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 historian’s 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 didn’t 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 Peter’s 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, Peter’s 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 shoulder…I 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 Israel’s Messiah and therefore (according to Jewish tradition) the King of all nations; and was uniquely related to Israel’s 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 30 by alwayson]

Okay,


so you don't believe in the hallucination theory....right? Answer me this, are we both agree that there is no god, and no miracle was behind the early Christian movement?


Let me repeat.

We are both agreed: No god. therefore nothing supernatural. Lucretius is not interested in the supernatural.

This is a yes/no question.


Are you....don't know how to put this...do you understand yes/no questions?

[alwayson]

[Replying to post 30 by alwayson]

Okay,


so you don't believe in the hallucination theory....right? Answer me this, are we both agree that there is no god, and no miracle was behind the early Christian movement?


Let me repeat.

We are both agreed: No god. therefore nothing supernatural. Lucretius is not interested in the supernatural.

This is a yes/no question.


Are you....don't know how to put this...do you understand yes/no questions?

I believe in Richard Carrier's hallucination theory.

The hallucination theory in the OP is just nonsense, written by someone with zero knowledge.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 32 by alwayson]

Ahh.....


Finally!

So we have a REFERENCER.


K. Lucretius doesn't care about REFERENCES. He cares about actual people coming to the front and presenting their case. If R.C. wishes to jump in, Lucretius is all about that.


Otherwise, think for yourself; or regurgitate R.C.'s theory into an abstract.


But really, this is exciting. Finally. We understand each other.

Lucretius doesn't reference someone else without giving his own description/explanation. He tries his best to stick to his own brain.

So. Let's just he and you talk. No R.C.

Are you a passionate defender of R.C.'s view?

If so, Great! What is his view? What are your reasons for defending it?

If not, then why are we discussing him?


What is most interesting, is that you are attacking one hallucination theory with another, which is very fascinating. (I hope you didn't think you were attacking a god theory with a hallucination theory. Geeze, that would be a horrible reading of the OP, yikes. OP explicitly said this has nothing to do with god).

[alwayson]

Paul's letters indicate that both Peter and himself only knew Jesus from VISIONS/DREAMS, with the resurrection stuff explicitly said to come from "the Scriptures" aka the Septuagint.

Septuagint version of Zechariah 3 and 6 gives the exact name of Jesus, describes him as "Rising", confronting Satan and being crowned king in heaven.

Daniel 9 describes a messiah dying before the end of the world.

Isaiah 52-53 describes the cleansing of the world's sins by the death of a servant.

Psalm 22-24, which Mark copies the language of, describes the death-resurrection cycle.

Gerd Lüdemann:
"Not once does Paul refer to Jesus as a teacher, to his words as teaching, or to [any] Christians as disciples."

Richard Carrier goes farther and points out that Paul never places Jesus on Earth. Paul viewed the death of Jesus occurring in outer space, not Earth.

[liamconnor]

I feel the need to remind everybody (though the candidates I look forward to are surprisingly quiet)



This OP is not about a god-miracle explanation for the origins of christianity blah blah blah.


Lucretius wants to know if his NATURAL explanation is HISTORICALLY SATISFYING. Is there another more NATURALLY historically satisfying explanation.


Perhaps some responders don't know what an explanation is: it involves a kind of narrative. Really, like a book. Only each character and each event is plausible. All the psychology is plausible against the background, all the geography and the impediments it imposes...

so then, once more, to the OP

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 34 by alwayson]


I am very tired of your style of argumentation.


For the next response to my next question, I ask, I plead, for just yes and no answers.


Do you think you can do that much?

Note, that question is itself a yes/no question.


And remember, everything here is LUCRETIUS asking. An Atheist. Never once will anyone on this OP argue for god.

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]


Here for Lucretia :

As Dr. Robert M. Price’s says:
“…there are many viable explanations [for the rise of the belief that Jesus resurrected], not least Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance reduction, whereby more than one disappointed sect has turned defeat into zeal by means of face-saving denial. “

Jesus obviously made a big impression on some people. Because of this, some may have thought or hoped he was the Messiah, a sentiment not unlike that expressed in the Gospel of Luke: “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel� (Luke 24:21).

Let's imagine some of most ardent followers, zealous Jews who saw that their Messiah Jesus died on the cross like some weak mere mortal which was in contrast with waht they believed: they expected the Messiah to be a victor, not a victim.

Their strongly held beliefs were inescapably disconfirmed by reality which lead to an internal tension called cognitive dissonance which probable made them say to themselves: Jesus can’t be dead, which lead to the release of this tension due to a rationalization (or any other action that releases the tension) which is called “cognitive dissonance reduction� followed by a change in behavior, alteration of a belief, or adding a new one on top.

Therefore they start telling stories about Jesus being resurrected.

(The third-day belief could be a byproduct of this engagement with Jewish scriptures, with some likely scriptural candidates being Hosea 6:2, a Jewish sacred third-day tradition, and Psalms 16:10)

(Traditions expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, widely recognized amongst scholars on both sides of the aisle to represent the earliest known Christian beliefs and traditions, in existence well before any of the gospels were written:

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.�)

There are studies, examples and proof of this happening. It serves as an explanation of the extraordinary effects of cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance reduction, and demonstrates how they can give birth to a new belief.

1. Festinger’s Small Cult Group Study

"When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter which studied a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse and its coping mechanisms after the event did not occur. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance can account for the psychological consequences of disconfirmed expectations. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in this book."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails



2. The Millerites
"The second example of cognitive dissonance reduction leading to a new belief involves a large religious movement called the Millerites. The Millerite movement began in 1818 with a man named William Miller. By the 1840s, the movement had membership in the thousands across many cities. Miller believed that the Bible predicted that Jesus’ second coming would be sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. When the later date came and went without incident, the movement did not crumble. Instead, despite heavy ridicule, the group’s founder and his apostles rationalized that there must have been some minor error in calculating the exact time, but that the end was nevertheless still near. A corrected date came from a follower within the movement, Reverend Samuel Snow. Despite the objections of the group’s leaders that the exact date could not be known, Snow declared October 22, 1844, as the new date for Jesus’ second coming. Belief in this date by the Millerites took on a life of its own, as described by a Millerite newspaper editor:
At first the definite time was generally opposed; but there seemed to be an irresistible power attending its proclamation, which prostrated all before it. It swept over the land with the velocity of a tornado, and it reached hearts in different and distant places almost simultaneously, and in a manner which can be accounted for only on the supposition that God was [in] it. . . . The lecturers among the Adventists were the last to embrace the views of the time. . . . It was not until within about two weeks of the commencement of the seventh month [about the first of October—the editor is using the Jewish calendar], that we were particularly impressed with the progress of the movement, when we had such a view of it, that to oppose it, or even to remain silent longer, seemed to us to be opposing the work of the Holy Spirit; and in entering upon the work with all our souls, we could but exclaim, “What were we, that we should resist God?� It seemed to us to have been so independent of human agency, that we could but regard it as a fulfillment of the “midnight cry.�[6]
Based on this new date, things reached an incredible pitch of fervor, zeal, and conviction. One of the elders in the Millerite movement described it this way:
The “Advent Herald�, “the Midnight Cry�, and other Advent papers, periodicals, pamphlets, tracts, leaflets, voicing the coming glory, were scattered, and broadcast everywhere like autumn leaves in the forest. Every house was visited by them. . . . A mighty effort through the Spirit and the word preached was made to bring sinners to repentance, and to have the wandering ones return.[7]
But October 22, 1844, came and went with no second coming of Jesus. This second disconfirmation almost killed the movement, but still, yet another, and this time much more complex, belief emerged—the date had been correct, but Jesus’ second coming had occurred in heaven, not on earth. Jesus had begun an investigative judgment of the world, and when he is done he will return to earth, but no one knows exactly when. This rationalization was sustained and continues to this day with membership in the millions. It is known as the Church of Seventh-day Adventists."


https://www.westarinstitute.org/resourc ... ion-jesus/

[Willum]

Hmmmm, a man who doesn't follow links, complaining no one gives him references...

[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?

Ahh!
No!
Amazing, you read what you want in others' posts:

Who was Jesus in 30 AD? Nobody. The Romans would not claim he was their God, they could not claim divine authority from someone who didn't even exist yet. I find your misconstrue either ingenuous or insulting.

THE ROMANS SAID YAHWEH IS THE SAME GOD WE WORSHIP, JOVE. and Yahweh wasn't really Yahweh, but Yahu, spelled in the language of Jerusalem, YHVH, which due the vagaries of the language could be misconstrued as Jove.

and since Jove and Yahweh were the same god, so the Romans claimed, and God gave Rome the divine right to rule, through the divine Caesar (this is the bit Jews couldn't swallow - and Romans couldn't understand why) Jews should obey pagan Rome.
You'll note that the Isaiah prophesies describe the Caesars, Augustus and Tiberius, exactly, while they flounder in describing Jesus.
Jesus was a late-add, after many failures.

Jove, pronounced in Latin, is pronounce Yahweh. Which was the point of the link, so that your ears could hear. I'll bet you never bother to question that.

Now, the link with the pronunciation of Jove is in my tag-line, I think you will find it instructive: All it does is pronounce a word for you. It won't bite.

But should convince you to abandon your religion.

[rikuoamero]

(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.

Okay 'Lucretius'...answer me this please...how did you arrive at that as a naturalistic explanation? Did someone suggest it to you? Did someone say that in nature, it is known for a fact that at least once a body of some sort was known to reverse the process of decay after death and come back to life?

This looks to me like a false dichotomy. Why is option A about a non-disciple, rather than a disciple?
It seems to me that you STILL don't understand how to think like a historian. You haven't explained how you managed to narrow your options down to these two, and that somehow, a body coming back to life is natural?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 18 by liamconnor]

The OP wants to know what sparked a movement spreading this fiction.


What is your well-thought out, historically informed, systematically cohesive, entirely NATURAL (don't bring the supernatural, Lucretius will have none of that) explanation...?

Can it not be something similar to what started the Scientology movement?