The Historical Jesus

[h311inac311]

The scholarship of Papias, Iraeneus, and Clement does nothing to prove the historicity of Jesus.

But ‘all of the secondary sources’ manifestly do NOT point in one direction. You simply think so because you’re invested in choosing only those sources that do.

I don’t think anyone here as claimed that all Christians, especially all early Christians, accepted the traditional authorship of the Gospels at face value. But the evidence is overwhelming that the vast majority of them have done exactly that.

And I’m absolutely sure than no one here claims that skepticism is a recent invention.

Boru

Have you ever wondered why so many early converts to this new religion were willing to accept the oral tradition of Gospel authorship?


"The scholarship of Papias, Iraeneus, and Clement does nothing to prove the historicity of Jesus." - Boru

You haven't explained to me why none of their accounts mean anything. Nor have you provided me with any sources to the contrary. 


Also, I wasn't responding to you, I was responding to Sheldon.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The scholarship of Papias, Iraeneus, and Clement does nothing to prove the historicity of Jesus.

But ‘all of the secondary sources’ manifestly do NOT point in one direction. You simply think so because you’re invested in choosing only those sources that do.

I don’t think anyone here as claimed that all Christians, especially all early Christians, accepted the traditional authorship of the Gospels at face value. But the evidence is overwhelming that the vast majority of them have done exactly that.

And I’m absolutely sure than no one here claims that skepticism is a recent invention.

Boru

Have you ever wondered why so many early converts to this new religion were willing to accept the oral tradition of Gospel authorship?


"The scholarship of Papias, Iraeneus, and Clement does nothing to prove the historicity of Jesus." - Boru

You haven't explained to me why none of their accounts mean anything. Nor have you provided me with any sources to the contrary. 


Also, I wasn't responding to you, I was responding to Sheldon.

Have you ever wondered why 900 people in Jonestown willingly drank poisoned Kool-Aid? Same-same.

I didn’t say ‘none of their accounts mean anything’. I said they have nothing to do with whether Jesus was an historical figure (they’re concerned with the authorship of the synoptic Gospels). As for sources to the contrary, I’m sure you can use a search engine as well as I can.

This is an open forum. Anyone is entitled to reply to any post.

Boru

[h311inac311]

Okay so first you say, "no one is claiming that all of the early Christians had no skepticism" but then you say, "Have you ever wondered why 900 people in Jonestown willingly drank poisoned Kool-Aid?" Well actually yes I have, is this your explanation for how all religions start?

Is it possible that a fellow atheist could exploit your biases in a similar fashion to Jim Jones?
     Or is this kind of bias only for us vulnerable religious types?

And how am I not to take this as an implied insult to the intelligence of all people of all religions?

[The Grand Nudger]

It's one way that they end....

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Okay so first you say, "no one is claiming that all of the early Christians had no skepticism" but then you say, "Have you ever wondered why 900 people in Jonestown willingly drank poisoned Kool-Aid?" Well actually yes I have, is this your explanation for how all religions start?

Is it possible that a fellow atheist could exploit your biases in a similar fashion to Jim Jones?
     Or is this kind of bias only for us vulnerable religious types?

And how am I not to take this as an implied insult to the intelligence of all people of all religions?

I said no one here claims that skepticism is a recent invention.

Have you come to any conclusions about why those people in Jonestown did that? I’d be delighted to hear it.

Yes, in a broad sense, that’s how religions start - gullibility.

My biases are more political that religious, so I find it unlikely in the extreme that an atheist could convince me to take poison.

Critical thinking is a good defense against intellectual vulnerability. Have a lash at it.

There is no implied insult (I’m not that subtle).

Boru

[h311inac311]

Take poison? I thought they were drinking Kool-Aid. Or have you never had a beer before? Would if someone handed it to you and it wasn't sealed?

When it comes to cults I think they start with a highly intelligent and manipulative person who wants to lure people away and create his own private club.
These people willingly volunteer because he doesn't show them anything that would scare them away.... at first. It starts off as just a group of people, maybe a book club, maybe a martial arts club, but one by one these people are lured away by their own desires.

Perhaps this Cult leader has a way with women, perhaps he has money to offer in exchange for his servants loyalty. Little by little he tells them his secrets, convincing them that he is in on something that they can barely understand.

And then, when they least expect it, he throws a party for them and offers them free drinks, on the house? Who could refuse such a generous offer?

[Angrboda]

You have an interesting imagination. Does the term 'love bombing' mean anything to you?

[The Grand Nudger]

Jones had done a dry run before. He knew that some of them would drink poison if they were told to. Many, on the day, apparently did not. They were injected, and shot. Do you see any parallels to your idea of how cults like jone's start with how the christian cult started?

[arewethereyet]

Take poison? I thought they were drinking Kool-Aid. Or have you never had a beer before? Would if someone handed it to you and it wasn't sealed?

When it comes to cults I think they start with a highly intelligent and manipulative person who wants to lure people away and create his own private club.
These people willingly volunteer because he doesn't show them anything that would scare them away.... at first. It starts off as just a group of people, maybe a book club, maybe a martial arts club, but one by one these people are lured away by their own desires.

Perhaps this Cult leader has a way with women, perhaps he has money to offer in exchange for his servants loyalty. Little by little he tells them his secrets, convincing them that he is in on something that they can barely understand.

And then, when they least expect it, he throws a party for them and offers them free drinks, on the house? Who could refuse such a generous offer?

Jim Jones told the people they were going to be drinking poison.  He instructs them to poison their children first and to not be concerned about them crying out in pain.  He talked these people into "Drinking the Kool Aid."

[Sheldon]

A secondary source is still a source of information, and not all secondary sources are completely invalid.

Straw man fallacy, I made no such claim. The gospel myths are anonymous hearsay, beyond that I made no assertion. 

Just labeling everything that Papias, Iraeneus and Clement of Alexandria did as, "subjective speculation" doesn't make it so.

Another straw man fallacy, care to quote me making that claim?

And when all of the secondary sources point in one direction,

Argumentum ad populum fallacy. 

and you cannot provide me with any evidence to the contrary, then you are free to draw whatever conclusions you want to draw from that.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, dear oh dear, were you planning to invoke every common logical fallacy there is? 

Assuming that all Christians merely converted to, and fundamentally accepted; all Gospels as being written by whomever they were told wrote them, with no ounce of critical thought, does not make it so. 

Sigh, straw man fallacy, I made no such claim. 

Some early Christians may have had this point of view, but Papias provably did not, and there were other early scholars which did not accept these writings "as is" without any amount of critical thought.

Appeal to authority fallacy. 

Do you guys really believe that skepticism is a recent invention?

No, do you believe scepticism of unevidenced supernatural magic, increases with objective knowledge of the natural world? careful now, a false equivalence fallacy seems to be the only fallacious card you haven't played here. 
Though your arguments here are relentlessly irrational, you haven't linked my post or quoted one word for context, so it's hard to say how accurately or honestly you addressed it.