OzSpen,

Of course if you take the Bible as the literal word
of God - your stance against Thiering is perfectly
understandable.

As I told you previously - your rejection
of her work does nothing to invalidate her argument. She
substantiates each step.

Of course you will find difficulty
in accepting her reasoning, despite its meticulous
documentation, because what is being examined is a matter of
faith as much as a scholarly hypothesis. You can say and
believe what ever you want but what remains unimpeachable
is the quality of Thiering's scholarship and her hypothesis
deserves the serious attention of all those interested in
the origins of Christianity.

//I will NOT give a link to you as you attack my integrity with your ad hominem fallacy.//

Christ almighty, how amazingly petty and childish.

Here's the link for you Jayb, seeing as Spencer is so determined to make an ass of himself. It's the PDF at the bottom of the page.'

http://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/50510

OzSpen,
I wasn't referring to suicide, I was referring to him being scared of flying, stop being so Christian by twisting words.

Thanks Tony. I read the first few pages & so far it seems to be a rebuttal of Crossant. Whoever he is. That's all. Nothing new or any ground breaking revelations so far.

I will read the whole thing, make some notes & draft a reply as I see it from a neutral point. It maybe some time, but I will report back.

Should I agree with Crossant, Spencer, or disagree depends on if they are taking the Testaments as being absolute truths or can have mistakes in them.

JayB,

<<I will read the whole thing, make some notes & draft a reply as I see it from a neutral point>>

There is no such person as one who can respond "from a neutral point [of view]". How do I know you, I, you and anyone else have biases and cannot be neutral?

You have lots of things you are not neutral about. Whenever you give us your opinion in Online Opinion, you demonstrate your bias and that you are unable to see things "from a neutral point".

You have a bias (cannot remain neutral) about which brand of coffee you prefer, what is REAL football, and your favourite sports' team. Your economic, religious and political philosophies are not neutral - you have biases. When it comes to God and his action in the universe, you have no "neutral" point of view. Neither do I.

These are your presuppositions about issues. It's not wrong to have presuppositions, but they need to be tested to discover evidence to support or reject them. Presuppositions relate to what we assume to be true. I have them. So do you. We cannot be neutral about anything from trivial things such as which breed of dog we enjoy the most to who created the grand design in the universe.

Atheists, Christians, Buddhists, agnostics, Muslims and sceptics cannot be "neutral" on anything.

Let's check a couple of your presuppositions in your short post that demonstrate you cannot be "neutral" when examining my dissertation:

<<I read the first few pages & so far it seems to be a rebuttal of Crossant. Whoever he is. That's all. Nothing new or any ground breaking revelations so far.>>

In a few pages out of 480 pages, you've read nothing new or ground breaking. That's because you have a bias (can't be neutral) about a Christian assessment. Your "neutrality" extends to the point of not knowing who John Dominic Crossan is and you don't bother to spell his name correctly. He is NOT "Crossant".

So you didn't read the early pages of the dissertation with care.

(continued in next post)

(continuation)

JayB,

<<Should I agree with Crossant, Spencer, or disagree depends on if they are taking the Testaments as being absolute truths or can have mistakes in them.>>

This demonstrates a WHOPPING lack of neutrality. I have to take the OT and NT according to your presupposition that these 2 testaments CANNOT teach "absolute truths and can have mistakes in them".

There you establish your own presuppositional absolute against absolutes and in favour of errors in NT. You are not "neutral" about the nature of Scripture. You come to this discussion with your bias against God's absolutes in Scripture.

What's the topic of this discussion? "What is your view for one to worship humans?" Your and my responses in the latter part of this discussion have departed from that topic.

I found your reply to be dishonest because:

1. Up front, you refused to acknowledge your presuppositional biases and that you cannot be neutral on any topic - including my dissertation.

2. Then, you have the audacity to judge my 480pp dissertation after reading only a few pages. You conclude, "Nothing new or any ground breaking revelations so far".

If I made a judgment on extensive writing by you after reading only a few pages, you'd have reason send me off to training in logic and assessment of any document. Your "neutrality" is shattered on the rocks of your bias against my writing – after reading only a few pages.

3. You created a new absolute: "depends on if they are taking the Testaments as being absolute truths or can have mistakes in them".

So the NT must not contain absolute truths and it must be admitted that the NT has mistakes in it. You do believe in absolute biases - Scripture must not be absolute and it must contain errors.