There Exists No Solid Proof Of Jesus Existence

[mwc]

Well, after Antlerman has weighed in, I feel like a five year old saying the following, but what the hell...

Dunno why...different issue.

 

I agree with you after all, mwc, about the NT's claiming that Nazareth was a "polis" at the time of Jesus. Whatever legal status the writers of Luke and Matthew thought attached to that word for municipalities, the fact that Luke talks of Jesus sending the disciples into the cities (poleis) and villages (komas) shows that the writer takes "polis" to be big enough that a word is needed to distinguish it from a "komh." So one would expect some remains to exist if Nazareth was that big in the early first century CE.

Well, the two often go together.

 

First, cities didn't have to be huge. They were a city-state and so basically on their own (essentially a self-rule situation). My point has been this is not extremely likely. They're not important enough to gain this level of autonomy. On city sizes:

If we apply this method to the 232 poleis whose areas we know, and if we conjecture that these 232 poleis from all over the Greek city state world are representative of the ancient Greek polis as a whole, we can conclude that there were a very small number of poleis whose population could only rate a few hundred inhabitants, all those, in fact,whose walls encircled an area of at most 4 ha. In the next group (areas of 5–9 ha), most must have had about 500–1,000 inhabitants. Over 80 per cent of all poleis, however, had a population of more than 1,000, and at least 10 per cent had a population of more than 10,000. It is the archaeological digs and surveys that enable us to draw this picture, and the numbers given here are much larger than

those with which most other ancient historians reckon. It is still the prevailing view that most of the population lived in the country,15

and that very few poleis had a population in five figures.

 

Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State pp75-76 - Hansen

This speaks to the Classical Greek period but it's probably similar for this later time as well. The size of Nazareth could be smallish but not as small as we're led to believe if it's actually a city (a few farm houses still fails). We still need a "polis" (ie. the actual city) and then the outlying areas. Which leads me back to what we started with (the villages). From the same book as above:

So while most of the population in the small city-states lived in the cities within the walls, most of the population in the big city-states was settled in the hinterland. So we can propose the following formula to apply to all the poleis altogether: in the ancient Greek poleis the degree of urbanisation was in inverse proportion to the size of the polis—the smaller the polis the more people lived in the city within the walls, the bigger the polis the more of its people lived in the hinterland.29 This rule applies especially to the Classical period; as far as we can see, the picture changes in Hellenistic and Roman times, when settlement in villages becomes more usual and a real alternative to settlement within the polis itself. In surveys the number of villages rises in the Hellenistic period, and in the written sources—both inscriptions and literary sources—there is also a much larger number of settlements explicitly classified as komai, especially in the eastern part of the Greek world.30

 

Ibid pp71-72

The villages are sort of like the suburbs and not so much like small cities as we would think of them (ie. ranking by population). And this is what I getting at when was saying the author would know the difference. They should know an (mostly) autonomous city-state versus its (or a) suburb (of a sort). So in the stories they went through city limits proper and/or the suburban areas but not necessarily the rural county or countryside.

 

mwc

[mwc]

But I want to back out a bit, and try to look at metaphor from what philosophers might call an epistemological perspective. From here it might be seen that metaphor is like an incomplete understanding. Let me try and say this in many ways. It is like a "prediction" without perception or reasoning. It is like a projection from within ourselves which we cast upon the world. It is like a dictionary which transduces language into phenomena. If we are lucky, it is like a crystal ball. And if we are unfortunate, it is very much like a disaster.

So you're saying a metaphor is a simile?

 

 

mwc

[mwc]

Here's a crazy idea. Let's say 1,000 years from now, most of the historical documents are gone about Abraham Lincoln, except for some copies of a book called "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter." I wonder if people will question Abe's historical validity and existence based on that the fact that vampires don't exist?

They should declare it a fiction and reject it as a historical source. The "Abraham Lincoln" of that book never existed and is not the same as Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America even if the book claims they're the same. You could rename the book "Rob the Monkey, Vampire Slayer" change all references of "Abraham Lincoln" to "Rob the Monkey" and it would retain its integrity.

 

mwc

[mwc]

An additional thought about the concept of cities using an example from Wikipedia (that I couldn't find earlier):

Due to its strategic position, Emmaus played an important administrative, military and economic role in history. The first mention of Emmaus occurs in the 1st book of Maccabees, chapters 3-4, in the context of Judas the Maccabee’s wars against the Greeks (2nd century BCE).

 

During the Hasmonean period, Emmaus became a regional administrative centre (toparchy) in the Ayalon Valley.^[4] Josephus Flavius mentions Emmaus in his writings several times.^[5] He speaks about the destruction of Emmaus by the Romans in the year 4 B. C.^[6]

 

After the defeat of the Bar-Kochba’s revolt in the first half of the 2nd century CE, Romans and Samaritans settled in Emmaus. In the early 3rd century CE, a Christian scholar and writer born in Jerusalem, Julius Africanus, lived in Emmaus.^[7] According to Eusebius of Caesarea, St. Jerome, Philip of Side and others, Africanus led a delegation of local residents to the Roman emperor Elagabalus, obtaining for Emmaus the status of a city (polis) and the name of "Nicopolis," which it bore during the late Roman period and throughout the Byzantine period. As St. Eusebius writes,

Emmaus, whence was Cleopas who is mentioned by the Evangelist Luke. Today it is Nicopolis, a famous city of Palestine.

^[8]

This Emmaus is a village where the two disciples supposedly go with a resurrected Jesus. I checked G.Luke and it is identified as a village (kome). (Of course this Emmaus was supposedly destroyed many years before and is more than a days walk from Jerusalem making it another impossible choice for the story but this not my point right now).

 

Note it gets renamed and elevated in status to a city (polis). There's no mention of any other changes in status along the way so this appears to be it. Historically speaking this appears to be accurate information based on how things were done.

 

So what of Nazareth? Or the rest? We should be able to imagine this same type of thing at some point. At what point then?

 

mwc

[♦ ficino ♦]

I think we're in agreement about overall conclusions, mwc. I am not yet ready to conclude that we know that every time a writer in the NT calls a settlement a "polis," that writer means a municipality of the legal status that the Roman administration accorded Emmaus in the interesting example you cite. I don't know enough about "poleis" in Roman Palestine, and I don't know enough to extrapolate confidently from Victor Davis Hansen's definitions about independent Greek city states in the classical period. But I know of no evidence that would contradict your position. Right now this isn't my research. I'm happy to know of more nails in the inerrantist's coffin than I knew of before, thanks.

 

I do not think it a waste of time to investigate such matters, by the way. A yogi seeking self-realization may think that, say, the terms of a girl's marriage contract are of little consequence compared to the goal of everyone's realization of their oneness with Being, but those terms matter to the girl and the others involved in her life (just as much to the husband) here on this mortal plane. It's significant to accomplish things, including expanding the store of human knowledge through research, and such accomplishments, however small, are part of the legacy one leaves behind.

[Ouroboros]

Here's a crazy idea. Let's say 1,000 years from now, most of the historical documents are gone about Abraham Lincoln, except for some copies of a book called "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter." I wonder if people will question Abe's historical validity and existence based on that the fact that vampires don't exist?

 

I see where you're going with this Ouro, but it seems like this can work both ways. I've struggled with expressing the idea here. Others have done a much better job than I, but I'll try again.

 

Think of how movements evolve and how many sects are established that loosely connect to other sects. If you trace them, you could see something like an evolutionary tree where one sect evolved out of another sect, which evolved out of yet another. Tracing that back to the root can be quite difficult.

 

My question is whether Jesus is the actual root in this tree or rather simply evolved from earlier branches. That his is so similar to that of other religious beliefs of that era, I think it's possible he's merely a branch and from a distant future we have a difficult time seeing this because of how influential xianity has become. We think there must have been something more that caused others to strike up a movement, but sects have started on much less (ideas and legends built upon ideas and legends). The ability of people to become true believers knows no bounds.

I'm told to not give a shit about if Jesus existed or not, so I'm going to stick to other religions. I don't want to sound like I'm obsessed with this, which no one is if they just maintain that Jesus was a completely myth and the Bible contains only falsehoods.

 

Most large religions had a prophet in their center (granted not all), but...

 

Did Buddha exist? Not the Buddha who did miracles and had his spirit floating out of his body... so no. He didn't exist at all. Buddhism was invented by mythologists and con artists.

 

Did Mohammad exist? Not the Mohammad who rode a horse to heaven and spoke to Abraham... so, ah, no. Mohammad didn't exist at all since he was invented by hoax masters.

 

Did Joseph Smith, etc exist? Not a single one of them, because they people who claim they are prophets are invented all the time so therefore all what is said about them must be false.

 

Really?

 

If a story contains 99% falsehood, but 1% true, the 99% falsehood doesn't make the 1% false. Put it this way, the Bible mentions Rome. If we had no other records of Rome and everything else in the Bible is false, then Rome must've been invented as well.

 

It's very common that religions and cults starts with one single charismatic person who claims to have a special connection to God and/or being the son of God. It's very common. It's just as common as cults that starts out of the blue with a group of people who have no clue who the leader is and everyone just invents their belief and it just so happens to be the same.

 

---

 

The thing is Vigile, you and others have continuously missed an important part in what I've been saying. What you are saying above is possible. I don't deny that. But possible is not always the most probable. Of the two options: 1) it started very much like most cults have, 2) it started like a fiction, created by multiple people by combining ideas and out of the blue they decided to have one character with the same name to represent their fictions, which one sounds most likely?

 

Think of it this way. When urban legends start, they start from one point. When cults start, they start with a cult leader. When ideas start, they start with someone saying/doing something. It's very rare the one idea comes from multiple people at the same time. Electricity did, and telephony, and calculus, but even in calculus, there were two different systems with different names. Here, we're talking about same ideas, same concepts, same names, invented in multiple places by multiple people. When you have a pandemic, you can trace the most likely first point, by tracing the same strain of virus. If it's the same strain, it had one origin. It's the same thing here. Sure, perhaps it was a fiction writer who came up with the first story and that became a religion, but this is very unusual. It's possible, true. But unusual.

[Ouroboros]

Here's a crazy idea. Let's say 1,000 years from now, most of the historical documents are gone about Abraham Lincoln, except for some copies of a book called "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter." I wonder if people will question Abe's historical validity and existence based on that the fact that vampires don't exist?

They should declare it a fiction and reject it as a historical source. The "Abraham Lincoln" of that book never existed and is not the same as Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America even if the book claims they're the same. You could rename the book "Rob the Monkey, Vampire Slayer" change all references of "Abraham Lincoln" to "Rob the Monkey" and it would retain its integrity.

 

mwc

The book also claims that there was a person called Abraham Lincoln who was the 16th president of United States.

 

Either the book contains partial truths and partial falsehoods, or it's completely false. There are three options there. Completely true, completely false, or in between (some true, some not).

 

If you then on top find another book which mentions about a country America with people who believed Abe existed as a president still mean that Abe the prez didn't exist?

[Antlerman]

I do not think it a waste of time to investigate such matters, by the way.

Nor do I.

 

A yogi seeking self-realization may think that, say, the terms of a girl's marriage contract are of little consequence compared to the goal of everyone's realization of their oneness with Being, but those terms matter to the girl and the others involved in her life (just as much to the husband) here on this mortal plane.

I have never suggested it is irrelevant since enlightenment is so much better. So is eating food by comparison to pursuing these questions, but that doesn't make them unimportant as part of the whole picture towards Enlightenment. Any yogi that teaches that, I would never follow. What good is Enlightenment if it isn't part of living life in the now?

 

It's significant to accomplish things, including expanding the store of human knowledge through research, and such accomplishments, however small, are part of the legacy one leaves behind.

And I agree with this, however, my objection as stated at length in my previous post is that to take this understanding of the origins of Christian faith to 'disprove' faith to someone is missing the greater point. I see it towards an end of advancing understanding, not destroying faith. That it helped someone along their own road of deconversion, did so for reasons unique to that person. I'd call it removing the last holdouts of 'what-if' in the back of the minds of those already disillusioned with the value of the system.

 

In fact, let me lay this out clearly. My own holding onto the notions of God I had from my Christian training were still there, despite no longer finding the religion working for me. I had long been done going to church, being a 'believer', etc. But in the back of my mind God was associated with them, and so any questions about that got back-burnered for years. Until one day. I was watching a special on Evolution, a PBS special called The Shape of Life. Suddenly, as I saw the power and beauty of evolution in the origin of species, God was displaced in that hold-out position. There was no more need to hang on to that to 'explain' things. What happened was incredible. I suddenly felt this profound connection to all of life. We were not the pinnacle of evolution, the shining apple in God's eye, but we were one of a marvelous tree of wonderful diversity! It made us more special, not less! Life was incredible, and how marvelous to be alive, to be who we are in this unimaginable tree of life! It was truly a spiritual experience for me.

 

What that did is it finally freed my thoughts from being owned by some religion claiming authority in such matters. God was now able to be out of the picture, laid on the table of examination for me without fear. Christianity did not have proprietorship of any of this, including knowledge of God. I then went forth as a rationalist, becoming an atheist in order to really examine everything. Ultimately as you know I have been able to understand the nature of what is called God in a different light, which for me allows rationality along with spirituality without conflict or contradiction. But the salient point is this. Christianity as a system had already failed for me, spirituality. 'Debunking', in this case showing nature happens without an anthropomorphic God pulling the strings and creating magic in the world, allowed what was already failed to cut the remaining dead flesh free from that severed limb. I was able to begin the final healing phase.

 

So, the historical Jesus question. It too can serve that role as the PBS special did for me in my state of deconversion. But, and I'll caution, it is debatable as to its veracity - I for one don't accept it on a rational and scholarly basis, (unlike evolution which is overwhelmingly supported to the point it can be called a fact). I don't believe placing 'faith' in that belief in order to say "I no longer believe in Christianity", is a good way to go. It's placing what you believe externally. The minute new data comes along that makes that belief look less attractive, less certain, then off you go back into the religion again! The same sword cuts both ways, as I've said. A believer who believes based on the evidence, is poised to fall rather hard and quickly should anything come along to challenge that belief. The whole externalization of faith is absurd.

 

What studies like this do however, that is valuable, is that it enhances understanding. And that understanding helps to inform our overall worldviews. For me, it actually helps me appreciate Christianity for the reasons I stated earlier in another post. It speaks to that something in us as humans that is common to all ages. We are after all, cut from that same fabric. Our humanness seeks to something higher, and all these things, these myths are expressions of that. They are fingers pointing to the moon, not the moon itself. To reduce it to a discussion of facts of science and history, utterly misses looking upward to what the finger points at. It is focused on the finger, mistaking its mode of expression as defining Truth itself. It isn't Truth, but that doesn't mean it doesn't point to Truth.

[Vigile]

 

 

You seem to be taking this a little personal Hans. Maybe I'm misreading you.

 

I don't know what's most probable here. As I said, since the religion seems to have so many elements that predate the supposed christ, it seems at least somewhat probable to me that jesus was merely a branch and not the root. That's just my reading of the evidence I see. Problem is, I am far, far from an expert on this so I don't have a clear enough picture to see all the evidence for what it is, so I could be horribly wrong.

 

In the end, who cares unless you're still a believer, right?

[qadeshet]

 

If a story contains 99% falsehood, but 1% true, the 99% falsehood doesn't make the 1% false. Put it this way, the Bible mentions Rome. If we had no other records of Rome and everything else in the Bible is false, then Rome must've been invented as well.

 

 

Without external controls for verification, if a story is full of Myths and Fables, we have every right to doubt all of it. No one accepted the existence of Troy till Heinrich Schliemann discovered and excavated it. If we had no other evidence for Rome except from the Bible, I would seriously doubt its existence. Perhaps new 1st century documents or archaeological finds may provide us with the primary evidence we need to prove, or disprove, the Historical Jesus. Someone, or many someones, invented Christianity. Without primary evidence, all we have are probabilities.

[Ouroboros]

 

You seem to be taking this a little personal Hans. Maybe I'm misreading you.

I get frustrated sometimes. I try to convey a point but it feels like the people I'm talking to don't listen.

 

I don't know what's most probable here. As I said, since the religion seems to have so many elements that predate the supposed christ, it seems at least somewhat probable to me that jesus was merely a branch and not the root. That's just my reading of the evidence I see. Problem is, I am far, far from an expert on this so I don't have a clear enough picture to see all the evidence for what it is, so I could be horribly wrong.

Sure. Jesus as a branch works too on a tree full of religions and beliefs. The same goes for religions like the Raelians and such. But Rael (that's not his real name) is actually a real physical person though. That's the only thing I'm saying. I'm not saying that the miracle working Jesus existed (vampire slayer), or dying-and-rising Jesus (zombie), etc. But that there was some kind of teacher who probably thought he was a prophet sent by God, and that became the person all the old stories got attached to. Your source, the link you gave me, for the book making the argument for a non-historical Jesus, also made it clear that he thought there was a sage-Jesus. So did a sage-Jesus exist? (Not vampire-hunter-Jesus or zombie-Jesus)

 

In the end, who cares unless you're still a believer, right?

Right.

 

But do we care about if Pluto is a planet or not? Do we care if quantum events can go backwards in time? Do we care if a joke is funny? There are many things we do and discuss because at that time they seem to be interesting. I haven't talked about this "Jesus" thing for a very long time and thought it would be interesting to dive into it again, but I'm told that I shouldn't give a shit, or even two shits. That upsets me. It's like when someone tells you "stop being angry" and you weren't, but now you are because they said it that way. I think we should be able to discuss opposing sides without being called obsessed. That's my person issue with this topic. I'm told that I can't have a different view because then I'm painted as a nut.

[Ouroboros]

Without external controls for verification, if a story is full of Myths and Fables, we have every right to doubt all of it. No one accepted the existence of Troy till Heinrich Schliemann discovered and excavated it. If we had no other evidence for Rome except from the Bible, I would seriously doubt its existence. Perhaps new 1st century documents or archaeological finds may provide us with the primary evidence we need to prove, or disprove, the Historical Jesus. Someone, or many someones, invented Christianity. Without primary evidence, all we have are probabilities.

Exactly. We have probabilities. Which leads to looking at more things than just the actual fables and myths. We have all possibilites, even the one where aliens from the planet Zxlyghfluh came and created it, but one of the possibilites is also that there was a cult-leader Jesus. But who gives a shit. Except for... watch out so the myth-conspiracy doesn't become a new religion. I would hate to see an uprising in some kind of fundamentalism who denies everything because nothing is good enough.

[Vigile]

I get frustrated sometimes. I try to convey a point but it feels like the people I'm talking to don't listen.

 

I got your point. I was merely making my own and offering it as an alternative. I'm somehow just not conveying my own vision on this to you well. I thought my metaphor might work, so I gave it a shot.

 

Anyway, no sense in beating a dead horse. I've gone about as far with this subject as I am able given I have no formal training in this area and have just picked up on a few things here and there making me more of a half-cocked crackpot than a reasoned intellectual on this subject.

 

What doesn't matter is what I think about the subject.

[Ouroboros]

I get frustrated sometimes. I try to convey a point but it feels like the people I'm talking to don't listen.

 

I got your point. I was merely making my own and offering it as an alternative. I'm somehow just not conveying my own vision on this to you well. I thought my metaphor might work, so I gave it a shot.

I know about the alternative. I was in the complete-myth camp myself. I was fascinated by Zeitgeist. But I was disappointed when I discovered Zeitgeist was wrong with some information. I want to be careful not to become "religious" again but in the opposite camp. I don't want to be a fundamentalist atheist who denies every possibility of the slightest truth that could maybe exist in the Bible only because I think the whole is crap. The baby and bathwater thing, you know. And I was hoping that some other people could see this too. But then I was given the nutjob hat...

 

Anyway, no sense in beating a dead horse. I've gone about as far with this subject as I am able given I have no formal training in this area and have just picked up on a few things here and there making me more of a half-cocked crackpot than a reasoned intellectual on this subject.

I don't know much about it either. I was just trying to approach it with some logical reasoning, but I think I failed.

[Legion]

Intuition.

 

Hmm. I think that's an interesting take A-man. I'm a highly intuitive person, and I've found myself nearly apologizing to the philosophers for it. I value my intuition, but it has been mistaken before. I still lean towards the idea that a good crisp understanding is almost always preferable. I'd rather act on a firm grasp of a subject, but I also know this not always possible. Afterall, to obtain an understanding is to learn, but I think the choice about what to study, or learn about is likely intuitively guided.

[Akheia]

Oh, are we back to the passive-aggressive act again, Ouro? Nobody told you how you're supposed to feel. That's something you came up with all by yourself and persist in even after learning nobody meant you to think that. Sorry, I missed your memo. I'll remember that in the future, telling you how I feel about a subject is identical with telling you how you should feel about it, and I'll deserve my days and days of constant niggling nitpicky sneak attacks from your hands at that point because at least then I'll have had fair warning of how you think. At this point I feel like the guy marked as "super-moderator" is the one attacking *me* for not feeling the same way *he* does about something. Hey, here's a thought: if you feel like people aren't listening, maybe the problem is they feel attacked by your constant, well, attacks.

 

I'm enjoying the direction this conversation is going otherwise. I wish that we as a society *could* remove the ridiculous fact-based leg out from under Christianity and recognize it's just an expression of humanity's desire for closeness with divinity, a metaphor that got out of control and got taken increasingly out of context. The crazy part? I actually agree with Ouro in a lot of ways--that some crazy Jewish rabble-rousers got small cult followings and then a few decades after their deaths (from whatever means) someone decided to take the general figure one of these cults considered their founder as the hero in a new Homer-style Odyssey, and things just got out of hand. That fits with human nature and with the historical facts at our command. We differ only in that I really don't know what the motivations precisely were so don't care to speculate, and because I don't think we *can* know, it doesn't particularly matter--TO ME. NOT TO OURO, CLEARLY. ZOMG NOT TO OURO. ZOMG OURO PUT DOWN THAT AXE

[asanerman]

I was just trying to approach it with some logical reasoning, but I think I failed.

 

Ouroboros, I do not think so!

[Ouroboros]

I was just trying to approach it with some logical reasoning, but I think I failed.

 

Ouroboros, I do not think so!

Thank you. That's all I wanted to hear, that at least someone didn't think I was totally crazy.

[Akheia]

Ouro, sweetie, I don't think you're crazy. I think you're getting a bit out of hand and I REALLY wish you'd drop the weird attacks, but that's not craziness. You care about different stuff than some others do, but hell, so do I, and so does Antlerman, and so does Vigile. I'm genuinely sorry you felt stung by anything I said. You know I talk out of my ass most of the time, but I like to think I've got a good heart, and I don't like knowing I brought you to such a place that you felt cornered and lashed out like you have of late.

[Vigile]

I know about the alternative. I was in the complete-myth camp myself. I was fascinated by Zeitgeist.

 

Hey now, don't go putting me into camps here. I make up this shit all by my lonesome.

 

I was just trying to approach it with some logical reasoning, but I think I failed.

 

Ditto, ditto.

[Vigile]

Oh, are we back to the passive-aggressive act again, Ouro? Nobody told you how you're supposed to feel. That's something you came up with all by yourself and persist in even after learning nobody meant you to think that. Sorry, I missed your memo. I'll remember that in the future, telling you how I feel about a subject is identical with telling you how you should feel about it, and I'll deserve my days and days of constant niggling nitpicky sneak attacks from your hands at that point because at least then I'll have had fair warning of how you think. At this point I feel like the guy marked as "super-moderator" is the one attacking *me* for not feeling the same way *he* does about something. Hey, here's a thought: if you feel like people aren't listening, maybe the problem is they feel attacked by your constant, well, attacks.

 

In Ouro's defense (not that he needs my help), you may have just caught him on a bad day or bad subject, but you'll have a difficult time finding someone as clear thinking on this board or elsewhere. If I can, I'd urge you to give him another shot before you categorize him for yourself, or not.

[Akheia]

I think that's what's freaking me out the most, Vigile. He's a pretty even-keeled guy. I don't understand this at all. If someone's going to go off half-cocked and keep sniping at someone, between the two of us I know who I'd have pegged as having that potential Thanks for the encouragement. I look forward to the discussion coming to be way more productive.

[Legion]

I look forward to the discussion coming to be way more productive.

 

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.” - Gandhi

[qadeshet]

Without external controls for verification, if a story is full of Myths and Fables, we have every right to doubt all of it. No one accepted the existence of Troy till Heinrich Schliemann discovered and excavated it. If we had no other evidence for Rome except from the Bible, I would seriously doubt its existence. Perhaps new 1st century documents or archaeological finds may provide us with the primary evidence we need to prove, or disprove, the Historical Jesus. Someone, or many someones, invented Christianity. Without primary evidence, all we have are probabilities.

Exactly. We have probabilities. Which leads to looking at more things than just the actual fables and myths. We have all possibilites, even the one where aliens from the planet Zxlyghfluh came and created it, but one of the possibilites is also that there was a cult-leader Jesus. But who gives a shit. Except for... watch out so the myth-conspiracy doesn't become a new religion. I would hate to see an uprising in some kind of fundamentalism who denies everything because nothing is good enough.

 

I would love to look at more than just the Fables and Myths. The problem is, that's all we have. Josephus, Suetonius, the younger Pliny, and Tacitus are no help. Dozens of contemporary writers and Historians should have mentioned Jesus, but didn't. Once the Mythical and Supernatural elements are removed from Christianity, nothing is left. That's why every HJ scholar comes up with a different Jesus.

[bornagainathiest]

Antlerman wrote...

 

"This is why I say often times, that Atheism really is Christianity without God. It doesn't matter if God is literal or not, the essence of the myth permeates culture in all of its myths, whether they are secular myths or religious myths."

 

 

A secular myth? What is that A-man?

Myths that don't have the supernatural. Myths such as the American Dream. Myths such as the belief that consumerism brings happiness. Everyone grows up with and operates off of mythologies, such as follow the rules and you will be rewarded. The list is endless actually. You have to understand that myths are not simply ways to explain stuff lacking scientific knowledge. They are symbols acting with symbols which create a symbolic structure that acts as the platform of reality on which we navigate. They may be religious, or secular in nature. But both are symbolic realities. Created structures that act like electrostatic forces which keep us from simply passing through the ground under the influence of gravity.

 

Thanks!

This helps. So am I to glean from from this that humans cannot help but create and use myths, even if they are totally unaware they are doing so?

 

I had thought that Atheism was the simplest, most stripped-down view of reality that there could be.

In what regard? Explaining the natural world without the supernatural? I think Atheism is all good and fine, inasmuch as it is defined in rejecting mythic-literal interpretations of the world as representing the best of our knowledge today. But it hardly rises beyond that in its current forms. It stops there with a rubble heap at its feet, including living bodies buried underneath it. It impresses me as deconstructionist only. Maybe that's the problem. A stripped down view of reality is in its own way trying to explain the extraordinarily complex in mythic terms. Nature is all there is. The opposite of Godditit.

 

I see these things in history there for a reason, a valid one. And one that is part of all of us today in how we think, live, and breathe. We can't just gut ourselves and call that progress.

 

Hmmm... now what you call gutting one's self, I might call being honest with one's self. I'd sum this honesty up as follows...

 

My life only has as much meaning as I chose to give it. Should I give it meaning that isn't there, just to feel more comfortable? I'd say no. For me, the heavens don't declare the glory of the Lord. Instead, they declare three possible outcomes.

 

1.

That I'm a unique pattern of matter and energy in a vast, but finite universe. This pattern didn't exist for billions of years, will exist briefly and then won't exist ever again.

 

2.

That I'm not a unique pattern of matter and energy in an infinite universe. I'm not unique because I am replicated infinitely-often throughout the infinite universe. There's no thought I can think and no action I can carry out that won't be carried out in exactly the same way by an infinite number of my duplicates. So, if there is some meaning to my life (whatever that is) it will be equally true for all of my duplicates, wherever they are.

 

3.

That I'm not a unique pattern of matter and energy in an infinite multiverse. I'm not unique because I am replicated infinitely-often throughout the infinite multiverse. There's no thought I can think and no action I can carry out that won't be carried out in exactly the same way by an infinite number of my duplicates. So, if there is some meaning to my life (whatever that is) it wiil be equally true for all of my duplicates, wherever they are.

 

Therefore, whatever meaning I chose to assign my life, it's only meaningful in the here-and-now, while I live and breathe. On the grand scale of things I am either that brief, unique (and probably meaningless) pattern of matter and energy or I am one of an infinitely large army of duplicates, none of which is unique in any way, shape or form.

 

As you can see A-Man, I have a real hard time assigning anything but the most fleeting and transitory of meanings to my life. I call that honesty. I call that facing up to the facts. If that's gutting myself, so be it.

 

Ummm... you're saying that Atheism is derived from and/or carries with it a whole load of secular mythology (whatever that is) ...?

In modern terms, it starts with that mindset I spoke of earlier that begins with the Christian worldview and deconstructs its myths as 'nonfactual'. Big deal, IMO. Yes, it is important, don't get me wrong. But to then toss everything out along with it, is hardly functioning out of the pursuit of building upon the past though integrating what positive things we've learned in our evolution. It's a reaction against something, not learning and building. Saying 'God, we were so ignorant!', fails to actually learn the good we did learn within those systems of thoughts. And the same holds true for what lays beyond atheism.

 

I'll quote Sri Arobindo here that I think bears directly upon this:

 

 

 

 

 

It is necessary, therefore, that advancing Knowledge should base herself on a clear, pure and disciplined intellect. It is necessary, too, that she should correct her errors sometimes by a return to the restraint of sensible fact, the concrete realities of the physical world. The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness – to its heights we can always search– when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. “Earth is His footing,” says the Upanishad whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe. And it is certainly the fact the wider we extend and the surer we make our knowledge of the physical world, the wider and surer becomes our foundation for the higher knowledge, even for the highest, even for the Brahmavidya.

 

In emerging, therefore, out of the materialistic period of human Knowledge we must be careful that we do not rashly condemn what we are leaving or throw away even one tittle of its gains, before we can summon perceptions and powers that are well grasped and secure, to occupy their place. Rather we shall observe with respect and wonder the work that Atheism had done for the Divine and admire the services that Agnosticism has rendered in preparing the illimitable increase of knowledge. In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 12,13

 

The uses of the Divine you see him use in here bear little resemblance to the mythic god you are familiar with, but in my opinion understands that how we have approached truth and reality in our evolution, which includes atheism, has something beyond just that hard world, the material 'truth'. No man lives like this, and this is why the great Existential philosophers, including the Atheist Jean Paul Sartre pursued these philosophical lines against the myth of Positivism, which believed that reason and research alone will lead us into all truth. That is another example of a 'secular' myth.

 

Anyway, hope this helps.

 

Ummm... ?

 

BTW, I do not mean to suggest that 'debunking myth' as we know that is thinking like a five-year old. All I'm saying is that to remain there saying that's all there is to it; that's all there is to our myths, is being stuck arguing with a five-year old. When in reality the fact the argument is made at all shows a more advanced world view. Hope to make that clear here.

 

Perhaps you'd better outline the relationship between myth and meaning for me? Right now, if there's it seems to me that if there's no meaning and no point to anything, so why bother with mythology at all?

 

Really struggling to see why meaning is so important!

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.