Nixak*77* Jim a month ago
IMO the issue w you view, besides being basically conjecture, is it seems you think Josephus could have never heard of Yeshua, His brother Ya'akov [aka James] nor even Yokhanon ['John' the Baptist] until after Josephus went to & made Rome his home. The fact is Josephus [aka Yosef ben Matityahu] was born in Judea & in fact was of the Levite Priestly tribe [as was apparently Yokhanon the Baptist] & lived in Judea till his early 30s, up until the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Thus IMO what Josephus wrote about Yeshua [& Ya'akov & Yokhanon the Baptist, too] was likely based on Judean sources, even more so than Roman 'Xtian' ones, w Roman 'secular' sources as a supplemental [IE: docs & info re: Pontius Pilate's tenure as Roman Imperial Gov of Judea]. In fact IMO w Josephus having ties to Judean priestly class, he may have even heard 'insider info' about how the Hi-Priest & Sanhedrin turned Yeshua over to Pontius Pilate for execution from {ex}priests &/or {ex}members of the Sanhedrin themselves!
Nixak*77* Guest a month ago
IMO 'Jesus Mythicists' [including their grand guru Rich Carrier] are mostly LAME. I mean there's Tyler below trying to compare Yeshua to 'Wonder Woman' of all {non}people. I mean that's so damn LAME I see no reason to even comment on it to debunk it.
- Then there's Chris: First Chris tries to set-up a bunch of straw-men that I didn't even cite re Yeshua's historicity ala: Phlegon and Thallus... In fact the excerpts I posted re the historical Yeshua were taken directly [basically word for word] from Wikipedia on the issue [meaning what I posted ain't just my 'opinion'], & it is they who note what Josephus & Tacitus have to say re Yeshua, & that most true historians take those 2 sources to be about as good as it gets re confirmation of ancient historical persons.
- Then Chris makes 2 specific assertions that I knew to be erroneous- IE: that 'Chrestus' was a common / typical ancient 'Jewish' [= Judean / Hebraic] name [NOT!], & that G.Mark's Yeshua [aka 'Jesus'] was based on 'Jesus Ben Ananias' from Josephus' 'Antiquities of the Jews'- Which is obviously false as most real Bible scholars say G.Mark was written circa 60 - 70 ACE, while Josephus' 'Antiquities' was written 2 - 3 DECADES later circa 93-94 ACE!! So Chris then tries to salvage his blunder by saying 'Jesus Ben Ananias' was also spoken of in Josephus' 'Jewish War' written circa 78 ACE, but somehow Chris failed to see that's still at-least 1 - 1.5 DECADES too shy / too late to salvage his bogus HYPE-O-Thesis!!
- IMO Chris is likely too 'obtuse' to get the point, which is for those who actually know something about the subject(s), just these 2 easily refutable erroneous assertions on his part show he likely don't really know WTF he's talking about re the subject!!
But IMO Chris' 'inspiration' re 'Jesus b.Ananias' allegedly [but FALSELY] being the template for G.Mark's Yeshua, is 'top' 'Jesus Mythicist' 'guru' Rich Carrier, who tries to assert the same lame {non}'reasoning' that Apollonius is the template for the Gospels' Yeshua- Even tho the 'tales' Apollonius' was written a full 125 - 150 YRS AFTER all 4 Gospel accounts were written, & the evidence actually shows that the alleged 'miracles' claimed to be linked to Apollonius were actually 'inspired' by the Gospels so 'tales of Apollonius' could be hyped as an attempted counter-narrative to Yeshua's story- NOT vice-versa!! Which means either Carrier's done some really piss-poor {non}'scholarship', or he's deliberately being disingenuous & misleading on the issue!!
Chris also tries to assert G.Luke's author was in contact w Josephus, yet fails to cite any [real] sources or make any truly reasonable argument(s) to support such a dubious assertion!
So next Chris tries to diss Yeshua as just some 'nobody' who wandered around Judea stirring up trouble, & ended-up getting himself killed. So I then pointed out there are jokers who try to diss M.Gandhi & ML.King Jr in much the same way!!
- So then what does Chris stoop to doing? He resorts to the typical spewing of wanna-be 'clever' ad-hominems & [not-so] 'wise'-cracks!
Nixak*77* Guest a month ago
} The historicity of Jesus is the question if Jesus of Nazareth can be regarded as a historical figure. Nearly all New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical-critical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain, although they differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the gospels.
- While scholars have criticized Jesus scholarship for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness, with very few exceptions such critics generally do support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed.
- In Books 18 and 20 of Antiquities of the Jews, written around AD 93 to 94, Josephus twice refers to the biblical Jesus. The general scholarly view holds that the longer passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, most likely consists of an authentic nucleus that was subjected to later Christian 'interpolation'... On the other hand, Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman states that "few have doubted the genuineness" of the reference found in Antiquities 20, 9, 1 to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James".
- Tacitus, in his Annals (written c. AD 115), book 15, chapter 44, describes Nero's scapegoating of the Christians following the Fire of Rome. He writes that founder of the sect was named Christus (the Christian title for Jesus); that he was executed under Pontius Pilate; and that the movement, initially checked, broke out again in Judea and even in Rome itself. {
I did NOT know of Suetonius, but he seems to be a key early supplemental back-up who supports what Tacitus [& even Josephus] document & record about Yeshua.
Nixak*77* Matthew Taylor 2 months ago
Uhm Matt, humans originated in the tropic regions of Africa, & from there initially migrated to the tropical / near-tropical regions of Asia [IE: the so-called mid-east, the Mesopotamia & the Indian sub-continent & then SE-Asia, Paupa New Guinea, Australia & NZ, & then on to the Pacific Islands]. The problem w pale-skin in such tropical-regions, is it's readily subject to UV radiation damage which can even result in skin-cancer [FYI white Aussies & NZers have the world's highest rate of melanoma, closely followed by Israelis].
- As such pale-skin only became viable & advantageous, when AMH ancestors of Europeans finally migrated into the Nordic regions of Europe, which on average has far less bright sun-light than tropical Africa & Asia.
Note: 'Ironically' European & Caucasian males tend to be much 'hairier' than men of African [& most other men of non-Euro] ancestry.
PS: Apparently the trait for pale-skin, blond-hair & blue-eyes was / is a quite recent phenomenon in human 'evolutionary' development. AMH humans' origins in Africa date back to circa 200K - 300K ybp [some even say perhaps 350K ybp], yet the trait for pale-skin, blond-hair & blue-eyes apparently only dates back to about 6000 yrs ago.
I spoke repeatedly about governance based on non-sectarian neutrality & said jack about setting-up any 'theocracy, yet you've spun that to accuse me of not wanting a Govt based non-sectarian neutrality but rather wanting to set-up a theocratic state- Humm...
- You must be a 'mind-reader' to try to assert that I really don't mean what I've actually said & that I really mean what I've never said- WOW!!
Nixak*77* dandbj13 2 months ago
Name a state-atheistic state that you think was / is successful? Communist China, N.Korea, Stalin's USSR, Pol-Pot's / Khmer-Rouge's Cambodia??! Or even a country run by atheists tho not necessarily officially an atheistic state- IE: Napoleon's France or Mussolini's fascist Italy??
Nixak*77* dandbj13 2 months ago
FYI: Slave-colony perpetrator Napoleon was an atheist [as was David Humes], freedom-fighter Toussaint L'Ouverture who opposed Napoleon's slave-colonial forces, was NOT.
Slave concentration-camp perpetrator Mussolini was an atheist, freedom fighters Omar Mukhtar & Haile Selassie who opposed Mussolini's imperial fascist forces, were NOT.
PS: 'We' [as(s) in secular {in}'humanists'] did NOT do much of jack! Your secular {in}'humanist' ilk was mainly MIA / AWOL on the issue when it really mattered- Duhh!! So chattel-slavery ended NO-thanks to your secular {in}'humanist' ilk!! Yet you & you ilk keep trying to usurp undue credit re the issue by misusing the 'Royal We'- Humm...
Nixak*77* dandbj13 2 months ago
And I can just keep pointing out the fact that even as(s) your secular {in}'humanistic' ilk have tried to usurp undue credit for the abolition of slavery, you-all were basically MIA / AWOL on the issue in the 1700s & 1800s when it actually mattered [yet top atheists were perpetrators of slavery IE: Napoleon, David Humes, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol-Pot, etc...]; even as those at the fore-front in the fight against slavery were 'Folks of Faith'! And apparently that same trend continues into the 20th & 21st centuries re the Nobel Peace Prize, too!!
Nixak*77* Matthew Taylor 2 months ago
Pr You: 'Dr. {WL.}Craig says that the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem implies the universe had a beginning, that is false. That is not what it says...'
Uhm NOT according to the theorem's co-author cosmologist Dr Alex Vilenkin: From TuftsNow @ Tufts Univ: In the Beginning Was the Beginning: Cosmologist Alex Vilenkin does the math to show that the universe did indeed had a starting point - “For many physicists, the beginning of the universe is uncomfortable, because it suggests that something must have caused the beginning, that there should be some cause outside the universe,” says Alex Vilenkin
Excerpts from a 2012 Interview w Dr Vilenkin: } There’s a scientific consensus that our universe exploded into existence almost 14 billion years ago in an event known as the Big Bang. But that theory raises more questions about the universe’s origins than it answers, including the most basic one: what happened before the Big Bang? Some cosmologists have argued [even still] that the universe could have no beginning, but simply always was.
- In 2003, Tufts cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin and his colleagues, Arvind Borde, [Prof of Math], and Alan Guth, prof of physics at MIT, proved a mathematical theorem showing that, under very general assumptions, the universe must have had a beginning.
- Dr Vilenkin: For the eternal inflation model, what we can show mathematically is that there is no end to this process. So some people thought maybe you could avoid a beginning, too. But our 2003 theorem shows that [avoiding a beginning] is impossible for this scenario. Although inflation may be eternal into the future, it cannot be extended indefinitely to the past. .
- A cyclic universe runs into the second law of thermodynamics, which says that any system left to itself eventually reaches the state of maximum disorder, called thermal equilibrium. So if the universe were cyclic, then in every cycle, the disorder in the universe would increase. Eventually the universe would reach this thermal equilibrium state, which is a totally featureless mixture of everything—this is not what we see around us. - One hypothesis about a cyclic universe [tries] avoids this problem of thermodynamics. There are models of a cyclic universe in which the volume grows in every cycle. This way, the universe expands and contracts, but contracts to a larger volume than in the previous cycle. So even though disorder increases, disorder per unit volume doesn’t change. - That’s possible, but our 2003 theorem poses a problem because if the volume of the universe grows, then there [still] must have been a beginning. So the cyclic universe scenario doesn’t avoid a beginning either.
- And the cosmic egg? - There are classical physics models for this static universe to sit there forever and then suddenly start expanding. But what we showed is that, quantum mechanically, this universe is not stable. - What we showed [in the new paper] is that this closed, static universe also has a probability of collapsing quantum mechanically. Its probability of collapse is nonzero, and therefore it could not have existed forever, either. So this emergent egg scenario, if you include quantum mechanics—and we should—is not viable either... {
So per BGV theorem's co-author Dr Vilenkin, WL.Craig is NOT misrepresenting the theorem's implications. The BGV theorem does indeed imply the Universe must have had a beginning. Plus logically & mathematically there's a real problem w the idea that the Universe 'began' / can be extended into the infinite past. The problem mathematically is the same w trying to reach infinity in the future from now [or any specific point time {in the past or future} that can be 'measured' from now], you can never actually reach future infinity from now, only approach it indefinitely. So now reverse that scenario w the hypothetical 'starting point' being time = negative infinity, you could never reach any specific point in time [ala NOW] 'starting from' t = negative infinity [= the problem of infinite regress]. That fact alone implies the Universe had to have a definitive starting point in the past, that's actually 'measurable' / definable from our current time. For that past point in time the current best guesstimate is approx 14 bybp, & past that initial bang-Bang 'singularity' there was nothing physical [= measurable]- NOT space, matter or energy, nor even time [as we know them].
- I know you strict-materialists don't like & thus try to deny the real implications of the Big-Bang 'singularity' [IE: that the Universe popped into existence from nowhere & nothing {physical} some 14 bn yrs ago], because it's got you-all in a real 'pickle'. But...
Name a state-atheistic state that you think was / is successful? Communist China, N.Korea, Stalin's USSR, Pol-Pot's / Khmer-Rouge's Cambodia??! Or even a country run by atheists tho not necessarily officially an atheistic state- IE: Napoleon's France or Mussolini's fascist Italy??
Nixak*77* dandbj13 2 months ago
FYI: Slave-colony perpetrator Napoleon was an atheist [as was David Humes], freedom-fighter Toussaint L'Ouverture who opposed Napoleon's slave-colonial forces, was NOT.
Slave concentration-camp perpetrator Mussolini was an atheist, freedom fighters Omar Mukhtar & Haile Selassie who opposed Mussolini's imperial fascist forces, were NOT.
PS: 'We' [as(s) in secular {in}'humanists'] did NOT do much of jack! Your secular {in}'humanist' ilk was mainly MIA / AWOL on the issue when it really mattered- Duhh!! So chattel-slavery ended NO-thanks to your secular {in}'humanist' ilk!! Yet you & you ilk keep trying to usurp undue credit re the issue by misusing the 'Royal We'- Humm...
Nixak*77* dandbj13 2 months ago
And I can just keep pointing out the fact that even as(s) your secular {in}'humanistic' ilk have tried to usurp undue credit for the abolition of slavery, you-all were basically MIA / AWOL on the issue in the 1700s & 1800s when it actually mattered [yet top atheists were perpetrators of slavery IE: Napoleon, David Humes, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol-Pot, etc...]; even as those at the fore-front in the fight against slavery were 'Folks of Faith'! And apparently that same trend continues into the 20th & 21st centuries re the Nobel Peace Prize, too!!
Nixak*77* Matthew Taylor 2 months ago
Pr You: 'Dr. {WL.}Craig says that the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem implies the universe had a beginning, that is false. That is not what it says...'
Uhm NOT according to the theorem's co-author cosmologist Dr Alex Vilenkin: From TuftsNow @ Tufts Univ: In the Beginning Was the Beginning: Cosmologist Alex Vilenkin does the math to show that the universe did indeed had a starting point - “For many physicists, the beginning of the universe is uncomfortable, because it suggests that something must have caused the beginning, that there should be some cause outside the universe,” says Alex Vilenkin
Excerpts from a 2012 Interview w Dr Vilenkin: } There’s a scientific consensus that our universe exploded into existence almost 14 billion years ago in an event known as the Big Bang. But that theory raises more questions about the universe’s origins than it answers, including the most basic one: what happened before the Big Bang? Some cosmologists have argued [even still] that the universe could have no beginning, but simply always was.
- In 2003, Tufts cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin and his colleagues, Arvind Borde, [Prof of Math], and Alan Guth, prof of physics at MIT, proved a mathematical theorem showing that, under very general assumptions, the universe must have had a beginning.
- Dr Vilenkin: For the eternal inflation model, what we can show mathematically is that there is no end to this process. So some people thought maybe you could avoid a beginning, too. But our 2003 theorem shows that [avoiding a beginning] is impossible for this scenario. Although inflation may be eternal into the future, it cannot be extended indefinitely to the past. .
- A cyclic universe runs into the second law of thermodynamics, which says that any system left to itself eventually reaches the state of maximum disorder, called thermal equilibrium. So if the universe were cyclic, then in every cycle, the disorder in the universe would increase. Eventually the universe would reach this thermal equilibrium state, which is a totally featureless mixture of everything—this is not what we see around us. - One hypothesis about a cyclic universe [tries] avoids this problem of thermodynamics. There are models of a cyclic universe in which the volume grows in every cycle. This way, the universe expands and contracts, but contracts to a larger volume than in the previous cycle. So even though disorder increases, disorder per unit volume doesn’t change. - That’s possible, but our 2003 theorem poses a problem because if the volume of the universe grows, then there [still] must have been a beginning. So the cyclic universe scenario doesn’t avoid a beginning either.
- And the cosmic egg? - There are classical physics models for this static universe to sit there forever and then suddenly start expanding. But what we showed is that, quantum mechanically, this universe is not stable. - What we showed [in the new paper] is that this closed, static universe also has a probability of collapsing quantum mechanically. Its probability of collapse is nonzero, and therefore it could not have existed forever, either. So this emergent egg scenario, if you include quantum mechanics—and we should—is not viable either... {
So per BGV theorem's co-author Dr Vilenkin, WL.Craig is NOT misrepresenting the theorem's implications. The BGV theorem does indeed imply the Universe must have had a beginning. Plus logically & mathematically there's a real problem w the idea that the Universe 'began' / can be extended into the infinite past. The problem mathematically is the same w trying to reach infinity in the future from now [or any specific point time {in the past or future} that can be 'measured' from now], you can never actually reach future infinity from now, only approach it indefinitely. So now reverse that scenario w the hypothetical 'starting point' being time = negative infinity, you could never reach any specific point in time [ala NOW] 'starting from' t = negative infinity [= the problem of infinite regress]. That fact alone implies the Universe had to have a definitive starting point in the past, that's actually 'measurable' / definable from our current time. For that past point in time the current best guesstimate is approx 14 bybp, & past that initial bang-Bang 'singularity' there was nothing physical [= measurable]- NOT space, matter or energy, nor even time [as we know them].
- I know you strict-materialists don't like & thus try to deny the real implications of the Big-Bang 'singularity' [IE: that the Universe popped into existence from nowhere & nothing {physical} some 14 bn yrs ago], because it's got you-all in a real 'pickle'. But...
No comments:
Post a Comment