Why be good?

[downbeatplumb]

Hehe Mine is mainly into ghosts and paranormal stuff like that. She doesn't make a big deal about it in our relationship, which is why it isn't a problem. She accepts I just don't believe in things like that, and I leave her to think/say whatever she wants about it. She's not on my case trying to make me believe it too, I couldn't be with someone like that. I think she gets it from her parents, they're a bit "woo". I could probably straighten it all out with a bit of a lesson in critical thinking, but I think she kind of wants to believe in these things so I leave it be.

My wife's mum is into the same stuff. She insisted on "purifying" the house when we moved in by going around with some sort of burning twigs. Keeps'em out of mischief I suppose.

[Ravenshire]

Maybe, just maybe, I'm sometimes accused of lying when I'm actually not.

Yes, you are, because you can't be bothered to check your sources.

Which is why I corrected myself; I'm more honest than you.

You didn't need to correct yourself because he did vastly overstate his claim. In his hurry to make a bullshit point, he didn't bother to check his references. He's a dishonest little fuck.

[robvalue]

DBP: Hmm, interesting! We have this weird thing where we can't cross on the stairs. Again, this is totally a result of programming by her parents. Something bad will happen, apparently! Well yeah, something is going to happen in the future which she may categorize as bad. It's not just confirmation bias but avoiding the triggering of what she knows will be confirmation bias..

These are pretty harmless things so they don't bug me. She's absolutely wonderful so that's rather more important I don't think I could handle even a moderate religious partner... I'm way too blasphemous.

[Randy Carson]

It is not just that the gospel authors did not see these events first hand, it is also the ridiculous, mythic, bronze age stories they contain within that makes them unreliable as a historic document.

My time is limited today, but I did want to add something for you to consider regarding the authorship of the gospels.

Imagine that the gospels were written and distributed to all the churches with no names attached to them. The names of the authors were quickly forgotten because no one cared about that. The idea of apostolic authority meant nothing to the early church. When someone got up to read from a gospel, no one in the congregation really knew which gospel he was reading from because they had no names to distinguish them.

But more importantly, fifty years goes by...one hundred years goes by...two hundred years. And then an amazing thing happens: we find that the churches which are scattered all over the Roman empire and the Mediterranean DO have names for the gospels - AND THE NAMES ARE THE SAME WHEREVER YOU GO. 

It's not as if the Church in Thessalonica called the first gospel, the "Gospel According to Matthew" while a Church in Alexandria referred to it as the "Gospel of Andrew". The Church in Rome did not refer to the last gospel as the "Gospel of Phillip" while that same book was known as the "Beloved Disciple's Gospel" in Antioch.

This was before the Internet, before telephones, before electricity. How did the Churches decide - loooooooong after the fact - what the names of each of the Gospels was going to be? And how did they communicate that information to hundreds, maybe thousands of local churches, in order to get them all to agree to the new names?

And since the Early Church Fathers were also writing during all those years, why is it that we don't have any record of them calling a single gospel by any name other than the traditional name by which it is known today?

Who organized all this coordination so many years after the fact? And how on earth did they manage to pull of such a logistical feat?

+++

The plain answer is that when the Gospels were written, they were distributed from Church to Church, and the recipients would have wanted to know all the details of where the Gospel had come from, who was the authority behind it, etc.

The Church - all of the individual congregations included - has ALWAYS known who the authors of the gospels were: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

[Cyberman]

Exactly. It's not like people spoke to each other before Facebook or anything.

[Thumpalumpacus]

But more importantly, fifty years goes by...one hundred years goes by...two hundred years. And then an amazing thing happens: we find that the churches which are scattered all over the Roman empire and the Mediterranean DO have names for the gospels - AND THE NAMES ARE THE SAME WHEREVER YOU GO. 

It's not as if the Church in Thessalonica called the first gospel, the "Gospel According to Matthew" while a Church in Alexandria referred to it as the "Gospel of Andrew". The Church in Rome did not refer to the last gospel as the "Gospel of Phillip" while that same book was known as the "Beloved Disciple's Gospel" in Antioch.

Holy shit -- you mean that in addition to bringing salvation, Jesus taught us about title pages? The things you learn online!

Seriously, the works had to be conveyed by a written copy. Why would an individual church change the title of a holy book?

Do you realize exactly how lame this argument is?

[Whateverist]

When I watched Romper Room as a kid there was nothing I wanted more than to be a Do-Bee. More than half a century later, I'm not so sure. Is it really so yellow and black? Do we really need to ask a bee what is good and what is not, Phaedrus?

[The Grand Nudger]

The Church - all of the individual congregations included - has ALWAYS known who the authors of the gospels were: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

-and you don't have a problem with the fact that what the church "knows" is wrong?  Doesn't set off any bells for you?

[Jackalope]

The Church - all of the individual congregations included - has ALWAYS known who the authors of the gospels were: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

-and you don't have a problem with the fact that what the church "knows" is wrong?  Doesn't set off any bells for you?

Holy shit, you mean I can't just assert something us true and have it be so?  Amazing.

[Randy Carson]

Unfortunately, this line of reasoning that you've embarked on works just as well for the Greek gods, the Roman gods, Mithra, Allah, Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda, Amun Ra, Isis, Thor...

In the course of my reading, I have come across some information which is relevant to the questions that you and another poster have been asking. Previously, I have said that these questions weren't really worth responding to...but I think it reasonable to explain why I feel that way.

The claim is that Jesus is a "copy cat god" and that the disciples of Jesus simply took beliefs from older religions and molded them together to create a storyline for their new religion. Since this line of argumentation is pursued by atheists on a regular basis, it will be instructive to review the type of academic scholarship that has been done on these so-called gods.

Edwin Yamauchi, is a top Mithra scholar with a doctorate in Mediterranean studies. He has studied 22 languages and written 17 books including Persia and the Bible. (The Mithras religion is said to have started in Persia before coming to the Roman Empire.) Yamauchi was also one of the scholars who attended the Second Mithraic Congress in Tehran, Iran in the 1970′s.

Dr. Yamauchi addressed each of the alleged similarities between Jesus and Mithra:

1. Mithraism did not teach that he was born of a virgin; rather, the mythical Mithra was born out of a rock. 
   
2. Furthermore, he was born an adult, not a baby as was Jesus. 
   
3. And, Jesus was, of course, not born in a cave as the second century letter of Barnabas alleges.
   
4. The birthday of Jesus Christ is not mentioned in the Bible and is not known. In fact, the earliest birth date for Jesus celebrated by Christians was January 6th. The earliest time in which Dec. 25 th was used by Christians is AD 336 when Emperor Constantine proposed this day – possibly appropriated from the sun god worship. December 25th is close to the winter solstice and was chosen by Emperor Aurelian for the dedication of his temple to the sun god.
   
5. Mithra was not a traveling teacher of disciples.
   
6. The belief of immortality may be inferred in Mithraism, but that is common to almost all religions, so is not significant.
   
7. Mithra did not sacrifice himself for anyone; he killed a bull.
   
8. After extensive study, Yamauchi knows of no references to Mithra’s death. And, consequently, there are no records of his resurrection.
   
9. Any possible sacramental meal in Mithraism is unrelated to the Lord’s Supper because it was initiated much later, in the second century. Furthermore, the Christian meal is based on the Passover, begun during the time of Moses.
   

From a Wikipedia article on the "Dying-and-rising gods" category of ancient Near East religions:

"One of the leading scholars in the deconstruction of the "dying-and-rising god" category was Jonathan Z. Smith, whose 1969 dissertation discusses Frazer's Golden Bough, and who in Mircea Eliade's 1987 Encyclopedia of Religion wrote the "Dying and rising gods" entry, where he dismisses the category as "largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceeding late or highly ambiguous texts", suggesting a more detailed categorization into "dying gods" and "disappearing gods", arguing that before Christianity, the two categories were distinct and gods who "died" did not return, and those who returned never truly "died"."

Smith also wrote:

“Some of these divine figures simply disappear, some disappear only to return again in the near or distant future, some disappear and reappear with monotonous frequency. All the deities that have been identified as belonging to the class of dying and rising deities can be subsumed under the two larger classes of disappearing deities or dying deities. In the first case, the deities return but have not died; in the second case, the gods die but do not return. There is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions of a dying and rising deity.” (volume 4, page 521-522)

If there is no credible support for a dying and rising deity in the ancient religions, then Christianity cannot possibly be indebted to them. Jesus of Nazareth is God and was before He died. He rose again as He promised, but He did not become God in the process. 

Thus, unlike the false gods of the "dying-and-rising gods" category, He is unique in history despite the claims of similarity made by non-Christians.