RE: Did Jesus Even Really Exist?
November 23, 2011 at 10:14 pm
(This post was last modified: November 23, 2011 at 10:16 pm by Cyberman.)
(November 22, 2011 at 9:46 pm)Minimalist Wrote:Quote:Do I believe he physically existed-yes.
Which may be enough for you but it sure isn't enough for me.
Slight but nominally relevant tangent: in 1877, celebrated Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported observing a network of channels on the surface of Mars. An unfortunate linguistic coincidence led to the confusion of the Italian word for channels, canali, with the more familiar English word canals, with connotations of artificial construction not implied in Schiaparelli's use of the term. Almost instantly, the public imagination was captivated by such visions as teams of Martian engineers building this vast network of canals in an attempt to irrigate the Martian deserts and revive their dying civilisation. These speculations were fuelled and even championed by, among others, the equally celebrated American astronomer Percival Lowell, who even drew maps of the Martian canal system. It wasn't until the Mariner 4 photographic mission in 1965 that the canali were revealed to be the optical illusion that they were. Yet that illusion set loose a wild goose that has been chased around ever since by the credulous, the ill-informed, and the just plain over-imaginative.
Moral: Not every popular belief needs a basis in fact.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
