Is the internet destroying religion?

[DramaQueen]

May I ask, how did you determine that validity?

The only stories of Jesus are claims made in the bible (there is no other mention of Jesus until well, well after his supposed death).

The only stores of divine beings are claims made in given holytexts/mythologies.

Ergo they are equally as (in)valid as one another.

I must note that I hold the Jesus story to have no validity. As the bible is a claim and not evidence, and the only account of Jesus is told through the books of the bible, until there is additional evidence to back up the claim I dismiss the story, as logic dictates.

If I may also ask, I presume you hold the Jesus mythology to be factually accurate. How did you determine that validity?

The quran mentioned jesus, therfore jesus exists you mindless zionist infidel.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

The only stories of Jesus are claims made in the bible (there is no other mention of Jesus until well, well after his supposed death).

The only stores of divine beings are claims made in given holytexts/mythologies.

Ergo they are equally as (in)valid as one another.

I must note that I hold the Jesus story to have no validity. As the bible is a claim and not evidence, and the only account of Jesus is told through the books of the bible, until there is additional evidence to back up the claim I dismiss the story, as logic dictates.

If I may also ask, I presume you hold the Jesus mythology to be factually accurate. How did you determine that validity?

The quran mentioned jesus, therfore jesus exists you mindless zionist infidel.

Quite.

[Michael]

May I ask, how did you determine that validity?

The only stories of Jesus are claims made in the bible (there is no other mention of Jesus until well, well after his supposed death).

The only stores of divine beings are claims made in given holytexts/mythologies.

Ergo they are equally as (in)valid as one another.

I must note that I hold the Jesus story to have no validity. As the bible is a claim and not evidence, and the only account of Jesus is told through the books of the bible, until there is additional evidence to back up the claim I dismiss the story, as logic dictates.

If I may also ask, I presume you hold the Jesus mythology to be factually accurate. How did you determine that validity?

Thank you

So are you someone who disagrees with the majority of historians,and even the sceptic Bart Erhman, who do believe in a historical Jesus, an itinerant preacher, at the start of the 'Jesus movement'?

And presumably Paul of Tarsus never existed either?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

So are you someone who disagrees with the majority of historians,and even the sceptic Bart Erhman, who do believe in a historical Jesus, an itinerant preacher, at the start of the 'Jesus movement'?

I agree with what the evidence suggests.

As stated, there were no contemporary accounts of a Jesus figure existing at the time he supposedly existed. Not one.

I am a free human being and thus able to disagree with folk like Bert Erhman. Invoking him as a 'skeptic' does not make your argument surrounding Jesus' existence, or your conclusion on it, valid.

EDIT: There is another thread on this topic already, too: http://atheistforums.org/thread-27761.html

[Michael]

Thanks Fidel

So what do you think is the best explanation for the start of Christianity, if you exclude any historic Jesus, or Paul, or James, or John, or Peter?

[DramaQueen]

Thanks Fidel

So what do you think is the best explanation for the start of Christianity, if you exclude any historic Jesus, or Paul, or James, or John, or Peter?

Adam and steve.

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I meant eve!

[King Dez]

The internet destroying religion? I think that atheism is being pushed slightly forward due to the simple fact that if anyone has a doubt about god's existence they could just google it (takes 5 seconds tops) and find out for themselves if they really want to believe in that crap. Personally, the internet confirmed that I wasn't alone when I had serious doubts about Christianity, so the internet "finalised" my atheism.

[Eel_LahjicK]

Yeah, those alleged parallels have been floating about the internet for years, but they end up being false or very superficial. When I started this it was Bacchus, then it was Mithra, lately Horus/Osiris is in fashion.

To you and Michael. I have read of many and have found some to be credible. Almost anything I say is going to be argued when it comes to this subject, but I found this to be interesting to me anyway since you mentioned Horus. https://sites.google.com/site/religionsc...m-the-dead

I am aware of Mithra and it was a competing religion at the time, and they mimicked most things during christianity's beginning. Even if none of what I've read is true, I can easily look at the bible and any other religious book and realize it's a bunch of fairy tales. If you debunk all of my conclusions and every other magical story before yours, why not take a closer, more critical look at the things in your "holy" book? The endless contradictions in the bible, the mass genocide, rape, blood sacrifice, and subjugation of women, and the countless moronic rules and commands given by this supreme being. Check out some of the ones in the gospels too, ones that you can't debunk, the ones that are identical stories that are in all 4 gospels that contradict each other. http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm Check this out and then click the rape and the slavery section as well, and then tell me that the all-loving God told this to his people to do this stuff. Also check out all the insane rules in Leviticus, that were so divinely inspired. I'm not saying everything in the bible is evil and bad. There is truth and goodness in it for sure, but when there is a ton of misinformation, evil, and things like talking snakes, and virgin births you really have to look at it from a skeptical point of view, just like you do with every other religion I'm sure. Tell me why God needed a savior after billions of years too. Humans (homo sapiens) have been proven over the age 150,000 years. Even though I would argue over 2+ million years because of homo erectus being quite similar. Why after 148,000 years, God realized he made a mistake, "Whoooops, I made a mistake, I can't save anyone on my own, I need to sacrifice one human being for all creation, because one is enough." Does Jesus count for everyone else on every other planet as well, do these beings on these planets know Jesus died for them? Probably not. With all the religions and cults that ever existed on this planet, the odds you're in the correct one is almost zero, if there is a correct one.----**Explain to me why other religions are wrong, why your religion is correct, and explain to me where I'm wrong in my logic**----. And don't give me the Old Testament is abolished speech (Did your God get it wrong?), your 10 commandments are in there and slavery and subjugation of women is ok in the new testament as well. I cannot express enough, look at your religion with the most skeptical point of view and ask yourself why you believe it. -Respectfully Eel_Lahjick

[Michael]

Hmmm. Were you not perhaps suspicious, for example, of the claim of "Jesus Horus", given that Jesus is just an Anglican name and would not have been found in any ancient language? That hints to me immediately that you're not dealing with top draw scholarship there. And there's nothing about Horos being crucified there at all. Is this really what convinced you? It just seems a drawn out attempt to make various miracle healings sound like they are copied. We know claims of healings and raising from the dead were not original to Jesus - they are in the Hebrew Scriptures. Why not say the New Testament simply copied the Hebrew Scriptures - that would be a much more direct line to draw if you wanted. But I guess it doesn't have the same conspiracy theory attraction.

But thank you for sharing. It's interesting to see what people accept as valid.

And a site called evilbible.com? None of that has improved my impression of the quality of what passes for scholarship on the average internet site. It's only confirmed my low opinion of the quality of the material people are accessing. Personally I'll stick to books written by well respected scholars (both atheists and theists) and leave you to your internet pages.

[Eel_LahjicK]

Not sure if you're trying to insult me or not with your last sentence there, but I'll ignore it I guess. You can focus on that one aspect of the site I gave, or you can be an open minded person & you might see some correlation there, but that's ok, that's not really my main point. I get that's not strong enough evidence for you to change your mind, totally 100% understandable. It is a fact that a lot of these religions had plagiarized made up stories throughout history. It's funny, that when I talked to someone close to me about my religious doubts, he told me he learned most of that stuff I said about previous religions in his Catholic school, which was a kick-start for him to drop religion. But, I know that's not convincing enough either. I'll make it more clear for you, researching that stuff got me thinking about my religion! What really put me over the top, was looking at my own religion's "holy book" and many others. I looked at all the BS that I was ignoring my whole life, because of the fear of hell. How about you research evolution on wikipedia or on talkorigins, or a reliable source like that. Evolution is a fact, and if you argue against it, you are arguing from total ignorance. Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timetable_o...ian_Period . Check out the billions of years the earth was empty and watch the evidence for bacteria arrive; and look a billion years later we still have bacteria, but now it's sexually reproducing. There are evidence of worms 700 million years ago. Maybe God is an omnipotent worm who created worms in his own image. Try and make a case that I'm wrong there. It makes more sense to believe that, than a man-like God who created us in his own image; when man just recently arrived here on this planet compared to the age of the earth (we're not a special creation, we've evolved).
So, let's totally ignore the previous religious correlations, because I'm willing to admit that the info is at least moderately questionable on the internet. The only thing we have to go on, is scribblings from uneducated desert wanderers, which isn't that reliable when they make the claims that they do. SO, ONCE AGAIN, since you tactically dodged my main questions in my last post; Please give me a logical explanation why you believe the good stuff in the bible, but ignore the moronic/evil/contradictory stuff in it? Why would you take that book seriously? Why not take other ones more seriously with less evil and fantasy in it? Why is there a need for a savior after all these unimaginable years; God can't save us by himself any more or was God that stingy not to share heaven for billions of years (100,000+ years for humans at least)? Explain to me why your religion is right and others are wrong. Why hasn't God charged a prophet today to annihilate the evil acts of religion in the world, since that's all he did a few thousand years ago in the Old Testament? For me to take you seriously, you can't dodge these questions I'm asking. Or maybe, admit I'm making reasonable points here, and some of these things are difficult to answer (maybe you can see where I'm coming from at least). Keep in mind I believed this stuff with all my heart. I'm genuinely wondering why you believe what you do. I believed this stuff for the same reason the 98%+ people believe it, because I was brought up into it. So, let's keep these questions I'm asking the topic of the next post please.