Catholic church at it again. This time Holland.

[Seth]

And your critically robust evidence that Luke did not accurate recount the events as they actually occurred based on his careful investigation is....???

Well isn't that special. Unfortunately the question it was testifying against was not "are the Gospels true," but rather are they eyewitness testimony. So your rejoinder is not even relevant.

And, one might just as well ask what Seth's critically robust evidence is that the writers of the Poetic and Prose Edda and the Heimskringla did not accurately recount events as they actually occurred based on his careful investigation is....???

And, I love how Seth assumes, without any critically robust evidence, that Luke did a "careful investigation." Where, Seth, is your critically robust evidence that Luke made a careful investigation, or that he even wrote the book of Luke?

I don't have any. Nor have I ever claimed to have any such evidence. I'm just analyzing your arguments, logic and reason for the claims you make. That's it.

[Seth]

A nice, concise phrasing of my point that each of the various versions of the different Bibles are hearsay within hearsay within hearsay.

We don't HAVE an eyewitness. We have a person writing a book who claims that someone else witnesses something. Not only that, we don't have the original writing. So, we have an unknown scribe, who may or may not have accurately copied a manuscript, that may or may not have been the original manuscript, by an unknown original author, who was writing down what he either thought up himself or was reported to him happened decades before the writing occurred.

That is not "eyewitness testimony." Eyewitness testimony is, axiomatically, testimony of an eyewitness. We don't have that. We have a decades after the fact report, written by a person who wasn't there, writing about events AT BEST reported to him, and we don't know who the writer was. That writing was supposedly copied, and the original subsequently lost.

So? What's your evidence that the transcription of events is false or incorrect? Your incredulity is not evidence, I'm afraid...still.

[Seth]

Nope. They haven't. If you care to prove me wrong, present the evidence.

I have. You evade the consequences of that evidence by discounting it and denying that it is evidence, even though it is clearly and exactly evidence even according to your own argument because, in the case of the gospels, it's a record of observations of actual events set down by the observers of those events, which you yourself said constituted evidence.

We don't even know who wrote the Gospels, much less that they are eyewitness testimony.

No, you refuse to believe that they are eyewitness testimony. But what you "know" does not impeach the truth of the claims, does it?

What claim? I said I'm willing to be corrected on the point, but I'm not aware of anywhere in the Gospels where the author claims to be an eyewitness to the events recounted. And since you didn't demonstrate such a claim, I suspect I was right and that no such claim exists within the Gospels. Prove me wrong, cite the passages in the Gospels where the (anonymous) author claims to be an eye witness to the events. Failing that, any claim that they are eyewitness testimony is a claim about the Gospels which itself needs to be independently assessed.

Not my department. I'm not making claims about the accuracy or veracity of the Gospels, I'm demanding (according to your own rules) evidence of your claims. I make no positive claims about the Bible or anything else that require defense or proof. I'm simply demonstrating the illogic and unreason of making a positive claim about the non-existence of God based on the utter lack of evidence that God does not exist, and I'm also back to pointing out that you are engaging the Atheist's fallacy again, although obliquely.

ETA: Matter of fact, here's the author of Luke explicitly declaiming himself as a witness:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

And your critically robust evidence that Luke did not accurate recount the events as they actually occurred based on his careful investigation is....???

Well isn't that special. Unfortunately the question it was testifying against was not "are the Gospels true," but rather are they eyewitness testimony. So your rejoinder is not even relevant.

Sure it is. You just want "eyewitness testimony" to be first-person in nature, but that's not the point at all. You're getting all tied up in whether the Gospels are true or not when the only issue at bar at the moment is whether it is rational for someone to conclude that God does not exist based on an absolute and complete absence of any evidence whatsoever that supports such a claim.

Once again, my only claim about God or anything else is that the ONLY rational conclusion anyone anywhere can draw about the existence or non-existence of God is "we don't know."

I'm merely rebutting the common Atheist conceit of claiming that God doesn't exist because the Bible is not "evidence" of anything because it's flawed or inaccurate or because it's old.

And I'm hoisting you all on your own argumentative petard. Live by the demand for "evidence" of God's existence, die by the demand for "evidence" that God does not exist. You set the rules by demanding evidence that you find satisfactory for the god-claim that God exists, and I am just following your lead by demanding that you provide satisfactory evidence of YOUR god-claim that God does NOT exist. And none of you is at all able to provide even a scintilla of evidence pointing in that direction. The best you can do is to tautologically claim that because the Bible is in error or old that theists have provided no evidence and because there is no evidence the Bible must be in error and then try to prop that up as a premise in an argument that God doesn't exist...which is the very essence of the Atheist's Fallacy in action.

[apophenia]

I have. You evade the consequences of that evidence by discounting it and denying that it is evidence, even though it is clearly and exactly evidence even according to your own argument because, in the case of the gospels, it's a record of observations of actual events set down by the observers of those events, which you yourself said constituted evidence.

We don't even know who wrote the Gospels, much less that they are eyewitness testimony.

No, you refuse to believe that they are eyewitness testimony. But what you "know" does not impeach the truth of the claims, does it?

What claim? I said I'm willing to be corrected on the point, but I'm not aware of anywhere in the Gospels where the author claims to be an eyewitness to the events recounted. And since you didn't demonstrate such a claim, I suspect I was right and that no such claim exists within the Gospels. Prove me wrong, cite the passages in the Gospels where the (anonymous) author claims to be an eye witness to the events. Failing that, any claim that they are eyewitness testimony is a claim about the Gospels which itself needs to be independently assessed.

Not my department. I'm not making claims about the accuracy or veracity of the Gospels, I'm demanding (according to your own rules) evidence of your claims. I make no positive claims about the Bible or anything else that require defense or proof. I'm simply demonstrating the illogic and unreason of making a positive claim about the non-existence of God based on the utter lack of evidence that God does not exist, and I'm also back to pointing out that you are engaging the Atheist's fallacy again, although obliquely.

ETA: Matter of fact, here's the author of Luke explicitly declaiming himself as a witness:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

And your critically robust evidence that Luke did not accurate recount the events as they actually occurred based on his careful investigation is....???

Well isn't that special. Unfortunately the question it was testifying against was not "are the Gospels true," but rather are they eyewitness testimony. So your rejoinder is not even relevant.

Sure it is. You just want "eyewitness testimony" to be first-person in nature, but that's not the point at all. You're getting all tied up in whether the Gospels are true or not when the only issue at bar at the moment is whether it is rational for someone to conclude that God does not exist based on an absolute and complete absence of any evidence whatsoever that supports such a claim.

Once again, my only claim about God or anything else is that the ONLY rational conclusion anyone anywhere can draw about the existence or non-existence of God is "we don't know."

I'm merely rebutting the common Atheist conceit of claiming that God doesn't exist because the Bible is not "evidence" of anything because it's flawed or inaccurate or because it's old.

And I'm hoisting you all on your own argumentative petard. Live by the demand for "evidence" of God's existence, die by the demand for "evidence" that God does not exist. You set the rules by demanding evidence that you find satisfactory for the god-claim that God exists, and I am just following your lead by demanding that you provide satisfactory evidence of YOUR god-claim that God does NOT exist. And none of you is at all able to provide even a scintilla of evidence pointing in that direction. The best you can do is to tautologically claim that because the Bible is in error or old that theists have provided no evidence and because there is no evidence the Bible must be in error and then try to prop that up as a premise in an argument that God doesn't exist...which is the very essence of the Atheist's Fallacy in action.

A. I did not write half the shit you attributed to me.

B. Some of what I did write, and an important point, you attributed to yourself.

C. I never suggested nor demanded that you provide evidence for God's existence, and for you to imply otherwise as you have is false and dishonest. I will not be held accountable for other people's arguments, and that you would attempt to do so offends me.

D. No that is not the only claim you made, as you yourself provide evidence for in the material you quote in which you claim that the Gospels are "a record of observations of actual events set down by the observers of those events." Now you've just entered the territory of the bald-faced lie.

E. Of course I want eyewitness testimony to be first person in nature. That's what eyewitness testimony is, Schneibster. But, fear not, I don't need that. Again, from material you yourself quoted, you quoted yourself as saying your contention was that the Gospels were "set down by the observers of those events." Whether that is eyewitness testimony or not, it's what you claimed, and as the passage from Luke clearly shows, the claim is not supported by the text.

Now, if you care to respond substantively to something which I actually wrote, I might be persuaded to consider it. But if all you can muster is lies, attempted redefinition of words, and other irrelevant evasions, I really can't be arsed.

[Seth]

A. I did not write half the shit you attributed to me.

Yeah? Oh well, you're in the same Atheist boat with everybody else, so if the shoe fits, wear it. Consider it to be a collective "you", as in "you Atheists."

B. Some of what I did write, and an important point, you attributed to yourself.

Sorry about any tag errors.

C. I never suggested nor demanded that you provide evidence for God's existence, and for you to imply otherwise as you have is false and dishonest. I will not be held accountable for other people's arguments, and that you would attempt to do so offends me.

Glad to hear it. But beside the point entirely.

D. No that is not the only claim you made, as you yourself provide evidence for in the material you quote in which you claim that the Gospels are "a record of observations of actual events set down by the observers of those events." Now you've just entered the territory of the bald-faced lie.

Have I? Prove it. Oh, wait, you don't have any evidence, do you?

E. Of course I want eyewitness testimony to be first person in nature.

Sucks to be you.

That's what eyewitness testimony is, Schneibster

.

Er, not Schneibster. Anyway...so, this eyewitness testifies in court that he saw somebody do something. That testimony is taken down by the court reporter and transcribed into the record of the proceedings. Over time, that record is recopied numerous times as the original copies deteriorate. Eventually, some skeptic down the road says "that's not eyewitness testimony because it's not from the mouth of the testator!" This is an example of unreason and illogic on the part of the skeptic.

Does that make the testimony any less eyewitness than it was when the testator spoke it in open court? No, of course it doesn't. It just means that the skeptic down the road doesn't believe the veracity of the transcription. And that being the case, it's up to the skeptic to provide critically robust evidence that the testimony was false or that the transcriptions were erroneous. Everybody else is fully entitled to say "I believe in the testimony as recorded originally and retranscribed."

You want to blithely dismiss that recording and transcription of first-person eyewitness testimony merely because you cannot yourself hear it from the mouth of the eyewitness and weren't yourself there to witness the event. This is a convenient if entirely irrational bar you set for evidence because it conveniently excludes ANY evidence that you do not yourself hear from the mouth of the eyewitness, which precludes any historical evidence whatsoever from being "evidence" in your fantasy world. Fortunately, the rest of the planet understands this trickery you are attempting and rejects it for the unreason that it is.

And unless the skeptic can provide that critically robust evidence of falsehood or error in the recording and transcription of the first-person claims, then the claim of falsehood or error can be dismissed without further consideration as unsupported by the evidence.

Live by the demand for evidence, die by the demand for evidence. You're not getting away with the double standard of rejecting one set of claims because you allege it is not based on evidence while simultaneously making the bald assertion that your own claims as to the veracity of the evidence are to be taken ipse dixit.

Unless and until you provide evidence of the falsity or error of the claims of the Bible, your skepticism can be dismissed as unevidenced, and the evidence in the record which does exist, however paltry or fallacious you might claim it is, stands as the ONLY evidence in the record pointing either way, which leaves it as the preponderance of the evidence in the record.

But, fear not, I don't need that. Again, from material you yourself quoted, you quoted yourself as saying your contention was that the Gospels were "set down by the observers of those events." Whether that is eyewitness testimony or not, it's what you claimed, and as the passage from Luke clearly shows, the claim is not supported by the text.

Is Luke the only author? Can you prove that Luke did not perform a proper and accurate investigation? Are there other claims in the Bible as to first-person witnessed events? Can you prove that the authors did not witness those events? Without your critically robust evidence supporting your claim that the claims of the Bible are not supported by evidence, and your critically robust evidence that the claims of the Bible are false or in error, your claim that the claims of the Bible are not supported by the text can be dismissed as unevidenced and unsupported. Damn that whole "I must have evidence" thing anyway!

Now, if you care to respond substantively to something which I actually wrote, I might be persuaded to consider it. But if all you can muster is lies, attempted redefinition of words, and other irrelevant evasions, I really can't be arsed.

You're arsing yourself here because you STILL fail to understand the point I'm making. It has nothing whatever to do with the truth or falsity of the Gospels, it has to do with your powers of argumentation, logic and reason.

[Ronja]

A. I did not write half the shit you attributed to me.

Yeah? Oh well, you're in the same Atheist boat with everybody else, so if the shoe fits, wear it. Consider it to be a collective "you", as in "you Atheists."

Seth, did you actually call apophenia an Atheist (as in Big A Atheist)???

Tut, tut - you almost made me choke on a perfectly good Irish Coffee. Would you please, in the future, give advance warning is you are going to exhibit UTTER cluelessness regarding your fellow ratz? Thank you.

[Seth]

A. I did not write half the shit you attributed to me.

Yeah? Oh well, you're in the same Atheist boat with everybody else, so if the shoe fits, wear it. Consider it to be a collective "you", as in "you Atheists."

Seth, did you actually call apophenia an Atheist (as in Big A Atheist)???

Tut, tut - you almost made me choke on a perfectly good Irish Coffee. Would you please, in the future, give advance warning is you are going to exhibit UTTER cluelessness regarding your fellow ratz? Thank you.

Hey, It's an atheist forum, so it's a reasonable assumption. I don't know anything about her religion, nor does it matter really.

[maiforpeace]

I didn't know that about her either.

[Hermit]

A. I did not write half the shit you attributed to me.

Yeah? Oh well, you're in the same Atheist boat with everybody else, so if the shoe fits, wear it. Consider it to be a collective "you", as in "you Atheists."

Seth, did you actually call apophenia an Atheist (as in Big A Atheist)???

Tut, tut - you almost made me choke on a perfectly good Irish Coffee. Would you please, in the future, give advance warning is you are going to exhibit UTTER cluelessness regarding your fellow ratz? Thank you.

Hey, It's an atheist forum, so it's a reasonable assumption. I don't know anything about her religion, nor does it matter really.

I guess Mandy is an atheist too then, because he posts here? You're right about this, though: factual details really do not matter to people who resolutely prevent facts from impinging on their opinions.

[Robert_S]

A. I did not write half the shit you attributed to me.

Yeah? Oh well, you're in the same Atheist boat with everybody else, so if the shoe fits, wear it. Consider it to be a collective "you", as in "you Atheists."

Seth, did you actually call apophenia an Atheist (as in Big A Atheist)???

Tut, tut - you almost made me choke on a perfectly good Irish Coffee. Would you please, in the future, give advance warning is you are going to exhibit UTTER cluelessness regarding your fellow ratz? Thank you.

Hey, It's an atheist forum, so it's a reasonable assumption. I don't know anything about her religion, nor does it matter really.

I guess Mandy is an atheist too then, because he posts here? You're right about this, though: factual details really do not matter to people who resolutely prevent facts from impinging on their opinions.

And Jerome, and Lamont Cranston.

Is Jerome still at RatSkep?

[Seth]

A. I did not write half the shit you attributed to me.

Yeah? Oh well, you're in the same Atheist boat with everybody else, so if the shoe fits, wear it. Consider it to be a collective "you", as in "you Atheists."

Seth, did you actually call apophenia an Atheist (as in Big A Atheist)???

Tut, tut - you almost made me choke on a perfectly good Irish Coffee. Would you please, in the future, give advance warning is you are going to exhibit UTTER cluelessness regarding your fellow ratz? Thank you.

Hey, It's an atheist forum, so it's a reasonable assumption. I don't know anything about her religion, nor does it matter really.

I guess Mandy is an atheist too then, because he posts here? You're right about this, though: factual details really do not matter to people who resolutely prevent facts from impinging on their opinions.

For the purpose of debate, it matters not at all what beliefs you actually hold. You may defend or attack any position from any other position if you have the intellectual flexibility to do so. That's what I do. I'm not at theist but I'm capable of arguing from that position. In fact I find it very educational to argue positions I don't hold personally, it expands my understanding and knowledge, as well as my powers of reason, logic and argument.

Try it sometime, you might find it fun.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You mean you make this shit up as you go along. Sleazy.

[Ronja]

You mean you make this shit up as you go along. Sleazy.

... and increasingly predictable and boring.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You mean you make this shit up as you go along. Sleazy.

... and increasingly predictable and boring.

Not to mention dishonest, dishonorable, disingenuous and disgusting. The man has no compunctions at all. Just shovel the shit out and wallow in it.

[Robert_S]

Reading this thread reminded me so much of the old RDF.

Seth has said before that he'll do that kind of thing and most of us should know he was poe-ing.