If you respond in this thread, and repost all of that with paragraphs, I promise I'll read every word and respond to it.  I absolutely refuse to read that monstrosity as it is.

Grammar school wasn't just to kill time until recess, folks.

Just another mindless appeal to emotion. As if telling us that one unfounded bit of fiction having some rather contrived resemblance to another book of unfounded fiction holds the slightest meaning for anyone who has not already eaten the applesauce and sipped the Koolaid.

And you can have a look at Rook's writings on this site to discover that there is a very strong argument that there was no historical Jesus. More unfounded fiction.

Thanks for reading all of that.  Couple things:

The story of Jesus wasn't just made up.  Even if you ignore the gospel accounts, you can read the works of many first century historians and get attestation to the life, death, and alleged empty tomb of Jesus.  Josephus, Tacitus, Pliney the Younger, and others attest to Jesus as a man that actually lived in history.  You're putting on blinders if you think Jesus didn't exist at all.

And yes, I did say 3500 years.  1400ish BC is the generally accepted date of the writing of Exodus.  It really isn't amazing that the Bible wouldn't be written until so "late" in human history, we didn't start writing anything down at all until 3000 BC.  Creation stories would have passed by word of mouth until this time.

Oh really?  Sounds made up to me.  I mean... walking on water?  Coming back to life after being dead three days?  Getting mad at fig trees for being out of season?  Really?

Josephus and the Testimonium: Is it Evidence of Jesus?

What is the Jesus Mythicist's Position?

An Example of Jewish Fiction Writing in Antiquity

A Silence That Screams - (No contemporary historical accounts for "jesus)

Tacitus, Lucian and Josephus

The 'Gospels' are 'Midrash'

The Gospels are Anonymous Works - and None are Eyewitness Accounts

The self refuting nature of "Hermeneutics"

Funny.  I was under the impression that the earliest known combination of the three commonly accepted sources of Exodus was around 400BCE.  Shows what I get for trusting those pesky historians instead of preachers.  I could be wrong about this, and it's not a huge point, but I'm just not sure I've seen any archaeology suggesting that the feast is that old.  I think maybe people have just always assumed it was without actually checking.  Maybe Rook can answer this question more definitively.  I'll leave him a note to look at this thread.

Curious.  I just reread my post, and I didn't say anything about the date the Bible was written or compiled.  (You know it wasn't compiled until well into the first millenium CE, right?  There was no such thing as the Bible before that.)  After thoroughly examining my sentences for clarity and meaning, I've come to the conclusion that you are either avoiding my question or were having a momentary problem with reading comprehension.   If it's the former, I wish you wouldn't do that.   If it's the latter, no biggie.  We all have bad days.  I'm going to ask it again, and try to be more clear.

Can you explain to me why a VERY OLD creation story, older than writing itself, believed by the Japanese long before there was such a thing as Israel, is less credible than a story cooked up by a tribe of nomads that didn't even exist until maybe three or four thousand years ago?

While we're on the subject, did you know that the Mayans had a creation story?  So did the Aztecs.  The Chinese have a really interesting one.  Pangu awoke after 18,000 years of slumber, and the act of his rising from sleep separated the heavens and the earth permanently.  At Pangu's death, creation sprang forth.  His last breath became the wind.  His voice was thunder.  One of his eyes became the moon, and so on, and so forth.  Interestingly, the fleas and lice on his body jumped off and eventually became humans.  Pretty neat, huh?

So, please explain this to me.  I'm trying to be fair about this.  On the one hand, I'm supposed to believe that humans were shaped out of mud, and then Yahweh breathed into them, and they magically came to life.  On the other, I'm supposed to believe that when Pangu died, fleas jumped off of him and magically became people.  Honestly, they both sound pretty far fetched, but apparently there's some compelling reason that you believe one and not the other.

Right.  So.... Hebrews, even if you are generous (and ignore a lot of archaeology) are only three or four thousand years old.  Their story looks suspiciously like an amalgam of creation myths from older cultures that the Hebrews were geographically near.  Why should I believe that one in particular?  There are plenty of magical stories of creation, and they all sound pretty ridiculous. 

P.S.  Actually, tortoise shell carvings in China date back about 8000 years.  People in Egypt didn't start writing until about 3200 BC.

P.P.S.  Oh, one more thing.  Why should I believe any really old story of creation when scientists are demonstrably more knowledgable than bronze age mystics about so many things?

What? Disagreeing with you is militant? Actually calling us militant is the act of a militant!

You are incorrect. There is no evidence that jesus was an historical individual.

There is no evidence that the disciples were historical individuals either.

Obviously

We have many times. It is you who have not read the links posted above. Do so now.

Rude? Where the hell do you see rude behavior?

Because you want people to blindly believe as you do.

Who? 

What jesus?

What god?

Have you read the links above?

Civil discussion can be had without insulting one another, in fact, I think that was one of the rules in this forum.  I admit I only skimmed the articles you linked; it's not anything I haven't heard before.  The writer comes at the facts of history with a preconcieved bias against what is written and with the assumption that it's all a big conspiracy.  That's bad scholarship.  There are plenty of unbiased (many unChristian) historians that would say Jesus existed and was crucified without a doubt in their minds.

Here's something for you to chew on:  can natural processes come about by natural processes?  If you say no, you're appealing to the supernatural.  If you say yes, you're asserting that natural processes existed before natural processes.

If you are, then please understand that a question like "what was there before the universe?" has the same meaning as "What's north of the north pole?"

Here's something for you to chew on: If there is something outside nature, meaning it has no location and no mass and no energy, then what is it? How would we detect it? How could it have an effect on the natural universe?

Dude. There was no insult. Stop being so sensitive. Unless you're just trying to find something to be upset about so that you won't have to address the actual points made regarding your baseless assertions.

This shouldn't surprise anyone, since their whole religion is based on an act of martyrdom.  To be Christ-like is to be persecuted.  I used to hear this all the time in church.  Good Christians are supposed to revel in persecution.  The natural human tendency, then, would be to creatively invent persecution when there was even a smidgen of its appearance.

But yeah, I have a hard time understanding why Christians get their panties in a bunch when they come to an atheist board, don't answer any questions asked of them, and then get less than a hearty welcome.  Just for shits and giggles, it would be fun to get a bunch of atheists together to go into sunday school classes, break into the lecture, and promote atheism.   I wonder how warmly they'd be received.

 Yikes, looks like I have come in to this discussion late.  I'll handle a few basics in this post and handle the specifics in those to follow.  Each of these basic points could be made into whole books, and in fact have been (sources provided below).  This is not going to be a comprehensive response (see the resources listed for additional, thorough and comprehensive studies of both the textual and archaeological evidence).

Israelites: Their Origins and Understanding Migrations in the Ancient Near East

I want to start this discussion by first dealing with one misconception.  No Biblical scholar today would call the Hebrew Bible a history book (or technically, a collection of histories).  There is no way, regardless of how "conservative" a scholar might be (and I use this terminology with extreme distaste and caution), there is no way to fit the archaeological record that we have from the ancient Near East (which is really quite extensive) with the Biblical accounts.  Let me repeat:  There is no way to fit (i.e. match) the accounts written in the Bible with the archaeological evidence.  Now that this is made clear, the most "conservative" (once again, this terminology is used cautiously) studies done in relation to the entity so-called "ancient Israel" reflect what these scholars accept as 'memories' of traditions that may hold historical inklings, but have been shaded by redaction, tradition evolution through a society, through word of mouth, or intentionally elaborated by those with specific interests.  Eissfeldt, as early as 1923, perpetuated this perspective among scholars who were growing uneasy about the fact that the archaeological data being gathered contradicted the Biblical accounts of "ancient Israel".

The problems for scholars early on in the Twentieth century (and also today) were a many.  There were no records of the Exodus or of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites after a release from captivity, specifically none from the Egyptian kingdoms whom would have mentioned the devastation that these slaves and the plagues left.  Subsequent attempts by scholars to try to date the exodus period have failed, mainly because the various details in the story do not add up to any one particular period.  Other problems for the Biblical accounts are direr.  During the generations that the Israelites were supposed to be roaming the desert, the whole region was under occupation by the New Kingdom's of Egypt, with outposts in the desert regions between Egypt and Palestine, and armies of great Pharaohs roamed through these regions in constant conquests and campaigns deeper into Canaan.  The region where the Israelites spent much of their time (Qadesh-Barnea) has yielded absolutely no archaeological finds in support of any activity between the Middle Bonze Age and the 10th Century BCE (even later, as some argue).  Additionally, from Akkadian texts, we know that Jerusalem already did exist during one of these periods, under the rule of Egyptians and Akkadians (who were like the strong arm of the Egyptians when the Egyptians were not there) prior to when the Israelites supposedly settled there as recorded from Biblical texts).  Various correspondence from the city to the Pharaoh’s by the Akkadian rulers of Jerusalem have been translated.  Most scholars today are positive that the tradition of an Exodus arrives later rather than earlier, and there are more than a few who would date the exodus tradition as late as the Hellenistic age.  (Although most are happy to date it to the Persian Period, but not earlier)

Additionally, many of the settlements which were claimed to be destroyed by Joshua did not contain the sort of defenses talked about in the Bible, in fact they were much weaker, and have been discovered to have been destroyed naturally (by earthquakes, which were frequent in the region) or by migration or conquest by the Egyptians earlier (in some cases locating these cities is difficult and often it is so that many settlements lay claim to a name).  From the archaeological evidence discovered in the hill country (amulets, pottery, architecture, settlement styles, religious artifacts and inscriptions along with names and language) determine that the Israelites were in fact transJordians.  In other words, they migrated from the east into the region of the Hill Country.  Although, some scholars now posit they were indigenous to Canaan and only during the period between the 10^th-9^th centuries BCE did the people migrate into the Hill Country to escape taxes.  Others postulate different reasons for the move into the hill country, but it is now almost a consensus in scholarship that whether they immigrated from the south-east or not, they were indigenous to the region of Palestine.

To settle the discrepancies between the Hebrew Bible and the archaeological record, Eissfeldt devised a way to keep the integrity of the text while granting the evidence.  But even his proposal was an elaborate way of saying that the Biblical text was a fiction.  Even by concluding that the Hebrew Bible contained some “memory tradition”, essentially the suggestion is that everything but the tradition isn’t, in fact, true.  Later scholars, like Alt, Noth and Albright tried to reassess Eissfeldt and come up with new solutions to establish the Hebrew Bible as authentic, but they did so often taking for granted the archaeological data in place of Biblical narrative.  In other words, they used the text instead of the hard data recovered from the sites in question.  John Miller and John Hayes reexamined these hypotheses in their collaborative work in 1977, eventually dismissing it (along with most of scholarship by this point).  Finkelstein, Thompson, Van Seters and Niels Peter Lemche followed suit.  (Actually, Thompson’s critique came prior to Miller and Hayes’, by several years)  After these additional studies, along with fresh new discoveries and advances in historical methods to reflect more scientific approaches, it was discovered that many scholars following in the wake of Albright and Eissfeldt had purposefully mishandled the evidence, whether by letting bias rule their interpretations or translations (like Speiser had done with the Nuzi tablets) or completely ignored the archaeological data to create whole proposals based on little more than speculation.

Moreso, it was determined that the only time Israel really started showing up in extrabiblical texts was during the mid-late 10^th century, but even these inscriptions tended to be dubious and written more as poetry and conquest narratives than histories, leaving lots of unanswered questions concerning their origins and what the inscribers motivations were.  The archaeological evidence suggests that the state of Israel, in and of itself, didn’t really exist until the Persian Period, and only for a short time before the exilic period.

Finally, new studies of the Biblical narrative, along with style, typology, and literary composition, determined that the narratives themselves did not go back as far as was originally proposed in earlier studies in the twentieth century.  It is now accepted that at the earliest, the traditions can only go back as far as the tenth century, with (perhaps) some traditions interpreted from other cultures that go back a little further.  This is scholarship at its current consensus. Many have proposed an even later composition, such as Lemche’s dating of the scriptures to the Hellenistic period in their entirety.  And he isn’t alone.

For a more detailed investigation of some of the claims that are made on the theist side, one can check out my review of Gary Rendsburg: http://www.rationalresponders.com/ancient_israel

ADDITIONAL STUDIES

Miller & Hayes, 1977

Lester Grabbe, 2001; 2007

Thomas L. Thompson, 1974; 1992

John Van Seters, 1966; 1975

Niels Peter Lemche, 1977; 1985; 1991; 1998; 2008 (in press)

Philip R. Davies, 1992

Gosta Ahlstrom, 1993

Emanuel Pfoh, 2009-2010 (in press)

Israel Finkelstein, 1994; 1995; 2001; 2006

Giovanni Garbini, 1986; 1988; 1997; 2004

More extensive bibliographies can be found in these works above.  See my article also for additional material.  I hope this helps answer some pesky illusions the OP may have had regarding "ancient Israel".

{deleted Microsoft Word code - aiia}

Hamby,

Here's a definition for God:  He's defined by revelation of Himself, all other definitions are inadequate.  We can only know of God what God reveals, since no one but God has seen God in His full glory.  Jesus Christ is defined as the God-Man, so He provides a practical definition of what God is like as an application for our lives.  He existed fully as God, yet fully as a man during the incarnation.  This is only illogical if you think you can impose limitations on what God can and cannot do.  He has revealed that He certianly isn't limited in this fashion.

In the case of abstractions, the article provides a "just is" answer to a much more complex problem for you guys.  It isn't just about where the laws of logic are in your brain, it's why are the laws of logic logical?  Why is the universe coherent or intelligible?  Why should the universe be meaningful at all, and why should your cognitive function be useful in understanding it? 

Logic and meaningfulness presuppose that there is a God that makes things meaningful.  Why should intelligibility exist in a universe that came about at random?

And I appreciate your concession of the point on my cosmological argument.  I agree that it's not without flaws, but it does demonstrate pretty nicely that our current scientific understanding of the origin of the universe comports with the biblical account.

I had a post written up and lost it all because this site does not have a means to save a post while typing, and if the back button is hit accidentally, every thing is lost.  Needless to say I'm livid.  So I'm not going to bother with a reply right now because if I did, it would be ugly.  Aside from the fact that Chriswithac is a complete nutter who knows nothing about ancient history, I would be repeating myself and have the anger there from just losing a reply to said nutter.  So let me make this perfectly clear.

Chris, this is your first warning, and after this warning you will not like the way you'll be treated.  You are trolling right now.  You're trolling because a.) you are not reading what is being asked of you, b.) you're not backing up any of your claims which are all bullshit anyway (prove me wrong, back them up), and c.) you're ignoring posts being made against your positions.

If you do not change this behavior, I will give you a troll badge and commit all your posts and threads to trollville.  Capice?

Yeah, but then you have flies in your honey. Yech.

Let me guess.  You've never even read Descartes, have you?

Maybe you've heard of that line, "I think, therefore I am"?  Pretty famous.  In big boy school, we learn that this is derived from an axiom.  An axiom is true because it can be no other way.  To question one's own existence, one must exist.  This is irrefutable.  Logic, my padawan learner, is derived deductively from axioms.  Deduction must be true because axioms must be true.

Tell you what man... get yourself some of that good weed and try to think of a way you could exist without existing.  If you figure it out, let me know.  Otherwise, logic is logical because there is no other alternative.

I wish I could remember which myth it is, but there's a really old one that says some god or another jerked off into his hand, swallowed it, and spit out humanity.

Egyptian... right... thanks, Aiia

I was thinking about why I got so angry about my posts being lost, because they weren't long posts.  I'm sure some of it has to do with lost time (because I lost the post twice).  But more of it has to do with my attitude.  I really have to force myself to be collected when I answer posts to people like Chriswithac.  I have to force myself to not attack his stupidity with every point.  It takes a lot out of me and I find that after I finish a post, I feel dirty, like I just took a mud bath or something.  When I lost those two posts in response to the same questions I've answered on this message board ad nauseum, I had lost all ability to be cool headed about my replies.  I could answer him a third time in a word document, paste it over when I'm done, but the replies would have been ferocious attacks and demeaning, which I knew would not be the right thing to do.  I had no energy left to censor myself, so I just left it at that.  Plus, I'm just sick and tired of his blatant arrogance, especially in light of the fact that he doesn't read anything that is given to him to read.  He ignores it and still pretends to know something. 

That anger has fled away today, however, so I'll be able to post something up.  But, I'm not going to respond to Christwithac directly, but indirectly.  I'm going to work on a blog post exposing the problems with ancient historians because so many Christians are downright ignorant about them, thinking ignorantly that ancient historians were thorough and precise in their details, which is farthest from the truth.  I'll post a link to it in this thread when finished.

As for Rook, He's lost no face here. All you've managed to do is to attack Rook himself, rather than his work. This is typically a sign of someone who has nothing to bring to the debate.

I'd like to propose the theory that mental illness may have a direct relation to the overuse of big font.

or perhaps mental illness is pretending big font can masquerade as the voice of jesus calling his sheep away from the path of "intellectual evil".  

Either way, Chriswithac, you make me glad I didn't expend much energy on a reply.

Chris,

I never once called God "logic." You made the claim that logic is impossible without God. My reply was simple: not only is logic possible without God, it is impossible with God. My argument was straightforward: the universe has proven itself to be consistent and coherent. If God were real, He would necessarily be outside the consistent and coherent universe. Otherwise, he would simply be the universe, and subject to the consistency and coherency we observe.

Now, rather than rebutting what I said, you seem to be abandoning the philosophic discussion you started, and using the Bible as if it formed the basis of a proof. Trying to use the Bible to prove the existence and nature of God is a tautology, and logically void. It's like me trying to prove that ghosts exist by showing you the movie Ghostbusters.

I would very much like to pursue the philosophical discussion you started, concerning the necessity of God for logic to work. (This is very similar to an argument presented by Marty Fields some time back, which I enjoyed very much, but haven't had time to finish responding to in full. Marty at least deserved attention, as his arguments, though flawed from my point of view, were at least well-thought-out and articulate.)

However, it seems you're going to flee, instead.

Actually, I wish you would answer just one. Really. Just one. So far, you have said only one thing: "The Bible says it's true, and other people say the Bible is true, so I believe it."

As far as debate being welcome: debate is generally very civil here. Sure, some of us can be rude sometimes, but in general, if you have shown the ability and the willingness to engage in debate, rather than preach (which is all you've done), debate is very welcome.

I don't count myself damned, thanks. I lead a pretty good life, and I have a great job, a fantastic wife, two pretty good dogs, and a decent (though modest) house. I enjoy myself most of the time; and I attempt to help others enjoy their lives. If there is a God, and He wishes to damn me simply because I didn't worship Him, He doesn't deserve to be worshipped anyway.

I'm very much resisting the temptation to say snide and snotty things. Your anti-intellectual rants; your arrogance and hypocrisy in claiming that nobody can understand God, but you know he is the Christian God; your insistence on using the Bible to prove the Bible; all this indicates you have no intention of holding an actual debate. You instead appear to desire to proclaim your knowledge and our ignorance, all while remaining wilfully ignorant about the cosmology, history, and philosophy you fleetingly attempt to invoke. Your posts are not debate: they are sermons. You are attempting to convince us to believe an archaic text that exalts the existence of a petulant God, while you denigrate the only true currency here: rationalism and observable facts.

If you truly wish a debate, then please engage in one.

Just another instance where Paul's view sit opposite Jesus'

... indigestion    My turn to Preach !

"If there is a God, and He wishes to damn me simply because I didn't worship Him, He doesn't deserve to be worshipped anyway." ~ nigelTheBold [ and still the name of my band ]

Nietzsche said, "The liar uses the valid designations, the words, to make the unreal seem real."

Typical Theist- "Paul goes on to explain later in the book of Romans that all men can be saved of their intellectual sin as well as all their other sins if they’ll repent and have faith in Jesus Christ."  Atheist rrs jcgadfly - "Just another instance where Paul's view sit opposite Jesus."

"Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition". - Isaac Asimov

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology ~ rrs, BobSpence1

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

  LOTS of Buddhas here at the "saving" RRS, spreading the "good word" of Atheism.

Which version?

Which one?

Really?  Please cite examples.

Then you haven't read the scriptures with an objective mind.  Scripture does nothing but contradict itself and contains truckloads of falsehoods. 

This is nonsense.

It mostly did not.

I'll paraphrase.  The God of the Bible gives me, as a Christian, a rational foundation for logic; God gave it to us.  You, as an atheist, have no foundation for logic that is compatable with your own worldview.  You have to pull it out of the sky, call it something that magically "just is", and in a sense, deify it.  The Bible calls this "worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator." 

I'm not going to play games with you.  Show me that your worldview can give a rational account for the existence of logic, then you can use logic to try and prove your worldview.  Until you can do that, none of your arguments even have feet to stand on.  It's like you're arguing against the existence of air while breathing air to spit your arguments out.

I pray that my God will give you understanding.