I witnessed a security guard taking a loaf of bread from a homeless kid all the while preaching the word of Christ. Christians are nothing like their Christ.
Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that a historical human Jesus existed. Historian Michael Grant asserts that if conventional standards of historical textual criticism are applied to the New Testament, “we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.”
Virtually all scholars of antiquity dismiss theories of Jesus’s non-existence or regard them as refuted. In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars.
He didn’t exist. The reason why the James-Peter fraud stuck was because Paul was a preaching machine and they lucked out with getting at least two good writers. Proto-Mark and M. If Paul had died on that shipwreck or Syrian scribe had found a better job there would be no Christianity today.
It does matter. Because it is near impossible to find a Christian who is fine with the Jesus story being a complete myth. Some of them will admit that not all of the contradiction-filled stories are correct but doubting he existed at all? Paul, the real founder, was at least honest about this and said all of their faith would be in vain if the resurrection had not happened.
The evidence points to a con that got out of control.
Michael Grant doesn’t know that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Saying that we know that there was some king in a certain place and time isn’t a big claim. Most places had kings. Saying that if even a quarter of the claims of the Gospels were true is a massive claim. Also whataboutism is kinda boring. I really don’t feel giving “historians” slack because they cut themselves slack.
In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars
Not going to have a job selling book and teaching the story of some old con. You sell books by advancing dozens of different contradictory models of the events all of them equally impossible to test.
Regardless, most historians agree that there was a human historical Jesus. Whether you think it’s all a conspiracy or scam or whatever is another matter I don’t care to get into.
And you repeat your argument from authority. Maybe if you do it another time it will convince me? Why not just address the total lack of evidence for this massive claim instead?
Claiming that Jesus of Nazareth existed is not extraordinary at all though. It’s hardly far-fetched to claim that he was real. Claiming that he was the son of God and could perform miracles however, is - as someone else pointed out.
Right so you are trying to make the claim so small it can be snuck in. Theists try this trick with God all the time.
Does making a claim small make it true or is that a rhetorical device to try to manipulate the argument? If I told you I was Obama and you called me out on it so I said well really I did met him once in a bar when he was in Congress, would my altered claim become true by virtue of being ordinary?
Jesus existence has nothing to do with the religion in and of itself. He can be reall without Christianity being true. You’re getting so caught up in wanting to argue against the theists that you’re focusing on something completely irrelevant just to chalk up a victory.
I have no evidence one way or another for our against his existence, the point is that it doesn’t matter. Jesus’ potential existence has nothing to do with the truthiness of religion unless you believe that his existence can only be a validation of the new testament - which would be akin to your Obama comparison and would be patently ridiculous.
I have no proof that billions of specific people existed, doesn’t change that they did.
Jesus existence has nothing to do with the religion in and of itself. He can be reall without Christianity being true. You’re getting so caught up in wanting to argue against the theists that you’re focusing on something completely irrelevant just to chalk up a victory.
We got a mind reader over here.
I have no evidence one way or another for our against his existence, the point is that it doesn’t matter. Jesus’ potential existence has nothing to do with the truthiness of religion unless you believe that his existence can only be a validation of the new testament - which would be akin to your Obama comparison and would be patently ridiculous.
First off you do have evidence of his non-existentence. Which I gave you. No one can keep their story straight about him. Secondly even if you didn’t have that you can say the same thing about unicorns.
I have no proof that billions of specific people existed, doesn’t change that they did.
First off you do have evidence of his non-existentence. Which I gave you. No one can keep their story straight about him. Secondly even if you didn’t have that you can say the same thing about unicorns.
You’ve given no such thing. You have made a statement that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but you fail to grasp that the existence of Jeaus would not be extraordinary. Billions of people have existed and will exist. The extraordinary part is the sin of God thing, which we don’t disagree on. Unicorns , much like “The Messiah”, are certainly extraordinary claims that would require proof. We have seen nothing to support the existence of anything even resembling unicorns. We have forever seen plenty to prove that humans exist. A specific human some thousands of years ago, is not unlikely.
And? And so, the claim that he exists is hardly extraordinary.
Yeah no surprise. You think you can read my mind and except super low standards of evidence.
You’ve given no such thing. You have made a statement that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but you fail to grasp that the existence of Jeaus would not be extraordinary.
Yes it would be. Even the people who try this game of finding the man behind the myth have to make so many assumptions to make this work. And I have repeatedly stated that the narratives contradict.
If you look at the actual evidence you have you find
Details are missing from Paul that should be there.
Every part of the Gospels shows signs of being borrowed from older stories and ideas. Almost as if two people were just writing a fanfic.
Nothing is unique. They had versions of messiah prophecy that including him dying. They had a popular story of a leader dying and his young follower continuing (Peter). Everything he said was cribbed from the OT or later thinkers. They had matry stories. They had stories of betrayal. They had stories of demagogues claiming to speak for God raising armies. Stories of raising the dead. The magic tricks were all known in the area at the time.
Not a single thing you can point to and say “ok this isn’t clearly a borrowing from earlier Jewish culture”. The Jesus con was a combination of Jeremiah, the first leader of the Maccabees, and Hillel. Which the scholars you seem to love so much are constantly pointing out. Except they need to keep selling books and you don’t do that by just admitting that it is all con.
But hey go ahead and shut me up. Show me a single piece of evidence that he existed.
You’re trying to argue against the veracity of the bible by using the bible as your source of truth. Your argument hinges on Jesus mere existence equating to him being the son of God. That is not a given… at all! Vlad Tepes was a real person - that doesn’t mean that vampires are real though.
As for “the scholars you seem to love so much” you may want to reread the thread - I think you’re getting your discussions mixed up - I haven’t referenced any scholars at this point. My argument is that your logic framework is referenced flawed. I have taken no stance on the existence of Jesus - purely on whether him being a real person is particularly extraordinary.
Vlad Tepes was a real person - that doesn’t mean that vampires are real though.
I am sorry. Do we have multiple separate narratives of that man that contradict each other? Do we have the main source of his existence totally unaware of all the details of his life and details of his death? Do we find that in every single story about him almost the exact same story about another king that was well known to the people of the area?
Your argument hinges on Jesus mere existence
My argument is very simple. We can not find any evidence that he existed. The evidence that we do have is better explained by a con man’s grift. Every single time someone tries those “let’s make him real by taking away the magic and assuming that Mark is 100% right otherwise” they have to make up this insane story to fit the narrative. Meanwhile they know the narrative was borrowed and they know that their version is equally as untestable as all the other contradictionary ones.
purely on whether him being a real person is particularly extraordinary.
I think it is. An ordinary person doesn’t have a cult that outlives their life. Even a minimum Jesus requires so much. Could you do it? Like right now. Could you get a few people to follow you around because they think you will be king and have them talk about how amazing you are for decades after you die? Our hypothetical minimum Jesus pulls this feat off with no money, no political power, and nothing to offer people except parlor tricks and stories. Think of every modern cult that outlived it’s founder. All of them were big billion dollar operations, not a few illiterates in the backwater of a backwater.
If Paul is to be believed this “ordinary person” cult was growing, thriving against opposition, totally unorganized, at least 20 years before he meet it with a dead leader, and almost no one having seen any of the big events.
Wouldn’t it make so much more sense that two conman just cobbled together these stories about their imaginary friend and preyed on the local superstitious? That Paul didn’t know (excluding the betrayal and euchrist) about the ministry because there was nothing to know. That he didn’t know about the Tomb because the current version of the con had Jesus buried normally. That when the narratives came out there stories didn’t match up because like all liars they couldn’t keep the story straight?
Again your assuming that Jesus existence means that anything in the bible is correct. My point is that the two can be entirely disconnected. I am making no coatings about Mark, Luke or Paul in this line of argumentation. I am starting that the extraordinary part of the claim is his godliness, not his existence.
Wouldn’t it make so much more sense that two conman just cobbled together these stories about their imaginary friend and preyed on the local superstitious?
So we’re back to realm of speculation. If you’re going to frame it there, would it not make even more sense then if these two conmen, in order to lend their support credibility, went through the local scrolls and found a local dude that died a little while back and coopted his name for their narrative?
For all of your arguments against his existence you keep coming back to the bible as your source. You tie yourself in an oddly circular loop here, again arguing that Jesus either isn’t real and so the bible is wrong, or he is and the bible becomes the word of God. There’s a lot of room to move in between the two - including a dude from the area, name Jesus once existed.
Gotcha. You think if you continue to weaken the claim it will become true or at least can’t be disproven. You know the exact opposite of what you are supposed to do. We gather evidence and develop theories. You are taking an existing theory and lowering its explanatory power. We see the sales people of fake medicine do this all the time. At first it is a cure-all, within a generation or two the claims have shrunken to the point where no one can really say they aren’t true.
Again your assuming that Jesus existence means that anything in the bible is correct. My point is that the two can be entirely disconnected. I am making no coatings about Mark, Luke or Paul in this line of argumentation. I am starting that the extraordinary part of the claim is his godliness, not his existence.
Which still doesn’t match with the evidence because again Paul met a community that was widespread. Just a regular guy wouldn’t have a cult survive his death. You overshot.
So we’re back to realm of speculation. If you’re going to frame it there,
Not really speculation. The evidence points to a con.
would it not make even more sense then if these two conmen, in order to lend their support credibility, went through the local scrolls and found a local dude that died a little while back and coopted his name for their narrative?
Given the overwhelming odds that both men were illiterates I wouldn’t bet on that.
For all of your arguments against his existence you keep coming back to the bible as your source.
Because that is the only source. All we have after that is another generation later a guy saying what he heard from someone else about what this new cult believed. Hearsay.
You tie yourself in an oddly circular loop here, again arguing that Jesus either isn’t real and so the bible is wrong, or he is and the bible becomes the word of God.
Not at all. The only source we have shows evidence of a con. So I accept it as a con. Also can you show me where in the Bible that it says this book is the word of God? Exact passage please.
There’s a lot of room to move in between the two - including a dude from the area, name Jesus once existed.
Again you try to tactic of lowering the claim hoping to sneak it in. Me personally I like developing models that have more power to explain facts, not less. In your desire to keep your childhood Jesus friend you have now reduced him to one guy one time named Jesus somewhere in that area.
This is a strange interpretation of how theories and generally science works in practice. If the aforementioned poster is doing their best to discredit an existing theory the information from that is implicitly involved in any subsequent theory with greater explanatory power or predictive ability.
It was known a bit after Newton’s theories and prior to Einstein’s Relativity that Newtonian Mechanics could not account for the perihelion precession of mercury. These serve as baselines for new theories to predict or explain. Popperian Falsification is one school of thought in philosophy of science more or less predicated on the idea you cannot ever prove a theory, only disprove them. An important criteria then is to allow for testable hypothesis with clear fail states. There have been other developments and more fruitful ways of looking at how science works in practice but if we stick with this then no theory can be proven, we only work with whatever theory is most amenable according to some criteria.
Theories already exist, it’s inevitable that they will be used to explain phenomena, someone engaged in introducing auxiliary hypotheses and theories to explain away or contend with the core of their theory is not ‘doing the opposite’. Rather it might be useful to think that a lack of evidence of something means it is not worthy of consideration among the litany of hypotheses, only certain evidence of something not occurring would be good enough to completely abandon a hypothesis. As that is significantly more difficult and the extent of evidence required great, one can avoid all this by accepting that all theories are wrong and some are seemingly wronger than others and it isn’t necessary to completely abandon them. Instead they can be kept in a provisional space with other theories which are less productive or fruitful until they may be called upon.
And what’s more is the very closest written account we have shows problems. Paul never mentions the tomb and thinks Jesus was buried in the ground. Besides for the Eucharist he doesn’t seem to know much of anything about the ministry. Which is really freaken odd because by his own admission he was hunting and interrogating Christians before his conversion.
I haven’t dug into this what-so-ever, but how would it even be possible to identify whether a specific person with that name existed 2000 years ago? It’s not like you could just Google the guys Facebook profile or social security number back in 200AD
Why is it whenever this brought up an appeal to authority is invoked to people who weren’t there? Why not just use evidence to prove your position instead of telling me what some random priest in the 2nd century thought about zombie-skydaddy?
There is no evidence he existed and the narratives disagree with each other. Easily could have been a fraud by James and Peter.
Tell that to the scholars of antiquity. I’m just reporting what the prevailing thought is by people who study such matters because it was falsely claimed that most of them believe that Jesus was a myth.
Sure. Hey guys hate to be a buzzkill and I know you have a sweet gig inventing one crazy way after another to make this myth be true but there really isn’t anything here. It is a superstructure with no substructure. Until someone digs up some old letter or something you got nothing.
because it was falsely claimed that most of them believe that Jesus was a myth.
I don’t think anyone in this thread did that. I know what they believe, I just don’t care. Again
There is no evidence Jesus was a historical person
A fraud by the leading apostles could easily fit the data that we have.
Humans lie.
The narratives disagree with each other to an extent that it sounds very much like liars trying to remember their stories
There are things missing in the narratives that should be there.
In a way I sorta get it. There are like these Sherlock Holmes appreciation groups that have spent all this effort trying to find the historical 221B baker street. It is fun to pretend that a fictional character exists in the real world.
If you ask Mormon historians whether the particular figures in the Book of Mormon exist, they mostly all agree too. Perhaps a better metric is the number of secular historians who consider Jesus to be a historical figure. Or suppose that he is a historical figure, how many things can you say about him that are definitely true?
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Here’s my plug to ask y’all to join food not bombs. They serve vegan meals prepared under strict cleanliness methods to provide safe meals and various supplies like cleansing products, clothing, etc. Volunteer with your local branch!
Am not defending this law at all, but the thinking behind it is twofold:
you might be handing out tainted or expired food
the bigger issue: you are creating a “nuisance” on the property where you’re doing it, as large groups of homeless people gather there. Some would say it’s a safety concern, for example handing out free food at the corner of a primary school.
Again, I’m not agreeing with either point, but these are arguments I have heard from people who back such laws.
To the second point though, I’ve seen it firsthand. Salt Lake City tried to do a good thing by making the public library a homeless-friendly zone by handing out free food and allowing access to WiFi. This caused a large amount of homeless to hang out there all the time, and some of them would harass and attack non-homeless patrons of the library to the point that pretty much all of them stopped coming to the library entirely, and the area became a no-go zone.
The real issue is that a large amount of homeless people have severe mental illnesses (since public sanitariums all closed in the 70s). So where there are big congregations of homeless, there will inevitably be harassment and possible violence. Cities don’t want people feeding the homeless at any old public building to avoid these situations, hence the laws, which allow you to do it only at certain places the city allows.
The real issue is that too many Americans have bought into the bootstrap theory and couldn't give a shit about their neighbours who don't have a place to live or food to eat.
Take care of those 2 things first and there won't be an issue of people hanging out where it's warm/cool and food is being supplied.
I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s not just an America problem. Have you been to Paris lately and seen the homelessness situation there, especially on the Metro?
Or in Oslo, where homeless Roma people attack people in broad daylight at Nationalteatret station and steal their luggage?
It’s a big problem everywhere, and attitudes like the type you describe aren’t relegated solely to Americans.
I’d love to mate, but I honestly don’t know how. One thing I have to come to realise is that simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t work. Norway, London, NYC, and California both spends billions each year on homelessness and the problem is only getting worse every year in all those places.
Maybe a good place to start would be opening up free sanitariums again where homeless people with mental issues could be housed, as sadly the streets have become the new dumping ground for people with severe mental illness.
Beyond that, am not sure, besides a total dismantling of capitalism.
No one would be happier than me with this solution, but it will never realistically happen in our lifetimes. And even if it somehow came to happen eventually, given the entrenchment of current elites, it would only happen with an immense cost in human lives and violence, and a massive drop in living standards in the immediate aftermath before some utopia is created.
Current day -> neo Soviet revolution -> Mad Max -> the last of us? -> ??? -> Bernie Sanders Utopia
All those things are basically guaranteed anyway thanks to climate change. I just hope the survivors aren’t stupid enough to try to go back to how things are now.
The sanitoriums were closed for good reason. Bad as homelessness is, it is better than the abuse of sanitoriums.
Not a sanitorium, but i know someone who was in an orphanage, they beat kids with a metal chimney brush if they put their head on the pillow when they slept. This earned them lots of awards for how nice all the kids beds were. Sanitoriums were reportable just as bad, but I don't have such close accounts.
The sanatoriums were horrendous and closed by both Canadian and American gov'ts in the late 60's - early 70's for good reason. The problem was the gov'ts didn't put programs in place to help those people live outside the walls ... essentially the same thing they do with prisoners now.
Guaranteed incomes, stable housing and support networks would clear up many of the "issues", but too many whine about their tax dollars being spent on people in need.
Stop spending billions on a “war on drugs” and make sure people have houses and healthcare (including mental health) unconditionally with no ridiculous hoops or welfare traps 10 years before they become a street junkie.
Just because some places misused a bunch of money doing very stupid things with it doesn’t validate ignoring the solution.
It’s not nearly so trivial. Having lived in Norway for many years, a country which does have unconditional free healthcare (including mental health), and free access to housing, they still have a large homeless population and plenty of street crime.
Maybe, but even Norway has hardly stamped out homelessness completely. Far from it actually, there are some parts of Oslo which have immensely high levels of homelessness. Not as bad Skid Row in LA, but not far behind either.
Hahaha! Doing that thing you said (but still with some hoops for mental healthcare and housing) only makes it way better! Check-mate! Let’s double down on spending ten times as much pujishing the homeless for being homeless!
I said I’m all for free mental healthcare and housing, but even these don’t seem to solve the problem. Nor does just throwing money at the problem. So I have no ideas for how to solve the issue, besides maybe just dismantling capitalism entirely, but this also comes with problems.
A solution requires more than just providing food and shelter. We have a class of people who are marginally mentally ill or barely literate. They do not function well enough to hold down a job or fill out a welfare form, but they function too well to require that they be locked up. These people need a semi-monitored place with enough oversight to keep them safe. The street can’t do that, but they have no other place to go.
“Poisoned or tainted food” is just a sensationalist term for “not FDA approved” or “not handled by a certified food professional”. It’s kinda over the top in this regard but remember when people put borax in their milk to make it taste better or lime and plaster into bread to stretch the flour? It was unregulated food. Just like you can’t open an unregistered and unlicensed restaurant without certfied cooks, you can’t just hand out foods without someone knowing (i.e. licensed) how the food is supposed to be handled.
Also Texas. Tony Hinchcliffe told a story about getting kicked out of a Whataburger for being gay. His friend got arrested and held but not charged. This was 10 years ago, not 50. Texas sucks.
Cops protect the rich. The rich are only rich because they’re psychopaths. Our economic system rewards psychopathy and punishes empathy. Eat. The. Rich
“For almost 20 years, I’ve taught children to love each other. I’ve talked to them and told them, ‘You have to get along. God loves us all equally.’ And that’s the way we should be,” Maris told ABC 13’s Lodhia.“We should love everybody, and that’s what we’ve been teaching, but they’re expecting us not to do that.”
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