Want to be a UT contractor? Pledge your loyalty to Israel

[American Swindle 102]

20 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

You didn’t strike a nerve with me. It was actual advice to not seriously engage that topic. The same way I’d advise someone to not engage a 9/11 truther, or a flat earther, or Dolemite on anything.

But you didn’t listen. Good luck.

 

I get it.  I suppose I imagined that we could have a simple discussion, because I, myself, have been looking into it as of late.  Anyway, yeah good points. I concede. 

[American Swindle 102]

29 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I noted that you went with the absurdity of "prove the negative."  Which is a logical fallacy.  Which had strong echoes in the news as of late.

Don't want to share a room with the Q crowd?  Don't commit their same crimes against logic.

I suppose I did do that.  My bad. 

 

[American Swindle 102]

21 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

Every time I think this, it’s immediately followed by this thought: “...but it’s the only thing keeping the imbecile mobs from atrocity.”

In fact, I’d argue that Trump is largely a result of Christianity waning in this county.  At least the good parts of Christianity.  You know, the “turn the other cheek” and “love your neighbor” parts.  A prevailing (and growing) strain of Christianity in America neglects that shit in favor of a bunch of allegedly Christian ideas that Jesus would have loudly denounced.

Just kidding, of course.  There never was a Jesus.

Okay, forgive me for the negative question.  Let me ask this way:  Some suggest Jesus' early opponents never made the argument that he never existed.  Why would you think that was?  Some would argue that it's rather suggestive of his existence.  

 

[Chad Fuck 17503]

41 minutes ago, American Swindle said:

Okay, forgive me for the negative question.  Let me ask this way:  Some suggest Jesus' early opponents never made the argument that he never existed.  Why would you think that was?  Some would argue that it's rather suggestive of his existence.  

 

 

[BrickHorn 18176]

1 hour ago, American Swindle said:

Let me ask you directly: Did Jesus Christ exist or not? 

No.  

If you want a good discussion of this topic, buy a copy of Richard Carrier’s “On the Historicity of Jesus.”  I’m in no mood for the debate-a-cultist game at the moment.  

[formermav43 4599]

29 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

No.  

If you want a good discussion of this topic, buy a copy of Richard Carrier’s “On the Historicity of Jesus.”  I’m in no mood for the debate-a-cultist game at the moment.  

I knew that outside of the lunatic fringe no one took Richard Carrier seriously, but I had no idea it was now an identifiable cult.

[hpslugga 4039]

26 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

I knew that outside of the lunatic fringe no one took Richard Carrier seriously, but I had no idea it was now an identifiable cult.

I'm sure that you have a good reason to assert this as if it was fact.

[Hank Scorpio 17712]

2 hours ago, American Swindle said:

Let me ask you directly: Did Jesus Christ exist or not? 

Of course he was real, they're still discovering new things about him even today. 

 

 

 

 

[formermav43 4599]

20 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

I'm sure that you have a good reason to assert this as if it was fact.

I find it hard to believe this is a serious question. But ok.

We could start with the fact that academics across all disciplines-classics, archaeology, ancient history, Biblical studies, theologians, whether believers or not-reject the Christ myth theory. It’s not a live issue outside of the internet.

Then we could move on to the fact that, because of that, Carrier’s books have been essentially ignored by scholars. They’re not reviewed. They’re not cited.

And, of course, he can’t even get a job, despite his educational credentials. Because he’s a crackpot.

So I suppose my “good reason” is “reality.”

[hpslugga 4039]

Interesting you continue to take the route of focusing on the author rather than the text that was suggested.

[sheeeit 129]

Love a good right turn on a surly thread.  I actually never knew there was debate on whether the person Jesus was real or not.  Learn something new everyday.  

[formermav43 4599]

20 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Interesting you continue to take the route of focusing on the author rather than the text that was suggested.

It’s interesting I answered your direct question? Umm...ok.

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, hpslugga said:

You're not "asking for a friend," you're asking for proof of a negative.

“A common saying in pseudologic is "You can't prove a negative." This is, as the hatnote up top says, simply not true.”

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

 

Edited August 15, 2018 by Guest

[BrickHorn 18176]

55 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

I knew that outside of the lunatic fringe no one took Richard Carrier seriously, but I had no idea it was now an identifiable cult.

Please pray for me to your magic carpenter who multiplied fish sandwiches, oh wise member of the sane center.

[formermav43 4599]

30 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Please pray for me to your magic carpenter who multiplied fish sandwiches, oh wise member of the sane center.

While you’re at it, you can ask all the sane atheist scholars to pray for you too.

[WhatTheBuck 28700]

49 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

“A common saying in pseudologic is "You can't prove a negative." This is, as the hatnote up top says, simply not true.”

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

 

You're nitpicking over a turn of phrase. The relevant quote from the article you linked is "The burden of proof is on the individual proposing existence, not the one questioning existence." Maybe he should have said "You can't prove the non-existence of a non-existent entity." Did you really not understand his point?

[WhatTheBuck 28700]

35 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

While you’re at it, you can ask all the sane atheist scholars to pray for you too.

To whom shall the sane atheist pray? 

[formermav43 4599]

45 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

To whom shall the sane atheist pray? 

Bart Ehrman, maybe.

[David Dennison 18608]

3 hours ago, American Swindle said:

Let me ask you directly: Did Jesus Christ exist or not? 

Maybe. No one really knows.

[WhatTheBuck 28700]

29 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

Bart Ehrman, maybe.

Email would probably be more effective. I'm sure he's in the UNC directory. 

[Guest]

52 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

You're nitpicking over a turn of phrase. The relevant quote from the article you linked is "The burden of proof is on the individual proposing existence, not the one questioning existence." Maybe he should have said "You can't prove the non-existence of a non-existent entity." Did you really not understand his point?

I'm not merely picking nits over a turn of phrase; it is a false statement that often gets repeated and one that many people believe to be true.  It should not be used because it is misleading and is the source for misconceptions. 

One can give arguments & evidence for the non-existence of a non-existent entity.  If I were to claim that there was a person named Jose Sanchez who was a founding father of the United States, could historians give arguments that such a person did not exist?  Of course they could.  Even within this subject (the fringe mythicist theory) arguments and evidence are presented by the mythicists for the non-existence of Jesus.  These (very poor) arguments are presented as evidence for the non-existence of a presumed non-existent entity.

[hpslugga 4039]

25 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

I'm not merely picking nits over a turn of phrase; it is a false statement that often gets repeated and one that many people believe to be true.  It should not be used because it is misleading and is the source for misconceptions. 

One can give arguments & evidence for the non-existence of a non-existent entity.  If I were to claim that there was a person named Jose Sanchez who was a founding father of the United States, could historians give arguments that such a person did not exist?  Of course they could.  Even within this subject (the fringe mythicist theory) arguments and evidence are presented by the mythicists for the non-existence of Jesus.  These (very poor) arguments are presented as evidence for the non-existence of a presumed non-existent entity.

No serious person disputes that it’s possible to disprove something.

What people infer when they invoke the phrase “proof of a negative,” and this should have been obvious to you, is that it’s fallacious to try and shift the burden of proof to the person arguing in the negative. Yeah, a person can disprove a negative, but in a debate, they are not required to. 

So in your Jose Sanchez analogy, is it possible for historians to literally prove you wrong? Of course. Are they required to? No; it is you who is required to prove that such a founder existed. Since you can’t actually do it, no one is going to take you seriously. It’s not like if you trotted out such nonsense that people would run away from historians they admired because they chose to ignore you.

Or to put it another way, this is precisely why a defendant in a criminal case is not required to prove his innocence. Does that mean that the defense can’t try? No. If they’ve exculpatory evidence, they’ll present it (to the extent the lawyer in question is worth a shit). But they’re not required to, and you as a juror are forbidden under the law to hold that against the defense.

Disproving a negative is permissible.

Demanding a person to do so is not.

[TwiceHorn 31184]

47 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

No serious person disputes that it’s possible to disprove something.

What people infer when they invoke the phrase “proof of a negative,” and this should have been obvious to you, is that it’s fallacious to try and shift the burden of proof to the person arguing in the negative. Yeah, a person can disprove a negative, but in a debate, they are not required to. 

So in your Jose Sanchez analogy, is it possible for historians to literally prove you wrong? Of course. Are they required to? No; it is you who is required to prove that such a founder existed. Since you can’t actually do it, no one is going to take you seriously. It’s not like if you trotted out such nonsense that people would run away from historians they admired because they chose to ignore you.

Or to put it another way, this is precisely why a defendant in a criminal case is not required to prove his innocence. Does that mean that the defense can’t try? No. If they’ve exculpatory evidence, they’ll present it (to the extent the lawyer in question is worth a shit). But they’re not required to, and you as a juror are forbidden under the law to hold that against the defense.

Disproving a negative is permissible.

Demanding a person to do so is not.

Uhhhh.

 

It kind of has to do with who initially asserts a proposition.  The burden of proof generally lies with them.  If someone asserts that Jesus did not exist, then the burden lies on them to prove it, even if the proposition is in the negative and the opponent will prove a converse positive.

[Fozzz 152]

We should make these same issues the subject of every single thread on the board. Why spare some?

[RDCanecutter 26239]

29 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

We should make these same issues the subject of every single thread on the board. Why spare some?

Put them on every thread! God will know his own.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

6 hours ago, American Swindle said:

Let me ask you directly: Did Jesus Christ exist or not? 

Sounds like you fell for the biggest swindle of them all. 

[bad_teammate 13125]

If Jesus didn't really exist why did the NT authors invent that ridiculous story of the great tax migration behind his birth?

Checkmate, atheist dummies

[hpslugga 4039]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

It kind of has to do with who initially asserts a proposition. 

Positive claims require positive evidence. Who says what first isn’t particularly relevant.

And if you think I’m wrong, consider the following scenario:

Suppose, for whatever reason, I say “there’s no such thing as Leprechauns.” Is it seriously incumbent upon me to prove that to the person who replies “nuh uh, they’re real!?”

Edited August 16, 2018 by hpslugga

[American Swindle 102]

Maybe. No one really knows.

Well there you go, a reasonable answer. I don’t know either. I think it’s pretty sad that some on the board will just shit on everyone else over a disagreement on beliefs or history.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TwiceHorn 31184]

34 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Positive claims require positive evidence. Who says what first isn’t particularly relevant.

And if you think I’m wrong, consider the following scenario:

Suppose, for whatever reason, I say “there’s no such thing as Leprechauns.” Is it seriously incumbent upon me to prove that to the person who replies “nuh uh, they’re real!?”

I think the burden of proof depends more upon the scenario than the nature of the proposition.  The most common scenario is that someone who proposes something should prove it.

 

You are making a  judgment, ahead of proof, that the proposition is self-evident and thus the burden of proof lies on the challenger.  I don't think there's anything about the proposition itself that inherently decides who bears the burden of proving it or disproving it.

 

The burden of proof lies with the state in a criminal case because the state asserts or proposes that the defendant has committed a crime.  In a civil case, it lies with the plaintiff because it alleges the defendant's liability to him.  In an academic debate, it lies with the party arbitrarily assigned it.

Edited August 16, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[Guest]

2 hours ago, hpslugga said:

No serious person disputes that it’s possible to disprove something.

What people infer when they invoke the phrase “proof of a negative,” and this should have been obvious to you, is that it’s fallacious to try and shift the burden of proof to the person arguing in the negative. Yeah, a person can disprove a negative, but in a debate, they are not required to. 

So in your Jose Sanchez analogy, is it possible for historians to literally prove you wrong? Of course. Are they required to? No; it is you who is required to prove that such a founder existed. Since you can’t actually do it, no one is going to take you seriously. It’s not like if you trotted out such nonsense that people would run away from historians they admired because they chose to ignore you.

Or to put it another way, this is precisely why a defendant in a criminal case is not required to prove his innocence. Does that mean that the defense can’t try? No. If they’ve exculpatory evidence, they’ll present it (to the extent the lawyer in question is worth a shit). But they’re not required to, and you as a juror are forbidden under the law to hold that against the defense.

Disproving a negative is permissible.

Demanding a person to do so is not.

 

23 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Positive claims require positive evidence. Who says what first isn’t particularly relevant.

And if you think I’m wrong, consider the following scenario:

Suppose, for whatever reason, I say “there’s no such thing as Leprechauns,” is it seriously incumbent upon me to prove that to the person who replies “nuh uh, they’re real!?”

Any proposition can be given as a positive or negative.  One can flip any claim to a positive or negative statement.  It is nonsense to base a burden of proof system on some trivial positive/negative categorization. 

  

[JBJ 3647]

13 hours ago, Aphelion said:

 

Any proposition can be given as a positive or negative.  One can flip any claim to a positive or negative statement.  It is nonsense to base a burden of proof system on some trivial positive/negative categorization. 

  

Importantly, doing this - shifting the burden from justifying your beliefs, to simply rejecting the justification of the opposite - is the actual logical fallacy.

Edited August 16, 2018 by JBJ

[Brisketexan 104465]

21 minutes ago, JBJ said:

Importantly, doing so - shifting the burden of justifying your beliefs, to simply rejecting the justification of the opposite if your beliefs - is the actual logical fallacy.

Again, perfectly captured by the absurdity of the Q-Anon supporter defending her beliefs with "well, I haven't seen any NON-evidence."  That is, the basis for her beliefs is that they haven't been affirmatively DISproven yet.  That flips logical reasoning completely on its head.

If she has EVIDENCE for her beliefs, then there's a basis for them.  THEN, it is perfectly legitimate and normal for an opponent to discredit that evidence, introduce counter-evidence, to DISPROVE her belief.  But saying "I believe in something with no proof -- and the reason that's sound is because I haven't seen anyone DISprove it" is a facial absurdity, and is the opposite of evidence-based reasoning.

[Hank Scorpio 17712]

14 hours ago, Aphelion said:

 

Any proposition can be given as a positive or negative.  One can flip any claim to a positive or negative statement.  It is nonsense to base a burden of proof system on some trivial positive/negative categorization. 

  

It's like these libtards don't even know basic logic. I bet they don't even read www.rationalwiki.org 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

17 hours ago, hpslugga said:

No serious person disputes that it’s possible to disprove something.

What people infer when they invoke the phrase “proof of a negative,” and this should have been obvious to you, is that it’s fallacious to try and shift the burden of proof to the person arguing in the negative. Yeah, a person can disprove a negative, but in a debate, they are not required to. 

So in your Jose Sanchez analogy, is it possible for historians to literally prove you wrong? Of course. Are they required to? No; it is you who is required to prove that such a founder existed. Since you can’t actually do it, no one is going to take you seriously. It’s not like if you trotted out such nonsense that people would run away from historians they admired because they chose to ignore you.

Or to put it another way, this is precisely why a defendant in a criminal case is not required to prove his innocence. Does that mean that the defense can’t try? No. If they’ve exculpatory evidence, they’ll present it (to the extent the lawyer in question is worth a shit). But they’re not required to, and you as a juror are forbidden under the law to hold that against the defense.

Disproving a negative is permissible.

Demanding a person to do so is not.

But its not possible to prove him definitively wrong on Jose Sanchez, especially in the pre-camera era.  Jose could have been there the whole time and the rest of the founding fathers, and everyone else at the time, could have sworn to remain silent about his existence.  Knowledge of him would have died with them.

But that is the flaw with requiring disproof of any theory that has zero evidence supporting it.  God, spaghetti monsters, or Jose Sanchez.  The duty to prove is on the person suggesting that an unnecessary entity exists.

Plus once you hypothesize an omnipotent god, you can't really prove or disprove anything at all.  Can you prove that existence didn't start 10 seconds ago and that we were created with memory implants?  That's why OJ didn't kill Nicole.

Edited August 16, 2018 by FondrenRoad

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

It's like these libtards don't even know basic logic. I bet they don't even read www.rationalwiki.org 

It's got nothing to do with liberal or conservative.  "You can't prove a negative" is a misconception that gets repeated by people across the political spectrum.  Rational wiki was developed as a response to conservapedia; due to it's origins, my assumption is that a liberal would be less likely to object to it as biased against their views, but that is just an assumption.  But the fact that "you can't prove a negative" is false can be found at numerous sources.  And really if one were to give it any thought at all, they would realize that it is obviously false.  

• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/believing-bull/201109/you-can-prove-negative
• http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2714
• https://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf
• https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-12-05/#feature
• https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/philosophical-folklore-and-the-reification-fallacy

 

21 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

But its not possible to prove him definitively wrong on Jose Sanchez, especially in the pre-camera era.  Jose could have been there the whole time and the rest of the founding fathers, and everyone else at the time, could have sworn to remain silent about his existence.  Knowledge of him would have died with them.

But that is the flaw with requiring disproof of any theory that has zero evidence supporting it.  God, spaghetti monsters, or Jose Sanchez.  The duty to prove is on the person suggesting that an unnecessary entity exists.

Plus once you hypothesize an omnipotent god, you can't really prove or disprove anything at all.  Can you prove that existence didn't start 10 seconds ago and that we were created with memory implants?  That's why OJ didn't kill Nicole.

Ultimately the discussion boils down to what claims are verifiable/falsifiable (which is usually what people are trying to get at when they comment on those pesky unprovable negatives).  With verifiability and falsifiability comes some acceptable standard of what it means to verify or falsify a claim within the subject of discourse.  One could always play the "but how do you know that?" game with history and science and really any subject, but this is why standards of verification and falsification are established beforehand in given subjects; otherwise, no progress could be made.  So saying "its not possible to prove one definitively wrong on the existence of Jose Sanchez" is a useless statement if judging by the historical verification guidelines used by the entire profession.  

But I suspect you might object to all this on some grounds that will be unpleasant to slog through, so here is another claim of nonexistence of a nonexistent entity: There is no unicorn in my refrigerator.  We could verify this claim with the empirical method and be just as certain as any other observed fact of nature.

In this thread the discussion was on the existence of Jesus the man, not on the existence of an omnipotent God.  

[JBJ 3647]

1 hour ago, FondrenRoad said:

But its not possible to prove him definitively wrong on Jose Sanchez, especially in the pre-camera era.  Jose could have been there the whole time and the rest of the founding fathers, and everyone else at the time, could have sworn to remain silent about his existence.  Knowledge of him would have died with them.

But that is the flaw with requiring disproof of any theory that has zero evidence supporting it.  God, spaghetti monsters, or Jose Sanchez.  The duty to prove is on the person suggesting that an unnecessary entity exists.

The duty is on oneself to provide justification for their beliefs. Anyone making a claim, positive or negative, is expected to be able to provide reasoning for it.

The evidence that Jose Sanchez did not exist is astonishingly simple.  We have letters from the founding fathers, we have their signatures, we have meeting minutes.  If Jose Sanchez existed, he would show up somewhere - even if there were a conspiracy to keep him secret.  This is called evidence of absence: He should be there, but is not.  

It is distinct from the absence of evidence, which is looking for evidence where evidence might not be found or simply hasn't been produced yet.  It is the basis of scientific and philosophical theorems.  Fermi's Paradox has an example of a negative theorem based on absence (that if a galactic empire existed, we would have found it by now).

1 hour ago, FondrenRoad said:

Plus once you hypothesize an omnipotent god, you can't really prove or disprove anything at all.  Can you prove that existence didn't start 10 seconds ago and that we were created with memory implants?

This is a foundational problem for everyone.  It is like asking if reality is real.   My favorite philosophers call this The Given.  It can be different things in different discussions, but it refers to universally acknowledged truths. Things like our eyes work, our memories are real, our minds are sound.  If we are incapable of taking on certain foundations of reality, it renders any discussion useless.

Edited August 16, 2018 by JBJ

[F250 28659]

17 hours ago, Fozzz said:

We should make these same issues the subject of every single thread on the board. Why spare some?

We just need a metaphysics meta thread so we can say "take it to the meta meta thread."

 

 

 

[Orca of Peace 109]

meanwhile, back at the ranch.. here is one of the many reasons for the Israeli boycott.  IDF sniper shoots protestor in leg for no god damn reason. He is a soccer player and his career is done. 

[American Swindle 102]

16 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

Sounds like you fell for the biggest swindle of them all. 

What swindle is that?  The cynical view that organized religion has been a tool to control the masses by corrupt men?  That they hijacked what Jesus Christ stood for (helping the poor and selflessness) to serve their own selfish ends?  

I hold that view now, but that doesn't mean that Jesus Christ, the Man, did not exist in our history.  Also, I still doubt a lot of the Bible's stories, but I don't rule out the possibility that it was written by men embellishing as to how Jesus Christ lived.  

Is that so far fetched?  Please elaborate on how you still think I fell for what you claim is the biggest swindle of all.  

[WhatTheBuck 28700]

15 hours ago, Aphelion said:

 

Any proposition can be given as a positive or negative.  One can flip any claim to a positive or negative statement.  It is nonsense to base a burden of proof system on some trivial positive/negative categorization. 

  

But that wasn't the case with hpslugga's statement. He wasn't framing a proveable positive assertion as a negative. He was very clearly saying, in effect, that if Jesus didn't exist then it can't be proven that he didn't exist. You seized on his wording of "you can't prove a negative" in order to take us on a little irrelevant tangent. 

What's more relevant is that even if Jesus did exist, that can't be proven either. No contemporaneous official account exists, none of the New Testament authors ever met him. Every account of his life was written long after he died, assuming he is not an entirely fictional character which he very well could be. There is no evidence of his existence. I don't see the point in debate over the provability of his non-existence. 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

He wasn't framing a proveable positive assertion as a negative.

[Hank Scorpio 17712]

Fuck yes, the logic masters have logged on. 

[Jiggy-Z 3428]

I can't believe this hasn't been posted, so I'll just leave this here:

[FondrenRoad 4378]

 

1 hour ago, JBJ said:

The duty is on oneself to provide justification for their beliefs. Anyone making a claim, positive or negative, is expected to be able to provide reasoning for it.

The evidence that Jose Sanchez did not exist is astonishingly simple.  We have letters from the founding fathers, we have their signatures, we have meeting minutes.  If Jose Sanchez existed, he would show up somewhere - even if there were a conspiracy to keep him secret.  This is called evidence of absence: He should be there, but is not.  

It is distinct from the absence of evidence, which is looking for evidence where evidence might not be found or simply hasn't been produced yet.  It is the basis of scientific and philosophical theorems.  Fermi's Paradox has an example of a negative theorem based on absence (that if a galactic empire existed, we would have found it by now).

This is a foundational problem for everyone.  It is like asking if reality is real.   My favorite philosophers call this The Given.  It can be different things in different discussions, but it refers to universally acknowledged truths. Things like our eyes work, our memories are real, our minds are sound.  If we are incapable of taking on certain foundations of reality, it renders any discussion useless.

None of the founding fathers' writings ever said "This is a complete list of founding fathers."  In fact, the idea of certifying members of a group called "founding fathers" itself is revisionist.  They were people who were doing something in the present.  At times, there were plenty of undocumented people who were present.  They may or may not have contributed to some of our founding documents.  Or maybe George Washington named his penis Jose Sanchez and only he and Martha ever knew that.

And you're overthinking "conspiracy."  Not all really have to be in on it.  We elevate these men, but they were still just men, many of whom were likely assisted in their writings and endeavors by forever unnamed people.  While its unlikely that any of the assistants were named Jose, it isn't impossible.

Furthermore, look at another example.  Thomas Jefferson was a fine recordkeeper.  One of the best of his time.  He had records of the slaves he owned.  He started with 52.  However, there is no definitive way to know exactly how many slaves he owned over his lifetime, the name of every slave he ever owned, or the ancestral nation of every slave he ever owned.  Some of those slaves were certainly forever lost to history.

[Monster 219]

Page 3 proving that adding religious language to--anything--guarantees conflict. 

Edited August 16, 2018 by Monster

[atomheartbevo 89362]

[hpslugga 4039]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

But that wasn't the case with hpslugga's statement. He wasn't framing a proveable positive assertion as a negative. He was very clearly saying, in effect, that if Jesus didn't exist then it can't be proven that he didn't exist. You seized on his wording of "you can't prove a negative" in order to take us on a little irrelevant tangent. 

Actually, it's worse than you think.

See, I didn't say "you can't prove a negative." I didn't say that because I know that's not true. What I, in effect, did was point out to American Swindle that by saying "What proof do you have that Jesus did not exist?" he was effectively demanding (I said "asking," but that's splitting hairs) proof of a negative. So Aphellion's argument is a complete strawman, in addition to the things you said.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

6 hours ago, American Swindle said:

What swindle is that?  The cynical view that organized religion has been a tool to control the masses by corrupt men?  That they hijacked what Jesus Christ stood for (helping the poor and selflessness) to serve their own selfish ends?  

I hold that view now, but that doesn't mean that Jesus Christ, the Man, did not exist in our history.  Also, I still doubt a lot of the Bible's stories, but I don't rule out the possibility that it was written by men embellishing as to how Jesus Christ lived.  

Is that so far fetched?  Please elaborate on how you still think I fell for what you claim is the biggest swindle of all.  

No, the other one. 

[LongestHorn 759]

Austin elementary school speech pathologist of 9 years just lost her job for not signing the Israel boycott oath.

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/texas-speech-pathologist-reportedly-fired-from-schools-for-not-signing-anti-bds-oath-1.6750517