120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Atheos]

okay, I'll ask.
what is the source to confirm that there was a jesus that wasn't as described in the Bible?

Why would there need to be some source to confirm this? "Jesus" was a plenty common name back then as it is even now in some cultures. There were plenty of itinerant preachers back then.

The single most plausible explanation of the existence of the "Jesus" myth is that the character evolved from a variety of sources with extraordinary details (miracles) added as the story grew over decades of retelling. The single most unlikely explanation for the existence of these stories is that everything happened exactly as described (including "Matthew's" zombie resurrection narrative when Jesus died on the cross). There are too many outright contradictions between the narratives for this to be possible even if one were to suspend all rationale and accept the extraordinary claims with absolutely zero evidence for doing so.

Accepting these stories uncritically is no more rational than accepting that a political advertisement tells you the entire truth about the politician being advertised as well as his or her opponent. If he's your guy you want to believe the ad. If you're rooting for the other guy you immediately see all the holes in the talking points in the ad.

My take is that the whole thing probably started off with a simple itinerant preacher named Jesus who had a small following, spoke out against the injustices of society in his day and got his ass crucified for his efforts. From there the legend grew, people putting words into the mouth of this "prophet." Periscopes were added, such as the story of the woman taken in adultery. The myth was fortified with other tales to combat the most common claims of Greek gods who could turn water into wine, control the elements, heal diseases, etc. "My god is better than your god..." As time went by various anonymous redactors attempted to create "gospels" from the stories they'd heard, borrowing from each other along the way. These coalesced into the many different gospels that proliferated for awhile until the council of Nicea (325 AD) decided to summarily declare all gospels except for the four we commonly think of today as the "four gospels" as heretical.

This may well not be how it happened at all, but it is a very plausible scenario based on the evidence we have available.

 

[Keith&Co.]

okay, I'll ask.
what is the source to confirm that there was a jesus that wasn't as described in the Bible?

Why would there need to be some source to confirm this?

I think none's question was not along the linesof 'how do you know that Jesus did not exactly conform to the Jesus myth described in The Books?' as much as 'if you're going to claim to know what the 'real' Jesus was like, what do you use to filter real and unreal parts of the myth?'

 

[none]

yeah, along the lines of that^
if you don't believe the jesus of the bible was real it seems you are fabricating a jesus along some speculative narrative.
it seems to be more than guesswork on your part to suggest that there was a jesus but not a bible jesus and that is not really important because nobody really wants to talk about non biblical jesus it seems.
you must rely on the bible to tell a tale of a jesus, whether you think jesus was myth or not.
if you aren't relying on the bible to prove myth or a true jesus what are you relying upon?
I don't think you can come up with a narrative of jesus of the bible without the bible and that would mean you are talking about bible jesus.

 

[Atheos]

I've presented my rationale and don't see why there's a problem with it. An argument has been presented in which someone claims that the best explanation of the "Jesus" narratives in the canonical gospels is that this person actually existed and that this person did everything these stories claim he did. My point is that it is more likely that the stories were at least fabricated in part. The existence of extraordinary elements such as walking on water, virgin birth, raising dead people and levitating off into the sky are far better explained by people making shit up than they are by "well it actually happened just like this."

I tried to be clear that the scenario I presented is just plausible, not that it actually happened that way. We have many historical examples of legends evolving around ordinary people and we generally dismiss the fantastic once we apply even a bit of rational thinking. There might have been an ordinary man who inspired the legends of Paul Bunyan but nobody cares because you don't have to believe in Paul Bunyan to avoid being summarily tossed into a lake of fire for all eternity. St. Nicholas was a perfectly ordinary man, but Santa Claus can see you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake. And if you're not good he'll bring you lumps of coal instead of toys.

It is plausible that Jesus as presented in the bible was inspired by some actual person. It is also plausible that the legend was entirely developed from whole cloth using the mythic hero formula and a super hero-god who was a composite of many of the already existing myths of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans. What is not plausible is that the stories as written in the canonical gospels actually happened exactly as described and it is certain that they are all completely anonymous. Calling them "eyewitness accounts" is so far from what they are as to be downright dishonest, yet people parrot this claim uncritically as if somehow saying it often enough will make it true.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Pascal's Wager -- It might be true.

And pascals wager is a dead horse: how do you know that you won't be tormented in eternity for your belief?

Didn't Pascal say something like: "We don't know if there's a Heaven or Hell, so just go to Mass anyway just to play it safe -- Who knows, it might end up saving your soul -- it can't hurt, can it?"

Or, we don't know if it's true, but it might be. So believe it just to be sure.

The logic has to be that it's better to believe and it's not true than to not believe and it is true.

Sometimes this can be the case. Playing it safe is like taking precautions that turn out not to be necessary.

Like wearing a seatbelt: Suppose you're not the driver but a passenger and you assume there will be an accident, even though there probably won't be. But you assume it anyway and wear the seatbelt. So "how do you know that you won't be tormented in eternity for your belief?" would be like saying to that passenger, "How do you know the seatbelt won't kill you?" like it traps you in the car on fire after the crash and you can't get out.

You never know -- the seatbelt might end up killing you.

Or: The environmentalist warns against global warming and weather disasters if we don't reduce carbon emissions. But the anti-environmentalist retorts: How do you know the global warming isn't GOOD and that lower CO2 emissions will mean WORSE weather conditions rather than better conditions?

So, the Pascal's Wager argument is not totally flawed. It's not always wrong to say "It may or may not be true, but it's safer to assume it's true." This thinking is sometimes correct. It depends. Even when the likelihood is less than 50% it may still be reasonable to assume it's true, to be on the safe side.

Some medical decisions are made like this. The likelihood of cure from a treatment might be only 30% or 40%. But the treatment is done anyway, as a chance. As long as there's no reason to assume harm to be caused by the choice.

You can't just reject all Pascal's Wager choices. It's not always wrong to assume the worst possible scenario, or to assume a bad possibility and make some choice to avoid that possibility, even though you know it might not be so.

It's not true that a "Pascal's Wager" kind of reasoning must ipso facto always be wrong.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And pascals wager is a dead horse: how do you know that you won't be tormented in eternity for your belief?

Didn't Pascal say something like: "We don't know if there's a Heaven or Hell, so just go to Mass anyway just to play it safe -- Who knows, it might end up saving your soul -- it can't hurt, can it?"

Sort of. That's how it's taken, anyway.
The problem is, it assumes there's only one religion.
Many religions that humans practice DO hurt if you join the wrong one. Heresy sends you directly to Hell at the front of the line, according to more than a few theologies.

Pascal's Wager is only good as a rationalization after the fact. To make a believer feel good about their belief.
It's worthless to help one choose which religion to adopt.
'

Lik

e wearing a seatbelt:

Bad analogy.
It's more like an ejection seat.
A plane had a difficulty on an aircraft carrier and slid into another aircraft. One of the pilots saw the accident coming and ejected. The nose of the aircraft they hit slid through his canopy and would have killed him if he hadn't ejected.
The other pilot did not eject. But the initial difficulty the first plane had caused his canopy to buckle. They could not open it right away and later determined that if he'd ejected, the rocket in his seat would have smashed his brains against the glass.

So, Pascal's wager is more like two pilots both insisting that using AND not using their ejector seat was the right thing to do. You can't use either anecdote to predict the outcome of a casualty in your plane.

So, the Pascal's Wager argument is not totally flawed.

It provides no information to justify choosing one of the thousands of religions that mankind offers. That's a flaw. it's a fatal flaw if used by a non-believer to approach belief.
It's a comforting rationalization but not much else.

It's not always wrong to say "It may or may not be true, but it's safer to assume it's true."

It is wrong exactly because the Catholics say the Mormons are going to suffer for their religion, the Mormons say the Catholics are going to suffer for their religion.
We cannot say it's safer to assume that any single belief is safer than non-belief. Maybe God loves atheists more than Baptists.

It's not true that a "Pascal's Wager" kind of reasoning must ipso facto always be wrong.

But it is.
As noted, it starts with the assumption of only one religion being available to the Seeker. That's false.


Edit to add, thought up on the drive home:
Anyway, we have statistics on car and plane accidents. We can actually come up with risk tables for the benefits/costs of wearing seat belts, using the eject, changing your mind after Monty Hall reveals one of the goats.

Such an effort is useless in evaluating Pascal's Wager, unless we have a means of determining the disposition of souls in any actual afterlife, should such a thing exist.
But then, if we have actual numbers on where souls go after death, we have no need of Pascal's Wager...

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What constitutes reliable evidence for "miracle" events?

In most of the reported miracle healing events there was a crowd present, including his regular followers. In some cases only a small number. Maybe only 1 or 2 others in some cases, but that's the exception.

There are names of some of them. But it's not necessary to have that kind of detail. These events probably were not recorded right on the spot by someone writing, so details like the exact names of those present could easily become confused.

or indeed, indistinguishable from tall stories.

The question was about the names of the witnesses. The question was "WHO" they were. And the point is that such detail doesn't matter and we shouldn't expect it to always be accurate. The basic account is about witnesses being present.

The only reason to call these "tall stories" is that there is the miracle element, and your premise is that any account containing this element must automatically be fiction or a "tall story" regardless of any other consideration.

However, there is no compulsion in reason or logic to automatically categorize every "miracle" account as fiction. It is reasonable to have more doubt in such cases, but not to totally rule out such accounts or automatically judge them as fiction.

Particularly as the source of the stories themselves is the same source as the report of witnesses.

You're saying the source of the stories is the report of witnesses who were present at the event? That's not clear. Do you mean the "witnesses" got their story from an earlier source? You mean you just think there were no witnesses? But there's nothing wrong with assuming that there were witnesses who were the original source. It can't be proved, but it's a reasonable assumption.

I have a dragon living in my garage. You might not believe this; but you should, because loads of people have seen it - a multitude of them. Including my mate Joe, and his wife Sue.

If you made this claim seriously, and others confirmed it, why shouldn't we seriously consider it? As long as we know you're not saying it as a joke?

We might doubt that it's really a "dragon" there, but you and the others wouldn't make this claim unless there was some unusual animal there.

Now the dragon is EXACTLY as well evidenced as any of these 'miracles' you are so sure about.

Yes, and maybe we would believe you if there are enough witnesses who attest to it. I wouldn't be surprised if there have been some strange events in history that were worse than a "dragon living in my garage" and were true. Some extremely strange events do happen. We should not brush it aside, unless we have reason to believe that it's a practical joke.

Are you saying the Jesus miracle stories were invented as a practical joke?

What eyewitness accounts do we have?

I don't claim there were "eye witness accounts" per se from writers present at the event and writing down what they saw Jesus do. However, couldn't we say that the earliest oral accounts were from eye witnesses?

We could; but why should we?

What we definitely should say is that the later writers, who were not present at the event per se, wrote down some report they received and did not invent the story themselves.

And if the stories are invented, so they didn't happen and there was nothing to witness, a question to answer is: How did this series of miracle events all become invented during this short time period, from different places or inventors, and all centered around the same Jesus figure? Why instead don't we have a variety of miracle-workers instead of only this one?

And we don't know that these first accounts were not substantially the same as the later written ones we have now.

That we DON'T KNOW whether the stories have changed is not a point in their favour.

The point is that the accounts we have presumably originated from those eye witnesses. They are not later invented stories. So they're substantially the same stories. Which doesn't mean there are no changes, but rather, none that would make them substantially different.

This makes them more reliable than if we knew the later stories are substantially different from anything reported by original eye witnesses.

The main question is: Isn't it reasonable to consider these stories as originating long before they were written down, and isn't it likely that they came substantially from eye witnesses back in 29-30 AD when the events allegedly happened?

It's easier to assume this origin of the stories than some later origin when someone invented the stories without knowing of any such events (or reported events) having taken place.

The eventual written accounts clearly are intended as reports of what was seen earlier by those who were present.

Just like the account Joe's mate Steve wrote of the dragon in my garage.

And again, if you and other witnesses seriously reported this, why shouldn't you be taken seriously? You're claiming nothing highly unusual can ever happen? Even if thousands of witnesses report seeing it?

How did anyone determine that they were eyewitnesses, not people writing much later?

There were both. There were the earlier eye witnesses and there were the ones who wrote it down later. There's good reason to believe (but obviously no "proof") that the later writers relied on the earlier reports.

In the same way that Steve relied on Joe.

But why shouldn't Steve believe you and Joe and all those other witnesses? If Steve himself didn't see it, then we need to rely on Joe and the others who did see it themselves.

Why shouldn't the later ones who didn't witness it rely on the earlier ones who did witness it? We don't know for sure the details of the transmission process, but isn't it reasonable to assume that the stories go back to early eye witness sources? We're speaking here of a few years. Maybe 10 or 20 or 30 years. It's impossible to know the exact time period. These could easily be oral accounts that are only 1 or 2 or 3 times removed from the original witnesses.

The reason to give credibility to the accounts is that there are too many of them from different sources all pointing to this one miracle-worker figure instead of a wide variety of different stories centering on several different such figures.

The reliability of these written accounts should be judged by the same standards as any other writings of the period. For most historical events don't we accept the reliability of the writers to give to us an account of what happened based on the information they had?

No, we don't. Unless there is independent corroboration, ideally through archaeological evidence, or through multiple independent sources.

So you're saying that for every event reported in Herodotus and Polybius and Tacitus and Josephus and Suetonius, there is another author who also reports the same event, and when this is not so, the historians reject the reported event as not true?

I doubt that. I know that some of the events are reported by one author only and not by others. Corroboration fixes it more definitely, but the extra corroboration is not necessary for a reported event to be taken as true.

I'll give an example that comes to mind: The life of Appollonius of Tyanna is given to us by one author only, Philostratus. We know nothing of this figure except what is in that book, plus a monument or memorial discovered by archaeologists. But there is no confirmation of any of the information in that biography. Nevertheless, on the basis of that one book, we know much of this guy's life, and all historians accept that he was a real historical figure who meets the general description given to us by Philostratus.

And further, there are miracle stories attributed to him, which are rejected as fictional, because there is no other source to substantiate them and they allegedly happened more than 100 years prior to the book being written. Nevertheless, despite that dubious material, the accounts are accepted as a generally factual account of the life of this figure.

So it's not true that all reported historical events require corroboration before they are accepted by historians. One single source is enough to establish the credibility of the accounts. Whereas corroboration is required for highly dubious material like miracle stories. In the case of the Jesus miracle stories there is this extra corroboration. I.e., we have additional sources, not just one.

We should apply the same skepticism toward the "gospel" accounts as we do to any other writings of the period.

Yes.

On that standard we can accept these accounts as generally reliable in transmitting on to us the accounts they had from before.

No.

Only because your premise is that miracle stories have to be untrue and any source that reports them must ipso facto be rejected as unreliable, because that is your dogmatic premise. And it is not necessary to begin with this dogmatic premise. And by that premise you reject the entire account of Philostratus, even though most historians accept that general account.

Or if that's not your premise for rejecting the gospel accounts as unreliable, then what is your premise?

Which doesn't mean they have to be taken as accurate in all detail or can contain no discrepancies whatever.

Steve says my dragon is greenish; Joe reckons it is more a blue-green colour.

If there are enough witnesses who report having seen the "dragon" and the reports contain some discrepancies, this does not rule out the possibility that the "dragon" really exists. One can assume many possible explanations for the discrepancies. Just because different witnesses have differing descriptions of what happened doesn't mean nothing happened.

Some Bible miracle stories don't meet the proper rigid standard. Partly for lack of eye witnesses, and some other reasons too. But the Jesus healing stories meet a high standard.

Really? Then you will have no problem in pointing us to solid evidence from a source other than the Bible.

The fact that these sources were assembled into one collection 200 years later does not change the fact that they are multiple sources. There are multiple authors/writers coming from different backgrounds and each having a different interpretation.

Since it's appropriate to rely on one source only for normal events, why isn't it appropriate in the case of "miracle" stories to rely on 2 or 3 or 4 sources?

 

[bilby]

or indeed, indistinguishable from tall stories.

The question was about the names of the witnesses. The question was "WHO" they were. And the point is that such detail doesn't matter and we shouldn't expect it to always be accurate. The basic account is about witnesses being present.

The only reason to call these "tall stories" is that there is the miracle element, and your premise is that any account containing this element must automatically be fiction or a "tall story" regardless of any other consideration.

However, there is no compulsion in reason or logic to automatically categorize every "miracle" account as fiction. It is reasonable to have more doubt in such cases, but not to totally rule out such accounts or automatically judge them as fiction.

Particularly as the source of the stories themselves is the same source as the report of witnesses.

You're saying the source of the stories is the report of witnesses who were present at the event? That's not clear. Do you mean the "witnesses" got their story from an earlier source? You mean you just think there were no witnesses? But there's nothing wrong with assuming that there were witnesses who were the original source. It can't be proved, but it's a reasonable assumption.

I have a dragon living in my garage. You might not believe this; but you should, because loads of people have seen it - a multitude of them. Including my mate Joe, and his wife Sue.

If you made this claim seriously, and others confirmed it, why shouldn't we seriously consider it? As long as we know you're not saying it as a joke?

We might doubt that it's really a "dragon" there, but you and the others wouldn't make this claim unless there was some unusual animal there.

Now the dragon is EXACTLY as well evidenced as any of these 'miracles' you are so sure about.

Yes, and maybe we would believe you if there are enough witnesses who attest to it. I wouldn't be surprised if there have been some strange events in history that were worse than a "dragon living in my garage" and were true. Some extremely strange events do happen. We should not brush it aside, unless we have reason to believe that it's a practical joke.

Are you saying the Jesus miracle stories were invented as a practical joke?

What eyewitness accounts do we have?

I don't claim there were "eye witness accounts" per se from writers present at the event and writing down what they saw Jesus do. However, couldn't we say that the earliest oral accounts were from eye witnesses?

We could; but why should we?

What we definitely should say is that the later writers, who were not present at the event per se, wrote down some report they received and did not invent the story themselves.

And if the stories are invented, so they didn't happen and there was nothing to witness, a question to answer is: How did this series of miracle events all become invented during this short time period, from different places or inventors, and all centered around the same Jesus figure? Why instead don't we have a variety of miracle-workers instead of only this one?

And we don't know that these first accounts were not substantially the same as the later written ones we have now.

That we DON'T KNOW whether the stories have changed is not a point in their favour.

The point is that the accounts we have presumably originated from those eye witnesses. They are not later invented stories. So they're substantially the same stories. Which doesn't mean there are no changes, but rather, none that would make them substantially different.

This makes them more reliable than if we knew the later stories are substantially different from anything reported by original eye witnesses.

The main question is: Isn't it reasonable to consider these stories as originating long before they were written down, and isn't it likely that they came substantially from eye witnesses back in 29-30 AD when the events allegedly happened?

It's easier to assume this origin of the stories than some later origin when someone invented the stories without knowing of any such events (or reported events) having taken place.

The eventual written accounts clearly are intended as reports of what was seen earlier by those who were present.

Just like the account Joe's mate Steve wrote of the dragon in my garage.

And again, if you and other witnesses seriously reported this, why shouldn't you be taken seriously? You're claiming nothing highly unusual can ever happen? Even if thousands of witnesses report seeing it?

How did anyone determine that they were eyewitnesses, not people writing much later?

There were both. There were the earlier eye witnesses and there were the ones who wrote it down later. There's good reason to believe (but obviously no "proof") that the later writers relied on the earlier reports.

In the same way that Steve relied on Joe.

But why shouldn't Steve believe you and Joe and all those other witnesses? If Steve himself didn't see it, then we need to rely on Joe and the others who did see it themselves.

Why shouldn't the later ones who didn't witness it rely on the earlier ones who did witness it? We don't know for sure the details of the transmission process, but isn't it reasonable to assume that the stories go back to early eye witness sources? We're speaking here of a few years. Maybe 10 or 20 or 30 years. It's impossible to know the exact time period. These could easily be oral accounts that are only 1 or 2 or 3 times removed from the original witnesses.

The reason to give credibility to the accounts is that there are too many of them from different sources all pointing to this one miracle-worker figure instead of a wide variety of different stories centering on several different such figures.

The reliability of these written accounts should be judged by the same standards as any other writings of the period. For most historical events don't we accept the reliability of the writers to give to us an account of what happened based on the information they had?

No, we don't. Unless there is independent corroboration, ideally through archaeological evidence, or through multiple independent sources.

So you're saying that for every event reported in Herodotus and Polybius and Tacitus and Josephus and Suetonius, there is another author who also reports the same event, and when this is not so, the historians reject the reported event as not true?

I doubt that. I know that some of the events are reported by one author only and not by others. Corroboration fixes it more definitely, but the extra corroboration is not necessary for a reported event to be taken as true.

I'll give an example that comes to mind: The life of Appollonius of Tyanna is given to us by one author only, Philostratus. We know nothing of this figure except what is in that book, plus a monument or memorial discovered by archaeologists. But there is no confirmation of any of the information in that biography. Nevertheless, on the basis of that one book, we know much of this guy's life, and all historians accept that he was a real historical figure who meets the general description given to us by Philostratus.

And further, there are miracle stories attributed to him, which are rejected as fictional, because there is no other sources to substantiate them and they allegedly happened more than 100 years prior to the book being written. Nevertheless, despite that dubious material, the accounts are accepted as a generally factual account of the life of this figure.

So it's not true that all reported historical events require corroboration before they are accepted by historians. One single source is enough to establish the credibility of the accounts. Whereas corroboration is required for highly dubious material like miracle stories. In the case of the Jesus miracle stories there is this extra corroboration. I.e., we have additional sources, not just one.

We should apply the same skepticism toward the "gospel" accounts as we do to any other writings of the period.

Yes.

On that standard we can accept these accounts as generally reliable in transmitting on to us the accounts they had from before.

No.

Only because your premise is that miracle stories have to be untrue and any source that reports them must ipso facto be rejected as unreliable, because that is your dogmatic premise. And it is not necessary to begin with this dogmatic premise. And by that premise you reject the entire account of Philostratus, even though most historians accept that general account.

Or if that's not your premise for rejecting the gospel accounts as unreliable, then what is your premise?

Which doesn't mean they have to be taken as accurate in all detail or can contain no discrepancies whatever.

Steve says my dragon is greenish; Joe reckons it is more a blue-green colour.

If there are enough witnesses who report having seen the "dragon" and the reports contain some discrepancies, this does not rule out the possibility that the "dragon" really exists. One can assume many possible explanations for the discrepancies. Just because different witnesses have differing descriptions of what happened doesn't mean nothing happened.

Some Bible miracle stories don't meet the proper rigid standard. Partly for lack of eye witnesses, and some other reasons too. But the Jesus healing stories meet a high standard.

Really? Then you will have no problem in pointing us to solid evidence from a source other than the Bible.

The fact that these sources were assembled into one collection 200 years later does not change the fact that they are multiple sources. There are multiple authors/writers coming from different backgrounds and each having a different interpretation.

Since it's appropriate to rely on one source only for normal events, why isn't it appropriate in the case of "miracle" stories to rely on 2 or 3 or 4 sources?

You are clearly incapable of determining what is or is not a source, and what is or is not independent. If there were 2, 3 or 4 INDEPENDENT stories of Jesus's miracles, then they might be worth further investigation - although even then, likely not; eyewitness evidence is the lowest level of evidence, and actions that are claimed to have violated physical law can be ruled out as true absent proper forensic evidence for their having occurred.

It is just about OK to say 'well, it might have happened'; but it certainly is not sufficiently likely to be used as the basis for a lifestyle change. We can't go back and test the claim; but we can say that it is incompatible with claims that we CAN test - such as that mass/energy are always conserved, and that entropy increases in a closed system.

You are happy to consider Steve's and Joe's accounts as independent sources for my claim about my dragon. But that is truly foolish - because the only source you have for their accounts is my post; and the claim is incompatible with the rest of our knowledge of the world.

The Bible is NOT a collection of independent sources, any more than Joe and Steve are independent; you are being hoodwinked into believing that they are independent, but they are both described ONLY by the same source material.

You are credulous and gullible in your analysis of the bible; IF you assume that those who wrote it were making their best effort to preserve the truth, then that might be warranted - but we know that is not the case. We have good solid evidence that some of the most manipulative people in history have modified the bible to suit their own power agendas - James I and VI authorised his version as part of a deliberate attempt to unite the two nations of England and Scotland under his personal and dictatorial rule. He was one of the more recent people to abuse the text for political ends, and as a result, there is still plenty of evidence of what he did. Others in the 1600 or so years before him had the freedom to make much more important changes. The means, motive and opportunity all exist for massive self-serving changes to have been made by innumerable powerful players in history. To assume good faith on the part of all these people would be truly stupid.

The gospels make a Nigerian 419 scam email look trustworthy and reliable. I am no more going to accept that Jesus performed miracles than I am going to believe that MR Joseph Owanagu, Cheif Finance Minister in the Nigerian Department of Domestic Accounting needs my assistance in transferring $100,00,000 million (One hundred million dollars) out of the country and will pay me 20% of this sum on receipt of the fund release fee of just US$150 United States Dollar into his Western Union account.

 

[DBT]

And pascals wager is a dead horse: how do you know that you won't be tormented in eternity for your belief?

Didn't Pascal say something like: "We don't know if there's a Heaven or Hell, so just go to Mass anyway just to play it safe -- Who knows, it might end up saving your soul -- it can't hurt, can it?"

Or, we don't know if it's true, but it might be. So believe it just to be sure. The logic has to be that it's better to believe and it's not true than to not believe and it is true

Well, it does hurt. It hurts your intellectual and ethical integrity to believe something is true when you have no evidence that it is true. You are engaging in make believe, let's pretend this is true, in order to save your own arse.

And what does it tell us about the character of God that requires his subjects to play make believe that God exists in order to be saved rather than tormented forever, or snuffed out?
.

 

[bilby]

And pascals wager is a dead horse: how do you know that you won't be tormented in eternity for your belief?

Didn't Pascal say something like: "We don't know if there's a Heaven or Hell, so just go to Mass anyway just to play it safe -- Who knows, it might end up saving your soul -- it can't hurt, can it?"

It can hurt. It can hurt a LOT.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/faith-healing-religious-freedom-vs-child-protection/

[url]http://time.com/8750/faith-healing-parents-jailed-after-second-childs-death/
[/URL]
www.childrenshealthcare.org/PDF Files/Pediatricsarticle.pdf

http://www.masskids.org/index.php/religious-medical-neglect/cases-of-child-deaths

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/21/health/21MEDI.html

http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/AAP2/

And that's just the result of five seconds of googling on just the issue of medical neglect of children by Christians.

I haven't even started on religious persecution of adults, religious wars, any activity by non-Christian sects...

Yeah, it most certainly can, and does, hurt.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Jesus did not invent the "love your enemies" or the "fire and brimstone" teachings.

The problem I pointed out is the double standard imposed by God. On the one hand God says: 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you'' - yet on the other hand, does not adhere to His own moral principles when He torments someone, not even an enemy, for the trivial reason of a lack of belief.

Why do you tack on "for the trivial reason of a lack of belief"?

As long as you feel compelled to add this unnecessary phrase, you are still implying that it's just fine for God to torment someone for a NON-trivial reason.

You don't have an argument here unless you can state it parsimoniously without tacking on this pointless phrase that clearly implies that eternal torment IS appropriate to impose onto someone if it's for a non-trivial reason instead of a trivial reason like lack of belief.

Why would it be OK to torture someone eternally for a non-trivial reason?

Also, why do you emphasize the "double standard" flaw of God? Which is a worse crime for God to commit -- to practice a double standard or to torture someone in Hell for eternity? Isn't the latter crime vastly greater?

So why can't you just fault God for the cruelty of imposing the eternal punishment without adding on these extra crimes which are trivial by comparison?

Something is wrong with your complaint against God's torturing people when the only way you can express it is by objecting to HOW he inflicts it or his method of selecting who to do it to. Why do you want to micromanage how or when or upon whom God inflicts the eternal torture? Can't you just give a classic argument against God torturing anyone at all for any reason?

Maybe Jesus didn't teach either of these -- the above teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, and the existence of a Hell where sinners are tormented eternally. Both of these religious ideas were preached prior to Jesus and could easily have been attributed to him by later writers. If he spoke this way he was only borrowing this from the culture of the time, not introducing it himself.

This preaching wasn't a major point of his, because if this kind of preaching was his main emphasis, then why did he become famous? There's nothing in either of these ideas that should have made him important. Others said these things already, long before him. If these were great ideas from Jesus, why didn't these ideas make his predecessors famous who spoke these teachings long before he did?

It is pointless to obsess on these particular preachings, which are not unique to Jesus and don't tell us what he was really about. Rather, we should look for something else.

Even if he did say these things, which may not be so, they don't tell us anything essential about him. An important person in history should be judged by what he did or said that was unique to him, or was initiated by him, not by something that was incidental to him and became attached to him only because it was already fashionable to the times and would have been just as much so even without him.

Or, even if these teachings became more widely disseminated from having been attached to Jesus, what's more important than these teachings is whatever it was that made Jesus into the mouthpiece for them, i.e., whatever drove so many different conflicting camps to conscript him for this mouthpiece role. Why didn't they use someone else? Why didn't each camp recruit its own separate champion instead of all of them seizing upon this same one as their mouthpiece outlet?

If he was inconsistent or self-contradictory, it's only because there were so many conflicting or contradictory camps around him for whom he was made to play this role.

 

[Juma]

The problem I pointed out is the double standard imposed by God. On the one hand God says: 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you'' - yet on the other hand, does not adhere to His own moral principles when He torments someone, not even an enemy, for the trivial reason of a lack of belief.

Why do you tack on "for the trivial reason of a lack of belief"?

And you continue to critizise what you think seem to by implied, but not what is explicitly in the post....

You christians are really bent on avoiding the matter... Seem that the serpent is your true idol.

 

[funinspace]

Why shouldn't the later ones who didn't witness it rely on the earlier ones who did witness it? We don't know for sure the details of the transmission process, but isn't it reasonable to assume that the stories go back to early eye witness sources? We're speaking here of a few years. Maybe 10 or 20 or 30 years. It's impossible to know the exact time period. These could easily be oral accounts that are only 1 or 2 or 3 times removed from the original witnesses.

We have 4 Gospels that are part of the typical Christian canon. These 4 books are essentially anonymous, with names later assumed and attached to said works. This is explicitly acknowledged by most mainstream theologians.

Mark is by most all accounts the earliest written. And according to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, in its introduction to Mark states:
“Although the Gospel is anonymous, an ancient tradition ascribes it to John Mark, who is supposed to have composed it at Rome as a summary of Peter’s preaching. Modern scholars, however, find little evidence to support this tradition. Mark is by far the shortest of the four canonical Gospels and is generally thought to be the earliest, and to have been used in the composition of both Matthew and Luke. Because of the vague and indefinite references to the destruction of Jerusalem in Mark 13, the Gospel is thought to have been composed just prior to the widespread Jewish popular revolt that began in 66CE…”

This same Bible estimates John to have been written circa 80-90CE. Paul’s letters don’t count as a primary witness as he never met Jesus, other than he met people a few years later, who purported had followed this Jesus. The letters are at least only 2 decades after the life of Jesus; well at least the ones that aren’t penned by other mystery people.

So it wasn’t “10 or 20 or 30” years. Typical estimates are that Jesus died between 30-36AD. So the Gospels probably originated 30 to 60 years after the events. Some theologians date John as far out as 120AD. The earliest near complete copies of the Gospels we have are 200 – 300 years after the events.

The reason to give credibility to the accounts is that there are too many of them from different sources all pointing to this one miracle-worker figure instead of a wide variety of different stories centering on several different such figures.

LOL…yeah that sort of works, as long as one ignores mainstream theologians who pretty much consider Matthew and Luke to have used Mark as their base. So there is really only 2 primary semi-anonymous Gospel sources. It also ignores books like the Gospel of Thomas. It also ignores the first Christian canon in history by Marcion. From the existing fragments of his canon, he only had one Gospel, which appears to have been similar to Luke. Whether this is a revision of Luke, or pre-dated it, it is probably unknowable. As heretical works and groups were purged as the Church in Rome became more and more powerful, things tend to get fuzzier for heterodox elements.

 

[dx713]

Didn't Pascal say something like: "We don't know if there's a Heaven or Hell, so just go to Mass anyway just to play it safe -- Who knows, it might end up saving your soul -- it can't hurt, can it?"

Sort of. That's how it's taken, anyway.
The problem is, it assumes there's only one religion.
Many religions that humans practice DO hurt if you join the wrong one. Heresy sends you directly to Hell at the front of the line, according to more than a few theologies.

Pascal's Wager is only good as a rationalization after the fact. To make a believer feel good about their belief.
It's worthless to help one choose which religion to adopt.
'

Lik

e wearing a seatbelt:

Bad analogy.
It's more like an ejection seat.
A plane had a difficulty on an aircraft carrier and slid into another aircraft. One of the pilots saw the accident coming and ejected. The nose of the aircraft they hit slid through his canopy and would have killed him if he hadn't ejected.
The other pilot did not eject. But the initial difficulty the first plane had caused his canopy to buckle. They could not open it right away and later determined that if he'd ejected, the rocket in his seat would have smashed his brains against the glass.

So, Pascal's wager is more like two pilots both insisting that using AND not using their ejector seat was the right thing to do. You can't use either anecdote to predict the outcome of a casualty in your plane.

So, the Pascal's Wager argument is not totally flawed.

It provides no information to justify choosing one of the thousands of religions that mankind offers. That's a flaw. it's a fatal flaw if used by a non-believer to approach belief.
It's a comforting rationalization but not much else.

It's not always wrong to say "It may or may not be true, but it's safer to assume it's true."

It is wrong exactly because the Catholics say the Mormons are going to suffer for their religion, the Mormons say the Catholics are going to suffer for their religion.
We cannot say it's safer to assume that any single belief is safer than non-belief. Maybe God loves atheists more than Baptists.

It's not true that a "Pascal's Wager" kind of reasoning must ipso facto always be wrong.

But it is.
As noted, it starts with the assumption of only one religion being available to the Seeker. That's false.


Edit to add, thought up on the drive home:
Anyway, we have statistics on car and plane accidents. We can actually come up with risk tables for the benefits/costs of wearing seat belts, using the eject, changing your mind after Monty Hall reveals one of the goats.

Such an effort is useless in evaluating Pascal's Wager, unless we have a means of determining the disposition of souls in any actual afterlife, should such a thing exist.
But then, if we have actual numbers on where souls go after death, we have no need of Pascal's Wager...

Even before we take it seriously and find way to disprove it, like with the multiplicity of mutually-exclusive religions, Pascal's wager falls down on two things:
1) Faith is difficult to command. Going through the motions while thinking it's just to cover your ass is not faith. And the gospels make it pretty clear that faith is central to salvation.
2) Pascal was known to love debate, and having his writing remarked for taking the opposite viewpoint to the popular ones. He was also a mathematician and a researcher in statistics and politics. How do we know this whole "Pascal wager" thing was not written in jest while thinking about a political problem, or just to spite the fideist undercurrent that had surfaced during his century with Descartes cogito? Keep in mind that the book it's in was published from a collection of miscellaneous notes found after his death, and not in a finished project okayed for publication by Pascal himself.
(actually, a good argument should be independant from its author, but theist love arguments from authority so much, the second is fun to point them to)

 

[Keith&Co.]

Even before we take it seriously and find way to disprove it, like with the multiplicity of mutually-exclusive religions, Pascal's wager falls down on two things:
1) Faith is difficult to command. Going through the motions while thinking it's just to cover your ass is not faith. And the gospels make it pretty clear that faith is central to salvation.

That is a problem, but I'd say that was more of a problem with implementing the conclusion, not with reaching a conclusion by the argument itself.
If the argument was sound, then theists could just say it was up to the individual to deal with the results. But the argument itself is a nonstarter, even if we could choose to just turn on our faith.

 

[DBT]

The problem I pointed out is the double standard imposed by God. On the one hand God says: 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you'' - yet on the other hand, does not adhere to His own moral principles when He torments someone, not even an enemy, for the trivial reason of a lack of belief.

Why do you tack on "for the trivial reason of a lack of belief"?

It's trivial because a lack of belief alone does no harm. Who cares?

As long as you feel compelled to add this unnecessary phrase, you are still implying that it's just fine for God to torment someone for a NON-trivial reason.

It doesn't necessarily imply that at all. I focused on the non belief issue because that is the very point of Pascals' Wager, and Pascal's Wager was the point of discussion.

You don't have an argument here unless you can state it parsimoniously without tacking on this pointless phrase that clearly implies that eternal torment IS appropriate to impose onto someone if it's for a non-trivial reason instead of a trivial reason like lack of belief.

Again, it's not pointless because it is the point of Pascal's Wager. To paraphrase: ''it is better to play it safe and believe in the existence of God, because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.''

Why would it be OK to torture someone eternally for a non-trivial reason?

No more that it would be fair and just of a Creator of the Universe to condemn someone to eternal torment because they were not convinced that their is a God.

Also, why do you emphasize the "double standard" flaw of God? Which is a worse crime for God to commit -- to practice a double standard or to torture someone in Hell for eternity? Isn't the latter crime vastly greater?

I pointed out why it's a double standard. You say that ''Jesus did not invent the "love your enemies" or the "fire and brimstone" teachings'' yet what I quoted comes from the same source as the story of Jesus and the fire and the brimstone teachings.

They are their for anyone to see.

So why can't you just fault God for the cruelty of imposing the eternal punishment without adding on these extra crimes which are trivial by comparison?

You are extrapolating way beyond anything I said, or implied.

Something is wrong with your complaint against God's torturing people when the only way you can express it is by objecting to HOW he inflicts it or his method of selecting who to do it to. Why do you want to micromanage how or when or upon whom God inflicts the eternal torture? Can't you just give a classic argument against God torturing anyone at all for any reason?

The verses that I quoted exclude condemnation and torture for any reason. But as the discussion was specifically about Pascal's Wager, that's what I happened to be addressing.

Maybe Jesus didn't teach either of these -- the above teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, and the existence of a Hell where sinners are tormented eternally. Both of these religious ideas were preached prior to Jesus and could easily have been attributed to him by later writers. If he spoke this way he was only borrowing this from the culture of the time, not introducing it himself.

No good cherry picking, it is the NT that provides the material for Christian belief.

Matthew 25:41
"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Reason #4: Hitler etc.

The 125 points listed below each present a claim for questioning the authenticity of Christianity. In total, they lay out a convincing case that Christianity is untrue. This is based on the premise that a true, factual religion guided by a supernatural god would be precise, flawless, authentic, transcendent, unmatched, prescient, prophetic, revelatory, internally consistent, and scientifically accurate.

. . .

(4) Hitler/Murdered Jews and Ted Bundy/Bill Gates

Related to the previous point, Christianity can be understood to endorse a spectacularly cruel and senseless outcome of how certain people are judged. All one has to assume is that Hitler, a Catholic by birth, understood the gravity of his sins and confessed them to Jesus before committing suicide. According to Christian doctrine, he was awarded entry into heaven with this simple act.

For our purposes, let's assume this is correct, i.e., this is Christian doctrine, even though most Christians deny it. So if Hitler was a believer in Christ, he went to Heaven. Catholics believe he must have gone to Purgatory first and no doubt has to be there a long time.

But let's assume the worst here, that he went straight to Heaven, despite all his crimes.

On the other hand, the 6,000,000 Jews that he condemned to death, and who by default failed to accept Christ, were sent to Hell.

Let's say that's also Christian doctrine generally, however it is possible that some of these Jews actually were believers in Christ. In such a large number, there are likely a few who actually had such a belief, so these ones went to Heaven according to Christian doctrine, even though they were Jews.

The image of Anne Frank writhing in pain while Adolf enjoys a latte presents a stark visual that there is something seriously wrong with Christian doctrine.

No, there's nothing wrong with this doctrine if it is properly understood.

If you take Christian doctrine of salvation as one of reward for merit, then there is something wrong with this picture. But the Christ doctrine of salvation is not one of merit. St. Paul wrote: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." --Romans 6:23.

So eternal life is a gift that is not earned, whereas what we have earned is death.

So Christian doctrine agrees that Hitler does not deserve eternal life, and neither does anyone else. All of us, including Hitler, deserve only death. All of us and all those 6 million Jews and Anne Frank and all those Nazis including Hitler deserve the same thing, which is death.

However, there are some Bible verses that seem to say the opposite, i.e., that one gains salvation by doing good deeds or obeying the Law and being righteous and so on. This is the teaching of religion generally, and these ideas were obviously inherited by the N.T. writers who included them along with the new alien teaching that we can be saved as a gift which is not earned. So we have both these conflicting doctrines taught in the Bible.

However, the doctrine of salvation by merit is inconsistent with the totality of the New Testament message. It makes meaningless the idea of "the Good News" or "Gospel" or "Euangelion" which is the second-most common theme in the N.T. after "faith" or "belief."

So to make sense out of the idea of "Euangelion" it is necessary that salvation is conditioned only on believing in Christ, so it is gained as a gift, and reject the notion of salvation by merit. There is no merit to belief, which is not an act of morality or righteousness or valor, but almost an accident.

How do we judge between the gift vs. merit doctrines? How do we judge that God would be wrong to offer salvation to us as a gift instead of demanding merit from us as a condition for being saved?

Similarly, Ted Bundy, a convicted murderer of over 30 young women, confessed his sins before his execution and, according to Christian doctrine, was sent directly to heaven. On the other hand, Bill Gates, an atheist who has lived a virtuous life and has donated more than $27 billion to global health, development, and education, will be sent to Hell. It is hard to imagine anything more unjust or immoral, but this absurdity is precisely in accord with conventional Christianity.

But this judgment is based on the premise that salvation has to be conditioned on merit rather than being a gift. What is this premise based on? You have to explain why it would be wrong for God, if he/she/it exists, to offer salvation as a gift instead of as an earned reward for merit.

It doesn't matter how extreme and horrifying the examples are that you offer of bad people being saved and good people being lost. All such outcries are meaningless unless you explain why it would be wrong for a God to save people as a free gift to them rather than making them earn it by merit.

In business and work we earn our income by producing something that others want. So if we "earn" our salvation from God, it has to mean that we produce something of value that God wants, and he pays us in return by giving us eternal life. So, what is it that God wants from us that he needs and would feel deprived of if he didn't get it from us? What service can we perform for God that would reduce his suffering or make him better off or give him increased pleasure or make him feel good, such that he feels the pressure to pay the price of offering us eternal life in order to get this service from us?

There doesn't seem to be any compelling reason why salvation, if it is possible, has to be offered to us as a reward or payment for merit. It is difficult to imagine what payment or service God would need from us.

All the lamenting over Hitler and Bundy and Anne Frank and Bill Gates is meaningless unless you can answer this more basic question about merit vs. gift. In human trade and work it makes sense to speak of earning our reward and being paid according to how much value we create for the society. But how does any of this apply to the economics of salvation or eternal life that God offers to humans?

Suppose instead that God simply placed into the world a key to salvation that is there for the taking, to everyone who finds it or takes it. It's just there, offered to anyone regardless of any merit. If you find it you're lucky. Why is that wrong? Suppose this way of distributing it ends up producing a greater number of those who find salvation than would be the case if it was distributed according to merit, to only those who perform some righteous work first.

If you can't explain why this free gift doctrine has to be wrong and only a merit system is legitimate, then there is no meaning to all the complaints about Hitler and all the other bad guys who might have found this free gift.

 

[Juma]

For our purposes, let's assume this is correct, i.e., this is Christian doctrine, even though most Christians deny it. So if Hitler was a believer in Christ, he went to Heaven. Catholics believe he must have gone to Purgatory first and no doubt has to be there a long time.

But let's assume the worst here, that he went straight to Heaven, despite all his crimes.

On the other hand, the 6,000,000 Jews that he condemned to death, and who by default failed to accept Christ, were sent to Hell.

Let's say that's also Christian doctrine generally, however it is possible that some of these Jews actually were believers in Christ. In such a large number, there are likely a few who actually had such a belief, so these ones went to Heaven according to Christian doctrine, even though they were Jews.

The image of Anne Frank writhing in pain while Adolf enjoys a latte presents a stark visual that there is something seriously wrong with Christian doctrine.

No, there's nothing wrong with this doctrine if it is properly understood.

If you take Christian doctrine of salvation as one of reward for merit, then there is something wrong with this picture. But the Christ doctrine of salvation is not one of merit. St. Paul wrote: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." --Romans 6:23.

So eternal life is a gift that is not earned, whereas what we have earned is death.

So Christian doctrine agrees that Hitler does not deserve eternal life, and neither does anyone else. All of us, including Hitler, deserve only death. All of us and all those 6 million Jews and Anne Frank and all those Nazis including Hitler deserve the same thing, which is death.

However, there are some Bible verses that seem to say the opposite, i.e., that one gains salvation by doing good deeds or obeying the Law and being righteous and so on. This is the teaching of religion generally, and these ideas were obviously inherited by the N.T. writers who included them along with the new alien teaching that we can be saved as a gift which is not earned. So we have both these conflicting doctrines taught in the Bible.

However, the doctrine of salvation by merit is inconsistent with the totality of the New Testament message. It makes meaningless the idea of "the Good News" or "Gospel" or "Euangelion" which is the second-most common theme in the N.T. after "faith" or "belief."

So to make sense out of the idea of "Euangelion" it is necessary that salvation is conditioned only on believing in Christ, so it is gained as a gift, and reject the notion of salvation by merit. There is no merit to belief, which is not an act of morality or righteousness or valor, but almost an accident.

How do we judge between the gift vs. merit doctrines? How do we judge that God would be wrong to offer salvation to us as a gift instead of demanding merit from us as a condition for being saved?

Similarly, Ted Bundy, a convicted murderer of over 30 young women, confessed his sins before his execution and, according to Christian doctrine, was sent directly to heaven. On the other hand, Bill Gates, an atheist who has lived a virtuous life and has donated more than $27 billion to global health, development, and education, will be sent to Hell. It is hard to imagine anything more unjust or immoral, but this absurdity is precisely in accord with conventional Christianity.

But this judgment is based on the premise that salvation has to be conditioned on merit rather than being a gift. What is this premise based on? You have to explain why it would be wrong for God, if he/she/it exists, to offer salvation as a gift instead of as an earned reward for merit.

It doesn't matter how extreme and horrifying the examples are that you offer of bad people being saved and good people being lost. All such outcries are meaningless unless you explain why it would be wrong for a God to save people as a free gift to them rather than making them earn it by merit.

In business and work we earn our income by producing something that others want. So if we "earn" our salvation from God, it has to mean that we produce something of value that God wants, and he pays us in return by giving us eternal life. So, what is it that God wants from us that he needs and would feel deprived of if he didn't get it from us? What service can we perform for God that would reduce his suffering or make him better off or give him increased pleasure or make him feel good, such that he feels the pressure to pay the price of offering us eternal life in order to get this service from us?

There doesn't seem to be any compelling reason why salvation, if it is possible, has to be offered to us as a reward or payment for merit. It is difficult to imagine what payment or service God would need from us.

All the lamenting over Hitler and Bundy and Anne Frank and Bill Gates is meaningless unless you can answer this more basic question about merit vs. gift. In human trade and work it makes sense to speak of earning our reward and being paid according to how much value we create for the society. But how does any of this apply to the economics of salvation or eternal life that God offers to humans?

Suppose instead that God simply placed into the world a key to salvation that is there for the taking, to everyone who finds it or takes it. It's just there, offered to anyone regardless of any merit. If you find it you're lucky. Why is that wrong? Suppose this way of distributing it ends up producing a greater number of those who find salvation than would be the case if it was distributed according to merit, to only those who perform some righteous work first.

If you can't explain why this free gift doctrine has to be wrong and only a merit system is legitimate, then there is no meaning to all the complaints about Hitler and all the other bad guys who might have found this free gift.

Nobody is claiming that a merit based system is better than "free for all"!

It is only you that dreams up such a position!

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The Jesus miracle stories meet the higher standard

Can you, in short, list these "higher standards"?

There's more than one source for them.

The stories existed a short time after the alleged events took place.

It's difficult to explain the stories without assuming they're true. If they're stories about a sage who taught disciples for several decades, it is much easier to explain how they could have been invented and attached to the master. Or if the stories don't appear until centuries later, then it's easier to explain how they could have emerged over that time lapse. And in other ways it can be easy in some cases to explain how the stories originated but more difficult in other cases. If it's more difficult to explain how the stories could have been invented, then it increases the chance that they're true.

There is specific information in the stories about the event, such as when or where it happened and who was present and what the setting was. We can assume that such detail might be partly fictional but also partly factual. The presence of such detail makes the story more credible.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Can you, in short, list these "higher standards"?

There's more than one source for them.

How does that establish historicity?
Just about every culture on Earth has a tradition of vampires. Does that mean vampires are real?

The stories existed a short time after the alleged events took place.

How does that impact the estimate of their historicity? How long does it take to write a fictional account of something?

It's difficult to explain the stories without assuming they're true.

Wow, that's horseshit.
Evidence for something being true is based on assuming that they're true?
Which historian told you that one?

If they're stories about a sage who taught disciples for several decades, it is much easier to explain how they could have been invented and attached to the master.

Easier?
Exactly how is laziness an important trait for historians?