Muhammad was a Feminist

[Elok]

If you strip away all the miracle stories, the basic claim here is that the Jesus of the Gospels is descended, with some garbling, from an actual religious teacher named Yeshua. As both religious teachers and the name Yeshua were common as dirt, that seems a perfectly reasonable belief, and really should be seen as more reasonable than the notion that this person was invented from whole cloth. The only argument against it is to demand a grossly unreasonable amount of evidence given both the time period and this hypothetical preacher's status.

[Aeson]

I hope in 2000 years, no one believes we were real. I mean, with access to all our emails, social networking, and forum posts ... it would be hard to live down otherwise.

[Elok]

I hope that, in 2000 years, society has not become so utterly debased as to consider the drivel on here worth looking at. Or even saving.

[Elok]

then dont attach the baggage, the time and place only strengthens the article's argument... apparently he walked into the lion's den to preach for women's 'rights'

I did not know that about him

You can't detach the baggage. Words have connotations, and a man who endorsed polygyny (but not polyandry) and the sexual use of female slaves is hard to swallow as a "feminist." Such a use of the term does violence to both the man and the concept.

[Elok]

Oh geez. Sorry if this ends up as my third consecutive post, but I just looked up the guy who wrote that article GC posted. He's a doctoral student who self-published two books and a bunch of articles. Great expert ya got there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lataster

EDIT: One of his articles goes on at great length to argue that Richard Dawkins is not anti-religious, apparently by trying to redefine the word "religion." Too bloody boring and pedantic to wade through and be sure, but at one point he quotes Dawkins saying, verbatim, in an interview they held specifically for the article: "I think I would think of myself as anti-religious, yes." Somehow he manages to continue to argue that Dawkins didn't mean it.

http://www.raphaellataster.com/articles/lataster-dawkins-interview.pdf

[Aeson]

I hope that, in 2000 years, society has not become so utterly debased as to consider the drivel on here worth looking at. Or even saving.

I plan on being very famous someday, with a cult-like following. And considering the arc of our society, within 2000 years (assuming we don't destroy ourselves) we will have achieved some sort of singularity of debauchery. Future generations will look back on Apolyton posts as unobtainable highs of morals and ethics, more myth and legend than possible reality ...

[Aeson]

By "singularity of debauchery" I envision something like the holodeck ... used for it's obvious end.

[Lorizael]

Oh geez. Sorry if this ends up as my third consecutive post, but I just looked up the guy who wrote that article GC posted. He's a doctoral student who self-published two books and a bunch of articles. Great expert ya got there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lataster

EDIT: One of his articles goes on at great length to argue that Richard Dawkins is not anti-religious, apparently by trying to redefine the word "religion." Too bloody boring and pedantic to wade through and be sure, but at one point he quotes Dawkins saying, verbatim, in an interview they held specifically for the article: "I think I would think of myself as anti-religious, yes." Somehow he manages to continue to argue that Dawkins didn't mean it.

http://www.raphaellataster.com/artic...-interview.pdf

Very tempted to edit that guy's wiki to intermittently replace "He < blanks >" with "I < blank >".

[Elok]

I'm kind of puzzled; did he include the bit about his old professor calling him a dumbass over his WaPo article out of a sense of fairness, or did his old professor insist on putting it in because he wanted everybody to know what a dumbass this kid is? I can't think who else would put that in.

EDIT: anyway, here's the full text of his old professor calling him a dumbass.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/12/24/4154120.htm

[giblets]

Fez is nuts

[Giancarlo]

That was a ****ing op/ed article. It gives an opinion on the matter. That is all it is and all I presented it as. The fact you have a chip the size of the grand canyon on your shoulder is immaterial.

I didn't realize you were such a religious fundamentalist. I take it you are the sugarcoated version of Ben.

Here is another op/ed piece that discusses the matter:

http://www.alternet.org/belief/5-reasons-suspect-jesus-never-existed

Oh and before you go on a post rampage about how bright you are, the above article is corroborated by various sources and authors. They cite many people.

There is absolutely zero evidence to support the existence of Jesus.

Giblets, stfu.

[Berzerker]

You can't detach the baggage. Words have connotations, and a man who endorsed polygyny (but not polyandry) and the sexual use of female slaves is hard to swallow as a "feminist." Such a use of the term does violence to both the man and the concept.

if he advanced the rights of women in an abusive patriarchal system he was a feminist

[Kidlicious]

I hope in 2000 years, no one believes we were real. I mean, with access to all our emails, social networking, and forum posts ... it would be hard to live down otherwise.

Don't worry. They will misinterpret it.

[Kidlicious]

You can't detach the baggage. Words have connotations, and a man who endorsed polygyny (but not polyandry) and the sexual use of female slaves is hard to swallow as a "feminist." Such a use of the term does violence to both the man and the concept.

He only endorsed the enslavement of non-believing female slaves. To a feminist, a non-believer is a white male ****lord.

[Lorizael]

There is absolutely zero evidence to support the existence of Jesus.

This is simply not the case. There is evidence, mainly of the variety that it's a parsimonious explanation for why so many people talk about a historical Jesus who, absent supernatural stuff, seems fairly well situated in his historical context. It's not a 5-sigma signal in a particle accelerator, but it's about what you expect from history. If you go back more than a millennium or so, the evidence for a lot of historical figures we accept at face value starts to get sketchy. We shouldn't blindly accept the existence of Jesus because we, say, believe the word of the Bible, but we also shouldn't be super critical about Jesus because we dislike Christianity. If your criteria are applied broadly and fairly, we get rid of Jesus and a whole lot more. The consensus among historians is that that would be a bad idea, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.