Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Elijah · 12-31-2009, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sschlichter

yes, and the outcome of maintaining such claims that resulted in crucifixion was further crucifixion. Wouldn't it make more sense to maintain that the claimant told us to keep it to ourselves so we do not get killed and then write that down?

I'm confused on what you think would be the rational move here if you're trying to exalt someone as the messiah. How do you claim he was the messiah without claiming he was the messiah? How do you spread that message?

sschlichter · 12-31-2009, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

Quote:

Originally Posted by sschlichter

yes, and the outcome of maintaining such claims that resulted in crucifixion was further crucifixion. Wouldn't it make more sense to maintain that the claimant told us to keep it to ourselves so we do not get killed and then write that down?

I'm confused on what you think would be the rational move here if you're trying to exalt someone as the messiah. How do you claim he was the messiah without claiming he was the messiah? How do you spread that message?

The rational move is to not claim a dead man as the messiah. Pick a live one with some chance at power.

Elijah · 12-31-2009, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sschlichter

The rational move is to not claim a dead man as the messiah. Pick a live one with some chance at power.

Well if they were followers of JtB then they didn't have a say in the pick. They just had a say in the interpretation of that pick's death.

Wouldn't picking/following an actual living man/king to lead a rebellion make you more of a threat to the empire than following a symbolic/dead messiah who expects his followers to sacrifice themselves to the authority? Which one would really have been seen as the threat back then?

Chili · 12-31-2009, 01:14 PM

I think the movement is from baby to child to young man to fully man or simply man in the image of God now fully aware.

aa5874 · 12-31-2009, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

...Christianity had the things that most other cults had, but it had some things that other cults didn't, and I think the things that made the Christian cult especially powerful and long-lived. Those things were 1) scripturalism, 2) monotheistic authoritarianism, and 3) heaven and hell. I put emphasis on heaven and hell, because the followers of Jesus (perhaps Jesus himself) uniquely applied ultimate reward for adherents and ultimate punishment for everyone else, whereas previous religions would apply afterlife reward and punishment based on sin, not necessarily based on adherence to the ideology. Those three things and more may not be compelling to people like you and me, but they are very powerful motivational forces for ordinary people.

The longevity of belief in Jesus the God/Man was directly related to Constantine. IT was Constantine that saved JESUS of Nazareth and his believers.

People who believed in the God/Man, the Ghost of God, were ridiculed and laughed at in the 2nd century.

Those who believed in Jesus the God/Man, the Ghost of God, were called cannibals and were operating in secret.

Even Simon Magus, the magician and Holy One of God had almost the whole of Samaria worshiping him as a God in the 1st century since the days of Claudius.

The Pythagoreans, the Platonists, the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Peripatetics, and other such philosophies had more influence than the hocus-pocus magical holy ghost character called Jesus of Nazareth born of a Virgin without a human father.

And in "Octavius" by Munucius Felix, the resurrection and the threat of eternal punishment was regarded as lies,double evil and two fold madness or old women fables.

This is Caecillius in "OCTAVIUS"

Chapter 11.

Quote:

....And, not content with this wild opinion, they add to it and associate with it old women's fables: they say that they will rise again after death, and ashes, and dust; and with I know not what confidence, they believe by turns in one another's lies: you would think that they had already lived again.

It is a double evil and a twofold madness to denounce destruction to the heaven and the stars, which we leave just as we find them, and to promise eternity to ourselves, who are dead and extinct— who, as we are born, so also perish!...

As far back as the 2nd century the doctrine of of people who believed in the God/man/Ghost of God was considered double evil and double madness.

It was Constantine that saved Jesus, the Ghost of God.

Loomis · 12-31-2009, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

...thus fulfilling the prophecy, "They will midrash the midrash".

spin · 12-31-2009, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Why don't you do yourself and everyone else a favor and instead of writing what you believe, write what you actually have evidence for. (Your beliefs won't have much impact on anyone.) The result will be much shorter.

Everyone else ? When did I give you permission to speak for me, sister ? :huh:

Ah you bein' coy, sistah? Nex tahm, ah guess ah'll hafta say "evra-one else 'cept sistah Solo".

npis

aa5874 · 12-31-2009, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

....Why don't you just tell the people the gospel truth, the good news, that Jesus was nothing but fiction?

You probably won't see the irony of your quoting the likeliest genesis of historical Jesus.

Note that Cerinthus/Carpocrates/Ebionites did not believe Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost, but that he was brought into the world through sexual intercourse between Joseph and Mary and Christ - or the Holy Ghost - descended on him during baptism in mid-life. That at some later point, the Christian mystery hounds created a tale of the miraculous birth of a "baby Jesus", out of beliefs of midlife spiritual birth, in which men and women are born again of water and spirit, would not be at all surprising to someone who reads the texts carefully and thinks about what he or she reads.

Well, if one reads the texts carefully and think about what he or she reads then you would notice that the same people who believed Jesus was conceived by sexual intercourse between Joseph and Mary also believed Jesus was raised from the dead.

Why did the NON-mystery hounds[/u] claim Jesus had a SUPERNATURAL resurrection although NOT born of water and spirit?

Because Jesus was just a belief. Jesus was not historical.

Now read the texts carefully.

"Against Heresies" XXVI

Quote:

.....But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being.

It is clear that those who claimed Jesus was born through sexual intercourse by Joseph and Mary also were "Christian Mystery Hounds".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

When reading the gospels you need to realize - as a first thing - that they were written in riddles. Things in them do not have the ordinary meaning. A star is not a star, a great light in the sky is not in the sky. A babe is not a babe, but someone who has just received spiritual birth through an ecstatic experience. It is only when you begin to approach the writings with this frame of mind and connect the manifold threads, that the texts become meaningful.

Well if a star is not a star[ and a babe is not a babe then what was Jesus?

Jesus was not Jesus. He was nothing but an ecstatic belief.

Are you a "Christian Mystery Hound"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

....to known phenomena associated with medical issues with temporal lobe function. One of the most commonly reported effects by subjects in post-seizure periods is a sense that life begins anew, - from scratch, as it were - but that one has received enormously important knowledge in the experience and a guide to the meaning to life from an impeccable source.

Jiri

You appear to be a "MYSTERY HOUND", if not Christian, Secular.

gurugeorge · 12-31-2009, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

The Gospel of Abe

To the thinkers of the 21st century world.

This is nicely written, but to me it's just a kind of transliteration of the fantastical story of Joshua the Messiah into rationalist terms. All you've done is taken the story we have and naturalised it, taken out the fantastical elements (or found rational explanations for them) and posited a story that hangs together.

If you strip the fantastical crap out of the story, you have a naturalised story that COULD have happened. No one's denying that. What's not being given is something that makes it likely the story is factual rather than made up. How are you going to distinguish?

ApostateAbe · 12-31-2009, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

The Gospel of Abe

To the thinkers of the 21st century world.

This is nicely written, but to me it's just a kind of transliteration of the fantastical story of Joshua the Messiah into rationalist terms. All you've done is taken the story we have and naturalised it, taken out the fantastical elements (or found rational explanations for them) and posited a story that hangs together.

If you strip the fantastical crap out of the story, you have a naturalised story that COULD have happened. No one's denying that. What's not being given is something that makes it likely the story is factual rather than made up. How are you going to distinguish?

I can't, really, and there is no better way. It is the normal and legitimate historical method to rely on the earliest myths after the unlikelihoods and conflicts of interest are gleaned out of it. If the result makes consistent sense with the evidence, then I think that is the best we can do.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

12-31-2009, 01:14 PM	#44
Chili Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Alberta Posts: 11,885	I think the movement is from baby to child to young man to fully man or simply man in the image of God now fully aware.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.