Lets cut the bullshit here. The Gospels were all written decades after Jesus' death by some fanatical cult leaders who were ripping shit off from pagan sources (virgin birth of a God, miracle working, resurrection and such) and incorperating it into the Jesus story in order to get more customers.

Further, they are so full of flaws and false claims that its utterly stupid to trust them. Shit, just look at the beginning, and the nonsense about Mary and Joseph "returning" to Joseph's original town. It is implied that everyone else went to their birth town as well during this census. Why would they do that? The census demanded no such thing, as such a law would be useless and totally unenforcable. It is clearly a fictitious concoction of the Gospel authors. Or take the very end of the Gospels: the resurrection. If we are to believe that the Christ-hating Jewish authorities of the time were even half as powerful as the Gospels claim they were (powerful enough to get somebody killed by the uniquely roman method of crucifiction, yet apparently without any aproval by roman authority), then the empty tomb would mean the apostles would have been heavily interogated, imprisoned and possibly even killed by these authorities because they thought "the apostles stole his body". Yet they weren't. The Gospel authors made shit up.

Given that the only truly extraordinary claims about the events in Jesus' life were made decades after his death, by people far seperated from his land and culture, and we have no reliable evidence that the Gospel authors underwent any significant persecution, it thus stands to reason that there is nothing extraordinary evidence wise as far as Jesus is concerned. There is nothing about the Jesus story that could not be easily made up by a person or two nowdays. Jesus' miracles are nothing spectacular and in fact miracle working was commonly believed in back then. The only difference is that the Gospels survived, and the works of other miracle working cult founders did not, largely because Christians killed and destroyed them all, or else outcompeted them. Even the resurrection is nothing to marvel at - it was written decades after Jesus' death and he would have been decomposed far too much to refute his resurrection even if his body was found.

There is no reliable evidence at all that Jesus was anything more than some fanatical cult leader, and to say that the "evidence" is enough to prove the concept of God sacrificing himself to himself to save the world from himself--which, despite Christian propoganda is essentially the core teaching of Chrstianity--is just an incarnation of insanity, plain and simple.

Shit, if you want a real "miracle", forget Jesus' mere missing body - look at the many 30-40 ton statues on easter island. How did they get there? Well, scholars say the natives dragged them along logs, and they eventually stopped building the statues because they cut down all the trees on their island. But, to impersonate the reasoning of the Christians who say "why would the disciples secretly plot to steal Jesus body? Why would they let themselves die for a lie? They were heavily persecuted yet died for their beliefs. Why would they be stupid enough to die for something so ridiculous as a resurrection idea that they knew was false?" you could just as easily say: "why would the easter island inhabitants, being smart enough to make these statues, be dumb enough to cut down all the trees on their island and thus cause their entire civilization to go extinct? No such civilization smart enough to make such statues with so little resources would make such a stupid mistake."
You know what the natives say? They say the statues just got up and walked to their present positions, that supernatural powers allowed them to be where they are now. Though such an idea is ludicrous it is still leaps and bounds superior in supporting evidence to Jesus' alleged "resurrection" - compare Jesus' one missing body to the many huge, heavy statues all over easter island. Using Christian reasoning; I could thus conclude that "the evidence for the deification of the Easter Island statues is overwhelming. These closed-minded skeptics who call themselves Christians deny the Gods of easter island based on claims that; 'science shows statues do not just get up and walk about', but this objection is philosophical, not historical."

Christianity is bullshit, Jesus is dead, he was nothing more than a fanatical cult leader and there is no reliable evidence at all that he was anything more than that. Deal with it.

Thank you for your time, folks.

The gospels were written with metaphoric and mythical depth. Your judgement of the ancient's writing style being developed "in order to get more customers" does a disservice to an understanding of what sacred literature is, does and means.


"Fictitious concoction" is an understandable buzz word from our 21st century hindsight. Understandable, but wrong. The gospel accounts are an incredibly complex blend of history and theology. This means that they were written not only to explain historical events, but also to explain the meaning behind those events. And we must also understand that sometimes people back then acted in accordance with the mythic typology inherent in their history--a typology instantly recognizable to anyone living within the same cultural milleu.

An example of this would be Jesus' entry into Jerusalem before his crucifixion. He may have deliberately chosen the symbology of the donkey to pointedly echo the scripture in the Hebrew bible. If the account is historically true, he at least was making such an entrance to lampoon the Roman version of power entering the city gates. If the account is not historically true, it speaks to the meaning of Jesus knowing exactly what he was doing: God still very much active in Israel's history.

Hmmm... this is from the same guy who all told us that we were going to hell on the horses we came here with(And then had sex with). Now I'm confused. Is this guy just trying to piss everyone off?

Hello Cute Little Baby.
You seem to have some fairly large emotional upset in the direction of Christianity. If I may ask, what is the reason for this?

That's certainly a possible opinion. But why should we consider it any more likely than any of the more-Christian alturnatives?

Geez those gospel authors were stupid, weren't they? Here they are making stuff up to sell their religion, yet the stuff they make up is so totally wrong that nobody in their right mind would believe the story.
Can you cut the crap now? If the Gospel authors "made stuff up" then any of the stuff they made up would obviously have sounded plausible at the time.

Given the circumstances of the day there is no intrinsic problem with the Jewish authority having as much leverage with the Roman governor as depicted in the Gospels. (Again: it must have been believable when the Gospels were composed)

You missed a possibility: The authorities didn't bother interrogating the apostles because they knew that the apostles didn't steal the body.

What gives with this? I've never seen this accusation before. Care to elaborate before I dismiss it out of hand?

You mean we have no evidence that you choose to call reliable.

I disagree. Included in the Gospels, especially Luke, are a massive number of historical details (eg the governors of the areas at the time).

[snip "Christianity is nothing special"]

So you don't understand the basis of Christian theology and because you can't understand it you think it must be stupid. That's fine, but couldn't you have just said this at the start and not bothered with the rest?

Sounds like a pretty good explanation to me. If the statues probably got there by being dragged on logs by natives, doesn't this mean it wasn't a miracle?

Sounds like reasonable logic to me.

Well I certainly couldn't say this because I know nothing about easter island. What I could say is: "How on earth does cutting down all the trees on their island cause their civilization to become extinct?" and "Is it possible to actually prove that this was the cause of their becoming extinct? Can we conclusively rule out the alturnatives: Did they sail to a different island? Were they wiped out by disease? Were they killed in battle by another warlike race? Did their food supply run out? Were they hit by a massive tidal wave, or a hurricane?"
I hesitantly agree with your conclusion though, if the islanders were smart enough to make the statues and they knew the trees were keeping them alive then it's unlikely they cut them down. (I'm hesistant because in the world today we're smart yet we still trash the environment of the world.)

[snip extremely weak argument from analogy]

There have been a massive number of extremely intelligent, logical, and reasonable people in the world who have found Christianity acceptable in its entirity. Deal with it.

Back it up Baby Boy! And quit yer bellyachin'!

Yer even makin' some enemies in yer own camp thar pardner!

Awww, thats sweet. Your a woman, right? We males are by and large far too slobbish and uncivilized to be so polite.

Nearly "everyone" (the great majority of the population) at that time was an idiot - history reveals there were tons of people around then who were willing to believe some of the stupidest nonsense that one could come up with. That the Gospel authors would assume their audience to be gullible enough to buy their ridiculous stories is therefore no surprise. Hell, they were preaching a religion who's core teaching was that God loves people so much that he will send them to Hell if they do not believe that he sacrificed himself to himself to save the world from himself - if your going for people who believe that, then your going for complete idiots who will believe anything.

The Jews pressuring the Roman authorities into crucifying Jesus is not so unlikely, but the Jews pressuring Roman authorities into doing so when the highest Roman authority there (Pilate) specifically expressed his distaste for such an action is another matter entirely: a dubious, aburd matter when one adopts the Christian point of view.

You miss the main point: they would have used this as an excuse and would nevertheless have attempted to prove it at all costs (the NT even indicates this: they bribe some soldiers to say the disciples stole the body), yet the NT makes no mention of any such events even though they would go hand in hand with such actions wether or not Jesus raised from the dead.

The Gospel authors were writing decades after Jesus' death and were not eyewitnesses. They were also far enough away from Jesus to be engulfed in a Pagan audience. Thus they were far removed from Jesus.

No, I mean we have no reliable evidence. If you know of any, please provide it.

So do comic books and countless other works of fiction. It proves that the people who make up these stories are intelligent enough to know about significant events, persons and details in the nation that they lived in. Wow.


Yeah, but its a lot less fun that way.



Well I certainly couldn't say this because I know nothing about easter island. What I could say is: "How on earth does cutting down all the trees on their island cause their civilization to become extinct?"[/quote]
The overuse of timber makes trees go extinct, and in an island culture trees are a highly valuable resource. They need them for shelter, fire and especially to make tools for fishing. Losing this resource would cause awful turmoil and stress for their civilization.
Unlikely, since such a mass migration would leave great amounts of evidence on other islands, and since these people were unfamiliar with long distance sea faring in the first place.
Unlikely, since there would be legends of it in the small remnant of surviving natives, since its strange for it to "coincidentally" come so late in their civilizations history (right when all their trees were going away), and since its difficult to explain how such a deadly disease gets to an island population in the first place.
Highly unlikely, since there is no evidence of any such people conquering them, and they did not inhabit the area with any warlike race.
Their are plenty of fish in the sea. Nuff' said.
Unlikely, since such a thing would have toppled over all the statues, and no legend of it in the tribe. Hurricanes and tidal waves also hit many an island besides easter island, yet the native population gets over it usually in just a decade or so.
My analogy was excellent, and, using the reasoning of Christians, I thus conclude: the only reasonable conclusion is that the statues actually did get up and walk to their present locations, and thus truly are Gods.

Oh and BTW there is a striking absence of scratches on the backs of the statues, though virtually al reproductions of the hypothetical method/s used to raise them left scratches (they were dragged along on the logs, and this of course would scratch them up significantly). All the more reason to assume the statues truly did walk to their present locations.

Good day to you, Tercel.


Ish,

Shut up.

Nope, I'm not a woman. Don't worry I'm only polite occasionally. I'm quite happy being unpolite when addressing the poster's arguments, but when making attacks on the poster themselves I prefer to be very polite.

LOL!!! That's an argument I haven't heard before: the world was stupid back then.

Your theology's rather muddled... even ignoring the more amusing mistakes, I do not believe what you have just said. To clarify:
Everyone who truly accepts the forgiveness offered by Jesus is sweet.
Everyone else faces judgement. They will be judged justly (it is made extremely clear in Revelation that everyone will agree that the judgement is just) and rewarded and punished depending on their deeds.
At this point I believe (I should note that not everyone agrees with me here, in fact I had a disagreement about it with another Christian 2 days ago) that all those who have been judged will be offered Jesus' forgiveness for their proposed punishment if they want it.
You might well ask "Why wouldn't everyone take it?". But there is an intrinsic price for forgiveness: becoming good and pure. Those who love doing what is evil will not be prepared to pay this price and so refuse forgiveness. (Related to this is one of Jesus' parables, for which I don't know the reference off the top of my head. Jesus talks about a beggar in rags and says it is mean to bring him into the light where all can see him, it would be much kinder to allow him to stay out in the darkness where no one can see him.
In the same way it would be mean of God to bring into the light those who are like that beggar, it is much kinder to allow him to stay in the darkness. For this kind of person heaven would be worse than hell.) So God will grant their wish and they will be condemned.

Not exactly. If I recall correctly Pilate had already had prior trouble with Jewish complainants against the Roman authority and had received orders from the Emperor to make sure everything stayed quite. Pilate wasn't very popular with the Jews for some of his actions earlier in his reign (If I remember rightly he had killed several people for the sake of it).
At the time of Jesus' crucifixion Jerusalem would have been jam-packed with people for the pass-over festival. If the Pharisees managed to get a crowd chanting at Pilate to crucify Jesus as told by the Gospels then Pilate (fearing a riot if he didn't) would absolutely certainly have carried out the request.

The authorities summoned Peter and John and demandred they stop telling people about the ressurected and after they refused, the authorities had them whipped and gave them threatening warnings to stop talking about it. Does this count?

Well I believe John was written by an eyewitness, but your certainly not alone in disagreeing. But my problem is with this: "They were also far enough away from Jesus to be engulfed in a Pagan audience." Even those people who dispute the Gospels authorship think that there are huge amounts of Jewish influence in the Gospels. Or at least, you're the first person I've ever met who thinks there isn't.

We have the evidence from both the New Testament and from later Christian tradition. As far as it goes, I can't see any reason to doubt the reliability of it - there's nothing miraculous or unbelievable about people being persecuted for their beliefs.

Didn't you just argue before the the people who wrote the Gospels didn't live in the same nation?
So these Gospel writers, who followed a religion which exults love and truthfullness deliberately made up lies to further their religion? I can just see it now: Greenpeace killing nearly all the whales to provide advertising for their cause of helping the remaining ones survive.

True.
If you've got anything specific you don't understand I suggest you find a Christian discussion board that deals with that sort of thing and post a query there. As long as you don't start off with "I think Christianity is stupid and you are all stupid to believe it", I think people would be more than happy to explain.

I suppose so.

How did the people get to Easter Is if they were unfamiliar with long distance sea faring?

I thought they became extinct? Clearly not if there is a small remnant of surviving natives. Well if they didn't become extinct then what is the problem? The whole point is that no one is stupid enough to kill themselves by destroying their environment. Apart from the fact that we are busy destroying our environment at the moment, if they didn't actually kill themselves then there would seem to be no problem.
My thinking was more along the lines of a hurricane destroying the islands trees, which would seem quite possible to me since destroying trees is normally the main effect of hurricanes.

If you say so.

Isn't it possible to polish them up or something once they were in place? Is it possible that the statues were carved out of rock formations already standing?

-Tercel

[This message has been edited by Tercel (edited May 24, 2001).]

CLB:

Where did you get your information on Easter Island and its statues? I'd be really interested in investigating this. Thank you!

Andrew

Oh, good. I suppose you will be being nice to me, then. Thats cool. I'll return the favor.

You didn't know that? The (Roman)world actually was horribly ignorant back then. This is why it was replete with death-cult leaders, miracles (in the case of some; miracles with better forms of evidence than those of Jesus); "Messiahs"; etc. Such can only survive in a nation replete with idiots.

So says you - the problem is that its extraordinarily difficult to figure out what the original authors of the Gospel were trying to convey in their message. Jesus preaches tons of teachings that to my knowledge many, most, or essentially all Christians both now and in the past never followed, so what their original intent was is open to debate, thus rendering your interpretation quite dubious (no offense).

And this is the key point: those Jews in power at the time were precisely the ones who wanted Jesus killed. According to the Gospels (I think), they even threatened to snitch on Pilate if he didn't do so. Yet the Gospels have Pilate refusing to do so and thus endangering his reputation. This makes the story quite implausible.

Sorry to disappoint you but no, not really. The incident you are speaking of happened because the authorities were angry about the religion of Christianity itself, and in fact has little to do with accusations of being part of a conspiracy to steal Jesus' body (which the authorities, according to the Gospels, supposedly took seriously as an explanation for the empty tomb). Mere preaching of an unpopular religion would be a trivialty to even being accused of stealing a body - evidence shows the penalty for such was probably death. Yet there is no significant mention of any of the authorities searching for the body or attempting to prosecute the apostles for their alleged stealing of it. Seems strange.

Of course there was lots of Jewish influence. I am not disputing this, but I am pointing out the fact that the Gospel authors were indeed engulfed in a Pagan-oriented society, quite far away from Israel, (nobody disputes this) and therefore their connections to Jesus are questionable. Yet here they are writing about something they claim to know so much about, but probably didn't.

The New Testiment is hardly reliable, and Christians have been known to mimmick the disshonest actions of Christianity's founders (the Gospel authors) with gleefull abandon ever since, so their 'tradition' is also questionable.

But my original point was that the Christian argument over the resurrection being authentic because those who claimed to observe it were 'willing to die for their beliefs' isn't very effective, since we have only sketchy evidence that they did die for their beliefs.
Yes, as did many other people all throughout history who wrote about events that happened far away from them. They can still get many details correct, though, because such writers in virtually all of history have been educated men, who would not attempt to write about that which they had no accurate sources at all for. In the case of the Gospel authors, they had Christian rumors, Jewish friends, and were generally well educated (thats why they wrote in Greek), so its not so unusual for them to get some things correct.

But there are still many flaws. For example the stone being "rolled in front of Jesus' tomb" described in the Synoptics. Round stones being rolled in front of tombs were uncommon in Jesus' time for all but the most wealthy individuals (even Joseph of Aramathea probably could not afford one), until after the fall of Jeruselem, of course. "eyewitnesses" would not make such a mistake in their writings.
Why would they not lie? By being a Christian, you assume that all non-Christian religions make up lies about their miracles, and furthermore since the Gospel authors make stuff up (like Pilate "washing his hands" of the Jesus ordeal), its all the more probable that they would lie. So whats the problem?

They were familiar with it when they got there, but lost knowledge of it afterwards. The same could be said of those living in the Northeaastern U.S. in relation to "living off the land" (camping, hunting, etc.) - in the mid 1600's, tons of people livng there knew how to live off the land. By the mid 1850's, though, such knowledge was quite sparse. And so it was with Easter Island - sure they knew how to cross the high seas originally. But living on an island with (at the time) abundant resources decreased the need for seafaring to the point where knowledge of it became too uncommon to be of any real value once the real troubles came.
No, they did not become totally extinct, but that doesn't mean their population dropped so much that, for all practical intents and purposes they were extinct, and their civilization gone. As a comparison; the Aztecs and Incas have not become totally extinct because there are very small surviving remnants. But their civilization is gone, and they are so insignificant now that, compared to the rest of the world, they might as well be extinct. It is the same with the small remnant of Easter Island .
Actually yes, they were stupide enough to kill themselves by destroying their environment. While its true that tribal wars (as well as other, rather trivial issues) did enact a toll on them, this was only because of the environmental damage done in the first place. This is the opinion opinion of virtually all scholars - that Easter Island was destroyed because the natives cut down all the trees, stupidly ignoring the consequences of such. Further the evidence shows that Easter Island was replete with large trees before the inhabitants got there. Where did they go in such a short time? They went falling to the ground as the natives cut them down.

So, given that we both agree it is extraordinarly stupid for a people intelligent enough to make such amazing statues to so ruthlessly destroy their entire environment, and given that this is similar to the argument given by Christian apologists that "the disciples would never be stupid enough to hoax Jesus' death but then die for proclaiming this hoax as true", I thus conclude: the only reasonable conclusion for the origin of the easter Island statues is that they actually got up and walked to their present locations, as is described in Easter Island mythology, because they were actually Gods. You may not agree with this because "such supernatural mythology is absurd", but, your objection is philosophical, not historical, because you are a closed-minded skeptic who rejects miracles and the supernatural!
A stupid argument I know, and please do not take offense at the sarcasm, but it goes to show just how flawed Christian apologetics can be if their reasoning is aplied to other areas.


The problem is that, since the trees were huge (and thus heavy), since some of the statues were small and delicate (thus easy to knock over), since the hurricane apparently would have had to literally rip virtually every single tree out of its roots, since there is no such legend in the native population, and since I doubt there has ever been any such hurricane documented in all of human history; the hurricane explanation simply does not stand up to careful scrutiny.

Possible but quite difficult. Its not like they had modern polishing equipment - they'd have to be polished with other stones used as crude files, which in turn would probably leave more scratches than we find now.
Not for the vast majority of them, as they are anchored far away from cliffs or rocks standing up, in ground that has few other rocks around it.

Andrew Anderson:

I got most of the info from remembering some stuff I learned back in high school, and the rest from documentaries and the encyclopedia. I suppose you could find some good literature on the subject at amazon.com. A good website with info can be found here

If you do say so yourself!!!

Matt



[This message has been edited by matt (edited May 26, 2001).]