Touché.
Nonsense will always find a way over proof!
What do athiests make of Jesus, incidentally?
I doubt there's consensus, but I've read a number of people suggest that he did exist, was a reformist jewish religious figure and was later misrepresented by people who'd never even met him (like St Paul and the gospel writers).Originally Posted by pineapple stu
You can't spell failure without FAI
He existed alright. Probably a very intelligent man who's legacy was like a game of Chinese whispres. The gospels weren't written till 60-100 years after he died so i think its just a case of it being blown out of proportion.
Also important to remember that nowhere is it written that Jesus called himself the Son of God.....he called himself the Son of Man. Others gave him thta title.He probably thought 'Hey i can work with this' and off he went
There most likely was a person who went by the name of Jesus who claimed to be the son of God. But just like the school ground games of Chinese Whispers the stories about him grew arms and legs.
If you want to find out about just how quickly religion can spread and develop read the story of John Frum. I believe something similar caused the phenomenon of Christianity.
For years and years creationists claimed that God put man on the earth but then when evolution came along they changed to say God put the first bacteria on earth and allowed it to develop into humans. Seems like he is one lazy God or else that bacteria arrived by chance and one day we will know how that chance occured.
I think it most likely he existed but that the evolved story of his background is well wide of the mark. I also think it's at least a decent possibility that he survived cruxifiction (-wasn't at all uncommon) and that this gave rise to the "well he rose from the dead therefore he MUST be the messiah" story. Wouldn't be the last time those of a religious bent tried to tack unfolding events onto scripture.
If I could go back in time and speak with him I think I would break some unleavened bread, make sure both our cups runneth over (ah ...Galilean reserve ...9BC ...not too shabby) and verily I would say unto him "Jez mate -next time a Roman governer asks you a straight question -you give him a straight fcukin answer -cappish?"
They didn't get to rule half the known world by being magnanimous with the local Love-your-brother-hippy-weirdo-freaks.
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
I fail to see how you could survive crucifixion, to be honest. For a start, you're not going anywhere, so if all comes to all, you die of starvation/thirst or of infection from the nails in your skin. Wikipedia notes only one instance of survival, and even that was someone who was taken down from the cross (two other people died of their injuries even after being taken down - also noted on forteamtimes.com). Josephus is an ancient historian who is considered fairly reliable in his reporting.
My understanding also is that if you weren't dead by sunset, they'd break your legs or something similar, causing extra injuries to kill you. In Jesus' case, he is reported to have had a spear thrust into his side (causing the hole which he later, on resurrection, asked Doubting Thomas to insert his hand into to believe that he was the risen Christ).
Given that it was used as a way of killing large numbers of people and setting an example as to who was boss (the Spartacus slave rebellion being a good example), I find it unlikely that it wouldn't have been "at all uncommon" to survive it.
In addition, I think a lot is being made of the fact that the Gospels were written 60-100 years after his death. Back then, with no telly, internet, radio, print, etc., oral histories were the only ones possible to keep, and learning by rote was a very common part of education, with emphasis being on complete accuracy (think Muslims learning the Qoran now, or Jews studying for their Bar Mitzvah). So it would be absolutely possible for his stories to come down 60 years - a mere two generations - without significant alteration.
I'm not arguing the case either way here - just exploring some of the points. My own view is summed up by a post by Student Mullet earlier, which is that even if you acknowledge that we evolved (as it seems rather likely we did) from the primordial soup, that still doesn't answer the question of what the primordial soup was doing in the first place. I think it's also important to distinguish between the question of God's existence and religion, as the latter has quite clearly been abused throughout history for personal financial gain at the expense of the simple individual, whereas the former is a simple question of faith. So you can be critical of organised religion while still maintaining a belief in God.
Owns the land but who built the schools and who pays your salary? I doubt the Church, locally or nationally contributes anything to salaries. And any other contributions, apart from moral judgements, is fundraising rather than out of the billions stashed. Lest we forget, most of the land was actually donated for schools by lay people.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
I'm confused by the point you're trying to make with your rooster hypothesis.
We've been to space and looked back at the earth from afar (from the moon, for example), and can see that there's no rooster. We've also flown satellites around the earth for the past 60 years or so which orbit very regularly. If the rooster existed and were invisible, chances are one of the satellites would have hit him, which we would have seen. If he's big enough to hold up the earth, his gravity would also cause calculation problems as we know (from scientific fact) that gravitational can be calculated anywhere in the universe, which doesn't allow for the possibility of an earth-sized rooster sitting under our planet.
So it can't be seen, can't be felt and can't be detected using scientifically proven mathematical formulae. Sounds like he doesn't exist.
Can I PM you my bank details or would you rather send a cheque?
That still doesn't prove he's not there. For one I didn't say what size he is - he's normal Rooster sized, and you can't see him, for as I said, he's invisible. He's extremely nimble, able to dodge sattelites and the like. He is quite strong but as it turns out the earth is not as heavy as we previously thought. It was just made to seem heavy to test our faith in the rooster, the mother chicken and the egg.
We were having a conversation at break the other day. There was a good few of us and I was telling a story about something I overheard. A person who was on the far side of the table completely misheard me and went off and told a similar but crucially different story to someone else. See what I'm getting at? If that happened in the space of 5 minutes, imagine how much a story can change over 100 years. Biblical stories have the same validity of say, The Ulster Cycle or the Fenian Cycle. The stories were probably based on some real life events but were embelleshed as they were passed down through the generations. Not only that but there are significant differences between the four gospels that are in the new testament. Add to this all the other gospels that didn't make the final cut (Judas, Thomas, Mary Magdelene etc.) and you have a very confusing mish mash of different stories supposedly about the same person.
Last edited by dahamsta; 27/02/2007 at 8:09 AM.
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
The ONLY foot.ie user with a type of logic named after them!
All of this has happened before. All of it will happen again.
and can see that there's no rooster: he is invisibleI'm confused by the point you're trying to make with your rooster hypothesis.
We've been to space and looked back at the earth from afar (from the moon, for example), and can see that there's no rooster. We've also flown satellites around the earth for the past 60 years or so which orbit very regularly. If the rooster existed and were invisible, chances are one of the satellites would have hit him, which we would have seen. If he's big enough to hold up the earth, his gravity would also cause calculation problems as we know (from scientific fact) that gravitational can be calculated anywhere in the universe, which doesn't allow for the possibility of an earth-sized rooster sitting under our planet.
Satellites go off course and get damaged in space all the time , he might be very small just very strong
Actually, he's not that reliable, especially his more personal anecdotes. That piece could be total b.s. and he could simply have been trying to get across how he was in great favour with the future emperor Titus.
He's fairly reliable, I said, which allows for some personal histories. Also, it was inherent in the qualification that it was fairly reliable for a historian, a lot of whom (even now) have their own agendas. Certainly, a scholarly enough book I read recently on Palestine at that time quoted extensively from Josephus, and seemed quite happy to do so once some foibles (such as you mentioned) were pointed out. That's usually the way with ancient history. Once you read between the lines, histories become a lot more reliable.
In any case, the story quoted wasn't written by Josephus to show how people survive a crucifixion; it was possibly written to relate a story, or show how nice a guy he was or some such. The incidental facts - i.e. that this is a very rare case of someone surviving crucifixion, and even then he was taken down from the cross, and even then two others still died - are still valid in showing that it wasn't common at all to survive crucifixion.
In other words, he's about as reliable as you can hope for.
You missed my point though. Jesus' work wouldn't have just been another pub story - people would have seen it and been influenced by it. So first off, the stories wouldn't have been heard off the bat and subsequently made up, and secondly, I pointed out that in a society which relies on oral communications almost exclusively, and in which great stock is placed in the learning by rote of stories, you can't compare purple-monkey-dishwasher stories of today to what would have happened back then.
(Which isn't to say it didn't happen; just that you can't deduce what would have happened by comparing it to modern behaviour)
Last edited by pineapple stu; 27/02/2007 at 12:33 PM.
And therefore been more likely to exaggerate and embellish it.
We're not arrogant, we're just better.
Again though, you're ignoring the stock in oral word, learning by rote, etc, etc.
I wasn't disputing your general point, just your claim that he's a fairly reliable historian. He happens to be the only major Jewish historian at the time. He wrote multiple works which contradict each other and the rare time there is opportunity to compare his work with something else, there are also discrepancies. It's debateable whether he's even fairly reliable. He's usually quoted at length when discussing 1st century AD Palestine as there's no other options. Actual scholarly books are very sceptical about his reliability. However, I can't access the rest of that article or even the page you linked anymore, but if one possible anecdote of Josephus (which may well be entirely fictional) sees only two out of three people survive a crucifixion then that's hardly entirely indicative of the general survival rate of crucifixions.
It sees one person survive a crucifixion, out of three who had all been taken off the cross. That's the only indicence I can find on (an admittedly quick search of) the entire internet. The one case reported by Josephus is repeatedly mentioned as about the only recorded instance of it. That's more my point. It appears that if you leave someone up there, they die. No two ways about it. Especially if a spear is subsequently stuck into your side.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 27/02/2007 at 12:57 PM.
That Purple Monkey Dishwasher is a false idol I tell you. Praise be the rooster!
So how do you explain a few hundred different versions of the same story? Even the official gospels can't agree on certain key episodes.
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
The ONLY foot.ie user with a type of logic named after them!
All of this has happened before. All of it will happen again.
I don't think there are a few hundred versions of the story.
On a related topic, I see James Cameron is now claiming he's found Jesus' tomb. It was on the front page of the Examiner today. No idea how he's worked that out, but there you go.
Well that's not really good enough. We don't actually know what Lionel was saying, whether he meant people being rescued or what. Perhaps his claim has no backing, I'd wait and see how he claims this before trying to refute it.
His claim appeared clear enough. He said it "wasn't at all uncommon" to survive crucifixion, and used this as the basis for a theory on the resurrection (i.e. that he was around for 40 days afterwards because he never died on the cross in the first place). This appears to be groundless in the absence of any more evidence of people not dying on the cross.
However, I agree we should wait for his answer. That's my context anyway.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/6397373.stm
James cameron has found jesus must be true
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