of course it’s only an opinion but this appears more jr high than anything **Kalhoun **has done.
Of course he does. Don’t you watch the “Attila the Hun Show?”
I never said he was formulated out of whole cloth, just that I doubt there was one historic man who inspired the myth. I think he, like the religion that bears his name, is a hodgepodge of different bits, a Frankenstein Monster made up out of crazy preachers like John the Baptist, mystery religions like Mithraism, Helleno-Buddhist philosophy and Jewish Messianic beliefs. One of those crazy preachers may well have been named some variant of Joshua - given how common the name apparently was, it seems likely. But I doubt he, or any of them, did anything attributed to the historical Jesus. I have infinitely more belief in the existence if John the Baptist than I do in Jesus.
Yeah, yeah… You claim you want to have a civil debate with theists, including Christians, yet you insist on insulting them all along that debate. That you don’t get that simple fact is mind-boggling asinine. It simply makes you a dick.
And don’t you see that one might want to hold one’s protest aside long enough to encourage the very debate that could win them adherents? Are you really that dumb. Actually, I retract the question?
And no, I have not objected to your disputing “the greatness of the Christian savior”, in fact, I see how one could not capitalize “God”, I declare you an asshole for not acknowledging that the MAN Jesus deserves the same default degree of respect that you afford Johnny Winter, Barbie, Frankenstein, and Mrs. Cut-out.
I hope you feel comfortable with this oh-so-principled dickish protestation. Something tells me you will. and others will be able to see that you find insulting Christianity more important than a discussion of it as it relates to atheism. Guess what, you’re a fake.
And by the way, I subscribe to no religion.
You’re entitled to your opinion. You’ll forgive me if I don’t give a shit what you think on this particular subject.
Can anyone tell me why there is so little information about Jesus’s life from the time in the stable, up to when he started preaching, and gaining attention? Was it kept quiet about the 3 Wise Men, and the virgin birth and therefore nobody treated him any different, or did he know he was the Messiah all along?
Ooooooh!
Ooooooooh!
Now do “No Sleep 'til Brooklyn!”
I LOVE that one.
[sub]it’s almost as good as “she’s crafty”[/sub]
He wasn’t important yet. The stuff about the three wise men only appears in Matthew, FYI, and is probably a direct adaptation of legends which were already known in the Levant at the time.
It wasn’t until Jesus starting being Jesus - ie. rousing the rabble - that contemporary commentators starting taking notice of him.
The Gospels weren’t actually written by the disciples who are credited with the work, but (in some cases) hundreds of years later. Naturally, these authors were only able to write about (okay, speculate about) the period of Jesus’ life which someone else had already written about - Tacitus and Josephus, for example.
There’s a really, really long (but absolutely worthwhile) Staff Report about the authors of the Bible here.
That tells us the who, why and whatever, but it doesn’t tell us the how. What sort of writing materials were around in Jesus’s day? I have this picture of little nerdish fellows, with a pouch full of writing materials, following important people around like biblical paparazzi! 
The staff report you referenced says that both Mark and Matthew came in about 65 AD, Luke before 70 AD, and even John by 100 AD. Tacitus didn’t even write his Annals until about 116 AD, and Josephus didn’t write his Antiquities until 93 AD. So where does this “hundreds of years later” stuff come from? And how did Tacitus and Josephus exercise all this influence?
No, just one big one.
Regards,
Shodan
Can we call it Earth?
You and Carol Stream seem to be the only ones with your bowels in an uproar. The debate has been moving along just fine.
See above. You need to get your sensitivity meter checked. It’s in overdrive.
Until he drops the “son of god” moniker (which is only perpetuated by people who actually believe that) I see no reason to treat him as a “man.” Christians certainly don’t!
I hope you feel comfortable with this oh-so-principled dickish protestation. Something tells me you will. and others will be able to see that you find insulting Christianity more important than a discussion of it as it relates to atheism. Guess what, you’re a fake.
And by the way, I subscribe to no religion.
[/QUOTE]
Look at Eleanor of Aquataine. A women born to a king, who married two kings, participated in the Crusades, and was the mother to the monarchs of Europe. Yet we have very little information on her early life, and great patches of her life AS A RULER are missing.
Lady Jane Grey, briefly Queen of England - missing huge pieces of her story.
And these were people born into nobility a thousand years plus after Christ (or christ).
Okay, so maybe not Tacitus and Josephus…
Missed the edit window:
You and Carol Stream seem to be the only ones with your bowels in an uproar. The debate has been moving along just fine.
See above. You need to get your sensitivity meter checked. It’s in overdrive.
I’m minimizing his importance. If you don’t understand the symbolism even after it’s been pointed out to you, I can’t help you.
Christianity doesn’t relate to atheism. That’s the point. That’s the debate.
Do we have little information because it was more likely never recorded, or because it has been lost, and in Jesus’s case, if his birth was such an important event, how come he never had some sort of protector assigned to him? Did Jesus not perform any teenage miracles? Wouldn’t the facts of his childhood life be of any interest to a biblical scholar? Was nobody interested in what drove this man to become the historical figure he is?
One of many inconsistencies in the book.
There are books but they are not considered canon by the bible makers at the time they put the book together.
Whether these extra books are true or not are up to the individual.
Here’s one where in the beginning of it it tells of a 5 year old Jesus performing miracles.
oopsie double post. :smack: