You're right about the hemlock death. That was clearly a Paul Bunyan embellishment on the part of his followers
On the part of Plato, specifically--and Plato is believed to have put many of his own words into Socrates' mouth, and quite probably to have made Socrates win a lot of arguments the results of which were not so clear in real life.
(assuming the Socrates character was based on a real man...which you ostensibly call into question, even though it's clear you're disputing the idea that the Jesus character was NOT based on a real man, which is a valid dispute).
Yes, to be perfectly clear, I'm only calling Socrates' existence into question to make the point that it's silly to seriously question the existence of Jesus.
"...the idealized memories of Jesus' disciples..."
Certainly, you don't think this is the reason for the myths of the virgin birth or the miracles?
No, and that should have been clear from what I wrote. However, supernatural abilities were ascribed to many figures in Jesus' era, and just about everybody believed in the supernatural. Jesus probably did perform some faith-healings--his personal charisma alone may have been sufficient to create stories that would grow larger over time. And again, you have to understand the non-literal mindset under which many of the gospel stories (written by people who did not witness these events) were written. They are writing about a real person, but they are writing about a real person that people who believe without question in miracles (and did before Jesus ever showed up) have been telling stories about for decades.
It's one thing to exaggerate how a man weathered his final hours
Look at the crucifixion scenes in the first two gospels, though--Mark and Matthew--not much embellishment there.
,
and another thing entirely to say that he gave sight to a blind man, or that he rose bodily into the sky. The former makes him seem like a strong man; the latter makes him seem like something entirely other than a real man, which is exactly what the authors of the NT had in mind (in order to give weight to his supernatural-centric teachings).
You know, I said several times I did not believe in the magic, and am not actually that interested in it. It gets in the way of the important stuff.
"But still, that his words continue to inspire people to this day"
Isn't this true of the Buddha?
Yes.
Of Lao-Tzu?
Of course.
Of Muhammad?
Obviously.
Of Joseph Smith?
Unfortunately.
All at least partially fictional characters in their own right, saying some concrete things in contradiction to what the Jesus character said?
I don't know what you mean by that. The question mark makes it sound like you don't either.
"I suspect you'd have considered just about everybody in that region at that time a religious fanatic"
It's entirely possible. If I had to pick who would win in a Geography, Cosmology, Biology, Chemistry, or Physics competition between a Bronze Age scholar and a modern 5th grader, I'd pick the 5th grader. So why should we trust a relative ignoramus's opinions about ethics, the after-life, etc?
Because ethics is not a science, and because nobody has any information whatsoever about the after-life, so we're all basically pre-schoolers there. I'm not so much interested in what Jesus said about the after-life, anyway.
For example: to my knowledge, the Jesus character never extended the circle of compassion to the non-human animal world.
There is absolutely no record of him ever mistreating an animal. He refers with great approval to the biblical story of Jonah, which specifically says God would not destroy the sinful city of Ninevah, not only for the sake of the good people in it, but also the animals. He says that God cares deeply for every one of his creatures, including the birds of the air. And we don't have records of everything he said. He was not a big dog lover, and hardly anybody was in that time and place. I never said he was perfect.
This is a big con in the Christ column, and a pro in the Eastern tradition column, in my opinion, given what we know about the neurological basis of pain and consciousness.
You might want to take this up with one of the most famous proponents of atheism today, who the maker of "The God Who Wasn't There" admires deeply.
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/dennett_anim_csness.htmlMany devout Christians have been powerful advocates of animal rights and welfare. Tolstoy is one obvious example. Many atheists have concluded man is the only conscious animal, and that we can do as we like with them--in fact, one other person I've argued with here said precisely that (I think he was a Libertarian). It seems to me that people who correctly perceive that non-human animals are our fellow beings tend to incorporate that understanding into whatever belief system they adhere to. Jains are the only group--ever, best as I know--to have tried to abstain from the taking of all life. But this is primarily because they believe even accidentally killing a gnat slows their progression towards nirvana. So let's face it, we're all very far from perfect in this regard. Jesus said to love every person around you, by which he meant human persons. But honestly, which is harder for you or me--to love every human, or to love every dog, cat or horse that you meet? We both know the answer. If you can do the first, the second will not be hard at all.
Of course, this isn't to say that he would not have cared, had he known...but it IS to say that he DID NOT know. He would have been as ignorant of the revelations of science as any commoner of the time and region.
Did I really sound like I was commending him as a scientist? It seems you can't respect anyone who doesn't know everything you know, even if he lived thousands of years ago. That does not seem a tenable position to me.
"It's a different kind of belief"
This is what I don't understand about the Christian perspective.
I don't think any conventionally-believing Christian would consider my perspective to be in agreement with his or her own.
It seems so evasive. Statements in the Bible are either actually true or
they are not.
In terms of fact, sure. But truth and fact are not exactly the same thing.
Most modern Christians choose to say that the troublesome parts are metaphorical (because they're not allowed to reject them wholesale).
Because they find truth in them, as people can find in any number of stories that are not factual, but still powerful and compelling. As I'm sure you have done. As every human alive has done. I know Spartacus was real. I know the movie Spartacus is fiction. I can be moved by the film without believing the story happened that way. And for the record, both the writers who contributed to the heavily fictionalized and romanticized narrative in that movie (Howard Fast and Dalton Trumbo) were members of the communist party--Fast was raised Jewish, Dalton as a Christian Scientist, but both were non-believers as adults.
Did you know that the scene in the film where everybody is yelling "I AM SPARTACUS!!!" never actually happened? It does not appear in any historical document relating to the slave uprising. But does that mean any proponent of human freedom who is inspired by that stirring scene (and believes it actually happened) is a fool, whose beliefs are utterly without merit? We don't even know Spartacus was crucified--he probably died in battle. There is absolutely no doubt he really existed. And he is still pointed to as an exemplar of human achievement by modern socialists, in spite of the fact that he may not even have known how to write his own name.
Unfortunately, there is no authoritative, external guide telling you which parts are ACTUALLY true, and which parts merely ALLUDE to something that's true.
I'm always wary of people who think they know exactly what the truth is, and exactly what everybody else should believe. It doesn't matter WHAT they think the truth is--it's their certainty that everybody else should believe exactly what they do that is dangerous. And would be if not a single person on the planet believed in any theistic religion. As Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot did not.
Consequently, the Bible is a blank slate, and you can make of it whatever you want. From this perspective, I don't see how you could possibly think of "Christianity" as a cohesive belief system. Bertrand Russell nailed Christianity down to a couple of generous core precepts, and dealt with them within 20 pages.
Yeah, I look around me, and Christianity seems to still be around, in spite of Bertie. For better and for worse. But you only want to see the worse.
"it wouldn't take much for them to start having visions of him"
But this isn't why modern Christians celebrate Easter. They celebrate Easter because they ACTUALLY believe that Jesus came back to life after being dead for a number of days.
They also hunt eggs and tell stories of a mythical rabbit. That doesn't seem to bother you.
Accepting this absolute absurdity primes a person to accept any other absurd claim made in the Bible.
That is an absolutely absurd claim. Jesus said it was never acceptable to commit an act of violence, that you should love all around you, that physical possessions were a snare, and that the rich would have the hardest time getting into heaven. He said to live every day as if you were going to die tomorrow. These absurd claims continue to lack wide acceptance. And that's our problem, not his.
I was raised to positively believe that Jesus really DID perform all those miracles. I was raised to believe that Jesus really DID rise from the dead.
I was raised to look for the truth behind these stories. Post Vatican II parish, very liberal.
Something I conspicuously do NOT remember is an education on the ethics he (supposedly) espoused.
And your logical assumption is that your experience must be universal to every child ever raised as a Christian?
So what was the goal? To equip me with a moral foundation? Or to HOOK me when I was impressionable, so that I would similarly hook my children, and so and and so on, so that the religious dogma would propagate itself and benefit the ones who it benefits?
The criticisms you make would apply just as well to a non-theistic belief system imposed on children. And one can point to some far worse examples of that happening in recent history.
"The Virgin Birth seems to not have been a part of Christian belief until decades after Jesus had died"
So why is it still taught as absolute fact to children in churches all over the world?
That question indicates you know almost nothing about the history of Christianity--and yet you feel perfectly qualified to expound at length about it. But a man who lived two thousand years ago, and you hold in disrespect because he didn't know math or science, is unqualified to talk about what's right and wrong. Okayyyyy.....
And why is it hard to imagine that whoever shoe-horned this nonsense into the Bible also shoe-horned in whatever else they wanted people to believe, to whatever selfish end they had in mind?
See, you're letting me understand you, and I thank you for that. You had a bad experience, and you're assuming that experience is common to all who have been raised religiously. But speaking as somebody who isn't currently a member of any religion, and who was raised Catholic, and who sees every single flaw you do in Christian beliefs--I'm telling you that's wrong. It's OBVIOUSLY wrong. Many people raised far more strictly than either of us in the Christian faith, who have since rejected its dogmas, would tell you that it's wrong. Like this guy--
http://books.google.com/books?id=kXdXKaJWs2UC&dq=Misquoting+jesus&; amp;printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=9WzdS_SHFIS09gS TnMmqBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved =0CCMQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
"But it's not at all like other myths..."
Why? Because there was a physical man to project these silly stories onto?
Because the stories weren't all silly. Read the gospels, and tell me--how much in there could not have happened? It's funny--you're so offended by all the supernatural happenings in the gospels, you've forgotten that they aren't primarily composed of supernatural happenings.
"...because you want to dismiss him"
That's not fair.
Really? Dismissing the ideas of somebody who lived two thousand years ago, who would not have remotely recognized much of what you were taught as coming from him (Jesus was hardly a Christian)--that's fair? At least I'm actually listening to you.
If the improbable stories of Jesus gibed with my observations as a real person in the real world, I would be more than happy to hear you out.
If you'd stop setting up straw men to avoid coming to terms with the fact that you're reacting to a bad childhood, not thinking as a rational being, you might stop being so obsessed with the least important parts of the gospels.
Honestly, I have to ask--can you read fiction, or lyric poetry, without being moved to indignation at all the literally untrue things in it?
As a lazy man, I'd like nothing more than to point to an infallible, objective source for my ideas of morality...but that's simply not the world I live in.
It's not the world Jesus lived in either. Even if you believe in God, fathoming God's will is hard, and Jesus clearly had many doubts--and is shown to have had doubts. You're missing a very powerful story here. I'm not saying accept Jesus as an absolute authority. I'm just saying listen to what the man had to say. All of it. And reject whatever seems false to you. Or find it somewhere else--Jesus was hardly the only source of truth. But if you can only find falsehood in the gospels, that's your problem. Not his. I mean, being dead, his problems are kind of behind him now.
It seems to me that Jesus is just one of very many contenders in the field of ethics, all fallible and subjective, and the expositors (creators?) of Jesus' ethics made liberal use of fable and fabrication just to get my attention.
It seems to me that you're working awfully hard to convince yourself of this, while talking to somebody who has repeatedly said he doesn't believe in the miracles.
So why should I give ANY more consideration to The Bible than I do to, say, "The Virtue of Selfishness" (which I have not read, but which is WILDLY popular, among a certain element)?
Because the bible has influenced every modern western thinker. Every. Single. One. Including those who have never read it, including those who vehemently disbelieve it. It's the underpinning of our entire civilization. More than even Classical Greek Thought. And without studying it, you will never understand where we came from, why we do certain things right, and other things really wrong.
"...that he was worth remembering..."
Certainly, but only as much as any philosopher.
We're not going to remember all philosophers equally, and no philosopher would want all philosophers to be remembered equally.
Modern humans who stubbornly adhere to the Jesus character's teachings are on an intellectual par with modern Pythagoreans.
Not a great analogy, since the earliest writings we have about Pythagoras are from centuries after he lived. And anyway, are you saying we should reject every truth found in Pythagorean thinking because we don't know for sure what Pythagoras himself thought? Cutting off your nose to spite your face is the analogy that comes to my mind...
If someone called himself a Nietzschean or a Schopenhauerean,
I'm pretty sure there are people who do that today, more in the former case of course.
you would immediately dismiss him as a dogmatist.
How about if someone said all his ideas about religion came from Christopher Hitchens? I've certainly seem him defended with equal zeal--even though he's a discredited zealot, who championed a horrific pointless war because he's terrified of a handful of Muslim extremists.
We should likewise dismiss those who choose to label themselves as Christ-ians (and for more reasons than mere dogmatism).
That's your choice, and I'll defend to the death your right to make it.
Would you do the same?
I'm sorry to be so combative,
That was such an unnecessary apology, as you'd know if you'd read more of my posts.
but I am very tired of dealing with this.
I'm tired of having to explain the obvious to people who should have figured this stuff out already. So forgive my humor. It's a coping mechanism.
It seems self-evident to me that Christianity was invented, championed, and maintained by unscrupulous and/or delusional men who could not care less about the (human and non-human...sorry to belabor the point, but it's important to me) blood they shed and the (actual) truth they suppress, as long as they get whatever it is they want out of it.
Apparently what they originally wanted was poverty, self-sacrifice, and quite often a painful humiliating death. Well, whatever turns you on, eh?
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Blue_Jaunte
14 years ago
You're bending over backwards to brush off the idea that the supernatural mumbo jumbo was absolutely crucial to the rise of the Church and in Christianity's continued popularity...and failing miserably to do so (and not only because you invoke the same tired ad populum argument not infrequently). I ask you: are people motivated to spend their precious Sundays in Church because of the few ethical principles they've extracted from the NT, or by their beliefs in the traditional God, Jesus' ACTUAL absolution of the things they've done that they feel guilty about, life after death, eternal and divine reward and punishment (ignoring the social benefits of churchgoing)? Appeal to the emotions, and you'll win followers; not exactly a novel approach. You don't want to die? Fine, you get to live forever. This is the Christianity that dominated the Dark Ages (eclipsing other belief systems and ONLY thus providing the foundation of Western culture afterward...history is contingent, astute observation...). And it's the Christianity that needs a counter-weight. The nebulous, "Jesus said some interesting things, but the rest is inconsequential filler, and you should take away from it what you will," version of Christianity is really the insignificant one, not the other way around. So the Jesus character said a few banal things about how we ought to comport ourselves. Big deal. Be nice to people, don't respond to violence with violence...Earth shattering. If ethics were all that mattered, there would be churches for J.S. Mill all over the Western world. You also downplay the complete ignorance of the authors of the NT by saying that, "hey, it was a long time ago, cut them some slack, everyone was ignorant back then". Well, Lucretius was alive in the century before Jesus, and he said many interesting things that would call your "everyone was dumb as a rock" idea into question; insights that are still relevant to this day.
Your apologetics need work, because your smugness not only betrays your insecurity, it prevents you from adjudicating your own opinions in a rational manner (since you give lip service to rationality). I would have liked to give you the benefit of the doubt, but the others are right: you're just a prick. You've said very little of interest and you've demonstrated what YOU believe to be Christian ethics. No sale.
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clyons
14 years ago
You're bending over backwards to brush off the idea that the supernatural mumbo jumbo was absolutely crucial to the rise of the Church and in Christianity's continued popularity..
You're ignoring all the failed and vanished religions that had even more mumbo jumbo in them. You also have no ability OR desire to understand any POV other than your own. Which is why some atheists sound so much like fundies to me, I guess. The disease jumps to whatever host is available.
and failing miserably to do so (and not only because you invoke the same tired ad populum argument not infrequently).
Wow--more Latin. I close my eyes, and it's like being in church.
I ask you: are people motivated to spend their precious Sundays in Church because of the few ethical principles they've extracted from the NT, or by their beliefs in the traditional God, Jesus' ACTUAL absolution of the things they've done that they feel guilty about, life after death, eternal and divine reward and punishment (ignoring the social benefits of churchgoing)?
I find it interesting that you assume all people do whatever they do for exactly the same reasons, and for one reason alone. I have not found this to be the case. And what does going to church have to do with what we're talking about here? I don't see one mention in the gospels of Jesus ever going to church--except to raise a ruckus.
Appeal to the emotions, and you'll win followers; not exactly a novel approach.
It's exactly the approach documentaries like the one this forum is devoted to are using.
You don't want to die? Fine, you get to live forever.
Never really understood why someone would want to live
forever, but don't some religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, which certainly have some 'mumbo jumbo' in them, promise their followers NON-existence? The Sumerians believed in the supernatural, and gods, and they thought everybody had an absolutely horrible afterlife. You seem to ONLY know about Christianity, and only the worst of it. I don't know why you're so proud of being ignorant--it's not a rationalist position, by any stretch of the imagination.
This is the Christianity that dominated the Dark Ages (eclipsing other belief systems and ONLY thus providing the foundation of Western culture afterward...history is contingent, astute observation...).
Yes, but understanding it is contingent on studying it with empathy, not condemnation. And the monks who carefully preserved our knowledge of what came before the Dark Ages contributed more to civilization than you ever will. Not the highest praise one could render, I suspect.
And it's the Christianity that needs a counter-weight. The nebulous, "Jesus said some interesting things, but the rest is inconsequential filler, and you should take away from it what you will," version of Christianity is really the insignificant one, not the other way around.
The straw man argument lives on.
So the Jesus character said a few banal things about how we ought to comport ourselves. Big deal.
Seriously, I get accused of being ad hominem?
Be nice to people, don't respond to violence with violence...Earth shattering.
No, the hydrogen bomb is earth-shattering. What religion gets the blame for that? What religion gets the blame for Stalin's purges, for the Cultural Revolution, for Pol Pot? Blame religion all you like--it's got a long bloody history. Because it was made by men. And Jesus told us how we could be something more. He wasn't the only one, no. And we'd have found out about evolution if Darwin had never lived. What's your point?
If ethics were all that mattered, there would be churches for J.S. Mill all over the Western world.
Deist churches, you mean? Kind of a contradiction in terms, I'd have thought, since Deists want God without religion (and there have been plenty of intolerant religions without God, of course). Interesting you should mention Mill, since he wrote with such deep respect and reverence of--wait for it--Jesus. But so did Einstein, of course. That post I made about Einstein really ticked you off, didn't it?
You also downplay the complete ignorance of the authors of the NT by saying that, "hey, it was a long time ago, cut them some slack, everyone was ignorant back then".
You argue like Glenn Beck.
Well, Lucretius was alive in the century before Jesus, and he said many interesting things that would call your "everyone was dumb as a rock" idea into question;
If my saying "everybody in that time was superstitious to some extent" translates into "dumb as a rock" to you, then Lucretius was just another rock.
insights that are still relevant to this day.
I agree completely. Even though it's impossible to prove Lucretius ever existed.
Your apologetics need work, because your smugness not only betrays your insecurity, it prevents you from adjudicating your own opinions in a rational manner (since you give lip service to rationality).
More than you can say.
I would have liked to give you the benefit of the doubt, but the others are right: you're just a prick.
Which makes you.....?
You've said very little of interest and you've demonstrated what YOU believe to be Christian ethics. No sale.
You don't have the wherewithal to buy, anyhow.
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