The Jesus myther nonsense

[Scott1328]

In a move that is a clear win for the Mythers, the user Free has just been suspended from RatSkep for a week.

We can only assume that he shall resume his rantings here at Ratz.

[Svartalf]

why is it a win for the mythers? Free believe in the literal truth of the babble?

[pErvinalia]

In a way I feel that I'm not a true internet rational skeptic as I've never posted in probably the largest thread on the internet. In fact, I've probably only ever read three or four posts in that thread. Basically, I know nothing about Jesus, and couldn't really give much of a fuck about him. Am I a bad atheist?

[Brian Peacock]

Well most of this is still just speculation. He may well have existed as a human being and even as a 'teacher' of some sort. What of it? There appear to have been thousands of those. None of them are necessarily the sons of gods.

Either all are, or none. Let's not get stuck on the idea that only a few are. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Either we are all Spartacus, or none of us are. Yep. Makes perfect sense to me.

I'm not Spartacus, I'm Brian.

No I'm Brian.

[Brian Peacock]

Well most of this is still just speculation. He may well have existed as a human being and even as a 'teacher' of some sort. What of it? There appear to have been thousands of those. None of them are necessarily the sons of gods.

Either all are, or none. Let's not get stuck on the idea that only a few are. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Surely the choice is between one or none.

Unless god is a hysterical neurotic, deciding to flood the world with potential sons of god, to make sure at least one does the trick...

The choice is between God being omnipresent and there being no God (because a finite God is an absurd notion). Hence the choice is between everyone being of God, or no one.

You need to pop a smiley on that.

Why is that the choice exactly?

[jamest]

Is it not bleedin' obvious? Do you know what omnipresent means?

[pErvinalia]

I know what it means, and I'm with Brian. Why must everyone on Earth be God's physical representative, as opposed to just one person?

[jamest]

I know what it means, and I'm with Brian. Why must everyone on Earth be God's physical representative, as opposed to just one person?

If a 'God' exists, then it must be omnipresent. Which, in a nutshell, means that God is the totality of existence. Which, in turn, means that God is essentially everyone experiencing itself as countless organisms. In other words, 'everyone' is a son of God. The only difference between Jesus and yourself, would amount to different levels of awareness of this supposed knowledge... which, in turn, would also explain differences in attitudes and behaviour.

[Brian Peacock]

I know what it means, and I'm with Brian. Why must everyone on Earth be God's physical representative, as opposed to just one person?

If a 'God' exists, then it must be omnipresent. Which, in a nutshell, means that God is the totality of existence. Which, in turn, means that God is essentially everyone experiencing itself as countless organisms. In other words, 'everyone' is a son of God. The only difference between Jesus and yourself, would amount to different levels of awareness of this supposed knowledge... which, in turn, would also explain differences in attitudes and behaviour.

That's just the argument from definition. The problem isn't with the 'if', it's with the presumption that the thing must have certain properties to qualify as that thing.

[pErvinalia]

I know what it means, and I'm with Brian. Why must everyone on Earth be God's physical representative, as opposed to just one person?

If a 'God' exists, then it must be omnipresent. Which, in a nutshell, means that God is the totality of existence. Which, in turn, means that God is essentially everyone experiencing itself as countless organisms.

That logic doesn't follow. For a start it assumes there is an "everyone", i.e. a soul, and not just a collection of bags of atoms.

But more pertinently, who says god must be "omnipresent"? The usual myth is that he's omnipotent and omniscient. And after all, he's a supernatural concept. There's no reason whatsoever to assume that normal physical concepts of existence should apply to him.

[Brian Peacock]

Therein lies metaphysics. And I mean 'lies' in its fullest sense.

If a unicorn exists it must be a magical entity. Discuss.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Therein lies metaphysics. And I mean 'lies' in its fullest sense.

If a unicorn exists it must be a magical entity. Discuss.

Surely its very magickness would make it pink. And, obviously, its entityness would make it invisible. It would also, for arcane reasons, be gayer than Justin Bieber's management team.

[Brian Peacock]

I can find no fault with your reasoning. Your ontology-fu is strong master.

[laklak]

Master, what is the sound of one hand wanking?


fap fap fap, you fucking idiot.

[Stein]

why is it a win for the mythers? Free believe in the literal truth of the babble?

No, he doesn't believe in the literal truth of the babble. Free is a professional historian and an atheist. Professional secular historians like Free are fully aware of the philological analysis and research that has been made of both the apologetic and non-apologetic texts of the 1st century c.e. relating to the Roman execution of an eccentric rabbi called Jesus during the time of Tiberius and his brother James's stoning by Ananus.

Non-apologetics include Tacitus's Annals, in which Tacitus directly references Roman sources for everything connected with the Fire of Rome, including Nero's scapegoating of the Christians whom Tacitus explicitly names as having been founded by this same executed rabbi. Another non-apologetic is Josephus's Antiquities XX, in which Josephus, a contemporary of James living in the same city where James was stoned, describes James as this rabbi Jesus's brother.

Similar philological analysis and research of apologetic texts, like the early Paulines and parallel sayings in Matthew/Luke, indicates that early orally derived strata and discrete sequences with Aramaic verbal structures rub shoulders with much more self-conscious more literary Greek verses that appear to have been cobbled together much later and have little in common with the more oral and Aramaic flavored sequences. This is what the most modern analysis has shown and Christian fundies are not happy about it. Why? Because the more oral the passages seem, and the more they smack of Aramaic flavoring, and thus the earlier they appear to be, the less the proportion of magic nonsense and the less the proportion of supernatural claims we find. Coincidence? The most extravagant claims, like Resurrection appearances at a fish fry(!!) and/or Mary knocked up by a god(!), all stem from the more self-consciously literary purely Greek passages of a later vintage that appear to have originated as written material and not oral.

Christian fundies don't like the way this analysis of early and late textual strata in both non-apologetics and apologetics points to a strictly human rabbi without a shred of the supernatural about him. The only likely scenario that fits with both the decidedly unsympathetic descriptions like the non-apologetic Tacitus on one hand and the earliest strata in the Paulines and the Synoptics on the other involves a necessarily human rabbi who is not supernatural in any way and is a troublemaker who ends up permanently dead at the occupying Romans' hands.

That is what professional historians who are atheists and not cowed by the church will tell you. A professional historian like Free will tell you no different. So to term anyone like that as nothing but a believer in "the literal truth of the babble" is to open up one's big fat diarrheic ass and SHIT on the courage of all the secular specialists in ancient history who have braved the wrath of the church in generations past by developing the rigorous disciplines in historiography we use today. These modern methods are just as invaluable to the progress of modern secular civilization today as all the invaluable science of today coming out of the brave efforts of Darwin and Einstein.

Got it?

Stein