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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 2:58 am
(March 1, 2015 at 2:54 am)Minimalist Wrote: Honestly if there was some guy who approximated the jesus tale I imagine he was dirty and smelly and fine xtian asswipes wouldn't let him anywhere near their churches today.
That is pretty much my approximation of the jesus tale.
Normal ish guy idiotic people worship him and nearly get him killed.
jesus angry tells them to fuck off and leaves.
But the people are to stupid to take a hint and think he is magic.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization join today.
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 3:27 am
(February 28, 2015 at 5:20 pm)Godschild Wrote: Read the NT it's recorded there.
GC
"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill -- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill -- you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." -- Morpheus
GC is among the 'blue pill' variety of Bible readers who is happy to dream and suckle his life away in his assigned pod. He and his ilk can be safely ignored.
If you choose the red pill, on the other hand, you end up in a place that just gets 'curiouser and curiouser' as Alice said. To see how weirdly fashioned a place the NT Wonderland is, run a search for 'Old Testament prophesies fulfilled by Jesus', read each of these alleged 'prophesies' in context, and behold the Christian imagination (and lack of intellectual integrity) at work.
What was Jesus like? Damned if I know! The more I think about it, the less certain I am that there is anything there to grasp onto. The search for the historical Jesus is, I admit, compelling fun, but it is a little like trying to catch the wind in your hands. Peel away all of the NT's mythological elements, all of its clumsy pseudo-scholarly appeals to scripture, and all of the propaganda inserted to uphold one version of Christianity while dismissing its competitors and you're not left with much.
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 3:40 am
(This post was last modified: March 1, 2015 at 3:59 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(February 28, 2015 at 5:20 pm)Godschild Wrote: (February 27, 2015 at 7:15 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote: Growing up as a Christian, I was taught that Jesus, the early Christians, and their early theology were the gold standard that modern Christians should follow.
Lately I've been wondering if they were all just a bunch of loony tunes, and anything positive in Christianity was added later after the religion became more respectable.
Any thoughts?
Read the NT it's recorded there.
GC
Oh, so it is all bullshit. Thanks, bud. Knew you were on top of things.
(February 28, 2015 at 6:14 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: (I think of Islam as "Christianity on steroids")
Specifically, it struck me as "Calvinism on steroids". As an Air Force firefighter, I was stationed there for four months in 1992, in Riyadh. I lived in Eskan Village, about twelve miles outside of the city, and so we commuted to work at King Khalid Int'l Airport.
Being as we were trained EMTs, in the military, the brass made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that we were not to help any auto-accident victims we might encounter on the commute. The reason given to us was that the locals regarded such incidents as the will of Allah, and forbade, for thirty minutes, human interference.
I can't attest to the truthfulness of that justification. But we did see a couple of accidents in my time there, and not only did we not stop, no one else did. They left folks to die on the roadside, for the sake of inshallah, as if Allah couldn't simply blow the fuse on the whole operation by killing the engine on the ambulance or firetruck five miles from the accident site.
But it struck me as Calvinism writ large: you will take your god's will as it is and there is no appeal.
I was lucky to have a thoughtful Presbyterian handlineman on my truck, so in the evening, after we'd secured the north end of the flightline, Tommy and I would talk, and talk a lot of religion, using USAF-issued NIV Bibles. I didn't try to deconvert him, and he didn't try to deconvert me; we simply discussed what we saw, and read, and thought.
We both thought that inshallah stuff was horseshit ... but only I could use the word "horseshit" guilt-free. Tommy was still wound a little tight.
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 6:48 am
One wonders whether inshallah is the direct menifestation of preservation of a certain brutal fatalism that might have prevailed amongst the pre-Islamic Bedouin society with their marginal wondering existence and internecine tribal warfare. This would make it a different thing from Calvinism, which is a Christian theologically derived thing with tenuous connection to pre-Christian social and moral norms.
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 7:38 am
(March 1, 2015 at 6:48 am)Chuck Wrote: One wonders whether inshallah is the direct menifestation of preservation of a certain brutal fatalism that might have prevailed amongst the pre-Islamic Bedouin society with their marginal wondering existence and internecine tribal warfare. This would make it a different thing from Calvinism, which is a Christian theologically derived thing with tenuous connection to pre-Christian social and moral norms.
Yet both are fatalistic. I've yet to find a Calvinist, who can explain the use of trying to lead a christian life if their fate is predestined anyway. It gets pretty hilarious when they try.
As for the muslim variant, I recently stubled across a set of vids about the new Winter soldiers. Iraq war veterans being vocal about what they had seen and done.
One of them told a story about storming a house and knocking down a wall with a grenade launcher. One kid inside died and that particular soldier said he was destroyed seeing what he had done. He broke down in tears, but the mother of the dead child took him into her arms and said Inshallah.
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 9:43 am
To me the early Christians sound a lot like a load of bickering kids trying to shout out the competition, and impose their version of the fairy tale.
So...not much has changed :p
And as you all know I agree with DeistPaladin, there's no reason to think jesus' life story has any bearing on reality. If he was based on a real person, it was likely some nutter with a bit of charisma.
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 9:59 am
(February 28, 2015 at 5:20 pm)Godschild Wrote: Read the NT it's recorded there.
And should your NT conflict with actual known history, what then? Which takes precedence?
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.'
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 10:30 am
(This post was last modified: March 1, 2015 at 10:31 am by DeistPaladin.)
(March 1, 2015 at 9:59 am)Stimbo Wrote: And should your NT conflict with actual known history, what then? Which takes precedence?
Hell, forget history. If the Gospels conflict with each other or with other books of the Bible, which one takes precedence?
Example: After his baptism, did Jesus go off into the wilderness for 40 days (Mark) or did he hang around for a few days gathering disciples and then attend a wedding (John)?
Quote:Mark 1:12-13 And immediately (after the baptism) the spirit driveth him (Jesus) into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Quote:John 2:1-2 And the third day (after the baptism) there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.
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
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 11:00 am
I didn't want to break his brain this early.
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.'
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RE: What were Jesus and early Christians like?
March 1, 2015 at 11:01 am
(March 1, 2015 at 10:30 am)DeistPaladin Wrote: (March 1, 2015 at 9:59 am)Stimbo Wrote: And should your NT conflict with actual known history, what then? Which takes precedence?
Hell, forget history. If the Gospels conflict with each other or with other books of the Bible, which one takes precedence?
Example: After his baptism, did Jesus go off into the wilderness for 40 days (Mark) or did he hang around for a few days gathering disciples and then attend a wedding (John)?
Quote:Mark 1:12-13 And immediately (after the baptism) the spirit driveth him (Jesus) into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Quote:John 2:1-2 And the third day (after the baptism) there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.
*Dons apologist cap* Well, uh, you know how eyewitnesses always disagree about details in their recollections of accounts? Well, um . . . this is just another example of that. After all, if the accounts all matched up in, uh, every minor detail like what Jesus did after his baptism, that would be suspicious and probably a -- you know -- fabrication. But we can be sure this is a true story because the little details are just a bit different. 
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