Spoiler alert, I was having a discussion with Raphael Lataster (about whom I have written here) on Facebook at this page. However, the last time I went in to reply to him I found this displayed therein, “This post has been removed or could not be loaded.”
Well, it loaded just fine since the discussion began so I certainly do not know but it seems like another situation like the one about which I wrote here regarding Ex-Christian.net: I was debating numerous Atheists at the same time and then the page’s admin decided to delete all comments and locked up the comments section. Little did they know that, as in this case with Lataster, I was copying and pasting all comments into a document all along.
Thus, Facebook is no longer displaying the discussion but here it is. It began when I posted a link to my article Raphael Lataster on no historical but a celestial Jesus in Paul’s writings wherein I demonstrate in a straight forward and fact filled manner (logic, quotations and citations) that Raphael Lataster is very incorrect on various issues.
Lataster was kind enough to comment on it thusly:
What a silly little article. I did actually mention that Paul’s constant interactions with the CJ [celestial Jesus] are to be expected on both theories.
Well, you can see where he is going with this: no matter what, he can force fit anything into any given theoretical assertions of his. Thus, here is my reply:
Hello friend, I appreciate the reply. In your interview with Phil Robinson, for example, you were extremely one sided such as stating that “Paul doesn’t talk about an Earthly Jesus…Paul does not talk about a historical Jesus…it doesn’t seem entirely clear that he’s talking about a person that was on Earth…it is not at all obvious that Paul is talking about a genuine historical character…he doesn’t give us any historical details about Jesus such as where He lived or when He lived,” etc. and such claims are simply inaccurate. So is this some sort of straddling the fence tacit so as to have all of your bases covered and leaning any which way is convenient at the time?
He wrote back:
I think you misunderstand. Paul’s communication with the CJ is to be expected on both theories. His lack of mention of a HJ [historical Jesus] is not. It is super weird on the HJ theory, but totally expected on the CJ theory. Every such supposed mention is either interpolated and/or ambiguous (can also apply to the CJ).
My reply in turn:
Friend, I am not sure how you can prove that any such statement which is inconvenient to your assertion was interpolated but I would ask if and how the following, as a mere few examples, are ambiguous (can also apply to the CJ): Paul writes of Jesus having been crucified and raised him from the dead which are events that occurred to a historical person upon the Earth, notes that “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman” thus, born to a human woman on Earth and stating that He was “made under the law” meaning born Jewish and that “Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession” which gives us a timeline.
Well, perhaps being unable or unwilling (or both), he merely wrote back:
Well the book covers all this. This can all apply to the CJ.
I then asked:
Oh, I see; so the CJ became the HJ, or they are one in the same–or something?
And after thereafter “This post has been removed or could not be loaded.”
Well, as it turns out I suspect that my dissection of his tactic is accurate: he claims that there was no historical Jesus and thus, that Paul was dealing with a celestial Jesus. However, when anyone notes any evidence against his claim he merely asserts that any evidence applies to both so there is apparently no way he can see that his theories can be unfalsified.
Yet, they have been and no amount of deny, deny, deny can rescue Raphael Lataster.