Calling all Atheist Historians

[liamconnor]

I imagine some members here think I beat around the bush.

Here I try to lay down my cards. I stand by my previous statement that I have no interest in converting anyone. However, I bring up History again and again because I do want to find satisfying, passionately endorsed, academically informed, rigorously self-scrutinized explanations for the origins of Christianity.

Here is an experiment that I hope will clarify my entire position; I apologize for the unpardonable length, but we all know how to word-chop and sentence deconstruct and read between lines that aren't there, so I tried to make it as clear as possible without writing a book.


"Call me Lucretius. Here is my Profile:

1) I am an atheist on philosophical grounds: mainly the problem of evil. I have no interest in discussing that topic. My mind is set. (i.e., this OP is not about proving or disproving that a supernatural entity intervened in the natural scheme and brought back a corpse).

2) However, I am not terribly convinced by the claim that what has not happened yet cannot happen in the future. I doubt this categorical negative on philosophical and scientific grounds. Scientists have convinced me that weird things occur; I also know enough theoretical science to know its business is not about saying what can or cannot happen, but does happen"that is, it is about the results of controlled conditions. Philosophically, I have read some Hume and, whether I have understood him, have come to believe that the so-called laws of nature are really just descriptions of habitual experience; like animals (of which we are only a complication) we come to expect things that repeat. But I recognize this to be irrational. There was a time when only sentience existed; no one could have expected that such creatures would evolve and start building contraptions and producing art. But here we are. Of course, this was a natural transition, see #1.

3) I have an historians inclination. I like to reconstruct events of the past as carefully and systematically as the data allows. If an explanation is implausible, I reject it and look for one that satisfies.

4) One of my interests is what sparked the Jesus movement, i.e., the origins of Christianity. I know that whatever happened, no deity was involved because (refer to #1) no deity exists; but, since I have no agenda to disprove Christians (they can believe whatever they want"although I think it is environmentally unfriendly when they hand me a tract which goes promptly into the waste basket) I want to reconstruct the fullest, tightest, explanation I can. I am not set out to show what didnt happen; I want to know what did.

5) I have spent years studying the relevant material: learned the relevant languages, read the relevant primary sources, as well as many secondary sources as I can. My selections were not prejudiced. If someone (apart from suggesting the supernatural, see #1) made sense, I accepted his proposition.

6) In the end, I came to two explanations which account for the historical data"the documents, the historical context, and psychological questions of plausible motives and relevant cultural beliefs, etc. etc.

(a). Jesus corpse was coincidentally robbed by a non-disciple. Someone that did not know about Jesus. Just a grave-robber. Coinciding with, but not related to, this incident, Jesus disciples shortly after had numerous, complicated and congruent hallucinations which were visual and tangible. By complicated I mean that they were not sasquatch sitings from far off. By congruent I mean something like this: suppose Peters biochemistry caused Peter to see Jesus and hear him saying to him specific sentences. Coinciding with this complex hallucination, Andronicus biochemistry corresponds, thus causing him to see Jesus talking to Peter, and saying to Peter the same specific sentences as Peter is likewise hallucinating. If Andronicus biochemistry then causes him to hallucinate this same image as turning away from Peter and towards him, Peters biochemistry will likewise cause Peter to see Jesus turn away from himself and towards Andronicus. Every person in the vicinity of Peter and Andronicus suffered, by their own biochemistry, their own cerebral misfiring, likewise congruent hallucinations. When the disciples got together, they talked (like everyone does of a significant event) and no one said, wait, he never said to you x or grabbed your shoulderI was standing right next to you. These encounters all had one effect: the disciples all left them believing that Jesus had risen from the dead; that Jesus was Israels Messiah and therefore (according to Jewish tradition) the King of all nations; and was uniquely related to Israels god in such a way that it was not blasphemy to call him God; that his death/resurrection somehow could return the world to a primordial happy state.

(b). By purely natural means (there is no god, see #1 above) Jesus body underwent a reversal of the processes of decay. Much like the fetus, his body simply ceased its biological processes in one direction and went into the other. After appearing to his disciples, he convinced them he had risen from the dead by supernatural means (probably not a lie, it seems more credible that he believed it); that (see the italics of (a) immediately above.

7) As an historian I had to reject (b). We know that grave-robberies occur. Thus what is not unique must be given priority over what is. Jesus body was coincidentally robbed; coinciding with this was a complex, prolonged, and congruent mishap in the biochemistry of numerous persons, as described in (a) above."



Now (liamconnor speaking), what do you say to Lucretius? Not to liamconnor. To Lucretius. Remember, this OP SHOULD never even BRING UP MIRACULOUS DEEDS; remember, this is for people who actually care about the past; people who want to know what happened. If you don't, but feel the burning desire to post, perhaps first ask yourself "why do I really need to post something irrelevant to the OP?"

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 19 by Willum]

Ahh.

I am starting to understand!


(sorry, I don't check links. I want posters to understand their own arguments. I also don't give links).

So, let me get this straight, the Romans said to the Jews, "Hey, your god is really Jesus, one of our gods! Let's all get along!" And the Jews accepted this? Or did they not? Or did some and some did not?

Is that correct?

[alwayson]

[Replying to post 21 by liamconnor]

Does Lucretius or you understand that the letters of Paul are written BEFORE the Gospels?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 22 by alwayson]

Lucretius understands that the a miraculous resurrection didn't happen.

He wants to know how Christianity began (NATURALLY, PLEASE!)

Who told what to whom and why did he/she/they tell it? It had to start somewhere. Someone, at sometime, had to say something, to start this thing. Lucretius wants a satisfying explanation for this, one that takes into all informed factors.

Lucretius is stuck on the theory that a bunch of guys had hallucinations of their master. Hmmm...perhaps you have pointed out (well, no, I have had to painfully extract it) one detail which I thought was obvious. One of the hallucinations was of Saul, a Jew hostile to Christianity.

Now, let us try again.

[alwayson]

[Replying to post 23 by liamconnor]

You didn't answer the question.

Does Lucretius or you understand that the Pauline epistles are written BEFORE the Gospels?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 24 by alwayson]

I answered your questions. In a PM.

They have no relevance to the OP; but I guess you need me to answer non-relevant questions:

Lucretius is well aware that the letters of Paul predate the gospels. Lucretius is an atheist; not an evangelical scholar, but still a avid reader. Lucretius knows Greek and some Hebrew. Lucretius thinks that Mark is the first gospel, and Luke and Matthew borrow from it and from another source, which scholars call Q, which is from the german meaning "source". Lucretius by no means believes everything in the gospels or historically true. He highly doubts that Jesus (per John's gospel) created an incident in the temple at the beginning of his ministry. He knows that the canonical ending of Mark is suspect based on poor manuscript evidence. He knows some letters of Paul are disputed, and is fine leaving them out of the picture.

Have we dispensed with the "academic intimidation"? Or should we go on?


Moving on (or back!)...

Lucretius will try again to make this very basic: Lucretius and YOU both have to admit that Christianity exists today. Right? He and you both agree it didn't exist 3,000 years ago, right? Lucretius and you both agree it started sometime in the mid 1st c. A.D., right?


If so, Lucretius wants to know, "Who started it, and why?"

He has surveyed the data and believes the best explanation is............well, I am tired of redirecting you to the OP.

[alwayson]

Lucretius is well aware that the letters of Paul predate the gospels.

Then why isn't Lucretius basing his hallucination theory on the letters of Paul?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 26 by alwayson]


K....my OP and my responses have been pretty straight forward. Either you are daft or you are playing around with me. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take the second.

So, according to the OP, do you disagree with the hallucination hypothesis, or do you agree?

It is a Yes/No answer.

If you can't give a yes or no in capital print in your next response, then move on. There are plenty of OPs in the sea for you, so to speak.

If you can give a YES, then give one, and I promise to return to you.


If you give a NO, then answer the question. How do you believe Christianity begin? Did Paul make it up? Did President Bush? Did the Romans? Did Martians brain wash twelve Jews around the Sea of Galilee?

Personally speaking, you and I are about done with further correspondences. If you can't answer the above, then PM me and explain why.

(of course, in light of a recent OP calling all members to join on the basis of reason, I am willing to listen to correction...have I missed something important here??? Or should we call Alwayson to account?)

[liamconnor]

It seems some are having a hard time understanding the OP,

For them (Alwayson, listen up) I simplify Lucretius' findings.

One guy thinks a bunch of dudes living in 1st c. Palestine hallucinated about their Rabbi dude, and from their hallucinations, they started an epidemic...they started teaching crazy things about this dude. For whatever reason, these crazy things caught on! Wo, man!


But Lucretius wants to know whether there are other explanations. What's yours?

[liamconnor]

Someone here asked,

Then why isn't Lucretius basing his hallucination theory on the letters of Paul?

Anyone who knows anything of the Bible, or has read my OPs will know that nothing of what Lucretius has said gave priority to the gospels over Paul.


Completely irrelevant.


Please, Defenders of Reason Unite!

[alwayson]

nothing of what Lucretius has said gave priority to the gospels over Paul.

False.

The OP hallucination theory is based entirely on the Gospels, rather than the letters of Paul.