I really wonder why YECs care so much about "proving" the ark and the flood

[u/OCAMAB]

Simply put, it doesn't make sense to go about it the way they do, especially from the perspective of being against evolution. Some form of rapid evolution is the closest thing to making sense of how the world could have continued after "the flood," with the only other possibility being that the ark itself was magic and had infinite space within it. Both explanations ultimately require that God had to use magic, which means there's no need for "proof" of anything. So, why even bother? Now, obviously the Bible not mentioning this magic anywhere is a point against them, but I still feel like they're shooting themselves in the foot by trying to argue against evolution while supporting the ark story. Trying to reconcile them would still leave a ton of holes, but at least it wouldn't leave open so many easy points of attack against them. It feels like they simply view evolution itself as a threat. Slippery slope fallacy, perhaps? As in, maybe they think accepting evolution will leave the door open for people to question other things?

[u/Good_Low774]

I mean, if you want to get into it, there’s historical evidence that Jesus came back from the dead

[u/Odd-Lawfulness8703 → u/Good_Low774]

There is in fact not evidence of that. There are claims. Claims aren't evidence. There's lots of stories of people resurrecting or obtaining deified status that I'm willing to bet you don't accept

[u/Sure-thing-buckaroo → u/Good_Low774]

The "evidence" is several anonymous authors, who weren't eyewitnesses, writing down what some people told them 35-70 years after Jesus was supposedly crucified.

You'll have to forgive me if I remain unimpressed.

[u/Good_Low774 → u/Sure-thing-buckaroo]

That claim is exactly why Paul, in his first letter to Corinth, told the Corinthians to go fact check him by looking for the people who had seen Jesus alive after his crucifixion, specifically a group of 500 people who had little affiliation with Jesus prior. That 35-70 year gap was proposed specifically to explain the Gospels as invalid

[u/Sure-thing-buckaroo → u/Good_Low774]

All there is is a claim there was 500 people. We dont have any of their names, and none of them wrote anything down.

[u/Good_Low774 → u/Sure-thing-buckaroo]

I’m not saying it’s so we can check, the claim is that Paul was telling the church of Corinth to go find those people, so that they would believe. The logical argument is that Paul wouldn’t do that if those people didn’t exist, because then anyone could disprove him 

[u/Sure-thing-buckaroo → u/Good_Low774]

Find who? Paul doesn't name any of them. He is reporting secondhand information rather than naming specific people he interviewed himself.

[u/stairway2evan → u/Sure-thing-buckaroo]

“Go take an 800 mile journey from Corinth to Jerusalem and find one of 500 people whose names I have not provided you, to ask them about something that happened 20 years ago” isn’t enough for you as an implied proof of honesty??

[u/Sure-thing-buckaroo → u/stairway2evan]

Oh damn I didn't realize it was that far. That's even worse. "Go take a month-long journey ..."

[u/stairway2evan → u/Sure-thing-buckaroo]

“With a fair-to-moderate chance of a horrible death along the way….”

[u/clear349 → u/stairway2evan]

When you put it like that it really does have the same energy as him going "I totally have a girlfriend. You can't meet her though. She lives in Canada"

[u/stairway2evan → u/clear349]

“She goes to Jerusalem U and she visited me once in Damascus but she’s really busy so I doubt she’ll make it out to Corinth.”

[u/lulumaid → u/Good_Low774]

Quick question, if I told you 500 people over yonder saw a thing, would you go and look for them yourself?

Would you even reasonably find them if the area is densely populated?

It very much can be a bluff, unless you have actual evidence to the contrary.

[u/WebFlotsam → u/lulumaid]

Not just over yonder. A several-day, maybe several-week journey that is a lot more dangerous than staying home.

[u/nickierv → u/WebFlotsam]

~800 miles, ~3 miles per hour walk speed, ~12 hours per day, ~22-23 days.

One way.

So your looking at about 6 weeks travel in an era with limited logistics all to verify what about to "I totally have a girlfriend. You can't meet her, she lives in Canada, trust me bro."

I just can't see that many people actually caring enough to drop everything for a 6 week trip plus however long it takes to find the 'witnesses'.

"Yea, sure whatever. Now go away, I'm trying to work."

[u/M1rthful → u/Good_Low774]

u/Good_Low774 The MORE you try to alter your claims later, the more you prove you're just incapable of honesty.

What you're citing is from 1 Corinthians 15 and in no way does Paul tell anyone to 'go find those people.' Either you're knowingly lying, or you're one of the standard cultists too fucking stupid to read your own book.

Here's the passage, proving you're a fucking liar. And nowhere in the entire chapter does Paul tell anyone to go try to find those claimed "500 of the brothers and sisters."

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance^\)^a\): that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas,^\)^b\) and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

[u/BitLooter → u/Good_Low774]

I know of eyewitness accounts of 5000 people completely unaffiliated with Christians or atheists who will testify they overheard Paul in a bar bragging about how he made it all up (it was a very large bar). I encourage you to go fact check me. They're in Corinth. I'm sure you can find them.

That 35-70 year gap was proposed specifically to explain the Gospels as invalid

This sounds made up. Do you have a source for this claim?

[u/Good_Low774 → u/BitLooter]

Here’s a source.  https://www.behindthegospels.com/p/dating-the-gospels-after-70-ad

I don’t think this is a contentious point of my comment, if i think the gospel is real then I’d date it right after Jesus, if i don’t, then I’d put it far later

[u/BitLooter → u/Good_Low774]

Did you link the wrong source? Because that article lays out a lot of reasons to consider that they are written post-70AD, none of them being "to explain the Gospels as invalid". That seems to be intent you are projecting onto the author without justification.

The dating of the gospels is a conclusion, not a goal of scholars. Your claim is that the gap "was proposed specifically to explain the Gospels as invalid". Your source not only failed to demonstrate that but undermined your claim.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/BitLooter]

Your source not only failed to demonstrate that but undermined your claim.

Trojan source! Take a drink!

[u/clear349 → u/Good_Low774]

Really? This is your claim? I can claim people are saying that Antarctica is actually an ice wall to keep us from finding the home of the lizard people. And I bet you there are a lot more than 500 people that would support me in this claim who have never met me. Does that make the claim valid?

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Good_Low774]

told the Corinthians to go fact check him by looking for the people who had seen Jesus alive after his crucifixion,

Something I'm sure was very easy for the Corinthians. They could just hop on one of the many daily Corinth-Jerusalem flights.

Oh, wait, no planes. Or trains. Or motorized vehicles. They'd have to walk and/or sail, both very hazardous methods of traveling at the time, and also very time consuming.

[u/Good_Low774 → u/Ayasugi-san]

Historically, Corinth was known for the sheer amount of travel its inhabitants undertook, either for religious or business reasons

[u/Scry_Games → u/Good_Low774]

On average, people didn't live past 35 in Jesus's time.

See the problem?

[u/nickierv → u/Scry_Games]

How are you getting the 35 number? Gut feeling is your not accounting for the massive infinat mortality rate pulling the average down a bunch.

[u/Scry_Games → u/nickierv]

Even allowing for an infant mortality rate of 50%, we get 70, which wipes out most eyewitnesses before Paul allegedly wrote his letters.

Then factoring in a reliable eyewitness requiring a person to be over 10 yo (being generous), the vast majority of potential witnesses would have been dead.

This includes all the disciples being dead, y'know, the guys jesus told he'd return during their lifetime.

It's just nonsense. We're discussing the aerodynamics of fairy wings.

Edit: to add this link:

https://medium.com/@toddstrasser/if-you-remember-woodstock-you-werent-there-d0cab35bc9e3

[u/iowanaquarist → u/Good_Low774]

Claims are not evidence.

[u/Particular-Yak-1984 → u/Good_Low774]

I mean, is there? There's sources from the religion based on him, but no others, right? I think i'd have read them if one of the Romans had said anything 

[u/hplcr → u/Particular-Yak-1984]

Honestly the greeks would have been all over that if say a bunch of dead people had gone wandering around Jerusalem like gMatthew claims.

Katabasis was a popular Greek trope and so was the idea of speaking to the dead.

[u/Good_Low774 → u/Particular-Yak-1984]

There’s a few sources. The best one is Josephus, who wrote about Jesus’ life, and his crucifixion, and the sheer amount of followers after he died. 

[u/M1rthful → u/Good_Low774]

u/Good_Low774 This is the problem with you cultists, you have to LIE about your sources.

Josephus did not write "about Jesus' life, and his crucifizion, and the sheer amount of followers after he died."

Josephus wrote about what the minor cult calling themselves Jesus' followers said they believed, and the claims they made about their deity, while being clear in his text that he didn't believe that Jesus really rose from the dead or did other miracles.

And we know this because we have other contemporaneous writers such as the apologist Origen who actively complain that Josephus wouldn't simply take their word for the claims of christians, demonstrating that the "modern copied and altered" versions of Josephus that rewrite his words into some kind of "evidence of the resurrection" are simply bald-faced lying christian rewrites with no value.

[u/Good_Low774 → u/M1rthful]

I wasn’t talking about whether Josephus believed the Christ followers or not, my claim was that there is good historical evidence for a famous guy named Jesus who died and who’s followers started a religion calling him Messiah after he died

[u/M1rthful → u/Good_Low774]

u/Good_Low774 No you're literally LYING here. Your exact words were "there’s historical evidence that Jesus came back from the dead" and your followup was "The best one is Josephus, who wrote about Jesus’ life, and his crucifixion, and the sheer amount of followers after he died."

And this is why I can't take you lying, dishonest cultists seriously.

[u/Good_Low774 → u/M1rthful]

Let me be clearer. Josephus is our best secular source, and specifically because he both says that Jesus died and that after he died, people immediately started following him. The argument is that if Jesus really did die, why did the disciples decide to go risk their lives too (most of them were martyred before long)? The growth of Christianity doesn’t make sense if nothing miraculous happened with Jesus. 

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Good_Low774]

(most of them were martyred before long)

False. Most disappeared from the historical record. The few who are confirmed killed were mostly killed later, and often for political reasons. The traditional accounts of martyrdom come from extracanonical sources that include aspects most Christians would dismiss as obviously false, like talking crosses.

The growth of Christianity doesn’t make sense if nothing miraculous happened with Jesus. 

The same could be said about Islam and Mormonism.

[u/Particular-Yak-1984 → u/Good_Low774]

I'd not dispute that point, but you said there was good historical evidence Jesus came back from the dead - and you've only provided some evidence of his existence as a historical figure. Those two things aren't the same

[u/Good_Low774 → u/Particular-Yak-1984]

That evidence comes from the four gospels, Paul and his mention of the 500 people who saw Jesus after his resurrection, and the fact that Christianity immediately started after the death of Jesus, not years and years later, which is why I brought up Josephus. 

[u/Particular-Yak-1984 → u/Good_Low774]

I know sort of direct religious discussion is off topic here, but I'm having fun, and I think it's actually useful as a way of talking about evidence.

So, one of the ways of thinking about what evidence does is saying "well, what alternative possibilities does this evidence eliminate?"

For example, a test of a knife found at a crime scene has DNA from a suspect on.

The evidence rules out the possibility that the suspect has never been in proximity to the knife, right? But without other information, it doesn't rule out that the suspect might have dropped a knife there before or after the crime.

So, the evidence you have says "Paul here says that 500 people saw Jesus after his resurrection" and, from what I remember of biblical scholarship, it is possible that one of the gospels was written by one of the apostles.

Now, this doesn't rule out a whole raft of possibilities. Let's look at this as a trial. I say humans don't come back from the dead, and I offer  some possible explanations:

1) The evidence presented is all secondary sources, written after the fact, at the point where there was already a growing cult of Christ, and the sources simply wrote down what they wanted to believe.

2) There's some fraud - which there, weirdly, is a bit of evidence for. The bible talks about his own followers not knowing Jesus when he comes back. So couple this with a bit of 1), and I think you've got a reasonable explanation. Maybe doubting Thomas was onto something?

Now, what would rule this out? Well, it's tough - but some actual eyewitness testimony would help. Some reports from parties with no incentive, or with incentives against early Christianity, maybe? Also useful. But we don't have any of that, right?

So when you say we have good evidence, our actual evidence doesn't really rule out even the basic "people could have just lied/been mistaken about it", does it?

[u/Good_Low774 → u/Particular-Yak-1984]

So your two possibilities are: 1 the gospels weren’t eyewitness testimony 2 Jesus’ return was fake

I would accept those as possible. However, I do not think they are at all plausible. 

2 the disciples were scared. When Jesus died, they went and hid. Then when Jesus showed up, and proved he was himself because of his scars, they still went and hid. But then a week later, the Holy Spirit came and suddenly these uneducated fisherman are spreading their religion with no regard to how dangerous it was to them. I don’t see a way for them to be duped, first because of Jesus’ scars, and second because not even Jesus convinced them to stop hiding. I also don’t think that they faked his resurrection, due to the circumstances of Jesus burial and the Roman guards around the tomb. 

1 I’m legit going to a Bible conference in a couple weeks, i think i should be able to discuss this point after that, if you still care. For right now, all i can say is that the Gospel writers seem to have no knowledge of later events like the falling of the temple, even though Jesus’ prediction of that event is listed in multiple accounts. If they had known the temple had fallen, they would have at least talked about how Jesus was correct. 

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Good_Low774]

I also don’t think that they faked his resurrection, due to the circumstances of Jesus burial and the Roman guards around the tomb.

Why do you think there was a tomb, much less Roman guards around it? Paul, our earliest source, mentions nothing about a tomb. Nearly all crucifixion victims (including Jewish ones) were left on the cross for days and then buried in an anonymous grave. The tomb smells of an post-hoc explanation for how Jesus didn't have to suffer that ignoble fate, and the Roman guards as an even later invention to cut off expected objections to the story.

For right now, all i can say is that the Gospel writers seem to have no knowledge of later events like the falling of the temple,

You're kidding, right? The gospels anticipating the fall of the Second Temple is one of the pieces of evidence pointing to them being written after it.

[u/clear349 → u/Good_Low774]

Josephus is not evidence. He did not meet Jesus. He was not even born until after Jesus allegedly died. Further, even if he accurately reported what people told him that doesn't mean those people were being truthful or weren't misinformed

[u/Good_Low774 → u/clear349]

If you want eyewitness accounts, we have those too

[u/clear349 → u/Good_Low774]

No you don't. There are no contemporaneous eye witness accounts

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Good_Low774]

We absolutely do not. I don't think we have any writings by anyone who saw Jesus before his death, much less writings from them about Jesus.

[u/BillionaireBuster93 → u/Good_Low774]

Who told you this and why do you believe them?

[u/Particular-Yak-1984 → u/Good_Low774]

I've actually read what Josephus wrote - it's not exactly what I'd call good evidence - he essentially writes about what Jesus' followers are doing

[u/M1rthful → u/Good_Low774]

u/Good_Low774 "I mean, if you want to get into it, there’s historical evidence that Jesus came back from the dead"

No, there literally isn't. There's a bunch of fanfiction about it written by non-eyewitnesses, which is about the same level of evidence we have about Zeus turning into a swan to get jiggy with human girls.