Jesus: UL?

[tracer]

tomndebb wrote:

For some reason, people who discuss the more familiar (purportedly Gnostic) “sayings” Gospel of Thomas and the people who discuss the “childhood” or Infancy Gospel of Thomas never spend any energy to delineate the work they are discussing from the work of the same name that they are not.

Including, apparently, this webpage:

http://www.concentric.net/~Mullerb/thomas.shtml

… which is part of the Historical Jesus website Libertarian linked to back on page 1 of this thread.

[FriendRob]

As far as "Luke"s reliability as a historian, some of his statements about Paul in the book of Acts can be directly compared to Paul’s letters - and Luke doesn’t come off too well. Don’t have a reference in front of me at the moment - perhaps someone else does?

[JThunder]

Originally posted by themoon *
**
And, btw, the fact that you would refer to William Lane Craig doesn’t say much for your critical thinking skills. That guy is a liar, and a moron.*

Dear themoon,

I noticed that you’ve made several requests for specific cites and detailed information regarding the evidence that compelled Simon Greenleaf and Sir William Ramsey to change their views regarding the New Testament accounts.

I hereby invite you to defend your specific claims that (a) William Lane Craig is a liar and (b) that he is a moron. Remember, I’m not talking about whether he has made any factual errors, or whether you disagree with his evaluations. Rather, I’m asking if there is any reason why we should believe your claim that he is both habitually dishonest and mentally incompetent.

FTR, Craig’s credentials can be found here and here. These include two doctorates and two masters degrees, along with numerous honors. He graduated summa cum laude twice. Now I’m not claiming that this is reason enough to believe whatever he says (for it isn’t), but it is certainly reason enough to doubt that he is “a moron.”

BTW, if you haven’t listened to the 1993 debate between Craig and Frank Zindler (then-president of American Atheists), then I recommend it highly. Even if you don’t agree with the debate’s outcome, it does demonstrably prove that Craig is no moron. Video and audiotapes are available at http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/resources.html and you might be able to obtain a copy from American Atheists as well.

[tomndebb]

Ah HA! Craig hung out at the Université Catholique de Louvain instead of the Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven! He’s obviously a fraud.

[Dinsdale]

Is there any extra-bible source of info for the disposition of the body? Why believe there was necessarily a tomb? Crossan if fond of screeching that the body was eaten by dogs.

[themoon]

All of you who are so impressed with Craig’s getting himself a few degrees are really rather easily impressed. It isn’t all that hard to get degrees, you simply have to jump through all of the right hoops. There are plenty of Ph.D.'s who are idiots.

Browsing through William Lane Craig’s website, I came to this piece of tripe, on origins:

The absolute origin of the universe, of all matter and energy, even of physical space and time themselves, in the Big Bang singularity contradicts the perennial naturalistic assumption that the universe has always existed.

No, it doesn’t. There is no contradiction by saying that the Big Bang occurred 15 billion years ago, and the universe has always existed. Just because Craig does not understand the physics does not mean it is contradictory.

One after another, models designed to avert the initial cosmological singularity–the Steady State model, the Oscillating model, Vacuum Fluctuation models–have come and gone. Current quantum gravity models, such as the Hartle-Hawking model and the Vilenkin model, must appeal to the physically unintelligible and metaphysically dubious device of “imaginary time” to avoid the universe’s beginning.

Imaginary time is hardly unintelligible or dubious. It is, much like Quantum Theory, a way of describing and explaining a physical phenomenon using mathematics. The fact that you cannot see or experience imaginary time does not mean it has no relevance. Nobody has ever seen a wave-function either, but that doesn’t mean that wave functions have no relevance.

Also, the Vacuum Fluctuation model has hardly come and gone. This idea is still considered by many physicists to be a viable hypothesis. It hasn’t been disproven, and does explain quite a bit. It will, of course, by a while before anybody can say with conviction that this is the way the Big Bang happened, but this idea is still quite a vital one.

The contingency implied by an absolute beginning ex nihilo points to a transcendent cause of the universe beyond space and time.

Why? What does “beyond space and time” mean? I see no logical necessity for a transcendent cause. And, of course, the universe did not have an absolute beginning ex nihilo. The very concept is meaningless. What does it mean for there to be nothing? If there was nothing, then there was no god, either.

Philosophical objections to a cause of the universe fail to carry conviction.

Only to the fundy who is intent on maintaining his dogma.
What we see here is Craig using lots of big words, and referencing lots of impressive sounding scientific ideas and jargon. But, once you examine these ideas you see that he is full of shit, and has no idea what he is talking about. (Either that, or he is a liar.)

Of course, the intention here is not to convert the skeptic. Nobody who knows anything about modern cosmology is going to buy into this crap. It is for the purpose of strengthening the believer in his belief. Thus, Craig feels free to dissemble, because his lying and misleading are only going to bother the skeptic, and they don’t matter to him anyway.

[McStain]

*Originally posted by themoon *
** Browsing through William Lane Craig’s website, I came to this piece of tripe, on origins:

The absolute origin of the universe, of all matter and energy, even of physical space and time themselves, in the Big Bang singularity contradicts the perennial naturalistic assumption that the universe has always existed.

No, it doesn’t. There is no contradiction by saying that the Big Bang occurred 15 billion years ago, and the universe has always existed. Just because Craig does not understand the physics does not mean it is contradictory.
**

I don’t see what this (and the following) objection has to do with Craig’s qualifications about the Gospels. Yes, he appears to be weak on his physics. However, commentary on the Big Bang and commentary on the Gospels, in my mind, have nothing to do with each other.

Allow me to quote from your Logical Fallacies reference page:

Fallacy: Red Herring
Description of Red Herring
A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to “win” an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:
Topic A is under discussion.
Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
Topic A is abandoned.
This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.

Allow me to suggest that you have committed this very fallacy.

Proof that Dr. Craig does not understand his physics has nothing to do with Dr. Craig’s Biblical competency. I’m sure that, being the liar and idiot that he is, there’s plenty of relevant stupidity to be found in his Biblical commentary. I don’t think this is much to ask.

[tracer]

Dinsdale wrote:

Crossan if fond of screeching that the body was eaten by dogs.

Huh? The banjo grows angry at midnight? Green ideas sleep furiously?

[JThunder]

*Originally posted by themoon *
**All of you who are so impressed with Craig’s getting himself a few degrees are really rather easily impressed. It isn’t all that hard to get degrees, you simply have to jump through all of the right hoops. **

Moon,

Surely you can see the hyperbole of saying that in order to get a degree, all one must do is just through hoops. You’re making it sound as though any simpleton can get a Ph.D., which is clearly a gross exaggeration.

Moreover, the question of whether people are “impressed” with Craig’s degrees is irrelevant. The point is that in light of his background, it would be most extraordinary to assert that he is nothing more than a moron. Clearly, the burden of extraordinary proof must rest on the accuser.

As for his interpretation of advanced physics, I think you’re greatly overstating the case against Craig. For example, nowhere did he claim that imaginary time was invalid because “you cannot see or experience [it].” In fact, as a philosopher, Craig doubtlessly knows that something does not have to be visible or directly experienced in order to be valid – and if he believes otherwise, the burden of proof rests on the accuser.

What he said is that the concept is “physically unintelligible and metaphysically dubious.” The meaning of such terms is subject to a great degree of interpretation; for example, I think it would be fair enough to describe quantum oddities as being “physically unintelligible,” insofar as they run counter to everyday experience and our ingrained concepts of causality. Even Einstein railed against QM, before it became accepted dogma. To lambast Craig based on his use of such terms – well, that strikes me as akin to straining out a gnat.

Besides, let’s assume that his grasp of advanced physics is indeed flawed. Is it really fair to say that this makes him a moron? Or a liar? Is it?

[Opus1]

Just want to add that the story of Jesus frenching Mary Magdalene is in the Gospel of Philip:

And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him Why do you love her more than all of us?

(from http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/gospels/gosphil.htm)

I think my point stands strong: the evidence for the martyrdom of most of the disciples is very, very weak. Consider Matthew:

Of Matthew’s subsequent career we have only inaccurate or legendary data. St. Irenæus tells us that Matthew preached the Gospel among the Hebrews, St. Clement of Alexandria claiming that he did this for fifteen years, and Eusebius maintains that, before going into other countries, he gave them his Gospel in the mother tongue. Ancient writers are not as one as to the countries evangelized by Matthew, but almost all mention Ethiopia to the south of the Caspian Sea (not Ethiopia in Africa), and some Persia and the kingdom of the Parthians, Macedonia, and Syria. According to Heracleon, who is quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Matthew did not die a martyr, but this opinion conflicts with all other ancient testimony. Let us add, however, that the account of his martyrdom in the apocryphal Greek writings entitled “Martyrium S. Matthæi in Ponto” and published by Bonnet, “Acta apostolorum apocrypha” (Leipzig, 1898), is absolutely devoid of historic value. Lipsius holds that this “Martyrium S. Matthæi”, which contains traces of Gnosticism, must have been published in the third century. There is a disagreement as to the place of St. Matthew’s martyrdom and the kind of torture inflicted on him, therefore it is not known whether he was burned, stoned, or beheaded. The Roman Martyrology simply says: “S. Matthæi, qui in Æthiopia prædicans martyrium passus est”.

(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10056b.htm)

or Matthias:

All further information concerning the life and death of Matthias is vague and contradictory. According to Nicephorus (Hist. eccl., 2, 40), he first preached the Gospel in Judea, then in Ethiopia (that is to say, Colchis) and was crucified. The Synopsis of Dorotheus contains this tradition: Matthias in interiore AEthiopia, ubi Hyssus maris portus et Phasis fluvius est, hominibus barbaris et carnivoris praedicavit Evangelium. Mortuus est autem in Sebastopoli, ibique prope templum Solis sepultus (Matthias preached the Gospel to barbarians and cannibals in the interior of Ethiopia, at the harbour of the sea of Hyssus, at the mouth of the river Phasis. He died at Sebastopolis, and was buried there, near the Temple of the Sun). Still another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem by the Jews, and then beheaded (cf. Tillemont, “Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire eccl. des six premiers siècles”, I, 406-7).

(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10066a.htm)

If one is attempting to use the martyrdom of the disciples as evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, then one’s position is very weak indeed.

[g8rguy]

What we see here is Craig using lots of big words, and referencing lots of impressive sounding scientific ideas and jargon. But, once you examine these ideas you see that he is full of shit, and has no idea what he is talking about. (Either that, or he is a liar.)

Of course, the intention here is not to convert the skeptic. Nobody who knows anything about modern cosmology is going to buy into this crap. It is for the purpose of strengthening the believer in his belief. Thus, Craig feels free to dissemble, because his lying and misleading are only going to bother the skeptic, and they don’t matter to him anyway. **

Might I humbly suggest that you get thee to a good text on cosmology, where it will explain that if the Big Bang happened 15 billion years ago, that was when the universe started? Once you have done so, read, and thoroughly comprehended, come back and explain WHY Craig is full of it rather than simply asserting that this is so.

Might I also suggest that your disagreement with his philosophy in no way implies that Craig is either a liar or an idiot, and hence in no way suggests that he is, in fact, untrustworthy?

Finally, as others have said, attacking his grasp of cosmology in order to refute his command of other disciplines is intellectually dishonesty at its finest. As such, I find your entire characterization of someone else as intellectually dishonest to be truly impressive irony. Pot calling kettle, pot calling kettle…

[JubilationTCornpone]

*Originally posted by themoon *
**

One after another, models designed to avert the initial cosmological singularity–the Steady State model, the Oscillating model, Vacuum Fluctuation models–have come and gone. Current quantum gravity models, such as the Hartle-Hawking model and the Vilenkin model, must appeal to the physically unintelligible and metaphysically dubious device of “imaginary time” to avoid the universe’s beginning.

Imaginary time is hardly unintelligible or dubious. It is, much like Quantum Theory, a way of describing and explaining a physical phenomenon using mathematics. **

I suggest that you read his comment more closely. He didn’t say that imaginary time was irrelevant or merely unintelligible. He said that it was physically unintelligible, which seems reasonable to me. Imaginary time is certainly useful in simplifying relativistic mathematics (which is why time is often called “the fourth dimension”), but the phsyical meaning of imaginary time is still far from clear. This, in turn, explains why one might say that it’s “metaphysically dubious” as well.

[themoon]

Oh brother.

If Craig does not understand physics, then it is intellectually dishonest for him to use his superficial understanding to support his arguments. Either way, he is being dishonest.

Clearly, his statements about Big Bang cosmology are fallacious, to put it mildly. So either he has not bothered to put the effort into understanding the subject before jumping to conclusions based on his superficial understanding, or he is deliberately misleading. Either way, he is being dishonest. Which is worse?

As for the Big Bang, and the creation of the universe ex nihilo, this is not at all a necessity. It could be that our universe is embedded in a meta-universe, and that the Big Bang was the result of a quantum fluctuation in a vacuum. I am not saying that this IS the way it happened, but it is ONE hypothesis among many that do not involve “creation from nothing.” Thus, the universe always existing and the Big Bang event are not mutually exclusive.

[Stoid]

I just have to say that every time I see this thread title, I hear in my head: “Jesus: Uploaded?”

Thanks for letting me share that.

[JubilationTCornpone]

*Originally posted by themoon *
**Oh brother.

If Craig does not understand physics, then it is intellectually dishonest for him to use his superficial understanding to support his arguments. Either way, he is being dishonest.**

If he doesn’t understand physics, then that merely makes him mistaken. It doesn’t make him a liar, and it certainly doesn’t make him a moron. (Moreover, the objections which you raised pertain to fine, subtle points of advanced physics. Even if we assume your objections to be valid, that doesn’t make him as hopelessly ignorant as you claim him to be.)

**As for the Big Bang, and the creation of the universe ex nihilo, this is not at all a necessity. It could be that our universe is embedded in a meta-universe, and that the Big Bang was the result of a quantum fluctuation in a vacuum. **

And Craig explicitly addressed the whole “quantum fluctuation” approach – from multiple viewpoints, in fact. He does not consider it to be a reasonable hypothesis, for reasons which he already articulated. (For example, Craig objects to Hawking’s “imaginary time” as physically real, rather than a mere mathematical convenience. Frankly, I don’t blame him.)

One might disagree with Craig’s philosophical objections to these theories, and that’s fine. This still doesn’t make him an idiot, even if his arguments prove to be erroneous.

[JubilationTCornpone]

*Originally posted by themoon *
I am not saying that this IS the way it happened, but it is ONE hypothesis among many that do not involve "creation from nothing."

Merely having a hypothesis does not constitute a valid argument. I could postulate that we are all disembodied brains, floating in a nutrient-filled VR tank. Without any empirical evidence, such an argument clearly does us no good.

Could our universe have sprung from a larger, meta-universe? Strictly speaking, maybe… but in the absence of any empirical evidence, that’s a tenuous position to take. One might as well postulate that we’re living in a gigantic version of The Truman Show, where aliens fashion scripted lives for us all.

Don’t forget that you’re reading an op ed piece. Such pieces typically attempt to be thorough, while also attempting to follow common-sense rules of logical inference. Hence, fanciful theories which are bereft of empirical evidence are typically ignored (e.g. the VR tank theory, or the meta-universe theory). In fact, Craig goes one step further than that, as he addresses fanciful quantum-mech-based theories which are little more than fanciful conjecture at this point.

[JubilationTCornpone]

*Originally posted by JThunder *
**

*Originally posted by themoon *
**

*Originally posted by JThunder *
And second, how does one leap from saying “Mark was written in the mid-60’s” to saying it is was a “4th and 5th hand account”? Even if we grant that it was penned 30 years after Christ’s death, that does not mean that it was not written by Mark – and it certainly does not necessarily make it a fourth- or fifth-hand account.

Mark was not written by Mark. No serious biblical scholar believes that any of the gospels were written by the people whose names are attached to them. None of the authors of the gospels were written by eyewitnesses.**

A gross exaggeration, at best. While many scholars do contest their scholarship, many others do not. **

And even if they did all contest Mark’s traditional authorship, that still doesn’t make it a fourth- or fifth-hand account. So once again, I ask… how do we jump from saying “The Gospel of Mark wasn’t actually written by Mark” to saying “It was a fourth- or fifth-hand account.”

And while we’re on that matter…

themoon, you say that Craig is either a liar or an idiot, based on some perceived errors in his grasp of cosmological physics. Well then, what does that say about someone who makes factual errors on matter of history, or who makes an inaccurate claims about what “serious biblical scholars” say regarding the gospels’ authorship?

Before you respond… I’m sure those were honest mistakes on your part. I merely want to emphasize that we shouldn’t be quick to call someone a moron when he (supposedly) makes errors on some esoteric matter.

[themoon]

*Originally posted by JubilationTCornpone *
If he doesn’t understand physics, then that merely makes him mistaken. It doesn’t make him a liar, and it certainly doesn’t make him a moron. (Moreover, the objections which you raised pertain to fine, subtle points of advanced physics. Even if we assume your objections to be valid, that doesn’t make him as hopelessly ignorant as you claim him to be.)

Bullshit. You are merely trying to cover for Craig’s obvious dishonesty. The points distorted by Craig are hardly fine, subtle points. They are the very crux of the argument!

But, if you are claiming that Craig is simply mistaken (which is a big “if,” as it seems fairly clear that Craig is intentionally misleading), then you still have to admit that he is being dishonest in using his half-assed understanding of physics to bolster his claim that the universe had a creator. This sort of sloppiness would be unacceptable in academia.

I was asked to show where Craig had lied. I followed the first link provided to his site, and clicked one time to get to an article full of distortions and lies.

**And Craig explicitly addressed the whole “quantum fluctuation” approach – from multiple viewpoints, in fact. He does not consider it to be a reasonable hypothesis, for reasons which he already articulated. **

He doesn’t consider it reasonable because it does not fit his argument. He offered no serious objections to the hypothesis. But, by all means, if he really has some fatal dagger for the hypothesis, why doesn’t he publish it in Physical Review Letters, or Nature, and get himself some notoriety and respect in the physics community? I will be waiting with baited breath.

(For example, Craig objects to Hawking’s “imaginary time” as physically real, rather than a mere mathematical convenience. Frankly, I don’t blame him.)

Really? So, if you can’t see it, it has no physical relevance? I suppose, then, that Craig would toss out all of Quantum Theory, because wave functions have no physical reality.

**One might disagree with Craig’s philosophical objections to these theories, and that’s fine. This still doesn’t make him an idiot, even if his arguments prove to be erroneous. **

He is either an idiot or a liar. (And probably both.) Either he is mistaken, as you would like to claim, in his understanding of physics, or he is intentionally misleading.

[themoon]

*Originally posted by JubilationTCornpone *

*Originally posted by themoon *
I am not saying that this IS the way it happened, but it is ONE hypothesis among many that do not involve "creation from nothing."

Merely having a hypothesis does not constitute a valid argument. I could postulate that we are all disembodied brains, floating in a nutrient-filled VR tank. Without any empirical evidence, such an argument clearly does us no good.

No shit.

The point is that it is not a logical necessity for the universe to have begun at the Big Bang. There are many hypotheses for how the Big Bang occurred that do not involve creation ex nihilo.

Craig argues that since there was a Big Bang, the universe had to have been created. This assumption is clearly wrong.

[McStain]

*Originally posted by themoon *
**

*Originally posted by JubilationTCornpone *

*Originally posted by themoon *
I am not saying that this IS the way it happened, but it is ONE hypothesis among many that do not involve "creation from nothing."

Merely having a hypothesis does not constitute a valid argument. I could postulate that we are all disembodied brains, floating in a nutrient-filled VR tank. Without any empirical evidence, such an argument clearly does us no good.

No shit.

The point is that it is not a logical necessity for the universe to have begun at the Big Bang. There are many hypotheses for how the Big Bang occurred that do not involve creation ex nihilo.

Craig argues that since there was a Big Bang, the universe had to have been created. This assumption is clearly wrong. **

Yeah, OK. From now on, anyone on this board who bolsters their astophysical claims will be quickly, thorougly refuted. I don’t really care. Would you please, now, return to the subject of discrediting Craig the Biblical Scholar, which you have handily ignored?

Thanks.

Chris