Do you believe in Jesus?

[quote] and one of my cousins…who used to steal playgirls from the dirty bookstore with me when we were kids

People do sometimes change as they become adults, you know

I don't believe in the Easter Bunny, or the tooth fairy, or Jesus.

I believe in Crystal Light because I believe in ME!

OP, is your cousin male or female?

I think people are so scared of death, that they will resort to anything to comfort themselves, such as believing in some mysterious fantasy figures. My father has started talking more about god, heaven, etc. as he's gotten older. He's not harming anyone, so I just let him go with it.

R4 are you looking for dick pics at a funeral? How tacky. Come sit by me.

[quote]“I’m so happy and overjoyed today because Uncle Jack has finally met Jesus.”

So many ways to take this sentence. Bless Uncle Jack's heart.

i started laughing at r6 post a few minutes ago and only just stopped.

Jesus is a cult of personality that originated from Judea around Julius Caesar. Their initials are the same, same underlying ideals of equity, Judas/Brutus betrayal, and you even have Jesus quoted as saying “Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” It is the same person.

It’s a delusion.

Errrr - no, r9.

[quote] OP, is your cousin male or female?

Male, r4. We used to be super close. We actually used to take about religion when we were younger and decided we should become satanists (we were young and stupid and didn’t understand satanism either). He’s become insufferable. Literally 10+ posts every single day about Jesus. It turns my stomach - I don’t even recognize him any more.

I was indeed all about the equity

[quote] He's not harming anyone, so I just let him go with it.

I usually look at it like this, too, r5. To each their own. It just does my head in trying to understand how people actually believe this stuff.

No objective evidence exists for the existence of a historical Jesus matching the descriptions found in the gospels, and core Pauline details indicate a belief that the trials of the Christ took place in the lower realms of heaven, not in an earthly life. The inconsistencies, obvious interpolations, wholesale destruction of competing texts by the winners of the war for orthodoxy, and unhistorical information appearing in the gospels, and so on also strongly demonstrate the ultimately fictive nature of the Christ myth.

R9 is as crazy as the Christian literalists.

R13 both their ideals if followed would result in redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor

[quote] Jesus is a cult of personality that originated from Judea around Julius Caesar. Their initials are the same, same underlying ideals of equity, Judas/Brutus betrayal, and you even have Jesus quoted as saying “Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” It is the same person.

Right, R9! And so many of the Bible stories are blatantly stolen from pagan myths that predate the Bible by centuries. These things are proven facts. With so much undeniable scientific evidence about the evolution of Christianity, I simply don’t understand how people believe so devoutly and how offended they get when you don’t believe the same way.

Shit no.

(not even going to bother to remove the footnotes. He's FICTION. Paul made him up.)

Mythicists argue that in the gospels "a fictitious historical narrative" was imposed on the "mythical cosmic savior figure" created by Paul.[86] According to Robert Price, the Gospels "smack of fictional composition",[web 9] arguing that the Gospels are a type of legendary fiction[84] and that the story of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels fits the mythic hero archetype.[84][85] The mythic hero archetype is present in many cultures who often have miraculous conceptions or virgin births heralded by wise men and marked by a star, are tempted by or fight evil forces, die on a hill, appear after death and then ascend to heaven.[131] Some myth proponents suggest that some parts of the New Testament were meant to appeal to Gentiles as familiar allegories rather than history.[132] According to Earl Doherty, the gospels are "essentially allegory and fiction".[133]

According to Wells, a minimally historical Jesus existed, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document.[134] According to Wells, the Gospels weave together two Jesus narratives, namely this Galilean preacher of the Q document, and Paul's mythical Jesus.[134] Doherty disagrees with Wells regarding this teacher of the Q-document, arguing that he was an allegorical character who personified Wisdom and came to be regarded as the founder of the Q-community.[87][135] According to Doherty, Q's Jesus and Paul's Christ were combined in the Gospel of Mark by a predominantly Gentile community.[87]

Even the Muslims believe in Jesus, OP.

So be careful not to insult him, or it's choppy-choppy for YOU.

Somebody has too much time on their hands.

[quote]Somebody has too much time on their hands.

Well not Uncle Jack. He's gone to meet Muslim Jesus.

I believe in Jesus but I'm no Fundie. I believe in science, a higher power and Jesus. There is so much mystery in this world and things we cannot explain. The more we go out in space, the more the universe confounds our physicists because it doesn't bend by their standards or rules. We live in 3 dimensions at this time and we can't see beyond that.

It really doesn't matter that much. Jesus is an idea. Whether or not he was real or not shouldn't matter. We should try to be like him. Try to be decent and charitable to everyone. It's very difficult to be Christlike. That's why it's a struggle.

[quote] There is so much mystery in this world and things we cannot explain

And Jesus explains those mysteries?

Jesus is my Mexican gardener. I believe he's due here tomorrow.

[quote] I believe he's due here tomorrow.

The second coming?

[quote]The more we go out in space, the more the universe confounds our physicists because it doesn't bend by their standards or rules.

R23 The physicists are rather bound by the standards or rules themselves and throughout the history of science, those rules have constantly changed. When new revelations are made, scientists accept them and move on from there to the next mysteries of universe. This is why the understanding of gravity evolved from a Newtonian force to Einstein's relativity. Why the center of the solar system was later understood to be the sun and not the earth. Why the certainty of the location and time of an object was challenged by far superior Quantum mechanics. Why electrons earlier thought to be a particle is today understood as a "cloud" instead.

Your statement comes off snobbish as if you're trying to paint the physicists to be the absolute authorities of science, which they are not at all. Its as redundant as the "God works in mysterious ways" bullshit.

Honestly, I hope everyone here does explore the mythicist Jesus theory, and every other theory and idea about true and false in the Bible, but intelligently. It may be true. It may be false. But don't settle for silly fantasies about how space disproves physics and the Caesars invented Jesus for reasons. It's not good enough. Don't settle for silly.

I believe that Jesus Christ really did exist - obviously some great avatar walked and lived in Israel 2000 years ago. I am not an evangelical, don't take all of the Bible literally, and believe in Jesus in my own personal way. Jesus was a Spirit-of-the -law person and so am I. He was a loving man filled with compassion and exemplified God - put a face on Him- better than anyone else. The greatest being to ever grace our planet!

If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn them into the body of Elvis Presley, you have lost your mind. But if you think more or less the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus, you're just a Catholic.

As long as Jesus looked like Jeffrey Hunter I'm a believer. If he looked like Dom DeLuise I can't waste my time.

OP your statement betrays a sense of superiority, lack of empathy and understanding for others (one needs not say that you may well end one day at the other end). Besides the superficial appeals to academical authority to "disapprove" Jesus, none here actually has said something meaningful. The case point is why people believe in an intervening God that laid out a plan, that we may find doubtful and strange, for our sake, despite not particularly deserving His kindness. I guess a good number of people here don't believe either in a Supreme Being, or in the Christian God, for whatever reasons they may have. And it's not irrationally to accept that an all-powerful deity may intervene, may incarnate himself, being born from a virgin to die a horrible death for us; the reason you treat Christian beliefs with contempt is that either you don't believe in such a deity, or that you can't accept that a deity would condescend as to do this, which considering how little empathy you seem to have for others in a period of suffering, may be the truth. Others though can accept that a God full of love, did incarnate Himself to die for us. Fundamentalists chose to set aside anything that irks them, it's the easy way, but we ought not to judge them, in so far they do not endanger themselves or others. That they are the butt of the jokes of many Americans only helps illustrate what's wrong at the heart of the US, and why it's breaking apart. One needs not understand what is an atom to exist, or what is oxygen to breathe. Likewise, some need not understand that the earth having more than 5000 years does not mean that God does not exist, or that Jesus cannot be identified with said God. And it's kind of funny that unconsciously you do agree with those fundamentalists that preach fire and brimstone to anyone who ever happens to have a moment of weakness, that you need to deny your family the comfort of a loving and forgiving deity awaiting those who die. R23 Faith is something you put on God, not on science. Scientific hypothesis are demonstrated, and disapproved, come and go. Our current understanding of our cosmology points out that the universe was created, out of nothing, before such point being neither time, space or matter; even an atheist like Stephen Hawking at times fell back to the notion of a superintellect as the first cause. But our belief in God ought not to depend on it, precisely for its fluctuating nature, we ought to have the discernment to understand that our knowledge is speculative and that ultimately things are fairly unknowable.

What A Friend We Have In Jesus - love the song! So inspirational and comforting!

I lost a lot of faith in him when he briefly dated his mom in the late aughts.

so is this one r34.

R33 may believe in a fictional god, but not the god of paragraph breaks.

R37 I know you aren't used to dense paragraphs, perhaps you should resume reading that children's book you left behind to post that witty remark.

Unfortunately a lot of Trumpers have defaulted to freedom, “truth”, patriotism and Jesus to define themselves. Since they can’t beat their chests about Trump as much, it becomes their new messaging. My parents are doing it, so I know.

Jesus and God are not the same thing. Jesus is God's son who was sent to earth to die for our sins. Whoever believes that Jesus is the son of God and died for our sins shall have eternal life. Jesus was a representation of God's love for us.

The history of the interpretation of the Bible - as opposed to the history of the Bible itself - suggests that mankind's biggest intellectual hurdle is the savage determination to interpret as literal truth what was intended - rather obviously, within context - as spiritual metaphor.

Jesus never said - here, eat this cracker - it's actually a piece of me - a toenail - I have hundreds. He said - accept this token as a bond of faith in my temporal interpretation of the doctrines.

Or maybe someone like Jesus said this. Or maybe someone felt this was a way to create a ritual of meditation that brings you into a closer understanding of God's concept of love.

Maybe. How big is his dick?

Even more annoying r41, we have no real convincing idea of what Jesus literally said or didn't say, or if there was a Jesus in the sense that the New Testament wants there to be a Jesus, or if it is all, well Paul liked this idea, and Mark liked this other idea, and Matthew liked this other idea, and that is before we even get into who the hell, if anybody, was Paul, or the anonymous authors of "Mark" or "Matthew" or "Luke."

And so we are left with people like r40 saying that God allowed his son, whatever the hell that means, to be born in order to die for our sins, as if that nonsense makes the slightest sense at all.

Jaysus!

With every fiber of my being I know that Jesus is the Christ. He loves your cousins and your Uncle Jack, OP, and knowing our imperfections he still chose to atone for our sins.

No you don't know any of that Dejure. You have embraced nonsense in your head and decided that is good enough for you.

Read Isaiah 53 - written 1000 years before His birth. Read it to comprehend who He is BEFORE mankind fashioned Him further still to suit their own agenda. Yeshua is not impressed with it. He knows, obviously, that He is used in many ways beyond the one way He came to earth for in the first place. Be spiritual rather than religious. Seek Him with genuine desire to Know Him and then you will find Him. YES! Yes, gay people. You, too. You ESPECIALLY! Don't listen to anyone who tells you any different. Read Isaiah 53.

[quote] God allowed his son, whatever the hell that means, to be born in order to die for our sins, as if that nonsense makes the slightest sense at all.

If god is all powerful, couldn't he have done it without having a son born of "virgin" who is then executed as an example and sacrifice that is only revealed to a small group? God, in all his mercy and power, could've just demonstrated it to the entire world, had that knowledge implanted in their brains and wiped away so-called sins OR he could have done away with suffering, "sin" and earthly existence in the first place. If God equals Jesus, as many believe, couldn't he have just pretended to suffer or stopped it any time while still giving the illusion of death so people could learn their lesson? Why all the histrionics and drama? "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" would not be necessary in the slightest if there were any truth in "God equals Jesus".

I believe in me. Period. Begins with me, ends with me.

R50, I have never been to me.

R47 be like

I think he existed, and he might be a victim of his parents. When his mom got knocked up, she didn't want to be stoned to death. So she made up a story about how she became pregnant. It's possibly the most unbelievable story ever, but somehow it's still believed by millions of people today. Anyway, his whole life, this little boy was told lie after lie of his divine destiny. He bought into it, and it got him killed. Maybe his mom was psychotic. Maybe he was, too. We will never know.

There is probably no God. There are probably no sins. But if there are both, you pay for that shit yourself. Stop pretending that mumbling some nonsense about some dead Galilean peasant will make it all go away. (on the other hand, don't worry. the whole thing is almost entirely false.)

Yes, come to the Soviet Light Dejure.

R53 = Pascal

R49 If human societies demand people not to commit crimes, or face consequences, how much more right is God in demanding from His servants obedience and rightfulness. Since people were incapable of ever attaining righteousness on their own, but God's justice demanded to be satiated, He couldn't find anything other proper to attain this goal than Himself. His incarnation, excepted from any sin, living the whole life in righteousness and finally offering His life to please His justice is why He needed to be incarnated from a virgin, to restitute humanity to its former state, by making it partake in Himself and satiating His need of justice. If you ask, why, first of all, He had such a need, that's because He's God, it's one of His attributes, alongside benevolence, they are both perfect, and in Jesus shine in all fullness.

R53 Pascal never said such a gross thing, you might be thinking about Voltaire, but even he treated Jesus as Monsieur, and the Virgin as Madame, which is far more than that cretin's insolence.

Oops - R54 = Pascal

And again I have to say, don't settle for silly. Whatever happened, a Jewish girl in 1st century Judea did not get pregnant and come up with a story about how this weird God, the one and only god of the universe who has no children and doesn't at all behave like the usual Roman and Greek and Egyptian gods, somehow got her pregnant and now here he is, this weird and stupid thing called the Son of God. Behold.

Also, nonsense r57, except you may be right about Voltaire. The rest, nonsense and stupidity.

[quote] doesn't at all behave like the usual Roman and Greek and Egyptian gods, somehow got her pregnant and now here he is, this weird and stupid thing called the Son of God.

That very situation was common in Greek mythology.

I don’t believe in Hell. I mean think about it, supposedly the devil rules Hell forever but also he is supposed to be destroyed; two different things

yes, it was, well not common exactly r60, but completely different cultural mindset. Exactly. the whole Virgin Birth, Son of God, was obviously invented by Hellenized Jews or Greek gentiles long after any Jesus lived and died, cause they decided Jesus just showing up and preaching weirdness wasn't good enough. Had to be a demigod or it wasn't as fun.

Gnostics at least had a kind of logic. God, the real God, smuggles in His Son, to teach the poor benighted souls that there is a way out of this prison that the fake god has created for everybody. They at least had a plan. Probably false. No more evidence that what became Christianity. But at least an idea beyond, well, God is a big doofus who fucked up but can't fuck up because perfect, but anyway Jesus, who had to die for dad's fuckup, and anyway, just say you love the bitch and you'll be fine.

R59 It's only nonsense from an aprioristic apprehension of the matter, you have concluded (in a non-rational way, I would say) that God does not exist, thereby you derive the conclusion from the premise of the non-existence of God that such a thing is impossible. But, you have not demonstrated the non-existence of God, and both affirming and negating something, entails an affirmation of something (there is, there is not). In case I needed to demonstrate His existence, I can fall back on the need for something being the cause of our created existence, the act of creating from nothing previously in existence that we can conceive, would seem to entail logically that some reality of sorts would exist without needing the demands of our material existence, such timeless, bodyless, matterless reality is God, not merely that, but a reality with will and capacities to act, in what we could only define as infinite power. God being creator, cannot be bound by the created, and the laws that govern our limited existences do not extend to an unlimited all-powerful entity as Him (minus Jesus' humanity, which is wholly human), therefore being able to incarnate Himself through the virgin birth, to die for us, and so grant us all the benefits of koinonia, while satiating His necessity for justice and benevolence.

R44, Please don't insult me because I have different beliefs than you. That only shows your immaturity and lack of basic manners.

substitute Zeus for God in that whole damn verbiage r64 and think it through.

Don't preach nonsense r65. And honestly, in every other area of life, you get that, right? Especially here on DL.

Of course. I believe in all gods. I ain't takin no chances.

The jews that became Christians were fucking weird no wonder the Romans hated them.

R66 Except Zeus was a mere deity out of many, not the Supreme Being, hence why exponents of pagan philosophy necessarily postulated some form of "God" that was everything their gods were not, Paul said he preached this God whose name they knew not, but a glimpse they had. Their "God" though was not a creator, just an able artisan that made use of what had always existed to design something beautiful, to the Greeks and Romans the ex nihilo creation was anathema, they knew not, and wanted to know nothing about the universe being created, and the same was so in places like China or Japan before Christianity was introduced. It's not a "damn verbiage" but merely a logical deduction from acceptable premises, that our reality before a certain point did not exist (as discovered by Lemaître, a priest, and later confirmed by the observations of other astrophysicists).

Monkeys religions are the worst. They eggs theirs is the one and only god and do not stop shoving it in your face.

Oops, meant monotheistic not monkey. But 🐒 works too. Sorry, 🙈🙈🙈.

After all this time

To believe in Jesus

After all those drugs

I thought I was Him

Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ, our lord and savior.

mere deity. mere deity. yes, Zeus was a mere deity. A deity with temples all over the Roman Empire. Who doesn't love Zeus? Well, not Hera all the time, but still, love Zeus. He had a lot of fun in his day. Not like that oh so sour Yahweh, constantly going on about shit nobody in their right mind could care about. Shellfish? Honestly, who thinks about this nonsense? And no, physics never leads to God. Christianists should drop that whole line of reasoning. It never works out, at all.

R36's motto: Plastic Jesus on my dash, please protect me from a crash.

As deities go, Jesus had the hottest bod.

No.

[quote] you should resume reading that children's book

You mean the one with talking snakes and burning bushes? Dumbass nasty bitch for a "Christian."

R74 Euhemerism, search it up. There's no difference between Zeus and some kind of king or ruler of the archaic era, precisely because Zeus is naught but an apotheosized person. Hence he lusts after women, and feels the need to seduce them. Hence the clear difference I made between some common "deity" and the Supreme Being.

R78 A book is a mirror, if an ape looks into it, an apostle is hardly likely to look out. But I concede you refute fundamentalists with your very existence, you are the hypothesized missing link. Now back into the zoo cage you came from.

Jesus comes by to mow the lawn and occasionally trim the shrubbery every week.

R79 I think euhemeristic figures like Zeus are necessarily only apotheosized. Divinity can also be bestowed upon or assumed by a powerful king.

Why was Christianity the one that stuck and not Norse gods? Imagine if we all worshiped Odin and the blond god Thor. And Jesus was some Marvel superhero.

Frightening 27% of DLers have an imaginary friend.

[quote] He was a loving man filled with compassion and exemplified God - put a face on Him- better than anyone else. The greatest being to ever grace our planet!

How do you know this? From the Bible-the books that wasn’t even started until at least 50 years after this person supposedly died? The book that was heavily rewritten and redacted by the medieval Catholic Church, at a time when the Catholic Church has a very clear political agenda? There is virtually no contemporaneous record of his mere existence let alone an unbiased character sketch of the kind of person he may have been. Statements like “The greatest person to ever Grace our planet” make my head spin.

[quote] And it's not irrationally to accept that an all-powerful deity may intervene, may incarnate himself, being born from a virgin to die a horrible death for us

It is, in fact, irrational, r33.

What in the world did R7 say? Heresy?

I’m so glad one of the choices was Jesus as the major star 🌟 of all those John Waters’ masterpieces!

^Dottie Hinkle cursing out Beverly Sutphin anonymously by phone ☎️

Religion kills. It always has; it always will. Humankind must evolve.

R82 Probably because misogyny always wins out and why christians made their only “true” god a man!

I will use the judgement of the people at the time who apparently didn't feel that a person named Jesus did anything remarkable enough to be written down until 40 years after his death. Until then any tales about a person named Jesus were passed down by word of mouth. The story of Jesus is basically a fable passed from person to person and if you have ever played the game Telephone, you know that word of mouth passing of an event leads to misunderstandings and exaggerations.

The earliest Gospel which is Mark, written around 70 A.D., 40 years after the death of Jesus.

I can't get behind a religion where in the original material - the real hero (Satan) is actually portrayed as the villain. It's bizarre.

[quote] Why was Christianity the one that stuck and not Norse gods?

Good question r82.

Some mythologies grow out of religion or develop together. Like Buddhist and Hindu mythology. They come with theology and philosophy.

Other mythologies remain legend and lore. Like Norse and Greek.

Christian mythology comes with theology. Like Hindu and Buddhist mythologies, it is more amenable to belief, adoption, proselytization, and conversion.

The difference with mythology as lore and mythology as theology is that the latter has a system of ethics.

Obviously a rich subject. And this is DL :)

[quote]R74 Euhemerism, search it up. There's no difference between Zeus and some kind of king or ruler of the archaic era, precisely because Zeus is naught but an apotheosized person.

Is that truly 'euhemerism,' R79? And as a proposition, is it even true that all gods began as VIPs (very important people)? One can see how useful such a viewpoint would be to post-Nicene Christian believers, as deeply invested as they were in debunking all other gods, as well as asserting how Jesus began as a flesh-and-blood human. That also seems to be the way you're using it, R79.

Regarding euhemerism, here's an interesting article:

Same stuff as every other thread on Jesus.

Some can't distinguish between whether Jesus existed or whether he is God.

Some people repeat nonsense like that the Catholic Church edited the text of the Bible before the Catholic Church existed.

And someone repeats Richard Carrier as if he was God himself.

Big fat NOPE to JEEBUS. Gives me the fucking creeps!

[quote]Some can't distinguish between whether Jesus existed or whether he is God.

everyone can distinguish that r95. Both are interesting discussions in themselves.

[quote]And someone repeats Richard Carrier as if he was God himself.

On this thread, R95? Who?

There's nothing creepier than gays or lesbians who are religious and all the mental gymnastics they go through in order to prove that is is acceptable and truthful.

I feel like, in a different time , many of you would be attending stake burnings with Jiffy pop.

The ridiculous statements that some of you parrot as unquestionable truth is frightening. You really have no idea how brain washed you are. But most people in cults can't see from the outside.

R15, PD. But you knew that.

If I believed in God I'd be a Satanist.

R100, I don't see any citations or quotes from Carrier at R15. It sounds more like Doherty to me.

Why do the same godbotherers do this each time, in thread after thread, and deleting it when they've lost the argument? That's pretty sad.

You think posters can get threads deleted?

R103, it's what happened the last time this topic came up, maybe two months ago.

Jesus,was an asshole

Posters can't get threads deleted. Muriel deletes threads.

Jesus got it deleted. Always was a whiny little bitch.

[quote]and you even have Jesus quoted as saying “Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.”

That's a reference to Tiberius Caesar, not Julius Caesar. Between the two came the long reign of Augustus Caesar.

Julius Caesar died nearly a half-century before Jesus was even born.

Idiots, grifters and the mentally ill believe. So that's PoisoneDragon.

[quote]a supernatural creator impregnated a virgin with his son

Pics please.

Believe what, r109? You think PoisonedDragon is a conventional Bible believing Christian?

R109 - I think you're confused about PoisonedDragon - he's not a believer.

R33, R79, etc. etc. etc. is a pompous ass who spends 1000s of words merely impressing himself. There's nothing wrong with him that a solid punch in the face can't cure.

R33, R64, R79, etc. etc. etc ad infinitum, sputum blatheratorium, is most likely some uptight closeted priest in Ipswich who flagellates himself for spontaneous ejaculations.

He's a pontificating poof and smug cuntitate who exemplifies all that is seethingly snide and useless in theological scholastic studies.

R114 nevertheless I’d like to raid R64’s medicine cabinet. He seems to be on some good stuff.

The flatulence of his manic superego cannot be bottled.

I believe that if Jesus is real, and he does come back, the Evangelicals would be opposed to his message, call him a fraud, and crucify him again.

I always thought it interesting that Jesus was a sassy brat to his mom when he was young and she was panicked thinking she lost him at the temple, and then later in life gave Martha a hard time for focusing on housework rather than sitting adoringly at his feet like her sister. Typical precious male ego.

I find it remarkable more than 1/4 of the respondents like Jesus never existed. But that may be the nature of those who care to respond.

Of course Jesus existed. You wouldn’t be here on this green earth typing if he didn’t. Show some gratitude, bitch.

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

― Mark Twain

I'll say it again, because no one is paying attention. It doesn't matter. Strive to be like Jesus whether you believe in him or not. Don't try to be like the Pope or a priest or a nun or a minister. Don't try to be cool and say you don't believe so it doesn't matter. Believe in the message and the morality of Jesus. Try your best to be like Jesus. Then fail and try again next time you can. Jesus will forgive you for failing, you should forgive yourself for failing, but you should eventually get back to where you really want to try again. If you don't believe that Jesus was perfect, or believe that the idea of Jesus is a perfect construction, then you don't have a good understanding of real morality.

Being like Jesus is impossible, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't admire him, or the idea of him. Other religions don't measure up to Christianity.

R121 amen!

Cram it, Churchy!

(I actually appreciate your intention, r122. I just like saying that.)

Circumcision is not laid down as a requirement in the New Testament. Instead, Christians are urged to be "circumcised of the heart" by trusting in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross. As a Jew, Jesus was himself circumcised (Luke 2:21; Colossians 2:11-12)

Paul is a little ambiguous on circumcision. He says those not born Jewish should not be compelled to be circumcised, but those born Jewish should not try to reverse theirs. But Paul's view was with the idea that all Christians were converts and he didn't have in mind children born into Christianity and didn't anticipate them in the future because he thought the end of he world was any day.

All boys should be circumcised because it helps to prevent sexually transmitted diseases in men and women. Those diseases can kill. Probably not as important now that there is that Garisil vaccine, but it still prevents a lot of ick.

I believe in Jesus, in that he was a good man and did exist, and may have done a miracle or two. Jesus wouldn’t want the notoriety 2021 years of mindless savages have created for him. And hence he doesn’t return!

R127 I’m with you there. Much prefer the circumcised variety. Especially with the nice brown scars.

Faith is spiritual belief. Religion is prescribed, forced belief ie "You better believe in the exact way we tell you to believe or it's the lake of fire for ya!"

The better question might be: Do you think Jesus is a diva, completely obsessed with being worshiped and adored the world over for two millennia? I, personally, don't believe so. I think the greatest honor one could give to Jesus is to follow the advice of R122. Most humbly, of course. Love for all of you, DL!

[quote] How do otherwise intelligent, rational human beings believe a supernatural creator impregnated a virgin with his son, and that son’s execution was some ultimate act of love that is somehow going to get people to live forever…but only if they believe it’s true. Everyone else burns for eternity.

There are a lot of things that intelligent, rational human beings believe, not because of their own investigation and analysis, but because someone told them it was true or because they read it in a book. Believing something someone told you or something you read in a book is how people come to believe most of what they believe.

[quote] Religion is prescribed, forced belief ie "You better believe in the exact way we tell you to believe or it's the lake of fire for ya!"

The new forced beliefs in our society also carry punishment, i.e. “You better believe in the exact way we tell you to believe or you will be cancelled, lose your job or be ostracized on campus.”

Idiots believe.

Zealots of any belief should not be put in power.

It's a great way to meet, intimidate, and fuck children!

He was the best gardener my parents ever had. People thought he was Mexican, but he actually came from Colombia.

God did not create man. Man created God. End of story.

My only path to college was with a scholarship I won to attent a Baptist school in Grand Rapids., a city with hundreds and hundreds of churches of every demonimation. Most were protestant and many were Baptist - I believe there was a 124th Baptist Church. There are far more Reflections rmed churches - it's nuts. We were required to attend but each Sunday we shopped a new one. By far the most intestering was the Church of Satin. That one we did on the sly. it was a poignant example of the fallacies f it all. At the end of the day the dorms with fill with hysterical tales of services.

At least then, the region was headquarters for the business of Christianity. I was burned at every p/t job in music and I was just another rube. The publishers and broadcasters were crooks who ripped off artists (I know) and treated their consumers as a joke.

As for the college, I spent 2 years in required old testament history @ 8am for 2 hours 4 times a week. We hated the class taught by a spry 84 yr old. He was a terribly boring teacher but ironically, he and I became friends as walked and talked after class, He once told me that he knew I had come from a high schooL where questioning was part of learning truth. My prof predicted that I would join in the many guys in the graduate divnity schoold completely stop belief. He admitted to questions himself.

He was correct. I completely stopped belief in Gods. But not before learning WHY I rejected it all. I studied original language manuscripts and read the work of endless historians, archeologists and divinity scholars and former preachers / priests. Then I made up my own mind.

But, the seedy side of gospel music and the endlessly weird churches and preachers was a big lesson. And I haven't even mentioned the number of times attempts at molestation took place.. Finally, my group of 4 guys / 4 girls refused to stay in the homes. It was the guys who suffered the most unwanted attention. Btw, Nashville was even worse. I took my skills to LA and did fine writing music for TV and film. At lead in Hollywood I expected to be bruness thus had great lawyers.

R138, how drunk are you?

Please tell us more about the Church of Satin, R138. Were the penalties severe for wearing wool, leather, silk, or other heterodox fabrics?

I always thought Grand Rapids was lousy with Dutch Reformed churches which don't like to be called Dutch these days. Calvinism and nothing fun on Sunday.

Virgin birth stories were oldies in Jesus' time, going back to the Greeks. As someone who had a very secular upbringing, the whole business seemed very confusing to me--not just the virgin birth, but the rest of it, all those saints and all the convoluted stories--why not have a more straightforward exposition of morality? The Buddhist manage with just a few precepts and the recognition that even those are a challenge in real life. Hadn't the Jews suffered enough without these idiots trying to convert them and everyone else. And those Protestants--no self-referential sense of humor---why join a religion w/o jokes? At least Catholicism has a sense of humor--it needs it, badly, of course.

Jesus likely was a real person and a prophet of sorts. The other guys have their own issues. On a trip to the Middle east, it seemed like every hamlet in Jordan or the West Bank claimed to have had the head of John the Baptist at some point.

[quote]He was correct. I completely stopped belief in Gods. But not before learning WHY I rejected it all. I studied original language manuscripts and read the work of endless historians, archeologists and divinity scholars and former preachers / priests. Then I made up my own mind.

So, what did you conclude, R138? Apropos this thread, do you think Jesus existed?

[quote]Jesus likely was a real person and a prophet of sorts. The other guys have their own issues. On a trip to the Middle east, it seemed like every hamlet in Jordan or the West Bank claimed to have had the head of John the Baptist at some point.

For you, R141, what sets Jesus apart from 'the other guys,' that his existence is more somehow probable?

^^ somehow more probable

PoisonedDragqueen will never stop posting about Jebus. That thing has no life outside fantasy.

R121 Twain never said that, but, citing Hamsun, he was: "[A]lways fair in regard to religion. Never does he laugh at it or show disrespect, though his remarks are sometimes a bit freer than many people like to see sacred things treated. In his case, however, this is more a lack of taste than a lack of religious feeling; he is himself a Christian and, as such, comes closest to being a Presbyterian."

The real fool is he who, having never opened a book, and attributing phrases to those who didn't ever utter them, demeans and humiliates what he's too ignorant to comprehend. Many here are grossly ignorant, dead-inside, miserable people that cannot comprehend why some have a fruitful spiritual life, guess demeaning and insulting remarks is the only thing that can come out of them.

R141 Except Buddhism isn't in any way about that. Buddhism is the affirmation that the Buddha is the dharmadhatu, the only meaningful reality that exists, that of pure nothingness, in contrast to the apparent realms. The reason Schopenhauer liked Buddhism was precisely because of how tortuous and nihilist it was. There was nothing for the common people in it, besides donating things to monks to get more karma (and surely the uncultured despisers of religion of DL hate that), before the foundation of Pure Land Mahayana Buddhism due to the influence Christianity had on Buddhism, and this sect knows of one rule, praying one prayer to Buddha Amida to be sent to Sukhavati after their death, this is it. Comparative anthropology may say many things, but it better not pontificate, it has no right, and the virgin birth or the "dying-and-rising god" trope are no longer considered very meaningful concepts to work with in such a reductionist way.

[quote] Don't try to be like the Pope or a priest or a nun or a minister.

Disagree, r122. I say strive to be like a priest.

R114, I think that poster sounds like Andrew Sullivan.

R145: You're as dogmatic as Poisoned Dragon. If you can't recognize elegance and paradox, you're pretty hopeless.

Christianity is littered with stuff that doesn't really fit together. Whether you do a deep theologic dive or approach it with wit, it's clearly a mess which is why a certain fraction of "true believers" who possess some curiosity become skeptics, if not atheists.

R148 All that you said is naught but nonsense, Sceptics can be dogmatic, as in the case of the Middle Academy, and Christians can use scepticism to refute philosophies and religions contrary to Christianity, as Gianfrancesco Pico or Pascal did. Christianity isn't littered with "stuff that doesn't really fit together", I said elsewhere that you (atheist/agnostics in general) a priori conclude the non-existence of an all-powerful deity, hence rejecting any kind of intervention of His, while I tried to argue from a cosmological argument that such a deity does seem, strongly, necessary for the existence of the universe. Your whole paragraph is nothing but a cheap ad hominem, which is the only kind of response anyone defending Christian theism got in this thread, deriding those who believe, without ever trying to comprehend, reflect on or refute why they believe. Certainly you have no elegance, and the only paradox you may present is that boundless ego of yours. I only know, I'm not citing insulting misattributed quotes, or engaging in debased retorts, but trying to treat this subject, somewhat, rationally.

R149: Ad hominem attacks on people who don't want to get into the weeds with you aren't going to win you any adherents. Many of us have suffered through arguing with people like you on your terms and recognize the futility of dealing with dogma. I look to the example of the philosopher, John Dewey, reached a point where he simply didn't bother anymore except to needle Reinhold Niebuhr about his difficult to prove obsession with original sin.

So what's the difference between religion and mythology? Why is roman/greek/norse and so mythology and Gods and Goddesses mythology all stories of silly nonsense and of course untrue, but Jesus and whoever else and religion is true?

Enlighten me everyone!..

Jesus never existed. It's the longest running fairy tale in world history. People who believe in Aliens and Bigfoot are saner than Christians.

r33's is one of the most intelligent comments I've ever read in here.

I don't believe but I do think if Jesus were real and came back he'd smite most of his loathsome followers.

[quote]R33's is one of the most intelligent comments I've ever read in here.

So says a sock of R33/R38/R57/R64/R70/R79, et al.

Anyone saying R33's post is intelligent is definitely a sockpuppet.

R150 Among the many differences between John Dewey and you is that he wouldn't commit such abhorrent logical fallacies, oh and that he didn't feel the need to degrade others for their religious beliefs... We all have suffered, in different ways, it's no excuse whatsoever, it's in fact contrary to the reasonableness you appeal to, to base your argumentation on anecdotal personal experiences. Oh, and alluding to John Dewy is nothing but an appeal to authority, in no way what he did justifies what we do, Hitler did many things, among them disliking Christianity, yet you do not see me reasoning along your lines.

R151 Euhemerism, as refereed to above, and it was the Greek Pagans who first began to use this argument, that their deities had no divine origin, but were deified kings of the archaic era. Philosophically they necessitated to posit some kind of Supreme Being, the One, as they called it, to form any coherence whatsoever in their metaphysics. Nordics didn't develop any thesis like that because they were absolutely primitive, Norse mythology was mostly written by Christians (such as Snorri Sturluson), which exemplifies how little literary or philosophical cultivation they had before the introduction of Christianity.

R155 & R156 Seethe and cope, you can't expect everyone to be analphabets as you both.

[quote]R111: Believe what, R109? You think PoisonedDragon is a conventional Bible believing Christian?

[quote]R112: R109 - I think you're confused about PoisonedDragon - he's not a believer.

R109/R144 isn't confused - it's a sock of the principle godbotherers on this thread. Notice it's typically only used to heckle me, the thread's anti-theist, while the godbotherers monopolize the conversation here, talking only to each other, sometimes 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 me (i.e. R148), but almost never 𝑡𝑜 me.

That was really the entire point of this thread - it's a really, really bitter godbotherer, using sock accounts, who doesn't really have anything of substance to offer on this subject.

I do love the term godbotherer - it’s almost as perfect as frau.

I definitely believe in Martha Stewart frozen dinners

I love the idea of Jesus and hope he did exist. Either way, I strive to be like him but it's not easy.

I have no problem with people who say, "I believe in God." What a have a MAJOR problem with is people who say, "I believe in God. His name is Jesus. If you believe in another God, you will burn for eternity."

It's hilarious if you think about it. "There's only one true religion, and it's the church I grew up in! What are the odds?"

Is the godbotherer the same one who started all those threads a few months ago? She got very agitated and mean while claiming to be neutral.

R162 Nothing more annoying than the idiots that think their god helped them win some meaningless thing.

God-botherer is a term my late my mother used and it still makes me chuckle. If there is a god, give him/her/it a break from your crap god-botherers.

[quote]Is the godbotherer the same one who started all those threads a few months ago? She got very agitated and mean while claiming to be neutral.

R163, I think you're thinking of 'Personal Theology' (from the thread of the same name). As far as I know, that one hasn't yet put in an appearance on this thread - at least not using that account. There's been several posts that sound like him, particularly those that draw an equivalence between the claims of religion and the claims of science, or that praise gnosticism. The clincher would be one insisting that a call for evidence for one's claims amounts to a fallacy; but so far none of the godbothering socks has made that retort. No one has asked any of them for evidence so far, so there's that.

The "Dennis R MacDonald" troll is here, at R95/R100/R103/R106/R119/R124/R139 - you know, the one who claims to teach on these subjects at a major university, and says MacDonald's work on the Gospel of Mark should be disregarded because everyone thinks he's a crank, nobody likes him, etc..

PD, I wish you would give me the respect I give you. You are misrepresenting everything I said.

I never claimed to teach at a "major university." I claimed, and it is true, I teach at a university.

I never claimed that Dennis's work on Mark should be disregarded. I said you misrepresent it by claiming MacDonald argues Jesus is a myth. His actual work says that the author of Mark naturally wrote in imitation of Homer and other classical authors because writers in the Greco-Roman world were taught to write through imitation. So the stories in Mark have echoes of Homer, but that does not mean (for MacDonald) that Mark made them up whole cloth.

And I never said anything about anyone liking MacDonald. What I said was that you often present as absolute truth what is a minority opinion without acknowledging or addressing any of the criticisms or the fact that that position is not mainstream scholarship, which you constantly call an ad populum argument when it isn't.

And anyone who ever agrees with me you accuse of being a sockpuppet. Without evidence.

I suppose I should be flattered you are still stalking me. But anyone can see from the posts you have linked for them that I am certainly not flooding this thread with an agenda. They might also see that you tend towards conspiracy theories in your belief that posters can somehow get threads deleted.

Faith/religion exists for a reason. As I’ve gotten older and money tighter, along with death and disease of my beloved animals, I’ve leaned more on religion/faith to sustain my confidence and sanity. I’ve noticed that atheists are the most judgmental/heartless people. Very little empathy. I imagine it’s emotional immaturity from these types

R157: Dewey generally didn't take the bait when people tried to get him into pointless arguments but did seem to enjoy dismissing Niebuhr. I've read plenty of Dewey and most of his bios, as well as bios of Niebuhr. Dewey was pushed toward seminary by his mother, which didn't happen and at a certain point, he simply stopped making any references to God or theology. Niebuhr, in his later years, made the mistake of being willing to talk to anyone on any topic.

[quote]PD, I wish you would give me the respect I give you.

I give you courtesy, though not necessarily respect. We kind of passed that point a long time ago, about the time you called me a "pigfucking asshole" (R286 of the linked thread).

[quote]I never claimed that Dennis's work on Mark should be disregarded... And I never said anything about anyone liking MacDonald.

Well, except for "Ha! I know the author at [R218] very well (and personally). He is a crackpot that no one takes seriously. Same with Carrier" (at R224 of the linked thread)... "Dennis McDonald, for example, has been looking for an acolyte for years to bolster his arguments unsuccessfully. He is out on that limb alone" (R256 of the linked thread).

Your approach was ad hominem, character assassination, purely. Only later did you shift to arguing that MacDonald himself did not subscribe to the Christ Myth, which, whether true or not, is irrelevant; scholars do not get to dictate or limit how others will use their insights. Mark is a transvaluation of the Homeric Epics, borrowing from it in order to create the narrative of Mark. One cannot claim both that, and simultaneously that it's a narrative of actual historical occurrences; it's absurd.

[quote]What I said was that you often present as absolute truth what is a minority opinion without acknowledging or addressing any of the criticisms...

The sole criticism you've offered is that it is a minority opinion, something I've always acknowledged. It doesn't matter whether it's a minority opinion; what matters are the arguments and the evidence. As long as your criticism is predicated on 'majority vs minority,' that is in fact an appeal to ad populum; there's no escaping that.

[quote]I suppose I should be flattered you are still stalking me.

Our interests converge on these kinds of threads; I do not seek you out. On this thread, you posted immediately after me, whining as usual about Carrier (R95 of this thread). That certainly came across as yet another call-out.

[quote]But anyone can see from the posts you have linked for them that I am certainly not flooding this thread with an agenda.

Not this thread (not yet, anyway). But you have a history of running constant interference on my commentary across various threads, claiming an almost evangelical burden to warn others away from what I'm saying, as though it endangers their souls somehow. I think you really believe that. As such, it's you who do the stalking.

[quote]They might also see that you tend towards conspiracy theories in your belief that posters can somehow get threads deleted.

The thread in question 𝑤𝑎𝑠 in fact deleted. That is not a 'conspiracy theory.' There was also nothing offensive on it, except for continued discussion on the existence of Jesus, over which 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑒 (a sock) kept screaming, "Shut the fuck up!" This I took to be Bootsy-Gumdrop, whose skin in the game stood revealed on that thread, which surprised at least one observer. I have that entire thread backed up, an entire record of everything said on it.

The operating rules of DL are constantly gamed by troll brigades, operating fleets of socks, causing threads to be deleted all the time. That is simply an uncontroversial fact.

You’ve certainly got the martyr part down, PD.

^^ Sockpuppet.

You don't see me crying about anything. Just stating the facts of the matter.

Fuck you, Jack. I’m not a sock puppet; I’m just a person who sees someone who takes himself way too seriously.

[quote]Fuck you, Jack. I’m not a sock puppet; I’m just a person who sees someone who takes himself way too seriously.

I can't believe 22% of the DLers here actually think Jesus was some kind of super magician who's gonna get 'em into heaven.

Wow, you really are a tad unhinged. Look at my post history, asshat. On second thought, don’t. You are incapable of every thinking you might be wrong. You do that, honey, and don’t let anyone stop you from your tilting at windmills.

I don't know how to love him.

So I don't bother.

Religion is a way to control the masses and discriminate against women and minorities. It is the worst practice that man has learned. It need to be wiped out and made illegal.

[quote]Look at my post history, asshat.

I did, R176, before I ever replied to you. You have next to no output, indicating a rarely used account, which is what makes it likely that your strongly-voiced opinion (where does that hostility come from? I certainly don't talk that way to anyone else) reflects some other poster's prejudices.

[quote]Do you believe in Jesus?

Depends on how long it takes until the drugs kick in.

I sincerely hope you can learn to unclench, PD. Maybe you’re a nice person when you’re not so heavily invested in this. I have my doubts, but I have been wrong before. At any rate, I am under no obligation to prove anything to you. I think I will just sidestep you in the future in much the same way I do Anschu.

Christianity should be banned and Islam along with it.

R181 is too racist to live.

All this arguing over some dead old queen.

Did Atheists get OP crossed out?

[quote]I sincerely hope you can learn to unclench, PD. Maybe you’re a nice person when you’re not so heavily invested in this.

From what do you think I need to "unclench," R181? That there's no evidence for a historic Jesus? At what point haven't I been perfectly polite to you? It sounds very much like you're the one playing the martyr, as if you have some major grievance with me. And the only ones here who really have that would be those who chose the existence of Jesus as their hill to die on. Even then I've always been courteous.

[quote]Did Atheists get OP crossed out?

Nope, R185. That's the godbotherers, already chopping at the root of this tree, to try to eventually get it deleted.

Invented fairytale to give hopes to the poors.

He probably was guilty of whatever the Romans accused him of.

Jesus is how Satan tricked the world into thinking he was good.

Jesus is Satan.

Whatever Christians didn’t steal from the Jews, they stole from paganism. Christianity is a degenerate hate cult.

Jesus is Satan.

The war crimes of the last 2000 years would not have been possible without Jesus or Mohammed to enable them.

Jesus is Satan.

Judaism is the one true faith.

Con game to suckered folks out of their money.

R118 Talking shit about other “gods” and religions like christians still do..

That’s why Christians deserve everything that they have done to other religions. They have a victimhood complex, yet they make a life style out of victimizing others for recognizing the folly, fallacy, and futility of Christianity.

Christians are to blame for Muslim terrorism because there never would’ve been an Islam if there had not been a Christianity first.

Rejecting Judaism is an act of terrorism against God and His people Israel. It also makes you a white supremacist by definition since Judaism is a religion of color. To deny the right of non-whites to use force against white supremacist terrorism and land robbery makes you complicit in that white supremacist terrorism and land robbery.

You cannot call yourself a progressive unless you are a hard-core ultramilitant Zionist at this point. Theodore Herzl was a socialist. Zionism is a progressive movement of POCs demanding POC control over land to which POC are indigenous by every means necessary, including and especially the use of force. If you oppose it, you are a deplorable.

The use of state force is progressive when it is used by people of color against white supremacist terrorist degenerate scum. This is why the antiwar movement is just a thinly veiled front for white supremacy.

I don't see PD as being nasty at all. It seems like someone has their panties in a wad and a personal vendetta with PD. Very odd.

PD, if you look at what you quoted of me and how you actually summarized it, really look, you will see an enormous disconnect. I never said no one LIKED Dennis. I said that no one agreed with his position. In the academic world people can vehemently disagree with people and think their positions are crackpot and still like them. What I said was not ad hominem. He has been unsuccessfully looking for an acolyte. People do think he is a crackpot because of his scholarly views.

I never said others can't use Dennis' work any way they please. My point was you were representing him as a mythacist, which he is not, and people building on his work are building on sand. And again McDonald's argument is not that Mark made up his stories whole cloth but that he told existing stories in imitation of Homer. You just continue to misrepresent him to fit your agenda.

I am not constantly "running interference" in your threads. I am responding as I would to anyone that misrepresents something I know a great deal about.

The conspiracy theory I accused you of espousing was not whether a thread was deleted. That is not in question. The conspiracy theory you espoused was that some poster had the ability to get a thread deleted, which is nonsense.

And like clockwork, anyone who agrees with me in the slightest is accused of being a sock puppet.

God hates breeders. I wish there was a gay rabbi who would go around condemning the evils of heterosexuality.

I believe in magic.

Isn't that the same thing?

[quote]PD, if you look at what you quoted of me and how you actually summarized it, really look, you will see an enormous disconnect. I never said no one LIKED Dennis. I said that no one agreed with his position. In the academic world people can vehemently disagree with people and think their positions are crackpot and still like them. What I said was not ad hominem. He has been unsuccessfully looking for an acolyte. People do think he is a crackpot because of his scholarly views.

No, there's no disconnect. Onlookers can read the thread and see what you said. And yes, it's ad hominem - a perfect example of it.

[quote]My point was you were representing him as a mythacist, which he is not, and people building on his work are building on sand.

I have never represented him as a mythicist, R198. Again, it doesn't matter what he is; his arguments regarding Mark stand.

[quote]I never said others can't use Dennis' work any way they please... You just continue to misrepresent him to fit your agenda.

Those two statements are in opposition to one another. The argument of MacDonald's book stands, and there's no evidence of him taking issue with Robert M. Price or anyone else who uses it that way. You haven't actually made that case yourself; you've only characterized his work that way - that is, when you're not tearing him down - and that has been purely in service to 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 agenda.

If it's true that you're a lecturer on Jesus Christ and on the New Testament, then it can be honestly said that godbothering is your profession, your career. I can understand your need to defend it, but really, you need to do better than this.

If you teach this stuff at a bible college, and think your representation of it is necessary to peoples' salvation, then you need to own up to it. Stop pretending you occupy some reasonable middle ground between skepticism and religion.

[quote]I am not constantly "running interference" in your threads. I am responding as I would to anyone that misrepresents something I know a great deal about.

Badly. And yes, there's been more than once you've come running in, framing the need to oppose my posts in religious terms. You haven't demonstrated misrepresentation on my part. And you constantly lie about what you have said, and try to spin it as something else.

[quote]The conspiracy theory I accused you of espousing was not whether a thread was deleted. That is not in question. The conspiracy theory you espoused was that some poster had the ability to get a thread deleted, which is nonsense.

Why is it nonsense? It happens here on the DL all the time. The difference between whether posters do it, or an admin does it at the behest of posters isn't really a distinction that matters. And it's often been insisted by admins, when they've spoken here, that DL is pretty much fully automated. The deletion of threads may, under some circumstances, be one of those functions, if certain conditions are met.

What you seem to be suggesting is that an admin took a position on the question being discussed, and undertook to stop and erase the discussion. As a godbotherer I'm sure that does not disturb you in the slightest, but from a forum standpoint it's unacceptable overreach. I and others here would be very disappointed if that were the case.

[quote]And like clockwork, anyone who agrees with me in the slightest is accused of being a sock puppet.

I posted the response to you at R170, and then R171/R173/R176/R181 came charging in, full of rage. Nothing the sock said makes sense except in terms of the continuation of a conversation with you, but with you using a different account in order to keep separate the change in language. Other than the 'tough guy' routine, the train of thought remained unbroken.

Anyone who reads the exchange will be able to see that, plainly.

You're not fooling anybody. You've used socks before, and you're still doing it.

You know nothing about me, how I teach, and you are absolutely wrong that I have ever used a sock puppet.

That you are absolutely impervious to the idea you could possibly be wrong about any of things say everything anyone needs to know about you.

I await some evidence that those things aren't true about you, besides the ad hominems, misrepresentations, lies about your own conduct, and bad faith arguments you have always offered. That you cannot - or will not - offer any says everything one needs to know about you.

That, and the intense bitterness. It always shines through.

Be well anyway.

I am in no way bitter. Your projection palpable.

I won't respond to you any more. I keep thinking you can be reasonable. In that I am constantly proved wrong.

What do you teach, R204? That Jesus existed, and that the gospels are historical documents? Do you teach that he was god in human form? Or that he was not god, or even Christ, and that the New Testament is a gross misrepresentation of who and what he was, and what he taught? Do you teach that Mark was written by eyewitnesses, within forty years of his death? Do you teach the atonement? The inspiration of the bible? Its inerrancy?

No? What do you teach on these matters?

Here's an opportunity to clear up some of the misconceptions I supposedly have about you. Be plain and truthful.

I do not teach that the Bible is inerrant. I don't teach that salvation or trinity is true.

I teach the debates. I teach the history and development. I teach religious studies. I'm not indoctrinating students into a church.

But what difference does my answer make. You will believe what you will. And I can't prove anything without giving you enough information to ruin my life.

So, I ask that you go off telling everyone whatever you want of me. Just leave me alone, and I will leave you alone.

This thread is peak crazy.

Biblethumpers are generally crazy R207.

Believers are the most insane dangerous people in the world. They are completely self righteous and closed minded. They think that makes them "strong", but it just makes them cunts. They can't accept reality and go to the grave in their delusion. Even worse, they never stop trying to drag you down the religious sewer with them. They look down at everyone with contempt. Manipulation is the only thing that excites them. They are responsible for most wars, racism, sexism, homophobia and so many other offenses who's screams will never be heard. Just ask any choirboy. Like all conservatives they love to play the victim while they continuously victimize. The ultimate hypocrites.

We have a health care system in this country that mandates rich people suffer less than poor people. Christians in this country are usually against universal health care, not to mention immigration, aiding the poor, and abolishing the death penalty. You know what Christians need? Christian values.

[quote]I do not teach that the Bible is inerrant. I don't teach that salvation or trinity is true.

Fair enough, R206.

[quote]But what difference does my answer make. You will believe what you will. And I can't prove anything without giving you enough information to ruin my life.

Well, it would be the first time you've ever shared your own actual views, instead of concealing them and devoting yourself exclusively to the attack.

I'm not interested in ruining your life, but it's a certainty that there are others here who would try. So I don't advocate that you share that much here, not ever. Nor on any anonymous internet forum.

[quote]I teach the debates. I teach the history and development. I teach religious studies. I'm not indoctrinating students into a church.

Good. But if you 'teach the debates,' as you claim, why are you so threatened by Mythicism in its different forms? There's a sea change approaching in biblical studies, and Mythicism is the next big development. It's undeniably part of 'the debate.' It may become the majority paradigm eventually, the same way evolution ultimately supplanted special creation. One would think you'd want to understand it, instead of parroting fundamentalist misrepresentations of it, and battling it like you were a Republican trying to own the libs.

There's this thing you constantly do, and I'm not sure why you do it, or if you're even capable of 𝑛𝑜𝑡 doing it, and that's warping everything you read from a perceived opponent into some sort of distortion or parody of it, similar to what the right does while waging the culture war. Take R15 for instance, who said, "The inconsistencies, obvious interpolations, wholesale destruction of competing texts by the winners of the war for orthodoxy, and unhistorical information appearing in the gospels, and so on also strongly demonstrate the ultimately fictive nature of the Christ myth." In your hands, that somehow became "Some people repeat nonsense like that the Catholic Church edited the text of the Bible before the Catholic Church existed" (R95), even though he nowhere mentioned the Church. (Funny, that: The Catholics themselves insist they've been there, full-blown, from the very beginning, and that Jesus personally handed them the keys. So your view clearly reflects some form of Protestant perspective, perhaps a polemical one, the way you appear to late-date what you would term "the Catholic Church," probably at some point in the post-Nicene Era, maybe even the High Middle Ages. And you seem reactionary to the critical view that New Testament texts were altered, which is what led me to assume you subscribed to some species of inerrancy. What are your views on the work of Bart Ehrman on the New Testament? But I digress.) Then there was that crack about Carrier, whom you plainly hate. (There was no mention of him, either.)

You've done the same thing with me. I've cited MacDonald as a demonstration of how 'Mark' is a literary development, rather than a historical narrative in any sense, and that one cannot use it to derive anything of value about an ostensible 'historical Jesus.' Mark's sources are all of a literary nature; a known quantity, derived from various literary borrowings. Mind you, this is higher criticism 101 - none of it is controversial in scholarly circles. It's not even solely characteristic of a mythicist viewpoint, although mythicism is plainly helped by it. But what you evidently took away from that was that I was saying, 'Dennis R MacDonald is a mythicist' - a very far cry from what I said. And that was apparently what you chose to fight. But it's not anything I said.

Can you recognize that polarizing, distorting tendency in yourself, and try to rein it in?

R169 Do you want to be congratulated on reading some bios about John Dewey and Niebuhr? What I told you remains unfettered, Dewey wouldn't have engaged in such illogicalities to demean others for their beliefs. Nor there's any other bait than that of yours, alluding to some authority to base your abhorrent conduct on, it's just fallacious, not to say, ridiculous, considering Dewey's humanistic stance, the value he put on freedom of conscience, etc. There's really nothing more to respond to besides your bashing of Christians in such a illogical and gratuitous way, no arguments, no nothing.

The only non-existent thing is DL's capability to cordiality and reasonableness, not only they misconstrue what's Christianity but also the Christian community at large, that involves so many people and so varied opinions. R209 Surely, because Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, or the United States, those who have initiated every war the last century were very religious... Secular ideologies are the driving cause of every war, every massacre, every disaster that happens, and happened during most of humanity's history. But do go on repeating your cheap amoral mantra about how people believing somehow spans wars out of thin air. As for playing the victim, your whole screed is just that, vague, laughable, and pathetic victimism. R210 It's official social doctrine of the Catholic Church, and it's been for a long time, that it's a right to have access to proper healthcare. But your tirade is nothing but a middle-to-lower-class talking point feel-good response to anything that contradicts the easy amoral existence you live.

R211 That whole tirade seems like nonsense ultimately built upon an appeal to authority fallacy. And of course in "It may become the majority paradigm eventually", that's an appeal to consensus gentium & ad populum, one that does not even exist yet? Perhaps you should be more charitable in your argumentation, and use less fallacies. The sea of changes in biblical studies has been a move towards biblical maximalism, not to the contrary, scholars are revising the poisoned well they received from the 19th century, and the more they do, the more they seem to be capable of accepting that there's enough criterions to avail most if not all of the narratives of the whole Bible.

[quote]R211 That whole tirade seems like nonsense ultimately built upon an appeal to authority fallacy. And of course in "It may become the majority paradigm eventually", that's an appeal to consensus gentium & ad populum, one that does not even exist yet?

You're appropriating one of my own talking points, R212. But 'consensus gentium,' as you call it, is very important to the poster to whom I'm speaking. He likely views himself as one of the guardians of the gates of consensus against the barbarity of what he disparages as 'minority opinion.'

It occurs to me that I only asked him what he 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠, not what he 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑠. If, irrespective of what he teaches, he's a fundamentalist believer, then he 𝑖𝑠 fighting a culture war, desperately, and my appeals to his reasonableness are moot.

Your core claims ("Secular ideologies are the driving cause of every war;" "The sea of changes in biblical studies has been a move towards biblical maximalism, not to the contrary, scholars are revising the poisoned well they received from the 19th century") are undemonstrated. Perhaps you should endeavor to be less a polemicist, and use less ad hominem (characterizing others as "amoral", etc).

It's true what they say about you; you do love the sound of your own voice.

Just shut the fuck up, cunt.

^^ Or what, sock? You'll have the thread deleted? lol

[quote] Believers are the most insane dangerous people in the world. They are completely self righteous and closed minded. They think that makes them "strong", but it just makes them cunts. They can't accept reality and go to the grave in their delusion.

That’s also how religious people would regard people who are adamantly anti-religion.

That hardly privileges their viewpoint as anything approximating reality, R216.

I say this respectfully, because I certainly don't know if Jesus walked the Earth or not, but what I do know? The ancient Romans fastidiously recorded a gigantic portion of their own history. Pontius Pilate? Is mentioned, and was an actual, real person.

Jesus? Is not, ever(mentioned in any historicaltexts, that were contemporary to his "death".. That's because he was a parable,a and not a real being who walked the Earth.

I like talking to myself and the sound of my own voice.

^^ Someone who has absolutely no stake whatsoever in whether Jesus exists, and is absolutely not bitter, not at all! :D

R213 With the exception of Israel (which obviously isn't a Christian country), most of the wars waged in the 20th century were not about religion, but about extending their dominions, racial groups or ideologies over the globe. Most of these premises are acceptable, if you live in the same reality as I do. Terrorism, and we clearly refer to Islamic terrorism, since it's the most commonplace form of religious violence, is clearly not done by Christians, but rather Christians are the target, such as that poor priest in Normandy that was beheaded, so gratuitously. And I shall polemize as much as I want, particularly those who gratuitously attack without offering no argument whatsoever, like you do. They are amoral, they are hypocrites who enjoy pointing out the shortcomings of others while ignoring their own, while power-tripping despite being no less ignorant that the US garden-variety fundie. R217 I'd recommend you John Paul II's Memory and Identity to understand that viewpoint, he survived two bloody secular regimes bent on crushing Catholicism (and many other things) no matter what.

R218 Jesus is mentioned by several historians/philosophers, Josephus, Tacitus, Mara bar Serapion, etc. What now?

R213 Oh and I forgot about this.

I used to, OP. But not because I made a cognizant choice to do so, as the concept was presented to me as fact.

Believing in Jesus was never the problem. And while I have made a hard left (or right) from traditional Christianity, I’ve always thought Jesus himself, the man, was a cool cat.

He was a lot like me, and probably a lot like you. He profoundly disliked hypocrisy and disliked it because it was then, as it is now, so deeply rooted into the foundation of His Holy Temple, or what is better know as the body of Christ, which I believe is the body of anyone who is living a life that is either religious or not religious, however, is a life lived as Christ suggested.

We all know our history, here, as most of us are older on this site, so I need not expound upon the history of worshiping deities, or an object, or a place, or a person, or a thing. The mythos surrounding the origins of linguistics when applied to transcendental experiences through communion with anything that is detached from t he self, (hence detached from expectation, or fear), is a beautifully crafted language used to make an attempt to:

A) Understand what we have yet to have an ability to perceive,

B) To know the unknowable

C) To eventually, organically conclude, or find, that this revered holy communion in which we seek everlasting refuge and harbor, is what we have always, already had, and it is here, where we presently stand, at this very moment, perpetually, until it is not.

D) The sheer joy that is evoked within us, as we accept our life and our mortality as a covenant with our precious life, is when we are overcome with the spirit. The spirit of love for the precious lives of others, and that is the gift, OP. It is the story which we attempt to tell eachother over and over again, throughout the ages, despite any airs of sophistication, or worldliness.

Sometimes we tell eachother our stories via art, sculpture, song, or by building the Taj Majal so that those who are to come thousands of years later, can learn of the love one man felt for his beloved, or how the passion of the Christ was quickly dampened by those who have never experienced the ecstasy of walking their talk, or simply put, living a life that is free of the hypocrisy that almost every modern church trades in as a expedient currency of what is offered as a cure for the soul’s waning resilience, perceived by us as loneliness, yet is anything but.

We just all want to connect with our beginnings, and our ends. If we cannot accept that we aren’t to know our beginnings, and cannot accept our certain ends, then we stumble, lose our step, and out of our forward lunging hands, tumbles the gift. We quickly get up to see if anyone saw us fall- wishing someone, anyone, did.

The gift is what we surmise about our communion with eachother and then in turn, give to ourselves. It’s an empty box, and we are to fill it, if we wish, with the Christ passion, not the hypocrisy of man.

I believe in Jesus. However, what I believe more in are the children.

I believe the children are our future.

Teach them well and let them lead the way.

Show them all the beauty they possess inside.

Give them a sense of pride to make it easier.

Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.

When two people discussing religion start hating each other, it certainly says a lot about religion.

Well, at least it started out a a very nice thread before being taken over with this bs. Thanks, OP.

There is no reason contemporary Roman records should have mentioned Jesus, r218.

[quote] Well, it would be the first time you've ever shared your own actual views, instead of concealing them and devoting yourself exclusively to the attack.

Not true. I have said before that I think the evidence clearly indicates Jesus existed. Repeatedly.

[quote] But if you 'teach the debates,' as you claim, why are you so threatened by Mythicism in its different forms.

I am not threatened in the least by Mythicism. I criticize it. Because I believe it is a flawed argument. I teach it. A student each semester reads and presents to the class on the argument of one of the mysticists.

[quote] One would think you'd want to understand it, instead of parroting fundamentalist misrepresentations of it.

I don’t believe I have ever done this.

[quote] battling it like you were a Republican trying to own the libs.

Come on. This is just trying to provoke an extreme reaction.

[quote] In your hands, that somehow became "Some people repeat nonsense like that the Catholic Church edited the text of the Bible before the Catholic Church existed"

No, I was specifically responding to this:

[quote] The book that was heavily rewritten and redacted by the medieval Catholic Church

Which by an incredible amount of textual evidence is just plain wrong.

[quote] Then there was that crack about Carrier, whom you plainly hate.

I don’t hate him. I disagree with him.

[quote] one cannot use it to derive anything of value about an ostensible 'historical Jesus.'

I’ve responded to this over and over. That is not MacDonald’s position. Mark can imitate Homer and others and still pass on some information of value on “Historical Jesus.” I disagree with your position that he cannot.

[quote] Can you recognize that polarizing, distorting tendency in yourself, and try to rein it in?

No because it is nonsense. You have constructed this image of me that does not reflect reality. You misread me. You attribute things to me that I did not say by accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being me and attribute their words to me.

[quote] He likely views himself as one of the guardians of the gates of consensus against the barbarity of what he disparages as 'minority opinion.'

Attributing something to me I have never said and do not believe.

[quote] If, irrespective of what he teaches, he's a fundamentalist believer, then he 𝑖𝑠 fighting a culture war, desperately, and my appeals to his reasonableness are moot.

I am not a fundamentalist. It is a ridiculous assumption. Why would I study under MacDonald and why would he want me to write with him if I were?

[quote] Or what, sock?

And there we go.

I believe in the YMCA

The problem with starting threads like these is you get too wordy, preachy types posting entire theses and then, of course, you attract the Anscher troll. Some things are not worth discussion. Religion is one. Believe what you will and keep it to yourself. There is a reason politics and religion are taboo in social situations.

There is a reason DL is not a "social situation" and one of them is that people get to discuss things like religion and politics.

Social situations are for the tedium of discussing jobs, kids, relatives and their endless ailments, etc.

And yes between the jabs and feuds, you can actually learn something about the debates over Jesus and Christianity, both of which have had an enormous impact. Even if he is fictional, the character of Jesus has certainly affected history, which actually becomes even more fascinating if he was invented entirely.

I'm an apathetic agnostic R231. I honestly don't care, don't know and neither does anyone else. Whether he lived or not makes no difference to me. I just live my life and try to be kind to everyone and do good deeds because I'm a nice, decent human being in general though I do admit to giving plenty of shit to the DL trolls but then they love the abuse.

From a historical perspective, yes, it's interesting and I do love history. Personally, I don't think he was real but based on other myths as has been pointed out above. Religions as a whole has never made any sense to me even as a kid. While attending Sunday school, I'd roll my eyes at the creation story, Adam and Eve and Noah and his ark. Not logical and I would point out the plot holes so to speak. Thankfully my parents were not really religious either but viewed it as a cultural necessity to give us some knowledge and they did pick a liberal Episcopalian church.

^^^^apologize for grammatical errors. Have not had morning coffee yet.

Always found it odd even as a child of going to catholic grade school where back then you went monday thru friday before school started, learning about adam and eve and then school starting, 1 hour later and you are being taught about cro-magnon man and how we came from the apes!..

I love 2000 year old lies. Nothing like the classics.

[quote]Not true. I have said before that I think the evidence clearly indicates Jesus existed. Repeatedly.

Repeatedly, yes, R228, but in all my exchanges with you, I don't recall you ever citing any of that supposed evidence. Advocates of the historical Jesus cite the same debunked material (for example, R221, "Josephus, Tacitus, Mara bar Serapion, etc.") without ever acknowledging that it's been answered.

[quote]I am not threatened in the least by Mythicism. I criticize it. Because I believe it is a flawed argument. I teach it. A student each semester reads and presents to the class on the argument of one of the mysticists.

Across nearly three years of interacting with you on this subject, you've never shown any sign of knowing enough about it to characterize it as a flawed argument, much less to teach it. Your supposedly assigning it to students reminds me of how Bart Ehrman, while writing 𝐷𝑖𝑑 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝐸𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡? 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝐴𝑟𝑔𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝑎𝑧𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑡ℎ, farmed out the research on mythicism to his grad students, who in turn, took it from evangelical polemical websites, to the detriment and failure of the resulting book. It doesn't critique mythicism, but rather the evangelical strawman depiction of it.

[quote]I don’t believe I have ever done this.

Only every time we discuss it. You also constantly distort or misrepresent my arguments, as well as those of others (to be fair, though, you seem to have been under the impression that R15 was one of my posts, and employed your usual distortion of it. I hadn't yet found this thread until my first post on it, @R94).

[quote]Come on. This is just trying to provoke an extreme reaction.

That seems to be what you always endeavor to do, distorting the arguments and statements of others. It is very Republican-esque.

[quote] No, I was specifically responding to this: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑙 𝐶𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ... Which by an incredible amount of textual evidence is just plain wrong.

Looks like R84, but they're not wrong. The textual history of the New Testament is another debate entirely, well beyond the scope of this thread. But it's claims like this which make you sound like an evangelical fundamentalist, or at least not the scholar you claim to be. Again, I ask: Are you aware of the work of Ehrman on this subject? 𝑀𝑖𝑠𝑞𝑢𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝐵𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑊ℎ𝑦 (2005); 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑇𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡: 𝐼𝑡𝑠 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝐶𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑢𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (2005); 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑑 – 𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑜𝑑–𝑊ℎ𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒’𝑠 𝐴𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝐴𝑟𝑒 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑊𝑒 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝐴𝑟𝑒 (2011), etc.? Textual criticism is pretty standard stuff; it's not mythicism, although if I were to present any of it, you'd probably insist that it was.

[quote]No because it is nonsense. You have constructed this image of me that does not reflect reality.

𝑌𝑜𝑢 have constructed that image by what you've posted.

[quote]You misread me.

No, babe. I've quoted you exactly.

[quote]You attribute things to me that I did not say by accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being me and attribute their words to me.

I have only ever held you liable for things you've actually said. Even when I've mentioned your socking, what the sock said has never been at issue. You're repeatedly dishonest about things you've said. An example would be R198 where you tried to soft-pedal what you'd said about MacDonald, pretending that it was "𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒" who said he was "𝑎 𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑝𝑜𝑡," and that "𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦 𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠." You pretended this was an affectionate jibe. But what you'd said two years ago was "𝐇𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐩𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐲," representing your own view. To be continued...

Did you forget to take your meds today?

[quote]R228: I am not a fundamentalist. It is a ridiculous assumption. Why would I study under MacDonald and why would he want me to write with him if I were?

Hon, it has never been concretely established that any of this is true. You cannot safely prove personal claims about yourself, so, in an argument, you have no business placing such claims in play. Claims of personal expertise, relationships or knowledge cannot be verified, and are bad faith arguments. I've tried over two years to get you to understand this.

What 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 come into play in gauging whether or not you're a fundie are statements you've made, like Mark reflecting historical occurrences, or the New Testament never having been changed. Those are consistent with evangelical fundamentalist views, not critical scholarship.

[quote]"Or what, sock?" And there we go.

You're not really reading the thread. There's other socks in play here. R214 (also R109/R144/R219/R237) is someone else, most likely 'Likes the sound of his own voice' (R33/R38/R57/R64/R70 / R79/R221, etc).

Looks who's wasted his life counting beans.

I wrote a big reply, but dl was in prime time, and now I realize there is no point, so I won't post it. You will think of me whatever you will: that I am a fundy, that I lie about my education, my job, etc. Nothing I say will ever change that because you are as dogmatic as you accuse others of being.

So, if anyone wants to openly discuss what the whole scholarly community says about the historical Jesus, I'll chime in. But I'll try to avoid responding to you, PD.

R240 seriously DL is not the place. This subject gets boring very quickly and most of us are atheist/agnostic. We simply don't really care.

I understand, r241. But if anyone wants some info, I'm around.

So many "helpful" pastors and priests here on DL. I suppose they have to do something besides rating Onlyfans poles and holes.

Someplace in the Book of Mark there is a passage about how Jesus was teaching near the Sea of Galilee. Each day, the "authorities" would come hunting for him, and each time, Jesus and his squad escape by taking a boat to the other side of the "sea". This happens 3 days in a row, 'the Lord taught all day to the multitude and when the cops showed up, he escaped by boat to the other side.' Reading this a few years ago, it suddenly struck me, If Jesus is the Son of God, and he taught ALL DAY LONG for THREE fucking days, why did Gospel author Mark not bother to detail a SINGLE WORD of what had been taught? But no, we get only that J made his getaway 3 days in a row. Somehow, this hilariously grotesque omission PROVES to me definitively that the contents of the New Testament are utter bullshit, make-believe, concocted entirely for some ulterior purpose.

Mark doesn't include a lot of teaching of Jesus. Mark is predominantly plot, not teachings. Compare Mark to Matthew and Luke. Mark doesn't even include the Sermon on the Mount/Plain.

I don't want to compare SHIT, and I don't care what his STYLE is. If you are relating the story of the actual SON, the representative of GOD on Earth, and you just casually OMIT 3 solid days of his teachings on this Earth, then...I call capital BULLSHIT on you, your "CHRIST", and ALL of his FUCKING "teachings" for all time. It's a GODDAMNED HOAX, ASSHOLE.

OK. I don't know why Mark not relating Jesus' teachings means Jesus is a hoax, but you seem really devoted to that idea. So, never mind.

^Ultimately, XTIANITY is OUT OF BUSINESS, that's the important point. PRAISE JEEBIS...

[quote] The problem with starting threads like these is you get too wordy, preachy types posting entire theses

Yes, the title just asks if people believe in Jesus. It doesn’t ask for people to write their own 95 theses and nail them to the DL door. If anyone, on any thread, is going to write more than a short paragraph in a reply, just don’t.

I was raised to be a good Christian in rural North Carolina:

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,

Ye soldiers of the cross;

Lift high his royal banner,

It must not suffer loss.

From victory unto victory

His army shall he lead,

Till every foe is vanquished,

And Christ is Lord indeed.

I was sinking deep in sin

Far from the peaceful shore

Very deeply stained within

Sinking to rise no more

But the Master of the race

Heard my despairing cry

From the waters lifted me

Now safe am I

Love lifted me

Love lifted me

When nothing else could help

Love lifted me

Love lifted me

Love lifted me

When nothing else could help

Love lifted me!

If you read the Christian gospels, Christ is constantly contradicting himself. Sometimes he's telling you to turn the other cheek, other times he's saying he has come to bring brother against brother.

And if you don't read the christian gospels you won't be suckered into a useless fairy tale.

HE is our lord now!

[quote]I wrote a big reply, but dl was in prime time, and now I realize there is no point, so I won't post it.

You've got options besides simply being bitter. You could:

1) save what you've written and post it when DL is no longer in prime time. Or

2) You could authenticate and post whenever you please.

But you're closeted, aren't you? Too much risk in authenticating. Right?

[quote]You will think of me whatever you will: that I am a fundy, that I lie about my education, my job, etc.

Either you're not understanding my point, or you're avoiding it. Claims about your education , job, etc, are immaterial here because we're all anonymous; we have to be. But even if you could reveal exactly who you are, i.e. "I'm Bart Ehrman, and I'm an accredited NT scholar," that's still a fallacy, the argument from authority: "You should believe what I have to say about Jesus because I'm an expert and I say so." That's not how any of this works; you cannot trade on that. If you went through an education and got your degrees in order to be able to say that, to throw that weight around, then I'm sorry for you.

[quote]Nothing I say will ever change that because you are as dogmatic as you accuse others of being.

I don't accuse others of dogmatism. That's been your schtick.

[quote]So, if anyone wants to openly discuss what 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 says about the historical Jesus, I'll chime in. But I'll try to avoid responding to you, PD.

You mean the majority, which are Christian believers. Nobody needs you to convey that, since believers more than have that covered. But you do you. And I'll continue to post the findings of critical scholarship when it suits me. You can respond if you wish; nobody has asked you not to. The whole 'take your ball and go home' thing has been your own spoilsport reaction.

Again, be well.

Fuck off PoisonedDragon. You could fuck yourself (1) in the head, (2) right here right now, or (3) up your asshole. Again, go to hell.

R236 & R238, I'm not a sockpuppet of your "archenemy" and frankly I don't care enough about your petty wars with... Whoever you imagine. The case point is, your argumentation is wholly trashy, if we can call it argumentation at all, stating "that's debunked" without providing nothing to prove your statement (which is something you haven't done in any of your comments) does nothing but discredit yourself. You seem more demented than the common rabble, as in R248, and I have no particular need to waste my time in imaginary wars between you and some fictive fundie academic. Enjoy your paranoia.

LOL, looks like PD finally got under its skin.

I have a question, r242. If there is no sin in Heaven, how could Lucifer rebel against God?

I have some beliefs, but I don't tell them to anyone, especially not on social media. No one gives a fuck, so why bother?

I'm fortunate enough to have social media friends who are the same. Can't remember the last time I saw anything religious on my timeline.

I don't have an answer to that, r259, because I don't know that the Christian tradition has come up with an answer to that. The usual answer is that Satan's pride led him to rebel against God, but shouldn't all in Heaven be sinless, and therefore prideless? I've heard people try and get around this by talking about the necessity of free will or a difference between God's part of Heaven and the angels' part. But I don't think there is a good answer. (I could be wrong.)

And part of that is because the Judeo-Christian traditions about the Satan and heaven are all over the place over the last 3000+ years. Originally, Satan was one of the gods (sons of god) in YHWH's court. He acted as prosecuting attorney, bringing people up on charges, but not leading them into sin. And Heaven was literally up in the sky where the gods lived, like every other Mediterranean polytheistic system. And we, when we died, just turned back into the clay out of which we were created and returned to the earth. It's only later under the influence of Zoroastrianism and Greek philosophy that the ideas of Heaven we are more familiar with come about, but never in a very systematic or organized way. In Jesus' day, some Jews believed in a Satan and a Heaven, and others thought these concepts not supported by their scripture. Jesus certainly believed in Satan and Heaven, but the exact details he didn't leave us.

R261, the Seventh-Day Adventists have come up with an answer to that, sort of, although it's highly theologically processed (by which I mean that it is informed by pre-digested Christian thought, somewhat beyond the bible), and rather heavily dependent upon Ellen White's supplemental materials, supposedly from her visions. Summarized, it's the idea that God, having foreknowledge of the Adversary's rebellion, permitted it all to play out as a sort of demonstration to all of creation, on-looking, to settle the question of the consequences of choosing something other than God's will - The Great Controversy, if you will, from the book of the same name. The explanation stops just short of saying that God designed the Adversary for just this purpose, ergo, all of history's sufferings were planned in advance by God, which wouldn't set well.

R259, "Lucifer" is a Latinism, somewhat foreign to the original biblical languages. The original name was 'Helel (Light-Bearer), Son of Shahar' (The Dawn), a Levantine appellation for Venus, 'the Evening (ascending) and Morning (descending) Star.' It was an astronomical myth. Venus was envisioned as a minor potentate among the Sons of El; its ascent into the firmament each evening was imagined as a form of uprising or rebellion against El Elyon. Each morning, 'Helel' was chased from the sky by the 'Sun of Justice' (Shammash; Malachi 4:2), his rebellion put down. He then descended into the darkness of the Underworld - until the next evening, when the cycle would repeat.

There are a lot of logic problems in the Bible.

That's all I have to say.

r263, Satan gets people to believe that to keep them from being saved.

Hmm. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, r264.

That Satan is so interesting to me r261, the one who sees through mankind's bullshit more than Yahweh, who is oddly kind of an old softie who is kind of naive about his own creation in that version. Plus, although he is technically not in the Adam and Eve story, it's really hard not to see him in it after all these centuries of people putting him there. And of course, if he is the serpent, he's the only one actually telling the truth in that whole story, which is very interesting itself.

Satan is the father of lies.

And that doesn't count the big election lie that sparked the January 6th insurrection.

Fuck me Satan. Fuck me. FUCK ME SATAN! FUCK ME!

This is a fun series. Bible stories in modern language. Kinda cheesy, but not as bad as Cecil B. DeMille's characters. God bless them.

Garbage propaganda.