lpetrich

I wonder what is so great about Will Durant's arguments anyway.

Radorth

They don't, in length or detail, especially details which inventors would have hidden. I keep asking for examples that hold a candle to the Gospels, but all you guys can do is repeat your mantras and hope the choir doesn't ask questions. Like I've said, I'll never forget one JM'er response to Kirby when he had the temerity to question how such lengthy, detailed stories fit into the "midrash" theory of myth creation.

What a joke.

He doesn't ask you to take 30 assertions by faith, and listen to a 10 different nonsensical alternate theories so you can appear open-minded.

"Appear" being the operative word.

I doubt you even know what his arguments are anyway.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

I think it's time that you either supoort evidence for your assertions or put a lid on it.

1.)Lets start with the 30 assertions we take by faith.
Start listing them and don't stop until you hit 30. 30 is the number you picked so there should be no bitching that I've made it to tough for you.

2.)List 10 different nonsensical theories we have presented in attempts to appear open minded.

For months you've given us nothing but angry balloon juice and I think it's time you back up your words.

Radorth

You haven't heard? Luke was a woman named Paul who wrote Acts around 140 CE.

Try to keep up man.

And if you think you have to take less than 30 assertions by faith to give such theories the time of day, I can't be bothered. Besides Fenton, you're on one of your personal grudge crusades again and I've decided not to defend myself against your cynical defamations.

Have at it.

Rad

Biff the unclean

Biff:… why do the stories that make up the life of Jesus match earlier storys that are known myths?

Rad:They don't, in length or detail, especially details which inventors would have hidden.
This is just plain silly. They aren't long enough or detailed enough???!!! Had you actually read any of this mythology you would never say such a thing.

I keep asking for examples that hold a candle to the Gospels, but all you guys can do is repeat your mantras and hope the choir doesn't ask questions.
We tell you what the myths are, which Gods they belong to, which text books they can be found in. And you do what exactly?
Have you read any of them? Apparently not. You ignore the evidence and pretend that it isn't there. So is this fear or just laziness on your part?

detailed stories fit into the "midrash" theory of myth creation.
I always wonder if Xians who bring up the Midrash have ever even met a Jew. Because if they knew the first thing about the Midrash they would know that it makes a "Christ" who saves mankind from sin after the fall to be completely unnecessary and superfluous.

(Will Durant) doesn't ask you to take 30 assertions by faith, and listen to a 10 different nonsensical alternate theories so you can appear open-minded.
A quick scan of these boards reveals that only you are demanding that people take things on faith.
The rest of us presented evidence while you present assertions.
You bring up Durant again and again but never bother to quote him or even paraphrase him. You just shake his name at us like he were a VooDoo doll. Booga, booga, booga!! You have left the impression that you know as much about Durant as you do Dionysus. But that's usually the case with "Superstitionists" like you.
I do hope that there are lurkers who are "on the fence" about Christianity reading what you have written in this thread. You do more to promote Atheism than the rest of us put together. Keep up the shoddy work.

Yellum Notnef

Ok heres number one.
I'm not aware of anyone saying Luke was a woman named Paul and it doesn't even make sense. Why would a woman be named Paul in the first place. Where does this come from?
This certainly isn't a factor in why *I* don't believe the Jeez was a real guy.

Quote:

Try to keep up man.

I am keeping up and right now I'm standing on the backs of your shoes. You don't like this at all and are trying hard to give me the slip as is made very clear below.

Thats a cop out and a common tactic you often employ when someone calls you on what you say.

Thats another cop out combined with a dash of mind reading AND an insult.

let me get this straight.
You can repeat the same assertions here over and over again,but have no obligation to back any of it up soley because you don't care for the guy asking the questions?

Fine Radorth. I'll get someone else to ask you these same questions.

Biff the unclean

Luke being a woman is put forward as a theory by Randel Helms in Who Wrote the Gospels which he bases on extensive evidence. The books not a bad read. The only annoying thing about it is the overpowering extent to which Helms backs up every single last thing he says.
Late dates for authorship of the gospels is part of modern biblical scholarship and has nothing to do with Atheists.
A "girl named Paul" originates with Rad. It isn't clear if he is mocking his intellectual betters or if he is just not telling the truth. Xians never seem to feel compelled to stick with the facts.

Fiach

The fairest assessment in my opinion is that none of us know for sure that there was a Jesus or that Jesus was a god-man. We don't know for sure that he is entirely fictional, nor do we know for sure that he existed.

I think it is safe to say that Jesus is a controversial figure who some people believe to be a god-man. Yes there were similar god-men, sons of different gods, born to a human virgin, who died and resurrected. Mithra, Horus, Osiris, Aten, Apollonius, maybe Krishna, maybe Lugh are similar myths. They are equal to the Jesus myth in credibility or lack thereof.

The Jesus Myth is most written about because of his political history. Constantine imposed it on the Empire, in 324 CE, when Arians were the majority Christians not the Trinitarian Athanasians (Catholics.) As always happens, the winners write the history books. The winners systematically burn the documents of the defeated rivals. The Church with the later Christian emperors systematically burned all pagan documents that they could get their hands upon. Pagans were persecuted out of existence or executed over a 200 year period with only isolated rural pockets surviving (hence the name Pagan which refers to rural.)

It ultimately is a matter of faith. Those who accept the dominant Jesus Myth (Catholics, Protestants, Fundamentalists, Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic) do so by strong desire for immortality that enables them to bypass the Frontal Rubbish Filter that would normally reject such irrational concepts as Original Sin, inherited guilt, god impregnating a girl to produces a god-human hybrid for blood sacrifice, to be crucified, and resurrect. None of that was necesary. God could have simply forgiven Adam.

There is a right hemisphere hypothetical morality filter, possibly also frontal, not yet studied. This morality filter is defective in Jesus Mythers who excuse the immorality of Noah's Flood, the immorality of Israelite atrocities, the immorality of killing Egyptian first borns, the immorality of torturing Job, the immorality of Japhthe's daughter in a gory sacrifice for winning a battle against infidels.

In summary: while there is no superiority of Mithra over Jesus, or Jesus over Apollonius, or Jesus over Horus or Aten. The simple truth is that Jesus became better known due to a military-religious coup d'etat by Constantine in 324 CE. The greatest argument against the validity of Christianity is to trace its historical evolution and how it became dominant. It was not magic, miracles, or genuine conversions but the coersion and power by the most powerful army in the world of 324 CE. The competing god-man cults suffered the fate of documents to the flaming torch and the Nazi like bonfires of books.

Fiach

Fiach

Rad is just employing any defencive tactic that he can in desperation and frustraton over rational debunking of his religion. He is like the Al Faedaheen of Ouday Husseine's guerrilla forces. His tactics could be to wear American uniforms to fool Anglo-American troops. His tactics of wearing civilian clothes or carrying a white flag of truce, then open fires on the Americans.

Logic is like the Anglo-Americans high tech units, and Rad is like the Iraqis fighting with obsolete weapons, using fear and terror of his God, subterfuge, and deception to overcome rational/technical weakness to fight.

Fiach

Biff the unclean

One thing the Catholics did change were the number of books in the NT. Before their political victory there were also The Gospel of Thomas, The Acts of John, The Apocryphon of John, The Sophia of Jesus Christ, The Pistis Sophia and The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene)
These and thirty two other books of the pre Catholic Bible were discovered near Nag-Hamadi in Egypt. Yet no Protestant has adopted any one of them. Why is that?