beowulf

You must have a person present and breathing and able to speak, here, now, today in order to have an eye witness. Faith is believing in something with out evidence. That is required to believe in God, Right? If you have all this "evidence" then why do you need faith?

Which god are you referring to? There are so many to choose from.

That depends on which state they are in. Some states do no require anything at all.

Is that supposed to be a joke? There is no evidence of any deity to gather. I just wrote that God doesn't exist and that I don't believe in him. He can read it if he does exist and respond.

I would also like to add that while I don't think that the US school system is perfect, the real problem with education is mostly with the parents rather then the school system. If the children don't have a stable and loving home environment with parents that care about their education level then they are much more likely to not do well in school no matter how good the school is. A good education starts with the parents.

While I think choice is a great thing and would be all for it. I think not making school mandatory would result in fewer children ever seeing the inside of any school and not getting any education at all. I have seen this accomplished by people saying they are "home schooling" their children and then never actually following through with the home schooling.

I don't believe in the supernatural. That is what atheism is, disbelief in the supernatural. As man's knowledge has increased over the years more and more of what people attributed to supernatural causes has been explained to not be of supernatural cause. Deitys make no logical sense. There is no evidence of anything supernatural and by definition there never will be any. You believe because you want to believe. That is fine, but don't make false claims of evidence when there isn't any and never will be. No one questions whether or not the biblical Jesus existed. He most likely did exist. What I and all atheists disbelieve is the so called miracles the he is said to have performed and the resurection. There just isn't any evidence to support that.

What does this have to do with anything? None of this makes any sense.

I think you are full of shit and making most of this up as you go. You don't know any of that to be fact yet you present it as fact. Do you have anything to back your words up with?

That's a pretty lame excuse. I prefer to live life in reality and not delude myself with false promises. I participate in the debates for the entertainment value. I don't care if I change your mind at all. If anyone could present evidence of any deity I would consider the possibility that a deity does exist. It appears that you would not change your mind no matter how many times we point out the lack of evidence. You insist on believing in a fairy tale.

Are you trying to say that no one else wrote about Jesus's resurection because they were afraid to tell the story? That really doesn't help the Bible's credibility.

I guess you haven't read it then. BTW, how many sources, besides the form itself, does your birth certificate claim to have? Yes I have read the bible. Are you trying to say that the bible has a bibliography? It has at least two people listed. I can't remember if it has the doctors name also. Those people are still alive and can be called as eyewitnesses. They are not books, but actual peope so they do qualify as eyewitnesses. btw your line of reasoning doesn't make any sense. Historians judge the value of a historical document by the evidence there is to back it up. Such as other documents of the same era that make the same or similar statments and physical evidence. The Bible has neither for the story of Jesus. So it is very reasonable to not place much historical accuracy in much of what the Bible states. Especially the far fetched stories, like Jesus's resurection and ascension to heaven.

So, let's tear up your birth certificate. It must have very limited credibility. Let's tear up all the old censuses from the time before computers and high tech. Let's smash up all the bones and clay that archeologists have dug up. By your standards, they all have very limited credibility. Let's not believe anything that historians recorded before... let's pull a date out of the air... A.D. 1500. Let's burn all records that don't have other records to substantiate them. Why would I want to tear up my birth certificate? No one is questioning it or basing their philosophy on it. Historical records are scrutinized and compared to other records to verify their claims. Bones and clay pottery are evidence, why would I want to throw them away? I wouldn't burn any records, even if they don't have anything to substantiate them. But I would not place a lot of trust in those that don't have any evidence to back them up, such as other records from other people of the same time frame. The Bible has nothing to back up it's claims that Jesus was resurected from the dead, so that tells me that it is of low credibility.

What makes you think that? I could point out that the writers DID do their research (so they claim, and I see no reason not to believe them), but something tells me you wouldn't go for that. Right? You'll come up with another objection. Open up a credible history book, one used in schools, and go to the last pages. There they write down the sources of their information. I didn't see any sources listed in the Bible.

Why??? Becuase what you point out as being eyewitness testimony does not in any way shape or form qualify as eyewitness testimony. You don't have any evidence. If you were to take a book into court and try to submit it as eyewitness testimony the judge would dismiss the book and ask you where your eyewitness is. An eyewitness is a person not a book. You can't question a book and get an answer. So, we may as well throw out all the history and biography books ever written. And even your birth certificate. Would you insist on having the doctor who delivered you on hand to give his verbal eye-witness testimony that you were born in a certain hospital on a certain date? Why not just admit that you don't want to believe the record of Christ's life and be done with it? 'Cos no matter what I give you as support for the written record, you will find fault with it or raise the bar higher and higher. History and biography books have research and evidence to back them up. The bible doesn't. If there was question as to the authenticity of my birth certificate then I would have to go through a lot of trouble to prove where I was born. I am not raising the bar higher and higher. You represent the Bible as eyewitness testimony and I submit that it is in no way an eyewitness testimony. It can be considered to be a record of sorts, but since it is the only written record of an event it has very limited credibility. Also considering the Bibles conradictory statements it's credibility as a historical record goes way down. If you had other written accounts of Jesus's resurection and ascention to heaven then it would lend some credibility to the Bible, but you don't even have that. Yes I will admit that I don't believe the Bibles record of Jesus's life. The Bible just isn't very credible and there is no evidence to support it.

In your other post you said this, That alone should motivate you to choose a more consevative canopy.

Just because it was his opinion that the bible is believable and therefore qualified in his mind as evidence doesn't make it actual evidence. His only basis for his opinion is the Bible and nothing more. For a written account to be considered as fact it needs to be backed up with more then just itself and even then it can not be considered as eyewitness testimony. You need an actual person for an eyewitness testimony.

My only question is how do you know you are falling straight down while in the head down position? A lot of people think they are falling straight down while head down but are actually in more of an atmonaughti postion instead. You need to be sure you really are head down before trying to do transitions.

Personally, I LOVE tape. If nothing else than for for archive purposes. I don't have to do anything to have a fairly long-term archive of whatever I shoot. And I have had regular reasons to go back and retrieve footage I have shot. I have tapes that are HDV, DV, DVCAM, Hi-8, and VHS,...all of which I can throw on a machine I own (and that works) and get footage out of in no time. And none of which I have had to do anything with for archive purposes other than store them half way decently (sitting on a shelf somewhere). Hell, I have audio cassettes, DATs, and even reel-to-reel tapes (70's) that I have been able to retrieve footage from (all fairly recently) without much hassle. Then again, I have hard drives less than a decade old that I would have to search for a way to even hook them up (SCSI), and on which are files that I don't even know if I have software on my computers to read anymore. Give me tape, cheap and hassle free. I think tapes are great for archiving or backing up data. We use DLT tapes at work for this purpose. At home I use DVD's and also the DVC tapes. I think that solidstate is the way to go for skydiving. It makes the cameras much lighter and have much fewer moving parts to break. You can reuse the solid state media with better results then tapes. It just means changing how you go about sharing video. I would suggest people bring usb memory sticks with them for video. They are very cheap.

If you read what I wrote, I said the Gospels record eye witness accounts of the life of Jesus. I did not go into whether or not the writers were the eye witnesses themselves. What is important is are the accounts faithful? Did people actually see a risen Christ? Who wrote the Gospels and when can be subject to endless debates, and in some ways a distraction. Your points 1-4 do not disprove the eye witness accounts as presented by the writers are not faithful. This being the case the life of Christ bears further investigation for oneself, and you never know, you may hear the voice of God by doing so. He did read what you wrote and what you claim are eyewitness accounts are not. Read what JackC wrote and you will find a list showing why they are not eyewitness accounts. There is absolutely no way for you to know if the accounts are faithul or not. You can't answer this question with a yes. You don't know if anyone saw Jesus rise from the dead. All you know is what is written in the Bible. There is nothing else written anywere that supports the accounts of Jesus rising from the dead.

How about Simon Greenleaf's definition? Why can't you guys just say, "I don't accept what you point to as evidence--- even the eyewitness testimony of the gospel writers-- because I have a philosphical bias against the existence of a supernatural being"? Why??? Becuase what you point out as being eyewitness testimony does not in any way shape or form qualify as eyewitness testimony. You don't have any evidence. If you were to take a book into court and try to submit it as eyewitness testimony the judge would dismiss the book and ask you where your eyewitness is. An eyewitness is a person not a book. You can't question a book and get an answer.

I currently jump a HC5, but now that the camera can be controlled through the av port I would buy a CX7. The cards are not that expensive and I have a laptop to transfer to and write the files to dvd if someone wanted a copy. I don't expect to ever buy another tape camcorder.

There is no evidence that the story of Jesus being resurrected is true. In fact the only account is in the bible. For something so miraculous you would think there would be many more accounts written.

You think that's illogical?! Each one of those religions has the same amount of evidence to back them up and each claim to be the one true religion and make promises that will only be fulfilled once you die. To top it off no one has ever returned from death to confirm that they actually received what was promised by their religion. Pretty raw deal!

As soon as someone, anyone produces evidence of any deity then yes you would have a valid argument. To date that has never happened. The "evidence" that you and others have pointed to does not qualify as evidence by anyones definition of the word evidence.