Malachi151

Okay, here is what seems to be the final version, at least for now.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ristianity.htm

I may have to re-do part II for a variety of reasons, but I think part one is solid, unless someone sees are error.

Also, let me know if you have technical difficulties.

BTW, you may want to skip to Part II.

lpetrich

Those Flash applets run fine in my machine:

MacOS X 10.4 - Mozilla Firefox 2.0 - Flash 9.0

But sorry, Malachi151, they still too scattershot and wide-ranging

And they are short of something I would consider very strong: side-by-side comparisons of Jesus Christ and pagan mythical heroes. Like pointing out how common it was for such a hero to be the son of a god and a virgin. And for someone to be out to get him when he was a baby.

And I would have preferred something with more focus, like on how Jesus Christ's life story had developed, from Paul's heavenly Christ to all the details of the Gospels.

I also think that those applets could have used some suitable animations here and there.

Malachi151

Hmm.. perhaps you took my advice and skipped directly to Part II?

In Part I I went over pre-Christian religion and history, where I discussed the similarities between Dionysus and Jesus, and between the account of Romulus and the ascension of Jesus, and the similarities between Plato's views of the afterlife and the Christian views of the afterlife.

I think that those things are important, but I wouldn't call them the most important evidence against the existence of a historical Jesus, I would consider the most important evidence in that vein to be the combination of the lack of writing about Jesus by people like Philo, the fact that essentially all of the story of Jesus is taken from the Old Testament, the fact that "Paul" gives no details about a life of Jesus, and the fact that all of the arguments about the "nature of Jesus" that took place in the first 300 years were based on theology and philosophy, with many different views about who/what Jesus/ Christ even were, and if they even existed on earth.

Malachi151

I gave the presentation in person yesterday to the local atheist group, and the director for another humanist organization was there and wants me to give it for them, plus there is another humanist organization that meets at a UU wants me to give it for them as well, so this is good, getting the MJ info out there. The two humanist groups are pretty big as well, with money and publications, etc.

coloradoatheist

It was a good presentation and my only advice was to put a break in the presentation (when done in person)since it was a lot of information.


Mike

Also it's good when doing a presentation to go back to your original topic slide and highlight where you are in the presentation so you know where you've covered and where you are going.