120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Cheerful Charlie]

The worst problem with the whole Jesus myth is, He explicitly said he'd return very soon to establish a new world, and that did not happen.

Matthew 24
²⁹ Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
³⁰ And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 26

⁶³ But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
⁶⁴ Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Mark 14

⁶¹ But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
⁶² And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Matthew 16
²⁸ Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

Didn't happen as promised, did it?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It's just around the corner.

 

[Atheos]

A thousand years is as a day. You know the drill.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yes, but Jesus clearly meant that he'd return in the lifetime of the high priest. We also have the Sermon on the mount, leave homes family and farms and wait for the second coming which is soon. No need to worry about what you will eat, drink, or wear etc.

Matthew 6
²⁵ Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
²⁶ Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
²⁷ Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
²⁸ And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
²⁹ And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
³⁰ Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
³¹ Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

-----

Not a good economic system long term, but waiting for the end, well.....

 

[Iznomneak]

Not a good economic system long term, but waiting for the end, well.....

It's kind of ludicrous to think that the most efficient way to save souls is to wait 2000+ years before implementing the final phases.
Talk about scope creep and cost overruns. You'd think he had an infinite amount of capital.

 

[Atheos]

Lumpenproletariat, for the umpteenth time we don't reject the Jesus myths as unreliable solely because of the miracle claims (although they certainly give us good reason to be suspect). We reject them because they tell stories that the historical record denies. The historical record denies that anyone lived during the time period and areas in question with the impact that these stories suggest. If someone had lived in that time and place, performed such notable deeds and garnered such attention that throngs of thousands were following him everywhere; that rich and important people were wagging their tongues about him from great distances (Herod/Jairus); that a major revolution against the status quo was engendered, there is no question that it would have left a mark in the historical record.

It left none.

End of story. Sorry you've spent your whole life being bamboozled by a religious myth, but you can take comfort in the fact that you are not alone.

 

[Barbarian]

Lumpenproletariat, for the umpteenth time we don't reject the Jesus myths as unreliable solely because of the miracle claims (although they certainly give us good reason to be suspect).

He refers to this constantly because e.g. I told him I do. And I do; it does not matter how fervently someone believes in miracles and it does not matter how well-documented the identity of the believer is: mistaken belief vs. actual miracle happening is a no contest.

You guys keep inadvertently trolling Lumpen by giving him hope that if he manages to elevate those documents to some more respectable status, he'll have his way. Please tell me you wouldn't consider the miracle claims if we had undisputed affidavits about them, signed P. Pilate. The amount of stuff we know that would have to be wrong for such claims to hold water is amazing. So yes, miracle claims are false simply by virtue of being miracle claims; authenticity of documents does not enter the picture.

 

[Atheos]

Yes Barbarian, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Miracle stories are as common as bacteria. Verifiable ones are as rare as flying reindeer. Lumpenproletariat has given us ample reason to suspect that he believes miracles are so common that their presence in a story is no reason to suspect the story. He keeps trying to sell this insane proposition to an audience that is never going to buy it. I don't know why.

He has now spent years trying to excise his myths from the flood of hoaxes, myths, tall tales and stories people have made up for as long as they have had language with which to do so. From ancient Egyptian myths to J.Z. Knight's "Ramtha" bullshit, as long as gullible people can be hornswaggled, bullshit is going to continue to be pimped. His efforts at drawing "Texas Sharpshooter" bulls-eyes around his favorite myth are entertaining, which I guess is why we keep playing along.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The "Second Coming" -- Why did they make Jesus into "The Son of Man" who would return?

The worst problem with the whole Jesus myth is, He explicitly said he'd return very soon to establish a new world, and that did not happen.

Matthew 24
²⁹ Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
³⁰ And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 26
⁶³ But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
⁶⁴ Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Mark 14
⁶¹ But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
⁶² And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Matthew 16
²⁸ Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

Didn't happen as promised, did it?

There are many interpretations of the "return very soon" quotes of Jesus.

One is that he never said these "Son of Man" sayings but that these were put into his mouth by later NT writers, as some early Christ cults adopted the earlier "Son of Man" theme. All the "return very soon" quotes use the "Son of Man" figure. Jesus is never quoted saying explicitly that he himself is this "Son of Man" person.

Even if he taught an immediate return or Second Coming, it may be that he did not really say the words, "There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till . . ." Rather, these particular words could be a later addition to what he said.

So one guess is as good as another.


Though the Gospel accounts are dated LATER, their CONTENT is EARLY.

However, these words in the gospel accounts indicate one important fact about the later gospel writers/editors: In general, they did NOT "make up" their material, but wrote down what they had in their sources.

This is obvious, because the Gospel of Matthew in its final form dates from about 80 AD, and it is unthinkable that a Christian propagandist at that late date, promoting the new Christ belief, would create a teaching that says original disciples from 30 AD would still be living to see Christ's return as the Son of Man in glory and power.

Obviously many of the original disciples were dead by this time, probably most of them. And the writer/editor of Matthew at this time had to know that he'd be taking a great risk to promote this teaching when so few of the original disciples were still living. He would have to ask, "What if Jesus still doesn't return for another 20 or 30 or more years? after the last of the disciples has passed on?"

Thus the Matthew writer/editor in 80 AD could not possibly put such words into the mouth of Jesus at this late date. Those words must have been in his sources, and he felt obliged to include those words in his account, even though he knew that "time was running out" for Jesus to return and make good on this promise. Yet he included those words anyway. Obviously those words came from his source, and not from his inventive mind, and these later writers did not do edits to censor something in their source even though there was a motive to do so.

So these words must have originated before about 60 AD or so. It has to be relatively early, and we don't know if they go all the way back to Jesus, or if they were "put into his mouth" by someone later, like in the 40s or 50s or so.

In fact, this shows the final Gospel writers/editors to be more like REPORTERS of these events than creators of it or propagandists for it. If they were the latter, they would have excluded the "return very soon" words, also the "Rejection at Nazareth" story and some other content that reflects negatively on the Christ figure.

The important point is that the writers/editors from 70 AD and later did NOT "make up" their content but relied on earlier sources. Or rather, they did not "throw out" content that would be embarrassing, but included it anyway, because it was in their sources, and they felt an obligation to include what they had in those sources even if these were problematic.

So they did not do dishonest editing in order to "clean up" the story or sanitize it or make it fit the latest narrative or doctrinal mutations.

The passage of time without any Return happening is something which causes the hope to fade and depression to set in, but it's not really a "reason" to disbelieve. It subtracts nothing from the evidence that Jesus had power. It does cast doubt on how reliable the "sayings of Jesus" are, i.e., whether he really said the words in the quotes.


Best explanation: The miracle acts of Jesus were real events that happened.

Why did the "Son of Man" figure become attached to Jesus? Why is the Second Coming idea connected to him and to no other hero figure also?

And why did the Christ believers change the title from "Son of Man" to "The Son of Man"?

That the scenario of his early return in great power and glory did not happen does not undermine the credibility of the gospel accounts generally or refute the general belief in his power. Rather, these perceptions of him indicate that he must have done something highly unusual to set him apart from all the other "messiah" figures and heroes. They are really a further indication that the miracle stories were real events.

It is normal that the belief in him, which was based on the evidence and the power he demonstrated, would take on some sensationalist forms or exaggerations. Once he was perceived as someone of superhuman origin, new myth-making could happen quickly, many interpretations emerged, some conflicting with others, adding new claims which amplified on the earlier experience, and new words were put into his mouth which he did not say.

He was gone in only 3 years or less, but the reactions and confusions continued, leading to many differing interpretations and new versions of the truth, all trying to explain his significance and his part in the end-time scenario. End-of-the-world frenzies had been running wild long before Jesus and obviously did not originate from him, whatever he may have said about it.

Even if he had some apocalyptic or end-time visions, it had to be something more basic than these which attracted his followers, because there was nothing new about such visions -- they were a dime a dozen -- and yet Jesus must have introduced something new and distinct from the already-existing popular myths, i.e., something beyond these, in order to become mythologized instantly into a god, or into "The Messiah" or "The Son of Man" or "The Son of God" etc.

So his own basic "message" or starting point has to be something more basic than the eschatological or "Son of Man" visions, and then from that original impact of his there emerged some end-time visions as something secondary which added some further impact. We miscalculate if we obsess on something secondary which did not originate from him.

 

[Keith&Co.]

There are many interpretations of the "return very soon" quotes of Jesus.

One is that he never said these "Son of Man" sayings but that these were put into his mouth by later NT writers, as some early Christ cults adopted the earlier "Son of Man" theme. All the "return very soon" quotes use the "Son of Man" figure. Jesus is never quoted saying explicitly that he himself is this "Son of Man" person.

Even if he taught an immediate return or Second Coming, it may be that he did not really say the words, "There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till . . ." Rather, these particular words could be a later addition to what he said.

So one guess is as good as another.

In other words, Lumpy is quite comfortable ignoring any part of the gospel which would be uncomfortable to him, or would cast the credibilty of the gospels into doubt, as long as he can keep on insisting that no one interpolated the healing miracles.
Because... Reasons.

Lumpy has made-up reasons as the basis of his defense that the miracles were not made-up-shit.

Nice sharpshooter-ing, Lumpy.

 

[Atheos]

Best explanation: The miracle acts of Jesus were real events that happened.

No.

The best explanation has been presented in this thread many times and to date has not been addressed. The Jesus myth grew over time from a voice being channeled by Paul (and possibly pimped by other "apostles") to the stories that were eventually written down. The stories were inspired by already extant examples of hero gods, at least 5 concrete examples of dying-and-rising gods and countless examples of healing prophets (from the Jewish traditions).

It is nearly certain that the Greek writers who penned these gospels would have been schooled using the writings of Herodotus, which included the story of Zalmoxis, a Thracian dying-and-rising god from circa 500 B.C., whose death and resurrection were portents of eternal life to his followers who participated in ceremonial ritual meals. The writings of Herodotus were required reading for anyone studying to write Greek at the level at which the canonical gospels were penned, and it is nearly certain that these writers would have been familiar with the defunct cult of Zalmoxis.

For the convenience of anyone reading this post and being curious, the 5 indisputable dying-and-rising gods predating Jesus are Osiris, Adonis, Romulus, Zalmoxis and Inanna (the only femaie in the bunch). Inanna is also incidentally significant in that she was crucified after a fashion in her death and resurrected 3 days later.

If that weren't damning enough there is the inexplicable gap in the historical record for an individual who supposedly was thronged by thousands of witnesses to these alleged miracles. It has been pointed out several times recently that several historians would have been in the right time and place, and would have had the correct interests to comment about this man who allegedly had captured the attention of King Herod and far away synagogue rulers such as Jairus. Yet somehow this deafening silence managed to persist for upwards of 40 years while these myths had time to gestate.

No, under no circumstances is "He actually performed these miracles exactly as described" the best explanation. It's not even a half-decent explanation. It's on par with "A dragon ate my homework."

 

[Learner]

The title from the OP "120 Reasons to Reject Christianity" is also fitting to what groups of Jews back then would have said. So much so, that they had given him the name (mentioned in the Talmud) as the "Seducer of people",and descibed him as an "illegitimate" a "sorcerer" a "Blasphemer" including ways to kill him.This also acknowledges his existence according to them. They hated this individual and those that followed his teachings. Going on some of the religious doctrine and ancient Gods of different beliefs. It is mentioned that angels were cast down to earth. These fallen ones were already here before Adam.

There is a some logical sense however one believes, refferring to many Gods of the ancient world . What would come with these Angel Gods are the secrets of knowledge about the physics of nature. For example the Arch angel Raziel revealing the knowledge of an ancient science. If this be the case then one with particular knowledge could perform miracles. Jesus was the son of the God and not angels.Miracles would be easy for him. There is no other in any text book with that humility and humanity yet he was/is the most ridculed and persecuted by many opposing forces including other religious sects.




(re-edit yet again. I took off the corny jokes which seemed a little arrogant. Sorry bout that)

 

[Keith&Co.]

The title from the OP "120 Reasons to Reject Christianity" is also fitting to what groups of Jews back then would have said. So much so, that they had given him the name (mentioned in the Talmud) as the "Seducer of people",and descibed him as an "illegitimate" a "sorcerer" a "Blasphemer" including ways to kill him.This also acknowledges his existence according to them.

Well, yes, contemporary accounts of a conspiracy to kill Jesus, that can be dated to the time Jesus was supposed to be walking around, and whose authors can be identified WOULD be that corroboration Lumpy keeps looking for.

On the face of it, though, it also sounds exactly like something Lumpy would make up in an attempt to bolster belief in his favorite messiah.

Where is the Jesus-Gotta-Die movement documented?

 

[atrib]

Except the OT makes it clear Jesus is NOT the messiah.

But the miracle stories were true, which is what really matters.

Meanwhile there's a million theories about what "the messiah" is supposed to be and who is or is not supposed to be "the messiah." No point in getting bogged down in that quagmire.

The truth of the miracle stories is what explains the obsession to identify Jesus as "the messiah."

The chronology was: first, people believed the miracle claims; second, groping for an explanation for these, many of them took Jesus to be "the messiah."

The reverse chronology makes no sense, i.e.: first, they believed he was "the messiah," and then they made up miracle stories to promote this belief. This makes no sense because there's no reason for them assume a need for "the messiah" to do miracles, and so they would not think the scheme of inventing miracle stories for him to serve as proof.

But the miracles-first chronology makes sense: They are struck by these unusual events, so they go searching for some explanation, and the best they can find is the "messiah" prophecies, which seem to promise a coming superhero, and they adapt this "messiah" promise to the Jesus events.

Lets examine the resurrection and heavenly ascent story and try to figure out a reasonable explanation:

Explanation 1: A human corpse reanimated itself and flew up into space and out of the universe.
Explanation 2: Somebody made up the story.

You keep insisting that 1 is the better explanation. You make up piles of lies and you ignore every fact and argument that expose the untruths you write. If your Biblegod exists, he surely has a special place in Hell reserved for liars like you. Good luck in the afterlife :devil-smiley-029:

 

[Atheos]

Mythicism documented in the canonical NT

It occurred to me that Lumpenproletariat has studiously denied that there is any evidence that anyone "back then" was skeptical that this man actually existed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Moreover, the canon includes damning evidence of how eager folks were to lie for Jesus.

Nobody except the most conservative fundamentalists think that "Peter" actually wrote II Peter. It is a pseudographical book to the core, most likely written circa 110-150 CE. Yet the writer not only claims to be Peter the apostle (a baldfaced lie) but even makes up fake stories about personally knowing Jesus in order to counter those who were claiming that Jesus never was a real person. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I John, also written sometime in the 1st quarter of the 2nd century and certainly not by anyone who personally met anyone who died in A.D. 33, includes the following verbiage:

I John 4:3 every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

The earlier you date I John the earlier you admit that there were christian teachers denying an actual historical Jesus.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

More phony parallels of Jesus to the pagan myths. No text evidence is ever provided from the ancient sources.

Best explanation: The miracle acts of Jesus were real events that happened.

No.

The best explanation has been presented in this thread many times and to date has not been addressed. The Jesus myth grew over time from a voice being channeled by Paul (and possibly pimped by other "apostles") to the stories that were eventually written down. The stories were inspired by already extant examples of hero gods, at least 5 concrete examples of dying-and-rising gods and countless examples of healing prophets (from the Jewish traditions).

The proof that they were not "inspired" by any such thing is the fact that you do not provide any text about these gods to show the connection to the Jesus events. If you would present the original text about those hero gods, it would be clear that they are laughable and have no connection whatever to anything in the gospel accounts.

It is nearly certain that the Greek writers who penned these gospels would have been schooled using the writings of Herodotus, which included the story of Zalmoxis, a Thracian dying-and-rising god from circa 500 B.C., whose death and resurrection were portents of eternal life to his followers who participated in ceremonial ritual meals.

This comparison is pathetic. You don't dare get that original Herodotus text and post it here for us to make the comparison. You know this is silly and has nothing to do with the Jesus events in the gospel accounts. Prove me wrong by quoting the original text here and pointing out the similarities to the Jesus miracle acts.

The writings of Herodotus were required reading for anyone studying to write Greek at the level at which the canonical gospels were penned, and it is nearly certain that these writers would have been familiar with the defunct cult of Zalmoxis.

For the convenience of anyone reading this post and being curious, the 5 indisputable dying-and-rising gods predating Jesus are Osiris, Adonis, Romulus, Zalmoxis and Inanna (the only female in the bunch). Inanna is also incidentally significant in that she was crucified after a fashion in her death and resurrected 3 days later.

You probably have not actually read the original text accounts of any of these. You are just regurgitating the conclusions of Jesus-debunker crusaders, like Richard Carrier, who give these false analogies. He never provides the text for any of the stories about these pagan gods in order to show the similarity to Jesus.

These claims are made over and over, and always, ALWAYS, without exception, the original ancient text about those pagan gods is not provided. Usually there is not even a link to the original text, or a citation to the original text. The only citations are from other modern authors who give these same conclusions, saying the Jesus miracles are derived from these earlier myths.

There is no credibility to these claims of a connection between the Jesus "myth" and the pagan myths until the original ancient sources are presented, giving the full text of those earlier miracle stories.

We are supposed to just accept on faith the conclusions of these mythicist debunker crusaders, like religious believers who never ask questions, never check for themselves, but just submit to the authority of the guru.

There is one trivial "parallel" or "similarity" you can point to, which is the obsession with certain numbers, like 3, 7, 12, and 40. "40 days and 40 nights" is common in the Bible, and "3 days and 3 nights" -- you can find a fascination with these particular numbers. These magic numbers are not any evidence of a dependency of a later legend on an earlier legend which might contain the same magic number. There are simple reasons to explain why these numbers are chosen, and they indicate maybe something artificial in the details, but the later story is not dependent on the earlier, or inspired by it, simply because of the coincidence of the same magic number appearing in both.

 

[atrib]

Hey Lumpy,

Do you really believe that a human corpse reanimated itself and flew up into space and out of the universe?

 

[Keith&Co.]

You probably have not actually read the original text accounts of any of these. You are just regurgitating the conclusions of Jesus-debunker crusaders,

Oh, that's just so PRECIOUS, coming from you, Lumpy. You've dismissed things you haven't even heard of, much less read the original texts of.
You don't even regurgitate the apologists, you just MAKE SHIT UP and pretend you're a scholar lecturing down to us.

So adorable.

 

[Atheos]

You probably have not actually read the original text accounts of any of these. You are just regurgitating the conclusions of Jesus-debunker crusaders, like Richard Carrier, who give these false analogies. He never provides the text for any of the stories about these pagan gods in order to show the similarity to Jesus.

Just like I didn't read the original handwritten accounts of Wilford Woodruff detailing miracle accounts of Joseph Smith so none of that information can be tossed into the discussion. If any arguments here are pathetic they're yours. I know how this goes. I bring in actual quotes from transcriptions of ancient documents and you back and fill, saying "But those aren't the original documents." Unless I can upload the original cuneiform tablets upon which these ancient myths are etched complete with my personal credentials as a translator of the dead language and a note from Inanni's mother you're going to do your usual ear-stopping dance of denial that these inconvenient truths exist.

Yet you sit back and hypocritically appeal to documents hundreds of years removed from the originals which are only speculated to have been written by some anonymous individuals decades removed from the time and hundreds of miles removed from the places in which these fantastic tales of a magic gravity-defying Jew supposedly lived. Your arguments are bolstered only by popularity and absolutely nothing else. They are filled with sharpshooter fallacies and quotes of pious fraud which you accept as unimpeachable truth having no personal knowledge of any of the original documents or circumstances in which these myths were gestated.

You make up bullshit about "onlookers" to draw your sharpshooter bullseye around your favorite fairy tale and have the unmitigated gall to challenge us for failure to provide primary sources when your foundation is in jeopardy. It truly is pathetic.

Go read your original texts and get back with us when you're done. Don't come to us with some English translation, and don't try to bring us some half-baked images of Siniaticus hundreds of years removed. Get the originals or go home. Find the one with "Mark's" fingerprints all over it. Scratch that, find the original "Q" since you're so sure it exists, not some interpretive reconstruction. Or agree that none of us lay participants in this conversation are immune to the need to base our input on the work done by other specialists.

Until then the best I can do is the same as you: Appeal to the work done by others (long before Richard Carrier was born by the way). From the very tongue of Satan himself, I present a quote from a WIKI article regarding a portion of what Herodotus says about Zalmoxis:

Herodotus asserts that Zalmoxis was originally a human being, a slave who converted the Thracians to his beliefs. The Greeks of the Hellespont and the Black Sea tell that Zalmoxis was a slave of Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, on the island of Samos. After being liberated, he gathered huge wealth and, once rich, went back to his homeland. Thracians lived simple hard lives. Zalmoxis had lived among the wisest of Greeks, such as Pythagoras, and had been initiated into Ionian life and the Eleusinian Mysteries. He built a banquet hall, and received the chiefs and his fellow countrymen at a banquet He taught that neither his guests nor their descendants would ever die, but instead would go to a place where they would live forever in a complete happiness. He then dug an underground residence. When it was finished, he disappeared from Thrace, living for three years in his underground residence. The Thracians missed him and wept fearing him dead. The fourth year, he came back among them and thus they believed what Zalmoxis had told them.

The same damnable WIKI article lists some interpretations of the ancient documentation surrounding the Zalmoxis myth and includes the following:

Zalmoxis is a Christ figure who dies and is resurrected. This position was defended by Jean (Ioan) Coman, a professor of patristics and Orthodox priest, who was a friend of Mircea Eliade and published in Eliade's journal Zalmoxis, which appeared in the 1930s

For the record, Richard Carrier's parents weren't even born then.

 

[Atheos]

You know, I've been thinking about this all day and the more I think about it the more I'm overwhelmed with the magnitude of the irony here.

Lumpenproletariat uses derogatory language about Richard Carrier, attempting to brush him aside. He inexplicably expects us to listen to his expert analysis and ignore Carrier's, while providing little else besides absolutely ludicrous arguments, sharpshooter fallacy and baseless assertions like "Historians don't take into account how likely it is that an account happened like it did, only how many different sources there are that support it." Which is bullshit and everyone here knows it.

Be that as it may, I can't help being particularly struck by this baseless assertion from Lumpenproletariat:

You probably have not actually read the original text accounts of any of these. You are just regurgitating the conclusions of Jesus-debunker crusaders, like Richard Carrier, who give these false analogies. He never provides the text for any of the stories about these pagan gods in order to show the similarity to Jesus.

(emphasis mine)

The irony here is incredible. It's obvious that Lumpenproletariat has absolutely no clue about what Carrier wrote and is simply quoting from apologetic websites. Because if Lumpenproletariat had ever bothered to look into this claim it would quickly come to light that Richard Carrier's work in this area is peer reviewed.

Nothing Lumpenproletariat has said to date gives me cause to think he'd have a clue what it means to be peer reviewed, so I'll take a moment to explain: It means that the work Carrier did was copiously cited with specific references to all the documents necessary to substantiate his conclusions. It means that qualified historians with the language skills and knowledge of the subject matter in question critically reviewed every aspect of his work and agreed that the work was properly cited and supported. The panel who did the peer review were not composed of sympathetic supporters of the mythicist position. But they are/were scholars with the integrity to look past their own predilections and evaluate Carrier's work based on the rigorous way he cited and supported his arguments.

In summary, it means that Carrier has, indeed, provided all of the references to the original materials from which his conclusions were reached to people capable of evaluating them fairly.

For the rest of us he has summarized the contents of these original materials, recognizing that we lack the language skills and expertise to read them for ourselves. However if you purchase his books you'll be treated to images of many of these primary sources.

Anyone can toss out ad-hominem language and poo-poo the work done by serious scholars. But until you provide evidence that you've taken an honest look at Carrier's work and can demonstrate where it is lacking your credibility here (of which there is precious little) isn't enough to make me waver in my willingness to consider the merits of Carrier's conclusions.

It may actually be impossible to find an apologetic historian who has actually done the rigorous and adversarial work Carrier has in evaluating the history behind the Jesus myth. But you're welcome to try. Right now you got nothing.