The season is one of my reasons

faethor

faethor

Active Member
Moderator
Joined
Aug 25, 2005
Messages
5,144
Reaction score
1,243
There are many reasons to not believe the Bible is inerrant. In order to demonstrate the Bible is true one can't use the Bible itself. That's circular logic. Instead we must look at extra-biblical sources and see how they jive, or not. Then we have to find further evidence to help determine which of the options are the most likely.

Easter is one of my big reasons for not believing in a savior but not believing Jesus was even real. *
*First, the Jews have fairly good record keeping if the Sanhedrin actually did bring Jesus to Pilot it'd more then likely be recorded. There's no mention of such a thing happening in Judiac historical records. Seems no recording would be highly unlikely.
* Second, the same goes to Roman records. We have Pilot so afraid of the Jewish rabble that he had no choice but to kill Jesus. So while this scare would be noteable to Romans, and they recorded other events of local dissatisifaction the records say nothing of this? Again no recording again seems highly unlikely
* Third, after the death of Jesus there was an earthquake, people rose from the dead, and visited their loved ones. Again neither Judiac nor Roman historical records have any recording of this Zombie outpouring. Seeing dead Grandpa would be so out of the norm that again both historical records would have some mention of this. But, while we have historical records from both parties at the time there's not even an iota of evidence. Again highly unlikely.

To me the improbability that historians on both sides would have found these, as claimed, unique and spectactular events to be so normal they just skipped recording is a profound point of evidence against the inerrancy of Biblical historical record. The Easter Story is one of many reasons I don't accept 1 more god than Christians and don't even conceive that Jesus was a real person. Instead I view Jesus as common figure of mythological story. Not too different in construct from other forklore. For example of this sort of forklore we might look to the fictional Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox to see a similar pattern of tall tales.
 
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." - Isaac Asimov, Russian-American author (c. 1920 - 1992)
 
Btw, as we are sort of on this topic, I'd like to point out the stupidity of claiming a "war on christmas' notion.

According to Catholics the most important holyday is Easter, NOT Christmas. Notice no one claims a war on Easter. You never hear about the commercialization of bunnies and eggs. And why is that? Oh, right! It's not 'sexy' like Christmas. :rolleyes:
 
hey suess was just a cool dude in a loose mood like chester cheetah only better... no cheetoh finger followed... i dunno.. if the guy did exist he definitely set a pattern for good behaviour... i cant actually commit/perform/do miracles so i recognize my inability as i strive for purrfection...doesnt hurt any one to be "kinder".....
 
cecilia said:
According to Catholics the most important holyday is Easter, NOT Christmas. Notice no one claims a war on Easter. You never hear about the commercialization of bunnies and eggs. And why is that? Oh, right! It's not 'sexy' like Christmas. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Atheists love us some Cadbury Creme Eggs and licorice jelly beans. We'd never get rid of that.
 
cecilia said:
According to Catholics the most important holyday is Easter, NOT Christmas. Notice no one claims a war on Easter. You never hear about the commercialization of bunnies and eggs.
Click to expand...

The spring festival of Easter still carries the name of the Goddess Easter (Oestra/Eostre), still is celebrated with bunnies and eggs (two potent symbols of fertility) and is still celebrated with the sign of the four quarters of the year baked into buns in the form of a cross, a symbol associated with the season way before Christianity came along.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
The spring festival of Easter still carries the name of the Goddess Easter (Oestra/Eostre), still is celebrated with bunnies and eggs (two potent symbols of fertility) and is still celebrated with the sign of the four quarters of the year baked into buns in the form of a cross, a symbol associated with the season way before Christianity came along.
Click to expand...
I know, but catholics want everyone to believe they invented the whole damn thing :D
 
"The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable.
Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the
habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings."

-- Henry Louis Mencken



"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbably. A man full of faith is simply one who has lost or never had the capacity for clear and realistic thought"

-- Henry Louis Mencken
 
This week is the 20th anniversary of the death of Isaac Asimov, who served as AHA president from 1985 to his death April 6, 1992

 
when a religious person rants about one's atheism, this is the response: :D


monicks-science.jpeg
 
The Easter Story is one of many reasons I don't accept 1 more god than Christians and don't even conceive that Jesus was a real person.
Click to expand...
Even Richard Dawkings says that most likely Jesus was a real guy, but how closely his life matched the "myth" is not known. The lack of records may not be evidence of anything, some of those records may have been destroyed intentionally (or are kept away in some secret vault in Italy or elsewhere). I personally believe Jesus was a real man who probably had a god complex, and was charismatic enough to attract hopeless dreamers. He (and some of his followers) may have even been slightly schizophrenic thus believing things himself that were simply not there.
 
Glaucus said:
Even Richard Dawkings says that most likely Jesus was a real guy, but how closely his life matched the "myth" is not known.
Click to expand...
The key here is 'most likely'. IMO Dawkins is being nice and tossing the Christians a bone. There's no evidence that Jesus was are a real person. Jesus was a common name like 'John Smith'.

The lack of records may not be evidence of anything, some of those records may have been destroyed
Click to expand...
Certainly the records may have been destroyed. Though records of the same time period and region documenting other things do exist.

I personally believe Jesus was a real man who probably had a god complex, and was charismatic enough to attract hopeless dreamers. He (and some of his followers) may have even been slightly schizophrenic thus believing things himself that were simply not there.
Click to expand...
Most likely true. For some reason that culture was growing quite a log of people with a 'Jesus Complex'. Historical records indicate many were claiming to be prophets of divine being(s). The Christian response is to label them all false prophets. IMO it's interesting so many existed.
 
faethor said:
Certainly the records may have been destroyed. Though records of the same time period and region documenting other things do exist.
Click to expand...
I was thinking more along the lines that records specific to Jesus were destroyed. The thinking is that the original records may have revealed things that detracted from the religion and thus it may have been better to just destroy (or hide) the records. I'm pretty sure back then the Romans didn't have an Freedom to Information Act to deal with, thus, doing such things would have been easy. Remember, eventually the Roman empire used Christianity for it's own political gains so they certainly had both the access and the motivation to do so.

Most likely true. For some reason that culture was growing quite a log of people with a 'Jesus Complex'. Historical records indicate many were claiming to be prophets of divine being(s). The Christian response is to label them all false prophets. IMO it's interesting so many existed.
Click to expand...
I think it's no surprise that Christianity flourished in areas where people tended to practice polytheism. For starters, polytheist societies are less likely to crack down on guys walking around talking about strange theological stuff because so is everyone else. Perhaps the reason Jesus was so controversial was that he was a descendant of monotheists and he was talking as if he was now the new head of that old religion (King of Kings). This would of course be controversial to monotheists and a lot less so with polytheists. To polytheists, religion was more like a fashion statement is today, but for monotheists, it was about control. Once the Romans took on Christianity, challenging the religion was like challenging the empire. Not a good idea if you wanted to remain alive and free.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top