ApostateAbe

I have written and debated history with Christians and atheists for years, I have followed the trends of debate and religious issues, I have spent a lot of time arguing in favor of the model of a historical human Jesus, and I have a big concern about the current social trend.

Cookie-cutter Christs

In this forum, there are plenty of people who are strongly doubtful of the existence of the historical human Jesus. Though I disagree with it, that general position is relatively reasonable. The evidence for a human Jesus is relatively scarce and untrustworthy, and there is room for plenty of plausible positions about the historical Jesus. In this forum, there is nobody who sticks around and argues in favor of what I will call the "cookie-cutter Christs theory" (CCC), a la Kersey Graves and Acharya S.

CCC is the theory that Jesus was a merely mythical character whose traits were inspired by the mythical god-men of the world. The theory began primarily with a book by Kersey Graves titled, Sixteen Crucified Saviors (published on infidels.org), in which he proposed that sixteen mythical characters in history were also born on December 25th, were born of humble virgins, had twelve disciples, were crucified, and were raised back to life. Graves' claims were written without citations, and the claims remain without evidence, but they remain present today among anti-religious activists and authors. Such a theory rose to prominence with Arthur Drews, and the focus today has narrowed mainly to claimed similarities between Jesus and Mithra, Horus, and/or Krishna. There are many other titles to such a theory besides "cookie-cutter Christs," ("pagan parallels," "crucified god-men," "copycat Christs"), but I will call them CCC.

There is one poster in this forum who only occasionally drops in and argues for the such claims, but he is like a voice in the wilderness around here, and the bullshit is roundly ridiculed. Every ideological/activist group of people has their own fringe idiots who advocate nutty or unlikely ideas. So what's the problem?

The Problem

Outside this forum, it is different. Outside this forum, the cookie-cutter Christ theory shares a big place on the table in anti-religious rhetoric.

Why do I think this? It is because of what I see in the organizations, the online videos and everyday observations on the Internet. I'll write a lot of paragraphs proving this point. If you already agree with it, then skip to the end.

Since CCC is so appealing and compatible with anti-religious activism, it is especially popular among those who routinely argue against Christianity among the general public, especially when the only people refuting such ideas are Christians who believe something even more unlikely.

Atheist Organizations

There are two large national organizations that represent atheists in the United States. They are the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The American Atheists has a website that has a section about the issues of history. It has many articles written by Frank Zindler, the managing editor of American Atheist Press.

In the fourteen articles listed in the section on "Judaism And Christianity," about seven focus on Jesus being merely a myth, and, confoundingly, four articles focus on Nazareth being merely a mythical town at the time of Jesus. In the article titled, "How Jesus Got a Life," there is an excerpt repeating Kersey Graves' claims about commonalities between Mithras and Jesus.

III. Christianity was derived as much from Mithraism as from Judaism. Understanding the origin of Mithraism is crucial to understanding the origin of Christianity.

The mystery religion to which early Christianity seems most closely related is Mithraism. Mithra (also spelled Mithras), a Graeco-Persian invention, was born of a virgin on the winter solstice - frequently December 25th in the Julian calendar. Being a solar deity, Mithra was worshipped on Sundays; after Mithra had become amalgamated with Helios, he was depicted with a halo, nimbus, or glory around his head. In some cases it has been difficult to tell if ancient images were intended as depictions of Mithra or Jesus. The leader of the cult was called a pope (papa) and he ruled from a "mithraeum" on the Vatican Hill in Rome. A prominent iconographic feature in Mithraism was a large key, needed to unlock the celestial gates through which souls of the deceased were believed to pass. It would appear that the "keys of the Kingdom" held by the popes as successors to "St. Peter" derive from Mithra, not from a Palestinian messiah. The Mithraic priests wore miters, special headdresses from which the Christian bishop's hat was derived. (The Latin name for this Phrygian/Persian hat was mitra - which also was an acceptable Latin spelling for Mithra!) The Mithraists consumed a sacred meal (Myazda) which was completely analogous to the Catholic Eucharistic service (Missa, or Mass). Like the Christians, they celebrated the atoning death of a savior who was resurrected on a Sunday. A major center of Mithraic philosophy was at Tarsus - St. Paul's hometown - in what now is Southeast Turkey.

Such claims about Mithra are repeated very often on the Internet, almost never with citations to pre-Christian sources of such knowledge, because no such sources exist. This article is no exception.

To the credit of American Atheists, there is one title on the listing of articles that would have focused exclusively on CCC, "Other Gods That Look A LOT Like Jesus," but clicking on this link reveals that the article is no longer published on the website.

Between American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, I normally think of the FFRF as the more moderate and credible of the two organizations who represent secular activism. But, when it comes to CCC, they are even worse--instead of freely giving away the extremely false information about the historical Jesus, they sell it in tracts for mass distribution ($16 per 100). They have one tract titled, "Cookie Cutter Christs: Origins of the Jesus Myth."

Docugandas

There are two popular full-lungth videos published and sold (and hosted freely on the web) within the last few years that are critical of the Christian religion. One of them is titled, "The God Who Wasn't There" (by Brian Flemming, 2005). The other is titled, "Zeitgeist: The Movie." (by Peter Joseph, 2007). Both docugandas provoked many rebuttals, sometimes even counter-docugandas, from Christians, including "The God Who Is There" and "Zeitgeist Refuted and Exposed."

The God Who Wasn't There

The homepage of "The God Who Wasn't There" boasts of scoring supportive reviews from the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, and it won the Best Documentary prize of the Grassroots Cinema Film Festival. When Brian Flemming chose the title, he apparently meant, "The Jesus Who Wasn't There," because the docuganda puts special focus on the Jesus-myth hypothesis, relying heavily on CCC. The reputed parallels between various god-men are again repeated, with no references to primary sources in the video, which is understandable, but neither were such sources revealed in the DVD extras nor the follow-up correspondence with Brian Flemming. GakuseiDon published an extensive review of the docuganda on his website.

Despite the extraordinary claims fatally lacking in evidence, the reviews published by atheist activist websites and blogs, be they positive or negative, generally give acclaim to the information presented.

About.com: Atheism/Agnositicism

Now, having said that, I don't want to give you the impression that the film is a waste of time. It's not. It asks the right questions and raises excellent points. I have always supported any form of expression which encourages the listener to think more critically, and in this the film succeeds. Where the film fails, I think, is that it doesn't satisfy its own title, the questions of "Did Christ exist at all, and if he did, was he the Son of God?", although it does present a good, solid argument that the evidence we have of Christ's existence is flimsy at the very best.

Godless Blogger

I loved it. The movie made me think and at the same time scared the shit out of me.

Atheist Revolution

Where the director deserves the most praise is his structuring of the argument presented in the second half of the film - Jesus was likely a fictional character and there are many compelling historical reasons to doubt the veracity of the Christian bible. The data presented here are not widely known and difficult to refute.

Science, Religion, Politics and the Pursuit of the Truth - HappyPsychotic

All in all, nothing earth shattering being told in the documentary but definitely worth a watch for those who may have questions about Christianity or want to get a glimpse at what little is known about Jesus and how the message spread.

The Godless Haven is a refreshing exception.

Until recently, I had considered myself in the same camp as many of these Jesus skeptics, but interestingly, it was learning about James that persuaded me to conclude that there was more than likely an historical Jesus. The biblical scholar Robert Eisenman covers the overwhelming amount of evidence we have for James in his book, James the Brother of Jesus, suffice it to say that if James was probably an historical person, it follows that Jesus probably was too. Yet not only does The God Who Wasn't There say nothing of these connections, but it also says nothing of extrabiblical sources like Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, and so on. I still regard such sources to be unreliable and unusable as evidence for an historical Jesus (I debunk many of them in my article, Did Jesus Really Exist?), but not even addressing them at all in a documentary on the question of Christ's existence is hardly excusable and makes it seem as if the producers did not do their research.

Zeitgeist: The Movie

This 2007 film "Zeitgeist: The Movie" was better made and gained a wider audience than "The God Who Wasn't There." The film greatly incorporates the claims of Acharya S, strongly drawing from CCC, to make the case that Jesus was merely mythical. The filmmaker Peter Joseph hoped to gain a following and start a social movement. He succeeded, to a limited extent. There is a populated and active online forum for Zeitgeist, and two follow-up films were produced. Unfortunately for him, his film contains a big stumbling block to receive wider acclaim among anti-religious activists: only a third of the film focuses on the history of the Christianity. The second third tries to convince the viewer that the United States government either orchestrated the 9/11 terror attacks or allowed 9/11 to happen. The last third focuses on the theory that the major wars of the 20th century were purposefully ignited by the actions of international bankers. The target audience of this film would seem exceptionally narrow, but adherence is strong among the fans. The Zeitgeist Movement forum contains over fifty-one thousand users.

YouTube Videos

The Internet is a medium where anyone can tell or retell just about anything anonymously, which means it is a very fertile medium for anti-religious activism. On YouTube, where extended debate is done only through videos (comments are limited to 500 characters), CCC has a very strong presence.

I did a search for Jesus myth on YouTube, and I sorted the results by view count. I received twenty results on the first page. Twelve of these videos debate the existence of Jesus, on one side or the other. Out of the twelve, six of these videos either promote or refute CCC. They are:

• ZEITGEIST, Part 1 (Religion) Debunked? Acharya Responds (336,460 views)
• Zeitgeist Refuted (1 of 10) (248,783 views)
• Christianity is Pagan (132,595 views)
• Christianity is a Egyptian Myth - Horus, Isis, Mary, Jesus, God, Osiris (105,346 views)
• Zeitgeist - Documental Sub Español - Part 2 (100,427 views)
• True Origin Of The Christian Myth: Paganism (93,056 views)

The people on YouTube who search for the most prominent perspectives on whether or not Jesus existed will find these videos. If you believe that Jesus never existed, then this is the world's perspective of you, regardless of how much you actually disagree with CCC.

The videos on the subject with the most views were not included in the search, but I knew where to find them. Zeitgeist: The Movie - Full, Final version has 2,114,613 views. Zeitgeist [Religion] The Greatest Story Ever Sold (1of 3) has 2,005,801 views. "The God Who Wasn't There" - Trailer (containing the CCC claims) has 462,317 views.

Why does this matter?

OK, so what? Isn't the false belief that Jesus was a cookie-cutter Christ more forgivable than the false belief that his words according to the New Testament are infallible? Maybe so. But, here is the thing: truth is important. If we value the reasonable truth, then we should not be letting this ignorant, easily-refuted and outright false theory represent the critical perspective against the Christian religion.

This stuff has an effect, and maybe not the effect we would like. George Osler, a former friend of the Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, said to a TV camera that Loughner was deeply obsessed by Zeitgeist.

"I really think that this Zeitgeist documentary had a profound impact on Jared Loughner's mindset and how he viewed the world that he lives in."

He then told a reporter for the Arizona Republic, "He wanted to watch it all the time. It was cool at first. But then it got weird. It was all he wanted to do."

Any proposed causal connection between Zeitgeist and the Tucson shooting would seem flimsy to those of us who know the issues. At best, lunacy causes obsession with loony ideas, not the reverse. But, it is generally bad PR for atheists. As you can imagine, conservative Christian writers picked up on this. A Google search for "Jared Loughner" zeitgeist returns 59,600 results, and the first page is covered with the right-wing media. Jared Loughner maintained his conspiracist-atheist themed perspective in YouTube videos up until the shooting, and his trial is coming up shortly, so the worst of the PR disaster may be yet to come. His defense lawyers will use the evidence of his obsession with Zeitgeist to help prove his mental instability. At best, it won't catch a lot of news, until something similar happens again. At worst, every atheist will seem to many more people to be made of the stuff of deranged killers.

Maybe, for now, CCC is only fringe. But, what if, sometime in the future, atheists win the rhetorical war against religion, and atheists predominate in society? Will atheists then try to rewrite history to favor their ideological bullshit, in the same way as we see conservative Christians attempt it? In the unlikely event that atheists come to dominate US society, they will be forbidden by the constituion from making their dubious historical claims the official facts of public education. But, like the conservative Christians, they will attempt it. This is not an extraordinary claim. Atheism won the day in the Soviet Union, the atheists attempted to make CCC the official doctrine, and of course they succeeded. The following paragraphs, written by Vladimir Nikiforov, are taken from page 749 of Jesus in History, Thought and Culture: an Encyclodedia, in the entry on Russian Christianity.

In 1922, however, all religious books, from the Bible to “idealist” philosophy,
had been removed from public libraries and bookshops. Atheism became part
of the state ideology. One of its most important components was the theory
of Arthur Drews (1865–1936). According to him, the Jesus of the Gospels
was a fiction, the product of a long tradition related to the ancient cult of a
dying and rising Oriental deity. The Soviet propaganda machine elevated
this theory to the rank of objective scientic truth, including it in textbooks
for schools and universities.

Severe censorship meant there was no opportunity for a proper response
to this propaganda. Russian émigré Dimitrii Merezhkovskii (1865–1941), in
Jesus the Unknown (1931) agreed with Drews in finding many similarities be-
tween the Jesus of the Gospels and the deities of archaic myths but found the
denial of the historicity of Jesus totally groundless. Merezhkovskii’s theologi-
cal framework, however, was full of fantastic elements, making references to
Atlantis, the heavenly “Mother” of Jesus, and the like. His work remained lit-
tle known in Russia.

Now is the time to stop CCC from dominating the debates.

So what can we do about this?

We, all of us, need to speak out against bullshit. Contact American Atheists and/or the Freedom From Religion Foundation and politely ask them to stop peddling demonstrable bullshit about the origins of Christianity. Join the debates against CCC on YouTube and on your blog. Here is a very short but effective rebuttal to such assertions:

"The ancient evidence for that claim does not actually exist. If you disagree, then find the ancient writing, not just someone else who repeats the claim."

Perspicuo

Nice!

It is obvious that if atheists don't stick to the more credible and credited of theories, atheism itself will lose credibility.

Discussion of alternatives is ok, but not publicized, so as to avoid embarrassments.

ApostateAbe

That would be a solution if it could be executed. However, atheists are not nearly a unified group of people who are inclined to keep their ideas to themselves and wait for approval from an authority or a coalition. The debating arena is really an anarchic free-for-all. Maybe a good variation of such a solution would be to encourage the habit of being aware of wishful thinking and to run ideas past those who are well-informed of the issues.

GakuseiDon

Don't forget "The Naked Truth" (1991), which is like Zeitgest but with better hair. It predates Zeitgeist by a few years, though it was written by the same people and covers much the same material in Part 1 of Zeitgeist.

It has some good presenters, and I love Bill Jenkins' voice, from 1 min 30 sec -- the lucky bastard. He comes in holding a glass of wine, and at around 5 min comes out with: "The holy grail is what caused the Crusades..."! Wonderful! The first part can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJqivq4BzcU. In fact, I'm going to watch it again right now.

mountainman

Here are two ancient writings by the Emperor Julian.
The first is from his three books "Against the Christians".

It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind
the reasons by which I was convinced that
the fabrication of the Galilaeans
is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.

Though it has in it nothing divine,
by making full use of that part of the soul
which loves fable and is childish and foolish,
it has induced men to believe
that the monstrous tale is truth.

The second is from his work "Kronia":

As for Constantine, he could not discover among the gods
the model of his own career, but when he caught sight of
Pleasure, who was not far off, he ran to her. She received
him tenderly and embraced him, then after dressing him in
raiment of many colours and otherwise making him beautiful,
she led him away to Incontinence.

There too he found Jesus, who had taken up his abode with
her and cried aloud to all comers:

"He that is a seducer, he that is a murderer,
he that is sacrilegious and infamous,
let him approach without fear!
For with this water will I wash him
and will straightway make him clean.

And though he should be guilty
of those same sins a second time,
let him but smite his breast and beat his head
and I will make him clean again."

To him Constantine came gladly, when he had conducted his
sons forth from the assembly of the gods. But the avenging
deities none the less punished both him and them for their
impiety, and extracted the penalty for the shedding of the
blood of their kindred, [96] until Zeus granted them a respite
for the sake of Claudius and Constantius. [97]

The reasonable historical truth includes the possibility that the HJ figure who appears as the leading character in the books of the new testament canon did not appear at all on planet Earth in the 1st century, but was fabricated in some later century to serve the interests of the powermongering "imperial state church".

Origins of the Jesus Myth

So we see that Julian seemed to hold a Jesus Myth opinion in the mid 4th century.
To be precise, within 40 years of the Council of Nicaea.

Moreover, the Jesus Myth is taken up soundly by many of the Gnostic Gospels and Acts.
Jesus does not leave footprints on Earth.
Jesus has an insubstantial body.
Jesus repeatedly pops into existence and then disappears, as a child, an old man, as a boy.
Jesus is presented in extremely "docetic overtones".
The Mythical Jesus is thus also found in these non canonical texts.

The MJ has been here since the beginning.
He has not a good PR department until recently.
Followers of the MJ have been executed by followers of the HJ for "heresy".
The HJ is a fabrication perpetuated by ignorance of history and conditioned "belief".
The HJ serves no purpose other than to externalise and avoid personal responsibility for one's own life.
The HJ is a crutch for unthinking authoritarian followers and leaders. The MJ suggests its time to walk alone.


Start with evidence inside the Nag Hammadi codices......

The Interpretation of Knowledge: NHC 11.1

"But our generation is fleeing since it does not yet even believe that the Christ is alive."

padraic

What theories are those? I didn't know there were any atheist arguments about anything. This is probably because an atheist is simply a person who does not believe in gods.Nothing else is implied or may be inferred.

My position; I'm an agnostic atheist. I assert only "I do not believe in gods,the soul,an afterlife,the paranormal, alien abductions or fairies,due to lack of evidence". I make no claims so have no burden of proof.I offer no theories or other explanation for my position.

Further;You believe in any or all of the things I mentioned? How wonderful for you! You'd like me to share your beliefs? No problem,just show me your evidence to support your claims. If you're unable to do that,please stop wasting my time and bugger off.

Seeing nobody in recorded history has managed to prove or falsify the existence of gods,I'm not holding my breath.


PS Credibility? With whom? Those who believe the mythology of a tribe of bronze age goat herders? Personally,I couldn't care less about the opinions of anonymous others about anything, especially that my lack of belief conflicts with their personal superstitions.

Perspicuo

I know, it's not something to be executed, it's more a thing of consensus and awareness campaigning.

Perspicuo

Acharya S, for one. Jesus=Osiris and Jesus=Krishna type claims.

I changed ApostateAbe's "anti-Christian" term to "atheist", I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm very tired and sleepy.

This time at night is the time when I get the most productive ideas and paradoxically also one in which I naturally am more liable to err in terminology.



Buenas noches, gente.

aa5874

You cannot have "plenty plausible positions about historical Jesus" when the evidence is scarce and untrustworthy.

"Bullshit" evidence or untrustworthy evidence does NOT help the HJ position at all.

MJers EXPECTED and PREDICTED that the EVIDENCE for HJ would be "bullshit" and that is EXACTLY what you have ADMITTED.

It is COMPLETELY mind-boggling that one who ADMITS that the evidence for HJ is "bullshit" or untrustworthy continue to maintain a position using the LITTLE "BULLSHIT" that is available.

ApostateAbe

I had no idea this existed. It is hypnotic. That dude should have been brought back in "The God Who Wasn't There."