conspiracy theory

[achilles12604]

I was giving some thought to the athiest viewpoint here. I was considering in my mind if my religious bias had blinded me to something obvious. Was this theory more likely than my current one? After reading my following post please tell me :

1) If this theory fits better than the theory that it is more or less true and accurate.
2) WHY one theory is better than the other.
3) What other theories could be possible?
4) Why those theories should be considered.

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.



For this theory to be truth, first there must be a why.

Why would these men want to construct a religion of their own which would be considered totally evil by most of the people they were reaching at first? In addition to this, their new religion would be directly against their current beliefs, against the beliefs of their families and society, and would have the end result of excommunicating them from their friends and support structure.

What reason could so many men have for creating something completely out of nothing, which would be so devestating to themselves, physically, financially, and socially?

To this atheists have replied, "How do you know that this is what happened? How can you proove that the early christian's suffered?"

To answer this one simply needs to read Jewish writings or Roman historians. Pliny the younger wrote that every time he discovered Christians, he tourtured and murdered them. Not some of the time. EVERY TIME. The Jewish Pharasee's like Saul, before he converted, were imprisoning Christians. To the Jews, these believers were a mutation of their beliefs. The Talmud has some very strong words about the Christian's. Josephus writes of them being stoned. If any athiest wishes to present the case that Christian's were not persecuted, they must first deal with history.

The next step for validating the conspiracy theory, after determining why these men would have done this, is to see if the facts fit. In other words, does history point to a conspiracy, or truth?

Extra-biblical writings of Jesus :

At first this subject seems to point in great favor of the conspiracy theory. Outside of the bible and writings of the conspirators, there is little support. However, when certain things are taken into consideration, this becomes less and less of a problem. For example, almost all of the writings of this time period were about rulers, wars, conquering countries and other such important things. So should we have expected to see a great deal of writing about a poor man from a really small town in a clountry being ruled by a foreign power? Not really. In fact we should have NOTHING written about him ever. Especially since he never existed.

But we do. We have the writings of a contemporary historian, Josephus. Although his writings are universally thought to have been altered by later Christians, the core of one passage concerning Jesus is thought to be genuine and a second passage is thought to be entirely genuine by most scholars. In addition to this we have Jewish Historians (writers of the Talmud) who by reviewing history determined that a man named Jesus was a magician and was killed by authorities by hanging on a tree.

This is very impressive for a poor tradesman, and this is assuming he even existed. The conspiracy theory doesn't even allow for a man named Jesus at all. Remember that the theory is that these men constructed all of their ideas from other ancient religions. Hence Jesus should have never even formed much less have been refered to by outside sources. This does not boad well for a conspiracy.

The audience :

This is a bigger problem for the conspiracy than the few extra-biblical references. This is because if it was a conspiracy, then the authors spreading these lies should have been shouted down by the masses. Especially since these lies would have been spread within the lifetimes of those men and women who would have known them to be false. After all today you can not convince someone that a building was knocked down by a terrorist if it did not really happen. Those people knew that there was no Jesus or if there were, that he never did anything even close to what these liars claimed.

This is what we should see if it was a consipiracy. However, this is not what we see happened. Instead, this very town where the supposed events happened (but they never did if it was a conspiracy), became the center and brain for the most quickly advancing and totally overcoming religion ever on earth. The Christians (Jewish converts) from Jerusalem, who would have known if these had been wild lies, were so convinced that they faced the aforementioned persecutions to spread the word further.

These men would have known for a fact, that this conspiracy was a bunch of lies. The authorities would have known they were lies and called them just that. But what does history say they called these events? Magic. Demon work. Perhaps the greatest blow to the conspiracy theory is the fact that the enemies of this movement did not say that the conspirators were lying. They explained away the events instead. This leaves us with the understanding that SOMETHING happened which needed to be explained.

The normal athiest answer to this problem is that there is no first hand accounts of the authorities reaction. They do not have any real answer to the masses which converted but should not have believed anything because nothing ever happened. To this, we can reply Josephus commented on the authorities being involved with the later Christian movements and their reactions to the men involved. They called witchcraft, demons and executed those involved. But they never said the most obvious statement if it were all a big conspiracy, "Nothing ever happened."

Later accounts from the Talmud concure with Josephus on this point. They explain him away, but do not deny the Christian movement.

So far we have looked at why the conspirators would have invented a lie which would have brought them nothing but pain, poverty and hardship for both themselves and their families. We looked at the writings of the time and recognized that if this were truely a conspiracy, there shouldn't be ANYTHING extra, yet it is there. We looked at the audience and recognized that the audience SHOULD have ignored the liars because they obviously had nothing to go on. The conspirators were claiming some REALLY OUTRAGEOUS and more importantly, easily disprovable things. They should have been out before they even began. Yet this didn't happen.

Based on just these three points, I suggest that the conspiracy theory is a flop. It is certainly not the most plausible theory if it is even possible. And that is a big if.

[juliod]

There are several problems with your approach.

For one, religions cannot be theories because theories are explanation of evidence and there is no evidence to support the core teachings of any religion.

But the main problem is that your argument can be advanced in support of any religion, and even many cults. Since only one religion could be true, such an argument is flawed because it doesn't distinguish between truth and falsity.

For example, it means nothing that followers of a religion really really believe it to be true. The members of Heaven's Gate were so convinced that a spaceship was behind the comet Hale Bopp that they killed themselves while wearing jumpsuits and carrying a five-dollar-bill. That is sufficient to show that zeal for a religion is no argument in support of it's truth.

And indeed one should be skeptical of any belief that seems favorable or comforting. My mother has just gone into the hospital, and I am fairly upset. I want nothing more right now than to believe in a heaven where mothers live forever. But the fact that someone wants it to be true, or even needs it to be true, does not make it likely to be true.

Finally, your argument is weakened by the fact that we can see new religions (cults) cropping up from time to time, and sometimes attracting large followings. The groups must have gone through the processes that your argument implies must be impossible unless true. Consider Scientology and Mormonism. They went through a period of ridicule, and oppression (in the case of the Mormons). Do you consider them true? Or even likely to be true?

DanZ

[Lotan]

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.

This "theory" is a fallacious, simplistic strawman. It is not the explanation for the rise of Christianity.

Based on just these three points, I suggest that the conspiracy theory is a flop.

No kidding. No serious 'liberal' bible scholar even suggests it, so why would you?
This doesn't mean, BTW, that the only alternative is that the gospel accounts of a wonder working god-man are automatically true then. That's a false dichotomy that I've only seen apologists entertain.

[Goat]

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.

This "theory" is a fallacious, simplistic strawman. It is not the explanation for the rise of Christianity.

Based on just these three points, I suggest that the conspiracy theory is a flop.

No kidding. No serious 'liberal' bible scholar even suggests it, so why would you?
This doesn't mean, BTW, that the only alternative is that the gospel accounts of a wonder working god-man are automatically true then. That's a false dichotomy that I've only seen apologists entertain.

I would say that the early christians didn't 'borrow' from other religions so much as be influcenced by the beliefs that were prevalent where they lived. Apparently, many of the Gospels were written by people other than people living in Jerusalum. As for Paul/Saul, He was from Tarsus. The religion that was most prevalent in Tarsus in the first century?? Zoroastrian. It would be naive to assume that the major religion in Tarsus did not somehow influence Paul as he was growing up. It does not mean that he 'made it up' as achilles suggested. All it means is that the religous concepts were familary and comfortable to him due to his upbrining.

[achilles12604]

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.

This "theory" is a fallacious, simplistic strawman. It is not the explanation for the rise of Christianity.

Based on just these three points, I suggest that the conspiracy theory is a flop.

No kidding. No serious 'liberal' bible scholar even suggests it, so why would you?
This doesn't mean, BTW, that the only alternative is that the gospel accounts of a wonder working god-man are automatically true then. That's a false dichotomy that I've only seen apologists entertain.

Oh believe me, I was not the one suggesting this theory is plausible. On the contrary, I found this whole idea to be very much a straw man. However, It was brought up as an explaination for the beginnigs of Christianity without the figure of Jesus. The title "conspiracy theory" is all I added to it.

[achilles12604]

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.

This "theory" is a fallacious, simplistic strawman. It is not the explanation for the rise of Christianity.

Based on just these three points, I suggest that the conspiracy theory is a flop.

No kidding. No serious 'liberal' bible scholar even suggests it, so why would you?
This doesn't mean, BTW, that the only alternative is that the gospel accounts of a wonder working god-man are automatically true then. That's a false dichotomy that I've only seen apologists entertain.

I would say that the early christians didn't 'borrow' from other religions so much as be influcenced by the beliefs that were prevalent where they lived. Apparently, many of the Gospels were written by people other than people living in Jerusalum. As for Paul/Saul, He was from Tarsus. The religion that was most prevalent in Tarsus in the first century?? Zoroastrian. It would be naive to assume that the major religion in Tarsus did not somehow influence Paul as he was growing up. It does not mean that he 'made it up' as achilles suggested. All it means is that the religous concepts were familary and comfortable to him due to his upbrining.

As I told Lotan, this is not my idea. This theory was presented to me by an atheist when I mentioned that it would be difficult to explain a lot of Christianity without the figure of Jesus. I think the entire thing is silly and full of holes, which I pointed out. I'm glad so many of the atheists here agree, however it was an atheist here who suggested this line of thinking in the first place. Just food for thought.

[achilles12604]

There are several problems with your approach.

For one, religions cannot be theories because theories are explanation of evidence and there is no evidence to support the core teachings of any religion.

But the main problem is that your argument can be advanced in support of any religion, and even many cults. Since only one religion could be true, such an argument is flawed because it doesn't distinguish between truth and falsity.

For example, it means nothing that followers of a religion really really believe it to be true. The members of Heaven's Gate were so convinced that a spaceship was behind the comet Hale Bopp that they killed themselves while wearing jumpsuits and carrying a five-dollar-bill. That is sufficient to show that zeal for a religion is no argument in support of it's truth.

And indeed one should be skeptical of any belief that seems favorable or comforting. My mother has just gone into the hospital, and I am fairly upset. I want nothing more right now than to believe in a heaven where mothers live forever. But the fact that someone wants it to be true, or even needs it to be true, does not make it likely to be true.

Finally, your argument is weakened by the fact that we can see new religions (cults) cropping up from time to time, and sometimes attracting large followings. The groups must have gone through the processes that your argument implies must be impossible unless true. Consider Scientology and Mormonism. They went through a period of ridicule, and oppression (in the case of the Mormons). Do you consider them true? Or even likely to be true?

DanZ

In general I agree whole heartedly that what I just wrote was a pitiful attempt at supporting the theory. Of course that was kindof the point. My whole point was to illuminate how weak this conspiracy theory really is.

a few thoughts though. . .

1) you wrote :

it means nothing that followers of a religion really really believe it to be true

Granted whole heartedly!!!

However this was not my point in this case. Lets examine this from the angle that the rise of Christianity really was a conspiracy.

Peter, James and the other conspirators, come into Jerusalem preaching that a man named Jesus (whom they all knew which was wierd to begin with since no on in Jerusalem knew this man since he didn't exist) performed a bunch of miracles right in the streets and tons of people saw him do this. Then JEsus was captured by the sanheidren, tried by Pilate and was crucified on a very specific day at a very specific place and time. Then 3 days later this man (whom no one had heard of because he didn't really exist) rose from the dead.

Well what would you think being a person of Jerusalem in the first century? You were just told a few things . . .

1) There was a man named Jesus whom everyone had heard of. The biggest problem is that neither you, nor your friends, nor your family have ever heard of this "obvious" and "important" man because he didn't exist.

2) This man supposedly did amazing and wonderful things in full view of hundreds and thousands of people right in their very hometown. The biggest problem here is since Jesus never really existed (well maybe he did but you've never heard of him) these events could not have happened. But just to be sure you ask EVERYONE you know if they have any idea what this lunitic was ranting about. Not a single person you talk to has any idea (because Jesus never existed, nor has anything out of the ordinary happened in many years).

3) Then these men say that Jesus was captured by the authorities and killed by the romans. Well now you get the authorities involved but they, like you and your entire family, have never heard of Jesus, much less an amazing Jesus who did all sorts of things and they certainly havn't killed anyone like that is a long time.

4) Now the Roman's are confused because they are hearing rumors of a man who was crucified by their leader in a great story in front of a huge mob, but they can't remember any of it (because it didn't really happen)




Now, this is what should have happened if it really was a conspiracy or an invention of Peter, Paul and others. But this isn't what history records.

Jerusalem became a huge launching point for Christians within just a few years, and this is dispite severe persecutions, social and financial pressures and being disowned by your own families as traitors. Obviously the very early christians beliefs do play a logical part in our conspiracy theory, do they not?





Lastly you wrote :

Finally, your argument is weakened by the fact that we can see new religions (cults) cropping up from time to time, and sometimes attracting large followings. The groups must have gone through the processes that your argument implies must be impossible unless true. Consider Scientology and Mormonism. They went through a period of ridicule, and oppression (in the case of the Mormons). Do you consider them true? Or even likely to be true?

This point is well taken and did throw me for a little loop until I thought it over a bit.

Mormons for example were started small by a man claiming to have Golden plates from an angel with a special revelation. Then when challenged, these plates could not be accounted for but instead they were explained away. Well fine, this could be true perhaps, suspicious be possible.

But then, when you compare this to Christian claims, the grey area begins to fade. See the disciples were not claiming that a couple little things appeared to one man and then vanished, a story which could not really be checked on. The discples were claiming outstanding things which occured in front of dozens if not hundreds of witnesses and could very easily have been refuted.

Do you really wish to continue comparing the beginnings of these two religions? Well I will go on . . .

Next Mormonism was spread by promoting virtues which by the standerds of the day were to be admired. Mainly they purported strong families and loving communities. Christians on the other hand were telling people to convert to a way of life which was not only unacceptble, but down right EVIL with all capitol letters. It was blasphemy.

Again not much of a comparison there.

Moving on again, we can compare the persecutions. Christians were murdered, tortured, pilliaged and otherwise persecuted and once again the earliest of these men and women would have known for a fact that it was all untrue as I spelled out above. Mormons on the other hand, well they didn't really face that many hardships and those that the did face, like crossing the praire and starting their own towns, hardly compare to tourture and death. Also remember that these people were acting on their beliefs or what they were told by someone about a couple plates which had disappeared. Christians were acting with the knowledge that they had either seen something miraculous to sustain the ravings of a few lunatics about miracles and such, or they had not seen anything to support such outrageous claims.

Again the comparisons are slim.

Did I analyze the basics correctly here?

[achilles12604]

I have noticed that a few atheists have come along and inserted their two cents. However, no one has pointed out where my logic is incorrect and certainly NO ONE has offered an alternative theory so far.

Just an observation I had.

[Lotan]

I have noticed that a few atheists have come along and inserted their two cents. However, no one has pointed out where my logic is incorrect and certainly NO ONE has offered an alternative theory so far.

I'm not sure what it is you want. I have already pointed out that this 'conspiracy theory' is a non-starter, and juliod has offered something of a rebuttal, whether you may agree with him or not. I think that this topic has merit though, so I will refer to the OP...

I was giving some thought to the athiest viewpoint here.

I was unaware that the 'conspiracy theory' was the atheist viewpoint, or that there even was an atheist viewpoint. If you are suggesting that the majority of atheists subscribe to this viewpoint, then I think you should provide evidence that that is the case. As I mentioned previously, it is not widely held among any of the historical Jesus researchers that I am familiar with.

Was this theory more likely than my current one?

I consider both theories to be unlikely.

The theory: The earliest Christians, Paul, James, and the apostles at the least, perhaps more unnamed men, made up Christianity or borrowed ideas from other religions to make up their own. Then they pushed it as truth onto the unknowing masses and gathered a following.

In your own words "the conspiracy theory is a flop". It doesn't account for all the evidence. This why only a tiny fringe group of minimalist historical Jesus researchers buy into it. Apologists are fond of it because they find it easy to refute (read: strawman). I guess that they believe that by doing so they make their own theory "that it is more or less true and accurate" look better by comparison. That would be my analysis of the remaining bulk of your OP. As with all failed theories this one doesn't account for all the evidence either.

1) If this theory fits better than the theory that it is more or less true and accurate.

Neither one fits.

2) WHY one theory is better than the other.

Hard to say, since they're both wrong.

3) What other theories could be possible?

Although the answer can't be given in minute detail the prevailing theory is basically that Jesus was a special (although otherwise ordinary) guy whose ministry survived his death. The writings contained in the NT are entirely from diaspora Jews who never knew him and created pseudobiographical accounts of his life based on earlier traditions interpreted through their understanding of OT scripture (among other things). It is not as easy as simply saying "It's a lie!" or "It's really true!"

4) Why those theories should be considered.

Objectively, all theories should be considered. Those that best account for the evidence in the simplest manner are the most likely.

[Easyrider]

Objectively, all theories should be considered. Those that best account for the evidence in the simplest manner are the most likely.

That would be Christ, then, as presented in the Bible.