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Christianity as an intellectual topic

Posted by: Citizens for Mustard Greens ( Samuel Day Fassbinder, The one with the red suit with the horns and tail ) on April 12, 1999 at 18:47:37:

In Reply to: New Thesis: That Christians are incapable of Rational debate posted by Copenhagen on April 11, 1999 at 17:53:22:


: What will never be proven is whether a 'god' exists. However i think there is a plethora of evidence to suggest that christianity is the biggest bunch of bullshit ever served. Just look at history for the evidence:

SDF: What appears below, appears to be a critique of fundamentalism, not necessarily of Christianity per se. There are those who believe, as Rudolf Bultmann apparently did, that the facticity of the Bible is not relevant to one's belief in Christianity. Of course, one can't debate this matter with them, either. But at least those who know they're believing in a myth are intellectually honest enough to admit that that's what they're doing, and one can certainly debate other stuff with them.

What comes to mind is the novelist George Eliot's belief that Christianity was untrue but that good social purposes were served in the public's belief in Christianity, anyway. (I'm not saying I believe as Eliot did -- but at least her thesis about Christianity was debatable...)

: 1) The 12 testaments written by a pharisee in 100 BC that basically contain the substance of the gospels. Guess this makes the 'son of god' a plagiarist.

: 2) There are in fact around 50 gospels. The fact that 4 were chosen is based upon the whims of the founding fathers. A true historical anaylsis cannot deny a treatment of these texts also.

SDF: Thus "Christianity" was an invention of the Council of Nicaea, and must trace its origins not to Jesus but to 330 A.D. (I think), when the REAL final edit of the New Testament was made (never mind the King James Version and the other cosmetic edits that were applied later). No?

: 3) The old and new testaments contain FUNDAMENTAL INCONSISTENCIES

SDF: There's a page dedicated to this...

: 4) It was often said to me in days gone by that there was 'more proof for jesus as son of god than there was for julius caesar'. What a preposterous lie. There is a gobsmacking pile of evidence for caesar...one needs only look at the historical records of roman law.

SDF: Actually, there is substantial evidence for Jesus' existence, in Roman documents as well -- that's as far as it goes -- check out A. N. Wilson's JESUS: A LIFE (for instance) to see how the scholarship paints a different picture of Jesus' life than that given in the New Testament.

: 5) Besides this there is also the FACT that early christians loved to BURN BOOKS that did not accord with their beliefs. Thus the only remaining evidence of a treatise by celsus that systematically set out to show jesus was not the messiah exists only in the form of an unconvincing refutation written by a christian 'scholar'.

SDF: Christians are also guilty of razing the great library at Alexandria in Egypt during the Byzantine period (6th century I think), thus destroying much of what we might otherwise know about antiquity.




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