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Old 04-04-2012, 08:26 PM   #241
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I would prefer not to attribute a priori motives to anybody, and judge the arguments on their own merit.

I do think that Ehrman should remember that he himself gets accused of having radically skeptical, anti-Christian, atheist-tainted views all the time by religionists. Such Ad hominems and well-poisoning tactics have no probative value even if they're sometimes accurate.
I actually think that apparent motivations have an important place in these discussions. Modern social/political/ideological biases have a greater influence on New Testament studies than any other field, rivaling the science of sociology. It should be only a debate about the objective reality far removed from our own time, but in actual fact the debate is more rooted in our own time than the ancient time. It is centrally useful information for anyone who wants to know about the mythicist camp, just as, say, the political leanings of the Jesus Seminar are useful for making sense of the historical Jesus that they accept. If we don't know that mythicists are atheists, agnostics, humanists and new-agers, then we don't know what mythicism is, whether we like it or not. I think a lay reader would be cheated if that point didn't have an important place in the book.
What a pile of garbage! The question of whether the central figure of Christian origins actually lived is an historical and scientific question. He either did or he didn't. It is quite different from the endless quests to uncover the character, intentions, social and political outlooks, etc. of an assumed HJ. It is possible to approach the former on an entirely objective level. The problem is, Christians have ruled themselves out as being capable of doing that. That leaves people like atheists, agnostics, humanists and new-agers, as you put it.

Claiming that we need to let the lay reader know the religious leanings--or lack of them--of a mythicist writer is simply an undisguised attempt to infect that reader with a prejudice which will prevent him or her from evaluating the only thing that matters: the arguments and the evidence. It is an attempt to dismiss the mythicist case not through the legitimate means of rebutting and discrediting that case, but by the utterly illegitimate and dishonorable tactic of trying to a priori discredit the people who put them forward. I'd put it on the same level as a parent in a failed marriage fighting for custody of the children by accusing the other parent of having molested them.

You're a discredit to any field of historical research, Abe. Of course, you don't belong there in the first place, because you've come on board here armed only with a closed mind set in concrete, a breathtaking ignorance about the thing you're mindlessly attacking, with your endless appeals to authority, and tactics that are beyond disreputable, beyond ignoble. You're impervious to reason, argumentation, and most of all, shame. I don't for one minute believe that you are an atheist or agnostic, as you seem to claim. That's a load of crap. If you're an atheist, I'll resign my own membership.

Earl Doherty
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Old 04-05-2012, 02:36 AM   #242
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I actually think that apparent motivations have an important place in these discussions. Modern social/political/ideological biases have a greater influence on New Testament studies than any other field, rivaling the science of sociology. It should be only a debate about the objective reality far removed from our own time, but in actual fact the debate is more rooted in our own time than the ancient time. It is centrally useful information for anyone who wants to know about the mythicist camp, just as, say, the political leanings of the Jesus Seminar are useful for making sense of the historical Jesus that they accept. If we don't know that mythicists are atheists, agnostics, humanists and new-agers, then we don't know what mythicism is, whether we like it or not. I think a lay reader would be cheated if that point didn't have an important place in the book.
What a pile of garbage! The question of whether the central figure of Christian origins actually lived is an historical and scientific question. He either did or he didn't. It is quite different from the endless quests to uncover the character, intentions, social and political outlooks, etc. of an assumed HJ. It is possible to approach the former on an entirely objective level. The problem is, Christians have ruled themselves out as being capable of doing that. That leaves people like atheists, agnostics, humanists and new-agers, as you put it.

Claiming that we need to let the lay reader know the religious leanings--or lack of them--of a mythicist writer is simply an undisguised attempt to infect that reader with a prejudice which will prevent him or her from evaluating the only thing that matters: the arguments and the evidence. It is an attempt to dismiss the mythicist case not through the legitimate means of rebutting and discrediting that case, but by the utterly illegitimate and dishonorable tactic of trying to a priori discredit the people who put them forward. I'd put it on the same level as a parent in a failed marriage fighting for custody of the children by accusing the other parent of having molested them.

You're a discredit to any field of historical research, Abe. Of course, you don't belong there in the first place, because you've come on board here armed only with a closed mind set in concrete, a breathtaking ignorance about the thing you're mindlessly attacking, with your endless appeals to authority, and tactics that are beyond disreputable, beyond ignoble. You're impervious to reason, argumentation, and most of all, shame. I don't for one minute believe that you are an atheist or agnostic, as you seem to claim. That's a load of crap. If you're an atheist, I'll resign my own membership.

Earl Doherty
Whilst I agree that the motivations of those who propose a MJ are completely irrelevant as to the arguments for a MJ you do your own case no more good when making statements like,

'Christians have ruled themselves out as being capable of doing that. That leaves people like atheists, agnostics, humanists and new-agers, as you put it'.

That statement is no better than what you were replying to and what you termed as, 'What a pile of garbage!'.

The worldview of any person putting forward an HJ or MJ argument is completely irrelevant to that argument, be they atheist, agnostic (like Ehrman), Christian, or anything else. Trying to defend, and rightly so, the MJ camp from ad hominem because of their worldview and then committing that same ad hominem against HJ'ers who are Christian is both hypocrisy and a double standard.

Matt
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Old 04-05-2012, 03:21 AM   #243
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What a pile of garbage!Earl Doherty
'Christians have ruled themselves out as being capable of doing that. That leaves people like atheists, agnostics, humanists and new-agers, as you put it'.
What is that?
A Christian by definition cannot be a Mythicist!

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The worldview of any person putting forward an HJ or MJ argument is completely irrelevant to that argument, be they atheist, agnostic (like Ehrman), Christian, or anything else.
Matt
True, but can Christians agree?
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Old 04-05-2012, 03:32 AM   #244
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'Christians have ruled themselves out as being capable of doing that. That leaves people like atheists, agnostics, humanists and new-agers, as you put it'.
What is that?
A Christian by definition cannot be a Mythicist!

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The worldview of any person putting forward an HJ or MJ argument is completely irrelevant to that argument, be they atheist, agnostic (like Ehrman), Christian, or anything else.
Matt
True, but can Christians agree?
THAT would be, 'The question of whether the central figure of Christian origins actually lived is an historical and scientific question. He either did or he didn't......It is possible to approach the former on an entirely objective level.'

Christians are just as capable of doing THAT as atheists, agnostics or people of any other worldview. To assert they are not is ad hominem.

Matt
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Old 04-05-2012, 03:57 AM   #245
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THAT would be, 'The question of whether the central figure of Christian origins actually lived is an historical and scientific question. He either did or he didn't......It is possible to approach the former on an entirely objective level.'

Christians are just as capable of doing THAT

Matt
Well, given that Christians can & do become non Christians, presumably they can do THAT
but, they are for the most part rather resistent to doing THAT
and thus we might query how 'just as capable' they are?
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Old 04-05-2012, 04:00 AM   #246
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THAT would be, 'The question of whether the central figure of Christian origins actually lived is an historical and scientific question. He either did or he didn't......It is possible to approach the former on an entirely objective level.'

Christians are just as capable of doing THAT

Matt
Well, given that Christians can & do become non Christians, presumably they can do THAT
but, they are for the most part rather resistent to doing THAT
and thus we might query how 'just as capable' they are?
You are, of course, entitled to your view but it is no more valid than the ad hominem that Earl Doherty was responding to. The sooner people get past these kind of nonsense personal/group attacks and focus on the arguments the better for everyone with a serious interest in the truth of the matter.

Matt
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Old 04-05-2012, 04:19 AM   #247
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But it's all neuronal impulses jumping our synapses.
I guess then that sex and religion have at least one thing in common; yet I'm not ready to live my life in celibacy.

Go figure!

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Myths like the historical Jesus only get in the way of truly understanding ourselves and the universe we're a part of.
Seriously? Whether or not some faceless old preacher dude lived 2000 years ago bugs you that much?

I surely hope not.
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Old 04-05-2012, 04:57 AM   #248
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You are, of course, entitled to your view
I humbly thank you.
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The sooner people get past these kind of nonsense personal/group attacks and focus on the arguments the better for everyone with a serious interest in the truth of the matter.

Matt
Quite so, I stand corrected and assure you that I shall never transgress your strictures again.:wave:
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Old 04-05-2012, 07:33 AM   #249
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God is a cry of human existence: for to know one exists is to exist alone and to exist alone is impossible.
This sort of gobbledygook is motivated by some people's inability to accept, let alone condone, pure atheism. There must be *some* kind of God, some higher power, some inner state of being we can acknowledge, no matter how bizarre or far-fetched the description we give it.

I believe that some non-Christians hold onto an historical Jesus because even if he is not the son of some non-existent personal God, he can nevertheless be someone who was in touch with that higher power or inner state of being, and so are we vicariously through him.

But it's all neuronal impulses jumping our synapses. Why not celebrate what it is really like to be human, and how much evolution has accomplished? Myths like the historical Jesus only get in the way of truly understanding ourselves and the universe we're a part of.

And stop labelling anything "God".

Earl Doherty
What's wrong with celebrating what it's like to be human with a God?

"You cannot conceive the many without the One"

Or are we only allowed to have magical supernatural being type Gods?
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Old 04-05-2012, 08:40 AM   #250
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This sort of gobbledygook is motivated by some people's inability to accept, let alone condone, pure atheism. There must be *some* kind of God, some higher power, some inner state of being we can acknowledge, no matter how bizarre or far-fetched the description we give it.
There is something called spiritual atheism that maybe you should look into.

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I believe that some non-Christians hold onto an historical Jesus because even if he is not the son of some non-existent personal God, he can nevertheless be someone who was in touch with that higher power or inner state of being, and so are we vicariously through him.
It isn't a question of living vicariously through him, but rather of following his doctrines in order to develop our own spiritual nature. I would even go so far as to say it is a question of him (ie. his doctrines, his spirit) living vicariously through us.

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But it's all neuronal impulses jumping our synapses.
That is the materialist view. It is not shared by those of a spiritual bent. We say that neurology offers only the materialist, relative understanding of mind; and doesn't come to grips with the nature of mind on its own terms.

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Why not celebrate what it is really like to be human, and how much evolution has accomplished?
Some atheists reject the theory of evolution as a grossly materialist distortion of reality.

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Myths like the historical Jesus only get in the way of truly understanding ourselves and the universe we're a part of.
Some of us see Christ the man as the epitome of human understanding.

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And stop labelling anything "God".
There are indeed other and better words: the One, the Absolute, the Tao, Brahman, Beingness, the Cogitant.
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