HAHA totally correct! God I hate talking/listening to people like that. I actually had a lecturer in college like this guy, but way more boring, and low key energy. Out of 60 people, every single Friday, last lecture, only 1 person showed up to his lecture. Everyone else preferred studying from their text books.
Yeah. Cornell West and Michael Eric Dyson have PHDs in talking without saying nothing. But they insert “oppression”, “Black” and “Racism” every 5th word so what they say must be valid, right!?🤷🏽♂️
His voice is just a background drone now. Listening to him read it from his screen is boring the life out of me. In fact, he's bored me so much I don't even care what Matt has to say about it.
I always find it interesting that Matt’s arguments are simply put and easy to follow, while his opponents seem to go on confusing tangents citing various historical figures or terminology. Perhaps it’s my own shortcomings in knowledge that is holding me back from understanding some of the points being made, but it also seems true to me that a great argument usually can be broken down into simple terminology and be relatively easily explained to a layman like myself.
@Rebecca Leeman Not only the BS detector, but also.. the speaker, most likely, doesn't understand the idea him self, whenever it is explained in an overly complicated way. Basically, you are capable to explain most parts of any idea, if you *actually* understand the thing. (for reference to layman, look up on youtube "physics explained in 5 different levels" - from child to PHD)
@@LoveScreamTrue Someone, I heard it was Einstein who said if you can't explain it to a 5-year-old, then you don't understand it yourself. Matt understands it himself. That's the reason he has no problem explaining it to others.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
I just loved that this apologist didnt seem to know there were more than the base books of the bible.. and they were picked and sifted thru for the cannon...
vernon padilla Atheist don’t say “there is no god”. They say “I don’t have enough evidence to believe such a thing exists “. There is a huge difference.
JESUS could not lift iron chariots, JESUS could not leave a book behind, 2,000 years AFTER the Babylonians created sculptures and clay tablet writings and 2,000 after Egyptians figured out how to do it, JESUS was still impotent to the task
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
@@49perfectss Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
@@taowaycamino4891 hey look! An empty claim that addresses noting at all about the debate. How incredibly impressive. I'm a brainless theist now! Lol grow up kid.
was the Quran written by someone who was an eyewitness to Muhammad, knew Muhammad, and even got the words directly from Mohammad? Almost certainly. Does that lend any credibility to the truth of the claims made within the Quran? Not at all. The same goes for the gospels.
EXACTLY. The question, and the discussion is thus not relevant. Also the answer is not relevant. Even if christians came to a point that they understand it wasnt the case, it wouldnt change their faith in Jesus and the bible (i guess).
The Qu'ran's teachings are dreck, but it holds the advantage over the Bible by starting in Arabic and staying in Arabic during its reproduction, versus Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic translated into the Latin and then the Vernacular languages of Europe.
@@troyevitt2437 Concerning the problems with translations a fun example is the translation of the old Cinderella tale where she was originally wearing fur lined slippers but a mistranslation turned them into the now well known glass slippers. Iirc the French words for glass and fur were pretty similar and the translator wasnt a native French speaker. (I read it a long time ago so details are a little fuzzy, and of Matt's points ar the start.)
The apologist, mr. Sheffield, simply cannot get into the gear of open conversation. He has his prepared arguments and cannot have a back and forth discussion, he just repeatedly tells Matt that he has a good point and moves on to his next pre-packaged argument.
k Antilles underlying all of this debate about who said what and when (and all this about 2,000 years ago! ) is the suspicion that in a world greatly influenced by superstition and ignorance there was a vested interest for those early church members, bishops etc. to just believe whatever the fuck they heard. It seems to me that once you’ve nailed your colours to the Christian mast (or indeed ANY mast) you’d find a way to bolster your beliefs. Buddhism has a similar problem. All of the alleged sayings of the Buddha were part of an oral tradition and were not written down for a good long time so just as with the Gospels how can we ever really know who said what and whether it was even true?
Presuppositions, not actual arguments. Apologists have a nasty habit of disguising their empty statements as arguments as if that gives them more credibility. I'm glad that conversation wasn't called a debate as they usually are.
I literally only have notifications on for this channel. Matt's debates are always a must watch!! Sharing this with my pastor father to see what he thinks!
@@simonodowd2119 That's Isaac but I get called it all the time anyways! Unfortunately I'm an athiest with a name that means "Yahweh is salvation". Rip.
@@Imrightyourewrong1 One, Jesus was crucified. Two, the apostles believed that they had witnessed the risen Jesus. Three, Paul, a known church persecutor, turned around completely for Jesus. Four, Jesus’ brother James the skeptic also changed his mind about Jesus. Five, the tomb was empty.
Matt is absolutely right about that last question and comment. Christians are great at providing arguments and rebuttals against other religions, but they seem to have a blind spot when it comes to applying those same arguments to their own religion.
@Magical Chemical Daddy, it's not about who didn't create this universe. When you look at an average human it is instantly apparent that were not capable of creating the universe but that doesn't mean that your or anyone else's god did. If you want someone to believe you, you're gonna have to come with some evidence, something more than just empty assertions.
A new debate's been posted! I never imagined I would ever get excited over these things, but listening to Matt over the past couple years really changed that.
the book of mormon thing right at the end blew my mind. The shifting standards of evidence has always been so baffling to me. Good debate, look forward to the future one.
That's a difficult sentence to parse. Is he more open to *opposing* ideas...meaning he is very accepting of the idea to attack contrary opinions? Or is he cordial and doesn't talk over his debate opponents? I'm guessing you mean the latter. I don't think he actually entertains their ideas. What I see happening is he takes their objection, says that's a good objection and then gives a totally ad hoc speculation for why that objection might not be objectionable.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Why on earth is this lasting 2 hours when we know what the answer is and it takes just a quick sentence. "We don't know who wrote them, and there is no evidence to support a claim that we can know."
It's so suspicious why you used the term 'know'. I think there's some sort of debate trick you are employing. Historians rarely say they 'know' something happened in the past, especially if it happened 2000 years ago. They might say they believe something probably happened
No trick, it's how you're saying. The best we can say is 'believe', especially when relying on just written material, because there's always a chance that there's an error, or the person who wrote it was wrong or biased. In order to say 'know' we need evidence to show that is actually the case. Did you know that there's a fringe theory that Shakespeare didn't write his plays? That someone else wrote them and he was just a front for some reason. And that's only 400 years ago with several contemporary people writing about a guy called Shakespeare and the plays he's doing. Compare that to the gospels. Hundreds of years between Jesus (and his disciples) and the compilation of the bible, during this time there's many different gospels being handed around as individual books, handed and told from person to person to person, written and rewritten and translated, with different sects who favoured different gospels and so on. The idea that any of those gospels have a firm chain of evidence through that entire time is illogical, and the people pushing that idea have serious biases.
Ohio State yes, specific, principled analysis is definitively spooky witchcraft. In ONE SENTENCE you employ 3 logical fallacies. (Ad Hom, Monolithic Other, either/or thinking). So perhaps try a little harder with your own arguments before you cast aspersion on others.
@@ohiostate4515 oh no! His programming is coming out... don't you think its odd that the bible and churches use the same tools as cults, terrorist groups, and facist dictatorships in convincing you all opposing thought or evidence coming from those on the other side is for deceiving you or "bad".... just food for thought.. oh wait.. ur not supposed to think for yourself at all
So glad to see debates are going on despite the current situation. Looking forward to the next debate. Keep up the good work Matt, and thanks for sharing the video :)
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
I'm not even 9 minutes in and I'm shouting that's not how that works! It's not about if we have other lines of evidence pointing at other authors. A lack of contradictory evidence doesn't mean person A wrote it. You need good evidence that person A wrote a thing not just a lack of contradictory evidence. I'm really hoping this isn't the case he's going to use for the disciples writing the bible.
It wasn't the whole of the case it was just the worst part of it. A lot of the case seems to be people called it by those author names earlyish and consistently. The case is decent I guess? I'm with Matt though that it's doubtful and doesn't matter in any event.
Intuitionism is very strong amongst the "intellectual Christians". It's the only thing they have. Just look at how Inspiringphilosophy argues. In philosophy, it's called conservative phenomolism, and I don't see how anyone serious could use it as an argument.
@@dragan176 Religious epistemology just seems different in general from any epistemology I would want to use. That said it tends to be consistent. So it's not really surprising that if they think arguments from authority & tradition are valid they get used. The problem is that while authority and tradition exist for reasons. Those reasons aren't necessarily good reasons. authority and tradition are good low effort starting points, but if one wants to know the truth with a high degree of certainty cross validation using harder and more reliable methods is required.
@@Noromdiputs I just can't wrap my head around why intuition is used as a reason for a proposition to be justified. Intuition isn't a method to come to truth, it's just an expression of what you already believe. I think it's this religious idea that the truth is written in your heart, and you just have to uncover it. I remember Tjump talks about how religious people view truth in a "top-down" sense, while others would view it in a "bottom-up" sense.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
I have a document that proves Jesus was gay, and it was handed down to me from my family, that I can trace back to the beginning of time. But I do not have to prove it, because it is really old and it was handed down to me.
It was very nice to listen to a debate / discussion by two very sane people with an intelligent dialogue, no yelling or disparaging, degrading remarks about one opponent. Hats off to both of you! It was very interesting and helpful to hear this. I find myself arguing Matt's points every now and again with some of my overly Catholic friends so this adds to my knowledge base on the topic. Being the token atheist in my community is quite the cross to bear😈
According to the Book of Mormon, the words were (written? delivered? discovered?) by the long-dead Nephite prophet Moroni on a series of golden plates. Those were viewed/translated with magic glasses and then transcribed by Joseph Smith. At least it's only one person removed from the "source." It must be more reliable then ... right?
It's quite clear that the gospels were not written by eye witnesses. Matthew and Luke copied extensively from Mark and John was written at least 60-70 years after the purported events. Luke even pretty spells it out that he was writing his Gospel as lots of people where doing the same. There are substantive disagreements between the 4 accounts and they are peppered with historical anachronisms as well. They can't agree on what Jesus said and did, his character, why he was arrested, how he was betrayed, what day he was executed, what his final words on the cross were, how his tomb was found and by who!
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
I’m a weeeeeeee bit confused how every time Matt speaks Jonathan’s response is immediately ok good points! And then follows it by trying to find a way to still make it work.. Matt nailed it here. There just simply is no way to figure out who wrote the gospels at this present moment
Debating 101 for Sheffield: when involved in a debate, don't just drone on continuously for 15 minutes straight reading from a book or off a screen. It's very difficult for your audience to listen to without falling asleep or wanting to kill themselves.
Yeah, I expected a regular back and forth conversation after the initial opening statements, but what I got was a barrage of tiring monologues from the Christian, nothing to do with the points Matt made. Basically, the open statement section continued the whole way through because the guy doesn't know how to have a conversation.
I shouldn't be laughing about a suicide joke but... usually when arguing with an apologist I'm thinking to myself "ok one of here needs to die and I dont want to kill an idiot so..." Then 2 sentences later I'm hearing "without the bible, I could dump boiling water on you and it would be nothing more then a difference of opinion and your opinion isnt better then mine." When discussing the morality argument. Yes very moral... ya know, maybe we should be glad some people believe in god cause they've been so indoctrinated that they seem to severely lack empathy and would go on a killing spree tantrum if "waaaah my gods not real." My response is usually, good luck with that defense in court.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
machintelligence Even worse, the only source for the “disciples” beyond Peter, Paul, and James is the gospels and Acts. There’s no such thing in any of Paul’s letters. Just “apostles”.
58:18 Matt: "Does that mean it's true? Does that mean that I now have a good reason to believe that what you're saying is true? Jonathan: "Yeah, you know, you know, I think at the very start, you know, when we look at the information, you know, for me, you know..." OMG it's painful.
Uhm...it's not super important but it's maddeningly distracting for Sheffield to mispronounce virtually every single name...including Dillahunty. I am Glencannon!
It's a lack of empathy with others. Asking someone how they pronounce their name or to spell it to help you pronounce it correctly is just good manners
@@philippeberaldin5457 Sheffield is a bit of an oddity. He got in an epic back and forth with Richard Carrier about the original ending of the Gospel according to Mark. It's like 20 essays back and forth or something. Carrier just rips him up and down on every point but it's amazing how much he believes he knows on poor evidence.
Sheffield talking an entire pre-written essay at you for 14 minutes strait. Expecting you to remember everything and able to respond effectively to everything. Ridiculous.
To be fair, Matt's was also pre-written the difference is that Matt is a much better orator with the ability to adapt/improvise on the fly. Plus his arguments actually make sense.
I swear I had to slap myself a few times to stay awake. Make a point already! Why do I care what some late 5th century theologian thought was good epistemology for determining if something he had to believe in was true?
@Magical Chemical Daddy I've been scrolling through the comments a tad, trying to get a grasp of how people felt about this debate and I have seen you popping up quite a bit. You clearly need to seek further education. Your inability to understand simple statements is... well, astounding. There is not reason to believe a god exists, most religions draw from one another both in present and past, especially self contradiction and the inability to be proven. Go read a book, get out of the comments, nobody wants to hear your idiocy... sir
I thought this was settled years ago, and the answer is hell NO. I don't believe we have enough evidence to even prove Jesus actually ever existed. This seems like a total waste of time.
Generally speaking, I've noticed that the people whom call Matt "DEE-yuh-han-tay" (or "dilla-HUN-tay," as they often can't decide) present the worst arguments/waste the most time not giving arguments.
Gotta respect anyone who willingly subject themselves to apologist bullshit, just so believers in the audience in person or online will have the chance to break free from their indoctrination, after seeing and hearing the nonsense coming out of these apologists.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Sheffields' conspicuous chair twisting and hard-pressed smirk especially at the end after Matt's rebuttal is an obvious tell-tale of him realizing he was completely done. By his own hand, for that matter.
This comes to what one is prepared to accept as good evidence. The theist started with a belief and is looking to ratify it - so he’s not objective enough. He will always give the benefit of the doubt to god - hence why he says often “why else would x have happened...?” He has an emotional attachment to the whole subject, which is clear from how he responded when he stormed off when challenged. Matt applies a logical rigour that most people don’t - he drills down into claims and has a higher threshold for proof.
Matt pummeled this guy. Which is a good thing because this guy was so boring that I needed something to look forward to and Matt dismantling his argument the second he FINALLY stops reading the book long script he has and can't go off of was a breath of fresh air.
Jesus, assuming for the moment that he existed, wouldn’t necessarily have written gospels because 1. he was preaching that the current world was going to end. Believe soon or go to Hell forever 2. He preached personal evangelism 3. Couldn’t foresee the future and how much a book that could be proven to be by Jesus would have helped the Christian argument
40:44 here Matt says people start putting names on the gospels. Is there any copy of the gospels that aren’t named or attributed to the gospels as they’re currently named? I’ve heard people say as such, but no amount of searching has yielded any positive results on this claim.
So you're saying that for more than 2 ,000 years since the birth of Jesus, and all the accounts of miracles and the ressurection, not to mention the old and new testament, that there is no proof or evidence of god? Yep.
45:23 "...were preserved to _posperity..."_ Barely worth bringing this up, but it was a little funny nevertheless, hearing someone mix up posterity and (presumably) prosperity and serendipitously creating a portmanteau.
The resurrection narratives grow in the telling which may indicate a legend that grew over time. Pay attention to how "experiencing" the Risen Jesus evolves in chronological order. Scholarly consensus dating places the documents as follows: Paul c. 50 CE - is the only firsthand report. He says the Risen Jesus "appeared" ὤφθη (1 Cor 15:5-8) and was experienced through "visions" and "revelations" - 2 Cor 12:1. The appearance to Paul was a vision/revelation *from heaven* - Gal. 1:12-16, Acts 26:19 (not a physical encounter with a revived corpse) and he makes no distinction between what he "saw" and what the others "saw" in 1 Cor 15:5-8 nor does he mention an intervening ascension between the appearances. This shows that early Christians accepted claims of "visions" (experiences that don't necessarily have anything to do with reality) as "Resurrection appearances." Paul nowhere gives any evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a more "physical" way which means you have to necessarily read in the *assumption* that the appearances were physical, from a later source that Paul nowhere corroborates. What Paul says in Phillipians 2:8-9, Rom. 8:34, and the sequential tradition preserved in Eph. 1:20 is consistent with the belief that Jesus went straight to heaven after the resurrection leaving no room for any physical earthly appearances. If this was the earliest belief then it follows that *all* of the "appearances" were believed to have been of the Exalted Christ in heaven and not physical earthly interactions with a revived corpse. He had a chance to mention the empty tomb in 1 Cor 15 when it would have greatly helped his argument but doesn't. Paul's order of appearances: Peter, the twelve, the 500, James, all the apostles, Paul. No location is mentioned. Mark c. 70 CE - introduces the empty tomb but has no appearance report. Predicts Jesus will be "seen" in Galilee. The original ends at 16:8 where the women leave and tell no one. Mark's order of appearances: Not applicable. Matthew c. 80 CE - has the women tell the disciples, contradicting Mark's ending, has some women grab Jesus' feet, then has an appearance in Galilee which "some doubt" - Mt. 28:17. Matthew also adds a descending angel, great earthquake, and a zombie apocalypse to spice things up. If these things actually happened then it's hard to believe the other gospel authors left them out, let alone any other contemporary source from the time period. Matthew's order of appearances: Two women, eleven disciples. The appearance to the women takes place near the tomb in Jerusalem while the appearance to the disciples happens on a mountain in Galilee. Luke 85-95 CE - has the women immediately tell the disciples, contradicting Mark. Jesus appears in Jerusalem, not Galilee, contradicting Matthew's depiction and Mark's prediction. He appears to two people on the Emmaus Road who don't recognize him at first. Jesus then vanishes and suddenly appears to the disciples. This time Jesus is "not a spirit" but a "flesh and bone" body that gets inspected, eats fish, then floats to heaven while all the disciples watch - conspicuously missing from all the earlier reports. Acts adds the otherwise unattested claim that Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days. Luke omits any appearance to the women. Luke's order of appearances: Two on the Emmaus Road, Peter, rest of the eleven disciples. All appearances happen in Jerusalem. John 90-110 CE - Jesus can now walk through walls and has the Doubting Thomas story where Jesus gets poked. Jesus is also basically God in this gospel which represents another astonishing development. John's order of appearances: Mary Magdalene, eleven disciples, the disciples again plus Thomas, then to seven disciples. In John 20 the appearances happen in Jerusalem and in John 21 they happen near the Sea of Galilee on a fishing trip. As you can see, these reports are inconsistent with one another and represent growth that's better explained as legendary accretion rather than actual history. If these were actual historical reports that were based on eyewitness testimony then we would expect more consistency than we actually get. None of the resurrection reports in the gospels even match Paul's appearance chronology in 1 Cor 15:5-8 and the later sources have amazing stories that are drastically different from and nowhere even mentioned in the earliest reports. The story evolves from Paul's spiritual/mystical Christ all the way up to literally touching a resurrected corpse that flies to heaven! So upon critically examining the evidence we can see the clear linear development that Christianity started with spiritual visionary experiences and evolved to the ever-changing physical encounters in the gospels (which are not firsthand reports). If apologists want to claim this data is consistent with reliable eyewitness testimony then they need to provide other examples about the same event from history that grow in fantastic detail like the gospels do, yet are still regarded to be reliable historical documents. I maintain that this cannot be done. If attempted, they will immediately realize any other historical documents that grow like the gospels do will be legends. www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/6hj39c/the_resurrection_is_a_legend_that_grew_over_time/
"All of the narrative materials of the gospels are not straight reports of events observed or experienced, but are stories cast into the popular forms of communication. The quest for a historical kernel is therefore doomed to miss the point of these narratives. All of them were told in the interests of mission, edification, cult, apology, or theology (especially christology) and they do not provide answers to the quest for reliable historical information. While epiphany (resurrection) stories may still preserve the original name of the person who was the recipient of the epiphany, exact details of names and places are otherwise always secondary and are often introduced for the first time in the literary stage of the tradition. Precisely those elements and features of narratives that lead to the climax of the story are not derived from historically trustworthy information, but belong to the style of the genres of the several narrative types." - Helmut Koester, Intro to the New Testament vol. 2, pgs. 64-65. "Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk. 1.4; Jn. 20.31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings." - Oxford Annotated Bible, pg. 1744 "The chronological and geographical outline of Mark is secondary to the individual traditions; its form is determined by the author's theological premises and therefore historically worthless (the same goes for Luke, Matthew and John)." - Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, pg. 27
As always, as is my biggest takeaway from Matt D over years of listening to him, he once again highlights the importance of the potential to make errors on our thinking. The absence of independent verification, or somewhat separately, but more to the point, the lack of any means, be it a mechanism or method by which to rule out potential bias, for example. The inability, or unwillingness to rule out potential errors in judgment is just as damning as any formal fallacy, and therefore, one is not granted as having a ration basis for that belief. This is so vital, and yet hilariously, in and of itself says nothing regarding other specific positions or beliefs that Matt may hold to. I mean, we're talking about laying foundational, groundwork here. And yet, somehow, this insistence upon employing a skeptical analysis that values ruling out errors over belief for the sake of is seen as religious or dogmatic by many believers. All the while, like this gentleman Sheffield, who seems like an otherwise nice guy, is engaged in dogmatic appeals to a script.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
I have 2 questions (as Atheist): 1. And if they were from Mark and such...does it mean it's true? To reality? 2. And if they are not from Mark - if the words are good, inspiring, moral - at face value by themselves - why should religious people care if they are from Mark? Aren't good smart things have value regardless, aren't they...looking God inspiring by themselves? Do scriptures and what is written there - have value only if they came from a particular people or lineage? Then why to care about the words themselves and what is written? It's like having signature of Elvis or Mozart stating 2+2=9. Wrong, right or even unmoral - it has still value coming from them, like celebrity items of phrases. That's the whole thing about "celebrity stuff", even if that's a chewed gum, as long as it's authentic.
Jonathan said “if the last 12 verses of mark weren’t included you don’t have an actual eye witness account on record placing the disciples to see Christ after the resurrection”, “yes it would challenge the resurrection”. And yet early manuscripts don’t have them and he still believes the resurrection. 🤦🏼♂️
The only ones interested in the details of Santa's life, are children, or those that are benefiting from this made up character. So kids will be fascinated to know the size of Santa's belly, the name of his raindeers, the amount of elves he has, etc. But none of this information is important or relevant to adults that are not invested in this fairytale. The same applies to religious beliefs. Great job, Matt. As usual. Thank you for your work.
Just to clarify something Jonathon said Papias did not write that he got anything from the Apostle John. Specifically what he wrote was that he talked to people alive in his day who claimed to be carrying on the tradition from the Apostle John. An important distinction I would say...
Weren’t all the disciples uneducated Aramaic-speaking Jews? And weren’t the four gospels written by educated Greek-language *writers*? Carrier has shown that Matthew (edit - Mark) was written in classic mythology form (chiasm). Galilean fishermen could become educated in Greek literature, but according to the Gospels, the kingdom of god was nigh and Christians were supposed to sell their possessions and give the money to the poor and go from town to town evangelizing. It seems unlikely that someone who believed such an idea would commit years to learning Greek literature.
I find it odd that no one wrote anything at the time. You'd think someone would have written to someone else. Hey there's this new magician in town. But it was DECADES (up to 70 years) later, everyone thought, hmm better write something.
Kim Land Maybe someone did, but 1. It was not valued enough to be copied or 2. later Christians or Jews destroyed it as heretical or Romans destroyed it as rebellious (promoting a non-Roman king)
Bert Ehrman has some examples of phrases in the gospels that don't really make sense in Greek, but when translated into Aramaic they work as wordplay. That's evidence that the Greek writers were putting existing folk tales into a literary structure. Just because _Braveheart_ is a formulaic fictional movie doesn't mean that William Wallace never existed.
Agnostic theist here - I still believe in God but I know I can't prove it or provide any logical and factual evidence for it. Nobody can and nobody ever has. Hardcore Christians need to stop asserting that the bible is 100% accurate and infallible - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
It gets worse with the Mormon golden plates. 8? identifiable men signed sworn statements and never recanted that they saw the golden plates. Yet I don't believe them.
Did Jesus Exist There is not one written eyewitness account of Jesus during his lifetime. Strange since he was famous at birth, because wise men expected to see the future king of Jews who was born from a virgin married mother. Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, five hundred years ago, has maintained that the gospels were originally written in Greek from 70 to 140 CE (Mark after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 130, and John no earlier than 140 CE). This proves that they were not written by Christ's apostles, disciples or by any of the early Christians. Others say: “There is no proof of the Gospels existing before 130 CE” Jesus is depicted as hugely popular in the gospels. Yet he is unrecorded by non-Biblical historians. Paul was the first one to write about Jesus around 60CE; but he, like everyone else, never saw Jesus. He experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus.
The final line of Mark's gospel narrative attests to his entire opus being not even so much as hearsay. Considering early Christians, along with Paul and his ilk, expected the world to come to an end at any moment, why would they concern themselves with the preservation of literature purportedly intended for generations beyond their own? Only in in the final chapters of Luke's gospel narrative and throughout all of Acts, are Jesus' disciples, inexplicably and without precedent, conflated with the apostles of the earlier epistles - a practice which John's later narrative, in turn, discards. Obviously, the author(s) of Luke/Acts had a different agenda than the other three. None of the evangelists ever expected his particular opus to appear centuries later, side by side with three others, opening a Church anthology of Christian writings. Each was written at different times with different audiences in mind. Synchronicity or congruity with the others was hardly a consideration.
Papias of Heiropolis wrote around the turn of the second century CE. I would not be particularly impressed by his claim to know whether Jesus existed, and if so, who were his disciples (60-70 years prior), and if he knew that, whether those disciples had written the original four “gospels”. The claim that Papias was close with John the Evangelist is now apparently evidenced by a a claim by Irenaeus 60 years after Papias’ death, so that claim is also questionable. This is not a clear chain of evidence as claimed by Sheffield.
Whoever wrote the gospels seemed to conveniently know exactly what Jesus spoke on countless occasions in various conversations and speeches. I mean word for word. Was someone there recording in script every syllable Jesus uttered? Was a witness with a photographic memory always present? Or did a holy spirit descend on the earth after the fact to perfectly recite all of Jesus' spoken words for the gospel writers? How fantastically convenient especially as it dovetails nicely with their obvious agenda of starting a messianic movement. How does one not cast suspicion on the whole thing?
The Christian guy had a hissy fit because MD kept drilling down and finally left him nowhere to go. It was when MD got him to accept that the evidential basis that was being relied on (just believing people’s claims) could also be applied to any other religions but Jonathan just couldn’t provide any coherent reason to distinguish the two and knew this made him look stupid. His whole argument fell apart. He had a rush of emotions and ran off.
If there was a deity, why would he need a book at all? Gravity for example exists and people right books about it, but the books are not the reason why gravity exists.
Even the official bible used by the JWs says that the authors of the Gospels are unknown. That says a lot about the consensus. In Catholic theology, the official (?) takes on that by their scholars is that the gospels were written by unknown authors that transcribed (and translated in Greek) much later the oral traditions of the story of Jesus according to the versions of Matthews, Marc, Luke and John. (seems those names were the names of the communities from which those Aramaic stories originated, not the name of the writers)
Johnathan said that liars can't agree on their stories. Since the 4 gospel accounts disagree ( on the resurrection account), by that logic, would we not also have to consider the resurrection stories lies?
A tell when people are lying or talking about a topic they are have no idea on, is that they tend to use more words than necessary and complicate things that dont need to be complicated. E.g Mr Sheffield
@@Simon-nv5zjOh I have. Matt denied historical events such as the crucifixtion under pontious pilate, hes not qualified to utter a single word about anything regarding the past.
"You made some good points lets move on" This is what you get when your qst debate is against one of the most known atheist debaters today. Its kind of like fighting Mike Tyson in his prime as your 1st fight. It's not going to go well
Am I prejudice? We all agree with what we like and disagree with arguments that do not fit our scheme of understanding and thoughts. Sheffield does not convince or prove anything with his arguments. Most do not make sense while I can follow and understand the Dillahunty arguments
Theist can talk so much without saying hardly anything. It truly is a skill to almost be admired.
That's why they make great* politicians. /s
HAHA totally correct! God I hate talking/listening to people like that. I actually had a lecturer in college like this guy, but way more boring, and low key energy. Out of 60 people, every single Friday, last lecture, only 1 person showed up to his lecture. Everyone else preferred studying from their text books.
Yeah. Cornell West and Michael Eric Dyson have PHDs in talking without saying nothing. But they insert “oppression”, “Black” and “Racism” every 5th word so what they say must be valid, right!?🤷🏽♂️
@@WrvrUgoThrUR 🤔
His voice is just a background drone now. Listening to him read it from his screen is boring the life out of me. In fact, he's bored me so much I don't even care what Matt has to say about it.
I always find it interesting that Matt’s arguments are simply put and easy to follow, while his opponents seem to go on confusing tangents citing various historical figures or terminology. Perhaps it’s my own shortcomings in knowledge that is holding me back from understanding some of the points being made, but it also seems true to me that a great argument usually can be broken down into simple terminology and be relatively easily explained to a layman like myself.
@Rebecca Leeman Not only the BS detector, but also.. the speaker, most likely, doesn't understand the idea him self, whenever it is explained in an overly complicated way.
Basically, you are capable to explain most parts of any idea, if you *actually* understand the thing. (for reference to layman, look up on youtube "physics explained in 5 different levels" - from child to PHD)
@@LoveScreamTrue Someone, I heard it was Einstein who said if you can't explain it to a 5-year-old, then you don't understand it yourself. Matt understands it himself. That's the reason he has no problem explaining it to others.
Everything can be explained in more or less simple terms, but some people looove word salads in order to appear ‘intellectual’.
Nah, word salad. You’re good.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ is read in nearly every primary school, therefore this is evidence that it is record of actual events.
The difference being that no-one is claiming the Hungry Caterpillar is a depiction of actual events. Not really the best analogy.
@Tezzeret Obviously not.
@Tezzeret yeah but only if you hallucinate the caterpillar along with 500 other friends at a rave who are also, "tripping balls".
In Hungary we have a story about a magical deer. We all read it elementary school, so it must be true.
@@versioncity1 one clear difference is that caterpillars have been proven to exist which makes it much more believable from the start
Boy. Using the Bible to prove the Bible just never gets old, does it?!
It does.. it's 2020 with amazing technology and access to any information. Sadly it has gotten very old.
But, it's a good joke. :)
I just loved that this apologist didnt seem to know there were more than the base books of the bible.. and they were picked and sifted thru for the cannon...
@vernon padilla oof.. that makes me a fool in the eyes of fools. scary
vernon padilla Atheist don’t say “there is no god”. They say “I don’t have enough evidence to believe such a thing exists “. There is a huge difference.
Using the bible to prove your pre existing beliefs and bias more like
If a whole universe can be spoken into existence, why couldn't a book just come about already written? We're talking about god here, are we not?
The god of the Bible is week. Very week. He always needs humans for everything.
Guia Gaston he’s not week. He’s month.
@@Iamwrongbut He's not month he's second. Chocolate is first.
JESUS could not lift iron chariots,
JESUS could not leave a book behind,
2,000 years AFTER the Babylonians created sculptures and clay tablet writings
and 2,000 after Egyptians figured out how to do it,
JESUS was still impotent to the task
@@SanjeevSharma-vk1yo Maaaaaaan, he was way too cool for that.
Wow Matt, you’ve come a long way over the last 10 years. Great job! You killed it!
It physically looks like he gets just a little healthier with each debate he wins hahaha. No wonder he is on AXP! Matt's going to be immortal!
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
@@49perfectss Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
@@taowaycamino4891 hey look! An empty claim that addresses noting at all about the debate. How incredibly impressive. I'm a brainless theist now!
Lol grow up kid.
@@taowaycamino4891what MATT says has no evidence? I think youre watching the wrong debate bud
was the Quran written by someone who was an eyewitness to Muhammad, knew Muhammad, and even got the words directly from Mohammad? Almost certainly.
Does that lend any credibility to the truth of the claims made within the Quran? Not at all.
The same goes for the gospels.
The perfect response to this question.
EXACTLY. The question, and the discussion is thus not relevant. Also the answer is not relevant. Even if christians came to a point that they understand it wasnt the case, it wouldnt change their faith in Jesus and the bible (i guess).
@@MrTomaat23 That's why they use "faith".
The Qu'ran's teachings are dreck, but it holds the advantage over the Bible by starting in Arabic and staying in Arabic during its reproduction, versus Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic translated into the Latin and then the Vernacular languages of Europe.
@@troyevitt2437 Concerning the problems with translations a fun example is the translation of the old Cinderella tale where she was originally wearing fur lined slippers but a mistranslation turned them into the now well known glass slippers.
Iirc the French words for glass and fur were pretty similar and the translator wasnt a native French speaker. (I read it a long time ago so details are a little fuzzy, and of Matt's points ar the start.)
The apologist, mr. Sheffield, simply cannot get into the gear of open conversation. He has his prepared arguments and cannot have a back and forth discussion, he just repeatedly tells Matt that he has a good point and moves on to his next pre-packaged argument.
k Antilles underlying all of this debate about who said what and when (and all this about 2,000 years ago! ) is the suspicion that in a world greatly influenced by superstition and ignorance there was a vested interest for those early church members, bishops etc. to just believe whatever the fuck they heard. It seems to me that once you’ve nailed your colours to the Christian mast (or indeed ANY mast) you’d find a way to bolster your beliefs. Buddhism has a similar problem. All of the alleged sayings of the Buddha were part of an oral tradition and were not written down for a good long time so just as with the Gospels how can we ever really know who said what and whether it was even true?
Presuppositions, not actual arguments. Apologists have a nasty habit of disguising their empty statements as arguments as if that gives them more credibility. I'm glad that conversation wasn't called a debate as they usually are.
Of course! They aren't really here to debate but only to evangelize. Very dishonest but par for the course.
It is akin to a karate practioner who can only do _kata_ and is completely incapable of actually sparring.
I literally only have notifications on for this channel. Matt's debates are always a must watch!! Sharing this with my pastor father to see what he thinks!
Sorry if this is a rude question; did your pastor-father really name you after the child who's father was instructed by God to kill him?
@@simonodowd2119 That's Isaac but I get called it all the time anyways! Unfortunately I'm an athiest with a name that means "Yahweh is salvation". Rip.
@@Her_Viscera ahhh my mistake, thank you for correcting me.
@Magical Chemical Daddy how do you know?
@@Imrightyourewrong1 One, Jesus was crucified. Two, the apostles believed that they had witnessed the risen Jesus. Three, Paul, a known church persecutor, turned around completely for Jesus. Four, Jesus’ brother James the skeptic also changed his mind about Jesus. Five, the tomb was empty.
Matt is absolutely right about that last question and comment. Christians are great at providing arguments and rebuttals against other religions, but they seem to have a blind spot when it comes to applying those same arguments to their own religion.
Still missing . EVIDENCE for a god.
Magical Chemical Daddy
God created you because god created you, great common sense! 😂😂😂
@Magical Chemical Daddy my parents made me. Not a god. Try again.
@Magical Chemical Daddy, it's not about who didn't create this universe. When you look at an average human it is instantly apparent that were not capable of creating the universe but that doesn't mean that your or anyone else's god did. If you want someone to believe you, you're gonna have to come with some evidence, something more than just empty assertions.
@Magical Chemical Daddy oh look: same old troll with a brand new screen name. Why do you keep changing them? Oh wait, I don't actually care. 🖕
@Magical Chemical Daddy So.. again, no EVIDENCE.
A new debate's been posted! I never imagined I would ever get excited over these things, but listening to Matt over the past couple years really changed that.
Right..? :)
the book of mormon thing right at the end blew my mind. The shifting standards of evidence has always been so baffling to me. Good debate, look forward to the future one.
"We have no golden plates." Suddenly he wants evidence!
Sheffield has shown more openness to opposing ideas (edit - openness to his opponent’s ideas) than almost any apologist. Nice guy, too.
That's a difficult sentence to parse.
Is he more open to *opposing* ideas...meaning he is very accepting of the idea to attack contrary opinions?
Or is he cordial and doesn't talk over his debate opponents?
I'm guessing you mean the latter. I don't think he actually entertains their ideas. What I see happening is he takes their objection, says that's a good objection and then gives a totally ad hoc speculation for why that objection might not be objectionable.
@@TheAwflores same here lol
Joshua Shrode Yes, the latter. Good catch. Thanks
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Why on earth is this lasting 2 hours when we know what the answer is and it takes just a quick sentence.
"We don't know who wrote them, and there is no evidence to support a claim that we can know."
It's so suspicious why you used the term 'know'. I think there's some sort of debate trick you are employing. Historians rarely say they 'know' something happened in the past, especially if it happened 2000 years ago. They might say they believe something probably happened
No trick, it's how you're saying. The best we can say is 'believe', especially when relying on just written material, because there's always a chance that there's an error, or the person who wrote it was wrong or biased.
In order to say 'know' we need evidence to show that is actually the case.
Did you know that there's a fringe theory that Shakespeare didn't write his plays? That someone else wrote them and he was just a front for some reason. And that's only 400 years ago with several contemporary people writing about a guy called Shakespeare and the plays he's doing.
Compare that to the gospels. Hundreds of years between Jesus (and his disciples) and the compilation of the bible, during this time there's many different gospels being handed around as individual books, handed and told from person to person to person, written and rewritten and translated, with different sects who favoured different gospels and so on. The idea that any of those gospels have a firm chain of evidence through that entire time is illogical, and the people pushing that idea have serious biases.
Atheist gives Christian lessons on the authorship of the Gospels
More like atheist tries to confuse and deceive.
@@ohiostate4515 can you pinpoint something specific matt says that you think is deceptive?
Ohio State yes, specific, principled analysis is definitively spooky witchcraft. In ONE SENTENCE you employ 3 logical fallacies. (Ad Hom, Monolithic Other, either/or thinking). So perhaps try a little harder with your own arguments before you cast aspersion on others.
@@ohiostate4515 oh no! His programming is coming out... don't you think its odd that the bible and churches use the same tools as cults, terrorist groups, and facist dictatorships in convincing you all opposing thought or evidence coming from those on the other side is for deceiving you or "bad".... just food for thought.. oh wait.. ur not supposed to think for yourself at all
@@ohiostate4515 deceiving is pretending your bible doesn't permit slavery.
So glad to see debates are going on despite the current situation. Looking forward to the next debate. Keep up the good work Matt, and thanks for sharing the video :)
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
I'm not even 9 minutes in and I'm shouting that's not how that works! It's not about if we have other lines of evidence pointing at other authors. A lack of contradictory evidence doesn't mean person A wrote it. You need good evidence that person A wrote a thing not just a lack of contradictory evidence. I'm really hoping this isn't the case he's going to use for the disciples writing the bible.
It wasn't the whole of the case it was just the worst part of it. A lot of the case seems to be people called it by those author names earlyish and consistently. The case is decent I guess? I'm with Matt though that it's doubtful and doesn't matter in any event.
Intuitionism is very strong amongst the "intellectual Christians". It's the only thing they have. Just look at how Inspiringphilosophy argues. In philosophy, it's called conservative phenomolism, and I don't see how anyone serious could use it as an argument.
Can you say, “motivated reasoning”?!
@@dragan176 Religious epistemology just seems different in general from any epistemology I would want to use. That said it tends to be consistent. So it's not really surprising that if they think arguments from authority & tradition are valid they get used.
The problem is that while authority and tradition exist for reasons. Those reasons aren't necessarily good reasons. authority and tradition are good low effort starting points, but if one wants to know the truth with a high degree of certainty cross validation using harder and more reliable methods is required.
@@Noromdiputs I just can't wrap my head around why intuition is used as a reason for a proposition to be justified. Intuition isn't a method to come to truth, it's just an expression of what you already believe.
I think it's this religious idea that the truth is written in your heart, and you just have to uncover it. I remember Tjump talks about how religious people view truth in a "top-down" sense, while others would view it in a "bottom-up" sense.
His evidence is the claim itself. Who woulda thunk it?
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Your evidence that you made that claim is the claim itself. Who woulda thunk it?
I have a document that proves Jesus was gay, and it was handed down to me from my family, that I can trace back to the beginning of time. But I do not have to prove it, because it is really old and it was handed down to me.
Has it been authenticated by the self confirming witness of the Holy Spirit?
@@jamesparson yes of course it's 100% authentic
Did he take it in the stigmata?
@@jameshaney8468 Has it been verified by various church fathers? If no, you have no case..
Artis Zelmenis I'm a church father and it looked sound to me, Jesus was indeed gay
Poor Sheffield, everytime after Matt speaks,, *heavy sigh* "you bring up a lot of good points."
Paul never mentioned any of the gospels and never discussed the ministry of Jesus nor does Paul ever quote Jesus.
This was one of Matt's best debates.
It was very nice to listen to a debate / discussion by two very sane people with an intelligent dialogue, no yelling or disparaging, degrading remarks about one opponent. Hats off to both of you! It was very interesting and helpful to hear this. I find myself arguing Matt's points every now and again with some of my overly Catholic friends so this adds to my knowledge base on the topic. Being the token atheist in my community is quite the cross to bear😈
We know who wrote the Book of Mormon. Does that mean that the books claims are true?
According to the Book of Mormon, the words were (written? delivered? discovered?) by the long-dead Nephite prophet Moroni on a series of golden plates. Those were viewed/translated with magic glasses and then transcribed by Joseph Smith. At least it's only one person removed from the "source." It must be more reliable then ... right?
It's quite clear that the gospels were not written by eye witnesses.
Matthew and Luke copied extensively from Mark and John was written at least 60-70 years after the purported events.
Luke even pretty spells it out that he was writing his Gospel as lots of people where doing the same.
There are substantive disagreements between the 4 accounts and they are peppered with historical anachronisms as well.
They can't agree on what Jesus said and did, his character, why he was arrested, how he was betrayed, what day he was executed, what his final words on the cross were, how his tomb was found and by who!
Holy crap, this was the debate equivalent of a mafia hit. It's completely clear to me who has command of this information--it's Matt.
The fact that you get the need to clarify to whine you were referring kind of nicks the sincerity of your assessment.
@@chrlpolk I shall await the English version of your reply.
Marc Weeks BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
I’m a weeeeeeee bit confused how every time Matt speaks Jonathan’s response is immediately ok good points! And then follows it by trying to find a way to still make it work.. Matt nailed it here. There just simply is no way to figure out who wrote the gospels at this present moment
Debating 101 for Sheffield: when involved in a debate, don't just drone on continuously for 15 minutes straight reading from a book or off a screen. It's very difficult for your audience to listen to without falling asleep or wanting to kill themselves.
This... I got about 5 minutes into his opening and skipped to Matt. He just sounds so monotone and boring it’s unbearable
Yeah, I expected a regular back and forth conversation after the initial opening statements, but what I got was a barrage of tiring monologues from the Christian, nothing to do with the points Matt made. Basically, the open statement section continued the whole way through because the guy doesn't know how to have a conversation.
I shouldn't be laughing about a suicide joke but... usually when arguing with an apologist I'm thinking to myself "ok one of here needs to die and I dont want to kill an idiot so..."
Then 2 sentences later I'm hearing "without the bible, I could dump boiling water on you and it would be nothing more then a difference of opinion and your opinion isnt better then mine."
When discussing the morality argument. Yes very moral... ya know, maybe we should be glad some people believe in god cause they've been so indoctrinated that they seem to severely lack empathy and would go on a killing spree tantrum if "waaaah my gods not real."
My response is usually, good luck with that defense in court.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Love your debates matt keep it up. Kudos to James for continuing this channel, wish more people would subscribe.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Sheffield just keeps asserting that "we" have an objective framework to assume things but as far as I can tell he never substantiates those claims.
Jonathan, there's nothing there man, let it go.
How do you have an unbroken chain of evidence to books that don't declare authorship and you don't have originals?
Especially ones written in scholarly Greek, a language which none of the disciples spoke, let alone wrote, since they were probably illiterate.
You make it up. Steven, I really don't think you are trying here.
machintelligence Even worse, the only source for the “disciples” beyond Peter, Paul, and James is the gospels and Acts. There’s no such thing in any of Paul’s letters. Just “apostles”.
58:18
Matt: "Does that mean it's true? Does that mean that I now have a good reason to believe that what you're saying is true?
Jonathan: "Yeah, you know, you know, I think at the very start, you know, when we look at the information, you know, for me, you know..."
OMG it's painful.
Matt killed it. 👍🏻
Uhm...it's not super important but it's maddeningly distracting for Sheffield to mispronounce virtually every single name...including Dillahunty.
I am Glencannon!
It's a lack of empathy with others.
Asking someone how they pronounce their name or to spell it to help you pronounce it correctly is just good manners
@@philippeberaldin5457 Sheffield is a bit of an oddity. He got in an epic back and forth with Richard Carrier about the original ending of the Gospel according to Mark. It's like 20 essays back and forth or something. Carrier just rips him up and down on every point but it's amazing how much he believes he knows on poor evidence.
My first jump after some seconds into his reverick was, when I asked myself: who tf was this guy "Play-doh"? - Aaaah! - Plato!!!
You wanna go to war Buh lahk eh
1:51:00 it is just taken as a fact that Jesus was resurrected. Please demonstrate that.
@Magical Chemical Daddy that is dependant of a god existing. First prove a god exists. Then prove a god actually making a person. Claims =/= evidence.
@Magical Chemical Daddy Indeed! Praise Odin, Vili and Ve, creators of humankind!
@Magical Chemical Daddy Don't you think punctuation can help transferring meaning?
Man I wish I could win my debates with riveting arguments like "Atheists said so"
Sheffield talking an entire pre-written essay at you for 14 minutes strait. Expecting you to remember everything and able to respond effectively to everything. Ridiculous.
To be fair, Matt's was also pre-written the difference is that Matt is a much better orator with the ability to adapt/improvise on the fly. Plus his arguments actually make sense.
I swear I had to slap myself a few times to stay awake. Make a point already! Why do I care what some late 5th century theologian thought was good epistemology for determining if something he had to believe in was true?
Not JUST because I love Ya, Matt but… You roundly kicked Sheffield's ass in this debate.
@Magical Chemical Daddy you define worship as loving?
@Magical Chemical Daddy Awww that's cute, you're confusing appreciating a debate performance with worship.
@Magical Chemical Daddy If I did? Then...?
@Magical Chemical Daddy I've been scrolling through the comments a tad, trying to get a grasp of how people felt about this debate and I have seen you popping up quite a bit. You clearly need to seek further education. Your inability to understand simple statements is... well, astounding. There is not reason to believe a god exists, most religions draw from one another both in present and past, especially self contradiction and the inability to be proven. Go read a book, get out of the comments, nobody wants to hear your idiocy... sir
@@ranga6160 Agreed
Sheffield is completely lost
"The Catholics said so !" Why did he stretch that to 15 minutes ?
Oners82 and why do you start a sentence with and?
@Oners82 Because I can
@@united1990 Because he can
DB Cisco sure he can, but starting a sentence with a conjunction is awful.
@Oners82 I have three university degrees. Only amateurs play grammar police. Now please stick your strawman where your head is.
We know that JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, but it is still fiction!
How dare you question the ministry of magic. It is real, you unworthy. :)
I'm informing you that the Daily Prophet is featuring you as a heretic on the front page. Really!!!
.....gotta love how 99% of the time, we non-believers are MORE knowledgeable on the subject!!!! Oh, it's great.
I thought this was settled years ago, and the answer is hell NO. I don't believe we have enough evidence to even prove Jesus actually ever existed. This seems like a total waste of time.
Generally speaking, I've noticed that the people whom call Matt "DEE-yuh-han-tay" (or "dilla-HUN-tay," as they often can't decide) present the worst arguments/waste the most time not giving arguments.
"Whom call" ?
Gotta respect anyone who willingly subject themselves to apologist bullshit, just so believers in the audience in person or online will have the chance to break free from their indoctrination, after seeing and hearing the nonsense coming out of these apologists.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Sheffields' conspicuous chair twisting and hard-pressed smirk especially at the end after Matt's rebuttal is an obvious tell-tale of him realizing he was completely done. By his own hand, for that matter.
This comes to what one is prepared to accept as good evidence. The theist started with a belief and is looking to ratify it - so he’s not objective enough. He will always give the benefit of the doubt to god - hence why he says often “why else would x have happened...?” He has an emotional attachment to the whole subject, which is clear from how he responded when he stormed off when challenged. Matt applies a logical rigour that most people don’t - he drills down into claims and has a higher threshold for proof.
Matt pummeled this guy. Which is a good thing because this guy was so boring that I needed something to look forward to and Matt dismantling his argument the second he FINALLY stops reading the book long script he has and can't go off of was a breath of fresh air.
My reaction to Sheffield’s opening: “What?”
My reaction to Matt’s opening: “YO Matt chill don’t murder him like that” 🤣🤣
james kunz you have a great format here good job
I LOVE James's face at (12:55) He's literally falling over he's so bored to death w2ith Jonathan's talking.
Jesus, assuming for the moment that he existed, wouldn’t necessarily have written gospels because
1. he was preaching that the current world was going to end. Believe soon or go to Hell forever
2. He preached personal evangelism
3. Couldn’t foresee the future and how much a book that could be proven to be by Jesus would have helped the Christian argument
4. Studies about that time period show that literacy rates were very low and likely something Jesus wouldn't have access to.
40:44 here Matt says people start putting names on the gospels. Is there any copy of the gospels that aren’t named or attributed to the gospels as they’re currently named? I’ve heard people say as such, but no amount of searching has yielded any positive results on this claim.
The opening 12 is a struggle to get through. Yawn emoji
Boring af
Take a shot every time Sheffield says "y'know"
Now I'm dead, thanks a lot
You can also take a shot every time he says "Cowobberate."
58:30 on 😂 cheers 🍻
Nuts, got me excited before I realized this is the one from a month ago.
Another debate next week
@@SansDeity hurrah!
Aw. I saw this already. Thought this was a new debate.
same here lol
Haven't seen it yet! Thanks kindly dr Matt.
So you're saying that for more than 2 ,000 years since the birth of Jesus, and all the accounts of miracles and the ressurection, not to mention the old and new testament, that there is no proof or evidence of god?
Yep.
45:23 "...were preserved to _posperity..."_
Barely worth bringing this up, but it was a little funny nevertheless, hearing someone mix up posterity and (presumably) prosperity and serendipitously creating a portmanteau.
The resurrection narratives grow in the telling which may indicate a legend that grew over time. Pay attention to how "experiencing" the Risen Jesus evolves in chronological order. Scholarly consensus dating places the documents as follows:
Paul c. 50 CE - is the only firsthand report. He says the Risen Jesus "appeared" ὤφθη (1 Cor 15:5-8) and was experienced through "visions" and "revelations" - 2 Cor 12:1. The appearance to Paul was a vision/revelation *from heaven* - Gal. 1:12-16, Acts 26:19 (not a physical encounter with a revived corpse) and he makes no distinction between what he "saw" and what the others "saw" in 1 Cor 15:5-8 nor does he mention an intervening ascension between the appearances. This shows that early Christians accepted claims of "visions" (experiences that don't necessarily have anything to do with reality) as "Resurrection appearances." Paul nowhere gives any evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a more "physical" way which means you have to necessarily read in the *assumption* that the appearances were physical, from a later source that Paul nowhere corroborates. What Paul says in Phillipians 2:8-9, Rom. 8:34, and the sequential tradition preserved in Eph. 1:20 is consistent with the belief that Jesus went straight to heaven after the resurrection leaving no room for any physical earthly appearances. If this was the earliest belief then it follows that *all* of the "appearances" were believed to have been of the Exalted Christ in heaven and not physical earthly interactions with a revived corpse. He had a chance to mention the empty tomb in 1 Cor 15 when it would have greatly helped his argument but doesn't. Paul's order of appearances: Peter, the twelve, the 500, James, all the apostles, Paul. No location is mentioned.
Mark c. 70 CE - introduces the empty tomb but has no appearance report. Predicts Jesus will be "seen" in Galilee. The original ends at 16:8 where the women leave and tell no one. Mark's order of appearances: Not applicable.
Matthew c. 80 CE - has the women tell the disciples, contradicting Mark's ending, has some women grab Jesus' feet, then has an appearance in Galilee which "some doubt" - Mt. 28:17. Matthew also adds a descending angel, great earthquake, and a zombie apocalypse to spice things up. If these things actually happened then it's hard to believe the other gospel authors left them out, let alone any other contemporary source from the time period. Matthew's order of appearances: Two women, eleven disciples. The appearance to the women takes place near the tomb in Jerusalem while the appearance to the disciples happens on a mountain in Galilee.
Luke 85-95 CE - has the women immediately tell the disciples, contradicting Mark. Jesus appears in Jerusalem, not Galilee, contradicting Matthew's depiction and Mark's prediction. He appears to two people on the Emmaus Road who don't recognize him at first. Jesus then vanishes and suddenly appears to the disciples. This time Jesus is "not a spirit" but a "flesh and bone" body that gets inspected, eats fish, then floats to heaven while all the disciples watch - conspicuously missing from all the earlier reports. Acts adds the otherwise unattested claim that Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days. Luke omits any appearance to the women. Luke's order of appearances: Two on the Emmaus Road, Peter, rest of the eleven disciples. All appearances happen in Jerusalem.
John 90-110 CE - Jesus can now walk through walls and has the Doubting Thomas story where Jesus gets poked. Jesus is also basically God in this gospel which represents another astonishing development. John's order of appearances: Mary Magdalene, eleven disciples, the disciples again plus Thomas, then to seven disciples. In John 20 the appearances happen in Jerusalem and in John 21 they happen near the Sea of Galilee on a fishing trip.
As you can see, these reports are inconsistent with one another and represent growth that's better explained as legendary accretion rather than actual history. If these were actual historical reports that were based on eyewitness testimony then we would expect more consistency than we actually get. None of the resurrection reports in the gospels even match Paul's appearance chronology in 1 Cor 15:5-8 and the later sources have amazing stories that are drastically different from and nowhere even mentioned in the earliest reports. The story evolves from Paul's spiritual/mystical Christ all the way up to literally touching a resurrected corpse that flies to heaven! So upon critically examining the evidence we can see the clear linear development that Christianity started with spiritual visionary experiences and evolved to the ever-changing physical encounters in the gospels (which are not firsthand reports).
If apologists want to claim this data is consistent with reliable eyewitness testimony then they need to provide other examples about the same event from history that grow in fantastic detail like the gospels do, yet are still regarded to be reliable historical documents. I maintain that this cannot be done. If attempted, they will immediately realize any other historical documents that grow like the gospels do will be legends. www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/6hj39c/the_resurrection_is_a_legend_that_grew_over_time/
"All of the narrative materials of the gospels are not straight reports of events observed or experienced, but are stories cast into the popular forms of communication. The quest for a historical kernel is therefore doomed to miss the point of these narratives. All of them were told in the interests of mission, edification, cult, apology, or theology (especially christology) and they do not provide answers to the quest for reliable historical information. While epiphany (resurrection) stories may still preserve the original name of the person who was the recipient of the epiphany, exact details of names and places are otherwise always secondary and are often introduced for the first time in the literary stage of the tradition. Precisely those elements and features of narratives that lead to the climax of the story are not derived from historically trustworthy information, but belong to the style of the genres of the several narrative types." - Helmut Koester, Intro to the New Testament vol. 2, pgs. 64-65.
"Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk. 1.4; Jn. 20.31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings." - Oxford Annotated Bible, pg. 1744
"The chronological and geographical outline of Mark is secondary to the individual traditions; its form is determined by the author's theological premises and therefore historically worthless (the same goes for Luke, Matthew and John)." - Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, pg. 27
Matt always crushes these people. There will be a point in future where Jesus will be viewed in the same way as Zeus.
Unfortunately it'll be after the Great Collapse
As always, as is my biggest takeaway from Matt D over years of listening to him, he once again highlights the importance of the potential to make errors on our thinking.
The absence of independent verification, or somewhat separately, but more to the point, the lack of any means, be it a mechanism or method by which to rule out potential bias, for example. The inability, or unwillingness to rule out potential errors in judgment is just as damning as any formal fallacy, and therefore, one is not granted as having a ration basis for that belief.
This is so vital, and yet hilariously, in and of itself says nothing regarding other specific positions or beliefs that Matt may hold to. I mean, we're talking about laying foundational, groundwork here. And yet, somehow, this insistence upon employing a skeptical analysis that values ruling out errors over belief for the sake of is seen as religious or dogmatic by many believers.
All the while, like this gentleman Sheffield, who seems like an otherwise nice guy, is engaged in dogmatic appeals to a script.
Debating Matt is like playing chess with a pigeon. Every turn he gets to speak he just messes the whole thing up with a bunch of nonsense or word salad and then "flies" away as if nothing happened. There is no evidence anything he says makes sense(or much less is true or has any evidence to it).
Is that mediator that social worker from South Park?
Side note: Jonathan can't pronounce corroborate. Co-rob-er-ate. Not "cooperated"
He doesn't know the meaning of it nor does he provide a theological example of it either LOL
I have 2 questions (as Atheist):
1. And if they were from Mark and such...does it mean it's true? To reality?
2. And if they are not from Mark - if the words are good, inspiring, moral - at face value by themselves - why should religious people care if they are from Mark? Aren't good smart things have value regardless, aren't they...looking God inspiring by themselves?
Do scriptures and what is written there - have value only if they came from a particular people or lineage? Then why to care about the words themselves and what is written? It's like having signature of Elvis or Mozart stating 2+2=9. Wrong, right or even unmoral - it has still value coming from them, like celebrity items of phrases. That's the whole thing about "celebrity stuff", even if that's a chewed gum, as long as it's authentic.
Jonathan said “if the last 12 verses of mark weren’t included you don’t have an actual eye witness account on record placing the disciples to see Christ after the resurrection”, “yes it would challenge the resurrection”. And yet early manuscripts don’t have them and he still believes the resurrection. 🤦🏼♂️
Who added all the Windows sound effects to Sheffield's opening statement? They were definitely the highlight of his spiel.
The only ones interested in the details of Santa's life, are children, or those that are benefiting from this made up character.
So kids will be fascinated to know the size of Santa's belly, the name of his raindeers, the amount of elves he has, etc. But none of this information is important or relevant to adults that are not invested in this fairytale. The same applies to religious beliefs.
Great job, Matt. As usual. Thank you for your work.
Skip the bloviating xian. Matt starts just after 14:00.
Thank you for a great talk.
I have a question: what is the oldest historical record of christian preachers? When did it really start to spread?
So many "good questions" in this debate.
"You're just saying what people said, that's hearsay."
"Here's what I've been told some guys said"
🤦♂️
LITERALLY!
Just to clarify something Jonathon said Papias did not write that he got anything from the Apostle John. Specifically what he wrote was that he talked to people alive in his day who claimed to be carrying on the tradition from the Apostle John. An important distinction I would say...
Weren’t all the disciples uneducated Aramaic-speaking Jews? And weren’t the four gospels written by educated Greek-language *writers*? Carrier has shown that Matthew (edit - Mark) was written in classic mythology form (chiasm). Galilean fishermen could become educated in Greek literature, but according to the Gospels, the kingdom of god was nigh and Christians were supposed to sell their possessions and give the money to the poor and go from town to town evangelizing. It seems unlikely that someone who believed such an idea would commit years to learning Greek literature.
I find it odd that no one wrote anything at the time.
You'd think someone would have written to someone else. Hey there's this new magician in town.
But it was DECADES (up to 70 years) later, everyone thought, hmm better write something.
Kim Land Maybe someone did, but
1. It was not valued enough to be copied or
2. later Christians or Jews destroyed it as heretical or Romans destroyed it as rebellious (promoting a non-Roman king)
Bert Ehrman has some examples of phrases in the gospels that don't really make sense in Greek, but when translated into Aramaic they work as wordplay. That's evidence that the Greek writers were putting existing folk tales into a literary structure.
Just because _Braveheart_ is a formulaic fictional movie doesn't mean that William Wallace never existed.
So there is no other candidate for author therefor it must be who I think it is. That is such a bad argument I can’t believe he made it.
I can't believe it took him sooo long to make it!
Agnostic theist here - I still believe in God but I know I can't prove it or provide any logical and factual evidence for it. Nobody can and nobody ever has. Hardcore Christians need to stop asserting that the bible is 100% accurate and infallible - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Well done and thanks
I will watch this, but at the moment I'm wondering how they can have such a long debate about this....surely the answer is no.
you forgot about word salad. It is a "No" but it takes a while to get there haha
It gets worse with the Mormon golden plates. 8? identifiable men signed sworn statements and never recanted that they saw the golden plates. Yet I don't believe them.
You could clearly see that after matts opening statement jonathan was grasping for something to grab at he didn't seem to know where to go😮
Did Jesus Exist
There is not one written eyewitness account of Jesus during his lifetime. Strange since he was famous at birth, because wise men expected to see the future king of Jews who was born from a virgin married mother. Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, five hundred years ago, has maintained that the gospels were originally written in Greek from 70 to 140 CE (Mark after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 130, and John no earlier than 140 CE). This proves that they were not written by Christ's apostles, disciples or by any of the early Christians. Others say: “There is no proof of the Gospels existing before 130 CE” Jesus is depicted as hugely popular in the gospels. Yet he is unrecorded by non-Biblical historians. Paul was the first one to write about Jesus around 60CE; but he, like everyone else, never saw Jesus. He experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus.
The final line of Mark's gospel narrative attests to his entire opus being not even so much as hearsay.
Considering early Christians, along with Paul and his ilk, expected the world to come to an end at any moment, why would they concern themselves with the preservation of literature purportedly intended for generations beyond their own?
Only in in the final chapters of Luke's gospel narrative and throughout all of Acts, are Jesus' disciples, inexplicably and without precedent, conflated with the apostles of the earlier epistles - a practice which John's later narrative, in turn, discards. Obviously, the author(s) of Luke/Acts had a different agenda than the other three.
None of the evangelists ever expected his particular opus to appear centuries later, side by side with three others, opening a Church anthology of Christian writings. Each was written at different times with different audiences in mind. Synchronicity or congruity with the others was hardly a consideration.
Papias of Heiropolis wrote around the turn of the second century CE. I would not be particularly impressed by his claim to know whether Jesus existed, and if so, who were his disciples (60-70 years prior), and if he knew that, whether those disciples had written the original four “gospels”.
The claim that Papias was close with John the Evangelist is now apparently evidenced by a a claim by Irenaeus 60 years after Papias’ death, so that claim is also questionable.
This is not a clear chain of evidence as claimed by Sheffield.
Whoever wrote the gospels seemed to conveniently know exactly what Jesus spoke on countless occasions in various conversations and speeches. I mean word for word. Was someone there recording in script every syllable Jesus uttered? Was a witness with a photographic memory always present? Or did a holy spirit descend on the earth after the fact to perfectly recite all of Jesus' spoken words for the gospel writers? How fantastically convenient especially as it dovetails nicely with their obvious agenda of starting a messianic movement. How does one not cast suspicion on the whole thing?
One word: Faith.
The Christian guy had a hissy fit because MD kept drilling down and finally left him nowhere to go. It was when MD got him to accept that the evidential basis that was being relied on (just believing people’s claims) could also be applied to any other religions but Jonathan just couldn’t provide any coherent reason to distinguish the two and knew this made him look stupid. His whole argument fell apart. He had a rush of emotions and ran off.
If this deity was here in person then why did it just write the book that would lead its followers ?
If there was a deity, why would he need a book at all? Gravity for example exists and people right books about it, but the books are not the reason why gravity exists.
Jesus is immortal.. why he doesn't live among us now? Oh, wait.. physics.
Even the official bible used by the JWs says that the authors of the Gospels are unknown. That says a lot about the consensus.
In Catholic theology, the official (?) takes on that by their scholars is that the gospels were written by unknown authors that transcribed (and translated in Greek) much later the oral traditions of the story of Jesus according to the versions of Matthews, Marc, Luke and John. (seems those names were the names of the communities from which those Aramaic stories originated, not the name of the writers)
Johnathan said that liars can't agree on their stories. Since the 4 gospel accounts disagree ( on the resurrection account), by that logic, would we not also have to consider the resurrection stories lies?
I heard "thread" a lot in the opening statement of Jonathan...thats about all i can quote 😁
I havent watched it yet, but I can easily predict the winner, a lil hint, it is not the theist.
Spoiler alert!
Spoilers!!!
A tell when people are lying or talking about a topic they are have no idea on, is that they tend to use more words than necessary and complicate things that dont need to be complicated. E.g Mr Sheffield
Matt doesnt know shit about how history works
@@joe5959 someone hasn’t done their research have they?
@@Simon-nv5zjOh I have. Matt denied historical events such as the crucifixtion under pontious pilate, hes not qualified to utter a single word about anything regarding the past.
"evidence"
"Investigation"
"suspects"
He's trying so hard to make it sound legit. How precious
I don't care. To the extent I care about any of this, let some theist prove god to my satisfaction.
Why is this question relevant?
Even if they were written by the disciples, that takes us not one step closer to the gospels' being _true._
"You made some good points lets move on"
This is what you get when your qst debate is against one of the most known atheist debaters today.
Its kind of like fighting Mike Tyson in his prime as your 1st fight.
It's not going to go well
Some people are so well convinced probably because they never really spend much or any time contemplating such questions.
Can anyone demonstrate the existence of magic?
Matt can.. he is a magician.. :D
I have an "8 Ball that can." "Concentrate and ask again."
Am I prejudice? We all agree with what we like and disagree with arguments that do not fit our scheme of understanding and thoughts. Sheffield does not convince or prove anything with his arguments. Most do not make sense while I can follow and understand the Dillahunty arguments
Matt at 2:00:00: Countless is probably inaccurate, let's go with many, many, many. Fixed it!