From: wiggins@lightning.cs.odu.edu (Samuel E Wiggins)
Subject: Jesus is the Son of God, not a prophet
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:33:16 GMT

In-reply-to: rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu's message of Tue, 17 Nov 1992 18:44:26 GMT
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Jesus is a Prophet, not Son of God
	<WIGGINS.92Nov17122722@hurricane.cs.odu.edu>
	<1992Nov17.184426.2067@cs.yale.edu>
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In article <1992Nov17.184426.2067@cs.yale.edu> rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:

   In article <WIGGINS.92Nov17122722@hurricane.cs.odu.edu> wiggins@hurricane.cs.odu.edu (Samuel E Wiggins) writes:

   >I don't believe you got up this morning.  Prove that you did.  Or, maybe 
   >you only believe you got up this morning, and this is all a silly dream.
   I'm not arguing that I got up this morning. Presumably you are arguing
   that Jesus was crucified and resurrected. However, I could provide
   the sorts of proof that are generally considered sufficient in science
   that I woke up this morning--pictures of me at my workstation, time
   stamped EEGs, time stamped polygraphs, that sort of thing to prove
   it in the usual scientific fashion. I doubt you can do the same for
   any of the claims that Mr. Hudson is making.
-------
Well, you still can't prove to me that you ever woke up, even using these
scientific instruments.  I could always interpret the facts differently,
or claim your facts were forged or came from incomplete or invalid testing.
Moreover, your scientific testing methods cannot be applied in this instance,
heavily for hard proof were : these scientific instruments you rely on so
in question.  They only had what was available, just writing and word of
mouth; things that don't really stand up to scientific testing well
anyway.
How come people who never became Christians agreed that weird things were
But I have a question:
going on and miracles happened?  Witness the Quran.  People in Palestine
at that time other than the followers of Christ.
I have another:
Why believe 90% of a newspaper which only tells of events without hard
scientific scrutiny?  (Is it because there are witnesses one can refer
if need be?  Both pro and con for the subject known as fact.)
-------
   >So.  Don't skirt the issue.  Address what I Peter says, regardless of the
   >fact that Peter did write it. :)
   You're begging the question. It only follows that Peter believed what
   1 Peter says if it is shown that Peter wrote 1 Peter. Since this
   has not been shown, I do not need to show that 1 Peter does not
   indicate a belief in resurrection to show that it does not logically
   follow from 1 Peter that Peter believed in resurrection.
-------
Say again?  Why don't you take a "suppose Peter wrote 1 Peter approach."
Then take a "suppose he didn't."  Try to argue from each possibility.
Would this affect your conclusions?
Even aside from Peter, 1 Peter makes claim to the resurrection; here
another person is claiming Christ rose from the dead.  This must still
be proven false, independent of who the writer was.  To blow him off
simply because he's not famous and doesn't have clout doesn't disprove
what he's saying.  (It really makes no difference to me whether Peter
wrote 1 Peter or not, though I personally believe he did; what does matter is
that some Christian wrote 1 Peter who believed in the resurrection.)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc