patcleaver

Bob Marley really wales

We know that Kings and emperors are sometimes mythicized into Gods. Even that is very rare. What percentage of Kings are not worshiped as Gods in their lifetimes and then are mythicized into gods after they die? Only a tiny percentage.

The claim is that Jesus was an ordinary man, just a preacher and teacher, who was mythicized into a God. The probability that the claim is true depends on how often that happens. Is that something that happens all the time or something that is very rare.

We know that thousands of Gods have been invented and there is evidence for only a tiny percent of them being mythicized from people and the people were always extraordinary people such as political religious and military leaders and religious leaders who were extraordinarily famous in their own lifetimes, such as Alexander the Great. We have no reason to think that many of the rest of the invented Gods were based on any historical person.

So it seems much more likely that Jesus was not based on an historical person.

spin

As I said,

PC: No clowns have ever been deified.
XX: But Bozo the Clown was deified.
PC: What I meant to say was no Armenian clowns were deified.
XX: But Armin Melcunian was deified.
PC: Sorry, I didn't make myself clear here. No mediaeval Armenian clowns were ever crucified... umm, on mid-winter's eve.. ahh, wearing polka-dots.


spin

patcleaver

I asked for evidence that Aesculapius was a real person and you want me to show that he was a son of Zeus.

There different traditions regarding Aesculapius. In most he is a son of Apollo, but in others he is a son of Zeus.

for example in Aristophanes, Plutus we have "I will sing to the honour of Asklepios, the son of illustrious Zeus"

http://www.theoi.com/Cult/AsklepiosCult.html

Jesus is the son of Yahweh - how can you claim that he was an ordinary man?

No Robots

At all events, the data of the Synoptic Gospels show that Jesus never styled himself the son of God in a sense other than that in which the righteous might call themselves "sons" or "children" of God.--"Son of God". Jewish Encyclopedia.

patcleaver

Jeffrey, Please show me in an ancient primary source where it says that Jesus was an ordinary man.

Otherwise you should admit that its not true that Jesus was an ordinary man who was mythicized into a God.

Elijah

Jesus is supposed to be a king as well though. The king of kings; but a king that serves the people and dies for them, not a king who wants his people to serve and die for them. Why wouldn’t you expect a figure like that to get the same treatment as the other earthly rulers? Or why don’t you realize the drive to exaggerate a figure like that to the heights above a normal earthly rulers?
I don’t think it would be too rare for a messiah claimant nor do I think a messiah claimant coming out of the working class should be too surprising either.
I think most gods are usually based on forces/aspects in nature. When a man is embodying a god they are considered to be embodying that spiritual aspect of that god/aspect of the universe. Like Jesus with Logos.
It seems like just wishful thinking on the skeptics’ part to me.

Jeffrey Gibson

I want you to back up your claim that Homer understood and in the Iliad (or the Odyssey) presented Asclepius as as a son of Zeus

Others? What others?

It ain't even so in Plutus. Despite what you've gathered from an English translation of Plutus, Aristophanes does not mention or state there (or anywhere else) that Asklepius is a/the son of Zeus.

Here are four the instances of the use by Aristophanes in Plutus of the name Asklepius. None of them contain the reference that O'Neil says can be found in that play, let alone speak of him as anyone's son..

410{ΧΡ.} Μὰ Δί', ἀλλ' ὅπερ πάλαι παρεσκευαζόμην
411ἐγώ, κατακλίνειν αὐτὸν εἰς Ἀσκληπιοῦ κράτιστόν ἐστι.

619{ΧΡ.}Αὕτη μὲν ἡμῖν ἡπίτριπτος οἴχεται.
620 Ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ σύ γ' ὡς τάχιστα τὸν θεὸν

{ΚΑ.} ἐγκατακλινοῦντ' ἄγωμεν εἰς Ἀσκληπιοῦ.

633. Ὁ δεσπότης πέπραγεν εὐτυχέστατα,
μᾶλλον δ' ὁ Πλοῦτος αὐτός· ἀντὶ γὰρ τυφλοῦ
635 ἐξωμμάτωται καὶ λελάμπρυνται κόρας,

Ἀσκληπιοῦ παιῶνος εὐμενοῦς τυχών.

{ΧΟ.} Λέγεις μοι χαράν, λέγεις μοι βοάν.

{ΚΑ.} Πάρεστι χαίρειν, ἤν τε βούλησθ' ἤν τε μή.

{ΧΟ.} Ἀναβοάσομαι τὸν εὔπαιδα καὶ

640 μέγα βροτοῖσι φέγγος Ἀσκληπιόν.


Leaving aside the fact that there is no NT in which the Greek equivalent to "son of Yahweh" can be found, are you really claiming that the title "son of God" was a declaration of genetic descent, let alone that the title son of God does not appear in Jewish and early Christian texts as designations for ordinary men of faith.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Define "ordinary man". One who weeps? Get's angry? Sleeps? Has to eat? Feels despair? Dies when executed? And define it not from a 20th century stand point, but from what the ancients like Celsus and Porpyhry and Julian thought an ordinary man was as compared to those they regarded as extraordinary.

I'd also be grateful if you;d show us that you haven't defined it in such a way that no person whom otheres might reradd as ordinary could not possible fulfill your definition of term or that it's not framed in a manner that only alows the conclusion you are seeking to support by appeal to it (like your definiing blasphemy in such a way that what the Muslim understanding of what blasphemy is has to be false "by definition").

I think if anyone here has to admit anything its you about the fact that you keep making claims that you have no evidence for and that are patently false, and have to back down from or, to save face, cover over through equivocation and pretending through silence that you never made them.

Now please show me what is the source for your claim that there are 10000 gods being worshiped today.

Jeffrey

rlogan

I have 9,842 independent gods I worship, as of 2007

Discovered them on this old parchment at the back of the ark on ararat.

patcleaver

More than 2,000 gods were worshiped in Egypt http://www.aldokkan.com/religion/gods.htm

The Norse worshiped more than 50 Gods http://www.aldokkan.com/religion/gods.htm

"320 million gods are worshiped" in India http://www.coworkersministries.org/INDEX/Profile.htm

In India, little villages often worship hundreds of Gods. Often most of the village Gods are not worshiped anywhere else. Sometimes Gods are only worshiped by a single family.

"The national religion of Japan is Shinto, where over 8 million gods are worshiped and praised." http://www.rainbowfia.or.jp/english/news/pdf/0312.pdf

Family Gods are common in both Japan and China. There are probably millions of different Gods worshiped in those countries.

"There are over 10,000 demigods, called saints. They are prayed to like gods, perform miracles like gods, are worshiped like gods, yet were once human. Part man, part god - the definition of demigods." http://myownweirdness.blogspot.com/2...olytheism.html

In Africa hundreds of tribes each worship dozens of Gods.

In South America hundreds of tribes each worship dozens of Gods

There is a vast pantheon of gods worshiped by the Maya. Different areas had different gods, and some were more important in one area than in another. http://www.jaguar-sun.com/gods.html

4,000 Gods were worshiped in ancient Babylon The Book of King Solomon By Professor Solomon p.209.

Godchecker's Mythology Encyclopedia currently features over 2,850 deities. http://www.godchecker.com/

Godchecker claims that they have many more Gods that are not posted yet. They only post 185 Egyptian Gods, but archeologists have identified more than 2,000 Gods.


I could not locate the source of the estimate of 10,000 Gods, but it seems like a gross underestimate. It probably came out of some old encyclopedia. Do you know where it came from?