Jagella wrote:All evolutionary biologists hold to the "reality" of biological evolution, but I'd never be so stupid as to argue their majority as a reason to think that evolution takes place!
What makes you think that would be a stupid argument? What If I were to ask you why dismiss the movie Avatar as fiction while accepting evolution? How would you answer that given you cant prove evolution?
I look at the evidence for evolution like fossils, DNA, and the geographical distribution of species.
Sure you can
look at the evidence. Great. But at some point you will need the informed opinion of an expert in order to come to some conclusion. For example, go ahead and tell me how you date fossils without appealing to experts?
The same goes for anybody who claims Jesus is historical--I want to see convincing evidence. If that evidence is absent--and it is--then I remain a doubter.
But your personal doubt here or what you personally demand evidentially in order to be convinced is entirely irrelevant.
Actually, some people do study the Cult of John Frum. But studying the sect built around the figure of John Frum doesn't make him real, and studying Christianity doesn't make Jesus real.
You are stating the obvious while missing the point. I didnt argue there werent scholars who studied the cult of John Frum. I argued there are no scholars who study the cult that hold to a real historical John Frum. Whereas almost all scholars, some of which are critics, do hold to a real historical Jesus. And we can infer from these two facts that the evidence to support the existence of Jesus and John Frum are not the same as youve tried to argue. We can infer from this that the evidence for Jesus must be stronger than for John Frum since it has convinced critics of Christianity that there was a historical Jesus.
I must take back what I said. It depends on what you mean by "John Frum." The John Frum that the natives of Tanna saw in visions was obviously illusory, but there could have been a real American soldier who later became identified as John Frum.
In either case there was no real John Frum.
The same goes for Jesus. There may have been one or more "Jesuses" who engaged in a tradition of rebellion against the Romans getting themselves crucified.
There may have been... isnt much of an argument. Actually it isnt an argument at all. You need evidence to support this idea regarding Jesus so where is it? Pointing to John Frum doesnt establish this argument.
The primitive and superstitious people of first-century Israel--just like the primitive and superstitious people of mid-twentieth-century Tanna--built up a religious cult around these Jewish rebels just like the people of Tanna built up their religion around the American soldiers that visited their island.
Asserted but not shown.
The similarities between the two religions are striking indeed!
Oh I have no doubt the John Frum cult borrowed from Christianity. Theyve virtually admitted as much and it makes sense since its a cult which emerged as a reaction
against Christian influence.
Yes, we've heard all about the "vast scholarship," (ad infinitum, ad nauseum) and I'm still waiting for a shred of evidence for a historical Jesus.
If the evidence that exists is enough to convince critics like Erhman that Jesus was real I think I can safely rule out statements like these as a denial of evidence.
I have often disagreed with both my doctors and my mechanics. I was right every time, in fact. The reason I was right was because I used reason and evidence to conclude that they were wrong.
So youve proven your Doctor and mechanic wrong often. I suggest its time to find new ones. In any event, your anecdotal stories of your incompetent Doctor and mechanic in no way overturn the fact that an appeal to authority is valid form of argumentation. Hence no logical error on my part.
So that's why your argument from authority is fallacious.
Its not fallacious to appeal to a qualified authority. If you think so, you dont understand valid argumentation. Now if I were to appeal to your car mechanic as an authority on the historicity of Jesus, well, that
would be fallacious.
I don't doubt that Bible scholars are experts in Biblical studies. They can tell you a lot about the Bible. But they're not historians--or at least they're not good historians.
The bold is nothing more than an unsupported assertion. I suppose you think Richard Carrier is a good historian though, right?
I don't agree with your logic. Just because somebody doesn't have a good argument and evidence against a position doesn't make that position right.
You dont even seem to understand the logic. I never said anything like, because somebody doesn't have a good argument and evidence against a position that position is right.
But there are good arguments and evidence against the historicity of Jesus. Richard Carrier has plenty of them.
Has he? What is the evidence that Jesus did not exist?
I know that the gospel tale reads like fiction with all its outlandish claims, but I'm not sure that Bible scholars don't know that too. I don't see how they could miss it!
I thought you said youve read Ehrman.
Tacitus wasn't a contemporary of Jesus, and we don't know his sources for Jesus. Since we don't know where he got his information, then his testimony is of little value as evidence for Jesus. He may have been just repeating what Christians were saying.
He doesnt need to be contemporary. He was a hostile source who didnt trust Christians and had access to official Roman records. Why would he take the word of Christians, a cult he despised and called superstitious? His testimony to the existence of Jesus is about as strong as it gets for history.
We have the testimony of the natives of Tanna who we know were in fact contemporaries of John Frum if he existed.
Sure but do you have an enemy of the cult attesting to the existence of John Frum within say even 100 years? No, you dont. So the evidence for Jesus and John Frum is demonstrably not the same.
Ehrman uses the word of the followers of Jesus to "prove" Jesus' historicity. It's the exact same evidence we have for John Frum only the testimony for Frum is far better than that for Jesus!
Ehrman uses Tacitus as well.
But I already explained that I don't go by a laundry list of scholars to assess historicity.
I didnt ask for a laundry list. I just asked for one measly scholar who holds to a historical John Frum. Whats the matter, cant find one?
But here's an online article by Paul Raffaele who writes for Smithsonian Magazine, In John They Trust.
The author doesnt hold to a historical John Frum. In fact the article says this.
- Its possible that local leaders conceived of John Frum as a powerful white-skinned ally in the fight against the colonials, who were attempting to crush much of the islanders culture and prod them into Christianity. In fact, that view of the origins of the cult gained credence in 1949, when the island administrator, Alexander Rentoul, noting that frum is the Tannese pronunciation of broom, wrote that the object of the John Frum movement was to sweep (or broom) the white people off the island of Tanna.
Scholars are a dime-a-dozen.
So says the guy who appeals to Richard Carrier.
LOL--it depends on what the doctorate has been awarded in. But again, I'm not looking for PhDs--I'm looking for evidence, and you don't have any.
But you seem to think Richard Carrier is truly qualified and a good historian, no?
So if somebody lied about John Frum, then somebody could have lied about Jesus.
But you are back to simply making obvious statements like it could have been all made up. Thats not an argument.
The gospel writers, in particular, could have easily been lying.
Prove they were lying. Dont just tell me they could have been.
Anyway, it seems like religion often blinds people to the facts.
What is Bart Ehrman blinded by then? Because he certainly isnt religious and hes no friend to Christianity.
