Religulous - Agnostic or Atheistic?

[Nzinga_Seated]

@JThunder

So he’s regurgitating that bit of nonsense? The supposed parallels between Jesus and Horus are vastly overblown.

If you read my whole post, you would see that Joseph Campbell also cites these similarities.

I have no idea about, “born on the 25th”, or all that other stuff that is ‘debunked’ in that link, but some of the similarities that Joseph Campbell pointed out is pretty obvious, including the resurection of Heru (Horus) and especially the ‘mother and child’ imagery that most people associate with Christianity.

You will forgive me if I put a bit more stock in a man a Mythology Professor who dedicated his life to creating a huge, respected catalog concerning ancient myths, over the guy with the Christian agenda, and my space page, that ‘debunks’ on his website at “The Magic Castle”.

[Voyager]

@JThunder

[fusion that this caused.

I do think that you’re misinterpreting the definiton of “disbelief” that’s given by Merriam-Webster, as I think it would take considerable handwaving to construe the Random House definition as mere absence of belief. Ultimately though, I think we can agree that when atheists declare “Atheism is just a lack of belief, dammit! That’s what it means!” then they are vastly overstating the matter.

So if you say that there is no exclusive definition of atheism… well, regardless of whether I agree with that or not, I think that’s ultimately the problem of those who do declare that it is only the absence of belief.

Here is another definition of disbelief:

incredulity: doubt about the truth of something

unbelief: a rejection of belief

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Is that better?

I said that atheism is either lack of belief or the active belief in no god, so I agree that lack of belief is not the exclusive meaning. However the second case is a subset of the first. To believe there is no god implies that you lack belief in god, but lacking belief in a god does not imply belief in no god. It can be the default case.

However none of this gets to one of the standard arguments against atheism, which is the “well prove there is no god” argument. That argument implies that the atheist claims knowledge that there is no god, which is very, very seldom the case. I think I’ve run into only one person like that, not on the Dope, and he was a fruitcake.

[JThunder]

@Nzinga_Seated

If you read my whole post, you would see that Joseph Campbell also cites these similarities.

Which only shows that Campbell is part of the crowd that makes too big a deal of these alleged parallelisms. The supposed similarities between Jesus and Horus are vastly overblown and often based on inaccurate history. Where these parallels do exist, they are superficial at best.

I have no idea about, “born on the 25th”, or all that other stuff that is ‘debunked’ in that link, but some of the similarities that Joseph Campbell pointed out is pretty obvious, including the resurection of Heru (Horus) and especially the ‘mother and child’ imagery that most people associate with Christianity.

Horus was not resurrected. He never died in the first place. People often confuse him with Osiris, who was resurrected after a fashion – but in his case, it was more of a zombification rather than any true restoration to life.

[JThunder]

And just to preempt any further objections… Horus did not have twelve disciples, nor was he born of a virgin as these Jesus-Horus theorists often claim. In fact, he was the son of Osiris. Sadly, this demonstrates the “power of myth” in the sense that sensationalist claims like these tend to take on a life of their own

[Tangent]

@JThunder

Sadly, this demonstrates the “power of myth” in the sense that sensationalist claims like these tend to take on a life of their own

Kinda like how religions get started in the first place, huh?

[JThunder]

Some of them, yes. That’s what makes it all the more ironic when skeptics swallow these alleged parallels, and then ridicule the religious for their supposed gullibility.

And when they use these specific claims as ammunition against religion in general, that makes it even more disappointing.

[Nzinga_Seated]

@JThunder

Horus was not resurrected. He never died in the first place. People often confuse him with Osiris, who was resurrected after a fashion – but in his case, it was more of a zombification rather than any true restoration to life.

Ah, yes. Thanks. I stand corrected.

The resurrection myth was borrowed from Osiris’ story. It was the ‘divine birth’ story of Jesus that was borrowed from Horus.

[Valteron]

@JThunder

They were not kids. The Hebrew word used was naar, and it’s the same word that was used of Isaac when he was 28 years old. This word was rendered inaccurately in the King James Version, and has been translated more precisely in other translations.

Thank you for that correction. If it is true, and I don’t pretend to know Hebrew, the fact remains that the story concerns a God who sends bears to tear apart 42 young men because they called someone “baldy.” There is not an iota of evidence in the text that these young men were doing anything but being impolite and disrespectful. There is no implication that Elisha was being physically endangered by them.

In fact, I am not sure that God sending bears to maul 42 young men for having bad manners is any less cruel and bloodthirsty than if he had done it to kids.

Besides, you say that “naar” can be applied to a 28-year-old. But what is the lower age limit on that word? Might not the Biblical Hebrews have considered a 13-year-old a “naar”? The English word “lad” can be applied pretty much from about 5 to 30.

I repeat my original question: Do you believe that a loving God did this horrible thing to those 42 persons or not, no matter what their ages (they couldn’t all have been 28, could they?)

If you think it is true, how do you explain such cruelty?

If you do not believe God did this, then why would he allow such a horrible and slanderous passage about himself to be included in his holy book? Is he getting bad advice from his PR handlers, or what?

Oh, wait a second, there is a third option I almost forgot!!! Maybe there is no God and this kind of frightening story about a cruel and vicious God is quite consistent with the sort of thing that would be written by primitive, bronze-age hucksters who claim to have spoken to an invisible being and want to frighten people into doing what they want. Funny how well that third option fits the text, huh?

[Revenant_Threshold]

@JThunder

RT, I see where our point of confusion lies, and it’s my fault. I meant to say the following:

“I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen atheists here declare, “Dammit! Atheism just means a lack of belief!” Even if we allow for evolving definitions, the point remains that atheism is **NOT **exclusively defined in that manner.”

That is, I meant that incorrect to say that atheism is exclusively defined as “a lack of belief in God,” as emphasized by the context of my statement. It’s a typo, and I regret the confusion that this caused.

Ah, ok. Fair enough!

I do think that you’re misinterpreting the definiton of “disbelief” that’s given by Merriam-Webster, as I think it would take considerable handwaving to construe the Random House definition as mere absence of belief. Ultimately though, I think we can agree that when atheists declare “Atheism is just a lack of belief, dammit! That’s what it means!” then they are vastly overstating the matter.

I would tend to say you’re misinterpreting the definition of “disbelef” that’s given by M-W, and i’m not saying the entirety of the definition of Random House equals mere lack of belief - but that it certainly allows for it as well as and to the same extent as active belief. And i’d say it takes considerable handwaving to say otherwise, hence my atheist rock question. But yes, that statement does overstate the matter.

So if you say that there is no exclusive definition of atheism… well, regardless of whether I agree with that or not, I think that’s ultimately the problem of those who do declare that it is only the absence of belief.

Well, not really. It’s a problem of whoever seeks to define atheism.

[Voyager]

@JThunder

And just to preempt any further objections… Horus did not have twelve disciples, nor was he born of a virgin as these Jesus-Horus theorists often claim. In fact, he was the son of Osiris. Sadly, this demonstrates the “power of myth” in the sense that sensationalist claims like these tend to take on a life of their own

He also wasn’t born in Bethlehem. No one is saying Jesus is an exact copy - just that the story of Horus was combined with the historical Jesus (who maybe had 12 disciples) and the parts of the story that needed to be added to conform to Biblical prophecy, like the virgin birth (from a misreading of the Bible) to birth in Bethlehem for someone not actually from Bethlehem.

That’s one of the reasons I think Jesus was historical, actually. If he was totally a fiction, why invent the implausible reason for him to be born in the right place?

[Sampiro]

Pardon the bump but I just saw the movie this week.

The supposed Jesus-Horus parallels irritated me, especially considering Maher would have been the first to take someone to task for repeating such a list of similarities. Some of the similarities are there if you don’t mind about 5 asterixes for each one, but only because there are numerous contradictory myths about Horus’s birth and life and even then it’s only if you squint sometimes; mainly the madonna/child imagery and the halo are the major similarities, both of which have much more to do with art history than religion.

Most annoying was Maher’s comparing of Horus’s resurrection of Asar as equivalent to Christ’s of Lazarus, even claiming Asar and Lazarus are the same name. They’re not even the same language: Asar, which is far more commonly known as Osiris, means “sight of god” or “eye of power” or something similar in an Egyptian dialect (it’s exact meaning is debated) while Lazarus is simply a Latinized form of Eleazar (Hebrew: God’s help), an extremely common name in the time of Jesus.

What was frustrating was that the point itself was very valid that (and one only the most ardent and ignorant Fundamentalists would be unaware of [though there’s no shortage of those]): that the life of Christ has countless parallels and sometimes flat out borrowing from the lives of deities and demigods whose worship preceded or was contemporaneous: miraculous conception, temptation, healings, miracles, resurrections, etc… However, by not fact checking Maher compromised himself heavily.

Another flaw is that Maher, who grew up Catholic and was the son of a Jewish mother, doesn’t seem to know much about Protestantism. For example, he seems to think that transubstantiation and veneration of Mary are nearly universal and neither’s a big teaching in mainstream Protestantism (Mary’s respected of course, but no more important in worship than most any other biblical character, and in most Protestant churches I’ve been communion is seen as completely symbolic and the wine/wafers aren’t consecrated or anything like, they’re wine/juice and flour.

That said, I enjoyed the movie. I thought for the most part it was surprisingly even handed. The only thing I found particularly disrespectful was his use of profanity in the trucker chapel: I’m no more religious than Maher is but this is their house of worship and they have allowed you in, you should behave respectfully.

The most OMG segments were the Holy Land theme park Jesus, who was actually one of the best speakers but looked eerily like a pre swastika Charles Manson and whose choreographed number with the other white and coiffed and microphoned 1st Century folk would have struck me as nothing short of blasphemous when I was religious. That whole park is just a… damn… what do the people who go there think is cheesy?

I was also glad to hear a self-described liberal lash into the Muslims. I get irked at those who seem to give Islam what Kathy Griffin calls the “peaceful farmers” treatment, and England’s permissiveness to some of the western culture hating Pakistanis like Propa Gandhi (and others who are more severe but weren’t in the movie) is almost shocking to me. I was surprised that Maher was treated as courteously as he was in the Dome of the Rock though.

The Halaka Technology Center (or whatever it was called) was also incredible. It’s hard to imagine anybody taking Scripture seriously enough to not push a button on their motorized wheelchair on the Sabbath.

Mark Pryor was a good sport, but I do wonder why people like him (very conservative religionists) consent to be interviewed by people like Maher (and Colbert and Stewart etc.) unless they have some form of editorial control. Is it really true that there’s no such think as bad publicity to a politician?

The Miami minister who claims to be Jesus is so obviously a con artist that he barely even tries to hide it, and the musician-turned-minister was a trip. I wish wish wish he’d been able to get Kirk Cameron (and his elusive nipples) on though.

All in all I’d definitely recommend the movie, even though it has flaws and I’m not a Bill Maher fan.

[Equipoise]

In case anyone might wonder if this could get an Oscar nomination, the answer is no.

Bill Maher’s “Religulous” Out Of Oscar Contention

Bill Maher’s documentary exploring religion, “Religulous,” is out of Oscar contention after being left out of the final 15 list released by the Academy in the Best Documentary category.

Other notable snubs: “Dear Zachary,” “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” and “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.”
Instead, the final 15 are:

"At the Death House Door"
"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)"
"Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh"
"Encounters at the End of the World"
"Fuel"
"The Garden"
"Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts"
"I.O.U.S.A."
"In a Dream"
"Made in America"
"Man on Wire"
"Pray the Devil Back to Hell"
"Standard Operating Procedure"
"They Killed Sister Dorothy"
"Trouble the Water"

The film was directed by Larry Charles and has made almost $13 million on a budget of just $2.5 million since its October 1 release.

I’ve only seen 2 of those, IOUSA and Man On Wire.

[Cervaise]

I’ve seen those, plus S.O.P., Fuel, Encounters at the End of the World, and Trouble the Water. Right now, I would say Man on Wire and Trouble the Water are probably the favorites for the Oscar.

Re Religulous, my very favorite part of the movie was the moment at the theme park where the Jesus-actor was acting out the Stations-of-the-Cross story, and Maher’s camera pulled back a bit to show the puffy tracksuited believers watching the spectacle, their faces beaming, and, best of all, their tourist cameras clicking away. Totally surreal. And it was all the more effective because Maher and the movie in general saw no need to comment on or underline anything; the behavior, shown simply and without inflection, was its own illustration of the underlying madness that was the movie’s thesis, and could not be improved upon. Had the rest of the film shown as much restraint, I would have appreciated it a lot more.