4 ms·

Historians of reddit have to deal with this on a recurring basis. It's hard when textual refs stop in Josephus and the accretion of centuries of editorial over

by ggm 2y ago

Historians of reddit have to deal with this on a recurring basis. It's hard when textual refs stop in Josephus and the accretion of centuries of editorial over ur-texts. Often times people seek to argue by comparison: "we have less evidence Darius or Julius Caesar existed" type arguments about the primacy of contemporary eye witness accounts, distinct from eg economic and architectural evidence. Fugitive Christians didn't have time to collate the "I was there" takes and now it's Analects.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
[flagged]
- pstuart 2y ago
  > no one seems to care now. Indeed. They believe and that's that -- there's zero proof that would change their minds. I'm a non believer but would be willing to change my mind if there was compelling evidence.
  - adamtaylor_13 2y ago
    If you haven’t found compelling evidence, then you haven’t looked. I’m not being snarky. Look up a list of atheists who set out to disprove God. Once you start looking, it’s impossible to miss. What most people seem to mean by this is, “If God himself came down in a column of fire, then I’d believe.” Most folks can’t be bothered to actually dig into the real, ample evidence that exists. You like philosophical arguments? There’s philosophical arguments for it. You like astronomical or geologic arguments? There’s that too. Logic? Check. There’s so much evidence for Christ, it’s basically the only logically consistent worldview. I know I’ll get downvoted to hell for saying that (heh) but it’s true. There is not another logically consistent worldview beyond Christianity.
    - judahmeek 2y ago
      First off, you can't claim that Christianity is logical consistent until you find a way to resolve the Epicurean Paradox[0] and the question of how Sin/imperfection was introduced into our reality. If the Christian God was the only being who existed in beginning of time & everything that God created was also perfect, then which perfect being took the first imperfect action and how is it even possible for a perfect being to do something imperfectly? Secondly, I'd like to know what you think is not logically consistent with atheism/evolution. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean_paradox
      - adamtaylor_13 2y ago
        The Epicurean Paradox doesn't exist in the Christian worldview. Free Will as described in the Bible fully explains why and how a good, omnipotent God could allow evil. Perfect beings making imperfect choices isn't a contradiction, it's the very essence of free will. God valued authentic relationship over robotic obedience. Natural evils entered as consequences of this freedom exercised poorly, not as part of the original design. Christianity doesn't just acknowledge this tension - it provides the complete framework to understand it: creation, fall, and redemption. I’ll also go ahead and acknowledge that just because a being that exists outside of space and time knows something will happen, doesn’t CAUSE it to happen. So while our minds may not like the fact that God knew it would happen, it doesn’t mean he caused it to happen. You wouldn’t forgo the joy and wonder of having a child simply because you knew one day they might scrape their knee. By the way, a sincere thank you for engaging instead of downvoting out of disagreement. We need more of that!
        judahmeek 2y ago
        > Perfect beings making imperfect choices isn't a contradiction, it's the very essence of free will. Either perfect beings, including God, are capable of imperfect actions/decisions on some random whim, or they are not. If they are, then the definition of perfection is meaningless. If they are not, then God's creations were imperfect, which suggests that God also is imperfect. > I’ll also go ahead and acknowledge that just because a being that exists outside of space and time knows something will happen, doesn’t CAUSE it to happen. You're implying that an entity that has perfect foresight of the consequences of its actions is not responsible for those consequences. I disagree. > God valued authentic relationship over robotic obedience. Robotic obedience is the only theoretical option for a relationship with a timeless entity who created the universe. If God knows the outcomes of all universal starting conditions, then no outcome is less pre-determined than any other outcome. > You wouldn’t forgo the joy and wonder of having a child simply because you knew one day they might scrape their knee. Actually, I'm child-free because I don't think that the additional joy & wonder I might gain from raising a child would be worth the pain that they may experience or cause. Also, you're welcome. ^^
    - pstuart 2y ago
      All the "evidence" you cite is effectively "trust me, bro". As for disproving God, this addresses that better than I can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot I am not an atheist because that's my identity or belief, it's just the absence of belief. There are countless Gods amongst many religions -- do you believe in them? No? Well, then I simply believe in one less God than you do. In the US, more people believe in angels than in evolution. I'd wager that the latter part is due to the former. I'm not a scientist but the theory of evolution is very simple and there's ample real world evidence to back it up. Where are all the angels these days?
  - swat535 2y ago
    If you don’t want to believe, I think that’s fine, however saying that there is zero evidence or philosophical arguments that could at least gives you pause would be shortsighted. Hitchen’s tried to hold this position by regurgitatation decade old counter arguments publicly and all he got attributed to him at the end was “hitch-slaps”.
    - pstuart 2y ago
      > If you don’t want to believe Ah, there's the rub. What I want to "believe" is whatever truth shall be revealed to me. It's not like I want to not believe in God, I simply haven't been presented with compelling evidence to lead me there. And as for other's, they should be able to believe whatever they want (but there's a catch). My only concern for what others believe is how that translates into real world outcomes. A prime example of this is that the current US Administration is Christian Nationalist and want to pass laws on their interpretation of scripture -- then that become mine and everybody else's business.
- TheBlight 2y ago
  Why is this acceptable but if referring to Islam as a "mystery cult" a comment would be flagged immediately? I fully expect my critique here to receive a flag.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    How is it unacceptable? Do you not know what a mystery cult is?
    - labster 2y ago
      What is a mystery cult? Is it like functional programming?
      - plorkyeran 2y ago
        One of the three major categories of Hellenistic religions. The defining aspect was that their religious beliefs and rites were kept secret and only revealed to initiates. For obvious reasons we don't know a lot about them. My vague understanding is that the idea that Christianity was significantly derived from local mystery cults was once taken seriously, but it's completely fallen out of favor and everything new we've discovered about the mystery cults has made the connections ever more tenuous.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - AlecSchueler 2y ago
    > referring to Islam as a "mystery cult" a comment would be flagged immediately? Would it be? It's my experience of HN that these things are all grouped as Abrahamic mythology. Cult is quite a charged word but I would be surprised to see it flagged in this environment.
  - pirgidb 2y ago
    Your comment wasn't flagged, and the parent was. How does this impact your views?
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Strangely, that's the one constant... no one cared back then if he was real, and no one seems to care now. Plenty of people cared then: > 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died[e] in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. * https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015&version=NRSVCE https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians... And plenty of people care now: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
  - pyjarrett 2y ago
    > no one cared back then if he was real, This was directly addressed in 2 John 7 "I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world."
- krapp 2y ago
  Christianity isn't a mystery cult.There isn't really a hierarchy keeping secret rituals and knowledge from the masses or acolytes. At best it's a failed apocalypse cult. And by "failed" I mean it seems clear from Matthew 24:34 that first generation Christians believed the end times would occur within their lifetimes (assuming that account is credible,) and such a belief is consistent with every other apocalyptic cult, Christian or otherwise. Like Seventh Day Adventists, Christians do keep kicking the can down the road, but just as the book of Revelations more likely refers to Nero Caesar and a belief at the time that he would return from the dead ("Nero Redivius[0]") than some future nuclear war where the "locusts" are really Apache helicopters[1], so Christian beliefs about the second coming should be assumed to apply their own cultural and temporal context, rather than some as yet unknown future millennia removed. Obviously the cult as a whole has been very, very successful. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Redivivus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Redivivus [1]I know people who believe this, and they'll claim it as evidence of the Bible's divine prophetic power.
  - Boogie_Man 2y ago
    The section of Mathew is understood by mainstream Christianity as a "double prophecy" concerning both the destruction of the second temple and the eventual second coming of Christ. I can understand someone seeing this as moving goalposts until I consider that it could've been quietly deleted to avoid embarrassment if it wasn't intended this way. Christians have a wide range of views on eschatology, but the mainstream position for a while has been amillennial, which are not the people who get freaked out about locusts and red cows and whatnot.
    - krapp 2y ago
      >I can understand someone seeing this as moving goalposts until I consider that it could've been quietly deleted to avoid embarrassment if it wasn't intended this way. The way it came to be interpreted by the church is not necessarily the way it was meant to be interpreted by first generation Christians, so its presence in canon isn't evidence of any particular intent on the part of the author.

by ggm 2y ago

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

[flagged]

pstuart 2y ago
> no one seems to care now. Indeed. They believe and that's that -- there's zero proof that would change their minds. I'm a non believer but would be willing to change my mind if there was compelling evidence.
- adamtaylor_13 2y ago
  If you haven’t found compelling evidence, then you haven’t looked. I’m not being snarky. Look up a list of atheists who set out to disprove God. Once you start looking, it’s impossible to miss. What most people seem to mean by this is, “If God himself came down in a column of fire, then I’d believe.” Most folks can’t be bothered to actually dig into the real, ample evidence that exists. You like philosophical arguments? There’s philosophical arguments for it. You like astronomical or geologic arguments? There’s that too. Logic? Check. There’s so much evidence for Christ, it’s basically the only logically consistent worldview. I know I’ll get downvoted to hell for saying that (heh) but it’s true. There is not another logically consistent worldview beyond Christianity.
  - judahmeek 2y ago
    First off, you can't claim that Christianity is logical consistent until you find a way to resolve the Epicurean Paradox[0] and the question of how Sin/imperfection was introduced into our reality. If the Christian God was the only being who existed in beginning of time & everything that God created was also perfect, then which perfect being took the first imperfect action and how is it even possible for a perfect being to do something imperfectly? Secondly, I'd like to know what you think is not logically consistent with atheism/evolution. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean_paradox
    - adamtaylor_13 2y ago
      The Epicurean Paradox doesn't exist in the Christian worldview. Free Will as described in the Bible fully explains why and how a good, omnipotent God could allow evil. Perfect beings making imperfect choices isn't a contradiction, it's the very essence of free will. God valued authentic relationship over robotic obedience. Natural evils entered as consequences of this freedom exercised poorly, not as part of the original design. Christianity doesn't just acknowledge this tension - it provides the complete framework to understand it: creation, fall, and redemption. I’ll also go ahead and acknowledge that just because a being that exists outside of space and time knows something will happen, doesn’t CAUSE it to happen. So while our minds may not like the fact that God knew it would happen, it doesn’t mean he caused it to happen. You wouldn’t forgo the joy and wonder of having a child simply because you knew one day they might scrape their knee. By the way, a sincere thank you for engaging instead of downvoting out of disagreement. We need more of that!
      - judahmeek 2y ago
        > Perfect beings making imperfect choices isn't a contradiction, it's the very essence of free will. Either perfect beings, including God, are capable of imperfect actions/decisions on some random whim, or they are not. If they are, then the definition of perfection is meaningless. If they are not, then God's creations were imperfect, which suggests that God also is imperfect. > I’ll also go ahead and acknowledge that just because a being that exists outside of space and time knows something will happen, doesn’t CAUSE it to happen. You're implying that an entity that has perfect foresight of the consequences of its actions is not responsible for those consequences. I disagree. > God valued authentic relationship over robotic obedience. Robotic obedience is the only theoretical option for a relationship with a timeless entity who created the universe. If God knows the outcomes of all universal starting conditions, then no outcome is less pre-determined than any other outcome. > You wouldn’t forgo the joy and wonder of having a child simply because you knew one day they might scrape their knee. Actually, I'm child-free because I don't think that the additional joy & wonder I might gain from raising a child would be worth the pain that they may experience or cause. Also, you're welcome. ^^
  - pstuart 2y ago
    All the "evidence" you cite is effectively "trust me, bro". As for disproving God, this addresses that better than I can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot I am not an atheist because that's my identity or belief, it's just the absence of belief. There are countless Gods amongst many religions -- do you believe in them? No? Well, then I simply believe in one less God than you do. In the US, more people believe in angels than in evolution. I'd wager that the latter part is due to the former. I'm not a scientist but the theory of evolution is very simple and there's ample real world evidence to back it up. Where are all the angels these days?
- swat535 2y ago
  If you don’t want to believe, I think that’s fine, however saying that there is zero evidence or philosophical arguments that could at least gives you pause would be shortsighted. Hitchen’s tried to hold this position by regurgitatation decade old counter arguments publicly and all he got attributed to him at the end was “hitch-slaps”.
  - pstuart 2y ago
    > If you don’t want to believe Ah, there's the rub. What I want to "believe" is whatever truth shall be revealed to me. It's not like I want to not believe in God, I simply haven't been presented with compelling evidence to lead me there. And as for other's, they should be able to believe whatever they want (but there's a catch). My only concern for what others believe is how that translates into real world outcomes. A prime example of this is that the current US Administration is Christian Nationalist and want to pass laws on their interpretation of scripture -- then that become mine and everybody else's business.
TheBlight 2y ago
Why is this acceptable but if referring to Islam as a "mystery cult" a comment would be flagged immediately? I fully expect my critique here to receive a flag.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  How is it unacceptable? Do you not know what a mystery cult is?
  - labster 2y ago
    What is a mystery cult? Is it like functional programming?
    - plorkyeran 2y ago
      One of the three major categories of Hellenistic religions. The defining aspect was that their religious beliefs and rites were kept secret and only revealed to initiates. For obvious reasons we don't know a lot about them. My vague understanding is that the idea that Christianity was significantly derived from local mystery cults was once taken seriously, but it's completely fallen out of favor and everything new we've discovered about the mystery cults has made the connections ever more tenuous.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- AlecSchueler 2y ago
  > referring to Islam as a "mystery cult" a comment would be flagged immediately? Would it be? It's my experience of HN that these things are all grouped as Abrahamic mythology. Cult is quite a charged word but I would be surprised to see it flagged in this environment.
- pirgidb 2y ago
  Your comment wasn't flagged, and the parent was. How does this impact your views?
throw0101c 2y ago
> Strangely, that's the one constant... no one cared back then if he was real, and no one seems to care now. Plenty of people cared then: > 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died[e] in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. * https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015&version=NRSVCE https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians... And plenty of people care now: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
- pyjarrett 2y ago
  > no one cared back then if he was real, This was directly addressed in 2 John 7 "I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world."
krapp 2y ago
Christianity isn't a mystery cult.There isn't really a hierarchy keeping secret rituals and knowledge from the masses or acolytes. At best it's a failed apocalypse cult. And by "failed" I mean it seems clear from Matthew 24:34 that first generation Christians believed the end times would occur within their lifetimes (assuming that account is credible,) and such a belief is consistent with every other apocalyptic cult, Christian or otherwise. Like Seventh Day Adventists, Christians do keep kicking the can down the road, but just as the book of Revelations more likely refers to Nero Caesar and a belief at the time that he would return from the dead ("Nero Redivius[0]") than some future nuclear war where the "locusts" are really Apache helicopters[1], so Christian beliefs about the second coming should be assumed to apply their own cultural and temporal context, rather than some as yet unknown future millennia removed. Obviously the cult as a whole has been very, very successful. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Redivivus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Redivivus [1]I know people who believe this, and they'll claim it as evidence of the Bible's divine prophetic power.
- Boogie_Man 2y ago
  The section of Mathew is understood by mainstream Christianity as a "double prophecy" concerning both the destruction of the second temple and the eventual second coming of Christ. I can understand someone seeing this as moving goalposts until I consider that it could've been quietly deleted to avoid embarrassment if it wasn't intended this way. Christians have a wide range of views on eschatology, but the mainstream position for a while has been amillennial, which are not the people who get freaked out about locusts and red cows and whatnot.
  - krapp 2y ago
    >I can understand someone seeing this as moving goalposts until I consider that it could've been quietly deleted to avoid embarrassment if it wasn't intended this way. The way it came to be interpreted by the church is not necessarily the way it was meant to be interpreted by first generation Christians, so its presence in canon isn't evidence of any particular intent on the part of the author.