Historical Jesus

[Tom Sawyer]

Agreed. A really good modern example is why in the world would Joseph Smith, and later Brigham Young build up this new LDS faith system. It got JS and oneof his groupies even killed, but still the group endured and even moved twice dealing with being ostracized and scorned.

Oh, I wouldn't even go in for the 'long con' with hopes of one day being profitable.

just look at all the fanfic sites where people just make shit up because it's the sort of thing they want to hear. fanfiction.net, Adultfanfiction.net, Breitbart. trekslashfic.org

Don't forget whitehouse.gov

 

[Keith&Co.]

Don't forget whitehouse.gov

No, they're making up stories they think their supporters want to hear.

 

[angelo]

Some say that Paul's epistles were the very first writings about the Jesus character, even before Mark's gospel which many assume was the first gospel.

Paul was said to persecute the first group of "Christians, " who until his experience on the road to Damascus, which if true was a schizophrenic episode in which he saw delusional visions of this myth that may have started from a close knit group of people who were awaiting a messiah as was foretold in the book of Daniel.
The Jesus myth has no basis in reality, and was just spawned from a hearsay, just as the tales of Hercules, Samson, and perhaps even Moses were just fables with no basis in reality.

Far be it from me to disturb your simple faith. Most people, however, look at the evidence.

Besides the gospels, and Paul's epistles, there is no evidence! If you see the N/T as evidence, you should also believe in Mandrake the magician.

 

[iolo]

I just keep asking who on earth, in the world of that time, stood to gain by making up a pretend revolutionary hero.

So, argument from incredulity.
You can't imagine anyone having a reason to make up a story, thus it must not be made up.

Lots of individuals have reasons to make up stories, which are soon forgotten. To make these weird American conspiracy fantasies believable you have to know of some very powerful, well-organised people in a position to make a story so believable as to create a revolutionary mass-movement. It was, doubtless, little green men from outer space, since no other power-group stood to gain..

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Far be it from me to disturb your simple faith. Most people, however, look at the evidence.

Besides the gospels, and Paul's epistles, there is no evidence! If you see the N/T as evidence, you should also believe in Mandrake the magician.

Don't be so bloody soft. There is the explosive growth of Christianity, totally against the wishes of the colonial bosses and the local religions.

 

[iolo]

So, argument from incredulity.
You can't imagine anyone having a reason to make up a story, thus it must not be made up.

Agreed. A really good modern example is why in the world would Joseph Smith, and later Brigham Young build up this new LDS faith system. It got JS and oneof his groupies even killed, but still the group endured and even moved twice dealing with being ostracized and scorned.

In a country run under your tedious constitution who did they seriously threaten? Try an Empire demanding total obedience and something resembling Emperor-worship, try defying Caligula and such! You wouldn't even get Utah, man!

 

[Horatio Parker]

Don't be so bloody soft. There is the explosive growth of Christianity, totally against the wishes of the colonial bosses and the local religions.

All that is centuries after the supposed events. How does it prove HJ?

Are you assuming the author of gMark knew how successful his work would be?

 

[Keith&Co.]

So, argument from incredulity.
You can't imagine anyone having a reason to make up a story, thus it must not be made up.

To make these weird American conspiracy fantasies believable

have I offered or supported a weird conspiracy fantasy?

All I recall doing is ask for actual evidence of Jesus, not an argument from incredulity in support of Jesus.

you have to know of some very powerful, well-organised people in a position to make a story so believable as to create a revolutionary mass-movement. It was, doubtless, little green men from outer space, since no other power-group stood to gain..

Okay, okay, okay.
I'm sorry.

Obviously I should have said 'a snide argument from incredulity.'

 

[funinspace]

Agreed. A really good modern example is why in the world would Joseph Smith, and later Brigham Young build up this new LDS faith system. It got JS and oneof his groupies even killed, but still the group endured and even moved twice dealing with being ostracized and scorned.

In a country run under your tedious constitution who did they seriously threaten? Try an Empire demanding total obedience and something resembling Emperor-worship, try defying Caligula and such!

As the leaders of this new Way wrote/compiled their fan-fiction from roughly 50-120AD, just how were they threatening the Roman Empire?

You wouldn't even get Utah, man!

Uh, ok. Yeah, the Mormons didn't threaten the US. But American citizens did regularly harassed and threatened Mormons.

 

[angelo]

Tickets to heaven are hard to come by. The first xtians were giving out free tickets. It's like someone standing in the Bronx handing out $50 notes. There would be a stampede or a riot. Of course practically everyone who heard of it would want in, in the action.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Tickets to heaven are hard to come by. The first xtians were giving out free tickets. It's like someone standing in the Bronx handing out $50 notes. There would be a stampede or a riot. Of course practically everyone who heard of it would want in, in the action.

Yeah, but tickets to what. Inside this box I have the rarest animal known to man. It can sing. It can dance. It can ride a unicycle. Give me your money and I'll give you the box. Just don't open it while I'm still in the vicinity.

Heaven is obviously totally bullshit. I don't understand why anybody finds the hypothesis remotely convincing.

 

[angelo]

Tickets to heaven are hard to come by. The first xtians were giving out free tickets. It's like someone standing in the Bronx handing out $50 notes. There would be a stampede or a riot. Of course practically everyone who heard of it would want in, in the action.

Yeah, but tickets to what. Inside this box I have the rarest animal known to man. It can sing. It can dance. It can ride a unicycle. Give me your money and I'll give you the box. Just don't open it while I'm still in the vicinity.

Heaven is obviously totally bullshit. I don't understand why anybody finds the hypothesis remotely convincing.

A perfectly human trait. : Fear of the unknown, and people's fear of death. Why else does religion thrive, especially among the third world. These leeches are promising eternal life.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yeah, but tickets to what. Inside this box I have the rarest animal known to man. It can sing. It can dance. It can ride a unicycle. Give me your money and I'll give you the box. Just don't open it while I'm still in the vicinity.

Heaven is obviously totally bullshit. I don't understand why anybody finds the hypothesis remotely convincing.

A perfectly human trait. : Fear of the unknown, and people's fear of death. Why else does religion thrive, especially among the third world. These leeches are promising eternal life.

Is it leeches? Isn't it more likely wishful thinking? Isn't it more likely that people just want it to be true, so badly, that they don't it's preposterous.

I love this quote by Yuval Harari.

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”

We're such a dumb ass species. Each time I come across somebody who believes in Heaven, I cringe. Because I find it embarrassing that we're the same species.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

A perfectly human trait. : Fear of the unknown, and people's fear of death. Why else does religion thrive, especially among the third world. These leeches are promising eternal life.

Is it leeches? Isn't it more likely wishful thinking? Isn't it more likely that people just want it to be true, so badly, that they don't it's preposterous.

I love this quote by Yuval Harari.

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”

We're such a dumb ass species. Each time I come across somebody who believes in Heaven, I cringe. Because I find it embarrassing that we're the same species.

Right. It's such an inequality that it's embarrassing. One person is in possession of the rational intellect another person cannot even dream about.

I recently reread Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel, a book about the roots of inequality. Basically there are material reasons that societies started out so unequally across the globe 13,000 years ago.

There has to be a religious analog to that study. I want to know how one group of humans can be so irrational to the point of psychosis while another group of humans is not. That's a basic inequality that I would like to understand the physical basis of, as well as I understand the physical reasons cited in Diamond's work.

 

[Lion IRC]

Start by studying the smaller of the two groups.
That's where the abnormality resides.

 

[abaddon]

Start by studying the smaller of the two groups.
That's where the abnormality resides.

Exactly. What environmental factors benefited the abnormal ones and left the herd, the bungled and botched, to prefer the ease of opinion/belief over knowledge?

 

[Lion IRC]

LOL
...except religion confers a survival advantage and longevity doesn't it?

 

[DrZoidberg]

LOL
...except religion confers a survival advantage and longevity doesn't it?

Does it?

 

[angelo]

It can be argued to be the opposite. Atheists have less offspring than say, Muslims, or Catholics for that matter. It can be argued that atheist will eventually die out and religious people thrive.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It can be argued to be the opposite. Atheists have less offspring than say, Muslims, or Catholics for that matter. It can be argued that atheist will eventually die out and religious people thrive.

Atheism is linked to education and affluence. Well educated people invest more in each child (because they're more likely to survive). Education leads to atheism.

Well educated atheists in hospitals are the doctors who keep the religious children alive. God certainly isn't helping them. Yes, it's been experimentally proven.

It's equally valid to say that religious people are parasites off the well educated atheists to keep their over-breeding families alive.

 

[angelo]

Nevertheless. The stinking hole of the whole African continent, and a good part of the Asian continent are breeding way beyond what the world can sustain.
The vast majority of aid to these stink holes is from the mostly atheist West. Just how long can this go on?
Need I remind that the people breeding like flies are mostly religious?