Originally Posted by cgordon

S-M, do you know what a meme is?

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Gday,

The claim that it was a 'hoax written by one person' is NOT what sceptics generally claim (only very few crackpots do that.) Please pay attention.

This mistake is endemic to apologists, it's either :
TRVE
or
a HOAX.

As if there are no other possibilities.

Tell us, Self-Mutation -
is Shakespeare true or a hoax?
is The Golden Ass true or a hoax?
is Harry Potter true or a hoax?


K.

Originally Posted by Self-Mutation

Nobody is making churches to Shakespeare or Harry Potter. We know they are fiction. If the Gospels were fiction, then there wouldn't be churches being set up in the first century and Paul claiming to have got his revelation through Jesus Himself. I guess Paul made up a Jesus out of nowhere even though he was attacking the church?

Guess he thought, "I hate the church so much, I'm gonna make up Jesus and dedicate my life to Jesus!" :huh:

Originally Posted by Switch89

What if the gospels were intended to be allegorical fiction?

Then they might take place in an earthly setting, but Jesus would not have ever existed because the stories weren't intended to be true.

It makes sense when you think about it: Why would Pilate have been reluctant to crucify Jesus? Why would he have appealed to the crowd of Jews as if he had no choice in the matter (in the choice between putting Jesus or Barabbas to death)? Keep in mind that Pilate was a bloodthirsty Roman who had slaughtered hundreds of Jews.

Stories such as the one above allow us to know that we are dealing with fiction. The fact that the stories have symbolic meanings (as demonstrated by Randel Helms in "Gospel Fictions" and Richard Carrier) make the fiction allegorical.

Originally Posted by Baalazel

Wrong as usual. It was the church founded by Paul that transformed billions upon billions of peoples lives. Most often by the sword, forced ignorance, banned knowledge, burned heretics, fake relics, confiscatory taxation, theological maleficence, social and political rapine, denial of reproductive freedom, the birth of billions who could not be housed or fed. So your "greatest moral leader" is the source of suffering for the untold billions whose lives you claim he transformed. But then poverty, sickness, and early death are transformative events I suppose.

Originally Posted by Baalazel

Or maybe Paul and his Sadducee backers in the Temple cult could see the handwriting on the wall and realized it it was time for a knew religion and set out to found one. What better start than a persecutor turned Apostle. Right smart and successful if you ask me.

Baal

Originally Posted by Baalazel

Or maybe Paul and his Sadducee backers in the Temple cult could see the handwriting on the wall and realized it it was time for a knew religion and set out to found one. What better start than a persecutor turned Apostle. Right smart and successful if you ask me.

Baal

Originally Posted by Self-Mutation

In order to prove something true, one must only need find one thing that refutes everything else.

Here is my one verse proving to everyone that Jesus existed on Earth and only a FOOL would claim the Gospels didn't mean to portray him as historical:

But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?

10For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.

11But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.

12And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?

13And they cried out again, Crucify him.

14Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.

15And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.

If Jesus ONLY EXISTED in a SPIRITUAL REALM, this passage makes no sense. It's OBVIOUS to anyone with a brain that the writers viewed Jesus as a historical person.

Unless you want to argue Pilate had the power to go into the "spiritual realm" with Jesus! :rolling:

Originally Posted by renassault

Unlikely given Paul's own statements about being the most zealous of his fellow Pharisees. As a Pharisee, he probably wouldn't have had Saducee backers.

Originally Posted by Baalazel

You're playing with the big boys now renassault. Pay attention.

Baal

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

This is probably one of the more obvious fictions/allegories in the gospels. "Barabbas" literally means "son of the father". Jesus, according to the gospels, never calls himself "Jesus" but rather he always refers to himself as "the son" and is always praying to "the father".

Do you really think that Jesus just so happened to meet his polar opposite who is ironically called "son of the father" and the Jews chose the insurrectionist "son of the father" to be released instead of the "actual" son of the father?