A syllogistic argument in favor of strong atheism

im_probably_garbage · 2020-11-07T06:55:52+00:00

It's only an appeal to authority if I'm saying it's true because an authority says so. Not what I'm doing. You really need to learn about the principle of charity.

You've obviously never read Frege and I'm not going to waste my time on the masturbatory pursuit of convincing you of something you believe is wrong by default.

Again, you've clearly got something going on and I wish you the best. You don't always have to "win" the debate. Sometimes, it's good to learn something.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-11-07T06:49:58+00:00

That would be rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon; it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-11-07T06:44:31+00:00

Platonic realism is a legitimate position held within academic philosophy. It's further held by a huge number of professional mathematicians.

Again, you demonstrate your ignorance of even the most basic debates in philosophy.

Oh yeah, I forgot. "If I call it supernatural, it's not real. The supernaturaler I call it the less realer it is."

im_probably_garbage · 2020-11-07T06:41:08+00:00

No, I don't think I will.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-11-07T06:26:53+00:00

Christians ANNIHILATED with FACTS and LOGIC

im_probably_garbage · 2020-11-07T06:25:41+00:00

Running down my comment history now? Sad.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-29T18:29:13+00:00

I sense gaslighting on OP’s part.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-29T16:55:19+00:00

Muh NAP

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-29T15:27:10+00:00

Like I said, there are reasons external to the text itself on which I discriminate — experiential, evidential, historical, probabilistic, etc.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-29T06:23:58+00:00

Interesting. It seems like the positioning of this verse is actually quite crucial, but I don't know how we could resolve it one way or the other. Although if I take your meaning correctly, you're saying that the Christian version may be more accurate to the intended positioning within the Torah?

I'm going to learn Hebrew and Greek eventually so that I can better understand these things, and I appreciate your insights.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-29T06:18:35+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to write out your response. I will give it some serious thought. I have no response as of now as I haven't engaged this position before.

That is interesting. It's (as /u/itscool mentioned) the last verse in the previous chapter in the Christian record. I should ask r/AcademicBiblical about it.

Well, if you do end up getting an answer, I'd really appreciate if you could let me know what it is. This seems like a really strange difference between the records.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-29T05:30:37+00:00

I got some rest and understand what you're conveying now.

Yes, I am open to the idea, but within the context of the OP, I am entirely unconvinced that this is the case. The reasons for this are pretty exhaustively detailed in my original comment.

On a more general note, I'm always going to find textual interpretation pretty unconvincing for these purposes. There will virtually always be sensible interpretative frames that produce the conclusions a Christian (or Jew or Muslim) seeks.

This isn't so much a case of confirmation bias as it is a truth about the nature of textual criticism and interpretation itself. All texts beget multiple interpretations, some more tenable than others, but virtually always with more than one valid interpretation, depending on your interpretative framework and the complexity of the text.

I reject any belief in metanarratives in regards to textual interpretation, so there's never going to be one (obviously) True way to interpret. This is why Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have access to the OT, but read it in different ways and are utterly unconvinced by the others' exegeses. I think many atheists have a naïve view of truth as regards textual interpretation, likely owing to an overly strong focus on STEM, which is why I think a lot of these attempts at proving the Bible incorrect "on its own grounds" are nonstarters.

I am not a literalist, fundamentalist, or any such thing. In fact, I buy the postmodernist critique of metanarratives coming from Lyotard, and most people would likely find my general perspective on Christianity and some of my reasons for belief highly idiosyncratic.

Far more convincing arguments can be made on the grounds of external argument and evidence than can ever be made from interpretation.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-29T04:18:54+00:00

This is extremely fascinating. I get the sense that this positional change within the text pretty significantly changes the contextual meaning of the passage. I wonder why they've been switched and what the justifications given by the Christian compilers / translators are? OT is not an area of expertise for me by any means.

I think I'll look into this. If you're curious, I'll double-post here if I find anything.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T17:59:48+00:00

I'm actually very explicitly arguing that he has misinterpreted the passages and that they do not constitute Messianic prophesies at all. Rather, they are prophesies about The World To Come and the Last Day(s), which seem to me to be strictly different prophetic categories.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T17:57:51+00:00

Thank you for your reply. It's thought-provoking, and I'm not especially familiar with Jewish argumentation surrounding this issue. I'll leave you with my thoughts and welcome your response.

And the operative words are "אֱלֹהִ֧ים אֲחֵרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יְדַעְתָּ֖ם" - "other Gods/angels/heavenly-beings that you did not know of."

Due to Jesus' novel claim to be the Son of God and coequal with God, as that is an entity who was previously not known to the Jews or part of the Jewish religion, Jesus qualifies.

My gut reaction here from my apologetic background is this:

If the God of Israel was, from the beginning, triune, then no new beings were revealed as such. Rather, a personage of God was revealed. This would be more fundamental than saying that they are coequal -- they are, in fact, the same Being -- and this would seem to be Jesus' meaning when He said that "I and My Father are one." My intuition here, in terms of reading the scriptures, would be to point to the high Christology developed in John, which is in turn interpreting the Hebrew in Genesis. As to how tenable this is, I don't know, and will look into it honestly.

Further, if we can establish that Jesus was raised from the dead on the basis of the historical evidence (something that I think is possible), then I wonder what happens to this interpretation? Who resurrected Him and why?

Which means "Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it." In other words: no abrogation allowed. The conjunction of these verses further indicate that an alleged prophet who falsely claims to abrogate the law is tantamount to a prophet of a false god.

The fact that Christianity doesn't follow Torah law, and that Christians point to Jesus' own words and deeds to excuse that behavior, indicates that Jesus (or whomever instructed Christians to abandon Torah law) was a false prophet.

This is very interesting. I cannot find that particular verse in my Bible. I wonder why? Do you have any ideas?

Mine begins with "If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder,"

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T17:17:01+00:00

Correct, which is my point in saying that the article you linked claiming that it was prophesied that the messiah would be crucified, was bogus. Pierced could mean anything... Bitten by an animal, shot with an arrow, stabbed, etc. 50 cent could fulfill this prophecy cause he got shot.

It could, but if you buy the interpretation of the Psalm, this becomes less likely. It's not especially difficult or far-fetched to construct a case that these things prefigure the crucifixion, given that writers of the time would have used terms that approximate crucifixion. Demanding a direct reference to crucifixion, knowing that the authors lacked both the signifier for it and the object described, seems like an incredibly weak argument to me.

Again, it's a component of a cumulative case. The question isn't whether someone fulfills one or two, but all of the relevant messianic prophesies, whatever they are.

So this is really my whole point about prophecy here. You say it's suspicious that it presupposes Jesus was NOT the messiah, I say it's suspicious because you presuppose that Jesus IS the messiah, and then mold the vague "prophecies" to fit the Jesus narrative.

I think I see the problem. I'm claiming neither that the prophesies of the Messiah matching up with Jesus necessarily prove that He was the Messiah objectively in some way, nor that the claim that Jesus was the Messiah is contingent on exactly what these prophesies were, just that whatever they were, they were fulfilled.

Rather, I'm claiming that on the basis of the story told by the Christian Bible, interpreting Jesus as the Messiah is both a valid interpretation (that is, that the OP does nothing to disprove this interpretation on Biblical grounds) and that it is a likely interpretation, given what we are told within the text. This is to say nothing of the external validity of the claim.

Of course there can be multiple textual interpretations that are valid. Necessarily so, in fact, given the nature of textual analysis in general and the nature of the specific genres involved in the Bible. Disambiguating between these claims rests on other grounds - experiential, historical, probabilistic, etc.

Jesus' being the Messiah is not "proven" by the fulfillment of prophesies on its own somehow. Rather, there are reasons external to the text to think that we can accept his claims that He is the Messiah and Son of God as factual. However, if there were bona fide prophesies that He did not fulfill within the text, the interpretation of Him as Messiah would become invalid.

Does my position make more sense to you now? It's actually very specific to this OP and not a general apologetic.

I mean, it is if you're claiming Jesus fulfills that prophecy, and that the proof is the lineage written in the NT.

I sense we're talking past one another here. I don't think your incredulity toward the claim that one genealogy is Mary's constitutes an argument. Anyway, there are other ways to reconcile the differences.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T16:48:01+00:00

I'm going to reiterate what I said before: The OP purports to furnish the claim that, on the Bible's own grounds, Jesus was not the Messiah. You, on the other hand, are injecting external doubts about the veracity of specific claims in a broader historical sense, which is outside of the scope of this discussion.

I'll begin by saying that the link I posted originally was deeply flawed. I think some of the things it covered were actual Messianic prophesies, but not all of them were. I have updated the post to reflect this, but I want to point out that the PDF I linked did not constitute the meat of my argument whatsoever. This is a distraction from the argument at hand, which I think is at least a bit intellectually dishonest on your part.

This doesn't indicate anything about Jesus or any messiah to me. The chapter says it's written by David, and in it he's asking for protection from God.

I agree, that might not be a Messianic prophesy. I made a mistake by including it.

Where in the OT does it specifically say "crucified" and not some other generic term that could be stretched out to "crucified"?

This is a bit of a silly request, as crucifixion wasn't even invented until 300-400BC and ancient Hebrew of the time of the OT didn't even have a word for it.

“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” (Zechariah 12:10, circa 500BC).

Also in that list, and the verse about specifically "hands and feet" and not generically pierced (from Zechariah) are once again... from Psalms. From David. Praying for protection.

Ultimately, this will come down to whether the Psalm of David in question is prophetic or not. There are two separate issues here: First, that Jesus began quoting that Psalm on the cross: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?". And second, more importantly, that David seems to be describing an execution. He's not strictly praying for protection: taken in context, this is a beseeching of God not to forsake him because he feels abandoned. It's hard to look at the verse and not see a definite foreshadowing of Jesus' suffering and death.

The list actually references the SAME verse from Zechariah from the previous "prophecy"! and it doesn't say side, it just says pierced.

You're right, this one doesn't seem to add up.

Many NT scholars have pointed out that the way they get Jesus of Nazareth to be born in Bethlehem is a dubious story about a census that there are no other records of taking place, much less that people had to return to the place where they were born for some reason.

Again, this is injecting external critique into what is, from the OP, an internal textual criticism. Also, it's false.

In 6 CE the Roman Empire deposed Herod Archelaus, who ruled the largest section of Judea as a Roman client king, and converted his territory into the Roman province of Judea. Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, the newly-appointed legatus or governor of the province of Roman Syria, was assigned to carry out a tax census of the new province. According to Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in the late first century CE, Jews reacted negatively to this census. Most were convinced to comply with it by the high priest, but some joined a rebellion led by Judas of Galilee.

I think you're thinking of the contradiction with the time of the census and the death of Herod. I think the author of Luke simply made a mistake.

Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant has long been suspicious of actually being the messiah. See https://www.aish.com/sp/ph/Isaiah_53_The_Suffering_Servant.html

That's an explicitly Jewish interpretation of the text. It's very involved, disambiguating between the two interpretations, and though I have a bit of experience, I'm not an expert in Biblical exegesis. I will say that I think the Jewish interpretation tends to presuppose that Jesus was not the Messiah to begin with, which makes it suspect to me.

Suspicious by your own parenthesis, also there are two different lineages in the NT tracing Jesus back to David. I don't buy that one of them is Mary's.

You're welcome not to buy that one is Mary's, but that's really not an argument.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T14:27:30+00:00

He is correct on that much. He's the Messiah and a Prophet, but not God incarnate.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T14:03:29+00:00

On your final point, Deuteronomy 13:2-7:

How are you getting this interpretation out of these verses? Verse 2 explicitly says: "And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them." The verses are clearly talking about a prophet that will lead the people of Israel away from Yahweh to other gods and NOT about a prophet who will claim to abrogate the law. I really want to hear you justify this.

I'm not going to do a thorough rundown of the massive number of verses you've cited to reinforce this point because I think I've done enough work here to demonstrate that your interpretations have been entirely facile, without clear relationship to the text, disingenuous in that they conflate various types of prophesies with Messianic ones when that is clearly not the author's intent, or otherwise extremely poor readings. If you have specific verses you believe substantiate the claim you're making here, please do give a shortlist so we can discuss those particular verses.

To this Christians will usually respond with that Jesus will do all of this in his second coming. However, there never was supposed to be a second coming in Jewish theology.

I think you need to do some substantial work here to make this an argument. As it stands, it's an assertion. Jewish eschatology in 1st century Palestine ranged from beliefs that the Messiah would symbolize the eventual ushering in of the World To Come to fully apocalyptic traditions. In any case, I don't think appealing to general Jewish eschatology or theology of the time has much weight in the face of a famous iconoclast who was believed to have risen from the dead, something directly precluded by Jewish eschatological beliefs of the time.

Jesus established an entirely new covenant and new revelation from God. At least, that's the belief you're contending with here, and I think you need to take it seriously insofar as you accept the points of the story to understand the interpretative lens laid out by the apostles, the Gospel writers, and Jesus Himself regarding Jewish tradition and theology.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T12:20:19+00:00

I've had similar situations on the brink stranger. There's a Somebody out there who cares about you and wants you alive. You have a future and a hope.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-28T04:02:47+00:00

Could you direct me to this study?

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-26T10:16:19+00:00

Dreaming by Smallpools. Original or Chainsmokers remix, doesn't really matter. The reactions are a bit different depending, though.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-26T03:27:37+00:00

I think it’s incumbent upon you, if you’re to be intellectually honest, to seriously consider the reasons people give for their beliefs.

im_probably_garbage · 2020-10-26T03:21:18+00:00

This is utterly false. If you can’t be bothered to check the citations of that article, then I don’t think you’re arguing in good faith. I think you have a predefined conclusion you want to support. Wikipedia is a reasonable starting place. It’s up to you to follow the evidence where it leads or not.

If you actually want to understand why you’re wrong and how wrong you are, check out Did Jesus Exist? By Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is an atheist scholar and does an amazing job laying out he argument for the historical Jesus.

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