Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Roger Pearse · 01-03-2008, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

They didn't? Can you tell me what the nature and extent of your familiarity is with Greco Roman cultural and philosophical history that allows you to say this so confidently and apodictically?

Umm, there's Anaxagoras, Strato, Epicurus, Lucretius, Euhemerus, Theodorus of Cyrne, Prodicus, Lucian, and (probably -- on this see Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (or via: amazon.co.uk)) Democritus, Xenophanes. and Leucippus.

Better tell that to Thucydides or to Lucian whose essay on "How to Write History" I take it you are not familiar with.

Yes, I am of course familiar with these figures. None of them engaged in a systematic forensic investigation to disprove the existence of various heroes such as Hercules, etc., they engaged in generalized philosophical arguments against the gods.

Um, is that what Lucian does in his discussion of Alexander of Abuteichnos and his god Glycon? <hint>

But it sounds a little as if you are trying to shift the grounds of your assertion, you know.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Malachi151 · 01-03-2008, 06:43 AM

Well, but the case of Alexander and Glycon doesn't really serve us either.

Taken from your own website Roger:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lu..._alexander.htm

It does exhibit critical observation and commentary on a known huckster to whom Lucan was apparently an eye witness, but this isn't the same as showing that a person/god about whom stories were written never existed.

In this case, Lucan knows personally of Alexander, who is a real person, and he is debunking the fake snake god for whom he apparently was putting on magic shows in demonstrating his birth.

So in this case its not something that never existed, but a guy in a temple somewhere pulling a snake out of, perhaps, a womans "birth parts" and proclaiming him as a god.

Debunking this event is not quite the same as taking a widespread story about a god-man who was crucified by Pilate and showing that it never happened 100+ year after the fact.

I'll grant a partial score here, at least on the grounds of some critical reporting, but its still not the same. This is not much different than Josephus' complains about fake prophets in his writings.

Alexander was real. Glycon was ostensibly real. They just weren't gods or prophets.

If anything this created precedent, especially since we are possibly also dealing with Celsus here, to the tendency to view such stories as always fabrications around real beings.

But again, we are dealing with a predicted Jewish messiah, which is quite a different concept than what the Romans dealt with, and thus they perhaps had the tendency to view these things along the lines of Alexander, i.e. as real fakers, not as stories come to life.

Malachi151 · 01-03-2008, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

My thoughts regarding the OP's question (which has some definitional probems since "Romans" and "Christians" were not exactly mutually exclusive. Paul himself was both a Christian and a Roman citizen) are that any Roman authorities who thought Christianity was becoming a nuisance would not have regarded debunking their specific beliefs as very important. The Romans pretty ecumenical and didn't really care what anyone believed as long as they payed some token tribute to the state temples (which was more about showing loyalty to the Emperor than it was about religion).

Christians were unpopular largely because they not only refused to acknowledge or sacrifice to the state gods, they actively derided those gods, or any other god but their own, and they were perceived as obnoxious, unpatriotic, disloyal, proselytizing fanatics who wouldn't even fight for their country or show some basic respect to the trappings of the state. They weren't hated for their "faith" (which no one gave a damn about), but for their behavior, their disrespect for tradition, country and the gods and their insufferable self-righteousness. Their historical claims and beliefs about Jesus weren't the problem, their actions and attitudes were.

Beyond that, most Roman authorities (be it the Emperor or be it local governors), if they ever bothered to even find out what Christians believed about their "Christ" would probably not have found any reason to doubt that the "disease" (as Tacitus called it and which was probably fairly representative of how Roman aristocracy would have described it) was actually founded by a crucified criminal in a backwater city in the Syrian province. Even if they had wanted to disprove that criminal's historicity, there was no feasible way to do so probably even within a few decades after the crucifixion and certainly not after 70.

Furthermore, Roman authorities would not have seen christians as peers or democratic adversaries who they had any obligation to argue with. Why bother arguing theology when you can just beat the shit out of them or kill them instead? Brute force is a much easier and more effective way to get people in line than attempting to perform a forensic historical examination of the historical claims of a cult of fantical slaves and lowlifes who aren't going to listen to you anyway. The notion that some prefect or governor or the Emperor himself would feel any need to factually rebut anything shows anachronistic thinking, in my opinion. Whatever the Emperor said was true because he said it and that was the end of it, as far as they were concerned.

Yeah, what he said....

Ben C Smith · 01-03-2008, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

Crucifiction....

What is the source of this persistently repeated misspelling of this word? Is it that chapter that Robert Price jokingly and cleverly called The Cruci-Fiction? Or is it more widespread than that?

(Not picking on you in particular, storytime; lots of people on this board seem to spell it that way, and some may even be doing it on purpose.)

Ben.

Ben C Smith · 01-03-2008, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

I'll grant a partial score here, at least on the grounds of some critical reporting, but its still not the same.

You originally wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

The fact is that people simply didn't think that way back then. "Proving that a god didn't exist"? Show one instance where anyone in the ancient world, Roman or otherwise, went about proving that any god didn't exist.

Roger gave you one instance. Lucian set out to show that the god Glycon did not exist. (As far as we can tell, Alexander invented Glycon from whole cloth; he did not get him from some Greek myth, for example.)

Enough with the partial score talk. This is exactly what you asked for; if it is not what you wanted, that would be because you did not ask for what you wanted.

Ben.

Dirge · 01-03-2008, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

My thoughts regarding the OP's question (which has some definitional probems since "Romans" and "Christians" were not exactly mutually exclusive. Paul himself was both a Christian and a Roman citizen) are that any Roman authorities who thought Christianity was becoming a nuisance would not have regarded debunking their specific beliefs as very important. The Romans pretty ecumenical and didn't really care what anyone believed as long as they payed some token tribute to the state temples (which was more about showing loyalty to the Emperor than it was about religion).

Christians were unpopular largely because they not only refused to acknowledge or sacrifice to the state gods, they actively derided those gods, or any other god but their own, and they were perceived as obnoxious, unpatriotic, disloyal, proselytizing fanatics who wouldn't even fight for their country or show some basic respect to the trappings of the state. They weren't hated for their "faith" (which no one gave a damn about), but for their behavior, their disrespect for tradition, country and the gods and their insufferable self-righteousness. Their historical claims and beliefs about Jesus weren't the problem, their actions and attitudes were.

Beyond that, most Roman authorities (be it the Emperor or be it local governors), if they ever bothered to even find out what Christians believed about their "Christ" would probably not have found any reason to doubt that the "disease" (as Tacitus called it and which was probably fairly representative of how Roman aristocracy would have described it) was actually founded by a crucified criminal in a backwater city in the Syrian province. Even if they had wanted to disprove that criminal's historicity, there was no feasible way to do so probably even within a few decades after the crucifixion and certainly not after 70.

Furthermore, Roman authorities would not have seen christians as peers or democratic adversaries who they had any obligation to argue with. Why bother arguing theology when you can just beat the shit out of them or kill them instead? Brute force is a much easier and more effective way to get people in line than attempting to perform a forensic historical examination of the historical claims of a cult of fantical slaves and lowlifes who aren't going to listen to you anyway. The notion that some prefect or governor or the Emperor himself would feel any need to factually rebut anything shows anachronistic thinking, in my opinion. Whatever the Emperor said was true because he said it and that was the end of it, as far as they were concerned.

From an earlier link posted, they had discovered Christian writings in Eqypt from 150AD. Some claim parts of the Didache were written as early as 60AD, which would place some of the people reading it in the same historic period as Christ. If true, you'd think someone in the Middle East, reading the Didache, perhaps near Calvary, would remember back to the claimed crucifixtion, get a little suspicious, and tell others. People lived into their 80s and 90s back then, even 9f the average life expectancy was lower, while passing on oral history. The Jews must have had a reason to claim that the Xians stole the body from the tomb, in their writings, in an effort to deny the resurrection.

Solitary Man · 01-03-2008, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

Crucifiction....

What is the source of this persistently repeated misspelling of this word? Is it that chapter that Robert Price jokingly and cleverly called The Cruci-Fiction? Or is it more widespread than that?

(Not picking on you in particular, storytime; lots of people on this board seem to spell it that way, and some may even be doing it on purpose.)

Ben.

It should have been that way when it came over to the mainland. We also spell connection while the British (sometimes) spell connexion.

Diogenes the Cynic · 01-03-2008, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dirge

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

My thoughts regarding the OP's question (which has some definitional probems since "Romans" and "Christians" were not exactly mutually exclusive. Paul himself was both a Christian and a Roman citizen) are that any Roman authorities who thought Christianity was becoming a nuisance would not have regarded debunking their specific beliefs as very important. The Romans pretty ecumenical and didn't really care what anyone believed as long as they payed some token tribute to the state temples (which was more about showing loyalty to the Emperor than it was about religion).

Christians were unpopular largely because they not only refused to acknowledge or sacrifice to the state gods, they actively derided those gods, or any other god but their own, and they were perceived as obnoxious, unpatriotic, disloyal, proselytizing fanatics who wouldn't even fight for their country or show some basic respect to the trappings of the state. They weren't hated for their "faith" (which no one gave a damn about), but for their behavior, their disrespect for tradition, country and the gods and their insufferable self-righteousness. Their historical claims and beliefs about Jesus weren't the problem, their actions and attitudes were.

Beyond that, most Roman authorities (be it the Emperor or be it local governors), if they ever bothered to even find out what Christians believed about their "Christ" would probably not have found any reason to doubt that the "disease" (as Tacitus called it and which was probably fairly representative of how Roman aristocracy would have described it) was actually founded by a crucified criminal in a backwater city in the Syrian province. Even if they had wanted to disprove that criminal's historicity, there was no feasible way to do so probably even within a few decades after the crucifixion and certainly not after 70.

Furthermore, Roman authorities would not have seen christians as peers or democratic adversaries who they had any obligation to argue with. Why bother arguing theology when you can just beat the shit out of them or kill them instead? Brute force is a much easier and more effective way to get people in line than attempting to perform a forensic historical examination of the historical claims of a cult of fantical slaves and lowlifes who aren't going to listen to you anyway. The notion that some prefect or governor or the Emperor himself would feel any need to factually rebut anything shows anachronistic thinking, in my opinion. Whatever the Emperor said was true because he said it and that was the end of it, as far as they were concerned.

From an earlier link posted, they had discovered Christian writings in Eqypt from 150AD. Some claim parts of the Didache were written as early as 60AD, which would place some of the people reading it in the same historic period as Christ. If true, you'd think someone in the Middle East, reading the Didache, perhaps near Calvary, would remember back to the claimed crucifixtion, get a little suspicious, and tell others.

Would remember what? Tell others what? That they never heard of Jesus? So what? That they never saw or heard about a guy coming back from the dead? Again, so what?

For that matter, how do you know anybody didn't say that? Why would there be any record of it? Why would it have any effect at all on the movement or even be noticed?

Quote:

People lived into their 80s and 90s back then, even 9f the average life expectancy was lower, while passing on oral history.

It's highly unlikely that anyone in the audience for a reading of any of the Gospels would have any living memory Pilate's Judea. These were mostly Gentile audiences outside of Palestine after Jerusalem had been destroyed. The odds of a surviving Palestinan Jew with memories of the Pilatean era being in the audience were vanishingly small, and even if they were, there was no reason they should be expected to remember the execution of one particular rabble rouser. If there was no HJ, all they'd be able to say is that they'd never heard of him, which would have meant nothing to the faithful.

Quote:

The Jews must have had a reason to claim that the Xians stole the body from the tomb, in their writings, in an effort to deny the resurrection.

There were no contemporary Jewish claims to that effect.

zonmoy · 01-03-2008, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by zonmoy

...
assuming they didnt try it. do you really think that the christians would have kept anything around that showed evidence that their belief system was false. or at minimum they would have distorted the evidence so that it would be easily debunked.

This is an interesting question. There were clearly some things Christians tried to suppress, but we know a lot about their enemies because they spent time refuting them, although we still can't be sure that we have a good summary of the opposition.

But the opposition to Christianity was based on philosophical objections, not naturalistic in any case.

by that I assume you mean the opposition that wasnt simply buried because the cult had no way of countering their claims. can a cult that takes over the most powerful civilization at the time bury any evidence that contradicts their belief system to the point that it becomes completely lost.

Diogenes the Cynic · 01-03-2008, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zonmoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

This is an interesting question. There were clearly some things Christians tried to suppress, but we know a lot about their enemies because they spent time refuting them, although we still can't be sure that we have a good summary of the opposition.

But the opposition to Christianity was based on philosophical objections, not naturalistic in any case.

by that I assume you mean the opposition that wasnt simply buried because the cult had no way of countering their claims. can a cult that takes over the most powerful civilization at the time bury any evidence that contradicts their belief system to the point that it becomes completely lost.

What evidence could have even theoretically falsified Christian doctrine? What forensic evidence was there to bury or suppress?

They had opposition from groups like Gnostics who made different theological and historical claims but the heretics had no more demonstrable evidence for their claims than the proto-orthodox communities did.

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01-03-2008, 06:43 AM	#72
Malachi151 Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 8,674	Well, but the case of Alexander and Glycon doesn't really serve us either. Taken from your own website Roger: http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lu..._alexander.htm It does exhibit critical observation and commentary on a known huckster to whom Lucan was apparently an eye witness, but this isn't the same as showing that a person/god about whom stories were written never existed. In this case, Lucan knows personally of Alexander, who is a real person, and he is debunking the fake snake god for whom he apparently was putting on magic shows in demonstrating his birth. So in this case its not something that never existed, but a guy in a temple somewhere pulling a snake out of, perhaps, a womans "birth parts" and proclaiming him as a god. Debunking this event is not quite the same as taking a widespread story about a god-man who was crucified by Pilate and showing that it never happened 100+ year after the fact. I'll grant a partial score here, at least on the grounds of some critical reporting, but its still not the same. This is not much different than Josephus' complains about fake prophets in his writings. Alexander was real. Glycon was ostensibly real. They just weren't gods or prophets. If anything this created precedent, especially since we are possibly also dealing with Celsus here, to the tendency to view such stories as always fabrications around real beings. But again, we are dealing with a predicted Jewish messiah, which is quite a different concept than what the Romans dealt with, and thus they perhaps had the tendency to view these things along the lines of Alexander, i.e. as real fakers, not as stories come to life.

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