This will be my last post for about a month. I'm needing to take a hiatus for personal reasons. Others can take it from here...
There's a difference between a religion being started by a charismatic snake oil salesman claiming to have spoken with a god and a religion that is the amalgamation of different ideas which certain people find appealing due to the circumstances of the time. I make no assertion that there was a planned conspiracy to start Christianity. If there were such a plan, Christianity would be put together much better with fewer internal inconsistencies. For one thing, they'd have nailed down the important details of the life story of their lord and savior.
For example, just to pick one, when did Jesus fly up into the sky to go to his father god in Heaven after his resurrection?
I'm not picking at nits here. We're not talking about "was his robe scarlet or purple?" We are talking about really important details that any witness would have remembered if it had really happened.
If "someone just made up Jesus one day" they would have gotten this story straight. The fact that we have so many continuity gaffes in the story suggests many authors working independently of one another. Christian apologists are left to explain why they aren't really contradictions in a festival of ad hocs, sounding not unlike Star Trekkies or Star Wars fans.
Of course they were. Apologists can't deny the existence of the heretical churches so they do the next best thing: downplay them as heretics and schismatics.
The best case scenario I can map out for Christianity is that Jesus was an insignificant rabbi that no one outside his small following thought was worth a mention. He wrote nothing down and so his actual teachings are lost to us, explaining why there were all the divergent Christianities in the first few centuries. We might assume he was a doom-crier and messiah-wannabe, as there were a plentiful number of them in Judea at that time. Pilate may have crucified him, as he did with many Jewish leaders (he was a brutal governor even by Roman standards). Decades later, according to the dates of the apologists, fanciful tales were written about him, who knows if any are based on anything more than imagination, urban legend and different theological agendas. The first was Mark. Matt and Luke expanded on the story working independently and coming up with their own incompatible versions. John's advanced theology reads like a much later addition, once Trinitarian dogma took hold.
Christians like to think that critics of Christianity would have cried "false" if any of these contradictory tales were not true, as if 2nd century Judea was populated by fact-checking commandos ready to pounce on unsuspecting rabbis.
The fact is we've seen this kind of urban legend in more recent figures. Elvis was "sighted" long after his death. George Washington was barely in the grave before urban legends sprang up about him and the cherry tree. Davey Crockett was a real man but I can bet he didn't really "kill him a bear when he was only three." Reagan and his very presidency got a complete re-write in conservative circles. The man they revere didn't exist and the real version wouldn't make it in today's GOP. How well do you think urban legend would work in a more primitive society, one without internet fact checking and one more saturated in superstition?
(July 31, 2013 at 5:55 am)Consilius Wrote: I thought you were trying to assert something like that in your essays.
There's a difference between a religion being started by a charismatic snake oil salesman claiming to have spoken with a god and a religion that is the amalgamation of different ideas which certain people find appealing due to the circumstances of the time. I make no assertion that there was a planned conspiracy to start Christianity. If there were such a plan, Christianity would be put together much better with fewer internal inconsistencies. For one thing, they'd have nailed down the important details of the life story of their lord and savior.
For example, just to pick one, when did Jesus fly up into the sky to go to his father god in Heaven after his resurrection?
- Mark and Luke: Same day
- John: 8 days later
- Acts: 40 days later.
I'm not picking at nits here. We're not talking about "was his robe scarlet or purple?" We are talking about really important details that any witness would have remembered if it had really happened.
If "someone just made up Jesus one day" they would have gotten this story straight. The fact that we have so many continuity gaffes in the story suggests many authors working independently of one another. Christian apologists are left to explain why they aren't really contradictions in a festival of ad hocs, sounding not unlike Star Trekkies or Star Wars fans.
Quote:At many times in Christian history, the Church was just outright about it.
Of course they were. Apologists can't deny the existence of the heretical churches so they do the next best thing: downplay them as heretics and schismatics.
Quote:Would you say that Christ was adapted to the Gospels or the Gospels were adapted to Christ?Difficult to say for sure what the real story was. The details are sketchy. The best we have is the Annals of Tacitus, a second century oblique reference to a "Christos" crucified by Pilate.
The best case scenario I can map out for Christianity is that Jesus was an insignificant rabbi that no one outside his small following thought was worth a mention. He wrote nothing down and so his actual teachings are lost to us, explaining why there were all the divergent Christianities in the first few centuries. We might assume he was a doom-crier and messiah-wannabe, as there were a plentiful number of them in Judea at that time. Pilate may have crucified him, as he did with many Jewish leaders (he was a brutal governor even by Roman standards). Decades later, according to the dates of the apologists, fanciful tales were written about him, who knows if any are based on anything more than imagination, urban legend and different theological agendas. The first was Mark. Matt and Luke expanded on the story working independently and coming up with their own incompatible versions. John's advanced theology reads like a much later addition, once Trinitarian dogma took hold.
Christians like to think that critics of Christianity would have cried "false" if any of these contradictory tales were not true, as if 2nd century Judea was populated by fact-checking commandos ready to pounce on unsuspecting rabbis.
The fact is we've seen this kind of urban legend in more recent figures. Elvis was "sighted" long after his death. George Washington was barely in the grave before urban legends sprang up about him and the cherry tree. Davey Crockett was a real man but I can bet he didn't really "kill him a bear when he was only three." Reagan and his very presidency got a complete re-write in conservative circles. The man they revere didn't exist and the real version wouldn't make it in today's GOP. How well do you think urban legend would work in a more primitive society, one without internet fact checking and one more saturated in superstition?
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
