Ignostic Morgan

We have no more reason to accept the Tanakh and the Christian Testament as truth-tellers than to accept Uri Geller, Benny Hinn, Sylvia Brown[e] as such.:devil1:
Archaeologists and historians find that the former has no historical foundation. There were no Garden of Eden, no Hebrew stay in Egypt and thus no Exodus. The mean-spirited writers merely imagined history for their theological preoccupations. They weren't trained to be historians.:banghead:
No rational person can accept a talking serpent nor a talking ass! For what are they metaphorical accounts as errantists ever aver for what they contemn in those anthologies? How are the commands for genocide a message of the hope that Alister McGrath,THD, avers is the real message of both anthologies? How is the divine protection racket a good metaphor as Fr.Leo Booth might aver?
Why should rational people accept them as valid for them rather than any other set of fables? Why not just accept humanist morality?
Why obfuscate as Bishop John Shelby Spong does with his theology? Why not just jettison all religions for naturalism?:banghead:
Yeshua, exudes fanatacism. He tells his flock- apt description for irrationalists!- that others will persecute them, and that to love him more than their relatives and friends as cult-leaders do. His ethic was silly and dangerous. She who turns the other cheek, invites the other hand to hit her: she ought run instead. One reads onto his nonsense ones own values as William Kaufmann notes in " Critique of Philosophy and Religion." Eisegesis is exegesis.:constern01:
He was just another miracle monger and savior-god as unique as all the others; Christian special pleading that he was unique then is just that. Any magician could do his tricks! Oral Roberts and Jim Jones affirm that they have resurrected others!:constern01:
Hume's corollary on the presumption of naturalism on miracles holds true and does not beg the question but is the demand for evidence. One knows how superstitious people are even today to discount his miracles as divine. One knows that today when one investigates miracles, they are all natural phenomena.
See also the dead thread on him as historical. I concur with John Loftus's middle ground there.:huh:
With Col. Robert Green Ingersoll and Lord Bertrand Russell, I see Yeshua , I objurgate him!:angry:

Chaucer

Actually, I think I would disagree. The thought also occurs to me (and I know you did not specifically address this aspect) that since the world was already predominantly theistic before he came along anyway, that means he did not add or subtract anything new in that respect. So there's little sense in faulting him on that score. He was simply like everybody else in that respect.

The main reason I would probably disagree with you entails something entirely unrelated to any of this. You see, it is as a social critic that he introduces something altogether new and seems very perceptive and someone who comes along not a moment too soon. The most generally ascribed remark from him regarding society (found in all three early textual traditions represented in Mark, Thomas and the parallel "Q" sayings in Matt./Luke) could not be more direct:

"And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last."

What he did introduce that was new, then, was this radical reappraisal of the human family and its members, which seems to carry an implicit assumption that all humanity's members are essentially equal. That is the most salient new thought that he introduces to history. And I find that a Plus, not a Minus. So I voted "No" on the question. I note that the results so far are exactly 50/50. But since only 2 have voted here so far, that doesn't mean much. I hope many more get to vote on this, and I'm disappointed that practically no one has weighed in yet.

Good question; thank you,

Chaucer

No Robots

I vote yes, his ethic was dangerous and silly. It is always dangerous and silly to defy the authorities. It is always dangerous and silly to trust the common folk. It is always dangerous and silly to stake everything on upholding an ideal. All my thanks to those incredibly brave geniuses who are willing to do the dangerous and silly things that alone elevate mankind above dangerousness and silliness.

bacht

Yeshua was a personification of Jewish New Age hopes that were inclusive rather than strictly nationalistic. He comes from prophets like Deutero-Isaiah who saw a day when all the nations would come to Zion and acknowledge the God of Israel as the God of all mankind.

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

Educated Jews didn't take the old myths literally even before the Christian era. Arguments about Eden or Noah's ark are a red herring, a distraction from issues about justice and righteous living.

lpetrich

(about Jesus Christ)

An inverted pyramid of inference that is difficult to take seriously. The Jesus Christ of the Gospels was not exactly very cosmopolitan, though Paul was arguably more so.

However, neither JC nor Paul invented cosmopolitanism -- the Stoics had that as an ideal, and Socrates reportedly called himself a citizen of the world.

Chaucer

Brilliant. My compliments. Turns this poll right on its head -- and makes me look dumb in the bargain as well <shrug>. I feel like using this myself when dealing with obstinate politicians or authorities in general. May I?

A friend of ours who is the sole caretaker of his underage children and who has been clean for twenty years has suddenly been targeted for deportation this month solely because of one drug-related misdemeanor of twenty years ago. Disgusting. What you say here is apt for much of the work that friends of ours are trying to do to input more humanitarian discretion into arbitrary decisions of this kind.

So thank you,

Chaucer

No Robots

Thanks.

Nah, you don't look dumb at all. Christ's ethic is dangerous and silly according to the world. It is precisely against this judgement of the world that Christ was fighting. From the point of view of the Absolute, from the perspective of the will to love, Christ is of course the embodiment of the ethical ideal itself.

Of course.><

Yep. Quite.

Bon courage!

bacht

That sucks. I hope it's not a family law dispute, they can get nasty

Chaucer

Nope. What's going on is that this father who's the sole support of his family openly applied for citizenship and a green card but was rebuffed because of this one misdemeanor many years earlier (a misdemeanor for which he didn't even spend any jail time, being levied a fine only). Today, this guy is a pillar of his community, he's been clean for twenty years, all of his children and also his seriously ill wife who's on disability and cannot work were born here and are full citizens, and we've collected 1,200 signatures that we've presented to the authorities asking them to rescind the decision. To no avail so far despite this being a clearcut humanitarian emergency.

Yup, it does suck.

Chaucer

Ignostic Morgan

Ipetrich, yes, perhaps if Stoicism has prevailed, then slavery might have gone out centuries earlier!:angry:
How can anyone give credence to those two anthologies- the Tanakh and the Testament- and to him when they all err so much? :devil1:
Please, stop the Bible-thumping begged question! :constern01:
Just what are the metaphors for the genocide and the silly 600 plus commandments?
How can one dare justify the animal sacrifice of the Atonement?
What is the justification of the Trinity and Yeshua as God-Incarnate? No one can be fully human and fully divine as that contradicts reality!:angry:
Why try to justify the contradictions with themselves and with reality of these two anthologies?
Note that contrary to what he stated, Yeshua didn't return in the time of his hearers, and please don't try to give a far-fetched rationalization thereof! And he contradicted himself as he also said non one knew when would he return.
Why would anyone think these books any better than the other sacred ones without special pleading?
And how might one try to answer my other points above from the start?
Jako knows :devi Yeshua, and Dawkins, my friend, knows Yahweh!:Cheeky: