The point we're making (or the point I'm making, anyway) is that it does not matter one fucking bit what real person/people originally told those stories and offered those teachings, even if it was a guy named Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph son of Thrane son of Eventually King David and Adam.
The fact still remains that the magical action-figure zombie version that's actually in the Bible stories did not exist as is written in those stories because humans do not have magical powers or rise from the dead, and because it's a completely nonsensical premise that the Creator God of the Universe birthed himself onto Earth to sacrifice himself to himself to asuage his own anger over the inherent spiritual stain of humans butt-fucking each other, but he can't be bothered to say in the Bible that slavery is actually wrong.
If the OP wants an argument against Christianity, that is one general tack I routinely use. Even if a guy named Yeshua Yosef von Nazareth really did exist, the Bible version did not exist in the same sense that Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter did not exist.
What amazes me is that atheists who positively believe in a historical Jesus are willing to sweep aside the magical/miraculous portions of the Gospels as garbage, but will then try to parse out what a historical Jesus might have actually said from the same second- and third-hand, partially forged, religious testimonials that fabricated the stories of the miraculous behavior. It sounds exactly like any cherry-picking Theist. "Ok, I don't necessarily believe in this, this, this, or this, but come ooooon...some part of this has to be true, right? I mean, a lot of people really, really think so, and there's all this writing and stuff, and are you just gonna dismiss all historical evidence for everyone's existence? Do you think John F. Kennedy didn't exist? Are you stupid?"
If I treat the authors of other fairy tales as historians, I can make the same general argument about, say, Hansel and Gretel. Ok, maybe witches with magic aren't real, and maybe she didn't live in a candy house, and there are so many versions of the story it's hard to tell exactly what happened, but most of those stories have in common that there were two children, a boy and a girl, that they snuck away from their father, and that they met an old woman in the woods who eats little children, and that the boy tried and failed to use bread crumbs to find their way home, so those things probably did happen. Oh, and everything Hansel said during the story was definitely said by an actual boy named Hansel, because who but a boy named Hansel could come up with those things to say? Are you suggesting that some mere author or storyteller just made all that up? Do you think fiction just comes from inside people's heads out of thin air or something? Cite your sources, please.
Really, Rake? Get ahold of yourself.
The fact still remains that the magical action-figure zombie version that's actually in the Bible stories did not exist as is written in those stories because humans do not have magical powers or rise from the dead, and because it's a completely nonsensical premise that the Creator God of the Universe birthed himself onto Earth to sacrifice himself to himself to asuage his own anger over the inherent spiritual stain of humans butt-fucking each other, but he can't be bothered to say in the Bible that slavery is actually wrong.
If the OP wants an argument against Christianity, that is one general tack I routinely use. Even if a guy named Yeshua Yosef von Nazareth really did exist, the Bible version did not exist in the same sense that Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter did not exist.
What amazes me is that atheists who positively believe in a historical Jesus are willing to sweep aside the magical/miraculous portions of the Gospels as garbage, but will then try to parse out what a historical Jesus might have actually said from the same second- and third-hand, partially forged, religious testimonials that fabricated the stories of the miraculous behavior. It sounds exactly like any cherry-picking Theist. "Ok, I don't necessarily believe in this, this, this, or this, but come ooooon...some part of this has to be true, right? I mean, a lot of people really, really think so, and there's all this writing and stuff, and are you just gonna dismiss all historical evidence for everyone's existence? Do you think John F. Kennedy didn't exist? Are you stupid?"
If I treat the authors of other fairy tales as historians, I can make the same general argument about, say, Hansel and Gretel. Ok, maybe witches with magic aren't real, and maybe she didn't live in a candy house, and there are so many versions of the story it's hard to tell exactly what happened, but most of those stories have in common that there were two children, a boy and a girl, that they snuck away from their father, and that they met an old woman in the woods who eats little children, and that the boy tried and failed to use bread crumbs to find their way home, so those things probably did happen. Oh, and everything Hansel said during the story was definitely said by an actual boy named Hansel, because who but a boy named Hansel could come up with those things to say? Are you suggesting that some mere author or storyteller just made all that up? Do you think fiction just comes from inside people's heads out of thin air or something? Cite your sources, please.
Really, Rake? Get ahold of yourself.
Verbatim from the mouth of Jesus (retranslated from a retranslation of a copy of a copy):
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you too will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. How can you see your brother's head up his ass when your own vision is darkened by your head being even further up your ass? How can you say to your brother, 'Get your head out of your ass,' when all the time your head is up your own ass? You hypocrite! First take your head out of your own ass, and then you will see clearly who has his head up his ass and who doesn't." Matthew 7:1-5 (also Luke 6: 41-42)
Also, I has a website: www.RedbeardThePink.com
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you too will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. How can you see your brother's head up his ass when your own vision is darkened by your head being even further up your ass? How can you say to your brother, 'Get your head out of your ass,' when all the time your head is up your own ass? You hypocrite! First take your head out of your own ass, and then you will see clearly who has his head up his ass and who doesn't." Matthew 7:1-5 (also Luke 6: 41-42)
Also, I has a website: www.RedbeardThePink.com
