The Most Dangerous Myth In The World

[angellous_evangellous]

It is an extension of the OP. If he was not a real person, he therefore could not be a "divine" person IF there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth.... was he divine? Was he a myth? Was his divinity a myth? It all goes together, although I understand the difference you are pointing out. :162:

You do realize that the divinity of Christ can be used as a dangerous myth regardless of the existence of any historical figure?

BTW, any talk of "divinity" is approached as myth from an historically critical perspective. Myth is our vehicle for talk of the divine.

The thread that I directed us to has 15 pages and 149 posts concerning the historicity of Jesus.

 

[bunny1ohio]

You do realize that the divinity of Christ can be used as a dangerous myth regardless of the existence of any historical figure?

BTW, any talk of "divinity" is approached as myth from an historically critical perspective. Myth is our vehicle for talk of the divine.

The thread that I directed us to has 15 pages and 149 posts concerning the historicity of Jesus.

Understood... but such is the threat from any myth. The reality of the person in question would make such a myth "truly dangerous" to belief systems worldwide. If we could show he was a real person, not something invented, then it would make it much easier for people to believe the myth of divinity. If it was proven that he never existed... much of that danger would be averted because there would be no "man" to base the myth of divinity on.

True... any talk of divinity is regarded in the realm of mythology.... but myth can relate to countless numbers of things other than the divine... including the reality of physical being... hence Zeus was a myth... not because he was "divine" but because he was made up.... he was an invention of the human mind to explain something unexplainable.... therefore he was a myth... or... not "real"

I will definately go and check out that thread you referenced.... it sounds fascinating

 

[BFD_Zayl]

How about the Other ancient gods that are assumed today to be mythology that were thought to be real living breathing entities in the days they were worshipped? All of them today are said not to have ever truly existed... why is Christ any exception other than things written down about him? What about Thor? Or Zeus? There was much more written about those fellas than about Christ.... but we say t hey were never real and he was? :bonk:

THANK YOU!!! its about time someone came out and said it.

 

[Glaswegian]

You're saying Sojourner and other liberal christians aren't really liberals because they don't meet your definition of what a liberal is?

If you bothered to read what I write more carefully then you wouldn't keep getting things so muddled in your head.

Here is what I wrote in my reply to sojourner:

'The divinity of Jesus has been standard Christian dogma since the time of the early Church Fathers. Because you believe this dogma to be true your position towards it is wholly orthodox, which is to say, conservative. It is as conservative as the Pope's position towards it is, and every Pope before him. Therefore, when you describe yourself as a 'liberal Christian' you must be judging yourself liberal on the basis of criteria other than belief in Jesus's divinity. But regarding the belief itself your position is conservative through and through, as is that of the 'many, many other liberal Christians' who you say share this belief.'

Clearly, what I said in the above piece is that sojourner is conservative about one thing and one thing only: namely, his position with regard to Jesus's divinity. What is sojourner's position on this matter? sojourner's position is this - he believes that Jesus's divinity is literally true. Since this position is completely in accord with standard Christian dogma for the last two thousand years then it can rightly be described as a conservative position. Now, for all I know sojourner might be the most liberal Christian in the world with regard to all other aspects of his faith. Why shouldn't he be? This is why I wrote in my reply to him: 'Therefore, when you [sojourner] describe yourself as a 'liberal Christian' you must be judging yourself liberal on the basis of criteria other than belief in Jesus's divinity.' For anyone who reads my reply to sojourner (carefully) all of this should be as clear as an azure sky. Now, if you can show me anything in the above piece where I say that sojourner is conservative about anything other than his belief in Jesus's divinity then please do.

There are certain pieces of text in my reply to sojourner which have been emphasised in bold font. Do you see them above? This has been done in order to help you to recognise where you slipped up in your analysis of what I wrote.

Did you bother to read the overview of liberal christianity posted on this website?

Maize quoted the following from wikipedia - 'Liberal Christianity, Progressive Christianity or Liberalism is a movement within Christianity that is characterised by [inter alia]...an embracing of higher criticism of the Bible, and a corresponding rejection of biblical literalism.'

How can sojourner's position on Jesus's divinity - and your position too because you believe in Jesus's divinity as well - be construed as liberal by any stretch of the imagination? Both of you believe that Jesus's divinity is not a myth, or a metaphor, or a symbol, or the like but that it is literally true! That is not a rejection of biblical literalism. In the eyes of the world, that is embracing biblical literalism. Therefore, with regard to Jesus's divinity - and with regard to that matter alone - sojourner's position and yours is a conservative one. It is conservative because it is no different from standard Christian dogma about Jesus's divinity for the last two thousand years. Now, for all I know you too may be the most liberal Christian in the world with regard to all other aspects of your faith. Why shouldn't you be? But with regard to your belief in Jesus's divinity you are most certainly conservative through and through.

 

[gnostic]

Tacticus
Josephus

Neither of these historians were contemporaries of Jesus.

And Tacitcus only wrote of Christians being follower of Christ, but he knew of nothing about Jesus' life or teaching. So Tacitcus' writing is not really a source about Jesus, but to the Christians in his time.

As to Josephus, I think you are giving too much credit for only a couple of passing references to Jesus. And in one reference, scholars today now suspected that one copyist, possibly Christian, had inserted into passage (Book 17 or 18, I think) in regarding to the divinity of Christ. The original Aramaic writing is lost, and only a Greek version has survived at a later date, so I wouldn't be too excited as using Josephus as the source on Jesus.

I doubt very much that Josephus knew any more about Jesus than Tacitcus. And anybody can talk about Christians, without knowing about Jesus represented, and it was clear they knew nothing about him.

 

[Jeremiah61]

Lord, have mercy...

 

[bunny1ohio]

Alrighty... well I went ahead and read through the entire thread about Jesus's historical evidence recommended by angellous... and found NOTHING that shows me he was a real man. There is nothing contemporary about him... and angellous uses the argument of silence being compelling because of persecution of Jewish community etc at the time and that Christ would have been beneath the notice of such high ranking officials as Pontius Pilate and therefore would not have been mentioned.

One flaw with that theory.... Pontius Pilate kept accurate records of his executions... and nothing is mentioned of the execution of a man named Jesus. So the silence to me only proves my original thought on the issue... that he was never in fact a real person and to assign divinity to a non-entity enters him right up into the halls of myth with Zeus and Anubis and Thor... all mythical figures... although they all taught things to the people who believed they w ere real through their "words"

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Maize quoted the following from wikipedia - 'Liberal Christianity, Progressive Christianity or Liberalism is a movement within Christianity that is characterised by [inter alia]...an embracing of higher criticism of the Bible, and a corresponding rejection of biblical literalism.'

How can sojourner's position on Jesus's divinity - and your position too because you believe in Jesus's divinity as well - be construed as liberal by any stretch of the imagination? Both of you believe that Jesus's divinity is not a myth, or a metaphor, or a symbol, or the like but that it is literally true! That is not a rejection of biblical literalism. In the eyes of the world, that is embracing biblical literalism. Therefore, with regard to Jesus's divinity - and with regard to that matter alone - sojourner's position and yours is a conservative one. It is conservative because it is no different from standard Christian dogma about Jesus's divinity for the last two thousand years. Now, for all I know you too may be the most liberal Christian in the world with regard to all other aspects of your faith. Why shouldn't you be? But with regard to your belief in Jesus's divinity you are most certainly conservative through and through.

Liberal Christians will seem selective in their literal reading of Scripture, but according to some rationale. They will usually reject a literal interpretation of Scripture where the interpretation contradicts science. In the course of the past three hundred years, conservative Christians followed the teachings of the church while liberal Christians adapted their biblical interpretation to allow for things like Galelio, Darwin, and later Einstien. Liberal Christians in Germany especially were influenced by existential philosophy and adapted their interpretation to allow for it.

The "Christ of faith" became more important as critical German theologians approached the Bible as a collection of myths.

Some radically liberal Christians like Altizer in the 1960s claimed that God is dead, pouring out all of his divinity to become Christ, doing the ultimate deconstruction of the Christian faith to adapt biblical interpetation to Neitzsche's atheism.

You're using the term "liberal" Christian and applying it in a way that I have never heard before. The term is quite slippery, but defining liberal as that which differs completely from traditional is quite radical.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Alrighty... well I went ahead and read through the entire thread about Jesus's historical evidence recommended by angellous... and found NOTHING that shows me he was a real man. There is nothing contemporary about him... and angellous uses the argument of silence being compelling because of persecution of Jewish community etc at the time and that Christ would have been beneath the notice of such high ranking officials as Pontius Pilate and therefore would not have been mentioned.

One flaw with that theory.... Pontius Pilate kept accurate records of his executions... and nothing is mentioned of the execution of a man named Jesus. So the silence to me only proves my original thought on the issue... that he was never in fact a real person and to assign divinity to a non-entity enters him right up into the halls of myth with Zeus and Anubis and Thor... all mythical figures... although they all taught things to the people who believed they w ere real through their "words"

I'm not going to try to convince you that Jesus existed, but you have obviously misread my posts.

I argued that the argument from silence that Jay tried to posit is not convincing evidence that Jesus did not exist. Jay argued that silence from various historians is evidence against Jesus' existence. My counter is that we should expect silence from the sources that he quotes because most of them were Roman sources who did not care about Jews or Jesus, and the Jesus of myth or of history would not be noticable to them.

Because Jesus was not noticable to the Roman historians is not evidence that he did not exist. My argument explains the silence rather than using it as evidence like Jay attempts to do.

So the silence proves nothing for you. You must have evidence to make your conclusion that Jesus never existed.

 

[gnostic]

Lord, have mercy...

I hope that was nothing that I wrote, is it?

 

[bunny1ohio]

So the silence proves nothing for you. You must have evidence to make your conclusion that Jesus never existed.

Actually it shows that there is no mention contemporary to Christ's life anywhere to prove he did exist. Lack of evidence is not evidence. All it shows is that there is no evidence at all and therefore back to my original sentiment... "produce the body". I'm sure you read the other posts I put up here angellous, you seem to be good about trying to catch them all... where I said

If we could show he was a real person, not something invented, then it would make it much easier for people to believe the myth of divinity. If it was proven that he never existed... much of that danger would be averted because there would be no "man" to base the myth of divinity on.

Hence I'm arguing the fact that Christ's divinity without any evidence that he existed is not a threat, let alone the "most dangerous myth in the world" although any myth can become dangerous depending on how many people believe it and what evidence they have to base it on... the more hard evidence... the more dangerous the myth.... etc.

It is what people have done "in his name" that makes the myth dangerous. Knockout

 

[gnostic]

But Flavius Josephus is not exactly Roman.

As I wrote in another topic, in regarding to Herod the Great, why did Josephus recorded many atrocities that Herod committed, which included the murder of his wife and two sons, but not reported the massarce of the infants, according to Matthew's gospel. Maybe Matthew had confused this massacre with that of another massacre committed by another Herod - Herod Archelaus.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

But Flavius Josephus is not exactly Roman.

As I wrote in another topic, in regarding to Herod the Great, why did Josephus recorded many atrocities that Herod committed, which included the murder of his wife and two sons, but not reported the massarce of the infants, according to Matthew's gospel. Maybe Matthew had confused this massacre with that of another massacre committed by another Herod - Herod Archelaus.

The best explanation to my mind at this point is that most of the miracle stories (especially the feeding of the 5,000) are myth. The Jesus movement was slowly spreading around the known world, and Josephus did not recognize the historical significance of Jesus. It's perfectly plausible.

The four Gospels, the writings of Paul, and the Jesus sayings in the Gospel of Thomas and Acts of Peter are convincing enough evidence that a historical Jesus actually lived and that he was a religious teacher. What exactly he did and who he was (eg, the Son of God) is a matter of faith.

It's simply nonsensical to toss out our only evidence simply because there is some myth and embellishment surrounding a kernal of critically acceptable historical data. We can simply remove the mythological elements using critical methods and locate a trace of the historical Jesus.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Actually it shows that there is no mention contemporary to Christ's life anywhere to prove he did exist. Lack of evidence is not evidence. All it shows is that there is no evidence at all and therefore back to my original sentiment... "produce the body". I'm sure you read the other posts I put up here angellous, you seem to be good about trying to catch them all... where I said

That Christ is not mentioned outside of religious literature is inconclusive and cannot be used as evidence.

We have to explain how three documents (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) share a hypothetical sayings source Q with some sayings in the Gospel of Thomas and parallel witnesses in the Acts of Peter. There is a common source to these documents, which points to a singular witness or group of witnesses... It just doesn't seem plausible to me that all of these writers sat around a campfire and made up sayings of someone that they made up. Curious that the sayings are dereft of myth.

Hence I'm arguing the fact that Christ's divinity without any evidence that he existed is not a threat, let alone the "most dangerous myth in the world" although any myth can become dangerous depending on how many people believe it and what evidence they have to base it on... the more hard evidence... the more dangerous the myth.... etc.

It is what people have done "in his name" that makes the myth dangerous. Knockout

Since when does a myth need contact with history?

 

[Anastasios]

Well, it is quite clear that a myth was created within the first three centuries after crucifixion. It is really a "myth" which was a part and need for those who lived in that epoch. The people were living with Greek and Roman myths and they loved them. Besides, deificiation of a man was not something new to the people of epoch. For example, all the Roman emperors were already considered as "divus" and after they died they continued considering them "divus (god)". In Egypt Pharaohs were also god. Gods could have intercourse with human!!! People were living with these myths. There are many samples i can give actually but i don't want to make this list long. Church had to give what people can accept, and it created a mixtured faith, it served to pagan converts (or for the conversion of pagans) with the idea of trinity and and it served monotheists by saying that those three are actually parts of one. It was a very clever way gaining the power.
In order to understand what exactly happened in fourth century, we should really scrutinize the political, religious ans social situation of third and fourth centuries, and also Constantine's personality and military aims. In the council of Nicea (325 AD), which was directed by Constantine, the main matter was the divinity of Jesus. This problem never ended, intersetingly it was always a controversy. In this council unfortunately, Arians, who were claiming that Jesus was not divine, were forced to give up their ideas on divinity of Christ. A great majority of the empire had already accepted that Jesus was divine, because this idea make the things easier for them to accept since it was adapted and likened to their old way of believing, then later Arians were finally persecuted without remorse. And later another problem appeared relating to how they should understand the term or existence of "holy spirit", while debating what exactly it is, church finally decided to make the "Holy Spirit" a part of Godhead in Athanasian Creed in 380.
Please be careful, it was as late as 380 AD when trinity and other God features were canonized.
It was almost unavoidable for church to move out of this circle. and Constantine was not a christian and when he decide to be christian on death bed, he was baptized by an Arian. He was a very passionate and aspiring man for power, he needed to find a way of collecting men for his army, and he was successful in gathering a great army against his rivals.
So they both created this myth which survived until these days, as being exactly contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

regards.

 

[Glaswegian]

There is much more proof that he [Jesus] was not a real man than there is that he was. I don't see why this freaks out so many people, except that many would lose faith completely if it were ever proven that he was a fraud.

Yes. If Jesus was nothing more than a man then this means, of course, that he was no Saviour. And therefore no personal salvation through Jesus is available to the Christian. This is why it is unbearable for many Christians even to entertain the possibility that Jesus's divinity is a myth. The Christian who has believed in this myth for years - for a whole lifetime in countless cases - has invested so much of himself in it, so much mental and emotional energy in the form of sentiments, feelings, wishes, hopes, dreams, yearnings, longings, etc. that he is under enormous psychological pressure from within to keep believing it. Can you imagine a Christian who has given so much of his being over to this myth having to admit that this was done in vain, that the sacrifice that he has made of himself to it was for absolutely nothing, and that he was a complete fool for believing in it for a single moment? Such an admission would be wholly intolerable to him. Therefore, he is compelled to keep believing in the myth. Yes, better for him to keep doing that than to suffer the pain and personal humiliation that would result from recognising Jesus's divinity for what it is - viz. a myth manufactured centuries ago by the Church and certain Jews with a political agenda.

But there is a further reason why the Christian is driven to believe in the myth of Jesus's divinity. Christians provide this myth with monstrous new life from one generation to the next because it is rooted in something appalling which lies at the core of their being. And the appalling thing which lies there is this - A big thumb-sucking infant who is terrified of existence and death, and who will cling desperately to anything for succour, no matter how absurd and risible that thing may be. Yes, even something as absurd and risible as the myth of Jesus's divinity.

I don't know about you but sometimes when my eyes meet the eyes of an animal, say a dog, I find myself lowering mine in shame. Do you know why? Because within the unfathomable depths of the creature's gaze there is something accusatory, something which seems to say: 'How ridiculous you humans are! How utterly preposterous you appear to us animals! Why do you require all those religious illusions in order to live? What nonsense! Why can't you be like us? Why are you unable just to live!

Is it any wonder then that the animals find us humans endlessly amusing? Is it any wonder that some of them are laughing their heads off at us? And you thought they were just shrieking and yelping. No. Listen more deeply to them...

 

[angellous_evangellous]

a myth manufactured centuries ago by the Church and certain Jews with a political agenda.

I cannot begin to imagine how you can defend this statement.

What political goals can drive a person to deify a crucified criminal?

 

[Glaswegian]

What political goals can drive a person to deify a crucified criminal?

Do you actually believe that the disciples saw Jesus as a 'crucified criminal'? Do you actually believe that Mary Magdalene saw Jesus as a 'crucified criminal'? Do you actually believe that all the people who Jesus allegedly healed saw him as a 'crucified criminal'? Of course not! It was the Romans who saw Jesus as a crucified criminal. Please try to keep up!

 

[Karl R]

Can you imagine a Christian who has given so much of his being over to this myth having to admit that this was done in vain, that the sacrifice that he has made of himself to it was for absolutely nothing,

As I've pointed out to you before, my religious beliefs have made me into a better person. I'm less ego-centric. I treat people better. I'm more charitable.

That alone makes my choices worthwhile. Even if my beliefs are ridiculous, the end product was worth every sacrifice.

it is rooted in something appalling which lies at the core of their being. And the appalling thing which lies there is this: - A big thumb-sucking infant who is terrified of existence and death, and who will cling desperately to anything for succour, no matter how absurd and risible that thing may be.

What's terrifying about the atheistic view on death? You die and go to sleep forever. That sounds relaxing. I worked a 12 hour day yesterday, I started out this morning with a dentist appointment, I work a twelve hour day today, I have a dental procedure tomorrow morning....

A nap sounds real appealing right now. A long nap sounds even better.

I don't know about you but sometimes when my eyes meet the eyes of an animal, say a dog, I find myself lowering mine in shame. Do you know why? Because within the unfathomable depths of the creature's gaze there is something accusatory, something which seems to say: 'How ridiculous you humans are! How utterly preposterous you appear to us animals! Why do you require all those religious illusions in order to live? What nonsense! Why can't you be like us? Why are you unable just to live!

You feel the need to justify your beliefs to an animal that eats its own poop? :biglaugh:


Instead of inventing wild myths about what theists think, feel and believe, why don't you try listening to us?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Instead of inventing wild myths about what theists think, feel and believe, why don't you try listening to us?

Very well said. Here's frubals on your head.