Freethought & Rationalism Archive

PhilosopherJay · 03-28-2011, 05:35 PM

Hi mysteriousworld,

Our abilities to distinguish fiction from non-fiction has increased greatly in modern times, especially since Diderot's invention of the modern Encyclopedia circa 1750.

Perhaps a better question is how one person has been given credit for an ideological movement that really involved many.

For example, modern communism is generally seen to have been founded by Karl Marx. If you go to answer.com, the answer to the question "Who invented communism?" is
"The person who invented communism is karl marx"

Marx, of course, is the writer of the communist manifesto in 1848. However communism certainly predated Marx.

For example note:

Quote:

John Goodwin Barmby (1820-1881) was a British Victorian utopian socialist.

He and his wife Catherine Barmby (died 1854) were influential supporters of Robert Owen in the late 1830s and early 1840s before moving into the radical Unitarian stream of Christianity in the 1840s. Both had established reputations as staunch feminists, and proposed the addition of women's suffrage to the demands of the Chartist movement.

Barmby was involved as an editor, writer and organiser of communitarian ventures around London from 1838 to 1848. He is often associated with the growth of socialist and utopian projects during the rise of Chartism. He founded a utopian community on the Channel Islands and at times corresponded with radicals including William James Linton and Friedrich Engels.

John Barmby is also known as the person who claimed to have introduced the word "communist" into the English language as a translation of the French word communiste during a visit to Paris in 1840 in conversation with some followers of Gracchus Babeuf[1] He introduced Engels to the French communiste movement[2]. They founded the London Communist Propaganda Society in 1841 and, in the same year, the Universal Communitarian Association. Barmby founded the Communist Chronicle, a monthly newspaper later published by Thomas Frost. By 1843, the Barmbys had recast their movement as a church. The term "communism" was used slightly later, but certainly by the 1840s. As Donald F. Busky wrote, "Barmby may have thought that he invented the words communism and communist, but he was mistaken... in all probability ["communist" and "communism" were in use] by the 1830s or 1840s."

Also note (Wiki):

Quote:

The Communist League (1834–1850) was the first Marxist international organization. It was founded originally as the League of the Just by German workers in Paris in 1834. This was initially a utopian socialist and Christian communist grouping devoted to the ideas of Gracchus Babeuf. It became an international organization, which Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Johann Eccarius later joined.

The motto of the League of the Just (Bund der Gerechten) was "All Men are Brothers" and its goals were "the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth, based on the ideals of love of one's neighbor, equality and justice".[1]. The League of the Just was itself a splinter group from the League of Outlaws (Bund der Geaechteten) created in Paris in 1834 by Theodore Schuster, Wilhelm Weitling and others German emigrants, mostly journeymen. Schuster was inspired by the works of Philippe Buonarroti. The latter league had a pyramidal structure inspired by the secret society of the Republican Carbonari, and shared ideas with Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier's utopic socialism. Their aim was to establish a "Social Republic" in the German states which would respect "freedom", "equality" and "civic virtue".

The League of the Just participated in the Blanquist uprising of May 1839 in Paris[2]. Thereafter expelled from France, the League of the Just moved to London where they founded a front group, the Educational Society for German Working-men, in 1840. While Weitling moved to Switzerland, Bauer and Schapper escaped to London.

The League of Outlaws numbered approximately 100 in Paris and 80 in Frankfurt, but by 1847 its successor the League of the Just numbered about 1,000, including members in Latin America[3].

Wilhelm Weitling's 1842 book, Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom, which criticized private property and bourgeois society, was one of the bases of the League of Just's social theory.

The Communist League was created in London in June 1847 out of a merger of the League of the Just and of the fifteen-man Communist Correspondence Committee of Bruxelles, headed by Karl Marx

Thus before Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, and before the creation of Marx' Communist League, the League of the Just was an international communist organization with over 1000 members.

Frederick Engels in 1843, before meeting Karl Marx, gave credit to Wilhelm Weitling for founding communism:

Quote:

He was born in Magdeburg, Prussia.[1] A tailor's apprentice, Weitling worked as a journeyman tailor in Dresden and Vienna between 1832 and 1837. He came to Paris in 1838, during the July Monarchy, later fleeing to Zürich following the abortive uprising of the Blanquists. Jailed and subsequently extradited back to Prussia by the Swiss authorities, Weitling emigrated to the United States, where he took part in the experimental German-American settlement of Communia, Iowa.

Working twelve-hour days as a tailor, he still found time to read Strauss and Lamennais. After joining the League of the Just in 1837, Weitling joined Parisian workers in protests and street battles in 1839. Tristram Hunt called his doctrine "a highly emotional mix of Babouvist communism, chiliastic Christianity, and millenarian populism":

Following the work of the Christian radical Felicité de Lamennais, Weitling urged installing communism by physical force with the help of a 40,000-strong army of ex-convicts. A prelapsarian community of goods, fellowship, and societal harmony would then ensue, ushered in by the Christlike figure of Weitling himself. While Marx and Engels struggled with the intricacies of industrial capitalism and modern modes of production, Weitling revived the apocalyptic politics of the sixteenth-century Münster Anabaptists and their gory attempts to usher in the Second Coming... Much to Marx and Engels's fury, Weitling's giddy blend of evangelism and protocommunism attracted thousands of dedicated followers across the Continent.[5]

Weitling's 1847 book Gospel of Poor Sinners he traced communism back to early Christianity.[6][7] His book Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom was praised by Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach and Mikhail Bakunin, the latter of whom Weitling was to meet in Zürich in 1843.[8] Karl Marx, in an 1844 review, referred to the "unbounded brilliance of the literary debut of the German worker,"[9] but "what won from Marx this high-sounding praise was simply the fact that Weitling's appeals were addressed to the workers as a class."[10]

Fleeing from France, Weitling settled in Zürich. There he was arrested and prosecuted for revolutionary agitation, including blasphemy on account of having published a text which depicted Jesus Christ as both a communist and the illegitimate child of Mary. Found guilty, he was handed a six-month sentence by the Swiss.[11] Eventually extradited to his native Prussia, Weitling got the chance to emigrate in 1849[12] and came to America as one of the Forty-Eighters.

Weitling died in New York.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by mysteriousworld

I was thinking about the jesus myth theory. How many examples of this kind of origin for a new religion do we actually have?

In recent history lets say the past 200 years how many new religious sects were based on a completely fictional founder?

Bullmoose Too · 03-28-2011, 05:43 PM

Buddhism and Christianity?

Jaybees · 03-28-2011, 06:01 PM

A difficult question to answer, since it's nearly impossible to separate most religions from their antecedents, so the question of a founder is frequently moot. Did Jesus (or Paul) found a new religion or is it just an offshoot of Judaism. Is Islam just Judaism and Christianity warmed over.

On the other hand, many relatively current founders (if you can really call them founders)
Joseph Smith, William Miller, Mary Baker Eddy, and a host of others certainly launched major cults if not actually separate religions.

Anyhow, I would guess that most ancient "founders" probably existed like the above, though they were undoubtedly very different from the legends that grew up about them.

It's not too farfetched to think that there may actually have been a Jesus--someone who grew up in the prophet-prone Israelite nation of his day and who did some prohesying of his own.

aa5874 · 03-28-2011, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaybees

....It's not too farfetched to think that there may actually have been a Jesus--someone who grew up in the prophet-prone Israelite nation of his day and who did some prohesying of his own.

But, why is it assumed Jesus started a religion?

What religion did Marcion's PHANTOM start?

According to Tertullian, it was claimed by Marcion that the PHANTOM Son of God came from heaven WITHOUT birth and was in Capernaum in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius.

Does the PHANTOM itself have to start a religion?

All that was needed is a STORY about a PHANTOM or an offspring of the Holy Ghost that people BELIEVED was TRUE or PLAUSIBLE.

It was the same Greeks and Romans who BELIEVED in MYTH Gods who themselves BELIEVED that Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost.

"First Apology"

Quote:

...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.

All that was NEEDED was just a BELIEVEABLE story and claims that Jesus must have been RAISED from the dead.

Where can you find a credible source of antiquity that shows Jesus of the NT ACTUALLY started a religion and ACTUALLY did live in the FIRST century?

Why is it not far-fetched for you to make continuously PRESUMPTIONS without any evidence from antiquity.

Frankencaster · 03-28-2011, 07:30 PM

i'm still not sure of the logic of a fictional character being the founder of a religion. It's like saying Tom Sawyer and not Mark Twain wrote 'Tom Sawyer'.

Kapyong · 03-28-2011, 11:35 PM

Gday all,
OK, here's where I think we are now :

1. No fictional / mythical person can actually found a religion.

2. Some religions are believed or claimed to have actually been "founded" by the fictional / mythical figure they are based on (Rosicrucianism by Christian Rosencreuz, Hermeticism by Hermes Trismegistus.) Theosophy MAY fit in here - they claim to have letters from the masters which tell them to found a movement.

3. The vast majority of religions are based on a fictional / mythical entity or entity (and founded by a historical person or persons.)

4. A small number of recent religions are actually based on historical figures (Rastafaris worship Haile Selassie; Bahais revere the Bab and Baha'ula; Sikhs revere Singh.)

So where do Islam and Christianity fit in?

Islam was founded by Mohamed, (and later splits were founded by his relatives) and it is largely based on Mohamed's teachings. Mohamed is almost certainly historical - maybe not 100% though.

Christianity is based on Jesus, and he is claimed to have founded it, according to some ("upon this rock", "do this in remembrance of me" e.g.)

If Jesus was mythical / fictional, he would fit right in to the ancient world just fine.

Kapyong

gurugeorge · 03-29-2011, 05:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Gday all,
OK, here's where I think we are now :

1. No fictional / mythical person can actually found a religion.

2. Some religions are believed or claimed to have actually been "founded" by the fictional / mythical figure they are based on (Rosicrucianism by Christian Rosencreuz, Hermeticism by Hermes Trismegistus.) Theosophy MAY fit in here - they claim to have letters from the masters which tell them to found a movement.

3. The vast majority of religions are based on a fictional / mythical entity or entity (and founded by a historical person or persons.)

4. A small number of recent religions are actually based on historical figures (Rastafaris worship Haile Selassie; Bahais revere the Bab and Baha'ula; Sikhs revere Singh.)

So where do Islam and Christianity fit in?

Islam was founded by Mohamed, (and later splits were founded by his relatives) and it is largely based on Mohamed's teachings. Mohamed is almost certainly historical - maybe not 100% though.

Christianity is based on Jesus, and he is claimed to have founded it, according to some ("upon this rock", "do this in remembrance of me" e.g.)

If Jesus was mythical / fictional, he would fit right in to the ancient world just fine.

Kapyong

But don't forget, there's a further twist here:-

Some of the entities we now think of as "mythical" (and therefore not real, not historical) were believed by some ancient people to be real, i.e. historical-to-them.

To me, that's the real kicker that gums up the works in many of these discussions.

MY BRAIN HURTS!

aa5874 · 03-29-2011, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frankencaster

i'm still not sure of the logic of a fictional character being the founder of a religion. It's like saying Tom Sawyer and not Mark Twain wrote 'Tom Sawyer'.

Why is it so difficult to understand that the Jesus story was fundamentally NO different to the Phantom story of Marcion or the Myth stories of the Greeks and Romans?

Marcion INVENTED the Phantom Son of God (without birth) sometime in the 2nd century and PEOPLE of antiquity BELIEVED the Phantom story and WORSHIPED the PHANTOM as a God.

Likewise, some UNKNOWN character/ characters INVENTED the offspring of the Holy Ghost story sometime AFTER the Fall of the Temple and People of Antiquity believed.

It is EXTREMELY important to understand that the PHANTOM had ZERO earthly parents and was claimed to have come DIRECTLY from heaven and that people of antiquity did WORSHIP the PHANTOM as the Son of God.

The very people of antiquity who became Christians, the Greeks and the Romans, did BELIEVE in Myths.

It was the STORY teller/tellers that STARTED the religion not the characters in the story. Jesus, like the PHANTOM, was a character in a story.

The PHANTOM was NOTHING. The PHANTOM STARTED NOTHING.

Jesus was NOTHING. JESUS started NOTHING.

Iskander · 03-29-2011, 06:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mysteriousworld

I was thinking about the jesus myth theory. How many examples of this kind of origin for a new religion do we actually have?

In recent history lets say the past 200 years how many new religious sects were based on a completely fictional founder?

Aleph 0, :devil3:

Kapyong · 03-29-2011, 01:09 PM

Gday,

("In recent history lets say the past 200 years how many new religious sects were based on a completely fictional founder?")

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Aleph 0, :devil3:

Wrong - here are some recent religions based on myths :
Scientology.
Jediism.
Theosophy.
Mormonism.
Aetherius society.
Ananda Marga.
Builders of the Adytum.
Cargo cults.
Church of all Worlds.
Church of Aphrodite.
...

There are many many more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ious_movements

Kapyong

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03-28-2011, 05:43 PM	#22
Bullmoose Too Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Toledo, Oh Posts: 9,928	Buddhism and Christianity?

03-28-2011, 06:01 PM	#23
Jaybees Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Hawaii Posts: 9,233	A difficult question to answer, since it's nearly impossible to separate most religions from their antecedents, so the question of a founder is frequently moot. Did Jesus (or Paul) found a new religion or is it just an offshoot of Judaism. Is Islam just Judaism and Christianity warmed over. On the other hand, many relatively current founders (if you can really call them founders) Joseph Smith, William Miller, Mary Baker Eddy, and a host of others certainly launched major cults if not actually separate religions. Anyhow, I would guess that most ancient "founders" probably existed like the above, though they were undoubtedly very different from the legends that grew up about them. It's not too farfetched to think that there may actually have been a Jesus--someone who grew up in the prophet-prone Israelite nation of his day and who did some prohesying of his own.

03-28-2011, 07:30 PM	#25
Frankencaster Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rocky Mountains, Canada Posts: 2,293	i'm still not sure of the logic of a fictional character being the founder of a religion. It's like saying Tom Sawyer and not Mark Twain wrote 'Tom Sawyer'.

03-28-2011, 11:35 PM	#26
Kapyong Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Perth Posts: 1,779	Gday all, OK, here's where I think we are now : 1. No fictional / mythical person can actually found a religion. 2. Some religions are believed or claimed to have actually been "founded" by the fictional / mythical figure they are based on (Rosicrucianism by Christian Rosencreuz, Hermeticism by Hermes Trismegistus.) Theosophy MAY fit in here - they claim to have letters from the masters which tell them to found a movement. 3. The vast majority of religions are based on a fictional / mythical entity or entity (and founded by a historical person or persons.) 4. A small number of recent religions are actually based on historical figures (Rastafaris worship Haile Selassie; Bahais revere the Bab and Baha'ula; Sikhs revere Singh.) So where do Islam and Christianity fit in? Islam was founded by Mohamed, (and later splits were founded by his relatives) and it is largely based on Mohamed's teachings. Mohamed is almost certainly historical - maybe not 100% though. Christianity is based on Jesus, and he is claimed to have founded it, according to some ("upon this rock", "do this in remembrance of me" e.g.) If Jesus was mythical / fictional, he would fit right in to the ancient world just fine. Kapyong

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