(February 11, 2011 at 5:54 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: I think Carleton West in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance put it best:
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
In this case, it's more precise to say:
If the legend is bullshit, print it anyway.
There's a blurry line between legend and myth. One quickly becomes the other in a remarkably short period of time, even in an age of information.
It makes me think of the Jesus myth.
Let's assume that a "historical Jesus" existed. He was some mortal wandering rabbi with a group of fanatical followers, one of many doom criers that lived at that time. Generations later, people were telling tall tales about him. Maybe he was martyred by the Romans and became a symbol. A faction of Jews began to attribute all manner of teachings and miracles to him. Good luck knowing true from false.
Christians like to claim that there would have been a team of commando fact checkers who would have descended on any mythmakers to cry "false" if the resurrection or any other miracles weren't true. Only true doctrines could have stood the early tests of time, so they say.
Well, here we have the messiah of the Republican Party, who lived and reigned within recent history, within the lifetimes of those who would have known or worked with him. Furthermore, we live in an age of information where real fact checkers exist. It doesn't stop the mythmakers from rewriting history, does it?
Why should I, for even a moment, believe that it would have been impossible to imbue to the mortal Jesus the divinity that Christians now ascribe? This was a more superstitious time when crazy beliefs about the godhood of even emperors abounded. This was a time when information was less accessible. This was a country where people wanted desperately to believe that the messiah was coming to relieve them from Roman rule. And how easy would it have been to rewrite all of the teachings of Jesus to suit religious leaders, since the theoretical historical Jesus wrote nothing down that survives to this day?
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
