Jay Dyer Debunks Gnosticism (Closing Statement)

One of the main problems with Scott is that he's only been exposed to various sects of Western Christianity that have been separated from Orthodoxy for 1000ish years. Its all the same in his mind. Anyone who calls himself a Christian (no matter what he believes) is a Christian to him, which is insane. Is anyone who calls himself a donkey actually a donkey? If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh, who literally lived as THE God/Man, died, was buried and resurrected on the 3rd day, and ascended into heaven, all LITERALLY... THEN YOU ARE CLOSER TO BEING A DONKEY THAN TO BEING A CHRISTIAN. These are not the only criteria, but its a good starting point to dismiss goofballs who claim to be Christian as NOT. Historical accuracy also seems to be completely missing in his world view of mixmash. Mix a bit of virtue posturing with some blanket blame statements, sprinkle several logical fallacies.... mash in some (I'm so smart, clever and special) add a dash of blasphemy and TAAA DAAAAA, a "new" form of not-so-new-gnosticism!

Jay Won

Byzantium TFO

I don’t understand why death is considered unnatural. How could a pre-fall universe function without death to make room for birth and renewal? Would the entire world just be stationary? How could Adam and Eve eat food without killing things?

UNIVERSEcity 😮😮😮😮😮😂

🤔🤔

Jay Dyer (1:21) used the appeal to mystery fallacy which argues, as an explanation for something, that there can be no explanation. The fallacy is an appeal to ignorance and an informal fallacy. The problem with this argument is that it can used to justify anything. Such as gods demanding human sacrifices since it can be argued that the nature of gods are unknowable to us and therefore we cannot criticise the gods demanding sacrifice. Muslims can use the same argument to defend what Allah allows or demands (no matter how awful) since Allah and his ways is unknowable and therefore cannot be judged. This argument does not deal with these issues, just evades them altogether. He further argues that is no single Gnosticism because there were many different Gnostic groups and therefore, it is invalid. This fails as an argument. Orthodox Christianity has had and still has many, many different groups. Fundamentalist Christianity, Pietism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, the Holiness movement, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Eastern Orthodox, Restorationist and Adventist, Quakers, Anabaptists etc. Not to mention the divisions in the groups themselves. They are differences in what was the purpose of the atonement (the most crucial part of orthodox Christianity): The Moral Influence Theory, The Ransom Theory, Christus Victor, The Satisfaction Theory (Anselm), The Penal Substitutionary Theory, The Governmental Theory and The Scapegoat Theory. Using his argument, this would mean orthodox Christianity in invalid because there are many different doctrines and practices. So orthodox Christianity falls into the same problem. He could argue that there is an essence in the different groups of orthodox Christianity which unifies them. In the same logic, there is an essence in the different groups of Gnostic Christianity which unifies them (if there wasn`t they wouldn`t be called Gnostic in the first place). I want to add, it is difficult to find any Church Fathers who were consistently orthodox by modern standards. Indeed the problem of deciding who counted as a Church Father was much like deciding which books were canonical. People tended to include anyone who agreed with them and to reject anyone who did not. Since there were so few accepted Fathers, broad agreement was eventually reached, though once again there is no definitive list, and Eastern and Western Churches still accord vastly different weights to different Fathers. So saying orthodoxy was perfectly consistent is an outright lie. http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/ac0_fathers.htm

This is an analysis by David Hyatt-Bickle of my debate with the Eastern Orthodox scholar Jay Dyer, in which I criticized mainstream Christianity and he attacked Gnosticism. You should also visit David’s Facebook page “Christian Gnosticism” and follow/like it. Part 3: Next, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" Luke 11:13 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love;” 1 John So the argument is not just what is moral, but why would an all-loving God cause so much suffering. He doesn`t address this question at all and just makes it out to be all about what moral and what is not moral (which is fallacious in itself). He goes to say that liberalism, Darwinism and scholarship is constantly changing, differences keep popping up and they are always shifting sands as an argument why they are wrong, but he stated himself earlier the bible canon and theology as a whole has been constantly changing and differences keep popping (they have been shifting sands) but considers them completely 100% true. This is logically inconsistent and showing cognitive dissonance. About the contradictions being dealt with, just because some religious authorities claimed that they have been dealt with doesn`t mean they have been dealt with (using his same logic that just because scholarly authorities and history authorities propose ideas that contradict his worldview doesn`t mean that their ideas are right). Again this is logically inconsistent and shows cognitive dissonance. I recommend reading this to see a lot of the contradictions of the Bible: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/number.html This only some of the problems. He claims that only Christianity provides sufficient answers, but anybody from any religion can claim that. Buddhists can claim only Buddhism provides answers and provides an answer on suffering. Muslims can claim only Islam provides answers in the Quran revealed by Muhammad. Hindus can claim that only Hinduism provides answers in the four Vedas, including karma. Manicheanism (a Gnostic religion) provided an extremely complex and sophisticated cosmology to answer pretty much every facet of reality and proves an extremely satisfying answer to the problem of evil that no other religion has (by its complete dualism). His argument about there has to be order since they are having debates and making sentences is bizarre. This is due to the person SEEING order when their isn`t any. This argument assumes that evidence of design is an objective quality obvious to all viewers. In reality, the ability to discern design is largely a function of familiarity and cultural context. Another argument against design is the lack of perfection which we see in living things. If each one were designed by a perfect god then we would expect each one to be a perfect example of whatever it was. We would expect human vision to be well designed for example. What we would not expect to find would be things showing evidence of evolution such as vestigial organs. How come we find unintelligent design in many things in nature? Of course, he would argue that perfection and what classifies as design is subjective and dependant on the view of people. But then he would refute his own argument because he would admit that seeing perfection and design is subjective (not objective reality) and therefore cannot be used as a good argument. Humans also tend to assume deliberate agency is involved in many situations where it is not - this evidences a survival technique: the extra cost of assuming many non-sentient things in the world might actually be sentient and plotting to harm you can outweigh the cost of death should you incorrectly not make that assumption even once. This manifests today when people are afraid of "bumps in the night", or, more humorously, when people yell at their computers for failure to function as they wish. He states that dualism is self-defeating and contradictory because how could the perfect heavenly world interact with the corrupt material world. He didn`t explain WHY this is so, and this doesn`t make sense. We could make the same argument about how a perfect, heavenly God could interact with us miserable and corrupt sinners (I think that is how he would put it). How COULD a perfect, heavenly God create us miserable and corrupt sinners. If you could have answer those two questions, you have the answer for the first question. Jey did rightly point out Scott`s fallacies about the appeal to popularity and the appeal to common sense. But Jey used the Fallacy Fallacy (a logical fallacy which occurs when someone assumes that if an argument contains a logical fallacy, then its conclusion must necessarily be wrong). He never said anything about justification but made a statements of observation. He didn`t answer the question of evil but just said that since fallacies were used, he didn`t need to answer. He further argues that is no single Gnosticism because there were many different Gnostic groups and therefore, it is invalid. This fails as an argument. Orthodox Christianity has had and still has many, many different groups. Fundamentalist Christianity, Pietism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, the Holiness movement, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Eastern Orthodox, Restorationist and Adventist, Quakers, Anabaptists etc. Not to mention the divisions in the groups themselves. They are differences in what was the purpose of the atonement (the most crucial part of orthodox Christianity): The Moral Influence Theory, The Ransom Theory, Christus Victor, The Satisfaction Theory (Anselm), The Penal Substitutionary Theory, The Governmental Theory and The Scapegoat Theory. Using his argument, this would mean orthodox Christianity in invalid because there are many different doctrines and practices. So orthodox Christianity falls into the same problem. He could argue that there is an essence in the different groups of orthodox Christianity which unifies them. In the same logic, there is an essence in the different groups of Gnostic Christianity which unifies them (if there wasn`t they wouldn`t be called Gnostic in the first place). I want to add, it is difficult to find any Church Fathers who were consistently orthodox by modern standards. Indeed the problem of deciding who counted as a Church Father was much like deciding which books were canonical. People tended to include anyone who agreed with them and to reject anyone who did not. Since there were so few accepted Fathers, broad agreement was eventually reached, though once again there is no definitive list, and Eastern and Western Churches still accord vastly different weights to different Fathers. So saying orthodoxy was perfectly consistent is an outright lie. http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/ac0_fathers.htm His argument about the influences of orthodox Christianity on the West fails. The first person to come up with a CANON of scripture was Marcion (not one of the orthodox lot) which inspired the orthodox to make their own canon. So without him, canon might not of existed and so a lot of credit has to be given since he helped the foundation was western civilization. In terms of influence, Muslims can make the same claims about Islam by referring to the Islamic golden age and the Islam Empire (the developments and advancements in science made during the time of the Islamic Empire included medicine, geography and mathematics which influenced the entire world). The first school of pharmacy and an encyclopedia of drugs were created in the Islamic Empire. Next, there is a rich tradition in orthodox Christianity, but that goes with every religion out there, so cannot be basis of the truth. As for the founding of universities, that is very debatable. For example, Eduba (ca. 2000-1600 BCE) were Sumerian scribal schools and could be considered Universities. Democracy, liberty, freedom of speech (the core tenets of modern Western civilization) comes from Greek philosophy, so using his logic Greek philosophy must be 100% true since it can certainly be said Greek philosophy founded the West. Greek philosophy also founded Jury System in Law, the basis of modern medicine (Hippocrates was considered as the father of the medicine) and mathematics as its own subject of study. I recommend watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6FgYbMffk Plus, the longest empire was ancient Egypt (lasted around 3000 years). Whew, I did it. Made a complete rebuttal of Jay Dyer.

This is an analysis by David Hyatt-Bickle of my debate with the Eastern Orthodox scholar Jay Dyer, in which I criticized mainstream Christianity and he attacked Gnosticism. You should also visit David’s Facebook page “Christian Gnosticism” and follow/like it. Part 2: Jey says using problems as arguments is weak, but goes on to use problems with Gnosticism as arguments. Logic? Evidence for evolution is weak. Try telling that to the scientific community. Biochemistry is the study of the basic chemistry and processes that occur in cells. The biochemistry of all living things on Earth is incredibly similar, showing that all of Earth’s organisms share a common ancestry. Comparative anatomy is the comparison of the structures of different living things. This figure compares the skeletons of humans, cats, whales, and bats, illustrating how similar they are even though these animals live unique lifestyles in very different environments. The best explanation for similarities like the ones among these skeletons is that the various species on Earth evolved from common ancestors. Biogeography, the study of living things around the globe, helps solidify Darwin’s theory of biological evolution. Basically, if evolution is real, you’d expect groups of organisms that are related to one another to be clustered near one another because related organisms come from the same common ancestor. Comparative embryology compares the embryos of different organisms. The embryos of many animals, from fish to humans, show similarities that suggest a common ancestor. Molecular biology focuses on the structure and function of the molecules that make up cells. Molecular biologists have compared gene sequences among species, revealing similarities among even very different organisms. Paleontology is the study of prehistoric life through fossil evidence. The fossil record (all the fossils ever found and the information gained from them) shows detailed evidence of the changes in living things through time. Modern examples of biological evolution can be measured by studying the results of scientific experiments that measure evolutionary changes in the populations of organisms that are alive today. In fact, you need only look in the newspaper or hop online to see evidence of evolution in action in the form of the increase in the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Radioisotope dating estimates the age of fossils and other rocks by examining the ratio of isotopes in rocks. Isotopes are different forms of the atoms that make up matter on Earth. Some isotopes, called radioactive isotopes, discard particles over time and change into other elements. Scientists know the rate at which this radioactive decay occurs, so they can take rocks and analyze the elements within them. Radioisotope dating indicates that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, which is plenty old enough to allow for the many changes in Earth’s species due to biological evolution. About Jesus saying I am, just because he said I am doesn`t mean he associates himself with God. Everyone in Jesus`s used I am, so using that as a basis of his deity is strange. He uses I am to describe himself (sometimes as the door or as the way) and one times to describe his pre-existence by saying before Abraham, I am, but this doesn`t mean he identifies himself as God (the Jews thought of him of blasphemous because he said he pre-existed which they believe no human could be and only applicable to God, when in fact they were mistaken since we (the Gnostics) believe that everyone pre-existed not just God. The Jews misunderstood what he meant (he just mean he pre-existed not that he called himself God). Just because someone said I am doesn`t mean they think are God. This argument would only hold water if he said I am that I am (the actual name of god) Jesus quotes Isaiah 6 in Matthew 13 and says “the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled,” He connects Isaiah 6 with the unbelief of Israel during His earthly ministry, not his own identity. So his argument fails. Jey argues that good and evil are subjective to defend moral problem of the Old Testament. But I'm pretty sure most people would be in agreement that some of the stuff that was authorized or approved of by "God" or his agents in the bible are fucked up. animal and human sacrifices, wars of aggression, slavery, theft, rape, murder, quite probably even pedophilia, wife shaming by jealous husbands and abortion inducing magick spells performed by the priesthood. The problem with this argument is that this argument can justify anything. Nazis can use it to justify the Holocaust (since seeing the Holocaust as evil is subjective not objective), rapists can use this argument since seeing rape as evil is subjective not objective and paedophiles can use this argument since seeing paedophilia as evil is subjective not objective etc. This argument acts to take morality out of the picture rather than actually solving the moral issues.

Anyone who reads the Old Testament and doesn't realize that the Creator God is Evil is someone who is without the inner understanding brought by the Holy Spirit.

This is an analysis by David Hyatt-Bickle of my debate with the Eastern Orthodox scholar Jay Dyer, in which I criticized mainstream Christianity and he attacked Gnosticism. You should also visit David’s Facebook page “Christian Gnosticism” and follow/like it. Part 1: “Scott's comments ignored all my points." (paraphrasing) That was his opening statement, he's just stating his position.... good grief. It wasn`t designed to rebuke his argument, just state his personal opinions. Miguel said that it was an opening statement so treating like a failed rebuttal is very fallacious and deceptive. Next, when Scott S Smith talked about fundamentalism, it was clear he was talking about Christian fundamentalism, not fundamentalism in general (he didn`t say other religious don`t have fundamentalist factions). But Jey tried to make it out to be that he only thought fundamentalism only exists in Christianity (which he never said) in an effort to make look him look bad. Jey talking about Scott`s never having had neutrality is incredibly nit-picky. Scott meant he was being neutral as possible (like when someone says that they are politically neutral or neutral about a certain film). This even leans towards critiquing the person, not the actual topic at hand (ad hominin). Jey said that we have copies of the New Testament going back to the first century. This is an out right lie. The earliest copy is the Ryland Papyrus P52 (which isn`t even a full copy, it is just a very small fragment), it is a small fragment of papyrus with portions of the Gospel of John (18:36-19:7) on both sides in Greek. It has been dated paleographically to the second century A.D., not the first century. The next olddest is Papayrus P104 (P. Oxy. 4404) is a second-century papyrus fragment that contains Matt. 21:34-37 on the front, and traces of verses 43 and 45 on the back. So no, copies from the first century don`t exist. Plus what he counts as copies is anytiny scrap piece of paper that is written. Also, the claim that the new testament is unique in the age of its early copies is incorrect. For example, a 1,500-year-old parchment of the Quran could be one of the oldest known copies of the Quran, possibly dating back to a time that OVERLAPPED with the life of the Prophet Muhammad, according to researchers who recently dated the manuscript fragments. The text underwent radiocarbon dating, which measured the age of the find's organic materials. Researchers at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, found that the leaves of parchment date back to A.D. 568 and A.D. 645. Muhammad lived 570-632 AD, so this blows the Jey`s argument of the New Testament out of the water. Jey wants wants to imply that all those copies are directly from originals. That is wrong. They are copies of copies over multiple generations. Each instance duplicates errors from the source and makes it's own. The oldest nearly new testament is from the fourth century (Corpos Vaticanus). And he failed to mention that the vast MAJORITY of manuscripts were written hundreds of years after Jesus when the Catholic Church was pumping out copies. Also, a copy of Plato`s writings (it is a fragment but since he is including fragments as copies I`m doing the same) is Plato, Republic in the Nag Hammadi Library which dates to the 4th century (so he was wrong about Plato`s writings earliest copies are from the Medieval Age). I recommend watching Watery Evidence that the Bible is True by Athiest Rhino to show why his argument fails. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM4M6oUi7J8

There is a lot of misunderstanding expressed in comments about the debate regarding how Gnostics can behave ethically without taking every word of the Bible literally. It’s the same line of attack that Jewish leaders made against Jesus and Paul (“you moral anarchists are claiming the law doesn’t need to be followed”). Roman leaders accused Christians of being revolutionaries, cannibals, and atheists because they didn’t show respect for the gods. Of course, Gnosticism was founded on the ultimate assertion of value absolutism, rejecting worship of the Creator because he is depicted in the Old Testament as incompetent, ignorant, cruel, egotistical, and perhaps metaphysically evil (as Richard Smoley has shown in How God Became God, one should not take the dogma created by one faction of the emerging Christian church in the fourth century without a large grain of salt as to how Jehovah should be understood). But Gnostics did take the core ethical messages of Jesus seriously, surprisingly consistently preserved long before the four gospels were written 70-100 A.D. (one does not need to be a scholar to recognize their contradictions on the most important details from his birth to resurrection to realize that the New Testament was not written by eyewitness and is not inerrant). Gnostics also have their own scriptures and claim direct inspiration from God to each individual, which are factors on why adherents of the path have not been accused of major ethical violations (the tiny Carpocratian sect may have been libertine, though many scholars contest the sources the church fathers used, but most Gnostics leaned towards asceticism, with the very popular Marcionite Church advocating celibacy). Compare this reputation with that of mainstream Christianity, which has been filled with genocide, enslavement of fellow Christians, persecution and torture of rivals, etc. The Russian Orthodox Church supported serfdom and is now allied with Putin. Those who take a simplistic approach to trying to discern the Bible’s values do not seem willing to admit that even conservative Christians do not fully agree on how these should be applied to daily life. For example, is Jesus’ ban on divorce mean it should be the law of the land or just something believers follow (most modern Christians recognize how ill-prepared couples are for their first marriage)? Does Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality mean that gays should still have the right to a civil marriage? Why didn’t Paul or Jesus say a single thing about abortion, if it’s so high on the list of crimes, according to evangelicals (read https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/25602-abortion-rights)? What exactly does the Bible say about the morality of tax cuts for the rich (even if they don’t create jobs and result in fewer benefits for the poor)? Is it a moral issue if climate change is real and we oppose remedies because they will lower our profits? Should felons be forgiven after serving time and be allowed to vote? Christians on all sides have justified most wars in the past two millennia, so how can the New Testament be providing unique moral insight into such conflicting decisions? You can create an endless list of arguments from the conservative, moderate, liberal, and libertarian points of view for interpreting scripture, so it is circular reasoning to claim that all one has to do is believe it is true and follow what it teaches to be a good person.

I love Jay—however how does this prove the case against gnostic philosophy? This is just jay talking about orthodox views, dogma, & Christian philosophy. It is a great heritage but I think Jay is minimizing Christian Dogma: the Bible is no different from any other book— and especially like a legal book: something subject to interpretation, unequivocal subjectivity, and something with real flaws in every aspect of which flaws are possible

This is an unfair clip and doesn't debunk anything. Jay had yet to make any cohesive arguments, whilst simply pointing out perceived (many weren't actual) fallacies in Scott's arguments. Jay used many a priori assumptions (the Bible is 100% correct unless you can prove it wrong), which is the biggest fallacy in his reasoning (beyond the fallacy fallacy, which is just continually pointing out someone else's fallacies and thinking that makes your point). But in addition that that Jay uses many red herrings, strawmen, and some bordering on ad hominem fallacy. For a self-proclaimed logician one would think they would know better than to be a fallacy hypocrite. Why not use Jesus' own words and pull the plank from your own eye before pulling the mote out of your brother's? Jesus admonished hypocrisy many times.