dog-on

Christianity may have started by people mistaking some allegory as something that actually happened in the past.

More?

Iskander

No,I don’t want more of nothing.

dog-on

Well then, I suppose you can easily refute them, so...go for it!

Sheshbazzar

"That Christianity started with the man Jesus is an explanation for the existence of Christianity."
Yes, this an 'explanation' expresses that common (and Christian desired) assumption as to the origins of 'Christianity'.
That does not make it a valid assumption.

That you 'know of no other explanation', reflects only that common general lack of knowledge of actual Hebrew/Jewish views and explanations on the content, themes, and hopes expressed within the ancient Hebrew/Jewish texts, and how they were co-opted, corrupted, and misrepresented in ongoing power struggles between various competing factions.

You say;
Whether you are aware of it or not, this is an absolutely false statement.

Iskander

Refute what?


There exists an explanation for the existence of Christianity and this explanation exists whether or not one is a Christian.


The explanation has nothing to do with being a Christian. It is the same explanation for everyone.

Iskander

See #95

dog-on

I am not sure how your answer has anything to do with my question...

gurugeorge

Shamanism - person receives "message" from hallucination, teaches it to his or her tribe.

Islam - person receives a "message" from a hallucination, preaches it to local folks.

Judaism - a sequence of people receive "messages" from hallucinations, preach them to their people.

Greek religion - people receive "answers" from hallucinations to give to querents.

Hinduism - many, many yoga and jnana texts are "recieved" from various gods, as per their dedications, Siva being a particular favourite.

seiðr ("Sith" ) - pre-Christian Norse religion - people "take the high seat" and receive "answers" from hallucinations to give to querents.

Celestial Masters Daoism - person receives "message" from hallucination and founds religion. Later, another person receives "message" from hallucination that founds another massive regional branch of the same religion.

Tibetan Buddhism - everybody and his mother gets "messages" from various hallucinations and propounds variations on the main themes of the religion.

(?) Christianity - person gets "message" from hallucination and founds religion. Was that person a human "Joshua" hallucinating God his Father, or a human "Paul" hallucinating "Christ, Son of God"? Too difficult to say for sure, evidence highly ambiguous, but latter more likely.

None of these hallucinations are necessarily pathological (though some may be) - they are the result of normal functions of the brain, gerrymandered to somewhat uncommon (though as can be seen from above, not all that uncommon) results under certain circumstances (spiritual exercises including breathing practices, tremendous life crises, sleep deprivation, intense concentration on texts, ritual magic exercises, drugs, dancing, etc., etc.)

archibald

Hi George,

Now, I'm afraid you do, don't you, know what I have to ask you next? :]

How many of those are purported to be visions of persons who walked the earth, and not just that, but apparently quite recently?

I can spot one, at the end. Not sure if there are any others. :]

And before you reply by saying whatever you are about to say about Paul, I must warn you that I am going to ask you for evidence and/or method.

Toto

And where we don't, historians do not generally insist that these characters must be historical.

But in the MJ case, you don't have to invent the hypothetical historical person, for whom we have no independent evidence.

The clear evidence is the gospels.