Christianity a scam?

[Catholic_Lady]

[downbeatplumb]

[Dnte]

[SteveII]

Even if my proposition is not true and the Bible has remained unaltered for centuries, so far you Christians have not given me any reason why Jesus’ miracles did in fact happen and I’m still waiting!

I'll pick one line of reasoning... Inductive:

a. Jesus most certainly was born, baptized, and died in the time period claimed. (other sources)
b. Pete, James and John were known eyewitnesses to both the public and private events of Jesus' three year ministry
c. They presided over the early church
d. This early church instructed Paul
e. As evidenced by Paul's letters, this early church believed the claims later outlined in the gospels (long before they where written)
f. Peter, James and John eventually wrote letters emphasizing the themes found in the gospels
g. Luke wrote Luke and Acts with the purpose of outlining the events from the birth of Christ through his present day
h. The editors of Matthew, Mark, and John were all alive during the lifetimes of these people above (it is unknown if the actual people with the pen were eyewitnesses)
i. The editors would have been know to the recipients of the gospels. The books were name by which apostle influenced that particular book
j. The early church, who we know believed the claims of Jesus already, accepted the gospels. There is nothing in the early church writings that questioned them.
k. The gospels dovetail nicely with Paul's writings based on his training directly from all the eyewitnesses (completing a loop)
THEREFORE it is reasonable to infer that the events of the gospels are at the very least good representations of what really happened.

Before you jump all over some of the statements above, please realize 1) you do not have proof against any of them (finding someone to agree with you is not proof) and 2) it is inductive reasoning and therefore it is not claiming the list is proof of anything--it is only claiming the inference is reasonable. It is NOT a deductive argument which claims fact, fact, therefore fact. So it is a matter of opinion whether you think the list supports the conclusion or not.

Why might one believe the inference? Like I said many time, it is part of a cumulative case. There are a host of reasons not related to the NT why one might be less skeptical than you.

My theory is more plausible in the real world.

Let’s see what is more likely to happen somewhere in the world:

-A virgin gives birth to the son of God vs A man is born from a human woman.
-A man goes around doing miracles vs A man goes around staging miracles.
-Religious books are translated and copied and not a single word of them is altered since the 1st century vs Religious books are mistranslated and during the copying process they suffer many alterations over the centuries.
-A cripple is healed by the intervention of the son of God vs Someone gets paid to act like a cripple and fakes his condition, he gets touched by some “prophet” and he’s magically cured.
-People start believing because the real son of God has revealed himself to them vs People start believing because they were duped and because they need something to believe on.

People, we’re talking about this world. I don’t know what world or dimension you believe we’re living in. Maybe everything in the bible happened in another dimension where those kind of things can happen. But in this world I highly doubt it. So let’s talk about why you believe Jesus’ miracles did happen instead of attacking my theory. Of course you have the right to question my theory because I wasn’t there! and I’m just guessing. But I’d also like to hear why you as christians believe the bible is true. Why? "Because the bible says so" is not a valid argument.

Were  Jesus' miracles true? The question remains unanswered and no Christian dares answer that question.

Should I blindly believe in the bible? That means I would have to throw logic out the windows. I might as well believe fairies and unicorns are true!

And yes, my guess definitely makes no sense and is very ignorant because virgin births, healing sick people with magic and everything the bible says makes perfect sense and believing in it is not ignorant at all. lol

see bold

You don't have to throw logic out the window to believe the NT. There is nothing at all illogical about the supernatural per se. If the supernatural exists, there is nothing illogical about supernatural causation in the natural world. The fact that you don't believe it is your opinion as to the reliability of the NT and not based on logic. Like I said before, if you use the argument that there is no such thing as miracles therefore the NT does not refer to actual miracles, you are engaging in question-begging/circular reasoning--which is very bad logic. Half of your post above is an argument from personal incredulity -- more bad logic

Fairies and unicorns? Thinking that's a good comparison to the events of the NT shows that you are ignorant of facts and argumentation and your thoughts on the matter are overly simplistic.

[Mister Agenda]

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding of the proposition: that the founder of Christianity, a rabbi known as Yeshua, may have been a scam artist. This does not imply that the devoted followers of Yeshua were in on the scam. A cult leader who has his followers so convinced that they would die for him is not something we don't still see today. An apostle sacrificing himself for his faith almost certainly did so sincerely, but that does not contradict the idea that the originator of the teachings was performing a scam. And there were multiple wonder-working messiahs wandering around Palestine in those days, apparently.

So it's possible that one of them was a scammer who hit pay-dirt and started something lasting.

Is it probable? I don't think so.

Even if the 'wonder-working' was tricks, it doesn't mean Yeshua was insincere. Apparently you had to perform some wonders to get taken seriously by the masses in that time and place. It's only a scam if it's for personal gain, if the aim was really to spread sincerely believed doctrine, the wonder-working tricks would have been showmanship in service to a genuinely believed-in cause.

Or Yeshua could have been a simple teacher, and the wonders were added later as embellishment of oft-told stories. That's pretty common as well (ascribing miraculous events to venerated individuals), and is also something we continue to see today. Legends have a tendency to grow until they're larger-than-life, especially in oral tradition.

Or if there is such a thing as the supernatural, Yeshua could have really been performing the miraculous feats ascribed to him.

Or he was a composite holy figure, with stories about different religious leaders being conflated together and consolidated under one name.

Or he was originally a figurative spiritual character who was later ret-conned into having lived as a real, physical person.

There are too many possibilities combined with too little evidence to say more about the 'scam artist hypothesis' than that it's one of the possibilities. Many atheists don't believe there ever was a real, historical Yeshua, of course if they're correct, if he wasn't real, he definitely wasn't a scam artist. A figure so shrouded by only being reported by those who venerated him as the actual son of the creator of the universe is always going to be mysterious unless relevant evidence that clarifies who he really was comes to light. And of course it won't seem unclear at all to someone who takes all the stories about him at face value, provided they're the stories recorded in the biblical canon.

[SteveII]

Well, why should I believe anything you say anyway? You think the following event did happen for real:

Matthew 27

51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[e] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

There's no record of this event outside your bible. :/

Your argument is that there is no record? Jerusalem was totally destroyed in 70AD. In fact, wouldn't you say that 99% of all ancient documents did not survive the march of time. Haven't you ever heard that 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'? 

This whole thread was a poorly thought out premise with nothing to back it up but inaccuracies, opinion, and question-begging assumptions.

The same could be said about the bible.

Difference is: I provided legit reasons to support my claim. Still waiting for you to.

[Whateverist]

^This^

And I think one's own disposition toward conspiracies will decide just how strongly tempting that hypothesis will be.


Oops, I was ninja'd. It was Mr A I was agreeing with.

[Minimalist]

Haven't you ever heard that 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'?

Absence of evidence also cannot be used to support a position.  Do try to remember that no first century writer ever heard of your silly godboy.  Early second century Greco-Roman writers heard of 'christos' ( or at least 'chrestus') but not any 'jesus.'  It would thus appear that 'jesus' and his bullshit story is a mid-to-late second century invention.

[Dnte]

Most of Jesus' miracles could've been staged. He didn't end the world's hunger, he didn't erradicate a disease or something of extreme importance and other sources didn't mention his "feats" outside the bible.

He didn't reveal anything of scientific importance, or something that could make humanity progress and enter a new era of prosperity. There were many impostors in that time, why would I have to believe that Jesus was any different? Where are the sources that mention his greatness outside the bible? I need to read what people OUTSIDE his sect experienced during his lifetime.

If you want to justify this scam with the sect's own scriptures that would be like mormons justifying their faith with their own holy books. And it doesn't work that way.

These miracles were in line with superstitious beliefs of that era (raising from the dead, casting out demons, healing sick people) and their account was written by fanatical and religious zealots who were also human and part of a SECT. And as humans they also had their personal interests: money, power, authority, influence, prestige, etc.

Just because Paul, Peter or John Doe said it happened, doesn't make it real. And like most fantastical stories ever written in ancient times, there's a high likelihood that they are the product of someone's imagination.

I won't believe in christianity until there's scientific evidence that anything of that happened. Maybe it's time for you dear Lord to show himself up, he's been 2000 years late!

[brewer]

[edit]

You are making up things or you're just repeating atheist bullshit you read somewhere. The the books and letters of the NT were recognized as having authority hundreds of years before being recognized by any formal body. 

[edit]

Recognized as having authority by who and how? Ones that wanted the fantasy myth to be true? Ones that said "this is a story that's floating around"?
Not much authority there.