Kyle Butt vs Dan Barker 'Debate' - The Existence of God

New playlist "Kyle Butt vs Dan Barker 'Debate' - The Existence of God " This was interesting, a lot of the usual arguments but novel parts in each.

Article assessing an historians study of Jesus

 The following quote is an exert from the article underlined and linked below. It deals with Gerd Ludermann's work on the historicity of Jesus. Gerd is an atheist New Testament historian. I have not read all of it but skipped through.

Visions of Jesus: A Critical Assessment of Gerd Lüdemann’s Hallucination Hypothesis

The appearance to Peter is independently attested by Paul and Luke (I Cor. 15.5; Lk. 24.34), the appearance to the Twelve by Paul, Luke, and John (I Cor. 15.5; Lk. 24:36–43; Jn. 20.19–20), the appearance to the women disciples by Matthew and John (Mt. 28.9–10; Jn. 20.11–17), and appearances to the disciples in Galilee by Mark, Matthew, and John (Mk. 16.7; Mt. 28. 16–17; Jn. 21). Taken sequentially, the appearances follow the pattern of Jerusalem–Galilee–Jerusalem, matching the festival pilgrimages of the disciples as they returned to Galilee following the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread and traveled again to Jerusalem two months later for Pentecost.  

Lüdemann himself concludes, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’s death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”39 Thus, we are in basic agreement that following Jesus’s crucifixion various individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Christ alive from the dead. The real bone of contention will be how these experiences are best to be explained.

It deals a lot with evidence from the bible. Please remember that the bible is a historical book as well as a book of religious guidelines. Ludermann studies it in his field along with others. I consider it to not exactly be Gods literal word but his revelation to us. Our way of being familiar with him through reading about what has happened, what will happen and how to live right.

Archaeology and the Bible

I haven't watched these yet but I post the playlist because it seems people think there is absolutely no historical support for what the bible says. To me it's obvious people are plain biased about this but I still entertain the point. I wonder how much evidence people really need when they buy just about everything else they are told about the past, but wish to ignore this detailed book of the history of a people.

Pagan influence on Christianity?

I just realized the name of the book I once heard about that talked about the bible being a collection of Pagan Myths. If you try hard enough you can find information that obviously refutes this and will enlighten you on how the author came about his conclusions. The title of the book is "The Pagan Christ" by Tom Harpur and published by Thomas Allen Publishers in 2004. Below is an extract from this site which looks at the problems with this book.

Harpur does not quote any contemporary Egyptologist or recognized academic authority on world religions, nor does he appeal to any of the standard reference books, such as the magisterial three volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (2001) or any primary sources. Rather, he is entirely dependent on the work of Kuhn, who he describes as "the most erudite, most eloquent, and most convincing . . . of any modern writer on religion I have encountered in a lifetime dedicated to such matters." 

There is no mention of Osiris in Egyptian texts until about 2350 BC; so Harpur's reference to the origins of Osirian religion is off by more than a millennium and a half. Elsewhere, Harpur refers to "Jesus in Egyptian lore as early as 18,000 BCE"; and he quotes Kuhn as claiming that "the Jesus who stands as the founder of Christianity was at least 10,000 years of age." In fact, the earliest extant writing that we have dates from about 3200 BCE.

The book compares Jesus to many Pagan Mythological figures. one of whom was "Horus." Below is a short list stating which comparisons are false. There are more but you can go to this link to view them

• Isis was Horus mother and wasn't a virgin. 
• He didn't cast out demons or any miracles like what Jesus did. He didn't walk on water
• He wasn't crucified (that wasn't around till a few centuries before Jesus)
• He wasn't resurrected
• Jesus isn't believed to be born in December. This one was actually pagan because they had no clue when he was born

You can check out all the frequent comparisons here. The list is a long one and each is refuted as far as  I can tell.

Some also state that Christianity isn't even the oldest religion. "Christianity" is obviously only 2000 years old. Worship of the Christian God however is older than any of those mentioned. Christianity is a new word, but it goes back beyond Jesus.

Comments are welcome. Feel free to read this article on tecktonics.org