Small slapfight over historicity of Jesus reaches critical mass, now Socrates is imaginary too. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
78 ups - 27 downs = 51 votes
161 comments submitted at 04:05:42 on Jun 6, 2014 by temmmmmmpppppppppp
Small slapfight over historicity of Jesus reaches critical mass, now Socrates is imaginary too. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
78 ups - 27 downs = 51 votes
161 comments submitted at 04:05:42 on Jun 6, 2014 by temmmmmmpppppppppp
Historically there are written accounts of prometheus, but prometheus doesn't have a billion people that would get their panties in a bunch by taking away the measly historical evidence.
Also may as well believe Krishna really pulled the chariot in the Ghita, we have more then four accounts centuries after, but again Christian historians confirming Christian myth is so cliche, why do the same for Hindu myths...
Context is absolutely vital to history, and you're not making a point by ignoring it - you just look like an idiot.
You're saying that by the reasoning that Jesus existed, we need to take every legend and mythology at face value. But what distinguishes Jesus is that the figure in the Bible is grounded in a historical context.
The information we have on, say, the Greek Gods are transcriptions of centuries-old oral traditions. There's no way to say with any certainty how it developed or how it began. There are certainly no first-hand accounts of the war between the Titans and the Gods.
With Jesus, we have relatively contemporaneous accounts of his life. We have off-handed references to him from Tacitus and Josephus, neither of whom were Christian, and both of whom were writing in the first century.
And you might dismiss the Gospels - of course the Bible can't be a historical source, it's the BIBLE!! - but the fact is that the Gospels are a series of independently authored texts all describing the life of one man.
No matter how much those texts might have been overblown or later edited, they all exist at their core to describe the same figure. That's enormously valuable historically.
Finally, a little off topic, but the fact that the first resource for many people that deny Jesus' historicity is Wikipedia is truly telling. These are not people with any personal knowledge of the subject - these are people who begin with a fixed view and then attempt to fill in the blanks with a wiki article.
It's exactly the same attitude taken by people who deny climate change: with no personal knowledge of a topic, people begin with a set perspective and then cherrypick evidence to support it, disregarding the testimony of people who have studied the subject for decades. I hope that comparison is unsettling to you.
Spiderman is grounded in historical context. New york being real does not add to the probability that Spiderman is real, or that peter parker is either.
Tacitus and Josephus both write other peoples oral story and neither are first hand accounts either.
There are multiple stories by multiple people all describing one man, named Krishna the human embodiment of Vishnu. No matter how overblown or later edited they all described the same figure.
Ignoring your last two paragraphs because you decided to rant about other people and perhaps trying to imply I am one of them to disparage my argument via association.
TL;DR: To remain consistent you would have to believe multiple divine hero/prophets are based on real people in history. Also to paraphrase the other person that replied to me..."I think you want /r/truechristian...
You know that we have written proof from the person who invented Spider-Man that Spider-man isn't real, right? And from that same person that Spider-Man is a character they invented for an entertainment product, right? You're comparing apples to Spider-Man here.
So the only reason historians don't accept that Peter Parker or any other fictional character as real is because we have proof they are false. So without proof historians go around tagging things as true as default? Funny that...
Uh, we have proof Peter Parker exists. It just happens that the proof is that his existence is as a comic book character. We have proof that Jesus existed, from multiple sources, that historians far above your education level and expertise have fully vetted and agreed upon.
Your personal tirade and shitty snark of trying to peg historians as a bunch of dolts is nothing more than evidence of a personal agenda lacking any critical thought. You'd fit well in /r/conspiracy, try to preach your "Jesus don't real and historians are shills" shit there.
Appeal to authority is never a good argument especially if that is the totality of your argument.
I am not pegging Historians as dolts. Most historians do not focus on Jesus so they would defer to those that do, and most of those are believers so of all areas of study that area would be the most biased.
But your idea of argument is to belittle and insult so whatever, keep on sucking.
Appeal to authority is a valid argument if the authority is an expert on the subject at hand. As an example, if Stephen Hawking has an opinion on botany, citing his opinion is not good because he's not a botanist. Citing his opinion on cosmology is valid because it's easily established that he knows far more about the subject than the average person. Likewise, citing the opinion of a doctor on medical advice is fine because it's his job to give sound medical advice after years of training.
So, if there is a consensus among historians that so and so existed, a person claiming otherwise better have very good reasons for believing otherwise. If a person were to be able to prove that so and so doesn't likely exist, then he'd stop wasting his time on the internet and publish his findings in a journal. Overturning the notions of history with such a funding like Einstein did in physics would surely be a better use of time. If you are not an expert, 99% of the time you should just defer to the expert unless you are willing to devote decades to the study and research of such a topic.
Also do you have a source that most historians who focus on Jesus are believers? Considering more people in the world do not believe Jesus is God than those who do believe?
Stephen Hawking is willing to show his work, he does not say "Cause I said so". All the work shown is a passing reference decades later about a jewish cult. Show you work and quit hiding behind authority. There are no contemporary records since Josephus and Tacitus et al, are decades and centuries later.
Paul, Muhamed, Joseph Smith and L Ron Hubbard all pulled the same trick. At least Hubbard was original and didn't just sample.
Historians are more than willing to show their work, they spend a titanic amount of time in research .
An argument from authority is a not a bad thing when you're looking at their area of expertise... You're throwing out the term in a context where it makes absolutely zero sense.
You have no sources for this. You have a wikipedia article that is one of the most edited and controlled that has one line that say "Historians agree" without being sourced. Where is this source, that isn't a biased source meaning has Christian roots. i would not trust scientologists to be honest about Xenu, nor would you.
Fair enough that you don't want to accept that at face value, but I don't know what I can give you. I can jump on an academic database and basically list the articles, journals and scholarly books that look at the different sources of his historical existence, but I can't list all the books that don't. Whatever I give you, I can be accused of cherrypicking.
There's no place where historians go to vote on a consensus - historiography itself is a field because movements in historical scholarship are so complex and changeable. I can't tell you that 86.4% of historians agree that he existed. I don't know what you'd accept as proof.
>Appeal to authority is never a good argument especially if that is the totality of your argument.
You heard it here folks don't trust people who've spent their lives and careers to be the best at what they do.
Doctors, Lawyers, scholars , ect fuck em their wrong if you don't like what they say:
It seems to be a common belief on Reddit.
Those professionals can themselves explain why the have confidence in their position. All I get here is not the explanation just the bald assertion from wikipefia that is unsourced "Historians agree" and when pressed, four writers decades amd centuries later as clearer evidence.
You wamt to appeal to authority, the proper way is to explain why said authority ruled in that way. Which none of you habe, so quit strawmanning me.
Local professor I know, was a priest for fifteen years and got a master's degree in history, says jesus easily existed as a person. Said authority ruled that way by way of evidence by contemporary people and references to a jesus Christ elsewhere. The bible is also a collection of letters and such that reference Jesus often.
People have already said why historians ruled that way, you just ignored them. Jesus Christ being a real person doesn't automatically mean he's the son of God. It's not an affront to your lack of faith if he exists.
Lol, ok. Backpedal harder. I can tell from your history you have a hate boner against anything even remotely connected to critical thinking and get pissy when you don't get your way. Have a good jerk, mate.
Ir is confounding to hear you use critical thinking when you meant wishful thinking. But keep on getting mad when someone doesn't live in your bubble of delusion.
If only history was STEM then you'd listen probs
/r/badfallacy
an appeal to authority is a good thing when the authority has relevant knowledge. This is like telling someone who asked a doctor about their leg pain that they're committing a fallacy.
When the argument is " Because authority said so" versus when it is "Authority agrees that blah blah blah is the best explanation".
You still need to provide the argument, not just a name and say he said so...
It's about synthesising a variety of sources and coming to a conclusion from all the available facts. Not looking exclusively at the comic books - ruling out other sources - and then basing a conclusion entirely off one source, with no further context.
There are movies of spiderman, there are artistic renderings of spiderman, there are fan fiction, cartoons, tons of media and stories. We have cosplayers that go to conventions as spiderman. Cakes, baloons with his face. Games about him. We have more contemporary cultural artifacts about him then Jesus (which had zero, since everything is written decades after his alleged death by people recounting other peoples testimonies...)
I'm an atheist, but thanks.
And for what it's worth, you're being incredibly facetious. Refusing to understand that a comic book is fundamentally different to a series of collected accounts and references in contemporaneous texts isn't dazzling anyone with your intellect.
You're suggesting that suggesting that Jesus might historically have existed is on the same level as taking fiction at face value. Scholars do anything but. Every aspect of Jesus' life is vigorously debated and argued over by academics. The texts have been analysed more times and from more perspectives than anyone could imagine. But the conclusion that the vast majority of these people come to - Jewish, Christian, Islamic, agnostic, atheist - is that there was a historical Jesus, even if they clash on almost everything else about him.
That's what I meant by comparing this issue to climate denial. People form an opinion, and maybe read a wiki article, a blog - or even a book! - to basically confirm their preconceived ideas, even in the face of widespread academic disagreement.
I'd love to see examples of contemporary sources on Krishna though, if that's the comparison you're putting forward. And if you have to have to leap onto google and search such vague terms as "Krishna primary sources" to learn for yourself what evidence there is to back up the claim you've already made, I hope you feel a tiny bit guilty.
I like his way better. I'm going to insist all historical figures were actually just comic book characters and daytime TV stars from now on. If anyone disputes me, I'll pull out the 'ol Spiderman argument.
History PhD here I come.
This manga about Jesus and Buddha as roommates in modern day Tokyo will probably help with that.
You say contemporaneous, what you mean is written decades after his alleged death by people who heard other peoples testimonies.
I am suggesting that suggesting Jesus existed has as much evidence as suggesting Krishna existed, so to remain consistent, everyone better start "hare hare Krishna up in here".
It is vigoursly debated and argued by theologians, might as well get two Trekkies and ask them Kirk or Picard.
source on where you get your data to say "The vast majority of people from all religions that study this think he is real", because I always see that statement but never anything to back it, exceot other places that make the exact same statement also without source. Bet you go to wikipedia like all those other fools right? Right? Ah it must be different when you do it....
And then back to the rant about others. Do I need to give you a list of books or articles I read, before you drop the inverse appeal to authority and discuss on reason instead? Difficult for some of you out there, I know. So many people just accept things at face value without doing research or accept things from authority. Sucks doesn't it...
The Bragavad [forget spelling since I need not use google as you love to imply since you cannot be intellectually honest and keep things civil] Gita is an epic poem long enough to fit several volumes and krishna is allegedly a contemporary in it. Which is part of the Mahabrata which is over a hundred thousand verses and written in about four centuries. Yeah, you better believe in Vishnu or special rules apply to Jesus meek and mild...
Why does believing a man named Krishna existed mean you have to suddenly believe in Vishnu?
You don't, but you better believe Krishna existed, yet culturally Christian historians living in a culturally Christian society don't give him a pass like they do Jesus. Couldn't be a bias could it? Nawwwww....
Even without historical evidence, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So it wouldn't matter as neither side scores any real points even if they get what they want.
So better believe in hephasteus and mithra and krishna and every other heroic or divine character written about by at least four people within two centuries that had a following. Jesus isn't the only mythical one that fits the criteria to be historically real. Truth is he gets a pass because his believers are still around and in great numbers and culturally dominant in all fields including history.
You really, really, really dont get the difference in concepts between the historical Jesus and the Christian Jesus, do you?
One is a myth of a divine being on earth. The other is a myth that is easier to swallow.
There were tons of hobo cultish preachers during that time. Did one of the multitude have a name similar to Yeshua? Maybe, no one knows, but that is as close as it gets to facts.
Better theory is Paul made up the whole thing since he was probably mentally disturbed and sexually repressed.
Lol.
Also, if you dont want to acknowledge the existence of a historical Jesus, you might as well go all the way and deny the existence of a historical Paul as well. I mean, some people claim he did miracles as well, so therefore he cannot have existed obviously.
Meh, Paul actually founded a church...by using a story (visions) of Jesus. He was that centuries L. Ron Hubbard.
I think you want r/atheism.
I have no idea what you response has to do with my post or even the topic...
I wanted to point out that if you take your reply and apply it consistently the results add up to more than one divine prophet/hero.
That you don't and that so many others also don't was explained in the next sentences.
Also I am sorry that people with different beliefs don't stay within the marked ghetto, you believe they belong. (also I never go there anyways, srd gets most of my clicks)
Do you also deny that a man named Muhammed walked the earth? Put aside all the mystical things attributed to him, but the actual existence of a historical figure?
What about Siddhārtha Gautama?
Zoroaster?
Ramses III?
I bet you're fun at parties.
Muhammed has more evidence, as he had an army and went around conquering people.
Not sure about Budha but I bet he has more contemporary writtings then Jesus who has zero during his alleged life.
Ramses III was a pharoah, with burial amd recorded history. Also someone has to exist in the position of Pharoah and there are no competing names out there for that time period,
Not sure about Zoroster at all.
Yeah I am really fun at parties, because at good parties people don't chat about their faith and how true it is. Your parties must suck.
YOURE THE ONLY PERSON BRINGING FAITH INTO THIS YOU DUMB FUCK
Rustled jimmies, when people are confronted with others who don't hold to their cherished idiotic beliefs. It's like you're five and I said Santa wasn't real, and now you cannot help but cry and have an outburst.
I brought up faith because that is the only reason a cultural Christian civilization gives Jesus pass.
Here's a newsflash - I'm not religious. I have simply weighed the evidence for Jesus's existence - the references from contemporary writers, the fact a Christian faith arose in the Holy Land around the right time, Talmudic references which agree Jesus existed but decline to recognise him as Messiah - and think it highly likely that such a person existed.
It has absolutely no bearing on whether or not he was deistic in nature. I simply think he existed and had followers. Just as there is persuasive evidence of the mere existence of a man named Mohammed. Just as I'm persuaded that the Pharaohs exited, although I don't believe they were deistic in nature, either.
No if you take my my reply and apply it you find that there is nothing to learn about someone's divinity... either way.
My entire point being that even if if there is no historical evidence for a thing, it doesn't mean something didn't exist, so then that doesn't tell you anything.
But then again, even if there is historical evidence it doesn't tell you anything about divinity.
Relying on historical evidence for the existence or non-existence of one relatively common 3x year old carpenter just doesn't make any sense as you can't come to an absolute conclusion.
Divinity being the real topic folks are all upset about the historical argument is silly.
If the best you can do is say " you cannot prove he didn't exist" well...congratulations? I guess you're convinced of a lot of things then.
That is how history works the farther you go back....
I think you're way too invested in an argument with a group of people and scoring ultimately meaningless e points to see the forest through the trees.
> Truth is he gets a pass because his believers are still around and in great numbers and culturally dominant in all fields including history.
No, even the groups of people who would really rather prefer he didn't exist - for instance, the Jews, who have been persecuted because of their alleged complicity with his death - don't argue he didn't exist.
They might dismiss any and all mythical powers that are attributed to him, as do most atheists, but they aren't silly enough to acknowledge the strong likelihood that there was a man named Jesus who had a following of like-minded people.
The fact he's attested to by people whose politics were averse to Jesus's stated aim suggests, you know, that he existed. Anything supernatural is clearly questionable, but the sheer fact he existed? That's persuasive for anyone who doesn't have a massive agenda.
Agenda...lol hilarious imagining who would have a coordinated agenda regarding their lord & saviour.
Certainly not Josephus, who was a 1st century Jewish-Romano scholar who attests to Jesus's existence (but not divinity). He's got not one but two reasons to wish Jesus didn't exist, but he writes of him anyway.
He writes down other peoples testimonials. Still just testimonials of jewish cultists.
Are you intentionally dense? No contemporary academics write about Xenu as a real person simply because they've heard Scientologists talk about him once or twice.
Conversely, you have Tacitus, Josephus, even the Talmud referring to Jesus the man (as opposed to Jesus the deity).
Seriously, you have to intentionally try quite hard simply to pretend that there wasn't a man called Jesus who had followers.
Was he a deity? Personally, I don't believe so. Was he a good enough orator that he persuaded several dozen people to adopt his way of life and spread his personal interpretation of Judaism? That's readily apparent, if only because (obviously) the Christian sect of Judaism flourished and spread.
That speaks absolutely nothing to whether he was deistic in nature.
Why bother denying the man existed?
Are you blind and dumb? Stop calling them contemporary. They lived and wrote decades and centuries after Jesuses alleged death. And one only wrote that; to paraphrase "some people worshipped some guy named Jesus or something"
You people always quoting wikipedia. Four names, always the same, all decades later, never anything during his life, never anything actually contemporary.
Paul was mentally ill and made shit up, has as much evidence as Paul didn't make shit up.
John Lennon died before I was born. If I write about John Lennon, it's because I'm pretty fucking sure he existed. Why? Because in the scheme of things, he's a contemporary. People he knew I can talk to. People I know can tell me if they saw him.
>You people alwats quoting wikipedia.
ಠ_ಠ
>Four names always the same, all decades later, never anything during his life, never anything actually contemporary.
You know what? I don't believe you exist. I'll require written evidence from four noteworthy historians before I'm persuaded otherwise.
Go go go.
What evidence do you have that Paul exists that's so much stronger than the evidence for Jesus?
> absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
No, but it's a reason to discard the claim entirely. I wish people would stop saying this. Absence of evidence is almost worse because it pushes things into the "not even wrong" territory.
Entirely?
That sounds like a claim of absence..... and that isn't even the case....
I just wonder: do you believe Buddha (Gautama one) existed??
Have not really checked, but if not Buddha than a Paul like character to originate Buddha. Not sure though.