mistermack

It's not likely that both forgeries were done by the same person. Possible, but unlikely. Like I said above, my guess would be that the bad one came first, and the better one was added later, in an attempt to add credence to the first really bad one. It could have happened the other way round, or they could both be genuine. A lot of bible scholars think that the better one is genuine, and their main reasoning seems to be that it would be a much more obvious fake, if it wasn't. I don't buy that. It wouldn't take a genius forger to add those few words to a text. Just because one forgery is so blatantly bad, that doesn't mean that the other would have had to be likewise. And you have to remember that most bible scholars are committed Christians, and are more likely to give this passage the benefit of the doubt. It's wishful thinking creeping into their reasoning. Even the few scholars who are not Christian have an interest in Jesus being a real figure. Their jobs depend on it.

If you have difficulty imagining how a 5mph wind could drive a vehicle to 10mph, think about a golf club hitting a ball. If you take a big heavy object, like a golf club head, and swing it at 100mph, it can transfer some of it's momentum to a golf ball, and cause it to fly forward at nearly 200 mph. So momentum from a big heavy object can be transferred and concentrated causing a smaller and lighter object to travel faster than the big one. In this case, the big heavy object is the great mass of air, that is being sucked into the propeller, and forced out backwards. And the small object is the vehicle. On a still day, if you push the vehicle up to 10 mph, the air that's being sucked into the propeller (or technically pushed) has no momentum, in the frame of the static Earth. It's then driven out of the rear, and there is a change of momentum, so there is a force on the propeller. But it's not enough to keep the vehicle going. Now in a second case, if you push the vehicle again up to 10 mph, but this time with a following wind of 5mph, then this time the air has momentum, relative to the static earth. So when the air passes through the propeller, and out of the rear at high speed, it experiences a much greater momentum change than in the first instance. Because of the propeller action, it's driving a great volume of air backwards. Not just the air directly in front of the propeller, but air from the sides a well. So the mass of air moving through the propeller is a lot, and it all has momentum because it's moving at 5mph. So what the vehicle is doing, is causing a momentum change in a big volume of air, and that momentum is concentrated into a smaller body, just like the golf club and the ball.

So what? That doesn't verify the other, slightly less obvious insertion. If the James brother of Jesus is original and genuine, where is the motive to insert the obviously forged reference? And why didn't apologists make any reference to it, before the year 300? In my book, if someone offers me a couple of bank notes, and one is a very very bad forgery, that makes me suspicious of the other. You would have to be a mug, to take the better one as genuine, just because it's not as bad as the other. In fact, the James passage reads perfectly well without the James part, it would have been very easy to slip it in. In my book, someone looked at the obvious forgery, and decided that it was so bad, it needed another reference to back it up.

That's not true. The earliest copies that exist of Pauls epistles were copied around the year 200. The originals were long gone by that time. They made new copies whenever the old ones got tatty, copying them out by hand. Plenty of oportunities to change the text, make "improvements" and correct "mistakes" to match the opinions of the time. And when you consider that nearly half of the epistles are outright forgeries, then the motive was clearly there to put words in Paul's mouth that he clearly didn't say, or write. So in fact, NOBODY knows what he wrote, or dictated. That's not to say that the epistles are worthless, but you can't take them as gospel. And of course, you can't take the gospels as gospel either. 😊

Iran is a great place for rocks. 1) Pillars of salt. and 2) Sedimentary rocks, not exactly horizontal.

Yes, kiddies do give off a lot of nitrates. 😉

Another helping factor, although lesser, is the fact that there is less drag on the actual vehicle with a following wind. Even when the following wind is slower than the vehicle speed, drag is still reduced by having a following wind, as opposed to still air.

You do know that basing your hopes on the difference between a and the is a sign of desperation? Nobody knows what was in the first copy of Paul's letter, and even if we had it, nobody would still know what Paul actually dictated. And as Jesus was supposed to have had several brothers, then Paul would probably said "one of the brothers of Jesus" if that was what he meant. As for Flavius Josephus, it has clearly forged references to Jesus, forged by Christian apologists, and no apologist mentioned the Josephus passages till the third century, which is a dead giveaway. Relying on that sort of rubbish is basically scraping the barrel.

He was self-centred. But, his mission was to preach the Christian message, and he wanted to shine in that. If he actually met the brother of god, do you not seriously think that he would have used that? What better tool could you have, than to say, "yes, ask me anything you like about Jesus, I actually met his brother !! " Any self important person like Paul would have used it over and over to impress his audience. He didn't. Here's a link from the Merion West site you linked : https://merionwest.com/2022/01/14/jesus-mythicism-is-about-to-go-mainstream/ Worth a look.

That's in Galatians 1:18 2:10, and you can interpret that as a reference to a brother of an earthly Jesus, but also as not. It's ambiguous. Here's the quote : 18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas[a] and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me. At first sight, it does seem to refer to Paul meeting a brother of Jesus, and therefore is proof of an actual human Jesus. But the reason that it might not be, is that Paul referred to all Christians as brothers or sisters. He often starts his letters with "I am writing to you, brothers and sisters" and constantly refers to people as either "brothers" or not. In other words, he uses the word brother just to inform the audience whether that person is a christian, or not. Basically, it just means you are one of the bretheren, which he also uses. So this quote could mean he's saying James is the brother of Jesus, or equally, he could be saying that James is one of the bretheren. The reason why I think it's pretty certain to be the second, is that that's ALL he says about James. If he was talking about the actual brother of a god, you would expect an absolute flood of detail, stuff about the life and sayings of Jesus that only a brother would know. But he says nothing. Just, "then I went to Syria" blah blah blah. For a man like Paul, dedicating his life to a religion, to pass up on all and every detail he could have extracted from James, true brother of Jesus, is just impossible in my book. So to me, it can only be the first case, that he's just saying that James is a christian. Basically, he's just saying, "I met with none of the Apostles, just James, one of the bretheren" The other references to a James being a brother of Jesus are actually about a different Jesus. Richard Carrier covers it on his videos, and only committed apologists use it as an argument for a real Jesus. Jesus and James were hugely common names in the first century. They didn't use many names back then. For instance, something like one in three women were called Mary. No kidding ! Jesus was about as common then as Dave is today. There were a hell of a lot of them about.

I'll have another go. The spinning propeller is designed to that there is a pressure difference between the front and rear surfaces, and that's what gives thrust, in any propeller. Now consider the spinning propeller with no wind. Yes, there is a pressure difference, and therefore a resultant force on the propeller. So there is a forward thrust on the vehicle. BUT, it's not enough to drive the vehicle forwards, because of drag and friction losses. So in still air, the vehicle when running at speed would slow down and stop. But now consider the spinning propeller with a following wind. The air from the propeller meets the following wind, and you get a greater pressure build up, all the way back to the propeller. So in this case, there is a greater pressure difference front to rear on the propeller blade, than in the no-wind case. So with a following wind, even if it's slower than the vehicle speed, you will still get more thrust on the propeller blades, than in no wind. So instead of slowing to a stop, the vehicle can accelerate. So it's the back up pressure that's giving the extra thrust. So even though the wind is not keeping up with the vehicle, it's still providing energy, through the raised back up pressure. The kinetic energy of the wind is being transferred through all of the tiny collisions, between the propeller air molecules, and the wind air molecules. So the wind slows, and the vehicle accelerates.

Yeh but....... maybe it's catching .............

I'm curious as to why you accept that there actually was a man, who was killed, at the outset. Are you accepting that the bible stories contain some truth? And if so, why is that?

No, I'm a Brit, but our Prime Minister had been doing his own version of stupid. Not as bad as the US pussy grabber, but not great. I have to admit I don't like Djokovic, his mad stare and chest banging when he wins reminds me of the faces of the Serb soldiers in the bad old days. But that's my bad really, he's probably a nice guy.

You forgot the god bit. He's also a distillation of various gods, what with a virgin birth and rising from the dead, bringing dead people back to life, curing lepers and turning water into wine. Although I suppose that's quite Harry Potterish too.

The principle behind this isn't really that amazing. At first sight, how can the vehicle get thrust from a wind that is effectively against it? The answer is that the propeller is forcing a large volume of air backwards at high speed to meet the following wind. So the following wind is able to apply force to the propeller, through the air that the propeller is shooting backwards. The air from the propeller hits the following wind, and pressure backs up, all the way to the propeller. The energy is coming from the wind. It's actually being slowed by the earth, through the wheels, gears and propeller, and it's the loss of kinetic energy in the wind, that provides the raised kinetic energy of the vehicle. A wind turbine allows the Earth to slow the wind, and reaps the kinetic energy. This does the same. Well, that's how I see it anyway.

So Jesus was just as real as James Bond, and Harry Potter? That sounds about right to me.

Novac is an idiot, there's no doubt about that. You have to be stupid to fall for that anti-vax crap. But, he didn't do anything wrong, he applied for a visa and got it. The real idiots are in charge in Australia. Lions led by donkeys. It looks like they thought they could get some votes out of looking strong, but they've come out of it looking idiotic. By all means, if someone arrives at the country without a visa, then make a decision at the border. But if you issue a visa in advance, stick to it. Why not put the cricketers in charge of the country ? I don't think they would have got it so wrong.

I've personally never been able to understand what women see in men, but the other way round, it's any port in a storm. (And yes, I mistyped interbreeding. I do know the difference, until I'm typing it. )

Why does the truth matter? Well, I personally resent being lied to, especially when I was forcefully told I had to believe it, for the first ten years of my life. I don't blame my parents, they were suckered just like everyone else. Ideally, I would like to prove that Jesus didn't exist, and if Christianity has any value, give credit to the human race, not some imaginary superman.

No, that's the iD50. The infectious dose, which is obviously nothing to do with medications. It's the dose that will infect 50% on average. Charon claims that he was talking about the "minimal infectious dose", but he contradicted himself. It's obvious from the figures that the minimal dose would apply to young children, not adults, but he immediately claimed to be talking about adults, not children. He is also claiming that the "minimal infectious dose" was 500 to 700 cells, before backtracking in the face of evidence that 8.4 cells infects 1% of children. My point is that if the iD1 is 8.4 cells, then it's obvious that the minimal infectious dose will have to be considerably less than that, taking it down around the single bacterium level.

What Richard Carrier and others are arguing is that the religion started by worshipping a mythical figure, that everyone understood as a son of god in heaven, and it morphed into a story of a god come to Earth. So when Paul joined, Jesus was god's number one son in heaven. Then this bunch in Jerusalem get going, claiming that Jesus was an actual man, and it got very popular. That's Euhemerism, and it happened all the time in the ancient world. A god starts out as a heavenly figure, and morphs into an earthly one. And Paul had to either fight it, or go along with it, and he chose the latter. It sounds unlikely to our ears, that people should be inventing stories about gods, and changing them willy nilly, when we have grown up with the same story, that’s persisted for two thousand years. But that was the environment at the time. There were sects everywhere, with different sets of beliefs, and that was only the case because some people were wilfully inventing and changing the narrative. The nearest thing we have today is stuff like Mormonism, or Branch Davidians and the like. Someone sits down and invents a whole new story, and people go for it. Back then it was the norm. Today, it’s more the exception. My guess is that he like the message, love they neighbour etc. Lots of people in the sixties and seventies went the same way, joing Hare Krishna etc. I don't believe for a minute the story about the visions on the road to Damascus. That was his way of becoming an apostle, his contact with Jesus. That's what made him a special one. Same with the story about him having previously been an active persecutor of Christians. It's very suspect. A lot of preachers today come out with stories about how they "saw the light" and how they used to be fervent atheists. Most of them are lying. It's just a tactic to make them appear more convincing. "I was like you, brother, a doubter, till I found the truth". It's nearly always bullshit. There's your answer. Peter had become the top man in Jerusalem, and Paul wanted to be part of that. Richard Carrier is the one to listen to, to get the basis of the argument. He's a proper historian, not a conspiracy theorist, and he really really knows his stuff.

The feeling I get about Paul, is that he was originally preaching about a mythical figure, right at the time that another faction was beginning to claim that Jesus had been a real person. He didn't believe their version, but didn't want to fall out with an important bunch early Christians. So he didn't talk about a real Jesus, but neither did he denounce the notion. He just wanted to be important to the movement. I don't believe the interpretation of his letter, where he said he met Peter, and James the brother of Jesus. It reads on the face of it that he is referring to a real-life brother of a real-life Jesus. But in his letters, Paul uses the word "brother" all the time to refer to all Christians. He addresses his letters to "Bretheren" and "Brothers and Sisters" so his reference to James just means he classes him as one of the bretheren. If James had really been a brother of Jesus, you would expect a flood of details about the man to follow, but there is literally nothing at all.

I'm definitely not any kind of expert on writings from that era, but I wouldn't place too much importance on the documents being written in greek. Greek was the international language of the day, and it was not common for documents to be written in Aramaic. Most Aramaic speakers were illiterate, in fact, most people were illiterate at that time. So people who could read and write generally learned in greek, as that was what was widely written. Saint Paul the Apostle was a Jew, he would have spoken Aramaic, but his letters are in greek. He probably dictated the letters to a scribe in Aramaic, and the scribe wrote them down in Greek. In some old documents, it's possible to see that happening, because some phrases only make good sense when they are translated back into Aramaic. Paul's epistles are very interesting. "Fourteen of the 27 books in the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to Paul.[15] Seven of the Pauline epistles are undisputed by scholars as being authentic, with varying degrees of argument about the remainder." (wiki) So half of the new testament books are from Paul, and half of those are forgeries. Not a good start. But if you scan through the seven genuine ones, it's amazing how little reference there is the the "man" Jesus. If Jesus had been a real man, those letters would have been sooooooooooooo different. Stuff about his parents, his hometown, his ancestry, his marital status, his children if any, his appearance, his birthday, his sayings, hair colour, eye colour, his (supposed) carpentry, his trial, his death, it's all not there. I was quite gobsmacked when I started reading those letters. Even though Paul never met Jesus (in the flesh), if he was real, he would have gleaned all that biographical stuff from others. The man was obsessed enough to travel the world converting people, he would surely have wanted all the biographical info he could get, and so would the people he was writing to. If you read his epistles with the assumption that he knew, and his audience knew, that Jesus was a mythical figure, then they make perfect sense. If you read them with the assumption that he was talking about a real man, they make no sense at all.

To be honest, I have more confidence in the people behind the links I provided, than your bluster. I was originally not sure if I remembered the original source correctly, but I'm now quite sure that I did. The 8.4 cells on average, needed to infect 1% of the young children, makes it clear that I recalled it correctly. I said that a single bacterium can lead to an infection, and it's perfectly clear from those links that it can. Obviously, not in 50% of the population, or 1%, but in some cases.