Research on Belief in God

[rhubroma]

Yes some secular historians will deny the fact, but it is still a fact. Speaking from an objective point of view, thinking whatever you want about who he actually was, a man named Jesus did live 2,000 years ago.

You saying it is a 'fact' means nothing. I have previously mentioned that, based on the actual evidence (beyond the gospels) we have, the historians leave a margin for doubt.

Well, let's put it this way, certainly the New Testament was not written with a 'historical approach' in mind, but to establish a religion. As such we must look to other sources for the historical Jesus, the paucity of which, however, has led to some historians to place under scrutiny even the very existance of the Nazarean.

Of course this is rather beside the point, isn't it? As people of faith shouldn't need the rational historical aspect to believe what they do, since religion works within a confine of human consciousness that isn't bound to logical chronological and spatial realities, but fantasy, desire, emotion and hope.

 

[hrotha]

I think it's fine to question his historicity, but I can't help but think there's a bit of a double standard here, because our sources for many universally accepted historical people are way more scarce than for Jesus. The Gospels are not historical books, of course, but they're still very important historical sources, as anything written around that time would be.

The historical elements of the Gospels are so ingrained in the story of Jesus that, considering how early Christian communities started popping up, I find it extremely unlikely that it all didn't have a strong historical basis.

But then, I tend to believe almost all legends and myths have a basis of historical truth if you dig enough.

 

[Jspear]

You saying it is a 'fact' means nothing. I have previously mentioned that, based on the actual evidence (beyond the gospels) we have, the historians leave a margin for doubt.

Well, let's put it this way, certainly the New Testament was not written with a 'historical approach' in mind, but to establish a religion. As such we must look to other sources for the historical Jesus, the paucity of which, however, has led to some historians to place under scrutiny even the very existance of the Nazarean.

Of course this is rather beside the point, isn't it? As people of faith shouldn't need the rational historical aspect to believe what they do, since religion works within a confine of human consciousness that isn't bound to logical chronological and spatial realities, but fantasy, desire, emotion and hope.

If you want to discount the evidence proving Jesus existed then you must discount much of ancient history as well.

 

[ray j willings]

I just want to say that I never said jesus did not exist. Infact Jesus was quite a common name and I'm sure someone called Jesus did exist. Did one of the Jesus's have supernatural powers and come back from the dead No
I don't believe in Zombies.


hrotha, I did check your link but that site IMO is full pooh pooh.

If you look at their views on American history and their take on major incidents they make a lot of presumptions that try's to cloud the issue's of the facts. Have you checked their sources/links?

They should change their name to Skeptics-Fox news.
IMO its a bullsh55 site.

 

[hrotha]

A Zeitgeist fan asking for sources? The irony.

If that site isn't good enough for you, you can try countless others. Hell, even some basic Wikipedia reading will show those gods have the attributes the movie claims they have.

 

[RetroActive]

If you want to discount the evidence proving Jesus existed then you must discount much of ancient history as well.

Whose ancient history? The history in the bible? Were they writing stories about changes in the heavens or factual earthly history? Or both? A few pages ago you were talking about Moses and idolatry. Moses was clearly stating that the age of Taurus was over and the age of Aries had begun, the same sort of shift that Christianity marks for the age of Pisces - the final sign of the zodiac, the fish, completion, enlightenment.

Whether Jesus was an actual human being is relatively irrelevant as it's the message that's important. It's when Brahman is Atman, Ra is Atum. When the binary becomes united, two eyes become one, etc. Beyond good and evil - Ra is Set, like up necessitates down.

@rhub.- talking about the demiurge, it makes perfect sense to me that Space (Uranus) is castrated by Time (Saturn) who is overthrown by the Law (Jupiter) which is hopefully reasonable. We are still governed by the law and it's through the law that corporations become people. The quest for eternal life is achieved in a sort of perverse abstraction made 'real'. Is Gilgamesh resting easy or rolling over in his grave?

Of course the Jews had their own demiurge in Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, the tetragrammaton and all that means, which was also depicted in ancient Egypt.

 

[RetroActive]

Another (less radical than the electric universe) take on cosmology.


Big Bang debunked? New theory reexamines beginning of universe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI_OZZ_G4SI&app=desktop

 

[rhubroma]

If you want to discount the evidence proving Jesus existed then you must discount much of ancient history as well.

Which ancient history? Those ancients, relatively many, for which we actually have their writings provide clear evidence for the broad, and in lots of cases, the specific state of events within the historical context. These same writings make clear mentioning of people, places, events, but none of them directly refer to the historical Jesus except Josephus.

Tacitus mentions followers of the Christos, Suetonius recalls the brutal persecutions under Nero (idem Tacitus), Cassius Dio mentions the sect called Christianity; by contrast, as regards the four gospels, there isn't even universal agreement as to who the authors actually were. Paul, on the other hand, never met Jesus, whereas the Christian apologists like Tertullian can't be relied upon as reliable testimony of history and events, because they did not personally experience them and were incredibly biased.

My point is where is your body of evidence? It is a specter of what you wish to label as "evidence of fact," which in reality is nonexistent.

Personally I'm not bothered one way or the other, it is just that when the religious come out all high and mighty with "this is fact," "we have all the evidence," I just respond, no, actually you don't. You have only your faith, but that isn't objective proof of anything.

On the side that Jesus was entirely a figment of some people's imaginations, is that none of the great ancient writers give him much attention. Now the absence of evidence doesn't necessarily mean an absence of fact, however, without such uncontestable evidence rational beings are free to question the historical commonplace and its uncritical taking for granted.

What I am certain about, however, is that the moment the historical Jesus became the supernatural Christ we move radically away from history and into the realm of a myth.

 

[Echoes]

Why? He's taken your denomination into modernity, and he speaks truths that it are refreshing to hear. I love the guy in all honesty. His thoughts on capitalism are astoundingly accurate, and needed.

A set of values, a morality ought not to change because of the whims of time. It should remain what it is. Otherwise it's hypocritical.

One of Francis' quote of the Christmas message of 2013 illustrates that point powerfully:

"Those who look for disciplinary solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal security ? have a static view of things. In so doing, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. Personally I have one dogmatic certitude: God is in every person's life."

Typical Vatican II quote. So no more social doctrine and instead some sort of a mystic experience of a personal "meeting" with God, which ridicules us.

Bashing capitalism might be fine but it's easy to do. Anybody can do it. But first it's harder to act and second you also need some consistency in your speech against capitalism. Obviously this quote contradicts any kind of speeches that preaches mistrust towards wild capitalism. I think his speeches are in permanent contradiction. I can't trust him.

Rome needs a counter-poison to Vatican II before that they can't be trusted. Like France needs an antidote to 1789 and Russia one against 1917.

I think it's fine to question his historicity

It's always fine to always question the historicity of anything. I know a poster on this very forum who does not think that way. If I take an example at random, let's say, the Holocaust, this poster not only denies anyone the right to deny it but even to question the way this event has been told to us. I believe anyone is entitled to revise this event like any historical event, whether he be right or wrong.

Just like anyone should be entitled to question the landing on the moon, for after all, it might just have been a Kubrick film. Just like anyone can go with Fomenko and deny that the Middle-Ages have ever existed. 1,000 years of our history have entirely been made up by scribes from the Catholic Church, by 1583. You know that the Cathedral ND de Paris was built at the same time as the Colosseum, right? These atheists have a fertile imagination.

 

[ray j willings]

A Zeitgeist fan asking for sources? The irony.

If that site isn't good enough for you, you can try countless others. Hell, even some basic Wikipedia reading will show those gods have the attributes the movie claims they have.

I am not asking for links, I was making a point.
There are countless tales of many Horus's as their are of 100's of so called gods and just like jesus they are all fairy tales and the same story regurgitated or embellished or less embellished.

A Zeitgeist fan

 

[hrotha]

I am not asking for links, I was making a point.
There are countless tales of many Horus's as their are of 100's of so called gods and just like jesus they are all fairy tales and the same story regurgitated or embellished or less embellished.

A Zeitgeist fan

Let's see any scholarly source that makes those claims about not only Horus, but the other gods as well.

 

[Jspear]

Which ancient history? Those ancients, relatively many, for which we actually have their writings provide clear evidence for the broad, and in lots of cases, the specific state of events within the historical context. These same writings make clear mentioning of people, places, events, but none of them directly refer to the historical Jesus except Josephus.

Tacitus mentions followers of the Christos, Suetonius recalls the brutal persecutions under Nero (idem Tacitus), Cassius Dio mentions the sect called Christianity; by contrast, as regards the four gospels, there isn't even universal agreement as to who the authors actually were. Paul, on the other hand, never met Jesus, whereas the Christian apologists like Tertullian can't be relied upon as reliable testimony of history and events, because they did not personally experience them and were incredibly biased.

My point is where is your body of evidence? It is a specter of what you wish to label as "evidence of fact," which in reality is nonexistent.

Personally I'm not bothered one way or the other, it is just that when the religious come out all high and mighty with "this is fact," "we have all the evidence," I just respond, no, actually you don't. You have only your faith, but that isn't objective proof of anything.

On the side that Jesus was entirely a figment of some people's imaginations, is that none of the great ancient writers give him much attention. Now the absence of evidence doesn't necessarily mean an absence of fact, however, without such uncontestable evidence rational beings are free to question the historical commonplace and its uncritical taking for granted.

What I am certain about, however, is that the moment the historical Jesus became the supernatural Christ we move radically away from history and into the realm of a myth.

There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts for the New Testament alone. There are over 19,000 manuscripts in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. These manuscripts are 99.5 percent pure when it comes to internal consistency. Any scholar who does his due objective research knows the New Testament is reliable. Those are amazing stats that NO other book can boast of having. If you are actually interested in learning about the canon of scripture look at the different books Michael Krueger has written on the subject.

Besides the New Testament we have the early church fathers...those writings in and of themselves are extensive.

Then as was mentioned earlier Josephus also writes about Jesus.

My point is the ancient records scream that Jesus existed...it is a fact. Of course critiques are going to come out and try to disprove it, but they will have to be dishonest with the facts to do this.

 

[ray j willings]

Let's see any scholarly source that makes those claims about not only Horus, but the other gods as well.

I cut and pasted this little piece ...quite apt I feel.

The copycat thesis is strongly rejected by the vast majority of Christians but accepted by many skeptics.
Most conservative Christians look upon the Bible as a "top-down" document: one revealed by God to humans. Since fraud, deceit, and lying are not attributes normally associated with God, they believe that the Bible -- as God's Word -- is truthful and accurate.
Many skeptics view the Bible as a "bottom-up" document: one written by human authors to promote their religious and spiritual beliefs. Such authors are quite capable of adopting religious concepts of other cultures and incorporating them into their literary works.

On this topic, we are faced with a stalemate. Skeptical commentators claim that there are many parallels between the lives of Horus and Jesus; Christian commentators tend to deny the existence of most or all of them.

Some skeptics may lose objectivity because they are motivated by a desire to weaken the claims of Christianity; Christians may lose objectivity because they don't want to admit that there such parallels could exist and throw doubt on the accuracy of the Bible. We have not yet found an objective, reliable source

Read the Christ conspiracy by D.M. Murdock
Member, American School of Classical Studies, Athens
Scholar of Archaeology, History, Mythology and Languages


http://truthbeknown.com/christ.htm

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

"Skeptical commentators claim..." sounds very much like "As ancient alien theorist believe..." to me.

Who are those commentators? I mean the dude with the funny hair who talks about ancient aliens at least shows his "experts".

The bible was written by humans with a religious agenda, of course, not even the nutjobs dispute that. The way it is presented in the passage you quote isn't an argument though, it's a rethoric move to suggest that therefore this specific theory is plausible.

I doubt that the author you present count's as a scholar in any academic and scientific sense.

On the topic in general:
Of course one can question the historicity of Jesus, and there could be better sources. But I don't think it's very plausible to assume that there wasn't some factual person from which Christianity originated. I don't know a single respectable historian who believes that there was no person who "Jesus" roots back to. Is there any?

But just for fun? Why would the nonexistence of Jesus, the man, not the "God", be a plausible idea?

(Oh! Now I have made my 1000th post on Ancient Aliens and Jesus! )

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Why? He's taken your denomination into modernity, and he speaks truths that it are refreshing to hear. I love the guy in all honesty. His thoughts on capitalism are astoundingly accurate, and needed.

He got some bad press lately after he advocated slapping people. First someone who'd say nasty stuff about his mother, and after that children (only if you hit them with dignity).

I believe the idea that you can slap a child with dignity pretty much sums up everything that has ever been wrong with the catholic curch.

(Btw.: it's nice this thread isn't hijaked by racists any more)

 

[hrotha]

I cut and pasted this little piece ...quite apt I feel.

That ain't no scholarly source. Come on, give me something by an Egyptologist that isn't even talking about Christianity but just about Horus. Also, "Zeitgeist" is pretty much based on "The Christ Conspiracy", it's no independent source.

On this topic, we are faced with a stalemate. Skeptical commentators claim that there are many parallels between the lives of Horus and Jesus; Christian commentators tend to deny the existence of most or all of them.

Skeptical commentators would do well to bring forth actual Egyptian sources.

edit: as it is, skeptical commentators are just showing that they're cherry picking what to be skeptical about, swallowing unsourced claims hook, line and sinker.

 

[RetroActive]

That ain't no scholarly source. Come on, give me something by an Egyptologist that isn't even talking about Christianity but just about Horus. Also, "Zeitgeist" is pretty much based on "The Christ Conspiracy", it's no independent source.

Skeptical commentators would do well to bring forth actual Egyptian sources.

edit: as it is, skeptical commentators are just showing that they're cherry picking what to be skeptical about, swallowing unsourced claims hook, line and sinker.

Hyksos.

Egyptologists are cowards, like everyone else they know which side of their bread is buttered. Scientism. Repeaters.

 

[rhubroma]

]There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts for the New Testament alone. There are over 19,000 manuscripts in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages.These manuscripts are 99.5 percent pure when it comes to internal consistency.

I got this far and came to the conclusion that there is no point in debating with the brainwashed.

My response is, so, big deal. The manuscript consistency only indicates that the reproduction among the scriptores was very professional (not surprising, though, given their cause) and worked from original (or facsimiles of original) sources, but this rationally tells us nothing about the reliability of those sources themselves. The four canonical New Testament gospels, to the contrary, contain some pretty gross inconsistencies and omissions between them. Thus where is the consistency!

You, of course, completely neglect an entire other body of (contradictory) evidence in the apocrypha including the Gospel of Judas, which are only less valid than a bunch of late antique power mongering theologians disavowing them. Then there are the corpus of Gnostic texts and, as far as Hebrew biblical studies are concerned, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and so forth. There is consequently no consistency as far as the Book is concerned, but a series of inconsistencies and flawed constridicitons.

None of this, therefore, points to "historical fact," but a search for (orthodox and heterodox) religious identity, which in all cases points to a highly sophisticated construction of a myth for social control or liberation from its constraints.

 

[rhubroma]

"Skeptical commentators claim..." sounds very much like "As ancient alien theorist believe..." to me.

Who are those commentators? I mean the dude with the funny hair who talks about ancient aliens at least shows his "experts".

The bible was written by humans with a religious agenda, of course, not even the nutjobs dispute that. The way it is presented in the passage you quote isn't an argument though, it's a rethoric move to suggest that therefore this specific theory is plausible.

I doubt that the author you present count's as a scholar in any academic and scientific sense.

On the topic in general:
Of course one can question the historicity of Jesus, and there could be better sources. But I don't think it's very plausible to assume that there wasn't some factual person from which Christianity originated. I don't know a single respectable historian who believes that there was no person who "Jesus" roots back to. Is there any?

But just for fun? Why would the nonexistence of Jesus, the man, not the "God", be a plausible idea?

(Oh! Now I have made my 1000th post on Ancient Aliens and Jesus! )

Don't get me wrong. The chances are that a Jew named Jesus (in fact the name Yeshua or Yehoshuah ben Joseph was common enough after all), upon which a new religion was built, existed is likely. My point was other, however.

And it is when any bible wielding zealot tells me that the Book has provided them with all the 'facts,' I just laugh to myself. Since even if the historical Jesus is indeed the figure upon which the Book was based, the context in which that source was written has nothing to do with the historiocity of the person whose life it tells (and, let's face it, not even very satisfactorily from the historical perspective, which was my point from the beginning), and which it claims to be divine (hence its total unreliability as a historical source).

End of discussion.

 

[Jspear]

I got this far and came to the conslusion that there is no point in debating with the brainwashed.

You, of course, completely neglect an entire other body of (contradictory) evidence in the apocrypha including the Gospel of Judas, which are only less valid than a bunch of late antique power mongering theologians disavowing them. Then there are the corpus of gnostic texts and, as far as Hebrew biblical studies are concerned, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and so forth.

None of this points to "historical fact," but a search for (orthodox as opposed to heterodox) religious identity, which in all cases points to a highly sophisticated construction of a myth for social control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiayuxWwuI

 

[rhubroma]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiayuxWwuI

If this is your idea of scientific philology then there can be no further discussion. All he's saying is that the reliability is there because, in effect, the copyists did a good job, which of course says nothing concretely useful about what they were copying.

 

[Jspear]

If this is your idea of scientific philology then there can be no further discussion. All he's saying is that the reliability is there because, in effect, the copyists did a good job, which of course says nothing concretely useful about what they were copying.

It's a starting place. Once we have worked out that the NT is reliable then we move alone to the next point. Watch it when you have time.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

A set of values, a morality ought not to change because of the whims of time. It should remain what it is. Otherwise it's hypocritical.

Evidently, you aren't aware that we have this thing called "history." You should check up on it sometime, it is a fascinating refutation of your point.

 

[RetroActive]

It's a starting place. Once we have worked out that the NT is reliable then we move alone to the next point. Watch it when you have time.

What if you're starting in completely the wrong place?
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ralph+ellis

 

[nomido]

What a funny thread. I believe in God.