Just Makin' Stuff Up

[SallyF]

Elsewhere we have successfully demonstrated that the biblical god, Yahweh, is never shown to be anything other than imaginary.

Can we demonstrate here - beyond clutching at the odd verifiable name - that any of the biblical stories are anything more than people just makin' stuff up ?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 1 by SallyF]

Well, a study was done once that the historical accuracy of the Bible is about 20%.
It lists battles, but often gets the victors wrong, and so on.

So it isn't all made up. It is less accurate than a Spider-man comic, though.

[1213]

Elsewhere we have successfully demonstrated that the biblical god, Yahweh, is never shown to be anything other than imaginary.

Can we demonstrate here - beyond clutching at the odd verifiable name - that any of the biblical stories are anything more than people just makin' stuff up ?

I just wonder, what could be possible way to demonstrate any historical event to be true? Can you show an example how to demonstrate some historical event to be true?

[marco]

I've been walking up the biblical garden path for a number of decades.

Then you've been on the wrong surface. My favourite fiction writer, Matthew, captures reality in a single sentence: "Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake." Not beside the lake or near the lake, but on it. There are people alive today who read this without smiling.

Matthew's imagination gets into top gear when Peter walks for a bit on the lake and then realises he shouldn't be able to. Luckily Jesus reaches out and pulls him up, defying physics again because the surface of the water would not usually allow itself to be a fulcrum.

Shortly after, Jesus cured hundreds of sick people. As a water walker would! It is surprising that this same individual some time later needed help to carry a wooden cross. Miraculous power came and went like the wind.

Perhaps it is an unkindness to say Matthew made all this stuff up. He only made some of it up. We must decide which bits are fiction. A tough task.

[Thomas123]

Thomas Mc Donald wrote:

Use your matter of fact approach and make a call on her.

1.10 indisputable facts about her
or
2. Declare her to be complete fiction

You might be up to the Boudicca Challenge, marco!

Make a call on Boudicca!

"In her revenge, Boudica and her army cut people up, impaled them on skewers, and crucified and hanged them". True or False?

[marco]

I just wonder, what could be possible way to demonstrate any historical event to be true? Can you show an example how to demonstrate some historical event to be true?

The younger Pliny witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius when he was a teenager. Tacitus wrote to him for an account. Pliny describes in detail what he saw. His uncle, a naval officer, died in a rescue attempt. How can we know what Pliny says is true: we can test his description against what we know of volcanic eruptions and we can visit Pompeii, as I have done, in southern Italy.


However, when the "historical event" involves dead men deserting their graves and then flying into the sky without any mechanical assistance, we have nothing in our experience to back this up and so, perhaps rashly, we question whether it happened.
When I read that in 44BC Julius Caesar was assassinated, I can check his writing on Gaul and on the Civil war, and see that there is nothing after the Ides of March, and I can reasonably deduce that what is written is true. The history of Rome follows as a consequence of the battles of Philippi and Actium. It would be surprising if these events were untrue, whereas it would be surprising if the Resurrect was true.

I hope this helps.

[SallyF]

Elsewhere we have successfully demonstrated that the biblical god, Yahweh, is never shown to be anything other than imaginary.

Can we demonstrate here - beyond clutching at the odd verifiable name - that any of the biblical stories are anything more than people just makin' stuff up ?

I just wonder, what could be possible way to demonstrate any historical event to be true? Can you show an example how to demonstrate some historical event to be true?

I am focussing ONLY on biblical stories.


Please pay us the courtesy of doing the same.

[SallyF]

Thomas Mc Donald wrote:

Use your matter of fact approach and make a call on her.

1.10 indisputable facts about her
or
2. Declare her to be complete fiction

You might be up to the Boudicca Challenge, marco!

Make a call on Boudicca!

"In her revenge, Boudica and her army cut people up, impaled them on skewers, and crucified and hanged them". True or False?

I am focussing ENTIRELY on the biblical stories.


I will NOT fall into the trap of distraction.


My Cloak of Prophecy told me that not a single Christian would demonstrate that a single biblical story was anything more than people just makin' stuff up.


Your lack of such demonstration


And your repeated attempts to take the spotlight OFF what some call the "Word of God"

Fulfills the prophecy.

[SallyF]

As a Christian child

I was brainwashed with this "totally true" stuff.

I escaped.

Today I show that not a soul EVER demonstrates that a single story is anything more than humans just makin' stuff up.

[marco]

You might be up to the Boudicca Challenge, marco!

Make a call on Boudicca!

"In her revenge, Boudica and her army cut people up, impaled them on skewers, and crucified and hanged them". True or False?

I studied, and liked, Tacitus. Of all historians writing about Roman exploits he's the most likely to be accurate since he had access to Roman records. His father-in-law was Agricola, part of whose wall still remains with us today. He tells us that Boudicca's daughters were raped, so he's not painting Rome in the best light. The Roman general at the time was Paulinus, and we have a statue of him in the town of Bath. So there are ways of cross checking information that involves locations and names. I accept that Tacitus also used imaginative dialogue to put forward the view of the enemy, as with the beautiful speech of the leader Calgacus: "Rome makes a wilderness and calls it peace." But the battles Tacitus talks about are real enough and explain Roman decisions.

It is also true that history is written by the victors. And the tales of Jesus are written by his worshippers.

[Thomas123]

You might be up to the Boudicca Challenge, marco!

Make a call on Boudicca!

"In her revenge, Boudica and her army cut people up, impaled them on skewers, and crucified and hanged them". True or False?

I studied, and liked, Tacitus. Of all historians writing about Roman exploits he's the most likely to be accurate since he had access to Roman records. His father-in-law was Agricola, part of whose wall still remains with us today. He tells us that Boudicca's daughters were raped, so he's not painting Rome in the best light. The Roman general at the time was Paulinus, and we have a statue of him in the town of Bath. So there are ways of cross checking information that involves locations and names. I accept that Tacitus also used imaginative dialogue to put forward the view of the enemy, as with the beautiful speech of the leader Calgacus: "Rome makes a wilderness and calls it peace." But the battles Tacitus talks about are real enough and explain Roman decisions.

It is also true that history is written by the victors. And the tales of Jesus are written by his worshippers.

Thanks for stepping up to the challenge .
There was no subplot to my enquiry.

Jesus/Boudicca
No verifiable contemporary eyewitness accounts for either.
Same century
Amazing legacies
Zero uncontestable truth to either
Zero provable knowledge of either
Impossible to describe either as made up

My instinct tells me these two people were for real.
(SallyF, wants a photo ,by the looks of things!)