Ignorant from the start

Tart · Post by **Tart** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:30 pm

As quoted in another thread
"So this tendency that believers have to look towards the past as a time of knowledge and informed wisdom, is actually an ignorant position."

This is talking about looking at our past for knowledge... Like looking at a source from 2000+ years ago... Saying we would be ignorant to do such things...

Actually this conversation was specifically about Aristotle... For Aristotle was perhaps the first of the scientists, and Aristotle put forth scientific arguments for the existence of God... In his Book "Physics" (where the word comes from), Aristotle tells us that "that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world"

Just the same as Newton... "Don't doubt the creator, because it is inconceivable that accidents alone could be the controller of this universe."~Newton

These are scientifically based arguments, and reasoning, that God exists. And they are saying that the orderliness of nature is dependent on a God... That without God there is no reason that science, and the order in nature, should exist...

Its just ironic that atheists have these kind of quotes (like the one above)... They say, why would anyone look at our past for knowledge? That they were just ignorant back then, and conclude that they have no merit...

But the scientific method itself is based upon past experiments, and inductive reasoning. The only way the scientific method can make sense out of the order in nature, is if the past will be like the future. If the experiments we did yesterday can be done today and tomorrow, yielding the same results...

This is what philosophers call "inductive reasoning"... Its funny, because science is based off this stuff... And in order for us to make sense of anything, we need to have a past that is logically coherent...

Its also quite astonishing as well, that atheists have taken this one step further... While many scientist, theologians, philosophers, have made the argument that the order in nature is evidence for a God, a God who keeps things orderly...

Atheist on the other hand have brought to question inductive reasoning itself.. It is called the "problem of induction", as Hume said it. He couldn't make sense of why things make sense.. He said there needs to be a proof for induction that is not dependent on its past (kind of like how atheist dont want to depend on our past)... And this goes on today as something philosophically unproven (without a God)... That inductive reasoning (which the scientific method is based off of, also logic and language itself) needs to have some kind of justification for it....

So, all these believing scientists/philosophers point to induction as proof of God. While all the atheists scientist/philosophers point to induction as not making any sense... Kind of funny..

Isnt it just clear... The evidence is all on one side... The claim is that truth has a start, knowledge has a foundation, that we can learn truths from our past.. And this isnt even limited to our human history... Science itself is built upon our past experiences...

Where atheist say, we started in ignorance, knowing nothing, and then some how stumbled upon truth... (where? or when? they dont say...)

And where theist say that knowledge and truth has a beginning, from the start with God, and builds upon these things...

I think its pretty clear.. All the evidence, including all the "psychical" evidence is on the side of God, the unmoved mover... And nothing but a void of truth on the side of atheism, where we cant even make sense out of induction itself, or our past.

Tart · Post by **Tart** » Fri May 11, 2018 6:14 pm

These men might have written documents...but they didn't.

How do you know that? Are you really saying Peter, James, and John didnt write anything?

rikuoamero · Post by **rikuoamero** » Fri May 11, 2018 6:31 pm

Tart wrote:
These men might have written documents...but they didn't.
How do you know that? Are you really saying Peter, James, and John didnt write anything?

Dude...I quoted you where you say Peter and James didn't write gospels. You said might, could.
As in, Tart is saying Peter and James didn't write "about their own personal witnessing of Jesus".
To which I responded with my incredulity at the idea that the non-existence of documents is positive evidence for the beliefs of their supposed authors.

It's like in your mind...everything's the opposite. The unknown identities of historical documents is not a problem for credibility. The non-existence of certain documents, or other documents only being hypotheticals, does not pose an evidentiary problem.

Tart · Post by **Tart** » Fri May 11, 2018 7:59 pm

rikuoamero wrote:
Tart wrote:
These men might have written documents...but they didn't.
How do you know that? Are you really saying Peter, James, and John didnt write anything?
Dude...I quoted you where you say Peter and James didn't write gospels. You said might, could.
As in, Tart is saying Peter and James didn't write "about their own personal witnessing of Jesus".
To which I responded with my incredulity at the idea that the non-existence of documents is positive evidence for the beliefs of their supposed authors.

It's like in your mind...everything's the opposite. The unknown identities of historical documents is not a problem for credibility. The non-existence of certain documents, or other documents only being hypotheticals, does not pose an evidentiary problem.

Ok, what i said is that the evidence supports the idea that Peter, James, and John could have written their own testimony with their encounter with Jesus... We have written letters from these people compiled in the Bible, but there isnt a Gospel within the Bible from these people... However, there are many other books (that we know about) that didnt get put into the Bible, that Peter James John could have written, and there is probably many books we dont even know about....

We have books from Peter, James, John, Jude, Paul, and more... All these people have been penned as authors...

And thats besides the fact... stumbling over books not penned to a author is not anywhere near the evidence in the First Century of all the members of the churches... The fellowship, brotherhood, the Church (making up the Body of Christ) is a very real thing, that can be traced back to Jesus... It can be traced back to load of historical people in the Gospels, loads of historical people in the book of Acts, and loads of historical people mentioned in the Epistles, and we have load of other people in the first century that are known to be apart of the church, but not mentioned in the Gospels... I see no reason to believe Mark, Matthew, and Luke arent real historical people, which is certainly reasonable that they could have written books about Jesus...

It is just crazy what atheism has you guys believing... That the eyewitnesses didnt exist, that jesus was a myth, that these people are anonymous and unnamed... its crazy.

Danmark · Post by **Danmark** » Fri May 11, 2018 11:10 pm

Tart wrote:Peter, James, and John could have written their own testimony with their encounter with Jesus...

"Could have?" That's what you're going with, "Could have?"

I suppose they "could have" been written by Kermit the Frog, but what evidence do you have about:
A, who were the actual authors and how do we know?
and,
B, What evidence do we have that they were writing God's words?

rikuoamero · Post by **rikuoamero** » Sat May 12, 2018 8:43 am

Tart is Micah 5:2 a true prophecy, one that came true?

Tart · Post by **Tart** » Sat May 12, 2018 12:31 pm

Danmark wrote:
Tart wrote:Peter, James, and John could have written their own testimony with their encounter with Jesus...
"Could have?" That's what you're going with, "Could have?"

I suppose they "could have" been written by Kermit the Frog, but what evidence do you have about:
A, who were the actual authors and how do we know?
and,
B, What evidence do we have that they were writing God's words?

Yes, like i said, i think the evidence support the idea that any of these men could have written a Gospel, about their own witnessing of Jesus... And they might had done that. Peter, James, and John might have written their own testimony and it was simply lost, or not included in the Bible...

And comparing Peter, James, and John to Kermit the Frog is absurd... Do you think these people dont exist?

To answer your question.
A) What we know is that whoever wrote the Gospels in the Bible didnt sign their names, and that has spawned much debate ever since... But who cares if they didnt sign there name...

But if we want to take church tradition, it is written by Mark, Luke, and Matthew, and John.

Is that reliable?

What do we know? We know that the first century church was a very real thing. Everyone agrees Paul existed, and Paul also wrote about knowing many other disciples, including those who were closest to Jesus (Peter, James, and John)... As far as i have seen, there is absolutely no reason to believe any of these men arent real.

The fellowship in the first century and beyond, is real... And these men claimed to know each orther. We have people claiming to know Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John... Real people claiming they know them.. There is no reason to believe these men didnt exist, and we have good reason to believe they exist...

So is it reasonable that Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John could have written the Gospels? I think its reasonable... We would just have to trace back to when this tradition started, and it very likely could have started in the first century with the people who knew...

Further more, even if they didnt write the Gospels (which as of now there is no evidence to question this)... The evidence still supports every one of these men existed, and either knew eyewitnesses, or were eyewitnesses themselves.

B) Prophecy, as "the Word of God is alive an active"

Tart · Post by **Tart** » Sat May 12, 2018 12:32 pm

rikuoamero wrote: Tart is Micah 5:2 a true prophecy, one that came true?

Thats a prophecy about the birth place of Jesus.

Danmark · Post by **Danmark** » Sat May 12, 2018 3:17 pm

Tart wrote:
B) Prophecy, as "the Word of God is alive an active"

So you can't answer WHO wrote them and you certainly haven't established the accuracy of 'prophecy' or that "the Word of God is alive an [sic] active."
'
This is a debating site, not a "This is my unsupported opinion" site.

You claim Micah 5:2 is prophecy about Jesus. Let' see:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel....

Nope. Jesus was not a "ruler in Israel."

Just the opposite, he was a victim of the rulers of Israel.
He never ruled at all.

It never ceases to amaze me that obscure passages that talk about facts that are dissimilar to the facts about Jesus' life, are trotted out as prophecy fulfilled.

"There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdomâ€�
Matthew 16:28
"I say to you that this generation will not pass away until all these things happen."
Matthew 24:34

Yet when the gospels give a clear account about this failed apocalyptic prophet saying he will return within 40 years, yet 2000 have passed since he supposedly said that, THAT gets twisted beyond all recognition to mean something completely different to try and support the myth.

This is why critics laugh at apologists who, no matter what the plain meaning of their scriptures, insist on coming up with a completely opposite meaning consistent with their cherished beliefs.

Tart · Post by **Tart** » Sat May 12, 2018 5:16 pm

Danmark wrote:
Tart wrote:
B) Prophecy, as "the Word of God is alive an active"
So you can't answer WHO wrote them and you certainly haven't established the accuracy of 'prophecy' or that "the Word of God is alive an [sic] active."
'
This is a debating site, not a "This is my unsupported opinion" site.

You claim Micah 5:2 is prophecy about Jesus. Let' see:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel....

Nope. Jesus was not a "ruler in Israel."

Just the opposite, he was a victim of the rulers of Israel.
He never ruled at all.

It never ceases to amaze me that obscure passages that talk about facts that are dissimilar to the facts about Jesus' life, are trotted out as prophecy fulfilled.

"There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdomâ€�
Matthew 16:28
"I say to you that this generation will not pass away until all these things happen."
Matthew 24:34

Yet when the gospels give a clear account about this failed apocalyptic prophet saying he will return within 40 years, yet 2000 have passed since he supposedly said that, THAT gets twisted beyond all recognition to mean something completely different to try and support the myth.

This is why critics laugh at apologists who, no matter what the plain meaning of their scriptures, insist on coming up with a completely opposite meaning consistent with their cherished beliefs.

So here we are getting into scripture interpretation... Hermeneutics... Where

"Only one who possesses a rational method of interpretation (i.e., a hermeneutic) could determine the truth or falsity of the message."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

Sorry man, you guys are failing at this one... Atheism attempts to make nonsense out of scripture, not to make sense out of it... Just like this "ruler or Israel" remark, as if Jesus doesnt fit....

Jesus fits the Messiah perfectly, and i think any rational method of interpreting the scripture would show that.

rikuoamero · Post by **rikuoamero** » Sun May 13, 2018 3:22 am

[Replying to post 188 by Tart]

It's not just verse 2 in chapter 5 of Micah that's problematic, what with that bit about the ruler in Israel. I knew you would answer in the affirmative, so how about the following verses that come after verse 2?

And he will be our peace
when the Assyrians invade our land
and march through our fortresses.
We will raise against them seven shepherds,
even eight commanders,
6 who will rule[c] the land of Assyria with the sword,
the land of Nimrod with drawn sword.[d]
He will deliver us from the Assyrians
when they invade our land
and march across our borders.

Last I checked, Jesus was not a military commander. He didn't fight against Assyria, or conquer it. In fact, wouldn't the mention of Assyria disqualify Jesus automatically? Since the main enemy of Israel at the time of Jesus was Rome, and not Assyria?