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?"

[Willum]

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]

Propaganda is a fact. It is usually conveyed as a few pamphlets, it has no need for history or documentation to back it up.
Jesus' physical effect on reality was to encourage Jews not to rebel, pay their taxes and obey Roman law.

This comes from.

Matthew 22, Romans 13 and Peter 2:13.

So as a historian, you should weigh then 400 year policy of Rome to use propaganda and religion to pacify its conquests, against the likelihood of such stories.

And against the probability that the Jewish savior appears in time to quell an insurrection, and o other signs appeared before or after...

Any reasonable historian would say the probability of it being typical government propaganda far exceeds any stories.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 2 by Willum]



So you are vehemently opposed to the hallucination theory (which, remember, denies the existence of god and an actual, bodily resurrection)? That is, of all the theories, yours and the two above, all of which deny god and a miracle, you are dead set in defending the yours against the other two? all reject god, remember. If Lucretius and you enter into a debate about the origins of Christianity, both of you agreed that there is no god and nothing supernatural happened, you would still oppose his "hallucination theory"?

[alwayson]

The Gospels are written AFTER the letters of Paul:

Encyclopedia Britannica: "The books are not arranged chronologically in the New Testament. The Epistles of Paul, for example, which address the immediate problems of local churches shortly after Christ's death, are considered to be the earliest texts."

Scholars know where every aspect of the Gospels comes from.

For example Jesus riding on a donkey is from Zechariah 9.

Mark and Matthew freely borrow ideas and even exact language from the Septuagint. Whoever wrote Mark and Matthew did not intend them literally.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 4 by alwayson]

Sorry, not sure what youre trying here.

Read the OP. You are not writing to a Christian. You are writing to an atheist historian looking for an alternate natural explanation to the "hallucination theory".


Your rather strange response suggests you agree and are willing to defend the hallucination theory...is that correct?

[alwayson]

[Replying to post 4 by alwayson]

Sorry, not sure what youre trying here.

Lets try again. The Gospels are written AFTER the letters of Paul.

And scholars already know they are fiction.

[alwayson]

You are writing to an atheist historian

Then why are you debating something which scholars already know is fiction?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 3 by liamconnor]

Negative, no hallucination.
Romans are the best witnesses.
In modern terms I would draw an analogy to those Roman guards, if they existed, being special forces troops engaged in perpetuating a psy-op where they attest to this thing.

Honestly though, real guards are unnecessary, they just need to be written into the propaganda leaflets that were bound together into what you would eventually call the Bible.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 8 by Willum]

Thank you for a straightforward reply (well, not exactly...)


So your theory could be entitled, Roman Conspiracy, Yes?

That is, the character of Jesus was invented by "Rome" to give the disgruntled Jews a pacifistic figure so that they would not fight against Rome.

Is this correct?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 7 by alwayson]

Read the OP alwayson,

how hard is that?


Give Lucretius a reason why he shouldn't believe in the hallucination theory.

Are you ready to defend the hallucination theory? Or do you have a better theory?

Its pretty simple.

Note Willum's very concise "Nope, no hallucination" response.