Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime

Religions > Atheism > Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime

LINK TO THIS PAGE

rating : 0 | 0

Page 2 of 23

Topic:	Religions > Atheism
User:	""
Date:	14 Jul 2005 06:24:53 PM
Object:	Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime

Jesus Denial
I created this blog 11 months ago without writing anything in it until
now. Yesterday I heard from some friends about Larry King's recent
show, "What Happens After We Die?" Larry had invited an evangelical
Protestant, a priest, a Muslim scholar, and a rabbi. He also had
included Marianne Williamson, a wonderful lecturer and teacher of the
Course in Miracles -- a modern spiritual teaching in which Jesus Christ
appears as the central figure, though the teaching relies less on
figures and more on a path of enlightenment similar to that found in
Buddhism. Rounding out his panel was Ellen Johnson, president of
American Atheists, an organization based here in New York. Ellen
apparently argued on the show that Jesus Christ never existed.
So I went to the web yesterday and found a site called
www.jesusneverexisted.com. Its subheading: "Uncompromising exposure of
the counterfeit origins of Christianity and of the evil it has brought
to the world." The site was created by one Kenneth Humphreys in the
autumn of 2002, a few months after I finished a debate with a co-worker
and friend, Ryan, about the existence of God -- a debate in which he
argued that Jesus did not exist, and introduced me to that idea. I
wrote him at least 60 pages in all. Very few subjects have inspired me
more than this one. In fact I wrote Kenneth Humphreys a letter
confronting him with his site's egregious misquotation of the Church
Father Justin Martyr, who is made to say words implying that Jesus'
existence was in doubt in the ancient world. That website is one of the
more bigoted I've ever seen. It means to prove with a vengeance the
concluding statement on its home page: "Christianity is the worst
disaster in history," meaning the most murderous.
For a while I've suspected that this fringe idea about Jesus was, like
Holocaust denial, becoming more popular. When I gave my friend Kate a
copy of the debate I had with Ryan, she said to me that I'd given the
theory of nonexistence too much credit, that is, more attention than it
deserved. She was suggesting something very reasonable, that such ideas
die by themselves if left alone. But the theory kept turning up in all
the wrong places. In May 2004 the Skeptical Inquirer put out a critique
of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" in which Joe Nickell, a
onetime professor of technical writing and stage magician, seemed to be
arguing that Jesus was a figment of imagination; so I wrote to the
magazine just to say that as professional and professed skeptics they
were buying into a conspiracy theory. In his book, The Disinformation
Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths,
Russ Kick affirms the theory as expounded by one of its chief
proponents, who goes by the Indian-sounding moniker Acharya S. (Kick
uses another Christ-myther and former evangelical, Dan Barker -- the
author my friend Ryan used in our debate -- to attack the Resurrection
in his book, Abuse Your Illusions: The Disinformation Guide to Media
Mirages and Establishment Lies). There are signs that the whitewashing
of Jesus is firmly esconced, in our Republican-dominant times, on the
left, and may be rising in popularity now as part of a passing
arrangement of politics; but I'm not sure.
I've called the movement Jesus-denial, not in the sense that it denies
that Jesus was divine, or indeed that he had any particular attribute
at all, but simply that he breathed and lived. I have found startling
similarities between this denial and that of the Holocaust, though I
consider Holocaust denial more truly bigoted, more prevalent even in
those places where it was thought to be dying, and less rational.
I found another website called Positive Atheism, promoting the theory
that Jesus did not exist. I read the transcript of Larry King's show at
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/lkl.html, and went to the
American Atheists website, where Ellen Johnson, as president,
introduces the entire worldview -- not entirely in an unappealing
manner. This site was, in that sense, different from the others. I went
to the section on Christianity and found essays by Frank Zindler, a
former professor of biology and geology who claims that Jesus did not
exist. And I began composing a long letter to Ellen, in which I
referred to my few years as an atheist and described at length what was
wrong with the theory that she had promoted on Larry King and was
promoting on her site.
I looked up the phrase "Jesus never existed" on Google. There were
3,770 hits. The first was Kenneth Humphreys' site of that name. A good
number came from ordinary postings on discussion boards. Many of the
rest came from mainstream sites about history or religious history in
which the article entitled "Jesus" would include in its bibliography,
as one of a full variety of viewpoints, the Humphreys site. None of
these latter bibliographies quoted his theory approvingly, but the very
fact that his site was now commonly listed as part of the
bibliographical literature thought to be worth listing struck me. It
meant to me that the theory of non-existence had found a certain level
of respectability. It is no longer fringe. Larry King's show is
certainly a marker of mainstream culture, so Ellen Johnson's on-air
argument against the existence of Jesus represents, to me, a kind of
marker in this movement.
I Googled phrases for other world religions. "Buddha never existed"
turned up 75 hits. None or very few of them, as far as I could tell,
were open arguments to that effect; mostly I seemed to be turning up
casual references to the idea that Buddha never existed, without
affirmations of that idea. In fact the first hit was by a Christian who
wondered if people of other faiths also had to put up with their
religious figures being argued out of existence. It was a page about
Jesus' existence.
"Muhammad never existed" turned up only 36 hits. The first came from a
1996 Daniel Pipes essay at the website of American Atheist, a different
site from Ellen Johnson's organization. I have only read a few brief
pieces by Pipes, but I gather that he is a right-wing author with an
axe to grind against Islam, and that many of his writings support the
idea that Islam is an inherently violent religion. This particular
piece was a review of Why I Am Not A Muslim, a book by an ex-Muslim
named Ibn Warraq. Here is an excerpt from the review:
"Ibn Warraq draws on current Western scholarship to make the
astonishing claim that Muhammad never existed, or if he did, he had
nothing to do with the Koran. Rather, that holy book was fabricated a
century or two later in Palestine, then 'projected back onto an
invented Arabian point of origin.' If the Koran is a fraud, it's not
surprising to learn that the author finds little authentic in other
parts of the Islamic tradition. For example, he dispatches Islamic law
as 'a fantastic creation founded on forgeries and pious fictions.' The
whole of Islam, in short, he portrays as a concoction of lies."
I quote all this at length because the arguments are astonishingly
close to what is said about Christianity when Jesus' existence is
denied.
Some of the other sites quote the Pipes article, as well as a different
and more recent article in which Pipes tells of a retired CIA agent who
relates that the CIA spread the following misinformation around the
Middle East in the 1950s: that the Soviet Union was promoting
scholarship along the lines that Muhammad never existed. As for the
other hits, I could find none that explicitly argued against Muhammad's
existence.
This is important to me because one thing I discovered in debating Ryan
was the degree to which no religion was safe if even one was attacked.
I found the Jesus-as-myth theory, in other words, to build its entire
foundation on the premise that religion is made up of myths, forgeries,
lies, coercions, and no other history worth speaking about. I found
that those who tried to "vaporize" Jesus out of existence also were
saying extremely negative things about other religions, without
consulting the scholars of those religions: and I don't mean Islam
here, I mean the pagan Roman cults that Christianity eclipsed. So I
didn't see Islam or Buddhism attacked per se in these writings; but I
felt that they would be next, so to speak, if Christianity were allowed
to "fall."
And I found that phenomena which had their own discrete meanings in the
non-Christian religions were being distorted and forced into Christian
categories. What I mean is that when someone says that Jesus did not
exist, and that Christ was a pastiche of pagan cults or goddess
religions, which had their own virgin births and resurrections, I found
that all this evidence came from the 19th century, when the West knew
very little indeed about religions other than Christianity.
Archaelogists and ethnographers were Christian in background, so
everything they discovered in the historical record, they interpreted
as a parallel to Christianity. It's as if you're a Christian and you
visit a Native American ceremony, and everything you see you try to
relate to what you know: "This is their version of Mass; this is their
communion; this is their bishop; etc." And no doubt, the world's
religions do have many common elements with different names. But these
elements also often have different and autonomous meanings, not so easy
to discover even after decades of work. Certainly the old European
attitude about it, where religions would be studied like mice under a
microscope, could not penetrate the heart. Many mistakes were made.
People discovered texts or artifacts and said, "That looks to me like a
Last Supper outside of Christianity," or "this must have been a virgin
birth." From there it was a short jump to conclude that Christianity
was nothing original.
But the terrible conclusion, of course, is that those other religions
were not original either. Worse, they were now no more than precursors
to Christianity. One of the greatest mistakes of traditional
Christianity has been to treat the Jewish scriptures as if they were no
more than a precursor to the New Testament; yet here was the same
mistake being made by secular scholars. Every religion, when you argue
such things as the non-existence of Jesus, is made into a pale copy of
Christianity; and Christianity is made into an unoriginal, destructive
bandit. This is no way to affirm religion or to respect people's
beliefs. And I wonder how many people today, when they easily accept
various forms of the theories that Christianity was preceded by many
virgin births or resurrections, really contemplate what they are doing,
and ask themselves whether they are really making that difficult entry
into other worlds and other ways of thinking, or just working out their
own issues concerning the faith of their childhoods.
In my research it was common for me to find statements to the effect
that Krishna was crucified, or that Buddha came to earth to redeem
humanity. All my years practicing yoga and studying Hinduism and
Buddhism paid off here, because I knew these Eastern traditions were
being perverted. How many Indians died resisting British culture,
including Christianity, only to have someone in ignorance state that
the cross was a common feature of Hinduism? How many times do Buddhist
teachers have to tell us that Buddha did not come to redeem humanity
but simply taught us about suffering and ways to overcome it, before we
know enough to call ignorant claims what they truly are?
If it comes to pass that Muhammad is attacked, I want to be there to
help my Muslim brothers and sisters. I have made two Muslim friends in
the past few months, and have visited and prayed at a mosque; I intend
to visit again. I find myself learning from them, though I'm not pulled
away from my own faith. Right now, I do not see that Muhammad or Buddha
(a somewhat more meaningful figure to my beloved wife, Dess) are being
attacked. There is no reason, objectively speaking, why they cannot be
in the future. The evidence for those figures is roughly the same as it
is for Jesus: religious scriptures copied some years after the central
figure's death are the earliest witnesses, along with testimonies by
enemies or co-religionists, followed in due course by witnesses from
"secular" historians not belonging to the religion and its environment;
none of the great figures left behind, as did the Pharoahs or similar
leaders, physical evidence. If Jesus alone is being attacked by secular
forces (not, it should be noted, by other religions), it is probably
because Christianity has had the most contact with such forces.
Here I wish to give a simple summary of why the theory that Jesus did
not exist is both false and pernicious. I have 10 basic reasons.
1) It is a conspiracy theory. It says that a grand fiction has been
hoisted on the world by secretive and powerful Christian organizations.
It argues that all evidence pointing to invention has been suppressed,
and that all evidence pointing to Christ's existence is fabrication --
all of it, from the New Testament to Jewish writings to Greco-Roman
annals. It takes all the evidence from Christian, Jewish, and pagan
writers and dismisses it by arguing that it all amounts to invention by
reactionary power. In that it is not too different from Marxism, which
regarded religion as a reactionary, counter-revolutionary opiate. But
the theory is not Marxist in origin. It is, quite simply, a conspiracy
theory tailored for Western audiences skeptical of religion. If you
take nothing else away from this post, remember this: the theory of
non-existence, like any conspiracy theory, relies on evidence that is
not there (because it is purportedly suppressed), and denies all the
evidence that is there (because it is purportedly fabricated).
2) It leaves all religions open to attacks from those who, like one
Christ-mythologist, regard religion as "mental illness." Many of these
people are harmless on the surface, but Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong
believed the same thing about religion, and destroyed both shrines and
lives by the tens of millions.
3) It represents a monumental step backward in our understanding of
other religions and the relationships Christianity has had with them.
Calling Jesus a myth requires saying where the ideas for the myth came
from. Sometimes it is said that the ideas for such a Savior figure came
from the Old Testament and from Judaism, but since this makes the
historical break between Christianity and Judaism impossible to
explain, the more usual course is to say that Christ came out of pagan
myths -- so the Roman cults, and sometimes Buddhism and Hinduism, are
named as primary influences upon Christianity. These religions are
romanticized, or they are made to seem like Christianity, which is a
mistake in itself, but is particularly pernicious because the type of
Christian religion referred to here is one that is totally destructive
and immoral. Those who say that the cross had antecedents in other
religions, and in the next paragraph denounce Christianity for being a
bloody religion focused from the start on an instrument of torture, do
not realize that they are essentially saying the same thing about the
pre-Christian religions of the past or the non-Christian religions of
today. They don't say so openly, but that is the fullest consequence of
their arguments.
4) It is un-scientific. Any conspiracy theory, of course, fails to
embrace the scientific method, which requires a relaxed, open mind and
the willingness to try to overthrow your own theory, so that it can be
tested thoroughly. There are many further ways in which this point
could be made. You could say quite correctly that the theory of Jesus'
non-existence is overly complex; it creates special explanations,
circumstances, and standards for everything encountered, thus breaking
the rule known as Occam's razor, which states that entities are not to
be multiplied and that all things being equal, the simplest theory is
the best. You could point out that the theory tries to prove a
negative, an extremely difficult thing to do according to the
principles of logic, and a goal that requires extraordinary evidence,
not merely the "absence" of evidence. You could describe another no-no
of scholarship, known as special pleading, which happens when the
theory of non-existence says that things do not appear as common sense
would dictate because of special reasons, such as suppression of
evidence, and forgery. Many good theories, of course, ask you to
suspend your common sense. The earth revolves around the sun, as common
sense would not tell you. But notice, that is said to be a common
mistake made by all people in all historical epochs. What we have with
Jesus-denial is the charge that some people knew then, and know now,
what most people have not known. That is very different, and it
requires historical proofs, none of which are forthcoming. The only
thing offered is suspicion without consummation. No experiments are
run; nothing falsifiable is said; no science is therefore done.
5) It is ignorant. It comes from people who have degrees in English,
German, biology -- anything but graduate degrees in history, antiquity,
religion, ancient languages or Biblical studies. When it does quote
scholars from those fields, it goes back to 19th century work, and
avoids all recent 20th century advances in biblical studies,
archaeology, ethnography, etc. It avoids scholars of non-Christian
religions, too, and quotes only people who study other things, so that
when, for instance, the god Mithra is said to be Christ's precursor,
with a virgin birth and the like, no Mithra scholars are consulted, and
only non-Mithra scholars are quoted. As such, the theory remained on
the fringes until recently, always just outside mainstream work, and
was hard to find without looking for it specifically. I majored in
Religion and attended a year of seminary; in later years I read the
definitive works on the historical Jesus, and consulted those works
even as an atheist; but I had never heard of a fully articulated theory
of non-existence, because when you study history and religion, you
don't come across the proponents of the theory; they always have
training in something else. Yet they push their opinions about one of
history's central questions. I am no linguist, but if you asked me to
overthrow the mainstream theories about the origin of English, and told
me I could not consult any scholars of English except to note where
they can be debunked, you can imagine the quality of what you'll get
from me.
6) It is arrogant. The only way to test ideas is to come into dialogue
with other ideas, chiefly those constructed by people with knowledge of
the subject. Often good theories are complex, and require a lot of
reading and hard work to sift the evidence. But the theory of
non-existence holds mainly that evidence can be judged, not according
to its content, but according to who wrote it. Therefore, the Bible can
be dismissed; Biblical scholarship can be dismissed. In this the theory
betrays its ignorance of Biblical scholarship, which is full of
agnostics and even some atheists. It seems entirely unaware of what
current scholars, secular and biblical, are saying, but it nevertheless
relies heavily on a very dangerous phrase, "Most scholars believe that"
(fill in the blank: Jesus was a myth-figure, he said nothing of what's
in the Gospels, etc.) A true scholar can get away with summarizing his
or her field; but if you're not in the field, forget it. Even so, most
people who rely on common sense know that the vast majority of
scientific work on the ancient world, its scriptures, languages,
archaeology and beliefs, has been done in the 20th century. Biblical
scholarship has incorporated all that work and is now typically based
upon it. The definitive works on Jesus are not apologetics, and they
openly defy religious or church dogma; but skeptics have long since
stopped listening, and they operate on the assumption that the only
options on the table are Biblical literalism or Biblical atheism.
Basically the attitude is, "I do not need to read those who are
trained, because they are biased; I do not need any special training
myself, and I have no relevant biases." Well, Copernicus dared to
believe that everything he'd been taught on a certain subject could be
wrong; but he was a master practitioner in that field. Tell that to
those who think they are following in Copernicus' footsteps: you will
simply be told in reply that you love your subject and therefore cannot
be trusted to know it well.
7) It is extreme. No secular and relevantly credentialed historian
holds the theory, for at least one very simple reason: there was too
little time. Myths are told about people who lived far away, in another
time and place ("a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away"); no one
living in the local area can contradict the myth, and the imagination
can let loose. Christian writings started surfacing only 20 years after
Jesus "purportedly" lived, so the question comes up: why didn't anyone
contradict the claim that Jesus lived and interacted with famous local
figures? Well, they did, according to the theory, but their testimonies
were destroyed by the Church; or in a variation, they didn't speak up,
because the Romans killed them all off in the war 40 years after
Christ's "purported" lifetime. No historian has produced a comparable
example of a myth that overcame all historical objections so quickly.
But Christ is said to be such a myth. And people -- reasonable,
well-educated people (but not well-educated about religion) -- are
finding such arguments reasonable in rising numbers, I fear. Why is
evolution being disbelieved these days in favor of creationism? Because
our schooling in science, our scientific literacy, is abysmal. Why,
then, with our commonly abysmal education about religion, do we not
exert more skepticism toward the things we hear and say about religious
topics?
8) It is radically partisan and self-contradictory. The destruction of
Christianity's root beliefs always takes precedence over consistent and
fairly applied standards. Logic is always sacrificed to the goal. This
one can only be explained at length by diving deeply into the content,
so I will leave it for another post. But see John Meier's multi-volume
work on the historical Jesus, A Marginal Jew, which systematically lays
out the logical criteria needed for this kind of work.
9) It is denial, and not history. History describes what happened.
Denial is concerned to say that such-and-such did not happen. It does
not say that things happened in an alternative or under-appreciated
way, only that they did not happen. It is not a positive description;
it offers no positive alternative -- and by positive I don't mean
happy, I mean simply a map of events rather than non-events. The only
events described are writings, or acts of forgery, often by no-names
("Christian scribes") working in the dark. Actual events, other than
writing, go without much description or investigation for their own
sake; they are brought in only for the conspiracy theory. Individuals
contributing anything are said to be mythical beings invented by the
true agency, the collective cult with its need for survival and power.
Individuals are cut out of history entirely, and shorn of their
personal names, except occasionally for individuals who did have a
certain genuis at forgery: those are the only people named, dated, and
described at length. Bodies are taken out of history, and men such as
Christ become disembodied ghosts or ideas -- a terribly unhistorical
project, even an Orwellian one. Any piece of evidence that the theory
does not like goes down the "memory hole." And of course, in this case
what is being denied is not merely neutral, but something that is all
too often denied: suffering. The rejection, torture, and capital
punishment of an innocent individual is pushed out of existence or
otherwise shorn of its meaning. To deny history is always to deny pain
and suffering.
10) It is bigoted. It is committed to destroying or defaming
Christians, of course, and is sometimes especially hostile to Roman
Catholicism. But it is necessarily exploitative of other religions,
even those it nominally champions. Moreover, it always denies the deep
relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and seeks to overturn
mainstream biblical scholarship's deep and healing dialogue with
Judaism, by making Christianity exclusively a pastiche of non-Jewish
religions which the Jewish people, historically, despised -- not least
because paganism oppressed them so cruelly. In many ways, the theory
represents anything but progressive scholarship shedding light on
victims, whether they be Jews or Gentiles; the only oppression it
recognizes is that committed by Christianity. Its conclusions are
welcomed, disturbingly, by anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic bigots.
Meier's volume is the definitive treatise on the historical Jesus,
though it does not spend any time directly tackling the theory of
nonexistence. For that, many links on the web exist, and of course a
good deal of them are from folks who are more conservative about the
Bible than I am. My favorite collection of essays about this theory is
at Bede's Library: see http://www.bede.org.uk/jesusindex.htm. That page
has one very telling essay on the judgments of secular and atheist
historians on this issue.
This statement by James Hannam on the home page describes my sentiments
very closely, though it does not describe my life: "The aim of Bede's
Library is [to] show how a person from a scientific background came to
Christianity and has had his faith strengthened rather than weakened by
argument and reason." My own story might say something rather about an
intellectual who gave his heart as a child to science and faith, and
has found inexpressible joys as an adult by practicing these things,
often on unexpected paths.
Peace,
Kevin
posted by Kevin Rosero at 8:41 PM
http://roseandrock.blogspot.com/2005/04/jesus-denial.html
.

User: "Peacenik"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 02:14:01 AM

"PMDavis" <pmdlandarch@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:b5ojd1hherjgep0q29g6o86dkr4qd573k0@4ax.com...

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 08:46:32 -0400, Christopher A. Lee
<calee@optonline.net> wrote:

Where's the equivalent evidence for your Jesus?

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed,

Such as?
.

User: "Iasion"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 11:23:58 PM

Greetings,
PMDavis : "There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that
Jesus existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did
not."
Rubbish.
If YOU claim there are CONTEMPORARY sources (from the SAME TIME as
Jesus), then please post the references.
Furthermore,
There ARE doubts about Jesus from the earliest times :
Early refutations of Christianity
==================================
We can see how Christianity was received in the early days by how it
was described, such as :
"fables" "lie" "myths" "superstition" "empty rumour"
"alter the originals over and over" "invented"
"base and ignorant creed making fishermen"
"blasphemy" "spurious" "counterfeit" "contradicts"
"refuted because they disagree"
This is not the sign of a new truth being accepted - it is obviously
the EXACT OPPOSITE - a wacky new cult, initially mostly ignored,
sometimes ridiculed and rejected with dismissive comments.
Jewish responses to Christianity
================================
The Jewish response is just what we would expect of a wacky new cult -
initially they ignore it. But late in the 1st century, as more Jews
leave for Christianity, the Jews formally BAN the Christians from their
synagogues and curse them as "minim". And lets not forget the Gospels
arose sometime after the war, the Jews had a LOT more to worry about
than refuting some a new cult.
Later, of course, when Christianity is rising to power, and the Jews
have recovered from the Roman destructions, they DO try to discredit
Jesus with all sorts of horrible stories being told -
* Jesus is a ***** (a mamzer) born from Mary's adultery with a Roman
soldier,
* Jesus is a child conceived in the "time of separation" (during
menstruation),
* Jesus was a evil magician who tried to lead people astray,
This is not the sign of the Jews unable to refute Christianity - on the
contrary - it's the sign of a new cult which is at first ignored, then
ridiculed and attacked when it starts to become a threat.
Variant Christian views
=======================
In the formative period of Christianity, the 2nd century, we see all
sorts of disagreement about specific Christian claims :
The epistles of John mention other Christians who do not believe in a
son of God, and attack Christians who do not believe Jesus came in the
flesh.
The epistle of Polycarp also describes those who do not accept that
Jesus came in the flesh.
Various Gnostics denied Jesus "came in the flesh", instead arguing he
was a phantom or a spiritual being.
MINUCIUS FELIX -
Consider the astonishing case of Minucius Felix - he explicitly
rejected the worship of a man on a cross as a Christian belief, he
explicitly denied that God could become man. That's a 2nd century
church father who explicitly rejected the incarnation and the
crucifixion - 2 central beliefs of Christians.
Many other disagreements are expressed in the 2nd century :
* Timothy warning against the fables of genealogies,
* Marcion denied Jesus was born of Mary,
* gnostics such as Basilides and Bardesanes claimed Jesus was a phantom
or spiritual being,
* the docetae argue Jesus was an illusion,
* Barnabas denies Christ was "son of David",
* forged letters warning about forgeries and "other christs"
We also see examples of 2nd century Christian writers who discuss
Christian beliefs at length but conspicuously FAIL to mention Jesus -
* Mathetes to Diognetus - responded to 'close and careful inquiries'
and preaches in Neo-Platonic tones of the Logos, his Son, but no time,
place, or identity for this incarnation are provided. The name Jesus
never appears.
* Tatian wrote Address to the Greeks - Esoteric Christianity at its
finest - neither Christ nor Jesus not Son is mentioned anywhere - the
Logos is the emphasis. In Ch.21, Tatian compared Christianity with
pagan mythology and wrote: "Compare you own stories with our
narratives. Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the
grounds that we too tell stories".
* Athenagoras of Athens wrote a detailed esoteric Christian treatise On
The Resurrection Of The Dead arguing that resurrection is possible (in
a non-fleshly body), but without once mentioning the resurrection of
Jesus, or even using the words Jesus or Christ ! He also composed In
Defense of the Christians - no Jesus nor Christ is mentioned, but the
Logos is directly equated with the Son of God.
* Theophilus (of Antioch) wrote To Autolycus which does NOT mention
Christ, nor Jesus.
In short - the 2nd century is full of refutations and rebuttals as the
varying Christian sub-sects argued about what was "really true" about
Jesus.
This is not the sign of a historical event which was not refuted - its
a clear sign of the exact opposite - religious mythology being argued
over.
Pagan responses to Christianity
===============================
Initially, the new cult is largely ignored, but ridiculed by a few
writers -
* Tacitus - "a class hated for their abominations", "a most mischievous
superstition"
* Pliny - "this mad sect"
* Lucian - "misguided creatures"
This is not the sign of a grand new truth being accepted - it is the
sign of a wacky new cult which barely rated a dismissive mention at
first.
Later on, when Christianity and the Gospels first rose to prominence,
they DID receive detailed rebuttals.
CELSUS -
Celsus specifically attacked the Gospels as "fiction" based on myths,
and he claimed the Gospels were changed over and over to deflect
criticism. Hoffman's reconstruction has quotes such as these :
"Clearly the Christians have used...myths... in fabricating the story
of Jesus' birth...It is clear to me that the writings of the Christians
are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to
conceal this monstrous fiction"
Celsus' attack was so damaging to the church, that they attempted to
erase it from history, we only have quotes of it because of angry
Christians who answered his critique.
This is not the sign of external agreement on Christian claims - it is
demonstrably the exact opposite - a specific attack that the Gospels
were FICTION, an attack so damaging the church tried to burn every copy
of it.
PORPHYRY -
A few generations later, as the church is consolidating its power, a
pagan historian Porphyry wrote another critique of Christian beliefs
"Against the Christians", including such criticism such as :
"The evangelists were fiction writers-- not observers or eyewitnesses
to the life of Jesus. Each of the four contradicts the other in writing
his account of the events of his suffering and crucifixion"
"Anyone will recognize that the [gospels] are really fairy tales if he
takes the time to read further into this nonsense of a story..."
"Another section in the gospel deserves comment, for it is likewise
devoid Of sense and full of implausibility; I mean that absurd story
about Jesus sending his apostles across the sea ahead of him after a
banquet, then walking across to them 'at the fourth watch of the
night'...Those who know the region well tell us that, in fact, there is
no 'sea' in the locality but only a tiny lake which springs from a
river that flows through the hills of Galilee near Tiberias... Mark
seems to be stretching a point to extremities when he writes that
Jesus-- after nine hours had passed-- decided in the tenth to walk
across to his disciples who had been floating about on the pond for the
duration... It is fables like this one that we judge the gospel to be a
cleverly woven curtain, each thread of which requires careful scrutiny"
JULIAN -
Then, just as Christianity had come to be the state religion, the Roman
emperor Julian rejected the faith and wrote his own refutation of
Christianity, "Against the Galileans", including comments such as :
".. why do you worship this spurious son of his whom has never been
recognised as his own",
and
"You however, I know not why, foist on him a counterfeit son"
Note this telling criticism of Julian, the educated Roman emperor :
"But if you can show me that one of these men is mentioned by the
well-known writers of that time - the events happened in the reign of
Tiberius or Claudius - then you may consider that I speak falsely on
all matters"
Here we see Julian explicitly state that Jesus is UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.
There is no doubt from this that early Christianity was dismissed as a
cult based on lies and myths.
Iasion
.

User: "PMDavis"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	18 Jul 2005 06:34:10 PM

On 17 Jul 2005 21:23:58 -0700, "Iasion" <quentinj@iinet.net.au> wrote:

Matthew 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days
of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to
Jerusalem, 2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we
have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
Luke1:1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a
declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, 2
Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were
eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; 3 It seemed good to me also,
having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to
write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, 4 That thou
mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been
instructed.
Mark 4:1 And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was
gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship,
and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the
land. 2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them
in his doctrine, 3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: 4
And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the
fowls of the air came and devoured it up. 5 And some fell on stony
ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up,
because it had no depth of earth: 6 But when the sun was up, it was
scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. 7 And some
fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it
yielded no fruit. 8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit
that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some
sixty, and some an hundred. 9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears
to hear, let him hear.

Furthermore,
There ARE doubts about Jesus from the earliest times :

Early refutations of Christianity
==================================

We can see how Christianity was received in the early days by how it
was described, such as :
"fables" "lie" "myths" "superstition" "empty rumour"
"alter the originals over and over" "invented"
"base and ignorant creed making fishermen"
"blasphemy" "spurious" "counterfeit" "contradicts"
"refuted because they disagree"

This is not the sign of a new truth being accepted - it is obviously
the EXACT OPPOSITE - a wacky new cult, initially mostly ignored,
sometimes ridiculed and rejected with dismissive comments.

Jewish responses to Christianity
================================

The Jewish response is just what we would expect of a wacky new cult -
initially they ignore it. But late in the 1st century, as more Jews
leave for Christianity, the Jews formally BAN the Christians from their
synagogues and curse them as "minim". And lets not forget the Gospels
arose sometime after the war, the Jews had a LOT more to worry about
than refuting some a new cult.

Later, of course, when Christianity is rising to power, and the Jews
have recovered from the Roman destructions, they DO try to discredit
Jesus with all sorts of horrible stories being told -
* Jesus is a ***** (a mamzer) born from Mary's adultery with a Roman
soldier,
* Jesus is a child conceived in the "time of separation" (during
menstruation),
* Jesus was a evil magician who tried to lead people astray,

This is not the sign of the Jews unable to refute Christianity - on the
contrary - it's the sign of a new cult which is at first ignored, then
ridiculed and attacked when it starts to become a threat.

Variant Christian views
=======================

In the formative period of Christianity, the 2nd century, we see all
sorts of disagreement about specific Christian claims :

The epistles of John mention other Christians who do not believe in a
son of God, and attack Christians who do not believe Jesus came in the
flesh.

The epistle of Polycarp also describes those who do not accept that
Jesus came in the flesh.

Various Gnostics denied Jesus "came in the flesh", instead arguing he
was a phantom or a spiritual being.

MINUCIUS FELIX -

Consider the astonishing case of Minucius Felix - he explicitly
rejected the worship of a man on a cross as a Christian belief, he
explicitly denied that God could become man. That's a 2nd century
church father who explicitly rejected the incarnation and the
crucifixion - 2 central beliefs of Christians.

Many other disagreements are expressed in the 2nd century :
* Timothy warning against the fables of genealogies,
* Marcion denied Jesus was born of Mary,
* gnostics such as Basilides and Bardesanes claimed Jesus was a phantom
or spiritual being,
* the docetae argue Jesus was an illusion,
* Barnabas denies Christ was "son of David",
* forged letters warning about forgeries and "other christs"

We also see examples of 2nd century Christian writers who discuss
Christian beliefs at length but conspicuously FAIL to mention Jesus -

* Mathetes to Diognetus - responded to 'close and careful inquiries'
and preaches in Neo-Platonic tones of the Logos, his Son, but no time,
place, or identity for this incarnation are provided. The name Jesus
never appears.

* Tatian wrote Address to the Greeks - Esoteric Christianity at its
finest - neither Christ nor Jesus not Son is mentioned anywhere - the
Logos is the emphasis. In Ch.21, Tatian compared Christianity with
pagan mythology and wrote: "Compare you own stories with our
narratives. Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the
grounds that we too tell stories".

* Athenagoras of Athens wrote a detailed esoteric Christian treatise On
The Resurrection Of The Dead arguing that resurrection is possible (in
a non-fleshly body), but without once mentioning the resurrection of
Jesus, or even using the words Jesus or Christ ! He also composed In
Defense of the Christians - no Jesus nor Christ is mentioned, but the
Logos is directly equated with the Son of God.

* Theophilus (of Antioch) wrote To Autolycus which does NOT mention
Christ, nor Jesus.

In short - the 2nd century is full of refutations and rebuttals as the
varying Christian sub-sects argued about what was "really true" about
Jesus.

This is not the sign of a historical event which was not refuted - its
a clear sign of the exact opposite - religious mythology being argued
over.

Pagan responses to Christianity
===============================

Initially, the new cult is largely ignored, but ridiculed by a few
writers -
* Tacitus - "a class hated for their abominations", "a most mischievous
superstition"
* Pliny - "this mad sect"
* Lucian - "misguided creatures"

This is not the sign of a grand new truth being accepted - it is the
sign of a wacky new cult which barely rated a dismissive mention at
first.

Later on, when Christianity and the Gospels first rose to prominence,
they DID receive detailed rebuttals.

CELSUS -

Celsus specifically attacked the Gospels as "fiction" based on myths,
and he claimed the Gospels were changed over and over to deflect
criticism. Hoffman's reconstruction has quotes such as these :
"Clearly the Christians have used...myths... in fabricating the story
of Jesus' birth...It is clear to me that the writings of the Christians
are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to
conceal this monstrous fiction"

Celsus' attack was so damaging to the church, that they attempted to
erase it from history, we only have quotes of it because of angry
Christians who answered his critique.

This is not the sign of external agreement on Christian claims - it is
demonstrably the exact opposite - a specific attack that the Gospels
were FICTION, an attack so damaging the church tried to burn every copy
of it.

PORPHYRY -

A few generations later, as the church is consolidating its power, a
pagan historian Porphyry wrote another critique of Christian beliefs
"Against the Christians", including such criticism such as :

"The evangelists were fiction writers-- not observers or eyewitnesses
to the life of Jesus. Each of the four contradicts the other in writing
his account of the events of his suffering and crucifixion"

"Anyone will recognize that the [gospels] are really fairy tales if he
takes the time to read further into this nonsense of a story..."

"Another section in the gospel deserves comment, for it is likewise
devoid Of sense and full of implausibility; I mean that absurd story
about Jesus sending his apostles across the sea ahead of him after a
banquet, then walking across to them 'at the fourth watch of the
night'...Those who know the region well tell us that, in fact, there is
no 'sea' in the locality but only a tiny lake which springs from a
river that flows through the hills of Galilee near Tiberias... Mark
seems to be stretching a point to extremities when he writes that
Jesus-- after nine hours had passed-- decided in the tenth to walk
across to his disciples who had been floating about on the pond for the
duration... It is fables like this one that we judge the gospel to be a
cleverly woven curtain, each thread of which requires careful scrutiny"

JULIAN -

Then, just as Christianity had come to be the state religion, the Roman
emperor Julian rejected the faith and wrote his own refutation of
Christianity, "Against the Galileans", including comments such as :

".. why do you worship this spurious son of his whom has never been
recognised as his own",
and
"You however, I know not why, foist on him a counterfeit son"

Note this telling criticism of Julian, the educated Roman emperor :
"But if you can show me that one of these men is mentioned by the
well-known writers of that time - the events happened in the reign of
Tiberius or Claudius - then you may consider that I speak falsely on
all matters"

Here we see Julian explicitly state that Jesus is UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.

There is no doubt from this that early Christianity was dismissed as a
cult based on lies and myths.

Iasion

User: "Christopher A. Lee"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 04:03:06 AM

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 04:42:05 GMT, PMDavis <pmdlandarch@earthlink.net>
wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 08:46:32 -0400, Christopher A. Lee
<calee@optonline.net> wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 12:24:21 +0000 (UTC), "Malcolm"
<regniztar@btinternet.com> wrote:

"Ash" <ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote

Except for numbers - we ahve 4 accoutns of Jesus' life, 2 of which are
clearly based on another one and none of which are knonw to have existed
until at least 40 years after the alledged events. If there were only 4
eye witness reports to the holocause, and no archelogical evidence or then
you might have a point.

The crucifixion happed about AD33, St Paul dies about AD65 in the Neronian
persecution. The letters were obviously written before he died, probably
about AD50.
(What the Jesus deniers claim is that St Paul didn't believe in a literal
jesus, but in a kind of mythological heavenly figure).

What "Jesus deniers", lying Christian?

There is no tradition that Jesus didn't exist before the nineteenth century.

There's no "tradition that Jesus didn't exist" outside your deluded
imagination.

What there _is_, is no reason for people outside your religion to
think he did.

Are you even capable of grasping the difference?

Or the fact that if you sociopaths kept it to yourself nobody would
give a toss?

And I think this latter is what your cognitive dissonance won't let
you come to terms with.

So instead you rationalise why they "really" say they what they do, to
the point of personal lies about them - like "wishful thinking" about
something they wouldn't give a flying ***** about if you kept it to
yourself.

Or the paranoia behind your lie about "Christian-hating sources".

By contrast holocaust denial started a few years after the alleged events.

You are a despicable, hateful, hateful, lying bigot.

An event involving 6 million people sixty years ago is obviously different
from a sigle preacher 2,000 years ago. The type of evidence we have differs.
The intellectual status of the deniers is exactly the same. It is the litmus
test that sorts out the kooks from the serious thinkers.

The dishonest liar equates something in dispute and without evidence,
with a horrific event with plenty of evidence including the diaries of
those who did it, their victims, and the liberators.

Where's the equivalent evidence for your Jesus?

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did not.

Which like evey other Christian you assert but fail to provide.
Until you do that you have nothing to say on the subject.

According the scientific method as regularly applied to historic
documents, that's a sure win for the "Jesus existed" hypothesis.

Only if you are ignorant of the scientific method.
You are yet another data point against. So far there have been none
for.

In the face of your apparent rejection of generally accepted standards
of historic methodology, just what system are you operating on?

I'm not rejecting anything. But then you already know that.
All it would take is for you to provide some of this alleges evidence
instead of simply claiming it exists.
But no Christian has ever done that in2000 years.
See the problem?
.

User: "Doug Weller"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 04:46:51 AM

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 04:42:05 GMT, in soc.history.ancient, PMDavis wrote:

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did not.

There are no contemporary sources for the existence of Jesus. Why are you
claiming there are?
Doug
--
Doug Weller -- exorcise the demon to reply
Doug & Helen's Dogs http://www.dougandhelen.com
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk

.

User: "Malcolm"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 05:50:48 PM

"Doug Weller" <dweller@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote

There are no contemporary sources for the existence of Jesus. Why are you
claiming there are?

Silly demand for documents written at the time of Jesus's three year
ministry.
Sorry, aren't any.
.

User: "Mickey"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	18 Jul 2005 09:50:35 AM

"Malcolm" <regniztar@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:dbenc7$oc8$19@nwrdmz02.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...

"Doug Weller" <dweller@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote

There are no contemporary sources for the existence of Jesus. Why are

you

claiming there are?

Silly demand for documents written at the time of Jesus's three year
ministry.

Sorry, aren't any.

No documents to validate his existence whatsoever. Not even ONE of the 50
you claim.
babble on
.

User: "Don Kresch"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	18 Jul 2005 02:43:38 PM

In alt.atheism On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 22:50:48 +0000 (UTC), "Malcolm"
<regniztar@btinternet.com> let us all know that:

"Doug Weller" <dweller@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote

There are no contemporary sources for the existence of Jesus. Why are you
claiming there are?

Silly demand for documents written at the time of Jesus's three year
ministry.

Crying whine because he can't back his claim about the 50
documents.
Don
.

User: "Ash"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 06:38:09 PM

Malcolm wrote:

"Doug Weller" <dweller@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote

There are no contemporary sources for the existence of Jesus. Why are you
claiming there are?

Silly demand for documents written at the time of Jesus's three year
ministry.

Sorry, aren't any.

Well, done, some honesty at last, perhaps we are getting somewhere with you
.

User: "DanielSan"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 06:55:47 PM

Malcolm wrote:

"Doug Weller" <dweller@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote

There are no contemporary sources for the existence of Jesus. Why are you
claiming there are?

Silly demand for documents written at the time of Jesus's three year
ministry.

Sorry, aren't any.

Great. So there's no evidence of Jesus' existence.
Buh-bye! 8-)
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.

User: "Ben Goren"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 06:25:53 PM

Malcolm wrote:

Doug Weller wrote:

There are no contemporary sources for the existence of Jesus.
Why are you claiming there are?

Silly demand for documents written at the time of Jesus's three
year ministry.

Sorry, aren't any.

Yo! ***** Malcom!
Yap more lies about the meaning of ``contemporary.''
Cheers,
b&
--
BAAWA Knight of Blasphemy
All but God can prove this sentence true.
The Jesus challenge: put up or shut up http://tinyurl.com/9x22f
.

User: "Ash"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 04:31:12 AM

PMDavis wrote:

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did not.

There are no contemporaneous sources claiming he existed. NONE
.

User: "Ben Goren"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 01:00:06 AM

PMDavis wrote:

Christopher A. Lee wrote:

Where's the equivalent evidence for your Jesus?

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did
not.

Like I said, I'm getting tired of this *****. You Christians
keep claiming that there're ``multiple contemporaneous sources
claiming that Jesus existed,'' yet /not one/ of you has managed to
produce /anything/ contemporaneous. *****, half of you can't even
spell the word--I doubt you even know how to look it up in a
dictionary, let alone what the word actually means.
The /best/ any of you has yet to offer is an obvious fabrication
inserted into the works of somebody who wasn't even born until
after the alleged crucifixion. That's not evidence, and it sure
ain't contemporaneous.
Put up or shut up.
Cheers,
b&
--
BAAWA Knight of Blasphemy
All but God can prove this sentence true.
.

User: "Malcolm"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 03:44:06 AM

"Ben Goren" <ben.goren@gmail.com> wrote

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did
not.

Like I said, I'm getting tired of this *****.

It's a succinct statement of the situation.

You Christians
keep claiming that there're ``multiple contemporaneous sources
claiming that Jesus existed,'' yet /not one/ of you has managed to
produce /anything/ contemporaneous. *****, half of you can't even
spell the word--I doubt you even know how to look it up in a
dictionary, let alone what the word actually means.

You are demanding that something was written during the three or so years of
Jesus' ministry, when no-one knew that He would ever have more than twelve
or so followers, that He wouldn't be teaching for the next fifty years or
so, that posterity would have any interest. Then you demand that this
document survive.
Sure it would be nice to have such a document.
We've documents that may be by eyewitnesses, but they cannot be proved
beyond all reasonable doubt to be not be eyewitnesses. therefore by atheist
logic, they are all definitely not by eyewitnesses.
We have documents definitely attributed to people who definitely met
eyewitnesses. That's good enough to establish that such a person as Jesus
definitely existed.

The /best/ any of you has yet to offer is an obvious fabrication
inserted into the works of somebody who wasn't even born until
after the alleged crucifixion. That's not evidence, and it sure
ain't contemporaneous.

Evidnece isn't evidence. Josephus mentions Jesus twice, John the Baptist
quite extensively, Hillel never. Do you believe in Hillel?

Put up or shut up.

We've expalined the central weakness in your position. You Sir are a kook
theorist.
.

User: "Don Kresch"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 08:34:38 AM

In alt.atheism On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:44:06 +0000 (UTC), "Malcolm"
<regniztar@btinternet.com> let us all know that:

"Ben Goren" <ben.goren@gmail.com> wrote

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did
not.

Like I said, I'm getting tired of this *****.

It's a succinct statement of the situation.

No, we don't. There are no eyewitness documents.

Evidnece isn't evidence. Josephus mentions Jesus twice,

Once. The other is a proven forgery.
Don
.

User: "Christopher A. Lee"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 09:08:38 AM

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:34:38 -0500, Don Kresch
<ROT13.qxerfpu@jv.ee.pbz.com> wrote:

In alt.atheism On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:44:06 +0000 (UTC), "Malcolm"
<regniztar@btinternet.com> let us all know that:

"Ben Goren" <ben.goren@gmail.com> wrote

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did
not.

Like I said, I'm getting tired of this *****.

It's a succinct statement of the situation.

No, we don't. There are no eyewitness documents.

Evidnece isn't evidence. Josephus mentions Jesus twice,

Once. The other is a proven forgery.

It has obviously been tampered with, because it was written by a
Christian not a Jew. Some people feel that there was something about
him in an unknown original, but there doesn't seem to be any
justification for this.

Whoever wrote "the brother of Jesus" expected the reader to know who
Jesus was. Josephus wrote boringly detailed minutiae of everybody else
wrote about, yet this is missing for Jesus. Just as with the larger
paragraph, the style is different from the rest of his writings, but
not as obviously.
This is enough to cast doubt on it as well, especially in the light of
the tampered larger paragraph.
Dan Barker makes the case that this was a different James: the
description of his death is different than the description in church
history.
.

User: "Ash"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 12:07:44 PM

Christopher A. Lee wrote:

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:34:38 -0500, Don Kresch
It has obviously been tampered with, because it was written by a
Christian not a Jew. Some people feel that there was something about
him in an unknown original, but there doesn't seem to be any
justification for this.

Indeed, many people have presented what they claim is the "likely"
original, once the overtly Christian parts are removed, but none of the
reconstructions I have seen look convincing, they still tend to use no
Josephus like language and ignore the context of the next paragraph
.

User: "Christopher A. Lee"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 12:54:11 PM

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:07:44 +0100, Ash
<ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

Christopher A. Lee wrote:

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:34:38 -0500, Don Kresch

I know. The conclusion is obvious.
As is the method used to "reconstruct" it - wishful thinking.
.

User: "Ash"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 04:41:26 AM

Malcolm wrote:

"Ben Goren" <ben.goren@gmail.com> wrote

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did
not.

Like I said, I'm getting tired of this *****.

It's a succinct statement of the situation.

no, ke keeps demanding that people who claim there os contempory witness
reports produce it, which amounts to the same thing, but the motivation
is clearly different.

Sure it would be nice to have such a document.
We've documents that may be by eyewitnesses, but they cannot be proved
beyond all reasonable doubt to be not be eyewitnesses. therefore by atheist
logic, they are all definitely not by eyewitnesses.
We have documents definitely attributed to people who definitely met
eyewitnesses. That's good enough to establish that such a person as Jesus
definitely existed.

No we don't. We have documents attributed to peolle who met Jesus, but
to say they deffinately met Jesus is to assume the claims are true, and
then using the truth of such claims to prove that the person they are
making claims about was real.
.

User: "Malcolm"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 05:50:47 PM

"Ash" <ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote

No we don't. We have documents attributed to peolle who met Jesus, but to
say they deffinately met Jesus is to assume the claims are true, and then
using the truth of such claims to prove that the person they are making
claims about was real.

Some intelligence at last. We have documents, some of which are claimed to
be by eyewitnesses. However we cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that any
of them are actually by eyewitnesses.
Because atheists are so stupid, this turns into "definitely no eyewitness
documents".
However if you have second hand lecture notes, that is really powerful
evidence that there was such a person as the lecturer. Not quite as good as
first hand notes, but it is pretty far-fetched to suggest that this person
was a figment of someone's imagination.
When you have about fifty such notes, it becomes obvious that such a person
as the lecturer must have existed, even if maybe some of the lectures have
got a bit garbled.
.

User: "Mickey"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	18 Jul 2005 09:49:27 AM

"Malcolm" <regniztar@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:dbenc7$oc8$18@nwrdmz02.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...

"Ash" <ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote

No we don't. We have documents attributed to peolle who met Jesus, but

say they deffinately met Jesus is to assume the claims are true, and

then

using the truth of such claims to prove that the person they are making
claims about was real.

Some intelligence at last. We have documents

Not one of which you can cite.
.

User: "Don Kresch"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	18 Jul 2005 02:43:09 PM

In alt.atheism On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 22:50:47 +0000 (UTC), "Malcolm"
<regniztar@btinternet.com> let us all know that:

"Ash" <ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote

No we don't. We have documents attributed to peolle who met Jesus, but to
say they deffinately met Jesus is to assume the claims are true, and then
using the truth of such claims to prove that the person they are making
claims about was real.

Some intelligence at last. We have documents, some of which are claimed to
be by eyewitnesses.

But we know that none of them are eyewitness accounts of jesus
himself, and only liars say that they are.
Don
.

User: "Christopher A. Lee"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 04:06:11 AM

On 16 Jul 2005 23:00:06 -0700, "Ben Goren" <ben.goren@gmail.com>
wrote:

PMDavis wrote:

Christopher A. Lee wrote:

Where's the equivalent evidence for your Jesus?

There are multiple contemporaneous sources claiming that Jesus
existed, and no comtemporaneous sources claiming that he did
not.

They don't seemto understand that every time they claim there is
evidence but refuse to provide it, weakens the case they're trying to
make, and confirms that they haven't any.

User: "Malcolm"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 05:50:46 PM

"Christopher A. Lee" <calee@optonline.net> wrote

They don't seemto understand that every time they claim there is
evidence but refuse to provide it, weakens the case they're trying to
make, and confirms that they haven't any.

Or make the atheists look stupid, because they don't even know what this
well-known evidence is.
.

User: "Mickey"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	18 Jul 2005 09:49:47 AM

"Malcolm" <regniztar@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:dbenc6$oc8$17@nwrdmz02.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...

"Christopher A. Lee" <calee@optonline.net> wrote

They don't seemto understand that every time they claim there is
evidence but refuse to provide it, weakens the case they're trying to
make, and confirms that they haven't any.

Or make the atheists look stupid, because they don't even know what this
well-known evidence is.

Which you mysteriously cannot cite
.

User: "Christopher A. Lee"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 06:14:31 PM

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 22:50:46 +0000 (UTC), "Malcolm"
<regniztar@btinternet.com> wrote:

"Christopher A. Lee" <calee@optonline.net> wrote

They don't seemto understand that every time they claim there is
evidence but refuse to provide it, weakens the case they're trying to
make, and confirms that they haven't any.

Or make the atheists look stupid, because they don't even know what this
well-known evidence is.

Then provide it, liar.
.

User: "Susan Cohen"
Title: Re: Jesus Denial Is Hate Crime	17 Jul 2005 11:19:11 PM

"Ash" <ashamanic@winterfell73.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dbaqsh$r11$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...

Malcolm wrote:

Jesus denial, holcoaust denial, creationism, three absurdities with very
similar characteristics. Soon to be joined by 9/11