It's clear this debate had Carrier agree to a presupposition of the the parts of the Bible being addressed was actual historical accounts, which he doesn't even believe, and he still makes a solid argument against the resurrection. 😂
That story about the Congo contains some problematic admissions of the interlocutor, as well. "Yes, he married a black and they're such a good couple!" Now let me gloss over that he's documenting hearsay with no scientific method involved! That must mean Atlantis is real. Herodotus heard about it. Super compelling.
It really is amazing how Licona can call himself a skeptic, and be perfectly skeptical about resurrections and miracles regarding every other religion, and simultaneously defend christian resurrections and miracles.
Listening to Mike Licona is painful in the extreme. How anyone with a Ph.D. can hold the beliefs that he does is beyond me. His Argument from Friendship (he knows and trusts his friends, so he believes, uncritically, without reservation, everything they say, or at least accords them very high plausibility) is priceless. I had never heard that one before. He comes across as disarmingly sincere, but that seeming sincerity does not mitigate the fundamental intellectual dishonesty that reverberates through all of his arguments. He accuses Carrier of using "ad hoc" scenarios as plausible explanations for the Empty Tomb, while he himself invokes a supernatural being to accomplish his Resurrection scenario-the most "ad hoc" of all scenarios. That is intellectual dishonesty, since he is well aware that there is no evidentiary basis, from the historian's point of view, for the existence of supernatural beings. He is well aware that other Saviour cults during the first century C.E. also claimed resurrection for their Saviour gods, yet he dismisses these claims as false and does not invoke the supernatural in these cases. How much more "ad hoc" can you get?
@@leovere You obviously have not looked closely enough. I have, and I have no doubt that they existed. Quite apart from the documentary evidence, there is archaeological evidence (in the form of inscriptions, statuary, and carvings) of their existence, which you obviously know nothing about.
@@MichaelMendis "We can here discover Mithra sacrificing a bull whose blood flows on the ground to reinvigorate the earth and fertilize it. On both sides of the deity are two teenagers, holding torches or "dadophores", cautes and cautopates. One of them personifies the rising sun, the other the sun descending. The god Sol, which appears on one of the uprights of the relief, is there also to accentuate the solar character of Mithra." So what does Mithra sacrificing a bull have to do with Jesus?
If God wants he can do anything but doesn’t do the right thing , the right thing to do would be to show everyone Jesus and allow people to make a choice , now that would make the christian god a smart and compassionate god but that never will happen .... Love Dr Carrier . Peace and love
@@oscarleijontoft None support a resurrection. The fact that a city existed in no way supports the supernatural claims of any holy book. Example: "Spiderman lives in NYC. NYC is a real city, thus Spiderman must exist"
You comment objection has been debunked so many times. It shows your adolescent knowledge of the field and the historicity of the Bible. Get lost troll.
@@oscarleijontoft No, he wasn't simply repeating what you said. He was pointing out that the "things" you mention as being corroborated by archeology are never corroborative of any religious claim in the bible, but only of place-names etc that are totally incidental to everything religious people care about.
Mike reminds me of my brother, who is also a devout Christian, and somehow thinks that makes him smarter than everybody else and an expert on every topic. And his acceptance of towels flying After his dad joined the freemasons is concerning. - Early in the questioning, he gives his layman’s anAlysis of Schizotypal personality disorder, based on the mayo clinic website, then he accuses Dr. Carrier of doing psychohistory. - Well, what if Dr Craig said he saw you in California minutes after I saw you in New York, and let’s just say we were sure that both were you, and let’s assume he said he saw you get into a spaceship, and let’s imagine he wasn’t lying, and let’s assume he wasn’t hallucinating, and let’s presume you were verified to have been in both places, would you then conclude it was true? Painful, Like talking to a 5 yr old about monsters under the bed
Of course yes, It is a very well known phenomenon, it is called bi-location There are menu well known cases of that like the mulata de cordoba or many Catholic saints
@@leovere I thought so. I’m more curious about what evidence you base that belief on. From my perspective, I don’t see any substantial evidence of the “supernatural,” and certainly not of the things you say you believe in.
Mike you are so frustrating. You try and make us believe in debates that the supernatural exist by bringing anecdotes about ghosts, flying objects and tall stories about about a woman and a dead friend. Some observations that I cant be the only person to notice? A) Why are these in bed visions always at the time of night when the brain is in-between being sleep and awake and we know that's the time the brain makes up dreams that seem very real? why not see her during the day at the office? B) How the heck if it was so utterly scary an event, that she not scream the house down and be a jabbering wreck seeking comfort ? no, for some spooky reason after seeng the devil in the first person..............she goes back to sleep? sorry that doesn't seem legit....... C) Why are all these events never recorded in any way by any medium for scrutiny afterwards? Everyone has phone with great quality cameras, but nope , they must be really clever these ghosts. D) When asked if she knew the girl by her dad she didn't immediately go, "yeah and funnily enough I saw her in a vision with the devil last night" but nope, she just asks why? Then to tie things neatly up she , in the presence of the Devil himself, decides its a great moment to check what time it was? And of course she already is a believer in the devil. Why is it that in these situations people only see the iconography of the culture they got brought up in? Why don't Christians see Lord Vishnu? Why don't Hindus see Jesus? Go figure..... E) Why, when always trying to give examples of what would constitute reasonable evidence, they are scenarios that have NEVER happened and never DO happen . Your tactic is clear , to say that even if missing ashes on the very day of David Koresh predicted 3 years before , then we must accept the supernatural explanation , and if not, we are the unreasonable people, despite the point Richard made which was someone could have conspired to have them moved/stole/destroyed whatever. These are plausible as they happen in real life all the time, your explanations are asking us to be gullible.
Here's a question or 2. What is the significance of someone coming back from the dead? It means they're a god? If they're a god, then why did they have to die in the first place? I mean, if you have the power to bring yourself BACK from the dead, it's probably even easier not to die in the first place. Also, what is the meaning in/what is accomplished by sacrificially killing someone if they can't stay dead? Not much of a sacrifice, is it?
Does this mean that it's unlikely that there is a naturalistic explanation for the resurrection phenonmenon so therefore there must have been a supernatural one?
He's so Christ like lol I'm an atheist BTW But seriously.. there were times when my jaw dropped at his opponent, but Carrier was so kind and calm, and civil.
@@leovere bs claims. But even if it were true, its funny how atheists treat sexual harassment more severely than you treat child rapists in your church of jesus.
It’s a shame mike has to come to debates with stories. A friend who’s friend died seeing a demon face. Another friends trash can lid flew against the wall after a seance. Then the friend who needed a certain monetary relief that after church prayer ended up with the exact amount. Should have you really questioning mike.
these people are so desperate and so silly.......mikes motivation could be money but he does sound genuine......so i can only think he fears death and will believe any old nonsense
@@paulrichards6894 I thought the same until I saw his buddy Gary habermas get caught exaggerating near death experiences. He adds facts that aren’t there to perpetuate the story. Mike does the same thing. Like saying the father turned the news paper. Etc. it’s a story tactic
Does he think the friend with the demon went to hell? Isn't that the meaning of seeing the demon behind her? What a horrible thing to believe about a lady it sounds like he doesn't even personally know. Or is the demon there even if the friend went to heaven? How could that be? That would be terrible too.
@@Preservestlandry My undertanding is that his belief is the devil was somewhat responsible for the friends friend dyieng, thats why he showed to her. Anyway that just seems a fantasy story
If Jesus existed, JESUS WAS OBVIOUSLY NOT A VERY GOOD SPEAKER/TEACHER/PREACHER!!! He didn't make ANYTHING about himself/God any CLEARER! And, 2,000 years later there are STILL debates about who he even was. We STILL don't know who wrote what is supposed to be a holy book. Maybe he should have written it himself! And, there are so many conflicts that cannot be reconciled within it. We STILL don't have originals and the copies and translations of it differ greatly. Even the believers of him don't agree!!! If I were to rate him as a teacher, I'd give Jesus an "F"!!!
There is a lot you probably don't understand because you read the texts wrong. You aren't reading them with an understanding of the cultural mindset of a 1st century Jew.
He didn’t make anything about himself, true, however hanibal did not make anything about himself either. There are still debates over a lot of historical characters. We do have a nice idea of who wrote the gospels and I’ll gladly discuss that if you want
@@gabepearson6104 The Gospels were written anonymously and decades after Jesus supposedly died. Was your Jesus born in -4 BC before King Herod died? Or, was he born after +6 AD when Quirinius first became Governor?!!
@@Chomper750 If it takes a Jewish person from the 1st century to understand the Bible, why don't Jewish people believe Jesus was their Messiah?!? And why didn't your God make a translation I could understand if he expects me to believe it??? That is a poor teacher!!! Was your Jesus born before -4 BC when King Herod died, as the Bible describes? Or, was he born in +6 AD, when Quirinius first became Governor and performed a census, as the Bible also describes?!? That doesn't require a Jewish person from the 1st century to understand. Take Dan Barker's "Easter Challenge" and if you can make a coherent story out of the Bible, you should get a Nobel Prize!!!!
Congolese profits and pastors are a dime a dozen here in South Africa. All of them can do miracles. Funny thing is that they are all super wealthy also. Strange that...
Thanks for posting the video. I've come to consider myself an atheist after having escaped the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). I was born into the church, and was an active member until about age 20. As with most other young men in the Church, I served a 2 year mission in an effort to spread the word of god and bring the truth to the world. My mission was not what I though. Rather than seeing servants of christ spreading the truth of the gospel, I saw an organization (let's be honest and call it a business) that taught young men, who have been conditioned from birth, to manipulate the indigent, poorly educated and naïve. For almost a year I took part in manipulating the public in order to enrich the church. After getting a peak behind the curtain the dominoes in my brain began to fall revealing truth, after truth, after truth, and exposing more and more lies, deceptions and inconsistencies within the church and its doctrine. After almost excessive prayer and very diligent study, the cold hard truth is that science answered my call for help and god was overwhelmingly absent. You seem like a decent man. It truly hurts my heart that you have been lied to your whole life, and that your conditioning is so engrained that you will probably never come to terms with the truth. Indeed, even after abandoning religion and deciding that I "no longer believed", it took more than 15 years to be able consider the true nature of reality without having that process tainted by the lies I had clung to for the first 20 years of my life. More than 15 years to heal from the shame, guilt and and crippling pressure associated with being a christian. Even after 10 years of separation I would still get defensive and angry if I heard someone else speak out against the church. It breaks my heart to think that you will likely never know the sense of freedom, excitement and confidence that comes as a result of abandoning superstition and ridiculous claims about the supernatural. I am sincerely sorry. The brainwashing imposed on children by religious parents and institutions should be illegal. It is very literally child abuse. Though it is not likely you will abandon your faith, if that does occur please reach to someone who can guide you through the process. I wish I had know about the myriad resources available to people in this situation. It would have helped me heal much more quickly. I do owe you thanks. I appreciate you posting these debates. For me they reinforce how necessary reason, logic and evidence are. This is not meant as an insult, but the argument of faith simply falls flat, regardless of your opponent. Worse than that, it screams ignorance, arrogance and fear. I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you. Thank your for strengthening the positions of the scientific method, reason and logic by showing just how ridiculous belief in the mistic, supernatural, and miraculous is. Be well and good lcuk, Michael
@@endygonewild2899 Less condescending than religious people claiming they are part of the small moral elite that will survive the rapture, and that everyone who doesn't believe what they believe will burn in hell.
It’s really hard to take Mike seriously as a historian given the mental gymnastics he has to go through to reach his conclusions. Secular historians, like Richard, would never do that in their research. It’s pretty clear that Mike’s compromising his intellectual and academic integrity for the sake of maintaining his worldview, which is sad to watch.
Actually-- Richard made some tremendous errors when talking about Christianity. For example, he tries to argue that James isn't the biological brother of Jesus. Even though this is possibly the strongest historical point you can make about Jesus; his lineage, and his family. It's irrefutable. Even Paul calls James ''the brother of the Lord'', which he uses in reference to James alone. This completely messes up the mythicist approach, so they do all kinds of mental gymnastics to get over this fact. It's quite hilarious. They fall back on logical fallacies by saying that everyone was ''a brother'' in the Christian circle, and completely disregarding the unique context in which Paul speaks of James (as opposed to the other believers). So yea, Carrier is not above fudging facts and outright lying in certain cases. Yet the best ''gem'' that came from Carrier is the claim that even Paul didn't believe in a historical Jesus figure. He says Paul thought Jesus was created through king David's sperm which God saved up in a ''cosmic sperm bank''. And Carrier actually says how this is easily extracted from the text, which is comedy gold. I can't believe he wrote that with a straight face. Not only is there absolutely no such thing being suggested in the Christian text, it's also nowhere to be found in other Jewish traditions of that time. He literally made it up to claim Paul didn't think Jesus was an actual person, with an actual brother. Contrary to what you may think, skeptics are just as biased as certain religious people. Sometimes even more so.
@@strawberrylatte8742 I agree. I’m not a mythicist and aren’t convinced by his arguments concerning the Pauline epistles. That doesn’t mean all of his scholarly work is bunk. I take and evaluate both Licona’s and Carrier’s arguments as they come
@@strawberrylatte8742 My question to you is, exactly how far did you have to reach up your ass to pull out that nonsense you speak of?!?!? No need to answer, after reading what you posted I find no reason to take anything you could possibly say serious. However, I will admit that your version of Word salad did get my attention
Licona is reaching real world conclusions from bible stories none of which have been historically confirmed - why is Carrier letting him do this? No need for the hallucination hypothesis.
@@HFH-Official he didn't say that. He said there are other known scientific explanations so there is no reason to assume it's non-scientific, non-natural, or supernatural. Not that it's impossible.
An explanation which appeals to supernatural or miraculous claims - can never have more power than a naturalistic one. It is always going to be more probably that tens of thousands of people had a hallucination - than that a human being was killed - and lived again. Licona cannot accept that reasoning - because he presupposes that the resurrection happened.
@theunrepentantatheist24 its not just that tens of thousands of people halucinated but that disproving their hallucinations would be as simple as showing the body of christ and saying Here have it happy now Especially when it was gaurded by roman centurions that would be punished by death if they allowed the body to have been stolen
1:25:00 don't worry everyone, she's a brilliant girl not given to this sort of thing. And Jesus would be the LAST person Paul would ever want to hallucinate. Got it?
For several debates after this one, Licona uses the exact same "argumentation" rife with fallacies and assumptions. One lie he insists on is that there are many witnesses who claim Jesus appeared to: James, Peter, "the 500" and lastly Paul. But who is the source for that? ONE source: Paul. And Paul is a liar. He can't even get his own story straight between Galatians, Corinthians and Acts when he recounts on what he did after his "experience" on the road to Damascus. Debating the plausibility of mass hallucinations of fabricated witnesses... 🤔 It's ironic also how Licona explains that the historical method should have the least amount of non-evidenced assumptions (at 09:24). For Jesus to have been raised from the dead, you have to make a lot of assumptions. Really a lot. Off the top of my head, I can offer an explanation that has vastly more explanatory power than a bodily resurrection and accounts for all the events described in the gospels: Jesus did not die on the cross (there are a number of good arguments to be made for that), his father Joseph took him to a private garden where he could tend to his wounds. Two days later, Jesus feels better and appears to his followers. Voila, mystery solved. Accounting for almost all "facts" without forcing them, it agrees with widely accepted facts and only needs ONE assumption: that Jesus existed. Another theory that would do all the above: Jesus is a fictional character. Not plausible? People make up stories all the time. Roland the Gunslinger, king Aragorn, king John Presbyter, king Aegon Targaryen, Tarzan, Batman, Superman... A possible exception may be Richard Cypher Rahl however 🤔... not sure about that one 😀. There's no consensus among biblical scholars and historians on him. As Selvam Maniamawasi here below points out: proving the absurd with more absurdity doesn't increase credibility.
You don't have evidence for jesus showing himself to individuals, groups etc. You have a book written decades later saying that happened. That's a problem 😂😂
watching this debate, I noticed time and again that Mike Licona bases the vast majority of his arguments on anecdotal evidence. He also based his entire premise on the a priori fallacy: in that he presumes that a god already exists and that Jesus was god incarnate and did resurrect and then looked for evidence to confirm these presuppositions. Conversely I noticed that Richard took an academic approach, where he cited studies and journals, and instead attempted to look at, what is more probable to have occurred, not what he wants the conclusion to be. Watching this, it's obvious that Mike Licona lost and utterly lost, on every point. I even noticed that Carrier made points to Licona, that Licona utterly ignored responding to, or very quickly changed the subject. For example at the 1:00:56 mark, Richard asks a question and Mike says it's a great question, but very quickly manages to rephrase/ strawman's Richard's point, in order to respond to HIS strawman of it, instead of what was actually asked of him. "how about this... let me know what you think about this? And this would have been before the New Testament. The character of God that is presented in the bible..." - This response was NOT what was asked of Licona. I found this dishonest, for what was Richard's question, on his side of the Q&A section. I didn't find anything that Mike Licona said, to be at all convincing. His arguments were from a believer's perspective, not an historian's perspective and I noticed time and again, that Licona made huge category error assertions, such as charging Richard with the argument from ignorance fallacy, where he asserted he had to come up with a better solution for how Jesus resurrected, using the historical method. Well the historical method does not assume that miracle events occurred to begin with, something that Licona utterly ignored for every point Carrier made about every other mythical historical claim, such as other resurrection claims/ cults that existed at the time of the early Christians.
It endlessly fascinates me that in the 21st Century, we can look back and study ancient ways of viewing the world by countless cultures, learning their rituals, understanding how their beliefs arose from fear, despair, ignorance, and need for control and organization, all propped up by fantastical tales never seen. But then the majority of people on Earth picked one of those and said, "Wait, but THIS one's real." People really are funny creatures.
Nice. So by Erhmans argument, Harry Potter really existed because so many contemporary people wrote about HP. And in 2000 years when everyone believes HP existed, you’ll look foolish to believe that it was just a fictional kids book!
do you believe that alexender the great lived? yes or no? also. how else do we determine history at all if we can not go based off writings of something? please tell. ( history as in thousands of years old ancient rome etc...)
@@jaromsmiss There needs to be a higher bar of evidence for someone who is 1) a completely unique person who has preformed miracles that no single other human has and 2) someone whose existence and my acknowledgement of it determines not only how I live the rest of my life but the eternal fate of my soul. I can accept the story of Alexander as probably true but not be 100% sure, but be OK with not being 100% sure and also open to be proven wrong (I promise I wouldn't be up in arms and asserting my unassailable truth if you showed me an argument that he was made up or the record was incorrect) because whether or not I go to hell doesn't depend on any of that. So with these two conditions, there has to be a lot more scrutiny because the extent of the claims and also the consequences of their truth are far more severe. What are your thoughts on that?
@@Greyz174 IT def seems as if you're just moving the goalpost over to get your point across. Regardless of who it is..if one believes anyone thousands of years old was real ( alexander the Great, Roman emperors etc..) they cant just void out Jesus because it doesnt fit their narrative. For instance the FIRST documents we have that alexander the great ever lived is THREE HUNDRED years AFTER he had died. yet christ myth theory has issues with documents only 40 -150 years out from Christ? how does that make any sense? take note. What you're arguing for what now is that Christ was divine or not. OF course we have no definite evidence of that. Im arguing that he was a REAL person who was not a myth. a made up person based off pagan Gods. the only evidence we have that Christ was divine was the tesimony of the witnesses and really nothing else. That I understand. An atheist will never believe even if there were a thousand documents of witnesses. but anyways thats besides the point here.
@@jaromsmiss You can just clarify what you were asking instead of assuming that I was doing a bad faith goalpost shift I order to sneak in me being right. I just figured you were defending the whole Jesus everything as verifiable, especially since you didn't make the "real person/miracles" distinction. Super bad faith of you to assume that I'm aware of what you actually meant but dishonestly shifting the conversation into a place where I can make my point. OK so if we're just talking about him existing and not the magical part, I'd still go with my needing of more scrutiny point, because it makes sense that people would invent him to create a narrative, and that is still part of a narrative is a narrative that has enormous consequences, so we are of course going to look more at the fine details. Now to be clear, I haven't looked at all of the details. I just started being interested in the verifiable history recently, and I'm going through this content to find out. But like I said, even if there's just the matter of him existing on the table, it's still more important to scrutinize that than there is to scrutinize Alexander the great because if we can show whether or not he existed then we don't even have to address the miraculous part. And it would be valuable to know that he didn't exist because it would be another example of people inventing a person and his story to follow as a way to understand their worldview, which is all sorts of interesting and gives more insight to how people work and how religions are formed which is a hard core part of what draws me to the topic But again I am not definitely making the claim that he wasn't real, I'm still learning. If you'd like to send reading or videos on the matter my way I'd be more than happy to look at them
@@Greyz174 "You can just clarify what you were asking instead of assuming that I was doing a bad faith goalpost shift I order to sneak in me being right" ........... . considering this entire debate is Richard Carrier who is debating that Christ did NOT exist I would assume those in the comment section would be basing their words off what is in the video? Were you able to watch any of this debate? or? Plus I never mentioned a thing about Jesus being Divine. at all. You brough that up. So the reality is you assumed as much as I assumed there. I could just as easily say it's bad faith for you to reply the way you did. What you're saying is not a proper form of rationale. One cannot say they believed that Alexander the Great lived but Not jesus. You do realize that most (99 percent) of historical scholars including world respected scholar Bart Ehrman believe Jesus was a real historical figure. This includes atheist and agnostic historical scholars too. The christ myth theory is a theory that is not respected at all across the board in the historical field. In fact most Christ Myth ideas aren't even peer reviewed because so many scholars already have concluded that Jesus was in fact a real walking human 2000 years ago. Not only that but there are outside sources from early ancient history. From Josephus to Taticus..we can see that the very very early historians talked about a "Christ" or jesus being killed by a Pilate. (non christian sources) even though for whatever reason no one wants to use the actual bible as history even though it is...if one added in the biblical documents on top of the outside sources you have more than enough evidence to conclude Jesus was a real individual. Didnt mean to be rude by my comment but I'm always on the defensive end when someone responds to my comment. I know how some people play mind games on words. thats all. but i feel you.
That was one of the best debate formats I've seen. And the moderator did a great job of moving things forward. The participants both showed a tremendous amount of respect and courtesy. Wish more were like this. I haven't listened to closing remarks or Q&A yet. Hoping the last 45 minutes doesn't go south...
The Bible states that the Jewish people are yahweh's ( God's) chosen people. The majority of the books in the Bible was written by Jews. Like other religions that favors their own people.
2:08 Are we forgetting that the last 12 verses or Mark are forged and in the earliest versions of Mark we have, for the women there was no resurrection appearance at all. It was the Men who allegedly saw Jesus.
No one is forgetting that. Even the early church fathers knew what the original ending was and knew of the forged endings from as early as the 2nd century. The earliest scribes marked the extra verses appropriately. It's no secret and never has been.
@@mediamactv then the women who fled the alleged tomb were not comforted or elated, they probably thought that someone had stolen the body and were scared. A bit strange if he had said he would return eh? Personally I think it highly unlikely there was a tomb, I think he was chucked in a communal grave like everyone else. The notion that the romans would allow a permanent martyrs shrine of someone who claimed to be King of the Jews is fanciful and naive.
@@jonfromtheuk467 Not strange at all if you read the entire narrative. The disciples never truly understood that Jesus would rise again. None of them. He told them multiple times but they didn't get it. He even told them they wouldn't understand until later. No wonder because the purpose for his death and resurrection was a radical departure from what they had learned growing up. Also, they had a hard time understanding many things Jesus said because he often spoke metaphorically or in parables. They may have had a hard time knowing when he was speaking metaphorically or literally. In regards to the women's reaction, fear and trembling was a common reaction to being in the presence of God or angels all throughout the bible.
@@mediamactv Well firstly we can't know what Jesus said verbatim exactly can we? The disciples apparently were not able to read and write , there are no mention of any amanuensis being around at any time - the Gospels were written many decades later in Greek from oral stories that had been in circulation and got changed. Also its very easy to write in elements like they didnt understand, decades later to fit a chosen narrative yes? Of course if you are writing a gospel to appeal to Jews that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah then you have a hard job, because he was squashed by the very people God had promised would be vanquished so you can just insert ahhh it was all a cunning plan and God raised Jesus/himself so he, or they, are the Messiah after all. Neat literary trick/get out of jail card that can be played there! As far as fear and trembling goes I dont think it actually happened anyhow. I dont believe in angels/demons....... or God for that matter.
Richard Carrier's argument is not historical. He argues like a lawyer. The question is, "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" You either answer, "yes" or "no" with reasons. But, rather than do that, he goes off on a spin either stating examples of other historical figures claimed to have resurrected or about hallucinating people. This only creates doubt, but neither proves or disproves the question, but just increases the uncertainty about the likelihood of his opponents argument as if to say, "if you have difficulty believing this other stories, why should you believe the Jesus story?" But they're all unconnected. It is like raising the argument in court that because until the incident under litigation was reported, there's never been a robbery in Florida as a defense that the accused person could never have committed the crime of robbery, being that it is said to have occurred in Florida. What sort of an argument is that? He had zero historical evidence that Jesus couldn't have raisen from the dead.
That's always the tougher position to be debating from. It's always easier to poke all kinds of holes in the argument and create tons of doubt and then use that as your basis for proving Jesus is entirely false. Honestly I don't think it matters how much evidence there is for Jesus. It will always be insufficient for someone no matter how much evidence there is
Wow, it is truly amazing Licona's response (1:29:00) on the chance of resurrection is: "Yes, ever other claimed incidence of resurrection turned out to be false but just found out about one guy in Africa who said resurrections happen! So now I'm believing that they do happen." (ps. This 'well-documented Africa resurrection' claim obviously bogus...there has been plenty of time for it to be confirmed by now.)
Licona says it's a matter of the way we look at the evidence. This is really an admission of the weakness of his position. Flat earthers also make claim this to be the case.
pheww the 2010 is showing. At least one person owns starships now. 😉 But they are just called that. The design is capable of two-way interplanetary travel without disposing of any parts but definitlely not interstellar travel, at least not without dieing en-route.
There's such a big difference in ability to argue their point, albeit both unconvincingly, between Lincona and Dr Craig. The real shame is there's not really anyone outside if Dr. Carrier, at least to my knowledge, with the ability to convey the historicity of Jesus with such clarity. Incredible job as always by Dr. Carrier here.
someone told me yesterday only 7% of the world's population is atheist......if that figure is true then that's troubling.......i have a feeling it's much higher than that
Fantastic dialog. I struggle to agree with Dr Licona because his presentation is highly presuppositional. Anecdotal evidence of the supernatural is frankly unconvincing. For instance, that would never be used for the FDA to approve medicine. I think Dr Licona is nevertheless brilliant and respectful, I am just confused as to how he's not seeing his total abandonment of objectivity. Dr Carrier presented a position that does NOT require clairvoyance, though I felt he should have pressed harder on Dr Licona's special pleading, argument to authority, and countless other fallacious manners of thinking that have tricked him into a conclusion that is unfathomably improbable. To be blunt, it is exactly these conversations that have contributed to my waning belief in Christianity. The apologist position is DEFENSIVE which indicates presupposition which indicates an inability to present factual evidence in an unbiased manner. All that aside, the fact we can have these conversations is a celebration of humanity. I greatly respect both gentlemen and hope we get to see more of them again really soon.
Carrier doesn't seem to have researched contemporary miraculous claims, which are abundant. Instead, he just assumes things about them. I think these offer good confirmation of early Christian claims.
@@glurp1 Do you feel that contemporary miracle accounts also offer confirmation of Islam? Mormons? Hindus? Religions of the ancient Greeks and Romans? If not, how are you determining that the miracles confirm your position but fail to confirm others?
@@HumblyQuestioning The attestation of some miracles in multiple religious contexts does not inherently mean that they cancel each other out. Many religions, including Christianity, acknowledge the possibility of different agents being responsible for supernatural events. Which religion offers the best explanation then depends on other factors. It is often assumed that the claims and evidence related to miracles in different religions is fairly even. However, from my research so far, that does not seem to be the case. A secular overview of evidence for the nonphysical can be found in Irreducible Mind by Kelly et al. A Christian overview of evidence for miracles (he also discusses claims in other religions) is Craig Keener's 2-vol work on the subject. He also discusses prophecy in his commentary on Acts, though I haven't read it.
I was a strong atheist, until one night,in which I had a dream, and what a dream it was. If you would of had that dream, you would believe. Take my word for it, iam an English man. And if you don't believe after that, nor would you believe the prophets. The stupidity of faith
How you can extrapolate Paul's whacky belief in a personal ressurection to evidence for Christ's physical resurrection is beyond me. Notice how Licona surreptitiously turns Paul's word "come" into the word "return". It is clear Paul thinks Jesus will come down to earth but he never couches this event as a return, ever! Licona is reading the gospel story back into Paul and using it to interpret Paul.
yes if you only use the accepted epistles of paul he uses words the coming of lord or revelation of the lord instead of return but that because the people he was talking too probably never saw jesus on earth as most of them were from greece and turkey they would see jesus physically for the first time when he comes down from heaven and at this time he uses the word coming for titus too but didnt mean titus didnt exist before his arrival to paul
@@jayd4ever really that makes zero sense. If they never saw or heard Jesus it would be incumbent on Paul to explain the life and teaching of Jesus to them. That he doesn't is inordinately strange & Christians cannot see it. Bart Ehrman has his own problems with reading Paul. He frequently paraphrases Paul as referring to the return or second coming of Jesus when he never does. He hides this information from his audience. A lot of people for different reasons read things into Paul that simply are not there.
@@jayd4ever Titus: that is a very silly analogy, Titus's existence is, and was not in question and as far as I know, no one expected Titus to return to earth after his death! Is that really the best you've got?
@@ghostriders_1 I think you know an enormous amount more about this than I do, but I agree with what you've said. I see this constantly in the historicity argument... the assumption that the people Paul talks about who also appear in the gospels are... well I don't know how to put it but the assumption is that Paul got those names from the gospel story... which hadn't been written yet, whereas to me it's equally probable that the gospel writers just lifted these names from Paul and created disciple characters around them. I could be wrong, but I find it terribly hard to believe that Paul is aware of the stories about Jesus' life and teachings, since he almost never refers to them specifically. Here is a man you believe had an earthly ministry, made rulings on things like divorce, brotherly love and taxes, you believe this man is the saviour of all mankind, literally the most important person who ever lived, but what he said and did while alive has no importance to you when writing to your congregations. I just don't buy it. With all he knows about just how unreliable the gospels are, I have no idea why Ehrman clings to the historicist position. OK, now I pray I've made some iota of sense.
@@dan4lau Daniel I agree with what you say but I don't think any credible historicist thinks that Paul lifted names from the Gospels as even they concede they were all written 20 years after the demise of Paul. I tend to think that any one Paul mentions, apart from Jesus is a real version of a real person. Mark however is a different kettle of flesh! Anyone he mentions ie either fictional with a symbolic name or a fictional version of a real person ie Cephas.
S. Carl I guess that argument against that is that these people were subjected to pretty ruthless persecution and many died pretty gruesome deaths. I can understand one person being delusional to the point of being willing to die for something they know not to be true, but all of them? For what gain?
S. Carl I think though that’s the argument many Christian apologist use for Jesus’s existence. 1.) there are Roman sources who speak on Jesus (pliny the younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, and etc). It would appear that even the earliest critics of Christianity didn’t dispute Jesus’s existence. 2.) If you honestly thing Bayesian Probability is a good idea for determining historicity, would you mind expanding on that? 3.) Many people in ancient Canaan had somewhat of a contextual understanding of who Jesus was and it is doubtful that 1st century Christianity in Canaan would’ve had any success if these people didn’t at least have some surrounding corroborating evidence that Jesus existed. 4.) I personally have no doubt that most religious figures actually existed. Whether it be Mohammad or Buddha or etc. the argument really ought to be is whether there’s any legitimacy to their claims.
@@MyNameIsJ3ffrey 1) you are FN crazy to believe in a religion that has satanism on it's face. (human sacrifice, eat the body, drink the blood) 2) the old Testament says there is only one god ------- the new Testament invents 2 more gods.... BOOM! CHECKMATE! ---- you are brainwashed by the DEVILS in this world ---- that gate is narrow my friend!
Rick Carrier recently gave the historicity of JC at around 1/3. That got me thinking (dangerous) So I came up with this "trinity": 1/3 chance it is all fake, 1/3 chance he was a con-man/ illusionist, and 1/3 chance god is a looney.
Would you we see news about someone tampering with Elvis's grave? Do we have reason to believe the body was missing and can we verify it's still there?
Even in the 21st century the debate rages about what is supposed to be the single most important fact about christianity and appears even more ambiguous and problematic. This is supposed to be good enough evidence?
@@glurp1 Naturalism deserves its reputation due to its repeated reliability in providing observable, demonstrable and verifiable results. Unlike supernaturalism, which is relentless in its inability to cogently explain anything.
@@bradwhelan4466 I see several issues. The first is the seeming conflation of methodological and philosophical naturalism. Many supernatural phenomena, such as the resurrection, are more appropriate for historical than scientific inquiry. So methodological naturalism can't even evaluate the question. Second, some supernatural phenomena can be evaluated to some extent using science. This includes out-of-body experiences during near-death experiences. So far, naturalistic explanations, such as hallucinations due to hypoxia, have failed to fit the data. Third, philosophical naturalism has yet to explain the mind in any basic way. Consciousness remains inexplicable despite decades of intensive research. And many phenomena directly challenge reductionist models and offer evidence for nonlocal consciousness. Fourth, some developments in quantum physics raise doubts about materialism rather than confirming it. Fifth, philosophical naturalism fails to offer a meaningful understanding of morality. It doesn't solve the is-ought problem. It also fails to account for other aspects of human experience like love, which loses its essential meaning in a reductionist model. Many philosophical naturalists try to offer explanations that do not fit their reductuonist assumptions because they can't accept the implications. Irreducible Mind by Kelly et al. provides an overview of evidence for dualism. Craig Keener's 2-volume work on miracles offers an overview of evidence in that field. It also discusses the the circularity of Humean skepticism and demonstrates how skeptics often move the goal post when presented with evidence.
Wow, the guy arguing in favor of supernaturalism opens up with a tragic story that's sure to manipulate the emotions of the audience.... NOT surprising in the least.
I really like watching Licona argue, he's about the only theist that seems to try and answer any questions put to him. Pity he makes so many assumptions that are unfounded and then claims that Carrier is doing this when he really isn't.
Soooo.... Mike says that a dead person's "spirit" (which is already in heaven) will be reunited with the dead flesh (magically made whole again) and the two parts will be returned to heaven. How old will this dead person's body be ? Personally I would not like to spend eternity in the body that had just let me down.
An excellent debate. They are trying to convince each other rather than pleasing the audience. Carrier stays on track perfectly. Never takes offense. Mike too tries to stay objective. It seems obvious that Carrier's point of view is superior. But I don't like to say who won. They both did.
1:04:56 Mike is guilty here of not accepting that Christian theology makes no sense to some of those who have tried to believe. I grew up in an evangelical home, and it just went from “reality” to “I dont believe this.” It is impossible to believe what you don’t believe. And theist will never accept this reality because it means that their deity is a monster for torturing those who are non-resistant non-believers. Christianity is the worst worldview I’ve yet encountered. Eternal torment is the most immoral thing I can imagine, and y’all worship that BS.
Not really. You didn't experience a Bad deity, you experienced bad people. And non-resistant Non-believers have just one problem - God desires, that you take the first step. He isn't some @ssholish judge, but if you just argue, that because you're a non-resistant Non-believer, that won't make any point. Neither with your Concept of hell, which isn't even the original orthodox understanding of it. Hell is one's own Choice to go there. Every day you have the Choice to either accept God, or reject him through the deeds you do. That's why it's the official christian teaching, that even atheists to to heaven. What matters most is wether you FOLLOW Jesus Christ, rather than just believing. Also, eternal torment is also BS. You said that you can't imagine that we worship that, but we don't. We never worshipped such a thing and we never will. Hell is just a place devoid of God. If you reject God constantly, God will respect your decision. That's it. No eternal torment as in Dante's Inferno. That torment comes from you, not them. No theist will reject reality, bc that's when you'd make these interpretations. If christianity's the worst worldview you've ever encountered, then you haven't encountered christianity, you've encountered christians who don't represent their faith. If you lived in a family of kind nazis or racists, would you thus deduct, that nazism or racism is good ?
@@dominikdurkovsky8318 dude could you be any more condescending? You can’t believe that I took many steps towards god because it means your theology is BS. You aren’t listening at all. No one hurt me. You are blind, dude, you are talking to a fictional character that your theology built. Talk to someone else, I wasn’t talking to you in the first place.
Poor Richard having to debate the ridiculous with a practising Bible puncher..He doesn't need to prove the narrative...his opposite should have indisputable evidence for it..They cannot and so ..just talk..😅
The issue with Carrie is that he makes opinionated assumptions of what is and is not true, as well as the hero stories of dying and rising gods which in reality have very little parallel connection to Jesus and the resurrection according to actual ancient historical scholars who write, study and lecture on these topics. Carrier is out of his league.
So, I'm super sympathetic to the Christian movement, but we are, essentially, putting Paul on trial here. Who is our primary witness to the veracity of Paul's claims?....... Paul. The guy is, literally, begging us to believe everything he has to say, because does not lie.... but the only method we have of substantiating anything Paul says, is Paul! Lol... Im really not sure this is the best line of reasoning for the Christian position? Would we buy this sort of logic in a court of law? Eeesh. I'm 10 minutes in and in emotional pain. Then, Mike goes on to show how poor his ability to argue his position by attempting to convince us that Paul was passing on to us oral traditions he received from the Apostles and the like. Yet, Paul HIMSELF insists his information was NOT given to him from any man, but from the resurrected Jesus Himself. Awful work. Look, when is the believing community going to stop this. Get off this damned train, of attempting to rationalize faith in Christ. Your relationship to God is EXPERIENTIAL, NOT RATIONAL. You came across a message that changed you and enabled you to FEEL God/Jesus. Stop trying to impress the non-believing world, by intellectualizing your position. It NEVER works. Believe. Feel God. Serve your Savior and shut up. Guys, like Chris, are going to always demolish your arguments. Just, stop!
Somewhere around 1:14:00 both speakers retreat into pure abstraction between "everything" and "nothing" and exit empiricism completely for the comfort of their respective blind ditches. This is however, the beautiful futility of that phenomenon we know as Christianity, and its irresolvability is testament itself to the discernment of the society that emerged at the top of global civilization. This is the "sword" that Christianity brings, and the notion that the fool who errs on the side of determining that the best solution is where neither disputant gets cut is the fool favored by God is the conclusion that divine and civil authority must be separated into different sets of metrics pending any final determination of sanity and reality is as good as it gets, because there is no IS to the supernatural by its very definition within human experience. The central question of the debate itself is absurd, as history itself is not the phenomenon, but rather the hermenutics of witnesses reporting their experience of events. Plutarch begins with mythical characters and from this mist we get kings and heroes. Julian Jaynes went so far as to suggest that up to a certain point, the majority of humans would qualify as schizophrenics. Is Plutarch's account less historical because some of the characters had immortal origins? I say no, because the episodic plots are still human plots interpreted by humans, schizophrenic or not. The genius of Paul in his "schizo" perspective surpasses this dillema by recontextualizing Christ AND his flock as a superorganism: "the body of Christ" is NOT thus just Jesus on the cross, but includes YOUR own male body hanging bleeding before your eyes in the nonverbal and immediate primitive cortical message that YOU are NOT God, that your perspective is that of something that will DIE, and that NO explanation provides any escape from your mortality save something that is BEYOND your comprehension. Christianity thus emerged into history as a complete superorganism of a misty origin. Jesus remains impenetrably NOT you, yet your body is his. The Trinitarian doctrine places him paradoxically as both and neither God nor man, and no carnal act or sperm had anything to do with his origin as a character in a story. And thus it was how I hit upon the idea that restored my own fools "faith" in an unfathomable intelligence throughout the network of all of this information that i believe sets my perspective apart from both of these responsible intelligent scholars with one simple idea that is accesible to anybody. Unless I missed something, Mr. Licona's argument depends upon the truth of the statement: God = real. Conversely, Mr. Carrier's argument depends upon the statistical probability that God < real. The very term supernatural means greater than natural, thus God > nature. While we cannot actually demonstrate God apart from the mechanism of human perception, we can easily demonstrate the existence of the greater than real within human perception itself. John Dewey pointed to the optical illusion of Zollner's lines as the need to approach our experience as fully real (natural, or actual) as the crucial premise for discovering otherwise through testing. Paul began with the premise that Jesus was more than the sum of his parts, so whether Jesus began with myths that coagulated into a single human personality, or an extroadinary man who gathered all of the prior myths into his avatar like iron filings to a magnet, Jesus is and remains more than real, NOT less, or identical to a purely human experience. Paul reported his own experience as he interpreted its meaning. If that isn't a "historical account," then what is it? Though these discussions never resolve ANYTHING, they seem to keep us focused on the inevitablity of our foolishness...
Zuess did create man,and zoaster died so we can fuckup,rah is also a good,and so is the great Shiva,.also innana is also a goddess,. But not Joseph Smith,he lieth, And I'm still on the fence with haré krishna
1:13:18 scientists saying the big bang happened once or was unique does not mean the big bang is the absolute beginning, or that there was "nothing" before that. He's assuming the singularity appeared out of nothing, but nobody knows that. He's conflating things.
The trouble with applying Bayes' theorem is that it requires both information that scholars don't have and an understanding of (when, how, and whether to apply) Bayes' theorem that scholars don't have.
The aledge fact of the desapearence of the body of Jesus Christ mean: 1th- e never was in the place where they say it desapeared; 2th assuming without grant that Christ was deposed in a tumb: a)- they check the wrong tumb, b)-somebody move the body( from the tumb where conveniently the scriptures placed two Roman soldiers); c)- that never happened.
@@williancamaraporteladefran1791 Na verdade, estou com algumas dúvidas sobre a ressurreição e estou assistindo todos os debates que consigo achar. Isso é muito ruim. Estou me sentindo muito mal. Usando termos bem católicos, eu espero que esteja no purgatório. O lado ruim é que dói estar aqui, mas o lado bom é que (pelo menos) eu vou sair em algum lugar!
If the Roman authorities believed that Jesus Christ was resurrected and standing right in front of them, what would be the point of arresting Jesus? To put Jesus to death again and have Jesus rise from the dead again?
@@spiritsplice you're raising a separate objection irrelevant to what I was trying to address (though I understand your rationale--under that separate scenario, though, one would wonder about the competence of the Roman soldiers who helped officiate the crucifixion).
Son of Mary Jesus did not predict that he will die for sin of gullible Christian and resurrect in three days. This is just made up lies by Paul and gongs
Within ten minutes, he demonstrates how the Scriptures were written... flawed imagination. Also, comstantly referring to Dr. William Craig as "Bill" is simply name dropping... as if that makes this apologist credible.
Perhaps bc he knows him on more of a personal level. It could be just as simple as that and not for any other deeper reason. And isn't using the term flawed imagination coming at this from a very pre-supposed perspective/bias?
![ได้เวลา! พาน้องแฝดฉีดวัคซีนครบ 1 เดือน🫣 [cc] แดนแพทตี้ SS2 | EP.52 |](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IzeLtaXBLNE/mqdefault.jpg)
It's clear this debate had Carrier agree to a presupposition of the the parts of the Bible being addressed was actual historical accounts, which he doesn't even believe, and he still makes a solid argument against the resurrection. 😂
Dr. Licona, I appreciate your faith and will. Dr. Carrier, I admire your inteligence and knowledge.
29:23
This is the first time i have experienced misophonia, now i get it
Carrier enlightens me once again!
This Christian interlocutor's opening joke was garbage.
That story about the Congo contains some problematic admissions of the interlocutor, as well.
"Yes, he married a black and they're such a good couple!" Now let me gloss over that he's documenting hearsay with no scientific method involved!
That must mean Atlantis is real. Herodotus heard about it. Super compelling.
It really is amazing how Licona can call himself a skeptic, and be perfectly skeptical about resurrections and miracles regarding every other religion, and simultaneously defend christian resurrections and miracles.
He’s an atheist that still needs to go one God further…
All christians are liars. It has been that way since the beginning.
1:03:15_Liconas Stalin argument backfired big time.
Listening to Mike Licona is painful in the extreme. How anyone with a Ph.D. can hold the beliefs that he does is beyond me. His Argument from Friendship (he knows and trusts his friends, so he believes, uncritically, without reservation, everything they say, or at least accords them very high plausibility) is priceless. I had never heard that one before. He comes across as disarmingly sincere, but that seeming sincerity does not mitigate the fundamental intellectual dishonesty that reverberates through all of his arguments. He accuses Carrier of using "ad hoc" scenarios as plausible explanations for the Empty Tomb, while he himself invokes a supernatural being to accomplish his Resurrection scenario-the most "ad hoc" of all scenarios. That is intellectual dishonesty, since he is well aware that there is no evidentiary basis, from the historian's point of view, for the existence of supernatural beings. He is well aware that other Saviour cults during the first century C.E. also claimed resurrection for their Saviour gods, yet he dismisses these claims as false and does not invoke the supernatural in these cases. How much more "ad hoc" can you get?
If you look closely those cults didn't existed
@@leovere You obviously have not looked closely enough. I have, and I have no doubt that they existed. Quite apart from the documentary evidence, there is archaeological evidence (in the form of inscriptions, statuary, and carvings) of their existence, which you obviously know nothing about.
@@MichaelMendis
For example?
@@leovere The carving of the passion of Mithras on display at Musées de la Cour d'Or in Metz, France. Look it up on Google under "The Mithraic Altar".
@@MichaelMendis
"We can here discover Mithra sacrificing a bull whose blood flows on the ground to reinvigorate the earth and fertilize it. On both sides of the deity are two teenagers, holding torches or "dadophores", cautes and cautopates. One of them personifies the rising sun, the other the sun descending. The god Sol, which appears on one of the uprights of the relief, is there also to accentuate the solar character of Mithra."
So what does Mithra sacrificing a bull have to do with Jesus?
If God wants he can do anything but doesn’t do the right thing , the right thing to do would be to show everyone Jesus and allow people to make a choice , now that would make the christian god a smart and compassionate god but that never will happen .... Love Dr Carrier . Peace and love
It’s hard to believe someone would debate about things written in a book as every line is completely true. How embarrassing for the human race.
“These beliefs are the facts I am using” what?!?! 🤦🏼♀️
The end of all further Licona’s conclusions 😊
You can tell when an apologist is lying, they use the word “fact”.
@@oscarleijontoft None support a resurrection. The fact that a city existed in no way supports the supernatural claims of any holy book. Example: "Spiderman lives in NYC. NYC is a real city, thus Spiderman must exist"
You comment objection has been debunked so many times. It shows your adolescent knowledge of the field and the historicity of the Bible. Get lost troll.
@@oscarleijontoft Some of the LOCATIONS, but NONE of the EVENTS.
@@oscarleijontoft No, he wasn't simply repeating what you said. He was pointing out that the "things" you mention as being corroborated by archeology are never corroborative of any religious claim in the bible, but only of place-names etc that are totally incidental to everything religious people care about.
You can tell an apologist is lying when their lips are moving! 🤪
. _"that is called "explanatory power"_ ? It's called _"making shit up on the spot"._
Poor Mike Licona…… he believes in fantasies….
Mike Licona is very impressed by big books. I think he judges their value by how many pages there are.
Mike reminds me of my brother, who is also a devout Christian, and somehow thinks that makes him smarter than everybody else and an expert on every topic. And his acceptance of towels flying After his dad joined the freemasons is concerning.
- Early in the questioning, he gives his layman’s anAlysis of Schizotypal personality disorder, based on the mayo clinic website, then he accuses Dr. Carrier of doing psychohistory.
- Well, what if Dr Craig said he saw you in California minutes after I saw you in New York, and let’s just say we were sure that both were you, and let’s assume he said he saw you get into a spaceship, and let’s imagine he wasn’t lying, and let’s assume he wasn’t hallucinating, and let’s presume you were verified to have been in both places, would you then conclude it was true? Painful, Like talking to a 5 yr old about monsters under the bed
Of course yes, It is a very well known phenomenon, it is called bi-location
There are menu well known cases of that like the mulata de cordoba or many Catholic saints
@@leovere by well known, are you implying that you believe the accounts to be true, or that a lot of people know OF the tales?
@@DJRickard2010
I believe
@@leovere I thought so. I’m more curious about what evidence you base that belief on. From my perspective, I don’t see any substantial evidence of the “supernatural,” and certainly not of the things you say you believe in.
The fact Licona would find snake oil salesman William Craig at all credible says it all..😂
Mike you are so frustrating. You try and make us believe in debates that the supernatural exist by bringing anecdotes about ghosts, flying objects and tall stories about about a woman and a dead friend.
Some observations that I cant be the only person to notice?
A) Why are these in bed visions always at the time of night when the brain is in-between being sleep and awake and we know that's the time the brain makes up dreams that seem very real? why not see her during the day at the office?
B) How the heck if it was so utterly scary an event, that she not scream the house down and be a jabbering wreck seeking comfort ? no, for some spooky reason after seeng the devil in the first person..............she goes back to sleep? sorry that doesn't seem legit.......
C) Why are all these events never recorded in any way by any medium for scrutiny afterwards? Everyone has phone with great quality cameras, but nope , they must be really clever these ghosts.
D) When asked if she knew the girl by her dad she didn't immediately go, "yeah and funnily enough I saw her in a vision with the devil last night" but nope, she just asks why? Then to tie things neatly up she , in the presence of the Devil himself, decides its a great moment to check what time it was? And of course she already is a believer in the devil. Why is it that in these situations people only see the iconography of the culture they got brought up in? Why don't Christians see Lord Vishnu? Why don't Hindus see Jesus? Go figure.....
E) Why, when always trying to give examples of what would constitute reasonable evidence, they are scenarios that have NEVER happened and never DO happen . Your tactic is clear , to say that even if missing ashes on the very day of David Koresh predicted 3 years before , then we must accept the supernatural explanation , and if not, we are the unreasonable people, despite the point Richard made which was someone could have conspired to have them moved/stole/destroyed whatever.
These are plausible as they happen in real life all the time, your explanations are asking us to be gullible.
Even if we accept that these paranormal "sleep phenomena" are real it still doesn't prove the resurrection. He is grasping at straws here.
Here's a question or 2. What is the significance of someone coming back from the dead? It means they're a god? If they're a god, then why did they have to die in the first place? I mean, if you have the power to bring yourself BACK from the dead, it's probably even easier not to die in the first place. Also, what is the meaning in/what is accomplished by sacrificially killing someone if they can't stay dead? Not much of a sacrifice, is it?
it’s unlikely that a 6-sided die will land on one, therefore it landed on infinity
Does this mean that it's unlikely that there is a naturalistic explanation for the resurrection phenonmenon so therefore there must have been a supernatural one?
@@Greyz174 it means that, arguing some naturalistic explanation as “unlikely” by no means supports the supernatural explanation
@@9tailjeza cool
my ex wife thought god was speaking to her. she was put in a mental heath facility and diagnosed as bi-polar.
Replication crisis in psychology...
Richard Carrier is a real gentleman ❤️
He's so Christ like lol
I'm an atheist BTW
But seriously.. there were times when my jaw dropped at his opponent, but Carrier was so kind and calm, and civil.
I did not knew that gentlemen sexually harass women to the point of being banned from atheistic conventions
*Gets banned from a conference for sexually harassing multiple women* LMFAO
Michael Vallance, Richard Carrier is deranged
@@leovere bs claims. But even if it were true, its funny how atheists treat sexual harassment more severely than you treat child rapists in your church of jesus.
It’s a shame mike has to come to debates with stories. A friend who’s friend died seeing a demon face. Another friends trash can lid flew against the wall after a seance. Then the friend who needed a certain monetary relief that after church prayer ended up with the exact amount. Should have you really questioning mike.
these people are so desperate and so silly.......mikes motivation could be money but he does sound genuine......so i can only think he fears death and will believe any old nonsense
@@paulrichards6894 I thought the same until I saw his buddy Gary habermas get caught exaggerating near death experiences. He adds facts that aren’t there to perpetuate the story. Mike does the same thing. Like saying the father turned the news paper. Etc. it’s a story tactic
The anecdotes he shares are ridiculous. The goal is to appear credible, not credulous.
Does he think the friend with the demon went to hell? Isn't that the meaning of seeing the demon behind her? What a horrible thing to believe about a lady it sounds like he doesn't even personally know. Or is the demon there even if the friend went to heaven? How could that be? That would be terrible too.
@@Preservestlandry My undertanding is that his belief is the devil was somewhat responsible for the friends friend dyieng, thats why he showed to her. Anyway that just seems a fantasy story
If Jesus existed, JESUS WAS OBVIOUSLY NOT A VERY GOOD SPEAKER/TEACHER/PREACHER!!! He didn't make ANYTHING about himself/God any CLEARER! And, 2,000 years later there are STILL debates about who he even was. We STILL don't know who wrote what is supposed to be a holy book. Maybe he should have written it himself! And, there are so many conflicts that cannot be reconciled within it. We STILL don't have originals and the copies and translations of it differ greatly. Even the believers of him don't agree!!! If I were to rate him as a teacher, I'd give Jesus an "F"!!!
There is a lot you probably don't understand because you read the texts wrong. You aren't reading them with an understanding of the cultural mindset of a 1st century Jew.
He didn’t make anything about himself, true, however hanibal did not make anything about himself either. There are still debates over a lot of historical characters. We do have a nice idea of who wrote the gospels and I’ll gladly discuss that if you want
The son of man!!!!
@@gabepearson6104 The Gospels were written anonymously and decades after Jesus supposedly died. Was your Jesus born in -4 BC before King Herod died? Or, was he born after +6 AD when Quirinius first became Governor?!!
@@Chomper750 If it takes a Jewish person from the 1st century to understand the Bible, why don't Jewish people believe Jesus was their Messiah?!? And why didn't your God make a translation I could understand if he expects me to believe it??? That is a poor teacher!!! Was your Jesus born before -4 BC when King Herod died, as the Bible describes? Or, was he born in +6 AD, when Quirinius first became Governor and performed a census, as the Bible also describes?!? That doesn't require a Jewish person from the 1st century to understand. Take Dan Barker's "Easter Challenge" and if you can make a coherent story out of the Bible, you should get a Nobel Prize!!!!
Someone should tell Licona that "psychohistory" is a fictional science invented by Isaac Asimov, it's not an actual thing. 😂
Congolese profits and pastors are a dime a dozen here in South Africa. All of them can do miracles. Funny thing is that they are all super wealthy also. Strange that...
Hence your spelling of 'prophets' as 'profits'. :o)
Thanks for posting the video. I've come to consider myself an atheist after having escaped the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). I was born into the church, and was an active member until about age 20. As with most other young men in the Church, I served a 2 year mission in an effort to spread the word of god and bring the truth to the world. My mission was not what I though. Rather than seeing servants of christ spreading the truth of the gospel, I saw an organization (let's be honest and call it a business) that taught young men, who have been conditioned from birth, to manipulate the indigent, poorly educated and naïve. For almost a year I took part in manipulating the public in order to enrich the church. After getting a peak behind the curtain the dominoes in my brain began to fall revealing truth, after truth, after truth, and exposing more and more lies, deceptions and inconsistencies within the church and its doctrine. After almost excessive prayer and very diligent study, the cold hard truth is that science answered my call for help and god was overwhelmingly absent.
You seem like a decent man. It truly hurts my heart that you have been lied to your whole life, and that your conditioning is so engrained that you will probably never come to terms with the truth. Indeed, even after abandoning religion and deciding that I "no longer believed", it took more than 15 years to be able consider the true nature of reality without having that process tainted by the lies I had clung to for the first 20 years of my life. More than 15 years to heal from the shame, guilt and and crippling pressure associated with being a christian. Even after 10 years of separation I would still get defensive and angry if I heard someone else speak out against the church. It breaks my heart to think that you will likely never know the sense of freedom, excitement and confidence that comes as a result of abandoning superstition and ridiculous claims about the supernatural. I am sincerely sorry. The brainwashing imposed on children by religious parents and institutions should be illegal. It is very literally child abuse. Though it is not likely you will abandon your faith, if that does occur please reach to someone who can guide you through the process. I wish I had know about the myriad resources available to people in this situation. It would have helped me heal much more quickly.
I do owe you thanks. I appreciate you posting these debates. For me they reinforce how necessary reason, logic and evidence are. This is not meant as an insult, but the argument of faith simply falls flat, regardless of your opponent. Worse than that, it screams ignorance, arrogance and fear. I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you. Thank your for strengthening the positions of the scientific method, reason and logic by showing just how ridiculous belief in the mistic, supernatural, and miraculous is.
Be well and good lcuk,
Michael
Good on you mike. Cheers
Too bad you won't escape hell.
Congratulations on your escape from mental slavery, and welcome to the real world! 👍👋
That came off as pretty condescending,
@@endygonewild2899 Less condescending than religious people claiming they are part of the small moral elite that will survive the rapture, and that everyone who doesn't believe what they believe will burn in hell.
"Bu-b-but, Pat saw demons in the night though 🥺🥺🥺"
It’s really hard to take Mike seriously as a historian given the mental gymnastics he has to go through to reach his conclusions. Secular historians, like Richard, would never do that in their research. It’s pretty clear that Mike’s compromising his intellectual and academic integrity for the sake of maintaining his worldview, which is sad to watch.
Actually-- Richard made some tremendous errors when talking about Christianity. For example, he tries to argue that James isn't the biological brother of Jesus. Even though this is possibly the strongest historical point you can make about Jesus; his lineage, and his family. It's irrefutable. Even Paul calls James ''the brother of the Lord'', which he uses in reference to James alone.
This completely messes up the mythicist approach, so they do all kinds of mental gymnastics to get over this fact. It's quite hilarious. They fall back on logical fallacies by saying that everyone was ''a brother'' in the Christian circle, and completely disregarding the unique context in which Paul speaks of James (as opposed to the other believers). So yea, Carrier is not above fudging facts and outright lying in certain cases.
Yet the best ''gem'' that came from Carrier is the claim that even Paul didn't believe in a historical Jesus figure. He says Paul thought Jesus was created through king David's sperm which God saved up in a ''cosmic sperm bank''. And Carrier actually says how this is easily extracted from the text, which is comedy gold. I can't believe he wrote that with a straight face.
Not only is there absolutely no such thing being suggested in the Christian text, it's also nowhere to be found in other Jewish traditions of that time. He literally made it up to claim Paul didn't think Jesus was an actual person, with an actual brother.
Contrary to what you may think, skeptics are just as biased as certain religious people. Sometimes even more so.
@@strawberrylatte8742 I agree. I’m not a mythicist and aren’t convinced by his arguments concerning the Pauline epistles. That doesn’t mean all of his scholarly work is bunk. I take and evaluate both Licona’s and Carrier’s arguments as they come
@@patrickjohneby1306 Eyyy, glad we agree on something :)
@@strawberrylatte8742 Me too!
@@strawberrylatte8742 My question to you is, exactly how far did you have to reach up your ass to pull out that nonsense you speak of?!?!? No need to answer, after reading what you posted I find no reason to take anything you could possibly say serious. However, I will admit that your version of Word salad did get my attention
Licona is reaching real world conclusions from bible stories none of which have been historically confirmed - why is Carrier letting him do this? No need for the hallucination hypothesis.
I can’t believe Mike Licona thinks ghost sightings count as evidence
I can. When you are desperate to have the truth you will believe anything.
I can't believe that simply because he doesn't believe something happened, Carrier automatically assumes it cannot be true.
@@HFH-Official he didn't say that. He said there are other known scientific explanations so there is no reason to assume it's non-scientific, non-natural, or supernatural. Not that it's impossible.
@@HFH-Official Well Carier provides logical reasons why those things had a naturalistic reason
Too some they do.
Great, Mike starts out by stating four criteria for explanatory power, then immediately proceeds to break three of them with his explanation.
An explanation which appeals to supernatural or miraculous claims - can never have more power than a naturalistic one. It is always going to be more probably that tens of thousands of people had a hallucination - than that a human being was killed - and lived again. Licona cannot accept that reasoning - because he presupposes that the resurrection happened.
@theunrepentantatheist24 its not just that tens of thousands of people halucinated but that disproving their hallucinations would be as simple as showing the body of christ and saying
Here have it happy now
Especially when it was gaurded by roman centurions that would be punished by death if they allowed the body to have been stolen
Common christian apologist L.
1:25:00 don't worry everyone, she's a brilliant girl not given to this sort of thing. And Jesus would be the LAST person Paul would ever want to hallucinate. Got it?
For several debates after this one, Licona uses the exact same "argumentation" rife with fallacies and assumptions.
One lie he insists on is that there are many witnesses who claim Jesus appeared to: James, Peter, "the 500" and lastly Paul.
But who is the source for that? ONE source: Paul. And Paul is a liar. He can't even get his own story straight between Galatians, Corinthians and Acts when he recounts on what he did after his "experience" on the road to Damascus.
Debating the plausibility of mass hallucinations of fabricated witnesses... 🤔
It's ironic also how Licona explains that the historical method should have the least amount of non-evidenced assumptions (at 09:24).
For Jesus to have been raised from the dead, you have to make a lot of assumptions. Really a lot.
Off the top of my head, I can offer an explanation that has vastly more explanatory power than a bodily resurrection and accounts for all the events described in the gospels:
Jesus did not die on the cross (there are a number of good arguments to be made for that), his father Joseph took him to a private garden where he could tend to his wounds. Two days later, Jesus feels better and appears to his followers. Voila, mystery solved. Accounting for almost all "facts" without forcing them, it agrees with widely accepted facts and only needs ONE assumption: that Jesus existed.
Another theory that would do all the above:
Jesus is a fictional character. Not plausible? People make up stories all the time. Roland the Gunslinger, king Aragorn, king John Presbyter, king Aegon Targaryen, Tarzan, Batman, Superman...
A possible exception may be Richard Cypher Rahl however 🤔... not sure about that one 😀. There's no consensus among biblical scholars and historians on him.
As Selvam Maniamawasi here below points out: proving the absurd with more absurdity doesn't increase credibility.
You don't have evidence for jesus showing himself to individuals, groups etc. You have a book written decades later saying that happened. That's a problem 😂😂
How about fish get resurrected by god what would happen to the oceans
watching this debate, I noticed time and again that Mike Licona bases the vast majority of his arguments on anecdotal evidence. He also based his entire premise on the a priori fallacy: in that he presumes that a god already exists and that Jesus was god incarnate and did resurrect and then looked for evidence to confirm these presuppositions.
Conversely I noticed that Richard took an academic approach, where he cited studies and journals, and instead attempted to look at, what is more probable to have occurred, not what he wants the conclusion to be.
Watching this, it's obvious that Mike Licona lost and utterly lost, on every point. I even noticed that Carrier made points to Licona, that Licona utterly ignored responding to, or very quickly changed the subject. For example at the 1:00:56 mark, Richard asks a question and Mike says it's a great question, but very quickly manages to rephrase/ strawman's Richard's point, in order to respond to HIS strawman of it, instead of what was actually asked of him.
"how about this... let me know what you think about this? And this would have been before the New Testament. The character of God that is presented in the bible..." - This response was NOT what was asked of Licona. I found this dishonest, for what was Richard's question, on his side of the Q&A section.
I didn't find anything that Mike Licona said, to be at all convincing. His arguments were from a believer's perspective, not an historian's perspective and I noticed time and again, that Licona made huge category error assertions, such as charging Richard with the argument from ignorance fallacy, where he asserted he had to come up with a better solution for how Jesus resurrected, using the historical method. Well the historical method does not assume that miracle events occurred to begin with, something that Licona utterly ignored for every point Carrier made about every other mythical historical claim, such as other resurrection claims/ cults that existed at the time of the early Christians.
It endlessly fascinates me that in the 21st Century, we can look back and study ancient ways of viewing the world by countless cultures, learning their rituals, understanding how their beliefs arose from fear, despair, ignorance, and need for control and organization, all propped up by fantastical tales never seen. But then the majority of people on Earth picked one of those and said, "Wait, but THIS one's real." People really are funny creatures.
21th century after who?
@@leovere After people started believing fantastical tales of one particular non-existent god-man.
Licona is painfully painfully stupid it's actually quite amazing how much patients Carrier has with him here
Nice. So by Erhmans argument, Harry Potter really existed because so many contemporary people wrote about HP. And in 2000 years when everyone believes HP existed, you’ll look foolish to believe that it was just a fictional kids book!
do you believe that alexender the great lived? yes or no?
also. how else do we determine history at all if we can not go based off writings of something? please tell. ( history as in thousands of years old ancient rome etc...)
@@jaromsmiss There needs to be a higher bar of evidence for someone who is 1) a completely unique person who has preformed miracles that no single other human has and 2) someone whose existence and my acknowledgement of it determines not only how I live the rest of my life but the eternal fate of my soul. I can accept the story of Alexander as probably true but not be 100% sure, but be OK with not being 100% sure and also open to be proven wrong (I promise I wouldn't be up in arms and asserting my unassailable truth if you showed me an argument that he was made up or the record was incorrect) because whether or not I go to hell doesn't depend on any of that.
So with these two conditions, there has to be a lot more scrutiny because the extent of the claims and also the consequences of their truth are far more severe.
What are your thoughts on that?
@@Greyz174 IT def seems as if you're just moving the goalpost over to get your point across.
Regardless of who it is..if one believes anyone thousands of years old was real ( alexander the Great, Roman emperors etc..) they cant just void out Jesus because it doesnt fit their narrative.
For instance the FIRST documents we have that alexander the great ever lived is THREE HUNDRED years AFTER he had died. yet christ myth theory has issues with documents only 40 -150 years out from Christ? how does that make any sense? take note.
What you're arguing for what now is that Christ was divine or not. OF course we have no definite evidence of that. Im arguing that he was a REAL person who was not a myth. a made up person based off pagan Gods.
the only evidence we have that Christ was divine was the tesimony of the witnesses and really nothing else. That I understand. An atheist will never believe even if there were a thousand documents of witnesses. but anyways thats besides the point here.
@@jaromsmiss You can just clarify what you were asking instead of assuming that I was doing a bad faith goalpost shift I order to sneak in me being right. I just figured you were defending the whole Jesus everything as verifiable, especially since you didn't make the "real person/miracles" distinction. Super bad faith of you to assume that I'm aware of what you actually meant but dishonestly shifting the conversation into a place where I can make my point.
OK so if we're just talking about him existing and not the magical part, I'd still go with my needing of more scrutiny point, because it makes sense that people would invent him to create a narrative, and that is still part of a narrative is a narrative that has enormous consequences, so we are of course going to look more at the fine details. Now to be clear, I haven't looked at all of the details. I just started being interested in the verifiable history recently, and I'm going through this content to find out. But like I said, even if there's just the matter of him existing on the table, it's still more important to scrutinize that than there is to scrutinize Alexander the great because if we can show whether or not he existed then we don't even have to address the miraculous part. And it would be valuable to know that he didn't exist because it would be another example of people inventing a person and his story to follow as a way to understand their worldview, which is all sorts of interesting and gives more insight to how people work and how religions are formed which is a hard core part of what draws me to the topic
But again I am not definitely making the claim that he wasn't real, I'm still learning. If you'd like to send reading or videos on the matter my way I'd be more than happy to look at them
@@Greyz174 "You can just clarify what you were asking instead of assuming that I was doing a bad faith goalpost shift I order to sneak in me being right" ........... . considering this entire debate is Richard Carrier who is debating that Christ did NOT exist I would assume those in the comment section would be basing their words off what is in the video? Were you able to watch any of this debate? or?
Plus I never mentioned a thing about Jesus being Divine. at all. You brough that up. So the reality is you assumed as much as I assumed there. I could just as easily say it's bad faith for you to reply the way you did.
What you're saying is not a proper form of rationale. One cannot say they believed that Alexander the Great lived but Not jesus. You do realize that most (99 percent) of historical scholars including world respected scholar Bart Ehrman believe Jesus was a real historical figure. This includes atheist and agnostic historical scholars too. The christ myth theory is a theory that is not respected at all across the board in the historical field. In fact most Christ Myth ideas aren't even peer reviewed because so many scholars already have concluded that Jesus was in fact a real walking human 2000 years ago.
Not only that but there are outside sources from early ancient history. From Josephus to Taticus..we can see that the very very early historians talked about a "Christ" or jesus being killed by a Pilate. (non christian sources)
even though for whatever reason no one wants to use the actual bible as history even though it is...if one added in the biblical documents on top of the outside sources you have more than enough evidence to conclude Jesus was a real individual.
Didnt mean to be rude by my comment but I'm always on the defensive end when someone responds to my comment. I know how some people play mind games on words. thats all. but i feel you.
Licona muh book superstition and 2000 year old myth
Carrier research, study and evidence
That was one of the best debate formats I've seen. And the moderator did a great job of moving things forward. The participants both showed a tremendous amount of respect and courtesy. Wish more were like this.
I haven't listened to closing remarks or Q&A yet. Hoping the last 45 minutes doesn't go south...
instaBlaster...
Licona, historians do not use "goddidit" as an explanation for anything. If you do, then you need to hand back your qualifications.
“Because of the way I’m wired, I’m a natural doubter. I doubt everything.” -Mike Licona 1:18:23
Clearly…
50:44
52:31
57:15
58:43
1:25:23
1:26:44
I'm out at 11 minutes. This guy is worse than Craig. For the love of sanity
Poor mike…he’s wasted his life on nonsense
The Bible states that the Jewish people are yahweh's ( God's) chosen people. The majority of the books in the Bible was written by Jews. Like other religions that favors their own people.
Licona: magic..magic...magic..more magic
I:zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzźzzzzzzźzzz
False memory embellishments are more plausible then a man rising from the dead.
2:08 Are we forgetting that the last 12 verses or Mark are forged and in the earliest versions of Mark we have, for the women there was no resurrection appearance at all. It was the Men who allegedly saw Jesus.
I think Carrier is just being nice and he wants to give his opponent the benefit of the doubt. Other debaters would not have granted this claim.
No one is forgetting that. Even the early church fathers knew what the original ending was and knew of the forged endings from as early as the 2nd century. The earliest scribes marked the extra verses appropriately. It's no secret and never has been.
@@mediamactv then the women who fled the alleged tomb were not comforted or elated, they probably thought that someone had stolen the body and were scared. A bit strange if he had said he would return eh?
Personally I think it highly unlikely there was a tomb, I think he was chucked in a communal grave like everyone else.
The notion that the romans would allow a permanent martyrs shrine of someone who claimed to be King of the Jews is fanciful and naive.
@@jonfromtheuk467 Not strange at all if you read the entire narrative. The disciples never truly understood that Jesus would rise again. None of them. He told them multiple times but they didn't get it. He even told them they wouldn't understand until later. No wonder because the purpose for his death and resurrection was a radical departure from what they had learned growing up.
Also, they had a hard time understanding many things Jesus said because he often spoke metaphorically or in parables. They may have had a hard time knowing when he was speaking metaphorically or literally.
In regards to the women's reaction, fear and trembling was a common reaction to being in the presence of God or angels all throughout the bible.
@@mediamactv Well firstly we can't know what Jesus said verbatim exactly can we? The disciples apparently were not able to read and write , there are no mention of any amanuensis being around at any time - the Gospels were written many decades later in Greek from oral stories that had been in circulation and got changed.
Also its very easy to write in elements like they didnt understand, decades later to fit a chosen narrative yes? Of course if you are writing a gospel to appeal to Jews that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah then you have a hard job, because he was squashed by the very people God had promised would be vanquished so you can just insert ahhh it was all a cunning plan and God raised Jesus/himself so he, or they, are the Messiah after all. Neat literary trick/get out of jail card that can be played there!
As far as fear and trembling goes I dont think it actually happened anyhow. I dont believe in angels/demons....... or God for that matter.
It doesn't matter how unlikely the natural explanation is, it's always going to be more likely than magic 🤷♂️🤔
Richard Carrier's argument is not historical. He argues like a lawyer. The question is, "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" You either answer, "yes" or "no" with reasons. But, rather than do that, he goes off on a spin either stating examples of other historical figures claimed to have resurrected or about hallucinating people. This only creates doubt, but neither proves or disproves the question, but just increases the uncertainty about the likelihood of his opponents argument as if to say, "if you have difficulty believing this other stories, why should you believe the Jesus story?" But they're all unconnected. It is like raising the argument in court that because until the incident under litigation was reported, there's never been a robbery in Florida as a defense that the accused person could never have committed the crime of robbery, being that it is said to have occurred in Florida. What sort of an argument is that? He had zero historical evidence that Jesus couldn't have raisen from the dead.
Great point!!! I think you made some excellent observations
Mike basically said Jesus is real because I said so
That's all they ever do. "Because I want it to be true" and "muh book says".
That's always the tougher position to be debating from. It's always easier to poke all kinds of holes in the argument and create tons of doubt and then use that as your basis for proving Jesus is entirely false. Honestly I don't think it matters how much evidence there is for Jesus. It will always be insufficient for someone no matter how much evidence there is
Wow, it is truly amazing Licona's response (1:29:00) on the chance of resurrection is: "Yes, ever other claimed incidence of resurrection turned out to be false but just found out about one guy in Africa who said resurrections happen! So now I'm believing that they do happen." (ps. This 'well-documented Africa resurrection' claim obviously bogus...there has been plenty of time for it to be confirmed by now.)
Licona says it's a matter of the way we look at the evidence. This is really an admission of the weakness of his position. Flat earthers also make claim this to be the case.
Flat Earthers dont claim its the way u look at the evidence lmao u either have a objective look at the evidence or u dont
I have hallucinations every night - it's called DREAMING
Start a religion! No taxes!
write a book on demons and hell
pheww the 2010 is showing. At least one person owns starships now. 😉
But they are just called that. The design is capable of two-way interplanetary travel without disposing of any parts but definitlely not interstellar travel, at least not without dieing en-route.
There's such a big difference in ability to argue their point, albeit both unconvincingly, between Lincona and Dr Craig. The real shame is there's not really anyone outside if Dr. Carrier, at least to my knowledge, with the ability to convey the historicity of Jesus with such clarity. Incredible job as always by Dr. Carrier here.
Who ever believes these ridiculous stories is truly lost.
someone told me yesterday only 7% of the world's population is atheist......if that figure is true then that's troubling.......i have a feeling it's much higher than that
Fantastic dialog. I struggle to agree with Dr Licona because his presentation is highly presuppositional. Anecdotal evidence of the supernatural is frankly unconvincing. For instance, that would never be used for the FDA to approve medicine. I think Dr Licona is nevertheless brilliant and respectful, I am just confused as to how he's not seeing his total abandonment of objectivity. Dr Carrier presented a position that does NOT require clairvoyance, though I felt he should have pressed harder on Dr Licona's special pleading, argument to authority, and countless other fallacious manners of thinking that have tricked him into a conclusion that is unfathomably improbable. To be blunt, it is exactly these conversations that have contributed to my waning belief in Christianity. The apologist position is DEFENSIVE which indicates presupposition which indicates an inability to present factual evidence in an unbiased manner. All that aside, the fact we can have these conversations is a celebration of humanity. I greatly respect both gentlemen and hope we get to see more of them again really soon.
Also, both gentlemen appear to never age. Whatever they're doing academically is less miraculous than how they've managed to maintain neoteny.
@@chiphebert2509 The same could be said for skepticism, especially Humean reasoning.
Carrier doesn't seem to have researched contemporary miraculous claims, which are abundant. Instead, he just assumes things about them. I think these offer good confirmation of early Christian claims.
@@glurp1 Do you feel that contemporary miracle accounts also offer confirmation of Islam? Mormons? Hindus? Religions of the ancient Greeks and Romans? If not, how are you determining that the miracles confirm your position but fail to confirm others?
@@HumblyQuestioning The attestation of some miracles in multiple religious contexts does not inherently mean that they cancel each other out. Many religions, including Christianity, acknowledge the possibility of different agents being responsible for supernatural events.
Which religion offers the best explanation then depends on other factors. It is often assumed that the claims and evidence related to miracles in different religions is fairly even. However, from my research so far, that does not seem to be the case.
A secular overview of evidence for the nonphysical can be found in Irreducible Mind by Kelly et al.
A Christian overview of evidence for miracles (he also discusses claims in other religions) is Craig Keener's 2-vol work on the subject. He also discusses prophecy in his commentary on Acts, though I haven't read it.
I was a strong atheist, until one night,in which I had a dream, and what a dream it was.
If you would of had that dream, you would believe.
Take my word for it, iam an English man.
And if you don't believe after that, nor would you believe the prophets.
The stupidity of faith
Mike operates on faith which for me is a non starter.
I am looking for testable, reliable, knowledge.
How you can extrapolate Paul's whacky belief in a personal ressurection to evidence for Christ's physical resurrection is beyond me. Notice how Licona surreptitiously turns Paul's word "come" into the word "return". It is clear Paul thinks Jesus will come down to earth but he never couches this event as a return, ever! Licona is reading the gospel story back into Paul and using it to interpret Paul.
yes if you only use the accepted epistles of paul he uses words the coming of lord or revelation of the lord instead of return but that because the people he was talking too probably never saw jesus on earth as most of them were from greece and turkey they would see jesus physically for the first time when he comes down from heaven and at this time he uses the word coming for titus too but didnt mean titus didnt exist before his arrival to paul
@@jayd4ever really that makes zero sense. If they never saw or heard Jesus it would be incumbent on Paul to explain the life and teaching of Jesus to them. That he doesn't is inordinately strange & Christians cannot see it. Bart Ehrman has his own problems with reading Paul. He frequently paraphrases Paul as referring to the return or second coming of Jesus when he never does. He hides this information from his audience. A lot of people for different reasons read things into Paul that simply are not there.
@@jayd4ever Titus: that is a very silly analogy, Titus's existence is, and was not in question and as far as I know, no one expected Titus to return to earth after his death! Is that really the best you've got?
@@ghostriders_1 I think you know an enormous amount more about this than I do, but I agree with what you've said. I see this constantly in the historicity argument... the assumption that the people Paul talks about who also appear in the gospels are... well I don't know how to put it but the assumption is that Paul got those names from the gospel story... which hadn't been written yet, whereas to me it's equally probable that the gospel writers just lifted these names from Paul and created disciple characters around them. I could be wrong, but I find it terribly hard to believe that Paul is aware of the stories about Jesus' life and teachings, since he almost never refers to them specifically. Here is a man you believe had an earthly ministry, made rulings on things like divorce, brotherly love and taxes, you believe this man is the saviour of all mankind, literally the most important person who ever lived, but what he said and did while alive has no importance to you when writing to your congregations. I just don't buy it. With all he knows about just how unreliable the gospels are, I have no idea why Ehrman clings to the historicist position. OK, now I pray I've made some iota of sense.
@@dan4lau Daniel I agree with what you say but I don't think any credible historicist thinks that Paul lifted names from the Gospels as even they concede they were all written 20 years after the demise of Paul. I tend to think that any one Paul mentions, apart from Jesus is a real version of a real person. Mark however is a different kettle of flesh! Anyone he mentions ie either fictional with a symbolic name or a fictional version of a real person ie Cephas.
Paul is the only outsider to switch sides... supposedly. ;-)
The Doctor Well, and James and his brothers.
some say pilate became christian and even some from herod household
Carrier leaves out the most likely explanation for people who claim visions to promote a religion - it's called LYING
S. Carl I guess that argument against that is that these people were subjected to pretty ruthless persecution and many died pretty gruesome deaths. I can understand one person being delusional to the point of being willing to die for something they know not to be true, but all of them? For what gain?
@@MyNameIsJ3ffrey - i'm speaking generally about all religious not your sacred cow in particular
S. Carl I think though that’s the argument many Christian apologist use for Jesus’s existence.
1.) there are Roman sources who speak on Jesus (pliny the younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, and etc). It would appear that even the earliest critics of Christianity didn’t dispute Jesus’s existence.
2.) If you honestly thing Bayesian Probability is a good idea for determining historicity, would you mind expanding on that?
3.) Many people in ancient Canaan had somewhat of a contextual understanding of who Jesus was and it is doubtful that 1st century Christianity in Canaan would’ve had any success if these people didn’t at least have some surrounding corroborating evidence that Jesus existed.
4.) I personally have no doubt that most religious figures actually existed. Whether it be Mohammad or Buddha or etc. the argument really ought to be is whether there’s any legitimacy to their claims.
@@MyNameIsJ3ffrey
1) you are FN crazy to believe in a religion that has satanism on it's face. (human sacrifice, eat the body, drink the blood)
2) the old Testament says there is only one god ------- the new Testament invents 2 more gods.... BOOM! CHECKMATE! ---- you are brainwashed by the DEVILS in this world ---- that gate is narrow my friend!
Rick Carrier recently gave the historicity of JC at around 1/3. That got me thinking (dangerous) So I came up with this "trinity": 1/3 chance it is all fake, 1/3 chance he was a con-man/ illusionist, and 1/3 chance god is a looney.
Mark Licona is delusional
no, he's just a liar. he doesn't believe anything he is saying. it is just a script.
@@spiritsplice true, he most likely just does this as a profession to make money
Does Licona actually believe the things that come out of his own mouth?
How many times did Licona check if Elvis was still in his grave when multiple people claimed to see him alive after he died?
Would you we see news about someone tampering with Elvis's grave? Do we have reason to believe the body was missing and can we verify it's still there?
Thank you Mike you really help me feel comfortable in my atheism.
Even in the 21st century the debate rages about what is supposed to be the single most important fact about christianity and appears even more ambiguous and problematic. This is supposed to be good enough evidence?
Or the issue becomes more ambiguous because more people place an unnecessarily high value on naturalistic explanations.
@@glurp1 Naturalism deserves its reputation due to its repeated reliability in providing observable, demonstrable and verifiable results. Unlike supernaturalism, which is relentless in its inability to cogently explain anything.
@@bradwhelan4466 I disagree, but we have all made vague assertions. The Devil is in the details.
@@glurp1 Vague assertion? My comment is not only evidently true . I challenge you to undermine its veracity by presenting evidence to the contrary.
@@bradwhelan4466 I see several issues. The first is the seeming conflation of methodological and philosophical naturalism. Many supernatural phenomena, such as the resurrection, are more appropriate for historical than scientific inquiry. So methodological naturalism can't even evaluate the question.
Second, some supernatural phenomena can be evaluated to some extent using science. This includes out-of-body experiences during near-death experiences. So far, naturalistic explanations, such as hallucinations due to hypoxia, have failed to fit the data.
Third, philosophical naturalism has yet to explain the mind in any basic way. Consciousness remains inexplicable despite decades of intensive research. And many phenomena directly challenge reductionist models and offer evidence for nonlocal consciousness.
Fourth, some developments in quantum physics raise doubts about materialism rather than confirming it.
Fifth, philosophical naturalism fails to offer a meaningful understanding of morality. It doesn't solve the is-ought problem. It also fails to account for other aspects of human experience like love, which loses its essential meaning in a reductionist model. Many philosophical naturalists try to offer explanations that do not fit their reductuonist assumptions because they can't accept the implications.
Irreducible Mind by Kelly et al. provides an overview of evidence for dualism.
Craig Keener's 2-volume work on miracles offers an overview of evidence in that field. It also discusses the the circularity of Humean skepticism and demonstrates how skeptics often move the goal post when presented with evidence.
Wow, the guy arguing in favor of supernaturalism opens up with a tragic story that's sure to manipulate the emotions of the audience.... NOT surprising in the least.
Anecdotes typically mean no substance or evidence of anything
I really like watching Licona argue, he's about the only theist that seems to try and answer any questions put to him. Pity he makes so many assumptions that are unfounded and then claims that Carrier is doing this when he really isn't.
I think Mike gets lied to a lot, because people will know he'll believe them. He's obviously quite gullible.
Pretty much 🤷♂️
I cannot listen to a grown man defending magic being real.
Soooo.... Mike says that a dead person's "spirit" (which is already in heaven) will be reunited with the dead flesh (magically made whole again) and the two parts will be returned to heaven. How old will this dead person's body be ? Personally I would not like to spend eternity in the body that had just let me down.
@@johnfrench6302 its not something we should think or worry about.....its nonsense
@@johnfrench6302 agreed
@@paulrichards6894 pp
@@mistylover7398 pp??
An excellent debate. They are trying to convince each other rather than pleasing the audience. Carrier stays on track perfectly. Never takes offense. Mike too tries to stay objective. It seems obvious that Carrier's point of view is superior. But I don't like to say who won. They both did.
How many real historians accept the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, Mike!? 👀👀👀👀👀
Starts at 5:13
1:04:56 Mike is guilty here of not accepting that Christian theology makes no sense to some of those who have tried to believe. I grew up in an evangelical home, and it just went from “reality” to “I dont believe this.” It is impossible to believe what you don’t believe. And theist will never accept this reality because it means that their deity is a monster for torturing those who are non-resistant non-believers. Christianity is the worst worldview I’ve yet encountered. Eternal torment is the most immoral thing I can imagine, and y’all worship that BS.
That just means that you fully don't understand theology, which isn't surprising for evangelicals, who tend to stray away from the original theology.
@@dominikdurkovsky8318you completely miss the point.
Not really. You didn't experience a Bad deity, you experienced bad people.
And non-resistant Non-believers have just one problem - God desires, that you take the first step.
He isn't some @ssholish judge, but if you just argue, that because you're a non-resistant Non-believer, that won't make any point.
Neither with your Concept of hell, which isn't even the original orthodox understanding of it.
Hell is one's own Choice to go there.
Every day you have the Choice to either accept God, or reject him through the deeds you do. That's why it's the official christian teaching, that even atheists to to heaven. What matters most is wether you FOLLOW Jesus Christ, rather than just believing.
Also, eternal torment is also BS.
You said that you can't imagine that we worship that, but we don't. We never worshipped such a thing and we never will.
Hell is just a place devoid of God. If you reject God constantly, God will respect your decision. That's it. No eternal torment as in Dante's Inferno. That torment comes from you, not them.
No theist will reject reality, bc that's when you'd make these interpretations.
If christianity's the worst worldview you've ever encountered, then you haven't encountered christianity, you've encountered christians who don't represent their faith.
If you lived in a family of kind nazis or racists, would you thus deduct, that nazism or racism is good ?
@@dominikdurkovsky8318 dude could you be any more condescending? You can’t believe that I took many steps towards god because it means your theology is BS. You aren’t listening at all.
No one hurt me. You are blind, dude, you are talking to a fictional character that your theology built. Talk to someone else, I wasn’t talking to you in the first place.
Poor Richard having to debate the ridiculous with a practising Bible puncher..He doesn't need to prove the narrative...his opposite should have indisputable evidence for it..They cannot and so ..just talk..😅
The issue with Carrie is that he makes opinionated assumptions of what is and is not true, as well as the hero stories of dying and rising gods which in reality have very little parallel connection to Jesus and the resurrection according to actual ancient historical scholars who write, study and lecture on these topics. Carrier is out of his league.
Using the Bible to prove your arguments and beliefs from the Bible. Theists have to use philosophy to word salad the link with their beliefs.
So, I'm super sympathetic to the Christian movement, but we are, essentially, putting Paul on trial here. Who is our primary witness to the veracity of Paul's claims?....... Paul. The guy is, literally, begging us to believe everything he has to say, because does not lie.... but the only method we have of substantiating anything Paul says, is Paul! Lol... Im really not sure this is the best line of reasoning for the Christian position? Would we buy this sort of logic in a court of law? Eeesh. I'm 10 minutes in and in emotional pain.
Then, Mike goes on to show how poor his ability to argue his position by attempting to convince us that Paul was passing on to us oral traditions he received from the Apostles and the like. Yet, Paul HIMSELF insists his information was NOT given to him from any man, but from the resurrected Jesus Himself. Awful work.
Look, when is the believing community going to stop this. Get off this damned train, of attempting to rationalize faith in Christ. Your relationship to God is EXPERIENTIAL, NOT RATIONAL. You came across a message that changed you and enabled you to FEEL God/Jesus. Stop trying to impress the non-believing world, by intellectualizing your position. It NEVER works. Believe. Feel God. Serve your Savior and shut up. Guys, like Chris, are going to always demolish your arguments. Just, stop!
Somewhere around 1:14:00 both speakers retreat into pure abstraction between "everything" and "nothing" and exit empiricism completely for the comfort of their respective blind ditches. This is however, the beautiful futility of that phenomenon we know as Christianity, and its irresolvability is testament itself to the discernment of the society that emerged at the top of global civilization. This is the "sword" that Christianity brings, and the notion that the fool who errs on the side of determining that the best solution is where neither disputant gets cut is the fool favored by God is the conclusion that divine and civil authority must be separated into different sets of metrics pending any final determination of sanity and reality is as good as it gets, because there is no IS to the supernatural by its very definition within human experience.
The central question of the debate itself is absurd, as history itself is not the phenomenon, but rather the hermenutics of witnesses reporting their experience of events. Plutarch begins with mythical characters and from this mist we get kings and heroes. Julian Jaynes went so far as to suggest that up to a certain point, the majority of humans would qualify as schizophrenics. Is Plutarch's account less historical because some of the characters had immortal origins? I say no, because the episodic plots are still human plots interpreted by humans, schizophrenic or not.
The genius of Paul in his "schizo" perspective surpasses this dillema by recontextualizing Christ AND his flock as a superorganism: "the body of Christ" is NOT thus just Jesus on the cross, but includes YOUR own male body hanging bleeding before your eyes in the nonverbal and immediate primitive cortical message that YOU are NOT God, that your perspective is that of something that will DIE, and that NO explanation provides any escape from your mortality save something that is BEYOND your comprehension.
Christianity thus emerged into history as a complete superorganism of a misty origin. Jesus remains impenetrably NOT you, yet your body is his. The Trinitarian doctrine places him paradoxically as both and neither God nor man, and no carnal act or sperm had anything to do with his origin as a character in a story.
And thus it was how I hit upon the idea that restored my own fools "faith" in an unfathomable intelligence throughout the network of all of this information that i believe sets my perspective apart from both of these responsible intelligent scholars with one simple idea that is accesible to anybody.
Unless I missed something, Mr. Licona's argument depends upon the truth of the statement: God = real. Conversely, Mr. Carrier's argument depends upon the statistical probability that God < real.
The very term supernatural means greater than natural, thus God > nature. While we cannot actually demonstrate God apart from the mechanism of human perception, we can easily demonstrate the existence of the greater than real within human perception itself. John Dewey pointed to the optical illusion of Zollner's lines as the need to approach our experience as fully real (natural, or actual) as the crucial premise for discovering otherwise through testing.
Paul began with the premise that Jesus was more than the sum of his parts, so whether Jesus began with myths that coagulated into a single human personality, or an extroadinary man who gathered all of the prior myths into his avatar like iron filings to a magnet, Jesus is and remains more than real, NOT less, or identical to a purely human experience.
Paul reported his own experience as he interpreted its meaning. If that isn't a "historical account," then what is it?
Though these discussions never resolve ANYTHING, they seem to keep us focused on the inevitablity of our foolishness...
Lacona said “ this guy is whiter then you and me, but he married a black women from Congo” what was his point?
Its funny that both debaters admitted that they had had hallucinations - a well known phenomenon. Yet one of them thinks a reresection occurred.
Zuess did create man,and zoaster died so we can fuckup,rah is also a good,and so is the great Shiva,.also innana is also a goddess,.
But not Joseph Smith,he lieth,
And I'm still on the fence with haré krishna
all these gods are different to jesus
1:13:18 scientists saying the big bang happened once or was unique does not mean the big bang is the absolute beginning, or that there was "nothing" before that. He's assuming the singularity appeared out of nothing, but nobody knows that. He's conflating things.
The trouble with applying Bayes' theorem is that it requires both information that scholars don't have and an understanding of (when, how, and whether to apply) Bayes' theorem that scholars don't have.
The aledge fact of the desapearence of the body of Jesus Christ mean: 1th- e never was in the place where they say it desapeared; 2th assuming without grant that Christ was deposed in a tumb: a)- they check the wrong tumb, b)-somebody move the body( from the tumb where conveniently the scriptures placed two Roman soldiers); c)- that never happened.
Talk and talk and say nothing of substance. Give some proof outside the bible.,Good luck
5:15 Lacuna opening.
25:10 - Carrier opening.
You are very stupid.
@@williancamaraporteladefran1791 very emotional arent you
@@williancamaraporteladefran1791 Iae, cara. Bom saber que tem BR por aqui!
@@j.victor puxa, fiquei feliz também!
@@williancamaraporteladefran1791 Na verdade, estou com algumas dúvidas sobre a ressurreição e estou assistindo todos os debates que consigo achar. Isso é muito ruim. Estou me sentindo muito mal.
Usando termos bem católicos, eu espero que esteja no purgatório. O lado ruim é que dói estar aqui, mas o lado bom é que (pelo menos) eu vou sair em algum lugar!
If Jesus resurrected why nobody arrested him again? I'm pretty sure the Romans were good at enforcing the laws back then.
LMFAO, this is your brain on atheism. I have honestly never laughed at a youtube comment so hard.
LOLLLL!!!! pls dont spoil ur image coz this is the most stupidest comment I ever read
If the Roman authorities believed that Jesus Christ was resurrected and standing right in front of them, what would be the point of arresting Jesus? To put Jesus to death again and have Jesus rise from the dead again?
@@stalemateib3600 That's just dumb. They wouldn't assume he was resurrected, they would assume he survived his execution.
@@spiritsplice you're raising a separate objection irrelevant to what I was trying to address (though I understand your rationale--under that separate scenario, though, one would wonder about the competence of the Roman soldiers who helped officiate the crucifixion).
Well someone (we dont know who) says Paul says xyz so bam, we have the facts 🤪👌🏾
1:37:25 Biggest dodge non-answer in the history of debate
Too crazy for the flat earth society, you always have a home with the jesus mythers...lol
Son of Mary Jesus did not predict that he will die for sin of gullible Christian and resurrect in three days. This is just made up lies by Paul and gongs
Jesus wasn't the first to be raised from the dead. Lazarus was
This dude is fixated on race. And also gives a lot of anecdotes.
Within ten minutes, he demonstrates how the Scriptures were written... flawed imagination. Also, comstantly referring to Dr. William Craig as "Bill" is simply name dropping... as if that makes this apologist credible.
Perhaps bc he knows him on more of a personal level. It could be just as simple as that and not for any other deeper reason. And isn't using the term flawed imagination coming at this from a very pre-supposed perspective/bias?
Both are very gentlemen. I like Mike though I am a non-believer.