10. “That Jew Died for You” Part 2

This is a follow-up post.  Read Part 1 here.

To start, I just want to state for the record that it’s nice to know that there are actually people reading what I write out there on the Internet.  It’s heartening to know that I am not simply mumbling to myself in a proverbial empty room!

Despite the fact that I received vehement—and apparently widespread—disagreement with the positions that I took in the last post (which, again, you can read here, in case you haven’t already), I am thoroughly convinced that it was for the wrong reasons.  I am of the mind that I received such intense backlash not for any legitimate disagreement with my position, which was indeed contrary to Jaclyn’s, but simply because I held a position contrary to Jaclyn’s.  I am also convinced that I was targeted so viciously because I defended, in some form or fashion, orthodox Christianity: Catholicism.

None of the well over four dozen negative comments that I received actually addressed the purpose of my argument, which was to simply cast doubt upon Jaclyn’s argument.  In short, essentially all dissenting comments raised straw men and proceeded to tear them down.  This, as you all know, is an illegitimate form of argumentative strategy.

For starters, let’s begin with the over-arching, central idea of the Part 1 post.  This commenter encapsulates the general misunderstanding and ill will toward my argument:

I was in no way putting forth my own argument.  Putting forth one’s own argument involves developing premises that most can mostly agree with, stringing them together, and demonstrating that a conclusion follows from them.  If you reread the last post, you will see that the content therein created a negative argument.  I was simply trying to show that Jaclyn’s argument had some major flaws.  I did not put forward my own positive argument that would also stand on its own merits.

With that out of the way, let’s continue with the main sticking points.

Use of the Bible

I get that you all don’t respect the Bible as serious scholarship, and that you also think that to use the Bible is to be automatically guilty of circular logic.  This is not always the case.  Regardless, I was never arguing for the reliability of the Bible in Part 1; that was not the point of the post.

Similarly, if you all detest the use of the Bible so much, then why, pray tell, are so many of the comments riddled with Bible references combatting my supposed “use of the Bible” to build my counterargument?  Don’t use the Bible in any way to combat my alleged “use” of the Bible if you think that the book cannot ever be used in any credible way in any situation.  That’s just inconsistent and poor argument strategy.

Case-in-point:

You have to wonder why this person calls the Bible an “outdated holy book” to shame my using it, but then turns around and quotes from it (“My God, [My God,] why hath thou forsaken me?”) to attack what he perceives to be my argument.

Also, that quotation comes from Psalm 22, which ends triumphantly, not in despair as you claim it does.

Another commenter had this to say:

Again, this person claims that the Bible has no legitimacy, yet he uses an idea from Jesus’ encounter with Pilate, present in the Bible itself, to somehow “take-down” my argument.  He is only attacking a straw man; however, since I never claimed to try and demonstrate Jesus’ divinity.

Reliability of the Bible

If we were to subject other historical documents to the same level of scrutiny that skeptics demand we subject the New Testament to, the fact of the matter is that we would know almost nothing about history.  We have more evidence for Jesus than we do for Alexander the Great or for Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon.  We have more copies of the New Testament than we do Homer’s Iliad, yet no one doubts that Homer wrote the Iliad or that we know what it says.

My theory is that people so resent the authenticity of the Bible and Jesus’ existence because this book, the Bible, and that person, Jesus, demand things of us that we are uncomfortable complying with.  From prohibitions on homosexuality to demands to love one’s enemies and to be perfect, Jesus and the Bible, one of His mouthpieces, demand much from us; Caesar, Alexander the Great, and the Iliad do no such thing.  We are comfortable with the latter because they demand nothing from us, no change at all; but we are uneasy with the former because they require much effort and discomfort from us.

Historicity of Jesus

I find it appalling and utterly anti-intellectual that Jaclyn could make the insinuation that Jesus might not have existed and that most of the commenters felt even surer than she that He did not exist.  It is a well-established fact that Jesus THE MAN existed.  This has nothing to do with His divine identity.  I was merely concerned with THE MAN in the last post when I said that He existed.

Now, on a somewhat lighter note, I get that clicking on in-text links is a burden and disrupts the flow of the post for the reader.  I’m totally on your guys’ side on this one.  I am guilty of it myself.  I often do not click in-text links—no doubt provided for my own enrichment on the current topic at hand—to my detriment, I’m sure.  However, if you are going to comment on a blogger’s post, and the specific place within the post that you are referencing has these links, perhaps they should be clicked on?

From the last post, I offered these two sources of evidence for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth here and here.  If you need more, here are two more: here and here.

In short, just because you did not click on the evidential links that I provided in the Part 1 post for the existence of the historical Jesus does not mean that there is no such evidence. I am likewise guilty of not clicking on internal blog post links, but don’t not click on them and then act like I didn’t provide any evidence.

Identity of Jesus

Again, I never put forward my own argument concerning Jesus’ identity as the Son of God.  That was not the purpose of the post.  I was responding to Jaclyn, weaving a negative argument, not a positive one (where I defend premises that ultimately lead to a conclusion that we can either accept or reject).  I never wrote, and then subsequently defended the notion, that Jesus was the Son of God!  I made the assertion that even if Jesus was the Son of God—which Jaclyn was willing to concede in her video—what she ends up saying does not make Him look any worse for wear.  She tried to demean His ordeal—again, she is willing to concede this in her video (watch it again if you don’t remember)—and I simply demonstrated why she failed in the attempt.

Un-scientific Neanderthal?!

I also am very unsure why I was blasted for apparently knowing nothing about science.  That has nothing to do with the ideas I presented in the Part 1 post!  Stick to the topic at hand, and keep the ad hominem attacks to a zero, please.

In conclusion

There are four final commenters that I would like to address directly in this section of the post.  The first, Perseus, because he had a well-thought objection; the second, Karl Denton, because I am absolutely sure that he had mistaken me for someone else; the third, Chris Morris, because his point is so egregiously wrong that I felt obligated to correct it; and the fourth, a group of posters, for their illogical claim that the Holocaust is off-limits.

Perseus

I am actually a philosophy major so I know quite a bit about Descartes, Perseus.  His famous quote, “Cogito ergo sum” (“I think; therefore, I am”) is famous because it “proved” (insofar as something like this can be proved) that we do actually exist. Descartes demonstrated in a short sentence the profundity of the reality of our existence.  He demonstrated that to doubt one’s existence is not very logical.

Essentially, Descartes was of the opinion that one could not consistently doubt his own existence because doubting implies thinking, and thinking implies a thinker.  Here is where the issue many scholars have with his position.  What you leave out (either out of ignorance or on purpose, I do not know) is that his premise/famous line relied on a belief in God, whom he believed could be perceived clearly and distinctly—a priori—or without the benefit of experience or by a purely mental and logical effort.  He believed that things that could be perceived clearly and distinctly were true because God was not a deceiver and would not allow such clear and distinct perceptions to be inaccurate.  So your “champion” of premises actually believed something you do not (he was Jesuit educated), and therefore, advances your point nowhere.

Finally, I am not sure where I added the “God exists…” part to Descartes’ premise in my post.  I gave no premises, and you will see this clearly from what you should have read previously in this current post.

Karl Denton

You most definitely have me confused with someone else, and this is my attempt to set the record straight.  I have never been on YouTube, and I have most definitely never been kicked off the site!

Chris Morris

The growing number of atheists and non-theistic Christians, while surely interesting from a sociological and societal/cultural perspective, is immaterial to the truth of the matter at hand.  Basically, your point is that because a bunch of people believe something isn’t true, it just… isn’t.  I’m confused; since when was Truth up for a vote?

I’m sure that you would reject the idea that, because there are lots and lots of Creationists out there, evolution is false?  You would likely say that these people are wrong.  What about before it was scientifically verified that the Earth is not flat?  A bunch of people before that moment believed that it was.  Did that strongly held belief make the Earth flat?  In the same way, these peoples’ subjective feelings about the evidence and reality of Jesus’ existence has absolutely no bearing on whether or not Jesus existed.  A belief in something does not equate to that something’s truth, as I’ve said previously.

Finally, Jesus did in fact trash others’ beliefs.  (See all His interactions with the hypocritical and hard-of-heart Jewish leaders for more on this.)  I am also surprised that you would claim that He never forced His own beliefs onto others.  Wouldn’t you say that the notion that all who do not believe in Him will go to Hell is pretty forceful and pushy?  What about, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to Father except through me.”  That’s pretty forceful and exclusive, wouldn’t’cha say?

Others

You will see how silly this shared sentiment is with this example: so the Holocaust can never be used in any way to promote any kind of recruiting for anything whatsoever, huh?  Okay.  Well, what about U.S. military recruiting to stop the Holocaust?  Would the U.S. have been permitted to run ads displaying the cruelty of the Nazi Germany in order to marshal support to put a stop to the barbarism and blatant evil?  Your demand to keep the Holocaust separate from all conflicts or causes is disingenuous, illogical, and, most importantly, dangerous.

Well, I hope this cleared things up!  Stay tuned for the next post!


Follow @DeionKathawa