and no philosophical mysteries like meaning of life and what happens after death.

i'm talking historical mysteries like Mary Celeste and Jack the Ripper identity and who could've possibly have killed Nicole Brown Simpson.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418648)

but that's not the same as directly asking if god exists.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418795)

but I still think this should count because it's a historical question just like did Mohammed ascend to heaven.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418773)

Philadelphia Experiment

Tunguska Event

Wow! signal

JFK assassination

D.B. Cooper

Voynich Manuscript

Taos Hum, or just the Hum in general

Stonehenge

The lost colony of Roanoke

Malaysia Airlines 370

Shakespeare authorship question

Amelia Earhart

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418751)

Is every organism really part of the same "tree of life" or did life spawn at multiple times and places

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418788)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_disappeared_mysteriously:_post-1970

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418798)

"I don’t think, however, that in another 20 years there will be a consensus that Jesus did not exist, or even possibly didn’t exist, but a recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability."

- Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield

http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/dav368029.shtml

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418852)

Do you not think that these people have any idea what they're talking about? They have exemplary credentials and have spent their lives studying the bible

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418875)

The main argument is that if early Christians made up the idea of Jesus, they wouldn't make up stuff that makes him (or them) look bad. And there are many things in the gospels that would be problematic for early Christians. Probably the most obvious and most egregious example is the fact that Jesus was reported to have been baptized by John the Baptist. At the time the gospels were being written, the sectarians of John the Baptist had their own religion and were actively competing with Christians for converts. And one of their main selling points was essentially, "Hey. Even your dude thought our dude was a prophet because our dude baptized your dude." Early Christians had no reason to make that up. The reason that story made it into the gospels is most likely because the fact that Jesus was baptized by John was so well-known that they couldn't get away with editing that out.

You could point to any number of other things. For example, the gospels report that Jesus rejected voluntary fasting. Which is weird, because both pre-Christian Jews and early Christians both fasted voluntarily. Why make up a story that their founder didn't follow one of the tenets of the religion? Once again, the most plausible explanation is that they couldn't, because there actually was some guy named Jesus, and everybody knew that he didn't fast.

For the record, Meier explores the question of whether Jesus actually did miracles/magic tricks/whatever. Well, he said that the question of whether Jesus or not actually performed miracles was outside the realm of scientific inquiry, but a historian could ask the question of whether or not Jesus himself claimed to be a miracle worker or whether early Christians made those stories up to make Jesus seem more divine. He concluded that most likely the historical Jesus did claim to be a miracle worker, but many of the stories in the gospels are at best embellished and at worst completely fabricated.

TLDR: Virtually all historical scholars accept that at the bare minimum, Jesus actually existed. We can't be certain, but the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence indicates that he did.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418970)

Major Premise 1: Christians would not invent anything that would embarrass them.

Minor Premise 1: The crucifixion of Jesus would embarrass Christians.

Conclusion 1: Therefore, Christians did not invent the crucifixion of Jesus.

Major Premise 2: A report is either invented or it is true.

Minor Premise 2 (= Conclusion 1): The crucifixion of Jesus was not invented.

Conclusion 2: Therefore, the crucifixion of Jesus is true.

Another way to test rules of inference is to try them out on contrary cases. For example:

Major Premise 1: Cybeleans would not invent anything that would embarrass them.

Minor Premise 1: The castration of Attis would embarrass Cybeleans.

Conclusion 1: Therefore, Cybeleans did not invent the castration of Attis.

Major Premise 2: A report is either invented or it is true.

Minor Premise 2 (= Conclusion 1): The castration of Attis was not invented.

Conclusion 2: Therefore, the castration of Attis is true.

RESULT: This is obviously not a credible conclusion. We have no good reason to believe there was ever an actual Attis who was castrated and it is commonly assumed the story was invented for some particular symbolic reason. The same, then, could be true of the crucifixion of Jesus. Tacitus reports that the castration of Attis was indeed embarrassing (it is grounds for his disgust at the religion), yet the castration of Attis is not a credible story, therefore the criterion of embarrassment is in some manner fallacious.

An example within the Christian tradition is the astonishing stupidity of the Disciples, especially in the earliest Gospel of Mark. Their depiction is in fact so unrealistic it isn’t credible (real people don’t act like that), which means Mark (or his sources) invented that detail despite its potential embarrassment. Hence the flaw in the criterion of embarrassment is in assuming that historical truth is the only factor that can overcome the potential embarrassment of some reported detail, when in fact moral or doctrinal or symbolic truth can also override such concerns.

For example, Dennis MacDonald argues this attribute emulates the equallyunrealistic stupidity of the crew of Odysseus and thus stands as a marker of the same things that their stupidity represented. That may be true. But I also argue it furthers a literary theme found throughout Mark of the Reversal of Expectation.2 Thus everything that seems embarrassing in Mark might be an intentional fabrication meant to convey a lesson. Mark echoes the gospel theme that “the least shall be first” in his construction of all his stories: although Jesus tells Simon Peter he must take up the cross and follow him, Simon the Cyrenean does this instead; although the pillars James and John debate who will sit at Jesus’ right and left at the end, instead two nameless thieves sit at his right and left at the end; although the lofty male Disciples flee and abandon Jesus, the lowly female followers remain faithful, and as a result the least are the first to discover that Christ is risen; and while Mark begins his Gospel with the “good news” of the “voice crying out” of the lone man who boldly came forward as a “messenger who will prepare our way,” he ends his Gospel with several women, fleeing in fear and silence, and not delivering the good news, exactly the opposite of how his book began. So since details that seem embarrassing in Mark might serve his literary intentions, we can’t be certain they’re true.

This final example exposes the importance of testing criteria by comparing them with alternative theories of the evidence. You must ask yourself, what if I’m wrong? What other reasons might Christians have for inventing potentially embarrassing stories? And how do those reasons compare with the theory that they reported embarrassing stories because they were true? Bayes’ Theorem suits exactly such an analysis.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37419021)

But it seems to me you would have to accept that other people worshipped other gods with the same fervency and degree of faith that early Christians did.

I don't see this as difficult to believe, but I think many Christians might.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37420755)

"Ehrman falsely claims in his book that there are no hyper-specialized historians of ancient Christianity who doubt the historicity of Jesus. So I named one: Arthur Droge, a sitting professor of early Christianity (previously at UCSD; now at the University of Toronto).

And of those who do not meet Ehrman’s irrationally specific criteria but who are certainly qualified, we can now add Kurt Noll, a sitting professor of religion at Brandon University (as I already noted in my review of Is This Not the Carpenter) and Thomas Brodie, a retired professor of biblical studies (as I noted elsewhere). Combined with myself (Richard Carrier) and Robert Price, as fully qualified independent scholars, and Thomas Thompson, a retired professor of some renown, that is more than a handful of well-qualified scholars, all with doctorates in a relevant field, who are on record doubting the historicity of Jesus.

Most recently, Hector Avalos, a sitting professor of religion at Iowa State University, has also declared his agnosticism about historicity as well. And now Raphael Lataster joins the ranks of historicity-doubting experts, with a Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of Sydney.

That makes eight fully qualified experts on the record, three of them sitting professors, plus two retired professors, and three independent scholars with full credentials. And there are no doubt many others who simply haven’t gone on the record.

We also have sympathizers among mainstream experts who nevertheless endorse historicity but acknowledge we have a respectable point, like Philip Davies (Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Sheffield University) and Zeba Crook (Professor of Religious Studies at Carleton University). Francesca Stavrakopoulou (Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter) says the historicity of Jesus is only “possible” and not certain. Which means she either agrees mythicism is plausible or is even an outright historicity agnostic. Further afield, historian Tom Dykstra, with a Ph.D. in Renaissance Christianity who has nevertheless published peer reviewed works in New Testament studies, similarly grants the plausibility of the mythicist position.

Which makes a dozen relevantly qualified experts now who concur mythicism is at least plausible."

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/1794#22

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37419666)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamam_Shud_case

Maybe there is a better one. I'd need to think about it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418805)

All the evidence points to someone onboard (99.99% the pilot) manipulating the controls to redirect the plane from the original flight path to the ocean.

We have communications showing someone manipulating the controls onboard (they would need to know how to fly a plane). The plane pinged satellites (likely before all electronics malfunctioned). Parts that washed ashore are consistent with a controlled ditching.

The pilot went nuts and planned this but the officials (to save face, avoid embarrassment) fucked up the search/investigation.

edit: plane is mostly intact, so decent chance that some future expedition will find the location.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37419457)

The search wasted 4 crucial days looking at the wrong place. Not saying they would've found the plane otherwise because the right place is the middle of the ocean which is huge.

Based on the evidence the only scenario that makes any sense at all is murder/suicide by the pilot. Nothing else even comes close.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37423616)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418880)

OJ, we all know he probably did it. Taman Shud, we know he was probably a spy. Jack the Ripper, we don't know anything about him.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418908)

yeah, "probably"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37419117)

jfk conspiracy?

was the new testament really a propaganda creation of the flavian dynasty?

were the mammoth bones in california really cracked open by humans 130000 yrs ago? And if so, by what hominin?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37418916)

Maura Murray

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37419004)

I'd like to know who ratted out Anne Frank & co.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37419077)

pyramids

Franklin Scandal would be cool because I feel like it would unveil so much shit. Vast networks of sickos in high places.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4157297&forum_id=2#37419711)