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Catholic Church "Miracles"

Started by Paolo, December 07, 2020, 12:58:43 PM

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Mike Cl

Quote from: Paolo on February 11, 2021, 12:02:26 PM
Personally, I'm fine with the Tacitus reference. Hence, I'm not a Mythicist. If you guys think that makes me a "Christian", that's your problem, not mine. Many atheists share my position.

However, I must ask. Mike, are you a Mythicist?
Basically, I think Jesus is a fiction.  There is simply NO evidence that shows he was a real person.  I think the church leaders created Jesus from the dying/hero gods of that region.  The church leaders turned out to be quite the skilled propaganda users and added/changed/created whatever traits they wanted Jesus to have.  And then they destroyed any evidence or writings that they did not use or want to keep.  Does that make me a mythicist?  Sure I can live with that label.

I'm fine with what Tacitus wrote.  But I don't think anything that he did write points to a 'real' Jesus.  Why do you think it does?

And I don't think you are a christian, but you use many christian stances without seemly questioning their sources or reasoning.
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?

Hijiri Byakuren

There's more evidence of Muhammad's existence than Jesus'. Allahu ackbar.
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel

Mike Cl

Quote from: Hijiri Byakuren on February 11, 2021, 02:20:26 PM
There's more evidence of Muhammad's existence than Jesus'. Allahu ackbar.
And there's just as much evidence that Paul Bunyan was as real as Jesus.
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?

Cassia

#258
Quote from: Mike Cl on February 11, 2021, 04:05:30 PM
And there's just as much evidence that Paul Bunyan was as real as Jesus.

I do think there is a small chance that there was a guy or two that could have been the origins of the oral traditions that eventually became Jesus. It's really not that important. The key here is that there are many 'other' gospels besides Mark, Mathew, Luke and John that got thrown out by christians themselves as fiction. We weren't supposed to find those gnostic books. So OK, we know they were inventing stories as a general practice. But the real kicker is that Mark, Mathew, and Luke were all about Jesus's warnings to repent and prepare for the kingdom of heaven. A giant 'reset' was coming any day and Jesus was just the messenger, a human son of god. Well it didn't happen.

Then the story changes in the newest gospel, the gospel of John. Jesus starts professing his own Divinity. Whoa !!! "I and the Father are one.”. This is new and incredibly suspect. It changes the whole narrative (because the prophesy has failed) and now Jesus becomes the church. You are not gonna hear this truthful analysis in bible study or theology class, LOL.

Mike Cl

Okay, I will grant (grudgingly so) there is a .00000000001 % chance that Jesus was an actual man. 

Consider this--the church without a real man to account for, can make as many changes to his teachings as they wish and they would not have to worry about people who actually heard him what he said.  Creating the Jesus you want was a boon for the early church.
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?

Paolo

Quote from: Mike Cl on February 11, 2021, 12:22:27 PM
Basically, I think Jesus is a fiction.  There is simply NO evidence that shows he was a real person.  I think the church leaders created Jesus from the dying/hero gods of that region.  The church leaders turned out to be quite the skilled propaganda users and added/changed/created whatever traits they wanted Jesus to have.  And then they destroyed any evidence or writings that they did not use or want to keep.  Does that make me a mythicist?  Sure I can live with that label.

I'm fine with what Tacitus wrote.  But I don't think anything that he did write points to a 'real' Jesus.  Why do you think it does?

And I don't think you are a christian, but you use many christian stances without seemly questioning their sources or reasoning.

I should have said Josephus, not Tacitus. Although I think Tacitus is sort of okay too.

The scholarly consensus -- i. e., not the two extremes of the positions, think that the Testimonium Flavianum is a mix of forgery/interpolation with actual writing by Josephus. Do you dispute this consensus?

If so, why?
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

Cassia

Quote from: Mike Cl on February 11, 2021, 09:27:02 PM
Okay, I will grant (grudgingly so) there is a .00000000001 % chance that Jesus was an actual man. 

Consider this--the church without a real man to account for, can make as many changes to his teachings as they wish and they would not have to worry about people who actually heard him what he said.  Creating the Jesus you want was a boon for the early church.
The oldest partial scraps of new testament scripture we have today are from the 2nd century about 150 years after the story was initially scribed. So hand written copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy......ad nauseum.

Complete new testament books are centuries later.


In 2005, Bart D. Ehrman reported estimates from 200,000 to 400,000 variants based on 5,700 Greek and 10,000 Latin manuscripts, various other ancient translations, and quotations by the Church Fathers.[4] In 2014 Eldon J. Epp raised the estimate as high as 750,000.[5] Peter J. Gurry puts the number of non-spelling variants among New Testament manuscripts around 500,000, though he acknowledges his estimate is higher than all previous ones.[6]

In fact many of the best loved bible stories like the prostitute story
“He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” is missing in older manuscripts. Same with the 'snake handling and speaking in tongues'. And that is after the oral phase. It is FUBAR.



Paolo

#262
Quote from: Cassia on February 11, 2021, 10:07:19 PMad nauseum.

It's ''ad nauseam''...just saying, by the way.
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

Mike Cl

If I remember correctly, no two pieces of the same verse agree with any other. 

Here is a tiny snippet of a fantastic web site (well, it is if one is interested in high/low criticism of the bible):

The Textual History of the Books of the New Testament
Contents: Introduction
The Books:
The Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
Acts
Paul: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews
Catholic Epistles: James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John and 3 John, Jude
Apocalypse

Introduction
The history of the New Testament text cannot be written based on our present knowledge. We do not know, and likely will never know, how the original text was transmuted into the forms found in our present manuscripts.

And yet, knowing textual history is important for criticism. The more we know about it, the better we are able to reconstruct the original text. And there are certain things which all critics will agree on -- e.g. the existence of the Alexandrian and Byzantine text-types, and the broad nature of (though not the reason for or significance of) their differences.

This article attempts to briefly outline what little we know about the history of the various New Testament books. Much of what is said here parallels the material in the article on Text-Types, but the emphasis is different. The discussion is concerned primarily with major changes and deliberate (recensional) activity.

The sections which follow are organized by corpus, and then by book within the corpus. In general this document does not attempt to give a definitive history, but merely to outline the questions while allowing the student to form conclusions.

The Gospels
Most of the evolution of the gospels took place after they were gathered into a single corpus. Of the four widely-acknowledged text-types, three (the Alexandrian, Byzantine, and "Western") are universally agreed to be found in all four gospels. This is less certain in the case of the "Cæsarean" text, which has been studied primarily in Mark -- but if it exists at all, it almost certainly exists for all four gospels.

Both the Alexandrian and "Western" text-types appear to date back to at least the second century. In the case of the Alexandrian text, this is based on the age of the early papyri, most of which, including P66 and P75, have Alexandrian texts. The age of the "Western" text is based on the witness of early writers such as Irenæus.

The date of the "Cæsarean" text is uncertain. It is often described as a combination of the Alexandrian and "Western" texts, but this is not true. (If it were, it would imply that the "Cæsarean" text is the result of recensional activity. But the type is not unified enough for this.) Rather, it has a combination of readings characteristic of those text-types (this is inevitable, since most variants are binary), with some variants of its own (e.g. "Jesus Barabbas" in Matt. 27:16-17; also a very high number of harmonizing variants, at least in Mark). If those who champion the text-type are correct, it was in existence by the third century, when Origen used it.

The earliest Greek witness to the Byzantine text is the uncial A, of the fifth century. The Peshitta Syriac is also largely (though not overwhelmingly) Byzantine; its date is uncertain though it is usually ascribed to the fourth century (and can hardly be later than this).

Hort thought that the Byzantine text was recensional (i.e. that someone, perhaps Lucian of Antioch, assembled it). Certainly it is more unified than any of the other text-types. But it is now generally believed that even the Byzantine text evolved naturally. There is thus no evidence of recensional activity in the gospels as a whole.

Matthew
Of the gospels, Matthew shows the fewest signs of recensional activity. There are no changes in writing style and few truly major variants. Unlike in Luke, the text of Codex Bezae appears to have evolved naturally. This is perhaps not surprising; Matthew is usually the first and most-quoted gospel. It influenced the others rather than being influenced by them. It would seem likely that we have it very nearly as it was written (c. 80 C.E.?).

http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/TextHist.html
Paolo, this is good reading for you.
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?

Paolo

#264
Thank you for the link, Mike.

Other than that, I guess we will have to agree to disagree, then. I think there is *enough* evidence for a street preacher named Jesus/Yeshua/whatever, so I remain unconvinced of your view. That's fine, as you also admited there is a small chance that such a person indeed existed. This debate has made me at least entertain the possibility of a proto ''Jesus-myth'' theory, as well.

It was a fun ride. Thanks again! :)
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

Mike Cl

My pleasure, Paola.  You say there is enough evidence to support an real man.  Other than what you have given (which I refuted--at least in my mind), do you have any other evidence?

I really like the site I gave the link to.  It is the kind that one can go to for a few minutes (or hours--or days) and find interesting reading.
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?

Paolo

Quote from: Mike Cl on February 12, 2021, 12:45:04 PM
My pleasure, Paola.  You say there is enough evidence to support an real man.  Other than what you have given (which I refuted--at least in my mind), do you have any other evidence?

I really like the site I gave the link to.  It is the kind that one can go to for a few minutes (or hours--or days) and find interesting reading.

Did you just mistype my name? :D
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

Paolo

Also, this pointless pressuring of "give me more evidence" is getting rather stale and tiresome.
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

drunkenshoe

#268
Quote from: Cassia on February 11, 2021, 07:53:53 PM
I do think there is a small chance that there was a guy or two that could have been the origins of the oral traditions that eventually became Jesus. ...

Highly likely, many. Highly likely, there were many 'saviour' of the time who's started to some path to save their own tribe from some emperial oppression got executed for it by the local authorities. Crucifixion is the common way of execution. And as the tribe has tiny odds against the emperial power, probably none of them had support from administrative levels. Why would they support them? It's madness. You'll face death penalty, they'll kill everyone and you'll lose it anyway.

If you strip Jesus from its divine character, it is the simple, revolutionary man profile. You can create different versions of it; tie him to a royal blood line or just tell the story of a dirt poor young man with a single mother who goes out to save the world. Oldest story in the book. 2000 years is very little amount of time in human history, it is 1/6 of tiny bit of 'familiar' history we claim to have an idea before the unknown pre whole...so this this saviour plot had been established looong time before that.

They were just called heroes and they used to fight with hdyras, minatours or some sort of gorgons. Meaning...somebody killed a wild boar or bull somewhere or some bigger than usual snake and its become the tale of the day. It's a hit now. Well, you can have monsters so looong that at some point when life changes, scale grows, when the circumstances right, the story will be upgraded because it is not enough anymore. That's all we have been doing. Telling the same story over and over again.

But more than that what gets me all the time is the grossly arrogant, idiotic ways modern people underestimate the ancient world and its people. You'd think they did something to 'deserve' to be born in the high tech, hypermodern times. Ancient people are not retarded children. They are normal people. They are technically as smart as we are, they just don't have knowledge.

They even know most things are just fairytales and myths and how does that work in their own way. They probably know better than most modern people because they are in it, sync within nature. They also know that if the hero dies dramatically and come back for punishing the wicked, that's a best seller.

Romans are too advanced in social engineering to kill any men with serious support anyway. That man is very valuable and usable. They'd recognise a simple revolutionary idea talking to slaves and soldiers 50 years away. And they do. It was just the matter of time. Empire's lived too long compared to its culture, it is not freaking Ancient Egypt which is a funeral culture. It's Rome. It's profane; this world culture. And then there is also nothing 'wrong' with the Empire to begin with, we percieve it that way. And fit the saviour story in it. Because it was written as a story looking back. An average slave or soldier in ancient Rome doesn't think it is all unfair and everything can be changed into some better, progressive life, he thinks 'it's life'. He doesn't even have the vocabulary to think in those terms.

"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Mike Cl

Quote from: Paolo on February 13, 2021, 06:02:35 AM
Did you just mistype my name? :D
Probably.  That is the danger of using 10 thumbs to type with--and then mix in old age and, well, it is a wonder you can read anything I type.
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?