At What Point?

[Cypress]

that's not why Jesus is a legend.

he's a legend due to the genius of his moral teaching, and his direct confrontation of corrupt earthly authority figures.


you people miss the point on everything.

The disciples scattered like cockroaches and ran for the hills when Jesus was arrested. None of them showed up at the crucifixion.

Peter caved and denied knowing Jesus at the slightest pressure.

There's no indication of bravery, steadfastness, fortitude among the disciples after the arrest and execution of Jesus.

Only Mary Magdalene and two female companions even went to the tomb to check on the body.

Nobody would have remembered Jesus decades and centuries later without the resurrection story.

 

[Cypress]

"that one boat can hold 2 of every animals" Whoever dreamed this up sure didn't know much about our planet, and the number of species on this planet.

I think it's just a story with a religious lesson behind it. The story itself was borrowed from the Mesopotamians.

 

[Hume]

I think it's just a story with a religious lesson behind it. The story itself was borrowed from the Mesopotamians.

Stories can be wrong.

 

[Kafka]

That requires a coordinated conspiracy among multiple people to fabricate the story of the resurrection,

No it doesn't. Not even close. A single person could have written the story. Let's say maybe the Q source or some such. Why would it require a conspiracy among multiple people?????

The christians require a miracle

You require a coordinated conspiracy.

Not in the least.

My theory only requires a rational medical explanation, fitting the written accounts

Written accounts? You mean the stories written decades later by anonymous sources? Those "written accounts"?

Let's talk Mormonism for a more "modern" analogue. I don't think any of us on here would say it is even "questionable" about the golden tablets and the translation thereof...it's pretty manifestly fake, made up stories. But if you ask a Mormon they will tell you about all the "witnesses" Joseph Smith had, etc.

Does it mean that Mormon's origin story MUST be true because otherwise it would require a cabal of evildoers working in concert over decades and centuries to keep the story alive?

I would think you could agree that no such "conspiracy" was necessarily required.

 

[Trumpet]

I think it's just a story with a religious lesson behind it. The story itself was borrowed from the Mesopotamians.

That sounds plausible.

 

[Into the Night]

Catholics were burning scientists.

Eastern orthodox was done differently by the powers that be.

eastern orthodox had to deal with real Christians.



so out of the eastern orthodox, the Catholics and the protestatns, only Catholics, your favorite, burned scientists.


you're just a Catholic shill, by your own evidence, the worst implementation of Christianity.

Learn what a 'shill' is.

 

[Cypress]

No it doesn't. Not even close. A single person could have written the story. Let's say maybe the Q source or some such. Why would it require a conspiracy among multiple people?????





Not in the least.



Written accounts? You mean the stories written decades later by anonymous sources? Those "written accounts"?

Let's talk Mormonism for a more "modern" analogue. I don't think any of us on here would say it is even "questionable" about the golden tablets and the translation thereof...it's pretty manifestly fake, made up stories. But if you ask a Mormon they will tell you about all the "witnesses" Joseph Smith had, etc.

Does it mean that Mormon's origin story MUST be true because otherwise it would require a cabal of evildoers working in concert over decades and centuries to keep the story alive?

I would think you could agree that no such "conspiracy" was necessarily required.

Mormon magical glasses have no basis in human experience.

People who are presumed dead, but are in fact mortally wounded and comatose, is a real experience in human history.

Since the resurrection is attested to by all four gospels, which are independent literary compositions, it has some kind of latent credibility and can't just be waved off.

My explanation is medically rational. You're explaination requires several dozen disciples and companions of Jesus' ministry to perpetrate a fabrication and maintain it for decades


What's weird is that your Occam's razor has to involve apostolic Christians lying, and you seem to just be keen to assume that.

 

[Cypress]

Stories can be wrong.

That's why I called it a story. It's not history.

Almost all humans get their cultural values from literature, stories, and art. Not from German and French philosophy professors.

People in the ancient bronze age Near East did not write history, biography, or journalism. Those are much later literary inventions of the Greeks and Romans.

 

[Hume]

Weird that an agnostisomeone who does not believe in god talks about god obsessivel

Almost all humans get their cultural values from literature and art. Not from German and French philosophy professors.

Philosophy is part of culture.

 

[Kafka]

Mormon magical glasses have no basis in human experience.

I am always amazed at how nothing in you world can be compared to anything else anywhere else. I hold out hope you can actually understand the point more generally.

People who are presumed dead, but are in fact mortally wounded and comatose, is a real experience in human history.

I still can't see how this means someone couldn't just "make the story up".

Since the resurrection is attested to by all four gospels, which are independent literary compositions, it has some kind of latent credibility and can't just be waved off.

Given that there are commonalities and a likelihood of an earlier source (Q) that accounts for the commonalities I can't really see a problem. If the original sources were made up, of course the progeny of those sources could be expected to continue the story, probably even believing it.

My explanation is medically rational. You're explaination requires several dozen disciples and companions of Jesus' ministry to perpetrate a fabrication and maintain it for decades

Your habit of simply tossing aside what was actually said in defense of my point is always so frustrating. I understand it is "your way" but it would help if just once you would actually read what I say about my position.

What's weird is that your Occam's razor has to involve apostolic Christians lying, and you seem to just be keen to assume that.

If my position was as you mischaracterize it, I would have to agree. Thankfully my position is no such thing other than whoever initially made up the story. Even then I can conceive of a condition under which someone could honestly make up a story (perhaps for metaphorical reasons? Perhaps a misunderstanding of the earlier traditions? Etc.)

 

[Cypress]

I am always amazed at how nothing in you world can be compared to anything else anywhere else. I hold out hope you can actually understand the point more generally.



I still can't see how this means someone couldn't just "make the story up".



Given that there are commonalities and a likelihood of an earlier source (Q) that accounts for the commonalities I can't really see a problem. If the original sources were made up, of course the progeny of those sources could be expected to continue the story, probably even believing it.



Your habit of simply tossing aside what was actually said in defense of my point is always so frustrating. I understand it is "your way" but it would help if just once you would actually read what I say about my position.




If my position was as you mischaracterize it, I would have to agree. Thankfully my position is no such thing other than whoever initially made up the story. Even then I can conceive of a condition under which someone could honestly make up a story (perhaps for metaphorical reasons? Perhaps a misunderstanding of the earlier traditions? Etc.)

You've been trying to equate Magical Mormon Glasses, which have no relation to actual human experience, to Near Death Experiences, which are widely observed and documented in human experience.

That's simply just not going to cut the mustard

 

[Litmus]

Learn what a 'shill' is.

go eat your butthole tablets.

 

[domer76]

I think it's just a story with a religious lesson behind it. The story itself was borrowed from the Mesopotamians.

For a particular people, the god of a region seems to have been determined by who won the last war.

 

[domer76]

Mormon magical glasses have no basis in human experience.

People who are presumed dead, but are in fact mortally wounded and comatose, is a real experience in human history.

Since the resurrection is attested to by all four gospels, which are independent literary compositions, it has some kind of latent credibility and can't just be waved off.

My explanation is medically rational. You're explaination requires several dozen disciples and companions of Jesus' ministry to perpetrate a fabrication and maintain it for decades


What's weird is that your Occam's razor has to involve apostolic Christians lying, and you seem to just be keen to assume that.

Not at all. Mark was first and Matthew copied and borrowed from him and added a bit, as did Luke. Luke and Matthew seemed to add stuff from another source, as well. They all had different resurrection stories. I don’t recall for sure, but I don’t think Mark had one at all or a truncated one. John had his own agenda, which was to deify Christ more than the synoptic gospels. They are, by no means, independent. They are the game of “telephone”.

None of them are witnesses. Only story tellers. With discrepancies. With agendas. And the medical rational is absurd.

 

[Cypress]

I am unfamiliar with any actual "evidence" of the Resurrection outside of the Gospels. And since the Gospels were all written decades after the fact by unknown authors I don't necessarily give too much credence.

But I'm open to considering the "evidence" you have. Thanks!

The Resurrection is reported not just independently in the four Gospels, but in the epistles of Paul.

Paul's epistles were written only 20 to 25 years after the crucifixion. Paul was in direct contact with the apostle Peter, and James the bother of Jesus. If Peter, James, and the other apostles had a coordinated conspiracy to dupe Paul and the other Evangelists traveling throughout the Mediterranean, that is one explanation.

Jesus' ministry only lasted about a year, and his disciples were illiterate fishermen from Galilee. There's no way anyone would have been keeping journal notes or contemporaneous records of Jesus during his life.

The only people in antiquity who had contemporaneous records written about them were emperors, generals, and nobles.

I don't think a miracle happened. But I think something unusual happened that rallied the disciples (they scattered like cockroaches after Jesus was arrested) and propelled Jesus from an obscure rabbi from Galilee, to the center of a religious movement that spread like wildfire through the Roman empire. An NDE seems like a rational explanation to me

 

[Cypress]

For a particular people, the god of a region seems to have been determined by who won the last war.

Tradition holds that Abraham and his clan came from the City of Ur in Mesopotamia, so that might explain how ancient Mesopotamian stories were imported into the Hebrew bible

 

[domer76]

Tradition holds that Abraham and his clan came from the City of Ur in Mesopotamia, so that might explain how ancient Mesopotamian stories were imported into the Hebrew bible

I think Abraham is a myth.

But there were influences from all the surrounding regions. Assyrian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian. The main gods changed, some began to be worshipped more, some less. Some got combined. Some just disappeared altogether. They finally got whittled down to one main god, with the understanding that lesser gods still existed.

 

[Cypress]

I think Abraham is a myth.

But there were influences from all the surrounding regions. Assyrian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian. The main gods changed, some began to be worshipped more, some less. Some got combined. Some just disappeared altogether. They finally got whittled down to one main god, with the understanding that lesser gods still existed.

The biblical character of Abraham is mythical, but the oral traditions about him might be based on real people who migrated from Mesopotamia into the highlands of Cannan.

 

[Cypress]

The impact and spread of Christianity is the evidence. Why did it spread? Why were its followers so devout that they chose death over renouncing it? Why did it become the religion of the Roman Emperor within 300 years.

It is odd that the disciples scattered like cockroaches after Jesus was arrested, didn't show up at his crucifixion, didn't provide care for the dead body, and Peter panicked and denied Jesus at the first sign of trouble.

Not exactly the sign of men who were steadfast in loyalty to Jesus and determined to carry on his teachings.

It seems to me something unusual caused them to rally and provide the fuel that caused Christianity to spread like wildfire. I don't think any miracles happened, but a near death experience could be a rational explanation for why the disciples rallied.

 

[domer76]

The biblical character of Abraham is mythical, but the oral traditions about him might be based on real people who migrated from Mesopotamia into the highlands of Cannan.

True.