Evidence: The Gathering

[Minimalist]

Chief persecutor may have been an exaggeration. Minor would've been more like it.

Let's see...according to one of the books of holy horseshit, old paul was on his way to Damascus...

9  But Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,

2 and asked of him letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, that if he found any that were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Notice its the book of "acts" not "facts" and we are supposed to believe that this fuckhead would simply be allowed to kidnap citizens of the city and drag them to Jerusalem while the Roman magistrates of the city would sit there on their fucking asses and do nothing.

Such shit is worthy of fuckheads like Randy to believe.  No one with an IQ over 60 should fall for such absurd horseshit.

[Mudhammam]

No one with an IQ over 60 should fall for such absurd horseshit.

Well, given modern day polling about what American evangelicals believe, and the data preserved in Lucian from the latter half of the 2nd century, who observed of Peregrinus...

he learned the wondrous lore of the Christians, by associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine. And—how else could it be?—in a trice he made them all look like children, for he was prophet, cult-leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He interpreted and explained some of their books and even composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be sure, whom they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.

...it appears that the primary audience of Christian mountebanks would have fit the bill.

However, the author of Acts, writing that Saul's intention was to usurp the civil authority of the Roman magistrates, coupled with Lucian's account of gullible Christians revering Peregrinus as god and lawgiver, perhaps sheds some light on the motivation for the persecution of their leaders. Christianity was a social and political movement that sought to subvert the laws of the State as much as it aimed to discredit the polytheistic superstitions the latter was poisonously enjoined with.

[Minimalist]

They had 1,500 years to distill out the impurities if they wished.  They didn't bother.  Good enough for the evangelicals, as you say.

However, the author of Acts, writing that Saul's intention was to usurp the civil authority of the Roman magistrates,

My money would have been on the magistrates.  But it is a bit like Trump saying he'll deport 11 million people because it is what the great unwashed wants to hear.


Ever read Hoffman's re-creation of Celsus' "On the True Doctrine?"  Basically he took Origen's 'Contra Celsus', stripped out all of Origen's silly apologetics and tried to re-create as much of the book as he could.  

There are some fantastic anti-xtian quotes in it.  Somewhere, I had a list of them.  I'll have to look around for it.

[Minimalist]

I don't know that I found the whole list but I did find the one which most caught my eye the first time I saw it.  Remember, Celsus is writing c 180-185 or some 20-25 years after Lucian.

He has heard enough xtian malarkey to know the name "jesus" which Lucian apparently did not.  Still, this quote makes clear that there are many different xtian groups by the late 2d century.

"Christians, needless to say, utterly detest one another; they slander each other constantly with the vilest forms of abuse, and cannot come to any sort of agreement in their teaching. Each sect brands its own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense...".

 
Ehrman beats this point to death in his Lost Christianities which is a superb little book.

[Mudhammam]

They had 1,500 years to distill out the impurities if they wished.  They didn't bother.  Good enough for the evangelicals, as you say.

However, the author of Acts, writing that Saul's intention was to usurp the civil authority of the Roman magistrates,

My money would have been on the magistrates.  But it is a bit like Trump saying he'll deport 11 million people because it is what the great unwashed wants to hear.


Ever read Hoffman's re-creation of Celsus' "On the True Doctrine?"  Basically he took Origen's 'Contra Celsus', stripped out all of Origen's silly apologetics and tried to re-create as much of the book as he could.  

There are some fantastic anti-xtian quotes in it.  Somewhere, I had a list of them.  I'll have to look around for it.

I have heard of it, and almost bought it, but instead picked up Origin's Contra Celsium, which is what I'll be reading after I finish Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Tertullian's Apology, On the Spectacles, and On the Soul, Minucius Felix's Octavius, and Diogenes Laertius' Lives. And after I get through Origin and some Plotinus, I plan on reading Hoffman's translations of Porphyry's Against the Christians and the Emperor Julian's Against the Galileans. I believe both of those latter books are also reconstructed by fragments that exist in later Christian apologists, yes?

[Minimalist]

Correct.  Porphyry's work is reproduced in part by Eusebius and Julian's in part by Cyril of Alexandria.  Like Origen, we have no way of knowing how accurately they quoted their sources but it does seem logical that they would have taken legitimate passages to refute.  At the time of all three xtian writers they had not begun the process of exterminating the wisdom of the classical world and so there would have been plenty of copies of the original documents around.  Of course, what we can never know is what parts they decided they did not want to touch barring a stupendous archaeological find on the order of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  And I don't believe in miracles.

[Mudhammam]

Correct.  Porphyry's work is reproduced in part by Eusebius and Julian's in part by Cyril of Alexandria.  Like Origen, we have no way of knowing how accurately they quoted their sources but it does seem logical that they would have taken legitimate passages to refute.  At the time of all three xtian writers they had not begun the process of exterminating the wisdom of the classical world and so there would have been plenty of copies of the original documents around.  Of course, what we can never know is what parts they decided they did not want to touch barring a stupendous archaeological find on the order of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  And I don't believe in miracles.

It's a shame that the extant body of work representing ancient Grecian and Roman thought was curated by Christian dogmatists, though I'm at least grateful that they seem, for the most part, to have accurately preserved what they did.

[Cyberman]

Having faith in something requires more effort than not. You flowed downhill.

That would be the point. No one has to exert effort to maintain belief in demonstrably true things. God is not demonstrably true, and there for belief often requires an effort of will. Realizing that you shouldn't believe in something that requires an effort of will to believe is the first indication of a recovering theist.

Absolutely. Flowing downhill is the natural order.

[Rhondazvous]

Absolutely. Flowing downhill is the natural order.

If you psyche yourself into believing you're flowing uphill, it may just be 5that you're dizzy from spinning words around and don't know which way is up.

[IATIA]

If you were under water, you would 'flow uphill'.