The Christ Myth Theory

[T.G.G. Moogly]

LDS on meekness. Concentrate on the message, not the fabulation that surrounds it.

We agree that Joseph Smith's story is baloney. Progress!

 

[No Robots]

^Joseph Smith told the truth. The truth is discernable by deciphering the symbolic language he uses. The same is true of the Bible.

 

[No Robots]

I would perhaps be okay with people saying, "I don't think Jesus was a real person, but I like the things he says." But, nope, nobody does that. Indeed, saying he didn't exist seems explicitly intended to prevent any discussion of what he said. For this reason, mythicism is reactionary and to be resisted.

 

[steve_bank]

I just got my secret bible decoder ring in a box of Kellogg Cornflakes.

All mythology is symbolic, that is what myths are for.

When it comes to the gospel Jesus it is more a matter of filling in the blanks,

Jesus revolutionary?

1. Supernatural powers? Nope.
2. Son of a god? Nope.
3. Calling out hypocrites? Nope.
4. Executed for being a pain in the as to the wrong people? Nope.
5. Moral quips? Nope.
6. Dead and resurrected? Nope.

Dying-and-rising god - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

6 Ancient Resurrection Stories | HISTORY

Jesus wasn't the only one believed to have risen from the dead. The concept of resurrection appears in ancient cultures around the world.

www.history.com

The Jesus resurrection itself can be symbolic for a spiritual not physical death and rebirth.

Same with how I see Buddhist reincarnation.

The problem is Christ fanatics make a poi8nt of not looking at other traditions.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I would perhaps be okay with people saying, "I don't think Jesus was a real person, but I like the things he says." But, nope, nobody does that.

That's news to me.

 

[No Robots]

^You yourself have written, "[w]ithout all the woo there is no Jesus." Not a word about the meek inheriting the earth, something that has been providing inspiration to billions.

 

[bilby]

It's as factual as Santa at the North Pole.

There is, of course, an "historical Santa"; Who according to Wiki, is himself partly mythical:

Little is known about the historical Saint Nicholas. The earliest accounts of his life were written centuries after his death and probably contain legendary elaborations. He is said to have been born in the Anatolian seaport of Patara, Lycia, in Asia Minor to wealthy Christian parents.

Is this semi-historical person, when stripped of those "legenday elaborations", an historical Santa? What would it even mean to say that Santa was "historical" on the basis of the existence of Nicholas of Myra, for whom we have only tenuous evidence?

He never even visited the North Pole, and was hardly the only man in history to give gifts to children, or to act to protect children from harm, if he even did do those things.

He's probably one inspiration for the myth; And he certainly had his name taken to use for its consequence. But his mere existence is essentally irrelevant to the idea that this individual is an historical person:



The character depicted above is easily recognisable; And is clearly not this guy:



The whole idea that there is one, individual, historical, Santa is absurd. Santa is a fictional character, whose chief characteristics are legendary - lives at North Pole, delivers gifts to children at Xmas, drinks Coca-Cola, calls everyone a "Ho", etc. etc.

None of these things, the things that make Santa Santa, are attributes of Nicholas of Myra, so:

1) How is it sensible to declare Nicholas of Myra as "the historical Santa"; and
2) How could it tell us anything about modern belief in Santa to even note the existence of a person with a tenuous narrative link to him, who was a real person who lived in the Roman Empire?

Knowing that St Nicholas of Myra existed is not useful, either in support or rebuttal, when debating the existence of flying reindeer with red noses; So why should anyone care??

When kids suddenly have the revelation that Santa doesn't exist, they are not becoming deniers of the historicity of Nicholas of Myra, because Nicholas is an irrelevance of whom most of them have never heard, and who they wouldn't give two shits about if they had. If he doesn't keep a "Naughty" and a "Nice" list, he ain't Santa.

Just as some carpenter's son from Nazareth ain't Jesus, if he wasn't resurrected.

 

[bilby]

The truth is discernable by deciphering the symbolic language

No, it isn't.

Truth is discernable ONLY by observing and testing reality.

Everything else is just a psychological crutch to avoid the realisation that we believe a bunch of shit that is entirely made up, either by ourselves, or by other people we trust.

One reason why the scientific method works is that it starts with an understanding that we should trust nothing and nobody - particularly not ourselves.

Ask yourself this: What led you to the knowledge that truths are ever descernible by "deciphering symbolic language"? Has this knowledge ever been useful to you in any way, other than in supporting the things you already wanted to believe?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

^You yourself have written, "[w]ithout all the woo there is no Jesus." Not a word about the meek inheriting the earth, something that has been providing inspiration to billions.

And I stand by that. People can believe in fictional accounts and still be good people.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There is, of course, an "historical Santa"; Who according to Wiki, is himself partly mythical:

Which is why I said "Santa at the North Pole."

 

[DBT]

The myth of Jesus/Jeshua relates to the supernatural stories told about the man. As Christianity is built on the myth, the supernatural, that there may have been a man behind the myth is of interest, but it hardly matters.

Wrong. The religious elite and now the secular elite try to do away with the revolutionary man by concentrating on the fables about him. "The meek shall inherit the earth" is a call to arms that the elite, whether religious or secular, simply must vitiate.

The fables are the point of contention. What do we even know about Yeshuah Ben Yoseph the man? Apart from the fables, what did he say? What did he do? What actually happened?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

When kids suddenly have the revelation that Santa doesn't exist, they are not becoming deniers of the historicity of Nicholas of Myra, because Nicholas is an irrelevance of whom most of them have never heard, and who they wouldn't give two shits about if they had. If he doesn't keep a "Naughty" and a "Nice" list, he ain't Santa.

The early fable peddlers got around all that by claiming that their Jesus was a demigod, though not in so many words. This is before he evolved into a first class god and the creator of the universe.

Interestingly when my kids were young and believed in Santa, Tooth Fairies and Easter Bunnies they were good kids. When they outgrew their childish beliefs they were still good kids. Not really sure where Robots is coming from except to say that we all have tough lives in some way and all have to find ways to cope. Woo is very appealing to more people than not and likely helps them cope with life's realities the same way that dispensing with woo helps people cope similarly.

 

[steve_bank]

I don't have an imaginary Jesus, I have an imaginary cat.

 

[dbz]

The fables are the point of contention. . . . What actually happened?

• Are you sure? .. Why would anyone want to ground their view of reality in such a fringe viewpoint—when poppy-somniferum dreams are so much more appalling appealing!

LDS on meekness. Concentrate on the message, not the fabulation that surrounds it.

We agree that Joseph Smith's story is baloney. Progress!

^Joseph Smith told the truth. The truth is discernable by deciphering the symbolic language he uses. The same is true of the Bible.

I would perhaps be okay with people saying, "I don't think Jesus was a real person, but I like the things he says." But, nope, nobody does that. Indeed, saying he didn't exist seems explicitly intended to prevent any discussion of what he said. For this reason, mythicism is reactionary and to be resisted.

---

Cf.

I don't have an imaginary Jesus, I have an imaginary cat.

Truth is discernable [ via poppy-somniferum]

Truth is discernable ONLY by observing and testing reality.

 

[No Robots]

Jesus as myth is the original internet meme: it starts as a cute way to twit the establishment and ends up as reactionary conspiracy theory.

 

[steve_bank]

Jesus as myth is the original internet meme: it starts as a cute way to twit the establishment and ends up as reactionary conspiracy theory.

ignorance is bliss.

The obvious, the gospel Jesus is a demigod which was common in mythology before Jesus. Blasphemy to Jews of the day.

Not a net meme. Whoever wrote the gospels were literate and added Greek mythology. I believe the images of Jesus with a halo has Greek origins.

As I posted, all the supernatural elements of Jesus appears in earlier cultures. Death and resurrection.

I see the gospels as what we call today a docudrama. Loosely based on real events with fictional characters and dialogue. At the beginning of the movie there may be a statement like 'characters are frictional composite characters'

In our western cowboy genre, many books and movies and TV shows based on nihilistic characters like Wyatt Earp and Jesse James, all embellished and mostly fiction.

Yes there was flesh and blood Wyatt Earp but he was nothing like the fictionalized accounts.

Earp lived long enough to see the early Hollywood movies about him. He approached Hollywood about making movies on how it rally was and was turned away.

After all the debate on the forum the dispels are a composite conflation of different people and events with the situational added as an embellishment.

Whoa n HJ may have been is not known.

Ny imagimary cat says to tell you 'meow'. Belive it or not he can walk on water.

 

[No Robots]

^I don't care that the rubes buy the idea that Jesus is a myth. It's the elites, our current day scribes and Pharisees, who need a kick in the ass for flirting with this. I have no problem using the rubes, debating them, to put forward my arguments for the historical Jesus. After all, as Marx said, the proletariat is the material weapon of philosophy, just as philosophy is the spiritual weapon of the proletariat.

 

[steve_bank]

I see, Jesus was a Marxist?

 

[No Robots]

I see, Jesus was a Marxist?

Totally. And vice-versa.

 

[Politesse]

I see, Jesus was a Marxist?

It's the other way around, temporally speaking. Marx was raised in a Chriatian culture, and though he later deconverted from the faith of his youth, much of his thinking was shaped by Western philosophical and theological traditions. No one's philosophy appears ex nihilo, we are products of our time, place, and culture.