-DM-

Previously posted by Donald Morgan:
Rich:
You seem to disregard Judaism as being a true religion on the basis that the number of adherents is relatively small (even though it is a nonproselytizing religion) and its influence not as great as that of Christianity--even though it is the backbone, so to speak of Christianity itself and has had influence which seems to far outweigh the number of adherents.

What is it that is not true?

Am I wrong that you disregard Judaism as a true religion? You do think it is a true religion? (Keep in mind that I neither said nor implied that you disregarded it as the backbone of Christianity. The point is that Judaism seems to have had influence which far outweighs the number of its adherents.)

You said this previously:
That sounds to me that you are making a statement as to what is a true religion.

Previously posted by Donald Morgan:
The number of adherents to Islam and/or its influence may someday exceed that of Christianity. If and when it does, will that make it true?

Astronomy in one form or another has propagated to numerous cultures. Would we be wise to examine why it was successful in doing so? And if so, why would it be wise to do so?

Previously posted by Donald Morgan:
What has the number of adherents or the widespread influence of a religion necessarily to do with its truth?

So, we're back to this business of the number of people who believe something. Examine the truth of? Certainly. I have. I am an ex-Christian whose incentive to examine the truth of what he believed came about as a result of getting into it so heavily that he began to see biblical and theological problems that were eventually fatal to belief.

Previously posted by Donald Morgan:
Did the number of adherents and the influence of the flat-earth belief make that belief true?

No, it isn't nearly as easy to prove something false when it is as nebulous as Christianity is; it is much easier to prove that the earth is not flat.

But of course, you didn't answer the question that I asked. I'll ask it again: Did the number of adherents and the influence of the flat-earth belief make that belief true?

Previously posted by Donald Morgan:
4.) Don't you think that the billions of dollars and billions of man-hours spent advertising, promoting, and promulgating Christianity has anything to do with its propagation and influence?

No, I wouldn't believe in it. But if you spent that $1,000,000 in attempting to convince me, personally, that it was true, and you did so from the time that I was young until now, I might possibly believe.

Remember, I wasn't talking about bribing people to believe (although that is what the Christian "God" does), I was talking about advertising, promoting belief through clever and repetitious advertising campaigns.

The so-called Resurrection, yes, but Christianity as a whole as well.

Previously posted by Donald Morgan:
Keep in mind that there has to be some "lie" (for lack of a better word) that is, in fact, the biggest lie of all.

When you have several religions claiming to be the one true religion, no more than one of them can be true (and the fact is that none of them might be true).

--Don--

[ August 23, 2001: Message edited by: Donald Morgan ]

Richard Carrier

You don't even have to go that far: Homer contains this motif as well. Indeed, Robin Lane Fox has shown that the motif of the unrecognized god was commonplace in the ancient Mediterranean (anyone on the street can be a god, testing you, so you'd better be civil, etc.). That the Gospels try to exaggerate the recognition part of this motif with hyperbolic "proofs" is one of their most suspicious attributes--and likewise shows that the original stories were more typical of the time and place, and culturally explicable without any real resurrection.

Richard Carrier

Before advancing any theories about the Gospels having to be better collated than they were or such like, one must first read my essay The Formation of the New Testament Canon. There you discover:

(1) No one was even thinking about a collated canon of literature until the 140's, and then it was a heretic who did it first. The so-called orthodoxy had to respond ad hoc and make do with what it had, and it wasn't until the 160's that even made much of a start, and it wasn't until the 300's that any effort at an organized attention to canonical issues began.

(2) Above all, the would-be orthodoxy had to please as many churches as possible that agreed with its basic views, in order to win the propaganda war. This meant accepting the Gospels that various allied groups accepted--there was no way around it, nor would it have been accepted to just edit them, which would have exposed them as liars. The sort of editing that went on was small scale, ad hoc, uncoordinated, gradual, and covert, and it tended to make things worse on occasion rather than better.

(3) The orthodoxy tried very early on to create a harmony of the Gospels: Tatian composed the Diatessaron in the late 2nd century. But it simply wasn't popular, and never survived the bartering and negotiation that went on as churches competed and allied with each other for power and glory. In effect, the reason the Bible is so full of contradictions is that it was selected by committee, and is perhaps a classic case of what happens in the face of bureaucratitis.

Ron Garrett

Our Fearless Leader posted:

And Aesop, etc. ad infinitum. The secret the audience knows, but the actors don't, right? It's part and parcel of good story-telling.

Abbot and Costello are guarding the wax museum, but the coffin has the the real Count Dracula inside. The audience with great self-satisfaction knows what's is going on before the players.

The disciples see fantastic feats and stupidly mumble to each other, "What manner of man is this?", while the audience, who has not been lobotomized for purposes of effect, shouts, "He's not a man you idiots! How can you not see that?"

The Messianic Secret we call it. Tell the gospel stories to a little child and they can't wait to tell everyone what they can clearly see coming but the grown men of the twelve cannot. There's nothing unusual in these stories as any writer could tell you.

[ August 24, 2001: Message edited by: Ron Garrett ]

joedad

George Bernard Shaw called truth "the funniest joke in the world".

My former high school proudly displays above it's front doors the well known "Knowledge is Power; The Truth will make you Free." For decades I actually accepted that as "truthful". However, I now realize that it should read, "Truth is Power; but Knowledge will make you Free".

Truth, in fact, represents in many people's usage, culturally and personally, a kind of secrecy, a withholding of knowledge. Now that's Power!

joe