The problem with the Church, as with the State, is its irrational top-down approach. Create a universal understanding of God, morality, and law, by creating a universal Church or universal State, and smash the will of individuals until they adhere to your vision.
I found it very fitting that stef equates knowledge of God to understanding a dream. I think Carl Jung would accept that analogy.
...For after all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in fine books and embellished in fine language with finer covers, man, - all man - is still confronted by the Great Mystery.
@zkvattram To be fair don't you see a bit of a correlation? I agree that when someone casts off the idea of a God now they only have to be free themselves of statism, but doesn't it seem like a lot of atheists are statists?
@zkvattram I agree with best, from my personal experience when discussing the immorality around using the force of Government I get mostly negative feedback from atheists. I am a theist so perhaps they merely view me as a predestined enemy, however here is how the conversation typically goes. 1) You are a stupid theist who believes your imaginary sky daddy will give you lolly pops and candy cane kisses. 2) We need the state to provide services for the poor and provide secularism.
@zkvattram cont Perhaps atheists who believe in the very faith based belief known as the state should turn in their atheist card and simply be known as statists; at least they will be in my mind.
AT THE TIME THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN OVER TWO THIRD OF THE PLANET WASN'T KNOWN BUT WE HAVE ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE THAT MAN WAS THERE FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS SO BASED ON THE BIBLE THEY WAS ALL SINNERS AND DOOMED TO HELL BECAUSE GOD SOME HOW SEEN FIT TO TELL ONLY THE WHITE MEN. THAT THOUGHT THE EARTH WAS FLAT.AT THE TIME OF NOAH WHY DID GOD NOT SEE FIT TO TELL NOAH OH YA THE EARTH IS ROUND AND DON'T FORGET THE ANIMALS IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA. WHAT GOD IS ABSENT MINDED??
@schwiiZZZ I AM STILL TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THIS ARE YOU TURNING AROUND AND CRYING OUT MOMMY HE HAS HIS CAPS ON AND I AM A ANAL JACKASS AND CANT GET OVER MY PETTY EXPECTATION / STANDARDS.just asking.
THE IDEA OF GOD IS ABSURD AS THE BELIEF THAT IF YOU KILL THE INFIDEL YOU GET 72 VIRGINS IN HEAVEN.THAT IS ONE PERSON TELL ANOTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE SOMETHING TO HELP THEM FEEL BETTER ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE DOING OR GOING TO DO.THE AVERAGE PERSON IS BY NATURE UNCERTAIN AND INSECURE IN FEAR AND PERPETUAL DOUBT IN THEMSELVES. BY NATURE AND IN THAT WILLING TO GRASP ANYTHING FOR COMFORT AND THE THOUGHT OF A GOD THAT IS LOOKING OVER US GIVES US SOLACE.BASIC PSYCHOLOGY.
PLEASE TELL ME WHY GOD IS A HE? BESIDES THE FACT THAT THE BIBLE AND GOD WAS CREATED BY A BUNCH OF SEXIST IN THE IMAGE OF A GROUP OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE THAT THOUGHT WOMEN SHOULD BE STONED.
I choose to believe in God. I see intelligent design in nature and man. I don't believe it's the result of random bits of flying debris from a "big bang".
And the people who believe in the "big bang" never explain who lit the fuse for this explosion ? (so to speak) Who created the mass that exploded ? (so to speak) Who created the universe ?
That which precedes everything is, in my opinion, God.
@GeorgeWashington456 It didn't sound like an absolute statement to me.. only reasonably certain, to the extent that anything can be certain. (essentially certain in a practical sense, IE "the Earth is spherical" or "I have 2 arms" or "nothing can be known for certain".)
Otherwise, great job, both you and the writer have a lot more knowledge of this world than I. Sorry about the tone, but I felt it necessary as the only time you showed strong humility was at the end of the video. I felt it was a necessary as I like parallelism, and it is the reason I'm ending my comments as such.
You see the logic in hurting a child, physically and otherwise, resulting in undesired behaviours, but on the other hand, being kind and compassionate does not result in desired behaviours, but rather those desired behaviours are naturally occurring. Seems fallacious and contradictory to me...
Logical, to me, is that behaviour is a result of an unknown and unverifiable mix of environment and genetics.
I'd suggest arguing Mormonism as a revised version of Christianity. It's far too easy to attack moralities at the base of older religions, as you have pointed out, and I think as Religion evolves it will become harder to do so. Arguing Religion's current crop, based on the idea's they can't easily change will not work as a valid offence when speaking of Religions of the future. In my opinion a much stronger logical base is needed that isn't interdependent on the wrong doings specified.
How is an internal system of knowledge non existent in your view? LoL. You must indeed believe that your internal system of knowledge is true, i.e. what you gain from the senses you employ, otherwise you'd simply walk off a cliff.
Your perception of reality is ENTIRELY relegated to the faculties of your senses and as such there is no way for you to verify the validity of information you gather by them.
If faith or belief is not a system of knowledge, than per your logic, nothing is.
Can you not see the disingenuousness in claiming that what needs "to be gotten rid of is irrationality, not religion, not communism" but in the same breath describe religion and belief in God irrational consistently, thus indirectly calling on the destruction of those things through rationality?
Was that an Atheistic Apology of some sort or were you just attempting to make the pill of giving up ones beliefs easier to swallow by cutting it into two parts?
Not if he is speaking about theoretical physics and theoretical mathematics, as their proofs are in their self consistent calculations, not in empirically verifiable experiments.
Copernicus's book, began the process.... of "The medieval European world" i.e the accepted scientific knowledge of the time. This is obviously quite accurate and I think you missed the point. Also, take into account that all you have read up to this point is about knowledge, accepted and divergent.
@HeyItzMeDawg So New Testaments right? If so, I got some for you friend:
Luke 23:39-42, Mark 15:32, Mark 27:44. Did both of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus vilify him or only one? I got some more but I'm tired today so I won't bother looking through my sticky notes.
@DarkZerkerX "Did both of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus vilify him or only one?"
Does it matter? The authors may have drawn their information from different sources: one that probably claimed Jesus was mocked "by everyone" (an overstatement, and most likely testimony from someone without close proximity to the event) and another who specifically recalled the conversation between Jesus and the criminals (because of close proximity).
@HeyItzMeDawg OOoooorrr....two people told two different stories that they had heard just as two children would tell a different story when playing a game of Telephone. Remember that these writings were inspired and co-written by the Holy Spirit who does not suffer from a difference of perspective. Spit out the Kool Aid man!
@DarkZerkerX In any case that's not a contradiction by historical standards. A contradiction would be something like A saying one thing and B saying the opposite thing. Differences in numerical counts could be a result of estimation errors or witness testimonies reflecting different perspectives of the event. Have a look at this example for what I mean:
@DarkZerkerX Just keep in mind that disagreements in testimony should not be confused for contradictions. Minor disagreements like this show that the authors relied on different sources, which bolster rather than detract from their reliability.
In the end, reconciling the accounts is as simple as noting that they all agree that Jesus was vilified in one form or another by the majority of the populace. And whether or not that is true is pretty immaterial.
How I love my ingenious yet simple way to look at this matter.
I will not argue nor doubt "god's" existence, I will simply deal with finding out his true existence when I get to that point in my life... Well.. Death, or whatever happens. For now, i'll enjoy the little things. Complex, satisfying yet simple.
the stefbot is a good example of what has gone wrong with western thought: it's all mental masturbation, philosophical abstractions fornicating with each other, no relation to the universe outside your minds. a private calculus, a model that models nothing. all is lost.
@iliveon i like to think that because it satisfies all of my notions of god. i also think that the universe could even be the physical representation of god as well. which would mean that everyone and everything is part of the great machine of the cosmos. while i don't believe in an old man in the clouds, i do appreciate monotheistic (and polytheistic) interpretations on divinity. i think its quite poetic. my favorite is the tao te ching, cause its so open ended
@iliveon i think the tendencies of people to personify deities shows a certain egotism of mankind. maybe its easier to convince your kids that there's an old man with a beard sitting on a throne in the clouds than to teach them about concepts like karma, reincarnation, or nirvana. but no, my god is not anthropomorphic although i do believe that certain human individuals might possibly embody the divine
@iliveon thank you for not shitting all over my ideas/beliefs. i can appreciate someone who listens to a differing point of view without getting offended. at the end of the day, truth is always the strongest religion
None of you retards research ancient history for a living.
A historical Jesus existed, and you're all ignorant, uneducated imbeciles if you think otherwise. No, I'm not saying he could raise people from the dead, etc. (likely later insertions into the text), but it is absolute FACT that a preacher and supposed healer by the name of Jesus was crucified by Pilate for heresy at around A.D. 25. Its pretty much universally accepted by all but the most biased and dogmatic ancient historians.
Yawn… yet another hyper-rationalist, limiting himself to his own limited gray matter to contemplate other-worldly concepts that can’t be explained, save can only be known.
Stephan!!!! The Greeks did have theories of a heliocentric solar system!! Aristarchus theorized it from deducing the shadow of the Earth caused eclipses. 1600 years before Copernicus. Copernicus tried to cover up the fact that he'd read it in a letter from Hipparchus.
Thanks for this, it was educational! I'm fascinated by astro theology - have you ever spoke to that? The truth is in the stars! Jesus, SUN of god. haha
I was with you pretty much all the way until your comments about psychiatry. Psychiatrists made up mental diseases to offer cure? I'm sorry but that sounds like doctors invented cancer to sell the cure. Or that Copernicus' book really removed Earth from the center of Cosmos. They have existed long before psychiatrists, and denying the existence of mental illnesses does great harm for people who actually are ill, even if psychiatry was unadvanced as science. More, not less, research is needed.
@lemonemmi The burden of proof lies upon the positive statement. If "Mental Illness" exists, then it is up to whomever claims as such to prove it. There exists no evidence that mental illnesses are real, if there is, then I would like to see it.
I'd like someone to prove to me why it would be impossible to comprehend a god. They keep saying it, but doesn't explain how that could be. We could theoretically understand anything else, so why not god?
@antiHUMANDesigns Prove to you why it's impossible to comprehend a god? Gods don't exist. You might as well be asking me to prove to you that unicorns can really fly.
The reason theists will tell you that God is incomprehensible is because his traits/properties do not conform to science or logic. So theists *must* claim that God is beyond our ability to reason or understand; otherwise, we don't get past the first few pages of the Bible before we realize it's full of crap.
@MrGarky Thanks for the answer, but I really want someone who actually believes in god, and believes he is beyond understanding, to explain it to me. Both you and I are atheists (I assume), so we have a different way of seeing it than a theist. I just want to know what -their- evidence is for what they're saying. We can even understand quantum mechanics, so I think we could potentially understand a god if he existed.
You were doing well until you dismissed psychiatry as a sham and mental illness as non-existant. The sit on a couch and talk about your problems version of psychiatry is more art than science,--which doesn't mean it's useless, just hard to quantify scientifically--but clinical psychiatry is different; it makes predictions that are testable. Evidence strongly suggests that some forms of mental illness are heritable traits, and this fact strongly suggests mental illness is not an imaginary disease
@SammyHales It is a sham. I understand your reservation of this claim given Stefan doesn't justify it in this video but he has actually made GREAT effort to show just how non-scientific the field is. Please consider this following video to see his arguments on the matter: ?v=eOScYBwMyAA
And if I may be so bold, let me recommend that you don't fall to the same mistake many have made by only looking at the title of that video before judging his argument.
I am a 4th generation Atheist that grew up on the space coast with a scientist for a father and until I got on to FB I was happy but my new found fellow atheist make me hate being part of the "Secular Movement " It is nothing but a bitch fest.
A clever video by a clever man....though there's one thing i disagree with - the suggestion (put foward by the article's author and backed up by Stephen) that the active elimination/subjugation of religion within a society can only have negative results (prime examples - Stalin, Mao and the like) Id argue that whether secularism is enforced or not is interdependent of a society's "moral standing". I mean, look at Turkey under Attaturk in the 20's-heavy secularisation there worked out of the best
Great arguments... With one flaw (IMHO) which is that if your views were as obvious and factual as you claim, no one would question you. The problem is that atheism is also a question of belief, and beliefs may not be justifiably derived from observable data, neither are qualia. Beliefs and worldviews stem from a realm of experience, which science cannot study. It can only study the effect it might have on behavior. Thus I find myself classifying your adherence to logic as bordering on religion.
@MrJPluym Um, he actually carefully explained how science can, in fact, study the origin of religious experience--but keep in mind he is not obligated to do that. By the way, if words are to have any meaning whatever, then atheism is not a question of belief. Not believing in insane bronze age myths is no more an act of faith than is not believing in the existance of leprechauns. Your classification of logic as religion is ill-informed and nonsensical.
This guys essay is not backing up his statements with cited material to explain what he means accurately. He is not doing a research paper in a manner that is acceptable by a college professor, because he needs cited material to demonstrate what he's saying.
"Disease of selfishness," umm, how about the disease of getting a good frame and then over-applying it to meet your idealogical goals...nevermind, we already have that; its called, fallacy of equivocation.
Selfishness is hardly an 'imaginary' illness. It is otherwise called the human condition & tribalism and we have 6,000 years of recorded history proving it real & exists. Your political ideology is blurring your philosophical argument.
I liked most of this but I don't understand how mental illness is imaginary? Is he really going to claim that mental disorders like schizophrenia haven't been proven to have biological causes? Does he think neurotransmitters are just made up and that drugs don't influence the brain?
He made a few videos on the subject of mental health or mental illness. He acknowedged that suffering and torment are real but there is no such thing as insanity or something like that. I disagree very strongly. There is psychosis (different from psychopathy) and there is real, but difficult to identify neurological problems that results in impulse problems, pathological lying, mania, retardation, etc.
I think he was attacking a stereotype of mentally ill people (at best)
@CO2TROL Thanks. I'll think long and hard before I would choose to watch a video of his on mental illness.
It is difficult to diagnose, categorize and treatment is very much guess work. My life has "been touched" by a friend suffering from what we call for lack of a better term manic episodes. When you receive your first call in the middle of the night to talk your friend out of a tree at an airport, it changes your view on this matter. During these attacks, he is not himself.
@CO2TROL He was a pastor of a church, a husband, and a father of two children. Hospitalizations were occasionally required. It eventually cost him his ministry.
I've heard Christians (who have no experience with the mentally-ill) proclaim that there is no such thing as well. I didn't expect to hear that kind of talk from someone who is a rationalist. Comments about this subject should be measured.
He came off sounding like a "know it all" prick. (I'm an atheist and hard to offend.)
Sorry to hear about your friend. I also have experience of this specific illness. I think the issue is that when the individual concerned is ill they are either hospitalized and removed from sight or they are seen to be intoxicated (they are high on their own neurotransmitters) by the layman.
It is easy to be persuaded by Stefan..., but not on that. Denying the illness is also denying any chance of a better treatment.
I hope your friend was not completely detroyed by it.
I generally like Stefans videos, but anyone that agree with him totally on everything is either young and impressionable or with little experience or reasoning ability of their own. Sometimes he just doesn't have the wider experience - the reason ancient philosophers failed was not necessarily because of faulty reasoning but for lack of knowledge of things that would later be discovered. It is clear Stefan realizes this, but did something similar himself. I got annoyed
I'm not so inclined to call it a strawman when he talks about atheists considering God to be anthropomorphic. Maybe it is when he says that college students think that all gods don't exist because they're anthropomorphic, but I've heard many an atheist - probably myself included - mention the idea that the christian God is an old white bearded man as a sort of gibe. Just mentioning it in passing. Maybe thats where he would get that sort of idea from.
If you are not a libertarian, then you already do belong to a group that includes Bill Maher, Dennis Miller, Glenn Beck or Neil Boortz, because THEY aren't libertarians either.
You can't be a libertarian if you call for government to take action against innocent and peaceful individuals. The names you mentioned are ALL statists who believe in either war, the police state or the welfare state.
You're not a libertarian just because you call yourself one, the way they do.
Fallibilism is the philosophical principle that humans could be wrong about their beliefs, expectations or understanding of the world. Not "nothing can be known for certain." Absolutists use this infantile argument to attempt to debunk fallibilism which in turn just shows their ignorance and lack of understanding of the concept.
It's unlikely that Jesus, as depicted in the bible, existed. There is no extra-biblical mention of him (there was one, but it has since been discovered to be fraudulent), and given that all the stories and quotes attributed to Jesus were written many years after his supposed death, it's pointless to talk about him being an example of someone killed for impiety. Both his death and his impious actions were, most likely, both fiction.
@tml4873 "There is no extra-biblical mention of him (there was one, but it has since been discovered to be fraudulent),"
Bullshit. There's five direct references and two indirect ones. The one so-called fraudulent one is widely believed to be altered, yes, but the vast majority of scholars ascribe about half of it to the original author.
@HeyItzMeDawg None of them were even born when Jesus was alleged to have been around. If you can provide one contemporary source, get back to me. Even if I grant you all those accounts, all they mention is a name, and some vague details. All the things that make Jesus the person people think he was, are only in the New Testament, which has never been proved to be more than myth. So if you want to say there was a guy named Jesus, sure. It means about as much as saying there was a guy named Steve.
@HeyItzMeDawg There are no contemporary sources verifying the living, historical Jesus. The sources you list never met Jesus and never met anybody who had met Jesus and never met anybody who had met somebody who had met Jesus. They wrote long after the fact about what people believed to be....and nobody argues that Christians didn't exist in the second and third century, which is all your sources support.
@CO2TROL My opinion? He is a legend as is King Arthur or Robin Hood. Street preachers with followings named Jesus who pissed off the temple and/or the Romans getting nailed to trees probably existed. The stories grew to include things like virgin births, resurrection, god-men, feats of magic and healing. Obviously these things never happened, but they certainly take the character Jesus to a whole new level and are useful to gain converts to a blossoming religion. IMHO
@1n354a While I agree it depends on what you mean by "exists" or "lived". There really was J. Bourne that had a traumatic brain injury and psychogenic amnesia that lived in New York and Boston...in 1892. He was the basis used by Ludlum to create Jason Bourne. Does, then, Jason Bourne exist? Did he really "live" since he might be based on a historic person?
No. Jesus is as fictional as Jason Bourne and is as related to his historic basis as Bourne is....
@johnycannuk I disagree, though I see where you are coming from. We know that an historical figure existed off whom Ludlum based his character. We don't know that any such character existed (with the same level of certainty) 2,000 years ago. Therefor tying the two together really doesn't float in my opinion. A better comparison would be the Robin Hood character in that there was no historical Robin, rather a segment of society/group of people who lived similar lives. The character was drawn...
(cont) from the experiences of many people and conditions and ideals and such. Robin and Jesus are amalgamations and as such they differ greatly from the Bourne character who we know is based off an historical figure.
@1n354a "The sources you list never met Jesus and never met anybody who had met Jesus and never met anybody who had met somebody who had met Jesus."
Irrelevant. Such a claim is true for pretty much anybody, with few exceptions, living before the 10th century. Jesus is an exception in that he is referred to first-hand in something known as the gospels.
(I'm just waiting for you to say something stupid like "the gospels don't verify the living, historical Jesus" so I can have a laugh)
@HeyItzMeDawg The gospels were written by unknown authors anywhere from 40 to 80 years (at the earliest) after the fact. The authors didn't know or see or meet Jesus or any of Jesus' followers. If you honestly think that they are first-hand accounts, PM me as I have information on beach-front property in Arizona that you need to invest in!
@1n354a "The gospels were written by unknown authors anywhere from 40 to 80 years (at the earliest) after the fact"
Again, irrelevant (and wrong, too, but that's another argument). Homer's poems "Odyssey" & Iliad" were written 400 years after the fact and yet historians treat them as reliable documents for establishing the major figures and events that occurred during the Trojan War, despite the fact that both poems make mythological statements like referencing ancient Greek gods.
@HeyItzMeDawg regarding authorship of gospels: absolutely correct, actually.
by your own admission, the Greek gods are real things, since they were referenced in writings that historians consider to be reliable. same-same the Christian mythology statements like virgin births, man-gods, ressurections, magical healings and the like.....wouldn't you agree?
@1n354a Straw-man; did you miss the part where I wrote "despite"? If you're going to act retarded in order to make ridiculous straw-men then I'm just going to call you retarded and forget about this.
Similar to Homer's Poems, the Gospels are fairly reliable in their attempt to record a historical account despite the fact that they make mythologizing statements. See wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Gospels, wiki/Biblical_criticism, and wiki/Historical_Jesus
@HeyItzMeDawg You don't know what a strawman argument is. I was questioning the consistency of your argument as you are fine with the historic aspect of the Odyssey and Iliad though you discount the inclusion of Greek gods. The Gospels, however, have no historical relevance and deal mainly with mythological claims. What point are you trying to make....you are all over the place.
Oh yeah, still waiting on the PM with all this evidence for the historical Jesus.....
@1n354a The Gospels make numerous factual claims, as a casual glance into the first few lines of Mark attest:
"John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and the whole region of Judea was going out to him. John was dressed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and eating locusts and wild honey."
Sounds like a first person attestation, or the recounting of one, to me. The whole thing reads as such.
@HeyItzMeDawg of course it reads as such...but so do numerous fantasy novels and other works...just because an author writes in a certain manner does not mean that they actually saw what happened. the reality is that the authors didn't see these things first hand, nor did they write about something that somebody else had seen first hand. I am sorry if this is a shock to you....
@1n354a "just because an author writes in a certain manner does not mean that they actually saw what happened."
Actually, yeah, it does. It's how you separate first hand accounts, like the Gospels, from historian retrospectives. But wait you seem to think there was a booming industry in fiction writing at the time... or something like that.
Apparently the Gospels were sold in corner stores at the time as a piece of fiction writing. Interesting perspective on history, there...
@HeyItzMeDawg If I write a book about Jesus' love of mounting donkeys like a man does a woman and I write it from the point of view of a witness of these acts you would accept that Jesus was a donkey-fucker? Or would you see it as somebody writing a story about somebody from the point of view of a witness of the acts? I think that we both know what you would think of such a book - as such you understand what I think about your book. See how simple this is? All you need do is think....
@1n354a "If I write a book about Jesus' love of mounting donkeys like a man does a woman and I write it from the point of view of a witness of these acts you would accept that Jesus was a donkey-fucker?"
Are you done strawmaning, retard? If there were numerous different sources describing Jesus fucking donkeys dated around 40-70 A.D., then I would probably believe it. But there aren't.
Because, after all, it's not like the Jews had centuries of cultural tradition in passing down religious doctrine by word of mouth, and could have very reliably preserved an account of events only a few decades old... oh wait, they did. But it's not as though the Gospels present themselves as first-hand accounts... oh wait, they do. Well, the factual claims they make surely have been contradicted by archaeology, geography, and independent third-party accounts... oh wait, they weren't.
@HeyItzMeDawg So you think the earth is 5000 years old? You think the sun rotates around the earth? Jesus no only rose from the dead but flew bodily into "heaven"? These claims haven't been refuted by scientific evidence? We have been up into "the heavens" and there is nothing there, no afterlife or god/s. You're an atheist when it comes to the Hindu gods right? Greek and Roman ones? They all had stories based on real events and places too, the supernatural was added in.
@HeyItzMeDawg Have you ever played 'Telephone'? Simple sentence, 20 kids, where does it end up...but you are talking about pages and pages of stories and happenings and the like that were perfectly recounted over centuries. Do you have a functioning brain?? I'm not arguing that the Jews (and others) didn't have an oral tradition, rather that accuracy of message is NOT a strong suit when it comes to oral traditions.
you have archaeological evidence that Jesus walked on water? cured the blind?
@1n354a "you have archaeological evidence that Jesus walked on water? cured the blind?"
1. Can you prove he didn't? Maybe he pulled a Chris Angel, maybe it was a later insertion into the text, or maybe he really did it.
2. Are you retarded? Archaeological evidence can't prove that anyhow. Archaeological evidence is used to distinguish between The Book of Mormon, and the Gospels. The former was completely made up and the writers of the latter were just mistaken or exaggerating.
@HeyItzMeDawg "That explains everything. It's all a conspiracy!"
You see, the difference between what I just said here regarding the Gospels and the average religious text is that most of them mythologize about what happened hundreds of thousands of years ago at the dawn of time or whatever. The Gospels are the exception to the rule: they talk about a specific person living at a specific time doing very specific acts not even a few decades before the books themselves are written.
ctd: The Gospels are treated by historians as historical accounts of his life, but are taken with a grain of salt because it's likely that the writers exaggerated or mythologized when Jesus did something inexplicable, and it is also likely that despite their best efforts to reconstruct it in its original form, it likely contains later insertions. He was either an ancient Criss Angel & medicine man or a real miracle worker, but he still existed.
@HeyItzMeDawg a few decades before....could you write an accurate account of the daily life of somebody you never knew who lived in the 50-70's? Including quotes and details that most people can't remember from events that happened last week? That is comical that you make such a claim...any 5th grader who has played Telephone would shoot you down in two seconds.
@HeyItzMeDawg and still the same rules apply....trying to sell the concept that a single story was accurately passed down many decades without so much as an embellishment is comical at best. bullet as many reasons as you like and reality remains the same....didn't happen, chief.
"trying to sell the concept that a single story was accurately passed down many decades without so much as an embellishment is comical at best"
That's why potential historians would do well to find several witnesses of the events to refer to in order to identify the most common line. Sort of like what good historians have done from the beginning of time and continue to do today.
@1n354a Oh, and it's not a "single story", it's four. There are four Gospels, you know.
Reflecting both the fact that you have a point (it's hard to keep the story 100% straight over time) and a clueless moron (it's like that for all history before the age of the printing press). Keep your uneducated opinions to yourself and leave the study of ancient history for the experts.
@HeyItzMeDawg Again with the honesty! I'm proud of you. You are right, there are four Gospels which tell four different stories. If there was any accuracy in the story, the four Gospels, they would tell the same story.
And just a minor point, there were probably some 50 Gospels that were circulating around the region...neither here nor there though.
Regarding historian activity : yes, a good historian would find witnesses or contemporary accounts in order to verify their writings.....
@1n354a "They didn't interview people who knew Jesus."
You say that with such certainty; did you travel back in time to confirm that yourself, you who needs eyewitness testimony of everything? Or did you just swallow the bullshit that some fringe critic pulled out of his rear one day because he decided he needed to sound convincing enough to some ignorant, gullible high school grad?
@HeyItzMeDawg actually no I don't need eyewitness testimony for everything, but it certainly helps in cases such as this.
More damning is the complete lack of evidence that your god-man ever existed, did anything he is claimed to have done. Add that to the fact that the Gospels tell different stories, were written decades after the fact and several things become quite clear....wouldn't you say?
"If there was any accuracy in the story, the four Gospels, they would tell the same story."
That would be an indication of conspiracy on the part of the writers. Part of writing different accounts means you rely on different testimonies, as you would know if you A. weren't completely ignorant of the study of ancient history, and B. didn't blatantly ignore any train of thought that could contradict your dogmatic opinions about the topic.
@HeyItzMeDawg No you simple minded fuck, that would be an indication that the Holy Spirit or God or Jebus was at work since there is no natural way that an unrelated group of humans could maintain continuity in an otherwise unrecorded story for many decades after the fact, record it so that all the plot lines line up perfectly. Instead what we have is what we expect: different people telling different stories. You really drank the Kool Aid, didn't you? you brainless twit...
@1n354a "unrelated group of humans" Wrong. "otherwise unrecorded story" Wrong. "many decades after the fact" Wrong. "record it so that all the plot lines line up perfectly" Irrelevant. "different people telling different stories." Wrong. "just as two children would tell a different story when playing a game of Telephone." Nope. "these writings were inspired and co-written by the Holy Spirit" Wrong.
@HeyItzMeDawg What a strong response! Writing 'wrong' after everything I write....gee gosh golly why didn't I think of that approach. LOL! You are too funny....
@1n354a Holy shit, look at that; to debunk every assertion you make would take more time than I have to give, since you throw out about 5 per comment.
"You really drank the Kool Aid, didn't you? you brainless twit..."
Aren't you the one claiming that everything historians think happened before the invention of the printing press is wrong? It sure fucking sounds like it, anyways.
I'm done here, take your uneducated, ignorant, biased opinions and shove them up your ass for all I care.
@HeyItzMeDawg No you can't debunk them because you know they are valid points and you have no defense. I'll let you slide on those points though so long as you follow your initial offer to PM me all the information on your historical Jebus character from the Holly Babble. I am sure that it will change my entire perspective on life, the universe and everything.
@HeyItzMeDawg Unfortunately, the Gospel writers had neither. They didn't interview people who knew Jesus. They didn't interview people who attended the trials and tribulations. They didn't interview people who had seen him rise from the dead or wander the streets. They copied down mythological stories about legendary characters from Bronze Age, Middle Eastern lore.....and people like you bought it hook line and sinker.
@1n354a "They copied down mythological stories about legendary characters from Bronze Age, Middle Eastern lore.....and people like you bought it hook line and sinker."
Oh ho, you're one of these wackos. Well, enough said from my part. Keep telling yourself that Jesus "the Son of God" is just a mistranslated Jesus "the Sun God" or whatever it is you think.
@HeyItzMeDawg Then why is there hundreds of contradictions in the Bible? I'm not saying your five points are inaccurate but why all the contradictions?
@1n354a "could you write an accurate account of the daily life of somebody you never knew who lived in the 50-70's?"
How exactly do you think history books were written before the printing press? It's paraphrase, you moron. Do you think people accurately and thoroughly recorded events the day after they happen and handed their notes to the historian? Get a fucking basic understanding of the topic of ancient history before you pretend like you know anything, for fucks sake.
@HeyItzMeDawg answer the question, you fucking ignoramus.
And no, you dickless wonder, historians didn't receive notes from people but they did their research and had their sources...your bible is written by unknown authors who had no other references to work from, didn't know any of the players in their story and they weren't known or respected historians....in other words they were goat-fucking desert wanderers who had spent too much time in the sun...they made the shit up, dude.
@1n354a "answer the question, you fucking ignoramus."
You mean this one?
"could you write an accurate account of the daily life of somebody you never knew who lived in the 50-70's?"
The daily life? Maybe not. But a particular few weeks of their life in great detail, namely the most important ones? Of course I could.
Undoubtedly there are many witnesses I could find who would be willing to share their experience, and I could perhaps assemble work written by newspapers and the like.
@HeyItzMeDawg "Maybe not." is about as close to honesty as you have come in a long time. Even with all the assets available (print, video, pictures, family scrap books) you would never be able to accurately capture specific details and moments in a person's life. Now imagine you lived in a time when the best you had was what people talked about....no newspapers, no scrap books, no family photo albums, no videos...if you couldn't do it today, how do you expect me to buy that they could back then?
@1n354a Why does it matter that "specific details" are "captured accurately"? I don't fucking care what color Elvis' toothpaste was or whether him and his best friend had a secret handshake for each day of the week, and I don't expect to see that in a history book either. And even if such detail was in there I wouldn't be able to verify it anyways. All I need to know is a rough idea of what the person said, where they went, and what they did when they got there.
@HeyItzMeDawg yes I can - men can't walk on water without resorting to some illusion or trick. therefor your Jesus character didn't walk on water. simple enough.
the OT, NT, Quran, Book of Mormon were all completely made up, full of mistakes, exaggerations, fantastical, magical malarkey, and generalized bullshit. That you try to argue that one is completely made up while the other has lots of merit is freakin' hilarious.
"That you try to argue that one is completely made up while the other has lots of merit is freakin' hilarious."
It's not an "argument", it's a "fact" that the Book of Mormon is contradicted by countless archaeological evidence, it's a "fact" the Gospels are well supported by countless archaeological evidence, and it's also a "fact" that historians consider support by archaeological evidence as a key factor in establishing a text's credibility as a historical account.
@1n354a "I'm not arguing that the Jews (and others) didn't have an oral tradition, rather that accuracy of message is NOT a strong suit when it comes to oral traditions."
Fun fact: Jewish preachers in Jesus' day were known for having the entire Torah memorized. That's the first five books of the Bible.
Now, likely it was paraphrase, but text doesn't need to be literally memorized. That's partially why the four gospels diverge so much from each other.
@HeyItzMeDawg rasied people from the dead? was the result of a virgin birth? rose from the dead? ever existed?
Independent third party accounts? Like historians who wrote 60-200 years after the fact and wrote little more than what Christians of their time believed? Or do you have secret third-party contemporaries of Jesus who wrote during or immediately after his life? I'm sure that the world would love to learn of these.....
@1n354a "historians [...] wrote little more than what Christians of their time believed? "
How the fuck to do suppose Christianity got started? I guess a bunch of guys got together one day, decided to call themselves Apostles of Jesus Christ and go around telling everyone that there was a guy named Jesus of Nazareth who was just executed yesterday and who performed all kinds of miracles in a bunch of different towns.
The problem with the Church, as with the State, is its irrational top-down approach. Create a universal understanding of God, morality, and law, by creating a universal Church or universal State, and smash the will of individuals until they adhere to your vision.
I found it very fitting that stef equates knowledge of God to understanding a dream. I think Carl Jung would accept that analogy.
eleutheromaniac 11 hours ago
...For after all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in fine books and embellished in fine language with finer covers, man, - all man - is still confronted by the Great Mystery.
---Chief Luther Standing Bear - Oglala Sioux
bozolazic 6 days ago
The only critique of atheists I have is that the majority of them are really heavy statists.
thebest3526 2 weeks ago
@thebest3526 Just critize the statists, noob.
zkvattram 2 weeks ago
@zkvattram To be fair don't you see a bit of a correlation? I agree that when someone casts off the idea of a God now they only have to be free themselves of statism, but doesn't it seem like a lot of atheists are statists?
californiarednek 2 days ago
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@zkvattram I agree with best, from my personal experience when discussing the immorality around using the force of Government I get mostly negative feedback from atheists. I am a theist so perhaps they merely view me as a predestined enemy, however here is how the conversation typically goes. 1) You are a stupid theist who believes your imaginary sky daddy will give you lolly pops and candy cane kisses. 2) We need the state to provide services for the poor and provide secularism.
YaHuWaHservant 2 days ago
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@zkvattram cont Perhaps atheists who believe in the very faith based belief known as the state should turn in their atheist card and simply be known as statists; at least they will be in my mind.
YaHuWaHservant 2 days ago
This should probably be called, A Critique of Atheism Debunked.
MrStillmans 3 weeks ago
AT THE TIME THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN OVER TWO THIRD OF THE PLANET WASN'T KNOWN BUT WE HAVE ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE THAT MAN WAS THERE FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS SO BASED ON THE BIBLE THEY WAS ALL SINNERS AND DOOMED TO HELL BECAUSE GOD SOME HOW SEEN FIT TO TELL ONLY THE WHITE MEN. THAT THOUGHT THE EARTH WAS FLAT.AT THE TIME OF NOAH WHY DID GOD NOT SEE FIT TO TELL NOAH OH YA THE EARTH IS ROUND AND DON'T FORGET THE ANIMALS IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA. WHAT GOD IS ABSENT MINDED??
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
@vishee2906 dude how am i supposed to read al ur shit if its all in caps
schwiiZZZ 3 weeks ago
@schwiiZZZ YOU CONSIDER BIG TEXT A HANDY CAP ? DO YOU HAVE YOUR MOMMY PEEL YOUR BANANA ALSO.IF I COULD FIND A WAY TO DO IT IN CRAYON WOULD THAT HELP?
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
@vishee2906 lol pls stop typing in caps if u want ppl to read it...u can emphasize on some words tho
schwiiZZZ 3 weeks ago
@schwiiZZZ I don't KNOW what YOU are TALKING about.
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
@vishee2906 FUCK YOU
schwiiZZZ 3 weeks ago
@schwiiZZZ ok oops OK
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
@vishee2906 LOL
schwiiZZZ 2 weeks ago
@schwiiZZZ I AM STILL TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THIS ARE YOU TURNING AROUND AND CRYING OUT MOMMY HE HAS HIS CAPS ON AND I AM A ANAL JACKASS AND CANT GET OVER MY PETTY EXPECTATION / STANDARDS.just asking.
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
THE IDEA OF GOD IS ABSURD AS THE BELIEF THAT IF YOU KILL THE INFIDEL YOU GET 72 VIRGINS IN HEAVEN.THAT IS ONE PERSON TELL ANOTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE SOMETHING TO HELP THEM FEEL BETTER ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE DOING OR GOING TO DO.THE AVERAGE PERSON IS BY NATURE UNCERTAIN AND INSECURE IN FEAR AND PERPETUAL DOUBT IN THEMSELVES. BY NATURE AND IN THAT WILLING TO GRASP ANYTHING FOR COMFORT AND THE THOUGHT OF A GOD THAT IS LOOKING OVER US GIVES US SOLACE.BASIC PSYCHOLOGY.
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
PLEASE TELL ME WHY GOD IS A HE? BESIDES THE FACT THAT THE BIBLE AND GOD WAS CREATED BY A BUNCH OF SEXIST IN THE IMAGE OF A GROUP OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE THAT THOUGHT WOMEN SHOULD BE STONED.
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
EVEN IF WE ALL AGREED THERE IS A GOD. REASONABLY WE MUST ALSO AGREE HE HAS BEEN IN A COMA FOR 2000 YRS.
vishee2906 3 weeks ago
I choose to believe in God. I see intelligent design in nature and man. I don't believe it's the result of random bits of flying debris from a "big bang".
And the people who believe in the "big bang" never explain who lit the fuse for this explosion ? (so to speak) Who created the mass that exploded ? (so to speak) Who created the universe ?
That which precedes everything is, in my opinion, God.
spystyle 1 month ago
@spystyle You didn't choose shit. Your parents brainwashed you to think that if you ever doubted god, you'd go straight to hell.
beeeefcurtains 1 month ago
@spystyle why would you have an opinion of something you can't possibly know anything about? why not just say you don't know yet?
waksibra 1 month ago
@stefbot
What excactly is the problem with the statement; "Nothing can be known for certain."?
sftw009 1 month ago
@sftw009 That statement is a contradiction. It is an absolute statement, but states nothing can be absolute. It denies itself.
GeorgeWashington456 1 month ago
@GeorgeWashington456 It didn't sound like an absolute statement to me.. only reasonably certain, to the extent that anything can be certain. (essentially certain in a practical sense, IE "the Earth is spherical" or "I have 2 arms" or "nothing can be known for certain".)
Flyborg 1 month ago
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@sftw009 That statement is a contradiction. It is an absolute statement, but states nothing can be absolute. It denies itself.
GeorgeWashington456 1 month ago
Otherwise, great job, both you and the writer have a lot more knowledge of this world than I. Sorry about the tone, but I felt it necessary as the only time you showed strong humility was at the end of the video. I felt it was a necessary as I like parallelism, and it is the reason I'm ending my comments as such.
Theobrothers 2 months ago
@31:27
I actually am confused here.
You see the logic in hurting a child, physically and otherwise, resulting in undesired behaviours, but on the other hand, being kind and compassionate does not result in desired behaviours, but rather those desired behaviours are naturally occurring. Seems fallacious and contradictory to me...
Logical, to me, is that behaviour is a result of an unknown and unverifiable mix of environment and genetics.
Theobrothers 2 months ago
@25:34
I'd suggest arguing Mormonism as a revised version of Christianity. It's far too easy to attack moralities at the base of older religions, as you have pointed out, and I think as Religion evolves it will become harder to do so. Arguing Religion's current crop, based on the idea's they can't easily change will not work as a valid offence when speaking of Religions of the future. In my opinion a much stronger logical base is needed that isn't interdependent on the wrong doings specified.
Theobrothers 2 months ago
@21:17
How is an internal system of knowledge non existent in your view? LoL. You must indeed believe that your internal system of knowledge is true, i.e. what you gain from the senses you employ, otherwise you'd simply walk off a cliff.
Your perception of reality is ENTIRELY relegated to the faculties of your senses and as such there is no way for you to verify the validity of information you gather by them.
If faith or belief is not a system of knowledge, than per your logic, nothing is.
Theobrothers 2 months ago
@17:39
Can you not see the disingenuousness in claiming that what needs "to be gotten rid of is irrationality, not religion, not communism" but in the same breath describe religion and belief in God irrational consistently, thus indirectly calling on the destruction of those things through rationality?
Was that an Atheistic Apology of some sort or were you just attempting to make the pill of giving up ones beliefs easier to swallow by cutting it into two parts?
Theobrothers 2 months ago
@2:30
Not if he is speaking about theoretical physics and theoretical mathematics, as their proofs are in their self consistent calculations, not in empirically verifiable experiments.
@10:51
Copernicus's book, began the process.... of "The medieval European world" i.e the accepted scientific knowledge of the time. This is obviously quite accurate and I think you missed the point. Also, take into account that all you have read up to this point is about knowledge, accepted and divergent.
Theobrothers 2 months ago
You got a great voice, but you should be less of a dick :D
dijjit 2 months ago
Micah 7:18 and Jeremiah 17:4. Basically a passage dealing with God's anger. Oh and by the way...it says that God is all good but then in this passage:
Genesis 22:1 "...God did tempt Abraham"
DarkZerkerX 2 months ago
@DarkZerkerX I said from the Gospels, my friend, I'm not saying the OT is reliable.
The Bible is a collection of writings from various authors and should be analyzed individually based on the time period they cover.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg So New Testaments right? If so, I got some for you friend:
Luke 23:39-42, Mark 15:32, Mark 27:44. Did both of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus vilify him or only one? I got some more but I'm tired today so I won't bother looking through my sticky notes.
DarkZerkerX 2 months ago
@DarkZerkerX "Did both of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus vilify him or only one?"
Does it matter? The authors may have drawn their information from different sources: one that probably claimed Jesus was mocked "by everyone" (an overstatement, and most likely testimony from someone without close proximity to the event) and another who specifically recalled the conversation between Jesus and the criminals (because of close proximity).
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg OOoooorrr....two people told two different stories that they had heard just as two children would tell a different story when playing a game of Telephone. Remember that these writings were inspired and co-written by the Holy Spirit who does not suffer from a difference of perspective. Spit out the Kool Aid man!
1n354a 1 month ago
@DarkZerkerX In any case that's not a contradiction by historical standards. A contradiction would be something like A saying one thing and B saying the opposite thing. Differences in numerical counts could be a result of estimation errors or witness testimonies reflecting different perspectives of the event. Have a look at this example for what I mean:
wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Battle_of_thermopylae#Opposing_forces
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
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HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg There's a difference between a historical document and something your supposed god commissioned.
DarkZerkerX 2 months ago
@DarkZerkerX "My" God? I'm an agnostic, just not a stupid one.
And no, God didn't commission the Bible. Don't know where you got that one from. Anyways.
HeyItzMeDawg 1 month ago
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@DarkZerkerX Just keep in mind that disagreements in testimony should not be confused for contradictions. Minor disagreements like this show that the authors relied on different sources, which bolster rather than detract from their reliability.
In the end, reconciling the accounts is as simple as noting that they all agree that Jesus was vilified in one form or another by the majority of the populace. And whether or not that is true is pretty immaterial.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
How I love my ingenious yet simple way to look at this matter.
I will not argue nor doubt "god's" existence, I will simply deal with finding out his true existence when I get to that point in my life... Well.. Death, or whatever happens. For now, i'll enjoy the little things. Complex, satisfying yet simple.
AlexAndPaolo 2 months ago
the stefbot is a good example of what has gone wrong with western thought: it's all mental masturbation, philosophical abstractions fornicating with each other, no relation to the universe outside your minds. a private calculus, a model that models nothing. all is lost.
jordan567890 2 months ago
the universe is god's mind
noeldivad 2 months ago
@noeldivad why do you say that?
iliveon 2 months ago
@iliveon i like to think that because it satisfies all of my notions of god. i also think that the universe could even be the physical representation of god as well. which would mean that everyone and everything is part of the great machine of the cosmos. while i don't believe in an old man in the clouds, i do appreciate monotheistic (and polytheistic) interpretations on divinity. i think its quite poetic. my favorite is the tao te ching, cause its so open ended
noeldivad 2 months ago
@noeldivad ok so your god is not anthropormorphic? Yet he has a mind?
iliveon 2 months ago
@iliveon i think the tendencies of people to personify deities shows a certain egotism of mankind. maybe its easier to convince your kids that there's an old man with a beard sitting on a throne in the clouds than to teach them about concepts like karma, reincarnation, or nirvana. but no, my god is not anthropomorphic although i do believe that certain human individuals might possibly embody the divine
noeldivad 2 months ago
@noeldivad hmm that's interesting... I am not going to ask you any more questions.
iliveon 2 months ago
@iliveon thank you for not shitting all over my ideas/beliefs. i can appreciate someone who listens to a differing point of view without getting offended. at the end of the day, truth is always the strongest religion
noeldivad 2 months ago
None of you retards research ancient history for a living.
A historical Jesus existed, and you're all ignorant, uneducated imbeciles if you think otherwise. No, I'm not saying he could raise people from the dead, etc. (likely later insertions into the text), but it is absolute FACT that a preacher and supposed healer by the name of Jesus was crucified by Pilate for heresy at around A.D. 25. Its pretty much universally accepted by all but the most biased and dogmatic ancient historians.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg and your source?
iliveon 2 months ago
@iliveon For what?
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
I'm clinging to Jesus and the fire power he hath provided.
AnnieO100 2 months ago
Merry Christmas back at you!
3o4Titties 2 months ago
chimerical, is pronounced Kai-merical. Kai rhymes with 'eye'.
thevanities11 2 months ago
Yawn… yet another hyper-rationalist, limiting himself to his own limited gray matter to contemplate other-worldly concepts that can’t be explained, save can only be known.
xyzpdqist 2 months ago
@xyzpdqist "There may be concepts I cannot explain" does then lead to the defense of a particular religious dogma. lern2logic
Blazhei 2 months ago
Stephan!!!! The Greeks did have theories of a heliocentric solar system!! Aristarchus theorized it from deducing the shadow of the Earth caused eclipses. 1600 years before Copernicus. Copernicus tried to cover up the fact that he'd read it in a letter from Hipparchus.
Wiki search: Aristarchus of Samos
TheEmptySki 2 months ago
fuck religion. atheism is the future.
ervin920 2 months ago
@ervin920 your future is the end.
RevelationMedia777 2 months ago
stef, may i have a question?? what is your opinion of universe from nothing by lawrence krauss?? watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
thanks ;)
PiCABLESKY 2 months ago
@stefbot Christopher Hitchens died today. Another voice of reason lost.
rayoc 2 months ago
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the guy that goes by the name amazingatheist on youtube would certainly fit the profile described at the opening
spyletu 2 months ago in playlist More videos from stefbot
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spyletu 2 months ago in playlist More videos from stefbot
Thanks for this, it was educational! I'm fascinated by astro theology - have you ever spoke to that? The truth is in the stars! Jesus, SUN of god. haha
FunkyLittleWhiteGirl 2 months ago
Other than your absolutely ridiculous notion that greed in an "imaginary" disease, you've made some valid points, here, Stef. Good video. =)
Doktor0315 2 months ago
@Doktor0315 thanks for your opinion. next time bring proof
nurbSoldier 2 months ago
19:20 Greed is not imaginary...
We suffer the side effects of this imaginary disease.
Worldwide.
tilemacro 2 months ago
@tilemacro gotta just love unsupported assertions
nurbSoldier 2 months ago
I was with you pretty much all the way until your comments about psychiatry. Psychiatrists made up mental diseases to offer cure? I'm sorry but that sounds like doctors invented cancer to sell the cure. Or that Copernicus' book really removed Earth from the center of Cosmos. They have existed long before psychiatrists, and denying the existence of mental illnesses does great harm for people who actually are ill, even if psychiatry was unadvanced as science. More, not less, research is needed.
lemonemmi 2 months ago 6
@lemonemmi
When he made that comment about mental illness, I stopped listening.
HellRehab 2 months ago
@lemonemmi You might find the work of Thomas Szasz interesting: szasz dot com
(Y.T. doesn't allow links)
leafwatch 2 months ago
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@lemonemmi The burden of proof lies upon the positive statement. If "Mental Illness" exists, then it is up to whomever claims as such to prove it. There exists no evidence that mental illnesses are real, if there is, then I would like to see it.
vegetta00 2 months ago in playlist More videos from stefbot
I'd like someone to prove to me why it would be impossible to comprehend a god. They keep saying it, but doesn't explain how that could be. We could theoretically understand anything else, so why not god?
antiHUMANDesigns 2 months ago
@antiHUMANDesigns Prove to you why it's impossible to comprehend a god? Gods don't exist. You might as well be asking me to prove to you that unicorns can really fly.
The reason theists will tell you that God is incomprehensible is because his traits/properties do not conform to science or logic. So theists *must* claim that God is beyond our ability to reason or understand; otherwise, we don't get past the first few pages of the Bible before we realize it's full of crap.
MrGarky 2 months ago
@MrGarky Thanks for the answer, but I really want someone who actually believes in god, and believes he is beyond understanding, to explain it to me. Both you and I are atheists (I assume), so we have a different way of seeing it than a theist. I just want to know what -their- evidence is for what they're saying. We can even understand quantum mechanics, so I think we could potentially understand a god if he existed.
antiHUMANDesigns 2 months ago
@Bunji2k6 /watch?v=bOgSxv37SbE I don't know what happened but this is the link.
CloverfieldMonster95 2 months ago
You were doing well until you dismissed psychiatry as a sham and mental illness as non-existant. The sit on a couch and talk about your problems version of psychiatry is more art than science,--which doesn't mean it's useless, just hard to quantify scientifically--but clinical psychiatry is different; it makes predictions that are testable. Evidence strongly suggests that some forms of mental illness are heritable traits, and this fact strongly suggests mental illness is not an imaginary disease
SammyHales 2 months ago
@SammyHales It is a sham. I understand your reservation of this claim given Stefan doesn't justify it in this video but he has actually made GREAT effort to show just how non-scientific the field is. Please consider this following video to see his arguments on the matter: ?v=eOScYBwMyAA
And if I may be so bold, let me recommend that you don't fall to the same mistake many have made by only looking at the title of that video before judging his argument.
sequorroxx 2 months ago
"Tying theology to mathematics and physics is really trying to mix oil and water where the oil doesn't exist." My favorite part.
turbowombat 2 months ago
I am a 4th generation Atheist that grew up on the space coast with a scientist for a father and until I got on to FB I was happy but my new found fellow atheist make me hate being part of the "Secular Movement " It is nothing but a bitch fest.
Clemburke1111 2 months ago
0:35. Atheism is all the rage? David Demming, sweetie, I live in Texas. You have no idea.
DissenteensInRevolt 2 months ago
Merry Christmas Stef!
Aarontc2009 2 months ago
A clever video by a clever man....though there's one thing i disagree with - the suggestion (put foward by the article's author and backed up by Stephen) that the active elimination/subjugation of religion within a society can only have negative results (prime examples - Stalin, Mao and the like) Id argue that whether secularism is enforced or not is interdependent of a society's "moral standing". I mean, look at Turkey under Attaturk in the 20's-heavy secularisation there worked out of the best
HeligWeil 2 months ago
Great arguments... With one flaw (IMHO) which is that if your views were as obvious and factual as you claim, no one would question you. The problem is that atheism is also a question of belief, and beliefs may not be justifiably derived from observable data, neither are qualia. Beliefs and worldviews stem from a realm of experience, which science cannot study. It can only study the effect it might have on behavior. Thus I find myself classifying your adherence to logic as bordering on religion.
MrJPluym 2 months ago
@MrJPluym Um, he actually carefully explained how science can, in fact, study the origin of religious experience--but keep in mind he is not obligated to do that. By the way, if words are to have any meaning whatever, then atheism is not a question of belief. Not believing in insane bronze age myths is no more an act of faith than is not believing in the existance of leprechauns. Your classification of logic as religion is ill-informed and nonsensical.
SammyHales 2 months ago
This guys essay is not backing up his statements with cited material to explain what he means accurately. He is not doing a research paper in a manner that is acceptable by a college professor, because he needs cited material to demonstrate what he's saying.
truvelocity 2 months ago
"Disease of selfishness," umm, how about the disease of getting a good frame and then over-applying it to meet your idealogical goals...nevermind, we already have that; its called, fallacy of equivocation.
Selfishness is hardly an 'imaginary' illness. It is otherwise called the human condition & tribalism and we have 6,000 years of recorded history proving it real & exists. Your political ideology is blurring your philosophical argument.
Hopeful71 2 months ago
I liked most of this but I don't understand how mental illness is imaginary? Is he really going to claim that mental disorders like schizophrenia haven't been proven to have biological causes? Does he think neurotransmitters are just made up and that drugs don't influence the brain?
mikebaxtersc5 2 months ago
18:50
I hope I'm confused about his comments. "According to the experts that I've read" mental illness is an "imaginary ailment."
Sounds like Tom Cruise. I hope I'm just not getting him here. Over-diagnosed? Perhaps. But not non-existent.
If anyone knows what he's driving at I'd like to know.
Thanks.
HellRehab 2 months ago
@HellRehab
He made a few videos on the subject of mental health or mental illness. He acknowedged that suffering and torment are real but there is no such thing as insanity or something like that. I disagree very strongly. There is psychosis (different from psychopathy) and there is real, but difficult to identify neurological problems that results in impulse problems, pathological lying, mania, retardation, etc.
I think he was attacking a stereotype of mentally ill people (at best)
CO2TROL 2 months ago
@CO2TROL Thanks. I'll think long and hard before I would choose to watch a video of his on mental illness.
It is difficult to diagnose, categorize and treatment is very much guess work. My life has "been touched" by a friend suffering from what we call for lack of a better term manic episodes. When you receive your first call in the middle of the night to talk your friend out of a tree at an airport, it changes your view on this matter. During these attacks, he is not himself.
cont.
HellRehab 2 months ago
@CO2TROL He was a pastor of a church, a husband, and a father of two children. Hospitalizations were occasionally required. It eventually cost him his ministry.
I've heard Christians (who have no experience with the mentally-ill) proclaim that there is no such thing as well. I didn't expect to hear that kind of talk from someone who is a rationalist. Comments about this subject should be measured.
He came off sounding like a "know it all" prick. (I'm an atheist and hard to offend.)
HellRehab 2 months ago
@HellRehab
Sorry to hear about your friend. I also have experience of this specific illness. I think the issue is that when the individual concerned is ill they are either hospitalized and removed from sight or they are seen to be intoxicated (they are high on their own neurotransmitters) by the layman.
It is easy to be persuaded by Stefan..., but not on that. Denying the illness is also denying any chance of a better treatment.
I hope your friend was not completely detroyed by it.
CO2TROL 2 months ago
@HellRehab
I generally like Stefans videos, but anyone that agree with him totally on everything is either young and impressionable or with little experience or reasoning ability of their own. Sometimes he just doesn't have the wider experience - the reason ancient philosophers failed was not necessarily because of faulty reasoning but for lack of knowledge of things that would later be discovered. It is clear Stefan realizes this, but did something similar himself. I got annoyed
CO2TROL 2 months ago
Why is sharing a virtue? Would you share your house or your car with me for 6 months?
qtutoringhelps 2 months ago
I'm not so inclined to call it a strawman when he talks about atheists considering God to be anthropomorphic. Maybe it is when he says that college students think that all gods don't exist because they're anthropomorphic, but I've heard many an atheist - probably myself included - mention the idea that the christian God is an old white bearded man as a sort of gibe. Just mentioning it in passing. Maybe thats where he would get that sort of idea from.
Also, bullshit he's a skeptic.
daemonowner 2 months ago
@stefminus
If you are not a libertarian, then you already do belong to a group that includes Bill Maher, Dennis Miller, Glenn Beck or Neil Boortz, because THEY aren't libertarians either.
You can't be a libertarian if you call for government to take action against innocent and peaceful individuals. The names you mentioned are ALL statists who believe in either war, the police state or the welfare state.
You're not a libertarian just because you call yourself one, the way they do.
tridentmovies 2 months ago
Anyone know if Stefan has written a parenting book yet?
ZeerosFate 2 months ago
he has a good radio voice
jpbarbedwire666 2 months ago 22
@jpbarbedwire666 Albeit HIGHLY OVERPRODUCED.
exconguitar 2 months ago
And to discredit fallibilism because the Sophists used it is a guilt by association fallacy. Damn so many fallacies in this video.
jakezielsdorf 2 months ago
Fallibilism is the philosophical principle that humans could be wrong about their beliefs, expectations or understanding of the world. Not "nothing can be known for certain." Absolutists use this infantile argument to attempt to debunk fallibilism which in turn just shows their ignorance and lack of understanding of the concept.
jakezielsdorf 2 months ago
It's unlikely that Jesus, as depicted in the bible, existed. There is no extra-biblical mention of him (there was one, but it has since been discovered to be fraudulent), and given that all the stories and quotes attributed to Jesus were written many years after his supposed death, it's pointless to talk about him being an example of someone killed for impiety. Both his death and his impious actions were, most likely, both fiction.
tml4873 2 months ago
@tml4873 "There is no extra-biblical mention of him (there was one, but it has since been discovered to be fraudulent),"
Bullshit. There's five direct references and two indirect ones. The one so-called fraudulent one is widely believed to be altered, yes, but the vast majority of scholars ascribe about half of it to the original author.
wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg None of them were even born when Jesus was alleged to have been around. If you can provide one contemporary source, get back to me. Even if I grant you all those accounts, all they mention is a name, and some vague details. All the things that make Jesus the person people think he was, are only in the New Testament, which has never been proved to be more than myth. So if you want to say there was a guy named Jesus, sure. It means about as much as saying there was a guy named Steve.
tml4873 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg There are no contemporary sources verifying the living, historical Jesus. The sources you list never met Jesus and never met anybody who had met Jesus and never met anybody who had met somebody who had met Jesus. They wrote long after the fact about what people believed to be....and nobody argues that Christians didn't exist in the second and third century, which is all your sources support.
1n354a 2 months ago 7
@1n354a
So is it most likely that Jesus was a complete invention or that the character existed but many stories were inflated?
CO2TROL 2 months ago
@CO2TROL My opinion? He is a legend as is King Arthur or Robin Hood. Street preachers with followings named Jesus who pissed off the temple and/or the Romans getting nailed to trees probably existed. The stories grew to include things like virgin births, resurrection, god-men, feats of magic and healing. Obviously these things never happened, but they certainly take the character Jesus to a whole new level and are useful to gain converts to a blossoming religion. IMHO
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a While I agree it depends on what you mean by "exists" or "lived". There really was J. Bourne that had a traumatic brain injury and psychogenic amnesia that lived in New York and Boston...in 1892. He was the basis used by Ludlum to create Jason Bourne. Does, then, Jason Bourne exist? Did he really "live" since he might be based on a historic person?
No. Jesus is as fictional as Jason Bourne and is as related to his historic basis as Bourne is....
johnycannuk 2 months ago
@johnycannuk I disagree, though I see where you are coming from. We know that an historical figure existed off whom Ludlum based his character. We don't know that any such character existed (with the same level of certainty) 2,000 years ago. Therefor tying the two together really doesn't float in my opinion. A better comparison would be the Robin Hood character in that there was no historical Robin, rather a segment of society/group of people who lived similar lives. The character was drawn...
1n354a 2 months ago
(cont) from the experiences of many people and conditions and ideals and such. Robin and Jesus are amalgamations and as such they differ greatly from the Bourne character who we know is based off an historical figure.
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "The sources you list never met Jesus and never met anybody who had met Jesus and never met anybody who had met somebody who had met Jesus."
Irrelevant. Such a claim is true for pretty much anybody, with few exceptions, living before the 10th century. Jesus is an exception in that he is referred to first-hand in something known as the gospels.
(I'm just waiting for you to say something stupid like "the gospels don't verify the living, historical Jesus" so I can have a laugh)
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg The gospels were written by unknown authors anywhere from 40 to 80 years (at the earliest) after the fact. The authors didn't know or see or meet Jesus or any of Jesus' followers. If you honestly think that they are first-hand accounts, PM me as I have information on beach-front property in Arizona that you need to invest in!
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "The gospels were written by unknown authors anywhere from 40 to 80 years (at the earliest) after the fact"
Again, irrelevant (and wrong, too, but that's another argument). Homer's poems "Odyssey" & Iliad" were written 400 years after the fact and yet historians treat them as reliable documents for establishing the major figures and events that occurred during the Trojan War, despite the fact that both poems make mythological statements like referencing ancient Greek gods.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg regarding authorship of gospels: absolutely correct, actually.
by your own admission, the Greek gods are real things, since they were referenced in writings that historians consider to be reliable. same-same the Christian mythology statements like virgin births, man-gods, ressurections, magical healings and the like.....wouldn't you agree?
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a Straw-man; did you miss the part where I wrote "despite"? If you're going to act retarded in order to make ridiculous straw-men then I'm just going to call you retarded and forget about this.
Similar to Homer's Poems, the Gospels are fairly reliable in their attempt to record a historical account despite the fact that they make mythologizing statements. See wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Gospels, wiki/Biblical_criticism, and wiki/Historical_Jesus
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg You don't know what a strawman argument is. I was questioning the consistency of your argument as you are fine with the historic aspect of the Odyssey and Iliad though you discount the inclusion of Greek gods. The Gospels, however, have no historical relevance and deal mainly with mythological claims. What point are you trying to make....you are all over the place.
Oh yeah, still waiting on the PM with all this evidence for the historical Jesus.....
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a The Gospels make numerous factual claims, as a casual glance into the first few lines of Mark attest:
"John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and the whole region of Judea was going out to him. John was dressed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and eating locusts and wild honey."
Sounds like a first person attestation, or the recounting of one, to me. The whole thing reads as such.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg of course it reads as such...but so do numerous fantasy novels and other works...just because an author writes in a certain manner does not mean that they actually saw what happened. the reality is that the authors didn't see these things first hand, nor did they write about something that somebody else had seen first hand. I am sorry if this is a shock to you....
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "just because an author writes in a certain manner does not mean that they actually saw what happened."
Actually, yeah, it does. It's how you separate first hand accounts, like the Gospels, from historian retrospectives. But wait you seem to think there was a booming industry in fiction writing at the time... or something like that.
Apparently the Gospels were sold in corner stores at the time as a piece of fiction writing. Interesting perspective on history, there...
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg If I write a book about Jesus' love of mounting donkeys like a man does a woman and I write it from the point of view of a witness of these acts you would accept that Jesus was a donkey-fucker? Or would you see it as somebody writing a story about somebody from the point of view of a witness of the acts? I think that we both know what you would think of such a book - as such you understand what I think about your book. See how simple this is? All you need do is think....
1n354a 2 months ago
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@1n354a "If I write a book about Jesus' love of mounting donkeys like a man does a woman and I write it from the point of view of a witness of these acts you would accept that Jesus was a donkey-fucker?"
Are you done strawmaning, retard? If there were numerous different sources describing Jesus fucking donkeys dated around 40-70 A.D., then I would probably believe it. But there aren't.
"All you need do is think."
NO FUCKING SHIT. Try it some time.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
Because, after all, it's not like the Jews had centuries of cultural tradition in passing down religious doctrine by word of mouth, and could have very reliably preserved an account of events only a few decades old... oh wait, they did. But it's not as though the Gospels present themselves as first-hand accounts... oh wait, they do. Well, the factual claims they make surely have been contradicted by archaeology, geography, and independent third-party accounts... oh wait, they weren't.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg So you think the earth is 5000 years old? You think the sun rotates around the earth? Jesus no only rose from the dead but flew bodily into "heaven"? These claims haven't been refuted by scientific evidence? We have been up into "the heavens" and there is nothing there, no afterlife or god/s. You're an atheist when it comes to the Hindu gods right? Greek and Roman ones? They all had stories based on real events and places too, the supernatural was added in.
Hashishin13 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg Have you ever played 'Telephone'? Simple sentence, 20 kids, where does it end up...but you are talking about pages and pages of stories and happenings and the like that were perfectly recounted over centuries. Do you have a functioning brain?? I'm not arguing that the Jews (and others) didn't have an oral tradition, rather that accuracy of message is NOT a strong suit when it comes to oral traditions.
you have archaeological evidence that Jesus walked on water? cured the blind?
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "you have archaeological evidence that Jesus walked on water? cured the blind?"
1. Can you prove he didn't? Maybe he pulled a Chris Angel, maybe it was a later insertion into the text, or maybe he really did it.
2. Are you retarded? Archaeological evidence can't prove that anyhow. Archaeological evidence is used to distinguish between The Book of Mormon, and the Gospels. The former was completely made up and the writers of the latter were just mistaken or exaggerating.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg "That explains everything. It's all a conspiracy!"
You see, the difference between what I just said here regarding the Gospels and the average religious text is that most of them mythologize about what happened hundreds of thousands of years ago at the dawn of time or whatever. The Gospels are the exception to the rule: they talk about a specific person living at a specific time doing very specific acts not even a few decades before the books themselves are written.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
"books themselves are written."
ctd: The Gospels are treated by historians as historical accounts of his life, but are taken with a grain of salt because it's likely that the writers exaggerated or mythologized when Jesus did something inexplicable, and it is also likely that despite their best efforts to reconstruct it in its original form, it likely contains later insertions. He was either an ancient Criss Angel & medicine man or a real miracle worker, but he still existed.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg a few decades before....could you write an accurate account of the daily life of somebody you never knew who lived in the 50-70's? Including quotes and details that most people can't remember from events that happened last week? That is comical that you make such a claim...any 5th grader who has played Telephone would shoot you down in two seconds.
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "any 5th grader who has played Telephone would shoot you down in two seconds."
The difference between modern day Telephone between 5th graders and 1st century Jewish oral culture is:
1. Nothing is whispered.
2. It's repeated as many times as the listener needs.
3. There weren't too many scribes so having a strong memory was far more important than today.
4. Preachers dedicated their lives to being a source of religious knowledge.
5. The participants are older than 10.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg and still the same rules apply....trying to sell the concept that a single story was accurately passed down many decades without so much as an embellishment is comical at best. bullet as many reasons as you like and reality remains the same....didn't happen, chief.
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "and still the same rules apply"
Nope, as explained by the bulleted list.
"trying to sell the concept that a single story was accurately passed down many decades without so much as an embellishment is comical at best"
That's why potential historians would do well to find several witnesses of the events to refer to in order to identify the most common line. Sort of like what good historians have done from the beginning of time and continue to do today.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@1n354a Oh, and it's not a "single story", it's four. There are four Gospels, you know.
Reflecting both the fact that you have a point (it's hard to keep the story 100% straight over time) and a clueless moron (it's like that for all history before the age of the printing press). Keep your uneducated opinions to yourself and leave the study of ancient history for the experts.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg Again with the honesty! I'm proud of you. You are right, there are four Gospels which tell four different stories. If there was any accuracy in the story, the four Gospels, they would tell the same story.
And just a minor point, there were probably some 50 Gospels that were circulating around the region...neither here nor there though.
Regarding historian activity : yes, a good historian would find witnesses or contemporary accounts in order to verify their writings.....
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "They didn't interview people who knew Jesus."
You say that with such certainty; did you travel back in time to confirm that yourself, you who needs eyewitness testimony of everything? Or did you just swallow the bullshit that some fringe critic pulled out of his rear one day because he decided he needed to sound convincing enough to some ignorant, gullible high school grad?
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg actually no I don't need eyewitness testimony for everything, but it certainly helps in cases such as this.
More damning is the complete lack of evidence that your god-man ever existed, did anything he is claimed to have done. Add that to the fact that the Gospels tell different stories, were written decades after the fact and several things become quite clear....wouldn't you say?
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a Oh, and by the way:
"If there was any accuracy in the story, the four Gospels, they would tell the same story."
That would be an indication of conspiracy on the part of the writers. Part of writing different accounts means you rely on different testimonies, as you would know if you A. weren't completely ignorant of the study of ancient history, and B. didn't blatantly ignore any train of thought that could contradict your dogmatic opinions about the topic.
Fucking idiot...
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg No you simple minded fuck, that would be an indication that the Holy Spirit or God or Jebus was at work since there is no natural way that an unrelated group of humans could maintain continuity in an otherwise unrecorded story for many decades after the fact, record it so that all the plot lines line up perfectly. Instead what we have is what we expect: different people telling different stories. You really drank the Kool Aid, didn't you? you brainless twit...
1n354a 1 month ago
HeyItzMeDawg 1 month ago
@HeyItzMeDawg What a strong response! Writing 'wrong' after everything I write....gee gosh golly why didn't I think of that approach. LOL! You are too funny....
1n354a 1 month ago
@1n354a Holy shit, look at that; to debunk every assertion you make would take more time than I have to give, since you throw out about 5 per comment.
"You really drank the Kool Aid, didn't you? you brainless twit..."
Aren't you the one claiming that everything historians think happened before the invention of the printing press is wrong? It sure fucking sounds like it, anyways.
I'm done here, take your uneducated, ignorant, biased opinions and shove them up your ass for all I care.
HeyItzMeDawg 1 month ago
@HeyItzMeDawg No you can't debunk them because you know they are valid points and you have no defense. I'll let you slide on those points though so long as you follow your initial offer to PM me all the information on your historical Jebus character from the Holly Babble. I am sure that it will change my entire perspective on life, the universe and everything.
1n354a 1 month ago
@HeyItzMeDawg Unfortunately, the Gospel writers had neither. They didn't interview people who knew Jesus. They didn't interview people who attended the trials and tribulations. They didn't interview people who had seen him rise from the dead or wander the streets. They copied down mythological stories about legendary characters from Bronze Age, Middle Eastern lore.....and people like you bought it hook line and sinker.
1n354a 2 months ago
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@1n354a "They copied down mythological stories about legendary characters from Bronze Age, Middle Eastern lore.....and people like you bought it hook line and sinker."
Oh ho, you're one of these wackos. Well, enough said from my part. Keep telling yourself that Jesus "the Son of God" is just a mistranslated Jesus "the Sun God" or whatever it is you think.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg Then why is there hundreds of contradictions in the Bible? I'm not saying your five points are inaccurate but why all the contradictions?
DarkZerkerX 2 months ago in playlist More videos from stefbot
@DarkZerkerX Name one in the Gospel and I'll address it to the best of my knowledge.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@1n354a "could you write an accurate account of the daily life of somebody you never knew who lived in the 50-70's?"
How exactly do you think history books were written before the printing press? It's paraphrase, you moron. Do you think people accurately and thoroughly recorded events the day after they happen and handed their notes to the historian? Get a fucking basic understanding of the topic of ancient history before you pretend like you know anything, for fucks sake.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg answer the question, you fucking ignoramus.
And no, you dickless wonder, historians didn't receive notes from people but they did their research and had their sources...your bible is written by unknown authors who had no other references to work from, didn't know any of the players in their story and they weren't known or respected historians....in other words they were goat-fucking desert wanderers who had spent too much time in the sun...they made the shit up, dude.
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "answer the question, you fucking ignoramus."
You mean this one?
"could you write an accurate account of the daily life of somebody you never knew who lived in the 50-70's?"
The daily life? Maybe not. But a particular few weeks of their life in great detail, namely the most important ones? Of course I could.
Undoubtedly there are many witnesses I could find who would be willing to share their experience, and I could perhaps assemble work written by newspapers and the like.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg "Maybe not." is about as close to honesty as you have come in a long time. Even with all the assets available (print, video, pictures, family scrap books) you would never be able to accurately capture specific details and moments in a person's life. Now imagine you lived in a time when the best you had was what people talked about....no newspapers, no scrap books, no family photo albums, no videos...if you couldn't do it today, how do you expect me to buy that they could back then?
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a Why does it matter that "specific details" are "captured accurately"? I don't fucking care what color Elvis' toothpaste was or whether him and his best friend had a secret handshake for each day of the week, and I don't expect to see that in a history book either. And even if such detail was in there I wouldn't be able to verify it anyways. All I need to know is a rough idea of what the person said, where they went, and what they did when they got there.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg yes I can - men can't walk on water without resorting to some illusion or trick. therefor your Jesus character didn't walk on water. simple enough.
the OT, NT, Quran, Book of Mormon were all completely made up, full of mistakes, exaggerations, fantastical, magical malarkey, and generalized bullshit. That you try to argue that one is completely made up while the other has lots of merit is freakin' hilarious.
1n354a 2 months ago
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"That you try to argue that one is completely made up while the other has lots of merit is freakin' hilarious."
It's not an "argument", it's a "fact" that the Book of Mormon is contradicted by countless archaeological evidence, it's a "fact" the Gospels are well supported by countless archaeological evidence, and it's also a "fact" that historians consider support by archaeological evidence as a key factor in establishing a text's credibility as a historical account.
Troll harder.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
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@1n354a "I'm not arguing that the Jews (and others) didn't have an oral tradition, rather that accuracy of message is NOT a strong suit when it comes to oral traditions."
Fun fact: Jewish preachers in Jesus' day were known for having the entire Torah memorized. That's the first five books of the Bible.
Now, likely it was paraphrase, but text doesn't need to be literally memorized. That's partially why the four gospels diverge so much from each other.
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago
@HeyItzMeDawg rasied people from the dead? was the result of a virgin birth? rose from the dead? ever existed?
Independent third party accounts? Like historians who wrote 60-200 years after the fact and wrote little more than what Christians of their time believed? Or do you have secret third-party contemporaries of Jesus who wrote during or immediately after his life? I'm sure that the world would love to learn of these.....
1n354a 2 months ago
@1n354a "historians [...] wrote little more than what Christians of their time believed? "
How the fuck to do suppose Christianity got started? I guess a bunch of guys got together one day, decided to call themselves Apostles of Jesus Christ and go around telling everyone that there was a guy named Jesus of Nazareth who was just executed yesterday and who performed all kinds of miracles in a bunch of different towns.
That explains everything. It's all a conspiracy!
HeyItzMeDawg 2 months ago