120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Keith&Co.]

I thought that was exactly what you have been arguing against.

He's got two arguments. The one that proves Jesus was divine, and the one where he pulls a Star Trek plot resolution, reverses the polarity, and disproves the divinity of pretty much any of Jesus' competitors on the exact same basis.
Or -(same).

 

[skepticalbip]

We are told Jesus is part of the trinity, that he is simply another aspect of God. The all powerful, omnipotent God. But can't work minor miracles when surrounded by disbelievers?

I thought it was a well known phenomena that none of the thousands of gods can preform miracles in front of non-believers. Obviously disbelief is the Kryptonite that cripples any god.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Without the REAL HISTORICAL FIGURE FIRST, there is no later legend.

Euhemerism is an approach to the interpretation of mythology in which mythological accounts are presumed to have originated from real historical events or personages. Euhemerism supposes that historical accounts become myths as they are exaggerated in the retelling, accumulating elaborations and alterations that reflect cultural mores. It was named for the Greek mythographer Euhemerus. In more recent literature of myth, such as Bulfinch's Mythology, euhemerism is termed the "historical theory" of mythology. Euhemerus was not the first to attempt to rationalize mythology in historical terms, as euhemeristic views are found in earlier writings including those of Xenophanes, Herodotus, Hecataeus of Abdera and Ephorus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerism

I.e., the theory is that real historical persons, such as Jesus, or earlier pagan figures who were historical at first, were later mythologized into something superhuman.

There's much evidence to show that this mythologizing process took place many times. There are many examples.

However, there are NO EXAMPLES of a god-myth getting mythologized into a historical figure. You wish this to be the case, but there is no example of it. It's the REAL EVENTS, or real persons who happen first in history, and then certain of these who were heroic in some way became mythologized into something superhuman, and that's where the "gods" or other superhuman heroes originated.

Seriously? You didn't actually read the rest of the WIKI article you quoted? Later in the same article it describes how Euhemerus placed Zeus into an historical setting, claiming he was once an earthly king.

Yes, but he did not create some new fictional historical figure based on Zeus. He simply offered an explanation how the myth evolved from an original historical figure. The real historical figure came first, by his theory, and later the myth evolved from this original true story. And Euhemerus was right about this, at least for many legendary figures.

Euhemerus was known for taking ancient myths and fabricating historical settings for their origin.

No, he did not "fabricate" anything. He speculated how the eventual myth may have evolved from an original historical setting. His speculation may have been incorrect in some cases, but that's not the point. He claimed there was an original real person back there in prehistory, and he tried to explain how that could have led to the eventual myth.

Or rather, he's offering the hypothetical historical figure as the explanation for how the myth originated.

The point is that no new fictional figure is put into history and passed off as a real person who becomes a myth. Rather, we have myths or legends -- that's the given -- and it's suggested that these probably emerged centuries ago from real historical persons. It's always the real historical person who came first, and then later a legend evolves.

That's exactly the same thing I'm suggesting could have happened with your Jesus myth.

OK, if you're making any sense at all, what you're saying is that back around 30 AD there was a real person, the Jesus person, in Galilee and Judea -- the historical figure depicted in the gospel accounts -- and something happened that he became mythologized later. So the "legend" or "myth" about him evolved over many centuries, so that the historical figure existed first, and later there are legends which evolve from this.

OK, that's right, and there are some legends. But of course these are not the events in the gospel accounts, which are not part of the legend which evolved over many centuries later. The gospel accounts are from the 1st century and so are obviously not part of the mythologizing process that took place during those centuries.

But if you're trying to make the gospel accounts part of that mythologizing process, it makes no sense, because no legend-building process ever took place in such a short time period.

Euhemerus was speaking of longstanding legends which evolved over many centuries, not any process that happened in only 30-40-50 years.

You said originally:

Euhemerization was a well-established cultural norm by then, which is the process of taking a mythological person (most often a god) and placing them in an historical setting.

By "an historical setting" you must mean a period of history PRIOR to the myth, so that an EXISTING MYTH tradition at time B is analyzed back into prehistory to a time A centuries earlier which is then postulated as the point from which the current myth originated.

So applying this to Jesus, the myth originated from the original historical figure of the 1st century, who is described in the gospel accounts. Even if there are some errors in these accounts, this is not the mythologizing process which takes place over many centuries later than when these were written.

(possible qualification: A miracle myth element could have appeared early, like the virgin birth, but this could not happen unless there was already something to make the hero figure appear as someone superhuman. So, if Jesus really did perform the miracle acts, this would explain how the virgin birth legend became added.)

 

[Keith&Co.]

Without the REAL HISTORICAL FIGURE FIRST, there is no later legend.

Oh, bullshit. Is there any textbook for historians which includes this as a thumbrule?
Does any professional historian say this applies to all myths?

This isn't even a theory, much less an axiom.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Without the REAL HISTORICAL FIGURE FIRST, there is no later legend.

Oh, bullshit. Is there any textbook for historians which includes this as a thumbrule?
Does any professional historian say this applies to all myths?

This isn't even a theory, much less an axiom.

Euhemerus' theory. All legendary Gods or heros started out with a nugget of fact based on doings of long dead men.

 

[Atheos]

I disagree with Lumpenproletariat's interpretation of the scope of Euhemerization. Euhemerius did indeed parrot a claim that Zeus was a king who died in Crete, so I wrongly stated that he fabricated that part of the story. However his view on this was not shared by the majority of the religious world at the time who believed Zeus to be immortal, and it is possible that the Cretians fabricated the story, which would still leave it as a fabrication.

It is possible that there never was an historical Jesus - that the individual was completely fabricated by Paul. If that is the case then assuming that these exploits were based on a real person would be an Euhemeristic approach. Writing GMark in that way would be the next step.

It is also possible that there was an historical nugget to the Jesus story (which I have always allowed), but that Jesus was not the miracle-working god-man described in GMark. This is a distinct and far more likely possibility than that he actually was a miracle-working god-man. That means the people of Rome were following a highly exaggerated legend based loosely on the exploits of someone more realistic that they had never actually met. Like Davy Crockett, who was an actual individual but who could not jump across the Ohio River, Jesus the itinerant preacher could have inspired a cult following without walking on water.

Lumpenproletariat, I have quoted ancient historian Richard Carrier, Ph. D., twice now and will do so again:

I am not aware of any ancient work that is regarded as completely reliable. A reason always exists to doubt any historical claim. Historians begin with suspicion no matter what text they are consulting, and adjust that initial degree of doubt according to several factors, including genre, the established laurels of the author, evidence of honest and reliable methodology, bias, the nature of the claim (whether it is a usual or unusual event or detail, etc.), and so on. See for example my discussion of the Rubicon-Resurrection contrast in Geivett's Exercise in Hyperbole (Part 4b of my Review of In Defense of Miracles). Historians have so much experience in finding texts false, and in knowing all the ways they can be false, they know it would be folly to trust anything handed to them without being able to make a positive case for that trust. This is why few major historical arguments stand on a single source or piece of evidence: the implicit distrust of texts entails that belief in any nontrivial historical claim must be based on a whole array of evidence and argument. So it is no coincidence that this is what you get in serious historical scholarship.

This is how an actual historian says ancient documents are analyzed. You have claimed many times in this thread that ancient writings are accepted by historians uncritically and that without such acceptance we'd just have to toss out nearly everything we know about history. Or something like that.

I'm arguing that it's a lot more complicated than you make it out to be and you have yet to present a single historian who agrees with your assessment that GMark is just as reliable a witness regarding Jesus as Cicero is regarding Julius Caesar. I'd like to know how you justify this other than it's just what you want to believe.

 

[couch_sloth]

I think it's easy to underestimate how quickly false stories of this type can spread.
Now a days we call them urban legends.
About 15 years ago, there was guy with the handle Elroy Willis on alt.atheism who would make-up fake newspaper stories about some of the theists who frequented there. ( They were meant as inside jokes for the group). These stories were outrageous, totally fabricated, and dealt with the theist getting into trouble because of their particular brand of faith.
Some how, one of these stories ended up being repeated multiple times as a factual story on the web and on some dubious media outlets, it was even 'dramatized' on a national TV program. http://www.snopes.com/religion/rapture.asp
And another of Elroy's stories:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/plastic.asp

Quite a few Pentecostal types think that the preacher Smith Wigglesworth raised 14 people from the dead, during the first half of the 20th century. It's too bad those resurrections don't appear to be documented very well.
My favorite Wigglesworth story:

...Wigglesworth once walked into the parlor of a funeral home where the dead body of a man had lain for three days. He was on a mission from God. He abruptly told the family to get out of the room. Then he grabbed the man by the lapels and pulled him out of the casket! He propped the body against the wall and commanded it, "Live!"
When he released the man's body, the stiffened corpse promptly fell on the floor with a thud. That is where you and I would have quit, but most of us don't have the kind of faith Wigglesworth had!
Wigglesworth grabbed the lapels of the coat on the corpse and propped the body against the wall once more. Again he shouted, "I told you once, now I tell you again ... live!"
Again, the stiffened corpse fell to the floor with the same thud it had made the first time. Who knows what in creation that poor family and funeral home workers must have been thinking with all the noise coming from behind that closed door!
A third time Wigglesworth picked up the corpse and propped it against the wall. He pointed his finger at the body and demanded: "I've told you once, I've told you twice, but I shan't tell you again after this third time. Now, Live!"
Suddenly the man coughed, shook his head, wiped off his face and walked out of that funeral home!

http://ministrytodaymag.com/display.php?id=7767

Again, too bad there isn't better documentation with the story.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

http://www.amazon.com/Furta-Sacra-Thefts-Relics-Central/dp/0691008620

[h=1]Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages Revised edition with a New preface by the author Edition[/h]
by Patrick J. Geary

I own this book, its a real odd and funny read. Medieval monasteries made good money from pilgrims. But you had to have some "good" relics. They'd buy relics from less than trustworthy relic peddlars. And then would make up outrageous stories of how they came by them. Some other monastery or church had come by these relics, who did no appreciate them. So the saint in question would sent a message to some monk who would craftily,, sometimes over decades, plan to steal the unhappy relic and give it the honor and prominence it deserved. All of it outrageous lies, but this is what the pilgrims wanted to hear. And of course there were occasionaly thefts and robberies of relics. Miracles abound in these tall tales, and lying about such matters was par for the course.

The idea that lies and false testimony was not present in regards to miracles and miracle workers is nonsense. The idea that claimed witnesses were never liars or made up out of whole clothe is nonsense.

This book is a collection of object lessons on just how dishonest and sleazy and full of pious fraud religion can be.

Of other interest is the collection of tall tales told about Catholic owned relics, including an amazing list of such collected by John Calvin.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32136/32136-pdf.pdf
Title: A Treatise on Relics

Author: John Calvin

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The Jesus miracle stories are more credible than those of Perseus, Joseph Smith, etc. etc.

(continued)

In these instances the people who wrote the things down are named (and even signed in many cases). Actual named eyewitnesses were the writers as opposed to the completely anonymous NT gospels.

Having a name is much less important than having multiple sources. Since Joseph Smith had the advantage of the print media, we should expect far more examples of his miracle acts than these few, plus multiple sources instead of only one, or only himself.

LOL!!!!! That has to be the most wrong thing you've written to date and that's saying something. Try taking that to court and arguing "Having one actual signed eyewitness with a chain of custody is much less important than having . . .

But you have not provided the actual text from the eyewitness. No Joseph Smith miracle yet has been presented here for us to consider. I don't deny that there are some claims, and original 19th-century text for this. But those accounts are not convincing. If you think any of them are convincing, then copy the text and paste it here for us to read. I have read some of them and they are easily explained as a product of normal mythologizing. Many church-goers today have similar anecdotes of someone in their congregation who they prayed for and was healed by God. This is different than the Jesus healing events.

The Jesus healing acts were done to victims who were NOT his disciples and were reported by onlookers who were NOT his disciples.

Find the best example of a Joseph Smith healing act and provide the 19th-century text about it. Post it here so we can read it. This has not yet been done. The only examples you (or others) provided were NOT cases of Joseph Smith healing someone.

The reason you are not providing such text is that you think those stories are silly and are clearly cases of religious people who believe in their guru because they were impacted by his charisma, and they wanted to give encouragement to the suffering victims, and also encouragement to other members of the flock.

Give us the example, the original text, and the context, etc. so we can consider it.

I acknowledge the one case of the ex-Mormon woman who described 1 or 2 miracle events, so her testimony has higher credibility, not being his disciple any longer. However, her long description and emotionalistic language seems to be that of someone who has some screws loose.

If you disagree and think her account is convincing, then present it to us here. Here's the site: http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Healings_and_miracles/Fanny_Stenhouse_accounts .

This source is the most convincing one I've seen yet, since the witness is an EX-Mormon, and apparently "hostile." But she sounds whacked-out to me. It's not convincing. There is something artificial in her description. In any case, the victims allegedly cured were Smith disciples only.

All the other sources are from Smith disciples only.

If you think I'm just "equivocating" or "rationalizing" away the evidence, go to the above site, or other one you think is the most convincing, to the text, read it yourself, pick out what is convincing in it, and copy it and post it here, explaining how it shows a clear case of someone healed from an affliction. I think you'll find them unconvincing and not worth posting here.

But we have the healing stories from the gospel accounts, some of which I posted earlier. You're already familiar with them.

Nevertheless, I don't rule out that maybe Smith had some psychological influence over his disciples that could produce a favorable effect in some cases, causing a quicker recovery. Maybe even an apparent sudden recovery in some cases. This could be a limited power that some "faith-healers" possess. Perhaps a hypnotic factor was involved. If the evidence shows an apparent recovery, then that's fine. Such a case does not disprove the Jesus miracles in the gospel accounts.

Try taking that to court and arguing "Having one actual signed eyewitness with a chain of custody is much less important than having a bunch of anonymous stories that showed up 40 or so years removed from the events in question."

It's not clear we really have an "actual signed eyewitness with a chain of custody" in the case of Joseph Smith healing miracles. Until you get the original account, the 19th-century text about it, and post it so we can read what really happened, we don't really have something to compare to the Jesus events as recorded in the gospel accounts.

I've read some of it and it's not as clear as you're making it sound. That you never give the actual text of the event suggests that you don't really think it's to be taken seriously.

We know that members of a congregation pray for one another and sometimes there's a recovery that is attributed to the praying, sometimes to the preacher/faith-healer guru who has a lot of charisma. It's never someone outside the limited church family of that guru who gets healed. These are not convincing.

Pick out the most convincing case you know of and post the text here.

Are there any publications up to around 1900 which report on Joseph Smith's miracles and are not from one of his direct disciples? or even 1920 or 1930? If there were 2 or 3 such publications attesting that he did perform such acts, this would give some credibility, especially if some victims healed were someone other than only his direct disciples who had worshiped him for more than a year or two prior to the event.

Even something published by the Mormon Church would be OK and would add some credibility. It's not clear that most of the Mormons take the miracle stories seriously, or ever did, going back to Smith himself. Some respectable source would be OK, including even a Mormon source. Frankly, those websites seem a bit freaky. Does the mainline Mormon Church really endorse those websites? It's not clear.

The Mormon religion today is a rather high-class organization which ought to put out something more respectable than those websites, which are poorly designed and seem put together by wackos. There are some Mormon YouTubes which are very well done. Here's an LDS movie about Joseph Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xVw6PsSinI&list=PLJjENF7w7BcI-0cAGpqy8Cy-_z0ncnFQl
This is a well-polished product, with no argumentation per se, but dramatizing Joseph Smith's special prophet status, and very convincing for its emotional appeal and good acting and nice music.

Here's another one about the construction of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxbMzmWFJQ&index=5&list=PLJjENF7w7BcI-0cAGpqy8Cy-_z0ncnFQl
It has good emotional effect and dramatics (though corny at times), and one has to be impressed with the beautiful result at the end after 40 years from "cornerstone" to "capstone" final product.

So, if there is evidence for the miracle healing acts of Joseph Smith, and if Mormons take this seriously, let's see a documentary from them about his miracles. We should expect something like this, in a good product form. Or at least a good polished website which presents this information. Not the shabby junky websites which have been linked here. It appears that the mainline LDS community has no serious interest in these "miracles" of Joseph Smith.

The movie above about Joseph Smith has one scene which seems to depict a miraculous recovery, but for rational consideration we need some information about the event, not just a dramatized re-enactment, if it's supposed to be an actual event that was witnessed. The only ones present are his disciples, so it's most likely that if it was a real event, it only reflects the faith of the disciples in their guru, rather than a real healing event.

In any case, if Smith did heal someone in a few cases, this does not somehow prove that Jesus did not heal anyone. So what is the argument? If there is good evidence, multiple sources, near to the time of the reported events, not apparently due to normal mythologizing -- then I have no problem recognizing that he may have performed such an act. If the evidence is strong, maybe it's true.

That Christ performed healing miracles 2000 years ago is not based on some premise that Joseph Smith or others must never have done such a thing.

The location and date of the events is considerably more precise. Much of the source documentation for these events can be dated to within days of the events in question rather than decades.

I'm not insisting that these half-dozen or so events did not happen. But we need more than one source. Having the date is less important than having some corroboration from a separate source. For the first event you list, there is the 2nd source, so it's more credible. But I'm still not sure if you've given adequate information about that one case. At best, that's the only one that is serious. It doesn't matter if the one source gives the date and exact time of day down to the second.

I would say tentatively that Smith may have had a higher-than-normal batting average for healing acts, compared to other preacher-healers. Maybe .150 rather than the normal .100. If he had an average of .700 or .800 we would have many more healing stories about him. But I think there's reason to believe Jesus had a 1.000 batting average. This would explain how he became mythologized into a god so quickly.

So we're back to the batting average BS. Okay, once again I ask you: What evidence do you have to back up your belief that the anonymous documents about Jesus performing miracles are a comprehensive list of every attempt he ever made to perform a miracle?

They're not such a comprehensive list. But as to possible failures, obviously we cannot be sure if there were other cases where he tried and failed. But if this did happen much, he would have been recognized as only one of many would-be faith-healers who have more "misses" than "hits" and would have been ignored, and so we would not have such an unusual record of him as we have but do NOT have for the hundreds or thousands of other would-be faith-healers who were dismissed and not reported because they were nothing special.

So the "evidence" basically is the fact that we have such a unique record of his healing acts, such that there is no other reputed healer for whom we have anything comparable. The closest would be Apollonius of Tyana, for whom there is no record until about 150 years later, and only one source. So, why the large supply of reports of the Jesus miracles and virtually none for any of the others? An unusually high batting average can explain it. What else would explain it?

What do you make of Matthew 13:58 which specifically excuses his lack of ability to perform miracles on that particular occasion on the lack of faith of the folks who were in that particular locale?

Once again, the "Rejection at Nazareth" story contains contradictions in it. In both cases where it says he could do no miracle in Nazareth, it also says just above that the people there were amazed at his "mighty deeds" -- There is something distorted about this reported event.

In any case, if you take this story to mean that he could not perform any miracle there, then you must also accept the implication that he DID do such deeds at other places, and so it was an early tradition that Jesus was a miracle-worker. I.e., this belief existed right from the beginning and was not a later invention. And the puzzle is to explain why we have this one story that said he could NOT perform such an act at Nazareth.

I think there is an unusual explanation for this. The Luke version (4:16-29) makes it more confusing as the townspeople get angry and drag Jesus out of the synagogue and try to cast him over a cliff. Someone rebukes him by saying, "Physician, heal thyself!" -- This episode is something much beyond a simple case of Jesus being tested and failing to heal a victim at one particular location.

I gave my theory about this episode in the following post:

or http://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?3071-120-Reasons-to-Reject-Christianity/page109 page 109.

You can't just take this story as evidence that Jesus had some limit to his power. Or rather, if you do, you are assuming that he did have some miracle power which failed him in this one occasion, or at this one location. Or at least you're assuming that he was reputed from the beginning to have had such power. So the miracle stories are not a later invention but date back to 30 AD.

1. His career was LESS THAN 3 YEARS.

2. We have Multiple sources attesting to his miracle acts (a large number of such acts, not just 3 or 4).

3. These sources are all dated to within 100 years after his life, and some less than 50 years.

You do not address these points by continuing to fall back on Perseus and Hercules and Horus etc., or on popular gurus or founders of new religions who were famous public figures having status or recognition.

This is tiresome. You have no evidence that this man actually existed.

We have the same kind of evidence that we have for other historical figures -- not comparable to the major figures like for Constantine or Charlemagne or Martin Luther or President Lincoln etc. -- but for thousands of historical figures we take for granted there is less evidence than we have for the historical Jesus.

Your "evidence" that his career was less than 3 years is the same as your evidence that he did all the miracles.

It's legitimate evidence. However, it's not proof, or, not "evidence" that removes all doubt. Whether you try to calculate the exact chronology or not, the career of Jesus was extremely short compared to that of any other figure who became mythologized into a deity or miracle-worker.

In other words it's all part of the same story. You're using what's called circular logic, attempting to use the story to prove the story.

Whether you call it "circular" or not, it's the same kind of evidence that we have for most historical facts. We have documents which say it, or imply it, and we generally believe it if nothing else contradicts it. Like with many historical facts, there is some doubt.

And for alleged miracle events we need more than only one source.

"History is mostly guessing, the rest is prejudice." --Will Durant

But even if you had unimpeachable evidence that his career was less than 3 years what would it matter? How does that in any way increase the reliability of the miracle claims?

An unusually short career makes it more difficult to explain how the miracle stories emerged through the normal mythologizing process. ALL other miracle or myth heroes, if they started out as real historical figures, were famous persons who had a distinguished career. Certainly there are no examples of such a person with a career shorter than 20 years, although in modern times it's different, with the widespread publishing industry, so that maybe today it would be 10 years. But 2000 years ago it was virtually impossible for someone with a short career to be mythologized into a deity. There are no examples of such a case.

So the short career just makes the mythologizing explanation less plausible.

These "multiple sources" are all anonymous and never showed up until at least 40 years after the alleged events took place and that's being generous.

But that's a SHORT time by comparison to other historical facts, for which that time span is usually longer. Not necessarily for major events/persons, but for most events the written record of it comes later than 40 years after the event. (We're talking about 2000 years ago, or 1000 years ago.)

And that the sources are "anonymous" does not undermine the credibility. Once again, the Royal Frankish Annals are anonymous and yet are accepted for historical events. The miracle stories are rejected, but these are always rejected whether the source is "anonymous" or not. That a source is "anonymous" per se does not mean the source is rejected for credibility. Why should it be?

The truth is that none of these anonymous documents can be demonstrated to exist prior to the 3rd century A.D.

Yes they can. This dating can be demonstrated as reliably as the dating for most of our sources for historical events. Again you are giving arguments for throwing out ALL our sources for the history of that period.

One year is plenty of time for legend building to occur.

No, there is no example of any such legend building. You can't name an example. Not a legend lasting into the future and for which there is a written record. Probably there were some local "legends" from one village only and which died in a few years and are forgotten, but not one preserved in the written record.

30 years is an eternity.

There are no examples of it. And it's easy to understand why. It takes time for the myth to spread and become popular enough that anyone would write it down for posterity. For events more than 1000 years ago, when writing was rare, 30 years was a very short time between the event and the later first written record of it.

It's laughable that you think somehow that makes these stories credible. It doesn't.

It makes it impossible to explain how the mythologizing took place in such a short time. No one has given a plausible explanation. Every attempt has proposed a condition which should have led to more than only one such legend emerging. I.e., we should be seeing more than only one example of a miracle legend which emerged in such a short time and became published in multiple documents.

There were easily thousands of small-time miracle legends or miracle heroes, each in a limited locality, where a few followers tried to get a cult going. But they were ignored because no one took them seriously, and it never spread and nothing was written down, or anything written down was not copied, for lack of motivation, as there was no credibility to the claims. It makes no sense that we'd have only this one miracle legend that was recorded in multiple documents. The same conditions which produced this Jesus cult should have produced several others. Even hundreds.

I've already given you plausible scenarios whereby these stories could have come to exist and you have yet to deal with any of them.

None of your examples is plausible. All you say is that it just happened. You just say "People made up shit" and then others believed it and spread it until there were thousands of believers.

Which makes no sense, because if it's that easy to get a new miracle cult going, that spreads and is published in multiple accounts, in only 50 years or so, how come we have NO OTHER EXAMPLES of this? Why is there ONLY ONE example and no others?

It's simply not true that anyone can just "make up shit" and spread it around and thousands are soon believing it. It has never happened and you cannot name one case. And if it could happen, we'd have many examples of it, not ONE ONLY.

The only qualifier to this might be in modern times when something can be published on the Internet and be spread. The comparison to modern times, even to recent centuries when we have a widespread publishing industry, is much more complicated.

But for 2000 years ago there is no question -- there was no way a new miracle cult could be started by just anyone who "made up shit" and got thousands to believe it in only 30 or 40 or 50 years, and get it published in multiple sources.

The Jesus case is the ONLY example -- there are no others. Which makes no sense. The best explanation is that in this case the miracle hero is NOT fiction after all, but rather, he really did perform those acts. Even if there were fictions which then became attached to him, the origin of the Jesus legends must be that the basic miracle events really happened. Once he was recognized as a miracle-worker, especially following his resurrection, then various myths could sprout up quickly and be added to the original story.

 

[Atheos]

Unique doesn't mean true.

Impossible always trumps unique.

It remains impossible for a man to walk on water and levitate off into the sky never to be seen again.

The best explanation is always that the miracles are made up no matter how tight a bullseye you draw around the circumstances of your favorite god-myth.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Unique doesn't mean true.

Impossible always trumps unique.

It remains impossible for a man to walk on water and levitate off into the sky never to be seen again.

The best explanation is always that the miracles are made up no matter how tight a bullseye you draw around the circumstances of your favorite god-myth.

It's the only explanation. The question becomes why did people make up the stories, and the answer is always to argue for how powerful their claims really are. A Jesus bringing people back to life is stupid, but if the rival cult is making this claim it's time to up the ante. Religion is a marketplace but where people shop around for what they like, not what's factual.

 

[Atheos]

It's simply not true that anyone can just "make up shit" and spread it around and thousands are soon believing it. It has never happened and you cannot name one case. And if it could happen, we'd have many examples of it, not ONE ONLY.

I don't know what world you live in. Please visit snopes.com and revisit this claim.

Meanwhile I offer the following:

J.Z. Knight - within a few years she had millions of people believing and investing huge money in her Ramtha bullshit.

L Ron Hubbard - within a few years he had millions of people believing in and investing huge money in his Scientology bullshit.

Joseph Smith - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

Mohammad - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

Paul of Tarsus - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's simply not true that anyone can just "make up shit" and spread it around and thousands are soon believing it. It has never happened and you cannot name one case. And if it could happen, we'd have many examples of it, not ONE ONLY.

I don't know what world you live in. Please visit snopes.com and revisit this claim.

Meanwhile I offer the following:

J.Z. Knight - within a few years she had millions of people believing and investing huge money in her Ramtha bullshit.

L Ron Hubbard - within a few years he had millions of people believing in and investing huge money in his Scientology bullshit.

Joseph Smith - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

Mohammad - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

Paul of Tarsus - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

Religion and religious claims aren't about about any one thing. Some are in it because it affords social status. Some are in for the money. Some for the power, others for the political gain. Some do it out of cultural habit, and some do it because it is simply a ticket to survival. Still others believe religious claims because they are cognitively limited or mentally impaired. But whatever the reason, they've all got a history of having been selected for.

All these reasons make the god wall a tough one to get over for millions, unlike the Santa wall, Tooth Fairy wall or Easter Bunny wall where you can find lots of people who won't treat you badly for getting past childhood woo stories. In short, many people don't have a choice when it comes to religion. They're just doing what works for them. If anything, they're gong with convenience, christianity being a good example of adopting a cheap, simple religion over a former, and getting more bang for the buck.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

There were no cases of instant miracle-worker legends that popped up suddenly.

It's simply not true that anyone can just "make up shit" and spread it around and thousands are soon believing it. It has never happened and you cannot name one case. And if it could happen, we'd have many examples of it, not ONE ONLY.

J.Z. Knight - within a few years she had millions of people believing and investing huge money in her Ramtha bullshit.

L Ron Hubbard - within a few years he had millions of people believing in and investing huge money in his Scientology bullshit.

Joseph Smith - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

Mohammad - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

Paul of Tarsus - within a few years millions of followers believing his bullshit.

You're off topic. We're talking about instant miracle legends, not just ANY "bullshit." None of the above started an instant miracle hero myth that spread and got published in multiple sources.

Of course there are "instant" success stories of various kinds. But it's not true that some upstart cult got a new miracle hero legend started which was soon believed in by thousands of followers and got published in multiple sources.

Modern publishing has increased the possibility for a new cult to promote itself more quickly, but there is no example before modern times of any instant miracle heroes. The explanation that someone "made up shit" cannot explain how the Jesus miracle legend emerged in only 1-2 generations.

It's not true that people just automatically believe new miracle BS -- you can't give any example of it. Obviously today, with the Internet, you can find oddball claims of any kind, but no significant percent of the population who believe the claims. Such groups 2000 years ago obviously had no way to even get started, let alone survive.

You have not explained how ONLY ONE CULT was able to promulgate a new miracle legend and get it published in multiple documents in less than 70 years. All those other would-be mythic hero cults had the same wherewithal to do it, hundreds of them, and yet there is only one that emerged over all those centuries.

When will you get around to answering the question why there is ONLY ONE miracle cult which succeeded in getting itself into the historical record, without requiring many centuries of mythologizing to do it?

 

[bilby]

There is a reason why the Guinness Book records the 'World's Tallest Man', and the 'World's Tallest Woman', but draws the line at recording the 'World's Tallest Left-Handed Lesbian Paraplegic with Dyslexia Born in Ulan Bator between 1962 and 1984 to Jewish Parents".

When your claim to be special relies on more than one (or at most two) qualifiers, you are no longer special at all.

Jesus is NOT identical to all the other purported manifestations of Gods. JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. Every single one of them is unique in that regard; The argument that Jesus' uniqueness makes him extra special is utterly without merit. Even if it were true that no other cult was able to promulgate a new miracle legend and get it published in multiple documents in less than 70 years. Which it probably isn't. Most documents from 2,000 odd years ago are long since lost.

 

[zorq]

You have not explained how ONLY ONE CULT was able to promulgate a new miracle legend and get it published in multiple documents in less than 70 years. All those other would-be mythic hero cults had the same wherewithal to do it, hundreds of them, and yet there is only one that emerged over all those centuries.

When will you get around to answering the question why there is ONLY ONE miracle cult which succeeded in getting itself into the historical record, without requiring many centuries of mythologizing to do it?

Is this even a great accomplishment?

How does it take 70 years to spread the news that the dead have returned to life in Israel to a few obscure sects in the ancient world but news that Caesar is dead takes only a month or two to circulate the entire Roman Empire?

70 years to get a single quote from an outside source? Really? That's an accomplishment?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

There is more evidence for the Jesus miracles than for all the other miracle hero legends.

There is a reason why the Guinness Book records the 'World's Tallest Man', and the 'World's Tallest Woman', but draws the line at recording the 'World's Tallest Left-Handed Lesbian Paraplegic with Dyslexia Born in Ulan Bator between 1962 and 1984 to Jewish Parents".

Touché!

When your claim to be special relies on more than one (or at most two) qualifiers, you are no longer special at all.

There's only one qualifier: The Jesus miracle legend is the only one which cannot be explained as a product of normal mythologizing.

Jesus is NOT identical to all the other purported manifestations of Gods. JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. Every single one of them is unique in that regard;

OK, each one has its own uniqueness. The Wotan myth is the only one about an old man with one eye who rides a horse across the sky.

And the Jesus myth is the only one, of ALL the miracle hero legends, which could not have been produced by the process of mythologizing or story-telling, which necessarily takes place over many generations/centuries. You're right -- the Jesus legend has this one unique feature, and every other hero myth also has some unique feature. We agree.

The argument that Jesus' uniqueness makes him extra special is utterly without merit.

You're right -- all the others each have a special uniqueness. In fact each one probably has several unique features, any one of which make it special and different than all the others.

And one of the unique features of the Jesus miracle legend is that it's the only one which cannot be explained as a product of mythologizing, since it developed too soon after the historical person lived, and so this Jesus legend must have been caused by something different than the usual mythologizing process.

Even if it were true that no other cult was able to promulgate a new miracle legend and get it published in multiple documents in less than 70 years. Which it probably isn't.

No, the point about "multiple documents" refers to the documents which have survived. We don't know how many total documents there may have been, about all those other would-be cults, or about the new Jesus cult(s). Almost certainly there were dozens or even hundreds of documents about the Jesus legend that are lost. And surely there also were hundreds of documents, now lost, about various other upstart cults which survived a few weeks or years and then died out.

If there were any at all which had some credibility, we would have to see at least something else in the way of a written record. I.e., at least about SOME of them.

Actually, it isn't that we have none at all. We've talked about some possible other cults. We have one document about the Apollonius of Tyana reputed miracles. And there's mention of the Simon Magus cult. Along with these, who must have been unusual characters in some way, there must have been hundreds more, mostly less important than these two, which also drew limited attention and were dismissed.

So, what we have is MORE evidence for the Jesus legend, far more, than for any other upstart miracle cult. And there isn't even any close second. Reason surely requires that there should be several others which are close to the Jesus legend, vying for 2nd place, almost as much documented as this one case which is at the top of the list. If there was nothing more credible about the Jesus legend, i.e., it was just one of many equally fictitious new cults/myths, then we should see others for which there is similar or equal documentation.

But there's no other one which is even close. This suggests that the Jesus legend was far more credible than all the others, explaining why it became widely published, whereas all the others were far less credible and thus were not taken seriously. I.e., that best explains why there's no close second.

Most documents from 2,000 odd years ago are long since lost.

Of course. Including most documents about the Jesus events.

 

[Atheos]

There's only one qualifier: The Jesus miracle legend is the only one which cannot be explained as a product of normal mythologizing.

But then in order to qualify what "normal mythologizing" is you then have to qualify that it

• Never refers to someone who supposedly lived within 4 decades of when the myth became popular
• Only refers to myths about miracle workers
• Only refers to myths that were actually written down

And one of the unique features of the Jesus miracle legend is that it's the only one which cannot be explained as a product of mythologizing, since it developed too soon after the historical person lived

A baseless assertion you argue using circular reasoning and have yet to produce any evidence for. This has been pointed out numerous times in this thread. References by Josephus are obvious forgeries and the dude only wrote what he heard from others anyway, using his own judgment as to whether it was worth writing down. Even if they were authentic they were written no less than 6 decades after the alleged events. All other references in the historical record were separated from the allegations by nearly a century and were far more likely to be the result of taint from the evangelistic efforts of christian believers than reference to now lost historical records of the period.

You've never dealt with the fact that this myth appeared in Rome first, not in or around Jerusalem where it supposedly happened. Distance measured in thousands of miles would have been every bit as effective as time measured in centuries to separate the myth from any vestigial facts that may have formed an historical nugget.

Actually, it isn't that we have none at all. We've talked about some possible other cults. We have one document about the Apollonius of Tyana reputed miracles. And there's mention of the Simon Magus cult. Along with these, who must have been unusual characters in some way, there must have been hundreds more, mostly less important than these two, which also drew limited attention and were dismissed.

Ahhh, so another qualifier:

• Must have become popular

You have now combined the logical fallacy of appeal to popularity with your already established sharpshooter fallacy. Multiplying fallacies doesn't increase the validity of the argument.

Finally, let's go back and revisit this:

It's simply not true that anyone can just "make up shit" and spread it around and thousands are soon believing it. It has never happened and you cannot name one case. And if it could happen, we'd have many examples of it, not ONE ONLY.

So I provided you a list of people who "made up shit" and spread it around and thousands (millions) were soon believing it. Not only has it happened often in the annals of history it has happened thousands upon thousands of times in your own lifetime (provided you are more than 10 years old).

Your response was:

You're off topic. We're talking about instant miracle legends, not just ANY "bullshit." None of the above started an instant miracle hero myth that spread and got published in multiple sources.

So we can add goalpost shifting to your list of crimes against logic just on a single page. You made a statement and were demonstrated to be false on it. At least own up to that. Or are you going to argue somehow that when it comes to miracle workers people use better critical thinking skills than when it comes to these other scams I mentioned? If so ...

And the Jesus myth was far from "instant." 40 years is not instant even if one grants that the person actually existed at all which is far from demonstrated. Familiarize yourself with the concept of the Bell Curve and you'll discover that even the things that are far from the statistical norm are still considered part of the set.

 

[James Brown]

From Atheism: The Case Against God, by George H. Smith:

If one compares reports of miracles from the so-called synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and
Luke), one will find that, as one moves from the earlier to the later Gospels, some of the miracles
become more exaggerated. Consider the following passage from Mark, the earliest Gospel:

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with
demons. ... And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out
many demons. ... (1:32-34)

Now compare the same incident as reported by the two later Gospels, Matthew and Luke (who
probably took the original account from Mark and amended it). Here is Matthew:

That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he
cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick. (8:16)

And here is Luke:

Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various
diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on every one of them and
healed them. (4:40)

According to Mark, all were brought to Jesus and many were healed; according to Matthew,
many were brought and all were healed; and according to Luke, all were brought and all were
healed. The miracle keeps getting better all the time. As A. Robertson observes, “We are
witnessing the progressive growth of a legend.”204

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's simply not true that anyone can just "make up shit" and spread it around and thousands are soon believing it. It has never happened and you cannot name one case. And if it could happen, we'd have many examples of it, not ONE ONLY.

Ever read the Book of Mormon? Horses and steel swords in the New World before Columbus?

Black people are black as a punishment from an angry god?

People make shit up, thousands, even millions of people come to believe it's true.
Happens all the time, Lumpy.