JoeWallack

Greetings, all,

I've seen these Naturalist discussions for years around here, but they always seem to beat around the bush... Most of the time the Naturalists are just engaging in nitpicks around other peoples' arguments, and never go beyond a negative view of things. So let's go straight for the substance now.

When all is said and done, the success or failure of Jesus-Naturalist school of biblical interpretation will ultimately depend on whether or not they will be able to offer the _positive_ picture of how Naturalist Christianity really originated. Their task is to be able to interpret all the historical evidence in this area in such a way that a coherent picture of Christian beginnings can emerge -- without the Supernatural Jesus. And here, definitely, they have not yet succeeded so far...

So it will all depend on whether or not they can offer a historical hypothesis that would explain all the existing evidence better than all other competing hypotheses in this area. It is really as simple as that.

In particular, our Naturalists seem to face a bit of a difficulty with what may be described as "the problem of the earliest Christian martyrs". Because we know very well that -- for the first three centuries or so -- martyrdom was the fuel which propelled Christianity forwards.

It was those early Christians who, for the sake of their faith, were quite willing and eager to submit to the most cruel torture and death, who really ensured that Christianity continued to grow, until it eventually became the dominant religion of the Roman empire... So if it is assumed that in the beginning Christianity was just some sort of a Naturalism, centred on some Natural Historical son of man, located right in your own back yard -- if it is assumed that there was no Supernatural Jesus -- then one may also ask, How is it possible that, based on this, the belief in the Supernatural Jesus even managed to emerge, in the first place? And why would have those first martyrs ever submitted to torture and death with such eagerness -- if there was no Supernatural Jesus, whose Supernatural death they would have seen as having a Supernatural significance rather than a mere Natural significance and therefore a shining example that it was their duty to emulate?

Did someone fool those early martyrs in some way, to make them believe in those things that they believed? Or did they somehow manage to fool themselves?

The answers to these questions are not really so apparent in the writings of our Jesus Naturalists.

Thus, there will remain the following challenges for the Naturalists,

1. To locate the earliest Christian martyrs chronologically.

When do they think was the date of the emergence of the first Christian martyrs?

In this regard, there seems to be a huge divergence among various prominent Naturalists. OTOH, among the J Supernaturalists, there's no divergence at all in this area; they all think that, in a sense, the Supernatural Jesus, himself, was the earliest Christian martyr (or perhaps even John the Baptist before him?). Or perhaps they will pinpoint St. Steven as the earliest Christian martyr -- the same basic time frame.

2. To explain the reason why these earliest Christian martyrs were willing to submit to martyrdom.

So did these earliest martyrs believe in the Supernatural J? And if they didn't, what exactly was the reason for them to sacrifice their lives?

Were they fooled by someone? Was there a conspiracy to fool them?

And here's another interesting question,

Did the belief in the Supernatural J emerge before or after the first Christian martyrs emerge?

I'd say the Yuri is out on this.


Joseph

PRAY, v.
To ask that the immutable, 15 billion year old Laws of the universe be temporarily annulled for one second in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy in order to win a High School football game.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

http://hometown.aol.com/abdulreis/myhomepage/index.html

Julian

I don't agree that martyrdom was the fuel for christianity in the first century or so. In the beginning I believe that followers saw the eschatos as the driving force. It wasn't until that, obviously, wasn't happening anytime soon, that martyrdom became more important. Even then I am not so sure that it contributed to the same extent as the intellectual drive up until Constantine at which point the drive became simple power. We have little to no evidence of any martyrs in the first century. Ignatius is our first real candidate along with the people executed by Pliny, the latter being much more believable.

Julian

Marxist

Whatever problems Yuri's thread has, this one is much stupider. This thread should be closed.

freigeister

People sacrifice themselves for all kinds of unsupernatural, not to say unworthy, causes.

Amaleq13

PARODY, n.

A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.

freigeister

Drat! And here I thought I finally had a chance to take on a fundy rather than the usual mythicists. Oh, well. Another time perhaps.

Marxist

Please. The only thing this copy and paste job does is ridicule JoeWallack. The choice of terms Joe uses doesn't even make sense. Terms like "Naturalist Christianity," "Jesus-Naturalist school," "Supernatural Jesus," indicate Joe doesn't know what the hell he is even trying to 'argue' against.

And then he links to some sites about errors in the bible, as if it even mattered to Yuri's position, as he is not a Fundie Christian. I think he is some sort of pantheist.

Amaleq13

On the contrary, it quite cleverly illustrates the flawed nature of Yuri's parallel argument.

SIGNATURE, n.

A distinctive mark, characteristic, or sound indicating identity.

Marxist

On the contrary, it doesn't, and is practically incoherent.

Yuri Kuchinsky

I'm so happy to have a Marxist on my side!

Cheers,

Yuri.