The Jesus myther nonsense

[Stein]

A five-hour Halo binge!

I attempted to respond as straightforwardly to your previous as seemed possible, to me anyway. --

The comment above was not addressed to you. I read you 'straighforward' assertions and was not inclined to comment. You have your theory, which is you're own, and to which you are entitled of course...

I notice two things.

i. Stone's literary style, such that it is, is very similar to Stein's.
ii. Whether Jesus was a historical figure or merely a composite myth token has no relevance to Stein's reply to my question, and no bearing on the issue whatsoever.

I also think that any Christian assertion that the acceptance of Jesus as a de facto historical figure is foundational to all contemporary thinking on human rights is completely undermined by the Christina doctrine of vicarious redemption - in as much as this pernicious doctrine is fundamentally and necessarily antithetical to both the principle and implementation of universal human rights. I'm with Hitchens on that one I think.

As am I. In addition, the Eastern Orthodox tradition apparently does not accept the grisly atonement doctrine either. And that certainly is not in the earliest textual strata (courtesy of modern philological analysis) of both the apologetic and non-apologetic Yeshua data. In both, including Tacitus and Antiquities XX, Yeshua the rabbi is simply a human being who became an agitator for the marginalized and was executed. Period.

The extensive readout which I submitted (in a bit of exasperation, I admit, which I still think was partly warranted) is useful because it shows that, even though nothing happens in a vacuum, it still requires individuals to start ripples going anyway. While general adaptation processes may inevitably render some trends more enduring -- and inevitable -- than others, that inevitability, once any species is going to evolve and survive at all, doesn't subtract from the interest and importance inherent in those individuals who may (however inevitably) arise. Adaptational pressures may create conditions that are generally hospitable for individuals such as a Confucius or a Gotama or a Franklin, etc., who initiate new proposals for society that eventually stick (if not immediately). But that which makes those individuals _choose_ to be that inevitable catalyst in the first place, rather than their neighbor across the street or someone else, is not inevitable. Instead, that is completely individual and of lasting fascination for anyone who is a humanist. How come figure A and not figure B? What goes into the type of human being who "evolves" the social/cultural patterns versus the type of individual who "regresses" it instead (an Al-Baghdadi, say)? That is not an idle question. That question is central to knowing just how fragile and prone to ultimate extinction the human species may or may not be.

Finally, I keep thinking of Margaret Mead's remark: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Cheers,

Stein

Is it too much to expect a reasonably succinct response in kind, instead of "A five-hour Halo binge!"?

Stein

...but it only suggested to me that societies are in a state of constant flux, which I knew already, and that 'enlightened' individuals generally hope that it gets better (fairer, less violent, more equal, more tolerant, better educated, etc etc), or at least no worse, as it progresses - even if sometimes we need reminding of the common benefits of a better society.

Still has nothing to do with whether Jesus was a real guy or just a cobbled together mythological token for an idolating death cult. For me a real Jesus Christ is no more necessary to a functioning society that a real Vishnu, Hermes, Odin, or that-one-with-the-head-of-a-bird-whatever-he's-called.

Hermes, Odin etc. could not be more irrelevant to what we're focused on in this thread. As I've made very clear, that's simply not at all the category that Jesus ever belonged to, whatever the deluded religious hysterics may say, day in and day out. He's not some ludicrous wizard with a wand! He's a social rebel.

So the real question is whether or not a real Jesus is no more necessary to a functioning society than a Gandhi, a Franklin, a Pericles, a Confucius, a King, a Mandela, or a Gotama, etc. Those are all figures who center their activities on strengthening the moral claim that is on society to assuage unnecessary and gratuitous suffering. Without figures like these, the weak today would be even more at the mercy of the strong than they already are.

If we dispense with any kind of serious regular airing of the guiding principles of the Gandhis, the Jesuses, the Franklins, etc,, which is infinitely more important than anything in their boring biographies, the response from the powerful, while stepping into such a vacuum of growing ignorance on the history of consciousness raising, will quickly generate utter selfishness and callousness as even more the new "cool" than it is now with the abuses of the Tea Party goons. And once that happens, the 99% will be so much at the mercy of the 1% that it will make the financial meltdown of 2008 seem like a walk in the park.

Stein

[pErvinalia]

You don't need the historical words of these people to coherently argue for the principles that may have flowed on from their words. All you need in the present is logic and reasoning. Your worship of these people is great from a historical studies perspective, but to claim that they are presently important in the concept of human rights and enlightened thinking, is ridiculous.

[Seth]

Where is it implied?? This is your problem. You see strawmen everywhere. Saying that God is unnecessary says absolutely nothing about whether he definitively exists or not.

It's implied by the statement itself, which says that God is "unnecessary," which obviously implies that the author does not believe God exists because the term "unnecessary" is one of the touchstones of Atheist argumentation against the existence of God. Dawkins does it all the time. So do most Atheists.

The only atheist religion we see on these boards is your obsession with beating a strawman that doesn't exist - namely that atheists claim definitively that God doesn't exist.

Hardly. There's many sects of religious Atheism.

The problem for you is that you have zero evidence to back this vacuous claim up. You can't produce a single piece of evidence to show that there is a group of atheists here that definitively claim that God doesn't exist.

Strawman argument. I didn't define religious Atheists as only being those "that definitively claim that God doesn't exist", you did.

You are defining Christianity as the teachings of Jesus Christ. If he didn't exist, then this is clearly a nonsensical thing to say. So you ARE basing your argument on the assumption that he existed. And THAT is a begging the question fallacy.

Let us assume that Jesus did not exist, but is a fictional character around which a story propounding moral guidance and other lessons was created and recorded as the New Testament. The teachings remain and are attributed to Christ and comporting with those teachings defines a person as a Christian, whereas misinterpreting or misusing those teachings as a justification for committing moral wrongs defines the person as a faux Christian at best. Whether Jesus existed or not does not change the moral value of the teachings, but all this line of debate is doing is pettifogging around the actual issue, which is the value of the moral structure involved. Sure, you can say that a "real Jesus" is "unnecessary" to the moral teachings, but that's just sophistry used to impeach the authority of the teachings using the unstated argument "if Jesus didn't actually exist, then his teachings can't be the word of God." But this is itself begging the question because it presumes that if Jesus DID exist, then his teachings COULD be the word of God, which implies a belief in the possibility at least that God does exist, which is presuming the consequent as a premise.

The only thing a rational Atheist can say about God, and inferentially about Jesus according to your metric of proof, is "I don't know." Anything more requires that the Atheist state as a premise that some aspect of the question of God's existence and/or nature is true, which according to Atheist doctrine and orthodoxy, is not true. Therefore the Atheist is making a knowingly false statement as a premise upon which the Atheist bases a fallacious conclusion.

You cannot make positive assumptions about Jesus or God as a premise in an argument denying the existence of Jesus or God.

P1 God is a fictional character
P2 Fictional characters do not have godlike powers
C1 Therefore, God does not exist.

That's fallacious reasoning because the premise (P1) embodies the conclusion, and P2 falsely presumes facts not in evidence, to wit: fictional characters may or may not have godlike powers. Therefore, the conclusion does not follow.

In other words, you cannot invoke God as proof that God does not exist.

P1 God either exists or does not exist
P2 There is no credible scientific evidence showing that God exists or does not exist.
C1 Therefore, the only rational conclusion that can be drawn with respect to the existence of God is "I don't know."

If I support apartheid in South Africa and invoke the name of Nelson Mandela as the origin of my beliefs, does that make me a "Mandelan" who is acting in harmony with Mandela's philosophy, teachings and ideals? Of course not. It makes me a fraud who is misusing and misinterpreting Mandela's philosophy and teachings for my own ends.

The same reasoning applies to "Christians" who commit atrocities or wrongs that do not comport with the philosophy, teachings and ideals of Christ.

Except that you are using the "begging the question" fallacy. Mandela existed. We don't know if Christ existed. That's what we are debating. You are assuming the answer as part of your "reasoning".

Did Mandela exist? Prove it.

What mental retardation are you gripped by now?!? What's the fucking point debating you if you come out with spastic "rebuttals" like this?

You refuse to acknowledge the historical evidence of Jesus' existence, so I refuse to acknowledge the historical evidence of Mandela's existence. I'm getting all epistemologically existentially nihilistic on your ass because you're being an ass.

[Seth]

...the abuses of the Tea Party goons.

What "abuses" are you alluding to, specifically, pray tell?

[laklak]

Hell, for most of our history Jesus' existence was taken as read, you didn't DARE suggest he might be just another Easter Bunny. In all those centuries when the kings and nobility and Rockefellers and Gettys were concentrating all that wealth and power into a few greedy hands those guiding principles weren't just given a regular airing, they were shoved down everybody's throat. Religion was the carrot and stick the 1% used to keep the lumpen in line. Now the lack of regular airings is helping them? Holy shit, those fuckers can't lose for winning, eh? Jesus is real - more money more power. Jesus ain't real - more money more power. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Stein]

You don't need the historical words of these people to coherently argue for the principles that may have flowed on from their words. All you need in the present is logic and reasoning. Your worship of these people is great from a historical studies perspective, but to claim that they are presently important in the concept of human rights and enlightened thinking, is ridiculous.

No. It isn't. Society doesn't work like that, even though you may like to think it does. Abiding principles that have put even the slightest restraints on the strong have more teeth to them so long as their link to a specific innovator is regularly maintained. There may be a few circulating aphorisms that are both anonymous and still potent today. But they are very,very much the exception here. Ascription is too potent a part of their ingredients to be shrugged off by ignoramuses on message boards.

Stein

[pErvinalia]

Where is it implied?? This is your problem. You see strawmen everywhere. Saying that God is unnecessary says absolutely nothing about whether he definitively exists or not.

It's implied by the statement itself, which says that God is "unnecessary," which obviously implies that the author does not believe God exists because the term "unnecessary" is one of the touchstones of Atheist argumentation against the existence of God. Dawkins does it all the time. So do most Atheists.

So, it's only implied in your head. Got it.

God might very well exist (as a kickstarter of the universe, but hands off thereafter), but be unnecessary to explain the motion of the planets. Please don't reply to this, I can't bare to see you torture logic any more.

The only atheist religion we see on these boards is your obsession with beating a strawman that doesn't exist - namely that atheists claim definitively that God doesn't exist.

Hardly. There's many sects of religious Atheism.

The problem for you is that you have zero evidence to back this vacuous claim up. You can't produce a single piece of evidence to show that there is a group of atheists here that definitively claim that God doesn't exist.

Strawman argument. I didn't define religious Atheists as only being those "that definitively claim that God doesn't exist", you did.

But that is definitely part of your definition, as your million posts on this subject have shown in the past. Basically, you are wrong, have no evidence to back your claims up, and still proceed to spout the same nonsense. You are haunted by strawmen.

You are defining Christianity as the teachings of Jesus Christ. If he didn't exist, then this is clearly a nonsensical thing to say. So you ARE basing your argument on the assumption that he existed. And THAT is a begging the question fallacy.

Let us assume that Jesus did not exist, but is a fictional character around which a story propounding moral guidance and other lessons was created and recorded as the New Testament. The teachings remain and are attributed to Christ and comporting with those teachings defines a person as a Christian, whereas misinterpreting or misusing those teachings as a justification for committing moral wrongs defines the person as a faux Christian at best.

If it wasn't based on a real Jesus character, then the definition of a Christian is how the leaders of the Christian movement choose to define it. That's the point we keep trying to make to you. If you want to use a hypothetically fantasy book as your measure for what is Christian or not, then you have to argue for why you would use one fantasy over another (i.e a later myth from the Christian hierarchy). Surely you can see this is nonsensical. Actually, with your terrible grasp of logic, you probably can't.

The only thing a rational Atheist can say about God, and inferentially about Jesus according to your metric of proof, is "I don't know."

And despite everyone on these boards telling you just this, you still refuse to believe us. Fuck off with the rest of your bollocks. You are a dishonest debater and/or paranoid of strawmen.

You cannot make positive assumptions about Jesus or God as a premise in an argument denying the existence of Jesus or God.

P1 God is a fictional character
P2 Fictional characters do not have godlike powers
C1 Therefore, God does not exist.

If I support apartheid in South Africa and invoke the name of Nelson Mandela as the origin of my beliefs, does that make me a "Mandelan" who is acting in harmony with Mandela's philosophy, teachings and ideals? Of course not. It makes me a fraud who is misusing and misinterpreting Mandela's philosophy and teachings for my own ends.

The same reasoning applies to "Christians" who commit atrocities or wrongs that do not comport with the philosophy, teachings and ideals of Christ.

Except that you are using the "begging the question" fallacy. Mandela existed. We don't know if Christ existed. That's what we are debating. You are assuming the answer as part of your "reasoning".

Did Mandela exist? Prove it.

What mental retardation are you gripped by now?!? What's the fucking point debating you if you come out with spastic "rebuttals" like this?

You refuse to acknowledge the historical evidence of Jesus' existence, so I refuse to acknowledge the historical evidence of Mandela's existence.

As I said, you are suffering from mental retardation if you think the live tv evidence and first hand accounts of people who have met him are not evidence of his existence.

I'm getting all epistemologically existentially nihilistic on your ass because you're being an ass.

No, you are just proving yourself a fool.

[hackenslash]

Laplace was an idiot

And this cements your place in the history of total fuckwits quite nicely, you stupid man.

[Svartalf]

Laplace was an idiot

And this cements your place in the history of total fuckwits quite nicely, you stupid man.

Thanks hack, I hadn't noticed that post

[Brian Peacock]

A five-hour Halo binge!

I attempted to respond as straightforwardly to your previous as seemed possible, to me anyway. --

The comment above was not addressed to you. I read you 'straighforward' assertions and was not inclined to comment. You have your theory, which is you're own, and to which you are entitled of course...

I notice two things.

i. Stone's literary style, such that it is, is very similar to Stein's.
ii. Whether Jesus was a historical figure or merely a composite myth token has no relevance to Stein's reply to my question, and no bearing on the issue whatsoever.

I also think that any Christian assertion that the acceptance of Jesus as a de facto historical figure is foundational to all contemporary thinking on human rights is completely undermined by the Christina doctrine of vicarious redemption - in as much as this pernicious doctrine is fundamentally and necessarily antithetical to both the principle and implementation of universal human rights. I'm with Hitchens on that one I think.

As am I. In addition, the Eastern Orthodox tradition apparently does not accept the grisly atonement doctrine either. And that certainly is not in the earliest textual strata (courtesy of modern philological analysis) of both the apologetic and non-apologetic Yeshua data. In both, including Tacitus and Antiquities XX, Yeshua the rabbi is simply a human being who became an agitator for the marginalized and was executed. Period.

The extensive readout which I submitted (in a bit of exasperation, I admit, which I still think was partly warranted) is useful because it shows that, even though nothing happens in a vacuum, it still requires individuals to start ripples going anyway. While general adaptation processes may inevitably render some trends more enduring -- and inevitable -- than others, that inevitability, once any species is going to evolve and survive at all, doesn't subtract from the interest and importance inherent in those individuals who may (however inevitably) arise. Adaptational pressures may create conditions that are generally hospitable for individuals such as a Confucius or a Gotama or a Franklin, etc., who initiate new proposals for society that eventually stick (if not immediately). But that which makes those individuals _choose_ to be that inevitable catalyst in the first place, rather than their neighbor across the street or someone else, is not inevitable. Instead, that is completely individual and of lasting fascination for anyone who is a humanist. How come figure A and not figure B? What goes into the type of human being who "evolves" the social/cultural patterns versus the type of individual who "regresses" it instead (an Al-Baghdadi, say)? That is not an idle question. That question is central to knowing just how fragile and prone to ultimate extinction the human species may or may not be.

Finally, I keep thinking of Margaret Mead's remark: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Cheers,

Stein

Is it too much to expect a reasonably succinct response in kind, instead of "A five-hour Halo binge!"?

Stein

...but it only suggested to me that societies are in a state of constant flux, which I knew already, and that 'enlightened' individuals generally hope that it gets better (fairer, less violent, more equal, more tolerant, better educated, etc etc), or at least no worse, as it progresses - even if sometimes we need reminding of the common benefits of a better society.

Still has nothing to do with whether Jesus was a real guy or just a cobbled together mythological token for an idolating death cult. For me a real Jesus Christ is no more necessary to a functioning society that a real Vishnu, Hermes, Odin, or that-one-with-the-head-of-a-bird-whatever-he's-called.

Hermes, Odin etc. could not be more irrelevant to what we're focused on in this thread. As I've made very clear, that's simply not at all the category that Jesus ever belonged to, whatever the deluded religious hysterics may say, day in and day out. He's not some ludicrous wizard with a wand! He's a social rebel.

So the real question is whether or not a real Jesus is no more necessary to a functioning society than a Gandhi, a Franklin, a Pericles, a Confucius, a King, a Mandela, or a Gotama, etc. Those are all figures who center their activities on strengthening the moral claim that is on society to assuage unnecessary and gratuitous suffering. Without figures like these, the weak today would be even more at the mercy of the strong than they already are.

If we dispense with any kind of serious regular airing of the guiding principles of the Gandhis, the Jesuses, the Franklins, etc,, which is infinitely more important than anything in their boring biographies, the response from the powerful, while stepping into such a vacuum of growing ignorance on the history of consciousness raising, will quickly generate utter selfishness and callousness as even more the new "cool" than it is now with the abuses of the Tea Party goons. And once that happens, the 99% will be so much at the mercy of the 1% that it will make the financial meltdown of 2008 seem like a walk in the park.

Stein

Your reply has the feel of a giant nonsequitur about it.

Let's try and reset this back to first principles. You started the thread asserting that people who didn't accept the historical existence of Jesus Christ were abusing history. When XC asked you why it mattered if Jesus was a rea guy or not you brought that brief history of social reform to imply that Jesus was a social reformer and as important to our contemporary understanding of human rights as people like Ghandi or Mandela et al.

OK?

The question has been, what does any of that have to do with whether Jesus was a real guy or not, and does it real matter one way or the other if he actually existed or not? Are you saying that our understanding of human rights is fundamentally tied to the existence of a actual individual of Middle-Eastern extraction born c.2000 years ago, and in such a way and to such an extent that if Jesus were only a myth or a token then we simply would not have human rights, or at least not as we currently know them?

I note that you stake a claim to Jesus being among the blessed who 'strengthen the moral claim that is on society to assuage unnecessary and gratuitous suffering' but, firstly Jesus would not need actual existence to do that, he would only need symbolic or conceptual existence in the mind of his followers, and secondly, your 'enlightened' recasting of the nazarene narative put aside all the actual unnecessary and gratuitous suffering carried out in his name which was predominant in the history of the West until about c.250 years.

It seems to me that only after the literal existence of Jesus was cast into legitimate doubt, rather than just being taken for granted, that Western society finally managed to progress towards its more enlightened outlook.

[Svartalf]

[Seth]

Where is it implied?? This is your problem. You see strawmen everywhere. Saying that God is unnecessary says absolutely nothing about whether he definitively exists or not.

It's implied by the statement itself, which says that God is "unnecessary," which obviously implies that the author does not believe God exists because the term "unnecessary" is one of the touchstones of Atheist argumentation against the existence of God. Dawkins does it all the time. So do most Atheists.

So, it's only implied in your head. Got it.

If it is not implied, then why was God mentioned at all? The very mention of God means that the author has an opinion on the existence of God. If, in the belief of the author, God is merely a figment of someone's imagination, why would he dignify that delusion at all? In stating that God is "not necessary" he acknowledges the core controversy over the existence of God and states his opinion on the matter. And yes, of course it's implied in my head, because I'm a rational, logical and intelligent person who is capable of parsing sentences and interpreting their meaning, something you evidently have great difficulty with.

God might very well exist (as a kickstarter of the universe, but hands off thereafter), but be unnecessary to explain the motion of the planets. Please don't reply to this, I can't bare to see you torture logic any more.

Wrong. If God "kickstarted" the universe then the issue of God is absolutely essential to any explanation of any physical aspect of the universe. You can say "the effects of this and that physical law dictate the motion of planets" and ignore everything else, but that's just sloppy science. A complete scientific explanation of the motion of the planets, and everything else, must necessarily take into account whether or not God exists, what the nature and capabilities of God are, and the scope of God's actions on the physical universe. Anything less is incomplete, biased science.

The only atheist religion we see on these boards is your obsession with beating a strawman that doesn't exist - namely that atheists claim definitively that God doesn't exist.

Hardly. There's many sects of religious Atheism.

The problem for you is that you have zero evidence to back this vacuous claim up. You can't produce a single piece of evidence to show that there is a group of atheists here that definitively claim that God doesn't exist.

Strawman argument. I didn't define religious Atheists as only being those "that definitively claim that God doesn't exist", you did.

But that is definitely part of your definition,

So what? You're still cherry-picking to create a strawman argument.

as your million posts on this subject have shown in the past. Basically, you are wrong, have no evidence to back your claims up, and still proceed to spout the same nonsense. You are haunted by strawmen.

I'm not wrong and the evidence is so ubiquitous that it doesn't need to be cited in detail every time. It's common knowledge, which is evidently beyond your understanding. You just want to deny this fact because you know that you can't defend that position precisely because of my "million posts on this subject" in which I destroy the argument utterly. But that argument lies at the very core of your and most other Atheist's true beliefs. Rare indeed is the atheist who does not hold as an article of faith that God does not and indeed cannot exist. The intellectually superior atheists are confident enough in their reasoning and honest enough to simply admit the truth: the question of God's existence or non-existence is unanswered, but not necessarily unanswerable, and therefore the only rational response to the question is "I don't know."

You are defining Christianity as the teachings of Jesus Christ. If he didn't exist, then this is clearly a nonsensical thing to say. So you ARE basing your argument on the assumption that he existed. And THAT is a begging the question fallacy.

Let us assume that Jesus did not exist, but is a fictional character around which a story propounding moral guidance and other lessons was created and recorded as the New Testament. The teachings remain and are attributed to Christ and comporting with those teachings defines a person as a Christian, whereas misinterpreting or misusing those teachings as a justification for committing moral wrongs defines the person as a faux Christian at best.

If it wasn't based on a real Jesus character, then the definition of a Christian is how the leaders of the Christian movement choose to define it. That's the point we keep trying to make to you. If you want to use a hypothetically fantasy book as your measure for what is Christian or not, then you have to argue for why you would use one fantasy over another (i.e a later myth from the Christian hierarchy). Surely you can see this is nonsensical. Actually, with your terrible grasp of logic, you probably can't.

Not necessarily. Suppose that Jesus, as a real human being, did not exist, but that God (being a not-human being) does exist and directly revealed the story to the authors of the New Testament as a parable. In this case, the moral guidance and lessons would still be the product of God's will, but given as a story-like parable rather than as a documentation of an actual living human individual, and therefore your reasoning that the story of Jesus would be whatever Christians say it is remains false. Because you have no evidence that the New Testament is NOT a verbatim transcript of God's communications with the authors, you cannot rationally say that it's nothing but a human-created myth. Therefore the only rational answer you can make to the question of whether Jesus was a real human person who existed is, once again, "I don't know."

The only thing a rational Atheist can say about God, and inferentially about Jesus according to your metric of proof, is "I don't know."

And despite everyone on these boards telling you just this, you still refuse to believe us. Fuck off with the rest of your bollocks. You are a dishonest debater and/or paranoid of strawmen.

Take a pill rEv, you're going over the top.

You cannot make positive assumptions about Jesus or God as a premise in an argument denying the existence of Jesus or God.

P1 God is a fictional character
P2 Fictional characters do not have godlike powers
C1 Therefore, God does not exist.

If I support apartheid in South Africa and invoke the name of Nelson Mandela as the origin of my beliefs, does that make me a "Mandelan" who is acting in harmony with Mandela's philosophy, teachings and ideals? Of course not. It makes me a fraud who is misusing and misinterpreting Mandela's philosophy and teachings for my own ends.

The same reasoning applies to "Christians" who commit atrocities or wrongs that do not comport with the philosophy, teachings and ideals of Christ.

Except that you are using the "begging the question" fallacy. Mandela existed. We don't know if Christ existed. That's what we are debating. You are assuming the answer as part of your "reasoning".

Did Mandela exist? Prove it.

What mental retardation are you gripped by now?!? What's the fucking point debating you if you come out with spastic "rebuttals" like this?

You refuse to acknowledge the historical evidence of Jesus' existence, so I refuse to acknowledge the historical evidence of Mandela's existence.

As I said, you are suffering from mental retardation if you think the live tv evidence and first hand accounts of people who have met him are not evidence of his existence.

Is there "live TV evidence" of Mandela's existence? Are the "first hand accounts" you refer to reliable? Why do you grant first hand accounts of those who allege to have met Mandela veracity while dismissing the first hand accounts of the Disciples? It appears that you do so merely because of your religious Atheist in-bred bias against such documentation. Did YOU ever meet Mandela? If you did, how do you know that the person you met was Nelson Mandela? Because someone told you he was? Because he said he was? What about imposters or impersonators? Can you provide first hand evidence of your observations of his activities?

No, you can't. You necessarily rely upon the reports of others about Mandela and his activities for your belief that Mandela existed and performed certain acts. But just like Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and Jesus, you weren't there and didn't witness anything. Therefore you are relying on at least second hand information the truth and accuracy of which you have faith is reliable. In other words, you hold a religious belief about the existence of Nelson Mandela and you grant, without personal verification, the claims of others as to his existence and actions.

But then again, the German people had a religious belief about the existence and nature of Hitler and discounted reports of his vile actions in the extermination of 12 million people.

Self-delusion is a rather common human trait, and you've got it just as bad as any theist does, notwithstanding your bloviating about your reasoning ability and cult-like adherence to "science" as the be-all and end-all unassailable Truth.

I'm getting all epistemologically existentially nihilistic on your ass because you're being an ass.

No, you are just proving yourself a fool.

I'm glad you think so, because it proves that I'm achieving exactly what I wish to achieve, which is to demonstrate what a dogmatic religious fool YOU are.

[Seth]

Your reply has the feel of a giant nonsequitur about it.

Let's try and reset this back to first principles. You started the thread asserting that people who didn't accept the historical existence of Jesus Christ were abusing history. When XC asked you why it mattered if Jesus was a rea guy or not you brought that brief history of social reform to imply that Jesus was a social reformer and as important to our contemporary understanding of human rights as people like Ghandi or Mandela et al.

OK?

The question has been, what does any of that have to do with whether Jesus was a real guy or not, and does it real matter one way or the other if he actually existed or not? Are you saying that our understanding of human rights is fundamentally tied to the existence of a actual individual of Middle-Eastern extraction born c.2000 years ago, and in such a way and to such an extent that if Jesus were only a myth or a token then we simply would not have human rights, or at least not as we currently know them?

I note that you stake a claim to Jesus being among the blessed who 'strengthen the moral claim that is on society to assuage unnecessary and gratuitous suffering' but, firstly Jesus would not need actual existence to do that, he would only need symbolic or conceptual existence in the mind of his followers,

Quite right. But then again this reasoning does nothing to advance the debate about the existence or non-existence of Jesus as an actual human person who did exist.

and secondly, your 'enlightened' recasting of the nazarene narative put aside all the actual unnecessary and gratuitous suffering carried out in his name which was predominant in the history of the West until about c.250 years.

And so it should, because neither the man (if he existed) nor the narrative has anything to do with the perversion or distortion of either or both by those who came after. This is one of the prime conceits of religious Atheism: to condemn Jesus and his message ex post facto because of the actions of others. Anybody can do anything to anyone "in the name of" someone or something else, but this does not necessarily impeach the individual whose name is invoked nor does it necessarily diminish other acts done in that same name that are beneficial rather than noxious.

It's a standard Atheist attempt at reverse guilt by association that condemns the author for the acts of the reader, as in blaming the author of "Catcher in the Rye" for John Hinckley's murder of John Lennon.

That's not how reason and logic actually work, Brian.

It seems to me that only after the literal existence of Jesus was cast into legitimate doubt, rather than just being taken for granted, that Western society finally managed to progress towards its more enlightened outlook.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Many people argue that Western society has not progressed towards enlightenment but has actually regressed into hedonistic ignorance by denying the commandments of God. Who is to say who is right?

God, I suppose, if he/she/it exists.

[Stein]

Your reply has the feel of a giant nonsequitur about it.

Let's try and reset this back to first principles. You started the thread asserting that people who didn't accept the historical existence of Jesus Christ were abusing history. When XC asked you why it mattered if Jesus was a rea guy or not you brought that brief history of social reform to imply that Jesus was a social reformer and as important to our contemporary understanding of human rights as people like Ghandi or Mandela et al.

OK?

The question has been, what does any of that have to do with whether Jesus was a real guy or not, and does it real matter one way or the other if he actually existed or not? Are you saying that our understanding of human rights is fundamentally tied to the existence of a actual individual of Middle-Eastern extraction born c.2000 years ago, and in such a way and to such an extent that if Jesus were only a myth or a token then we simply would not have human rights, or at least not as we currently know them?

I note that you stake a claim to Jesus being among the blessed who 'strengthen the moral claim that is on society to assuage unnecessary and gratuitous suffering' but, firstly Jesus would not need actual existence to do that, he would only need symbolic or conceptual existence in the mind of his followers,

Quite right. But then again this reasoning does nothing to advance the debate about the existence or non-existence of Jesus as an actual human person who did exist.

and secondly, your 'enlightened' recasting of the nazarene narative put aside all the actual unnecessary and gratuitous suffering carried out in his name which was predominant in the history of the West until about c.250 years.

And so it should, because neither the man (if he existed) nor the narrative has anything to do with the perversion or distortion of either or both by those who came after. This is one of the prime conceits of religious Atheism: to condemn Jesus and his message ex post facto because of the actions of others. Anybody can do anything to anyone "in the name of" someone or something else, but this does not necessarily impeach the individual whose name is invoked nor does it necessarily diminish other acts done in that same name that are beneficial rather than noxious.

It's a standard Atheist attempt at reverse guilt by association that condemns the author for the acts of the reader, as in blaming the author of "Catcher in the Rye" for John Hinckley's murder of John Lennon.

That's not how reason and logic actually work, Brian.

It seems to me that only after the literal existence of Jesus was cast into legitimate doubt, rather than just being taken for granted, that Western society finally managed to progress towards its more enlightened outlook.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Many people argue that Western society has not progressed towards enlightenment but has actually regressed into hedonistic ignorance by denying the commandments of God. Who is to say who is right?

God, I suppose, if he/she/it exists.

Actually, one especially striking recasting of the Jesus model does coincide with the greatest leaps in enlightenment and human rights during the late 18th/early 19th centuries. That recasting most directly involves models like those adopted at the time by writers like Jefferson (in his rigorously non-miracles Jefferson Gospel collation) and others of his generation. The Jefferson model was broadly reflected in a whopping majority of the most educated readers and writers of the Jefferson generation: That model was a strictly human rabbi who was historic and had nothing magic about him.

By contrast, the concurrent Jesus myther model barely made a blip at that time at all. Sure, a tiny few advanced such notions, but if we're going to determine just which Jesus model most directly impacts and reflects, at the same time, the peculiar zeitgeist of the West's 18th/19th-century progress towards its more enlightened outlook, it's the secular historic model of the Founders generation that most directly reflects and has an impact on that zeitgeist, by a mile, not the Jesus myther woo at all.

Furthermore, since that time, intense philological analysis of the original Koine Greek texts has actually confirmed that some enlightened readers like Jefferson plainly stumbled on something quite real in their initial seat-of-the-pants discrimination of which passages more likely reflected early documentation and which ones deceptive embellishment. The use of the Greek language is apparently drastically different from stratum to stratum. The philologists are to be congratulated in determining that (much of) the choices that a Jefferson made in his early cut-and-paste job eventually matched very similar conclusions made by philological experts of many years later.

To ignore this rigorous analysis duly performed -- in the teeth of the church's hysterical opposition -- by brave secular scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries is no different from ignoring the specialists who further unwrapped the full implications in Darwin's work on evolution. No one here even bothers to address the work these philological specialists did in the teeth of the church's opposition. I can't help wondering just why all this work by two or three generations of gutsy secularists in defiance of the church is being strenuously ignored on a board like this one that purports to be composed of rationalists. Could it be that mythers are just as dyed-in-the-wool reality deniers as any Westboro fundies? They sure act that way.

Stein

[Ian]

I fart in your general direction!