Proof that Christianity is False

[santodomingo]

I would refer anyone on here as well to The Jesus Project, The Jesus Seminar, and the two recent books by Tom Harpur, former cleric and long standing religion editor for the Toronto Star.

Despite mostly spurious claims to the contrary, christianism is fundamentally a faith based (read “let’s pretend for grow-ups who stoped actually thinking about this as children”) activity. That means that most christianism, especially Bible based christianism, tends to be self-verifying and not rely on genuinely inclusive scholarly methods, interiorly valid as they might be on their own premises.

So you recommend The Jesus Seminar. If there has ever been a more spurious, unscientific, biased and trashy organization, I haven´t heard of them! The conclusions of the Jesus Seminar are based purely on anti-catholic predjudice. No serious biblical scholar or historian can take them seriously. They gain much media attention and sell lots of books because our culture is deeply anticlerical, and anything heretical sells. However, there is nothing original, interesting or worth reading amongst the Jesus Seminar croud.

 

[santodomingo]

No because there are a lot of other possibilities that are more likely than that this “Jesus” (if he existed) was God.

So you have decided to doubt the very existence of Jesus. Hey, that theory was thrown out of the window about 100 years ago.

Many of the stories about this Jesus could be made up. Consider that people have made up stories about Mohammed and Joseph Smith. People also die for these made up beliefs (as evidenced by Islamic suicide bombers for example).

There is no parallel between the stories about Jesus and the stories about Mohammed and Joseph Smith. Jesus´ miracles, including His Resurrection were witnessed by hundreds of people. People converted in the thousands due to his miracles. We have to take Mohammed´s word for everything that´s in the Coran. As for Joseph Smith, his miracles are so private that it is impossible that anyone could prove or disprove them. What you CANNOT simply dismiss as superstition is thousands of jews converting to christianity after seeing Jesus return from the dead. You need some explanation for that!.

Here is a question for you. Why are there no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus, whereas there are contemporaneous accounts of Caligula (both of whom lived in the same time period). For example, Seneca the Younger lived from 4 BC to 65 AD. So he lived at the same time as Caligula and writes about him. Also, Philo of Alexandria is another contemporaneous source for Caligula. However, we have NO writers who lived at the same time as Jesus, who wrote about Jesus.

There are several references to Jesus by His contempories, Josephus for a start. .

Also, for many of the Roman emperors, we know within reason, the dates they were born. We are reasonably certain that Julius Caesar was born in July of 100 BC.

However, not only do we not know the date Jesus was born, we don’t even know the year. That’s very strange for someone who is supposed to be so important in history.

The comparison with Caligula is hardly fair. Jesus chose to be born in a stable, remember? If He had been born in a palace in Rome, the capital of the civilized world, perhaps things would have been very different. God preferred obscurity, humility

Also, in the gospel accounts, it says that darkness covered the land when Jesus was crucified. Why don’t any other historians write about this? What is more likely, that other writers of the period didn’t notice the darkness covering the land during the daytime, that they didn’t think it was important enough to write about, or that the gospel writers made that story up?

Do you think that “historians” wandered about writing everything down for posterity to read? The notion of History as an academic discipline is a relatively modern one. This darkness could refer to an eclipse, and there were many in Jesus´ lifetime. We know that thanks to astronomy, not history.

Also, why would a god need to send his son down to sacrifice his son to himself, in order to forgive humans of breaking his rules?

There you are straying well away from the topic. Let´s stick to what we can ascertain through logic and historical investigation, and leave out conjecture.

Anyway, none of this proves Christianity false. It’s just very unlikely that Christianity is true.

I already wrote in another post that the “likelihood” of christianity is not the point. The universe is extremely unlikely, yet there it is.

I, and many others have researched history and ancient myths and have concluded that the Jesus story is unlikely to be true based on the evidence. The god described in the Christian bible can’t exist exactly as described in the bible if you apply the principle of non-contradiction in logic. Of course you can get out of that problem by saying that some things in the bible are metaphorical.

 

[Shredderbeam]

santodomingo: Josephus was born in 37 A.D.

 

[elzoog]

I would appreciate it if you test to make sure your quotes are working properly. Because you did not do this, I will have to copy and paste what you say and respond to it.

There is no parallel between the stories about Jesus and the stories about Mohammed and Joseph Smith. Jesus´ miracles, including His Resurrection were witnessed by hundreds of people. People converted in the thousands due to his miracles. We have to take Mohammed´s word for everything that´s in the Coran. As for Joseph Smith, his miracles are so private that it is impossible that anyone could prove or disprove them. What you CANNOT simply dismiss as superstition is thousands of jews converting to christianity after seeing Jesus return from the dead. You need some explanation for that!.

Where are these hundreds of witnesses? All you have are stories which claim that there were hundreds of witnesses, but if there were that many witnesses to such an event, you would expect to see more than just 4 or 5 contradictory stories.

Which brings up another point. The various accounts of the resurrection contradict each other in many details such as how many women went to the tomb, when did they realize that Jesus resurrected (one story says they went to the tomb then went back to Peter and reported the body stolen).

There are several references to Jesus by His contempories, Josephus for a start. .

As someone else pointed out, Josephus wasn’t born until 37 AD which is AFTER Jesus supposedly lived.

Also, the Testimonium Flavianum which mentions Jesus, is considered by most scholars to be a forgery. The first person to cite the passage was Eusebius, who himself was not above presenting fabricated evidence (such as a letter supposedly written by Jesus himself).

The comparison with Caligula is hardly fair. Jesus chose to be born in a stable, remember? If He had been born in a palace in Rome, the capital of the civilized world, perhaps things would have been very different. God preferred obscurity, humility

Yeah, he prefers obscurity which is why he causes dead people to come out of tombs and talk to many people. It’s also why he darkens the sky.

Basically, you are left with the fact that either these events really happened and only a few people considered them significant to write about, or those few people made the stories up.

Let me ask you this. I live in a rural town in Korea called Goryeong. There are in fact, a few famous tombs in the town. If I told you that the people, who have been dead for hundreds of years, came out of those tombs and started talking to many people in the town, wouldn’t you wonder why that wouldn’t be a major news item? If that really happened, wouldn’t KBS (which is the Korean news service) be down here faster than you could say “bali bali” covering it. And wouldn’t the American news services also try to cover it? Wouldn’t the fact that I am the only one telling you about this be fairly good evidence that I am just making that story up?

The comparison to Caligula is fair because we have many contemporaneous writers writing about him. We have NO such writers for Jesus.

Do you think that “historians” wandered about writing everything down for posterity to read? The notion of History as an academic discipline is a relatively modern one. This darkness could refer to an eclipse, and there were many in Jesus´ lifetime. We know that thanks to astronomy, not history.

Yeah, they wrote about things like the minor teachings of John the Baptist. But the daytime sky being black, and people coming out of graves and talking to many people are events not important enough for them to write about.

Again, maybe they wouldn’t think these events important enough to write down, but not very likely.

Also, why would a god need to send his son down to sacrifice his son to himself, in order to forgive humans of breaking his rules?

Is there anything about my statement which is INACCURATE given the teachings of Christianity?

Basically, Christianity says that there is this God. He has a son, who is also god. He is angry at mankind because man breaks god’s rules. So to fix that problem, he makes his son a man, and then has his son killed in order to pay for man. But even after that, man is still afraid. So he has yet another being, who is also god, called the Holy Spirit, come down and comfort man and to inspire him to tell others about this story.

Be honest, is there any part of that description which is inaccurate?

I already wrote in another post that the “likelihood” of christianity is not the point. The universe is extremely unlikely, yet there it is.

On what basis do you judge the universe to be unlikely? As far as I can tell, science is undecided on the issue of the likelihood of the universe.

 

[Detales]

Santo~ " there is nothing original, interesting or worth reading amongst the Jesus Seminar croud. (sic)"

I see. So, Santo, as a “serious biblical scholar and historian” you are dismissing the Seminar on the grounds that you have read and checked at least a large portion of its material. or its main themes and thesis, and have discredited the panel members by your own research.

 

[elzoog]

Santo~ " there is nothing original, interesting or worth reading amongst the Jesus Seminar croud. (sic)"

I see. So, Santo, as a “serious biblical scholar and historian” you are dismissing the Seminar on the grounds that you have read and checked at least a large portion of its material. or its main themes and thesis, and have discredited the panel members by your own research.

Detales, you need to understand Santo’s logic. Anything that agrees with the magisterium or Santo is intelligent and logical. Anything that disagrees with them is stupid or foolish.

 

[Detales]

Thanks, elzoog. That explains that compartment of thinking. You have saved me a good deal of time.

(Detales vanishes in a cloud of violet smoke, having his own windmills to tilt, yet wishing Santo and others a revealing experience on this thread and in life.)

 

[santodomingo]

Santo~ " there is nothing original, interesting or worth reading amongst the Jesus Seminar croud. (sic)"

I see. So, Santo, as a “serious biblical scholar and historian” you are dismissing the Seminar on the grounds that you have read and checked at least a large portion of its material. or its main themes and thesis, and have discredited the panel members by your own research.

I didn´t say that I´m a “serious biblical scholar”. I said that no serious biblical scholar or historian has time for their spurious work. I said what I said, and I stand by it.

 

[elzoog]

I didn´t say that I´m a “serious biblical scholar”. I said that no serious biblical scholar or historian has time for their spurious work. I said what I said, and I stand by it.

Let’s see. The Jesus Seminar was made up of biblical scholars and historians. One of it’s leaders was Robert Funk, who had a PhD from Vanderbilt University. The Jesus Seminar also included John Dominic Crossan, who had a Doctorate of Divinity degree from Maynooth College. It also included Robert Price who has Doctorates in Theology and New Testament studies from Drew University.

Yet, no serious biblical scholar or historian has time for their spurious work.

 

[santodomingo]

You can find all sorts of people with Phd´s from prestigious universities you spout nonsense all day. The people who make up the Jesus Seminary are not interested in examining the historical evidence for (or against) christianity in a scientific, unbiased way. The scholars I consider to be serious start from a neutral standpoint and examine the historical evidence for what it´s worth. This is NOT the method of what I have read from the Jesus Seminary.

 

[santodomingo]

santodomingo: Josephus was born in 37 A.D.

Granted. Although I see that as being quite close in historical terms.

 

[cranster]

Let’s compare that to how humans relate.

Some humans really love dogs. Dogs are much less intelligent than humans, but humans know that right? So do humans normally expect dogs to do math problems, or to read the manual so they can help you build a shelf? Of course not! Why not? Because it’s a dog. Anyone with any brains would know that a dog can’t read or do math problems. Also, because it’s a dog, we usually don’t get as upset about a dog peeing on the rug as we would a grown human peeing on the rug because we expect a human to be smart enough to know better.

So, if our abilities are so terrible compared to this “god”, then this god would expect much less of us. Just like we expect less of dogs.

Basically, Christianity doesn’t make sense unless you believe that human beings are terrible and that you need a supernatural entity to fix them.

Your analogy is apples and what I said is oranges. I didn’t say anything about abilities. God does not expect us to do anything beyond our abilities. To extend your analogy a bit it’s like saying God expects us to understand all the math at the moment of the big bang where all the laws of physics break down, That at the moment is beyond our capabilities. God doesn’t expect anything like that from us.

What I am talking about is our purity and goodness compared to God’s. It is sin that make us filthy not lack of abilities. God does not expect us to do impossible math, but He does expect us to turn away from sin, ie… murder, rape, theft, fornication, adultery, etc. He expects us to stop doing what every human should innately know is wrong. He knows we are weak, and can’t do it on our own, That’s why He came so He could do for us what we cannot do for ourselves… become perfectly pure so we can be with Him forever. That’s why He gave us the Sacraments. It’s through the Sacraments and taking up our cross, (suffering) that we are elevated to the state of purity necessary to be in the presence of God. Nothing unclean can be in the presence of God. Nowhere in Christianity does it say that nothing strong enough or smart enough can be in the presence of God.

God does not expect us to know something we can’t, but to stop doing what we know is wrong.

I think if you get to the most fundamental difficulty that atheists have with God, is not whether he exists or not, but that He expects them to stop doing things they don’t want to stop doing. Everything from that point is merely a rationalization to justify doing things that shouldn’t be done. People like their sin.

 

[santodomingo]

Where are these hundreds of witnesses? All you have are stories which claim that there were hundreds of witnesses, but if there were that many witnesses to such an event, you would expect to see more than just 4 or 5 contradictory stories.

 

[cranster]

The witnesses are obviously dead, as are the witnesses of every historical event that happened more than 100 years ago. An important event in the first century is not comparable to such an event today. If Jesus had lived in the 21 century we would have cellular phone videos of his miracles. In the first century PEOPLE DIDN´T WRITE THINGS DOWN, unless there was an absolute necessity. Happenings were transmitted by word of mouth. Israel was an oral culture, and the jews knew reams of scripture by heart. The written records we have from the era are either inscriptions in official buildings, relating to the reign of such and such a king or governor, or sacred Scripture. There are very few written historical documents from this era. (I´m not including literature or philosophy).

I think part of it is due to the modern mentality that everything has to be verifiable and repeatable. That mentality didn’t exist in 1st century Judea.

The fact that there were 500 witnesses to the ascension of Jesus in to Heaven would have been thought of by Romans as Jewish nonsense, and by Jews as the nonsense of the followers of a Jewish heretical sect, (Christianity). There was nothing of concrete value for anyone on the outside to record.
Nothing that had any concrete impact on Roman or Jewish life, and of course looking back from today any actual witness testimony that was spread orally is suspect because they had an “agenda”… hogwash!!! people saw what they saw and talked about it, and because it was so far outside any semblance of normal experience they kept on talking about it, and it was spread, and spread, and passed down until you have by far the worlds largest religion today.

Everyone has to make their own determination about the information then go into eternity with the results of that determination.

 

[elzoog]

santodomingo:

The witnesses are obviously dead, as are the witnesses of every historical event that happened more than 100 years ago.

No duh. However, let’s look at a historical event that happened more than 100 years ago that we actually do have hundreds of witnesses of, the American Civil War. For that, we have numerous personal testimonies in the form of letters written by soldiers, both prominent and ordinary people, If you ask me where these 100 witnesses of the Civil War are, I could point you to places where you can read their actual letters.

We have nothing even closely resembling that for Jesus.

We have a few things resembling that for other historical figures that lived in the time of Jesus. Like for example, Caligula.

An important event in the first century is not comparable to such an event today. If Jesus had lived in the 21 century we would have cellular phone videos of his miracles. In the first century PEOPLE DIDN´T WRITE THINGS DOWN, unless there was an absolute necessity.

Somehow conveniently, the teachings of an obscure prophet that are written down by Josephus are more important than people coming out of graves and talking to the people in town?

If Josephus writes pages about a prophet that only a few others know about at the time in Jerusalem, why would people coming out of graves and talking to the townsman totally escape his attention?

Happenings were transmitted by word of mouth. Israel was an oral culture, and the jews knew reams of scripture by heart. The written records we have from the era are either inscriptions in official buildings, relating to the reign of such and such a king or governor, or sacred Scripture. There are very few written historical documents from this era. (I´m not including literature or philosophy).

Yeah, and the historical documents we do have from around 20 AD mention people like Caligula. Jesus doesn’t get mentioned until decades after his death.

 

[santodomingo]

No duh. However, let’s look at a historical event that happened more than 100 years ago that we actually do have hundreds of witnesses of, the American Civil War. For that, we have numerous personal testimonies in the form of letters written by soldiers, both prominent and ordinary people, If you ask me where these 100 witnesses of the Civil War are, I could point you to places where you can read their actual letters.

We have nothing even closely resembling that for Jesus.

We have a few things resembling that for other historical figures that lived in the time of Jesus. Like for example, Caligula.

Yeah, and the historical documents we do have from around 20 AD mention people like Caligula. Jesus doesn’t get mentioned until decades after his death.

You are still talking about Caligula!! Don´t you understand the social difference between an obscure carpenter in Palestine, the edge of the Empire, and the Emperor in Rome? This difference accounts for the documentary evidence about the two men.

Ordinary people didn´t write letters in the first century. Paper didn´t exist, and the alternatives were very expensive. Until the invention of the printing press in the 15 century, hardly anybody even owned a book!

 

[santodomingo]

No duh. However, let’s look at a historical event that happened more than 100 years ago that we actually do have hundreds of witnesses of, the American Civil War. For that, we have numerous personal testimonies in the form of letters written by soldiers, both prominent and ordinary people, If you ask me where these 100 witnesses of the Civil War are, I could point you to places where you can read their actual letters.

So you believe what´s in the history books relating to the American Civil War because there are letters by people who lived through it?

Therefore I assume you believe in the miracle of the sun at Fatima, that occured in 1917. There were approximately 80.000 witnesses, including hundreds of atheists who had come to scoff. It was acurately reported in the anti-catholic national newspaper of Portugal, “O Seculo”. All the witnesses coincide in their account of the sun “dancing” and seeming to fall from the sky.

There are plenty of written testimonies of this. As you said, I could point you to places where you can read their actual letters.

You sceptics pick and choose which events are possible and which are not, regardless of what the facts say. You judge a priori, which is another way of saying you are prejudiced. Your anti-spiritual, materialist mentality forbids you from dispassionately analysing the evidence for miraculous ocurrences, because you start from the prejudice that they are metaphysically impossible.

 

[anon5216]

So you believe what´s in the history books relating to the American Civil War because there are letters by people who lived through it?

Therefore I assume you believe in the miracle of the sun at Fatima, that occured in 1917. There were approximately 80.000 witnesses, including hundreds of atheists who had come to scoff. It was acurately reported in the anti-catholic national newspaper of Portugal, “O Seculo”. All the witnesses coincide in their account of the sun “dancing” and seeming to fall from the sky.

There are plenty of written testimonies of this. As you said, I could point you to places where you can read their actual letters.

You sceptics pick and choose which events are possible and which are not, regardless of what the facts say. You judge a priori, which is another way of saying you are prejudiced. Your anti-spiritual, materialist mentality forbids you from dispassionately analysing the evidence for miraculous ocurrences, because you start from the prejudice that they are metaphysically impossible.

Let’s see.
~80,000 people in a small area see the sun “dancing” and seeming to fall from the sky.

Now, IF there actually was a dramatic physical change in the relationship of the sun & earth of this magnitude, it would more than just be visible to every single human on the planet.

In this case we have only the mass altering of a group of localized person’s consciousness.
While I certainly agree that is a significant event, that doesn’t mean all our mythologizing about its meaning is remotely accurate.

 

[DallasCatholic]

And finally, I do not think that a god who gives so little evidence of his own existence and sends people to hell for not believing in him could really be omnibenevolent. I just don’t think a truly omnibenevolent god would send anyone to hell who would have happily worshiped him had they been given better evidence. But if this is the case, then the wager breaks down, because you’d get the same outcome either way.

.

I am interested why you think God punishes people who don’t believe in him? The Catholic church teaches that everyone can be saved…even someone who has never been exposed to any form of Christiantity.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I am interested why you think God punishes people who don’t believe in him? The Catholic church teaches that everyone can be saved…even someone who has never been exposed to any form of Christiantity.

My impression was that people who die as unbelievers despite having been exposed to Catholicism go to hell (based on Matthew 12:31 for example). If that’s inaccurate, could you show me where the church teaches that people who reject God for their entire lives and are not invincibly ignorant can be saved?