Atheists more Intelligent

Michael_Panetta said:
Only in America would someone with Republican beliefs be able to call himself a Christian with a straight face.
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Agreed. Most talk the talk, but like Wolverine, never walk the walk. They don't even try to live up to the standards of their self-avowed beliefs.
 
Michael_Panetta said:
The Christ Myth theory is a common interpretation among scholars these days. Wikipedia says enough about it.
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"...Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity." Awesome. I agree with that part. Am I correct in recognizing you only agree with the first part?

"There are three strands of mythicism, including the view that there may have been a historical Jesus, who lived in a dimly remembered past, and was fused with the mythological Christ of Paul. A second stance is that there was never a historical Jesus, only a mythological character, later historicized in the Gospels. A third view is that no conclusion can be made about a historical Jesus, and if there was one, nothing can be known about him."

Notice, Michael, it covers a range of possibilities, not just Door #1 like you were posting. Obviously there is scant physical evidence that Jesus existed. The Holy Bible itself is self-fulfilling evidence, but scholars studying actual ancient manuscripts have a better view of what was then and what most people are commonly seeing now. The Josephesus thing is sketchy, IMO. I tend to view it is from a sociological/psychological POV: the impact it had as a movement. Much the way Buddhism impacted Asia over four centuries earlier. There's no way for anyone to prove Jesus of Nazareth the man ever existed, but from my POV he did merely by the sociological ripples he created just like I don't have to see something hitting the water to recognize that a ring of ripples means something hit the water.

The divinity stuff can't be proved or disproved so it's illogical to argue for or against.
 
Michael_Panetta said:
You can't do this in philosophical discourse. You've made a claim without showing the reasoning behind it.

You've posited a god with no cause. How do you arrive at this conclusion? "Because the Bible says so" isn't an argument.
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dude.....the reasoning behind it is that you made up a false requirement and we ignored it........how do you arrive at the conclusion that a god requires a cause?.......
 
Dutch Uncle said:
"...Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity." Awesome. I agree with that part. Am I correct in recognizing you only agree with the first part?

"There are three strands of mythicism, including the view that there may have been a historical Jesus, who lived in a dimly remembered past, and was fused with the mythological Christ of Paul. A second stance is that there was never a historical Jesus, only a mythological character, later historicized in the Gospels. A third view is that no conclusion can be made about a historical Jesus, and if there was one, nothing can be known about him."

Notice, Michael, it covers a range of possibilities, not just Door #1 like you were posting. Obviously there is scant physical evidence that Jesus existed. The Holy Bible itself is self-fulfilling evidence, but scholars studying actual ancient manuscripts have a better view of what was then and what most people are commonly seeing now. The Josephesus thing is sketchy, IMO. I tend to view it is from a sociological/psychological POV: the impact it had as a movement. Much the way Buddhism impacted Asia over four centuries earlier. There's no way for anyone to prove Jesus of Nazareth the man ever existed, but from my POV he did merely by the sociological ripples he created just like I don't have to see something hitting the water to recognize that a ring of ripples means something hit the water.

The divinity stuff can't be proved or disproved so it's illogical to argue for or against.
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Philo of Alexandria never mentioned Jesus.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Why would a Jewish philosopher in Alexandria, Egypt over 300 miles away give a shit about a Jewish Rabbi crucified by the Romans? The first Gospel wasn't even written until Philo was old and dead in 50 AD. The Romans probably butchered those they oppressed on a weekly basis.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/mmfour.html
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Philo wrote a lot about first century Jerusalem. He wrote about Pontius Pilate. He wrote about Herod. He wrote about rather mundane events in Jerusalem.

But he's silent on Jesus. I mean, surely he would have at least mentioned the wandering miracle man who, for three years, drew massive crowds and performed massive miracles. Yet he's silent on the matter. It's odd, unless you accept the obvious explanation.
 
Michael_Panetta said:
Philo wrote a lot about first century Jerusalem. He wrote about Pontius Pilate. He wrote about Herod. He wrote about rather mundane events in Jerusalem.

But he's silent on Jesus. I mean, surely he would have at least mentioned the wandering miracle man who, for three years, drew massive crowds and performed massive miracles. Yet he's silent on the matter. It's odd, unless you accept the obvious explanation.
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Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Jesus, if he existed, was a small movement. It took time to grow, which history proves it did. You are advocating it grew out of nothing at all. I'm saying there was a seed, no matter how small, and that seed was a Jewish rabbi who had some new ideas about existence.

Let's stick with reality and leave the divine out of it since that's a faith thing.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Jesus, if he existed, was a small movement. It took time to grow, which history proves it did. You are advocating it grew out of nothing at all. I'm saying there was a seed, no matter how small, and that seed was a Jewish rabbi who had some new ideas about existence.
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There were many people in those days claiming to be the Messiah. Some even were named Jesus. Many had apostles and many allegedly performed miracles.
 
Michael_Panetta said:
Philo wrote a lot about first century Jerusalem. He wrote about Pontius Pilate. He wrote about Herod. He wrote about rather mundane events in Jerusalem.

But he's silent on Jesus. I mean, surely he would have at least mentioned the wandering miracle man who, for three years, drew massive crowds and performed massive miracles. Yet he's silent on the matter. It's odd, unless you accept the obvious explanation.
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When Philo died in 50 AD, Jesus of Nazareth was not widely known.

The fact that there is a substantial witten record about him which starts appearing between 55 to 80 AD is almost miraculous. Jesus was a peasant from rural backwater Gallilee with a few dozen followers of his ministry at best. That is the historical assessment by most scholars.

Peasants simply were not written about in antiquity.

The fact that there were oral stories about Jesus circulating in Judea in mid first century AD, and these were committed to writing by highly articulate and literate Greek speaking authors of the NT within a couple decades of his execution is actually pretty remarkable.
 
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