Freethought & Rationalism Archive

arnoldo · 07-14-2009, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by THE CHRISTIAN "HISTORIAN" EUSEBIUS

Church History (Book I)

Chapter 1. The Plan of the Work.

1. It is my purpose to write an account of the successions of the holy apostles, as well as of the times which have elapsed from the days of our Saviour to our own; and to relate the many important events which are said to have occurred in the history of the Church; and to mention those who have governed and presided over the Church in the most prominent parishes, and those who in each generation have proclaimed the divine word either orally or in writing.

2. It is my purpose also to give the names and number and times of those who through love of innovation have run into the greatest errors, and, proclaiming themselves discoverers of knowledge falsely so-called 1 Timothy 6:20 have like fierce wolves unmercifully devastated the flock of Christ.

Can anyone figure out why Eusebius starts out by informing his readers
that he is about to name the heretics who have in their reasonable and
objective nature rejected this christian bullshit, and yet in his entire works
of many books fails to provide us with one single name?

People were important to Eusebius. He preserved many sources.
We are expecting Eusebius to name the heretics.
We are expecting Eusebius to follow his intentions stated.
But he does not name one single Christian heretic.
Not one. He renegs on his clearly stated intentions.

Eusebius is playing politics.

The Great Eusebian Silence on the identification of any ANTI-CHRISTIAN heretic by name

He seems to mention Marcion pretty clearly in the following writing;

Quote:

But Justin was especially prominent in those days. In the guise of a philosopher he preached the divine word, and contended for the faith in his writings. He wrote also a work against Marcion, in which he states that the latter was alive at the time he wrote.

9. He speaks as follows: "And there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the Creator. And by the aid of the demons he has persuaded many of every race of men to utter blasphemy, and to deny that the maker of this universe is the father of Christ, and to confess that some other, greater than he, was the creator. And all who followed them are, as we have said, called Christians, just as the name of philosophy is given to philosophers, although they may have no doctrines in common."

10. To this he adds: "And we have also written a work against all the heresies that have existed, which we will give you if you wish to read it."
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

The Christian Historian Eusebius cannot name the Anti-Christian resistance because they are his contemporaries.
Christian heresy exploded in the epoch of Constantine and not before.

Some of the Gnostics were writing before Constantine, Elaine Pagels writes;

Quote:

What Muhammad 'Alí discovered at Nag Hammadi, it soon became clear, were Coptic translations, made about 1,500 years ago, of still more ancient manuscripts. The originals themselves had been written in Greek, the language of the New Testament: as Doresse, Puech, and Quispel had recognized, part of one of them had been discovered by archeologists about fifty years earlier, when they found a few fragments of the original Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas.

About the dating of the manuscripts themselves there is little debate. Examination of the datable papyrus used to thicken the leather bindings, and of the Coptic script, place them c. A.D. 350-400. But scholars sharply disagree about the dating of the original texts. Some of them can hardly be later than c. A.D. 120-150, since Irenaeus, the orthodox Bishop of Lyons, writing C. 180, declares that heretics "boast that they possess more gospels than there really are,'' and complains that in his time such writings already have won wide circulation--from Gaul through Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor.

Quispel and his collaborators, who first published the Gospel of Thomas, suggested the date of c. A.D. 140 for the original. Some reasoned that since these gospels were heretical, they must have been written later than the gospels of the New Testament, which are dated c. 60-l l0. But recently Professor Helmut Koester of Harvard University has suggested that the collection of sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, although compiled c. 140, may include some traditions even older than the gospels of the New Testament, "possibly as early as the second half of the first century" (50-100)--as early as, or earlier, than Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. . .

and with respect to Eastern influence on these Gnostic texts she writes

Quote:

Does not such teaching--the identity of the divine and human. the concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented not as Lord, but as spiritual guide sound more Eastern than Western? Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed, the "living Buddha" appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition have influenced gnosticism?

The British scholar of Buddhism, Edward Conze, suggests that it had. He points out that "Buddhists were in contact with the Thomas Christians (that is, Christians who knew and used such writings as the Gospel of Thomas) in South India." Trade routes between the Greco-Roman world and the Far East were opening up at the time when gnosticism flourished (A.D. 80-200); for generations, Buddhist missionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria. We note, too, that Hippolytus, who was a Greek speaking Christian in Rome (c. 225), knows of the Indian Brahmins--and includes their tradition among the sources of heresy

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ry/pagels.html

mountainman · 07-14-2009, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Can anyone figure out why Eusebius starts out by informing his readers
that he is about to name the heretics who have in their reasonable and
objective nature rejected this christian bullshit, and yet in his entire works
of many books fails to provide us with one single name?

People were important to Eusebius. He preserved many sources.
We are expecting Eusebius to name the heretics.
We are expecting Eusebius to follow his intentions stated.
But he does not name one single Christian heretic.
Not one. He renegs on his clearly stated intentions.

Eusebius is playing politics.

The Great Eusebian Silence on the identification of any ANTI-CHRISTIAN heretic by name

He seems to mention Marcion pretty clearly in the following writing

Marcion is not categorised by Eusebius as a vile despicable heretic.
Marcion is playing on the wing for the Christian Footy Side.
The Vile Heretics Footy Team have no registered players.

The Vile Heretics Footy Team lost.
We know that much.
A name is mentioned in the later 4th century.
The name of Leucius Charinus.
Author of the gnostic "Leucian Acts".
Horrible player.
Venomous pen.
Despicable heretic.
Vile Gnostic.
Anti-Christian greek academic author.

Quote:

Some of the Gnostics were writing before Constantine, Elaine Pagels writes

The entire planet of Homo-Christian-Sapiens is walking around wearing the
standard issued "Christian Footy Team Glasses". We have grandstands
full of academic toasting the opposition Vile Gnostics Footy Team
under such names as "Valentinians" and other Eusebian derived
classification strategems. The academics wear Eusebian glasses.

The gnostics were not christians.
It's difficult for the academics to broach this subject.
They must first remove the Eusebian glasses.
They must understand that the gnostics wrote satire.
The vile Gnostics Footy team had lost early.
It was like one moment they were around playing
in the ovals of the temples and then the next moment
the temples and the ovals disappeared and the army
guarded the libraries and places of learning.

So the vile Gnostic Footy team reverted to satire.
A last ditch stand against the new testament canon.
Julian's invective is satire.
The Hellenistic academic were going down.
The Christian academic and doctors of philosophy were rising up.
It was an epoch of great opportunity.
A new political freedom had come upon the
most ancient Hellenistic civilisation.

The city of Alexandria was recycled
into the City of Constantine.
Literally and also in the world of codices.

Quote:

and with respect to Eastern influence on these Gnostic texts she writes

Quote:

Does not such teaching--the identity of the divine and human. the concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented not as Lord, but as spiritual guide sound more Eastern than Western? Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed, the "living Buddha" appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition have influenced gnosticism?

The British scholar of Buddhism, Edward Conze, suggests that it had. He points out that "Buddhists were in contact with the Thomas Christians (that is, Christians who knew and used such writings as the Gospel of Thomas) in South India." Trade routes between the Greco-Roman world and the Far East were opening up at the time when gnosticism flourished (A.D. 80-200); for generations, Buddhist missionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria. We note, too, that Hippolytus, who was a Greek speaking Christian in Rome (c. 225), knows of the Indian Brahmins--and includes their tradition among the sources of heresy

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ry/pagels.html

I have no objection whatsoever to the Eastern influence.
I see the eastern empire prior to the year c.324 CE as a "Little India".
The temple culture alone, and the library of Alexandria,
the city of Alexandria attests to this close link between
the Indian and the Hellenistic civilisation which is mirrored
in the book of Philostratus "The Life of Apollonius".

Papryi fragments exist of Greek plays which are set in
a location in India. Trade and ideas circulated in the
ancient world. The problem is that when you are
interested only in the christian aspect of ancient
history, and you don the "Christian Glasses" you
do not understand that they are Eusebian designed.

What the academics have to face is the evidence itself.
The evidence is that the new testament apocrypha is Hellenistic
satire of the NT canon, politically authored at some epoch
during the period between the year dot and say 500 CE.

That epoch could have been very violent and short.
The scientific evidence recently added to the balance
of assessment of the entire field indicates that we
are dealing with a fourth century explosion of NT
non canonical texts after the canon is fired off at
Nicaea. The NT Apocryopha as a political reaction
to the Nicaean Canon.

Constantine legislated that people had better start
regarding themselves as "Christians" before the
Council of Nicaea.

"Religious privileges are reserved for Christians"

is from the Codex Theodosianus and dated to 324 CE. This is before the "Agreement". In other words, Nicaea was simply an opportunity to publically ratify a decision which Constantine had in his imperial wisdom earlier enacted as law.

When the Christian Footy Team took to the field against the Vile Gnostics Foorty team, the Christians were lead by Constantine himself, on a big horse, surrounded by thousands of huge barbarian mercenaries who were being paid well for every match they showed up at. The Vile Gnostics took one look at the opposition and unceremoniously fled into the wilderness. Pachomius, who was referred to as a prophet -- perhaps on account of his "VISION" c.324 CE near Alexandria - lead the way out of town.

Pachomius was then subsequently "REGISTERED as a member of the Christian Footy Team" by members of the Christian footy team in the late 4th century. This process was simply a matter for someone to document that Pachomius had been "Confirmed" in his childhood. The benefit in this Christian Registration process was that the christian side could be linked to the desert monks, who were in fact pagan refugees from imperial Christendom. Jerome et al simply lied and wrote that the desert dwellers were all registered with the Christain Footy Side.

Rufinus in his description of Oxyrhynchus (which is worth reading)
swears that the thousands of people out there were all members
of the Universal Catholic religion. Many scholars question Rufinus
on this matter, for good reason. Rufinus plays on the Christian
Footy side with a lucrative contract to translate the old season
results and scores and history from Greek to Latin.

Eusebius had many continuators but no rivals.
Eusebius does not name one registered Vile Heretic Footy player.
Despite his good intentioned opening address of his "history".

Academics should look around for the Footy registration
card once held by Arius of Alexandria. The Christian Footy
side claim that Arius played for them - that he was a
contraversial Christian Footy player who took out
the opposition by crafty logic, and was dismissed.

My bet is that Arius played quarterback for the Vile Gnostics.
Constantine actually took out a contract against Arius.
The game was seriously played in those early days.

IamJoseph · 07-15-2009, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by premjan

Christianity has some definite similarities to Hinduism though it need not be a Hindu prank. If it was a Hindu idea presented as something Jewish in retaliation for the Jewish rebellion, the resurrection would be metaphorical. Jesus died but the resurrection was the creation of the idea of Christianity (what a Christian would call the propagation of the holy spirit perhaps) via the death of the body of Christ which would correspond to the simultaneous death of the ego and the body. Parinirvana in Buddhist terms.

But the Jesus story is not presented metaphorically - christians see it as a historical occurence 2000 years ago, and that it is sufficient to negate and villify any previous or different belief, and to boast of their reasons for comitting mass murders by it. They accepted this belief from afar and never bothered of its veracity or logic. Then anoher similar claim was made by Islam on the heels of Christianity - but all on totally contradicting premises of each other's most core dctrines: one becomes wrong by rejecting, not rejecting or just standing still here. Imagine being in the middle of these jokers and clowns. I don't believe the Hindhus did the same - not quite!

IamJoseph · 07-15-2009, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

arnoldo - did you make that up? It's very creative. But I don't think it's what J-D is looking for.

There were three Magi which became the basis of the trinity. One of the three Magi(s?) was named Casper, the holy ghost...

The Gospels appears the most non-jewish writings in history, one fostering the reverse of everything the Hebrew bible stands for, and deeming Jews born of the devil. Its Roman writers than said that Jews wrote this stuff by going against everything they believed and faught for 2000 years. This was their way of legitimising a religion they wanted but which would never work without the Hebrew bible. The greeks made great attempts to enjoing with Judaism 250 years before coming up with christianity - this failed because they could not drop zeus, images and divine human worship. This is also what occured with Paul - no Jew would entertain his alledged premises, thus the claim of the road to damascus and Europe.

If there was a single iota of truth to the Gospels - the Jews would not need Eurpeans to point out anything to them, nor what a Messah was all about - these are Jewish, not European premises. Christianity cannot survive without images and divine man worship - and jews cannot survive with it. This is what the entire war and discordance is all about, and nothing to do with the false charges made in the Gospels. The fundamental things apply.

IamJoseph · 07-15-2009, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

The Church History is available online. It was written in Greek by Eusebius between the years of c.312 and c.337 CE, primary completed c.324 with a number of revisions to c.339 CE. The usual "Once Upon a time opening takes the following form ....

An equally valid alternative to the Eusebius Fiction Postulate (EFP) is the Hindu Prank Postulate (HPP). Apparently after Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world the Hindus began a long term plan of seeking revenge against the west. They began by recruiting certain members of the lost tribe of Israel who were residing in India at the time and committed the entire OT to memory. Once achieving this the Hindus created a dialectic approach to scripture to abolish the judaic law. Once satisfied that they have achieved their goals the Hindu masters waited centuries until the astrological signs were in place and in fact were the magi who came from the east. The treasure they brought was the christ child whom they identified as shiva. Many miracles which were attributed to Christ were in fact the result of advanced tantric energy destroying the illusion of sickness. The alleged death of Christ was equally an illusion as Lognius used a spear filled with blood to "fake" piercing the side of Christ. In a deep self induced coma Christ was placed in tomb which functioned like an artificial respirator. Once revived Christ and his disciples fled back to India where they lived long and peacful lives.

I know that the Hindhi script is 99% the same as the hebrew - in alphabet design and word meanings. I know that the Jews interacted with India 27000 years ago, being embedded in the Persian army which did enter India. However, I still see the Gospels as a totally Roman/Greek invention, and not having anything to do with Jews - not even the Hellenised Paul. One only has to study pre-christian Rman and Greek archives.

premjan · 07-15-2009, 10:48 PM

I don't think even the Hebrews have any record of 25000BC.

mountainman · 07-15-2009, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IamJoseph

However, I still see the Gospels as a totally Roman/Greek invention, and not having anything to do with Jews - not even the Hellenised Paul.

What do you see in the statement made by Arnaldo Momigliano
that Eusebius is to be considered as the inventor of the
christian ecclesiatical historiography.

premjan · 07-15-2009, 11:36 PM

There is speculation that the Devanagri script is modified Aramaic borrowed via the Persians.

mountainman · 07-15-2009, 11:48 PM

Perhaps following the same pathways as the "Arabic Numerals".

India is certainly the source of much technological wisdom.
The City of Alexandria was connected to India for centuries.
Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana amplifies the connection.
Apollonius returns to the source of gnosis.
He asks questions and is corrected.
Are there then the four elements (of nature)?
The Indians correct this statement - no, there are five.

etc

Mani, the Sassanid Persian sage of the mid-3rd century
performs the same pilgrimage to India and writes then
voluminously. His writings were deemed "heretical" and
burnt throughout the 4th and 5th centuries, along
with the Manicaeans and the followers of Mani.

IamJoseph · 07-16-2009, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by IamJoseph

However, I still see the Gospels as a totally Roman/Greek invention, and not having anything to do with Jews - not even the Hellenised Paul.

What do you see in the statement made by Arnaldo Momigliano
that Eusebius is to be considered as the inventor of the
christian ecclesiatical historiography.

I do see that as an amazing document, and have always seen the Gospels as a Roman/Greek invention. Some 2000 years later, via inculcation and enforced indoctrination - this has become a belief. While the belief is genuine, that does not mean it is also true, correct or good: we know this because islam is also a belief, and it is in total contradiction of Christianity. This means at least one, but plausably both, of those 'beliefs' is fiction.

Belief is the most easily exploitable syndrome within humanity - yet one cannot believe the sun won't rise tomorrow. Thus the improvable 'revelation' factor is evoked, whereby one does not have to actually prove their case.

One must give total credit to the Hebrew bible - it boldly declares that a revelation occured in the midst of millions, including a multitude of non hebrews - in total variance of other scriptures. One must give total credit to the Hebrews - they still demanded first hand direct proof - marking the dif between the stiff necked hebrews and Europe. And they came back with hard copy laws which still rule humanity today - exclusively. No one has said anything since then.

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07-15-2009, 10:48 PM	#16
premjan Obsessed Contributor Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 61,538	I don't think even the Hebrews have any record of 25000BC.

07-15-2009, 11:36 PM	#18
premjan Obsessed Contributor Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 61,538	There is speculation that the Devanagri script is modified Aramaic borrowed via the Persians.

07-15-2009, 11:48 PM	#19
mountainman Contributor Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Falls Creek, Oz. Posts: 11,192	Perhaps following the same pathways as the "Arabic Numerals". India is certainly the source of much technological wisdom. The City of Alexandria was connected to India for centuries. Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana amplifies the connection. Apollonius returns to the source of gnosis. He asks questions and is corrected. Are there then the four elements (of nature)? The Indians correct this statement - no, there are five. etc Mani, the Sassanid Persian sage of the mid-3rd century performs the same pilgrimage to India and writes then voluminously. His writings were deemed "heretical" and burnt throughout the 4th and 5th centuries, along with the Manicaeans and the followers of Mani.

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