God as the ultimate child abuser

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse

Peter, Mark, Matthew, James, John, Paul, these are all historical figures for whom there is a wealth of evidence

Really? We know almost nothing about most of them that doesn't come from religious texts. Even for Paul, who is probably the best documented, the main sources are his own writings along with other religious writings, most written a long time after the facts. While these people probably existed, we know almost nothing about them that does not come from the Christian tradition, and we know that religious texts are not intended as historical documents in the modern sense, and that they are subject to manipulation and myth making.

There's a distinct lack of non-religious sources for most of them. The idea that Peter, in particular, went to Rome is very sparsely supported. Even the gospels are inconsistent in what they say about these people.

For more

http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/06/how-did-the-apostles-die.html

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse

This of course can be refuted as well but you know as well as I that the famous philosophers, kings etc. were rendered in the same way and we accept their authenticity, we have very good idea what they looked like

We don't. For some of the earlier ones, the depictions are mere imaginings. Well-known philosophers like Socrates are the exception.

With Jesus, it is just as likely that someone painted a picture or made a sculpture that was imitated. We simply have no evidence.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Agathon
With Jesus, it is just as likely that someone painted a picture or made a sculpture that was imitated. We simply have no evidence.

Isn't it also believed that the classic Jesus image doesn't really fall in line with whatever his heritage probably was?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lorizael

Isn't it also believed that the classic Jesus image doesn't really fall in line with whatever his heritage probably was?

Yeah, he's a strange looking one. Hardly Jewish looking at all.

The weird thing is that if you put him in a Grateful Dead T-Shirt, he wouldn't look out of place at all.

[Elok]

It's a bit implausible to suggest that Jesus never existed. You're effectively positing that Paul et al made up a charismatic figure less than a century old, passed off their own ideas as his, and basically used him as a sock puppet, no?

"There was this important street preacher a few years back, he caused a huge fuss, had thousands of followers in this area, everyone in Jerusalem seemed to either worship him or want him dead, eventually he was killed and the body disappeared and there was a big to-do. You just don't remember any of it happening, is all. And neither did your parents or grandparents, which is why they never mentioned him to you."

EDIT: WRT the Jesus image, the earliest images of Christ were icons, and icons are not, repeat not, intended to depict reality. They represent an idealized form of their subject with subtle theological lessons painted in; the physical appearance of the subject is not too important. Look at some icons sometime--you'll notice that every single saint, male or female, has the exact same pencil-thin nose, with only minor variations due to different iconographers. The most we can say about Jesus from icons is that he probably did have dark hair (as did everyone else in the area) and a beard.

[Lorizael]

There was no television, cell phones, or internet back then to validate or invalidate crazy rumors. If a person comes into your town with a large book and tells you about a man in a city you've never been to before, who's to tell you he's wrong? Especially if he's got a convincing tale to tell?

I bet there was some historical incident upon which Jesus was based. I don't think the group simply invented the story out of thin air. Whether or not there was a Jesus, whether or not he was a preacher, whether or not he said and did the things ascribed to him, whether or not he was the son of God - there's no way to tell.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Elok
EDIT: WRT the Jesus image, the earliest images of Christ were icons, and icons are not, repeat not, intended to depict reality. They represent an idealized form of their subject with subtle theological lessons painted in; the physical appearance of the subject is not too important. Look at some icons sometime--you'll notice that every single saint, male or female, has the exact same pencil-thin nose, with only minor variations due to different iconographers. The most we can say about Jesus from icons is that he probably did have dark hair (as did everyone else in the area) and a beard.

This further proves the point then, really. His "image" cannot be used as proof of his existence.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok
It's a bit implausible to suggest that Jesus never existed. You're effectively positing that Paul et al made up a charismatic figure less than a century old, passed off their own ideas as his, and basically used him as a sock puppet, no?

What I'm suggesting is that almost everything that is believed by Christians about Jesus is false.

It's certainly possible that he didn't exist. None of the major historians active at the time and the area mention him at all. The only evidence that we have are religious texts written with a religious motive long after his supposed death. He may well have been a mythical figure from the beginning.

There may well have been a person called Jesus, but the evidence for attributing to him any of the views of Christianity is thin at best. Certainly, the biographies of the Apostles are almost wholly contrived. We have no idea who these people were, and we have no idea who wrote the gospels.

Christians that disagree simply have no evidence to make their case with.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Lorizael
There was no television, cell phones, or internet back then to validate or invalidate crazy rumors. If a person comes into your town with a large book and tells you about a man in a city you've never been to before, who's to tell you he's wrong? Especially if he's got a convincing tale to tell?

How is it convincing if nobody has ever heard of any of the incidents? The town drunk could do just as well when he was in his cups. There's nobody to tell you he's wrong, but nobody to confirm his story, either. I'm not talking about making converts in Greece or Asia Minor, here. According to the gospels, Jesus was supposed to have traveled over a sizable area, preaching and causing trouble as he went. Is it in doubt that the Church started in that general area? Who could go into Jerusalem or Nazareth and tell them their own history was wrong, and not be called on it?

It'd be safer, simpler, and more sensible to just start an esoteric cult like so many others did in those days. Talk about a prophet who lived long ago in a land beyond Babylon and discovered the Sacred Truth, blah blah blah. Or start yet another splinter branch of gnosticism, or neoplatonism, or whatever.

And television/the internet/cell phones do more to create crazy rumors than to invalidate them. Beware of chronological snobbery; people in those days were our technological, not intellectual, inferiors.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Lorizael
This further proves the point then, really. His "image" cannot be used as proof of his existence.

I didn't claim it could be. That was AH.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Elok
Beware of chronological snobbery; people in those days were our technological, not intellectual, inferiors.

I think they were intellectually inferior. Why do you say they weren't?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I think they were intellectually inferior. Why do you say they weren't?

Why would they be? Most didn't have the easy access to public education we have today, but does that make them dumber?

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Agathon

All the major religions suffer from problems with common sense, but Christianity is by far the worst offender, as its fundamental tenets make absolutely no sense at all.

Common sense (which is a myth in itself) and religion have nothing to do with each other. Why do you find the concept of the Trinity so difficult, but not the idea of mulitple gods or even the simple concept of a divine being with powers way beyond man. If there really was/is a god that is all-knowing and all-powerful, what makes you think your puny mind would be able to comprehend him/her? (that is not an insult to your intelligence, but merely saying you could not comprehend no matter how smart you are).

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Elok
How is it convincing if nobody has ever heard of any of the incidents? The town drunk could do just as well when he was in his cups. There's nobody to tell you he's wrong, but nobody to confirm his story, either. I'm not talking about making converts in Greece or Asia Minor, here. According to the gospels, Jesus was supposed to have traveled over a sizable area, preaching and causing trouble as he went. Is it in doubt that the Church started in that general area? Who could go into Jerusalem or Nazareth and tell them their own history was wrong, and not be called on it?

This is why I think there was probably something the gospel writers were basing their new cult off of, but it didn't necessarily have to be Jesus as described in the gospels.

And television/the internet/cell phones do more to create crazy rumors than to invalidate them. Beware of chronological snobbery; people in those days were our technological, not intellectual, inferiors.

This is debatable, and I don't feel like debating it.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I think they were intellectually inferior. Why do you say they weren't?

Evolution only works so fast, Kid. Or are you a Lamarckian? No, they were the same kind of critter as us, and many of them had far more experience with logic than the average human today, thanks to various intellectual traditions. They had only the most limited concept of science, but science has little to do with this.