So?

[RandFan]

Ehrman's response to Richard Carrier is worth a read. http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/

I've been a long time Richard Carrier fan. His personal attacks seem out of character and rather gratuitous.

 

[HansMustermann]

The problem I have with this kind of hypothetical is that there is no way to know. There's too many assumptions that must be made. I damn sure know that had I lived during the time of Jesus knowing what I know now, I would have been morally obligated to prevent human sacrifice. What is immoral cannot be made moral by fiat. Omnipotence and omniscience doesn't give any entity the right to sit idle while a human being (son of god or not) to suffer and die. And the plan that his son be killed to pay for people's crimes is absurd and saying that omnipotent god had no other choice is silly beyond comprehension.

I don't think it's one thing that depends on what you know NOW. The Romans at the time were also against human sacrifice, and had been so for quite some time.

Plus, look at the attitudes Christians had regarding Jesus's execution. Even though they supposedly believed that Jesus WANTED to die, and that he HAD to die or nobody would be saved... they still rabidly condemned Judas and the Jews for the execution. I don't think even in the first few centuries of our era it was palatable to execute an innocent, even if he wanted to be executed.

 

[HansMustermann]

Ehrman's response to Richard Carrier is worth a read. http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/

And then there's Carrier's response to that. Actually Ehrman just made more hash of what actually exists as historical evidence and what doesn't. Sorry, I'm still not convinced of Ehrman's qualifications as a historian.

And, as I was saying in the other thread, Ehrman got his Ph.D. from a theological seminar, and it's in bible studies, not in history. While I respect the hell out his expertise and work in tracking down and studying all those Bible manuscripts and all, or the secular approach to it, if he wants to play a bigger authority on ancient history than the guy with a Ph.D. in ancient history, he just isn't. He's about as big an authority on ancient history as I am. And I ain't.

I'm sorry, but studying Bible manuscripts is to being a historian, well, just what studying all the Star Trek scripts is to being a physicist. If you want to know if a warp drive is possible (and apparently it might be), you ask a real physicist, not go to Memory Alpha. And if you want to know exactly what was the situation in the 1st century CE, you ask a historian, not the bible studies guys.

Now, of course, if he wants to present his arguments and show how it adds up to the conclusion, I'm still of the opinion that he doesn't need a fancy title to do so. Sure, you don't need a title to be right. But he kinda can also stop doing an argument from authority in every other interview or speech, when he's just not an authority on the relevant domain. The relevant domain for what happened in the 1st century CE is history, not bible studies. Not any more than Cthulhu mythos scholarship is the relevant domain for being an authority on what happened in the 20's-30's, and whether actually some Scandinavian sailor awoke Cthulhu in risen R'lyeh. I mean for example Price (yeah, the same with Mythical Jesus) is possibly the leading scholar of Cthulhu mythos, but THAT wouldn't qualify him as an authority on the history of that time period.

 

[Frank Merton]

That's hilarious and interesting, as I am also ex-mormon, and you could be writing about my own experience with the church. Almost right down the line.

And it all stemmed from your childhood indoctrination.

I spent several years of my childhood in Moab, before we moved to Grand Junction (Colorado). So, most of my friends were Mormons. However, my family were all Jehovah's Witnesses, and I guess so was I. I was certainly indoctrinated enough, although my resistance started early and I was no end of problem for my family.

Now I live in Vietnam and all my friends are Buddhists, although generally of the atheist sort. There are Roman Catholics here, but they are not very friendly or likeable, at least compared to the Catholics in the states, who seem more tolerant and less dogmatic.

Why are most Vietnamese Buddhist, most Indians Hindu, most Malaysians Muslim, most Filipinos, Roman Catholic, most Greeks, Greek Orthodox, most Utahans, Salt Lake City Mormons, most Mississippians, Southern Baptist and most Minnesotans, Lutheran?

The answer is so obvious and so much an accident of birth that it is astonishing that nevertheless each of these people think their religion is true universally, beyond their local culture.

The feelings people who escaped their childhood indoctrination, especially if it was from a sectarian group, always tends to be one of a considerable anger. This is anger at what was done to them, at the lies they were fed before their minds were mature enough to make reasonable assessments, and at the time they ended up wasting.

Of course it is wasted anger; it does me no good and can harm me.

 

[Oystein]

Why should Jesus' non-existence be a problem to a Christian? Just take the passages figuratively.

For example, God in his love for us gave us this story of his self-sacrifice (I'm not joking here -- I think this is reasonable for a person of deep faith) in order to provide us redemption, but He is all-powerful and therefore it is not necessary that it actually happened in history. Our belief is enough, and qualifying that belief that way doesn't harm it. ...

Non existence is a problem because for many christian sect a lot of the *basis* work of the religion hinge on the christ existing and being a savior. Transubstantitation, sins , saving , if the guy did not exists all of that is utter pointless. ...

I think Frank isn't really saying that Jesus' non-existence is not a problem, but rather it is a problem that has an easy solution for a person of sufficient faith.


I once joined an afternoon of bible reading and studying with a group of very faithful christian young adults (denomination: Church of Christ - the Anderson, Indiana variety). They read a passage from a letter by Peter (German translation, don't ask me which). That passage said something along the lines of "you have to suffer like Christ did to make it to the kingdom". Strangely, I, the only agnostic (at the time) present, was the only one to notice that this went against a core belief of this group of christians, namely that Jesus suffered and died on the cross in our stead so that we don't have to suffer like he did, and only need faith. But, with the Bible being supposedly inerrant, even translations, because, ya know, the Holy Dove inspires everyone who types a Bible manuscript, these young folks bent over backwards, smoothly, effortlessly, to explain the discrepancy.
Till one of them, a student of theology and thus of koine Greek, flung out his Greek text, and found that indeed the German translation was erroneous!
At which point the group bent over backwards smoothly once more to explain how the German text wasn't inerrant after all (I don't recall, but quite possibly it was declared the work of satan, but hallelujah, since they were all so string in faith and prayer, the Holy Dove had sent the student of Greek into their midst to defeat the work of the evil one).
So there - Christians don't have a hard time doing 180° reversals twice an hour.