Biblical Jesus misquoted the OT multiple times, the kinds of misquotes an Aramaic speaking Jewish rabbi would not have made. And only referenced parts of the OT that were translated into a popular Greek translation of a subset of the what is now the Hebrew Bible.
The Nazis came up with this concept of “German Christianity” or “Positive Christianity” that essentially took Christianity and emphasized its differences from Judaism, while downplaying Jesus as the messiah and elevating the Führer as the herald of a new covenant. I know we’re all joking here but this kind of thing has been done before, over, and over, and over.
See and this is how I know it’s all bullshit, what man in his mid to late thirties still has twelve friends? I’ve never even had twelve friends at the same time before.
But American Jeebus is so Kick Ass. He carries a machine gun and shoots immigrants like Rambo without the Vietnamese love interest, but let’s be honest that’s OK too? /s
Oh what a fucking Seppo-brained take. Best idea of what he looked like we have is that he looked like your average Palestinian (no shit Sherlock), that is, pretty much the same as half a gazillion people from the Mediterranean over Iran to fucking India.
Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous when you consider how at odds Jesus is with most of what capitalism entails. He didn't stutter when he said it's impossible for a wealthy person to get into heaven. He was unambiguously against accumulated wealth. His belief was that if you had resources to help people, you had an obligation to do so. If you kept wealth, then you were failing that obligation.
Granted, I'm an atheist, but I'm tired of the right wing Christianity in the US. Any person who actually followed Christianity, and didn't just use it as an excuse to support their hatred and biases, would undoubtedly vote against Republicans, abortion rights notwithstanding.
In Matthew 19:24, Jesus tells His listeners, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
(Copied from the Internet)
While not impossible, we haven’t made any micro camels yet.
“Truly, I say to you, tonly with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 uAgain I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter vthe kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus wlooked at them and said, x“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” 27 Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” 28 Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world,2 when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me awill also sit on twelve thrones, bjudging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 cAnd everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold3 and will dinherit eternal life. 30 But emany who are ffirst will be last, and the last first."
Sorry about all the numbered citations, and random letters. Too hard to edit that out on mobile lol
Still sounds like they need to give everything up and then they’ll be rewarded.
No it doesn't. It says that if you give everything up you will be rewarded, but it doesn't follow that you have to give everything up. Actually most would argue that giving everything up only works if you then follow Jesus.
Verse 26 is key here: "with God all things are possible." Most Christians will agree that there are many different ways to a reward. Some will put more limits on the number than others, but none suggest that the only way is to sell all. We see plenty of people in the bible who clearly didn't sell all and seem to be saved. Some of them even seem to be rich.
I mean, I guess you could get that camel through the eye of a needle by liquefying it first. Maybe the same step could be taken to get Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg into heaven.
Eye of the needle was a very narrow gate in ( I think) Jerusalem, through which goods had to pass because of some rule against bringing too much to market and establishing a monopoly.
Source: probably read it on the internet somewhere
Last time I traced that down (15 years ago), there was a midevil town that referred to their gate as the eye of the needed. However midevil is more than 1000 years after the passage in question. It was in Europe, not Jerusalem. Maybe someone cares enough to research and provide a citation.
The trouble with disgraphia is I know i'm wrong but I have no idea how to get close enough for autocorrect to get the right word. I'd say thanks, hit realistically I won't remember next time I need medieval
I remember some modern evangelicals saying that the needle is a location or something and that we’re all misinterpreting it. I think these were the ones trying to espouse the prosperity gospel BS, of course.
It's unlikely because again, Jesus believed you should use your resources to help. If you do not, you are not fulfilling your obligations. So it's certainly difficult as you need to be spending your wealth on helping, not creating more wealth. Jesus did not believe that you should ignore and refuse to help those in need. This is what a wealthy person implicitly does if they don't actively use their resources when possible.
So yeah, it's insanely difficult. Easier for a camel to fit through a needle.
“Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle”
Then prosperity gospel dipshits made up some stupid shit about a particularly narrow gate in Jerusalem called “the eye of the needle” which must have been what Jesus was talking about
They would probably love Islam if they could get past the whole “brown people worship this religion” thing, Islam really seems far more their type than Christianity.
Coming soon to the Southern portion of the US, Vanilla ISIS!
I’ve seen genuine support in Appalachia for the Taliban on certain things. Given the economic situation, it may not be long before they have nothing left but their God and their guns.
It wouldn’t change a thing, they adapt their religion to their views, not the other way around. Religion is just the excuse they use to tell themselves they’re the good guys.
Since they're basically following Paul and John, why not change the name of their religion. (Paul is the prude, John the antisemite and general asshat).
Jesus was not a socialist. Some of what he taught overlaps with socialism, but not everything. Since Jesus came first perhaps it is better to say Socialists are Christians. (since socialism rejects religion this a weird thing to say)
My understanding of the passage you are alluding to is Marx viewed religion as palliative care. Religion was the opioid of the masses in the sense that people can’t or wont be given real medication. The patient is dying and nothing can stop that, so at least make sure they don’t suffer. The role of religion was to minimize suffering and would fade away when suffering was gone.
Also even if he had not thought that way he is not the be all end all on the subject.
…Trump had transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too “weak” and “liberal” for their liking.
Trump didn’t transform shit. His views are as old as conservatism. Maybe there was a lull in speaking out about them from about 1975-2001, but they didn’t go away. Trump literally just stumbled ass-first into a convenient landscape with his more plainly outspoken bigotry and hate.
To attribute all of this to the last 6-8 years is beyond stupid and misses the entire problem.
And if these people can’t see that, their blind spot to hatred is so big that they can’t see it until someone screams it in their face. Yeah, it’s great someone in the evangelical community is speaking out, but it’s too little way too late. The fascist ideology has firmly rooted its way into American life over the last 30 years. Now that that tree is bearing fruit and it’s falling on people’s heads, speaking out now is like trying to cut down that tree with pruning shears. You assholes that fostered this for so long needed to cut it off way sooner.
Many people don’t realize that the first colonies were founded by Christians that believed the churches in their home county were not being authoritarian enough. The wanted religious freedom, sure, but they wanted the freedom to be theocratic like you said.
Our correct and just way to live means that when we invade other countries, kill their civilians and take their stuff, it's for their own good because we're bringing the light of christ freedom and democracy. That's totally a crusade.
I'm quite a fan of freedom and democracy - I wish we had some in the US - but using our noblest ideals to justify bloody wars of plunder is the most christian thing I can imagine.
One of the most eye opening historical events for me as a christian was the Children's Crusade
Happened right before the 5th crusade. Basically a bunch of kids and teens got together and believed that God would part the dead sea for them, like Moses did, and allow them to take Jerusalem. Which at the time was considered a reasonable idea.
They believed in the cause so much, they only sent them with enough supplies to make it there, not a return trip.
Some of the kids made it to the dead sea, and the sea did not part.
It is said out of the thousands of kids they sent, only a few returned. With the rest suffering starvation, thirst, drowning, disease, and slavery.
I still believe in God, and I do have some faith in him, if at the very least like the idea of a Good God being in control of everything.
Kind of like Santa.
Not in the sense that I would drink a vat of Kool-aid for him. Warning: Not Safe For Work
But that I will question my religion and see what I got wrong first, before I challenge the scientific proof. Because if the moral of the story is anything, it's that God works in mysterious ways, but he doesn't part the dead sea anymore.
Picking and choosing what parts of the Bible they want to follow is nearly as old as the religion itself. The first council of Nicea was the first large attempt for Christianity to define itself and create a canon. That happened in 325 AD. Even if we talk only about protestants, denominations are all about what parts of the bible they follow and how they translate the word to doctrine.
To attribute it to one man is so disingenuous. Christians have been interpreting the Bible in whatever way suits them best for over a millenia.
I've read at least three commentaries by [priests/deacons/whatever their particular church calls them but I'm using the generic "priests"] priests who 'nourished' and 'tended' to their 'kind' and 'caring' flocks for decades, who no longer agree with their flock's views and have either left voluntarily or were ousted. Tellingly, all three have relocated to liberal states from the South.
And all I can think is how "Southern charm" partially rose up after the Civil War, when they just really couldn't tell the Yankees what they actually thought of them, so they went overboard with the faux politeness ('bless your heart'). And the fact that these 'liberal' priests just either never heard or never understood exactly why people were saying their people were bigots indicates a lack of the introspection that they're supposed to have.
I was raised in a very devout liberal Episcopal family, most of my associate priests growing up were lesbians. Im an atheist but I grew up around a lot of theological discussions.
Christ’s message is neither liberal nor conservative as it is not political. Your “job” as a Christian is to love everyone and do everything you can to care for those that need help. It’s nothing more than that. It isn’t a political take to say you should feed/clothe people who are naked or hungry and avoid judging others.
To expand a bit, Christ said, "“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
I had a very similar upbringing but I fundamentally disagree that Christ’s message isn’t political. Christ was a political figure in his era, executed for political reasons. Early Church history is full of Christians being tortured and executed by sovereigns.
I think you’re correct only to the extent that Christianity won’t tell you how to set budget priorities for FY2024, but Christ’s message will almost certainly inform certain decisions made in that budget, like feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, welcoming migrants, and pursuing justice and mercy. And to the extent that we have one political party who consistently claims to represent Christ’s teachings and similarly rejects Christ’s message as applied to the policies they support, it’s inherently political right now as well.
That is cherrypicking a single verse if I’ve ever seen it. (For reference: “Matthew 15:24 But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.””) You gotta look at some context elsewhere as well - Jesus couldn’t be everywhere at once and had to start somewhere, and Israel was really supposed to be a shining example to all people, the priests for all nations showing love to everybody.
Sure the context. A women comes to beg for her son. Jesus tells her he can’t help. She grovels at her feet and calls herself a racial slur. And only then does he agree to spend a minute helping.
I agree I should definitely mention the groveling and bigotry of the story. Thanks for the correction. I would hate for people to think that fictional character wasn’t a bigot.
Yeah I hear you. I was raised Episcopalian/Anglican and I was always shocked at the horror stories I heard from other kids coming from more conservative denominations. I was like “I don’t believe any of the supernatural stuff but youth group is fun and it’s not like they’re preaching bad things…”
That said, the historical Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. Essentially no modern denominations get it right. Essentially all Christianities today are extremely Westernized as opposed to Semitic.
It’s not so much about Jesus himself being a political figure, it’s more a question of which ideologies more closely align with his teachings. So it’s probably more accurate to say “liberal ideology is significantly more similar to Jesus’s teachings than conservative ideology.”
I have to ask this. How is feed the hungry not political. I jist don’t get how there can be apolitical morality, or laws. What isca politic what makes something’s political
You’re right. His teachings (on how the individual should act) are politics, and they are viable as the basis for a political system. It was actually put into practice, too, in monasteries and other communes.
I think the problem stems from cognitive dissonance. The popular political ideology that most closely reflect his neighborly teachings, is anarcho-communism. That is the exact opposite ideology from fascism (i.e., in-group authoritarianism) which is the ideology practiced by most of his adherents.
They are motivated to find ways to convince themselves and others that the teachings aren’t political, so that they don’t have to reconcile the teachings of their in-group identifier/shibboleth with their practices in the real world.
(I’m not saying this is why everyone says it isn’t political, I’m saying that this is the source of the meme that religion-isn’t-political.)
I’m about as atheist as it gets, not like the angry kind but I firmly don’t believe any kind of higher power exists, at least in the way religions do. I grew up in a Christian family and went to church in my early years. I guess the message got through to me because that’s basically my philosophy just without all the spiritual stuff.
Don’t forget that Jesus is no longer this peace preaching hippie, but mister superstar with real red blood who don’t take no shit from no pharisee. Oh, and no more free healings
Don’t forget that Jesus is no longer this peace preaching hippie,
Suppose ye that I have come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three”
I know, the bible is full of inconsistencies. Weird that the same guy also preached something along the lines of “when someone slaps your face, offer the other cheek” and told one of his apostles (Judas) to distribute the money he collected among the poor. The same hippie that also expelled the merchants from the temple with a whip. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
And that is “just” the philosophy ones. The biography details are massively different.
Which isn’t surprising given that it was all made up by illiterates. Of course they couldn’t keep the details straight. Heck I have problems remembering what I had for breakfast last week and Peter was supposed to remember how many imaginary people went to an imaginary tomb and what they saw?
That is a really, really good fucking idea. We should make a Bible that is adapted to modern American vernacular and interprets some of the stories in insanely biased and hateful ways. You could make a massive amount of money.
That version sounds a good deal like Mad Max films.
I would expect Trump at some point to “write” a book narrating his struggle in life, an inspirational narration of his hardships, to elevate his followers and supporters.
Actually, Phyllis Schlafly’s kid was trying to crowdsource a “conservative bible” translation back around 2009, claiming that modern translations were done with a “leftist bias” and that several passages were added by “liberal scholars”, including the story of the adulteress in John (“let he who is without sin cast the first stone”), and editing any mention of the Pharisees to either “intellectuals” or “the elite” depending on which ‘translator’ you wanna go with. Oh, they also get rid of Christ’s prayer on the cross, because, and I quote, “it implies that Jesus forgives unrepentant people.”
That’s hilarious. Not sure why they would need to crowdsource it however. As a good Christian scholar dont they already know the biblical languages fluently?
This is the apotheosis of Reagan’s cynical exploitation of Evangelical voters. They were always going to end up rejecting the very deity they claimed to follow as the culmination of their path astray.
Like, as soon as “Christians” started voting to cut social welfare programs and programs to help children, they were on the road to apostasy (in their religious framework).
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
And when Jesus was asked what the greatest of the commandments was:
"The most important one is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these”
Conservative Christians praise Jesus and follow the example of God. Liberal Christians praise God and follow the example of Jesus. One judges, the other forgives. One smites, the other saves. One says “praise me”, the other literally says not to worship him but to follow his example.
“Conservative Christians praise Jesus and follow the example of God. Liberal Christians praise God and follow the example of Jesus.” This is a very interesting insight, does it come from your own observation or from e.g. the bible?
It was a quote from someone I heard on the internet a long time ago. Can’t remember from whom, so I guess it is my quote now. USA definition of liberal and conservative.
“When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
Half this story is about the idiot SBC constituency. The other half is about top SBC officials who have somehow come to believe that the teachings of Jesus were anything but subversive to begin with.
Saying he was the Messiah in and of itself was subversive to established thought.
They had a long long history of people making claims to kingship based on having a supposed message from God. Like Jeremiah which is clearly the story it was plagiarized from. Additionally, the narratives are contradictory on what exactly he said while interrogated. Which makes sense if you are just making it all up.
The Jews at the time thought the Messiah would come in clad in armor, sword in hand, on a white horse, come to slay their enemies.
Citation needed. Please use the Talmudic prophecies and the references of Josphius to back up your claim. There was a wide variety of different messiah prophecies in circulation at the time. Some of them yes we’re closer to warlike image you made, copying from the Maccabees and Samson. Others were much closer to Isaiah and Jeremiah. Just a guy going around preaching.
Instead he rolled up humbly on a donkey
Not according to Gospel of Matthew. In the Gospel of Matthew he was riding a horse and a donkey at the same time. The author of first Gospel liked to double stuff, made his lies easier to swallow I imagine. Or he just didn’t know Hebrew and Aramaic and misunderstood the last sentence repetitive structure of the poetry.
talking nonsense like “love each other, treat others kindly”
Like here?
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
-Matthew 10:34
Also all the nice stuff he said was from Hillel or Proverbs.
Wanna try again? Or just admit that he is a fictional character that con artists poured Jewish history and thought into.
Christianity is syncretic - is that not inherently subversive of the source?
And in this way it created common ground regional cultures, but the direction of the syncretization was also that of Romanization - the new mythos served to legitimize the earthly authority of Rome (and their territorial claims) in a way the teachings of the Jewish tribes had not.
Christianity is syncretic - is that not inherently subversive of the source?
Oh I think I see what you mean. To one extent every religion is. No one starts from page 1. I am not quite seeing however what Biblical Jesus borrowed from Rome that the Jews of the area hadn’t already. Can you list some examples?
And in this way it created common ground regional cultures, but the direction of the syncretization was also that of Romanization - the new mythos served to legitimize the earthly authority of Rome (and their territorial claims) in a way the teachings of the Jewish tribes had not.
Really only discussing what Biblical Jesus is supposed to have said. He was clear that he was only there for the lost sheep of the Jews, not for the rest.
Yes! History is a tale of cyclical power struggles. I disagree that every religion is syncretic but in principle that’s right. It’s exactly why this headline exists!
I am not quite seeing however what Biblical Jesus borrowed from Rome that the Jews of the area hadn’t already. Can you list some examples?
No I cannot because Biblical Jesus wasn’t real, whether historic Jesus was or not.
The human being that is most recognized as being the inspiration for Jesus had nothing to do with the Bible or the stories in it. The first hint to this should be that many Biblical stories predate the preacher, of course with different characters in the originals. Jesus was simply the device needed to create the opportunity to rewrite regional beliefs in a format more compatible with the contemporary nation-states.
It was non-contemporaneous authors that made Christianity what it is, not some Jesus character. During the time of Jesus around a century after iirc, the practices now called Christianity were not present. There was a very ambiguous and locally varied new twist on the old stories, but Christianity did not start with Jesus as a singular point and then branch from there. Christianity started as an influence on existing religions that slowly tied together disparate branches with a story that became more and more consistent only after it had been around for generations. When his name first started to be used to retell these stories, 2000 years ago or so, there was little agreement on who Jesus was or what he preached. And so the things Jesus is claimed to have said now, are not the same things they were claiming he said back then, which were themselves removed from what the human preacher actually preached (which is currently understood to have been pretty standard teachings for the time and region).
And so, as a character in a story, Biblical Jesus was not an entity that ever had agency. He couldn’t “borrow” anything.
Really only discussing what Biblical Jesus is supposed to have said.
Then you must pay attention to who wrote his lines! It was Rome. Forget the Bible, if you want to learn the answers to your questions, then go read history books to understand the actions that went along with the words. Christianity was the vessel for Roman colonialism.
If you’re too attached to approach it without biases, you could study Islam instead. After understanding the history of Islam, the history of Christianity should become easier to understand for Christians.
The passage where the man expels the people from the temple, accusing them of betraying the teachings seems very much subversive.
Please see: Jeremiah 7:9-15, Jeremiah 23:11-15, Isaiah 1:10-17, Isaiah 66:1-2, Isaiah 59:1-2, Isaiah 56:7-8, Amos 5:21-24, and of course Micah.
The Jewish theocratic state had divisions of power. At that time it was mostly Pharisees and Temple. If Jesus had existed, he would definitely been on Pharisees side. Biblical Jesus was at least. It’s a bit like claiming any political commentary is subversive. There is a difference between being willing to take pot shots at the other political team and being against established order. The references I gave are only the ones that have survived. Most likely there were quite a few authors being very critical of how the Temple was run.
Here is a single man going against status quo and establishment. If that is not a good exemple of subversion, there is none.
I thought you Bible literalists believe he had 12 apostles plus over 500 camp followers. Which is it?
Pharisees and Sadducees are, in very broad terms, like Democrats and Republicans today. Sadducees tended to be wealthy and conservative, while the Pharisees were more about the common folk. At least on paper. In practice, maybe not so much. Like the way a lot of modern leftists hate the Democratic party, historical Jesus could very easily have hated the Pharisees while aligning somewhat with their stated positions. That certainly comes through in the literary version of Jesus.
Can you please spend some effort in your responses instead of just little quips. You made a really bad analogy and you won’t retract it or defend it. Me being a bad debate partner in your eyes at least doesn’t mean you have to be worse.
Don’t really know. I’m aware such a depiction exists but precise details are moot, for what I care.
I think it revolves around the temple grounds being used as a market and/or being a place where moneylenders were present, thus, again, going against the teachings advising against greed and materialism.
There is a lot of argument about that incident in the “Jesus was not supernatural but he existed crowd”. A few main solutions:
It was understood that the next Messiah would build the 3rd temple, but you can’t exactly rebuild the temple if there is a temple. So he was trying to bring about the events.
Roman coinage was dicey for strict monotheistic people to use hence the need to change it before you entered. It was a sore point for the holier-than-now crowd. Oh you use forbidden currency normally but change it at the temple? Morality when it suits you.
The temple had a dual-aristorcracy structure. The outside was run by one and the inside by another. The outside was more politically acceptable to attack. It definitely wouldn’t have been the first time one of the other Jewish factions had gone after how the Temple was run. By attacking the outside one he could set himself up as the quite a few “restorers of the Temple”.
You probably are just trying to be quippy but actually Jesus was quite subversive to established Jewish doctrine. You can see it in the parables.
One can see it in the Parable of the Woman called out for adultry. To deeply paraphrase with a shit condensed version : A bunch of Jewish scholarship - the folk who basically serve as biblical laywers - try and cast a woman in front of Jesus for judgement for her supposed flagrant overstepping of the rules with the prescribed punishment under Jewish law. This law is one of the actual commandment breakers and these community leaders demand Jesus judge her by their rule book. Jesus refuses. This is where we get the whole “he who is without sin cast the first stone” thing. Jewish law contained the punishment for adultry was not written by god, it was written by priests. Jesus does tell the woman not to do it again so God’s will is communicated so one could read this as a message to be wary of the laws of priests because they do not reflect the will of God. “Do not kill” and “do not covet” which means something closer to “be jealous of/desire” superceed those laws. It’s not on humans to take it upon themselves to render judgement. That is up to God.
This made the teachings of Jesus ridiculously unpopular amongst Jewish priests because they got a law for everything. One could look at the inclusion of Leviticus - a description of Jewish laws in the Christian Bible as a reminder that priests made those laws. They were unauthorized human expansions on the simple directives that came straight from the source.
One can see it in the Parable of the Woman called out for adultry.
3rd century forgery. Not found in early manuscripts of John or any other Christian works. Also not aligned with other things he said. Such as in Matthew where he talked about how he wasn’t subtracting from the law. Also doesn’t align with the incident with the “lepord” found in Mark, Luke, and Matthew. Where Jesus shows absolute respect for the legal authorities.
Jewish law contained the punishment for adultry was not written by god, it was written by priests.
I agree. God wrote nothing.
s not on humans to take it upon themselves to render judgement. That is up to God.
I thought we were talking about Jesus. Why are you bringing up Rabbi Hillel. You know the guy who said things like this, lived in that area, and died decades prior?
This made the teachings of Jesus ridiculously unpopular amongst Jewish priests because they got a law for everything. One could look at the inclusion of Leviticus -
So did Jesus. You don’t remember your Sermon on the Mount.
Other parables to look into were “The unjust judge”. But yeah. Jesus was about as anti authoritarian as you could get.
Proverbs and Leviticus.
Again, everything Biblical Jesus said was establishment.
I love how I cannot tell from this message whether you are a koolaid-drinking Christian Fascist or a Dawkins-huffing New Atheist. Both have a strong interest in this particular version of Jesus that you are pushing.
Most of us take it for granted that Jesus forgave the adulterer, and further, that only by his forgiveness can we enter the kingdom of heaven, according to contemporary vernacular Protestant American Christian Mythology. The Biblical Scholars like yourself - amateur or professional, earnest or polemical - will always debate like Talmudic rabbis about it, but we’re out here in the real world where people are alive and living their various gospel truths.
I love how I cannot tell from this message whether you are a koolaid-drinking Christian Fascist or a Dawkins-huffing New Atheist. Both have a strong interest in this particular version of Jesus that you are pushing.
Attack the argument and not the person.
Most of us take it for granted that Jesus forgave the adulterer
3rd century forgery.
and further, that only by his forgiveness can we enter the kingdom of heaven, according to contemporary vernacular Protestant American Christian Mythology.
And? There is an entire branch of Christian thought dedicated to figure out how to be saved. That source has just as much justification as Calvinism. Of course none of it is true, the only place we go when we die is the ground.
The Biblical Scholars like yourself - amateur or professional, earnest or polemical - will always debate like Talmudic rabbis about it,
I have discussed facts only.
but we’re out here in the real world where people are alive and living their various gospel truths.
So you are naked, barefoot, and demanding the rich to give up all their money?
I remain atheist at my deepest heart, but I understand after many years of wasting my time being wrong that anything which doesn’t exist, also doesn’t deserve any time wasted thinking about its finer details. In its own way, this deep dive into biblical archivism is just the Atheist’s version of The Courtier’s Reply.
Any honest Atheist, when pressed hard, has to concede the final thousandths of an inch to uncertainty and give the highest and strongest ground to the Agnostics, and that’s really the one that allows for the most freedom. I use chemicals, some from my doctor and some from the store, to boost my mood and my productivity. Some people use Jesus or Allah or Idontfuckingcarereally, as long as they don’t try to take my weed or my Vyvanse.
edit: we all do what we do to get by. If you’re not harming anyone with your drug of choice, I say you should have as much of it you can handle without burning out.
Did I say halfway point? I think I specifically said something more resembling the tiny domains of delta that come into play as you endlessly approach the speed of light but never reach it. One can endlessly approach Atheism, but until you can somehow use logic to prove a negative, in the end, you are the one who is trafficking in false knowledge. If you were so sure - if you were as sure as I am that no deities exist - you wouldn’t be wasting your time in this way, and particularly not resorting to deliberate mischaracterizations of what I said.
Atheism is about belief not about knowledge. You can identify as an Agnostic Atheist. Someone who doesn’t believe in a god but knows it can’t be demonstrated one way or another. I for example do that. You are mixing up the assertion of knowledge with the assertion of belief.
It is true, as a white man in North America, I have the luxury of pretending I exist independently of all the labels. It’s a delusion of course; all politics are identity politics. That being said, to purposely put one on yourself as a conscious choice seems like putting the yoke on yourself.
Yes, and also: one need not be a ‘believer’ to perceive, comprehend, and accept the utility functions that religious behaviors have accommodated (albeit inefficiently and with a significant amount of superfluous baggage) throughout history and within the human psyche.
As a tribal species, we function better when we have some kind of overarching organizational structure to inform individuals of their own (psychological and social) position relative to the community to which they belong, so as to better focus individual efforts toward cooperative goals. It’s the heart of skill specialization that enabled us to become more than generalist hunter-gatherers, after all! Some kinds of cult-shaped collective gestalt entities will always emerge whenever the constituent humans of a community begin to specialize their expertise.
One of the elements that separate us from our ancestors is that we have an opportunity to synthesize an organizing system that features fewer of the maladaptive, exploitative, abusive traits of naturally arising cult entities.
(and by ‘cult’ I don’t just mean religious - I also mean political, commercial, and recreational memetic entities too! Even fandoms are an example of this phenomenon!)
I think you’re right if talking about heroin, but religion can calcify a worldview that is not representative of objective reality. Maybe 1000 years ago its pros outweighed its cons, but we should not make any room in this world for other-ness, and especially not things like genital mutilation and child marriage.
Oh, yeah, you’re right that the present paradigm has outlived its usefulness, for sure.
But like any technology, not everybody has access to the latest developments.
It’s unfortunate, but nevertheless true, that there are many places on earth where people have no other means of social support than the meager and dubious amenities provided by religious orders.
I’m sure there are those who might successfully litigate the argument that having no hospital at all could be construed as somehow better than having a hospital founded via religious means, and the imperialistic, colonizing aspects of missionary work, which directly damage cultures and societies on a generational scale, may indeed have caused more harm than the acute disease and occurrences of injury which they can treat on an individual basis - but that’s not an argument I would personally back.
The corrupting mimetic contagion of religiosity can be inoculated-against while a society continues to benefit from the medical or nutritional support… although only if the society in question either learns how on its own, or is taught. Like most things in life, not quite so simply cut-and-dried, alas.
Of course logic isn’t enough. Logic can tell you how to do something, but it can’t tell you why. In other words, logic can’t tell you why one outcome is better or worse than another. You need emotions for that.
indeed, an illustration of how one cannot derive an ‘ought’ from statements of what ‘is’ unless one incorporates some sort of conditional framework such as a desired outcome or consequence.
for instance, it can be perhaps framed as an if-then statement: IF one wishes to produce a specific result, THEN a certain action must be taken - but even then, WHY someone might wish to produce that result is still left undefined; and even when a number of those reasons can be listed, the act of actually engaging any of those reasons is still the exclusive domain of a sapient agency perceiving their own emotional state.
In the end, we’re all just doing what ‘feels right’; the logic, reason, and rationality around it are just there to focus and refine how our emotions resolve.
With a convoluted enough Rube Goldberg Machine of excuses and justifications, ANYTHING can be made to ‘feel’ like it will achieve the desired effects… just like how any good tool can become a weapon if grossly misused.
Ah, but the proof that you mention that it was a 3rd century forgery was actually a 6th century forgery! You can always disprove something, but proving something is much harder if you don’t share the same base truths. But as Pilate said “What is truth?”… or was that a forgery as well?
When the specific bit of fiction was added to the book of fiction seems entirely irrelevant when it is the compiled book, including the later bit of fiction, upon which modern people claim to be basing their moral philosophy. I don’t believe the vast majority are reaching that verse and going “oh well this was added late so let’s skip over this part.” “Legitimate” (feels a funny concept for this topic, tbh) or not, it is included in most modern Christian’s interpretation of Christ
The whole thing is allegorical fiction; debating which is most historically fictional is pointless when the vast majority only consider the thing as a whole, not individually. It isn’t that you’re not correct, it’s that your correctness is wholly irrelevant to how the Bible is consumed
Yes, I’m aware. Those people are even less likely to do the due diligence you seem to be requesting of examining the veracity of each book or passage. The salient point here remains - the Bible is being interpreted as a whole book, thus whether or not your specific passage passes the veracity test or not is fully irrelevant
You really seem to be willing to generalize. I was one of those people and I did put in the leg work. Very nearly went into some sort of theological training as my career. Lost my faith before that, got a real job. It was not an allegory for me it was the word of God. So yes I studied the heck out of it.
And no you don’t get to do that. The Bible contradicts itself. Taken as a whole does not work. Sometimes the contractions are found within the same book.
Everything you’ve written in this entire comment section has been both maximally dick AND asshole simultaneously.
You are by far the one person I have ever seen most well-equipped to go fuck yourself.
And for the record, there was no biblical jesus.
The closest approximation would be any itinerant populist rabble rousing grifter “faith healer” just as fraudulent as any modern day snake oil salesman who went by the name “Yeshua” and claimed to be a “messiah” only to be summarily crucified by the Roman occupational authorities for sedition at the time, of which there were dozens, if not hundreds.
Furthermore, any one of them could have rolled into town with their posse of simps right after the last one was put down and exploited the FUCK out of the situation by saying “oh why yes, that was indeed me who was crucified last week but I came back to life because I’m a special boy and the real deal, evidence: TRUST ME BRO”
Anyone who had something to gain from spreading the rumor certainly would have, and the motive was simple: anyone gullible enough to believe the story tags themselves as an easy mark for fraud and manipulation, because they were either stupid, desperate, or both.
The whole “camel through the eye of the needle” bit is likely as radical as it looks at first glance. It was tried to be explained away through the centuries as more rich Christians started to appear, such as by claiming it was a small doorway in the city wall that would be difficult to get a camel through.
These claims don’t appear to hold up. Meanwhile, there were sewing needles uncovered with a recognizable design to modern ones, and you ain’t getting a camel through it. The way we would plainly read it today seems correct: rich people aren’t getting into the Kingdom of God.
Pharisees lived on donations not via state funds. For him to tell a rich guy to give away all his money was basically him telling a rich guy to give himself all the money.
I've said it before, but, (assuming he existed at all) Jesus was a brown-skinned non-English-speaking Palestinian Jew who healed the sick and fed the poor (and didn't charge money for either thing) and encouraged his followers to do the same, supported paying taxes, and showed open contempt for wealth and the wealthy.
If only he had also been openly gay he would be every single thing modern Christians hate.
He didn’t show open contempt for the wealthy as long as they lived up to his standards for faith, charity, and humility. It’s just that there were, and are, so dang few of those.
Just wanted to point out it’s widely accepted, even by secular historians, Jesus was a real person. Him being a jew from Nazareth and being crucified for starting a quarrel in the temple are generally accepted as proven through non-biblical records.
Just wanted to point out that if we admit that he was not a real person, just a con James and Peter were running, the mystery is over and no one can sell any more books. If the History channel, or Discovery channel, or any UFO organization or any saint miracle has shown: once it is explained you have nothing left to draw in crowds.
The only records we have of the events are hearsay multiple times removed decades later.
But the tl;dr is that his existence is attested by non-Christian sources and further details can be filled in by critical analysis (such as early Christians having no theological interest in making up him getting baptized by John). He was prominent enough as an itinerant preacher to be mentioned by the histographers of his time.
Frankly speaking Buddha is on more shaky grounds, though his historicity is also widely accepted.
Personal insults won’t convince me. Evidence will.
But the tl;dr is that his existence is attested by non-Christian sources
Hearsay written decades later.
and further details can be filled in by critical analysis
Critical analysis shows forgery. The multiple surviving accounts don’t agree with each other. Just like any liar, they couldn’t keep their story straight.
such as early Christians having no theological interest in making up him getting baptized by John)
Yeah this is bull. John the Baptist was widely respected in the area at the time of the jesus con. Connecting him with Jesus would have been good old fashion name dropping.
He was prominent enough as an itinerant preacher to be mentioned by the histographers of his time.
Ok who in his time named him? Please show me the contemporary writing that says anything about Jesus.
Frankly speaking Buddha is on more shaky grounds, though his historicity is also widely accepted.
Connecting him with Jesus would have been good old fashion name dropping.
Connecting him with Jesus in that manner tarnishes the divinity of Jesus. Baptism is supposed to cleanse of sin, Jesus is supposed to have been without sin, so what’s the baptism for? If Christians had made up the story it would’ve been Jesus baptising John.
The multiple surviving accounts don’t agree with each other. Just like any liar, they couldn’t keep their story straight.
That’s why Christian sources aren’t taken as gospel. But that wasn’t even what I was referring to…
Ok who in his time named him? Please show me the contemporary writing that says anything about Jesus.
Tacitus, for one. I know I know “decades later” but the guy is generally reliable and had access to Roman state archives, which we don’t, so we have to contend with Tacitus as secondary sources. You wouldn’t nowadays discount someone writing about, dunno, Churchill, would you, for reasons of them doing it “decades later”?
With Tacitus being the guy he was if Jesus had been made up he would’ve said so (“Christians who accuse the State of crucifying their idol”) because he had the opportunity, and habit, to check sources, and certainly didn’t have much love for Christians.
Connecting him with Jesus in that manner tarnishes the divinity of Jesus. Baptism is supposed to cleanse of sin, Jesus is supposed to have been without sin, so what’s the baptism for? If Christians had made up the story it would’ve been Jesus baptising John.
He wasn’t divine yet. That wouldn’t come along until about 2-3 centuries later with the rise of the Trinity ideas. Which themselves look like an import from Hellenism creating the Celestial Jesus of the 4th gospel.
To the monotheistic people being conned by James the idea of Jesus being divine would have been abhorrent. Even Paul didn’t go that far. Plus Jewish Temple law was clear that forgiveness offerings, as well as ritual immersion had to be done even if the person has no sin to be forgiven. See for example the Talmudic arguments about the mentally disabled.
That’s why Christian sources aren’t taken as gospel. But that wasn’t even what I was referring to…
What the? Do you know what gospels mean?
Tacitus, for one. I know I know “decades later”
If you knew then why mention him? I asked for contemporary evidence not hearsay multiple times removed. I will not accept less.
but the guy is generally reliable
The majority of people I know are generally reliable. Does that mean that they are always always correct about hearsay multiple times removed?
and had access to Roman state archives,
What archive did Tacticus bring up that says anything about Jesus? I want to know the author, the date, the location of the document, and the witnesses who vouched for it.
have to contend with Tacitus as secondary sources. You wouldn’t nowadays discount someone writing about, dunno, Churchill, would you, for reasons of them doing it “decades later”?
If they were using hearsay multiple times removed I would. Also, Churchill existence isn’t exactly a big claim.
With Tacitus being the guy he was if Jesus had been made up he would’ve said so
How did you establish that?
and certainly didn’t have much love for Christians.
Judaism had a long list of martyrs at the time. It is no way the insult the Bible literalists crowd make it out to be.
Now, can you please show me evidence? Not what some guy said after playing 80 years of telephone.
What archive did Tacticus bring up that says anything about Jesus? I want to know the author, the date, the location of the document, and the witnesses who vouched for it.
Standards of citation had not been established yet. Anyhow we couldn’t check things such as state archives for veracity anyway because they’re lost and then your argument would be that Tacitus made it all up.
Is there a standard of proof that could actually convince you? And if so, can it be realistically attained? Do you apply the same method and standard to the existence of other historical figures? Can you even spell out your method and standards.
Standards of citation had not been established yet.
Not really my problem. If I was trying to convince you of unicorns being a real thing in the 9th century I don’t win the argument because record keeping was bad. You are making a claim, it is on you to provide the evidence.
Anyhow we couldn’t check things such as state archives for veracity anyway because they’re lost and then your argument would be that Tacitus made it all up.
And now we are mind reading. You have no idea what my reaction would be to a document that says (and was verified) “I Tacticus talked to Pilot and he admitted all the details in the account were true”. Why don’t you produce the evidence instead of arguing what a hypothetical me would do?
Is there a standard of proof that could actually convince you?
Sure.
And if so, can it be realistically attained?
Again not my problem. Just because you can’t prove your myth doesn’t mean I have to accept it.
Do you apply the same method and standard to, say, the existence of Nero? Akhenaten?
False comparison. The claims of the bare minimum Jesus, as championed by secular Biblical scholars, are still extraordinary. And like all extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It isnt exactly shocking that kingdoms have kings. What is shocking is even the minimal non-supernatural claims of Thomas+Mark+Josphius+Paul.
Hey quick question. If Paul by his own admission was interrogating Christians, personally met James and a Peter, and was Resurrection obsessed why did he think Jesus was buried and even while in Jerusalem didn’t bother looking for the Tomb? This is man who is the best authority we have and he has a basic detail so very wrong.
The claims of the bare minimum Jesus, as championed by secular Biblical scholars, are still extraordinary.
What, that some guy got baptised, was a travelling preacher with a following, and got crucified is extraordinary? Also this isn’t about Bible scholarship (as such). The Bible doesn’t contain The Book of Tacitus.
What is shocking is even the minimal non-supernatural claims of Thomas+Mark+Josphius+Paul.
If Paul by his own admission was interrogating Christians, personally met James and a Peter, and was Resurrection obsessed why did he think Jesus was buried and even while in Jerusalem didn’t bother looking for the Tomb?
Noone is talking about the historical veracity of resurrection here, miracles, or anything of the sort. You’re getting religion all mixed up with history.
You see just because it’s reasonable to believe that Steven Segal can’t knock someone out with zero physical contact doesn’t mean that it suddenly becomes sensible to deny the existence of Steven Segal. His Bullshido is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence, his existence very much not so.
What, that some guy got baptised, was a travelling preacher with a following, and got crucified is extraordinary? Also this isn’t about Bible scholarship (as such). The Bible doesn’t contain The Book of Tacitus.
You brought up Tacitus, not me. He isn’t out of bounds now.
If you follow Mark (the first written Gospel) the ministry only lasted about 6 months. Something to keep in mind.
A guy is born in a one horse town no one ever heard of. He migrates to John the Baptist turf. In 6 months he has
Convinced 12 people in a poverty riddled area in a culture that emphasised familiar loyalty to abandon their work and families
He has mastered faith healing, speech writing, and magic tricks.
He somehow found the exact part of the Sea of Gallie that you can walk on rocks that are just under water and setup events such that only the youngest apostle sees him doing it in a storm.
With no money or power he convinces Lazarus and several others to fake their deaths. He has also gotten a local pig farmer to go along his ruse. Amazingly not one of those people decades later reports the con.
He convinces his 12 apostles and who knows how many other camp followers to go to the powder keg that was the Temple during Passover and start trouble. While everyone knows exactly how Romans deal with people doing stuff like this. The Romans even had a codified law that proscribed crucification. And yet none of them chicken out.
All the events in his life just happen to be mirrors of well known Jewish stories. Somehow he makes sure of this.
All the saying he says match up with dead Talmud authorities or a Greek translation of part of the OT. He makes a point to not quote from any book that was not yet in that translation. Go find me him talking about the Book of Esther for example.
But it doesn’t end there. Your buddy Tacticus openly wonders why the political movement still exists decades later. For a reason. They didn’t last long after the main guy was killed. Still think the claim is ordinary? I challenge you to demonstrate it. I want you, a regular Joe, with only the money in your wallet to go to some backwater of American civilization. Say Mississippi. Convince 12 men to stop working and follow you around barefoot. I then want you to take them to the Superbowl and rush the cops. 50 years afterwards your movement better be still around.
As I said the best explanation for the data is a long running con. James and Peter made it up, grabbing local legends, and kept pumping it out. You want to know why Paul didn’t know about the Tomb? Because that detail hadn’t been invented yet.
Noone is talking about the historical veracity of resurrection here, miracles, or anything of the sort. You’re getting religion all mixed up with history.
In that case there is nothing left. To save the claim you have made it so small you hope to squeeze it in. The exact opposite of what you do in science. You are supposed to look at the evidence and build models. Over time you are supposed to make larger and larger claims, right now you are going backwards. Starting from a big claim and saying less and less. As the limit approaches infinity you will say nothing at all.
You see just because it’s reasonable to believe that Steven Segal can’t knock someone out with zero physical contact doesn’t mean that it suddenly becomes sensible to deny the existence of Steven Segal. His Bullshido is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence, his existence very much not so.
Analogy is false and also a strawman.
Also you didn’t answer my question. If Paul was interviewing Christians for decades and obsessed with this one key detail how come he got it wrong? Could you imagine a DEA agent never knowing what LSD was?
Edit: forgot to mention that he makes sure specific events in his life align with other would be Messiah leaders. For absolutely no reason whatsoever.
If you follow Mark (the first written Gospel) the ministry only lasted about 6 months. Something to keep in mind.
No I fucking don’t do I look like a Christian. You’re the one pre-occupied with Bible interpretation, here, pre-occupied with Christian sources. You’re as obsessed with them from your (I presume) atheist POV as Christians are with them from their theist one.
So let me make one thing very clear: Acknowledging that there was some guy walking around current-day Palestine preaching and having followers doesn’t make that guy god. The existence of Jesus as a person and his supposed status as deity are two completely different questions. Be honest with yourself: Can you separate the two cleanly, or are they tangled up in some way?
Your buddy Tacticus openly wonders why the political movement still exists decades later. For a reason. They didn’t last long after the main guy was killed.
Christians still exist. The whole thing still continues – truth be told it is remarkable. The (mass-)psychology of religion generally is. spock-raising-eyebrow.jpg. The Roman Empire adopted Christianity as state religion, presumably precisely because of its resilience and staying power, and arguably the Vatican is the last remnant of the Empire in the form of its ministry of religion. All of that, of course, has nothing to do with the historicity of Jesus because in one thing you’re absolutely right: He doesn’t need to have existed for the mass movement to have occurred, a legend is sufficient. Yet, judging by historical standards of proof applied everywhere else, that itinerant preacher existed.
Over time you are supposed to make larger and larger claims, right now you are going backwards.
And generally speaking no, that’s not how the scientific method works, it’s invariant in regards to scope of hypothesis. Now it’s usually practical to start with small claims because they’re easier to prove and then build on that, but it’s by no means a prerequisite. As a counterexample, take something like materialism: That’s actually a very big claim. You can then go ahead and figure out physics, and then people are going to come along and do some woo and say that physics can’t explain consciousness, so you fill in details on how consciousness can emerge from matter, that’s going from big picture to small picture, yet would you call materialism unscientific? (Current best model we have of consciousness and all that is practopoiesis btw just as an aside).
Analogy is false and also a strawman.
That’s an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. If someone said “Steven Segal is god” and I said “God does not exist”, does it necessarily follow that I deny the existence of Steven Segal? Or could I simply be of the opinion that the man, as well as his followers, are nutjobs?
If Paul was interviewing Christians for decades and obsessed with this one key detail how come he got it wrong?
Paul was a Christian. He was a true believer, of course he got shit wrong because, well, let me be glib: Matthew 7:8 “He who searches, finds”. You’ll find that one to be backed up by psychological research. If you’re looking for your keys you’re quite a bit more likely to find them as compared to when looking for your phone. If you’re looking for proof of the non-existence of god and tangle up a random preacher up in that you’ll find evidence for the non-existence of said random preacher.
Acknowledging that there was some guy walking around current-day Palestine preaching and having followers doesn’t make that guy god. The existence of Jesus as a person and his supposed status as deity are two completely different questions. Be honest with yourself: Can you clearly separate the two, or are they tangled up in some way?
As I said. You are weakening your claim to the point you hope to sneak it in. Instead of looking at the evidence we have and drawing conclusions.
, yet would you call materialism unscientific? (Current best model we have of consciousness and all that is practopoiesis btw just as an aside).
Yes. It is philosophy not science.
Paul was a Christian. He was a true believer, of course he got shit wrong
I see. So how do you determine what he got right? What controlled studies did you perform? Was he wrong about the Eucharist, the betrayal, having 12 apostles, visiting James, the crucification?
You mean the guy who kissed the person he put in charge of the group’s money right before Peter denies him three times (roughly the same number as the number of trials, which Peter allegedly was seen going into the area where proceedings were taking place for at least one)?
The guy who had an unnamed beloved disciple reclining on him when he fed the disciple he kissed dipped bread at his final meal?
Who at his execution told this unnamed beloved disciple to take Jesus’s own mother into his household as if the beloved disciple’s mother?
Jesus might have wanted to be careful about all of that, as technically being gay in Judea was a death sentence under Jewish law. Though they couldn’t carry out the death sentence at that time and would have needed to appeal to the local Roman authority to carry out capital punishment, which would have put the local authority in a pickle deciding on granting local barbaric legality to quell rising dissent even though the crime charged would have been a common Roman practice alleged even about the emperor at the time.
So you know, if the story was something like the Sanhedrin wanting Jesus dead and Pilate reluctant, and his most conservative follower who he was seen arguing with potentially denying him at trial right around the time he was kissing and feeding his closest companion at the dinner table - well there might just be more to the story after all.
(Though a number of the other things you said probably aren’t the case - for example, the “give to Caesar” taxation thing is anachronistic for Judea in 30s CE which had no personal tax and no coinage with Caeser on it.)
I decided that I couldn’t be part of a hypocritical* institution like the church in 2002! I loved the teachings but i saw none of them within the parishioners themselves, so i left to find my own way.
Jesus teachings, assuming he was even real, boil really down to being a decent human being.
You don't need a religious institution to live by that principle, you don't even need to be a believer of anything supernatural, you don't even have to believe he existed. Just be a decent human being, it's really not that hard.
All those people and their labels, but they always end up just being control freaks and hypocrites, all throughout history. And then they wonder why others turn their backs on them.
He did say, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," which would, at the very least, necessitate believing he existed.
Depends on how you want to interpret & translate it, not that I really care either way. If the afterlife were real and you'd deny entry to good people simply for not believing in Jesus, then you're not even worth the worship anyway.
We can say that he lived with overwhelming certainty. Details are fuzzy and miracles either misinterpreted or made up but there was a guy by his name who was baptised by John the Baptist, travelled around arguing theology and collecting followers, and was crucified.
If a Historian were to write a book about Churchill today would you judge it just as unreliable as Tacitus, who wrote some what 70 years after Jesus’ death, wasn’t a Christian, had access to Roman state archives, and is generally considered to be a reliable historiographer? The man was a Senator if Christians had made up the crucifixion he would have called them out on it. We would see tons of Roman authors add libel to the list of reasons to discriminate against Christians. It would’ve been a whole thing.
Also what’s so exceptional about the mere existence and death of some random itinerant preacher that would require a particularly high standard of evidence? No historian is saying that he got resurrected or something.
If a Historian were to write a book about Churchill today
There's very throughout recordings of Churchill and his life already, even from the time he actually lived.
Also what’s so exceptional about the mere existence and death of some random itinerant preacher that would require a particularly high standard of evidence?
The entire religion formed around his person? His "wonders"? If there's such a big fuss being made about his life, then surely you'd have records of said life from when he was still alive, not very long after his death.
WTF do supposed wonders have to do with whether he lived or not?
If someone says “The pope can perform miracles” and I say “there’s no proof of that”, does that imply that I deny the existence of the pope? Do rumours of miracles even begin to make the existence of a person sitting on a chair in Rome less likely?
As to the fuzz about him: There were tons of itinerant preachers back them, not many were made martyrs by the Romans. Also, you know, I wouldn’t call it entirely unlikely that Jesus, as a person, was an exceptionally swell and nice guy, people liked him, considered him wise or even divinely inspired. People having followers certainly isn’t out of the ordinary, it’s been known to happen.
Or is the existence of Stalin suddenly up in the air because Tankies form a religion around the guy?
WTF do supposed wonders have to do with whether he lived or not?
Simple. If someone today would walk on water or turn water into wine, then it would be talked about everywhere, but not ages after their death. No idea why you find this so hard to comprehend.
Or is the existence of Stalin suddenly up in the air because Tankies form a religion around the guy?
No? There's literally records of him existing, including video evidence. Stop being willfully obtuse. This is just bad faith bullshit arguing and you know it.
Simple. If someone today would walk on water or turn water into wine, then it would be talked about everywhere, but not ages after their death. No idea why you find this so hard to comprehend.
And people who don’t do it and thus aren’t talked about that often therefore don’t exist? Of course the historical evidence regarding Jesus is not on that kind of scale for the simple reason that there’s no such thing as miracles. He got crucified and that rallied a popular movement which caused trouble in the Roman Empire that’s why we have independent (i.e. non-Christian, non-believer) evidence of his existence. That is, he made just enough of a splash to be recorded.
There’s literally records of him existing, including video evidence.
And there was enough contemporary evidence to convince Tacitus that Jesus existed, that those troublesome Christians didn’t simply make him up completely. As said: The man was a Senator, not a Christian, had access to state archives, and generally was quite thorough. He would’ve caught Christians lying about someone getting crucified.
And people who don’t do it and thus aren’t talked about that often therefore don’t exist?
It means that the Jesus person that the bible talks about and that formed this entire global religion didn't exist, which in turn invalidates the entire Christian religion (although you can apply most of the same logic to other religions too, of course).
I never claimed anything about Jesus as talked about in the Bible, as described by Christians. I’m talking about a Jewish itinerant preacher who became inspiration for all of that.
From what we know, by ordinary standards of the science of history, that person, that human, existed, lived and breathed. That’s literally all. His followers sitting next to his grave high on shrooms “witnessing” his resurrection or whatever happened back then doesn’t play into it, nor his further deification down the line, the trinity, whatever.
You're talking about some dude with that name that lived at the time, I'm talking about the Jesus in the bible that ended up forming this religion. If you talk about something else, then please don't derail the topic. Thank you.
I’m talking about the Jesus in the bible that ended up forming this religion.
The religion was formed after he was dead. The Gospels were written even later, the bible compiled even later, long after Tacitus kicked the bucket. Lots of opportunity for bullshit and myth to get created so the Bible is not exactly a reliable source.
What I’m talking about, from the very beginning, is that there was a guy, and he got baptised by John, and he travelled around and preached had followers, and he pissed of the Romans enough to get crucified, and that is the person that believers then built a whole religion and theology around. What I’m not saying is any of that theology is true, that any of the miracles he supposedly did happened, just that there was a person who served as a nucleation point for the religion to grow around.
To make my point a bit more concrete, let’s take the last supper, and suppose for the sake of argument that it’s basically true as written in the bible, as in he had supper with his followers, knew that he was going to die and accepted that, and said something to the effect of “dudebros, if you want to remember me then just get together and have supper while thinking of me and I’m going to be there in your hearts and spirits”. “Don’t be sad no seriously don’t I’m fine with dying just have supper”. Then, long after that, some theologians came along and made a whole metaphysical thing out of it with the bread being the actual body of Christ and the cannibalism that entails and whatever bullshit.
…that is more or less how people get mythologised. They are beloved or respected in some way and then, over centuries, people worship them by spinning all kinds of tales, ascribe supernatural powers, bend the historical truth more and more while they’re projecting their hopes and wishes into that figure.
What people claim when they say “Jesus the person didn’t exist” is that it was all myth from the beginning – that there was no such human that got deified afterwards, that the whole thing was made up from scratch. That people started a religion featuring a god walking the earth in human form without there having been someone two-legged to do actual real-world walking. That there was no nucleation point for the religion to grow around. That’s not really much of a null hypothesis as it’s making the assumption that Christian myth breaks with patterns of myth creation you see in other instances. And then Tacitus comes along and says “yep we crucified that troublesome rebel”, making the case even more clear-cut.
You then went on to challenge mainstream historical science with weak arguments, started to talk about wonders and everything, getting religion all mixed up in things. Thus, in my last comment, I was explaining how religions get born, how they develop (briefly), to aid you in not mixing up a religion’s history with what a religion says about itself.
Your reading comprehension must be really broken, because that's not at all what I said. I'm talking about Jesus teachings, the shit that's been reported on in the bible, the person that's in the bible. Not some random dude called Jesus that might've become the sockpuppet for Christianity. But again, I don't even believe that, I think you know full well what I meant and are just smart ass arguing in bad faith, because you continue to do so even after several clarifications which you continue to do mental gymnastics with. Honestly, just shut up and touch grass instead of further derailing this comment chain with your nonsensical brabbling about things that no one even cares about. If you want to make some sort of point for Christianity, then you're in the wrong place.
He existed. That’s all I’m saying. He probably taught something similar to what’s in the Bible, it’s unlikely to all have been bent by the faithful because that’s not how religions work. People don’t worship Ghandi and then put Stalin in their mouths, or the reverse.
Yet all his records appear only like a hundred years after his alleged death. I don’t find that to be convincing credibility.
Give me one single reason why Jesus’ existence should be judged by a standard different to any of these other people:
Sokrates existed, and we’re similarly unsure of what he taught – but it’s bound to have quite some resemblance to what Plato said about him.
Confucius also existed and we’re absolutely sure of what he taught because he wrote it down.
With Buddha again it’s similar to Jesus and Sokrates: The Pali canon definitely gets the gist of things.
Epictetus? We’re damn sure of what he taught, not because he wrote it down but because we have other people’s lecture notes.
Laozi didn’t exist: The Dao de Jing existed in fragments before it was supposedly written in one go, and tales about his life are completely at odds with each other, and frankly speaking reek of extra chapters to the book. Though it’s not entirely unlikely that it was compiled and polished by one guy, then published under pseudonym – “The old master” yep that’s rather obvious for a compilation of old sayings.
If you want to make some sort of point for Christianity, then you’re in the wrong place.
IDGAF about Christianity. Much, much less than you I even dare claim.
Alright, maybe talk to ChatGPT or something if you want to continue this, because I'm not into holding weird chatbot discussions with bots that clearly don't comprehend basic context.
What should the role of Christians in politics be? More people than ever are asking that question. Christians cannot pretend they can transcend politics and simply “preach the Gospel.” Those who avoid all political discussions and engagement are essentially casting a vote for the social status quo. American churches in the early 19th century that did not speak out against slavery because that was what we would now call “getting political” were actually supporting slavery by doing so. To not be political is to be political.
The Bible shows believers as holding important posts in pagan governments — think of Joseph and Daniel in the Old Testament. Christians should be involved politically as a way of loving our neighbors, whether they believe as we do or not. To work for better public schools or for a justice system not weighted against the poor or to end racial segregation requires political engagement. Christians have done these things in the past and should continue to do so.
Nevertheless, while believers can register under a party affiliation and be active in politics, they should not identify the Christian church or faith with a political party as the only Christian one. There are a number of reasons to insist on this.
One is that it gives those considering the Christian faith the strong impression that to be converted, they need not only to believe in Jesus but also to become members of the (fill in the blank) Party. It confirms what many skeptics want to believe about religion — that it is merely one more voting bloc aiming for power.
Another reason not to align the Christian faith with one party is that most political positions are not matters of biblical command but of practical wisdom. This does not mean that the church can never speak on social, economic and political realities, because the Bible often does. Racism is a sin, violating the second of the two great commandments of Jesus, to “love your neighbor.” The biblical commands to lift up the poor and to defend the rights of the oppressed are moral imperatives for believers. For individual Christians to speak out against egregious violations of these moral requirements is not optional.
However, there are many possible ways to help the poor. Should we shrink government and let private capital markets allocate resources, or should we expand the government and give the state more of the power to redistribute wealth? Or is the right path one of the many possibilities in between? The Bible does not give exact answers to these questions for every time, place and culture.
I know of a man from Mississippi who was a conservative Republican and a traditional Presbyterian. He visited the Scottish Highlands and found the churches there as strict and as orthodox as he had hoped. No one so much as turned on a television on a Sunday. Everyone memorized catechisms and Scripture. But one day he discovered that the Scottish Christian friends he admired were (in his view) socialists. Their understanding of government economic policy and the state’s responsibilities was by his lights very left-wing, yet also grounded in their Christian convictions. He returned to the United States not more politically liberal but, in his words, “humbled and chastened.” He realized that thoughtful Christians, all trying to obey God’s call, could reasonably appear at different places on the political spectrum, with loyalties to different political strategies.
Another reason Christians these days cannot allow the church to be fully identified with any particular party is the problem of what the British ethicist James Mumford calls “package-deal ethics.” Increasingly, political parties insist that you cannot work on one issue with them if you don’t embrace all of their approved positions.
This emphasis on package deals puts pressure on Christians in politics. For example, following both the Bible and the early church, Christians should be committed to racial justice and the poor, but also to the understanding that sex is only for marriage and for nurturing family. One of those views seems liberal and the other looks oppressively conservative. The historical Christian positions on social issues do not fit into contemporary political alignments.
So Christians are pushed toward two main options. One is to withdraw and try to be apolitical. The second is to assimilate and fully adopt one party’s whole package in order to have your place at the table. Neither of these options is valid. In the Good Samaritan parable told in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus points us to a man risking his life to give material help to someone of a different race and religion. Jesus forbids us to withhold help from our neighbors, and this will inevitably require that we participate in political processes. If we experience exclusion and even persecution for doing so, we are assured that God is with us (Matthew 5:10-11) and that some will still see our “good deeds and glorify God” (1 Peter 2:11-12). If we are only offensive or only attractive to the world and not both, we can be sure we are failing to live as we ought.
The Gospel gives us the resources to love people who reject both our beliefs and us personally. Christians should think of how God rescued them. He did it not by taking power but by coming to earth, losing glory and power, serving and dying on a cross. How did Jesus save? Not with a sword but with nails in his hands.
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