GENIUS FORUMS

Most people know a lot about King Arthur too. And in other societies they know about the accounts of Beueloo the Gruk, Xirtiffe or the always funny Hantrik XIV because their stories have been retold for so many centuries by the elders.[/quote]

I rest my case.[/quote]

So please tell us what did happen in Jerusalem during the time of Christ so you can speak from knowledge rather than ignorance for once. Then give us your sources. And if it's the bible, then you can't use a source that you claim is a legend. So let's see if you know anything at all about history.

Why would I need to know anything what happened during that time? I'm not out to prove something, I'm only trying to show how reasonable it is to doubt. Also I already referred to a couple of sources earlier, but here they're again with some more detail:

Flavius Josephus

This is someone writing lots during the generation after Jesus would have lived. His references to earlier times give great insight to what was going on, like his Antiquities of the Jews - Book XVIII which details the 'gospel' years somewhat.

Justus of Tiberias - Rival of Josephus but there exist some fragments of his documentation and do not contradict basic understanding of events in Jerusalem AD, also confirms some of the existence and general orientation of Josephus.

Philo of Alexandria

Now this is an example of a philosopher living at the time of Jesus Christ who is mentioned by Josephus with some detail and accuracy. Also we have some of his own writing, even mentioning Biblical characters like Pilate. So to know of Philo's existence shows how we can know about a minor philosopher of that time. Also interesting are his attempt to create bridges between Plato and the Torah, often close to being Gnostic in expression. This would perhaps indicate in what kind of climate some of the New Testament was born.



I can't remember myself claiming the Bible being a legend. It's really with or against your belief in your book, isn't it?

And which writers and biographers actually witnessed the death of Caesar? I doubt that even one did. So since your trust is in those who never witnessed events over those who did, then you have shown zero credibility whatsoever, or any ability to reason.

And who claimed to witness the life of King Arthur? No one. Do you even think??? Obviously not.

Actually Caesar wrote his own famous memoirs, the Commentarii, not including his assassination of course. But there are many outstanding witnesses of the main events, for example Cicero.



To solve a recent crime, identified witnesses are most important. To understand the birth of a religion 2000 years ago, one needs reliable witnesses of the age and the context foremost. Stories circulating at the time containing claims cannot be seen as authentic or reliable, no matter how many centuries they've been the standard because of a state religion. Because then one has to believe every claim made by a self-proclaimed eye-witness in all of history. Why not believe in the eyewitness descriptions in Homer's work, or why would one doubt the existence of Homer himself, as many do.



The power of any story, especially in older times, was the magical suggestion that it could be the description of a real event. The line between his-story and story is blurred by default. This literal device is still used in some modern books and movies, but it was fairly normal in earlier ages.

First Arthur's existence was 'certified' by some ancient historians. Then stories arose that witnessed his life and death in more detail, starting with Chrétien de Troyes. The fact that most people didn't convert this powerful story into a new historic gospel can easily be explained by the fact that the Church would have simply wiped out anything opposing or competing with the Christian story. So it was blended with Christian elements as to not to oppose too much.

After the Church lost its power we can see all kinds of stories becoming gospel, literal, more easily again: Mormon, Scientology, Heaven's Gate, Santa Claus, War on Terrorism and the list goes on.

But the bible never claimed to be fiction as the books on King Arthur do. So I'm not going to call the authors of the bible liars with no proof for my claims any more than I'm going to call the author of King Arthur's books liars and call those true stories. I'm not in the habit of accusing authors of being liars with no proof for my claims as that is called slander and libel. But it appears that you're in the habit of calling any author a liar with no proof for your claims. That proves the bible true about unbelievers being slanderers.

What makes you think the original Arthurian books made those claims? Any example? And what about writings about Buddha, Krishna, Horus, Mormon, Scientology, Heaven's Gate, Santa Claus. Do they all originally claimed to be fiction?



The ones making the claims have to provide proof and presentation. The doubter can then point out the weakness of the evidence. There is no counter 'claim' made about it being all a lie. I guess it could be but that is in itself just as hard to prove.



Where did I state these alleged authors are liars? I never claimed that. You are making things up here by not reading correctly (out of ignorance, not intended).

Perhaps the authors never existed under the name and identity you believe they have, so they wouldn't be liars, just non-existent. I'm only accusing the ones stating the gospels as strong evidence as being ignorant.



It's not prove of anything, it's mainly based on your opinion about me being a slanderer.

It is now pretty well understood how law enforcement views eye witness accounts with some scepticism, and the popularity of shows like CSI, which bases its cases on scientific forensic data, often challenging witness testimony demonstrates how the population gets it.

Distortion and spin are nothing new, which archaeology has shown in numerous cases. Like the excavations of the Philistine capital, Ashkalar, which show the Philistines were a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society with artists from many regions and disciplines. They had a high culture, whereas what we now call "philistine" actually applies to the hick Hebrews.

Then too, there are increasing problems for the Christian dogma of "free will" that are being revealed by FMRI brain scans, the biochemistry of the mind, the effects of group think, and the responses to authority shown by Milgram, Bandura, and Zimbardo.

The Fins, for instance, did brain scans on their most violent murderers, and found a constricted neural pathway from the Corpus Collosum to the prefrontal lobes. When emotionally excited, the FMRI scans show a dramatic *decline* in the activity of the prefrontal lobes and they then operate on what we call the "reptilian brain" in the Corpus collosum.

Neurologist Ramachandran explains that they really do "see red" because the primitive reptilian brain lacks the response to color developed by the primates. It has a lot to do with why brothels have always been decorated in crimson, since sex is another highly emotional state.

Where the Christian sees "sin" and "crime" the neural & psychology scientists see pathology. Condemning someone to eternal damnation because they had the wrong DNA markers seems illogical.

Two men had grown up on an island together. Neither knew how they got there and their world was the extant of the island.

They both had taught each other to read by simple books that had been left on the island. Neither knew who had left them or the books on this small island.

They began speculating:
" Obviously there is an outside world beyond this island as we have books left by someone."
" No, you are wrong. The island is all there is as we have no proof that there is anything else."
" What about the books that taught us to read?"
" Those books have always been here."
" No, someone else must have left them."

On the speculation went till one day a note in a bottle showed up. They read the note.
" Hi

I am living in Singapore, where are you living?"

That was all the note said.

" Here is definite proof that there is a world beyond this island."
" That is not proof; we did not see this person who wrote this letter. All you have is supposition that this letter is credible."
" But it must be a note from someone, right?"
" We cannot infer such a gigantic leap, it may have been always a bottle floating with a note inside - just like the books."


Another bottle with a note floated up to the island.

" Hi,

My friend sent a note in a bottle yesterday. I decided to do the same thing.

I live in Singapore, its a really cool place to live. Where are you and can you tell us if you received this letter?"

" Now you believe in an outside world , there are two bottles. Both were written by two different people."
" There you go again. Do you also believe the moon is made of cheeze?"
" But these must have been written by someone."
" Okay; hypothetically lets say they were written by someone else. But we still do not know these two people and they are probably on this island, we cannot trust them. We both have been everywhere, There is no such thing as Singapore."
" There must be a Singapore, as you said, we have been all over this island and found no one else."
" No, no, no - all we have is nebulous, random, floating bottles. From this we can only infer that they were always here and we just happened upon them or someone else is on this island. We cannot trust these notes in a bottle."
" The world must be bigger than this island and there are more people out there."
" You are so gullible. You just blindly believe in random notes written by an unknown source about a make believe Singapore. Wake up, you are living in a dreamworld. The world is an island."
" How can you just blatantly discard the notes in the bottle that said there is a Singapore?"
" Lets examine your grandious, fairy tale for a second. Why have we not heard from anyone before? Why, since I have not seen anything but this island, would we assume there is a Singapore with no compelling substantial evidence?"
"We have the notes in the bottle that said there was a Singapore."
"I already addressed that naive perspective. You are assuming these so called 'other people' are actually not trying to trick us into thinking there is a so called 'Singapore'. They gave no evidence, authorship, directions, or compelling reason as to why we should just simply take this gigantic leap of faith in the belief of a hypothetical 'Singapore. What don't you get here?"
" Why do you assume they are lying?"
" Because, the critical method is the only sound way to reason what is true and false."
" Then why don't you use it?"

A true sceptic demands evidence.

A false sceptic rejects evidence.

I only just got around to listening to this show. It's a ripper. I particularly loved the way that Matt made use of logic and pointed out the irrationality of various QRS claims. He was a strong, engaging and confident speaker and in my opinion he thoroughly got the better of the hosts.

There was something that I especially noticed, and that was this quote:


This is the very same argument that I tried to present to David and Kevin in the "Naturalistic philosophy denies life" and the "How to PROVE GOD EXISTS?" threads, although I may not have phrased it as approachably as Matt has done. It's very pleasing to see that someone else has completely independently arrived at the same argument. I also note that in this show, as when I presented the argument to them, QRS had no adequate rebuttal to it.

This universe is quite obviously not infinitely old, being as it's roughly 14.6 billion years old.

Beyond that, we just don't know. Oscilliatory Big Bang / Big Crunch inflation and deflation offers the possibility of continuous, discrete sections of the same time, traversed forwards then backwards, again and again. This process of repeated time, in and of itself, would not be bound by time and hence, timeless. Time happens, unhappens and repeat. Net time traversed = 0. As such, there is no such possibility as infinite time. Yet there is no logical limit to how many times time may have happened. Thus an infinite number of temporal universes may be traversed outside the bounds of temporality.

Another possibility is the Big Freeze, maximum entropy and heat death. This process would go on indefinitely. Hence a beginning but no ending.

The other mainstream possibility is the Big Rip. This one has a beginning and an ending.

Totality however is beyond beginnings and endings of universes, beyond time. It makes no sense to ask what came before the Big Bang. Equally, it also makes no sense to say that beyond the Big Bang, there is no potential for it to come into being. Hence totality is still operative.

Universe and totality should not be equated, unless one is thinking of the self as either.

Dave, you seem to be a bit of a science buff. Is it a hobby or part of your profession?

Bit of both really mate. I'm an earth scientist (various aspects of geology/geography) but I've always been interested by physics.

Thanks for explaining Dave. I was quite curious.

Was recently listening again to this interview, it reminded me of the Bahnsen v Stein debate (the presuppositional apologetics thing).

I wanted to ask, can anyone tell me the name of the music at the beginning at end of the interview?

It's a piece called "Bevezetes" by Hungarian symphonic prog-rock band "After Crying".

You can find info on them at progarchives.com. At least, I think that's it.

That's it alright. How did you track that down?

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This would be the case if we defined the "Big Bang" to be the beginning of time.

But if the Big Bang had a cause, and I'm sure that it did, then it wasn't the beginning of time. It's only the beginning of time so far as we're currently able to measure it.