Bible Christianity is Holy baloney

by Half banana 25 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Half banana

  @Opusdei, you make a good case for the un-likeliness of 90% of the gospels being historical. To my mind in the absence of any contemporary secular corroboration of gospel stories, virtually the whole thing looks like propaganda and not history... and that includes JC. IF there really was a wonder working god-man who could raise the dead, don’t you think he would be brought to the attention of the highly literate Roman authorities? People who can really raise the dead would be somewhat in demand.

  I understand the general protest we all make: “but surely it was built around a real person.” As I said, this is generally not the way of the Bible; the Bible puts flesh on a prevailing skeleton of myth which has far greater psychological leverage than raising up and idolising some Jewish conjuror for example. The reason the prevailing myth theory (such as the god-man) is more successful than glorifying an existing individual, is that the belief is already present when the story is told.

  The substitution of “Jesus” for the Roman “Mithras” or “Dionysus” was clearly an expediency of the early christ-cult to attract the disaffected and messianic minded Jews who already had, by the way, a story in the back of their minds told from about 100BCE of a wonder- working Rabbi called Jesus.
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  opusdei1972

  The Ebionites were a jewish sect which did not believe that Jesus born of a virgin, and denied his divinity. They regarded Jesus as the Messiah only. So, it tells me that the ebionites may reflect something of the original movement of Jews who followed the historical Jesus. Because the gentile line introduced those pagan elements found in gods like Mithra and Osiris.
  
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  Half banana

  Yes Opusdei it does look like the Ebionites did have some influence and possibly the major one for Jewish converts. The difficulty is lack of documentation but even that fact in this instance, may indicate the suppression of texts from the Christ cultists or the Roman Church denying the promiscuous origins of their religion and possibly by destruction of antecedent sect literature in the fourth century under Constantine.

  It seems the Ebionites were related doctrinally to the Essenes if not the very same sect. What I find interesting is that Judaism was generally not disposed to asceticism neither before nor after this time yet it seems that their thread of self-denial was introduced to Greek and Roman Christianity which later became expressed in monasticism (culminating in the unhinged St Francis of Assisi and ten thousand other self flagellating monks!).

  @Mr P, thanks for the reference of Gandy and Freke's Jesus book, I'll have to look that up.

  @Cofty, now I'm also looking forward to Richard Carrier's book.
  
  
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  opusdei1972

  The only thing I am sure is that there is little truth, mixed with too much fiction, in the Gospels. In the past I despised the gnostic gospels, but now I have no more respect for the canonicals. This was a big historical fraud where most of the christian authors wrote falsehood intentionally. Then, few centuries later all were obligated to believe in the orthodox christian lie, otherwise, one would be executed by fire as an apostate. Of course, most of the catholic scholars currently know that many of the NT accounts are not historical, but they admit it in scholarly books. However, unfortunately, we still have dangerous sects like the Watchtower cult, which maintain its people in the most stupid dark age. It's time to expose, not only the Islam, but the whole fraud of christianity.
  
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  Phizzy

  Dear opusdei1972, it strikes me that you have the ability to write a book on the subject, you already have a working Title, "The Fraud of Christianity", you could add a subtitle "And of all Religion".

  I know it would be hard to follow great books like "The God Delusion" and "God is Not Great" etc etc, but you would come at it from a different angle I feel.

  It is certainly true, in line with the Thread Title, that ALL religion is Holy Baloney !

  As to the "Historical Jesus" question, I don't think it matters one way or the other, it is the same with the King Arthur legends, was there a real Arthur ? who knows, but we all know he will not turn out to be the "once and future King", any more than Jesus will.
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  opusdei1972

  Phizzy: I am not against religious beliefs per se. However, I am against to authoritarian institutions which use religious dogmas to dominate people. Of course, christian institutions are not unique in it.

  I was a Jehovah's witness, and then I was active in a christian forum of ex-witnesses, not long ago. Interestingly, when I noticed the Bible frauds, I shared the Bible contradictions in that forum, and some people of the forum showed their actual christian face by insulting me. One of them, studied theology in a christian seminar, and was very angry by my posts. He could not resist my arguments, and wrote that I am dangerous for those of faith, and he would not chat with me anymore. So, I understood that some ex-witnesses are still mentally witnesses because they are still following some shunning policies of the NT. I also noted that these seminars of theology are intended to teach and defend lies by using scholarly terms, but they are all academic baloney!!!.

  I remember when AlanF was invited to that forum for a while, and I enjoyed the debates, though at that time I was still a christian believer.
  

  I am not saying that all christians are fanatic, but if they want to follow strictly the Bible, they had to be.