Belief in Christianity is rational

Thanks Pro. I. Preface Due to time limitations/procrastination and Pro's lack of argumentation last round, I will only give a brief on what I will argue. II. Historicity of the Bible The New Testament is the collection of books which underpins what Christianity is, and their respective values. Pro gave a number of tenets of Christianity from which I will be attacking all tenets related to Jesus. One of the most important Christian beliefs is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the related effects on salvation via. Jesus’ death. However, all works we have today that attest to this are of highly questionable historical authenticity, and by demonstrating that the primary sources by which these beliefs and tenets are formed are most likely false I will consequently demonstrate that belief in Christianity is irrational. III. The Historical-Critical Method There are several questions one must ask when determining the accuracy of historical writing: 1. Are they eye-witnesses 2. Are the writings contemporary? 3. Are they independent? 4. Did they survive to the present day in tact? 5. Were the authors disinterested from the events they depict? The answer to every single one of these questions regarding the New Testament is a resounding no. It fails on every single account of these criterea of reliable authorship. There are other points, but these are the most common points to establish about any historical document.[1] I will deal with these 1 at a time. 1. New Testament authors were most certainly not eye-witnesses The New Testement consists of several books, including the four gospels, the Pauline Epistles and Catholic ‘General’ Epistles. I will address the former two and expand on the latter if needed. All four of the canonical Gospels were written anonymous, and written several decades after the events they depict, and none of them claim to be eyewitnesses. This is especially important for the times of the Roman Empire since life expectancy for the people that would likely have been witnesses to Jesus was only ~35 years. Moreover we need to not only consider the events at the end of Jesus’ life, but also the events at the beginning of Jesus’ life, such as the virgin birth and the events leading up to and after the birth event itself.[2] The earliest canonical Gospel, the so-named Gospel of Mark is most widely regarded by biblical scholars to be composed around the years 65-75AD, due to the references within to the First Jewish Revolt that occurred within Mark 13 in 70AD. This places the Gospel of mark 3-4 decades after the events of Jesus’ death, and seven decades after the events of Jesus’ birth. Considering the author would have to be older than 70 to witness all such events, it is virtually impossible, let alone improbable he was. The Gospel of Luke is regarded to be composed ~80-100AD, which alone rules the author very unlikely to have even witnesses the events at the end of Jesus’ life, there are several reasons for this date, but the one of the most compelling is the dependency of the Gospel on the writings of Mark, as indicated by the ‘Two Source Hypothesis’ (more on this later).[4] The Gospel of Matthew for the same reasons as Luke was also written post- 70AD, and most scholars attribute a date of 80-90AD, owing to its dependency on Mark, lack of dependence on the Gospel of Luke (meaning they are independent), and for the same reasons is extremely unlikely to contain any eye witness testimony. Scholars set a date of late first century-early second century for the composition of the Gospel of John, and obviously such a date would preclude any chance of it being eye-witness testimony. 2. Authorship The Gospels are traditionally attributed names of some of Jesus’ apostles, however this is a late attribution in the forth century, moreover it is virtually impossible for the apostles to have composed the Gospels themselves for several reasons. The apostles themselves would have been Hebrew-speaking (as opposed to Greek, in which the Gospels were written), moreover the the apostles most certainly could not even write, given that only a tiny fraction of peasents at the time of Jesus were indeed literate. Only a small fraction would read, and an even smaller fraction could write, especially in the highly advanced Greek in which the Gospels were composed. Furtherstill, commissioning the authorship of the Gospels would have been near-impossible for them even if they could read and write Greek well, given that papyrus at the time (which was made from sheep-skin) cost an extortionate amount per page.[3] 3. Independancy As I have already alluded to, the writings of the New Testement simply were not independent, the synoptic Gospels in particular, are widely regarded to have been composed according to the ‘Two-Source Hypothesis’. The Gospels of Matthew & Luke were most likely composed using the Gospel of Mark, the Hypothetical ‘Q’ Document, and other external information (oral traditions etc. more on this later). The Gospels share the same stories, in similar sequences and wording lending significant parallelism between these texts which is best explained, and most widely regarded as due to literary interdependence.[5]. The clear consequence of this is that two of the Gospels lose much of their right to independent attestation of the events, and instead we have multiple attestations of the same attestation. We do not have multiple sources, instead we have one source written multiple ways. 4. Lack of Contemporary Historical Evidence: There were numerous historians and writers that were local to the events of Jesus that would most certainly have reported on the events at the time, below is a non-exhaustive list of some of these:[ http://jdstone.org...] Apollonius Persius Appian Petronius Arrian Phaedrus Aulus Gellius Philo-Judaeus Columella Phlegon Damis Pliny the Elder Dio Chrysostom Pliny the Younger Dion Pruseus Plutarch Epictetus Pompon Mela Favorinus Ptolemy Florus Lucius Quintilian Hermogones Quintius Curtius Josephus Seneca Justus of Tiberius Silius Italicus Juvenal Statius Lucanus Suetonius Lucian Tacitus Lysias Theon of Smyran Martial Valerius Flaccus Paterculus Valerius Maximus Pausanias These historians would have been ideal candidates for contemporary, and disinterested accounts of the events of Jesus, yet nothing whatsoever was reported on the events of his life. The only reports known to be written by the contemporary historians were decades later, where they were only reporting on what the Christians were saying at the time, rather than the events themselves. We have very good reason to think that there definitely would have been attestation by these historians though. 1. Earthquakes on the death & resurrection of Jesus 2. Zombies coming out of their graves and walking to Jerusalem 3. Sky blackening for three hours when Jesus died 4. The Resurrection (?!) Note that historians widely reported on events such as solar eclipses, and earthquakes, there is no reason to think that such unusual events would not have been reported. Yet that is precisely the case. IV. Oral Traditions I will go into more detail on this in the following round, but given that the writings of the New Testament were written decades after the fact by non-eye witnesses, then where did the authors get there information from? Well, the answer is most likely oral traditions, which is a polite form of ‘hear say’. Stories that have been in circulation for years, even decades. One story repeated to another and back, it’s even worse than the game of ‘chinese whispers’, which is a trivial demonstration of the unreliability of repeated oral transmission, since stories both change and get manipulated to ‘fit the facts’. This also occurred within the manuscripts themselves (more on this in the next round), and as such virtually none of what is written in the New Testement can even be considered to have reliable origin, let alone documentation and transmission. V. Summary I have demonstrated that the New Testement fails in every single one of the major criteria for reliable attestation for the events of Jesus. In this day and age, any belief system based of such flimsy evidence, from times where superstitions, fantasies, fear and disease were rife is virtually the definition of irrational. The resolution has been negated. VI. References1. http://en.wikipedia.org...2.http://rationalfaiths.com...3. Metzger, Bruce M., (1991). Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography P76 4. http://en.wikipedia.org...;5. The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze. p. 16