Toto

You realize that this is an argument from personal incredulity and reflects poorly on your ability to understand the arguments?

patchy

Certainly.


I don't see what's so offensive about this question.

It's probably not the prime motivator for *most* mythicists, or even "many"--but...the question only asks if such a combination is possible. And...of course it is.

One possible example would be a person who didn't believe in a historical Jesus as described in the NT not because the historical evidence was lacking or due to some other perceived biblical shortcoming, but because the thought of there really being some ultimate judge of behavior waiting on him at the end of his life was too stressful to contemplate.

Again, I can't imagine there being too many real-life examples of such an individual, although this model is a beloved and favored strawman for many Christians who ineptly assume that this is exactly the motivation for not just some but *most* atheists.

They're simply projecting their own weaknesses onto us--they assert that we don't believe in God/Jesus because we're afraid he might be real, when the real problem is that they're afraid he might not be.

ApostateAbe

Possible, though it seems that, when I understand the arguments, I have a lesser opinion of the position than I did before. I didn't mean to make an argument from incredulity, because I didn't even mean to make an argument. I am just stating my perspective on the issues.

avi

hmm.
I am not sure I understand the distinction.

I think, or maybe I am just guessing, that you suggest here, that Paul was the originator of the Christian movement, and that he invoked a "spiritual being", unlike the "historical" Jesus of the synoptic gospels.

I don't know the evidence one way or the other, for who came first, Paul or John, or the three synoptic gospels.

I have a prejudice, but not data, to support my own view, which, at this point is mythical, (for lack of data,) that Paul came after Mark, both arriving on the scene in mid 2nd century.....

Here, then, I write using mythical as synonymous with fictional. Perhaps my choice of vocabulary is errant.

Whether Mark et al wrote deliberate fiction, based upon Paul's idea of a spirit, another fiction, seems to me irrelevant. The mythicist position, as I define it, perhaps aberrantly or at least idiosyncratically, regards Jesus of Capernaum as fictional, whether as "spirit", or "ordinary man" or "god, transformed, transiently, as human".

In short, I cannot discern any distinction between "starting with a spiritual being..." and then "deliberate fiction". That's like saying, to me, " lunar crater", versus " an excavation on the surface of the moon, presumably caused by collision with an asteroid or meteor."

Different wording, same meaning, at least to me.

A great deal, if the real history of Christianity began in earnest only with the arrival on the scene of Lord Constantine.

Apologies for my sloppy presentation, I did not intend to suggest that Emperor Constantine instructed Eusebius to rewrite the history of Jesus' life, I meant that he instructed Eusebius to rewrite his own biography. Is that a myth or is it a fact? I don't know, for sure.

Chaucer

I will rephrase the question: Is it just as possible to take a mythicist position for emotional reasons as it is to take an historicist position for emotional reasons?

Chaucer

avi

There is nothing magical about human thought processes. (That does not mean that we understand the mechanism of thinking...)

If evidence supports the historical position, then, one can claim that Jesus was a real human, or human/God, or God, without fear of being cited as a person who has accepted, uncritically, the existence of Jesus, based upon merely emotional criteria. I know of no such evidence.

I claim, maybe no one else agrees with me, that absence of evidence of a historical being, whether god or man, indicates, or supports, the notion of Jesus' mythical, i.e. fictional, status. In other words, I deny the need for a mythicist to prove that Jesus did not exist.

So, then, have I adopted the mythicist position based upon emotion, rather than evidence? Is that perhaps the ulterior motive in submitting this thread, to illustrate that "mythicists" engage in mythical constructs themselves? Is there a fundamental difference between my acceptance, on faith, that Jesus is a myth, versus the perspective of some good Christian, who adopts, on faith, the contrary view?

avi

Toto

This doesn't help.

This is a discussion board that is devoted to the issues, not to probing your opponents' unstated psychological reasons for arguing for a position. From your first post here, you have tried to shift the focus from the evidence for a historcal Jesus to the motivations for thinking that there was or was not a historical Jesus, as if this were an important issue.

And, as far as I can see, you do not have an academic interest in this question. You are merely using it to insult or bait people who don't share your beliefs in the historical Jesus. (And I might point out that Abe does not believe in the same historical Jesus that you think existed.)

That was why I proposed closing this thread. What good can come of it?

As I said before when you first raised this question, there is no consistent motive among the mythicists that I know of.

Chaucer

I don't see how Patchy is out of line when he writes

To refuse to even consider that both historicists and mythicists might equally possibly take their respective positions for partly emotional reasons is to implicitly state that mythicists are somehow a higher form of being! You've already implied it is _possible_ for an historicist to take his position for sometimes partly emotional reasons. Having already implied that, a sudden shying away from implying the same _possibility_ for _some_ mythicists is to be illogical. You seem downright stung by the mere implication that even one mythicist might be just as human as you've already implied many a historicist is. Why?

What's so awful about implying that even one mythicist might _possibly_ be just as human in letting his emotions _sometimes_ sway him as any historicist is? Is it somehow an insult to be viewed as human? If it is, then what about all the "insults" some of us have readily implied around here in assessing the imputed emotional baggage for historicists? Aren't we flirting with a possible double standard here?

I don't view the possibility of some emotional baggage as anything more than being human. It might be unfortunate in the context of a nitty-gritty scholarly pursuit. But it's not much more than that. It's hardly the grievous insult one might infer from your evident reluctance to concede that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Chaucer

Toto

Did I say that no mythicist ever reached a conclusion on an emotional basis?

I just consider the question irrelevant in this forum. And you, in particular, have a history of using the charge to bait and insult the other side of the debate.

We already know that people who can't marshall enough evidence to support their side have a tendency to ascribe non-logical motives to the people they can't convince, rather than own up to their own deficiencies. (E.g., ApostateAbe.)

Do you have anything of substance you want to say?

Chaucer

Yes, I do. I cheered out loud when one poster here wrote --

"I want to encourage reason in other people. I see reasonable arguments and conclusions being pushed aside in favor of the wishful thinking that accompanies anti-religious ideology, and I would like to fight that. I don't want religion to [be] successfully discouraged among the younger generations in our society only to be replaced by ideologies that include bad history. If you take that as insulting, then I am sorry. I don't mean to be insulting, but I would like to answer your questions honestly."

To concede that positions on a question like this can sometimes be partly sparked by emotion is not to dishonor rationalism. On the contrary, it upholds it. It is being realistic and recognizing that human beings need reason more than ever to counteract the frailty that is in every human mind susceptible to emotion in the first place.

Once we elevate any group of humans above their flawed humanity, we flirt with absolutism and lose our title to be viewed as rational at all. We are only rational when we see clearly just how vigilant we have to always be if we're going to be aware of which things we may claim out of our reason and which things we may claim out of our emotion. Self-awareness is where awareness of others' foibles start.

You ask: "Did I say that no mythicist ever reached a conclusion on an emotional basis?" Well, actually, you have said nothing either way. And when the possibility is cited directly that emotionalism can possibly play a part in anyone's outlook -- anyone's -- you simply dodge the question entirely.

That would be admirable if you always declined from conceding emotional baggage in anyone's viewpoint. Instead, though, you have been perfectly ready to concede the possibility of emotional baggage for historicists. That is why your refusal to concede that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander remains deeply troublesome.

Why are you so reluctant to acknowledge that mythicists, along with historicists, are also human and also have the _possibility_ of being swayed by emotion?

Chaucer