Nobody cares what you think, as you've demonstrated a lack of interest in and a lack of respect for anyone else's opinion,
just reciprocating.
Nobody cares what you think, as you've demonstrated a lack of interest in and a lack of respect for anyone else's opinion,
Gee! So you think your atheist beliefs are all that and a bag of chips? Let me remind you that scientists are clueless when it comes to the origin of the universe. So, you continue to worship your religion called science, and I'll continue to believe in Jesus Christ. You see, you can have your religion, and I can have mine.if you're going to hide behind the GOD PLAN, then i think you should have to prove the existence of god.
otherwise there is no plan.
Gee! So you think your atheist beliefs are all that and a bag of chips? Let me remind you that scientists are clueless when it comes to the origin of the universe. So, you continue to worship your religion called science, and I'll continue to believe in Jesus Christ. You see, you can have your religion, and I can have mine.
Deal?!
It is these days, when NASA is in charge of Islamic relations, Gaia is worshiped via Climategate, and evolution requires more faith than Creationism.science is not a religion
Many modern Christian scholars? Really? Okay, I'll bite - give me a list along with their credentials. I want to see CVs.you mean the forged passage that doesn't appear in his works until Eusebius quotes it? no other christian fathers before him use it.
many modern christian scholars agree it is a forged passage.
there are no writings of jesus in his time.
It interrupts the narrative. Section 2 of the chapter containing it gives an account of a Jewish sedition which was suppressed by Pilate with great slaughter. The account ends as follows: "There were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded; and thus an end was put to this sedition." Section 4, as now numbered, begins with these words: "About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder." The one section naturally and logically follows the other. Yet between these two closely connected paragraphs the one relating to Christ is placed; thus making the words, "another sad calamity," refer to the advent of this wise and wonderful being.
Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day" (Book XVIII, Chap. iii, sec. 3).
Chrysostom and Photius both reject this passage. Chrysostom, a reader of Josephus, who preached and wrote in the latter part of the fourth century, in his defense of Christianity, needed this evidence, but was too honest or too wise to use it. Photius, who made a revision of Josephus, writing five hundred years after the time of Eusebius, ignores the passage, and admits that Josephus has made no mention of Christ.
Dr. Lardner, one of the ablest defenders of Christianity, adduces the following arguments against its genuineness:
"I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected testimony to Jesus, which was never quoted by any of our Christian ancestors before Eusebius.
"Nor do I recollect that Josephus has anywhere mentioned the name or word Christ, in any of his works; except the testimony above mentioned, and the passage concerning James, the Lord's brother.
"It interrupts the narrative.
"The language is quite Christian.
"It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting it had it been then in the text.
"It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles concerning Josephus.
"Under the article Justus of Tiberias, this author (Photius) especially states that the historian [Josephus], being a Jew, has not taken the least notice of Christ.
"Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, nor Clemens Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from ancient authors, nor Origen against Celsus, has ever mentioned this testimony.
"But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv of the first book of that work, Origen openly affirms that Josephus, who had mentioned John the Baptist, did not acknowledge Christ" (Answer to Dr. Chandler).
Again Dr. Lardner says: "This passage is not quoted nor referred to by any Christian writer before Eusebius, who flourished at the beginning of the fourth century. If it had been originally in the works of Josephus it would have been highly proper to produce it in their disputes with Jews and Gentiles. But it is never quoted by Justin Martyr, or Clement of Alexandria, nor by Tertullian or Origen, men of great learning, and well acquainted with the works of Josephus. It was certainly very proper to urge it against the Jews. It might also have been fitly urged against the Gentiles. A testimony so favorable to Jesus in the works of Josephus, who lived so soon after our Savior, who was so well acquainted with the transactions of his own country, who had received so many favors from Vespasian and Titus, would not be overlooked or neglected by any Christian apologist" (Lardner's Works, vol. I, chap. iv).
Bishop Warburton declares it to be a forgery: "If a Jew owned the truth of Christianity, he must needs embrace it. We, therefore, certainly conclude that the paragraph where Josephus, who was as much a Jew as the religion of Moses could make him, is made to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, in terms as strong as words could do it, is a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too" (Quoted by Lardner, Works, Vol. I, chap. iv).
The Rev. Dr. Giles, of the Established Church of England, says:
"Those who are best acquainted with the character of Josephus, and the style of his writings, have no hesitation in condemning this passage as a forgery, interpolated in the text during the third century by some pious Christian, who was scandalized that so famous a writer as Josephus should have taken no notice of the gospels, or of Christ, their subject. But the zeal of the interpolator has outrun his discretion, for we might as well expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, as to find this notice of Christ among the Judaizing writings of Josephus. It is well known that this author was a zealous Jew, devoted to the laws of Moses and the traditions of his countrymen. How, then, could he have written that Jesus was the Christ? Such an admission would have proved him to be a Christian himself, in which case the passage under consideration, too long for a Jew, would have been far too short for a believer in the new religion, and thus the passage stands forth, like an ill-set jewel, contrasting most inharmoniously with everything around it. If it had been genuine, we might be sure that Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Chrysostom would have quoted it in their controversies with the Jews, and that Origen or Photius would have mentioned it. But Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian (I, 11), is the first who quotes it, and our reliance on the judgment or even honesty of this writer is not so great as to allow our considering everything found in his works as undoubtedly genuine" (Christian Records, p. 30).
The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his Lost and Hostile Gospels, says:
"This passage is first quoted by Eusebius (fl. A.D. 315) in two places (Hist. Eccl., lib. i, c. xi; Demonst. Evang., lib. iii); but it was unknown to Justin Martyr (fl. A.D. 140), Clement of Alexandria (fl. A.D. 192), Tertullian (fl. A.D. 193), and Origen (fl. A.D. 230). Such a testimony would certainly have been produced by Justin in his apology or in his controversy with Trypho the Jew, had it existed in the copies of Josephus at his time. The silence of Origen is still more significant. Celsus, in his book against Christianity, introduces a Jew. Origen attacks the argument of Celsus and his Jew. He could not have failed to quote the words of Josephus, whose writings he knew, had the passage existed in the genuine text. He, indeed, distinctly affirms that Josephus did not believe in Christ (Contr. Cels. i)."
Dr. Chalmers ignores it, and admits that Josephus is silent regarding Christ. He says: "The entire silence of Josephus upon the subject of Christianity, though he wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, and gives us the history of that period in which Christ and his Apostles lived, is certainly a very striking circumstance" (Kneeland's Review, p. 169).
Referring to this passage, Dean Milman, in his Gibbon's Rome (Vol. II, p. 285, note) says: "It is interpolated with many additional clauses."
Cannon Farrar, who has written in ablest Christian life of Christ yet penned, repudiates it. He says: "The single passage in which he [Josephus] alludes to him is interpolated, if not wholly spurious" (Life of Christ, Vol. I, p. 46).
The following, from Dr. Farrar's pen, is to be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica: "That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it now stands no sane critic can believe."
"There are, however, two reasons which are alone sufficient to prove that the whole passage is spurious -- one that it was unknown to Origen and the earlier fathers, and the other that its place in the text is uncertain" (ibid).
Theodor Keim, a German-Christian writer on Jesus says: "The passage cannot be maintained; it has first appeared in this form in the Catholic church of the Jews and Gentiles, and under the dominion of the Fourth Gospel, and hardly before the third century, probably before Eusebius, and after Origen, whose bitter criticisms of Josephus may have given cause for it" (Jesus of Nazara, p. 25).
Concerning this passage, Hausrath, another German writer, says it "must have been penned at a peculiarly shameless hour."
The Rev. Dr. Hooykaas, of Holland, says: "Flavius Josephus, the well known historian of the Jewish people, was born in A.D. 37, only two years after the death of Jesus; but though his work is of inestimable value as our chief authority for the circumstances of the times in which Jesus and his Apostles came forward, yet he does not seem to have mentioned Jesus himself. At any rate, the passage in his 'Jewish Antiquities' that refers to him is certainly spurious, and was inserted by a later and a Christian hand" (Bible for Learners, Vol. III, p. 27). This conclusion of Dr. Hooykaas is endorsed by the eminent Dutch critic, Dr. Kuenen.
Dr. Alexander Campbell, one of America's ablest Christian apologists, says: "Josephus, the Jewish historian, was contemporary with the Apostles, having been born in the year 37. From his situation and habits, he had every access to know all that took place at the rise of the Christian religion.
"Respecting the founder of this religion, Josephus has thought fit to be silent in history. The present copies of his work contain one passage which speaks very respectfully of Jesus Christ, and ascribes to him the character of the Messiah. But as Josephus did not embrace Christianity, and as this passage is not quoted or referred to until the beginning of the fourth century, it is, for these and other reasons, generally accounted spurious" (Evidences of Christianity, from Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 312).
Another passage in Josephus, relating to the younger Ananus, who was high priest of the Jews in 62 A.D., reads as follows:
"But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper and very insolent; he was also of the sect of Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all of the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrim of judges and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned" (Antiquities, Book XX, chap. ix, sec. I).
This passage is probably genuine with the exception of the clause, "who was called Christ," which is undoubtedly an interpolation, and is generally regarded as such. Nearly all the authorities that I have quoted reject it. It was originally probably a marginal note. Some Christian reader of Josephus believing that the James mentioned was the brother of Jesus made a note of his belief in the manuscript before him, and this a transcriber afterward incorporated with the text, a very common practice in that age when purity of text was a matter of secondary importance.
Dr. Lardner, one of the ablest defenders of Christianity, adduces the following arguments against its genuineness:
"I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected testimony to Jesus, which was never quoted by any of our Christian ancestors before Eusebius.
"Nor do I recollect that Josephus has anywhere mentioned the name or word Christ, in any of his works; except the testimony above mentioned, and the passage concerning James, the Lord's brother.
"It interrupts the narrative.
"The language is quite Christian.
"It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting it had it been then in the text.
"It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles concerning Josephus.
"Under the article Justus of Tiberias, this author (Photius) especially states that the historian [Josephus], being a Jew, has not taken the least notice of Christ.
"Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, nor Clemens Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from ancient authors, nor Origen against Celsus, has ever mentioned this testimony.
"But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv of the first book of that work, Origen openly affirms that Josephus, who had mentioned John the Baptist, did not acknowledge Christ" (Answer to Dr. Chandler).
Again Dr. Lardner says: "This passage is not quoted nor referred to by any Christian writer before Eusebius, who flourished at the beginning of the fourth century. If it had been originally in the works of Josephus it would have been highly proper to produce it in their disputes with Jews and Gentiles. But it is never quoted by Justin Martyr, or Clement of Alexandria, nor by Tertullian or Origen, men of great learning, and well acquainted with the works of Josephus. It was certainly very proper to urge it against the Jews. It might also have been fitly urged against the Gentiles. A testimony so favorable to Jesus in the works of Josephus, who lived so soon after our Savior, who was so well acquainted with the transactions of his own country, who had received so many favors from Vespasian and Titus, would not be overlooked or neglected by any Christian apologist" (Lardner's Works, vol. I, chap. iv).
Bishop Warburton declares it to be a forgery: "If a Jew owned the truth of Christianity, he must needs embrace it. We, therefore, certainly conclude that the paragraph where Josephus, who was as much a Jew as the religion of Moses could make him, is made to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, in terms as strong as words could do it, is a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too" (Quoted by Lardner, Works, Vol. I, chap. iv).
The Rev. Dr. Giles, of the Established Church of England, says:
"Those who are best acquainted with the character of Josephus, and the style of his writings, have no hesitation in condemning this passage as a forgery, interpolated in the text during the third century by some pious Christian, who was scandalized that so famous a writer as Josephus should have taken no notice of the gospels, or of Christ, their subject. But the zeal of the interpolator has outrun his discretion, for we might as well expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, as to find this notice of Christ among the Judaizing writings of Josephus. It is well known that this author was a zealous Jew, devoted to the laws of Moses and the traditions of his countrymen. How, then, could he have written that Jesus was the Christ? Such an admission would have proved him to be a Christian himself, in which case the passage under consideration, too long for a Jew, would have been far too short for a believer in the new religion, and thus the passage stands forth, like an ill-set jewel, contrasting most inharmoniously with everything around it. If it had been genuine, we might be sure that Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Chrysostom would have quoted it in their controversies with the Jews, and that Origen or Photius would have mentioned it. But Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian (I, 11), is the first who quotes it, and our reliance on the judgment or even honesty of this writer is not so great as to allow our considering everything found in his works as undoubtedly genuine" (Christian Records, p. 30).
The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his Lost and Hostile Gospels, says:
"This passage is first quoted by Eusebius (fl. A.D. 315) in two places (Hist. Eccl., lib. i, c. xi; Demonst. Evang., lib. iii); but it was unknown to Justin Martyr (fl. A.D. 140), Clement of Alexandria (fl. A.D. 192), Tertullian (fl. A.D. 193), and Origen (fl. A.D. 230). Such a testimony would certainly have been produced by Justin in his apology or in his controversy with Trypho the Jew, had it existed in the copies of Josephus at his time. The silence of Origen is still more significant. Celsus, in his book against Christianity, introduces a Jew. Origen attacks the argument of Celsus and his Jew. He could not have failed to quote the words of Josephus, whose writings he knew, had the passage existed in the genuine text. He, indeed, distinctly affirms that Josephus did not believe in Christ (Contr. Cels. i)."
Dr. Chalmers ignores it, and admits that Josephus is silent regarding Christ. He says: "The entire silence of Josephus upon the subject of Christianity, though he wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, and gives us the history of that period in which Christ and his Apostles lived, is certainly a very striking circumstance" (Kneeland's Review, p. 169).
Referring to this passage, Dean Milman, in his Gibbon's Rome (Vol. II, p. 285, note) says: "It is interpolated with many additional clauses."
Cannon Farrar, who has written in ablest Christian life of Christ yet penned, repudiates it. He says: "The single passage in which he [Josephus] alludes to him is interpolated, if not wholly spurious" (Life of Christ, Vol. I, p. 46).
The following, from Dr. Farrar's pen, is to be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica: "That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it now stands no sane critic can believe."
"There are, however, two reasons which are alone sufficient to prove that the whole passage is spurious -- one that it was unknown to Origen and the earlier fathers, and the other that its place in the text is uncertain" (ibid).
Theodor Keim, a German-Christian writer on Jesus says: "The passage cannot be maintained; it has first appeared in this form in the Catholic church of the Jews and Gentiles, and under the dominion of the Fourth Gospel, and hardly before the third century, probably before Eusebius, and after Origen, whose bitter criticisms of Josephus may have given cause for it" (Jesus of Nazara, p. 25).
Concerning this passage, Hausrath, another German writer, says it "must have been penned at a peculiarly shameless hour."
The Rev. Dr. Hooykaas, of Holland, says: "Flavius Josephus, the well known historian of the Jewish people, was born in A.D. 37, only two years after the death of Jesus; but though his work is of inestimable value as our chief authority for the circumstances of the times in which Jesus and his Apostles came forward, yet he does not seem to have mentioned Jesus himself. At any rate, the passage in his 'Jewish Antiquities' that refers to him is certainly spurious, and was inserted by a later and a Christian hand" (Bible for Learners, Vol. III, p. 27). This conclusion of Dr. Hooykaas is endorsed by the eminent Dutch critic, Dr. Kuenen.
Dr. Alexander Campbell, one of America's ablest Christian apologists, says: "Josephus, the Jewish historian, was contemporary with the Apostles, having been born in the year 37. From his situation and habits, he had every access to know all that took place at the rise of the Christian religion.
"Respecting the founder of this religion, Josephus has thought fit to be silent in history. The present copies of his work contain one passage which speaks very respectfully of Jesus Christ, and ascribes to him the character of the Messiah. But as Josephus did not embrace Christianity, and as this passage is not quoted or referred to until the beginning of the fourth century, it is, for these and other reasons, generally accounted spurious" (Evidences of Christianity, from Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 312).
Another passage in Josephus, relating to the younger Ananus, who was high priest of the Jews in 62 A.D., reads as follows:
"But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper and very insolent; he was also of the sect of Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all of the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrim of judges and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned" (Antiquities, Book XX, chap. ix, sec. I).
This passage is probably genuine with the exception of the clause, "who was called Christ," which is undoubtedly an interpolation, and is generally regarded as such. Nearly all the authorities that I have quoted reject it. It was originally probably a marginal note. Some Christian reader of Josephus believing that the James mentioned was the brother of Jesus made a note of his belief in the manuscript before him, and this a transcriber afterward incorporated with the text, a very common practice in that age when purity of text was a matter of secondary importance.
The fact that the early fathers, who were acquainted with Josephus, and who would have hailed with joy even this evidence of Christ's existence, do not cite it, while Origen expressly declares that Josephus has not mentioned Christ, is conclusive proof that it did not exist until the middle of the third century or later.
Those who affirm the genuineness of this clause argue that the James mentioned by Josephus was a person of less prominence than the Jesus mentioned by him, which would be true of James, the brother of Jesus Christ. Now some of the most prominent Jews living at this time were named Jesus. Jesus, the son of Damneus, succeeded Ananus as high priest that very year; and Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, a little later succeeded to the same office.
To identify the James of Josephus with James the Just, the brother of Jesus, is to reject the accepted history of the primitive church which declares that James the Just died in 69 A.D., seven years after the James of Josephus was condemned to death by the Sanhedrim.
Whiston himself, the translator of Josephus referring to the event narrated by the Jewish historian, admits that James, the brother of Jesus Christ, "did not die till long afterward."
The brief "Discourse Concerning Hades," appended to the writings of Josephus, is universally conceded to be the product of some other writer -- "obviously of Christian origin" -- says the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Cornelius Tacitus
Tacitus lived from A.D. 55 to A.D. 120. He .....
Tacitus
In July, 64 A.D., a great conflagration occurred in Rome. There is a tradition to the effect that this conflagration was the work of an incendiary and that the Emperor Nero himself was believed to be the incendiary. Modern editions of the "Annals" of Tacitus contain the following passage in reference to this:
"Nero, in order to stifle the rumor, ascribed to those people who were abhorred for their crimes and commonly called Christians: These he punished exquisitely. The founder of that name was Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was punished, as a criminal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition, thus checked for awhile, broke out again; and spread not only over Judea, the source of this evil, but reached the city also: whither flow from all quarters all things vile and shameful, and where they find shelter and encouragement. At first, only those were apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterwards, a vast multitude were detected by them, all of whom were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as their hatred of mankind. Their executions were so contrived as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, and torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified. Others, having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up as lights in the night time, and thus burned to death. Nero made use of his own gardens as a theatre on this occasion, and also exhibited the diversions of the circus, sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; at other times driving a chariot himself, till at length those men, though really criminal, and deserving exemplary punishment, began to be commiserated as people who were destroyed, not out of regard to the public welfare, but only to gratify the cruelty of one man" (Annals, Book XV, sec. 44). This passage, accepted as authentic by many, must be declared doubtful, if not spurious, for the following reasons:
1. It is not quoted by the Christian fathers.
2. Tertullian was familiar with the writings of Tacitus, and his arguments demanded the citation of this evidence had it existed.
3. Clement of Alexandria, at the beginning of the third century, made a compilation of all the recognitions of Christ and Christianity that had been made by Pagan writers up to his time. The writings of Tacitus furnished no recognition of them.
4. Origen, in his controversy with Celsus, would undoubtedly have used it had it existed.
5. The ecclesiastical historian Eusebius, in the fourth century, cites all the evidences of Christianity obtainable from Jewish and Pagan sources, but makes no mention of Tacitus.
6. It is not quoted by any Christian writer prior to the fifteenth century.
7. At this time but one copy of the Annals existed and this copy, it is claimed, was made in the eighth century -- 600 years after the time of Tacitus.
8. As this single copy was in the possession of a Christian the insertion of a forgery was easy.
9. Its severe criticisms of Christianity do not necessarily disprove its Christian origin. No ancient witness was more desirable than Tacitus, but his introduction at so late a period would make rejection certain unless Christian forgery could be made to appear improbable.
10. It is admitted by Christian writers that the works of Tacitus have not been preserved with any considerable degree of fidelity. In the writings ascribed to him are believed to be some of the writings of Quintilian.
11. The blood-curdling story about the frightful orgies of Nero reads like some Christian romance of the dark ages, and not like Tacitus.
12. In fact, this story, in nearly the same words, omitting the reference to Christ, is to be found in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, a Christian of the fifth century.
13. Suetonius, while mercilessly condemning the reign of Nero, says that in his public entertainments he took particular care that no human lives should be sacrificed, "not even those of condemned criminals."
14. At the time that the conflagration occurred, Tacitus himself declares that Nero was not in Rome, but at Antium.
Many who accept the authenticity of this section of the "Annals" believe that the sentence which declares that Christ was punished in the reign of Pontius Pilate, and which I have italicized, is an interpolation. Whatever may be said of the remainder of this passage, this sentence bears the unmistakable stamp of Christian forgery. It interrupts the narrative; it disconnects two closely related statements. Eliminate this sentence, and there is no break in the narrative. In all the Roman records there was to be found no evidence that Christ was put to death by Pontius Pilate. This sentence, if genuine, is the most important evidence in Pagan literature. That it existed in the works of the greatest and best known of Roman historians, and was ignored or overlooked by Christian apologists for 1,360 years, no intelligent critic can believe. Tacitus did not write this sentence.
This is what happens when you spend too much time on atheist websites - you become myopic and start saying absurd things.
By the way, do you believe in evolution? Because there is no evidence of it and no writings about it before the 1800s.
One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth
No, they'll likely be as discredited as the eugenics crowd is - and probably lumped in with them.Foss - do you believe the earth revolves around the sun? Until Copernicus in the 16th century, the western world pretty much was geocentric in belief.
There were Greeks who seemed to grasp the concept of the Sun being at the center of the solar system, just as there were Greeks that had a philosophical notion that there is descent with modification. The Catholic Church and the Middle Ages certainly took care of squashing any progression along either of those lines of thought.
And there certainly were writings about evolution before the 1800s - Kant, Linnaeus...
The evidence for evolution was there - we just had to get beyond the church to allow science to present its case. Just as the church balked at a heliocentric solar system, it also balks at evolution. Now, over 400 years after Copernicus we sort of snicker when we think of people believing that the earth was the center of the universe. Will the same be true in 2336 regarding evolution? Will our 'future selves' be snickering slightly when they look back at the early 2000s and reading how people still believed in creationism, or I.D.?
No, they'll likely be as discredited as the eugenics crowd is - and probably lumped in with them.
There is no scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution - only biased, filtered interpretation of physical remains and computer models that have no basis in reality. Still waiting for that missing link.
No, he did not. I'd love to hear your argument that the Bible argues geocentrism.Just as Copernicus' ideas were claimed as heresy... Galileo was convicted of heresy for going against the Bible and following Copernicus - that was the crime he was 'guilty' of - that is why he spent a large part of his latter years under house arrest. He went against the Bible.
Isn't that similar to evolution - it goes against the Bible - against God's word.
No, he did not. I'd love to hear your argument that the Bible argues geocentrism.
Don't bother, I'm not interested in reading your posts since you don't read mine.
You’re only reading, seeing, and believing what you want to. You’re ignoring many of the facts that have been laid out here. So your argument, or attempts at debate are invalid
Matthew 4.8 the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory.
More like 'dueling websites' I'm sure.ohhhh.... dueling Bible verse - I get to go first - Bible supports geocentricism...
Tremble before him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
-1 Chronicles 16:30
Your turn foss - your verse that shows that the earth revolves around the sun...
30 Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
As far as my verse - no, it's your claim, so it's your burden of proof.26 For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens. 27 Glory and honour are in his presence; strength and gladness are in his place. 28 Give unto the LORD, ye kindreds of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength. 29 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. 30 Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved. 31 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice: and let men say among the nations, The LORD reigneth. 32 Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof: let the fields rejoice, and all that is therein. 33 Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the LORD, because he cometh to judge the earth.
You mean according to the CATHOLIC church. You know where I stand regarding the Catholic church. Wouldn't be the first time the priests misinterpreted something.Oh, and yes, according to the church, and their priests' interpretation of the Bible, Galileo was a heretic.
And this one:Job 26:7 (King James Version)
7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Psalm 103:12 (King James Version)
12As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Pontius Pilate Inscription. It was in 1961 that the first archaeological find was made with reference to Pontius Pilate. ( the person who put Jesus to death) This was a stone slab located at Caesarea, which bore in Latin the name of Pontius Pilate
Josephus
Josephus was a Jewish historian who was born in either 37 or 38 AD and died some time after 100 AD. He wrote the Jewish Antiquites and in one famous passage described Jesus as a wise man, a doer of wonderful works and calls him the Christ. He also affirmed that Jesus was executed by Pilate and actually rose from the dead!
Another proof that the Christ of Christianity is a fabulous and not a historical character is the silence of the writers who lived during and immediately following the time he is said to have existed.
That a man named Jesus, an obscure religious teacher, the basis of this fabulous Christ, lived in Palestine about nineteen hundred years ago, may be true. But of this man we know nothing. His biography has not been written. A Renan and others have attempted to write it, but have failed -- have failed because no materials for such a work exist. Contemporary writers have left us not one word concerning him. For generations afterward, outside of a few theological epistles, we find no mention of him.
The following is a list of writers who lived and wrote during the time, or within a century after the time, that Christ is said to have lived and performed his wonderful works:
Josephus
Philo-Judaeus
Seneca
Pliny the Elder
Suetonius
Juvenal
Martial
Persius
Plutarch
Justus of Tiberius
Apollonius
Pliny the Younger
Tacitus
Quintilian
Lucanus
Epictetus
Silius Italicus
Statius
Ptolemy
Hermogones
Valerius Maximus
Arrian
Petronius
Dion Pruseus
Paterculus
Appian
Theon of Smyrna
Phlegon
Pompon Mela
Quintius Curtius
Lucian
Pausanias
Valerius Flaccus
Florus Lucius
Favorinus
Phaedrus
Damis
Aulus Gellius
Columella
Dio Chrysostom
Lysias
Appion of Alexandria
Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.
Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place -- when Christ himself rose from the dead, and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.
Josephus, the renowned Jewish historian, was a native of Judea. He was born in 37 A.D., and was a contemporary of the Apostles. He was, for a time, Governor of Galilee, the province in which Christ lived and taught. He traversed every part of this province and visited the places where but a generation before Christ had performed his prodigies. He resided in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle. He mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event which occurred there during the first seventy years of the Christian era. But Christ was of too little consequence and his deeds too trivial to merit a line from this historian's pen.
Justus of Tiberius was a native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He wrote a history covering the time of Christ's reputed existence. This work has perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the ninth century, who was acquainted with it, says: "He [Jesus] makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did" (Photius' Bibliotheca, code 33).
Judea, where occurred the miraculous beginning and marvelous ending of Christ's earthly career, was a Roman province, and all of Palestine is intimately associated with Roman history. But the Roman records of that age contain no mention of Christ and his works. The Greek writers of Greece and Alexandria who lived not far from Palestine and who were familiar with its events, are silent also.
These and a hundred other miracles make up to a great extent this so-called Gospel History of Christ. To disprove the existence of these miracles is to disprove the existence of this Christ.
Canon Farrar makes this frank admission: "If miracles be incredible, Christianity is false. If Christ wrought no miracles, then the Gospels are untrustworthy" (Witness of History to Christ, p. 25).
Dean Mansel thus acknowledges the consequences of the successful denial of miracles: "The whole system of Christian belief with its evidences,...all Christianity in short, so far as it has any title to that name, so far as it has any special relation to the person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown" (Aids to Faith, p. 3).
Dr. Westcott says: "The essence of Christianity lies in a miracle; and if it can be shown that a miracle is either impossible or incredible, all further inquiry into the details of its history is superfluous" (Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 34).
A miracle, in the orthodox sense of the term, is impossible and incredible. To accept a miracle is to reject a demonstrated truth. The world is governed, not by chance, not by caprice, not by special providences, but by the laws of nature; and if there be one truth which the scientist and the philosopher have established, it is this: THE LAWS OF NATURE ARE IMMUTABLE. If the laws of Nature are immutable, they cannot be suspended; for if they could be suspended, even by a god, they would not be immutable. A single suspension of these laws would prove their mutability. Now these alleged miracles of Christ required a suspension of Nature's laws; and the suspension of these laws being impossible the miracles were impossible, and not performed. If these miracles were not performed, then the existence of this supernatural and miracle-performing Christ, except as a creature of the human imagination, is incredible and impossible.
Hume's masterly argument against miracles has never been refuted: "A miracle is a violation of the laws of Nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable that all men must die; that lead cannot of itself remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be that these events are found agreeable to the laws of Nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or, in other words, a miracle, to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happens in the common course of Nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die suddenly, because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against any miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit the appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle" (Essay on Miracles).
Isaiah 40:21 Have you not known? have yet not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants of it are as grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in;
Daniel 4:10 Thus were the visions of my head on my bed: I saw, and, behold, a tree in the midst of the earth; and the height of it was great.
4:11 The tree grew, and was strong, and the height of it reached to the sky, and the sight of it to the end of all the earth.
It's always amusing when an atheist who doesn't understand the difference between a vision and reality tries to quote the Bible.:bowrofl: Not only that, but the view of a pagan in the Bible is not necessarily endorsed by the Bible. FAIL.you can't see a tree to the END of ALL earth, unless the earth is flat.
Weak.from a high mountain, this is only possible if the earth is flat.
Don't flatter yourself. I don't even know you.you are not trying to debate an arguement with me so much as try to evangelize me.
Alluding to Christ's miracles, M. Renan, a reverential admirer of Jesus of Nazareth, says: "Observation, which has never been once falsified, teaches us that miracles never happen but in times and countries in which they are believed, and before persons disposed to believe them. No miracle ever occurred in the presence of men capable of testing its miraculous character.... It is not, then, in the name of this or that philosophy, but in the name of universal experience, that we banish miracles from history" (Life of Jesus, p. 29).
Christianity arose in what was preeminently a miracle-working age. Everything was attested by miracles, because nearly everybody believed in miracles and demanded them. Every religious teacher was a worker of miracles; and however trifling the miracle might be when wrought, in this atmosphere of unbounded credulity, the breath of exaggeration soon expanded it into marvelous proportions.
To show more clearly the character of the age which Christ illustrates, let us take another example, the Pythagorean teacher, Apollonius of Tyana, a contemporary of the Galilean. According to his biographers -- and they are as worthy of credence as the Evangelists -- his career, particularly in the miraculous events attending it, bore a remarkable resemblance to that of Christ. Like Christ, he was a divine incarnation; like Christ his miraculous conception was announced before his birth; like Christ he possessed in childhood the wisdom of a sage; like Christ he is said to have led a blameless life; like Christ his moral teachings were declared to be the best the world had known; like Christ he remained a celibate; like Christ he was averse to riches; like Christ he purified the religious temples; like Christ he predicted future events; like Christ he performed miracles, cast out devils, healed the sick, and restored the dead to life; like Christ he died, rose from the grave, ascended to heaven, and was worshiped as a god.
The Christian rejects the miraculous in Apollonius because it is incredible; the Rationalist rejects the miraculous in Christ for the same reason. In proof of the human character of the religion of Apollonius and the divine character of that of Christ it may be urged that the former has perished, while the latter has survived. But this, if it proves anything, proves too much. If the survival of Christianity proves its divinity, then the survival of the miracle-attested faiths of Buddhism and Mohammedanism, its powerful and flourishing rivals, must prove their divinity also. The religion of Apollonius languished and died because the conditions for its development were unfavorable; while the religions of Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed lived and thrived because of the propitious circumstances which favored their development.
With the advancement of knowledge the belief in the supernatural is disappearing. Those freed from Ignorance, and her dark sister, Superstition, know that miracles are myths. In the words of Matthew Arnold, "Miracles are doomed; they will drop out like fairies and witchcraft, from among the matter which serious people believe" (Literature and Dogma).
What proved the strength of Christianity in an age of ignorance is proving its weakness in an age of intelligence. Christian scholars themselves, recognizing the indefensibility and absurdity of miracles, endeavor to explain away the difficulties attending their acceptance by affirming that they are not real, but only apparent, violations of Nature's laws; thus putting the miracles of Christ in the same class with those performed by the jugglers of India and Japan. They resolve the supernatural into the natural, that the incredible may appear credible. With invincible logic and pitiless sarcasm, Colonel Ingersoll exposes the lameness of this attempt to retain the shadow of the supernatural when the substance is gone:
"Believers in miracles should not try to explain them. There is but one way to explain anything, and that is to account for it by natural agencies. The moment you explain a miracle it disappears. You should not depend upon explanation, but assertion. You should not be driven from the field because the miracle is shown to be unreasonable. Neither should you be in the least disheartened if it is shown to be impossible. The possible is not miraculous."
Miracles must be dismissed from the domain of fact and relegated to the realm of fiction. A miracle, I repeat, is impossible. Above all this chief of miracles, The Christ, is impossible, and does not, and never did exist.