EM: So the backstory that we haven't told, because we don't wanna get in trouble, is that we've been investigating the police chief [Gideon Cody]. When he was named Chief just two months ago, we got an outpouring of calls from his former co-workers making a wide array of allegations against him saying that he was about to be demoted at his previous job and that he retired to avoid demotion and punishment over sexual misconduct charges and other things.
We had half a dozen or more different anonymous sources calling in about that. Well, we never ran that because we never could get any of them to go on the record, and we never could get his personnel file. But the allegations—including the identities of who made the allegations—were on one of the computers that got seized. I may be paranoid that this has anything to do with it, but when people come and seize your computer, you tend to be a little paranoid.
It certainly explains why the cops were so willing to go along with an illegal search warrant. Heck, maybe it wasn't even that the restaurant owner went to the cops to complain after the city hall meeting; maybe the police chief saw this as an opportunity to raid the newspaper and take the names and he approached the restaurant owner.
Edit: another story here has the police chief posting on the department's Facebook page:
The Act requires criminal investigators to get a subpoena instead of a search warrant when seeking “work product materials” and “documentary materials” from the press, except in circumstances, including: (1) when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.
Which is bull. The newspaper was emailed information which they did not publish and which they reported to the police. They were not 'taking part in the underlying wrongdoing'. 1312, especially the Marion County police chief.
According to Meyer, a retired University of Illinois journalism professor, the raid came after a confidential source leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper about local restaurateur Kari Newell. The source, Meyer said, provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of DUI and was driving without a license—a fact that could spell trouble for her liquor license and catering business.
Meyer, however, said he ultimately did not decide to publish the story about Newell after questioning the motivations of the source. Instead, he said, he just alerted the police of the information.
“We thought we were being set up,” Meyer said about the confidential information.
The raid immediately sparked outrage online, calling into question why an entire police force was involved in a raid that could have violated federal law and could escalate the ongoing anti-press rhetoric that is dangerous for journalists simply doing their jobs.
It was higher in Paradise for sure. They stopped reporting more bodies found after the initial count. I’m friends with a couple of locals that worked on the cleanup crews, and they personally had to stop and call the owners of multiple houses about bodies, and they had no idea who would’ve been there. Probably transients or anyone looking for shelter.
I’m from paradise. We counted ~83 crosses on the outside of town just a few weeks after, and they were all named, iirc. So there’s absolutely more than that. Paradise was 25,000 and at one point, I delivered pizzas. I found areas of paradise I had no idea existed and I had lived there since I was in 5th grade.
I might have a picture of those crosses in my Google photos. Gimme a sec.
How come they don’t have fire fighting boats in Maui? They have all the water in the Pacific Ocean, but no way to spray it on the fire? Hasn’t that tech existed for like 100 years?
I’m guessing wildfires aren’t that common on Hawaii, outside of those sparked by volcanic eruptions. They might just not have the experience a place like California has (and even there you’ll see the government misjudge a situation with catastrophic consequences).
I witnessed a security guard taking a loaf of bread from a homeless kid all the while preaching the word of Christ. Christians are nothing like their Christ.
Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that a historical human Jesus existed. Historian Michael Grant asserts that if conventional standards of historical textual criticism are applied to the New Testament, “we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.”
Virtually all scholars of antiquity dismiss theories of Jesus’s non-existence or regard them as refuted. In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars.
He didn’t exist. The reason why the James-Peter fraud stuck was because Paul was a preaching machine and they lucked out with getting at least two good writers. Proto-Mark and M. If Paul had died on that shipwreck or Syrian scribe had found a better job there would be no Christianity today.
It does matter. Because it is near impossible to find a Christian who is fine with the Jesus story being a complete myth. Some of them will admit that not all of the contradiction-filled stories are correct but doubting he existed at all? Paul, the real founder, was at least honest about this and said all of their faith would be in vain if the resurrection had not happened.
The evidence points to a con that got out of control.
Michael Grant doesn’t know that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Saying that we know that there was some king in a certain place and time isn’t a big claim. Most places had kings. Saying that if even a quarter of the claims of the Gospels were true is a massive claim. Also whataboutism is kinda boring. I really don’t feel giving “historians” slack because they cut themselves slack.
In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars
Not going to have a job selling book and teaching the story of some old con. You sell books by advancing dozens of different contradictory models of the events all of them equally impossible to test.
Regardless, most historians agree that there was a human historical Jesus. Whether you think it’s all a conspiracy or scam or whatever is another matter I don’t care to get into.
And you repeat your argument from authority. Maybe if you do it another time it will convince me? Why not just address the total lack of evidence for this massive claim instead?
Claiming that Jesus of Nazareth existed is not extraordinary at all though. It’s hardly far-fetched to claim that he was real. Claiming that he was the son of God and could perform miracles however, is - as someone else pointed out.
Right so you are trying to make the claim so small it can be snuck in. Theists try this trick with God all the time.
Does making a claim small make it true or is that a rhetorical device to try to manipulate the argument? If I told you I was Obama and you called me out on it so I said well really I did met him once in a bar when he was in Congress, would my altered claim become true by virtue of being ordinary?
Jesus existence has nothing to do with the religion in and of itself. He can be reall without Christianity being true. You’re getting so caught up in wanting to argue against the theists that you’re focusing on something completely irrelevant just to chalk up a victory.
I have no evidence one way or another for our against his existence, the point is that it doesn’t matter. Jesus’ potential existence has nothing to do with the truthiness of religion unless you believe that his existence can only be a validation of the new testament - which would be akin to your Obama comparison and would be patently ridiculous.
I have no proof that billions of specific people existed, doesn’t change that they did.
Jesus existence has nothing to do with the religion in and of itself. He can be reall without Christianity being true. You’re getting so caught up in wanting to argue against the theists that you’re focusing on something completely irrelevant just to chalk up a victory.
We got a mind reader over here.
I have no evidence one way or another for our against his existence, the point is that it doesn’t matter. Jesus’ potential existence has nothing to do with the truthiness of religion unless you believe that his existence can only be a validation of the new testament - which would be akin to your Obama comparison and would be patently ridiculous.
First off you do have evidence of his non-existentence. Which I gave you. No one can keep their story straight about him. Secondly even if you didn’t have that you can say the same thing about unicorns.
I have no proof that billions of specific people existed, doesn’t change that they did.
First off you do have evidence of his non-existentence. Which I gave you. No one can keep their story straight about him. Secondly even if you didn’t have that you can say the same thing about unicorns.
You’ve given no such thing. You have made a statement that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but you fail to grasp that the existence of Jeaus would not be extraordinary. Billions of people have existed and will exist. The extraordinary part is the sin of God thing, which we don’t disagree on. Unicorns , much like “The Messiah”, are certainly extraordinary claims that would require proof. We have seen nothing to support the existence of anything even resembling unicorns. We have forever seen plenty to prove that humans exist. A specific human some thousands of years ago, is not unlikely.
And? And so, the claim that he exists is hardly extraordinary.
Yeah no surprise. You think you can read my mind and except super low standards of evidence.
You’ve given no such thing. You have made a statement that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but you fail to grasp that the existence of Jeaus would not be extraordinary.
Yes it would be. Even the people who try this game of finding the man behind the myth have to make so many assumptions to make this work. And I have repeatedly stated that the narratives contradict.
If you look at the actual evidence you have you find
Details are missing from Paul that should be there.
Every part of the Gospels shows signs of being borrowed from older stories and ideas. Almost as if two people were just writing a fanfic.
Nothing is unique. They had versions of messiah prophecy that including him dying. They had a popular story of a leader dying and his young follower continuing (Peter). Everything he said was cribbed from the OT or later thinkers. They had matry stories. They had stories of betrayal. They had stories of demagogues claiming to speak for God raising armies. Stories of raising the dead. The magic tricks were all known in the area at the time.
Not a single thing you can point to and say “ok this isn’t clearly a borrowing from earlier Jewish culture”. The Jesus con was a combination of Jeremiah, the first leader of the Maccabees, and Hillel. Which the scholars you seem to love so much are constantly pointing out. Except they need to keep selling books and you don’t do that by just admitting that it is all con.
But hey go ahead and shut me up. Show me a single piece of evidence that he existed.
You’re trying to argue against the veracity of the bible by using the bible as your source of truth. Your argument hinges on Jesus mere existence equating to him being the son of God. That is not a given… at all! Vlad Tepes was a real person - that doesn’t mean that vampires are real though.
As for “the scholars you seem to love so much” you may want to reread the thread - I think you’re getting your discussions mixed up - I haven’t referenced any scholars at this point. My argument is that your logic framework is referenced flawed. I have taken no stance on the existence of Jesus - purely on whether him being a real person is particularly extraordinary.
Vlad Tepes was a real person - that doesn’t mean that vampires are real though.
I am sorry. Do we have multiple separate narratives of that man that contradict each other? Do we have the main source of his existence totally unaware of all the details of his life and details of his death? Do we find that in every single story about him almost the exact same story about another king that was well known to the people of the area?
Your argument hinges on Jesus mere existence
My argument is very simple. We can not find any evidence that he existed. The evidence that we do have is better explained by a con man’s grift. Every single time someone tries those “let’s make him real by taking away the magic and assuming that Mark is 100% right otherwise” they have to make up this insane story to fit the narrative. Meanwhile they know the narrative was borrowed and they know that their version is equally as untestable as all the other contradictionary ones.
purely on whether him being a real person is particularly extraordinary.
I think it is. An ordinary person doesn’t have a cult that outlives their life. Even a minimum Jesus requires so much. Could you do it? Like right now. Could you get a few people to follow you around because they think you will be king and have them talk about how amazing you are for decades after you die? Our hypothetical minimum Jesus pulls this feat off with no money, no political power, and nothing to offer people except parlor tricks and stories. Think of every modern cult that outlived it’s founder. All of them were big billion dollar operations, not a few illiterates in the backwater of a backwater.
If Paul is to be believed this “ordinary person” cult was growing, thriving against opposition, totally unorganized, at least 20 years before he meet it with a dead leader, and almost no one having seen any of the big events.
Wouldn’t it make so much more sense that two conman just cobbled together these stories about their imaginary friend and preyed on the local superstitious? That Paul didn’t know (excluding the betrayal and euchrist) about the ministry because there was nothing to know. That he didn’t know about the Tomb because the current version of the con had Jesus buried normally. That when the narratives came out there stories didn’t match up because like all liars they couldn’t keep the story straight?
Again your assuming that Jesus existence means that anything in the bible is correct. My point is that the two can be entirely disconnected. I am making no coatings about Mark, Luke or Paul in this line of argumentation. I am starting that the extraordinary part of the claim is his godliness, not his existence.
Wouldn’t it make so much more sense that two conman just cobbled together these stories about their imaginary friend and preyed on the local superstitious?
So we’re back to realm of speculation. If you’re going to frame it there, would it not make even more sense then if these two conmen, in order to lend their support credibility, went through the local scrolls and found a local dude that died a little while back and coopted his name for their narrative?
For all of your arguments against his existence you keep coming back to the bible as your source. You tie yourself in an oddly circular loop here, again arguing that Jesus either isn’t real and so the bible is wrong, or he is and the bible becomes the word of God. There’s a lot of room to move in between the two - including a dude from the area, name Jesus once existed.
Gotcha. You think if you continue to weaken the claim it will become true or at least can’t be disproven. You know the exact opposite of what you are supposed to do. We gather evidence and develop theories. You are taking an existing theory and lowering its explanatory power. We see the sales people of fake medicine do this all the time. At first it is a cure-all, within a generation or two the claims have shrunken to the point where no one can really say they aren’t true.
Again your assuming that Jesus existence means that anything in the bible is correct. My point is that the two can be entirely disconnected. I am making no coatings about Mark, Luke or Paul in this line of argumentation. I am starting that the extraordinary part of the claim is his godliness, not his existence.
Which still doesn’t match with the evidence because again Paul met a community that was widespread. Just a regular guy wouldn’t have a cult survive his death. You overshot.
So we’re back to realm of speculation. If you’re going to frame it there,
Not really speculation. The evidence points to a con.
would it not make even more sense then if these two conmen, in order to lend their support credibility, went through the local scrolls and found a local dude that died a little while back and coopted his name for their narrative?
Given the overwhelming odds that both men were illiterates I wouldn’t bet on that.
For all of your arguments against his existence you keep coming back to the bible as your source.
Because that is the only source. All we have after that is another generation later a guy saying what he heard from someone else about what this new cult believed. Hearsay.
You tie yourself in an oddly circular loop here, again arguing that Jesus either isn’t real and so the bible is wrong, or he is and the bible becomes the word of God.
Not at all. The only source we have shows evidence of a con. So I accept it as a con. Also can you show me where in the Bible that it says this book is the word of God? Exact passage please.
There’s a lot of room to move in between the two - including a dude from the area, name Jesus once existed.
Again you try to tactic of lowering the claim hoping to sneak it in. Me personally I like developing models that have more power to explain facts, not less. In your desire to keep your childhood Jesus friend you have now reduced him to one guy one time named Jesus somewhere in that area.
This is a strange interpretation of how theories and generally science works in practice. If the aforementioned poster is doing their best to discredit an existing theory the information from that is implicitly involved in any subsequent theory with greater explanatory power or predictive ability.
It was known a bit after Newton’s theories and prior to Einstein’s Relativity that Newtonian Mechanics could not account for the perihelion precession of mercury. These serve as baselines for new theories to predict or explain. Popperian Falsification is one school of thought in philosophy of science more or less predicated on the idea you cannot ever prove a theory, only disprove them. An important criteria then is to allow for testable hypothesis with clear fail states. There have been other developments and more fruitful ways of looking at how science works in practice but if we stick with this then no theory can be proven, we only work with whatever theory is most amenable according to some criteria.
Theories already exist, it’s inevitable that they will be used to explain phenomena, someone engaged in introducing auxiliary hypotheses and theories to explain away or contend with the core of their theory is not ‘doing the opposite’. Rather it might be useful to think that a lack of evidence of something means it is not worthy of consideration among the litany of hypotheses, only certain evidence of something not occurring would be good enough to completely abandon a hypothesis. As that is significantly more difficult and the extent of evidence required great, one can avoid all this by accepting that all theories are wrong and some are seemingly wronger than others and it isn’t necessary to completely abandon them. Instead they can be kept in a provisional space with other theories which are less productive or fruitful until they may be called upon.
And what’s more is the very closest written account we have shows problems. Paul never mentions the tomb and thinks Jesus was buried in the ground. Besides for the Eucharist he doesn’t seem to know much of anything about the ministry. Which is really freaken odd because by his own admission he was hunting and interrogating Christians before his conversion.
I haven’t dug into this what-so-ever, but how would it even be possible to identify whether a specific person with that name existed 2000 years ago? It’s not like you could just Google the guys Facebook profile or social security number back in 200AD
Why is it whenever this brought up an appeal to authority is invoked to people who weren’t there? Why not just use evidence to prove your position instead of telling me what some random priest in the 2nd century thought about zombie-skydaddy?
There is no evidence he existed and the narratives disagree with each other. Easily could have been a fraud by James and Peter.
Tell that to the scholars of antiquity. I’m just reporting what the prevailing thought is by people who study such matters because it was falsely claimed that most of them believe that Jesus was a myth.
Sure. Hey guys hate to be a buzzkill and I know you have a sweet gig inventing one crazy way after another to make this myth be true but there really isn’t anything here. It is a superstructure with no substructure. Until someone digs up some old letter or something you got nothing.
because it was falsely claimed that most of them believe that Jesus was a myth.
I don’t think anyone in this thread did that. I know what they believe, I just don’t care. Again
There is no evidence Jesus was a historical person
A fraud by the leading apostles could easily fit the data that we have.
Humans lie.
The narratives disagree with each other to an extent that it sounds very much like liars trying to remember their stories
There are things missing in the narratives that should be there.
In a way I sorta get it. There are like these Sherlock Holmes appreciation groups that have spent all this effort trying to find the historical 221B baker street. It is fun to pretend that a fictional character exists in the real world.
If you ask Mormon historians whether the particular figures in the Book of Mormon exist, they mostly all agree too. Perhaps a better metric is the number of secular historians who consider Jesus to be a historical figure. Or suppose that he is a historical figure, how many things can you say about him that are definitely true?
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Even if it was the case, what's wrong about homosexuality? Who the fuck cares who fuck who? We have one life. Let people live like they fucking want. End of the story, end of the argument. If there's a god, let that god be the judge of it. The rest is none of your god damn business
As a Muslim I can understand arguments stemming from liberalism, but this one makes no sense. Islam is pretty clear about what should be done with known homosexuals, and leaving them alone isn't it. Again, I can understand not agreeing with the principle from the start, but the "let God deal with it" is illogical.
It's not even about "liberalism" or "conservative" mentality. It's just common sense really. How the fuck does homosexuals hurt you in any way? Nothing. They don't hurt anybody. They cannot magically turn you gay, you are born gay - or not. That's all. Now this will never stop being a thing. It was a thing 25,000 years ago, it will be a thing in 25,000 years from there, it's a thing in the animal kingdom, it's not a disease you can transmit, nobody ever turned gay at 40 years old like "sheesh fuck vaginas, I like penis now". Like what the fuck? If you are against homosexuals, you are pretty much against whatever god your parents told you to believe in, because it's natural. It's a creation of said gods.
The more people figure that out, the faster we can actually focus on real issues that ARE actually affecting us all; economy, inflation, climate change, job crisis, pandemics, heat waves, hurricanes, healthcare, etc. THOSE ARE REAL CONCERNS IN THE REAL WORLD.
Drop the fucking stupid bullshit with gays, lesbians, abortions and religions, those are all non-issues that doesn't matter in the end. This isn't 1532, we are in 2023 for fuck sake
It's not even about "liberalism" or "conservative" mentality. It's just common sense really. How the fuck does homosexuals hurt you in any way? Nothing. They don't hurt anybody.
Yes, that's what I meant by liberalism. The idea that as long as you don't harm people around you you should be allowed to do whatever, also called the harm principle. Anyway, I'm not here to debate moral systems; just saying that the attempt I replied to was weak even if you agree with the conclusion.
It was a factor in my leaving my birth faith. Seeing the differences between what the books said and how people acted and the how modern morality didn’t match up with the books.
Morality, like everything else, evolves. Religions try to freeze it in a fixed place. Fetishizes the past, making the living enslaved to the dead. Mohammed and Jesus and Moses and the Buddha are to be perfect people for us.
As long as you’re being consistent. But sadly, I don’t think that’s possible. I wish people could just use their heads instead of following some dumbshit set of rules written thousands of years ago, but unfortunately it’s not really gonna happen.
It’s the new crusades- they can’t kill you, but they can make sure you can’t do anything they don’t like because of their religion, even if it kills you.
Religion was, and still is, about power and control over others. Observant people in the past noticed that homosexuals didn’t produce as many (if any) children compared to others. Less children means less bodies for your army. A smaller army means less power. Less power means less control. Therefore religions focused on power and control hate homosexuals.
You mean the magazine would pay people to write a story people would want to read… only to make money for the magazine? Like, they’re doing it for profit, and not out of the goodness of their hearts? Next you’re going to tell me my grocer is only selling me food to generate revenue.
There’s a difference between “just marketing” and “buy this stuff, but also, turns out Lebanon has quite some distance to go in terms of human rights in general and gender equality in particular”. Companies can’t have morals, because they’re not a natural person, but the humans working for them can, and it’s not unthinkable for this story to be both: An expression of moral frustration on part of the journalist that also happens to be profitable for their employer.
Of course. People who want to see it will see it, even if it means piracy. And that’s why piracy is inherently good and it won’t damage the company much so it doesn’t really matter.
Oh boy, the next few months are going to get exciting.
Initially, the government also claimed that another reason to keep the warrant a secret from Trump was the risk that he might flee the country, but the government later retracted that reason, saying it had been mistakenly included. Tellingly, the court agreed with this reason, as well, before the prosecutors retracted it as a mistake.
Oh for sure, but if the judge thinks it’s a possibility he could flee, that’s interesting to me. I hope Smith gets that January court date and we’ll know soon enough if he evades his secret service, lol.
I and at least literally ‘ones’ of others figured he’d be off to Russia or more likely Saudi Arabia as soon as he left office because he was scared shitless of being thrown in jail.
Now, naturally I’m a bit pissed he hasn’t been held, at least on the Jan 6th charges, if not the damn espionage act indictment. “Two-tiered” justice, indeed.
[White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told White House staffers to keep some Oval Office meetings "close hold" during the transition period, potentially leaving meetings off the books [...]. [Mark Meadows' aide Cassidy] Hutchinson also testified that there "were certain things that had potentially been left off" the Oval Office diary. [...] Additionally, she told the committee that she saw Meadows burn documents in his office fireplace around a dozen times -- about once or twice a week -- between December 2020 and mid-January 2021.
The “standard language” thing sounds right to me. A lot of court filings templates and attorneys just plug in the facts for their particular submission.
Which unfortunately reminds me of Mad Libs, and now this is all getting pretty absurd in my head
Not a lawyer but lawyers write draft arguments and then choose the ones they think are the best. It’s possible they put the flight risk argument in a draft but ultimately decided to remove it, but then sent it out before actually removing it.
I’ve been convinced for a while now that if Trump felt he was actually headed to jail his last desperate act would be to try to flee to North Korea to hide behind his crazy bestie Kim (who would absolutely love the drama of having an ex-POTUS as his puppet to parade around and try to shame the US with).
I don’t doubt that Trump would want to go to Russia but Putin would never agree to that when he could have all the same benefits if Donnie was in NK and none of the negatives of having him in Russia. Kim is crazy enough that he wouldn’t care and would enjoy all the extra scrutiny and attention.
Kim isn’t crazy. He was raised from birth believing he is the divine ruler of a people and received a modern education. He is acting in the best interests of the state he leads. It just happens that most of us on this platform likely live in a part of the world where those interests don’t make sense or are hard to see or just don’t seem important. But that’s an “us” problem.
His public persona in the West is a combination of propaganda from multiple angles, much like we see around Russia and China, too.
I’m not saying that he is a good leader or has the health of North Koreans in mind, but be aware that not everything you hear about living in North Korea is necessarily accurate (and not necessarily due to outside actors, either).
And the SCOTUS ruled that student debt can’t be forgiven, so that’s one factor already gone thanks to Trumps SCOTUS nominees (don’t forget, Trump got THREE conservative nominees in)
Also I’ve met so many boomers in my life who have summer homes, vacation homes, winter homes, homes that are not even used for half the year, it’s absolutely insane. The real estate market in this country is completely unhinged
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