Atheism As A REJECTION OF--Not Disbelief In--An Evil God (disciples, Mormonism, church)
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Please give me a reason to consider you anything other than a crackpot conspiracy theorist.
I half agree with you here. Not that the other poster is a "crackpot conspiracy thinker", but that I think what he is questioning is probably wrong. I will make a presumption that there were 12 men who are described as Jesus' disciples. But what do we really know about them? How do we know they were telling the truth? How do we know that they weren't a bit loony?
Let's compare it to this:
We can confirm a great deal about the history of Joseph Smith. We know his birth date and death date. We know from historical records where he was born and who his parents were, and how many brothers and sisters he had. We know he had a childhood illness that resulted in him having to use crutches for a few years. We know when he moved from New England to Palmyra, NY, and we know exact property where he lived in Palmyra...from historical records. We can trace with historical accuracy many of the things that happened to him from his time in Palmyra to his death in Illinois; we know where he traveled to, we know where and how he died with historical accuracy. Far more...FAR MORE...than we know about Jesus' disciples or even Jesus himself.
And yet, we all know that you don't believe in the visions that Joseph Smith had in the Sacred Grove in Palmyra. We know you don't believe that the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith Golden Plates at Hill Cumorah. We know you don't believe the Eight Witnesses and the Eleven Witnesses.
What you are asking we atheists to believe is not unlike what Mormon missionaries ask you to believe. And yet, you don't believe them.
And this is the problem with you folks: you don't accept Islam as your religion. You don't accept Buddhism as your religion. You don't accept Hinduism as your religion. You don't accept Sikhism as your religion. And yet you and your people get rather indignant when we don't accept your religion. Gee, do you think that's a double standard? DO you think your attitude is without principle?
I half agree with you here. Not that the other poster is a "crackpot conspiracy thinker", but that I think what he is questioning is probably wrong. I will make a presumption that there were 12 men who are described as Jesus' disciples. But what do we really know about them? How do we know they were telling the truth? How do we know that they weren't a bit loony?
Let's compare it to this:
We can confirm a great deal about the history of Joseph Smith. We know his birth date and death date. We know from historical records where he was born and who his parents were, and how many brothers and sisters he had. We know he had a childhood illness that resulted in him having to use crutches for a few years. We know when he moved from New England to Palmyra, NY, and we know exact property where he lived in Palmyra...from historical records. We can trace with historical accuracy many of the things that happened to him from his time in Palmyra to his death in Illinois; we know where he traveled to, we know where and how he died with historical accuracy. Far more...FAR MORE...than we know about Jesus' disciples or even Jesus himself.
And yet, we all know that you don't believe in the visions that Joseph Smith had in the Sacred Grove in Palmyra. We know you don't believe that the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith Golden Plates at Hill Cumorah. We know you don't believe the Eight Witnesses and the Eleven Witnesses.
What you are asking we atheists to believe is not unlike what Mormon missionaries ask you to believe. And yet, you don't believe them.
And this is the problem with you folks: you don't accept Islam as your religion. You don't accept Buddhism as your religion. You don't accept Hinduism as your religion. You don't accept Sikhism as your religion. And yet you and your people get rather indignant when we don't accept your religion. Gee, do you think that's a double standard? DO you think your attitude is without principle?
I'm not asking you to believe or accept anything. It's just that those of your ilk keep telling me that I have no evidence for believing these things. I beg to differ, and have been trying to explain why.
Please give me a reason to consider you anything other than a crackpot conspiracy theorist.
Because the only evidence the we have for the disciples is Mark's fictional allegory of Paul's teachings and every other redaction of that one gospel. Fiction based on fiction is still fiction. And we know Christians wrote fictional gospels and Acts, so the evidence of numbers is on our side.
We have the early Christian writings that never reference any disciples, they only ever have Jesus talking through the prophets (the OT and other Jewish texts) and through revelation. Paul literally admits this.
And I have credited historians on my side. As I said, you should Google them.
You have a strange story about a god who becomes a man, and sacrifices himself and is then resurrected.
There's no reason to expect anyone "without skin in the game" to give any credence or even a passing thought to a resurrection story. I mean, would you? Put yourself in their shoes.
You are suggesting that they would be so opposed to a faith they never heard of before that they would successfully deploy a vast conspiracy encompassing pretty much the whole world for decades at least to purposely ignore these fantastical events. Given the times, I would think it far more likely that they would be terrified by it and motivated to report it, look into it, and possibly get on board with whatever was behind it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
No, it's not unreasonable. It's also not unreasonable to wonder if these things were not perceived by everyone. The miracle of the sun at Fatima comes to mind. Some perceived it, many didn't.
Which is more likely suggestive of what ... that it was a form of mass hysteria that didn't work on everyone, or that it was a miracle that was somehow not noticed by many?
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
I agree with you; but if anyone knew the truth about whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, it was his disciples. If Jesus was dead, they knew it. Basic human psychology says that many people are willing to suffer and die for what they believe. They do not suffer and die for a known lie. Maybe a couple of them would be crazy or mentally ill enough, but all of them? And they all kept the secret perfectly for their entire lives? Impossible.
You are unintentionally proving my point, which is precisely that people are willing to suffer and die for what they BELIEVE. They do not suffer or die for something they BELIEVE to be a lie, but happily do so in certain not-uncommon circumstances for what they BELIEVE to be TRUE. Believing is something unfortunately that varies independently of what is ACTUALLY true. And you do not have to be mentally ill to lie to yourself and others. Society actually tolerates quite a bit of latitude at least in the context of religion, because religion has been successful in various special pleadings for itself. Besides, there is a difference between thinking you speak for god, say, and being caught up in a group dynamic that believes it speaks for god, thus empowering individuals to act as if they speak for directly for god.
Was it necessary for the apostles to deliberately lie according to some master plan or conspiracy? In the real world, I think things aren't quite that overtly Machiavellian, but at this distance, we will never know their actual thinking and I don't think it's important to speculate on it. All we really have to understand is that the truth claims are about as extraordinary as they get, and thus require about as rigorous and extraordinary proofs as we can muster before they can be considered. We know what humans generally do in these situations (fudge the truth), and we know that to be the far more likely explanation than that a supreme being incarnated himself as human to sacrifice himself to himself to save humanity from his own judgments against them which came about as a result of a Fall that he permitted and yet somehow could not.
And we know Christians wrote fictional gospels and Acts, so the evidence of numbers is on our side.
There's a reason certain Gospels were rejected and certain Gospels were accepted in the canon. It wasn't arbitrary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
We have the early Christian writings that never reference any disciples, they only ever have Jesus talking through the prophets (the OT and other Jewish texts) and through revelation.
If the story was being tinkered with and improved upon for better continuity to deceive the pagans that the church was trying to convert then it gives a lot of credence to the claim that Jesus' resurrection was a fabrication being pushed by the Jesus cult leaders to get the pagans to accept Jesus. Changing the story from "the women didn't tell anybody" to "the women went and told the disciples" is a huge detail that you simply refuse to acknowledge because it makes Christianity look deceptive and I told you earlier you would hate and try to quash ANYTHING that made your religion look deceptive even if deep down you believed it to be true. But it all depends on which side of the fence we're standing on. Which I acknowledge there can be no meeting of the minds on with regard to the gospels having been deliberately and deceptively changed by dishonest churchmen to better accommodate a more believable story the churchmen were trying to sell to the pagans.
I have been reading some history about the mediterranean sea, in a book titled "The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean," by David Abulafia (as I've mentioned before in this forum)...
It's a thick one and the level of detail is more than I'm typically interested to read, but one thing the book well describes with the same amount of comprehensive detail is the manner in which the different religions interacted in and around the mediterranean back in those early days. Amazing to read what was accepted or tolerated back then as opposed to how things evolved later on. What mattered then as opposed to what mattered later. Very interesting to see how the various religions were affected by the others. How much was "borrowed" or influenced by the others. Christians with followers of Judaism. Judaism and Islam. The pagan religions. The Romans and the countless other invaders from all directions. What the rulers tolerated, where and why. Who they tolerated, where and why.
Proving to me as always that the history of religion and how the religions have come to be what they are today is nothing like most people realize. Not even today's practitioners of those religions. In many ways, people really have no idea, and perhaps better for them or they might not be quite as convinced about the "right" of their religion they seem to assume.
There's no reason to expect anyone "without skin in the game" to give any credence or even a passing thought to a resurrection story. I mean, would you? Put yourself in their shoes.
Apart from those who would have been interested in such things. And yes, someone claims there was a resurrection, people would be interested. But they never did. Philo, Pliny the Elder, Seneca, all quiet on these alleged wonders (including a 3 hour darkness). Even Justin of Tiberius, who recorded the history of 1st century AD Galilee does not mention Jesus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
I agree with you; but if anyone knew the truth about whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, it was his disciples. If Jesus was dead, they knew it. Basic human psychology says that many people are willing to suffer and die for what they believe.
Except there is zero evidence any disciple died for their beliefs. Even the texts not used as official ever have a disciple dying for his religious beliefs.
And even if people died for their beliefs, that does not mean their beliefs were true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
They do not suffer and die for a known lie.
Except people do if they think it will make the world a better place.
You are suggesting that they would be so opposed to a faith they never heard of before that they would successfully deploy a vast conspiracy encompassing pretty much the whole world for decades at least to purposely ignore these fantastical events. Given the times, I would think it far more likely that they would be terrified by it and motivated to report it, look into it, and possibly get on board with whatever was behind it.
No, I think it's far more likely that a neutral observer would ignore it altogether.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
and we know that to be the far more likely explanation than that a supreme being incarnated himself as human to sacrifice himself to himself to save humanity from his own judgments against them which came about as a result of a Fall that he permitted and yet somehow could not.
This cartoonish and Calvinistic mischaracterization of Catholic belief suggests to me that you're not really taking this discussion seriously. And that's your right, but it doesn't exactly give me incentive to put any more effort into engaging with you...
Something with intelligence had to organize the 2x10^25 molecules in every person's body on earth. I certainly didn't do it, neither did you, Arach. Who or what did?
Not this argument again? Can't believe it, but one thing for sure is that you nor any of the rest of us organized all those molecules. Though a great many, not enough for you to understand that what you don't understand is simply not good reason to conclude a higher intelligence or anything supernatural. Asking who or what does not ergo mean a god, higher intelligence or anything supernatural either.
It's just another question you can't answer is all, because you too are a mere mortal. A mere mortal at this time in human history when we're still working to reveal the answer to these questions. Much like we have managed to reveal the answer to other such questions without the insistence it must be a god. I.T. Please. How about a bit of that humility I keep asking you to consider? You are not as smart as you think you are to answer all the questions you simply can't answer. Why must we always insist on answers to questions we can't answer or properly justify in any logical or intelligent way? I really just don't know...
Reminds me of the good old days before we had GPS. Waze. You would pull up to a person and ask directions. Over time I came to realize there are two kinds of people. There are those who know the way to where you want to go, and will tell you, or they will admit they just don't know. The other kind of person doesn't know the way to where you want to go, but rather than simply and modestly admit they don't, they give you bad directions. Not sure I know how to explain that in any other way other than too much ego as well.
People are loath to admit they are wrong, and all too often even less comfortable to simply admit they don't know the answer to a question...
Last edited by LearnMe; 05-04-2022 at 10:15 AM..
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