The Rise of Christianity Challenge!

[achilles12604]

Non-theists argue against almost every topic brought up by apologists. Many times I have put forth that analyzing a single piece of evidence is not an accurate way to critique historical analysis because evidence often will corroborate with other pieces of evidence and then together they make a strong case where-as separately they are weaker.

I was recently thinking about Dan Barker's Easter Challenge (which I did take by the way). I was applying my thoughts to his challenge and realized he was asking theists to analyze history much in the same way as I ask the non-theists to do. So I came up with an idea. Here is the Achilles12604 Rise of Christianity Challenge.

Come up with a logical analysis for the causation of Christianity. You are all well aware of the position of the Christian apologist. We feel that our analysis of the evidence has led us, using Occams Razor, to the simplest and most logical conclusion. You do not, so is it your turn to explain to us how Christianity began without omitting a single detail.

You must account for at least the following and anything else which I have inadvertently forgotten. . .

1) The Gospels being written by at least the following dates
Mark 65-70 CE
Matthew 70-80 CE
Luke 80-85 CE

2) The letters of Paul and his writings on the subjects, specifically the parts where he refers to Jesus as a human, any of Jesus actions, and beliefs of himself and those he speaks about.

3) The writings of Josephus

4) The Historical account presented in the Talmud

5) The fact that the geography of the Gospels (especially Luke) is almost exact.

6) The fact that Archeology has not uncovered anything that contradicts a Gospel, or acts, or Pauline letter account.

7) The beliefs of the very first Christians (Nazarenes).

8) The accounts of history such as Caesar’s declaration around 60CE that bodies were never to be taken out of the graves, punishable by death, right near Nazareth.

9) Later archeology and history such as Pliny's letters.

10) The conversion of Paul

11) The conversion of the early Jews, constituting the Council of Jerusalem

12) The Martyrdom of James

13) The conversion of James

14) The martyrdom of the first apostles. ( I Know that there isn't solid evidence supporting these men being martyrs. However explain why the early church fathers would write about the details of their deaths, if something close to that did actually happen.)

Ok that’s all I can think of for now. Each of these points is supported by a document we posses, a consensus of scholars (yes even secular) or in the case of the last point, a logical conclusion. With the possible exception of the last point, these are facts. Now please explain what happened. You may be brief if you wish but the more you leave out, the more holes will be very apparent in your hypothesis about the series of events.

Please present your version of events which accounts for all these things and culminates with the rise of an infant religion which was able to withstand the persecution of both the Roman Empire as well as the Jewish Nation for 300 years before it was accepted into Rome. If Dan Barkers Challenge required every detail of the Easter Story be accounted for, I should demand no less.

[Cephus]

You are all well aware of the position of the Christian apologist. We feel that our analysis of the evidence has led us, using Occams Razor, to the simplest and most logical conclusion.

But your conclusion is neither simple nor logical. You simply invent, out of whole cloth, a magical explanation for anything you can't wrap your head around and declare the problem solved.

In fact, you now have to explain where God came from and how God created everything, adding many more unnecessary and illogical steps to your so-called conclusion. Simply waving a magic wand at the problem doesn't make it go away, nor does it become simplified. Introducing the supernatural into the equation makes your conclusion infinitely more complex and less logical than anything we could do in the natural world.

Try again.

[Goose]

You are correct to say it is fallacious reasoning that the natural default position is God's intervention. It's as fallacious as the Atheist saying "if you can't prove that God exists, then the default is that God does not exist and Atheism is true."

I'm curious, how is it fallacious to say that if you can't prove god exists then there is no reason to believe in him? Atheism is the lack of belief in god, if there is no evidence for god then the reasonable position is to not believe.

Belief is not the issue here. Would you agree that for me to make the following statement is a fallacy? "If you can't prove that God does not exist, then the default is that God does exist and theism is true." Is that logical? No. See my point?

P.S. I wanted to answer your question. But I don't want to turn this thread into a Does God Exist thing. I've noticed so far that very few people have actually addressed the issues presented. So far it's been hijacked from Islam to a "Prove God Exists" problem. I wonder why?

[upallnite]

"If you can't prove that God does not exist, then the default is that God does exist and theism is true."

You can't prove a negative. That is shifting the burden of proof. Kind of like this entire thread.

[Goose]

"If you can't prove that God does not exist, then the default is that God does exist and theism is true."

You can't prove a negative. That is shifting the burden of proof. Kind of like this entire thread.

You missed the point, go back and read why I placed that post.

It's also circular reasoning.

It goes something like this:

God does not exist
I can not prove the non-existence of something that does not exist
therefore God does not exist

This thread is not shifting the burden of proof. It's asking for a conclusion that best fits the evidence.

Please stay on topic.

[Cogitoergosum]

P.S. I wanted to answer your question. But I don't want to turn this thread into a Does God Exist thing. I've noticed so far that very few people have actually addressed the issues presented. So far it's been hijacked from Islam to a "Prove God Exists" problem. I wonder why?

1st goose, it was not hijacked by islam, i'm not a moslim, i'm just showing that those proofs achilles presented apply to other religions too and so are no proof of christianity being a divine religion at all.

Second if there is no proof of something existing, then the reasonable person would not believe in that thing until proven otherwise.
There is no proof that a pink unicorn does exist, then i will not believe in it until i'm proven wrong. If u can't prove something does not exist doesn't mean it exists by default. It is not the same as the previous statements.

[Goose]

P.S. I wanted to answer your question. But I don't want to turn this thread into a Does God Exist thing. I've noticed so far that very few people have actually addressed the issues presented. So far it's been hijacked from Islam to a "Prove God Exists" problem. I wonder why?

1st goose, it was not hijacked by islam, i'm not a moslim, i'm just showing that those proofs achilles presented apply to other religions too and so are no proof of christianity being a divine religion at all.

I understand your point. But this isn't "Islam vs. Christianity" or "Is Christianity a Divine Religion?" It's "explain the rise of Christianity". So your post, though interesting in way, is completely off topic.

Second if there is no proof of something existing, then the reasonable person would not believe in that thing until proven otherwise.
There is no proof that a pink unicorn does exist, then i will not believe in it until i'm proven wrong.

Circular reasoning again. You are assuming that God does not exist before looking at any of the evidences that He might exist.

The way we establish if pink unicorns exist to evaluate the evidence for their alleged existence and then draw our conclusions. If there is no evidence then we can safely conclude unicorns do not exist.

If u can't prove something does not exist doesn't mean it exists by default.

Exactly my point! Go back and read my posts to Galph.


Now, can any one around here stay on topic? Why is almost everyone avoiding the issues in this thread? It's almost comical.

[Goat]

P.S. I wanted to answer your question. But I don't want to turn this thread into a Does God Exist thing. I've noticed so far that very few people have actually addressed the issues presented. So far it's been hijacked from Islam to a "Prove God Exists" problem. I wonder why?

1st goose, it was not hijacked by islam, i'm not a moslim, i'm just showing that those proofs achilles presented apply to other religions too and so are no proof of christianity being a divine religion at all.

I understand your point. But this isn't "Islam vs. Christianity" or "Is Christianity a Divine Religion?" It's "explain the rise of Christianity". So your post, though interesting in way, is completely off topic.

No, it is not. It was showing that some of the evidence that Acheilles was using to try to show that Christianity was more 'special' than other religions is not that special after all. It was speciifcally in response to the evidence presented. It shows that while Achillies claims might be evidence (and I personally disagree on some of the details), it is not evidence of the 'truth' of christianity over other religions.

[Galphanore]

You are correct to say it is fallacious reasoning that the natural default position is God's intervention. It's as fallacious as the Atheist saying "if you can't prove that God exists, then the default is that God does not exist and Atheism is true."

I'm curious, how is it fallacious to say that if you can't prove god exists then there is no reason to believe in him? Atheism is the lack of belief in god, if there is no evidence for god then the reasonable position is to not believe.

Belief is not the issue here. Would you agree that for me to make the following statement is a fallacy? "If you can't prove that God does not exist, then the default is that God does exist and theism is true." Is that logical? No. See my point?

No, because to assume that something exists without evidence is illogical. To assume that something with no evidence doesn't exist unless, or until, evidence is presented makes perfect sense. See the difference? There is no evidence that there is an invisible pink unicorn poking holes in my socks, so I assume one doesn't exist. This, of course, no more proves that god doesn't exist then me not having visited London proves that England doesn't exist, but it does mean that the burden of proof is on the person making the claim that god exists, not the person who disagrees with that claim.

P.S. I wanted to answer your question. But I don't want to turn this thread into a Does God Exist thing. I've noticed so far that very few people have actually addressed the issues presented. So far it's been hijacked from Islam to a "Prove God Exists" problem. I wonder why?

I answered the question posed on the previous page. Second to last post. I will assume you didn't notice it instead of assuming you ignored it to be petulant.

[achilles12604]

Come up with a logical analysis for the causation of Christianity.

Christianity was a response to Roman imperial oppression. The rest is details.

You are all well aware of the position of the Christian apologist. We feel that our analysis of the evidence has led us, using Occams Razor, to the simplest and most logical conclusion.

I think you mean 'simplistic' conclusion. The introduction of an unevidenced supernatural realm is hardly simple.

Ah but the details are 95% of the important material. An I didn't introduce any supernatural evidence into the equation. I simply used facts which are documented by one of the methods I described.

[achilles12604]

[S]o is it your turn to explain to us how Christianity began without omitting a single detail.

I don't see why we should not omit any detail. Your approach is like the Creationist god of the gaps approach. If we cannot find an answer to a particular unknown, then by default it must be God's miraculous intervention. That is fallacious reasoning.

This was the exact same method used by Dan Barker. I'm not demanding anything more than he did. In fact I am using the exact same wording that he did. Where is the fallacy? I am simply asking the non-theists here to come up with a series of events which logically explains how each of these "markers" came to be. Nothing more.

2) The letters of Paul and his writings on the subjects, specifically the parts where he refers to Jesus as a human, any of Jesus actions, and beliefs of himself and those he speaks about.

There are embarrassingly few references by Paul to the human actions of Jesus.

First let me ask you a question. Considering Paul didn't know Jesus, and his entire ministry is concerned with the results of what Jesus did, now the how he did it, why do you think there should be more allusions?

Now let me say I know of a few references in his letters to Jesus the man including a couple of the miracles. (the resurrection, appearances right after the resurrection, etc) Honestly given who Paul was, what he was teaching and when he lived, the fact that there is any mention of Jesus in human form is outstanding.

3) The writings of Josephus

Josephus wrote about Jewish history to a Roman audience. The few references to Christ and Christianity are either later additions or factual references only to the existence of the early Christians. What needs explaining?

It doesn't need to be explained. It needs to be included . . . in the series of events.

5) The fact that the geography of the Gospels (especially Luke) is almost exact.

Almost? Where did inerrancy go?

Tsk tsk tsk. Bad McCulloch. You know better than to pull this particular straw man out and set him on fire.



You know full well I am not an inerrant bible thumper. I am a man's error included bible thumper. . . .

thump.

You may be brief if you wish but the more you leave out, the more holes will be very apparent in your hypothesis about the series of events.

The real issue is how to plug the holes in an hypothesis. Every hypothesis will have holes. Should we assume the God hypothesis?

No the entire point of the exercise is to avoid using the god hypothesis. So please don't include him in your rendition of the events.