Most People Insist That Two Separate Being Can Never Be One

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^‘I know your life as a [fisherman/stonecutter/dung harvester] is horrible, hard, and nasty, but if you’ll just follow me and do as your told, you’ll get a sweet deal when you die.’ - Religious hucksters, dawn of civilization-present day.

Boru

Very true, including many nominally Xian ones. I remember watching a Prosperity Gospel money appeal to find out what their approach was, and it was much, much worse than I imagined.

However Paul's 'return' was the exact opposite of that.

In 2 Corinthians, he is responding to a request for an updated CV listing his achievements, because his authority had been challenged. This was standard in C1 Greek society- the idea being to portray him as a hero.

In one of the darkest examples of humour I can think of, he lists (2 Cor 11) the beatings and sufferings he's had to endure, the very inverse of heroic achievements. If Jesus suffered, the ultimate role model, Christians must expect to suffer as well, goes his argument. “I bear on my body the marks of the Lord Jesus”. You want a CV? It's written in the scars on my backside.

And you can expect the same, he says to the Corinthians. Who know that already (2 Cor 4).

And he said the same thing to the Philippians (ch1) and to the Thessalonians (1Th 2,3).

I mean I might have got the rhyming scheme wrong on We Didn't Start The Fire, but I filled one verse off the top of my head easily, with plenty of material left for at least another couple of verses e.g. above. Everyone in C1 Mediterranean knew becoming a Xian was going to be very, very painful.

Rather than getting rich, as the leaders of this persecuted organisation, the earliest disciples got badly hurt for their troubles.

(Bold mine) 

Which is pretty neatly self-explanatory: You just expostulated that Christians were expected to suffer as a way to emulate Christ. So why is it a mystery that they were willing to suffer (and even die early)? I'm unsure why this behaviour strikes you as a puzzle. It doesn't even speak to the legitimacy question - all it shows is that the sufferers believed that Christ was divine, not that he actually was.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a lie on it's face, anyway. Early christian leaders were fantastically wealthy social movers and shakers. The idea that it was a poor mans religion coming from the bottom up is a fairytale even by the christians own recounting of actual history. Monied leaders exploited mobs of poor people to curry favor with the aristocrats who owned them. The whole (western) world was bought off for the price of little cakes.

Hilariously, this isn't even me criticizing that. IMO, it's the only good thing christianity ever did, even if the good deed was an incendental cost of doing shitty business.

[GUBU]

Personal experiences may or may not qualify as evidence. I have no doubt that you've had religious experiences, but they don't necessarily point to your attendant religious beliefs being true. By way of example, if I were to take a dose of hallucinogens and saw winged mermaids flying out of my bathtub, that's an actual experience that doesn't prove the existence of mermaids, winged or otherwise. The same applies to 'contemporary' experiences.

Your historical evidence isn't actually evidence, either. As Anom pointed out earlier, saying, 'That so-and-so did such-and-such proves that x is true', isn't evidence but speculation and supposition. I can think of plenty of reasons why the early Christians behaved as they did - politics, economics, fanaticism - that don't require the claims of Christianity to be true.

Boru

Yes, but I know I've taken hallucinogens beforehand, and therefore don't trust the results. The thing about personal experience is that I know I'm not lying and I know the circumstances, so when it comes to belief I have nowhere to hide.

With contemporary experiences, people I have known for a long time and/or trust implicitly are going to make powerful witnesses. With public evidence, external scrutiny can be applied (e.g. Lourdes is pretty strict).

That the disciples as a group signed up for a sharply reduced lifetime of pain isn't explainable by politics or economics. Fanaticism for sure, but given that we know from history that when a wannabe Messiah died it was game over, why was Jesus' death so utterly different?

Which leads to the wider question, why would His death lead the disciples to conclude that this long awaited earth shattering event had happened- the start of the Kingdom of God/forgiveness of sins/end of death/etc/etc? Why had resurrection moved from a fringe idea to a core belief and be split in two events? Why did they conclude that God had made his long awaited return to Jerusalem?




My posting over the next few weeks will be infrequent, but I'm keen to continue...

You're not lying, but your claims about the existence of god and the truthfulness of your religion are still 100% wrong.

[The Grand Nudger]

Or, if we prefer, whatever a person has experienced and genuinely believes as a religious proposition is in no way supported or even discussed by references to folk tales from 1700 years ago. Want to have a meaningful and true discussion about your own beliefs? Discuss those, exactly those? Want to bullshit people about st patty running the snakes out of ireland...? Fuck off. You're wasting my time and your own.

I understand religious conviction and the power of personal experience. Very persuadable there. Reliance on fairy tales hurts any possible understanding on that front. The christian religion is true or false without any respect to the truth or falsity of christian superstitions. There could be no god...full stop...and christian religion might still be true. But sure, destroy that broad runway in favor of inerrantist bullshit about the organization of a late roman political movement commented on it's own time at length in writing by advocates and detractors....that survives to this day.....


.........sigh........

[Vicki Q]

It doesn't even speak to the legitimacy question - all it shows is that the sufferers believed that Christ was divine, not that he actually was.

Yes, but why would they believe that Jesus is divine?

The answer appears to be that Jesus did that which God had said He would do. Sort out death, bring forgiveness finally to God's people, bring in the Kingdom of God...

How do you get there from a guy who got killed before he achieved anything meaningful?

[Vicki Q]

Back to the title of the thread -

Two separate beings are...two separate beings.

That's why I insist they can't be one...since they are obviously two.  It's right there in the words.

The tune and lyrics of a song
A book with paper pages and print
Carbon dioxide
A game of football with two teams
A haystack with a load of needles in
The meat and shell of a snail

I wouldn't for one moment suggest that these come close to a description of Jesus/the Father, but they do point towards how two separate elements can be part of one whole.

[Nay_Sayer]

It doesn't even speak to the legitimacy question - all it shows is that the sufferers believed that Christ was divine, not that he actually was.

Yes, but why would they believe that Jesus is divine?

The answer appears to be that Jesus did that which God had said He would do. Sort out death, bring forgiveness finally to God's people, bring in the Kingdom of God...

How do you get there from a guy who got killed before he achieved anything meaningful?

Because they were foolish.  The Antipasto has fooled many

[Foxaèr]

Indeed, people believe unbelievable things because they want to.

[Vicki Q]

The most Jesus achieved in his lifetime was a making decent set of chairs. Possibly a shed in someone's garden. Then he died.

Somehow his friends all decided he had freed humanity from death, fulfilled all the world-shattering promises of the prophets, and established the long awaited Kingdom of God.

Something must have happened.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The most Jesus achieved in his lifetime was a making decent set of chairs. Possibly a shed in someone's garden. Then he died.

Somehow his friends all decided he had freed humanity from death, fulfilled all the world-shattering promises of the prophets, and established the long awaited Kingdom of God.

Something must have happened.

Argument from incredulity.

Boru