The season is one of my reasons

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.
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I used to feel that way but these days I'm much more of the opinion that Jesus is a complete fabrication. I don't see that he need be any more a historical person than Hercules.
 
Glaucus said:
I personally believe Jesus was a real man....
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Other than the Bible & Q'ran (both extremely questionable sources for historical fact, I'm sure you'd agree), what do you base this belief upon?
 
Robert said:
Other than the Bible & Q'ran (both extremely questionable sources for historical fact, I'm sure you'd agree), what do you base this belief upon?
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Ok, I guess I should say "I believe it's most likely that he was a real man", and I base this on my reasoning that myths are far more likely to catch on if there is at least some truth to the story. A complete fabrication means it all started off as baseless words passed from one to another - and I find that highly unlikely and unusual. Stories certainly were passed around by word of mouth back then, but even myths like Hercules were probably originally based on an actual person but without any written record all knowledge of him would be long lost and all we're left with is the myth. You gotta remember, back then stories were invented to explain things. Also, stories were embellished not only to make stories more interesting but also easier to remember. There is evidence that the city of Troy did exist, but the actual details are by now long lost and the existence of Troy may be the only truth in the myth of the war. Likewise, the entire Christian religion may in fact be based on the life of a hapless schizo.
 
Glaucus said:
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.
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Certainly Christians and Muslims did a job destroying centers of knowledge, such as the Library of Alexander. So, IF the records did exist there could indeed be multiple political reasons for ensuring their destruction. This means we'd have more evidence to find that indicates that something did exist and some nefarious consipracy was at work.

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.
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Certainly the acceptablity of multiple gods and the communial lifestyle of early Christianity found a foot hold in the area.

I don't know if I really care if Jesus was complete fiction OR historical fiction (eg. Laura Ingles Wilder was real even if the stories were a fabrication). The people claiming the bible is inerrent don't have evidence that upholds well against either scenario. Yes we know people must come to god through faith. IMO if the church had the evidence they wouldn't make that arguement. 'Knowning God through faith' is a cop out to excuse not having evidences. This in turn allows the church to spew whatever vile they want in the name of polictical control.
 
Glaucus said:
Ok, I guess I should say "I believe it's most likely that he was a real man", and I base this on my reasoning that myths are far more likely to catch on if there is at least some truth to the story. A complete fabrication means it all started off as baseless words passed from one to another - and I find that highly unlikely and unusual. Stories certainly were passed around by word of mouth back then, but even myths like Hercules were probably originally based on an actual person but without any written record all knowledge of him would be long lost and all we're left with is the myth.
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Hmm.... I don't really see it. Nor Hercules for that matter.
Your logic implies that all mythical beings are based on real people. I'm not convinced by that at all.

Zeus, Aphrodite, Thor, the Minotaur, Adam, Eve, St. George (and his dragon), Odysseus, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Yahweh, Allah, The Green Man, etc, etc, etc.
All based upon real people?

You gotta remember, back then stories were invented to explain things.
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Indeed and there is no evidence that the Jesus story is anything other than a made up story.

Also, stories were embellished not only to make stories more interesting but also easier to remember. There is evidence that the city of Troy did exist, but the actual details are by now long lost and the existence of Troy may be the only truth in the myth of the war.
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But your reasoning would indicate that all the main characters were based upon real people - Helen, Paris, Achilles, etc.

Likewise, the entire Christian religion may in fact be based on the life of a hapless schizo.
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It might. It could just as easily be based upon a completely fabricated life of someone who never actually existed.

For the record, I'm not convinced either way. He might well have existed but the complete lack of evidence suggests otherwise.
 
Glaucus said:
I think it's no surprise that Christianity flourished in areas where people tended to practice polytheism.
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That also may explain why Jesus seems to be such an amalgam of other gods.
 
faethor said:
I don't know if I really care if Jesus was complete fiction OR historical fiction (eg. Laura Ingles Wilder was real even if the stories were a fabrication). The people claiming the bible is inerrent don't have evidence that upholds well against either scenario. Yes we know people must come to god through faith. IMO if the church had the evidence they wouldn't make that arguement. 'Knowning God through faith' is a cop out to excuse not having evidences. This in turn allows the church to spew whatever vile they want in the name of polictical control.
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I agree that regardless of this being a case of complete fiction or historical fiction, Jesus being the son of God is fiction either way. I only jumped in here to say that we really can't say definitely if it's pure fiction or historical fiction.
 
Robert said:
Hmm.... I don't really see it. Nor Hercules for that matter.
Your logic implies that all mythical beings are based on real people. I'm not convinced by that at all.
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On real people, or real events or real things. The Gods and Titans were personifications of the world around them. When the seas grew stormy and destroyed ships, Poseidon was angry. The ancient Greeks had gods for almost all known things, and no gods for things unknown. No Gods existed to represent sub-atomic particles, the theory of evolution, tectonic plates or spaghetti of any kind because they were simply unaware of them. And all gods had a purpose. And it wasn't just gods, but the mythical creatures as well. The Sirens were a convenient explanation for shipwrecks. So yes, those myths were based on something real because as I said, they were used to explain things.

Indeed and there is no evidence that the Jesus story is anything other than a made up story.
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Agreed, there is no archeological evidence, but the story itself is evidence that there may have been something to the story.

But your reasoning would indicate that all the main characters were based upon real people - Helen, Paris, Achilles, etc.
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Like I said above, you should be able to apply the logic not just to historical people, but to other things such as cities or events. For example, I strongly doubt that 40 days and 40 nights worth of rain would flood the planet, but chances are there was a big flood somewhere that was so unusually devastating that people created a back story to explain it to future generations and we ended up with the Ark myth.

It might. It could just as easily be based upon a completely fabricated life of someone who never actually existed.
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You're right Robert, I certainly wouldn't bet my life on it either way. I'm just saying my gut says that the jesus myth was probably based on some real guy.

For the record, I'm not convinced either way. He might well have existed but the complete lack of evidence suggests otherwise.
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Well, I think we can at least agree that it doesn't really matter all that much. :)
 
Glaucus said:
On real people, or real events or real things. The Gods and Titans were personifications of the world around them. When the seas grew stormy and destroyed ships, Poseidon was angry. The ancient Greeks had gods for almost all known things, and no gods for things unknown. No Gods existed to represent sub-atomic particles, the theory of evolution, tectonic plates or spaghetti of any kind because they were simply unaware of them. And all gods had a purpose. And it wasn't just gods, but the mythical creatures as well. The Sirens were a convenient explanation for shipwrecks. So yes, those myths were based on something real because as I said, they were used to explain things.
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OK but the same could be said about Jesus. There were indeed real things in some of the stories but this says nothing about whether he himself ever existed.

Agreed, there is no archeological evidence, but the story itself is evidence that there may have been something to the story.
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I agree. I'm just not convinced that "something" equates to Jesus having existed.

Like I said above, you should be able to apply the logic not just to historical people, but to other things such as cities or events. For example, I strongly doubt that 40 days and 40 nights worth of rain would flood the planet, but chances are there was a big flood somewhere that was so unusually devastating that people created a back story to explain it to future generations and we ended up with the Ark myth.
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Indeed and this is a great example which I'm glad you cited. Is this flood story evidence that there really was someone called Noah who built an ark? My contention is that the Jesus story is no more evidence that Jesus existed than the Noah story is evidence that Noah existed. I very much doubt if either of them ever did.

You're right Robert, I certainly wouldn't bet my life on it either way. I'm just saying my gut says that the jesus myth was probably based on some real guy.
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I honestly don't know. Until a few years ago I would have said the same but it was only my "gut" too. Once I realised how little evidence there actually is, I seriously began to doubt the veracity of any of it.

Well, I think we can at least agree that it doesn't really matter all that much. :)
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True dat! :pint:
 
Glaucus said:
................. 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.
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if jesus did exist I'm not sure he needed to be schizophrenic, but he would certainly need to be charismatic.

We've all seen people who just have Something About Them that makes people attracted to them. The Cult of Personality as the song goes. If there really was a Jesus (who had IT) he probably was quite interesting but after he died THAT was when the weirdness started because the Story could be changed in the retelling. Like "telephone' people would exaggerate elements and add their own versions of events. It's been decades since my school days but I seem to recall that the 'gospels' were written down years (100?) after his death. That's plenty of time to embellish.
Adding stuff from the olde time religion(s) with the memory of an exciting dude one may have met a couple of times seems just normal and human.
 
Pagans infiltrating the church!!! Horrors! Better get right with Jesus (who is due back any time now).
 
faethor said:
@Fluffy - TL : Didn't Watch
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Actually it's only half as long as it looks - in the first half this xtian talks about the pagan origins of easter, in the second half she plays the you tube video she got the info from and you find it's the same stuff over again almost exactly. But constant repetition is the xtian way. Mostly I added it because it was some hyper xtian woman getting all out of shape about bunnies hiding eggs instead of everyone having a passover meal. You see, even some xtians know easter is pagan. What they don't know is that if you go far enough back then you find that their god is pagan too.
 
Wow, what an idiot. Jesus never celebrated Easter? Hmmm.... Well, he kinda needed to die first, didn't he? And Easter is just the English version of the day. The Greek name for the same event is Pascha. Sounds a lot more like Passover (Pesakh is Hebrew), doesn't it? Christianity is very much a Greek religion, despite what Italians might like you to think. Funny how this idiot completely missed this. :rolleyes:

As for the pagan references, the best way to crush an old religion is by making the festivals the same day. Worked for Christmas too.
 
Glaucus said:
And Easter is just the English version of the day. The Greek name for the same event is Pascha. Sounds a lot more like Passover (Pesakh is Hebrew), doesn't it?
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And that is very true - the Europeans (by which I mean the non Mediterranean ones) really never let go of their "Easter" but had the Christian paschal celebration grafted on. They went to church because that's what the government told them to do, but they still kept their old traditions too.
Christianity is very much a Greek religion, despite what Italians might like you to think. Funny how this idiot completely missed this. :rolleyes:
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Sort of Hellenized Jewish - the early ones even got the little fellah trimmed too. Too much dedication for the Romans. :)

But she tills clings to the idea that the jew's whacky magical ritual is somehow any more effective than the old European magical rituals. I still thnk it's better to look for a whole bunch of coloured eggs than to hunt for one scrawny bit of matzah.
 
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