EarlDoherty

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

Scotsguy44

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

youngalexander

What is that?
A Christian by definition cannot be a Mythicist!

True, but can Christians agree?

Scotsguy44

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

youngalexander

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?

Scotsguy44

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

JonA

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!

Seriously? Whether or not some faceless old preacher dude lived 2000 years ago bugs you that much?

I surely hope not.

youngalexander

I humbly thank you.
Quite so, I stand corrected and assure you that I shall never transgress your strictures again.:wave:

Horatio Parker

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?

No Robots

There is something called spiritual atheism that maybe you should look into.

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.

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.

Some atheists reject the theory of evolution as a grossly materialist distortion of reality.

Some of us see Christ the man as the epitome of human understanding.

There are indeed other and better words: the One, the Absolute, the Tao, Brahman, Beingness, the Cogitant.