CAESAR'S MESSIAH: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus - OFFICIAL VERSION

Started by Unbeliever, December 19, 2018, 08:17:51 PM

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Mike Cl

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 20, 2018, 01:27:57 PM
I used to listen on Sunday mornings to a program on KGO called God Talk, with Brent Walters:

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/KGO-GodTalk-earns-Brent-Walters-heretic-label-2325350.php

Every week he'd talk about early Christian history - but I've since forgotten most of it.
God Talk!  I'd forgotten that one.  I used to listen to that show quite a bit.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Minimalist

Some think it is 4th century.  No one knows.

Much as with the alleged Papias one does wonder why xtians, who were in total control of what they copied and preserved, considered these writings to be so insignificant that they let them rot away.
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.

-- H. L. Mencken

Baruch

Quote from: Minimalist on December 20, 2018, 05:11:25 PM
Some think it is 4th century.  No one knows.

Much as with the alleged Papias one does wonder why xtians, who were in total control of what they copied and preserved, considered these writings to be so insignificant that they let them rot away.

The church didn't care, until 1500 and the printing press, and colloquial translations.  It was all about bishop oligarchy.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Minimalist

That ignores the obvious fact that an awful lot of monks spent an awful lot of time copying these items of holy horseshit over and over and making a load of mistakes while doing so as Bart Ehrman has pointed out to the irritation of xhristards everywhere.

Agreed they were writing for themselves as literacy in the West declined precipitously among the other classes and the church inserted itself in political life by being the ones who could read and write messages.  Things were only slightly better in the East.

You do raise the interesting point of who were the intended recipients of all these letters and gospels and so forth.  Suppose "paul" did write a letter?  Who did he address it to?  Who could read it if it got there?  After all, xtians love to pretend that it was the lower classes who they recruited from.
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.

-- H. L. Mencken

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 19, 2018, 08:17:51 PM

This really makes sense to me, and I want to believe it, but of course, the things I want to believe are exactly those things I must be the most skeptical of.

Well, as much as I think there is no evidence of a historical Jesus (and certainly not a deity aspect of any sort), I also don't believe in conspiracy theories like that about the Romans.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Cavebear

Quote from: Minimalist on December 19, 2018, 10:40:15 PM
Atwill is a crack pot.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/4664

My thoughts about religions and deities are actually quite simple.  There are no deities and any belief structure requiring one is the product of people who can't stand reality.

We went from ignorant people who didn't know what the sun and moon were, to slightly less ignorant people who wondered about lightning and storms and tides, to somewhat observational people who examined things without background knowledge to people who have a way of examining observations without supernatural fears.  Well, "mostly"

Every step reduced our ignorance and superstition.  Let's keep going that way, OK? 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Cavebear

Quote from: Minimalist on December 21, 2018, 12:37:32 AM
That ignores the obvious fact that an awful lot of monks spent an awful lot of time copying these items of holy horseshit over and over and making a load of mistakes while doing so as Bart Ehrman has pointed out to the irritation of xhristards everywhere.

Agreed they were writing for themselves as literacy in the West declined precipitously among the other classes and the church inserted itself in political life by being the ones who could read and write messages.  Things were only slightly better in the East.

You do raise the interesting point of who were the intended recipients of all these letters and gospels and so forth.  Suppose "paul" did write a letter?  Who did he address it to?  Who could read it if it got there?  After all, xtians love to pretend that it was the lower classes who they recruited from.

Well, let's imagine that the monks did their work of copying religious texts for the direct purpose of promoting deeply-held and honest beliefs.  I used to trace Marvel superheroes and villains from comic books (not that I exactly believed they were real, but let's allow the analogy).

The difference is that I never thought the Fantastic Four or Galactus was real.  The religious types, dreaming of a perfect being, did.  If I met a "perfect being" I would probably try to kill it (a la Star Trek Meets God I forget the episode number).  A deity would be the end of us. 

Fortunately, there isn't one.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Minimalist on December 21, 2018, 12:37:32 AM
That ignores the obvious fact that an awful lot of monks spent an awful lot of time copying these items of holy horseshit over and over and making a load of mistakes while doing so as Bart Ehrman has pointed out to the irritation of xhristards everywhere.

Agreed they were writing for themselves as literacy in the West declined precipitously among the other classes and the church inserted itself in political life by being the ones who could read and write messages.  Things were only slightly better in the East.

You do raise the interesting point of who were the intended recipients of all these letters and gospels and so forth.  Suppose "paul" did write a letter?  Who did he address it to?  Who could read it if it got there?  After all, xtians love to pretend that it was the lower classes who they recruited from.

In Search of Paul: How Jesus' Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom ... by John Dominic Crossan

Paul was recruiting from the god-fearers who were attached to the synagogues.  Often these were manumitted gentile slaves, who had been owned by Jewish masters.  When you are manumitted, your pater familias leash is handed to a different master.  In Rome, a slave became a dependent of a patron, usually his former master.  Everyone had to have a patron.  The whole society was based on a client/patron network.

You went from slave to employee and lackey (visit the boss/mafiosi every morning, to see if he needed his dick polished).  There were reasons why gentiles didn't make full conversion to Judaism (circumcision).  Gentiles (outside of the Middle East) viscerally opposed circumcision.  Also there is the meat issue (that hamburger was dedicated to Zeus, so how can you, as a Jew, eat it?).  Manumitted Jewish slaves of course, didn't have to convert, were already circumcised, and were plugged into the kosher meat market.

Paul's efforts were very disruptive of the synagogue.  Paul wanted to do this, because his apocalyptic utopia was multi-ethnic.  Most Messianic pretenders weren't like that, they were strictly ethnic.  And by disrupting the synagogue, this potentially drew the attention of the Roman authorities.  The build up of gentiles boycotting the gentile meat market (aka animal sacrifice at temples) also drew the attention of the Roman authorities.  In the days of early police work, investigation was primarily done by torture.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 21, 2018, 07:02:01 AM
In Search of Paul: How Jesus' Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom ... by John Dominic Crossan

Paul was recruiting from the god-fearers who were attached to the synagogues.  Often these were manumitted gentile slaves, who had been owned by Jewish masters.  When you are manumitted, your pater familias leash is handed to a different master.  In Rome, a slave became a dependent of a patron, usually his former master.  Everyone had to have a patron.  The whole society was based on a client/patron network.

You went from slave to employee and lackey (visit the boss/mafiosi every morning, to see if he needed his dick polished).  There were reasons why gentiles didn't make full conversion to Judaism (circumcision).  Gentiles (outside of the Middle East) viscerally opposed circumcision.  Also there is the meat issue (that hamburger was dedicated to Zeus, so how can you, as a Jew, eat it?).  Manumitted Jewish slaves of course, didn't have to convert, were already circumcised, and were plugged into the kosher meat market.

Paul's efforts were very disruptive of the synagogue.  Paul wanted to do this, because his apocalyptic utopia was multi-ethnic.  Most Messianic pretenders weren't like that, they were strictly ethnic.  And by disrupting the synagogue, this potentially drew the attention of the Roman authorities.  The build up of gentiles boycotting the gentile meat market (aka animal sacrifice at temples) also drew the attention of the Roman authorities.  In the days of early police work, investigation was primarily done by torture.

Now THERE is a good post Burach!  Do that more.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 21, 2018, 07:05:48 AM
Now THERE is a good post Burach!  Do that more.

Death to religion!
Double death to Christianity!
Triple Death to Republicans!

like that?

I have long scholarship in early Christianity/Judaism.  And a lot of Comparative Religion study (mostly Buddhism).  But those aren't the majority interest here.  Here people like Giant Robot Movies, gay times, political dysfunction.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 21, 2018, 07:10:31 AM
Death to religion!
Double death to Christianity!
Triple Death to Republicans!

like that?

I have long scholarship in early Christianity/Judaism.  And a lot of Comparative Religion study (mostly Buddhism).  But those aren't the majority interest here.  Here people like Giant Robot Movies, gay times, political dysfunction.

Nah, not the same.  And I don't see much about Giant Robot Movies.  I will grant Munch his "gay times".  And political dysfunction is about the same as religious dysfunction.

And you don't have to spout religious intolerance.  A calm cool refutation of all superstitions will do just fine. 

Cavey
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Mike Cl

Quote from: Cavebear on December 21, 2018, 07:17:08 AM

And you don't have to spout religious intolerance.  A calm cool refutation of all superstitions will do just fine. 

Cavey
Yeah, but the religious will tell you that that is the same as intolerance.  They have to have all of their superstitions in tact or they will want to kill you--in the name of god.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Cavebear

Quote from: Mike Cl on December 21, 2018, 10:11:51 AM
Yeah, but the religious will tell you that that is the same as intolerance.  They have to have all of their superstitions in tact or they will want to kill you--in the name of god.

If a new religious world arrives, I'm dead.  I couldn't fake it for a day.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Minimalist

But what is the actual "evidence" that Crossan uses?  From a review I read its the same old epistles, Book of Acts, church tradition horseshit with a new spin. 

I suggest Richard Carrier's "On The Historicity of Jesus" as a less reverential discussion of this stuff.  The evidence for any single person named "paul" is as weak as that for any earthly "jesus."  I find this fact compelling even if jesus freaks run screaming from the room.
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.

-- H. L. Mencken

Cavebear

Quote from: Minimalist on December 21, 2018, 11:15:41 AM
But what is the actual "evidence" that Crossan uses?  From a review I read its the same old epistles, Book of Acts, church tradition horseshit with a new spin. 

I suggest Richard Carrier's "On The Historicity of Jesus" as a less reverential discussion of this stuff.  The evidence for any single person named "paul" is as weak as that for any earthly "jesus."  I find this fact compelling even if jesus freaks run screaming from the room.

Well, none of the biblical books were written "at the time" of course.  So they are all fake.  They are just what some religious fanatics THOUGHT the people they imagined as apostles would say.  And, none of that stuff would be real at any time. 

I always expect that anything claimed as a miracle is false simply because is offends the laws of physics or some other currently-understood facts.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!