Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Mythra · 07-11-2006, 08:12 AM

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Originally Posted by Solo

His boom is lowered against the Jewish Gnostic cackle around Cephas

Not sure what Cephas has to do with the gnostics.

But if Paul was anti-gnostic, it sure is strange that his #1 fan was Marcion.

Solo · 07-11-2006, 09:16 AM

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Originally Posted by Mythra

Not sure what Cephas has to do with the gnostics.

But if Paul was anti-gnostic, it sure is strange that his #1 fan was Marcion.

The term "gnostic", the understanding of gnosticism, and its offshhots in, or relation to, the Jewish apocalyptics have undergone a lot of revision in the last thirty -or-so years. For the scholarly base of my view, see e.g. Walter Schmithals' "Paul and the Gnostics", Ch. 1, The Heretics in Galatia.

JS

spin · 07-13-2006, 04:40 AM

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Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Okay, so which primary sources make this inference obvious?

Who looks after Judea's affairs from a distance?

What happens to Judea when the appointed king kicks the bucket??

This is not rocket science. Who did the census? Who resolved the disturbances?

spin

Ben C Smith · 07-13-2006, 06:10 AM

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Originally Posted by spin

Who looks after Judea's affairs from a distance?

Between Archelaus and Agrippa, Syria does. After Agrippa, the emperor (through his procurators).

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What happens to Judea when the appointed king kicks the bucket??

Judea is placed under procurators.

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This is not rocket science. Who did the census? Who resolved the disturbances?

Syria did the census; that was between Archelaus and Agrippa.

The procurators resolved the disturbances (Theudas, the anonymous enchanters under Felix and Festus, the Egyptian) after Agrippa.

I agree it is not rocket science. It should therefore be easy for you to round up a couple of primary texts to support your contention.

Ben.

Gamera · 07-13-2006, 01:51 PM

[QUOTE=Johnny Skeptic]

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Gamera basically claims that early Christians made unprecedented, extraordinary ethical advances, by implication that such advances could only have come from God. Otherwise, all that you would have would be a group of people who made unusual ethical advances for entirely secular reasons.

I made no such claim. I raised the uniqueness of the teachings of Christianity as a rebuttal to your claim. You claimed that Christianity spread due to its aggressive political power. I pointed out (using one of the very scholars you cited) that a better explanation is that Christianity offered an ethical view that satisfied certain existential longings that classic paganism did not.

This argument on its face makes no claim that those teachings had to have come from God, or prove that they came from God, or had anything to do with any apologetic.

Try to focus on your own line of argumentation. It's something of a pity that I have to remind you of what you youself are arguing.

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Ethics is in fact a quite strange word to use here. Hebrews 8:6 says "But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." Now really, folks, if you invented a cure for cancer, which certainly would not be as helpful to the world as a much better covenant, would you withold it from the world for 4,000 years, although it was needed just as much 4,000 years prior, then give it to the world but allow hundreds of millions of people to die of cancer because you chose to give the cure only to people who were lucky enough to live within a certain geographic proximity to where the cure was developed, leave the spread of the cure up to the grossly inefficient means of transportation and communication of ancient times, and encourage people to believe that you were ethical?

This is an off the topic exercise in rhetoric.

Gamera · 07-13-2006, 01:56 PM

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Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

My expert Rodney Stark, and all of his numerous corroborative sources, attributed the growth of the early Christian church entirely to secular evidence, not to God's involvement. Don’t you think that they considered arguments like yours? If early Christians were more ethical than anyone else, that does not necessarily prove that it was because of God. At any rate, since when will good ethics get anyone into heaven?

I told you in another thread that it is my position that God is not ethical. If God is not ethical, then what difference does it make if early Christians were ethical? No belief system can be any better than its source, and if you do not wish to defend the ethics of God, I will win by default.

God's priorities are indeed suspect, and suggest that he does not exist. A loving God's #1 priority would have to be insuring that as many people as possible go to heaven, and as few people as possible go to hell. God has not done that. Today, if Jesus made some more appearances, surely some people would become Christians who were not previously convinced, and surely they deserve that chance. Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and other historical characters, attracted lots of followers based upon much less evidence that the miracles that the Bible attributes to Jesus.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

Mark 8:2-3 I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat: And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Luke 15:10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

Johnny: Now really, are you going to try to tell me that Jesus had compassion upon people because of their brief, temporal needs for physical healing and food, and suffered on the cross for mankind, and yet God refuses to do all that he can in order to insure that as many people as possible go to heaven, and as few people as possible go to hell? A loving God who was willing to give mankind something that cost him a lot would surely be much more willing to give mankind something that would cost him little, namely sending Jesus back to earth to make some more appearances. God could not possibly have anything to lose by doing that, and surely mankind would have much to gain.

To what extent would a loving God go in order to keep people from going to hell? Surely to a much greater extent than God has gone to. Is there anything that God can do in order to increase the number of people who will go to heaven? Of course there is and you know it.

Many Christians claim that there is a lot of evidence other than faith that reasonably proves that the Bible should be trusted, but they would surely reject THE VERY SAME EVIDENCE if the evidence said that everyone would go to hell. In other words, the number of eyewitnesses, the number of gospels, or the number of copies of ancient manuscripts would not matter at all, in fact, even if the evidence was twice as good as the evidence that is found in the Bible. In other words, even if the evidence had been just as good, or even twice as good, that Christians would go to hell, CHRISTIANITY WOULD NEVER HAVE BEGUN.

Regardless of the evidence, self-interest ALWAYS presumes that whenever a person is confronted by evidence that claims that he will go to hell, it is best to argue against the evidence, or if a person is uncertain to hope that the evidence was wrong. There would be no possible advantage in doing otherwise.

If a powerful being came from outer space, claimed be a God other than the God of the Bible, demonstrated FIRSTHAND in front of everyone in the world, not hearsay evidence like in the Bible, that he could destroy a mountain in one second, said that he was going to destroy the earth in six months, and left the earth, most Christians would hope that the supposed God would somehow not be able to carry out his threat. On the other hand, if a being from outer space came to earth, claimed that he was Jesus, and demonstrated THE EXACT SAME POWERS, Christians would hope, in fact assume, that the being was actually Jesus.

Hypothetical arguments are often excellent means of revealing inconsistent arguments. Christians frequently use them whenever they believe that it suits their purposes to do so. A good example is C. S. Lewis’ ‘Lord, Liar, or Lunatic.’ Evidence that cannot be credibly consistently applied is not evidence at all.

It was Stark herself who pointed out in the quote you cited (but apparently didn't read carefully) that one of the reasons Christianity spread so quickly was its ethical system that offered some respite from the violence and power-worship of classic paganism.

I used that very quote to rebut your ultimate argumetn that Christianity is an example of a fictional or hoaxlike ideology that spread through force of arms.

That really just about sums it up. Your strained interpretations of Luke don't really add anything to the argument.

Gamera · 07-13-2006, 02:44 PM

[QUOTE=countjulian]

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But so did Stoicism. The 3 Discourse of Epictetus (Book 1) is even entitled "What Can We Conclude from the Doctrine that God is the Father of Mankind?" In it, he says

This is hardly an argument against slavery.

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You also ignored my posts on slavery in the New Testament, as well as the fact that in pre-Civil War South the Bible was used to uphold slavery, and indeed the Quakers and other antislavery groups had "no arrows in their quiver" when Southerners quoted verses like

I ignored them because you've read into them more than what's there. Paul doesn't call for social revolution, it's true. But in fact the radical teachings of Christianity lead to revolution since the anti-slavery movement was bascially a Christian movement in Europe and America.

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The fact is, the only verse in the Bible that could possibly be interpreted to be against slavery is in Deuteronomy, a book which Christians such as yourself usually refuse to even acknowledge. That verse was, by the way, abrogated by the the New Testament.

The OT and NT are clearly different. That's why I'm a Christian. The NT explicity teaches that social inequality is a human construct contrary to God. It doesn't call for revolution, but revolution flowed out of it. Something an insightful Roman procurator would surely see.

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It's pretty safe to say that without Christianity slavery would have been abolished much sooner. Just listen to what the slavery advocates said

That's hard to beleive since slavery existed for thousand of years before Christianity. The fact that some slave holders contorted Christian teachings to promote slavery hardly changes the fact that Christian teaching is incompatible with slavery.

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As a student of American history, I can tell you that you are just plain wrong. Slavery was upheld by the Bible, and the only reason abolitionists were Christians is because EVERYONE at that time was a Christian.

Nope, the abolitionist movement wasn't just "made up" of Christians; it was explicitly Christian and explicitly argued that slavery was incompatible with the NT. There is simply no denying that.

Gamera · 07-13-2006, 03:00 PM

[QUOTE=countjulian]

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By the same token, Jesus' admonishment to the young man to sell all he has and follow him could "easily be slotted into the category of traditional Roman values." Same thing with anything else that was said by Jesus or Paul about poverty and simplicity.

Perhaps a chrei from the life of Crates could be compared

And also this

There's a difference. Asceticism was an ancient practice -- punishing the body because the body was "carnal," and thus liberating the spirit. The cynics practics asceticism (as the example you give shows). Paul specifically rejected asceticism (though it did creep into later Christianity) because Christianity rejects the idea of the body as being "bad" and the spirit "good." One's spirit has plenty of problems, and isn't good per se.

Roman leaders didn't care much about ascetics. They were no threat.

However, Jesus told the young to give away his goods not to punish his body, but so that he could follow him more perfectly. And that is a threat, since Jesus makes a distinction between Mammon, and the system of this world, and following God. In fact, he does it over and over again.

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Point being? There were lots of rich Christian bishops. Even Paul whined about needing more money in his epistles.

Point being? Obviously historical Christianity strayed from the NT teachings. We're discussing how the Romans were perceive those teachings. Try to take your detractor's hat off long enough to stick to the subject. Paul whined about money because he was impoverished and needed money to eat, which by the way he refused to accept from anybody, but earned it as a tent maker (a point he makes perhaps too vociferously). That's hardly an argument for enjoying riches.

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But much the smae could be said of the church, especially the early church. After all, you had the deacons, then the priests, then the bishops, and amongst the lay people you had an "aristocracy" of Christ-likness; and the "virgins" and the "widows" were an incredibly self-segraget and esteemed "community within the community", even in the letters of Paul.

Priests didn't exist in the early church. The only persons mentioned in the NT are elders. Hardly an aristocracy. The point of the elders was to serve the church, not to run it.

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But according to Epictetus, Cynics stood for the same thing, and he uses much more violent illustration

Why did not Rome think such talk seditious? Why, he was circumventing Roman authority, appealing strait to God over Rome's head! Stoics/Cynics to lions

Again, enjoying a good flogging is a form of asceticism, which has a history much older than the Cynics. It was of no threat to Rome for the reasons I pointed out above: it linked up with no ethical system urging allegiance to some authority other than Rome.

countjulian · 07-13-2006, 07:29 PM

Ahh, Gemara, you seem to be "flip-flopping", as Bush put it (I'm an atheist but if you visit the PD you'll see I;m actually rather politically conservative).

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Priests didn't exist in the early church. The only persons mentioned in the NT are elders. Hardly an aristocracy. The point of the elders was to serve the church, not to run it.

Hmmmmmm, well first off, I guess you don't consider the Pastorals to be authentic, sine the most most certainly do mention Episkipoi. Second, what do you think a Roman official looking in from the outside would have thought? "Oh, the elders arn't above the laity, they're just there to protect the flock (kind of like Joseph Stalin and the communist party in Russia)? They act as the judges, but they're just their to protect the nice Christians (horrors!)" Anyway, you ignored my point about the virgins and widows. In his letters, Paul clearly says that celibates are better than married couples. He also set the virgin and widow communities of in a number of other ways. Also, Priests developed relativly early; if their suppossedly anarchistic tendencies were the reason the Romans persecuted Christians, why did the persecution under Diocletian (the most documented and most severe) happen at a point where the priestly aristocracy was so well developed?

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There's a difference. Asceticism was an ancient practice -- punishing the body because the body was "carnal," and thus liberating the spirit. The cynics practics asceticism (as the example you give shows). Paul specifically rejected asceticism (though it did creep into later Christianity) because Christianity rejects the idea of the body as being "bad" and the spirit "good." One's spirit has plenty of problems, and isn't good per se.

However, Jesus told the young to give away his goods not to punish his body, but so that he could follow him more perfectly. And that is a threat, since Jesus makes a distinction between Mammon, and the system of this world, and following God. In fact, he does it over and over again.

What did that chrei have to do at all with "punishing the body?" That was never mentioned or implied anymore than the idea that the rich young man was going to be "punishing his body" by "selling all he had and following Jesus."

The story is strikingly similiar to that of the rich young man: Crates comes to see Diogenes, Diogenes tells Crates to get rid of everything he has and follow him, Crates does so (unlike the other story).

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Point being? Obviously historical Christianity strayed from the NT teachings. We're discussing how the Romans were perceive those teachings. Try to take your detractor's hat off long enough to stick to the subject. Paul whined about money because he was impoverished and needed money to eat, which by the way he refused to accept from anybody, but earned it as a tent maker (a point he makes perhaps too vociferously). That's hardly an argument for enjoying riches.

Ah-ha! Seems to be a little flip flopping going on here. Before in response to my quote from Seneca "Only those who have despised wealth are worthy of God" you said

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Again, a trope. One can be rich and proclaim one's despite for wealth. And moan about the burdens of having to be rich in this complex world. I'm sure more a few Roman politicians did so.

Yet now you say

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Obviously historical Christianity strayed from the NT teachings. We're discussing how the Romans were perceive those teachings.

Tell me, even if Seneca did stray from Stoic teaching, why did the Romans not then persecute them for how they "perceive[d] those teachings?" Then again, Nero did kill Seneca, although not explicitly for his Stoicism.

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Again, enjoying a good flogging is a form of asceticism, which has a history much older than the Cynics. It was of no threat to Rome for the reasons I pointed out above: it linked up with no ethical system urging allegiance to some authority other than Rome.

But you ignored the crucial point of Epictetus, that when one is hurt and beaten, they must "love the floggers as if he were the brother or father of them all."

And some did indeed question whether or note Stoic teachings were subversive, in teaching that men had nothing to fear from civil authorities

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Book I Chapter 29

Therefore when the tyrant threatens and calls me, I say, "Whom do you threaten?" If he says, "I will put you in chains," I say, "You threaten my hands and my feet." If he says, "I will cut off your head," I reply, "You threaten my head." If he says, "I will throw you into prison," I say, "You threaten the whole of this poor body." If he threatens me with banishment, I say the same. "Does he, then, not threaten you at all?" If I feel that all these things do not concern me, he does not threaten me at all; but if I fear any of them, it is I whom he threatens. Whom then do I fear? the master of what? The master of things which are in my own power? There is no such master. Do I fear the master of things which are not in my power? And what are these things to me?

"Do you philosophers then teach us to despise kings?"

He even went so far as to say that Helvidius Priscus and other rebels against imperial authority were heroes and had acted rightly.

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Priscus Helvidius also saw this, and acted conformably. For when Vespasian sent and commanded him not to go into the senate, he replied, "It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the senate, but so long as I am, I must go in." "Well, go in then," says the emperor, "but say nothing." "Do not ask my opinion, and I will be silent." "But I must ask your opinion." "And I must say what I think right." "But if you do, I shall put you to death." "When then did I tell you that I am immortal? You will do your part, and I will do mine: it is your part to kill; it is mine to die, but not in fear: yours to banish me; mine to depart without sorrow."

What good then did Priscus do, who was only a single person? And what good does the purple do for the toga? Why, what else than this, that it is conspicuous in the toga as purple, and is displayed also as a fine example to all other things? But in such circumstances another would have replied to Caesar who forbade him to enter the senate, "I thank you for sparing me." But such a man Vespasian would not even have forbidden to enter the senate, for he knew that he would either sit there like an earthen vessel, or, if he spoke, he would say what Caesar wished, and add even more.

countjulian · 07-13-2006, 07:36 PM

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This is hardly an argument against slavery.

Totally agreed. Never said it was. But then again, you did.

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On it's face its[Christianity's] theology contradicted slavery because it posited that every human was the a child of God. Leaving aside the fact that Paul says explicitly that there is no slave or freeman in Christ

Of course, I will point out again that Seneca and all of the other Stoics went farther than Paul, saying that all men, whether Emperor or sex slave, where actually all slaves to fate unless they had their judgments in line with nature, and that the Emperor did not while a slave (as Diogenes had been) could exist in this state.

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The OT and NT are clearly different. That's why I'm a Christian. The NT explicity teaches that social inequality is a human construct contrary to God. It doesn't call for revolution, but revolution flowed out of it. Something an insightful Roman procurator would surely see.

Then why is that this "revolution" against slavery had to wait till the 18th and 19th centuies? Christianity took over the Empire, but things just got worse for individual libertas; in the West, the vast majority of formerly free citizens were reduced to serfdom, and in the East the Byzantine Emperor consilidated his power to a greater exetent than had ever been seen even under Rome's most autocratic pagan emperors. Again, these "revolutions" were a long time in coming; appaerently, only 18th, 19th, and 20th century Christians have "interpeted Christianity's teachings correctly", wilst their 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th century brothers were woefully decieved, apparently.

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That's hard to beleive since slavery existed for thousand of years before Christianity. The fact that some slave holders contorted Christian teachings to promote slavery hardly changes the fact that Christian teaching is incompatible with slavery.

You say that, yet you have not been able to cite a single passage of scripture or historical Christian writing until the 18th century to support you position, while the slavocracy position was bolstered by more than half a dozen passages in the NEW Testament.

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