Some wacky creationists are having a Creation Supercamp in Australia. I am surprised by one thing: their opening description of the event is actually true! I can’t find one thing I disagree with in this statement.
The atheists are on the march like never before. Why? Because creation is also being discussed like never before and they are worried! This weeklong series of lectures and activities will equip you and your children with the necessary tools and information to dramatically affect this world for Christ.
Yes, I think we are seeing an atheist surge right now, and yes, we are worried by the growing creationist activism — I’d even say that rising creationism is one factor in motivating many of the “New” Atheists. Of course, that isn’t a good thing. We also think that the risks of measles prompts worldwide efforts to vaccinate against the disease, but no one thinks that is an endorsement of sickness.
I also think these kinds of events do help misguided people “dramatically affect this world for Christ”. Always for the worst, always with greater and greater levels of stupidity, but sure, they’re affecting this world. That Christ guy seems to have said a few smart things; it’s too bad his name has become such a symbol of deluded idiocy, thanks to people like Carl Wieland, one of the conference organizers.
Unfortunately, too, that one paragraph seems to have exhausted the creationists’ full quota of honesty, and looking over their schedule of speakers, it looks like they’re going to babble out a whole week of lies to compensate.
Good to see it’s in Australia. We don’t have all the IDiots in the states by a long shot.
Christ said things?
Nah.
Remember, just because they believe that every single (multiply translated) word is literally true, doesn’t mean that they need to apply literally all of it.
That would be much too exhausting. And not nearly as much fun.
There are many people as I am sure you know, who believe that vaccination is a plot to spread autism, so, as usual, that ‘no one’ has to be qualified.
The usual critera for assessing the authenticity of Jesus’ sayings is how strongly they disagree with Christian doctrine (and thus would not have been fabricated by Christians).
Also, Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic, and his sayings were written down in Greek by people who fully bilingual, so translation isn’t that much of an issue.
I often go on like this in skeptic blogs because it seems to me that most skeptics have a straw-man idea of Christianity based on what they have read by fundamentalists and are unacquainted with scientific Biblical scholarship.
In case anyone is really ignorant on the subject, Jesus’ teachings were mostly about social jsutice for the poor, expressed in the then common framework of apocalyptic ideas. He saw himself as an isntrument of divine justice becuase he was speaking out agianst injsutice.
And no, I am not a Christian.
*settles in to watch the dismantling of #3*
Ha! Oh, crap! They’ve dusted off geocentrism again!
Monday session:
“In the middle of the action.
Our galaxy at the universe’s centre after all?”
mmmmm… sounds all scienc-ey.
I am genuinely shocked – I had no idea there were enough of these clowns here to warrant a community hall meeting, let alone a five day ‘SuperCamp’.
Re #3 “Also, Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic, and his sayings were written down in Greek by people who fully bilingual, so translation isn’t that much of an issue.”
Even for fully bilingual people, translation is, I understand, generally underdetermined. But surely the main questions about whether Jesus the Nazarene really said the things attributed to him is whether anyone was writing them down as he said them (with a quill pen, on papyrus? in shorthand?), and if not, how long it was before they were written down, what kind of editing process went on, etc. There are mnemonic techniques which might have enabled someone to memorise much of a set speech (e.g. the Sermon on the Mount) and reconstruct it years later quite well, but whether any of the disciples would have known and used them, I have no idea – and I don’t think they could have been used for impromptu remarks.
Creation Ministries International — that’s the parent group of Answers in Genesis and used to share the same name as AiG, until Ken Ham worked a deal that stole the name as well as the subscriber base for the parent group’s magazine (Creation ex Nihilo, replaced in the U.S. by Ham’s new Answers magazine). [Link]
It’s okay to lie if you’re a Christian because God will forgive you…
That is true. Although it isn’t just new atheists, old atheists, but also many Xians, scientists and anyone who doesn’t want the USA to turn into banana republic.
What happened to me. Started running into wild eyed religious bigots of dubious sanity and negligible education babbling on about Darwinist plots and dinosaurs on a Big Boat.
A few mouse clicks showed that there were millions of them, they owned the congress and President Bush, and wanted to destroy the USA.
I’m tempted to suggest to my creationist fried in Adelaide that she go along for that thingummabob. Might demonstrate to her the stupidity of her stance.
But I like her too much to make her waste time like that when she could be drawing.
#3
Helena,
It’s my fervent hope that more Christians (especially the newer faces in the evangelical scene, like David Kuo) will stress the social justice message instead of encouraging rabid anti-science. Given what I’m seeing in Florida, however, we’ve got a long way to go.
It’s that whole “world for Christ” nonsense that sends a chill down my spine. I think I’d be much happier if we lived in a world that actually was more interested in the benefit and progress of man than the pointless comforts of a piece of Israeli yard art.
I sometimes describe myself as a Christian atheist, and I agree completely with Helen (#3). There *was* never a “Jesus Christ” – just (probably) a “Jesus the Nazarene”, who then accreted all this Hellenistic crap that was ladled on by that loopy nutball Saul of Tarsus. I’m happy, like Richard Dawkins, to accept “cultural Christianity”, but part of the reason I ended up an atheist was the realisation that Jesus was really shittily misrepresented by Christians (although a lot of seriously mad stuff is attributed to him too). However, we’ve been left with this “cultural Jesus” that we are entitled to, even if we’re atheists. I quite like the gritty Aramaic Jesus of the gospel of Matthew, actually (if you have to read any gospel, that’s the one to read).
The parable of the Good Samaritan is actually an excellent exposition of raw secular ethics. It demonstrates how adherence to religion can be *harmful* (the priest & Levite), & how ignoring prejudice and religion (the Samaritan) opens the door to a type of ethic that is really quite wonderful, and exists in all of us. It would have been viewed (and *should* be viewed) as a strident anti-religious attack (albeit *theistic*).
Many people have said it before – the bible is one of the best source-books for atheism, and I’d encourage atheists to read it (don’t worry – you won’t be converted – you really won’t!). Heck, don’t listen to me – listen to Bart Ehrman or Hector Alvaros :-)
And I thought this level of stupidity was confined to the north of the country. Kill it with fire
Oh, shit. It’s on Phillip Island. Won’t somebody think of the penguins?
Atheists are worried? You bet we are, but not in the reason
that the insane moron ascribes. We are worried that all
insane religions will eventually sink this planet into a
cesspool of deranged madness and there will not be enough
rational people to extricate us from these moronic scum.
On Phillip Island too, how tragic… now I shall have to burn it to the waterline and sow it with salt.
Better start the ‘Adopt-a-penguin’ scheme…
Any other Aussies willing to attend some of the session and the Q and A? I can’t imagine having to go by myself at this point. Frankly, they scare me.
Won’t somebody think of the penguins?
They are witnessing. It’s standard creationist doctrine that geocentricism cures homosexual proclivities in penguins, the fallen Birds of Christ. Why else would Jesus have taken away their ability to fly?
Being bilingual is a prerequisite for translating, it doesn’t guarantee any level of quality at all.
It’s the kind of thing where a little knowledge can be more dangerous then none at all. Translating is quite hard work compared to just writing in another language, I type this post at pretty much the same rate as if it were in my mother tongue. But if i’m translating a text, it would take way more time because I have to interpret someone else’s ideas and keep them intact without modification. Thats pretty difficult and complicated stuff, not something you can automatically do well just because you are bilingual.
Helena, #3, said:
“Also, Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic, and his sayings were written down in Greek by people who fully bilingual, so translation isn’t that much of an issue.”
Actually, it is seems very likely that Jesus never existed, and all accounts of him are complete fabrications.
There is not a single instance of anything the (supposed) Jesus (supposedly) said being recorded by anyone who actually heard him (supposedly) speak. Not even a (supposed) record of a (supposed) someone else who heard a (supposed) first-hand account from a (supposed) someone who was there to hear a (supposed) Jesus speak. In fact, there exists not even a (supposed) record of a (supposed) someone getting a (supposed) second-hand account of a (supposed) someone who was there to (supposedly) hear a (supposed) Jesus.
The earliest possible time that anything in the Bible about Jesus was actually written is a minimum decades after the fact, and most passages were never even written until hundreds of years after they supposedly occurred.
There is not even a single mention of this (supposedly) extremely popular (supposed) man called Jesus by *any* historian of the age. And they listed minutiae from the region. Just nothing about the (supposed) man called Jesus who was the (supposed) son of (supposed) God.
It is likely that Nazareth did not even exist at the time. Hey, what better origin for a fabricated religious figure than a fabricated town?
It is all pretty amazing, isn’t it?
Helena, #3, said:
“…In case anyone is really ignorant on the subject, Jesus’ teachings were mostly about social jsutice for the poor…”
Actually, the Bible ascribes to Jesus a typical mishmash of contradictory statements and actions. Many of which were angry, petty, vindictive, vicious, and murderously violent.
This whole Christianity thing doesn’t bear up under scrutiny very well at all, I’m afraid.
Once again, another full slate of White Males:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5527
(I also like the blindfolded chess side-show. I’m not sure why they left ‘miracle’ out of the list of superlatives though.)
But it wouldn’t be creationism without a dogmatic statement of belief:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/43/
Won’t somebody think of the penguins?
I grew up with them known as ‘Fairy Penguins’, now they are just called ‘Little Penguins’ – I’ve always suspected some fundie anti-gay waterfowl agenda… now they’re down there evangelising. Why can’t they just leave the poor birds alone?
#17
Stuart, I’m not keen to walk into their scary den of lies either.
Being two hours out of town conveniently filters out the drop-ins for them as well, I suspect.
As fascinating as it would be to hear them convince themselves that the universe revolves around them, and revise the constant of the speed of light, there’s no way they’re getting my precious time or hard-earned cash.
I am sure that this comes as a shock to the Europeans who claim that Creationism is something that only Americans have to worry about.
When they came for the American evolutionists, I wasn’t an American, so I didn’t help them out. When they came for the Australian evolutonists, I wasn’t an Aussie, so I didn’t help them out. When they came for the European evolutionists, there was no one left to stand up for me.
(Okay, maybe the Africans and the Asians. But you get the idea.)
“This time of learning and fellowship with like-minded men, women and children, will help you all fulfil your God-given roles in your families, communities and beyond. ”
Way to close to home this shit is,i knew my country was full of those loons,but this comes as a bit of a shock really…rather disconcerting how both candidates for the prime ministers job fekt they had to endorse and suck up to religious wingnuts too,makes you wonder….
Typical of course for them to present concern as worry (i.e. a weakness).
Many of the posts reflect what I indicated by the straw-man version of Christianity.
There is no question of my arguments being dismantled (that only be done by other biblical scholars and I am not offering anything controversial, so it’s a moot point), its just a matter of how much time I want to devote to elaborating well known facts and arguments here, where it is somewhat off topic, but at least will be widely read.
James, Jesus’ brother and the leader of the church in Jerusalem, is well attested in Josephus (not those anonymous historians interested in minute detail), so there is no reason to suspect that Jesus did not exist. Paul, although he never met Jesus, certainly met people who knew him such as James and Peter, and that is all attested from his own hand–so its nonsense to talk an infant series of removes between Jesus and anyone who wrote about him.
Jesus’ speeches would have been heard over and over again by his core followers. The memory of that is the basis of traditions about Jesus. While people necessarily had better memories then, it would be foolish to think that we have many of Jesus’ actual words that would tally with a recording made of him talking. Jesus was probably executed in 29. His sayings were the first thing to be written down, for the benefit of new members of the movement, probably not more than 10 years after that. Documents like Q and the precursor of Thomas would have been composed before 50, Mark around 70 and the other Gospels within a generation of that. All of the gospels are attested in manuscripts from around 100 or earlier. I have no idea what is meant by some of his sayings only being written down hundreds of years later–one of those straw man beliefs. Although the authors of the existing Gospel authors made obvious changes in the sayings to suit their own ideas, it is possible by comparison to reconstruct something of what the original saying might have been–Thomas is especially helpful in this since it represents a tradition quite distant from the canonical Gospels. Again, the sayings that violently disagree with Church teaching are the most likely to be authentic in form.
The sermon on the mount is not an organized speech that someone memorized (its bears none of the forms of ancient rhetoric). It is a collection of sayings that Luke or his source did not have context for and so lumped together.
Writing was performed in antiquity with papyrus reed pens. Quills were a medieval invention once papyrus was no longer available in Europe. Yes, legal speeches and other speeches were transcribed using a system comparable to shorthand. No, nothing like that was done in the case of Jesus (or, I should say that we know of–If Jesus was tried before Pilate that might have been transcribed although we have no trace of it. I wish my namesake had ordered a thorough search of archives in Rome and Caesarea for documents relating to Pilate which might have survived until the early 4th century, rather than shards of the true cross, but what can you do?).
Editing of older source texts to reflect the view of the editor in the transmission of jesus traditions is a problem (and by editor here I mean the authors of Q and other sayings documents, and then the authors of the Gospels, not modern text critics) for relating the received tradition to Jesus’ actual teaching–translation is not a comparably important issue. People who are reading the New Testament and related texts in English I suppose are right to be more leery of those. But those don’t form the basis of our knowledge of Jesus and the New Testament tradition in any proper sense.
People interested in the life of Jesus, but not wishing to become experts through study, could probably do worse than read Dominic Crossan’s popularizing books. Helmut Koester’s Ancient Christian Gospels is more technical but not completely inaccessible to the layman.
Forgive me Helena,but the study of the presumed life of some ancient religious cultist seems an awful waste of time and resources…..I dont get the point at all to be honest…lets try and save the whales hey,or the environment shall we…
re 28
No. you’re right. Christians have no presence in modern socieity, the Church has had absloutely no influence on history. And when anyone talks about this thing that has no relevance, be sure to make up the facts, just like the fundamentalists do (sorry, that must be Islamic fundmaentalists, since we’re not plaged by Christian fundameltalists, I fogot). Much better to become a hippy as you suggest.
Helena @ #27 Are you delirious? Study the life of jeebus, a
fictional character made up by unsound minds ages ago to
mesmerize the unsound minds of today? Let’s see your imaginary jeebus, imaginary god, angels, and all the other
fictional insane crap that only the unsound mind will believe in because they are superstitious morons. Come on,
prove that your imaginary god exists. Bring it down! As I
have written before, if I were a supreme being and one of
my creations questioned my existence, I would be down in a flash. Let’s see your god! Try harder!
Here is a new Charles Darwin
Stuart Newman, The New Master Of Evolution?
Their name of this event is just shorthand for what it really is. Not ‘SuperCamp’ but ‘SuperstitionCamp’
Think they’ll be visiting any museums to see the Ediacaran fauna Australia is so famous for?
“There is no question of my arguments being dismantled …”
In your head perhaps when you ignore earlier statements that *do* dismantle your arguments.
“… is well attested in Josephus …”
The meagre references that relate to Jesus in Josephus’ writings are widely accepted to be interpolations by Christian scribes in later centuries and therefore suspicious at best.
“While people necessarily had better memories then, …”
Of course, you have proof for this assertion?
“And no, I am not a Christian.”
From the evidence presented this declaration appears as reliable as the historical existence of Jesus.
Helena,
You really seem like a nice person, but you are living under the spell of multiple Biblical delusions. Exorcism begins here:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
and here:
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?f=60
Best regards,
GB
…and yet, he never once cited the Gospels, and generally didn’t cite anything he thought Jesus had said. Not one of the sayings in Q. Or have I missed something?
…and yet, he never once cited the Gospels, and generally didn’t cite anything he thought Jesus had said. Not one of the sayings in Q. Or have I missed something?
I haven’t seen such a gigantic misunderstanding of punctuated equilibrium in a long time.
The difference between Darwin and this guy is that, most of the time, Darwin understood what he was talking about.
I haven’t seen such a gigantic misunderstanding of punctuated equilibrium in a long time.
The difference between Darwin and this guy is that, most of the time, Darwin understood what he was talking about.
In re 30
“Helena @ #27 Are you delirious? Study the life of jeebus, a
fictional character made up by unsound minds ages ago to
mesmerize the unsound minds of today? Let’s see your imaginary jeebus, imaginary god, angels, and all the other
fictional insane crap that only the unsound mind will believe in because they are superstitious morons. Come on,
prove that your imaginary god exists. Bring it down! As I
have written before, if I were a supreme being and one of
my creations questioned my existence, I would be down in a flash. Let’s see your god! Try harder!”
This is exactly what I am talking about in respect of the low level of argumentation that the skeptic and atheist community directs toward Christianity (outside of creationism).
1. The author is patently interested in an ad hominem argument, rather than engaging the ideas pretend. He also seems to have missed my disclaimer that I am not a Christian.
The purpose misspelling of Jesus as ‘jeebus’ does not serve the intended purpose of making either me or Jesus look ridiculous (thought it might make someone else look ridiculous).
So Peter and the other apostles (whom I guess would be the ones fabricating Jesus), made Jesus up so for the purpose of influencing modern America? I wouldn’t have thought you believed in prophecy, but your statement seems to imply it.
The supposition that Jesus was imaginary or not historical, is one that is often met among skeptics. But it is never backed up by an arguments. I addressed the issue about as far I can here above. I will note further that no New Testament specialist has every seriously entertained this idea (and if someone could prove it, it would be in their interest to do so, because it would bring the highest possible academic rewards). That is true of Christian scholars, atheist scholars, and Jewish scholars.
The argument that since god and angles almost certainly don’t exist therefore Jesus didn’t exist either, is rather weak. That would be an argument against his personal divinity, not his existence as a human being, so the author seems to have confused those two issues.
I have never made any augments that depend upon the existence of god for their validity–again, the author seems to have mistaken me for a Christiania because of his inattentive reading.
The author’s fantasy of what he would do if were god has absolutely no bearing on anything.
It is unclear what the author means by try harder. I suppose he does not mean to write in a logical fashion, paying careful attention to the texts involved, and with a sensitivity to rhetorical structures. I guess, therefore that I fail again.
In summary, this argumentation is so sloppy, and so based on unexamined assumptions instead of facts, that I can only compare it to creationist arguments against evolution. But this is so often the kind of weak arguments against Christianity that one sees among skeptics (or at least on skeptic message boards). Pointing this out was my original reason for posting.
Helena, I think the points you make are quite interesting. I’ve never paid much attention to the historical evidence of Jesus or lack thereof, but I do think the historical truth is worth investigating.
However, please don’t take holbach’s comment as representative of the attitudes or arguments you find around here. holbach is a frequent commenter who seems to respond to almost everything with loads of vitriol and hostility. I highly doubt most of the others here would be quite as passionately dissmissive towards your arguments.
This is becoming rather ridiculous, but lets get one thing strait. I am not a Christian but embraced atheism when I was 9 years old, I am a Greek professor who spent several years studying the New Testament before switching to Neoplatonism. I am not interested in belief, but in what can be demonstrative from evidence and the interpretation of that evidence. The fact that skeptics are unable to distinguish that position from fundamentalist Christianity when they are blinded by the word Jesus like a bull by a red flag, to the extent that I am accused of lying about not being a Christian (in no. 34 supra), is what surprise me so much about the skeptical movment.
A few points to posts in the mid 30s
1. I said James is well attested in Josephus–the text about Jesus in the mss. Of Josephus are obviously interpolated.
2. Paul betrays no evidence of familiarity with the Gospel tradition we possess. That is no reason to think he was lying when he claims to have met Peter and other church leaders. We have only a handful of letters each addressing particular questions and points. We know nothing his general teaching or preaching.
3. One more specific point–because culture was oral, or rather aural, rather than literary, it was no special achievement for people to have lengthy text like the Homeric poems or the entire new testament by heart. The Ars memoriae (see Frances Yates book on the subject) was a technique of memorization widely practiced by every educated person. Those conditions simply don’t obtain in modern culture where we depend on the written text. So yes there is good evidence that people’s memories were better in antiquity than now.
But the story itself isn’t believable…
so even if he did exist, they were lying or making up myths as they went along.
So Jesus was mythic. No one knows anything about the “true” Jesus, if there was one, because those who told his story were either making it up or getting lies from second hand sources.
Helena, Before you stick up for the insane gawd book anymore, read “Woe to the Women, The Bible Tells Me So” by Annie Laurie Gaylor. I’m trying to be nice because I lived that life for 50 years. It’s hard to quit. The truth is Religion = bullshit.
(Sorry about plagarizing you Holbach.)
Actually, gotta say: I’m really not worried. At least not about long-term consequences. Sociopolitical movements are always a one-step-forward-two-steps-back process, and this is no different. We’ll eventually get there, but yes, it’ll be a struggle.
Infintie curiosity,
I appreciate post # 39.
Yet, going around the discussion baords, one sees attiudes and styles like Holbach’s much more often than not. I suppose it is an effect of the internet–people like Holbach can’t wait to post whereas the more thoughtful hang back as I generally do–and also provocations like that are more memorable.
Did someone say there is a creationist camp going on? lol Too bad it’s so far away in Australia, I would have went to it. However, not all is lost there is light at the end of the tunnel especially with the internet that provides information (science), sometimes the camps allow video downloads for free.
Here is something really wacky, during the grand opening of the creationist museum, a loud airplane was circling overhead for the visitors below with a Bible quote attached to it’s tail, what was “wacky” about that? Well, it was promoted by an “atheist” who was protesting the opening of the museum…lol
Hey team, I’m sticking up for Helena in this. As I mentioned in my previous post, the bible is one of the best atheist source-books around, and some of you punters are just going to have to get over the fact that some of us are interested in our cultural background and the historical factors that influenced it. I spent 23 years of my life as an evangelical Christian, and it was *Jesus* that made me an atheist. As it is, I have been able to use what I know to deconvert most of my immediate family (just my mum holding out, and even she has become an Anglican ;-)
As Helena says, Christianity is majorly powerful right now, but what many atheists don’t realise is that many (most?) Christians have less than a clue about the bible, and if you’re really interested in engaging people in useful debate that educates and informs, rather than inflames, why make the tone stroppy, when you can be constructive, and actually have a chance of helping someone out of their belief trap?
For some evidence of this in action, have a look at http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com
And another thing, please don’t think this is about “framing” [PZ, you are totally right, and I take my hat off to you, sir!]. It is about knowing the position of your adversary. And you don’t have to be Lao Tze to know that that puts you at an immediate advantage.
Yeah, by all means don’t look up anything about jebus if you don’t want to, but don’t disparage those who find it interesting, and who think it might be important to know why millions of people believe a load of old cobblers.
As mentioned above, Susan Mazur strikes again with hyperbolic praise for intellectual nonconformists and overhype about alleged scientific revolutions.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00103.htm
Stuart Newman is “The New Charles Darwin”? As SNL’s Aunt Linda would say: oh, brother.
At least the balloon animal guy is genuinely far from normative science. Is Newman’s shtick all that heterodox, besides his association with Rifkin? Not really.
Creation Ministries International have held several of these camps over the years, including at least one here in New Zealand. They keep a lower profile than the American creationists – they’ve adopted a policy of developing a grass-roots creationist movement rather than taking on the scientific and religious establishment head-on. Carl Wieland has laid this out explicitly in his article, Linking and Feeding – http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/0720linking.asp
I once attended a day-long event headed by Wieland at a mega-church in Auckland. He’s a highly intelligent and articulate individual who comes across as thoughtful and sincere. If you didn’t know the background to what he was talking about he would seem very persuasive. He is the most plausible creationist I’ve ever met, and not someone who should be underestimated. Not at all like his former partners in Christ, Ken Ham and John Mackay. Incidentally, the story of the messy split of their organisation into its current components (CMI, AiG and John Mackay’s Creation Research) is a fascinating and sordid tale, which Jim Lippard has blogged about extensively – see for example http://lippard.blogspot.com/2006/11/john-mackay-and-answers-in-genesis.html
Creationism is very far from being a solely American phenomenon. While it has a lesser grip on the general public in the Antipodes, it’s quite remarkable how much of the movement world-wide is now controlled by Australians. Ham is an Australian, as is the editor of AiG’s “journal”, Andrew Snelling. AiG is now considerably larger than the ICR, which has traditionally been the biggest of the creationist outfits – again, Jim Lippard has dug up some figures on this. From their headquarters in Australia (they own a modern office building in Brisbane, paid for out of donations, with a sizeable staff), CMI distribute magazines, books and films to branches in NZ, the UK, South Africa and Canada. Mackay has his own, smaller organisation which is very active in the UK, and he often visits NZ.
Patricia @ #42 Plagarize as often as you wish for I know
you feel the same as I do when it comes to this never-ending nonsense and it’s defenders.
And to you Helena, it is a waste of time even with vitriol
to prove that you are wrong in your beliefs of an imaginary
god. Why don’t you “spew”, (as in Davis) your nonsense on
a site that gobbles up your insane garbage. And to end with
a smack at your nonsense, you haven’t got ‘a prayer’ to
disengage your life from one of perpetual insanity and
intellectual dishonesty.
Helena,
In case you’ve stuck around long enough to read this, thanks for all the information. I’m particularly fascinated to know there was a functional equivalent of shorthand at that time, and that the Sermon on the Mount is not considered to have been a set speech – but would Jesus have used the “forms of ancient rhetoric”? Do we have any rabbinical sermons (do you call them sermons?) of that time for comparison? I’ll follow your recommendation to take a look at Dominic Crossan and Helmut Koester – I’ve just finished reading Gibbon, so they would illuminate how far his ideas on early Christianity correspond with modern scholarship as well as informing me directly about what is known and hypothesized of Jesus’s own life.
I’ve discovered in just a week or so reading this blog that there are some contributors who think an insult is an argument, and possibly a rather larger group who have difficulty accepting that there is such a thing as expertise and rational enquiry outside the natural sciences, but there is also a considerable amount of lively wit and rational discussion.
Thanks again for your time and expertise.
Helena,
I understand what you’re saying, and I find the subject interesting in a purely secular manner as well. I have a friend who is an agnostic, but who was a religion major in college because he found the subject interesting. When others learned that he was a religion major, they often assumed that he was religious. Study of a religion or a religious text, or historical events related to a religion, does not require belief in the supernatural claims of the religion being studied.
You’re quite right that some commenters here “are blinded by the word Jesus like a bull by a red flag.” Comment # 42, which was made after your detailed explanation in comment # 40, seems to prove your point.
Wow. Holbach in #49, did you actually READ any of Helena’s comments? I don’t understand how you could have formulated your response if you actually read Helena’s comments.
Holbach, that’s uncalled for. If you don’t want to engage in a debate over the historicity of Jesus the Nazarene, that’s fine. If this blog isn’t appropriate for such discussions, that’s fine too, but you’re no PZ.
Religion is a meme complex, and it infects people’s minds – people who are otherwise rather rational, and often quite nice. People who study HIV do so because they want to *combat* HIV infection. If you were serious about joining the effort to help people kick the plague of religion, you would be trying to find out more about it. Don’t worry – there is nothing to be afraid of. It’s quite harmless and insane. You don’t have to get all defensive – you’ll not be infected. Just RTFB ;-)
“If this blog isn’t appropriate for such discussions [of the historicity of Jesus], that’s fine too, but you’re no PZ” – Comment #53
I would add that such discussions are appropriate, since PZ wrote in his blog entry “That Christ guy seems to have said a few smart things; it’s too bad his name has become such a symbol of deluded idiocy….” Whether or not he existed and whether or not he said things are topics Helena is addressing in a scholarly manner.
Wyatt @ #52 Good grief, of course I read all of Helena’s comments, but they are all in defence of religion and imnumerable quotations to bolster this nonsense! Can you fathom that I am an absolute atheist and detest religion and superstition in any form or defence and am unequivocal in denouncing the same in any severe manner that I can? She is putting forth this insane crap with the disingenous belief that people are only half skeptical on these matters that she is espousing. If she wants to debate whether Jupiter is a better planet than Saturn, than there is cause for discussion and debate. But to proffer that religious crap which I consider irrational is to not debate on anything at all. She may believe in that garbage as much as she wants to, but it is not going to make it real or in any way even arguable with me. I may think I am
the Baron Holbach and tell you that I am, but you know that I am not and will scoff at my insistence that I am. This same principle applies to her pathetic attempt to try to prove there was a jesus and an imaginary god who is the root of it all. It just is not so, simple as that. Crutches have their use for the temporary physically handicapped, but to use nonsense religion as a crutch only serves to demean and debase people needlessly. If I can say that I have a crutch to lean on, than it is the sturdy
and proven crutch of science and reason. Religion in any form and from any individual stupid enough to try and explain their beliefs are just so much cannon fodder to me and I will blast them as hard and whenever I can. I have made myself as understandable as possible, and yet I still cannot impress upon certain dimwitted persons that to argue this insane crap is a waste of time.
in re 50,
Nick,
Thanks for your response.
Gibbon is implaccabyy hostile to Christinaity (as he is to neoplatonism also), so you’ll find Crossan and Koester quite different. They also engage the text and its context and a much finer level of detail than Gibbon could have attempted.
No, Jesus, even as Gospel character, did not stick to Classical rhetoric that closely, but if you look at the sermon on the mount it is just a mismash of disointed sayings without argument or narrative. No one would ever have given a speech like that (having said that I am sure one can find imitations of the biblical text in later ages). I would guess the rabbis talk about rhetoric, but that isn’t a part of the Talmud I’ve ever read.
Huff and puff, Holbach.
I’ll second the Crossan recommendation and add a few more names to your reading list: Bart D. Ehrman (multiple titles on the subject), Burton Mack’s Who Wrote the New Testament?, and a great little book by Randel Helms called Who Wrote the Gospels?, in which the author makes a persuasive case that the author of Luke/Acts was a woman.
I started on the historical Jesus read-a-thon a couple of months ago, but quickly realized that the best, almost the only, window on the subject is the history of very early Christianity. Crossan’s The Historical Jesus is a good book, but it’s really a broader social history/cultural anthropology of Eastern Mediterranean peasant life in the 1st Century CE than a narrow examination of the life of one individual.
Far as I can tell, she is not attempting to prove anything. She has presented evidence that a guy named Jesus once lived and preached. That’s it–no opinions on the veracity of the preaching, nothing about the existence of god(s). Your vehemence is trumping your reading comprehension.
Re #56 “Gibbon is implaccably hostile to Christianity”. Yes, I noticed that (and that he’s very witty and nicely ironic about it – as in the bit about how the Roman historians of the time were so perverse they missed obvious signs of Jesus’s divinity like the darkness that attended the crucifixion). However he does sometimes commend individual Christians who (unusually) showed some tolerance of religious differences. I read his autobiography as well, but could not decide exactly what his own beliefs were – clearly he might have needed to be careful about being too explicit.
RE #58 – Thanks CJO.
Dear Baron Holbach,
Helena has stated at least twice that she’s not a Christian. I really don’t see much ambiguity in the statement, “[I] embraced atheism when I was 9 years old,” do you?
She’s looking at Christianity from the scholarly viewpoint of history and, as Amenhotep said, the reasons for doing so are not rooted a desire to buy into the myth, but rather in ones desire to learn the truth of the matter and to understand the positions of ones adversaries. Surely there is some value in that. I appreciate your passion and defend your right to express yourself, of course, but please – take a breath, and read what’s written. Criticisms and refutations of religion take many forms. Your way is not the only way.
I’ve studied this a bit myself, and haven’t been able to conclude that Jesus never existed. However, Steve_C made an excellent point about that: The question is essentially moot, because the life and deeds of the mythic Jesus, as presented in the Bible and presumed to be inerrantly true by much of Christendom, likely bears little resemblance to the real life and deeds of the real person who was posthumously deified.
The real question, is not “Did some guy we now know as Jesus ever really exist?” it’s “Was then man we now know as Jesus really The Son of God?” Those are two very different questions. If we learn enough about the answer to the first question, the second question may itself become increasingly moot as the likelihood of a divine Jesus, according to the evidence rather than by virtue of our own incredulity, becomes vanishingly small.
Number8Dave @ #48 said:
…”it’s quite remarkable how much of the movement world-wide is now controlled by Australians…”
On the other hand, the Aussies are a wombat-wooing dingo-delving lot. A fine people, but dingo-delvers. ;D
Grammar @ 57 Now I know what RWA stands for:
Run Without Answering
Modern scholarship on the Bible — which includes Higher Criticism — is hardly the same as what’s taught in fundamentalist Sunday School. So I’ll add to the chorus of support for Helena.
That is, I don’t have the background to endorse everything she’s said, but she seems to be fairly mainstream, and I agree that it’s important to understand the historical and literary facts behind the Bible if we’re going to criticize it. Otherwise, it’s like creationists criticizing their straw man version of evolution.
Of course, people — including scholars — have a sad tendency to read their own ideals into the historical figure of Jesus, who, Robert Price points out, has been variously described as ‘a marginal Jew’ (John P. Meier), ‘a Mediterranean peasant’ (John Dominic Crossan), a Galilean hasid (Geza Vermes), a Zealotlike revolutionary (S.G.F. Brandon, Robt. Eisenmann), a folk magician (Morton Smith), shaman (S.L.Davies, Gaetano Salomone), a Qumran Essene (Barbara Thiering), or a Cynic-like sage (Gerald Downing, Burton Mack). So I’m a little cynical on our ability to discover the “real Jesus.”
I did enjoy Randal Helms, though, and second the recommendation above.
Did anyone else notice that on the creationist website PZ linked to there is a list of “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use”? It’s under the Info menu, near the bottom. I find it interesting that there are some arguments that are so discredited that even a creationist won’t stoop to use them. Most of the arguments they reject (such as, Archaeopteryx is a hoax) are replaced by equally dim-witted and/or dishonest alternatives (Archaeopteryx is a pure bird, not a transitional form).
Ken #66: CMI are very big on this notion that creationism needs to be made properly scientific. They really think this is possible. One of their schemes is to encourage any creationists who want to publish something to send it to them first and they will, for a fee, “peer review” it. If this isn’t done, then CMI will tear the item to pieces when it’s released to the public. John Mackay has declared this is an extortion racket, and for once I agree with him.
This issue was one of the things contributing to the split between AiG and CMI – Ken Ham is not at all keen on going down this path it seems. I suspect he has the correct instincts for long-term creationist survival. What happens to CMI when they realise all creationist arguments are seriously flawed?
Thanks to Helena for patience and Holbach for street theatre. On one of yesterday’s posts a commenter supplied “Misquoted, Misunderstood or Made-Up?” as a play on C.S. Lewis’ “Lunatic, Liar or Lord?”, properly pointing out that a little scepticism can completely transform ones view of reality. Non-fundamentalist christians (like my Catholic parents) as well as non-believers recognise the fallibility of biblical texts and traditions, and that they were constructed by historical processes (they evolved!). I’m not an expert but I’m a bit surprised to read someone as patently knowledgeable as Helena say
I’ve read the gospels attentively looking for anything that might be authentic detail about this person, and in my opinion there’s simply nothing. It would have been so easy for someone who knew him to give some biographical detail, but it all looks made up to me. Clearly somebody is the author of the sayings, and the places and some of the characters are historical, but after subtracting the prophesy-fulfilment and the elements stolen from older Mithraic and Apollonian legends (virgin birth, resurrection, to name but two) there’s not much of a story left. We know so much more about Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes (f’rinstance) that distance in time doesn’t explain the fogginess of the evidence for Jesus having lived at all. So if it’s true that even sceptical New Testament scholars don’t wonder if he’s a fiction, I wonder why.
Holbach: shush, child.
Counterexample: Robert M. Price.
Damn, thats over 1000Kms away, would have been funny to attend the lectures with hysterical laughter ,and then get expelled. i always laugh at the mormons every chance i get
yeah Australia is where IAG came from, but we got rid of that lune to america :)
AIG rather , duh
Goddamit, its a pity its on phillip island, otherwise i could attend with my good friends fire and gasoline. ah well i supose i should be glad its not contaminating NSW.
I think one point that needs to be made is that the idea that Jesus was totally invented is very very difficult to support. There is no question that “Jesus Christ” is a figure of fiction, but this “Christ” notion seems to have been slapped onto an otherwise relatively inconsequential Galilean preacher (“Jesus the Nazarene”) who got uppity ideas and got crucified by the Romans (he wasn’t the Alpha or Omega of that particular list! ;-) The difficulty is that there are too many little Galilean and Judean snippets in there to allow it to be a *complete* fabrication, and in fact I would argue that the nature of the Gospel evidence is such that we can hazard a pretty good guess at the broad outlines of what went on.
Of course it’s obscured by syncretistic Mithraitic and Egyptian bollocks (they invented the Trinity, based on Amun, Mut & Khonsu mixed with Osiris, Isis & Horus), as well as a lot of Hellenistic stuff chucked in by Saul.
But to maintain that there never was an actual “Jesus the Nazarene” (not “of Nazareth” – that was based on a misunderstanding of the word “Nazarene”, and the modern town of Nazareth was only named such to attract the pilgrims) is a claim that needs evidence, and the balance of evidence suggests at least the existence of a hook upon which huge piles of heavily-embroidered sweaty cassocks have been hung ever since.
But I digress… ;-)
Arrrgh. It’s only 150km from my home.
Was thinking of removing the bridge and torpedoeing the island. But I couldn’t think of a way to get the GP Circuit off and save the penguin colonies. So… um…
It’s Darwin’s Bicentennary next year too. Maybe we should get a couple hundred Darwins to picket it. :-)
I reckon a better strategy is to make them think a whole lot of militant atheists are going sneak in and heckle. They will have to start doing background checks on every application :-)
If anyone wants to sponsor me to go I’ll give it a shot.
Ahhh but they are lying again at Expelled:
Editor’s Note: Questions have been raised about the origination of some of the animation used in our movie EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. Claims that we have used any animation in an unauthorized manner are simply false. Premise Media created the animation that illustrates cellular activity used in our film.
-The Producers of “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed”
Notice how carefully the PR company wrote:
“Claims that we have used any animation in an unauthorized manner are simply false.”
and “Premise Media created the animation…”
They just reproduced it exactly except for a few modeling and color changes.
And these are the same type of wingnuts who took Clinton to task for “the meaning of is is”.
Hi PZ. Why don’t you come along. It would be good to talk to you so we can clear up some misconceptions.
#77 like the misconception about the age of the earth?
Granted I suppose 6,000 years and 4.65 million aren’t that far apart really.
Not as far apart as 6,000 and 4.65 billion, anyway! (Sorry, but if this isn’t corrected, the creotins will be claiming “evilutionists don’t even agree to within a factor of 1,000 how old Earth is”!)
Sure, Tas. Cover my travel costs, and I’d be happy to present a talk at the creationism camp.
hmm. I’m sure we could take up a subscription, but the question then becomes: how do I pay to come over and watch?
Maybe we should set up a video link so our absent friends can see the fun.
I’ll go to Creationist camp, too, as long as there are dinosaurs to ride and maybe that Huckabee girl…
“clear up misconceptions”… yes, you seriously need to clear up some misconceptions.
That this camp is being held in a place with some of the best nature in the southern hemisphere (fairy penguins! huge seal colony! great white sharks!) just breaks my irony meter. Again.
Not as far apart as 6,000 and 4.65 billion, anyway!
doh! At least someone was concentrating! thanks
If anyone is interested in the kind of misconceptions that need “clearing up” Tas has kindly written an article
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5651
It is dated April 1 so it is probably a joke.