A liar can say that they cannot lie.
Every single word attributed to him in the Bible has been individually and independently confirmed?
OK to whom?
If you think that murder and theft and rape were not considered wrong before Judaism appeared on the scene, I don't know what to tell you.
Evolution explains these purposes very well.
How is it incoherent to my own premise? No, it can be demonstrated from the characteristics of the universe that the cause is personal and unified but diverse like the triune Christian God.
Why not?
No, given the extremely strict moral standards of Yahweh especially in the area of sexuality, it is very unlikely that a nation or society would make up a god like Him. How was it subjective and nationalistic?
How can morality come from an impersonal amoral process? It is more likely that our morality is derived from a previously existing objective moral standard. What objective truths and where did they come from? How were they inscribed?
What about drives that are not common? So your morality is based on majority rules?
You have yet to demonstrate that the universe is an effect.
It is incoherent in that you understand what transcendent actually implies yet you still believe you can define and package it anyway with your mundane anthropomorphic tool set. Look at the very language you use..... "personal", "unified", "diverse", "triune". These are all mundane effects. Those concepts can't even exist in the transcendent cause by your own definition in that the cause can't be the effect, but there you are, packaging the transcendent in exactly that way. It is incoherent.
Because there is no language or knowledge you or anybody else can ever possess to understand and describe the nature of the transcendent. It's as incoherent as saying what lies at the bottom of the ocean is a mystery and then going on to describe what lies at the bottom of the ocean in exacting detail with language like "personal", "unified", "diverse", or "triune".
No, it is very likely that a nation would codify objective sexual behaviors to promote their continued generational survival that excluded sexual deviance.
It can't. It comes from the personal process of being human from which morals emerge. We are as personal of an origin of a moral a process as you will ever be able to put your finger on.
It is far less likely. See above.
The truths of what we humans collectively value in ourselves and each other such as self promotion (gather sustenance, eat, clothe, shelter, couple, etc...) tempered by self protection (the desire to be safe in that pursuit).
Morals aren't inscribed. They emerge from our nature to self promote and self protect in a society. They are discovered.
Nope. What I described above is not majority rules. It is the primacy of existence and real experience over the abstract concept of some other-worldly transcendent fiat. The difference between what is real and experienced as opposed to what is ad hoc and made up.
I found a post where you said "scientists have found that there are certain symmetries that are commonly considered attractive and beautiful to almost all humans. As well as things like sunsets and flowers. People from all cultures and ethnicities find those things beautiful." And when you were asked "This is true, but why does it make the beauty objective rather than say something about human perception?" you responded, "Because those mathematical symmetries existed before humans did and they exist outside human opinion and thought."
I brought up Lincoln because you seemed to be saying that if a witness of a person engaging in a historical event is a champion or admirer of the person, then they are an unreliable witness.
There is evidence even the enemies of Christians admitted there was an empty tomb. They accused the disciples of stealing the body.
No, because we have an independent source, Josephus, that James died for his belief in the resurrection. Since we know from the ancient creed that that is what convinced him that Jesus was who He claimed to be.
Fraid so. Direct quote: "Richard Carrier is not even a NT scholar. I know Ehrman has some antipathy toward Christianity. Sometimes hard feelings can blind people to things". I am not saying it was necessarily conscious though, feelings can cause subconscious blindspots as well.
Your analogies are poor, religious feelings are deeper than court testimony and politics.
This was a single unique event, not a huge set dogma developed by Mormons. Also, the early Church did not exist at this point in history, the disciples still considered themselves jews. So you have the wrong background. They were still looking at the resurrection from teh background of Judaism.
It is all tied together. The details surrounding the resurrection and the resurrection itself. But Jesus being resurrected fits the above criteria of dissimilarity.
A straw man is something that doesnt really exist, the ability to interview witnesses to the resurrection dont exist. That is what I meant by straw man.
If there is a religion that has its most important event meet the criteria for a historical fact, that is better than most religions.
At that time I didnt know you were going to go into this much detail about the resurrection.
No, the basis of the objective nature of Christian morality is His objective existence as the good. I dont remember saying that the resurrection was a crucial part of the evidence for the nature of the Golden Rule.
I think the claim of resurrection from the dead is more radical. But it does follow that His resurrection does confirm that He is God and that most things in the Gospels are reliable. Since He predicted His own death and resurrection. Then it was confirmed by eyewitnesses.
Nothing original or technical: we gather what facts we can and try to deduce their implications.
That's true. For example, we don't know and will never know what the Romans and the Pharisees talked about when they were talking among themselves about this Jesus of Nazareth, the way we do know to a large extent what the Confederate leaders and Union leaders talked about among themselves about war and slavery. We can still make guesses, based on very fragmentary facts; and some guesses may be based on criteria that may be somewhat better designed to lead to truth than other criteria; and so those guesses may be somewhat more justified than other guesses. But even if we are convinced we've made the best guess it is possible to make, given our lack of information, that does not mean we should treat that guess as knowledge. We're not playing under a "handicap" rule, where the thinner the facts are, the more trust we place in guesswork.
I'm saying that if the only source we have, for some event which places some historical figure in a very positive light, is the testimony of a devoted admirer of that figure, then it is entirely reasonable to question the historicity of that event. (Two words: cherry tree.)
Matthew claims that the Pharisees accused (or got the Romans to accuse) the disciples of stealing the body, but the unsupported claims of a Christian about the wicked lies of their enemies is not good evidence. If you're talking about some other evidence, you can be more specific.
How in the world can you proclaim that Josephus is the source for the fact that James "died for his belief in the resurrection" when Josephus' account of James's death does not contain the words "belief" or "resurrection"? Josephus only says that James was the victim of foul play at the hands of the new high priest. You may have concluded that the likely reason is because James was spreading the word of the resurrection, but that does not at all entitle you to say that Josephus is testifying to that. That's a complete abuse of the concept of a "source."
"The creed said that the resurrected Jesus appeared to James; Josephus said that James was killed; therefore Josephus is a source for the fact that James was killed for testifying to the resurrection of Jesus"? One man said one thing about James, a second man said a different thing about James, therefore the second man must have been assenting to what the first man said??
I said that the passage I quoted did not say anything about what happened "sometimes," but that it did have the unmistakable implication that Ehrman was refusing to acknowledge the truth of the resurrection out of cowardice and fear. So now you bring up a different passage which does contain the word "sometimes." Do you deny this?
It's your understanding of how analogies work which is poor. The analogies were there to illustrate how we read certain kinds of sentences, sentences which have the same basic construction: "He won't do X; if he did X, it would cause problem Y." In each case, any native speaker of English will agree that means "He won't do X because he doesn't want to cause problem Y." It doesn't matter in the slightest whether one sentence is about religion and another is about law or politics.
What's the point of this distinction? Are you claiming that people will generally believe in a "huge set dogma" which goes contrary to what they have been taught, but they will not generally believe in a single unique event which goes contrary to what they have been taught? If so, what makes you think this is true? If you are claiming something else about "unique events vs. huge set dogma," then what is it?
Tell me whether it is possible to dispute any of the following propositions:
"It's all tied together" is not really a response to "X meets the criteria, but Y does not."
It's only "better," in the sense of "more likely to be true," if 1) it really does meet those criteria, 2) those criteria are in themselves reasonable, and 3) those criteria really give you the ability to distinguish between events that really happened and events which were claimed to have happened, but really did not. I haven't seen a case made yet for any of these.
You started talking about it at least as far back as early April.
Sorry, my mistake; I meant to say that the truth of the resurrection was a crucial part of your argument for the truth of the teaching that those who didn't follow Christ deserved eternal damnation.
No, that doesn't follow. Even if the resurrection happened, it could have been because he was specially favored by God, not that he is God.
And we know that he predicted his own death and resurrection, because the Gospels are reliable?
Your definition of "confirmed" is too loose for my taste, to put it mildly.
I still don't know what scenario you have in mind, fear of which would deter Paul from talking about the 500 if it weren't known to be true. Let's try it this way: assume for the sake of argument that Jesus did not appear to 500 people at once. I'm a 60-year-old Jew who has lived in Jerusalem all my life. (Call me Itzhak). It's now about 55 C.E., I have somehow heard about what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians about the 500, and I am certain it never happened.
They are both part of knowing God personally. But He does not take away your free will.
No, my objective basis is Gods existence as the good. What is your basis for morality?
No, God is the Good and He objectively exists and I have had objective experiences of Him doing good. Feeling that the golden Rule is true is obviously not objective.
No, see above about my objective experiences of His goodness.
I mean even though He reinforces your belief with His spirit, He doesnt take away your free will.
In this universe, the truth usually has positive effects.
Acknowledging the true God is the ultimate good life. People can do "good' for purely selfish reasons. True goodness includes deeds and the motive for doing the good deeds. Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists do good because they have to to be saved. Christians do good out of love for man and God.
See above.
No, a better analogy would be Rick Dempsey lasted twenty years and helped his team win the World Series but never made it to the Hall (non Christian religion).
If you are saying that the only way to know of God's goodness is for him to take supernatural action to provide you with that knowledge, then this is not something I can know, unless God decides he wants me to know it.
I'm deferring comment on these points until you've had a chance to read and respond to what I say about "objective basis/objective knowledge" in posts #1046, 1048 and 1050 here.
Then you are saying, you only believed in God's goodness tentatively and uncertainly, until he supernaturally reinforced your belief? If so, how does that at all counter my objection? Consider this dialogue:
You are just entirely ignoring what I said. Which of these statements do you dispute?
You are just entirely ignoring what I said. Nothing you say here has the slightest relevance to my specific argument. Let's try again. Which of these premises do you dispute?
You are just entirely ignoring what I said. I offered a specific argument and asked you to say whether you disputed either the premises or the logic of that specific argument, and you have blatantly refused to do any such thing. Could you possibly do so this time?
If you claim "anybody who lasts twenty years goes to the Hall of Fame," but there are some players who lasted twenty years but did not go to the Hall of Fame, then your claim is not true. It is refuted. It is the opposite of true. It is false.
Being indirectly responsible for something is not the same thing as being directly responsible. Selling a gun to a murderer doesnt mean you murdered the victim.
No one is completely innocent of sin.
No if you go back and look this particular response was in response to the scientists that claimed that rape was natural.
Of course it does. Especially because humans are made in the image of God and have infinite objective value. Otherwise we would just be an animal and animals rape and get raped all the time.
See above.
It doesnt matter, anything that exists outside of human thought and opinion exists objectively.
Maybe not, but nevertheless it is just your subjective preference like your favorite flavor of ice cream.
It does if you're an omniscient, omnipotent God who can see exactly what's going happen if He allows something. Your words, "God allowed it".
This is why Christianity should be opposed, it tries to justify God giving disease to those following God's rules by saying they deserve it anyway.
So what? Natural doesn't mean morally acceptable.
What you are saying is if humans are just an animal, then it's ok to get raped. You are justifying rape. The suffering caused by rape would be the same whether we were made in God's image or by evolution.
So a Martian's thought's are objective because they are outside human thoughts?
If that preference isn't arbitrary but is based on an empathy for the suffering of others then it has value.
Nevertheless many cosmologists think we know a great deal about the universe, such as the theory of everything. If you dont have the courage to take the small leap to see that God probably exists, there is nothing I can do. That is between you and your fears.
No, for scientific theories that go into the unobservable past, you have to show evidence in the present that there is such a process that can be empirically observed. Please provide an example.
No one knows why there is something rather than nothing.
I'm really not going to base my worldview on courage, but rather evidence. I hope you understand this.
If you have such a disdain and ignorance of evidence, then there's nothing I can do.