[quote]pookie wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
There’s no logical or philosophical reason why followers of Christ, in this case the authors of the Gospels, wrote fiction because they believed the claims of what they were authoring.
They may well have believed what they were authoring, in the same way that greek authors believed in Zeus and Hercules when they wrote about their lives.
I have colleagues at work that swear by homeopathic medicine and believe vaccines to be a giant corporate scam.
Doesn’t make it true.
You’ve adopted that as your presupposition. In other words, in your mind, the Gospels are false until proven otherwise.
That’s how skepticism works.
It’s especially true of a text that makes claims about miracles happening, someone walking on water and the dead being brought back to life.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
This is the exact same thing minimalist scholars of the Old Testament do vs. the maximalists. I reject the idea that I, as a Christian, must hold to a higher burden of proof than the skeptic regarding the Gospel claims. There is no logical reason I should have a higher burden of proof.
What higher burden? You claim that a text that makes extraordinary claims is historically accurate and factual, but are unable to offer any other proofs except the religious text that makes those claims in the first place.
Not only can you not show any support for the extraordinary claims, there isn’t any secular source supporting event the existence of Jesus.
If yours is the burden of proof required, then all religious texts are true, because they simply have to claim to be so. By your standard, Batman must exist somewhere, since I have a graphic novel detailing his adventures.
I think this will go the rest of the way towards casting doubt on your beliefs about the Gospels:
I see C.S.Lewis in that list… all I need to know.
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A religious text can be judged to be true if it’s internally consistent, non-contradictory, has historical evidence behind it, and is explanatory of the basic condition of man and his relationship to God and the nature and origin of the cosmos:
The comic-book-as-religion argument is a common one by athiests, as is the argument equating a religious text with a novel. These are a definite non-sequitur, as neither comic books nor novels claim to be religious texts detailing man’s relationship with God, how to worship him, etc. At least none that I’ve read. In other words, by using this argument, you are attempting to make comic books and novels claim things they clearly do not, but if you can provide some counter-examples, perhaps we can discuss them on their own merits.
The “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” burden of proof is also quite common amongst Dawkinsesque atheists, but it is just a presupposition and nothing more. I can just as easily, (and I do), adopt the presupposition that the extraordinary claim of the non-existence of God requires extraordinary evidence. Who’s presupposition is more valid then, yours or mine?
You demand extra-biblical evidence that a man named Jesus existed ( http://www.tektonics.org/qt/remslist.html ), but if some were provided, you would still reject the Gospels on the account of the miracles contained in them. Your presuppositions in this regard are thus 1. absence-of-evidence-is-evidence-of-absence in regard to the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth -and-
2. anti-supernaturalism -and-
3. skepticism
These are beliefs you hold.
