Agreed. However, even if we eliminate the Christianity from 'Christmas' we're left with a Northern European/Roman pagan, mid-winter festival, which is also rather ridiculous in Australia.

Once read there were two occasions constituting civil religion in Oz: Anzac Day & Carols by Candlelight. Understand your disappointment re co-opting of CbyC. Some Christians feel excluded when Christmas Carols are overtaken by secular Xmas songs .

Some of us take seriously the reason for the season. We share your sentiments about gratitude & sharing. But how did you come to associate these very Christian sentiments with the season? You didn't derive them from Roman Saturnalia.

Christmas has been overtaken by commercialism. Dwarf Pointsettias on sale:in the USA they are seasonal for Christmas. Grown naturally, seasonally in Oz - instead of forced by plant nursery people - Pointsettias are large shrubs with red-flamed flowers. They bloom in late autumn/early winter,around Pentecost. Apt. They look like tongues of fire. Then there are Christmas Carols & Songs in October & Hot Cross Buns before Epiphany (Jan or Feb).

If you,an atheist, feel a bit discombobulated by Christians, take a minute to think of what commercialism & consumerism has done. I imagine it has done it to you too. Why did Council opt out of CbyC - commercial,$ reasons? Did they think the world had become populated by atheists & agnostics who didn't care? Because what we don't value & express value in tends to disappear.

I'm happy to admit to Christian shortcomings. While you are doing the accounting, though, you will find some good things. A problem in Australia is that there has been, since the mid 19th century, a determined secularism. Sometimes good,sometimes not good. Secularists can be bigots too - but, in my experience, they don't like to admit it. Universities kept the once called Queen of Sciences, Theology, out - but it has crept in recently. I point these out to highlight the fact there is a dearth of knowledgable religious (as opposed to theological, branded) discourse in Oz. The understanding of religious ideas is in decline. Such discourse should include religious & non-religious voices but be predicated upon a knowledge of religious ideas and impacts. An Australian immaturity, methinks. I, for one, long for a broader discourse.

MissEagle

Secularism is inclusive of all religions or lack of religion. It is what gives us the freedom to believe whatever religion we like, or not.

Atheism is simply not believing in deities - there is no doctrine. However, there is, for example Buddhism which could be described as an atheist religion because it does not claim a singular deity, yet maintains a doctrine.

Most atheists in Australia are similar to the author, Chrys Stevenson, who enjoy a good get-together with friends and family and the occasion of Christmas provides the time (holiday) in which to do so.

Not a big deal. Just get over the fact that Christians do not own every event, including Xmas. Chill.

This is a case of never letting a chance go by to launch an attack on Christianity (as opposed to all organised religions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam). It is obsessional and unnecessary, displaying a intolerance that is quite out of place in multicultural Australia and with the Christmas season.

It is carping and petty, very much like criticising a young student for wearing a fine chain with a crucifix to school, or getting into a huff about prayers opening parliament. The same critics would probably assert individual rights elsewhere in life when it suits their interests.

There are much bigger issues in life to worry about than getting into a tizz about nativity plays. There are others who want to ban Santa entirely, which is just as intolerant and foolish. There is no religious fundamentalism in an Australian Xmas, unlike other religious observances, edicts and law that some would like to introduce to Australia. This is a secular state and Xmas does not detract from that.

Chyrs writes

'I will pause to give thanks, not to any deity, but simply to remember that as an Anglo-Celtic, middle-class Australian I’ve won life’s lottery.'

Yea the religion of chance. Makes a lot of sense. Chyrs will give thanks to nobody for being lucky. Typical of those who refuse to give thanks to the One who made her 'lucky'. Another illogical conclusion that helps to deny the logical.

I am always tempted to "Bah" and "Humbug" at this time of the year: the more tawdry decorations; the commercial appropriation of the festivities; the bad-taste, "jingle bells" muzak; the false snow in a country that is likely to have temperatures of 30 odd degrees on the day [this might change with the climate, or get worse]; the additional deadlines the festivity creates; and televised religious services. But, stripped of its commercial dross, the best of Christmas is its celebration of family: the joy of giving and receiving; the joy of a full table with everyone sitting around together.

Turkey and pudding is a privileged scenario, though, and because many families are doing it tough such luxury is only a mouth-watering dream, despite the age of plastic cards. I can remember in my own family, when things were tough and turkey was never part of the scene in any of the households in our neighbourhood, chicken was not even on the menu unless you had a chook yard out the back. One year our Christmas dinner was rabbit that my father had gone out in the countryside and shot. But that Christmas doesn't stand out as being particularly tough for the children. There were toys - cheap to be sure - and it was a happy time. I had to be told years later that over a couple of Christmases things were so tight that we ate rabbit for Christmas dinner. Thank goodness my father was a good shot!

It is a shame on our social progress that in the twenty-first century families will still feel the pinch. Family budgets will be strained and the household debt increased, egged on by TV advertisements and the urgent retail Christmas message, Christmas comedies, keeping up with next door, and almost a desire to prove the dire prognostications of the retail lobby and conservative economists wrong. CONTINUED

Lest it be thought that I want to inject a sense of guilt into those who will sit down to a nicely basted turkey, I have cooked turkey at Christmas for years, despite my wife's protests that it was too hot. Christmas IS an occasion and my conservative menu persisted even when we were empty-nesters!

The guilt and regret I want to see expressed is by those politicians who supported workplace laws that made jobs less secure, undermining family financial security, and creating a wages system that trends well below rising costs and the obscene excesses of company CEOs and senior managers. The irony of these politicians, who also profess their Christianity and family values, is that they have done more to undermine the family than any other generation. Labor's effort in the past three years to remedy the damage can be likened to giving a child a cheap toy destined to break before the Christmas dinner. Then there are those unspeakable Scrooges who sack their workers before the Christmas break to avoid paying holiday wages. They have no social conscience whatever. The worn-out workers in multiple jobs and intermittent employment – who survive in the hidden levels of the economy that can be measured by the growing disparity between rich and poor - have those politicians and such unconscionable employers to thank for a Christmas that will look more like the fifties than the prosperity of 2010.

Spare a thought for those families as you celebrate the family at Christmas and for those who have no family left and sit alone in a one bedroom flat. Ask what we do as a community for people who live out on the street at any time of the year let alone the festive season. Christmas is also a time for community celebration of the best of our species – the kindness we should always allow ourselves not only in burying family rivalry but also extending it to those who do not have the good fortune of a nicely cooked meal and the buzz of family around the Christmas table.

@Cornflower: "This is a case of never letting a chance go by to launch an attack on Christianity (as opposed to all organised religions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam)."

Well, Cornflower, Christmas is a Christian feast not a Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, or any other religious festival. Christmas, as Chrys pointed out, has pagan origins as far as the timing of the festival. That's not an attack - it's stating what we know already. And where does Chrys attack Christianity? She writes about the celebration of the day as an atheist....

Thank you, Chrys, for a great peice of writing. I disagree with everything you say just about as passionately as I agree with it all.

I don't want to infuriate you (I'm guessing that I won't - you seem like a very nice person and Christmas at your place sounds terrific fun), but I'm particularly grateful to you for reminding me why I'm a Christian.

And ... I never thought I'd say this about an Online Opinion forum, but thanks to everybody who's responded so far for your engaging and well-written responses. I'm sure I'm speaking too soon.

Seamus,

From the article, <I was outraged. “Bloody Christians!” I hissed, “They stick their damned noses in everywhere. Now they’re taking over Christmas!”>

If one attends carols by candlelight sponsored by the local community church because the secular local government will not support the occasion, it is unreasonable to chaff because there was a prayer - which would have been expected and most likely demanded by the parishioners present. I am sure no-one's arm wouldn't have been twisted to attend or pray.

In any event, most people would be expressing their own spirituality and sense of community at the time, helped by the occasion and the expressions of universal goodwill. Well, almost universal, one participant was 'outraged' and 'hissing' while soaking up the atmosphere paid for by others. Not to mention 'their' use of 'her' carols, the cheek!

I don't believe that a local church would have taken up the responsibility and cost of staging the public entertainment solely to proselytise. That is just being mean and spiteful.

It is all so petty and intolerant.

Meanwhile, there are destitute families that are being helped out over Xmas and beyond by those very congregations. That is the major concern at Xmas of the churches close to me and yes, we give money, groceries and toys to several of the major churches in our suburb and I am certain those are put to good use.

We also do some 'elder' visits arranged one church, but that is an ongoing thing and there is no expectation whatsoever that we go to services. Never a mention of religion, just bring some fresh sandwiches (always appreciated) and have a comfortable chat over scalding tea. That reminds me to search for some holly for our home made boiled pudding - a slice for now and a generous slice for later - cheap to make but full of Xmas spirit (ahem, and rum). These occasions are times to give thanks and think of others. If the churches remind us of that, it is a good thing.

""From the article, <I was outraged. “Bloody Christians!” I hissed, “They stick their damned noses in everywhere. Now they’re taking over Christmas!”>

If one attends carols by candlelight sponsored by the local community church because the secular local government will not support the occasion, it is unreasonable to chaff because there was a prayer - which would have been expected and most likely demanded by the parishioners present. ""
Posted by Cornflower, Friday, 17 December 2010 11:24:50 AM

Cornflower, Chrys said that in the context the event had changes from being a friendly community event to a rock-concert-type evangelising one.

It was not a local community church anymore, and the issue of govt and its secularity does not come into it. Red Herring and StrawMen everywhere.

McReal

The evangelical churches are not representative of the very moderate vast majority of church congregations in this country. If she has a beef with one such then name it and give details.

But why tar all with the same brush - unless one is trying to stereotype of course.

Cornflower said: "If one attends carols by candlelight sponsored by the local community church because the secular local government will not support the occasion, it is unreasonable to chaff because there was a prayer - which would have been expected and most likely demanded by the parishioners present."

Just to clarify, I wasn't aware the arrangements had changed when I turned up for the Carols by Candlelight. I imagine (but have no proof) that the decision to let the church host it was made on financial grounds. And, I admitted, myself, in the article, that it took just 'two beats' to realise my initial reaction was harsh.

Merry Christmas, Chrys

If anyone is interested in reading more about the pagan origins of Christmas, my friend Colin Kline has written an excellent piece, Saturnalia, which appears the Atheist Foundation of Australia's website.

http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/articles/saturnalia

Colin says, in part:

"Pagan theologies were the model for christian inventions, which mischievously glued their monotheism over older tritheisms by demanding a logic-defying "mystical faith." The previous notions of a trinity had derived from the Ancient Greeks, who believed their world, Earth, was separated from the Underworld by the river Styx. The Underworld was in turn divided into three, The Elysian Fields (c.f. ‘Heaven'), Tartarus (c.f. ‘Hell') and The Asphodel Fields (c.f. ‘Purgatory'). The similarities between the two theologies are so stark, that one wonders at the might of the social forces that separated them .... "

Cornflower, I didn't 'tar all with the same brush' - I said "a (singular) rock-concert-type evangelising one". Touchy, touchy. Sheeesh!

Anyone who is offended that the majority of Australians are Christians and who are further offended that the majority of Australians celebrate Christmas, are not the type of people that embrace tolerance and are certainly not the type of people we really need in Australia.

If you’re not Christian, who cares! Have a beer, then some turkey or goose and then some pudding, argue politics with irrational family member and enjoy the other important element to Christmas, a time to catch up with family, (and to gather excellent leftovers for the cricket on the 26th).
h

Apologists can be so frustrating sometimes. Especially when they’re not even one of these who they’re apologising for.

Great articles and posts, Chrys.

Keep them coming!

If you’re not Christian, who cares! Have a beer, then some turkey or goose and then some pudding, argue politics with irrational family member and enjoy the other important element to Christmas, a time to catch up with family, (and to gather excellent leftovers for the cricket on the 26th).
h
Posted by Angry Oak, Friday, 17 December 2010 1:02:32 PM

Now That makes sence.

BLUE

Yes, our European Christmas traditions borrowed a lot of images and practices from pagan cultures, as well as more recent borrowings such as Americans’ thanksgiving turkey. Some traditions - card giving, Santa Claus – are comparatively recent.

So what? No Christian I know thinks that fir trees, snow or men in red suits have any inherent religious significance.

Cultures borrow from each other all the time. And traditions adapt and are reinvented, carrying old meanings and morphing into new. Christmas is becoming more secular as our wider culture becomes more secular. Is the chant Ozzie-Ozzie_Ozzie un-Australian because it was stolen from the Welsh?

I’m glad non-religionists find so much to celebrate in this season, and I’m happy to celebrate with them. I’m a Christian but was raised in an atheist household and we had wonderful Christmasses in my childhood. it seemed we had everything our Christian neighbours had except the churchgoing.

Yet ...

I get far more from Christmas now than I did as a child, because I am now a Christian. While most people are in a frenzy of parties and purchases in the lead-up to Christmas, the liturgical churches are deep in the thoughtful, rather sober spirit of advent, with its focus on preparation and hopeful anticipation. Stripped of some of its spiritual meaning, its seems to me that secular Christmas is tending to become more grossly material and and excessive, with decorations and Christmas gifts entering the shops weeks before the event, and gifts and food become a benchmark of a "good" Christmas.

The things that are central to secular Christmas – gifts, time off, family, gratifude, sentimentality, a little over-indulgence in food and wine – are part of my Christmas too. But they are not the point of it, and in fact are all the more enjoyable because they’re not the point.

Great Article Chrys. I too get kind of tired of the Christians claiming a monopoly on "the meaning of" Christmas. To me the meaning is in the getting together with family and friends, the feasting and the drinking. The giving and receiving of presents. The happiness that it brings to the children and the celebration of another year nearly at its end. That is quite enough meaning for me.

I don't know if I have any spirituality. I most certainly don't believe in any god, christian or otherwise.

I do get a special feeling when surfing a wave, on a board or in a yacht. Riding a horse, canoeing down a river, or trying to set a lap record around Bathurst gives the same effect. Is that spiritual?

I may not be a christian, but that doesn't mean I don't approve of it. At school I was the only bloke in the debating team. The five girls were all daughters of local church ministers. Boy did they give me a hard time, attacking me with missionary zeal. It was all to no effect.

They had to settle for the fact that I approve of christian ways, if not the belief. In the 60s it seemed to me that all the best & kindest countries were based on the christian faith. I don't see that much has changed since then. So let everyone enjoy Christmas, even if they don't believe.

Of course, Christmas is one thing, but for me, Easter on the Mount, for me means Easter on Mount Panorama Bathurst, not on a mount in some middle eastern country.

This article is fraudulent. It is just a flimsy excuse for an unseemly display of intolerance by someone who likes baiting Christians.

"I can’t speak for all atheists, of course, but..."

Absolutely spot on, Ms Stevenson, you can't.

Like it or not, Christians have been celebrating Christmas at Christmastime for a long time. Certainly long enough to claim it as their tradition, not yours.

What was your beef again? That a bunch of evangelicals had grabbed an opportunity to re-inject a religious slant on the carol concert. Sounds quite reasonable to me, given that the locals seem to have turned it into some kind of sub-variety show, complete with drunken fat man in a red suit.

Don't like it? Organize your own.

The "origins" of the festival may indeed be pagan. The religious rationale for celebrating "baby Jesus" may also be questionable, on many fronts. But the tradition of singing Christmas carols does not "pre-date Christ by hundreds or even thousands of years". And certainly owes nothing to vaudeville, as you seem to think it should.

Sing, or don't sing. It's your choice. But it is fatuous to complain when your annual cheese-fest finds itself reclaimed by its previous owners.

Our predominantly European-origin society inherited Christmas, along with Easter, from our predominantly Christian-oriented forbears. I for one am happy to go along with the sentiment of Christmas - family, togetherness and such (and with a chocolate covered Easter, of course. What's with that?) - simply because it is traditional.

One aspect of that tradition is the festival of nine lessons and carols from Kings. It has intrinsic artistic beauty, whether or not you happen to believe the "lessons". The religious content does not offend, in the same way that the libretto to Mozart's Requiem, or Mendelssohn's Elijah doesn't offend.

It certainly wouldn't be improved by a visit from Santa.

Sorry, I'm with the happy-clappys on this one. They have more of a right to bring Jesus back into the event than you have to pretend to complain about it, simply in order to score a few cheap points against Christians.

Pericles I agree with what you wrote.

I am a atheist and do not agree with this article. Then again online opinion is a place for the author to share her opinion and put it out there. Which she has, this is her view point and it takes many people to make up a world. If we all agreed what a boring place we would live in.

My personal way I celebrate or do not celebrate Christmas is individual for me. I do not feel that Christians have ruined xmas in anyway shape or form for myself. I feel PC and not wanting to offend people may have changed the landscape of Christmas. I do not think we cant dismiss how the author feels or her opinions that would not be fair.

I agree if someone does not like it then it would be a good idea if they felt inspired to do something about this and hold a atheist or non religious carols by candlelight. Some people only notice and look for the negative and maybe this time of year brings up sadness for this author and many people in her situation. Maybe they feel jibbed that Christmas was kind of encouraged and celebrated by people who are Christian.

Chyrs says:

//But, in the midst of the gift-giving, child-hugging, relentless teasing and indecent gorging of rum balls and white Christmas, I will pause to give thanks, not to any deity, but simply to remember that as an Anglo-Celtic, middle-class Australian I’ve won life’s lottery. What better reason to celebrate the season?//

Well... that Christ came into the world would be a pretty good one.
Chyrs...I feel so sorry for you in that approach. You have an opportunity to celebrate the coming of God incarnate to the world

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross! (Phil 2)

Johnny.. you rascal :)

//Atheism is simply not believing in deities// - /there is no doctrine./

You funny boy....you STATE the 'doctrine'.."No Deities" then you deny that you have one....now you should sit back and toss that around in your fertile mind a bit mate. May the Lord of Glory open your mind and heart.

Good and fair response Pericles. I think the articles's absurd title Reason's Greetings sums up the partisan nature of it.

Sadly it sinks into celebrating sentimentality as a substitute for the good. Pretty poor effort really.

If the pc brigade had not banned the fun we had with crackers the god deniers could have celebrated the big bang day instead of the Queens birthday. What a joke that would be!

<<The celebration of the winter solstice is a European cultural inheritance that’s been purloined by the Christian branch of our global family.>>

<<December 25 was not (Jesus') birthday.>>

December 25 is not the winter solstice.

It's what they believed the winter solstice to be in ancient times, Proxy.

The ancient Egyptians calculated that there were 360 days in the year. They weren't right either, but they were pretty close considering the times they lived in.

I must say though, it's nice to see the Christian come out of you from time-to-time, Proxy. It's a refreshing and honest change from the 'I'm not a Christian' act.

Mine was an astronomical and not a theological comment.

Commenting on Christmas no more makes me a Christian than
commenting on female genital mutilation makes me a Muslim.

"December 25 is not the winter solstice."

Almost right, Proxy. It's not the date of the solstice now.

First, I never said the winter solstice fell on 25 December and, in fact, the exact date is a little hard to pin down.

The winter solstice in northern Europe currently falls around the 21-22 December, however, as Italy is further south, it occurs a little later - around the 23rd. But when the Roman calendar was reorganized in 45BC, the date of the winter solstice was set at 25 December. I don't claim to be an expert on historical calendars but it seems the early Julian calendar ran a couple of days ahead of ours, which explains the discrepancy (I'm happy to be corrected on this).

The pagan festivities in honour of the winter solstice are generally believed to have begun in late December and continued through to early January - although some scholars date the festival beginning as early as mid-November. In other words, the very early pagan winter solstice festivities ran *through* 25 December and would have been at their height around that date. The Roman's Saturnalia was celebrated (originally on one day) but ultimately during the week leading up to December 24. It was the Romans who decided to make 25 December the date on which Christ's birth would be celebrated and, as far as I can tell, this is the date *they* marked as the winter solstice. Prior to this, Christ's birthday had been celebrated on 6 January.

Many early deities were said to have been born close to the date of the winter solstice (around about 25 December) but at this distance, and with changes in calendars, it's probably not possible to pin them down to one particular day.

My point was that there were many ancient festivals based upon the winter solstice. These were held on or around the 25 December and, in time, morphed into the Christian festival.

AlGoreisRich, you said to Johnny Rotten: <You funny boy....you STATE the 'doctrine'.."No Deities" then you deny that you have one....now you should sit back and toss that around in your fertile mind a bit mate. May the Lord of Glory open your mind and heart.>
If you maintain that fairies, gods and the Sydney Harbour Monster exist, the onus is 100% on you to prove that they do. There is no onus on deniers to prove that they don’t. In fact, it is logically impossible to find evidence that something does not exist because something that does not exist generates no evidence of its non-existence.
You are not professing any doctrine when you deny that fairies, gods and Sydney Harbour Monsters don’t exist; you are merely noting that those making the implausible claim that they exist haven’t yet produced evidence to support their claim. That’s not being doctrinaire; it’s simply being logical.
If you want others to believe that there is a “Lord of Glory”, you’d better have convincing evidence ready. And good luck because the best efforts of Christian theologians for two millennia have not found it.
One of the reasons why increasing numbers are finding carols evenings confronting is that religionists are taking them over and locating the carol singing in an overtly religious context. This makes their texts into declarations of a faith that non-believers cannot make. Previously, carols were simply good fun songs that everyone could enjoy singing together because everybody felt free to attach only as much credibility to the words as they wished. But when the religionists take over, the carols lose their innocence and it becomes impossible to sing them without appearing to endorse their underlying dogma. I’ve been part of the backing choir at the local carols evening for several years but I won’t be in future. And neither will several other choir members not prepared to be paraded as evidence for the prosecution by the churches turning the carols evening into a case for god.

There is no dominant religion in the world today and by definition, only one religion can possibly be true.

Therefore, the majority of religious people in the world earnestly believe in and will argue about something that is completely false.

The origins of a pagan festival stretching back over millennia and pre-dating at least one such religion is no exception, especially when it incorporates such things as the "heathen" celebration of Yule.

@wobbles

'only one religion can possibly be true',well, believers might hold that opinion,however,it's more likely that no religion is, or can be, 'true'

In my community one of the local churches
is organising the annual 'Carols by Candlelight',
but it won't be any kind of recruitment drive
for Jesus. Instead, it will be a family
evening of traditional and contemporary carols,
combined with a sausage sizzle, open to all
comers.

As a curmudgeonly old atheist near-vegetarian,
I won't be attending, but I certainly don't
begrudge the church or the attendees for observing
their religious festival in such a fun and
informal way. Let's face it, whatever its origins
Christmas is a major festival in the Christian
religious calendar. If you don't want to be
exposed to excesses of Christian 'happy clapping',
don't go to Carols by Candlelight. That's why I don't.

Simple, really.

Quote: Even assuming Jesus Christ was an actual person

While Christ's divinity, healings and other "miracles" and resurrection can be and are disputed, who, apart from the author, would seriously question that Christ did exist in a human form? You may as well question whether Pontius Pilate or King Herod was "an actual person".

L.B.Loveday (Saturday, 18 Dec 10:15:16 AM)

There is no evidence for Jesus of the Bible outside the Bible narrative -

Virtually all references in contemporary historians (Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Tacticus, Suetonius) were

(i) to "Chrestus", "Christus", "Christos" (or other such names meaning at the time 'anointed one', or 'useful' as was often applied to servants or slaves)*, or

(ii) to his followers - often called "Christianos" (Tacticus).

A lot of Josephus's references to Christ are considered later additions, and Origen later wrote Josephus did not believe Jesus was *the* Christ.

Considering Jesus is supposed to have lived amongst 500 people for 40 days after his resurrection, it is very surprising nothing of that was recorded by the contemporary historians then or in ensuing decades.

Jesus was a common name at the time, and self-appointed messiahs were too. It is likely there has been a condensation of more than one messianic character into the one that was eventually portrayed in the Bible.

----

* There have been difficulties with translation and transcription -

xpnotoc/s (Latin transliteration chrestus) means useful.

xpiotoc/s (christus) means anointed.

L.B.Loveday asks: “...who, apart from the author, would seriously question that Christ did exist in a human form?”

Anyone with a sound knowledge of history not distorted by an irrational belief.

Wobbles
you say "by definition, only one religion can possibly be true". Not so. Some religions cheerfully accept that there is truth in other faiths (Hunduism, Baha'i).

Many Christians, Jews, Moslems and others also accepts the validity of other faiths. The ecumenical movement has arisen precisely because many people of faith recognise that most religions point to the truth of God, but no religion captures it perfectly.

McReal and AJ Philips
There are two separate though related issues here - was Jesus a historical person, and was he the Messiah and Son of God as Christians claim. The first is a historical question, the second broader.

I accept that there are scholars who doubt Jesus' historical existence. But most historians, including atheists and scholars of religions other than Christianity, accept that Jesus existed as a first century Galilean Jew who attracted a following, came into conflict with religious and civil authorities and was executed by the Romans. This is the simplest, most logical and most straightforward explanation for the undisputed historical phenomenon of the emergence of Christianity in the first century. Prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins also accept Jesus’ existence as an historical figure.

Likewise, most scholars believe that some of Jospehus' references to Jesus were probably doctored, but not all. As a Jew and Roman collaborator it's perhaps unlikely that Josephus would have accepted Jesus as the Messiah, but the fact he mentions Jesus at all points to his existence as a historical figure. Indeed, the fact that almost all early non-biblical references to Jesus and Christians are hostile to him – Josephus Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger, and early rabbinic traditions in the Talmud – strengthens their credibility as evidence for the historical existence of Jesus.

It is also striking that none of the early Jewish and Roman sources hostile to Christianity attempted to refute it claims by arguing that Jesus did not exist or was not crucified

What some commentors appear to overlook is that you were stating your response to a sudden and unexpected change to a "traditional" event. I imagine many would have similiar (if less well-articulated) concerns if an atheist were to appear on stage at their sunday church service and perform a ceremonial act of reverence upon the assembled parishoners. In fact, I have had similar reactions when an episode of Big Bang Theory didn't air at the published time.

I didn't read any malice or negative intent in your article. You simply voice the fact that you don't need to be christian to celebrate christmas. A fact that is demonstrated by the fact that the majority of australians spend the day unwrapping presents, eating too much, drinking too much and dozing in a chair through the hot afternoon, and so few in church solemnly observing the commemoration of their particular model of imaginary man in the sky.

I understand your disappointment at the evangelisation of your xmas carols, Chrys. This year I was forcibly blessed the the roaming Uniting Church missionary before I could watch my wife conduct the local state school choir. It was distasteful, and I wanted to shout out my objection to being prayed at so she wouldn't think everyone in the audience shared her delusion, but I tolerated it because I'm polite.

I'll be thinking of you when I open a cold one on the big day after sharing a morning and lunch with my kids and extended family and rejoicing in the fact I live in a secular democracy where I'm free to choose what I do and beleive and have enough wealth to be able to spend time in such a enriching and fulfilling way.

talisman, "If you don't want to be
exposed to excesses of Christian 'happy clapping',
don't go to Carols by Candlelight."

C'mon spinner, where is there such a beast as a public council approved carols by candlelight that is a prayer fest with excesses of 'Christian happy clapping'?

That would be a very rare animal in Australia if it existed at all, much like the panthers of NSW.

Aunt Sally has become far too common in modern rhetoric, yet it is unusual for the logical fallacy to be discovered or challenged, even where the story is so obviously fake and crafted to suit the offender's script.

There should be points awarded for the most elaborate and outrageous Aunt Sally and points too for the best shy at her, outside of her creator, who in most cases would win every time, for that is the originator's purpose in trotting out Aunt Sally after all.

We seem to have lost part of what set us apart as Australians, our radar for BS and our zest for 'rewarding' the offender trucking a load of it into the debate, especially where it is a case of faking it rather than stretching it a bit. The latter was sort-of tolerated while the former, faking it, was always roundly condemned.

Chrys Said: "Even assuming Jesus Christ was an actual person ..."

"who, apart from the author, would seriously question that Christ did exist in a human form?"

You are reading far too much into this sentence. What I did *not* say was, "Although I don't think that Jesus Christ was an actual person ..." I said, "Even assuming Jesus Christ was an actual person ...". The latter simply acknowledges the fact that this is a statement which is debated in scholarly circles.

While it is true that the majority of Bible scholars accept that Jesus existed, there are some seriously qualified theologians who dispute it. For example, Hector Avalos, a former Pentecostal preacher and child evangelist, is now Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University. He has a Doctor of Philosophy in Hebrew Bible and Near Eastern Studies from Harvard University, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Arizona. Avalos believes that Earl Doherty's "The Jesus Puzzle", "outlines a plausible theory for a completely mythical Jesus."

Similarly, former Baptist minister, Robert M Price, Professor of Theology and Scriptural Studies at the Coleman Theological Seminary is also a proponent of the 'Jesus as myth' hypothesis.

Richard Dawkins, in fact, has a bet both ways on the Jesus as myth hypothesis. He concedes that it's possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all, although, personally, he believes Jesus probably existed.

So, yes, there are much better qualified historians and theologians than me who believe that Jesus was, or may have been, mythical. However, I did *not* say that *I* support this view, I simply acknowledged that such a view exists. As it happens, I *don't* have a fixed opinion on this as I haven't had the opportunity to do sufficient research into this area.

The author writes to an audience of hardened hearts who repress the divine presence within to take on the role of denialists against the climate of good that flows through people of faith. A good that underpins the solidarity of our western culture tested across time by horrendous evil in all of its expressions by State, and Church. This solidarity is being tested in an age of frivolous materialism in which the rights and behaviour of the self autonomous individual are forever claimed and exercised at a serious cost to what we know as society, and the polis.

The author's whinge is the inverse to the medieval Scholastics who contemplated the number of angels that could fit on the head of a pin, which engaged questions of the immaterial and the material. Her denial of the immaterial - God and the story of His revelation through the history of the Jewish people to see the prophesied fulfilment in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as the Risen Christ - leaves her floundering in the turbulence of life. Is hearing God preached in a Carol or at Christmas really a problem? Such turbulence! Such absence of charity.

Unwillingness to spark the divine within us leaves us in the dark of cold hard reason broken from faith. But there is a continual light, that of the Church commissioned, for all time to the end days, by Jesus and carried forth since across two millennia. It is here, it is real, it is active, it is committed to all that is true, just and of beauty. To deny such continuity as a phenomenon it is to deny a material reality. To deny it is to repress that immaterial divine within us that is the Spirit that has carried the Church's presence across time whilst we humans stumble and fall, but to always rise to higher levels of truth, knowledge and beauty along the continuum.

I wish a joyous Christmas to all.

Dear Chrys

I note you refer to Hector Avalos and Robert M Price as examples of highly qualified people who question the existence of Jesus.

I cannot offer any superior qualifications, but I can offer the opinion of Paul, in his writings to the Corinthian believers.

In writing, he was coming from a position of personal transformation which resulted from an encounter with the risen Lord Jesus.

He writes:

When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. 1 Cor 2:1ff

Was Paul qualified academically to run his own version of the "Jesus is just a rabble rouser" seminar?

I rather think so:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. Phil 3:5

He adds:

"Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today." Acts 22:3

COMMENT:
Christ will not be found in academia, or by academia but in humble recognition of His eternal reality when He calls to us in our heart of hearts.

That Josephus mentions Jesus does not point to his existence.

The fact is virtually all references in contemporary historians (Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Tacticus, Suetonius) were scant and were

....(i) to non-specific names such as "Chrestus", "Christus"; or

... (ii) just references to his followers - often called "Christianos" (e.g Pliny the Younger; Tacticus).

Your claim "almost all early non-biblical references to Jesus and Christians are hostile to him – Josephus Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger, and early rabbinic traditions in the Talmud" - is debatable, and even then does *not* "strengthens the credibility as evidence" of his historical existence.

Origen later wrote Josephus did not beleive Jesus was the Christ.

The lack of "arguing that Jesus did not exist or was not crucified" by the contemporary historians of the time is not evidence he existed.

Citing scholars of religion or Dawkins (the eminent biologist cum atheist religious commentator) is just appeal to authority - a fallacious approach.

Citing belief that Jesus existed for the Christian story about Jesus is just circular "argument" - a fallacious approach.

The fact is ... all non-Biblical references by historians of the time are scant.

ALGOREisRICH [Saturday, 18 Dec 12:51:17 PM]

Paul writes ideological epistles to followers as far-flung as Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, Phrygia, Anatolia, and Thessalonica. The gospel stories have not been written. Paul has met Peter and the gang. The Corinthians, Ephesians, Romans etc know nothing about the founder of their religion who walked recently among only the peoples of distant Judaea and Galilee.

Paul is a zealous christian, preaching the christian message...but actually says nothing about the message that this Jesus preached? Is this not remarkable? A message without the founder's message? Without a single saying?

Even when the saying would clinch an argument or press home his message? So many times he skips over what the gospels later said Jesus taught, and quotes the Old Testament. Not even about the more elemental parts - the end times, the resurrection of the body.

These early preachers were often at each other's throats, desperately jostling with each for the religiously correct high-ground, often building their epistles around backbiting. Yet Paul repeatedly passes over opportunities to bring quotes to bear that would carry the ultimate authority.

Another irony is there is no evidence for Paul outside the Bible, either.

@ Cornflower, I have no reason to think
that the author invented the "Seaview
Community Christian Church Carols by
Candlelight" in order to have a whinge
about Christians. She tells us that she
changed the name of the event "to protect
the guilty" and that her Council had handed
the formerly secular event "to the first
church prepared to sponsor it in return for
proselytising privileges."

Although I've never actually attended a
"Carols by Candlelight" event because I
assume that they are all more or less
Christian in content, my point was that
it would be a bit silly to go to one and
then complain that it had been taken over
by Christians.

Maybe I'm not cynical enough, but while I
mostly disagree with the author's central
premise, I think it's going a bit far to
imply that she made the whole thing up.

ALGOREisRICH I see you may struggle with the understanding of what atheism may mean. It is a non belief in God so quoting from the bible may make you feel better most people who are atheist or non believers will not really care they may laugh or mock you. I feel you may have missed the point of what the author may be trying to get across which is Christians have taken over Christmas.

This is a perspective which I disagree with as I have already mentioned. Maybe it is best to stick to the topic instead of attacking or assuming bible quotes will make much difference. Is there not some Christian post or person who could do with your knowledge of the bible?

I have a food for thought for yourself and other Christians who troll a blog like this please could you go and read Judges 21:10-24 NLT, this is about Jabesh-gilead and events around this. Also what about Numbers 31:7-18 NLT Midianites and their 5 kings a interesting passage. Or here is another one Joshua 7:15 NLT, or (2 Kings 23:20-25 NLT), Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT I mean this one is great really shows true Christian values no :)

In fact I would like a reader of the bible king james verison if possible or which ever version as there are a few :0 to write an opinion piece defending if you can these passages from the bible. If not please stop quoting it. I shall quote back and randomly select passages out of the bible just like other atheists who may have more of a understanding of religion especially for some the Christian religion.

If you have a issue with what the author wrote then discuss it if you like it then discuss it. If not then move along dear Christian or your lord may do this to you Ezekiel 21:33-37 NAB.

talisman,

You sly dog, I was giving you full credit for a rather clever shy at Aunt Sally*.

Your 'happy clapping' was a nice touch, a real put down for those religious simpletons, eh what? Heh, heh, especially after your storytelling intro for your esteemed self to set the scene.

BTW, are you really CJM as suggested recently and did you catch that narrow columns disorder from someone on that other blog 'Cystitus', or whatever it was called?

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Sally

Smile, it is the festive season.

Rhian, lovely post, which highlights the existential abyss in which (for mine) lies Gothesca’s proposed ‘atheist or non religious carols by candlelight’.

But Rhian, there IS only one true religion, as recounted on Southpark:

Satan [addressing a large crowd of new arrivals to hell] "Sorry everyone, it was the Mormons".

You raise an interesting point, talisman.

>> She tells us that she changed the name of the event "to protect the guilty" and that her Council had handed the formerly secular event "to the first church prepared to sponsor it in return for proselytising privileges."<<

That all sounds pretty lame to me. Why on earth would she need to change the name of the event, unless it was to hide the fact that she was a) exaggerating, b) inventing the parts that suited her "argument", or c) making the whole thing up?

There's nothing particularly libellous in what she tells of the event - unless, of course, it didn't happen that way at all. In which case, there is every reason for the lack of specificity.

I'd put my money on a combination of exaggeration and embellishment, with the odd blatant invention thrown in for "colour".

It certainly reeks of bad faith, that's for sure.

And you know perfectly well, Boaz, that this never happened.

>>In writing, he was coming from a position of personal transformation which resulted from an encounter with the risen Lord Jesus<<

Paul never "encountered" Jesus. They never met. Why do you feel it necessary to pretend otherwise?

@ Cornflower, perhaps if you didn't write
in riddles I'd have more chance in getting
what you mean. Yes, I looked up that same
Wikipedia entry for "Aunt Sally" and assumed
that you meant that the article's author had
created a fictitious object to "knock down".

If you meant my local Carols by Candlelight,
those details came from the flyer left in my
letterbox this week, same as every year.
In any case, I didn't "knock them down".
I thought I made it clear that I support the
local Christians and others in having their
informal Carols and sausage sizzle, even though
it's not my cup of tea.

As for the rest, I've got no idea what you're
talking about. Maybe you could communicate more
clearly, or just stick to the topic?

"Whatever our petty Western woes, etc

This part appears patronizing & short sighted to a majority of people who live in the western part of society. I am not discounting other parts of the world a large majority of people are living in poverty in the USA, UK, Australia. Maybe the author could explain what they mean by this statement. I do disagree there are many people who live in a western country & their woes are not petty. In fact there are many who are isolated, suffering a mental illness, unemployment, poverty.

"So, yes, I’m an atheist and, this year I’ll be celebrating Christmas with my family. etc What better reason to celebrate the season?"

I understand that you are a atheist. However as a atheist who is aware of the world around I am well aware of the sadness that affects many at this time of year. I remember this throughout the year the people who are not in a good place for what ever reason. I care for people greatly be them individuals or groups of people. I do not put myself in a class or will even refer to myself as being a member of a class this feels quite elitist. I feel your paragraph is condescending. There are many religions who respond in a similar manner and refer to people as "the poor people who we must all feel sorry for and help as they are less fortunate than most of us". Maybe all people not just a religious person or a non religious person it would be good to remember that; Things happen for various reasons to people.The words that you have chosen appear to be dismissive of people in a western country. We may not be suffering a current war in our country however we have poor, people who are in detention, the Australian aboriginals to name some. There are people who have been affected by the GFC in some parts of Australia they have lost their homes,jobs & families

@Pericles The events all happened as described.

I suspect the level of religiosity in the Carols *wasn't* Council sanctioned and they didn't realize exactly how much religion would be injected into the event. I also suspect I wasn't the only one put out by it because the sponsorship wasn't renewed.

I made it very clear in my article that even *I* admitted my initial reaction was a bit harsh - something my critics have conveniently ignored. I have no intention of publishing either the name of the town or of the church involved - both to protect my privacy and theirs.

I honestly can't understand the vitriol expressed by people in this discussion. I explained, honestly and directly, at my own expense, my over-reaction to a particular event. I readily admitted that it took me just 'two beats' to realise my response was unreasonable.

I have not called on anyone to give up their religious Christmas. I have asked only that *my* choice to celebrate a secular Christmas be respected.

Neither have I asked that Carols not be sung at Carols by Candlelight - of course that would be ridiculous! Vision Australia's Carols, for instance, strikes a very good balance of secular celebration and religious observance. This went far beyond that.

If the Carols I attended had been held on church property, of course, my reaction would have been even more unwarranted. But, it was in a council park.

I expect this explanation will have little impact upon those who've chosen to read far more than I intended into this article. I have been accused of saying things I clearly didn't say, and my critics have studiously ignored things I did say. What matters is the opinions of my friends and family – not people on the internet who hide behind aliases as they make their attacks. I have a particular aversion to lying - I don't lie and I do not tolerate it in others. This is my story - and, because it's true, I have to stick to it.

I wish you a merry Christmas.

This is a public forum and you have put your article out there. People are not kind and people will accuse others of lying if they do not understand the things behind it. I do not see that you have lied in your explanation of events, this makes no sense why someone would suggest this and maybe it is best to ignore this and not let it get you down.

I am sure you are aware there are many trolls and or people who try to rile up others. However you have the opportunity to discuss your views not to convince but so many can understand. Atheist are a diverse community and really you should be commended on having your personal experiences out there in such a public forum.

This can be an opportunity to refine your words or take on some constructive criticism if need be or just help with others understanding. This can be a emotional task on anyone. Please do not be disheartened and keep up your writing and contributing. I like a lively debate, I like people to go away and come back and get their arguments to hold up or extrapolate them. This is not to be offensive this just helps build up my skills.

I myself like to see what the person actually means or does not mean in a article. Everyone is different as you are well aware.

[Deleted for personally attacking the author]

Boxgum as I have said before I think in this forum maybe not this article was written by a atheist who is non religious. They exist I know I am one thing is I do feel there was some not needed attacks. It was the authors personal account. I take it you are a Christian? if so then maybe you could write an article and share your reason for the season. Everyone has diverse opinions atheists, Christians, pagans you name it. This author is entitled to her opinion, I may disagree with elements of what she has written and I did ask for explanation for some more understanding on the topic.

Instead I was sad that the author chose to ignore some of the lively debate and take it to heart. As I stated it is a public forum and people are not kind all the time. It is a huge thing to put a article like this out there. Maybe this would have been best shared with her close friends and family.

I am not sure if any of you have heard of Neil Gaiman but here is a article he has written recently regarding his take on Christmas. Some may find it interesting as he is a Jew I think he is anyway.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/neil-gaiman-hanukkah-with-bells-on-1203307.html

It's interesting but not surprising that the
"it's time to take Christmas back from the Christians" crowd
seems to comprise the same membership as the
"it's time to take marriage back from the heterosexuals" crowd.
Moral, legal and cultural relativists all.

@AJPhilps, you wrote regarding the question of who would seriously question that Jesus existed in history:

"Anyone with a sound knowledge of history not distorted by an irrational belief."

Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise. One can pretty much count on one hand the number of professional historians who rejects the historical existence of Jesus - Chrys named almost all of them: Price & Dougherty being the most well-known (what is well-known and popular on sceptical blogs is not necessarily a reflection of the mainstream), and her reference to Dawkins' claim that a serious case can be made - unfortunately he relies on a Professor of German who is even more on the fringes of scholarship than those two. Basically, the Jesus-Myth theory is held in the same kind of regard by the historical mainstream that YEC is held in by the scientific mainstream. And the theory that Christianity copies earlier pagan 'resurrection' myths is virtually non-existence anymore, as it was shown that it was largely a case of 'paralellamania'. I could also list names, eminent scholars like Edwin Judge (though you may think that this distinguished classicist has had his thinking 'distorted' by an 'irrational belief' - no true scotsman anyone?) and Martin Hengel.. Indeed, N.T. Wright, a foremost scholar on C1st Greek and Jewish history and culture, in his 700 (many say 'magesterial')tome on the resurrection declares that current scholarship is such that he feels no need to spend any time defending the very historicity of Jesus, writing:
"It would be easier, frankly, to believe that Tiberius Caesar, Jesus’ contemporary, was a figment of the imagination than to believe that there never was such a person as Jesus."

But if it's to be more than an appeal to authority, actually arguments that show why the scholarly consensus is in question would need to be made (and clearly, that is not Chrys' point here).

Most historians recognise that there is too much historical impact to otherwise explain satisfactorily, and simply too much textual attestation to otherwise discard - indeed, so much so that the attempts betray a certain agenda.

Thank Chrys, I did enjoy this post.

You're right that many, if not most, Australians don't give a thought to Jesus at Christmas - however that doesn't mean Christians don't have the freedom to attempt to prompt that thought.
Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that only Christians should celebrate Christmas - not at all! As I once put it: we Christians nicked the holiday from the pagans, so if a secular society wants to nick it for Jolly old St Nick, I’m not sure we’ve got any high ground to stand on. (Yes, I know, St Nicholas was a real guy too - if you see a picture of Santa in a bishops garb, that's him!). How someone else chooses to celebrate something somethat that I think has significant religious significance really doesn't make much difference to me. I can share what I think this significance is, but I can't force anyone else to accept that. The 'war on Christmas' is stupid. Rather than criticise others for their way of celebrating, let's just celebrate ours - and if it's good, won't it be attractive to others?
Yes, Christmas is, in Australia, historically a Christian festival with lots of other add-ons, and if some people just want the add-ons and not the traditional core.. good for them. But at the same time, it would be wrong to ignore and marginalise the historical 'reason' than many still celebrate, even if somewhat tokenistically by some, when it comes to community events. If I ever get asked to sing in one of the big televised carol events, you can bet your bottom teeth that I'm going to sing a song about Jesus and how he came to bring peace and restoration - because that's what Christmas is about to me, and I'd hope that even if you don't agree, that you'd enjoy it anyway, as I do when people sing about six-white boomers.
I dare you, Chrys, to argue that I could ruin carols night by singing O Holy Night ;)

boxgum, Saturday, 18 December 2010 9:28:24 PM

Those stories are likely to be as true as Harry Potter, Narnia, or Star Wars.

Pericles

I must take you up on your understanding of encounter. Encounter is the mystery of the Resurrection whereby across the millennia persons in every era experience the encounter with the Risen Lord. Paul was a faithful Jew who was a witness to the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. He must have been affected by the experience. Travelling from Jerusalem to Damascus is quite a journey and time for much reflection. Along the way he experienced an encounter that changed his whole direction.

Please let me quote Pope Benedict XVI from the opening paragraph of is first Encyclical Deus est Caritas ( God is Love)/ " Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction."

In the days after the third day those fearful disciples in the upper rooms with closed doors and windows encountered the Lord in their presence. He was encountered on the shore whilst Peter was fishing. He is encountered today out of those times of pain, anguish, sorrow and even joy when one prepares the way to become attuned to his call. There is no encounter unless there is a response. There can be no encounter without the Resurrection.

This is far removed from sentimentality of silly little elves and santas running around in some Council park. But then again if it is shared, even for a moment, then it is a good thing”

Chrys

In amongst all the debate I feel the conclusion of your article is getting lost. Your conclusion seems to me to be that we (christian, atheist, buddhist, zoroastrian, whatever...) should be thankful that we live in a safe, first world country, and that christmas serves a purpose to all of us as a timely reminder to hold our loved ones close.

I couldn't agree more.

@Pericles

How very unchristian of you, Pericles.

I was understanding it as an English noun, boxgum.

>>Pericles I must take you up on your understanding of encounter<<

My reference material says:

encounter n.
- A meeting, especially one that is unplanned, unexpected, or brief: "a chance encounter in the park".
- A hostile or adversarial confrontation; a contest: "a tense naval encounter".
- An often violent meeting; a clash.

Even a careful scouring of the thesaurus fails to bring out anything even remotely connected to your interpretation.

>>Encounter is the mystery of the Resurrection whereby across the millennia persons in every era experience the encounter with the Risen Lord<<

Leaving aside for a moment the obvious circularity in your explanation, if this is the case, then any description of Paul's experience should be couched in these terms. Hijacking a perfectly innocent, straightforward, uncomplicated noun from the dictionary, and twisting it to your unique will, is an act of definitional desperation.

But maybe you can shed some more light on all this.

>>In the days after the third day those fearful disciples in the upper rooms with closed doors and windows encountered the Lord in their presence.<<

Using your definition, they only imagined he was there. He didn't actually appear amongst them. Would that be correct?

And, changing the subject back to the original topic for a momant - if this is indeed the case, Chrys, then please accept my apologies for suggesting otherwise.

>>Pericles The events all happened as described.<<

But what is the real reason you cannot tell us the important details?

>>I have no intention of publishing either the name of the town or of the church involved - both to protect my privacy and theirs.<<

After all... "Despite its name, Christians don’t own Christmas and it’s high time we non-theists contested them""

Hiding behind an assumption of privacy is not a particularly strong opening to that contest, is it.

My concern is actually a very simple one.

Why do you find it necessary to attack someone else's beliefs in this manner?

It is this sort of unnecessary flummery that gives atheism a bad name.

Pericles, I agree so far with the comments of talisman and gothesca and I like much of what you have written up to page 4 of these comments. But I am a bit disappointed now to see that you have become a little nasty. I am not sure why it is so important that Chrys reveal the name of the church and location of the carols - both of these details are irrelevant to the content and message in her article. If you had just kept to your argument then you have some great points, but you have now accused Chrys of telling lies. This only makes you appear juvenile, picky and unfair. I have been following this thread of comments and have appreciated your feedback but I certainly draw the line at your accusation that Chrys has made things up to suit some agenda. I have no doubt that the events she described are real and it matters zilch what church it was and where it happened.

Anyhow...am pleased so many people cared to read and comment!

"Merry Christmas" from a non-celebrating Atheist.

Thanks for sharing your views Chrys and go easy people!

We love the Sunshine Coast and here is the Carols by Candlelight fare for 2010,
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2010/12/03/carols-candlelight-guide-sunshine-coast/

Small centres cannot afford the big entertainers and it is usual (and much fun) that local performers donate their services. There are church choirs, which is fortunate because the farmers, lifesavers and firemen don't always hit the high notes, or any notes at times.

Can't say I have ever known anyone to admonish 'Christians' over Carols by Candlelight, but I guess there has to be a first for everything.

We just love it all and come away with our faces beaming like children - many of whom are carried sleeping to waiting cars.

Anyhow, here is a carol by the magnificent Chloe Agnew - "O Holy Night"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ-8jYpa1-o&feature=related

Couldn't resist, here is another, just to prove there are angels on Earth,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtQr81k3TSk&feature=related

McReal

Yes, Josephus did not think Jesus was Messiah. But he did believe Jesus existed. I also agree that non-biblical references to Jesus are scant. That is not surprising.

An appeal to authority is only fallacious if the authority has no expertise in the subject under discussion. If your oncologist says you need an operation to remove a cancer you would be wise to take their advice, especially if their diagnosis confirmed in a second opinion. If they tip you off for a sure-fire winner in the Melbourne cup, be sceptical. Scholars of religion are trained to distinguish the genres of religious writing and to discern the historical from the mythic. So it is legitimate to cite them as authorities Jesus’ historicity. I’ll admit that Dawkins has no particular expertise in this area, however.

If non-biblical evidence for Jesus came solely from Christians, I’m sure you would treat it sceptically. Hence I think my claim that the hostility of the witnesses adds to their credibility is reasonable.

And yes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but I believe the fact that no early opponents of Christianity denied his existence is telling. The bible reports that Jesus’ death was highly public and officially sanctioned. Both Jews and Romans would have been able to refute a fallacious claim that Jesus was publicly executed outside Jerusalem during Passover around 30CE. If I proclaimed the superiority of English cricket based on their glorious victory at the WACA in December 2010 there would be a rush of people to correct me.

The biblical witness is not a circular argument. A circular argument assumes is conclusion, but the Gospel is a testimony, not an argument. It may be pure invention, but the simpler and more plausible explanation for the emergence of the Christian movement is that it had some historical basis.

Taken as a whole, the biblical witness, the non-biblical evidence, the fact that neither Jews nor Romans contested Christians’ claim that Jesus lived and died, and Occam’s razor all point to Jesus’ historical existence

@ Burkealot I agree with your point however, since Chrys has commented on her article people are wanting clarification and more information. Not many of the authors comment on their articles. It is great that the author is part of the discussion or has been.

Maybe Chrys's Stevenson the author's statement has been lost. However it is a article and it has been put out there on a online forum where people will comment and some will say harsh things or not make sense. There is a recommend comments for deletion icon which can be used by all if something goes off topic or breaks the forums rules. This has already occurred. Not all will agree with her and people can comment on various parts of her article this is the reason for this. If people do not wholeheartedly agree then that is fine. Art is in the eye of the beholder and like art writing and writers will be exposed to public opinion. They put it out there and then it takes on a life of its own. Not just friends and family a whole wide world or just the limits of the forum. I do think that many here are professional critiques but this does occur once works are published. There will be far more people who will scrutinize what Chrys will have to say as time goes on.

In a recent election, the advertising for the family first candidate in our area emphasised the involvement of that candidate in the caroling event associated with the ancient midsummer/midwinter festival lately called christmas.

Said candidate had an advanced degree in marketing, worked as head of marketing for her uni, and currently works as marketing manager for the baptist church (state? national? ad not clear).

Does anybody think her involvement in the carols presentation wasn't viewed first and foremost as a "marketing opportunity"?

How very "christian".

Chrys, I believe that a (perhaps reserved) celebration at about midwinter has been in existence immensely longer than any church existing or historical. Eating and it's unavoidable lockstep with the seasons predates them all.

Rusty

Rhian,

An appeal to authority is fallacious if the appeal is to the authority rather than evidence or verifiable information about the subject at hand - a decision to remove an operable tumour is based on imaging information, tumour type and typical tumour behaviour not the authority of the oncologist.

Scholars of religion have confirmation bias, so appeal to them is just an appeal to authority, especially when the information is as scant as it is.

As far as "If non-biblical evidence for Jesus came solely from Christians" goes, that is sleight of hand - I repeat there is virtually no non-biblical evidence for Jesus, it doesn't matter that it doesn't come from Christians.

""the fact that no early opponents of Christianity denied his existence is telling. "" - No it isn't. Saying Jews did not refute his existence is just special pleading.

That the Bible makes a fuss of Jesus' death is not telling. Your attempted arguments are circular and hence are not valid

@McReal
"An appeal to authority is fallacious if the appeal is to the authority rather than evidence "

An appeal to authority is only fallacious if it is asserted that the authority cannot be wrong. It is legitimate to appeal to an expert opinion, provided room for contradiction is left.

"Scholars of religion have confirmation bias, so appeal to them is just an appeal to authority, especially when the information is as scant as it is."

Ad hominem. Besides, it is the consensus view of classical historians as well that Jesus existed.

"As far as "If non-biblical evidence for Jesus came solely from Christians" goes, that is sleight of hand - I repeat there is virtually no non-biblical evidence for Jesus, it doesn't matter that it doesn't come from Christians."

Actually, the 'sleight of hand' appears to be yours: you're shifting the goal-posts. That some texts were later collated into a single volume and revered by same as sacred is completely irrelevant. They should otherwise be treated as the independent sources that they are (and actually, as historians actually do treat them)

"Saying Jews did not refute his existence is just special pleading. " - Wrong. Corroboration by hostile witness is a very powerful form of attestation. It is indeed very telling that the extant reference to Jewish anti-Christian polemic implicitly accepts the death and honourable burial of Jesus.

Having just read this article, I must say it is one of the most interesting articles I have read this year.
I am happyu to have someone else explain why ALL people in Australia can celebrate Christmas and the accompanying holidays without having to believe in some bible stories!

I had read before that some of the cultural practices of European origin at Christmas predated the supposed birth of Christ.
I would be happy to see everyone celebrating Christmas joyously, no matter what they believe in.

I love our cultural history and believe we should embrace it all, not just that which has to do with Christianity.
We should give thanks for our cultural heritage and also for those religions and cultures different from the European cultures in our country.

Vive La Difference, and Merry Christmas to all : )

"It is legitimate to appeal to an expert opinion, provided room for contradiction is left." Posted by AndrewFinden, Sunday, 19 December 2010 10:41:44 PM

No, if the appeal to the authority is made without due reference to the subject and argument at hand.

Reference to scholars of religion having confirmation bias is not ad hominem. - it is very relevant.

It is not the consensus view of classical historians as well that Jesus existed (eg Bart Ehrman, Robert Price, etc). Besides, a "classical historian' is a a straw-man.

"They should otherwise be treated as the independent sources that they are" - they are not an independent source given the context they were written decades later, and likely re-written, and then collated by vested interests.

None of contemporary literature of the times accepts "the death and honourable burial of Jesus." all contemporary references are just to vague terms like Christus, Chrestos, and the early Christian cult, which was intermingled with othes like Docetism, etc.

Occams Razor (parsimony) says the claims and the stories that make the claims are without foundation.

L.B.Loveday;
'You may as well question whether Pontius Pilate or King Herod was "an actual person".'

Yes! Or rather, No. Remember Helen Demidenko who won the Miles Franklin Award - http://bit.ly/hldvm1 ?

To "modernise" your misconception: You may as well question whether Hitler was an actual person if you question that Demidenko's father was an "illiterate Ukrainian". But such a person never existed, her account of her powerful encounters were all fake and her story was fiction woven into actual events and around actual identities. As is your Messiah.

It's virtually certain no such person as "Jesus" existed and the first hint is biblical contradictions. Historically, anthropologically and archaeologically the Jesus myth falls short. This is why it lends itself to so many splinter groups and so many reinventions - unlike Islam - irrefutably documented, and Judaism - irrefutably documented.

The greatest "story" ever told is today more than ever, The Great Lie.

Rhian,

Most of what McReal has said just about sums it up for me. In regards to Dawkins though, I’m aware of his position on this, but of all the times I can recall him commenting on the existence of an historical Jesus, he’s included qualifiers such as “probably” or “it’s likely that [Jesus existed]”.

AndrewFinden (and Rhian),

I don’t “reject” the existence of an historical Jesus (or possibly several historical figures whom the story of Jesus was based on), I just don’t think there’s any good reason to believe with any degree of certainty that he did exist, because there is insufficient evidence to support it.

<<Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise.>>

Well, it certainly wouldn’t affect me either way if Jesus did exist as some sort of historical figure, and if he did, I think we’re all in agreement that it would say nothing about the truth of the Bibles claims of miracles. So if you have any evidence that I’m not aware of, then I’m all ears.

Unfortunately, in the dying days of my faith, I went searching for what evidence there was for Jesus and found it wanting.

We have no contemporary accounts of Jesus from an eye-witness; there is not a single event from his life that we can accurately date or provide any evidence for; we have no writings from him; no carpentry works. All we have are hearsay accounts, written by people who weren’t eye-witnesses, decades after the fact, and most of the accounts would be impossible to verify anyway as they were of a supernatural nature to begin with.

There probably was some Jewish rabbi named Jesus or Yeshua who developed a bit of a following and got up the noses of authorities (or perhaps there were several) who is the core of what the story was based on.

Continued...

...Continued

But given the fact that most of the accounts of Jesus were of a supernatural nature, it’s a bit of a stretch to think that you can just ignore the miraculous claims and then point to some vague hints of a person who may have (or even most likely) existed and say: “Look, there, that’s him, that was the Jesus of the Bible”.

On another note, to claim that those who reject the existence of an historical Jesus are on par with young-Earth creationists is absurd. The evidence of an ancient Earth and evolution is demonstrable measurable and verifiable; there is there is nothing demonstrable, measureable or verifiable about the existence of Jesus.

But if we had no way to measure or verify the age of the Earth or evolution, and all we could go by were some scribblings from ancient people in superstitious times, then you may have had a point there.

McReal:
1 << An appeal to authority is fallacious if the appeal is to the authority rather than evidence or verifiable information about the subject at hand - a decision to remove an operable tumour is based on imaging information, tumour type and typical tumour behaviour not the authority of the oncologist. >>
You rely on the expertise of the oncologist to interpret the evidence, to weigh it, and then to decide which course of action is appropriate on the basis of that evidence. You assign the “authority” to the oncologist. The same occurs in the case of appeal to expert historians and other scholars: in the process of making a judgement, you rely on the skills and knowledge that they have and that you do not.

2 << No, if the appeal to the authority is made without due reference to the subject and argument at hand. >>
What on earth does that mean?

3 <<Reference to scholars of religion having confirmation bias is not ad hominem. - it is very relevant.>>
You are saying that anyone who studies religions must necessarily be unreliable. That is nothing but “ad hominem” – an insult based on personal prejudice against anyone who deems religions worthy of study.

4 <<Besides, a "classical historian' is a straw-man.>>
You are saying classical historians do not exist? Are you kidding? There are many historians who specialise in study of the classical Greek, Roman and other civilisations.

crabsy
1. arguing about a poor analogy is unnecessary

2. If the appeal to the authority is made without due reference to the subject and argument at hand (see below), it is just that - an appeal to authority.

3. I was not saying, and do not say, that anyone who studies religions must necessarily be unreliable. I say reference to them as a whole, without reference to the subject matter - that there is scant reference to Jesus in classical non-biblical texts - is a side issue as they have confirmation bias (eg NT Wright).

4. "You are saying classical historians do not exist?" No, I am saying reference to so-called "classical" historians is the strawman.

AndrewFinden, Rhian and crabsy - Address the issue !! - that there is scant corroborating reference to Jesus in classical non-biblical texts

see here

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

An earlier comment by me was censored due to having in the same sentence the words grovelling and insipid concerning a response by the author to an earlier comment by Pericles. As someone who has witnessed the unrestricted commentary abuse to contributors such as Peter Sellick I wonder at the rigour of contributors in the narky world of atheists.

In her article, Chrys Stevenson, shows herself to be a stranger to reality, truth, beauty and justice. And its banality is offensive to Christians.

Concerning reality and truth, she expresses surprise and dismay that the sacred took precedence over the secular within the context of a traditional religious celebration. In an endeavour to diminish the sacred dimension she expounds the pagan precedents of seasonal ritual festivities to create some sort of atheist abstract. Atheists are a different category to believers, Christian and pagan, and hence cannot absorb, or render anything fuller, to the prior sacred belief expressed in the stories within the rituals; the Christian Christmas message being of Divine gift and relationship.

Does not Ms Stevenson deny beauty with her preference of discordant " wobbly warbles" over a well practiced and presented choral performance singing both sacred and popular Christmas? Perhaps sentimentality, a coin currency of secularist goodness, plays a role here.

Ms Stevenson is most unjust in her assertion that Christian faith is separated from reason and that it celebrates unreason. Catholic Tradition places faith and reason as standing side by side, informing each other in the fullness of truth in life and death. They extend and restrain each other.

In the one paragraph where she intimated the position that Jesus of Nazareth never existing, and later backtracked on, Ms Stevenson adds further intolerant offence. She reduced the Christian story to a by product of pagan mythology and happily subscribed to the Jesus Myth that the Jesus legend was concocted and is of itself a result of plagiarism.

All up it is a narky contribution driven by a partisan atheism that delivers nothing of itself to the common good.

Well folks, it really is not a first order issue anymore.

I have some good news, or should that be Good News?

Yes, Jesus was real, and He so loved the world that he is returning, next year in fact, on 21 May 2011.

Isn't that jolly?

But wait, there's more!

Yes, so much more.

After Jesus returns, to save us 'all', but clearly not Ms. Chrys, his ever loving Father will destroy the world on 21 October 2011.

Which is also Good News for Xtians, is it not?

At last, their hero returns, as the Bible tells us so, and in just a few months after His return, the entire world will be blown apart by the ever-loving Father of Jesus, God.

Amazing isn't it?

And yet, I bet there are doubters out there who call themselves 'Christian'.

At least there will be no more angry penguins to complain about Chrys's comments on the need to share-the-world on December 25, because there will be no more world to share.

Exciting isn't it?

It's what all Christians long for, the Rapture, the return of Jesus, and the smithereens end to the world.

How satisfying it must be to know 'it's time' at last.

But, I cannot speak for others here, it seems just a tad over-the-top to me, and on a par with an act of terrorism, rather than the boundless LURV of a father towards his children.

Still, we all know that God moves in mysterious ways, and surely, nothing can be more of a mystery than to blow the world apart, after spending an entire week putting it together, so few years, 6000, ago.

suzeonline, "I would be happy to see everyone celebrating Christmas joyously, no matter what they believe in."

Since when did anyone need an explanation or permission to enjoy Christmas and will they similarly be entreated to a similar article to 'explain' other religious and cultural festivals? It is highly unlikely that you or anyone else has been knocking back the holidays or pay loadings or the chance for a knees-up over your lifetime while waiting for this 'explanation'.

Fortunately in Australia there is choice, as is evidenced by the abundant multicultural audiences at Carols by Candlelight events around the country. Witness Carols by Candlelight at the Domain or in the smallest town and it is the same, people from all cultures, all walks of life and all ages enjoying the occasion. Similarly, if one went into private homes over the festive season and on Christmas day there would be very few lemon-sucking Grinches about.

Since Carols by Candlelight has been the Aunt Sally of the few who would try to embarrass a large section of the population over Christmas - so much for religious and cultural tolerance - it is worth looking into the origin of Carols by Candlelight in Melbourne around seventy years ago and the money it has raised for charity.

http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/info.aspx?page=1209

However as I have already pointed out in an earlier post, none of the critics who cleverly flaunt their religious intolerance here (any excuse is a good excuse) are gracious enough to acknowledge the many enduring socially positive and charitable aspects of Christmas.

I think maybe some people have missed the point of the article written. I know I struggled myself with the article as I disagreed with it and I did find it condescending and patronizing in parts.

This is not a discussion about atheism or Christianity as such, it appears it is about plain and simple a person who just happens to celebrate a little differently to the mainstream of society.

I do not have an opinion of how a person chooses to celebrate or not celebrate. I felt the article opened itself up to comments of different opinions and not really a discussion. The author felt attacked, as I have stated before maybe the author need not have come back and commented. It appeared as if they tried to hard to convince others that what they had said was correct. I found the article attacked peoples ideas it did not provoke thought just more ridicule as we are seeing now. As an atheist my opinion was the article did target Christians and their belief in parts. This is why many have commented not so favorably. When people feel attacked they will do exactly what has occurred here.
Maybe the intention of the article was not to do this however this is what has appeared to have occurred here

So you have been told the truth about Santa Claus, well here's the truth about the supposed birth of mythical cult idol JeSUS and the original christmyth nativity story!
Tonight look up at the constellation Orion, the three stars (the belt) have been known as the three Kings since primitive times. The three great pyramids in Egypt are modelled and aligned with them as the Nile river is the milky way.
The three Kings follow the star of the east "Sirius the brightest star in the sky", on the winter Nth hemisphere solstice, they point to where the Sun will rise to begin the new Solar year is born. The three kings follow the star of the East to see the birth of the new(son) sun. Now where did you all hear this story before it was plagiarised for the christian cult to fullfill prophesy "all sons of gods" must be born on the 25th the date of ancient solstice?

HFR

if you read Matthew's birth story you'll see there is no reference to three kings. Modern translations generally prefere to cite "wise men" or magi. Their number is not given - the tradition that there were three arose from the fact that three gifts are mentioned.

Pericles - regarding your return comments on my use of the word encounter - >>Encounter is the mystery of the Resurrection whereby across the millennia persons in every era experience the encounter with the Risen Lord<<

The encounter is an event with a person, something happens.

Saul (Paul) was on his way to arrest troublesome Jesus followers in Damascus with instructions from the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. He was a faithful, prayerful Jew. This single most encounter altered his understanding to provide new horizons and certainly a decisive direction. From persecutor to preacher and fellow traveller. All other travels, letters, escapes etc in Paul's life flowed from this one direction changing encounter.

The encounter with God, through Jesus Christ the Risen Lord, is without plan or method. That it can happen today in peoples' lives is the mystery in the Resurrection. You feel the real as must have been experienced by Paul and earlier, those fearful followers of the dead Jesus in the locked upper rooms. Yet the ground of faith needs to be prepared, through an active desire and longing, or indeed inner emptiness, that is expressed in prayer, in whatever form.

So the whole Christian mission is to lay the ground for the encounter with God. That is the great pearl of value, the hidden treasure for those seeking. And along the way it does a whole lot of good.

Regarding the secular and the sacred. The cultural secular has been absorbed into the Christmas pageants for as long as I know. Whilst the focus is on the mystery of gift and relationship there has always been a lot of fun along the way.

Barren secularism and its hard hearted adherents start from fun and work back to create a pure environment. It simply does not work.

""Saul (Paul) was on his way to arrest troublesome Jesus followers in Damascus ... Paul's life flowed from this one direction changing encounter.""
Posted by boxgum, Monday, 20 December 2010 3:27:31 PM

So the story goes - some say it was epilepsy, some say he fell off his horse.

The story has Paul having written ideological epistles to followers as far-flung as Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, Phrygia, Anatolia, and Thessalonica. Paul is alleged to have met Peter and the gang, yet the gospel stories had not been written.

Paul is a zealous christian, preaching the christian message...but actually says nothing about the message that this Jesus preached? Is this not remarkable? A message without the founder's message? Without a single saying?

Even when the saying would clinch an argument or press home his message? So many times he skips over what the gospels later said Jesus taught, and quotes the Old Testament.

Early preachers were often at each other's throats, desperately jostling with each for the religiously correct high-ground, often building their epistles around backbiting. Yet Paul repeatedly passes over opportunities to bring quotes to bear that would carry the ultimate authority. The Corinthians, Ephesians, Romans etc know nothing about the founder of their religion who walked recently among only the peoples of distant Judaea and Galilee.

Another irony is there is no evidence for Paul outside the Bible, either.

I’m curious about this, Boxgum...

<<Catholic Tradition places faith and reason as standing side by side, informing each other in the fullness of truth in life and death. They extend and restrain each other.>>

Could you explain how Catholic tradition places faith and reason side-by-side and how they inform each other and extend and restrain each other?

I’ve seen this claimed on OLO a couple of times before; the trouble is, every time I ask someone to expand on what they mean, they seem to disappear

Good one AJP.

It's very hard to know how the Vicar of God could possibly join the dots between those two disparate terms.

Seems there is no reason in Faith, except to keep yourself in the dark, from Reason.

But, if you ask someone with 'Faith' they can only trot out the pat response, which it sounds like you've been getting.

They reckon science and religion are hand and glove too.

Funny, eh?

I keenly anticipate another Bolter AJP.

That doesn't clarify much, boxgum.

>>The encounter is an event with a person, something happens.<<

You haven't actually addressed the key point, though.

If you accept that Paul's encounter didn't actually involve "the risen Lord" in person, did the same apply to those disciples in the closed room?

I fully expect that you are going to tell me that yes, the disciples in the locked upper room actually met, face to face, "the risen Lord" - which of course is proof that he was, indeed, risen.

But that no, Paul did not actually meet "the risen Lord" in person.

It was just an "encounter".

The mental gymnastics that individuals are obliged to endure in the process of picking and choosing which bits to believe, from the smorgasbord of explanations employed in the justification of religious belief, are indeed astounding.

McReal, Boxgum, Rhian, and others:

The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating question and I look forward to continuing research by skilled historians into the matter. Nevertheless, for me as a Christian the question of whether or not Jesus trod the earth is not central to faith. The Jesus narratives are one of the windows or doorways through which I can approach the mystery of the Divine. It matters not that they may not be historically accurate. When it comes to spiritual nourishment, facts are mainly irrelevant; it is the metaphorical, symbolic and imaginative that offer access to the spark of God that shines deep in our unconscious.

As for the question of the relationship between reason and faith, I would say that, in as much as “reason” means logic, faith provides a premise and reason works from that basis. The objections fly thick and fast when some people don’t agree with the premise. So it boils down to what mode of perception one uses to apprehend the premise at the outset. In the main faith does not use the empirical mode, which relies on the bodily senses. It uses the “intuitive”, by which I mean a channel of perception which fastens onto symbols and analogies rather than empirical objects. It’s a road towards inner reality — i.e. that in the human unconscious.

There’s much more I would like to say on this but it must wait for another day. I hope I’ve given you something worth thinking about.

I am intrigued with your response Crabsy.

Mere facts mean nothing to you then?

So, help me here please.

I do not understand why Christians delight in the Rapture, and look forward to the end of the world. It seems Jesus is to return on 21 May 2011 to carry on his good works.

But on 21 October 2011 God is to blow the world up.

Please, don't take my word for this, read it here for yourself from the Pew page:
http://pewforum.org/Press-Room/Pew-Forum-in-the-News/Atlanta-Journal-Constitution-Billboard-campaign-claims-Jesus-will-return-in-May.aspx

Now, I regard that as an act of terrorism, pure and simple, but it seems that Christians believe it, and put their faith into believing it.

I see no faith and reason working together here.

Is this a case of 'don't believe the facts' of the Rapture, that are 'in the Bible' so we are told, but look for the 'symbols' as you suggest?

What then is the symbol of an act of gross terrorism, and where do 'faith' and 'reason' fit together here?

@McReal
<blockquote>It is not the consensus view of classical historians as well that Jesus existed (eg Bart Ehrman, Robert Price, etc). Besides, a "classical historian' is a a straw-man.</blockquote>

Actually, Ehrman doesn't reject the historicity of Jesus as far as I'm aware (and despite his popular appeal, is not as peer esteemed as you might like to think). To point to the handful of fringe scholars like Price as an indication that there is no consensus is like pointing to AiG to argue that there is no scientific consensus about evolution. The overwhelming majority of historians and the scholars who study this area agree that an itinerant preacher called Jesus existed, and was crucified.
To say "classical historian" is a straw-man doesn't make any sense at all. The simple fact is that you were wrong to say it was only 'biased' biblical scholars who accept this - and that even classical historians do too.

"they are not an independent source given the context they were written decades later, and likely re-written, and then collated by vested interests."

By normal historical criteria they are early, independent sources - Paul is not Mark, Matthew and Luke both contain non-markian material. "decades later" is actually well within the normal time-frame and certainly much earlier than many ancient sources for other people and events. To use it as a pejorative is just odd. They are first and second generation texts, which is within the two-generations minimum it takes for any historical hard-core to be destroyed by possible legendary tendencies. Also, we have considerably more manuscript copies from very early than virtually any other ancient text, so in fact we can be more sure of the original contents of these texts than most other ancient texts (most of which we have no originals for either). Again, later collation is irrelevant.

cont..

@McReal

...cont.

<blockquote>None of contemporary literature of the times accepts "the death and honourable burial of Jesus." all contemporary references are just to vague terms like Christus, Chrestos, and the early Christian cult, which was intermingled with othes like Docetism, etc.</bloockquote>

That's an argument from silence. "Christus" is hardly a vague term! As I said, there are too many non-canonical sources to discredit that the attempt betrays an agenda to do so. Further, to discard the canonical sources a priori is fallacious goal-shifting. They are certainly enough to establish historicity at the very least. But the real clincher for historians is the surprising, early and rapid expansion of the Christian movement - no one has yet been able to adequately account for that without an historical figure of Jesus.

<blockquote>Occams Razor (parsimony) says the claims and the stories that make the claims are without foundation.</blockquote>

Firstly, Ockham's Razor is no guarantor of truth. Historians generally rely on the criteria of Argument to Best Explanation anyway. But the Razor says that hypothesis which makes the fewest assumptions is preferable - and in this case, it is far less of an assumption that there was an historical figure who gave rise to the movement then the assumption that it was all composite and legend etc.(and there's no evidence of any such development anyway)

@AJPhilips

>"But given the fact that most of the accounts of Jesus were of a supernatural nature, it’s a bit of a stretch to think that you can just ignore the miraculous claims and then point to some vague hints of a person who may have (or even most likely) existed and say: “Look, there, that’s him, that was the Jesus of the Bible”."

I think you've shown the real issue - because the accounts contain supernatural claims, it seems you think they are by default, completely unreliable. Many ancient historical sources contain supernatural claims (how many ancient rulers claimed divinity?) yet historians don't just throw out whole documents because they might report something that doesn't sit with modern materialist philosophy.

You say that historians like N.T. Wright have confirmation bias (it's still ad hominem to say that a bible scholar is unreliable because they're a bible scholar btw)- the argument cuts both ways. Indeed, everyone has bias, half the battle in overcoming it is recognising that we all do so.

>"On another note, to claim that those who reject the existence of an historical Jesus are on par with young-Earth creationists is absurd. The evidence of an ancient Earth and evolution is demonstrable measurable and verifiable; there is there is nothing demonstrable, measurable or verifiable about the existence of Jesus."

If you read carefully what I wrote - I said they are held in the same regard by the relevant scholars. That is certainly not to say that the evidence is comparable - of course ancient history and science are different disciplines with different levels of certainty. The point was that amongst the experts in the respective fields, the regard for both theories carries the same weight and respect (or lack of it). yes, a handful of fringe scholars hold to them, but that does not make them in any way mainstream.

Crabsy
I partly agree, the historicity of the bible narratives is not central. Some are not historical, some are, and for some we can’t be sure. It is not their literal sense that is most important.

Yet ... if there is no historical basis at all for the scriptures, I think we’re left with something hollow. Christianity is not only about the internal and subjective, it makes claims about the world and how we are to live in it. If it is completely divorced from history then it loses its claim on the material and becomes a matter of personal piety. This is, I suspect, the reason why some enthusiastic atheists are attracted to the argument that Jesus never existed.

AndrewFinden
Thank you for your interesting and well argued posts. You articulate some of what I’ve tried to say far better than me.

Hang on!

"Some are not historical, some are, and for some we can’t be sure. It is not their literal sense that is most important"... either this is the 'word of God', or it's not.

Either it is historically correct, or it's not.

Either it is kosher, or it's not,oops, maybe that should be Halal?

You lot want it everywhichway.

It's historically a work of faction, and a metaphor, and the word of God, and what else?

A man made construct?

Heavens NO! PLEASE!

Not the mere work of man, we couldn't have that.

It appears to be cherry picking to me and only seem to go with what suits the situation in the bible. There is nothing that explicit states this is how things can or should be.

Some contradictions :

1 Cor 2:15 "The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:" (NIV)

1 Cor 4:5 "Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God."

So does this mean I can pick and choose what to follow in the bible as some are historical and some are not? Of course oh hang on from reading the bible from head to toe that was my first step to becoming an atheist.

AndrewFinden, Monday, 20 December 2010 6:37:41 PM

I agree Erhman thinks Jesus was a person, so was wrong to imply he didn't (done in haste and realised soon after I posted), though have not seen an explanation or argument from him other than that statement. His latest book, Jesus Interrupted certainly argues against the Bible and particularly the synoptic Gospels as being a historical record.

I agree most think Price is fringe, though know of Jesuit theology PhD scholars who agree with him, and have posted in blog threads.

The issue with "classical historian" is the appeal to them rather than any arguments they make or do not make.

Of course "Paul is not Mark". Regarding "Matthew and Luke both contain non-markian material" - well that opens up the issue of their sources and the two or thres source hypotheses, with Matthew and Luke possibly beign based on Mark and Q, or even Mark based on Matthew. a consistent theory is Matthew and Luke are elaborations on Mark by writers and translators unknown.

Other issues are the discrepancies between the version in Codex Sinaiticus and later versions of the Bible.

The "two-generations minimum" proposal is moot - the real time frames are unknown and within quite wide ranges.

As far as Christus, Christos, & Chrestus, see the post Saturday, 18 December 2010 10:37:25 AM

"" .. for me as a Christian the question of whether or not Jesus trod the earth is not central to faith."" Posted by crabsy, Monday, 20 December 2010 5:24:05 PM

I agree. That view is similar to the views of the likes of John shelby Spong, Lloyd Geering and others that the supernatural claims do not need to be central to christianity and may even be detrimental to its sustainability.

As far as faith and reason goes - it seems to be stretching it to say "faith provides a premise" - it seems better to say 'faith provides propositions' and allow discourse to flow more naturally from that, particularly to align with your propositon that "a channel of perception which fastens onto symbols and analogies rather than empirical objects."

Andrew Finden, the issues are not the authorities and discussion of them you have taken on a tangental path. The issues are the propositions/premises I put, and to say issues around those propositions - central to these discussions - are arguments from silence is further obfuscation by you -

I contend - again - most references to Christ in ancient documents are not to Jesus

There are - in original historical documents - around 200 Latin inscriptions with the name "Chrestos"

Xpnotoc/s (Latin transliteration chrestus) means useful.

Xpiotoc/s (christus) means anointed.

Tacitus wrote Christus and "Christianos", although some scholars say that he originally wrote "Chrestianos", but that could be just a mistake by the copist or just the original text. Greek &#951; (eta) and &#953; (iota) sounded quite similar to many Roman ears.

Andrew Finden - address these issues if you are going to post again.

Has anyone else noticed all those angels dancing on the head of a pin?

crabsy tells us that...

>>When it comes to spiritual nourishment, facts are mainly irrelevant; it is the metaphorical, symbolic and imaginative that offer access to the spark of God<<

...which is all well and good. Except that it provides no solid position from which to defend one version of religion against another. This stance therefore would be highly dangerous in, say, Northern Ireland.

(Man seized from behind in a Belfast street. A voice in his ear "So, are ye Proddy or Mick?". Trembling, he replies "Actually, I'm Jewish". Pause. "Sure, but are ye a Protestant Jew or a Catholic Jew?")

But it is the pseudo-intellectual approach to the confluence of history and religion that is most fascinating.

AndrewFinden takes on the disbelievers with...

>>...there are too many non-canonical sources to discredit that the attempt betrays an agenda to do so. Further, to discard the canonical sources a priori is fallacious goal-shifting.<<

But McReal is ready for him...

>>I agree most think Price is fringe, though know of Jesuit theology PhD scholars who agree with him, and have posted in blog threads.<<

A whole new world, it would appear, of PhD scholars who have nothing better to do than attempt to make sense of the (possible) life of a (putative) prophet who, apparently, is not even necessary to the Christian faith.

Colour me glad to be atheist.

I think my brain would explode with the mass of contradictions these people must face, every waking moment.

McReal ; " So the story goes - some say it was epilepsy, some say he fell off his horse."

Ironically you seem to be basing your opinions on hearsay - where is the reference to Paul falling off his horse in the road to Damascus event? It is someone else's imagination sourced from who knows where.

You seem to thrive on debunking an inherited and established order. If the Catholic Church, with its 2000 year continuity and its Petrine Doctrine ongoing, is based on a falsehood and confected texts then please offer your explanation of its primacy even today in human affairs of the sacred and the world.

It is a fact in life that nothing can stand on a lie, even in the immediacy of our own lives. No entity of power has survived across the ages. They leave a fine history of good and evil, and some a legacy for future human civilisations. What is it that sees the Church stand today even after the Protestant rupture 500 years ago. It has even been called to bury the once confident Secularisation Theory.

We Christians walk through history with the confidence in a God of Promise and command - Matthew 28: "18 Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.'"

There is a binding effect for good in all religions; it is God's way across all civilisations. The Catholic Church, with all of its faults and divisions across time, has been, and is ongoing, at the apex in the promotion of human development in all of the integrated dimensions of the human person.

Boxgum from the new international version bible ( just so many out there)
Genesis 7:21-23
21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
Matthew 24:37-42
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

this is about God drowning the whole earth and Jesus approves of the genocide.

""Ironically you seem to be basing your opinions on hearsay ""
Posted by boxgum, Tuesday, 21 December 2010 8:09:32 AM

Oh, the irony of that statement, boxgum.

""please offer your explanation of [the catholic Church's] primacy even today in human affairs of the sacred and the world.

<=> I don't think it has primacy. The explanation is tradition and an inquisition or three via centuries of theocratic rule.

""It is a fact in life that nothing can stand on a lie"" <=> so true, and even more for a pack of them.

""We Christians walk through history with the confidence in a God of Promise and command; There is a binding effect for good in all religions;"" <=> The best answer is 'No entity of power has survived across the ages. They leave a fine history of good and evil, and some a legacy for future human civilisations.'

As far as burying "the once confident Secularisation Theory", you'd better hope secularisation persists when Islam becomes the worlds dominant religion, and atheism is the dominant belief system.

Seasons greetings and Happy New Year! May the peace the Bible narratives engender be with you.

Pericles yes I agree hehe pretty funny my head would explode with all the contradictions. In fact just reading certain things that have been written makes me wonder how are some people able to stop the ooze from their brains escaping.

Is is psydo intellectual or is it just a plain case of denial, confabulation and a touch of mental confusion

Touché, Pericles. Touché.

AndrewFinden,

No, the accounts are not unreliable because they contain supernatural claims. They are unreliable because they’re hearsay accounts written decades after the fact. That some of them contain supernatural claims only makes those particular claims impossible to verify and my mentioning of this was just a side-note to my point, not the reasoning behind it. That would be a bit of a non sequitur and I don’t do fallacies, sorry.

<<You say that historians like N.T. Wright have confirmation bias...>>

Actually, that was McReal, but I agree with him.

It may be an ad hominem, but not in the fallacious sense because it bares relevance to the situation due to a strong bias. But not just any bias...

<<...the argument cuts both ways. Indeed, everyone has bias, half the battle in overcoming it is recognising that we all do so.>>

A bias with a deep and almost entirely emotional basis. And as most of us know, emotions can skew our critical thinking and prove themselves time and time again to be the cause of bad decisions and conclusions.

So it doesn’t quite cut both ways and to pass the two biases off as equal opposites is misleading. Nobody is emotionally invested in their disbelief in gods; nobody has a reason to cling to disbelief if they’re shown to be wrong.

But anyway, I don’t care what this or that scholar thinks; I don’t care what this or that historian thinks; I don’t even care if they’re a secular scholar/historian.

What these scholars and historians say, or who they interpret the scant documents to be referring to is a side issue to my point that we have no contemporary accounts of Jesus; not a single event from his life that can be accurately dated or evidenced; we have no writings from him; nor do we have any carpentry works. All we have are hearsay accounts, written decades after the fact.

Look, I don’t necessarily believe that Jesus was a completely fictional character; I just don’t think there is sufficient evidence to believe he existed.

That’s it.

Whoa there, boxgum.

>>There is a binding effect for good in all religions; it is God's way across all civilisations<<

This totally ignores the long, long list of religion-based strife that has occurred, regularly, for at least the last couple of thousand years.

Tell the Prods and Micks of Ireland about "religion's binding effect".

Or eleventh/twelfth/thirteenth century Crusaders and Saracens.

Or the sub-continent's Hindus and Muslims in 1947 - they didn't find a lot that was "binding" in their religions.

Nor for that matter did Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

But perhaps you had something different in mind, when you wrote about "religion's binding effect for good?"

>>The Catholic Church, with all of its faults and divisions across time, has been, and is ongoing, at the apex in the promotion of human development in all of the integrated dimensions of the human person.<<

At the apex, boxgum?

You have to turn a blind eye to a helluva lot of "faults and divisions" to come to that conclusion. Its record of human development has - forgive me for pointing this out - been most notable not for its ability to lead the way, but for its belated, glacial acceptance of the realities of our existence. Ask Galileo.

But perhaps you had a particular definition of your own in mind, of what consists of an "apex in the promotion of human development"?

'this is about God drowning the whole earth and Jesus approves of the genocide.'

at least Noah was smart enough to repent and take the free gift of life. The others were left with no excuses after mocking for 100 years. No different from when Christ comes again.

Good news runner!

It's on next year when He returns on 21 May 2011.

It's official, I promise you.

And even better!

God is going to blow the world up on 21 October 2011.

Isn't that Good News runner?

Just what you and Al Gore have been praying for for so long.

I'm really excited about this, and look forward to Him slaying all of us but for the chosen people.

But, will that be 'the Jews' or the Hillsong crew.

Anyway, there's only room for about 100k saved people, so that leaves over 5 billion down here.

What do you think about that runner?

Ecstatic, or just mildly happy?

Crabsy,

Faith is simply a term applied to beliefs that we have no good reason for believing.

Faith may provide a premise, but reason can’t work from such a basis when there are elements of that premise that simply cannot change regardless of where reasoning may lead you. As soon as certain conclusions need to be circumvented or passed-off as a "mystery" because they contradict an immovable aspect of the premise, reason has been abandoned.

Faith and reason are in direct conflict with each other.

runner,

Any god that that would create a system that sets us up to fail, knowing in advance that we’re going to fail, is an immoral god.

In this article, there is a good lesson here for Christians on what happens when you deviate from the teachings of Jesus.

Go to Coogee on Christmas day and you'll see people with their Santa hats rolling around on the grass drunk and the toilets reeking with the stench of alcohol and vomit.

This, and more generally the excess and waste that is the secular/atheist Christmas, is compelling proof of just how corrupting atheist creed (no right, no wrong) can be.

@McReal

Yes - Christus means 'annointed' as it's the greek translation of Messiah.

If we take Tacitus, and even if we grant that he wrote "Chrestianos" it's pretty clear from the context that it was a spelling / phonetic mistake, for he does write 'Christus'. He Corroborates the execution of Jesus under Pontius Pilate.

So not only do you have the several canonical sources (by normal standards, sufficient attestation) - here it is corroborated by a non-canonical source.

There is also Josephus - two references, one of which is almost certainly altered by a later scribe - never-the-less, not least because of the second reference to Jesus and James, there is scholarly consensus that it is not a wholesale forgery, and Josephus almost certainly said something about Jesus.

Again, on top of the textual attestation, there is historical fact of the unlikely birth and rapid growth of the Christian church, and most scholars agree that it is virtually impossible to account for without an historical Jesus.

Yes, Josephus said something about Jesus, but the significance is vague.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

What Tacticus wrote is frequently qualified with "the information could have been derived from Christian material circulating in the early 2nd century." http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

R. T. France concludes that the Tacitus passage is at best just Tacitus repeating what he has heard through Christians. Charles Guignebert argued "So long as there is that possibility [that Tacitus is merely echoing what Christians themselves were saying], the passage remains quite worthless".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Tacitus

As far as the unlikely (virgin?) birth - the word for 'young woman' is similar to virgin, and many think a copyist or transcription changed the meaning from 'young woman' to virgin.

Of course the church grew on the story of Jesus, yet to say any of it is historic fact is stretching things.

@McReal - Oh, so now you want to accept some biblical scholars (RT France)? Kind of gives the lie to your claim that they're irredeemably biased though. In any case, selectively quoting the Wiki (did you read the quotes of those who disagree with France?) doesn't really help. It's pure conjecture that Tacitus was just repeating what the Christians were saying. It remains, an important non-canonical corroborative source. Also, to suggest that Josephus' reference is vague simply chooses to ignore it's corroborative nature. Here you have two non-canonical sources corroborating the very existence of a figure well documented in the canonical sources. To say this is insufficient is simply goal-shifting.

>"Of course the church grew on the story of Jesus, yet to say any of it is historic fact is stretching things."
No, the stretch is to claim that such an unlikely and rapidly expanding movement could be borne without even a real figure at the centre of it - from a completely made-up story. Add the early, independent, multiple textual attestation, and you've got a lot of stuff to get rid of to sustain the non-existence theory.

@AJPhilips:
>"They are unreliable because they’re hearsay accounts written decades after the fact."
Actually, that's better than most historical sources. We just have to live with it. To suggest this makes them unreliable is, I think, somewhat ignorant of normal historical methodology, and how historians actually treat these texts.
Ad hominem is always fallacious. You can't just point and say 'Bible scholar = bias' you have to actually show examples of such bias.

>"we have no contemporary accounts of Jesus"
And? That's normal for ancient history.

>"not a single event from his life that can be accurately dated or evidenced;"
simply not true - you have to ignore the scholarship to say that. Indeed, I came across this via twitter only this morning: http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/bible/paul-maier-on-the-date-of-jesus%E2%80%99-birth

>"I just don’t think there is sufficient evidence to believe he existed."
If you're consistent with your standard, there's presumably many ancient figures you don't think there's sufficient evidence to believe existed. If you're so consistent,fine.

McReal

R.T. France – yes, I’ll accept him as an authority! He may question the validity of Tacitus, but overall he presents a comprehensive case for the historicity of Jesus:

http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Jesus-R-T-France/dp/1573833703/ref=tmm_pap_title_popover?ie=UTF8&qid=1292923092&sr=1-5

On the virgin birth - Matthew is quoting Isaiah 7:14 as a text foretelling the birth of the Messiah (“behold a young girl will conceive”). The Hebrew almah can mean either virgin or young girl, and many modern translations use “young girl” in Isaiah. It is possible that Matthew was quoting the LXX (a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek) which translates almah as parthenos (virgin). However, as it seems likely Matthew knew Hebrew as well as Greek, he could have been aware of the ambiguity

AJ Phillips:
<< Faith is simply a term applied to beliefs that we have no good reason for believing.>> Not so. “Faith” is not such a simple term at all: it is interpreted variously and deserves more enquiry and analysis. Your definition covers only one possible strand of the concept, and it is the strand that I consider least important for spiritual development. To save space here, I suggest you read my article on the topic: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11366&page=0

<< Faith may provide a premise, but reason can’t work from such a basis when there are elements of that premise that simply cannot change regardless of where reasoning may lead you. As soon as certain conclusions need to be circumvented or passed-off as a "mystery" because they contradict an immovable aspect of the premise, reason has been abandoned. >>

Are you suggesting that reason is more than logic? If so I would be interested in an explanation. I suspect you are using “reason” to embrace both logical thought and empirical perception. If so I suggest it is better to refer to these two components separately to avoid confusion. This seems important because it is legitimate to “reason” about non-empirical perceptions also. (See my earlier post in this thread Monday, 20 December 2010 5:24:05 PM)

<<Christians don’t own Christmas and it’s high time we non-theists contested them.>>
Heterosexuals don’t own marriage and it’s high time we homosexuals contested them.

Does anyone else detect a pattern of deconstruction going on?

Forget about offending people by referring to Christ in relation to Christmas,
what about all those poor souls who feel threatened by Christmas trees?

We need to apply scientific reasoning to solve the problem:

<<Christmas trees should be removed from public places to avoid making non-Christians feel “excluded”, scientists have suggested.>>
"We're not suggesting 'no Christmas' or 'no Christmas displays at all,' but in contexts where we really do value respecting and including diversity in terms of religion, the safest option is not to have these kinds of displays.
I understand why it might feel threatening to people.
But I think if people do care about making a whole range of different kinds of people feel included and respected, then we can make some small changes that would go a long way toward creating a more multicultural or inclusive society."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/8214222/Christmas-trees-make-non-Christians-feel-excluded.html

I guess that's what happens when "reason" meets multiculturalism.

@AndrewFinden

Yes, I am prepared to accept the *arguments* of some [biblical] scholars, and I never claimed "they're *irredeemably* biased" - that is a strawman *you* created.

""pure conjecture that Tacitus was just repeating"" - really? and the propostions you put with absolute certainty aren't? e.g. "It remains, an important non-canonical corroborative source", and "two non-canonical sources corroborating the very existence of a figure well documented in the canonical sources" of course he is [reasonably] well documented in the canonical sources! Do you subscribe to the two or three source hypothesis.

""the stretch is to claim that such an unlikely and rapidly expanding movement could be borne without even a real figure at the centre of it"" - the same argument could be used to justify Scientology.

"early, independent, multiple textual attestation" is over-statement.

"normal historical methodology" - i.e. the historical method - shows the sources to be unsubstantiated!

@McReal

>"Yes, I am prepared to accept the *arguments* of some [biblical] scholars, and I never claimed "they're *irredeemably* biased" - that is a strawman *you* created."
-I see.. they're not all biased - just when they disagree with you? In any case - it's STILL ad hominem until you demonstrate that actual bias.

>""pure conjecture that Tacitus was just repeating"" - really?"
-Yes. Really.

>"and the propostions you put with absolute certainty aren't? e.g. "It remains, an important non-canonical corroborative source","
-I'm absolutely certain that historians consider it an important corroborative source. The links you gave us even demonstrate this.

>"and "two non-canonical sources corroborating the very existence of a figure well documented in the canonical sources" of course he is [reasonably] well documented in the canonical sources!"
-And to just disregard those sources because of later 'canonical' collation is completely fallacious. If his existence is 'reasonably;' well documented by ancient sources, then clearly it's just prejudice that causes you to reject that existence. But you're welcome to reject it - just like I'm free to side with the scholarly consensus because of the evidence.

>"Do you subscribe to the two or three source hypothesis."
-I acknowledge that parts of Luke and Matthew use a Markian and Q basis.

>"the same argument could be used to justify Scientology."
-Comparing modern and ancient figures is spurious.. but never-the-less, I don't question the existence of Ron L Hubbard either, actually.

>""early, independent, multiple textual attestation" is over-statement."
-Nope. It's what they are.

>"the historical method - shows the sources to be unsubstantiated!"
-Nope. Not according the way I've seen almost all scholars apply it. Maybe if you only read the heavily criticised fringes like Price and Doherty. But as I said - you're free to disregard all the historical evidence like that, and I'm free to accept it.

And your point is, Proxy?

>>I guess that's what happens when "reason" meets multiculturalism<<

The report was published in the November 2010 issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. You probably only know of this august publication from the sound-bite you were fed by the Telegraph.

The JESP publishes a wide range of reports, each of which is the result of a completely scientific, objective study.

For example, they recently examined:

"The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence"

Their methodology is invariably factual, and statistical in nature.

In this particular study they showed that: "participants who previously played a violent video game had lower heart rate and galvanic skin response while viewing filmed real violence, demonstrating a physiological desensitization to violence."

In your example, they discovered, through a similarly objective process, that non-Christians were less effective in the presence of a Christmas tree.

Hence the summary:

"The results raise concerns about the ubiquitous presence of dominant cultural symbols (such as Christmas displays) in culturally diverse societies."

I am sure you weren't surprised by their conclusions as to the effect of video game violence. Why would you be surprised at the results of this experiment?

Would you have been amazed, for example, if Christians had been measured as less effective in the presence of Islamic symbols?

More importantly, would you have ascribed that reaction to "what happens when 'reason' meets multiculturalism"?

Crabsy,

Yes, I acknowledge the other definitions of faith and I would agree that most of the definitions you provide in your article are valid.

But most of those definitions are not usually what people are talking about when they say “faith”, and so they’re not what I was referring to when I asked the question of Boxgum as I suspected that he/she was using the word “faith” to simply mean religious belief in general, and faith in this sense is used as a permission slip to let us believe whatever we want without any good reason; because, as soon as we have good reason for our beliefs, there’s no more need for faith

This bow your drawing gets longer and longer, AndrewFindon.

<<Actually, [hearsay accounts written decades after the fact are] better than most historical sources.>>

Better? How could they possibly get any worse?

Most historical figures, where there are no contemporary accounts for them, at least have some sort of relics, documents that were known to have existed but have since been destroyed, known descendants, or a series of major events that directly intersect their lives enough for us to say, “Yeah, this guy probably existed”.

Jesus has none of this. Not one person even bothered to record the violent earthquake in the book of Matthew.

<<To suggest this makes them unreliable is, I think, somewhat ignorant of normal historical methodology, and how historians actually treat these texts.>>

Oh it certainly does make it unreliable and I think the historical method agrees with me there considering the evidence satisfies so few conditions... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method.

<<Ad hominem is always fallacious.>>

Wrong.

An ad hominem is only fallacious when it attempts to link the validity of an argument to an unrelated characteristic of a person or people presenting the argument.

An ad hominem is not fallacious if it bares relevance to the possible motives behind a particular argument.

<<You can't just point and say 'Bible scholar = bias'...>>

Actually, considering the extent of the emotions behind religious belief that I had described when talking about biases, yes, I can. I’d know; I have first-hand experience with those biases.

<<...you have to actually show examples of such bias.>>

Okay then, how many Biblical scholars believe Hercules existed? The reliability of the evidence for Jesus is, after all, very much on par with the evidence for Hercules.

Aesop, Hesiod, Homer and Plato have written narratives on the life of Hercules. Heck, even Josephus and Tacitus mention him, and even more than Jesus at that! Of course, there are no eye-witness accounts, no relics, no accurate dates or even evidence for the purported events. It’s all hearsay after the fact, but that shouldn’t bother the scholars if they’re consistent.

Continued...

...Continued

Besides which, how else could we possibly account for the rapid spread of the Greek mythology without an historical Hercules?

Oh sure, ask your average person, or even historian or scholar (secular or not) and more will pass Hercules off as a myth sooner than Jesus despite the evidence for the two being equally credible. But this is hardly surprising considering Christianity is still so prevalent that the words, “Yeah, he probably existed”, roll off the tongue far more easily with Jesus than they would with Hercules.

Then there’s the fact that most prefer not to ruffle the feathers of large establishments like The Church; who, as you’ve shown, will scrounge for anything to prove an historical Jesus.

Pericles’ description of Jesus as a “putative prophet” was perfect, I think.

<<simply not true - you have to ignore the scholarship to say that [not a single event from his life that can be accurately dated or evidenced]. Indeed, I came across this via twitter only this morning:http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/bible/paul-maier-on-the-date-of-jesus%E2%80%99-birth>>

Gee, thanks for that.

Eighteen pages later and I saw so many ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’ my head was spinning and I didn’t know where I was at. If I was still a believer, I probably would have just taken if for granted that he knew what he was talking about and accepted the conclusion. But I guess that’s very much what apologetics amounts to for many believers.

Hardly a definitive enough explanation to warrant the “simply not true” in your response though.

<<If you're consistent with your standard, there's presumably many ancient figures you don't think there's sufficient evidence to believe existed.>>

Could you rattle off a few names? I can’t think of any off the top of my head and your Tiberius analogy was absurd. We have a bust of him, a family tree, archaeological evidence and no conflicting claims of who ruled Rome during that period.

But hey, even if you could, your arguments would still only suggest the possibility that there was a person (or people) whom the core of the Jesus narrative was base on.

On faith:
Karen Armstrong said, “Faith was not an intellectual position but a virtue: it was the careful cultivation, by means of rituals and myths of religion, of the conviction that despite all the dispiriting evidence to the contrary, life had some ultimate meaning and value”.

This appears to support Crabsy on the meaning of faith. It was taken from an article i happened to be reading: "Jesus and Muhammad (upon them be peace), brothers in faith"
by Shaykh Naeem Abdul Wali (Gary Edwards): http://muslimvillage.com/2010/12/22/jesus-and-muhammad-upon-them-be-peace-brothers-in-faith/

[Deletd. Hijacking thread. Poster suspended.]

[Deleted. Thread hijack.]

[Deleted. Refers to thread above.]

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@ AndrewFinden

88 You keep trotting out a spurious ad hominem accusations, when I have not attacked anyone other that saying biblical scholars (such as NT Wright) have confirmation bias: that is not ad hom in the context of discussing bias in a grey area such as biblical historicity, given the lack of verification for it.

"I'm absolutely certain that historians consider it an important corroborative source." - some might, but but to claim all do is spurious, and such claims are not based on objective analysis such as what a well-designed survey of Christian and secular historians might provide.

"If his existence is 'reasonably;' well documented by ancient sources" - but it is not - the argument there is scant evidence for Jesus is valid and sound.

"I don't question the existence of Ron L Hubbard either, actually." The point I made was not about Jesus v Ron Hubbard, but in relation to your point Christianity was valid because its "founder" was considered real. Using *your* spurious argument, that makes Scientology valid.

AJ Phillips has addressed the issue of an objective Historical Method - here is another

http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~palmquis/courses/historical.htm

In summary - I stated "There is no evidence for Jesus of the Bible outside the Bible narrative".

You weighed in with spurious comments re appeal to authority, ad hom, and shifting the goal posts, which ironically you have done, repeatedly.

* I might even consider Jesus existed, despite the lack of non-biblical evidence.

In the context of the changing texts of the canon over a couple of centuries, and changes form the early texts to the current bibles, as well as the failure to verify form other sources, the supernatural claims are implausible.

@AJPhilips
>"Better? How could they possibly get any worse?"
- Easily - they could be from centuries later.

>"a series of major events that directly intersect their lives enough for us to say, “Yeah, this guy probably existed”"
-That would in fact be the argument that most historians find most persuasive regarding Jesus.

>"Oh it certainly does ... the historical method agrees with me.."
- Thanks for the link. Backfires on you though - just read all that stuff about multiple sources!

>"Actually, considering the extent of the emotions behind religious belief that I had described when talking about biases, yes, I can"
- Ah - now we see your own bias. And you falsely assume that all biblical scholars are emotional and religious, further, you've already demonstrated that you're inconsistent, quoting RT France when it suits you (and ignoring the fact that he is one of the most outspoken opponents of the Jesus Myth theory). Again - for it NOT to be fallacious you must show where bias has actually occurred. General claims of 'bible scholar = biased' IS fallacious ad hominem.

The rest of your objection turns into nothing but conspiracy theory about how scholars simply accept an historical Jesus because they don't want to rock the boat. So what about Bart Ehrman?

>"Could you rattle off a few names?"
- How about Pontius Pilate? Complete absence of Roman reference, and a single piece of archaeological evidence only turned up in 1961. Or Alexander the great? The five surviving sources all date from centuries later (and you want to squabble about decades?)

And that's the point - you goal-shift in asking for more and earlier sources that the several we already have, and you offer no plausible explanation for the emergence of the Christian church, you have no explanation as to why, if it was a myth, there is no evidence of development, objection or competing account. Further, you dismiss the scholarly consensus with ad hominem and conspiracy theory. If that works for you, fine.. just don't expect too many people to actually buy it.

@McReal
>"biblical scholars (such as NT Wright) have confirmation bias: that is not ad hom in the context of discussing bias in a grey area such as biblical historicity"
- It is absolutely fallacious ad hominem to imply that someone's work is by default of no value and biased because of their area of study. Until such time as you actually demonstrate bias in action, it is fallacious.

>"some might, but but to claim all do is spurious, and such claims are not based on objective analysis such as what a well-designed survey of Christian and secular historians might provide."
- I didn't say all, actually. But never-the-less, Gary Habermas did a broad literature review of about 1400 published works written in the last 30 years on this issue, and he concluded that the overwhelming majority of scholars, including those who reject the supernatural, accept the existence and crucifixion of Jesus.

>"the argument there is scant evidence for Jesus is valid and sound."
- No, it is a combination of fallaciously disregarding several sources a priori and goal-shifting, and completely ignoring the historical fact of the early Christian movement which is otherwise unaccountable for.

>"The point I made was not about Jesus v Ron Hubbard, but in relation to your point Christianity was valid because its "founder" was considered real. Using *your* spurious argument, that makes Scientology valid."
- Strawman. I never made such an argument. I said that the existence of the early Christian movement is not sufficiently explained without an historical Jesus.

cont...

cont...

>"In summary - I stated "There is no evidence for Jesus of the Bible outside the Bible narrative"."
- And I maintain that this is absolutely fallacious goal-post shifting. It is the equivalent of saying "There's no evidence for person x apart from the sources that talk about him". In summary - your argument relies completely on simply disregarding all the sources! Most professional historians are used to dealing with texts that contain supernatural elements that they might be ideological opposed to, yet find an historical core - they don't simply just throw the whole thing out (another example is Gilgamesh). Even the majority of historians that don't accept the resurrection or miracles think that the gospels are sufficient attestation for his existence.

>"You weighed in with spurious comments re appeal to authority, ad hom, and shifting the goal posts, which ironically you have done, repeatedly."
- The comments regarding ad hominem and goal-shifting are valid and I've shown why. I have not used ad hominem or shifted goal posts or fallaciously appealed to authority that I am aware of - if you think I have, please demonstrate so.

>"In the context of the changing texts of the canon over a couple of centuries, and changes form the early texts to the current bibles, as well as the failure to verify form other sources, the supernatural claims are implausible."
- Just a second! Nice bait-and-switch there! This is not and has not been about whether the supernatural claims are plausible or not; it has been about whether there is sufficient historical evidence for the existence of Jesus. As I've said, later concepts of 'canon' are actually irrelevant. Accusation of changed texts are basically unfounded - due to the quantity and quality of manuscripts there is virtual certainty about 95% of the NT - and the bits in question have little impact. Even Ehrman, despite his tendancy to overplay his hand, appears to have agreed with Metzger on this point.

cont...

cont...

Both you and AJPhilips have presented your arguments and I can see why the scholarly consensus finds them very wanting. No doubt you think the scholarly consensus arguments are to be found wanting to.

The summary of historical evidence for the existence of Jesus is this:
Multiply attested: by the various gospels and epistles, Josephus and other Jewish sources, some greco-roman sources, church fathers - no competing accounts, and even the hostile writers do not deny existence. Existence is not questioned until the C12th.
There is James Jesus' alleged brother, also referred to by Josephus.
There is the church - unlikely and with rapid expansion which makes no sense if it was simply a myth that developed over a century or so, plus there is no evidence of any such development, and evidence that the claims about him were there from the very beginning. This movement is not sufficiently explained without an historical figure of Jesus.

http://www.bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm
http://www.bede.org.uk/price8.htm#H
http://www.bede.org.uk/price8.htm#F

If you want to try and dismiss all that, I think it merely betrays a prejudice and agenda to do so. I'm not too interested in going around in any more circles on this

What about the connection between Buddhism and Christianity?

The gospel of John in the Bible contained some Buddhist concepts.
There are many comparable situations between the bible, Jesus , Buddha and Confusious. Many people seem to take the bible as evidence thing is this appears to only be by choice of those who feel that this is the case. Jesus stories appear throughout different cultures as a way for people to live a certain life contextual for the times. The bible and many religions is the first in creating law abiding citizens. Jesus is just as real as Santa. I mean he existed and the myth still goes on. The bible was just a book of laws for the time. It is past that now as we have governments and a justice system in place. The myth of god just keeps people contained, it is a mass control mechanism based in a lie.

Religion does not does not solve social issues, places with the highest percentage of drug users,child pedophiles,some even encourage domestic violence in the home, causes gender and sexuality issues, broken homes,criminals, wars usually have some religious base to them. So churches make money but don't solve anything in their communities, many people feel that religion does more harm than good.Having a belief in god allows some people to not feel so alone. What does Christmas represent ? the author may look for the good things and want to only have them in her life. Thing is people are good and bad at the same time. She may want to celebrate Christmas and feel that it has been taken over by the Christians and refer to it starting out as a pagan festival. Is that still okay? Does people still celebrate Australia day and ignore the fact it was a invasion of a land and go ah well stuff happens?

I have been following the "did he, didn't he?" discussion with great interest. My thanks to AndrewFinden, McReal and AJ Philips for an entertaining diversion into ancient scriptures and their shortcomings, history-wise.

(Hint, guys: I don't think you are likely to bring the other to your point of view. Just saying.)

But I really do think the last word has to go to AndrewFinden, for this little gem.

>>If you want to try and dismiss all that, I think it merely betrays a prejudice and agenda to do so<<

Had a good chuckle at that.

Until we master time-travel (which is, like, never), we will remain in total ignorance of the full story. Trying to fill in the missing parts with scholarly invention is only convincing, I'm afraid, to someone with both prejudice and agenda. Because there's simply not enough evidence to convict.

"If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit".

To me, the real mystery is that someone who managed to do all those amazing things with lepers, and dead people, and jugs of water, didn't get so much as a tiny by-line in any contemporary documentation.

There must have been at least one observer who either a) was literate or b) had friends who were.

Recalling a couple of centuries later that this guy was put to death is one thing.

Not mentioning that he raised people from the dead, quite another.

"" the real mystery is that someone who managed to do all those amazing things ... didn't get so much as a tiny by-line in any contemporary documentation.""
Pericles, 12:08:58 PM

It has been documented (can't be bothered searching) there were ~40 historians first century CE/AD.

""Recalling a couple of centuries later that this guy was put to death is one thing.""

All I said was
* the documentation virtually just mentions of his followers, or
* vague mention of similar names or descriptions (Chrestus, etc)

[quote]Origen, published 'Contra Celsum' ~254 CE, 150 years after Josephus' book 'Antiquities of the Jews'. .. Origen wrote Josephus did not believe Jesus was the Christ:
"Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer [Josephus], although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple ..."

Origin's book 'Commentary on Matthew' which also contained a reference to Josephus rejecting Jesus as Christ"
"And the wonderful thing is, that, though he [Josephus] did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and ..."

... these references confirm .. Josephus' writing in 'Antiquities of the Jews' did not include a reference to Jesus being the Christ, at least in the middle of the 3rd century CE. It is probable that the Christian forgery was done after that time. [/quote]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

""The personal hunch of B.A. Robinson ... is that there were many Jewish teachers wandering in Galilee during the interval 20 to 30 CE. At least one may have been called Yeshua (Hebrew for Joshua). One developed a devoted following of fellow Jews, committed aggravated assault in the Jerusalem temple, and was arrested by the occupying Roman Army. He was crucified as an insurrectionist as one of perhaps ten thousand other Jews who suffered the same fate [then]

"The beliefs of two or three of these Galilean teachers were subsequently amalgamated and recorded in the early gospels ""

You're really overstating your case here, AndrewFindon.

<<...[The hearsay accounts] could be [worse if they were] from centuries later.>>

Granted, but I still fail to see how they are better than the evidence for MOST other figures of ancient history, as you claimed.

<<[A series of major events that directly intersect the life of Jesus] would in fact be the argument that most historians find most persuasive regarding Jesus.>>

Could you give an example? I can’t think of any events surrounding the life of Jesus that were recorded elsewhere. Like I said, not even the violent earthquake in Matthew was recorded elsewhere.

<<Thanks for the link. Backfires on you though - just read all that stuff about multiple sources!>>

Sorry, I might be just be having a ‘moment’ here... but where? A CRTL+F search of the page doesn’t even find the word “multiple”.

If you’re referring to the Gospels and how they (somewhat) satisfy multiple attestation (I thought you were predominantly arguing from the equally shaky extra-biblical sources, but anyway...), then all that really indicates is that it’s likely that there was some figure (or several figures) whom the Gospels were based on, and even biblical scholars admit that multiple attestation by itself says nothing about the accuracy of the accounts.

<<...you falsely assume that all biblical scholars are emotional and religious...>>

No, not all are. In fact, like with seminary, Biblical scholars start out all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but some end up abandoning their beliefs when the reality of the Bible’s origins hits them. Many continue as scholars though, because - like with many non-believing clergy - it’s all they know. I can’t think of his name now, but there was one particular Biblical scholar who left the scholarship and started doing lectures on the nonsense of the Bible instead.

Do I have a bias? Of course. But I’m not emotionally tied to my bias. For example, if it is shown, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that an historical Jesus existed, then it makes no difference to me. But does the evidence make a difference to believers?

Continued...

...Continued

Most of the time, yes, because they mistakenly assume that an historical Jesus lends credence to the Biblical Jesus. It doesn’t. No amount of evidence for an historical Jesus makes the miracles more likely. They remain in complete contradiction with everything we know about reality.

I’m not saying that Biblical scholars are totally unreliable, but there is reason to believe that we should take their conclusions with a pinch of salt.

<<...you've already demonstrated that you're inconsistent, quoting RT France when it suits you...>>

Oh dear. Are you really in that much of a tizz now that you don’t know who is saying what?

<<...for it NOT to be fallacious you must show where bias has actually occurred.>>

Where is this written? Where is it stated that providing good reasoning alone isn’t enough? And why is the fact that Hercules is dismissed as pure mythology not a good enough example of Bias?

Sorry, my point about ad hominems still stands.

<<The rest of your objection turns into nothing but conspiracy theory about how scholars simply accept an historical Jesus because they don't want to rock the boat.>>

I meant most people in general, not just scholars and yes, I know about Ehrman. Although, conspiracies involve unlawful/sinister acts, so your use of the word here is emotive and dismissed.

Virtually no-one has wanted to ‘rock the boat’ with religion until recently (this is no secret) and hundreds of years ago, not rocking the boat was even a health and safety issue.

Oh, and you’ve skipped my more important point about cultural and tradition influence. Is that a conspiracy too?

<<How about Pontius Pilate?>>

Yes, although, like you mentioned, we have an artifact for him now. When it was discovered is irrelevant. When we find an artifact for an historical Jesus, we can upgrade him to “Pontius Pilot” status.

But yes, before the discovery, there’d have been no good reason to believe he existed but, as with Jesus, that wouldn’t have made him entirely fictional either.

<<Or Alexander the great?>>

Not quite.

Continued...

...Continued

We have cities that had been destroyed and created in his wake and one even named after him.

<<...you goal-shift in asking for more and earlier sources that the several we already have>>

Erm... no, that’s not goal-shifting, that’s expressing a dissatisfaction with the evidence that has so far been presented. Expecting more evidence only constitutes ‘goal-shifting’ if I were to claim that what you had presented was still not enough, even after you had met all previous requirements laid-out by me.

Why are you so desperate to pin a fallacy on us? Are you so unsure of your own position?

This rule you’ve invented, that requires one to provide specific examples of bias to prevent an ad hominem qualifying as a fallacy - without providing a reason as to why reasoning alone isn’t enough - is closer to goal-shifting. But I don’t want to reduce the debate to some sort of tit-for-tat thing so I refuse to mention this.

Ooops, I just did.

<<...and you offer no plausible explanation for the emergence of the Christian church...>>

And you offer no plausible explanation for the emergence of Greek Mythology without an historical Hercules.

So there!

Seriously though, your argument here doesn’t become plausible for lack of something better. That’s an argument from ignorance.

Anyway, again, my position on this isn’t that Jesus is totally fictional, just that there isn’t sufficient evidence to believe (to any meaningful degree anyway) that he existed. If this were a court case, then I would have to say ”not guilty”, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m saying “Innocent”.

If the scant evidence is enough for you, then great! My only issue was that you made it out to sound like the Jury was in and that anyone who wasn’t satisfied with the evidence was either ignorant of it or a loopy fringe-dweller.

“The ancient Egyptians calculated that there were 360 days in the year. They weren't right either, but they were pretty close considering the times they lived in.”(AJP)

Wrong again AJ Philips.

It is an error because the ancient Egyptians based their calendar on the moon instead of the sun.

Though the Egyptians did have a 360 day calendar, in a literal sense they did have a 365 day calendar system. The beginning of the year was marked by the addition of five additional days, known as "the yearly five days".(AJP)

“But anyway, I don’t care what this or that scholar thinks; I don’t care what this or that historian thinks; I don’t even care if they’re a secular scholar/historian…What these scholars and historians say, or who they interpret the scant documents to be referring to is a side issue to my point…”

AJ Philips knows “best”. He is the “authority.”

Don’t waste your time with a bigoted ignoramus who keeps committing factual errors after factual errors

Ah, welcome Philip Tang.

>>Don’t waste your time with a bigoted ignoramus who keeps committing factual errors after factual errors<<

And this, from the chap who insists that the "Big Bang" is of itself evidence of the existence of God.

Back atcha, Mr Tang.

Hi Pericles,

A happy Christmas to you.

http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/origins/quotes/universe.html

Pericles, thank you.

Philip Tang,

My comment about the ancient Egyptians was regurgitated as I remember being told in high school. Obviously my memory or what I was told was inaccurate. I stand corrected.

When I said I didn’t care what scholars or historians said, I was trying to get AndrewFindon to look at the evidence from a different angle less dependent on who says what. That I consider myself an authority is merely something you have invented as a smear tactic.

As if that weren't a blatant enough, unchristian attempt at pure nastiness, you do it this close to Christmas as well.

Interesting link there; interesting too that you would post it so soon after I had already explained to AndrewFindon that it is a fallacy (argument from ignorance) to claim that an explanation becomes plausible for lack of a better one (let’s forget for a second that, in your big bang scenario, god isn’t actually a good explanation due the violation of Occam’s razor). Following that logic Zeus throwing lightning bolts down to Earth was a plausible explanation simply because the ancient Greeks didn’t have a better one.

But it’s not the argument from ignorance I’m so worried about; it’s the dishonesty of the out-of-context quoting of people who don’t even share the view that the big bang proves god. Sticking true to Creationist form, your link provides us with several repeatedly clarified misquotes.

Stephen Hawking is one...

“The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”

Well, yeah it would, wouldn’t it. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here to observe it.

The operative word there being “seem” too, by the way.

Then there’s the Einstein quotes such as this...

“The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation ... His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

Continued...

...Continued

Which gets bandied around so often that Einstein was later compelled to explain this...

“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” (Albert Einstein, 1954)

And to you, Philip Tang.

>>Hi Pericles, A happy Christmas to you.<<

Thanks for the link. I too went through the experience that so many of your quotes illustrate, that of "wow, it's all so awesome, there must be a God or it doesn't make sense."

I was eight at the time.

By the time I reached my teens, I had worked out that this was simply a convenient way to express "hey, it's all too big and complicated for my tiny insignificant brain to understand".

I decided that instead of inventing a supernatural being who glued the whole thing together, I'd remain comfortable with the fact that it all just happened, and I was pretty lucky, statistically speaking, to experience it all first hand.

The only real "mystery" to me is why so many people find the invention bit necessary. Especially when they come up with so many different ways to justify the existence of their own specially chosen image.

But that's just another of life's mysteries, I guess.

Have a great day.

@Pericles
>"To me, the real mystery is that someone who managed to do all those amazing things with lepers, and dead people, and jugs of water, didn't get so much as a tiny by-line in any contemporary documentation."

Not really that surprising.

"Occasionally people ask why there is no record of Jesus in Roman records. The answer is that there are no surviving Roman records but only highly parochial Roman historians who had little interest in the comings and goings of minor cults and were far more concerned about Emperors and Kings. Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive and there was no reason for Roman historians to notice him.
...
Sometimes Jesus Mythologists will produce long lists of writers none of whom have the slightest reason to mention an obscure Jewish miracle worker and somehow think this strengthens their point. In fact, it has all the relevance of picking fifty books off your local library shelf and finding that none of them mention Carl Sagan. Does that mean he did not exist either? Jesus was not even a failed military leader of the kind that Romans might have noticed - especially if he had been defeated by someone famous."
from http://www.bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm

Or from Macquarie Uni's Dr Dickson:
"even if we did possess some correspondence between Jerusalem and Rome during this period, should we expect to find a mention of Jesus in them? Perhaps. History does sometimes throw up unpredictably detailed information, as the letter of Dionysius illustrates. But history is rarely obedient to expectations. I suspect that even if we were to find a batch of letters between Pilate and Tiberius for the very year of Jesus’ death (AD 30), historians would not expect to find mention of him. There were thousands of Jewish trouble-makers in this period, and thousands of executions too; the chance of any one of them appearing in such randomly discovered correspondence is very small."
http://www.publicchristianity.com/jesusevidence.html

http://vimeo.com/11976278
http://vimeo.com/10516887

@AJPhilips

Apologies for mis-citing the RT France quote.

Your comparison of Greek Mythology to the Christian movement is spurious comparison. Not only is there no 'one size fits all' explanation in history - you' have to deal with specific events and claims, the emergence of the two are completely dissimilar.

I'm not going to go around in circles with you, if you refuse to see that your ad hominem is fallacious, failing to show actual and specific examples of bias effecting results.

Seeing as being a Christian was for the first few hundred years 'rocking the boat' it seems odd that the 'boat' wouldn't point out non-existence of the rebel's leader. To suggest that scholars just accept the historicity of Jesus because they don't want to 'rock the boat' is a very poor argument.

Seeing as you couldn't find reference to multiple sources:
"If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method#Core_principles

>"Seriously though, your argument here doesn’t become plausible for lack of something better. That’s an argument from ignorance."

Nope - it's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method#Argument_to_the_best_explanation

>"there isn’t sufficient evidence to believe (to any meaningful degree anyway) that he existed. If this were a court case, then I would have to say ”not guilty”, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m saying “Innocent”. "

This is not law, it's ancient history, and I suspect that much ancient history would not pass such criteria - if you're consistent, then great, if not, it's goal-shifting.

>"you made it out to sound like the Jury was in and that anyone who wasn’t satisfied with the evidence was either ignorant of it or a loopy fringe-dweller."

The Jury basically is in - the scholarly consensus accepts the historicity of Jesus, and yeah, those who think there isn't enough evidence are basically dwelling in the fringes of scholarship (though not necessarily loopy). As I said, if you want to reject the consensus view, fine - I just don't think you've made a persuasive case to do so.

I've read that somewhat flimsy apologia too, AndrewFinden.

"Occasionally people ask why there is no record of Jesus in Roman records. The answer is that there are no surviving Roman records but only highly parochial Roman historians who had little interest in the comings and goings of minor cults and were far more concerned about Emperors and Kings. Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive and there was no reason for Roman historians to notice him."

It is pretty weak, too, to simply cut and paste somebody else's ideas, without even an explanation as to why we should take any more notice of their opinion than - say - of yours.

The key issue here is the acceptance that "Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive".

According to the legend, there were around three dozen "miracles" attributed to the guy in a relatively short timeframe, in a highly public manner. Yet we are supposed to believe that not only were these acts performed, but that they made a "very small splash".

http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/miracles.htm

Incidentally, the excuse your source provided also narrows the field of enquiry to "record of Jesus in Roman records". There were presumably other disinterested parties who were in a position to record for posterity these apparently remarkable events?

"I suspect that even if we were to find a batch of letters between Pilate and Tiberius for the very year of Jesus’ death (AD 30), historians would not expect to find mention of him. There were thousands of Jewish trouble-makers in this period, and thousands of executions too"

No-one thought it remarkable that someone went around healing lepers and raising the dead?

Right. They would all have been considered "trouble-makers", I suppose.

What fascinating times they must have been.

@Pericles

>"It is pretty weak, too, to simply cut and paste somebody else's ideas, without even an explanation as to why we should take any more notice of their opinion than - say - of yours."

Well, he's a member of the most prominent ancient history department in Australia (Macquarie Uni) so his opinion certainly is more informed than mine. He says far more succinctly what I have been trying to say. Suggesting that quoting a scholar is 'weak' seems simply a means of deflecting.

>"There were presumably other disinterested parties who were in a position to record for posterity these apparently remarkable events?
"

Perhaps - but you've missed Dickson's point (and simply dismissing it as 'apologia' doesn't cut the mustard, sorry), that asking for specific references and ignoring the ones you've got is not how it works. Presumably, had these extra sources thought the events remarkable and recorded them, you might just dismiss them as you seem to do the canonical sources which did so.

anyhow...im an oppertuinist
there i said it

so when i saw this

i saw a chance to post this

runner is correct
seems the comment should have been directed here
[link to this tropic removed]

i wont post a link..to the actual comment
but its on the other page so its no bother
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11380&page=0
[its on the baby jesus...topic-twaddle]

hope i dont get into trouble..
putting up my patch/fix

linking back the comment
to the topic

i relieved to find gray
is as hunam..as the rest of us

THIS topic..does look a rather long thread
going to take all day to read it
65 pages..of athiestic thinking...gulp

oh lord why do you help me notice these things
why cant i just..let it be..its not easy being me..nor he

anyhow thats why i went...off the back of
this..*time limited.. topic
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4184&page=0

xmass cards..has lots more life in it
so lets wait..and see

anyhow got a lot of reading to catch up on
merry christ/new year..you masses

funny how we get the timmings all wrong
cant half tell this is satans..[athiestic]..realm

i guess i should read what chrys wrote...first
anyhow...peace and goodwill to all

we all got feet of clay eh?

anyhow i have read most of your post chrys
and agree with much of it

see how creed has gotten it all wrong

i loved youur parrable..of the comercialisation of the xmass
by churches..with plenty of tithe money

im yet to read the comments
but will add in my starting point

see nativity scences..ARNT supposed to have a baby jesus
in it..till after he has actually been born...[and yes i agree he wasnt born...dec 25...[i think he was born at pass-over..the logical time for a census]

and he died at the same timming..[exodus]
[i think they link up]

but me being me

took the card topic..that had run its course
and added baby jesus to the card-crib...on xmass/night

actually put UP the xmass tree...the same time
and im keeping it up till exodus

im having certain troubles of course
wether to lop/chop off the tip

and other stuff...
but if your free..id like your feedback
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4184&page=0

all opinion appriciated..[im especially looking for a way to put pictures into the xmass card topic..[actually put xmass cards into the xmass topic]..where we can get others to copy and paste their best cards/thoughts..into a topic greatly missing its best use

anyhow go to read others comments

xmass isnt about jesus..till after xmass
i think thats the big thing we are all missing

these...MONTHS..betwixt..now..and exodus..are symbolical of jesus life

this is the peak time..churches SHOULD be doing THEIR thing

you athiests have had your fun
now lets hear..from those giving back to their messiah

this could be..the big change comming dec 25/1212
when the christ method of dating..heralds in THE NEW YEAR

its high time we got things into some form of logic
ps you can thank grayhams comment..for even finding this topic

i just didnt feel xmass this year
because my thoughts..felt wrong...till i herard from the 3 wiseguys

No, not that one, AndrewFinden.

>>Well, he's a member of the most prominent ancient history department in Australia (Macquarie Uni) so his opinion certainly is more informed than mine.<<

I was referring, as I'm sure you were aware, to the quote from the "Refuting the myth that Jesus never existed" web site that you linked to.

Those sites have as much authority as a wet teaspoon. You would be equally dismissive, I suspect, if I was to point you to www.kkk.com for a valuable opinion on Christian ethics.

"That way is the Christian way - law and order - love of family - love of nation. These are the principles of western Christian civilization. There is a war to destroy these things. Pray that our people see the error of their ways and regain a sense of loyalty. Repent America! Be faithful my fellow believers."

Or, on the other hand, perhaps not. You never can tell these days.

>>Perhaps - but you've missed Dickson's point (and simply dismissing it as 'apologia' doesn't cut the mustard, sorry), that asking for specific references and ignoring the ones you've got is not how it works.<<

I was not asking for specific references. I was simply noting that they did not exist.

Nor did I ignore those available. Merely pointing out that there is no mention in them, anywhere, of the three dozen supposed miracles that apparently underpin Jesus' authority in the eyes of Christian believers.

"Occasionally people ask why there is no record of Jesus in Roman records. The answer is that there are no surviving Roman records but only highly parochial Roman historians who had little interest in the comings and goings of minor cults and were far more concerned about Emperors and Kings. Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive and there was no reason for Roman historians to notice him."

Is the proposition "that there are no surviving Roman records" an absolute one for all Roman records, or just in relation to the proposition that "there are no surviving Roman records" about Jesus?

The reference to "only highly parochial Roman historians" seems to be deflection.

As far as "Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive" - that suggests what he did does not match the claims of what he did - claims I have made in previous post on this thread that have not been addressed (eg the post-resurrection period and events).

It is interesting that John Dickson has also proposed the canonical gospels are 4 separate biographies, which denies their common source and the fact they allegedly only record the last there years of Jesus' life, and virtually nothing of his earlier life.

“Which gets bandied around so often that Einstein…” (AJP)

No one claimed that Einstein believed in a personal God, he wasn’t an atheist.

When asked directly if he believed in God, Einstein always insisted he did, and explained it once this way:

“We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books...The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books... That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”
http://www.time.com/time/2007/einstein/16.html

The link “Origin of the Universe” is to dispel the myth of the atheist that being a scientist leads to atheism.

“…god isn’t actually a good explanation due the violation of Occam’s razor”(AJP)

Wrong again of AJP to appeal to Occam’s razor

“Occam’s razor cannot help toward a rational decision between competing explanations of the same empirical facts. One problem in formulating an explicit general principle is that complexity and simplicity are perspective notions whose meaning depends on the context of application and the user’s prior understanding. In the absence of an objective criterion for simplicity and complexity, Occam’s razor itself does not support an objective epistemology.”

The burden of proof is on AJ Philips to show that the person of Jesus Christ is a myth.

Consider the following proposition by Jesus Christ before he was crucified.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations.(Matthew 24:14)

Jesus was killed and had 11 uneducated disciples. What are the chances of the gospel being preached in all the world when all they had was promise of the Spirit? They are allowed only to use love and no violence or armed struggle.

Today there are an estimated 2 to 3 billion Christians found in all parts of the world. The proposition by Jesus is indeed true. It is difficult to explain away the amount of evidence.

@Pericles

My apologies - I did not read the quote carefully enough to realise you were referring to Hannam and not Dickson (though they do argue the same points).In any case, comparing his site to the KKK and then posting completely irrelevant quotes from the KKK which say nothing like what Hannam says (he's not even American!) is absolutely spurious. Come on, play the argument.

>"I was not asking for specific references. I was simply noting that they did not exist. "

yes, and implying that such non-existence was an argument against historicity, which Dickson argues is a false methodology.

>"Nor did I ignore those available. Merely pointing out that there is no mention in them, anywhere, of the three dozen supposed miracles that apparently underpin Jesus' authority in the eyes of Christian believers."

In saying that there's no mention of miracles in the sources available simply falsely excludes the canonical sources. See the interview with Prof. Hagner that I posted. In any case, the issue here is not about miracles, it's about historicity of a person, and the non-canonical sources do attest to that.

@McReal
>"Is the proposition "that there are no surviving Roman records" an absolute one for all Roman records, or just in relation to the proposition that "there are no surviving Roman records" about Jesus?"

Dickson also points out:
"No doubt there were ‘many missives’ between Palestine and Rome during the governorship of Pontius Pilate (AD 26-36) but, as I pointed out in my response to his article, if Gaffney has found one, there are thousands of historians waiting to read it! The reality is, not one such document has survived.

But leaving aside Gaffney’s gaffs, even if we did possess some correspondence between Jerusalem and Rome during this period, should we expect to find a mention of Jesus in them? Perhaps. History does sometimes throw up unpredictably detailed information, as the letter of Dionysius illustrates. But history is rarely obedient to expectations. I suspect that even if we were to find a batch of letters between Pilate and Tiberius for the very year of Jesus’ death (AD 30), historians would not expect to find mention of him. There were thousands of Jewish trouble-makers in this period, and thousands of executions too; the chance of any one of them appearing in such randomly discovered correspondence is very small."
http://www.publicchristianity.com/jesusevidence2.html

>"The reference to "only highly parochial Roman historians" seems to be deflection."

No - it's simply pointing out that the claim that there were heaps of historians who should have written about him is inaccurate.

Cont...

Cont...
>"As far as "Jesus made a very small splash while he was alive" - that suggests what he did does not match the claims of what he did - claims I have made in previous post on this thread that have not been addressed (eg the post-resurrection period and events)."

You you seem to be confused between talking about the claims about him and talking about his historicity. I think that is somewhat telling - one really wonders if your refusal to accept the evidence that nearly all historians find sufficient is because you don't like the claim about him. But while they are related, the two are not the same issue.

Saying that he made a small splash in terms of the issues that ancient historians were interested in is not to say that his claims must be false, either, or that we don't know about the unlikely birth of the church, for example.

Which claims do you feel have not been addressed?

>"It is interesting that John Dickson has also proposed the canonical gospels are 4 separate biographies, which denies their common source and the fact they allegedly only record the last there years of Jesus' life, and virtually nothing of his earlier life."

He does? Where?

The common source is only partial btw, and what does it matter that they deal predominantly with his ministry? Let's not anachronistically read what we might expect in a modern biography onto the texts (I would argue that the gospels are quasi-biographies. Edwin Judge argues that they are actually a unique kind of literature in the ancient world - though that is not to say they are reliable; indeed, he argues that the gospel writers in fact began the trend towards the modern historical method, showing very strong signs of having done their research)

Thanks Chrys, for your well written article.

You have helped to confirm what I always thought was the atheist's problem: when their heart overflows with thankfulness, they don't know who to thank.

Depends how you look at it, AndrewFinden.

>>In any case, comparing his site to the KKK and then posting completely irrelevant quotes from the KKK which say nothing like what Hannam says (he's not even American!) is absolutely spurious.<<

The site you led me to was - I am sure you will be the first to admit - solely intended as an information source for people who are already devout Christians, intent upon "refuting the myth that Jesus never existed". It contains nothing of any significant weight, certainly insufficient to persuade even the most gullible non-believer.

My reference to the KKK site was in the same spirit: unlikely, I would have thought, to recruit new members. But a source of reinforcement for existing believers.

You yourself provided the reason for the fragility of your site's evidence.

>>In saying that there's no mention of miracles in the sources available simply falsely excludes the canonical sources.<<

That's pretty circular, isn't it. If you believe that the "canonical sources" have any validity, then they have indeed been "falsely excluded". To anyone looking for any form of corroboration of the material in the "canonical sources, it is meaningless.

>>In any case, the issue here is not about miracles, it's about historicity of a person, and the non-canonical sources do attest to that.<<

Surely the issue is the totality of Jesus' life, not just the possibility that he may have existed, since it is the rationale behind an entire religion.

If you were to subtract the miracles from the man, what exactly are you left with?

Religiously speaking, that is.

it is sad pericules you need resort to this

<<'If you were to subtract the miracles..from the man,
what exactly..are you left with?>>

we indeed are left with plenty..of wisdoms
wether or not written by the actual messengers
or wether its some collected work of thomas bacon

collectivly there is much wisdom
just in not casting pearl before swine

or casting seed on stoney ground...
or ammoung the dross[thorns]..

where it gets smotherd and dies
there is more collectiove wisdopm ..in the new testiment..that the old

just the serman on the mount..contains more than this topic

shame shame per-ridicules..
leave the children have their faith
whats it to you..?

they largly arnt hurting anyone[except the blairs/busches of the world..]

often only fooling only themselves...
or others even dumber than themselves

[and who is to say..that they believe wrong]
i gave up judging foolish things
let the children play

some need miracles
cant see how drinking blood
and eating flesh..isnt what christ died for

but its better than them
blowing others into their early graves

by our works..are we revealed..not our words

@Pericles
>"The site you led me to was - I am sure you will be the first to admit - solely intended as an information source for people who are already devout Christians, intent upon "refuting the myth that Jesus never existed". It contains nothing of any significant weight, certainly insufficient to persuade even the most gullible non-believer."
- No, I do not agree that it was written for such an audience, that is an unwarranted assumption. It was certainly written to refute the Jesus Myth theory but that does not mean it was written for 'already devout Christians' anymore than an article refuting YEC is written for 'already devout Darwinists'.
You may very well find the arguments presented unpersuasive, but is very telling indeed that you seem to assume that anyone who accepts the existence of Jesus is simply gullible.

>"My reference to the KKK site was in the same spirit: unlikely, I would have thought, to recruit new members. But a source of reinforcement for existing believers."
- It remains just as spurious to avoid dealing with the actual arguments and falsely writing them off as propaganda. It is a kind of ad hominem fallacy. Again, if you don't find the argument persuasive, fine - just deal with the argument itself.

cont...

Cont..

>"That's pretty circular, isn't it. If you believe that the "canonical sources" have any validity, then they have indeed been "falsely excluded"."
- No, it's not circular - it's a valid logical progression, as you yourself point out! It's not just my belief that they have validity, nearly all scholars, even the non-miracle believing ones treat the documents as though they have a valid historical core (because they do). To disregard them entirely because they contain things that don't gel with your philosophical assumptions is circular. For the sake of establishing the historicity of Jesus, they are more than sufficient and corroborated by non-canonical sources (that they are 'canonical' is actually irrelevant). So your statement is right - if they are valid sources, then you are falsely excluding them; it just so happens that historians do think they are valid sources thus, according to mainstream scholarship you are falsely excluding them. The onus is on you to show why they should be completely disregarded (in a manner which you can consistently apply to other ancient documents as well).

>"Surely the issue is the totality of Jesus' life, not just the possibility that he may have existed, since it is the rationale behind an entire religion. "

The debate here is purely about the existence of Jesus - it grew out of a fairly off-handed and neutral comment in the original post. We might well go on to talk about the supernatural claims (though I have no desire to at this point) but the issue at present, and which must first be established for further discussion is his existence. I think your comment here actually betrays the kind of prejudice that I think underpins most of the scepticism regarding Jesus' very existence: the real issue is supernatural claims that go against philosophically naturalist assumptions. Most historians manage to separate the two issues, however.

@Pericles

Interestingly, I just noticed this article pop up on Twitter: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/12/the-scientist-pope-who-lit-up-the-dark-ages.html - it has nothing to do with the topic except that I thought it very interesting to see the same writer (James Hannam) writing for New Scientist.. when was the last time you saw a KKK propaganda merchant doing that? ;)

Yes Dan, very pithy, almost makes sense.

Now, all those with things to very specifically not be thankful for, their comments can go to the *same* address, no?

Can't have your cake and eat it too you know. Or is your "god" like a public servant, not really responsible, just hitching a ride on the odd good thing not causally of their doing?

Athiests don't need to make up an imaginary daddy. That's all.

Rusty.

Rusty writes

'Athiests don't need to make up an imaginary daddy. That's all.'

No they just have to make up silly little chance stories to deny the obvious.

Thank you runner for demonstrating once more how ignorant biblical literalists deliberately appear to be.

Your parody of the ignorant creationist is so good, christianity needs no other detractors.

Rusty

Not necessarily an assumption, AndrewFinden.

>>No, I do not agree that it was written for such an audience, that is an unwarranted assumption<<

More an opinion.

But I suggest that - leaving aside the KKK analogy for a moment - it would be pretty pointless for a "Darwinist" to use a site such as this one...

http://www.earthexplained.com/

...as evidence against Young Earth Creationism:

Which was the only point I was making with the KKK reference anyway. One believer quoting another believer is simply wallpaper, not argument.

>>The onus is on you to show why ["canonical sources"] should be completely disregarded<<

I am not for a moment suggesting that they should be completely disregarded. They are after all historical artefacts, which also tell a story about the state of mind of the people who wrote them.

The only question that I raised about them was that their core content, describing the life and times of Jesus, contains material that is nowhere else corroborated.

Call it self-referential, if you prefer, since you dislike the concept of circularity.

Incidentally, I loved the throwaway line at the end of Hannan's site:

"In the end, if Jesus did not exist, it makes Christianity a much more incredible phenomena [sic] than if he did."

That's a pretty solid each-way bet, right there!

Clearly, he hasn't done a great deal of research into the manner in which cults are formed.

Also, interestingly, he could have made the identical observation about Islam.

perridiclues..quote..<<One believer
quoting another believer
is simply wallpaper, not argument.>>

thats why i use science quotes to rebut evolution..of genus

evolution is RESTRICTED..within species
thus darewin..wrote evolution of species..[ie within species]
not evolution of NEW genus...as in no ape..into man

only finches into OTHER finches
seagulls into other seagulls
fruitflies into fruitflies
pigeons into pigeons

life only..comes from life
each AFTER THEIR OWN KIND

2 trillion fruitfly breedings
have produced..ONLY FRUITFLIES

the gap theory..is validated by the evidence
[there are less than ten..so called 'gap'..species..between genus

and none can be proved

the so called tre of life
is fraud...seems many same appearances..have differnt mutation paths

go lok at the tree of life
it has three guess'es..not proofs

the lie of matter forming life is also fraud
no combination of bits can ..nor has made life
its a theory..not a science

just the theory of mendalic inheitance
rebuts evolution of new genus..out of any species

the science dont say
what the math reveals fraud

however it was done
god alone knows

give ya proof

if you got science...specificlly state the first life
how it formed..and what it..'evolved'..into

AndrewFinden

Your repeated charges of ad hominem and spurious are tiresome, and laughable as you do the same.

You do not address the issues; you just appeal to authority.

I re-assert that there is scant non-biblical evidence for Jesus, and assert your claims of plenty of extra-biblical corroboration are unfounded, especially as the only extra-biblical mentions are about a century late, and even then are mostly just references to followers or what they said.

@Pericles
>"One believer quoting another believer is simply wallpaper, not argument."
-That's still ad hominem. It is an argument (the mainstream one actually) Just deal with it.

>"The only question that I raised about them was that their core content, describing the life and times of Jesus, contains material that is nowhere else corroborated. "
- That's still a case of asking for 'one more'. There are, at very minimum, three sources agreeing on the core material. Further, there are several more which corroborate existence, which is the issue here.

>"Call it self-referential, if you prefer, since you dislike the concept of circularity."
- It could only be self-referential if it was a single source, but it's not. That they were later collected into a single volume does not mean they are not still independent, separate sources. My point remains - even within the later-called 'canonical' sources, there is multiple attestation. And as I said, his existence is certainly corroborated by non-canonical sources too.

>""In the end, if Jesus did not exist, it makes Christianity a much more incredible phenomena [sic] than if he did."

That's a pretty solid each-way bet, right there!"
- I think you've misunderstood it, for it is exactly what I've been arguing (and what that mainstream view is): there is no explanation of the church without an historical Jesus that has any credibility.

>"Clearly, he hasn't done a great deal of research into the manner in which cults are formed. "
-Seeing as it's the mainstream view, you are in effect arguing that the mainstream historical scholarship hasn't done its research, which is a pretty big call to make. In any case, most cults, and certainly ones which develop in the same kind of time frame and with the same kind of unanimity as the early church always have a charismatic figure at the centre as far as I'm aware.

>"Also, interestingly, he could have made the identical observation about Islam."
- no doubt; but how does that help your argument? You're not going to try and argue that Mohammed didn't exist either, are you?

@McReal

Pointing out the scholarly consensus is not a fallacious appeal to authority. It could be wrong, but you've yet to show that it is. The burden lies with you to do so. Further, not only have I pointed to the scholarly consensus, I've shown why they hold such.

The core of your argument is:
>"there is scant non-biblical evidence for Jesus"

You falsely assume that the numerous documents within what was later collected together as the NT and Bible are of no historical value. This is simply not how historians deal with it. Within the bible there are at very minimum, three independent documents that attest to Jesus' life and core events like the crucifixion(that they were later collated into the single volume of 'the bible' does not change their independence or value as sources). Further, you've done nothing to discount the consensus acceptance of the non-canonical corroborative references, relying merely on speculation and goal-shifting (pretending that the time-frame is unacceptable) to avoid them. And most of all, you've not offered anything to account for the existence of the early Christian movement, which most historians think is inexplicable without an historical Jesus. So not only is there sufficient textual attestation for Jesus' existence, but there is otherwise inexplicable phenomenon (that is, inexplicable without a great deal of ad hoc which Occam's razor does away with). It is for these reasons that almost no professional historians doubts the existence of Jesus, even if they reject the miracles.

The burden lies with you, and I've seen nothing that comes close to casting doubt on the existence of Jesus. You've ignored or outright dismissed the canonical sources, and I've read your arguments against the non-canonical sources and find them lacking- I'm not going to go around in circles again showing you why. If we don't agree, we don't agree.

If you find the evidence unpersuasive, fine - just be big enough to admit that it has the same kind of scholarly acceptance as things like YEC.

good point andrew..

just because the works..[first person witness]..
has been collected into one book..
does not invalidate them..as sepperate proofs

then there are the other testmonies not included in the book
like the johanine aprocrathies...the church rejected..in joining the formal texts into the one book...they each would need to be individually be proved fraud

and no one has..in part of in total
so those who hate religeon..attack that collectivly
that they cant refute individually

also obvious in its not being presented
is my request of preodicules

quote..<<give ya proof

if you got science...>>
make specific science based claim...

<<specificlly state..
the first life
how it formed..
and what it..'evolved'..into>>

thing is science..*dont know
but it has theories

the whole lie of evolution..
into new genus..is fraud

simply speaking

science has never done it
never..reported it having been done

has no clue how god done it

cant say what first abio-genus...formed life..by accident
nor name the non living bits that they claim...done it
cant replicate it...dont know

but gfools..claiming science minds
delude they have...but this is their delusion

athiestic disbelief stands on phantom foundations
colluded frauds...and gross misrepresentations
a classic case of the blind..leading the blind

evolution...lol..the science...that you got
when you got facts
that dont fit the theory

thats why its taught to children..
before they learn to think..

its so pathetic
the silence speaks volumes

The core of your argument is: "there is scant non-biblical evidence for Jesus."

We agree on that!
...........................

"you've done nothing to discount the consensus acceptance of the non-canonical corroborative references, relying merely on speculation and goal-shifting (pretending that the time-frame is unacceptable) to avoid them."

I said -
Virtually all references in contemporary historians (Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Tacticus, Suetonius) were

(i) to "Chrestus", "Christus", "Christos" (or other such names meaning at the time 'anointed one', or 'useful' as was often applied to servants or slaves)*, or

(ii) to his followers - often called "Christianos" (Tacticus).

(iii) That Josephus mentions Jesus does not point to his existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

.......................

"I've seen nothing that comes close to casting doubt on the existence of Jesus"

I provided this link - http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm - and it would be appropriate for you to comment on its content, and perhaps these

R. T. France concludes that the Tacitus passage is at best just Tacitus repeating what he has heard through Christians. Charles Guignebert argued "So long as there is that possibility [that Tacitus is merely echoing what Christians themselves were saying], the passage remains quite worthless".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Tacitus

Rhian said "I accept that there are scholars who doubt Jesus' historical existence" (Saturday, 18 December 2010 11:27:44 AM)
.........................

"If you find the evidence unpersuasive, fine - just be big enough to admit that it has the same kind of scholarly acceptance as things like YEC."

Are you saying YEC has scholarly acceptance?
.......................

"Within the bible there are at very minimum, three independent documents that attest to Jesus' life and core events like the crucifixion"

You must know the 2-source hypothesis is the most accepted - Matthew & Luke were derived from Mark and Q; or, Mark and Luke were derived from Matthew and Q.

Moreover, the end of Mark - most of the references to the crucifiction in it - were later additions: they were not on Codex Sinaiticus, either.

>> The core of your argument is: "there is scant non-biblical evidence for Jesus."

We agree on that! <<

i.e. we agree what my argument is, not that we agree on that point.

get real macreal

quote..<<R. T. France concludes
that the Tacitus passage is at best just Tacitus repeating what he has heard through Christians.>>lol

ie figments of his imagination

fairies at the bottom of the garden?

who are these crhistians..real of not real

if not real
who imagined THEM...lol

<<Charles Guignebert argued>>..cos he loved to argue

but if he argued that there was no christ
where from did come..them christians tacitus quoted
[his imagenry xtians?]

cg argued..<<"So long as there is that possibility
[that Tacitus is merely echoing what Christians themselves were saying],..the passage remains quite worthless".>>.

mate thats unreal mc real
you cant be as thick as your sounding

let me explain
by changing names

as long as pericules..is mearly echoing
that charles darwin was saying

what he is quoting..is as worthless as your quotes

im fine with you decieving yourself
but what your saying is crazy...like some say on this forum

take ya meds
get real
mcreal

Greetings all. I am back refreshed from a break away from technology. I have a couple of outstanding responses to offer.

Pericles : re encounter: Paul v the disciples in the upper room. Read again my post 20th Dec 3.27PM The Resurrection is not a resuscitation.

A.J.Philips: re the workings of faith and reason.
This is a particular area of erudition exercised by Pope Benedict XVI and flowing from his vast theological works and observations of the world as we know it, in particular addressing the growing irrationality of social and political behaviour in the liberal West.
His initial reference point is the Prologue of St John’s Gospel, which in my view is one of the finest pieces of literature that exists-: In the beginning was the Word [Logos]. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through Him, and without Him nothing came to be. What came to be through Him was life, and this life was the light of the human race. (John 1:1-4). And, of course, the Word became flesh in Jesus Christ – the Incarnation.
Benedict asserts that Christianity is the religion of the Logos, with Logos in Greek philosophy being the rational origin of all reality – the creative reason from which the world came forth and which is reflected in the world.

Reason is within nature – the intelligibility of the universe – which makes the universe and nature apprehendable to the human intellect and thus legitimate objects of study. This endowment of reason from the Creator God provides the ends and purpose of the whole of creation from a Big Bang willed into being.

Benedict places this rich reasonableness of the revealed truths of the Creator God in stark contrast to the harsh cold irrationality in the consequences flowing from the Secularist ( Note: not secular) social, economic and political movements that locate reason as a by-product of a Big Bang that lacks the Logos and thus devoid of an intrinsic purpose and ends within an intelligible universe...(Cont..)

Faith conjoined with reason proceeding from the Logos seeks truth, desires the good and delights in beauty. It meets reason beyond the measurable, the finite and the repeatable.

The pathologies of faith and reason that materialise as untruth, evil and ugliness to diminish the human, require restraint from the other.

Faith in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God the Risen Lord, causes offence to reason which is simply the by-product of an irrational event. However, within the understanding of the Logos, such faith sets the path of life with new horizons and direction for those who have knocked, sought or asked, at whatever time in life.

A fine book on this is The Social and Political Thought of Benedict XVI by Thomas R. Rourke – Professor of Politics at Clarion University USA. I conclude with a quote:

“ If the Logos is rejected, then reason and truth are rejected as well. In other words, if the foundation of reality is an explosion of occurring for no particular purpose or end in mind, then reason itself is no more than a mere by-product of this essentially irrational event. In such a universe, primacy goes to the irrational event that is the foundation of all, and reason would have no ultimate basis. For this reason Benedict believes that Christianity is a philosophic power that needs renewal. Ultimately, there are two choices here, one of which is that the universe proceeds from an irrational source, making reason a by-product…… or the world proceeds from reason [Logos] …… For Benedict this is the only choice that preserves reason’s exalted position, and clearly Christianity provides the firm foundation for this fundamental position.”
Page34 Chp3 : Revelation, Reason and Politics.

You have a very odd understanding of "ad hominem", AndrewFinden.

>>@Pericles "One believer quoting another believer is simply wallpaper, not argument." - That's still ad hominem. It is an argument (the mainstream one actually) Just deal with it.<<

Can't see much "playing the man, not the ball" in that observation of mine.

Nevertheless, to assert that the reference of one believer to another believer is actually "the mainstream argument" is suspiciously glib.

If I were to write a treatise on the social structure of Sydney in the late nineteenth century that was full of unexplained theories and logical lacunae, it would probably disappear without trace.

Then, however, I had the idea that I should get a bunch of like-minded chancers to copy out my ideas, and publish those in their own name.

Could I, in all reasonableness, claim that this somehow proved my theories to be accurate and correct?

I suspect not. You would be entirely justified in pointing out that, even though a number of people had written much the same stuff, no historian independent of my cabal had made the same observations, or drawn the same conclusions.

>>My point remains - even within the later-called 'canonical' sources, there is multiple attestation.<<

My point remains, too. Were they disinterested parties, or just members of the same team? Multiple attestation is one thing. External, third-party corroboration entirely another.

>>...there is no explanation of the church without an historical Jesus that has any credibility.<<

I still ask the question: is there an explanation of the church that doesn't require as its foundation the miracles that Jesus' promoters insist that he performed?

>>You're not going to try and argue that Mohammed didn't exist either, are you?<<

Not at all. As I have pointed out earlier, it is not the existence or non-existence of the person that is relevant, but whether he actually did what he is purported to have done.

It is kinda critical to the Mormons, for example, that they believe the story about Moroni and the golden plates. The fact of Joseph Smith's existence is entirely peripheral.

That's not a "response", boxgum.

>>I have a couple of outstanding responses to offer. Pericles : re encounter: Paul v the disciples in the upper room. Read again my post 20th Dec 3.27PM The Resurrection is not a resuscitation.<<

That doesn't clarify anything.

Did the disciples actually converse with a corporeal Jesus? Or was it, like Paul, an "encounter" within their own minds?

The reason I asked in the first place should have been obvious. "Resurrection from the dead" forms some kind of cornerstone to the Jesus story, does it not. It focuses on the concept that "God sent his only son to die for our sins".

If that person was actually a real, live person, then being raised from the dead would be, I suggest, extraordinarily potent symbolism.

If, on the other hand, the resurrection exists only in the minds of his followers, unsupported by the physical manifestation of "was dead, now not dead" Jesus, then we can open our minds to any number of alternate explanations for the report.

You make the exact point yourself. At least, I think you do.

>>Faith in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God the Risen Lord, causes offence to reason which is simply the by-product of an irrational event.<<

This is another way of saying "if you believe in the miracles, which are essentially irrational events, then you are in a good position to have faith in "the Risen Lord".

But it is possible that I have misinterpreted your sentence. It doesn't parse particularly well, after all.

perridicule..quote..<<Multiple attestation is one thing.
External, third-party corroboration entirely another.>>

per...think of this written conversation..[at this topic]
as if..a verbal conversation..at say a party

the 20 people who posted here
[lets pretend..they all read the same..[full]..conversation

if we were to each describe...the events
....we would each be talking about our witness..
only because..we..were here

we alone..who witnessed..this topic

it would be absurd..to ask for those not there
to have any thought regarding..what went down...here

your upset..about the so-called miracles
as am i...i have many times said the miracles..have other teachings
[just as jesus himself decried the need for miracles]

take the wedding at cana
the wine ran out...jesus says its nothing to do with me

he went further...he said i couldnt care less if you served the[your guests]..that water from the handwash jars

now handwashing was a ritual
jesus himself said its not what we put in
that makes us unclean..but that which issues forth from us

see jesus saying serve them
from the handwash-jars for what it is
the equivelent of saying..serve them from the toilet

and who would serve honoyured guests...even the best whine..[from a toilet]..the thing is he adressed servants...[servants only have the standing their master has]

being the servant of a master serving best wine..from a toilet
mate..better to risk the masters wrath,...[and serve his best wine..than become known as toliet water servant]

jesus deciples...didnt follow the rite
as revealed by the shew bread episiode

but for now lets go back to the 'miracle'..of feeding 4000/5000
who had no handwashing jars...yet feeding them all they wanted

note the seating arrangment..sitting oppisite each other
each watching the other..to dob in any who didnt obey the handwash RITUAL

jesus had much to say about futile rituals
and the feeding..og thoyusands is a key teaching many miss..the real meaning of

even with..''THE MESSIAH'..there
they could-not..even break the handwash RITUAL
did eat all they desired..because they desired ritual..not food

its the same with healing lepers...or those called..[deemed]..dead by the church...

oh ye unbelieving nations
needing miracles...not seeing the mess-age..for the rite

@McReal
I'm glad that I summarise the core of your argument correctly. But it's a toothless argument with a huge unwarrented assumption at the core, as I pointed out.

To your three points:
i) How is this even in your favour? you're basically agreeing that many of the references were to Christos/Christus which is the greek word for Messiah (meaning anointed) from which we get 'Christ'. A few spelling errors do disregard all that is a pretty weak argument.

ii)The particular misspelling in Tacitus is moot, because in the same paragraph he makes it clear that he is talking about Jesus and his followers.

iii) Yes, it does. It is an attestation - unless you wish to simply pick and chooses which of Josephus' attestations we can accept about other people and events. Your link doesn't even back up your argument.

In regards to you religioustolerance link - I don't have the space here to respond to it in any detail (I may write a blog response and post the link here) but not only does he not actually make any clear link between the data and his 'personal hunch' conclusion, his only references appear to be the 3 or 4 Jesus-mythers like Price and Wells (he quote Bertrand Russell as an authority on this issue?!) who certainly don't represent the mainstream scholarship and on the other hand, Josh McDowell. It is not very convincing.

On your RT France quote. Well - the historicity of Jesus doesn't hinge on Tacitus' reference. In any case, even though he doesn't accept the Tracitus reference as supportive, RT France was one of the few respected scholars to actually bother with refuting the Jesus-Myth theory. He would very much argue against your position that there is not enough evidence.

cont...

cont...

Re: my YEC comment - No, I am not saying YEC has scholarly acceptance, which is my point! While there may be a handful of scientists who advocate YEC, it has no real traction in the mainstream. The same can be said of Jesus-myth: there is a handful of scholars like the ones your essay references, but there is no real traction for the theory in mainstream historical scholarship.

Yes I know there is markian and Q priority (though not all of Matthew and Luke are from here) which is why I said at minimum 3 sources: Mark, John and Paul. 'Teams' have nothing to do with it. Either they relied on eacother as sources, or they didn't - and we have at least 3 writers who didn't rely on eachother and are thus independent attestation. Mark's ending doesn't effect the attestation of Jesus' existence.

So we have Mark, John, Paul as the minimum canonical sources, and Josephus plus whatever other Jewish and Greek references we might argue about - and absolutely NO competing claim. Further, the extant reference to hostile Jewish polemic implicitly corroborates his existence. Then there is the church. There is simply no reason to think that the guy at the centre of this movement never existed (unless you don't want him to!) whether you think he did miracles or not.

If there was no real Jesus, where's the evidence for development of the myth?! Where is the internal conflict as the myth developed? Why didn't any of the enemies point out the non-existence of the central figure?

Seeing as you like RT France:
"In the case of Luke, then, his claim is to be a careful historian who has researched his subject and can now offer the 'truth', and while the case is not entirely one-sided, there seems good reason to believe that his performance, where it can be checked, generally matches his claim. There may be room for debate over details of the information he offers, but there seems little ground for viewing his account of Jesus as substantially at variance with the facts."

@Pericles:
Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
I won't waste anymore time pointing out how ignoring an argument because it's 'wallpaper' by 'believers' is ad hominem. If you want to ignore the arguments by RT France and Van Voorst that Christopher Price references, and if you want to ignore Dickson's arguments, go ahead.

>"My point remains, too. Were they disinterested parties, or just members of the same team? Multiple attestation is one thing. External, third-party corroboration entirely another."

No it doesn't - see my previous reply to McReal on the non-issue of 'teams'. The idea of a 'disinterested' ancient historian is the real myth here.
At very minimum you have four independent sources: Mark, John, Paul and Josephus (though I would argue for more). Considering that there is no competing account, no sources arguing against existence, this is well and truly sufficient to establish historicity, especially when the historical phenomenon of the Christian movement is considered - whether you accept the miracles or not.

>"I still ask the question: is there an explanation of the church that doesn't require as its foundation the miracles that Jesus' promoters insist that he performed?"
- Apart from imposing naturalist philosophical assumptions, it's an irrelevant question. The question that historians ask, even those who are naturalist, is whether the church can be explained without the actual person of Jesus (miracles or not) and the overwhelming answer is 'no'.

>"Not at all. As I have pointed out earlier, it is not the existence or non-existence of the person that is relevant, but whether he actually did what he is purported to have done."
-Then I'm afraid you're in the wrong debate: for this is a discussion about the historicity of Jesus - did he exist or not. Talking about his claims is a related but different discussion, one we can't even begin to have until this one is had. Rejecting his existence based on his claims is fallacious.

His historicity is not dependant on whether he did miracles or not.

@McReal

Here.. many of these links deal with the points raised and authors referenced on your religioustolerance link:

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexisthub.html
http://www.tektonics.org/copycathub.html
http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesus/advanced/did-jesus-exist.htm
http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesus/intermediate/the-christ-conspiracy.htm

Or check out these interviews with the eminent Australian classicist Edwin Judge: http://www.publicchristianity.com/judgevids.html

One more quote (as you seem to like them) this time from non-believer, Bart Ehrman:

"Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Jesus_as_myth

I think I'm done with this actually. I've not seen any good arguments to doubt the existence of Jesus. You admit that your argument boils down to ignoring the most important attestations, which is completely flawed, and your rejection of the non-canonical sources seems to rely mostly on quote mining. If the arguments of Wells and Co. and radical fringe convince you - good for you. They do not convince the mainstream, and they don't convince me.

(If I don't reply anymore, it is because I have stopped subscribing to the comments - I really do think we've been over everything already, don't you?)

My goodness, how do wriggle and squirm AndrewFinden.

>>I won't waste anymore time pointing out how ignoring an argument because it's 'wallpaper' by 'believers' is ad hominem.<<

I should remind you that all of your quoted sources provide evidence that is wholly circumstantial.

Dickson even indulges in a form of speculation that looks suspiciously like a red herring.

"I suspect that even if we were to find a batch of letters between Pilate and Tiberius for the very year of Jesus’ death (AD 30), historians would not expect to find mention of him."

Absence of proof is of course simply that: absence of proof.

Speculating that the absence is somehow to be expected, is a two-edged sword, however. It puts into even greater relief the presence of a bunch of accounts that rely totally upon each other for their credibility.

That's akin to your own attempt at sleight-of-hand:

>>The idea of a 'disinterested' ancient historian is the real myth here.<<

Not all sources need to be "ancient historians".

I'm simply noting the absence of any disinterested individual, whether ancient historian or simply a reporter of current events. Someone who does not have a motive for perpetuating and promulgating stories that very much suit their own unique purpose.

>>At very minimum you have four independent sources: Mark, John, Paul and Josephus<<

These are not in any universe "independent" sources, I'm afraid.

John is most revelatory in this respect. Clearly, he had access to the earlier material, and saw the need to transform it into something far more aggressive in its messianic message. Hence the "upgrade" of the miracles - including, for the first and only time, Lazarus - to a new, and totally incredible, level.

>>His historicity is not dependant on whether he did miracles or not.<<

You keep saying this, but I'm not so sure.

If it had not been for the miracles, his historicity would be entirely irrelevant, and not even worth a minute's discussion.

"There was this guy, Jesus"

"Oh yes. What did he do?"

"Nothing much"

"Oh."

AndrewFinden

1. The issue is not the spellings, and I do not contend there are errors. The varied spellings are likely to mean varied references and meanings, including the historical existence of around 200 Latin inscriptions with the name Chrestos - many of them were to slaves or ex-slaves.

2. Again mispelling is not an issue - he is talking about the followers of chritianity, not necesarily the source of it - i.e he doe not refer to Jesus directly.

3. Yes Jospehus is an attestation, but it is a vague one, especially given Origen's concerns a couple of centuries later that Josephus did not consider the Jesus in the sotry the Christ.

The issue with the religioustolerance link is not the authors conclusions, but the summary of the scant extra-biblcial references to Jesus as the Christ, including the point that Tacticus (and others) were just mentioning the believers, not the source of their belief.

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/lucian.html - "" Jesus is not mentioned by name in these citations"

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/serapion.html - "This reference to Jesus is not particularly valuable"

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/pliny.html - "Pliny's knowledge of Christianity was "largely second-hand"

@McReal
If your argument stands on the Tacitus reference, then I'm afraid it's incredibly weak.
You seem to have a think for pulling out quotes that appear to support your position, and ignoring everything that argues against it - as you did with the RT France quote and quite disingenuously in the last reply. Let me show what you quoted and then what was actually written:

>"Jesus is not mentioned by name in these citations"
-vs: "Obviously Jesus is not mentioned by name in these citations, but there is no doubt that it is Jesus to whom Lucian is referring here. No one else was ever worshipped by the Christians!"

>"Pliny's knowledge of Christianity was "largely second-hand"
- This is a particularly bad misquotation, because, as anyone who reads the actual article will see, the author has the word 'although' in front of that sentence, and spends several paragraphs explaining why Pliny is never-the-less a reliable source. Unfortunately I don't have the word space here to quote it - it's after the second bold heading.

Hmm... A little different from what you implied!

In using the term 'scant' you acknowledge that there is some non-canonical corroboration. In any case, you still seem to simply dismiss the canonical attestation, which is simply unwarranted.
We could go around in circles about the non-canonical sources and their value all day, but that still ignores the major flaw in your argument, which is that you simply ignore the canonical sources.

Quite simply, I find your argument to be based on a massive false assumption and thus - there's 'scant' reason to find it persuasive - and indeed why the number of historians who do find it persuasive also rather 'scant'. But thank-you for putting it forward so we could discuss it. With your penchant for quote mining, I'm inclined to think that our discussion has run its course.

@Pericles

>"I should remind you that all of your quoted sources provide evidence that is wholly circumstantial. "
- I should remind you that we're doing ancient history. And it's a bit rich, considering the arguments used to support the Jesus-Myth theories are generally nothing more than arguments from silence and misappropriation of terminology!

>"Dickson even indulges in a form of speculation that looks suspiciously like a red herring.

"I suspect that even if we were to find a batch of letters between Pilate and Tiberius for the very year of Jesus’ death (AD 30), historians would not expect to find mention of him."

Absence of proof is of course simply that: absence of proof."
- Yes, that is indeed Dickson's point! Unfortunately for you, the Jesus-Mythers tend to fall into the trap of thinking that a lack of references in particular, pre-defined material is evidence of non existence.
Far from being a red herring, he's arguing directly against the kind of argument you appear to be trying to make!

>"Speculating that the absence is somehow to be expected, is a two-edged sword, however. It puts into even greater relief the presence of a bunch of accounts that rely totally upon each other for their credibility."
- No, that's called corroboration, which is what you asked for: you are admitting that there is, in strong 'relief' such corroboration - except that now you write it off... seems you want to have your cake and eat it.

Cont...

Cont...

>"That's akin to your own attempt at sleight-of-hand:

>>The idea of a 'disinterested' ancient historian is the real myth here.<<

Not all sources need to be "ancient historians".

I'm simply noting the absence of any disinterested individual, whether ancient historian or simply a reporter of current events. Someone who does not have a motive for perpetuating and promulgating stories that very much suit their own unique purpose."
- Don't be so pedantic. Would you prefer if I'd used the term 'ancient source'? In any case, the point remains, that in ancient history, the idea of a disinterested party recording something for posterity doesn't exist. That is an anachronism. We deal with the texts we've got. If we discarded anything except disinterested writers, we'd have virtually no ancient historical texts left. Obviously you didn't watch the video with Prof. Judge on this point.

>"These are not in any universe "independent" sources, I'm afraid."
- I'm afraid you're simply wrong; unless you can demonstrate that Mark relied on Paul's epistles, or that John relied on them, or Josepus? Who relied on who here? Or can you show that they used the same source like Q? No? Then why are they not independent? Because they agree?

What you've written about John's gospel is pure speculation. Scholars like Brown and Barnett would argue that it was written independently from the Synoptics. And obviously Paul's epistles were too.
For much more detail on why the accounts are considered independent sources: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7047

Cont...

Cont...

>"If it had not been for the miracles, his historicity would be entirely irrelevant, and not even worth a minute's discussion."
-Putting aside that being a charismatic teacher and leader and getting executed as a zealot are not miracles, you again betray a great deal here. I agree that if he existed then we must ask if his claims are true, but that is not the current discussion (even if you wish to move it to that). You seem to imply that if the accounts are considered valid attestation of Jesus himself, then they ought to be considered valid attestation of the miracles too (though hardly any historian would agree with that reasoning). So it seems that as you don't appear to allow for the miraculous, the non-miraculous must also be discounted. It seems to me that this is heart of your argument: mircales can't happen, Jesus is only reported becauses of miracles, therfore, he must not have existed.. close? Let's leave all the ad hominem business, and tell me, if the accounts had no miraculous claims, would you still reject their attestation of his existence?
Also, do likewise reject the existence of John the Baptist? Peter and the other 11? James? Paul? Herod? Pontius Pilate?
I'm interested to know who you accept and why.

Could you also please explain why a created myth would contain so much embaressing detail (women discovering the tomb, Peter denying Jesus), and why there is no evidence that anyone tried to deny the existence of Jesus even though the claim was being spread and fought against by the authorities who were said to have crucified him within the lifetimes of those who could have denied it? And yet again, could you please explain how this unlikely movement got off the ground as it did without an actual person?

(I'm really getting frustrated by this comment system.. thinking of taking the discussion to my blog http://wp.me/p156W6-1eFUMo or here http://wp.me/p156W6-1eFUQy if you're up for it?)

A. "If your argument stands on the Tacitus reference"

Of course it doesn't - that was but one example of references just to Christians, as also is the Pliny reference, and I have just given you a couple of others from sources *you* provided.

B. "there is no doubt that it is Jesus to whom Lucian is referring here. No one else was ever worshipped by the Christians!"

Of course, the early Christians worshipped Jesus, and just as likely a fictitious one.

C. In using the term 'scant' I do *not* acknowledge that there is some non-canonical corroboration. By scant, I meant scant.

""you still seem to simply dismiss the canonical attestation, which is simply unwarranted. We could go around in circles about the non-canonical sources and their value all day, but that still ignores the major flaw in your argument, which is that you simply ignore the canonical sources.""

My assertion was just about the non-canonical sources. However, it was interesting to be introduced to the three source theory of Mark Paul, and John, though of course that is not chronological order of those writings.

Pericles : ".. Did the disciples actually converse with a corporeal Jesus? Or was it, like Paul, an "encounter" within their own minds?... If, on the other hand, the resurrection exists only in the minds of his followers, unsupported by the physical manifestation of "was dead, now not dead" Jesus, then we can open our minds to any number of alternate explanations for the report....."

The mystery of the Resurrection is that the presence of the Risen Lord, across generations over millennia, can be as real in the treasure trove of a person's "knowing", in the present, as that of close family and friends who have died. My late wife is in the room with me without entering via locked doors and windows. This appears to be a natural experience in the presence of lasting living love, yet the family memories yield no power or life changing encounters.

The intrinsic reason of the Logos that permeates the created universe provides a logical placement and understanding of the Resurrection to those open to it in faith. Without faith you cannot know the Resurrection, even for believers.

Re your comments on >>Faith in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God the Risen Lord, causes offence to reason which is simply the by-product of an irrational event.... This is another way of saying "if you believe in the miracles, which are essentially irrational events, then you are in a good position to have faith in "the Risen Lord".<<

You are twisting things here a bit. It would have been better worded as ".... causes offence to THAT reason which is simply the by-product of an irrational event being the Big Bang without the Creator God's will to happen....".

AndrewFinden
"Could you also please explain why a created myth would contain so much embarassing detail (women discovering the tomb, Peter denying Jesus), and why there is no evidence that anyone tried to deny the existence of Jesus?"

The detail exists partly because it is collated from a number of sources that actually pre-date the writings attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, and probably pre-date Paul's epistles, too.

Many numerous early Christian stories were alternate edited versions of accounts, including works that were presented as "authentic".

Some were vigorously suppressed and survive only as fragments (especially those "not divinely inspired" eg. the apocryphal gospels). Non-canonical gospels, such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, were widely read.

There was considerable debate over a few hundred years concerning which books to include in a New Testament canon*

McDonald, Lee M. The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995.
Patzia, Arthur. The Making of the New Testament. Downers Grove: IVP, 1995.

""The formation of the New Testament canon (A.D. 100-220)
The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council (1500s).
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

The canonical gospels were decided on popularity as stories, and their relevance to the Old testament prophecies, not as factual accounts. Hence the synoptic problem. The selected stories were mostly elaborate fiction written embellished and collated over a couple of centuries. Hence, the disputes amongst the early Christian sects - Mythracism, Docetism, Montanism, Gnostacism, Marcionism, etc

Moreover, the earliest biblical description of the resurrection appearances of Jesus (Paul's account in Corinthians 15: 3-7; 1Cor) seems to represent a pre-Pauline creedal statement derived from the first Christian community.

According to prevalent Jewish beliefs, Jesus' failure to establish the Kingdom of God, and his death at the hands of the Romans, invalidated any messianic claims. Paula Fredriksen, in "From Jesus to Christ", has suggested that Jesus' impact on his followers was so great that they could not accept this failure. ... some Christians believed that they encountered Jesus after his crucifixion; they argued that he had been resurrected (the belief in the resurrection of the dead in the messianic age was a core Pharisaic doctrine).

According to Daniel Boyarin, in "A Radical Jew", Paul of Tarsus combined the stories of the life of Jesus with Greek philosophy to reinterpret the Hebrew Bible in terms of the Platonic theory of distinction between the ideal (which is real) and the material (which is false).

For those who sleep easily on the pillow of measured or selective truth. Here is an interesting article from the New Yorker.

The decline effect actually being a decline of illusion? Slippery empiricism?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell

You can see the cat respond to the pidgeons and vice versa at:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/the-mysterious-decline-effect/

and

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/the-decline-effect-can-we-demonstrate-anything-in-science/

Here's to truth, always open to be assessed.