Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Metacrock · 10-03-2002, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by NOGO:


"Motives? I can hardly believe you can ask such a naive question. The Greeks have conquered the entire world with a small army and now need to control it."

Let's see,
"the Greeks conquered the entire world"
So that is not contested. Right?
They must have had a leader.
Nothing unusual or incredible about that.
His name was Alexander.
Nothing unsual or incredible about that either.
Bede, I am done. The thing that is hardest to fabricate is the conquests themselves.

Meta =>ahahahahahahahhahaahhaha! with reasoning like that, you should go into politics. You could be a Republican spin doctor for Bush! Man, talk about diverting attention from the argument! Try answering the argument! That gives them a motive for propaganda. That they had a leader is a dead cert. What his name was is the point--you can't prove it.

and I continue to ignore all you're evidence for Alexander until you can show me some unbaised evidence for him.

Quote:

As usual, Bede, you dance around on the fringe of the absurd.

Meta => woe! "his pot is blacker than his Kettle, black Ader, black Ader..."

Quote:

I stated that it was not easy to invent a story of Alexandre the Great not just his deification. Your answer simply missed the target altogether.

Meta ->Of course it would be child's play to make up Jesus and get everyone to believe in him--even though no one in Jerusalme would have any relatives or parents or grandparents who ever heard of him before the preaching of the 12 but that wouldn't bother anyone? Get real!

Quote:

Let's say that we are in 200 BCE and I want to create a story about Victorian the Great who conquered all of North Africa, the middle east and parts of asia all the way to Iran. I say that this is an impossible task. However, if I want to fabricate a story of a humble peasant who did all sorts of miracles that only a small group of people have seen and who are also part of a fanatical religious sect then the task is much easier.

Meta=>I agree it would be easier but not bloody likely. You act like no one in Palestine had the concept of memory. It would bother them that no one every heard of him. Yea, it would bother them a lot, especially when you consider that the pre Marcan redaction of the passion narrative was written just 20 years after the events. Living memory of the witnesses and no one every heard of him, whose going to join up?

Toto · 10-03-2002, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bede:
. . .
Toto, an Alex Myther would simply claim that the fragments of eye witness accounts are fabricated in the three centuries or so before being used by the later accounts we have. We have names of eye witnesses? So what, they can easily be made up. You admit mythicists are allowed to declare any inconvenient document fiction. Why treat the Alex sources differently from Mark? And remember, there are three hundred years between Alex's death and the accounts we now have of his life - much longer than the less than a hundred years for the Gospels (less that fifty for Mark).

Why treat the "Alex" sources differently from Mark? Because Mark has the feel and sound of a legendary work on the one hand, and because the sources on Alexander correlate roughly with the facts on the ground - that someone conquered the world and spread Koine Greek language and Greek culture around the world. The sources on Alexander also contain the sort of details that indicate they were talking about a real person. They give his appearance, his height, his coloring, his interests, his lover, the name of his horse.

Still, the details about Alexander have to be treated with a certain scepticism. But there is no current religion that requires Alexander to be a real figure (if you don't count current day Greek, Bulgarian, or Macedonian nationalism.)

Quote:

Nogo, it would be dead easy to make up stories on Alex which indeed was almost immediately done. Motives? I can hardly believe you can ask such a naive question. The Greeks have conquered the entire world with a small army and now need to control it. How? Well, they have to legitimise their conquests and they do this by turning Alex into a God and hence infalible. If the conquests were divine they should stand as they were the will of the Gods. So the motive for inventing a divine conquerer was simple - hang on to power by legitimising it. And as the Greeks are in charge, who is going to question them? <a href="http://www.bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm" target="_blank">Here</a> is another parody of Jesus Myth logic showing Hannibal never existed.

Bede, this is pure fantasy. The Greek empire was based on pure military might. And it fell apart very quickly. Are you trying to say that someone else conquered the world and then invented Alexander? Wouldn't that person want to be the divine god? Besides, every ruler back in those days was divine.

You have provided a motive for creating myths about Alexander (on the order of George Washington and the cherry tree) but not a motive for inventing a founder.

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The more I look at it the more I realise that Alex is an almost complete rebuttal of the Jesus Myth. If you believe the JM you cannot do history at all. OK, you might believe Alex existed, but you would know nothing whatsoever about him because you have thrown out historical method and replaced it with your ultra scepticism. You use Turton's fallacy - if you can make up a story that fits explains a document you can disregard the documents plain reading.

So as historians, you are screwed and as literary critics you are boring.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and fantasy</a>

And your mother wears army boots.

It is possible to be a skeptic and do interesting history. It is gullibility that makes history read like my fifth grade history books, which put us all to sleep. I think that historical documents should be subject to at least the same amount of scrutiny and skepticism as current day political propaganda. It sounds like you believe things in ancient documents that you would never believe if they were reported in the tabloids.

And Turton/Vork has challenged you on this alleged fallacy.

Starboy · 10-03-2002, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Metacrock:


yea really, he's only got 2 billion followers 2000 years after his death! You're belief (that is the belief of Toto and the gang) is unimportant, it's important a priori.

Yet another bible thumper. Experts at taking things out of context and masters of illogic. Using this argument, one must conclude there is a Santa Claus.

Starboy

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]

Starboy · 10-03-2002, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Metacrock:


paul met those who knew Jesus and his doctrines were accepted by the Jerusalem chruch. He had to have some reason for this conversion; you act like it was just a plot, what did he get out of it? beheaded.

I have no idea why he did it. Perhaps he had a desire to control and manipulate people. In any case he had little connection to Jesus and his message had little to do with that of Jesus. As such he was a man with his own agenda trumpeting himself as an emmisary of Jesus. In short a fraud.

Starboy

Toto · 10-03-2002, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Metacrock:


Meta =>"when read literally." There's your little game. You're hatred of God trip is so boring! You can't even evaluate historical evidence by common sense because you are so anxious to destroy what you fear.

There are no historical problems when you take a realistic view and don't worry inerrency. And there is not a serious historian anywhere who doubt doubts that Jesus existed.

Is this the insult du jour on the Christians' talking point page? Boring?

It's just so much more interesting to have to invent stuff to make sense out of the Bible's fairy tales. But I found Doherty's book more interesting than most of the apologetic stuff I've read.

And how can I hate or fear God if I don't believe in him/her/it or them?

Toto · 10-03-2002, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Metacrock:


Paul met those who knew Jesus and his doctrines were accepted by the Jerusalem chruch. He had to have some reason for this conversion; you act like it was just a plot, what did he get out of it? beheaded.

The reason for Paul's conversion, according to all known sources, had absolutely nothing to do with meeting anyone who knew Jesus. When he did meet Peter, he told him to his face that he was wrong (if you can trust his epistles). You can't use any story that we have about Paul to prove anything about the historical Jesus.

Metacrock, you are lowing the tone of this debate. We're talking about historical sources. You are raising old arguments that have been thoroughly debunked and making ad hominem charges about my motives. Please shape up or start your own thread.

Kosh · 10-03-2002, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Metacrock:
Meta => What makes the geneologies "obviously fictional?" Just because you don't like them.There is nothing there that would make them fictional, or that would disprove them. One is Jo and one is Mary, Given that,there's no problem with them.

Well, there's this little problem that the same book claims it was the Holy Spirit that banged Mary, not Joseph. So how could you trace his ancestry through Joseph? Joseph is supposed to have kept his dick in his robes, remember? How do you deal with that?

NOGO · 10-03-2002, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Meta
Meta => What makes the geneologies "obviously fictional?" Just because you don't like them.There is nothing there that would make them fictional, or that would disprove them. One is Jo and one is Mary, Given that,there's no problem with them.

Is this the same Metacrock who does know what the Dark ages are?
Funny Meta always seems to appear when Bede needs some backing. There is a pattern here.

"There is no problem with them". What is this Meta?
OT____________________________NT
I Chr. 3:10 16 _______________Matthew 1:6-11
Solomon ......................Solomon
Rehoboam .....................Roboam
Abia .........................Abia
Asa...........................Asa
Jehoshaphat ..................Josaphat
Joram ........................Joram
Ahazia .......................--- ?
Joash ........ .............--- ?
Amazia .......................--- ?
Azaria .......................Ozias
Jotham .......................Joatham
Ahaz .........................Achaz
Hezekia ......................Ezekias
Manasseh......................Manasses
Amon..........................Amon
Josia.........................Josias
Jehoiakim.....................--- ?
Jeconia.......................Jechonias

Four missing names. The NT writers can't even copy.

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]

NOGO · 10-03-2002, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Meta
Meta =>ahahahahahahahhahaahhaha! with reasoning like that, you should go into politics. You could be a Republican spin doctor for Bush! Man, talk about diverting attention from the argument! Try answering the argument! That gives them a motive for propaganda. That they had a leader is a dead cert. What his name was is the point--you can't prove it.

Let me get this straight.
We know that there was a man who lived from 356-323 B.C. He was King of Macedonia (336-323) and conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia. But we can't prove that his name was Alexander the Great.

I am astonished!
Speechless!
I believe that it is not honourable to go into battle with an unarmed man.

Meta, you win.

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]

Layman · 10-03-2002, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich:


There is even a name for this principle:

Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus

Latin for

"False in one thing, false in everything"

And I notice that some apologists have claimed that the Gospels would hold up very well in court. But when some legal principle goes against them, they claim that courtroom standards are inappropriate.

Well, I'm not one of those Christians.

I've always said that the legal system is a less than stellar way of determining truth, because determining "what happened" its not really its primary goal.

If you meet one of those Christians who claim the Bible would stand up in court, you can tell them I said, so what?

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