120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Atheos]

I've seen documentaries of the wartime as anyone else has seen. Now these testimonies were taken from people still alive who remember to the best of their recollection, what they saw during then. The programme was about an hour long and as a number of them began explaining their experience. A picture was developing giving the documentary a story, decades later, which would now become documented .

Even if you were to say that the existence and miracles of Jesus was written 10 - 50 - 80 years later after his death those people that witnessed his life would still be alive and their experience documented first hand.

The gospels are not presented in this manner. The key question here is "where did this information come from?" The answer is "We have no way to find out." The writers never claim to have seen any of this, do not claim to have talked to anyone who witnessed any of these things, and they never identify any of their sources. The writers themselves are completely anonymous. It is impossible to determine even such a basic question as whether they were written by individuals or if they were collaborative efforts.

The gospel we commonly refer to as Mark is generally accepted to be the earliest one written. It appears to have been written in or around Rome circa 75 A.D. Rome is roughly 1500 miles from Jerusalem. These logistical facts make it extremely unlikely that this narrative would have been assembled on-site by interviewing a cluster of surviving witnesses in an age when the primary means of transportation was one's own two feet. In spite of that it is possible that the information originated from people on-hand to see some of these things.

But then we get into the question of what these witnesses could have seen vs what is recorded in the narrative. Did these witnesses see the angels ministering to Jesus all alone in the wilderness for 40 days? According to GMark's chronology this would have been before Jesus even began calling his disciples. Did they see King Herod make the foolish promise to give a dancer anything? Did they witness the private conversation between this dancer and her mother? The rest of the transaction that ended up with John the Baptist getting beheaded? Did they witness the very detailed conversation between Jesus and Pilate? As we get into the later gospels (GMatt, GLuke, GJohn) we find even more inexplicable invasions of privacy, including the conversation between Herod and the Magi as well as many other private encounters that couldn't possibly have been witnessed by someone involved in the propagation of the story.

The point of all this is that the material doesn't have the appearance of documentary; rather, it has one of the hallmarks of fiction: These narratives are written using the literary device of omniscience. The later ones are considerably more guilty of this than GMark.

History is riddled with examples of ordinary people whose exploits are garnished with anecdotes of miraculous nature. George Washington didn't hurl a coin across the Potomac. Assuming there is a historical Jesus underneath the legend contained in GMark and subsequent narratives it is considerably more in keeping with historical precedent that the story got embellished over 40 years than that GMark is an accurate portrayal of actual events.

Another method often used to separate people making up stories from people reporting accurate events is to look for irreconcilable contradictions in the various stories. There are quite a few in these gospel narratives. I'll provide one for consideration: GMark is very clear that upon being baptized by John the Baptist Jesus "immediately" went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil for 40 days. But GJohn is equally clear that 3 days after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist he was attending a wedding at Cana of Galilee, where he turned water into wine. These narratives cannot both be completely true.

 

[bigfield]

Do you think that the Gospels are reliable sources?

You have to consider there are wider implications and were also to put into perpective; Jesus and his followers were dangerous to the 'laws of the rabbi's' and the 'institution of Rome'. Because then you'll not hear much of Jesus in either of their records but some do slip through.

As it is with humans , It would be 'wise as politics' to keep Jesus out of historic mention and not make a matyr of someone who could bring them both down. Besides just because the four gospels contained within the bible makes it seem like one author,making this something to debate with (not what you implied). It is actually different sources contained within.

I asked about the Gospels because they are unreliable as far as historical sources are concerned, even if one ignores that they make fantastical claims.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Do you think that the Gospels are reliable sources?

You have to consider there are wider implications and were also to put into perpective; Jesus and his followers were dangerous to the 'laws of the rabbi's' and the 'institution of Rome'. Because then you'll not hear much of Jesus in either of their records but some do slip through.

Ah, so the absence of mentions of Jesus in the historical records is evidence of the suppression of those mentions.

It really is so much more convenient when you can change the facts to fit your conclusions as opposed to needing to go through all the trouble of changing your conclusions to meet the facts.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The evidence that Jesus did miracles is not refuted by a dogma that miracle events can never happen.

This whole "advanced technology" thing is a red herring anyway. The  Nazca lines have been used by some folks to argue evidence of ancient space visitors, but the fact that the patterns can be seen from nearby foothills is enough to discount that theory for something more plausible.

What? that these lines were produced as entertainment for normal human observers looking at them from the hills? If that were the case, shouldn't these designs have been viewed from there throughout the centuries since they were produced, at least 1500 years ago? including 100 years ago? and 200 years ago? But apparently they were not, according to the footnote:

Katherine Reece, Grounding the Nasca Balloon, In the Hall of Ma'at: "It is incorrect to say that the lines cannot be seen from the ground. They are visible from atop the surrounding foothills. The credit for the discovery of the lines goes to Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe who spotted them when hiking through the foothills in 1927."

What? "the discovery"? in 1927?

These were not "discovered" until 1927! But how can that be if they were easily visible from nearby foothills? Why did no one notice them before 1927? (i.e., as man-made designs of various animal shapes etc. Earlier they had been noticed from the ground and mistaken for "trail markers" but not really noticed as the giant-sized art figures recognizable from above.)

If these were produced for the benefit of observers from the nearby foothills, then why did no one ever notice them from there during all those centuries?

Here's a site giving photos of the designs from ground level, some of them from the hills. It's obvious that an observer from there could not possibly recognize these figures for the art objects that they are obviously intended as.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/edward-ranney-peru-photos-the-lines-180953694/?no-ist

So this does not explain why these lines were produced. The only explanation still is that they were to be viewed by someone who was able to see them from directly above, whoever that someone might have been.

But at least it's physical evidence of something and therefore merits some explanation other than "people made up stories."

Yes, it's physical evidence that some things happen for which the experts have no explanation. And so since we have strong evidence of such unexplainable events or phenomena, we can also trust written accounts of past events for possible evidence of other unexplained phenomena which were observed but left no physical trace for us to see today, as 99.99999% of our known historical events left no trace other than the written accounts which survived.

The large amount of mythology that includes miracles, god-men, explanations of mysteries and provisions for the control and manipulation of large groups of people is enough to safely place the Jesus mythos into the same category of storytelling.

The large amount of mythology that includes miracles, . . .

But only invented and developed over centuries of legend-building. No miracles which popped up suddenly in history like the Jesus healing miracles and resurrection, based on no earlier precedent but appearing suddenly outside any tradition of similar stories providing a pattern which miracle claims normally fit into.

. . . god-men, . . .

But all of them only hero legends which evolved over many generations or centuries, and/or all based on heroes who were famous celebrities during their lifetimes and had long distinguished careers, which easily explains how the fictional stories originated and were so easily believed by the thousands/millions of admirers.

. . . explanations of mysteries and provisions for the control and manipulation of large groups of people . . .

That's mostly paranoia. If hero stories were invented to manipulate people, then so was everything invented for that purpose -- philosophy, science, art, literature, technology, business -- everything ever contrived by humans was done in order to control and manipulate large groups of people. Also the Internet was invented for that purpose, and this message board, and everyone posting here -- everyone's purpose in life, everything they do, is to control and manipulate everyone else. And this is supposed to explain something?

. . . is enough to safely place the Jesus mythos into the same category of storytelling.

No, you placed the "Jesus mythos" into the "storytelling" category without comparing it to anything else or measuring it by anything other than your fundamental premise that no miracle event can ever happen, no matter what.

For real examples of storytelling, containing miracle claims -- but minus the paranoia about "control and manipulation" -- whatever case you cite, it can be recognized as being produced by the normal legend-building process, or myth-making process, usually requiring generations or centuries to evolve, not only a few decades.

You can never give an example of a "story" or "storytelling" which shows a fiction miracle appearing suddenly and thus explaining how the Jesus miracle stories popped up in history with no precedent, with no normal explanation such as we can plainly see in all the other examples. You can only speak in general terms without giving any specific example of such a case.

The phony analogy to the pagan deities/heroes breaks down, since these obviously required centuries to evolve. And even the modern cases you offer are ones where a famous/notorious celebrity feeds off an ancient miracle tradition and wins followers during a long career of winning disciples with his charisma, which explains his success if he had talent and charisma. But this cannot explain the Jesus miracle stories.

Of course you can reasonably say, "Well, there has to be an explanation somewhere, because we know miracle events can't really happen," etc., and so that's an OK fall-back position to take, but you cannot condemn the Christ-belief as unreasonable or as just one more superstition like all the others. Rather, you can just reject all miracles -- period -- as out of bounds no matter what, and so still insist it's fiction, based on the premise that there just can't be any miracle event, despite any evidence.

And so you come to this conclusion only by falling back on your fundamental premise that there can be no miracle event ever, not by looking at similar examples of "storytelling" and seeing that the Jesus case is like all those others which are debunked.

It's just that fundamental premise and nothing else which puts the "Jesus mythos" into that "storytelling" category.

People don't walk on water, heal neurological conditions such as paralysis and blindness with a touch, transform water into wine, turn morsels into feasts for thousands or levitate off into the sky never to be seen again.

In general such events don't happen.

But if there's evidence that it did happen once, or that some such events did happen maybe rarely, then it's irrelevant that such events don't usually happen -- this does not prove they can never happen. If there's evidence -- reports, written accounts -- that it happened in this case, or maybe in some other case here or there, then it's a reasonable possibility. There's nothing in logic or science which says unique or singular events can never happen.

Your only reason is "People don't . . . " etc., i.e., such things do not happen or cannot happen. That states your whole case, from beginning to end, for putting the gospel accounts into the "storytelling" category. I.e., those events did not happen because such things never happen and cannot happen. That's your entire case.

The telling thing about all of these "miracles" is that they left behind not a single trace of their ever having happened.

99.99999999% of all events never left "a single trace" of having happened. But they did happen.

Actually though, a written account surviving to our time, which tells of an event, is a "trace" and is the basis for 99% of our known history.

This is perfectly consistent with unfalsifiable storytelling such as the infamous "invisible dragon."

Virtually all historical events are "unfalsifiable" as claims of what happened. Name an historical event that is "falsifiable" other than by comparing it to documents saying something different happened, i.e., the "storytelling" of one document compared to the "storytelling" of the other. All those documents, from which we get our historical facts, are nothing but "unfalsifiable storytelling" which cannot be verified or checked (at this point in history before we have time machines in which to go back and replay the events to see what really happened).

Lumpenproletariat has spent page upon page throwing up clouds of dust trying to point out anything unique about the development of the Jesus myth and arguing that these unique aspects are more parsimoniously explained by the miracles actually happening than people making up stories.

But you have nothing to offer other than the fall-back retort that "people making up stories" has to be the explanation, even though there's no evidence that anyone did make up these stories, while in other cases there is such evidence. The significant difference with the Jesus miracle stories is that in this case there's no indication that they were made up, as opposed to all other miracle legends (or virtually all) for which there is evidence that mythologizing is what produced them.

This is apparent from your inability to give one example of a miracle legend for which we cannot easily explain how the mythologizing got started and produced the fictional stories, usually over many generations or centuries. So you're not giving any specific examples, because when you have done that each one was easily shot down as an obvious case of mythologizing which could easily be pointed out.

It's laughable. There's nothing impossible about someone making up stories, convincing people to believe them, influencing folks to write them down and copy them.

It is impossible. It has never happened. Sure, such stories get invented and duplicated by modern technology, but no one tirelessly copies them -- rather, the stories are easily distributed by the millions at almost no cost, and so today the made-up stories can spread with all the rest. But 1000 or 2000 years ago they could not. There were no instant miracle legends which circulated, because it was impossible to get enough people to believe it. You can't name any example of it happening.

You can't be sure it was possible if it never happened -- 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago -- in such a short time period, at a time when folks hardly ever wrote anything and copied it. Why does this one case only stick out so conspicuously? If such things could easily happen, why did it happen only this once?

There's everything impossible about actually turning water into wine, walking on the storm-tossed water of lake Galilee and levitating unassisted off into the sky never to be seen again.

By simply repeating this mantra over and over you are just admitting that there is really no reason to disbelieve the Jesus miracle stories other than just the basic premise that such things can't happen, or Such stuff just don't never happen!, god-dang-it, and that's the entirety of your reason why we should disbelieve it.

People make up stories, get people to believe and copy them today and in more recent history all the time.

You mean ONLY in recent times. Going back a few centuries NONE of that happened, except that people made up the stories, but virtually no one believed them, and no one recorded and copied them, whereas today they're reproduced by the millions. It's impossible to give a plausible explanation how the Jesus miracle stories could have sprouted up (as fiction) and spread in those times when virtually nothing was written down and copied.

There are of course the big examples of Mohammad . . .

You should not include this example. The Mohammad miracle stories didn't appear until 200 years after his life, and even most Muslims don't believe those stories.

. . . and Joseph Smith but there are hordes of others.

Yes, in modern times when EVERYthing gets published. You can't name one except in modern times when the publishing industry makes everything into tabloid gossip distributed to millions of entertainment-seekers.

And at that, virtually all of them claim Jesus as the source of their power, so it's obvious that plugging into a much earlier centuries-old miracle legend is virtually always a prerequisite for these story-maker-uppers.

Lumpenproletariat must therefore draw ever tighter sharpshooter bullseyes around his . . .

Again, you're an expert with the "sharpshooter" and "bullseye" rhetoric, but you can never show an actual fallacy in my point that the Jesus case cannot be explained by normal mythologizing whereas all the other story-teller miracle legends can be. You have to show where the flaw in the logic is, not just keep throwing around the fancy jargon, as though the technical terminology per se proves that a fallacy is taking place.

We're all willing to give you an "A" for having memorized diligently this rhetoric and reciting it like an expert with a Ph.D in Logic (or like a robot programmed to repeat it back), but when will you do the real work of showing what the flaw is?

All those miracle legends you have in mind were cases where there was a distinguished celebrity figure who was popular, probably over a long career, winning disciples, and who got his direct disciples to claim he did those miracle acts, having been influenced for a long time by his charisma.

It often required many generations for the legend to develop and the miracle claims to appear, but even in cases where the miracle claims appeared earlier, it was always a high-profile public figure with a wide reputation and about whom there was much gossip and rumor circulating over many years. This explains why he got deified or mythologized into something superhuman. This is always the case and explains how the fictional story-telling emerged. But the Jesus case cannot be explained this way. There is no logical flaw in making this comparison. It is a legitimate distinction between him and all the other miracle legends which explains how the fictional stories could appear in all those cases.

. . . favorite myth by bringing in such irrelevant things as the invention of the printing press and . . .

It is NOT irrelevant. I've pointed out why it's relevant many times. Can't you figure it out -- With machines that spin out millions of copies in a few days, is it difficult to explain how a story spreads so much faster in modern times? how it spreads at all? It could not happen 1000 or 2000 years ago. The same modern story transplanted back 1000 years ago would have been forgotten and not recorded at all for any wide reading audience. Why are you having trouble figuring this out? What is the logical flaw in pointing out this obvious difference between the fast spread of a story today vs. the slow spread of such a story 1000 years ago?

. . . and completely made-up shit like anonymous bystanders.

For every guru you can cite who allegedly cured someone, it is obvious that it's only his direct disciples who originate the miracle stories and propagate them. And it's always one of his own direct disciples who was the victim healed. This is universally the case in every example you can give. It is clear from the examples, from the account of the event, which always comes from a direct disciple only.

But a simple reading of the Jesus miracles, beginning in Mark, and going through in any order, shows clearly that the ones who originated the stories and spread them were usually non-disciples of his. The text clearly implies this many times and in some cases says it explicitly. You cannot refute this other than to just insist that the writers deliberately distorted the accounts to make it appear that the miracle reports originated this way, in order to provide debate material for 20th- and 21st-century Christian apologists.

The point of this whole discussion is whether or not there is any evidence that requires further explanation.

Further explanation is always required. No one yet has explained how the Jesus legend popped up so suddenly, published in multiple documents. It's the only case of this, which indicates that it was very difficult for instant miracle legends to emerge and be published, maybe impossible.

There isn't. Just as the nearby foothills are adequate explanation for the Nazca lines, . . .

No they are not adequate explanation. By that explanation, it should not have taken until 1927 for them to be discovered.

Why do you have such a problem admitting that there are some unusual events in the world for which we do not have any standard explanation? It's true that often there is a simple explanation. But it is unscientific and irrational to insist dogmatically that there is nothing unexplained, that everything has been explained by scientists or other experts and that all miracle claims have to be dismissed as storytelling or as shit someone made up.

. . . the ease with which thousands (even millions) of people can be duped into believing the most absurd and bizarre claims with little or no evidence . . .

It's only a tiny tiny fraction of people who can be duped with little or no evidence. All the charlatans you have in mind are rejected by 1000 times more than the ones they're able to dupe. And 1000 years ago similar charlatans were ignored and forgotten entirely by history, not gaining any mention at all in any written record that survived.

. . . is sufficient to explain the early development of Christianity.

No, a simplistic platitude that people are easily duped or that they "make up shit" does not explain anything.

It doesn't explain the wide spread of the Jesus miracle stories, being published in multiple accounts in less than 100 years, and how Jesus was made into a god in less than 40 years. Everything that explains how charlatans and cult gurus and miracle legends have been able to sprout up and spread in some cases cannot explain how the Jesus miracle legend spread.

Your only explanation is to keep repeating "people make up shit! people make up shit!" over and over like the Energizer Bunny just keeps beating its drum. You give no reason why the gospel accounts are not credible other than to just keep repeating the "make up shit" slogan over and over, and insist such events cannot happen.

So you have not explained "the early development of Christianity" and the "Jesus mythos" by just repeating "It can't happen!" or "People don't this, or people don't that" or they just "made up shit" over and over -- no, just huffing-and-puffing that it can't be so does not explain away the evidence that it is so.

 

[Keith&Co.]

no, just huffing-and-puffing that it can't be so does not explain away the evidence that it is so.

Likewise, pretending that there IS evidence that 'it is so' does not make it so...

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

That the gospel accounts are "anonymous" does not make them less reliable as a source for the historical events.

that would depend on how you went about determining which is true and which is false, wouldn't it?

That a document is "anonymous" does not disqualify it as a source for history. The Royal Frankish Annals are accepted as a source for history, even though they're anonymous, and also they contain miracle stories ("tales"):

Do you have anything to show that the miracle stories are taken as historical events because of this anonymous document?

The point is that the document is not rejected as historical simply because it is anonymous. I.e., being "anonymous" does not disqualify it from being accepted as historical, or as being credible for historical events.

So it is silly and irrelevant to keep pointing out that the gospel accounts are "anonymous" as though this makes them less credible as a source for the events.

As to whether the miracle events are historical, they are reported in multiple sources rather than only one, and these are relatively close in time to when the events allegedly happened, which makes them more credible than all the other miracle claims, like the pagan myths, and miracle legends like Simon Magus and Apollonius of Tyana and the other alleged parallels to Jesus.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

that would depend on how you went about determining which is true and which is false, wouldn't it?

Do you have anything to show that the miracle stories are taken as historical events because of this anonymous document?

The point is that the document is not rejected as historical simply because it is anonymous. I.e., being "anonymous" does not disqualify it from being accepted as historical, or as being credible for historical events.

Right. But when the anonymous document also contains elements known to be false, muddles up dates and locations, and has many stories clearly based on, or specifically included to comform to, earlier stories from the same tradition ... then its credibility as an historical source has to be called into question, if not downright rejected.

So it is silly and irrelevant to keep pointing out that the gospel accounts are "anonymous" as though this makes them less credible as a source for the events.

As to whether the miracle events are historical, they are reported in multiple sources rather than only one, and these are relatively close in time to when the events allegedly happened, which makes them more credible than all the other miracle claims, like the pagan myths, and miracle legends like Simon Magus and Apollonius of Tyana and the other alleged parallels to Jesus.

Once again, you peddle the "multiple sources" line, when it is obvious that the stories in question are derived from a single source, with the later authors adding their own flourishes as the oral tradition developed. This is as much of a shell game or Three-Card Trick as your insistence on treating the gospels as evidence supporting the miracle claim, when what they are is the claim itself.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The point is that the document is not rejected as historical simply because it is anonymous.

Yes, you're trying to show that anonymous accounts are taken as historical SO THAT you can pretend that the miracles attributed to Jesus can be taken historically.

But that's why I asked,

Do you have anything to show that the miracle stories are taken as historical events because of this anonymous document?

If not, if the anonymous stories of miraculous events are NOT taken as history, then it's not really a useful document to support your case, is it?

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

You should not include this example. The Mohammad miracle stories didn't appear until 200 years after his life, and even most Muslims don't believe those stories.

Not so. The splitting of the moon and the night journey to Jerusalem and heaven are both alluded to in the Koran, as are stories of angels helping the muslims at various battles. The Koran was compiled in the decades following Mohammed's death, with the earliest known copy dating from before 671CE, less than 40 years after his death.

 

[Learner]

The gospels are not presented in this manner. The key question here is "where did this information come from?" The answer is "We have no way to find out." The writers never claim to have seen any of this, do not claim to have talked to anyone who witnessed any of these things, and they never identify any of their sources. The writers themselves are completely anonymous. It is impossible to determine even such a basic question as whether they were written by individuals or if they were collaborative efforts.

The point is that the documentary was made 50 years after the war. Quite a few people still around to interview or give testimony.

The gospel we commonly refer to as Mark is generally accepted to be the earliest one written. It appears to have been written in or around Rome circa 75 A.D. Rome is roughly 1500 miles from Jerusalem. These logistical facts make it extremely unlikely that this narrative would have been assembled on-site by interviewing a cluster of surviving witnesses in an age when the primary means of transportation was one's own two feet. In spite of that it is possible that the information originated from people on-hand to see some of these things.

Mark is also accepted to have written his gospels in 63 A.D. but Rome is as you say more likely where he may have written them according to scholars. Mark like all the others, were on similar missions so there would be ample time to meet and talk with people throughout his journey to Rome.

But then we get into the question of what these witnesses could have seen vs what is recorded in the narrative. Did these witnesses see the angels ministering to Jesus all alone in the wilderness for 40 days? According to GMark's chronology this would have been before Jesus even began calling his disciples. Did they see King Herod make the foolish promise to give a dancer anything? Did they witness the private conversation between this dancer and her mother? The rest of the transaction that ended up with John the Baptist getting beheaded? Did they witness the very detailed conversation between Jesus and Pilate? As we get into the later gospels (GMatt, GLuke, GJohn) we find even more inexplicable invasions of privacy, including the conversation between Herod and the Magi as well as many other private encounters that couldn't possibly have been witnessed by someone involved in the propagation of the story. The point of all this is that the material doesn't have the appearance of documentary; rather, it has one of the hallmarks of fiction: These narratives are written using the literary device of omniscience. The later ones are considerably more guilty of this than GMark.

Jesus would have told his desciples about his experience, administered by angels in the wilderness, being that they are close to him. True, we wonder about some of the biographies of wellknowns that have been written by others and to wonder; how do they know these particular habits of this character they're writing about or for example; knew what was said to the postman in a small conversation?

I understand what you're getting at but your mentioned above could still have 3rd party participants in the scenarios although not so much an importance to mention.Like a maid or other servant that usually knows what goes on. Word spreads easily and gossip is normal in places of oral tradition. Granted there are some issues at odds with logic.

History is riddled with examples of ordinary people whose exploits are garnished with anecdotes of miraculous nature. George Washington didn't hurl a coin across the Potomac. Assuming there is a historical Jesus underneath the legend contained in GMark and subsequent narratives it is considerably more in keeping with historical precedent that the story got embellished over 40 years than that GMark is an accurate portrayal of actual events.

The Jews charged Jesus as a sorcerer or magician. Other examples like the allegations of magic made by Celsus, a pagan philosopher, although this was in the second century. It is clear depending/regardless the perspective between magic or miracles. Jesus is seen here to have performed these incredible feats quite early on.

Another method often used to separate people making up stories from people reporting accurate events is to look for irreconcilable contradictions in the various stories. There are quite a few in these gospel narratives. I'll provide one for consideration: GMark is very clear that upon being baptized by John the Baptist Jesus "immediately" went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil for 40 days. But GJohn is equally clear that 3 days after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist he was attending a wedding at Cana of Galilee, where he turned water into wine. These narratives cannot both be completely true.

These contradictions are also in favour of showing people telling the truth to the best of their ability. For example; 4 suspects in court having the exact same storyline would be to investigators highly suspicious. The storyline would then be cast into doubt if they were all identical storylines with no contradictions because this doesn't happen when 4 people tell the truth to their recollections. It also shows that the gospels are true according to the writers because the early church has not tried to hide the fact there are contradictions (also because its dishonest). It also shows that the gospels writers were independent.

 

[Learner]

You have to consider there are wider implications and were also to put into perpective; Jesus and his followers were dangerous to the 'laws of the rabbi's' and the 'institution of Rome'. Because then you'll not hear much of Jesus in either of their records but some do slip through.

Ah, so the absence of mentions of Jesus in the historical records is evidence of the suppression of those mentions.

It really is so much more convenient when you can change the facts to fit your conclusions as opposed to needing to go through all the trouble of changing your conclusions to meet the facts.

True but you also have to consider having some allowance by the nature of sectarian politics back then that people got roused up to do. There are others like this but I borrowed this snippet demostrating a suppression of mention. They've done it again it seems.

It has also been suggested that the exclusion of the Books of the Maccabees can be traced to the political rivalry that existed during the late Second Temple Period between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees, a priestly class in charge of the Temple, openly rejected the oral interpretations that the Pharisees, the proto-rabbinic class, openly promoted. The Maccabees were a priestly family, while the rabbis who may have determined the final form of the biblical canon at Jamnia were descended from the Pharisees. Is it possible that the exclusion of the Books of Maccabees was one of the last salvos in the battle between the Pharisees and Sadducees?
By Rachael Turkienicz

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, it could have been. Just like it could have been that the US faked the moon landing because they wanted a propaganda victory against the Soviet Union. The Cold War was real and they had the sound stages in Hollywood and it's possible that they faked the whole thing so that Russia wouldn't be able to claim another victory against them in the space race.

Just because a narrative can be invented for a certain plot which pulls various disparate threads together isn't a reason to grant historical accuracy to that invented narrative.

 

[Atheos]

Among other things Lumpenproletariat in his most recent post said:

Mark is also accepted to have written his gospels in 63 A.D. but Rome is as you say more likely where he may have written them according to scholars. Mark like all the others, were on similar missions so there would be ample time to meet and talk with people throughout his journey to Rome.

Quibbling over about 7-10 years of difference on the date GMark was written is irrelevant. The vast majority of consensus is 70 AD, placing it roughly 40 years removed from the events in question. However the part of this post with which I most strenuously object is Lumpenproletariat's habit of baselessly asserting things like "Mark ... were on similar missions." Since we have no clue who wrote this book, much less whether it was the result of a single author or a collaborative work of a group, making unsupported claims like this and then using them as a foundation for an entire line of argumentation is a waste of everyone's time.

The point of the post to which Lumpenproletariat was responding was that GMark is not presented as a documentary, especially as one similar to those Learner referenced in which interviews with people involved in wartime conflict were cited. I stand behind that statement. Whoever originated this narrative never claims to have seen any of the events, never claims to have talked to anyone who witnessed any of these things, never identifies any of the sources from which these things were derived. It is no more a documentary than "A Visit From St Nicholas." To argue that nobody takes the latter seriously is irrelevant. Whoever wrote it used stories, imagery, even legends that had been passed around. It had a profound effect on galvanizing the American culture of who Santa Claus was. In this sense it could very well be possible that "Visit" and GMark were very similar as they provided the catalyst by which people who were at odds with each other about the Jesus stories could begin to find agreement through the effect of appeal to authority.

I would argue that GMark is much more similar to "A Visit from St Nick" than the wartime documentaries Learner appealed to earlier in this thread. Both have anonymous source material, both were originally anonymous and later ascribed to authors, both describe things that are impossible, both became widely accepted, and both had an effect on how people envisioned the primary character in the story.

 

[funinspace]

The gospel we commonly refer to as Mark is generally accepted to be the earliest one written. It appears to have been written in or around Rome circa 75 A.D. Rome is roughly 1500 miles from Jerusalem. These logistical facts make it extremely unlikely that this narrative would have been assembled on-site by interviewing a cluster of surviving witnesses in an age when the primary means of transportation was one's own two feet. In spite of that it is possible that the information originated from people on-hand to see some of these things.

Mark is also accepted to have written his gospels in 63 A.D. but Rome is as you say more likely where he may have written them according to scholars. Mark like all the others, were on similar missions so there would be ample time to meet and talk with people throughout his journey to Rome.

Which Mark is the real Mark? Was that Mark the Evangelist, or John Mark, or Mark the cousin of Barnabas, or even another Mark?

Another method often used to separate people making up stories from people reporting accurate events is to look for irreconcilable contradictions in the various stories. There are quite a few in these gospel narratives. I'll provide one for consideration: GMark is very clear that upon being baptized by John the Baptist Jesus "immediately" went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil for 40 days. But GJohn is equally clear that 3 days after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist he was attending a wedding at Cana of Galilee, where he turned water into wine. These narratives cannot both be completely true.

These contradictions are also in favour of showing people telling the truth to the best of their ability. For example; 4 suspects in court having the exact same storyline would be to investigators highly suspicious. The storyline would then be cast into doubt if they were all identical storylines with no contradictions because this doesn't happen when 4 people tell the truth to their recollections. It also shows that the gospels are true according to the writers because the early church has not tried to hide the fact there are contradictions (also because its dishonest). It also shows that the gospels writers were independent.

Except that in court they don’t like people faking shit into the record, as it is called perjury. As with Mark, someone(s) didn’t like the ending so they added a better ending to fit in with the later Gospels. We have other instances where it is known that verses were tweaked to make things like the Trinity better substantiated. We don’t tend to like it when police add details to make the suspect look guiltier for good reason. It tends to reduce the credibility of the witness. Every church across the empire was claiming founding disciples and relics to bolster their perceived importance and status, not seeming to care about “honesty”. Some Christian(s) forged information into the writings of Josephus as they didn’t like Jesus being left out of his writings. It seems that the early followers of The Way acted just like all other humans….

It seems that your God wasn’t all that concerned about maintaining a quality paper trail. Your God’s choices for the Good News revelation is directly related to the weakness of the message and the reality that most of the world has never bought the sales pitch, and by all appearances never will. I figured I would just quote what I wrote a couple months ago in this never ending thread below. I would imagine that if even just a few of the below items were done as I say below by this all powerful purported God, then I would have not been tested beyond what I could bear, and wouldn’t have lost my faith. For a god that supposedly has a master plan that includes an eternal Auschwitz set up for the many billions that fail to see the light, he sure doesn’t seem to have put in much effort on the believability front. And as far as free will goes, all of Yahweh’s massive parlor tricks during the Exodus didn’t seem to freeze up the free will of those rebellious Jews, who in a blink of an eye, were off track making idols to other gods.

I don’t have a special checklist. But I’d say what would be reasonably impressive from a god, would be a holy book that it helped make sure wasn’t chalk full of BS fables, nor had people latter forging changes into it. It would be more impressive if the holy texts were more definitive as to who wrote them and that they actually knew the people they were talking about. Islam has that part going for it, but little else. It would be more impressive still, if it had guidance that clearly couldn’t have possibly have been known in its day. It would also be far more reasonable if so much of the Bible didn't talk in terms of how little goat herders knew. For example, just how far was Jesus supposed to see when Satan took him up to the mountain top, when we are on a spherical planet? And if there had to be parlor tricks, then it would be even more impressive if such an event was noticed by other peoples and written down and preserved. For example, if somehow there was a 24 hour day in Canaan, then it would be fascinating to have the Egyptians writing about it in absolute panic; or maybe the Chinese writing about a night that never seemed to end. At a smaller level, just imagine if Pilate had written back to Rome about a rather odd character, that the Jewish rabbinical leaders insisted had to be executed. Since Rome did keep good records, it certainly wouldn’t have been hard to manage…for a REAL god. Instead we get stories about the purportedly worldly renowned King Solomon cuz he was so damn wise. Yet, the world never seemed to notice. Yahweh did so many massive magic tricks as part of the Exodus, in part, to make sure the Egyptians would know he is the Lord. Yet, all we know is Yahwehwho...

If this purported Christian God of the eternal torment and heaven type, really was interested in helping humans make the right choice, it has certainly done a really shitty job of it. Today, even the percentage of Christians is probably down to 28-30% of the world population. The Christian population probably peaked out around 1900, with roughly 34% of the world population. In 1800, it was only 22% (see below linky)
http://christianityinview.com/religion-statistics.html

Even if we assume that all of Europe was Christian in 1500AD, that would put Christianity only at 18% of the population. And in 1000AD Europe was only 15% of the world population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_...y_world_region

So for a god that purported exists and cares about his little ant farm, he sure never did a good job getting the word out...

 

[Smoker]

Not sure what I could say here regarding hell's torment at this moment apart from that it was only mean't for fallen angels.

You should tell that to my old Baptist preacher, and Church Camp, that convinced me when I was a child that I would suffer forever in a literal lake of fire if I pissed off Jesus or his father too much, or you could try to explain that to the majority of American Christians and Muslims who think there is a real place called Hell where unbelievers are in torment for eternity.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The credibility of the Jesus miracle stories vs. lack of credibility for all the other miracle legends

You should not include this example. The Mohammad miracle stories didn't appear until 200 years after his life, and even most Muslims don't believe those stories.

Not so. The splitting of the moon and the night journey to Jerusalem and heaven are both alluded to in the Koran, . . .

You can call these "miracles" if you want, but that this is all you can come up with only proves my point.

Constantine's vision of a cross in the sky was also a "miracle" of sorts, but portents like this are not to be compared to real acts of power such as healing a person from a deformity or disease.

. . . as are stories of angels helping the muslims at various battles.

Come off it -- it's common for stories of great battle scenes to contain visions or "miracle" claims of one kind or another. You have to do better than this to make a serious comparison to the Jesus miracle stories.

The real "miracle" stories of Mohammed are those in the later writings, mainly the Hadith:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_of_Muhammad

Miracles of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad are a number of supernatural occurrences, which according to Islamic tradition were made by Muhammad during his lifetime. These miracles are shown either in the Qur'an or, in the vast majority of cases, in the hadith (traditions of Muhammad). Muhammad's miracles encompass a broad range, such as the multiplication of food, manifestation of water, hidden knowledge, prophesies, healing, punishment, and power over nature.

(These latter are the really serious Mohammad miracle stories, not visions of moon-splittings and journeys to Jerusalem.)

According to historian Denis Gril, the Qur'an does not overtly describe Muhammad performing miracles, and the supreme miracle of Muhammad is finally identified with the Qur'an itself. However, several miracles are reported in the Quran and miracles "appear early and often in the hadith" and the hadiths are indispensable in elucidating Muhammad's miracles.

The Koran was compiled in the decades following Mohammed's death, with the earliest known copy dating from before 671CE, less than 40 years after his death.

Even if it could be granted that this shows 1 or 2 examples of "miracles" attributed to him soon after the reputed events happened, it obviously is an example of miracle legends attributed to a famous celebrity figure who had a long colorful career, similar to the example of Emperor Vespasian, to whom a miracle was attributed. There are a few cases like this, where a long distinguished career gives rise to early legends perhaps even before the hero's death. His wide reputation and notoriety easily explains how the fiction stories emerged as a result of mythologizing. But this cannot explain the origin of the Jesus miracle stories.

As to credibility,The case of Mohammed "splitting" the moon is inadequate also because the SOURCE of the miracle story has to be someone other than the charismatic miracle-worker himself, and so for this reason also the Mohammed/Koran example is pathetic as any kind of comparison to the Jesus miracle stories.

It's actually amazing that there are no serious miracle stories about Mohammed until 200 years later. That you can offer only these paltry examples really proves the main point that miracle legends generally require many generations in order to take shape. And the example of the Jesus miracles in the gospels is a jarring departure from this pattern which has no normal explanation.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, that wins the Cognitive Dissonance Award of the Year.

PM me your info because that award comes with a $50 coupon at The Keg and the mod team needs to send it to you.

 

[funinspace]

Well, that wins the Cognitive Dissonance Award of the Year.

PM me your info because that award comes with a $50 coupon at The Keg and the mod team needs to send it to you.

Does that come with the MP3 for '99,999,999 bottles of beer on the wall'?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, that wins the Cognitive Dissonance Award of the Year.

PM me your info because that award comes with a $50 coupon at The Keg and the mod team needs to send it to you.

Does that come with the MP3 for '99,999,999 bottles of beer on the wall'?

No, that's the prize for the best Race Baiting Post. The competition for that one is still wide open.

 

[James Brown]

I'd like to see this ranking system, where miracles are sorted and scored, judged and evaluated, where one miracle is "not to be compared" to another, where yet another miracle is "not serious."

It's also curious that miracle stories during times of war are "common" and can thus be discounted. Whereas miracles stories involving sick people are rare. Thus, the more frequently a miracle is reported, the less likely it actually occurred.

Also curious, that miracle stories told by the miracle workers themselves are suspect due to bias, whereas miracle stories told by biased followers of miracle workers are to be believed.