Yyyyup. I think we need to be more clear that the historical records point to Christianity being a religion created/built by Pope Paul, using the deceased messiah as his "new & improved" god figure... & the followers of the time couldn't even resist from giving Paul magical powers either! He could supposedly fly & is said to have don't so in a "throw down" with a competing, contemporary religious figure. These accounts tell us that we need to be *more* critical & suspicious of historical accounts of jesus & early Christianity.
Agree. It is on the same level as observing that some people believe the earth is flat. so therefore the earth is flat. EDIT: Damn. Should watch the full video before commenting.
Not "most". ALL undisputed sources are simply reports of what some people believed. Historians of the time could have, (and I suspect probably did), also comment on different beliefs held by different groups.I'm pretty certain that Christians apologists today wouldn't accept those reports as evidence that the other religion was true.
It has also been pointed out that we have many people alive today who *claimed to have been abducted by aliens.* As dubious as those claims are, there is stronger evidence of alien abductions than the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. There are not even eyewitnesses who testified that Jesus was actually resurrected, unlike the many alien abductees who have given video testimony of their claims. I'll bet these Christians who believe Jesus really was resurrected by a god would still dismiss the eyewitness testimonies of alien abductees!
It's the Fresh Prince argument for Authenticity... "Now this is the story, all about how..." None of the reports requires anything to happen but a messianic jew to TELL what they believe and the historian to write it down as the belief of a fancy new sect. Totally works in those frameworks and most of the sources even word it directly that way. Brilliant, cause surely they would not make up claims they knew weren't true? Uhhh not so fast, Bucko... why then does Josephus History of the Anquity of Jews also mention at least a dozen OTHER claimants to the title "Messiah" walking around and having adherents to their claims? Truthyness (TM Colbert Report) does not seem to be the deciding factor for what reports were takable and which ones were implausible. Plus there is this confusion with Christos and Chrestos, that implies two different cults running around Rome at around the same time... The whole affair seems to lose much in evidential nature once you collect all these parts and look at them simultaneously. The "historicists" want to make you believe that these ancient histoirans had Jesus death certificate in their books as an appendix, when all they had was a newspaper clipping saying "new religious group reports about its claims, read more on Page 15!"
I recall that when I started looking into arguments in favor of Christianity, I was made somewhat nervous by this idea that there’s evidence outside of the Bible to warrant belief. As much as I didn’t want to be wrong about my decision to deconvert years ago, I have always worked to have to fortitude to concede points and revise my position when the evidence is present and compelling. When I was finally presented this body of evidence, I was in awe of how weak it was. It was hyped up so much that I was disappointed when I finally saw it. I was expecting to have to put up a fight and wrestle with it extensively, just like I had done when my views on creationism were challenged by evidence for evolution. Over time, I have only found better and better reasons to doubt that the Christian articles of faith have any grounding in reality.
@Gabe Norman - but ... is there any _reasonable_ evidence for the resurrection of Jesus by some god??? The word *reasonable* really matters, because without that one word, many have also claimed that _"there is plenty of evidence that Mohammad's message from Allah is true"._ A claim I doubt just as much as I doubt the Jesus resurrection claim. Adding the caveat that the evidence must be _reasonable_ gives me a reason to care what you say ... so ... *do you have any **_reasonable_** evidence that a god really did resurrect Jesus?* I will now wait patiently ...
That is a pretty good summary of the situation. Well except for claiming creation cretinism had anything fightable to offer... even with only a lukewarm grasp on biology you run into contradicitons and distorted arguments pretty soon. Just look at Kent Hovind still peddling the "six different kinds of evolution"... why would that matter? Darwin still only talked about biology, so it's poisoning the well ... and that is how they START to make an argument, by sprinkling choice quotes all over science instead of going straight for the best evidence in biology.
Ugly German Truths for sure, I really didn’t have anything to back up my belief in creationism besides what false information I had been spoon fed as a child. A friend of mine gave me a book called Evolution and the Myth of Creationism when I was a teen. I NEVER read it. I was so convinced that it was all bullshit with my clever “why are there still monkeys” lines. It was only when I began doubting religion for other reasons did I start to realize that I had been dogmatically against listening to unbiased explanations of evolutionary theory out of fear that I would realize that I was wrong. I hid from understanding it correctly, and I regret that immensely. Now I listen to conflicting opinions and arguments no matter how nervous I am that I could be wrong.
Because they are brainwashed to be that stupid and arrogant these two dumb delusional morons just want the claims of their cult to be true just as any Christian does.
But... but ... but... creationism LITERALLY invented the FE model of evidence: "show how you think the actual science is mistaken about making sense, then imply that means your model is true, without giving any positive evidence for any claim, only presumably negative evidence against the other side"
The single strongest non-biblical "evidence" for the _existence_ of Jesus (never mind the resurrection) is literally that passage from... man, I always conflate all these people. Tacitus, I think? It goes something like "Christians, who believe in a figure they call The Christ". No mention of Jesus at all. It could even be an entirely different religion that just got rolled up into the current version of christianity as time went on and fragments of documents were put together to form the bible. And it's the strongest piece of evidence for Jesus existing even though I can point to that South Park episode on scientology and it's exactly the same thing. Less vague, in fact. "Scientologists, who believe in a figure they call Lord Xenu" is less uncertain than Tacitus(?) merely mentioning cult members. It's not enough breadcrumbs to feed a starving _tardigrade._
@@EdwardHowton Edward Howdon, It was Tacitus who wrote in the second century and only about followers of a Chrestus (often mistranslated as Christ) "Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind." Tacitus wrote nearly a hundred years
John Gleeman - We have zero about Yeshuah Ben Josef in his life time. We have not a scrab about him written in the first century. We have hearsay about followers of a Chrestus from Tacitus around 116 AD. This was 5 generations after someone got executed as rebel.
@TorianTammas Thanks. I've been at this so long that Tacitus, Josephus, and Pliny the Younger kind of just... merged together in my head. It's all so dumb. It's not even hearsay evidence (as if there were such a thing). It's hearsay _OF_ hearsay, two or more layers deep.
@@EdwardHowton Not to mention all we get from Pliny is that there were Christians. Which, well duh, there still are. But to draw from your example this proves nothing about the veracity of their beliefs. It'd be like claiming that because there are scientologists, then Xenu exists.
Hmm, these two are highly unconvincing. I find the evidence for the death and resurrection of Sherlock Holmes to be far more compelling ! I mean we have Dr Watson, Mrs Hudson, Inspector Lagrange, Mycroft Holmes, and a host of other people who had dealings with Holmes. Plus Holmes has his own museum in Baker Street, London. All well documented, in slightly dated, but good English. None of this Aramaic or Greek crap !
Lestrade not Lagrange :D And I've been to the Sherlock Exhibit at "221B Baker Street".. i wouldn't call it a Museum as it was created from scratch, not by collecting authentic artifacts :D The House does not have the street address 221, it's all a lie :D OH that is precious!!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/221B_Baker_Street Baker Street in 1890 when Holmes allegedly was active, did not have any numbers higher than 85! :D They renamed a couple of other small shreds of road to Bakerstreet around 1930 to get rid of a lot of the "one block only" addresses...
@@Ugly_German_Truths Funnily enough 221 Baker St used to be the London Transport Lost Property Office ! (Where umbrellas, brief cases and other stuff left on buses and trains ended up ). Yes Lestrade, thanks for the correction.
The clear subtext of this discussion is that Christianity foundered on the death of Jesus but some bright spark came up with the idea of a resurrection story (no doubt because it had been done before) and pushed the narrative along with some stories about miracles performed when Jesus was alive and, hey presto, it drew a number of credulous followers. Given platitudes that the meek will inherit the earth and promises such as eternal life it is not hard to see the attraction particularly amongst people who had harsh, hopeless and short lives by modern day standards. We are simply seeing the emergence and growth of a myth ultimately backed up by a book penned by various devotees over the course of the century that followed.
CC: LOADS of Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (with Two Scholars™) Literally the two Scholars™: _The extra biblical evidence is not enough to say the resurrection happened._
@@RandomBeing101 what point? They literally both stated exactly that the extra biblical evidence is not enough to say the resurrection happened. They literally said that, what's there to 'get'? Christianity is empty, precious little evidence to support it and the adherents can't even agree on what the message is supposed to be. And then you have hacks like cc who pretend they have a mountain of evidence, but if you listen carefully, they have nothing. The arguments they do present are also not specific enough to discriminate between any other god delusion.
@@RandomBeing101 Liars4Jesus abound, it is true. When creationists can demonstrate even the plausibiliy of their claims, and only then, are they worth listening to. They are crtainly incapable of demonstrating the truth of their claims, despite a few thousand years of opportunity.
@@RandomBeing101 If you disagree then present your demonstrations that creationists' claims are true. If you cannot then your passive/aggressive/dismissive response is inappropriate and perhaps you use it to save face.
5:10 hearing my kids at that age talk about things, has been probably the most entertaining thing about parenting kids at that age. My youngest is aging out of it, and I'm grieving the loss of such adorableness.
Got in an argument with a pastor last night Him: I believe the earth is 10,000 years old Me: why? Him: because if you look at the Bible that’s about the age it gives Me: ok well let me show you coral reef growths, dendrochronology, archaeology, paleontology, red shifting from old stars, and links to all the peer reviewed papers published showing you the approximate age of the earth and universe. ( he literally said this it even isn’t paraphrase at this point ) Him: Well if you are just going to antagonize me we aren’t going to get anywhere.
Nathaniel J Franco no it was just him and I, I have been going to that church for awhile. The conversation started because he brought up the gnostic Christians in his sermon and I was talking about how they were interesting and their beliefs and he said it’s blind faith and then we started to talk about faith and it lead to that point in like 15 minutes. The conversation ended right after that with him saying basically “ I think hell is gonna be a hot place “
If anyone wants to be amused, check out this book called "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. It's a funny [fictional of course] account of the life of Christ from about the age of 6 onward according to a lesser-angel named Biff. One of my favorite passages is this "The first time I saw the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. Just the tail end and the hind legs were visible on the outside; the head and forelegs were halfway down the hatch. He was six, like me, and his beard had not come in fully, so he didn’t look much like the pictures you’ve seen of him. His eyes were like dark honey, and they smiled at me out of a mop of blue-black curls that framed his face. There was a light older than Moses in those eyes. “Unclean! Unclean!” I screamed, pointing at the boy, so my mother would see that I knew the law, but she ignored me, as did all the other mothers who were filling their jars at the well. The boy took the lizard from his mouth and handed it to his younger brother, who sat beside him in the sand. The younger boy played with the lizard for a while, teasing it until it reared its little head as if to bite, then he picked up a rock and mashed the creatures head. Bewildered, he pushed the dead lizard around in the sand, and once assured that it wasn’t going anywhere on its own, he picked it up and handed it back to his older brother. Into his mouth went the lizard, and before I could accuse, out it came again, squirming and alive and ready to bite once again. He handed it back to his younger brother, who smote it mightily with the rock, starting or ending the whole process again. I watched the lizard die three more times before I said, “I want to do that too.” The Savior removed the lizard from his mouth and said, “Which part?” ...and so on 😈 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb:_The_Gospel_According_to_Biff,_Christ's_Childhood_Pal
@@MatthewCaunsfield That one draws mightily on the "non canonical" texts like the gospel of Judas or thomas and the so called childhood gospels... Including Jesus taking a sabbatical in India to learn more than he could in Israel and that explaining much of the gap between storming the temple at 12 and turning up in full charismatic rabbi mode at his 30th birthday :-p
@@Ugly_German_Truths Thanks - I've heard bits and pieces of those gospels over the years and was reminded of the novel, so at least I wasn't imagining the connection!
I got a 5 minute ad on this video explaining how god is the best explanation for the creation and fine tuning of the universe. Using all of the normal debunked arguments that theists used day in and day out. These people need to learn how illogical and stupid they sound when they use these terrible and tired arguments.
Sage of Synergism that just means you lack a proper understanding of astrophysics, Big Bang cosmology, and evolution. The universe is NOT fine tuned for life. The Big Bang does NOT talk about the creation of the universe. Sorry.
@Sage of Synergism "Its deduced from Einsteins theory of relativity that space matter and time are not eternal, they came into existence" Einstein makes no statements regarding that, the laws of thermodynamics LITERALLY say the opposite and beyond that deduced by WHOM??? You are either an unabashed liar, an uneducated fool or a combination of both. Jesus must be proud that somebody would lie about him existing SO ineptly! Giving the perfect example of why honest and sane people should not become christians, when the insane liars already take up all the frontrow in his little fanclub!
Well that's hardly convincing. Now if it was a friend of a friend of your cousin's brother's uncle, well that'd be different. Sadly, as it is though,.....
I disagree, my friend of a friend of my cousin's brother is bigger than your friend of a friend of your cousin's brother and they say it's not true! So there!!
I would love to see a Christian apologist who is not a Mormon explain how the argument for the resurrection of Jesus is qualitatively any different from the argument for the discovery of the Golden Plates by Joseph Smith. In both cases, you have a group of people who were fervently religious and came to believe in an extraordinary and virtually unprecedented occurrence for which outside sourcing of the contended facts is nonexistent other than to say that they came to believe in it.
Joseph Smith was a con man and was known for making things up. He would tell people that he had a magic rock that could find treasure but the treasure was hexxed so it would sink if you tried to dig it up.
@@memesredacted and that still doesn't explain how people coming to believe in the Golden Plates must have been somehow duped or come to believe in some other fashion besides actual direct witness but Jesus's alleged disciples allegedly came to believe through direct witness of true events. Seriously, if you look at history, you will find a lot of people who came to believe a lot of strange things and believed in them earnestly. There is nothing necessarily unique to the belief of the early Christians, and that's if we accept that there is something remotely resembling an eyewitness account in any of the gospels or in the rest of the New Testament.
@@memesredacted So? Abraham was a con man known for making things up (like "those other gods aren't REAL, they're just fragments of The One True God!!!").
Or, another way of saying this which is relevant to this video: "I believe in the resurrection of Jesus because it is inspiring to me." The idea of a person giving himself to save me is humbling. And, the idea of that same person holding power over death is invigorating. By me holding that thought, I have courage to face whatever stands before me--confident this person who died and lives for me will continue to have my back in all things. ... This is an absolutely unassailable position. It neither needs to be defended, nor can it really be defended--because it is rooted in my own subjective mind. ... To the person who holds such a position, does it matter whether or not I can find the exact stone which was rolled over his grave, or the nails from the cross? None of those things matter--because regardless of anything physical--I choose to hold that "belief" precious in my own mind. So, any "proof" in favor or against is completely irrelevant to such faith. It just doesn't matter. ... Somehow people completely lost sight of the powerful subjectivity of religion--that people are simply free to believe in what helps them to survive every day. But for all human history, what I describe was the exact form of religion. People "believed" in what they desired to believe (individually, socially or whatever). People in the ancient world didn't search for rocks and icons to "prove" stuff. They simply believed or they didn't. Don't think about "religion" in terms of the televangelist who is peddling his nonsense. Think about religion in terms of human survival over millennia. The form of religion I describe is the one which humans have held for time immemorial: Faith which is unashamedly subjective and personal.
When I see an apologist use the generic term "scholar" to describe someone has has qualifications in an unrelated subject, so as to imply they are an authority in the subject being discussed, when they are NOT an authority, is simply dishonest.
Argument from _we know our audience has the intelligence of damp mold and the attention span of a four year old overdosing on a speedball so we're just going to talk until they lose interest and assume we know what we're talking about because actually using their brain takes too much effort._ The high-energy creationist's favorite.
Why don't the wise men who travelled from afar ever get examined as a source? Surely their countrymen wrote about them leaving on this journey to meet the son of god... and surely they wrote about meeting him when they got back...
Shiftace - They are a literary invention. It was common for heathens that stars or other signs of significance show up when great people are born. The magic in the story are Persian priests who read the will of the gods through the stars. By the way this kind of astrology was forbidden by death by god according to the old Testament. So the author who invented thus story element must have written his fiction far away from Jerusalem.
There is one contemporary worth mentioning by name; Philo of Alexandria (25 BCE - 50 CE) a Jewish philosopher; who actually lived during the time of Jesus. He even visited Jerusalem during his life time and it stands to reason that Philo would have at least heard about Jesus yet he makes no mention of a man by that name, any of his twelve apostles in any of his works and does not mention Christianity. While Philo’s opinions on the Old Testament are very clear. Think about why that is? Either what was happening in Jerusalem he did not consider worth writing about, or Christianity at the time was such a small and insignificant sect he could not be bothered or the events as described in the Bible simply did not happen!
Also the Essene Sect (Dead Sea Scrolls people) never mention Christians or Christ and they were prolific writers 40 years after Christs supposed death.
14:33 - - "Even after this shameful execution." I have never understood this position or the justification for hating Jews based on the 'fact' that they 'killed Jesus'. The whole reason for the existence of Jesus was so he could be a human blood sacrifice to expiate our past and future sins. By opposing his crucifixion you are opposing the Will of God.
Yes,they seem to want it both ways,Jesus had to die for 'our' sins, his main task on earth,yet want to blame the people who made it possible, how else was he going to die,suicide?
hey Paulogia! big fan... I've been talking to a lot of people about evidence for science and evidence against religions but it seems like most people fall back to their fear of hell and can't get past it. they can fully understand my arguments and even agree with some of them but their fear of hell is just too strong to drop their beliefs. i also remember back when i lost my religion there was a palpable barrier i had to get through surrounding hell and the fear of gods rath. i ended up screaming into the sky for god to show his face or strike me down. he did neither. i felt the fear of hell shed off my shoulders as if i lost a large weight. being that this was so hard, even for someone who was already convinced no gods existed for years, i feel like we should put out more logical evidence against hell. i think if we can convince these people there's no hell and the very idea of hell is actually a truly absurd idea then maybe it'll be easier for others to open their minds to other arguments. I've been sending your videos out the most because I've seen that arrogance and profanity will close up their minds faster than almost anything so i really like and respect your style. keep up the good work. I love debating people and usually come up with some pretty solid arguments. I'm here in Mississippi in the heart of the Bible belt and most of the people i talk to have never met an atheist before so I'm a bit of a culture shock for them. I feel like In order to fix a problem you have to go to the heart of the problem. these people have built a pretty solid echo chamber around themselves and refuse to even listen to people with dissenting ideas. because of that I've heard some really terrible arguments for religion and against science. usually that they've found the ark, that dinosaur bones were put here by the devil to confuse us and that it's better to believe and be wrong than to disbelieve and be wrong as well as gross misrepresentations of evolution. many kids out here have told me that their teachers refuse to teach anything that contradicts their religion, which i thought was illegal in America. it's quite disgusting how they're getting away with it... they're robbing the world of potential scientists, biologists, geologists, physicists... but for some reason they find no issues with the medical field, blows my mind. anyway if you wanted to colab with me on this anti hell video idea I'd be honored. hope to hear from you. Later.
@Sage of Synergism if you're playing it safe then why aren't you a Muslim too. you do know they have the third and most recent testament from Yahweh. if you just believe in Jesus you'll end up in their hell. secondly you obviously don't know the first thing about evolution. why don't you go take a class so you might figure out how blood evolved. humans have guided the evolution of wolves for hundreds of years and we've created everything from a great dane to a Chihuahua. if you can't see that as evolution then there's no hope for you. humans are far more similar to apes than a pitbull is to a Yorkie. if you think about hell the way westboro Baptist Church thinks about it they say 99 percent of all humans will end up in hell. so as far as i see it if it did exist heaven is full of all the crazy and gullible people and hell is full of everyone else. all the smart people, all the fun people, anybody worth a salt to hang out with for eternity. if you do the math you would expect hell to be full of trillions or quadrillions of people with thousands entering every day. you tell me how a loving God would sit back and watch this happen to his children without providing any new evidence to believe what's obviously untrue. he would be the most immoral father of all time. if i was in heaven and saw what he was doing i would put a stop to it. i would do everything i could to open his eyes to the evil he's doing. the fact that you don't have a problem with his system of blood sacrifice in exchange for infinite torture really makes me question your morality. i would much rather enjoy my nightly view of trillions upon trillions of stars day in and day out creating all the elements in the universe without any worry and an abusive sky Daddy. science has given us so much to look forward to and religion just wants to drag us back. i say if you want to believe in middle Eastern mythology you should go live with the other religious wakos in sand land with none of our modern technology. you don't deserve to reap the rewards science has gifted us. if you truly believed you should just run out in traffic without looking so that you can get to heaven faster, but i bet you wouldn't do that because you aren't actually sure what you believe is true. you're just scared of whoever has the biggest stick and yet you haven't figured out it's the Muslims with the worst stick.
@Sage of Synergism Christians don't stop sinning from a fear of hell. they believe they can do all the evil they want and all they have to do is ask their sky Daddy for forgiveness and all is good. i have seen first hand how corrupt and evil they can become...
and the Bible says special creation, the flood, Stars can just float around the sky and hover over a manger, and never bother to mention the vast quantities of life that have gone extinct so I'd say just with those basic ideas the Bibles gotten a lot wrong...
"I feel like we should put out more logical evidence against hell." What can anyone reasonably say about an afterlife when there is no way to investigate any question we may have? The only way to experience an afterlife is by dying. There can never be any evidence, so it seems there is little point in talking about hell.
@Sage of Synergism "If christians are wrong about hell we will all be fine." Unfortunately, if Christians are wrong then Muslims might be right, and worshiping Jesus as God would send us straight to hell. There's no winning strategy when it comes to guessing which religion is right. "No science contradicts the Bible." Surely we're not including the book of Genesis. Some people claim that Genesis is the true history of the Earth, while other people prefer science, but either way it would be impossible to view Genesis and science as agreeing with each other. "If evolution is true which evolved first: blood or blood vessels or the heart?" Evolution doesn't proceed in order like a factory assembly line. In many situations multiple things will evolve simultaneously, such as how a predator evolves to better capture its prey, and prey evolve to better evade their predators. Blood, blood vessels, and the heart are ancient systems that have surely gone through many changes over time, so much so that their original forms might be barely recognizable compared to what we see today. At some point in the past we'd probably struggle to decide whether something qualifies as blood, or a blood vessel, or a heart, so which came first would mostly depend upon how flexible we choose to be with the definitions of these concepts. What exactly is the definition of a blood vessel? Is it just any container which prevents blood from escaping the body? Using that broad definition, surely the blood vessel came first, though originally it would have served to prevent things other than blood from escaping. On the other hand, if we take blood vessel to mean the modern sophisticated network of channels to guide the flow of blood, then surely blood vessels evolved last. Depending on how exactly we define a heart, most likely the heart developed last of the three, since a heart is merely a centralized mechanism for encouraging blood to circulate. It's very necessary in modern animals that have evolved to depend on it, but simpler creatures could have still found blood to be a useful source of energy and nutrients even if it merely sloshed around through the normal motions of their bodies.
Is this part 1 of further episodes? I’m glad I’m not the only atheist that listened to the whole 3 hour podcast. I’m enjoying your breakdown of that podcast.
This is hilarious. Firstly (as Mr P correctly points out) neither of these two are actually 'scholars' in relation to the subject of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection. Secondly, their rambling pontifications appear to conclude (again, as Mr P points out) that there aren't really any convincing non-biblical sources to support the resurrection story, so what is the point of having these two waffle about the subject? I am more of a scholar (of history) than either of these two as I studied the topic at university and taught history for some years. I did not specialise in biblical history, or Middle Eastern history, or even Classical Antiquity in general, but I have a good understanding of these areas and, crucially, I understand what constitutes good historical evidence and what does not... so I consider myself to have more relevant expertise than either of them and I can say without fear of contradiction that there is no strong historical evidence that Yeshua ben Ioseph even existed, let alone that he was resurrected. It is merely plausible that such a character may have been around in the early first century, that such a person may have made enemies amongst the Jewish establishment, and that he may have been put to death by the Romans as a threat to public order or to placate influential locals, or because he was seen as a rabble rouser or troublemaker. All these things are possible, and perhaps plausible, but possible and plausible are not the criteria by which historians assess the historicity of claims. It was always possible and plausible that daring and adventurous Viking seafarers might have ventured Westward from their colonies in Iceland and Greenland and discovered North America, but this was not known for a fact for many centuries. The eventual appearance of the Icelandic Sagas making this claim was good evidence, and in fact a lot stronger than the 'evidence' for the life and death of Jesus, but again it was just a claim, even if a highly plausible and believable one. Historians did not grant the absolutely verified fact of the Vikings' short-lived occupation of a corner of Newfoundland until the indisputable archaeological evidence of a Viking settlement there was actually discovered, and from that point on we can say that it was established beyond any reasonable doubt that these intrepid Scandinavians did indeed cross the Atlantic centuries before Columbus. That is how the study of history works... a claim has to be more than just possible or plausible before it can be treated as verified to any reasonable standard - and that's just the mere existence of a figure. The claims for Jesus' miracles and resurrection from the dead are not only implausible and highly improbable, but they are supported by no good evidence whatsoever. There is no contemporary evidence at all and the claims of the gospel writers are no more convincing than (for example) the claims of the mythical blind poet Homer about divine interventions in the Trojan War of the second millennia BC. The fact that Troy was probably an actual place, near modern day Izmir, does not mean that Homer's Iliad is historically accurate. There are some Christian historians (though a minority of the profession here in the UK), but I don't know of any serious historian anywhere who regards the New Testament gospels as reliable sources, based on the historical evidence (and if they believe this based on factors other than historical evidence then they are not really credible or serious historians at all).
@@RandomBeing101 - Such people might well say those things... they say a lot of idiotic things which are not usually worth responding to because they're not impressed or persuaded by logical or rational argument, or evidence. I don't get the point that Mr polk is making here.
They always go to Josephus, and forget the fact that he was born around the JC got nailed. It doesn't make him an eye witness, at best it was barely 2nd hand. There were plenty of other people around who would have been around and would have known, and yet they are silent on this.
I’m a photographer, and I’m finishing a dissertation in philosophy so I can have expensive letters behind my name. Why you gotta single out photographers talking philosophy.
First! Shannon Q’s post is apocryphal and The Gay Libertarian’s doesn’t count for obvious reasons, so my post really is the earliest eye-witness attestation of how great this video is.
Christians didn't start worshipping on Sundays until Constantine made it law on March 21, 321 C.E.. When I was a Christian, I didn't know such things. Now that I don't believe in "god" at all it's amazing how much I know about the religion that I said I knew a lot about. If you don't want to be an Atheist don't read the Bible like I did.
I was feeling a little glum this morning until you slipped in that clip of "that is one big pile of it". So perfect! Now I'll be giggling to myself all day. Actually, after hearing the childish whine of WLC and then watching the pathetic straw grasping of these amatuer apologists, I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the ones who are sincere. (as opposed to all the greedy charlatans cashing in on the straw-grasping masses)
But neither Josephus, nor Tacitus, nor Seneca wrote a single word about Mohammad !!! ;-p (I didn't even have to look it up, they lived 450 to 500 years too early for anything like that :-p)
@@charbelbejjani5541 i seem to recall some crusades and forceful conversion on the part of christianity. It's weird how, so many cultures that have been lost, were lost because someone bigger came by and said "my book is true and you will be tortured for eternity if you say otherwise"
@@catelynh1020 The crusades began in 1095, more than a thousand years after the birth of Christianity. Islam began its military conquest with Muhammad himself (he captured Mecca, he massacred the jews and he even attacked the byzantines but was defeated). Compare this agressive attitude of Muhammad with Jesus. Jesus never engaged in any militiray conflict of any sort. Also, the crusades were not forceful conversions of muslims to Christianity. Pope Urban II called to the crusades for many reasons (retake christian kingdoms, heal the Great Shiism between Orthodox and Catholics, protect christians pilgrims to Jerusalem and help the europeean society by giving a chance to some violent knights to redeem themselves), but converting the muslims was not one of them.
@@charbelbejjani5541 (Edited for legibility) I expect that we have different definitions of crusade. If we are only calling the fight to reclaim holy lands in the 1000s to 1200s the crusades then yeah, it was not about forceful conversion. But the term crusade has also been used for religiously sanctioned militarized actions to fight paganism and heresy. This is the version of crusade that I am referring to. Militarized campaigns of christians whose goal was to stop the worship of something else. I was not specifying muslims in my previous comment, just aggressive, militarized conversions. And that doesn't hold to the other forced conversions. Because i can never remember them all, here's a quick list from wikipedia: "Examples of forced conversion to Christianity include: the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I, the forced conversion and violent assimilation of pagan tribes in medieval Europe, the Inquisition, including its manifestations in Goa, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain, the forced conversion of indigenous children in North America and Australia, and, since 1992, the forced conversion of Hindus in Northeast India."
I read a true story in which a man was clinically declared dead but he came to life after 2 days and walked away from the post mortem room. Doctors say it's quite possible for a living person to appear dead.
Seems like a conflict of interest for Christian advertisers to target atheist channels (you can exclude these even when they contain religious keywords), and then complain about the video and have it demonetized. It's like they give it time to get their ad out and then demonetize so they end up with free advertising.
I got an ad for a ridiculous (perhaps that was superfluous of me to say) Pure Flix film about some biker trying to get out of his gang because he's suddenly found Jesus. It was good for a laugh or two.
I didn't pay enough attention to who the advertiser was, I got one "teaching" Christians how to respond when an atheist tells them that belief isn't a choice
@@deluxeassortment Hmmm... I'm pretty sure it's deliberate. Advertising on atheist videos isn't an accident, we're exactly who they're trying to proselytize to.
Why do they spend so much time justifying something anyone would dismiss if it was said that Elvis was resurrected? I mean, where are the arguments for Santa? It’s so repetitive. Good job slogging through the same-old-same-old Paul!
Yeah, they've kind of skipped that step. To have been resurrected he first has to have died, and to have died he first has to have lived. You need to demonstrate the _existence_ of Jesus (and specifically the Jesus described in the Bible, not just some guy named Jesus who lived in the area at the time) before you can go any further. As yet. nobody has done so.
@@Grim_Beard _not just some guy named Jesus who lived in the area at the time_ indeed, there were a lot, it was a popular name at the time. I seem to recall at least one was actually one of the guys trying for messianic status (which was also popular at the time).
@@KaiHenningsen Exactly the point. It's like finding a 'Parker, P.' in the New York City phone directory and using that as evidence that Spiderman is real.
There is evidence of certain jesus figures. There just isn't evidence that they were all the same person and there's no evidence that here actually performed miracles.
LOL, Paul, you had me at the clip of Jeff Goldblum approaching the large pile of dino scat, with the implied remark "That's a big pile of shit" in regard to long, ponderous apologetics! I would hug you if you were in front of me right now! That was mental catnip.
*I find it quite revealing that no apologist ever has been able to present a convincing argument for the existence of their alleged bible characters to me and all the atheists I know* Are all apologists 1. *just not proficient at presenting convincing evidence?* or 2. *There exists no good evidence for apologists to present?*
The problem is that the evidence they present is not the reason for their own belief. So because they already believe for other reasons, they fail to understand that the evidence they present is not convincing.
I just cannot understand how the existence of a persecuted Christianity a good time before the death of Jesus of Nazareth does not invalidate everything we thought we knew about Christianity. In the scenario painted around 11:40 or so, Jesus already had enough of an impact in the three years of religious campaign before his death that Rome learned about it and organized the persecution of Christians, apparently all around the empire, before those three years passed. Then Jesus had to make himself visible by riding a donkey into Jerusalem so that the Pharisees could take notice, and then he had to throw the merchants out of the temple to get the Pharisees angry enough to have him arrested. And then he did not have enough of a following to be protected by more than 11 of his disciples, and then he had to be judged by Pilate and Herod because neither of them had any idea of who he was, even though the empire that they headed in the region was already persecuting Christians. Maybe the miracle was not that Christ would resurrect, maybe the true miracle was the amnesia that apparently everybody suffered around Jesus around the time of his death.
FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO?? I am having difficulty digesting that. I remember seeing it in the theater. And since I am that old, I am also having difficulty digesting many things.
To anyone interested, Rabbi Tovia Singer has the best debunking of the physical resurrection of Yeheshuah, I have ever heard. Why would women be going to the tomb , two days after the body was dead to anoint it with oils and spices ? There was no such custom at the the time. The custom that did exist was to anoint the body immediately after death with powerful spices to offset the odor of the rotting body, so that the funeral service and burial would be tolerable for those around it. After the body was entombed, there would be absolutely no reason to open the tomb and anoint a rotting body, no one would have to be around again. It was clearly a literary device to place the resurrection story in. Blew my mind !
Not to mention that even many Christian scholars admit that it would have been far more likely that his body would have been tossed into a mass grave and burned as was the common practice for criminals in Rome at that time.
That didn't neccesarily need to happen for the resurrection to occur, sure that would me the details in the bible were inaccurate but that doesn't mean they entirety of the resurrection was a hoax
@@dekuboidonut4552 it doesn't mean it WASNT a hoax either. It is far more likely that it WAS a fabricated story if the details of the gospels differ and the details of ressurection do not align with the historicity of Roman crucifixion practices.
@@dekuboidonut4552 I do not quite get what you are saying. The New Testament provides so-called eyewitnesses to the empty tomb of Christ, who supposedly discovered this because they were going to anoint a rotting body for no reason. If there was more convincing evidence for the resurrection, then that made up piece of nonsense would not have been used. If it was real, nothing would have had to be made up, as that account surely was. Whoever wrote it, assumed it would be read by non-Jews who would assume that going to anoint a body after burial was normal for Jews. Funny huh ?
@@thenowchurch6419 What we know about crucifixion is the most common practice was to leave the dead for several days until they had been picked at by birds who would feed of the corpse. Once this process was complete they would be cut down & tossed into a mass grave. No tomb, no guards, no women attending someone dead.
Probably not. Paul's letters make it very clear that he already was a member of a wide spread, well established network of messianic communities. Their origins probably reach back much further, maybe even to the 2nd century BC. We have no clue to what extend their (and Paul's) beliefs resembled what we know christianity was when people began taking notice of it and writing more than a few occasional remarks about it, 1-2 centuries after Paul lived. We do not even know if the synoptic gospels emerged from these communities, or if they started as independent works (at least Mark's gospel sounds suspiciously like an ingenious metaphor about it's time and the changes that happened in Israel) that got merged into christianity later.
If nothing else, it's a good demonstration of why professional apologists and preachers tend to stick to the "irrefutable proof!" rhetoric. If the intention is to give believers confidence in their beliefs, that sort of approach seems much more effective. But so far, it's at least nice to hear that some aren't so quick to jump straight into that.
I realize that you showed us an English translation of Josephus's passage, and I realize that people spoke and wrote differently in the 1st century, but I couldn't help noticing that it still sounded like Christian shorthand. "Condemned him to the Cross" as opposed to "condemned him to crucifixion" and "on the third day" as opposed to three days later". Again, I don't know how people wrote in the 1st century, and for all I know Christianese is based off of 1st century vernacular, but still, it sounds Christian to me.
Woah, that is totally whacked that they were super hyped about all of the sources for Jesus, but ended with a "well, if you ignore this guy and interpret this other guy we kind of get a similar Jesus story." With very very little excitement, almost like a whisper. Religious false Whitnesing at it's finest!
Thanks for another stimulating video. But at the beginning you say " I've never understood why book writers infer or imply..." as if the two words mean the same thing- they don't: ' Infer' means ' to deduce'; imply means ' to suggest.' You mean ' imply' here.
Surprisingly, there is another version of Testimonium Flavianum that may be closer to Josephus' original writing. Or so Christian theologians and believers claim. The Arabic Testimonium says that... "At this time there was a devout man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and non-Jews became his students. Pilate condemned him to be crucified but those who had become his students didn't leave their school. They (Christians) reported that he had showed up to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive. According (to Christians), he was perhaps the Messiah of which the prophets have declared signs." However, many, like Carrier, doubted that because the Arabic version differs so much from the Latin version, these two Testimoniums was completely added afterwards by Christians. This mean that they are purely Christian interpretations. Likewise, many other mentions about Jesus or early Christians are suspected to be additions made by Christian scriptwriters. For example, it maybe that the letter of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan is a forgery made by Byzantine Christians. We have no reason to keep them authentic because the screenwriters were Christians for hundreds of years and they were free to add and remove texts before the paper press replaced the hand copying.
Evidence for Sunday worship can be found in the epistle of Barnabas, a contemporary of Pliny. Although it is not a non Christian source, it still confirms that the fixed day that Pliny refers to can be no other day but Sunday. Unless you can think of any reason why Barnabas would make up the day on which they were meeting.
A little expounded on passage in the bible, especially among skeptics, is the passage about the Magi. Just read Mathew 2:1-16, it make's no frankincense.
15:00 It would be an interesting thought experiment to set aside the weight of the last 2000 years' perception of Jesus, and simply take ONLY those extra-biblical sources and ask the following question: Who is this "Jesus" mentioned by Josephus. What can we learn about this historical figure from Josephus and the other non-biblical sources. Let's pretend we have no bible as a source. What conclusions would we come to about this particular Jesus, based solely on the historical sources? Once we'd determined that Josephus' text had been meddled with much later and that stuff had been excluded this is what I would gather - We'd have no stories of miracles, no crucifixion and no resurrection. We'd have a person who amounted to no more than the leader of a small sect, and whose sect, during his lifetime, remained small, lacking both social and political influence. Only later, a few generations after his death, would it have gained some popularity. From the non-biblical sources we would know nothing about his parentage or ancestry, nor the manner and time of his death. His existence would be somewhat questionable, in that all the historical sources seem to have taken, as their sources, the accounts provided by sect members, 2-3 generations after the alleged existence of Jesus.
The thing with the Sunday stuff is that it was originally on the seventh day, which is Saturday. The Catholic church changed it to Sunday, the first day, because they had an issue getting people to come in on their day of rest. Thus, Sunday wasn't special till after Rome converted and founded the Catholic church.
Can someone help me understand why these people say "empty tomb" like it should be enlightening? A tomb that never had Jesus in it is just as empty as one that had him and now doesn't. Is it concrete fact (at least assumed to be) that they have the tomb of Jesus that did in fact contain him at some point?
Another way of putting this . . . "I believe in the story of Jesus because it is the best story I have ever heard." This is an unassailable position because it is based on nothing beyond my own desire. It neither needs to be defended, nor can it be defended. That belief is simply that . . . a belief. It is purely subjective and personal--and wonderfully so. No one could take it away from me or rightly prove I am "wrong" for personally upholding a certain religious story as inspiring. And, that belief is sufficient to guide me in all my life. ... To the person who recognizes this basement-level understanding of religious belief, "proof" does not matter. To the man who bases his life on sincere belief in his mind, he does not need to depend on what is said to prove things like the resurrection, life of Jesus, authorship of the Bible, etc. The person simply desires and upholds within himself a particular belief and it guides him. ... Mind you, literacy is a very recent addition to humanity. Myriads of humans have lived and died without the ability to really interact with anything beyond themselves. Yet, somehow, now humans are being told they need "proof" for everything? Humans have never lived to such an absolute standard. Humans are simply creatures who decide for themselves what they believe to be inspirational and hold that in their minds. That is the true form of "religion/myth/superstition" which has been ever used by humans. Jamming the requirement for "proofs" is something completely irrelevant to the true form of faith. Think about it.
Yes, the argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained. Implying that longer arguments are less likely to be as true as shorter ones.
It may be misleading to say Josephus uses the phrase “Wise man” about other historical figures. While true, he doesn’t seem to commonly use the phrase - Daniel, Solomon and a couple of others, not rebels
Life as a human is fraught with people telling you things. Insurance salesmen tell you "what if". Mechanics say "change your oil and rotate your tires". News outlets say whatever outrageous thing they can uncover or make up in order to keep your attention. It's up to each of us to determine which things warrant thought or action. Religion is just one more thing that someone is selling.
Back when I was a Christian I remember finding out that Jesus didn't actually write the Bible, and that Jesus (allegedly) didn't write ANYTHING, EVER! I had just assumed that the bible was some sort of heavenly autobiography. Since then I enjoy telling Christians that Jesus didn't write a single word of the bible and watch the shock and incredulity on their faces.
My wife just pointed out that during that time period, the Greeks totally *believed* in the Greek myths. Does that make the Greek myths "true", as well?
Does Christianity imply that humans have some deeper faculty of coming to know the truth-a faculty deeper and more knowable than rationality- that allows us to know in our hearts that God exists and Jesus is God? If so, it appears to me that Christianity is therefore false, since other religions have adherents who testify to honestly know in their soul that claims contrary to Christianity are true (like Jesus was not God, Muhammad was a prophet). The best explanation of these two scenarios seems to be that it’s just a feeling- and this type of feeling led each side to contrary conclusions- so this feeling/intuition about the truth of scriptures/God is untrustworthy. But this claim (that we can know God’s existence in our hearts) is essential to Christian dogma, so Christianity is false. Does this sound right?
The Proto-Paschalian account of resurrection “belief” explains the mushrooming of Christianity as well as anything. After the crucifixion the disciples were so distraught, they were in danger, their futures were shot, etc. They had little to live for. They decided that even if there was only a 10% chance that Jesus was risen it was worth going for it full commitment, even unto death. After all, 10% odds for an eternal payoff, and 10% odds that they will face eternal damnation if they abandon Jesus, made it good rational sense for them to behave “as if“ Jesus rose. This is fully consistent with studies in religious psychology and risk and game theory. I don’t know why this theory does not get more attention.
The following would almost certainly have written about Jesus and his followers, had events been even proximate to those outlined in the NT... PHILO , SENECA (Lucius Annaeus) , PLUTARCH (Plutarch of Chaeronea), JUSTUS (Justus of Tiberias) All were contemporaneous and local to events. All wrote widely on Jewish happenings, and not one of them even mentions Jesus, or the crucifixion, or the supernatural aftermath, or any other recognisable account from the primary Christian source - the Gospels.
Did any of these guys question why women had to come to a tomb after the guy is dead and buried? For what purpose? And even if it were to annoint the body after death, since when does Jewish law allow women to administer to a man's body. Too simple for these high minded critics.
@@druidriley3163 You believe wrong. To this day men prepare the body of men for burial and women for women. More important, if Jesus was already entombed it's over. There is no need to go back and then "prepare" the body for burial. It even said the owner of the cave had already anointed the body with spices so what more needed to be done. This is a literary devise to have people visit the tomb when it wasn't even necessary. Try logic.
@@alg11297 - no, I read it yesterday. Women did prepare the bodies in the 1st century. Considering the circumstances under which Jesus was entombed - highly illegal and probably done under the table (criminals were not allowed respectful burials even disgraced emperor's families had to recover their remains surreptitiously), it's perfectly reasonable to assume the women would come afterwards. They still had to have time to gather the annointing materials after all. Logically I don't believe the story at all. It's fiction. I'm just pointing out the burial rituals.
Agreed . The bible is filled with one literary device after another. And like most readers very few want to pay attention to the subtle tricks that orchestrate the grand narrative, but instead just want to enjoy the feelings invoked.
Jesus rose from the dead so that his father in heaven, Yahweh, (who was himself) could forgive humanity for ignoring him and disobeying his rules. And it's all my fault even though I did not exist.
The passages of Jospehus and other non Christian sources usually prephase their sections about Jesus with "This is what this sect who call themselves Christians say..." aka they are citing people whose primary source are biblical texts aka they are not extra biblical sources at all.
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It seems most supposedly extra-biblical sources about Jesus are just saying that this is a story that's very popular rather than true.
Yyyyup. I think we need to be more clear that the historical records point to Christianity being a religion created/built by Pope Paul, using the deceased messiah as his "new & improved" god figure... & the followers of the time couldn't even resist from giving Paul magical powers either! He could supposedly fly & is said to have don't so in a "throw down" with a competing, contemporary religious figure. These accounts tell us that we need to be *more* critical & suspicious of historical accounts of jesus & early Christianity.
Agree. It is on the same level as observing that some people believe the earth is flat. so therefore the earth is flat.
EDIT: Damn. Should watch the full video before commenting.
Not "most". ALL undisputed sources are simply reports of what some people believed. Historians of the time could have, (and I suspect probably did), also comment on different beliefs held by different groups.I'm pretty certain that Christians apologists today wouldn't accept those reports as evidence that the other religion was true.
It has also been pointed out that we have many people alive today who *claimed to have been abducted by aliens.* As dubious as those claims are, there is stronger evidence of alien abductions than the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. There are not even eyewitnesses who testified that Jesus was actually resurrected, unlike the many alien abductees who have given video testimony of their claims.
I'll bet these Christians who believe Jesus really was resurrected by a god would still dismiss the eyewitness testimonies of alien abductees!
It's the Fresh Prince argument for Authenticity... "Now this is the story, all about how..."
None of the reports requires anything to happen but a messianic jew to TELL what they believe and the historian to write it down as the belief of a fancy new sect. Totally works in those frameworks and most of the sources even word it directly that way.
Brilliant, cause surely they would not make up claims they knew weren't true? Uhhh not so fast, Bucko... why then does Josephus History of the Anquity of Jews also mention at least a dozen OTHER claimants to the title "Messiah" walking around and having adherents to their claims? Truthyness (TM Colbert Report) does not seem to be the deciding factor for what reports were takable and which ones were implausible. Plus there is this confusion with Christos and Chrestos, that implies two different cults running around Rome at around the same time...
The whole affair seems to lose much in evidential nature once you collect all these parts and look at them simultaneously. The "historicists" want to make you believe that these ancient histoirans had Jesus death certificate in their books as an appendix, when all they had was a newspaper clipping saying "new religious group reports about its claims, read more on Page 15!"
I recall that when I started looking into arguments in favor of Christianity, I was made somewhat nervous by this idea that there’s evidence outside of the Bible to warrant belief. As much as I didn’t want to be wrong about my decision to deconvert years ago, I have always worked to have to fortitude to concede points and revise my position when the evidence is present and compelling. When I was finally presented this body of evidence, I was in awe of how weak it was. It was hyped up so much that I was disappointed when I finally saw it. I was expecting to have to put up a fight and wrestle with it extensively, just like I had done when my views on creationism were challenged by evidence for evolution. Over time, I have only found better and better reasons to doubt that the Christian articles of faith have any grounding in reality.
There is no proof of God.
There are lots of people who make money from fear of death and the church are selling eternity for a tithe.
@Gabe Norman - but ... is there any _reasonable_ evidence for the resurrection of Jesus by some god???
The word *reasonable* really matters, because without that one word, many have also claimed that _"there is plenty of evidence that Mohammad's message from Allah is true"._ A claim I doubt just as much as I doubt the Jesus resurrection claim.
Adding the caveat that the evidence must be _reasonable_ gives me a reason to care what you say ... so ... *do you have any **_reasonable_** evidence that a god really did resurrect Jesus?*
I will now wait patiently ...
That is a pretty good summary of the situation. Well except for claiming creation cretinism had anything fightable to offer... even with only a lukewarm grasp on biology you run into contradicitons and distorted arguments pretty soon. Just look at Kent Hovind still peddling the "six different kinds of evolution"... why would that matter? Darwin still only talked about biology, so it's poisoning the well ... and that is how they START to make an argument, by sprinkling choice quotes all over science instead of going straight for the best evidence in biology.
Ugly German Truths for sure, I really didn’t have anything to back up my belief in creationism besides what false information I had been spoon fed as a child. A friend of mine gave me a book called Evolution and the Myth of Creationism when I was a teen. I NEVER read it. I was so convinced that it was all bullshit with my clever “why are there still monkeys” lines. It was only when I began doubting religion for other reasons did I start to realize that I had been dogmatically against listening to unbiased explanations of evolutionary theory out of fear that I would realize that I was wrong. I hid from understanding it correctly, and I regret that immensely. Now I listen to conflicting opinions and arguments no matter how nervous I am that I could be wrong.
@Gabe Norman please tell us the top 3
Apologists seem to think a bunch of bad arguments and word games add up to conclusive evidence...it doesn't!
Stop thinking and keep shoveling it in. Oh, and don't mind the smell.
Because they are brainwashed to be that stupid and arrogant these two dumb delusional morons just want the claims of their cult to be true just as any Christian does.
Creationist: ‘We’re going to prove it.’
Me: ‘This oughta be brilliant.’
But... but ... but... creationism LITERALLY invented the FE model of evidence: "show how you think the actual science is mistaken about making sense, then imply that means your model is true, without giving any positive evidence for any claim, only presumably negative evidence against the other side"
But if God doesn't exist who spoke to those people in the desert so they could create the bible?
It was the Djinn. Those wily tricksters were just playing jokes on the primitive goat herders.
@@wesbaumguardner8829 but why would mustard play jokes on goat hearders? (I think I'm funny anyway lol I'll see myself out)
...but of course.
Damn Paul you just made me feel really old, casually mentioning that Star Wars came out 43 years ago. I saw it at the cinema when it came out.
Are those short passages really all the secular evidence for Jesus' resurrection? Those aren't enough breadcrumbs to feed a mouse. XD
The single strongest non-biblical "evidence" for the _existence_ of Jesus (never mind the resurrection) is literally that passage from... man, I always conflate all these people. Tacitus, I think? It goes something like "Christians, who believe in a figure they call The Christ". No mention of Jesus at all. It could even be an entirely different religion that just got rolled up into the current version of christianity as time went on and fragments of documents were put together to form the bible.
And it's the strongest piece of evidence for Jesus existing even though I can point to that South Park episode on scientology and it's exactly the same thing. Less vague, in fact. "Scientologists, who believe in a figure they call Lord Xenu" is less uncertain than Tacitus(?) merely mentioning cult members.
It's not enough breadcrumbs to feed a starving _tardigrade._
@@EdwardHowton Edward Howdon, It was Tacitus who wrote in the second century and only about followers of a Chrestus (often mistranslated as Christ) "Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind."
Tacitus wrote nearly a hundred years
John Gleeman - We have zero about Yeshuah Ben Josef in his life time. We have not a scrab about him written in the first century. We have hearsay about followers of a Chrestus from Tacitus around 116 AD. This was 5 generations after someone got executed as rebel.
@TorianTammas Thanks. I've been at this so long that Tacitus, Josephus, and Pliny the Younger kind of just... merged together in my head.
It's all so dumb. It's not even hearsay evidence (as if there were such a thing). It's hearsay _OF_ hearsay, two or more layers deep.
@@EdwardHowton Not to mention all we get from Pliny is that there were Christians. Which, well duh, there still are.
But to draw from your example this proves nothing about the veracity of their beliefs. It'd be like claiming that because there are scientologists, then Xenu exists.
Hmm, these two are highly unconvincing. I find the evidence for the death and resurrection of Sherlock Holmes to be far more compelling ! I mean we have Dr Watson, Mrs Hudson, Inspector Lagrange, Mycroft Holmes, and a host of other people who had dealings with Holmes. Plus Holmes has his own museum in Baker Street, London. All well documented, in slightly dated, but good English. None of this Aramaic or Greek crap !
Lestrade not Lagrange :D
And I've been to the Sherlock Exhibit at "221B Baker Street".. i wouldn't call it a Museum as it was created from scratch, not by collecting authentic artifacts :D
The House does not have the street address 221, it's all a lie :D
OH that is precious!!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/221B_Baker_Street Baker Street in 1890 when Holmes allegedly was active, did not have any numbers higher than 85! :D They renamed a couple of other small shreds of road to Bakerstreet around 1930 to get rid of a lot of the "one block only" addresses...
Not to mention Santa .... St Nicolas/Santa was more real than the god-man lurking about.
@@Ugly_German_Truths Funnily enough 221 Baker St used to be the London Transport Lost Property Office ! (Where umbrellas, brief cases and other stuff left on buses and trains ended up ). Yes Lestrade, thanks for the correction.
The clear subtext of this discussion is that Christianity foundered on the death of Jesus but some bright spark came up with the idea of a resurrection story (no doubt because it had been done before) and pushed the narrative along with some stories about miracles performed when Jesus was alive and, hey presto, it drew a number of credulous followers.
Given platitudes that the meek will inherit the earth and promises such as eternal life it is not hard to see the attraction particularly amongst people who had harsh, hopeless and short lives by modern day standards.
We are simply seeing the emergence and growth of a myth ultimately backed up by a book penned by various devotees over the course of the century that followed.
CC: LOADS of Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (with Two Scholars™)
Literally the two Scholars™: _The extra biblical evidence is not enough to say the resurrection happened._
Right? Episode one, and they're already "I mean yeah, without the bible this is all bullshit. Good thing we have the bible isnt it?"
Sad when they are so willing to cherry pick, they quote people refuting them.
Now, if they had two Corinthians instead of two Scholars...
@@RandomBeing101 what point? They literally both stated exactly that the extra biblical evidence is not enough to say the resurrection happened. They literally said that, what's there to 'get'? Christianity is empty, precious little evidence to support it and the adherents can't even agree on what the message is supposed to be.
And then you have hacks like cc who pretend they have a mountain of evidence, but if you listen carefully, they have nothing. The arguments they do present are also not specific enough to discriminate between any other god delusion.
@@RandomBeing101 I think your only argument is to insult people, which is kind of typical actually from a person brainwashed into a shallow religion.
THE BULK of those cherry-picked, misinterpreted and misrepresented sources set the resurrection of Jesus securely in loose gravel.
@thewanderandhiscomp Gawd so loved the world that he lent his only son for a little over 36 hours.
@Kassyni Savior No. I have been praised before for my use of litotes.
;o)
@@RandomBeing101 Liars4Jesus abound, it is true.
When creationists can demonstrate even the plausibiliy of their claims, and only then, are they worth listening to. They are crtainly incapable of demonstrating the truth of their claims, despite a few thousand years of opportunity.
@@RandomBeing101 If you disagree then present your demonstrations that creationists' claims are true.
If you cannot then your passive/aggressive/dismissive response is inappropriate and perhaps you use it to save face.
5:10 hearing my kids at that age talk about things, has been probably the most entertaining thing about parenting kids at that age. My youngest is aging out of it, and I'm grieving the loss of such adorableness.
Got in an argument with a pastor last night
Him: I believe the earth is 10,000 years old
Me: why?
Him: because if you look at the Bible that’s about the age it gives
Me: ok well let me show you coral reef growths, dendrochronology, archaeology, paleontology, red shifting from old stars, and links to all the peer reviewed papers published showing you the approximate age of the earth and universe.
( he literally said this it even isn’t paraphrase at this point )
Him: Well if you are just going to antagonize me we aren’t going to get anywhere.
Oopsie Poopsie Sounds exasperating!
Sounds like persecution to me.
Nathaniel J Franco no it was just him and I, I have been going to that church for awhile. The conversation started because he brought up the gnostic Christians in his sermon and I was talking about how they were interesting and their beliefs and he said it’s blind faith and then we started to talk about faith and it lead to that point in like 15 minutes. The conversation ended right after that with him saying basically “ I think hell is gonna be a hot place “
@@oopsiepoopsie2898 Hell will definitely be lit :)
John Fouse who was I persecuting?
Can I just say I love your little intro jingle. It makes me want to go dancing in a misty field of flowers.
It's an old hymn. :)
@@Paulogia makes me wanna river dance.
If anyone wants to be amused, check out this book called "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. It's a funny [fictional of course] account of the life of Christ from about the age of 6 onward according to a lesser-angel named Biff. One of my favorite passages is this
"The first time I saw the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. Just the tail end and the hind legs were visible on the outside; the head and forelegs were halfway down the hatch. He was six, like me, and his beard had not come in fully, so he didn’t look much like the pictures you’ve seen of him. His eyes were like dark honey, and they smiled at me out of a mop of blue-black curls that framed his face. There was a light older than Moses in those eyes.
“Unclean! Unclean!” I screamed, pointing at the boy, so my mother would see that I knew the law, but she ignored me, as did all the other mothers who were filling their jars at the well.
The boy took the lizard from his mouth and handed it to his younger brother, who sat beside him in the sand. The younger boy played with the lizard for a while, teasing it until it reared its little head as if to bite, then he picked up a rock and mashed the creatures head. Bewildered, he pushed the dead lizard around in the sand, and once assured that it wasn’t going anywhere on its own, he picked it up and handed it back to his older brother.
Into his mouth went the lizard, and before I could accuse, out it came again, squirming and alive and ready to bite once again. He handed it back to his younger brother, who smote it mightily with the rock, starting or ending the whole process again.
I watched the lizard die three more times before I said, “I want to do that too.”
The Savior removed the lizard from his mouth and said, “Which part?”
...and so on 😈
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb:_The_Gospel_According_to_Biff,_Christ's_Childhood_Pal
I read that one years ago! Deffo recommend as well.
@@MatthewCaunsfield That one draws mightily on the "non canonical" texts like the gospel of Judas or thomas and the so called childhood gospels... Including Jesus taking a sabbatical in India to learn more than he could in Israel and that explaining much of the gap between storming the temple at 12 and turning up in full charismatic rabbi mode at his 30th birthday :-p
@@Ugly_German_Truths Thanks - I've heard bits and pieces of those gospels over the years and was reminded of the novel, so at least I wasn't imagining the connection!
Ty! I'm definitely checking that out!
I got a 5 minute ad on this video explaining how god is the best explanation for the creation and fine tuning of the universe. Using all of the normal debunked arguments that theists used day in and day out. These people need to learn how illogical and stupid they sound when they use these terrible and tired arguments.
Sage of Synergism that just means you lack a proper understanding of astrophysics, Big Bang cosmology, and evolution. The universe is NOT fine tuned for life. The Big Bang does NOT talk about the creation of the universe. Sorry.
@Sage of Synergism "Its deduced from Einsteins theory of relativity that space matter and time are not eternal, they came into existence"
Einstein makes no statements regarding that, the laws of thermodynamics LITERALLY say the opposite and beyond that deduced by WHOM???
You are either an unabashed liar, an uneducated fool or a combination of both.
Jesus must be proud that somebody would lie about him existing SO ineptly! Giving the perfect example of why honest and sane people should not become christians, when the insane liars already take up all the frontrow in his little fanclub!
@Sage of Synergism LOL!
You know that a stupid debunking from 20 years ago is still a stupid debunking nowdays. You sound stupid BTW.
The Resurrection story is true... I was told by a friend of a friend of my cousin's brother...'
Well that's hardly convincing. Now if it was a friend of a friend of your cousin's brother's uncle, well that'd be different. Sadly, as it is though,.....
@@michaelcox9855 ...Brother's uncle's former roommate?
I disagree, my friend of a friend of my cousin's brother is bigger than your friend of a friend of your cousin's brother and they say it's not true! So there!!
I think im gonna need more sources. Is your friend of a friends cousins sister available to verify ?
Isn't your cousin's brother also your cousin? I smell something fishy here.
I would love to see a Christian apologist who is not a Mormon explain how the argument for the resurrection of Jesus is qualitatively any different from the argument for the discovery of the Golden Plates by Joseph Smith. In both cases, you have a group of people who were fervently religious and came to believe in an extraordinary and virtually unprecedented occurrence for which outside sourcing of the contended facts is nonexistent other than to say that they came to believe in it.
The main difference is that the Jesus story is much older, and much harder to investigate. I think there's some irony in that...
Joseph Smith was a con man and was known for making things up. He would tell people that he had a magic rock that could find treasure but the treasure was hexxed so it would sink if you tried to dig it up.
@@memesredacted and that still doesn't explain how people coming to believe in the Golden Plates must have been somehow duped or come to believe in some other fashion besides actual direct witness but Jesus's alleged disciples allegedly came to believe through direct witness of true events. Seriously, if you look at history, you will find a lot of people who came to believe a lot of strange things and believed in them earnestly. There is nothing necessarily unique to the belief of the early Christians, and that's if we accept that there is something remotely resembling an eyewitness account in any of the gospels or in the rest of the New Testament.
@@sbushido5547 That isn't a difference that helps, though. the older the story, the more corrupted it becomes.
@@memesredacted So? Abraham was a con man known for making things up (like "those other gods aren't REAL, they're just fragments of The One True God!!!").
Or, another way of saying this which is relevant to this video: "I believe in the resurrection of Jesus because it is inspiring to me." The idea of a person giving himself to save me is humbling. And, the idea of that same person holding power over death is invigorating. By me holding that thought, I have courage to face whatever stands before me--confident this person who died and lives for me will continue to have my back in all things. ... This is an absolutely unassailable position. It neither needs to be defended, nor can it really be defended--because it is rooted in my own subjective mind. ... To the person who holds such a position, does it matter whether or not I can find the exact stone which was rolled over his grave, or the nails from the cross? None of those things matter--because regardless of anything physical--I choose to hold that "belief" precious in my own mind. So, any "proof" in favor or against is completely irrelevant to such faith. It just doesn't matter. ... Somehow people completely lost sight of the powerful subjectivity of religion--that people are simply free to believe in what helps them to survive every day. But for all human history, what I describe was the exact form of religion. People "believed" in what they desired to believe (individually, socially or whatever). People in the ancient world didn't search for rocks and icons to "prove" stuff. They simply believed or they didn't. Don't think about "religion" in terms of the televangelist who is peddling his nonsense. Think about religion in terms of human survival over millennia. The form of religion I describe is the one which humans have held for time immemorial: Faith which is unashamedly subjective and personal.
When I see an apologist use the generic term "scholar" to describe someone has has qualifications in an unrelated subject, so as to imply they are an authority in the subject being discussed, when they are NOT an authority, is simply dishonest.
Argument from _we know our audience has the intelligence of damp mold and the attention span of a four year old overdosing on a speedball so we're just going to talk until they lose interest and assume we know what we're talking about because actually using their brain takes too much effort._
The high-energy creationist's favorite.
Why don't the wise men who travelled from afar ever get examined as a source?
Surely their countrymen wrote about them leaving on this journey to meet the son of god... and surely they wrote about meeting him when they got back...
Shiftace - They are a literary invention. It was common for heathens that stars or other signs of significance show up when great people are born. The magic in the story are Persian priests who read the will of the gods through the stars. By the way this kind of astrology was forbidden by death by god according to the old Testament. So the author who invented thus story element must have written his fiction far away from Jerusalem.
@@TorianTammas thought you were insulting OP for a moment, then I saw that's his name
@@greasyt9400 lol
@@greasyt9400 lol
I first read 'shit-face' instead of 'shift-ace'. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Well played ... 👍
I'm so excited to watch the rest of this series! I really feel like I'm learning about both sides when I watch your videos
Paul, keep up the good work. Calm cool and thoughtful destruction of dogma.
I love waking up to your new videos!
freeallgt same
Yo Paul love your work mate keep it up
When they find those 1st cent. Aramaic texts........... until then they have nothing.
@Jimbus Rift It would be like having a first printing comic book.
There is one contemporary worth mentioning by name; Philo of Alexandria (25 BCE - 50 CE) a Jewish philosopher; who actually lived during the time of Jesus. He even visited Jerusalem during his life time and it stands to reason that Philo would have at least heard about Jesus yet he makes no mention of a man by that name, any of his twelve apostles in any of his works and does not mention Christianity. While Philo’s opinions on the Old Testament are very clear. Think about why that is? Either what was happening in Jerusalem he did not consider worth writing about, or Christianity at the time was such a small and insignificant sect he could not be bothered or the events as described in the Bible simply did not happen!
Also the Essene Sect (Dead Sea Scrolls people) never mention Christians or Christ and they were prolific writers 40 years after Christs supposed death.
Love your channel, Paul. Been binging & catching up to your very well-produced uploads. Your commentary is super helpful. Keep it up!
14:33 - - "Even after this shameful execution."
I have never understood this position or the justification for hating Jews based on the 'fact' that they 'killed Jesus'. The whole reason for the existence of Jesus was so he could be a human blood sacrifice to expiate our past and future sins. By opposing his crucifixion you are opposing the Will of God.
You're not suggesting that there are holes in the narrative, are you? Sounds awfully heretical of you...
Yes,they seem to want it both ways,Jesus had to die for 'our' sins, his main task on
earth,yet want to blame the people who made it possible, how else was he going to die,suicide?
That sounds like excused terrorism.
@@jalalsalehofficial What, the Jesus execution thing or the whole "I love you so believe in me or go to hell"?
Both that's why I do not practice any religions
hey Paulogia! big fan...
I've been talking to a lot of people about evidence for science and evidence against religions but it seems like most people fall back to their fear of hell and can't get past it. they can fully understand my arguments and even agree with some of them but their fear of hell is just too strong to drop their beliefs. i also remember back when i lost my religion there was a palpable barrier i had to get through surrounding hell and the fear of gods rath. i ended up screaming into the sky for god to show his face or strike me down. he did neither. i felt the fear of hell shed off my shoulders as if i lost a large weight. being that this was so hard, even for someone who was already convinced no gods existed for years, i feel like we should put out more logical evidence against hell. i think if we can convince these people there's no hell and the very idea of hell is actually a truly absurd idea then maybe it'll be easier for others to open their minds to other arguments. I've been sending your videos out the most because I've seen that arrogance and profanity will close up their minds faster than almost anything so i really like and respect your style. keep up the good work.
I love debating people and usually come up with some pretty solid arguments. I'm here in Mississippi in the heart of the Bible belt and most of the people i talk to have never met an atheist before so I'm a bit of a culture shock for them. I feel like In order to fix a problem you have to go to the heart of the problem. these people have built a pretty solid echo chamber around themselves and refuse to even listen to people with dissenting ideas. because of that I've heard some really terrible arguments for religion and against science. usually that they've found the ark, that dinosaur bones were put here by the devil to confuse us and that it's better to believe and be wrong than to disbelieve and be wrong as well as gross misrepresentations of evolution. many kids out here have told me that their teachers refuse to teach anything that contradicts their religion, which i thought was illegal in America. it's quite disgusting how they're getting away with it... they're robbing the world of potential scientists, biologists, geologists, physicists... but for some reason they find no issues with the medical field, blows my mind. anyway if you wanted to colab with me on this anti hell video idea I'd be honored. hope to hear from you.
Later.
@Sage of Synergism if you're playing it safe then why aren't you a Muslim too. you do know they have the third and most recent testament from Yahweh. if you just believe in Jesus you'll end up in their hell. secondly you obviously don't know the first thing about evolution. why don't you go take a class so you might figure out how blood evolved. humans have guided the evolution of wolves for hundreds of years and we've created everything from a great dane to a Chihuahua. if you can't see that as evolution then there's no hope for you. humans are far more similar to apes than a pitbull is to a Yorkie. if you think about hell the way westboro Baptist Church thinks about it they say 99 percent of all humans will end up in hell. so as far as i see it if it did exist heaven is full of all the crazy and gullible people and hell is full of everyone else. all the smart people, all the fun people, anybody worth a salt to hang out with for eternity. if you do the math you would expect hell to be full of trillions or quadrillions of people with thousands entering every day. you tell me how a loving God would sit back and watch this happen to his children without providing any new evidence to believe what's obviously untrue. he would be the most immoral father of all time. if i was in heaven and saw what he was doing i would put a stop to it. i would do everything i could to open his eyes to the evil he's doing. the fact that you don't have a problem with his system of blood sacrifice in exchange for infinite torture really makes me question your morality. i would much rather enjoy my nightly view of trillions upon trillions of stars day in and day out creating all the elements in the universe without any worry and an abusive sky Daddy. science has given us so much to look forward to and religion just wants to drag us back. i say if you want to believe in middle Eastern mythology you should go live with the other religious wakos in sand land with none of our modern technology. you don't deserve to reap the rewards science has gifted us. if you truly believed you should just run out in traffic without looking so that you can get to heaven faster, but i bet you wouldn't do that because you aren't actually sure what you believe is true. you're just scared of whoever has the biggest stick and yet you haven't figured out it's the Muslims with the worst stick.
@Sage of Synergism Christians don't stop sinning from a fear of hell. they believe they can do all the evil they want and all they have to do is ask their sky Daddy for forgiveness and all is good. i have seen first hand how corrupt and evil they can become...
and the Bible says special creation, the flood, Stars can just float around the sky and hover over a manger, and never bother to mention the vast quantities of life that have gone extinct so I'd say just with those basic ideas the Bibles gotten a lot wrong...
"I feel like we should put out more logical evidence against hell."
What can anyone reasonably say about an afterlife when there is no way to investigate any question we may have? The only way to experience an afterlife is by dying. There can never be any evidence, so it seems there is little point in talking about hell.
@Sage of Synergism "If christians are wrong about hell we will all be fine."
Unfortunately, if Christians are wrong then Muslims might be right, and worshiping Jesus as God would send us straight to hell. There's no winning strategy when it comes to guessing which religion is right.
"No science contradicts the Bible."
Surely we're not including the book of Genesis. Some people claim that Genesis is the true history of the Earth, while other people prefer science, but either way it would be impossible to view Genesis and science as agreeing with each other.
"If evolution is true which evolved first: blood or blood vessels or the heart?"
Evolution doesn't proceed in order like a factory assembly line. In many situations multiple things will evolve simultaneously, such as how a predator evolves to better capture its prey, and prey evolve to better evade their predators. Blood, blood vessels, and the heart are ancient systems that have surely gone through many changes over time, so much so that their original forms might be barely recognizable compared to what we see today. At some point in the past we'd probably struggle to decide whether something qualifies as blood, or a blood vessel, or a heart, so which came first would mostly depend upon how flexible we choose to be with the definitions of these concepts.
What exactly is the definition of a blood vessel? Is it just any container which prevents blood from escaping the body? Using that broad definition, surely the blood vessel came first, though originally it would have served to prevent things other than blood from escaping. On the other hand, if we take blood vessel to mean the modern sophisticated network of channels to guide the flow of blood, then surely blood vessels evolved last.
Depending on how exactly we define a heart, most likely the heart developed last of the three, since a heart is merely a centralized mechanism for encouraging blood to circulate. It's very necessary in modern animals that have evolved to depend on it, but simpler creatures could have still found blood to be a useful source of energy and nutrients even if it merely sloshed around through the normal motions of their bodies.
Thanks Paul for pointing out how old Star Wars is... it makes me feel REALLY old, lol
One does not get old. One gets *OLDER* sheesh...
@@JohnnyDrivebye Look here, You young whipper-snapper. I are old, lol ;)
Is this part 1 of further episodes?
I’m glad I’m not the only atheist that listened to the whole 3 hour podcast.
I’m enjoying your breakdown of that podcast.
This is hilarious. Firstly (as Mr P correctly points out) neither of these two are actually 'scholars' in relation to the subject of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection. Secondly, their rambling pontifications appear to conclude (again, as Mr P points out) that there aren't really any convincing non-biblical sources to support the resurrection story, so what is the point of having these two waffle about the subject? I am more of a scholar (of history) than either of these two as I studied the topic at university and taught history for some years. I did not specialise in biblical history, or Middle Eastern history, or even Classical Antiquity in general, but I have a good understanding of these areas and, crucially, I understand what constitutes good historical evidence and what does not... so I consider myself to have more relevant expertise than either of them and I can say without fear of contradiction that there is no strong historical evidence that Yeshua ben Ioseph even existed, let alone that he was resurrected. It is merely plausible that such a character may have been around in the early first century, that such a person may have made enemies amongst the Jewish establishment, and that he may have been put to death by the Romans as a threat to public order or to placate influential locals, or because he was seen as a rabble rouser or troublemaker. All these things are possible, and perhaps plausible, but possible and plausible are not the criteria by which historians assess the historicity of claims.
It was always possible and plausible that daring and adventurous Viking seafarers might have ventured Westward from their colonies in Iceland and Greenland and discovered North America, but this was not known for a fact for many centuries. The eventual appearance of the Icelandic Sagas making this claim was good evidence, and in fact a lot stronger than the 'evidence' for the life and death of Jesus, but again it was just a claim, even if a highly plausible and believable one. Historians did not grant the absolutely verified fact of the Vikings' short-lived occupation of a corner of Newfoundland until the indisputable archaeological evidence of a Viking settlement there was actually discovered, and from that point on we can say that it was established beyond any reasonable doubt that these intrepid Scandinavians did indeed cross the Atlantic centuries before Columbus. That is how the study of history works... a claim has to be more than just possible or plausible before it can be treated as verified to any reasonable standard - and that's just the mere existence of a figure. The claims for Jesus' miracles and resurrection from the dead are not only implausible and highly improbable, but they are supported by no good evidence whatsoever. There is no contemporary evidence at all and the claims of the gospel writers are no more convincing than (for example) the claims of the mythical blind poet Homer about divine interventions in the Trojan War of the second millennia BC. The fact that Troy was probably an actual place, near modern day Izmir, does not mean that Homer's Iliad is historically accurate.
There are some Christian historians (though a minority of the profession here in the UK), but I don't know of any serious historian anywhere who regards the New Testament gospels as reliable sources, based on the historical evidence (and if they believe this based on factors other than historical evidence then they are not really credible or serious historians at all).
Well said.
Get this man on top of the comments!
Mr E (Enns), Paul is a first name :D
@@RandomBeing101 -
Such people might well say those things... they say a lot of idiotic things which are not usually worth responding to because they're not impressed or persuaded by logical or rational argument, or evidence. I don't get the point that Mr polk is making here.
@@RandomBeing101 -
Don't think I'm what?
They always go to Josephus, and forget the fact that he was born around the JC got nailed. It doesn't make him an eye witness, at best it was barely 2nd hand. There were plenty of other people around who would have been around and would have known, and yet they are silent on this.
Not to mention both passages are obvious interpolations.
Excellent Goldblum drop at the start Paul.
I’m a photographer, and I’m finishing a dissertation in philosophy so I can have expensive letters behind my name. Why you gotta single out photographers talking philosophy.
First! Shannon Q’s post is apocryphal and The Gay Libertarian’s doesn’t count for obvious reasons, so my post really is the earliest eye-witness attestation of how great this video is.
🤣
Christians didn't start worshipping on Sundays until Constantine made it law on March 21, 321 C.E.. When I was a Christian, I didn't know such things. Now that I don't believe in "god" at all it's amazing how much I know about the religion that I said I knew a lot about. If you don't want to be an Atheist don't read the Bible like I did.
What I find hilarious is Camerons flimsy attempt to equate length of an arguement to its veracity and soundness.
I was feeling a little glum this morning until you slipped in that clip of "that is one big pile of it". So perfect! Now I'll be giggling to myself all day.
Actually, after hearing the childish whine of WLC and then watching the pathetic straw grasping of these amatuer apologists, I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the ones who are sincere. (as opposed to all the greedy charlatans cashing in on the straw-grasping masses)
I do love me a good editing joke. That had me laugh out loud.
I absolutely love the Jeff Goldblum clip at the beginning. It's perfect!
Islam expanded faster than Christianity. Does that make it true as well?
But neither Josephus, nor Tacitus, nor Seneca wrote a single word about Mohammad !!! ;-p
(I didn't even have to look it up, they lived 450 to 500 years too early for anything like that :-p)
Islam expanded through war from the very beginning. Mohammad himself invaded mecca in 630 AD. It wasn't the case with Christianity.
@@charbelbejjani5541 i seem to recall some crusades and forceful conversion on the part of christianity. It's weird how, so many cultures that have been lost, were lost because someone bigger came by and said "my book is true and you will be tortured for eternity if you say otherwise"
@@catelynh1020 The crusades began in 1095, more than a thousand years after the birth of Christianity. Islam began its military conquest with Muhammad himself (he captured Mecca, he massacred the jews and he even attacked the byzantines but was defeated). Compare this agressive attitude of Muhammad with Jesus. Jesus never engaged in any militiray conflict of any sort. Also, the crusades were not forceful conversions of muslims to Christianity. Pope Urban II called to the crusades for many reasons (retake christian kingdoms, heal the Great Shiism between Orthodox and Catholics, protect christians pilgrims to Jerusalem and help the europeean society by giving a chance to some violent knights to redeem themselves), but converting the muslims was not one of them.
@@charbelbejjani5541
(Edited for legibility)
I expect that we have different definitions of crusade. If we are only calling the fight to reclaim holy lands in the 1000s to 1200s the crusades then yeah, it was not about forceful conversion. But the term crusade has also been used for religiously sanctioned militarized actions to fight paganism and heresy. This is the version of crusade that I am referring to. Militarized campaigns of christians whose goal was to stop the worship of something else. I was not specifying muslims in my previous comment, just aggressive, militarized conversions.
And that doesn't hold to the other forced conversions. Because i can never remember them all, here's a quick list from wikipedia:
"Examples of forced conversion to Christianity include: the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I, the forced conversion and violent assimilation of pagan tribes in medieval Europe, the Inquisition, including its manifestations in Goa, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain, the forced conversion of indigenous children in North America and Australia, and, since 1992, the forced conversion of Hindus in Northeast India."
I read a true story in which a man was clinically declared dead but he came to life after 2 days and walked away from the post mortem room. Doctors say it's quite possible for a living person to appear dead.
First off, citation needed. More importantly, being declared dead or appearing to be dead, and actually being dead are two different things.
Succinct and logical as always. Thank you.
Paulogia, I knew of your channel and only recently started watching it. I absolutely love it ❤️
Welcome, Grr! hit subscribe if you haven't already...
Ad that played before the video was a Colson Center video that gives "evidence" for god. If you can find that video, you should address it.
Seems like a conflict of interest for Christian advertisers to target atheist channels (you can exclude these even when they contain religious keywords), and then complain about the video and have it demonetized. It's like they give it time to get their ad out and then demonetize so they end up with free advertising.
I got an ad for a ridiculous (perhaps that was superfluous of me to say) Pure Flix film about some biker trying to get out of his gang because he's suddenly found Jesus. It was good for a laugh or two.
I didn't pay enough attention to who the advertiser was, I got one "teaching" Christians how to respond when an atheist tells them that belief isn't a choice
@@deluxeassortment Hmmm... I'm pretty sure it's deliberate. Advertising on atheist videos isn't an accident, we're exactly who they're trying to proselytize to.
@@twig8523 Oh I'm sure.
Why do they spend so much time justifying something anyone would dismiss if it was said that Elvis was resurrected? I mean, where are the arguments for Santa? It’s so repetitive. Good job slogging through the same-old-same-old Paul!
Best intro ever
The Jurrasic Park clip was hilarious especially since it is out of character for you.
Unless I'm missing something there isn't enough historical evidence around to really confirm Jesus was an actual person?
@BMore same, listening to carrier (an actual, non-christian biblical scholar) totally made me rethink that jesus was even an actual person at all
Yeah, they've kind of skipped that step. To have been resurrected he first has to have died, and to have died he first has to have lived. You need to demonstrate the _existence_ of Jesus (and specifically the Jesus described in the Bible, not just some guy named Jesus who lived in the area at the time) before you can go any further. As yet. nobody has done so.
@@Grim_Beard _not just some guy named Jesus who lived in the area at the time_ indeed, there were a lot, it was a popular name at the time. I seem to recall at least one was actually one of the guys trying for messianic status (which was also popular at the time).
@@KaiHenningsen Exactly the point. It's like finding a 'Parker, P.' in the New York City phone directory and using that as evidence that Spiderman is real.
There is evidence of certain jesus figures. There just isn't evidence that they were all the same person and there's no evidence that here actually performed miracles.
LOL, Paul, you had me at the clip of Jeff Goldblum approaching the large pile of dino scat, with the implied remark "That's a big pile of shit" in regard to long, ponderous apologetics! I would hug you if you were in front of me right now! That was mental catnip.
*I find it quite revealing that no apologist ever has been able to present a convincing argument for the existence of their alleged bible characters to me and all the atheists I know*
Are all apologists 1. *just not proficient at presenting convincing evidence?*
or 2. *There exists no good evidence for apologists to present?*
The problem is that the evidence they present is not the reason for their own belief. So because they already believe for other reasons, they fail to understand that the evidence they present is not convincing.
@@Griexxt That's probably true for most theists.
@@Griexxt great answer.
@@Griexxt Yes, it's the 'personal relationship' mostly, that convinces them.
I just cannot understand how the existence of a persecuted Christianity a good time before the death of Jesus of Nazareth does not invalidate everything we thought we knew about Christianity. In the scenario painted around 11:40 or so, Jesus already had enough of an impact in the three years of religious campaign before his death that Rome learned about it and organized the persecution of Christians, apparently all around the empire, before those three years passed. Then Jesus had to make himself visible by riding a donkey into Jerusalem so that the Pharisees could take notice, and then he had to throw the merchants out of the temple to get the Pharisees angry enough to have him arrested. And then he did not have enough of a following to be protected by more than 11 of his disciples, and then he had to be judged by Pilate and Herod because neither of them had any idea of who he was, even though the empire that they headed in the region was already persecuting Christians.
Maybe the miracle was not that Christ would resurrect, maybe the true miracle was the amnesia that apparently everybody suffered around Jesus around the time of his death.
Elvis was resurrected, NOT Jesus...geez.
Shhhhh.....I’m starting a new religion and need you all to follow along.
You could begin by opening a small wedding chapel in Las Vegas and conduct services in an Elvis outfit. Oh, wait , never mind. Done already.
Hail to the King, baby!
Approx 5:15 ish) "... don't talk back to Darth Vader, he'll getchya!..." Holy hell she was adorable!!! Thanks for that part/this video! Yay Paulogia!
Even before finishing it I predict another great video has been dropped by AronRa, no Logicked, no ShannonQ ... 😏😁
Love your stuff Paulogia!
FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO?? I am having difficulty digesting that. I remember seeing it in the theater. And since I am that old, I am also having difficulty digesting many things.
A joke I recently heard:
What do you get when you eat the bible?
Holy poop.
To anyone interested, Rabbi Tovia Singer has the best debunking of the physical resurrection of Yeheshuah, I have ever heard.
Why would women be going to the tomb , two days after the body was dead to anoint it with oils and spices ?
There was no such custom at the the time.
The custom that did exist was to anoint the body immediately after death with powerful spices to offset the odor of the rotting body, so that the funeral service and burial would be tolerable for those around it.
After the body was entombed, there would be absolutely no reason to open the tomb and anoint a rotting body, no one would have to be around again.
It was clearly a literary device to place the resurrection story in.
Blew my mind !
Not to mention that even many Christian scholars admit that it would have been far more likely that his body would have been tossed into a mass grave and burned as was the common practice for criminals in Rome at that time.
That didn't neccesarily need to happen for the resurrection to occur, sure that would me the details in the bible were inaccurate but that doesn't mean they entirety of the resurrection was a hoax
@@dekuboidonut4552 it doesn't mean it WASNT a hoax either. It is far more likely that it WAS a fabricated story if the details of the gospels differ and the details of ressurection do not align with the historicity of Roman crucifixion practices.
@@dekuboidonut4552 I do not quite get what you are saying.
The New Testament provides so-called eyewitnesses to the empty tomb of Christ, who supposedly discovered this because they were going to anoint a rotting body for no reason.
If there was more convincing evidence for the resurrection, then that made up piece of nonsense would not have been used.
If it was real, nothing would have had to be made up, as that account surely was.
Whoever wrote it, assumed it would be read by non-Jews who would assume that going to anoint a body after burial was normal for Jews.
Funny huh ?
@@thenowchurch6419 What we know about crucifixion is the most common practice was to leave the dead for several days until they had been picked at by birds who would feed of the corpse. Once this process was complete they would be cut down & tossed into a mass grave. No tomb, no guards, no women attending someone dead.
FIRST
Shannon Q lol, kinda...
Oh bugger all! I hate when TH-cam reorders comments! I always miss the time stamp. Well done Shannon!
I believe this statement is lacking supporting evidence
Not... grow up.
Cheater. :)
Great video, Paul!
Enjoy your work, keep it up :)
I think it was Paul who 'kick started' Christianity.
Probably not. Paul's letters make it very clear that he already was a member of a wide spread, well established network of messianic communities. Their origins probably reach back much further, maybe even to the 2nd century BC. We have no clue to what extend their (and Paul's) beliefs resembled what we know christianity was when people began taking notice of it and writing more than a few occasional remarks about it, 1-2 centuries after Paul lived. We do not even know if the synoptic gospels emerged from these communities, or if they started as independent works (at least Mark's gospel sounds suspiciously like an ingenious metaphor about it's time and the changes that happened in Israel) that got merged into christianity later.
"Paul" created the religion, and now Paul is taking it away. Poetic.
Well done. Your efforts are appreciate. Thanks.
If nothing else, it's a good demonstration of why professional apologists and preachers tend to stick to the "irrefutable proof!" rhetoric. If the intention is to give believers confidence in their beliefs, that sort of approach seems much more effective. But so far, it's at least nice to hear that some aren't so quick to jump straight into that.
I realize that you showed us an English translation of Josephus's passage, and I realize that people spoke and wrote differently in the 1st century, but I couldn't help noticing that it still sounded like Christian shorthand.
"Condemned him to the Cross" as opposed to "condemned him to crucifixion" and "on the third day" as opposed to three days later".
Again, I don't know how people wrote in the 1st century, and for all I know Christianese is based off of 1st century vernacular, but still, it sounds Christian to me.
If it walks like a duck...
Carl Sagan really owned that dragon, just as he wrote in the demon haunted world! I can prove it, we have an empty garage.
Poor Cameron is gonna have another panic attack if he watches this video.
He is too emotionally unstable live a life where he can't find refuge in fantasy.
Oh he was definitely triggered.
Woah, that is totally whacked that they were super hyped about all of the sources for Jesus, but ended with a "well, if you ignore this guy and interpret this other guy we kind of get a similar Jesus story." With very very little excitement, almost like a whisper. Religious false Whitnesing at it's finest!
AFAICT, they didn't offer ANY *evidence* supporting the Bible stories; I may have missed something in my boredom, though.
Thanks for another stimulating video. But at the beginning you say " I've never understood why book writers infer or imply..." as if the two words mean the same thing- they don't: ' Infer' means ' to deduce'; imply means ' to suggest.' You mean ' imply' here.
Why do I consistently get ads for looney Jesus churches when I watch these?
Surprisingly, there is another version of Testimonium Flavianum that may be closer to Josephus' original writing. Or so Christian theologians and believers claim. The Arabic Testimonium says that...
"At this time there was a devout man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and non-Jews became his students. Pilate condemned him to be crucified but those who had become his students didn't leave their school.
They (Christians) reported that he had showed up to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive. According (to Christians), he was perhaps the Messiah of which the prophets have declared signs."
However, many, like Carrier, doubted that because the Arabic version differs so much from the Latin version, these two Testimoniums was completely added afterwards by Christians. This mean that they are purely Christian interpretations. Likewise, many other mentions about Jesus or early Christians are suspected to be additions made by Christian scriptwriters. For example, it maybe that the letter of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan is a forgery made by Byzantine Christians. We have no reason to keep them authentic because the screenwriters were Christians for hundreds of years and they were free to add and remove texts before the paper press replaced the hand copying.
Josephus wrote in Greek, not Latin.
Evidence for Sunday worship can be found in the epistle of Barnabas, a contemporary of Pliny. Although it is not a non Christian source, it still confirms that the fixed day that Pliny refers to can be no other day but Sunday. Unless you can think of any reason why Barnabas would make up the day on which they were meeting.
The persecution claims are massively overblown, as Candida Moss demonstrated in her book on the subject.
Not necessarily. She makes some pretty controversial claims that are not widely accepted.
Such as
History is written and rewritten by those in power , much is slanted at best
A little expounded on passage in the bible, especially among skeptics, is the passage about the Magi. Just read Mathew 2:1-16, it make's no frankincense.
15:00 It would be an interesting thought experiment to set aside the weight of the last 2000 years' perception of Jesus, and simply take ONLY those extra-biblical sources and ask the following question:
Who is this "Jesus" mentioned by Josephus. What can we learn about this historical figure from Josephus and the other non-biblical sources. Let's pretend we have no bible as a source. What conclusions would we come to about this particular Jesus, based solely on the historical sources?
Once we'd determined that Josephus' text had been meddled with much later and that stuff had been excluded this is what I would gather -
We'd have no stories of miracles, no crucifixion and no resurrection. We'd have a person who amounted to no more than the leader of a small sect, and whose sect, during his lifetime, remained small, lacking both social and political influence. Only later, a few generations after his death, would it have gained some popularity. From the non-biblical sources we would know nothing about his parentage or ancestry, nor the manner and time of his death.
His existence would be somewhat questionable, in that all the historical sources seem to have taken, as their sources, the accounts provided by sect members, 2-3 generations after the alleged existence of Jesus.
The thing with the Sunday stuff is that it was originally on the seventh day, which is Saturday. The Catholic church changed it to Sunday, the first day, because they had an issue getting people to come in on their day of rest. Thus, Sunday wasn't special till after Rome converted and founded the Catholic church.
0:20 - never gets old.
Being persecuted is not a sign of being right. It is also not a sign of being wrong. It just means someone really does not like you.
Can someone help me understand why these people say "empty tomb" like it should be enlightening? A tomb that never had Jesus in it is just as empty as one that had him and now doesn't. Is it concrete fact (at least assumed to be) that they have the tomb of Jesus that did in fact contain him at some point?
Another way of putting this . . . "I believe in the story of Jesus because it is the best story I have ever heard." This is an unassailable position because it is based on nothing beyond my own desire. It neither needs to be defended, nor can it be defended. That belief is simply that . . . a belief. It is purely subjective and personal--and wonderfully so. No one could take it away from me or rightly prove I am "wrong" for personally upholding a certain religious story as inspiring. And, that belief is sufficient to guide me in all my life. ... To the person who recognizes this basement-level understanding of religious belief, "proof" does not matter. To the man who bases his life on sincere belief in his mind, he does not need to depend on what is said to prove things like the resurrection, life of Jesus, authorship of the Bible, etc. The person simply desires and upholds within himself a particular belief and it guides him. ... Mind you, literacy is a very recent addition to humanity. Myriads of humans have lived and died without the ability to really interact with anything beyond themselves. Yet, somehow, now humans are being told they need "proof" for everything? Humans have never lived to such an absolute standard. Humans are simply creatures who decide for themselves what they believe to be inspirational and hold that in their minds. That is the true form of "religion/myth/superstition" which has been ever used by humans. Jamming the requirement for "proofs" is something completely irrelevant to the true form of faith. Think about it.
Yes, the argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained. Implying that longer arguments are less likely to be as true as shorter ones.
It may be misleading to say Josephus uses the phrase “Wise man” about other historical figures. While true, he doesn’t seem to commonly use the phrase - Daniel, Solomon and a couple of others, not rebels
Life as a human is fraught with people telling you things. Insurance salesmen tell you "what if". Mechanics say "change your oil and rotate your tires". News outlets say whatever outrageous thing they can uncover or make up in order to keep your attention. It's up to each of us to determine which things warrant thought or action. Religion is just one more thing that someone is selling.
Back when I was a Christian I remember finding out that Jesus didn't actually write the Bible, and that Jesus (allegedly) didn't write ANYTHING, EVER! I had just assumed that the bible was some sort of heavenly autobiography.
Since then I enjoy telling Christians that Jesus didn't write a single word of the bible and watch the shock and incredulity on their faces.
77 Megapixels I think most Christians would know this.. that Jesus didn’t write the bible.
@@farmercraig6080 I'd think so too, but I am amazed how many don't.
Ok, that intro is spot on
My wife just pointed out that during that time period, the Greeks totally *believed* in the Greek myths. Does that make the Greek myths "true", as well?
Does Christianity imply that humans have some deeper faculty of coming to know the truth-a faculty deeper and more knowable than rationality- that allows us to know in our hearts that God exists and Jesus is God?
If so, it appears to me that Christianity is therefore false, since other religions have adherents who testify to honestly know in their soul that claims contrary to Christianity are true (like Jesus was not God, Muhammad was a prophet). The best explanation of these two scenarios seems to be that it’s just a feeling- and this type of feeling led each side to contrary conclusions- so this feeling/intuition about the truth of scriptures/God is untrustworthy. But this claim (that we can know God’s existence in our hearts) is essential to Christian dogma, so Christianity is false. Does this sound right?
Hume "On Miracles" is 25 pages long depending on the edition!
Hey Paul. Is your intro music from "The Boondock Saints"?
The Proto-Paschalian account of resurrection “belief” explains the mushrooming of Christianity as well as anything. After the crucifixion the disciples were so distraught, they were in danger, their futures were shot, etc. They had little to live for. They decided that even if there was only a 10% chance that Jesus was risen it was worth going for it full commitment, even unto death. After all, 10% odds for an eternal payoff, and 10% odds that they will face eternal damnation if they abandon Jesus, made it good rational sense for them to behave “as if“ Jesus rose. This is fully consistent with studies in religious psychology and risk and game theory. I don’t know why this theory does not get more attention.
The following would almost certainly have written about Jesus and his followers, had events been even proximate to those outlined in the NT...
PHILO , SENECA (Lucius Annaeus) , PLUTARCH (Plutarch of Chaeronea), JUSTUS (Justus of Tiberias)
All were contemporaneous and local to events. All wrote widely on Jewish happenings, and not one of them even mentions Jesus, or the crucifixion, or the supernatural aftermath, or any other recognisable account from the primary Christian source - the Gospels.
Did any of these guys question why women had to come to a tomb after the guy is dead and buried? For what purpose? And even if it were to annoint the body after death, since when does Jewish law allow women to administer to a man's body. Too simple for these high minded critics.
I believe Jewish culture didn't allow men to touch the uncleanliness of dead bodies. That was left to the lower classes - women and slaves.
@@druidriley3163 You believe wrong. To this day men prepare the body of men for burial and women for women. More important, if Jesus was already entombed it's over. There is no need to go back and then "prepare" the body for burial. It even said the owner of the cave had already anointed the body with spices so what more needed to be done. This is a literary devise to have people visit the tomb when it wasn't even necessary. Try logic.
@@alg11297 - no, I read it yesterday. Women did prepare the bodies in the 1st century. Considering the circumstances under which Jesus was entombed - highly illegal and probably done under the table (criminals were not allowed respectful burials even disgraced emperor's families had to recover their remains surreptitiously), it's perfectly reasonable to assume the women would come afterwards. They still had to have time to gather the annointing materials after all. Logically I don't believe the story at all. It's fiction. I'm just pointing out the burial rituals.
Agreed . The bible is filled with one literary device after another. And like most readers very few want to pay attention to the subtle tricks that orchestrate the grand narrative, but instead just want to enjoy the feelings invoked.
Jesus rose from the dead
so that his father in heaven, Yahweh, (who was himself)
could forgive humanity for ignoring him and disobeying his rules.
And it's all my fault
even though I did not exist.
great content, SUBBED ;-)
welcome!
@@Paulogia ive been watchng your videos for a couple months now, it was about time I had to sub :-P
The passages of Jospehus and other non Christian sources usually prephase their sections about Jesus with "This is what this sect who call themselves Christians say..." aka they are citing people whose primary source are biblical texts aka they are not extra biblical sources at all.