Proof of the Christian God

[RonE]

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 90 by KingandPriest]

The bible is a collection of books written by various authors throughout history. This is a fact I doubt any will refute. It was once believed that sections of the bible could have been altered to make it match known historical records. Prior to the discovery of the dead sea scrolls (DSS), the earlies copy of the bible dated somewhere in the 10th century AD. This meant it would have been possible for someone to include facts known about Jesus and change old testament scriptures to make them fit. The discovery of the DSS between 1947-1956 debunked this theory and found that the old testament recorded in these historical writings matched the current King James version with 95% accuracy. The only difference was due to spelling differences of certain names of people or cities, and no book Esther. The texts were found in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The collection of old testament documents in the DSS were dated using various dating methods between 200 BC – AD 26. There were also other writings found which have a greater date range of possible creation, 400 BC – AD 300.

Virtually all historical critics have have concluded that the OT had reached it's final and current form by 200 BC.

I now ask, what is the probability of any historical book of similar length (old testament only) dated from earliest found to 200 BC, being translated into multiple languages, while retaining 95% accuracy, over 1000 years? To find this we must find the probability of each event, and multiply their probabilities.

This depends entirely on the motivation for doing so. The Bible is the single largest selling book in history. As one might expect, given that Christians make up about 30% of the world's population.

According to Google’s advanced algorithms there are about 210 million unique books that have been ever been written. Of these, Google says 129M have been published. We know the printing press was not invented until the mid1400s, and paper making is attributed to China around AD 105. If I cut in half the remaining unpublished books by half for those used by the printing press and paper, I am left with about 20M books which could have existed in the world prior to AD 105. Lets say half of this books are of similar length to the old testament.

Now we have 10M/20M books multiplied by number of books translated into multiple languages, 1/100, multiplied by the t-stat value 0.05, 1/1.96, multiplied by time between translation comparisons 1/1000 = (0.5) X (1/100) X (1/1.96) X (1/1000) = 2.5 X 10^-5

Christianity has been the world's largest religion for much of the last 2,000 years. Agreed.

Wikipedia
Library of Alexandria
Paganism was made illegal by an edict of the Emperor Theodosius I in AD 391. The temples of Alexandria were closed by Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria in AD 391.[32] The historian Socrates of Constantinople describes that all pagan temples in Alexandria were destroyed, including the Serapeum.[34] Since the Serapeum had at one time housed a part of the Great Library, some scholars believe that the remains of the Library of Alexandria were destroyed at this time.[32][35] However, it is not known how many, if any, books were contained in it at the time of destruction, and contemporary scholars do not mention the library directly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

Once Christians got legal control of the Roman government, any book considered to be pagan was destroyed if discovered. Except, by in large, books by the great Greek Philosophers. Christians theologians admired Greek Philosophy.

So the probability of the old testament being altered as a matter of historical text written before the birth of Jesus is 2.5 in 100,00

The OT WAS altered, into a form written in Greek known as the Septuagint. The Septuagint is widely used today by the Orthodox church, but is it largely not accepted by the Catholic church and is generally spurned by Protestants who prefer the Hebrew version of the OT as the more accurate. Jews widely consider it an abomination. Why? Because no complete copies written prior to the time of Jesus exist, and those copies were clearly revised by Christians who included very plain references to the coming of Jesus that clearly were NOT in the original Hebrew OT.

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

[liamconnor]

What is meant by "scientific" evidence?

Is there scientific evidence that Alexander the great existed?

You have hailed a certain kind of science as the ONLY valid path to knowledge: the kind that can be verified in the laboratory manner.

This is obviously erroneous.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 92:

What is meant by "scientific" evidence?

Evidence that can be considered according to the scientific method of observation and analysis.

Is there scientific evidence that Alexander the great existed?

You have hailed a certain kind of science as the ONLY valid path to knowledge: the kind that can be verified in the laboratory manner.

Agreed.

So, let's discount any tale ever told of good ol' Al. Where's that leave biblical tales?

This is obviously erroneous.

No more erroneous than claiming zombie Jesus set about.

[RonE]

[Replying to post 92 by liamconnor]

What is meant by "scientific" evidence?

Is there scientific evidence that Alexander the great existed?

You have hailed a certain kind of science as the ONLY valid path to knowledge: the kind that can be verified in the laboratory manner.

This is obviously erroneous.

History is not science. History has it's own set of standards I'm sure. If you can prove your god exists like Alexander did, such that history professional proclaim it to be true you will have gone far.

For the purposes of the OP I consider scientific methods to be apart of all the various disciples of natural sciences. Necessary to each one of them. Although lab work can be included as a part of scientific proofs I wouldn't consider a lab setting an absolute necessity.

I've tried several times in several posts to make it clear, scientific methods are those methods that the scientific community uses to make their discoveries accepted by others in the community. Scientific methods go to the quality of evidence to support a hypothesis. It is what makes the AH! moments possible.

[RonE]

[WinePusher]

If Newton did not believe a "force" existed that caused apples to fall from trees, or a rock thrown in the air would fall back to earth, he could not have tested and arrive at a accurate description of gravity.

This just shows you literally have no idea whatsoever how to do science. Especially with your comments about 'spiritual' evidence, and the 'methods for proving God are not empirical'.
Newton did not wake up one day and suddenly started 'believing' in gravity. He formed a hypothesis, and tested it to see if it was true. His belief or non-belief didn't enter into his experimentation, just as it should not enter into any experimentation.

WRONG. Everything you've said is just so dead wrong.

Newton began with a hunch-hypothesis-a priori belief which was based off of the work of his predecessor, Kepler. Newton thought-believed-hypothesized that the force that causes, say, an apple to accelerate to the ground and the force that maintains the orbits of the planets were one in the same. He believed that this physical force was essentially universal (which is why it's called the UNIVERSAL law of gravitation). That was his belief-hypothesis-suspicion.

The way he tested this was through using those fancy little derivatives and integrals that he himself formulated. Do you actually know what Newton said about this force? He said that it follows the inverse square law, THAT was his foundational hypothesis. And he proved this belief using classical If-Then reasoning. IF the force governing the orbits of the planets obeys the inverse square law, THEN what? THEN the orbits of the planets must be in the shape of one of the four conic sections with the focus being the sun. For those who don't know what a conic section is, they are shapes that are derived from slicing through various angles of a three dimensional cone.

And THAT is how the universal law of gravity came to be, through mathematical reasoning. So you are wrong, and KingandPriest is right.

Through a single individual's efforts? I think not. Laws take rigourous experimentation from many individuals over a long period of time, before they are called such.
In fact, Newton had trouble with his calculations on gravity. He believed so strongly in his god, in an absolute observer with an absolute time, that he quite simply did not allow for the possibility of relative time, of the curvature of space-time. Several people have hypothesized that if he had jettisoned his beliefs, he may have discovered relativity long before Einstein did.

Let's not lose sight of your egregiously erroneous claim. You said that KingandPriests statement shows that he has no idea how to do science, just admit that your allegation is wrong riku. I've already explained how the scientific method works to you, what more do you need? Newton began with a hunch, a belief; he believed-hypothesized that the force which causes an object to accelerate to the ground is the same as the force that maintains the orbits of the planets. He then proceeded to validate this belief using a variety of heavily mathematical tests. Nothing KingandPriest said is wrong, you are the one who's wrong.

And btw, your comments the discovery of gravity being the product a "single individuals efforts" are trivial and off base. Did I ever suggest otherwise? Didn't I very clearly state that Newton's work is based off his predecessor, Kepler?

Also, to suggest that Newton's deranged and obscure theological commitments somehow impeded him from discovering relativity is absurd. If you didn't know, Newton isn't only known for his laws of motion, he is considered the co-founder of calculus. What did it take for Einstein to discover relativity? It took a deep refinement and understanding of a particular branch of differential geometry, namely Riemannian geometry. What does differential and Riemannian geometry entail and involve? It involves an application of calculus to geometry. So Newton comes up with basic calculus , you know-all that basic tangent line and root finding stuff, and as we now know the discovery of relativity requires advanced differential geometry which entails many mathematical concepts and theorems that came after Newton. It would have taken a miracle for Newton to arrive at relativity.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 96 by WinePusher]

Also, to suggest that Newton's deranged and obscure theological commitments somehow impeded him from discovering relativity is absurd. If you didn't know, Newton isn't only known for his laws of motion, he is considered the co-founder of calculus. What did it take for Einstein to discover relativity? It took a deep refinement and understanding of a particular branch of differential geometry, namely Riemannian geometry. What does differential and Riemannian geometry entail and involve? It involves an application of calculus to geometry. So Newton comes up with basic calculus , you know-all that basic tangent line and root finding stuff, and as we now know the discovery of relativity requires advanced differential geometry which entails many mathematical concepts and theorems that came after Newton. It would have taken a miracle for Newton to arrive at relativity.

Hmm...okay, for now, I'll retract the claim that Newton could have discovered relativity. I myself am not a mathematician. Can I get someone else to chime in please, to confirm what WinePusher is saying? Someone with a background in mathematics?
(I never studied calculus in school. Yeah...my school didn't teach it. Nor did they offer physics or chemistry, because I was the only student in my year who applied for those classes. Great work [my school]!)

Newton began with a hunch, a belief; he believed-hypothesized

The problem I'm having here is that believed-hypothesized word. It's almost as if you're saying the two are one and the same. You did the same in your earlier comment "hunch-hypothesis-a priori belief"
I don't treat the words as synonyms of each other. I've had hunches where a customer I'm serving looks under 18, but if I were to classify it, I would NOT use the word 'belief'.
When I think of hypothesis, I think of something "Okay, maybe John did kill Bob. Let's see if that's true. We can check by seeing if John's fingerprints and/or DNA are on the murder weapon" and if we find there is not enough or no evidence, then I don't say John killed Bob. I don't treat it as true right off the bat, as I've seen so many other people on this site do.

[KingandPriest]

[Replying to post 91 by Tired of the Nonsense]

The evidence I included about the historicity of the bible was not to support evidence that Christianity is one of worlds largest religions in the past 2000 years. So I do not understand the point in the following segment of your reply

Christianity has been the world's largest religion for much of the last 2,000 years. Agreed.

Wikipedia
Library of Alexandria
Paganism was made illegal by an edict of the Emperor Theodosius I in AD 391. The temples of Alexandria were closed by Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria in AD 391.[32] The historian Socrates of Constantinople describes that all pagan temples in Alexandria were destroyed, including the Serapeum.[34] Since the Serapeum had at one time housed a part of the Great Library, some scholars believe that the remains of the Library of Alexandria were destroyed at this time.[32][35] However, it is not known how many, if any, books were contained in it at the time of destruction, and contemporary scholars do not mention the library directly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

Once Christians got legal control of the Roman government, any book considered to be pagan was destroyed if discovered. Except, by in large, books by the great Greek Philosophers. Christians theologians admired Greek Philosophy.

I move that this be ignored, since it is not relevant to the evidence presented.

The question about the probability of the old testament portion of the bible retaining its accuracy goes to refute your argument that the OT was altered. To translate a book an retain accuracy is different than to alter a book.

You state

The Septuagint is widely used today by the Orthodox church, but is it largely not accepted by the Catholic church and is generally spurned by Protestants who prefer the Hebrew version of the OT as the more accurate. Jews widely consider it an abomination. Why? Because no complete copies written prior to the time of Jesus exist, and those copies were clearly revised by Christians who included very plain references to the coming of Jesus that clearly were NOT in the original Hebrew OT.

This is a false accusation and shows you did not read what I wrote. The Dead Sea scrolls are proof that Christians did not alter the old testament. In short, we know the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by Jewish scribes about 200 years before Jesus was born. These writings matched word for word, the text used by Christians almost a 1000 years later. The whole point of the evidence I provided was to refute this claim used by those who do not have an accurate knowledge of the facts. If Christians in AD 900-1000 altered the old testament, we would expect the old testament writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls to contradict what is found in Christian bibles. Instead what we find is 95% overall agreement (book of Esther is in Christian bible, but not Dead Sea Scroll), and 99% word for word agreement of the remaining text.

[KingandPriest]

Thus far,

Only Blastcat has attempted to challenge the evidence I've presented in Post73 (Here is my evidence).

Blastcat and I, have taken parts of our discussion out of this format, since we are mostly providing definitions of certain terms and didn't want to distract from the OP.

Does this mean, the evidence I have presented so far is sufficient to answer the OP?

If the evidence is sufficient, now what?

If the evidence is not sufficient, I ask what would be sufficient? What is needed?

[tfvespasianus]

4. Jesus the Messiah will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12), and the betrayal money will be used to purchase a potter’s field.
Of the people who have been betrayed, one in how many has been betrayed for exactly 30 pieces of silver?

This detail in Matthew (for it is only in Matthew) is an interesting one in that it one example of the author’s penchant for literary allusion to the OT. That is, he selects an inexplicable passage from the OT corpus and uses it as a detail in his narrative. Moreover, in this case the author cites it as a fulfillment of Jeremiah and not Zechariah as we have here. In any case, putting aside the misattribution, if we read the passage from Zechariah (which admittedly is the more probable source of the allusion given that Jeremiah references seventeen pieces of silver while Zechariah has thirty) we would be hard-pressed to say that this is a clear prophecy given the context. Nonetheless, this like many other is an added detail by the author to establish continuity between his narrative and the sacred writings of the Jews. However, matters of probability only come into play if we accept the strict historicity of the details and then work out probability from there. If the ‘proof-texting’ was reverse engineered (i.e. OT allusion are scattered throughout the writing as a religious/literary method) then it is no surprise that details of such a story comport with the scattered allusions.

Take care,
TFV