Roger Pearse

I've worked for people whom one could describe as "grunting beasts"...

Frank

So much is obvious I think, but I'm not really questioning whether or not Jesus existed. What I do question (and simply do not believe) is the miracle claims associated with him, which fit the mythic archetype. The main distinction I see with Jesus (and what I suspect fueled the success of Christianity) is the fact that Jesus is framed as a hero for the man at the bottom, versus the garden variety Greco-Roman hero archetype (who was generally the product of earthly nobility, aristocracy, and was usually a military hero of some sort). In other words the man at the bottom never mattered in Greco-Roman society, and fully one quarter of that society were either slaves or had been enslaved at some point in life. Finally, they had a hero who preferred them, which must have been a profound reason for the attractiveness of Christianity.

I think this distinction was driven largely by Jewish culture, and a sort of underdog mentality. The Jews were always the victims of the larger societies surrounding them, but yet their own leaders, when given the opportunity, took on the same characteristics of their oppressors. There's no divine explanation for any of this required, Jewish identity and notions of justice were formed over the course of centuries, living as a small tribe at the fringes of various mega-empires.

Would be messiah's were almost a dime a dozen in early first century Palestine. However, most of them were Jewish zealots, who led various rebellions against the Romans (which proved itself a consistently suicidal idea). If it wasn't for Josephus we'd have little history of the Jewish people during that era (given the Roman response to their rebellions eventually became very harsh, and significant information was lost as a result).

The New Testament makes some pretty outlandish claims. For instance, in Matthew we're told that upon the death of Jesus, the tombs surrounding Jerusalem were cracked open, and the dead inside them resurrected. Of course there's not a single independent source verifying this pretty absurd story (and the Romans were occupying Jerusalem at the time).

Quality of information notwithstanding, we do not believe such outlandish stories without a very high degree of proof (which at a minimum requires numerous eye witness accounts, preferrably from at least some people who we can demonstrate lacked any bias, or even better had a negative bias). If it were really true that hundreds of people witnessed and recognized the resurrected Jesus (as Paul implies), even if they only told their loved ones and close friends, there should have been thousands of people who could attest to these events. In the various miraculous feedings, there were supposedly 9,000 people fed (4,000 in one, and 5,000 in another). Again, if they only told their loved ones and closest friends, the number of attesting witnesses (who could at least provide indirect testimony) grows to well over 20,000 (more like 30 or 40,000 at least).

Yet, not a fucking word (although no shortage of farfetched, bullshit explanations from apolostists). Shit, even the internal evidence sucks. The earliest and most reliable manuscripts we have of Mark don't even contain a resurrection story. We know none of the epistles attributed to Peter were written or even dictated by Peter. It was thought for centuries that Matthew was an apostle or at least a Jewish convert to Christianity from Palestine (who originally wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic), but today that theory has been pretty thoroughly debunked (we know it was originally written in Greek by a native Greek speaker, and not translated from another language, so it was likely a diaspora Jew who was raised in the Greek world). In fact the author of Matthew doesn't even use the version of the Old Testament that was prevelent in Palestine, he uses the Septuigint. Indeed we really don't know shit about what these bible authors actually believed (because there's been so many corruptions of the text over the years).

Was this really the best the god who invented the universe (maybe the multiverse), and who invented physics and chemistry .... could do? If there is a god, this must be an insult.

Minimalist

I think as a general rule "bosses" are exempt from being described as "people."

DCHindley

I dunno, I like my boss.

Excuse me. Did you say you "would like to toss?"

No, I like my boss.

You "like to box?"

Uh, no. I like my boss.

You're "bike is lost?"

[Silence]

DCH