Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 07-09-2013, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

....The cornerstone of the RCC is that Peter was the first pope mandated by JC, and all the RCC popes are in a line of succession going back to Pete. It is a basis of their legitimacy.

I have pointed out in past years to Christians that they are really Jews.

The RCC popes did not consider themselves Jewish except for the fictitious character Peter.

Pope Eugene IV

Quote:

“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot have a share in eternal happiness; but that they will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels, unless they unite themselves to the Church before their death; and that so precious is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those who abide in it can benefit from the Church’s Sacraments for their salvation, and that they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militancy.

No one, no matter how much he has given in alms and even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

I like to say it should be called Paulism and not Christianity. A lot is derived from Paul and he made the concessions to let in gentiles.

It was the Gospels and the Septuagint that are the foundation of the Jesus cult. There was no actual Pauline Corpus and NO Paul up to at least 180 CE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

Considering the Jewish basis of the gospels, the Jewish prophesies, and the political turmoil in the times IMO the origins can only be a relatively insignificant group of Jews. They were not enough of a problem for anything to be described in any contemporary accounts.

We have writings attributed to Jews, we have the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint.

The Beliefs of the Jesus cult are contrary to the Beliefs of the Jews--even the very day that the Jesus cult set aside for worship of their God contravenes the Law of the Jews.

Exodus 31:14-15 KJV

Quote:

Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death : for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

Six days may work be done ; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death...

John 8:44 KJV

Quote:

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do . He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

The alternative is to believe the gospels were written as complete fabrication by unknown writers who for some reason chose Jews as the backdrop for a story. The gospels and acts take the form of an action adventure story with acts as the sequel.

That is precisely what appears to have happened. We have writings attributed to Jews and the Dead Sea Scrolls and there is NOTHING at all about Jews who worshiped a man as a God.

The Jesus cult was comprised of Non-Jews and was started no earlier than the 2nd century.

The sequence of the start of the Jesus cult can be easily deduced based on the abundance of evidence.

Aristides explains the sequence in his "Apology" which is fundamentally corroborated by other Apologetic writers.

After the Jewish Temple Fell a story was invented by some unknown that the Son of God came down from heaven telling the Jews to REPENT for the Kingdom of God was at hand.

The Jews Killed Jesus, the but he resurrected.

Those who believe the story called themselves Christians.

The author of the earliest Jesus story has not been identified by any non-apologetic source and is not accepted by scholars to have been written by "Mark".

And further, none of the supposed Jews [the disciples and Paul] in the Jesus cult Canon have ever been identified in non-apologetic sources.

J-D · 07-13-2013, 09:33 PM

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Originally Posted by Grog

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Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

I did not say it was. I proposed a mechanism for the evolution of the Jesus-meme.

'Evolution is a result of differential survival rates of varying replicators' is my summary of the description provided at the link you posted. If you have given a specific explanation of how that might work in the evolution of a Jesus-meme, I'm sorry, but I missed it.

The Jesus meme would be subject to the theory in same way as any other meme.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

I don't see where, or how, Doherty describes anything on an evolutionary line of Jesus-belief that predates Paul.

It must be for lack of trying:

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

But the story of Jesus resides in scripture more than in an assortment of isolated passages. The overall concept of the Passion, Death and Resurrection has emerged out of a theme embodied repeatedly in tales throughout the Hebrew Bible and related writings. This is the story modern scholars have characterized as The Suffering and Vindication of the Innocent Righteous One. We find it in the story of Joseph in Genesis; in Isaiah 53 with its Suffering Servant; in Tobit, Esther, Daniel, 2 and 3 Maccabees, Susanna, the story of Ahiqar, the Wisdom of Solomon. All tell a tale of a righteous man or woman falsely accused, who suffers, is convicted and condemned to death, rescued at the last moment and raised to a high position; or, in the later literature, exalted after death. It is the tale of how the Jews saw themselves: the pious persecuted by the powerful, the people of God subjugated by the godless. It was an image readily absorbed by the Christian sect.

The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Out of this rich soil of ideas arose Christianity, a product of both Jewish and Greek philosophy. Its concept of Jesus the "Son" grew out of ideas like personified Wisdom (with a sex change), leavened with the Greek Logos, and amalgamated with the more personal and human figure of traditional Messiah expectation. Christianity made its Christ (the Greek word for Messiah) into a heavenly figure who could be related to, though he is intimately tied to God himself. Unlike Wisdom or the Logos, however, the Christian Savior was envisioned to have undergone self-sacrifice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Within a handful of years of Jesus' supposed death, we find Christian communities all over the eastern Mediterranean, their founders unknown. Rome had Jewish Christians no later than the 40s, and a later churchman ("Ambrosiaster" in the 4th century) remarked that the Romans had believed in Christ even without benefit of preaching by the Apostles. Paul could not possibly account for all the Christian centers across the Empire; many were in existence before he got there. Nor does he convey much sense of a vigorous and widespread missionary activity on the part of the Jerusalem circle around Peter and James. (That comes only with Acts.)

Who Was Jesus Christ?Note the emphasis above. Clearly, Doherty believes the idea of Jesus emerged prior to Paul's teachings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

When you ask me questions, I answer them. I asked you a question and you didn't answer it. Looks to me as if you're the one who's dodging.

You think I'm not serious about that question? Humour me and try answering it just the same. It might be instructive.

Ahhh. yeah. It's a dodge. It would probably better serve you to let this one fall quietly to the side of the road. I will pretend I didn't see it.

.

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I mean that it's possible that a memetic-evolution model could provide an explanation of the origin of Christianity, but I would see more reason to think so if there were examples of a memetic-evolution model providing explanations of anything else.

I am asking for the possibility to be entertained. I am not proposing that i have all the answers to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

I just did provide examples! Lutheranism, Mormonism, Ahmadiyya, Hare Krishna, Sikhism, Baha'i, and Scientology. What I mean by calling those examples 'well-documented' is that there is a significant documentary record that provides clear direct evidence of how those religions began.

I have responded to these examples. Sticking with the biological evolution model, here is what I see:

lutheranism = The Morgan Horse

Mormonism =

Ahmadiyya=Anglo-Arabian

Hare Krishna=Thoroughbred

Sikhism = The Arabian

See a pattern?

What I am saying is this:

Jesus-belief/early Christianity = Evolution of the Horse

Note in particular at that site this comment:

Quote:

Originally Posted by brianswitek

Still, our current understanding is incomplete, and further fossil finds will continue to rustle the branches of the evolutionary bush.

Also, that evolution is not a clearly linear process, but has branches and dead ends.

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Originally Posted by J-D

That is an outright falsehood. I have not deliberately omitted any examples that would falsify what I'm saying.And I did not attribute that position to you.What I have said is that all the As I know about are Bs. I did not say that this proves that all As are Bs. That would be fallacious reasoning; I have not engaged in it.No, you haven't. You talked about Taoism and Judaism; I responded to what you said about those cases.

I must have missed it. Who do you say was the individual who preached the message that became Judaism? Who do you say was the individual who preached the message that became Taosim?

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

]So what you're saying, in effect, is that this process you're talking about can happy, but only in circumstances where it goes unrecorded.

No. It can be recorded, but not as an event or traced to an individual, but in the thoughts and beliefs as recorded in the historical record. What you seem to be missing is that evolutionary processes take a long time and the precise origins are often necessarily obscure. We don't know where the first horse was. We don't know who the first Homo Sapiens was, or even what specific evolutionary branch of hominid led to the evolution of homo sapiens, but we do have enough in the fossil record to give us a clearer and clearer picture. I have attempted to draw your attention to movements with ideas that are not necessarily traceable to a single person: the New Age Movement and Unitarianism of the non-Christ centered variety. You responded by providing an example of an individual who incorporated an already existing idea. My point is that the ideas that are incorporated as "Unitarian Universalism" evolved basically out of a clash of ancient superstitution and modern rationalism. New Age spiritualism has evolved out of a clash of cultures. My argument is that the emergence of Christianity looks to me to have followed a similar path. Same for Judaism. Your response is very similar to a standard creationist response to evolution: Why don't we see Monkeys turning into People? That's not how it works. That is what makes it difficult, but not impossible, to document.

Quote:

In which documents?I did not insist that there was. But you have not offered an alternative explanation (beyond abstract generalities) of its origin.All of which I have already discussed.I did not suggest that Luther founded 'Jesus-belief' (that's not the name of any religion I know of, anyway); I only implied that he founded Lutheranism.

Luther did not found Christianity either. To me, what we are referring to as "Christianity" is the belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Lutheranism does not deviate from that sufficiently to be a separate religion. (I would make the same observation about some of the other examples you have proffered).

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

I don't see why I should accept your bare denial that Theophilus Lindsey founded the Unitarian religion.

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Originally Posted by Grog

Davka's response was inadequate because he doesn't understand modern unitarianism, at least as practiced in the United States.

Interestingly, in a corresponding thread "What started Judaism" there is no proposal that Judaism started with an individual preaching a message that was accepted by followers.

Then I'll post on the subject to that thread.

"Unitarianism" existed long before Theophilus Lindsey existed. You are mixing categories.

Every explanation of anything, and every answer to a question, has a context or a background that contributes to its meaning. But the context is not the answer. The biochemical properties of nucleic acids are part of the background to developments in biological evolution, but precisely because they are part of that general background they are not a specific explanation of any specific evolutionary development. In the same way, it is not an answer to the specific question 'what started Christianity?' to respond by citing general background considerations that may be relevant to the origins of religions generally or more broadly to anything in human history. It is, for example, true to say about any event in human history that 'human actions were involved', but for precisely that reason that kind of general answer isn't really an answer to 'what started Christianity?' or any other specific question about human history. This is why 'it happened by memetic evolution' is not an answer to the question 'what started Christianity?'.

There is, however, this difference between explanation by memetic evolution and explanation by biological evolution: explanation by memetic evolution has not yet provided the large body of explanations of specific events that biological evolution has provided to show that it's a fruitful explanatory approach.

Your post raises some other specific points which I will deal with separately.

J-D · 07-13-2013, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

After the Jewish Temple Fell a story was invented by some unknown that the Son of God came down from heaven telling the Jews to REPENT for the Kingdom of God was at hand.

The Jews Killed Jesus, the but he resurrected.

Those who believe the story called themselves Christians.

This explanation fits the pattern I described earlier: an individual preaching a religious message which other people accepted.

Jaybees · 07-13-2013, 10:58 PM

The 4th Century was a troubled time, and perhaps seemed even more so after several hundred years of Roman peace. Granted that the peace was hardly benign, it did allow many of the peoples in the empire to lead lives where one could feel reasonably safe and secure.

The barbarian invasions of that century took a new form--vast incursions of strange people, pillage, land confiscation, and much else--along with continuing civil wars. The old gods were failing on a massive scale, so it's not surprising that some new cult with a promise of a much better world, if not in this one then in the next one, would flourish.

It could have been any of the numerous exotic sects of that period, but Xtianity won out. Luck? Maybe. But my guess is that it did so well because it had something for everyone---including women.

aa5874 · 07-14-2013, 12:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

After the Jewish Temple Fell a story was invented by some unknown that the Son of God came down from heaven telling the Jews to REPENT for the Kingdom of God was at hand.

The Jews Killed Jesus, the but he resurrected.

Those who believe the story called themselves Christians.

This explanation fits the pattern I described earlier: an individual preaching a religious message which other people accepted.

Actually the present evidence from antiquity does not support what you described.

We have no name of any person who started the Jesus cult except the Holy Ghost in Acts.

If the Jesus cult was started by a known actual person then we would expect the cult to have the name of that person as was the custom in antiquity.

There were many so-called heretical Christians cults in antiquity that bore the name of the actual cult leader like the Marcionites, the Cerinthians, the Saturnilians, the Marcosians, the Valentinians, the Basilidians, Justinians and others yet up to the mid 2nd century we have no Jesus cult which carried the name of the cult leader.

The stories of Jesus in the Canonised the Gospels appear to have not been associated with any known actual author or known actual cult leader and no-one admitted to writing them.

The people called Christians believed an anonymous story for which no-one accepted responsibility for inventing.

The Jesus cult started when people BELIEVED the anonymous stories of Jesus--Not a cult leader.

J-D · 07-14-2013, 03:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

After the Jewish Temple Fell a story was invented by some unknown that the Son of God came down from heaven telling the Jews to REPENT for the Kingdom of God was at hand.

The Jews Killed Jesus, the but he resurrected.

Those who believe the story called themselves Christians.

This explanation fits the pattern I described earlier: an individual preaching a religious message which other people accepted.

Actually the present evidence from antiquity does not support what you described.

We have no name of any person who started the Jesus cult except the Holy Ghost in Acts.

If the Jesus cult was started by a known actual person then we would expect the cult to have the name of that person as was the custom in antiquity.

There were many so-called heretical Christians cults in antiquity that bore the name of the actual cult leader like the Marcionites, the Cerinthians, the Saturnilians, the Marcosians, the Valentinians, the Basilidians, Justinians and others yet up to the mid 2nd century we have no Jesus cult which carried the name of the cult leader.

The stories of Jesus in the Canonised the Gospels appear to have not been associated with any known actual author or known actual cult leader and no-one admitted to writing them.

The people called Christians believed an anonymous story for which no-one accepted responsibility for inventing.

The Jesus cult started when people BELIEVED the anonymous stories of Jesus--Not a cult leader.

I never specified that the individual had to be a named individual: that's your own personal misreading of me.

Your exact words were 'a story was invented by some unknown'. There you're talking about an individual human being, which is just what I said.

J-D · 07-14-2013, 04:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

That is an outright falsehood. I have not deliberately omitted any examples that would falsify what I'm saying.And I did not attribute that position to you.What I have said is that all the As I know about are Bs. I did not say that this proves that all As are Bs. That would be fallacious reasoning; I have not engaged in it.No, you haven't. You talked about Taoism and Judaism; I responded to what you said about those cases.

I must have missed it. Who do you say was the individual who preached the message that became Judaism? Who do you say was the individual who preached the message that became Taosim?

I have not offered an explanation of the origin of Judaism or of the origin of Taoism; I have not offered explanations involving original individual founders and I have not offered explanations from which original individual founders are absent. On the other hand, what you have had to say on the subjects of Judaism and Taoism describes the backgrounds from which they emerged but gives no specific explanation of how they emerged from those backgrounds.

aa5874 · 07-14-2013, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

I never specified that the individual had to be a named individual: that's your own personal misreading of me.

Your exact words were 'a story was invented by some unknown'. There you're talking about an individual human being, which is just what I said.

Again, I am arguing AGAINST what you wrote. The start of the Jesus cult cannot be traced to UNKNOWN individuals. The start of the Jesus cult can be traced to ANONYMOUS texts about a character called Jesus the Son of God.

My position is that the Jesus cult started WITHOUT a specific individual who was known just like other cults who worship Mythological characters and do not know who started the Myth.

No individual has ever been identified as the originator of the Jesus cult but it is claimed that those who BELIEVE the ANONYMOUS story are called Christians.

Effectively, for hundreds of years, the stories of Jesus were never attributed to any specific individual and no-one admitted authorship. The authors were invented.

Essentially, the text itself was believed to have been composed BEFORE the Fall of the Temple before c 70 CE.

The anonymous text came first.

J-D · 07-14-2013, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

I never specified that the individual had to be a named individual: that's your own personal misreading of me.

Your exact words were 'a story was invented by some unknown'. There you're talking about an individual human being, which is just what I said.

Again, I am arguing AGAINST what you wrote. The start of the Jesus cult cannot be traced to UNKNOWN individuals. The start of the Jesus cult can be traced to ANONYMOUS texts about a character called Jesus the Son of God.

My position is that the Jesus cult started WITHOUT a specific individual who was known just like other cults who worship Mythological characters and do not know who started the Myth.

No individual has ever been identified as the originator of the Jesus cult but it is claimed that those who BELIEVE the ANONYMOUS story are called Christians.

Effectively, for hundreds of years, the stories of Jesus were never attributed to any specific individual and no-one admitted authorship. The authors were invented.

Essentially, the text itself was believed to have been composed BEFORE the Fall of the Temple before c 70 CE.

The anonymous text came first.

The text didn't write itself.

J-D · 07-14-2013, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-D

I don't see where, or how, Doherty describes anything on an evolutionary line of Jesus-belief that predates Paul.

It must be for lack of trying:

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

But the story of Jesus resides in scripture more than in an assortment of isolated passages. The overall concept of the Passion, Death and Resurrection has emerged out of a theme embodied repeatedly in tales throughout the Hebrew Bible and related writings. This is the story modern scholars have characterized as The Suffering and Vindication of the Innocent Righteous One. We find it in the story of Joseph in Genesis; in Isaiah 53 with its Suffering Servant; in Tobit, Esther, Daniel, 2 and 3 Maccabees, Susanna, the story of Ahiqar, the Wisdom of Solomon. All tell a tale of a righteous man or woman falsely accused, who suffers, is convicted and condemned to death, rescued at the last moment and raised to a high position; or, in the later literature, exalted after death. It is the tale of how the Jews saw themselves: the pious persecuted by the powerful, the people of God subjugated by the godless. It was an image readily absorbed by the Christian sect.

The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Out of this rich soil of ideas arose Christianity, a product of both Jewish and Greek philosophy. Its concept of Jesus the "Son" grew out of ideas like personified Wisdom (with a sex change), leavened with the Greek Logos, and amalgamated with the more personal and human figure of traditional Messiah expectation. Christianity made its Christ (the Greek word for Messiah) into a heavenly figure who could be related to, though he is intimately tied to God himself. Unlike Wisdom or the Logos, however, the Christian Savior was envisioned to have undergone self-sacrifice.

Saying that Jesus-belief incorporated elements from the background from which it emerged is not the same thing as saying that Jesus-belief is identical with the background it emerged and does not explain how it emerged from that background. There's no Jesus-belief in Isaiah, Tobit, Daniel, or Esther.

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07-13-2013, 10:58 PM	#714
Jaybees Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Hawaii Posts: 9,233	The 4th Century was a troubled time, and perhaps seemed even more so after several hundred years of Roman peace. Granted that the peace was hardly benign, it did allow many of the peoples in the empire to lead lives where one could feel reasonably safe and secure. The barbarian invasions of that century took a new form--vast incursions of strange people, pillage, land confiscation, and much else--along with continuing civil wars. The old gods were failing on a massive scale, so it's not surprising that some new cult with a promise of a much better world, if not in this one then in the next one, would flourish. It could have been any of the numerous exotic sects of that period, but Xtianity won out. Luck? Maybe. But my guess is that it did so well because it had something for everyone---including women.

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