Freethought & Rationalism Archive

God Fearing Atheist · 01-20-2008, 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I think it would be a mistake to think the ideology of Acharya S is something on the fringe. The Jesus-mythers like Acharya S are at the fringe of critical Biblical scholarship, but they are on the center stage of atheist and anti-religious activists. It gives Christians an intellectual leg up over atheists in debate, and this hurts all of us, because the best propaganda method that atheists have is winning the argument. The people who believe Acharya S are not people who will believe anything. They are intelligent, skeptical, well-meaning people who are sucked into her ideology because they have a bias against Christianity, and it seems like the only people who take the trouble to try to refute Acharya S on the Internet are the Christians. This has got to change. We can't just be attackers of religion. We have got to be defenders of truth.

Very well said, AA.

01-20-2008, 12:18 AM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Good summary, but its actually a little worse on some points than your scores.

Thanks for your informative replies.

I just wanted to be as generous as possible to Acharya S.

I hope she returns to discuss these issues.

Iasion

schilling.klaus · 01-20-2008, 12:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by manwithdream

There are so many fringe writers

only fringe writers are trustworthy,
as the academic mainline is a bunch of positivist and postpositivist
hucksters with zero understanding of the essence
of religions which is metaphysical.
Their stubborn denial of metaphysics makes them incompetent
in these subjects.

Klaus Schilling

Clivedurdle · 01-20-2008, 03:44 AM

Quote:

Demonstrating Greek and Roman "sun worship" is quite simple, demonstrating that this had anything to do with the origins of the Christ story, however, is another matter, and one that I have never seen successfully done, because it wasn't the basis of the Christ story, the Jewish messiah was the basis of the Christ story.

Now who was the second Jewish Messiah?

First Moses.

Then Cyrus!

Would a look at a specific 19C author help?

http://www.ferrum.edu/philosophy/Zarathustra.htm

Antipope Innocent II · 01-20-2008, 03:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I think it would be a mistake to think the ideology of Acharya S is something on the fringe. The Jesus-mythers like Acharya S are at the fringe of critical Biblical scholarship, but they are on the center stage of atheist and anti-religious activists. It gives Christians an intellectual leg up over atheists in debate, and this hurts all of us, because the best propaganda method that atheists have is winning the argument. The people who believe Acharya S are not people who will believe anything. They are intelligent, skeptical, well-meaning people who are sucked into her ideology because they have a bias against Christianity, and it seems like the only people who take the trouble to try to refute Acharya S on the Internet are the Christians. This has got to change. We can't just be attackers of religion. We have got to be defenders of truth.

Absolutely. Over on "Acharya S"/Ms Murdock's forum one of her fans was expressing genuine mystification that atheists here should be criticising her lack of scholarship. They said they couldn't understand why atheists would be criticising someone who's trying to debunk Christianity.

So apparently we're supposed to give Ms Murdock a free pass for sloppy scholarship simply because she's anti-Christianity.

My problem with fringe pseudo scholarship like Murdock's and similar low grade stuff by Freke and Gandy et al is that the adoption of these ideas, despite their flaws, by atheists simply makes us look dumb. It's a bit like the discussion we had here last year on the myth that the Medieval Church taught that the earth was flat. Despite all the evidence that this was a myth, there were still two or three people here who refused to let go of the idea and who argued beyond the point of absurdity simply because they liked the idea.

And we're meant to the smart kids. :huh:

Adopting contrived and error-laden pseudo history like that of Murdock simply makes us look dumb.

Clivedurdle · 01-20-2008, 04:06 AM

Oh about December 25, that is literally the sun's birthday!

In the Northern Hemisphere it is the time at which the sun has obviously begun to return.

Are we arguing about the amount of influence of factors?

The traditional xian view is of a messiah who is different to other gods in becoming flesh and saving us - a wonderful mix of ideas.

We are agreed that any real Jesus behind all this confabulation is a minimal seed, for example is anyone arguing for a Jesus who said all he is alleged to have said, made such an impact that he started this religion, but for various reasons did not get recorded except in the Gospels?

OK, then what other explanations might there be?

A mythical construct with strong astrological tendencies is a reasonable hypothesis, because of abundant examples like the one above that sailors did sacrifice their passengers to the waves. We have similar tales in the NT!

What if we look at xianity as from the beginning a wondrous pot pouri of astrological ideas - magi, star in the East, holy spirit as a dove, water into wine, walking on water, transfiguration, that took existing ideas from a wide variety of places?

A "victory" of Persian one god ideas against the variety of the Greek and Roman pantheons and their belief in priesthood of all believers?

That xianity is not based on Judaism but on Zarathustra through Jewish ideas, and that the real victors in a very long struggle were not the Greeks at Marathon but the Zarathustrans through their xian sect.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Persian-Fire.../dp/0316726648

Quote:

In 480 BC, Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For seventy years, victory - rapid, spectacular victory - had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. In the space of a single generation, they had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. As a result of those conquests, Xerxes ruled as the most powerful man on the planet. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks of the mainland managed to hold out. The Persians were turned back. Greece remained free. Had the Greeks been defeated at Salamis, not only would the West have lost its first struggle for independence and survival, but it is unlikely that there would ever have been such and entity as the West at all. Tom Holland's brilliant new book describes the very first 'clash of Empires' between East and West. Once again he has found extraordinary parallels between the ancient world and our own. There is no competing popular book describing these events.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Terry-Jones-.../dp/0563493186

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We think we know all about the Romans, don't we? They gave us sophisticated road systems, chariots and the modern-day calendar, not to mention civilized society. And of course, they had to contend with barbarian hordes who continually threatened the peace, safety and prosperity of their Empire. But is this really true? Accompanying a major new BBC2 series, "Terry Jones' Barbarians" takes a completely fresh approach to Roman history. Not only does it offer us the chance to see the Romans from a non-Roman perspective, it also reveals that most of those written off by the Romans as uncivilized, savage and barbaric were in fact organized, motivated and intelligent groups of people, with no intentions of overthrowing Rome and plundering its Empire. This original and fascinating study does away with the propaganda and opens our eyes to who really established the civilized world. Delving deep into history, Terry Jones and Alan Ereira uncover the impressive cultural and technological achievements of the Celts, Goths, Persians and Vandals. If you thought that highly developed religious philosophy and legal systems based on respect were Roman inventions, then think again. Far from civilizing the societies they conquered, the Romans often destroyed much of what they found. In this absorbing book, Terry and Alan travel through 700 years of history on three continents, bringing wit, irreverence, passion and the very latest scholarship to transform our view of the legacy of the Roman Empire and the creation of the modern world. 'Jones laces the latest academic research with his own increasingly avuncular humour. Who says history can't be fun? In the hands of Professor Jones, how could it be anything else?'

Clivedurdle · 01-20-2008, 04:25 AM

http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messiah_04.html

Quote:

Thus says the Lord to His anointed [Messiah], to Cyrus [...] to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut: 'I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, so that you may know that I, the Lord, Who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things. Rain down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it.'
[Isaiah 45.1-8]

Clivedurdle · 01-20-2008, 04:34 AM

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From the reign of Cyrus the Great down to Darius III, it was apparently customary for an empty chariot drawn by white horses to accompany the Persian army. According to Herodotus, who first described the practice, this chariot was sacred to "Zeus" who was presumably believed to position himself at the head of the army. (Ahura Mazda was frequently named Zeus by the Greeks; Aristotle refers to Zeus-Oromasdes being opposed by Hades-Aremainius.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahura_Mazda

Quote:

The Ark was carried into battle, such as in the Midian war (Num. 31). In the capture of Jericho the Ark was carried round the city once a day for six days, preceded by the armed men and seven priests sounding seven trumpets of rams' horns (Josh. 6:4-15)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant

Jeffrey Gibson · 01-20-2008, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schilling.klaus

Quote:

Originally Posted by manwithdream

There are so many fringe writers

only fringe writers are trustworthy,

Wow.

Quote:

as the academic mainline is a bunch of positivist and postpositivist
hucksters with zero understanding of the essence
of religions which is metaphysical.

Again, wow. Are you really as familiar with the "academic mainline" as you imply you are? Or you doing a Fenton and claiming expert knowledge about a group that you really know little about?

Besides that, the issue under discussion is not a religious one, but an historical one -- whether AS's reconstruction of the origins and history of a movement and her claims about what this movement believed (not whether their beliefs are true) have any validity. Or are you "doing a Fenton" and making global claims about a group that you have no real knowledge of>

Quote:

Their stubborn denial of metaphysics makes them incompetent
in these subjects.

How interesting. This is the same charge that creationists level against evolutionists!

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 01-20-2008, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Are you saying that the legends around Jesus' birth are modern constructs?

I'm saying that the evidence that Campbell points to for saying, as he apparently does, that the Lukan annunciation story contains themes found in the Orphic/Neoplatonic story of the conception of Dionysus does not bear the weight he places on since it is drawn and cobbled together from medieval and later representations of that story and imports into the dove element (which is not in Luke) a view of what the dove symbolizes that may does not seem to have been a part of what the ancients thought the "mother Goddesses'" dove to have represented.

Quote:

In fact, from my observation of my contemporaries, Campbell's theories do seem to undermine a certain type of fundamentalist thinking about the Bible.

Well so do Von Daniken's and Velikovsky's, once they are accepted as true. So what?

Quote:

But all of this is off topic. Aren't we supposed to be discussing the validity of A.S.'s claims and how well researched they are?

Jeffrey

Quote:

We are discussing her theories. The "well researched" part is your concern.

Are you actually saying that it doesn't matter if they aren't well researched, even though she claims that her "theories" about the course and content of early Church history and what early Christians actually believed and what they did are based upon good and thorough research in the primary sources and an objective and unbiased analysis and presentation of what those sources say?

Jeffrey

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