Problem with John's disproof of Jesus
Just found this youtube channel, forum, etc. and am enjoying a lot of what John has to say. I'm floating around deism, atheism and pantheism right now, but that's beside the point.
My only problem with the "philosophical canon," as it were, that John uses to disprove Jesus is the recurring assertion that the lack of any writings from him is worth mentioning in a discrediting of his existence. Now, I understand why this point is attractive - it's an easy one to make, a hard one to respond to and touches a lot of nerves - but I think it's a bit unnecessary among the very strong foundation built otherwise about the lack of historical correlation and contradictions in the gospels.
Understand that I mean this as a sincere, mostly non-rhetorical, question, John: do you believe Socrates existed? To my knowledge, Socrates only exists personally in the historical record through Plato's writings, in which Socrates was often simply a mouthpiece Plato used to retell Socrates' ideas through his own interpretation.
Now, regardless of actual answer to that, I still hope I've managed to illustrate well that I feel such a circumstantial argument against Jesus' existence is unnecessary and serves only to dilute your otherwise solid and convincing stance. Better that an argument be a cottage of bricks than a skyscraper of toothpicks, right?
The factor that seperates Socrates from Jesus is the fact that Jesus claimed to be the savior of mankind; unlike Socrates who was merely a philosopher. Extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence. If Jesus had a message so important that our eternal souls depend on it's understanding than there is no excuses for not writing it down himself for humanity to comprehend.
Also I don't want to hear the tired outdated arguement that Jesus couldn't write anything down because it was against Jewish Law. Jesus had no problem breaking the sabbath and doing other activities that broke Jewish law.
Heres a question for you? Can you tell me of any other book that foretold a mans life in precise detail? Not only that, but the bible is not one book...It is actually 66 books written by 40 authors on 3 different continents in 3 different languages over about 1500 years time-span. The old testament is about the seed of the woman, the messiah. And just in case you think the christians made the messianic concept up heres a quote from the Babylonian Talmud, which is a jewish book not written by christians: "All the prophets prophesied only of the messiah" Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 99a. The early extra-biblical jewish writings understood the messiah to come and suffer and die for the sins of humanity, they believed he would come during the time of the second temple, that he would be pierced, etc. There is allot more of this, and the best source is the early rabbinical writings. I think its pretty extraordinary to have a book written about one man that foretells His life. If you know of any examples of this elsewhere, plaes let me know.
Even IF what is written corrosponds to the Old Testament, that's no concrete proof that the event occured at all or in that manner. If the OT said the messiah would have golden wings and rabbit ears I'm sure Jesus would be depicted as so. It's written by men with an agenda.
Another problem we have is the Old testament profecies actually discredit Jesus completly. Isiah and Pslams are grossly taken out of context (references to the state of isreal as being the suffering servant are plagurised to be jesus by NT authors). Deutoranomy even warns against men coming and saying they are a god or part of god. In Exodus God tells Moses time and time again that the covenant he created is forever binding, according to God himself there is no need for a new covenant with jesus. Anyone who takes off the rose covered glasses and studies the two halfs in depth will realize they don't fit.
It's quite obvious that the NT authors, some 50 plus years after the alleged death of jesus, were desperate to push their religion to popularity. With that in mind they forged all kinds of mythos for their divine saviour. Copying here and there from pagan influence and hellenistic philosophy.
Extraordinary proof is proving Jesus did what the bible says he did, no if, ands, or buts.
"The factor that seperates Socrates from Jesus is the fact that Jesus
claimed to be the savior of mankind; unlike Socrates who was merely a
philosopher. Extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence. If Jesus
had a message so important that our eternal souls depend on it's
understanding than there is no excuses for not writing it down himself
for humanity to comprehend."
No, see, that's all argument against Jesus Christ existing as a Biblical figure. Which is my point here - if you include this in your argument it's very easy for an apologist to dodge by simply saying that Jesus was a historical figure, and was misquoted in saying he was the son of God. It does little to nothing to support the idea that the historical Jesus didn't exist, and only slightly more to debunk the Biblical Jesus.
I'm saying, it weakens an otherwise rock-solid argument against the existence of a historical Jesus to include such a circumstantial, easy-to-assault point in the overall idea.
"Also I don't want to hear the tired outdated arguement that Jesus
couldn't write anything down because it was against Jewish Law. Jesus
had no problem breaking the sabbath and doing other activities that
broke Jewish law."
I had no idea this was true, was not trying to argue in that direction at all, and really fail to see what this has to do with my post.
I can appreciate your concern about getting sidetracked chasing after the historical Jesus when there are better targets in the Bible. Although my videos usually contain my belief that even the historical Jesus didn't exist (my reasons later) the book is actually neutral on that matter.
See: http://www.godvsthebible.com/node/14#firstcoming
And also the conclusion of chapter 8: http://www.godvsthebible.com/node/14#end
QUOTE: (2nd paragraph on the conclusion)
Clearly, the Jesus that is the divine savior and living lord of humanity doesn’t exist. Perhaps his story is based on a real mortal religious leader who was deified in death by his followers but it makes no difference. Such an explanation falls under the category of “it might be so, and what then?” This mortal leader isn’t around anymore, he can’t be our savior and his true story will most likely never be separated from the layers of folklore.
So as you can see, my book is more concerned about debunking the "biblical Jesus".
A casual stroll through the tabloid secions of the supermarkets or a perusal of some of the glurge stories circulating on the internet underscore how even today, in our modern world with all it's access to information, is still prone to believing things like Elvis is still alive or people have encounters with angels or UFOs. Modern day cults show how people are willing to die for ridiculous beliefs. These things are believed today even in our skeptical and scientific era. We can only imagine how much more prone a more primitive and superstitious people would be to accepting similar fantastic claims. Consequently, I'd agree that proving the existence of a historical character who later became the basis for the myths and exaggerated tales would do nothing to validate Islamo-Christianity.
Even accepting that, good luck ever knowing what the real story was for all the myths and folklore it's buried under. All we have as far as detailed records go are the Gospel accounts.
So what got me off the fence and into the JNE camp?
What are the odds that an ordinary Yeshua, who failed to be noticed by anyone at the time, who wrote nothing of himself or his teachings, who left behind no trace of his existence, who competed in a province full of messiah wannabes, doomcriers and zealots, died, was forgotten and then generations later suddenly remembered and exhaulted as a towering legend?
A more compelling scenerio, IMHO, is that the ancient Jews were chaffing under foreign rule for so long, not just under the Romans but also the Greeks before them. A faction wondered what happened to Yahweh's promise that the seed of David would reign for all time? They decided their promised kingdom was in a higher place. Influenced by pagan ideas, they created a heavenly lord that carried the bloodline of David. This heavenly father was brought down to earth in parables, influenced again by pagan concepts. Eventually, the literalist faction decided that the parables were "true stories" and taught them as such. The Empire adopted the faith, a church was established and the rest is history.
Sound unlikely? Consider how the Bible itself contains echoes of this struggle among early Christians with those "false Christians" who didn't believe in a flesh and blood Jesus of history:
See 1John 4:1-3 and 2John verse 7
As for Socretes, I can't construct a similarly compelling scenerio where Plato would have just made up a previous philosopher instead of claiming the philosophies as his own.
If there was any writing of Jesus would you then accept him at least as a historical figure? And I'm not sure if you know this but there are theories that do state that the Vatican has been hiding documents for centuries..could it be possible that they are hiding documents probably written by Jesus or his close followers that paint a totally different Jesus we know from the Bible. There is a British documentary called The Secret Family of Jesus with Robert Beckford. Here's a clip of it from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRu7VV4cn28.
What are the odds that an ordinary Yeshua, who failed to be noticed by
anyone at the time, who wrote nothing of himself or his teachings, who
left behind no trace of his existence, who competed in a province full
of messiah wannabes, doomcriers and zealots, died, was forgotten and
then generations later suddenly remembered and exhaulted as a towering
legend?
Well to say the least it could be that he wasn't a religous leader famous enough to have been given any historical significance and the few people who knew him, but never forgot about him, probably started making stories about him after he died. What are the odds? Well what are the odds of anything that happens? How do we know?
I've heard that one before from a Protestant former friend who used this as his explanation for the dearth of evidence regarding the historical Jesus.
The theory here is that the established church, while still running the show in Rome, rounded up every scrap of documentation that related to JC and every artifact they could get their hands on. All of this was locked away in a vault in the Vatican. Only the senior most cardinals have access. The alleged motivation for this secrecy is that they wanted to completely control the image of Jesus. Perhaps JC was a little too human for the Church's liking.
I had no idea the conspiracy theory was so widespread. I'd thought this was just something he came up with. I'll review the video when I'm able.
You might also want to check out:
Secrets of the Vatican part 1 and go from there to part 2 and etc.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8kGGpDBveU
and here's another documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpktoaHZGqA&feature=related
No, I certainly agree. I just felt that this part of your argument, the "hey, it's pretty damn unlikely he wouldn't write anything down" part, really only weakens all the other "look, it's flat-out impossible for him to exist given everything we know about history" parts.
And I didn't mean the Socrates example as a direct analogy, just to illustrate that it's a mostly-circumstantial point to make.
I actually have a story all written out where I use the Bible to make the case that Jesus and Barabbas are the same person and that Jesus thought he was moshiach & was a freedom-fighter using the following from the Bible:
* bar Abba = "son of the Father"
* The names of his disciples: Judas Iscariot (Iscariot being a corruption of sicarri = "dagger" = assassin and attached to the Zealots), Simon the Zealot (Zealots were a group of Jewish insurrectionists), James and John were called "Boanerges" = sons of thunder, which hardly sounds like a couple of Nancy-boys, and Peter cut the ear off of one of the soldiers but then told to stand down
* When asked how many swords they had the reply came back "two" to which Jesus replied, "Two is enough" probably because he expected a miracle from God.
* A Cohort of soldiers came to pick up a rag-tag bunch of illiterate fisherman, a tax collector, etc.? A Cohort is 1/10th of a Legion. A Legion = 5,500 men, making a Cohort = 550 men. I think they were expecting a fight.
* He failed in what he thought was his mission, no miracle came (as they never do) and he was made an example of after his "temple tantrum" (I love that line, John!).
* The Sadducees were HATED by the Pharisees. This wasn't Democrats and Republicans, this was more like the Jews working for the Nazis! The Sadducees weren't even descendents of Aaron (supposedly) thereby not legal kohanim. They were appointees of the Roman occupiers and hence traitors whose job it was to quell messianic movements and other dissent. Jesus about ended their gravy train on biscuit wheels when he threw his "temple tantrum." In retalitation, Jesus was buried but the Romans and the Sadducees tossed his body into an unmarked grave so the disciples couldn't find them and then came up with the perfect alibi: blame the disciples. Knowing they didn't do it, it gave them a glimmer of hope that maybe God was going to perform a miracle after all by raising Jesus in the resurrection of the dead.
* Matthew lists out just that very thing (all the saints raising) and the disciples distraught for having their hopes dashed on the rocks and their cowardice have visual and auditory hallucinations brought on by their grief. Stories got exaggerated, next thing you know Jesus is being seen by 500...exactly(?)...people and he's coming back...you betcha...just keep...waiting.
* However, Jesus didn't give an open ended promise, he said he was coming back within the lifetime of the people standing there in a "vision" (read: hallucination) which emboldened his followers.
* Paul picks up the ball, mixes in Pagan elements he imported from Tarsus. Big fight between him and the Jerusalem Church....and it gets glossed over after the fact because Paul went to the Gentiles who now greatly outnumber the guys that actually knew him and they ultimately win the political war as Jerusalem is sacked in 70 CE and again in 135 CE from another messianic wanna-be who actually had a measure of success for a couple years (Simeon bar Kochba) and certainly more than Jesus. Ultimately he fails, the Gentiles meanwhile start spiritualizing everything in sight and figure out how to settle in for the long haul in some ambigious future when Jesus (eventually...sigh) comes back.
There's the quick and dirty, what do you think? Of course, Jesus never existed is easier, but this is WAY more fun ; )
Hi, I just joined the site, I was wondering why it is that the vote that you provide to the people who choose to take it is only for people who left faith or have never been a christian or muslim? I am a catholic and a person of faith and would like to vote also. Don't you think in order to have balance you should also encourage people of faith to join this site ? why not add a vote for people of faith, you might be surprised how many might join. No one likes a one sided conversation. If everone on this site has no faith because of never having it or leaving it seems like you are just "preaching to the choir" so to speak.
Anyway I was looking at some of the book and was amused at the authors conclusions. that the author is taking the bible literally and treating it as "a book" which it is not. it is a collection af ancient stories that were handed down for countless centuries and as such cannot be viewed as a single work. It is a collection of inspired stories that reveal Gods relationship to man and an historic acount of the hebrew people and gods relationship to them in particular and throuth them the rest of mankind. The bible contains the correct path in a spirtual way . It is a book of spiritual knowledge , it is not an exact history or science book.The authors were not giveing lessons in science and biology, everything they wrote was limited by there own knowledge,education and culture yet even so the truths reveled in there ancient stories inspired by God are real.
In other places the stories are actual events yet even so told by different prespectives and different people and written to different audiences so the small details vary and different points may be stressed but the main lesson or truth is contains is real. I find the authors ignorance of scripture interpitation and history to be profound. I am sad , also,with the mis information that the author states on this site that the christian and muslim faith is responsible for most of the misery in the world. That is simply not true. People who have no faith in God have killed so many more people than those of faith. Faith in god and the morality that it embraces have kept evil in check. The athiest communist in russia Killed 30 million. The athiest communist chinese 80 million, Hitler, A catholic who left the faith (he might have voted had he joined this site) murdered six million jews and seven million others not counting the three million russians and the french and americans and countless other war dead.
Every where there is wholesale slaughter on a wide scale people of faith are lacking. The crusades killed maybe 100000. over 300 years. The infamous inquesition over a twenty year period 20000. you do the math. triple the numbers if you like lets say christians and muslims killed two hundred forty thousand in the last hundred years. Can that compare that to one hundred and twenty three million killed by people that belive that man alone, with his reason,independent from God, is the supreme being. Hitler Stalin and Mao thought the same thing.Peace and love mark
The purpose of the poll is to understand how many freethinkers were once Christians, Muslims or part of some other religion. My experience, as reflected in this poll, is that I'm in the minority. Most non-believers were once believers. Since the purpose is to understand the background of non-believers, the input from current believers isn't relevant to the study. You're not being excluded from participating in this forum.
I'm unaware of any evidence to support the assertion that Hitler deconverted from Catholicism and I studied the rise and fall of the Third Reich for a year in German IV class in high school. His speeches referred not to Darwin, as Creationists often imply, but his duty to "the Lord". Further, reviewing the victims of Nazism (Jews, gays, occult-practicing Gypsies) it seems clear that Nazism persecuted the same people that Christianity had for 2,000 years. The anti-semetic and gay-bashing language of the New Testament seems like a chilling foreshadowing of Mein Kampf. I would say the atrocities of Nazi Germany, whatever Hitler's personal views might have been, were the inevitable result of 2,000 years of Christian teaching.
Communism is an alternate religion, complete with it's scripture, iconic figures, prophecy and, most of all, its black-and-white, good-vs-evil, ends-justify-the-means mentality.
<< I am a catholic and a person of faith
and would like to vote also. Don't you think in order to have balance
you should also encourage people of faith to join this site ? why not
add a vote for people of faith,>>
I agree. Preaching to the choir may be good for the ego, but not for the truth.
<< The athiest communist chinese 80 million, Hitler, A catholic who left the faith >>
The argument about who has killed the most innocent people, Theists or Atheists, misses the point. Otherwise-good-people will kill other good people if they believe it's the right thing to do. Whether Hitler was a "good" Catholic or not is immaterial. He was a political leader, who claimed to be doing the will of God, and who convinced his countrymen, mostly Catholics and Lutherans, to kill those who got in the way of their dream of recovering their rightful place in the world. Does that remind you of the Hebrew tribes, who committed genocide as they dis-possessed the aboriginal inhabitants of the "promised land"?
The Communist Chinese were also led by a man who promised them a better world. Atheistic Communism was a secular religion, with a heaven-on-earth dream to pursue. And anyone who got in their way was eradicated. Those faithful chinese followers of Mao were doing their duty to a higher purpose, just like the Crusaders who invaded the Promised Land to take it back from the infidels.
Faithful followers of a dream don't require a divinity to sanction their mass murders. All they need is the example of their fellow followers taking the "by any means necessary" approach to the fulfillment of their dream.
<< Anyway I was looking at some of the
book and was amused at the authors conclusions. that the author is
taking the bible literally and treating it as "a book" which it is not.>>
The author of GVB was taking the Bible literally, because it is usually presented by agressive, true-believers as a literal and coherent expression of the word and will of God. The author of GVB probably would agree with you that the Bible is a "collection of stories"---not a history or science text---but it is the divine inspiration of those storytellers that is in question. GVB does a good job of showing that the storytellers were ordinary---fallible and error-prone---human beings, inspired only in the mundane sense that all authors are motivated to express their personal opinons (which is taken by them to be the truth).
Since our opinions disagree on the source of inspiration, perhaps a more objective test would clear-up the situation. Imagine that I have placed three leather-bound books (collections of stories) on the table before you. Now your task is to show me which of these storybooks of "spiritual knowledge" is the true word of God. All three have millions of believers; each claims to be inspired; each records the testimony of witnesses; each has a history of martyrdom. But the Holy Bible, the Holy Koran, and the Book of Mormon have many points of doctrinal conflict (i.e. incoherence). So either a> all of them are inspired of God, or b> only one is, or c> none of them reveals the will of a divine mind.
How would you go about demonstrating the spritual superiority of the holy book of your choice?
If the correct answer is C>, then you still have one other divine revelation to consider : d> the Book of Nature, which was not written by the hands of men. In that case, you can make-up your own stories, and their validity will be judged not by conformance to creeds, but by coherence to reason.
??????? ???-??? ???????????-?????????? ??? ??????? ????? yellowsubmarine ????? yellowsubmarine ??????? ??????? ????? ??????? ???? ??????? ykapral2