Freethought & Rationalism Archive

nogods4me · 03-30-2011, 01:36 PM

Quote:

No fictional / mythical person can actually found a religion.

i dunno about that. There are people these days that list their religion as Jedi. Unless you would consider George Lucas the founder and not whoever the Star Wars canon indicates as the founder.

Kapyong · 03-30-2011, 01:55 PM

Gday,

Quote:

Originally Posted by nogods4me

Quote:

No fictional / mythical person can actually found a religion.

i dunno about that. There are people these days that list their religion as Jedi. Unless you would consider George Lucas the founder and not whoever the Star Wars canon indicates as the founder.

*Sigh*
Sure enough, the confusion between who "founded it" and who it is based on continue.

Like I said.

No fictional / mythical person can actually found, or has actually founded a religion.

No fictional / mythical person founded the Jedi religion.

Instead :
It was BASED on mythical beings and entities.

The Star Wars legend may include a mythical founder CLAIMED to have started it in the story - but that is NOT the same thing - we are talking about founding Jediism on EARTH, not in the movies.

Anyway - the FOUNDER was not George Lucas, but the person or person who first started calling it a religion (I don't know who that is.)

This is an interesting case - no-one founded Jediism - it grew over time from various events and comments etc.

Perhaps Christianity was a bit like that too - many people grew into the beliefs (Paul says there were OTHERS before him), and then later it was formalised.

Kapyong

mountainman · 03-30-2011, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Christianity founded by: real Paul

Paul is a myth and could not have been the founder of Christianity.

Agreed.

Quote:

The founder of Christianity was the emperor Constantine.

Hi Iskander,

Are you off your rocker? Dont you know how much evidence exists to refute such a statement?

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

I do believe, and I know Iskander disagrees with me, that Constantine's role in disseminating a religion relatively similar to the one we call today Christianity, was paramount.

Christianity may have existed prior to Constantine, I cannot say, though I am cognizant of the paucity of evidence supporting a Pre-Nicean existence for Christianity, but, for sure, the religion took off, like a rocket, under Lord Constantine's administration.....

I believe that we seriously underestimate the significance of his administration, in crediting the evolution and enlargement of Christianity.

How big was Christianity before Constantine? (hint: how big was Ebionism, before Constantine?)

Hi avi,

Christianity was the biggest thing since sliced toast. Christians and Chrestians were everywhere in the empire. Pick up a rock and you'll find a christian. Cleave a piece of wood and you'll find a christian. There were so many christians in the Roman Empire that Constantine had to try and work out what to do with them all. He saw himself a "Shepherd", perhaps even the like the "Shepherd of Hermas" which he attempted to "canonize". Christianity was so big in the ROman Empire by the time Constantine turned up, that in everyone's mind the real tetrarchy was not with the Roman Emperors, but with the Four Gospels.

Best wishes,

Pete

gog · 03-30-2011, 05:33 PM

What ultimately matters the most IMHO is what the supposed person said. If it was a lot of tripe does it matter that there is rock solid evidence of their existence? Conversely, if their 'work' is considered to have made a contribution to humanity in some way, does it really matter if their existence has become an issue of debate and conjecture?

Kapyong · 03-30-2011, 05:47 PM

Gday,

Quote:

Originally Posted by gog

What ultimately matters the most IMHO is what the supposed person said. If it was a lot of tripe does it matter that there is rock solid evidence of their existence? Conversely, if their 'work' is considered to have made a contribution to humanity in some way, does it really matter if their existence has become an issue of debate and conjecture?

But -
if they didn't actually exist, then they did not contribute anything.

And the evidence that Jesus contributed anything himself is essentially non-existent.

Instead the actual earliest contributions came from Paul and the Gospel authors, and later others.

Jesus didn't have to exist at all for belief in him to exist - after all no-one actually met him, they ALL believed based on what they had heard etc. not on anything historical.

Ockham's Razor supports a mythical Jesus.

Kapyong

mountainman · 03-31-2011, 04:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Jesus didn't have to exist at all for belief in him to exist - after all no-one actually met him, they ALL believed based on what they had heard etc. not on anything historical.

In the antiquity of the Roman empire people often believed what the emperor told them to believe. For example, Nero ordered the Olympic Games brought forward and competed in all events, winning all the medals. Who published Jesus anyway?

Quote:

Ockham's Razor supports a mythical Jesus.

So did Constantine's sword.

Jaybees · 03-31-2011, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

.

There is NO story of antiquity that "Paul" started Christianity not even from "Paul".

Let's put Paul in perspective. If it weren't for his legitimizing the conversion of gentiles, the Xtianity of his day would have converted a few more Jews and soon died out--the way the Essenes did.

You can call that founding a new religion or not, but he was responsible for Xtianity as we know it today.

mountainman · 03-31-2011, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaybees

Let's put Paul in perspective. If it weren't for his legitimizing the conversion of gentiles, the Xtianity of his day would have converted a few more Jews and soon died out--the way the Essenes did.

You can call that founding a new religion or not, but he was responsible for Xtianity as we know it today.

I might agree with that except for one critical question. What if the "Epistles of Paul to the Gentiles" were historically authored in the 4th century, along with the "Epistles of Paul to Seneca"?

aa5874 · 03-31-2011, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaybees

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

.

There is NO story of antiquity that "Paul" started Christianity not even from "Paul".

Let's put Paul in perspective. If it weren't for his legitimizing the conversion of gentiles, the Xtianity of his day would have converted a few more Jews and soon died out--the way the Essenes did.

You can call that founding a new religion or not, but he was responsible for Xtianity as we know it today.

You have ZERO historical sources of antiquity for "Paul". Even in the NT CANON, "Paul" is a MAJOR character in a work of FICTION. The conversion of "Paul" in Acts is fiction.

A bright light cannot make anyone a Christian.

It was the author or authors of the Jesus MYTH fable that are DIRECTLY responsible for the START of the Jesus cult.

And further, Justin Martyr, Aristides and Arnobius all claimed it was the 12 APOSTLES from Jerusalem who WENT all over the world and preached the Gospel.

There is NO mention of "PAUL".

This is Justin Martyr.

Examine "First Apology"

Quote:

For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God...

Again, NO "PAUL" in the "The Apology" by Aristides. It was the 12 disciples who went all over the world to preach the Gospel.

"The Apology"

Quote:

...This Jesus, then, was born of the race of the Hebrews; and he had twelve disciples........ Thereupon these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness....

And again in "Against the Heathen" by Arnobius there is NO PAUL. It was the apostles of Jesus who went all over the earth to spread the Gospel.

"Against the Heathen" 1

Quote:

.......they saw all these things to be done by Christ Himself and by His apostles, who being sent throughout the whole world carried with them the blessings of the Father, which they dispensed in benefiting as well the minds as the bodies of men...

It is CLEAR that "PAUL" was UNKNOWN to Aristides, Justin Martyr and Arnobius and was unknown as an Apostle who preached anywhere in the world up to the end of the 3RD CENTURY.

So from Aristides who is claimed to have written in the early second century to Arnobius who was said to have live during the END of the 3RD CENTURY we have writers who did NOT write a single thing about "Paul" that he spread the Gospel to the Gentiles.

It is time to understand that the NT CANON is a compilation of a BOGUS chronology, authorship, dating and even contents of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings.

mountainman · 03-31-2011, 08:34 PM

Hi aa5874,

If Eusebius is not to be considered as a competent chronographer, then of course one of the fall back options will be an exploration of the possibility that "Eusebius" was the author of bogus chronographies and "mockumentaries", such as those evident in other 4th century comparanda, such as that mysterious historiological manuscript known as "Historia Augusta. And when I say "Eusebius" I also refer to the continuators and preservers of "Eusebius" from the later 4th and 5th centuries of the common era.

Best wishes,

Pete

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

It is time to understand that the NT CANON is a compilation of a BOGUS chronology, authorship, dating and even contents of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings.

Arnaldo Momogliano on Eusebius's reputation as a competent chronographer.

Quote:

[Eusebius] corrected details which seemed to him wrong even to the extent of reducing the priority of the Biblical heroes over the pagan ones. Moses, a contemporary of Ogyges according to Julius Africanus, was made a contemporary of Kekrops with a loss of 300 years. Eusebius was not afraid of attacking St Paul’s guesses about the chronology of the Book of Judges. He freely used Jewish and anti-Christian sources such as Porphyrios.

He introduced a reckoning from Abraham which allowed him to avoid the pitfalls of a chronology according to the first chapters of Genesis. He seems to have been the first to use the convenient method of presenting the chronology of the various nations in parallel columns. None of the earlier chronographers seems to have used this scheme, though it has often been attributed to Castor or to Julius Africanus.

He made many mistakes, but they do not surprise us any longer. Fifty years ago Eduard Schwartz, to save Eusebius’ reputation as a competent chronographer, conjectured that the two extant representatives of the lost original of Eusebius’ Chronicon — the Latin adaptation by St Jerome and the anonymous Armenian translation — were based on an interpolated text which passed for pure Eusebius.

This conjecture is perhaps unnecessary; nor are we certain that the Armenian version is closer to the original than St Jerome’s Latin translation. Both versions reflect the inevitable vagaries of Eusebius’ mind to whom chronology was something between an exact science and an instrument of propaganda.

Pagan and Christian Historiography
in the Fourth Century A.D.
* This essay first appeared in A. Momigliano, ed.,
The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century,
The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, pp. 79—99 (1)

My bolding etc

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03-30-2011, 05:33 PM	#44
gog Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Europe Posts: 1,531	What ultimately matters the most IMHO is what the supposed person said. If it was a lot of tripe does it matter that there is rock solid evidence of their existence? Conversely, if their 'work' is considered to have made a contribution to humanity in some way, does it really matter if their existence has become an issue of debate and conjecture?

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