Koyaanisqatsi

You keep missing the point. A political agenda does result in a slanted history; a history slanted to the bias of the political agenda. If, for example, the given historian were an avowed racist, then it would be more a study of how racism corrupted the historian than purely objective, historical accounts of racial prejudice in say, 1960's America.

You would likely see evidence of said historian downplaying the extent and motives behind violence against blacks during that time, for example, while at the same time a pattern of justification (aka, "apologetics") for the motives of the whites perpetrating the violence.

It would most likely come in the form of ancillary commentary and/or editorializing and as such it would stand in stark contrast to the amount of actual information about the various events cherry picked to serve that agenda. Thus any astute reader/scholar would be able to discern the bias not only from what is discussed, but from what isn't discussed; significant events conveniently left out of the history.

This is how you go from "history" to "propaganda" and that's how you determine "history" from "propaganda." Soviet Russian Anti-America propaganda, for example, focused almost exclusively on the way the American leaders mistreated their citizens (aka, the "negroes") and their news coverage (if you could call it that) was almost exclusively about how the rich in our country mistreated the poor.

But these were all factually based; the events actually happened as recorded and corroborated by multiple sources; contradictory sources, no less, "slanted" one to the right or to the left offering the middle as the likely truth.

A religious agenda, however, has none of those constraints. Why? Because there can be nothing factually based about the "events" surrounding gods; it's all hearsay; it's all claims from other people about what other people say they experienced and the "slant" is "This is a priori true, because I am not telling it; I am merely relating what was revealed to me." It begins with a completely unverifiable claim that one must accept on faith alone.

So then we come to the problem of the actual gospels, where you have one anonymous author ("Mark") creating a story about a trial that simply could not have happened in the manner the author claims it did (some forty years after it supposedly happened). There are no accounts in any Roman ledger that I am aware of that say anything at all about ritually letting convicted murderers (convicted of murdering Roman citizens, no less) go free at the whim of the subjugated audience during one of their cult rituals. No accounts in any Roman ledger (Pilate's own, if it exists) of a leader in Pilate's position holding personal court over an alleged criminal that has committed no Roman crime, but is nonetheless forced upon him by the Sanhedrin for no discernable reason.

Not to mention the fact that Mark makes it clear that the Sanhedrin tried twice previously to stone Jesus for blasphemy (a Jewish crime), so why the need to try and force a midnight usurpation of Roman criminal proceedings by having the Governor do something he doesn't do; preside and rule over Jewish ritual?

You have an author talking matter-of-factly about several different prophets and false prophets and different gods as if they were a priori real, though "false" whatever the hell that means. You have matter-of-fact references to demons possessing people and not just one healer, but many healers who have "divine power," who can resurrect from the dead. Jesus wasn't the only one who came back from the dead.

So, where is that verified from multiple sources (not just anecdotal, but more objectively clinical, for lack of a better term; or forensic, shall we say), both to the right and to the left so that we're left with the middle truth?

The NT certainly gives the appearance of multiple sources (all anecdotal) that all say the same thing, but not in any objective sense; oh no. Quite the contrary. There are threats for disbelief; the most dire in fact. And you have the problem of Paul's diatribe on how "God" made wisdom foolish, so that there's a built in (and mighty convenient) automatic "out" for any apologist; any cult member; any cult leader when questioned too closely.

"The Lord Moves In Mysterious Ways."

And of course, if that doesn't do it, you've also got a character (or characters; demons/Satan/the Devil) whose job it is to sow doubt in anyone reading "the Truth;" that any questions one might naturally have about water turning into wine or fish and bread to feed thousands from nowhere or the efficacy of the divine nature of the central character being the result of supernatural "evil" influence.

It is not just the absolute nature of it that betrays its fiction, but the constant admonitions that to disbelieve any part of it automatically consigns one's soul to eternal punishment (from an all loving god, no less).

Hell, you even have the same prosyltizer (Paul) telling his readers, basically, that he would find no problem with outright lies if they served to convert people into his cult; [i]his]/i] power base; his beliefs about a bodily resurrection. It's not the first or the only cult, you know.

But what damns it the most, of course, is that, if it actually were the "God-given truth" then why the hell is there a hell for those who don't believe it and how could anyone not believe it?

It's the Truth, right? The real-world, unbiased Truth of all Truths, so why would it need the constant threat of fear to enforce its acceptance? And we're not talking a slap on the wrist for disbelief; we're talking about graphic descriptions of how one's eternal soul will suffer for not believing the "history" of the people and events depicted.

These are not the tools of merely "politically slanted" historians; these are the tools of cult leaders indoctrinating people into their cult through fear, cognitive dissonance and intimidation.

Now, I've addressed your request, so if you would be so kind as to show where Tacitus or Thucydites or any "classic" historian uses such tools of eternal damnation for disbelief in their histories with the weight of an all powerful, all knowing, primarily vengeful supernatural being who demands worship and punishes those who disobey, you might have an argument.

As it stands, you appear to be stopping short at the equivocation of the term "bias" as if you've established some sort of stalemate, not reallizing that it only damns the theist bias all the more.

:huh:

Steve Weiss

If the above bit of exposition is not enough to draw the distinction between what passes for semi-objective historical narrative and manipulative, deceitful, religious propaganda, I don't know what would.

One may not presume that written accounts are true and accurate without applying critical analysis on several levels. Religious texts are prima facie propaganda pieces that do not stand up to any rational examination. The very word "propaganda" has a religious derivation. So, one should be immediately suspect about any religious claims, especially the outright ridiculous, fantastic ones in the OT and NT. These stories are patent nonsense, and only the very gullible and naive could consider them as factual.

That adults in leadership positions could espouse such lies and irrationality with a straight face and be moved to implement the most severe sanctions for lack of willingness to swallowing these lies whole is a history that condemns its actors to the lowest levels of "hell." Not a mystical hell as advocated in the texts that are used to intimidate the unsophisticated, but an earthly hell of criminality passed off as spiritual enlightenment and morality. These perverse and evil traditions and their advocates should be named and shamed, and this calling to account has been overdue for many many centuries. It's about time to condemn religion for the dangerous folly that it has always been and always will be.