Christian Lies

[romansh]

Welcome Dan

Your post epitomizes the legacy that reverberates around Christianity.

Seeking of perfection and its unattainability. It is a cross that many Christians bear ... so to speak.

If we accept that human beings and indeed everything else are the chemistry and physics doing its thing, then many concepts like perfection and imperfection fade. That we might think a one human being is more perfect or imperfect than another is nonsense ... at least in my opinion.

Perfection, Christ's or someone else's is an illusion.

rom

Edited June 23, 2021 by romansh

[Dan]

There are a lot of Christians (and others) who are seeking perfection, or even just an acceptable level of effort, in an effort to achieve rightousness.  There are even some annoying ones who think they have attained it.  Christ had some comforting words for those who were making an effort to work their way into acceptability and some hard words for those who thought they had attained it and were lording it over everybody else.  Basically he said let go of these attempts and notions of perfection.  It's got to be by me and through me.  Christ claimed to be God incarnate and I believe it.  This is the hard part for the skeptic to believe, but he was perfect, and was therefor an acceptable sacrifice.  His ministry goes beyond atoning for my sins, by faith he invests me with his nature and has given me a down payment on the life I will one day have with him and the entire believing host in glory.  This does NOT relieve me of my responsibility to be a comfort and succor to those in this world, regardless of whether they believe as I do or not.  It's a matter of motive.  I do not work for the betterment of my community or myself in any effort to justify myself in the eyes of my neighbors or my God, but because it pleases and glorifies my creator and savior.

 

[PaulS]

Welcome to the Forum Dan.

Please be encouraged to introduce yourself as per the Introduction section.  I hope you enjoy participating here.

12 hours ago, Dan said:

Christ claimed to be God incarnate and I believe it.  This is the hard part for the skeptic to believe, but he was perfect, and was therefor an acceptable sacrifice.  

I think biblical scholarship and a modern understanding of the history of Christianity now establishes that Jesus did not in fact ever claim to be God incarnate.  At best it seems Jesus may have thought he had a part to play in the judgement of the earth (as God's representative - the Son of Man) and the imminent introduction of God's new Kingdom on earth where maybe Jesus thought he would oversee on God's behalf.  

Of course when that all fell apart with Jesus' unexpected execution so early on in the piece, Jesus' followers were left to try and make sense of what had happened and how Jesus could have been so wrong - hence we have the rationale of Jesus being a sacrifice beginning development (primarily by Paul who only knew Jesus through hearsay).  Unfortunately, since Jesus' crucifixion, followers of Jesus have been putting words in Jesus' mouth ever since and making claims about Jesus which Jesus clearly didn't adhere to himself.  I imagine that Jesus being 'perfect' is one of those things that Jesus might have been left scratching his head over if he heard others saying that about him. 

12 hours ago, Dan said:

I do not work for the betterment of my community or myself in any effort to justify myself in the eyes of my neighbors or my God, but because it pleases and glorifies my creator and savior.

Personally, I work for betterment of the community and myself because I love others and have empathy.  That's enough of a reason for me to try to ensure we live in the best world we can.  But if believing this about Jesus is what makes you a better person, I'm all for it, just as long as you cause no harm to others in the process.

Peace and goodwill

Paul

[Dan]

Quote

 

What is your justification for claiming that Jesus never claimed to be God incarnate?  The Pharisees heard him claim that he and the father were one and were ready to stone him for what they perceived was blasphemy, and our of anybody else's mouth it would have been.  You are right in asserting that Christ's crucifixion came as a horrifying shock to his followers, but it was only because they were slow to understand the nature of his ministry.  Christ himself predicted it several times during his ministry, he knew it was coming, and even welcomed it, as the consummation of his work and his opportunity to return home to his rightful place in Glory.  If this is hard for you to swallow, look at it this way.  You believe in God.  You believe God loves us.  Do you believe he loves us enough to do something like what Christ did for us?  I do.

 

[romansh]

9 hours ago, Dan said:

What is your justification for claiming that Jesus never claimed to be God incarnate? 

For me ... Rex Wyler, put his journalistic/investigative talents to good use in the Jesus Sayings

9 hours ago, Dan said:

The Pharisees heard him claim that he and the father were one and were ready to stone him for what they perceived was blasphemy, and our of anybody else's mouth it would have been.

NO! What we have is a book (set of) largely anonymous authors claiming pharisees heard him say it. Your argument begs the question I am afraid.

Also I would be careful not to conflate the myth of Christ with the historical Jesus. 

[Dan]

The authors I believe wrote what they had to say about Jesus within 40 years of his ministry, when the witnesses were still alive.  Your sources are offering their conjectures 2000 years after the fact.  Who do you think is the more reliable witness?

 

[romansh]

12 minutes ago, Dan said:

The authors I believe wrote what they had to say about Jesus within 40 years of his ministry, when the witnesses were still alive.  Your sources are offering their conjectures 2000 years after the fact.  Who do you think is the more reliable witness?

 

Are you conjecturing 2000 years after the fact that the authors were reliable?

[Dan]

Yes I am, and that is a reasonable conjecture.  The new testament changed only negligibly after it's initial authorship as I am sure you know.  I am trusting documents that have remained unchanged over 2000 years based on the fact that the authors were within 40 years of the actual events and this is far more reasonable than trusting conjectures from authors 2000 years removed from the events who are using the same source documents anyway.  Do you trust the authenticity of the Rosetta Stone?

[romansh]

1 hour ago, Dan said:

Yes I am, and that is a reasonable conjecture.

No it is not a reasonable conjecture. Take a look at the antics of the fake news provocateurs back in January. Anti vaxxers, flat Earthers. There have been really nice people on this very website taken in by Trump lies and this is over the last five years. So your forty years, over several languages Aramaic, Judean, and possibly Greek holds no sway.

The fact that scribes could copy accurately is neither here nor there. The question is what they wrote down how believable was it? What was their motivation? What was their capacity to evaluate what they were writing down?

So your reasonableness fails.

While I am not overly familiar with the Rosetta Stone ... it works. It's like an engineer's handbook, for the most part it works. Bible stories ... not so much.

[Dan]

You are ascribing journalistic integrity to your sources by your own admission, who are writing 2000 years after the fact.  Where is your justification?  It comes down to a question of who do you believe? I am aware that a lot of lies were tossed about during the last election, that is a red herring.  During the Trump era there were as many voices speaking the truth (if not more) as there were speaking lies lies.  Where are the counter testimonials from the apostolic era?  Surely the Roman government had an interest in suppressing this upstart movement, where are the investigative documents attesting to it's falsehood?  And your assertion that the Rosetta Stone just works and bible stories don't is just that, an unsupported assertion.

[romansh]

9 hours ago, Dan said:

You are ascribing journalistic integrity to your sources by your own admission, who are writing 2000 years after the fact. 

And you are ascribing an integrity to your capacity to evaluate the data 2000 y after the fact.

 

9 hours ago, Dan said:

It comes down to a question of who do you believe?

Not if one takes an agnostic stance ... it simply results in a lack of belief.

9 hours ago, Dan said:

I am aware that a lot of lies were tossed about during the last election, that is a red herring. 

You might see it as a red herring and yet over 74 million people voted for Trump and perhaps even believed in him to some extent. My point is perhaps 40 y after the death the scribes were also conned.

9 hours ago, Dan said:

Where are the counter testimonials from the apostolic era?

Why were the apocrypha suppressed? Why is there so little written about this in the contemporary documentation? Perhaps it just was not important enough?

 

 

[PaulS]

On 6/24/2021 at 8:39 PM, Dan said:

What is your justification for claiming that Jesus never claimed to be God incarnate?  The Pharisees heard him claim that he and the father were one and were ready to stone him for what they perceived was blasphemy, and our of anybody else's mouth it would have been.  You are right in asserting that Christ's crucifixion came as a horrifying shock to his followers, but it was only because they were slow to understand the nature of his ministry.  

Which Pharisees?  I accept that somebody wrote that there were Pharisees that said this, but how do you know it is true?  What evidence can you provide to substantiate the claims?   My point is, authors in the late first century were free to write whatever they wanted about Jesus, as so they did.  Much of what was written is likely to be unsupported faith and belief as opposed to factual statements and they certainly cannot be verified.  Certainly we see the chronological development from Mark through to John of just how the 'Christ' myth grew over time.

To me, to think that Jesus disciples just didn't understand what Jesus was all about is an excuse for the later writings, not a true representation of the relationship Jesus had with his trusted 12.

On 6/24/2021 at 8:39 PM, Dan said:

Christ himself predicted it several times during his ministry, he knew it was coming, and even welcomed it, as the consummation of his work and his opportunity to return home to his rightful place in Glory.  If this is hard for you to swallow, look at it this way.  You believe in God.  You believe God loves us.  Do you believe he loves us enough to do something like what Christ did for us?  I do.

No, Jesus didn't predict his own death, people made these stories up about him after he died to explain his death and justify their belief.   And for me, your logic that a God loves us so much that he needs his own son to be a sacrifice to himself so that he in turn can love those people that believe this story, some thousands of years later, is ludicrous.  But each to their own I guess.

[PaulS]

On 6/25/2021 at 6:14 AM, Dan said:

The authors I believe wrote what they had to say about Jesus within 40 years of his ministry, when the witnesses were still alive.  Your sources are offering their conjectures 2000 years after the fact.  Who do you think is the more reliable witness?

You are of course entitled to your 'belief', but that is different to what can be established by evidence.  Which authors - who actually wrote each of the Gospels and how can you demonstrate that?  Which witnesses did they speak to?  Were they reliable and accurate?  How can they be tested?  Has everything that was written back then survived intact without change or editing?  Has everything in fact survived?  What manuscripts were tossed because peopel at the time didn't think they fit?  Maybe they were the more accurate Gospels!  Do you realise that any 'originals' we have of these writings are hundreds and hundreds of years older than the dates they were alleged to have been written?  Are they still orginal?

Paul never met Jesus when he was alive.  Never heard him preach.  Wasn't moving in Jesus' circles.  Afterwards, he met Peter and others, but clearly Paul was off on a tangent.  The gospels were written much later than just 40 years within Jesus' ministry.  Mark maybe was within 30-40years after Jesus, Matthew and Luke more than 40-60years later, and John at least 60-80 years later.  

There is a lot of scholarship and study that satisfies me that what I was told growing up as a Christian and believing the bible, is actually fit to be questioned and indeed, better understood than as fact about who Jesus was and what he did

[Dan]

You are basically making the argument that the authors of the gospels and new testament were acting out of selfish motives when they "made up"  the parts of the account attesting to Christ's divinity and his resurrection.  OK.  What was there motive?  Did they have anything to gain by establishing a new sect that was despised by the existing Jewish authorities?  Persecuted by the Romans?  That called upon it's leadership to take upon itself the role of servants?  Don't look at the status that the current or medieval church enjoys or enjoyed, look at what the founder of the faith enduring.  These guys were NOT princes of a comfortable organization, this can be attested to by completely extra biblical sources that I suspect you accept.  You are arguing that the early fathers were the authors and beneficiaries of a mass delusion.  Why, WHY would they do this?  Now, if you want to argue that a legitimate movement was later co-opted by exploiting personalities (Constantine *cough* Constantine)  there I am with you.  THAT is a topic I would love to engage with you on another thread.  I am asking you to view the legitimacy of the early church through the lenses of the believers of the oppressed church, not the opera glasses of the later, co-opted state church which you have a legitimate beef with.

[PaulS]

10 hours ago, Dan said:

You are basically making the argument that the authors of the gospels and new testament were acting out of selfish motives when they "made up"  the parts of the account attesting to Christ's divinity and his resurrection.  OK.  What was there motive?  

Motive was that they believed things, but belief and fact are two different things altogether.  It seems you believe in a creator God for which I say you cannot prove exists.  That doesn't stop you believing and telling others that what you believe is fact.  Do I think you are being selfish - no.  Like gospel writers, your 'belief' is a motive for saying unprovable things.  I have no doubt that stories of Jesus, and possibly even things Jesus may have actually said or did when he was alive, had an impact on people.  The Gospels are a product of that, but that is different from them being verifiable fact.

We know that certain books of the New Testament are pseudonymous - that is they were written by people 'pretending' to be somebody they weren't.  Wheras today we might call that fraud, it was considered a relatively acceptable practice in the early first centuries CE.  Can you imagine a motive for a NT writer lying about who the actual author was for that NT document?

10 hours ago, Dan said:

Did they have anything to gain by establishing a new sect that was despised by the existing Jewish authorities?  Persecuted by the Romans?  That called upon it's leadership to take upon itself the role of servants?  Don't look at the status that the current or medieval church enjoys or enjoyed, look at what the founder of the faith enduring.  These guys were NOT princes of a comfortable organization, this can be attested to by completely extra biblical sources that I suspect you accept.  You are arguing that the early fathers were the authors and beneficiaries of a mass delusion.  Why, WHY would they do this? 

Do Islamic suicide bombers have anything to gain by blowing themselves up?  Yet they remain CONVINCED they are doing God's work.  Many different faiths have been prepared to be perscuted by authorities - they can't all be right about their different religious beliefs, so clearly 'faith' is an over-riding factor, even when they are 'wrong' according to a different faith.

Mass delusion?  The early Church was tiny for hundreds of years.  It wasn't until the Roman Empire got on board that it took off.  There was a small band of people who never met Jesus who grew the religion somewhat (e.g. Paul - conspicuously, to me, why many of the closest to Jesus seem fairly silent in the after years of Jesus' death).  Belief is a funny thing and people will do all sorts of things for a belief.  We see this all around us - not just for Christians.

[Dan]

You're getting the cart before the horse.  Do you think people act for the most part in their own self interest?  If my beliefs are groundless then there is no self interest in holding them or trying to convince others of their veracity and if I have a shred of intellect they will eventually dissipate.  As far as the  the suicide bombers go, ask anyone familiar with the practice and they will tell you that sane Muslims do not participate in it.  The people who put others up to this form of suicide recruit from the imbalanced members of that religion and are deeply resented by the mainstream of the population.  And the assertion that the early church was tiny until Rome got on board is flat out wrong.  Look it up.  By AD 300 Christians were almost a plurality in the Roman empire.  That and the acceptance of the legitimacy of Paul's witness was almost universal throughout the early church.   My belief may seem funny to you, but it is rooted in historical fact and consistent philosophy.    

[PaulS]

3 hours ago, Dan said:

You're getting the cart before the horse.  Do you think people act for the most part in their own self interest?  If my beliefs are groundless then there is no self interest in holding them or trying to convince others of their veracity and if I have a shred of intellect they will eventually dissipate.  As far as the  the suicide bombers go, ask anyone familiar with the practice and they will tell you that sane Muslims do not participate in it.  The people who put others up to this form of suicide recruit from the imbalanced members of that religion and are deeply resented by the mainstream of the population.  And the assertion that the early church was tiny until Rome got on board is flat out wrong.  Look it up.  By AD 300 Christians were almost a plurality in the Roman empire.  That and the acceptance of the legitimacy of Paul's witness was almost universal throughout the early church.   My belief may seem funny to you, but it is rooted in historical fact and consistent philosophy.    

Yes, I think we all act in our own self interest, even if we don't know we are doing so.  It might not be 100% self interest, but there is always a component.  Clearly there is an advantage to us in some way for every single thing we do, or else we wouldn't do it.  That could be as simple as a mental reward that we are 'doing the right thing' in for instance the situation where we are being persecuted.  So, yes, everything we do we do for our own reasons, whether we are conscious of that or not.  Your self interest in holding your beliefs at present has nothing to do with intellect or whether those beliefs are necessarily grounded or not, but rather it revolves around you being satisfied that they work for you and what satisfaction those beliefs give you.  If your beliefs change later, it would be because you are now satisfied with how those new beliefs compute for you.

I disagree with your version of insanity.  I think Muslim suicide bombers are just as 'sane' as the next person, but their beliefs push them to a limit others may not be prepared to go.  Same for Christians that maybe face death of themselves and their loved ones rather than refute their faith for leniency.  Faith drives people to do all sorts of things.  I certainly think it is insane that some Jehovah Witnesses would rather die than receive a blood transfusion, but hey, that's their faith.  They're not in sane per se, they just hold a faith that to others may seem insane.

I agree with you that Pauline Christianity drove Christianity and the Roman Empire to where it is today and that by around 300 it had really established in Rome (as opposed to in Israel).  But I don't give Jesus credit for that - that is largely a Pauline and subsequent followers-driven belief system that got up and running.  Clearly the remaining disciples did not have such success in Jerusalem.  Tell me, how many Christians were in the early Church in 50CE, 100CE, or even 200CE?  My point being, it was tiny in the early days - 300 years later is not what I was referring to as 'early' church.

I don't think your belief is funny - I was once the same.  I just see it a lot differently now than I used to.  I have no desire to try and convince you otherwise - I have found that is something that can only happen if the person wants to explore those other understandings for themselves.

[Dan]

OK, first lets address the distinction you make between the movement Jesus initiated and your implied co-option of the movement by "Pauline" followers.  You have not stated it explicitly, but you have strongly implied that Christ founded a legitimate sect within Judaism that Paul subsequently hijacked for his own purposes.  Rather than address that suspicion I will leave it out there for you to confirm or modify.  I also assert that there is a great difference between enduring personal persecution for one's faith and going out and committing murder/suicide for it.  Please, ask uncle Google about what I assert about the mental condition of the typical "Islamic" suicide bomber and those who put them up to it.  For that matter you can also query the web about the growth of the church during it's early years.  I assert that any period of the Church prior to it's period if Imperial acceptance and sanction was early, as they were still a persecuted minority until then.  In fact the greatest persecution the Church ever experienced, the effort by Diocletian to completely stamp it out, did not take place until around CE 285.  There are some with my tradition that consider this persecution "the great tribulation" prophesied by John in Revelation.  

[Kellerman]

For me, I personally learned A LOT from studying the history and development of Islam as a religion. 

There is so much more documentation of how religious texts came about at that time, so it gives a remarkable insight into what the compilation of the Bible could have been like. 

I try to never forget that the Bible is a human document. 

[Dan]

The bible was written by humans, but unless we discover some earlier versions of the manuscripts that contain variations from the current texts, it has remained essentially unchanged for 1900 years.  See https://www.quora.com/Has-the-Quran-ever-changed-over-time?share=1 for information about the evolution of the Quran over time.  Maybe this is significant to you and maybe it isn't.

[Kellerman]

2 hours ago, Dan said:

The bible was written by humans, but unless we discover some earlier versions of the manuscripts that contain variations from the current texts, it has remained essentially unchanged for 1900 years.  See https://www.quora.com/Has-the-Quran-ever-changed-over-time?share=1 for information about the evolution of the Quran over time.  Maybe this is significant to you and maybe it isn't.

And you have specific knowledge of how the Bible was compiled. What the politics were of the era, what was included, excluded, altered before the very human, very political organization approved and produced the form that we know??

The Quran is also very old. Not as old, but that's only because Islam is more recent. The history of how it was put together is far more documented though, so that's why I say it's an excellent view into how a book like that gets produced. 

I don't know if you've ever tried to coordinate a large group of people to produce an important consensus document. But it's like herding cats. 

[Dan]

The manuscripts that went into the new testement were essentially unchanged for the 200 years or more from the time they were written to the time they were compiled into the bible.  There were no alterations to suit the politics of the era.  There were some disputes over what went into the cannon, but the majority of what constituted the new testament had already largely been settled on by the time of the compilation.  I take issue with your assertion that the history of how the Quran was put together is better documented than the bible.  That MIGHT be true of the old testament whose origins date back over many thousands of years.  But the process that went into forming the new testament is very well documented. See https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-biblical-canon/  It is really an unfair comparison anyway.  The Bible was written by multiple authors over several thousand years and represents the collective wisdom and history of a correspondingly old tradition.  The Quran was written by one individual in a comparative fraction of time and represents the theological input of one man.  

[PaulS]

10 hours ago, Dan said:

OK, first lets address the distinction you make between the movement Jesus initiated and your implied co-option of the movement by "Pauline" followers.  You have not stated it explicitly, but you have strongly implied that Christ founded a legitimate sect within Judaism that Paul subsequently hijacked for his own purposes.  Rather than address that suspicion I will leave it out there for you to confirm or modify. 

I don't think Jesus founded a sect, I think Jesus preached a message of an imminent Kingdom of God, where the evil rulers of the world (Rome) would be shortly overthrown, and God would establish his renewed physical kingdom on earth.  Jesus was telling people to prepare for this imminent judgement day and start practicing as though they were already living in said Kingdom.  This was expected during Jesus' lifetime and it is possible he even saw himself as playing a role as God's "Son Of Man" - the enitity that might lead the charge for this Jusgement Day.  Jesus never saw himself as a sacrifice, but may have been prepared to die for his faith (as most strongly religious people are).

When the physical Kingdom didn't come to fruition (due to Jesus' sudden execution from poking the bear once too many times), the disciples and others were left scratching their heads about what to make of this tragic turn of events.  Enter the storytelling and interpretation that developed thereafter.

I don't think Paul 'hijacked' Christianity in any malicious way, I think he was a genuine convert to his understanding of Christianity and was hell bent on sharing such with the gentiles.  Paul developed his alternate theology about Jesus being a sacrifice, and as they say, the rest is history.  That view of Christianity became the orthodox view.

10 hours ago, Dan said:

I also assert that there is a great difference between enduring personal persecution for one's faith and going out and committing murder/suicide for it.  Please, ask uncle Google about what I assert about the mental condition of the typical "Islamic" suicide bomber and those who put them up to it.  

I think you have since withdrawn this line of understanding, if I understand your post elsewhere correctly.

10 hours ago, Dan said:

For that matter you can also query the web about the growth of the church during it's early years.  I assert that any period of the Church prior to it's period if Imperial acceptance and sanction was early, as they were still a persecuted minority until then.  In fact the greatest persecution the Church ever experienced, the effort by Diocletian to completely stamp it out, did not take place until around CE 285.  There are some with my tradition that consider this persecution "the great tribulation" prophesied by John in Revelation.  

Assert all you like - I'm just asking if you can provide evidence.  Sure we start seeing persecution hundreds of years later when the church has started to grown and increase in size, but it is generally maintained by scholars and historians that there is nothing to suggest Christianity was anything more than a backwater movement for multiple decades following Jesus.  I am sure there were the odd persecution as there were competing religious beliefs in those cultures, but Christianity per se wasn't a major movement that anybody focused on for persecution of otherwise.  If it was, there simply isn't any evidence to demonstrate that.

[PaulS]

49 minutes ago, Dan said:

The manuscripts that went into the new testement were essentially unchanged for the 200 years or more from the time they were written to the time they were compiled into the bible.  There were no alterations to suit the politics of the era.  There were some disputes over what went into the cannon, but the majority of what constituted the new testament had already largely been settled on by the time of the compilation.  I take issue with your assertion that the history of how the Quran was put together is better documented than the bible.  That MIGHT be true of the old testament whose origins date back over many thousands of years.  But the process that went into forming the new testament is very well documented. See https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-biblical-canon/  It is really an unfair comparison anyway.  The Bible was written by multiple authors over several thousand years and represents the collective wisdom and history of a correspondingly old tradition.  The Quran was written by one individual in a comparative fraction of time and represents the theological input of one man.  

I think if you do some research you will ascertain that the surviving copies we have of any possible 'original' document are dated hundreds of years later than the anticipated original.  So who knows what has changed - it can't be shown in any way.  And we simply cannot say what alterations may have been made to suit the politics (or beliefs) of the era.  Hundreds of years later we see disputes about elements but you only know what has been settled on by what survived.  We know a little about what didn't survive, but there is know evidence to show what workings on or developments saw certain text chosen over others and what in fact happened to the others.  There were certainly different trains of thought in the early hundreds of years after Jesus (e.g. several Gospels of others authors) that we know weren't accepted.  That doesn't mean only the right stuff went into the bible, just that there were alternate views and certain views won out at the end of the day.  It's Faith that tells you and others that these were the 'right' views.

[Dan]

It seems to me that you are taking the possibility of variations from the original manuscripts to the earliest extant complete manuscripts as proof that it happened.  Your assertion that nothing in the new gospels ever presented Christ as a sacrifice almost requires it given the witness of John the Baptist who several times referred to Jesus as the "lamb of God".  The acceptance by Rome of Christianity as it's official religion is recognized by the vast majority of scholars on the subject as the transition from antiquity, the era of the early church, to the medieval era.  See "The Cambridge Ancient History" for confirmation of this assertion.