Religious Decay - The Concept Of Jesus As A Puppet

[SoftIce]

Something that has always bothered me about religions that are several thousands of years old is the decaying of whatever sacred texts they ascribe to.

 

Take the Bible for example, and in this example I'm going to focus on the gospels. For the example's sake, just pretend that Jesus existed, and that he said some stuff that made some other people turn their heads. So, for the example's sake, we've got Jesus talking about some ideas. Maybe he gains some followers along the way, and maybe he gets some attention. Then he dies somehow.

 

Biblical Scholars date the canon gospels as being written something like 50-100 years after Jesus died.

 

I'm going to do an abrupt shift and bring up Martin Luther King. I'm bringing up MLK beause we know he existed and have documented proof that he existed.

 

But... what if MLK gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech during a time where there were no cameras? And, pretend that no one bothered to write any of it down until 50 - 100 years after he gave it. Now, throw in the fact that everyone who heard the original speech has most likely died, since people don't live very long during this time period. Now, someone who has a second or third hand account, of something that someone spoke of 50 to 100 years earlier, decides to try and write down what that person actually said.

 

What are the chances that they would accurately describe what MLK said? What are the chances that stuff would get inserted or deleted or just plain changed? Now pretend that instead of just one person trying to remember exactly what MLK said, going by what was handed down to them personally by oral tradition, it's 200 or so different people. It's like an epic game of telephone.

 

Then, over a period of several hundred years, people slowly decide which versions of MLK's speech are right, and which ones are wrong, and in the end it's decided that out of the 200 or so that were started with, four end up as the 'offical' versions.

 

How different do you think the end result of MLK's 'speech' would be after this process, compared to the original that he actually gave?

 

This analogy is one of the bigger problems I have with the gospels. Even if we assume Jesus existed, as just a man that had some things to say, how on earth can we know what he actually said? Everything we have related to him was written years after he died, by people that didn't even know him. And to further complicate things, people, not 'God', decided ultimately what was 'Inspired' or not.

 

And then there's the problem that we don't even know for sure who wrote the gospels, since people would name the gospel they wrote or heard or whatever after somebody that had a big name. (Since no one would bother to read the Gospel of Bob - except for me.)

 

I think this is the main reason why I'm fascinated with noncanon writings that relate to Jesus. Whether he existed or not, I think someone can get a more accurate picture of what he supposedly said by reading as much as they can find on him. For some reason, I feel like the noncanon writings may have been less warped over time, since they were declared uninspired. But, who knows. All I know is that anything the church threw out, seems way more fascinating to me than the stuff that made the final cut.

[LightForce]

 

Great video. There are three parts. Be sure to watch all of them.

[SoftIce]

Oh cool. thanks for the vid link! I also like reading up on the parallels between jesus's story and the story that many other religious figures have.

[Guest wester]

When people think about the ‘ancient’ past, time-lines start to get pretty fuzzy rather quickly. Let’s make an analogy. Imagine that nobody made a written record of the American revolution circa 1776. The story of this revolution was handed down through word of mouth for many decades until around 1850-1860 when the story was finally written down - not in English but in Spanish. The Spanish texts were passed around and debated. Finally, in the year 2100, it was decided which stories to use. Some stories, like Jefferson, Washington and Adams were included…while others like Patrick Henry and the views of the slaves were dropped.

http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/43558-the-history-of-the-christian-bible/

[LivingLife]

Somewhere in the MLK writings would be the ascension of the first black POTUS and how MK prophesied that this would happen....

 

Yeah the gospels are not reliable and IMO by 350ish at the council of Nicea, these had been copied and copied and embellished and by the time the canon was declared, all forms of paganism had been introduced over time. There is a reason his account matches so many other man-gods of the era. Matthew is an obvious forgery in that it gets alleged prophesies wrong. The church are not going to admit that it was all BS as then it is game over. They simply reinvent and introduce new spins. Anything to keep the coffers full.

 

I often wonder if the US did not have donations as tax deductible how big the church would be. We never had a way to claim this back from the state, only registered charities counted. Even today, they are registered as NPO and they have to make sure they yield no profit as they can be audited. What we find here is that they put shit in trust funds and make the church members trustees. Make too much money, hire another pastor. My old church is like this and w/o the trust where they let industrial premises to businesses, their doors would have closed long ago. They do bugger all charity work.