The Case for Christ

I was going to write a chapter by chapter rebuttal for every point made in the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel....
After reading 2 chapters... I've realized if I did that, I'd be writing a book on it's own.
I am simply appalled at the amount of intellectual dishonesty that's being spewed from the book. Part 1 was tormenting as every point was literally rubbish in the actual realm of academia. First by establishing the authenticity of the iconic gospels, in standard academia, anonymous authorship means just that.... anonymous. NO one knows who actually wrote the books in question. No solid evidence can truly point them that the people who actually wrote them are tied to the people they've been attributed to. To argue that it's a historically a first hand account when the authorship has not been established is absurd. In fact, it is even mentioned in the book, the authorship is not confirmed.
Then... it goes to say... well... here's some historic evidence outside the bible. Sadly, he mentions Josephus.... And of course the passage he mentions that is most beneficial to the case, is an "interpolation"... Ie... it has interpretive translation inserts, or additional inserts from other copiers that are not part of the original.... But duly asserts "the passage as a whole is authentic"....
HOW THE FUCK is it authentic when he blatantly says that they're interpolations in every other line?
The passage as a whole paints the picture of Jesus as a the messiah. The passage without interpolation paints him as an adored Jewish preacher. How intellectually dishonest do you have to be?
If this was evidence used in a modern court case, it'd be tossed out so fast, it wouldn't even be given a evidence number.

Scientific evidence: I found a single line that shuts down the entire chapter.... And it comes up in the first 2 pages of the chapter.
"Spiritual truths cannot be proved or disproved by archaeological discoveries"
I agree and enough said... yet the book tries to prove it anyways.

Bethlehem and the Census with the infanticide. He states that who would notice a few infant deaths around a small town of Bethlehem... such a small town wouldn't have that big of infant population... let alone male infant population of 2 years or younger.
See.. this is where they conveniently forgot the previous first 2 pages. In all of the land, EVERY person was supposed to be in the land of their house... So... As with Joseph and Mary, those who were of the House of David, HAD to be in Bethlehem. And according to Jewish traditions, all seeds of David, well.. that's the house of Judah.... That's a lot of people that migrated there for the Census. That's not just a small town anymore.

And then... no census ever occurred in that magnitude. But the historical quote claiming anyone of a different province must go to their house to take a census, well.. that's just saying, if there's a census, go to your home if you're from a different province. NOT your linage house.

I finished part one today... such intellectual dishonesty, I can't stomach too much more... I hated the faux skeptic from the start... but this just adds too it. I suppose he's not a faux skeptic, but a skeptic with really low standard for evidence. Hell... with the level of skepticism he's got, he might as well believe aliens really do abduct people. Unlike the case from antiquity, there's first hand accounts from independent sources and well documented events and descriptions unrivaled by anything from antiquity.

I've finished "Under the Banner of Heaven" today, interesting book about fundi Mormonism. Got me thinking about the social construct of marriage and plural marriage and why it's being frowned upon. To be honest, I don't think it's a bad thing, it wouldn't hurt if all parties were in agreement, though I would have to say it's less plausible in application than in theory. Crazy people will be crazy.

I've started to read, "The Structure of Scientific Revolution" By Thomas S Kuhn... First portion he sounds like a kid who has been rejected by the cool kid's club and is whining that they're just a bunch of elitist pricks. NEWS FLASH... crap ideas are crap. I want my elitists to be pricks, I want my best of the best to be the best. I will not settle for a pool of knowledge to be tainted by ideas that can not stand the scrutiny of intellectual gauntlet known as the peer review process. If someone can find a mistake in the ideas and theory I present, I want to know about it, both so I can correct it, and so I can improve upon it. Unlike the soft touch of society, knowledge has no qualms about how someone would feel if they have their ideas shat on because it's not fully justified.
Kuhn at one point states that every paradigm shift is completely opposite of existing paradigm and then continues to replaces it once it meets the approval of the majority.... then later in the essay states the Newtonian paradigm is the basis and essentially improved upon by the Einsteinian paradigm.... wait... Wat?

I don't know exactly where to place Kuhn... I wouldn't say he's an idiot, I think he's just speaking out of place... Though I do not claim to be an expert, I can call bullshit when I see it.

Lee Strobel is still an idiot.