So that's it for the election.

[Hasbinlulz]

This video might be interesting to people in this conversation:
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[Hasbinlulz]

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you should probably go look it up

you should probably go look it up

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Alawen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Actually, you're the on setting goal posts that no one else has agreed to. You might not have noticed, but this thread is chaotic as hell. Everyone seems to have an axe to grind for or against Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Christians, and atheists.

Let me refresh your memory on my statements. I expressed doubt on the historicity of Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. You raised the writings of Josephus and Tacitus, which I refuted with considerable thought. Your response was a sloppy copy from the summary paragraph of a Wikipedia entry, which contained contradictory and qualified citations. You attempted to steamroll some sort of massive academic consensus which does not exist using hearsay and vague references as your evidence.

I see two major flaws in your current post. Until very recently, it was simply not socially acceptable to refute religious affiliation. It was definitely rational for thoughtful men to maintain silence and go to church. It is only within the most very recent decades in particular parts of the world where public atheism was not a tremendous disadvantage in many pursuits, including employment opportunities, social networking, marriage partners, and housing availability. As a result, casual statements from past public figures regarding religious beliefs greatly resemble coerced testimony. It was simple not an option to openly state disbelief or even doubt without significant personal cost.

In the modern age, atheism has seized to be as great a disadvantage, but it is still significant. Here is a recent Gallup poll showing atheist candidates as less acceptable to voters than Latinos, Muslims or Gays: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155285/at...andidates.aspx.

The second flaw in your argument is equally significant and leaves you with fallacious appeal to authority. Humans, however brilliant in their fields, are fully capable of completely irrational behavior both within those areas and certainly in other areas of life. In fact, it is not at all uncommon for the greatest minds to have psychological problems and make horrible, self-destructive decisions. If you'd like some evidence for that, here is an excellent article by the late and brilliant Grady Towers: http://www.cpsimoes.net/artigos/outsiders.html.

I find no clear thinking in your arguments. I find them filled with supposition and interpretation and glaring formal and informal fallacies. I don't claim to know the details of your supernatural beliefs, but your agitated tone throughout this thread make it highly likely that you have an emotional attachment to theism. You appear to be wanting to surround yourself with great thinkers in agreement with you in an attempt to justify your own beliefs. While that may be comforting, it is in no way rational. Herd behavior is instinctive, not cognitive. Within your own expressed argument, you have failed to provide an explanation of how belief in one or more deities can be the outcome of a logical process. It involves a huge logical jump over the unknown to a belief in the giant daddy in the sky. This is argumentum ad ignorantium, perfectly analogous to Russell's teapot, and the diametric opposite of reasoned thinking.

My goal posts are the origins of the discussion. Alarti claimed belief in god to be irrational. Those are the goal posts. If you want to qualify that claim to better confront your bias against Judeo-Christian conceptions, then you are welcome to -- but don't try to adapt the discussion without at least acknowledging the shift. I am not discussing a Judeo-Christian god.

You doubt the historicity of Jesus. Your opinion is not well reasoned nor is it the product of considerable thought. On the contrary, it is clearly biased and borderline ignorant. There was nothing sloppy about my copy-pasta, and CERTAINLY nothing that could be described as "contradictory". I claimed that the vast majority of scholars agree re: the historicity of Jesus. One of the sources was Price. Because of that, you claim that the statement is unreliable. On the contrary, the source quotes Price as noting that he is an extreme outlier in the discussion due to his skepticism regarding Jesus' existence. As such, he is a source re: the general consensus of Jesus' historicity. I will re-post the expressed opinions from scholars that you describe as "qualified".

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (who is a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. page 285

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Micjhael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (Apr 1, 2004) ISBN 0802809774 page 34

Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 16 states: "biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of non-existence of Jesus as effectively refuted"

James D. G. Dunn "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus" in Sacrifice and Redemption edited by S. W. Sykes (Dec 3, 2007) Cambridge University Press ISBN 052104460X pages 35-36 states that the theories of non-existence of Jesus are "a thoroughly dead thesis"

Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 0-06-061662-8. "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."

Eddy & Boyd (2007) The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition Baker Academic, ISBN 0-8010-3114-1 page 127 states that it is now "firmly established" that there is non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus.

These are not vague references. They are not hearsay. They are the accumulated statements of nearly a variety of scholars on the subject. Your opinion, apparently based upon your own research, contradicts the vast majority of historians and scholars that have investigated the matter. Your credentials are non-existent, and thus, your opposition is largely irrelevant. I don't know why you refuse to accept the scholarly consensus regarding the historicity of Jesus, and I don't particularly care. His existence has been established well beyond the typical degrees of historical skepticism.

It would be possible to continue forward and address the rest of your post, but it seems useless. Isaac Newton, in private writings, committed heresy and yet expressed an enduring and powerful theism. Galileo was identified by the Church as a heretic for his scientific beliefs, and yet maintained his belief in a god. Your hostility to the notion of a god is unshakable. On matters of Jesus' existence, you argue against the very authority and evidence that you demand even to accept the rationality of a belief in god. I cannot produce Jesus's skeleton and I cannot produce any god's mailing address. Thus, you may continue to believe both notions are preposterous.

As an aside, your repeatedly incorrect usage of fallacies is amusing. I question your education. You seem to cite them as an attempt at establishing authority yourself, but you fail to mobilize them correctly. There is no argumentum ad ignorantiam, because again, there is no attempt to prove the validity of god. In fact, if argumentum ad ignorantiam has been committed, it was by you. The core of the fallacy is a false dichotomy: something must be either true or not true. If not true, then true. I don't claim that a god's existence is truth -- far from it. It is merely a rational possibility.

[Lucky]

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Italian partisans display the mutilated bodies of Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci. Yes, Mussolini is hardly recognizable because people kicked and trampled his face until it was very disfigured.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So from that basis, do you find that: there IS a god for sure, there is NOT a god for sure, or that the lack of evidence prevents you from taking a position? (theist, atheist, and agnostic)

This is a false choice. Agnostics can be, and very frequently are, theists.

[Ravager]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

"A subject being worth considering" and "a subject being wrong because of lack of evidence" are two different things.

I think I can safely put a subject with no evidence in the category of wrong. Especially when time and again evidence shows up that supports other theories while the wrong theory has to twist the facts to suit itself.

[Hasbinlulz]

Originally Posted by Ravager [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think I can safely put a subject with no evidence in the category of wrong.

That's how come I know you're not a scientist. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Hasbinlulz]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is a false choice. Agnostics can be, and very frequently are, theists.

By definition, that is incorrect.

The state of not knowing is belied by a state of belief.

[Hasbinlulz]

Words actually have meanings, guise.

[Ravager]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's how come I know you're not a scientist. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Because a rational scientist wouldn't consider an unprovable hypothesis with no evidence backing it that by it's very nature requires nothing short of magic to be possible as wrong.