3 ms·

LOL, that's a lot of words to say nothing. The "nearly universal consensus" is among religious scholars that are obviously biased. Your condescending tone "you

by narag 10y ago

LOL, that's a lot of words to say nothing. The "nearly universal consensus" is among religious scholars that are obviously biased. Your condescending tone "you simply fell victim" and similar does nothing to further your... point? "You should read..." Why about you read a little more than a Wikipedia page to write thousands of words? That page is filled with weasel words. Not sure why are absent the usual annotations like "citation needed", "who?" and so on that plague other pages for much less important vagueness.

logicallee 10y ago
I'm sorry, if you're saying I shouldn't trust the information on a Wikipedia page about the exact topic we're discussing (historicity of Jesus), which I don't have any specialist knowledge of, then we don't really have anything to discuss. I've never seen a Wikipedia page I had to completely ignore. I don't see how we can come to terms if we're talking about something I don't know about and in which you're asking me to ignore all of the Wikipedia page on that issue. :) Of course, you could still be right. You can add "citation needed" anywhere you think it needs it, go ahead. I think we've understood each other's perspectives well enough, and thanks for the discussion.
foldr 10y ago
He's right though. The idea that Jesus never even existed is very, very fringe. Vitually all reputable scholars (including many atheists and agnostics) accept that he existed. See e.g. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE
- narag 10y ago
  The question is not how many scholars do or don't believe it, but what are the reasons. In every discussion I've seen there are only three independent mentions, one of them a clear forgery, another one, also from Josephus, a mention that might refer to anyone and the one by Tacitus that... well, that's only one mention that could very well be also a fabrication. If "virtually all reputable scholars" are willing to accept that as evidence, that's OK, but not exactly convincing. There are other very plausible reasons for that situation. Just to be clear: I don't have a horse in this race. For me it's exactly the same if there was a Jesus or there wasn't. The point that we were discussing is that you can argue the case within reason. I can't see anything you have presented to be a rebuttal.
  - foldr 10y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "independent", but there are multiple references to Jesus from sources which we know are not fabrications, as you could find out by reading any introduction to this subject. >The question is not how many scholars do or don't believe it, but what are the reasons I don't quite agree with this. Neither of us are in a position to make a proper evaluation of the evidence, since we lack the relevant expertise. Trusting the overwhelming consensus of scholars in a given field is usually the sensible thing to do, unless you are yourself an expert in that field.
    - narag 10y ago
      Independent means not by cult members. I believe it's a very reasonable thing to ask. No, there are not multiples references, and no, you don't need to be "an expert" to know this, because even those that defend the historicity of Jesus admit that. You are defending an authority fallacy in soft but unequivocal terms. My advice is to learn about History standards in general and then applying them to this particular case. A question: who do you think the experts in this field are?
      - foldr 10y ago
        I don't know what you mean by "cult members". We have multiple sources that are independent in all reasonable senses of the word, as you must know if you've read about this. It is certainly false to claim that those who believe that Jesus was a historical figure (i.e., all scholars) admit that there is an absence of multiple independent sources. See e.g. Bart Ehrman's book "Did Jesus Exist?", which gives a nice summary of all of the sources.

by narag 10y ago

logicallee 10y ago

I'm sorry, if you're saying I shouldn't trust the information on a Wikipedia page about the exact topic we're discussing (historicity of Jesus), which I don't have any specialist knowledge of, then we don't really have anything to discuss. I've never seen a Wikipedia page I had to completely ignore. I don't see how we can come to terms if we're talking about something I don't know about and in which you're asking me to ignore all of the Wikipedia page on that issue. :) Of course, you could still be right. You can add "citation needed" anywhere you think it needs it, go ahead. I think we've understood each other's perspectives well enough, and thanks for the discussion.

foldr 10y ago

He's right though. The idea that Jesus never even existed is very, very fringe. Vitually all reputable scholars (including many atheists and agnostics) accept that he existed. See e.g. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE

narag 10y ago
The question is not how many scholars do or don't believe it, but what are the reasons. In every discussion I've seen there are only three independent mentions, one of them a clear forgery, another one, also from Josephus, a mention that might refer to anyone and the one by Tacitus that... well, that's only one mention that could very well be also a fabrication. If "virtually all reputable scholars" are willing to accept that as evidence, that's OK, but not exactly convincing. There are other very plausible reasons for that situation. Just to be clear: I don't have a horse in this race. For me it's exactly the same if there was a Jesus or there wasn't. The point that we were discussing is that you can argue the case within reason. I can't see anything you have presented to be a rebuttal.
- foldr 10y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by "independent", but there are multiple references to Jesus from sources which we know are not fabrications, as you could find out by reading any introduction to this subject. >The question is not how many scholars do or don't believe it, but what are the reasons I don't quite agree with this. Neither of us are in a position to make a proper evaluation of the evidence, since we lack the relevant expertise. Trusting the overwhelming consensus of scholars in a given field is usually the sensible thing to do, unless you are yourself an expert in that field.
  - narag 10y ago
    Independent means not by cult members. I believe it's a very reasonable thing to ask. No, there are not multiples references, and no, you don't need to be "an expert" to know this, because even those that defend the historicity of Jesus admit that. You are defending an authority fallacy in soft but unequivocal terms. My advice is to learn about History standards in general and then applying them to this particular case. A question: who do you think the experts in this field are?
    - foldr 10y ago
      I don't know what you mean by "cult members". We have multiple sources that are independent in all reasonable senses of the word, as you must know if you've read about this. It is certainly false to claim that those who believe that Jesus was a historical figure (i.e., all scholars) admit that there is an absence of multiple independent sources. See e.g. Bart Ehrman's book "Did Jesus Exist?", which gives a nice summary of all of the sources.