Not to mention the idea overflows with masculinity and glory, that's why the idea is still romanticized to this day. The weak are given an honorable death and the strong earn their freedom through merit.

>>540342
Slaves in Christianity couldn't be raped or forced to kill each other for your amusement.


>Not to mention the idea overflows with masculinity and glory
It overflows with bloodthirsty pagans who find cruelty delightful and don't have TV

>>540350
>Slaves in Christianity couldn't be raped or forced to kill each other for your amusement.

Not him but where in the Bible does that say?

>>536835
>The original Greek very deliberately says "As the prophet Isaiah said", and then goes on to quote a different prophet (Malachai). Oops.
Wow, it's almost as if the Bible was written by human beings who make mistakes.

>>540330
>>540350

>implying gladiators weren't the coolest thing about Rome

We should bring gladiators back.

>>540358
There were no sola scriptura Christians long, long after Rome adopted the religion. For questions like whether or not it is okay to rape slaves for force them to kill each other for entertainment, you look to the Church fathers and so on.

>>540374
Only the CT manuscript says that, which isn't the one used by the Orthodox Church. All the other manuscripts read as the King James translated here.

>>540376
Don't you have some some Deadpool comics to read?

>>538734
simply ebin. You shouldn't have responded.

>>540395
>For questions like whether or not it is okay to rape slaves for force them to kill each other for entertainment, you look to the Church fathers and so on.

The only part about slavery I remember from the Bible at the top of my head is Jesus' admonition that slaves should respect their masters and serve them well.

Whatever tricks Church fathers later found out were necessary seem to me just extra-biblical, and there would be nothing stopping a Christian from treating his slave badly, or raping them.

In fact, I would argue most Southern slave-holders in America were most likely Christian, and it didn't stop them from treating their slaves horribly.

>>540376

MMA is pretty close desu

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>>537943
>The apostles likely didn't live for 40-60 years until they decided to write a book.
Fucking says who? All the theologians I've read say exactly that.

Seriously you fedora fucktards pull arguments and rebuttals straight from your ass. This whole thread is just fedora circle jerking.
t. a non retarded athiest

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away
—Jesus

>>540440

>theology

You should have a read comic desu, it would have had more intellectual weight.

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>>540440

You should educate yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjcseBJ7_Ns

>>540038
>No it doesn't.

1) If you do not touch the switch, you have not taken a course of action
2) If you have not taken a course of action, you are not culpable regarding events in your vicinity
3) In a two-track trolley problem, featuring a train heading towards an immobile person, where it is possible to change the course of the trolley, it is possible not to touch the switch
4) (1,2) If you do not touch the switch, you are not culpable in such a trolley problem

QED

>Now who's a sophist?

You are - I am, remember, claim that your argument proceeds from misconstruing an empty phrase as properly descriptive of an actual state of affairs, when it isn't. I'll say again, and it's not going away:
>Someone who does not pull the switch is not "performing an inaction" nor are they engaged in no action at all: they are standing, watching, ignoring, walking away, masturbating etc. They are performing actions.

>You'll pull the trigger

I sure will.

>Who are you to decide?

I'm whoever I need to be, as are you, since you also decide.

Fucking kek, that quote is Youtube comment tier.

>American "philosophers"

>>540374

Precisely, but Christians can't have that, as it would cut to the core of their religion, so they have to "fix" what they consider the divinely revealed word so that it won't have those mistakes anymore.

>>540395

And the Syriac Peshitta, and the Codex Bezae, and in Origen's commentary on John he refers to the verse being as such, you know, a lot of the earlier stuff.

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>>540399
>using *tips fedora* memes unironically