Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 23, 2007 15:12:25 GMT -4
Did I just win another debate?
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Post by Ginnie on Aug 23, 2007 15:28:40 GMT -4
I cannot help taking afternoon naps, no matter how much or how little sleep I get during the day. My depression has not been alleviated; there are days, albeit only a few, where I have not posted at all due to depression--or a panic attack. I had another one of those recently. Hmm.Sounds so familiar to me. I too was tired all the time, and am subject to panic attacks. I had two irregular heart beat episodes over the last few years. The hospital had to use the fibulator to get my heartbeat back to normal. Some of the causes are alcohol (I don't drink much), caffeine (I drink lots of black tea), but one of the questions on my information sheet for this fibulation thing was: Are you sleepy during the day? And that was interesting because I want to nap all the time, no matter how much sleep I get. So I went to a Sleep Clinic and got tested - seems I have Sleep Apnea, which basically means that I stop breathing a lot and that interupts my sleep and decreases the amount of oxygen getting in to my body (hence the difficulties with my heartbeat, it seems.) So I have been using a damn machine at home for the last month that supplies forces air into my nostrils while I'm sleeping. I also wear this band thing around my chin so that my mouth don't open. It's not that comfortable but most days now I don't nap and I'm not forcing my eyes open all the time. You should get checked out for sleep apnea. The other thing: Panic Attacks. Sometimes I have a full blown attack (about three times ) but most of the time it is milder but highly frustrating. My legs feel weak, my confidence leaves me, I feel sweaty and dizzy etc. And guess what gets rid of my panic attacks? Well, my wife had taken quite a few courses in Accupressure and she treated me for the attacks. I couldn't believe it, but they worked! You might be familiar with Accupressure, if you're not then you can look it up on the web. It is totally non-evasive, very relaxing and gentle. I had a prescription for depression but kept forgetting to take them regularly so I've stopped.
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Post by Bill Thompson on Aug 25, 2007 16:49:22 GMT -4
Did I just win another debate? Read some Dale Carnegie. Noone ever wins arguments. I think you're referring to Josephus who wrote The Wars and Antiquities. He does mention Jesus but the references are dubious. Most scholars think that they were put in centuries later. We don't have any really early original documents of Josephus. No I am not. Go to any Synagogue. They do not make the texts public but you might find a willing Rabbi who will tell you about it. Another way to find out the text is to contact any hate group who uses this against the Jews. I will not mention any by name but a lot of (supposedly) "Christian" based groups who have hatred for the Jews have used this text as grounds for hating the Jews because they speak so badly of their savior. The point is this. Jesus Christ is mentioned in texts by people who were opposed to him during the time that he was alive. If he was just made up by a group of people (and there would have to be a lot of them), then the people who were against the spread of Christianity had enough power and influence to have known about it and they would have written that it was all fake rather than mention him by name and how much God must hate him for leading people astray. To change the subject. I find this all very ironic. Atheists pride themselves in being logical thinking but they clearly fall victim to the same sort of conspiracy theories and logical fallacies that they claim to be free from. I mean, just as the Apollo Hoax conspiracy theory -- there would have to be too many people in on the hoax or scam to make it believable.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 25, 2007 19:50:56 GMT -4
So no scholar has this information about Jesus, but all Rabbis do?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 26, 2007 1:10:44 GMT -4
I don't get the bit about too many people being involved for atheism to be believable.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 26, 2007 9:45:55 GMT -4
I think he's saying that it would have been impossible to get so many peolple to go along with faking the whole Jesus story. But if Jesus is myth, he is not a deliberate myth. He is myth born of believers who wanted him to exist. No massive hoax was needed.
The problem is that there is no evidence that Jesus existed. Josephus has been brought up several times here, but he wasn't even born until 37 CE -- so anything he wrote was only hearsay (and has been noted, the passage is likely a forgery). No Roman records and no contemporary writings exist (except for the letters of Paul, who did not meet him). This is nothing new. But I do find it curious that people can be so sure that Jesus was the son of God, even though Jesus can't be shown to have been a real person.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 26, 2007 10:29:53 GMT -4
But Jesus' actual existence and atheism aren't intrinsicly linked. Even if we had incontrovertible proof that Jesus did exist, an Atheist could simply say that he was just an extra-ordinary teacher that a myth of diety grew around. His existence or non-existence is really irrelevent to the atheist position.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 26, 2007 11:04:00 GMT -4
True. But one can believe that Jesus is a myth and not be an atheist.
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Post by gwiz on Aug 26, 2007 11:20:47 GMT -4
Even if we had incontrovertible proof that Jesus did exist, an Atheist could simply say that he was just an extraoridnary teacher that a myth of diety grew around. Quite. That's pretty much my position.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 26, 2007 11:31:49 GMT -4
But we don't have incontrovertible proof, or even a handful of evidence. We don't know who wrote the Gospels, we don't have the originals and we don't know how much they were changed over time -- though we do have a pretty good idea that they were written after 70 CE. An appeal to logic would be that none of the available information can be trusted.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 26, 2007 11:39:15 GMT -4
Netiher can we be certain that the gospels are not authentic.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 26, 2007 12:03:39 GMT -4
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If we approached the case of Jesus as we would a murder trial (which is not a bad comparison, perhaps), the case would be thrown out. No physical evidence, no contemporary eyewitnesses and no chain of evidence showing the validity of any of the supposed written evidence. So we have an extraordinary claim, but not even ordinary evidence to support it.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Aug 26, 2007 12:16:59 GMT -4
I have a great deal of sympathy for what gillian's going through. Depression is horrible and the meds really mess you up. I didn't post here for months while undergoing chemo and although that's a year behind me, I'm still unable to engage in sustained debate the way I used to. Can't concentrate, can't keep up interest, can't remember what I said or think of what I want to say. It's called "chemo brain" and it could last up to 10 years.
Gllian, I hope your depression passes quickly and that you're exploring alternative treatments. If you have situational depression, any medication that messes with your serotonin will probably make you worse. Been there. No processed foods and hard exercise, if you're able, can make a big difference.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 26, 2007 12:34:17 GMT -4
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If we approached the case of Jesus as we would a murder trial (which is not a bad comparison, perhaps), the case would be thrown out. No physical evidence, no contemporary eyewitnesses and no chain of evidence showing the validity of any of the supposed written evidence. So we have an extraordinary claim, but not even ordinary evidence to support it. The evidence is lacking only because of the amount of time that has passed. The eyewitnessess and physical evidence are simply no longer available. We do have eyewitness accounts but without the chain of possession to authenticate them. As a member of the LDS church, however, I have secondary sources that confirm Christ's divinity and the essentially truthfulness of the biblical account and for which we do know the chain of possession.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 26, 2007 12:48:34 GMT -4
You can't say for sure that there was ever any evidence, so your claim that evidence was erased by the passage of time can't be validated. An eyewitness account written by an unknown person at an unknown time and copied or modified an unknown number of times is no eyewitness account at all.
I won't pretend to be an expert on your church, but I don't find Joseph Smith to be a credible witness -- for all the reasons you've probably encountered before.
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