An Almost-Debate with Fundie Tate Garrett About Gospel Credibility

ApPersonaNonGrata 
 
That's a very cool trick; being able to remember something they never witnessed in the first place.
 



@tategarrett304214 
Any evidence to back that claim up?
 



@ApPersonaNonGrata 
 It is the overwhelming consensus among qualified scholars that the "gospels" were not written by eye witnesses. 
 
 
 tategarrett304214  
  even if that were the case, and I don't agree that it is, them being written second hand does nothing to refute their accuracy.
   

@ApPersonaNonGrata 
The book someone eventually decided to call "Mark" was the first of the later-called "gospels".

But that writer evidently FORGOT miracles that the other writers wrote about.

The most dramatic and impressing things Jesus reportedly ever did just plum slipped Pseudo-Mark's mind.

The same problem persists for the other writers.

Every time a new "gospel" was written,
the writer remembers some super-miraculous stuff that the prior writers forgot about.

 Sorry.
You can imagine that the earliest gospel writers just didn't think that stuff was important enough to mention.
And then later writers thinking "I disagree. I think these miracles ARE important enough to mention".

But as we reason that way, it becomes pretty darn obvious that we're opting for the least-likely explanation of history, for literally every apologetic on this issue.

But that is exactly the opposite of what actual historians are ethically obligated to as their job description.

At this point, I can't keep pretending that you honestly believe in what you're selling. 
 
  
@tategarrett304214 
you assume a great deal here that is modern, western, and based on your current historical/cultural moment.

You do not control what an author 2000 years ago thought was, or was not, important in writing a manuscript, and variations in adding or omitting some of Jesus's parables and miracles from one gospel to the next does not invalidate their message, it shows that they were written by different authors with different perspectives. 
 
 
@darkwolf7740
 
"Perhaps they simply didn't have access to certain oral traditions, or maybe they simply hadn't heard of certain things."

--

 


@ApPersonaNonGrata 
Exactly!
This is literally my point. 

That's clearly what happened.

The non- eyewitness writers 
simply did not have access to
original,
nor complete,
nor even identical versions of the stories.

Although, it does seem obvious (to me; and to many scholars) that each next "gospel" intentionally made the stories more fantastic.

This was even obvious to the ancient catholic and later Protestant churches; 
as evidenced by:

 their decision to shuffle the gospel stories, instead of publishing them in the order they were written.

 That way, it would not be obvious to readers 
that each-next-version gets more fantastic; 
the way "fish stories" do. 

As for *why* each writer decided to improve how magical Jesus is?
We can only make educated guesses about their motives. 
---------------------

​@tategarrett3042
 1. "you assume a great deal here that is modern, western, and based on your current historical/cultural moment. "

---

 


@ApPersonaNonGrata 
No. I'm really not doing that.

 ----------------------------------
​ @tategarrett3042
2. "You do not control what an author 2000 years ago thought was, or was not, important in writing a manuscript,"

--

 


@ApPersonaNonGrata 
Other things I don't control include:

The weather,
the stock market,
and whatever killed the dinosaurs.

It's a good thing I never try to control any of those things.

But it's really not going to be possible to have a productive exchange of ideas with someone whose mind just randomly imagines me as thinking various things I never even hinted at.

-------------------------------------

3.​ @tategarrett3042
" and variations in adding or omitting some of Jesus's parables and miracles from one gospel to the next does not invalidate their message, it shows that they were written by different authors with different perspectives."
---
 


@ApPersonaNonGrata 

If you witness ANY (let alone: ALL) of the miracles that the writer of "John" wrote about, AND understood Jesus as having that "higher Christology",

AND were about to write the FIRST gospel book about it, ...

you ABSOLUTELY would have written about all of that.

You can imagine you might not have.
But that would be like:

witnessing 200feet high, fire-breathing dragon burning an entire city to the ground ...

BUT when you finally get around to writing about it (several decades later),

you just describe it as a lizard that seemed upset, bit somebody, and had bad breath.

Then, several more decades later, someone ELSE who witnessed that event ...
who is now impossibly old (nobody lived that long) ...
writes about the same event, but describes it as
"a 200feet high, fire-breathing dragon burning an entire city to the ground".

Oh, also, both you AND the later-writer also forget to mention that you were THERE and SAW it.

That's the situation with "Mark" vs "John".




@ApPersonaNonGrata 
Now, I'm not trying to force you to be logical; nor even a Good Faith Actor.
Heaven forbid.
But you have either been cult-programmed into the grift and need a deprogrammer
or
you're one of the grifters.

Either way, there's no chance at all of this turning into a fruitful exchange.

I spoke truth to power, because it seems like someone should.
But whatever you choose to do with that is not anything I care about.

You do you. 
------------------------------------------------------

@tategarrett3042 

1.
you absolutely are forcing your modern,
1st world perspective onto the text,

 and you gave zero evidence to show this
 isn't the case.

2.
you once again forced your view of motive onto
the authors,

and just like with the first point did nothing to
 refute the fact that you were doing so.

Asserting the events in the gospels were made up,
 and that people decades after the fact invented it all
 is a projection of your own biases and worldview
 onto the authors,

and you have presented no evidence to suggest this
 was the case.

3:
 [ Editor's note:
each part of accusation set #3 
have been relocated to the end of this review] 

----------------------


 


@ApPersonaNonGrata 

Re: Accusation set #1: You keep saying that. But you have yet to specify what you mean by that. I am confident that I've not done any such thing. BUT it's your claim. You are the person saying I committed X-action. So it falls to you (not to me) to specify exactly what and exactly how. If-ever you get around to being that specific, then I'll finally have something specific to respond to. Accusation set #2: I could not (nobody could) refute the specifics of an accusation until after there are some specifics stated. Only now do you start to specify things I said that you perceive/accuse/portray as uneducated layman bias. Only now do I finally have those specifics in front of me to think about and address. "Asserting the events in the gospels were made up, and that people decades after the fact invented it all " ? I never went that far. That's not even what I think. But now that these issues have finally been raised (by you), I'll tell you what I think (about those specific issues). I'll even tell you why (the short version of my reasons why). Let's separate the magical parts from the mundane parts. Did any of the magical parts happen? No. Why do I think those things did not happen? Because I think the same way actual historians think. As Bart Ehrman has explained (so many times), [ something he learned from the late Bruce Metzger] a "Miracle", BY DEFINITION, is: the least likely explanation out of all possible explanations for any claim. If any such thing were ever the most statically likely [based on everything we know about the happenings of our world (the physics and the histories)] nobody would call it a "miracle". We would just call it "common" or "rare". "Miracles are: more rare than rare; IF they even happen at all. We can just grant that they happen. They'd still be more rare than rare. It's literally the JOB of professional, academic historical inquiry to: assess probabilities. THAT is their job. They are bound to that as a necessary ethical priority. I appreciate the wisdom of that. Thus, I hold myself to the same. Even THOMAS (in the stories) agreed with that. Thus, he WITHHELD being convinced of the resurrection pending specified physical evidence. Now, I don't have any "faith" (exactly the correct word to use here) that the story of "Doubting Thomas" is really what happened. But I do appreciate the irony of a religion which claims it DID happen exactly that way but wants to SHAME ME and ROB ME of my RIGHT to the same. Now, don't me wrong. I have MOUNTAINS of other justification for concluding that Christianity is utter BULLSHIT. But right now, I'm only sticking to on-topic points about it. And with that in mind, ... I invoke the right of Thomas. I reserve the RIGHT (as sanctioned by the Jesus of Christian legend) to withhold BELIEF that such an event happened; pending that very same evidence. In the name of JUSTICE itself. I have a right to everything allegedly-provided to Thomas, and Saul/Paul, and every other alleged direct witness. Without that, I am just "non-resistant non-believer" with a reasonable standard of evidence. It's a standard that religious fundamentalists of today KNOW they can't meet. And so (instead) want to play $t@pid apologetic gaslighting games. -- Meanwhile, as for the mundane-claims within those stories, they aren't trivially unimportant and irrelevant without the magical claims. So there's nothing there worth debating. I am sure some ancient Jews sometimes went fishing, drank whine, and got into arguments. It just doesn't matter. Accusation set #3 a.) "you also - again - misrepresented the omission
and inclusion of a few different stories from Jesus
 ministry between the Gospels with totally different
 retellings of his life."

--
My replies: I never said anything about any of that. You are (again) imagining me saying things and then berating me for saying the things you imagined. b.) "The difference between including or omitting a
couple of his sermons,
or going into more or less detail in a particular story
 is nothing close to recalling an especially large
 lizard as being a flying fire breathing dragon."
--- True.
And I would have always agreed with you about this. Except that it never came up. INSTEAD, I specifically told you my main point was about the MIRACLES.
And the only other point about the lower-vs-higher "Christologies". The first-written gospels mentions a few minor miracles.
The next-written gospel mentioned more and greater miracles.
The next-written gospel mentions more and even-greater miracles.
The final-written gospel (John) has the most spectacular miracles and the highest Christology. It makes no sense that earlier gospel-story writers didn't mention the more fantastic stuff. Clearly, each-next-writer was either INVENTING a more "SUPER" Jesus or The Telephone Game had done that for them. And then the writers were just documenting the changes. c.) " If you have any evidence to support your claims,
you should have at least attempted to show it,"

---
My reply:

You just weren't listening.
Your brain was too busy imagining my end of the conversation. 

d.) 
"but since you've already resorted to preemptive
 insults and accusations of brainwashing,"
---
You imagined that too. 
----------------------------------------------
e.) 

"I have to wonder if your position has any credible
evidence behind it at all."
--
 Ok. 
Well, have a great day. And don't forget to Kiss Hank's Ass for me.

Follow up:

​ @tategarrett3042   " above you said "Now, I'm not trying to force you to be logical; nor even a Good Faith Actor.
Heaven forbid.
But you have either been cult-programmed into the grift and need a deprogrammer
or
 you're one of the grifters.

Either way, there's no chance at all of this turning into a fruitful exchange. "

That means you lied just now.

Your own words are in writing in which you just directly said that I must be cult programmed or a grifter."

----
My final reply:

But I didn't say that "preemptively".

Meanwhile, it's not an adhom to recognize that Christian authoritarianism (or, fundamentalist. or "literalism") is a cult grift.

In fact, it's a mafia (organized criminal syndicate).

It's also a PSYOP. 

Protestants say worse about Catholics.
Catholics say worse about the JWs.
They all say worse about Islam and atheists.

But it's not an adhom, nor "preemptive" when they say such things.

It's a response
and an assessment.

It's also a perfectly valid premise upon-which (for any of them) to ultimately decide it's just not worth arguing with specified-rivals anymore.

You aren't allowed to seriously question any essential facet of your religious narrative;
-under penalty of death (or worse).

Furthermore, fundamentalist/authoritarian religious narratives displace each subjected-person's identity. 

It attracts, causes, and exploits an "eternal locus of identity".

As a result,
that necessarily creates a dependence of identity and worth.

 It means your sense of identity and worth are being held hostage by a conceptualized super-Father and by men whom give that Father voice.

This is one of the reasons that Dr Robert Sapolsky has said
“the same exact traits which in a secular context are life-destroying” and “separate you from the community” are, “at the core of what is protected, what is sanctioned, what is rewarded, what is valued in religious settings.”.

 I have no such conflicts of interest.
 Thus,
I'm free to be a Good Faith Actor;
if I so choose.

 And because I value being exactly that, I choose exactly that.

That doesn't mean I'm always fair, nor always flawless in my facts, reasoning, or communication.

I'm simply allowed to be (you're not).
And so I choose to make a genuine effort to always be that.

Meanwhile, World governments keep track of dangerous cults.
Are they guilty of an ad hom fallacy to even have such lists?

An Ad Hom fallacy is when something negative is said about a rival as a way to attack the person instead of the argument.

It's a way to avoid engaging with the actual arguments.

It's not automatically happening anytime someone makes an unflattering statement or assessment.

---

Please note.
This really is the last time I'm going to engage with you about any of this.

You're stuck in a loop. And I don't feel like being stuck in it with you.

I will be doing a livestream soon, about the video topic and about the conversations happening under it.

And I've already copied all of this into a blog for future reference.

It really is a shame that YT now blocks all links; even links to their own hosted content.

I only took a minute to address this one last issue, because it seemed to still be eating at you.

But I really have better things to be doing with my day.
Feel free to sub to my channel and join our live discussions there. Or not.