@PCREVIEWHQ I'm not sure if they directy relate to the information in this video.
Augustine did a treatise called "On lying" where he painstakingly looked at potential situations where it could behoove a person to lie, ie, saving their own life, etc, and basically concluded that it was never ok to lie. He had an extremely STRICT code of ethics.
Do you believe he was lying about the stuff he saw for himself?
@TheGenuineChristian Yuratchka! My daughter and were just having a laugh at Marc's "Yuratchka embarrasses himself again" video! I tell her you're an arrogant jerk, and you show up and call Augustine a heretic, proving my point! She's giggling at you right now!
...all of this was testified to by many workers at the hospital and by many followers of the healer as well as by Walter and his wife and the Dr. mentioned previously as well as a judge who (with the Dr.) questioned the original doctor at the hospital who pronounced Walter dead. Believe it? Or not? It happened no more than 40 years ago. And was investigated by many people from all over the world. A lot of those people became followers of the healer and saw him work many other miracles and signs.
@hadzhere Ah! Sathya Sai Baba! I've heard about that dude. He's either a sorcerer, or a fraudster. I have no problem with the notion of sorcerers...especially with a man who said he was God, and his followers were God...being able to deceive people with magnificent feats, perhaps even raising one who appears to be dead.
With this out of the way...what say ye of Augustine's reports...especially his report of the Easter Church miracle in Hippo? Was he lying?
@msm1876 We have a well-attested, recent example of a God/Man performing 'miracles' and you think he's either a sorcerer or a fraud. I can narrow that down to one option and apply it to all who claim similar (S.Baba was a fraud). The Church miracle is even less convincing, there is one symptom and if it was real at all it was something psychosomatic (easily faked too, who saw them shaking in their sleep to confirm it was involuntary?) so 2nd option he was being deceived, last option - deceiving.
@hadzhere Wait...did you actually read the account of the church miracle in Augustine's "City of God?" I have the link up.
Augustine is writing **IN HIPPO** about an event that had just happened **IN HIPPO** a few years earlier. Are you saying these 2 people arrived in Hippo faking Huntington's disease, and one of them kept publicly begging God to heal him...and he was finally healed in front of a churchful of people...are you saying this guy came to Hippo, faking the whole thing?
@msm1876 Have you any evidence that they didn't? Maybe they did it as a "trick" in all the cities. Haven't you ever heard of faith healers? I did read the account, it smacks VERY much of faith healing shtick. The supposed malady alone is so insipid that it hardly qualifies as a miracle even if they did get 'cured' right there in the Church. Hypothesis: they were cursed by their mother (as the account says) causing hysterical psychosomatic shaking, power of suggestion by church members cured it.
@msm1876 It's happened before with Christians, it will happen again. I can't say in this case, because I CAN'T interview ANYONE else who was there to confirm the story. Did you take the word of a Sai Baba follower without investigating and believe he was a miracle worker? Oh yes, you did, but you attributed it to sorcery, then you did some digging and found out he was a fraud. Perhaps you should drop your preconceived ideas and look at ALL of these stories (including Jesus) with a skeptical eye.
Not so well attested. I just put a link in the vid's info bar that throws a lot of doubt on the testimonies of the "eyewitnesses.
Anyway, Augustine said he saw a blind person healed with his own eyes...and a man with an incurable rectal fissure also healed after much prayer. Augustine had such a strict ethical sense that he considered **ANY** untruth a sin, under **ANY** circumstances. Was he lying?
@msm1876 Ah, we'll make a good skeptic of you yet. The difference is I CANNOT look up the real happenings from a real eyewitness, I only have Jesus followers' words to go on and they are no better than S.Baba's followers' words. There are Christians today who claim that untruth is a sin but will testify to faith healers' miracles till they're blue in the face, why should I think Augustine was any more truthful or any less deceived?
@msm1876 Show me external evidence of ANY of the events in the New Testament. An historian reporting the double earthquake at Jesus death/rez, or the raising of a bunch of dead 'saints' who appeared to many, the receipt for a new temple curtain after the old one ripped even ;). Why are all the amazing things he supposedly did not even mentioned by his contemporaries? You would not believe similar reports if they were made today, so why grant it happened 2000 yrs ago with no confirming evidence?
@hadzhere >>>Show me external evidence of ANY of the events in the New Testament.
You do know that the Jews had to excuse away Jesus' miracles as sorcery? This was found in Origen's Against Celsus. Origen was answering Celsus' slander against Christianity and Christ, and Celsus got his info from the Jewish slander of Jesus . And they said he learned sorcery in Egypt.
I'll give you another example in the next post. cont.
@msm1876 Except once again, it's only from Christian sources. Celsus actual words have been destroyed (by Christians no doubt) and can only be reconstructed from Origen. Who knows in what context he said them. Who knows if he was giving a hypothetical (like I did) of how the Christian stories sprung up? Actually I just read the Origen account Celsus does appear to have been setting up a hypothetical situation in his text (which we now only have parts of).
@hadz Next example: Jesus' empty tomb and the Jews dispatching people to tell others that the disciple stole the body (Matt 28:12-15) is found in Justin Martyr's "Dialogue With Trypho" Ch 108. Read it, and you'll see Justin, who was originally from Samaria, remind Trypho(Originally from Israel) of how Jews were dispatched empire wide to spread that message; he even quotes the words of the dispatch command. It's simply agreed upon common knowledge between the two. I'll give 1 more.
@msm1876 Again tales from a Christian sources. You don't imagine that the Dialogue with Trypho was a real occurrence do you? Was Matthew refuting a real happening or was he responding to explanations by Jews of hypotheticals of "how it could have occurred". We CAN'T know because NO contemporary accounts mention his supposed resurrection NOR provide that explanation to account for it. It is all from context-less reports in Christian authors. See my other comments on what I think is evidence.
@hadzhere >Dialogue with Trypho was a real occurrence do you?
Yeah...it's pretty well accepted by all textual critics as legitimately from Justin. So, what he lied and made up the whole thing??
The Celsus thing...Origen repeats the arguments word for word. Again, he accuses Jesus of learning sorcery in Egypt...take it, leave it, it's your business. Your loss, frankly.
@msm1876 And yet somehow he failed to report all the miraculous things Jesus did? Herod was hated by Josephus thus his reporting of this occurrence (which really only records how he died, nothing miraculous there, just given a miraculous slant as usual for the day). Why didn't Josephus mention Herod's slaughter of all the babies under 2 years old while he was looking for Jesus? This would be much better evidence for the gospels and much more noteworthy too, I would think.
@msm1876 Also, ask yourself: If Jesus used miracles to prove to people that he was from God, and if it did not hurt their 'free wills' to see these miracles, and if all these miracles were written down and attested to by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so that we could all hear and so believe, then why didn't Jesus' provide even ONE miracle with a permanence that would transcend time and confirm the story on investigation? Why are we today not entitled to 'pull a Thomas' and ask to see the holes?
@hadzhere >>>why didn't Jesus' provide even ONE miracle with a permanence...
How about the wild events in the temple during from 30-70 AD...right after he died, leading up to the temple's destruction...recorded in the Jewish Talmud?
Copy this and put it in the YT search bar:
The Old Covenant ended in 30 AD...and the proof's in the TALMUD?!?!?! Seriously?
...together the healer and Walter went to a high place and entered a room where Walter's "records" were read aloud. The healer addressed the "chairman" and asked that Walter be given over to his care so that Walter may continue his purpose for the healer. Walter then felt himself descending back towards his body, but with great reluctance as he did not want to re-enter the "cesspool" of his weak mortal form. At that moment he started to struggle for breath again and woke up...
...at a certain time (10am), no one saw him there, but on arriving back where his followers were he declared that he had resurrected Walter. The doctor was interview later on (by another Dr. trying to confirm the story) and he reported that Walter was definitely dead, but later on nurses had found him alive. Walter also reported that he had known he had died in the ambulance and stayed with his body throughout the sojourn into the hospital and up to the time when the healer came to his side...
I have a story for you. It may take more than one comment. A man named Walter had a massive heart attack, he was pronounced dead in the ambulance on his way to hospital. On arrival at the hospital he was confirmed dead and his nose and ears were stuffed with cotton and he was covered with a sheet and moved to an empty room to await funeral preparations. The doctor went about his business. The healer (who I will not name, for now) told his followers he would visit the hospital...
You really hit the nail on the head in your summation. Atheism is a religious system which requires faith as a system of perception. There is no empirical evidence to back it up (as your reading demonstrates, just the opposite) and you cannot use rationalism to prove it (again, just the opposite as there MUST be a First Cause--i.e., God). Thus Atheism is faith based, a religion--and, as Norm Geisler's book says "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist."
@egwpisteuw The poor atheists... everyone likes to pick on them. Reminds me of that comical definition of a cult: "everyone else's religion". Isn't Atheist just A=without Theism=belief in god(s) and the "ism" being the bias. Dark matter studies, if I understand correctly, may suggest that 'nothing' doesn't exist, so perhaps matter is perpetual and a First Cause is simply a point in a cycle. God may be in control, but miracles need some new press. Something captured in digital 'no doubt' ;-)
@PCREVIEWHQ I'm not sure if they directy relate to the information in this video.
Augustine did a treatise called "On lying" where he painstakingly looked at potential situations where it could behoove a person to lie, ie, saving their own life, etc, and basically concluded that it was never ok to lie. He had an extremely STRICT code of ethics.
Do you believe he was lying about the stuff he saw for himself?
msm1876 4 weeks ago
You sure love your heretics. =P
TheGenuineChristian 1 month ago
@TheGenuineChristian Yuratchka! My daughter and were just having a laugh at Marc's "Yuratchka embarrasses himself again" video! I tell her you're an arrogant jerk, and you show up and call Augustine a heretic, proving my point! She's giggling at you right now!
Keep up the good work entertaining my family!
She just went "RRRRRR! No, Yuratchka."
LOLOLOLOL
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 Stop dumbing her brain with your heresy.
TheGenuineChristian 1 month ago
@TheGenuineChristian I like you Yuratchka...you're silly.
msm1876 1 month ago
...all of this was testified to by many workers at the hospital and by many followers of the healer as well as by Walter and his wife and the Dr. mentioned previously as well as a judge who (with the Dr.) questioned the original doctor at the hospital who pronounced Walter dead. Believe it? Or not? It happened no more than 40 years ago. And was investigated by many people from all over the world. A lot of those people became followers of the healer and saw him work many other miracles and signs.
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere >>>Believe it? Or not? It happened no more than 40 years ago. And was investigated by many people from all over the world.
I need more information. Could be a miracle, could be a hoax, could be sorcery. All depends. I need more info.
msm1876 1 month ago
@hadzhere Ah! Sathya Sai Baba! I've heard about that dude. He's either a sorcerer, or a fraudster. I have no problem with the notion of sorcerers...especially with a man who said he was God, and his followers were God...being able to deceive people with magnificent feats, perhaps even raising one who appears to be dead.
With this out of the way...what say ye of Augustine's reports...especially his report of the Easter Church miracle in Hippo? Was he lying?
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 We have a well-attested, recent example of a God/Man performing 'miracles' and you think he's either a sorcerer or a fraud. I can narrow that down to one option and apply it to all who claim similar (S.Baba was a fraud). The Church miracle is even less convincing, there is one symptom and if it was real at all it was something psychosomatic (easily faked too, who saw them shaking in their sleep to confirm it was involuntary?) so 2nd option he was being deceived, last option - deceiving.
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere Wait...did you actually read the account of the church miracle in Augustine's "City of God?" I have the link up.
Augustine is writing **IN HIPPO** about an event that had just happened **IN HIPPO** a few years earlier. Are you saying these 2 people arrived in Hippo faking Huntington's disease, and one of them kept publicly begging God to heal him...and he was finally healed in front of a churchful of people...are you saying this guy came to Hippo, faking the whole thing?
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 Have you any evidence that they didn't? Maybe they did it as a "trick" in all the cities. Haven't you ever heard of faith healers? I did read the account, it smacks VERY much of faith healing shtick. The supposed malady alone is so insipid that it hardly qualifies as a miracle even if they did get 'cured' right there in the Church. Hypothesis: they were cursed by their mother (as the account says) causing hysterical psychosomatic shaking, power of suggestion by church members cured it.
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere >>>Hypothesis:psychosomatic shaking....
So ALL of the family members reacted the exact same way? If you say so.
>>>power of suggestion by church members cured it.
They didn't do anything...he approached the relics of Steven, prayed, fell asleep, and was cured.
So I have your position: You're accusing a man who believed ALL forms of untruth to be sin, no matter WHAT the circumstances...of lying?
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 It's happened before with Christians, it will happen again. I can't say in this case, because I CAN'T interview ANYONE else who was there to confirm the story. Did you take the word of a Sai Baba follower without investigating and believe he was a miracle worker? Oh yes, you did, but you attributed it to sorcery, then you did some digging and found out he was a fraud. Perhaps you should drop your preconceived ideas and look at ALL of these stories (including Jesus) with a skeptical eye.
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadz>>We have a well-attested,
Not so well attested. I just put a link in the vid's info bar that throws a lot of doubt on the testimonies of the "eyewitnesses.
Anyway, Augustine said he saw a blind person healed with his own eyes...and a man with an incurable rectal fissure also healed after much prayer. Augustine had such a strict ethical sense that he considered **ANY** untruth a sin, under **ANY** circumstances. Was he lying?
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 Ah, we'll make a good skeptic of you yet. The difference is I CANNOT look up the real happenings from a real eyewitness, I only have Jesus followers' words to go on and they are no better than S.Baba's followers' words. There are Christians today who claim that untruth is a sin but will testify to faith healers' miracles till they're blue in the face, why should I think Augustine was any more truthful or any less deceived?
hadzhere 1 month ago
@msm1876 Show me external evidence of ANY of the events in the New Testament. An historian reporting the double earthquake at Jesus death/rez, or the raising of a bunch of dead 'saints' who appeared to many, the receipt for a new temple curtain after the old one ripped even ;). Why are all the amazing things he supposedly did not even mentioned by his contemporaries? You would not believe similar reports if they were made today, so why grant it happened 2000 yrs ago with no confirming evidence?
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere >>>Show me external evidence of ANY of the events in the New Testament.
You do know that the Jews had to excuse away Jesus' miracles as sorcery? This was found in Origen's Against Celsus. Origen was answering Celsus' slander against Christianity and Christ, and Celsus got his info from the Jewish slander of Jesus . And they said he learned sorcery in Egypt.
I'll give you another example in the next post. cont.
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 Except once again, it's only from Christian sources. Celsus actual words have been destroyed (by Christians no doubt) and can only be reconstructed from Origen. Who knows in what context he said them. Who knows if he was giving a hypothetical (like I did) of how the Christian stories sprung up? Actually I just read the Origen account Celsus does appear to have been setting up a hypothetical situation in his text (which we now only have parts of).
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadz Next example: Jesus' empty tomb and the Jews dispatching people to tell others that the disciple stole the body (Matt 28:12-15) is found in Justin Martyr's "Dialogue With Trypho" Ch 108. Read it, and you'll see Justin, who was originally from Samaria, remind Trypho(Originally from Israel) of how Jews were dispatched empire wide to spread that message; he even quotes the words of the dispatch command. It's simply agreed upon common knowledge between the two. I'll give 1 more.
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 Again tales from a Christian sources. You don't imagine that the Dialogue with Trypho was a real occurrence do you? Was Matthew refuting a real happening or was he responding to explanations by Jews of hypotheticals of "how it could have occurred". We CAN'T know because NO contemporary accounts mention his supposed resurrection NOR provide that explanation to account for it. It is all from context-less reports in Christian authors. See my other comments on what I think is evidence.
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere >Dialogue with Trypho was a real occurrence do you?
Yeah...it's pretty well accepted by all textual critics as legitimately from Justin. So, what he lied and made up the whole thing??
The Celsus thing...Origen repeats the arguments word for word. Again, he accuses Jesus of learning sorcery in Egypt...take it, leave it, it's your business. Your loss, frankly.
msm1876 1 month ago
@hadzhere 3) Acts 12:23 sounds like a ridiculous tall tale...yet is corroborated by Josephus.
msm1876 1 month ago
@msm1876 And yet somehow he failed to report all the miraculous things Jesus did? Herod was hated by Josephus thus his reporting of this occurrence (which really only records how he died, nothing miraculous there, just given a miraculous slant as usual for the day). Why didn't Josephus mention Herod's slaughter of all the babies under 2 years old while he was looking for Jesus? This would be much better evidence for the gospels and much more noteworthy too, I would think.
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere This
hadzhere 1 month ago
@msm1876 Also, ask yourself: If Jesus used miracles to prove to people that he was from God, and if it did not hurt their 'free wills' to see these miracles, and if all these miracles were written down and attested to by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so that we could all hear and so believe, then why didn't Jesus' provide even ONE miracle with a permanence that would transcend time and confirm the story on investigation? Why are we today not entitled to 'pull a Thomas' and ask to see the holes?
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere This
hadzhere 1 month ago
@hadzhere >>>why didn't Jesus' provide even ONE miracle with a permanence...
How about the wild events in the temple during from 30-70 AD...right after he died, leading up to the temple's destruction...recorded in the Jewish Talmud?
Copy this and put it in the YT search bar:
The Old Covenant ended in 30 AD...and the proof's in the TALMUD?!?!?! Seriously?
See ya there. Like to hear a skeptic's take.
msm1876 1 month ago
...together the healer and Walter went to a high place and entered a room where Walter's "records" were read aloud. The healer addressed the "chairman" and asked that Walter be given over to his care so that Walter may continue his purpose for the healer. Walter then felt himself descending back towards his body, but with great reluctance as he did not want to re-enter the "cesspool" of his weak mortal form. At that moment he started to struggle for breath again and woke up...
hadzhere 1 month ago
...at a certain time (10am), no one saw him there, but on arriving back where his followers were he declared that he had resurrected Walter. The doctor was interview later on (by another Dr. trying to confirm the story) and he reported that Walter was definitely dead, but later on nurses had found him alive. Walter also reported that he had known he had died in the ambulance and stayed with his body throughout the sojourn into the hospital and up to the time when the healer came to his side...
hadzhere 1 month ago
I have a story for you. It may take more than one comment. A man named Walter had a massive heart attack, he was pronounced dead in the ambulance on his way to hospital. On arrival at the hospital he was confirmed dead and his nose and ears were stuffed with cotton and he was covered with a sheet and moved to an empty room to await funeral preparations. The doctor went about his business. The healer (who I will not name, for now) told his followers he would visit the hospital...
hadzhere 1 month ago
I've been working my way through "Confessions." Such a a great book. I would love to see it translated to modern English. Great question/suggestion.
21crosscheck21 2 months ago
@21crosscheck21 I'm working my way through "Cat in the Hat".
Any correlations?
TheSnarkyApologist 2 months ago
@TheSnarkyApologist Bill, that comment pretty well made my night!
HA!
msm1876 2 months ago
@TheSnarkyApologist Wow...:)
rpierre777 2 months ago
You really hit the nail on the head in your summation. Atheism is a religious system which requires faith as a system of perception. There is no empirical evidence to back it up (as your reading demonstrates, just the opposite) and you cannot use rationalism to prove it (again, just the opposite as there MUST be a First Cause--i.e., God). Thus Atheism is faith based, a religion--and, as Norm Geisler's book says "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist."
egwpisteuw 2 months ago
@egwpisteuw The poor atheists... everyone likes to pick on them. Reminds me of that comical definition of a cult: "everyone else's religion". Isn't Atheist just A=without Theism=belief in god(s) and the "ism" being the bias. Dark matter studies, if I understand correctly, may suggest that 'nothing' doesn't exist, so perhaps matter is perpetual and a First Cause is simply a point in a cycle. God may be in control, but miracles need some new press. Something captured in digital 'no doubt' ;-)
justice1954 2 months ago