@Vex-Man said in Vex Debate: was Jesus historical?:
But the Bible says even Christians do not know how to pray.---- In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. (Romans 8:26)
Correct, the bible says that the spirit will help you pray.
You wrote a verse written by Paul. That is nice but Paul himself originally never wrote Jesus’ story in his gospel. The original gospels have been changed according to time for editing and improving the omissions by the transcribers. It was added in the medieval time. Btw Paul himself never met with Jesus -
Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. (Acts 9:8), The Jewish name of Saulus was Paul.
But Paul met and spoke with those who did.
But the Bible states nobody has ascended into the heaven - No man hath ascended up to heaven.” Not even Enoch or Elijah? (John 3:13).
And the bible states that the heavenly kingdom is among them in Jesus Christ.
But the Bible states we should not follow our hearts-
Seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring (Num 15:39)
And Lamentations 3:18 and 3:44 state he doesn’t listen to your prayers until you don't cover out yourself from clouds
Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. (Lamentations 3:18 NIV)
You have covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through (Lamentations 3:44 NIV)
I followed my heart and found Batman in it. Yes I meditated on Batman’s comic book to make sense out of it. Thank you. Second point- a preposition must be true, if there is no contradiction in it. It is one law of logic.
You do not believe in batman to be real. You did not find batman in your heart the same way we did find Christ...
Burden* Probabilities*
Ad-hominem argument. First respect you opponent and then you may debate.
I am very sorry. You are absolutely right. I should not have said it in this way...
to say people who cannot be proven to have existed with absolute certainty did not exist.
I said theistic God (with certain properties) does not exist with absolute certainty (in that debate, not this one). God of philosophy is different from God of religion. However, you have always inserted your christian God into a philosophical God.
Lets not return to the other discussion please. In this discussion the christians have spoken of the God of religion, and we spoke of Him in the language of religion, for this is how you can find Him.
The main proof can be fossil evidence of him. 95 percent of humans existed- we can date their dead bodies with several scientific methods. We have dated 4 billion years ago paintings and our ancestors’ fossils too. We could date his fossil which existed 2000 years ago. Of course scientists have not found any fossil evidence of him- https://medium.com/predict/the-fossil-argument-for-the-existence-of-a-historical-jesus-11d7cdd4a5e7
This article argues that the people saying "Jesus does not exist" are making a positive claim and thus have the burden of proof. So yeah, good article.
So I'll say again what I said before: you cannot expect to find a lot of documents on Jesus, because he was not at all a big political figure.
You never said to me so. Maybe you said to someone else. You are debating with me rn, not with ‘someone else’.
Woops sorry, that was in the topic's draft only. My mistake. I deleted that...
Point holds however: it cannot be expected to find much: Jesus was a relatively unknown figure in the roman empire... even many of the prominant figures in the israel of that time are not mentioned in non-religious texts, and they also existed. Many high priests of israel are not mentioned at all, there names are all lost. And yet they were the most prominent political figures at their times...
And the documents that existed are lost in 2000 years of history. You simply cannot expect to find much other than religious texts.
There will be no reason to debate on this topic if we do not find anything else than his religious texts.
Yes, a religious text is enough for a debate about wether the person existed, but there is a lot more.
This is history. History is not science. Sadly :joy:
A straw-man argument. You cannot refute your own claim. I never said history is/was science or vice-versa. An evidence is something which can be provided for supporting one’s assertion in any type of debate.
Yes, but you will not find proof of many many historical events. Evidence yes. Proof no. And for many many historical events you will find an utter lack of evidence other than religious texts...
So consequently, even if you were right, that Jesus was added to Josephus Flavius writings and Tacitus writings, your claim that He did not exist is at best circumstancial.
Circumstantial*
Wehuuweehuu grammar police :yum:
you bear the burdon of proof.
I repeat myself- you started the debate with your assertion, I didn’t. I hold the negative position- Jesus did not historically existed. You cannot shift this burden towards me and it is argument from ignorance. You think your thesis is true because it is not proved to be false (supposedly). Until he is not proved true, it is reasonable to say that he did not exist.
No, there is enough evidence of him in the religious texts. It is reasonable to think he exists, since quite a few other clearly historical figures wrote religious texts about him. It is not true, that a religious text cannot count as evidence.
However I concede that it is reasonable to say he did not exist after providing good arguments as to why the religious texts are not enough evidence.
I would even say that the history that follows after Jesus death allows me to say, There is so much literature on him, so many people who follow his teachings, not only in the roman empire,
There are more than 12 Gods who were born on the same day of Jesus. And those birth of all 12 Gods were celebrated by the Romans. Romans followed their teachings too.
Yeah, they follow somebody's teachings about those Gods, which tend to be hundreds of years old. They did not follow a person's teaching, who lived only a few decades ago.
but also in the holy land, which is basically christian after the Jews are driven out by the romans in 70 AD. There is so much reason to assume that Jesus was indeed historical, simply by the impact he had in isreal alone,
Israel*
Israel is just as an ambivalent term as holy land. People know what holy land means. You know what it means. I will continue to use this term.
Go back to more past (in 4th to 5th centuries). There were some non-orthodox religions which could not reside with Christianity. The scriptures of those religions (awesome books especially in 4th to 5th century) were not copied or destroyed by the Christians. In the fourth century, under the rule of Constantine, his opponents were compelled by threat of death and prison or by dispossession to fall in line.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190723132715/https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/13812
So? Seems off-topic to me.
that you need to find more than just the lack of mentioning him in official roman writers, to say he did not exist.
Did they even mention originally ? Cite a credible website for your claim ‘original lack of mentioning’.
"Lack of mention" means that he wasn't mentioned. It is your argument that there is a lack of mention, not mine. I allowed this claim, despite not agreeing. And I said even if it was true, this is not enough.
Unless you don't learn how to respect someone, I cannot debate. Therefore, I leave both debates.
I am very sorry for my use of the word insane. I need to learn to not use such harsh language. It is not just insulting, but an exaggeration too. Exaggeration is a rhetorical trick, and as you know I despise those. Sadly its an old habit of mine to speak like this (also about myself) so please forgive.
