worldling

How did Christianity start?

Shortly after the death of JC, a rumour started that he had magically come alive again. People believed the rumour; Paul hypothesised about the meaning of the rumour; the hypothesis caught on (even though in the final analysis it didn't actually make any sense), and Christianity was born.

Christianity is just a hypothesis about a rumour.

malookiemaloo

BF,

I do take the point you make but I would be very surprised indeed if every seriously religious person in the world today could not give an accurate account of how their religion started. Whether we find their explanations rational or true is another matter. Did Joseph Smith really find the tablets which immediately self-destructed after he read them? At the end of the day we just have to make a rational judgement.

I have to say that I notice a great reluctance on the part of sceptics to discuss specifically the origin of Christianity. It's one thing to have a laugh at Noah's Ark or the Garden of Eden. Quite another to explain how Christianity all began-apart from the resurrection, that is.


Alistair

Clutch

Alistair,


The point, since you'll not allow it to remain even a little bit subtle, was this: Your argument is a dismal case of "special pleading": that is, assuming facts not unique to Christianity to have some unique significance in the case of Christianity.

Viz:Substitute the name of any current or former religious movement for "Christianity"; this would be just as good -- meaning, just as bad -- an argument for each of them.

That is, unless you have, for each and every such religion, specific reason to think that the analogue of your argument does not work for it. But we'd have to see each such reason, and in particular we'd have to ensure that the standards for evidence that you're applying in each such case are the same standards you apply to Christianity.

In the absence of your producing such reasoning, you've given about the worst conceivable argument: People started believing it; therefore it must be true. Since the same thing can be said for every religion that ever existed, up to and including the Heaven's Gate cult and those who believe(d) that David Koresh was the messiah, your argument's net effect is to embarrass you.

Hawkingfan

I would have to agree with what ax said earlier. Just because they proclaimed something that put themselves in serious jeopardy does not mean what they are proclaiming is true. Does the fact that the Hale-bopp cult killed themselves for what they believed to be true mean that there really was an alien spaceship behind the comet, and that they are on it right now?
Or could the writers of the gospel lied about the bold proclamations in the first place?
Or maybe the apostles were fooled to begin with. DM made an excellent point that no one actually saw Jesus rise from the dead. They only saw an empty tomb and concluded such. There could be a logical explanation why Christ's body was not in the tomb. Since the stone was already rolled away when they got there (at least in MK, LK, and JN it was), then maybe Christ was not dead and could have walked out and appeared to his disciples claiming to have risen from the dead. It's just a thought. I don't even believe a man named Jesus Christ ever existed.

Dargo

There are many possible explanations that don't involve the supernatural. Here is one of them.

After Jesus was executed his followers were naturally devastated. One of them either had a vision of Jesus or saw someone who looked like Jesus at a distance (a close relative perhaps). He or she went to the others and excitedly told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. The others wanting to cling to any hope believed this person. Soon others would be having visions of Jesus. Some early Christians may have lied about seeing Jesus just to help them fit in. They didn't want to seem less faithful.

This phenomenom has been seen many times in human history. Some people believe Elvis is still alive. The gospels were writen decades after the events in question, and it is doubtful if any of the authors were first hand witnesses. They are the results of of rumors, legends, and outright forgeries. It is interesting that even the gospels claim that Jesus only appeared to his closest followers. Why is this?

You can point proudly at the empty tomb. How do you know there even was a tomb? The Romans often didn't bury crucification victims. They would simply throw the bodies to the dogs. The Jews didn't like this practice, but their objections would hardly bother the Romans.

Even if there was an empty tomb this can be explained by natural means. One of more of the disciples in an attempt to keep the movement alive or better yet take it over himself could have stolen the body. It could have been a prank pulled by drunk Roman soldiers. You know that religious nut we killed a couple of days ago. His followers are a bunch of dopes who think he's a god or something. We ought to steal the body and tell them he rose from the dead.

It is also possible that Jesus never existed and the whole thing is a myth. Given the lack of historical records of this era anything is possible. Your god did a rather poor job of recording what is supposed to be the greatest event in human history.

Family Man

All I am saying is I believe Christianity started because Jesus rose from the dead. I am open to any other theories which stack up.

All we're saying is that Christianity started because Jesus's followers mistakenly came to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. That's a theory that stacks up.

copernicus

Why do you believe that? There are many non-christian religions in the world. Do you take all their claims literally? For example, did Joseph Smith really meet with the angel Mormoni? What other explanation could you offer for his story? If you can answer why you don't believe in the miraculous claims of other religions, then you have your answer as to why you shouldn't believe in the miraculous claims of the christian religion.

Alistair, do you really believe that this argument carries any weight at all? Why is not it an argument for the validity of every religion that exists or ever existed in the past? The burden of proof is not on those who disbelieve, but on those who believe. The whole point of "faith" is that it is belief without proof. You can have faith in anything at all.

If you are legitimately asking how christianity could have arisen in the first place, there is a rather old claim that it arose out of the Greek "mystery religion" tradition, a judaic version ot the pagan tradition that had its roots in Egypt. There were competing religions that were contemporary with early christianity, and many of them spoke of similar miracles--the virgin birth, resurrection, forgiveness of sins, etc. The emperor Constantine made christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. After that, the competitors died out.

Vorkosigan

Malook, there's a whole library of articles at Infidels, and lists of books in the bookstore. What aspects of the origin of Christianity do you think are difficult for skeptics to account for?

Explaining Christianity without an actual physical resurrection is easy, there being no practical difference between the early Christians seeing a physically risen Jesus, a spiritually risen Jesus, good-faith visions or lies generated as legitimation tactics -- no doubt the actual case is a mix of the last two, but we'll probably never know because none of the first "witnesses" to the resurrection of Jesus left us textual or other evidence about his or her experience. All we have is Paul's ambiguous account.

Vorkosigan

malookiemaloo

I agree that rumours abound throughout every walk of life. Normally they are investigated then believed or otherwise. However, the 'rumour' that Jesus had risen was believed. Why?

malookiemaloo