The Dagda

Thanks.

I don't think the Nicean council counts as anything canonical either.

Should I be burned for heresy?

dog-on

Cool. Now go do your job.

dog-on

Haven't you kept us waiting long enough. Stop procrastinating already...

dog-on

Is this because God can't pass the test?

spin

Would you care to express your analogy and assumptions?

You can claim anything your heart so desires.

Could I nail one of your feet to the floor, so we can stop this waltzing of yours?

The first reasonable thing you've said to me in this thread is the first part of this sentence.

Jesus Christ, as portrayed in the gospels is a mythical being.

"[S]eems" is backpeddling. You were more direct earlier.

We were talking about your claim, as representative of the lack of substantive response of mythicism to the OP.


spin

dog-on

How do I prove that fairies are mythical beings, apart from the presumption that such creatures are mythical?

Which I do.
Sure. I believe that almost all of the Pauline epistles are spurious and that what we do have, even with regards to the hauptbrief, has been heavily redacted by the winners of a second century theological dispute.

In concert with this, I believe that Mark is an allegorical tale, written to help explain Paul's mystery and that is all it was ever meant to be.


Well, of course I do not know if any of these guys, Jesus included, was actually based on a historical person. I just don't have any good evidence to believe that he actual was.
I tried to reduce my naivete...
So how do I prove non-existence? The only thing we can do is look at what we have and make a judgement. My judgement is that the gospel stories are simply that, stories.

I call them myths, I'll even except biographical myth. Of course, as to what the actual genre of these writings was meant to be, I have not a clue.

The Dagda

How do you prove I do not exist and I am not the Messiah?

dog-on

I have already accepted both because a.) you post here and b.) why should I assume you are lying?

Solo

Well, I fess up: I wrote it that way for people to make the connection.

Paul is consistent in his message. He will not speak of the man but the cosmic meaning of his death and heavenly life he earned by his service to God. Further he strongly associates weakness or illness (spiritual crisis) with the crucifixion. Here is the cluster of the verses that hang together cognitively:


1 Cr 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1 Cr 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles

1 Cr 2:2-4 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

2 Cr 5:16-17 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

2 Cr 12:7-9 And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Cr 13:4 For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we shall live with him by the power of God.

Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?

Gal 4:14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

Gal 6:14 But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Phl 2:8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

The thing to understand about Paul and his closest associates (the "co-prisoners") is that they suffered from bi-polar condition. Paul was what the shrinks call "hooked on his highs"; he fantasized his euphoric manic highs as the glories of the life to come (resurrection) and the lows as the crucifixion to sin which buys him the ticket. As 2 Cr 12 shows he understood the connection.

Just a few years before manic-depression was described medically by Eric Kraepelin in the early 1900's , the Montreal psychiatrist R.M Bucke wrote a spiritualist compendium called "Cosmic Consciousness", in which he describes and parallels the experience of Jesus, Paul, Buddha, Mohammed with those of Plotinus, Dante, Francis Bacon, William Blake, Swedenborg, Pushkin, Blaise Pascal, Diderot, and some people from his own practice, most prominently Walt Whitman, the American poet. He believed that the phenomena he was studying prefigured a new consciousness which would make for a better humanity. From my perspective it is interesting that Bucke tried to suppress or minimize the negative effects reported to him by his contemporaries and his own patients even though some were very frank about suffering a period of depressive "lunacy" after they saw the light. Edward Carpenter, a prominent socialist philosopher and poet, wrote to Bucke about his spiritual experiences frankly and expressed doubt that it is a new evolutionary form of higher consciousness: In many cases indeed the novelty and strangeness of the experiences give rise to phantasmal trains of delusive speculation. Though we should expect...that..the higher types of existing humanity are those most likely to come into possession of any new faculties which may be flying about, yet it is not always so, and there are cases, well recognized, in which persons of decidedly deficient or low moral nature attain powers which properly belong to a higher grade of evolution and are ...dangerous thereby. Ironic that Carpenter was openly gay at a time when it was decidedly not fashionable, but shared concerns for morality with Paul who saw Satan at work in psychics of Carpenter's ilk at Corinth. Whitman was described as bi-polar by Kay Redfield Jamieson (Touched With Fire (or via: amazon.co.uk)) , Carpenter I am sure would have been also, had she trained her eye on him.


Jiri

joedad

If Jesus is to become historical outside the gospels it seems we ought to narrow the field in time, place and occupation. Then perhaps a meaningful list of candidates can be drawn upon as possibilities. I think anyone arguing for a historical Jesus needs to do this.

And the events in the gospels need to be examined and a list created that will hypothetically match our final candidate. If for example our hypothetical Jesus is allowed to preach freely around Palestine, gathering huge crowds while his contemporaries are being executed, that needs to be explained.