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Stromrider
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Registered: 06/02/13
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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Mad Season]
#19007273 - 10/21/13 06:40 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Idk I think power would be next. We are talking about the main world religions of course.
There are plenty of people who use religion for self improvement and spiritual enlightenment
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Stromrider]
#19007280 - 10/21/13 06:46 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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I'm not so sure there are plenty if you could look into the heart of the matter. IMO the truly spiritual person leaves religion alone once he experiences any cognitive dissonance. Something any awakened person would experience imo.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Icelander]
#19007300 - 10/21/13 06:58 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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It is a different world between hearing a religion and living its meaning. You must internalize and find new meaning in old slogans. At some point a religion must be between you and the big boss. Problem with religion is bullies hang out in them. Those bullies look perfect in that religion. They look much more religious and pious than you can ever hope to aspire to. Oh, fuck it, I may as well not even bother.
These pious souls steal religion from everybody else. It's not that the values of religion are wrong or bad, but some people make religion their profession. And like politicians who may have fought a war (now labeled heroes (for political gain)) these religious are religious on a similar stage to the actor. Are they live or are they Memorex? One thing is for sure - their three square are automatic.
Is your religion live or is it Memorex?
-------------------- ...or something
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Stromrider
This must be the place



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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Icelander]
#19007314 - 10/21/13 07:04 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: I'm not so sure there are plenty if you could look into the heart of the matter. IMO the truly spiritual person leaves religion alone once he experiences any cognitive dissonance. Something any awakened person would experience imo.
Yeah plenty may have been the wrong word
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Icelander
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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: eve69]
#19007390 - 10/21/13 07:46 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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If so called religious people can't discern that these "bullies" are fakes then I see little benefit in being religious. These "religious" imo are in it for other reasons besides awakening.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Yogi1
Squatchin

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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Icelander]
#19007462 - 10/21/13 08:20 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Cultural and community approval. In my area being a discovered agnostic/atheist automatically puts you at odds with the overwhelming protestant foothold.
Indoctrination
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Yogi1]
#19007496 - 10/21/13 08:36 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yogi1 said: Cultural and community approval. In my area being a discovered agnostic/atheist automatically puts you at odds with the overwhelming protestant foothold.
Indoctrination 
Someday it's likely the reverse will be true. Atheists are on the rise.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Stromrider
This must be the place



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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Icelander]
#19007541 - 10/21/13 08:50 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said:
Quote:
Yogi1 said: Cultural and community approval. In my area being a discovered agnostic/atheist automatically puts you at odds with the overwhelming protestant foothold.
Indoctrination 
Someday it's likely the reverse will be true. Atheists are on the rise.
Very true. I think the number of americans that aren't affiliated with any religion is up to 16% now.
Have any of you seen Bill Mahar's documentary "Religulous"??? It is pretty good. It is on netflix if you have it
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Icelander
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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Stromrider]
#19008056 - 10/21/13 11:27 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Yeah seen some.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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afaunaimeddaedalus
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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Icelander]
#19015561 - 10/22/13 07:27 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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My pitbull jack got murdered by police
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afaunaimeddaedalus
Stranger


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Jesus was a pit bull that was murdered by police
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Withinity
Untitled


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One of my ex Pitbull's accidentally hung itself to get to the bitch on the other side.
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Duncan Rowhl
Fiducia Christum



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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Withinity]
#19017993 - 10/23/13 08:54 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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What's different between a spiritual person who follows a religion and someone who is just merely "spiritual" is that many of the latter demographic don't dare place themselves with any onus to defend their position.
The abstract nature of their raw "spirituality" gives them a safe and convenient bet with no opportunity for the other party to raise question to it.
They are often without suggestions and theories of their own but full with opposing critique against religions that in contrast, hold debatable "form".
Edited by Duncan Rowhl (10/23/13 09:53 AM)
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Brown Buffalo
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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Duncan Rowhl]
#19018212 - 10/23/13 09:59 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Also fictional characters are able to teach things. Isnt for this reason that fables exists? It seems to me that you are looking the finger instead of looking to the moon it points
-------------------- "..Here I am, inside the bunker, behind mental steel walls 90 psycho-centimeters thick.."
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction *DELETED* [Re: eve69]
#19020987 - 10/23/13 06:45 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Post deleted by MarkostheGnosticReason for deletion: .
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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That was the article that started this thread.
-------------------- ...or something
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Yogi1
Squatchin

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No
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Mahananda


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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: Yogi1] 1
#19021257 - 10/23/13 07:22 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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One scholar evaluates Atwill, with the following captions, among others: "Evidence? Or Insufferable Slurries of Bullshit and Denial?" and "His Best Evidence Is Just Offal". Heh.
Here's a snippet:
There are at least eight general problems with his thesis, which do not refute it but establish that it has a very low prior probability, and therefore requires exceptionally good evidence to be at all credible:
(1) The Roman aristocracy was nowhere near as clever as Atwill’s theory requires. They certainly were not so masterfully educated in the Jewish scriptures and theology that they could compose hundreds of pages of elegant passages based on it. And it is very unlikely they would ever conceive of a scheme like this, much less think they could succeed at it (even less, actually do so).
(2) We know there were over forty Gospels, yet the four chosen for the canon were not selected until well into the 2nd century, and not by anyone in the Roman aristocracy. Likewise which Epistles were selected.
(3) The Gospels and the Epistles all contradict each other far too much to have been composed with a systematic aim in mind. Indeed, they contradict each other in ways that often demonstrate they are deliberately arguing with each other. From the ways Matthew changes Mark; to the way the forged 2 Thessalonians actually tries to argue 1 Thessalonians is the forgery; to how the resurrections depicted in Luke and John are deliberate attempts to refute the doctrine of resurrection defended originally by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5; to how some Epistles insist on Torah observance while others insist it can be discarded; to how Luke’s nativity contradicts Matthew’s on almost every single particular (and not just in placing the event in completely different periods ten years apart); to how Acts blatantly contradicts Paul’s own account of his conversion and travels; to how John invents a real Lazarus to refute a point Luke tried to make with a fictional Lazarus; and so on. (I discuss some of these, and more, in my forthcoming book On the Historicity of Jesus.)
(4) The Gospels and the Epistles differ far too much in style to have come from the same hand, and many show signs of later doctoring that would problematize attempts to confirm any theory like Atwill’s. For example, Mark 16:9-20, John 20 vs. 21, the hash job made of the epistle to the Romans, etc. Even the fact of how the canon was selected creates a problem for Atwill’s research requirements–for instance, the actual first letter to the Corinthians is completely missing, yet Paul refers to its existence in “our” 1 Corinthians.
(5) Christianity was probably constructed to “divert Jewish hostility and aggressiveness into a pacifist religion, supportive of–and subservient to–Roman rule,” but not by Romans, but exasperated Jews like Paul, who saw Jewish militarism as unacceptably disastrous in contrast with the obvious advantages of retooling their messianic expectations to produce the peaceful moral reform of society. The precedents were all there already in pre-Christian Jewish ideology and society (in Philo’s philosophy, in Essene and Qumranic efforts to solve the same problems, and so on) so we don’t have to posit super-genius Aryans helping the poor little angry Jews to calm down.
(6) Pacifying Jews would not have been possible with a cult that eliminated Jewish law and accepted Gentiles as equals, and in actual fact Christianity was pretty much a failure in Palestine. Its success was achieved mainly in the Diaspora, where the Romans rarely had any major problems with the Jews. The Jewish War was only fought in Palestine, and not even against all the Jews there (many sided with Rome). How would inventing a religion that would have no chance of succeeding in the heart of Palestine but instead was tailor made to succeed outside Palestine, ever help the Romans with anything they considered important?
(7) If the Roman elite’s aim was to “pacify” Palestinian Jews by inventing new scriptures, they were certainly smart and informed enough to know that that wouldn’t succeed by using the language the Judean elite despised as foreign (Greek).
(8) The Romans knew one thing well: War. Social ideology they were never very good at. That’s why Rome always had such problems keeping its empire together, and why social discontent and other malfunctions continued to escalate until the empire started dissolving. Rome expected to solve every problem militarily instead–and up until the 3rd century Rome did so quite well. The Jewish War was effectively over in just four years (any siege war was expected to take at least three, and Vespasian was actually busy conquering Rome in the fourth year of that War). So why would they think they needed any other solution?
With all that counting against Atwill, he has a very high burden to meet. And he just doesn’t. He actually has no evidence at all for his thesis, except “Bible Code”-style readings of coincidences among texts, which he seems only to read in English and not the original Greek, all the while relying on egregious fallacies in probabilistic reasoning.
Full text: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4664
-------------------- Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of living, it doesn't matter Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come even if you have broken your vow a thousand times, Come, yet again, come, come
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Jesus story is pure fiction [Re: eve69]
#19022158 - 10/23/13 09:42 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
eve69 said: That was the article that started this thread.
Whoops! Think I'll take it down. Still, read D.M. Murdock if you are intrigued.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--



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-------------------- ...or something
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