IntenseDebate - Shawn White

15 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Vertical Cosmological ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Larry -
I do make that distinction between origination causation and sustaining causation.

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - William Lane Craig Cri... · 0 replies · +1 points

Hi Stephen - I'm not sure what you heard in Craig's critique that would lead you to believe that he admist that the Bible is not inerrant, but that is not what Craig says, nor is it what he believes. What is your understanding of the doctrine of Inerrancy?

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Did Jesus Exist? · 0 replies · +1 points

Phil - I agree with all your points in your final post. I also agree with the examples you mention above (Buddha, Socrates, etc.) I was actually thinking of Socrates when I was watching this clip and then didn't bring him up in my little post.

You do ask a pretty interesting question about purely fictional characters. That looks like a good topic to pursue as it relates to the Jewish community. I would imagine a rejoinder would follow the lines of something like: "Other cultures at that time were creating purely fictional stories (like the Greeks) and maybe they influenced the Jewish community since the Jews did not live in a cultural vacuum." Now, that would have to be proved, of course, but I could see someone objecting in that manner.

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Refuting the Resurrect... · 0 replies · +1 points

I think poor historical skills are the smaller of Tooltime9901's issues Phil. However, setting all those issues aside, the question ultimately is, "what follows from the Matthew account?" If it's not true - how does that affect the whether the Resurrection of Jesus really occurred? It doesn't. There is nothing logically linking the two events. Now, I don't think Matthew was making anything up, but that's beside the point. It obviously is peripheral to the story otherwise the other three evangelists would have included it in their Gospel accounts as well.

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Refuting the Resurrect... · 0 replies · +1 points

Ah, yes - you are correct Phil - two millennia.

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Refuting the Resurrect... · 0 replies · +1 points

Obviously I think there are great reasons to believe that what the eyewitnesses believed they saw was the physical risen Jesus. We can discuss that later if you want, after your debate with Vocab.

The topic of Jesus being God is an entirely different topic altogether. I'll be teaching a 5 week class on the deity of Jesus this coming fall and there is one thing for sure: whether he actually was or was not God is one thing, but he definitely considered himself to be God as did his followers.

Also, I think the word you were looking for is hagiographical - the study of saints.

Friends all the way around - I love these types of discussions. :)

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Refuting the Resurrect... · 0 replies · +1 points

Ah, but I'm not debating your position - I'm critiquing Tooltime9901's position and his contention is that there were no eyewitnesses. Saying that there were no eyewitnesses is nearly tantamount to saying that the entire enterprise is fictional. With what Tooltime9901 has said, we do not even enter into the discussion of whether the evidence is well documented or not, because he does not even consider the evidence as being valid.

Now, if you wish to debate on different grounds than Tooltime9901, that's fair, but I'm only critiquing his video based on what he has said.

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Refuting the Resurrect... · 0 replies · +1 points

True that corroborating evidence is helpful in determining the truthfulness of an eyewitness account, however, that alone is not sufficient.

But if one has evidence for an event that is well documented, yet all naturalistic causes fail in explaining it, you just don't have the luxury to dismiss the evidence. Rather, the reasonable thing to do is to go back and re-work the hypothesis and so far the most reasonable hypothesis is the Resurrection Hypothesis: God raised Jesus from the dead.

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Refuting the Resurrect... · 2 replies · +1 points

Another thing to keep in mind. If Tooltime9901 is correct that Josephus and Tacitus and other ancient historians received their information from Christians, then so what? If we keep with Tooltime9901's criteria, then do we discount all the information we have received from the Jew's who survived the holocaust?

Tooltime9901's bias really comes to the forefront in this particular clip. Essentially he has said this:
1. You cannot trust the Gospels because they were not written by eyewitnesses
2. You cannot trust non-Christian historical sources because they received their information from alleged eyewitnesses
3. Therefore, you cannot trust anything recorded about Jesus

Oh the slippery eel...

16 years ago @ Living Dead Man - Online Debate · 0 replies · +1 points

No problem - it's my pleasure to host it.

I think the Q&A could be fun if we have some people will to participate. I'll see what I can drum up.

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