It is,and I don't think I can emphasize it enough. Atheists aren't doing themselves any favours by repeating the dodgy conclusions of out-dated scholarship.
(
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 16:33,
archived)
I'm meaning the statement that it's definitive that Jesus existedI'd say that's a very strong statement. It's also a very strong statement to say he *didn't* exist. Personally I've seen no evidence that persuades me he did, but I won't claim he never existed, just that the persona we've had filtered down to us is almost certainly the blending of the myths of two or three people (even if one was the original core), plus a dose of legend. That's a different thing, and I've banged on at length about this on B3ta before so I'll refrain from doing so now.
(
boris the spider,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 16:42,
archived)
I'd say it's pretty conclusive,non-existent people don't start religions, none of the alternative suggestions make any sense, and I'm not inclined to fence-sitting. Granted the Gospels might not have been entirely historical in content but that was how people wrote things up in those days. There's no need to suggest two or three people (at least not two or three contemporaries), it's all Jewish archetypes, comparing him to such figures as Moses and Elijah etc..
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:12,
archived)
I think there are plenty of example of non-existant people starting religionsganesh, shiva, budha, pan, thor etc.
( maiden is filmed before a live studio audience,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:33,
archived)
buddha's reasonably well-attestedbut i never knew that mithras was a real person, much as his cult shares a few similarities with christianity. the argument "there *had* to be a person at the base of it" is pretty tenuous.
( boris the spider,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:36,
archived)
precisely most religions have been based upon a concept ratherthan a real person. But I will shut up I'm way out of my depth here but until there is tangible undeniable proof I'll stay sceptical.
( maiden is filmed before a live studio audience,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:41,
archived)
This is scepticism beyond the bounds of reason,this kind of proof never exists for anything. Undeniable proof doesn't exist outside of maths and maths isn't tangible.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:45,
archived)
That doesn't make any sense what so ever!"scepticism beyond the bounds of reason"? what so that means I just have to accept any religion based on some unsubstantiated beliefs and the say so of a few historians? The Turin shroud was proven as a medieval fake, there is no body of Christ, his depiction is of a Caucasian male in the middle of Judaea!? There is no written transcript of his life outside of the bible. I'm sorry but to say I have no reason is just plain offensive! Also Maths is tangible as it's provable through testing, testing anybody can do.
( maiden is filmed before a live studio audience,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:58,
archived)
No it doesn't mean that at all,and there is a great deal of maths that has no physical application at all, but even if it did, that wouldn't be the proof of it. Maths is proved through pure logic. Pythagoras's theorem isn't proven by drawing lots of triangles and measuring them.
What it means is that you should accept statements about history based on the balance of evidence. The Bible counts as evidence. Arguments from ignorance are no good.
(What it means is that you should accept statements about history based on the balance of evidence. The Bible counts as evidence. Arguments from ignorance are no good.
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 18:17,
archived)
Accepting the Bible as evidence is like accepting that Marvel Comics is evidence that Superman existsThe writing of the Dead Sea Scrolls do not tally with the King James Bible or the Lindisfarne Gospels so where does the modern bible actually exist in history? Sorry if you think I'm too thick to understand your brilliant points of view but there we have it I'm just a stupid pleb go on call me fucking stupid again!
( maiden is filmed before a live studio audience,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 18:24,
archived)
Well no it isn't because we know Marvel comics are a deliberate fiction,whereas the Bible might not be entirely historically reliable because of the class of literature that it is, as well as how it was produced, but it nevertheless counts as evidence. Scholars argue about exactly what it is evidence of but there's no reason to reject it while we accept so much other literature from the period and earlier. Quite a lot of what we know about ancient history comes from what people wrote about it.
The King James Bible isn't a great translation of the Hebrew, although it has a certain charm. The Dead Sea Scrolls differ from the Masoretic text mostly only in very minor ways, and even the major differences are hardly contradictions. I couldn't tell you anything about the Lindisfarne Gospels off the top of my head. I shall make a note to look them up.
I don't know why you think I'm calling you thick, that's certainly not the intention. Neither is it my intention, for the record, to convert you to Christianity. I don't even know if I'm a Christian myself.
(The King James Bible isn't a great translation of the Hebrew, although it has a certain charm. The Dead Sea Scrolls differ from the Masoretic text mostly only in very minor ways, and even the major differences are hardly contradictions. I couldn't tell you anything about the Lindisfarne Gospels off the top of my head. I shall make a note to look them up.
I don't know why you think I'm calling you thick, that's certainly not the intention. Neither is it my intention, for the record, to convert you to Christianity. I don't even know if I'm a Christian myself.
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 18:32,
archived)
It ceratinly seems at every turn you have rubbished my point of view by saying stuff like"Arguments from ignorance are no good" and such like you don't say the words "You are stupid" but you imply it but at no point do you answer any of my doubts.
( maiden is filmed before a live studio audience,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 19:12,
archived)
mithras was the subject of the religion, not its founder,same as Ganesh et al. The cult of Mithras developed amongst Roman soldiers around a God imported from Persia (probably via pirates), although the similarity stops pretty much at the name as the religion was highly syncretistic, as Roman religion tended to be, and has a lot less in common with Christianity than some people would have you believe.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:42,
archived)
Jesus didn't found ChristianityThat's an immediate, and very strong assumption. You'd be a lot safer saying that Paul founded Christianity since his historicity seems a lot better assured. You'd be even safer saying that no-one founded Christianity and it just grew out of the apocalyptic Jewish cults that infested Judea at that time.
( boris the spider,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:54,
archived)
According to the Gospels Jesus founded Christianity.He is presented as the founder and it is presented by people claiming to be his followers. Mithras is not presented as the founder of anything or even as a real person. I hope you can appreciate there is a difference here. Paul is certainly responsible for a lot of things but even he attributed Christianity to Jesus as if he were a real person, furthermore Christianity already existed (by his own account at least) since he used to persecute Christians himself. Christian doctrine really does depend on Jesus being a real person otherwise the whole idea of redemption doesn't really work. It is not a religion about an "idea" as some other religions were. It is a religion ostensibly about the teachings and sacrifice of a real person and it makes no sense for that religion to exist if the real person did not exist.
Of course it did come about in first century Judaea in the milieu of Messianic sects that were around at that time, and a lot of work on the Dead Sea Scrolls has made it clear that a lot of Christianity wasn't quite as new or original as previously presumed, but the idea that a group of people invented their own teacher to follow just does not make sense. It makes less sense, on balance, than the idea that a guy started preaching the Kingdom and got some followers.
(Of course it did come about in first century Judaea in the milieu of Messianic sects that were around at that time, and a lot of work on the Dead Sea Scrolls has made it clear that a lot of Christianity wasn't quite as new or original as previously presumed, but the idea that a group of people invented their own teacher to follow just does not make sense. It makes less sense, on balance, than the idea that a guy started preaching the Kingdom and got some followers.
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 18:06,
archived)
Using internal evidence as evidence is circularOutwith the Gospels there is no evidence that Jesus started Christianity. There's basically none that *Paul* started Christianity, but at least his Epistles are attested earlier than the Gospels, and were very influential.
We know the early Church fathers existed, and we know that they all had different beliefs. That's attested even three hundred years later when Constantine was pushing for a unified dogma, and it's attested by the Epistles which discuss theological differences with other Christian leaders.
"Jesus" isn't actually attested outside of the dogma. "Paul", whatever the writer of the bulk of the Epistles attributed to him may have been called (and it seems a consensus that the bulk of them were written by a single man), *is*, by dint of the writings he left behind.
Sorry, but "Paul" has a stronger claim than "Jesus".
The alternative is that I'll accept, on the evidence of the writings "he" left behind, that Moses was the founding father of Judaism. Hell, the Pentateuch is attributed to him, I reckon he's got an even better claim than Jesus! (There is zero proof that Moses existed, either, and it seems frankly unlikely. Likewise Abraham, Isaac, Joseph et. al. Even Solomon and David are on shaky ground.)
(We know the early Church fathers existed, and we know that they all had different beliefs. That's attested even three hundred years later when Constantine was pushing for a unified dogma, and it's attested by the Epistles which discuss theological differences with other Christian leaders.
"Jesus" isn't actually attested outside of the dogma. "Paul", whatever the writer of the bulk of the Epistles attributed to him may have been called (and it seems a consensus that the bulk of them were written by a single man), *is*, by dint of the writings he left behind.
Sorry, but "Paul" has a stronger claim than "Jesus".
The alternative is that I'll accept, on the evidence of the writings "he" left behind, that Moses was the founding father of Judaism. Hell, the Pentateuch is attributed to him, I reckon he's got an even better claim than Jesus! (There is zero proof that Moses existed, either, and it seems frankly unlikely. Likewise Abraham, Isaac, Joseph et. al. Even Solomon and David are on shaky ground.)
boris the spider,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 20:43,
archived)
i wrote a long reply to thisbut fuck it. arguing about things on the internet is like drinking your own piss - pointless and pretty unpleasant. it's even sillier when you're doing it on a comedy website...
( boris the spider,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:48,
archived)
there's always gaz if you're bothered.
(
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:50,
archived)
at some point maybeat the minute i'm probably a bit too irritated (not at you, at life) to have a sensible argument, it would probably just descend into petty abuse from my side...
i think if we actually got down to the base of it we'd not find too much difference between our approaches, except that i view the lack of evidence as no reason to assume someone is anything more than legend, while you view it as no reason to say he didn't exist when its more than plausible that someone called "jesus" was walking around jerusalem preaching. which it certainly is. i'd just argue that if that person existed (and while there's no reason to assume he did but given that jesus was a common name it seems a reasonable assumption) there's no reason to tag him with "the original jesus".
the comparison i've made before is to king arthur. i can think of three people off the top of my head who can be held up as "the original arthur": ambrosious aurelianus, riothamus and owain ddantgwyn. ambrosius certainly existed, riothamus was probably a title for a king of brittany (but he may have been actually british), while ddantgwyn is the only one we have even a vague reason to assume was called "arthur". (and that reasoning is a bit specious). the point? aspects of the stories of these three, if the identification with ddantgwyn can be trusted, can be found in the arthur myth and there *was* no arthur.
it happens with all legends, and jesus is a legend. his story was passed through word-of-mouth and sayings gospels for decades before being written, and then it was passed around, rewritten, recast, cleaned up, messed up, and then finally emerged in the second century with the four gospels we know and a bunch of other miscellaneous texts. that's a long time to layer (even unintentional) misinformation all over it.
sure, there may have been a wandering religious nutjob called jesus, but identifying him with "jesus" is actually a bit of a stretch since things will be attributed to him that he never did, never said, some of them pure invention and some of them incorporated from other wandering preachers... including those from well outside judea. gnosticism shows a fair influence from further east, and we know there was plenty of contact. with that contact come ideas and myths.
your argument could equally be used to suggest that yahweh was real. maybe there even was a "king" called yahweh sometime 4,000 years ago or more, but it seems unlikely. what was passed onto us appears to be the result of the rather hamfisted synthesis of two or three traditions spread across the land we later knew as israel. stories from further back were incorporated (the most famous being the flood, which bears too striking a resemblance to that in the epic of gilgamesh to be coincidental), fables were misinterpreted as fact, morality tales as genuine history, and there was almost certainly pure propaganda thrown into the mix. the old testament is a great way to instill a feeling of nationalism and pride into the remains of two or three very distinct nations - just tell them that back 500 years there was a united kingdom. there may have been - there was certainly a powerful nation centred around jerusalem at roughly that time for whatever that means - but trying to claim that at that point all that later became israel was united and together is an enormous stretch. it's believing your sources to the point of credulity. given the layering and manipulation of stories all through the old testament -- something that is very widely accepted -- i see no reason to *not* apply the same thinking to the new testament...
that's my position, anyway, all without any abuse :)
(i think if we actually got down to the base of it we'd not find too much difference between our approaches, except that i view the lack of evidence as no reason to assume someone is anything more than legend, while you view it as no reason to say he didn't exist when its more than plausible that someone called "jesus" was walking around jerusalem preaching. which it certainly is. i'd just argue that if that person existed (and while there's no reason to assume he did but given that jesus was a common name it seems a reasonable assumption) there's no reason to tag him with "the original jesus".
the comparison i've made before is to king arthur. i can think of three people off the top of my head who can be held up as "the original arthur": ambrosious aurelianus, riothamus and owain ddantgwyn. ambrosius certainly existed, riothamus was probably a title for a king of brittany (but he may have been actually british), while ddantgwyn is the only one we have even a vague reason to assume was called "arthur". (and that reasoning is a bit specious). the point? aspects of the stories of these three, if the identification with ddantgwyn can be trusted, can be found in the arthur myth and there *was* no arthur.
it happens with all legends, and jesus is a legend. his story was passed through word-of-mouth and sayings gospels for decades before being written, and then it was passed around, rewritten, recast, cleaned up, messed up, and then finally emerged in the second century with the four gospels we know and a bunch of other miscellaneous texts. that's a long time to layer (even unintentional) misinformation all over it.
sure, there may have been a wandering religious nutjob called jesus, but identifying him with "jesus" is actually a bit of a stretch since things will be attributed to him that he never did, never said, some of them pure invention and some of them incorporated from other wandering preachers... including those from well outside judea. gnosticism shows a fair influence from further east, and we know there was plenty of contact. with that contact come ideas and myths.
your argument could equally be used to suggest that yahweh was real. maybe there even was a "king" called yahweh sometime 4,000 years ago or more, but it seems unlikely. what was passed onto us appears to be the result of the rather hamfisted synthesis of two or three traditions spread across the land we later knew as israel. stories from further back were incorporated (the most famous being the flood, which bears too striking a resemblance to that in the epic of gilgamesh to be coincidental), fables were misinterpreted as fact, morality tales as genuine history, and there was almost certainly pure propaganda thrown into the mix. the old testament is a great way to instill a feeling of nationalism and pride into the remains of two or three very distinct nations - just tell them that back 500 years there was a united kingdom. there may have been - there was certainly a powerful nation centred around jerusalem at roughly that time for whatever that means - but trying to claim that at that point all that later became israel was united and together is an enormous stretch. it's believing your sources to the point of credulity. given the layering and manipulation of stories all through the old testament -- something that is very widely accepted -- i see no reason to *not* apply the same thinking to the new testament...
that's my position, anyway, all without any abuse :)
boris the spider,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 18:05,
archived)
I don't know that the analogy with Arthurian legend is really very good,the old testament is a massively complex work though, but don't get me started on Yahweh or we'll be up all night.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 18:23,
archived)
it's a reasonable analogyin that they're both legends - and people did genuinely believe in arthur and believe that he would return. but i'm using it basically just as an example of how stories and legends from multiple people can be layered onto one character, who may or may not have originally been real, and then stirred around until essentially nothing's left of the man who donated his name.
whether that did happen with jesus or not is a different question, but it seems perfectly plausible to me.
anyway, i wrote a lot of stuff just above when i said i wouldn't - i think i'll let the board recover :)
(whether that did happen with jesus or not is a different question, but it seems perfectly plausible to me.
anyway, i wrote a lot of stuff just above when i said i wouldn't - i think i'll let the board recover :)
boris the spider,
Mon 17 Oct 2011, 19:46,
archived)