Dr Rick

Perhaps, but no "super-intelligent atheist" would post this:

KA may be "super-intelligent," or he may be an atheist, but he's not both.

Rick

Cretinist

If it were merely an urban legend of sorts, one would expect some fleshed out details for this ‘event’.

Actually, we base this mostly on the fact that you agree with more conservative, even evangelical scholars. Also, your attitude towards the atheists here is one of disdain; you like to throw around words like “dogmatic” and “fundamentalist” atheism, and you seem to purposely try to start flamewars with atheists here.

No one in this thread has asserted that it is absolutely a lie.

Family Man

Judging by that statement, I'd have to say he's neither super-intelligent nor atheist.

Toto

KA - I have studied no Hebrew, but I know that Ashrei Ha'ish = Happy is the man (from proverbs, also a popular Israeli song.) I found an on-line Hebrew dictionary that translates Atta as You. So you're saying "You the man"?

King Arthur

Excellent! Perhaps I made it too easy? Oh well, kudos to you! I'm impressed. Now I'm gonna have to take back some of what I said about you.

Major Billy

According to Matthew chapter 28, verse 13, the high priests and elders said: Now since the gospel itself goes out of its way to deny the charge that the disciples faked the resurrection, it is rather likely that more than one reasonable person had said "No, it did not happen that way."

Vorkosigan

Only a super-intelligent atheist would look deeper than to call it a lie.

I'm not defending anything. I objected to Vorkosigan calling the story a lie. There could be some interesting historical truth to this that could be explored. However, no. He wants to simply dismiss it because he thinks that it was a lie. I think atheists should stop being so scared of religion and stop trying to dismiss everything as "forgery" (as he seems to think about the Tel Dan stele) or as a lie. This is "atheistic fundamentalism" and is every bit as bad and, in my opinion, dangerous as religious fundamentalism.

Blatant mis-representation. Blatant. On the thread about Tel Dan, I merely noted that others thought there were good reasons to think it is a forgery. I do not know if it is a forgery, and I do not know how strong a piece of evidence it is for the existence of David or a dynasty called Davidic. I cannot come to conclusions where no strong evidence exists either way. My approach to Tel Dan, where I have no specific expertise, is neither fundamentalist nor even atheistic, it is scholarly -- tentative, and aware of the limitations of the evidence, and of the multiple possibilities, especially forgery, especially where archaeology and nationalism intersect. Anyone with knowledge of Piltdown, or the neolithic art frauds of the 19th century, or Japanese archaeology in the previous decade, would approach something like Tel Dan gingerly. That is humility, not hubris.

Second....

...circumstance in question. The story does not necessarily have to be a lie. Why call it that?

...I gave several reasons why one could consider it a lie. It does not necessarily have to be a lie, but I am fairly certain that it is. In 100 posts in two threads you have utterly failed to say anything substantive about anything I've said; merely repeated your original statement "you can't prove it!" You're right. Proof is impossible without access to more information than we have. But evidence, based on comparison with claims similar to Paul's in Christianity and other religions, as well internal evidence, strongly suggests that it is a knowing lie. I'm going to the other thread to propel the discussion forward there.

Vorkosigan

Radcliffe Emerson

My take on Jesus since it's been mentioned here about some being non-Christian yet still supporting NT accounts.

Number one, I fully believe Jesus existed. I believe he was a spiritual leader like Gandhi in his day. I believe he may have been a humanist, before that word was coined. The NT records incidents with the temple, eating unclean foods, etc that seem to support Jesus actually being anti-religion, especially Judaism. Archaeological findings indicate Galillee was a poor region, and Nazareth the poorest town in that region. They had no synagogue, people gathered in gardens, or homes, or under trees to worship. As Jesus grew up in that atmosphere, he would have seen no reason for a fancy temple to worship in when he went to Jerusalem. He would have been teaching that God was everywhere, not in a building.
He created a large following, including non-Jews, women, children. As the Jewish leaders still considered non-Jews and women 2nd class citizens in that age, that would have put him on their list of people to get rid of, along with the disdain of the temple and disregarding traditional laws.
His leadership was nonviolent, yet it continued to grow. This presented a threat to Rome, as it was not an easy situation to deal with. They were used to putting down violent uprisings, peaceful insurrections however were much harder. So they decided to arrest Jesus as a criminal and execute him.
Here's where I differ. It's commonly known now that Romans did NOT allow crucified criminals to be removed, their bodies were left hanging until they rotted down to bone. The Jews could scream all they wanted about removing the body before Passover, it wouldn't have made any difference.
Second, if Pilate crucified Jesus, he did it for his own reasons, not because a crowd called for it. Romans didn't play to non-Roman crowds, especially in criminal trials.
Resurrection was a common belief among everyone in those days. It was well-known among the Romans that their emperors ascended directly into heaven when they died. Several Roman coins were made showing Caesar ascending. Did he? Of course not.
When Jesus died, his followers wanted somehow to keep the movement going. Curiously enough, the resurrection was not taught about among early Christians for almost 300 years, despite Paul mentioning it. New scholarly studies indicate now that Paul speaks of the resurrection in a spiritual sense, not a physical one, and also indicates by Jesus being raised, everyone will be raised.
I'm not sure I believe in spiritual resurrection either, no way to know. But I believe these explanations are what really happened, not the divine explanations.
And I think it's important to remember that Jesus himself most of the time refers to himself as the Son of Man, not Son of God. The Aramaic phrase Son of Man in those days (Jesus spoke Aramaic), means "human being", not God.

Ted Hoffman

Radcliffe Emerson MAKE UP YOUR MIND
EARLIER:

Radcliffe Emerson

I said the stories are myths. I don't doubt they may be based on an actual person, designed to influence superstitious people in that time period to follow the Christian way.
And by myth, I mean:
The Exodus.
God choosing Israel, favoring them, communicating with them, giving them commandments.
Turning someone to salt.
Raising people from the dead.
Jesus rising from the dead (physically)
Healing blind, lame, by just touching them.
Telling a Roman Centurion to go home and find his servant miraculously healed.
The virgin birth.
Peter raising someone from the dead in Acts.
The dead getting out of their tombs in Jerusalem and walking around.
Any miracle.
That stuff is all myth.
Doesn't mean there wasn't a human being behind the myth though.
I believe if Ghandi had lived in an age before modern communication, he too would have mythical stories attributed to him after his death.

Believing stories about someone are myth and believing the someone in the myth actually lived as a human are not the same thing.

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Radcliffe Emerson ]

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Radcliffe Emerson ]

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Radcliffe Emerson ]</p>