Sam Harris wrote:
Quote that exactly, please. Because I did see your requests for a mod, and she actually asked for us to look at this thread. Link to exact post please, and explain why someone telling you that you rely on a skeptic site is an ad hom. My mom says I don't watch movies except with the subtitles on and that's weird. Pity me, I'm deaf. That's my choice, it's her view. I would not see such a statement in a discussion to be ad hominal, I'd see that as her opinion. If she were to say I was too inept to be able to hear what was being said, so I needed to follow the words on the screen, THAT would be ad hominal.
I don't see the purpose of this thread, other than to defend Jersey Girl's ad hominems. I mean, you really can't figure out what ad hominem means with the entire internet at your finger tips? Here is a little help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominemBut here is your quote, exactly:
Jersey Girl wrote:I can already tell from your posts that you rely on skeptic sites and have not engaged the material yourself. I've been engaging and engaged by skeptics for years and I know exactly what you're going to present to me before you present it.
The question here is not whether or not I "know this stuff" the question is whether or not you are willing to support your regurgitations of the skeptic material that is the basis for your unsupported assertions
If Jersey Girl wasn't busy irrationally defending the Bible (as usual), she would have noticed that I already referenced a prominent New Testament scholar early on in the same thread who said basically the same thing. I'll quote it again here, hopefully it will be the last time.
I should point out that the Gospels say they're written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But that's just in your English Bible. That's the title for these Gospels, but whoever wrote the Gospel of Matthew didn't call it the Gospel of Matthew. Whoever wrote the Gospel of Mathew simpley wrote his Gospel, and somebody later said it's the Gospel according to Matthew. Somebody later is telling you who wrote it. The titles are later additions. These are not eyewitness accounts. So where did they get their stories from? .....
How do we know that the stories got changed in the process of transmission? We know the stories got changed because there are numerous differences in our accounts that cannot be reconciled with one another. You don't need to take my word for this; simply look yourself...
You don’t need to take my word for this; simply look yourself. I tell
my students that the reason we don’t notice there’s so many differences in the Gospels is because
we read the Gospels vertically, from top to bottom. You start at the top of Mark, you read
through to the bottom, you start at the top of Matthew, read it through the bottom, sounds a lot
like Mark, then you read Luke top to bottom, sounds a lot like Matthew and Mark, read John, a
little bit different, sounds about the same. The reason is because we’re reading them vertically.
The way to see differences in the Gospels is to read them horizontally. Read one story in
Matthew, then the same story in Mark, and compare your two stories and see what you come up
with. You come up with major differences. [b]Just take the death of Jesus. What day did Jesus die
on and what time of day? Did he die on the day before the Passover meal was eaten, as John
explicitly says, or did he die after it was eaten, as Mark explicitly says? Did he die at noon, as in
John, or at 9 a.m., as in Mark? Did Jesus carry his cross the entire way himself or did Simon of
Cyrene carry his cross? It depends which Gospel you read. Did both robbers mock Jesus on the
cross or did only one of them mock him and the other come to his defense? It depends which
Gospel you read. Did the curtain in the temple rip in half before Jesus died or after he died? It
depends which Gospel you read.
I can't help if others don't choose to follow along. Point is, she 1. was attacking my sources (which she obviously failed to see early on in the thread) and 2. It was off topic, so I asked her to start her own thread on this new topic, to give it the time and attention it deserved without derailing the interesting original topic.
Suggestion:
You should really read the whole thread in context before posting up pot-stirring threads like this. Edited to add:
Is asking someone to provide proof of their assertions ad hominal?
Now it is your turn to quote, exactly, where:
1. Jersey Girl simply asked me to provide proof of my assertion
2. Where I called asking for proof of an assertion ad hominal
That could take a while...