Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Sheshbazzar · 08-25-2013, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

...
aa5874, like a modern Galileo,
...

Galileo cared about whether other people understood his ideas.

I have no doubt that aa5874 desires others to understand his ideas.
He has consistently cited and documented the actual material texts that support his position.
He has expended thousands of hours in citing the actual material evidences that support his position, and has repeatedly pointed out the inconsistencies and the total lack of contemporary documentation and material evidences that could support currently popular 'consensus' positions.
Your implied insult of aa is uncalled for.
Popular opinion and 'consensus' of "scholarship" simply is not, and never has been the determinant of what is fact.

The cult and congregation worshipping Consensus, simply chooses to downplay, ignore, 'explain away' or just dismiss information and evidence that does not conform to maintaining a cherished status quo, for a set of wholly fabricated and imaginary 'could have been' scenarios.

James The Least · 08-25-2013, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

It is surprising to me how few scholars of the Christian West are willing to entertain speculation about the effect that the first Jewish rebellion (or following two, one in Egypt-Cyrene-Cyprus and the last in Judea under Bar Kosiba, both in the 1st half of the 2nd century CE) had on the development of Christianity.

They might look at how it affected the development of Modern Rabbinic Judaism (where it forced a paradigm shift regarding how the individual "Judean" related to the traditional God. A 19th century German critic, Moritz Friedlander, had proposed that the first rebellion in 66+ CE directly prompted the development of Jewish Gnostics. The academic push-back was pretty fierce and he abandoned the idea as first proposed.

More recently, several decades after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, Birger Pearson has revived the idea. As he sees it, certain well represented strains of Gnosticism (specifically "Sethian") are complete re-writes of traditional Jewish beliefs about their ancestral God. Instead of the supreme God of righteousness, he became an inferior God ignorant of his origins as the unfortunate product of an aborted attempt to create an image of the perfect universe (the fullness) of the universal first principals in matter.

He explains this development as the product of great disappointment over the broken expectations of devout Judeans when the rebellion did not institute the blessed righteous age they believe their holy books had pointed to.

That these Sethian Gnostic texts are full of allusions to Hebrew scriptures and Aramiac technical terms indicates that this form of gnosticism was developed among "intellectuals" (I think this is supposed to mean Jewish elites, including sophists from Judea like Judah the Galilean and Jewish Hellenists such as Philo of Alexandria).

Of course, Jewish Gnosticism is not identical to Chrisianity, so it really does not address Ted's opening post directly, but I think that early Christianity is a SISTER development among God-fearing gentiles, some of whom may already have taken the big step of accepting full circumcision. Assuming some of these had associated themselves with the Judean God because they WANTED to participate in the blessed just age to come, they TOO can become disappointed by broken expectations and radically redefine their belief systems.

It's really amazing that people as astute as Pearson can believe this sort of thing, but working inside the Jesus Academy for decades will do that.

Jews didn't slander YHWH just because the Romans destroyed the Temple.
There's no reason to think that.

Both the Sethian Gnostics and proto-Catholic Jesus groups were gentiles -- theosobeis, God-fearers. There were no ethnic Jews involved -- these groups were the heretics of Judaism.

J-D · 08-25-2013, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

N/A

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

[ANY argument for non-existence must, must, must be based on NO evidence of existence.

This is most basic.

How is it possible to argue for the non-existence of anything if there is no evidence for that something existing?

By showing that there is evidence that it does not exist.

J-D · 08-25-2013, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

...
aa5874, like a modern Galileo,
...

Galileo cared about whether other people understood his ideas.

I have no doubt that aa5874 desires others to understand his ideas.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

If you want people to understand your ideas, and they respond to your explanations with puzzlement, then you try to discover the causes of their puzzlement and to provide clarification that mees their needs.

But when people respond to aa5874's explanations with puzzlement, aa5874 reacts with violent denunciations, which clarify nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

He has consistently cited and documented the actual material texts that support his position.
He has expended thousands of hours in citing the actual material evidences that support his position, and has repeatedly pointed out the inconsistencies and the total lack of contemporary documentation and material evidences that could support currently popular 'consensus' positions.
Your implied insult of aa is uncalled for.
Popular opinion and 'consensus' of "scholarship" simply is not, and never has been the determinant of what is fact.

The cult and congregation worshipping Consensus, simply chooses to downplay, ignore, 'explain away' or just dismiss information and evidence that does not conform to maintaining a cherished status quo, for a set of wholly fabricated and imaginary 'could have been' scenarios.

aa5874 · 08-25-2013, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

If you want people to understand your ideas, and they respond to your explanations with puzzlement, then you try to discover the causes of their puzzlement and to provide clarification that mees their needs.

But when people respond to aa5874's explanations with puzzlement, aa5874 reacts with violent denunciations, which clarify nothing.

Please, spare us of your violent reaction. You seem to be out of control with your predictable propaganda.

Please, this thread is about "What started Christianity ?".

J-D · 08-25-2013, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

If you want people to understand your ideas, and they respond to your explanations with puzzlement, then you try to discover the causes of their puzzlement and to provide clarification that mees their needs.

But when people respond to aa5874's explanations with puzzlement, aa5874 reacts with violent denunciations, which clarify nothing.

Please, spare us of your violent reaction. You seem to be out of control with your predictable propaganda.

Please, this thread is about "What started Christianity ?".

See what I mean?

Iskander · 08-25-2013, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

How is it possible to argue for the non-existence of anything if there is no evidence for that something existing?

By showing that there is evidence that it does not exist.

If there is no evidence for the existence of something, then that something is unknown to all: that something does not exist in the mind of men or women.

Evidence against existence can only be provided if a statement about the existence of something was made by some person. The statement of the asserting person is evidence of existence brought to my notice to consider

Iskander · 08-25-2013, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMacSon

How is it possible to argue for the existence of something if there is no evidence for that something existing?

It is not possible .But the evidence may be too small to be seen by some.
There is a very old saying that goes like this:"chance only favours the mind which is prepared”. The unprepared mind may easily overlook evidence that should be and will be considered by a prepared mind.

The Gospels are evidence of existence for the prepared mind or if you prefer, the prepared mind would reject spontaneous generation and postulate the existence of living organisms too small to be seen without some magnification

Quote:

Spontaneous generation
So with animals, some spring from parent animals according to their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and not from kindred stock; and of these instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the secretions of their several organs.[9]
—Aristotle, History of Animals, Book V, Part 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

aa5874 · 08-25-2013, 03:47 PM

This thread is about "What started Christianity?".

The earliest dated stories of Jesus are from the 2nd century or later.

No dated manuscript of the Jesus story have been recovered in Jerusalem or Galilee from at least the 2nd to the 4th century

No Jesus cult writer outside the Canon has been identified by non-apologetics as a Jew from Jerusalem or Galilee.

No Jesus cult stories in Aramaic have been recovered and dated from the at least the 2nd--4th century however maunscripts in Greek, Syriac and Latin have been found.

The Jesus cult appears to have no actual Jewish roots.

The Jesus cult appears to have started OUTSIDE Galilee and Jerusalem.

The first known non-apologetic writer to mention Christians who worshiped a crucified man was Lucian of Samosata sometime in mid-late 2nd century. The Christians mentioned by Lucian were from Palestine which is also the origin of Justin Martyr.

Lucian's Death of Pergrine

Quote:

It was now that he came across the priests and scribes of the Christians, in Palestine, and picked up their queer creed............The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day,--the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.

Justin was the son and grandson of natives of Palestine.

Justin's Apology

Quote:

To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar, and to his son Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the Philosopher, the natural son of Caesar, and the adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to the sacred Senate, with the whole People of the Romans, I, Justin, the son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, natives of Flavia Neapolis in Palestine, present this address and petition in behalf of those of all nations who are unjustly hated and wantonly abused, myself being one of them.

The evidence shows that the early Jesus cult was in Palestine and that the Jesus cult of Christians began when people BELIEVED the story that the Jews Killed Jesus, the Son of God and that the Kingdom of God was at hand as found in the books of the Prophets.

The recovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is further evidence that there was NO Jesus cult of Christians in the 1st century--No manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls mention Jesus of Nazareth or a cult who preached the Blasphemy that a man from Nazareth, was the Logos and God the Creator who was sacrificied for the sins of Jews and that without his resurrection there is no atonement.

All the recovered dated NT manuscripts with the Jesus stories do not go early than the 2nd century which is compatible with the writings attributed to Aristides.

The Jesus cult was in its EARLY development phase in the 2nd century.

Aristides' Apology

Quote:

....The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High. And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called......... But [color=red]he himself was pierced by the Jews[/coolor], and he died and was buried; and they say that after three days he rose and ascended to heaven........... And hence also those of the present day who believe that preaching are called Christians......

Iskander · 08-25-2013, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

N/A

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

This thread is about "What started Christianity?".

Yes it is. This thread is whether the Gospels are evidence for the existence of a founder.

Yes, the gospels are evidence for the existence of a founder, flesh and blood, living in Palestine about 2000 years ago.

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