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I converted to Catholicism after many years deep in the drug culture, AMA

easier for me to just copy from peterkreeft

Peter Kreeft said:
The argument, like all effective arguments, is extremely simple: Christ was either God or a bad man.Unbelievers almost always say he was a good man, not a bad man; that he was a great moral teacher, a sage, a philosopher, a moralist, and a prophet, not a criminal, not a man who deserved to be crucified. But a good man is the one thing he could not possibly have been according to simple common sense and logic.

For he claimed to be God. He said, "Before Abraham was, I Am", thus speaking the word no Jew dares to speak because it is God's own private name, spoken by God himself to Moses at the burning bush. Jesus wanted everyone to believe that he was God. He wanted people to worship him. He claimed to forgive everyone's sins against everyone. (Who can do that but God, the One offended in every sin?)

Now what would we think of a person who went around making these claims today? Certainly not that he was a good man or a sage. There are only two possibilities: he either speaks the truth or not. If he speaks the truth, he is God and the case is closed. We must believe him and worship him. If he does not speak the truth, then he is not God but a mere man.

But a mere man who wants you to worship him as God is not a good man. He is a very bad man indeed, either morally or intellectually. If he knows that he is not God, then he is morally bad, a liar trying deliberately to deceive you into blasphemy. If he does not know that he is not God, if he sincerely thinks he is God, then he is intellectually bad—in fact, insane.
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Peter Kreeft said:
The first escape is the attack of the Scripture "scholars" on the historical reliability of the Gospels. Perhaps Jesus never claimed to be divine. Perhaps all the embarrassing passages were inventions of the early Church (say "Christian community"—it sounds nicer).In that case, who invented traditional Christianity if not Christ? A lie, like a truth, must originate somewhere. Peter? The twelve? The next generation? What was the motive of whoever first invented the myth (euphemism for lie)?

What did they get out of this elaborate, blasphemous hoax? For it must have been a deliberate lie, not a sincere confusion. No Jew confuses Creator with creature, God with man. And no man confuses a dead body with a resurrected, living one.

Here is what they got out of their hoax. Their friends and families scorned them. Their social standing, possessions, and political privileges were stolen from them by both Jews and Romans. They were persecuted, imprisoned, whipped, tortured, exiled, crucified, eaten by lions, and cut to pieces by gladiators.

So some silly Jews invented the whole elaborate, incredible lie of Christianity for absolutely no reason, and millions of Gentiles believed it, devoted their lives to it, and died for it—for no reason. It was only a fantastic practical joke, a hoax.

Yes, there is a hoax indeed, but the perpetrators of it are the twentieth-century theologians, not the Gospel writers.
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Peter Kreeft said:
The second escape (notice how eager we are to squirm out of the arms of God like a greased pig) is to Orientalize Jesus, to interpret him not as the unique God-man but as one of many mystics or "adepts" who realized his own inner divinity just as a typical Hindu mystic does. This theory takes the teeth out of his claim to divinity, for he only realized that everyone is divine.

The problem with that theory is simply that Jesus was not a Hindu but a Jew! When he said "God", neither he nor his hearers meant Brahman, the impersonal, pantheistic, immanent all; he meant Yahweh, the personal, theistic, transcendent Creator.

It is utterly unhistorical to see Jesus as a mystic, a Jewish guru. He taught prayer, not meditation. His God is a person, not a pudding. He said he was God but not that everyone was. He taught sin and forgiveness, as no guru does. He said nothing about the "illusion" of individuality, as the mystics do.

Attack each of these evasions—Jesus as the good man. Jesus as the lunatic, Jesus as the liar, Jesus as the man who never claimed divinity, Jesus as the mystic—take away these flight squares, and there is only one square left for the unbeliever's king to move to. And on that square waits checkmate. And a joyous mating it is. The whole argument is really a wedding invitation.
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The second escape is closer to my own thinking. I don't dislike his arguments, but Peter also writes

[... Peter Kreeft]A fourth argument from history, the strongest one of all, is the argument from miracles. Miracles directly and inescapably show the presence of God, for a miracle, in the ordinary sense of the word, is a deed done by supernatural, not natural, power. Neither nature nor chance nor human power can perform a miracle. If miracles happen, they show God's existence as clearly as reproduction shows the existence of organic life or rational speech shows the existence of thought.
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I'd be interested in hearing what he thinks about the book Christ "wrote" in the 70's that rocked a lot of people's minds
 
The three subsequent passages you have posted don't make the argument any more effective, I will deal with them in turn.

The first passage unsuccessfully tries to justify the false dilemma. In my last post I named a plausible example which was excluded from this trilemma, namely that he was a benevolent liar. It is entirely possible that Jesus could have been an atheist who had a strong moral vision which he felt he would be unable to propagate without some kind of religious authority, and so made a utilitarian judgement to claim himself as God in order to spread his message. This is just one possibility, a little creativity could conjure up more which are not excluded by reason or common sense.

I would also point out that being a great moral teacher and a lunatic are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Perhaps he was a lunatic in terms of being deluded into thinking he was God, but was a great moral teacher due to his benevolent character and the moral strength of his message. Those who acknowledge Jesus as a great moral teacher are not necessarily forced to deny that Jesus was also labouring under a delusion. The fact that this trilemma presupposes that they are forced to deny this is a significant weakness of the argument.

The second passage seems question begging to me, but I admit I am ignorant on the extent to which the events of Jesus' time are considered known by historians. I take it that they are largely relying on the Bible as a source to verify the persecution of those who followed Jesus, in which case it is a question begging argument because the very thing which is at issue is whether the contents of the Bible (which claim Jesus as the son of God) are true. Furthermore, even if it is a historical fact that some followers of Jesus were persecuted, it does not necessarily follow that those who wrote the Bible and came up with the doctrine of Christianity were persecuted. I am not saying they weren't, but the argument needs supporting evidence to have any weight whatsoever.

I don't find the third passage any more convincing. It is disingenuous to represent these weak arguments as the only opposition to the trilemma.

Now, I acknowledge due to my lack of knowledge of the history of the period and the content of the relevant scripture my critique of the second passage may miss the mark a little bit. However, the fact remains that the passage needs to provide supporting evidence that those who came up with the doctrine of Christianity were persecuted, not that followers of Christianity were persecuted. Since the passage acknowledges that it is uncertain who came up with Christianity, I do not imagine this evidence will be forthcoming.

All you really need to see to understand that the trilemma argument is garbage is that the three positions outlined in the trilemma are far from the only beliefs which a reasonable person could have about Jesus. Moreover, even if one buys into the trilemma, nothing in anything you have posted addresses the issue I raised in my last post which casts serious doubt on whether it is credible or reasonable to believe that Jesus was not insane.
 
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I meant to mention miracles when I posted about what makes Jesus unique.

Regarding the historical Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth) I believe most people agree on only a few things. He was born in Nazareth around 4 BCE or First Century Palestine, he was most likely an illiterate manual laborer, and he was crucified. The fact that he was crucified which was a punishment usually reserved for the crime of sedition leads people to the conclusion that he was a revolutionary.

Lewis and Kreeft are talking about Jesus Christ from the scriptures.

How could he be a benevolent liar if he was aware that his words and actions could lead to the deaths of anyone who followed him? There is no reason to think he would have been ignorant to the consequences of his actions.

Well if he is insane there is no reason for anyone to identify as a Christian.
 
Sigmond said:
I meant to mention miracles when I posted about what makes Jesus unique.

Regarding the historical Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth) I believe most people agree on only a few things. He was born in Nazareth around 4 BCE or First Century Palestine, he was most likely an illiterate manual laborer, and he was crucified. The fact that he was crucified which was a punishment usually reserved for the crime of sedition leads people to the conclusion that he was a revolutionary.

Lewis and Kreeft are talking about Jesus Christ from the scriptures.

How could he be a benevolent liar if he was aware that his words and actions could lead to the deaths of anyone who followed him? There is no reason to think he would have been ignorant to the consequences of his actions.

Well if he is insane there is no reason for anyone to identify as a Christian.
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There is no reason to think he was not ignorant to the consequences of his actions either, as you point out there is some agreement that he was not well educated. He would be a benevolent liar if he believed society or the lives of his subjects would improve if they embraced his teachings. There is no certainty on most of his life, it isn't reasonable to draw concrete conclusions about whether he knew the consequences of his actions, his motivations for said actions, or the state of his mental health.

Bringing miracles into the discussion is unnecessary and does nothing to strengthen the trilemma argument. Unless you have concrete proof that he performed miracles then it is not evidence that Jesus was a God.

If he was insane then you are correct that there is no reason for anyone to identify as a Christian. I would point out that this argument is aimed at non-Christians who believe Jesus was a great moral teacher, so there is no explicit reason for them to deny he was insane. As I pointed out in previous posts, being insane and a great moral teacher are not mutually exclusive, and there is far from sufficient evidence to conclusively suggest Jesus was not delusional. Bearing both these points in mind, even if one were inclined to buy into this fallacious trilemma, they would have no more reason to conclude the Jesus was a God than to conclude he was a lunatic. You might think the abundance of lunatics and lack of Dieties in society would incline most to infer the latter conclusion is more reasonable.
 
I'm always amazed by how quickly people assume their opinions on matters as profound as religion and philosophy are worthy of airing in public. Even theologians, scholars, scientists and philosophers are hesitant to weigh into debates of such magnitude.

But hey, we have all the answers don't we? After all, our generation invented Google!
 
I critiqued an argument which relies on at least one informal fallacy. I have studied logic and argumentation theory, I wouldn't say my opinions are insightful or profound, but I do have relevant knowledge to critique the argument.

In what sense is debating the merits of a particular argument, as I have been formally trained to do, the same as claiming, implicitly or otherwise, that I have all the answers?
 
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Yes, you did. But that doesn't explain why you got your knickers in a twist about my throw-away remark....and I'm curious about this training. It interests me. What uni is it offered at?
 
Holy fuck you put up a lot of stuff! I tried reading the bible once when I was in solitary in jail.I got up to the bit where some dude's daughters get him pissed then let him stick his fatherly wang in 'em. That was enough for me.
 
My knickers aren't in a twist, I merely sought to understand why you made such a ridiculous statement. I will take your lack of a substantive response as an indication that you just felt like ruffling some feathers.

I would prefer not to disclose the University I attend. The philosophy department has some units on critical thinking, argument analysis and logic. I don't know for certain but I would be reasonably confident that most Universities with a decent philosophy department offer similar units.
 
Read: you didn't actually go to uni. That's OK brother.There's no shame in doing correspondence courses. I went (to uni that is), finished, and now I have a $20 000 piece of framed paper. Oh well. I probs could have done something with it but I was in a bad head-space :(
 
I am currently completing my degree and don't want to give out personal information. I couldn't care less whether or not some random on the internet believes I attend University.
 
Oh but I suspect you do. Ya see, it's quite obviously a lie, and the more we compound it, by having to repeat it....well, it drives that thorn in your side just that bit deeper. See, you say you "don't want to give out personal information on the net". But why would ANYONE care where you went to uni. It makes no sense. I went to QUT, graduated in Journalism mid 2005. A year later I tried my hand at psychology at UQ, where I did Intro to Philosophy, which was really good. But My head wasn't in the right space so I had to drop out. My father is a Professor of Psychology who has ruffled a few feathers with his early, ground-breaking work on Asperger's Syndrome...now, he doesn't worry about revealing where went to uni....so why should you?
 
If you can't figure out why a moderator with over 7,000 posts on a harm reduction board, many of which admit to using illicit substances, would want to avoid giving out personal information then I would suggest that you need to work on your critical thinking skills.

I am done with this off-topic back and forth. Believe what you want about me.
 
look, maybe I have a bee in my bonnet about it. I just hate it when people can't just be honest about where they're at in life. I had cancer when I was 23 and I was blown away by the number of people who lie about it!. You start askin' em questions and it's all BS. Same as when I was in jail. Ppl would go on and on about this that and the next, then when you saw 'em on the street they be heading down the soup kitchen. And drugs too, which is something we both know....ppl lying about being clean when ya KNOW they're not.

I guess i'm just ready for some honesty. I didn't mean to take it out on you. Really.
 
yeah willy, drug mentor seems like he is totally unedjucated. doubt he graduated high school.8)


seriously though, I was kind of looking forward to a bit of back and forth between DM and SKL.

Where you at SKL?
 
if you don't believe in the sky god who was that guy in the OT telling jews to do all that vile and evil shit. Do you really believe god will reward blind obedience rather than virtuous action? Would god really want you to kill your first born son to prove your obedience? Or would he rather you risk eternal damnation to do right by your child?
 
One thing that Jesus did was put an end to the temple sacrifices at his time. The only time he lost his temper, but I guess that wasn't too pleasent.
 
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