Why would you think you’d ever be able to do an experiment that resulted in humans arising from another species? That’s not something evolution actually predicts. It predicts only gradual changes, but that those gradual changes accumulate over long times among genetically isolated popup organisms to result in large divergences. Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor— humans did NOT arise from chimps. That’s a critical distinction. An ancestral population existed that was neither human nor chimpanzee. Whether via some mutation, genetic drift, geographical isolation, or some other means, there arose two subsets of this population that became genetically different and no longer interbred. Since these populations no longer interbred, different naturally occurring variations (which even you admit occur) happened in each. Given enough accumulation of differences, the two populations became distinct species, no longer able to interbreed.

For an analogy, consider a word game. Starting with a given word, you create a new “generation” by changing exactly one letter. This represents the small variation you admit occurs. Now, if I gave you the words “told” and “harm”, you’d argue that there’s no way by following the given rules that “harm” can arise from “told”, and you’d be correct. However, start with “bare”, then bark, lark, lard, lord, load, toad leads to told. Bare, bore, core, corn, worn, warm, leads to harm. Therefore “told” and “harm” share the common ancestor “bare”.

It’s just an analogy so don’t push it too far, but the point is that divergence of isolated populations from a common starting point most certainly can lead to widely divergent results, with the relationship not necessarily being readily visible.

Richard Dawkins points out that if you could take an individual ancestor of **** sapiens (say from **** erectus, or **** heidelbergensis) and then line up all the his of his MANY descendants until you saw a descendant who clearly was "modern man", you could NOT go back along the line of transitional representatives and point to (for example) individual 1,771,561 and say "HERE IS WHERE A NEW SPECIES EMERGED!"

The changes are just to tiny and take place over too long a period of time.
Not that there aren't cool transitional fossils. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tional_fossils )

Survival of the Fittest, right? So, yeah, still no problem.

Fair enough. Fortunately, it's not my job to convince anybody of anything. I try to answer as many honest questions as I can, and let the chips fall where they may.

Posts #135 and #136 in this thread are my arguments for the truth of Christianity.

You never engaged those arguments in any meaningful way.

"I'm not convinced" is not a counterargument. It might just be a case of you being too lazy to meditate on what I wrote. Who knows?


Posts #135 and #136 in this thread should address your question here.


Posts #135 and #136 in this thread should address your question here.

Posts #135 and #136 in this thread should show why I don't agree with that.

what you wrote only proves that those that believed in him were the best at slaughtering/conquering their opponents and forcing them to adopt that religion or die.

if any of these **** religions were true their god could prove in an instant by revisiting humans and laying the smackdown or conducting miracles or whatever. it never happened before and will never happen because its all a scam for simpletons.

there is no jesus 2, mohamed 2. buhdda the third. **** is all a joke

the continent of south america is not catholic because jesus was so influential

Since I think that the Roman Catholic Church might very well be the Whore of Babylon described in Revelation, I will join you in condemning the Roman Catholic Church.

Point of Information: Christianity was an outlawed religion in the Roman Empire until the 4th century. The Christians were the the oppressed, not the oppressors.

#135 doesn't contain an argument.

#136 contains an argument for Jesus Christ being "the most influential person in the history of the world?" It doesn't contain an argument for believing in any gods. I have no interest in Jesus Christ since the existence of the man, or not, has no bearing on the existence of your god. I know you're not claiming that he's the son of god and that proves that there's a god, that would be just a teeny bit circular...

So, I ignored those posts and continue to do so, they're not pertinent.

Never said it was, you might be being too lazy to meditate on what I've posted, who knows? Also, can I remind you that #135 is not an argument and #136 is an argument for something that we're not even discussing.

If you're claiming that either of those posts is the reason that you have such certainty about the existence of a god, then all that really demonstrates is your bias and how much you want to believe it's true.

You still don't appear to have any good reasons for your certainty.

So what, and let's face it, in the intervening 1700 or so years they have more than made up for that.

I think my poor grammar in an earlier post created a confusion:

For clarity, I will restate the above properly:

Posts #135 and #136 in this thread comprise my argument for the truth of Christianity.

The two posts (#135 and #136) taken together culminate in Lewis', Jesus: Lord, Liar or Lunatic? Trichotomy.*

Since my argument is an enthymeme (given that my conclusion is implied, rather than made explicit), I will now as concisely as I can render my argument:

Premise: Jesus was (and is) who He claimed to be (Lord), or He was a liar or a lunatic.

Premise: Liars and lunatics don't produce enduring legacies of love that produces sweet fruit from those who follow them.

Premise: Jesus produced an enduring legacy of love that produces sweet fruit from those who follow Him.

Conclusion: Jesus was (and is) who He claimed to be (Lord).


*I almost never get to use the word trichotomy; do you?


More to Come.....(but not until later today)

This 135 and 136 is not the answer you gave me about why you think Christianity is true. You went to prophecy. My conclusion: you don't know why you believe it. You are just stuck in it. The profuse drama he preambles 135 with is totally superfluous and revealing of the emotional thinking producing the "conclusion." All that needed to be said there was he is the most salient person in history ... all the rest is just french pastry drama. "He never wrote a book, he never owned a house" ... as if these qualify the religion as being true.

It's a posthumous religion anyway that he, Jesus, would despise.

Your premise 1 above is total make-believe, no more than a gimmick used to steer suckers into believing. Yet you base your defense on it. Knowing that a simple teacher is what is most likely what he was like all the rest, they attempted to close out that possibility in a totally fabricated multiple choice option, removing the obvious one that undercuts the whole religion if it is true. And here you cite it as the great premise on which belief can be hung. It's nothing more than a gimmick used to wish away the obvious interpretation of what the Jesus thing is.

None of this supports your belief that there's a god so I'm not going to get into whether or not that argument is valid let alone sound, it's irrelevant.

If you have some evidence for the existence of your god that in any way at all justifies the certainty you have about that belief, please can you post it, this is getting a little tiresome.

If it helps, imagine that I want to believe in a god(s) too, explain to me why I would believe that your particular god is the one that actually exists. If you can't do that then there's little point in having this conversation with you, you'd be someone who believes what you want to believe and not what you can actually support.

I’d take issue with your last two premises. There’s no reason why a liar or lunatic cannot leave a positive lasting legacy — there are many who would give Jesus of Nazareth as a prime example of that.

The other premise is that Jesus left a legacy of love. Certainly there are positive aspects of his legacy, but his legacy also has included killing and torturing Jewish people. (Spanish Inquisition), making war upon those who rejected his legacy, (Crusades), and even making war upon other groups of people who accepted that legacy but had doctrinal differences regarding how that legacy should be preserved and who should be in charge of it. (Thirty Years War). I’m sure you will pull a “No True Scotsman” fallacy here, but those historical events were done in the name of Jesus. Things like those are not exactly a “legacy of love”.

There are a lot of reasons that I believe that Christianity is true. Fulfilled prophecy is one of the 37 reasons I gave in another thread as to why I trust the Bible.

I find the argument quite compelling. You don't. It's all good. I have no obligation or ability to persuade anybody that Christianity is true. I am commanded to "give an answer for the hope." I did that. Mission accomplished.

How do you know?

You know this how?

It is certainly not a gimmick.

I provided my argument. You have rejected it without a counterargument. I have nothing new to add.

Have a great day!

addendum: I'll revisit this Forum probably sometime late next week. Have a nice week!

The most obvious answer to the Jesus thing is he was just a teacher and posthumously they gamed up a religion around his life and legend ... no supernatural-aments. So because this is the reasonable answer, Lewis' multiple choice gimmick deceptively and self-deludingly tried to eliminate this option in the lord/liar/lunatic loaded question. It's an anti-rational, magic loving epistemology because that is the only mindset that can believe it.

You haven't provided an argument at all. All I've done in response to your certainty is offer the reasons why I don't think you've earned that certainty, which you haven't addressed.

If you think you've provided an argument, express it as a syllogism, let's see what it is.

And so it goes... the religions change but the unreasonable certainty exhibited by theists never does.

Yeah exactly. LG seems to be saying that his god exists because Jesus did and he was the son of god. That's so bad that I've been giving him the benefit of the doubt that he couldn't possibly be using such circular logic, but it appears that he is.

He insists he's given an argument, I can't see it, do you know what it is? It can't be the one above, can it?

Huh?

The reason that I insisted that I gave an argument is because I gave an argument:


From post # 186:

Premise: Jesus was (and is) who He claimed to be (Lord), or He was a liar or a lunatic.

Premise: Liars and lunatics don't produce enduring legacies of love that produces sweet fruit from those who follow them.

Premise: Jesus produced an enduring legacy of love that produces sweet fruit from those who follow Him.

Conclusion: Jesus was (and is) who He claimed to be (Lord).

Food for thought.

Just a quick "drive by." See y'all later in the week!

Your conclusion, even if the premises are true, does not logically follow from the premises. DUCY?

Bye bye for now!

Take a closer look at the fruit that comes from that religion.

You mean like science, hospitals, the arts, universities, etc.?

All but two of the first 100+ universities in America were founded as Christian universities (including Harvard).

Have a nice day!

Oh, I didn't think you meant that... gosh that's pretty bad LG. If that's the best you have to support your beliefs then it's even worse than I suspected. Let's suppose that we grant that the construct is logically valid, it swiftly falls apart when we check it for truth values.

1) Jesus may not even have existed
2) Jesus may not have said the things attributed to him
3) Jesus may not have done the things attributed to him
4) Liars and lunatics have indeed left enduring legacies of love
5) Jesus may not actually have been responsible for the love, it may have been the authors of the bible

All three of your premises are extremely problematic. It's a very very low standard of evidence for such a hugely important belief system,



These things could equally exist in a totalitarian regime intended to further indoctrination among the young and which sought only to perpetuate itself and its doctrines. Which, of course, is what I think actually happened. Islam did the same. The church is actually harmed by general education, not helped. It's notable that the percentage of Christian scientists drops off hugely the more the science they practice has to do with 'earth' type subject like physics, chemistry, and bilology.

But Christianity did not produce 'science', no matter that there are scientists that believe in gods. Science, in ignoring the supernatural and non-physical, is directly in opposition to religious theories. E.g. planes stay up because of properties of physical materials described in physics, chemistry etc, and not because god's giant hands hold them in the sky. If you think 'goddidit' explanations and science are compatible, try to argue the latter hypothesis with a scientist.