lpetrich

spamandham, I don't think that the early Xians had to get the idea of a founder figure from anywhere. The idea of a founder figure is so widespread that they didn't need to; it's the absence of one that would be unusual. As Bertrand Russell had noted in his History of Western Philosophy,

wordy

What does Carrier say about the idea that to a Christian Jesus really exists and is not a myth?

Some of us nonbelievers and atheists do claim that to think something is real seems more effective than to think it is a myth that is real.

Compare "Liberal and Progressive" Christians with Fundy Cristians. The fundies have all the political power and the TV and Radio and the Press and the riches Churches and the Liberals barely survive.

To believe something is real even if totally made up seems to be the most effective way to get something going.

compare with secular social ideological faiths like Marxism or Communism or Maoism etc.

Those that take it very literally are usually more effective at getting their politics to be on top and the more liberal and interpretive lose structured don't get the many votes?

Extreme Veganism get more supporters than lacto-vegetarianism?

To be a fundy is more effective?v

What is hi view on such things?

spamandham

Carrier has publicly stated that Jesus is not historical. You can watch the video yourself, which is both informative and entertaining (Carrier has a sharp wit), linked in this thread

spamandham

...that's the parallel I believe Carrier is referring to. There obviously was no historical Romulus, yet the Romans needed a foundational myth, so a story was invented involving Remus and Romulus. Christianity also had no founder originally, but was instead a theological movement - a mystical interpretation of the messiah derived directly from the Jewish scriptures... the Gospels were invented to fill the void and create a historical founder.

wordy

Thanks for the links to Carrier.

Yes maybe the Christ movement started as a purely supernatural Jesus and then those that invented the historical version was the winner in the competition?

show_no_mercy

Yep... Romulus was born of a virgin and ascended into heaven during a storm...

lpetrich

He even briefly returned from heaven and assured some eminent politician that the Gods intend for Rome to rule the world.

Which is so self-serving that it is hard to take that seriously.


All that is in Livy's History of Rome, which is often used as a source on Rome's early history. So why believe what Livy says about the Scipios, and not about Romulus? The tombs of some of the Scipios survive, complete with epitaphs in an early Latin dialect, so if Livy is right about those gentlemen, why isn't he also right about Romulus?

That's a common New-Testament-historicity apologetic applied to early Roman history.


As to Romulus and his twin brother Remus, they are likely derived from an even older myth: the Indo-European creation myth of Man and Twin that is reconstructed from some other mythologies.