Freethought & Rationalism Archive

jgoodguy · 06-18-2011, 11:40 AM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

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Originally Posted by dog-on

I see. So in fact, your argument is really that because early Christians may have believed the stories, therefore Jesus?

Yes, sort of. The premise that early Christians literally believed their myths is a very credible prima facie presumption, and it is used for an argument that leads to the conclusion of a historical human Jesus. For those who somehow hold that early Christians did not literally believe their own myths, then different arguments would be required, and my own argument (of patterns of myths of doomsday cult leaders) would not be relevant.

Belief has NOTHING at all to do with actual WRITTEN evidence from antiquity for an HJ.

You know that CHRISTIANS of antiquity BELIEVED that Marcion's PHANTOM existed and did COME down to CAPERNAUM directly from heaven even though the Phantom had NO Birth and No Flesh.

Marcion's Phantom has DESTROYED any notion that Jesus MUST be HUMAN for Christians to believe he did exist.

Marcion's Phantom was COMPLETELY Non-historical and could NOT be physically TRACED to any one on earth.

The Phantom had NO earthly Parents.

The Phantom had NO Flesh.

The Phantom was NOT seen anywhere on earth before the 15t year of Tiberius.

The Phantom had NO Childhood, Siblings or Friends

The Phantom was NOT circumcised on the 8th day.

Marcion's Phantom has DESTROYED COMPLETELY the HJ theory.

ALL that was NEEDED was a story that was BELIEVABLE and people BELIEVED that MARCION'S PHANTOM was PLAUSIBLE and RIDICULED those who believed Jesus was the Child of a Ghost and a Virgin.

Justin Martyr ADMITTED that those CHRISTIANS who BELIEVE the PHANTOM existed without birth and Flesh would LAUGH at him who believe Jesus was the Child of a Ghost.

"First Apology" LVIII

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...And, as we said before, the devils put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching...... another god besides the Creator of all, and likewise another son.

And this man many have believed, as if he alone knew the truth, and laugh at us.......

The evidence to SUPPORT the MYTH Jesus theory is EXTREMELY POWERFUL.

There were ACTUAL CHRISTIANS would BELIEVED Marcion's PHANTOM did EXIST even WITHOUT birth and Flesh which would SIGNIFY that Christians of antiquity did NOT need Jesus Christ to have been human for them to believe he existed.

It is CLEAR that people of antiquity BELIEVED Gods and Sons of Gods existed.

And Justin Martyr CONFIRMS that the Jesus story is just like the MYTH fables of the Greeks and Romans.

"First Apology" XXI

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...And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter...

The evidence for MYTH Jesus is EXTREMELY POWERFUL.

The evidence for a myth of CHRIST is overwhelming. The evidence for a Historical Jesus is circumstantial at best as the evidence for a Mythical Jesus. There is no primary, tangible or credible evidence for a Jesus of any flavor. Partisans offer informed argumentation of varying possibilities based on religious documents of dubious origins and questionable provenance.

dog-on · 06-18-2011, 12:00 PM

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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

I see. So in fact, your argument is really that because early Christians may have believed the stories, therefore Jesus?

Yes, sort of. The premise that early Christians literally believed their myths is a very credible prima facie presumption, and it is used for an argument that leads to the conclusion of a historical human Jesus. For those who somehow hold that early Christians did not literally believe their own myths, then different arguments would be required, and my own argument (of patterns of myths of doomsday cult leaders) would not be relevant.

Ok, I see where you are coming from. However, to be accurate, you should note that the beliefs of early Christians is about as far as your argument can actually go. I am not following how you get from early Christian beliefs to the likelihood that their beliefs were based on actual historical occurrences, at least not with the evidence we have.

ApostateAbe · 06-18-2011, 12:06 PM

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Originally Posted by dog-on

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Yes, sort of. The premise that early Christians literally believed their myths is a very credible prima facie presumption, and it is used for an argument that leads to the conclusion of a historical human Jesus. For those who somehow hold that early Christians did not literally believe their own myths, then different arguments would be required, and my own argument (of patterns of myths of doomsday cult leaders) would not be relevant.

Ok, I see where you are coming from. However, to be accurate, you should note that the beliefs of early Christians is about as far as your argument can actually go. I am not following how you get from early Christian beliefs to the likelihood that their beliefs were based on actual historical occurrences, at least not with the evidence we have.

Presuming that the early Christian myths were believed by those who told them, I think my argument is a straightforward matter of induction (item #2) and deduction (item #3). Here it is again:

The synoptic gospels directly reflect ancient Christian myth of Jesus as a human doomsday cult leader (among a few other things).
All of the other myths telling of a reputedly-human doomsday cult leader seem to be based on an actual-human doomsday cult leader of the same rough profile as the character in the myth.
Therefore, it is highly probable that the myth of Jesus was based on an actual-human doomsday cult leader of the same rough profile as the character of Jesus in the myths.

If you disagree with it, then you would find a problem with either one of the premises or the logic.

JonA · 06-18-2011, 12:44 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

So it seems that Abe's argument depends on a naive reading of the gospels as historical?

Of course it doesn't. As Abe has repeatedly stated, all he assumes is that the early Christians actually believed the stories they were telling/had been told to be mostly, if not fully, true, and weren't simply told for entertainment/allegorical purposes.

I cannot say I necessarily agree with him entirely, but I will admit that his argument is not so complex as to warrant the kind of mass—willful?—confusion with which the ahistoricists have been approaching it.

Jon

Toto · 06-18-2011, 12:53 PM

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Originally Posted by JonA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

So it seems that Abe's argument depends on a naive reading of the gospels as historical?

Of course it doesn't. As Abe has said repeatedly stated, all he assumes is that the early Christians actually believed the stories they were telling/had been told, and weren't simply told for entertainment/allegorical purposes.

I cannot say I necessarily agree with him entirely, but I will admit that his argument is not so complex as to warrant the kind of mass—willful?—confusion with which the ahistoricists have been approaching it.

Jon

Abe knows that he can't show that the gospels are historical, so he tries the next best thing - to claim that the early Christians thought that the gospels were historical, and then try to squeeze some history out of the gospels using the criterion of embarrassment.

And he keeps repeating this, as an alternative to actually meeting any of the arguments against this approach.

It's getting boring.

ApostateAbe · 06-18-2011, 01:02 PM

I take it as very easy to make the case that the early Christians literally believed their own myths--Luke 1:1-4, the cultish devotion to the mythical character of Jesus contained in the writings of Paul, the seeming beliefs reflected in all other early Christian writings, and the seeming similarities of the gospels with Greco-Roman biographies (see this thread), not any genre of fiction or allegory. If there was relevant evidence and any good argument for thinking that any of the earliest Christians did not literally believe their own myths, then this prima facie conclusion may be overcome, but there seems to be no such arguments.

Toto · 06-18-2011, 01:15 PM

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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I take it as very easy to make the case that the early Christians literally believed their own myths--Luke 1:1-4,

The prologue to Luke is already late, well past the stage of early Christians.

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the cultish devotion to the mythical character of Jesus contained in the writings of Paul,

This makes no sense. Paul ignores Jesus in the flesh.

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the seeming beliefs reflected in all other early Christian writings,

What other early Christian writings?

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and the seeming similarities of the gospels with Greco-Roman biographies (see this thread), not any genre of fiction or allegory.

In case you haven't noticed, you are losing in that thread.

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If there was relevant evidence and any good argument for thinking that any of the earliest Christians did not literally believe their own myths, then this prima facie conclusion may be overcome, but there seems to be no such arguments.

If Matthew, Luke, and John feel free to rewrite Mark's basic plot, they apparently did not believe that it was factual history. They treated it like a myth.

ApostateAbe · 06-18-2011, 02:03 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

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If there was relevant evidence and any good argument for thinking that any of the earliest Christians did not literally believe their own myths, then this prima facie conclusion may be overcome, but there seems to be no such arguments.

If Matthew, Luke, and John feel free to rewrite Mark's basic plot, they apparently did not believe that it was factual history. They treated it like a myth.

I would like to focus on this point. I wouldn't doubt that the authors of the gospels did not personally believe those myths that they passed on (you know how cult leaders are), but I don't think this is at all out of line with what we see in other religious myths. Given what we see in the other ancient Greco-Roman biographies, some people had to have been knowingly changing the stories. They almost certainly didn't believe that Alexander the Great was descended from Heracles from the beginning of the myth of Alexander, for example. Somebody made it up, probably without actually believing it, but the rest of them did believe it.

Toto · 06-18-2011, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

If Matthew, Luke, and John feel free to rewrite Mark's basic plot, they apparently did not believe that it was factual history. They treated it like a myth.

I would like to focus on this point. I wouldn't doubt that the authors of the gospels did not personally believe those myths that they passed on (you know how cult leaders are), but I don't think this is at all out of line with what we see in other religious myths. Given what we see in the other ancient Greco-Roman biographies, some people had to have been knowingly changing the stories. They almost certainly didn't believe that Alexander the Great was descended from Heracles from the beginning of the myth of Alexander, for example. Somebody made it up, probably without actually believing it, but the rest of them did believe it.

So what exactly is your position? Are you not contradicting the basis of your argument?

dog-on · 06-18-2011, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

If Matthew, Luke, and John feel free to rewrite Mark's basic plot, they apparently did not believe that it was factual history. They treated it like a myth.

I would like to focus on this point. I wouldn't doubt that the authors of the gospels did not personally believe those myths that they passed on (you know how cult leaders are), but I don't think this is at all out of line with what we see in other religious myths. Given what we see in the other ancient Greco-Roman biographies, some people had to have been knowingly changing the stories. They almost certainly didn't believe that Alexander the Great was descended from Heracles from the beginning of the myth of Alexander, for example. Somebody made it up, probably without actually believing it, but the rest of them did believe it.

If that's the case, doesn't that put a bit of a kink in your argument based on what they believed? In fact, isn't this what I have been trying to get you to acknowledge for a while now?

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06-18-2011, 01:02 PM	#36
ApostateAbe Contributor Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: MT Posts: 10,656	I take it as very easy to make the case that the early Christians literally believed their own myths--Luke 1:1-4, the cultish devotion to the mythical character of Jesus contained in the writings of Paul, the seeming beliefs reflected in all other early Christian writings, and the seeming similarities of the gospels with Greco-Roman biographies (see this thread), not any genre of fiction or allegory. If there was relevant evidence and any good argument for thinking that any of the earliest Christians did not literally believe their own myths, then this prima facie conclusion may be overcome, but there seems to be no such arguments.

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