"Theist": is a Transitional Form In Human Cultural/Cognitive Evolution

In round 2 my opponent began his argument saying "Fact is, there are no FACTS in the Bible," then he describes Jesus being crucified by Romans as "near Factual." But "Jesus' crucifixion is described in all four Canonical gospels, attested to by other ancient sources, and is firmly established as an historical event confirmed by non-Christian sources." http://www.google.com... Those sources include first century historians such as Josephus and Tacitus, as well as archaeological evidence of crucifixion fitting that described in the Gospels. So Jesus" crucifixion is one indisputable fact in the Bible. Pro then makes a desperate attempt to prove some aspect of the human brain had evolved in order to mass produce tools, but citing scientists who speculate heavily on what the brain of homo habilis was like, without any brain tissue whatsoever. Pro is yet to explain in a clear way how an empty skull tells us anything about what goes on inside the brain. This hypothetical POT region of the brain simply isn"t available today to test it and see what it does, so how do they really know? Pro failed miserable to explain away the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith. He assumes the women at the tomb might not have existed, but didn"t touch the issue of why Jews would invent a story in which the first witnesses were women, when at that time and place women couldn"t serve as legal witnesses, their testimony being considered worthless. Nor did he respond to the fact that the empty tomb fits all the criteria for historical reliability, such as multiple attestation, embarrassment criteria, eyewitness and (or) contemporary testimony, and so forth. It was because he couldn"t deal with these that he complains that I have drifted off topic; but readers will realize that if these facts do point to the reality of the resurrection, then it stands in this debate as good evidence that the God of Christians does exist, and therefore Christian theism isn"t a byproduct of cognitive evolution, but is a revelation from God as Jesus said it was. Further, if I did drift off topic by talking about Christianity, then Pro equally drifted off topic by devoting most of round 2 to presenting arguments against my case instead of simply pointing out that those things were not at issue in this debate. I also made the case that even in polytheistic religions predating Christianity, that the idea of a Supreme Being persists. This refutes Pro"s claim that theism evolved out of polytheism. It didn"t, it was always there, and we"ve heard no response to this issue either. There is no religion in the animal kingdom, and it doesn"t seem rational that mammals would conjure up so universally this concept of gods if there was no historical truth the existence of supernatural entities. I also gave very good reasons and examples that demonstrate the fact, that ancient languages are more complex than modern ones and therefore, our modern languages didn"t evolve from simple grunts as Pro suggests. All my opponent has is the speculations of many agnostics and atheists on this issue, but I went back to the oldest written documents in human history to show that even way back then language appears fully developed. No trace of a so-called primitive language has ever existed. Why is it, that the first written language we have already had full grammatical rules in place? Pro claims that we can"t trust documents written thousands of years after humans already had language to tell us how language came down to us from God, but at the same time he trusts documents written by atheist even much longer after the fact, only in recent times, to tell him how language came down to us from cavemen. That"s no better. Pro is desperate, so he suggests that Constantine hired people to add stuff to the Bible, but it never occurred to him that the account of the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith, exists in manuscripts of the Bible predating Constantine? Pro himself admitted that Mark was written just a few decades after Jesus, in the 1st century. Constantine came in the fourth century. And we can know exactly what Jesus said, for example his statement in Mark 13:32. This presents Jesus on an ascending scale from man, to the angels, to the Son, to the Father; a scale on which Jesus transcends every human and angelic beings, second only to the Father. This couldn"t have been invented by later Christians, because the later Church which emphasized that Jesus was God, and was battling heretics who denied his divinity, would never have invented a saying ascribing limited knowledge to God. But if (as Pro incorrectly may assume) the earlier Christians didn"t view Jesus as divine, but as only a man, a mere prophet, they wouldn"t invent a saying that puts Jesus above every human and angel, for that too is a claim to divinity. So if this were invented, who invented it? We also have enough quotes from the early church fathers before Constantine was born to make up the entire New Testament without even using the NT documents. No ancient document is so well attested. Pro thinks the Gospel writers conspired. If they did, why was their conspiracy not discovered by the Jews back then? Why are these charges only being made now, in recent times? All the Jews had to do was produce the body, and the message of the resurrection would have gotten nowhere. Were there no eyewitnesses to where the body was laid? Pro says an unresolved contention cannot be considered evidence, but exactly how many people must agree to something before is resolved? Some scientists still argue that the earth is young, does that mean the issue is unresolved? Some folks don"t believe in the Big Bang, does that mean its unresolved? You will always have people who disagree no matter how much evidence you have; but it seems Pro believes that truth is decided by majority vote. If the majority of scientists agree, it must be true. But majorities can be wrong, and have been wrong; and trust isn"t the exclusive property of atheists and scientists, is it? I"ll leave the readers to decide that one. Pro claims Christianity today is not the same as it was before. I challenge him to show me one contradiction between modern Christianity and Christianity in the time of the Apostles. I wonder if he will go to the Bible for that, or some other ancient document. We will see if he runs from that one. He also says Constantine invented the Bible. Did Constantine write the Papyrus Chester Betty 2 from 200 C.E.? It contains the letters of Paul. The books of the Bible were around and accepted long before Constantine, so Pro is simply presented lies to escape the arguments I have made. He argues that Christians today don"t believe in a talking serpent, Adam and Eve, and Noah"s flood. Another lie. The Washington Post reported statistical surveys showing that 61% of Americans take such stories as Noah"s flood literally. It also said: "A Harris poll of 2,201 adults charting "Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans 2003" found last year that 93 percent of the nation"s Christians believe in miracles, 95 percent in heaven, 93 percent in the virgin birth of Christ and 96 percent in Christ"s resurrection." http://www.google.com... Amazingly, Pro was the one who said that nothing discovered by Christian scholars are historians is factual, while he himself has presented so many untruths in this debate.