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Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 11:46am | IP Logged | 1
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For that matter is there even proof there was a historical Moses? Or Mohammed?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | 2
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It's difficult to make a case for Moses, since the entire Egyptian epoch in which he supposedly lived did not exist!
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | 3
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Or Mohammed?
***
Haven't studied/researched that enough to warrant having a view. I don't know. It'd be interesting to find out. I do wonder if we'd get a variation on the "He exists because my God said he exists" sort of response.
Edited by Robbie Parry on 09 September 2017 at 12:23pm
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David Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 3006
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | 4
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I come to it through Apostle Paul. Many credible secular scholars and historians have concluded Paul existed, that he wrote some of the letters attributed to him (Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon), and accept at least some of his words as credible but in places unreliable historical testimony.
Paul discusses his relationship with Peter, and takes as fact Peter's relationship with the historical Jesus. If Paul existed, knew Peter, and believed Peter's accounts of this Yeshua Ben-Yusef, that leads me to lean towards there was indeed a Jewish preacher whose cult however improbably ultimately conquered Europe.
I also find the argument Jesus didn't exist convincing, not to mention Paul or Peter. Or that Paul was crazy, or running a con L Ron Hubbard style. They're each as likely as the next.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | 5
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I also find the argument Jesus didn't exist convincing, not to mention Paul or Peter. Or that Paul was crazy, or running a con L Ron Hubbard style. They're each as likely as the next. •• Can't agree with that. The con job seems far more likely, given the time and place.
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marios ksidonas
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2015
Location: Greece
Posts: 106
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | 6
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"One of the things that make me really sad in life is those occasions when I have been confronted by believers"---
Last time i confronted a believer....i made him sad.....
the only thing i had to do was to ask him a few questions upon real facts where he first agreed there were facts!And then i begun....
You know somewhere in the depths of amazon there is a tribe that has never seen the "light"of civilisation (there are those tribes , right?-sure he said!"
So in this tribe a man is born and he lives a life as the other men in his village.The tribe worships a tree in the centre of the village.So in his whole life he believes in this tree.He grows up he makes a family and he dies according all the beliefs of his tribe without ever knowing the existance of the rest of humanity and whatever comes with them.So what happens next?How he will be judged by your god????Why this man had to live a life without knowing the "true" god and having the CHOICE to believe in him?So when the time of judgment comes for his soul suddently god will appear to him saying what ? Anything that you believend in your life was a lie?I am the truth?Do not tell me that anything that happened in hiis life was a plan from god???? If so i want to know why......
You dont want to know his answer cause there wasnt any....(at least to be written here as an answer!)
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Petter Myhr Ness
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 July 2009
Location: Norway
Posts: 3826
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | 7
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Are you sure, Petter? I thought Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible (including, bizarrely, the one that commented on his death).
--
I take it you're being ironic, Robbie! :-)
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
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| Posted: 09 September 2017 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | 8
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Of course. I mean, the "plot hole" is how one of the books comments on his death. Takes a special sort of talent to write a book and comment on your own death. ;-)
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
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| Posted: 10 September 2017 at 12:51am | IP Logged | 9
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With it`s satellites in orbit,In-Vitro
fertilisation,flying people with halos(Angels with
illuminated helmets)replicator technology(feeding the
5,000) resurrection,advanced medicine etc it strikes me
as Christianity is just an very early Sci-Fi story that
started a religion...then we have Scientology!
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12436
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| Posted: 10 September 2017 at 5:53am | IP Logged | 10
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The particular problem about the historical Jesus is that the Gospels are the exclusive source, and how they present "facts" about Jesus are so intrinsically interwoven with innumerable allusions, from direct to distant, to Jewish scripture, and all with the purpose of proving that what had been written has now come to pass, that the reader is left with only two choices: the early Christians knew virtually nothing about Jesus and created his life story based on Jewish scripture -- or -- Jesus was in fact exactly who Christians believe him to be.
There's also something else awfully queer about the early Christians. The Gospels (and the entire New Testament) rely on the Greek translation of Jewish scripture instead of the original Hebrew. Not only is the translation at times wrong or changed, but Jesus would not have been preaching from it, interpreting from it. When you consider that contemporary Jews were assiduous about preserving to this day by name what the rabbis who lived in that era said about Jewish law and history and tradition, and preserved it in the very Aramaic that Jesus would have used about the Hebrew scripture Jesus would have used, it seems tantamount to insane that his exact original preaching and interpretation -- if he indeed was not only the Messiah but also the Son of God, and even more, GOD Himself[!] -- would not have been preserved and cherished to the last jot and tittle!
Who in their right mind would hear GOD Himself speak American English and then think, well, forget that... and forget it forever, let God's EXACT words be lost forever... and let's translate what He had to say into Mexican Spanish and save that instead...?!
(Yes, I know that American English is a global tongue and Aramaic 2000 years ago was not exactly comparable. But Aramaic was not the exclusive language of Jews. It was the major tongue in that region, the lingua franca of the Middle East for a thousand years before being replaced by Arabic.)
Edited by Michael Penn on 10 September 2017 at 6:13am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 10 September 2017 at 6:01am | IP Logged | 11
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Who in their right mind would hear GOD Himself speak American English and then think, well, forget that... and forget it forever, let God's EXACT words be lost forever... and let's translate what He had to say into Mexican Spanish and save that instead...?!•• One of my greatest complaints about religions in general and Christianity in specific, is that they all have incomprehensible "manuals". Take the Bible on its own. If it is telling a true story, it is, obviously, the Most Important Book Ever Written. Yet it does not present that o-so-important story in anything like a clear and concise form. People will argue that the Book has been messed with many times over the centuries, with different translations and the various agendas of the men assembling the "final" version all playing a part in obfuscating the "message". Yet, if our Eternal Souls actually depend on our embracing the teachings of this Book, shouldn't God have given it to us in a form that was impossible to corrupt? Must he ALWAYS fuck with us??* _____________________ * If we are talking about the OT God, then the answer is, of course, YES. But the NT God is supposed to be kinder and gentler (despite sending his only son to be horribly tortured and killed delivering a "message" so convoluted and contradictory that most of the people of the world do not accept it to this day).
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Robbie Parry
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| Posted: 10 September 2017 at 6:21am | IP Logged | 12
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But the NT God is supposed to be kinder and gentler (despite sending his only son to be horribly tortured and killed delivering a "message" so convoluted and contradictory that most of the people of the world do not accept it to this day).
***
A Christian I spoke to told me that there had to be a sacrifice in the same way that the US legal system (or any legal system) demands that judges impose mandatory sentences for certain crimes - or in the way the UK system has mandatory jail sentences for certain crimes.
I didn't accept the analogy.
A judge is bound by the law. There is a separation of powers, but a judge has to act a certain way. He/she is bound by rules. I think here in Britain, a crook who carries a knife can have a mandatory jail sentence imposed. Judges have to work within the law, despite their flexibility on certain issues.
My argument is that 'god' is a being not bound by legal rules, etc. WHY DIDN'T HE JUST FORGIVE US? Why didn't he just say, "Adam and Eve fucked up, humanity fell, you screwed up - but I forgive you."
On the subject of the OT 'god', I don't accept a lot in that collection of books. Why the charade with Abraham/Isaac? Shouldn't he, as an omnipotent being, have KNOWN what was in Abraham's heart?
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