aa5874

But, would you agree that once a person has been actually conned, that this person would not accepted that they are being conned?

I was once a believer, I was conned, perhaps not deliberately, but that was the end result. Perhaps "deeply religous people" are those who refuse to accept that they were conned.

Solitary Man

Are you seriously incapable of reading? I asked for one place, just one place, where I ever said that Christianity didn't borrow from other religions. Just one place.

Doug Shaver

I'm not claiming that it is. What I'm claiming is that the mention of a city in a work of fiction is not evidence of the city's nonexistence.

Solitary Man

Seriously, Pat. You thought the Persians ruled Troy during the Trojan War and then you have the audacity to call someone else ignorant? Pretty gutsy, aren't ya? Hypocritical as well, since you have no room to talk.

If you want to know my expertise, why not ask real questions?

100% fiction? Of course not. Partially fiction? Of course. You seem incapable of differentiating the two.

There you go with your strawman again. Some of it is factual, some of it is not. Why is it so hard for you to understand that?

Or, you can't understand the statements. It is real, and it's not an assumption.

I have no evidence, or you haven't asked for the evidence yet? First, have you read the Iliad, because it would be fruitless to even discuss it without you having read it.

Also, have you read any scholarly reports on the matter? Hopefully you've seen Carl W. Blegen's annual reports on the excavations of Hisarlik? They were published in the American Journal of Archaeology from 1931-1938. And then there are the publications by the University of Cincinnati via the Princeton Press written by Carl W. Blegen, John L. Caskey, and Marion Rawson. In case you are uninterested in archaeology, the evidence may be found in Troy, Volume IV: Settlements VIIa, VIIb, and VIII. In particular, Troy VIIa is dated by Mycenaean pottery to the 13th century, when the Trojan War with the Greeks is supposed to have taken place.

There are also internal clues in the Iliad which date the initial composition of that poem to the very time that Troy VII fell - for one the use of bronze weapons in the Homeric story where by the time of Homer himself (8th century) the Greek world had already moved into the Iron Age. How would Homer have known about the proliferation of Bronze Age weaponry in the already fully integrated Iron Age?

Troy VIIa, the one which dates to the Homeric legend, was captured and destroyed according to the archaeological record.

You also have the king's lists, coming from Mycenaean towns not existing when Homer took over the poem, but around in the late 13th century. How would Homer have known about these towns?

On the more recent side of things, the town was never completely abandoned, and in the Roman times was rebuilt. There are in fact inscriptions in this town to indicate that it was called Ilium and Troy, though this is added evidence, not the foremost evidence itself.

A little more on inscriptions: they found an inscription dedicated to Zeus Herkeios at Ilium.

I guess it's hard to prove that something is true to someone who irrationally and faithfully refuses to see the evidence.

On the contrary. I can name dozens of examples of fictional descriptions of places that have no parallels to real places. Hell is one, heaven is another. Most science fiction descriptions. Do you know of a city that employs firemen for the mere purpose of burning down houses with any and all books? Or do you know of a magical castle in England that you can only find if you're a witch or wizard?

Fortunately for you, you're right - I wasn't disputing the fact that there are many cities along the Mediterranean coast (and lookey here! you learned to spell the sea correctly!). Unfortunately for you, Troy wasn't exactly along the Mediterranean coast, but in the Aegean sea. Are you familiar with the Aegean sea?

Then they shall be ignored.

Wild theories? Don't you mean mainstream theories of Classical scholarship? I've presented nothing that mainstream scholarship doesn't already endorse.

Now that you have some initial stuff to work with, let's see how deep your fingers will reach inside your ears to pick you brain.

gurugeorge

Yes, once a person had been conned, they are likely not to accept that they have been conned, but that's a bit further down the line - remember the context here is of how religions start.

People are usually pretty good at telling whether someone is lying or not - it's a kind of an arms race, but on the whole, we can tell liers. If someone in a small community where everyone knows everyone's ass ups and says "I've seen God", they aren't going to get away with it unless they have the kind of utter conviction that only comes from really seeming, to themselves, to have had a remarkable experience of seeing God. That conviction comes across to others - hence the religion starts.

The con-job startup to religion is overblown amongst rationalist, because they underestimate the degree to which liminal, visionary experience is readily accessible to human beings even without drugs, and even to ordinary, rational people.

The con-job aspect comes in later, when the original charismatic impetus is long gone, the religion is formalised, and appears to issue in a series of propositions which some people then use to gain power and political ascendancy over others. Thereafter, it's a question of sociology, no longer really a question of religion - of madness, ecstasy, seeing God, talking to gods. It might as well just be another social club or ideas club or political conspiracy.

badger3k

So, that would be a yes?

Simple questions, simple answers. I am not sure how I can simplify it further, but if you still have trouble answering a few simple questions, then I can't see any use wasting time with you.

badger3k

That seems the most probable way that they developed, but I am not sure if you could call later belief a con job. To me that implies that there is a willful deception, rather than an unthinking acceptance of the dogma. It could be considered a self-con. It doesn't mean that some people don't use their beliefs to their advantage, but it means that we can't assume that they are not sincere as well. Sometimes the snake oil salesman is preferable to the True Believer (tm). I know which one I would prefer to deal with.

aa5874

But it seems that ability to tell whether someone is lying or not is abandoned if the conman mentions God.

A man named Joseph Smith said he spoke to an angel named Moroni and now today millions of people believe it was true.

It is my opinion that from the very day Joseph Smith made that outrageous claim, he must have known it was never ever true.

karlmarx

I think you underestimate people's ability for self-deception. The very best liars are those that end up believing their own lies.

aa5874

It is those people who read the NT and see that Jesus is describe as a God and still claim he was human who underestimate their ability to imagine things.