Didn't Nero launch Christianity?

[Fake Messiah]

Actually Paul constantly claimed that he has received his knowledge directly from Jesus. Meaning no apostles and no actual Jesus, no oral tradition, that it all came down from heaven direct to his ear, either via another vision of his Christ or the Lord God himself; like

Well, Jesus was already dead when Paul converted, so clearly he never spoke to the historical Jesus. But it’s clear in Paul’s writing that the he viewed Jesus’s as a real historical person, born of the flesh, with an earthly mother, killed by earthly rulers. He even met and interacted with his disciples and brother.

So your suggestion that Paul didn’t believe in a historical Jesus is just plain stupid. I doubt you’ve even read the epistles, and just parroting nonsense you picked up from others.

Except I just showed you how Paul said he got it from Jesus within him and not from anyone else. Especially if he met Jesus disciples, as you claim, then Paul's teachings wouldn't be different from the ones he preached to his disciples in Gospels, like here are few examples:

In Matthew 10:5 and 15:24 Jesus proclaims that he is strictly here just for the Jews and not for the Gentiles (whom he even sometimes refers as dogs) like "Salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22); but Paul's Jesus is total contradiction because he says "The Lord has commanded us, saying, I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth" (Acts 13:47), "Henceforth, I [Paul] will go unto the Gentiles" (Acts 18:6), and "I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles" (Romans 15:16)

Or one of the most famous Jesus proclamations in Matthew 5:17-19 that he has come to fulfill the law of the prophets, I mean he is clearly for it; but Paul on the other hand again speaks about some different Jesus because in Romans 7:4 he says, "My brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ" and in Galatians 3:13 he says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law."
I mean these are without doubt as different Jesuses as you can get.

In Acts 20:35 Paul says, "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" Nowhere in Gospels does this Bible's Jesus make this statement. And on and on...

So it seems that you are the one who is parroting something to which you are oblivious about.

[Acrobat]

Except I just showed you how Paul said he got it from Jesus within him and not from anyone else. Especially if he met Jesus disciples, as you claim, then Paul's teachings wouldn't be different from the ones he preached to his disciples in Gospels, like here are few examples:

In Galatians Paul indicates that his apostleship wasn’t something ordained on him by others, but by God choosing him. That his understanding of the gospel, wasn’t through any sort of Christian schooling, but by Christ’s revelation. Akin to Jesus saying to Simon when he recognize that’s he’s the son of god "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.”


All you did take your butchered reading of of these passages, and ignored all the other passages which indicates Paul’s acknowledgment a historical Jesus, to make your specious suggestion that Paul believed Jesus wasn’t a historical figure.

All you’re revealing to me, is that you probably have never read the the entirety of Paul’s writings, let alone have any real understanding of them. You’re like creationist when they quote mine Darwin’s passage about the eye.

[Fake Messiah]

In Galatians Paul indicates that his apostleship wasn’t something ordained on him by others, but by God choosing him. That his understanding of the gospel, wasn’t through any sort of Christian schooling, but by Christ’s revelation.

Then you are contradicting yourself because you first said that he met disciples and then you claim that he wasn't schooled by anyone, but if he did meet them they would school him what Jesus said so that he doesn't have different theology like he did.

All you did take your butchered reading of of these passages, and ignored all the other passages which indicates Paul’s acknowledgment a historical Jesus,.

I can't ignore something that isn't there.

[GUBU]

Nero's older than christianity by at least fifty years.  There may have been some ultra-orthodox jewish sects around which later became the genesis for christianity later on, but christianity itself was non existent.

You've got to remember that the stories about Nero persecuting christians come from later (i.e. 4th century on) commentators who wanted to do two things 1) denigrate Nero and 2) build up the myth of martyrdom within the christian church.

If you want a Roman emperor to blame for creating christianity, look no further back than Constantine.  Before him, thousands of bickering sects with few followers and less power, after him an empire spanning monolithic religion with masses of power.

Yeah, you should have read few more posts where I say that it was a hoax. It is one of those things that I knew from before but I forgot because, I guess, I must be surrounded with disinformations or something and I forgot.

For instance it would be interesting if someone made one of those YouTube videos where they take a historical movie and point to its historical mistakes and that movie should be "Quo Vadis" (1951) because it's a fantasy movie presented as historical. There is Nero burning Rome, apostle Peter marrying people (church didn't meddle into marriage till like 12th century), Christians being fed to lions in the Colosseum, there's even Michelangelo's David in the movie.

But I guess people that make these kinds of videos stay away from religious movies.

Pretty much every movie about christianity are fantasy masquerading as factual, except for maybe Aguirre

[vulcanlogician]

I may or may not know my history. But is it not true that they were a religious minority at one point? It's a matter of documentation... How we interpret that documentation today is a matter of interpretation.

Not in the context of roman society, no.  We think of things like religious minorities (and all that this entails) through the lens of later monotheistic cultural dominance and persecution.   Pagan rome absorbed and validated the religions it came into contact with to maintain social order and as an effective platform for taxation.  The roman empires faith was a massive collection of "religious minorities", all of which operated under the umbrella of secular authority.  Priesthood was a public office.  A roman temple would contain effigies to faiths from all over their reach.  They even contained statues of "jesus", lol.

Of course. Outside the Abrahamic traditions religious tolerance was pretty common. That's why I've always held that religious tolerance isn't a modern idea, but rather a departure from the influence of Christian/Abrahamic norms. 

Still. At one point in time, Christians were a cultural minority, and "minority status" isn't something peculiar to Abrahamic traditions or paganism. Thus, incorrect as their beliefs might have been, I sympathize with the early Christians as much as any minority in any epoch. If records from Nero's era are to be trusted, the Christians were once scapegoated by the Roman leadership. My original point was that (if doing such a thing is wrong in principle-- which it is) then, those who preach "Do unto others" ought to be ashamed of the way history panned out.

[madog]

Not to mention the crucifixion was unexpected and unfortunate demise for the messiah, not a part of anyone exceptions of the messiahs fate, hardly the sort of thing someone would have made up for a messiah.

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Yeah, I agree  .....
Nice to see a Christian agreeing those stating that the crucifixtion was clearly prophecisied are taking out of their assholes 

[Amarok]

Lol unexpected ? Anything freaking but !!!

[Acrobat]

In Galatians Paul indicates that his apostleship wasn’t something ordained on him by others, but by God choosing him. That his understanding of the gospel, wasn’t through any sort of Christian schooling, but by Christ’s revelation.

Then you are contradicting yourself because you first said that he met disciples and then you claim that he wasn't schooled by anyone,

No, I'm not contradicting myself. Paul wasn't a disciple, he wasn't under the disciples instruction, etc... Just like one might say about many of the female characters in the gospel. In the gospels these woman often understand christ, his messagings, meaning etc... better than Christ own disciples, who often missed the point of the things he said.

In christian theology, this is often said as something along the lines of the holy spirit revealing it. This doesn't mean he never heard the gospel, never knew of any of the actual words, or parables of christ etc.. But that his understanding of it, isn't reducible to something someone told him, but something which Christ revealed.

A christian might say something, like he may have read the gospels a hundred times, but a true understanding of it, only took place when the holy spirit revealed it.

You can criticize the idea, but it's a part of basic christian theology and beliefs, which is found all through out the NT, which wouldn't make anything Paul said here unusual, or out of the ordinary. And definitely not something, that could be so speciously interpreted to suggest Paul didn't' believe Jesus was a historical person. Clearly those early Christians, reading the NT writings, agreeing on the Canon, didn't read the writings of Paul as suggesting the sort of things you claim, and it's highly doubtful that you're anymore a competent exegete than they or the church fathers were.  

but if he did meet them they would school him what Jesus said so that he doesn't have different theology like he did.

Well, I'm not sure how someone such as yourself, who seems to lack even a basic understanding of christian theology, of the NT writings, etc can claim differences between Pauls theology, and the theology of the Gospels, especially given what you've shared so far. I mean could you expound on something like Paul's view of Works, what he means by works vs justification? Because that's what his primary disagreement with other jewish christians revolved around, not whether Gentiles could be followers of Christ as well.

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Not to mention the crucifixion was unexpected and unfortunate demise for the messiah, not a part of anyone exceptions of the messiahs fate, hardly the sort of thing someone would have made up for a messiah.

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Yeah, I agree  .....
Nice to see a Christian agreeing those stating that the crucifixtion was clearly prophecisied are taking out of their assholes 

Yet, that's the suggestion here, among those implying a non-historical Jesus. Requiring not only a sort of messiah that would be crucified, but one that didn't exist at all, as part of the jewish imagination and expectation at the time.

[madog]

[quote pid='1900591' dateline='1555326925']
  

Yet, that's the suggestion here, among those implying a non-historical Jesus. Requiring not only a sort of messiah that would be crucified, but one that didn't exist at all, as part of the jewish imagination and expectation at the time.

[/quote]

Glad to see you have joined the consensus    Welcome to atheism 

[Lemon Curry]

Really, where would christianity be without Nero?
Back in the ancient Rome pagans found Christians to be as irritating as people today consider scientologists to be irritating, but once Nero started persecuting Christians for burning Rome (whether they really started the fire or not) pagans started feeling sorry for them and, needless to say, Christians exploited it beyond any measure creating whole culture of a "persecuted Christian" with myriads of invented martyr saints and other myths like catacombs where Christians would go down to worship during periods of persecution. Which still goes on in the minds of many Christians even today - they feel persecuted by communists, Jews, muslims, atheists, aliens, scientists - you name it.

So if there wasn't that period where Christians were persecuted pagans wouldn't feel that allure of forbidden religion do you think that christianity would just die long time ago?

Call me an old cynic if you will, but I always saw the good in Nero.

It's a great pity that it's no longer legal to feed christards to the lions.  The world would have been a far better place had the practice not ceased.  At the very least, our children would have been a lot safer.