what is your opinion on christians.

Don't put your own words inside someone elses quotes.

That's called misrepresentation, and is why your not being taken seriously.

 

He has the same name, has written the same books, and has the same qualifications, from the same universities.

Or do you need more evidence for the existence of Craig Bloomberg then you do for Jesus?

 

You know what. I'm just going to drop out of the debate, unless Philosoraptor is willing to buy the book. If he is willing to buy the book, or anyone else for that matter we can examine the book chapter by chapter. For example, Philosoraptor can start off reading chapter 1, point out any flaws he see's in it. And we can carry on the discussion from there. I simply have better things to do, and don't have time to type out whole chapters from a book or even a whole book in an internet forum. So if Philosoraptor really wants to prove me wrong, he can buy the book and we can knock it out chapter by chapter and discuss or debate it.

 

All that build up for nothing. Welp.

 

ok I fixed it.

Why don't you buy the book. Read the first chapter , bout 17 pages. And tell me why u think it is flawed?

It will cost about 1o bucks unless you buy it used on amazon. I don't think that is asking much. Unless you are having financial difficulties and want me to buy the book and send it to you in the mail or something.

 

The First chapter is here legally -

http://somehelpful.info/Waterhouse/Jesus&History.pdf

 

Thank you so much. That was such a big help. You are a life saver.

 

If you have faith..... Deadpool delivers..... the wrong book!

 

I don't know.

If someone says "this is the truth", I don't see what is wrong with asking "oh yeah, why do you think that then?", or even being honest in how silly you think that is, as long as you explain why you think that is silly.

If the reply is simply "no reason really, it just makes me feel better", I don't have any problem with that. If they instead start spouting spurious and erroneous nonsense as reasons why they believe what they do, in a public forum, then I don't see why anyone should feel the need to self-censor if they feel they have solid reasoning to disagree.

The difference between evidence-based world views and ones based in imagination is that evidence doesn't require excuses as to why it might be so.

 

That doesn't really make sense unless you are to believe, not only in everything you have ever heard about that you cannot disprove, but also a vague cloud of probability of every supernatural cosmology that you have never heard of, has yet to exist, or will never exist, on this planet or any other with lifeforms capable of inventing gods.

I don't think yours is a rational position at all. There comes a point where, no matter how technically possible, the odds are so low that it isn't worth thinking about. Otherwise I might spend my time training how to roll out of the way of falling pianos.

 

I'm reading it and I'm not very impressed to be honest. 1) It makes the claim that eyewitness testimony is the most reliable form of evidence (it's not). 2) It claims we should trust Blomberg because he's smart (seriously). These are not persuasive forms of evidence - people have many different reasons for writing down stories and employ narrative devices for those purposes. At the end of the day they are not enough to support extraordinary claims such as "Paul Bunyan had a giant blue ox" or "A man rose from the dead and is the son of the creator of all things."

 

Your going to have to be more specific in order for me to respond. Your going to have to quote the evidence in the book and tell me why it's wrong. Quote the exact words blomberg used, and tell me why it is wrong. Or the exact words strobel used and tell me why it is wrong. Eye witness testimony is VERY POWERFUL evidence, unless people to team up together and give false testimony, but the book tells you why that isn't the case. Whether or not it is the most reliable form of evidence is an opinion. If you disagree that is fine. I don't remember reading that in the book. If I was selling a car, and I considered someone reliable enough to make monthly payments on it without signing a contract, then in my opinion is he is reliable. You may disagree with that, but that is an opinion not a fact. So you can't say that people seeing something with their own eyes, is not the most reliable form of evidence because that is your opinion. Not a fact. Remember, video cameras did not exist back then. So you might argue that camera evidence is more reliable than eyewitness evidence, but that is irrelevant because cameras did not exist back then.

So making vague statement as you did doesn't help me respond.

 

But your unwilling to do the same in presentation of evidence?

Philosoraptor has had to buy it with his hard earned money, and now you want him to write down exactly what you refused to do yourself not 2 hours ago.

 

Ok I cannot stay out....

It's not an opinion its a FACT that eyewitnesses are weak evidence....and as someone who is massively experienced in this field I can attest to the problems and issues around it. But my own experience is backed up by studies and literature

You stating "it's good" doea not make it so - in fact it makes you categorically wrong

Your car payment example displays massive ignorance of the core points - reliability is not something that carries over, and you also mistake honesty and truthfulness for reliability.... they aren't the same thing at all

Seriously just take a step back and look...your performance in this thread has been poor in terms of discussion....for pages you were saying "I WILL GIVE EVIDENCE" and when the big reveal comes it was simply "buy this book"

That's beyond feeble

The excuses and lame "I am busy"posts have already been dealt with succinctly by aaradia, but I would ads one more which is that if you are not so busy enough to type all the small inconsequentia
Posts you have been, then you could equally have posted something that actually had some content....or just fessed up and said "read the book"

To be honest I don't think you actually understand what was written in it, otherwise even a little synopsis would be forthcoming

 

You'll have to accept paraphrasing. Go read it yourself, these are summaries of the book you've provided.

No it's actually not. We think eyewitness testimony is reliable but even when people are trying to remember what actually happened it's not. If you have a group who is willing to speak in allegory or for political purposes, even less so.

The frailties of memory are a well studied phenomenon - it is factual that eyewitness testimony is unreliable when not supported by other forms of evidence.

Sorry, you're telling me that people who make car payments are now reliable witnesses? Have you actually talked to people?

You can insist this as much as you like, you're wrong. It is factual that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Here is a book for you about people convicted by eyewitness testimony but exonerated by DNA evidence:

https://www.amazon.com/Actual-Innocence-Justice-Wrong-Right/dp/0451209826

 

You aren't quoting the book like I asked. If you are going to argue against a book at least quote what in the book you thought was wrong instead of sending me on some kind of treasure hunt. Making vague statements then telling me to go back and read it for myself is not being fair to me. At first you were hell bent on proving me wrong, now you seem to be trying to avoid the debate. Which is fine. It can end here. But if you want to debate at least be fair about it.

Also, If they said in the book that eye witness testimony is the most reliable form of evidence, as you say, what page was it on. And if it is not, what kind of historical evidence would you consider to be more convincing then eye witness testimony? Not saying you are wrong, but what kind of historical evidence would be more convincing than you since eye witness testimony, is so unreliable.

 

Fair enough. But based on your knowledge is eye witness testimony always unreliable no matter what, or does it depend on the circumstances?