sure, were it the classical period a consensus of all scholars would happily tell me the earth was flat as Aklim pointed out earlier.
Were it a couple hundred years ago, a consensus of religious scholars would have told me the earth was the center of the universe.
any of those cast iron facts turn out to be true? you decide.

As far as literate apostles, my understanding was that Matthew the tax collector wrote his own gospel if the bible is to be believed. Seems that Peter and Paul had friends write theirs, so perhaps they were illiterate, but does that count for all of them?
You seem to take the absence of a positive as proof of a negative. My opinion is that we simply don't know since very little survived. If Joseph was a craftsman of some sort, its possible he knew how to write or at least some rudimentary concepts of math in order to work in that field and passed that on to his son.
In this situation, we could go either way, but as I said, you have no more evidence that he WAS NOT literate than I have that he WAS.

ahh, lesson master martureo drops some good advice again on writing! Still, he forgets that all his source of facts as he calls them are from a book and interpretations and opinions on that book of dozens of versions that he takes for absolute truth.

I disagree that that book should be taken as fact. The core lessons on how to live your life with regards to others hold weight, but fantastical stories of magical occurances strike me as a little bling to sexify the message of christ as sold by his followers.
If we do not agree on that basic issue, then we will never agree in argument. By all means, continue to refer to the bible as fact, and ill start referring to the Lord of the Rings as well as ironclad fact, which is a bit better written, because it tells the best way to kill a goblin. Useful if I come across one digging my pool.

Let me turn to my writing desk and commit to paper some of the things that George Washington did hundreds of years ago, complete with first person commentary that sounds good to me because I like the man, and maybe in 2000 years people will take my statements are accurate representations of what ol George actually did and said as well. Most of the bible is no different.

Your obtuseness is very grating.

I'm talking about the consensus of scholars for the past three centuries. If you want to argue against that, you'd better have a better reason than "well, science has been wrong before." That's an idiots argument. That's an argument from silence (a formal fallacy).

We know that literary rates were abysmal even in the 5th century. Back in the first century in Judea we have examples of the village scribe (the only guy who was literate) only being able to spell is own name... and incorrectly at that. Reading and being able to write are also quite different. Even if someone could read a text (which we know Jesus could) it makes no difference in whether he could write or not.

So, I have the vast amount of scholars and historical evidence to show that the apostles and Jesus more than likely didn't know how to write (if they were literate or not) and you have......? Oh yeah, you have your almighty opinion.

I'll go with the scholars and historical evidence. If only you would actually apply such advice....:rolleyes: Poor logic, lack of understanding of what I actually believe and uneducated assertions.

Really.... I'm not going to even reply to that.And yet you make the same argument again. How many times do you have to be corrected? How many times?

I feel the same way. Salvation is FREE, I can't understand why everyone wouldn't want to go to Heaven.

How does nature back a god being in existence today?

Taken 2000 years back, something that we do today is a miracle.

Oooh. Belief is now like buying insurance at a blackjack table? You see an ace and buy insurance against having the dealer show a blackjack hand?

Where is this conclusive proof you speak of?

Why should we assume that they did happen? I have no proof that they did. Lets assume those claimed miracles did not happen. Show me one now so that I may believe. Why show miracles to those who thought the land was flat and earth was the center of the universe? They hardly seem to be in any position to determine truth from miracles. We are by no means perfect in our knowledge but we are certainly more capable than they were 2,000 years ago.

to "deny" god is to refuse to admit he exists. The word "admit" does not belong, deny is the incorrect way to refer to people who do not have the same belief system as you.

For someone to deny, the connotation is that they are in the wrong, that something exists that they refuse to give to someone else, or refuse to accept, but its existence is assumed.

Claiming that athiests deny god is the words of a person who assumes god exists. An athiest doesn't deny, there is nothing to deny. For me, there is no such thing as god, and I find it presumptuous that a myriad of religions claim that an all powerful humanoid being is responsible for something the size and age of this world, and the universe in general.

There are natural wonders, but for you they are evidence of a god, and for me they are simply natural wonders, many of which are explained by scientific process and theory.

You live your life hoping for something better when you die, I live my life knowing that ill be a rotting piece of meat when I die and I hope im buried deep enough that the scavengers don't dig up my body, but ill probably request to be burned. Ive accepted this, and do not live in fear of anyone elses supernatural magical being that judges us all by your reasoning.

who mentioned science? I believe I specifically said RELIGIOUS scholars and ALL scholars. And they were wrong.
Three centuries of scholars makes little difference if they all assume the bible is nothing but fact, as ive repeatedly stated to you we do not agree on.

Agreed on most all, but still, are you saying that matthew did not write his own gospel? The same 300 years of religious scholars seem to say that he did, are they wrong in this and right in other things only? or are they only wrong and right when it matches what YOU consider right and wrong?

So Jesus could read but could not write? interesting, such things usually go hand in hand. The next person I meet who can fluently read characters on a page and discern meaning from them who cannot also recreate the same characters for themselves and know what they mean will be the first unless they have no arms, and the bible seems to say jesus had all his parts. Thanks for agreeing with me that he could probably write.


havent you been spending a good amount of time claiming ive been making many different unrelated arguments? yet now im making the same argument again and again. thanks for finally admitting that.

A person doesn't have to read very deeply on this thread to understand why some people don't want to go to heaven. It's the same reason they don't want to spend Sunday morning at their local fundamentalist church.

And here we go again making really bad assumptions.... If I'm going to continue to be your tutor I'll be expecting some compensation.

I'm getting a little tired of having to teach you even the basics. Um... no they don't. Ugh...
Confusion, conflation and non sequitor... wonderful.

:rolleyes:

Because they effectively want to be gods unto themselves.

I understand it.

supernatural magical being ? deny vs. doesn't believe ...admit ...

I am starting to see why Martureo is getting annoyed.

If a person opts to not believe in God, then that is his or her your choice. And yes, a Christian can say from his or her perspective that "you" are denying the existence of God. Are you now even remotely suggesting that a Christian needs to be so "PC" that he or she needs to reword the way he or she addresses the question? You got to be kidding me. I can only assume from that bizarro perspective that Christians are required to re-write the Bible to fit into the current generation's mindset or some politically fashionable agenda?
I can only assume you are sincere when you believe that you are no more than a sophisticated insect, which is born, lives, then dies and rots in the ground. BUT, I cannot even use the word "believe" since that would not fit into your world view since you really believe in nothing. That would fail the PC test, too. Rather, you have to either "know" everything or not. I guess it's lonely being such a sophisticated insect-like creature who will be rotting in the ground yet knows everything there is to know.

wait wait, so the bible is now NOT factual? Do you believe that or not? you've referenced it enough times as fact, yet now me assuming that 3 centuries of religious scholars all believed the bible was factual is now a really bad assumption? You are all over the place.


Hmm, I don't see a real response, so im assuming you are retreating from the argument again! Not such a shining record for a paladin of Jesus vs a godless monster.
At least Greazzer clearly believes in his God and that belief shines through his comments. You seem to believe more in being seen to be right about your god, or id imagine you'd try a little harder clarifying yourself instead of your attack strategy, which is amusing, but not really effective.

I guess the difference is you are a missionary for people who already believe in god and christ as a god, but are doctrinally wrong in some niggling little way, so you get to tell them how wrong they are based on this or that scripture.
Its a bit harder discussing this with a completely different type of worldview.
Always easier to preach to the converted. It my friend and I both like a chicken sandwich, but we disagree on toppings, we are still united in our basic love. Harder debate when I like my chicken and hes a big fan of roast beef.

That's exactly what I was referring to. Who wants to spend eternity being 'corrected' about what they want. If I were a theist, I'd request a special dispensation so I could spend eternity in hell.

now see how you are getting offended for no reason? I don't care about PC concerns, I was pointing out that your religion really controls how you see other religions and certainly athiestic viewpoints. Even down to how you phrase your description of what athiests believe.

The problem here is that you take my complete rejection of your worldview as offense, and I consider your assumption of my quick trip to hell come the judgement as something you are entitled to believe, but not really that offensive in any way. Relax.