No Answers In Genesis

[bill_sheehan]

I like to chat with evangelists. I usually learn something, they might learn something, and we both get to sharpen our wits a bit in parrying each other’s arguments. I’ve had online conversations that have gone on for weeks

Comments

Everything we were talking about before

[blesserbeing]

Sorry I have failed to message back until recently, I was in Mexico for about five days and I just got back today. Before that I kind of just forgot to check up on our chat. Anyway, I realize we were continually broadening the discussion in the chat on wolfpurplemoon's wall (with smaller margins each time), so let's try to narrow it down to some basics.

1. What would you like to start off/continue with?
2. Obviously you don't believe in God, but what is your opinion on Jesus's life compared to how Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John depict it? Seeing as this is the most authentic info we have on Jesus's life, how do you see this info as being dismantled or unusable?
3. Also Josephus, Tacitus, and the fact that all the greater historians of this time chose to mention Jesus in their historical writings. (I realize you already said something on this, but I would just like to start from the beginning)

I've come to think that if you don't have empirical evidence on something you won't believe it, so I'm beginning to think our conversations will not really lead to any conclusions on either side. But of course there is nothing wrong with learning more from eachother and how both sides of this argument think.

For example, I've started to think that you may be like the disciple Thomas (called Didymus) who would not believe Jesus was resurrected until he could stick his finger in his wounds. So simply talking about this will not really change your thoughts on the matter. Then again, I have no problem with still discussing it.

Thanks for your time and provocative discussion. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Re: Everything we were talking about before

[bill_sheehan]

Hi Brennen, good to see you again. I'm just back from a long road trip myself.

A while back, I used to enjoy a Sunday Sermonette on another blog. That blog ended, so I decided to write one myself. It's probably time to visit C.S. Lewis's "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" trilemma - I'll start tossing together some notes for next Sunday morning.

You mentioned Thomas. He always seemed to me to be the only apostle with a lick of sense. When the other disciples told him that they'd seen a dead man walking, he demanded evidence.

You'd do the same. If someone told you he'd just seen Elvis buying a burrito and a Big Gulp at the 7-Eleven, would you believe him?

The story in John's Gospel (the most poetic, least historical Gospel, written between 90 and 110 CE) says that Jesus did appear to Thomas, and he did confirm that the person standing before him was Jesus.

The story says that Thomas had direct physical evidence, and thus believed. But why should anyone else?

My mother told me about a priest she knew, who she believed to be an especially holy man. She said he had the gift of bi-location: he could be in two places at once. Do you believe her? I don't. She's my mother, she wouldn't lie to me, but that doesn't mean what what she says is true.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A story written (at least) sixty years after the event doesn't qualify.